The Smallweed Family

In a rather ill-favoured and ill-savoured neighbourhood, though one
of its rising grounds bears the name of Mount Pleasant, the Elfin
Smallweed, christened Bartholomew and known on the domestic hearth as
Bart, passes that limited portion of his time on which the office and
its contingencies have no claim. He dwells in a little narrow street,
always solitary, shady, and sad, closely bricked in on all sides like
a tomb, but where there yet lingers the stump of an old forest tree
whose flavour is about as fresh and natural as the Smallweed smack of
youth.

There has been only one child in the Smallweed family for several
generations. Little old men and women there have been, but no child,
until Mr. Smallweed's grandmother, now living, became weak in her
intellect and fell (for the first time) into a childish state. With
such infantine graces as a total want of observation, memory,
understanding, and interest, and an eternal disposition to fall
asleep over the fire and into it, Mr. Smallweed's grandmother has
undoubtedly brightened the family.

Mr. Smallweed's grandfather is likewise of the party. He is in a
helpless condition as to his lower, and nearly so as to his upper,
limbs, but his mind is unimpaired. It holds, as well as it ever held,
the first four rules of arithmetic and a certain small collection of
the hardest facts. In respect of ideality, reverence, wonder, and
other such phrenological attributes, it is no worse off than it used
to be. Everything that Mr. Smallweed's grandfather ever put away in
his mind was a grub at first, and is a grub at last. In all his life
he has never bred a single butterfly.

The father of this pleasant grandfather, of the neighbourhood of
Mount Pleasant, was a horny-skinned, two-legged, money-getting
species of spider who spun webs to catch unwary flies and retired
into holes until they were entrapped. The name of this old pagan's
god was Compound Interest. He lived for it, married it, died of it.
Meeting with a heavy loss in an honest little enterprise in which all
the loss was intended to have been on the other side, he broke
something--something necessary to his existence, therefore it
couldn't have been his heart--and made an end of his career. As his
character was not good, and he had been bred at a charity school in a
complete course, according to question and answer, of those ancient
people the Amorites and Hittites, he was frequently quoted as an
example of the failure of education.

His spirit shone through his son, to whom he had always preached of
"going out" early in life and whom he made a clerk in a sharp
scrivener's office at twelve years old. There the young gentleman
improved his mind, which was of a lean and anxious character, and
developing the family gifts, gradually elevated himself into the
discounting profession. Going out early in life and marrying late, as
his father had done before him, he too begat a lean and
anxious-minded son, who in his turn, going out early in life and
marrying late, became the father of Bartholomew and Judith Smallweed,
twins. During the whole time consumed in the slow growth of this
family tree, the house of Smallweed, always early to go out and late
to marry, has strengthened itself in its practical character, has
discarded all amusements, discountenanced all story-books,
fairy-tales, fictions, and fables, and banished all levities
whatsoever. Hence the gratifying fact that it has had no child born
to it and that the complete little men and women whom it has produced
have been observed to bear a likeness to old monkeys with something
depressing on their minds.

At the present time, in the dark little parlour certain feet below
the level of the street--a grim, hard, uncouth parlour, only
ornamented with the coarsest of baize table-covers, and the hardest
of sheet-iron tea-trays, and offering in its decorative character no
bad allegorical representation of Grandfather Smallweed's
mind--seated in two black horsehair porter's chairs, one on each side
of the fire-place, the superannuated Mr. and Mrs. Smallweed while
away the rosy hours. On the stove are a couple of trivets for the
pots and kettles which it is Grandfather Smallweed's usual occupation
to watch, and projecting from the chimney-piece between them is a
sort of brass gallows for roasting, which he also superintends when
it is in action. Under the venerable Mr. Smallweed's seat and guarded
by his spindle legs is a drawer in his chair, reported to contain
property to a fabulous amount. Beside him is a spare cushion with
which he is always provided in order that he may have something to
throw at the venerable partner of his respected age whenever she
makes an allusion to money--a subject on which he is particularly
sensitive.

"And where's Bart?" Grandfather Smallweed inquires of Judy, Bart's
twin sister.

"He an't come in yet," says Judy.

"It's his tea-time, isn't it?"

"No."

"How much do you mean to say it wants then?"

"Ten minutes."

"Hey?"

"Ten minutes." (Loud on the part of Judy.)

"Ho!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "Ten minutes."

Grandmother Smallweed, who has been mumbling and shaking her head at
the trivets, hearing figures mentioned, connects them with money and
screeches like a horrible old parrot without any plumage, "Ten
ten-pound notes!"

Grandfather Smallweed immediately throws the cushion at her.

"Drat you, be quiet!" says the good old man.

The effect of this act of jaculation is twofold. It not only doubles
up Mrs. Smallweed's head against the side of her porter's chair and
causes her to present, when extricated by her granddaughter, a highly
unbecoming state of cap, but the necessary exertion recoils on Mr.
Smallweed himself, whom it throws back into HIS porter's chair like a
broken puppet. The excellent old gentleman being at these times a
mere clothes-bag with a black skull-cap on the top of it, does not
present a very animated appearance until he has undergone the two
operations at the hands of his granddaughter of being shaken up like
a great bottle and poked and punched like a great bolster. Some
indication of a neck being developed in him by these means, he and
the sharer of his life's evening again fronting one another in their
two porter's chairs, like a couple of sentinels long forgotten on
their post by the Black Serjeant, Death.

Judy the twin is worthy company for these associates. She is so
indubitably sister to Mr. Smallweed the younger that the two kneaded
into one would hardly make a young person of average proportions,
while she so happily exemplifies the before-mentioned family likeness
to the monkey tribe that attired in a spangled robe and cap she might
walk about the table-land on the top of a barrel-organ without
exciting much remark as an unusual specimen. Under existing
circumstances, however, she is dressed in a plain, spare gown of
brown stuff.

Judy never owned a doll, never heard of Cinderella, never played at
any game. She once or twice fell into children's company when she was
about ten years old, but the children couldn't get on with Judy, and
Judy couldn't get on with them. She seemed like an animal of another
species, and there was instinctive repugnance on both sides. It is
very doubtful whether Judy knows how to laugh. She has so rarely seen
the thing done that the probabilities are strong the other way. Of
anything like a youthful laugh, she certainly can have no conception.
If she were to try one, she would find her teeth in her way,
modelling that action of her face, as she has unconsciously modelled
all its other expressions, on her pattern of sordid age. Such is
Judy.

And her twin brother couldn't wind up a top for his life. He knows no
more of Jack the Giant Killer or of Sinbad the Sailor than he knows
of the people in the stars. He could as soon play at leap-frog or at
cricket as change into a cricket or a frog himself. But he is so much
the better off than his sister that on his narrow world of fact an
opening has dawned into such broader regions as lie within the ken of
Mr. Guppy. Hence his admiration and his emulation of that shining
enchanter.

Judy, with a gong-like clash and clatter, sets one of the sheet-iron
tea-trays on the table and arranges cups and saucers. The bread she
puts on in an iron basket, and the butter (and not much of it) in a
small pewter plate. Grandfather Smallweed looks hard after the tea as
it is served out and asks Judy where the girl is.

"Charley, do you mean?" says Judy.

"Hey?" from Grandfather Smallweed.

"Charley, do you mean?"

This touches a spring in Grandmother Smallweed, who, chuckling as
usual at the trivets, cries, "Over the water! Charley over the water,
Charley over the water, over the water to Charley, Charley over the
water, over the water to Charley!" and becomes quite energetic about
it. Grandfather looks at the cushion but has not sufficiently
recovered his late exertion.

"Ha!" he says when there is silence. "If that's her name. She eats a
deal. It would be better to allow her for her keep."

Judy, with her brother's wink, shakes her head and purses up her
mouth into no without saying it.

"No?" returns the old man. "Why not?"

"She'd want sixpence a day, and we can do it for less," says Judy.

"Sure?"

Judy answers with a nod of deepest meaning and calls, as she scrapes
the butter on the loaf with every precaution against waste and cuts
it into slices, "You, Charley, where are you?" Timidly obedient to
the summons, a little girl in a rough apron and a large bonnet, with
her hands covered with soap and water and a scrubbing brush in one of
them, appears, and curtsys.

"What work are you about now?" says Judy, making an ancient snap at
her like a very sharp old beldame.

"I'm a-cleaning the upstairs back room, miss," replies Charley.

"Mind you do it thoroughly, and don't loiter. Shirking won't do for
me. Make haste! Go along!" cries Judy with a stamp upon the ground.
"You girls are more trouble than you're worth, by half."

On this severe matron, as she returns to her task of scraping the
butter and cutting the bread, falls the shadow of her brother,
looking in at the window. For whom, knife and loaf in hand, she opens
the street-door.

"Aye, aye, Bart!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "Here you are, hey?"

"Here I am," says Bart.

"Been along with your friend again, Bart?"

Small nods.

"Dining at his expense, Bart?"

Small nods again.

"That's right. Live at his expense as much as you can, and take
warning by his foolish example. That's the use of such a friend. The
only use you can put him to," says the venerable sage.

His grandson, without receiving this good counsel as dutifully as he
might, honours it with all such acceptance as may lie in a slight
wink and a nod and takes a chair at the tea-table. The four old faces
then hover over teacups like a company of ghastly cherubim, Mrs.
Smallweed perpetually twitching her head and chattering at the
trivets and Mr. Smallweed requiring to be repeatedly shaken up like a
large black draught.

"Yes, yes," says the good old gentleman, reverting to his lesson of
wisdom. "That's such advice as your father would have given you,
Bart. You never saw your father. More's the pity. He was my true
son." Whether it is intended to be conveyed that he was particularly
pleasant to look at, on that account, does not appear.

"He was my true son," repeats the old gentleman, folding his bread
and butter on his knee, "a good accountant, and died fifteen years
ago."

Mrs. Smallweed, following her usual instinct, breaks out with
"Fifteen hundred pound. Fifteen hundred pound in a black box, fifteen
hundred pound locked up, fifteen hundred pound put away and hid!" Her
worthy husband, setting aside his bread and butter, immediately
discharges the cushion at her, crushes her against the side of her
chair, and falls back in his own, overpowered. His appearance, after
visiting Mrs. Smallweed with one of these admonitions, is
particularly impressive and not wholly prepossessing, firstly because
the exertion generally twists his black skull-cap over one eye and
gives him an air of goblin rakishness, secondly because he mutters
violent imprecations against Mrs. Smallweed, and thirdly because the
contrast between those powerful expressions and his powerless figure
is suggestive of a baleful old malignant who would be very wicked if
he could. All this, however, is so common in the Smallweed family
circle that it produces no impression. The old gentleman is merely
shaken and has his internal feathers beaten up, the cushion is
restored to its usual place beside him, and the old lady, perhaps
with her cap adjusted and perhaps not, is planted in her chair again,
ready to be bowled down like a ninepin.

Some time elapses in the present instance before the old gentleman is
sufficiently cool to resume his discourse, and even then he mixes it
up with several edifying expletives addressed to the unconscious
partner of his bosom, who holds communication with nothing on earth
but the trivets. As thus: "If your father, Bart, had lived longer, he
might have been worth a deal of money--you brimstone chatterer!--but
just as he was beginning to build up the house that he had been
making the foundations for, through many a year--you jade of a
magpie, jackdaw, and poll-parrot, what do you mean!--he took ill and
died of a low fever, always being a sparing and a spare man, full of
business care--I should like to throw a cat at you instead of a
cushion, and I will too if you make such a confounded fool of
yourself!--and your mother, who was a prudent woman as dry as a chip,
just dwindled away like touchwood after you and Judy were born--you
are an old pig. You are a brimstone pig. You're a head of swine!"

Judy, not interested in what she has often heard, begins to collect
in a basin various tributary streams of tea, from the bottoms of cups
and saucers and from the bottom of the tea-pot for the little
charwoman's evening meal. In like manner she gets together, in the
iron bread-basket, as many outside fragments and worn-down heels of
loaves as the rigid economy of the house has left in existence.

"But your father and me were partners, Bart," says the old gentleman,
"and when I am gone, you and Judy will have all there is. It's rare
for you both that you went out early in life--Judy to the flower
business, and you to the law. You won't want to spend it. You'll get
your living without it, and put more to it. When I am gone, Judy will
go back to the flower business and you'll still stick to the law."

One might infer from Judy's appearance that her business rather lay
with the thorns than the flowers, but she has in her time been
apprenticed to the art and mystery of artificial flower-making. A
close observer might perhaps detect both in her eye and her
brother's, when their venerable grandsire anticipates his being gone,
some little impatience to know when he may be going, and some
resentful opinion that it is time he went.

"Now, if everybody has done," says Judy, completing her preparations,
"I'll have that girl in to her tea. She would never leave off if she
took it by herself in the kitchen."

Charley is accordingly introduced, and under a heavy fire of eyes,
sits down to her basin and a Druidical ruin of bread and butter. In
the active superintendence of this young person, Judy Smallweed
appears to attain a perfectly geological age and to date from the
remotest periods. Her systematic manner of flying at her and pouncing
on her, with or without pretence, whether or no, is wonderful,
evincing an accomplishment in the art of girl-driving seldom reached
by the oldest practitioners.

"Now, don't stare about you all the afternoon," cries Judy, shaking
her head and stamping her foot as she happens to catch the glance
which has been previously sounding the basin of tea, "but take your
victuals and get back to your work."

"Yes, miss," says Charley.

"Don't say yes," returns Miss Smallweed, "for I know what you girls
are. Do it without saying it, and then I may begin to believe you."

Charley swallows a great gulp of tea in token of submission and so
disperses the Druidical ruins that Miss Smallweed charges her not to
gormandize, which "in you girls," she observes, is disgusting.
Charley might find some more difficulty in meeting her views on the
general subject of girls but for a knock at the door.

"See who it is, and don't chew when you open it!" cries Judy.

The object of her attentions withdrawing for the purpose, Miss
Smallweed takes that opportunity of jumbling the remainder of the
bread and butter together and launching two or three dirty tea-cups
into the ebb-tide of the basin of tea as a hint that she considers
the eating and drinking terminated.

"Now! Who is it, and what's wanted?" says the snappish Judy.

It is one Mr. George, it appears. Without other announcement or
ceremony, Mr. George walks in.

"Whew!" says Mr. George. "You are hot here. Always a fire, eh? Well!
Perhaps you do right to get used to one." Mr. George makes the latter
remark to himself as he nods to Grandfather Smallweed.

"Ho! It's you!" cries the old gentleman. "How de do? How de do?"

"Middling," replies Mr. George, taking a chair. "Your granddaughter I
have had the honour of seeing before; my service to you, miss."

"This is my grandson," says Grandfather Smallweed. "You ha'n't seen
him before. He is in the law and not much at home."

"My service to him, too! He is like his sister. He is very like his
sister. He is devilish like his sister," says Mr. George, laying a
great and not altogether complimentary stress on his last adjective.

"And how does the world use you, Mr. George?" Grandfather Smallweed
inquires, slowly rubbing his legs.

"Pretty much as usual. Like a football."

He is a swarthy brown man of fifty, well made, and good looking, with
crisp dark hair, bright eyes, and a broad chest. His sinewy and
powerful hands, as sunburnt as his face, have evidently been used to
a pretty rough life. What is curious about him is that he sits
forward on his chair as if he were, from long habit, allowing space
for some dress or accoutrements that he has altogether laid aside.
His step too is measured and heavy and would go well with a weighty
clash and jingle of spurs. He is close-shaved now, but his mouth is
set as if his upper lip had been for years familiar with a great
moustache; and his manner of occasionally laying the open palm of his
broad brown hand upon it is to the same effect. Altogether one might
guess Mr. George to have been a trooper once upon a time.

A special contrast Mr. George makes to the Smallweed family. Trooper
was never yet billeted upon a household more unlike him. It is a
broadsword to an oyster-knife. His developed figure and their stunted
forms, his large manner filling any amount of room and their little
narrow pinched ways, his sounding voice and their sharp spare tones,
are in the strongest and the strangest opposition. As he sits in the
middle of the grim parlour, leaning a little forward, with his hands
upon his thighs and his elbows squared, he looks as though, if he
remained there long, he would absorb into himself the whole family
and the whole four-roomed house, extra little back-kitchen and all.

"Do you rub your legs to rub life into 'em?" he asks of Grandfather
Smallweed after looking round the room.

"Why, it's partly a habit, Mr. George, and--yes--it partly helps the
circulation," he replies.

"The cir-cu-la-tion!" repeats Mr. George, folding his arms upon his
chest and seeming to become two sizes larger. "Not much of that, I
should think."

"Truly I'm old, Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed. "But I can
carry my years. I'm older than HER," nodding at his wife, "and see
what she is? You're a brimstone chatterer!" with a sudden revival of
his late hostility.

"Unlucky old soul!" says Mr. George, turning his head in that
direction. "Don't scold the old lady. Look at her here, with her poor
cap half off her head and her poor hair all in a muddle. Hold up,
ma'am. That's better. There we are! Think of your mother, Mr.
Smallweed," says Mr. George, coming back to his seat from assisting
her, "if your wife an't enough."

"I suppose you were an excellent son, Mr. George?" the old man hints
with a leer.

The colour of Mr. George's face rather deepens as he replies, "Why
no. I wasn't."

"I am astonished at it."

"So am I. I ought to have been a good son, and I think I meant to
have been one. But I wasn't. I was a thundering bad son, that's the
long and the short of it, and never was a credit to anybody."

"Surprising!" cries the old man.

"However," Mr. George resumes, "the less said about it, the better
now. Come! You know the agreement. Always a pipe out of the two
months' interest! (Bosh! It's all correct. You needn't be afraid to
order the pipe. Here's the new bill, and here's the two months'
interest-money, and a devil-and-all of a scrape it is to get it
together in my business.)"

Mr. George sits, with his arms folded, consuming the family and the
parlour while Grandfather Smallweed is assisted by Judy to two black
leathern cases out of a locked bureau, in one of which he secures the
document he has just received, and from the other takes another
similar document which he hands to Mr. George, who twists it up for a
pipelight. As the old man inspects, through his glasses, every
up-stroke and down-stroke of both documents before he releases them
from their leathern prison, and as he counts the money three times
over and requires Judy to say every word she utters at least twice,
and is as tremulously slow of speech and action as it is possible to
be, this business is a long time in progress. When it is quite
concluded, and not before, he disengages his ravenous eyes and
fingers from it and answers Mr. George's last remark by saying,
"Afraid to order the pipe? We are not so mercenary as that, sir.
Judy, see directly to the pipe and the glass of cold brandy-and-water
for Mr. George."

The sportive twins, who have been looking straight before them all
this time except when they have been engrossed by the black leathern
cases, retire together, generally disdainful of the visitor, but
leaving him to the old man as two young cubs might leave a traveller
to the parental bear.

"And there you sit, I suppose, all the day long, eh?" says Mr. George
with folded arms.

"Just so, just so," the old man nods.

"And don't you occupy yourself at all?"

"I watch the fire--and the boiling and the roasting--"

"When there is any," says Mr. George with great expression.

"Just so. When there is any."

"Don't you read or get read to?"

The old man shakes his head with sharp sly triumph. "No, no. We have
never been readers in our family. It don't pay. Stuff. Idleness.
Folly. No, no!"

"There's not much to choose between your two states," says the
visitor in a key too low for the old man's dull hearing as he looks
from him to the old woman and back again. "I say!" in a louder voice.

"I hear you."

"You'll sell me up at last, I suppose, when I am a day in arrear."

"My dear friend!" cries Grandfather Smallweed, stretching out both
hands to embrace him. "Never! Never, my dear friend! But my friend in
the city that I got to lend you the money--HE might!"

"Oh! You can't answer for him?" says Mr. George, finishing the
inquiry in his lower key with the words "You lying old rascal!"

"My dear friend, he is not to be depended on. I wouldn't trust him.
He will have his bond, my dear friend."

"Devil doubt him," says Mr. George. Charley appearing with a
tray, on which are the pipe, a small paper of tobacco, and the
brandy-and-water, he asks her, "How do you come here! You haven't got
the family face."

"I goes out to work, sir," returns Charley.

The trooper (if trooper he be or have been) takes her bonnet off,
with a light touch for so strong a hand, and pats her on the head.
"You give the house almost a wholesome look. It wants a bit of youth
as much as it wants fresh air." Then he dismisses her, lights his
pipe, and drinks to Mr. Smallweed's friend in the city--the one
solitary flight of that esteemed old gentleman's imagination.

"So you think he might be hard upon me, eh?"

"I think he might--I am afraid he would. I have known him do it,"
says Grandfather Smallweed incautiously, "twenty times."

Incautiously, because his stricken better-half, who has been dozing
over the fire for some time, is instantly aroused and jabbers "Twenty
thousand pounds, twenty twenty-pound notes in a money-box, twenty
guineas, twenty million twenty per cent, twenty--" and is then cut
short by the flying cushion, which the visitor, to whom this singular
experiment appears to be a novelty, snatches from her face as it
crushes her in the usual manner.

"You're a brimstone idiot. You're a scorpion--a brimstone scorpion!
You're a sweltering toad. You're a chattering clattering broomstick
witch that ought to be burnt!" gasps the old man, prostrate in his
chair. "My dear friend, will you shake me up a little?"

Mr. George, who has been looking first at one of them and then at the
other, as if he were demented, takes his venerable acquaintance by
the throat on receiving this request, and dragging him upright in his
chair as easily as if he were a doll, appears in two minds whether or
no to shake all future power of cushioning out of him and shake him
into his grave. Resisting the temptation, but agitating him violently
enough to make his head roll like a harlequin's, he puts him smartly
down in his chair again and adjusts his skull-cap with such a rub
that the old man winks with both eyes for a minute afterwards.

"O Lord!" gasps Mr. Smallweed. "That'll do. Thank you, my dear
friend, that'll do. Oh, dear me, I'm out of breath. O Lord!" And Mr.
Smallweed says it not without evident apprehensions of his dear
friend, who still stands over him looming larger than ever.

The alarming presence, however, gradually subsides into its chair and
falls to smoking in long puffs, consoling itself with the
philosophical reflection, "The name of your friend in the city begins
with a D, comrade, and you're about right respecting the bond."

"Did you speak, Mr. George?" inquires the old man.

The trooper shakes his head, and leaning forward with his right elbow
on his right knee and his pipe supported in that hand, while his
other hand, resting on his left leg, squares his left elbow in a
martial manner, continues to smoke. Meanwhile he looks at Mr.
Smallweed with grave attention and now and then fans the cloud of
smoke away in order that he may see him the more clearly.

"I take it," he says, making just as much and as little change in his
position as will enable him to reach the glass to his lips with a
round, full action, "that I am the only man alive (or dead either)
that gets the value of a pipe out of YOU?"

"Well," returns the old man, "it's true that I don't see company, Mr.
George, and that I don't treat. I can't afford to it. But as you, in
your pleasant way, made your pipe a condition--"

"Why, it's not for the value of it; that's no great thing. It was a
fancy to get it out of you. To have something in for my money."

"Ha! You're prudent, prudent, sir!" cries Grandfather Smallweed,
rubbing his legs.

"Very. I always was." Puff. "It's a sure sign of my prudence that I
ever found the way here." Puff. "Also, that I am what I am." Puff. "I
am well known to be prudent," says Mr. George, composedly smoking. "I
rose in life that way."

"Don't be down-hearted, sir. You may rise yet."

Mr. George laughs and drinks.

"Ha'n't you no relations, now," asks Grandfather Smallweed with a
twinkle in his eyes, "who would pay off this little principal or who
would lend you a good name or two that I could persuade my friend in
the city to make you a further advance upon? Two good names would be
sufficient for my friend in the city. Ha'n't you no such relations,
Mr. George?"

Mr. George, still composedly smoking, replies, "If I had, I shouldn't
trouble them. I have been trouble enough to my belongings in my day.
It MAY be a very good sort of penitence in a vagabond, who has wasted
the best time of his life, to go back then to decent people that he
never was a credit to and live upon them, but it's not my sort. The
best kind of amends then for having gone away is to keep away, in my
opinion."

"But natural affection, Mr. George," hints Grandfather Smallweed.

"For two good names, hey?" says Mr. George, shaking his head and
still composedly smoking. "No. That's not my sort either."

Grandfather Smallweed has been gradually sliding down in his chair
since his last adjustment and is now a bundle of clothes with a voice
in it calling for Judy. That houri, appearing, shakes him up in the
usual manner and is charged by the old gentleman to remain near him.
For he seems chary of putting his visitor to the trouble of repeating
his late attentions.

"Ha!" he observes when he is in trim again. "If you could have traced
out the captain, Mr. George, it would have been the making of you. If
when you first came here, in consequence of our advertisement in the
newspapers--when I say 'our,' I'm alluding to the advertisements of
my friend in the city, and one or two others who embark their capital
in the same way, and are so friendly towards me as sometimes to give
me a lift with my little pittance--if at that time you could have
helped us, Mr. George, it would have been the making of you."

"I was willing enough to be 'made,' as you call it," says Mr. George,
smoking not quite so placidly as before, for since the entrance of
Judy he has been in some measure disturbed by a fascination, not of
the admiring kind, which obliges him to look at her as she stands by
her grandfather's chair, "but on the whole, I am glad I wasn't now."

"Why, Mr. George? In the name of--of brimstone, why?" says
Grandfather Smallweed with a plain appearance of exasperation.
(Brimstone apparently suggested by his eye lighting on Mrs. Smallweed
in her slumber.)

"For two reasons, comrade."

"And what two reasons, Mr. George? In the name of the--"

"Of our friend in the city?" suggests Mr. George, composedly
drinking.

"Aye, if you like. What two reasons?"

"In the first place," returns Mr. George, but still looking at Judy
as if she being so old and so like her grandfather it is indifferent
which of the two he addresses, "you gentlemen took me in. You
advertised that Mr. Hawdon (Captain Hawdon, if you hold to the saying
'Once a captain, always a captain') was to hear of something to his
advantage."

"Well?" returns the old man shrilly and sharply.

"Well!" says Mr. George, smoking on. "It wouldn't have been much to
his advantage to have been clapped into prison by the whole bill and
judgment trade of London."

"How do you know that? Some of his rich relations might have paid his
debts or compounded for 'em. Besides, he had taken US in. He owed us
immense sums all round. I would sooner have strangled him than had no
return. If I sit here thinking of him," snarls the old man, holding
up his impotent ten fingers, "I want to strangle him now." And in a
sudden access of fury, he throws the cushion at the unoffending Mrs.
Smallweed, but it passes harmlessly on one side of her chair.

"I don't need to be told," returns the trooper, taking his pipe from
his lips for a moment and carrying his eyes back from following the
progress of the cushion to the pipe-bowl which is burning low, "that
he carried on heavily and went to ruin. I have been at his right hand
many a day when he was charging upon ruin full-gallop. I was with him
when he was sick and well, rich and poor. I laid this hand upon him
after he had run through everything and broken down everything
beneath him--when he held a pistol to his head."

"I wish he had let it off," says the benevolent old man, "and blown
his head into as many pieces as he owed pounds!"

"That would have been a smash indeed," returns the trooper coolly;
"any way, he had been young, hopeful, and handsome in the days gone
by, and I am glad I never found him, when he was neither, to lead to
a result so much to his advantage. That's reason number one."

"I hope number two's as good?" snarls the old man.

"Why, no. It's more of a selfish reason. If I had found him, I must
have gone to the other world to look. He was there."

"How do you know he was there?"

"He wasn't here."

"How do you know he wasn't here?"

"Don't lose your temper as well as your money," says Mr. George,
calmly knocking the ashes out of his pipe. "He was drowned long
before. I am convinced of it. He went over a ship's side. Whether
intentionally or accidentally, I don't know. Perhaps your friend in
the city does. Do you know what that tune is, Mr. Smallweed?" he adds
after breaking off to whistle one, accompanied on the table with the
empty pipe.

"Tune!" replied the old man. "No. We never have tunes here."

"That's the Dead March in Saul. They bury soldiers to it,
so it's the natural end of the subject. Now, if your pretty
granddaughter--excuse me, miss--will condescend to take care of this
pipe for two months, we shall save the cost of one next time. Good
evening, Mr. Smallweed!"

"My dear friend!" the old man gives him both his hands.

"So you think your friend in the city will be hard upon me if I fall
in a payment?" says the trooper, looking down upon him like a giant.

"My dear friend, I am afraid he will," returns the old man, looking
up at him like a pygmy.

Mr. George laughs, and with a glance at Mr. Smallweed and a parting
salutation to the scornful Judy, strides out of the parlour, clashing
imaginary sabres and other metallic appurtenances as he goes.

"You're a damned rogue," says the old gentleman, making a hideous
grimace at the door as he shuts it. "But I'll lime you, you dog, I'll
lime you!"

After this amiable remark, his spirit soars into those enchanting
regions of reflection which its education and pursuits have opened to
it, and again he and Mrs. Smallweed while away the rosy hours, two
unrelieved sentinels forgotten as aforesaid by the Black Serjeant.

While the twain are faithful to their post, Mr. George strides
through the streets with a massive kind of swagger and a grave-enough
face. It is eight o'clock now, and the day is fast drawing in. He
stops hard by Waterloo Bridge and reads a playbill, decides to go to
Astley's Theatre. Being there, is much delighted with the horses and
the feats of strength; looks at the weapons with a critical eye;
disapproves of the combats as giving evidences of unskilful
swordsmanship; but is touched home by the sentiments. In the last
scene, when the Emperor of Tartary gets up into a cart and
condescends to bless the united lovers by hovering over them with the
Union Jack, his eyelashes are moistened with emotion.

The theatre over, Mr. George comes across the water again and makes
his way to that curious region lying about the Haymarket and
Leicester Square which is a centre of attraction to indifferent
foreign hotels and indifferent foreigners, racket-courts,
fighting-men, swordsmen, footguards, old china, gaming-houses,
exhibitions, and a large medley of shabbiness and shrinking out of
sight. Penetrating to the heart of this region, he arrives by a court
and a long whitewashed passage at a great brick building composed of
bare walls, floors, roof-rafters, and skylights, on the front of
which, if it can be said to have any front, is painted GEORGE'S
SHOOTING GALLERY, &c.

Into George's Shooting Gallery, &c., he goes; and in it there are
gaslights (partly turned off now), and two whitened targets for
rifle-shooting, and archery accommodation, and fencing appliances,
and all necessaries for the British art of boxing. None of these
sports or exercises being pursued in George's Shooting Gallery
to-night, which is so devoid of company that a little grotesque man
with a large head has it all to himself and lies asleep upon the
floor.

The little man is dressed something like a gunsmith, in a green-baize
apron and cap; and his face and hands are dirty with gunpowder and
begrimed with the loading of guns. As he lies in the light before a
glaring white target, the black upon him shines again. Not far off is
the strong, rough, primitive table with a vice upon it at which he
has been working. He is a little man with a face all crushed
together, who appears, from a certain blue and speckled appearance
that one of his cheeks presents, to have been blown up, in the way of
business, at some odd time or times.

"Phil!" says the trooper in a quiet voice.

"All right!" cries Phil, scrambling to his feet.

"Anything been doing?"

"Flat as ever so much swipes," says Phil. "Five dozen rifle and a
dozen pistol. As to aim!" Phil gives a howl at the recollection.

"Shut up shop, Phil!"

As Phil moves about to execute this order, it appears that he is
lame, though able to move very quickly. On the speckled side of his
face he has no eyebrow, and on the other side he has a bushy black
one, which want of uniformity gives him a very singular and rather
sinister appearance. Everything seems to have happened to his hands
that could possibly take place consistently with the retention of all
the fingers, for they are notched, and seamed, and crumpled all over.
He appears to be very strong and lifts heavy benches about as if he
had no idea what weight was. He has a curious way of limping round
the gallery with his shoulder against the wall and tacking off at
objects he wants to lay hold of instead of going straight to them,
which has left a smear all round the four walls, conventionally
called "Phil's mark."

This custodian of George's Gallery in George's absence concludes his
proceedings, when he has locked the great doors and turned out all
the lights but one, which he leaves to glimmer, by dragging out from
a wooden cabin in a corner two mattresses and bedding. These being
drawn to opposite ends of the gallery, the trooper makes his own bed
and Phil makes his.

"Phil!" says the master, walking towards him without his coat and
waistcoat, and looking more soldierly than ever in his braces. "You
were found in a doorway, weren't you?"

"Gutter," says Phil. "Watchman tumbled over me."

"Then vagabondizing came natural to YOU from the beginning."

"As nat'ral as possible," says Phil.

"Good night!"

"Good night, guv'ner."

Phil cannot even go straight to bed, but finds it necessary to
shoulder round two sides of the gallery and then tack off at his
mattress. The trooper, after taking a turn or two in the
rifle-distance and looking up at the moon now shining through the
skylights, strides to his own mattress by a shorter route and goes to
bed too.

OK, so Young Smallweed actually has a first name - Bart. Other members of the Smallweed family are Bart's grandmother, Mrs. Smallweed, who is very old, half-crazy and half-senile; Bart's grandfather, Mr. Smallweed, who is paralyzed from the waist down and is a greedy, grubby, cheapskate moneylender who hates everyone; and Judy, Bart's twin sister, who is also 15 going on 40, really hideous and nasty, and has never learned how to laugh. Every time Mr. Smallweed says a number, Mrs. Smallweed starts crazily yelling about money. Then Mr. Smallweed throws a cushion at her to make her stop yelling, which makes him fall over. Then Judy needs to plump him back up to a sitting position, like a pillow. Sounds like the coolest family, right? Also, apparently all of them were raised on the same no-fairy-tales, no-imagination educational model that Mr. Gradgrind favors in Dickens's Hard Times. Charley Neckett, the recently orphaned girl who "goes out to work," does housework for them in exchange for pay and a little bit of food. They scheme about how to get her to eat less food, and Judy domineers over her. Bart comes home from lunch with Jobling and Guppy, and Mr. Smallweed compliments him for not paying for his part of lunch. Mr. Smallweed has a visitor, Mr. George, who is a large man who obviously used to be in the army based on the way he carries himself. The next time Mr. Smallweed throws the cushion at his wife, Mr. George intervenes. Smallweed laughs and asks if she reminds him of his own mother. Mr. George reveals that he actually has not been a good son, and that his solution has been to stay away from his family altogether. In any case, he is there to extend his debts for two months and pay the interest on them. Smallweed is clearly a little scared of him, but not so scared that he can't indirectly threaten him with being "sold up" if his payments are ever late. Talk to me, Shmoop. Well, back in the 19th century, credit was not as easily available as it is now - no credit cards, no easy mortgages, no nothing. If a person ever had to pay more than they had on hand, they'd have to take out a loan. And talk about predatory lending - there was no oversight on moneylenders, so they could charge whatever interest they wanted and they could also sell debts to other moneylenders. Presumably a nicer and more gentle lender would sell hard-to-collect debts to someone who would be less delicate - a leg-breaker, if you will. Imagine if your credit card company was suddenly able to transfer your debt to the mob, who then came after you to collect. So here Mr. George has borrowed from Smallweed and makes regular payments on the loan every two months. As long as he can scrape enough money together to make the payment, he's OK. But if he's ever late or doesn't have enough to pay, Smallweed will sell his debts to someone else. Anyhow. Smallweed tells Mr. George that his situation is of his own making. Basically, it's all because Mr. George wouldn't help Smallweed find an old army buddy of his - Captain Hawdon. Turns out Smallweed placed a false advertisement in the papers, asking Hawdon to come forward to "hear something to his advantage" , when he really wanted to track Hawdon down because of some outstanding debts. Mr. George sneers that he wouldn't rat out a friend. Plus, he adds, Hawdon is dead. Then Mr. George leaves, hangs around the city a little bit, then goes back to his place. Turns out he runs a kind of old-timey gym and shooting range, where he teaches boxing, archery, riflery, and fencing. There's no one taking lessons, though; the only person there is his assistant Phil. Phil has a bad leg, but quick, strong, and hard-working. After a quick chat, they go to sleep.

"The Smallweed Family" The narrator describes the home of Mr. Smallweed, whose first name is Bart. There have been no true children in the Smallweed family for several generations--all of the children act like adults. Only Mr. Smallweed's grandmother acts childlike because she is so old. His grandfather is old too, and even though his body is falling apart, his mind is active. The grandfather's father was obsessed with money, which he wound up losing. The family motto is to "go out early and marry late," and the grandfather became a clerk in a scrivener's office when he was twelve. His son is the father of Bart and his twin sister, Judy. There is no amusement in the Smallweed home. Grandfather Smallweed sits in a chair, a drawer under which is reported to hold a large fortune. He and Grandmother Smallweed bicker endlessly. Judy has never played with toys, and she doesn't know how to laugh. Bart also never engaged in childish pastimes. Judy calls for the maid, Charley, and reprimands her for no reason. Bart comes home, and Grandfather Smallweed praises him for having someone else pay for lunch. The two grandparents, Judy, and Bart have tea. Grandfather Smallweed discusses Bart and Judy's parents, who died a long time ago. Judy is slated to enter the flower business, and Bart is supposed to go into law with the money Grandfather Smallweed has saved. Both twins are impatient for their grandfather to die. Judy calls Charley and gives her some tea, then quickly sends her back to work. George arrives at the Smallweed home. He asks Grandfather Smallweed for a pipe, referring to an agreement they have--a pipe out of two months' interest. He gives Grandfather Smallweed the money, then he smokes the pipe. He asks if Grandfather Smallweed just sits there all day. Grandfather Smallweed says he hates reading. The two men discuss Grandfather Smallweed's friend in the city, who lent George some money. Grandfather Smallweed says he knows this friend will be hard on George if the money is not repaid. He then swears at Grandmother Smallweed and asks George to shake him out of it. George does so. Grandfather Smallweed asks if George has relatives who can help him pay off the loan, but he says he doesn't want to do that. Grandfather Smallweed says he regrets that George was not willing to be "made. Judy enters the room, and George seems fascinated by her. The two men then talk about a business opportunity from long ago that George never engaged in. George discusses Captain Hawdon, who never repaid money he owed to Grandfather Smallweed, wound up poor, and was perhaps intentionally drowned. George leaves the Smallweed home and goes to the theatre. He then goes to George's Shooting Gallery, &c. A little man wearing a green baize apron and cap is asleep on the floor. George calls his name--Phil--and wakes him up. Phil is lame, is missing one eyebrow, and has hands that are bruised and scarred. He shoots a couple of rounds, then goes to bed

Suicide appears in both chapter 21 and chapter 22 and, coupled with the reputed suicide of Tom Jarndyce that was discussed earlier in the novel, forms a dismal motif. In chapter 21, George discusses with Grandfather Smallweed an attempted suicide of a seemingly successful man and then his eventual death by not-quite-accidental drowning. George is using the story as a kind of justification for why he never let himself be "made" by another person. In chapter 22, Mr. Tulkinghorn remembers a friend much like himself who hanged himself when he decided life was too monotonous. Although neither George nor Mr. Tulkinghorn are themselves contemplating suicide, their invocations of it suggest that they are well aware of what can happen when seekers do not find what they are searching for, or when life loses its meaning. Echoes of Richard's complaint--that his work is too monotonous--are evident in the complaint of Mr. Tulkinghorn's unfortunate friend, adding to the suggestion that a life without passion and deep engagement ultimately becomes unbearable. Worlds collide violently in chapter 22, creating a sense of building tension, intrigue, and mystery in the story. The two women caring for a sick baby during Mrs. Pardiggle's charity visit reappear in this chapter, this time meeting with Mr. Bucket and Mr. Snagsby. Jenny reveals that her baby died, but now her friend, Liz, has a baby of her own. Lady Dedlock's French maid, Mademoiselle Hortense, surprisingly appears in Mr. Tulkinghorn's office, adding to the not-so-mysterious mystery of who the woman is that Jo took to the dead lodger's grave. And Jo, who is becoming an integral figure in the novel, seems to be the one common denominator among these different worlds, leading characters to one another and serving as the link between them. Although Jo makes the same claim again and again that he doesn't know anything, the fact that he seems to know everyone suggests that he's aware of much more than he lets on. Mr. Jarndyce's outburst regarding Richard's fixation on the Jarndyce and Jarndyce lawsuit in chapter 24 adds a significantly darker note to the already disturbing case. Richard has always casually referred to his certainty that the lawsuit will provide for him and Ada in the future, but Mr. Jarndyce and Esther usually dismiss his claims wearily. This time, however, Mr. Jarndyce cries that it is "better to borrow, better to beg, better to die" than look to the lawsuit to provide. The extremity of his claim, and his unusual show of passion, shocks Richard, Ada, and Esther. The lawsuit, with its tedious, endless proceedings, usually seems like a hum in the background in the story, a strange mystery that no one is in too much hurry to unravel. At this moment, however, the true danger and darkness of the suit break the surface. When Mr. Jarndyce orders Richard and Ada to dissolve their romantic relationship, in a way he may be trying to protect Ada from Richard's fervor over the suit.

The Smallweed Family Grandfather Smallweed, the moneylender, lives with his senile wife at whom he curses and throws cushions, and twin grandchildren, Bart and Judy. Bart is the young protege of Guppy at Kenge and Carboys, and Judy makes artificial flowers. Mr. Smallweed has made everyone worship "Compound Interest" . There is no amusement in this household. Smallweed himself is nothing but a bag of clothes and needs to be shaken up frequently like an old pillow by Judy. The little girl, Charley Neckett, is their housemaid, bullied by Judy. Mr. George, an old soldier, comes to borrow money, and Smallweed threatens him with selling his debt to "a friend in the city" if he is a day late with payment. George brings up the fact that they tricked his friend, Captain Hawdon. George runs a shooting gallery near Leicester Square.

Commentary on Chapter XXI The Smallweed family represent the parasitic moneylenders of London. They are compared to spiders who spin webs to catch flies. Mr. George refers to this when he is afraid that Smallweed will sell his contract to his "friend in the city" if he is late in payment. He hints that Smallweed had trapped his friend, Captain Hawdon. This fact, like other clues dropped, will lead to the fate of the nameless Nemo. The Smallweeds are grotesque "stunted" "old monkeys" that feed off the misery of others. They are part of the fringes of the whole legal system, and Mr. George is being dragged into the web. Perhaps a modern equivalent would be credit card scams, but this system was a bit more deadly, with constables like Mr. Neckett ready to arrest a debtor and throw him in prison. Once the debtor had signed the contract, he and his debt could be bought and sold, and he was no more than a slave. In this unwholesome house, Charley is the only "wholesome" influence , as Mr. George notices. Smallweed asks George if he was a good son, and he admits sadly he was not. This will make more sense when we learn that George's last name is Rouncewell, the housekeeper of Chesney Wold's onetime runaway son. The man is now fifty, but his mother still mourns his loss. Dickens weaves in all these half clues which become connected later, but it is easy to miss them in the wealth of characters and details.


Mr. Bucket

Allegory looks pretty cool in Lincoln's Inn Fields, though the
evening is hot, for both Mr. Tulkinghorn's windows are wide open, and
the room is lofty, gusty, and gloomy. These may not be desirable
characteristics when November comes with fog and sleet or January
with ice and snow, but they have their merits in the sultry long
vacation weather. They enable Allegory, though it has cheeks like
peaches, and knees like bunches of blossoms, and rosy swellings for
calves to its legs and muscles to its arms, to look tolerably cool
to-night.

Plenty of dust comes in at Mr. Tulkinghorn's windows, and plenty more
has generated among his furniture and papers. It lies thick
everywhere. When a breeze from the country that has lost its way
takes fright and makes a blind hurry to rush out again, it flings as
much dust in the eyes of Allegory as the law--or Mr. Tulkinghorn, one
of its trustiest representatives--may scatter, on occasion, in the
eyes of the laity.

In his lowering magazine of dust, the universal article into which
his papers and himself, and all his clients, and all things of earth,
animate and inanimate, are resolving, Mr. Tulkinghorn sits at one of
the open windows enjoying a bottle of old port. Though a hard-grained
man, close, dry, and silent, he can enjoy old wine with the best. He
has a priceless bin of port in some artful cellar under the Fields,
which is one of his many secrets. When he dines alone in chambers, as
he has dined to-day, and has his bit of fish and his steak or chicken
brought in from the coffee-house, he descends with a candle to the
echoing regions below the deserted mansion, and heralded by a remote
reverberation of thundering doors, comes gravely back encircled by an
earthy atmosphere and carrying a bottle from which he pours a radiant
nectar, two score and ten years old, that blushes in the glass to
find itself so famous and fills the whole room with the fragrance of
southern grapes.

Mr. Tulkinghorn, sitting in the twilight by the open window, enjoys
his wine. As if it whispered to him of its fifty years of silence and
seclusion, it shuts him up the closer. More impenetrable than ever,
he sits, and drinks, and mellows as it were in secrecy, pondering at
that twilight hour on all the mysteries he knows, associated with
darkening woods in the country, and vast blank shut-up houses in
town, and perhaps sparing a thought or two for himself, and his
family history, and his money, and his will--all a mystery to every
one--and that one bachelor friend of his, a man of the same mould and
a lawyer too, who lived the same kind of life until he was
seventy-five years old, and then suddenly conceiving (as it is
supposed) an impression that it was too monotonous, gave his gold
watch to his hair-dresser one summer evening and walked leisurely
home to the Temple and hanged himself.

But Mr. Tulkinghorn is not alone to-night to ponder at his usual
length. Seated at the same table, though with his chair modestly and
uncomfortably drawn a little way from it, sits a bald, mild, shining
man who coughs respectfully behind his hand when the lawyer bids him
fill his glass.

"Now, Snagsby," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, "to go over this odd story
again."

"If you please, sir."

"You told me when you were so good as to step round here last
night--"

"For which I must ask you to excuse me if it was a liberty, sir; but
I remember that you had taken a sort of an interest in that person,
and I thought it possible that you might--just--wish--to--"

Mr. Tulkinghorn is not the man to help him to any conclusion or to
admit anything as to any possibility concerning himself. So Mr.
Snagsby trails off into saying, with an awkward cough, "I must ask
you to excuse the liberty, sir, I am sure."

"Not at all," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "You told me, Snagsby, that you
put on your hat and came round without mentioning your intention to
your wife. That was prudent I think, because it's not a matter of
such importance that it requires to be mentioned."

"Well, sir," returns Mr. Snagsby, "you see, my little woman is--not
to put too fine a point upon it--inquisitive. She's inquisitive. Poor
little thing, she's liable to spasms, and it's good for her to have
her mind employed. In consequence of which she employs it--I should
say upon every individual thing she can lay hold of, whether it
concerns her or not--especially not. My little woman has a very
active mind, sir."

Mr. Snagsby drinks and murmurs with an admiring cough behind his
hand, "Dear me, very fine wine indeed!"

"Therefore you kept your visit to yourself last night?" says Mr.
Tulkinghorn. "And to-night too?"

"Yes, sir, and to-night, too. My little woman is at present in--not
to put too fine a point on it--in a pious state, or in what she
considers such, and attends the Evening Exertions (which is the name
they go by) of a reverend party of the name of Chadband. He has a
great deal of eloquence at his command, undoubtedly, but I am not
quite favourable to his style myself. That's neither here nor there.
My little woman being engaged in that way made it easier for me to
step round in a quiet manner."

Mr. Tulkinghorn assents. "Fill your glass, Snagsby."

"Thank you, sir, I am sure," returns the stationer with his cough of
deference. "This is wonderfully fine wine, sir!"

"It is a rare wine now," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "It is fifty years
old."

"Is it indeed, sir? But I am not surprised to hear it, I am sure. It
might be--any age almost." After rendering this general tribute to
the port, Mr. Snagsby in his modesty coughs an apology behind his
hand for drinking anything so precious.

"Will you run over, once again, what the boy said?" asks Mr.
Tulkinghorn, putting his hands into the pockets of his rusty
smallclothes and leaning quietly back in his chair.

"With pleasure, sir."

Then, with fidelity, though with some prolixity, the law-stationer
repeats Jo's statement made to the assembled guests at his house. On
coming to the end of his narrative, he gives a great start and breaks
off with, "Dear me, sir, I wasn't aware there was any other gentleman
present!"

Mr. Snagsby is dismayed to see, standing with an attentive face
between himself and the lawyer at a little distance from the table, a
person with a hat and stick in his hand who was not there when he
himself came in and has not since entered by the door or by either of
the windows. There is a press in the room, but its hinges have not
creaked, nor has a step been audible upon the floor. Yet this third
person stands there with his attentive face, and his hat and stick in
his hands, and his hands behind him, a composed and quiet listener.
He is a stoutly built, steady-looking, sharp-eyed man in black, of
about the middle-age. Except that he looks at Mr. Snagsby as if he
were going to take his portrait, there is nothing remarkable about
him at first sight but his ghostly manner of appearing.

"Don't mind this gentleman," says Mr. Tulkinghorn in his quiet way.
"This is only Mr. Bucket."

"Oh, indeed, sir?" returns the stationer, expressing by a cough that
he is quite in the dark as to who Mr. Bucket may be.

"I wanted him to hear this story," says the lawyer, "because I have
half a mind (for a reason) to know more of it, and he is very
intelligent in such things. What do you say to this, Bucket?"

"It's very plain, sir. Since our people have moved this boy on, and
he's not to be found on his old lay, if Mr. Snagsby don't object to
go down with me to Tom-all-Alone's and point him out, we can have him
here in less than a couple of hours' time. I can do it without Mr.
Snagsby, of course, but this is the shortest way."

"Mr. Bucket is a detective officer, Snagsby," says the lawyer in
explanation.

"Is he indeed, sir?" says Mr. Snagsby with a strong tendency in his
clump of hair to stand on end.

"And if you have no real objection to accompany Mr. Bucket to the
place in question," pursues the lawyer, "I shall feel obliged to you
if you will do so."

In a moment's hesitation on the part of Mr. Snagsby, Bucket dips down
to the bottom of his mind.

"Don't you be afraid of hurting the boy," he says. "You won't do
that. It's all right as far as the boy's concerned. We shall only
bring him here to ask him a question or so I want to put to him, and
he'll be paid for his trouble and sent away again. It'll be a good
job for him. I promise you, as a man, that you shall see the boy sent
away all right. Don't you be afraid of hurting him; you an't going to
do that."

"Very well, Mr. Tulkinghorn!" cries Mr. Snagsby cheerfully. And
reassured, "Since that's the case--"

"Yes! And lookee here, Mr. Snagsby," resumes Bucket, taking him aside
by the arm, tapping him familiarly on the breast, and speaking in a
confidential tone. "You're a man of the world, you know, and a man of
business, and a man of sense. That's what YOU are."

"I am sure I am much obliged to you for your good opinion," returns
the stationer with his cough of modesty, "but--"

"That's what YOU are, you know," says Bucket. "Now, it an't necessary
to say to a man like you, engaged in your business, which is a
business of trust and requires a person to be wide awake and have his
senses about him and his head screwed on tight (I had an uncle in
your business once)--it an't necessary to say to a man like you that
it's the best and wisest way to keep little matters like this quiet.
Don't you see? Quiet!"

"Certainly, certainly," returns the other.

"I don't mind telling YOU," says Bucket with an engaging appearance
of frankness, "that as far as I can understand it, there seems to be
a doubt whether this dead person wasn't entitled to a little
property, and whether this female hasn't been up to some games
respecting that property, don't you see?"

"Oh!" says Mr. Snagsby, but not appearing to see quite distinctly.

"Now, what YOU want," pursues Bucket, again tapping Mr. Snagsby on
the breast in a comfortable and soothing manner, "is that every
person should have their rights according to justice. That's what YOU
want."

"To be sure," returns Mr. Snagsby with a nod.

"On account of which, and at the same time to oblige a--do you call
it, in your business, customer or client? I forget how my uncle used
to call it."

"Why, I generally say customer myself," replies Mr. Snagsby.

"You're right!" returns Mr. Bucket, shaking hands with him quite
affectionately. "--On account of which, and at the same time to
oblige a real good customer, you mean to go down with me, in
confidence, to Tom-all-Alone's and to keep the whole thing quiet ever
afterwards and never mention it to any one. That's about your
intentions, if I understand you?"

"You are right, sir. You are right," says Mr. Snagsby.

"Then here's your hat," returns his new friend, quite as intimate
with it as if he had made it; "and if you're ready, I am."

They leave Mr. Tulkinghorn, without a ruffle on the surface of his
unfathomable depths, drinking his old wine, and go down into the
streets.

"You don't happen to know a very good sort of person of the name of
Gridley, do you?" says Bucket in friendly converse as they descend
the stairs.

"No," says Mr. Snagsby, considering, "I don't know anybody of that
name. Why?"

"Nothing particular," says Bucket; "only having allowed his temper to
get a little the better of him and having been threatening some
respectable people, he is keeping out of the way of a warrant I have
got against him--which it's a pity that a man of sense should do."

As they walk along, Mr. Snagsby observes, as a novelty, that however
quick their pace may be, his companion still seems in some
undefinable manner to lurk and lounge; also, that whenever he is
going to turn to the right or left, he pretends to have a fixed
purpose in his mind of going straight ahead, and wheels off, sharply,
at the very last moment. Now and then, when they pass a
police-constable on his beat, Mr. Snagsby notices that both the
constable and his guide fall into a deep abstraction as they come
towards each other, and appear entirely to overlook each other, and
to gaze into space. In a few instances, Mr. Bucket, coming behind
some under-sized young man with a shining hat on, and his sleek hair
twisted into one flat curl on each side of his head, almost without
glancing at him touches him with his stick, upon which the young man,
looking round, instantly evaporates. For the most part Mr. Bucket
notices things in general, with a face as unchanging as the great
mourning ring on his little finger or the brooch, composed of not
much diamond and a good deal of setting, which he wears in his shirt.

When they come at last to Tom-all-Alone's, Mr. Bucket stops for a
moment at the corner and takes a lighted bull's-eye from the
constable on duty there, who then accompanies him with his own
particular bull's-eye at his waist. Between his two conductors, Mr.
Snagsby passes along the middle of a villainous street, undrained,
unventilated, deep in black mud and corrupt water--though the roads
are dry elsewhere--and reeking with such smells and sights that he,
who has lived in London all his life, can scarce believe his senses.
Branching from this street and its heaps of ruins are other streets
and courts so infamous that Mr. Snagsby sickens in body and mind and
feels as if he were going every moment deeper down into the infernal
gulf.

"Draw off a bit here, Mr. Snagsby," says Bucket as a kind of shabby
palanquin is borne towards them, surrounded by a noisy crowd. "Here's
the fever coming up the street!"

As the unseen wretch goes by, the crowd, leaving that object of
attraction, hovers round the three visitors like a dream of horrible
faces and fades away up alleys and into ruins and behind walls, and
with occasional cries and shrill whistles of warning, thenceforth
flits about them until they leave the place.

"Are those the fever-houses, Darby?" Mr. Bucket coolly asks as he
turns his bull's-eye on a line of stinking ruins.

Darby replies that "all them are," and further that in all, for
months and months, the people "have been down by dozens" and have
been carried out dead and dying "like sheep with the rot." Bucket
observing to Mr. Snagsby as they go on again that he looks a little
poorly, Mr. Snagsby answers that he feels as if he couldn't breathe
the dreadful air.

There is inquiry made at various houses for a boy named Jo. As few
people are known in Tom-all-Alone's by any Christian sign, there is
much reference to Mr. Snagsby whether he means Carrots, or the
Colonel, or Gallows, or Young Chisel, or Terrier Tip, or Lanky, or
the Brick. Mr. Snagsby describes over and over again. There are
conflicting opinions respecting the original of his picture. Some
think it must be Carrots, some say the Brick. The Colonel is
produced, but is not at all near the thing. Whenever Mr. Snagsby and
his conductors are stationary, the crowd flows round, and from its
squalid depths obsequious advice heaves up to Mr. Bucket. Whenever
they move, and the angry bull's-eyes glare, it fades away and flits
about them up the alleys, and in the ruins, and behind the walls, as
before.

At last there is a lair found out where Toughy, or the Tough Subject,
lays him down at night; and it is thought that the Tough Subject may
be Jo. Comparison of notes between Mr. Snagsby and the proprietress
of the house--a drunken face tied up in a black bundle, and flaring
out of a heap of rags on the floor of a dog-hutch which is her
private apartment--leads to the establishment of this conclusion.
Toughy has gone to the doctor's to get a bottle of stuff for a sick
woman but will be here anon.

"And who have we got here to-night?" says Mr. Bucket, opening another
door and glaring in with his bull's-eye. "Two drunken men, eh? And
two women? The men are sound enough," turning back each sleeper's arm
from his face to look at him. "Are these your good men, my dears?"

"Yes, sir," returns one of the women. "They are our husbands."

"Brickmakers, eh?"

"Yes, sir."

"What are you doing here? You don't belong to London."

"No, sir. We belong to Hertfordshire."

"Whereabouts in Hertfordshire?"

"Saint Albans."

"Come up on the tramp?"

"We walked up yesterday. There's no work down with us at present, but
we have done no good by coming here, and shall do none, I expect."

"That's not the way to do much good," says Mr. Bucket, turning his
head in the direction of the unconscious figures on the ground.

"It an't indeed," replies the woman with a sigh. "Jenny and me knows
it full well."

The room, though two or three feet higher than the door, is so low
that the head of the tallest of the visitors would touch the
blackened ceiling if he stood upright. It is offensive to every
sense; even the gross candle burns pale and sickly in the polluted
air. There are a couple of benches and a higher bench by way of
table. The men lie asleep where they stumbled down, but the women sit
by the candle. Lying in the arms of the woman who has spoken is a
very young child.

"Why, what age do you call that little creature?" says Bucket. "It
looks as if it was born yesterday." He is not at all rough about it;
and as he turns his light gently on the infant, Mr. Snagsby is
strangely reminded of another infant, encircled with light, that he
has seen in pictures.

"He is not three weeks old yet, sir," says the woman.

"Is he your child?"

"Mine."

The other woman, who was bending over it when they came in, stoops
down again and kisses it as it lies asleep.

"You seem as fond of it as if you were the mother yourself," says Mr.
Bucket.

"I was the mother of one like it, master, and it died."

"Ah, Jenny, Jenny!" says the other woman to her. "Better so. Much
better to think of dead than alive, Jenny! Much better!"

"Why, you an't such an unnatural woman, I hope," returns Bucket
sternly, "as to wish your own child dead?"

"God knows you are right, master," she returns. "I am not. I'd stand
between it and death with my own life if I could, as true as any
pretty lady."

"Then don't talk in that wrong manner," says Mr. Bucket, mollified
again. "Why do you do it?"

"It's brought into my head, master," returns the woman, her eyes
filling with tears, "when I look down at the child lying so. If it
was never to wake no more, you'd think me mad, I should take on so. I
know that very well. I was with Jenny when she lost hers--warn't I,
Jenny?--and I know how she grieved. But look around you at this
place. Look at them," glancing at the sleepers on the ground. "Look
at the boy you're waiting for, who's gone out to do me a good turn.
Think of the children that your business lays with often and often,
and that YOU see grow up!"

"Well, well," says Mr. Bucket, "you train him respectable, and he'll
be a comfort to you, and look after you in your old age, you know."

"I mean to try hard," she answers, wiping her eyes. "But I have been
a-thinking, being over-tired to-night and not well with the ague, of
all the many things that'll come in his way. My master will be
against it, and he'll be beat, and see me beat, and made to fear his
home, and perhaps to stray wild. If I work for him ever so much, and
ever so hard, there's no one to help me; and if he should be turned
bad 'spite of all I could do, and the time should come when I should
sit by him in his sleep, made hard and changed, an't it likely I
should think of him as he lies in my lap now and wish he had died as
Jenny's child died!"

"There, there!" says Jenny. "Liz, you're tired and ill. Let me take
him."

In doing so, she displaces the mother's dress, but quickly readjusts
it over the wounded and bruised bosom where the baby has been lying.

"It's my dead child," says Jenny, walking up and down as she nurses,
"that makes me love this child so dear, and it's my dead child that
makes her love it so dear too, as even to think of its being taken
away from her now. While she thinks that, I think what fortune would
I give to have my darling back. But we mean the same thing, if we
knew how to say it, us two mothers does in our poor hearts!"

As Mr. Snagsby blows his nose and coughs his cough of sympathy, a
step is heard without. Mr. Bucket throws his light into the doorway
and says to Mr. Snagsby, "Now, what do you say to Toughy? Will HE
do?"

"That's Jo," says Mr. Snagsby.

Jo stands amazed in the disk of light, like a ragged figure in a
magic-lantern, trembling to think that he has offended against the
law in not having moved on far enough. Mr. Snagsby, however, giving
him the consolatory assurance, "It's only a job you will be paid for,
Jo," he recovers; and on being taken outside by Mr. Bucket for a
little private confabulation, tells his tale satisfactorily, though
out of breath.

"I have squared it with the lad," says Mr. Bucket, returning, "and
it's all right. Now, Mr. Snagsby, we're ready for you."

First, Jo has to complete his errand of good nature by handing over
the physic he has been to get, which he delivers with the laconic
verbal direction that "it's to be all took d'rectly." Secondly, Mr.
Snagsby has to lay upon the table half a crown, his usual panacea for
an immense variety of afflictions. Thirdly, Mr. Bucket has to take Jo
by the arm a little above the elbow and walk him on before him,
without which observance neither the Tough Subject nor any other
Subject could be professionally conducted to Lincoln's Inn Fields.
These arrangements completed, they give the women good night and come
out once more into black and foul Tom-all-Alone's.

By the noisome ways through which they descended into that pit, they
gradually emerge from it, the crowd flitting, and whistling, and
skulking about them until they come to the verge, where restoration
of the bull's-eyes is made to Darby. Here the crowd, like a concourse
of imprisoned demons, turns back, yelling, and is seen no more.
Through the clearer and fresher streets, never so clear and fresh to
Mr. Snagsby's mind as now, they walk and ride until they come to Mr.
Tulkinghorn's gate.

As they ascend the dim stairs (Mr. Tulkinghorn's chambers being on
the first floor), Mr. Bucket mentions that he has the key of the
outer door in his pocket and that there is no need to ring. For a man
so expert in most things of that kind, Bucket takes time to open the
door and makes some noise too. It may be that he sounds a note of
preparation.

Howbeit, they come at last into the hall, where a lamp is burning,
and so into Mr. Tulkinghorn's usual room--the room where he drank his
old wine to-night. He is not there, but his two old-fashioned
candlesticks are, and the room is tolerably light.

Mr. Bucket, still having his professional hold of Jo and appearing to
Mr. Snagsby to possess an unlimited number of eyes, makes a little
way into this room, when Jo starts and stops.

"What's the matter?" says Bucket in a whisper.

"There she is!" cries Jo.

"Who!"

"The lady!"

A female figure, closely veiled, stands in the middle of the room,
where the light falls upon it. It is quite still and silent. The
front of the figure is towards them, but it takes no notice of their
entrance and remains like a statue.

"Now, tell me," says Bucket aloud, "how you know that to be the
lady."

"I know the wale," replies Jo, staring, "and the bonnet, and the
gownd."

"Be quite sure of what you say, Tough," returns Bucket, narrowly
observant of him. "Look again."

"I am a-looking as hard as ever I can look," says Jo with starting
eyes, "and that there's the wale, the bonnet, and the gownd."

"What about those rings you told me of?" asks Bucket.

"A-sparkling all over here," says Jo, rubbing the fingers of his left
hand on the knuckles of his right without taking his eyes from the
figure.

The figure removes the right-hand glove and shows the hand.

"Now, what do you say to that?" asks Bucket.

Jo shakes his head. "Not rings a bit like them. Not a hand like
that."

"What are you talking of?" says Bucket, evidently pleased though, and
well pleased too.

"Hand was a deal whiter, a deal delicater, and a deal smaller,"
returns Jo.

"Why, you'll tell me I'm my own mother next," says Mr. Bucket. "Do
you recollect the lady's voice?"

"I think I does," says Jo.

The figure speaks. "Was it at all like this? I will speak as long as
you like if you are not sure. Was it this voice, or at all like this
voice?"

Jo looks aghast at Mr. Bucket. "Not a bit!"

"Then, what," retorts that worthy, pointing to the figure, "did you
say it was the lady for?"

"Cos," says Jo with a perplexed stare but without being at all shaken
in his certainty, "cos that there's the wale, the bonnet, and the
gownd. It is her and it an't her. It an't her hand, nor yet her
rings, nor yet her woice. But that there's the wale, the bonnet, and
the gownd, and they're wore the same way wot she wore 'em, and it's
her height wot she wos, and she giv me a sov'ring and hooked it."

"Well!" says Mr. Bucket slightly, "we haven't got much good out of
YOU. But, however, here's five shillings for you. Take care how you
spend it, and don't get yourself into trouble." Bucket stealthily
tells the coins from one hand into the other like counters--which is
a way he has, his principal use of them being in these games of
skill--and then puts them, in a little pile, into the boy's hand and
takes him out to the door, leaving Mr. Snagsby, not by any means
comfortable under these mysterious circumstances, alone with the
veiled figure. But on Mr. Tulkinghorn's coming into the room, the
veil is raised and a sufficiently good-looking Frenchwoman is
revealed, though her expression is something of the intensest.

"Thank you, Mademoiselle Hortense," says Mr. Tulkinghorn with his
usual equanimity. "I will give you no further trouble about this
little wager."

"You will do me the kindness to remember, sir, that I am not at
present placed?" says mademoiselle.

"Certainly, certainly!"

"And to confer upon me the favour of your distinguished
recommendation?"

"By all means, Mademoiselle Hortense."

"A word from Mr. Tulkinghorn is so powerful."

"It shall not be wanting, mademoiselle."

"Receive the assurance of my devoted gratitude, dear sir."

"Good night."

Mademoiselle goes out with an air of native gentility; and Mr.
Bucket, to whom it is, on an emergency, as natural to be groom of the
ceremonies as it is to be anything else, shows her downstairs, not
without gallantry.

"Well, Bucket?" quoth Mr. Tulkinghorn on his return.

"It's all squared, you see, as I squared it myself, sir. There an't a
doubt that it was the other one with this one's dress on. The boy was
exact respecting colours and everything. Mr. Snagsby, I promised you
as a man that he should be sent away all right. Don't say it wasn't
done!"

"You have kept your word, sir," returns the stationer; "and if I can
be of no further use, Mr. Tulkinghorn, I think, as my little woman
will be getting anxious--"

"Thank you, Snagsby, no further use," says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "I am
quite indebted to you for the trouble you have taken already."

"Not at all, sir. I wish you good night."

"You see, Mr. Snagsby," says Mr. Bucket, accompanying him to the door
and shaking hands with him over and over again, "what I like in you
is that you're a man it's of no use pumping; that's what YOU are.
When you know you have done a right thing, you put it away, and it's
done with and gone, and there's an end of it. That's what YOU do."

"That is certainly what I endeavour to do, sir," returns Mr. Snagsby.

"No, you don't do yourself justice. It an't what you endeavour to
do," says Mr. Bucket, shaking hands with him and blessing him in the
tenderest manner, "it's what you DO. That's what I estimate in a man
in your way of business."

Mr. Snagsby makes a suitable response and goes homeward so confused
by the events of the evening that he is doubtful of his being awake
and out--doubtful of the reality of the streets through which he
goes--doubtful of the reality of the moon that shines above him. He
is presently reassured on these subjects by the unchallengeable
reality of Mrs. Snagsby, sitting up with her head in a perfect
beehive of curl-papers and night-cap, who has dispatched Guster to
the police-station with official intelligence of her husband's being
made away with, and who within the last two hours has passed through
every stage of swooning with the greatest decorum. But as the little
woman feelingly says, many thanks she gets for it!

Tulkinghorn is sitting in his office drinking expensive wine. Oh, but, fake out! He's not alone - he's there with Snagsby, who has apparently come to tell him all about Jo and his story of the woman who paid him to take her around on a Nemo walking tour. Tulkinghorn makes extra sure that Snagsby didn't tell his wife he was coming, then Snagsby notices... another person in the room! It's Mr. Bucket, a detective officer. All right, back to the story. Bucket needs Snagsby's help to find Jo, who it seems has "moved on" pretty well this time. Snagsby is at first a little worried, but Bucket says he just needs to ask him a couple of questions and then pay him some money. Bucket adds that apparently Nemo was supposed to get some property, which this woman might have been scheming with. So off they go to Tom-all-Alone's. Bucket asks whether, by the way, Snagsby knows anyone named Gridley. No, he doesn't. Too bad for Bucket, who apparently has a warrant out for Gridley's arrest. Bucket is every bit the detective: friendly but also menacing, he sees everything without seeming to have to look around, and he is never discombobulated by anything he sees. At Tom-all-Alone's, seeing all the crap in the street and all the dregs of humanity and plague victims, Snagsby almost loses his lunch. They try to find Jo, but it's hard because no one knows what his street name is. Finally they figure out that around here he's called "Tough Customer" and that he's gone to get some medicine for a sick woman. The sick woman is none other than our old friend Jenny, the wife of the brickmaker. Lots of coincidences in Dickens. You never meet someone and then never see them again - which is sort of crazy in a big city like London, right? And not very much like real life. Anyhow, Jenny is there cradling a baby. OK, relax, it's not the same dead baby from before. It's her friend Liz's baby, who reminds her of her dead one. She's crying because she wishes her kid were still alive. Meanwhile Liz is crying because when she imagines the baby's future , she wishes he were dead. Wow. Awful. Yeesh. Jo comes back with the medicine and Bucket takes him to Tulkinghorn's office. There Jo freaks out a little bit because... the veiled woman is standing in front of him! Jo is confused because the woman seems very much like the one he saw - the same clothes - but is clearly not her - wrong hands, wrong voice. Bucket looks happy, gives Jo some money, and sends him off. The woman takes off her veil, revealing herself to be... Hortense the maid! Tulkinghorn thanks her for doing this thing, mumbles that it must have been the other one wearing this one's clothes, and sends her off. Hortense reminds him that he promised to get her a job. Bucket sends Snagsby on his way, after again confirming that he'll keep all of this a secret.

Dining with Mr. Tulkinghorn, Snagsby tells him what Jo has said about the mysterious woman who was inquiring about Nemo. Mr. Bucket, a detective hired by Tulkinghorn, goes with Snagsby to search for Jo. Meanwhile, Lady Dedlock has fired her French maid, Mlle. Hortense. When Jo is located, he is taken to Tulkinghorn's, where he identifies Hortense as the lady who gave him the gold coin. However, when he sees the woman's hands and hears her speak, he changes his mind. The detective is now certain that the disguised woman who asked Jo questions about Nemo is Lady Dedlock herself.

The reader's revulsion to the crafty, secretive, self-seeking Tulkinghorn increases as the lawyer is shown to be ever more intent upon prying into matters which are really none of his business. Hortense's ugly nature shows itself again as she seeks revenge upon Lady Dedlock. Lady Dedlock, despite her haughty shortcomings, appears to be of higher character than these people.

"Mr. Bucket" Mr. Tulkinghorn relaxes with a glass of wine in his office. He thinks about a friend, much like him, who hanged himself. Mr. Snagsby is there as well, without his wife knowing. He tells Mr. Tulkinghorn what Jo said to the guests at his house recently. Mr. Snagsby then spots another man in the room, whom Mr. Tulkinghorn introduces as Mr. Bucket. He is a detective. He asks Mr. Snagsby to take him to Jo and assures him Jo will not be harmed. Mr. Bucket suggests that the dead lodger was perhaps entitled to some property, which he suspects the woman Jo encountered may be after. Bucket asks Snagsby if he knows of a man named Gridley, who lost his temper, threatened some people, and has a warrant out for his arrest. In Tom-all-Alone's, they find where Jo is staying. Jo has gone out, but the men talk to a few people in the home. There are men lying unconscious on the floor, and a woman named Liz says they are hers and Jenny's husbands. Liz is holding a child. Jenny says she had a child too, but it died. Jo appears with some medicine he had gotten for the woman. Then he, Bucket, and Snagsby go to Mr. Tulkinghorn's. Jo shouts that he sees the woman, there in the room. A figure wearing a flowing scarf and robe is standing there. But when the figure shows her hand, Jo says it is not the lady, whose hand was whiter, smaller, and adorned with different rings. The figure speaks, and Jo says it's not the voice he remembers. Bucket gives Jo some money and dismisses him. The woman takes off her scarf. It is Mademoiselle Hortense, the French maid of Lady Dedlock. She reminds Mr. Tulkinghorn that he promised to help her find a job, and she leaves. Bucket asserts that the lady Jo saw must have been wearing the Frenchwoman's clothes. Snagsby leaves. When he gets home, he finds Mrs. Snagsby in bed. She had sent Guster to the police station to report that Mr. Snagsby was missing

Mr. Bucket In Mr. Tulkinghorn's chambers, Snagsby tells the lawyer once more the story that Jo told about escorting the veiled lady to Nemo's grave. Mr. Bucket, the police inspector, appears from the shadows. Bucket wants Snagsby to help him find Jo to question him about the incident. He promises not to hurt the boy. He says he is also after Mr. Gridley for contempt of court. Snagsby is about to have a life-changing experience as he takes Bucket to Tom-all-Alone's to find Jo. It is a "dream of horrible faces" . Mr. Bucket points out the fever houses of Darby, the tenements where people are carried out dead every day. Snagsby is shocked by the sights and smells, a London he does not know. They come upon the bricklayers that Esther met through Mrs. Pardiggle. Now they are living on the street, the men drunk, the women huddled with a baby. It is Liza's baby now, for Jenny, her friend, had lost hers before. They discuss with Bucket how they don't know whether they want the child to live or die. Snagsby blows his nose in sympathy. Finally Jo, who had gone to get medicine for the baby, returns, and he goes with Bucket and Snagsby back to Tulkinghorn's. Jo sees a lady in a black dress and veil and says, "There she is," but then he says no when he sees her hand and hears her voice. They let Jo go, and then the woman takes off the veil. It is Hortense, whose clothes Lady Dedlock borrowed. Snagsby goes home confused but afraid, since he has to hide all this from Mrs. Snagsby, who is jealous and inquisitive.

Commentary on Chapter XXII The pathos of the slum mothers discussing how hard it is to want their children to live to be brought up in the world, moves both Bucket and Snagsby. The mother knows it is better for her baby to die than have to grow up as a criminal or a homeless boy like Jo, who has no place in the world. And yet how can she help but love her baby and try to save him? Bucket is moved, though he is used to this. Snagsby is overwhelmed. Bucket is the policeman who will uphold the law, like Neckett, but, at the same time, has some fellow feeling for the people around him. Tulkinghorn is more sinister and has no feeling for others. He ruthlessly tracks Lady Dedlock, hoping to find a scandal. Hortense, the maid, is cooperating because she was fired by Lady Dedlock and hates her. She also thinks Tulkinghorn will help to get her a new place.