Martin Chuzzlewit
the first. ‘Read Number Two, sir, if you please. There is more interest
as you go on.’
Tigg Montague leaned backward in his chair, and cast upon his emissary
such a look of vacant wonder (not unmingled with alarm), that Mr Nadgett
considered it necessary to repeat the request he had already twice
preferred; with the view to recalling his attention to the point in
hand. Profiting by the hint, Mr Montague went on with Number Two, and
afterwards with Numbers Three, and Four, and Five, and so on.
These documents were all in Mr Nadgett’s writing, and were apparently a
series of memoranda, jotted down from time to time upon the backs of old
letters, or any scrap of paper that came first to hand. Loose straggling
scrawls they were, and of very uninviting exterior; but they had weighty
purpose in them, if the chairman’s face were any index to the character
of their contents.
The progress of Mr Nadgett’s secret satisfaction arising out of the
effect they made, kept pace with the emotions of the reader. At first,
Mr Nadgett sat with his spectacles low down upon his nose, looking over
them at his employer, and nervously rubbing his hands. After a little
while, he changed his posture in his chair for one of greater ease, and
leisurely perused the next document he held ready as if an occasional
glance at his employer’s face were now enough and all occasion for
anxiety or doubt were gone. And finally he rose and looked out of the
window, where he stood with a triumphant air until Tigg Montague had
finished.
‘And this is the last, Mr Nadgett!’ said that gentleman, drawing a long
breath.
‘That, sir, is the last.’
‘You are a wonderful man, Mr Nadgett!’
‘I think it is a pretty good case,’ he returned as he gathered up his
papers. ‘It cost some trouble, sir.’
‘The trouble shall be well rewarded, Mr Nadgett.’ Nadgett bowed. ‘There
is a deeper impression of Somebody’s Hoof here, than I had expected, Mr
Nadgett. I may congratulate myself upon your being such a good hand at a
secret.’
‘Oh! nothing has an interest to me that’s not a secret,’ replied
Nadgett, as he tied the string about his pocket-book, and put it up. ‘It
always takes away any pleasure I may have had in this inquiry even to
make it known to you.’
‘A most invaluable constitution,’ Tigg retorted. ‘A great gift for a
gentleman employed as you are, Mr Nadgett. Much better than discretion;
though you possess that quality also in an eminent degree. I think I
heard a double knock. Will you put your head out of window, and tell me
whether there is anybody at the door?’
Mr Nadgett softly raised the sash, and peered out from the very corner,
as a man might who was looking down into a street from whence a brisk
discharge of musketry might be expected at any moment. Drawing in his
head with equal caution, he observed, not altering his voice or manner:
‘Mr Jonas Chuzzlewit!’
‘I thought so,’ Tigg retorted.
‘Shall I go?’
‘I think you had better. Stay though! No! remain here, Mr Nadgett, if
you please.’
It was remarkable how pale and flurried he had become in an instant.
There was nothing to account for it. His eye had fallen on his razors;
but what of them!
Mr Chuzzlewit was announced.
‘Show him up directly. Nadgett! don’t you leave us alone together. Mind
you don’t, now! By the Lord!’ he added in a whisper to himself: ‘We
don’t know what may happen.’
Saying this, he hurriedly took up a couple of hair-brushes, and began
to exercise them on his own head, as if his toilet had not been
interrupted. Mr Nadgett withdrew to the stove, in which there was a
small fire for the convenience of heating curling-irons; and
taking advantage of so favourable an opportunity for drying his
pocket-handkerchief, produced it without loss of time. There he stood,
during the whole interview, holding it before the bars, and sometimes,
but not often, glancing over his shoulder.
‘My dear Chuzzlewit!’ cried Montague, as Jonas entered. ‘You rise with
the lark. Though you go to bed with the nightingale, you rise with the
lark. You have superhuman energy, my dear Chuzzlewit!’
‘Ecod!’ said Jonas, with an air of langour and ill-humour, as he took
a chair, ‘I should be very glad not to get up with the lark, if I could
help it. But I am a light sleeper; and it’s better to be up than lying
awake, counting the dismal old church-clocks, in bed.’
‘A light sleeper!’ cried his friend. ‘Now, what is a light sleeper?
I often hear the expression, but upon my life I have not the least
conception what a light sleeper is.’
‘Hallo!’ said Jonas, ‘Who’s that? Oh, old what’s-his-name: looking (as
usual) as if he wanted to skulk up the chimney.’
‘Ha, ha! I have no doubt he does.’
‘Well! He’s not wanted here, I suppose,’ said Jonas. ‘He may go, mayn’t
he?’
‘Oh, let him stay, let him stay!’ said Tigg. ‘He’s a mere piece of
furniture. He has been making his report, and is waiting for further
orders. He has been told,’ said Tigg, raising his voice, ‘not to lose
sight of certain friends of ours, or to think that he has done with them
by any means. He understands his business.’
‘He need,’ replied Jonas; ‘for of all the precious old dummies in
appearance that I ever saw, he’s about the worst. He’s afraid of me, I
think.’
‘It’s my belief,’ said Tigg, ‘that you are Poison to him. Nadgett! give
me that towel!’
He had as little occasion for a towel as Jonas had for a start. But
Nadgett brought it quickly; and, having lingered for a moment, fell back
upon his old post by the fire.
‘You see, my dear fellow,’ resumed Tigg, ‘you are too--what’s the matter
with your lips? How white they are!’
‘I took some vinegar just now,’ said Jonas. ‘I had oysters for my
breakfast. Where are they white?’ he added, muttering an oath, and
rubbing them upon his handkerchief. ‘I don’t believe they ARE white.’
‘Now I look again, they are not,’ replied his friend. ‘They are coming
right again.’
‘Say what you were going to say,’ cried Jonas angrily, ‘and let my face
be! As long as I can show my teeth when I want to (and I can do that
pretty well), the colour of my lips is not material.’
‘Quite true,’ said Tigg. ‘I was only going to say that you are too quick
and active for our friend. He is too shy to cope with such a man as you,
but does his duty well. Oh, very well! But what is a light sleeper?’
‘Hang a light sleeper!’ exclaimed Jonas pettishly.
‘No, no,’ interrupted Tigg. ‘No. We’ll not do that.’
‘A light sleeper ain’t a heavy one,’ said Jonas in his sulky way; ‘don’t
sleep much, and don’t sleep well, and don’t sleep sound.’
‘And dreams,’ said Tigg, ‘and cries out in an ugly manner; and when the
candle burns down in the night, is in an agony; and all that sort of
thing. I see!’
They were silent for a little time. Then Jonas spoke:
‘Now we’ve done with child’s talk, I want to have a word with you. I
want to have a word with you before we meet up yonder to-day. I am not
satisfied with the state of affairs.’
‘Not satisfied!’ cried Tigg. ‘The money comes in well.’
‘The money comes in well enough,’ retorted Jonas, ‘but it don’t come
out well enough. It can’t be got at easily enough. I haven’t sufficient
power; it is all in your hands. Ecod! what with one of your by-laws, and
another of your by-laws, and your votes in this capacity, and your votes
in that capacity, and your official rights, and your individual rights,
and other people’s rights who are only you again, there are no rights
left for me. Everybody else’s rights are my wrongs. What’s the use of my
having a voice if it’s always drowned? I might as well be dumb, and
it would be much less aggravating. I’m not a-going to stand that, you
know.’
‘No!’ said Tigg in an insinuating tone.
‘No!’ returned Jonas, ‘I’m not indeed. I’ll play old Gooseberry with the
office, and make you glad to buy me out at a good high figure, if you
try any of your tricks with me.’
‘I give you my honour--’ Montague began.
‘Oh! confound your honour,’ interrupted Jonas, who became more coarse
and quarrelsome as the other remonstrated, which may have been a part of
Mr Montague’s intention; ‘I want a little more control over the money.
You may have all the honour, if you like; I’ll never bring you to book
for that. But I’m not a-going to stand it, as it is now. If you should
take it into your honourable head to go abroad with the bank, I don’t
see much to prevent you. Well! That won’t do. I’ve had some very good
dinners here, but they’d come too dear on such terms; and therefore,
that won’t do.’
‘I am unfortunate to find you in this humour,’ said Tigg, with a
remarkable kind of smile; ‘for I was going to propose to you--for your
own advantage; solely for your own advantage--that you should venture a
little more with us.’
‘Was you, by G--?’ said Jonas, with a short laugh.
‘Yes. And to suggest,’ pursued Montague, ‘that surely you have friends;
indeed, I know you have; who would answer our purpose admirably, and
whom we should be delighted to receive.’
‘How kind of you! You’d be delighted to receive ‘em, would you?’ said
Jonas, bantering.
‘I give you my sacred honour, quite transported. As your friends,
observe!’
‘Exactly,’ said Jonas; ‘as my friends, of course. You’ll be very much
delighted when you get ‘em, I have no doubt. And it’ll be all to my
advantage, won’t it?’
‘It will be very much to your advantage,’ answered Montague poising a
brush in each hand, and looking steadily upon him. ‘It will be very much
to your advantage, I assure you.’
‘And you can tell me how,’ said Jonas, ‘can’t you?’
‘SHALL I tell you how?’ returned the other.
‘I think you had better,’ said Jonas. ‘Strange things have been done
in the Assurance way before now, by strange sorts of men, and I mean to
take care of myself.’
‘Chuzzlewit!’ replied Montague, leaning forward, with his arms upon his
knees, and looking full into his face. ‘Strange things have been done,
and are done every day; not only in our way, but in a variety of other
ways; and no one suspects them. But ours, as you say, my good friend,
is a strange way; and we strangely happen, sometimes, to come into the
knowledge of very strange events.’
He beckoned to Jonas to bring his chair nearer; and looking slightly
round, as if to remind him of the presence of Nadgett, whispered in his
ear.
From red to white; from white to red again; from red to yellow; then to
a cold, dull, awful, sweat-bedabbled blue. In that short whisper, all
these changes fell upon the face of Jonas Chuzzlewit; and when at last
he laid his hand upon the whisperer’s mouth, appalled, lest any syllable
of what he said should reach the ears of the third person present, it
was as bloodless and as heavy as the hand of Death.
He drew his chair away, and sat a spectacle of terror, misery, and
rage. He was afraid to speak, or look, or move, or sit still. Abject,
crouching, and miserable, he was a greater degradation to the form he
bore, than if he had been a loathsome wound from head to heel.
His companion leisurely resumed his dressing, and completed it, glancing
sometimes with a smile at the transformation he had effected, but never
speaking once.
‘You’ll not object,’ he said, when he was quite equipped, ‘to venture
further with us, Chuzzlewit, my friend?’
His pale lips faintly stammered out a ‘No.’
‘Well said! That’s like yourself. Do you know I was thinking yesterday
that your father-in-law, relying on your advice as a man of great
sagacity in money matters, as no doubt you are, would join us, if the
thing were well presented to him. He has money?’
‘Yes, he has money.’
‘Shall I leave Mr Pecksniff to you? Will you undertake for Mr
Pecksniff.’
‘I’ll try. I’ll do my best.’
‘A thousand thanks,’ replied the other, clapping him upon the shoulder.