Our Mutual Friend

  Chapter 17

  A DISMAL SWAMP

  And now, in the blooming summer days, behold Mr and Mrs Boffinestablished in the eminently aristocratic family mansion, and beholdall manner of crawling, creeping, fluttering, and buzzing creatures,attracted by the gold dust of the Golden Dustman!

  Foremost among those leaving cards at the eminently aristocratic doorbefore it is quite painted, are the Veneerings: out of breath, onemight imagine, from the impetuosity of their rush to the eminentlyaristocratic steps. One copper-plate Mrs Veneering, two copper-plateMr Veneerings, and a connubial copper-plate Mr and Mrs Veneering,requesting the honour of Mr and Mrs Boffin's company at dinner withthe utmost Analytical solemnities. The enchanting Lady Tippins leaves acard. Twemlow leaves cards. A tall custard-coloured phaeton tooling upin a solemn manner leaves four cards, to wit, a couple of Mr Podsnaps, aMrs Podsnap, and a Miss Podsnap. All the world and his wife and daughterleave cards. Sometimes the world's wife has so many daughters, that hercard reads rather like a Miscellaneous Lot at an Auction; comprising MrsTapkins, Miss Tapkins, Miss Frederica Tapkins, Miss Antonina Tapkins,Miss Malvina Tapkins, and Miss Euphemia Tapkins; at the same time,the same lady leaves the card of Mrs Henry George Alfred Swoshle, NEETapkins; also, a card, Mrs Tapkins at Home, Wednesdays, Music, PortlandPlace.

  Miss Bella Wilfer becomes an inmate, for an indefinite period, of theeminently aristocratic dwelling. Mrs Boffin bears Miss Bella away toher Milliner's and Dressmaker's, and she gets beautifully dressed. TheVeneerings find with swift remorse that they have omitted to invite MissBella Wilfer. One Mrs Veneering and one Mr and Mrs Veneering requestingthat additional honour, instantly do penance in white cardboard onthe hall table. Mrs Tapkins likewise discovers her omission, andwith promptitude repairs it; for herself; for Miss Tapkins, for MissFrederica Tapkins, for Miss Antonina Tapkins, for Miss Malvina Tapkins,and for Miss Euphemia Tapkins. Likewise, for Mrs Henry George AlfredSwoshle NEE Tapkins. Likewise, for Mrs Tapkins at Home, Wednesdays,Music, Portland Place.

  Tradesmen's books hunger, and tradesmen's mouths water, for the golddust of the Golden Dustman. As Mrs Boffin and Miss Wilfer drive out, oras Mr Boffin walks out at his jog-trot pace, the fishmonger pulls offhis hat with an air of reverence founded on conviction. His men cleansetheir fingers on their woollen aprons before presuming to touch theirforeheads to Mr Boffin or Lady. The gaping salmon and the golden mulletlying on the slab seem to turn up their eyes sideways, as they wouldturn up their hands if they had any, in worshipping admiration. Thebutcher, though a portly and a prosperous man, doesn't know what to dowith himself; so anxious is he to express humility when discovered bythe passing Boffins taking the air in a mutton grove. Presents are madeto the Boffin servants, and bland strangers with business-cardsmeeting said servants in the street, offer hypothetical corruption. As,'Supposing I was to be favoured with an order from Mr Boffin, my dearfriend, it would be worth my while'--to do a certain thing that I hopemight not prove wholly disagreeable to your feelings.

  But no one knows so well as the Secretary, who opens and reads theletters, what a set is made at the man marked by a stroke of notoriety.Oh the varieties of dust for ocular use, offered in exchange for thegold dust of the Golden Dustman! Fifty-seven churches to be erected withhalf-crowns, forty-two parsonage houses to be repaired with shillings,seven-and-twenty organs to be built with halfpence, twelve hundredchildren to be brought up on postage stamps. Not that a half-crown,shilling, halfpenny, or postage stamp, would be particularly acceptablefrom Mr Boffin, but that it is so obvious he is the man to make up thedeficiency. And then the charities, my Christian brother! And mostly indifficulties, yet mostly lavish, too, in the expensive articles of printand paper. Large fat private double letter, sealed with ducal coronet.'Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire. My Dear Sir,--Having consented to presideat the forthcoming Annual Dinner of the Family Party Fund, and feelingdeeply impressed with the immense usefulness of that noble Institutionand the great importance of its being supported by a List of Stewardsthat shall prove to the public the interest taken in it by popular anddistinguished men, I have undertaken to ask you to become a Steward onthat occasion. Soliciting your favourable reply before the 14th instant,I am, My Dear Sir, Your faithful Servant, LINSEED. P.S. The Steward'sfee is limited to three Guineas.' Friendly this, on the part of the Dukeof Linseed (and thoughtful in the postscript), only lithographed bythe hundred and presenting but a pale individuality of an address toNicodemus Boffin, Esquire, in quite another hand. It takes two nobleEarls and a Viscount, combined, to inform Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire,in an equally flattering manner, that an estimable lady in the West ofEngland has offered to present a purse containing twenty pounds, tothe Society for Granting Annuities to Unassuming Members of the MiddleClasses, if twenty individuals will previously present purses of onehundred pounds each. And those benevolent noblemen very kindly point outthat if Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, should wish to present two or morepurses, it will not be inconsistent with the design of the estimablelady in the West of England, provided each purse be coupled with thename of some member of his honoured and respected family.

  These are the corporate beggars. But there are, besides, the individualbeggars; and how does the heart of the Secretary fail him when he has tocope with THEM! And they must be coped with to some extent, because theyall enclose documents (they call their scraps documents; but they are,as to papers deserving the name, what minced veal is to a calf), thenon-return of which would be their ruin. That is say, they are utterlyruined now, but they would be more utterly ruined then. Among thesecorrespondents are several daughters of general officers, longaccustomed to every luxury of life (except spelling), who littlethought, when their gallant fathers waged war in the Peninsula,that they would ever have to appeal to those whom Providence, in itsinscrutable wisdom, has blessed with untold gold, and from among whomthey select the name of Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, for a maiden effortin this wise, understanding that he has such a heart as never was. TheSecretary learns, too, that confidence between man and wife would seemto obtain but rarely when virtue is in distress, so numerous are thewives who take up their pens to ask Mr Boffin for money without theknowledge of their devoted husbands, who would never permit it; while,on the other hand, so numerous are the husbands who take up their pensto ask Mr Boffin for money without the knowledge of their devotedwives, who would instantly go out of their senses if they had the leastsuspicion of the circumstance. There are the inspired beggars, too.These were sitting, only yesterday evening, musing over a fragment ofcandle which must soon go out and leave them in the dark for the restof their nights, when surely some Angel whispered the name of NicodemusBoffin, Esquire, to their souls, imparting rays of hope, nayconfidence, to which they had long been strangers! Akin to these are thesuggestively-befriended beggars. They were partaking of a cold potatoand water by the flickering and gloomy light of a lucifer-match, intheir lodgings (rent considerably in arrear, and heartless landladythreatening expulsion 'like a dog' into the streets), when a giftedfriend happening to look in, said, 'Write immediately to NicodemusBoffin, Esquire,' and would take no denial. There are the noblyindependent beggars too. These, in the days of their abundance, everregarded gold as dross, and have not yet got over that only impedimentin the way of their amassing wealth, but they want no dross fromNicodemus Boffin, Esquire; No, Mr Boffin; the world may term it pride,paltry pride if you will, but they wouldn't take it if you offered it;a loan, sir--for fourteen weeks to the day, interest calculated at therate of five per cent per annum, to be bestowed upon any charitableinstitution you may name--is all they want of you, and if you have themeanness to refuse it, count on being despised by these great spirits.There are the beggars of punctual business-habits too. These willmake an end of themselves at a quarter to one P.M. on Tuesday, if noPost-office order is in the interim received from Nicodemus Boffin,Esquire; arriving after a quarter to one P.M. on Tuesday, it need notbe sent, as they will then (having made an exact memorandum of theheartless circumstances) be 'cold in death.' There
are the beggars onhorseback too, in another sense from the sense of the proverb. Theseare mounted and ready to start on the highway to affluence. The goal isbefore them, the road is in the best condition, their spurs are on,the steed is willing, but, at the last moment, for want of some specialthing--a clock, a violin, an astronomical telescope, an electrifyingmachine--they must dismount for ever, unless they receive its equivalentin money from Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire. Less given to detail are thebeggars who make sporting ventures. These, usually to be addressedin reply under initials at a country post-office, inquire in femininehands, Dare one who cannot disclose herself to Nicodemus Boffin,Esquire, but whose name might startle him were it revealed, solicitthe immediate advance of two hundred pounds from unexpected richesexercising their noblest privilege in the trust of a common humanity?

  In such a Dismal Swamp does the new house stand, and through it doesthe Secretary daily struggle breast-high. Not to mention all the peoplealive who have made inventions that won't act, and all the jobbers whojob in all the jobberies jobbed; though these may be regarded as theAlligators of the Dismal Swamp, and are always lying by to drag theGolden Dustman under.

  But the old house. There are no designs against the Golden Dustmanthere? There are no fish of the shark tribe in the Bower waters? Perhapsnot. Still, Wegg is established there, and would seem, judged by hissecret proceedings, to cherish a notion of making a discovery. For,when a man with a wooden leg lies prone on his stomach to peep underbedsteads; and hops up ladders, like some extinct bird, to survey thetops of presses and cupboards; and provides himself an iron rod which heis always poking and prodding into dust-mounds; the probability is thathe expects to find something.