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
Page 185
Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop
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
Page 186
Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop
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
Page 187
Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop
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 coolness as if he had a kitchen fire before him--
'extraordinary rum--sugar--and a travelling glass. Mix for
yourself. And make haste.'
Dick complied, his eyes wandering all the time from the temple on
the table, which seemed to do everything, to the great trunk which
seemed to hold everything. The lodger took his breakfast like a
man who was used to work these miracles, and thought nothing of
them.
'The man of the house is a lawyer, is he not?' said the lodger.
Dick nodded. The rum was amazing.
'The woman of the house--what's she?'
'A dragon,' said Dick.
The single gentleman, perhaps because he had met with such things
in his travels, or perhaps because he WAS a single gentleman,
evinced no surprise, but merely inquired 'Wife or Sister?'--
'Sister,' said Dick.--'So much the better,' said the single
gentleman, 'he can get rid of her when he likes.'
'I want to do as I like, young man,' he added after a short
silence; 'to go to bed when I like, get up when I like, come in
when I like, go out when I like--to be asked no questions and be
surrounded by no spies. In this last respect, servants are the
devil. There's only one here.'
'And a very little one,' said Dick.
'And a very little one,' repeated the lodger. 'Well, the place
will suit me, will it?'
'Yes,' said Dick.
'Sharks, I suppose?' said the lodger.
Dick nodded assent, and drained his glass.
'Let them know my humour,' said the single gentleman, rising. 'If
they disturb me, they lose a good tenant. If they know me to be
that, they know enough. If they try to know more, it's a notice to
quit. It's better to understand these things at once. Good day.'
'I beg your pardon,' said Dick, halting in his passage to the door,
which the lodger prepared to open. 'When he who adores thee has
left but the name--'
'What do you mean?'
'--But the name,' said Dick--'has left but the name--in case of
Page 188
Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop
letters or parcels--'
'I never have any,' returned the lodger.
'Or in the case anybody should call.'
'Nobody ever calls on me.'
'If any mistake should arise from not having the name, don't say it
was my fault, Sir,' added Dick, still lingering.--'Oh blame
not the bard--'
'I'll blame nobody,' said the lodger, with such irascibility that
in a moment Dick found himself on the staircase, and the locked
door between them.
Mr Brass and Miss Sally were lurking hard by, having been, indeed,
only routed from the keyhole by Mr Swiveller's abrupt exit. As
their utmost exertions had not enabled them to overhear a word of
the interview, however, in consequence of a quarrel for precedence,
which, though limited of necessity to pushes and pinches and such
quiet pantomime, had lasted the whole time, they hurried him down
to the office to hear his account of the conversation.
This Mr Swiveller gave them--faithfully as regarded the wishes and
character of the single gentleman, and poetically as concerned the
great trunk, of which he gave a description more remarkable for
brilliancy of imagination than a strict adherence to truth; declaring,
with many strong asseverations, that it contained a specimen of
every kind of rich food and wine, known in these times, and in
particular that it was of a self-acting kind and served up whatever
was required, as he supposed by clock-work. He also gave them
to understand that the cooking apparatus roasted a fine piece of
sirloin of beef, weighing about six pounds avoir-dupoise, in two
minutes and a quarter, as he had himself witnessed, and proved
by his sense of taste; and further, that, however the effect was
produced, he had distinctly seen water boil and bubble up when
the single gentleman winked; from which facts he (Mr Swiveller)
was led to infer that the lodger was some great conjuror or chemist,
or both, whose residence under that roof could not fail at some
future days to shed a great credit and distinction on the name of
Brass, and add a new interest to the history of Bevis Marks.
There was one point which Mr Swiveller deemed it unnecessary to
enlarge upon, and that was the fact of the modest quencher, which,
by reason of its intrinsic strength and its coming close upon the
heels of the temperate beverage he had discussed at dinner,
awakened a slight degree of fever, and rendered necessary two or
three other modest quenchers at the public-house in the course of
the evening.
CHAPTER 36
As the single gentleman after some weeks' occupation of his
lodgings, still declined to correspond, by word or gesture, either
with Mr Brass or his sister Sally, but invariably chose Richard
Swiveller as his channel of communication; and as he proved himself
in all respects a highly desirable inmate, paying for everything
beforehand, giving very little trouble, making no noise, and
keeping early hours; Mr Richard imperceptibly rose to an important
Page 189
Dickens, Charles - The Old Curiosity Shop
position in the family, as one who had influence over this
mysterious lodger, and could negotiate with him, for good or evil,
when nobody else durst approach his person.
If the truth must be told, even Mr Swiveller's approaches to the
single gentleman were of a very distant kind, and met with small
encouragement; but, as he never returned from a monosyllabic
conference with the unknown, without quoting such expressions as
'Swiveller, I know I can rely upon you,'--'I have no hesitation in
saying, Swiveller, that I entertain a regard for you,'--'Swiveller,
you are my friend, and will stand by me I am sure,' with many other
short speeches of the same familiar and confiding kind, purporting
to have been addressed by the single gentleman to himself, and to
form the staple of their ordinary discourse, neither Mr Brass nor
Miss Sally for a moment questioned the extent of his influence, but
accorded to him their fullest and most unqualified belief.
But quite apart from, and independent of, this source of
popularity, Mr Swiv
eller had another, which promised to be equally
enduring, and to lighten his position considerably.
He found favour in the eyes of Miss Sally Brass. Let not the light
scorners of female fascination erect their ears to listen to a new
tale of love which shall serve them for a jest; for Miss Brass,
however accurately formed to be beloved, was not of the loving
kind. That amiable virgin, having clung to the skirts of the Law
from her earliest youth; having sustained herself by their aid, as
it were, in her first running alone, and maintained a firm grasp
upon them ever since; had passed her life in a kind of legal
childhood. She had been remarkable, when a tender prattler for an
uncommon talent in counterfeiting the walk and manner of a bailiff:
in which character she had learned to tap her little playfellows on
the shoulder, and to carry them off to imaginary sponging-houses,
with a correctness of imitation which was the surprise and delight
of all who witnessed her performances, and which was only to be
exceeded by her exquisite manner of putting an execution into her
doll's house, and taking an exact inventory of the chairs and
tables. These artless sports had naturally soothed and cheered the
decline of her widowed father: a most exemplary gentleman (called
'old Foxey' by his friends from his extreme sagacity,) who
encouraged them to the utmost, and whose chief regret, on finding
that he drew near to Houndsditch churchyard, was, that his daughter
could not take out an attorney's certificate and hold a place upon
the roll. Filled with this affectionate and touching sorrow, he
had solemnly confided her to his son Sampson as an invaluable
auxiliary; and from the old gentleman's decease to the period of
which we treat, Miss Sally Brass had been the prop and pillar of
his business.
It is obvious that, having devoted herself from infancy to this one
pursuit and study, Miss Brass could know but little of the
world, otherwise than in connection with the law; and that from a
lady gifted with such high tastes, proficiency in those gentler and
softer arts in which women usually excel, was scarcely to be looked
for. Miss Sally's accomplishments were all of a masculine and
strictly legal kind. They began with the practice of an attorney
and they ended with it. She was in a state of lawful innocence, so
to speak. The law had been her nurse. And, as bandy-legs or such
The Old Curiosity Shop Page 38
