with the terrible little old woman hobbling out of the box in his bedroom; and there the mighty talisman, the rare Arabian Nights, with Cassim Baba, divided by four, like the ghost of a dreadful sum, hanging up, all gory, in the robbers’ cave. Which matchless wonders, coming fast on Mr Pinch’s mind, did so rub up and chafe that wonderful lamp within him, that when he turned his face towards the busy street, a crowd of phantoms waited on his pleasure, and he lived again, with new delight, the happy days before the Pecksniff era.
He had less interest now in the chemists’ shops, with their great glowing bottles (with smaller repositories of brightness in their very stoppers); and in their agreeable compromises between medicine and perfumery, in the shape of toothsome lozenges and virgin honey. Neither had he the least regard (but he never had much) for the tailors’, where the newest metropolitan waistcoat patterns were hanging up, which by some strange transformation always looked amazing there, and never appeared at all like the same thing anywhere else. But he stopped to read the playbill at the theatre and surveyed the doorway with a kind of awe, which was not diminished when a sallow gentleman with long dark hair came out, and told a boy to run home to his lodgings and bring down his broadsword. Mr Pinch stood rooted to the spot on hearing this, and might have stood there until dark, but that the old cathedral bell began to ring for vesper service, on which he tore himself away.
Now, the organist’s assistant was a friend of Mr Pinch’s, which was a good thing, for he too was a very quiet gentle soul, and had been, like Tom, a kind of old-fashioned boy at school, though well liked by the noisy fellow too. As good luck would have it (Tom always said he had great good luck) the assistant chanced that very afternoon to be on duty by himself, with no one in the dusty organ loft but Tom; so while he played, Tom helped him with the stops; and finally, the service being just over, Tom took the organ himself. It was then turning dark, and the yellow light that streamed in through the ancient windows in the choir was mingled with a murky red. As the grand tones resounded through the church, they seemed, to Tom, to find an echo in the depth of every ancient tomb, no less than in the deep mystery of his own heart. Great thoughts and hopes came crowding on his mind as the rich music rolled upon the air and yet among them – something more grave and solemn in their purpose, but the same – were all the images of that day, down to its very lightest recollection of childhood. The feeling that the sounds awakened, in the moment of their existence, seemed to include his whole life and being; and as the surrounding realities of stone and wood and glass grew dimmer in the darkness, these visions grew so much the brighter that Tom might have forgotten the new pupil and the expectant master, and have sat there pouring out his grateful heart till midnight, but for a very earthy old verger insisting on locking up the cathedral forthwith. So he took leave of his friend, with many thanks, groped his way out, as well as he could, into the now lamp-lighted streets, and hurried off to get his dinner.
All the farmers being by this time jogging homewards, there was nobody in the sanded parlour of the tavern where he had left the horse; so he had his little table drawn out close before the fire, and fell to work upon a well-cooked steak and smoking hot potatoes, with a strong appreciation of their excellence, and a very keen sense of enjoyment. Beside him, too, there stood a jug of most stupendous Wiltshire beer; and the effect of the whole was so transcendent, that he was obliged every now and then to lay down his knife and fork, rub his hands, and think about it. By the time the cheese and celery came, Mr Pinch had taken a book out of his pocket, and could afford to trifle with the viands; now eating a little, now drinking a little, now reading a little, and now stopping to wonder what sort of a young man the new pupil would turn out to be. He had passed from this latter theme and was deep in his book again, when the door opened, and another guest came in, bringing with him such a quantity of cold air, that he positively seemed at first to put the fire out.
‘Very hard frost to-night, sir,’ said the newcomer, courteously acknowledging Mr Pinch’s withdrawal of the little table, that he might have place: ‘Don’t disturb yourself, I beg.’
Though he said this with a vast amount of consideration for Mr Pinch’s comfort, he dragged one of the great leather-bottomed chairs to the very centre of the hearth, notwithstanding; and sat down in front of the fire, with a foot on each hob.
‘My feet are quite numbed. Ah! Bitter cold to be sure.’
‘You have been in the air some considerable time, I dare say?’ said Mr Pinch.
‘All day. Outside a coach, too.’
‘That accounts for his making the room so cool,’ thought Mr Pinch. ‘Poor fellow! How thoroughly chilled he must be!’
The stranger became thoughtful likewise, and sat for five or ten minutes looking at the fire in silence. At length he rose and divested himself of his shawl and great-coat, which (far different from Mr Pinch’s) was a very warm and thick one; but he was not a whit more conversational out of his great-coat than in it, for he sat down again in the same place and attitude, and leaning back in his chair, began to bite his nails. He was young – one-and-twenty, perhaps – and handsome; with a keen dark eye, and a quickness of look and manner which made Tom sensible of a great contrast in his own bearing, and caused him to feel even more shy than usual.
There was a clock in the room, which the stranger often turned to look at. Tom made frequent reference to it also; partly from a nervous sympathy with its taciturn companion; and partly because the new pupil was to inquire for him at half after six, and the hands were getting on towards that hour. Whenever the stranger caught him looking at this clock, a kind of confusion came upon Tom as if he had been found out in something; and it was a perception of his uneasiness which caused the younger man to say, perhaps, with a smile:
‘We both appear to be rather particular about the time. The fact is, I have an engagement to meet a gentleman here.’
‘So have I,’ said Mr Pinch.
‘At half-past six,’ said the stranger.
‘At half-past six,’ said Tom in the very same breath; whereupon the other looked at him with some surprise.
‘The young gentleman, I expect,’ remarked Tom, timidly, ‘was to inquire at that time for a person by the name of Pinch.’
‘Dear me!’ cried the other, jumping up. ‘And I have been keeping the fire from you all this while! I had no idea you were Mr Pinch. I am the Mr Martin for whom you were to inquire. Pray excuse me. How do you do? Oh, do draw nearer, pray!’
‘Thank you,’ said Tom, ‘thank you. I am not at all cold, and you are; and we have a cold ride before us. Well, if you wish it, I will. I – I am very glad,’ said Tom, smiling with an embarrassed frankness peculiarly his, and which was as plainly a confession of his own imperfections, and an appeal to the kindness of the person he addressed, as if he had drawn one up in simple language and committed it to paper: ‘I am very glad indeed that you turn out to be the party I expected. I was thinking, but a minute ago, that I could wish him to be like you.’
‘I am very glad to hear it,’ returned Martin, shaking hands with him again; ‘for I assure you, I was thinking there could be no such luck as Mr Pinch’s turning out like you.’
‘No, really!’ said Tom, with great pleasure. ‘Are you serious?’
‘Upon my word I am,’ replied his new acquaintance. ‘You and I will get on excellently well, I know; which it’s no small relief to me to feel, for to tell you the truth, I am not at all the sort of fellow who could get on with everybody, and that’s the point on which I had the greatest doubts. But they’re quite relieved now. – Do me the favour to ring the bell, will you?’
Mr Pinch rose, and complied with great alacrity – the handle hung just over Martin’s head, as he warmed himself – and listened with a smiling face to what his friend went on to say. It was:
‘If
