Our Mutual Friend
thought well of BY another person. Mrs Lammle will be none the worse for
it, if she is.’
‘Much obliged. But I asked Mrs Lammle if she was.’
She stood sketching on the table-cloth, with her face clouded and set,
and was silent.
‘Because,’ said Alfred, ‘I am disposed to be sentimental myself, on
your appropriation of the jewels and the money, Mr Boffin. As our little
Georgiana said, three five-pound notes are better than nothing, and if
you sell a necklace you can buy things with the produce.’
‘IF you sell it,’ was Mr Boffin’s comment, as he put it in his pocket.
Alfred followed it with his looks, and also greedily pursued the notes
until they vanished into Mr Boffin’s waistcoat pocket. Then he directed
a look, half exasperated and half jeering, at his wife. She still stood
sketching; but, as she sketched, there was a struggle within her, which
found expression in the depth of the few last lines the parasol point
indented into the table-cloth, and then some tears fell from her eyes.
‘Why, confound the woman,’ exclaimed Lammle, ‘she _is_ sentimental.’
She walked to the window, flinching under his angry stare, looked out
for a moment, and turned round quite coldly.
‘You have had no former cause of complaint on the sentimental score,
Alfred, and you will have none in future. It is not worth your noticing.
We go abroad soon, with the money we have earned here?’
‘You know we do; you know we must.’
‘There is no fear of my taking any sentiment with me. I should soon be
eased of it, if I did. But it will be all left behind. It IS all left
behind. Are you ready, Alfred?’
‘What the deuce have I been waiting for but you, Sophronia?’
‘Let us go then. I am sorry I have delayed our dignified departure.’
She passed out and he followed her. Mr and Mrs Boffin had the curiosity
softly to raise a window and look after them as they went down the long
street. They walked arm-in-arm, showily enough, but without appearing
to interchange a syllable. It might have been fanciful to suppose that
under their outer bearing there was something of the shamed air of two
cheats who were linked together by concealed handcuffs; but, not so, to
suppose that they were haggardly weary of one another, of themselves,
and of all this world. In turning the street corner they might have
turned out of this world, for anything Mr and Mrs Boffin ever saw of
them to the contrary; for, they set eyes on the Lammles never more.
Chapter 3
THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN SINKS AGAIN
The evening of that day being one of the reading evenings at the Bower,
Mr Boffin kissed Mrs Boffin after a five o’clock dinner, and trotted
out, nursing his big stick in both arms, so that, as of old, it seemed
to be whispering in his ear. He carried so very attentive an expression
on his countenance that it appeared as if the confidential discourse of
the big stick required to be followed closely. Mr Boffin’s face was like
the face of a thoughtful listener to an intricate communication, and, in
trotting along, he occasionally glanced at that companion with the look
of a man who was interposing the remark: ‘You don’t mean it!’
Mr Boffin and his stick went on alone together, until they arrived at
certain cross-ways where they would be likely to fall in with any one
coming, at about the same time, from Clerkenwell to the Bower. Here they
stopped, and Mr Boffin consulted his watch.
‘It wants five minutes, good, to Venus’s appointment,’ said he. ‘I’m
rather early.’
But Venus was a punctual man, and, even as Mr Boffin replaced his watch
in its pocket, was to be descried coming towards him. He quickened his
pace on seeing Mr Boffin already at the place of meeting, and was soon
at his side.
‘Thank’ee, Venus,’ said Mr Boffin. ‘Thank’ee, thank’ee, thank’ee!’
It would not have been very evident why he thanked the anatomist, but
for his furnishing the explanation in what he went on to say.
‘All right, Venus, all right. Now, that you’ve been to see me, and have
consented to keep up the appearance before Wegg of remaining in it for a
time, I have got a sort of a backer. All right, Venus. Thank’ee, Venus.
Thank’ee, thank’ee, thank’ee!’
Mr Venus shook the proffered hand with a modest air, and they pursued
the direction of the Bower.
‘Do you think Wegg is likely to drop down upon me to-night, Venus?’
inquired Mr Boffin, wistfully, as they went along.
‘I think he is, sir.’
‘Have you any particular reason for thinking so, Venus?’
‘Well, sir,’ returned that personage, ‘the fact is, he has given me
another look-in, to make sure of what he calls our stock-in-trade being
correct, and he has mentioned his intention that he was not to be put
off beginning with you the very next time you should come. And this,’
hinted Mr Venus, delicately, ‘being the very next time, you know, sir—’
—‘Why, therefore you suppose he’ll turn to at the grindstone, eh,
Wegg?’ said Mr Boffin.
‘Just so, sir.’
Mr Boffin took his nose in his hand, as if it were already excoriated,
and the sparks were beginning to fly out of that feature. ‘He’s a
terrible fellow, Venus; he’s an awful fellow. I don’t know how ever I
shall go through with it. You must stand by me, Venus like a good man
and true. You’ll do all you can to stand by me, Venus; won’t you?’
Mr Venus replied with the assurance that he would; and Mr Boffin,
looking anxious and dispirited, pursued the way in silence until they
rang at the Bower gate. The stumping approach of Wegg was soon heard
behind it, and as it turned upon its hinges he became visible with his
hand on the lock.
‘Mr Boffin, sir?’ he remarked. ‘You’re quite a stranger!’
‘Yes. I’ve been otherwise occupied, Wegg.’
‘Have you indeed, sir?’ returned the literary gentleman, with a
threatening sneer. ‘Hah! I’ve been looking for you, sir, rather what I
may call specially.’
‘You don’t say so, Wegg?’
‘Yes, I do say so, sir. And if you hadn’t come round to me tonight, dash
my wig if I wouldn’t have come round to you tomorrow. Now! I tell you!’
‘Nothing wrong, I hope, Wegg?’
‘Oh no, Mr Boffin,’ was the ironical answer. ‘Nothing wrong! What should
be wrong in Boffinses Bower! Step in, sir.’
‘“If you’ll come to the Bower I’ve shaded for you,
Your bed shan’t be roses all spangled with doo:
Will you, will you, will you, will you, come to the Bower?
Oh, won’t you, won’t you, won’t you, won’t you, come to the
Bower?”’
An unholy glare of contradiction and offence shone in the eyes of Mr
Wegg, as he turned the key on his patron, after ushering him into the
yard with this vocal quotation. Mr Boffin’s air was crestfallen and
submissive. Whispered Wegg to Venus, as they crossed the yard behind
him: ‘Look at the worm and minion; he’s down in the mouth already.’
Whispered Venus to Wegg: ‘That’s because I’ve told him. I’ve prepared
the way for you.’
Mr Boffin, entering the usual chamber, laid his stick upon the settle
usually reserved for him, thrust his hands into his pockets, and,
with his shoulders raised and his hat drooping back upon them, looking
disconsolately at Wegg. ‘My friend and partner, Mr Venus, gives me to
understand,’ remarked that man of might, addressing him, ‘that you are
aware of our power over you. Now, when you have took your hat off, we’ll
go into that pint.’
Mr Boffin shook it off with one shake, so that it dropped on the floor
behind him, and remained in his former attitude with his former rueful
look upon him.
‘First of all, I’m a-going to call you Boffin, for short,’ said Wegg.
‘If you don’t like it, it’s open to you to lump it.’
‘I don’t mind it, Wegg,’ Mr Boffin replied.
‘That’s lucky for you, Boffin. Now, do you want to be read to?’
‘I don’t particularly care about it to-night, Wegg.’
‘Because if you did want to,’ pursued Mr Wegg, the brilliancy of whose
point was dimmed by his having been unexpectedly answered: ‘you wouldn’t
be. I’ve been your slave long enough. I’m not to be trampled under-foot
by a dustman any more. With the single exception of the salary, I
renounce the whole and total sitiwation.’
‘Since you say it is to be so, Wegg,’ returned Mr Boffin, with folded
hands, ‘I suppose it must be.’
‘I suppose it must be,’ Wegg retorted. ‘Next (to clear the ground before
coming to business), you’ve placed in this yard a skulking, a sneaking,
and a sniffing, menial.’
‘He hadn’t a cold in his head when I sent him here,’ said Mr Boffin.
‘Boffin!’ retorted Wegg, ‘I warn you not to attempt a joke with me!’
Here Mr Venus interposed, and remarked that he conceived Mr Boffin to
have taken the description literally; the rather, forasmuch as he, Mr
Venus, had himself supposed the menial to have contracted an affliction
or a habit of the nose, involving a serious drawback on the pleasures of
social intercourse, until he had discovered that Mr Wegg’s description
of him was to be accepted as merely figurative.
‘Anyhow, and every how,’ said Wegg, ‘he has been planted here, and he
is here. Now, I won’t have him here. So I call upon Boffin, before I say
another word, to fetch him in and send him packing to the right-about.’
The unsuspecting Sloppy was at that moment airing his many buttons
within view of the window. Mr Boffin, after a short interval of
impassive discomfiture, opened the window and beckoned him to come in.
‘I call upon Boffin,’ said Wegg, with one arm a-kimbo and his head on
one side, like a bullying counsel pausing for an answer from a witness,
‘to inform that menial that I am Master here!’
In humble obedience, when the button-gleaming Sloppy entered Mr Boffin
said to him: ‘Sloppy, my fine fellow, Mr Wegg is Master here. He doesn’t
want you, and you are to go from here.’
‘For good!’ Mr Wegg severely stipulated.
‘For good,’ said Mr Boffin.
Sloppy stared, with both his eyes and all his buttons, and his mouth
wide open; but was without loss of time escorted forth by Silas Wegg,
pushed out at the yard gate by the shoulders, and locked out.
‘The atomspear,’ said Wegg, stumping back into the room again, a
little reddened by his late exertion, ‘is now freer for the purposes of
respiration. Mr Venus, sir, take a chair. Boffin, you may sit down.’
Mr Boffin, still with his hands ruefully stuck in his pockets, sat on
the edge of the settle, shrunk into a small compass, and eyed the potent
Silas with conciliatory looks.
‘This gentleman,’ said Silas Wegg, pointing out Venus, ‘this gentleman,
Boffin, is more milk and watery with you than I’ll be. But he hasn’t
borne the Roman yoke as I have, nor yet he hasn’t been required to
pander to your depraved appetite for miserly characters.’
‘I never meant, my dear Wegg—’ Mr Boffin was beginning, when Silas
stopped him.
‘Hold your tongue, Boffin! Answer when you’re called upon to answer.
You’ll find you’ve got quite enough to do. Now, you’re aware—are
you—that you’re in possession of property to which you’ve no right at
all? Are you aware of that?’
‘Venus tells me so,’ said Mr Boffin, glancing towards him for any
support he could give.
‘I tell you so,’ returned Silas. ‘Now, here’s my hat, Boffin, and here’s
my walking-stick. Trifle with me, and instead of making a bargain with
you, I’ll put on my hat and take up my walking-stick, and go out, and
make a bargain with the rightful owner. Now, what do you say?’
‘I say,’ returned Mr Boffin, leaning forward in alarmed appeal, with his
hands on his knees, ‘that I am sure I don’t want to trifle, Wegg. I have
said so to Venus.’
‘You certainly have, sir,’ said Venus.
‘You’re too milk and watery with our friend, you are indeed,’
remonstrated Silas, with a disapproving shake of his wooden head. ‘Then
at once you confess yourself desirous to come to terms, do you Boffin?
Before you answer, keep this hat well in your mind and also this