Chapter 46 - Page 2

towards her; for
he had been sitting blinking at the light, and feeling his cheek.
'Why, you don't really suppose that I have anything to do with the
place, or the business; do you?'

'Suppose?' exclaimed Miss Wren. 'He said, that day, you were the
master!'

'The old cock in black said? Riah said? Why, he'd say anything.'

'Well; but you said so too,' returned Miss Wren. 'Or at least you
took on like the master, and didn't contradict him.'

'One of his dodges,' said Mr Fledgeby, with a cool and
contemptuous shrug. 'He's made of dodges. He said to me,
"Come up to the top of the house, sir, and I'll show you a
handsome girl. But I shall call you the master." So I went up to
the top of the house and he showed me the handsome girl (very
well worth looking at she was), and I was called the master. I
don't know why. I dare say he don't. He loves a dodge for its own
sake; being,' added Mr Fledgeby, after casting about for an
expressive phrase, 'the dodgerest of all the dodgers.'

'Oh my head!' cried the dolls' dressmaker, holding it with both her
hands, as if it were cracking. 'You can't mean what you say.'

'I can, my little woman, retorted Fledgeby, 'and I do, I assure you.

This repudiation was not only an act of deliberate policy on
Fledgeby's part, in case of his being surprised by any other caller,
but was also a retort upon Miss Wren for her over-sharpness, and a
pleasant instance of his humour as regarded the old Jew. 'He has
got a bad name as an old Jew, and he is paid for the use of it, and
I'll have my money's worth out of him.' This was Fledgeby's
habitual reflection in the way of business, and it was sharpened
just now by the old man's presuming to have a secret from him:
though of the secret itself, as annoying somebody else whom he
disliked, he by no means disapproved.

Miss Wren with a fallen countenance sat behind the door looking
thoughtfully at the ground, and the long and patient silence had
again set in for some time, when the expression of Mr Fledgeby's
face betokened that through the upper portion of the door, which
was of glass, he saw some one faltering on the brink of the
counting-house. Presently there was a rustle and a tap, and then
some more rustling and another tap. Fledgeby taking no notice,
the door was at length softly opened, and the dried face of a mild
little elderly gentleman looked in.

'Mr Riah?' said this visitor, very politely.

'I am waiting for him, sir,' returned Mr Fledgeby. 'He went out and
left me here. I expect him back every minute. Perhaps you had
better take a chair.'

The gentleman took a chair, and put his hand to his forehead, as if
he were in a melancholy frame of mind. Mr Fledgeby eyed him