Mr. Wilkins

“ Wilkins, excitedly, interrupting me. “Postlethwaite, you're a genius, and if you ever want a house and lot in Calcutta, just let me know and they're yours.”
You never saw such a change come over a man in all your life. Where he had been all gloom before, he was now all smiles and jollity, and from that time on to his return to India Mr. Wilkins was as happy as a school-boy at the beginning of vacation. The next day the diamond was lost, and whoever may have it at this moment, the British Crown is not in possession of the Jigamaree gem. ”

“ Wilkins, I no longer turn up my ‘aughty nose’ (as old Mrs. Brooks used to say) . I only think to myself, ‘Heavens and earth! what an aching, empty life those young women must lead, if they are actually reduced for interest and amusement to the utterances of Mr. Wilkins!’ They would have the pull of one though, if the utterances of Mr. Wilkins were the only utterances to be heard! Perish the thought of such beggary!”
The talks with Valeria Du Prel grew more intimate, and more deeply interesting to Hadria, every day. ”

“ Scrap melted away down into the garden.
Chapter 15
The strange effect of this incident was that when they met that evening at dinner both Mrs. Fisher and Lady Caroline had a singular feeling of secret understanding with Mr. Wilkins. He could not be to them as other men. He could not be to them as he would have been if they had met him in his clothes. There was a sense of broken ice; they felt at once intimate and indulgent; almost they felt to him as nurses do—as those feel who have assisted either patients or young children at their baths. They were acquainted with Mr. Wilkins’s legs. ”

“ He would fain have spoken more to her during the dinner that ensued, but Mr. Wilkins absorbed all his attention, talking and questioning on subjects that left the ladies out of the conversation almost perpetually. Mr. Corbet recognised his host’s fine tact, even while his persistence in talking annoyed him. He was quite sure that Mr. Wilkins was anxious to spare his daughter any exertion beyond that—to which, indeed, she seemed scarely equal—of sitting at the head of the table. ”

“ The sooner that young dandy makes up his mind to place a gold ring on Miss Ruth’s pretty finger, the better for him and for the Bart. and for you too Mr Wilkins. “A nod’s as good as a wink”—you know the rest of the proverb.’ And throwing on the table a card, on which were legibly pencilled the words ‘Captain Hold. Inquire at Plugger’s Boarding-house;’ and promising, ominously, to see Mr Wilkins again, in London or at Carbery, the seaman took his leave. ”

“ Wilkins which his question produced. Both started up; Mr. Wilkins white, shaking, and trying to say something, but unable to form a sensible sentence.
“Good God! sir, what is the matter?” said Ralph, alarmed at these signs of physical suffering.
Mr. Wilkins sat down, and repelled his nearer approach without speaking.
“It is nothing, only this headache which shoots through me at times. Don’t look at me, sir, in that way. It is very unpleasant to find another man’s eyes perpetually fixed upon you.” ”

“ Wilkins also knew Una’s faults—her habit of falling a-dreaming at 3.30 and trying to make it up by working furiously at 4.30; her habit of awing the good-hearted Bessie Kraker by posing as a nun who had never been kissed nor ever wanted to be; her graft of sending the office-boy out for ten-cent boxes of cocoanut candy; and a certain resentful touchiness and ladylikeness which made it hard to give her necessary orders. Mr. Wilkins has never given testimony, but he [159] is not the villain of the tale, and some authorities have a suspicion that he did not find Una altogether perfect. ”

“ Wilkins says that the first important discovery of his life was when he embarked in the printing business. “Then,” says he, “it was easier to convince nine-tenths of the human family that the inhabitants of the infernal regions employ their time skating on real ice ponds, than it is to convince them that they cannot conduct a live newspaper. While a merchant in the town of Whitehall, Mr. Wilkins began writing—along in the fall of 1869—several humorous communications for the Weekly Times, the very paper which he afterwards owned. ”

“ Wilkins had intended to suggest that Mr. Wilkins was a villa.
“I believe,” she had thought when it was at last over—it took a long while—“that anybody would quarrel about anything when they’ve not left off being together for a single day for two whole years. What we both need is a holiday.”
“My husband,” went on Mrs. Wilkins to Mrs. Arbuthnot, trying to throw some light on herself, “is a solicitor. He—” She cast about for something she could say elucidatory of Mellersh, and found: “He’s very handsome.” ”

“ In very truth, although there was a messenger, fleet of foot and cunning in threading his way through the labyrinthine intricacies of the City, always perched on a leather-covered stool in the antechamber, to supplement the services of the office lad, Mr Wilkins had no clerk. ”

“ Mr. Samuel Wilkins, who had been muttering apart for some time past, as if he were holding a confidential conversation with the gilt knob of the dress-cane, breathed hard-breathing vengeance, perhaps,—but said nothing. ‘The soldier tired,’ Miss Somebody in white satin. ‘Ancore!’ cried Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend. ‘Ancore!’ shouted the gentleman in the plaid waistcoat immediately, hammering the table with a stout-bottle. Miss J’mima Ivins’s friend’s young man eyed the man behind the waistcoat from head to foot, and cast a look of interrogative contempt towards Mr. Samuel Wilkins. ”

“ It is not the man!" the latter cried with a rattling oath. "It is all right! I swear it is! Here you, speak, fool!" he went on to me. "What do you here?"
"This for Mr. Wilkins," I answered, holding out my note.
I meant no jest, but the words supplied the signal for such a roar of laughter as well-nigh lifted the roof. The men were still between drunk and sober; and in the rebound of their relief staggered and clung to one another, and bent this way and that in a paroxysm of convulsive mirth. ”

“ Wilkins came puffing up-stairs supplementing [Pg 127] the message with a "Hurry now; the major isn't the man for you to keep waiting," the hapless veteran wished himself anywhere out of Wyoming; but down he went with rather a hang-dog look. Stannard had met him with unexpected kindness of manner. "I'm worried about the story told of Ray, Mr. Wilkins, and I've come to get the authority from you. Of course you must have had something to base such statements upon," and being fairly cornered, Wilkins said his informant was Gleason. ”

“ The supervision of Bessie Kraker and the office-boy.
Equally fixed were the details of the grubby office itself. Like many men who have pride in the smartest suburban homes available, Mr. Wilkins was content with an office shabby and inconvenient. He regarded beautiful offices as in some way effeminate.... His wasn’t effeminate; it was undecorative as a filled ash-tray, despite Una’s daily following up of the careless scrubwomen with dust-cloth and whisk. She knew every inch of it, as a gardener knows his plot. ”

“ He had been dining at the house of one of the lesser gentry, who was under considerable obligations to his father, and who was the parent of eight “muckle-mou’ed” daughters, so hardly likely to oppose much aristocratic resistance to the elder Mr. Wilkins’s clearly implied wish that Edward should be presented at the Hamley assembly-rooms. But many a squire glowered and looked black at the introduction of Wilkins the attorney’s son into the sacred precincts ”

“ Since that time he has been its editor and proprietor, and has made for it a name that takes first rank among the newspapers of America made famous by their humorous paragraphs.
Mr. Wilkins has a wife, two children, and a charming home. Of his family he says: “None of my relatives have ever been hung, but once a brother-in-law came near going to Congress. My war record is good—as during the rebellion I did not have a hand in the public treasury, but a second cousin of my wife sent a substitute, who by jumping bounties like a true patriot, covered the family with glory enough to reach me.” ”

“ We left Petropolis for Juiz de Fóra at daybreak on a fine, cold morning; the grey mist was still clinging to the mountains. We had a large char-à-banc, holding eight, in two and two, all facing the horses. We took our small bags with us, but everything heavier had gone on in the public coach. Our party, besides Richard and myself, consisted of Mr. Morritt, proprietor of the hotel and the char-à-banc, and three other Englishmen, who with the driver and my negret Chico made up the eight. The four mules were so fresh that they were with difficulty harnessed, and were held in by four men. ”

“ Wilkinson, still forcing a smile to her countenance. "I always feel so lonely when you are away. We only have our evenings to be together; and I cannot bear then to be robbed of your company. Don't go out, John; that's a good, dear husband."
And Mrs. Wilkinson, in the earnestness of her desire to keep her husband at home, laid aside her sewing, and rising, approached and leaned her hands upon his shoulder, looking up with an affectionate, appealing expression into his face.
"You're a dear, good girl, Mary," said Mr. Wilkinson, tenderly, and he kissed the pure lips of his wife as he spoke. ”

“ In short believing that Mr Wilkins' reputation are fully adequate for the station named and that this appointment would greatly and his interesting family should he obtain the appointment. I hope I may not be considered is too impertanate when I thus urge his claim upon your excellencys most serious consideration. ”

“ Lamb. "I've done all I can. I can't make her speak."
Mr. Green groaned in response, and drove on. Mrs. Lamb went in, and stood at her sitting-room window and watched the lights over at the Green house. They flitted from one room to another all night. At dawn Aunt Susy ran over with her shawl over her head. She was wan and hollow-eyed.
"They haven't found a sign of her," said she. "They've looked everywhere. The Pitkin boy's been down the well. Mr. Pitkin has just come over from the village, and a lot of men are going out to hunt for her as soon as it's light. ”

“ Every one gives somethin’, I’ve only got you, and I want to do my share, and do it hearty.”
She went back to her work, and Mr. Wilkins sat thoughtfully stroking the curly heads beside him, while the boys ravaged his plate, with no reproof, but a half audible, “My little chaps, my little chaps!” ”

“ Presently a man appeared around the corner. After him tagged a small white-headed boy, and after the boy, Willy Rose, with a sassafras-root and an old shoe-knife in his hands.
The man, who was Mr. Hiram Fairbanks, Mrs. Rose's brother, had a somewhat doubtful expression. When he stopped, the white-headed boy stopped, keeping a little behind him in his shadow.
"What boy is that, Hiram?" asked Mrs. Rose. Miss Elvira peered around the door. Mr. Fairbanks was tall and stiff-looking. He had a sunburned, sober face. "His name is Dickey," he replied. ”

“ Go right in this minute, 'round by the kitchen door, and take this boy 'round with you; he can sit down on the door-step and help you clean your sassafras-root."
Willy disappeared lingeringly around the house, and the other boy, on being further bidden by Mr. Fairbanks, followed him. "Willy," his mother cried after him, "mind you sit down on the door-step and tie your shoes! I ain't goin' to have that Dickey boy left alone; his folks are nothin' but a pack of thieves," she remarked in a lower tone. ”

“ There isn't anything better than a bowl of good, hot, thoroughwort tea."
The twilight was deepening. The Lamb family were all in the sitting-room. They had not lighted the lamp, the summer dusk was so pleasant. The windows were open. All at once a dark shadow appeared at one of them. The women started—all but Grandmother Lamb. She was asleep in her chair.
"Who's there?" Aunt Susy asked, in a grave tone.
"Have you seen anything of Hannah Maria?" said a hoarse voice. Then they knew it was Mr. Green.
Mrs. Lamb and the aunts pressed close to the window.
"No, we haven't," replied Mrs. Lamb. ”

“ He tells us that Wilkins had his "grammar learning from Mr Sylvester, 'the common drudge of the University,' who kept a private school: that he entered Magdalen Hall from New Inn Hall in 1627 at the age of thirteen, and there was placed under the tutorship of 'the learned Mr John Tombs, the Coryphæus of the Anabaptists.'" Tombs was a man of great ability, notable for his "curious, searching, piercing witt, of whom it was predicted that he would doe a great deale of mischiefe to the Church of England, as great witts have done by introducing new opinions." ”

“ I have been a better man since I first held you here on my heart. A better man, Heaven knows!"
"Wilkins, in all the five years you have been here, do you mean to say Mr. Delancey has never asked you to his house, or noticed you any more than he does now?"
"I have never been asked to enter his door, Guly, any more than you have. He would as soon, I suppose, turn a herd of swine into his drawing-room, as to ask his clerks there. He is very proud."
"That isn't pride, Wilkins; it is meanness. A truly proud man would adopt the contrary course, I am sure ”

“ WILKINS, Sir CHARLES (1749?–1836) , orientalist, born at Frome, Somerset, in 1749 (or in 1750, for contemporary authorities differ as to his age at death) , was the son of Walter Wilkins of that town, and his wife Martha Wray, niece of Robert Bateman Wray [q. v.] the engraver. In 1770 he proceeded to Bengal in the service of the East India Company as a writer, and became superintendent of the company's factories at Maldah. ‘About 1778,’ he writes, his ‘curiosity was excited by the example of his friend Mr. Halhed to commence the study of the Sanskrit’ [see Halhed, Nathaniel Brassey] . ”