Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Every-Day Life and Every-Day PeopleDickens, Charles
General
Sketches by Boz, Illustrative of Every-Day Life and Every-Day People
Dickens, Charles
London (England) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century; London (England) -- Social life and customs -- 19th century -- Fiction
As we had occasion, in a former paper, to describe a dinner at Mrs.
Tibbs’s; and as one meal went off very like another on all ordinary
occasions; we will not fatigue our readers by entering into any other
detailed account of the domestic economy of the establishment. We will
therefore proceed to events, merely premising that the mysterious
tenant of the back drawing-room was a lazy, selfish hypochondriac;
always complaining and never ill. As his character in many respects
closely assimilated to that of Mrs. Bloss, a very warm friendship soon
sprung up between them. He was tall, thin, and pale; he always fancied
he had a severe pain somewhere or other, and his face invariably wore a
pinched, screwed-up expression; he looked, indeed, like a man who had
got his feet in a tub of exceedingly hot water, against his will.
For two or three months after Mrs. Bloss’s first appearance in
Coram-street, John Evenson was observed to become, every day, more
sarcastic and more ill-natured; and there was a degree of additional
importance in his manner, which clearly showed that he fancied he had
discovered something, which he only wanted a proper opportunity of
divulging. He found it at last.
One evening, the different inmates of the house were assembled in the
drawing-room engaged in their ordinary occupations. Mr. Gobler and Mrs.
Bloss were sitting at a small card-table near the centre window,
playing cribbage; Mr. Wisbottle was describing semicircles on the
music-stool, turning over the leaves of a book on the piano, and
humming most melodiously; Alfred Tomkins was sitting at the round
table, with his elbows duly squared, making a pencil sketch of a head
considerably larger than his own; O’Bleary was reading Horace, and
trying to look as if he understood it; and John Evenson had drawn his
chair close to Mrs. Tibbs’s work-table, and was talking to her very
earnestly in a low tone.
‘I can assure you, Mrs. Tibbs,’ said the radical, laying his forefinger
on the muslin she was at work on; ‘I can assure you, Mrs. Tibbs, that
nothing but the interest I take in your welfare would induce me to make
this communication. I repeat, I fear Wisbottle is endeavouring to gain
the affections of that young woman, Agnes, and that he is in the habit
of meeting her in the store-room on the first floor, over the leads.
From my bedroom I distinctly heard voices there, last night. I opened
my door immediately, and crept very softly on to the landing; there I
saw Mr. Tibbs, who, it seems, had been disturbed also.—Bless me, Mrs.
Tibbs, you change colour!’
‘No, no—it’s nothing,’ returned Mrs. T. in a hurried manner; ‘it’s only
the heat of the room.’
‘A flush!’ ejaculated Mrs. Bloss from the card-table; ‘that’s good for
four.’
‘If I thought it was Mr. Wisbottle,’ said Mrs. Tibbs, after a pause,
‘he should leave this house instantly.’
‘Go!’ said Mrs. Bloss again.
‘And if I thought,’ continued the hostess with a most threatening air,
‘if I thought he was assisted by Mr. Tibbs—’
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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