BLEAK HOUSE

Inapoi la sumar

CHAPTER XXVII  

More Old Soldiers Than One

Mr. George has not far to ride with folded arms upon the box, for  their destination is Lincoln's Inn Fields.  When the driver stops  his horses, Mr. George alights, and looking in at the window, says,  "What, Mr. Tulkinghorn's your man, is he?" 

"Yes, my dear friend.  Do you know him, Mr. George?" 

"Why, I have heard of him--seen him too, I think.  But I don't know  him, and he don't know me." 

There ensues the carrying of Mr. Smallweed upstairs, which is done  to perfection with the trooper's help.  He is borne into Mr.  Tulkinghorn's great room and deposited on the Turkey rug before the  fire.  Mr. Tulkinghorn is not within at the present moment but will  be back directly.  The occupant of the pew in the hall, having said  thus much, stirs the fire and leaves the triumvirate to warm  themselves.  Mr. George is mightily curious in respect of the room.  He looks up  at the painted ceiling, looks round at the old law-books,  contemplates the portraits of the great clients, reads aloud the  names on the boxes. 

"'Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,'" Mr. George reads thoughtfully.   

"Ha!  'Manor of Chesney Wold.'  Humph!" 

Mr. George stands looking  at these boxes a long while--as if they were pictures--and comes  back to the fire repeating, "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and  Manor of Chesney Wold, hey?" 

"Worth a mint of money, Mr. George!" whispers Grandfather  Smallweed, rubbing his legs. 

"Powerfully rich!"  "Who do you mean?  This old gentleman, or the Baronet?" 

"This gentleman, this gentleman." 

"So I have heard; and knows a thing or two, I'll hold a wager.  Not  bad quarters, either," says Mr. George, looking round again. 

"See  the strong-box yonder!" 

This reply is cut short by Mr. Tulkinghorn's arrival.  There is no  change in him, of course.  Rustily drest, with his spectacles in  his hand, and their very case worn threadbare.  In manner, close  and dry.  In voice, husky and low.  In face, watchful behind a  blind; habitually not uncensorious and contemptuous perhaps.  The  peerage may have warmer worshippers and faithfuller believers than  Mr. Tulkinghorn, after all, if everything were known. 

"Good morning, Mr. Smallweed, good morning!" he says as he comes  in. 

"You have brought the sergeant, I see.  Sit down, sergeant." 

As Mr. Tulkinghorn takes off his gloves and puts them in his hat,  he looks with half-closed eyes across the room to where the trooper  stands and says within himself perchance, "You'll do, my friend!"  "Sit down, sergeant," he repeats as he comes to his table, which is  set on one side of the fire, and takes his easy-chair. 

"Cold and  raw this morning, cold and raw!" 

Mr. Tulkinghorn warms before the  bars, alternately, the palms and knuckles of his hands and looks  (from behind that blind which is always down) at the trio sitting  in a little semicircle before him. 

"Now, I can feel what I am about" (as perhaps he can in two  senses), "Mr. Smallweed."  The old gentleman is newly shaken up by  Judy to bear his part in the conversation. 

"You have brought our  good friend the sergeant, I see." 

"Yes, sir," returns Mr. Smallweed, very servile to the lawyer's  wealth and influence.  "And what does the sergeant say about this business?" 

"Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed with a tremulous wave of  his shrivelled hand, "this is the gentleman, sir." 

Mr. George salutes the gentleman but otherwise sits bolt upright  and profoundly silent--very forward in his chair, as if the full  complement of regulation appendages for a field-day hung about him.  Mr. Tulkinghorn proceeds, "Well, George--I believe your name is  George?" 

"It is so, Sir."  "What do you say, George?" 

"I ask your pardon, sir," returns the trooper, "but I should wish  to know what YOU say?" 

"Do you mean in point of reward?" 

"I mean in point of everything, sir."  This is so very trying to Mr. Smallweed's temper that he suddenly  breaks out with "You're a brimstone beast!" and as suddenly asks  pardon of Mr. Tulkinghorn, excusing himself for this slip of the  tongue by saying to Judy, "I was thinking of your grandmother, my  dear." 

"I supposed, sergeant," Mr. Tulkinghorn resumes as he leans on one  side of his chair and crosses his legs, "that Mr. Smallweed might  have sufficiently explained the matter.  It lies in the smallest  compass, however.  You served under Captain Hawdon at one time, and  were his attendant in illness, and rendered him many little  services, and were rather in his confidence, I am told.  That is  so, is it not?" 

"Yes, sir, that is so," says Mr. George with military brevity. 

"Therefore you may happen to have in your possession something-- anything, no matter what; accounts, instructions, orders, a letter,  anything--in Captain Hawdon's writing.  I wish to compare his  writing with some that I have.  If you can give me the opportunity,  you shall be rewarded for your trouble.  Three, four, five,  guineas, you would consider handsome, I dare say." 

"Noble, my dear friend!" cries Grandfather Smallweed, screwing up  his eyes. 

"If not, say how much more, in your conscience as a soldier, you  can demand.  There is no need for you to part with the writing,  against your inclination--though I should prefer to have it." 

Mr. George sits squared in exactly the same attitude, looks at the  painted ceiling, and says never a word.  The irascible Mr.  Smallweed scratches the air. 

"The question is," says Mr. Tulkinghorn in his methodical, subdued,  uninterested way, "first, whether you have any of Captain Hawdon's  writing?" 

"First, whether I have any of Captain Hawdon's writing, sir,"  repeats Mr. George. 

"Secondly, what will satisfy you for the trouble of producing it?" 

"Secondly, what will satisfy me for the trouble of producing it,  sir," repeats Mr. George. 

"Thirdly, you can judge for yourself whether it is at all like  that," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, suddenly handing him some sheets of  written paper tied together. 

"Whether it is at all like that, sir.  Just so," repeats Mr.  George.  All three repetitions Mr. George pronounces in a mechanical manner,  looking straight at Mr. Tulkinghorn; nor does he so much as glance  at the affidavit in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, that has been given to  him for his inspection (though he still holds it in his hand), but  continues to look at the lawyer with an air of troubled meditation. 

"Well?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. 

"What do you say?" 

"Well, sir," replies Mr. George, rising erect and looking immense,  "I would rather, if you'll excuse me, have nothing to do with  this." 

Mr. Tulkinghorn, outwardly quite undisturbed, demands, "Why not?" 

"Why, sir," returns the trooper. 

"Except on military compulsion, I  am not a man of business.  Among civilians I am what they call in  Scotland a ne'er-do-weel.  I have no head for papers, sir.  I can  stand any fire better than a fire of cross questions.  I mentioned  to Mr. Smallweed, only an hour or so ago, that when I come into  things of this kind I feel as if I was being smothered.  And that  is my sensation," says Mr. George, looking round upon the company,  "at the present moment." 

With that, he takes three strides forward to replace the papers on  the lawyer's table and three strides backward to resume his former  station, where he stands perfectly upright, now looking at the  ground and now at the painted ceillhg, with his hands behind him as  if to prevent himself from accepting any other document whatever.  Under this provocation, Mr. Smallweed's favourite adjective of  disparagement is so close to his tongue that he begins the words  "my dear friend" with the monosyllable "brim," thus converting the  possessive pronoun into brimmy and appearing to have an impediment  in his speech.  Once past this difficulty, however, he exhorts his  dear friend in the tenderest manner not to be rash, but to do what  so eminent a gentleman requires, and to do it with a good grace,  confident that it must be unobjectionable as well as profitable.   Mr. Tulkinghorn merely utters an occasional sentence, as, "You are  the best judge of your own interest, sergeant." 

"Take care you do  no harm by this." 

"Please yourself, please yourself." 

"If you  know what you mean, that's quite enough."  These he utters with an  appearance of perfect indifference as he looks over the papers on  his table and prepares to write a letter.  Mr. George looks distrustfully from the painted ceiling to the  ground, from the ground to Mr. Smallweed, from Mr. Smallweed to Mr.  Tulkinghorn, and from Mr. Tulkinghorn to the painted ceiling again,  often in his perplexity changing the leg on which he rests. 

"I do assure you, sir," says Mr. George, "not to say it  offensively, that between you and Mr. Smallweed here, I really am  being smothered fifty times over.  I really am, sir.  I am not a  match for you gentlemen.  Will you allow me to ask why you want to  see the captain's hand, in the case that I could find any specimen  of it?" 

Mr. Tulkinghorn quietly shakes his head. 

"No.  If you were a man  of business, sergeant, you would not need to be informed that there  are confidential reasons, very harmless in themselves, for many  such wants in the profession to which I belong.  But if you are  afraid of doing any injury to Captain Hawdon, you may set your mind  at rest about that." 

"Aye!  He is dead, sir." 

"IS he?"  Mr. Tulkinghorn quietly sits down to write. 

"Well, sir," says the trooper, looking into his hat after another  disconcerted pause, "I am sorry not to have given you more  satisfaction.  If it would be any satisfaction to any one that I  should be confirmed in my judgment that I would rather have nothing  to do with this by a friend of mine who has a better head for  business than I have, and who is an old soldier, I am willing to  consult with him.  I--I really am so completely smothered myself at  present," says Mr. George, passing his hand hopelessly across his  brow, "that I don't know but what it might be a satisfaction to  me." 

Mr. Smallweed, hearing that this authority is an old soldier, so  strongly inculcates the expediency of the trooper's taking counsel  with him, and particularly informing him of its being a question of  five guineas or more, that Mr. George engages to go and see him.   Mr. Tulkinghorn says nothing either way. 

"I'll consult my friend, then, by your leave, sir," says the  trooper, "and I'll take the liberty of looking in again with the  final answer in the course of the day.  Mr. Smallweed, if you wish  to be carried downstairs--" 

"In a moment, my dear friend, in a moment.  Will you first let me  speak half a word with this gentleman in private?" 

"Certainly, sir.  Don't hurry yourself on my account."  The trooper  retires to a distant part of the room and resumes his curious  inspection of the boxes, strong and otherwise. 

"If I wasn't as weak as a brimstone baby, sir," whispers  Grandfather Smallweed, drawing the lawyer down to his level by the  lapel of his coat and flashing some half-quenched green fire out of  his angry eyes, "I'd tear the writing away from him.  He's got it  buttoned in his breast.  I saw him put it there.  Judy saw him put  it there.  Speak up, you crabbed image for the sign of a walking- stick shop, and say you saw him put it there!" 

This vehement conjuration the old gentleman accompanies with such a  thrust at his granddaughter that it is too much for his strength,  and he slips away out of his chair, drawing Mr. Tulkinghorn with  him, until he is arrested by Judy, and well shaken. 

"Violence will not do for me, my friend," Mr. Tulkinghorn then  remarks coolly. 

"No, no, I know, I know, sir.  But it's chafing and galling--it's-- it's worse than your smattering chattering magpie of a grandmother,"  to the imperturbable Judy, who only looks at the fire, "to know he  has got what's wanted and won't give it up.  He, not to give it up!   HE!  A vagabond!  But never mind, sir, never mind.  At the most, he  has only his own way for a little while.  I have him periodically  in a vice.  I'll twist him, sir.  I'll screw him, sir.  If he won't  do it with a good grace, I'll make him do it with a bad one, sir!   Now, my dear Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed, winking at  the lawyer hideously as he releases him, "I am ready for your kind  assistance, my excellent friend!" 

Mr. Tulkinghorn, with some shadowy sign of amusement manifesting  itself through his self-possession, stands on the hearth-rug with  his back to the fire, watching the disappearance of Mr. Smallweed  and acknowledging the trooper's parting salute with one slight nod.  It is more difficult to get rid of the old gentleman, Mr. George  finds, than to bear a hand in carrying him downstairs, for when he  is replaced in his conveyance, he is so loquacious on the subject  of the guineas and retains such an affectionate hold of his button --having, in truth, a secret longing to rip his coat open and rob  him--that some degree of force is necessary on the trooper's part  to effect a separation.  It is accomplished at last, and he  proceeds alone in quest of his adviser.  By the cloisterly Temple, and by Whitefriars (there, not without a  glance at Hanging-Sword Alley, which would seem to be something in  his way), and by Blackfriars Bridge, and Blackfriars Road, Mr.  George sedately marches to a street of little shops lying somewhere  in that ganglion of roads from Kent and Surrey, and of streets from  the bridges of London, centring in the far-famed elephant who has  lost his castle formed of a thousand four-horse coaches to a  stronger iron monster than he, ready to chop him into mince-meat  any day he dares.  To one of the little shops in this street, which  is a musician's shop, having a few fiddles in the window, and some  Pan's pipes and a tambourine, and a triangle, and certain elongated  scraps of music, Mr. George directs his massive tread.  And halting  at a few paces from it, as he sees a soldierly looking woman, with  her outer skirts tucked up, come forth with a small wooden tub, and  in that tub commence a-whisking and a-splashing on the margin of  the pavement, Mr. George says to himself, "She's as usual, washing  greens.  I never saw her, except upon a baggage-waggon, when she  wasn't washing greens!" 

The subject of this reflection is at all events so occupied in  washing greens at present that she remains unsuspicious of Mr.  George's approach until, lifting up herself and her tub together  when she has poured the water off into the gutter, she finds him  standing near her.  Her reception of him is not flattering.  "George, I never see you but I wish you was a hundred mile away!" 

The trooper, without remarking on this welcome, follows into the  musical-instrument shop, where the lady places her tub of greens  upon the counter, and having shaken hands with him, rests her arms  upon it. 

"I never," she says, "George, consider Matthew Bagnet safe a minute  when you're near him.  You are that resfless and that roving--" 

"Yes!  I know I am, Mrs. Bagnet.  I know I am." 

"You know you are!" says Mrs. Bagnet. 

"What's the use of that?   WHY are you?" 

"The nature of the animal, I suppose," returns the trooper good- humouredly. 

"Ah!" cries Mrs. Bagnet, something shrilly. 

"But what satisfaction  will the nature of the animal be to me when the animal shall have  tempted my Mat away from the musical business to New Zealand or  Australey?" 

Mrs. Bagnet is not at all an ill-looking woman.  Rather large- boned, a little coarse in the grain, and freckled by the sun and  wind which have tanned her hair upon the forehead, but healthy,  wholesome, and bright-eyed.  A strong, busy, active, honest-faced  woman of from forty-five to fifty.  Clean, hardy, and so  economically dressed (though substantially) that the only article  of ornament of which she stands possessed appear's to be her  wedding-ring, around which her finger has grown to be so large  since it was put on that it will never come off again until it  shall mingle with Mrs. Bagnet's dust. 

"Mrs. Bagnet," says the trooper, "I am on my parole with you.  Mat  will get no harm from me.  You may trust me so far." 

"Well, I think I may.  But the very looks of you are unsettling,"  Mrs. Bagnet rejoins. 

"Ah, George, George!  If you had only settled  down and married Joe Pouch's widow when he died in North America,  SHE'D have combed your hair for you." 

"It was a chance for me, certainly," returns the trooper half  laughingly, half seriously, "but I shall never settle down into a  respectable man now.  Joe Pouch's widow might have done me good-- there was something in her, and something of her--but I couldn't  make up my mind to it.  If I had had the luck to meet with such a  wife as Mat found!"  Mrs. Bagnet, who seems in a virtuous way to be under little reserve  with a good sort of fellow, but to be another good sort of fellow  herself for that matter, receives this compliment by flicking Mr.  George in the face with a head of greens and taking her tub into  the little room behind the shop. 

"Why, Quebec, my poppet," says George, following, on invitation,  into that department. 

"And little Malta, too!  Come and kiss your  Bluffy!" 

These young ladies--not supposed to have been actually christened  by the names applied to them, though always so called in the family  from the places of their birth in barracks--are respectively  employed on three-legged stools, the younger (some five or six  years old) in learning her letters out of a penny primer, the elder  (eight or nine perhaps) in teaching her and sewing with great  assiduity.  Both hail Mr. George with acclamations as an old friend  and after some kissing and romping plant their stools beside him. 

"And how's young Woolwich?" says Mr. George. 

"Ah!  There now!" cries Mrs. Bagnet, turning about from her  saucepans (for she is cooking dinner) with a bright flush on her  face. 

"Would you believe it?  Got an engagement at the theayter,  with his father, to play the fife in a military piece." 

"Well done, my godson!" cries Mr. George, slapping his thigh. 

"I believe you!" says Mrs. Bagnet. 

"He's a Briton.  That's what  Woolwich is.  A Briton!" 

"And Mat blows away at his bassoon, and you're respectable  civilians one and all," says Mr. George.  "Family people.  Children  growing up.  Mat's old mother in Scotland, and your old father  somewhere else, corresponded with, and helped a little, and--well,  well!  To be sure, I don't know why I shouldn't be wished a hundred  mile away, for I have not much to do with all this!"  Mr. George is becoming thoughtful, sitting before the fire in the  whitewashed room, which has a sanded floor and a barrack smell and  contains nothing superfluous and has not a visible speck of dirt or  dust in it, from the faces of Quebec and Malta to the bright tin  pots and pannikins upon the dresser shelves--Mr. George is becoming  thoughtful, sitting here while Mrs. Bagnet is busy, when Mr. Bagnet  and young Woolwich opportunely come home.  Mr. Bagnet is an ex- artilleryman, tall and upright, with shaggy eyebrows and whiskers  like the fibres of a coco-nut, not a hair upon his head, and a  torrid complexion.  His voice, short, deep, and resonant, is not at  all unlike the tones of the instrument to which he is devoted.   Indeed there may be generally observed in him an unbending,  unyielding, brass-bound air, as if he were himself the bassoon of  the human orchestra.  Young Woolwich is the type and model of a  young drummer.  Both father and son salute the trooper heartily.  He saying, in due  season, that he has come to advise with Mr. Bagnet, Mr. Bagnet  hospitably declares that he will hear of no business until after  dinner and that his friend shall not partake of his counsel without  first partaking of boiled pork and greens.  The trooper yielding to  this invitation, he and Mr. Bagnet, not to embarrass the domestic  preparations, go forth to take a turn up and down the little  street, which they promenade with measured tread and folded arms,  as if it were a rampart. 

"George," says Mr. Bagnet. 

"You know me.  It's my old girl that  advises.  She has the head.  But I never own to it before her.   Discipline must be maintained.  Wait till the greens is off her  mind.  Then we'll consult.  Whatever the old girl says, do--do it!" 

"I intend to, Mat," replies the other.  "I would sooner take her  opinion than that of a college." 

"College," returns Mr. Bagnet in short sentences, bassoon-like.   

"What college could you leave--in another quarter of the world-- with nothing but a grey cloak and an umbrella--to make its way home  to Europe?  The old girl would do it to-morrow.  Did it once!" 

"You are right," says Mr. George. 

"What college," pursues Bagnet, "could you set up in life--with two  penn'orth of white lime--a penn'orth of fuller's earth--a ha'porth  of sand--and the rest of the change out of sixpence in money?   That's what the old girl started on.  In the present business." 

"I am rejoiced to hear it's thriving, Mat." 

"The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, acquiescing, "saves.  Has a  stocking somewhere.  With money in it.  I never saw it.  But I know  she's got it.  Wait till the greens is off her mind.  Then she'll  set you up."  "She is a treasure!" exclaims Mr. George. 

"She's more.  But I never own to it before her.  Discipline must be  maintained.  It was the old girl that brought out my musical  abilities.  I should have been in the artillery now but for the old  girl.  Six years I hammered at the fiddle.  Ten at the flute.  The  old girl said it wouldn't do; intention good, but want of  flexibility; try the bassoon.  The old girl borrowed a bassoon from  the bandmaster of the Rifle Regiment.  I practised in the trenches.   Got on, got another, get a living by it!" 

George remarks that she looks as fresh as a rose and as sound as an  apple. 

"The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet in reply, "is a thoroughly fine  woman.  Consequently she is like a thoroughly fine day.  Gets finer  as she gets on.  I never saw the old girl's equal.  But I never own  to it before her.  Discipline must be maintained!"  Proceeding to converse on indifferent matters, they walk up and  down the little street, keeping step and time, until summoned by  Quebec and Malta to do justice to the pork and greens, over which  Mrs. Bagnet, like a military chaplain, says a short grace.  In the  distribution of these comestibles, as in every other household  duty, Mrs. Bagnet developes an exact system, sitting with every  dish before her, allotting to every portion of pork its own portion  of pot-liquor, greens, potatoes, and even mustard, and serving it  out complete.  Having likewise served out the beer from a can and  thus supplied the mess with all things necessary, Mrs. Bagnet  proceeds to satisfy her own hunger, which is in a healthy state.   The kit of the mess, if the table furniture may be so denominated,  is chiefly composed of utensils of horn and tin that have done duty  in several parts of the world.  Young Woolwich's knife, in  particular, which is of the oyster kind, with the additional  feature of a strong shutting-up movement which frequently balks the  appetite of that young musician, is mentioned as having gone in  various hands the complete round of foreign service.  The dinner done, Mrs. Bagnet, assisted by the younger branches (who  polish their own cups and platters, knives and forks), makes all  the dinner garniture shine as brightly as before and puts it all  away, first sweeping the hearth, to the end that Mr. Bagnet and the  visitor may not be retarded in the smoking of their pipes.  These  household cares involve much pattening and counter-pattening in the  backyard and considerable use of a pail, which is finally so happy  as to assist in the ablutions of Mrs. Bagnet herself.  That old  girl reappearing by and by, quite fresh, and sitting down to her  needlework, then and only then--the greens being only then to be  considered as entirely off her mind--Mr. Bagnet requests the  trooper to state his case.  This Mr. George does with great discretion, appearing to address  himself to Mr. Bagnet, but having an eye solely on the old girl all  the time, as Bagnet has himself.  She, equally discreet, busies  herself with her needlework.  The case fully stated, Mr. Bagnet  resorts to his standard artifice for the maintenance of discipline. 

"That's the whole of it, is it, George?" says he. 

"That's the whole of it." 

"You act according to my opinion?" 

"I shall be guided," replies George, "entirely by it." 

"Old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, "give him my opinion.  You know it.   Tell him what it is." 

It is that he cannot have too little to do with people who are too  deep for him and cannot be too careful of interference with matters  he does not understand--that the plain rule is to do nothing in the  dark, to be a party to nothing underhanded or mysterious, and never  to put his foot where he cannot see the ground.  This, in effect,  is Mr. Bagnet's opinion, as delivered through the old girl, and it  so relieves Mr. George's mind by confirming his own opinion and  banishing his doubts that he composes himself to smoke another pipe  on that exceptional occasion and to have a talk over old times with  the whole Bagnet family, according to their various ranges of  experience.  Through these means it comes to pass that Mr. George does not again  rise to his full height in that parlour until the time is drawing  on when the bassoon and fife are expected by a British public at  the theatre; and as it takes time even then for Mr. George, in his  domestic character of Bluffy, to take leave of Quebec and Malta and  insinuate a sponsorial shilling into the pocket of his godson with  felicitations on his success in life, it is dark when Mr. George  again turns his face towards Lincoln's Inn Fields. 

"A family home," he ruminates as he marches along, "however small  it is, makes a man like me look lonely.  But it's well I never made  that evolution of matrimony.  I shouldn't have been fit for it.  I  am such a vagabond still, even at my present time of life, that I  couldn't hold to the gallery a month together if it was a regular  pursuit or if I didn't camp there, gipsy fashion.  Come!  I  disgrace nobody and cumber nobody; that's something.  I have not  done that for many a long year!"  So he whistles it off and marches on.  Arrived in Lincoln's Inn Fields and mounting Mr. Tulkinghorn's  stair, he finds the outer door closed and the chambers shut, but  the trooper not knowing much about outer doors, and the staircase  being dark besides, he is yet fumbling and groping about, hoping to  discover a bell-handle or to open the door for himself, when Mr.  Tulkinghorn comes up the stairs (quietly, of course) and angrily  asks, "Who is that?  What are you doing there?" 

"I ask your pardon, sir.  It's George.  The sergeant." 

"And couldn't George, the sergeant, see that my door was locked?" 

"Why, no, sir, I couldn't.  At any rate, I didn't," says the  trooper, rather nettled. 

"Have you changed your mind?  Or are you in the same mind?"

Mr.  Tulkinghorn demands.  But he knows well enough at a glance. 

"In the same mind, sir." 

"I thought so.  That's sufficient.  You can go.  So you are the  man," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, opening his door with the key, "in  whose hiding-place Mr. Gridley was found?" 

"Yes, I AM the man," says the trooper, stopping two or three stairs  down. 

"What then, sir?" 

"What then?  I don't like your associates.  You should not have  seen the inside of my door this morning if I had thought of your  being that man.  Gridley?  A threatening, murderous, dangerous  fellow." 

With these words, spoken in an unusually high tone for him, the  lawyer goes into his rooms and shuts the door with a thundering  noise.  Mr. George takes his dismissal in great dudgeon, the greater  because a clerk coming up the stairs has heard the last words of  all and evidently applies them to him. 

"A pretty character to  bear," the trooper growls with a hasty oath as he strides  downstairs. 

"A threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow!"  And  looking up, he sees the clerk looking down at him and marking him  as he passes a lamp.  This so intensifies his dudgeon that for five  minutes he is in an ill humour.  But he whistles that off like the  rest of it and marches home to the shooting gallery.

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