Our Mutual Friend
With this quotation (depending for its neatness rather on the spirit
than the words), Mr Wegg conducted his guest to his hearth.
‘And you come, brother,’ said Mr Wegg, in a hospitable glow, ‘you come
like I don’t know what—exactly like it—I shouldn’t know you from
it—shedding a halo all around you.’
‘What kind of halo?’ asked Mr Venus.
‘’Ope sir,’ replied Silas. ‘That’s YOUR halo.’
Mr Venus appeared doubtful on the point, and looked rather
discontentedly at the fire.
‘We’ll devote the evening, brother,’ exclaimed Wegg, ‘to prosecute our
friendly move. And arterwards, crushing a flowing wine-cup—which I
allude to brewing rum and water—we’ll pledge one another. For what says
the Poet?
“And you needn’t, Mr Venus, be your black bottle,
For surely I’ll be mine,
And we’ll take a glass with a slice of lemon in it to which
you’re partial,
For auld lang syne.”’
This flow of quotation and hospitality in Wegg indicated his observation
of some little querulousness on the part of Venus.
‘Why, as to the friendly move,’ observed the last-named gentleman,
rubbing his knees peevishly, ‘one of my objections to it is, that it
DON’T move.’
‘Rome, brother,’ returned Wegg: ‘a city which (it may not be generally
known) originated in twins and a wolf; and ended in Imperial marble:
wasn’t built in a day.’
‘Did I say it was?’ asked Venus.
‘No, you did not, brother. Well-inquired.’
‘But I do say,’ proceeded Venus, ‘that I am taken from among my trophies
of anatomy, am called upon to exchange my human warious for mere
coal-ashes warious, and nothing comes of it. I think I must give up.’
‘No, sir!’ remonstrated Wegg, enthusiastically. ‘No, Sir!
“Charge, Chester, charge,
On, Mr Venus, on!”
Never say die, sir! A man of your mark!’
‘It’s not so much saying it that I object to,’ returned Mr Venus, ‘as
doing it. And having got to do it whether or no, I can’t afford to waste
my time on groping for nothing in cinders.’
‘But think how little time you have given to the move, sir, after all,’
urged Wegg. ‘Add the evenings so occupied together, and what do they
come to? And you, sir, harmonizer with myself in opinions, views, and
feelings, you with the patience to fit together on wires the whole
framework of society—I allude to the human skelinton—you to give in so
soon!’
‘I don’t like it,’ returned Mr Venus moodily, as he put his head between
his knees and stuck up his dusty hair. ‘And there’s no encouragement to
go on.’
‘Not them Mounds without,’ said Mr Wegg, extending his right hand with
an air of solemn reasoning, ‘encouragement? Not them Mounds now looking
down upon us?’
‘They’re too big,’ grumbled Venus. ‘What’s a scratch here and a scrape
there, a poke in this place and a dig in the other, to them. Besides;
what have we found?’
‘What HAVE we found?’ cried Wegg, delighted to be able to acquiesce.
‘Ah! There I grant you, comrade. Nothing. But on the contrary, comrade,
what MAY we find? There you’ll grant me. Anything.’
‘I don’t like it,’ pettishly returned Venus as before. ‘I came into
it without enough consideration. And besides again. Isn’t your own Mr
Boffin well acquainted with the Mounds? And wasn’t he well acquainted
with the deceased and his ways? And has he ever showed any expectation
of finding anything?’
At that moment wheels were heard.
‘Now, I should be loth,’ said Mr Wegg, with an air of patient injury,
‘to think so ill of him as to suppose him capable of coming at this time
of night. And yet it sounds like him.’
A ring at the yard bell.
‘It is him,’ said Mr Wegg, ‘and he is capable of it. I am sorry, because
I could have wished to keep up a little lingering fragment of respect
for him.’
Here Mr Boffin was heard lustily calling at the yard gate, ‘Halloa!
Wegg! Halloa!’
‘Keep your seat, Mr Venus,’ said Wegg. ‘He may not stop.’ And then
called out, ‘Halloa, sir! Halloa! I’m with you directly, sir! Half a
minute, Mr Boffin. Coming, sir, as fast as my leg will bring me!’ And
so with a show of much cheerful alacrity stumped out to the gate with
a light, and there, through the window of a cab, descried Mr Boffin
inside, blocked up with books.
‘Here! lend a hand, Wegg,’ said Mr Boffin excitedly, ‘I can’t get out
till the way is cleared for me. This is the Annual Register, Wegg, in a
cab-full of wollumes. Do you know him?’
‘Know the Animal Register, sir?’ returned the Impostor, who had caught
the name imperfectly. ‘For a trifling wager, I think I could find any
Animal in him, blindfold, Mr Boffin.’
‘And here’s Kirby’s Wonderful Museum,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘and Caulfield’s
Characters, and Wilson’s. Such Characters, Wegg, such Characters! I must
have one or two of the best of ’em to-night. It’s amazing what places
they used to put the guineas in, wrapped up in rags. Catch hold of that
pile of wollumes, Wegg, or it’ll bulge out and burst into the mud. Is
there anyone about, to help?’
‘There’s a friend of mine, sir, that had the intention of spending
the evening with me when I gave you up—much against my will—for the
night.’
‘Call him out,’ cried Mr Boffin in a bustle; ‘get him to bear a hand.
Don’t drop that one under your arm. It’s Dancer. Him and his sister made
pies of a dead sheep they found when they were out a walking. Where’s
your friend? Oh, here’s your friend. Would you be so good as help Wegg
and myself with these books? But don’t take Jemmy Taylor of Southwark,
nor yet Jemmy Wood of Gloucester. These are the two Jemmys. I’ll carry
them myself.’
Not ceasing to talk and bustle, in a state of great excitement, Mr
Boffin directed the removal and arrangement of the books, appearing
to be in some sort beside himself until they were all deposited on the
floor, and the cab was dismissed.
‘There!’ said Mr Boffin, gloating over them. ‘There they are, like the
four-and-twenty fiddlers—all of a row. Get on your spectacles, Wegg;
I know where to find the best of ’em, and we’ll have a taste at once of
what we have got before us. What’s your friend’s name?’
Mr Wegg presented his friend as Mr Venus.
‘Eh?’ cried Mr Boffin, catching at the name. ‘Of Clerkenwell?’
‘Of Clerkenwell, sir,’ said Mr Venus.
‘Why, I’ve heard of you,’ cried Mr Boffin, ‘I heard of you in the
old man’s time. You knew him. Did you ever buy anything of him?’ With
piercing eagerness.
‘No, sir,’ returned Venus.
‘But he showed you things; didn’t he?’
Mr Venus, with a glance at his friend, replied in the affirmative.
‘What did he show you?’ asked Mr Boffin, putting his hands behind him,
and eagerly advancing his head. ‘Did he show you boxes, little cabinets,
pocket-books, parcels, anything locked or sealed, anything tied up?’
Mr Venus shook his head.
‘Are you a judge of china?’
Mr Venus again shook his head.
‘Because if he had ever showed you a teapot, I should be glad to know of
it,’ said Mr Boffin. And then, with his right hand at his lips, repeated
thoughtfully, ‘a Teapot, a Teapot’, and glanced over the books on the
floor, as if he knew there was something interesting connected with a
teapot, somewhere among them.
Mr Wegg and Mr Venus looked at one another wonderingly: and Mr Wegg, in
fitting on his spectacles, opened his eyes wide, over their rims, and
tapped the side of his nose: as an admonition to Venus to keep himself
generally wide awake.
‘A Teapot,’ repeated Mr Boffin, continuing to muse and survey the books;
‘a Teapot, a Teapot. Are you ready, Wegg?’
‘I am at your service, sir,’ replied that gentleman, taking his usual
seat on the usual settle, and poking his wooden leg under the table
before it. ‘Mr Venus, would you make yourself useful, and take a seat
beside me, sir, for the conveniency of snuffing the candles?’
Venus complying with the invitation while it was yet being given, Silas
pegged at him with his wooden leg, to call his particular attention to
Mr Boffin standing musing before the fire, in the space between the two
settles.
‘Hem! Ahem!’ coughed Mr Wegg to attract his employer’s attention. ‘Would
you wish to commence with an Animal, sir—from the Register?’
‘No,’ said Mr Boffin, ‘no, Wegg.’ With that, producing a little book
from his breast-pocket, he handed it with great care to the literary
gentlemen, and inquired, ‘What do you call that, Wegg?’
‘This, sir,’ replied Silas, adjusting his spectacles, and referring to
the title-page, ‘is Merryweather’s Lives and Anecdotes of Misers. Mr
Venus, would you make yourself useful and draw the candles a little
nearer, sir?’ This to have a special opportunity of bestowing a stare
upon his comrade.
‘Which of ’em have you got in that lot?’ asked Mr Boffin. ‘Can you find
out pretty easy?’
‘Well, sir,’ replied Silas, turning to the table of contents and slowly
fluttering the leaves of the book, ‘I should say they must be pretty
well all here, sir; here’s a large assortment, sir; my eye catches John
Overs, sir, John Little, sir, Dick Jarrel, John Elwes, the Reverend Mr
Jones of Blewbury, Vulture Hopkins, Daniel Dancer—’
‘Give us Dancer, Wegg,’ said Mr Boffin.
With another stare at his comrade, Silas sought and found the place.
‘Page a hundred and nine, Mr Boffin. Chapter eight. Contents of chapter,
“His birth and estate. His garments and outward appearance. Miss Dancer
and her feminine graces. The Miser’s Mansion. The finding of a treasure.
The Story of the Mutton Pies. A Miser’s Idea of Death. Bob, the Miser’s
cur. Griffiths and his Master. How to turn a penny. A substitute for a
Fire. The Advantages of keeping a Snuff-box. The Miser dies without a
Shirt. The Treasures of a Dunghill—”’
‘Eh? What’s that?’ demanded Mr Boffin.
‘“The Treasures,” sir,’ repeated Silas, reading very distinctly, ‘“of a
Dunghill.” Mr Venus, sir, would you obleege with the snuffers?’ This, to
secure attention to his adding with his lips only, ‘Mounds!’
Mr Boffin drew an arm-chair into the space where he stood, and said,
seating himself and slyly rubbing his hands:
‘Give us Dancer.’
Mr Wegg pursued the biography of that eminent man through its various
phases of avarice and dirt, through Miss Dancer’s death on a sick
regimen of cold dumpling, and through Mr Dancer’s keeping his rags
together with a hayband, and warming his dinner by sitting upon it, down
to the consolatory incident of his dying naked in a sack. After which he
read on as follows:
‘“The house, or rather the heap of ruins, in which Mr Dancer lived, and
which at his death devolved to the right of Captain Holmes, was a most
miserable, decayed building, for it had not been repaired for more than
half a century.”’
(Here Mr Wegg eyes his comrade and the room in which they sat: which had
not been repaired for a long time.)
‘“But though poor in external structure, the ruinous fabric was very
rich in the interior. It took many weeks to explore its whole contents;
and Captain Holmes found it a very agreeable task to dive into the
miser’s secret hoards.”’
(Here Mr Wegg repeated ‘secret hoards’, and pegged his comrade again.)
‘“One of Mr Dancer’s richest escretoires was found to be a dungheap in
the cowhouse; a sum but little short of two thousand five hundred
pounds was contained in this rich piece of manure; and in an old jacket,
carefully tied, and strongly nailed down to the manger, in bank notes
and gold were found five hundred pounds more.”’
(Here Mr Wegg’s wooden leg started forward under the table, and slowly
elevated itself as he read on.)
‘“Several bowls were discovered filled with guineas and half-guineas;
and at different times on searching the corners of the house they found
various parcels of bank notes. Some were crammed into the crevices of
the wall”’;
(Here Mr Venus looked at the wall.)
‘“Bundles were hid under the cushions and covers of the chairs”’;