The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens (online e book reader .TXT) 📖

replied in the affirmative with a nod and a smile. Mr Codlin added a corroborative nod and a short groan, as if he still felt the weight of the Temple on his shoulders.

‘To fairs, markets, races, and so forth, I suppose?’ pursued the single gentleman.

‘Yes, sir,’ returned Short, ‘pretty nigh all over the West of England.’

‘I have talked to men of your craft from North, East, and South,’ returned their host, in rather a hasty manner; ‘but I never lighted on any from the West before.’

‘It’s our reg’lar summer circuit is the West, master,’ said Short; ‘that’s where it is. We takes the East of London in the spring and winter, and the West of England in the summer time. Many’s the hard day’s walking in rain and mud, and with never a penny earned, we’ve had down in the West.’

‘Let me fill your glass again.’

‘Much obleeged to you sir, I think I will,’ said Mr Codlin, suddenly thrusting in his own and turning Short’s aside. ‘I’m the sufferer, sir, in all the travelling, and in all the staying at home. In town or country, wet or dry, hot or cold, Tom Codlin suffers. But Tom Codlin isn’t to complain for all that. Oh, no! Short may complain, but if Codlin grumbles by so much as a word— oh dear, down with him, down with him directly. It isn’t his place to grumble. That’s quite out of the question.’

‘Codlin an’t without his usefulness,’ observed Short with an arch look, ‘but he don’t always keep his eyes open. He falls asleep sometimes, you know. Remember them last races, Tommy.’

‘Will you never leave off aggravating a man?’ said Codlin. ‘It’s very like I was asleep when five-and-tenpence was collected, in one round, isn’t it? I was attending to my business, and couldn’t have my eyes in twenty places at once, like a peacock, no more than you could. If I an’t a match for an old man and a young child, you an’t neither, so don’t throw that out against me, for the cap fits your head quite as correct as it fits mine.”

‘You may as well drop the subject, Tom,’ said Short. ‘It isn’t particular agreeable to the gentleman, I dare say.’

‘Then you shouldn’t have brought it up,’ returned Mr Codlin; ‘and I ask the gentleman’s pardon on your account, as a giddy chap that likes to hear himself talk, and don’t much care what he talks about, so that he does talk.’

Their entertainer had sat perfectly quiet in the beginning of this dispute, looking first at one man and then at the other, as if he were lying in wait for an opportunity of putting some further question, or reverting to that from which the discourse had strayed. But, from the point where Mr Codlin was charged with sleepiness, he had shown an increasing interest in the discussion: which now attained a very high pitch.

‘You are the two men I want,’ he said, ‘the two men I have been looking for, and searching after! Where are that old man and that child you speak of?’

‘Sir?’ said Short, hesitating, and looking towards his friend.

‘The old man and his grandchild who travelled with you—where are they? It will be worth your while to speak out, I assure you; much better worth your while than you believe. They left you, you say— at those races, as I understand. They have been traced to that place, and there lost sight of. Have you no clue, can you suggest no clue, to their recovery?’

‘Did I always say, Thomas,’ cried Short, turning with a look of amazement to his friend, ‘that there was sure to be an inquiry after them two travellers?’

‘YOU said!’ returned Mr Codlin. ‘Did I always say that that ‘ere blessed child was the most interesting I ever see? Did I always say I loved her, and doated on her? Pretty creetur, I think I hear her now. “Codlin’s my friend,” she says, with a tear of gratitude a trickling down her little eye; “Codlin’s my friend,” she says— “not Short. Short’s very well,” she says; “I’ve no quarrel with Short; he means kind, I dare say; but Codlin,” she says, “has the feelings for my money, though he mayn’t look it.”’

Repeating these words with great emotion, Mr Codlin rubbed the bridge of his nose with his coat-sleeve, and shaking his head mournfully from side to side, left the single gentleman to infer that, from the moment when he lost sight of his dear young charge, his peace of mind and happiness had fled.

‘Good Heaven!’ said the single gentleman, pacing up and down the room, ‘have I found these men at last, only to discover that they can give me no information or assistance! It would have been better to have lived on, in hope, from day to day, and never to have lighted on them, than to have my expectations scattered thus.’

‘Stay a minute,’ said Short. ‘A man of the name of Jerry—you know Jerry, Thomas?’

‘Oh, don’t talk to me of Jerrys,’ replied Mr Codlin. ‘How can I care a pinch of snuff for Jerrys, when I think of that ‘ere darling child? “Codlin’s my friend,” she says, “dear, good, kind Codlin, as is always a devising pleasures for me! I don’t object to Short,” she says, “but I cotton to Codlin.” Once,’ said that gentleman reflectively, ‘she called me Father Codlin. I thought I should have bust!’

‘A man of the name of Jerry, sir,’ said Short, turning from his selfish colleague to their new acquaintance, ‘wot keeps a company of dancing dogs, told me, in a accidental sort of way, that he had seen the old gentleman in connexion with a travelling wax-work, unbeknown to him. As they’d given us the slip, and nothing had come of it, and this was down in the country that he’d been seen, I took no measures about it, and asked no questions—But I can, if you like.’

‘Is this man in town?’ said the impatient single gentleman. ‘Speak faster.’

‘No he isn’t, but he will be to-morrow, for he lodges in our house,’ replied Mr Short rapidly.

‘Then bring him here,’ said the single gentleman. ‘Here’s a sovereign a-piece. If I can find these people through your means, it is but a prelude to twenty more. Return to me to-morrow, and keep your own counsel on this subject—though I need hardly tell you that; for you’ll do so for your own sakes. Now, give me your address, and leave me.’

The address was given, the two men departed, the crowd went with them, and the single gentleman for two mortal hours walked in uncommon agitation up and down his room, over the wondering heads of Mr Swiveller and Miss Sally Brass.