“Crooked, certainly,” said Mrs. Jiniwin.
“Do you think they were crooked?” said Brass, in an insinuating tone. “I think I see them now coming up the street very wide apart, in nankeen pantaloons a little shrunk and without straps. Ah! what a vale of tears we live in. Do we say crooked?”
“I think they were a little so,” observed Mrs. Quilp with a sob.
“Legs crooked,” said Brass, writing as he spoke. “Large head, short body, legs crooked.”—
“Very crooked” suggested Mrs. Jiniwin.
“We’ll not say very crooked, ma’am,” said Brass piously. “Let us not bear hard upon the weaknesses of the deceased. He is gone, ma’am, to where his legs will never come in question.—We will content ourselves with crooked, Mrs. Jiniwin.”
“I thought you wanted the truth” said the old lady. “That’s all.”
“Bless your eyes, how I love you” muttered Quilp. “There she goes again. Nothing but punch!”
“This is an occupation” said the lawyer, laying down his pen and emptying his glass, “which seems to bring him before my eyes like the Ghost of Hamlet’s father, in the very clothes that he wore on work-a-days. His coat, his waistcoat, his shoes and stockings, his trousers, his hat, his wit and humour, his pathos and his umbrella, all come before me like visions of my youth. His linen!” said Mr. Brass smiling fondly at the wall, “his linen which was always of a particular colour, for such was his whim and fancy—how plain I see his linen now!”
“You had better go on sir,” said Mrs. Jiniwin impatiently.
“True ma’am, true,” cried Mr. Brass. “Our faculties must not freeze with grief. I’ll trouble you for a little more of that ma’am. A question now arises, with relation to his nose.”
“Flat,” said Mrs. Jiniwin.
“Aquiline!” cried Quilp, thrusting in his head, and striking the feature with his fist. “Aquiline, you hag. Do you see it? Do you call this flat? Do you? Eh?”
“Oh capital, capital!” shouted Brass, from the mere force of habit.
“Excellent! How very good he is! He’s a most remarkable man—so extremely whimsical! Such an amazing power of taking people by surprise!”
Quilp paid no regard whatever to these compliments, nor to the dubious and frightened look into which the lawyer gradually subsided, nor to the shrieks of his wife and mother-in-law, nor to the latter’s running from the room, nor to the former’s fainting away. Keeping his eye fixed on Sampson Brass, he walked up to the table, and beginning with his glass, drank off the contents, and went regularly round until he had emptied the other two, when he seized the case-bottle, and hugging it under his arm, surveyed him with a most extraordinary leer.
“Not yet Sampson,” said Quilp. “Not just yet!”
“Oh very good indeed!” cried Brass, recovering his spirits a little. “Ha ha ha! Oh exceedingly good! There’s not another man alive who could carry it off like that. A most difficult position to carry off. But he has such a flow of good-humour, such an amazing flow!”
“Good night” said the dwarf, nodding expressively.
“Good night sir, good night,” cried the lawyer, retreating backwards towards the door. “This is a joyful occasion indeed, extremely joyful. Ha ha ha! oh very rich, very rich indeed, re‑markably so!”
Waiting until Mr. Brass’s ejaculations died away in the distance (for he continued to pour them out, all the way downstairs), Quilp advanced towards the two men, who yet lingered in a kind of stupid amazement.
“Have you been dragging the river all day, gentlemen?” said the dwarf, holding the door open with great politeness.
“And yesterday too, master.”
“Dear me you’ve had a deal of trouble. Pray consider everything yours that you find upon the—upon the body. Good night!”
The men looked at each other, but had evidently no inclination to argue the point just then, and shuffled out of the room. This speedy clearance effected, Quilp locked the doors; and, still embracing the case bottle with shrugged-up shoulders and folded arms, stood looking at his insensible wife like a dismounted nightmare.
L
Matrimonial differences are usually discussed by the parties concerned in the form of dialogue, in which the lady bears at least her full half share. Those of Mr. and Mrs. Quilp, however, were an exception to the general rule; the remarks which they occasioned being limited to a long soliloquy on the part of the gentleman, with perhaps a few deprecatory observations from the lady, not extending beyond a trembling monosyllable uttered at long intervals, and in a very submissive and humble tone. On the present occasion, Mrs. Quilp did not for a long time venture even upon this gentle defence, but when she had recovered from her fainting-fit sat in a tearful silence, meekly listening to the reproaches of her lord and master.
Of these Mr. Quilp delivered himself with the utmost animation and rapidity, and with so many distortions of limb and feature, that even his wife, although tolerably well accustomed to his proficiency in these respects, was well nigh beside herself with alarm. But the Jamaica rum, and the joy of having occasioned a heavy disappointment, by degrees cooled Mr. Quilp’s wrath; which, from being at savage heat, dropped slowly to the bantering or chuckling point, at which it steadily remained.
“So you thought I was dead and gone, did you?” said Quilp. “You thought you were a widow, eh? Ha, ha, ha, you jade!”
“Indeed Quilp,” returned his wife. “I’m very sorry—”
“Who doubts it!” cried the dwarf. “You very sorry! to be sure you are. Who doubts that you’re very sorry!”
“I don’t mean sorry that you have come home again alive and well,” said his wife, “but sorry that I should have been led into such a belief. I am glad to see you Quilp; indeed I am.”
In truth Mrs. Quilp did seem a great deal more glad to behold her lord than might have been expected, and did evince a degree of interest in his safety which, all things considered, was rather unaccountable. Upon Quilp, however, this circumstance
