Chapter 36

Returning from her appointment Lucetta saw a man waiting by
the lamp nearest to her own door. When she stopped to go in
he came and spoke to her. It was Jopp.

He begged her pardon for addressing her. But he had heard
that Mr. Farfrae had been applied to by a neighbouring corn-
merchant to recommend a working partner; if so he wished to
offer himself. He could give good security, and had stated
as much to Mr. Farfrae in a letter; but he would feel
much obliged if Lucetta would say a word in his favour to
her husband.

"It is a thing I know nothing about," said Lucetta coldly.

"But you can testify to my trustworthiness better than
anybody, ma'am," said Jopp. "I was in Jersey several years,
and knew you there by sight."

"Indeed," she replied. "But I knew nothing of you."

"I think, ma'am, that a word or two from you would secure
for me what I covet very much," he persisted.

She steadily refused to have anything to do with the affair,
and cutting him short, because of her anxiety to get indoors
before her husband should miss her, left him on the
pavement.

He watched her till she had vanished, and then went home.
When he got there he sat down in the fireless chimney corner
looking at the iron dogs, and the wood laid across them for
heating the morning kettle. A movement upstairs disturbed
him, and Henchard came down from his bedroom, where he
seemed to have been rummaging boxes.

"I wish," said Henchard, "you would do me a service, Jopp,
now--to-night, I mean, if you can. Leave this at Mrs.
Farfrae's for her. I should take it myself, of course, but
I don't wish to be seen there."

He handed a package in brown paper, sealed. Henchard had
been as good as his word. Immediately on coming indoors he
had searched over his few belongings, and every scrap of
Lucetta's writing that he possessed was here. Jopp
indifferently expressed his willingness.

"Well, how have ye got on to-day?" his lodger asked. "Any
prospect of an opening?"

"I am afraid not," said Jopp, who had not told the other of
his application to Farfrae.

"There never will be in Casterbridge," declared Henchard
decisively. "You must roam further afield." He said good-
night to Jopp, and returned to his own part of the house.

Jopp sat on till his eyes were attracted by the shadow of
the candle-snuff on the wall, and looking at the original he
found that it had formed itself into a head like a red-hot
cauliflower. Henchard's packet next met his gaze. He knew
there had been something of the nature of wooing between
Henchard and the now Mrs. Farfrae; and his vague ideas
on the subject narrowed themselves down to these: Henchard
had a parcel