Miss Rugg heaved a sigh.
‘My daughter, sir,’ said Mr Rugg. ‘Anastatia, you are no stranger to the state of this young man’s affections. My daughter has had her trials, sir’—Mr Rugg might have used the word more pointedly in the singular number—‘and she can feel for you.’
Young John, almost overwhelmed by the touching nature of this greeting, professed himself to that effect.
‘What I envy you, sir, is,’ said Mr Rugg, ‘allow me to take your hat—we are rather short of pegs—I’ll put it in the corner, nobody will tread on it there—What I envy you, sir, is the luxury of your own feelings. I belong to a profession in which that luxury is sometimes denied us.’
Young John replied, with acknowledgments, that he only hoped he did what was right, and what showed how entirely he was devoted to Miss Dorrit. He wished to be unselfish; and he hoped he was. He wished to do anything as laid in his power to serve Miss Dorrit, altogether putting himself out of sight; and he hoped he did. It was but little that he could do, but he hoped he did it.
‘Sir,’ said Mr Rugg, taking him by the hand, ‘you are a young man that it does one good to come across. You are a young man that I should like to put in the witness-box, to humanise the minds of the legal profession. I hope you have brought your appetite with you, and intend to play a good knife and fork?’
‘Thank you, sir,’ returned Young John, ‘I don’t eat much at present.’
Mr Rugg drew him a little apart. ‘My daughter’s case, sir,’ said he, ‘at the time when, in vindication of her outraged feelings and her sex, she became the plaintiff in Rugg and Bawkins. I suppose I could have put it in evidence, Mr Chivery, if I had thought it worth my while, that the amount of solid sustenance my daughter consumed at that period did not exceed ten ounces per week.’
‘I think I go a little beyond that, sir,’ returned the other, hesitating, as if he confessed it with some shame.
‘But in your case there’s no fiend in human form,’ said Mr Rugg, with argumentative smile and action of hand. ‘Observe, Mr Chivery! No fiend in human form!’