第53章

I'd lay a handsome wager now,' said the old man, `if I laid wagers, which I don't and never did, that you keep up appearances by a tacit understanding, even before your own daughters here. Now I, when I have a business scheme in hand, tell Jonas what it is, and we discuss it openly. You're not offended, Pecksniff?'

`Offended, my good sir!' cried that gentleman, as if he had received the highest compliments that language could convey.

`Are you travelling to London, Mr. Pecksniff?' asked the son.

`Yes, Mr. Jonas, we are travelling to London. We shall have the pleasure of your company all the way, I trust?'

`Oh! ecod, you had better ask father that,' said Jonas. `I am not a-going to commit myself.'

Mr. Pecksniff was, as a matter of course, greatly entertained by this retort. His mirth having subsided, Mr. Jonas gave him to understand that himself and parent were in fact travelling to their home in the metropolis: and that, since the memorable day of the great family gathering, they had been tarrying in that part of the country, watching the sale of certain eligible investments, which they had had in their copartnership eye when they came down; for it was their custom, Mr. Jonas said, whenever such a thing was practicable, to kill two birds with one stone, and never to throw away sprats, but as bait for whales. When he had communicated to Mr. Pecksniff these pithy scraps of intelligence, he said, `That if it was all the same to him, he would turn him over to father, and have a chat with the gals;' and in furtherance of this polite scheme, he vacated his seat adjoining that gentleman, and established himself in the opposite corner, next to the fair Miss Mercy.

The education of Mr. Jonas had been conducted from his cradle on the strictest principles of the main chance. The very first word he learnt to spell was `gain,' and the second (when he got into two syllables), `money.'

But for two results, which were not clearly foreseen perhaps by his watchful parent in the beginning, his training may be said to have been unexceptionable.

One of these flaws was, that having been long taught by his father to over-reach everybody he had imperceptibly acquired a love of over-reaching that venerable monitor himself. The other, that from his early habits of considering everything as a question of property, he had gradually come to look, with impatience, on his parent as a certain amount of personal estate, which had no right whatever to be going at large, but ought to be secured in that particular description of iron safe which is commonly called a coffin, and banked in the grave.

`Well, cousin!' said Mr. Jonas: `Because we are cousins, you know, a few times removed: so you're going to London?'

Miss Mercy replied in the affirmative, pinching her sister's arm at the same time, and giggling excessively.

`Lots of beaux in London, cousin!' said Mr. Jonas, slightly advancing his elbow.

`Indeed, sir!' cried the young lady. `They won't hurt us, sir, I dare say.' And having given him this answer with great demureness she was so overcome by her own humour, that she was fain to stifle her merriment in her sister's shawl.

`Merry,' cried that more prudent damsel, `really I am ashamed of you.

How can you go on so? You wild thing!' At which Miss Merry only laughed the more, of course.

`I saw a wildness in her eye, t'other day,' said Mr. Jonas, addressing Charity. `But you're the one to sit solemn! I say! You were regularly prim, cousin!'

"Oh! The old-fashioned fright!' cried Merry, in a whisper. `Cherry my dear, upon my word you must sit next him. I shall die outright if he talks to me any more; I shall, positively!' To prevent which fatal consequence, the buoyant creature skipped out of her seat as she spoke, and squeezed her sister into the place from which she had risen.

`Don't mind crowding me,' cried Mr. Jonas. `I like to be crowded by gals. Come a little closer, cousin.'

`No, thank you, sir,' said Charity.

`There's that other one a-laughing again,' said Mr. Jonas; `she's a-laughing at my father, I shouldn't wonder. If he puts on that old flannel nightcap of his, I don't know what she'll do! Is that my father a-snoring, Pecksniff?'

`Yes, Mr. Jonas.'

`Tread upon his foot, will you be so good?' said the young gentleman.

`The foot next you's the gouty one.'

Mr. Pecksniff hesitating to perform this friendly office, Mr. Jonas did it himself; at the same time crying:

`Come, wake up, father, or you'll be having the nightmare, and screeching out, I know. -- Do you ever have the nightmare, cousin?' he asked his neighbour, with characteristic gallantry, as he dropped his voice again.

`Sometimes,' answered Charity. `Not often.'

`The other one,' said Mr. Jonas, after a pause. `Does she ever have the nightmare?'

`I don't know,' replied Charity. `You had better ask her.'

`She laughs so,' said Jonas; `there's no talking to her. Only hark how she's a-going on now! You're the sensible one, cousin!'

`Tut, tut!' cried Charity.

`Oh! But you are! You know you are!'

`Mercy is a little giddy,' said Miss Charity. But she'll sober down in time.'

`It'll be a very long time, then, if she does at all,' rejoined her cousin. `Take a little more room.'

`I am afraid of crowding you,' said Charity. But she took it notwithstanding; and after one or two remarks on the extreme heaviness of the coach, and the number of places it stopped at, they fell into a silence which remained unbroken by any member of the party until supper-time.