'Be careful what insolent liberties you take in that gentleman's presence,' said the owner of the hand which had done this, 'or I will throw you after it.'
Wegg involuntarily clapped his hand to his bare head, and stared at the Secretary. For, it was he addressed him with a severe countenance, and who had come in quietly by the folding-doors.
'Oh!' said Wegg, as soon as he recovered his suspended power of speech. 'Very good! I gave directions for YOU to be dismissed. And you ain't gone, ain't you? Oh! We'll look into this presently. Very good!'
'No, nor I ain't gone,' said another voice.
Somebody else had come in quietly by the folding-doors. Turning his head, Wegg beheld his persecutor, the ever-wakeful dustman, accoutred with fantail hat and velveteen smalls complete. Who, untying his tied-up broken head, revealed a head that was whole, and a face that was Sloppy's.
'Ha, ha, ha, gentlemen!' roared Sloppy in a peal of laughter, and with immeasureable relish. 'He never thought as I could sleep standing, and often done it when I turned for Mrs Higden! He never thought as I used to give Mrs Higden the Police-news in different voices! But I did lead him a life all through it, gentlemen, I hope I really and truly DID!' Here, Mr Sloppy opening his mouth to a quite alarming extent, and throwing back his head to peal again, revealed incalculable buttons.
'Oh!' said Wegg, slightly discomfited, but not much as yet: 'one and one is two not dismissed, is it? Bof — fin! Just let me ask a question. Who set this chap on, in this dress, when the carting began? Who employed this fellow?'
'I say!' remonstrated Sloppy, jerking his head forward. 'No fellows, or I'll throw you out of winder!'
Mr Boffin appeased him with a wave of his hand, and said: 'I employed him, Wegg.'
'Oh! You employed him, Boffin? Very good. Mr Venus, we raise our terms, and we can't do better than proceed to business. Bof — fin! I want the room cleared of these two scum.'
'That's not going to be done, Wegg,' replied Mr Boffin, sitting composedly on the library-table, at one end, while the Secretary sat composedly on it at the other.
'Bof — fin! Not going to be done?' repeated Wegg. 'Not at your peril?'
'No, Wegg,' said Mr Boffin, shaking his head good-humouredly. 'Not at my peril, and not on any other terms.'
Wegg reflected a moment, and then said: 'Mr Venus, will you be so good as hand me over that same dockyment?'
'Certainly, sir,' replied Venus, handing it to him with much politeness. 'There it is. Having now, sir, parted with it, I wish to make a small observation: not so much because it is anyways necessary, or expresses any new doctrine or discovery, as because it is a comfort to my mind. Silas Wegg, you are a precious old rascal.'
Mr Wegg, who, as if anticipating a compliment, had been beating time with the paper to the other's politeness until this unexpected conclusion came upon him, stopped rather abruptly.
'Silas Wegg,' said Venus, 'know that I took the liberty of taking Mr Boffin into our concern as a sleeping partner, at a very early period of our firm's existence.
'Quite true,' added Mr Boffin; 'and I tested Venus by making him a pretended proposal or two; and I found him on the whole a very honest man, Wegg.'
'So Mr Boffin, in his indulgence, is pleased to say,' Venus remarked: 'though in the beginning of this dirt, my hands were not, for a few hours, quite as clean as I could wish. But I hope I made early and full amends.'
'Venus, you did,' said Mr Boffin. 'Certainly, certainly, certainly.'
Venus inclined his head with respect and gratitude. 'Thank you, sir. I am much obliged to you, sir, for all. For your good opinion now, for your way of receiving and encouraging me when I first put myself in communication with you, and for the influence since so kindly brought to bear upon a certain lady, both by yourself and by Mr John Harmon.' To whom, when thus making mention of him, he also bowed.
Wegg followed the name with sharp ears, and the action with sharp eyes, and a certain cringing air was infusing itself into his bullying air, when his attention was re-claimed by Venus.
'Everything else between you and me, Mr Wegg,' said Venus, 'now explains itself, and you can now make out, sir, without further words from me. But totally to prevent any unpleasantness or mistake that might arise on what I consider an important point, to be made quite clear at the close of our acquaintance, I beg the leave of Mr Boffin and Mr John Harmon to repeat an observation which I have already had the pleasure of bringing under your notice. You are a precious old rascal!'
'You are a fool,' said Wegg, with a snap of his fingers, 'and I'd have got rid of you before now, if I could have struck out any way of doing it. I have thought it over, I can tell you. You may go, and welcome. You leave the more for me. Because, you know,' said Wegg, dividing his next observation between Mr Boffin and Mr Harmon, 'I am worth my price, and I mean to have it. This getting off is all very well in its way, and it tells with such an anatomical Pump as this one,' pointing out Mr Venus, 'but it won't do with a Man. I am here to be bought off, and I have named my figure. Now, buy me, or leave me.'
'I'll leave you, Wegg, said Mr Boffin, laughing, 'as far as I am concerned.'
'Bof — fin!' replied Wegg, turning upon him with a severe air, 'I understand YOUR new-born boldness. I see the brass underneath YOUR silver plating. YOU have got YOUR nose out of joint. Knowing that you've nothing at stake, you can afford to come the independent game. Why, you're just so much smeary glass to see through, you know! But Mr Harmon is in another sitiwation. What Mr Harmon risks, is quite another pair of shoes. Now, I've heerd something lately about this being Mr Harmon — I make out now, some hints that I've met on that subject in the newspaper — and I drop you, Bof — fin, as beneath my notice. I ask Mr Harmon whether he has any idea of the contents of this present paper?'
'It is a will of my late father's, of more recent date than the will proved by Mr Boffin (address whom again, as you have addressed him already, and I'll knock you down), leaving the whole of his property to the Crown,' said John Harmon, with as much indifference as was compatible with extreme sternness.
'Bight you are!' cried Wegg. 'Then,' screwing the weight of his body upon his wooden leg, and screwing his wooden head very much on one side, and screwing up one eye: 'then, I put the question to you, what's this paper worth?'
'Nothing,' said John Harmon.
Wegg had repeated the word with a sneer, and was entering on some sarcastic retort, when, to his boundless amazement, he found himself gripped by the cravat; shaken until his teeth chattered; shoved back, staggering, into a corner of the room; and pinned there.
'You scoundrel!' said John Harmon, whose seafaring hold was like that of a vice.
'You're knocking my head against the wall,' urged Silas faintly.
'I mean to knock your head against the wall,' neturned John Harmon, suiting his action to his words, with the heartiest good will; 'and I'd give a thousand pounds for leave to knock your brains out. Listen, you scoundrel, and look at that Dutch bottle.'
Sloppy held it up, for his edification.
'That Dutch bottle, scoundrel, contained the latest will of the many wills made by my unhappy self-tormenting father. That will gives everything absolutely to my noble benefactor and yours, Mr Boffin, excluding and reviling me, and my sister (then already dead of a broken heart), by name. That Dutch bottle was found by my noble benefactor and yours, after he entered on possession of the estate. That Dutch bottle distressed him beyond measure, because, though I and my sister were both no more, it cast a slur upon our memory which he knew we had done nothing in our miserable youth, to deserve. That Dutch bottle, therefore, he buried in the Mound belonging to him, and there it lay while you, you thankless wretch, were prodding and poking — often very near it, I dare say. His intention was, that it should never see the light; but he was afraid to destroy it, lest to destroy such a document, even with his great generous motive, might be an offence at law. After the discovery was made here who I was, Mr Boffin, still restless on the subject, told me, upon certain conditions impossible for such a hound as you to appreciate, the secret of that Dutch bottle. I urged upon him the necessity of its being dug up, and the paper being legally produced and established. The first thing you saw him do, and the second thing has been done without your knowledge. Consequently, the paper now rattling in your hand as I shake you — and I should like to shake the life out of you — is worth less than the rotten cork of the Dutch bottle, do you understand?'