CHAPTER LXXIII

MR. BOWKER’S REFLECTIONS

“Thus conscience does make cowards of us all,” muttered Mr. Bowker;

continued he, pacing home from Lincoln’s Inn to Eagle Street.

The shades of night were drawing on. The gas men hurried from pillar to post; early shops were shutting up; and it was time to illumine the cigar divan for the genteel young people they were letting loose.

Mr. Bowker was unhappy—Prince Le Boo had not brought him the comfort he expected. The snuff-merchant was conscience-stricken—he had had no peace since he sold himself to Mrs. Jorrocks. Still he couldn’t help himself, nor could he help repeating the lines already quoted. Belinda, as he had often seen her at Mrs. Jorrocks’, appeared before him—so young, so—graceful, and so agreeable,—

Then he thought of Stobbs—recalled his first coming to chambers—his open, hearty manner—and, above all, how differently Charles treated him to the generality of old Twister’s pupils. What might he be doing then? Perhaps brooding over his misfortunes—racking his brain, to remember anything that had passed that could be construed into a promise of marriage.

“Why have I done all this?” asked Bill. “Oh, curse the day that saw me in the clutches of that old hag!” continued he, as his interview in Great Coram Street came to his recollection. “ ‘Who would fardels bear to groan and sweat beneath a weary life, but that—’ B—boy’s shoved the corner of the shutter right into the pit of my stomach!” exclaimed Bill, breaking off and doubling himself up. “Cursed little scamp!” added he, straightening himself, and seizing the boy by the cuff of the neck, and bastinadoing him with his cane. “What do you mean by flourishing your shutter about in that way?” Whereupon Bill gave the boy two or three more hearty whacks, and then kicked him into the hosier’s shop.

“Little unmitigated scamp!” continued Bill, hurrying on, muttering as he went, “By Jingo! it would have been just the same thing if I’d been the lord mayor.”

Fearing he might be followed, Bill cut on as quick as he could. He kept close to the wall, and rounded the corner into Red Lion Street at something between a walk and a run. Unfortunately, a gentleman had just stepped aside to tie his shoe-string, and Bill went a somerset over him with his face and hands in the kennel.

Great was the hubbub! Women screamed—dogs barked—men stood and laughed—and boys jumped about, cheered, and clapped their hands.

Bill was sadly damaged; both hands and one cheek were covered with mud, and his drab tights were split across the knees.

“Confound you, sir!” roared Bill, gathering himself up, and addressing the gentleman; “what the d—l did you do that for?”

“I was only tying my shoe-string!” replied a timid-looking little powdered man in black, eyeing Bill with unfeigned fear.

“Tying your shoe-string!” roared Bill; “d—n you, sir, you’re always tying your shoe-string. I’ve a deuced good mind to commit you for an assault!—Confounded good mind to commit you for an assault! By Jove, I will commit you for an assault! Hanged if I won’t commit you for an assault! What’s your name? I’ll send you to Newgate!”

Mr. Bowker’s temper was sadly ruffled. His neighbour Bullpit’s apprentice shouted and roared, and Mrs. Bowker even was graceless enough to laugh at him, as he entered his shop fresh from his fall; added to which, she had done no business during the day, and Mrs. Jorrocks had sent to say she wanted to see him again.

As he was purging himself from his contempt, as he called it, and beginning to regain his usual equanimity, a hansom cab, as these ugly things are called, rolled rapidly up the street, and, passing his door, pulled up short with a skate before his window.

“That’s here!” exclaimed Bill, from the back shop, where he was washing; “why don’t you light up, woman, and let our clients see where we live?” inquired he of his wife, hurrying on his night-coat and bustling behind the counter.

A youth in a dark mackintosh jumped out of the cab and entered the shop. The collar was up, but Bowker immediately recognized the hat and eyes.

“Did you get a letter from me?” inquired Charles, hastily, undoing the collar of his mackintosh as he spoke.

“No—yes—no,” replied Mr. Bowker, confusedly, “all right.”

“All right!—but it’s not all right,” repeated Charles,—“I think it’s all wrong. Who told Mrs. Jorrocks this confounded lie?”

“Mrs. Jorrocks!” repeated Mr. Bowker; “Mrs. Jorrocks—Mrs. Jorrocks—the old girl in Great Coram Street! Faith, I don’t know.”

“Real Havannahs, those, sir,” turning to a customer who had just entered the shop. “The ship only arrived the day before yesterday, and I took the whole cargo—two hundred ton in my warehouse. Thank ye, sir—want a case to put them in—great variety in the window—all prices. New one there!—Prince Albert in kilts, shooting in Scotland—most popular pattern—sold three dozen to-day—only five shillings. Thank you, sir. You don’t snuff, I suppose?—got some of the purest Lundyfoot I ever received—forty barrels—four hundred pounds worth, in fact!”

The customer did not, and therefore took his departure.

“Now, Bowker, tell me candidly,” said Charles, as soon as he was gone, “what all this means—tell me the worst at once.”

“Faith, I have no worst in the matter,” replied Bill; “you seem to know just as much about it as I do, if not more.”

“Nay, don’t say that—don’t deceive me—you’ve seen old mother Jorrocks—you’ve some idea what she’s driving at.”

Bill was silent.

“You know the story about Susan’s all made up.”

“Indeed I don’t,” replied Mr. Bowker, confidently—“Indeed I don’t—I’ve no reason to doubt my wife’s sister—none whatever. Quite the contrary.”

“Nay then!” exclaimed Charley, subsiding into a seat.

“Why, really,” replied Bill, looking very solemn, “I should be very happy to befriend you in any way in my power, but there’s an old saying, ‘blood’s stronger than water;’ and I must consider my wife’s sister first. Matrimony’s not so easily got over as a cane and rice fence, as poor old Jackey would say.”

“Stuff and nonsense,” growled Charles in disgust.

“Aye, stuff and nonsense, indeed,” retorted Mr. Bowker, “stop till you’ve had your nose at the matrimonial grindstone as long as I have, and you’ll know it’s not stuff and nonsense.”

“Come, old Bill,” exclaimed a well-musked youth in a blue Spanish cloak, with a profusion of ringlets and rings, “sarve me out a couple of your confounded dried cabbage-leaves, you brandy-faced, big-looming beggar.”

“Certainly, sir,” replied Bill, strewing a handful along the counter—“there’s no standing your insinuating manner! Your politeness exceeds your beauty. Those cigars, sir,—though I say it,—are not to be equalled.”

The youth lit one of them, and sticking his back against the counter, proceeded to draw long respirations, puffing out volleys of smoke at intervals. His great unmeaning eyes rested first on Prince Le Boo, then on the other nigger, next on Charles, then back on the Prince, then again on the nigger.

Mr. Bowker lighted the revolving fanlight in the window, which, with the gas on the counter, made a goodly illumination. He leaned with folded arms against the well-canistered shelves, and Charles seated himself on the make-believe snuff-barrel in which Mrs. Bowker kept her muff.

Bowker eyed Charles intently. Anguish had bleached his cheek, and there was a subdued melancholy in his dark eye that told of intense suffering.

“Rot it, Bill!” exclaimed the smoker, taking the cigar from his mouth, “what’s that rakish old nigger got his fisherman’s boots on for?”

“They’re not boots, they’re his black legs,” replied Mr. Bowker, snappishly. “Don’t you know that a nigger has black legs?” inquired he, in a tone of contempt.

“They look uncommon like boots by this light,” replied the smoker. “I wonder you don’t gild his toes to let people see what they are.”

“He’s not a candle-light beauty,” replied Mr. Bowker, carelessly.

The smoker threw open his cloak, and, jumping up, seated himself on the counter.

“You’re flat, old chap!” observed he to Bill, after a long puff—“no jump in you to-night—what’s the matter?”

“Bad toothache,” replied Mr. Bowker, putting his hand to his cheek.

“Poor beggar!” replied the customer, “why don’t you smoke one of your own cigars? It’ll either cure you or make you sick—come, accept the Chiltern Hundreds, and let’s off for the night—Coal Hole, Cider Cellar, Offley’s, or somewhere.”

“I think not, shall return myself for Bedfordshire before long,” replied Mr. Bowker, yawning and stretching his arms—most heartily wishing his customer gone.

In vain Mr. Bowker tried to get rid of him; the smoker was evidently one of those who consider to bacconists public property—bound to find conversation and house-room.

At length he went.

“Mr. Stobbs,” said Bowker hurriedly, as he passed round the counter where Charles sat, and laid his hand upon his arm. “Lend me your ear—I mean, let me have a word with you. You’ll think me a scoundrel, I dare say,” said he, his utterance almost choked, “but if you knew my necessities you’d pity me: I can’t bear to see the misery I’m creating. I know the story about Susan’s all my eye.”

Bill burst into tears.

“You don’t say so!” exclaimed Charles, brightening up; “what’s the meaning of it, then?”

Bowker, more composed, proceeded to tell him all. When he came to the end he got so excited, that seizing a wooden roll of pigtail off the counter, he aimed such a blow at Prince Le Boo’s head, as sent it flying through the milkman’s window on the opposite side of the street.