Our Mutual Friend
‘In-deed!’ said Wegg: ‘sorry, partner, that you’re not picking up
faster, but your soul’s too large for your body, sir; that’s where
it is. And how’s our stock in trade, partner? Safe bind, safe find,
partner? Is that about it?’
‘Do you wish to see it?’ asked Venus.
‘If you please, partner,’ said Wegg, rubbing his hands. ‘I wish to see
it jintly with yourself. Or, in similar words to some that was set to
music some time back:
“I wish you to see it with your eyes,
And I will pledge with mine.”’
Turning his back and turning a key, Mr Venus produced the document,
holding on by his usual corner. Mr Wegg, holding on by the opposite
corner, sat down on the seat so lately vacated by Mr Boffin, and looked
it over. ‘All right, sir,’ he slowly and unwillingly admitted, in his
reluctance to loose his hold, ‘all right!’ And greedily watched his
partner as he turned his back again, and turned his key again.
‘There’s nothing new, I suppose?’ said Venus, resuming his low chair
behind the counter.
‘Yes there is, sir,’ replied Wegg; ‘there was something new this
morning. That foxey old grasper and griper—’
‘Mr Boffin?’ inquired Venus, with a glance towards the alligator’s yard
or two of smile.
‘Mister be blowed!’ cried Wegg, yielding to his honest indignation.
‘Boffin. Dusty Boffin. That foxey old grunter and grinder, sir, turns
into the yard this morning, to meddle with our property, a menial tool
of his own, a young man by the name of Sloppy. Ecod, when I say to him,
“What do you want here, young man? This is a private yard,” he pulls out
a paper from Boffin’s other blackguard, the one I was passed over for.
“This is to authorize Sloppy to overlook the carting and to watch the
work.” That’s pretty strong, I think, Mr Venus?’
‘Remember he doesn’t know yet of our claim on the property,’ suggested
Venus.
‘Then he must have a hint of it,’ said Wegg, ‘and a strong one that’ll
jog his terrors a bit. Give him an inch, and he’ll take an ell. Let him
alone this time, and what’ll he do with our property next? I tell you
what, Mr Venus; it comes to this; I must be overbearing with Boffin, or
I shall fly into several pieces. I can’t contain myself when I look
at him. Every time I see him putting his hand in his pocket, I see him
putting it into my pocket. Every time I hear him jingling his money, I
hear him taking liberties with my money. Flesh and blood can’t bear it.
No,’ said Mr Wegg, greatly exasperated, ‘and I’ll go further. A wooden
leg can’t bear it!’
‘But, Mr Wegg,’ urged Venus, ‘it was your own idea that he should not be
exploded upon, till the Mounds were carted away.’
‘But it was likewise my idea, Mr Venus,’ retorted Wegg, ‘that if he came
sneaking and sniffing about the property, he should be threatened, given
to understand that he has no right to it, and be made our slave. Wasn’t
that my idea, Mr Venus?’
‘It certainly was, Mr Wegg.’
‘It certainly was, as you say, partner,’ assented Wegg, put into
a better humour by the ready admission. ‘Very well. I consider his
planting one of his menial tools in the yard, an act of sneaking and
sniffing. And his nose shall be put to the grindstone for it.’
‘It was not your fault, Mr Wegg, I must admit,’ said Venus, ‘that he got
off with the Dutch bottle that night.’
‘As you handsomely say again, partner! No, it was not my fault. I’d have
had that bottle out of him. Was it to be borne that he should come, like
a thief in the dark, digging among stuff that was far more ours than his
(seeing that we could deprive him of every grain of it, if he didn’t buy
us at our own figure), and carrying off treasure from its bowels? No,
it was not to be borne. And for that, too, his nose shall be put to the
grindstone.’
‘How do you propose to do it, Mr Wegg?’
‘To put his nose to the grindstone? I propose,’ returned that estimable
man, ‘to insult him openly. And, if looking into this eye of mine, he
dares to offer a word in answer, to retort upon him before he can take
his breath, “Add another word to that, you dusty old dog, and you’re a
beggar.”’
‘Suppose he says nothing, Mr Wegg?’
‘Then,’ replied Wegg, ‘we shall have come to an understanding with very
little trouble, and I’ll break him and drive him, Mr Venus. I’ll put
him in harness, and I’ll bear him up tight, and I’ll break him and drive
him. The harder the old Dust is driven, sir, the higher he’ll pay. And I
mean to be paid high, Mr Venus, I promise you.’
‘You speak quite revengefully, Mr Wegg.’
‘Revengefully, sir? Is it for him that I have declined and falled,
night after night? Is it for his pleasure that I’ve waited at home of an
evening, like a set of skittles, to be set up and knocked over, set up
and knocked over, by whatever balls—or books—he chose to bring against
me? Why, I’m a hundred times the man he is, sir; five hundred times!’
Perhaps it was with the malicious intent of urging him on to his worst
that Mr Venus looked as if he doubted that.
‘What? Was it outside the house at present ockypied, to its disgrace,
by that minion of fortune and worm of the hour,’ said Wegg, falling back
upon his strongest terms of reprobation, and slapping the counter,
‘that I, Silas Wegg, five hundred times the man he ever was, sat in all
weathers, waiting for a errand or a customer? Was it outside that very
house as I first set eyes upon him, rolling in the lap of luxury, when I
was selling halfpenny ballads there for a living? And am I to grovel in
the dust for HIM to walk over? No!’
There was a grin upon the ghastly countenance of the French gentleman
under the influence of the firelight, as if he were computing how many
thousand slanderers and traitors array themselves against the fortunate,
on premises exactly answering to those of Mr Wegg. One might have
fancied that the big-headed babies were toppling over with their
hydrocephalic attempts to reckon up the children of men who transform
their benefactors into their injurers by the same process. The yard or
two of smile on the part of the alligator might have been invested with
the meaning, ‘All about this was quite familiar knowledge down in the
depths of the slime, ages ago.’
‘But,’ said Wegg, possibly with some slight perception to the foregoing
effect, ‘your speaking countenance remarks, Mr Venus, that I’m duller
and savager than usual. Perhaps I HAVE allowed myself to brood too much.
Begone, dull Care! ’tis gone, sir. I’ve looked in upon you, and empire
resumes her sway. For, as the song says—subject to your correction,
sir—
“When the heart of a man is depressed with cares,
The mist is dispelled if Venus appears.
Like the notes of a fiddle, you sweetly, sir, sweetly,
Raises our spirits and charms our ears.”
Good-night, sir.’
‘I shall have a word or two to say to you, Mr Wegg, before long,’
remarked Venus, ‘respecting my share in the project we’ve been speaking
of.’
‘My time, sir,’ returned Wegg, ‘is yours. In the meanwhile let it be
fully understood that I shall not neglect bringing the grindstone to
bear, nor yet bringing Dusty Boffin’s nose to it. His nose once brought
to it, shall be held to it by these hands, Mr Venus, till the sparks
flies out in showers.’
With this agreeable promise Wegg stumped out, and shut the shop-door
after him. ‘Wait till I light a candle, Mr Boffin,’ said Venus, ‘and
you’ll come out more comfortable.’ So, he lighting a candle and holding
it up at arm’s length, Mr Boffin disengaged himself from behind the
alligator’s smile, with an expression of countenance so very downcast
that it not only appeared as if the alligator had the whole of the joke
to himself, but further as if it had been conceived and executed at Mr
Boffin’s expense.
‘That’s a treacherous fellow,’ said Mr Boffin, dusting his arms and legs
as he came forth, the alligator having been but musty company. ‘That’s a
dreadful fellow.’
‘The alligator, sir?’ said Venus.
‘No, Venus, no. The Serpent.’
‘You’ll have the goodness to notice, Mr Boffin,’ remarked Venus, ‘that I
said nothing to him about my going out of the affair altogether, because
I didn’t wish to take you anyways by surprise. But I can’t be too soon
out of it for my satisfaction, Mr Boffin, and I now put it to you when
it will suit your views for me to retire?’
‘Thank’ee, Venus, thank’ee, Venus; but I don’t know what to say,’
returned Mr Boffin, ‘I don’t know what to do. He’ll drop down on me any
way. He seems fully determined to drop down; don’t he?’
Mr Venus opined that such was clearly his intention.
‘You might be a sort of protection for me, if you remained in it,’ said
Mr Boffin; ‘you might stand betwixt him and me, and take the edge off
him. Don’t you feel as if you could make a show of remaining in it,
Venus, till I had time to turn myself round?’
Venus naturally inquired how long Mr Boffin thought it might take him to
turn himself round?
‘I am sure I don’t know,’ was the answer, given quite at a loss.
‘Everything is so at sixes and sevens. If I had never come into the
property, I shouldn’t have minded. But being in it, it would be very
trying to be turned out; now, don’t you acknowledge that it would,
Venus?’
Mr Venus preferred, he said, to leave Mr Boffin to arrive at his own
conclusions on that delicate question.
‘I am sure I don’t know what to do,’ said Mr Boffin. ‘If I ask advice of
any one else, it’s only letting in another person to be bought out, and
then I shall be ruined that way, and might as well have given up the
property and gone slap to the workhouse. If I was to take advice of my
young man, Rokesmith, I should have to buy HIM out. Sooner or later, of
course, he’d drop down upon me, like Wegg. I was brought into the world
to be dropped down upon, it appears to me.’
Mr Venus listened to these lamentations in silence, while Mr Boffin
jogged to and fro, holding his pockets as if he had a pain in them.
‘After all, you haven’t said what you mean to do yourself, Venus. When
you do go out of it, how do you mean to go?’
Venus replied that as Wegg had found the document and handed it to him,
it was his intention to hand it back to Wegg, with the declaration that
he himself would have nothing to say to it, or do with it, and that Wegg
must act as he chose, and take the consequences.
‘And then he drops down with his whole weight upon ME!’ cried Mr Boffin,
ruefully. ‘I’d sooner be dropped upon by you than by him, or even by you
jintly, than by him alone!’
Mr Venus could only repeat that it was his fixed intention to betake
himself to the paths of science, and to walk in the same all the days
of his life; not dropping down upon his fellow-creatures until they were
deceased, and then only to articulate them to the best of his humble
ability.
‘How long could you be persuaded to keep up the appearance of remaining
in it?’ asked Mr Boffin, retiring on his other idea. ‘Could you be got
to do so, till the Mounds are gone?’
No. That would protract the mental uneasiness of Mr Venus too long, he
said.
‘Not if I was to show you reason now?’ demanded Mr Boffin; ‘not if I was
to show you good and sufficient reason?’
If by good and sufficient reason Mr Boffin meant honest and
unimpeachable reason, that might weigh with Mr Venus against his
personal wishes and convenience. But he must add that he saw no opening
to the possibility of such reason being shown him.
‘Come and see me, Venus,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘at my house.’
‘Is the reason there, sir?’ asked Mr Venus, with an incredulous smile
and blink.
‘It may be, or may not be,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘just as you view it. But
in the meantime don’t go out of the matter. Look here. Do this. Give me
your word that you won’t take any steps with Wegg, without my knowledge,
just as I have given you my word that I won’t without yours.’