Chapter 32

The Appointed Time

It is night in Lincoln's Inn-perplexed and troublous valley of

the shadow of the law, where suitors generally find but little

day-and fat candles are snuffed out in offices, and clerks

have rattled down the crazy wooden stairs, and dispersed. The bell

that rings at nine o'clock, has ceased its doleful clangour about

nothing; the gates are shut; and the night-porter, a solemn warder

with a mighty power of sleep, keeps guard in his lodge. From tiers

of staircase windows, clogged lamps like the eyes of Equity,

bleared Argus with a fathomless pocket for every eye and an eye

upon it, dimly blink at the stars. In dirty upper casements, here

and there, hazy little patches of candlelight reveal where some

wise draughtsman and conveyancer yet toils for the entanglement

of real estate in meshes of sheepskin, in the average ratio of about

a dozen of sheep to an acre of land. Over which bee-like industry,

these benefactors of their species linger yet, though office-hours

be past: that they may give, for every day, some good account at

last.

In the neighbouring court, where the Lord Chancellor of the

Rag and Bottle shop dwells, there is a general tendency towards

beer and supper. Mrs Piper and Mrs Perkins, whose respective

sons, engaged with a circle of acquaintance in the game of hide

and seek, have been lying in ambush about the by-ways of

Chancery Lane for some hours, and scouring the plain of the same

thoroughfare to the confusion of passengers-Mrs Piper and Mrs

Perkins have but now exchanged congratulations on the children

being abed; and they still linger on a doorstep over a few parting

words. Mr Krook and his lodger, and the fact of Mr Krook's being

"continually in liquor," and the testamentary prospects of the

young man are, as usual, the staple of their conversation. But they

have something to say, likewise, of the Harmonic Meeting at the

Sol's Arms; where the sound of the piano through the partly-

opened windows jingles out into the court, and where little Swills,

after keeping the lovers of harmony in a roar like a very Yorick,

may now be heard taking the gruff line in a concerted piece, and

sentimentally adjuring his friends and patrons to Listen, listen,

listen, Tew the wa-ter-Fall! Mrs Perkins and Mrs Piper compare

opinions on the subject of the young lady of professional celebrity

who assists at the Harmonic Meetings, and who has a space to

herself in the manuscriptannouncement in the window; Mrs

Perkins possessing information that she has been married a year

and a half, though announced as Miss M. Melvilleson, the noted

syren, and that her baby is clandestinely conveyed to the Sol's

Arms every night to receive its natural nourishment during the

entertainments. "Sooner than which, myself," says Mrs Perkins, "I

would get my living by selling lucifers." Mrs Piper, as in duty

bound, is of the same opinion; holding that a private station is

better than public applause, and thanking Heaven for her own

(and, by implication, Mrs Perkins's) respectability. By this time,

the pot-boy of the Sol's Arms appearing with her supper-pint well

frothed, Mrs Piper accepts that tankard and retires indoors, first

giving a fair good night to Mrs Perkins, who has had her own pint

in her hand ever since it was fetched from the same hostelry by

young Perkins before he was sent to bed. Now, there is a sound of putting up shop-shutters in the court, and a smell as of the

smoking of pipes; and shooting stars are seen in upper windows,

further indicating retirement to rest. Now, too, the policeman

begins to push at doors; to try fastenings; to be suspicious of

bundles; and to administer his beat, on the hypothesis that

everyone is either robbing or being robbed.

It is a close night, though the damp cold is searching too; and

there is a laggard mist a little way up in the air. It is a fine

steaming night to turn the slaughterhouses, the unwholesome

trades, the sewerage, bad water, and burial grounds to account,

and give the Registrar of Deaths some extra business. It may be

something in the air-there is plenty in it-or it may be something

in himself, that is in fault; but Mr Weevle, otherwise Jobling, is

very ill at ease. He comes and goes, between his own room and the

open street door, twenty times an hour. He has been doing so, ever

since it fell dark. Since the Chancellor shut up his shop, which he

did very early tonight, Mr Weevle has been down and up, and

down and up (with a cheap tight velvet skull-cap on his head,

making his whiskers look out of all proportion), oftener than

before.

It is no phenomenon that Mr Snagsby should be ill at ease too;

for he always is so, more or less, under the oppressive influence of

the secret that is upon him. Impelled by the mystery, of which he

is a partaker, and yet in which he is not a sharer, Mr Snagsby

haunts what seems to be its fountain-head-the rag and bottle

shop in the court. It has an irresistibleattraction for him. Even

now, coming round by the Sol's Arms with the intention of passing

down the court, and out at the Chancery Lane end, and so

terminating his unpremeditated after-supper stroll of ten minutes long from his own door and back again, Mr Snagsby approaches.

"What, Mr Weevle?" says the stationer, stopping to speak. "Are

you there?"

"Ay!" says Weevle. "Here I am, Mr Snagsby."

"Airing yourself, as I am doing, before you go to bed?" the

stationer inquires.

"Why, there's not much air to be got here; and what there is, is

not very freshening," Weevle answers, glancing up and down the

court.

"Very true, sir. Don't you observe," says Mr Snagsby, pausing

to sniff and taste the air a little; "don't you observe, Mr Weevle,

that you're-not to put too fine a point upon it-that you're rather

greasy here, sir?"

"Why, I have noticed myself that there is a queer kind of flavour

in the place tonight," Mr Weevle rejoins. "I suppose it's chops at

the Sol's Arms."

"Chops, do you think? Oh!-Chops, eh?" Mr Snagsby sniffs and

tastes again. "Well, sir, I suppose it is. But I should say their cook

at the Sol wanted a little looking after. She has been burning 'em,

sir! And I don't think;" Mr Snagsby sniffs and tastes again, and

then spits and wipes his mouth; "I don't think-not to put too fine

a point upon it-that they were quite fresh, when they were shown

the gridiron."

"That's very likely. It's a tainting sort of weather."

"It is a tainting sort of weather," says Mr Snagsby; "and I find it

sinking to the spirits."

"By George! I find it gives me the horrors," returns Mr Weevle.

"Then, you see, you live in a lonesome way, and in a lonesome

room, with a black circumstance hanging over it," says Mr Snagsby, looking in past the other's shoulder along the dark

passage, and then falling back a step to look up at the house. "I

couldn't live in that room alone, as you do, sir. I should get so

fidgetty and worried of an evening, sometimes, that I should be

driven to come to the door, and stand here, sooner than sit there.

But then it's very true that you didn't see, in your room, what I

saw there. That makes a difference."

"I know quite enough about it," returns Tony.

"It's not agreeable, is it?" pursues Mr Snagsby, coughing his

cough of mild persuasion behind his hand. "Mr Krook ought to

consider it in the rent. I hope he does, I am sure."

"I hope he does," says Tony. "But I doubt it!"

"You find the rent high, do you, sir," returns the stationer.

"Rents are high about here. I don't know how it is exactly, but the

law seems to put things up in price. Not," adds Mr Snagsby, with

his apologetic cough, "that I mean to say a word against the

profession I get my living by."

Mr Weevle again glances up and down the court, and then looks

at the stationer. Mr Snagsby, blankly catching his eye, looks

upward for a star or so, and coughs a cough expressive of not

exactly seeing his way out of this conversation.

"It's a curious fact, sir," he observes, slowly rubbing his hands,

"that he should have been-"

"Who's he?" interrupts Mr Weevle.

"The deceased, you know," says Mr Snagsby, twitching his

head and right eyebrow towards the staircase, and tapping his

acquaintance on the button.

"Ah to be sure!" returns the other, as if he were not overfond of

the subject. "I thought we had done with him.""I was only going to say, it's a curious fact, sir, that he should

have come and lived here, and been one of my writers, and then

that you should come and live here, and be one of my writers, too.

Which there is nothing derogatory, but far from it in the

appellation," says Mr Snagsby, breaking off with a mistrust that he

may have unpolitely asserted a kind of proprietorship in Mr

Weevle, "because I have known writers that have gone into

Brewers' houses and done really very respectable indeed.

Eminently respectable, sir," adds Mr Snagsby, with a misgiving

that he had not improved the matter.

"It's a curious coincidence, as you say," answers Weevle, once

more glancing up and down the court.

"Seems a Fate in it, don't there?" suggests the stationer.

"There does."

"Just so," observes the stationer, with his confirmatory cough.

"Quite a Fate in it. Quite a Fate. Well, Mr Weevle, I am afraid I

must bid you good night;" Mr Snagsby speaks as if it made him

desolate to go, though he has been casting about for any means of

escape ever since he stopped to speak; "my little woman will be

looking for me, else. Good night, sir!"

If Mr Snagsby hastens home to save his little woman the

trouble of looking for him, he might set his mind at rest on that

score. His little woman has had her eye upon him round the Sol's

Arms all this time, and now glides after him with a pocket

handkerchief wrapped over her head; honouring Mr Weevle and

his doorway with a very searching glance as she goes past.

"You'll know me again, ma'am, at all events," says Mr Weevle to

himself; "and I can't compliment you on your appearance,

whoever you are, with your head tied up in a bundle. Is this fellow never coming!"

This fellow approaches as he speaks. Mr Weevle softly holds up

his finger, and draws him into the passage, and closes the street

door. Then, they go upstairs; Mr Weevle heavily, and Mr Guppy

(for it is he) very lightly indeed. When they are shut into the back

room, they speak low.

"I thought you had gone to Jericho at least, instead of coming

here," says Tony.

"Why, I said about ten."

"You said about ten," Tony repeats. "Yes, so you did say about

ten. But, according to my count, it's ten times ten-it's a hundred

o'clock. I never had such a night in my life!"

"What has been the matter?"

"That's it!" says Tony. "Nothing has been the matter. But, here

have I been stewing and fuming in this jolly old crib, till I have had

the horrors falling on me as thick as hail. There's a blessed looking

candle!" says Tony, pointing to the heavily burning taper on his

table with a great cabbage head and a long winding-sheet.

"That's easily improved," Mr Guppy observes, as he takes the

snuffers in hand.

"Is it?" returned his friend. "Not so easily as you think. It has

been smouldering like that, ever since it was lighted."

"Why, what's the matter with you, Tony?" inquires Mr Guppy,

looking at him, snuffers in hand, as he sits down with his elbow on

the table.

"William Guppy," replies the other, "I am in the Downs. It's this

unbearably dull, suicidal room-and old Boguey downstairs, I

suppose." Mr Weevle moodily pushes the snuffers-tray from him

with his elbow, leans his head on his hand, puts his feet on the fender, and looks at the fire. Mr Guppy, observing him, slightly

tosses his head, and sits down on the other side of the table in an

easy attitude.

"Wasn't that Snagsby talking to you, Tony?"

"Yes, and he-yes, it was Snagsby," says Mr Weevle, altering

the construction of the sentence.

"On business?"

"No. No business. He was only sauntering by and stopped to

prose."

"I thought it was Snagsby," says Mr Guppy, "and thought it as

well that he shouldn't see me, so I waited till he was gone."

"There we go again, William G.!" cries Tony, looking up for an

instant. "So mysterious and secret! By George, if we were going to

commit a murder, we couldn't have more mystery about it!"

Mr Guppy affects to smile; and with the view of changing the

conversation, looks with an admiration, real or pretended, round

the room at the Galaxy gallery of British beauty; terminating his

survey with the portrait of Lady Dedlock over the mantel-shelf, in

which she is represented on a terrace, with a pedestal upon the

terrace, and a vase upon the pedestal, and her shawl upon the

vase, and a prodigious piece of fur upon the shawl and her arm

upon the piece of fur, and a bracelet on her arm.

"That's very like Lady Dedlock," says Mr Guppy. "It's a

speaking likeness."

"I wish it was," growls Tony, without changing his position. "I

should have some fashionable conversation here, then."

Finding, by this time, that his friend is not to be wheedled into a

more sociable humour, Mr Guppy puts about upon the ill-used

tack, and remonstrates with him."Tony," says he, "I can make allowances for lowness of spirits,

for no man knows what it is when it does come upon a man, better

than I do; and no man perhaps has a better right to know it, than a

man who has an unrequited image printed on his art. But there

are bounds to these things when an unoffending party is in

question, and I will acknowledge to you, Tony, that I don't think

your manner on the present occasion is hospitable or quite

gentlemanly."

"This is strong language, William Guppy," returns Mr Weevle.

"Sir, it may be," retorts Mr William Guppy, "but I feel strongly

when I use it."

Mr Weevle admits that he has been wrong, and begs Mr William

Guppy to think no more about it. Mr William Guppy, however,

having got the advantage, cannot quite release it without a little

more injured remonstrance.

"No! Dash it, Tony," says that gentleman, "you really ought to

be careful how you wound the feelings of a man, who has an

unrequited image imprinted on his art, and who is not altogether

happy in those chords which vibrate to the tenderest emotions.

You, Tony, possess in yourself all that is calculated to charm the

eye, and allure the taste. It is not-happily for you, perhaps, and I

may wish that I could say the same-it is not your character to

hover around one flower. The 'ole garden is open to you, and your

airy pinions carry you through it. Still, Tony, far be it from me, I

am sure, to wound even your feelings without a cause!"

Tony again entreats that the subject may be no longer pursued,

saying emphatically, "William Guppy, drop it!" Mr Guppy

acquiesces, with the reply, "I never should have taken it up, Tony,

of my own accord.""And now," says Tony, stirring the fire, "touching this same

bundle of letters. Isn't it an extraordinary thing of Krook to have

appointed twelve o'clock tonight to hand 'em over to me?"