Our mutual friend

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« A o V r o o t y

Chapter II

M e. AHD MRS. YENEERHSTGr were bran-new people in a bran-new house in a bran-new quarter of London. Everything about the Veneerings was spick and span new. All their furniture was new, and in a state of high varnish and polish. And what was observable in the furniture, was observable in the Y eneerings — the surface smelled a little too much of the workshop and was a trifle sticky.

There was an innocent piece of dinner-furniture that went upon easy castors and was kept over a livery stable-yard in Duke Street, St. James’s, when not in use, to whom the Yeneerings were a source of blind confusion. The name of this article was Twemlow. Being first cousin to Lord Snigsworth, he was in frequent requisition, and at many houses might be said to represent the dining-table in its normal state.

The abyss to which he could find no bottom, and from which started forth the engrossing and ever-swelling difficulty of his life, was the insoluble question whether he was Yeneering’s oldest friend, or newest friend.

This evening the Y eneerings give a banquet.

The great looking-glass above the sideboard reflects the table and the company. Reflects the new Yeneering crest, in gold and eke in silver, frosted and also thawed, a camel of all wmrk. The Herald’s College found out a Crusading ancestor for Yeneering who bore a camel on his shield (or might have done it if he had thought of it), and a caravan of camels take charge of the fruits and flowers and candles, and

CONDENSED CLASSICS.

kneel down to be loaded with the salt. Eeflects Y eneering ; forty, wavy -haired, dark, tending to corpulence, sly, mysterious, filmy — a kind of sufficiently well-looking veiled prophet, not prophesying. Reflects Mrs. Y enering ; fair, aquiline-nosed and fingered, not so much light hair as she might have, gorgeous in raiment and jewels, enthusiastic, propitiatory, conscious that a corner of her husband’s veil is over herself. Reflects Podsnap ; prosperously feeding, two little light-colored wiry wings, one on either side of his else bald head, looking as like his hairbrushes as his hair, dissolving view of red beads on his forehead, large allowance of crumpled shirt-collar up behind. Reflects Mrs. Podsnap ; fine woman for Professor Owen, quantity of bone, neck and nostrils like a rocking-horse, hard features, majestic headdress in which Podsnap has hung golden offerings. Reflects Twemlow ; gray, dry, polite, susceptible to east wind, Pirst- Gentleman-in-Europe collar and cravat, cheeks drawn in as if he had made a great effort to retire into himself some years ago, and had got so far and had never got any farther. Reflects mature young lady ; raven locks, and complexion that lights up well when well powdered — as it is — carrying on considerably in the captivation of mature young gentleman ; with too much nose in his face, too much ginger in his whiskers, too much torso in his waistcoat, too much sparkle in his studs, his eyes, his buttons, his talk, and his teeth. Reflects charming old Lady Tippins on Y eneering’ s right ; with an immense obtuse drab oblong face, like a face in a table spoon, and a dyed Long W alk up the top of her head, as a convenient public approach to the bunch of false hair behind, pleased to patronize Mrs. Yeneering opposite, w'ho is pleased to be patronized. Reflects a certain “ Mortimer,” another of Yeneering’s oldest friends ; who never was in the house before, and appears not to want to come again, who sits disconsolate on Mrs. Y eneering’s left, and who was inveigled by Lady Tippins (a friend of his boyhood) to come to these people’s and talk, and who won’t talk. Reflects Eugene, friend of ^lortimer ; buried alive in the back of his chair, beliind a shoulder — with a powder-epaulette on it^ — of the mature young lady, and gloomily resorting to the champagne chalice whenever proffered by the retainer who goes

OUR MUTUAL FRIEND.

around like a gloomy Analytical Chemist. Lastly, the looking-glass reflects Boots and Brewer, and two other stuffed Buffers interposed between the rest of the company and possible accidents.

The Yeneering dinners are excellent dinners — or new people wouldn’t come — and all goes well.

Now, Mortimer,” says Lady Tippins, rapping the sticks of her closed green fan upon the knuckles of her left hand — which is particularly rich in knuckles, I insist upon your telling all that is to be told about the man from J amaica.”

(Jive you my honor I never heard of any man from Jamaica, except the man who was a brother,” replied Mortimer.

Tobago, then.”

‘‘ Nor yet from Tobago.”

Now, my dear Mrs. Veneering,” quoth Lady Tippins, “ I appeal to you whether this is not the basest conduct ever known in this world ? I carry my lovers about, two or three at a time, on condition that they are very obedient and devoted ; and here is my old lover-in-chief, the head of all my slaves, throwing off his allegiance before company ! ”

A grisly little fiction concerning her lovers is Lady Tippins’s point. She is always attended by a lover or two, and she keeps a little list of her lovers, and she is always booking a new lover, or striking out an old lover, or putting a lover in her black list, or promoting a lover to her blue list, or adding up her lovers, or otherwise posting her book.

I banish the false wretch from this moment, and I strike him out of my Cupidon (my name for my ledger, my dear), this very night. But I am resolved to have the account of the man from Somewhere.”

Upon my life,” says Mortimer, languidly, “ I find it immensely embarrassing to have the eyes of Europe upon me to this extent, and my only consolation is that you will all of you execrate Lady Tippins in your secret hearts when you find, as you inevitably will, the man from Somewhere a bore. Sorry to destroy romance by fixing him with a local habitation, but my man comes from the country where they make the Cape Wine. His name is Harmon, and he was only son of a tremendous old rascal who made his money by Dust.

CONDENSED CLASSICS.

He grew rich as a Dust Contractor, and hved in a hollow in a hilly country entirely composed of Dust. On his own small estate the growling old vagabond threw up his own mountain range, and its geological formation was Dust. Coaldust, vegetable-dust, bone-dust, crockery-dust, rough dust and sifted dust, — all manner of Dust. The moral being — I believe that’s the right expression — of this exemplary person, derived its highest gratification from anathematizing his nearest relations and turning them out of doors. Having begun (as was natural) by rendering these attentions to the wife of his bosom, he next found himself at leisure to bestow a similar recognition on the claims of his daughter. He chose a husband for her, entirely to his own satisfaction and not in the least to hers, and proceeded to settle upon her, as her marriage portion, I don’t know how much Dust, but something immense. At this stage of the affair the poor girl respectfully intimated that she was secretly engaged to that popular character whom the novelists and versifiers call Another, and that such a marriage wmuld make Dust of her heart and Dust of her life — in short would set her up, on a very extensive scale, in her father’s business. Immediately, the venerable parent — on a cold winter’s night, it is said — anathematized and turned her out. The pecuniary resources of Another were, as they usually are, of a very limited nature. I believe I am not using too strong an expression when I say that Another was hard up. However, he married the young lady, and they lived in a humble dwelling, probably possessing a porch ornamented with honeysuckle and woodbine twining, until she died. Another was so cut up by the loss of his young wife that if he outlived her a year it was as much as he did. We must now return, as the novelists say, and as we all wish they wouldn’t, to the man from Somewhere. Being a boy of fourteen, cheaply educating at Brussels when his sister’s expulsion befell, it was some little time before he heard of it — probably from herself, for the mother was dead ; but that I don’t know. Instantly, he absconded, and came over here. He must have been a boy of spirit and resource, to get here on a stopped allowance of five sous a week ; but he did it somehow, and he burst in on his father, and pleaded his sister’s cause. Venerable parent

OUB MUTUAL FRIEND.

promptly resorts to anathematization, and turns him out. Shocked and terrified boy takes flight, seeks his fortune, gets aboard ship, ultimately turns up on dry land among the Cape wine : small proprietor, farmer, grower — whatever you like to call it. He was discovered only the other day, after having been expatriated about fourteen years. Venerable parent dies. His will is found. It is dated very soon after the son’s flight. It leaves the lowest of the range of dust-mountains, with some sort of a dwelling-house at its foot, to an old servant who is sole executor, and all the rest of the property — which is very considerable — to the son. The son’s inheriting is made conditional on his marrying a girl who at the date of the will was a child of four or five years old, and who is now a marriageable young woman. Advertisement and inquiry discovered the son in the man from Somewhere, and at the present moment he is on his way home from there.”

Mr. Podsnap inquires what would become of the very large fortune, in the event of the marriage condition not being fulfilled ? Mortimer replies, that by special testamentary clause it would then go to the old servant above mentioned, passing over and excluding the son ; also, that if the son had not been living, the same old servant would have been sole residuary legatee.

Everybody but Mortimer himself becomes aware that the Analytical Chemist is, in a ghostly manner, offering him a folded paper.

The chemist advances it under the nose of Mortimer, who unfolds the paper. Eeads it, reads it twice, turns it over to look at the blank outside, reads it a third time.

“ This arrives in an extraordinary opportune manner,” says Mortimer then, looking with an altered face round the table: “this is the conclusion of the story of the identical man.”

“ Already married ? ” one guesses.

“ Declines to marry ? ” another guesses.

“ Codicil among the dust ? ” another guesses.

“ Why, no,” says Mortimer ; “ remarkable thing, you are all wrong. The story is completer and rather more exciting than I supposed. Man’s drowned I ”

CONDENSED CLASSICS.

Chapter III

T he messenger who had brought the paper was a boy of about fifteen.

“ Whose writing is this ? ” said Mortimer.

“Mine, sir.”

“ Who told you to write it ? ”

“ My father, Jesse Hexam.”

“ Is it he who found the body ? ”

“ Yes, sir.”

“ What is your father ? ”

The boy hesitated, then said, folding a plait in the right leg of his trousers, “ He gets his living alongshore.”

“ Is it far to your father’s ? ”

“ It’s a goodish stretch, sir. I went first to your office, according to the direction of the papers found in the pockets, and there I see nobody but a chap of about my age, who sent me on here.”

There was a curious mixture in the boy, of uncompleted savagery, and uncompleted civilization. His voice was hoarse and coarse, and his face w as coarse, and his stunted figure was coarse ; but he was cleaner than other boys of his type ; and his writing, though large and round, was good.

“ Were any means taken, do you know, boy, to ascertain if it was possible to restore life ? ” Mortimer inquired, as he sought for his hat.

“ You wouldn’t ask, sir, if you knew his state.”

The gloomy Eugene had strolled in and made the proposal to Mortimer, “ I’ll go with you, if you like ? ” So, they all three went away together in the vehicle that had brought the boy.

In and out among vessels that .seemed to have got ashore, and houses that seemed to have got afloat — among bowsprits staring into windows, and windows staring into ships — the wheels rolled on, until they stopped at a dark corner, riverwashed and otherwise not washed at aU, where the boy alighted and opened the door.

“ You must walk the rest, sir ; it’s not many yards.” He spoke in the singular number, to the express exclusion of Eugene. “ Here’s my father’s sir ; where the light is.”

OUR MUTUAL FRIEND.

The boy lifted the latch of the door, and they passed at once into a low circular room, where a man stood before a red fire, looking down into it, and a girl sat engaged in needle-work.

‘‘ The gentleman, father.”

The figure at the red fire turned, raised its ruffled head, and looked like a bird of prey.

“ You’re Mortimer Lightwood, Esquire ; are you sir ? ” Mortimer Lightwood is my name. What you found,” said Mortimer, glancing rather shrinkingly towards the bunk; “isithere? ”

“ ’Tain’t not to say here, but it’s close by. I do everything reg’lar. I’ve giv’ notice of the circumstarnce to the police, and the police have took possession of it. ISTo time ain’t been lost, on any hand. The police have put it into print already, and here’s what the print says of it.”

Taking up a bottle with a lamp in it, he held it near a paper on the wall, with the police heading. Body Found. The two friends read the handbill as it stuck against the wall, and Gaffer read them as he held the light.

Only papers on the unfortunate man, I see,” said Lightwood, glancing from the description of what was found, to the finder.

Only papers.”

Here the girl arose with her work in her hand, and went out at the door.

‘‘Ho money,” pursued Mortimer ; “ but threepence in one of the skirt-pockets.”

“ Three. Penny. Pieces,” said Gafier Hexam, in as many sentences.

“ The trousers pockets empty, and turned inside out.”

Gaffer Hexam nodded. “ But that’s common. Whether it’s the wash of the tide or no, I can’t say. How, here,” moving the light to another similar placard, “ his pockets was found empty, and turned inside out. And here,” moving the light to another, “ her pocket was found empty, and turned inside out. And so was this one’s. And so was that one’s. I can’t read, nor I don’t want to, for I know ’em by their places on the wall. . This one was a sailor, with two anchors and a flag and G. F. T. on his arm. Look and see if he warn’t.”

‘‘ Quite right.”

“ This one was the young woman in gray boots, and her linen marked with a cross. Look and see if she warn’t.”

“ Quite right.”

“ This is him as had a nasty cut over the eye. This is them two young sisters what tied themselves together with a handkercher. This is the drunken old chap, in a pair of list slippers and a nightcap, wot had offered — it afterwards come out — to make a hole in the water for a quartern of rum stood aforehand, and kept to his word for the first and last time in his life. They pretty well papers the room, you see ; but I know ’em all. I’m scholar enough ! ”

He waved the light over the whole, as if to typify the light of his scholarly intelligence, and then put it down on the table and stood behind it looking intently at his visitors.

“ Am I to show the way ? ”

As he opened the door, in pursuance of a nod from Lightwood, an extremely pale and disturbed face appeared in the doorway — the face of a man much agitated.

A body missing ? ” asked G-affer Hexam, stopping short; “ or a body found ? Which ? ”

I am lost! ” rephed the man, in a hurried and an eager manner.

“Lost?”

“ I — I — am a stranger, and don’t know the way. I — I tv ant to find the place where I can see what is described here. It is possible I may know it.” He was panting, and could hardly speak ; but he showed a copy of the newly-printed bill that was still wet upon the wall. Perhaps its newness, or perhaps the accuracy of his observations of its general look, guided G-affer to a ready conclusion.

“ This gentleman, Mr. Lightwood, is on that business.”

“ Mr. Lightwood ? ”

During a pause, Mortimer and the stranger confronted each other. Neither knew the other.

“ I think, sir,” said Mortimer, breaking the awkward silence with his airy ^elf-possession, “ that you did me the honor to mention my name ? ”

“ I repeated it, after this man.”

“ You said you were a stranger in London ? ”

Ov R MUTUAL FRIEND.

“ An utter stranger.”

“ Are you seeking a Mr. Harmon ? ”

“ Then I believe I can assure you that you are on a fruitless errand and will not find what you fear to find. Will you come with us?”

A little winding through some muddy alleys that might have been deposited by the last ill-savored tide, brought them to the wicket-gate and bright lamp of a Police Station ; where they found the Hight-Inspector.

“ A bull’s-eye,” said the Hight-Inspector, taking up his keys. “How, gentlemen.”

He opened a cool grot at the end of the yard, and they all went in. They quickly came out again, no one speaking but Eugene, who remarked to Mortimer, in a whisper, “Hot much worse than Lady Tippins.”

“ It appears to have knocked your friend over — knocked him completely off his legs,” Mr. Inspector remarked, in a very low voice, and with a searching look (not the first he had cast) at the stranger.

Mr. Lightwood explained that it was no friend of his.

“Indeed?” said Mr. Inspector, with an attentive ear; “ where did you pick him up ? ”

Mr. Lightwood explained further.

Mr. Inspector moved nothing but his eyes, as he now added, raising his voice :

“ Turned you faint, air ! Seems you’re not accustomed to this kind of work ? ”

The stranger, who was leaning against the chimneypiece with drooping head, looked round and answered, “Ho. It’s a horrible sight ! ”

“ You expected to identify, I am told, sir ? ”

“Yes.”

“ Have you identified ? ”

“ Ho. It’s a horrible sight. 0 ! a horrible, horrible sight ! ”

“ Who did you think it might have been ? ” asked Mr. Inspector. “ Grive us a description, sir. Perhaps we can help you.”

“ Ho, no,” said the stranger ; “ It would be quite useless.”

“ You missed a friend, you know ; or you missed a foe,

CONDENSED CLASSICS.

you know; or you wouldn’t have come here, you know. Well, then ; ain’t it reasonable to ask, who was it ? ” Thus Mr. Inspector.

“ You must excuse my telling you. Ko class of man can understand better than you, that families may not choose to publish their disagreements and misfortunes, except on the last necessity. I do not dispute that you discharge your duty in asking me the question ; you will not dispute my right to withhold the answer.”

“ At least,” said Mr. Inspector, “ you will not object to leave me your card, sir ? ”

‘‘ I should not object, if I had one ; but I have not.” He reddened and was much confused as he gave the answer.

“At least,” said Mr Inspector, with no change of voice or manner, “ you will not object to write down your name and address? ”

“Not at all.”

The stranger stepped up to the desk, and wrote in a rather tremulous hand — “Mr. Julius Handford, Exchequer Coffee House, Palace Yard, Westminster.”

“ Staying there, I presume, sir ? ”

“Staying there.”

“ Consequently from the country ? ”

“ Eh ? Yes — ^from the country.”

“ Good-night, sir.”

“ Reserve ! ” said Mr Inspector. “ Take care of this piece of paper, keep him in view without giving offense, ascertain that he is staying there, and find out anything you can about him.”

There being nothing more to be done until -the inquest was held next day, the friends went away together, and Gaffer Hexam and his son went their separate way. But Gaffer bade his boy go home, while he turned into a red-curtained tavern, the Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters.

The boy found his sister again seated before the fire at her work, and asked :

“ Where did you go, Liz ? ”

“ I went out in the dark.”

“There was no necessity for that. It was all right enough.”

OUR MUTUAL FRIEND.

“ One of the gentlemen, the one who didn’t speak, looked hard at me. And I was afraid he might know what my face meant. But there I Don’t mind me, Charley ! I was all in a tremble of another sort when you owned to father you could write a little.”

“ Ah ! But I made believe I wrote so badly as that it was odds if any one could read it. And when I wrote slowest, and smeared out with my finger most, father was best pleased, as he stood looking over me.”

The girl put aside her work, and drawing her seat close to his seat by the fire, laid her arm gently on his shoulder.

“You’ll make the most of your time, Charley; won’t you ? ”

“Won’t I? Come! I like that. Don’t I?”

“ Yes, Charley, yes. You work hard at your learning, I know. And I work a little, Charley, and plan and contrive a little (wake out of my sleep contriving, sometimes) how to get together a shilling now, and a shilling then, that shall make father believe you are beginning to earn a stray living alongshore.”

At midday following the bird of prey reappeared at the Six Jolly Fellowship-Porters, in the character, not new to him, of a witness before a coroner’s jury.

Mr. Mortimer Lightwood, besides sustaining the character of one of the witnesses, doubled the part with that of the eminent solicitor who watched the proceedings on behalf of the representatives of the deceased, as was duly recorded in the newspapers. Mr. Inspector watched the proceedings too, and kept his watching closely to himself.

The jury found. That the body of Mr. John Harmon had been discovered floating in the Thames, in an advanced state of decay, and much injured ; and that the said Mr. John Harmon had come by his death under highly suspicious circumstances, though by whose act or in what precise manner there was no evidence before this jury to show. And they appended to their verdict, a recommendation to the Home Office to offer a reward for the solution of the mystery. Within eight-and-forty hours, a reward of one hundred pounds was proclaimed, together with a free pardon to any person or persons not the actual perpetrator or perpetrators, and so forth in due form.

COJSDEJSSED CLASSICS.