Septimus Hardon walked out of the shop, and, after paying for his snuff, old Matt followed him into the street, and they bent their steps homewards.
“I’m dull and stupid and not right, you see,” said Matt, “or else I should have known why the name wasn’t in the newest of those two Directories. One, you see, was more than ten years old, and the other—well, it wasn’t the newest. But you leave it to me, sir, and I’ll try and find a medical directory, for I think there is such a thing. I know there is a legal one, for I helped print it; and there’s one for the parsons, so there’s safe to be one for the doctors. I’ll ferret it out, sir; and I shall be better to-morrow. Those look nice, don’t they?” said the old man, stopping short in front of a pork-butcher’s shop.
“Very,” said Septimus dreamily, and without glancing at the freshly-made chains of sausages hanging from the hooks in the window.
“You may always buy your sausages here, and depend upon ’em,” said Matt; “and if you’ll listen to my advice, you’ll take a pound back with you. They’ll wrap ’em in a bit of paper for you, and you can slip them in your pocket, and have a nice fry for tea when you get home, and then rest content; for, though we haven’t done much, and I should have liked you to have taken that landlord’s name and address, yet things are getting in train, I can tell you. So you wait quietly at home, sir, till I come again, for I suppose you won’t want to do anything yourself. I shall be stronger and better to-morrow or next day, I hope, for somehow I can’t get along as I used, and feel weak and muddled. But there, sir, slip in and get them sausages, and have a bit of patience, and don’t try to build any more till our mortar’s a bit settled.”
Septimus Hardon smiled sadly at the idea of his being impatient to go on with the search, and, obeying his companion’s hest, he obtained the pound of flesh; and then they walked slowly on till they were once more within the shadow of the law.
“And now I’m off, sir,” said Matt, stopping short in Carey-street. “I think I shall go and lie down.”
“Can I do anything for you?” said Septimus earnestly.
“Yes, sir,” said Matt; “let me have my own way, please. You let me go my way, and I’ll work the matter out for you if it’s possible, so that it shall be in trim for the lawyers, and then I’ll give up. But there, I won’t do anything without consulting you first, and—no, thank you; I’d rather not. No; I like sausages well enough sometimes, but not to-day, thank you; I’m off in a moment. Don’t you do anything, whatever you do, to put your uncle on his guard. Depend upon it, he thinks now, after all this time, that you’ve given it quite up; while, if things go on as I hope, we shall come down upon him one of these days in a way that shall startle him—shake his nerves so that he sha’n’t find a tonic for them.”
Old Matt shuffled off, once more steadily refusing to partake of any refreshment; while Septimus slowly and thoughtfully made his way towards the entrance to the Rents, pondering over his visit to the churches some weeks back, and then thinking that it would be better to settle down contentedly in his present state, for fear that after research, labour, and endless publicity, the words of his uncle should prove to be those of truth, and his condition worse than it was at the present time.
“Better the present doubt and obscurity,” he muttered. “Octavius Hardon, Lavinia Addison, Ellen Morris—all witnesses to the truth, but dead, dead.”