The Tenants of Malory. Volume 3

"Abawminable, to be sure, abawminable. Bah! It's all true. The hornies has their eye on him these seven weeks past – curse the beasht," snarled Mr. Levi, clenching his fists in his pockets, "and every da – 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 his head 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 goes pleasantly. It is failure, loss, and disappointment, that try the sociable qualities; even those three amiable men felt less amicable under the cloud than they had under the sunshine.

So they all three looked in their several ways angrily and thoughtfully at the gentleman in the typhus fever, who said rather abruptly —

"She killed herself, sir; foolish 'oman! Capital dancing, gentlemen! Capital dancing, ladies! Capital – capital – admirable dancing. God help 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 two thousand!"

"And a doctor," suggested Levi.

"Doctor, the devil! I say; I've paid through the nose," or, as he pronounced that organ through which his metallic declamation droned, noshe. "It's Mr. Larkin's turn now; it's all da-a-am rot; a warm fellow like you, Mr. Larkin, putting all the loss on me; how can I sta-a-an' that – sta-a-an' all the losses, and share the profits – ba-a-ah, sir; that couldn't pay nohow."

"I think," said Mr. Larkin, "it may be questionable how far a physician would be, just in this imminent stage of the attack, at all useful, or even desirable; but, Miss Rumble, if I understand you, he is quite compos– I mean, quite, so to speak, in his senses, in the early part of the day."

He paused, and Miss Rumble from the other side of the bed contributed her 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 sick man's interpolations were.

"That's a vulture over there – devilish odd birds," said Mr. Dingwell's voice, with an unpleasant distinctness; "you just tie a turban on a stick," and then he was silent.

Mr. Larkin cleared his voice and resumed —

"Well, as I was saying, when the attack, whatever it is, has developed itself, 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, and afford him an opportunity at least of considering the interests of his soul."

"Oh! da – a – m his shoul, it's his body. We must try to keep him together," said Mr. Goldshed, impatiently. "If he dies the money's all lost, every shtiver; if he don't, he's a sound speculation; we must raise a doctor among us, Mr. Larkin."

"It is highly probable indeed that before long the unfortunate gentleman may require medical advice," said Mr. Larkin, who had a high opinion of the "speculation," whose pulse was at this moment unfortunately at a hundred and twenty. "The fever, my dear sir, if such 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 have no doubt, will take care that the unhappy gentleman is properly provided in that respect."

The attorney, who did not want at that moment to be drawn into a discussion on contributing to expenses, smiled affectionately on Miss Rumble, to whom he assigned the part of good Samaritan.

"He'll want some one at night, sir, please; I could not undertake myself, sir, for both day and night," said brown Miss Rumble, very quietly.

"There! That'sh it!" exclaimed Levi, with a vicious chuckle, and a scowl, extending his open hand energetically toward Miss Rumble, and glaring from Mr. Larkin to his partner.

"Nothing but pay; down with the dust, Goldshed and Levi. Bleed like a pair o' beashtly pigs, Goldshed and Levi, do! There's death in that fellow's face, I say. It's all bosh, doctors and nurses; throwing good 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 an indistinct 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 looked when he had it. It isn't no use; all rot, throwing good money arter bad, I say; let him be; let him die."

"I'll not let him die; no, he shan't. I'll make him pay. I made the Theatre of Fascination pay," said Mr. Goldshed serenely, alluding to a venture of his devising, by which the partnership made ever so much money in spite of a prosecution and heavy fines and other expenses.

"I say 'tisn't my principle to throw up the game, by no means —no– with my ball in hand, and the stakes in the pocket —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! – why not? 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 be unravelled.

"I say," continued Mr. Goldshed, sublimely, "if that 'ere speculative thing 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 his favour, and Providence, Mr. Goldshed – Providence is over us all."

"Providence, to be sure," said Mr. Goldshed, who did not disdain help from any quarter. "Where does he keep his money, ma'am?"

"Under his bolster, please, sir – under his head," answered Sarah Rumble.

"Take it out, please," said Mr. Goldshed.

She hesitated.

"Give the man hish money, woman, ca-a-ant you?" bawled Mr. Levi fiercely, and extending his arm toward the bed.

"You had better —yes, ma'am, the money belongs to Messrs. Goldshed and Levi," said Mr. Larkin, interposing in the character of the vir pietate gravis.

Sally Rumble, recollecting Mr. Dingwell's direction, "Let 'em have the money, too, if they press for it," obeyed, and slid her hand under his bolster, and under his head, from the other side where she was standing; and Dingwell, feeling the motion, I suppose, raised his head and stared with sunken eyes dismally at the three gentlemen, whom he plainly did not recognise, or possibly saw in the shapes of foxes, wolves, or owls, which Æsop would have metaphorically assigned them, and with a weary groan he closed his wandering eyes again, and sank down on the pillow.

Miss Rumble drew forth a roll of bank-notes with a string tied round them.

"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 that infection."

"I believe you," answered Levi.

"So am I," said Goldshed, uneasily.

"And no wonder!" added Mr. Larkin, anticipating himself an invitation to 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 seen people at a chemical lecture eye the explodable compounds on the professor's table.

"I tell you what, ma'am," said Goldshed, "you'll please get a dry bottle and a cork, and put them notes into it, and cork it down, ma'am, and give it to Mr. Levi."