Sharpshooters

Wintry morning, looking with dull eyes and sallow face upon the
neighbourhood of Leicester Square, finds its inhabitants unwilling to
get out of bed. Many of them are not early risers at the brightest of
times, being birds of night who roost when the sun is high and are
wide awake and keen for prey when the stars shine out. Behind dingy
blind and curtain, in upper story and garret, skulking more or less
under false names, false hair, false titles, false jewellery, and
false histories, a colony of brigands lie in their first sleep.
Gentlemen of the green-baize road who could discourse from personal
experience of foreign galleys and home treadmills; spies of strong
governments that eternally quake with weakness and miserable fear,
broken traitors, cowards, bullies, gamesters, shufflers, swindlers,
and false witnesses; some not unmarked by the branding-iron beneath
their dirty braid; all with more cruelty in them than was in Nero,
and more crime than is in Newgate. For howsoever bad the devil can be
in fustian or smock-frock (and he can be very bad in both), he is a
more designing, callous, and intolerable devil when he sticks a pin
in his shirt-front, calls himself a gentleman, backs a card or
colour, plays a game or so of billiards, and knows a little about
bills and promissory notes than in any other form he wears. And in
such form Mr. Bucket shall find him, when he will, still pervading
the tributary channels of Leicester Square.

But the wintry morning wants him not and wakes him not. It wakes Mr.
George of the shooting gallery and his familiar. They arise, roll up
and stow away their mattresses. Mr. George, having shaved himself
before a looking-glass of minute proportions, then marches out,
bare-headed and bare-chested, to the pump in the little yard and anon
comes back shining with yellow soap, friction, drifting rain, and
exceedingly cold water. As he rubs himself upon a large jack-towel,
blowing like a military sort of diver just come up, his hair curling
tighter and tighter on his sunburnt temples the more he rubs it so
that it looks as if it never could be loosened by any less coercive
instrument than an iron rake or a curry-comb--as he rubs, and puffs,
and polishes, and blows, turning his head from side to side the more
conveniently to excoriate his throat, and standing with his body well
bent forward to keep the wet from his martial legs, Phil, on his
knees lighting a fire, looks round as if it were enough washing for
him to see all that done, and sufficient renovation for one day to
take in the superfluous health his master throws off.

When Mr. George is dry, he goes to work to brush his head with two
hard brushes at once, to that unmerciful degree that Phil,
shouldering his way round the gallery in the act of sweeping it,
winks with sympathy. This chafing over, the ornamental part of Mr.
George's toilet is soon performed. He fills his pipe, lights it, and
marches up and down smoking, as his custom is, while Phil, raising a
powerful odour of hot rolls and coffee, prepares breakfast. He smokes
gravely and marches in slow time. Perhaps this morning's pipe is
devoted to the memory of Gridley in his grave.

"And so, Phil," says George of the shooting gallery after several
turns in silence, "you were dreaming of the country last night?"

Phil, by the by, said as much in a tone of surprise as he scrambled
out of bed.

"Yes, guv'ner."

"What was it like?"

"I hardly know what it was like, guv'ner," said Phil, considering.

"How did you know it was the country?"

"On account of the grass, I think. And the swans upon it," says Phil
after further consideration.

"What were the swans doing on the grass?"

"They was a-eating of it, I expect," says Phil.

The master resumes his march, and the man resumes his preparation of
breakfast. It is not necessarily a lengthened preparation, being
limited to the setting forth of very simple breakfast requisites for
two and the broiling of a rasher of bacon at the fire in the rusty
grate; but as Phil has to sidle round a considerable part of the
gallery for every object he wants, and never brings two objects at
once, it takes time under the circumstances. At length the breakfast
is ready. Phil announcing it, Mr. George knocks the ashes out of his
pipe on the hob, stands his pipe itself in the chimney corner, and
sits down to the meal. When he has helped himself, Phil follows suit,
sitting at the extreme end of the little oblong table and taking his
plate on his knees. Either in humility, or to hide his blackened
hands, or because it is his natural manner of eating.

"The country," says Mr. George, plying his knife and fork; "why, I
suppose you never clapped your eyes on the country, Phil?"

"I see the marshes once," says Phil, contentedly eating his
breakfast.

"What marshes?"

"THE marshes, commander," returns Phil.

"Where are they?"

"I don't know where they are," says Phil; "but I see 'em, guv'ner.
They was flat. And miste."

Governor and commander are interchangeable terms with Phil,
expressive of the same respect and deference and applicable to nobody
but Mr. George.

"I was born in the country, Phil."

"Was you indeed, commander?"

"Yes. And bred there."

Phil elevates his one eyebrow, and after respectfully staring at his
master to express interest, swallows a great gulp of coffee, still
staring at him.

"There's not a bird's note that I don't know," says Mr. George. "Not
many an English leaf or berry that I couldn't name. Not many a tree
that I couldn't climb yet if I was put to it. I was a real country
boy, once. My good mother lived in the country."

"She must have been a fine old lady, guv'ner," Phil observes.

"Aye! And not so old either, five and thirty years ago," says Mr.
George. "But I'll wager that at ninety she would be near as upright
as me, and near as broad across the shoulders."

"Did she die at ninety, guv'ner?" inquires Phil.

"No. Bosh! Let her rest in peace, God bless her!" says the
trooper. "What set me on about country boys, and runaways, and
good-for-nothings? You, to be sure! So you never clapped your eyes
upon the country--marshes and dreams excepted. Eh?"

Phil shakes his head.

"Do you want to see it?"

"N-no, I don't know as I do, particular," says Phil.

"The town's enough for you, eh?"

"Why, you see, commander," says Phil, "I ain't acquainted with
anythink else, and I doubt if I ain't a-getting too old to take to
novelties."

"How old ARE you, Phil?" asks the trooper, pausing as he conveys his
smoking saucer to his lips.

"I'm something with a eight in it," says Phil. "It can't be eighty.
Nor yet eighteen. It's betwixt 'em, somewheres."

Mr. George, slowly putting down his saucer without tasting its
contents, is laughingly beginning, "Why, what the deuce, Phil--" when
he stops, seeing that Phil is counting on his dirty fingers.

"I was just eight," says Phil, "agreeable to the parish calculation,
when I went with the tinker. I was sent on a errand, and I see him
a-sittin under a old buildin with a fire all to himself wery
comfortable, and he says, 'Would you like to come along a me, my
man?' I says 'Yes,' and him and me and the fire goes home to
Clerkenwell together. That was April Fool Day. I was able to count up
to ten; and when April Fool Day come round again, I says to myself,
'Now, old chap, you're one and a eight in it.' April Fool Day after
that, I says, 'Now, old chap, you're two and a eight in it.' In
course of time, I come to ten and a eight in it; two tens and a eight
in it. When it got so high, it got the upper hand of me, but this is
how I always know there's a eight in it."

"Ah!" says Mr. George, resuming his breakfast. "And where's the
tinker?"

"Drink put him in the hospital, guv'ner, and the hospital put him--in
a glass-case, I HAVE heerd," Phil replies mysteriously.

"By that means you got promotion? Took the business, Phil?"

"Yes, commander, I took the business. Such as it was. It wasn't much
of a beat--round Saffron Hill, Hatton Garden, Clerkenwell, Smiffeld,
and there--poor neighbourhood, where they uses up the kettles till
they're past mending. Most of the tramping tinkers used to come and
lodge at our place; that was the best part of my master's earnings.
But they didn't come to me. I warn't like him. He could sing 'em a
good song. I couldn't! He could play 'em a tune on any sort of pot
you please, so as it was iron or block tin. I never could do nothing
with a pot but mend it or bile it--never had a note of music in me.
Besides, I was too ill-looking, and their wives complained of me."

"They were mighty particular. You would pass muster in a crowd,
Phil!" says the trooper with a pleasant smile.

"No, guv'ner," returns Phil, shaking his head. "No, I shouldn't. I
was passable enough when I went with the tinker, though nothing to
boast of then; but what with blowing the fire with my mouth when I
was young, and spileing my complexion, and singeing my hair off, and
swallering the smoke, and what with being nat'rally unfort'nate in
the way of running against hot metal and marking myself by sich
means, and what with having turn-ups with the tinker as I got older,
almost whenever he was too far gone in drink--which was almost
always--my beauty was queer, wery queer, even at that time. As to
since, what with a dozen years in a dark forge where the men was
given to larking, and what with being scorched in a accident at a
gas-works, and what with being blowed out of winder case-filling at
the firework business, I am ugly enough to be made a show on!"

Resigning himself to which condition with a perfectly satisfied
manner, Phil begs the favour of another cup of coffee. While drinking
it, he says, "It was after the case-filling blow-up when I first see
you, commander. You remember?"

"I remember, Phil. You were walking along in the sun."

"Crawling, guv'ner, again a wall--"

"True, Phil--shouldering your way on--"

"In a night-cap!" exclaims Phil, excited.

"In a night-cap--"

"And hobbling with a couple of sticks!" cries Phil, still more
excited.

"With a couple of sticks. When--"

"When you stops, you know," cries Phil, putting down his cup and
saucer and hastily removing his plate from his knees, "and says to
me, 'What, comrade! You have been in the wars!' I didn't say much to
you, commander, then, for I was took by surprise that a person so
strong and healthy and bold as you was should stop to speak to such a
limping bag of bones as I was. But you says to me, says you,
delivering it out of your chest as hearty as possible, so that it was
like a glass of something hot, 'What accident have you met with? You
have been badly hurt. What's amiss, old boy? Cheer up, and tell us
about it!' Cheer up! I was cheered already! I says as much to you,
you says more to me, I says more to you, you says more to me, and
here I am, commander! Here I am, commander!" cries Phil, who has
started from his chair and unaccountably begun to sidle away. "If a
mark's wanted, or if it will improve the business, let the customers
take aim at me. They can't spoil MY beauty. I'M all right. Come on!
If they want a man to box at, let 'em box at me. Let 'em knock me
well about the head. I don't mind. If they want a light-weight to be
throwed for practice, Cornwall, Devonshire, or Lancashire, let 'em
throw me. They won't hurt ME. I have been throwed, all sorts of
styles, all my life!"

With this unexpected speech, energetically delivered and accompanied
by action illustrative of the various exercises referred to, Phil
Squod shoulders his way round three sides of the gallery, and
abruptly tacking off at his commander, makes a butt at him with his
head, intended to express devotion to his service. He then begins to
clear away the breakfast.

Mr. George, after laughing cheerfully and clapping him on the
shoulder, assists in these arrangements and helps to get the gallery
into business order. That done, he takes a turn at the dumb-bells,
and afterwards weighing himself and opining that he is getting "too
fleshy," engages with great gravity in solitary broadsword practice.
Meanwhile Phil has fallen to work at his usual table, where he screws
and unscrews, and cleans, and files, and whistles into small
apertures, and blackens himself more and more, and seems to do and
undo everything that can be done and undone about a gun.

Master and man are at length disturbed by footsteps in the passage,
where they make an unusual sound, denoting the arrival of unusual
company. These steps, advancing nearer and nearer to the gallery,
bring into it a group at first sight scarcely reconcilable with any
day in the year but the fifth of November.

It consists of a limp and ugly figure carried in a chair by two
bearers and attended by a lean female with a face like a pinched
mask, who might be expected immediately to recite the popular verses
commemorative of the time when they did contrive to blow Old England
up alive but for her keeping her lips tightly and defiantly closed as
the chair is put down. At which point the figure in it gasping, "O
Lord! Oh, dear me! I am shaken!" adds, "How de do, my dear friend,
how de do?" Mr. George then descries, in the procession, the
venerable Mr. Smallweed out for an airing, attended by his
granddaughter Judy as body-guard.

"Mr. George, my dear friend," says Grandfather Smallweed, removing
his right arm from the neck of one of his bearers, whom he has nearly
throttled coming along, "how de do? You're surprised to see me, my
dear friend."

"I should hardly have been more surprised to have seen your friend in
the city," returns Mr. George.

"I am very seldom out," pants Mr. Smallweed. "I haven't been out for
many months. It's inconvenient--and it comes expensive. But I longed
so much to see you, my dear Mr. George. How de do, sir?"

"I am well enough," says Mr. George. "I hope you are the same."

"You can't be too well, my dear friend." Mr. Smallweed takes him by
both hands. "I have brought my granddaughter Judy. I couldn't keep
her away. She longed so much to see you."

"Hum! She bears it calmly!" mutters Mr. George.

"So we got a hackney-cab, and put a chair in it, and just round the
corner they lifted me out of the cab and into the chair, and carried
me here that I might see my dear friend in his own establishment!
This," says Grandfather Smallweed, alluding to the bearer, who has
been in danger of strangulation and who withdraws adjusting his
windpipe, "is the driver of the cab. He has nothing extra. It is by
agreement included in his fare. This person," the other bearer, "we
engaged in the street outside for a pint of beer. Which is twopence.
Judy, give the person twopence. I was not sure you had a workman of
your own here, my dear friend, or we needn't have employed this
person."

Grandfather Smallweed refers to Phil with a glance of considerable
terror and a half-subdued "O Lord! Oh, dear me!" Nor in his
apprehension, on the surface of things, without some reason, for
Phil, who has never beheld the apparition in the black-velvet cap
before, has stopped short with a gun in his hand with much of the air
of a dead shot intent on picking Mr. Smallweed off as an ugly old
bird of the crow species.

"Judy, my child," says Grandfather Smallweed, "give the person his
twopence. It's a great deal for what he has done."

The person, who is one of those extraordinary specimens of human
fungus that spring up spontaneously in the western streets of London,
ready dressed in an old red jacket, with a "mission" for holding
horses and calling coaches, received his twopence with anything but
transport, tosses the money into the air, catches it over-handed, and
retires.

"My dear Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed, "would you be so
kind as help to carry me to the fire? I am accustomed to a fire, and
I am an old man, and I soon chill. Oh, dear me!"

His closing exclamation is jerked out of the venerable gentleman by
the suddenness with which Mr. Squod, like a genie, catches him up,
chair and all, and deposits him on the hearth-stone.

"O Lord!" says Mr. Smallweed, panting. "Oh, dear me! Oh, my stars! My
dear friend, your workman is very strong--and very prompt. O Lord, he
is very prompt! Judy, draw me back a little. I'm being scorched in
the legs," which indeed is testified to the noses of all present by
the smell of his worsted stockings.

The gentle Judy, having backed her grandfather a little way from the
fire, and having shaken him up as usual, and having released his
overshadowed eye from its black-velvet extinguisher, Mr. Smallweed
again says, "Oh, dear me! O Lord!" and looking about and meeting Mr.
George's glance, again stretches out both hands.

"My dear friend! So happy in this meeting! And this is your
establishment? It's a delightful place. It's a picture! You never
find that anything goes off here accidentally, do you, my dear
friend?" adds Grandfather Smallweed, very ill at ease.

"No, no. No fear of that."

"And your workman. He--Oh, dear me!--he never lets anything off
without meaning it, does he, my dear friend?"

"He has never hurt anybody but himself," says Mr. George, smiling.

"But he might, you know. He seems to have hurt himself a good deal,
and he might hurt somebody else," the old gentleman returns. "He
mightn't mean it--or he even might. Mr. George, will you order him to
leave his infernal fire-arms alone and go away?"

Obedient to a nod from the trooper, Phil retires, empty-handed, to
the other end of the gallery. Mr. Smallweed, reassured, falls to
rubbing his legs.

"And you're doing well, Mr. George?" he says to the trooper, squarely
standing faced about towards him with his broadsword in his hand.
"You are prospering, please the Powers?"

Mr. George answers with a cool nod, adding, "Go on. You have not come
to say that, I know."

"You are so sprightly, Mr. George," returns the venerable
grandfather. "You are such good company."

"Ha ha! Go on!" says Mr. George.

"My dear friend! But that sword looks awful gleaming and sharp. It
might cut somebody, by accident. It makes me shiver, Mr. George.
Curse him!" says the excellent old gentleman apart to Judy as the
trooper takes a step or two away to lay it aside. "He owes me money,
and might think of paying off old scores in this murdering place. I
wish your brimstone grandmother was here, and he'd shave her head
off."

Mr. George, returning, folds his arms, and looking down at the old
man, sliding every moment lower and lower in his chair, says quietly,
"Now for it!"

"Ho!" cries Mr. Smallweed, rubbing his hands with an artful chuckle.
"Yes. Now for it. Now for what, my dear friend?"

"For a pipe," says Mr. George, who with great composure sets his
chair in the chimney-corner, takes his pipe from the grate, fills it
and lights it, and falls to smoking peacefully.

This tends to the discomfiture of Mr. Smallweed, who finds it so
difficult to resume his object, whatever it may be, that he becomes
exasperated and secretly claws the air with an impotent
vindictiveness expressive of an intense desire to tear and rend the
visage of Mr. George. As the excellent old gentleman's nails are long
and leaden, and his hands lean and veinous, and his eyes green and
watery; and, over and above this, as he continues, while he claws, to
slide down in his chair and to collapse into a shapeless bundle, he
becomes such a ghastly spectacle, even in the accustomed eyes of
Judy, that that young virgin pounces at him with something more than
the ardour of affection and so shakes him up and pats and pokes him
in divers parts of his body, but particularly in that part which the
science of self-defence would call his wind, that in his grievous
distress he utters enforced sounds like a paviour's rammer.

When Judy has by these means set him up again in his chair, with a
white face and a frosty nose (but still clawing), she stretches out
her weazen forefinger and gives Mr. George one poke in the back. The
trooper raising his head, she makes another poke at her esteemed
grandfather, and having thus brought them together, stares rigidly at
the fire.

"Aye, aye! Ho, ho! U--u--u--ugh!" chatters Grandfather Smallweed,
swallowing his rage. "My dear friend!" (still clawing).

"I tell you what," says Mr. George. "If you want to converse with me,
you must speak out. I am one of the roughs, and I can't go about and
about. I haven't the art to do it. I am not clever enough. It don't
suit me. When you go winding round and round me," says the trooper,
putting his pipe between his lips again, "damme, if I don't feel as
if I was being smothered!"

And he inflates his broad chest to its utmost extent as if to assure
himself that he is not smothered yet.

"If you have come to give me a friendly call," continues Mr. George,
"I am obliged to you; how are you? If you have come to see whether
there's any property on the premises, look about you; you are
welcome. If you want to out with something, out with it!"

The blooming Judy, without removing her gaze from the fire, gives her
grandfather one ghostly poke.

"You see! It's her opinion too. And why the devil that young woman
won't sit down like a Christian," says Mr. George with his eyes
musingly fixed on Judy, "I can't comprehend."

"She keeps at my side to attend to me, sir," says Grandfather
Smallweed. "I am an old man, my dear Mr. George, and I need some
attention. I can carry my years; I am not a brimstone poll-parrot"
(snarling and looking unconsciously for the cushion), "but I need
attention, my dear friend."

"Well!" returns the trooper, wheeling his chair to face the old man.
"Now then?"

"My friend in the city, Mr. George, has done a little business with a
pupil of yours."

"Has he?" says Mr. George. "I am sorry to hear it."

"Yes, sir." Grandfather Smallweed rubs his legs. "He is a fine young
soldier now, Mr. George, by the name of Carstone. Friends came
forward and paid it all up, honourable."

"Did they?" returns Mr. George. "Do you think your friend in the city
would like a piece of advice?"

"I think he would, my dear friend. From you."

"I advise him, then, to do no more business in that quarter. There's
no more to be got by it. The young gentleman, to my knowledge, is
brought to a dead halt."

"No, no, my dear friend. No, no, Mr. George. No, no, no, sir,"
remonstrates Grandfather Smallweed, cunningly rubbing his spare legs.
"Not quite a dead halt, I think. He has good friends, and he is good
for his pay, and he is good for the selling price of his commission,
and he is good for his chance in a lawsuit, and he is good for his
chance in a wife, and--oh, do you know, Mr. George, I think my friend
would consider the young gentleman good for something yet?" says
Grandfather Smallweed, turning up his velvet cap and scratching his
ear like a monkey.

Mr. George, who has put aside his pipe and sits with an arm on his
chair-back, beats a tattoo on the ground with his right foot as if he
were not particularly pleased with the turn the conversation has
taken.

"But to pass from one subject to another," resumes Mr. Smallweed.
"'To promote the conversation,' as a joker might say. To pass, Mr.
George, from the ensign to the captain."

"What are you up to, now?" asks Mr. George, pausing with a frown in
stroking the recollection of his moustache. "What captain?"

"Our captain. The captain we know of. Captain Hawdon."

"Oh! That's it, is it?" says Mr. George with a low whistle as he sees
both grandfather and granddaughter looking hard at him. "You are
there! Well? What about it? Come, I won't be smothered any more.
Speak!"

"My dear friend," returns the old man, "I was applied--Judy, shake me
up a little!--I was applied to yesterday about the captain, and my
opinion still is that the captain is not dead."

"Bosh!" observes Mr. George.

"What was your remark, my dear friend?" inquires the old man with his
hand to his ear.

"Bosh!"

"Ho!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "Mr. George, of my opinion you can
judge for yourself according to the questions asked of me and the
reasons given for asking 'em. Now, what do you think the lawyer
making the inquiries wants?"

"A job," says Mr. George.

"Nothing of the kind!"

"Can't be a lawyer, then," says Mr. George, folding his arms with an
air of confirmed resolution.

"My dear friend, he is a lawyer, and a famous one. He wants to see
some fragment in Captain Hawdon's writing. He don't want to keep it.
He only wants to see it and compare it with a writing in his
possession."

"Well?"

"Well, Mr. George. Happening to remember the advertisement concerning
Captain Hawdon and any information that could be given respecting
him, he looked it up and came to me--just as you did, my dear friend.
WILL you shake hands? So glad you came that day! I should have missed
forming such a friendship if you hadn't come!"

"Well, Mr. Smallweed?" says Mr. George again after going through the
ceremony with some stiffness.

"I had no such thing. I have nothing but his signature. Plague
pestilence and famine, battle murder and sudden death upon him," says
the old man, making a curse out of one of his few remembrances of a
prayer and squeezing up his velvet cap between his angry hands, "I
have half a million of his signatures, I think! But you,"
breathlessly recovering his mildness of speech as Judy re-adjusts the
cap on his skittle-ball of a head, "you, my dear Mr. George, are
likely to have some letter or paper that would suit the purpose.
Anything would suit the purpose, written in the hand."

"Some writing in that hand," says the trooper, pondering; "may be, I
have."

"My dearest friend!"

"May be, I have not."

"Ho!" says Grandfather Smallweed, crest-fallen.

"But if I had bushels of it, I would not show as much as would make a
cartridge without knowing why."

"Sir, I have told you why. My dear Mr. George, I have told you why."

"Not enough," says the trooper, shaking his head. "I must know more,
and approve it."

"Then, will you come to the lawyer? My dear friend, will you come and
see the gentleman?" urges Grandfather Smallweed, pulling out a lean
old silver watch with hands like the leg of a skeleton. "I told him
it was probable I might call upon him between ten and eleven this
forenoon, and it's now half after ten. Will you come and see the
gentleman, Mr. George?"

"Hum!" says he gravely. "I don't mind that. Though why this should
concern you so much, I don't know."

"Everything concerns me that has a chance in it of bringing anything
to light about him. Didn't he take us all in? Didn't he owe us
immense sums, all round? Concern me? Who can anything about him
concern more than me? Not, my dear friend," says Grandfather
Smallweed, lowering his tone, "that I want YOU to betray anything.
Far from it. Are you ready to come, my dear friend?"

"Aye! I'll come in a moment. I promise nothing, you know."

"No, my dear Mr. George; no."

"And you mean to say you're going to give me a lift to this place,
wherever it is, without charging for it?" Mr. George inquires,
getting his hat and thick wash-leather gloves.

This pleasantry so tickles Mr. Smallweed that he laughs, long and
low, before the fire. But ever while he laughs, he glances over his
paralytic shoulder at Mr. George and eagerly watches him as he
unlocks the padlock of a homely cupboard at the distant end of the
gallery, looks here and there upon the higher shelves, and ultimately
takes something out with a rustling of paper, folds it, and puts it
in his breast. Then Judy pokes Mr. Smallweed once, and Mr. Smallweed
pokes Judy once.

"I am ready," says the trooper, coming back. "Phil, you can carry
this old gentleman to his coach, and make nothing of him."

"Oh, dear me! O Lord! Stop a moment!" says Mr. Smallweed. "He's so
very prompt! Are you sure you can do it carefully, my worthy man?"

Phil makes no reply, but seizing the chair and its load, sidles away,
tightly hugged by the now speechless Mr. Smallweed, and bolts along
the passage as if he had an acceptable commission to carry the old
gentleman to the nearest volcano. His shorter trust, however,
terminating at the cab, he deposits him there; and the fair Judy
takes her place beside him, and the chair embellishes the roof, and
Mr. George takes the vacant place upon the box.

Mr. George is quite confounded by the spectacle he beholds from time
to time as he peeps into the cab through the window behind him, where
the grim Judy is always motionless, and the old gentleman with his
cap over one eye is always sliding off the seat into the straw and
looking upward at him out of his other eye with a helpless expression
of being jolted in the back.

Morning time at Mr. George's place. His gym shooting gallery is in the neighborhood where all the card sharks and con artists live. He's the only one who gets up early in the morning. He and Phil get up and talk about Phil's dream about seeing swans in the country. This is a surprising dream, because Phil has never actually been to the country. Mr. George has kind of a day-dreamy moment and tells Phil that he actually grew up in the country and knows all sorts of trees and animals. Then they talk about the past. Phil doesn't know how old he is because it's a number higher than he can count. But he does remember being an orphan and becoming a helper to a traveling tinkerer. It was a hard life, maybe one or two steps up from being a straight-out beggar. When his boss died, Phil tried to take over the business, but he was too awkward with people and too hideously ugly to make it work. Phil's face is marked with every kind of thing imaginable - burns from working near a fire, scars from fistfights with his drunken boss, weird bald patches from burns. It's not a good look. He knows it but it doesn't seem to bother him. In any case, one day, when he was still a tinkerer, Mr. George stopped him in the street thinking he was a war veteran. One thing led to another, and here they are. One thing is clear: Phil worships the ground Mr. George walks on. All of a sudden visitors arrive. It's Grandpa Smallweed and Judy. Smallweed is all freaked out at being in the shooting gallery, what with all the weapons around. At least he's self-aware enough to know there's ample reason to want to kill him. There's a lot of Judy trying to prop up and adjust her grandfather. This is something she does with the least amount of niceness possible. She's pretty clearly just waiting for him to finally die. At long last, Smallweed gets to the point. He would like a piece of Captain Hawdon's handwriting, not for himself, but for a famous lawyer who's been asking about it. Mr. George doesn't want to even admit he has any such thing, but he's willing to go talk to the lawyer face to face to figure out what this is all about. Before they go, Smallweed busts out with the news that Richard has been borrowing money from him. Mr. George tries to get him to leave Richard alone, but Smallweed is pretty clever and knows all about Richard's various collaterals: "He has good friends, and he is good for his pay, and he is good for the selling price of his commission, and he is good for his chance in a lawsuit, and he is good for his chance in a wife, and - " . As they're about to leave, Judy sees Mr. George put something in his breast pocket.

During breakfast at the shooting gallery, Phil Squod reminisces about his early years and explains how he got to be so ugly. Unexpectedly, Grandfather Smallweed arrives, accompanied by Judy, his granddaughter. He mentions that Richard Carstone has an army commission. "Mr. George" suggests that Richard has no future in the army. The old man then asks George if he has a sample of the handwriting of Captain Hawdon . A "friend in the city" has a document which he wants to compare with a specimen of Hawdon's handwriting. George agrees to accompany the old man to see the "friend" but will make no other promises until he learns more about the matter. He takes a paper from his cabinet and goes off with the old man and Judy to Lincoln's Inn Fields.

This chapter draws George Rouncewell into the line of action involving Tulkinghorn's hounding of Lady Dedlock. The chapter is typical of Dickens' serio-comic art in general: it mixes Dickens' humorous treatment of Phil Squod with the ominous note sounded by Tulkinghorn's obsession.

"Sharpshooters" The narrator describes George of the shooting gallery and his servant, Phil, getting ready for their day. George asks Phil if he dreamed of the country that night, and Phil says yes. George tells him that he himself was born and raised in the country. Phil asks if George's mother is dead, and George says no, then changes the subject. George asks Phil how old he is, but Phil doesn't know. The two men reminisce about how they met, when George rescued the crippled Phil from the street. Grandfather Smallweed and Judy visit George. Grandfather Smallweed is alarmed by Phil's handling of the guns in the gallery. He reminds George that George owes him money. George gets out a pipe and lights it, distracting Grandfather Smallweed. Then Smallweed tells him that his friend in the city, Carstone, has done some business with a student of George's. George suggests that his friend avoid any future dealings in that area, and that he thinks the friend has come to a "dead halt. Smallweed says that Carstone is still good for something. Smallweed then mentions a man named Captain Hawdon and claims that he's not dead. A lawyer has been asking about him, requesting some of Hawdon's handwriting so he can compare it to some writing he already has. Smallweed says he has only Hawdon's signature and asks George if he has any of Hawdon's writing that's more substantial. George says that he wouldn't give it to Smallweed even if he did have some, which he may or may not. Smallweed suggests George visit the lawyer for himself, and George agrees

The death of Krook's lodger resurfaces in chapters 26, 27, and 29, as Dickens picks up the thread of the death and weaves it back into the story. In chapter 26, when Grandfather Smallweed approaches George for a fragment of the lodger's handwriting, the lodger gets a name--Captain Hawdon--and is revealed to be at the center of an as-yet-unexplained mystery, in which his handwriting is key. Tulkinghorn is part of the mystery, being one of the men who looking for the handwriting, as is Guppy, who has learned that the lodger and Esther shared the same last name. While some people are looking for the lodger's handwriting, Guppy claims to have it, in the form of a bundle of letters. The mystery of the lodger propels the story forward and complicates the relationships between characters. The third-person narrator adds a twist to the strange relationship between Lady Dedlock and Tulkinghorn in chapter 29, when he suggests that Lady Dedlock is afraid of Tulkinghorn. The narrator makes Tulkinghorn a more ominous character by describing him as feeling no remorse or pity and perhaps even being cold and cruel. Even though it seemed possible in previous chapters that Lady Dedlock and Tulkinghorn were involved in a secret love affair, their uncomfortable interactions now suggest that something more sinister is going on. By introducing these new layers to their relationship, the narrator foreshadows Tulkinghorn's eventual role in Lady Dedlock's life and suggests that Lady Dedlock may indeed have something to hide. When Guppy visits Lady Dedlock and craftily reveals his connection to Tulkinghorn, he succeeds in getting Lady Dedlock's attention. His own intimations take on a darker shade thanks to the narrator's previous descriptions of Tulkinghorn. Lady Dedlock's discovery that Esther is actually the daughter she believed dead is the first true climax of Bleak House and sets up the primary conflict and storyline of the second half of the novel. Lady Dedlock--who has seemed so cold, haughty, and privileged--suddenly becomes much more sympathetic. Not only does she have a secret that could destroy her reputation and social standing, but she suffered a traumatic loss long ago. For her, Esther has practically risen from the grave, and the revelation is so overwhelming that she falls to her knees. The newly established connection between Esther and Lady Dedlock complicates everything and makes us question how much the other characters really know. We know that Guppy is nosing around, for example, but we aren't sure how much he knows. The same can be said for the Frenchwoman, Mademoiselle Hortense. This may also explain why Lady Dedlock is so afraid of Tulkinghorn--unless she's hiding another secret that hasn't yet been revealed. The revelation that Esther is Lady Dedlock's daughter explains why Esther had such a strange, violent reaction when she first met Lady Dedlock at Chesney Wold. The revelation also changes the way we view Esther as a narrator. When we return to her narrative in chapter 30, we do so with knowledge that she is not yet privy to. And although Esther is narrating the story from a point in the future, she does so with a measured pacing. For now, we as readers have secret inside knowledge.

Sharpshooters This is a friendly scene between Mr. George and the man from the gutter he rescued to be his assistant in his shooting gallery, Phil. George is an old military man, and so he is not repulsed by Phil who is pretty beat up. Phil is so deformed and off balance, he has to get around the room by dragging his shoulder around the outer wall. George is kind to Phil and treats him as a companion. George tells about his childhood in the country, and how he knows every tree and flower. He praises his old mother and chastises himself as a runaway. Then he asks about Phil's youth. He was eight when he hooked up with an old tinker and went traveling with him. After he died, he took over the business. His work in a forge and then a gas works made him crippled, and that's when Mr. George found him and made him his partner. They run the gallery together. Grandfather Smallweed shows up and mentions that his "friend in the city" has done business with a pupil of his--Richard Carstone. He rubs his hands, indicating another victim is in the works. Then he brings up Captain Hawdon, Mr. George's friend, and says that he does not believe the Captain is really dead , and his lawyer friend would like to see a piece of Hawdon's handwriting, so he is willing to pay George for a letter. George says he doesn't know, but slips a letter in his pocket in case he decides to sell it. He goes with Smallweed to see Tulkinghorn.

Commentary on Chapter XXVI Every time Mr. George shows up, we like the old soldier better. He was the one who sheltered Gridley from the law, the one who trained Richard. In this chapter he speaks of his childhood, which later will be discovered as occurring around Chesney Wold, since this is George Rouncewell. His pity on poor Phil, his taking him in and treating him like a fellow human being endears him to the reader. There are basically two types of people in Dickens' monumental gallery of portraits: those who are full of love for their fellow creatures, and those who are selfish and pretentious. It is amazing to see a loving Esther or generous Mr. George in the same scene with grotesque animal-type people, like Smallweed, the spider, rejoicing in trapping others. His news about Richard shows the young man is not likely to escape, even in the army. We have the examples of other ruined military men, such as Captain Hawdon and Mr. George, who have been ensnared by the moneylenders.


More Old Soldiers Than One

Mr. George has not far to ride with folded arms upon the box, for
their destination is Lincoln's Inn Fields. When the driver stops his
horses, Mr. George alights, and looking in at the window, says,
"What, Mr. Tulkinghorn's your man, is he?"

"Yes, my dear friend. Do you know him, Mr. George?"

"Why, I have heard of him--seen him too, I think. But I don't know
him, and he don't know me."

There ensues the carrying of Mr. Smallweed upstairs, which is done to
perfection with the trooper's help. He is borne into Mr.
Tulkinghorn's great room and deposited on the Turkey rug before the
fire. Mr. Tulkinghorn is not within at the present moment but will be
back directly. The occupant of the pew in the hall, having said thus
much, stirs the fire and leaves the triumvirate to warm themselves.

Mr. George is mightily curious in respect of the room. He looks up at
the painted ceiling, looks round at the old law-books, contemplates
the portraits of the great clients, reads aloud the names on the
boxes.

"'Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,'" Mr. George reads thoughtfully.
"Ha! 'Manor of Chesney Wold.' Humph!" Mr. George stands looking at
these boxes a long while--as if they were pictures--and comes back to
the fire repeating, "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and Manor of
Chesney Wold, hey?"

"Worth a mint of money, Mr. George!" whispers Grandfather Smallweed,
rubbing his legs. "Powerfully rich!"

"Who do you mean? This old gentleman, or the Baronet?"

"This gentleman, this gentleman."

"So I have heard; and knows a thing or two, I'll hold a wager. Not
bad quarters, either," says Mr. George, looking round again. "See the
strong-box yonder!"

This reply is cut short by Mr. Tulkinghorn's arrival. There is no
change in him, of course. Rustily drest, with his spectacles in his
hand, and their very case worn threadbare. In manner, close and dry.
In voice, husky and low. In face, watchful behind a blind; habitually
not uncensorious and contemptuous perhaps. The peerage may have
warmer worshippers and faithfuller believers than Mr. Tulkinghorn,
after all, if everything were known.

"Good morning, Mr. Smallweed, good morning!" he says as he comes in.
"You have brought the sergeant, I see. Sit down, sergeant."

As Mr. Tulkinghorn takes off his gloves and puts them in his hat, he
looks with half-closed eyes across the room to where the trooper
stands and says within himself perchance, "You'll do, my friend!"

"Sit down, sergeant," he repeats as he comes to his table, which is
set on one side of the fire, and takes his easy-chair. "Cold and raw
this morning, cold and raw!" Mr. Tulkinghorn warms before the bars,
alternately, the palms and knuckles of his hands and looks (from
behind that blind which is always down) at the trio sitting in a
little semicircle before him.

"Now, I can feel what I am about" (as perhaps he can in two senses),
"Mr. Smallweed." The old gentleman is newly shaken up by Judy to bear
his part in the conversation. "You have brought our good friend the
sergeant, I see."

"Yes, sir," returns Mr. Smallweed, very servile to the lawyer's
wealth and influence.

"And what does the sergeant say about this business?"

"Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed with a tremulous wave of his
shrivelled hand, "this is the gentleman, sir."

Mr. George salutes the gentleman but otherwise sits bolt upright and
profoundly silent--very forward in his chair, as if the full
complement of regulation appendages for a field-day hung about him.

Mr. Tulkinghorn proceeds, "Well, George--I believe your name is
George?"

"It is so, Sir."

"What do you say, George?"

"I ask your pardon, sir," returns the trooper, "but I should wish to
know what YOU say?"

"Do you mean in point of reward?"

"I mean in point of everything, sir."

This is so very trying to Mr. Smallweed's temper that he suddenly
breaks out with "You're a brimstone beast!" and as suddenly asks
pardon of Mr. Tulkinghorn, excusing himself for this slip of the
tongue by saying to Judy, "I was thinking of your grandmother, my
dear."

"I supposed, sergeant," Mr. Tulkinghorn resumes as he leans on one
side of his chair and crosses his legs, "that Mr. Smallweed might
have sufficiently explained the matter. It lies in the smallest
compass, however. You served under Captain Hawdon at one time, and
were his attendant in illness, and rendered him many little services,
and were rather in his confidence, I am told. That is so, is it not?"

"Yes, sir, that is so," says Mr. George with military brevity.

"Therefore you may happen to have in your possession
something--anything, no matter what; accounts, instructions, orders,
a letter, anything--in Captain Hawdon's writing. I wish to compare
his writing with some that I have. If you can give me the
opportunity, you shall be rewarded for your trouble. Three, four,
five, guineas, you would consider handsome, I dare say."

"Noble, my dear friend!" cries Grandfather Smallweed, screwing up his
eyes.

"If not, say how much more, in your conscience as a soldier, you can
demand. There is no need for you to part with the writing, against
your inclination--though I should prefer to have it."

Mr. George sits squared in exactly the same attitude, looks at the
painted ceiling, and says never a word. The irascible Mr. Smallweed
scratches the air.

"The question is," says Mr. Tulkinghorn in his methodical, subdued,
uninterested way, "first, whether you have any of Captain Hawdon's
writing?"

"First, whether I have any of Captain Hawdon's writing, sir," repeats
Mr. George.

"Secondly, what will satisfy you for the trouble of producing it?"

"Secondly, what will satisfy me for the trouble of producing it,
sir," repeats Mr. George.

"Thirdly, you can judge for yourself whether it is at all like that,"
says Mr. Tulkinghorn, suddenly handing him some sheets of written
paper tied together.

"Whether it is at all like that, sir. Just so," repeats Mr. George.

All three repetitions Mr. George pronounces in a mechanical manner,
looking straight at Mr. Tulkinghorn; nor does he so much as glance at
the affidavit in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, that has been given to him
for his inspection (though he still holds it in his hand), but
continues to look at the lawyer with an air of troubled meditation.

"Well?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "What do you say?"

"Well, sir," replies Mr. George, rising erect and looking immense, "I
would rather, if you'll excuse me, have nothing to do with this."

Mr. Tulkinghorn, outwardly quite undisturbed, demands, "Why not?"

"Why, sir," returns the trooper. "Except on military compulsion, I am
not a man of business. Among civilians I am what they call in
Scotland a ne'er-do-weel. I have no head for papers, sir. I can stand
any fire better than a fire of cross questions. I mentioned to Mr.
Smallweed, only an hour or so ago, that when I come into things of
this kind I feel as if I was being smothered. And that is my
sensation," says Mr. George, looking round upon the company, "at the
present moment."

With that, he takes three strides forward to replace the papers on
the lawyer's table and three strides backward to resume his former
station, where he stands perfectly upright, now looking at the ground
and now at the painted ceiling, with his hands behind him as if to
prevent himself from accepting any other document whatever.

Under this provocation, Mr. Smallweed's favourite adjective of
disparagement is so close to his tongue that he begins the words "my
dear friend" with the monosyllable "brim," thus converting the
possessive pronoun into brimmy and appearing to have an impediment in
his speech. Once past this difficulty, however, he exhorts his dear
friend in the tenderest manner not to be rash, but to do what so
eminent a gentleman requires, and to do it with a good grace,
confident that it must be unobjectionable as well as profitable. Mr.
Tulkinghorn merely utters an occasional sentence, as, "You are the
best judge of your own interest, sergeant." "Take care you do no harm
by this." "Please yourself, please yourself." "If you know what you
mean, that's quite enough." These he utters with an appearance of
perfect indifference as he looks over the papers on his table and
prepares to write a letter.

Mr. George looks distrustfully from the painted ceiling to the
ground, from the ground to Mr. Smallweed, from Mr. Smallweed to Mr.
Tulkinghorn, and from Mr. Tulkinghorn to the painted ceiling again,
often in his perplexity changing the leg on which he rests.

"I do assure you, sir," says Mr. George, "not to say it offensively,
that between you and Mr. Smallweed here, I really am being smothered
fifty times over. I really am, sir. I am not a match for you
gentlemen. Will you allow me to ask why you want to see the captain's
hand, in the case that I could find any specimen of it?"

Mr. Tulkinghorn quietly shakes his head. "No. If you were a man of
business, sergeant, you would not need to be informed that there are
confidential reasons, very harmless in themselves, for many such
wants in the profession to which I belong. But if you are afraid of
doing any injury to Captain Hawdon, you may set your mind at rest
about that."

"Aye! He is dead, sir."

"IS he?" Mr. Tulkinghorn quietly sits down to write.

"Well, sir," says the trooper, looking into his hat after another
disconcerted pause, "I am sorry not to have given you more
satisfaction. If it would be any satisfaction to any one that I
should be confirmed in my judgment that I would rather have nothing
to do with this by a friend of mine who has a better head for
business than I have, and who is an old soldier, I am willing to
consult with him. I--I really am so completely smothered myself at
present," says Mr. George, passing his hand hopelessly across his
brow, "that I don't know but what it might be a satisfaction to me."

Mr. Smallweed, hearing that this authority is an old soldier, so
strongly inculcates the expediency of the trooper's taking counsel
with him, and particularly informing him of its being a question of
five guineas or more, that Mr. George engages to go and see him. Mr.
Tulkinghorn says nothing either way.

"I'll consult my friend, then, by your leave, sir," says the trooper,
"and I'll take the liberty of looking in again with the final answer
in the course of the day. Mr. Smallweed, if you wish to be carried
downstairs--"

"In a moment, my dear friend, in a moment. Will you first let me
speak half a word with this gentleman in private?"

"Certainly, sir. Don't hurry yourself on my account." The trooper
retires to a distant part of the room and resumes his curious
inspection of the boxes, strong and otherwise.

"If I wasn't as weak as a brimstone baby, sir," whispers Grandfather
Smallweed, drawing the lawyer down to his level by the lapel of his
coat and flashing some half-quenched green fire out of his angry
eyes, "I'd tear the writing away from him. He's got it buttoned in
his breast. I saw him put it there. Judy saw him put it there. Speak
up, you crabbed image for the sign of a walking-stick shop, and say
you saw him put it there!"

This vehement conjuration the old gentleman accompanies with such a
thrust at his granddaughter that it is too much for his strength, and
he slips away out of his chair, drawing Mr. Tulkinghorn with him,
until he is arrested by Judy, and well shaken.

"Violence will not do for me, my friend," Mr. Tulkinghorn then
remarks coolly.

"No, no, I know, I know, sir. But it's chafing and
galling--it's--it's worse than your smattering chattering magpie of a
grandmother," to the imperturbable Judy, who only looks at the fire,
"to know he has got what's wanted and won't give it up. He, not to
give it up! HE! A vagabond! But never mind, sir, never mind. At the
most, he has only his own way for a little while. I have him
periodically in a vice. I'll twist him, sir. I'll screw him, sir. If
he won't do it with a good grace, I'll make him do it with a bad one,
sir! Now, my dear Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed, winking at
the lawyer hideously as he releases him, "I am ready for your kind
assistance, my excellent friend!"

Mr. Tulkinghorn, with some shadowy sign of amusement manifesting
itself through his self-possession, stands on the hearth-rug with his
back to the fire, watching the disappearance of Mr. Smallweed and
acknowledging the trooper's parting salute with one slight nod.

It is more difficult to get rid of the old gentleman, Mr. George
finds, than to bear a hand in carrying him downstairs, for when he is
replaced in his conveyance, he is so loquacious on the subject of the
guineas and retains such an affectionate hold of his button--having,
in truth, a secret longing to rip his coat open and rob him--that
some degree of force is necessary on the trooper's part to effect a
separation. It is accomplished at last, and he proceeds alone in
quest of his adviser.

By the cloisterly Temple, and by Whitefriars (there, not without a
glance at Hanging-Sword Alley, which would seem to be something in
his way), and by Blackfriars Bridge, and Blackfriars Road, Mr. George
sedately marches to a street of little shops lying somewhere in that
ganglion of roads from Kent and Surrey, and of streets from the
bridges of London, centring in the far-famed elephant who has lost
his castle formed of a thousand four-horse coaches to a stronger iron
monster than he, ready to chop him into mince-meat any day he dares.
To one of the little shops in this street, which is a musician's
shop, having a few fiddles in the window, and some Pan's pipes and a
tambourine, and a triangle, and certain elongated scraps of music,
Mr. George directs his massive tread. And halting at a few paces from
it, as he sees a soldierly looking woman, with her outer skirts
tucked up, come forth with a small wooden tub, and in that tub
commence a-whisking and a-splashing on the margin of the pavement,
Mr. George says to himself, "She's as usual, washing greens. I never
saw her, except upon a baggage-waggon, when she wasn't washing
greens!"

The subject of this reflection is at all events so occupied in
washing greens at present that she remains unsuspicious of Mr.
George's approach until, lifting up herself and her tub together when
she has poured the water off into the gutter, she finds him standing
near her. Her reception of him is not flattering.

"George, I never see you but I wish you was a hundred mile away!"

The trooper, without remarking on this welcome, follows into the
musical-instrument shop, where the lady places her tub of greens upon
the counter, and having shaken hands with him, rests her arms upon
it.

"I never," she says, "George, consider Matthew Bagnet safe a minute
when you're near him. You are that restless and that roving--"

"Yes! I know I am, Mrs. Bagnet. I know I am."

"You know you are!" says Mrs. Bagnet. "What's the use of that? WHY
are you?"

"The nature of the animal, I suppose," returns the trooper
good-humouredly.

"Ah!" cries Mrs. Bagnet, something shrilly. "But what satisfaction
will the nature of the animal be to me when the animal shall have
tempted my Mat away from the musical business to New Zealand or
Australey?"

Mrs. Bagnet is not at all an ill-looking woman. Rather large-boned, a
little coarse in the grain, and freckled by the sun and wind which
have tanned her hair upon the forehead, but healthy, wholesome, and
bright-eyed. A strong, busy, active, honest-faced woman of from
forty-five to fifty. Clean, hardy, and so economically dressed
(though substantially) that the only article of ornament of which she
stands possessed appear's to be her wedding-ring, around which her
finger has grown to be so large since it was put on that it will
never come off again until it shall mingle with Mrs. Bagnet's dust.

"Mrs. Bagnet," says the trooper, "I am on my parole with you. Mat
will get no harm from me. You may trust me so far."

"Well, I think I may. But the very looks of you are unsettling," Mrs.
Bagnet rejoins. "Ah, George, George! If you had only settled down and
married Joe Pouch's widow when he died in North America, SHE'D have
combed your hair for you."

"It was a chance for me, certainly," returns the trooper half
laughingly, half seriously, "but I shall never settle down into a
respectable man now. Joe Pouch's widow might have done me good--there
was something in her, and something of her--but I couldn't make up my
mind to it. If I had had the luck to meet with such a wife as Mat
found!"

Mrs. Bagnet, who seems in a virtuous way to be under little reserve
with a good sort of fellow, but to be another good sort of fellow
herself for that matter, receives this compliment by flicking Mr.
George in the face with a head of greens and taking her tub into the
little room behind the shop.

"Why, Quebec, my poppet," says George, following, on invitation, into
that department. "And little Malta, too! Come and kiss your Bluffy!"

These young ladies--not supposed to have been actually christened by
the names applied to them, though always so called in the family from
the places of their birth in barracks--are respectively employed on
three-legged stools, the younger (some five or six years old) in
learning her letters out of a penny primer, the elder (eight or nine
perhaps) in teaching her and sewing with great assiduity. Both hail
Mr. George with acclamations as an old friend and after some kissing
and romping plant their stools beside him.

"And how's young Woolwich?" says Mr. George.

"Ah! There now!" cries Mrs. Bagnet, turning about from her saucepans
(for she is cooking dinner) with a bright flush on her face. "Would
you believe it? Got an engagement at the theayter, with his father,
to play the fife in a military piece."

"Well done, my godson!" cries Mr. George, slapping his thigh.

"I believe you!" says Mrs. Bagnet. "He's a Briton. That's what
Woolwich is. A Briton!"

"And Mat blows away at his bassoon, and you're respectable civilians
one and all," says Mr. George. "Family people. Children growing up.
Mat's old mother in Scotland, and your old father somewhere else,
corresponded with, and helped a little, and--well, well! To be sure,
I don't know why I shouldn't be wished a hundred mile away, for I
have not much to do with all this!"

Mr. George is becoming thoughtful, sitting before the fire in the
whitewashed room, which has a sanded floor and a barrack smell and
contains nothing superfluous and has not a visible speck of dirt or
dust in it, from the faces of Quebec and Malta to the bright tin pots
and pannikins upon the dresser shelves--Mr. George is becoming
thoughtful, sitting here while Mrs. Bagnet is busy, when Mr. Bagnet
and young Woolwich opportunely come home. Mr. Bagnet is an
ex-artilleryman, tall and upright, with shaggy eyebrows and whiskers
like the fibres of a coco-nut, not a hair upon his head, and a torrid
complexion. His voice, short, deep, and resonant, is not at all
unlike the tones of the instrument to which he is devoted. Indeed
there may be generally observed in him an unbending, unyielding,
brass-bound air, as if he were himself the bassoon of the human
orchestra. Young Woolwich is the type and model of a young drummer.

Both father and son salute the trooper heartily. He saying, in due
season, that he has come to advise with Mr. Bagnet, Mr. Bagnet
hospitably declares that he will hear of no business until after
dinner and that his friend shall not partake of his counsel without
first partaking of boiled pork and greens. The trooper yielding to
this invitation, he and Mr. Bagnet, not to embarrass the domestic
preparations, go forth to take a turn up and down the little street,
which they promenade with measured tread and folded arms, as if it
were a rampart.

"George," says Mr. Bagnet. "You know me. It's my old girl that
advises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her.
Discipline must be maintained. Wait till the greens is off her mind.
Then we'll consult. Whatever the old girl says, do--do it!"

"I intend to, Mat," replies the other. "I would sooner take her
opinion than that of a college."

"College," returns Mr. Bagnet in short sentences, bassoon-like. "What
college could you leave--in another quarter of the world--with
nothing but a grey cloak and an umbrella--to make its way home to
Europe? The old girl would do it to-morrow. Did it once!"

"You are right," says Mr. George.

"What college," pursues Bagnet, "could you set up in life--with two
penn'orth of white lime--a penn'orth of fuller's earth--a ha'porth of
sand--and the rest of the change out of sixpence in money? That's
what the old girl started on. In the present business."

"I am rejoiced to hear it's thriving, Mat."

"The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, acquiescing, "saves. Has a stocking
somewhere. With money in it. I never saw it. But I know she's got it.
Wait till the greens is off her mind. Then she'll set you up."

"She is a treasure!" exclaims Mr. George.

"She's more. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be
maintained. It was the old girl that brought out my musical
abilities. I should have been in the artillery now but for the old
girl. Six years I hammered at the fiddle. Ten at the flute. The old
girl said it wouldn't do; intention good, but want of flexibility;
try the bassoon. The old girl borrowed a bassoon from the bandmaster
of the Rifle Regiment. I practised in the trenches. Got on, got
another, get a living by it!"

George remarks that she looks as fresh as a rose and as sound as an
apple.

"The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet in reply, "is a thoroughly fine
woman. Consequently she is like a thoroughly fine day. Gets finer as
she gets on. I never saw the old girl's equal. But I never own to it
before her. Discipline must be maintained!"

Proceeding to converse on indifferent matters, they walk up and down
the little street, keeping step and time, until summoned by Quebec
and Malta to do justice to the pork and greens, over which Mrs.
Bagnet, like a military chaplain, says a short grace. In the
distribution of these comestibles, as in every other household duty,
Mrs. Bagnet developes an exact system, sitting with every dish before
her, allotting to every portion of pork its own portion of
pot-liquor, greens, potatoes, and even mustard, and serving it out
complete. Having likewise served out the beer from a can and thus
supplied the mess with all things necessary, Mrs. Bagnet proceeds to
satisfy her own hunger, which is in a healthy state. The kit of the
mess, if the table furniture may be so denominated, is chiefly
composed of utensils of horn and tin that have done duty in several
parts of the world. Young Woolwich's knife, in particular, which is
of the oyster kind, with the additional feature of a strong
shutting-up movement which frequently balks the appetite of that
young musician, is mentioned as having gone in various hands the
complete round of foreign service.

The dinner done, Mrs. Bagnet, assisted by the younger branches (who
polish their own cups and platters, knives and forks), makes all the
dinner garniture shine as brightly as before and puts it all away,
first sweeping the hearth, to the end that Mr. Bagnet and the visitor
may not be retarded in the smoking of their pipes. These household
cares involve much pattening and counter-pattening in the backyard
and considerable use of a pail, which is finally so happy as to
assist in the ablutions of Mrs. Bagnet herself. That old girl
reappearing by and by, quite fresh, and sitting down to her
needlework, then and only then--the greens being only then to be
considered as entirely off her mind--Mr. Bagnet requests the trooper
to state his case.

This Mr. George does with great discretion, appearing to address
himself to Mr. Bagnet, but having an eye solely on the old girl all
the time, as Bagnet has himself. She, equally discreet, busies
herself with her needlework. The case fully stated, Mr. Bagnet
resorts to his standard artifice for the maintenance of discipline.

"That's the whole of it, is it, George?" says he.

"That's the whole of it."

"You act according to my opinion?"

"I shall be guided," replies George, "entirely by it."

"Old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, "give him my opinion. You know it. Tell
him what it is."

It is that he cannot have too little to do with people who are too
deep for him and cannot be too careful of interference with matters
he does not understand--that the plain rule is to do nothing in the
dark, to be a party to nothing underhanded or mysterious, and never
to put his foot where he cannot see the ground. This, in effect, is
Mr. Bagnet's opinion, as delivered through the old girl, and it so
relieves Mr. George's mind by confirming his own opinion and
banishing his doubts that he composes himself to smoke another pipe
on that exceptional occasion and to have a talk over old times with
the whole Bagnet family, according to their various ranges of
experience.

Through these means it comes to pass that Mr. George does not again
rise to his full height in that parlour until the time is drawing on
when the bassoon and fife are expected by a British public at the
theatre; and as it takes time even then for Mr. George, in his
domestic character of Bluffy, to take leave of Quebec and Malta and
insinuate a sponsorial shilling into the pocket of his godson with
felicitations on his success in life, it is dark when Mr. George
again turns his face towards Lincoln's Inn Fields.

"A family home," he ruminates as he marches along, "however small it
is, makes a man like me look lonely. But it's well I never made that
evolution of matrimony. I shouldn't have been fit for it. I am such a
vagabond still, even at my present time of life, that I couldn't hold
to the gallery a month together if it was a regular pursuit or if I
didn't camp there, gipsy fashion. Come! I disgrace nobody and cumber
nobody; that's something. I have not done that for many a long year!"

So he whistles it off and marches on.

Arrived in Lincoln's Inn Fields and mounting Mr. Tulkinghorn's stair,
he finds the outer door closed and the chambers shut, but the trooper
not knowing much about outer doors, and the staircase being dark
besides, he is yet fumbling and groping about, hoping to discover a
bell-handle or to open the door for himself, when Mr. Tulkinghorn
comes up the stairs (quietly, of course) and angrily asks, "Who is
that? What are you doing there?"

"I ask your pardon, sir. It's George. The sergeant."

"And couldn't George, the sergeant, see that my door was locked?"

"Why, no, sir, I couldn't. At any rate, I didn't," says the trooper,
rather nettled.

"Have you changed your mind? Or are you in the same mind?" Mr.
Tulkinghorn demands. But he knows well enough at a glance.

"In the same mind, sir."

"I thought so. That's sufficient. You can go. So you are the man,"
says Mr. Tulkinghorn, opening his door with the key, "in whose
hiding-place Mr. Gridley was found?"

"Yes, I AM the man," says the trooper, stopping two or three stairs
down. "What then, sir?"

"What then? I don't like your associates. You should not have seen
the inside of my door this morning if I had thought of your being
that man. Gridley? A threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow."

With these words, spoken in an unusually high tone for him, the
lawyer goes into his rooms and shuts the door with a thundering
noise.

Mr. George takes his dismissal in great dudgeon, the greater because
a clerk coming up the stairs has heard the last words of all and
evidently applies them to him. "A pretty character to bear," the
trooper growls with a hasty oath as he strides downstairs. "A
threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow!" And looking up, he sees
the clerk looking down at him and marking him as he passes a lamp.
This so intensifies his dudgeon that for five minutes he is in an ill
humour. But he whistles that off like the rest of it and marches home
to the shooting gallery.

The fancy lawyer who wants Captain Hawdon's handwriting sample is...OK, obviously it's Tulkinghorn. Mr. George is impressed with Tulkinghorn's nice office and checks out the portrait of Sir Dedlock. When Tulkinghorn finally comes in, he is his usual totally indifferent-seeming self. Mr. George asks what the deal is with the handwriting. Tulkinghorn doesn't want to say, other than that it's something really minor and that Mr. George would be paid. Oh, that doesn't sound fishy in the least. Mr. George says no to the whole thing because he's feeling sort of trapped. Smallweed is furious and whispers to Tulkinghorn that Mr. George has a piece of Hawdon's handwriting in his breast pocket! Right now! Too bad they can't just beat it out of him! But Tulkinghorn is chill. Finally Mr. George says he's going to go consult an old army buddy about what to do. He let's it slip that Hawdon is dead, which seems to get a teeny tiny reaction out of Tulkinghorn. Mr. George heads out to another part of London, to the house of the Bagnets. Matthew Bagnet is a bassoon player now and his wife is a super-competent, super-awesome woman who takes care of the house and kids and is generally the brains of the whole operation. All of them go way back, and Bagnet reminds George that it's his wife who gives the advice while pretending it's coming from himself. It sounds kind of condescending, but it's played for cuteness. Anyway, after dinner Mrs. Bagnet tells Mr. George to stay as far away as possible from Tulkinghorn and his shenanigans. He's psyched because this confirms his own feelings about the matter. They hang out all night, and as Mr. George watches the very perfect Bagnet family , he feels lonely and sad. Mr. George leaves and goes over to Tulkinghorn's office to give him a final no. When he gets there, he fumbles with the locked door, and Tulkinghorn comes out and yells at him about it. He also yells at him about hiding the fugitive Gridley earlier.

Tulkinghorn presents some papers to Mr. George and asks him to compare the handwriting with that of Captain Hawdon . George refuses to cooperate and does not even admit that he possesses any of Hawdon's writing. He says that he has no head for business and that he wants to seek advice from a friend before he has anything more to do with the matter. He then goes to seek counsel of a former military comrade, Matthew Bagnet, owner of a musician's shop. Matthew, in turn, consults his wife, a personable and sensible woman; her advice is that George should avoid all involvement with people who are "too deep" for him. George then goes back to Tulkinghorn and refuses to give the lawyer any assistance. Angry, Tulkinghorn says that he wants nothing to do with the man who harbored Gridley, a "threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow." A clerk, passing by, hears this phrase and mistakenly supposes it applies to George himself.

Readers are inclined to view George Rouncewell even more favorably now that he mistrusts and opposes the sinister Tulkinghorn and is a warm friend of the likable Bagnet family. Readers also sense that George's opposing the lawyer entails danger.

"More Old Soldiers than One" The group arrives at Lincoln's Inn Fields, where they visit Mr. Tulkinghorn. George sees that Sir Leicester Dedlock is one of Tulkinghorn's clients. Tulkinghorn explains to George that since George once served under Captain Hawdon and was a friend, he thought George might have some of Hawdon's handwriting. He will reward George for anything he provides. George seems troubled and says he wants nothing to do with any of this. Tulkinghorn refuses to explain why he wants the handwriting. George says he'll consult a soldier friend of his about the matter. Privately, Smallweed tells Tulkinghorn that he saw George slip some handwriting into his pocket. George visits Mr. and Mrs. Bagnet in their musical instrument shop. He greets their two daughters, Quebec and Malta, and asks after their son, Woolwich. When Mr. Bagnet comes home, they all have dinner. Later, George tells the Bagnets what's going on. They tell him to have nothing to do with it. On his way home, George stops at Tulkinghorn's and says that he hasn't changed his mind. Tulkinghorn asks George if Gridley was found in his shooting gallery, and George says yes. Tulkinghorn declares that Gridley was "threatening, murderous, dangerous. A clerk who is coming up the stairs hears Tulkinghorn and, seeing George walk down the stairs, thinks the words are being directed at him

Smallweed is carried into Tulkinghorn's chamber alongside Mr. George. Mr. George sees a box of papers labeled "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet" and he remarks, "Chesney Wold." Smallweed tells him Tulkinghorn is very rich. Tulkinghorn grills Mr. George about his military service under Captain Hawdon and tells him he will pay for a letter of his. Though George has one on him, he says he doesn't know unless he understands what it's for. Tulkinghorn won't say, so George doesn't give it to him. Smallweed is furious, but Tulkinghorn plays it cool. When George says Hawdon is dead, Tulkinghorn questions it. George leaves Tulkinghorn's for his friends, the Bagnets near Blackfriars Bridge, who own a music shop. They are old army friends. Mr. Bagnet says that George will have to consult Mrs. Bagnet on any important matter, because that's what he does. She is the brains of the family and figured out how to get him out of the army and into his first love, music. George plays with the children and then asks advice of Mrs. Bagnet about the Hawdon letter. She tells him not to be a party to something he doesn't understand. George returns to Tulkinghorn and tells him no, and Tulkinghorn slams the door in his face because he has found out he sheltered Gridley.

Commentary on Chapter XXVII Mr. George is a simple and honest man. He doesn't know anything about legal procedures. Tulkinghorn tries his best legal manner to get the piece of evidence he needs from George, but George goes by his instincts. He keeps saying he feels "smothered" in the presence of Smallweed and Tulkinghorn. Then he goes to Mrs. Bagnet who confirms his action by telling him the principle, "do nothing in the dark" or "put foot where cannot see the ground" . The Bagnets give the narrator a chance to contrast all the nasty business in London with the only center of light in England for the author--family love. This family, like the Snagsbys, and Jellybys, is run by the woman, but she has sense, and the husband appreciates her. Mrs. Bagnet uses her brains for her family, however, not like Mrs. Jellyby who uses her talents for the natives in some other country, while her own family goes down through neglect.