Part 27 (1/2)
”Run, Bobby, run, man,” repeated Chancey, tranquilly.
”Run yourself,” retorted M'Quirk, rebelliously.
Chancey looked at him for a moment to ascertain by his visible aspect whether he had actually uttered the audacious suggestion, and reading in the red face of the little gentleman nothing but the most refractory dispositions, he said with a low, dogged emphasis which experience had long taught Mr. M'Quirk to respect,--
”Are you at your tricks again? D---- you, you blackguard, if you stand prating there another minute, I'll open your head with this pot--be off, you scoundrel.”
The learned counsel enforced his eloquence by knocking the pewter pot with an emphatic clang upon the table.
All the aristocratic blood of the M'Quirks mounted to the face of the gentleman thus addressed; he suffered the n.o.ble inundation, however, to subside, and after some hesitation, and one long look of unutterable contempt, which Chancey bore with wonderful stoicism, he yielded to prudential considerations, as he had often done before, and proceeded to execute his orders.
The effect was instantaneous--Pottles himself appeared. A short, stout, asthmatic man was Pottles, bearing in his thoughtful countenance an enn.o.bling consciousness that human society would feel it hard to go on without him, and carrying in his hand a soiled napkin, or rather clout, with which he wiped everything that came in his way, his own forehead and nose included.
With pompous step and wheezy respiration did Pottles conduct his honoured guests up the creaking stairs and into the ”Royal Ram.” He raked the embers in the fire-place, threw on a piece of turf, and planting the candle which he carried upon a table covered with slop and pipe ashes, he wiped the candlestick, and then his own mouth carefully with his dingy napkin, and asked the gentlemen whether they desired anything for supper.
”No, no, we want nothing but to be left to ourselves for ten or fifteen minutes,” said Ashwoode, placing a piece of money upon the table. ”Take this for the use of the room, and leave us.”
The landlord bowed and pocketed the coin, wheezed and bowed again, and then waddled magnificently out of the room. Ashwoode got up and closed the door after him, and then returning, drew his chair opposite to Chancey's, and in a low tone asked,--
”Well, what is all this about?”
”All about them notes, nothing else,” replied Chancey, calmly.
”Go on--what of them?” urged Ashwoode.
”Can you pay them all to-morrow morning?” inquired Chancey, tranquilly.
”To-morrow!” exclaimed Ashwoode. ”Why, h.e.l.l and death, man, you promised to hold them over for three months. To-morrow! By ----, you must be joking,” and as he spoke his face turned pale as ashes.
”I told you all along, Mr. Ashwoode,” said Chancey drowsily, ”that the money was not my own; I'm nothing more than an agent in the matter, and the notes are in the desk of that old bed-ridden cripple that lent it.
D----n him, he's as full of fumes and fancies as old cheese is of maggots. He has taken it into his head that your paper is not safe, and the devil himself won't beat it out of him; and the long and the short of it is, Mr. Ashwoode, he's going to arrest you to-morrow.”
In vain Ashwoode strove to hide his agitation--he shook like a man in an ague.
”Good heavens! and is there no way of preventing this? Make him wait for a week--for a day,” said Ashwoode.
”Was not I speaking to him ten times to-day--ay, twenty times,” replied Chancey, ”trying to make him wait even for one day? Why, I'm hoa.r.s.e talking to him, and I might just as well be speaking to Patrick's tower; so make your mind up to this. As sure as light, you'll be in gaol before to-morrow's past, unless you either settle it early some way or other, or take leg bail for it.”
”See, Chancey, I may as well tell you this,” said Ashwoode, ”before a fortnight, perhaps before a week, I shall have the means of satisfying these d.a.m.ned notes beyond the possibility of failure. Won't he hold them over for so long?”
”I might as well be asking him to cut out his tongue and give it to me as to allow us even a day; he has heard of different accidents that has happened to some of your paper lately--and the long and the short of it is--he won't hear of it, nor hold them over one hour more than he can help. I declare to ----, Mr. Ashwoode, I am very sorry for your distress, so I am--but you say you'll have the money in a week?”
”Ay, ay, ay, so I shall, _if_ he don't arrest me,” replied Ashwoode; ”but if he does, my perdition's sealed; I shall lie in gaol till I rot; but, curse it, can't the idiot see this?--if he waits a week or so he'll get his money--every penny back again--but if he won't have patience, he loses every sixpence to all eternity.”
”You might as well be arguing with an iron box as think to change that old chap by talk, when he once gets a thing into his head,” rejoined Chancey. Ashwoode walked wildly up and down the dingy, squalid apartment, exhibiting in his aristocratic form and face, and in the rich and elegant suit, flas.h.i.+ng even in the dim light of that solitary, unsnuffed candle, with gold lace and jewelled b.u.t.tons, and with cravat and ruffles fluttering with rich point lace, a strange and startling contrast to the slovenly and deserted scene of low debauchery which surrounded him.
”Chancey,” said he, suddenly stopping and grasping the shoulder of the sleepy barrister with a fierceness and energy which made him start--”Chancey, rouse yourself, d---- you. Do you hear? Is there _no_ way of averting this awful ruin--_is_ there none?”
As he spoke, Ashwoode held the shoulder of the fellow with a gripe like that of a vice, and stooping over him, glared in his face with the aspect of a maniac.