‘Mr Aaron,’ said Eugene, when they were
left together in the street, ’with many thanks
for your company, it remains for me unwillingly to
say Farewell.’
‘Sir,’ returned the other, ’I give
you good night, and I wish that you were not so thoughtless.’
‘Mr Aaron,’ returned Eugene, ’I
give you good night, and I wish (for you are a little
dull) that you were not so thoughtful.’
But now, that his part was played out for the evening,
and when in turning his back upon the Jew he came
off the stage, he was thoughtful himself. ‘How
did Lightwood’s catechism run?’ he murmured,
as he stopped to light his cigar. ’What
is to come of it? What are you doing? Where
are you going? We shall soon know now. Ah!’
with a heavy sigh.
The heavy sigh was repeated as if by an echo, an hour
afterwards, when Riah, who had been sitting on some
dark steps in a corner over against the house, arose
and went his patient way; stealing through the streets
in his ancient dress, like the ghost of a departed
Time.
AN ANNIVERSARY OCCASION
The estimable Twemlow, dressing himself in his lodgings
over the stable-yard in Duke Street, Saint James’s,
and hearing the horses at their toilette below, finds
himself on the whole in a disadvantageous position
as compared with the noble animals at livery.
For whereas, on the one hand, he has no attendant
to slap him soundingly and require him in gruff accents
to come up and come over, still, on the other hand,
he has no attendant at all; and the mild gentleman’s
finger-joints and other joints working rustily in
the morning, he could deem it agreeable even to be
tied up by the countenance at his chamber-door, so
he were there skilfully rubbed down and slushed and
sluiced and polished and clothed, while himself taking
merely a passive part in these trying transactions.
How the fascinating Tippins gets on when arraying
herself for the bewilderment of the senses of men,
is known only to the Graces and her maid; but perhaps
even that engaging creature, though not reduced to
the self-dependence of Twemlow could dispense with
a good deal of the trouble attendant on the daily
restoration of her charms, seeing that as to her face
and neck this adorable divinity is, as it were, a diurnal
species of lobster—throwing off a shell
every forenoon, and needing to keep in a retired spot
until the new crust hardens.
Howbeit, Twemlow doth at length invest himself with
collar and cravat and wristbands to his knuckles,
and goeth forth to breakfast. And to breakfast
with whom but his near neighbours, the Lammles of Sackville
Street, who have imparted to him that he will meet
his distant kinsman, Mr Fledgely. The awful Snigsworth
might taboo and prohibit Fledgely, but the peaceable
Twemlow reasons, If he is my kinsman I didn’t
make him so, and to meet a man is not to know him.’
