party, and in such a case lawful money and lawful notice are pretty
much the same.'
'I am obliged to you for your good opinion,' retorted the single
gentleman, 'and quite concur in these sentiments. But that is not
the subject on which I wish to speak with you.'
'Oh!' said Sally. 'Then just state the particulars, will you? I
suppose it's professional business?'
'Why, it is connected with the law, certainly.'
'Very well,' returned Miss Brass. 'My brother and I are just the
same. I can take any instructions, or give you any advice.'
'As there are other parties interested besides myself,' said the
single gentleman, rising and opening the door of an inner room, 'we
had better confer together. Miss Brass is here, gentlemen.'
Mr Garland and the Notary walked in, looking very grave; and,
drawing up two chairs, one on each side of the single gentleman,
formed a kind of fence round the gentle Sarah, and penned her into
a corner. Her brother Sampson under such circumstances would
certainly have evinced some confusion or anxiety, but she--all
composure--pulled out the tin box, and calmly took a pinch of
snuff.
'Miss Brass,' said the Notary, taking the word at this crisis, 'we
professional people understand each other, and, when we choose, can
say what we have to say, in very few words. You advertised a
runaway servant, the other day?'
'Well,' returned Miss Sally, with a sudden flush overspreading her
features, 'what of that?'
'She is found, ma'am,' said the Notary, pulling out his pocket-
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handkerchief with a flourish. 'She is found.'
'Who found her?' demanded Sarah hastily.
'We did, ma'am--we three. Only last night, or you would have
heard from us before.'
'And now I have heard from you,' said Miss Brass, folding her arms
as though she were about to deny something to the death, 'what have
you got to say? Something you have got into your heads about her,
of course. Prove it, will you--that's all. Prove it. You have
found her, you say. I can tell you (if you don't know it) that you
have found the most artful, lying, pilfering, devilish little minx
that was ever born.--Have you got her here?' she added, looking
sharply round.
'No, she is not here at present,' returned the Notary. 'But she is
quite safe.'
'Ha!' cried Sally, twitching a pinch of snuff out of her box, as
spitefully as if she were in the very act of wrenching off the
small servant's nose; 'she shall be safe enough from this time, I
warrant you.'
'I hope so,' replied the Notary. 'Did it occur to you for the
first time, when you found she had run away, that there were two
keys to your kitchen door?'
Miss Sally took another pinch, and putting her head on one side,
looked at her questioner, with a curious kind of spasm about her
mouth, but with a cunning aspect of immense expression.
'Two keys,' repeated the Notary; 'one of which gave her the
opportunities of roaming through the house at nights when you
supposed her fast locked up, and of overhearing confidential
consultations--among others, that particular conference, to be
described to-day before a justice, which you will have an
opportunity of hearing her relate; that conference which you and Mr
Brass held together, on the night before that most unfortunate and
innocent young man was accused of robbery, by a horrible device of
which I will only say that it may be characterised by the epithets
which you have applied to this wretched little witness, and by a
few stronger ones besides.'
Sally took another pinch. Although her face was wonderfully
composed, it was apparent that she was wholly taken by surprise,
and that what she had expected to be taxed with, in connection with
her small servant, was something very different from this.
'Come, come, Miss Brass,' said the Notary, 'you have great command
of feature, but you feel, I see, that by a chance which never
entered your imagination, this base design is revealed, and two of
its plotters must be brought to justice. Now, you know the pains
and penalties you are liable to, and so I need not dilate upon
them, but I have a proposal to make to you. You have the honour of
being sister to one of the greatest scoundrels unhung; and, if I
may venture to say so to a lady, you are in every respect quite
worthy of him. But connected with you two is a third party, a
villain of the name of Quilp, the prime mover of the whole
diabolical device, who I believe to be worse than either. For his
sake, Miss Brass, do us the favour to reveal the whole history of
this affair. Let me remind you that your doing so, at our
instance, will place you in a safe and comfortable position--your
present one is not desirable--and cannot injure your brother; for
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against him and you we have quite sufficient evidence (as you hear)
already. I will not say to you that we suggest this course in
mercy (for, to tell you the truth, we do not entertain any regard
for you), but it is a necessity to which we are reduced, and I
recommend it to you as a matter of the very best policy. Time,'
said Mr Witherden, pulling out his watch, 'in a business like this,
is exceedingly precious. Favour us with your decision as speedily
as possible, ma'am.'
With a smile upon her face, and looking at each of the three by
turns, Miss Brass took two or three more pinches of snuff, and
having by this time very little left, travelled round and round the
box with her forefinger and thumb, scraping up another. Having
disposed of this likewise and put the box carefully in her pocket,
she said,--
'I am to accept or reject at once, am I?'
'Yes,' said Mr Witherden.
The charming creature was opening her lips to speak in reply, when
the door was hastily opened too, and the head of Sampson Brass was
thrust into the room.
'Excuse me,' said the gentleman hastily. 'Wait a bit!'
So saying, and quite indifferent to the astonishment his presence
occasioned, he crept in, shut the door, kissed his greasy glove as
servilely as if it were the dust, and made a most abject bow.
'Sarah,' said Brass, 'hold your tongue if you please, and let me
speak. Gentlemen, if I could express the pleasure it gives me to
see three such men in a happy unity of feeling and concord of
sentiment, I think you would hardly believe me. But though I am
unfortunate--nay, gentlemen, criminal, if we are to use harsh
expressions in a company like this--still, I have my feelings like
other men. I have heard of a poet, who remarked that feelings were
the common lot of all. If he could have been a pig, gentlemen, and
have uttered that sentiment, he would still have been immortal.'
'If you're not an idiot,' said Miss Brass harshly, 'hold your
peace.'
'Sarah, my dea
r,' returned her brother, 'thank you. But I know
what I am about, my love, and will take the liberty of expressing
myself accordingly. Mr Witherden, Sir, your handkerchief is
hanging out of your pocket--would you allow me to--,
As Mr Brass advanced to remedy this accident, the Notary shrunk
from him with an air of disgust. Brass, who over and above his
usual prepossessing qualities, had a scratched face, a green shade
over one eye, and a hat grievously crushed, stopped short, and
looked round with a pitiful smile.
'He shuns me,' said Sampson, 'even when I would, as I may say, heap
coals of fire upon his head. Well! Ah! But I am a falling house,
and the rats (if I may be allowed the expression in reference to a
gentleman I respect and love beyond everything) fly from me!
Gentlemen--regarding your conversation just now, I happened to see
my sister on her way here, and, wondering where she could be going
to, and being--may I venture to say?--naturally of a suspicious
turn, followed her. Since then, I have been listening.'
'If you're not mad,' interposed Miss Sally, 'stop there, and say no
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more.'
'Sarah, my dear,' rejoined Brass with undiminished politeness, 'I
thank you kindly, but will still proceed. Mr Witherden, sir, as we
have the honour to be members of the same profession--to say
nothing of that other gentleman having been my lodger, and having
partaken, as one may say, of the hospitality of my roof--I think
you might have given me the refusal of this offer in the first
instance. I do indeed. Now, my dear Sir,' cried Brass, seeing
that the Notary was about to interrupt him, 'suffer me to speak, I
beg.'
Mr Witherden was silent, and Brass went on.
'If you will do me the favour,' he said, holding up the green
shade, and revealing an eye most horribly discoloured, 'to look at
this, you will naturally inquire, in your own minds, how did I get
it. If you look from that, to my face, you will wonder what could
have been the cause of all these scratches. And if from them to my
hat, how it came into the state in which you see it. Gentlemen,'
said Brass, striking the hat fiercely with his clenched hand, 'to
all these questions I answer--Quilp!'
The three gentlemen looked at each other, but said nothing.
'I say,' pursued Brass, glancing aside at his sister, as though he
were talking for her information, and speaking with a snarling
malignity, in violent contrast to his usual smoothness, 'that I
answer to all these questions,--Quilp--Quilp, who deludes me into
his infernal den, and takes a delight in looking on and chuckling
while I scorch, and burn, and bruise, and maim myself--Quilp, who
never once, no never once, in all our communications together, has
treated me otherwise than as a dog--Quilp, whom I have always
hated with my whole heart, but never so much as lately. He gives
me the cold shoulder on this very matter as if he had had nothing
to do with it, instead of being the first to propose it. I can't
trust him. In one of his howling, raving, blazing humours, I
believe he'd let it out, if it was murder, and never think of
himself so long as he could terrify me. Now,' said Brass, picking
up his hat again and replacing the shade over his eye, and actually
crouching down, in the excess of his servility, 'What does all this
lead to?--what should you say it led me to, gentlemen?--could you
guess at all near the mark?'
Nobody spoke. Brass stood smirking for a little while, as if he
had propounded some choice conundrum; and then said:
'To be short with you, then, it leads me to this. If the truth has
come out, as it plainly has in a manner that there's no standing up
against--and a very sublime and grand thing is Truth, gentlemen,
in its way, though like other sublime and grand things, such as
thunder-storms and that, we're not always over and above glad to
see it--I had better turn upon this man than let this man turn
upon me. It's clear to me that I am done for. Therefore, if
anybody is to split, I had better be the person and have the
advantage of it. Sarah, my dear, comparatively speaking you're
safe. I relate these circumstances for my own profit.'
With that, Mr Brass, in a great hurry, revealed the whole story;
bearing as heavily as possible on his amiable employer, and making
himself out to be rather a saint-like and holy character, though
subject--he acknowledged--to human weaknesses. He concluded
thus:
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'Now, gentlemen, I am not a man who does things by halves. Being
in for a penny, I am ready, as the saying is, to be in for a pound.
You must do with me what you please, and take me where you please.
If you wish to have this in writing, we'll reduce it into
manuscript immediately. You will be tender with me, I am sure. I
am quite confident you will be tender with me. You are men of
honour, and have feeling hearts. I yielded from necessity to
Quilp, for though necessity has no law, she has her lawyers. I
yield to you from necessity too; from policy besides; and because
of feelings that have been a pretty long time working within me.
Punish Quilp, gentlemen. Weigh heavily upon him. Grind him down.
Tread him under foot. He has done as much by me, for many and many
a day.'
Having now arrived at the conclusion of his discourse, Sampson
checked the current of his wrath, kissed his glove again, and
smiled as only parasites and cowards can.
'And this,' said Miss Brass, raising her head, with which she had
hitherto sat resting on her hands, and surveying him from head to
foot with a bitter sneer, 'this is my brother, is it! This is my
brother, that I have worked and toiled for, and believed to have
had something of the man in him!'
'Sarah, my dear,' returned Sampson, rubbing his hands feebly; you
disturb our friends. Besides you--you're disappointed, Sarah,
and, not knowing what you say, expose yourself.'
'Yes, you pitiful dastard,' retorted the lovely damsel, 'I
understand you. You feared that I should be beforehand with you.
But do you think that I would have been enticed to say a word! I'd
have scorned it, if they had tried and tempted me for twenty
years.'
'He he!' simpered Brass, who, in his deep debasement, really seemed
to have changed sexes with his sister, and to have made over to her
any spark of manliness he might have possessed. 'You think so,
Sarah, you think so perhaps; but you would have acted quite
different, my good fellow. You will not have forgotten that it was
a maxim with Foxey--our revered father, gentlemen--"Always
suspect everybody." That's the maxim to go through life with! If
you were not actually about to purchase your own safety when I
showed myself, I suspect you'd have done it by this time. And
therefore I've done it myself, and spared you the trouble as well
/> as the shame. The shame, gentlemen,' added Brass, allowing himself
to be slightly overcome, 'if there is any, is mine. It's better
that a female should be spared it.'
With deference to the better opinion of Mr Brass, and more
particularly to the authority of his Great Ancestor, it may be
doubted, with humility, whether the elevating principle laid down
by the latter gentleman, and acted upon by his descendant, is
always a prudent one, or attended in practice with the desired
results. This is, beyond question, a bold and presumptuous doubt,
inasmuch as many distinguished characters, called men of the world,
long-headed customers, knowing dogs, shrewd fellows, capital hands
at business, and the like, have made, and do daily make, this axiom
their polar star and compass. Still, the doubt may be gently
insinuated. And in illustration it may be observed, that if Mr
Brass, not being over-suspicious, had, without prying and
listening, left his sister to manage the conference on their joint
behalf, or prying and listening, had not been in such a mighty
hurry to anticipate her (which he would not have been, but for his
distrust and jealousy), he would probably have found himself much
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better off in the end. Thus, it will always happen that these men
of the world, who go through it in armour, defend themselves from
quite as much good as evil; to say nothing of the inconvenience and
absurdity of mounting guard with a microscope at all times, and of
wearing a coat of mail on the most innocent occasions.
The three gentlemen spoke together apart, for a few moments. At
the end of their consultation, which was very brief, the Notary
pointed to the writing materials on the table, and informed Mr
Brass that if he wished to make any statement in writing, he had
the opportunity of doing so. At the same time he felt bound to
tell him that they would require his attendance, presently, before
a justice of the peace, and that in what he did or said, he was
guided entirely by his own discretion.
'Gentlemen,' said Brass, drawing off his glove, and crawling in
spirit upon the ground before them, 'I will justify the tenderness
with which I know I shall be treated; and as, without tenderness,
I should, now that this discovery has been made, stand in the worst
position of the three, you may depend upon it I will make a clean
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