The Mysteries of the Court of London — page 95: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

82 “ Well, and how are you all, my pals?” he ex- claimed, throwing himself upon a chair, and then coolly tossing off a glass of brandy which stood on the side of the table near him. “All right, Mr. Coffin,” answered one of the women. “Old Jeremy’s up-stairs. You know it’s his night to be here ——” “That's just why I’ve come down to the Island now,” observed the Hangman. “I want to see him about some particular business. Is he up-stairs 7” “ Yes —but there’s a chap with him,” said Ben- cull. “Oh! well—I oan wait awhile—I'm in no harry —'specially in such sweet company, he added, with a grin at the women, who laughed amazingly at the compliment. “I dare say the knife-grinder won't be long,” remarked Bencall. “The knife-grinder * exclaimed the Hangmap, catching at the name: for, he remembered what John the footman had told him relative to a wor- thy of that description, at the King’s Arms, Rich- mond, on the preceding night. “Yes: do you know anythink of him ?” inquired Bencull, all his former suspicions instantaneously aroused again. “ Nothing bad, at all events,” returned Daniel Coffin: “on the contrary, if it’s the same that I mean, he must be a deuced good kind of a chap. But from what I was told, I don’t think it is the same, because the one I'm speaking of is wanted in London by the beaks ———" “ And so is this feller,” exclaimed Bencall: “ he ssid so to me when he fast entered the crib just now. He says Larry Sampson haa got a warrant out against him; but he’s blowed if he won’t give Larry an inch or two of cold. steel afore he’d be lugged off to quod by any such sneaking willain,” “Sach a chap, then, would be a welcome recrait for our band,” observed Coffin the Hangman, “I wonder what he’s up to with old Jeremy? May be something in which we could lend him s little help, and of course go snacks.” “ Why don’t you step up-atairs and seo if there’s _ any way of insinuating yourself into the confidence of this Tibby Blades?” inquired Bencull. “So I will,” returned Daniel the Hangman: and he ascended the ladder accordingly. Raising the trap-door a little and somewhat cau- tiously, he beheld the knife-grinder and old Jeremy sitting very close to each other and Jean- ing forward so that there was not an interval of more than three inches between the soot-begrimed countenance of the former and the thin pointed nose of the latter. They were evidently in deep discourse upon some absorbing topic; so mach so, that they did not immediately notice the raising of the trap-door. “ May I come up?” asked the Hangman; “or is it anything very particular ” “Qh! dear, dear—how you've startled me, Daniel !" exclaimed Jeremy, ia a nervous, trem- bling voice. “But come up, my kind and excel- “ent friend,” he continued, assuming a bland and coaxing tone: “come up, my dear Daniel. You're the very person I wanted to see: and indeed I was , Just mentioning your name in the most affectionate terms to my new acquaintance here.” “Mr. Tibby Blades, I anderstand,” said Coffin, ws he went up the remaining steps of the ladder THE MYSTERIES OF THE COURT. and closed the trap behind him. “They told me down stairs who it was you'd got with you. But I haven’t had the pleasure of meeting him before: although I'd keard of him.” “Heard of me!” exclaimed the knife-grinder. “ And yet I haven’t made myself wery ‘torious in the world yet awhile.” “Wasn't you at Richmond yesterday afternoon, or evening?” inquired the Hangman. * Come— you needn’t hesitate about answering—old Jeremy here will teli you I’m all right.” ‘ “ He’s already told me 20,” observed the knife- grinder; “and therefore } meeda't hesitate to say I was at Riehmond for ap hour or so ——” “Enough, my talip!” ejaculated Jack Ketch. “ Compe, tip we your daddie, and we'll be pais. I like the look of you, although ——” “Although I am rayther blackish and sooty— eh?” cried Tibby Biades, with a loud laugh. “Hah! hah! hah! hah !” “He! he! he!’ was the faint and tremulous chuckle, or rather cackle of old Jeremy. “ You see, Mr. Biades, we're a merry seh—a set of merry dogs, I can aseure you. We can laugh at anything and anybody—he} he! he! And here is my dear kind friend Daniel Coffin, who knows I lore him as well as if be was my own son,” continued the sn- cient feaee, in a whining, canting, snivellng tone of-eretched hypoocrisy,—*“and he'it tell you, Mr. Biades, that I’m a worthy old soul—a sort of father to a good many persons who eonkin’t do very well without me ——" “ Hold your precious humbagging tongue, you eld fool,” growled the Hangman, savagely. “I dare say our new friend Blades knows all about you; or else be wouldn't have come hunting you out in Ben- cull’s crib.” “No—but he doesn’t know all about me, though,” shrieked the old man in a shrill voice: “ and what I want ia that he should know more about me than he does. Now, my dear kind Daniel, do tell Mr. Blades the truth: teli him that I never have anything to do with burglaries, highway robberies, or pocket-pick- ings; but that I am a moral man—a church-going man—a mab who subscribes to charities and does a thousand little benevolent things in a quiet way.” “ Aye—all your benevolence is snug enough, I'll be bound, Jeremy,” exclaimed the Hangman: then turning towards the knifo-grinder, he said, “ You never in all your life saw such a snivelling, sneak- ing, blarneying, whining, coaxing old fool as this Jeremy Humpage. He's constantly endeavouring to persuade himself and others that he’s not a regular fence who buys stolen goods, but a philanthropist who gives poor devils a good price for the scrapings of the gutters, the searchings of the sewers, and tke rakings of the dunghills. If you even took him a chest of plate that cost a thousand guineas, he wouldn’t seem to suspéct for an instant that it was stolen; he’d ask you what nobleman or gentleman was in difficulties and had sent you to dispose of the property. Why, even I’m an honest man in old Jeremy’s calculation,” added Coffin, with a gum amile. “To be sure, to be sure,” said Humpage—for such was Jeremy’s surname : “ I never have anything te do with rognes and rascals. I don’t want to fall out with the authorities and have the constables set im chase of me: I don’t choose to know a single thing that’s going on, unless it’s all right and straightfor- GDoo <S co