What is it?
What do you want with me?"
"Well, sir," says Mr. Snagsby, holding his hat at the side of his head in his deference towards his best customer, "I was wishful to say a word to you, sir."
"Can you say it here?"
"Perfectly, sir."
"Say it then."
The lawyer turns, leans his arms on the iron railing at the top of the steps, and looks at the lamplighter lighting the court-yard.
"It is relating," says Mr. Snagsby in a mysterious low voice, "it is relating--not to put too fine a point upon it--to the foreigner, sir!"
Mr. Tulkinghorn eyes him with some surprise.
"What foreigner?"
"The foreign female, sir.
French, if I don't mistake?
I am not acquainted with that language myself, but I should judge from her manners and appearance that she was French; anyways, certainly foreign.
Her that was upstairs, sir, when Mr. Bucket and me had the honour of waiting upon you with the sweeping-boy that night."
"Oh!
Yes, yes.
Mademoiselle Hortense."
"Indeed, sir?"
Mr. Snagsby coughs his cough of submission behind his hat.
"I am not acquainted myself with the names of foreigners in general, but I have no doubt it WOULD be that."
Mr. Snagsby appears to have set out in this reply with some desperate design of repeating the name, but on reflection coughs again to excuse himself.
"And what can you have to say, Snagsby," demands Mr. Tulkinghorn, "about her?"
"Well, sir," returns the stationer, shading his communication with his hat, "it falls a little hard upon me.
My domestic happiness is very great--at least, it's as great as can be expected, I'm sure-- but my little woman is rather given to jealousy.
Not to put too fine a point upon it, she is very much given to jealousy.
And you see, a foreign female of that genteel appearance coming into the shop, and hovering--I should be the last to make use of a strong expression if I could avoid it, but hovering, sir--in the court-- you know it is--now ain't it?
I only put it to yourself, sir."
Mr. Snagsby, having said this in a very plaintive manner, throws in a cough of general application to fill up all the blanks.
"Why, what do you mean?" asks Mr. Tulkinghorn.
"Just so, sir," returns Mr. Snagsby; "I was sure you would feel it yourself and would excuse the reasonableness of MY feelings when coupled with the known excitableness of my little woman.
You see, the foreign female--which you mentioned her name just now, with quite a native sound I am sure--caught up the word Snagsby that night, being uncommon quick, and made inquiry, and got the direction and come at dinner-time.
Now Guster, our young woman, is timid and has fits, and she, taking fright at the foreigner's looks--which are fierce--and at a grinding manner that she has of speaking--which is calculated to alarm a weak mind--gave way to it, instead of bearing up against it, and tumbled down the kitchen stairs out of one into another, such fits as I do sometimes think are never gone into, or come out of, in any house but ours.
Consequently there was by good fortune ample occupation for my little woman, and only me to answer the shop.
When she DID say that Mr. Tulkinghorn, being always denied to her by his employer (which I had no doubt at the time was a foreign mode of viewing a clerk), she would do herself the pleasure of continually calling at my place until she was let in here.
Since then she has been, as I began by saying, hovering, hovering, sir"--Mr. Snagsby repeats the word with pathetic emphasis--"in the court.
The effects of which movement it is impossible to calculate.
I shouldn't wonder if it might have already given rise to the painfullest mistakes even in the neighbours' minds, not mentioning (if such a thing was possible) my little woman.
Whereas, goodness knows," says Mr. Snagsby, shaking his head, "I never had an idea of a foreign female, except as being formerly connected with a bunch of brooms and a baby, or at the present time with a tambourine and earrings.
I never had, I do assure you, sir!"
Mr. Tulkinghorn had listened gravely to this complaint and inquires when the stationer has finished,
"And that's all, is it, Snagsby?"
"Why yes, sir, that's all," says Mr. Snagsby, ending with a cough that plainly adds, "and it's enough too--for me."
"I don't know what Mademoiselle Hortense may want or mean, unless she is mad," says the lawyer.
"Even if she was, you know, sir," Mr. Snagsby pleads, "it wouldn't be a consolation to have some weapon or another in the form of a foreign dagger planted in the family."
"No," says the other.
"Well, well!
This shall be stopped.
I am sorry you have been inconvenienced.
If she comes again, send her here."
Mr. Snagsby, with much bowing and short apologetic coughing, takes his leave, lightened in heart.