"Well, well, it is a very good speculation, certainly, and has brought you three hundred a year, Sam my boy; and you may thank us for the interest we took in you (indeed, we loved you as a son, and Miss Hodge has not recovered a certain marriage yet). You don't intend to rebuke us for making your fortune, do you?""No, hang it, no!" says I, and shook hands with him, and accepted a glass of sherry and biscuits, which he ordered forthwith.
Smithers returned, however, to the charge. "Sam," he said, "mark my words, and take your aunt AWAY FROM THE ROOKERY. She wrote to Mrs. S. a long account of a reverend gent with whom she walks out there,--the Reverend Grimes Wapshot. That man has an eye upon her.
He was tried at Lancaster in the year '14 for forgery, and narrowly escaped with his neck. Have a care of him--he has an eye to her money.""Nay," said I, taking out Mrs. Hoggarty's letter: "read for yourself."He read it over very carefully, seemed to be amused by it; and as he returned it to me, "Well, Sam," he said, "I have only two favours to ask of you: one is, not to mention that I am in town to any living soul; and the other is to give me a dinner in Lamb's Conduit Street with your pretty wife.""I promise you both gladly," I said, laughing. "But if you dine with us, your arrival in town must be known, for my friend Gus Hoskins dines with us likewise; and has done so nearly every day since my aunt went."He laughed too, and said, "We must swear Gus to secrecy over a bottle." And so we parted till dinner-time.
The indefatigable lawyer pursued his attack after dinner, and was supported by Gus and by my wife too; who certainly was disinterested in the matter--more than disinterested, for she would have given a great deal to be spared my aunt's company. But she said she saw the force of Mr. Smithers's arguments, and I admitted their justice with a sigh. However, I rode my high horse, and vowed that my aunt should do what she liked with her money; and that I was not the man who would influence her in any way in the disposal of it.
After tea, the two gents walked away together, and Gus told me that Smithers had asked him a thousand questions about the office, about Brough, about me and my wife, and everything concerning us. "You are a lucky fellow, Mr. Hoskins, and seem to be the friend of this charming young couple," said Smithers; and Gus confessed he was, and said he had dined with us fifteen times in six weeks, and that a better and more hospitable fellow than I did not exist. This Istate not to trumpet my own praises,--no, no; but because these questions of Smithers's had a good deal to do with the subsequent events narrated in this little history.
Being seated at dinner the next day off the cold leg of mutton that Smithers had admired so the day before, and Gus as usual having his legs under our mahogany, a hackney-coach drove up to the door, which we did not much heed; a step was heard on the floor, which we hoped might be for the two-pair lodger, when who should burst into the room but Mrs. Hoggarty herself! Gus, who was blowing the froth off a pot of porter preparatory to a delicious drink of the beverage, and had been making us die of laughing with his stories and jokes, laid down the pewter pot as Mrs. H. came in, and looked quite sick and pale. Indeed we all felt a little uneasy.
My aunt looked haughtily in Mary's face, then fiercely at Gus, and saying, "It is too true--my poor boy--ALREADY!" flung herself hysterically into my arms, and swore, almost choking, that she would never never leave me.
I could not understand the meaning of this extraordinary agitation on Mrs. Hoggarty's part, nor could any of us. She refused Mary's hand when the poor thing rather nervously offered it; and when Gus timidly said, "I think, Sam, I'm rather in the way here, and perhaps--had better go," Mrs. H. looked him full in the face, pointed to the door majestically with her forefinger, and said, "Ithink, sir, you HAD better go."
"I hope Mr. Hoskins will stay as long as he pleases," said my wife, with spirit.
"OF COURSE you hope so, madam," answered Mrs. Hoggarty, very sarcastic. But Mary's speech and my aunt's were quite lost upon Gus; for he had instantly run to his hat, and I heard him tumbling downstairs.
The quarrel ended, as usual, by Mary's bursting into a fit of tears, and by my aunt's repeating the assertion that it was not too late, she trusted; and from that day forth she would never never leave me.
"What could have made Aunt return and be so angry?" said I to Mary that night, as we were in our own room; but my wife protested she did not know: and it was only some time after that I found out the reason of this quarrel, and of Mrs. H.'s sudden reappearance.
The horrible fat coarse little Smithers told me the matter as a very good joke, only the other year, when he showed me the letter of Hickson, Dixon, Paxton and Jackson, which has before been quoted in my Memoirs.
"Sam my boy," said he, "you were determined to leave Mrs. Hoggarty in Brough's clutches at the Rookery, and I was determined to have her away. I resolved to kill two of your mortal enemies with one stone as it were. It was quite clear to me that the Reverend Grimes Wapshot had an eye to your aunt's fortune; and that Mr.
Brough had similar predatory intentions regarding her. Predatory is a mild word, Sam: if I had said robbery at once, I should express my meaning clearer.
"Well, I took the Fulham stage, and arriving, made straight for the lodgings of the reverend gentleman. 'Sir,' said I, on finding that worthy gent,--he was drinking warm brandy-and-water, Sam, at two o'clock in the day, or at least the room smelt very strongly of that beverage--'Sir,' says I, 'you were tried for forgery in the year '14, at Lancaster assizes.'
"'And acquitted, sir. My innocence was by Providence made clear,'
said Wapshot.
