Further continuation of the enterprise of Mr. Jonas and his
friend
IT WAS A SPECIAL QUALITY, among the many admirable qualities possessed by Mr.
Pecksniff, that the more he was found out, the more hypocrisy he practised. Let
him be discomfited in one quarter, and he refreshed and recompensed himself by
carrying the war into another. If his workings and windings were detected by A,
so much the greater reason was there for practising without loss of time on B,
if it were only to keep his hand in. He had never been such a saintly and
improving spectacle to all about him, as after his detection by Thomas Pinch. He
had scarcely ever been at once so tender in his humanity, and so dignified and
exalted in his virtue, as when young Martin's scorn was fresh and hot upon him.
Having this large stock of superfluous sentiment and morality on hand which
must positively be cleared off at any sacrifice, Mr. Pecksniff no sooner heard
his son-in-law announced, than he regarded him as a kind of wholesale or general
order, to be immediately executed. Descending, therefore, swiftly to the parlour,
and clasping the young man in his arms, he exclaimed, with looks and gestures
that denoted the perturbation of his spirit:
`Jonas. My child! She is well! There is nothing the matter?'
`What, you're at it again, are you?' replied his son-in-law. `Even with me?
Get away with you, will you?'
`Tell me she is well then,' said Mr. Pecksniff. `Tell me she is well my boy!'
`She's well enough,' retorted Jonas, disengaging himself. `There's nothing
the matter with her.'
`There is nothing the matter with her!' cried Mr. Pecksniff, sitting down in
the nearest chair, and rubbing up his hair. `Fie upon my weakness! I cannot help
it, Jonas. Thank you. I am better now. How is my other child; my eldest; my
Cherrywerrychigo?' said Mr Pecksniff, inventing a playful little name for her,
in the restored lightness of his heart.
`She's much about the same as usual,' returned Jonas. `She sticks pretty
close to the vinegar-bottle. You know she's got a sweetheart, I suppose?'
`I have heard of it,' said Mr. Pecksniff, `from headquarters; from my child
herself I will not deny that it moved me to contemplate the loss of my remaining
daughter, Jonas--I am afraid we parents are selfish, I am afraid we are--but it
has ever been the study of my life to qualify them for the domestic hearth; and
it is a sphere which Cherry will adorn.'
`She need adorn some sphere or other,' observed the son-in-law, for she ain't
very ornamental in general.'
`My girls are now provided for,' said Mr. Pecksniff. `They are now happily
provided for, and I have not laboured in vain!'
This is exactly what Mr. Pecksniff would have said, if one of his daughters
had drawn a prize of thirty thousand pounds in the lottery, or if the other had
picked up a valuable purse in the street, which nobody appeared to claim. In
either of these cases he would have invoked a patriarchal blessing on the
fortunate head, with great solemnity, and would have taken immense credit to
himself, as having meant it from the infant's cradle.
`Suppose we talk about something else, now,' observed Jonas, drily. `just for
a change. Are you quite agreeable?'
`Quite,' said Mr. Pecksniff. `Ah, you wag, you naughty wag! You laugh at poor
old fond papa. Well! He deserves it. And he don't mind it either, for his
feelings are their own reward. You have come to stay with me, Jonas?'
`No. I've got a friend with me,' said Jonas.
`Bring your friend!' cried Mr. Pecksniff, in a gush of hospitality. `Bring
any number of your friends!'
`This ain't the sort of man to be brought,' said Jonas, contemptuously. `I
think I see myself "bringing" him to your house, for a treat! Thank'ee all the
same; but he's a little too near the top of the tree for that, Pecksniff.'
The good man pricked up his ears; his interest was awakened. A position near
the top of the tree was greatness, virtue, goodness, sense, genius; or, it
should rather be said, a dispensation from all, and in itself something
immeasurably better than all; with Mr. Pecksniff. A man who was able to look
down upon Mr. Pecksniff could not be looked up at, by that gentleman, with too
great an amount of deference, or from a position of too much humility. So it
always is with great spirits.
`I'll tell you what you may do, if you like,' said Jonas: `you may come and
dine with us at the Dragon. We were forced to come down to Salisbury last night,
on some business, and I got him to bring me over here this morning, in his
carriage; at least, not his own carriage, for we had a breakdown in the night,
but one we hired instead; it's all the same. Mind what you're about, you know.
He's not used to all sorts; he only mixes with the best!'
`Some young nobleman who has been borrowing money of you at good interest,
eh?' said Mr. Pecksniff, shaking his forefinger facetiously. `I shall be
delighted to know the gay sprig.'
`Borrowing!' echoed Jonas. `Borrowing! When you're a twentieth part as rich
as he is, you may shut up shop! We should be pretty well off if we could buy his
furniture, and plate, and pictures, by clubbing together. A likely man to
borrow: Mr. Montague! Why since I was lucky enough (come! and I'll say, sharp
enough, too) to get a share in the Assurance office that he's President of, I've
made--never mind what I've made,' said Jonas, seeming to recover all at once his
usual caution. `You know me pretty well, and I don't blab about such things.
But, Ecod, I've made a trifle.'
`Really, my dear Jonas,' cried Mr. Pecksniff, with much warmth, `a gentleman
like this should receive some attention. Would he like to see the church? or if
he has a taste for the fine arts--which I have no doubt he has, from the
description you give of his circumstances--I can send him down a few portfolios.
Salisbury Cathedral, my dear Jonas,' said Mr. Pecksniff; the mention of the
portfolios and his anxiety to display himself to advantage, suggesting his usual
phraseology in that regard; `is an edifice replete with venerable associations,
and strikingly suggestive of the loftiest emotions. It is here we contemplate
the work of bygone ages. It is here we listen to the swelling organ, as we
stroll through the reverberating aisles. We have drawings of this celebrated
structure from the North, from the South from the East, from the West, from the
South-East, from the Nor'West----'
During this digression, and indeed during the whole dialogue, Jonas had been
rocking on his chair, with his hands in his pockets and his head thrown
cunningly on one side. He looked at Mr. Pecksniff now with such shrewd meaning
twinkling in his eyes, that Mr. Pecksniff stopped, and asked him what he was
going to say.
`Ecod!' he answered. `Pecksniff if I knew how you meant to leave your money,
I could put you in the way of doubling it in no time. It wouldn't be bad to keep
a chance like this snug in the family. But you're such a deep one!'
`Jonas!' cried Mr. Pecksniff, much affected, `I am not a diplomatically
character: my heart is in my hand. By far the greater part of the inconsiderable
savings I have accumulated in the course of--I hope--a not dishonourable or
useless career, is already given devised, and bequeathed (correct me, my dear
Jonas, if I am technically wrong), with expressions of confidence, which I will
not repeat; and in securities which it is unnecessary to mention to a person
whom I cannot, whom I will not, whom I need not, name.' Here he gave the hand of
his son-in-law a fervent squeeze, as if he would have added, `God bless you: be
very careful of it when you get it!'
Mr. Jonas only shook his head and laughed, and, seeming to think better of
what he had had in his mind, said, `No. He would keep his own counsel.' But as
he observed that he would take a walk, Mr. Pecksniff insisted on accompanying
him, remarking that he could leave a card for Mr. Montague, as they went along,
by way of gentleman-usher to himself at dinner-time. Which he did.
In the course of their walk, Mr. Jonas affected to maintain that close
reserve which had operated as a timely check upon him during the foregoing
dialogue. And as he made no attempt to conciliate Mr. Pecksniff, but, on the
contrary, was more boorish and rude to him than usual, that gentleman, so far
from suspecting his real design, laid himself out to be attacked with advantage.
For it is in the nature of a knave to think the tools with which he works
indispensable to knavery; and knowing what he would do himself in such a case,
Mr. Pecksniff argued, `if this young man wanted anything of me for his own ends,
he would be polite and deferential.'
The more Jonas repelled him in his hints and inquiries, the more solicitous,
therefore, Mr. Pecksniff became to be initiated into the golden mysteries at
which he had obscurely glanced. Why should there be cold and worldly secrets, he
observed, between relations? What was life without confidence? If the chosen
husband of his daughter, the man to whom he had delivered her with so much pride
and hope, such bounding and such beaming joy: if he were not a green spot in the
barren waste of life, where was that oasis to be bound?
Little did Mr. Pecksniff think on what a very green spot he planted one foot
at that moment! Little did he foresee when he said, `All is but dust!' how very
shortly he would come down with his own!
Inch by inch, in his grudging and ill-conditioned way; sustained to the life,
for the hope of making Mr. Pecksniff suffer in that tender place the pocket,
where Jonas smarted so terribly himself, gave him an additional and malicious
interest in the wiles he was set on to practise: inch by inch, and bit by bit,
Jonas rather allowed the dazzling prospects of the Anglo-Bengalee establishment
to escape him, than paraded them before his greedy listener. And in the same
niggardly spirit, he left Mr. Pecksniff to infer, if he chose (which he did
choose, of course), that a consciousness of not having any great natural gifts
of speech and manner himself, rendered him desirous to have the credit of
introducing to Mr. Montague some one who was well endowed in those respects, and
so atone for his own deficiencies. otherwise, he muttered discontentedly, he
would have seen his beloved father-in-law `far enough off,' before he would have
taken him into his confidence.
Primed in this artful manner, Mr. Pecksniff presented himself at dinner-time
in such a state of suavity, benevolence, cheerfulness, politeness, and
cordiality, as even he had perhaps never attained before. The frankness of the
country gentleman, the refinement of the artist, the good-humoured allowance of
the man of the world; philanthropy, forbearance, piety, toleration, all blended
together in a flexible adaptability to anything and everything; were expressed
in Mr. Pecksniff, as he shook hands with the great speculator and capitalist.
`Welcome, respected sir,' said Mr. Pecksniff, `to our humble village! We are
a simple people; primitive clods, Mr. Montague; but we can appreciate the honour
of your visit, as my dear son-m-law can testify. It is very strange,' said Mr.
Pecksniff, pressing his hand almost reverentially, `but I seem to know you. That
towering forehead, my dear Jonas,' said Mr. Pecksniff aside, `and those
clustering masses of rich hair--I must have seen you, my dear sir, in the
sparkling throng.'
Nothing was more probable, they all agreed.
`I could have wished,' said Mr. Pecksniff, `to have had the honour of
introducing you to an elderly inmate of our house to the uncle of our friend.
Mr. Chuzzlewit, sir, would have been proud indeed to have taken you by the
hand.'
`Is the gentleman here now?' asked Montague, turning deeply red. `He is,'
said Mr. Pecksniff.
`You said nothing about that, Chuzzlewit.'
`I didn't suppose you'd care to hear of it,' returned Jonas. `You wouldn't
care to know him, I can promise you.'
`Jonas! my dear Jonas!' remonstrated Mr. Pecksniff. `Really!'
`Oh! it's all very well for you to speak up for him,' said Jonas. `You have
nailed him. You'll get a fortune by him.'
`Oho! Is the wind in that quarter?' cried Montague. `Ha, ha, ha!' and here
they all laughed--especially Mr. Pecksniff.
`No, no!' said that gentleman, clapping his son-in-law playfully upon the
shoulder. `You must not believe all that my young relative says, Mr. Montague.
You may believe him in official business, and trust him in official business,
but you must not attach importance to his flights of fancy.'
`Upon my life, Mr. Pecksniff,' cried Montague, `I attach the greatest
importance to that last observation of his. I trust and hope it's true. Money
cannot be turned and turned again quickly enough in the ordinary course, Mr.
Pecksniff. There is nothing like building our fortune on the weaknesses of
mankind.'
`Oh fie! oh fie, for shame!' cried Mr. Pecksniff. But they all laughed
again--especially Mr. Pecksniff.
`I give you my honour that we do it,' said Montague.
`Oh fie, fie!' cried Mr. Pecksniff. `You are very pleasant. That I am sure
you don't! That I am sure you don't! How can you, you know?'
Again they all laughed in concert; and again Mr. Pecksniff laughed
especially.
This was very agreeable indeed. It was confidential, easy, straight-forward:
and still left Mr. Pecksniff in the position of being in a gentle way the Mentor
of the party. The greatest achievements in the article of cookery that the
Dragon had ever performed, were set before them; the oldest and best wines in
the Dragon's cellar saw the light on that occasion; a thousand bubbles,
indicative of the wealth and station of Mr. Montague in the depths of his
pursuits, were constantly rising to the surface of the conversation; and they
were as frank and merry as three honest men could be. Mr. Pecksniff thought it a
pity (he said so) that Mr. Montague should think lightly of mankind and their
weaknesses. He was anxious upon this subject; his mind ran upon it; in one way
or another he was constantly coming back to it; he must make a convert of him,
he said. And as often as Mr. Montague repeated his sentiment about building
fortunes on the weaknesses of mankind, and added frankly, `We do it!' just as
often Mr. Pecksniff repeated `oh fie! oh fie, for shame! I am sure you don't.
How can you, you know?' laying a greater stress each time on those last words.
The frequent repetition of this playful inquiry on the part of Mr. Pecksniff,
led at last to playful answers on the part of Mr. Montague; but after some
little sharp-shooting on both sides, Mr. Pecksniff became grave, almost to
tears; observing that if Mr. Montague would give him leave, he would drink the
health of his young kinsman, Mr. Jonas; congratulating him upon the valuable and
distinguished friendship he had formed, but envying him, he would confess, his
usefulness to his fellow-creatures. For, if he understood the objects of that
Institution with which he was newly and advantageously connected--knowing them
but imperfectly--they were calculated to do Good: and for his (Mr. Pecksniff's)
part, if he could in any way promote them, he thought he would be able to lay
his head upon his pillow every night, with an absolute certainty of going to
sleep at once.
The transition from this accidental remark (for it was quite accidental and
had fallen from Mr. Pecksniff in the openness of his soul), to the discussion of
the subject as a matter of business, was easy. Books, papers, statements,
tables, calculations of various kinds, were soon spread out before them; and as
they were all framed with one object, it is not surprising that they should all
have tended to one end. But still, whenever Montague enlarged upon the profits
of the office, and said that as long as there were gulls upon the wing it must
succeed, Mr. Pecksniff mildly said `oh fie!'--and might indeed have remonstrated
with him, but that he knew he was joking. Mr. Pecksniff did know he was joking;
because he said so.
There never had been before, and there never would be again, such an
opportunity for the investment of a considerable sum (the rate of advantage
increased in proportion to the amount invested), as at that moment. The only
time that had at all approached it, was the time when Jonas had come into the
concern; which made him illnatured now, and inclined him to pick out a doubt in
this place, and a flaw in that, and grumbling to advise Mr. Pecksniff to think
better of it. The sum which would complete the proprietorship in this snug
concern, was nearly equal to Mr. Pecksniff's whole hoard: not counting Mr.
Chuzzlewit, that is to say, whom he looked upon as money in the Bank, the
possession of which inclined him the more to make a dash with his own private
sprats for the capture of such a whale as Mr. Montague described. The returns
began almost immediately, and were immense. The end of it was, that Mr.
Pecksniff agreed to become the last partner and proprietor in the
Anglo-Bengalee, and made an appointment to dine with Mr. Montague, at Salisbury,
on the next day but one, then and there to complete the negotiation.
It took so long to bring the subject to this head, that it was nearly
midnight when they parted. When Mr. Pecksniff walked downstairs to the door, he
found Mrs. Lupin standing there, looking out.
`Ah, my good friend!' he said. `not a-bed yet! Contemplating the stars, Mrs.
Lupin?'
`It's a beautiful starlight night, sir.'
`A beautiful starlight night,' said Mr. Pecksniff, looking up. `Behold the
planets, how they shine! Behold the--those two persons who were here this
morning have left your house, I hope, Mrs. Lupin?'
`Yes, sir. They are gone.'
`I am glad to hear it,' said Mr. Pecksniff. `Behold the wonders of the
firmament, Mrs. Lupin! how glorious is the scene! When I look up at those
shining orbs, I think that each of them is winking to the other to take notice
of the vanity of men's pursuits. My fellowmen!' cried Mr. Pecksniff, shaking his
head in pity; `you are much mistaken; my wormy relatives, you are much deceived!
The stars are perfectly contented (I suppose so) in their several spheres. Why
are not you? oh! do not strive and struggle to enrich yourselves) or to get the
better of each other, my deluded friends, but look up there, with me!'
Mrs. Lupin shook her head, and heaved a sigh. It was very affecting.
`Look up there, with me!' repeated Mr. Pecksniff, stretching out his hand;
`With me, an humble individual who is also an insect like yourselves. Can
silver, gold, or precious stones, sparkle like those constellations! I think not
then do not thirst for silver, gold, or precious stones; but look up there, with
me!'
With those words, the good man patted Mrs. Lupin's hand between his own, as
if he would have added `think of this, my good woman!' and walked away in a sort
of ecstasy or rapture, with his hat under his arm.
Jonas sat in the attitude in which Mr. Pecksniff had left him, gazing moodily
at his friend: who, surrounded by a heap of documents, was writing something on
an oblong slip of paper.
`You mean to wait at Salisbury over the day after to-morrow, do you, then?'
said Jonas.
`You heard our appointment,' returned Montague, without raising his eyes. `In
any case I should have waited to see after the boy.'
They appeared to have changed places again; Montague being in high spirits;
Jonas gloomy and lowering.
`You don't want me, I suppose?' said Jonas.
`I want you to put your name here,' he returned, glancing at him with a
smile, `as soon as I have filled up the stamp. I may as well have your note of
hand for that extra capital. That's all I want. If you wish to go home, I can
manage Mr. Pecksniff now, alone. There is a perfect understanding between us.'
Jonas sat scowling at him as he wrote, in silence. When he had finished his
writing, and had dried it on the blotting paper in his travelling-desk; he
looked up, and tossed the pen towards him.
`What, not a day's grace, not a day's trust, eh?' said Jonas bitterly. `Not
after the pains I have taken with to-night's work?'
`To night's work was a part of our bargain,' replied Montague; `and so was
this.'
`You drive a hard bargain,' said Jonas, advancing to the table. `You know
best. Give it here!'
Montague gave him the paper. After pausing as if he could not make up his
mind to put his name to it, Jonas dipped his pen hastily in the nearest
inkstand, and began to write. But he had scarcely marked the paper when he
started back, in a panic.
`Why, what the devil's this?' he said. `It's bloody!'
He had dipped the pen, as another moment showed, into red ink. But he
attached a strange degree of importance to the mistake. He asked how it had come
there, who had brought it, why it had been brought; and looked at Montague, at
first, as if he thought he had put a trick upon him. Even when he used a
different pen, and the right ink, he made some scratches on another paper first,
as half believing they would turn red also.
`Black enough, this time,' he said, handing the note to Montague. `Good-bye.'
`Going now! how do you mean to get away from here?'
`I shall cross early in the morning to the high road, before you are out of
bed; and catch the day-coach, going up. good-bye!'
`You are in a hurry!'
`I have Something to do,' said Jonas. `good-bye!'
His friend looked after him as he went out, in surprise, which gradually gave
place to an air of satisfaction and relief.
`It happens all the better. It brings about what I wanted, without any
difficulty. I shall travel home alone.'
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