The Old Curiosity Shop

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There were few passengers astir; the street was sad and dismal, and
pretty well my own. A few stragglers from the theatres hurried by,
and now and then I turned aside to avoid some noisy drunkard as he
reeled homewards, but these interruptions were not frequent and
soon ceased. The clocks struck one. Still I paced up and down,
promising myself that every time should be the last, and breaking
faith with myself on some new plea as often as I did so.

The more I thought of what the old man had said, and of his looks
and bearing, the less I could account for what I had seen and heard. I
had a strong misgiving that his nightly absence was for no good
purpose. I had only come to know the fact through the innocence of
the child, and though the old man was by at the time, and saw my
undisguised surprise, he had preserved a strange mystery upon the
subject and offered no word of explanation. These reflections
naturally recalled again more strongly than before his haggard face,
his wandering manner, his restless anxious looks. His affection for
the child might not be inconsistent with villany of the worst kind;
even that very affection was in itself an extraordinary contradiction,
or how could he leave her thus? Disposed as I was to think badly of
him, I never doubted that his love for her was real. I could not admit
the thought, remembering what had passed between us, and the tone
of voice in which he had called her by her name.

'Stay here of course,' the child had said in answer to my question, 'I
always do!' What could take him from home by night, and every
night! I called up all the strange tales I had ever heard of dark and
secret deeds committed in great towns and escaping detection for a
long series of years; wild as many of these stories were, I could not
find one adapted to this mystery, which only became the more
impenetrable, in proportion as I sought to solve it.

Occupied with such thoughts as these, and a crowd of others all
tending to the same point, I continued to pace the street for two long
hours; at length the rain began to descend heavily, and then over-powered
by fatigue though no less interested than I had been at first,
I engaged the nearest coach and so got home. A cheerful fire was
blazing on the hearth, the lamp burnt brightly, my clock received me
with its old familiar welcome; everything was quiet, warm and
cheering, and in happy contrast to the gloom and darkness I had quitted.

But all that night, waking or in my sleep, the same thoughts recurred
and the same images retained possession of my brain. I had ever
before me the old dark murky rooms--the gaunt suits of mail with
their ghostly silent air--the faces all awry, grinning from wood and
stone--the dust and rust and worm that lives in wood--and alone in
the midst of all this lumber and decay and ugly age, the beautiful
child in her gentle slumber, smiling through her light and sunny dreams.

CHAPTER 2

After combating, for nearly a week, the feeling which impelled me to
revisit the place I had quitted under the circumstances already
detailed, I yielded to it at length; and determining that this time I
would present myself by the light of day, bent my steps thither early
in the morning.

I walked past the house, and took several turns in the street, with
that kind of hesitation which is natural to a man who is conscious
that the visit he is about to pay is unexpected, and may not be very
acceptable. However, as the door of the shop was shut, and it did not
appear likely that I should be recognized by those within, if I
continued merely to pass up and down before it, I soon conquered
this irresolution, and found myself in the Curiosity Dealer's
warehouse.

The old man and another person were together in the back part, and
there seemed to have been high words between them, for their voices
which were raised to a very high pitch suddenly stopped on my
entering, and the old man advancing hastily towards me, said in a
tremulous tone that he was very glad I had come.

'You interrupted us at a critical moment,' said he, pointing to the
man whom I had found in company with him; 'this fellow will
murder me one of these days. He would have done so, long ago, if
he had dared.'

'Bah! You would swear away my life if you could,' returned the
other, after bestowing a stare and a frown on me; 'we all know that!'

'I almost think I could,' cried the old man, turning feebly upon him.
'If oaths, or prayers, or words, could rid me of you, they should. I
would be quit of you, and would be relieved if you were dead.'

'I know it,' returned the other. 'I said so, didn't I? But neither oaths,
or prayers, nor words, WILL kill me, and therefore I live, and mean
to live.'

'And his mother died!' cried the old man, passionately clasping his
hands and looking upward; 'and this is Heaven's justice!'

The other stood lunging with his foot upon a chair, and regarded him
with a contemptuous sneer. He was a young man of one-and-twenty
or thereabouts; well made, and certainly handsome, though the
expression of his face was far from prepossessing, having in
common with his manner and even his dress, a dissipated, insolent
air which repelled one.

'Justice or no justice,' said the young fellow, 'here I am and here I
shall stop till such time as I think fit to go, unless you send for
assistance to put me out--which you won't do, I know. I tell you
again that I want to see my sister.'

'YOUR sister!' said the old man bitterly.

'Ah! You can't change the relationship,' returned the other. 'If you
could, you'd have done it long ago. I want to see my sister, that you
keep cooped up here, poisoning her mind with your sly secrets and
pretending an affection for her that you may work her to death, and
add a few scraped shillings every week to the money you can hardly
count. I want to see her; and I will.'

'Here's a moralist to talk of poisoned minds! Here's a generous spirit
to scorn scraped-up shillings!' cried the old man, turning from him
to me. 'A profligate, sir, who has forfeited every claim not only
upon those who have the misfortune to be of his blood, but upon
society which knows nothing of him but his misdeeds. A liar too,' he
added, in a lower voice as he drew closer to me, 'who knows how
dear she is to me, and seeks to wound me even there, because there
is a stranger nearby.'

'Strangers are nothing to me, grandfather,' said the young fellow
catching at the word, 'nor I to them, I hope. The best they can do, is
to keep an eye to their business and leave me to mind. There's a
friend of mine waiting outside, and as it seems that I may have to
wait some time, I'll call him in, with your leave.'

Saying this, he stepped to the door, and looking down the street
beckoned several times to some unseen person, who, to judge from
the air of impatience with which these signals were accompanied,
required a great quantity of persuasion to induce him to advance. At
length there sauntered up, on the opposite side of the way--with a
bad pretense of passing by accident--a figure conspicuous for its dirty
smartness, which after a great many frowns and jerks of the head, in
resistence of the invitation, ultimately crossed the road and was
brought into the shop.

'There. It's Dick Swiveller,' said the young fellow, pushing him in.
'Sit down, Swiveller.'

'But is the old min agreeable?' said Mr Swiveller in an undertone.

Mr Swiveller complied, and looking about him with a propritiatory
smile, observed that last week was a fine week for the ducks, and
this week was a fine week for the dust; he also observed that whilst
standing by the post at the street-corner, he had observed a pig with
a straw in his mouth issuing out of the tobacco-shop, from which
appearance he augured that another fine week for the ducks was
approaching, and that rain would certainly ensue. He furthermore
took occasion to apologize for any negligence that might be
perceptible in his dress, on the ground that last night he had had 'the
sun very strong in his eyes'; by which expression he was understood
to convey to his hearers in the most delicate manner possible, the
information that he had been extremely drunk.

'But what,' said Mr Swiveller with a sigh, 'what is the odds so long
as the fire of soul is kindled at the taper of conwiviality, and the
wing of friendship never moults a feather! What is the odds so long
as the spirit is expanded by means of rosy wine, and the present
moment is the least happiest of our existence!'

'You needn't act the chairman here,' said his friend, half aside.

'Fred!' cried Mr Swiveller, tapping his nose, 'a word to the wise is
sufficient for them--we may be good and happy without riches, Fred.
Say not another syllable. I know my cue; smart is the word. Only
one little whisper, Fred--is the old min friendly?'

'Never you mind,' repled his friend.

'Right again, quite right,' said Mr Swiveller, 'caution is the word,
and caution is the act.' with that, he winked as if in preservation of
some deep secret, and folding his arms and leaning back in his chair,
looked up at the ceiling with profound gravity.

It was perhaps not very unreasonable to suspect from what had
already passed, that Mr Swiveller was not quite recovered from the
effects of the powerful sunlight to which he had made allusion; but if
no such suspicion had been awakened by his speech, his wiry hair,
dull eyes, and sallow face would still have been strong witnesses
against him. His attire was not, as he had himself hinted, remarkable
for the nicest arrangement, but was in a state of disorder which
strongly induced the idea that he had gone to bed in it. It consisted of
a brown body-coat with a great many brass buttons up the front and
only one behind, a bright check neckerchief, a plaid waistcoat, soiled
white trousers, and a very limp hat, worn with the wrong side
foremost, to hide a hole in the brim. The breast of his coat was
ornamented with an outside pocket from which there peeped forth the
cleanest end of a very large and very ill-favoured handkerchief; his
dirty wristbands were pulled on as far as possible and ostentatiously
folded back over his cuffs; he displayed no gloves, and carried a
yellow cane having at the top a bone hand with the semblance of a
ring on its little finger and a black ball in its grasp. With all these
personal advantages (to which may be added a strong savour of
tobacco-smoke, and a prevailing greasiness of appearance) Mr
Swiveller leant back in his chair with his eyes fixed on the ceiling,
and occasionally pitching his voice to the needful key, obliged the
company with a few bars of an intensely dismal air, and then, in the
middle of a note, relapsed into his former silence.

The old man sat himself down in a chair, and with folded hands,
looked sometimes at his grandson and sometimes at his strange
companion, as if he were utterly powerless and had no resource but
to leave them to do as they pleased. The young man reclined against
a table at no great distance from his friend, in apparent indifference
to everything that had passed; and I--who felt the difficulty of any
interference, notwithstanding that the old man had appealed to me,
both by words and looks--made the best feint I could of being
occupied in examining some of the goods that were disposed for sale,
and paying very little attention to a person before me.

The silence was not of long duration, for Mr Swiveller, after
favouring us with several melodious assurances that his heart was in
the Highlands, and that he wanted but his Arab steed as a
preliminary to the achievement of great feats of valour and loyalty,
removed his eyes from the ceiling and subsided into prose again.

'Fred,' said Mr Swiveller stopping short, as if the idea had suddenly
occurred to him, and speaking in the same audible whisper as before,
'is the old min friendly?'

'What does it matter?' returned his friend peevishly.

'No, but IS he?' said Dick.

'Yes, of course. What do I care whether he is or not?'

Emboldened as it seemed by this reply to enter into a more general
conversation, Mr Swiveller plainly laid himself out to captivate our
attention.

He began by remarking that soda-water, though a good thing in the
abstract, was apt to lie cold upon the stomach unless qualified with
ginger, or a small infusion of brandy, which latter article he held to
be preferable in all cases, saving for the one consideration of
expense. Nobody venturing to dispute these positions, he proceeded
to observe that the human hair was a great retainer of tobacco-smoke, and
that the young
gentlemen of Westminster and Eton, after
eating vast quantities of apples to conceal any scent of cigars from
their anxious friends, were usually detected in consequence of their
heads possessing this remarkable property; when he concluded that if
the Royal Society would turn their attention to the circumstance, and
endeavour to find in the resources of science a means of preventing
such untoward revelations, they might indeed be looked upon as
benefactors to mankind. These opinions being equally
incontrovertible with those he had already pronounced, he went on to
inform us that Jamaica rum, though unquestionably an agreeable
spirit of great richness and flavour, had the drawback of remaining
constantly present to the taste next day; and nobody being venturous
enough to argue this point either, he increased in confidence and
became yet more companionable and communicative.

'It's a devil of a thing, gentlemen,' said Mr Swiveller, 'when
relations fall out and disagree. If the wing of friendship should never
moult a feather, the wing of relationship should never be clipped, but
be always expanded and serene. Why should a grandson and
grandfather peg away at each other with mutual wiolence when all
might be bliss and concord. Why not jine hands and forgit it?'

'Hold your tongue,' said his friend.

'Sir,' replied Mr Swiveller, 'don't you interrupt the chair.
Gentlemen, how does the case stand, upon the present occasion?
Here is a jolly old grandfather--I say it with the utmost respect--and
here is a wild, young grandson. The jolly old grandfather says to the
wild young grandson, 'I have brought you up and educated you,
Fred; I have put you in the way of getting on in life; you have bolted
a little out of course, as young fellows often do; and you shall never
have another chance, nor the ghost of half a one.' The wild young
grandson makes answer to this and says, 'You're as rich as rich can
be; you have been at no uncommon expense on my account, you're
saving up piles of money for my little sister that lives with you in a
secret, stealthy, hugger-muggering kind of way and with no manner
of enjoyment--why can't you stand a trifle for your grown-up
relation?' The jolly old grandfather unto this, retorts, not only that
he declines to fork out with that cheerful readiness which is always
so agreeable and pleasant in a gentleman of his time of life, but that
he will bow up, and call names, and make reflections whenever they
meet. Then the plain question is, an't it a pity that this state of things
should continue, and how much better would it be for the gentleman
to hand over a reasonable amount of tin, and make it all right and
comfortable?'

Having delivered this oration with a great many waves and flourishes
of the hand, Mr Swiveller abruptly thrust the head of his cane into
his mouth as if to prevent himself from impairing the effect of his
speech by adding one other word.

'Why do you hunt and persecute me, God help me!' said the old man
turning to his grandson. 'Why do you bring your prolifigate
companions here? How often am I to tell you that my life is one of
care and self-denial, and that I am poor?'

'How often am I to tell you,' returned the other, looking coldly at
him, 'that I know better?'

'You have chosen your own path,' said the old man. 'Follow it.
Leave Nell and me to toil and work.'

'Nell will be a woman soon,' returned the other, 'and, bred in your
faith, she'll forget her brother unless he shows himself sometimes.'

'Take care,' said the old man with sparkling eyes, 'that she does not
forget you when you would have her memory keenest. Take care that
the day don't come when you walk barefoot in the streets, and she
rides by in a gay carriage of her own.'

'You mean when she has your money?' retorted the other. 'How like
a poor man he talks!'

'And yet,' said the old man dropping his voice and speaking like one
who thinks aloud, 'how poor we are, and what a life it is! The cause
is a young child's guiltless of all harm or wrong, but nothing goes
well with it! Hope and patience, hope and patience!'

These words were uttered in too low a tone to reach the ears of the
young men. Mr Swiveller appeared to think the they implied some
mental struggle consequent upon the powerful effect of his address,
for he poked his friend with his cane and whispered his conviction
that he had administered 'a clincher,' and that he expected a
commission on the profits. Discovering his mistake after a while, he
appeared to grow rather sleeply and discontented, and had more than
once suggested the proprieity of an immediate departure, when the
door opened, and the child herself appeared.

CHAPTER 3

The child was closely followed by an elderly man of remarkably
hard features and forbidding aspect, and so low in stature as to be
quite a dwarf, though his head and face were large enough for the
body of a giant. His black eyes were restless, sly, and cunning; his
mouth and chin, bristly with the stubble of a coarse hard beard; and
his complexion was one of that kind which never looks clean or
wholesome. But what added most to the grotesque expression of his
face was a ghastly smile, which, appearing to be the mere result of
habit and to have no connection with any mirthful or complacent
feeling, constantly revealed the few discoloured fangs that were yet
scattered in his mouth, and gave him the aspect of a panting dog. His
dress consisted of a large high-crowned hat, a worn dark suit, a pair
of capacious shoes, and a dirty white neckerchief sufficiently limp
and crumpled to disclose the greater portion of his wiry throat. Such
hair as he had was of a grizzled black, cut short and straight upon his
temples, and hanging in a frowzy fringe about his ears. His hands,
which were of a rough, coarse grain, were very dirty; his fingernails
were crooked, long, and yellow.

There was ample time to note these particulars, for besides that they
were sufficiently obvious without very close observation, some
moments elapsed before any one broke silence. The child advanced
timidly towards her brother and put her hand in his, the dwarf (if we
may call him so) glanced keenly at all present, and the curiosity-dealer,
who plainly had not
expected his uncouth visitor, seemed
disconcerted and embarrassed.

'Ah!' said the dwarf, who with his hand stretched out above his eyes
had been surveying the young man attentively, 'that should be your
grandson, neighbour!'

'Say rather that he should not be,' replied the old man. 'But he is.'

'And that?' said the dwarf, pointing to Dick Swiveller.

'Some friend of his, as welcome here as he,' said the old man.

'And that?' inquired the dwarf, wheeling round and pointing straight
at me.

'A gentleman who was so good as to bring Nell home the other night
when she lost her way, coming from your house.'

The little man turned to the child as if to chide her or express his
wonder, but as she was talking to the young man, held his peace, and
bent his head to listen.

'Well, Nelly,' said the young fellow aloud. 'Do they teach you to
hate me, eh?'

'No, no. For shame. Oh, no!' cried the child.

'To love me, perhaps?' pursued her brother with a sneer.

'To do neither,' she returned. 'They never speak to me about you.
Indeed they never do.'

'I dare be bound for that,' he said, darting a bitter look at the
grandfather. 'I dare be bound for that Nell. Oh! I believe you there!'

'But I love you dearly, Fred,' said the child.

'No doubt!'

'I do indeed, and always will,' the child repeated with great emotion,
'but oh! If you would leave off vexing him and making him unhappy,
then I could love you more.'

'I see!' said the young man, as he stooped carelessly over the child,
and having kissed her, pushed her from him: 'There--get you away
now you have said your lesson. You needn't whimper. We part good
friends enough, if that's the matter.'

He remained silent, following her with his eyes, until she had gained
her little room and closed the door; and then turning to the dwarf,
said abruptly,

'Harkee, Mr--'

'Meaning me?' returned the dwarf. 'Quilp is my name. You might
remember. It's not a long one--Daniel Quilp.'

'Harkee, Mr Quilp, then,' pursued the other, 'You have some
influence with my grandfather there.'

'Some,' said Mr Quilp emphatically.

'And are in a few of his mysteries and secrets.'

'A few,' replied Quilp, with equal dryness.

'Then let me tell him once for all, through you, that I will come into
and go out of this place as often as I like, so long as he keeps Nell
here; and that if he wants to be quit of me, he must first be quit of
her. What have I done to be made a bugbear of, and to be shunned
and dreaded as if I brought the plague? He'll tell you that I have no
natural affection; and that I care no more for Nell, for her own sake,
than I do for him. Let him say so. I care for the whim, then, of
coming to and fro and reminding her of my existence. I WILL see
her when I please. That's my point. I came here to-day to maintain
it, and I'll come here again fifty times with the same object and
always with the same success. I said I would stop till I had gained it.
I have done so, and now my visit's ended. Come Dick.'

'Stop!' cried Mr Swiveller, as his companion turned toward the
door. 'Sir!'

'Sir, I am your humble servant,' said Mr Quilp, to whom the
monosyllable was addressed.

'Before I leave the gay and festive scene, and halls of dazzling light,
sir,' said Mr Swiveller, 'I will with your permission, attempt a slight
remark. I came here, sir, this day, under the impression that the old
min was friendly.'

'Proceed, sir,' said Daniel Quilp; for the orator had made a sudden
stop.

'Inspired by this idea and the sentiments it awakened, sir, and feeling
as a mutual friend that badgering, baiting, and bullying, was not the
sort of thing calculated to expand the souls and promote the social
harmony of the contending parties, I took upon myself to suggest a
course which is THE course to be adopted to the present occasion.
Will you allow me to whisper half a syllable, sir?'

Without waiting for the permission he sought, Mr Swiveller stepped
up to the dwarf, and leaning on his shoulder and stooping down to
get at his ear, said in a voice which was perfectly audible to all
present,

'The watch-word to the old min is--fork.'

'Is what?' demanded Quilp.

'Is fork, sir, fork,' replied Mr Swiveller slapping his picket. 'You
are awake, sir?'

The dwarf nodded. Mr Swiveller drew back and nodded likewise,
then drew a little further back and nodded again, and so on. By these
means he in time reached the door, where he gave a great cough to
attract the dwarf's attention and gain an opportunity of expressing in
dumb show, the closest confidence and most inviolable secrecy.
Having performed the serious pantomime that was necessary for the
due conveyance of these idea, he cast himself upon his friend's track,
and vanished.

'Humph!' said the dwarf with a sour look and a shrug of his
shoulders, 'so much for dear relations. Thank God I acknowledge
none! Nor need you either,' he added, turning to the old man, 'if you
were not as weak as a reed, and nearly as senseless.'

'What would you have me do?' he retorted in a kind of helpless
desperation. 'It is easy to talk and sneer. What would you have me do?'

'What would I do if I was in your case?' said the dwarf.

'Something violent, no doubt.'

'You're right there,' returned the little man, highly gratified by the
compliment, for such he evidently considered it; and grinning like a
devil as he rubbed his dirty hands together. 'Ask Mrs Quilp, pretty
Mrs Quilp, obedient, timid, loving Mrs Quilp. But that reminds me--I have
left her all alone,
and she will be anxious and know not a
moment's peace till I return. I know she's always in that condition
when I'm away, thought she doesn't dare to say so, unless I lead her
on and tell her she may speak freely and I won't be angry with her.
Oh! well-trained Mrs Quilp.

The creature appeared quite horrible with his monstrous head and
little body, as he rubbed his hands slowly round, and round, and
round again--with something fantastic even in his manner of
performing this slight action--and, dropping his shaggy brows and
cocking his chin in the air, glanced upward with a stealthy look of
exultation that an imp might have copied and appropriated to
himself.

'Here,' he said, putting his hand into his breast and sidling up to the
old man as he spoke; 'I brought it myself for fear of accidents, as,
being in gold, it was something large and heavy for Nell to carry in
her bag. She need be accustomed to such loads betimes thought,
neighbor, for she will carry weight when you are dead.'