by his principal! Not his capital that’s invested in the business. Oh, that’s good! Ha ha ha ha!’ Mr Lammle joined in the laugh and looked knowing; and the more he did both, the more exquisite the secret joke became for Mr Fledgeby.
‘However,’ said that fascinating gentleman, wiping his eyes again, ‘if we go on in this way, we shall seem to be almost making game of Mr Riah, or of Pubsey and Co. Saint Mary Axe, or of somebody: which is far from our intention. Mr Riah, if you would have the kindness to step into the next room for a few moments while I speak with Mr Lammle here, I should like to try to make terms with you once again before you go.’
The old man, who had never raised his eyes during the whole transaction of Mr Fledgeby’s joke, silently bowed and passed out by the door which Fledgeby opened for him. Having closed it on him, Fledgeby returned to Lammle, standing with his back to the bedroom fire, with one hand under his coat-skirts, and all his whiskers in the other.
‘Halloa!’ said Fledgeby. ‘There’s something wrong!’
‘How do you know it?’ demanded Lammle.
‘Because you show it,’ replied Fledgeby in unintentional rhyme.
‘Well then; there is,’ said Lammle; ‘there is something wrong; the whole thing’s wrong.’
‘I say!’ remonstrated Fascination very slowly, and sitting down with his hands on his knees to stare at his glowering friend with his back to the fire.
‘I tell you, Fledgeby,’ repeated Lammle, with a sweep of his right arm, ‘the whole thing’s wrong. The game’s up.’
‘What game’s up?’ demanded Fledgeby, as slowly as before, and more sternly.
‘The game. Our game. Read that.’
Fledgeby took a note from his extended hand and read it aloud. ‘Alfred Lammle, Esquire. Sir: Allow Mrs Podsnap and myself to express our united sense of the polite attentions of Mrs Alfred Lammle and yourself towards our daughter, Georgiana. Allow us also, wholly to reject them for the future, and to communicate our final desire that the two families may become entire strangers. I have the honour to be, Sir, your most obedient and very humble servant, John Podsnap.’ Fledgeby looked at the three blank sides of this note, quite as long and earnestly as at the first expressive side, and then looked at Lammle, who responded with another extensive sweep of his right arm.
‘Whose doing is this?’ said Fledgeby.
‘Impossible to imagine,’ said Lammle.
‘Perhaps,’ suggested Fledgeby, after reflecting with a very discontented brow, ‘somebody has been giving you a bad character.’
‘Or you,’ said Lammle, with a deeper frown.
Mr Fledgeby appeared to be on the verge of some mutinous expressions, when his hand happened to touch his nose. A certain remembrance connected with that feature operating as a timely warning, he took it thoughtfully between his thumb and forefinger, and pondered; Lammle meanwhile eyeing him with furtive eyes.
‘Well!’ said Fledgeby. ‘This won’t improve with talking about. If we ever find out who did it, we’ll mark that person. There’s nothing more to be said, except that you undertook to do what circumstances prevent your doing.’
‘And that you undertook to do what you might have done by this time, if you had made a prompter use of circumstances,’ snarled Lammle.
‘Hah! That,’ remarked Fledgeby, with his hands in the Turkish trousers, ‘is matter of opinion.’
‘Mr Fledgeby,’ said Lammle, in a bullying tone, ‘am I to understand that you in any way reflect upon me, or hint dissatisfaction with me, in this affair?’
‘No,’ said Fledgeby; ‘provided you have brought my promissory note in your pocket, and now hand it over.’
Lammle produced it, not without reluctance. Fledgeby looked at it, identified it, twisted it up, and threw it into the fire. They both looked at it as it blazed, went out, and flew in feathery ash up the chimney.
‘Now, Mr Fledgeby,’ said Lammle, as before; ‘am I to understand that you in any way reflect upon me, or hint dissatisfaction with me, in this affair?’
‘No,’ said Fledgeby.
‘Finally and unreservedly no?’
‘Yes.’
‘Fledgeby, my hand.’
Mr Fledgeby took it, saying, ‘And if we ever find out who did this, we’ll mark that person. And in the most friendly manner, let me mention one thing more. I don’t know what your circumstances are, and I don’t ask. You have sustained a loss here. Many men are liable to be involved at times, and you may be, or you may not be. But whatever you do, Lammle, don’t—don’t—don’t, I beg of you—ever fall into the hands of Pubsey and Co. in the next room, for they are grinders. Regular flayers and grinders, my dear Lammle,’ repeated Fledgeby with a peculiar relish, ‘and they’ll skin you by the inch, from the nape of your neck to the sole of your foot, and grind every inch of your skin to tooth-powder. You have seen what Mr Riah is. Never fall into his hands, Lammle, I beg of you as a friend!’
Mr Lammle, disclosing some alarm at the solemnity of this affectionate adjuration, demanded why the devil he ever should fall into the hands of Pubsey and Co.?
‘To confess the fact, I was made a little uneasy,’ said the candid Fledgeby, ‘by the manner in which that Jew looked at you when he heard your name. I didn’t like his eye. But it may have been the heated fancy of a friend. Of course if you are sure that you have no personal security out, which you may not be quite equal to meeting, and which can have got into his hands, it must have been fancy. Still, I didn’t like his eye.’
The brooding Lammle, with certain white dints coming and going in his palpitating nose, looked as if some tormenting imp were pinching it. Fledgeby, watching him with a twitch in his mean face which did duty there for a smile, looked very like the tormentor who was pinching.
‘But I mustn’t keep him waiting too long,’ said Fledgeby, ‘or he’ll revenge it on my unfortunate friend. How’s your very clever and agreeable wife? She knows we have broken down?’
‘I showed her the letter.’
‘Very much surprised?’ asked Fledgeby.
‘I think she would have been more so,’ answered Lammle, ‘if there had been more go in you?’
‘Oh!—She lays it upon me, then?’
‘Mr Fledgeby, I will not have my words misconstrued.’
‘Don’t break out, Lammle,’ urged Fledgeby, in a submissive tone, ‘because there’s no occasion. I only asked a question. Then she don’t lay it upon me? To ask another question.’
‘No, sir.’
‘Very good,’ said Fledgeby, plainly seeing that she did. ‘My compliments to her. Good-bye!’
They shook hands, and Lammle strode out pondering. Fledgeby saw him into the fog, and, returning to the fire and musing with his face
