Charles Dickens - Sketches by Boz

“Say I'm here,” replied Gabriel, leading the way across the garden; “Mr. Parsons and Mr. Tottle, on private and particular business.”

They were shown into the parlour, and the servant departed to deliver his message. The distant groaning of the violoncello ceased; footsteps were heard on the stairs; and Mr. Timson presented himself, and shook hands with Parsons with the utmost cordiality.

“How do you do, sir?” said Watkins Tottle, with great solemnity.

“How do YOU do, sir?” replied Timson, with as much coldness as if it were a matter of perfect indifference to him how he did, as it very likely was.

“I beg to deliver this note to you,” said Watkins Tottle, producing the cocked-hat.

“From Miss Lillerton!” said Timson, suddenly changing colour. “Pray sit down.”

Mr. Watkins Tottle sat down; and while Timson perused the note, fixed his eyes on an oyster-sauce-coloured portrait of the Archbishop of Canterbury, which hung over the fireplace.

Mr. Timson rose from his seat when he had concluded the note, and looked dubiously at Parsons. “May I ask,” he inquired, appealing to Watkins Tottle, “whether our friend here is acquainted with the object of your visit?”

“Our friend is in MY confidence,” replied Watkins, with considerable importance.

“Then, sir,” said Timson, seizing both Tottle's hands, “allow me in his presence to thank you most unfeignedly and cordially, for the noble part you have acted in this affair.”

“He thinks I recommended him,” thought Tottle. “Confound these fellows! they never think of anything but their fees.”

“I deeply regret having misunderstood your intentions, my dear sir,” continued Timson. “Disinterested and manly, indeed! There are very few men who would have acted as you have done.”

Mr. Watkins Tottle could not help thinking that this last remark was anything but complimentary. He therefore inquired, rather hastily, “When is it to be?”

“On Thursday,” replied Timson,—“on Thursday morning at half-past eight.”

“Uncommonly early,” observed Watkins Tottle, with an air of triumphant self-denial. “I shall hardly be able to get down here by that hour.” (This was intended for a joke.)

“Never mind, my dear fellow,” replied Timson, all suavity, shaking hands with Tottle again most heartily, “so long as we see you to breakfast, you know—”

“Eh!” said Parsons, with one of the most extraordinary expressions of countenance that ever appeared in a human face.

“What!” ejaculated Watkins Tottle, at the same moment.

“I say that so long as we see you to breakfast,” replied Timson, “we will excuse your being absent from the ceremony, though of course your presence at it would give us the utmost pleasure.”

Mr. Watkins Tottle staggered against the wall, and fixed his eyes on Timson with appalling perseverance.

“Timson,” said Parsons, hurriedly brushing his hat with his left arm, “when you say “us,” whom do you mean?”

Mr. Timson looked foolish in his turn, when he replied, “Why—Mrs. Timson that will be this day week: Miss Lillerton that is—”

“Now don't stare at that idiot in the corner,” angrily exclaimed Parsons, as the extraordinary convulsions of Watkins Tottle's countenance excited the wondering gaze of Timson,—“but have the goodness to tell me in three words the contents of that note?”

“This note,” replied Timson, “is from Miss Lillerton, to whom I have been for the last five weeks regularly engaged. Her singular scruples and strange feeling on some points have hitherto prevented my bringing the engagement to that termination which I so anxiously desire. She informs me here, that she sounded Mrs. Parsons with the view of making her her confidante and go-between, that Mrs. Parsons informed this elderly gentleman, Mr. Tottle, of the circumstance, and that he, in the most kind and delicate terms, offered to assist us in any way, and even undertook to convey this note, which contains the promise I have long sought in vain—an act of kindness for which I can never be sufficiently grateful.”

“Good night, Timson,” said Parsons, hurrying off, and carrying the bewildered Tottle with him.

“Won't you stay—and have something?” said Timson.

“No, thank ye,” replied Parsons; “I've had quite enough;” and away he went, followed by Watkins Tottle in a state of stupefaction.

Mr. Gabriel Parsons whistled until they had walked some quarter of a mile past his own gate, when he suddenly stopped, and said—

“You are a clever fellow, Tottle, ain't you?”

“I don't know,” said the unfortunate Watkins.

“I suppose you'll say this is Fanny's fault, won't you?” inquired Gabriel.

“I don't know anything about it,” replied the bewildered Tottle.

“Well,” said Parsons, turning on his heel to go home, “the next time you make an offer, you had better speak plainly, and don't throw a chance away. And the next time you're locked up in a spunging-house, just wait there till I come and take you out, there's a good fellow.”

How, or at what hour, Mr. Watkins Tottle returned to Cecil-street is unknown. His boots were seen outside his bedroom-door next morning; but we have the authority of his landlady for stating that he neither emerged therefrom nor accepted sustenance for four-andtwenty hours. At the expiration of that period, and when a council of war was being held in the kitchen on the propriety of summoning the parochial beadle to break his door open, he rang his bell, and demanded a cup of milk-and-water. The next morning he went through the formalities of eating and drinking as usual, but a week afterwards he was seized with a relapse, while perusing the list of marriages in a morning paper, from which he never perfectly recovered.

A few weeks after the last-named occurrence, the body of a gentleman unknown, was found in the Regent's canal. In the trousers-pockets were four shillings and threepence halfpenny; a matrimonial advertisement from a lady, which appeared to have been cut out of a Sunday paper: a tooth-pick, and a card-case, which it is confidently believed would have led to the identification of the unfortunate gentleman, but for the circumstance of there being none but blank cards in it. Mr. Watkins Tottle absented himself from his lodgings shortly before. A bill, which has not been taken up, was presented next morning; and a bill, which has not been taken down, was soon afterwards affixed in his parlour-window.

Mr. Nicodemus Dumps, or, as his acquaintance called him, “long Dumps,” was a bachelor, six feet high, and fifty years old: cross, cadaverous, odd, and ill-natured. He was never happy but when he was miserable; and always miserable when he had the best reason to be happy. The only real comfort of his existence was to make everybody about him wretched—then he might be truly said to enjoy life. He was afflicted with a situation in the Bank worth five hundred a-year, and he rented a “first-floor furnished,” at Pentonville, which he originally took because it commanded a dismal prospect of an adjacent churchyard. He was familiar with the face of every tombstone, and the burial service seemed to excite his strongest sympathy. His friends said he was surly—he insisted he was nervous; they thought him a lucky dog, but he protested that he was “the most unfortunate man in the world.” Cold as he was, and wretched as he declared himself to be, he was not wholly unsusceptible of attachments. He revered the memory of Hoyle, as he was himself an admirable and imperturbable whist-player, and he chuckled with delight at a fretful and impatient adversary. He adored King Herod for his massacre of the innocents; and if he hated one thing more than another, it was a child. However, he could hardly be said to hate anything in particular, because he disliked everything in general; but perhaps his greatest antipathies were cabs, old women, doors that would not shut, musical amateurs, and omnibus cads. He subscribed to the “Society for the Suppression of Vice” for the pleasure of putting a stop to any harmless amusements; and he contributed largely towards the support of two itinerant methodist parsons, in the amiable hope that if circumstances rendered any people happy in this world, they might perchance be rendered miserable by fears for the next.