Ten Thousand a-Year Volume I Part 3

"Coming!" he shouted, turning as white as the cambric he held in his hands--which became suddenly cold; while his heart went thump, thump, as he hastily exclaimed to the astonished lady, "Excuse me, ma'am, if you please--Jones," addressing the shopman next him, "will you attend to this lady?" and he hastened whither he had been called, amid a prevalent grin and "hem!" from his companions on each side, as he pa.s.sed along the shop, till he reached the spot where stood the stranger who had inquired for him. He was of a slight and gentlemanly figure, above the average height. His countenance was very striking: he was dressed with simplicity--somewhat carelessly perhaps; and appeared somewhere about thirty-six or thirty-seven years of age. He bowed slightly as t.i.tmouse approached him, and an air of very serious surprise came over his expressive countenance.

"Mr. t.i.tmouse?" he inquired blandly.

"Ye-e-s, sir, at your service," replied t.i.tmouse, trembling involuntarily all over. The stranger again slightly inclined towards him, and--still more slightly--touched his hat; fixing on him, at the same time, an inquisitive penetrating eye, which really abashed, or rather perhaps alarmed him.

"You left--you favored us by leaving--a note at our office last night, sir, addressed to Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap?" he inquired, lowering his voice to a whisper.

"Yes, sir, hoping it was no"----

"Pray, Mr. t.i.tmouse, can we be alone for about five or ten minutes?"

"I--I--don't exactly know, _here_, sir; I'm afraid--against the rules of the house--but I'll ask. Here _is_ Mr. Tag-rag.--May I step into the cloak-room with this gentleman for a few minutes, sir?" he continued, addressing his imperious employer, who, with a pen behind his right ear, his left hand in his breeches pocket, and his right hand impatiently tweedling about his watch-seals, had followed t.i.tmouse, on hearing him inquired for in the manner I have described, and stood at a yard or two's distance, eying the two with a truculent dissatisfied look, wondering what on earth any one _could_ want with one of _his_ young men.

As Mr. Tag-rag will be rather a prominent figure on my canvas, I may as well here give the reader a slight preparatory sketch of that gentleman.

He was about fifty-two years old; a great tyrant in his little way; a compound of ignorance, selfishness, cant, and conceit. He knew nothing on earth except the price of his goods, and how to make the most of his business. He was of middle size, with a tendency to corpulence; and almost invariably wore a black coat and waistcoat, a white neck handkerchief very primly tied, and gray trousers. He had a dull, gray eye, with white eyelashes, and no eyebrows; a forehead which seemed ashamed of his face, it retreated so far and so abruptly back from it; his face was pretty deeply pitted with the small-pox; his nose--or rather semblance of a nose--consisted of two great nostrils looking at you--as it were, impudently--out of the middle of his face; there was a perfect level s.p.a.ce from cheek-bone to cheek-bone; his gray whiskers, trimly and closely cut, came in points to each corner of his mouth, which was large, shapeless, and sensual-looking. This may serve, for the present, to give you an idea of the man who had contrived to excite towards himself the hatred and contempt of everybody over whom he had any control--with whom in fact he had anything to do.

"You know quite well, sir, we never allow anything of the sort," was his short reply, in a very disagreeable tone and manner, to t.i.tmouse's modest request.

"May I beg the favor of a few minutes' private conversation with Mr.

t.i.tmouse," said the stranger, politely, "on a matter of the last importance to him? My name, sir, is Gammon, and I am a solicitor of the firm of Quirk, Gammon, and Snap"----

"Why, sir," answered Tag-rag, somewhat cowed by the calm and gentlemanly, but at the same time decisive manner of Mr. Gammon--"it's really very inconvenient, and decidedly against the rules of the house, for any of my young men to be absent on business of their own during _my_ business hours; but--I suppose--what must be must be--I'll give him ten minutes--and he'd better not stay longer," he subjoined fiercely--looking significantly first at his watch, and then at t.i.tmouse. "It's only for the sake of my other young men, you know, sir.

In a large establishment like ours, we're obliged, you know, sir," &c.

&c. &c., he added, in a low cringing tone, deprecatory of the contemptuous air with which he _felt_ that Mr. Gammon was regarding him.

That gentleman, with a slight bow, and a sarcastic smile, presently quitted the shop, accompanied by t.i.tmouse, who scarce knew whether his head or heels were uppermost.

"How far do you live from this place, Mr. t.i.tmouse?" inquired Mr.

Gammon, as soon as they had got into the street.

"Not four minutes' walk, sir; but--hem!"--he was fl.u.s.tered at the idea of showing so eminent a person into his wretched room--"Suppose we were to step into this tavern here, sir--I dare say they have a room at our service"----

"Pray, allow me to ask, Mr. t.i.tmouse--have you any private papers--family writings, or things of that sort, at your rooms?"

t.i.tmouse seemed considering.

"I--I think I have, sir," he replied--"one or two--but they're of no consequence."

"Are you a _judge_ on that point, Mr. t.i.tmouse?" inquired Mr. Gammon, with a smile; "pray let us, my dear sir, at once proceed to your rooms--time is very short and valuable. I should vastly like to look at these same insignificant papers of yours!"

In less than two minutes' further time, Mr. Gammon was sitting at t.i.tmouse's little rickety round table, at his lodgings, with a sheet of paper before him, and a small pencil-case in his hand, asking him a number of questions concerning his birth and family connections, and taking down his answers very carefully. Mr. t.i.tmouse was surprised at the gentleman's knowledge of the family history of the t.i.tmouses. As for papers, &c., Mr. t.i.tmouse succeeded in producing four or five old letters and memoranda from the bottom of his trunk, and one or two entries, in faded ink, on the fly-leaf of a Bible of his father's, which he did not recollect having opened before for very many years, and of which said entries, till pressed on the subject by Mr. Gammon, he had been hardly aware of even the existence. With these several doc.u.ments Mr. Gammon was so much struck that he proposed to take them away with him, for better and more leisurely examination, and safer custody, at their office; but Mr. t.i.tmouse significantly hinted at his very recent acquaintance with Mr. Gammon, who, he intimated, was at liberty to come and make exact copies of them whenever he pleased, in his (Mr.

t.i.tmouse's) presence.

"Oh, certainly--yes," replied Mr. Gammon, slightly coloring at the distrust implied by this observation; "I applaud your caution, Mr.

t.i.tmouse. By all means keep these doc.u.ments, and most carefully; because, (I do not say that they _are_,) but it is quite possible that they may become rather valuable--to _you_."

"Thank you, sir; and now, hoping you'll excuse the liberty," said t.i.tmouse, with a very anxious air, "I should most uncommonly like to know what all this means--what is to turn up out of it all?"

"The law, my dear sir, is proverbially uncertain"----

"Oh, Lord! but the law can surely give one a _hint_"----

"_The law never hints_," interrupted Mr. Gammon, impressively, with a bland smile.

"Well then, how did you come, sir, to know that there ever was such a person as Mr. Gabriel t.i.tmouse, my father? And what can come from _him_, seeing he was only a bit of a shoemaker--unless he's _heir_ to something?"

"Ah, yes--exactly; those are very interesting questions, Mr.

t.i.tmouse--very!"----

"Yes, sir; and them and many more I was going to ask long ago, but I saw you were"----

"Sir, I perceive that we have positively been absent from your place of business nearly an hour--your employers will be getting rather impatient."

"Meaning no offence, sir--bother _their_ impatience! _I'm_ impatient, I a.s.sure you, to know what all this means. Come, sir, 'pon my life I've told _you_ everything! It isn't quite fair!"

"Why, certainly, you see, Mr. t.i.tmouse," said Gammon, with an agreeable smile--(it was that smile of his which had been the making of Mr.

Gammon)--"it is only candid in me to acknowledge that your curiosity is perfectly reasonable, and your frankness very obliging; and I see no difficulty in admitting at once, that _I have_ had a--motive"----

"Yes, sir--and all that--_I_ know, sir,"--hastily interrupted t.i.tmouse, but without irritating or disturbing the placid speaker.

"And that we waited with some anxiety for the result of our advertis.e.m.e.nt."

"Ah, you can't escape from _that_, you know, sir!" interposed t.i.tmouse, with a confident air.

"But it is a maxim with us, my dear sir, never to be premature in anything, especially when it may be--very prejudicial; you've really no idea, my dear Mr. t.i.tmouse, of the world of mischief that is often done by precipitancy in legal matters; and in the present stage of the business--the _present_ stage, my dear sir--I really do see it necessary not to--do anything premature, and without consulting my partners."

"Lord, sir!" exclaimed t.i.tmouse, getting more and more irritated and impatient as he reflected on the length of his absence from Tag-rag & Co.'s.

"I quite feel for your anxiety--so perfectly natural"----

"Oh, dear sir! if you'd only tell me the _least bit_"----

"If, my dear sir, I were to disclose just now the exact object we had in inserting that advertis.e.m.e.nt in the papers"----

"How did you come to know of it at all, sir? Come, there can't be any harm in _that_ anyhow"----

"Not the least, my dear sir. It was in the course of business--in the course of business."

"Is it money that's been left me--or--anything of that sort?"

"It quite pains me, I a.s.sure you, Mr. t.i.tmouse, to suppose that our having put this advertis.e.m.e.nt into the papers may have misled you, and excited false hopes--I think, by the way"--added Gammon, suddenly, as something occurred to him of their previous conversation, which he was not quite sure of--"you told me that that Bible had been given you by your father."

"Oh yes, sir! yes--- no doubt of it; surely _that_ can't signify, seeing he's dead, and I'm his only son?" asked t.i.tmouse, quickly and eagerly.

"Oh, 'tis only a circ.u.mstance--a mere circ.u.mstance; but in business, you know, Mr. t.i.tmouse, every little helps--and you really, by the way, have no recollection of your mother, Mr. t.i.tmouse?"

"No, sir, I said so! And--meaning no offence, sir--I can't abide being put off in this kind of way,--I must own!--See what I have told you--you've told _me_ nothing at all. I hope you haven't been only making me a cat's-paw of? 'Pon my soul, I _hate_ being made a cat's-paw of, sir!"