Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXV, June, 1852Various
General
Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXV, June, 1852
Various
American literature -- Periodicals; Civilization -- Periodicals; Culture -- Periodicals
The red bit, the black bit, the inkstand top, the other inkstand top,
the little sand-box. So! You to the middle, you to the right, you to
the left. This train of indecision must surely be worked out now or
never. Now! Mr. Tulkinghorn gets up, adjusts his spectacles, puts
on his hat, puts the manuscript in his pocket, goes out, tells the
middle-aged man out at elbows, "I shall be back presently." Very rarely
tells him any thing more explicit.
Mr. Tulkinghorn goes, as the crow came--not quite so straight,
but nearly--to Cook's Court, Cursitor Street. To Snagsby's, Law
Stationer's, Deeds engrossed and copied, Law-Writing executed in all
its branches, &c., &c., &c.
It is somewhere about five or six o'clock in the afternoon, and a balmy
fragrance of warm tea hovers in Cook's Court. It hovers about Snagsby's
door. The hours are early there; dinner at half-past one, and supper at
half past nine. Mr Snagsby was about to descend into the subterranean
regions to take tea, when he looked out of his door just now, and saw
the crow who was out late.
"Master at home?"
Guster is minding the shop, for the 'Prentices take tea in the
kitchen, with Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby; consequently, the robe-maker's
two daughters, combing their curls at the two glasses in the two
second-floor windows of the opposite house are not driving the two
'Prentices to distraction, as they fondly suppose, but are merely
awakening the unprofitable admiration of Guster, whose hair won't grow
and never would, and, it is confidently thought, never will.
"Master at home?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn.
Master is at home, and Guster will fetch him. Guster disappears, glad
to get out of the shop, which she regards with mingled dread and
veneration, as a storehouse of awful implements of the great torture of
the law: a place not to be entered after the gas is turned off.
Mr. Snagsby appears: greasy, warm, herbaceous, and chewing. Bolts a bit
of bread and butter. Says, "Bless my soul, sir! Mr. Tulkinghorn!"
"I want half a word with you, Snagsby."
"Certainly, sir! Dear me, sir, why didn't you send your young man round
for me? Pray walk into the back shop, sir!" Snagsby has brightened in
a moment.
The confined room, strong of parchment-grease is warehouse,
counting-house, and copying-office. Mr. Tulkinghorn sits, facing round,
on a stool at the desk.
"Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Snagsby."
"Yes, sir." Mr. Snagsby turns up the gas, and coughs behind his
hand, modestly anticipating profit. Mr. Snagsby, as a timid man, is
accustomed to cough with a variety of expressions, and so to save words.
"You copied some affidavits in that cause for me lately."
"Yes sir, we did."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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