CHAPTER LXXIV
MR. JORROCKS TAKING HIS OTIUM CUM DIGGING A TATY
Next day saw Mr. Bowker and Charley hansoming it to Hoxton to see Mr. Jorrocks, for it was the unanimous opinion of all the common law clerks with whom Bowker associated, that the verdict could not be sustained. Indeed, Mr. Shoestring, Serjeant Mustymug’s clerk, contended that all people were more or less mad on some subject or other, and that it would be quite as consistent to shop Mr. Catchball for constant cricketing, or Mr. Troller for fishing, as Mr. Jorrocks for hunting. Altogether, this great legal luminary, a far greater man than his master, was of opinion that the verdict would not hold water. An application to the Chancellor was recommended.
After much parleying and bullying from Mr. Bowker, and liberal allusion to Mr. Perceval, and the Lunatics’ Friend Society, they at length got admission, and found our old friend much as a pent-up fox-hunter might be expected to be. He had been digging potatoes in the garden, and as they had deprived him of his wig, he had supplied its place with a red pocket-handkerchief.
“Now this is werry kind o’ you!” exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks, running to receive them, “werry kind indeed,” continued he, jumping about on one leg, exhibiting a pair of clogs in which he had been digging; “these are most comfortless quarters. I’ve had nobody to talk to,” continued he, “since I came here, except you poor booby among the cabbages, and a most uneasy companion he is. Thinks he’s made o’ glass, and that the buoys are shyin’ stones at him. I tells him, he’d better be mad upon ’unting than mad upon such nonsense as that—haw! haw! haw! But come, sit down—make yourselves at ’ome, in fact, and tell me the news o’ the willage.—Trade brisk or only middlin’?”
Thus Mr. Jorrocks rattled on in his usual strain, first on one subject, then on another, and not always waiting for an answer to his questions.
Of course Dr.—— maintained he was mad. He had lucid intervals certainly, but as soon as ever the subject of hunting was mentioned, off he went at a tangent. Charles said he had seen many men that way, and the doctor’s eyes glistened, for he thought he’d like to fill his house with them: call it the “United Fox-hunters’ Asylum,” or some such name.
Mr. Bowker rather disconcerted him when he hinted that he would like the Chancellor to see Mr. Jorrocks; and when he proclaimed himself to be a gentleman of the law, and talked about a “habeas corpus,” the doctor’s countenance fell amazingly.
After much shuffling backwards and forwards work, many protestations from the mad doctor, that the indiscretion of his friends would very materially retard, if not altogether prevent, Mr. Jorrocks’s recovery, the solicitors at length agreed upon requesting a private examination by the Chancellor, which was kindly vouchsafed, his lordship having been struck by the perusal of the proceedings as published in the newspapers, and having, moreover, some little curiosity to see the distinguished subject of the inquiry.
Accordingly it was arranged that Mr. Jorrocks should wait in his lordship’s private room for the rising of his court. Thither our friend went, accompanied only by his partner, Mr. Simpkins, and Charley Stobbs. Mr. Bowker presented them with great dignity to the usher, ‘and returned to old Twister. The court sat late. His lordship’s train-bearer lent them a newspaper, and, stirring the fire, advised them to sit round, and make themselves comfortable.
Accordingly they did.
Several people looked in upon them;—a footman, an usher, a laundress, but nobody seemed inclined to stay.
Towards dusk a gentleman, with a singularly pleasing expression of countenance, who seemed more at home in the apartment than any of his predecessors had been, entered the room.
“Is Mr. Jorrocks here?” asked he, after surveying the party by the fire.
“Mr. Jorrocks is here!” replied our hero, getting up.
“Don’t let me disturb you, pray,” rejoined the gentleman, bowing, and motioning Mr. Jorrocks to be seated. Our friend, however, being up, took a coatlap over each arm, and turning his back to the fire, confronted the enterer.
“Coolish evening, this, Mr. Jorrocks,” observed the gentleman, rubbing his hands as he approached the fire; “I hope your accommodation is comfortable at Hoxton?”
“Anything but,” replied Mr. Jorrocks; “at least I shall be werry glad to let you have it if you like. Can’t even get a seidletz-pooder without an order from the Chancellor.”
The gentleman smiled. “Rather be in the City, perhaps, among your bills and your books;—do you know how the funds are?”
“Indeed I don’t,” replied Mr. Jorrocks; “consols were at ninety-two and a quarter when they shopped me; don’t know what they may be now, wot with the weather and Nicholas Rumenough’s wagaries,” adding half to himself and half to his interrogator, “wish I could send Pigg over to fight him.”
“You understand money matters, I suppose,” observed the gentleman. “Can you tell me the difference between discount and interest?”
“I should think so,” replied Mr. Jorrocks. “Catch a merchant not understandin’ that. Discount’s a premium paid in ’and for the loan of money for a time yet to come, and the chap wot gets the discount can lend the discount out again, while the chap wot gets the interest has to wait his time afore he has it to lend.”
“They feed you pretty well where you are, I suppose?”
Mr. Jorrocks.—“Tol-lol—mutton! mutton! toujours mutton, as we say in France.”
“What! mutton every day? Can you tell me how many legs a sheep has?”
“Dead or alive?” inquired Mr. Jorrocks.
“They say you are mad about hunting, I understand,” observed the gentleman after a laugh at Mr Jorrocks’s acuteness.
“Ah,—’unting’s the thing,” exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks—“the sport of kings—but, however, never mind, we won’t talk about that,” added he, checking himself, and saying, “I wish the old gentleman would come.”
“I suppose hunting’s a fine amusement,” observed the gentleman, after a pause. “Did you ever hunt with the stag-hounds?”
“Once,” replied Mr. Jorrocks. “Once, I should think, would be enough for anybody.”
“How so? I thought they were popular.”
“They may, but I thinks nothin’ of them. The fox is the thing! Confound it! There goes,” observed Mr. Jorrocks aloud to himself.—“Well, never mind, I’ll tell you something,” continued he, after a pause—“’Unting exemplifies wot the grammarians call the three degrees of comparison:—stag ’unting is positively bad, ’are-’unting is comparatively good, and fox-’unting superlatively so. There’s a wrinkle for ye! Haw! haw! haw! I’ll give ye another,” continued he, “as you seem a goodish sort o’ chap. If ever you keep ’ounds,” said he, putting his forefinger to his nose and winking his right eye, “if ever you keep ’ounds, always ’ave a year’s meal in advance. Old goes ’alf as far again as new.”
“Your lordship’s carriage is at the door,” announced a footman in undress livery.
“My vig!” exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks, starting; “have I been talking all this nonsense to the Chancellor? Oh, dear! oh, dear!” continued he, wringing his hands and stamping, “wot a confounded old jackass I am. Dash my vig! I don’t think I shall ever grow wiser.”
“Don’t alarm yourself, my good friend,” observed the Chancellor, mildly; “I am glad to have seen you in this way, for it has given me an opportunity of judging how you are. You may be an enthusiast; but I think, sir,” turning to the doctor, “Mr. Jorrocks seems perfectly able to do without your assistance, and I should recommend your letting him go home quietly from here.” So saying, his lordship bowed and retired.
“Dash my vig! but that’s somethin’ like a Chancellor!” exclaimed Mr. Jorrocks, as his lordship got out of hearing; and seizing the mad doctor with one hand, and desiring Charley to take him by the other, they danced three reels with him, till the mad doctor could dance no longer. Mr. Jorrocks then having kicked out the mad doctor’s hat-crown, politely placed the remains on his head and shoved him out of the door. Joining arms with Bowker, who had now returned, and Stobbs, he then strutted away most consequentially for Great Coram Street—just as they did on the first night of Charles’s introduction.
“Now,” said he, when he got to the Hunter Street turn, producing his sneck-key as he spoke, “we’ll give ’em an agreeable surprise.”
Having arrived at the Great Coram Street door, he gently opened the latch, and motioning them to enter on tiptoe, as quietly closed the door after him.
There was a solitary candle in the passage, and a strong smell of dinner below. Knives and forks were going in the parlour.
He gently opened the door. There sat Mrs. Jorrocks, in a fine red and gold turban, at the top of the table, Belinda with her back to the door, and Captain Doleful in the host’s chair, in the act of diving a fork into the breast of a boiled turkey.—“Holloa! you old bald-faced baboon!” roared Mr. Jorrocks, an exclamation that caused Captain Doleful to drop his fork, his whiskers to fall from his face, and Mrs. Jorrocks to swoon on the floor.
Jorrocks then installed himself in his rightful position, and insisted on Doleful staying to see “’ow ’appy they would all be.” And werry ’appy J. got, so ’appy that he didn’t know when Doleful went away, or how he got to bed himself.
Doleful was desperately dejected, and took to his bed at Handley Cross as if he would never leave it again. At last he got up, but only to fall into another snare. Let us take a fresh chapter to detail it in.
