Chapter 21 - Page 2

but it was a capital bosom to hang jewels upon. Mr
Merdle wanted something to hang jewels upon, and he bought it for
the purpose. Storr and Mortimer might have married on the same
speculation.

Like all his other speculations, it was sound and successful. The
jewels showed to the richest advantage. The bosom moving in
Society with the jewels displayed upon it, attracted general
admiration. Society approving, Mr Merdle was satisfied. He was
the most disinterested of men,--did everything for Society, and got
as little for himself out of all his gain and care, as a man might.

That is to say, it may be supposed that he got all he wanted,
otherwise with unlimited wealth he would have got it. But his
desire was to the utmost to satisfy Society (whatever that was),
and take up all its drafts upon him for tribute. He did not shine
in company; he had not very much to say for himself; he was a
reserved man, with a broad, overhanging, watchful head, that
particular kind of dull red colour in his cheeks which is rather
stale than fresh, and a somewhat uneasy expression about his coat-
cuffs, as if they were in his confidence, and had reasons for being
anxious to hide his hands. In the little he said, he was a
pleasant man enough; plain, emphatic about public and private
confidence, and tenacious of the utmost deference being shown by
every one, in all things, to Society. In this same Society (if
that were it which came to his dinners, and to Mrs Merdle's
receptions and concerts), he hardly seemed to enjoy himself much,
and was mostly to be found against walls and behind doors. Also
when he went out to it, instead of its coming home to him, he
seemed a little fatigued, and upon the whole rather more disposed
for bed; but he was always cultivating it nevertheless, and always
moving in it--and always laying out money on it with the greatest
liberality.

Mrs Merdle's first husband had been a colonel, under whose auspices
the bosom had entered into competition with the snows of North
America, and had come off at little disadvantage in point of
whiteness, and at none in point of coldness. The colonel's son was
Mrs Merdle's only child. He was of a chuckle-headed, high-
shouldered make, with a general appearance of being, not so much a
young man as a swelled boy. He had given so few signs of reason,
that a by-word went among his companions that his brain had been
frozen up in a mighty frost which prevailed at St john's, New
Brunswick, at the period of his birth there, and had never thawed
from that hour. Another by-word represented him as having in his
infancy, through the negligence of a nurse, fallen out of a high
window on his head, which had been heard by responsible witnesses
to crack. It