Volume Two—Chapter Seven.
Between Friends.
For quite a month, as far as the vicar could tell, the poor-boxes had rest, and Mr Timson’s ears were not so much troubled with the objectionable money texts. Divers games of cribbage were played, and divers pipes and glasses of gin-and-water enjoyed, as the late robberies were discussed. During these discussions the vicar would enlighten his crony upon the subject of the various plans he had adopted to see whether the boxes had been opened.
The matter was also freely discussed at Purkis’s and Ruggles’s, as well as at Duplex Street; the same verdict being arrived at in each house—namely, that it was very strange.
Mrs Purkis thought she could fit the cap on the right head if she had to do with the matter, and Mr Purkis told her to hold her tongue. Mrs Ruggles, too, gave a sidewise look at her husband, and told him that it was not her business, but she could give a very shrewd guess at the culprit; though, when pressed on the subject, she only nipped her lips very tightly, and said, “Never mind.”
As for Mrs Jared, she only declared it to be very sad, and then the matter was allowed to drop.
The vicar, too, seemed to have almost forgotten the matter, until one morning when he hurried into Mr Timson’s counting-house, looking so much put out that the churchwarden directly guessed what was the matter, and before his friend could say a word, exclaimed—
“You don’t mean it, sir?”
“But I do mean it, Mr Timson,” said the vicar; “and really,” he continued poking at the inkstand with the ferule of his umbrella—“and really, I should be glad if you would not treat this matter so lightly, sir. It grieves me very, very deeply, Mr Timson, I can assure you.”
“Mind the ink, sir,” said Mr Timson, placing the bright metal stand out of his visitor’s reach. “I don’t treat it lightly, sir. It’s no joke, and I’m as much put out as yourself. You don’t think I want the poor-boxes robbed, do you, sir?” and he spoke with a puffing snort between every two or three words, as if getting warm.
“Now don’t be rash, Timson—don’t be rash. I’m not angry; only, really, you know, it is so worrying, so aggravating—deuced aggravating, I should say, if I were a layman, Timson, I should indeed. There, there! now don’t bristle up, there’s a good fellow; but tell me what to do.”
“Take that umbrella ferule out of my ink, that’s what you’d better do,” said Timson, gruffly; for, in an absent fashion, the vicar was still thrusting at the metal stand, to the great endangering of an open book or two upon the table.
“There, there, there!” said the vicar, impatiently, as he placed the obnoxious ferule upon the floor, and pressed it down there with both hands. “Now, then, tell me, Timson, what had I better do?”
“How the devil should I know what you ought to do?” exclaimed Mr Timson, for he was out of temper that morning with business matters connected with a sudden rise in teas, just at a time when his stock was low, in consequence of his having anticipated a fall, and the vicar, in his impatient mood, had applied the match which exploded Mr Timson’s wrath, when, metaphorically taking off his apron, he spoke up.
“Don’t swear, Timson,” said the vicar, sternly; “‘Swear not,’—you know the rest.”
“Shoo—shoo—shoo—shoo—shoo—shoo—shoo!” ejaculated Mr Timson. “Who did swear?”
“Why you did, sir,” said the vicar; “and don’t deny it.”
“But I didn’t,” exclaimed the churchwarden; “and I won’t be spoken to like that in my own house. Because we have been friends all these years, John Gray, you presume upon it, and abuse me. I didn’t swear; I only said, ‘How the devil should I know?’ and I say it again. Shoo—shoo—shoo! the devil’s in the poor-box.”
“If you make use of such language, Levi Timson, I must leave your office,” said the vicar, severely.
“What language?—what language?” exclaimed the churchwarden.
“Why, such as yours, sir,” retorted the vicar; “introducing the father of evil every moment.”
“Not I!—not I!” exclaimed Timson. “Introduce him! Not I. Who brought him into the room? Who began it? Who said it first?”
“But only in a modified form,” said the vicar, humbly; “I qualified it strongly with an ‘if.’ But I was wrong, extremely wrong, Timson; and there! I beg your pardon, Timson. I was put out and annoyed, and spoke hastily,” and he held out his hand.
“No, sir; no, sir; you don’t beg mine,” said Timson, taking the vicar’s hand. “I beg yours, sir. I know I spoke hastily, for I was angry and put out, for teas are gone up, confound ’em!”
“But I was in the wrong, Timson,” said the vicar. “As a clergyman, I ought to have governed myself, and known better than to be hasty.”
“I won’t give up in my own premises, sir,” exclaimed Timson. “Now, don’t smile, sir; they’re mine, bought and paid for, and there are the writings in that safe. I was in the wrong; but teas are up horribly this morning, and I’d been reckoning on their going down.”
Peace was ratified at once, for the two old men shook hands very solemnly for quite a minute.
“I’d give something, though, to find out about that money,” said the vicar, “for, you see, it’s going again.”
“I can assure you, sir,” said the churchwarden, “that I’ve slept night after night with those poor-boxes in bed with me, and yet I can’t see through the thing anyhow. By the way, I have read of such things. You don’t happen to be a somnambulist, do you? You haven’t been of a night and emptied the poor-boxes in your dreams, scraping together a store, and hidden it away for your heirs, administrators, executors, and assigns to find out?” and as the old man spoke, he glanced round the room, as if seeking a likely spot for such a purpose.
“No, Timson, no,” replied the vicar, smiling sadly. “You were present when my will was signed; and if there’s anything more than is set down on that piece of parchment, I freely give it to you, old friend.”
“Verbal gifts don’t go down with executors, sir,” said Timson, with his eyes twinkling; “and besides, I don’t think it would be the thing for me to stick to a hoard that you had filched from your own poor-box.”
“There, there, there!” ejaculated the vicar. “You are talking nonsense, Timson.”
“Mr Gray, sir,” said the churchwarden, seriously, and with some feeling, “a glass of sherry with you, sir; and, though toasts have nearly gone out, I shall drink to your long life.
“Yes,” continued the churchwarden, after a busy little pause, “it is a good glass of sherry. It is one of my weak points to have a decent glass in the house, and I don’t know anything that I like better.”
“Except a glass of hot toddy,” said the vicar, smiling.
“Well, well, well, sir,” said Timson; “suppose we put that aside, or we shall be getting into cribbage and pipes, and all sorts of other weak points.”
“True,” said the vicar; “but really, Timson, I’m not ashamed of those little weaknesses, even if I am a clergyman. I’m a very humble old fellow, with few friends, and fewer relatives. I don’t belong to society, Timson, but keep to my quiet, old-fashioned, country ways, which I brought up with me out of Lincolnshire. I’m not a fashionable parson, Timson, but I try to do my best for those amongst whom I have to teach.”
“You do, sir, you do,” said the churchwarden, warmly; “and you make me disgusted with myself for being put out with your anxiety about this poor-box. Now let’s set to and go over it all, quietly and methodically. What’s to be done?”
“I don’t know—I don’t know,” said the vicar, despondingly; “but we shall find him out to a certainty some day.”
“Him!” exclaimed the churchwarden,—“him, sir?”
“Well, yes; him, or her, or it. I would not care if I could get just an inkling of who it could be. But I’m determined upon one thing, Timson, and that is, if there is much more of it, I will do away with the poor-boxes altogether, and preach an extra charity-sermon every quarter;” and the vicar tucked his umbrella beneath his arm, as if ready to go.
“But I say, sir,” exclaimed Mr Timson, “I would not bear it in mind quite so much.”
“What do you mean, Timson?” said the vicar.
“Texts, sir, texts!” said Mr Timson, drily.
“Well, Timson, I won’t—I won’t, really; though, between ourselves—as friends—as old friends you know—I don’t mind telling you, that I had been making up the heads of a discourse for next Sunday upon the parable of the lost piece of money. But I’ll take your advice, and try something else.”
“Do!” said his friend, “and let the matter rest. Don’t show that you notice it, sir; be quite quiet, and we shall put them off their guard; I’ve my suspicions yet!”
“No, you have not, Timson,” said the vicar, laughing, “not you. You’re not a suspicious man, and never were.”
“Nor you neither,” said the tea-dealer, shaking hands. “Good morning.”
And as his old friend went through the busy portion of the house, raising his hat in reply to the salute of clerks and warehousemen, the churchwarden muttered to himself, “A thorough gentleman!”
An opinion from which some people differed.