"Ooer!" cried Prudence. "I like muffins. And I like cream, and I like claret... 'Ere"—her face suddenly grew grave, grave as a child's at play with toys—"'ere, Mr. Baffin, do you believe in auctioneers?"
"Do I believe in what?" shouted Baffin.
"Auctioneers," repeated Prudence, with a pout. "Don't be angry with me; I won't ask agen, if you don't like.
"On'y ... what you want to look at me so queer for? I can't 'elp bein' silly. I am silly. On'y ... I wonder if a auctioneer is the sort of man that anybody ought to trust?"
XVII
MR. WEST'S WIFE
"Is this the young man?" said Mrs. West, of Mulberry Street, sitting up in bed and shading a very white face with a very hot hand. "Oh, I daresay 'e'll do! 'Tain't much, I'm told. No doubt 'e'll manage it."
That task which Mrs. West, of Mulberry Street, thus coldly confided to my management was the witnessing of her will. Dr. Brink had volunteered to execute this document for her; and a sniggering youth had haled me from the snugness of the doctor's waiting chariot to come upstairs and sign.
After my formal presentation to Mrs. West, there was an interval of silence, broken only by the scratchy-scratchy of the doctor's pen, as he hastily constructed a form of bequest.
I employed this interval in taking stock of the testator's estate, the whole of which was contained within her room. There were two bedsteads, one (a little folding thing) being devoted to the uses of the sniggering boy who, be it stated, figured in the document which was now being prepared as sole legatee. The other bedstead—that on which the patient lay—was obviously a veteran bedstead which had seen much of the world. It was a circumstantial, ponderous bedstead, and wore still a pompous air, although its ironwork was rusted and its lacquered parts had quite lost their complexion. This bedstead also bore a superstructure designed to carry a canopy; but all that hung there now were certain moth-eaten petticoats. There was a chest of drawers among the assets, and a cork model of the Tower of London, and a wash-basin and two soap dishes, and two dumb clocks and the mechanism of another, and a work of art designed in multi-coloured wools, and having reference to the parable of the fig tree.