“All right!” cries Phil, scrambling to
his feet.
“Anything been doing?”
“Flat as ever so much swipes,” says Phil.
“Five dozen rifle and a dozen pistol.
As to aim!” Phil gives a howl at the recollection.
“Shut up shop, Phil!”
As Phil moves about to execute this order, it appears
that he is lame, though able to move very quickly.
On the speckled side of his face he has no eyebrow,
and on the other side he has a bushy black one, which
want of uniformity gives him a very singular and rather
sinister appearance. Everything seems to have
happened to his hands that could possibly take place
consistently with the retention of all the fingers,
for they are notched, and seamed, and crumpled all
over. He appears to be very strong and lifts
heavy benches about as if he had no idea what weight
was. He has a curious way of limping round the
gallery with his shoulder against the wall and tacking
off at objects he wants to lay hold of instead of
going straight to them, which has left a smear all
round the four walls, conventionally called “Phil’s
mark.”
This custodian of George’s Gallery in George’s
absence concludes his proceedings, when he has locked
the great doors and turned out all the lights but
one, which he leaves to glimmer, by dragging out from
a wooden cabin in a corner two mattresses and bedding.
These being drawn to opposite ends of the gallery,
the trooper makes his own bed and Phil makes his.
“Phil!” says the master, walking towards
him without his coat and waistcoat, and looking more
soldierly than ever in his braces. “You
were found in a doorway, weren’t you?”
“Gutter,” says Phil. “Watchman
tumbled over me.”
“Then vagabondizing came natural to you
from the beginning.”
“As nat’ral as possible,” says Phil.
“Good night!”
“Good night, guv’ner.”
Phil cannot even go straight to bed, but finds it
necessary to shoulder round two sides of the gallery
and then tack off at his mattress. The trooper,
after taking a turn or two in the rifle-distance
and looking up at the moon now shining through the
skylights, strides to his own mattress by a shorter
route and goes to bed too.
Mr. Bucket
Allegory looks pretty cool in Lincoln’s Inn
Fields, though the evening is hot, for both Mr. Tulkinghorn’s
windows are wide open, and the room is lofty, gusty,
and gloomy. These may not be desirable characteristics
when November comes with fog and sleet or January
with ice and snow, but they have their merits in the
sultry long vacation weather. They enable Allegory,
though it has cheeks like peaches, and knees like
bunches of blossoms, and rosy swellings for calves
to its legs and muscles to its arms, to look tolerably
cool to-night.
Plenty of dust comes in at Mr. Tulkinghorn’s
windows, and plenty more has generated among his furniture
and papers. It lies thick everywhere.
When a breeze from the country that has lost its way
takes fright and makes a blind hurry to rush out again,
it flings as much dust in the eyes of Allegory as
the law—or Mr. Tulkinghorn, one of its
trustiest representatives—may scatter, on
occasion, in the eyes of the laity.
