It was a good a one as money (or credit, no matter which) could produce. The dishes, wines, and fruits were of the choicest kind. Everything was elegantly served. The plate was gorgeous. Mr. Jonas was in the midst of a calculation of the value of this item alone, when his host disturbed him.
“A glass of wine?”
“Oh!” said Jonas, who had had several glasses already. “As much of that as you like! It’s too good to refuse.”
“Well said, Mr. Chuzzlewit!” cried Wolf.
“Tom Gag, upon my soul!” said Pip.
“Positively, you know, that’s—ha, ha, ha!” observed the doctor, laying down his knife and fork for one instant, and then going to work again, pell-mell—“that’s epigrammatic; quite!”
“You’re tolerably comfortable, I hope?” said Tigg, apart to Jonas.
“Oh! You needn’t trouble your head about me,” he replied, “Famous!”
“I thought it best not to have a party,” said Tigg. “You feel that?”
“Why, what do you call this?” retorted Jonas. “You don’t mean to say you do this every day, do you?”
“My dear fellow,” said Montague, shrugging his shoulders, “every day of my life, when I dine at home. This is my common style. It was of no use having anything uncommon for you. You’d have seen through it. ‘You’ll have a party?’ said Crimple. ‘No, I won’t,’ I said, ‘he shall take us in the rough!’ ”
“And pretty smooth, too, ecod!” said Jonas, glancing round the table. “This don’t cost a trifle.”
“Why, to be candid with you, it does not,” returned the other. “But I like this sort of thing. It’s the way I spend my money.”
Jonas thrust his tongue into his cheek, and said, “Was it?”
“When you join us, you won’t get rid of your share of the profits in the same way?” said Tigg.
“Quite different,” retorted Jonas.
“Well, and you’re right,” said Tigg, with friendly candour. “You needn’t. It’s not necessary. One of a Company must do it to hold the connection together; but, as I take a pleasure in it, that’s my department. You don’t mind dining expensively at another man’s expense, I hope?”
“Not a bit,” said Jonas.
“Then I hope you’ll often dine with me?”
“Ah!” said Jonas, “I don’t mind. On the contrary.”
“And I’ll never attempt to talk business to you over wine, I take my oath,” said Tigg. “Oh deep, deep, deep of you this morning! I must tell ’em that. They’re the very men to enjoy it. Pip, my good fellow, I’ve a splendid little trait to tell you of my friend Chuzzlewit, who is the deepest dog I know; I give you my sacred word of honour he is the deepest dog I know, Pip!”
Pip swore a frightful oath that he was sure of it already; and the anecdote, being told, was received with loud applause, as an incontestable proof of Mr. Jonas’s greatness. Pip, in a natural spirit of emulation, then related some instances of his own depth; and Wolf, not to be left behindhand, recited the leading points of one or two vastly humorous articles he was then preparing. These lucubrations, being of what he called “a warm complexion,” were highly approved; and all the company agreed that they were full of point.
“Men of the world, my dear sir,” Jobling whispered to Jonas; “thorough men of the world! To a professional person like myself it’s quite refreshing to come into this kind of society. It’s not only agreeable—and nothing can be more agreeable—but it’s philosophically improving. It’s character, my dear sir; character!”
It is so pleasant to find real merit appreciated, whatever its particular walk in life may be, that the general harmony of the company was doubtless much promoted by their knowing that the two men of the world were held in great esteem by the upper classes of society, and by the gallant defenders of their country in the army and navy, but particularly the former. The least of their stories had a colonel in it; lords were as plentiful as oaths; and even the Blood Royal ran in the muddy channel of their personal recollections.
“Mr. Chuzzlewit didn’t know him, I’m afraid,” said Wolf, in reference to a certain personage of illustrious descent, who had previously figured in a reminiscence.
“No,” said Tigg. “But we must bring him into contact with this sort of fellows.”
“He was very fond of literature,” observed Wolf.
“Was he?” said Tigg.
“Oh, yes; he took my paper regularly for many years. Do you know he said some good things now and then? He asked a certain Viscount, who’s a friend of mine—Pip knows him—‘What’s the editor’s name, what’s the editor’s name?’ ‘Wolf.’ ‘Wolf, eh? Sharp biter, Wolf. We must keep the Wolf from the door, as the proverb says.’ It was very well. And being complimentary, I printed it.”
“But the Viscount’s the boy!” cried Pip, who invented a new oath for the introduction of everything he said. “The Viscount’s the boy! He came into our place one night to take Her home; rather slued, but not much; and said, ‘Where’s Pip? I want to see Pip. Produce Pip!’—‘What’s the row, my lord?’—‘Shakespeare’s an infernal humbug, Pip! What’s the good of Shakespeare, Pip? I never read him. What the devil is it all about, Pip? There’s a lot of feet in Shakespeare’s verse, but there ain’t any legs worth mentioning in Shakespeare’s plays, are there, Pip? Juliet, Desdemona, Lady Macbeth, and all the rest of ’em, whatever their names are, might as well have no legs at all, for anything the audience know about it, Pip. Why, in that respect they’re all Miss Biffins to the audience, Pip. I’ll tell you what it is. What the people call dramatic poetry is a collection of sermons. Do I go to the theatre to be lectured? No, Pip. If I wanted that, I’d go to church. What’s the legitimate object of the drama, Pip? Human nature. What are legs? Human nature. Then let us
