Page:Bleak House.djvu/282

 to it with such remarks as, “There are places enough to die in, I should think!” or, “he wouldn't have liked my dying at his place, I dare say!”

However, the compact being virtually made, Mr. Guppy proposes to dispatch the trusty Smallweed to ascertain if Mr. Krook is at home, as in that case they may complete the negotiation without delay. Mr. Jobling approving, Smallweed puts himself under the tall hat and conveys it out of the dining-rooms in the Guppy manner. He soon returns with the intelligence that Mr. Krook is at home, and that he has seen him through the shop-door, sitting in his back premises, sleeping, “like one o'clock.”

“Then I'll pay,” says Mr. Guppy, “and we'll go and see him. Small, what will it be?”“

Mr. Smallweed, compelling the attendance of the waitress with one hitch of his eyelash, instantly replies as follows: “Four veals and hams is three, and four potatoes is three and four, and one summer cabbage is three and six, and three marrows is four and six, and six breads is five, and three Cheshires is five and three, and four pints of half-and-half is six and three, and four small rums is eight and three, and three Pollys is eight and six. Eight and six in half a sovereign, Polly, and eighteen-pence out!”

Not at all excited by these stupendous calculations, Smallweed dismisses his friends with a cool nod, and remains behind to take a little admiring notice of Polly, as opportunity may serve, and to read the daily papers: which are so very large in proportion to himself, shorn of his hat, that when he holds up The Times to run his eye over the columns, he seems to have retired for the night, and to have disappeared under the bedclothes.

Mr. Guppy and Mr. Jobling repair to the rag and bottle shop, where they find Krook still sleeping like one o'clock; that is to say, breathing stertorously with his chin upon his breast, and quite insensible to any external sounds, or even to gentle shaking. On the table beside him, among the usual lumber, stand an empty gin bottle and a glass. The unwholesome air is so stained with this liquor, that even the green eyes of the cat upon her shelf, as they open and shut and glimmer on the visitors, look drunk.

“Hold up here!” says Mr. Guppy, giving the relaxed figure of the old man another shake. “Mr. Krook! Halloa, sir!”

But it would seem as easy to wake a bundle of old clothes, with a spirituous heat smouldering in it. “Did you ever see such a stupor as he falls into, between drink and sleep?” says Mr. Guppy.

“If this is his regular sleep,” returns Jobling, rather alarmed, “it'll last a long time one of these days, I am thinking.”

“It's always more like a fit than a nap,” says Mr. Guppy, shaking him again. “Halloa, your lordship! Why he might be robbed, fifty times over! Open your eyes!”

After much ado, he opens them, but without appearing to see his visitors, or any other objects. Though he crosses one leg on another, and folds his hands, and several times closes and opens his parched lips, he seems to all intents and purposes as insensible as before.

“He is alive, at any rate,” says Mr. Guppy. “How are you, my Lord Chancellor. I have brought a friend of mine, sir, on a little matter of business.”