"Allow us to reassure you, then," said my father. "But there remains the question, why you did it?"
Mr. Badcock rubbed his hands. "Appearances were against me, I'll allow," he answered, with a bashful chuckle; "but you may set it down to tchivalry. We all have our weaknesses, I hope, sir; and tchivalry is mine."
"Chivalry?" echoed my father.
"You spell it with an 's'? Excuse me; whatever schooling I have picked up has been at odd times; but I am always open to correction, I thank the Lord."
"But why call it a weakness, Mr. Badcock?"
"Call it a hobby; call it what you like. I look upon it as a debt, sir, due to the memory of my late wife. An admirable woman, sir, and by name Artemisia; which, I have sometimes thought, may partially account for it. Allow me, gentlemen." He drew a small shagreen case from his breast-pocket, opened it, and displayed a miniature.
"Her portrait?"
"In a sense. As a matter of fact, I will not conceal from you, gentlemen, that it came to me in the form of a pledge—that being my late profession—and I have never been able to trace the original. But, as I said when first I showed it to the late Mrs. B., 'My dear, you might have sat for it.' A well-developed woman, gentlemen, though in the end she went out like the snuff of a candle, that being the way sometimes with people who have never known an hour's sickness. 'Am I really like that, Ebenezer?' she asked. 'In your prime, my dear,' said I—she having married me late in life owing to her romantic nature—'in your prime, my dear, I'll defy any one to tell you and this party from two peas.' 'I wish I knew who she was,' said my wife. 'Hadn't you best leave well alone?' said I; 'for I declare till this moment I hadn't dreamed that another such woman as yourself existed in the world, and it gives me a kind of bigamous feeling which I can't say I find altogether unpleasant.' 'Then I'll keep the thing,' says she, very positively, 'until the owner turns up and redeems it;' which he never did, being, as I discovered, a strolling portrait painter very much down on his luck. So there the mystery remained. But (as I was telling you), though a first-rate manager, my poor dear wife had a number of romantic notions; and often she has said to me after I'd shut up shop, 'If wishes grew on brambles, Ebenezer, it's not a pawnbroker's wife I'd be at this moment.' 'Well, my dear,' I'd say to soothe her, 'there is a little bit of that about the profession, now you come to mention it.' 'And them there was a time,' she'd go on, 'when I dreamed of marryin' a red-cross knight!' 'I have my higher moments, Artemisia,' I'd say, half in joke; 'Why not try shutting your eyes?' But afterwards, when that splendid woman was gone for ever, and my daughter Heeb (which is a classical name given her by her mother) comfortably married to a wholesale glover, and me left at home a solitary grandfather—which, proud as you may be of it, is a slight occupation—I began to think things over and find there was more in my poor wife's notions than I'd ever allowed. And the upshot was that seeing this advertisement by chance in a copy of the Sherborne Messenger, I determined to shut up shop and let Axminster think I was gone on a holiday, while I gave it a trial; for, you see, I was not altogether sure of myself."
"Excuse me, Badcock," interrupted Mr. Fett, advancing towards him with outstretched arms; "but have you perused the books of chivalry, or is this the pure light of nature?"
"Books, sir?" answered Mr. Badcock, seriously. "I never knew there were any books about it. I never heard of tchivalry except from my late wife; and you'll excuse the force of habit, but she pronounced it the same as in chibbles."