Barnaby Rudge | Page 9

back on Natur, a flouting of her, a slighting of her precious caskets, and
a proving of one's self to be a swine that isn't worth her scattering
pearls before.'
The landlord pausing here for a very long time, Mr Parkes naturally
concluded that he had brought his discourse to an end; and therefore,
turning to the young man with some austerity, exclaimed:
'You hear what your father says, Joe? You wouldn't much like to tackle
him in argeyment, I'm thinking, sir.'
'IF,' said John Willet, turning his eyes from the ceiling to the face of his
interrupter, and uttering the monosyllable in capitals, to apprise him
that he had put in his oar, as the vulgar say, with unbecoming and
irreverent haste; 'IF, sir, Natur has fixed upon me the gift of argeyment,
why should I not own to it, and rather glory in the same? Yes, sir, I AM
a tough customer that way. You are right, sir. My toughness has been
proved, sir, in this room many and many a time, as I think you know;
and if you don't know,' added John, putting his pipe in his mouth again,
'so much the better, for I an't proud and am not going to tell you.'
A general murmur from his three cronies, and a general shaking of
heads at the copper boiler, assured John Willet that they had had good
experience of his powers and needed no further evidence to assure them
of his superiority. John smoked with a little more dignity and surveyed
them in silence.
'It's all very fine talking,' muttered Joe, who had been fidgeting in his
chair with divers uneasy gestures. 'But if you mean to tell me that I'm
never to open my lips--'
'Silence, sir!' roared his father. 'No, you never are. When your opinion's
wanted, you give it. When you're spoke to, you speak. When your
opinion's not wanted and you're not spoke to, don't you give an opinion
and don't you speak. The world's undergone a nice alteration since my

time, certainly. My belief is that there an't any boys left--that there isn't
such a thing as a boy--that there's nothing now between a male baby
and a man--and that all the boys went out with his blessed Majesty
King George the Second.'
'That's a very true observation, always excepting the young princes,'
said the parish-clerk, who, as the representative of church and state in
that company, held himself bound to the nicest loyalty. 'If it's godly and
righteous for boys, being of the ages of boys, to behave themselves like
boys, then the young princes must be boys and cannot be otherwise.'
'Did you ever hear tell of mermaids, sir?' said Mr Willet.
'Certainly I have,' replied the clerk.
'Very good,' said Mr Willet. 'According to the constitution of mermaids,
so much of a mermaid as is not a woman must be a fish. According to
the constitution of young princes, so much of a young prince (if
anything) as is not actually an angel, must be godly and righteous.
Therefore if it's becoming and godly and righteous in the young princes
(as it is at their ages) that they should be boys, they are and must be
boys, and cannot by possibility be anything else.'
This elucidation of a knotty point being received with such marks of
approval as to put John Willet into a good humour, he contented
himself with repeating to his son his command of silence, and
addressing the stranger, said:
'If you had asked your questions of a grown-up person--of me or any of
these gentlemen--you'd have had some satisfaction, and wouldn't have
wasted breath. Miss Haredale is Mr Geoffrey Haredale's niece.'
'Is her father alive?' said the man, carelessly.
'No,' rejoined the landlord, 'he is not alive, and he is not dead--'
'Not dead!' cried the other.

'Not dead in a common sort of way,' said the landlord.
The cronies nodded to each other, and Mr Parkes remarked in an
undertone, shaking his head meanwhile as who should say, 'let no man
contradict me, for I won't believe him,' that John Willet was in amazing
force to-night, and fit to tackle a Chief Justice.
The stranger suffered a short pause to elapse, and then asked abruptly,
'What do you mean?'
'More than you think for, friend,' returned John Willet. 'Perhaps there's
more meaning in them words than you suspect.'
'Perhaps there is,' said the strange man, gruffly; 'but what the devil do
you speak in such mysteries for? You tell me, first, that a man is not
alive, nor yet dead--then, that he's not dead in a common sort of
way--then, that you mean a great deal more than I think for. To tell you
the truth, you may do that easily; for so