“Yes, and be stolen and brought back again regularly three times a week,” returned Frere. “I had a silk one once, and the expense that umbrella was to me, to say nothing of the wear and tear of mind it occasioned, was perfectly terrific. I shudder when I think of it; there are not a dozen cabmen in London who have not received half-a-crown for bringing home that umbrella. It was a regular bottle-imp to me, always being lost and always coming back again. The ’bus conductors knew it by sight as well as they know the Bank; they were for ever laying traps to get it into their possession, with a view to obtain the reward of honesty by bringing it home again. I got rid of it at last, though; I lent it to a fellow who owed me five pounds, and I’ve never seen man, money, or umbrella since. Now this dear old cotton thing, not being worth finding, has never been lost; however, if you’ll promise to take care I have it to-morrow when I call, I’ll leave it here, and if your sister gets wet don’t blame me.”
“Rose, will you undertake the heavy responsibility?” asked Lewis. “I think I may safely promise so to do,” was the reply. “There is a little foot page in this establishment in whom I have the greatest confidence, and to his custody will! commit it.”
And Frere’s anxious mind being soothed by this assurance, they started on their expedition. Twenty minutes’ brisk walking—which would have been brisker still if Rose had not gently hinted that ladies were not usually accustomed to stride along like postmen; to which suggestion Frere responded with something very like a growl,—twenty minutes’ walking brought them to the very elegant front of Mr. Nonpareil’s shop, where Lewis left the two others. A nice young man, with Hyperion curls outside his head, and nothing save much too high an opinion of himself within, who lounged gracefully behind the counter, replied to Frere’s inquiry “Whether Mr. Nonpareil was at home,” after the fashion of the famous Irish echo, i.e., by another question. Elevating his eyebrows till they almost disappeared in his forest of hair, he drawled out—
“Wh-a-y? did you w-a-ant him?”
“Of course I did, or else I should not have asked for him,” returned Frere sharply; then handing his own card and Bracy’s note of introduction across the counter, he continued, “Take those to your master, and tell him that a lady and gentleman are waiting to see him.”
At the word “master” Hyperion coloured and appeared about to become impertinent, but something in Frere’s look induced him to alter his intention, and turning on his heel, he strode into the back shop with an air martyre, which was deeply affecting to the risible muscles of the pair he left behind him.
“There’s an animal!” exclaimed Frere, as the subject of his remark disappeared behind a tall column of account books. “Now that ape looks upon himself as a sort of Admirable Crichton, and I’ll be bound has a higher opinion of his own mental endowments than ever Shakespeare or Milton had of theirs. I dare say the creature has his admirers, too: some subordinate shop boy, or the urchin who runs of errands, takes him at his own price and believes in him implicitly. Ye gods, what a ‘ship of fools’ is this goodly vessel of society!”
“I hope he does not rest his claims on the ground of his personal attractions,” returned Rose with a quiet smile.
“His strength must lie in his hair, if he does,” replied Frere, “like that of his Israelitish Hercules of old. But see, here he comes, shaking his ambrosial locks; and behold, he smiles graciously upon us. Bracy’s note has worked miracles.”
Approaching with a smirk and a bow, Hyperion politely signified that Mr. Nonpareil was disengaged, then again retreating, led the way through a sort of defile of unsold literature to the sanctum of the enterprising publisher. This remarkable apartment was of the most minute dimensions, a very duodecimo edition of a room, embellished with a miniature fireplace, an infinitesimal writing-table, and a mere peep-hole of a window looking across many chimney-pots into space. In the middle of this retreat of learning, like an oyster in its shell, reposed that Rhadamanthus of literature—the heroic Nonpareil. His outer man was encased in black, as became the severity of his office; a white neck-cloth encircled his august throat, while a heavy gold watch-chain and seals attested his awful respectability. He was of a most respectable age, neither incautiously young nor unadvisedly old; he was of a most respectable height, neither absurdly short nor inconveniently tall; his weight, 12 stone 6 lbs., was most respectable—it had not varied a pound for the last ten years, nor could one look at him without feeling that it would remain exactly the same for the next ten years; he had a most respectable complexion, red enough to indicate that he lived well and that it agreed with him, but nothing more. Nobody could suspect that man of an apoplectic tendency; he was much too respectable to think of dying suddenly; the very expression of his face was a sort of perpetual life assurance; he go out of the world without advertising the day on which he might be expected to appear most respectably bound in boards! The idea was preposterous. His manner naturally expressed his conviction of his own intense respectability, and was impressive, not to say pompous; while from a sense of the comparative want of respectability in everybody else it was also familiar, or as his enemies (all great men have enemies) declared, presuming.