Page:Bleak House.djvu/147

 Mr. Tulkinghorn is not in a common way. He wants no clerks. He is a great reservoir of confidences, not to be so tapped. His clients want him; he is all in all. Drafts that he requires to be drawn, are drawn by special-pleaders in the Temple on mysterious instructions ; fair copies that he requires to be made, are made at the stationer's, expense being no consideration. The middle-aged man in the Pew, knows scarcely more of the affairs of the Peerage, than any crossing-sweeper in Holborn.

The red bit, the black bit, the inkstand top, the other inkstand top, the little sand-box. So ! You to the middle, you to the right, you to the left. This train of indecision must surely be worked out now or never.—Now ! Mr. Tulkinghorn gets up, adjusts his spectacles, puts on his hat, puts the manuscript in his pocket, goes out, tells the middle-aged man out at elbows, “I shall be back presently.” Very rarely tells him anything more explicit.

Mr. Tulkinghorn goes, as the crow came—not quite so straight, but nearly—to Cook's Court, Cursitor Street. To Snagsby's, Law Stationer's, Deeds engrossed and copied, Law-Writing executed in all its branches, &c., &c., &c.

It is somewhere about five or six o'clock in the afternoon, and a balmy fragrance of warm tea hovers in Cook's Court. It hovers about Snagsby's door. The hours are early there ; dinner at half-past one, and supper at half-past nine. Mr. Snagsby was about to descend into the subterranean regions to take tea, when he looked out of his door just now, and saw the crow who was out late.

“Master at home?”

Guster is minding the shop, for the 'Prentices take tea in the kitchen, with Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby ; consequently, the robe-maker's two daughters, combing their curls at the two glasses in the two second-floor windows of the opposite house, are not driving the two 'Prentices to distraction, as they fondly suppose, but are merely awakening the unprofitable admiration of Guster, whose hair won't grow, and never would, and, it is confidently thought, never will.

“Master at home?” says Mr. Tulkinghorn.

Master is at home, and Guster will fetch him. Guster disappears, glad to get out of the shop, which she regards with mingled dread and veneration, as a storehouse of awful implements of the great torture of the law : a place not to be entered after the gas is turned off.

Mr. Snagsby appears : greasy, warm, herbaceous, and chewing. Bolts a bit of bread and butter. Says, “Bless my soul, sir ! Mr. Tulkinghorn !”

“I want half a word with you, Snagsby.”

“Certainly, sir ! Dear me, sir, why didn't you send your young man round for me ? Pray walk into the back shop, sir.” Snagsby has brightened in a moment.

The confined room, strong of parchment-grease, is warehouse, counting-house, and copying-oftice. Mr. Tulkinghorn sits, facing round, on a stool at the desk.

“Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Snagsby.”

“Yes, sir.” Mr. Snagsby turns up the gas, and coughs behind his hand, modestly anticipating profit. Mr, Snagsby, as a timid man, is accustomed to cough with a variety of expressions, and so to save words.