CHAPTER XVII.

PHILANTHROPY, PROFESSIONAL AND UNPROFESSIONAL

Full half a year had come and gone, and Mr. Crisparkle sat in a

waiting-room in the London chief offices of the Haven of Philanthropy,

until he could have audience of Mr. Honeythunder.

In his college days of athletic exercises, Mr. Crisparkle had known

professors of the Noble Art of fisticuffs, and had attended two or

three of their gloved gatherings. He had now an opportunity of

observing that as to the phrenological formation of the backs of their

heads, the Professing Philanthropists were uncommonly like the

Pugilists. In the development of all those organs which constitute, or

attend, a propensity to “pitch into” your fellow-creatures, the

Philanthropists were remarkably favoured. There were several Professors

passing in and out, with exactly the aggressive air upon them of being

ready for a turn-up with any Novice who might happen to be on hand,

that Mr. Crisparkle well remembered in the circles of the Fancy.

Preparations were in progress for a moral little Mill somewhere on the

rural circuit, and other Professors were backing this or that

Heavy-Weight as good for such or such speech-making hits, so very much

after the manner of the sporting publicans, that the intended

Resolutions might have been Rounds. In an official manager of these

displays much celebrated for his platform tactics, Mr. Crisparkle

recognised (in a suit of black) the counterpart of a deceased

benefactor of his species, an eminent public character, once known to

fame as Frosty-faced Fogo, who in days of yore superintended the

formation of the magic circle with the ropes and stakes. There were

only three conditions of resemblance wanting between these Professors

and those. Firstly, the Philanthropists were in very bad training: much

too fleshy, and presenting, both in face and figure, a superabundance

of what is known to Pugilistic Experts as Suet Pudding. Secondly, the

Philanthropists had not the good temper of the Pugilists, and used

worse language. Thirdly, their fighting code stood in great need of

revision, as empowering them not only to bore their man to the ropes,

but to bore him to the confines of distraction; also to hit him when he

was down, hit him anywhere and anyhow, kick him, stamp upon him, gouge

him, and maul him behind his back without mercy. In these last

particulars the Professors of the Noble Art were much nobler than the

Professors of Philanthropy.

Mr. Crisparkle was so completely lost in musing on these similarities

and dissimilarities, at the same time watching the crowd which came and

went by, always, as it seemed, on errands of antagonistically snatching

something from somebody, and never giving anything to anybody, that his

name was called before he heard it. On his at length responding, he was

shown by a miserably shabby and underpaid stipendiary Philanthropist

(who could hardly have done worse if he had taken service with a

declared enemy of the human race) to Mr. Honeythunder’s room.

“Sir,” said Mr. Honeythunder, in his tremendous voice, like a

schoolmaster issuing orders to a boy of whom he had a bad opinion, “sit

down.”

Mr. Crisparkle seated himself.

Mr. Honeythunder having signed the remaining few score of a few

thousand circulars, calling upon a corresponding number of families

without means to come forward, stump up instantly, and be

Philanthropists, or go to the Devil, another shabby stipendiary

Philanthropist (highly disinterested, if in earnest) gathered these

into a basket and walked off with them.

“Now, Mr. Crisparkle,” said Mr. Honeythunder, turning his chair half

round towards him when they were alone, and squaring his arms with his

hands on his knees, and his brows knitted, as if he added, I am going

to make short work of _you_: “Now, Mr. Crisparkle, we entertain

different views, you and I, sir, of the sanctity of human life.”

“Do we?” returned the Minor Canon.

“We do, sir.”

“Might I ask you,” said the Minor Canon: “what are your views on that

subject?”

“That human life is a thing to be held sacred, sir.”

“Might I ask you,” pursued the Minor Canon as before: “what you suppose

to be my views on that subject?”

“By George, sir!” returned the Philanthropist, squaring his arms still

more, as he frowned on Mr. Crisparkle: “they are best known to

yourself.”

“Readily admitted. But you began by saying that we took different

views, you know. Therefore (or you could not say so) you must have set

up some views as mine. Pray, what views _have_ you set up as mine?”

“Here is a man—and a young man,” said Mr. Honeythunder, as if that made

the matter infinitely worse, and he could have easily borne the loss of

an old one, “swept off the face of the earth by a deed of violence.

What do you call that?”

“Murder,” said the Minor Canon.

“What do you call the doer of that deed, sir?

“A murderer,” said the Minor Canon.

“I am glad to hear you admit so much, sir,” retorted Mr. Honeythunder,

in his most offensive manner; “and I candidly tell you that I didn’t

expect it.” Here he lowered heavily at Mr. Crisparkle again.

“Be so good as to explain what you mean by those very unjustifiable

expressions.”

“I don’t sit here, sir,” returned the Philanthropist, raising his voice

to a roar, “to be browbeaten.”

“As the only other person present, no one can possibly know that better

than I do,” returned the Minor Canon very quietly. “But I interrupt

your explanation.”

“Murder!” proceeded Mr. Honeythunder, in a kind of boisterous reverie,

with his platform folding of his arms, and his platform nod of

abhorrent reflection after each short sentiment of a word. “Bloodshed!

Abel! Cain! I hold no terms with Cain. I repudiate with a shudder the

red hand when it is offered me.”

Instead of instantly leaping into his chair and cheering himself

hoarse, as the Brotherhood in public meeting assembled would infallibly

have done on this cue, Mr. Crisparkle merely reversed the quiet

crossing of his legs, and said mildly: “Don’t let me interrupt your

explanation—when you begin it.”

“The Commandments say, no murder. NO murder, sir!” proceeded Mr.

Honeythunder, platformally pausing as if he took Mr. Crisparkle to task

for having distinctly asserted that they said: You may do a little

murder, and then leave off.

“And they also say, you shall bear no false witness,” observed Mr.

Crisparkle.

“Enough!” bellowed Mr. Honeythunder, with a solemnity and severity that

would have brought the house down at a meeting, “E—e—nough! My late

wards being now of age, and I being released from a trust which I

cannot contemplate without a thrill of horror, there are the accounts

which you have undertaken to accept on their behalf, and there is a

statement of the balance which you have undertaken to receive, and

which you cannot receive too soon. And let me tell you, sir, I wish

that, as a man and a Minor Canon, you were better employed,” with a

nod. “Better employed,” with another nod. “Bet—ter em—ployed!” with

another and the three nods added up.

Mr. Crisparkle rose; a little heated in the face, but with perfect

command of himself.

“Mr. Honeythunder,” he said, taking up the papers referred to: “my

being better or worse employed than I am at present is a matter of

taste and opinion. You might think me better employed in enrolling

myself a member of your Society.”

“Ay, indeed, sir!” retorted Mr. Honeythunder, shaking his head in a

threatening manner. “It would have been better for you if you had done

that long ago!”

“I think otherwise.”

“Or,” said Mr. Honeythunder, shaking his head again, “I might think one

of your profession better employed in devoting himself to the discovery

and punishment of guilt than in leaving that duty to be undertaken by a

layman.”

“I may regard my profession from a point of view which teaches me that

its first duty is towards those who are in necessity and tribulation,

who are desolate and oppressed,” said Mr. Crisparkle. “However, as I

have quite clearly satisfied myself that it is no part of my profession

to make professions, I say no more of that. But I owe it to Mr.

Neville, and to Mr. Neville’s sister (and in a much lower degree to

myself), to say to you that I _know_ I was in the full possession and

understanding of Mr. Neville’s mind and heart at the time of this

occurrence; and that, without in the least colouring or concealing what

was to be deplored in him and required to be corrected, I feel certain

that his tale is true. Feeling that certainty, I befriend him. As long

as that certainty shall last, I will befriend him. And if any

consideration could shake me in this resolve, I should be so ashamed of

myself for my meanness, that no man’s good opinion—no, nor no

woman’s—so gained, could compensate me for the loss of my own.”

Good fellow! manly fellow! And he was so modest, too. There was no more

self-assertion in the Minor Canon than in the schoolboy who had stood

in the breezy playing-fields keeping a wicket. He was simply and

staunchly true to his duty alike in the large case and in the small. So

all true souls ever are. So every true soul ever was, ever is, and ever

will be. There is nothing little to the really great in spirit.

“Then who do you make out did the deed?” asked Mr. Honeythunder,

turning on him abruptly.

“Heaven forbid,” said Mr. Crisparkle, “that in my desire to clear one

man I should lightly criminate another! I accuse no one.”

“Tcha!” ejaculated Mr. Honeythunder with great disgust; for this was by

no means the principle on which the Philanthropic Brotherhood usually

proceeded. “And, sir, you are not a disinterested witness, we must bear

in mind.”

“How am I an interested one?” inquired Mr. Crisparkle, smiling

innocently, at a loss to imagine.

“There was a certain stipend, sir, paid to you for your pupil, which

may have warped your judgment a bit,” said Mr. Honeythunder, coarsely.

“Perhaps I expect to retain it still?” Mr. Crisparkle returned,

enlightened; “do you mean that too?”

“Well, sir,” returned the professional Philanthropist, getting up and

thrusting his hands down into his trousers-pockets, “I don’t go about

measuring people for caps. If people find I have any about me that fit

’em, they can put ’em on and wear ’em, if they like. That’s their look

out: not mine.”

Mr. Crisparkle eyed him with a just indignation, and took him to task

thus:

“Mr. Honeythunder, I hoped when I came in here that I might be under no

necessity of commenting on the introduction of platform manners or

platform manœuvres among the decent forbearances of private life. But

you have given me such a specimen of both, that I should be a fit

subject for both if I remained silent respecting them. They are

detestable.”

“They don’t suit _you_, I dare say, sir.”

“They are,” repeated Mr. Crisparkle, without noticing the interruption,

“detestable. They violate equally the justice that should belong to

Christians, and the restraints that should belong to gentlemen. You

assume a great crime to have been committed by one whom I, acquainted

with the attendant circumstances, and having numerous reasons on my

side, devoutly believe to be innocent of it. Because I differ from you

on that vital point, what is your platform resource? Instantly to turn

upon me, charging that I have no sense of the enormity of the crime

itself, but am its aider and abettor! So, another time—taking me as

representing your opponent in other cases—you set up a platform

credulity; a moved and seconded and carried-unanimously profession of

faith in some ridiculous delusion or mischievous imposition. I decline

to believe it, and you fall back upon your platform resource of

proclaiming that I believe nothing; that because I will not bow down to

a false God of your making, I deny the true God! Another time you make

the platform discovery that War is a calamity, and you propose to

abolish it by a string of twisted resolutions tossed into the air like

the tail of a kite. I do not admit the discovery to be yours in the

least, and I have not a grain of faith in your remedy. Again, your

platform resource of representing me as revelling in the horrors of a

battle-field like a fiend incarnate! Another time, in another of your

undiscriminating platform rushes, you would punish the sober for the

drunken. I claim consideration for the comfort, convenience, and

refreshment of the sober; and you presently make platform proclamation

that I have a depraved desire to turn Heaven’s creatures into swine and

wild beasts! In all such cases your movers, and your seconders, and

your supporters—your regular Professors of all degrees, run amuck like

so many mad Malays; habitually attributing the lowest and basest

motives with the utmost recklessness (let me call your attention to a

recent instance in yourself for which you should blush), and quoting

figures which you know to be as wilfully onesided as a statement of any

complicated account that should be all Creditor side and no Debtor, or

all Debtor side and no Creditor. Therefore it is, Mr. Honeythunder,

that I consider the platform a sufficiently bad example and a

sufficiently bad school, even in public life; but hold that, carried

into private life, it becomes an unendurable nuisance.”

“These are strong words, sir!” exclaimed the Philanthropist.

“I hope so,” said Mr. Crisparkle. “Good morning.”

He walked out of the Haven at a great rate, but soon fell into his

regular brisk pace, and soon had a smile upon his face as he went

along, wondering what the china shepherdess would have said if she had

seen him pounding Mr. Honeythunder in the late little lively affair.

For Mr. Crisparkle had just enough of harmless vanity to hope that he

had hit hard, and to glow with the belief that he had trimmed the

Philanthropic Jacket pretty handsomely.

He took himself to Staple Inn, but not to P. J. T. and Mr. Grewgious.

Full many a creaking stair he climbed before he reached some attic

rooms in a corner, turned the latch of their unbolted door, and stood

beside the table of Neville Landless.

An air of retreat and solitude hung about the rooms and about their

inhabitant. He was much worn, and so were they. Their sloping ceilings,

cumbrous rusty locks and grates, and heavy wooden bins and beams,

slowly mouldering withal, had a prisonous look, and he had the haggard

face of a prisoner. Yet the sunlight shone in at the ugly

garret-window, which had a penthouse to itself thrust out among the

tiles; and on the cracked and smoke-blackened parapet beyond, some of

the deluded sparrows of the place rheumatically hopped, like little

feathered cripples who had left their crutches in their nests; and

there was a play of living leaves at hand that changed the air, and

made an imperfect sort of music in it that would have been melody in

the country.

The rooms were sparely furnished, but with good store of books.

Everything expressed the abode of a poor student. That Mr. Crisparkle

had been either chooser, lender, or donor of the books, or that he

combined the three characters, might have been easily seen in the

friendly beam of his eyes upon them as he entered.

“How goes it, Neville?”

“I am in good heart, Mr. Crisparkle, and working away.”

“I wish your eyes were not quite so large and not quite so bright,”

said the Minor Canon, slowly releasing the hand he had taken in his.

“They brighten at the sight of you,” returned Neville. “If you were to

fall away from me, they would soon be dull enough.”

“Rally, rally!” urged the other, in a stimulating tone. “Fight for it,

Neville!”

“If I were dying, I feel as if a word from you would rally me; if my

pulse had stopped, I feel as if your touch would make it beat again,”

said Neville. “But I _have_ rallied, and am doing famously.”

Mr. Crisparkle turned him with his face a little more towards the

light.

“I want to see a ruddier touch here, Neville,” he said, indicating his

own healthy cheek by way of pattern. “I want more sun to shine upon

you.”

Neville drooped suddenly, as he replied in a lowered voice: “I am not

hardy enough for that, yet. I may become so, but I cannot bear it yet.

If you had gone through those Cloisterham streets as I did; if you had

seen, as I did, those averted eyes, and the better sort of people

silently giving me too much room to pass, that I might not touch them

or come near them, you wouldn’t think it quite unreasonable that I

cannot go about in the daylight.”

“My poor fellow!” said the Minor Canon, in a tone so purely sympathetic

that the young man caught his hand, “I never said it was unreasonable;

never thought so. But I should like you to do it.”

“And that would give me the strongest motive to do it. But I cannot

yet. I cannot persuade myself that the eyes of even the stream of

strangers I pass in this vast city look at me without suspicion. I feel

marked and tainted, even when I go out—as I do only—at night. But the

darkness covers me then, and I take courage from it.”

Mr. Crisparkle laid a hand upon his shoulder, and stood looking down at

him.

“If I could have changed my name,” said Neville, “I would have done so.

But as you wisely pointed out to me, I can’t do that, for it would look

like guilt. If I could have gone to some distant place, I might have

found relief in that, but the thing is not to be thought of, for the

same reason. Hiding and escaping would be the construction in either

case. It seems a little hard to be so tied to a stake, and innocent;

but I don’t complain.”

“And you must expect no miracle to help you, Neville,” said Mr.

Crisparkle, compassionately.

“No, sir, I know that. The ordinary fulness of time and circumstances

is all I have to trust to.”

“It will right you at last, Neville.”

“So I believe, and I hope I may live to know it.”

But perceiving that the despondent mood into which he was falling cast

a shadow on the Minor Canon, and (it may be) feeling that the broad

hand upon his shoulder was not then quite as steady as its own natural

strength had rendered it when it first touched him just now, he

brightened and said:

“Excellent circumstances for study, anyhow! and you know, Mr.

Crisparkle, what need I have of study in all ways. Not to mention that

you have advised me to study for the difficult profession of the law,

specially, and that of course I am guiding myself by the advice of such

a friend and helper. Such a good friend and helper!”

He took the fortifying hand from his shoulder, and kissed it. Mr.

Crisparkle beamed at the books, but not so brightly as when he had

entered.

“I gather from your silence on the subject that my late guardian is

adverse, Mr. Crisparkle?”

The Minor Canon answered: “Your late guardian is a—a most unreasonable

person, and it signifies nothing to any reasonable person whether he is

_ad_verse, _per_verse, or the _re_verse.”

“Well for me that I have enough with economy to live upon,” sighed

Neville, half wearily and half cheerily, “while I wait to be learned,

and wait to be righted! Else I might have proved the proverb, that

while the grass grows, the steed starves!”

He opened some books as he said it, and was soon immersed in their

interleaved and annotated passages; while Mr. Crisparkle sat beside

him, expounding, correcting, and advising. The Minor Canon’s Cathedral

duties made these visits of his difficult to accomplish, and only to be

compassed at intervals of many weeks. But they were as serviceable as

they were precious to Neville Landless.

When they had got through such studies as they had in hand, they stood

leaning on the window-sill, and looking down upon the patch of garden.

“Next week,” said Mr. Crisparkle, “you will cease to be alone, and will

have a devoted companion.”

“And yet,” returned Neville, “this seems an uncongenial place to bring

my sister to.”

“I don’t think so,” said the Minor Canon. “There is duty to be done

here; and there are womanly feeling, sense, and courage wanted here.”

“I meant,” explained Neville, “that the surroundings are so dull and

unwomanly, and that Helena can have no suitable friend or society

here.”

“You have only to remember,” said Mr. Crisparkle, “that you are here

yourself, and that she has to draw you into the sunlight.”

They were silent for a little while, and then Mr. Crisparkle began

anew.

“When we first spoke together, Neville, you told me that your sister

had risen out of the disadvantages of your past lives as superior to

you as the tower of Cloisterham Cathedral is higher than the chimneys

of Minor Canon Corner. Do you remember that?”

“Right well!”

“I was inclined to think it at the time an enthusiastic flight. No

matter what I think it now. What I would emphasise is, that under the

head of Pride your sister is a great and opportune example to you.”

“Under _all_ heads that are included in the composition of a fine

character, she is.”

“Say so; but take this one. Your sister has learnt how to govern what

is proud in her nature. She can dominate it even when it is wounded

through her sympathy with you. No doubt she has suffered deeply in

those same streets where you suffered deeply. No doubt her life is

darkened by the cloud that darkens yours. But bending her pride into a

grand composure that is not haughty or aggressive, but is a sustained

confidence in you and in the truth, she has won her way through those

streets until she passes along them as high in the general respect as

any one who treads them. Every day and hour of her life since Edwin

Drood’s disappearance, she has faced malignity and folly—for you—as

only a brave nature well directed can. So it will be with her to the

end. Another and weaker kind of pride might sink broken-hearted, but

never such a pride as hers: which knows no shrinking, and can get no

mastery over her.”

The pale cheek beside him flushed under the comparison, and the hint

implied in it.

“I will do all I can to imitate her,” said Neville.

“Do so, and be a truly brave man, as she is a truly brave woman,”

answered Mr. Crisparkle stoutly. “It is growing dark. Will you go my

way with me, when it is quite dark? Mind! it is not I who wait for

darkness.”

Neville replied, that he would accompany him directly. But Mr.

Crisparkle said he had a moment’s call to make on Mr. Grewgious as an

act of courtesy, and would run across to that gentleman’s chambers, and

rejoin Neville on his own doorstep, if he would come down there to meet

him.

Mr. Grewgious, bolt upright as usual, sat taking his wine in the dusk

at his open window; his wineglass and decanter on the round table at

his elbow; himself and his legs on the window-seat; only one hinge in

his whole body, like a bootjack.

“How do you do, reverend sir?” said Mr. Grewgious, with abundant offers

of hospitality, which were as cordially declined as made. “And how is

your charge getting on over the way in the set that I had the pleasure

of recommending to you as vacant and eligible?”

Mr. Crisparkle replied suitably.

“I am glad you approve of them,” said Mr. Grewgious, “because I

entertain a sort of fancy for having him under my eye.”

As Mr. Grewgious had to turn his eye up considerably before he could

see the chambers, the phrase was to be taken figuratively and not

literally.

“And how did you leave Mr. Jasper, reverend sir?” said Mr. Grewgious.

Mr. Crisparkle had left him pretty well.

“And where did you leave Mr. Jasper, reverend sir?” Mr. Crisparkle had

left him at Cloisterham.

“And when did you leave Mr. Jasper, reverend sir?” That morning.

“Umps!” said Mr. Grewgious. “He didn’t say he was coming, perhaps?”

“Coming where?”

“Anywhere, for instance?” said Mr. Grewgious.

“No.”

“Because here he is,” said Mr. Grewgious, who had asked all these

questions, with his preoccupied glance directed out at window. “And he

don’t look agreeable, does he?”

Mr. Crisparkle was craning towards the window, when Mr. Grewgious

added:

“If you will kindly step round here behind me, in the gloom of the

room, and will cast your eye at the second-floor landing window in

yonder house, I think you will hardly fail to see a slinking individual

in whom I recognise our local friend.”

“You are right!” cried Mr. Crisparkle.

“Umps!” said Mr. Grewgious. Then he added, turning his face so abruptly

that his head nearly came into collision with Mr. Crisparkle’s: “what

should you say that our local friend was up to?”

The last passage he had been shown in the Diary returned on Mr.

Crisparkle’s mind with the force of a strong recoil, and he asked Mr.

Grewgious if he thought it possible that Neville was to be harassed by

the keeping of a watch upon him?

“A watch?” repeated Mr. Grewgious musingly. “Ay!”

“Which would not only of itself haunt and torture his life,” said Mr.

Crisparkle warmly, “but would expose him to the torment of a

perpetually reviving suspicion, whatever he might do, or wherever he

might go.”

“Ay!” said Mr. Grewgious musingly still. “Do I see him waiting for

you?”

“No doubt you do.”

“Then _would_ you have the goodness to excuse my getting up to see you

out, and to go out to join him, and to go the way that you were going,

and to take no notice of our local friend?” said Mr. Grewgious. “I

entertain a sort of fancy for having _him_ under my eye to-night, do

you know?”

Mr. Crisparkle, with a significant nod complied; and rejoining Neville,

went away with him. They dined together, and parted at the yet

unfinished and undeveloped railway station: Mr. Crisparkle to get home;

Neville to walk the streets, cross the bridges, make a wide round of

the city in the friendly darkness, and tire himself out.

It was midnight when he returned from his solitary expedition and

climbed his staircase. The night was hot, and the windows of the

staircase were all wide open. Coming to the top, it gave him a passing

chill of surprise (there being no rooms but his up there) to find a

stranger sitting on the window-sill, more after the manner of a

venturesome glazier than an amateur ordinarily careful of his neck; in

fact, so much more outside the window than inside, as to suggest the

thought that he must have come up by the water-spout instead of the

stairs.

The stranger said nothing until Neville put his key in his door; then,

seeming to make sure of his identity from the action, he spoke:

“I beg your pardon,” he said, coming from the window with a frank and

smiling air, and a prepossessing address; “the beans.”

Neville was quite at a loss.

“Runners,” said the visitor. “Scarlet. Next door at the back.”

“O,” returned Neville. “And the mignonette and wall-flower?”

“The same,” said the visitor.

“Pray walk in.”

“Thank you.”

Neville lighted his candles, and the visitor sat down. A handsome

gentleman, with a young face, but with an older figure in its

robustness and its breadth of shoulder; say a man of eight-and-twenty,

or at the utmost thirty; so extremely sunburnt that the contrast

between his brown visage and the white forehead shaded out of doors by

his hat, and the glimpses of white throat below the neckerchief, would

have been almost ludicrous but for his broad temples, bright blue eyes,

clustering brown hair, and laughing teeth.

“I have noticed,” said he; “—my name is Tartar.”

Neville inclined his head.

“I have noticed (excuse me) that you shut yourself up a good deal, and

that you seem to like my garden aloft here. If you would like a little

more of it, I could throw out a few lines and stays between my windows

and yours, which the runners would take to directly. And I have some

boxes, both of mignonette and wall-flower, that I could shove on along

the gutter (with a boathook I have by me) to your windows, and draw

back again when they wanted watering or gardening, and shove on again

when they were ship-shape; so that they would cause you no trouble. I

couldn’t take this liberty without asking your permission, so I venture

to ask it. Tartar, corresponding set, next door.”

“You are very kind.”

“Not at all. I ought to apologise for looking in so late. But having

noticed (excuse me) that you generally walk out at night, I thought I

should inconvenience you least by awaiting your return. I am always

afraid of inconveniencing busy men, being an idle man.”

“I should not have thought so, from your appearance.”

“No? I take it as a compliment. In fact, I was bred in the Royal Navy,

and was First Lieutenant when I quitted it. But, an uncle disappointed

in the service leaving me his property on condition that I left the

Navy, I accepted the fortune, and resigned my commission.”

“Lately, I presume?”

“Well, I had had twelve or fifteen years of knocking about first. I

came here some nine months before you; I had had one crop before you

came. I chose this place, because, having served last in a little

corvette, I knew I should feel more at home where I had a constant

opportunity of knocking my head against the ceiling. Besides, it would

never do for a man who had been aboard ship from his boyhood to turn

luxurious all at once. Besides, again; having been accustomed to a very

short allowance of land all my life, I thought I’d feel my way to the

command of a landed estate, by beginning in boxes.”

Whimsically as this was said, there was a touch of merry earnestness in

it that made it doubly whimsical.

“However,” said the Lieutenant, “I have talked quite enough about

myself. It is not my way, I hope; it has merely been to present myself

to you naturally. If you will allow me to take the liberty I have

described, it will be a charity, for it will give me something more to

do. And you are not to suppose that it will entail any interruption or

intrusion on you, for that is far from my intention.”

Neville replied that he was greatly obliged, and that he thankfully

accepted the kind proposal.

“I am very glad to take your windows in tow,” said the Lieutenant.

“From what I have seen of you when I have been gardening at mine, and

you have been looking on, I have thought you (excuse me) rather too

studious and delicate. May I ask, is your health at all affected?”

“I have undergone some mental distress,” said Neville, confused, “which

has stood me in the stead of illness.”

“Pardon me,” said Mr. Tartar.

With the greatest delicacy he shifted his ground to the windows again,

and asked if he could look at one of them. On Neville’s opening it, he

immediately sprang out, as if he were going aloft with a whole watch in

an emergency, and were setting a bright example.

“For Heaven’s sake,” cried Neville, “don’t do that! Where are you going

Mr. Tartar? You’ll be dashed to pieces!”

“All well!” said the Lieutenant, coolly looking about him on the

housetop. “All taut and trim here. Those lines and stays shall be

rigged before you turn out in the morning. May I take this short cut

home, and say good-night?”

“Mr. Tartar!” urged Neville. “Pray! It makes me giddy to see you!”

But Mr. Tartar, with a wave of his hand and the deftness of a cat, had

already dipped through his scuttle of scarlet runners without breaking

a leaf, and “gone below.”

Mr. Grewgious, his bedroom window-blind held aside with his hand,

happened at the moment to have Neville’s chambers under his eye for the

last time that night. Fortunately his eye was on the front of the house

and not the back, or this remarkable appearance and disappearance might

have broken his rest as a phenomenon. But Mr. Grewgious seeing nothing

there, not even a light in the windows, his gaze wandered from the

windows to the stars, as if he would have read in them something that

was hidden from him. Many of us would, if we could; but none of us so

much as know our letters in the stars yet—or seem likely to do it, in

this state of existence—and few languages can be read until their

alphabets are mastered.