Tom Tiddlers Ground | Page 7

is a
little too much. You are not going to call yourself clean? Look at your
legs. And as to these being your premises:- they are in far too
disgraceful a condition to claim any privilege of ownership, or anything
else."
The Hermit bounced down from his window-ledge, and cast himself on
his bed of soot and cinders.
"I am not going," said Mr. Traveller, glancing in after him; "you won't
get rid of me in that way. You had better come and talk."
"I won't talk," said the Hermit, flouncing round to get his back towards
the window.
"Then I will," said Mr. Traveller. "Why should you take it ill that I
have no curiosity to know why you live this highly absurd and highly
indecent life? When I contemplate a man in a state of disease, surely
there is no moral obligation on me to be anxious to know how he took
it."
After a short silence, the Hermit bounced up again, and came back to
the barred window.
"What? You are not gone?" he said, affecting to have supposed that he
was.
"Nor going," Mr. Traveller replied: "I design to pass this summer day
here."
"How dare you come, sir, upon my promises--" the Hermit was

returning, when his visitor interrupted him.
"Really, you know, you must NOT talk about your premises. I cannot
allow such a place as this to be dignified with the name of premises."
"How dare you," said the Hermit, shaking his bars, "come in at my gate,
to taunt me with being in a diseased state?"
"Why, Lord bless my soul," returned the other, very composedly, "you
have not the face to say that you are in a wholesome state? Do allow
me again to call your attention to your legs. Scrape yourself
anywhere--with anything--and then tell me you are in a wholesome
state. The fact is, Mr. Mopes, that you are not only a Nuisance--"
"A Nuisance?" repeated the Hermit, fiercely.
"What is a place in this obscene state of dilapidation but a Nuisance?
What is a man in your obscene state of dilapidation but a Nuisance?
Then, as you very well know, you cannot do without an audience, and
your audience is a Nuisance. You attract all the disreputable vagabonds
and prowlers within ten miles around, by exhibiting yourself to them in
that objectionable blanket, and by throwing copper money among them,
and giving them drink out of those very dirty jars and bottles that I see
in there (their stomachs need be strong!); and in short," said Mr.
Traveller, summing up in a quietly and comfortably settled manner,
"you are a Nuisance, and this kennel is a Nuisance, and the audience
that you cannot possibly dispense with is a Nuisance, and the Nuisance
is not merely a local Nuisance, because it is a general Nuisance to
know that there CAN BE such a Nuisance left in civilisation so very
long after its time."
"Will you go away? I have a gun in here," said the Hermit.
"Pooh!"
"I HAVE!"
"Now, I put it to you. Did I say you had not? And as to going away,
didn't I say I am not going away? You have made me forget where I
was. I now remember that I was remarking on your conduct being a
Nuisance. Moreover, it is in the last and lowest degree inconsequent
foolishness and weakness."
"Weakness?" echoed the Hermit.
"Weakness," said Mr. Traveller, with his former comfortably settled
final air.
"I weak, you fool?" cried the Hermit, "I, who have held to my purpose,

and my diet, and my only bed there, all these years?"
"The more the years, the weaker you," returned Mr. Traveller. "Though
the years are not so many as folks say, and as you willingly take credit
for. The crust upon your face is thick and dark, Mr. Mopes, but I can
see enough of you through it, to see that you are still a young man."
"Inconsequent foolishness is lunacy, I suppose?" said the Hermit.
"I suppose it is very like it," answered Mr. Traveller.
"Do I converse like a lunatic?"
"One of us two must have a strong presumption against him of being
one, whether or no. Either the clean and decorously clad man, or the
dirty and indecorously clad man. I don't say which."
"Why, you self-sufficient bear," said the Hermit, "not a day passes but I
am justified in my purpose by the conversations I hold here; not a day
passes but I am shown, by everything I hear and see here, how right
and strong I am in holding my purpose."
Mr. Traveller, lounging easily on his billet of wood, took out a pocket
pipe and began to fill it. "Now, that a man," he said, appealing to the