"And the beer, Ma'am Witherspoon?" said Washford, taking the proffered caxon, and looking at it with an expression somewhat short of rapture;—"and the beer, ma'am?"
"The beer, you guzzling wretch!—what beer? Master said nothing about no beer. You ungrateful fellow, has not he given you a wig?"
"Why, yes, Madam Witherspoon; but then, you see, his honour said it was very hot, and I'm very dry, and—"
"Go to the pump, sot!" said Mrs. Witherspoon, as she slammed the back-door in the face of the petitioner.
Mrs. Witherspoon was "of the Lady Huntingdon persuasion," and Honorary Assistant Secretary to the Appledore branch of the "Ladies' Grand Junction Water-working Temperance Society."
Joe remained for a few moments lost in mental abstraction; he looked at the door, he looked at the wig; his first thought was to throw it into the pig-stye,—his corruption rose, but he resisted the impulse; he got the better of Satan; the half-formed imprecation died before it reached his lips. He looked disdainfully at the wig; it had once been a comely jasey enough, of the colour of over-baked ginger-bread, one of the description commonly known during the latter half of the last century by the name of a "brown George." The species, it is to be feared, is now extinct, but a few, a very few of the same description might, till very lately, be occasionally seen,—rari nantes in gurgite vasto,—the glorious relics of a by-gone day, crowning the cerebellum of some venerated and venerable provost, or judge of assize; but Mr. Jarvis's wig had one peculiarity; unlike most of its fellows, it had a tail!—"cribbed and confined," indeed, by a shabby piece of faded shalloon.
Washford looked at it again; he shook his bald head; the wig had certainly seen its best days; still it had about it something of an air of faded gentility,—it was "like ancient Rome, majestic in decay,"—and as the small ale was not to be forthcoming, why—after all, an old wig was better than nothing!
Mr. Jeremiah Jarvis, of Appledore, in the Weald of Kent, was a gentleman by act of parliament; one of that class of gentlemen who, disdaining the bourgeois-sounding name of "attorney-at-law," are, by a legal fiction, denominated solicitors. I say by a legal fiction, for surely the general tenor of the intimation received by such as enjoy the advantage of their correspondence, has little in common with the idea usually attached to the term "solicitation." "If you don't pay my bill, and costs, I'll send you to jail," is a very energetic entreaty. There are, it is true, etymologists who derive their style and title from the Latin infinitive "solicitare," to "make anxious,"—in all probability they are right.
If this be the true etymology of his title, as it was the main end of his calling, then was Jeremiah Jarvis a worthy exemplar of the genus to which he belonged. Few persons in his time had created greater solicitude among his Majesty's lieges within the "Weald." He was rich, of course. The best house in the country-town is always the lawyer's, and it generally boasts a green door, stone steps, and a brass knocker. In neither of these appendages to opulence was Jeremiah deficient; but then, he was so very rich; his reputed wealth, indeed, passed all the common modes of accounting for its increase. True, he was so universal a favourite that every man whose will he made was sure to leave him a legacy; that he was a sort of general assignee to all the bankruptcies within twenty miles of Appledore; was clerk to half the "trusts;" and treasurer to most of the "rates," "funds," and "subscriptions," in that part of the country; that he was land-agent to Lord Mountrhino, and steward to the rich Miss Tabbytale of Smerrididdle Hall! that he had been guardian (?) to three young profligates, who all ran through their property, which, somehow or another, came at last into his hands, "at an equitable valuation." Still his possessions were so considerable, as not to be altogether accounted for, in vulgar esteem, even by these and other honourable modes of accumulation; nor were there wanting those who conscientiously entertained a belief that a certain dark-coloured gentleman, of indifferent character, known principally by his predilection for appearing in perpetual mourning, had been through life his great friend and counsellor, and had mainly assisted in the acquirement of his revenues. That "old Jerry Jarvis had sold himself to the devil" was, indeed, a dogma which it were heresy to doubt in Appledore;—on this head, at least, there were few schismatics in the parish.
When the worthy "Solicitor" next looked out of his ground-floor back, he smiled with much complacency at beholding Joe Washford again hard at work—in his wig—the little tail aforesaid oscillating like a pendulum in the breeze. If it be asked what could induce a gentleman, whose leading principle seems to have been self-appropriation, to make so magnificent a present, the answer is, that Mr. Jarvis might, perhaps, have thought an occasional act of benevolence necessary or politic; he is not the only person, who, having stolen a quantity of leather, has given away a pair of shoes, pour l'amour de Dieu,—perhaps he had other motives.