BLEAK HOUSE

Inapoi la sumar

CHAPTER XLIX  

Dutiful Friendship

A great annual occasion has come round in the establishment of Mr.  Matthew Bagnet, otherwise Lignum Vitae, ex-artilleryman and present  bassoon-player.  An occasion of feasting and festival.  The  celebration of a birthday in the family.  It is not Mr. Bagnet's birthday.  Mr. Bagnet merely distinguishes  that epoch in the musical instrument business by kissing the  children with an extra smack before breakfast, smoking an  additional pipe after dinner, and wondering towards evening what  his poor old mother is thinking about it--a subject of infinite  speculation, and rendered so by his mother having departed this  life twenty years.  Some men rarely revert to their father, but  seem, in the bank-books of their remembrance, to have transferred  all the stock of filial affection into their mother's name.  Mr.  Bagnet is one of like his trade the better for that. 

If I had kept  clear of his old girl causes him usually to make the noun- substantive "goodness" of the feminine gender.  It is not the birthday of one of the three children.  Those  occasions are kept with some marks of distinction, but they rarely  overleap the bounds of happy returns and a pudding.  On young  Woolwich's last birthday, Mr. Bagnet certainly did, after observing  on his growth and general advancement, proceed, in a moment of  profound reflection on the changes wrought by time, to examine him  in the catechism, accomplishing with extreme accuracy the questions  number one and two, "What is your name?" and "Who gave you that  name?" but there failing in the exact precision of his memory and  substituting for number three the question "And how do you like  that name?" which he propounded with a sense of its importance, in  itself so edifying and improving as to give it quite an orthodox  air.  This, however, was a speciality on that particular birthday,  and not a general solemnity.  It is the old girl's birthday, and that is the greatest holiday and  reddest-letter day in Mr. Bagnet's calendar. 

The auspicious event  is always commemorated according to certain forms settled and  prescribed by Mr. Bagnet some years since.  Mr. Bagnet, being  deeply convinced that to have a pair of fowls for dinner is to  attain the highest pitch of imperial luxury, invariably goes forth  himself very early in the morning of this day to buy a pair; he is,  as invariably, taken in by the vendor and installed in the  possession of the oldest inhabitants of any coop in Europe.   Returning with these triumphs of toughness tied up in a clean blue  and white cotton handkerchief (essential to the arrangements), he  in a casual manner invites Mrs. Bagnet to declare at breakfast what  she would like for dinner. 

Mrs. Bagnet, by a coincidence never  known to fail, replying fowls, Mr. Bagnet instantly produces his  bundle from a place of concealment amidst general amazement and  rejoicing.  He further requires that the old girl shall do nothing  all day long but sit in her very best gown and be served by himself  and the young people.  As he is not illustrious for his cookery,  this may be supposed to be a matter of state rather than enjoyment  on the old girl's part, but she keeps her state with all imaginable  cheerfulness.  On this present birthday, Mr. Bagnet has accomplished the usual  preliminaries. 

He has bought two specimens of poultry, which, if  there be any truth in adages, were certainly not caught with chaff,  to be prepared for the spit; he has amazed and rejoiced the family  by their unlooked-for production; he is himself directing the  roasting of the poultry; and Mrs. Bagnet, with her wholesome brown  fingers itching to prevent what she sees going wrong, sits in her  gown of ceremony, an honoured guest.  Quebec and Malta lay the cloth for dinner, while Woolwich, serving,  as beseems him, under his father, keeps the fowls revolving.  To  these young scullions Mrs. Bagnet occasionally imparts a wink, or a  shake of the head, or a crooked face, as they made mistakes. 

"At half after one."  Says Mr. Bagnet. 

"To the minute.  They'll be  done."  Mrs. Bagnet, with anguish, beholds one of them at a standstill  before the fire and beginning to burn. 

"You shall have a dinner, old girl," says Mr. Bagnet. 

"Fit for a  queen." 

Mrs. Bagnet shows her white teeth cheerfully, but to the perception  of her son, betrays so much uneasiness of spirit that he is  impelled by the dictates of affection to ask her, with his eyes,  what is the matter, thus standing, with his eyes wide open, more  oblivious of the fowls than before, and not affording the least  hope of a return to consciousness.  Fortunately his elder sister  perceives the cause of the agitation in Mrs. Bagnet's breast and  with an admonitory poke recalls him.  The stopped fowls going round  again, Mrs. Bagnet closes her eyes in the intensity of her relief. 

"George will look us up," says Mr. Bagnet. 

"At half after four.   To the moment.  How many years, old girl.  Has George looked us up.   This afternoon?" 

"Ah, Lignum, Lignum, as many as make an old woman of a young one, I  begin to think.  Just about that, and no less," returns Mrs.  Bagnet, laughing and shaking her head. 

"Old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, "never mind.  You'd be as young as  ever you was.  If you wasn't younger.  Which you are.  As everybody  knows." 

Quebec and Malta here exclaim, with clapping of hands, that Bluffy  is sure to bring mother something, and begin to speculate on what  it will be. 

"Do you know, Lignum," says Mrs. Bagnet, casting a glance on the  table-cloth, and winking "salt!" at Malta with her right eye, and  shaking the pepper away from Quebec with her head, "I begin to  think George is in the roving way again. 

"George," returns Mr. Bagnet, "will never desert.  And leave his  old comrade.  In the lurch.  Don't be afraid of it." 

"No, Lignum.  No.  I don't say he will.  I don't think he will.   But if he could get over this money trouble of his, I believe he  would be off."  Mr. Bagnet asks why. 

"Well," returns his wife, considering, "George seems to me to be  getting not a little impatient and restless.  I don't say but what  he's as free as ever.  Of course he must be free or he wouldn't be  George, but he smarts and seems put out." 

"He's extra-drilled," says Mr. Bagnet. 

"By a lawyer.  Who would  put the devil out." 

"There's something in that," his wife assents; "but so it is,  Lignum." 

Further conversation is prevented, for the time, by the necessity  under which Mr. Bagnet finds himself of directing the whole force  of his mind to the dinner, which is a little endangered by the dry  humour of the fowls in not yielding any gravy, and also by the made  gravy acquiring no flavour and turning out of a flaxen complexion.   With a similar perverseness, the potatoes crumble off forks in the  process of peeling, upheaving from their centres in every  direction, as if they were subject to earthquakes.  The legs of the  fowls, too, are longer than could be desired, and extremely scaly.   

Overcoming these disadvantages to the best of his ability, Mr.  Bagnet at last dishes and they sit down at table, Mrs. Bagnet  occupying the guest's place at his right hand.  It is well for the old girl that she has but one birthday in a  year, for two such indulgences in poultry might be injurious.   Every kind of finer tendon and ligament that is in the nature of  poultry to possess is developed in these specimens in the singular  form of guitar-strings. 

Their limbs appear to have struck roots  into their breasts and bodies, as aged trees strike roots into the  earth.  Their legs are so hard as to encourage the idea that they  must have devoted the greater part of their long and arduous lives  to pedestrian exercises and the walking of matches.  But Mr.  Bagnet, unconscious of these little defects, sets his heart on Mrs.  Bagnet eating a most severe quantity of the delicacies before her;  and as that good old girl would not cause him a moment's  disappointment on any day, least of all on such a day, for any  consideration, she imperils her digestion fearfully.  How young  Woolwich cleans the drum-sticks without being of ostrich descent,  his anxious mother is at a loss to understand. 

The old girl has another trial to undergo after the conclusion of  the repast in sitting in state to see the room cleared, the hearth  swept, and the dinner-service washed up and polished in the  backyard.  The great delight and energy with which the two young  ladies apply themselves to these duties, turning up their skirts in  imitation of their mother and skating in and out on little  scaffolds of pattens, inspire the highest hopes for the future, but  some anxiety for the present.  The same causes lead to confusion of  tongues, a clattering of crockery, a rattling of tin mugs, a  whisking of brooms, and an expenditure of water, all in excess,  while the saturation of the young ladies themselves is almost too  moving a spectacle for Mrs. Bagnet to look upon with the calmness  proper to her position. 

At last the various cleansing processes  are triumphantly completed; Quebec and Malta appear in fresh  attire, smiling and dry; pipes, tobacco, and something to drink are  placed upon the table; and the old girl enjoys the first peace of  mind she ever knows on the day of this delightful entertainment.  When Mr. Bagnet takes his usual seat, the hands of the clock are  very near to half-past four; as they mark it accurately, Mr. Bagnet  announces, "George!  Military time." 

It is George, and he has hearty congratulations for the old girl  (whom he kisses on the great occasion), and for the children, and  for Mr. Bagnet. 

"Happy returns to all!" says Mr. George. 

"But, George, old man!" cries Mrs. Bagnet, looking at him  curiously. 

"What's come to you?" 

"Come to me?" 

"Ah! You are so white, George--for you--and look so shocked.  Now  don't he, Lignum?" 

"George," says Mr. Bagnet, "tell the old girl.  What's the matter." 

"I didn't know I looked white," says the trooper, passing his hand  over his brow, "and I didn't know I looked shocked, and I'm sorry I  do.  But the truth is, that boy who was taken in at my place died  yesterday afternoon, and it has rather knocked me over." 

"Poor creetur!" says Mrs. Bagnet with a mother's pity. 

"Is he  gone?  Dear, dear!" 

"I didn't mean to say anything about it, for it's not birthday  talk, but you have got it out of me, you see, before I sit down.  I  should have roused up in a minute," says the trooper, making  himself speak more gaily, "but you're so quick, Mrs. Bagnet." 

"You're right.  The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet. 

"Is as quick.  As  powder." 

"And what's more, she's the subject of the day, and we'll stick to  her," cries Mr. George. 

"See here, I have brought a little brooch  along with me.  It's a poor thing, you know, but it's a keepsake.   That's all the good it is, Mrs. Bagnet."  Mr. George produces his present, which is greeted with admiring  leapings and clappings by the young family, and with a species of  reverential admiration by Mr. Bagnet. 

"Old girl," says Mr. Bagnet.   

"Tell him my opinion of it." 

"Why, it's a wonder, George!" Mrs. Bagnet exclaims. 

"It's the  beautifullest thing that ever was seen!" 

"Good!" says Mr. Bagnet. 

My opinion." 

"It's so pretty, George," cries Mrs. Bagnet, turning it on all  sides and holding it out at arm's length, "that it seems too choice  for me." 

"Bad!" says Mr. Bagnet. 

"Not my opinlon." 

"But whatever it is, a hundred thousand thanks, old fellow," says  Mrs. Bagnet, her eyes sparkling with pleasure and her hand  stretched out to him; "and though I have been a crossgrained  soldier's wife to you sometimes, George, we are as strong friends,  I am sure, in reality, as ever can be.  Now you shall fasten it on  yourself, for good luck, if you will, George." 

The children close up to see it done, and Mr. Bagnet looks over  young Woolwich's head to see it done with an interest so maturely  wooden, yet pleasantly childish, that Mrs. Bagnet cannot help  laughing in her airy way and saying, "Oh, Lignum, Lignum, what a  precious old chap you are!" 

But the trooper fails to fasten the  brooch.  His hand shakes, he is nervous, and it falls off. 

"Would  any one believe this?" says he, catching it as it drops and looking  round. 

"I am so out of sorts that I bungle at an easy job like  this!" 

Mrs. Bagnet concludes that for such a case there is no remedy like  a pipe, and fastening the brooch herself in a twinkling, causes the  trooper to be inducted into his usual snug place and the pipes to  be got into action. 

"If that don't bring you round, George," says  she, "just throw your eye across here at your present now and then,  and the two together MUST do it." 

"You ought to do it of yourself," George answers; "I know that very  well, Mrs. Bagnet.  I'll tell you how, one way and another, the  blues have got to be too many for me.  Here was this poor lad.   'Twas dull work to see him dying as he did, and not be able to help  him." 

"What do you mean, George?  You did help him.  You took him under  your roof." 

"I helped him so far, but that's little.  I mean, Mrs. Bagnet,  there he was, dying without ever having been taught much more than  to know his right hand from his left.  And he was too far gone to  be helped out of that." 

"Ah, poor creetur!" says Mrs. Bagnet. 

"Then," says the trooper, not yet lighting his pipe, and passing  his heavy hand over his hair, "that brought up Gridley in a man's  mind.  His was a bad case too, in a different way.  Then the two  got mixed up in a man's mind with a flinty old rascal who had to do  with both.  And to think of that rusty carbine, stock and barrel,  standing up on end in his corner, hard, indifferent, taking  everything so evenly--it made flesh and blood tingle, I do assure  you." 

"My advice to you," returns Mrs. Bagnet, "is to light your pipe and  tingle that way.  It's wholesomer and comfortabler, and better for  the health altogether." 

"You're right," says the trooper, "and I'll do it."  So he does it, though still with an indignant gravity that  impresses the young Bagnets, and even causes Mr. Bagnet to defer  the ceremony of drinking Mrs. Bagnet's health, always given by  himself on these occasions in a speech of exemplary terseness.  But  the young ladies having composed what Mr. Bagnet is in the habit of  calling "the mixtur," and George's pipe being now in a glow, Mr.  Bagnet considers it his duty to proceed to the toast of the  evening.  He addresses the assembled company in the following  terms. 

"George.  Woolwich.  Quebec.  Malta.  This is her birthday.  Take a  day's march.  And you won't find such another.  Here's towards  her!" 

The toast having been drunk with enthusiasm, Mrs. Bagnet returns  thanks in a neat address of corresponding brevity.  This model  composition is limited to the three words "And wishing yours!"  which the old girl follows up with a nod at everybody in succession  and a well-regulated swig of the mixture.  This she again follows  up, on the present occasion, by the wholly unexpected exclamation,  "Here's a man!" 

Here IS a man, much to the astonishment of the little company,  looking in at the parlour-door.  He is a sharp-eyed man--a quick  keen man--and he takes in everybody's look at him, all at once,  individually and collectively, in a manner that stamps him a  remarkable man. 

"George," says the man, nodding, "how do you find yourself?" 

"Why, it's Bucket!" cries Mr. George. 

"Yes," says the man, coming in and closing the door. 

"I was going  down the street here when I happened to stop and look in at the  musical instruments in the shop-window--a friend of mine is in want  of a second-hand wiolinceller of a good tone--and I saw a party  enjoying themselves, and I thought it was you in the corner; I  thought I couldn't be mistaken.  How goes the world with you,  George, at the present moment?  Pretty smooth?  And with you,  ma'am?  And with you, governor?  And Lord," says Mr. Bucket,  opening his arms, "here's children too!  You may do anything with  me if you only show me children.  Give us a kiss, my pets.  No  occasion to inquire who YOUR father and mother is.  Never saw such  a likeness in my life!"  Mr. Bucket, not unwelcome, has sat himself down next to Mr. George  and taken Quebec and Malta on his knees. 

"You pretty dears," says  Mr. Bucket, "give us another kiss; it's the only thing I'm greedy  in.  Lord bless you, how healthy you look!  And what may be the  ages of these two, ma'am?  I should put 'em down at the figures of  about eight and ten." 

"You're very near, sir," says Mrs. Bagnet. 

"I generally am near," returns Mr. Bucket, "being so fond of  children.  A friend of mine has had nineteen of 'em, ma'am, all by  one mother, and she's still as fresh and rosy as the morning.  Not  so much so as yourself, but, upon my soul, she comes near you!  And  what do you call these, my darling?" pursues Mr. Bucket, pinching  Malta's cheeks. 

"These are peaches, these are.  Bless your heart!   And what do you think about father?  Do you think father could  recommend a second-hand wiolinceller of a good tone for Mr.  Bucket's friend, my dear?  My name's Bucket.  Ain't that a funny  name?" 

These blandishments have entirely won the family heart.  Mrs.  Bagnet forgets the day to the extent of filling a pipe and a glass  for Mr. Bucket and waiting upon him hospitably.  She would be glad  to receive so pleasant a character under any circumstances, but she  tells him that as a friend of George's she is particularly glad to  see him this evening, for George has not been in his usual spirits. 

"Not in his usual spirits?" exclaims Mr. Bucket. 

"Why, I never  heard of such a thing!  What's the matter, George?  You don't  intend to tell me you've been out of spirits.  What should you be  out of spirits for?  You haven't got anything on your mind, you  know." 

"Nothing particular," returns the trooper. 

"I should think not," rejoins Mr. Bucket. 

"What could you have on  your mind, you know!  And have these pets got anything on THEIR  minds, eh?  Not they, but they'll be upon the minds of some of the  young fellows, some of these days, and make 'em precious low- spirited.  I ain't much of a prophet, but I can tell you that,  ma'am."  Mrs. Bagnet, quite charmed, hopes Mr. Bucket has a family of his  own. 

"There, ma'am!" says Mr. Bucket. 

"Would you believe it?  No, I  haven't.  My wife and a lodger constitute my family.  Mrs. Bucket  is as fond of children as myself and as wishful to have 'em, but  no.  So it is.  Worldly goods are divided unequally, and man must  not repine.  What a very nice backyard, ma'am!  Any way out of that  yard, now?" 

There is no way out of that yard. 

"Ain't there really?" says Mr. Bucket. 

"I should have thought  there might have been.  Well, I don't know as I ever saw a backyard  that took my fancy more.  Would you allow me to look at it?  Thank  you.  No, I see there's no way out.  But what a very good- proportioned yard it is!"  Having cast his sharp eye all about it, Mr. Bucket returns to his  chair next his friend Mr. George and pats Mr. George affectionately  on the shoulder. 

"How are your spirits now, George?" 

"All right now," returns the trooper. 

"That's your sort!" says Mr. Bucket. 

"Why should you ever have  been otherwise?  A man of your fine figure and constitution has no  right to be out of spirits.  That ain't a chest to be out of  spirits, is it, ma'am?  And you haven't got anything on your mind,  you know, George; what could you have on your mind!" 

Somewhat harping on this phrase, considering the extent and variety  of his conversational powers, Mr. Bucket twice or thrice repeats it  to the pipe he lights, and with a listening face that is  particularly his own.  But the sun of his sociality soon recovers  from this brief eclipse and shines again.  "And this is brother, is it, my dears?" says Mr. Bucket, referring  to Quebec and Malta for information on the subject of young  Woolwich. 

"And a nice brother he is--half-brother I mean to say.   For he's too old to be your boy, ma'am." 

"I can certify at all events that he is not anybody else's,"  returns Mrs. Bagnet, laughing. 

"Well, you do surprise me!  Yet he's like you, there's no denying.   Lord, he's wonderfully like you!  But about what you may call the  brow, you know, THERE his father comes out!" 

Mr. Bucket compares  the faces with one eye shut up, while Mr. Bagnet smokes in stolid  satisfaction.  This is an opportunity for Mrs. Bagnet to inform him that the boy  is George's godson. 

"George's godson, is he?" rejoins Mr. Bucket with extreme  cordiality. 

"I must shake hands over again with George's godson.   Godfather and godson do credit to one another.  And what do you  intend to make of him, ma'am?  Does he show any turn for any  musical instrument?" 

 Mr. Bagnet suddenly interposes, "Plays the fife.  Beautiful." 

"Would you believe it, governor," says Mr. Bucket, struck by the  coincidence, "that when I was a boy I played the fife myself?  Not  in a scientific way, as I expect he does, but by ear.  Lord bless  you!  'British Grenadiers'--there's a tune to warm an Englishman  up!  COULD you give us 'British Grenadiers,' my fine fellow?" 

Nothing could be more acceptable to the little circle than this  call upon young Woolwich, who immediately fetches his fife and  performs the stirring melody, during which performance Mr. Bucket,  much enlivened, beats time and never falls to come in sharp with  the burden, "British Gra-a-anadeers!" 

In short, he shows so much  musical taste that Mr. Bagnet actually takes his pipe from his lips  to express his conviction that he is a singer.  Mr. Bucket receives  the harmonious impeachment so modestly, confessing how that he did  once chaunt a little, for the expression of the feelings of his own  bosom, and with no presumptuous idea of entertaining his friends,  that he is asked to sing.  Not to be behindhand in the sociality of  the evening, he complies and gives them "Believe Me, if All Those  Endearing Young Charms." 

This ballad, he informs Mrs. Bagnet, he  considers to have been his most powerful ally in moving the heart  of Mrs. Bucket when a maiden, and inducing her to approach the  altar--Mr. Bucket's own words are "to come up to the scratch."  This sparkling stranger is such a new and agreeable feature in the  evening that Mr. George, who testified no great emotions of  pleasure on his entrance, begins, in spite of himself, to be rather  proud of him.  He is so friendly, is a man of so many resources,  and so easy to get on with, that it is something to have made him  known there.  Mr. Bagnet becomes, after another pipe, so sensible  of the value of his acquaintance that he solicits the honour of his  company on the old girl's next birthday.  If anything can more  closely cement and consolidate the esteem which Mr. Bucket has  formed for the family, it is the discovery of the nature of the  occasion. 

He drinks to Mrs. Bagnet with a warmth approaching to  rapture, engages himself for that day twelvemonth more than  thankfully, makes a memorandum of the day in a large black pocket- book with a girdle to it, and breathes a hope that Mrs. Bucket and  Mrs. Bagnet may before then become, in a manner, sisters.  As he  says himself, what is public life without private ties?  He is in  his humble way a public man, but it is not in that sphere that he  finds happiness.  No, it must be sought within the confines of  domestic bliss.  It is natural, under these circumstances, that he, in his turn,  should remember the friend to whom he is indebted for so promising  an acquaintance.  And he does.  He keeps very close to him.   Whatever the subject of the conversation, he keeps a tender eye  upon him.  He waits to walk home with him.  He is interested in his  very boots and observes even them attentively as Mr. George sits  smoking cross-legged in the chimney-corner.  At length Mr. George rises to depart. 

At the same moment Mr.  Bucket, with the secret sympathy of friendship, also rises.  He  dotes upon the children to the last and remembers the commission he  has undertaken for an absent friend. 

"Respecting that second-hand wiolinceller, governor--could you  recommend me such a thing?" 

"Scores," says Mr. Bagnet. 

"I am obliged to you," returns Mr. Bucket, squeezing his hand. 

"You're a friend in need.  A good tone, mind you!  My friend is a  regular dab at it.  Ecod, he saws away at Mozart and Handel and the  rest of the big-wigs like a thorough workman.  And you needn't,"  says Mr. Bucket in a considerate and private voice, "you needn't  commit yourself to too low a figure, governor.  I don't want to pay  too large a price for my friend, but I want you to have your proper  percentage and be remunerated for your loss of time.  That is but  fair. 

Every man must live, and ought to it."  Mr. Bagnet shakes his head at the old girl to the effect that they  have found a jewel of price. 

"Suppose I was to give you a look in, say, at half arter ten to- morrow morning.  Perhaps you could name the figures of a few  wiolincellers of a good tone?" says Mr. Bucket.  Nothing easier.  Mr. and Mrs. Bagnet both engage to have the  requisite information ready and even hint to each other at the  practicability of having a small stock collected there for  approval. 

"Thank you," says Mr. Bucket, "thank you.  Good night, ma'am.  Good  night, governor.  Good night, darlings.  I am much obliged to you  for one of the pleasantest evenings I ever spent in my life." 

They, on the contrary, are much obliged to him for the pleasure he  has given them in his company; and so they part with many  expressions of goodwill on both sides. 

"Now George, old boy," says  Mr. Bucket, taking his arm at the shop-door, "come along!" 

As they  go down the little street and the Bagnets pause for a minute  looking after them, Mrs. Bagnet remarks to the worthy Lignum that  Mr. Bucket "almost clings to George like, and seems to be really  fond of him." 

The neighbouring streets being narrow and ill-paved, it is a little  inconvenient to walk there two abreast and arm in arm.  Mr. George  therefore soon proposes to walk singly.  But Mr. Bucket, who cannot  make up his mind to relinquish his friendly hold, replies, "Wait  half a minute, George.  I should wish to speak to you first."   Immediately afterwards, he twists him into a public-house and into  a parlour, where he confronts him and claps his own back against  the door. 

"Now, George," says Mr. Bucket, "duty is duty, and friendship is  friendship.  I never want the two to clash if I can help it.  I  have endeavoured to make things pleasant to-night, and I put it to  you whether I have done it or not.  You must consider yourself in  custody, George." 

"Custody?  What for?" returns the trooper, thunderstruck. 

"Now, George," says Mr. Bucket, urging a sensible view of the case  upon him with his fat forefinger, "duty, as you know very well, is  one thing, and conversation is another.  It's my duty to inform you  that any observations you may make will be liable to be used  against you.  Therefore, George, be careful what you say.  You  don't happen to have heard of a murder?" 

"Murder!" 

"Now, George," says Mr. Bucket, keeping his forefinger in an  impressive state of action, "bear in mind what I've said to you.  I  ask you nothing.  You've been in low spirits this afternoon.  I  say, you don't happen to have heard of a murder?" 

"No.  Where has there been a murder?" 

"Now, George," says Mr. Bucket, "don't you go and commit yourself.   I'm a-going to tell you what I want you for.  There has been a  murder in Lincoln's Inn Fields--gentleman of the name of  Tulkinghorn.  He was shot last night.  I want you for that." 

The trooper sinks upon a seat behind him, and great drops start out  upon his forehead, and a deadly pallor overspreads his face.  "Bucket!  It's not possible that Mr. Tulkinghorn has been killed  and that you suspect ME?" 

"George," returns Mr. Bucket, keeping his forefinger going, "it is  certainly possible, because it's the case.  This deed was done last  night at ten o'clock.  Now, you know where you were last night at  ten o'clock, and you'll be able to prove it, no doubt." 

"Last night!  Last night?" repeats the trooper thoughtfully.  Then  it flashes upon him. 

"Why, great heaven, I was there last night!" 

"So I have understood, George," returns Mr. Bucket with great  deliberation. 

"So I have understood.  Likewise you've been very  often there.  You've been seen hanging about the place, and you've  been heard more than once in a wrangle with him, and it's possible --I don't say it's certainly so, mind you, but it's possible--that  he may have been heard to call you a threatening, murdering,  dangerous fellow." 

The trooper gasps as if he would admit it all if he could speak. 

"Now, George," continues Mr. Bucket, putting his hat upon the table  with an air of business rather in the upholstery way than  otherwise, "my wish is, as it has been all the evening, to make  things pleasant.  I tell you plainly there's a reward out, of a  hundred guineas, offered by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet.  You  and me have always been pleasant together; but I have got a duty to  discharge; and if that hundred guineas is to be made, it may as  well be made by me as any other man.  On all of which accounts, I  should hope it was clear to you that I must have you, and that I'm  damned if I don't have you.  Am I to call in any assistance, or is  the trick done?"  Mr. George has recovered himself and stands up like a soldier.   

"Come," he says; "I am ready."  "George," continues Mr. Bucket, "wait a bit!"  With his upholsterer  manner, as if the trooper were a window to be fitted up, he takes  from his pocket a pair of handcuffs.  "This is a serious charge,  George, and such is my duty." 

The trooper flushes angrily and hesitates a moment, but holds out  his two hands, clasped together, and says, "There!  Put them on!"  Mr. Bucket adjusts them in a moment. 

"How do you find them?  Are  they comfortable?  If not, say so, for I wish to make things as  pleasant as is consistent with my duty, and I've got another pair  in my pocket."  This remark he offers like a most respectable  tradesman anxious to execute an order neatly and to the perfect  satisfaction of his customer. 

"They'll do as they are?  Very well!   Now, you see, George"--he takes a cloak from a corner and begins  adjusting it about the trooper's neck--"I was mindful of your  feelings when I come out, and brought this on purpose.  There!   Who's the wiser?" 

"Only I," returns the trooper, "but as I know it, do me one more  good turn and pull my hat over my eyes."  "Really, though!  Do you mean it?  Ain't it a pity?  It looks so." 

"I can't look chance men in the face with these things on," Mr.  George hurriedly replies. 

"Do, for God's sake, pull my hat  forward."  So strongly entreated, Mr. Bucket complies, puts his own hat on,  and conducts his prize into the streets, the trooper marching on as  steadily as usual, though with his head less erect, and Mr. Bucket  steering him with his elbow over the crossings and up the turnings.

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