Page:Bleak House.djvu/217

 " So you kept him after all? "

" Why, I said that if he could arrange with Mr. Gridley, I could arrange it with the other lodgers, and should not so much mind its being liked or disliked in the yard. Mr. Gridley gave his consent gruff—but gave it. He was always gruff with him, but he has been kind to the children since. A person is never known till a person is proved."

" Have many people been kind to the children ? " asked Mr. Jamdyce.

" Upon the whole, not so bad, sir," said Mrs. Blinder, "but, certainly not so many as would have been, if their father's calling had been different. Mr. Coavins gave a guinea, and the follerers made up a little purse. Some neighbours in the yard, that had always joked and tapped their shoulders when he went by, came forward with a little subscription, and—in general—not so bad. Similarly with Charlotte. Some people won't employ her, because she was a follerer's child; some people that do employ her, cast it at her ; some make a merit of having her to work for them, with that and all her drawbacks upon her : and perhaps pay her less and put upon her more. But she's patienter than others would be, and is clever too, and always willing, up to the full mark of her strength and over. So I should say, in general, not so bad, sir, but might be better."

Mrs. Blinder sat down to give herself a more favorable opportunity of recovering her breath, exhausted anew by so much talking before it was fully restored. Mr. Jarndyce was turning to speak to us, when his attention was attracted, by the abrupt entrance into the room of the Mr. Gridley who had been mentioned, and whom we had seen on our way up.

" I don't know what you may be doing here, ladies and gentlemen," he said, as if he resented our presence, " but you'll excuse my coming in. I don't come in, to stare about me. Well, Charley ! Well, Tom ! Well, little one ! How is it with us all to-day ? "

He bent over the group, in a caressing way, and clearly was regarded as a friend by the children, though his face retained its stern character, and his manner to us was as rude as it could be. My Guardian noticed it, and respected it.

" No one, surely, would come here to stare about him," he said mildly.

" May be so, sir, may be so," returned the other, taking Tom upon his knee, and waving him off impatiently. " I don't want to argue with ladies and gentlemen. I have had enough of arguing, to last one man his life."

" You have sufficient reason, I dare say," said Mr. Jarndyce, " for being chafed and irritated"

" There again ! " exclaimed the man, becoming violently angry. " I am of a quarrelsome temper. I am irascible. I am not polite ! "

" Not very, I think."

" Sir," said Gridley, putting down the child, and going up to him as if he meant to strike him. " Do you know anything of Courts of Equity ? "

" Perhaps I do, to my sorrow."

"To your sorrow ? " said the man, pausing in his wrath. "If so, I beg your pardon. I am not polite, I know. I beg your pardon ! Sir," with renewed violence, " I have been dragged for five-and-twenty years over burning iron, and I have lost the habit of treading upon velvet. Go into