Chapter 25 - Page 2

knew all
about the gullibility and knavery of people; but Physician could
have given him a better insight into their tendernesses and
affections, in one week of his rounds, than Westminster Hall and
all the circuits put together, in threescore years and ten. Bar
always had a suspicion of this, and perhaps was glad to encourage
it (for, if the world were really a great Law Court, one would
think that the last day of Term could not too soon arrive); and so
he liked and respected Physician quite as much as any other kind of
man did.

Mr Merdle's default left a Banquo's chair at the table; but, if he
had been there, he would have merely made the difference of Banquo
in it, and consequently he was no loss. Bar, who picked up all
sorts of odds and ends about Westminster Hall, much as a raven
would have done if he had passed as much of his time there, had
been picking up a great many straws lately and tossing them about,
to try which way the Merdle wind blew. He now had a little talk on
the subject with Mrs Merdle herself; sidling up to that lady, of
course, with his double eye-glass and his jury droop.

'A certain bird,' said Bar; and he looked as if it could have been
no other bird than a magpie; 'has been whispering among us lawyers
lately, that there is to be an addition to the titled personages of
this realm.'

'Really?' said Mrs Merdle.

'Yes,' said Bar. 'Has not the bird been whispering in very
different ears from ours--in lovely ears?' He looked expressively
at Mrs Merdle's nearest ear-ring.

'Do you mean mine?' asked Mrs Merdle.

'When I say lovely,' said Bar, 'I always mean you.'

'You never mean anything, I think,' returned Mrs Merdle (not
displeased).

'Oh, cruelly unjust!' said Bar. 'But, the bird.'

'I am the last person in the world to hear news,' observed Mrs
Merdle, carelessly arranging her stronghold. 'Who is it?'

'What an admirable witness you would make!' said Bar. 'No jury
(unless we could empanel one of blind men) could resist you, if you
were ever so bad a one; but you would be such a good one!'

'Why, you ridiculous man?' asked Mrs Merdle, laughing.

Bar waved his double eye-glass three or four times between himself
and the Bosom, as a rallying answer, and inquired in his most
insinuating accents:

'What am I to call the most elegant, accomplished and charming of
women, a few weeks, or it may be a few days, hence?'

'Didn't your bird tell you what to call her?' answered Mrs Merdle.
'Do ask it to-morrow, and tell me the next time you see me what it
says.'

This led to further passages of similar pleasantry between the two;
but Bar, with all his sharpness, got nothing out of them.
Physician,