Martin Chuzzlewit
it, then?’ ‘Where are you going to now?’ ‘No, you won’t, my lad!’ and
similar fragmentary remarks. These being usually accompanied by a jerk
of the rein, or a crack of the whip, led to many trials of strength
between them, and to many contentions for the upper-hand, terminating,
now and then, in china-shops, and other unusual goals, as Mr Bailey had
already hinted to his friend Poll Sweedlepipe.
On the present occasion Mr Bailey, being in spirits, was more than
commonly hard upon his charge; in consequence of which that fiery animal
confined himself almost entirely to his hind legs in displaying his
paces, and constantly got himself into positions with reference to the
cabriolet that very much amazed the passengers in the street. But Mr
Bailey, not at all disturbed, had still a shower of pleasantries to
bestow on any one who crossed his path; as, calling to a full-grown
coal-heaver in a wagon, who for a moment blocked the way, ‘Now, young
‘un, who trusted YOU with a cart?’ inquiring of elderly ladies who
wanted to cross, and ran back again, ‘Why they didn’t go to the
workhouse and get an order to be buried?’ tempting boys, with friendly
words, to get up behind, and immediately afterwards cutting them down;
and the like flashes of a cheerful humour, which he would occasionally
relieve by going round St. James’s Square at a hand gallop, and coming
slowly into Pall Mall by another entry, as if, in the interval, his pace
had been a perfect crawl.
It was not until these amusements had been very often repeated, and the
apple-stall at the corner had sustained so many miraculous escapes as to
appear impregnable, that Mr Bailey was summoned to the door of a certain
house in Pall Mall, and turning short, obeyed the call and jumped out.
It was not until he had held the bridle for some minutes longer, every
jerk of Cauliflower’s brother’s head, and every twitch of Cauliflower’s
brother’s nostril, taking him off his legs in the meanwhile, that
two persons entered the vehicle, one of whom took the reins and drove
rapidly off. Nor was it until Mr Bailey had run after it some hundreds
of yards in vain, that he managed to lift his short leg into the iron
step, and finally to get his boots upon the little footboard behind.
Then, indeed, he became a sight to see; and--standing now on one foot
and now upon the other, now trying to look round the cab on this side,
now on that, and now endeavouring to peep over the top of it, as it went
dashing in among the carts and coaches--was from head to heel Newmarket.
The appearance of Mr Bailey’s governor as he drove along fully justified
that enthusiastic youth’s description of him to the wondering Poll. He
had a world of jet-black shining hair upon his head, upon his cheeks,
upon his chin, upon his upper lip. His clothes, symmetrically made, were
of the newest fashion and the costliest kind. Flowers of gold and blue,
and green and blushing red, were on his waistcoat; precious chains
and jewels sparkled on his breast; his fingers, clogged with brilliant
rings, were as unwieldly as summer flies but newly rescued from a
honey-pot. The daylight mantled in his gleaming hat and boots as in
a polished glass. And yet, though changed his name, and changed his
outward surface, it was Tigg. Though turned and twisted upside down,
and inside out, as great men have been sometimes known to be; though
no longer Montague Tigg, but Tigg Montague; still it was Tigg; the same
Satanic, gallant, military Tigg. The brass was burnished, lacquered,
newly stamped; yet it was the true Tigg metal notwithstanding.
Beside him sat a smiling gentleman, of less pretensions and of business
looks, whom he addressed as David. Surely not the David of the--how
shall it be phrased?--the triumvirate of golden balls? Not David,
tapster at the Lombards’ Arms? Yes. The very man.
‘The secretary’s salary, David,’ said Mr Montague, ‘the office being
now established, is eight hundred pounds per annum, with his house-rent,
coals, and candles free. His five-and-twenty shares he holds, of course.
Is that enough?’
David smiled and nodded, and coughed behind a little locked portfolio
which he carried; with an air that proclaimed him to be the secretary in
question.
‘If that’s enough,’ said Montague, ‘I will propose it at the Board
to-day, in my capacity as chairman.’
The secretary smiled again; laughed, indeed, this time; and said,
rubbing his nose slily with one end of the portfolio:
‘It was a capital thought, wasn’t it?’
‘What was a capital thought, David?’ Mr Montague inquired.
‘The Anglo-Bengalee,’ tittered the secretary.
‘The Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance Company is
rather a capital concern, I hope, David,’ said Montague.
‘Capital indeed!’ cried the secretary, with another laugh--’ in one
sense.’
‘In the only important one,’ observed the chairman; ‘which is number
one, David.’
‘What,’ asked the secretary, bursting into another laugh, ‘what will be
the paid up capital, according to the next prospectus?’
‘A figure of two, and as many oughts after it as the printer can get
into the same line,’ replied his friend. ‘Ha, ha!’
At this they both laughed; the secretary so vehemently, that in kicking
up his feet, he kicked the apron open, and nearly started Cauliflower’s
brother into an oyster shop; not to mention Mr Bailey’s receiving such
a sudden swing, that he held on for a moment quite a young Fame, by one
strap and no legs.
‘What a chap you are!’ exclaimed David admiringly, when this little
alarm had subsided.
‘Say, genius, David, genius.’
‘Well, upon my soul, you ARE a genius then,’ said David. ‘I always knew
you had the gift of the gab, of course; but I never believed you were
half the man you are. How could I?’
‘I rise with circumstances, David. That’s a point of genius in itself,’
said Tigg. ‘If you were to lose a hundred pound wager to me at
this minute David, and were to pay it (which is most confoundedly
improbable), I should rise, in a mental point of view, directly.’
It is due to Mr Tigg to say that he had really risen with his
opportunities; and, peculating on a grander scale, he had become a
grander man altogether.
‘Ha, ha,’ cried the secretary, laying his hand, with growing
familiarity, upon the chairman’s arm. ‘When I look at you, and think of
your property in Bengal being--ha, ha, ha!--’
The half-expressed idea seemed no less ludicrous to Mr Tigg than to his
friend, for he laughed too, heartily.
‘--Being,’ resumed David, ‘being amenable--your property in Bengal being
amenable--to all claims upon the company; when I look at you and think
of that, you might tickle me into fits by waving the feather of a pen at
me. Upon my soul you might!’
‘It a devilish fine property,’ said Tigg Montague, ‘to be amenable
to any claims. The preserve of tigers alone is worth a mint of money,
David.’
David could only reply in the intervals of his laughter, ‘Oh, what a
chap you are!’ and so continued to laugh, and hold his sides, and wipe
his eyes, for some time, without offering any other observation.
‘A capital idea?’ said Tigg, returning after a time to his companion’s
first remark; ‘no doubt it was a capital idea. It was my idea.’
‘No, no. It was my idea,’ said David. ‘Hang it, let a man have some
credit. Didn’t I say to you that I’d saved a few pounds?--’
‘You said! Didn’t I say to you,’ interposed Tigg, ‘that I had come into
a few pounds?’
‘Certainly you did,’ returned David, warmly, ‘but that’s not the idea.
Who said, that if we put the money together we could furnish an office,
and make a show?’
‘And who said,’ retorted Mr Tigg, ‘that, provided we did it on a
sufficiently large scale, we could furnish an office and make a show,
without any money at all? Be rational, and just, and calm, and tell me
whose idea was that.’
‘Why, there,’ David was obliged to confess, ‘you had the advantage of
me, I admit. But I don’t put myself on a level with you. I only want a
little credit in the business.’
‘All the credit you deserve to have,’ said Tigg.
‘The plain work of the company, David--figures, books, circulars,
advertisements, pen, ink, and paper, sealing-wax and wafers--is
admirably done by you. You are a first-rate groveller. I don’t dispute
it. But the ornamental department, David; the inventive and poetical
department--’
‘Is entirely yours,’ said his friend. ‘No question of it. But with such
a swell turnout as this, and all the handsome things you’ve got about
you, and the life you lead, I mean to say it’s a precious comfortable
department too.’
‘Does it gain the purpose? Is it Anglo-Bengalee?’ asked Tigg.
‘Yes,’ said David.
‘Could you undertake it yourself?’ demanded Tigg.
‘No,’ said David.
‘Ha, ha!’ laughed Tigg. ‘Then be contented with your station and
your profits, David, my fine fellow, and bless the day that made us
acquainted across the counter of our common uncle, for it was a golden
day to you.’
It will have been already gathered from the conversation of these
worthies, that they were embarked in an enterprise of some magnitude, in
which they addressed the public in general from the strong position of
having everything to gain and nothing at all to lose; and which, based
upon this great principle, was thriving pretty comfortably.
The Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance Company started
into existence one morning, not an Infant Institution, but a Grown-up
Company running alone at a great pace, and doing business right and
left: with a ‘branch’ in a first floor over a tailor’s at the west-end
of the town, and main offices in a new street in the City, comprising
the upper part of a spacious house resplendent in stucco and
plate-glass, with wire-blinds in all the windows, and ‘Anglo-Bengalee’
worked into the pattern of every one of them. On the doorpost was
painted again in large letters, ‘offices of the Anglo-Bengalee
Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance Company,’ and on the door was a
large brass plate with the same inscription; always kept very bright, as
courting inquiry; staring the City out of countenance after office hours
on working days, and all day long on Sundays; and looking bolder than
the Bank. Within, the offices were newly plastered, newly painted,
newly papered, newly countered, newly floor-clothed, newly tabled, newly
chaired, newly fitted up in every way, with goods that were substantial
and expensive, and designed (like the company) to last. Business! Look
at the green ledgers with red backs, like strong cricket-balls beaten
flat; the court-guides directories, day-books, almanacks, letter-boxes,
weighing-machines for letters, rows of fire-buckets for dashing out a
conflagration in its first spark, and saving the immense wealth in notes
and bonds belonging to the company; look at the iron safes, the clock,
the office seal--in its capacious self, security for anything. Solidity!
Look at the massive blocks of marble in the chimney-pieces, and the
gorgeous parapet on the top of the house! Publicity! Why, Anglo-Bengalee
Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance company is painted on the very
coal-scuttles. It is repeated at every turn until the eyes are dazzled
with it, and the head is giddy. It is engraved upon the top of all the
letter paper, and it makes a scroll-work round the seal, and it shines
out of the porter’s buttons, and it is repeated twenty times in every
circular and public notice wherein one David Crimple, Esquire, Secretary
and resident Director, takes the liberty of inviting your attention
to the accompanying statement of the advantages offered by the
Anglo-Bengalee Disinterested Loan and Life Assurance Company; and fully
proves to you that any connection on your part with that establishment
must result in a perpetual Christmas Box and constantly increasing Bonus