Part 51 (1/2)

Mr Boffin eyed him as a dog might eye another dog who wanted his bone; and actually retorted with a low growl, as the dog might have retorted.

'Good-night,' he said, after having sunk into a moody silence, with his hands clasped behind him, and his eyes suspiciously wandering about Wegg.--'No! stop there. I know the way out, and I want no light.'

Avarice, and the evening's legends of avarice, and the inflammatory effect of what he had seen, and perhaps the rush of his ill-conditioned blood to his brain in his descent, wrought Silas Wegg to such a pitch of insatiable appet.i.te, that when the door closed he made a swoop at it and drew Venus along with him.

'He mustn't go,' he cried. 'We mustn't let him go? He has got that bottle about him. We must have that bottle.'

'Why, you wouldn't take it by force?' said Venus, restraining him.

'Wouldn't I? Yes I would. I'd take it by any force, I'd have it at any price! Are you so afraid of one old man as to let him go, you coward?'

'I am so afraid of you, as not to let YOU go,' muttered Venus, st.u.r.dily, clasping him in his arms.

'Did you hear him?' retorted Wegg. 'Did you hear him say that he was resolved to disappoint us? Did you hear him say, you cur, that he was going to have the Mounds cleared off, when no doubt the whole place will be rummaged? If you haven't the spirit of a mouse to defend your rights, I have. Let me go after him.'

As in his wildness he was making a strong struggle for it, Mr Venus deemed it expedient to lift him, throw him, and fall with him; well knowing that, once down, he would not be up again easily with his wooden leg. So they both rolled on the floor, and, as they did so, Mr Boffin shut the gate.

Chapter 7.

THE FRIENDLY MOVE TAKES UP A STRONG POSITION.

The friendly movers sat upright on the floor, panting and eyeing one another, after Mr Boffin had slammed the gate and gone away. In the weak eyes of Venus, and in every reddish dust-coloured hair in his shock of hair, there was a marked distrust of Wegg and an alertness to fly at him on perceiving the smallest occasion. In the hard-grained face of Wegg, and in his stiff knotty figure (he looked like a German wooden toy), there was expressed a politic conciliation, which had no spontaneity in it. Both were flushed, fl.u.s.tered, and rumpled, by the late scuffle; and Wegg, in coming to the ground, had received a humming knock on the back of his devoted head, which caused him still to rub it with an air of having been highly--but disagreeably--astonished. Each was silent for some time, leaving it to the other to begin.

'Brother,' said Wegg, at length breaking the silence, 'you were right, and I was wrong. I forgot myself.'

Mr Venus knowingly c.o.c.ked his shock of hair, as rather thinking Mr Wegg had remembered himself, in respect of appearing without any disguise.

'But comrade,' pursued Wegg, 'it was never your lot to know Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, nor Uncle Parker.'

Mr Venus admitted that he had never known those distinguished persons, and added, in effect, that he had never so much as desired the honour of their acquaintance.

'Don't say that, comrade!' retorted Wegg: 'No, don't say that! Because, without having known them, you never can fully know what it is to be stimilated to frenzy by the sight of the Usurper.'

Offering these excusatory words as if they reflected great credit on himself, Mr Wegg impelled himself with his hands towards a chair in a corner of the room, and there, after a variety of awkward gambols, attained a perpendicular position. Mr Venus also rose.

'Comrade,' said Wegg, 'take a seat. Comrade, what a speaking countenance is yours!'

Mr Venus involuntarily smoothed his countenance, and looked at his hand, as if to see whether any of its speaking properties came off.

'For clearly do I know, mark you,' pursued Wegg, pointing his words with his forefinger, 'clearly do I know what question your expressive features puts to me.'

'What question?' said Venus.

'The question,' returned Wegg, with a sort of joyful affability, 'why I didn't mention sooner, that I had found something. Says your speaking countenance to me: ”Why didn't you communicate that, when I first come in this evening? Why did you keep it back till you thought Mr Boffin had come to look for the article?” Your speaking countenance,' said Wegg, 'puts it plainer than language. Now, you can't read in my face what answer I give?'

'No, I can't,' said Venus.

'I knew it! And why not?' returned Wegg, with the same joyful candour. 'Because I lay no claims to a speaking countenance. Because I am well aware of my deficiencies. All men are not gifted alike. But I can answer in words. And in what words? These. I wanted to give you a delightful sap--pur--IZE!'

Having thus elongated and emphasized the word Surprise, Mr Wegg shook his friend and brother by both hands, and then clapped him on both knees, like an affectionate patron who entreated him not to mention so small a service as that which it had been his happy privilege to render.

'Your speaking countenance,' said Wegg, 'being answered to its satisfaction, only asks then, ”What have you found?” Why, I hear it say the words!'

'Well?' retorted Venus snappishly, after waiting in vain. 'If you hear it say the words, why don't you answer it?'

'Hear me out!' said Wegg. 'I'm a-going to. Hear me out! Man and brother, partner in feelings equally with undertakings and actions, I have found a cash-box.'

'Where?'

'--Hear me out!' said Wegg. (He tried to reserve whatever he could, and, whenever disclosure was forced upon him, broke into a radiant gush of Hear me out.) 'On a certain day, sir--'

'When?' said Venus bluntly.

'N--no,' returned Wegg, shaking his head at once observantly, thoughtfully, and playfully. 'No, sir! That's not your expressive countenance which asks that question. That's your voice; merely your voice. To proceed. On a certain day, sir, I happened to be walking in the yard--taking my lonely round--for in the words of a friend of my own family, the author of All's Well arranged as a duett: ”Deserted, as you will remember Mr Venus, by the waning moon, When stars, it will occur to you before I mention it, proclaim night's cheerless noon, On tower, fort, or tented ground, The sentry walks his lonely round, The sentry walks:”

--under those circ.u.mstances, sir, I happened to be walking in the yard early one afternoon, and happened to have an iron rod in my hand, with which I have been sometimes accustomed to beguile the monotony of a literary life, when I struck it against an object not necessary to trouble you by naming--'

'It is necessary. What object?' demanded Venus, in a wrathful tone.

'--Hear me out!' said Wegg. 'The Pump.--When I struck it against the Pump, and found, not only that the top was loose and opened with a lid, but that something in it rattled. That something, comrade, I discovered to be a small flat oblong cash-box. Shall I say it was disappointingly light?'

'There were papers in it,' said Venus.

'There your expressive countenance speaks indeed!' cried Wegg. 'A paper. The box was locked, tied up, and sealed, and on the outside was a parchment label, with the writing, ”MY WILL, JOHN HARMON, TEMPORARILY DEPOSITED HERE.”'

'We must know its contents,' said Venus.

'--Hear me out!' cried Wegg. 'I said so, and I broke the box open.

'Without coming to me!' exclaimed Venus.

'Exactly so, sir!' returned Wegg, blandly and buoyantly. 'I see I take you with me! Hear, hear, hear! Resolved, as your discriminating good sense perceives, that if you was to have a sap--pur--IZE, it should be a complete one! Well, sir. And so, as you have honoured me by antic.i.p.ating, I examined the doc.u.ment. Regularly executed, regularly witnessed, very short. Inasmuch as he has never made friends, and has ever had a rebellious family, he, John Harmon, gives to Nicodemus Boffin the Little Mound, which is quite enough for him, and gives the whole rest and residue of his property to the Crown.'

'The date of the will that has been proved, must be looked to,' remarked Venus. 'It may be later than this one.'

'--Hear me out!' cried Wegg. 'I said so. I paid a s.h.i.+lling (never mind your sixpence of it) to look up that will. Brother, that will is dated months before this will. And now, as a fellow-man, and as a partner in a friendly move,' added Wegg, benignantly taking him by both hands again, and clapping him on both knees again, 'say have I completed my labour of love to your perfect satisfaction, and are you sap--pur--IZED?'

Mr Venus contemplated his fellow-man and partner with doubting eyes, and then rejoined stiffly: 'This is great news indeed, Mr Wegg. There's no denying it. But I could have wished you had told it me before you got your fright to-night, and I could have wished you had ever asked me as your partner what we were to do, before you thought you were dividing a responsibility.'

'--Hear me out!' cried Wegg. 'I knew you was a-going to say so. But alone I bore the anxiety, and alone I'll bear the blame!' This with an air of great magnanimity.

'No,' said Venus. 'Let's see this will and this box.'

'Do I understand, brother,' returned Wegg with considerable reluctance, 'that it is your wish to see this will and this--?'

Mr Venus smote the table with his hand.