The Old Curiosity Shop

by Dickens, Charles

  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

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  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

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  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 onr />
  the table.

  Greatly interested in his proceedings, Mr Swiveller observed him

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  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

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  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

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  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