Chapter 15 - Page 2

got one, originated by Mr Quale), and when Mr Gusher spoke for an hour and a half on the subject to a meeting, including two charity schools of small boys and girls, who were specially reminded of the widow’s mite, and requested to come forward with half-pence and be acceptable sacrifices; I think the wind was in the east for three whole weeks.

I mention this, because I am coming to Mr Skimpole again. It seemed to me, that his off-hand professions of childishness and carelessness were a great relief to my Guardian, by contrast with such things, and were the more readily believed in; since to find one perfectly undesigning and candid man, among many opposites, could not fail to give him pleasure. I should be sorry to imply that Mr Skimpole divined this, and was politic: I really never understood him well enough to know. What he was to my Guardian, he certainly was to the rest of the world.

He had not been very well; and thus, though he lived in London, we had seen nothing of him until now. He appeared one morning, in his usual agreeable way, and as full of pleasant spirits as ever.

Well, he said, here he was! He had been bilious, but rich men were often bilious, and therefore he had been persuading himself that he was a man of property. So he was, in a certain point of view — in his expansive intentions. He had been enriching his medical attendant in the most lavish manner. He had always doubled, and sometimes quadrupled, his fees. He had said to the doctor, “Now, my dear doctor, it is quite a delusion on your part to suppose that you attend me for nothing. I am overwhelming you with money — in my expansive intentions — if you only knew it!” And really (he said) he meant it to that degree, that he thought it much the same as doing it. If he had had those bits of metal or thin paper to which mankind attached so much importance, to put in the doctor’s hand, he would have put them in the doctor’s hand. Not having them, he substituted the will for the deed. Very well! If he really meant it — if his will were genuine and real: which it was — it appeared to him that it was the same as coin, and cancelled the obligation.

“It may be, partly, because I know nothing of the value of money,” said Mr Skimpole, “but I often feel this. It seems so reasonable! My butcher says to me, he wants that little bill. It’s a part of the pleasant unconscious poetry of the man’s nature, that he always calls it a ‘little’ bill — to make the payment appear easy to both of us. I reply to the butcher, ‘My good friend, if you knew it you are paid. You haven’t had the trouble of coming to ask for the little bill. You are paid. I mean it.’”

“But, suppose,” said my Guardian, laughing, “he had meant the meat in the bill, instead of providing it?”