‘I may depend upon your promptitude, dearest
Mr Fledgeby?’
Said Fledgeby, looking back at the door and respectfully
kissing his hand, ‘You may depend upon it.’
In fact, Mr Fledgeby sped on his errand of mercy through
the streets, at so brisk a rate that his feet might
have been winged by all the good spirits that wait
on Generosity. They might have taken up their
station in his breast, too, for he was blithe and
merry. There was quite a fresh trill in his voice,
when, arriving at the counting-house in St Mary Axe,
and finding it for the moment empty, he trolled forth
at the foot of the staircase: ‘Now, Judah,
what are you up to there?’
The old man appeared, with his accustomed deference.
‘Halloa!’ said Fledgeby, falling back,
with a wink. ’You mean mischief, Jerusalem!’
The old man raised his eyes inquiringly.
‘Yes you do,’ said Fledgeby. ’Oh,
you sinner! Oh, you dodger! What! You’re
going to act upon that bill of sale at Lammle’s,
are you? Nothing will turn you, won’t it?
You won’t be put off for another single minute,
won’t you?’
Ordered to immediate action by the master’s
tone and look, the old man took up his hat from the
little counter where it lay.
’You have been told that he might pull through
it, if you didn’t go in to win, Wide-Awake;
have you?’ said Fledgeby. ’And it’s
not your game that he should pull through it; ain’t
it? You having got security, and there being
enough to pay you? Oh, you Jew!’
The old man stood irresolute and uncertain for a moment,
as if there might be further instructions for him
in reserve.
‘Do I go, sir?’ he at length asked in
a low voice.
‘Asks me if he is going!’ exclaimed Fledgeby.
’Asks me, as if he didn’t know his own
purpose! Asks me, as if he hadn’t got his
hat on ready! Asks me, as if his sharp old eye—why,
it cuts like a knife—wasn’t looking
at his walking-stick by the door!’
‘Do I go, sir?’
‘Do you go?’ sneered Fledgeby. ‘Yes,
you do go. Toddle, Judah!’
GIVE A DOG A BAD NAME, AND HANG HIM
Fascination Fledgeby, left alone in the counting-house,
strolled about with his hat on one side, whistling,
and investigating the drawers, and prying here and
there for any small evidences of his being cheated,
but could find none. ‘Not his merit that
he don’t cheat me,’ was Mr Fledgeby’s
commentary delivered with a wink, ‘but my precaution.’
He then with a lazy grandeur asserted his rights as
lord of Pubsey and Co. by poking his cane at the stools
and boxes, and spitting in the fireplace, and so loitered
royally to the window and looked out into the narrow
street, with his small eyes just peering over the top
of Pubsey and Co.’s blind. As a blind in
more senses than one, it reminded him that he was
alone in the counting-house with the front door open.
He was moving away to shut it, lest he should be injudiciously
identified with the establishment, when he was stopped
by some one coming to the door.
