Martin Chuzzlewit
which act of gallantry being observed by Bailey junior, from the garret
window, was by him saluted with a loud and violent fit of coughing, to
which paroxysm he was still the victim when they turned the corner.
Mr Jonas inquired in the first instance if they were good walkers and
being answered, ‘Yes,’ submitted their pedestrian powers to a pretty
severe test; for he showed them as many sights, in the way of bridges,
churches, streets, outsides of theatres, and other free spectacles,
in that one forenoon, as most people see in a twelvemonth. It was
observable in this gentleman, that he had an insurmountable distaste to
the insides of buildings, and that he was perfectly acquainted with
the merits of all shows, in respect of which there was any charge for
admission, which it seemed were every one detestable, and of the very
lowest grade of merit. He was so thoroughly possessed with this opinion,
that when Miss Charity happened to mention the circumstance of their
having been twice or thrice to the theatre with Mr Jinkins and party, he
inquired, as a matter of course, ‘where the orders came from?’ and being
told that Mr Jinkins and party paid, was beyond description entertained,
observing that ‘they must be nice flats, certainly;’ and often in the
course of the walk, bursting out again into a perfect convulsion of
laughter at the surpassing silliness of those gentlemen, and (doubtless)
at his own superior wisdom.
When they had been out for some hours and were thoroughly fatigued, it
being by that time twilight, Mr Jonas intimated that he would show them
one of the best pieces of fun with which he was acquainted. This joke
was of a practical kind, and its humour lay in taking a hackney-coach
to the extreme limits of possibility for a shilling. Happily it brought
them to the place where Mr Jonas dwelt, or the young ladies might have
rather missed the point and cream of the jest.
The old-established firm of Anthony Chuzzlewit and Son, Manchester
Warehousemen, and so forth, had its place of business in a very narrow
street somewhere behind the Post Office; where every house was in the
brightest summer morning very gloomy; and where light porters watered
the pavement, each before his own employer’s premises, in fantastic
patterns, in the dog-days; and where spruce gentlemen with their hands
in the pockets of symmetrical trousers, were always to be seen in
warm weather, contemplating their undeniable boots in dusty warehouse
doorways; which appeared to be the hardest work they did, except now and
then carrying pens behind their ears. A dim, dirty, smoky, tumble-down,
rotten old house it was, as anybody would desire to see; but there the
firm of Anthony Chuzzlewit and Son transacted all their business and
their pleasure too, such as it was; for neither the young man nor the
old had any other residence, or any care or thought beyond its narrow
limits.
Business, as may be readily supposed, was the main thing in this
establishment; insomuch indeed that it shouldered comfort out of
doors, and jostled the domestic arrangements at every turn. Thus in the
miserable bedrooms there were files of moth-eaten letters hanging up
against the walls; and linen rollers, and fragments of old patterns,
and odds and ends of spoiled goods, strewed upon the ground; while the
meagre bedsteads, washing-stands, and scraps of carpet, were huddled
away into corners as objects of secondary consideration, not to be
thought of but as disagreeable necessities, furnishing no profit, and
intruding on the one affair of life. The single sitting-room was on
the same principle, a chaos of boxes and old papers, and had more
counting-house stools in it than chairs; not to mention a great monster
of a desk straddling over the middle of the floor, and an iron safe
sunk into the wall above the fireplace. The solitary little table for
purposes of refection and social enjoyment, bore as fair a proportion
to the desk and other business furniture, as the graces and harmless
relaxations of life had ever done, in the persons of the old man and his
son, to their pursuit of wealth. It was meanly laid out now for dinner;
and in a chair before the fire sat Anthony himself, who rose to greet
his son and his fair cousins as they entered.
An ancient proverb warns us that we should not expect to find old heads
upon young shoulders; to which it may be added that we seldom meet with
that unnatural combination, but we feel a strong desire to knock them
off; merely from an inherent love we have of seeing things in their
right places. It is not improbable that many men, in no wise choleric
by nature, felt this impulse rising up within them, when they first made
the acquaintance of Mr Jonas; but if they had known him more intimately
in his own house, and had sat with him at his own board, it would
assuredly have been paramount to all other considerations.
‘Well, ghost!’ said Mr Jonas, dutifully addressing his parent by that
title. ‘Is dinner nearly ready?’
‘I should think it was,’ rejoined the old man.
‘What’s the good of that?’ rejoined the son. ‘I should think it was. I
want to know.’
‘Ah! I don’t know for certain,’ said Anthony.
‘You don’t know for certain,’ rejoined his son in a lower tone. ‘No. You
don’t know anything for certain, YOU don’t. Give me your candle here. I
want it for the gals.’
Anthony handed him a battered old office candlestick, with which Mr
Jonas preceded the young ladies to the nearest bedroom, where he left
them to take off their shawls and bonnets; and returning, occupied
himself in opening a bottle of wine, sharpening the carving-knife, and
muttering compliments to his father, until they and the dinner appeared
together. The repast consisted of a hot leg of mutton with greens and
potatoes; and the dishes having been set upon the table by a slipshod
old woman, they were left to enjoy it after their own manner.
‘Bachelor’s Hall, you know, cousin,’ said Mr Jonas to Charity. ‘I
say--the other one will be having a laugh at this when she gets home,
won’t she? Here; you sit on the right side of me, and I’ll have her upon
the left. Other one, will you come here?’
‘You’re such a fright,’ replied Mercy, ‘that I know I shall have no
appetite if I sit so near you; but I suppose I must.’
‘An’t she lively?’ whispered Mr Jonas to the elder sister, with his
favourite elbow emphasis.
‘Oh I really don’t know!’ replied Miss Pecksniff, tartly. ‘I am tired of
being asked such ridiculous questions.’
‘What’s that precious old father of mine about now?’ said Mr Jonas,
seeing that his parent was travelling up and down the room instead of
taking his seat at table. ‘What are you looking for?’
‘I’ve lost my glasses, Jonas,’ said old Anthony.
‘Sit down without your glasses, can’t you?’ returned his son. ‘You don’t
eat or drink out of ‘em, I think; and where’s that sleepy-headed old
Chuffey got to! Now, stupid. Oh! you know your name, do you?’
It would seem that he didn’t, for he didn’t come until the father
called. As he spoke, the door of a small glass office, which was
partitioned off from the rest of the room, was slowly opened, and a
little blear-eyed, weazen-faced, ancient man came creeping out. He was
of a remote fashion, and dusty, like the rest of the furniture; he was
dressed in a decayed suit of black; with breeches garnished at the knees
with rusty wisps of ribbon, the very paupers of shoestrings; on the
lower portion of his spindle legs were dingy worsted stockings of the
same colour. He looked as if he had been put away and forgotten half a
century before, and somebody had just found him in a lumber-closet.
Such as he was, he came slowly creeping on towards the table, until at
last he crept into the vacant chair, from which, as his dim faculties
became conscious of the presence of strangers, and those strangers
ladies, he rose again, apparently intending to make a bow. But he sat
down once more without having made it, and breathing on his shrivelled
hands to warm them, remained with his poor blue nose immovable above his
plate, looking at nothing, with eyes that saw nothing, and a face that
meant nothing. Take him in that state, and he was an embodiment of
nothing. Nothing else.
‘Our clerk,’ said Mr Jonas, as host and master of the ceremonies: ‘Old
Chuffey.’
‘Is he deaf?’ inquired one of the young ladies.
‘No, I don’t know that he is. He an’t deaf, is he, father?’
‘I never heard him say he was,’ replied the old man.
‘Blind?’ inquired the young ladies.
‘N--no. I never understood that he was at all blind,’ said Jonas,
carelessly. ‘You don’t consider him so, do you, father?’
‘Certainly not,’ replied Anthony.
‘What is he, then?’
‘Why, I’ll tell you what he is,’ said Mr Jonas, apart to the young
ladies, ‘he’s precious old, for one thing; and I an’t best pleased with
him for that, for I think my father must have caught it of him. He’s a
strange old chap, for another,’ he added in a louder voice, ‘and don’t
understand any one hardly, but HIM!’ He pointed to his honoured parent
with the carving-fork, in order that they might know whom he meant.
‘How very strange!’ cried the sisters.
‘Why, you see,’ said Mr Jonas, ‘he’s been addling his old brains with
figures and book-keeping all his life; and twenty years ago or so he
went and took a fever. All the time he was out of his head (which was
three weeks) he never left off casting up; and he got to so many million
at last that I don’t believe he’s ever been quite right since. We don’t
do much business now though, and he an’t a bad clerk.’
‘A very good one,’ said Anthony.
‘Well! He an’t a dear one at all events,’ observed Jonas; ‘and he earns
his salt, which is enough for our look-out. I was telling you that he
hardly understands any one except my father; he always understands him,
though, and wakes up quite wonderful. He’s been used to his ways so
long, you see! Why, I’ve seen him play whist, with my father for a
partner; and a good rubber too; when he had no more notion what sort of
people he was playing against, than you have.’
‘Has he no appetite?’ asked Merry.
‘Oh, yes,’ said Jonas, plying his own knife and fork very fast. ‘He
eats--when he’s helped. But he don’t care whether he waits a minute or
an hour, as long as father’s here; so when I’m at all sharp set, as I am
to-day, I come to him after I’ve taken the edge off my own hunger, you
know. Now, Chuffey, stupid, are you ready?’
Chuffey remained immovable.
‘Always a perverse old file, he was,’ said Mr Jonas, coolly helping
himself to another slice. ‘Ask him, father.’
‘Are you ready for your dinner, Chuffey?’ asked the old man
‘Yes, yes,’ said Chuffey, lighting up into a sentient human creature at
the first sound of the voice, so that it was at once a curious and quite
a moving sight to see him. ‘Yes, yes. Quite ready, Mr Chuzzlewit. Quite
ready, sir. All ready, all ready, all ready.’ With that he stopped,
smilingly, and listened for some further address; but being spoken to
no more, the light forsook his face by little and little, until he was
nothing again.
‘He’ll be very disagreeable, mind,’ said Jonas, addressing his cousins
as he handed the old man’s portion to his father. ‘He always chokes
himself when it an’t broth. Look at him, now! Did you ever see a horse
with such a wall-eyed expression as he’s got? If it hadn’t been for the
joke of it I wouldn’t have let him come in to-day; but I thought he’d
amuse you.’
The poor old subject of this humane speech was, happily for himself, as
unconscious of its purport as of most other remarks that were made in
his presence. But the mutton being tough, and his gums weak, he quickly
verified the statement relative to his choking propensities, and
underwent so much in his attempts to dine, that Mr Jonas was infinitely