Page:Dickens - A Child s History of England, 1900.djvu/495

Rh Cottage at Peckham, with that well-to-do warehouse in the Old Jewry, what could possess you to come here?"

"What should I come for, but to settle?" asked Uriah, somewhat chagrined at this salutation.

"To settle! ha, ha I" burst out Robinson. "Well, as for that, you could not come to a better place. It is a regular settler here. Everything and everybody are settled here out and out. This is a settlement and no mistake; but it is like many other settlements, the figures are all on the wrong side of the ledger."

"Good gracious!" said Uriah.

"Nay, it is neither good nor gracious," replied Robinson. " Look round I What do you see? Ruin, desertion, dirt and the—devil!"

"Why, how is that?" asked Uriah. "I thought you, and Jones, and Brown, and all of you had made your fortunes."

"So we had, or were just on the point of doing. We had purchased lots of land for building, and had sold it out again at five hundred per cent., when chop! down comes little Lord John with his pound an acre, and heigh, presto! everything goes topsy turvy. Our purchasers are either in the bankruptcy court, or have vanished. By jingo! I could show you such lots, fine lots for houses and gardens, for shops and warehouses; ay, and shops and warehouses upon them too, as would astonish you."

"Well, and what then ? " asked Uriah.

"What then! why, man, don't you comprehend? Emigration is stopped, broken off as short as a pipe-shank; not a soul is coming out to buy and live in all these houses—not a soul except an odd—excuse me, Tattenhall, I was going to say, except you and another fool or two. But where do you hang out? Look! there is my house," pointing to a wooden erection near. " I'll come and see you as soon as I know where you fix yourself."

"But mind one thing," cried Uriah, seizing him by the arm as he passed. "For heaven's sake, don't talk in this manner to my wife. It would kill her."

"Oh no, mum's the word! There's no use frightening the women," said Robinson. "No, confound it, I won't croak anyhow. And, after all, bad as things are, why they can't remain so forever. Nothing ever doe% that's one comfort. They'll mend some time."