Hard Times, Charles Dickens [little red riding hood ebook txt] 📗

“Heard what?” said Harthouse, soothing his horse, and inwardly favouring Mr. Bounderby with no good wishes.

“Then you haven’t heard!”

“I have heard you, and so has this brute. I have heard nothing else.”

Mr. Bounderby, red and hot, planted himself in the centre of the path before the horse’s head, to explode his bombshell with more effect.

“The Bank’s robbed!”

“You don’t mean it!”

“Robbed last night, sir. Robbed in an extraordinary manner. Robbed with a false key.”

“Of much?”

Mr. Bounderby, in his desire to make the most of it, really seemed mortified by being obliged to reply, “Why, no; not of very much. But it might have been.”

“Of how much?”

“Oh! as a sum⁠—if you stick to a sum⁠—of not more than a hundred and fifty pound,” said Bounderby, with impatience. “But it’s not the sum; it’s the fact. It’s the fact of the Bank being robbed, that’s the important circumstance. I am surprised you don’t see it.”

“My dear Bounderby,” said James, dismounting, and giving his bridle to his servant, “I do see it; and am as overcome as you can possibly desire me to be, by the spectacle afforded to my mental view. Nevertheless, I may be allowed, I hope, to congratulate you⁠—which I do with all my soul, I assure you⁠—on your not having sustained a greater loss.”

“Thank’ee,” replied Bounderby, in a short, ungracious manner. “But I tell you what. It might have been twenty thousand pound.”

“I suppose it might.”

“Suppose it might! By the Lord, you may suppose so. By George!” said Mr. Bounderby, with sundry menacing nods and shakes of his head. “It might have been twice twenty. There’s no knowing what it would have been, or wouldn’t have been, as it was, but for the fellows’ being disturbed.”

Louisa had come up now, and Mrs. Sparsit, and Bitzer.

“Here’s Tom Gradgrind’s daughter knows pretty well what it might have been, if you don’t,” blustered Bounderby. “Dropped, sir, as if she was shot when I told her! Never knew her do such a thing before. Does her credit, under the circumstances, in my opinion!”

She still looked faint and pale. James Harthouse begged her to take his arm; and as they moved on very slowly, asked her how the robbery had been committed.

“Why, I am going to tell you,” said Bounderby, irritably giving his arm to Mrs. Sparsit. “If you hadn’t been so mighty particular about the sum, I should have begun to tell you before. You know this lady (for she is a lady), Mrs. Sparsit?”

“I have already had the honour⁠—”

“Very well. And this young man, Bitzer, you saw him too on the same occasion?” Mr. Harthouse inclined his head in assent, and Bitzer knuckled his forehead.

“Very well. They live at the Bank. You know they live at the Bank, perhaps? Very well. Yesterday afternoon, at the close of business hours, everything was put away as usual. In the iron room that this young fellow sleeps outside of, there was never mind how much. In the little safe in young Tom’s closet, the safe used for petty purposes, there was a hundred and fifty odd pound.”

“A hundred and fifty-four, seven, one,” said Bitzer.

“Come!” retorted Bounderby, stopping to wheel round upon him, “let’s have none of your interruptions. It’s enough to be robbed while you’re snoring because you’re too comfortable, without being put right with your four seven ones. I didn’t snore, myself, when I was your age, let me tell you. I hadn’t victuals enough to snore. And I didn’t four seven one. Not if I knew it.”

Bitzer knuckled his forehead again, in a sneaking manner, and seemed at once particularly impressed and depressed by the instance last given of Mr. Bounderby’s moral abstinence.

“A hundred and fifty odd pound,” resumed Mr. Bounderby. “That sum of money, young Tom locked in his safe, not a very strong safe, but that’s no matter now. Everything was left, all right. Some time in the night, while this young fellow snored⁠—Mrs. Sparsit, ma’am, you say you have heard him snore?”

“Sir,” returned Mrs. Sparsit, “I cannot say that I have heard him precisely snore, and therefore must not make that statement. But on winter evenings, when he has fallen asleep at his table, I have heard him, what I should prefer to describe as partially choke. I have heard him on such occasions produce sounds of a nature similar to what may be sometimes heard in Dutch clocks. Not,” said Mrs. Sparsit, with a lofty sense of giving strict evidence, “that I would convey any imputation on his moral character. Far from it. I have always considered Bitzer a young man of the most upright principle; and to that I beg to bear my testimony.”

“Well!” said the exasperated Bounderby, “while he was snoring, or choking, or Dutch-clocking, or something or other⁠—being asleep⁠—some fellows, somehow, whether previously concealed in the house or not remains to be seen, got to young Tom’s safe, forced it, and abstracted the contents. Being then disturbed, they made off; letting themselves out at the main door, and double-locking it again (it was double-locked, and the key under Mrs. Sparsit’s pillow) with a false key, which was picked up in the street near the Bank, about twelve o’clock today. No alarm takes place, till this chap, Bitzer, turns out this morning, and begins to open and prepare the offices for business. Then, looking at Tom’s safe, he sees the door ajar, and finds the lock forced, and the money gone.”

“Where is Tom, by the by?” asked Harthouse, glancing round.

“He has been helping the police,” said Bounderby, “and stays behind at the Bank. I wish these fellows had tried to rob me when I was at his time of life. They would have been out of pocket if they had invested eighteenpence in the job; I can tell ’em that.”

“Is anybody suspected?”

“Suspected? I should think there was somebody suspected. Egod!” said Bounderby, relinquishing Mrs. Sparsit’s arm to wipe his heated head. “Josiah Bounderby of Coketown is not to be plundered and nobody suspected. No, thank you!”

Might Mr. Harthouse inquire Who was suspected?

“Well,” said Bounderby, stopping and facing about to confront