see, ‘on account of father,’ as she says. So I swore to-night, that if she didn’t go, I’d go to bed at six. In consequence of which,” Mr. Omer shook himself and his chair, with laughter at the success of his device, “she and Joram’s at a ball.”
I shook hands with him, and wished him good-night.
“Half a minute, Sir,” said Mr. Omer. “If you was to go without seeing my little elephant, you’d lose the best of sights. You never see such a sight! Minnie!”
A musical little voice answered, from somewhere up-stairs, “I am coming, grandfather!” and a pretty little girl with long, flaxen, curling hair soon came running into the shop.
“This is my little elephant, Sir,” said Mr. Omer, fondling the child. “Siamese breed, Sir. Now, little elephant!”
The little elephant set the door of the parlour open, enabling me to see that, in these latter days, it was converted into a bedroom for Mr. Omer, who could not be easily conveyed up-stairs; and then hid her pretty forehead, and tumbled her long hair, against the back of Mr. Omer’s chair.
“The elephant butts, you know, Sir,” said Mr. Omer, winking, “when he goes at a object. Once, elephant. Twice. Three times!”
At this signal, the little elephant, with a dexterity that was next to marvellous in so small an animal, whisked the chair round with Mr. Omer in it, and rattled it off, pell-mell, into the parlour, without touching the doorpost: Mr. Omer indescribably enjoying the performance, and looking back at me on the road as if it were the triumphant issue of his life’s exertions.
After a stroll about the town, I went to Ham’s house. Peggotty had now removed here for good; and had let her own house to the successor of Mr. Barkis in the carrying business, who had paid her very well for the good-will, cart, and horse. I believe the very same slow horse that Mr. Barkis drove was still at work.
I found them in the neat kitchen, accompanied by Mrs. Gummidge, who had been fetched from the old boat by Mr. Peggotty himself. I doubt if she could have been induced to desert her post by any one else. He had evidently told them all. Both Peggotty and Mrs. Gummidge had their aprons to their eyes, and Ham had just stepped out “to take a turn on the beach.” He presently came home, very glad to see me; and I hope they were all the better for my being there. We spoke, with some approach to cheerfulness, of Mr. Peggotty’s growing rich in a new country, and of the wonders he would describe in his letters. We said nothing of Emily by name, but distantly referred to her more than once. Ham was the serenest of the party.
But, Peggotty told me, when she lighted me to a little chamber where the Crocodile Book was lying ready for me on the table, that he always was the same. She believed (she told me, crying) that he was broken-hearted; though he was as full of courage as of sweetness, and worked harder and better than any boat-builder in any yard in all that part. There were times, she said, of an evening, when he talked of their old life in the boat-house; and then he mentioned Emily as a child. But he never mentioned her as a woman.
I thought I had read in his face that he would like to speak to me alone. I therefore resolved to put myself in his way next evening, as he came home from his work. Having settled this with myself, I fell asleep. That night, for the first time in all those many nights, the candle was taken out of the window, Mr. Peggotty swung in his old hammock in the old boat, and the wind murmured with the old sound round his head.
All next day he was occupied in disposing of his fishing-boat and tackle; in packing up, and sending to London by waggon such of his little domestic possessions as he thought would be useful to him; and in parting with the rest, or bestowing them on Mrs. Gummidge. She was with him all day. As I had a