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Mr. Pancks, who supported the character of chief con-
spirator, had completed l1is extracts, he looked‘ them
over, corrected them, ut up his note-book, and held
them like a hand at cards.
“ Now, there's a churchyard in Bedfordshire," said
Pancks. “ VVho takes it ‘I’'
(‘1‘l,”ll take it, sir,” returned Mr. Rugg, “if no’ one
bi s. -
Mr. Pancks dealt him his card, and looked at his
hand again.
“ Now, there’s an Enquiry in York," said Pancks.
“ ‘V110 takes it?” . '
“ I’m not good for York,” said Mr. Rugg.
- “ Then perhaps,” pursued Pancks, “ you'll be so oblig-
ing, John Chivery?”
Young John assenting, Pancks dealt him his card, and
consulted his hand again.
“There’s a Church in London; I ma as well take
that. And a Family Bible ; Imay as wclitake that, too.
That’s two to me. Two to me,” repeated Pancks, breath-
ing hard-over his cards. “ Here's a Clerk at Durham for
you, John, andnan old seafaring gentleman at Dunstable
for you, Mr. liugg. Two to me, was it? Yes, two to
me. Here’s a stone; three to me. And n Still-born
Baby ; four to me. And all, for the present, told.”
. lVhen he had thus disposed of his cards, all being done
very quietly and in a suppressed tone, Mr Pancks puffed
his way into his own brcast- ocket and tugged out a can-
vas bag : from which, wit a sparing hand, he told
forth money forntravclliug expenses in two little por-
tions. “ Cash goes out fast,” he said anxiously, as he
pushed a portion to each of his male companions, " very
fast '
“ I can only assure you, Mr. Pancks,” said Young
John, “that I deeply regret my circumstances being such
that I can’t afford to pay my own charges, or that it’s not
advisable to allow me the time necessary for my doing
the distance on foot. Because nothing would give me
greater satisfaction than to wall: myself off my legs with-
out fec or reward."
This young man’s disintcrcstedncss appeared so very
ludicrous in the eyes of Miss Rugg, that she was obliged
to effect a precipitate retirement from the compan ', and
to sit upon the stairs until she had had her laug out.
Meanwhile Mr. Pancks, looking, not without some pity,
at Young John, slowly and thoughtfully twisted up his
canvas bag as if he were wringing its neck. The lady
returning as he restored it to his pocket, mixed rum and
water for the party, not forgetting her fair self, and
handed to every one his glass. ‘Vixen all were supplied,
Mr. Rugg rose, and silently holding out his lass at
arm's length above the centre of the table, by t rat ges-
ture invited the other three to add theirs, and to unite in’
a general conspiratorial clink. The ceremony was effec-
tive up to a certain point, and would have been wholly
so throu hout, if Miss Rugg, as she raised her glass to
her lips in completion of it, had not happened to look at
Young John; when she was again so overcome by the
contemptible comicality of his disinterestedness, as to
splatter some ambrosial drops of rum and water around,
and withdraw in confusion. '
Such was the dinner without precedent, given by
Pancks at Pentonville ; and such was the busy and
stran 9 life Pancks led. The only waking moments at
whic 1 he appeared to relax from his cares, and to recre-'
ate himself by going anywhere or sa ing anything with-
out a pervading object, were when he showed a dawn-
ing interest in the lame foreigner with the stick, down
Bleeding Heart Yard. '
The foreigner, by name John Baptist Cavalletto-they
called him Mr. Baptist in the Yard-was such a chirping,
easy, hopeful little fellow, that his attraction for Pancks
was probably in the force of contrast. Solitary, weak,
and scantily acquainted with the most necessary words
of the only language in which he-could communicate
with the people about him,’ he went with the stream of
his fortunes, in a brisk way that was new in those parts.’
VVith little to eat, and less to drink, and nothing to wear
but what he wore upon him,-or had brought'tied up in
one of the smallest bundles that ever were seen, he put
as brighta. face upon it as if he were in’ the most flour-
hing‘ circumstances, when he first’ hobbled up and
UIIARLES DI OKENS ’ WORKS.
down the Yard humbly propitfating the general good.
will with his white teeth. ‘
It was up-hill work for a foreigner, lame or sound, to
make his way with the Bleeding Hearts. In the first
ilace, they were vaguely persuaded that every foreigner
had a knife about him ; in the second, they held it to be
a sound constitutional national axiom that he ought to
go home to his own country. They never thought of in-
quiring how many of their own countrymen would be re-
turned upon their hands from divers parts of the world,
if the principle were generally recognised ; they con-
sidered it practically and peculiarly ‘British. n the
third place, they had a notion that it was a sort of Divine
visitation upon a foreigner that he was not an English-
man, and that all kin s of calamities happened to his
country because it did things that En land did not, and
did not do things that England did. n this belief, to be
sure, they had ong been carefully trained by the Barna-
cles and Stiltstalkings, who were always proclaiming to
them, otiicinlly and unoflicially, that no country which
failed to submit itself to those two large families could
possibly hope to be under the protection of Provi-
dence ; and who, when they believed it, disparagcd them
in private as the most prejudiced people under the
sun.
This, therefore, might be called a political position of
the Bleeding Hearts ; but they entertained other objec-
tions to having foreigners in the Yard. They believed
that foreigners were always badly off; and though they
were as ill off themselves as they could desire to be, that
did not diminish the force of the objection. They believed
that foreigners were dragooncd and bayonetted ; and
though they certainly got their own skulls promptly
fractured if they showed any ill humourgstill it was
with a blunt instrument, and that’ didn’t count. ‘They
believed that foreigners were always immoral ; and
though theyhad an occasional assize at‘ home, and now
and then a divorce case or so, that had nothing to
do with it. They believed that foreigners had no inde-
pendent spirit, as never bcin escorted tothe poll in
droves by Lord Dccimus Tite arnacle, with colours fly-
ing and the tune of Rule Britannia playing.‘ Not to
be tedious, they had many other beliefs of a similar
kind.
Against these obstacles, the lame‘ foreigner with the
stick had to make head as well as he could ; not.abso-
lutely single-handed, because Mr. Arthur Clunnam had
recommended him,to the Plornishes (he lived at the top-
of thesame house), but still at heavy odds. ' However,
the Bleeding Hearts were kind hearts; and when they
saw the little fellow cheerily limping about with a good-
humoured face, doing no harm, drawing no knives, com-
mitting no outra eous immoralities, living chiefl on far-
inaceous and mil diet, and playing with Mrs. P ornish’s
children of an evening, they began to think that al-
though he could never hope to be an En lishman, still it
would be hard to visit that aflliction on his head.’ They
began to accommodate themselves to his level, callin
him “Mr. Baptist,” but treating him like a baby, an
laughing immoderately at his lively estures and his
childish English-more, because he di n’t mind it, and
laughed too. They spoke to him in very loud voices as
if he were stone deal’. They constructed sentences, by
way of teachin him the language in its purity, such'as'
were addresse by the savages to Captain Cook, or by
Fridn to Robinson Crusoe. Mrs. Plornish was particu-
larly ingenious in this art ;.and attained so much celeb-
rity for saying “Me ope you leg well soon,” that- it
was considered in the Yard but a very short remove in-
deed from speaking Italian.” Even ’Mrs.‘Plornish her-
self began to think that she had a ‘-natural call towards
that language. ,4 Ashe became more popular, household
objects were brought into ‘requisition for his instruction’
ina copious vocnbular ; and whenever he appeared in‘
the Yard,'ladies woul fly out at their doors crying “Mr.
Baptist-teapot l ” 3 “ Mr. Baptis ust-pan l" " "Mr.
Baptist’-flour-drcdger 1”‘ “ Mr Baptist-coffee-biggin 1";
At the same time exhibiting those articles, and penetrati-
ing him with a sense of the
Anglo-Saxon tongue. . r . i i
‘ It'was in this stage of his progress, and in about the‘
third week of his occupation.'t rat Mr. l’aneks's fancy‘ ‘
. I
appalling diflicultiesuof the
‘lit-
.