And recollect you won't get off so easy next time.
Catch hold of your money.
Now, the sooner you're five mile off, the better for all parties."
With this farewell hint and pointing generally to the setting sun as a likely place to move on to, the constable bids his auditors good afternoon and makes the echoes of Cook's Court perform slow music for him as he walks away on the shady side, carrying his iron-bound hat in his hand for a little ventilation.
Now, Jo's improbable story concerning the lady and the sovereign has awakened more or less the curiosity of all the company.
Mr. Guppy, who has an inquiring mind in matters of evidence and who has been suffering severely from the lassitude of the long vacation, takes that interest in the case that he enters on a regular cross- examination of the witness, which is found so interesting by the ladies that Mrs. Snagsby politely invites him to step upstairs and drink a cup of tea, if he will excuse the disarranged state of the tea-table, consequent on their previous exertions.
Mr. Guppy yielding his assent to this proposal, Jo is requested to follow into the drawing-room doorway, where Mr. Guppy takes him in hand as a witness, patting him into this shape, that shape, and the other shape like a butterman dealing with so much butter, and worrying him according to the best models.
Nor is the examination unlike many such model displays, both in respect of its eliciting nothing and of its being lengthy, for Mr. Guppy is sensible of his talent, and Mrs. Snagsby feels not only that it gratifies her inquisitive disposition, but that it lifts her husband's establishment higher up in the law.
During the progress of this keen encounter, the vessel Chadband, being merely engaged in the oil trade, gets aground and waits to be floated off.
"Well!" says Mr. Guppy.
"Either this boy sticks to it like cobbler's-wax or there is something out of the common here that beats anything that ever came into my way at Kenge and Carboy's."
Mrs. Chadband whispers Mrs. Snagsby, who exclaims,
"You don't say so!"
"For years!" replied Mrs. Chadband.
"Has known Kenge and Carboy's office for years," Mrs. Snagsby triumphantly explains to Mr. Guppy.
"Mrs. Chadband--this gentleman's wife--Reverend Mr. Chadband."
"Oh, indeed!" says Mr. Guppy.
"Before I married my present husband," says Mrs. Chadband.
"Was you a party in anything, ma'am?" says Mr. Guppy, transferring his cross-examination.
"No."
"NOT a party in anything, ma'am?" says Mr. Guppy.
Mrs. Chadband shakes her head.
"Perhaps you were acquainted with somebody who was a party in something, ma'am?" says Mr. Guppy, who likes nothing better than to model his conversation on forensic principles.
"Not exactly that, either," replies Mrs. Chadband, humouring the joke with a hard-favoured smile.
"Not exactly that, either!" repeats Mr. Guppy.
"Very good.
Pray, ma'am, was it a lady of your acquaintance who had some transactions (we will not at present say what transactions) with Kenge and Carboy's office, or was it a gentleman of your acquaintance?
Take time, ma'am.
We shall come to it presently.
Man or woman, ma'am?"
"Neither," says Mrs. Chadband as before.
"Oh!
A child!" says Mr. Guppy, throwing on the admiring Mrs. Snagsby the regular acute professional eye which is thrown on British jurymen.
"Now, ma'am, perhaps you'll have the kindness to tell us WHAT child."
"You have got it at last, sir," says Mrs. Chadband with another hard-favoured smile.
"Well, sir, it was before your time, most likely, judging from your appearance.
I was left in charge of a child named Esther Summerson, who was put out in life by Messrs. Kenge and Carboy."
"Miss Summerson, ma'am!" cries Mr. Guppy, excited.
"I call her Esther Summerson," says Mrs. Chadband with austerity.
"There was no Miss-ing of the girl in my time.
It was Esther.
'Esther, do this!
Esther, do that!' and she was made to do it."
"My dear ma'am," returns Mr. Guppy, moving across the small apartment, "the humble individual who now addresses you received that young lady in London when she first came here from the establishment to which you have alluded.
Allow me to have the pleasure of taking you by the hand."
Mr. Chadband, at last seeing his opportunity, makes his accustomed signal and rises with a smoking head, which he dabs with his pocket-handkerchief.
Mrs. Snagsby whispers
"Hush!"
"My friends," says Chadband, "we have partaken in moderation" (which was certainly not the case so far as he was concerned) "of the comforts which have been provided for us.
May this house live upon the fatness of the land; may corn and wine be plentiful therein; may it grow, may it thrive, may it prosper, may it advance, may it proceed, may it press forward!