‘Yes, and I come to London to look arter my private affairs. My private affairs is to get appinted to the Lock as reg’lar keeper at fust hand, and to have the law of a busted B’low-Bridge steamer which drownded of me. I ain’t a goin’ to be drownded and not paid for it!’
Bradley looked at him, as though he were claiming to be a Ghost.
‘The steamer,’ said Mr Riderhood, obstinately, ‘run me down and drownded of me. Interference on the part of other parties brought me round; but I never asked ’em to bring me round, nor yet the steamer never asked ’em to it. I mean to be paid for the life as the steamer took.’
‘Was that your business at Mr Lightwood’s chambers in the middle of the night?’ asked Bradley, eyeing him with distrust.
‘That and to get a writing to be fust-hand Lock Keeper. A recommendation in writing being looked for, who else ought to give it to me? As I says in the letter in my daughter’s hand, with my mark put to it to make it good in law, Who but you, Lawyer Lightwood, ought to hand over this here stifficate, and who but you ought to go in for damages on my account agin the Steamer? For (as I says under my mark) I have had trouble enough along of you and your friend. If you, Lawyer Lightwood, had backed me good and true, and if the T’other Governor had took me down correct (I says under my mark), I should have been worth money at the present time, instead of having a barge-load of bad names chucked at me, and being forced to eat my words, which is a unsatisfying sort of food wotever a man’s appetite! And when you mention the middle of the night, T’otherest Governor,’ growled Mr Riderhood, winding up his monotonous summary of his wrongs, ‘throw your eye on this here bundle under my arm, and bear in mind that I’m a walking back to my Lock, and that the Temple laid upon my line of road.’
Bradley Headstone’s face had changed during this latter recital, and he had observed the speaker with a more sustained attention.
‘Do you know,’ said he, after a pause, during which they walked on side by side, ‘that I believe I could tell you your name, if I tried?’
‘Prove your opinion,’ was the answer, accompanied with a stop and a stare. ‘Try.’
‘Your name is Riderhood.’
‘I’m blest if it ain’t,’ returned that gentleman. ‘But I don’t know your’n.’