'Where!' she answered, holding it up with both hands. 'Look at it!'
'THAT a pudding!' said Tom.
'It WILL be, you stupid fellow, when it's covered in,' returned his sister. Tom still pretending to look incredulous, she gave him a tap on the head with the rolling-pin, and still laughing merrily, had returned to the composition of the top crust, when she started and turned very red. Tom started, too, for following her eyes, he saw John Westlock in the room.
'Why, my goodness, John! How did YOU come in?'
'I beg pardon,' said John--' your sister's pardon especially--but I met an old lady at the street door, who requested me to enter here; and as you didn't hear me knock, and the door was open, I made bold to do so. I hardly know,' said John, with a smile, 'why any of us should be disconcerted at my having accidentally intruded upon such an agreeable domestic occupation, so very agreeably and skillfully pursued; but I must confess that I am. Tom, will you kindly come to my relief?'
'Mr John Westlock,' said Tom. 'My sister.'
'I hope that, as the sister of so old a friend,' said John, laughing 'you will have the goodness to detach your first impressions of me from my unfortunate entrance.'
'My sister is not indisposed perhaps to say the same to you on her own behalf,' retorted Tom.
John said, of course, that this was quite unnecessary, for he had been transfixed in silent admiration; and he held out his hand to Miss Pinch; who couldn't take it, however, by reason of the flour and paste upon her own. This, which might seem calculated to increase the general confusion and render matters worse, had in reality the best effect in the world, for neither of them could help laughing; and so they both found themselves on easy terms immediately.
'I am delighted to see you,' said Tom. 'Sit down.'
'I can only think of sitting down on one condition,' returned his friend; 'and that is, that your sister goes on with the pudding, as if you were still alone.'
'That I am sure she will,' said Tom. 'On one other condition, and that is, that you stay and help us to eat it.'
Poor little Ruth was seized with a palpitation of the heart when Tom committed this appalling indiscretion, for she felt that if the dish turned out a failure, she never would be able to hold up her head before John Westlock again. Quite unconscious of her state of mind, John accepted the invitation with all imaginable heartiness; and after a little more pleasantry concerning this same pudding, and the tremendous expectations he made believe to entertain of it, she blushingly resumed her occupation, and he took a chair.
'I am here much earlier than I intended, Tom; but I will tell you, what brings me, and I think I can answer for your being glad to hear it. Is that anything you wish to show me?'
'Oh dear no!' cried Tom, who had forgotten the blotted scrap of paper in his hand, until this inquiry brought it to his recollection. '"A respectable young man, aged thirty-five"--The beginning of a description of myself. That's all.'
'I don't think you will have occasion to finish it, Tom. But how is it you never told me you had friends in London?'
Tom looked at his sister with all his might; and certainly his sister looked with all her might at him.
'Friends in London!' echoed Tom.
'Ah!' said Westlock, 'to be sure.'
'Have YOU any friends in London, Ruth, my dear!' asked Tom.
'No, Tom.'
'I am very happy to hear that I have,' said Tom, 'but it's news to me. I never knew it. They must be capital people to keep a secret, John.'
'You shall judge for yourself,' returned the other. 'Seriously, Tom, here is the plain state of the case. As I was sitting at breakfast this morning, there comes a knock at my door.'
'On which you cried out, very loud, "Come in!"' suggested Tom.
'So I did. And the person who knocked, not being a respectable young man, aged thirty-five, from the country, came in when he was invited, instead of standing gaping and staring about him on the landing. Well! When he came in, I found he was a stranger; a grave, business-like, sedate-looking, stranger. "Mr Westlock?" said he. "That is my name," said I. "The favour of a few words with you?" said he. "Pray be seated, sir," said I.'
Here John stopped for an instant, to glance towards the table, where Tom's sister, listening attentively, was still busy with the basin, which by this time made a noble appearance. Then he resumed:
'The pudding having taken a chair, Tom--'
'What!' cried Tom.
'Having taken a chair.'
'You said a pudding.'
'No, no,' replied John, colouring rather; 'a chair. The idea of a stranger coming into my rooms at half-past eight o'clock in the morning, and taking a pudding! Having taken a chair, Tom, a chair--amazed me by opening the conversation thus: "I believe you are acquainted, sir, with Mr Thomas Pinch?"
'No!' cried Tom.
'His very words, I assure you. I told him I was. Did I know where you were at present residing? Yes. In London? Yes. He had casually heard, in a roundabout way, that you had left your situation with Mr Pecksniff. Was that the fact? Yes, it was. Did you want another? Yes, you did.'
'Certainly,' said Tom, nodding his head.
'Just what I impressed upon him. You may rest assured that I set that point beyond the possibility of any mistake, and gave him distinctly to understand that he might make up his mind about it. Very well.'
"Then," said he, "I think I can accommodate him."'
Tom's sister stopped short.
'Lord bless me!' cried Tom. 'Ruth, my dear, "think I can accommodate him."'
'Of course I begged him,' pursued John Westlock, glancing at Tom's sister, who was not less eager in her interest than Tom himself, 'to proceed, and said that I would undertake to see you immediately. He replied that he had very little to say, being a man of few words, but such as it was, it was to the purpose--and so, indeed, it turned out--for he immediately went on to tell me that a friend of his was in want of a kind of secretary and librarian; and that although the salary was small, being only a hundred pounds a year, with neither board nor lodging, still the duties were not heavy, and there the post was. Vacant, and ready for your acceptance.'
'Good gracious me!' cried Tom; 'a hundred pounds a year! My dear John! Ruth, my love! A hundred pounds a year!'
'But the strangest part of the story,' resumed John Westlock, laying his hand on Tom's wrist, to bespeak his attention, and repress his ecstasies for the moment; 'the strangest part of the story, Miss Pinch, is this. I don't know this man from Adam; neither does this man know Tom.'
'He can't,' said Tom, in great perplexity, 'if he's a Londoner. I don't know any one in London.'
'And on my observing,' John resumed, still keeping his hand upon Tom's wrist, 'that I had no doubt he would excuse the freedom I took in inquiring who directed him to me; how he came to know of the change which had taken place in my friend's position; and how he came to be acquainted with my friend's peculiar fitness for such an office as he had described; he drily said that he was not at liberty to enter into any explanations.'
'Not at liberty to enter into any explanations!' repeated Tom, drawing a long breath.
'"I must be perfectly aware," he said,' John added, '"that to any person who had ever been in Mr Pecksniff's neighbourhood, Mr Thomas Pinch and his acquirements were as well known as the Church steeple, or the Blue Dragon."'
'The Blue Dragon!' repeated Tom, staring alternately at his friend and his sister.
'Aye, think of that! He spoke as familiarly of the Blue Dragon, I give you my word, as if he had been Mark Tapley. I opened my eyes, I can tell you, when he did so; but I could not fancy I had ever seen the man before, although he said with a smile, "You know the Blue Dragon, Mr Westlock; you kept it up there, once or twice, yourself." Kept it up there! So I did. You remember, Tom?'
Tom nodded with great significance, and, falling into a state of deeper perplexity than before, observed that this was the most unaccountable and extraordinary circumstance he had ever heard of in his life.
'Mr Fips,' said Tom, reading it aloud. 'Austin Friars. Austin Friars sounds ghostly, John.'
'Fips don't, I think,' was John's reply. 'But there he lives, Tom, and there he expects us to call this morning. And now you know as much of this strange incident as I do, upon my honour.'
Tom's face, between his exultation in the hundred pounds a year, and his wonder at this narration, was only to be equalled by the face of his sister, on which there sat the very best expression of blooming surprise that any painter could have wished to see. What the beef-steak pudding would have come to, if it had not been by this time finished, astrology itself could hardly determine.
'Tom,' said Ruth, after a little hesitation, 'perhaps Mr Westlock, in his friendship for you, knows more of this than he chooses to tell.'
'No, indeed!' cried John, eagerly. 'It is not so, I assure you. I wish it were. I cannot take credit to myself, Miss Pinch, for any such thing. All that I know, or, so far as I can judge, am likely to know, I have told you.'
'Couldn't you know more, if you thought proper?' said Ruth, scraping the pie-board industriously.
'No,' retorted John. 'Indeed, no. It is very ungenerous in you to be so suspicious of me when I repose implicit faith in you. I have unbounded confidence in the pudding, Miss Pinch.'
She laughed at this, but they soon got back into a serious vein, and discussed the subject with profound gravity. Whatever else was obscure in the business, it appeared to be quite plain that Tom was offered a salary of one hundred pounds a year; and this being the main point, the surrounding obscurity rather set it off than otherwise.
Tom, being in a great flutter, wished to start for Austin Friars instantly, but they waited nearly an hour, by John's advice, before they departed. Tom made himself as spruce as he could before leaving home, and when John Westlock, through the half-opened parlour door, had glimpses of that brave little sister brushing the collar of his coat in the passage, taking up loose stitches in his gloves and hovering lightly about and about him, touching him up here and there in the height of her quaint, little, old-fashioned tidiness, he called to mind the fancy-portraits of her on the wall of the Pecksniffian workroom, and decided with uncommon indignation that they were gross libels, and not half pretty enough; though, as hath been mentioned in its place, the artists always made those sketches beautiful, and he had drawn at least a score of them with his own hands.
'Tom,' he said, as they were walking along, 'I begin to think you must be somebody's son.'
'I suppose I am,' Tom answered in his quiet way.
'But I mean somebody's of consequence.'
'Bless your heart,' replied Tom, 'my poor father was of no consequence, nor my mother either.'
'You remember them perfectly, then?'
'Remember them? oh dear yes. My poor mother was the last. She died when Ruth was a mere baby, and then we both became a charge upon the savings of that good old grandmother I used to tell you of. You remember! Oh! There's nothing romantic in our history, John.'
'Very well,' said John in quiet despair. 'Then there is no way of accounting for my visitor of this morning. So we'll not try, Tom.'
They did try, notwithstanding, and never left off trying until they got to Austin Friars, where, in a very dark passage on the first floor, oddly situated at the back of a house, across some leads, they found a little blear-eyed glass door up in one corner, with Mr FIPS painted on it in characters which were meant to be transparent. There was also a wicked old sideboard hiding in the gloom hard by, meditating designs upon the ribs of visitors; and an old mat, worn into lattice work, which, being useless as a mat (even if anybody could have seen it, which was impossible), had for many years directed its industry into another channel, and regularly tripped up every one of Mr Fips's clients.
Mr Fips, hearing a violent concussion between a human hat and his office door, was apprised, by the usual means of communication, that somebody had come to call upon him, and giving that somebody admission, observed that it was 'rather dark.'
'Dark indeed,' John whispered in Tom Pinch's ear. 'Not a bad place to dispose of a countryman in, I should think, Tom.'
Tom had been already turning over in his mind the possibility of their having been tempted into that region to furnish forth a pie; but the sight of Mr Fips, who was small and spare, and looked peaceable, and wore black shorts and powder, dispelled his doubts.
'Walk in,' said Mr Fips.
They walked in. And a mighty yellow-jaundiced little office Mr Fips had of it; with a great, black, sprawling splash upon the floor in one corner, as if some old clerk had cut his throat there, years ago, and had let out ink instead of blood.
'I have brought my friend Mr Pinch, sir,' said John Westlock.
'Be pleased to sit,' said Mr Fips.
They occupied the two chairs, and Mr Fips took the office stool from the stuffing whereof he drew forth a piece of horse-hair of immense length, which he put into his mouth with a great appearance of appetite.
He looked at Tom Pinch curiously, but with an entire freedom from any such expression as could be reasonably construed into an unusual display of interest. After a short silence, during which Mr Fips was so perfectly unembarrassed as to render it manifest that he could have broken it sooner without hesitation, if he had felt inclined to do so, he asked if Mr Westlock had made his offer fully known to Mr Pinch.
John answered in the affirmative.
'And you think it worth your while, sir, do you?' Mr Fips inquired of Tom.
'I think it a piece of great good fortune, sir,' said Tom. 'I am exceedingly obliged to you for the offer.'
'Not to me,' said Mr Fips. 'I act upon instructions.'
'To your friend, sir, then,' said Tom. 'To the gentleman with whom I am to engage, and whose confidence I shall endeavour to deserve. When he knows me better, sir, I hope he will not lose his good opinion of me. He will find me punctual and vigilant, and anxious to do what is right. That I think I can answer for, and so,' looking towards him, 'can Mr Westlock.'
'Most assuredly,' said John.
Mr Fips appeared to have some little difficulty in resuming the conversation. To relieve himself, he took up the wafer-stamp, and began stamping capital F's all over his legs.
'The fact is,' said Mr Fips, 'that my friend is not, at this present moment, in town.'
Tom's countenance fell; for he thought this equivalent to telling him that his appearance did not answer; and that Fips must look out for somebody else.
'When do you think he will be in town, sir?' he asked.
'I can't say; it's impossible to tell. I really have no idea. But,' said Fips, taking off a very deep impression of the wafer-stamp upon the calf of his left leg, and looking steadily at Tom, 'I don't know that it's a matter of much consequence.'
Poor Tom inclined his head deferentially, but appeared to doubt that.
'I say,' repeated Mr Fips, 'that I don't know it's a matter of much consequence. The business lies entirely between yourself and me, Mr Pinch. With reference to your duties, I can set you going; and with reference to your salary, I can pay it. Weekly,' said Mr Fips, putting down the wafer-stamp, and looking at John Westlock and Tom Pinch by turns, 'weekly; in this office; at any time between the hours of four and five o'clock in the afternoon.' As Mr Fips said this, he made up his face as if he were going to whistle. But he didn't.
'You are very good,' said Tom, whose countenance was now suffused with pleasure; 'and nothing can be more satisfactory or straightforward. My attendance will be required--'
'From half-past nine to four o'clock or so, I should say,' interrupted Mr Fips. 'About that.'
'I did not mean the hours of attendance,' retorted Tom, 'which are light and easy
, I am sure; but the place.'
'Oh, the place! The place is in the Temple.'
Tom was delighted.
'Perhaps,' said Mr Fips, 'you would like to see the place?'
'Oh, dear!' cried Tom. 'I shall only be too glad to consider myself engaged, if you will allow me; without any further reference to the place.'
'You may consider yourself engaged, by all means,' said Mr Fips; 'you couldn't meet me at the Temple Gate in Fleet Street, in an hour from this time, I suppose, could you?'
Certainly Tom could.
'Good,' said Mr Fips, rising. 'Then I will show you the place; and you can begin your attendance to-morrow morning. In an hour, therefore, I shall see you. You too, Mr Westlock? Very good. Take care how you go. It's rather dark.'
With this remark, which seemed superfluous, he shut them out upon the staircase, and they groped their way into the street again. The interview had done so little to remove the mystery in which Tom's new engagement was involved, and had done so much to thicken it, that neither could help smiling at the puzzled looks of the other. They agreed, however, that the introduction of Tom to his new office and office companions could hardly fail to throw a light upon the subject; and therefore postponed its further consideration until after the fulfillment of the appointment they had made with Mr Fips.
After looking at John Westlock's chambers, and devoting a few spare minutes to the Boar's Head, they issued forth again to the place of meeting. The time agreed upon had not quite come; but Mr Fips was already at the Temple Gate, and expressed his satisfaction at their punctuality.
He led the way through sundry lanes and courts, into one more quiet and more gloomy than the rest, and, singling out a certain house, ascended a common staircase; taking from his pocket, as he went, a bunch of rusty keys. Stopping before a door upon an upper story, which had nothing but a yellow smear of paint where custom would have placed the tenant's name, he began to beat the dust out of one of these keys, very deliberately, upon the great broad handrail of the balustrade.
'You had better have a little plug made,' he said, looking round at Tom, after blowing a shrill whistle into the barrel of the key. 'It's the only way of preventing them from getting stopped up. You'll find the lock go the better, too, I dare say, for a little oil.'
Works of Charles Dickens (200+ Works) The Adventures of Oliver Twist, Great Expectations, A Christmas Carol, A Tale of Two Cities, Bleak House, David Copperfield & more (mobi) Page 807