第110章

'Come in!' said Dick.'Don't stand upon ceremony.The business will get rather complicated if I've many more customers.Come in!'

'Oh, please,' said a little voice very low down in the doorway, 'will you come and show the lodgings?'

Dick leant over the table, and descried a small slipshod girl in a dirty coarse apron and bib, which left nothing of her visible but her face and feet.She might as well have been dressed in a violin-case.

'Why, who are you?' said Dick.

To which the only reply was, 'Oh, please will you come and show the lodgings?'

There never was such an old-fashioned child in her looks and manner.She must have been at work from her cradle.She seemed as much afraid of Dick, as Dick was amazed at her.

'I hav'n't got anything to do with the lodgings,' said Dick.'Tell 'em to call again.'

'Oh, but please will you come and show the lodgings,' returned the girl; 'It's eighteen shillings a week and us finding plate and linen.Boots and clothes is extra, and fires in winter-time is eightpence a day.'

'Why don't you show 'em yourself? You seem to know all about 'em,'

said Dick.

'Miss Sally said I wasn't to, because people wouldn't believe the attendance was good if they saw how small I was first.'

'Well, but they'll see how small you are afterwards, won't they?'

said Dick.

'Ah! But then they'll have taken 'em for a fortnight certain,'

replied the child with a shrewd look; 'and people don't like moving when they're once settled.'

'This is a queer sort of thing,' muttered Dick, rising.'What do you mean to say you are--the cook?'

'Yes, I do plain cooking;' replied the child.'I'm housemaid too;I do all the work of the house.'

'I suppose Brass and the Dragon and I do the dirtiest part of it,'

thought Dick.And he might have thought much more, being in a doubtful and hesitating mood, but that the girl again urged her request, and certain mysterious bumping sounds on the passage and staircase seemed to give note of the applicant's impatience.

Richard Swiveller, therefore, sticking a pen behind each ear, and carrying another in his mouth as a token of his great importance and devotion to business, hurried out to meet and treat with the single gentleman.

He was a little surprised to perceive that the bumping sounds were occasioned by the progress up-stairs of the single gentleman's trunk, which, being nearly twice as wide as the staircase, and exceedingly heavy withal, it was no easy matter for the united exertions of the single gentleman and the coachman to convey up the steep ascent.But there they were, crushing each other, and pushing and pulling with all their might, and getting the trunk tight and fast in all kinds of impossible angles, and to pass them was out of the question; for which sufficient reason, Mr Swiveller followed slowly behind, entering a new protest on every stair against the house of Mr Sampson Brass being thus taken by storm.

To these remonstrances, the single gentleman answered not a word, but when the trunk was at last got into the bed-room, sat down upon it and wiped his bald head and face with his handkerchief.He was very warm, and well he might be; for, not to mention the exertion of getting the trunk up stairs, he was closely muffled in winter garments, though the thermometer had stood all day at eighty-one in the shade.

'I believe, sir,' said Richard Swiveller, taking his pen out of his mouth, 'that you desire to look at these apartments.They are very charming apartments, sir.They command an uninterrupted view of--of over the way, and they are within one minute's walk of--of the corner of the street.There is exceedingly mild porter, sir, in the immediate vicinity, and the contingent advantages are extraordinary.'

'What's the rent?' said the single gentleman.

'One pound per week,' replied Dick, improving on the terms.

'I'll take 'em.'

'The boots and clothes are extras,' said Dick; 'and the fires in winter time are--'

'Are all agreed to,' answered the single gentleman.

'Two weeks certain,' said Dick, 'are the--'

'Two weeks!' cried the single gentleman gruffly, eyeing him from top to toe.'Two years.I shall live here for two years.Here.

Ten pounds down.The bargain's made.'

'Why you see,' said Dick, 'my name is not Brass, and--'

'Who said it was? My name's not Brass.What then?'

'The name of the master of the house is,' said Dick.

'I'm glad of it,' returned the single gentleman; 'it's a good name for a lawyer.Coachman, you may go.So may you, Sir.'

Mr Swiveller was so much confounded by the single gentleman riding roughshod over him at this rate, that he stood looking at him almost as hard as he had looked at Miss Sally.The single gentleman, however, was not in the slightest degree affected by this circumstance, but proceeded with perfect composure to unwind the shawl which was tied round his neck, and then to pull off his boots.Freed of these encumbrances, he went on to divest himself of his other clothing, which he folded up, piece by piece, and ranged in order on the trunk.Then, he pulled down the window-blinds, drew the curtains, wound up his watch, and, quite leisurely and methodically, got into bed.

'Take down the bill,' were his parting words, as he looked out from between the curtains; 'and let nobody call me till I ring the bell.'

With that the curtains closed, and he seemed to snore immediately.

'This is a most remarkable and supernatural sort of house!' said Mr Swiveller, as he walked into the office with the bill in his hand.

'She-dragons in the business, conducting themselves like professional gentlemen; plain cooks of three feet high appearing mysteriously from under ground; strangers walking in and going to bed without leave or licence in the middle of the day! If he should be one of the miraculous fellows that turn up now and then, and has gone to sleep for two years, I shall be in a pleasant situation.It's my destiny, however, and I hope Brass may like it.

I shall be sorry if he don't.But it's no business of mine--Ihave nothing whatever to do with it!'