Sketches by Boz Part 25

The remainder of the meal pa.s.sed off as breakfasts usually do.

Conversation flagged, and people played with their teaspoons. The gentlemen looked out at the window; walked about the room; and, when they got near the door, dropped off one by one. Tibbs retired to the back parlour by his wife's orders, to check the green-grocer's weekly account; and ultimately Mrs. Tibbs and Mrs. Bloss were left alone together.

'Oh dear!' said the latter, 'I feel alarmingly faint; it's very singular.' (It certainly was, for she had eaten four pounds of solids that morning.) 'By-the-bye,' said Mrs. Bloss, 'I have not seen Mr.

What's-his-name yet.'

'Mr. Gobler?' suggested Mrs. Tibbs.

'Yes.'

'Oh!' said Mrs. Tibbs, 'he is a most mysterious person. He has his meals regularly sent up-stairs, and sometimes don't leave his room for weeks together.'

'I haven't seen or heard nothing of him,' repeated Mrs. Bloss.

'I dare say you'll hear him to-night,' replied Mrs. Tibbs; 'he generally groans a good deal on Sunday evenings.'

'I never felt such an interest in any one in my life,' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs.

Bloss. A little double-knock interrupted the conversation; Dr. Wosky was announced, and duly shown in. He was a little man with a red face-dressed of course in black, with a stiff white neckerchief. He had a very good practice, and plenty of money, which he had ama.s.sed by invariably humouring the worst fancies of all the females of all the families he had ever been introduced into. Mrs. Tibbs offered to retire, but was entreated to stay.

'Well, my dear ma'am, and how are we?' inquired Wosky, in a soothing tone.

'Very ill, doctor-very ill,' said Mrs. Bloss, in a whisper

'Ah! we must take care of ourselves;-we must, indeed,' said the obsequious Wosky, as he felt the pulse of his interesting patient.

'How is our appet.i.te?'

Mrs. Bloss shook her head.

'Our friend requires great care,' said Wosky, appealing to Mrs. Tibbs, who of course a.s.sented. 'I hope, however, with the blessing of Providence, that we shall be enabled to make her quite stout again.'

Mrs. Tibbs wondered in her own mind what the patient would be when she was made quite stout.

'We must take stimulants,' said the cunning Wosky-'plenty of nourishment, and, above all, we must keep our nerves quiet; we positively must not give way to our sensibilities. We must take all we can get,' concluded the doctor, as he pocketed his fee, 'and we must keep quiet.'

'Dear man!' exclaimed Mrs. Bloss, as the doctor stepped into the carriage.

'Charming creature indeed-quite a lady's man!' said Mrs. Tibbs, and Dr.

Wosky rattled away to make fresh gulls of delicate females, and pocket fresh fees.

As we had occasion, in a former paper, to describe a dinner at Mrs.

Tibbs's; and as one meal went off very like another on all ordinary occasions; we will not fatigue our readers by entering into any other detailed account of the domestic economy of the establishment. We will therefore proceed to events, merely premising that the mysterious tenant of the back drawing-room was a lazy, selfish hypochondriac; always complaining and never ill. As his character in many respects closely a.s.similated to that of Mrs. Bloss, a very warm friends.h.i.+p soon sprung up between them. He was tall, thin, and pale; he always fancied he had a severe pain somewhere or other, and his face invariably wore a pinched, screwed-up expression; he looked, indeed, like a man who had got his feet in a tub of exceedingly hot water, against his will.

For two or three months after Mrs. Bloss's first appearance in Coram-street, John Evenson was observed to become, every day, more sarcastic and more ill-natured; and there was a degree of additional importance in his manner, which clearly showed that he fancied he had discovered something, which he only wanted a proper opportunity of divulging. He found it at last.

One evening, the different inmates of the house were a.s.sembled in the drawing-room engaged in their ordinary occupations. Mr. Gobler and Mrs.

Bloss were sitting at a small card-table near the centre window, playing cribbage; Mr. Wisbottle was describing semicircles on the music-stool, turning over the leaves of a book on the piano, and humming most melodiously; Alfred Tomkins was sitting at the round table, with his elbows duly squared, making a pencil sketch of a head considerably larger than his own; O'Bleary was reading Horace, and trying to look as if he understood it; and John Evenson had drawn his chair close to Mrs. Tibbs's work-table, and was talking to her very earnestly in a low tone.

'I can a.s.sure you, Mrs. Tibbs,' said the radical, laying his forefinger on the muslin she was at work on; 'I can a.s.sure you, Mrs. Tibbs, that nothing but the interest I take in your welfare would induce me to make this communication. I repeat, I fear Wisbottle is endeavouring to gain the affections of that young woman, Agnes, and that he is in the habit of meeting her in the store-room on the first floor, over the leads. From my bedroom I distinctly heard voices there, last night. I opened my door immediately, and crept very softly on to the landing; there I saw Mr.

Tibbs, who, it seems, had been disturbed also.-Bless me, Mrs. Tibbs, you change colour!'

'No, no-it's nothing,' returned Mrs. T. in a hurried manner; 'it's only the heat of the room.'

'A flus.h.!.+' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Mrs. Bloss from the card-table; 'that's good for four.'

'If I thought it was Mr. Wisbottle,' said Mrs. Tibbs, after a pause, 'he should leave this house instantly.'

'Go!' said Mrs. Bloss again.

'And if I thought,' continued the hostess with a most threatening air, 'if I thought he was a.s.sisted by Mr. Tibbs-'

'One for his n.o.b!' said Gobler.

'Oh,' said Evenson, in a most soothing tone-he liked to make mischief-'I should hope Mr. Tibbs was not in any way implicated. He always appeared to me very harmless.'

'I have generally found him so,' sobbed poor little Mrs. Tibbs; crying like a watering-pot.

'Hus.h.!.+ hus.h.!.+ pray-Mrs. Tibbs-consider-we shall be observed-pray, don't!'

said John Evenson, fearing his whole plan would be interrupted. 'We will set the matter at rest with the utmost care, and I shall be most happy to a.s.sist you in doing so.' Mrs. Tibbs murmured her thanks.

'When you think every one has retired to rest to-night,' said Evenson very pompously, 'if you'll meet me without a light, just outside my bedroom door, by the staircase window, I think we can ascertain who the parties really are, and you will afterwards be enabled to proceed as you think proper.'

Mrs. Tibbs was easily persuaded; her curiosity was excited, her jealousy was roused, and the arrangement was forthwith made. She resumed her work, and John Evenson walked up and down the room with his hands in his pockets, looking as if nothing had happened. The game of cribbage was over, and conversation began again.

'Well, Mr. O'Bleary,' said the humming-top, turning round on his pivot, and facing the company, 'what did you think of Vauxhall the other night?'

'Oh, it's very fair,' replied Orson, who had been enthusiastically delighted with the whole exhibition.

'Never saw anything like that Captain Ross's set-out-eh?'

'No,' returned the patriot, with his usual reservation-'except in Dublin.'

'I saw the Count de Canky and Captain Fitzthompson in the Gardens,' said Wisbottle; 'they appeared much delighted.'

'Then it _must_ be beautiful,' snarled Evenson.

'I think the white bears is partickerlerly well done,' suggested Mrs.

Bloss. 'In their s.h.a.ggy white coats, they look just like Polar bears-don't you think they do, Mr. Evenson?'

'I think they look a great deal more like omnibus cads on all fours,'

replied the discontented one.

'Upon the whole, I should have liked our evening very well,' gasped Gobler; 'only I caught a desperate cold which increased my pain dreadfully! I was obliged to have several shower-baths, before I could leave my room.'

'Capital things those shower-baths!' e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Wisbottle.

'Excellent!' said Tomkins.

'Delightful!' chimed in O'Bleary. (He had once seen one, outside a tinman's.)