CHAPTER XII.
IN WHICH HIS FRIENDS VISIT THE SICK.
MR. LEVI, when Sarah Rumble gave him her lodger's message, did not, ashe said, "vally it a turn of a half-penny." He could not be very illif he could send his attendant out of doors, and deliver the terms inwhich his messages were to be communicated. Mr. Levi's diagnosis wasthat Mr. Dingwell's attack was in the region of the purse orpocket-book, and that the "dodge" was simply to get the partners andMr. Larkin together for the purpose of extracting more money.
Mr. Larkin was in town, and he had written to that gentleman's hotel;also he had told Mr. Goldshed, who took the same view, and laughed inhis lazy diapason over the weak invention of the enemy.
Levi accordingly took the matter very easily, and hours had passedbefore his visit, which was made pretty late in the afternoon, and hewas smiling over his superior sagacity in seeing through Dingwell'slittle dodge, as he walked into the court, when an officious littlegirl, in her mother's bonnet, running by his knee, said, pompously--
"You'd better not go there, sir."
"And why so, chickabiddy?" inquired Mr. Levi, derisively.
"No, you'd better not; there's a gentleman as has took the feverthere."
"Where?" said Mr. Levi, suddenly interested.
"In Mrs. Rumble's."
"_Is_ there?--how do you know?"
"Lucy Maria Rumbles, please, sir, she told me, and he's _very bad_."
The fashion of Levi's countenance was changed as he turned from hersuddenly, and knocked so sharply at the door that the canary, hangingfrom the window in his cage over the way, arrested his song, and wasagitated for an hour afterwards.
So Mr. Levi was now thoroughly aroused to the danger that had sosuddenly overcast his hopes, and threatened to swallow in thebottomless sea of death the golden stake he had ventured.
It was not, nevertheless, until eight o'clock in the evening, so harda thing is it to collect three given men [what then must be the officeof whip to Whig or Tory side of the House?] that the two Jews and Mr.Larkin were actually assembled in Mr. Dingwell's bed-room, now reekingwith disinfectants and prophylactic fluids.
The party were in sore dismay, for the interesting patient had begunto maunder very preposterously in his talk. They listened, and heardhim say--
"That's a lie--I say, I'd nail his tongue to the table. Bells won'tring for it--lots of bells in England; you'll not find 'em _here_,though."
And then it went off into a mumbling, and Mr. Goldshed, who waslistening disconsolately, exclaimed, "My eyesh!"
"Well, how do you like it, guv'nor? I said he'd walk the plank, and sohe will," said Levi. "He will--he will;" and Levi clenched his whiteteeth, with an oath.
"_There_, Mr. Levi, _pray_, pray, none of _that_," said Mr. Larkin.
The three gentlemen were standing in a row, from afar off observingthe patient, with an intense scrutiny of a gloomy and, I may say, asavage kind.
"He was an unfortunate agent--no energy, except for his pleasures,"resentfully resumed Mr. Larkin, who was standing furthest back of thethree speculators. "Indolent, impracticable enough to ruin fiftycases; and now here he lies in a fever, contracted, you think, Mr.Levi, in some of his abominable haunts."
Mr. Larkin did not actually say "d---- him," but he directed a verydark, sharp look upon his acquaintance in the bed.
"Abawminable, to be sure, abawminable. Bah! It's all true. The hornieshas their eye on him these seven weeks past--curse the beasht,"snarled Mr. Levi, clenching his fists in his pockets, "and everyda--a--m muff that helped to let me in for this here rotten business."
"Meaning _me_, sir?" said Mr. Larkin, flushing up to the top of hishead a fierce pink.
Levi answered nothing, and Mr. Larkin did not press his question.
It is very easy to be companionable and good-humoured while all goespleasantly. It is failure, loss, and disappointment, that try thesociable qualities; even those three amiable men felt less amicableunder the cloud than they had under the sunshine.
So they all three looked in their several ways angrily andthoughtfully at the gentleman in the typhus fever, who said ratherabruptly--
"She killed herself, sir; foolish 'oman! Capital dancing, gentlemen!Capital dancing, ladies! Capital--capital--admirable dancing. Godhelp us!" and so it sunk again into mumbling.
"Capital da-a-ancing, and who pays the piper?" asked Mr. Goldshed,with a rather ferocious sneer. "It has cost us fifteen hundred to twothousand!"
"And a doctor," suggested Levi.
"Doctor, the devil! I say; I've paid through the nose," or, as hepronounced that organ through which his metallic declamation droned,_noshe_. "It's Mr. Larkin's turn now; it's all da-a-am rot; a warmfellow like you, Mr. Larkin, putting all the loss on me; how can Ista-a-an' that--sta-a-an' all the losses, and share theprofits--ba-a-ah, sir; that couldn't pay nohow."
"I think," said Mr. Larkin, "it may be questionable how far aphysician would be, just in this imminent stage of the attack, at alluseful, or even desirable; but, Miss Rumble, if I understand you, heis quite _compos_--I mean, quite, so to speak, in his senses, in theearly part of the day."
He paused, and Miss Rumble from the other side of the bed contributedher testimony.
"Well, that being so," began Mr. Larkin, but stopped short as Mr.Dingwell took up his parable, forgetting how wide of the mark the sickman's interpolations were.
"That's a vulture over there--devilish odd birds," said Mr. Dingwell'svoice, with an unpleasant distinctness; "you just tie a turban on astick," and then he was silent.
Mr. Larkin cleared his voice and resumed--
"Well, as I was saying, when the attack, whatever it is, has developeditself, a medical man may possibly be available; but in the mean time,as he is spared the possession of his faculties, and we all agree,gentlemen, whatever particular form of faith may be respectively ours,that some respect is due to futurity; I would say, that a clergyman,at all events, might make him advantageously a visit to-morrow, andafford him an opportunity at least of considering the interests of hissoul."
"Oh! da--a--m his shoul, it's his _body_. We must try to keep himtogether," said Mr. Goldshed, impatiently. "If he dies the money's alllost, every shtiver; if he don't, he's a sound speculation; we mustraise a doctor among us, Mr. Larkin."
"It is highly probable indeed that before long the unfortunategentleman may require medical advice," said Mr. Larkin, who had a highopinion of the "speculation," whose pulse was at this momentunfortunately at a hundred and twenty. "The fever, my dear sir, ifsuch it be, will have declared itself in a day or two; in the meantime,nursing is all that is really needful, and Miss Rumble, I haveno doubt, will take care that the unhappy gentleman is properlyprovided in that respect."
The attorney, who did not want at that moment to be drawn into adiscussion on contributing to expenses, smiled affectionately on MissRumble, to whom he assigned the part of good Samaritan.
"He'll want some one at night, sir, please; I could not undertakemyself, sir, for both day and night," said brown Miss Rumble, veryquietly.
"_There!_ That'sh it!" exclaimed Levi, with a vicious chuckle, and ascowl, extending his open hand energetically toward Miss Rumble, andglaring from Mr. Larkin to his partner.
"Nothing but _pay_; down with the dust, Goldshed and Levi. Bleed likea pair o' beashtly pigs, Goldshed and Levi, _do_! There's death inthat fellow's face, I say. It's all bosh, doctors and nurses; throwinggood money after bad, and then, five pounds to bury him, drat him!"
"Bury? ho, no! the parish, the workhoushe-authorities shall bury him,"said Mr. Goldshed, briskly.
"Dead--dead--dead, as a Mameluke--dead as a Janizary--eh?eh?--bowstrung!" exclaimed, Mr. Dingwell, and went off into anindistinct conversation in a foreign language.
"Stuff a stocking down his throat, will you?" urged Mr. Levi; a duty,however, which no one undertook.
"I see that cove's booked; he looks just like old Solomon's lookedwhen _he_ had it. It isn't no use; all rot, throwing good money arterb
ad, I say; let him be; let him die."
"I'll _not_ let him die; no, he shan't. I'll _make_ him pay. I madethe Theatre of Fascination pay," said Mr. Goldshed serenely, alludingto a venture of his devising, by which the partnership made ever somuch money in spite of a prosecution and heavy fines and otherexpenses.
"I say 'tisn't my principle to throw up the game, by nomeans--_no_--with my ball in hand, and the stakes in thepocket--_never_!"
Here Mr. Goldshed wagged his head slowly with a solemn smile, and Mr.Dingwell, from the bed, said with a moan--
"Move it, will you? That way--I wish you'd help--b-bags, sir--sacks,sir--awfully hard lying--full of ears and--ay--_noses_--egad!--whynot? cut them all off, I say. D--n the Greeks! Will you move it? _Do_move that sack--it hurts his ribs--ribs--_I_ never got the bastinado."
"Not but what you deserved it," remarked Mr. Levi.
And Mr. Dingwell's babbling went on, but too indistinctly to beunravelled.
"I say," continued Mr. Goldshed, sublimely, "if that 'ere speculativething in the bed there comes round, and gets all square and right,I'll make him pay. I'm not funked--who's afraid--wiry old brick!"
"I think so," acquiesced Mr. Larkin with gentle solemnity; "Mr.Dingwell is certainly, as you say, wiry. There are many things in hisfavour, and Providence, Mr. Goldshed--Providence is over us all."
"Providence, to be sure," said Mr. Goldshed, who did not disdain helpfrom any quarter. "Where does he keep his money, ma'am?"
"Under his bolster, please, sir--under his head," answered SarahRumble.
"Take it out, please," said Mr. Goldshed.
She hesitated.
"_Give_ the man hish money, woman, ca-a-ant you?" bawled Mr. Levifiercely, and extending his arm toward the bed.
"You had better--_yes_, ma'am, the money belongs to Messrs. Goldshedand Levi," said Mr. Larkin, interposing in the character of the _virpietate gravis_.
Sally Rumble, recollecting Mr. Dingwell's direction, "Let 'em have themoney, too, if they press for it," obeyed, and slid her hand under hisbolster, and under his head, from the other side where she wasstanding; and Dingwell, feeling the motion, I suppose, raised his headand stared with sunken eyes dismally at the three gentlemen, whom heplainly did not recognise, or possibly saw in the shapes of foxes,wolves, or owls, which AEsop would have metaphorically assigned them,and with a weary groan he closed his wandering eyes again, and sankdown on the pillow.
Miss Rumble drew forth a roll of bank-notes with a string tied roundthem.
"Take the money, Levi," said Goldshed, drawing a step backward.
"Take it yourself, guv'nor," said Levi, waving back Miss Sally Rumble,and edging back a little himself.
"Well," said Goldshed, quietly, "I see you're afraid of thatinfection."
"I believe you," answered Levi.
"So am I," said Goldshed, uneasily.
"And no wonder!" added Mr. Larkin, anticipating himself an invitationto accept the questionable trust.
"Put them notes down on the table there," said Mr. Goldshed.
And the three gentlemen eyed the precious roll of paper as I have seenpeople at a chemical lecture eye the explodable compounds on theprofessor's table.
"I tell you what, ma'am," said Goldshed, "you'll please get a drybottle and a cork, and put them notes into it, and cork it down,ma'am, and give it to Mr. Levi."
"And count them first, please, Miss Rumble--shan't she, Mr. Goldshed?"suggested Mr. Larkin.
"What for?--isn't the money ours?" howled Mr. Levi, with a ferociousstare on the attorney's meek face.
"Only, Mr. Goldshed, with a view to distinctness, and to preventpossible confusion in any future account," said Mr. Larkin, who knewthat Dingwell had got money from the Verneys, and thought that ifthere was anything recovered from the wreck he had as good a right tohis salvage as another.
Mr. Goldshed met his guileless smile with an ugly sneer, and said--
"Oh, count them, to be sure, for the gentleman. It isn't a ha'penny tome."
So Miss Rumble counted seventy-five pounds in bank notes and fourpounds in gold, which latter Mr. Goldshed committed to her in trustfor the use of the patient, and the remainder were duly bottled andcorked down according to Mr. Goldshed's grotesque precaution, and inthis enclosure Mr. Levi consented to take the money in hand, and so itwas deposited for the night in the iron safe in Messrs. Goldshed andLevi's office, to be uncorked in the morning by old Rosenthal, thecashier, who would, no doubt, be puzzled by the peculiarity of thearrangement, and with the aid of a cork-screw, lodged to the credit ofthe firm.
Mr. Goldshed next insisted that Dingwell's life, fortunately for thatperson, was too important to the gentlemen assembled there to betrifled with; and said that sage--
"We'll have the best doctor in London--six pounds' worth of _him_--d'ysee? And under him a clever _young_ doctor to look in four times aday, and we'll arrange with the young 'un on the principal of no cureno pay--that is, we'll give fifty pounds this day six weeks, if theparty in bed here is alive at that date."
And upon this basis I believe an arrangement was actually completed.The great Doctor Langley, when he called, and questioned Miss Rumble,and inspected the patient, told Mr. Levi, who was in waiting, that theold gentleman had been walking about in a fever for more than a weekbefore he took to his bed, and that the chances were very decidedlyagainst his recovery.
A great anxiety overcame Mr. Larkin like a summer cloud, and theserene sunshine of that religious mind was overcast with storm andblackness. For the recovery of Mr. Dingwell were offered up, in onesynagogue at least, prayers as fervent as any ever made for that ofour early friend Charles Surface, and it was plain that never waspatriarch, saint, or hero, mourned as the venerable Mr. Dingwell wouldbe, by at least three estimable men, if the fates were to make awaywith him on this critical occasion.
The three gentlemen, as they left his room on the evening I have beendescribing, cast their eyes upon Mr. Dingwell's desk, and hesitated,and looked at one another, darkly, for a moment in silence.
"There'sh no reason why we shouldn't," drawled Mr. Goldshed.
"I object to the removal of the desk," said Mr. Larkin, with a shakeof his head, closing his eyes, and raising his hand as if about topronounce a benediction on the lid of it. "If he's spared it mightbecome a very serious thing--I decidedly object."
"Who want'sh to take the man's desk!" drawled Mr. Goldshed, surlily.
"Who want'sh to take it?" echoed Levi, and stared at him with an angrygape.
"But there will be no harm, I shay, in looking what paper'sh there,"continued Mr. Goldshed. "Does he get letters?"
"Only two, sir, please, as I can remember, since he came here."
"By po-sht, or by ha-a-an'?" inquired Goldshed.
"By 'and, sir, please; it was your Mr. Solomons as fetched 'em here,sir."
He lifted up the desk, swayed it gently, and shook it a little,looking at it as if it were a musical box about to strike up, and soset it down again softly. "There'sh papersh in that box," he hummedthoughtfully to himself.
"I think I may speak here," said Mr. Larkin, looking up sadly andloftily, as he placed his hat upon his bald head, "with some littleauthority as a professional man--if in no higher capacity--and I maytake upon myself to say, that by no possibility can the contents ofthat desk affect the very simple and, in a certain sense, directtransactions in which our clients' interests, and in a degree oursalso, are involved, and I object on higher grounds still, I hope, toany irregularity as respects that desk."
"If you're confident, Mr. Larkinsh, there'sh nothing in it can affectthe bushiness we're on, I would not give you a cancel' Queen's headfor the lot."
"Perfectly confident, my dear Mr. Goldshed."
"He'sh perfectly confident," repeated Mr. Levi in his guv'nor's ear,from over his shoulder.
"Come along then," said Mr. Goldshed, shuffling slowly out of theroom, with his hands in his pockets.
"It's agreed then, gentlemen, there's no tampering with the desk?"urge
d Mr. Larkin, entreatingly.
"Shertainly," said Mr. Goldshed, beginning to descend the stairs.
"Shertainly," repeated Mr. Levi, following him.
And the three gentlemen, in grave and friendly guise, walked awaytogether, over the flagged court. Mr. Larkin did not half like takingthe arms of these gentlemen, but the quarter of the town was not onewhere he was likely to meet any of either the spiritual or theterrestrial aristocracy with whom he desired specially to stand well.So he moved along conscious, not unpleasantly, of the contrast which ahigh-bred gentleman must always present in juxtaposition with suchpersons as Goldshed and Levi. They walked through the dingy corridorcalled Caldwell Alley, and through Ive's Lane, and along the market,already flaring and glaring with great murky jets of gas wavering inthe darkening stalls, and thence by the turn to the left into themore open street, where the cab-stand is, and then having agreed todine together at the "Three Roses" in Milk Lane in half an hour, thegentlemen parted--Messrs. Goldshed and Levi to fly in a cab to meettheir lawyer at their office, and Mr. Larkin to fly westward to hishotel, to inquire for a letter which he expected. So smiling theyparted; and, so soon as Mr. Larkin was quite out of sight, Mr. Levidescended from their cab, and with a few parting words which hemurmured in Mr. Goldshed's ear, left him to drive away by himself,while he retraced his steps at his leisure to Rosemary Court, andfinding the door of Miss Rumble's house open with Lucy Maria at it,entered and walked straight up to Mr. Dingwell's drawing-room, with abunch of small keys in his hand, in his coat-pocket.
He had got just two steps into the room towards the little table onwhich the patient's desk stood, when from the other side of that pieceof furniture, and the now open desk, there rose up the tall form ofMr. Jos. Larkin, of the Lodge.
The gentlemen eyed one another for a few seconds in silence, for thesurprise was great. Mr. Larkin did not even set down the parcel ofletters, which he had been sorting like a hand at whist, when Mr.Levi had stepped in to divert his attention.
"I thought, Mr. Larkinsh, I might as well drop in just to give you alift," said Levi, with an elaborate bow, a politeness, and a greatsmile, that rather embarrassed the good attorney.
"Certainly, Mr. Levi, I'm always happy to see you--always happy to see_any_ man--I have never done anything I am ashamed of, nor shrunk fromany duty, nor do I mean to do so now."
"Your hands looksh pretty full."
"Yes, sir, _pretty_ tolerably full, sir," said Mr. Larkin, placing theletters on the desk; "and I may add so do _yours_, Mr. Levi; thosekeys, as you observe, might have given one a lift in opening thisdesk, had I not preferred the _other_ course," said Mr. Larkin,loftily, "of simply requesting Mr. Dingwell's friend, the lady atpresent in charge of his papers, to afford me, at her own discretion,such access to the papers possibly affecting my client as I mayconsider necessary or expedient, as his legal adviser."
"You have changed your view of your duty, rather; haven't you, Mr.Larkinsh?"
"No, sir, _no_; simply my action on a point of expediency. Of course,there was some weight, too, sir, in the suggestions made by agentleman of Mr. Goldshed's experience and judgment; and I don'thesitate to say that his--his ideas had their proper weight with me.And I may say, once for all, Mr. Levi, I'll not be hectored, orlectured, or _bullied_ by you, Mr. Levi," added Mr. Larkin, in a newstyle, feeling, perhaps, that his logical and moral vein was not quiteso happy as usual.
"Don't frighten ush, Larkins, pray don't, only just give me leave tosee what them letters is about," said Levi, taking his place by him;"did you put any of them in your pocket?"
"No, sir; upon my _soul_, Mr. Levi, I did no such thing," said Mr.Larkin, with a heartiness that had an effect upon the Jew. "Theoccasion is so serious that I hardly regret having used theexpression," said Mr. Larkin, who had actually blushed at his ownoath. "There was just one letter possibly worth looking at."
"That da-a-am foolish letter you wrote him to Constantinople?"
"I wrote him _no_ foolish letter, sir. I wrote him no letter, sir, Ishould fear to have posted on the market cross, or read from thepulpit, Mr. Levi. I only wonder, knowing all you do of Mr. Dingwell'sunfortunate temper, and reckless habits of assertion, that you shouldattach the smallest weight to an expression thrown out by him in oneof his diabolical and--and--lamentable frenzies. As to my havingabstracted a letter of his--an imputation at which I smile--I can,happily, cite evidence other than my own." He waved his hand towardMiss Rumble. "This lady has happily, I will say, been in the roomduring my very brief examination of my client's half-dozen papers.Pray, madam, have I taken one of these--or, in fact, put it in mypocket?"
"No, sir, please," answered Miss Rumble, who spoke in good faith,having, with a lively remembrance of Mr. Dingwell's description of thethree gentlemen who had visited the sick that day, as "three robbers,"kept her eye very steadily upon the excellent Mr. Larkin, during theperiod of his search.
Mr. Levi would have liked to possess that letter. It would have provedpossibly a useful engine in the hands of the Firm in future dealingswith the adroit and high-minded Mr. Larkin. It was not to be had,however, if it really existed at all; and when some more ironies andmoralities had been fired off on both sides, the gentlemen subsidedinto their ordinary relations, and ultimately went away together todine on turtle, sturgeon, salmon, and I know not what meats, at thefamous "Three Roses" in Milk Lane.