Little Dorrit, Charles Dickens [big ebook reader txt] 📗

occupation of her son’s time, at the handsome rate of seven and sixpence per day. The proposal originated with himself, and was couched in the pithy terms, “If your John is weak enough, ma’am, not to take it, that is no reason why you should be, don’t you see? So, quite between ourselves, ma’am, business being business, here it is!”

What Mr. Chivery thought of these things, or how much or how little he knew about them, was never gathered from himself. It has been already remarked that he was a man of few words; and it may be here observed that he had imbibed a professional habit of locking everything up. He locked himself up as carefully as he locked up the Marshalsea debtors. Even his custom of bolting his meals may have been a part of an uniform whole; but there is no question, that, as to all other purposes, he kept his mouth as he kept the Marshalsea door. He never opened it without occasion. When it was necessary to let anything out, he opened it a little way, held it open just as long as sufficed for the purpose, and locked it again. Even as he would be sparing of his trouble at the Marshalsea door, and would keep a visitor who wanted to go out, waiting for a few moments if he saw another visitor coming down the yard, so that one turn of the key should suffice for both, similarly he would often reserve a remark if he perceived another on its way to his lips, and would deliver himself of the two together. As to any key to his inner knowledge being to be found in his face, the Marshalsea key was as legible as an index to the individual characters and histories upon which it was turned.

That Mr. Pancks should be moved to invite anyone to dinner at Pentonville, was an unprecedented fact in his calendar. But he invited Young John to dinner, and even brought him within range of the dangerous (because expensive) fascinations of Miss Rugg. The banquet was appointed for a Sunday, and Miss Rugg with her own hands stuffed a leg of mutton with oysters on the occasion, and sent it to the baker’s⁠—not the baker’s but an opposition establishment. Provision of oranges, apples, and nuts was also made. And rum was brought home by Mr. Pancks on Saturday night, to gladden the visitor’s heart.

The store of creature comforts was not the chief part of the visitor’s reception. Its special feature was a foregone family confidence and sympathy. When Young John appeared at half-past one without the ivory hand and waistcoat of golden sprigs, the sun shorn of his beams by disastrous clouds, Mr. Pancks presented him to the yellow-haired Ruggs as the young man he had so often mentioned who loved Miss Dorrit.

“I am glad,” said Mr. Rugg, challenging him specially in that character, “to have the distinguished gratification of making your acquaintance, sir. Your feelings do you honour. You are young; may you never outlive your feelings! If I was to outlive my own feelings, sir,” said Mr. Rugg, who was a man of many words, and was considered to possess a remarkably good address; “if I was to outlive my own feelings, I’d leave fifty pound in my will to the man who would put me out of existence.”

Miss Rugg heaved a sigh.

“My daughter, sir,” said Mr. Rugg. “Anastatia, you are no stranger to the state of this young man’s affections. My daughter has had her trials, sir”⁠—Mr. Rugg might have used the word more pointedly in the singular number⁠—“and she can feel for you.”

Young John, almost overwhelmed by the touching nature of this greeting, professed himself to that effect.

“What I envy you, sir, is,” said Mr. Rugg, “allow me to take your hat⁠—we are rather short of pegs⁠—I’ll put it in the corner, nobody will tread on it there⁠—What I envy you, sir, is the luxury of your own feelings. I belong to a profession in which that luxury is sometimes denied us.”

Young John replied, with acknowledgments, that he only hoped he did what was right, and what showed how entirely he was devoted to Miss Dorrit. He wished to be unselfish; and he hoped he was. He wished to do anything as laid in his power to serve Miss Dorrit, altogether putting himself out of sight; and he hoped he did. It was but little that he could do, but he hoped he did it.

“Sir,” said Mr. Rugg, taking him by the hand, “you are a young man that it does one good to come across. You are a young man that I should like to put in the witness-box, to humanise the minds of the legal profession. I hope you have brought your appetite with you, and intend to play a good knife and fork?”

“Thank you, sir,” returned Young John, “I don’t eat much at present.”

Mr. Rugg drew him a little apart. “My daughter’s case, sir,” said he, “at the time when, in vindication of her outraged feelings and her sex, she became the plaintiff in Rugg and Bawkins. I suppose I could have put it in evidence, Mr. Chivery, if I had thought it worth my while, that the amount of solid sustenance my daughter consumed at that period did not exceed ten ounces per week.”

“I think I go a little beyond that, sir,” returned the other, hesitating, as if he confessed it with some shame.

“But in your case there’s no fiend in human form,” said Mr. Rugg, with argumentative smile and action of hand. “Observe, Mr. Chivery! No fiend in human form!”

“No, sir, certainly,” Young John added with simplicity, “I should be very sorry if there was.”

“The sentiment,” said Mr. Rugg, “is what I should have expected from your known principles. It would affect my daughter greatly, sir, if she heard it. As I perceive the mutton, I am glad she didn’t hear it. Mr. Pancks, on this occasion, pray face me. My dear, face Mr. Chivery. For what we are going to receive, may we (and Miss