Going into Society | Page 9

in common
gratitude, to help him out of his embarrassment by a timely suggestion.
So I proposed that he should come to tea again, on the next Monday
evening, the thirteenth, and should make such inquiries in the meantime,
as might enable him to dispose triumphantly of Trottle's objection.
He gallantly kissed my hand, made a neat little speech of
acknowledgment, and took his leave. For the rest of the week I would
not encourage Trottle by allowing him to refer to the House at all. I
suspected he was making his own inquiries about dates, but I put no
questions to him.
On Monday evening, the thirteenth, that dear unfortunate Jarber came,
punctual to the appointed time. He looked so terribly harassed, that he
was really quite a spectacle of feebleness and fatigue. I saw, at a glance,
that the question of dates had gone against him, that Mr. Magsman had
not been the last tenant of the House, and that the reason of its
emptiness was still to seek.
"What I have gone through," said Jarber, "words are not eloquent
enough to tell. O Sophonisba, I have begun another series of
discoveries! Accept the last two as stories laid on your shrine; and wait
to blame me for leaving your curiosity unappeased, until you have
heard Number Three."
Number Three looked like a very short manuscript, and I said as much.
Jarber explained to me that we were to have some poetry this time. In
the course of his investigations he had stepped into the Circulating
Library, to seek for information on the one important subject. All the
Library-people knew about the House was, that a female relative of the
last tenant, as they believed, had, just after that tenant left, sent a little
manuscript poem to them which she described as referring to events
that had actually passed in the House; and which she wanted the
proprietor of the Library to publish. She had written no address on her

letter; and the proprietor had kept the manuscript ready to be given
back to her (the publishing of poems not being in his line) when she
might call for it. She had never called for it; and the poem had been lent
to Jarber, at his express request, to read to me.
Before he began, I rang the bell for Trottle; being determined to have
him present at the new reading, as a wholesome check on his obstinacy.
To my surprise Peggy answered the bell, and told me, that Trottle had
stepped out without saying where. I instantly felt the strongest possible
conviction that he was at his old tricks: and that his stepping out in the
evening, without leave, meant-- Philandering.
Controlling myself on my visitor's account, I dismissed Peggy, stifled
my indignation, and prepared, as politely as might be, to listen to
Jarber.

End of Project Gutenberg Etext of Going into Society by Charles
Dickens

Going into Society by Charles Dickens
A free ebook from http://www.dertz.in/