Charles Dickens - Life And Adventures Of Martin Chuzzlewit

They were both very busy on the afternoon succeeding the family's departure—Martin with the grammar-school, and Tom in balancing certain receipts of rents, and deducting Mr Pecksniff's commission from the same; in which abstruse employment he was much distracted by a habit his new friend had of whistling aloud while he was drawing—when they were not a little startled by the unexpected obtrusion into that sanctuary of genius, of a human head which, although a shaggy and somewhat alarming head in appearance, smiled affably upon them from the doorway, in a manner that was at once waggish, conciliatory, and expressive of approbation.

“I am not industrious myself, gents both,” said the head, “but I know how to appreciate that quality in others. I wish I may turn grey and ugly, if it isn't in my opinion, next to genius, one of the very charmingest qualities of the human mind. Upon my soul, I am grateful to my friend Pecksniff for helping me to the contemplation of such a delicious picture as you present. You remind me of Whittington, afterwards thrice Lord Mayor of London. I give you my unsullied word of honour, that you very strongly remind me of that historical character. You are a pair of Whittingtons, gents, without the cat; which is a most agreeable and blessed exception to me, for I am not attached to the feline species. My name is Tigg; how do you do?”

Martin looked to Mr Pinch for an explanation; and Tom, who had never in his life set eyes on Mr Tigg before, looked to that gentleman himself.

“Chevy Slyme?” said Mr Tigg, interrogatively, and kissing his left hand in token of friendship. “You will understand me when I say that I am the accredited agent of Chevy Slyme; that I am the ambassador from the court of Chiv? Ha ha!”

“Heyday!” asked Martin, starting at the mention of a name he knew. “Pray, what does he want with me?”

“If your name is Pinch'—Mr Tigg began.

“It is not” said Martin, checking himself. “That is Mr Pinch.”

“If that is Mr Pinch,” cried Tigg, kissing his hand again, and beginning to follow his head into the room, “he will permit me to say that I greatly esteem and respect his character, which has been most highly commended to me by my friend Pecksniff; and that I deeply appreciate his talent for the organ, notwithstanding that I do not, if I may use the expression, grind myself. If that is Mr Pinch, I will venture to express a hope that I see him well, and that he is suffering no inconvenience from the easterly wind?”

“Thank you,” said Tom. “I am very well.”

“That is a comfort,” Mr Tigg rejoined. “Then,” he added, shielding his lips with the palm of his hand, and applying them close to Mr Pinch's ear, “I have come for the letter.”

“For the letter,” said Tom, aloud. “What letter?”

“The letter,” whispered Tigg in the same cautious manner as before, “which my friend Pecksniff addressed to Chevy Slyme, Esquire, and left with you.”

“He didn't leave any letter with me,” said Tom.

“Hush!” cried the other. “It's all the same thing, though not so delicately done by my friend Pecksniff as I could have wished. The money.”

“The money!” cried Tom quite scared.

“Exactly so,” said Mr Tigg. With which he rapped Tom twice or thrice upon the breast and nodded several times, as though he would say that he saw they understood each other; that it was unnecessary to mention the circumstance before a third person; and that he would take it as a particular favour if Tom would slip the amount into his hand, as quietly as possible.

Mr Pinch, however, was so very much astounded by this (to him) inexplicable deportment, that he at once openly declared there must be some mistake, and that he had been entrusted with no commission whatever having any reference to Mr Tigg or to his friend, either. Mr Tigg received this declaration with a grave request that Mr Pinch would have the goodness to make it again; and on Tom's repeating it in a still more emphatic and unmistakable manner, checked it off, sentence for sentence, by nodding his head solemnly at the end of each. When it had come to a close for the second time, Mr Tigg sat himself down in a chair and addressed the young men as follows:

“Then I tell you what it is, gents both. There is at this present moment in this very place, a perfect constellation of talent and genius, who is involved, through what I cannot but designate as the culpable negligence of my friend Pecksniff, in a situation as tremendous, perhaps, as the social intercourse of the nineteenth century will readily admit of. There is actually at this instant, at the Blue Dragon in this village—an ale-house, observe; a common, paltry, low-minded, clodhopping, pipe-smoking ale-house—an individual, of whom it may be said, in the language of the Poet, that nobody but himself can in any way come up to him; who is detained there for his bill. Ha! ha! For his bill. I repeat it— for his bill. Now,” said Mr Tigg, “we have heard of Fox's Book of Martyrs, I believe, and we have heard of the Court of Requests, and the Star Chamber; but I fear the contradiction of no man alive or dead, when I assert that my friend Chevy Slyme being held in pawn for a bill, beats any amount of cockfighting with which I am acquainted.”

Martin and Mr Pinch looked, first at each other, and afterwards at Mr Tigg, who with his arms folded on his breast surveyed them, half in despondency and half in bitterness.

“Don't mistake me, gents both,” he said, stretching forth his right hand. “If it had been for anything but a bill, I could have borne it, and could still have looked upon mankind with some feeling of respect; but when such a man as my friend Slyme is detained for a score—a thing in itself essentially mean; a low performance on a slate, or possibly chalked upon the back of a door—I do feel that there is a screw of such magnitude loose somewhere, that the whole framework of society is shaken, and the very first principles of things can no longer be trusted. In short, gents both,” said Mr Tigg with a passionate flourish of his hands and head, “when a man like Slyme is detained for such a thing as a bill, I reject the superstitions of ages, and believe nothing. I don't even believe that I DON'T believe, curse me if I do!”

“I am very sorry, I am sure,” said Tom after a pause, “but Mr Pecksniff said nothing to me about it, and I couldn't act without his instructions. Wouldn't it be better, sir, if you were to go to —to wherever you came from—yourself, and remit the money to your friend?”

“How can that be done, when I am detained also?” said Mr Tigg; “and when moreover, owing to the astounding, and I must add, guilty negligence of my friend Pecksniff, I have no money for coach-hire?”

Tom thought of reminding the gentleman (who, no doubt, in his agitation had forgotten it) that there was a post-office in the land; and that possibly if he wrote to some friend or agent for a remittance it might not be lost upon the road; or at all events that the chance, however desperate, was worth trusting to. But, as his good-nature presently suggested to him certain reasons for abstaining from this hint, he paused again, and then asked:

“Did you say, sir, that you were detained also?”

“Come here,” said Mr Tigg, rising. “You have no objection to my opening this window for a moment?”

“Certainly not,” said Tom.

“Very good,” said Mr Tigg, lifting the sash. “You see a fellow down there in a red neckcloth and no waistcoat?”

“Of course I do,” cried Tom. “That's Mark Tapley.”

“Mark Tapley is it?” said the gentleman. “Then Mark Tapley had not only the great politeness to follow me to this house, but is waiting now, to see me home again. And for that attention, sir,” added Mr Tigg, stroking his moustache, “I can tell you, that Mark Tapley had better in his infancy have been fed to suffocation by Mrs Tapley, than preserved to this time.”