Volume Three—Chapter Five.
Matt’s Discovery.
“Hold hard here!” cried a voice from a cab-window; and the driver of as jangling a conveyance as ever rattled over London stones drew up at the corner of Carey-street, Chancery-lane.
“I’ll get out here,” cried the voice; and very slowly, and with the aid of a stick, old Matt extricated himself from amongst the straw, a part of which he managed to drag out into the road.
The next minute the cabman was paid and had driven off. The boy who, with a basket slung across his back, had stopped to witness the disembarkation, and cut his popular song in half the while, resumed the refrain and went on along the Lane; while, with a smile on his pale face, old Matt slowly made his way down Carey-street, stopping to rest at the first lamp-post.
“Here I am,” he said; “King Space come back to my dominions. I wasn’t going to ride and lose the pleasure of seeing it all. Thank God there’s no whitewash here, and everything’s just as I left it; things looking as if they hadn’t stirred a peg; and I don’t suppose they have, if they haven’t been costs, which certainly do grow and flourish well here. Lord, sir, how beautiful and smoky and natural everything looks once more! There’s Hardon’s old printing-office—ah, to be sure! ‘Grimp, Deeds copied.’ That’s the trade to flourish here. Now then, sir, good-morning! Let’s get on a bit farther.”
According to his old custom, and heedless now of its being broad daylight, Matt made his way slowly to the next post, making his crippled state an excuse now for stopping, though there was hardly a soul to be seen in Carey-street, and those who passed were too intent upon their own affairs to notice him.
“Slow work, sir,” said Matt, stopping again, “glad to see you, though, once more. Thought at one time, if ever I did it would have been upon a cork-leg, sir; for I couldn’t have stood a wooden peg, sir, anyhow; a cork-leg all springs and watchwork, like old Tim Christy’s, as used to squeak with every step he took, just as if, being of cork, someone was trying to draw it; and he never oiled that leg, for fear it should go too easy. But there, I’m all right again,” he continued, taking a pinch of snuff, “and I call this real enjoyment, sir—real enjoyment. Only wait till I’ve put him all right upon that point, and I’ll have a bit of dissipation. Let’s see: the Vice-chancellor will be sitting like a great god, listening to the prayers of the petitioners in Chancery. I’ll have an hour there, sir, and then take a sniff of the ink in one of the old offices; and confound it all, sir, I wish you could join me! I’ll have half-a-pint of porter in Fetter-lane. I’m in for a regular round of dissipation, I am, just to make up for all this being shut up.”
On again went the old man, rather short of breath, till he was well in sight of the hospital at the end of the street; when, raising his eyes just as he was about to stop, he caught sight of a pale, weary face at one of the windows, and shuddered and turned away; but the next moment he had stopped and turned, and was waving a hand to the patient gazing from his prison-window.
“God bless you, mate!” said Matt aloud, “and may you soon be out of it!” And then there was a reply waved to his salute, and the old man turned down the courts to the left, and soon stood in Bennett’s-rents.
“What, Matt!” cried Septimus Hardon, hurrying to open the door as he heard his slow step upon the stairs; while Lucy took the old man’s other hand and helped him to a seat.
“What’s left of me, sir—what’s left,” said the old man cheerily; “and here I am right and clear-headed, and I did see it all, sir: and I’ve recollected it, and got it all put down here, so as you can read it, and safe in my head too. It wasn’t fancy, it was all right; and I did see it, as I told you, in what must have been the old doctor’s books.”
“But where? when?” cried Septimus eagerly.
“And there was the name—‘Mrs Hardon, medicine and attendance, so much;’ but of course I thought nothing of it then.”
“But,” cried Septimus, as he hooked a finger in a button-hole of the old man’s coat, “where was it?”
“Gently, sir, gently,” said Matt, unhooking the finger; “mind what you’re after: stuff’s tender. But there: you’ll fit me out with a new suit when you’re all right—won’t you, sir, eh?”
“A dozen, Matt, a dozen!” cried Septimus eagerly.
“And Miss Lucy here’s to have as full a compassed pianner as can be got, without having one as would burst and break all the strings—eh, miss, eh?”
Lucy smiled sadly.
“But where did you see it, Matt—where was it?” exclaimed Septimus, inking his face in his excitement, and totally destroying his last hour’s work.
“Why, sir, no farther off than at my lodgings,” cried Matt triumphantly. “I did mean to be of use to you if I could, and I’ve lived to do it, sir, and I’m thankful; but come along, sir—come along. I’m weak and poorly yet, and there seems to be a deal of water collected in my system—a sort of dropsy, you know; and it all flies to my eyes on the least provocation, and comes dripping out like that, just as if I was a great gal, and cried, d’ye see?”
There was a tear in Septimus Hardon’s eye as he warmly wrung the old man’s hand, and ten minutes after they were standing in Lower Series—place, with Matt smiling grimly at a freshly-painted set of skeleton old bone letters upon a glossy-black board, announcing “Isaac Gross, Dealer in Marine-stores;” but that was the only alteration visible, for Isaac and the stout lady occupied the same places as of yore, and were at that very moment engaged in an affectionate, smiling game of bo-peep.
“Might have waited for me to dance at the wedding,” muttered Matt.
But there had been very little dancing at the said wedding; while the trip necessary upon such occasions was one made to the Rye House, where Isaac’s attention was principally taken up by the jack-boot shown amongst the curiosities—a boot which filled his imagination for days after, as he sighed and thought of the evanescent nature of his own manufacture.
The greeting was warm on both sides, Isaac smiling at a quicker rate than had ever before been known. But the visitors meant business, and Matt exclaimed:
“Now, Ike, we want to go over the waste-paper.”
Matt was outside as he spoke, and then Mrs Gross, whose head had been stretched out to listen, found that what had been her property was in question, so she cried, “Stop!” and waddled from her seat to where Matt stood, seized him by the arm, and waddled him into Isaac’s workshop, from whence she waddled him into the back-parlour, where his bed, now the only one in the room, was neatly made up, and the place somewhat tidier than of yore, though the waste-paper heap was bigger than ever.
“Now,” said Mrs Gross, with a very fat smile and a knowing twinkle of her eye as she sank her voice to a whisper, “Is it deeds?” and then she looked at Isaac as if for approbation, that gentleman having followed them into the room and being engaged in vain endeavours to thrust a very large finger into his very small pipe-bowl.
“Who married the kitchen-stuff?” shouted a small voice at the door, and Mrs Gross angrily waddled out in pursuit, to the great delight of half a score of the small inhabitants of Serle’s-place, one of whom danced a defiant pas seul in a tray of rusty keys as he fled, laughing the while at the fat threatening hand held up. But Isaac stirred not, from having been accustomed to the gibes of the juveniles of the place, and his skin being too thick for such banderillos as “Waxy,” “Welty,” or “Strap-oil,” to penetrate, so he merely stood wiping his nose upon his leather apron till his partner returned.
“Is it deeds?” whispered Mrs Gross again, and then in a parenthesis, “Drat them boys!”
“No,” said Matt gruffly, “it ain’t.”
“Then it’s bank-bills,” said the lady mysteriously, as she slily winked at everyone in turn, her husband smiling at her acute business perceptions.
“No, nor it ain’t them neither,” said Matt.
“Then it’s a will,” said Mrs Gross in a disappointed tone; “and there ain’t a scrap of that sort in the place, for I sold out last week.”
“’Tain’t a will, I tell you,” growled Matt.
“Then it’s dockymens,” said Mrs Gross triumphantly, and she nudged Matt in the side.
“No it ain’t; nor receipts, nor letters, nor nothing of the kind. If you must know, it’s them old doctor’s books; that’s what it is. Now, where are they?”
But Mrs Gross, though she had not the slightest idea as to what doctor’s books were meant, was not yet satisfied, but cried:
“Halves!”
“What’s halves?” said Matt.
“Why, we goes halves in what turns up,” said Mrs Gross, who had a famous eye for business, though she would keep dimming its...
Some lines missing here from the scans.
“Gross!” cried a sepulchral voice, which made Septimus start, till he found that it had proceeded from Mr Isaac himself, though his face did not betray that he had spoken.
“Gross, then,” growled Matt. “Now look here,” he continued; “it’s nothing but an old entry as I once saw in some doctor’s books on your counter here, and we want to see it; for I hadn’t sense then to know it was any good; but if we find it, and it’s what we want, my guv’nor here will stand a sovereign, I dessay.”
“Put it down on paper, then,” said Isaac, “and make him sign;” to the great admiration of his partner, who patted him upon the back for his display of business ability; and then, before a paper was touched, Septimus Hardon, greatly to Matt’s disgust, signed a promissory and conditional note for the amount named.
“Ikey,” growled Matt, “I didn’t think you had been such a Jew. If you haven’t let my rooms, you can get yourself a fresh tenant.”
But Isaac only smiled, and the task commenced—no light one—of turning over the huge stack of waste-paper piled up before them. Dust, dirt, and mildew; brief-paper, copying-paper, newspaper, old books, old magazines and pamphlets, account-books with covers and account-books without; paper in every phase; while eagerly was everything in the shape of an account-book seized upon, and the search continued until, faint and weary, they had gone through the whole heap, when with a despairing, doleful look Septimus gazed upon Matt.
“I’ll take my Bible oath it was in a book I saw laid upon that heap. Now then, where’s some more?” and the old man said it feebly, as if nearly exhausted.
“No more anywheres,” said Mrs Gross assuringly, as she smoothed her husband’s oily hair.
“Sure?” cried Matt.
Mrs Gross nodded, and retied the ribbon which confined her husband’s locks.
“Where is it, then?” cried Matt.
“Where is it?” repeated Mrs Gross. “Why, if it ain’t here, in this heap, it’s everywheres. It’s sold, and burnt, and wrapped round ’bacca, and butter, and all sorts.”
“Hadn’t we better go, Matt?” whispered Septimus, dreamily washing his hands together after his dry custom.
“S’pose we had,” muttered Matt. “Just, too, sir, as I’d made so sure as it was all coming right, and for the second time, too. Never mind, sir, it’ll all come right yet. Third time never fails. What do you say to hunting up the Miss Thingumy at Finsbury, and hearing what she’s got to say?—plenty, depend upon it. News, perhaps, and it can’t do no harm.”
But Septimus Hardon was in a weary, absent fit, and went away muttering homewards, as, worn-out and weak, Matt sat down upon the waste-paper ruins of the palace he had built in his own mind, and grimly listened to the congratulations of his friends upon his return.