Our Mutual Friend
‘Sir,’ returned Venus, ‘I again accept the altered phrase, and with
pleasure. The lady is a going to give her ’and where she has already
given her ’art, next Monday.’
‘Then the lady’s objection has been met?’ said Silas.
‘Mr Wegg,’ said Venus, ‘as I did name to you, I think, on a former
occasion, if not on former occasions—’
‘On former occasions,’ interrupted Wegg.
‘—What,’ pursued Venus, ‘what the nature of the lady’s objection was, I
may impart, without violating any of the tender confidences since sprung
up between the lady and myself, how it has been met, through the kind
interference of two good friends of mine: one, previously acquainted
with the lady: and one, not. The pint was thrown out, sir, by those two
friends when they did me the great service of waiting on the lady to
try if a union betwixt the lady and me could not be brought to bear—the
pint, I say, was thrown out by them, sir, whether if, after marriage,
I confined myself to the articulation of men, children, and the lower
animals, it might not relieve the lady’s mind of her feeling respecting
being as a lady—regarded in a bony light. It was a happy thought, sir,
and it took root.’
‘It would seem, Mr Venus,’ observed Wegg, with a touch of distrust,
‘that you are flush of friends?’
‘Pretty well, sir,’ that gentleman answered, in a tone of placid
mystery. ‘So-so, sir. Pretty well.’
‘However,’ said Wegg, after eyeing him with another touch of distrust,
‘I wish you joy. One man spends his fortune in one way, and another in
another. You are going to try matrimony. I mean to try travelling.’
‘Indeed, Mr Wegg?’
‘Change of air, sea-scenery, and my natural rest, I hope may bring me
round after the persecutions I have undergone from the dustman with his
head tied up, which I just now mentioned. The tough job being ended and
the Mounds laid low, the hour is come for Boffin to stump up. Would ten
to-morrow morning suit you, partner, for finally bringing Boffin’s nose
to the grindstone?’
Ten to-morrow morning would quite suit Mr Venus for that excellent
purpose.
‘You have had him well under inspection, I hope?’ said Silas.
Mr Venus had had him under inspection pretty well every day.
‘Suppose you was just to step round to-night then, and give him orders
from me—I say from me, because he knows I won’t be played with—to be
ready with his papers, his accounts, and his cash, at that time in the
morning?’ said Wegg. ‘And as a matter of form, which will be agreeable
to your own feelings, before we go out (for I’ll walk with you part of
the way, though my leg gives under me with weariness), let’s have a look
at the stock in trade.’
Mr Venus produced it, and it was perfectly correct; Mr Venus undertook
to produce it again in the morning, and to keep tryst with Mr Wegg on
Boffin’s doorstep as the clock struck ten. At a certain point of the
road between Clerkenwell and Boffin’s house (Mr Wegg expressly insisted
that there should be no prefix to the Golden Dustman’s name) the
partners separated for the night.
It was a very bad night; to which succeeded a very bad morning. The
streets were so unusually slushy, muddy, and miserable, in the morning,
that Wegg rode to the scene of action; arguing that a man who was, as
it were, going to the Bank to draw out a handsome property, could well
afford that trifling expense.
Venus was punctual, and Wegg undertook to knock at the door, and conduct
the conference. Door knocked at. Door opened.
‘Boffin at home?’
The servant replied that MR Boffin was at home.
‘He’ll do,’ said Wegg, ‘though it ain’t what I call him.’
The servant inquired if they had any appointment?
‘Now, I tell you what, young fellow,’ said Wegg, ‘I won’t have it. This
won’t do for me. I don’t want menials. I want Boffin.’
They were shown into a waiting-room, where the all-powerful Wegg wore
his hat, and whistled, and with his forefinger stirred up a clock that
stood upon the chimneypiece, until he made it strike. In a few minutes
they were shown upstairs into what used to be Boffin’s room; which,
besides the door of entrance, had folding-doors in it, to make it one
of a suite of rooms when occasion required. Here, Boffin was seated at a
library-table, and here Mr Wegg, having imperiously motioned the servant
to withdraw, drew up a chair and seated himself, in his hat, close
beside him. Here, also, Mr Wegg instantly underwent the remarkable
experience of having his hat twitched off his head and thrown out of a
window, which was opened and shut for the purpose.
‘Be careful what insolent liberties you take in that gentleman’s
presence,’ said the owner of the hand which had done this, ‘or I will
throw you after it.’
Wegg involuntarily clapped his hand to his bare head, and stared at the
Secretary. For, it was he addressed him with a severe countenance, and
who had come in quietly by the folding-doors.
‘Oh!’ said Wegg, as soon as he recovered his suspended power of speech.
‘Very good! I gave directions for YOU to be dismissed. And you ain’t
gone, ain’t you? Oh! We’ll look into this presently. Very good!’
‘No, nor I ain’t gone,’ said another voice.
Somebody else had come in quietly by the folding-doors. Turning his
head, Wegg beheld his persecutor, the ever-wakeful dustman, accoutred
with fantail hat and velveteen smalls complete. Who, untying his
tied-up broken head, revealed a head that was whole, and a face that was
Sloppy’s.
‘Ha, ha, ha, gentlemen!’ roared Sloppy in a peal of laughter, and with
immeasureable relish. ‘He never thought as I could sleep standing, and
often done it when I turned for Mrs Higden! He never thought as I used
to give Mrs Higden the Police-news in different voices! But I did lead
him a life all through it, gentlemen, I hope I really and truly DID!’
Here, Mr Sloppy opening his mouth to a quite alarming extent, and
throwing back his head to peal again, revealed incalculable buttons.
‘Oh!’ said Wegg, slightly discomfited, but not much as yet: ‘one and one
is two not dismissed, is it? Bof—fin! Just let me ask a question. Who
set this chap on, in this dress, when the carting began? Who employed
this fellow?’
‘I say!’ remonstrated Sloppy, jerking his head forward. ‘No fellows, or
I’ll throw you out of winder!’
Mr Boffin appeased him with a wave of his hand, and said: ‘I employed
him, Wegg.’
‘Oh! You employed him, Boffin? Very good. Mr Venus, we raise our terms,
and we can’t do better than proceed to business. Bof—fin! I want the
room cleared of these two scum.’
‘That’s not going to be done, Wegg,’ replied Mr Boffin, sitting
composedly on the library-table, at one end, while the Secretary sat
composedly on it at the other.
‘Bof—fin! Not going to be done?’ repeated Wegg. ‘Not at your peril?’
‘No, Wegg,’ said Mr Boffin, shaking his head good-humouredly. ‘Not at my
peril, and not on any other terms.’
Wegg reflected a moment, and then said: ‘Mr Venus, will you be so good
as hand me over that same dockyment?’
‘Certainly, sir,’ replied Venus, handing it to him with much politeness.
‘There it is. Having now, sir, parted with it, I wish to make a small
observation: not so much because it is anyways necessary, or expresses
any new doctrine or discovery, as because it is a comfort to my mind.
Silas Wegg, you are a precious old rascal.’
Mr Wegg, who, as if anticipating a compliment, had been beating
time with the paper to the other’s politeness until this unexpected
conclusion came upon him, stopped rather abruptly.
‘Silas Wegg,’ said Venus, ‘know that I took the liberty of taking Mr
Boffin into our concern as a sleeping partner, at a very early period of
our firm’s existence.’
‘Quite true,’ added Mr Boffin; ‘and I tested Venus by making him a
pretended proposal or two; and I found him on the whole a very honest
man, Wegg.’
‘So Mr Boffin, in his indulgence, is pleased to say,’ Venus remarked:
‘though in the beginning of this dirt, my hands were not, for a few
hours, quite as clean as I could wish. But I hope I made early and full
amends.’
‘Venus, you did,’ said Mr Boffin. ‘Certainly, certainly, certainly.’
Venus inclined his head with respect and gratitude. ‘Thank you, sir.
I am much obliged to you, sir, for all. For your good opinion now, for
your way of receiving and encouraging me when I first put myself in
communication with you, and for the influence since so kindly brought
to bear upon a certain lady, both by yourself and by Mr John Harmon.’ To
whom, when thus making mention of him, he also bowed.
Wegg followed the name with sharp ears, and the action with sharp eyes,
and a certain cringing air was infusing itself into his bullying air,
when his attention was re-claimed by Venus.
‘Everything else between you and me, Mr Wegg,’ said Venus, ‘now explains
itself, and you can now make out, sir, without further words from me.
But totally to prevent any unpleasantness or mistake that might arise on
what I consider an important point, to be made quite clear at the close
of our acquaintance, I beg the leave of Mr Boffin and Mr John Harmon to
repeat an observation which I have already had the pleasure of bringing
under your notice. You are a precious old rascal!’
‘You are a fool,’ said Wegg, with a snap of his fingers, ‘and I’d have
got rid of you before now, if I could have struck out any way of doing
it. I have thought it over, I can tell you. You may go, and welcome. You
leave the more for me. Because, you know,’ said Wegg, dividing his next
observation between Mr Boffin and Mr Harmon, ‘I am worth my price, and
I mean to have it. This getting off is all very well in its way, and it
tells with such an anatomical Pump as this one,’ pointing out Mr Venus,
‘but it won’t do with a Man. I am here to be bought off, and I have
named my figure. Now, buy me, or leave me.’
‘I’ll leave you, Wegg,’ said Mr Boffin, laughing, ‘as far as I am
concerned.’
‘Bof—fin!’ replied Wegg, turning upon him with a severe air, ‘I
understand YOUR new-born boldness. I see the brass underneath YOUR
silver plating. YOU have got YOUR nose out of joint. Knowing that you’ve
nothing at stake, you can afford to come the independent game. Why,
you’re just so much smeary glass to see through, you know! But Mr Harmon
is in another sitiwation. What Mr Harmon risks, is quite another pair
of shoes. Now, I’ve heerd something lately about this being Mr
Harmon—I make out now, some hints that I’ve met on that subject in
the newspaper—and I drop you, Bof—fin, as beneath my notice. I ask Mr
Harmon whether he has any idea of the contents of this present paper?’
‘It is a will of my late father’s, of more recent date than the will
proved by Mr Boffin (address whom again, as you have addressed him
already, and I’ll knock you down), leaving the whole of his property
to the Crown,’ said John Harmon, with as much indifference as was
compatible with extreme sternness.
‘Right you are!’ cried Wegg. ‘Then,’ screwing the weight of his body
upon his wooden leg, and screwing his wooden head very much on one side,
and screwing up one eye: ‘then, I put the question to you, what’s this
paper worth?’
‘Nothing,’ said John Harmon.
Wegg had repeated the word with a sneer, and was entering on some
sarcastic retort, when, to his boundless amazement, he found himself
gripped by the cravat; shaken until his teeth chattered; shoved back,
staggering, into a corner of the room; and pinned there.
‘You scoundrel!’ said John Harmon, whose seafaring hold was like that of
a vice.
‘You’re knocking my head against the wall,’ urged Silas faintly.
‘I mean to knock your head against the wall,’ returned John Harmon,
suiting his action to his words, with the heartiest good will; ‘and I’d
give a thousand pounds for leave to knock your brains out. Listen, you
scoundrel, and look at that Dutch bottle.’