Page:Bleak House.djvu/280

 (Mr. Smallweed modestly observes “Gentlemen both!” and drinks.)

“Have had a little conversation on this matter more than once, since you”

“Say, got the sack!” cries Mr. Jobling, bitterly. “Say it, Guppy. You mean it.”

“N-o-o! Left the Inn,” Mr. Smallweed delicately suggests.

“Since you left the Inn, Jobling,” says Mr. Guppy; “and I have mentioned, to our mutual friend Smallweed, a plan I have lately thought of proposing. You know Snagsby the stationer?”

“I know there is such a stationer,” returns Mr. Jobling. “He was not our's, and I am not acquainted with him.”

“He is ours, Jobling, and I am acquainted with him,” Mr. Guppy retorts. “Well, sir! I have lately become better acquainted with him, through some accidental circumstances that have made me a visitor of his in private life. Those circumstances it is not necessary to offer in argument. They may—or they may not—have some reference to a subject, which may—or may not—have cast its shadow on my existence.”

As it is Mr. Guppy's perplexing way, with boastful misery to tempt his particular friends into this subject, and the moment they touch it, to turn on them with that trenchant severity about the chords in the human mind; both My. Jobling and Mr. Smallweed decline the pitfall, by remaining silent.

“Such things may be,” repeats Mr. Guppy, “or they may not be. They are no part of the case. It is enough to mention, that both Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby are very willing to oblige me; and that Snagsby has, in busy times, a good deal of copying work to give out. He has all Tulkinghorn's, and an excellent business besides. I believe, if our mutual friend Smallweed were put into the box, he could prove this?”

Mr. Smallweed nods, and appears greedy to be sworn.

“Now, gentlemen of the jury,” says Mr. Guppy, “—I mean, now Jobling—you may say this is a poor prospect of a living. Granted. But it's better than nothing, and better than enlistment. You want time. There must be time for these late affairs to blow over. You might live through it on much worse terms than by writing for Snagsby.”

Mr. Jobling is about to interrupt, when the sagacious Smallweed checks him with a dry cough, and the words, “Hem! Shakspeare!”

“There are two branches to this subject, Jobling,” says Mr. Guppy. “That is the first. I come to the second. You know Krook, the Chancellor, across the lane. Come, Jobling,” says Mr. Guppy, in his encouraging cross-examination-tone, “I think you know Krook, the Chancellor, across the lane?”

“I know him by sight,” says Mr. Jobling.

“You know him by sight. Very well. And you know little Flite?”

“Everybody knows her,” says Mr. Jobling.

“Everybody knows her. Very well. Now it has been one of my duties of late, to pay Flite a certain weekly allowance, deducting from it the amount of her weekly rent: which I have paid (in consequence of instructions I have received) to Krook himself, regularly, in her presence. This has brought me into communication with Krook, and into a knowledge of his house and his habits. I know he has a room to let. You may live there, at a very low charge, under any name you like; as quietly