Volume I Part 8 (1/2)
Mrs. Pamflett took him into the kitchen and explained. He was to enter Miser Farebrother's service, she said, if the miser approved of him.
The miser was in bed upstairs, laid up with lumbago, and Jeremiah was to be very polite and civil, and not to mind if the miser flew out at him.
This caused Jeremiah to exclaim: ”Oh, come, mother, I'm not going to be bullied. I wouldn't stand it from a man twice my size!”
Mrs. Pamflett expressed her admiration of his courage, but said he must keep himself in. Miser Farebrother was ”touchy,” because he was in such pain. If Jeremiah was engaged, he was to sleep in the office in London, and if he was steady and attentive he might become the sole manager of Miser Farebrother's business in the course of a few years, and--who knows?--perhaps a partner. She said a great deal more than this to her young hopeful, and she made him thoroughly understand how the land lay.
”And now come up with me,” she said. ”I will show you into his room.”
”But, I say,” expostulated Jeremiah, looking greedily at the saucepans on the fire, from one of which an appetizing flavour was escaping, ”ain't you going to give me anything to eat?”
”When you come down, Jeremiah,” she replied, ”I'll have a nice dinner for you. Can't you smell it?”
The conformation of Jeremiah Pamflett's pug-nose became accentuated by reason of its owner giving half a dozen vigorous sniffs, and having thus tasted the pleasures of hope he followed his mother upstairs to Miser Farebrother's bedroom. The miser was in bed, groaning in his night-cap, and pouring out imprecations upon fate. Mrs. Pamflett a.s.sisted him into the easiest posture, and he c.o.c.ked his eye at Jeremiah, who had suddenly become very humble and subservient. He was the personification of meekness as he stood in the presence of the queer-looking night-capped figure in bed, gazing at him with eyes which seemed to pierce him through and through.
”So this is Jeremiah, is it?” he said.
Mrs. Pamflett smiled a beaming a.s.sent.
”Draw that table closer to the bed; now those sheets of paper; now the pen and ink; now the blotting-paper; now a chair for the lad. Go; leave us alone.”
The interview lasted an hour, at the end of which Jeremiah presented himself before his anxious mother with a sly look of self-satisfaction.
His first words were:
”Oh! but ain't he a scorcher? Cayenne pepper ain't in it with him. Talk of sharpness! Well, I thought I wasn't bad, but he licks Blue Peter. He put me through, I can tell you.”
”Are you engaged, Jeremiah?” asked Mrs. Pamflett, her fond hands about his clothes, setting them right. ”What questions did he ask you, and how did you answer them? Why don't you speak?”
”Shan't say a blessed word,” was the affectionate reply, ”till I've had something to eat. Serve up, mother; I'm as empty as a drum.”
Mrs. Pamflett obeyed, and set before him a dish of haricot sufficient for a young family. It was a special favourite with him, and he bestowed upon his mother the commendation that she was ”a tip-topper, and no flies about it,” which afforded her as much pleasure as an exhibition medal would have done. He washed down his copious meal with two gla.s.ses of ale, and throwing himself back in his chair, gave her an account of the interview. He had written no end of things at the miser's dictation--letters, threats of what would be done if certain sums of money were not forthcoming at stated times, and statements of conversations which he was supposed to be listening to without the clients being aware of it. Then he was set to calculate sums of great intricacy--to add up, to multiply, not only pounds, s.h.i.+llings and pence, but farthings and fractions of farthings. He performed these tasks to Miser Farebrother's satisfaction. ”I'm a regular dab at figures, you know,” said Jeremiah to his mother; and the end of it was that he was engaged, and that the miser had promised to make his fortune.
”I mean to make it, mother,” said Jeremiah.
”I shall live to see you ride in your carriage,” said she.
”I'll be able to afford it one day; but”--with a touch of shrewdness of which Miser Farebrother himself might have been proud--”it will be cheaper, don't you think, to ride in other people's?”
This made Mrs. Pamflett laugh, and she kissed him, and praised him for his cleverness. She wished him to remain with her the whole of the day; but he said he must get back to London, and after s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g two or three more s.h.i.+llings out of her, he bade her good-bye. She stood at the gates watching him till he was out of sight, sucking the k.n.o.b of his new walking-stick, and flouris.h.i.+ng it with an air. He was in the mood for enjoyment, and he was not at all in the hurry he expressed to get back to the metropolis. Meeting a small urchin in a lane, he bailed him up.
”What's your name, you scoundrel?” he said, setting the boy before him.
”Roger,” said the trembling lad, whose age might have been six, and was certainly not more.
Jeremiah gave him a violent shaking. ”Say 'sir'; say 'Roger, sir.'”
”Roger, sir.”
”Say it louder. If you cry, I'll chop you into little bits.”
”Roger, sir.”