Ten Thousand a-Year Volume I Part 4

"Good heavens, Mr. t.i.tmouse! how can you imagine it? Matters in some degree connected with one or two former members of your family, are at this moment the object of some little of our anxiety"----

"Not meaning it rudely, sir--please to tell me at once, plainly, am I to be the better for anything you're now about, or was that advertis.e.m.e.nt all fudge?"

"That may or may not be, sir," answered Mr. Gammon, in the same imperturbable manner, drawing on his gloves, and rising from his chair.

"In justice to yourself, and other parties concerned"----

"Oh! is anybody to _share_ in it?" exclaimed t.i.tmouse, alarmedly.

"I am sure," said Gammon, smiling, "that you will give us credit for consulting your best interests, if they should prove to be in any degree concerned in our present inquiries! We should, in that event, sincerely desire to advance them. But--it is _really_," looking at his watch, "upwards of an hour since we quitted your place of business--I fear I shall get into disgrace with that respectable gentleman, your employer.

Will you favor us with a call at our office to-morrow night, when the business of the day is over? When do you quit at night?"

"About half-past nine o'clock, sir; but really--to-morrow night!

Couldn't I come to-night, sir?"

"Not to-night, I fear, my dear sir. We have a very important engagement.

Let us say to-morrow night, at a quarter past ten--shall we say that hour?" inquired Mr. Gammon, with an imperative smile.

"Well, sir, if not before--yes--I'll be with you. But I _must_ say"---- quoth t.i.tmouse, with a sulky disconcerted air.

"Good-day, Mr. t.i.tmouse," said Mr. Gammon--they were by this time in Oxford Street again.--"Good-day, my dear sir--good-day--to-morrow night, as soon after ten as possible--eh? Good-by."

This was all that Mr. t.i.tmouse could get out of Mr. Gammon, who, hailing a coach off the stand beside them, got in, and it was soon making its way eastward. What a miserable mixture of doubts, hopes, and fears, had he left t.i.tmouse! He felt as if he were a squeezed orange; he had told everything he knew about himself, and got nothing in return out of the smooth, imperturbable, impenetrable Mr. Gammon, but empty civilities.--"Lord, Lord!" thought t.i.tmouse, as Mr. Gammon's coach turned the corner; "what would I give to know half about it that that gent knows! But Mr. Tag-rag! by Jove! what _will_ he say? It's struck twelve. I've been more than an hour away--and he gave me ten minutes!

Sha'n't I catch it?"

And he did. Almost the very first person whom he met, on entering the shop, was his respected employer; who, plucking his watch out of his fob, and looking furiously at it, motioned the trembling t.i.tmouse to follow him to the farther end of the long shop, where there happened to be then no customers.

"Is this your ten minutes, sir, eh?"

"I am sorry"----

"Where may you have been, sir, all this while?"

"With that gentleman, sir, and I really did not know"----

"You didn't know, sir! Who cares what you know, or don't know? _This_, at any rate, you know--that you ought to have been back fifty-five minutes ago, sir. You do, sir! Isn't your time my property, sir? Don't I pay for it, sir? An hour!--in the middle of the day! I've not had such a thing happen this five years! I'll stop it out of your salary, sir."

t.i.tmouse did not attempt to interrupt him.

"And pray what have you been gossiping about, sir, in this disgraceful manner?"

"Something that he wanted to say to me, sir."

"You low puppy!--do you suppose I don't see your impertinence? I _insist_, sir, on knowing what all this gossiping with that fellow has been about?"

"Then you _won't_ know, sir, that's flat!" replied t.i.tmouse, doggedly; returning to his usual station behind the counter.

"I _sha'n't_!!" exclaimed Mr. Tag-rag, almost aghast at the presumption of his inferior.

"No, sir, you _sha'n't_ know a single word about it."

"Sha'n't know a single word about it! Vastly good, sir!!--Do you know whom you're talking to, sir? Do you really know in whose presence you are, sir?" inquired Mr. Tag-rag, nearly trembling with rage.

"Mr. Tag-rag, I presume, of the firm of Tag-rag and Co.," replied t.i.tmouse, looking him full in the face.--One or two of his companions near him, almost turned pale at the audacity he was displaying.

"And who are _you_, sir, that dare to presume to bandy words with ME, sir?" inquired Tag-rag, his deeply pitted face having turned quite white, and his whole body quivering with rage.

"t.i.ttlebat t.i.tmouse, at your service," was the answer, in a glib tone, and with a sufficiently saucy air; for t.i.tmouse then felt that he had pa.s.sed the Rubicon.

"You heard that, I hope?" inquired Tag-rag, with forced calmness, of a pale-faced young man, the nearest to him.

"Ye--es, sir," was the meekly reluctant answer.

"This day month you leave, sir!" said Mr. Tag-rag, solemnly--as if conscious that he was pa.s.sing a sort of sentence of death upon the presumptuous delinquent.

"Very well, Mr. Tag-rag--anything that pleases you pleases your humble servant. I _will_ go this day month, and welcome--I've long wished--and now, p'r'aps," he added significantly--"it's rather convenient than otherwise"----

"Then you _sha'n't_ leave, sir," said Tag-rag, furiously.

"But I will, sir. You've given me warning; and, if you haven't, now I give _you_ warning," replied t.i.tmouse; turning, however, very pale, and experiencing a certain sudden sinking of the heart--for this was a serious and most unlooked-for event, and for a while put out of his head all the agitating thoughts of the last few hours. Poor t.i.tmouse had enough to bear--what with the delicate raillery and banter of his refined companions for the rest of the day, find the galling tyranny of Mr. Tag-rag, (who dogged him about all day, setting him about the most menial and troublesome offices he could, and constantly saying mortifying things to him before customers,) and the state of miserable suspense in which Mr. Gammon had thought fit to leave him; I say that surely all this was enough for him to bear without having to encounter at night, as he did, on his return to his lodgings, his bl.u.s.tering landlady, who vowed that if she sold him out and out she would be put off no longer--and his pertinacious and melancholy tailor, who, with sallow unshaven face, told him of five children at home, all ill of the small-pox, and his wife in an hospital--and he _implored_ a payment on account. This sufferer succeeded in squeezing out of t.i.tmouse seven shillings on account, and his landlady extorted ten; which staved off a distress--direful word!--for some week or two longer; and so they left him in the possession of eight shillings or so, to last till next quarter-day--six weeks off! He sighed heavily, barred his door, and sat down opposite his little table, on which was nothing but a solitary thin candle, and on which his eyes rested unconsciously, till the stench of it, burning right down into the socket, roused him from his wretched revery. Then he unlocked his box, and took out his Bible and the papers which had been produced to Mr. Gammon, and gazed at them with intense but useless scrutiny. Unable to conjecture what bearing they could have upon himself or his fortunes, he hastily replaced them in his box, threw off his clothes, and flung himself on his bed, to pa.s.s a far more dismal night than he had known for years.

He ran the gantlet at Messrs. Tag-rag and Co.'s all Tuesday as he had done on the day preceding. One should have supposed that when his companions beheld him persecuted by their common tyrant, whom they all equally hated, they would have made common cause with their suffering companion, or at all events given no countenance to his persecution; yet it was far otherwise. Without stopping to a.n.a.lyze the feeling which produced it, (and which the moderately reflective reader may easily a.n.a.lyze for himself if so disposed,) I am grieved to have to say, that when all the young men saw that Tag-rag would be gratified by their _cutting_ poor t.i.tmouse, who, with all his little vanities, fooleries, and even selfishness, had never personally offended or injured any of them--they did cut him; and, when Tag-rag observed it, his miserable mind was unspeakably gratified with what they had done: and he spoke to all of them with unusual blandness; to the sinner, t.i.tmouse, with augmented bitterness and sternness.

CHAPTER II.

A few minutes after ten o'clock that night, a gentle ringing at the bell of Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap's office, announced the arrival of poor t.i.tmouse. The door was quickly opened by a very fashionably dressed clerk, who seemed in the act of quitting for the night.

"Ah--Mr. t.i.tmouse, I presume?" he inquired, with a kind of deference in his manner to which t.i.tmouse had never been accustomed.

"The same, sir--t.i.ttlebat t.i.tmouse."

"Oh! allow me, sir, to show you in to Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap; I know they're expecting to see you. It's not often they're here so late!

Walk in, sir"---- With this he led the way to an inner room, and opening a green-baize door in the farther side of it, announced and showed in Mr. t.i.tmouse, and left him--sufficiently fl.u.s.tered. Three gentlemen were sitting at a large table, on which he saw, by the strong but circ.u.mscribed light of two shaded candlesticks, were lying a great number of papers and parchments. The three gentlemen rose when he entered, Mr. Quirk and Mr. Snap involuntarily starting on first catching sight of the figure of t.i.tmouse: Mr. Gammon came and shook hands with him.

"Mr. t.i.tmouse," said he, with a very polite air, "let me introduce you to Mr. Quirk"--(This was the senior partner, a short, stout elderly gentleman, dressed in black, with a shining bald crown fringed with white hair, and sharp black eyes, and who looked very earnestly, nay, with even a kind of dismay, at him)--"and Mr. Snap"--(This was the junior partner, having recently been promoted to be such after ten years' service in the office, as managing clerk: he was about thirty, particularly well dressed, slight, active, and with a face like a terrier--_so_ hard, sharp, and wiry!) Of Mr. Gammon himself, I have already given the reader a slight notion. He appeared altogether a different style of person from both his partners. He was of most gentlemanly person and bearing--and at once acute, cautious, and insinuating--with a certain something about the eye, which had from the first made t.i.tmouse feel uneasy on looking at him.

"A seat, sir," said Mr. Quirk, rising, and placing a chair for him, on which he sat down, they resuming theirs.

"You are punctual, Mr. t.i.tmouse!" exclaimed Mr. Gammon, kindly; "more so than, I fear, you were yesterday, after our long interview, eh? Pray what did that worthy person, Mr. Rag-bag--or whatever his name is--say on your return?"

"Say, gents?"--(he tried to clear his throat, for he spoke somewhat more thickly, and his heart beat more perceptibly than usual)--"Meaning no offence--I'm ruined by it, and no mistake."

"Ruined! I'm sorry to hear it," interposed Mr. Gammon, with a concerned air.

"I am, indeed, sir. Such a towering rage as he has been in ever since; and he's given me warning to go on the 10th of next month." He thought he observed a faint smile flit over the faces of all three. "He has, indeed!"