Mr. Guppy

“ Guppy’s eye follows Mr. Weevle’s eye. Mr. Weevle’s eye comes back without any new intelligence in it. Mr. Guppy’s eye comes back and meets Mr. Smallweed’s eye. That engaging old gentleman is still murmuring, like some wound-up instrument running down, “How de do, sir—how de—how—” And then having run down, he lapses into grinning silence, as Mr. Guppy starts at seeing Mr. Tulkinghorn standing in the darkness opposite with his hands behind him.
“Gentleman so kind as to act as my solicitor,” says Grandfather Smallweed. “I am not the sort of client for a gentleman of such note, but he is so good!” ”

“ As it is Mr. Guppy’s perplexing way with boastful misery to tempt his particular friends into this subject, and the moment they touch it, to turn on them with that trenchant severity about the chords in the human mind, both Mr. Jobling and Mr. Smallweed decline the pitfall by remaining silent.
“Such things may be,” repeats Mr. Guppy, “or they may not be. They are no part of the case. It is enough to mention that both Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby are very willing to oblige me and that Snagsby has, in busy times, a good deal of copying work to give out. ”

“ Mr. Guppy's perseverance, all this time, not only produced him regularly at any theatre to which we went, but caused him to appear in the crowd as we were coming out, and even to get up behind our fly—where I am sure I saw him, two or three times, struggling among the most dreadful spikes. ”

“ Guppy therefore desisted from taking something out of his pocket, and proceeded without it.
“I have no capital myself, but my mother has a little property which takes the form of an annuity;” here Mr. Guppy's mother rolled her head as if she never could sufficiently enjoy the observation, and put her handkerchief to her mouth, and again winked at me; “and a few pounds for expences out of pocket in conducting business, will never be wanting, free of interest. Which is an advantage, you know,” said Mr. Guppy, feelingly.
“Certainly an advantage,” returned my guardian. ”

“ Mr. Chesterton, selecting another fool from the gallery—Young Mr. Guppy, of Bleak House—observes very wisely, that we may disapprove of Mr. Guppy, but we recognise him as a creation flung down like a miracle out of an upper sphere: we can pull him to pieces, but we could not have put him together. ”

“ The struggle in Mr. Guppy’s breast and the numerous oscillations it occasioned him between his mother’s door and us were sufficiently conspicuous in the windy street (particularly as his hair wanted cutting) to make us hurry away. I did so with a lightened heart; but when we last looked back, Mr. Guppy was still oscillating in the same troubled state of mind. ”

“ Finding his friend in this morose and material condition, Mr. Guppy only expresses the finer feelings of his soul through the tone of injury in which he recommences, “Tony, when I say there is a point on which we must come to an understanding pretty soon, I say so quite apart from any kind of conspiring, however innocent. You know it is professionally arranged beforehand in all cases that are tried what facts the witnesses are to prove. Is it or is it not desirable that we should know what facts we are to prove on the inquiry into the death of this unfortunate old mo—gentleman?” ”

“ High friends, free admission to great houses, and access to elegant ladies! Why, Mr. Guppy, there are people in London who would give their ears to be you.”
Mr. Guppy, looking as if he would give his own reddening and still reddening ears to be one of those people at present instead of himself, replies, “Sir, if I attend to my profession and do what is right by Kenge and Carboy, my friends and acquaintances are of no consequence to them nor to any member of the profession, not excepting Mr. Tulkinghorn of the Fields. I am not under any obligation to explain myself further ”

“ Guppy, nodding to his familiar.
“My dear sir,” cries Grandfather Smallweed, “would you do me a favour? Would you and your friend be so very obleeging as to carry me into the public-house in the court, while Bart and his sister bring their grandmother along? Would you do an old man that good turn, sir?”
Mr. Guppy looks at his friend, repeating inquiringly, “The public-house in the court?” And they prepare to bear the venerable burden to the Sol’s Arms. ”

“ Mr. Guppy, after a moment's consideration, began; to the great diversion of his mother, which she displayed by nudging Mr. Jobling with her elbow, and winking at me in a most remarkable manner; “I had an idea that I should see Miss Summerson by herself, and was not quite prepared for your esteemed presence. But Miss Summerson has mentioned to you, perhaps, that something has passed between us on former occasions?”
“Miss Summerson,” returned my guardian smiling, “has made a communication to that effect to me.”
“That,” said Mr. Guppy, “makes matters easier. ”

“ Guppy’s eye, has again gone round the room and come back.
“Well, sir,” says Mr. Weevle. “We won’t intrude any longer if you’ll allow us to go upstairs.”
“Anywhere, my dear sir, anywhere! You’re at home. Make yourself so, pray!”
As they go upstairs, Mr. Guppy lifts his eyebrows inquiringly and looks at Tony. Tony shakes his head. They find the old room very dull and dismal, with the ashes of the fire that was burning on that memorable night yet in the discoloured grate. They have a great disinclination to touch any object, and carefully blow the dust from it first. ”

“ Mr. Guppy takes silent notice of him at intervals, until he is half way through this second plate and stops to take an enjoying pull at his pint pot of half-and-half (also renewed) , and stretches out his legs and rubs his hands. Beholding him in which glow of contentment, Mr. Guppy says:
“You are a man again, Tony!”
“Well, not quite, yet,” says Mr. Jobling. “Say, just born.”
“Will you take any other vegetables? Grass? Peas? Summer cabbage?”
“Thank you, Guppy,” says! Mr. ”

“ Jobling. “They are great weaknesses—Damme, sir, they are great. Well!” proceeds Mr. Jobling, after a defiant visit to his rum-and-water, “what can a fellow do, I ask you, but enlist?”
Mr. Guppy comes more fully into the conversation, to state what, in his opinion, a fellow can do. His manner is the gravely impressive manner of a man who has not committed himself in life, otherwise than as he has become the victim of a tender sorrow of the heart.
“Jobling,” says Mr. Guppy, “myself and our mutual friend Smallweed———”
(Mr. Smallweed modestly observes “Gentlemen both!” and drinks.) ”

“ The wretched boy is nothing to my Lady, and she does not wish to have him produced.
“Oh, I assure your ladyship it’s a very queer start indeed,” says Mr. Guppy. “If you was to hear him tell about the rings that sparkled on her fingers when she took her glove off, you’d think it quite romantic.”
There are diamonds glittering on the hand that holds the screen. My Lady trifles with the screen and makes them glitter more, again with that expression which in other times might have been so dangerous to the young man of the name of Guppy. ”

“ When I took him into custody up in Holborn, he said you knew him. Upon that, a young man who was in the crowd said he was acquainted with you, and you were a respectable housekeeper, and if I’d call and make the inquiry, he’d appear. The young man don’t seem inclined to keep his word, but—Oh! Here IS the young man!”
Enter Mr. Guppy, who nods to Mr. Snagsby and touches his hat with the chivalry of clerkship to the ladies on the stairs. ”

“ On the strength of these profound views, he in the most ingenious manner takes infinite pains to counterplot, when there is no plot; and plays the deepest games of chess without any adversary.
It is a source of much gratification to Mr. Guppy, therefore, to find the new comer constantly poring over the papers in Jarndyce and Jarndyce; for he well knows that nothing but confusion and failure can come of that. His satisfaction communicates itself to a third saunterer through the long vacation in Kenge and Carboy's office; to wit, Young Smallweed. ”

“ He is a most extraordinary old chap, sir. I don’t know but what it might be worth a fellow’s while to look him up a bit.”
“You don’t mean—” Mr. Jobling begins.
“I mean,” returns Mr. Guppy, shrugging his shoulders with becoming modesty, “that I can’t make him out. I appeal to our mutual friend Smallweed whether he has or has not heard me remark that I can’t make him out.”
Mr. Smallweed bears the concise testimony, “A few!”
“I have seen something of the profession and something of life, Tony,” says Mr. Guppy, “and it’s seldom I can’t make a man out, more or less. ”

“ 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 enquiring 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 up-stairs, and drink a cup of tea, if he will excuse the disarranged state of the tea-table, consequent on their previous exertions. ”

“ As she looks at him so steadily and coldly, he not only feels conscious that he has no guide in the least perception of what is really the complexion of her thoughts, but also that he is being every moment, as it were, removed further and further from her.
She will not speak, it is plain. So he must.
“In short, your ladyship,” says Mr. Guppy like a meanly penitent thief, “the person I was to have had the letters of, has come to a sudden end, and—” He stops. Lady Dedlock calmly finishes the sentence. ”

“ Kenge, shaking hands with us, "for me to express my lively satisfaction in (good-day, Miss Clare!) the arrangement this day concluded, and my (good-by to you, Miss Summerson!) lively hope that it will conduce to the happiness, the (glad to have had the honor of making your acquaintance, Mr. Carstone!) welfare, the advantage in all points of view, of all concerned! Guppy, see the party safely there."
"Where is 'there,' Mr. Guppy?" said Richard, as he went down stairs. ”

“ Guppy, “—I mean, now, Jobling—you may say this is a poor prospect of a living. Granted. But it’s better than nothing, and better than enlistment. You want time. There must be time for these late affairs to blow over. You might live through it on much worse terms than by writing for Snagsby.”
Mr. Jobling is about to interrupt when the sagacious Smallweed checks him with a dry cough and the words, “Hem! Shakspeare!”
“There are two branches to this subject, Jobling,” says Mr. Guppy. “That is the first. I come to the second. You know Krook, the Chancellor, across the lane. Come, Jobling,” says Mr. ”

“ That party certainly did from that time apply himself to cutting in against me in a way that I will call sharp practice, and did make it, at every turn and point, extremely difficult for me to be sure that I hadn’t inadvertently led up to something contrary to Miss Summerson’s wishes. Self-praise is no recommendation, but I may say for myself that I am not so bad a man of business neither.”
Lady Dedlock looks at him in stern inquiry. Mr. Guppy immediately withdraws his eyes from her face and looks anywhere else. ”

“ Guppy, “though one of those circumstances that do fall in the way of us professional men—which I may call myself, for though not admitted, yet I have had a present of my articles made to me by Kenge and Carboy, on my mother’s advancing from the principal of her little income the money for the stamp, which comes heavy—that I have encountered the person who lived as servant with the lady who brought Miss Summerson up before Mr. Jarndyce took charge of her. That lady was a Miss Barbary, your ladyship.” ”

“ Weevle.
“Sir, it may be,” retorts Mr. William Guppy, “but I feel strongly when I use it.”
Mr. Weevle admits that he has been wrong and begs Mr. William Guppy to think no more about it. Mr. William Guppy, however, having got the advantage, cannot quite release it without a little more injured remonstrance.
“No! Dash it, Tony,” says that gentleman, “you really ought to be careful how you wound the feelings of a man who has an unrequited image imprinted on his ’eart and who is NOT altogether happy in those chords which vibrate to the tenderest emotions. ”

“ It's devilish odd that he need go and die and die at my place!” Jobling quite resents this liberty; several times returning to it with such remarks as, “There are places enough to die in, I should think!” or, “he wouldn't have liked my dying at his place, I dare say!”
However, the compact being virtually made, Mr. Guppy proposes to dispatch the trusty Smallweed to ascertain if Mr. Krook is at home, as in that case they may complete the negotiation without delay. Mr. Jobling approving, Smallweed puts himself under the tall hat and conveys it out of the dining-rooms in the Guppy manner. ”

“ Jobling confirmed this with a sliding movement of his legs.
“My friend Jobling will render me his assistance in the capacity of clerk and will live in the ’ouse,” said Mr. Guppy. “My mother will likewise live in the ’ouse when her present quarter in the Old Street Road shall have ceased and expired; and consequently there will be no want of society. My friend Jobling is naturally aristocratic by taste, and besides being acquainted with the movements of the upper circles, fully backs me in the intentions I am now developing.” ”

“ Snagsby is effected, and (more important) the vote and interest of Mrs. Snagsby are secured. They then report progress to the eminent Smallweed, waiting at the office in his tall hat for that purpose, and separate; Mr. Guppy explaining that he would terminate his little entertainment by standing treat at the play, but that there are chords in the human mind which would render it a hollow mockery.
On the morrow, in the dusk of evening, Mr. Weevle modestly appears at Krook's, by no means incommoded with luggage, and establishes himself in his new lodging ”