The Old Curiosity Shop

by Dickens, Charles

  slower than ever. At length, in one of these pauses, he heard his

  lodger's door opened and shut, and footsteps coming down the

  stairs. Then, Mr Brass left off writing entirely, and, with his

  pen in his hand, hummed his very loudest; shaking his head

  meanwhile from side to side, like a man whose whole soul was in the

  music, and smiling in a manner quite seraphic.

  It was towards this moving spectacle that the staircase and the

  sweet sounds guided Kit; on whose arrival before his door, Mr Brass

  stopped his singing, but not his smiling, and nodded affably: at

  the same time beckoning to him with his pen.

  'Kit,' said Mr Brass, in the pleasantest way imaginable, 'how do

  you do?'

  Kit, being rather shy of his friend, made a suitable reply, and had

  his hand upon the lock of the street door when Mr Brass called him

  softly back.

  'You are not to go, if you please, Kit,' said the attorney in a

  mysterious and yet business-like way. 'You are to step in here, if

  you please. Dear me, dear me! When I look at you,' said the

  lawyer, quitting his stool, and standing before the fire with his

  back towards it, 'I am reminded of the sweetest little face that

  ever my eyes beheld. I remember your coming there, twice or

  thrice, when we were in possession. Ah Kit, my dear fellow,

  gentleman in my profession have such painful duties to perform

  sometimes, that you needn't envy us--you needn't indeed!'

  'I don't, sir,' said Kit, 'though it isn't for the like of me to

  judge.'

  'Our only consolation, Kit,' pursued the lawyer, looking at him in

  a sort of pensive abstraction, 'is, that although we cannot turn

  away the wind, we can soften it; we can temper it, if I may say so,

  to the shorn lambs.'

  'Shorn indeed!' thought Kit. 'Pretty close!' But he didn't say SO.

  'On that occasion, Kit,' said Mr Brass, 'on that occasion that I

  have just alluded to, I had a hard battle with Mr Quilp (for Mr

  Quilp is a very hard man) to obtain them the indulgence they had.

  It might have cost me a client. But suffering virtue inspired me,

  and I prevailed.'

  'He's not so bad after all,' thought honest Kit, as the attorney

  pursed up his lips and looked like a man who was struggling with

  his better feelings.

  'I respect you, Kit,' said Brass with emotion. 'I saw enough of

  your conduct, at that time, to respect you, though your station is

  humble, and your fortune lowly. It isn't the waistcoat that I look

  at. It is the heart. The checks in the waistcoat are but the

  wires of the cage. But the heart is the bird. Ah! How many sich

  birds are perpetually moulting, and putting their beaks through the

  wires to peck at all mankind!'

  This poetic figure, which Kit took to be in a special allusion to

  his own checked waistcoat, quite overcame him; Mr Brass's voice and

  manner added not a little to its effect, for he discoursed with all

  the mild austerity of a hermit, and wanted but a cord round the

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  waist of his rusty surtout, and a skull on the chimney-piece, to be

  completely set up in that line of business.

  'Well, well,' said Sampson, smiling as good men smile when they

  compassionate their own weakness or that of their fellowcreatures,

  'this is wide of the bull's-eye. You're to take that,

  if you please.' As he spoke, he pointed to a couple of half-crowns

  on the desk.

  Kit looked at the coins, and then at Sampson, and hesitated.

  'For yourself,' said Brass.

  'From--'

  'No matter about the person they came from,' replied the lawyer.

  'Say me, if you like. We have eccentric friends overhead, Kit, and

  we mustn't ask questions or talk too much--you understand? You're

  to take them, that's all; and between you and me, I don't think

  they'll be the last you'll have to take from the same place. I

  hope not. Good bye, Kit. Good bye!'

  With many thanks, and many more self-reproaches for having on such

  slight grounds suspected one who in their very first conversation

  turned out such a different man from what he had supposed, Kit took

  the money and made the best of his way home. Mr Brass remained

  airing himself at the fire, and resumed his vocal exercise, and his

  seraphic smile, simultaneously.

  'May I come in?' said Miss Sally, peeping.

  'Oh yes, you may come in,' returned her brother.

  'Ahem!' coughed Miss Brass interrogatively.

  'Why, yes,' returned Sampson, 'I should say as good as done.'

  CHAPTER 57

  Mr Chuckster's indignant apprehensions were not without foundation.

  Certainly the friendship between the single gentleman and Mr

  Garland was not suffered to cool, but had a rapid growth and

  flourished exceedingly. They were soon in habits of constant

  intercourse and communication; and the single gentleman labouring

  at this time under a slight attack of illness--the consequence

  most probably of his late excited feelings and subsequent

  disappointment--furnished a reason for their holding yet more

  frequent correspondence; so that some one of the inmates of Abel

  Cottage, Finchley, came backwards and forwards between that place

  and Bevis Marks, almost every day.

  As the pony had now thrown off all disguise, and without any

  mincing of the matter or beating about the bush, sturdily refused

  to be driven by anybody but Kit, it generally happened that whether

  old Mr Garland came, or Mr Abel, Kit was of the party. Of all

  messages and inquiries, Kit was, in right of his position, the

  bearer; thus it came about that, while the single gentleman

  remained indisposed, Kit turned into Bevis Marks every morning with

  nearly as much regularity as the General Postman.

  Mr Sampson Brass, who no doubt had his reasons for looking sharply

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  about him, soon learnt to distinguish the pony's trot and the

  clatter of the little chaise at the corner of the street. Whenever

  the sound reached his ears, he would immediately lay down his pen

  and fall to rubbing his hands and exhibiting the greatest glee.

  'Ha ha!' he would cry. 'Here's the pony again! Most remarkable

  pony, extremely docile, eh, Mr Richard, eh sir?'

  Dick would return some matter-of-course reply, and Mr Brass

  standing on the bottom rail of his stool, so as to get a view of

  the street over the top of the window-blind, would take an

  observation of the visitors.

  'The old gentleman again!' he would exclaim, 'a very prepossessing

  old gentleman, Mr Richard--charming countenance sir--extremely

  calm--benevolence in every feature, sir. He quite realises my

  idea of King Lear, as he appeared when in possession of his

  kingdom, Mr Richard--the same good humour, the same white hair and

  partial baldness, the same liability to be imposed upon. Ah! A

  sweet subject for contemplation, sir, very sweet!'

  Then Mr Garland having alighted and gone up-stairs, Sampson would

  nod and smile to Kit fr
om the window, and presently walk out into

  the street to greet him, when some such conversation as the

  following would ensue.

  'Admirably groomed, Kit'--Mr Brass is patting the pony--'does you

  great credit--amazingly sleek and bright to be sure. He literally

  looks as if he had been varnished all over.'

  Kit touches his hat, smiles, pats the pony himself, and expresses

  his conviction, 'that Mr Brass will not find many like him.'

  'A beautiful animal indeed!' cries Brass. 'Sagacious too?'

  'Bless you!' replies Kit, 'he knows what you say to him as well as

  a Christian does.'

  'Does he indeed!' cries Brass, who has heard the same thing in the

  same place from the same person in the same words a dozen times,

  but is paralysed with astonishment notwithstanding. 'Dear me!'

  'I little thought the first time I saw him, Sir,' says Kit, pleased

  with the attorney's strong interest in his favourite, 'that I

  should come to be as intimate with him as I am now.'

  'Ah!' rejoins Mr Brass, brim-full of moral precepts and love of

  virtue. 'A charming subject of reflection for you, very charming.

  A subject of proper pride and congratulation, Christopher. Honesty

  is the best policy. --I always find it so myself. I lost

  forty-seven pound ten by being honest this morning. But it's all

  gain, it's gain!'

  Mr Brass slyly tickles his nose with his pen, and looks at Kit with

  the water standing in his eyes. Kit thinks that if ever there was

  a good man who belied his appearance, that man is Sampson Brass.

  'A man,' says Sampson, 'who loses forty-seven pound ten in one

  morning by his honesty, is a man to be envied. If it had been

  eighty pound, the luxuriousness of feeling would have been

  increased. Every pound lost, would have been a hundredweight of

  happiness gained. The still small voice, Christopher,' cries

  Brass, smiling, and tapping himself on the bosom, 'is a-singing

  comic songs within me, and all is happiness and joy!'

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  Kit is so improved by the conversation, and finds it go so

  completely home to his feelings, that he is considering what he

  shall say, when Mr Garland appears. The old gentleman is helped

  into the chaise with great obsequiousness by Mr Sampson Brass; and

  the pony, after shaking his head several times, and standing for

  three or four minutes with all his four legs planted firmly on the

  ground, as if he had made up his mind never to stir from that spot,

  but there to live and die, suddenly darts off, without the smallest

  notice, at the rate of twelve English miles an hour. Then, Mr

  Brass and his sister (who has joined him at the door) exchange an

  odd kind of smile--not at all a pleasant one in its expression--

  and return to the society of Mr Richard Swiveller, who, during

  their absence, has been regaling himself with various feats of

  pantomime, and is discovered at his desk, in a very flushed and

  heated condition, violently scratching out nothing with half a

  penknife.

  Whenever Kit came alone, and without the chaise, it always happened

  that Sampson Brass was reminded of some mission, calling Mr

  Swiveller, if not to Peckham Rye again, at all events to some

  pretty distant place from Which he could not be expected to return

  for two or three hours, or in all probability a much longer period,

  as that gentleman was not, to say the truth, renowned for using

  great expedition on such occasions, but rather for protracting and

  spinning out the time to the very utmost limit of possibility. Mr

  Swiveller out of sight, Miss Sally immediately withdrew. Mr Brass

  would then set the office-door wide open, hum his old tune with

  great gaiety of heart, and smile seraphically as before. Kit

  coming down-stairs would be called in; entertained with some moral

  and agreeable conversation; perhaps entreated to mind the office

  for an instant while Mr Brass stepped over the way; and afterwards

  presented with one or two half-crowns as the case might be. This

  occurred so often, that Kit, nothing doubting but that they came

  from the single gentleman who had already rewarded his mother with

  great liberality, could not enough admire his generosity; and

  bought so many cheap presents for her, and for little Jacob, and

  for the baby, and for Barbara to boot, that one or other of them

  was having some new trifle every day of their lives.

  While these acts and deeds were in progress in and out of the

  office of Sampson Brass, Richard Swiveller, being often left alone

  therein, began to find the time hang heavy on his hands. For the

  better preservation of his cheerfulness therefore, and to prevent

  his faculties from rusting, he provided himself with a

  cribbage-board and pack of cards, and accustomed himself to play at

  cribbage with a dummy, for twenty, thirty, or sometimes even fifty

  thousand pounds aside, besides many hazardous bets to a

  considerable amount.

  As these games were very silently conducted, notwithstanding the

  magnitude of the interests involved, Mr Swiveller began to think

  that on those evenings when Mr and Miss Brass were out (and they

  often went out now) he heard a kind of snorting or hard-breathing

  sound in the direction of the door, which it occurred to him, after

  some reflection, must proceed from the small servant, who always

  had a cold from damp living. Looking intently that way one night,

  he plainly distinguished an eye gleaming and glistening at the

  keyhole; and having now no doubt that his suspicions were correct,

  he stole softly to the door, and pounced upon her before she was

  aware of his approach.

  'Oh! I didn't mean any harm indeed, upon my word I didn't,' cried

  the small servant, struggling like a much larger one. 'It's so

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  very dull, down-stairs, Please don't you tell upon me, please

  don't.'

  'Tell upon you!' said Dick. 'Do you mean to say you were looking

  through the keyhole for company?'

  'Yes, upon my word I was,' replied the small servant.

  'How long have you been cooling your eye there?' said Dick.

  'Oh ever since you first began to play them cards, and long

  before.'

  Vague recollections of several fantastic exercises with which he

  had refreshed himself after the fatigues of business, and to all of

  which, no doubt, the small servant was a party, rather disconcerted

  Mr Swiveller; but he was not very sensitive on such points, and

  recovered himself speedily.

  'Well--come in'--he said, after a little consideration. 'Here--

  sit down, and I'll teach you how to play.'

  'Oh! I durstn't do it,' rejoined the small servant; 'Miss Sally 'ud

  kill me, if she know'd I come up here.'

  'Have you got a fire down-stairs?' said Dick.

  'A very little one,' replied the small servant.

  'Miss Sally couldn't kill me if she know'd I went down there, so

  I'll come,' said Richard, putting the cards into his pocket. 'Why,

  how thi
n you are! What do you mean by it?'

  'It ain't my fault.'

  'Could you eat any bread and meat?' said Dick, taking down his hat.

  'Yes? Ah! I thought so. Did you ever taste beer?'

  'I had a sip of it once,' said the small servant.

  'Here's a state of things!' cried Mr Swiveller, raising his eyes to

  the ceiling. 'She never tasted it--it can't be tasted in a sip!

  Why, how old are you?'

  'I don't know.'

  Mr Swiveller opened his eyes very wide, and appeared thoughtful for

  a moment; then, bidding the child mind the door until he came back,

  vanished straightway.

  Presently, he returned, followed by the boy from the public- house,

  who bore in one hand a plate of bread and beef, and in the other a

  great pot, filled with some very fragrant compound, which sent

  forth a grateful steam, and was indeed choice purl, made after a

  particular recipe which Mr Swiveller had imparted to the landlord,

  at a period when he was deep in his books and desirous to

  conciliate his friendship. Relieving the boy of his burden at the

  door, and charging his little companion to fasten it to prevent

  surprise, Mr Swiveller followed her into the kitchen.

  'There!' said Richard, putting the plate before her. 'First of all

  clear that off, and then you'll see what's next.'

  The small servant needed no second bidding, and the plate was soon

  empty.

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  'Next,' said Dick, handing the purl, 'take a pull at that; but

  moderate your transports, you know, for you're not used to it.

  Well, is it good?'

  'Oh! isn't it?' said the small servant.

  Mr Swiveller appeared gratified beyond all expression by this

  reply, and took a long draught himself, steadfastly regarding his

  companion while he did so. These preliminaries disposed of, he

  applied himself to teaching her the game, which she soon learnt

  tolerably well, being both sharp-witted and cunning.

  'Now,' said Mr Swiveller, putting two sixpences into a saucer, and

  trimming the wretched candle, when the cards had been cut and

  dealt, 'those are the stakes. If you win, you get 'em all. If I

  win, I get 'em. To make it seem more real and pleasant, I shall

  call you the Marchioness, do you hear?'

  The small servant nodded.

  'Then, Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, 'fire away!'

  The Marchioness, holding her cards very tight in both hands,