“Well!” said Mr. Trabb, in a hail-fellow-well-met kind of way.“How are you, and what can I do for you?”
Mr. Trabb had sliced his hot roll into three feather-beds,and was slipping butter in between the blankets,and covering it up. He was a prosperous old bachelor,and his open window looked into a prosperous little garden and orchard,and there was a prosperous iron safe let into the wall at the side of his fireplace, and I did not doubt that heaps of his prosperity were put away in it in bags.
“Mr. Trabb,” said I,“it’s an unpleasant thing to have to mention,because it looks like boasting;but I have come into a handsome property.”
A change passed over Mr. Trabb.He forgot the butter in bed, got up from the bedside,and wiped his fingers on the tablecloth, exclaiming,“Lord bless my soul!”
“I am going up to my guardian in London,” said I,casually drawing some guineas out of my pocket and looking at them;“and I want a fashionable suit of clothes to go in.I wish to pay for them,” I added—otherwise I thought he might only pretend to make them, “with ready money.”
“My dear sir,” said Mr. Trabb,as he respectfully bent his body, opened his arms,and took the liberty of touching me on the outside of each elbow,“don’t hurt me by mentioning that.May I venture to congratulate you?Would you do me the favour of stepping into the shop?”
Mr. Trabb’s boy was the most audacious boy in all that country-side.When I had entered he was sweeping the shop,and he had sweetened his labours by sweeping over me.He was still sweeping when I came out into the shop with Mr.Trabb, and he knocked the broom against all possible corners and obstacles,to express (as I understood it) equality with any blacksmith, alive or dead.
“Hold that noise,” said Mr. Trabb,with the greatest sternness,“or I’ll knock your head off!—Do me the favour to be seated, sir. Now, this,” said Mr. Trabb, taking down a roll of cloth,and tiding it out in a flowing manner over the counter,preparatory to getting his hand under it to show the gloss,“is a very sweet article.I can recommend it for your purpose, sir,because it really is extra super.But you shall see some others. Give me Number Four, you!” (To the boy, and with a dreadfully severe stare;foreseeing the danger of that miscreant’s brushing me with it,or making some other sign of familiarity.)
Mr. Trabb never removed his stern eye from the boy until he had deposited number four on the counter and was at a safe distance again. Then he commanded him to bring number five, and number eight. “And let me have none of your tricks here,” said Mr. Trabb, “or you shall repent it, you young scoundrel, the longest day you have to live.”
Mr. Trabb then bent over number four,and in a sort of deferential confidence recommended it to me as a light article for summer wear, an article much in vogue among the nobility and gentry, an article that it would ever be an honour to him to reflect upon a distinguished fellow-townsman’s (if he might claim me for a fellow-townsman) having worn. “Are you bringing numbers five and eight, you vagabond,” said Mr. Trabb to the boy after that, “or shall I kick you out of the shop and bring them myself?”
I selected the materials for a suit,with the assistance of Mr. Trabb’s judgment,and re-entered the parlour to be measured.For although Mr. Trabb had my measure already,and had previously been quite contented with it,he said apologetically that it “wouldn’t do under existing circumstances,sir,—wouldn’t do at all.” So, Mr.Trabb measured and calculated me in the parlour,as if I were an estate and he the finest species of surveyor,and gave himself such a world of trouble that I felt that no suit of clothes could possibly remunerate him for his pains. When he had at last done and had appointed to send the articles to Mr. Pumblechook’s on the Thursday evening, he said, with his hand upon the parlour lock, “I know, sir, that London gentlemen cannot be expected to patronise local work, as a rule; but if you would give me a turn now and then in the quality of a townsman, I should greatly esteem it. Good-morning, sir, much obliged.—Door!”
The last word was flung at the boy,who had not the least notion what it meant.But I saw him collapse as his master rubbed me out with his hands,and my first decided experience of the stupendous power of money was,that it had morally laid upon his back Trabb’s boy.
After this memorable event, I went to the hatter’s,and the bootmaker’s, and the hosier’s,and felt rather like Mother Hubbard’s dog whose outfit required the services of so many trades. I also went to the coach-office and took my place for seven o’clock on Saturday morning. It was not necessary to explain everywhere that I had come into a handsome property; but whenever I said anything to that effect, it followed that the officiating tradesman ceased to have his attention diverted through the window by the High Street, and concentrated his mind upon me. When I had ordered everything I wanted, I directed my steps towards Pumblechook’s, and, as I approached that gentleman’s place of business, I saw him standing at his door.
He was waiting for me with great impatience.He had been out early with the chaise-cart,and had called at the forge and heard the news.He had prepared a collation for me in the Barnwell parlour,and he too ordered his shopman to “come out of the gangway” as my sacred person passed.
“My dear friend,” said Mr. Pumblechook,taking me by both hands,when he and I and the collation were alone,“I give you joy of your good fortune. Well deserved, well deserved!”
This was coming to the point,and I thought it a sensible way of expressing himself.
“To think,” said Mr. Pumblechook,after snorting admiration at me for some moments,“that I should have been the humble instrument of leading up to this, is a proud reward.”
I begged Mr. Pumblechook to remember that nothing was to be ever said or hinted, on that point.
“My dear young friend,” said Mr. Pumblechook;“if you will allow me to call you so—”
I murmured “Certainly,” and Mr.Pumblechook took me by both hands again,and communicated a movement to his waistcoat,which had an emotional appearance,though it was rather low down, “My dear young friend,rely upon my doing my little all in your absence,by keeping the fact before the mind of Joseph.—Joseph!” said Mr. Pumblechook,in the way of a compassionate adjuration. “Joseph!!Joseph!!!” Thereupon he shook his head and tapped it,expressing his sense of deficiency in Joseph.
“But my dear young friend,” said Mr. Pumblechook,“you must be hungry, you must be exhausted. Be seated.Here is a chicken had round from the Boar,here is a tongue had round from the Boar,here’s one or two little things had round from the Boar,that I hope you may not despise. But do I,” said Mr.Pumblechook, getting up again the moment after he had sat down,“see afore me, him as I ever sported with in his times of happy infancy?And may I—_may_ I—?”
This May I, meant might he shake hands?I consented, and he was fervent,and then sat down again.
“Here is wine,” said Mr. Pumblechook. “Let us drink,Thanks to Fortune, and may she ever pick out her favourites with equal judgment!And yet I cannot,” said Mr. Pumblechook,getting up again, “see afore me One—and likewise drink to One—without again expressing—May I—_may_ I—?”
I said he might, and he shook hands with me again,and emptied his glass and turned it upside down.I did the same; and if I had turned myself upside down before drinking,the wine could not have gone more direct to my head.