For the purpose of testing his real condition, Mr. Swiveller, after some reflection, pinched himself in the arm.
“Queerer still!” he thought. “I came to bed rather plump than otherwise, and now there’s nothing to lay hold of. I’ll take another survey.”
The result of this further inspection was, to convince Mr. Swiveller that the objects by which he was surrounded were real, and that he saw them, beyond all question, with his waking eyes.
“It’s an Arabian Night, that’s what it is,” said Richard. “I’m in Damascus or Grand Cairo. The Marchioness is a Genie, and having had a wager with another Genie about who is the handsomest young man alive, and the worthiest to be the husband of the Princess of China, has brought me away, room and all, to compare us together. Perhaps,” said Mr. Swiveller, turning languidly round upon his pillow, and looking on that side of his bed which was next the wall, “the Princess may be still—No, she’s gone.”
Not feeling quite satisfied with this explanation, as, even taking it to be the correct one, it still involved a little mystery and doubt, Mr. Swiveller raised the curtain again, determined to take the first favourable opportunity of addressing his companion. An occasion soon presented itself. The Marchioness dealt, turned up a knave, and omitted to take the usual advantage; upon which Mr. Swiveller called out as loud as he could—“Two for his heels.”
The Marchioness jumped up quickly, and clapped her hands. “Arabian Night, certainly,” thought Mr. Swiveller; “they always clap their hands instead of ringing the bell. Now for the two thousand black slaves, with jars of jewels on their heads.”
It appeared, however, that she had only clapped her hands in joy; for directly afterwards she began to laugh, and then to cry; declaring, not in choice Arabic but in familiar English, that she was “so glad, she didn’t know what to do.”
“Marchioness,” said Mr. Swiveller, thoughtfully, “be pleased to draw nearer. First of all, will you have the goodness to inform me where I shall find my voice; and secondly, what has become of my flesh?”
The Marchioness only shook her head mournfully, and cried again; whereupon Mr. Swiveller (being very weak) felt his own eyes affected likewise.
“I begin to infer, from your manner and these appearances, Marchioness,”—said Richard after a pause, and smiling with a trembling lip, “that I have been ill.”
“You just have!” replied the small servant, wiping her eyes. “And haven’t you been a talking nonsense!”
“Oh!” said Dick. “Very ill, Marchioness, have I been?”
“Dead, all but,” replied the small servant. “I never thought you’d get better. Thank Heaven you have!”
Mr. Swiveller was silent for a long while. Bye and bye, he began to talk again—inquiring how long he had been there.
“Three weeks tomorrow,” replied the small servant.
“Three what?” said Dick.
“Weeks,” returned the Marchioness emphatically; “three long, slow, weeks.”
The bare thought of having been in such extremity, caused Richard to fall into another silence, and to lie flat down again at his full length. The Marchioness, having arranged the bedclothes more comfortably, and felt that his hands and forehead were quite cool—a discovery that filled her with delight—cried a little more, and then applied herself to getting tea ready, and making some thin dry toast.
While she was thus engaged, Mr. Swiveller looked on with a grateful heart, very much astonished to see how thoroughly at home she made herself, and attributing this attention, in its origin, to Sally Brass, whom, in his own mind, he could not thank enough. When the Marchioness had finished her toasting, she spread a clean cloth on a tray, and brought him some crisp slices and a great basin of weak tea, with which (she said) the doctor had left word he might refresh himself when he awoke. She propped him up with pillows, if not as skilfully as if she had been a professional nurse all her life, at least as tenderly; and looked on with unutterable satisfaction while the patient—stopping every now and then to shake her by the hand—took his poor meal with an appetite and relish, which the greatest dainties of the earth, under any other circumstances, would have failed to provoke. Having cleared away, and disposed everything comfortably about him again, she sat down at the table to take her own tea.
“Marchioness,” said Mr. Swiveller, “how’s Sally?”
The small servant screwed her face into an expression of the very uttermost entanglement of slyness, and shook her head.
“What, haven’t you seen her lately?” said Dick.
“Seen her!” cried the small servant. “Bless you, I’ve run away!”
Mr. Swiveller immediately laid himself down again quite flat, and so remained for about five minutes. By slow degrees he resumed his sitting posture after that lapse of time, and inquired:
“And where do you live, Marchioness?”
“Live!” cried the small servant. “Here!”
“Oh!” said Mr. Swiveller. And with that he fell down flat again, as suddenly as if he had been shot. Thus he remained, motionless and bereft of speech, until she had finished her meal, put everything in its place, and swept the hearth; when he motioned her to bring a chair to the bedside, and being propped up again, opened a farther conversation.
“And so,” said Dick, “you have run away?”
“Yes,” said the Marchioness, “and they’ve been a tizing of me.”
“Been—I beg your pardon,” said Dick—“what have they been doing?”
“Been a tizing of me—tizing you know—in the newspapers,” rejoined the Marchioness.
“Aye aye,” said Dick, “advertising?”
The small servant nodded, and winked. Her eyes were so red with waking and crying, that the Tragic Muse might have winked with greater consistency. And so Dick felt.
“Tell me,” said he, “how it was that you thought of coming here.”
“Why, you see,” returned the Marchioness, “when you was gone, I hadn’t any friend at all, because the lodger he never come back, and I didn’t know where either him or you was to be found, you know. But one morning, when I was—”
“Was near a keyhole?” suggested Mr. Swiveller, observing that she
