“Well, sir,” says Mr George, “this man with me is the other party implicated in this unfortunate affair — nominally, only nominally — and my sole object is to prevent his getting into trouble on my account. He is a most respectable man with a wife and family; formerly in the Royal Artillery—”
“My friend, I don’t care a pinch of snuff for the whole Royal Artillery establishment — officers, men, tumbrils, waggons, horses, guns, and ammunition.”
“’Tis likely, sir. But I care a good deal for Bagnet and his wife and family being injured on my account. And if I could bring them through this matter, I should have no help for it but to give up without any other consideration, what you wanted of me the other day.”
“Have you got it here?”
“I have got it here, sir.”
“Sergeant,” the lawyer proceeds in his dry, passionless manner, far more hopeless in the dealing with, than any amount of vehemence, “make up your mind while I speak to you, for this is final. After I have finished speaking I have closed the subject, and I won’t re-open it. Understand that. You can leave here, for a few days, what you say you have brought here, if you choose; you can take it away at once, if you choose. In case you choose to leave it here, I can do this for you — I can replace this matter on its old footing, and I can go so far besides as to give you a written undertaking that this man Bagnet shall never be troubled in any way until you have been proceeded against to the utmost — that your means shall be exhausted before the creditor looks to his. This is in fact all but freeing him. Have you decided?”
The trooper puts his hand into his breast, and answers with a long breath, “I must do it, sir.”
So Mr Tulkinghorn, putting on his spectacles, sits down and writes the undertaking; which he slowly reads and explains to Bagnet, who has all this time been staring at the ceiling, and who puts his hand on his bald head again, under this new verbal shower-bath, and seems exceedingly in need of the old girl through whom to express his sentiments. The trooper then takes from his breast-pocket a folded paper, which he lays with an unwilling hand at the lawyer’s elbow. “’Tis ouly a letter of instructions, sir. The last I ever had from him.”
Look at a millstone, Mr George, for some change in its expression, and you will find it quite as soon as in the face of Mr Tulkinghorn when he opens and reads the letter! He refolds it, and lays it in his desk, with a countenance as unperturbable as Death.
Nor has he anything more to say or do, but to nod once in the same frigid and discourteous manner, and to say briefly, “You can go. Show these men out, there!” Being shown out, they repair to Mr Bagnet’s residence to dine.
Boiled beef and greens constitute the day’s variety on the former repast of boiled pork and greens; and Mrs Bagnet serves out the meal in the same way, and seasons it with the best of temper: being that rare sort of old girl that she receives Good to her arms without a hint that it might be Better; and catches light from any little spot of darkness near her. The spot on this occasion is the darkened brow of Mr George; he is unusually thoughtful and depressed. At first Mrs Bagnet trusts to the combined endearments of Quebec and Malta to restore him; but finding those young ladies sensible that their existing Bluffy is not the Bluffy of their usual frolicsome acquaintance, she winks off the light infantry, and leaves him to deploy at leisure on the open ground of the domestic hearth.
But he does not. He remains in close order, clouded and depressed. During the lengthy cleaning up and pattening process, when he and Mr Bagnet are supplied with their pipes, he is no better than he was at dinner. He forgets to smoke, looks at the fire and ponders, lets his pipe out, fills the breast of Mr Bagnet with perturbation and dismay, by showing that he has no enjoyment of tobacco.