Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit

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'Oh! I'm pretty well,' said Poll. 'Are you living at this end of the
town, or were you coming to see me? Was that the bis'ness that brought
you to Holborn?'

'I haven't got no bis'ness in Holborn,' returned Bailey, with some
displeasure. 'All my bis'ness lays at the West End. I've got the right
sort of governor now. You can't see his face for his whiskers, and can't
see his whiskers for the dye upon 'em. That's a gentleman ain't it? You
wouldn't like a ride in a cab, would you? Why, it wouldn't be safe to
offer it. You'd faint away, only to see me a-comin' at a mild trot round
the corner.'

To convey a slight idea of the effect of this approach, Mr Bailey
counterfeited in his own person the action of a high-trotting horse and
threw up his head so high, in backing against a pump, that he shook his
hat off.

'Why, he's own uncle to Capricorn,' said Bailey, 'and brother to
Cauliflower. He's been through the winders of two chaney shops since
we've had him, and was sold for killin' his missis. That's a horse, I
hope?'

'Ah! you'll never want to buy any more red polls, now,' observed Poll,
looking on his young friend with an air of melancholy. 'You'll never
want to buy any more red polls now, to hang up over the sink, will you?'

'I should think not,' replied Bailey. 'Reether so. I wouldn't have
nothin' to say to any bird below a Peacock; and HE'd be wulgar. Well,
how are you?'

'Oh! I'm pretty well,' said Poll. He answered the question again because
Mr Bailey asked it again; Mr Bailey asked it again, because--accompanied
with a straddling action of the white cords, a bend of the knees, and a
striking forth of the top-boots--it was an easy horse-fleshy, turfy sort
of thing to do.

'Wot are you up to, old feller?' added Mr Bailey, with the same graceful
rakishness. He was quite the man-about-town of the conversation, while
the easy-shaver was the child.

'Why, I am going to fetch my lodger home,' said Paul.

'A woman!' cried Mr Bailey, 'for a twenty-pun' note!'

The little barber hastened to explain that she was neither a young
woman, nor a handsome woman, but a nurse, who had been acting as a kind
of house-keeper to a gentleman for some weeks past, and left her place
that night, in consequence of being superseded by another and a more
legitimate house-keeper--to wit, the gentleman's bride.

'He's newly married, and he brings his young wife home to-night,' said
the barber. 'So I'm going to fetch my lodger away--Mr Chuzzlewit's,
close behind the Post Office--and carry her box for her.'

'Jonas Chuzzlewit's?' said Bailey.

'Ah!' returned Paul: 'that's the name sure enough. Do you know him?'

'Oh, no!' cried Mr Bailey; 'not at all. And I don't know her! Not
neither! Why, they first kept company through me, a'most.'

'Ah?' said Paul.

'Ah!' said Mr Bailey, with a wink; 'and she ain't bad looking mind you.
But her sister was the best. SHE was the merry one. I often used to have
a bit of fun with her, in the hold times!'

Mr Bailey spoke as if he already had a leg and three-quarters in
the grave, and this had happened twenty or thirty years ago. Paul
Sweedlepipe, the meek, was so perfectly confounded by his precocious
self-possession, and his patronizing manner, as well as by his boots,
cockade, and livery, that a mist swam before his eyes, and he saw--not
the Bailey of acknowledged juvenility from Todgers's Commercial
Boarding House, who had made his acquaintance within a twelvemonth,
by purchasing, at sundry times, small birds at twopence each--but a
highly-condensed embodiment of all the sporting grooms in London; an
abstract of all the stable-knowledge of the time; a something at a
high-pressure that must have had existence many years, and was fraught
with terrible experiences. And truly, though in the cloudy atmosphere
of Todgers's, Mr Bailey's genius had ever shone out brightly in this
particular respect, it now eclipsed both time and space, cheated
beholders of their senses, and worked on their belief in defiance of all
natural laws. He walked along the tangible and real stones of Holborn
Hill, an undersized boy; and yet he winked the winks, and thought the
thoughts, and did the deeds, and said the sayings of an ancient man.
There was an old principle within him, and a young surface without. He
became an inexplicable creature; a breeched and booted Sphinx. There was
no course open to the barber, but to go distracted himself, or to take
Bailey for granted; and he wisely chose the latter.

Mr Bailey was good enough to continue to bear him company, and to
entertain him, as they went, with easy conversation on various sporting
topics; especially on the comparative merits, as a general principle, of
horses with white stockings, and horses without. In regard to the style
of tail to be preferred, Mr Bailey had opinions of his own, which he
explained, but begged they might by no means influence his friend's,
as here he knew he had the misfortune to differ from some excellent
authorities. He treated Mr Sweedlepipe to a dram, compounded agreeably
to his own directions, which he informed him had been invented by a
member of the Jockey Club; and, as they were by this time near the
barber's destination, he observed that, as he had an hour to spare, and
knew the parties, he would, if quite agreeable, be introduced to Mrs
Gamp.

Paul knocked at Jonas Chuzzlewit's; and, on the door being opened by
that lady, made the two distinguished persons known to one another. It
was a happy feature in Mrs Gamp's twofold profession, that it gave her
an interest in everything that was young as well as in everything that
was old. She received Mr Bailey with much kindness.

'It's very good, I'm sure, of you to come,' she said to her landlord,
'as well as bring so nice a friend. But I'm afraid that I must trouble
you so far as to step in, for the young couple has not yet made
appearance.'

'They're late, ain't they?' inquired her landlord, when she had
conducted them downstairs into the kitchen.

'Well, sir, considern' the Wings of Love, they are,' said Mrs Gamp.

Mr Bailey inquired whether the Wings of Love had ever won a plate, or
could be backed to do anything remarkable; and being informed that it
was not a horse, but merely a poetical or figurative expression, evinced
considerable disgust. Mrs Gamp was so very much astonished by his
affable manners and great ease, that she was about to propound to her
landlord in a whisper the staggering inquiry, whether he was a man or
a boy, when Mr Sweedlepipe, anticipating her design, made a timely
diversion.

'He knows Mrs Chuzzlewit,' said Paul aloud.

'There's nothin' he don't know; that's my opinion,' observed Mrs Gamp.
'All the wickedness of the world is Print to him.'

Mr Bailey received this as a compliment, and said, adjusting his cravat,
'reether so.'

'As you knows Mrs Chuzzlewit, you knows, p'raps, what her chris'en name
is?' Mrs Gamp observed.

'Charity,' said Bailey.

'That it ain't!' cried Mrs Gamp.

'Cherry, then,' said Bailey. 'Cherry's short for it. It's all the same.'

'It don't begin with a C at all,' retorted Mrs Gamp, shaking her head.
'It begins with a M.'

'Whew!' cried Mr Bailey, slapping a little cloud of pipe-clay out of his
left leg, 'then he's been and married the merry one!'

As these words were mysterious, Mrs Gamp called upon him to explain,
which Mr Bailey proceeded to do; that lady listening greedily to
everything he said. He was yet in the fullness of his narrative when the
sound of wheels, and a double knock at the street door, announced the
arrival of the newly married couple. Begging him to reserve what more he
had to say for her hearing on the way home, Mrs Gamp took up the candle,
and hurried away to receive and welcome the young mistress of the house.

'Wishing you appiness and joy with all my art,' said Mrs Gamp, dropping
a curtsey as they entered the hall; 'and you, too, sir. Your lady looks
a little tired with the journey, Mr Chuzzlewit, a pretty dear!'

'She has bothered enough about it,' grumbled Mr Jonas. 'Now, show a
light, will you?'

'This way, ma'am, if you please,' said Mrs Gamp, going upstairs before
them. 'Things has been made as comfortable as they could be, but there's
many things you'll have to alter your own self when you gets time
to look about you! Ah! sweet thing! But you don't,' added Mrs Gamp,
internally, 'you don't look much like a merry one, I must say!'

It was true; she did not. The death that had gone before the bridal
seemed to have left its shade upon the house. The air was heavy and
oppressive; the rooms were dark; a deep gloom filled up every chink and
corner. Upon the hearthstone, like a creature of ill omen, sat the aged
clerk, with his eyes fixed on some withered branches in the stove. He
rose and looked at her.

'So there you are, Mr Chuff,' said Jonas carelessly, as he dusted his
boots; 'still in the land of the living, eh?'

'Still in the land of the living, sir,' retorted Mrs Gamp. 'And Mr
Chuffey may thank you for it, as many and many a time I've told him.'

Mr Jonas was not in the best of humours, for he merely said, as he
looked round, 'We don't want you any more, you know, Mrs Gamp.'

'I'm a-going immediate, sir,' returned the nurse; 'unless there's
nothink I can do for you, ma'am. Ain't there,' said Mrs Gamp, with
a look of great sweetness, and rummaging all the time in her pocket;
'ain't there nothink I can do for you, my little bird?'

'No,' said Merry, almost crying. 'You had better go away, please!'

With a leer of mingled sweetness and slyness; with one eye on the
future, one on the bride, and an arch expression in her face, partly
spiritual, partly spirituous, and wholly professional and peculiar
to her art; Mrs Gamp rummaged in her pocket again, and took from it a
printed card, whereon was an inscription copied from her signboard.

'Would you be so good, my darling dovey of a dear young married lady,'
Mrs Gamp observed, in a low voice, 'as put that somewheres where you can
keep it in your mind? I'm well beknown to many ladies, and it's my card.
Gamp is my name, and Gamp my nater. Livin' quite handy, I will make
so bold as call in now and then, and make inquiry how your health and
spirits is, my precious chick!'

And with innumerable leers, winks, coughs, nods, smiles, and curtseys,
all leading to the establishment of a mysterious and confidential
understanding between herself and the bride, Mrs Gamp, invoking a
blessing upon the house, leered, winked, coughed, nodded, smiled, and
curtseyed herself out of the room.

'But I will say, and I would if I was led a Martha to the Stakes for
it,' Mrs Gamp remarked below stairs, in a whisper, 'that she don't look
much like a merry one at this present moment of time.'

'Ah! wait till you hear her laugh!' said Bailey.

'Hem!' cried Mrs Gamp, in a kind of groan. 'I will, child.'

They said no more in the house, for Mrs Gamp put on her bonnet, Mr
Sweedlepipe took up her box; and Mr Bailey accompanied them towards
Kingsgate Street; recounting to Mrs Gamp as they went along, the origin
and progress of his acquaintance with Mrs Chuzzlewit and her sister. It
was a pleasant instance of this youth's precocity, that he fancied Mrs
Gamp had conceived a tenderness for him, and was much tickled by her
misplaced attachment.

As the door closed heavily behind them, Mrs Jonas sat down in a chair,
and felt a strange chill creep upon her, whilst she looked about the
room. It was pretty much as she had known it, but appeared more dreary.
She had thought to see it brightened to receive her.

'It ain't good enough for you, I suppose?' said Jonas, watching her
looks.

'Why, it IS dull,' said Merry, trying to be more herself.

'It'll be duller before you're done with it,' retorted Jonas, 'if you
give me any of your airs. You're a nice article, to turn sulky on first
coming home! Ecod, you used to have life enough, when you could plague
me with it. The gal's downstairs. Ring the bell for supper, while I take
my boots off!'

She roused herself from looking after him as he left the room, to do
what he had desired; when the old man Chuffey laid his hand softly on
her arm.

'You are not married?' he said eagerly. 'Not married?'

'Yes. A month ago. Good Heaven, what is the matter?'

He answered nothing was the matter; and turned from her. But in her fear
and wonder, turning also, she saw him raise his trembling hands above
his head, and heard him say:

'Oh! woe, woe, woe, upon this wicked house!'

It was her welcome--HOME.



CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN

SHOWING THAT OLD FRIENDS MAY NOT ONLY APPEAR WITH NEW FACES, BUT IN
FALSE COLOURS. THAT PEOPLE ARE PRONE TO BITE, AND THAT BITERS MAY
SOMETIMES BE BITTEN.


Mr Bailey, Junior--for the sporting character, whilom of general utility
at Todgers's, had now regularly set up in life under that name, without
troubling himself to obtain from the legislature a direct licence in
the form of a Private Bill, which of all kinds and classes of bills
is without exception the most unreasonable in its charges--Mr Bailey,
Junior, just tall enough to be seen by an inquiring eye, gazing
indolently at society from beneath the apron of his master's cab, drove
slowly up and down Pall Mall, about the hour of noon, in waiting for his
'Governor.' The horse of distinguished family, who had Capricorn for his
nephew, and Cauliflower for his brother, showed himself worthy of his
high relations by champing at the bit until his chest was white with
foam, and rearing like a horse in heraldry; the plated harness and the
patent leather glittered in the sun; pedestrians admired; Mr Bailey was
complacent, but unmoved. He seemed to say, 'A barrow, good people, a
mere barrow; nothing to what we could do, if we chose!' and on he went,
squaring his short green arms outside the apron, as if he were hooked on
to it by his armpits.

Mr Bailey had a great opinion of Brother to Cauliflower, and estimated
his powers highly. But he never told him so. On the contrary, it was his
practice, in driving that animal, to assail him with disrespectful,
if not injurious, expressions, as, 'Ah! would you!' 'Did you think
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
to yourself, and that nobody can run any risk by the transaction except
the office, which, in its great liberality is pretty sure to lose. And
this, David Crimple, Esquire, submits to you (and the odds are heavy you
believe him), is the best guarantee that can reasonably be suggested by
the Board of Management for its permanence and stability.