{"speaker": "The Lord High Chancellor", "text": "Mr. Tangle,", "pos": 18144}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tangle", "text": "Mlud,", "pos": 18264}
{"speaker": "The Lord High Chancellor", "text": "Have you nearly concluded your argument?", "pos": 18434}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tangle", "text": "Mlud, no—variety of points—feel it my duty tsubmit—ludship,", "pos": 18477}
{"speaker": "Chancellor", "text": "Several members of the bar are still to be heard, I believe? We will proceed with the hearing on Wednesday fortnight,", "pos": 18582}
{"speaker": "man from Shropshire", "text": "My lord!", "pos": 19258}
{"speaker": "Chancellor", "text": "In reference, to the young girl—", "pos": 19360}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tangle", "text": "Begludship’s pardon—boy,", "pos": 19454}
{"speaker": "Chancellor", "text": "In reference, to the young girl and boy, the two young people whom I directed to be in attendance to-day and who are now in my private room, I will see them and satisfy myself as to the expediency of making the order for their residing with their uncle.", "pos": 19510}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tangle", "text": "Begludship’s pardon—dead.", "pos": 19868}
{"speaker": "Chancellor", "text": "With their grandfather.", "pos": 19896}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tangle", "text": "Begludship’s pardon—victim of rash action—brains.", "pos": 19998}
{"speaker": "very little counsel", "text": "Will your lordship allow me? I appear for him. He is a cousin, several times removed. I am not at the moment prepared to inform the court in what exact remove he is a cousin, but he IS a cousin.", "pos": 20178}
{"speaker": "Chancellor", "text": "I will speak with both the young people, and satisfy myself on the subject of their residing with their cousin. I will mention the matter to-morrow morning when I take my seat.", "pos": 20577}
{"speaker": "man from Shropshire", "text": "My lord!", "pos": 21027}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "bored to death.", "pos": 24795}
{"speaker": "Honourable Bob Stables", "text": "the most is made, of all her points.", "pos": 28181}
{"speaker": "Blaze and Sparkle", "text": "If you want to address our people, sir, you must remember that you are not dealing with the general public; you must hit our people in their weakest place, and their weakest place is such a place.", "pos": 32545}
{"speaker": "Sheen and Gloss", "text": "To make this article go down, gentlemen, you must come to us, because we know where to have the fashionable people, and we can make it fashionable.", "pos": 32831}
{"speaker": "Mr. Sladdery", "text": "If you want to get this print upon the tables of my high connexion, sir, or if you want to get this dwarf or giant into the houses of my high connexion, sir, or if you want to secure to this entertainment the patronage of my high connexion, sir, you must leave it, if you please, to me, for I have been accustomed to study the leaders of my high connexion, sir, and I may tell you without vanity that I can turn them round my finger", "pos": 33053}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "My Lady’s cause has been again before the Chancellor, has it, Mr. Tulkinghorn?", "pos": 33724}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Yes. It has been on again to-day,", "pos": 33846}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "It would be useless to ask, whether anything has been done.", "pos": 34017}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Nothing that YOU would call anything has been done to-day,", "pos": 34159}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Nor ever will be,", "pos": 34245}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "As a few fresh affidavits have been put upon the file, and as they are short, and as I proceed upon the troublesome principle of begging leave to possess my clients with any new proceedings in a cause and further, as I see you are going to Paris, I have brought them in my pocket. In Chancery. Between John Jarndyce—", "pos": 35201}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Who copied that? Is it what you people call law-hand?", "pos": 36580}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Not quite. Probably the legal character which it has was acquired after the original hand was formed. Why do you ask?", "pos": 36805}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Anything to vary this detestable monotony. Oh, go on, do!", "pos": 36968}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Eh? What do you say?", "pos": 37156}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "I say I am afraid, that Lady Dedlock is ill.", "pos": 37179}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Faint, only that; but it is like the faintness of death. Don’t speak to me. Ring, and take me to my room!", "pos": 37273}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Better now. I have been quite alarmed. I never knew my Lady swoon before. But the weather is extremely trying, and she really has been bored to death down at our place in Lincolnshire.", "pos": 37563}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Now, Dolly, I am not clever, you know very well, and you must be patient with me, like a dear!", "pos": 38091}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Oh, you dear faithful Dolly, I knew you would be expecting me!", "pos": 38691}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rachael", "text": "Esther, good night!", "pos": 41110}
{"speaker": "my godmother", "text": "It would have been far better, little Esther, that you had had no birthday, that you had never been born!", "pos": 42787}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Oh, dear godmother, tell me, pray do tell me, did Mama die on my birthday?", "pos": 42939}
{"speaker": "my godmother", "text": "No. Ask me no more, child!", "pos": 43016}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Oh, do pray tell me something of her. Do now, at last, dear godmother, if you please! What did I do to her? How did I lose her? Why am I so different from other children, and why is it my fault, dear godmother? No, no, no, don’t go away. Oh, speak to me!", "pos": 43061}
{"speaker": "my godmother", "text": "Let me go! Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers. The time will come—and soon enough—when you will understand this better and will feel it too, as no one save a woman can. I have forgiven her the wrong she did to me, and I say no more of it, though it was greater than you will ever know—than any one will ever know but I, the sufferer. For yourself, unfortunate girl, orphaned and degraded from the first of these evil anniversaries, pray daily that the sins of others be not visited upon your head, according to what is written. Forget your mother and leave all other people to forget her who will do her unhappy child that greatest kindness. Now, go! Submission, self-denial, diligent work, are the preparations for a life begun with such a shadow on it. You are different from other children, Esther, because you were not born, like them, in common sinfulness and wrath. You are set apart.", "pos": 43452}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I knew that I had brought no joy at any time to anybody’s heart and that I was to no one upon earth what Dolly was to me. I hope it is not self-indulgent to shed these tears as I think of it. I am very thankful, I am very cheerful, but I cannot quite help their coming to my eyes. There! I have wiped them away now and can go on again properly.", "pos": 45132}
{"speaker": "my godmother", "text": "This, is the child. This is Esther, sir.", "pos": 46944}
{"speaker": "The gentleman", "text": "Come here, my dear! Ah! Yes!", "pos": 47141}
{"speaker": "my godmother", "text": "You may go upstairs, Esther!", "pos": 47512}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "So when they continued asking him, he lifted up himself and said unto them, ‘He that is without sin among you, let him first cast a stone at her!’", "pos": 47971}
{"speaker": "my godmother", "text": "Watch ye, therefore, lest coming suddenly he find you sleeping. And what I say unto you, I say unto all, Watch!", "pos": 48261}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "My name is Kenge, you may remember it, my child; Kenge and Carboy, Lincoln’s Inn. Pray be seated—here near me. Don’t distress yourself; it’s of no use. Mrs. Rachael, I needn’t inform you who were acquainted with the late Miss Barbary’s affairs, that her means die with her and that this young lady, now her aunt is dead—", "pos": 49328}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "My aunt, sir!", "pos": 49722}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "It is really of no use carrying on a deception when no object is to be gained by it. Aunt in fact, though not in law. Don’t distress yourself! Don’t weep! Don’t tremble! Mrs. Rachael, our young friend has no doubt heard of—the—a—Jarndyce and Jarndyce.", "pos": 49738}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rachael", "text": "Never,", "pos": 50019}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "Is it possible, that our young friend—I BEG you won’t distress yourself!—never heard of Jarndyce and Jarndyce! Not of Jarndyce and Jarndyce? Not of one of the greatest Chancery suits known? Not of Jarndyce and Jarndyce—the—a—in itself a monument of Chancery practice. In which (I would say) every difficulty, every contingency, every masterly fiction, every form of procedure known in that court, is represented over and over again? It is a cause that could not exist out of this free and great country. I should say that the aggregate of costs in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Mrs. Rachael amounts at the present hour to from SIX-ty to SEVEN-ty THOUSAND POUNDS! And she really never heard of the cause! Surprising!", "pos": 50047}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rachael", "text": "Miss Barbary, sir, who is now among the Seraphim—", "pos": 51254}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "I hope so, I am sure,", "pos": 51331}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rachael", "text": "—Wished Esther only to know what would be serviceable to her. And she knows, from any teaching she has had here, nothing more.", "pos": 51380}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "Well! Upon the whole, very proper. Now to the point. Miss Barbary, your sole relation (in fact that is, for I am bound to observe that in law you had none) being deceased and it naturally not being to be expected that Mrs. Rachael—", "pos": 51509}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rachael", "text": "Oh, dear no!", "pos": 51778}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "Quite so, —that Mrs. Rachael should charge herself with your maintenance and support (I beg you won’t distress yourself), you are in a position to receive the renewal of an offer which I was instructed to make to Miss Barbary some two years ago and which, though rejected then, was understood to be renewable under the lamentable circumstances that have since occurred. Now, if I avow that I represent, in Jarndyce and Jarndyce and otherwise, a highly humane, but at the same time singular, man, shall I compromise myself by any stretch of my professional caution?", "pos": 51820}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "Mr. Jarndyce, being aware of the—I would say, desolate—position of our young friend, offers to place her at a first-rate establishment where her education shall be completed, where her comfort shall be secured, where her reasonable wants shall be anticipated, where she shall be eminently qualified to discharge her duty in that station of life unto which it has pleased—shall I say Providence?—to call her. Mr. Jarndyce, makes no condition beyond expressing his expectation that our young friend will not at any time remove herself from the establishment in question without his knowledge and concurrence. That she will faithfully apply herself to the acquisition of those accomplishments, upon the exercise of which she will be ultimately dependent. That she will tread in the paths of virtue and honour, and—the—a——so forth. Now, what does our young friend say? Take time, take time! I pause for her reply. But take time!", "pos": 52991}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rachael", "text": "No, Esther! It is your misfortune!", "pos": 55079}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "What the de-vil are you crying for?", "pos": 56834}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Me, sir?", "pos": 56949}
{"speaker": "The gentleman", "text": "Yes, you,", "pos": 57090}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I didn’t know I was crying, sir,", "pos": 57126}
{"speaker": "The gentleman", "text": "But you are! Look here! There! Now you know you are. Don’t you?", "pos": 57173}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Yes, sir,", "pos": 57448}
{"speaker": "The gentleman", "text": "And what are you crying for? Don’t you want to go there?", "pos": 57468}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Where, sir?", "pos": 57549}
{"speaker": "The gentleman", "text": "Where? Why, wherever you are going,", "pos": 57563}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I am very glad to go there, sir,", "pos": 57621}
{"speaker": "The gentleman", "text": "Well, then! Look glad! Confound Mrs. Rachael! Let her fly away in a high wind on a broomstick! Now, look here! In this paper, is a piece of the best plum-cake that can be got for money—sugar on the outside an inch thick, like fat on mutton chops. Here’s a little pie (a gem this is, both for size and quality), made in France. And what do you suppose it’s made of? Livers of fat geese. There’s a pie! Now let’s see you eat ’em.", "pos": 57668}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Thank you, sir, thank you very much indeed, but I hope you won’t be offended—they are too rich for me.", "pos": 59006}
{"speaker": "The gentleman", "text": "Floored again!", "pos": 59124}
{"speaker": "Miss Donny", "text": "Miss Donny.", "pos": 59737}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "No, ma’am, Esther Summerson.", "pos": 59751}
{"speaker": "Miss Donny", "text": "That is quite right. Miss Donny. Everything is ready for you, Esther, and the scheme of your pursuits has been arranged in exact accordance with the wishes of your guardian, Mr. Jarndyce.", "pos": 59782}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Of—did you say, ma’am?", "pos": 60319}
{"speaker": "Miss Donny", "text": "Of your guardian, Mr. Jarndyce,", "pos": 60344}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Do you know my—guardian, Mr. Jarndyce, ma’am?", "pos": 60508}
{"speaker": "Miss Donny", "text": "Not personally, Esther, merely through his solicitors, Messrs. Kenge and Carboy, of London. A very superior gentleman, Mr. Kenge. Truly eloquent indeed. Some of his periods quite majestic!", "pos": 60597}
{"speaker": "Kenge and Carboy", "text": "We note the contents thereof, which shall be duly communicated to our client.", "pos": 63263}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Esther, dear, say good-bye to me here at my bedside, where you first spoke so kindly to me!", "pos": 65603}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "With Esther’s love,", "pos": 65749}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "What shall we do when dear, dear Esther’s gone!", "pos": 65866}
{"speaker": "Maids", "text": "Bless you, miss, wherever you go!", "pos": 66175}
{"speaker": "Ugly lame old gardener", "text": "I had been the light of his eyes", "pos": 66385}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Good-bye, Esther. May you be very happy!", "pos": 66847}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Oh, I am so thankful, I am so thankful! Esther, now you really must! This WILL NOT do!", "pos": 66964}
{"speaker": "Young gentleman", "text": "I am from Kenge and Carboy’s, miss, of Lincoln’s Inn.", "pos": 67998}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "If you please, sir,", "pos": 68054}
{"speaker": "Young gentleman", "text": "Oh, dear no, miss. This is a London particular. A fog, miss,", "pos": 68325}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Oh, indeed!", "pos": 68462}
{"speaker": "Young gentleman", "text": "In case you should wish to look at yourself, miss, after the journey, as you’re going before the Chancellor. Not that it’s requisite, I am sure,", "pos": 69315}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Going before the Chancellor?", "pos": 69496}
{"speaker": "Young gentleman", "text": "Only a matter of form, miss. Mr. Kenge is in court now. He left his compliments, and would you partake of some refreshment and look over the paper,", "pos": 69558}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "As you are going to be the companion of the young lady who is now in the Chancellor’s private room, Miss Summerson, we thought it well that you should be in attendance also. You will not be discomposed by the Lord Chancellor, I dare say?", "pos": 70866}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "No, sir. I don’t think I shall,", "pos": 71117}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "Miss Ada, this is Miss Summerson.", "pos": 71771}
{"speaker": "Lord Chancellor", "text": "Miss Clare. Miss Ada Clare? The Jarndyce in question, is Jarndyce of Bleak House.", "pos": 74141}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "Jarndyce of Bleak House, my lord,", "pos": 74679}
{"speaker": "Lord Chancellor", "text": "A dreary name,", "pos": 74731}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "But not a dreary place at present, my lord,", "pos": 74774}
{"speaker": "Lord Chancellor", "text": "And Bleak House, is in—", "pos": 74836}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "Hertfordshire, my lord.", "pos": 74883}
{"speaker": "Lord Chancellor", "text": "Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House is not married?", "pos": 74909}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "He is not, my lord,", "pos": 74974}
{"speaker": "Lord Chancellor", "text": "Young Mr. Richard Carstone is present? Hum!", "pos": 75021}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House, my lord, if I may venture to remind your lordship, provides a suitable companion for—", "pos": 75204}
{"speaker": "Lord Chancellor", "text": "For Mr. Richard Carstone?", "pos": 75358}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "For Miss Ada Clare. This is the young lady. Miss Summerson.", "pos": 75489}
{"speaker": "Lord Chancellor", "text": "Miss Summerson is not related to any party in the cause, I think?", "pos": 75634}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "No, my lord.", "pos": 75702}
{"speaker": "Lord Chancellor", "text": "Very well! I shall make the order. Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House has chosen, so far as I may judge, a very good companion for the young lady, and the arrangement altogether seems the best of which the circumstances admit.", "pos": 76652}
{"speaker": "Richard Carstone", "text": "Well! THAT’S over! And where do we go next, Miss Summerson?", "pos": 77333}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Don’t you know?", "pos": 77420}
{"speaker": "Richard Carstone", "text": "Not in the least,", "pos": 77446}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And don’t YOU know, my love?", "pos": 77475}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "No! Don’t you?", "pos": 77519}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Not at all!", "pos": 77548}
{"speaker": "old woman", "text": "Oh! The wards in Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy, I am sure, to have the honour! It is a good omen for youth, and hope, and beauty when they find themselves in this place, and don’t know what’s to come of it.", "pos": 77798}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Mad!", "pos": 78011}
{"speaker": "old woman", "text": "Right! Mad, young gentleman. I was a ward myself. I was not mad at that time. I had youth and hope. I believe, beauty. It matters very little now. Neither of the three served or saved me. I have the honour to attend court regularly. With my documents. I expect a judgment. Shortly. On the Day of Judgment. I have discovered that the sixth seal mentioned in the Revelations is the Great Seal. It has been open a long time! Pray accept my blessing.", "pos": 78070}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "that we were much obliged to her.", "pos": 78699}
{"speaker": "old woman", "text": "Ye-es! I imagine so. And here is Conversation Kenge. With HIS documents! How does your honourable worship do?", "pos": 78734}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "Quite well, quite well! Now don’t be troublesome, that’s a good soul!", "pos": 78868}
{"speaker": "old woman", "text": "By no means. Anything but troublesome. I shall confer estates on both—which is not being troublesome, I trust? I expect a judgment. Shortly. On the Day of Judgment. This is a good omen for you. Accept my blessing! Youth. And hope. And beauty. And Chancery. And Conversation Kenge! Ha! Pray accept my blessing!", "pos": 78978}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I really don’t, sir. Perhaps Mr. Carstone—or Miss Clare—", "pos": 79754}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "In-deed! Mrs. Jellyby, is a lady of very remarkable strength of character who devotes herself entirely to the public. She has devoted herself to an extensive variety of public subjects at various times and is at present (until something else attracts her) devoted to the subject of Africa, with a view to the general cultivation of the coffee berry—AND the natives—and the happy settlement, on the banks of the African rivers, of our superabundant home population. Mr. Jarndyce, who is desirous to aid any work that is considered likely to be a good work and who is much sought after by philanthropists, has, I believe, a very high opinion of Mrs. Jellyby.", "pos": 79882}
{"speaker": "Richard Carstone", "text": "Ah! Mr. Jellyby,", "pos": 80776}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "I don’t say that,", "pos": 80976}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "Then it only remains,", "pos": 81905}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Where IS ‘there,’ Mr. Guppy? No distance,", "pos": 82342}
{"speaker": "Richard Carstone", "text": "I can’t say I know where it is, for I come from Winchester and am strange in London.", "pos": 82474}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Only round the corner. This is about a London particular NOW, ain’t it, miss?", "pos": 82561}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "The fog is very dense indeed!", "pos": 82825}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Not that it affects you, though, I’m sure,", "pos": 82865}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Oh, poor child, let me out, if you please!", "pos": 83722}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Pray be careful of yourself, miss. The young Jellybys are always up to something,", "pos": 83777}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "after pacifying him that he was a little boy with a naturally large head, thought that perhaps where his head could go, his body could follow, and mentioned that the best mode of extrication might be to push him forward.", "pos": 84274}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Jellyby", "text": "Them two young ladies, Missis Jellyby!", "pos": 85291}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Jellyby", "text": "I am very glad indeed, to have the pleasure of receiving you. I have a great respect for Mr. Jarndyce, and no one in whom he is interested can be an object of indifference to me.", "pos": 86110}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Jellyby", "text": "you find me, my dears, as usual, very busy; but that you will excuse. The African project at present employs my whole time. It involves me in correspondence with public bodies and with private individuals anxious for the welfare of their species all over the country. I am happy to say it is advancing. We hope by this time next year to have from a hundred and fifty to two hundred healthy families cultivating coffee and educating the natives of Borrioboola-Gha, on the left bank of the Niger. It IS gratifying. It involves the devotion of all my energies, such as they are; but that is nothing, so that it succeeds; and I am more confident of success every day. Do you know, Miss Summerson, I almost wonder that YOU never turned your thoughts to Africa. The finest climate in the world!", "pos": 87963}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Indeed, ma’am?", "pos": 89007}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Jellyby", "text": "Certainly. With precaution. You may go into Holborn, without precaution, and be run over. You may go into Holborn, with precaution, and never be run over. Just so with Africa.", "pos": 89024}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "No doubt.", "pos": 89231}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Jellyby", "text": "If you would like, to look over some remarks on that head, and on the general subject, which have been extensively circulated, while I finish a letter I am now dictating to my eldest daughter, who is my amanuensis— —I shall then have finished for the present, though my work is never done. Where are you, Caddy?", "pos": 89266}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "'Presents her compliments to Mr. Swallow, and begs—'", "pos": 89811}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Jellyby", "text": "'And begs,' to inform him, in reference to his letter of inquiry on the African project—' No, Peepy! Not on my account! Go along, you naughty Peepy!", "pos": 89878}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Jellyby", "text": "Six o’clock! And our dinner hour is nominally (for we dine at all hours) five! Caddy, show Miss Clare and Miss Summerson their rooms. You will like to make some change, perhaps? You will excuse me, I know, being so much occupied. Oh, that very bad child! Pray put him down, Miss Summerson!", "pos": 91093}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "You would like some hot water, wouldn’t you?", "pos": 91708}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "If it is not being troublesome,", "pos": 91840}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Oh, it’s not the trouble, the question is, if there IS any.", "pos": 91883}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "What a strange house! How curious of my cousin Jarndyce to send us here!", "pos": 98792}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "My love, it quite confuses me. I want to understand it, and I can’t understand it at all.", "pos": 98900}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "What?", "pos": 99002}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "All this, my dear. It MUST be very good of Mrs. Jellyby to take such pains about a scheme for the benefit of natives—and yet—Peepy and the housekeeping!", "pos": 99043}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "You are so thoughtful, Esther, and yet so cheerful! And you do so much, so unpretendingly! You would make a home out of even this house.", "pos": 99352}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "May I ask you a question?", "pos": 99656}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Five hundred,", "pos": 99739}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Your cousin, Mr. Jarndyce. I owe so much to him. Would you mind describing him to me?", "pos": 99765}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Esther!", "pos": 100009}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "My dear!", "pos": 100030}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "You want a description of my cousin Jarndyce?", "pos": 100041}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "My dear, I never saw him.", "pos": 100089}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "And I never saw him!", "pos": 100117}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Good night!", "pos": 101518}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Good night!", "pos": 101555}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "May I come in?", "pos": 101577}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Certainly,", "pos": 101655}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Don’t wake Miss Clare.", "pos": 101676}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "I wish Africa was dead! I do! Don’t talk to me, Miss Summerson. I hate it and detest it. It’s a beast! She is very pretty! An orphan. Ain’t she?", "pos": 101917}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Yes.", "pos": 102503}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "But knows a quantity, I suppose? Can dance, and play music, and sing? She can talk French, I suppose, and do geography, and globes, and needlework, and everything?", "pos": 102510}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "No doubt,", "pos": 102676}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "I can’t. I can’t do anything hardly, except write. I’m always writing for Ma. I wonder you two were not ashamed of yourselves to come in this afternoon and see me able to do nothing else. It was like your ill nature. Yet you think yourselves very fine, I dare say! It’s disgraceful. You know it is. The whole house is disgraceful. The children are disgraceful. I’M disgraceful. Pa’s miserable, and no wonder! Priscilla drinks—she’s always drinking. It’s a great shame and a great story of you if you say you didn’t smell her to-day. It was as bad as a public-house, waiting at dinner; you know it was!", "pos": 102696}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "My dear, I don’t know it,", "pos": 103478}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "You do. You shan’t say you don’t. You do!", "pos": 103514}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Oh, my dear! If you won’t let me speak—", "pos": 103583}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "You’re speaking now. You know you are. Don’t tell stories, Miss Summerson.", "pos": 103635}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "My dear, as long as you won’t hear me out—", "pos": 103712}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "I don’t want to hear you out.", "pos": 103767}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Oh, yes, I think you do, because that would be so very unreasonable. I did not know what you tell me because the servant did not come near me at dinner; but I don’t doubt what you tell me, and I am sorry to hear it.", "pos": 103799}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "You needn’t make a merit of that,", "pos": 104027}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "No, my dear. That would be very foolish.", "pos": 104073}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "I wish I was dead! I wish we were all dead. It would be a great deal better for us. You used to teach girls. If you could only have taught me, I could have learnt from you! I am so very miserable, and I like you so much!", "pos": 104416}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Ma won’t be down for ever so long, and then it’s a chance if breakfast’s ready for an hour afterwards, they dawdle so. As to Pa, he gets what he can and goes to the office. He never has what you would call a regular breakfast. Priscilla leaves him out the loaf and some milk, when there is any, overnight. Sometimes there isn’t any milk, and sometimes the cat drinks it. But I’m afraid you must be tired, Miss Summerson, and perhaps you would rather go to bed.", "pos": 106489}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I am not at all tired, my dear, and would much prefer to go out.", "pos": 106964}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "If you’re sure you would. I’ll get my things on.", "pos": 107041}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Where would you wish to go?", "pos": 108949}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Anywhere, my dear,", "pos": 108990}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Anywhere’s nowhere,", "pos": 109022}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Let us go somewhere at any rate,", "pos": 109084}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "I don’t care! Now, you are my witness, Miss Summerson, I say I don’t care—but if he was to come to our house with his great, shining, lumpy forehead night after night till he was as old as Methuselah, I wouldn’t have anything to say to him. Such ASSES as he and Ma make of themselves!", "pos": 109160}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "My dear!", "pos": 109459}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Oh! Don’t talk of duty as a child, Miss Summerson; where’s Ma’s duty as a parent? All made over to the public and Africa, I suppose! Then let the public and Africa show duty as a child; it’s much more their affair than mine. You are shocked, I dare say! Very well, so am I shocked too; so we are both shocked, and there’s an end of it! But for all that, I say again, he may come, and come, and come, and I won’t have anything to say to him. I can’t bear him. If there’s any stuff in the world that I hate and detest, it’s the stuff he and Ma talk. I wonder the very paving-stones opposite our house can have the patience to stay there and be a witness of such inconsistencies and contradictions as all that sounding nonsense, and Ma’s management!", "pos": 109589}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "We are never to get out of Chancery! We have come by another way to our place of meeting yesterday, and—by the Great Seal, here’s the old lady again!", "pos": 111148}
{"speaker": "The old lady", "text": "The wards in Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy, I am sure!", "pos": 111424}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "You are out early, ma’am,", "pos": 111473}
{"speaker": "The old lady", "text": "Ye-es! I usually walk here early. Before the court sits. It’s retired. I collect my thoughts here for the business of the day. The business of the day requires a great deal of thought. Chancery justice is so ve-ry difficult to follow.", "pos": 111531}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Who’s this, Miss Summerson?", "pos": 111799}
{"speaker": "The old lady", "text": "A suitor, my child. At your service. I have the honour to attend court regularly. With my documents. Have I the pleasure of addressing another of the youthful parties in Jarndyce? She does not expect a judgment? She will still grow old. But not so old. Oh, dear, no! This is the garden of Lincoln’s Inn. I call it my garden. It is quite a bower in the summer-time. Where the birds sing melodiously. I pass the greater part of the long vacation here. In contemplation. You find the long vacation exceedingly long, don’t you? When the leaves are falling from the trees and there are no more flowers in bloom to make up into nosegays for the Lord Chancellor’s court, the vacation is fulfilled and the sixth seal, mentioned in the Revelations, again prevails. Pray come and see my lodging. It will be a good omen for me. Youth, and hope, and beauty are very seldom there. It is a long, long time since I had a visit from either.", "pos": 111980}
{"speaker": "The old lady", "text": "This is my lodging. Pray walk up!", "pos": 114020}
{"speaker": "The old man", "text": "Hi, hi! Have you anything to sell?", "pos": 117009}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "That’ll do, my good friend! You can admire as the rest of us do without taking that liberty.", "pos": 119043}
{"speaker": "The old lady", "text": "That will do, Krook. You mean well, but are tiresome. My young friends are pressed for time. I have none to spare myself, having to attend court very soon. My young friends are the wards in Jarndyce.", "pos": 121311}
{"speaker": "The old man", "text": "Jarndyce! Think of it!", "pos": 121513}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Why, you appear to trouble yourself a good deal about the causes before your noble and learned brother, the other Chancellor!", "pos": 121821}
{"speaker": "The old man", "text": "Yes. Sure! YOUR name now will be— Richard Carstone. Carstone,", "pos": 121949}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "He knows as much of the cause as the real salaried Chancellor!", "pos": 122283}
{"speaker": "The old man", "text": "Aye! Yes! Tom Jarndyce—you’ll excuse me, being related; but he was never known about court by any other name, and was as well known there as—she is now. For, says he, it’s being ground to bits in a slow mill; it’s being roasted at a slow fire; it’s being stung to death by single bees; it’s being drowned by drops; it’s going mad by grains. He come in at the door. For, says he, Krook, I am much depressed; my cause is on again, and I think I’m nearer judgment than I ever was. Tom Jarndyce!", "pos": 122395}
{"speaker": "old man", "text": "We were right, I needn’t tell the present hearers. Hi! To be sure, how the neighbourhood poured into court that afternoon while the cause was on! How my noble and learned brother, and all the rest of ’em, grubbed and muddled away as usual and tried to look as if they hadn’t heard a word of the last fact in the case or as if they had—Oh, dear me!—nothing at all to do with it if they had heard of it by any chance!", "pos": 124255}
{"speaker": "our poor hostess", "text": "Extremely honoured, I am sure, by this visit from the wards in Jarndyce. And very much indebted for the omen. It is a retired situation. Considering. I am limited as to situation. In consequence of the necessity of attending on the Chancellor. I have lived here many years. I pass my days in court, my evenings and my nights here. I find the nights long, for I sleep but little and think much. That is, of course, unavoidable, being in Chancery. I am sorry I cannot offer chocolate. I expect a judgment shortly and shall then place my establishment on a superior footing. At present, I don’t mind confessing to the wards in Jarndyce (in strict confidence) that I sometimes find it difficult to keep up a genteel appearance. I have felt the cold here. I have felt something sharper than cold. It matters very little. Pray excuse the introduction of such mean topics. I began to keep the little creatures, with an object that the wards will readily comprehend. With the intention of restoring them to liberty. When my judgment should be given. Ye-es! They die in prison, though. Their lives, poor silly things, are so short in comparison with Chancery proceedings that, one by one, the whole collection has died over and over again. I doubt, do you know, whether one of these, though they are all young, will live to be free! Ve-ry mortifying, is it not? Indeed. I positively doubt sometimes, I do assure you, whether while matters are still unsettled, and the sixth or Great Seal still prevails, I may not one day be found lying stark and senseless here, as I have found so many birds! I can’t allow them to sing much, for (you’ll think this curious) I find my mind confused by the idea that they are singing while I am following the arguments in court. And my mind requires to be so very clear, you know! Another time, I’ll tell you their names. Not at present. On a day of such good omen, they shall sing as much as they like. In honour of youth, hope, and beauty. There! We’ll let in the full light. I cannot admit the air freely, because the cat you saw downstairs, called Lady Jane, is greedy for their lives. She crouches on the parapet outside for hours and hours. I have discovered, that her natural cruelty is sharpened by a jealous fear of their regaining their liberty. In consequence of the judgment I expect being shortly given. She is sly and full of malice. I half believe, sometimes, that she is no cat, but the wolf of the old saying. It is so very difficult to keep her from the door. With such an omen, it is even more necessary than usual that I should be there before the Chancellor comes in, for he might mention my case the first thing. I have a presentiment that he WILL mention it the first thing this morning. The only other lodger, a law-writer. The children in the lanes here say he has sold himself to the devil. I don’t know what he can have done with the money. Hush!", "pos": 126270}
{"speaker": "old man", "text": "Can you read it? What is it? What’s that? What does that spell? Hi! I have a turn for copying from memory, you see, miss, though I can neither read nor write.", "pos": 131943}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Miss Summerson, I hope you are not bargaining for the sale of your hair. Don’t be tempted. Three sacks below are quite enough for Mr. Krook!", "pos": 133097}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Quite an adventure for a morning in London! Ah, cousin, cousin, it’s a weary word this Chancery!", "pos": 133761}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "I am grieved that I should be the enemy—as I suppose I am—of a great number of relations and others, and that they should be my enemies—as I suppose they are—and that we should all be ruining one another without knowing how or why and be in constant doubt and discord all our lives. It seems very strange, as there must be right somewhere, that an honest judge in real earnest has not been able to find out through all these years where it is.", "pos": 133957}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Ah, cousin! Strange, indeed! All this wasteful, wanton chess-playing IS very strange. To see that composed court yesterday jogging on so serenely and to think of the wretchedness of the pieces on the board gave me the headache and the heartache both together. My head ached with wondering how it happened, if men were neither fools nor rascals; and my heart ached to think they could possibly be either. But at all events, Ada—I may call you Ada?", "pos": 134403}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Of course you may, cousin Richard.", "pos": 134868}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "At all events, Chancery will work none of its bad influences on US. We have happily been brought together, thanks to our good kinsman, and it can’t divide us now!", "pos": 134905}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Never, I hope, cousin Richard!", "pos": 135070}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "The whole road has been reminding me of my namesake Whittington, and that waggon is the finishing touch. Halloa! What’s the matter? He has got your name, Ada, in his hat!", "pos": 137882}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "I look forward, my dear, to our meeting easily and without constraint on either side. I therefore have to propose that we meet as old friends and take the past for granted. It will be a relief to you possibly, and to me certainly, and so my love to you.", "pos": 139215}
{"speaker": "Driver", "text": "That’s Bleak House!", "pos": 142405}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Ada, my love, Esther, my dear, you are welcome. I rejoice to see you! Rick, if I had a hand to spare at present, I would give it you! Now, Rick! I have a hand at liberty. A word in earnest is as good as a speech. I am heartily glad to see you. You are at home. Warm yourself!", "pos": 143229}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "You are very kind, sir! We are very much obliged to you!", "pos": 144198}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "And how did you like the ride? And how did you like Mrs. Jellyby, my dear?", "pos": 144310}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "She exerts herself very much for Africa, sir,", "pos": 145340}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Nobly! But you answer like Ada. You all think something else, I see.", "pos": 145396}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "We rather thought, that perhaps she was a little unmindful of her home.", "pos": 145516}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Floored! Well! I want to know your real thoughts, my dear. I may have sent you there on purpose.", "pos": 145672}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "We thought that, perhaps, it is right to begin with the obligations of home, sir; and that, perhaps, while those are overlooked and neglected, no other duties can possibly be substituted for them.", "pos": 145821}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "The little Jellybys, are really—I can’t help expressing myself strongly, sir—in a devil of a state.", "pos": 146042}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "She means well. The wind’s in the east.", "pos": 146181}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "It was in the north, sir, as we came down,", "pos": 146252}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "My dear Rick. I’ll take an oath it’s either in the east or going to be. I am always conscious of an uncomfortable sensation now and then when the wind is blowing in the east.", "pos": 146315}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Rheumatism, sir?", "pos": 146530}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I dare say it is, Rick. I believe it is. And so the little Jell—I had my doubts about ’em—are in a—oh, Lord, yes, it’s easterly! Those little Jellybys. Couldn’t you—didn’t you—now, if it had rained sugar-plums, or three-cornered raspberry tarts, or anything of that sort!", "pos": 146563}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Oh, cousin—", "pos": 147346}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Good, my pretty pet. I like cousin. Cousin John, perhaps, is better.", "pos": 147379}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Then, cousin John—", "pos": 147450}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Ha, ha! Very good indeed! Sounds uncommonly natural. Yes, my dear?", "pos": 147499}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "It did better than that. It rained Esther.", "pos": 147610}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Aye? What did Esther do?", "pos": 147655}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Why, cousin John. Esther was their friend directly. Esther nursed them, coaxed them to sleep, washed and dressed them, told them stories, kept them quiet, bought them keepsakes and, cousin John, she softened poor Caroline, the eldest one, so much and was so thoughtful for me and so amiable! No, no, I won’t be contradicted, Esther dear! You know, you know, it’s true! At all events, cousin John, I WILL thank you for the companion you have given me.", "pos": 147703}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Where did you say the wind was, Rick?", "pos": 148547}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "In the north as we came down, sir.", "pos": 148607}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "You are right. There’s no east in it. A mistake of mine. Come, girls, come and see your home!", "pos": 148644}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Hold up", "pos": 151243}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Get over,", "pos": 151257}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I am glad you like it. It makes no pretensions, but it is a comfortable little place, I hope, and will be more so with such bright young looks in it. You have barely half an hour before dinner. There’s no one here but the finest creature upon earth—a child.", "pos": 153734}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "More children, Esther!", "pos": 154072}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I don’t mean literally a child, not a child in years. He is grown up—he is at least as old as I am—but in simplicity, and freshness, and enthusiasm, and a fine guileless inaptitude for all worldly affairs, he is a perfect child. He knows Mrs. Jellyby. He is a musical man, an amateur, but might have been a professional. He is an artist too, an amateur, but might have been a professional. He is a man of attainments and of captivating manners. He has been unfortunate in his affairs, and unfortunate in his pursuits, and unfortunate in his family; but he don’t care—he’s a child!", "pos": 154107}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Did you imply that he has children of his own, sir?", "pos": 154779}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Yes, Rick! Half-a-dozen. More! Nearer a dozen, I should think. But he has never looked after them. How could he? He wanted somebody to look after HIM. He is a child, you know!", "pos": 154851}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "And have the children looked after themselves at all, sir?", "pos": 155048}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Why, just as you may suppose. It is said that the children of the very poor are not brought up, but dragged up. Harold Skimpole’s children have tumbled up somehow or other. The wind’s getting round again, I am afraid. I feel it rather! It IS exposed. No doubt that’s the cause. Bleak House has an exposed sound. But you are coming my way. Come along!", "pos": 155127}
{"speaker": "Maid", "text": "For you, miss, if you please,", "pos": 155909}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "For me?", "pos": 155951}
{"speaker": "Maid", "text": "The housekeeping keys, miss. I was told to bring them as soon as you was alone, miss. Miss Summerson, if I don’t deceive myself?", "pos": 155969}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Yes. That is my name.", "pos": 156181}
{"speaker": "Maid", "text": "The large bunch is the housekeeping, and the little bunch is the cellars, miss. Any time you was pleased to appoint to-morrow morning, I was to show you the presses and things they belong to.", "pos": 156215}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "football.", "pos": 156989}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "in which, he was perfectly right, nothing to live upon but love, fell in love, and married, and surrounded himself with rosy cheeks.", "pos": 158698}
{"speaker": "Harold Skimpole", "text": "Go your several ways in peace! Wear red coats, blue coats, lawn sleeves; put pens behind your ears, wear aprons; go after glory, holiness, commerce, trade, any object you prefer; only—let Harold Skimpole live!", "pos": 159910}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "I covet nothing. Possession is nothing to me. Here is my friend Jarndyce’s excellent house. I feel obliged to him for possessing it. I can sketch it and alter it. I can set it to music. When I am here, I have sufficient possession of it and have neither trouble, cost, nor responsibility. My steward’s name, in short, is Jarndyce, and he can’t cheat me. We have been mentioning Mrs. Jellyby. There is a bright-eyed woman, of a strong will and immense power of business detail, who throws herself into objects with surprising ardour! I don’t regret that I have not a strong will and an immense power of business detail to throw myself into objects with surprising ardour. I can admire her without envy. I can sympathize with the objects. I can dream of them. I can lie down on the grass—in fine weather—and float along an African river, embracing all the natives I meet, as sensible of the deep silence and sketching the dense overhanging tropical growth as accurately as if I were there. I don’t know that it’s of any direct use my doing so, but it’s all I can do, and I do it thoroughly. Then, for heaven’s sake, having Harold Skimpole, a confiding child, petitioning you, the world, an agglomeration of practical people of business habits, to let him live and admire the human family, do it somehow or other, like good souls, and suffer him to ride his rocking-horse! It’s only you, the generous creatures, whom I envy. I envy you your power of doing what you do. It is what I should revel in myself. I don’t feel any vulgar gratitude to you. I almost feel as if YOU ought to be grateful to ME for giving you the opportunity of enjoying the luxury of generosity. I know you like it. For anything I can tell, I may have come into the world expressly for the purpose of increasing your stock of happiness. I may have been born to be a benefactor to you by sometimes giving you an opportunity of assisting me in my little perplexities. Why should I regret my incapacity for details and worldly affairs when it leads to such pleasant consequences? I don’t regret it therefore.", "pos": 160880}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "She is like the morning. With that golden hair, those blue eyes, and that fresh bloom on her cheek, she is like the summer morning. The birds here will mistake her for it. We will not call such a lovely young creature as that, who is a joy to all mankind, an orphan. She is the child of the universe.", "pos": 164905}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "The universe, makes rather an indifferent parent, I am afraid.", "pos": 165327}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Oh! I don’t know!", "pos": 165407}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I think I do know,", "pos": 165457}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Well! You know the world (which in your sense is the universe), and I know nothing of it, so you shall have your way. But if I had mine, there should be no brambles of sordid realities in such a path as that. It should be strewn with roses; it should lie through bowers, where there was no spring, autumn, nor winter, but perpetual summer. Age or change should never wither it. The base word money should never be breathed near it!", "pos": 165497}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Took?", "pos": 168262}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "I am glad you are come. You will be able to advise us. Our friend Mr. Skimpole—don’t be alarmed!—is arrested for debt. I never was in a situation in which that excellent sense and quiet habit of method and usefulness, which anybody must observe in you who has the happiness of being a quarter of an hour in your society, was more needed. My dear Miss Summerson,", "pos": 169099}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Though I forgot how much it was and when it was. Jarndyce would readily do it again, but I have the epicure-like feeling that I would prefer a novelty in help, that I would rather, develop generosity in a new soil and in a new form of flower. What do you think will be best, Miss Summerson?", "pos": 170360}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Jail,", "pos": 170812}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Or Coavinses.", "pos": 170924}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Coavinses?", "pos": 170967}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "A ’ouse.", "pos": 171002}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "I thought, that being parties in a Chancery suit concerning (as people say) a large amount of property, Mr. Richard or his beautiful cousin, or both, could sign something, or make over something, or give some sort of undertaking, or pledge, or bond? I don’t know what the business name of it may be, but I suppose there is some instrument within their power that would settle this?", "pos": 171345}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Not a bit on it,", "pos": 171782}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Really?", "pos": 171823}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Odd or even,", "pos": 171919}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "I tell you, not a bit on it!", "pos": 171961}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Keep your temper, my good fellow, keep your temper! Don’t be ruffled by your occupation. We can separate you from your office; we can separate the individual from the pursuit. We are not so prejudiced as to suppose that in private life you are otherwise than a very estimable man, with a great deal of poetry in your nature, of which you may not be conscious. Now, my dear Miss Summerson, and my dear Mr. Richard, here you see me utterly incapable of helping myself, and entirely in your hands! I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free. Mankind will surely not deny to Harold Skimpole what it concedes to the butterflies!", "pos": 171992}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "My dear Miss Summerson,", "pos": 173001}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "I should like to ask you something, without offence. Did you know this morning, now, that you were coming out on this errand?", "pos": 174619}
{"speaker": "Coavinses", "text": "Know’d it yes’day aft’noon at tea-time,", "pos": 174809}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "It didn’t affect your appetite? Didn’t make you at all uneasy?", "pos": 174867}
{"speaker": "Coavinses", "text": "Not a bit. I know’d if you wos missed to-day, you wouldn’t be missed to-morrow. A day makes no such odds.", "pos": 174932}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "But when you came down here. The sun was shining, the wind was blowing, the lights and shadows were passing across the fields, the birds were singing.", "pos": 175058}
{"speaker": "Coavinses", "text": "Nobody said they warn’t, in MY hearing,", "pos": 175256}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "No. But what did you think upon the road?", "pos": 175318}
{"speaker": "Coavinses", "text": "Wot do you mean? Think! I’ve got enough to do, and little enough to get for it without thinking. Thinking!", "pos": 175387}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Then you didn’t think, at all events, to this effect: ‘Harold Skimpole loves to see the sun shine, loves to hear the wind blow, loves to watch the changing lights and shadows, loves to hear the birds, those choristers in Nature’s great cathedral. And does it seem to me that I am about to deprive Harold Skimpole of his share in such possessions, which are his only birthright!’ You thought nothing to that effect?", "pos": 175582}
{"speaker": "Coavinses", "text": "I—certainly—did—NOT,", "pos": 176025}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Very odd and very curious, the mental process is, in you men of business! Thank you, my friend. Good night.", "pos": 176308}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Oh, dear me, what’s this, what’s this! What’s this they tell me? Rick, my boy, Esther, my dear, what have you been doing? Why did you do it? How could you do it? How much apiece was it? The wind’s round again. I feel it all over me! Come, Rick, come! I must settle this before I sleep. How much are you out of pocket? You two made the money up, you know! Why did you? How could you? Oh, Lord, yes, it’s due east—must be!", "pos": 177982}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Really, sir. I don’t think it would be honourable in me to tell you. Mr. Skimpole relied upon us—", "pos": 178530}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Lord bless you, my dear boy! He relies upon everybody!", "pos": 178646}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Indeed, sir?", "pos": 178770}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Everybody! And he’ll be in the same scrape again next week! On Tuesday last, at her residence in Botheration Buildings, Mrs. Skimpole of a son in difficulties.", "pos": 178785}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Still, sir, I don’t want to shake his confidence or to break his confidence, and if I submit to your better knowledge again, that I ought to keep his secret, I hope you will consider before you press me any more. Of course, if you do press me, sir, I shall know I am wrong and will tell you.", "pos": 179236}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Well! I—here! Take it away, my dear. I don’t know what I am about with it; it’s all the wind—invariably has that effect—I won’t press you, Rick; you may be right. But really—to get hold of you and Esther—and to squeeze you like a couple of tender young Saint Michael’s oranges! It’ll blow a gale in the course of the night! Eh, my dear?", "pos": 179530}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Being quite a child, sir, and so different from other people—", "pos": 180315}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "You are right! Your woman’s wit hits the mark. He is a child—an absolute child. I told you he was a child, you know, when I first mentioned him. And he IS a child. Now, isn’t he? When you come to think of it, it’s the height of childishness in you—I mean me— to regard him for a moment as a man. You can’t make HIM responsible. The idea of Harold Skimpole with designs or plans, or knowledge of consequences! Ha, ha, ha! Why, what a cod’s head and shoulders I am, to require reminding of it! The whole business shows the child from beginning to end. Nobody but a child would have thought of singling YOU two out for parties in the affair! Nobody but a child would have thought of YOUR having the money! If it had been a thousand pounds, it would have been just the same! To be sure, to be sure! However, Rick, Esther, and you too, Ada, for I don’t know that even your little purse is safe from his inexperience—I must have a promise all round that nothing of this sort shall ever be done any more. No advances! Not even sixpences. As to Skimpole, a habitable doll’s house with good board and a few tin people to get into debt with and borrow money of would set the boy up in life. He is in a child’s sleep by this time, I suppose; it’s time I should take my craftier head to my more worldly pillow. Good night, my dears. God bless you! Oh! I have been looking at the weather-cock. I find it was a false alarm about the wind. It’s in the south!", "pos": 180389}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Esther, Esther, Esther! Duty, my dear!", "pos": 184502}
{"speaker": "Woa grey, then, steady! Noabody wants you to-day!", "text": "Woa grey, then, steady! Noabody wants you to-day!", "pos": 186308}
{"speaker": "the mastiff", "text": "Rain, rain, rain! Nothing but rain—and no family here!", "pos": 187463}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "is what she looks at.", "pos": 189594}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "fifty year, three months, and a fortnight, by the blessing of heaven, if I live till Tuesday.", "pos": 190278}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Leave me, and send Mrs. Rouncewell here!", "pos": 191576}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Mrs. Rouncewell. I can never consent to argue, as you know, with any one on any subject. You had better get rid of your boy; you had better get him into some Works. The iron country farther north is, I suppose, the congenial direction for a boy with these tendencies.", "pos": 193080}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "And, again and again, I am glad to see you, Watt! And, once again, I am glad to see you, Watt! You are a fine young fellow. You are like your poor uncle George. Ah!", "pos": 194220}
{"speaker": "Watt", "text": "They say I am like my father, grandmother.", "pos": 194473}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "Like him, also, my dear—but most like your poor uncle George! And your dear father. He is well?", "pos": 194518}
{"speaker": "Watt", "text": "Thriving, grandmother, in every way.", "pos": 194657}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "I am thankful! He is quite happy?", "pos": 194696}
{"speaker": "Watt", "text": "Quite.", "pos": 194897}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "I am thankful! So he has brought you up to follow in his ways and has sent you into foreign countries and the like? Well, he knows best. There may be a world beyond Chesney Wold that I don’t understand. Though I am not young, either. And I have seen a quantity of good company too!", "pos": 194906}
{"speaker": "Watt", "text": "Grandmother, what a very pretty girl that was I found with you just now. You called her Rosa?", "pos": 195190}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "Yes, child. She is daughter of a widow in the village. Maids are so hard to teach, now-a-days, that I have put her about me young. She’s an apt scholar and will do well. She shows the house already, very pretty. She lives with me at my table here.", "pos": 195330}
{"speaker": "Watt", "text": "I hope I have not driven her away?", "pos": 195580}
{"speaker": "Mrs.Rouncewell", "text": "She supposes we have family affairs to speak about, I dare say. She is very modest. It is a fine quality in a young woman. And scarcer,", "pos": 195617}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "than it formerly was! Wheels! What wheels on such a day as this, for gracious sake? Come in! What company is this, Rosa?", "pos": 195823}
{"speaker": "Rosa", "text": "It’s two young men in a gig, ma’am, who want to see the house—yes, and if you please, I told them so! I went to the hall-door and told them it was the wrong day and the wrong hour, but the young man who was driving took off his hat in the wet and begged me to bring this card to you.", "pos": 196401}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "Read it, my dear Watt,", "pos": 196750}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Mr. Guppy", "pos": 196955}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "Guppy! MR. Guppy! Nonsense, I never heard of him!", "pos": 197007}
{"speaker": "Rosa", "text": "If you please, he told ME that! But he said that he and the other young gentleman came from London only last night by the mail, on business at the magistrates’ meeting, ten miles off, this morning, and that as their business was soon over, and they had heard a great deal said of Chesney Wold, and really didn’t know what to do with themselves, they had come through the wet to see it. They are lawyers. He says he is not in Mr. Tulkinghorn’s office, but he is sure he may make use of Mr. Tulkinghorn’s name if necessary.", "pos": 197086}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Much obliged to you, ma’am! Us London lawyers don’t often get an out, and when we do, we like to make the most of it, you know.", "pos": 198211}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Dear me! Who’s that?", "pos": 200063}
{"speaker": "Rosa", "text": "The picture over the fire-place, is the portrait of the present Lady Dedlock. It is considered a perfect likeness, and the best work of the master.", "pos": 200104}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Blest, if I can ever have seen her. Yet I know her! Has the picture been engraved, miss?", "pos": 200267}
{"speaker": "Rosa", "text": "The picture has never been engraved. Sir Leicester has always refused permission.", "pos": 200419}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Well! I’ll be shot if it ain’t very curious how well I know that picture! So that’s Lady Dedlock, is it!", "pos": 200503}
{"speaker": "Rosa", "text": "The picture on the right is the present Sir Leicester Dedlock. The picture on the left is his father, the late Sir Leicester.", "pos": 200643}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "It’s unaccountable to me, how well I know that picture! I’m dashed, if I don’t think I must have had a dream of that picture, you know!", "pos": 200823}
{"speaker": "Rosa", "text": "The terrace below is much admired. It is called, from an old story in the family, the Ghost’s Walk.", "pos": 201944}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "No? What’s the story, miss? Is it anything about a picture?", "pos": 202046}
{"speaker": "Watt", "text": "Pray tell us the story,", "pos": 202144}
{"speaker": "Rosa", "text": "I don’t know it, sir.", "pos": 202199}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "It is not related to visitors; it is almost forgotten. It has never been more than a family anecdote.", "pos": 202248}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "You’ll excuse my asking again if it has anything to do with a picture, ma’am, because I do assure you that the more I think of that picture the better I know it, without knowing how I know it!", "pos": 202387}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "In the wicked days, my dears, of King Charles the First—I mean, of course, in the wicked days of the rebels who leagued themselves against that excellent king—Sir Morbury Dedlock was the owner of Chesney Wold. Whether there was any account of a ghost in the family before those days, I can’t say. I should think it very likely indeed. Sir Morbury Dedlock, was, I have no occasion to say, on the side of the blessed martyr. But it IS supposed that his Lady, who had none of the family blood in her veins, favoured the bad cause. It is said that she had relations among King Charles’s enemies, that she was in correspondence with them, and that she gave them information. When any of the country gentlemen who followed his Majesty’s cause met here, it is said that my Lady was always nearer to the door of their council-room than they supposed. Do you hear a sound like a footstep passing along the terrace, Watt?", "pos": 203119}
{"speaker": "Watt", "text": "I hear the rain-drip on the stones, and I hear a curious echo—I suppose an echo—which is very like a halting step.", "pos": 204356}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "Partly on account of this division between them, and partly on other accounts, Sir Morbury and his Lady led a troubled life. She was a lady of a haughty temper. They were not well suited to each other in age or character, and they had no children to moderate between them. After her favourite brother, a young gentleman, was killed in the civil wars (by Sir Morbury’s near kinsman), her feeling was so violent that she hated the race into which she had married. When the Dedlocks were about to ride out from Chesney Wold in the king’s cause, she is supposed to have more than once stolen down into the stables in the dead of night and lamed their horses; and the story is that once at such an hour, her husband saw her gliding down the stairs and followed her into the stall where his own favourite horse stood. There he seized her by the wrist, and in a struggle or in a fall or through the horse being frightened and lashing out, she was lamed in the hip and from that hour began to pine away.", "pos": 204542}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I will die here where I have walked. And I will walk here, though I am in my grave. I will walk here until the pride of this house is humbled. And when calamity or when disgrace is coming to it, let the Dedlocks listen for my step!", "pos": 206268}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "There and then she died. And from those days, the name has come down—the Ghost’s Walk. If the tread is an echo, it is an echo that is only heard after dark, and is often unheard for a long while together. But it comes back from time to time; and so sure as there is sickness or death in the family, it will be heard then.", "pos": 206609}
{"speaker": "Watt", "text": "And disgrace, grandmother—", "pos": 206957}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "Disgrace never comes to Chesney Wold,", "pos": 206997}
{"speaker": "Watt", "text": "True. True.", "pos": 207091}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "That is the story. Whatever the sound is, it is a worrying sound, and what is to be noticed in it is that it MUST BE HEARD. My Lady, who is afraid of nothing, admits that when it is there, it must be heard. You cannot shut it out. Watt, there is a tall French clock behind you (placed there, ’a purpose) that has a loud beat when it is in motion and can play music. You understand how those things are managed?", "pos": 207105}
{"speaker": "Watt", "text": "Pretty well, grandmother, I think.", "pos": 207569}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "Set it a-going. Now, come hither. Hither, child, towards my Lady’s pillow. I am not sure that it is dark enough yet, but listen! Can you hear the sound upon the terrace, through the music, and the beat, and everything?", "pos": 207606}
{"speaker": "Watt", "text": "I certainly can!", "pos": 207889}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "So my Lady says.", "pos": 207908}
{"speaker": "The drone", "text": "You will excuse me; I really cannot attend to the shop! I find myself in a world in which there is so much to see and so short a time to see it in that I must take the liberty of looking about me and begging to be provided for by somebody who doesn’t want to look about him.", "pos": 211993}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Sit down, my dear. This, you must know, is the growlery. When I am out of humour, I come and growl here.", "pos": 213185}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "You must be here very seldom, sir,", "pos": 213313}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Oh, you don’t know me! When I am deceived or disappointed in—the wind, and it’s easterly, I take refuge here. The growlery is the best-used room in the house. You are not aware of half my humours yet. My dear, how you are trembling! There! There! That’s over. Pooh! Don’t be foolish.", "pos": 213358}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "It shall not happen again, sir, but at first it is difficult—", "pos": 214155}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Nonsense! It’s easy, easy. Why not? I hear of a good little orphan girl without a protector, and I take it into my head to be that protector. She grows up, and more than justifies my good opinion, and I remain her guardian and her friend. What is there in all this? So, so! Now, we have cleared off old scores, and I have before me thy pleasant, trusting, trusty face again. Of course, Esther, you don’t understand this Chancery business? I don’t know who does. The lawyers have twisted it into such a state of bedevilment that the original merits of the case have long disappeared from the face of the earth. It’s about a will and the trusts under a will—or it was once. It’s about nothing but costs now. We are always appearing, and disappearing, and swearing, and interrogating, and filing, and cross-filing, and arguing, and sealing, and motioning, and referring, and reporting, and revolving about the Lord Chancellor and all his satellites, and equitably waltzing ourselves off to dusty death, about costs. That’s the great question. All the rest, by some extraordinary means, has melted away.", "pos": 214233}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "But it was, sir, about a will?", "pos": 215810}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Why, yes, it was about a will when it was about anything. A certain Jarndyce, in an evil hour, made a great fortune, and made a great will. In the question how the trusts under that will are to be administered, the fortune left by the will is squandered away; the legatees under the will are reduced to such a miserable condition that they would be sufficiently punished if they had committed an enormous crime in having money left them, and the will itself is made a dead letter. All through the deplorable cause, everything that everybody in it, except one man, knows already is referred to that only one man who don’t know, it to find out—all through the deplorable cause, everybody must have copies, over and over again, of everything that has accumulated about it in the way of cartloads of papers (or must pay for them without having them, which is the usual course, for nobody wants them) and must go down the middle and up again through such an infernal country-dance of costs and fees and nonsense and corruption as was never dreamed of in the wildest visions of a witch’s Sabbath. Equity sends questions to law, law sends questions back to equity; law finds it can’t do this, equity finds it can’t do that; neither can so much as say it can’t do anything, without this solicitor instructing and this counsel appearing for A, and that solicitor instructing and that counsel appearing for B; and so on through the whole alphabet, like the history of the apple pie. And thus, through years and years, and lives and lives, everything goes on, constantly beginning over and over again, and nothing ever ends. And we can’t get out of the suit on any terms, for we are made parties to it, and MUST BE parties to it, whether we like it or not. But it won’t do to think of it! When my great uncle, poor Tom Jarndyce, began to think of it, it was the beginning of the end!", "pos": 215902}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "The Mr. Jarndyce, sir, whose story I have heard?", "pos": 217792}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I was his heir, and this was his house, Esther. When I came here, it was bleak indeed. He had left the signs of his misery upon it.", "pos": 217862}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "How changed it must be now!", "pos": 217996}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "It had been called, before his time, the Peaks. He gave it its present name and lived here shut up, day and night poring over the wicked heaps of papers in the suit and hoping against hope to disentangle it from its mystification and bring it to a close. In the meantime, the place became dilapidated, the wind whistled through the cracked walls, the rain fell through the broken roof, the weeds choked the passage to the rotting door. When I brought what remained of him home here, the brains seemed to me to have been blown out of the house too, it was so shattered and ruined. I told you this was the growlery, my dear. Where was I? Bleak House; true. There is, in that city of London there, some property of ours which is much at this day what Bleak House was then; I say property of ours, meaning of the suit’s, but I ought to call it the property of costs, for costs is the only power on earth that will ever get anything out of it now or will ever know it for anything but an eyesore and a heartsore. It is a street of perishing blind houses, with their eyes stoned out, without a pane of glass, without so much as a window-frame, with the bare blank shutters tumbling from their hinges and falling asunder, the iron rails peeling away in flakes of rust, the chimneys sinking in, the stone steps to every door (and every door might be death’s door) turning stagnant green, the very crutches on which the ruins are propped decaying. Although Bleak House was not in Chancery, its master was, and it was stamped with the same seal. These are the Great Seal’s impressions, my dear, all over England—the children know them!", "pos": 218034}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "How changed it is!", "pos": 219905}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Why, so it is, and it is wisdom in you to keep me to the bright side of the picture. These are things I never talk about or even think about, excepting in the growlery here. If you consider it right to mention them to Rick and Ada, looking seriously at me, you can. I leave it to your discretion, Esther.", "pos": 219940}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I hope, sir—", "pos": 220312}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I think you had better call me guardian, my dear.", "pos": 220335}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I hope, guardian, that you may not trust too much to my discretion. I hope you may not mistake me. I am afraid it will be a disappointment to you to know that I am not clever, but it really is the truth, and you would soon find it out if I had not the honesty to confess it.", "pos": 220751}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I know me very well indeed and that I was quite clever enough for him.", "pos": 221144}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I hope I may turn out so, but I am much afraid of it, guardian.", "pos": 221216}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "You are clever enough to be the good little woman of our lives here, my dear, the little old woman of the child’s (I don’t mean Skimpole’s) rhyme: Little old woman, and whither so high? To sweep the cobwebs out of the sky. You will sweep them so neatly out of OUR sky in the course of your housekeeping, Esther, that one of these days we shall have to abandon the growlery and nail up the door. However, to return to our gossip. Here’s Rick, a fine young fellow full of promise. What’s to be done with him? Here he is, Esther. He must have a profession; he must make some choice for himself. There will be a world more wiglomeration about it, I suppose, but it must be done.", "pos": 221292}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "More what, guardian?", "pos": 222411}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "More wiglomeration. It’s the only name I know for the thing. He is a ward in Chancery, my dear. Kenge and Carboy will have something to say about it; Master Somebody—a sort of ridiculous sexton, digging graves for the merits of causes in a back room at the end of Quality Court, Chancery Lane—will have something to say about it; counsel will have something to say about it; the Chancellor will have something to say about it; the satellites will have something to say about it; they will all have to be handsomely fee’d, all round, about it; the whole thing will be vastly ceremonious, wordy, unsatisfactory, and expensive, and I call it, in general, wiglomeration. How mankind ever came to be afflicted with Wiglomeration, or for whose sins these young people ever fell into a pit of it, I don’t know; so it is. Perhaps it would be best, first of all,", "pos": 222442}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "to ask Mr. Richard what he inclines to himself.", "pos": 223685}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Exactly so. That’s what I mean! You know, just accustom yourself to talk it over, with your tact and in your quiet way, with him and Ada, and see what you all make of it. We are sure to come at the heart of the matter by your means, little woman.", "pos": 223735}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I really was frightened at the thought of the importance I was attaining and the number of things that were being confided to me. I had not meant this at all; I had meant that he should speak to Richard. But of course I said nothing in reply except that I would do my best, though I feared (I really felt it necessary to repeat this) that he thought me much more sagacious than I was.", "pos": 223998}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Come! I think we may have done with the growlery for one day! Only a concluding word. Esther, my dear, do you wish to ask me anything?", "pos": 224454}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "About myself, sir?", "pos": 224733}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Yes.", "pos": 224762}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Guardian, nothing! I am quite sure that if there were anything I ought to know or had any need to know, I should not have to ask you to tell it to me. If my whole reliance and confidence were not placed in you, I must have a hard heart indeed. I have nothing to ask you, nothing in the world.", "pos": 224769}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "We lived, at first, rather a busy life at Bleak House, for we had to become acquainted with many residents in and out of the neighbourhood who knew Mr. Jarndyce. It seemed to Ada and me that everybody knew him who wanted to do anything with anybody else’s money. It amazed us when we began to sort his letters and to answer some of them for him in the growlery of a morning to find how the great object of the lives of nearly all his correspondents appeared to be to form themselves into committees for getting in and laying out money. The ladies were as desperate as the gentlemen; indeed, I think they were even more so. They threw themselves into committees in the most impassioned manner and collected subscriptions with a vehemence quite extraordinary. It appeared to us that some of them must pass their whole lives in dealing out subscription-cards to the whole post-office directory—shilling cards, half-crown cards, half-sovereign cards, penny cards. They wanted everything. They wanted wearing apparel, they wanted linen rags, they wanted money, they wanted coals, they wanted soup, they wanted interest, they wanted autographs, they wanted flannel, they wanted whatever Mr. Jarndyce had—or had not. Their objects were as various as their demands. They were going to raise new buildings, they were going to pay off debts on old buildings, they were going to establish in a picturesque building (engraving of proposed west elevation attached) the Sisterhood of Mediaeval Marys, they were going to give a testimonial to Mrs. Jellyby, they were going to have their secretary’s portrait painted and presented to his mother-in-law, whose deep devotion to him was well known, they were going to get up everything, I really believe, from five hundred thousand tracts to an annuity and from a marble monument to a silver tea-pot. They took a multitude of titles. They were the Women of England, the Daughters of Britain, the Sisters of all the cardinal virtues separately, the Females of America, the Ladies of a hundred denominations. They appeared to be always excited about canvassing and electing. They seemed to our poor wits, and according to their own accounts, to be constantly polling people by tens of thousands, yet never bringing their candidates in for anything. It made our heads ache to think, on the whole, what feverish lives they must lead. Among the ladies who were most distinguished for this rapacious benevolence (if I may use the expression) was a Mrs. Pardiggle, who seemed, as I judged from the number of her letters to Mr. Jarndyce, to be almost as powerful a correspondent as Mrs. Jellyby herself. We observed that the wind always changed when Mrs. Pardiggle became the subject of conversation and that it invariably interrupted Mr. Jarndyce and prevented his going any farther, when he had remarked that there were two classes of charitable people; one, the people who did a little and made a great deal of noise; the other, the people who did a great deal and made no noise at all. We were therefore curious to see Mrs. Pardiggle, suspecting her to be a type of the former class, and were glad when she called one day with her five young sons.", "pos": 225330}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Pardiggle", "text": "These, young ladies, are my five boys. You may have seen their names in a printed subscription list (perhaps more than one) in the possession of our esteemed friend Mr. Jarndyce. Egbert, my eldest (twelve), is the boy who sent out his pocket-money, to the amount of five and threepence, to the Tockahoopo Indians. Oswald, my second (ten and a half), is the child who contributed two and nine-pence to the Great National Smithers Testimonial. Francis, my third (nine), one and sixpence halfpenny; Felix, my fourth (seven), eightpence to the Superannuated Widows; Alfred, my youngest (five), has voluntarily enrolled himself in the Infant Bonds of Joy, and is pledged never, through life, to use tobacco in any form.", "pos": 228907}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Pardiggle", "text": "You have been visiting, I understand, at Mrs. Jellyby’s? Mrs. Jellyby. Mrs. Jellyby is a benefactor to society and deserves a helping hand. My boys have contributed to the African project—Egbert, one and six, being the entire allowance of nine weeks; Oswald, one and a penny halfpenny, being the same; the rest, according to their little means. Nevertheless, I do not go with Mrs. Jellyby in all things. I do not go with Mrs. Jellyby in her treatment of her young family. It has been noticed. It has been observed that her young family are excluded from participation in the objects to which she is devoted. She may be right, she may be wrong; but, right or wrong, this is not my course with MY young family. I take them everywhere. They attend matins with me (very prettily done) at half-past six o’clock in the morning all the year round, including of course the depth of winter, and they are with me during the revolving duties of the day. I am a School lady, I am a Visiting lady, I am a Reading lady, I am a Distributing lady; I am on the local Linen Box Committee and many general committees; and my canvassing alone is very extensive—perhaps no one’s more so. But they are my companions everywhere; and by these means they acquire that knowledge of the poor, and that capacity of doing charitable business in general—in short, that taste for the sort of thing—which will render them in after life a service to their neighbours and a satisfaction to themselves. My young family are not frivolous; they expend the entire amount of their allowance in subscriptions, under my direction; and they have attended as many public meetings and listened to as many lectures, orations, and discussions as generally fall to the lot of few grown people. Alfred (five), who, as I mentioned, has of his own election joined the Infant Bonds of Joy, was one of the very few children who manifested consciousness on that occasion after a fervid address of two hours from the chairman of the evening. You may have observed, Miss Summerson, in some of the lists to which I have referred, in the possession of our esteemed friend Mr. Jarndyce, that the names of my young family are concluded with the name of O. A. Pardiggle, F.R.S., one pound. That is their father. We usually observe the same routine. I put down my mite first; then my young family enrol their contributions, according to their ages and their little means; and then Mr. Pardiggle brings up the rear. Mr. Pardiggle is happy to throw in his limited donation, under my direction; and thus things are made not only pleasant to ourselves, but, we trust, improving to others. You are very pleasantly situated here! You know Mr. Gusher? The loss is yours, I assure you. He is a very fervid, impassioned speaker—full of fire! Stationed in a waggon on this lawn, now, which, from the shape of the land, is naturally adapted to a public meeting, he would improve almost any occasion you could mention for hours and hours! By this time, young ladies, by this time you have found me out, I dare say? Found out, I mean, the prominent point in my character. I am aware that it is so prominent as to be discoverable immediately. I lay myself open to detection, I know. Well! I freely admit, I am a woman of business. I love hard work; I enjoy hard work. The excitement does me good. I am so accustomed and inured to hard work that I don’t know what fatigue is. I do not understand what it is to be tired; you cannot tire me if you try! The quantity of exertion (which is no exertion to me), the amount of business (which I regard as nothing), that I go through sometimes astonishes myself. I have seen my young family, and Mr. Pardiggle, quite worn out with witnessing it, when I may truly say I have been as fresh as a lark! This gives me a great advantage when I am making my rounds. If I find a person unwilling to hear what I have to say, I tell that person directly, ‘I am incapable of fatigue, my good friend, I am never tired, and I mean to go on until I have done.’ It answers admirably! Miss Summerson, I hope I shall have your assistance in my visiting rounds immediately, and Miss Clare’s very soon.", "pos": 230312}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Pardiggle", "text": "You are wrong, Miss Summerson, but perhaps you are not equal to hard work or the excitement of it, and that makes a vast difference. If you would like to see how I go through my work, I am now about—with my young family—to visit a brickmaker in the neighbourhood (a very bad character) and shall be glad to take you with me. Miss Clare also, if she will do me the favour.", "pos": 237689}
{"speaker": "Egbert", "text": "boned By her! Oh, then! Now! Who are you! YOU wouldn’t like it, I think? What does she make a sham for, and pretend to give me money, and take it away again? Why do you call it my allowance, and never let me spend it?", "pos": 239235}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Pardiggle", "text": "Well, my friends. How do you do, all of you? I am here again. I told you, you couldn’t tire me, you know. I am fond of hard work, and am true to my word.", "pos": 241894}
{"speaker": "the man on the floor", "text": "any more on you to come in, is there?", "pos": 242264}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Pardiggle", "text": "No, my friend. We are all here.", "pos": 242304}
{"speaker": "the man on the floor", "text": "Because I thought there warn’t enough of you, perhaps?", "pos": 242417}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Pardiggle", "text": "You can’t tire me, good people. I enjoy hard work, and the harder you make mine, the better I like it.", "pos": 242736}
{"speaker": "the man upon the floor", "text": "Then make it easy for her! I wants it done, and over. I wants a end of these liberties took with my place. I wants an end of being drawed like a badger. Now you’re a-going to poll-pry and question according to custom—I know what you’re a-going to be up to. Well! You haven’t got no occasion to be up to it. I’ll save you the trouble. Is my daughter a-washin? Yes, she IS a-washin. Look at the water. Smell it! That’s wot we drinks. How do you like it, and what do you think of gin instead! An’t my place dirty? Yes, it is dirty—it’s nat’rally dirty, and it’s nat’rally onwholesome; and we’ve had five dirty and onwholesome children, as is all dead infants, and so much the better for them, and for us besides. Have I read the little book wot you left? No, I an’t read the little book wot you left. There an’t nobody here as knows how to read it; and if there wos, it wouldn’t be suitable to me. It’s a book fit for a babby, and I’m not a babby. If you was to leave me a doll, I shouldn’t nuss it. How have I been conducting of myself? Why, I’ve been drunk for three days; and I’da been drunk four if I’da had the money. Don’t I never mean for to go to church? No, I don’t never mean for to go to church. I shouldn’t be expected there, if I did; the beadle’s too gen-teel for me. And how did my wife get that black eye? Why, I give it her; and if she says I didn’t, she’s a Lie!", "pos": 242880}
{"speaker": "the man on the floor", "text": "Well! You’ve done, have you?", "pos": 245959}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Pardiggle", "text": "For to-day, I have, my friend. But I am never fatigued. I shall come to you again in your regular order,", "pos": 245989}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "So long as you goes now,", "pos": 246153}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "you may do wot you like!", "pos": 246242}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Oh, Esther! Look here! Oh, Esther, my love, the little thing! The suffering, quiet, pretty little thing! I am so sorry for it. I am so sorry for the mother. I never saw a sight so pitiful as this before! Oh, baby, baby!", "pos": 247401}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Jenny! Jenny!", "pos": 248645}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Jenny! Jenny!", "pos": 248978}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "It’s you, young ladies, is it?", "pos": 250920}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "I’m a-watching for my master. My heart’s in my mouth. If he was to catch me away from home, he’d pretty near murder me.", "pos": 250976}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Do you mean your husband?", "pos": 251098}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Yes, miss, my master. Jenny’s asleep, quite worn out. She’s scarcely had the child off her lap, poor thing, these seven days and nights, except when I’ve been able to take it for a minute or two.", "pos": 251134}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "May heaven reward you! You are a good woman.", "pos": 251874}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Me, young ladies?", "pos": 251939}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Hush! Jenny, Jenny!", "pos": 251987}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Dear, dear, you tiresome little creature, I wish you wouldn’t!", "pos": 253089}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Our dear little old woman is such a capital old woman, that I can’t get on without her. Before I begin my harum-scarum day—grinding away at those books and instruments and then galloping up hill and down dale, all the country round, like a highwayman—it does me so much good to come and have a steady walk with our comfortable friend, that here I am again!", "pos": 254513}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "You know, Dame Durden, dear. I don’t want to talk when we come upstairs here. Only to sit a little while thinking, with your dear face for company, and to hear the wind and remember the poor sailors at sea—", "pos": 254999}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "So I apprehend it’s pretty clear, that I shall have to work my own way. Never mind! Plenty of people have had to do that before now, and have done it. I only wish I had the command of a clipping privateer to begin with and could carry off the Chancellor and keep him on short allowance until he gave judgment in our cause. He’d find himself growing thin, if he didn’t look sharp!", "pos": 256064}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "My prudent Mother Hubbard, why not? I made ten pounds, clear, out of Coavinses’ business.", "pos": 257297}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "How was that?", "pos": 257495}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Why, I got rid of ten pounds which I was quite content to get rid of and never expected to see any more. You don’t deny that?", "pos": 257519}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "No,", "pos": 257647}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Very well! Then I came into possession of ten pounds—", "pos": 257661}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "The same ten pounds,", "pos": 257717}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "That has nothing to do with it! I have got ten pounds more than I expected to have, and consequently I can afford to spend it without being particular. Let me see! I saved five pounds out of the brickmaker’s affair, so if I have a good rattle to London and back in a post-chaise and put that down at four pounds, I shall have saved one. And it’s a very good thing to save one, let me tell you: a penny saved is a penny got!", "pos": 257750}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "From Boythorn? Aye, aye! coming down I went to school with this fellow, Lawrence Boythorn, more than five and forty years ago. He was then the most impetuous boy in the world, and he is now the most impetuous man. He was then the loudest boy in the world, and he is now the loudest man. He was then the heartiest and sturdiest boy in the world, and he is now the heartiest and sturdiest man. He is a tremendous fellow.", "pos": 259410}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "In stature, sir?", "pos": 260207}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Pretty well, Rick, in that respect, being some ten years older than I and a couple of inches taller, with his head thrown back like an old soldier, his stalwart chest squared, his hands like a clean blacksmith’s, and his lungs! There’s no simile for his lungs. Talking, laughing, or snoring, they make the beams of the house shake. But it’s the inside of the man, the warm heart of the man, the passion of the man, the fresh blood of the man, Rick—and Ada, and little Cobweb too, for you are all interested in a visitor—that I speak of. His language is as sounding as his voice. He is always in extremes, perpetually in the superlative degree. In his condemnation he is all ferocity. You might suppose him to be an ogre from what he says, and I believe he has the reputation of one with some people. There! I tell you no more of him beforehand. You must not be surprised to see him take me under his protection, for he has never forgotten that I was a low boy at school and that our friendship began in his knocking two of my head tyrant’s teeth out (he says six) before breakfast. Boythorn and his man, will be here this afternoon, my dear.", "pos": 260241}
{"speaker": "Lawrence Boythorn", "text": "We have been misdirected, Jarndyce, by a most abandoned ruffian, who told us to take the turning to the right instead of to the left. He is the most intolerable scoundrel on the face of the earth. His father must have been a most consummate villain, ever to have such a son. I would have had that fellow shot without the least remorse!", "pos": 262084}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Did he do it on purpose?", "pos": 262422}
{"speaker": "Lawrence Boythorn", "text": "I have not the slightest doubt that the scoundrel has passed his whole existence in misdirecting travellers! By my soul, I thought him the worst-looking dog I had ever beheld when he was telling me to take the turning to the right. And yet I stood before that fellow face to face and didn’t knock his brains out!", "pos": 262472}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Teeth, you mean?", "pos": 262809}
{"speaker": "Mr. Lawrence Boythorn", "text": "Ha, ha, ha! What, you have not forgotten it yet! Ha, ha, ha! And that was another most consummate vagabond! By my soul, the countenance of that fellow when he was a boy was the blackest image of perfidy, cowardice, and cruelty ever set up as a scarecrow in a field of scoundrels. If I were to meet that most unparalleled despot in the streets to-morrow, I would fell him like a rotten tree!", "pos": 262847}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I have no doubt of it. Now, will you come upstairs?", "pos": 263311}
{"speaker": "his guest", "text": "By my soul, Jarndyce, if you had been married, I would have turned back at the garden-gate and gone away to the remotest summits of the Himalaya Mountains sooner than I would have presented myself at this unseasonable hour.", "pos": 263386}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Not quite so far, I hope?", "pos": 263668}
{"speaker": "the visitor", "text": "By my life and honour, yes! I wouldn’t be guilty of the audacious insolence of keeping a lady of the house waiting all this time for any earthly consideration. I would infinitely rather destroy myself—infinitely rather!", "pos": 263715}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "You have brought your bird with you, I suppose?", "pos": 265710}
{"speaker": "the other", "text": "By heaven, he is the most astonishing bird in Europe!", "pos": 265779}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "He IS the most wonderful creature! I wouldn’t take ten thousand guineas for that bird. I have left an annuity for his sole support in case he should outlive me. He is, in sense and attachment, a phenomenon. And his father before him was one of the most astonishing birds that ever lived!", "pos": 265854}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "By my soul, Jarndyce,", "pos": 266583}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "if I were in your place I would seize every master in Chancery by the throat to-morrow morning and shake him until his money rolled out of his pockets and his bones rattled in his skin. I would have a settlement out of somebody, by fair means or by foul. If you would empower me to do it, I would do it for you with the greatest satisfaction!", "pos": 266680}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I thank you, Lawrence, but the suit is hardly at such a point at present, that it would be greatly advanced even by the legal process of shaking the bench and the whole bar.", "pos": 267091}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "There never was such an infernal cauldron as that Chancery on the face of the earth!", "pos": 267302}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Nothing but a mine below it on a busy day in term time, with all its records, rules, and precedents collected in it and every functionary belonging to it also, high and low, upward and downward, from its son the Accountant-General to its father the Devil, and the whole blown to atoms with ten thousand hundredweight of gunpowder, would reform it in the least!", "pos": 267408}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "You are not free from the toils of the law yourself!", "pos": 268367}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "The fellow has brought actions against ME for trespass, and I have brought actions against HIM for trespass,", "pos": 268422}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "By heaven, he is the proudest fellow breathing. It is morally impossible that his name can be Sir Leicester. It must be Sir Lucifer.", "pos": 268556}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "I would beg Miss Clare’s pardon and Mr. Carstone’s pardon,", "pos": 268780}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "if I were not reassured by seeing in the fair face of the lady and the smile of the gentleman that it is quite unnecessary and that they keep their distant relation at a comfortable distance.", "pos": 268862}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Or he keeps us,", "pos": 269056}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "By my soul,", "pos": 269093}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "that fellow is, and his father was, and his grandfather was, the most stiff-necked, arrogant imbecile, pig-headed numskull, ever, by some inexplicable mistake of Nature, born in any station of life but a walking-stick’s!", "pos": 269163}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "The whole of that family are the most solemnly conceited and consummate blockheads!", "pos": 269384}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "But it’s no matter; he should not shut up my path if he were fifty baronets melted into one and living in a hundred Chesney Wolds, one within another, like the ivory balls in a Chinese carving.", "pos": 269468}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "The fellow, by his agent, or secretary, or somebody, writes to me ‘Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, presents his compliments to Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, and has to call his attention to the fact that the green pathway by the old parsonage-house, now the property of Mr. Lawrence Boythorn, is Sir Leicester’s right of way, being in fact a portion of the park of Chesney Wold, and that Sir Leicester finds it convenient to close up the same.’", "pos": 269662}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "I write to the fellow, ‘Mr. Lawrence Boythorn presents his compliments to Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and has to call HIS attention to the fact that he totally denies the whole of Sir Leicester Dedlock’s positions on every possible subject and has to add, in reference to closing up the pathway, that he will be glad to see the man who may undertake to do it.’", "pos": 270100}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "The fellow sends a most abandoned villain with one eye to construct a gateway.", "pos": 270465}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "I play upon that execrable scoundrel with a fire-engine until the breath is nearly driven out of his body.", "pos": 270544}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "The fellow erects a gate in the night.", "pos": 270651}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "I chop it down and burn it in the morning.", "pos": 270690}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "He sends his myrmidons to come over the fence and pass and repass.", "pos": 270733}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "I catch them in humane man traps, fire split peas at their legs, play upon them with the engine—resolve to free mankind from the insupportable burden of the existence of those lurking ruffians.", "pos": 270800}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "He brings actions for trespass;", "pos": 270994}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "I bring actions for trespass.", "pos": 271026}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "He brings actions for assault and battery;", "pos": 271056}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "I defend them and continue to assault and batter. Ha, ha, ha!", "pos": 271099}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "No, no,", "pos": 271646}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "no closing up of my paths by any Dedlock! Though I willingly confess,", "pos": 271665}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "that Lady Dedlock is the most accomplished lady in the world, to whom I would do any homage that a plain gentleman, and no baronet with a head seven hundred years thick, may. A man who joined his regiment at twenty and within a week challenged the most imperious and presumptuous coxcomb of a commanding officer that ever drew the breath of life through a tight waist—and got broke for it—is not the man to be walked over by all the Sir Lucifers, dead or alive, locked or unlocked. Ha, ha, ha!", "pos": 271767}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Nor the man to allow his junior to be walked over either?", "pos": 272263}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Most assuredly not!", "pos": 272341}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "He will stand by the low boy, always. Jarndyce, you may rely upon him! But speaking of this trespass—with apologies to Miss Clare and Miss Summerson for the length at which I have pursued so dry a subject—is there nothing for me from your men Kenge and Carboy?", "pos": 272490}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I think not, Esther?", "pos": 272753}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Nothing, guardian.", "pos": 272795}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Much obliged!", "pos": 272816}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Had no need to ask, after even my slight experience of Miss Summerson’s forethought for every one about her.", "pos": 272851}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "I inquired because, coming from Lincolnshire, I of course have not yet been in town, and I thought some letters might have been sent down here. I dare say they will report progress to-morrow morning.", "pos": 273019}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "No. No.", "pos": 273681}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "But he meant to be!", "pos": 273702}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "How did you find out that?", "pos": 273732}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "there is something so tender in his manner, after all, and he is so very courtly and gentle to us, and—", "pos": 273886}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "You are right, little woman. He was all but married once. Long ago. And once.", "pos": 274093}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Did the lady die?", "pos": 274188}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "No—but she died to him. That time has had its influence on all his later life. Would you suppose him to have a head and a heart full of romance yet?", "pos": 274208}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I think, guardian, I might have supposed so. But it is easy to say that when you have told me so.", "pos": 274359}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "He has never since been what he might have been, and now you see him in his age with no one near him but his servant and his little yellow friend. It’s your throw, my dear!", "pos": 274459}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Shall I have the honour of finding you here, miss?", "pos": 277252}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I should be there;", "pos": 277319}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "My eye, miss, he’s a Tartar!", "pos": 278003}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Pray take some refreshment, sir,", "pos": 278060}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "What follows is without prejudice, miss?", "pos": 279309}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I don’t understand what you mean, to imagine what you can have to communicate in total confidence to me, whom you have never seen but once; but I should be very sorry to do you any injury.", "pos": 279413}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Thank you, miss. I’m sure of it—that’s quite sufficient. If you would excuse my taking another glass of wine, miss, I think it might assist me in getting on without a continual choke that cannot fail to be mutually unpleasant. You wouldn’t allow me to offer you one, would you miss?", "pos": 279942}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Not any,", "pos": 280507}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Not half a glass? Quarter? No! Then, to proceed. My present salary, Miss Summerson, at Kenge and Carboy’s, is two pound a week. When I first had the happiness of looking upon you, it was one fifteen, and had stood at that figure for a lengthened period. A rise of five has since taken place, and a further rise of five is guaranteed at the expiration of a term not exceeding twelve months from the present date. My mother has a little property, which takes the form of a small life annuity, upon which she lives in an independent though unassuming manner in the Old Street Road. She is eminently calculated for a mother-in-law. She never interferes, is all for peace, and her disposition easy. She has her failings—as who has not?—but I never knew her do it when company was present, at which time you may freely trust her with wines, spirits, or malt liquors. My own abode is lodgings at Penton Place, Pentonville. It is lowly, but airy, open at the back, and considered one of the ’ealthiest outlets. Miss Summerson! In the mildest language, I adore you. Would you be so kind as to allow me (as I may say) to file a declaration—to make an offer!", "pos": 280525}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Get up from that ridiculous position immediately, sir, or you will oblige me to break my implied promise and ring the bell!", "pos": 281787}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Hear me out, miss!", "pos": 281913}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I cannot consent to hear another word, sir. Unless you get up from the carpet directly and go and sit down at the table as you ought to do if you have any sense at all.", "pos": 281969}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Yet what a mockery it is, miss, to be stationed behind food at such a moment. The soul recoils from food at such a moment, miss.", "pos": 282203}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I beg you to conclude, you have asked me to hear you out, and I beg you to conclude.", "pos": 282438}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "I will, miss. As I love and honour, so likewise I obey. Would that I could make thee the subject of that vow before the shrine!", "pos": 282535}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "That is quite impossible, and entirely out of the question.", "pos": 282683}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "I am aware. I am aware that in a worldly point of view, according to all appearances, my offer is a poor one. But, Miss Summerson! Angel! No, don’t ring—I have been brought up in a sharp school and am accustomed to a variety of general practice. Though a young man, I have ferreted out evidence, got up cases, and seen lots of life. Blest with your hand, what means might I not find of advancing your interests and pushing your fortunes! What might I not get to know, nearly concerning you? I know nothing now, certainly; but what MIGHT I not if I had your confidence, and you set me on? Cruel miss, hear but another word! I think you must have seen that I was struck with those charms on the day when I waited at the Whytorseller. I think you must have remarked that I could not forbear a tribute to those charms when I put up the steps of the ’ackney-coach. It was a feeble tribute to thee, but it was well meant. Thy image has ever since been fixed in my breast. I have walked up and down of an evening opposite Jellyby’s house only to look upon the bricks that once contained thee. This out of to-day, quite an unnecessary out so far as the attendance, which was its pretended object, went, was planned by me alone for thee alone. If I speak of interest, it is only to recommend myself and my respectful wretchedness. Love was before it, and is before it.", "pos": 282755}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I should be pained, Mr. Guppy, to do you or any one who was sincere the injustice of slighting any honest feeling, however disagreeably expressed. If you have really meant to give me a proof of your good opinion, though ill-timed and misplaced, I feel that I ought to thank you. I have very little reason to be proud, and I am not proud. I hope, that you will now go away as if you had never been so exceedingly foolish and attend to Messrs. Kenge and Carboy’s business.", "pos": 284522}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Half a minute, miss! This has been without prejudice?", "pos": 285110}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I will never mention it, unless you should give me future occasion to do so.", "pos": 285221}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "A quarter of a minute, miss! In case you should think better at any time, however distant—THAT’S no consequence, for my feelings can never alter—of anything I have said, particularly what might I not do, Mr. William Guppy, eighty-seven, Penton Place, or if removed, or dead (of blighted hopes or anything of that sort), care of Mrs. Guppy, three hundred and two, Old Street Road, will be sufficient.", "pos": 285310}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "I think my little woman is a-giving it to Guster!", "pos": 290820}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "I shall be back presently.", "pos": 298721}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Master at home? Master at home?", "pos": 299399}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Bless my soul, sir! Mr. Tulkinghorn!", "pos": 300284}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "I want half a word with you, Snagsby.", "pos": 300323}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Certainly, sir! Dear me, sir, why didn’t you send your young man round for me? Pray walk into the back shop, sir.", "pos": 300363}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Jarndyce and Jarndyce, Snagsby.", "pos": 300672}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Yes, sir.", "pos": 300706}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "You copied some affidavits in that cause for me lately.", "pos": 300910}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Yes, sir, we did.", "pos": 300968}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "There was one of them, the handwriting of which is peculiar, and I rather like. As I happened to be passing, and thought I had it about me, I looked in to ask you—but I haven’t got it. No matter, any other time will do. Ah! here it is! I looked in to ask you who copied this.", "pos": 300988}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Who copied this, sir? We gave this out, sir. We were giving out rather a large quantity of work just at that time. I can tell you in a moment who copied it, sir, by referring to my book. Jarndyce! Here we are, sir. To be sure! I might have remembered it. This was given out, sir, to a writer who lodges just over on the opposite side of the lane.", "pos": 301379}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "WHAT do you call him? Nemo?", "pos": 302294}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Nemo, sir. Here it is. Forty-two folio. Given out on the Wednesday night at eight o’clock, brought in on the Thursday morning at half after nine.", "pos": 302346}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Nemo! Nemo is Latin for no one.", "pos": 302494}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "It must be English for some one, sir, I think. It is a person’s name. Here it is, you see, sir! Forty-two folio. Given out Wednesday night, eight o’clock; brought in Thursday morning, half after nine. My dear, a customer! Half after nine, sir. Our law-writers, who live by job-work, are a queer lot; and this may not be his name, but it’s the name he goes by. I remember now, sir, that he gives it in a written advertisement he sticks up down at the Rule Office, and the King’s Bench Office, and the Judges’ Chambers, and so forth. You know the kind of document, sir—wanting employ? Tul-king-horn—rich—in-flu-en-tial!", "pos": 302555}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Have you given this man work before?", "pos": 303919}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Oh, dear, yes, sir! Work of yours.", "pos": 303980}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Thinking of more important matters, I forget where you said he lived?", "pos": 304017}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Across the lane, sir. In fact, he lodges at a— —at a rag and bottle shop.", "pos": 304089}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Can you show me the place as I go back?", "pos": 304253}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "With the greatest pleasure, sir! Oh! Here is my little woman! My dear, will you be so kind as to tell one of the lads to look after the shop while I step across the lane with Mr. Tulkinghorn? Mrs. Snagsby, sir—I shan’t be two minutes, my love! You will find that the place is rough, sir, and the party is very rough. But they’re a wild lot in general, sir. The advantage of this particular man is that he never wants sleep. He’ll go at it right on end if you want him to, as long as ever you like.", "pos": 304295}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "This is where he lives, sir,", "pos": 306167}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "This is where he lives, is it? Thank you.", "pos": 306222}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Are you not going in, sir?", "pos": 306299}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "No, thank you, no; I am going on to the Fields at present. Good evening. Thank you! Pray is your lodger within?", "pos": 306328}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "Male or female, sir?", "pos": 306880}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Male. The person who does copying.", "pos": 306919}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "Did you wish to see him, sir?", "pos": 307070}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Yes.", "pos": 307102}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "It’s what I seldom do myself. Shall I call him down? But it’s a weak chance if he’d come, sir!", "pos": 307109}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "I’ll go up to him, then,", "pos": 307236}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "Second floor, sir. Take the candle. Up there! Hi-hi! Order, Lady Jane! Behave yourself to visitors, my lady! You know what they say of my lodger?", "pos": 307285}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "What do they say of him?", "pos": 307730}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "They say he has sold himself to the enemy, but you and I know better—he don’t buy. I’ll tell you what, though; my lodger is so black-humoured and gloomy that I believe he’d as soon make that bargain as any other. Don’t put him out, sir. That’s my advice!", "pos": 307757}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Hallo, my friend! Hallo, my friend! Hallo! Hallo! What’s that?", "pos": 309924}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "It’s me. Can’t you wake him?", "pos": 310468}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "No.", "pos": 310563}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "What have you done with your candle?", "pos": 310569}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "It’s gone out. Here it is.", "pos": 310608}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Does the man generally sleep like this?", "pos": 311170}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "Hi! I don’t know. I know next to nothing of his habits except that he keeps himself very close.", "pos": 311248}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "God save us! He is dead!", "pos": 311556}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "Send for some doctor! Call for Miss Flite up the stairs, sir. Here’s poison by the bed! Call out for Flite, will you?", "pos": 311743}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Miss Flite! Flite! Make haste, here, whoever you are! Flite!", "pos": 311995}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "Run, Flite, run! The nearest doctor! Run!", "pos": 312188}
{"speaker": "the medical man", "text": "Ey! Bless the hearts o’ ye. He’s just as dead as Phairy! Any time, sir? It’s probable he wull have been dead aboot three hours.", "pos": 312475}
{"speaker": "a dark young man", "text": "About that time, I should say,", "pos": 312799}
{"speaker": "the medical man", "text": "Air you in the maydickle prayfession yourself, sir? Then I’ll just tak’ my depairture, for I’m nae gude here!", "pos": 312888}
{"speaker": "the surgeon", "text": "I knew this person by sight very well. He has purchased opium of me for the last year and a half. Was anybody present related to him?", "pos": 313339}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "I was his landlord. He told me once I was the nearest relation he had.", "pos": 313528}
{"speaker": "the surgeon", "text": "He has died, of an over-dose of opium, there is no doubt. The room is strongly flavoured with it. There is enough here now, to kill a dozen people.", "pos": 313681}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "Do you think he did it on purpose?", "pos": 313891}
{"speaker": "the surgeon", "text": "Took the over-dose?", "pos": 313940}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "Yes!", "pos": 313962}
{"speaker": "the surgeon", "text": "I can’t say. I should think it unlikely, as he has been in the habit of taking so much. But nobody can tell. He was very poor, I suppose?", "pos": 314039}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "I suppose he was. His room—don’t look rich. But I have never been in it since he had it, and he was too close to name his circumstances to me.", "pos": 314179}
{"speaker": "the surgeon", "text": "Did he owe you any rent?", "pos": 314417}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "Six weeks.", "pos": 314444}
{"speaker": "the surgeon", "text": "He will never pay it! It is beyond a doubt that he is indeed as dead as Pharaoh; and to judge from his appearance and condition, I should think it a happy release. Yet he must have been a good figure when a youth, and I dare say, good-looking. I recollect once thinking there was something in his manner, uncouth as it was, that denoted a fall in life. Was that so?", "pos": 314457}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "You might as well ask me to describe the ladies whose heads of hair I have got in sacks downstairs. Than that he was my lodger for a year and a half and lived—or didn’t live—by law-writing, I know no more of him.", "pos": 315068}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "I looked in here, just before you, with the intention of giving this deceased man, whom I never saw alive, some employment at his trade of copying. I had heard of him from my stationer—Snagsby of Cook’s Court. Since no one here knows anything about him, it might be as well to send for Snagsby. Ah! Suppose you do!", "pos": 316136}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Dear me, dear me, and it has come to this, has it! Bless my soul!", "pos": 316938}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Can you give the person of the house any information about this unfortunate creature, Snagsby? He was in arrears with his rent, it seems. And he must be buried, you know.", "pos": 317017}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Well, sir. I really don’t know what advice I could offer, except sending for the beadle.", "pos": 317218}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "I don’t speak of advice. I could advise—", "pos": 317376}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "No one better, sir, I am sure,", "pos": 317446}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "I speak of affording some clue to his connexions, or to where he came from, or to anything concerning him.", "pos": 317525}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "I assure you, sir, that I no more know where he came from than I know—", "pos": 317634}
{"speaker": "the surgeon", "text": "Where he has gone to, perhaps,", "pos": 317792}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "As to his connexions, sir, if a person was to say to me, ‘Snagsby, here’s twenty thousand pound down, ready for you in the Bank of England if you’ll only name one of ’em,’ I couldn’t do it, sir! About a year and a half ago—to the best of my belief, at the time when he first came to lodge at the present rag and bottle shop—", "pos": 317986}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "That was the time!", "pos": 318333}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "About a year and a half ago, he came into our place one morning after breakfast, and finding my little woman (which I name Mrs. Snagsby when I use that appellation) in our shop, produced a specimen of his handwriting and gave her to understand that he was in want of copying work to do and was, not to put too fine a point upon it, hard up! My little woman is not in general partial to strangers, particular—not to put too fine a point upon it—when they want anything. But she was rather took by something about this person, whether by his being unshaved, or by his hair being in want of attention, or by what other ladies’ reasons, I leave you to judge; and she accepted of the specimen, and likewise of the address. My little woman hasn’t a good ear for names, and she considered Nemo equally the same as Nimrod. Mr. Snagsby, you haven’t found Nimrod any work yet! Mr. Snagsby, why didn’t you give that eight and thirty Chancery folio in Jarndyce to Nimrod? And that is the way he gradually fell into job-work at our place; and that is the most I know of him except that he was a quick hand, and a hand not sparing of night-work, and that if you gave him out, say, five and forty folio on the Wednesday night, you would have it brought in on the Thursday morning. All of which—", "pos": 318377}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Hadn’t you better see, whether he had any papers that may enlighten you? There will be an inquest, and you will be asked the question. You can read?", "pos": 320174}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "No, I can’t,", "pos": 320358}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Snagsby, look over the room for him. He will get into some trouble or difficulty otherwise. Being here, I’ll wait if you make haste, and then I can testify on his behalf, if it should ever be necessary, that all was fair and right. If you will hold the candle for Mr. Snagsby, my friend, he’ll soon see whether there is anything to help you.", "pos": 320413}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "In the first place, here’s an old portmanteau, sir,", "pos": 320781}
{"speaker": "the surgeon", "text": "Don’t leave the cat there! that won’t do!", "pos": 322454}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Good night!", "pos": 322645}
{"speaker": "the coroner", "text": "Well, gentlemen—", "pos": 329699}
{"speaker": "the beadle", "text": "Silence there, will you!", "pos": 329738}
{"speaker": "the coroner", "text": "Well, gentlemen. You are impanelled here to inquire into the death of a certain man. Evidence will be given before you as to the circumstances attending that death, and you will give your verdict according to the—skittles; they must be stopped, you know, beadle!—evidence, and not according to anything else. The first thing to be done is to view the body.", "pos": 329829}
{"speaker": "the beadle", "text": "Make way there!", "pos": 330211}
{"speaker": "the coroner", "text": "A very eminent solicitor is in attendance, gentlemen, who, I am informed, was accidentally present when discovery of the death was made, but he could only repeat the evidence you have already heard from the surgeon, the landlord, the lodger, and the law-stationer, and it is not necessary to trouble him. Is anybody in attendance who knows anything more?", "pos": 331415}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Piper", "text": "Anastasia Piper, gentlemen. Married woman. Now, Mrs. Piper, what have you got to say about this?", "pos": 331852}
{"speaker": "the coroner", "text": "is that boy here?", "pos": 333684}
{"speaker": "the beadle", "text": "no, sir, he is not here.", "pos": 333719}
{"speaker": "the coroner", "text": "go and fetch him then.", "pos": 333762}
{"speaker": "coroner", "text": "Oh! Here’s the boy, gentlemen! Here he is, very muddy, very hoarse, very ragged. Now, boy! But stop a minute. Caution. This boy must be put through a few preliminary paces.", "pos": 333875}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Name, Jo. Nothing else that he knows on. Don’t know that everybody has two names. Never heerd of sich a think. Don’t know that Jo is short for a longer name. Thinks it long enough for HIM. HE don’t find no fault with it. Spell it? No. HE can’t spell it. No father, no mother, no friends. Never been to school. What’s home? Knows a broom’s a broom, and knows it’s wicked to tell a lie. Don’t recollect who told him about the broom or about the lie, but knows both. Can’t exactly say what’ll be done to him arter he’s dead if he tells a lie to the gentlemen here, but believes it’ll be something wery bad to punish him, and serve him right—and so he’ll tell the truth.", "pos": 334047}
{"speaker": "coroner", "text": "This won’t do, gentlemen!", "pos": 334715}
{"speaker": "attentive juryman", "text": "Don’t you think you can receive his evidence, sir?", "pos": 334797}
{"speaker": "coroner", "text": "Out of the question. You have heard the boy. ‘Can’t exactly say’ won’t do, you know. We can’t take THAT in a court of justice, gentlemen. It’s terrible depravity. Put the boy aside.", "pos": 334877}
{"speaker": "the man", "text": "Neither have I. Not one! I am as poor as you to-day, Jo,", "pos": 336221}
{"speaker": "the boy", "text": "He was wery good to me. Wen I see him a-layin’ so stritched out just now, I wished he could have heerd me tell him so. He wos wery good to me, he wos!", "pos": 336690}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "If you ever see me coming past your crossing with my little woman—I mean a lady— don’t allude to it!", "pos": 336995}
{"speaker": "Little Swills", "text": "a rummy start.", "pos": 337594}
{"speaker": "Little Swills", "text": "Gentlemen, if you’ll permit me, I’ll attempt a short description of a scene of real life that came off here to-day.", "pos": 338190}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "I thought you was dead, I am sure!", "pos": 340559}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "He wos wery good to me, he wos!", "pos": 343122}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "You have an unusual amount of correspondence this morning?", "pos": 347270}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Nothing in it, though. Nothing whatever.", "pos": 347433}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I saw one of Mr. Tulkinghorn’s long effusions, I think?", "pos": 347476}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "You see everything,", "pos": 347534}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Ha! He is the most tiresome of men!", "pos": 347592}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "He sends—I really beg your pardon—he sends, a message to you. Our stopping to change horses as I came to his postscript drove it out of my memory. I beg you’ll excuse me. He says— He says ‘In the matter of the right of way—’ I beg your pardon, that’s not the place. He says—yes! Here I have it! He says, ‘I beg my respectful compliments to my Lady, who, I hope, has benefited by the change. Will you do me the favour to mention (as it may interest her) that I have something to tell her on her return in reference to the person who copied the affidavit in the Chancery suit, which so powerfully stimulated her curiosity. I have seen him.’ That’s the message,", "pos": 347647}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I should like to walk a little,", "pos": 348557}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Walk?", "pos": 348638}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I should like to walk a little. Please to stop the carriage.", "pos": 348691}
{"speaker": "Madame", "text": "Though my Lord IS a little aged for my Lady,", "pos": 349626}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "How do you do, Mrs. Rouncewell? I am glad to see you.", "pos": 351724}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "I hope I have the honour of welcoming you in good health, Sir Leicester?", "pos": 351780}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "In excellent health, Mrs. Rouncewell.", "pos": 351855}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "My Lady is looking charmingly well,", "pos": 351895}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "as wearily well as she can hope to be. Who is that girl?", "pos": 352043}
{"speaker": "Housekeeper", "text": "A young scholar of mine, my Lady. Rosa.", "pos": 352266}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Come here, Rosa! Why, do you know how pretty you are, child?", "pos": 352308}
{"speaker": "Rosa", "text": "No, if you please, my Lady!", "pos": 352525}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "How old are you?", "pos": 352647}
{"speaker": "Rosa", "text": "Nineteen, my Lady.", "pos": 352666}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Nineteen. Take care they don’t spoil you by flattery.", "pos": 352687}
{"speaker": "Rosa", "text": "Yes, my Lady.", "pos": 352775}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "a little more free, ’Tis almost a pity, that my Lady has no family. If she had had a daughter now, a grown young lady, to interest her, I think she would have had the only kind of excellence she wants.", "pos": 353717}
{"speaker": "Watt", "text": "Might not that have made her still more proud, grandmother?", "pos": 354179}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "More and most, my dear, are words it’s not my place to use—nor so much as to hear—applied to any drawback on my Lady.", "pos": 354319}
{"speaker": "Watt", "text": "I beg your pardon, grandmother. But she is proud, is she not?", "pos": 354479}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "If she is, she has reason to be. The Dedlock family have always reason to be.", "pos": 354543}
{"speaker": "Watt", "text": "Well, it’s to be hoped they line out of their prayer-books a certain passage for the common people about pride and vainglory. Forgive me, grandmother! Only a joke!", "pos": 354623}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, my dear, are not fit subjects for joking.", "pos": 354802}
{"speaker": "Watt", "text": "Sir Leicester is no joke by any means, and I humbly ask his pardon. I suppose, grandmother, that even with the family and their guests down here, there is no objection to my prolonging my stay at the Dedlock Arms for a day or two, as any other traveller might?", "pos": 354878}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "Surely, none in the world, child.", "pos": 355154}
{"speaker": "Watt", "text": "I am glad of that, because I have an inexpressible desire to extend my knowledge of this beautiful neighbourhood.", "pos": 355190}
{"speaker": "Hortense", "text": "Ha, ha, ha! She, Hortense, been in my Lady’s service since five years and always kept at the distance, and this doll, this puppet, caressed—absolutely caressed—by my Lady on the moment of her arriving at the house! Ha, ha, ha! And do you know how pretty you are, child? No, my Lady. And how old are you, child! And take care they do not spoil you by flattery, child! It is the BEST thing altogether.", "pos": 356760}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Is Mr. Tulkinghorn come?", "pos": 365710}
{"speaker": "Maid", "text": "No, my Lady, not yet.", "pos": 365764}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Be so good as to attend, to your business. You can contemplate your beauty at another time.", "pos": 365997}
{"speaker": "Hortense", "text": "Pardon! It was your Ladyship’s beauty.", "pos": 366151}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "That, you needn’t contemplate at all.", "pos": 366192}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "How do you do, Mr. Tulkinghorn? We expected you before. Mr. Tulkinghorn, we remember your existence when you are not here to remind us of it by your presence. We bestow a fragment of our minds upon you, sir, you see!", "pos": 366986}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "I should have come down sooner, but that I have been much engaged with those matters in the several suits between yourself and Boythorn.", "pos": 367626}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "A man of a very ill-regulated mind. An extremely dangerous person in any community. A man of a very low character of mind.", "pos": 367780}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "He is obstinate,", "pos": 367945}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "It is natural to such a man to be so. I am not at all surprised to hear it.", "pos": 367986}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "The only question is, whether you will give up anything.", "pos": 368129}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "No, sir. Nothing. I give up?", "pos": 368210}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "I don’t mean anything of importance. That, of course, I know you would not abandon. I mean any minor point.", "pos": 368266}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Mr. Tulkinghorn, there can be no minor point between myself and Mr. Boythorn. If I go farther, and observe that I cannot readily conceive how ANY right of mine can be a minor point, I speak not so much in reference to myself as an individual as in reference to the family position I have it in charge to maintain.", "pos": 368376}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "I have now my instructions. Mr. Boythorn will give us a good deal of trouble—", "pos": 368758}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "It is the character of such a mind, Mr. Tulkinghorn. TO give trouble. An exceedingly ill-conditioned, levelling person. A person who, fifty years ago, would probably have been tried at the Old Bailey for some demagogue proceeding, and severely punished—if not, if not hanged, drawn, and quartered. But night is coming on, and my Lady will take cold. My dear, let us go in.", "pos": 368849}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "You sent me a message respecting the person whose writing I happened to inquire about. It was like you to remember the circumstance; I had quite forgotten it. Your message reminded me of it again. I can’t imagine what association I had with a hand like that, but I surely had some.", "pos": 369584}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "You had some?", "pos": 369868}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Oh, yes! I think I must have had some. And did you really take the trouble to find out the writer of that actual thing—what is it!—affidavit?", "pos": 369909}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Yes.", "pos": 370083}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "How very odd!", "pos": 370090}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Yes. I inquired about the man, and found him. And, what is very strange, I found him—", "pos": 370704}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Not to be any out-of-the-way person, I am afraid!", "pos": 370803}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "I found him dead.", "pos": 370891}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Oh, dear me!", "pos": 370911}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "I was directed to his lodging—a miserable, poverty-stricken place—and I found him dead.", "pos": 371030}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "You will excuse me, Mr. Tulkinghorn. I think the less said—", "pos": 371120}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Pray, Sir Leicester, let me hear the story out It is quite a story for twilight. How very shocking! Dead?", "pos": 371208}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Whether by his own hand—", "pos": 371410}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Upon my honour! Really!", "pos": 371437}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Do let me hear the story!", "pos": 371486}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Whatever you desire, my dear. But, I must say—", "pos": 371528}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "No, you mustn’t say! Go on, Mr. Tulkinghorn.", "pos": 371577}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "I was about to say, that whether he had died by his own hand or not, it was beyond my power to tell you. I should amend that phrase, however, by saying that he had unquestionably died of his own act, though whether by his own deliberate intention or by mischance can never certainly be known. The coroner’s jury found that he took the poison accidentally.", "pos": 371769}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "And what kind of man, was this deplorable creature?", "pos": 372175}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Very difficult to say. He had lived so wretchedly and was so neglected, with his gipsy colour and his wild black hair and beard, that I should have considered him the commonest of the common. The surgeon had a notion that he had once been something better, both in appearance and condition.", "pos": 372245}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "What did they call the wretched being?", "pos": 372578}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "They called him what he had called himself, but no one knew his name.", "pos": 372619}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Not even any one who had attended on him?", "pos": 372691}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "No one had attended on him. He was found dead. In fact, I found him.", "pos": 372735}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Without any clue to anything more?", "pos": 372806}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Without any; there was, an old portmanteau, but—No, there were no papers.", "pos": 372843}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Certainly, a collection of horrors, but they interest one for the moment! Have the kindness, Mr. Tulkinghorn, to open the door for me.", "pos": 373604}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "How much of this indecision of character, is chargeable on that incomprehensible heap of uncertainty and procrastination on which he has been thrown from his birth, I don’t pretend to say; but that Chancery, among its other sins, is responsible for some of it, I can plainly see. It has engendered or confirmed in him a habit of putting off—and trusting to this, that, and the other chance, without knowing what chance—and dismissing everything as unsettled, uncertain, and confused. The character of much older and steadier people may be even changed by the circumstances surrounding them. It would be too much to expect that a boy’s, in its formation, should be the subject of such influences and escape them.", "pos": 375497}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "I haven’t the least idea, what I had better be. Except that I am quite sure I don’t want to go into the Church, it’s a toss-up.", "pos": 377544}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "You have no inclination in Mr. Kenge’s way?", "pos": 377698}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "I don’t know that, sir! I am fond of boating. Articled clerks go a good deal on the water. It’s a capital profession!", "pos": 377768}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Surgeon—", "pos": 377907}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "That’s the thing, sir! That’s the thing, sir. We have got it at last. M.R.C.S.!", "pos": 377942}
{"speaker": "Mr. Boythorn", "text": "By heaven! I rejoice to find a young gentleman of spirit and gallantry devoting himself to that noble profession! The more spirit there is in it, the better for mankind and the worse for those mercenary task-masters and low tricksters who delight in putting that illustrious art at a disadvantage in the world. By all that is base and despicable, the treatment of surgeons aboard ship is such that I would submit the legs—both legs—of every member of the Admiralty Board to a compound fracture and render it a transportable offence in any qualified practitioner to set them if the system were not wholly changed in eight and forty hours! No! Not on any consideration! Eight and forty hours! As to corporations, parishes, vestry-boards, and similar gatherings of jolter-headed clods who assemble to exchange such speeches that, by heaven, they ought to be worked in quicksilver mines for the short remainder of their miserable existence, if it were only to prevent their detestable English from contaminating a language spoken in the presence of the sun—as to those fellows, who meanly take advantage of the ardour of gentlemen in the pursuit of knowledge to recompense the inestimable services of the best years of their lives, their long study, and their expensive education with pittances too small for the acceptance of clerks, I would have the necks of every one of them wrung and their skulls arranged in Surgeons’ Hall for the contemplation of the whole profession in order that its younger members might understand from actual measurement, in early life, HOW thick skulls may become!", "pos": 379037}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "Ah! Yes. Well! A very good profession, Mr. Jarndyce, a very good profession. Diligently. Truly. And Mr. Richard Carstone, who has so meritoriously acquitted himself in the—shall I say the classic shades?—in which his youth had been passed, will, no doubt, apply the habits, if not the principles and practice, of versification in that tongue in which a poet was said (unless I mistake) to be born, not made, to the more eminently practical field of action on which he enters.", "pos": 381638}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "that I shall go at it and do my best.", "pos": 382552}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "Very well, Mr. Jarndyce! Really, when we are assured by Mr. Richard that he means to go at it and to do his best,", "pos": 382592}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "N—no. I should like a little variety,", "pos": 383221}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "Very requisite, no doubt,", "pos": 383366}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "It is a coincidence, one of those coincidences which may or may not require an explanation beyond our present limited faculties, that I have a cousin in the medical profession. He might be deemed eligible by you and might be disposed to respond to this proposal. I can answer for him as little as for you, but he MIGHT!", "pos": 383990}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "well enough,", "pos": 388951}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Badger", "text": "merely a family party,", "pos": 389202}
{"speaker": "Mr. Badger", "text": "You would hardly suppose that I am Mrs. Bayham Badger’s third!", "pos": 390226}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Indeed?", "pos": 390291}
{"speaker": "Mr. Badger", "text": "Her third! Mrs. Bayham Badger has not the appearance, Miss Summerson, of a lady who has had two former husbands?", "pos": 390320}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Not at all!", "pos": 390461}
{"speaker": "Mr. Badger", "text": "And most remarkable men! Captain Swosser of the Royal Navy, who was Mrs. Badger’s first husband, was a very distinguished officer indeed. The name of Professor Dingo, my immediate predecessor, is one of European reputation. Yes, my dear! I was observing to Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson that you had had two former husbands—both very distinguished men. And they found it, as people generally do, difficult to believe.", "pos": 390475}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Badger", "text": "I was barely twenty, when I married Captain Swosser of the Royal Navy. I was in the Mediterranean with him; I am quite a sailor. On the twelfth anniversary of my wedding-day, I became the wife of Professor Dingo.", "pos": 391015}
{"speaker": "Mr. Badger", "text": "Of European reputation,", "pos": 391250}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Badger", "text": "And when Mr. Badger and myself were married, we were married on the same day of the year. I had become attached to the day.", "pos": 391310}
{"speaker": "Mr. Badger", "text": "So that Mrs. Badger has been married to three husbands—two of them highly distinguished men, and each time upon the twenty-first of March at eleven in the forenoon!", "pos": 391459}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "But for Mr. Badger’s modesty. I would take leave to correct him and say three distinguished men.", "pos": 391700}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Badger", "text": "Thank you, Mr. Jarndyce! What I always tell him!", "pos": 391820}
{"speaker": "Mr. Badger", "text": "And, my dear, what do I always tell you? That without any affectation of disparaging such professional distinction as I may have attained (which our friend Mr. Carstone will have many opportunities of estimating), I am not so weak—no, really, so unreasonable—as to put my reputation on the same footing with such first-rate men as Captain Swosser and Professor Dingo. Perhaps you may be interested, Mr. Jarndyce, in this portrait of Captain Swosser. It was taken on his return home from the African station, where he had suffered from the fever of the country. Mrs. Badger considers it too yellow. But it’s a very fine head. A very fine head!", "pos": 391893}
{"speaker": "We all", "text": "A very fine head!", "pos": 392682}
{"speaker": "Mr. Badger", "text": "I feel when I look at it, 'that’s a man I should like to have seen!' It strikingly bespeaks the first-class man that Captain Swosser pre-eminently was. On the other side, Professor Dingo. I knew him well—attended him in his last illness—a speaking likeness! Over the piano, Mrs. Bayham Badger when Mrs. Swosser. Over the sofa, Mrs. Bayham Badger when Mrs. Dingo. Of Mrs. Bayham Badger IN ESSE, I possess the original and have no copy. Water, Miss Summerson? Allow me! Not in that tumbler, pray. Bring me the professor’s goblet, James! Astonishing how they keep! They were presented to Mrs. Bayham Badger when she was in the Mediterranean. Not that claret! Excuse me! This is an occasion, and ON an occasion I produce some very special claret I happen to have. (James, Captain Swosser’s wine!) Mr. Jarndyce, this is a wine that was imported by the captain, we will not say how many years ago. You will find it very curious. My dear, I shall be happy to take some of this wine with you. (Captain Swosser’s claret to your mistress, James!) My love, your health!", "pos": 392702}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Badger", "text": "The dear old Crippler! She was a noble vessel. Trim, ship-shape, all a taunto, as Captain Swosser used to say. You must excuse me if I occasionally introduce a nautical expression; I was quite a sailor once. Captain Swosser loved that craft for my sake. When she was no longer in commission, he frequently said that if he were rich enough to buy her old hulk, he would have an inscription let into the timbers of the quarter-deck where we stood as partners in the dance to mark the spot where he fell—raked fore and aft (Captain Swosser used to say) by the fire from my tops. It was his naval way of mentioning my eyes. It was a great change from Captain Swosser to Professor Dingo. I felt it a good deal at first. Such an entire revolution in my mode of life! But custom, combined with science—particularly science—inured me to it. Being the professor’s sole companion in his botanical excursions, I almost forgot that I had ever been afloat, and became quite learned. It is singular that the professor was the antipodes of Captain Swosser and that Mr. Badger is not in the least like either!", "pos": 394614}
{"speaker": "Professor Dingo", "text": "Where is Laura? Let Laura give me my toast and water!", "pos": 396337}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "My darling Esther! I have a great secret to tell you!", "pos": 396912}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "What is it, Ada?", "pos": 397026}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Oh, Esther, you would never guess!", "pos": 397045}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Shall I try to guess?", "pos": 397082}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Oh, no! Don’t! Pray don’t!", "pos": 397114}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Now, I wonder who it can be about?", "pos": 397201}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "It’s about— It’s about—my cousin Richard!", "pos": 397270}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Well, my own! And what about him?", "pos": 397339}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Oh, Esther, you would never guess! He says—I know it’s very foolish, we are both so young—but he says, that he loves me dearly, Esther.", "pos": 397437}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Does he indeed? I never heard of such a thing! Why, my pet of pets, I could have told you that weeks and weeks ago! Why, my darling, what a goose you must take me for! Your cousin Richard has been loving you as plainly as he could for I don’t know how long!", "pos": 397808}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "And yet you never said a word about it!", "pos": 398222}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "No, my love. I waited to be told.", "pos": 398287}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "But now I have told you, you don’t think it wrong of me, do you?", "pos": 398333}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And now. I know the worst of it.", "pos": 398547}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Oh, that’s not quite the worst of it, Esther dear!", "pos": 398592}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "No? Not even that?", "pos": 398722}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "No, not even that!", "pos": 398753}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Why, you never mean to say—", "pos": 398802}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Yes, I do! You know, you know I do! With all my heart I do! With all my whole heart, Esther! Do you think my cousin John knows, dear Dame Durden?", "pos": 398915}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Unless my cousin John is blind, my pet. I should think my cousin John knows pretty well as much as we know.", "pos": 399339}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "We want to speak to him before Richard goes, and we wanted you to advise us, and to tell him so. Perhaps you wouldn’t mind Richard’s coming in, Dame Durden?", "pos": 399459}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Oh! Richard is outside, is he, my dear?", "pos": 399638}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "I am not quite certain, but I think he’s waiting at the door.", "pos": 399688}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Well, little woman, if you have accepted the trust, there can be no harm in it.", "pos": 401099}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I hope not, guardian. I can guarantee that there is no secrecy in it. For it only happened yesterday.", "pos": 401214}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Aye? And what is it, Esther?", "pos": 401328}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Guardian, you remember the happy night when first we came down to Bleak House? When Ada was singing in the dark room? Because—", "pos": 401359}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Yes, my dear! Don’t hurry.", "pos": 401648}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Because. Ada and Richard have fallen in love. And have told each other so.", "pos": 401688}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Already!", "pos": 401775}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Yes! And to tell you the truth, guardian, I rather expected it.", "pos": 401823}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "The deuce you did! Rick. I am glad to have won your confidence. I hope to preserve it. When I contemplated these relations between us four which have so brightened my life and so invested it with new interests and pleasures, I certainly did contemplate, afar off, the possibility of you and your pretty cousin here (don’t be shy, Ada, don’t be shy, my dear!) being in a mind to go through life together. I saw, and do see, many reasons to make it desirable. But that was afar off, Rick, afar off!", "pos": 401899}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "We look afar off, sir,", "pos": 402734}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Well! That’s rational. Now, hear me, my dears! I might tell you that you don’t know your own minds yet, that a thousand things may happen to divert you from one another, that it is well this chain of flowers you have taken up is very easily broken, or it might become a chain of lead. But I will not do that. Such wisdom will come soon enough, I dare say, if it is to come at all. I will assume that a few years hence you will be in your hearts to one another what you are to-day. All I say before speaking to you according to that assumption is, if you DO change—if you DO come to find that you are more commonplace cousins to each other as man and woman than you were as boy and girl (your manhood will excuse me, Rick!)—don’t be ashamed still to confide in me, for there will be nothing monstrous or uncommon in it. I am only your friend and distant kinsman. I have no power over you whatever. But I wish and hope to retain your confidence if I do nothing to forfeit it.", "pos": 402777}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "I am very sure, sir, that I speak for Ada too when I say that you have the strongest power over us both—rooted in respect, gratitude, and affection—strengthening every day.", "pos": 403774}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Dear cousin John, my father’s place can never be empty again. All the love and duty I could ever have rendered to him is transferred to you.", "pos": 403969}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Come! Now for our assumption. Now we lift our eyes up and look hopefully at the distance! Rick, the world is before you; and it is most probable that as you enter it, so it will receive you. Trust in nothing but in Providence and your own efforts. Never separate the two, like the heathen waggoner. Constancy in love is a good thing, but it means nothing, and is nothing, without constancy in every kind of effort. If you had the abilities of all the great men, past and present, you could do nothing well without sincerely meaning it and setting about it. If you entertain the supposition that any real success, in great things or in small, ever was or could be, ever will or can be, wrested from Fortune by fits and starts, leave that wrong idea here or leave your cousin Ada here.", "pos": 404141}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "I will leave IT here, sir, if I brought it here just now (but I hope I did not), and will work my way on to my cousin Ada in the hopeful distance.", "pos": 404948}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Right! If you are not to make her happy, why should you pursue her?", "pos": 405124}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "I wouldn’t make her unhappy—no, not even for her love,", "pos": 405215}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Well said! That’s well said! She remains here, in her home with me. Love her, Rick, in your active life, no less than in her home when you revisit it, and all will go well. Otherwise, all will go ill. That’s the end of my preaching. I think you and Ada had better take a walk.", "pos": 405298}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Am I right, Esther? Rick may gain, out of this, the quality he wants. Wants, at the core of so much that is good! I have said nothing to Ada, Esther. She has her friend and counsellor always near. Tut tut! But we must take care, too, that our little woman’s life is not all consumed in care for others.", "pos": 406495}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Care? My dear guardian, I believe I am the happiest creature in the world!", "pos": 407084}
{"speaker": "he", "text": "I believe so, too. But some one may find out what Esther never will—that the little woman is to be held in remembrance above all other people!", "pos": 407161}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "And if the suit SHOULD make us rich, Esther—which it may, you know! My dearest Ada, why not?", "pos": 408457}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "It had better declare us poor at once,", "pos": 408626}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Oh! I don’t know about that, but at all events, it won’t declare anything at once. It hasn’t declared anything in heaven knows how many years.", "pos": 408677}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Too true,", "pos": 408842}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Yes, but the longer it goes on, dear cousin, the nearer it must be to a settlement one way or other. Now, is not that reasonable?", "pos": 408864}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "You know best, Richard. But I am afraid if we trust to it, it will make us unhappy.", "pos": 409071}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "But, my Ada, we are not going to trust to it! We know it better than to trust to it. We only say that if it SHOULD make us rich, we have no constitutional objection to being rich. The court is, by solemn settlement of law, our grim old guardian, and we are to suppose that what it gives us (when it gives us anything) is our right. It is not necessary to quarrel with our right.", "pos": 409157}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "No, but it may be better to forget all about it.", "pos": 409561}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Well, well, then we will forget all about it! We consign the whole thing to oblivion. Dame Durden puts on her approving face, and it’s done!", "pos": 409624}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Dame Durden’s approving face, was not very visible when you called it by that name; but it does approve, and she thinks you can’t do better.", "pos": 409784}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Ma’s compliments, and she hopes you’ll excuse her, because she’s correcting proofs of the plan. She’s going to put out five thousand new circulars, and she knows you’ll be interested to hear that. I have brought one of them with me. Ma’s compliments.", "pos": 413206}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Thank you. I am much obliged to Mrs. Jellyby. Oh, dear me! This is a very trying wind! Oh, dear me! This is a very trying wind!", "pos": 413503}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "We are going on just as bad as ever in Thavies Inn. I have no peace of my life. Talk of Africa! I couldn’t be worse off if I was a what’s-his-name—man and a brother! Oh, it’s of no use, Miss Summerson, though I thank you for the kind intention all the same. I know how I am used, and I am not to be talked over. YOU wouldn’t be talked over if you were used so. Peepy, go and play at Wild Beasts under the piano!", "pos": 413981}
{"speaker": "Peepy", "text": "I shan’t!", "pos": 414470}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Very well, you ungrateful, naughty, hard-hearted boy! I’ll never take pains to dress you any more.", "pos": 414494}
{"speaker": "Peepy", "text": "Yes, I will go, Caddy!", "pos": 414643}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "It seems a little thing to cry about, but I am quite worn out. I was directing the new circulars till two this morning. I detest the whole thing so that that alone makes my head ache till I can’t see out of my eyes. And look at that poor unfortunate child! Was there ever such a fright as he is! I have sent him to the other end of the room, because I don’t want him to hear the conversation. Those little things are so sharp! I was going to say, we really are going on worse than ever. Pa will be a bankrupt before long, and then I hope Ma will be satisfied. There’ll be nobody but Ma to thank for it. It’s of no use hoping, though it’s very kind of you. Pa told me only yesterday morning (and dreadfully unhappy he is) that he couldn’t weather the storm. I should be surprised if he could. When all our tradesmen send into our house any stuff they like, and the servants do what they like with it, and I have no time to improve things if I knew how, and Ma don’t care about anything, I should like to make out how Pa is to weather the storm. I declare if I was Pa, I’d run away.", "pos": 414777}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "My dear! Your papa, no doubt, considers his family.", "pos": 416254}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Oh, yes, his family is all very fine, Miss Summerson, but what comfort is his family to him? His family is nothing but bills, dirt, waste, noise, tumbles downstairs, confusion, and wretchedness. His scrambling home, from week’s end to week’s end, is like one great washing-day—only nothing’s washed! I am sure I pity Pa to that degree, and am so angry with Ma that I can’t find words to express myself! However, I am not going to bear it, I am determined. I won’t be a slave all my life, and I won’t submit to be proposed to by Mr. Quale. A pretty thing, indeed, to marry a philanthropist. As if I hadn’t had enough of THAT! If it wasn’t that we had been intimate when you stopped at our house. I should have been ashamed to come here to-day, for I know what a figure I must seem to you two. But as it is, I made up my mind to call, especially as I am not likely to see you again the next time you come to town. No! Not at all likely! I know I may trust you two. I am sure you won’t betray me. I am engaged.", "pos": 416327}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Without their knowledge at home?", "pos": 417839}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Why, good gracious me, Miss Summerson, how can it be otherwise? You know what Ma is—and I needn’t make poor Pa more miserable by telling HIM.", "pos": 417882}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "But would it not be adding to his unhappiness to marry without his knowledge or consent, my dear?", "pos": 418096}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "No. I hope not. I should try to make him happy and comfortable when he came to see me, and Peepy and the others should take it in turns to come and stay with me, and they should have some care taken of them then.", "pos": 418204}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "It began in your coming to our house. I felt I was so awkward, that I made up my mind to be improved in that respect at all events and to learn to dance. I told Ma I was ashamed of myself, and I must be taught to dance. Ma looked at me in that provoking way of hers as if I wasn’t in sight, but I was quite determined to be taught to dance, and so I went to Mr. Turveydrop’s Academy in Newman Street.", "pos": 419259}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And was it there, my dear—", "pos": 419713}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Yes, it was there, and I am engaged to Mr. Turveydrop. There are two Mr. Turveydrops, father and son. My Mr. Turveydrop is the son, of course. I only wish I had been better brought up and was likely to make him a better wife, for I am very fond of him.", "pos": 419751}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I am sorry to hear this. I must confess.", "pos": 420020}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "I don’t know why you should be sorry, but I am engaged to Mr. Turveydrop, whether or no, and he is very fond of me. It’s a secret as yet, even on his side, because old Mr. Turveydrop has a share in the connexion and it might break his heart or give him some other shock if he was told of it abruptly. Old Mr. Turveydrop is a very gentlemanly man indeed—very gentlemanly.", "pos": 420073}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Does his wife know of it?", "pos": 420481}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Old Mr. Turveydrop’s wife, Miss Clare? There’s no such person. He is a widower. That’s the state of the case. If I ever blame myself, I still think it’s Ma’s fault. We are to be married whenever we can, and then I shall go to Pa at the office and write to Ma. It won’t much agitate Ma; I am only pen and ink to HER. One great comfort is, that I shall never hear of Africa after I am married. Young Mr. Turveydrop hates it for my sake, and if old Mr. Turveydrop knows there is such a place, it’s as much as he does.", "pos": 420520}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "It was he who was very gentlemanly, I think!", "pos": 421574}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Very gentlemanly indeed. He is celebrated almost everywhere for his deportment.", "pos": 421629}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Does he teach?", "pos": 421725}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "No, he don’t teach anything in particular. But his deportment is beautiful.", "pos": 421753}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "I should be very glad—very glad.", "pos": 423124}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Miss Summerson, Mr. Prince Turveydrop!", "pos": 425572}
{"speaker": "Mr. Prince Turveydrop", "text": "I am very happy to see Miss Jellyby’s friend. I began to fear, as it was past the usual time, that Miss Jellyby was not coming.", "pos": 426191}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I beg you will have the goodness to attribute that to me, who have detained her, and to receive my excuses, sir,", "pos": 426375}
{"speaker": "Mr. Prince Turveydrop", "text": "Oh, dear!", "pos": 426498}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And pray, do not allow me to be the cause of any more delay.", "pos": 426519}
{"speaker": "Mr. Prince Turveydrop", "text": "Father! A visitor. Miss Jellyby’s friend, Miss Summerson.", "pos": 428090}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "Distinguished, by Miss Summerson’s presence.", "pos": 428150}
{"speaker": "Mr. Prince Turveydrop", "text": "My father, is a celebrated character. My father is greatly admired.", "pos": 428324}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "Go on, Prince! Go on! Go on, my son!", "pos": 428462}
{"speaker": "old lady", "text": "And he never does anything else. Yet would you believe that it’s HIS name on the door-plate?", "pos": 429085}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "His son’s name is the same, you know,", "pos": 429231}
{"speaker": "old lady", "text": "He wouldn’t let his son have any name if he could take it from him. Look at the son’s dress! Yet the father must be garnished and tricked out, because of his deportment. I’d deport him! Transport him would be better!", "pos": 429279}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Does he give lessons in deportment now?", "pos": 429656}
{"speaker": "old lady", "text": "Now! Never did. I don’t believe he can fence at all, ma’am,", "pos": 429698}
{"speaker": "informant", "text": "The airs the fellow gives himself! He fully believes he is one of the aristocracy! And he is so condescending to the son he so egregiously deludes that you might suppose him the most virtuous of parents. Oh! I could bite you!", "pos": 431562}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "A lady so graceful and accomplished, will look leniently on the deficiencies here. We do our best to polish—polish—polish! To polish—polish—polish! But we are not, if I may say so to one formed to be graceful both by Nature and Art— —we are not what we used to be in point of deportment.", "pos": 432852}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Are we not, sir?", "pos": 433603}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "We have degenerated. A levelling age is not favourable to deportment. It develops vulgarity. Perhaps I speak with some little partiality. It may not be for me to say that I have been called, for some years now, Gentleman Turveydrop, or that his Royal Highness the Prince Regent did me the honour to inquire, on my removing my hat as he drove out of the Pavilion at Brighton (that fine building), ‘Who is he? Who the devil is he? Why don’t I know him? Why hasn’t he thirty thousand a year?’ But these are little matters of anecdote—the general property, ma’am—still repeated occasionally among the upper classes.", "pos": 433630}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Indeed?", "pos": 434335}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "Where what is left among us of deportment, still lingers. England—alas, my country!—has degenerated very much, and is degenerating every day. She has not many gentlemen left. We are few. I see nothing to succeed us but a race of weavers.", "pos": 434394}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "One might hope that the race of gentlemen would be perpetuated here,", "pos": 434646}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "You are very good. You flatter me. But, no—no! I have never been able to imbue my poor boy with that part of his art. Heaven forbid that I should disparage my dear child, but he has—no deportment.", "pos": 434725}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "He appears to be an excellent master,", "pos": 434970}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "Understand me, my dear madam, he IS an excellent master. All that can be acquired, he has acquired. All that can be imparted, he can impart. But there ARE things— This kind of thing, for instance. My amiable child,", "pos": 435022}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Your son is indefatigable,", "pos": 435504}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "It is my reward, to hear you say so. In some respects, he treads in the footsteps of his sainted mother. She was a devoted creature. But wooman, lovely wooman, what a sex you are! My dear, do you know the hour?", "pos": 435541}
{"speaker": "Prince", "text": "No, father.", "pos": 436223}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "My son, it’s two o’clock. Recollect your school at Kensington at three.", "pos": 436359}
{"speaker": "Prince", "text": "That’s time enough for me, father. I can take a morsel of dinner standing and be off.", "pos": 436444}
{"speaker": "Mr.veydrop", "text": "My dear boy, you must be very quick. You will find the cold mutton on the table.", "pos": 436547}
{"speaker": "Prince", "text": "Thank you, father. Are YOU off now, father?", "pos": 436653}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "Yes, my dear. I suppose, that I must show myself, as usual, about town.", "pos": 436699}
{"speaker": "son", "text": "You had better dine out comfortably somewhere,", "pos": 436870}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "My dear child, I intend to. I shall take my little meal, I think, at the French house, in the Opera Colonnade.", "pos": 436933}
{"speaker": "Prince", "text": "That’s right. Good-bye, father!", "pos": 437046}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "Good-bye, my son. Bless you!", "pos": 437108}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Esther, you must make up your mind to abandon this subject altogether and attend to Caddy.", "pos": 438730}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "He does it with the best intention, but it hasn’t the effect he means, poor fellow! Besides, it’s not as if I was an accomplished girl who had any right to give herself airs. I know little enough, I am sure, thanks to Ma! There’s another thing I want to tell you, now we are alone, which I should not have liked to mention unless you had seen Prince, Miss Summerson. You know what a house ours is. It’s of no use my trying to learn anything that it would be useful for Prince’s wife to know in OUR house. We live in such a state of muddle that it’s impossible, and I have only been more disheartened whenever I have tried. So I get a little practice with—who do you think? Poor Miss Flite! Early in the morning I help her to tidy her room and clean her birds, and I make her cup of coffee for her (of course she taught me), and I have learnt to make it so well that Prince says it’s the very best coffee he ever tasted, and would quite delight old Mr. Turveydrop, who is very particular indeed about his coffee. I can make little puddings too; and I know how to buy neck of mutton, and tea, and sugar, and butter, and a good many housekeeping things. I am not clever at my needle, yet, but perhaps I shall improve, and since I have been engaged to Prince and have been doing all this, I have felt better-tempered, I hope, and more forgiving to Ma. It rather put me out at first this morning to see you and Miss Clare looking so neat and pretty and to feel ashamed of Peepy and myself too, but on the whole I hope I am better-tempered than I was and more forgiving to Ma.", "pos": 439237}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Caddy, my love. I begin to have a great affection for you, and I hope we shall become friends.", "pos": 441349}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Oh, do you? How happy that would make me!", "pos": 441459}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "My dear Caddy, let us be friends from this time, and let us often have a chat about these matters and try to find the right way through them.", "pos": 441518}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "You look pale, and cold!", "pos": 442542}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "I have finished my professional visit. Miss Flite is much better and may appear in court (as her mind is set upon it) to-morrow. She has been greatly missed there, I understand.", "pos": 442938}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "Honoured, indeed, by another visit from the wards in Jarndyce! Ve-ry happy to receive Jarndyce of Bleak House beneath my humble roof! Fitz-Jarndyce, my dear a double welcome!", "pos": 443233}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Has she been very ill?", "pos": 443527}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "Oh, decidedly unwell! Oh, very unwell indeed. Not pain, you know—trouble. Not bodily so much as nervous, nervous! The truth is, we have had death here. There was poison in the house. I am very susceptible to such horrid things. It frightened me. Only Mr. Woodcourt knows how much. My physician, Mr. Woodcourt! The wards in Jarndyce—Jarndyce of Bleak House—Fitz-Jarndyce!", "pos": 443708}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Miss Flite. Miss Flite describes her illness with her usual accuracy. She was alarmed by an occurrence in the house which might have alarmed a stronger person, and was made ill by the distress and agitation. She brought me here in the first hurry of the discovery, though too late for me to be of any use to the unfortunate man. I have compensated myself for that disappointment by coming here since and being of some small use to her.", "pos": 444170}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "The kindest physician in the college. I expect a judgment. On the day of judgment. And shall then confer estates.", "pos": 444747}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "She will be as well in a day or two, as she ever will be. In other words, quite well of course. Have you heard of her good fortune?", "pos": 444893}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "Most extraordinary! You never heard of such a thing, my dear! Every Saturday, Conversation Kenge or Guppy (clerk to Conversation K.) places in my hand a paper of shillings. Shillings. I assure you! Always the same number in the paper. Always one for every day in the week. Now you know, really! So well-timed, is it not? Ye-es! From whence do these papers come, you say? That is the great question. Naturally. Shall I tell you what I think? I think, that the Lord Chancellor, aware of the length of time during which the Great Seal has been open (for it has been open a long time!), forwards them. Until the judgment I expect is given. Now that’s very creditable, you know. To confess in that way that he IS a little slow for human life. So delicate! Attending court the other day—I attend it regularly, with my documents—I taxed him with it, and he almost confessed. That is, I smiled at him from my bench, and HE smiled at me from his bench. But it’s great good fortune, is it not? And Fitz-Jarndyce lays the money out for me to great advantage. Oh, I assure you to the greatest advantage!", "pos": 445089}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "And what do you call these little fellows, ma’am? Have they any names?", "pos": 446676}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I can answer for Miss Flite that they have, for she promised to tell us what they were. Ada remembers?", "pos": 446782}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "Did I? Who’s that at my door? What are you listening at my door for, Krook?", "pos": 446923}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "I warn’t listening, Miss Flite. I was going to give a rap with my knuckles, only you’re so quick!", "pos": 447144}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "Make your cat go down. Drive her away!", "pos": 447255}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "Bah, bah! There ain’t no danger, gentlefolks, she’d never offer at the birds when I was here unless I told her to it.", "pos": 447328}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "You will excuse my landlord. M, quite M! What do you want, Krook, when I have company?", "pos": 447547}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "Hi! You know I am the Chancellor.", "pos": 447678}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "Well? What of that?", "pos": 447734}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "For the Chancellor, not to be acquainted with a Jarndyce is queer, ain’t it, Miss Flite? Mightn’t I take the liberty? Your servant, sir. I know Jarndyce and Jarndyce a’most as well as you do, sir. I knowed old Squire Tom, sir. I never to my knowledge see you afore though, not even in court. Yet, I go there a mortal sight of times in the course of the year, taking one day with another.", "pos": 447779}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I never go there. I would sooner go—somewhere else.", "pos": 448204}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "Would you though? You’re bearing hard upon my noble and learned brother in your meaning, sir, though perhaps it is but nat’ral in a Jarndyce. The burnt child, sir! What, you’re looking at my lodger’s birds, Mr. Jarndyce? It’s one of her strange ways that she’ll never tell the names of these birds if she can help it, though she named ’em all. Shall I run ’em over, Flite?", "pos": 448321}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "If you like,", "pos": 449015}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags, Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and Spinach. That’s the whole collection, all cooped up together, by my noble and learned brother.", "pos": 449140}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "This is a bitter wind!", "pos": 449437}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "When my noble and learned brother gives his judgment, they’re to be let go free, and then, if that ever was to happen—which it won’t—the birds that have never been caged would kill ’em.", "pos": 449484}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "If ever the wind was in the east. I think it’s there to-day!", "pos": 449744}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "What are you doing here?", "pos": 451702}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "Trying to learn myself to read and write,", "pos": 451748}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "And how do you get on?", "pos": 451804}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "Slow. Bad. It’s hard at my time of life.", "pos": 451829}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "It would be easier to be taught by some one,", "pos": 451908}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "Aye, but they might teach me wrong! I don’t know what I may have lost by not being learned afore. I wouldn’t like to lose anything by being learned wrong now.", "pos": 451973}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Wrong? Who do you suppose would teach you wrong?", "pos": 452205}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "I don’t know, Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House! I don’t suppose as anybody would, but I’d rather trust my own self than another!", "pos": 452305}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "No, he had seen no reason to think so. He was exceedingly distrustful, as ignorance usually was, and he was always more or less under the influence of raw gin, of which he drank great quantities and of which he and his back-shop, as we might have observed, smelt strongly; but he did not think him mad as yet.", "pos": 452764}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Now, my darling, let us have a little talk about Richard!", "pos": 453935}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "But I don’t think it matters what my darling said. She was always merry.", "pos": 454016}
{"speaker": "Mr. Quale", "text": "Mr. Quale, who presented himself soon after our arrival, was in all such excitements.", "pos": 454260}
{"speaker": "Mr. Quale", "text": "Mrs. Pardiggle came one day for a subscription to something, and with her, Mr. Quale. Whatever Mrs. Pardiggle said, Mr. Quale repeated to us; and just as he had drawn Mrs. Jellyby out, he drew Mrs. Pardiggle out. Mr. Gusher, being a flabby gentleman with a moist surface and eyes so much too small for his moon of a face that they seemed to have been originally made for somebody else, was not at first sight prepossessing; yet he was scarcely seated before Mr. Quale asked Ada and me, not inaudibly, whether he was not a great creature—which he certainly was, flabbily speaking, though Mr. Quale meant in intellectual beauty—and whether we were not struck by his massive configuration of brow.", "pos": 455142}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "He had fallen into this company in the tenderness of his heart and his earnest desire to do all the good in his power; but that he felt it to be too often an unsatisfactory company, where benevolence took spasmodic forms, where charity was assumed as a regular uniform by loud professors and speculators in cheap notoriety, vehement in profession, restless and vain in action, servile in the last degree of meanness to the great, adulatory of one another, and intolerable to those who were anxious quietly to help the weak from failing rather than with a great deal of bluster and self-laudation to raise them up a little way when they were down, he plainly told us. I think the wind was in the east for three whole weeks.", "pos": 456267}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "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. 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 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, 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.’", "pos": 458105}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "But, suppose, he had meant the meat in the bill, instead of providing it?", "pos": 459647}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "My dear Jarndyce, you surprise me. You take the butcher’s position. A butcher I once dealt with occupied that very ground. Says he, ‘Sir, why did you eat spring lamb at eighteen pence a pound?’ Why did I eat spring lamb at eighteen pence a pound, my honest friend? I like spring lamb! Well, sir. I wish I had meant the lamb as you mean the money! My good fellow, pray let us reason like intellectual beings. How could that be? It was impossible. You HAD got the lamb, and I have NOT got the money. You couldn’t really mean the lamb without sending it in, whereas I can, and do, really mean the money without paying it!", "pos": 459753}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Did he take no legal proceedings?", "pos": 460540}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Yes, he took legal proceedings. But in that he was influenced by passion, not by reason. Passion reminds me of Boythorn. He writes me that you and the ladies have promised him a short visit at his bachelor-house in Lincolnshire.", "pos": 460598}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "He is a great favourite with my girls, and I have promised for them.", "pos": 460850}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Nature forgot to shade him off, I think. A little too boisterous—like the sea. A little too vehement—like a bull who has made up his mind to consider every colour scarlet. But I grant a sledge-hammering sort of merit in him! He has invited me, and if a child may trust himself in such hands—which the present child is encouraged to do, with the united tenderness of two angels to guard him—I shall go. He proposes to frank me down and back again. I suppose it will cost money? Shillings perhaps? Or pounds? Or something of that sort? By the by, Coavinses. You remember our friend Coavinses, Miss Summerson?", "pos": 460942}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Oh, yes!", "pos": 462157}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Coavinses has been arrested by the Great Bailiff. He will never do violence to the sunshine any more. His successor informed me of it yesterday. His successor is in my house now—in possession, I think he calls it. He came yesterday, on my blue-eyed daughter’s birthday. I put it to him, ‘This is unreasonable and inconvenient. If you had a blue-eyed daughter you wouldn’t like ME to come, uninvited, on HER birthday?’ But he stayed. The Coavinses had left. Three children. No mother. And that Coavinses’ profession. Being unpopular. The rising Coavinses. Were at a considerable disadvantage.", "pos": 462176}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I don’t like this, Skimpole. The man was necessary. If we make such men necessary by our faults and follies, or by our want of worldly knowledge, or by our misfortunes, we must not revenge ourselves upon them. There was no harm in his trade. He maintained his children. One would like to know more about this.", "pos": 463555}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Oh! Coavinses? Nothing easier. A walk to Coavinses’ headquarters, and you can know what you will.", "pos": 464183}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Come! We will walk that way, my dears. Why not that way as soon as another!", "pos": 464406}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "It was so new and so refreshing, for him to want Coavinses instead of Coavinses wanting him!", "pos": 464579}
{"speaker": "the boy", "text": "Who did you want?", "pos": 464951}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "There was a follower, or an officer, or something, here, who is dead.", "pos": 465026}
{"speaker": "the boy", "text": "Yes? Well?", "pos": 465119}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I want to know his name, if you please?", "pos": 465148}
{"speaker": "the boy", "text": "Name of Neckett,", "pos": 465190}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "And his address?", "pos": 465223}
{"speaker": "the boy", "text": "Bell Yard. Chandler’s shop, left hand side, name of Blinder.", "pos": 465242}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Was he—I don’t know how to shape the question— industrious?", "pos": 465321}
{"speaker": "the boy", "text": "Was Neckett? Yes, wery much so. He was never tired of watching. He’d set upon a post at a street corner eight or ten hours at a stretch if he undertook to do it.", "pos": 465407}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "He might have done worse. He might have undertaken to do it and not done it. Thank you. That’s all I want.", "pos": 465587}
{"speaker": "she", "text": "Neckett’s children? Yes, Surely, miss. Three pair, if you please. Door right opposite the stairs.", "pos": 466139}
{"speaker": "he", "text": "Is it Gridley that’s wanted?", "pos": 466756}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "No, sir. I am going higher up.", "pos": 466839}
{"speaker": "he", "text": "Good day!", "pos": 467056}
{"speaker": "boy", "text": "We are locked in. Mrs. Blinder’s got the key!”", "pos": 467635}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Who has locked you up here alone?", "pos": 468249}
{"speaker": "the boy", "text": "Charley,", "pos": 468305}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Is Charley your brother?", "pos": 468360}
{"speaker": "the boy", "text": "No. She’s my sister, Charlotte. Father called her Charley.", "pos": 468387}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Are there any more of you besides Charley?", "pos": 468448}
{"speaker": "the boy", "text": "Me, and Emma. And Charley.", "pos": 468493}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Where is Charley now?", "pos": 468593}
{"speaker": "the boy", "text": "Out a-washing,", "pos": 468617}
{"speaker": "the boy", "text": "Oh, here’s Charley!", "pos": 469585}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Is it possible, that this child works for the rest? Look at this! For God’s sake, look at this! Charley, Charley! How old are you?", "pos": 469880}
{"speaker": "the child", "text": "Over thirteen, sir,", "pos": 470410}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Oh! What a great age. What a great age, Charley! And do you live alone here with these babies, Charley?", "pos": 470451}
{"speaker": "the child", "text": "Yes, sir, since father died.", "pos": 470722}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "And how do you live, Charley? Oh! Charley, how do you live?", "pos": 470825}
{"speaker": "the child", "text": "Since father died, sir, I’ve gone out to work. I’m out washing to-day.", "pos": 470943}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "God help you, Charley! You’re not tall enough to reach the tub!", "pos": 471016}
{"speaker": "she", "text": "In pattens I am, sir. I’ve got a high pair as belonged to mother.", "pos": 471102}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "And when did mother die? Poor mother!", "pos": 471190}
{"speaker": "the child", "text": "Mother died just after Emma was born. Then father said I was to be as good a mother to her as I could. And so I tried. And so I worked at home and did cleaning and nursing and washing for a long time before I began to go out. And that’s how I know how; don’t you see, sir?", "pos": 471230}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "And do you often go out?", "pos": 471560}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "As often as I can, because of earning sixpences and shillings!", "pos": 471587}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "And do you always lock the babies up when you go out?", "pos": 471698}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "To keep ’em safe, sir, don’t you see? Mrs. Blinder comes up now and then, and Mr. Gridley comes up sometimes, and perhaps I can run in sometimes, and they can play you know, and Tom an’t afraid of being locked up, are you, Tom?", "pos": 471754}
{"speaker": "Tom", "text": "No-o!", "pos": 472000}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "When it comes on dark, the lamps are lighted down in the court, and they show up here quite bright—almost quite bright. Don’t they, Tom?", "pos": 472026}
{"speaker": "Tom", "text": "Yes, Charley, almost quite bright.", "pos": 472165}
{"speaker": "the little creature", "text": "Then he’s as good as gold. And when Emma’s tired, he puts her to bed. And when he’s tired he goes to bed himself. And when I come home and light the candle and has a bit of supper, he sits up again and has it with me. Don’t you, Tom?", "pos": 472214}
{"speaker": "Tom", "text": "Oh, yes, Charley! That I do!", "pos": 472514}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Blinder", "text": "It’s not much to forgive ’em the rent, sir, who could take it from them!", "pos": 473634}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Well, well! It is enough that the time will come when this good woman will find that it WAS much, and that forasmuch as she did it unto the least of these—This child, could she possibly continue this?", "pos": 473721}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Blinder", "text": "Really, sir, I think she might. She’s as handy as it’s possible to be. Bless you, sir, the way she tended them two children after the mother died was the talk of the yard! And it was a wonder to see her with him after he was took ill, it really was! Mrs. Blinder, whatever my calling may have been, I see a angel sitting in this room last night along with my child, and I trust her to Our Father!", "pos": 473986}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "He had no other calling?", "pos": 474525}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Blinder", "text": "No, sir, he was nothing but a follerers. When he first came to lodge here, I didn’t know what he was, and I confess that when I found out I gave him notice. It wasn’t liked in the yard. It wasn’t approved by the other lodgers. It is NOT a genteel calling, and most people do object to it. Mr. Gridley objected to it very strong, and he is a good lodger, though his temper has been hard tried.", "pos": 474570}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "So you gave him notice?", "pos": 475011}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Blinder", "text": "So I gave him notice. But really when the time came, and I knew no other ill of him, I was in doubts. He was punctual and diligent; he did what he had to do, sir, and it’s something in this world even to do that.", "pos": 475055}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "So you kept him after all?", "pos": 475360}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Blinder", "text": "Why, I said that if he could arrange with Mr. Gridley, I could arrange it with the other lodgers and should not so much mind its being liked or disliked in the yard. Mr. Gridley gave his consent gruff—but gave it. He was always gruff with him, but he has been kind to the children since. A person is never known till a person is proved.", "pos": 475389}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Have many people been kind to the children?", "pos": 475728}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Blinder", "text": "Upon the whole, not so bad, sir, but certainly not so many as would have been if their father’s calling had been different. Mr. Coavins gave a guinea, and the follerers made up a little purse. Some neighbours in the yard that had always joked and tapped their shoulders when he went by came forward with a little subscription, and—in general—not so bad. Similarly with Charlotte. Some people won’t employ her because she was a follerer’s child; some people that do employ her cast it at her; some make a merit of having her to work for them, with that and all her draw-backs upon her, and perhaps pay her less and put upon her more. But she’s patienter than others would be, and is clever too, and always willing, up to the full mark of her strength and over. So I should say, in general, not so bad, sir, but might be better.", "pos": 475794}
{"speaker": "Mr. Gridley", "text": "I don’t know what you may be doing here, ladies and gentlemen, but you’ll excuse my coming in. I don’t come in to stare about me. Well, Charley! Well, Tom! Well, little one! How is it with us all to-day?", "pos": 476989}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "No one, surely, would come here to stare about him,", "pos": 477469}
{"speaker": "Mr. Gridley", "text": "May be so, sir, may be so. I don’t want to argue with ladies and gentlemen. I have had enough of arguing to last one man his life.", "pos": 477539}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "You have sufficient reason, I dare say, for being chafed and irritated—", "pos": 477751}
{"speaker": "Mr. Gridley", "text": "There again! I am of a quarrelsome temper. I am irascible. I am not polite!", "pos": 477846}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Not very, I think.", "pos": 477971}
{"speaker": "Mr. Gridley", "text": "Sir, do you know anything of Courts of Equity?", "pos": 477992}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Perhaps I do, to my sorrow.", "pos": 478130}
{"speaker": "Mr. Gridley", "text": "To your sorrow? if so, I beg your pardon. I am not polite, I know. I beg your pardon! Sir. I have been dragged for five and twenty years over burning iron, and I have lost the habit of treading upon velvet. Go into the Court of Chancery yonder and ask what is one of the standing jokes that brighten up their business sometimes, and they will tell you that the best joke they have is the man from Shropshire. I, am the man from Shropshire.", "pos": 478160}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I believe I and my family have also had the honour of furnishing some entertainment in the same grave place. You may have heard my name—Jarndyce.", "pos": 478720}
{"speaker": "Mr. Gridley", "text": "Mr. Jarndyce, you bear your wrongs more quietly than I can bear mine. More than that, I tell you—and I tell this gentleman, and these young ladies, if they are friends of yours—that if I took my wrongs in any other way, I should be driven mad! It is only by resenting them, and by revenging them in my mind, and by angrily demanding the justice I never get, that I am able to keep my wits together. It is only that! You may tell me that I over-excite myself. I answer that it’s in my nature to do it, under wrong, and I must do it. There’s nothing between doing it, and sinking into the smiling state of the poor little mad woman that haunts the court. If I was once to sit down under it, I should become imbecile. Mr. Jarndyce, consider my case. As true as there is a heaven above us, this is my case. I am one of two brothers. My father (a farmer) made a will and left his farm and stock and so forth to my mother for her life. After my mother’s death, all was to come to me except a legacy of three hundred pounds that I was then to pay my brother. My mother died. My brother some time afterwards claimed his legacy. I and some of my relations said that he had had a part of it already in board and lodging and some other things. Now mind! That was the question, and nothing else. No one disputed the will; no one disputed anything but whether part of that three hundred pounds had been already paid or not. To settle that question, my brother filing a bill, I was obliged to go into this accursed Chancery; I was forced there because the law forced me and would let me go nowhere else. Seventeen people were made defendants to that simple suit! It first came on after two years. It was then stopped for another two years while the master (may his head rot off!) inquired whether I was my father’s son, about which there was no dispute at all with any mortal creature. He then found out that there were not defendants enough—remember, there were only seventeen as yet!—but that we must have another who had been left out and must begin all over again. The costs at that time—before the thing was begun!—were three times the legacy. My brother would have given up the legacy, and joyful, to escape more costs. My whole estate, left to me in that will of my father’s, has gone in costs. The suit, still undecided, has fallen into rack, and ruin, and despair, with everything else—and here I stand, this day! Now, Mr. Jarndyce, in your suit there are thousands and thousands involved, where in mine there are hundreds. Is mine less hard to bear or is it harder to bear, when my whole living was in it and has been thus shamefully sucked away? There again! The system! I am told on all hands, it’s the system. I mustn’t look to individuals. It’s the system. I mustn’t go into court and say, ‘My Lord, I beg to know this from you—is this right or wrong? Have you the face to tell me I have received justice and therefore am dismissed?’ My Lord knows nothing of it. He sits there to administer the system. I mustn’t go to Mr. Tulkinghorn, the solicitor in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and say to him when he makes me furious by being so cool and satisfied—as they all do, for I know they gain by it while I lose, don’t I?—I mustn’t say to him, ‘I will have something out of some one for my ruin, by fair means or foul!’ HE is not responsible. It’s the system. But, if I do no violence to any of them, here—I may! I don’t know what may happen if I am carried beyond myself at last! I will accuse the individual workers of that system against me, face to face, before the great eternal bar! I have done! Mr. Jarndyce, I have done! I am violent, I know. I ought to know it. I have been in prison for contempt of court. I have been in prison for threatening the solicitor. I have been in this trouble, and that trouble, and shall be again. I am the man from Shropshire, and I sometimes go beyond amusing them, though they have found it amusing, too, to see me committed into custody and brought up in custody and all that. It would be better for me, they tell me, if I restrained myself. I tell them that if I did restrain myself I should become imbecile. I was a good-enough-tempered man once, I believe. People in my part of the country say they remember me so, but now I must have this vent under my sense of injury or nothing could hold my wits together. It would be far better for you, Mr. Gridley,’ the Lord Chancellor told me last week, ‘not to waste your time here, and to stay, usefully employed, down in Shropshire.’ ‘My Lord, my Lord, I know it would,’ said I to him, ‘and it would have been far better for me never to have heard the name of your high office, but unhappily for me, I can’t undo the past, and the past drives me here!’ I’ll shame them. To the last, I’ll show myself in that court to its shame. If I knew when I was going to die, and could be carried there, and had a voice to speak with, I would die there, saying, ‘You have brought me here and sent me from here many and many a time. Now send me out feet foremost!’ I came to take these babies down to my room for an hour, and let them play about. I didn’t mean to say all this, but it don’t much signify. You’re not afraid of me, Tom, are you?", "pos": 478899}
{"speaker": "Tom", "text": "No! You ain’t angry with ME.", "pos": 484962}
{"speaker": "Mr. Gridley", "text": "You are right, my child. You’re going back, Charley? Aye? Come then, little one! I shouldn’t wonder if we found a ginger-bread soldier downstairs. Let’s go and look for him!", "pos": 485005}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "For I don’t. I don’t know nothink.", "pos": 494500}
{"speaker": "The servant", "text": "Come here! Are you the boy I’ve read of in the papers?", "pos": 500868}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "I don’t know, nothink about no papers. I don’t know nothink about nothink at all.", "pos": 501003}
{"speaker": "The servant", "text": "Were you examined at an inquest?", "pos": 501127}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "I don’t know nothink about no—where I was took by the beadle, do you mean? Was the boy’s name at the inkwhich Jo?", "pos": 501162}
{"speaker": "The servant", "text": "Yes.", "pos": 501289}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "That’s me!", "pos": 501296}
{"speaker": "The servant", "text": "Come farther up.", "pos": 501318}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "You mean about the man? Him as wos dead?", "pos": 501337}
{"speaker": "The servant", "text": "Hush! Speak in a whisper! Yes. Did he look, when he was living, so very ill and poor?", "pos": 501402}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Oh, jist!", "pos": 501490}
{"speaker": "The servant", "text": "Did he look like—not like YOU?", "pos": 501511}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Oh, not so bad as me. I’m a reg’lar one I am! You didn’t know him, did you?", "pos": 501576}
{"speaker": "The servant", "text": "How dare you ask me if I knew him?", "pos": 501665}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "No offence, my lady,", "pos": 501702}
{"speaker": "The servant", "text": "I am not a lady. I am a servant.", "pos": 501811}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "You are a jolly servant!", "pos": 501846}
{"speaker": "The servant", "text": "Listen and be silent. Don’t talk to me, and stand farther from me! Can you show me all those places that were spoken of in the account I read? The place he wrote for, the place he died at, the place where you were taken to, and the place where he was buried? Do you know the place where he was buried? Go before me and show me all those dreadful places. Stop opposite to each, and don’t speak to me unless I speak to you. Don’t look back. Do what I want, and I will pay you well.", "pos": 501969}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "I’m fly. But fen larks, you know. Stow hooking it!", "pos": 502732}
{"speaker": "The servant", "text": "What does the horrible creature mean?", "pos": 502796}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Stow cutting away, you know!", "pos": 502878}
{"speaker": "The servant", "text": "I don’t understand you. Go on before! I will give you more money than you ever had in your life. Who lives here?", "pos": 502918}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Him wot give him his writing and give me half a bull,", "pos": 503271}
{"speaker": "The servant", "text": "Go on to the next. Who lives here?", "pos": 503383}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "HE lived here,", "pos": 503469}
{"speaker": "The servant", "text": "In which room?", "pos": 503537}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "In the back room up there. You can see the winder from this corner. Up there! That’s where I see him stritched out. This is the public-ouse where I was took to.", "pos": 503554}
{"speaker": "The servant", "text": "Go on to the next!", "pos": 503717}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "He was put there,", "pos": 504033}
{"speaker": "The servant", "text": "Where? Oh, what a scene of horror!", "pos": 504098}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "There! Over yinder. Among them piles of bones, and close to that there kitchin winder! They put him wery nigh the top. They was obliged to stamp upon it to git it in. I could unkiver it for you with my broom if the gate was open. That’s why they locks it, I s’pose. It’s always locked. Look at the rat! Hi! Look! There he goes! Ho! Into the ground!", "pos": 504135}
{"speaker": "The servant", "text": "Is this place of abomination consecrated ground?", "pos": 504876}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "I don’t know nothink of consequential ground,", "pos": 504927}
{"speaker": "The servant", "text": "Is it blessed?", "pos": 504999}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Which?", "pos": 505016}
{"speaker": "The servant", "text": "Is it blessed?", "pos": 505061}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "I’m blest if I know, but I shouldn’t think it warn’t. Blest? It an’t done it much good if it is. Blest? I should think it was t’othered myself. But I don’t know nothink!", "pos": 505078}
{"speaker": "The servant", "text": "Now, show me the spot again!", "pos": 505708}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "Sir Leicester would have done better to try the other side of the house, my dear. His dressing-room is on my Lady’s side. And in all these years I never heard the step upon the Ghost’s Walk more distinct than it is to-night!", "pos": 506842}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Badger", "text": "Why, Mr. Carstone, is very well and is, I assure you, a great acquisition to our society. Captain Swosser used to say of me that I was always better than land a-head and a breeze a-starn to the midshipmen’s mess when the purser’s junk had become as tough as the fore-topsel weather earrings. It was his naval way of mentioning generally that I was an acquisition to any society. I may render the same tribute, I am sure, to Mr. Carstone. But I—you won’t think me premature if I mention it?", "pos": 508895}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bayham Badger", "text": "Nor Miss Clare?", "pos": 509486}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Badger", "text": "Why, you see, my dears, —you’ll excuse me calling you my dears? Because you really are, if I may take the liberty of saying so, so perfectly charming. You see, my dears, that although I am still young—or Mr. Bayham Badger pays me the compliment of saying so—", "pos": 509574}
{"speaker": "Mr. Badger", "text": "No. Not at all!", "pos": 509924}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Badger", "text": "Very well, we will say still young.", "pos": 510015}
{"speaker": "Mr. Badger", "text": "Undoubtedly,", "pos": 510075}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Badger", "text": "My dears, though still young, I have had many opportunities of observing young men. There were many such on board the dear old Crippler, I assure you. After that, when I was with Captain Swosser in the Mediterranean, I embraced every opportunity of knowing and befriending the midshipmen under Captain Swosser’s command. YOU never heard them called the young gentlemen, my dears, and probably would not understand allusions to their pipe-claying their weekly accounts, but it is otherwise with me, for blue water has been a second home to me, and I have been quite a sailor. Again, with Professor Dingo.", "pos": 510107}
{"speaker": "Mr. Badger", "text": "A man of European reputation,", "pos": 510713}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Badger", "text": "When I lost my dear first and became the wife of my dear second. I still enjoyed opportunities of observing youth. The class attendant on Professor Dingo’s lectures was a large one, and it became my pride, as the wife of an eminent scientific man seeking herself in science the utmost consolation it could impart, to throw our house open to the students as a kind of Scientific Exchange. Every Tuesday evening there was lemonade and a mixed biscuit for all who chose to partake of those refreshments. And there was science to an unlimited extent.", "pos": 510766}
{"speaker": "Mr. Badger", "text": "Remarkable assemblies those, Miss Summerson. There must have been great intellectual friction going on there under the auspices of such a man!", "pos": 511402}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Badger", "text": "And now, now that I am the wife of my dear third, Mr. Badger, I still pursue those habits of observation which were formed during the lifetime of Captain Swosser and adapted to new and unexpected purposes during the lifetime of Professor Dingo. I therefore have not come to the consideration of Mr. Carstone as a neophyte. And yet I am very much of the opinion, my dears, that he has not chosen his profession advisedly. My dear Miss Summerson, on Mr. Carstone’s character and conduct. He is of such a very easy disposition that probably he would never think it worth while to mention how he really feels, but he feels languid about the profession. He has not that positive interest in it which makes it his vocation. If he has any decided impression in reference to it, I should say it was that it is a tiresome pursuit. Now, this is not promising. Young men like Mr. Allan Woodcourt who take it from a strong interest in all that it can do will find some reward in it through a great deal of work for a very little money and through years of considerable endurance and disappointment. But I am quite convinced that this would never be the case with Mr. Carstone.", "pos": 511580}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Does Mr. Badger think so too?", "pos": 512880}
{"speaker": "Mr. Badger", "text": "Why, to tell the truth, Miss Clare, this view of the matter had not occurred to me until Mrs. Badger mentioned it. But when Mrs. Badger put it in that light, I naturally gave great consideration to it, knowing that Mrs. Badger’s mind, in addition to its natural advantages, has had the rare advantage of being formed by two such very distinguished (I will even say illustrious) public men as Captain Swosser of the Royal Navy and Professor Dingo. The conclusion at which I have arrived is—in short, is Mrs. Badger’s conclusion.", "pos": 512931}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Badger", "text": "It was a maxim of Captain Swosser’s, speaking in his figurative naval manner, that when you make pitch hot, you cannot make it too hot; and that if you only have to swab a plank, you should swab it as if Davy Jones were after you. It appears to me that this maxim is applicable to the medical as well as to the nautical profession.", "pos": 513480}
{"speaker": "Mr. Badger", "text": "To all professions. It was admirably said by Captain Swosser. Beautifully said.", "pos": 513834}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Badger", "text": "People objected to Professor Dingo when we were staying in the north of Devon after our marriage, that he disfigured some of the houses and other buildings by chipping off fragments of those edifices with his little geological hammer. But the professor replied that he knew of no building save the Temple of Science. The principle is the same, I think?", "pos": 513939}
{"speaker": "Mr. Badger", "text": "Precisely the same. Finely expressed! The professor made the same remark, Miss Summerson, in his last illness, when (his mind wandering) he insisted on keeping his little hammer under the pillow and chipping at the countenances of the attendants. The ruling passion!", "pos": 514314}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And how do you get on, Richard?", "pos": 515186}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Oh! Well enough!", "pos": 515302}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "He can’t say better than that, Esther, can he?", "pos": 515335}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Well enough?", "pos": 515485}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Yes, well enough. It’s rather jog-trotty and humdrum. But it’ll do as well as anything else!", "pos": 515512}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Oh! My dear Richard!", "pos": 515623}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "What’s the matter?", "pos": 515662}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Do as well as anything else!", "pos": 515697}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "I don’t think there’s any harm in that, Dame Durden, because if it will do as well as anything else, it will do very well, I hope.", "pos": 515728}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Oh, yes, I hope so. After all, it may be only a kind of probation till our suit is—I forgot though. I am not to mention the suit. Forbidden ground! Oh, yes, it’s all right enough. Let us talk about something else.", "pos": 515914}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "No, but Richard, and my dear Ada! Consider how important it is to you both, and what a point of honour it is towards your cousin, that you, Richard, should be quite in earnest without any reservation. I think we had better talk about this, really, Ada. It will be too late very soon.", "pos": 516388}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Oh, yes! We must talk about it! But I think Richard is right.", "pos": 516684}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Mr. and Mrs. Badger were here yesterday, Richard, and they seemed disposed to think that you had no great liking for the profession.", "pos": 516864}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Did they though? Oh! Well, that rather alters the case, because I had no idea that they thought so, and I should not have liked to disappoint or inconvenience them. The fact is, I don’t care much about it. But, oh, it don’t matter! It’ll do as well as anything else!", "pos": 517009}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "You hear him, Ada!", "pos": 517294}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "The fact is, it is not quite in my way. I don’t take to it. And I get too much of Mrs. Bayham Badger’s first and second.", "pos": 517323}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "I am sure THAT’S very natural! The very thing we both said yesterday, Esther!", "pos": 517504}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Then, it’s monotonous, and to-day is too like yesterday, and to-morrow is too like to-day.", "pos": 517614}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "But I am afraid, this is an objection to all kinds of application—to life itself, except under some very uncommon circumstances.", "pos": 517726}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Do you think so? Perhaps! Ha! Why, then, you know, we travel outside a circle to what I said just now. It’ll do as well as anything else. Oh, it’s all right enough! Let us talk about something else.", "pos": 517867}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "My dear Mother Hubbard, that’s the very thing! I have thought of that several times and have been quite angry with myself for meaning to be so much in earnest and—somehow—not exactly being so. I don’t know how it is; I seem to want something or other to stand by. Even you have no idea how fond I am of Ada (my darling cousin, I love you, so much!), but I don’t settle down to constancy in other things. It’s such uphill work, and it takes such a time!", "pos": 518739}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "That may be, because you don’t like what you have chosen.", "pos": 519243}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Poor fellow! I am sure I don’t wonder at it!", "pos": 519318}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "You see, my precious girl. I was a little hasty perhaps; or I misunderstood my own inclinations perhaps. They don’t seem to lie in that direction. I couldn’t tell till I tried. Now the question is whether it’s worth-while to undo all that has been done. It seems like making a great disturbance about nothing particular.", "pos": 519643}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "My dear Richard, how CAN you say about nothing particular?", "pos": 520037}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "I don’t mean absolutely that. I mean that it MAY be nothing particular because I may never want it. There, my dear Mrs. Shipton, you touch me home. Yes, I have. I have been thinking that the law is the boy for me.", "pos": 520108}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "The law!", "pos": 520563}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "If I went into Kenge’s office, and if I were placed under articles to Kenge, I should have my eye on the—hum!—the forbidden ground—and should be able to study it, and master it, and to satisfy myself that it was not neglected and was being properly conducted. I should be able to look after Ada’s interests and my own interests (the same thing!); and I should peg away at Blackstone and all those fellows with the most tremendous ardour. My dear Minerva. I am as steady as you are. I made a mistake; we are all liable to mistakes; I won’t do so any more, and I’ll become such a lawyer as is not often seen. That is, you know, if it really is worth-while, after all, to make such a disturbance about nothing particular!", "pos": 520622}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Rick, we can retreat with honour, and we will. But we must be careful—for our cousin’s sake, Rick, for our cousin’s sake—that we make no more such mistakes. Therefore, in the matter of the law, we will have a good trial before we decide. We will look before we leap, and take plenty of time about it.", "pos": 522106}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Cousin John, I hope you don’t think the worse of Richard?", "pos": 523104}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "No, my love,", "pos": 523164}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Because it was very natural that Richard should be mistaken in such a difficult case. It is not uncommon.", "pos": 523188}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "No, no, my love. Don’t look unhappy.", "pos": 523296}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Oh, I am not unhappy, cousin John! But I should be a little so if you thought at all the worse of Richard.", "pos": 523346}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "My dear. I should think the worse of him only if you were ever in the least unhappy through his means. I should be more disposed to quarrel with myself even then, than with poor Rick, for I brought you together. But, tut, all this is nothing! He has time before him, and the race to run. I think the worse of him? Not I, my loving cousin! And not you, I swear!", "pos": 523568}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "No, indeed, cousin John. I am sure I could not—I am sure I would not—think any ill of Richard if the whole world did. I could, and I would, think better of him then than at any other time!", "pos": 523952}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I think. I think it must be somewhere written that the virtues of the mothers shall occasionally be visited on the children, as well as the sins of the father. Good night, my rosebud. Good night, little woman. Pleasant slumbers! Happy dreams!", "pos": 524298}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Esther! You to be low-spirited. YOU! As if you had anything to make you unhappy, instead of everything to make you happy, you ungrateful heart!", "pos": 525853}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Esther! At work so late, my dear?", "pos": 527271}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I am working late to-night, because I couldn’t sleep and wished to tire myself. But, dear guardian, you are late too, and look weary. You have no trouble, I hope, to keep you waking?", "pos": 527341}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "None, little woman, that YOU would readily understand,", "pos": 527536}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "That I could readily understand!", "pos": 527711}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Remain a moment, Esther. You were in my thoughts.", "pos": 527746}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I hope I was not the trouble, guardian? None that I could understand!", "pos": 527809}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Little woman. I was thinking—that is, I have been thinking since I have been sitting here—that you ought to know of your own history all I know. It is very little. Next to nothing.", "pos": 528078}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Dear guardian, when you spoke to me before on that subject—", "pos": 528281}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "But since then. I have reflected that your having anything to ask me, and my having anything to tell you, are different considerations, Esther. It is perhaps my duty to impart to you the little I know.", "pos": 528356}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "If you think so, guardian, it is right.", "pos": 528619}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I think so. My dear, I think so now. If any real disadvantage can attach to your position in the mind of any man or woman worth a thought, it is right that you at least of all the world should not magnify it to yourself by having vague impressions of its nature.", "pos": 528660}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "One of my earliest remembrances, guardian, is of these words: ‘Your mother, Esther, is your disgrace, and you were hers. The time will come, and soon enough, when you will understand this better, and will feel it too, as no one save a woman can.’", "pos": 529059}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Nine years, my dear, have passed since I received a letter from a lady living in seclusion, written with a stern passion and power that rendered it unlike all other letters I have ever read. It was written to me (as it told me in so many words), perhaps because it was the writer’s idiosyncrasy to put that trust in me, perhaps because it was mine to justify it. It told me of a child, an orphan girl then twelve years old, in some such cruel words as those which live in your remembrance. It told me that the writer had bred her in secrecy from her birth, had blotted out all trace of her existence, and that if the writer were to die before the child became a woman, she would be left entirely friendless, nameless, and unknown. It asked me to consider if I would, in that case, finish what the writer had begun. Your early recollection, my dear, will supply the gloomy medium through which all this was seen and expressed by the writer, and the distorted religion which clouded her mind with impressions of the need there was for the child to expiate an offence of which she was quite innocent. I felt concerned for the little creature, in her darkened life, and replied to the letter. It laid the injunction on me that I should never propose to see the writer, who had long been estranged from all intercourse with the world, but who would see a confidential agent if I would appoint one. I accredited Mr. Kenge. The lady said, of her own accord and not of his seeking, that her name was an assumed one. That she was, if there were any ties of blood in such a case, the child’s aunt. That more than this she would never (and he was well persuaded of the steadfastness of her resolution) for any human consideration disclose. My dear, I have told you all. I saw my ward oftener than she saw me, and I always knew she was beloved, useful, and happy. She repays me twenty-thousandfold, and twenty more to that, every hour in every day!", "pos": 529646}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And oftener still, she blesses the guardian who is a father to her! That I could readily understand. None that I could readily understand!", "pos": 531805}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Take a fatherly good night, my dear, and so to rest. These are late hours for working and thinking. You do that for all of us, all day long, little housekeeper!", "pos": 532297}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Why, Caddy, my dear, what beautiful flowers!", "pos": 536141}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Indeed, I think so, Esther. They are the loveliest I ever saw.", "pos": 536252}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Prince, my dear?", "pos": 536334}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "No. Not Prince.", "pos": 536374}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Well, to be sure, Caddy! You must have two lovers!", "pos": 536460}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "What? Do they look like that sort of thing?", "pos": 536523}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Do they look like that sort of thing? For me?", "pos": 536581}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "For you. They were left behind by somebody.", "pos": 537057}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Left behind?", "pos": 537129}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "At poor Miss Flite’s. Somebody who has been very good to her was hurrying away an hour ago to join a ship and left these flowers behind. No, no! Don’t take them out. Let the pretty little things lie here, because I was present myself, and I shouldn’t wonder if somebody left them on purpose!", "pos": 537144}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Do they look like that sort of thing? Oh, yes, indeed they do, Dame Durden! They look very, very like that sort of thing. Oh, very like it indeed, my dear!", "pos": 537502}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "As to Mr. Jarndyce, he is the finest fellow in the world, Esther! I must be particularly careful, if it were only for his satisfaction, to take myself well to task and have a regular wind-up of this business now.", "pos": 538957}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "My jewel of a dear cousin, you hear this old woman! Why does she say that? Because I gave eight pounds odd (or whatever it was) for a certain neat waistcoat and buttons a few days ago. Now, if I had stayed at Badger’s I should have been obliged to spend twelve pounds at a blow for some heart-breaking lecture-fees. So I make four pounds—in a lump—by the transaction!", "pos": 540148}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "but, little woman, he hasn’t settled down there yet!", "pos": 540973}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "The oddity of the thing is, that my chairs and tables were not paid for, and yet my landlord walks off with them as composedly as possible. Now, that seems droll! There is something grotesque in it. The chair and table merchant never engaged to pay my landlord my rent. Why should my landlord quarrel with HIM? If I have a pimple on my nose which is disagreeable to my landlord’s peculiar ideas of beauty, my landlord has no business to scratch my chair and table merchant’s nose, which has no pimple on it. His reasoning seems defective! There is something grotesque in it.", "pos": 542822}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Well, it’s pretty clear that whoever became security for those chairs and tables will have to pay for them.", "pos": 543424}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Exactly! That’s the crowning point of unreason in the business! I said to my landlord, ‘My good man, you are not aware that my excellent friend Jarndyce will have to pay for those things that you are sweeping off in that indelicate manner. Have you no consideration for HIS property?’ He hadn’t the least.", "pos": 543570}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "And refused all proposals,", "pos": 543903}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Refused all proposals. I made him business proposals. I had him into my room. I said, ‘You are a man of business, I believe?’ He replied, ‘I am.’ ‘Very well,’ said I, ‘now let us be business-like. Here is an inkstand, here are pens and paper, here are wafers. What do you want? I have occupied your house for a considerable period, I believe to our mutual satisfaction until this unpleasant misunderstanding arose; let us be at once friendly and business-like. What do you want?’ In reply to this, he made use of the figurative expression—which has something Eastern about it—that he had never seen the colour of my money. ‘My amiable friend,’ said I, ‘I never have any money. I never know anything about money.’ ‘Well, sir,’ said he, ‘what do you offer if I give you time?’ ‘My good fellow,’ said I, ‘I have no idea of time; but you say you are a man of business, and whatever you can suggest to be done in a business-like way with pen, and ink, and paper—and wafers—I am ready to do. Don’t pay yourself at another man’s expense (which is foolish), but be business-like!’ However, he wouldn’t be, and there was an end of it.", "pos": 543950}
{"speaker": "Mr. Boythorn", "text": "By heaven! This a most infamous coach. It is the most flagrant example of an abominable public vehicle that ever encumbered the face of the earth. It is twenty-five minutes after its time this afternoon. The coachman ought to be put to death!", "pos": 546633}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "IS he after his time? You know my infirmity.", "pos": 546926}
{"speaker": "Mr. Boythorn", "text": "Twenty-five minutes! Twenty-six minutes! With two ladies in the coach, this scoundrel has deliberately delayed his arrival six and twenty minutes. Deliberately! It is impossible that it can be accidental! But his father—and his uncle—were the most profligate coachmen that ever sat upon a box. I am sorry, ladies, that I am obliged to conduct you nearly two miles out of the way. But our direct road lies through Sir Leicester Dedlock’s park, and in that fellow’s property I have sworn never to set foot of mine, or horse’s foot of mine, pending the present relations between us, while I breathe the breath of life!", "pos": 547034}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Are the Dedlocks down here, Lawrence?", "pos": 548073}
{"speaker": "Mr. Boythorn", "text": "Sir Arrogant Numskull is here. Ha ha ha! Sir Arrogant is here, and I am glad to say, has been laid by the heels here. My Lady, is expected, I believe, daily. I am not in the least surprised that she postpones her appearance as long as possible. Whatever can have induced that transcendent woman to marry that effigy and figure-head of a baronet is one of the most impenetrable mysteries that ever baffled human inquiry. Ha ha ha ha!", "pos": 548208}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I suppose. WE may set foot in the park while we are here? The prohibition does not extend to us, does it?", "pos": 548781}
{"speaker": "Mr. Boythorn", "text": "I can lay no prohibition on my guests, except in the matter of their departure. I am only sorry that I cannot have the happiness of being their escort about Chesney Wold, which is a very fine place! But by the light of this summer day, Jarndyce, if you call upon the owner while you stay with me, you are likely to have but a cool reception. He carries himself like an eight-day clock at all times, like one of a race of eight-day clocks in gorgeous cases that never go and never went—Ha ha ha!—but he will have some extra stiffness, I can promise you, for the friends of his friend and neighbour Boythorn!", "pos": 548919}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I shall not put him to the proof. He is as indifferent to the honour of knowing me, I dare say, as I am to the honour of knowing him. The air of the grounds and perhaps such a view of the house as any other sightseer might get are quite enough for me.", "pos": 549632}
{"speaker": "Mr. Boythorn", "text": "Well! I am glad of it on the whole. It’s in better keeping. I am looked upon about here as a second Ajax defying the lightning. Ha ha ha ha! When I go into our little church on a Sunday, a considerable part of the inconsiderable congregation expect to see me drop, scorched and withered, on the pavement under the Dedlock displeasure. Ha ha ha ha! I have no doubt he is surprised that I don’t. For he is, by heaven, the most self-satisfied, and the shallowest, and the most coxcombical and utterly brainless ass!", "pos": 549906}
{"speaker": "Mr. Boythorn", "text": "That’s the housekeeper’s grandson, Mr. Rouncewell by name, and he is in love with a pretty girl up at the house. Lady Dedlock has taken a fancy to the pretty girl and is going to keep her about her own fair person—an honour which my young friend himself does not at all appreciate. However, he can’t marry just yet, even if his Rosebud were willing; so he is fain to make the best of it. In the meanwhile, he comes here pretty often for a day or two at a time to—fish. Ha ha ha ha!", "pos": 552011}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Are he and the pretty girl engaged, Mr. Boythorn?", "pos": 552507}
{"speaker": "Mr. Boythorn", "text": "Why, my dear Miss Clare. I think they may perhaps understand each other; but you will see them soon, I dare say, and I must learn from you on such a point—not you from me.", "pos": 552570}
{"speaker": "Mr. Boythorn", "text": "Ha ha ha ha! Ha ha ha ha!", "pos": 555703}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "But this is taking a good deal of trouble, when you are not in earnest after all.", "pos": 555819}
{"speaker": "Mr. Boythorn", "text": "Not in earnest! Not in earnest! If I could have hoped to train him, I would have bought a lion instead of that dog and would have turned him loose upon the first intolerable robber who should dare to make an encroachment on my rights. Let Sir Leicester Dedlock consent to come out and decide this question by single combat, and I will meet him with any weapon known to mankind in any age or country. I am that much in earnest. Not more!", "pos": 555941}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "'Enter not into judgment with thy servant, O Lord, for in thy sight—'", "pos": 558536}
{"speaker": "Mr. Boythorn", "text": "He believes he is! He firmly believes it. So did his father, and his grandfather, and his great-grandfather!", "pos": 561856}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Do you know, it’s agreeable to me to see a man of that sort.", "pos": 561988}
{"speaker": "Mr. Boythorn", "text": "IS it!", "pos": 562109}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Say that he wants to patronize me. Very well! I don’t object.", "pos": 562137}
{"speaker": "Mr. Boythorn", "text": "I do,", "pos": 562225}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Do you really? But that’s taking trouble, surely. And why should you take trouble? Here am I, content to receive things childishly as they fall out, and I never take trouble! I come down here, for instance, and I find a mighty potentate exacting homage. Very well! I say ‘Mighty potentate, here IS my homage! It’s easier to give it than to withhold it. Here it is. If you have anything of an agreeable nature to show me, I shall be happy to see it; if you have anything of an agreeable nature to give me, I shall be happy to accept it.’ Mighty potentate replies in effect, ‘This is a sensible fellow. I find him accord with my digestion and my bilious system. He doesn’t impose upon me the necessity of rolling myself up like a hedgehog with my points outward. I expand, I open, I turn my silver lining outward like Milton’s cloud, and it’s more agreeable to both of us.’ That’s my view of such things, speaking as a child!", "pos": 562270}
{"speaker": "Mr. Boythorn", "text": "But suppose you went down somewhere else to-morrow, where there was the opposite of that fellow—or of this fellow. How then?", "pos": 563244}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "How then? Just the same then! I should say, ‘My esteemed Boythorn’—to make you the personification of our imaginary friend—‘my esteemed Boythorn, you object to the mighty potentate? Very good. So do I. I take it that my business in the social system is to be agreeable; I take it that everybody’s business in the social system is to be agreeable. It’s a system of harmony, in short. Therefore if you object, I object. Now, excellent Boythorn, let us go to dinner!’", "pos": 563391}
{"speaker": "our host", "text": "But excellent Boythorn might say. I’ll be—", "pos": 563935}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "I understand. Very likely he would.", "pos": 564032}
{"speaker": "Mr. Boythorn", "text": "—if I WILL go to dinner! And he would probably add, ‘Is there such a thing as principle, Mr. Harold Skimpole?’", "pos": 564091}
{"speaker": "Harold Skimpole", "text": "To which Harold Skimpole would reply, you know, ‘Upon my life I have not the least idea! I don’t know what it is you call by that name, or where it is, or who possesses it. If you possess it and find it comfortable, I am quite delighted and congratulate you heartily. But I know nothing about it, I assure you; for I am a mere child, and I lay no claim to it, and I don’t want it!’ So, you see, excellent Boythorn and I would go to dinner after all!", "pos": 564294}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Enterprise and effort, are delightful to me. I believe I am truly cosmopolitan. I have the deepest sympathy with them. I lie in a shady place like this and think of adventurous spirits going to the North Pole or penetrating to the heart of the Torrid Zone with admiration. Mercenary creatures ask, ‘What is the use of a man’s going to the North Pole? What good does it do?’ I can’t say; but, for anything I CAN say, he may go for the purpose—though he don’t know it—of employing my thoughts as I lie here. Take an extreme case. Take the case of the slaves on American plantations. I dare say they are worked hard, I dare say they don’t altogether like it. I dare say theirs is an unpleasant experience on the whole; but they people the landscape for me, they give it a poetry for me, and perhaps that is one of the pleasanter objects of their existence. I am very sensible of it, if it be, and I shouldn’t wonder if it were!", "pos": 565672}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Is it not dangerous to sit in so exposed a place?", "pos": 569441}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Oh, no, Esther dear!", "pos": 569493}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I have frightened you? I believe. I have the pleasure of speaking to Mr. Jarndyce.", "pos": 570022}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Your remembrance does me more honour than I had supposed it would, Lady Dedlock,", "pos": 570206}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I recognized you in church on Sunday. I am sorry that any local disputes of Sir Leicester’s—they are not of his seeking, however, I believe—should render it a matter of some absurd difficulty to show you any attention here.", "pos": 570302}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I am aware of the circumstances, and am sufficiently obliged.", "pos": 570528}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Is the young gentleman disposed of whom you wrote to Sir Leicester about and whose wishes Sir Leicester was sorry not to have it in his power to advance in any way?", "pos": 571062}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I hope so,", "pos": 571272}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I presume this is your other ward, Miss Clare? You will lose the disinterested part of your Don Quixote character, if you only redress the wrongs of beauty like this. But present me, to this young lady too!", "pos": 571534}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Miss Summerson really is my ward. I am responsible to no Lord Chancellor in her case.", "pos": 571864}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Has Miss Summerson lost both her parents?", "pos": 571973}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Yes.", "pos": 572031}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "She is very fortunate in her guardian. Ages have passed since we were in the habit of meeting, Mr. Jarndyce.", "pos": 572038}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "A long time. At least I thought it was a long time, until I saw you last Sunday,", "pos": 572357}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "What! Even you are a courtier, or think it necessary to become one to me! I have achieved that reputation, I suppose.", "pos": 572453}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "You have achieved so much, Lady Dedlock, that you pay some little penalty, I dare say. But none to me.", "pos": 572603}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "So much! Yes! I think you knew my sister when we were abroad together better than you know me?", "pos": 572728}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Yes, we happened to meet oftener,", "pos": 573206}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "We went our several ways, and had little in common even before we agreed to differ. It is to be regretted, I suppose, but it could not be helped.", "pos": 573255}
{"speaker": "the keeper", "text": "The messenger is coming back, my Lady, with the carriage.", "pos": 573764}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "What now? Two!", "pos": 574119}
{"speaker": "the Frenchwoman", "text": "I am your maid, my Lady, at the present. The message was for the attendant.", "pos": 574157}
{"speaker": "the pretty girl", "text": "I was afraid you might mean me, my Lady,", "pos": 574259}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I did mean you, child. Put that shawl on me. I am sorry, that we are not likely to renew our former acquaintance. You will allow me to send the carriage back for your two wards. It shall be here directly. Come in, child. I shall want you. Go on!", "pos": 574324}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Is that young woman mad?", "pos": 575663}
{"speaker": "the keeper", "text": "Oh, no, sir! Hortense is not one of that sort. She has as good a head-piece as the best. But she’s mortal high and passionate—powerful high and passionate; and what with having notice to leave, and having others put above her, she don’t take kindly to it.", "pos": 575708}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "But why should she walk shoeless through all that water?", "pos": 576028}
{"speaker": "the man", "text": "Why, indeed, sir, unless it is to cool her down!", "pos": 576105}
{"speaker": "the woman", "text": "Or unless she fancies it’s blood. She’d as soon walk through that as anything else, I think, when her own’s up!", "pos": 576170}
{"speaker": "Mr. Chadband", "text": "in the ministry.", "pos": 583058}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "My little woman, likes to have her religion rather sharp, you see!", "pos": 583566}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "At what time did you expect Mr. and Mrs. Chadband, my love?", "pos": 584657}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Snagsby", "text": "At six,", "pos": 584719}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "it’s gone that.", "pos": 584799}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Snagsby", "text": "Perhaps you’d like to begin without them,", "pos": 584817}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "No, my dear, no. I merely named the time.", "pos": 584996}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Snagsby", "text": "What’s time, to eternity?", "pos": 585040}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Very true, my dear. Only when a person lays in victuals for tea, a person does it with a view—perhaps—more to time. And when a time is named for having tea, it’s better to come up to it.", "pos": 585089}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Snagsby", "text": "To come up to it! Up to it! As if Mr. Chadband was a fighter!", "pos": 585298}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Not at all, my dear,", "pos": 585400}
{"speaker": "Guster", "text": "Mr. and Mrs. Cheeseming, least which, Imeantersay, whatsername!", "pos": 586046}
{"speaker": "Mr. Chadband", "text": "My friends, peace be on this house! On the master thereof, on the mistress thereof, on the young maidens, and on the young men! My friends, why do I wish for peace? What is peace? Is it war? No. Is it strife? No. Is it lovely, and gentle, and beautiful, and pleasant, and serene, and joyful? Oh, yes! Therefore, my friends, I wish for peace, upon you and upon yours. Now, my friends, since I am upon this theme—", "pos": 586722}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Snagsby", "text": "Go away!", "pos": 587463}
{"speaker": "Mr. Chadband", "text": "Now, my friends, since I am upon this theme, and in my lowly path improving it—", "pos": 587474}
{"speaker": "Guster", "text": "one thousing seven hundred and eighty-two.", "pos": 587613}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Snagsby", "text": "Go away!", "pos": 587700}
{"speaker": "Mr. Chadband", "text": "Now, my friends, we will inquire in a spirit of love—", "pos": 587711}
{"speaker": "Guster", "text": "one thousing seven hundred and eighty-two.", "pos": 587812}
{"speaker": "Mr. Chadband", "text": "Let us hear the maiden! Speak, maiden!", "pos": 587997}
{"speaker": "Guster", "text": "One thousing seven hundred and eighty-two, if you please, sir. Which he wish to know what the shilling ware for,", "pos": 588038}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Chadband", "text": "For? For his fare!", "pos": 588178}
{"speaker": "Guster", "text": "he insistes on one and eightpence or on summonsizzing the party.", "pos": 588244}
{"speaker": "Mr. Chadband", "text": "My friends. I remember a duty unfulfilled yesterday. It is right that I should be chastened in some penalty. I ought not to murmur. Rachael, pay the eightpence!", "pos": 588447}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Snagsby", "text": "You hear this apostle!", "pos": 588707}
{"speaker": "Mr. Chadband", "text": "My friends, eightpence is not much; it might justly have been one and fourpence; it might justly have been half a crown. O let us be joyful, joyful! O let us be joyful! My friends, what is this which we now behold as being spread before us? Refreshment. Do we need refreshment then, my friends? We do. And why do we need refreshment, my friends? Because we are but mortal, because we are but sinful, because we are but of the earth, because we are not of the air. Can we fly, my friends? We cannot. Why can we not fly, my friends?", "pos": 589024}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "No wings.", "pos": 589869}
{"speaker": "Mr. Chadband", "text": "I say, my friends, why can we not fly? Is it because we are calculated to walk? It is. Could we walk, my friends, without strength? We could not. What should we do without strength, my friends? Our legs would refuse to bear us, our knees would double up, our ankles would turn over, and we should come to the ground. Then from whence, my friends, in a human point of view, do we derive the strength that is necessary to our limbs? Is it, from bread in various forms, from butter which is churned from the milk which is yielded unto us by the cow, from the eggs which are laid by the fowl, from ham, from tongue, from sausage, and from such like? It is. Then let us partake of the good things which are set before us!", "pos": 589930}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "And being wanted in the—not to put too fine a point upon it—in the shop, perhaps this good company will excuse me for half a minute. Why, bless my heart, what’s the matter!", "pos": 592245}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "I’m always a-moving on, sar. I’ve always been a-moving and a-moving on, ever since I was born. Where can I possibly move to, sir, more nor I do move! Oh, my eye! Where can I move to!", "pos": 592740}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "really, that does seem a question. Where, you know?", "pos": 593727}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Do you hear, Jo? It is nothing to you or to any one else that the great lights of the parliamentary sky have failed for some few years in this business to set you the example of moving on. The one grand recipe remains for you—the profound philosophical prescription—the be-all and the end-all of your strange existence upon earth. Move on! You are by no means to move off, Jo, for the great lights can’t at all agree about that. Move on!", "pos": 593890}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Snagsby", "text": "No he don’t!", "pos": 594823}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "My lit-tle woman! My love, permit me! Pray have a moment’s patience, my dear. I do know something of this lad, and in what I know of him, I can’t say that there’s any harm; perhaps on the contrary, constable.", "pos": 594884}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "I was strolling away from the office just now when I found this row going on, and as your name was mentioned, I thought it was right the thing should be looked into.", "pos": 595714}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "It was very good-natured of you, sir, and I am obliged to you.", "pos": 595921}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "I can’t go and live in no nicer place, sir. They wouldn’t have nothink to say to me if I wos to go to a nice innocent place fur to live. Who ud go and let a nice innocent lodging to such a reg’lar one as me! Yes, I am indeed, sir, wery poor in gin’ral. They’re wot’s left, Mr. Snagsby, out of a sov-ring as wos give me by a lady in a wale as sed she wos a servant and as come to my crossin one night and asked to be showd this ’ere ouse and the ouse wot him as you giv the writin to died at, and the berrin-ground wot he’s berrid in. She ses to me she ses ‘are you the boy at the inkwhich?’ she ses. I ses ‘yes’ I ses. She ses to me she ses ‘can you show me all them places?’ I ses ‘yes I can’ I ses. And she ses to me ‘do it’ and I dun it and she giv me a sov’ring and hooked it. And I an’t had much of the sov’ring neither, fur I had to pay five bob, down in Tom-all-Alone’s, afore they’d square it fur to give me change, and then a young man he thieved another five while I was asleep and another boy he thieved ninepence and the landlord he stood drains round with a lot more on it.", "pos": 596241}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "You don’t expect anybody to believe this, about the lady and the sovereign, do you?", "pos": 597609}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "I don’t know as I do, sir. I don’t expect nothink at all, sir, much, but that’s the true hist’ry on it.", "pos": 597756}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Well, Mr. Snagsby, if I don’t lock him up this time, will you engage for his moving on?", "pos": 597938}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Snagsby", "text": "No!", "pos": 598028}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "My little woman! Constable, I have no doubt he’ll move on. You know you really must do it,", "pos": 598070}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "I’m everyways agreeable, sir,", "pos": 598203}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Do it, then. You know what you have got to do. Do it! And recollect you won’t get off so easy next time. Catch hold of your money. Now, the sooner you’re five mile off, the better for all parties.", "pos": 598282}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Well! Either this boy sticks to it like cobbler’s-wax or there is something out of the common here that beats anything that ever came into my way at Kenge and Carboy’s.", "pos": 600134}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Snagsby", "text": "You don’t say so!", "pos": 600374}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Chadband", "text": "For years!", "pos": 600394}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Snagsby", "text": "Has known Kenge and Carboy’s office for years. Mrs. Chadband—this gentleman’s wife—Reverend Mr. Chadband.", "pos": 600430}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Oh, indeed!", "pos": 600589}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Chadband", "text": "Before I married my present husband,", "pos": 600619}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Was you a party in anything, ma’am?", "pos": 600678}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "No.", "pos": 600768}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "NOT a party in anything, ma’am? Perhaps you were acquainted with somebody who was a party in something, ma’am?", "pos": 600774}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Chadband", "text": "Not exactly that, either,", "pos": 601032}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Not exactly that, either! Very good. Pray, ma’am, was it a lady of your acquaintance who had some transactions (we will not at present say what transactions) with Kenge and Carboy’s office, or was it a gentleman of your acquaintance? Take time, ma’am. We shall come to it presently. Man or woman, ma’am?", "pos": 601130}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Chadband", "text": "Neither,", "pos": 601457}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Oh! A child! Now, ma’am, perhaps you’ll have the kindness to tell us WHAT child.", "pos": 601498}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Chadband", "text": "You have got it at last, sir. Well, sir, it was before your time, most likely, judging from your appearance. I was left in charge of a child named Esther Summerson, who was put out in life by Messrs. Kenge and Carboy.", "pos": 601708}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Miss Summerson, ma’am!", "pos": 601983}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Chadband", "text": "I call her Esther Summerson. There was no Miss-ing of the girl in my time. It was Esther. ‘Esther, do this! Esther, do that!’ and she was made to do it.", "pos": 602034}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "My dear ma’am, the humble individual who now addresses you received that young lady in London when she first came here from the establishment to which you have alluded. Allow me to have the pleasure of taking you by the hand.", "pos": 602226}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Snagsby", "text": "Hush!", "pos": 602681}
{"speaker": "Mr. Chadband", "text": "My friends, we have partaken in moderation of the comforts which have been provided for us. May this house live upon the fatness of the land; may corn and wine be plentiful therein; may it grow, may it thrive, may it prosper, may it advance, may it proceed, may it press forward! But, my friends, have we partaken of anything else? We have. My friends, of what else have we partaken? Of spiritual profit? Yes. From whence have we derived that spiritual profit? My young friend, stand forth! My young friend, you are to us a pearl, you are to us a diamond, you are to us a gem, you are to us a jewel. And why, my young friend?", "pos": 602689}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "I don’t know. I don’t know nothink.", "pos": 603602}
{"speaker": "Mr. Chadband", "text": "My young friend, it is because you know nothing that you are to us a gem and jewel. For what are you, my young friend? Are you a beast of the field? No. A bird of the air? No. A fish of the sea or river? No. You are a human boy, my young friend. A human boy. O glorious to be a human boy! And why glorious, my young friend? Because you are capable of receiving the lessons of wisdom, because you are capable of profiting by this discourse which I now deliver for your good, because you are not a stick, or a staff, or a stock, or a stone, or a post, or a pillar. O running stream of sparkling joy To be a soaring human boy! And do you cool yourself in that stream now, my young friend? No. Why do you not cool yourself in that stream now? Because you are in a state of darkness, because you are in a state of obscurity, because you are in a state of sinfulness, because you are in a state of bondage. My young friend, what is bondage? Let us, in a spirit of love, inquire.", "pos": 603654}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Snagsby", "text": "he is a limb of the arch-fiend.", "pos": 604862}
{"speaker": "Mr. Chadband", "text": "My friends, it is right that I should be humbled, it is right that I should be tried, it is right that I should be mortified, it is right that I should be corrected. I stumbled, on Sabbath last, when I thought with pride of my three hours’ improving. The account is now favourably balanced: my creditor has accepted a composition. O let us be joyful, joyful! O let us be joyful! My friends. I will not proceed with my young friend now. Will you come to-morrow, my young friend, and inquire of this good lady where I am to be found to deliver a discourse unto you, and will you come like the thirsty swallow upon the next day, and upon the day after that, and upon the day after that, and upon many pleasant days, to hear discourses?", "pos": 604895}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "move on", "pos": 607187}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Why, you don’t mean it! Small! Here’s Jobling! Where have you sprung up from?", "pos": 611218}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "From the market-gardens down by Deptford. I can’t stand it any longer. I must enlist. I say! I wish you’d lend me half a crown. Upon my soul, I’m hungry. I say! Just throw out half a crown if you have got one to spare. I want to get some dinner.", "pos": 611405}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Will you come and dine with me?", "pos": 611766}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "How long should I have to hold out?", "pos": 611873}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Not half an hour. I am only waiting here till the enemy goes,", "pos": 611925}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "What enemy?", "pos": 612038}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "A new one. Going to be articled. Will you wait?", "pos": 612052}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Can you give a fellow anything to read in the meantime? can’t stand it.", "pos": 612102}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "You shall have the paper. He shall bring it down. But you had better not be seen about here. Sit on our staircase and read. It’s a quiet place. Well, and how are you?", "pos": 612284}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "So, so. How are you? How is SHE?", "pos": 612835}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Jobling, there ARE chords in the human mind—", "pos": 613010}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "pardon.", "pos": 613069}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Any subject but that! For there ARE chords, Jobling—", "pos": 613078}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "pardon again.", "pos": 613205}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Return immediately.", "pos": 613350}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "What do YOU take, Chick?", "pos": 615441}
{"speaker": "Chick", "text": "veal and ham and French beans—and don’t you forget the stuffing, Polly", "pos": 615527}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Thank you, Guppy. I really don’t know but what I WILL take another.", "pos": 617259}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "You are a man again, Tony!", "pos": 617692}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Well, not quite yet. Say, just born.", "pos": 617721}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Will you take any other vegetables? Grass? Peas? Summer cabbage?", "pos": 617780}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Thank you, Guppy. I really don’t know but what I WILL take summer cabbage.", "pos": 617847}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Without slugs, Polly!", "pos": 618009}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "I am growing up, Guppy,", "pos": 618055}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Glad to hear it.", "pos": 618154}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "In fact, I have just turned into my teens,", "pos": 618173}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Now, Small, what would you recommend about pastry?", "pos": 618469}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Marrow puddings,", "pos": 618540}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "You’re there, are you? Thank you, Mr. Guppy, I don’t know but what I WILL take a marrow pudding. I am grown up now, Guppy. I have arrived at maturity.", "pos": 618638}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "What do you think, now, about—you don’t mind Smallweed?", "pos": 619176}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Not the least in the world. I have the pleasure of drinking his good health.", "pos": 619252}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Sir, to you!", "pos": 619331}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "I was saying, what do you think NOW, of enlisting?", "pos": 619366}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Why, what I may think after dinner, is one thing, my dear Guppy, and what I may think before dinner is another thing. Still, even after dinner, I ask myself the question, What am I to do? How am I to live? Ill fo manger, you know. Ill fo manger. That’s the French saying, and mangering is as necessary to me as it is to a Frenchman. Or more so.", "pos": 619440}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "much more so.", "pos": 619947}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "If any man had told me, even so lately as when you and I had the frisk down in Lincolnshire, Guppy, and drove over to see that house at Castle Wold—", "pos": 619963}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Chesney Wold.", "pos": 620159}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Chesney Wold. (I thank my honourable friend for that cheer.) If any man had told me then that I should be as hard up at the present time as I literally find myself, I should have—well, I should have pitched into him. I should have let fly at his head.", "pos": 620174}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Still, Tony, you were on the wrong side of the post then. You were talking about nothing else in the gig.", "pos": 620516}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Guppy. I will not deny it. I was on the wrong side of the post. But I trusted to things coming round. I had confident expectations that things would come round and be all square. But I was disappointed. They never did. And when it came to creditors making rows at the office and to people that the office dealt with making complaints about dirty trifles of borrowed money, why there was an end of that connexion. And of any new professional connexion too, for if I was to give a reference to-morrow, it would be mentioned and would sew me up. Then what’s a fellow to do? I have been keeping out of the way and living cheap down about the market-gardens, but what’s the use of living cheap when you have got no money? You might as well live dear.", "pos": 620650}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Better,", "pos": 621702}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Certainly. It’s the fashionable way; and fashion and whiskers have been my weaknesses, and I don’t care who knows it. They are great weaknesses—Damme, sir, they are great. Well, what can a fellow do, I ask you, BUT enlist?", "pos": 621734}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Jobling, myself and our mutual friend Smallweed—", "pos": 622310}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Gentlemen both!", "pos": 622412}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "—Have had a little conversation on this matter more than once since you—", "pos": 622442}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Say, got the sack! Say it, Guppy. You mean it.", "pos": 622517}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "No-o-o! Left the Inn,", "pos": 622596}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Since you left the Inn, Jobling, and I have mentioned to our mutual friend Smallweed a plan I have lately thought of proposing. You know Snagsby the stationer?", "pos": 622655}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "I know there is such a stationer. He was not ours, and I am not acquainted with him.", "pos": 622835}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "He IS ours, Jobling, and I AM acquainted with him. Well, sir! I have lately become better acquainted with him through some accidental circumstances that have made me a visitor of his in private life. Those circumstances it is not necessary to offer in argument. They may—or they may not—have some reference to a subject which may—or may not—have cast its shadow on my existence. Such things may be, or they may not be. They are no part of the case. It is enough to mention that both Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby are very willing to oblige me and that Snagsby has, in busy times, a good deal of copying work to give out. He has all Tulkinghorn’s, and an excellent business besides. I believe if our mutual friend Smallweed were put into the box, he could prove this? Now, gentlemen of the jury, —I mean, now, Jobling—you may say this is a poor prospect of a living. Granted. But it’s better than nothing, and better than enlistment. You want time. There must be time for these late affairs to blow over. You might live through it on much worse terms than by writing for Snagsby.", "pos": 622945}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Hem! Shakspeare!", "pos": 624533}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "There are two branches to this subject, Jobling. That is the first. I come to the second. You know Krook, the Chancellor, across the lane. Come, Jobling. I think you know Krook, the Chancellor, across the lane?", "pos": 624552}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "I know him by sight,", "pos": 624843}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "You know him by sight. Very well. And you know little Flite?", "pos": 624884}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Everybody knows her,", "pos": 624947}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Everybody knows her. VERY well. Now it has been one of my duties of late to pay Flite a certain weekly allowance, deducting from it the amount of her weekly rent, which I have paid (in consequence of instructions I have received) to Krook himself, regularly in her presence. This has brought me into communication with Krook and into a knowledge of his house and his habits. I know he has a room to let. You may live there at a very low charge under any name you like, as quietly as if you were a hundred miles off. He’ll ask no questions and would accept you as a tenant at a word from me—before the clock strikes, if you chose. And I tell you another thing, Jobling, he’s an extraordinary old chap—always rummaging among a litter of papers and grubbing away at teaching himself to read and write, without getting on a bit, as it seems to me. He is a most extraordinary old chap, sir. I don’t know but what it might be worth a fellow’s while to look him up a bit.", "pos": 624988}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "You don’t mean—", "pos": 626035}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "I mean, that I can’t make him out. I appeal to our mutual friend Smallweed whether he has or has not heard me remark that I can’t make him out.", "pos": 626073}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "A few!", "pos": 626330}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "I have seen something of the profession and something of life, Tony, and it’s seldom I can’t make a man out, more or less. But such an old card as this, so deep, so sly, and secret (though I don’t believe he is ever sober), I never came across. Now, he must be precious old, you know, and he has not a soul about him, and he is reported to be immensely rich; and whether he is a smuggler, or a receiver, or an unlicensed pawnbroker, or a money-lender—all of which I have thought likely at different times—it might pay you to knock up a sort of knowledge of him. I don’t see why you shouldn’t go in for it, when everything else suits. If I had the energy I once possessed, Tony! But there are chords in the human mind— For never shall it be said, that William Guppy turned his back upon his friend!", "pos": 626339}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Guppy, my trump, your fist!", "pos": 627854}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Jobling, my boy, there it is!", "pos": 627915}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Guppy, we have been pals now for some years!", "pos": 627968}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Jobling, we have.", "pos": 628034}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Thank you, Guppy, I don’t know but what I WILL take another glass for old acquaintance sake.", "pos": 628119}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Krook’s last lodger died there,", "pos": 628214}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Did he though! I don’t mind it; but he might as well have died somewhere else. It’s devilish odd that he need go and die at MY place! There are places enough to die in, I should think! He wouldn’t have liked my dying at HIS place, I dare say!", "pos": 628289}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Then I’ll pay, and we’ll go and see him. Small, what will it be?", "pos": 629234}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Four veals and hams is three, and four potatoes is three and four, and one summer cabbage is three and six, and three marrows is four and six, and six breads is five, and three Cheshires is five and three, and four half-pints of half-and-half is six and three, and four small rums is eight and three, and three Pollys is eight and six. Eight and six in half a sovereign, Polly, and eighteenpence out!", "pos": 629437}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Hold up here! Mr. Krook! Halloa, sir! Did you ever see such a stupor as he falls into, between drink and sleep?", "pos": 630787}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "it’ll last a long time one of these days, I am thinking.", "pos": 631158}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "It’s always more like a fit than a nap. Halloa, your lordship! Why, he might be robbed fifty times over! Open your eyes! He is alive, at any rate. How are you, my Lord Chancellor. I have brought a friend of mine, sir, on a little matter of business. How do you do, Mr. Krook? How do you do, sir? You are looking charming, Mr. Krook. I hope you are pretty well? Your servant, gentlemen; I’ve been dozing. Hi! I am hard to wake, odd times. Rather so, indeed, sir,", "pos": 631217}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "What? You’ve been a-trying to do it, have you?", "pos": 632722}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Only a little,", "pos": 632798}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "I say! Somebody’s been making free here!", "pos": 632944}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "I assure you we found it so. Would you allow me to get it filled for you?", "pos": 633031}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "Yes, certainly I would! Certainly I would! Don’t mention it! Get it filled next door—Sol’s Arms—the Lord Chancellor’s fourteenpenny. Bless you, they know ME!", "pos": 633125}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "I thought you might like that better,", "pos": 633713}
{"speaker": "Mr. Krook", "text": "You’re a nobleman, sir. You’re a baron of the land. You’d like to see the room, young man? Ah! It’s a good room! Been whitewashed. Been cleaned down with soft soap and soda. Hi! It’s worth twice the rent, letting alone my company when you want it and such a cat to keep the mice away.", "pos": 633769}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Piper", "text": "Mark my words, Mrs. Perkins, ma’am, and don’t you be surprised, Lord bless you, if that young man comes in at last for old Krook’s money!", "pos": 638759}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "And where’s Bart?", "pos": 643676}
{"speaker": "Judy", "text": "He an’t come in yet,", "pos": 643756}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "It’s his tea-time, isn’t it?", "pos": 643790}
{"speaker": "Judy", "text": "No.", "pos": 643821}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "How much do you mean to say it wants then?", "pos": 643827}
{"speaker": "Judy", "text": "Ten minutes.", "pos": 643872}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Hey?", "pos": 643887}
{"speaker": "Judy", "text": "Ten minutes.", "pos": 643894}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Ho! Ten minutes.", "pos": 643937}
{"speaker": "Grandmother Smallweed", "text": "Ten ten-pound notes!", "pos": 644182}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Drat you, be quiet!", "pos": 644266}
{"speaker": "Judy", "text": "Charley, do you mean?", "pos": 647341}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Hey?", "pos": 647376}
{"speaker": "Judy", "text": "Charley, do you mean?", "pos": 647411}
{"speaker": "Grandmother Smallweed", "text": "Over the water! Charley over the water, Charley over the water, over the water to Charley, Charley over the water, over the water to Charley!", "pos": 647530}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Ha! If that’s her name. She eats a deal. It would be better to allow her for her keep. No? Why not?", "pos": 647799}
{"speaker": "Judy", "text": "She’d want sixpence a day, and we can do it for less,", "pos": 648057}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Sure?", "pos": 648124}
{"speaker": "Judy", "text": "You, Charley, where are you? What work are you about now?", "pos": 648285}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "I’m a-cleaning the upstairs back room, miss,", "pos": 648606}
{"speaker": "Judy", "text": "Mind you do it thoroughly, and don’t loiter. Shirking won’t do for me. Make haste! Go along! You girls are more trouble than you’re worth, by half.", "pos": 648670}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Aye, aye, Bart! Here you are, hey?", "pos": 649079}
{"speaker": "Bart", "text": "Here I am,", "pos": 649146}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Been along with your friend again, Bart? Dining at his expense, Bart? That’s right. Live at his expense as much as you can, and take warning by his foolish example. That’s the use of such a friend. The only use you can put him to. Yes, yes. That’s such advice as your father would have given you, Bart. You never saw your father. More’s the pity. He was my true son. He was my true son, a good accountant, and died fifteen years ago.", "pos": 649170}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Smallweed", "text": "Fifteen hundred pound. Fifteen hundred pound in a black box, fifteen hundred pound locked up, fifteen hundred pound put away and hid!", "pos": 650410}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "If your father, Bart, had lived longer, he might have been worth a deal of money—you brimstone chatterer! but just as he was beginning to build up the house that he had been making the foundations for, through many a year—you jade of a magpie, jackdaw, and poll-parrot, what do you mean! he took ill and died of a low fever, always being a sparing and a spare man, full of business care—I should like to throw a cat at you instead of a cushion, and I will too if you make such a confounded fool of yourself! and your mother, who was a prudent woman as dry as a chip, just dwindled away like touchwood after you and Judy were born—you are an old pig. You are a brimstone pig. You’re a head of swine! But your father and me were partners, Bart, and when I am gone, you and Judy will have all there is. It’s rare for you both that you went out early in life—Judy to the flower business, and you to the law. You won’t want to spend it. You’ll get your living without it, and put more to it. When I am gone, Judy will go back to the flower business and you’ll still stick to the law.", "pos": 651889}
{"speaker": "Judy", "text": "Now, if everybody has done. I’ll have that girl in to her tea. She would never leave off if she took it by herself in the kitchen. Now, don’t stare about you all the afternoon, but take your victuals and get back to your work.", "pos": 653828}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "Yes, miss,", "pos": 654738}
{"speaker": "Miss Smallweed", "text": "Don’t say yes, for I know what you girls are. Do it without saying it, and then I may begin to believe you.", "pos": 654765}
{"speaker": "Judy", "text": "See who it is, and don’t chew when you open it! Now! Who is it, and what’s wanted?", "pos": 655222}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Whew! You are hot here. Always a fire, eh? Well! Perhaps you do right to get used to one.", "pos": 655740}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Ho! It’s you! How de do? How de do?", "pos": 655934}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Middling. Your granddaughter I have had the honour of seeing before; my service to you, miss.", "pos": 655999}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "This is my grandson. You ha’n’t seen him before. He is in the law and not much at home.", "pos": 656133}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "My service to him, too! He is like his sister. He is very like his sister. He is devilish like his sister. Pretty much as usual. Like a football.", "pos": 656253}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Do you rub your legs to rub life into ’em?", "pos": 658080}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Why, it’s partly a habit, Mr. George, and—yes—it partly helps the circulation,", "pos": 658188}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "The cir-cu-la-tion! Not much of that, I should think.", "pos": 658281}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Truly I’m old, Mr. George. But I can carry my years. I’m older than HER, and see what she is? You’re a brimstone chatterer!", "pos": 658431}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Unlucky old soul! Don’t scold the old lady. Look at her here, with her poor cap half off her head and her poor hair all in a muddle. Hold up, ma’am. That’s better. There we are! Think of your mother, Mr. Smallweed, if your wife an’t enough.", "pos": 658655}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "I suppose you were an excellent son, Mr. George?", "pos": 659016}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Why no. I wasn’t.", "pos": 659160}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "I am astonished at it.", "pos": 659180}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "So am I. I ought to have been a good son, and I think I meant to have been one. But I wasn’t. I was a thundering bad son, that’s the long and the short of it, and never was a credit to anybody.", "pos": 659205}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Surprising!", "pos": 659401}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "However, the less said about it, the better now. Come! You know the agreement. Always a pipe out of the two months’ interest! (Bosh! It’s all correct. You needn’t be afraid to order the pipe. Here’s the new bill, and here’s the two months’ interest-money, and a devil-and-all of a scrape it is to get it together in my business.)", "pos": 659456}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Afraid to order the pipe? We are not so mercenary as that, sir. Judy, see directly to the pipe and the glass of cold brandy-and-water for Mr. George.", "pos": 660654}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "How do you come here! You haven’t got the family face.", "pos": 662452}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "I goes out to work, sir,", "pos": 662509}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "You give the house almost a wholesome look. It wants a bit of youth as much as it wants fresh air. So you think he might be hard upon me, eh?", "pos": 662686}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "I think he might—I am afraid he would. I have known him do it, twenty times. Twenty thousand pounds, twenty twenty-pound notes in a money-box, twenty guineas, twenty million twenty per cent, twenty— You’re a brimstone idiot. You’re a scorpion—a brimstone scorpion! You’re a sweltering toad. You’re a chattering clattering broomstick witch that ought to be burnt! My dear friend, will you shake me up a little?", "pos": 662991}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "O Lord! That’ll do. Thank you, my dear friend, that’ll do. Oh, dear me, I’m out of breath. O Lord! The name of your friend in the city begins with a D, comrade, and you’re about right respecting the bond.", "pos": 664422}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Did you speak, Mr. George?", "pos": 664940}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I take it, that I am the only man alive (or dead either) that gets the value of a pipe out of YOU?", "pos": 665377}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Well, it’s true that I don’t see company, Mr. George, and that I don’t treat. I can’t afford to it. But as you, in your pleasant way, made your pipe a condition—", "pos": 665623}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Why, it’s not for the value of it; that’s no great thing. It was a fancy to get it out of you. To have something in for my money.", "pos": 665810}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Ha! You’re prudent, prudent, sir!", "pos": 665942}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Very. I always was. It’s a sure sign of my prudence that I ever found the way here. Also, that I am what I am. I am well known to be prudent. I rose in life that way.", "pos": 666025}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Don’t be down-hearted, sir. You may rise yet. Ha’n’t you no relations, now, who would pay off this little principal or who would lend you a good name or two that I could persuade my friend in the city to make you a further advance upon? Two good names would be sufficient for my friend in the city. Ha’n’t you no such relations, Mr. George?", "pos": 666257}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "If I had, I shouldn’t trouble them. I have been trouble enough to my belongings in my day. It MAY be a very good sort of penitence in a vagabond, who has wasted the best time of his life, to go back then to decent people that he never was a credit to and live upon them, but it’s not my sort. The best kind of amends then for having gone away is to keep away, in my opinion.", "pos": 666736}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "But natural affection, Mr. George,", "pos": 667113}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "For two good names, hey? No. That’s not my sort either.", "pos": 667179}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Ha! If you could have traced out the captain, Mr. George, it would have been the making of you. If when you first came here, in consequence of our advertisement in the newspapers—when I say ‘our,’ I’m alluding to the advertisements of my friend in the city, and one or two others who embark their capital in the same way, and are so friendly towards me as sometimes to give me a lift with my little pittance—if at that time you could have helped us, Mr. George, it would have been the making of you.", "pos": 667668}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I was willing enough to be ‘made,’ as you call it, but on the whole, I am glad I wasn’t now.", "pos": 668210}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Why, Mr. George? In the name of—of brimstone, why?", "pos": 668553}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "For two reasons, comrade.", "pos": 668761}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "And what two reasons, Mr. George? In the name of the—", "pos": 668789}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Of our friend in the city?", "pos": 668845}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Aye, if you like. What two reasons?", "pos": 668916}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "In the first place, you gentlemen took me in. You advertised that Mr. Hawdon (Captain Hawdon, if you hold to the saying ‘Once a captain, always a captain’) was to hear of something to his advantage.", "pos": 668954}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Well?", "pos": 669303}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Well! It wouldn’t have been much to his advantage to have been clapped into prison by the whole bill and judgment trade of London.", "pos": 669383}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "How do you know that? Some of his rich relations might have paid his debts or compounded for ’em. Besides, he had taken US in. He owed us immense sums all round. I would sooner have strangled him than had no return. If I sit here thinking of him. I want to strangle him now.", "pos": 669516}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I don’t need to be told, that he carried on heavily and went to ruin. I have been at his right hand many a day when he was charging upon ruin full-gallop. I was with him when he was sick and well, rich and poor. I laid this hand upon him after he had run through everything and broken down everything beneath him—when he held a pistol to his head.", "pos": 669992}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "I wish he had let it off, and blown his head into as many pieces as he owed pounds!", "pos": 670516}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "That would have been a smash indeed, any way, he had been young, hopeful, and handsome in the days gone by, and I am glad I never found him, when he was neither, to lead to a result so much to his advantage. That’s reason number one.", "pos": 670633}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "I hope number two’s as good?", "pos": 670899}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Why, no. It’s more of a selfish reason. If I had found him, I must have gone to the other world to look. He was there.", "pos": 670950}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "How do you know he was there?", "pos": 671071}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "He wasn’t here.", "pos": 671103}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "How do you know he wasn’t here?", "pos": 671121}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Don’t lose your temper as well as your money. He was drowned long before. I am convinced of it. He went over a ship’s side. Whether intentionally or accidentally, I don’t know. Perhaps your friend in the city does. Do you know what that tune is, Mr. Smallweed?", "pos": 671155}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Tune! No. We never have tunes here.", "pos": 671569}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "That’s the Dead March in Saul. They bury soldiers to it, so it’s the natural end of the subject. Now, if your pretty granddaughter—excuse me, miss—will condescend to take care of this pipe for two months, we shall save the cost of one next time. Good evening, Mr. Smallweed!", "pos": 671630}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "My dear friend!", "pos": 671907}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "So you think your friend in the city will be hard upon me if I fall in a payment?", "pos": 671963}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "My dear friend, I am afraid he will. You’re a damned rogue. But I’ll lime you, you dog, I’ll lime you!", "pos": 672101}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Phil!", "pos": 675234}
{"speaker": "Phil", "text": "All right!", "pos": 675277}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Anything been doing?", "pos": 675326}
{"speaker": "Phil", "text": "Flat as ever so much swipes. Five dozen rifle and a dozen pistol. As to aim!", "pos": 675349}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Shut up shop, Phil!", "pos": 675480}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Phil! You were found in a doorway, weren’t you?", "pos": 676692}
{"speaker": "Phil", "text": "Gutter. Watchman tumbled over me.", "pos": 676865}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Then vagabondizing came natural to YOU from the beginning.", "pos": 676914}
{"speaker": "Phil", "text": "As nat’ral as possible,", "pos": 676975}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Good night!", "pos": 677012}
{"speaker": "Phil", "text": "Good night, guv’ner.", "pos": 677026}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Now, Snagsby, to go over this odd story again.", "pos": 680529}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "If you please, sir. For which I must ask you to excuse me if it was a liberty, sir; but I remember that you had taken a sort of an interest in that person, and I thought it possible that you might—just—wish—to— I must ask you to excuse the liberty, sir, I am sure.", "pos": 680602}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Not at all. You told me, Snagsby, that you put on your hat and came round without mentioning your intention to your wife. That was prudent I think, because it’s not a matter of such importance that it requires to be mentioned.", "pos": 681129}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Well, sir, you see, my little woman is—not to put too fine a point upon it—inquisitive. She’s inquisitive. Poor little thing, she’s liable to spasms, and it’s good for her to have her mind employed. In consequence of which she employs it—I should say upon every individual thing she can lay hold of, whether it concerns her or not—especially not. My little woman has a very active mind, sir. Dear me, very fine wine indeed!", "pos": 681405}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Therefore you kept your visit to yourself last night? And to-night too?", "pos": 681904}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Yes, sir, and to-night, too. My little woman is at present in—not to put too fine a point on it—in a pious state, or in what she considers such, and attends the Evening Exertions (which is the name they go by) of a reverend party of the name of Chadband. He has a great deal of eloquence at his command, undoubtedly, but I am not quite favourable to his style myself. That’s neither here nor there. My little woman being engaged in that way made it easier for me to step round in a quiet manner.", "pos": 682002}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Fill your glass, Snagsby.", "pos": 682525}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Thank you, sir, I am sure. This is wonderfully fine wine, sir!", "pos": 682553}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "It is a rare wine now. It is fifty years old.", "pos": 682671}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Is it indeed, sir? But I am not surprised to hear it, I am sure. It might be—any age almost.", "pos": 682743}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Will you run over, once again, what the boy said?", "pos": 682984}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "With pleasure, sir. Dear me, sir, I wasn’t aware there was any other gentleman present!", "pos": 683158}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Don’t mind this gentleman. This is only Mr. Bucket.", "pos": 684266}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "It’s very plain, sir. Since our people have moved this boy on, and he’s not to be found on his old lay, if Mr. Snagsby don’t object to go down with me to Tom-all-Alone’s and point him out, we can have him here in less than a couple of hours’ time. I can do it without Mr. Snagsby, of course, but this is the shortest way.", "pos": 684675}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Mr. Bucket is a detective officer, Snagsby,", "pos": 684999}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Is he indeed, sir?", "pos": 685077}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "And if you have no real objection to accompany Mr. Bucket to the place in question, I shall feel obliged to you if you will do so.", "pos": 685176}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Don’t you be afraid of hurting the boy. You won’t do that. It’s all right as far as the boy’s concerned. We shall only bring him here to ask him a question or so I want to put to him, and he’ll be paid for his trouble and sent away again. It’ll be a good job for him. I promise you, as a man, that you shall see the boy sent away all right. Don’t you be afraid of hurting him; you an’t going to do that.", "pos": 685428}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Very well, Mr. Tulkinghorn!", "pos": 685845}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "You’re a man of the world, you know, and a man of business, and a man of sense. That’s what YOU are.", "pos": 686102}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "I am sure I am much obliged to you for your good opinion, but—", "pos": 686205}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "That’s what YOU are, you know. Now, it an’t necessary to say to a man like you, engaged in your business, which is a business of trust and requires a person to be wide awake and have his senses about him and his head screwed on tight (I had an uncle in your business once)—it an’t necessary to say to a man like you that it’s the best and wisest way to keep little matters like this quiet. Don’t you see? Quiet!", "pos": 686321}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Certainly, certainly,", "pos": 686750}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "I don’t mind telling YOU, that as far as I can understand it, there seems to be a doubt whether this dead person wasn’t entitled to a little property, and whether this female hasn’t been up to some games respecting that property, don’t you see?", "pos": 686793}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Oh!", "pos": 687096}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Now, what YOU want, is that every person should have their rights according to justice. That’s what YOU want.", "pos": 687163}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "To be sure,", "pos": 687371}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "On account of which, and at the same time to oblige a—do you call it, in your business, customer or client? I forget how my uncle used to call it.", "pos": 687417}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Why, I generally say customer myself,", "pos": 687566}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "You’re right! —On account of which, and at the same time to oblige a real good customer, you mean to go down with me, in confidence, to Tom-all-Alone’s and to keep the whole thing quiet ever afterwards and never mention it to any one. That’s about your intentions, if I understand you?", "pos": 687627}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "You are right, sir. You are right,", "pos": 687982}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Then here’s your hat, and if you’re ready, I am. You don’t happen to know a very good sort of person of the name of Gridley, do you?", "pos": 688037}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "No. I don’t know anybody of that name. Why?", "pos": 688449}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Nothing particular, only having allowed his temper to get a little the better of him and having been threatening some respectable people, he is keeping out of the way of a warrant I have got against him—which it’s a pity that a man of sense should do.", "pos": 688528}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Draw off a bit here, Mr. Snagsby. Here’s the fever coming up the street! Are those the fever-houses, Darby?", "pos": 690659}
{"speaker": "Darby", "text": "all them are, have been down by dozens like sheep with the rot.", "pos": 691277}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "And who have we got here to-night? Two drunken men, eh? And two women? The men are sound enough. Are these your good men, my dears?", "pos": 692911}
{"speaker": "one of the women", "text": "Yes, sir. They are our husbands.", "pos": 693185}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Brickmakers, eh?", "pos": 693248}
{"speaker": "one of the women", "text": "Yes, sir.", "pos": 693267}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "What are you doing here? You don’t belong to London.", "pos": 693279}
{"speaker": "one of the women", "text": "No, sir. We belong to Hertfordshire.", "pos": 693334}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Whereabouts in Hertfordshire?", "pos": 693373}
{"speaker": "one of the women", "text": "Saint Albans.", "pos": 693405}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Come up on the tramp?", "pos": 693421}
{"speaker": "one of the women", "text": "We walked up yesterday. There’s no work down with us at present, but we have done no good by coming here, and shall do none, I expect.", "pos": 693445}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "That’s not the way to do much good,", "pos": 693582}
{"speaker": "the woman", "text": "It an’t indeed. Jenny and me knows it full well.", "pos": 693713}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Why, what age do you call that little creature? It looks as if it was born yesterday.", "pos": 694274}
{"speaker": "Woman", "text": "He is not three weeks old yet, sir.", "pos": 694563}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Is he your child?", "pos": 694617}
{"speaker": "Woman", "text": "Mine.", "pos": 694637}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "You seem as fond of it as if you were the mother yourself,", "pos": 694756}
{"speaker": "Woman", "text": "I was the mother of one like it, master, and it died.", "pos": 694834}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Ah, Jenny, Jenny!", "pos": 694890}
{"speaker": "Jenny", "text": "Better so. Much better to think of dead than alive, Jenny! Much better!", "pos": 694939}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Why, you an’t such an unnatural woman, I hope, as to wish your own child dead?", "pos": 695013}
{"speaker": "Woman", "text": "God knows you are right, master. I am not. I’d stand between it and death with my own life if I could, as true as any pretty lady.", "pos": 695120}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Then don’t talk in that wrong manner. Why do you do it?", "pos": 695268}
{"speaker": "Woman", "text": "It’s brought into my head, master, when I look down at the child lying so. If it was never to wake no more, you’d think me mad, I should take on so. I know that very well. I was with Jenny when she lost hers—warn’t I, Jenny?—and I know how she grieved. But look around you at this place. Look at them. Look at the boy you’re waiting for, who’s gone out to do me a good turn. Think of the children that your business lays with often and often, and that YOU see grow up!", "pos": 695362}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Well, well, you train him respectable, and he’ll be a comfort to you, and look after you in your old age, you know.", "pos": 695925}
{"speaker": "Woman", "text": "I mean to try hard. But I have been a-thinking, being over-tired to-night and not well with the ague, of all the many things that’ll come in his way. My master will be against it, and he’ll be beat, and see me beat, and made to fear his home, and perhaps to stray wild. If I work for him ever so much, and ever so hard, there’s no one to help me; and if he should be turned bad ‘spite of all I could do, and the time should come when I should sit by him in his sleep, made hard and changed, an’t it likely I should think of him as he lies in my lap now and wish he had died as Jenny’s child died!", "pos": 696062}
{"speaker": "Jenny", "text": "There, there! Liz, you’re tired and ill. Let me take him. It’s my dead child, that makes me love this child so dear, and it’s my dead child that makes her love it so dear too, as even to think of its being taken away from her now. While she thinks that, I think what fortune would I give to have my darling back. But we mean the same thing, if we knew how to say it, us two mothers does in our poor hearts!", "pos": 696693}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Now, what do you say to Toughy? Will HE do?", "pos": 697464}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "That’s Jo,", "pos": 697510}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "I have squared it with the lad, and it’s all right. Now, Mr. Snagsby, we’re ready for you.", "pos": 697959}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "it’s to be all took d’rectly.", "pos": 698238}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "What’s the matter?", "pos": 700017}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "There she is!", "pos": 700064}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Who!", "pos": 700090}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "The lady!", "pos": 700097}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Now, tell me, how you know that to be the lady.", "pos": 700346}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "I know the wale, and the bonnet, and the gownd.", "pos": 700417}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Be quite sure of what you say, Tough. Look again.", "pos": 700490}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "I am a-looking as hard as ever I can look, and that there’s the wale, the bonnet, and the gownd.", "pos": 700587}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "What about those rings you told me of?", "pos": 700716}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "A-sparkling all over here,", "pos": 700770}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Now, what do you say to that?", "pos": 700975}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Not rings a bit like them. Not a hand like that.", "pos": 701040}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "What are you talking of?", "pos": 701091}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Hand was a deal whiter, a deal delicater, and a deal smaller,", "pos": 701179}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Why, you’ll tell me I’m my own mother next. Do you recollect the lady’s voice?", "pos": 701255}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "I think I does,", "pos": 701355}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Was it at all like this? I will speak as long as you like if you are not sure. Was it this voice, or at all like this voice?", "pos": 701401}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Not a bit!", "pos": 701559}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Then, what, did you say it was the lady for?", "pos": 701572}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Cos, cos that there’s the wale, the bonnet, and the gownd. It is her and it an’t her. It an’t her hand, nor yet her rings, nor yet her woice. But that there’s the wale, the bonnet, and the gownd, and they’re wore the same way wot she wore ’em, and it’s her height wot she wos, and she giv me a sov’ring and hooked it.", "pos": 701666}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Well! we haven’t got much good out of YOU. But, however, here’s five shillings for you. Take care how you spend it, and don’t get yourself into trouble.", "pos": 702069}
{"speaker": "Tulkinghorn", "text": "Thank you, Mademoiselle Hortense. I will give you no further trouble about this little wager.", "pos": 702791}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "You will do me the kindness to remember, sir, that I am not at present placed?", "pos": 702937}
{"speaker": "Tulkinghorn", "text": "Certainly, certainly!", "pos": 703037}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "And to confer upon me the favour of your distinguished recommendation?", "pos": 703061}
{"speaker": "Tulkinghorn", "text": "By all means, Mademoiselle Hortense.", "pos": 703134}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "A word from Mr. Tulkinghorn is so powerful.", "pos": 703173}
{"speaker": "Tulkinghorn", "text": "It shall not be wanting, mademoiselle.", "pos": 703219}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "Receive the assurance of my devoted gratitude, dear sir.", "pos": 703260}
{"speaker": "Tulkinghorn", "text": "Good night. It’s all squared, you see, as I squared it myself, sir. There an’t a doubt that it was the other one with this one’s dress on. The boy was exact respecting colours and everything. Mr. Snagsby, I promised you as a man that he should be sent away all right. Don’t say it wasn’t done! You have kept your word, sir,", "pos": 703319}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "and if I can be of no further use, Mr. Tulkinghorn, I think, as my little woman will be getting anxious—", "pos": 703944}
{"speaker": "Tulkinghorn", "text": "Thank you, Snagsby, no further use. I am quite indebted to you for the trouble you have taken already.", "pos": 704051}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Not at all, sir. I wish you good night.", "pos": 704180}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "You see, Mr. Snagsby, what I like in you is that you’re a man it’s of no use pumping; that’s what YOU are. When you know you have done a right thing, you put it away, and it’s done with and gone, and there’s an end of it. That’s what YOU do.", "pos": 704222}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "That is certainly what I endeavour to do, sir,", "pos": 704562}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "No, you don’t do yourself justice. It an’t what you endeavour to do, it’s what you DO. That’s what I estimate in a man in your way of business.", "pos": 704632}
{"speaker": "French maid", "text": "Mademoiselle. I have taken a great liberty in coming here, but you know how to excuse it, being so amiable, mademoiselle.", "pos": 707183}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "No excuse is necessary, if you wish to speak to me.", "pos": 707469}
{"speaker": "French maid", "text": "That is my desire, mademoiselle. A thousand thanks for the permission. I have your leave to speak. Is it not?", "pos": 707537}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Certainly,", "pos": 707683}
{"speaker": "French maid", "text": "Mademoiselle, you are so amiable! Listen then, if you please. I have left my Lady. We could not agree. My Lady is so high, so very high. Pardon! Mademoiselle, you are right! It is not for me to come here to complain of my Lady. But I say she is so high, so very high. I will not say a word more. All the world knows that.", "pos": 707704}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Go on, if you please,", "pos": 708118}
{"speaker": "French maid", "text": "Assuredly; mademoiselle, I am thankful for your politeness. Mademoiselle, I have an inexpressible desire to find service with a young lady who is good, accomplished, beautiful. You are good, accomplished, and beautiful as an angel. Ah, could I have the honour of being your domestic!", "pos": 708150}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I am sorry—", "pos": 708436}
{"speaker": "French maid", "text": "Do not dismiss me so soon, mademoiselle! Let me hope a moment! Mademoiselle, I know this service would be more retired than that which I have quitted. Well! I wish that. I know this service would be less distinguished than that which I have quitted. Well! I wish that, I know that I should win less, as to wages here. Good. I am content.", "pos": 708459}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I assure you, that I keep no maid—", "pos": 708870}
{"speaker": "French maid", "text": "Ah, mademoiselle, but why not? Why not, when you can have one so devoted to you! Who would be enchanted to serve you; who would be so true, so zealous, and so faithful every day! Mademoiselle, I wish with all my heart to serve you. Do not speak of money at present. Take me as I am. For nothing!", "pos": 708981}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Prince, as Miss Summerson— Esther. As Esther is decidedly of that opinion, Prince, and has expressed it to me, and always hints it when she writes those kind notes, which you are so fond of hearing me read to you, I am prepared to disclose the truth to Ma whenever you think proper. And I think, Prince, that Esther thinks that I should be in a better, and truer, and more honourable position altogether if you did the same to your papa. So I was right, you see! Well! This troubled Prince a good deal, not because he had the least doubt about it, but because he is so considerate of the feelings of old Mr. Turveydrop; and he had his apprehensions that old Mr. Turveydrop might break his heart, or faint away, or be very much overcome in some affecting manner or other if he made such an announcement. He feared old Mr. Turveydrop might consider it undutiful and might receive too great a shock. For old Mr. Turveydrop’s deportment is very beautiful, you know, Esther, and his feelings are extremely sensitive.", "pos": 722000}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Are they, my dear?", "pos": 723269}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Oh, extremely sensitive. Prince says so. Now, this has caused my darling child—I didn’t mean to use the expression to you, Esther, but I generally call Prince my darling child. This has caused him, Esther—", "pos": 723290}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Caused whom, my dear?", "pos": 723607}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Oh, you tiresome thing! My darling child, if you insist upon it! This has caused him weeks of uneasiness and has made him delay, from day to day, in a very anxious manner. At last he said to me, ‘Caddy, if Miss Summerson, who is a great favourite with my father, could be prevailed upon to be present when I broke the subject, I think I could do it.’ So I promised I would ask you. And I made up my mind, besides, that if you consented, I would ask you afterwards to come with me to Ma. This is what I meant when I said in my note that I had a great favour and a great assistance to beg of you. And if you thought you could grant it, Esther, we should both be very grateful.", "pos": 723631}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Let me see, Caddy. Really, I think I could do a greater thing than that if the need were pressing. I am at your service and the darling child’s, my dear, whenever you like.", "pos": 724413}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "Father, Miss Summerson; Miss Jellyby. Charmed! Enchanted! Permit me! Be seated! Overjoyed! My little retreat is made a paradise. Again you find us, Miss Summerson, using our little arts to polish, polish! Again the sex stimulates us and rewards us by the condescension of its lovely presence. It is much in these times (and we have made an awfully degenerating business of it since the days of his Royal Highness the Prince Regent—my patron, if I may presume to say so) to experience that deportment is not wholly trodden under foot by mechanics. That it can yet bask in the smile of beauty, my dear madam. My dear son, you have four schools this afternoon. I would recommend a hasty sandwich.", "pos": 725924}
{"speaker": "Prince", "text": "Thank you, father. I will be sure to be punctual. My dear father, may I beg you to prepare your mind for what I am going to say?", "pos": 726960}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "Good heaven! What is this? Is this lunacy! Or what is this?", "pos": 727110}
{"speaker": "Prince", "text": "Father. I love this young lady, and we are engaged.", "pos": 727268}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "Engaged! An arrow launched at my brain by my own child!", "pos": 727363}
{"speaker": "Prince", "text": "We have been engaged for some time, father, and Miss Summerson, hearing of it, advised that we should declare the fact to you and was so very kind as to attend on the present occasion. Miss Jellyby is a young lady who deeply respects you, father.", "pos": 727509}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "No, pray don’t! Pray don’t, father,", "pos": 727809}
{"speaker": "Prince", "text": "Miss Jellyby is a young lady who deeply respects you, and our first desire is to consider your comfort.", "pos": 727862}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "Boy, it is well that your sainted mother is spared this pang. Strike deep, and spare not. Strike home, sir, strike home!", "pos": 728032}
{"speaker": "Prince", "text": "Pray don’t say so, father. It goes to my heart. I do assure you, father, that our first wish and intention is to consider your comfort. Caroline and I do not forget our duty—what is my duty is Caroline’s, as we have often said together—and with your approval and consent, father, we will devote ourselves to making your life agreeable.", "pos": 728178}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "Strike home. Strike home!", "pos": 728545}
{"speaker": "Prince", "text": "My dear father, we well know what little comforts you are accustomed to and have a right to, and it will always be our study and our pride to provide those before anything. If you will bless us with your approval and consent, father, we shall not think of being married until it is quite agreeable to you; and when we ARE married, we shall always make you—of course—our first consideration. You must ever be the head and master here, father; and we feel how truly unnatural it would be in us if we failed to know it or if we failed to exert ourselves in every possible way to please you.", "pos": 728641}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "My son! My children! I cannot resist your prayer. Be happy! My children. My son and daughter, your happiness shall be my care. I will watch over you. You shall always live with me this house is henceforth as much yours as mine; consider it your home. May you long live to share it with me! For myself, my children. I am falling into the sear and yellow leaf, and it is impossible to say how long the last feeble traces of gentlemanly deportment may linger in this weaving and spinning age. But, so long, I will do my duty to society and will show myself, as usual, about town. My wants are few and simple. My little apartment here, my few essentials for the toilet, my frugal morning meal, and my little dinner will suffice. I charge your dutiful affection with the supply of these requirements, and I charge myself with all the rest. My son, for those little points in which you are deficient—points of deportment, which are born with a man, which may be improved by cultivation, but can never be originated—you may still rely on me. I have been faithful to my post since the days of his Royal Highness the Prince Regent, and I will not desert it now. No, my son. If you have ever contemplated your father’s poor position with a feeling of pride, you may rest assured that he will do nothing to tarnish it. For yourself, Prince, whose character is different (we cannot be all alike, nor is it advisable that we should), work, be industrious, earn money, and extend the connexion as much as possible.", "pos": 729424}
{"speaker": "Prince", "text": "That you may depend I will do, dear father,", "pos": 731665}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "I have no doubt of it. Your qualities are not shining, my dear child, but they are steady and useful. And to both of you, my children, I would merely observe, in the spirit of a sainted wooman on whose path I had the happiness of casting, I believe, SOME ray of light, take care of the establishment, take care of my simple wants, and bless you both!", "pos": 731746}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Jellyby", "text": "Ah! Miss Summerson! I was thinking of something so different! I hope you are well. I am happy to see you. Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Clare quite well? Why, not quite, my dear. He has been unfortunate in his affairs and is a little out of spirits. Happily for me, I am so much engaged that I have no time to think about it. We have, at the present moment, one hundred and seventy families, Miss Summerson, averaging five persons in each, either gone or going to the left bank of the Niger. You have brought Caddy back, I see. It has become quite a novelty to see her here. She has almost deserted her old employment and in fact obliges me to employ a boy.", "pos": 733687}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "I am sure, Ma—", "pos": 734655}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Jellyby", "text": "Now you know, Caddy, that I DO employ a boy, who is now at his dinner. What is the use of your contradicting?", "pos": 734685}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "I was not going to contradict, Ma. I was only going to say that surely you wouldn’t have me be a mere drudge all my life.", "pos": 734829}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Jellyby", "text": "I believe, my dear, that you have a business example before you in your mother. Besides. A mere drudge? If you had any sympathy with the destinies of the human race, it would raise you high above any such idea. But you have none. I have often told you, Caddy, you have no such sympathy.", "pos": 734971}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Not if it’s Africa, Ma, I have not.", "pos": 735384}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Jellyby", "text": "Of course you have not. Now, if I were not happily so much engaged, Miss Summerson, this would distress and disappoint me. But I have so much to think of, in connexion with Borrioboola-Gha and it is so necessary I should concentrate myself that there is my remedy, you see. Perhaps, you will wonder what has brought me here to interrupt you. I am always delighted to see Miss Summerson. Though I wish, she was more interested in the Borrioboolan project.", "pos": 735422}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I have come with Caddy, because Caddy justly thinks she ought not to have a secret from her mother and fancies I shall encourage and aid her (though I am sure I don’t know how) in imparting one.", "pos": 736360}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Jellyby", "text": "Caddy, you are going to tell me some nonsense.", "pos": 736567}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Ma, I am engaged.", "pos": 736869}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Jellyby", "text": "Oh, you ridiculous child! what a goose you are!", "pos": 736889}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "I am engaged, Ma, to young Mr. Turveydrop, at the academy; and old Mr. Turveydrop (who is a very gentlemanly man indeed) has given his consent, and I beg and pray you’ll give us yours, Ma, because I never could be happy without it. I never, never could!", "pos": 737031}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Jellyby", "text": "You see again, Miss Summerson, what a happiness it is to be so much occupied as I am and to have this necessity for self-concentration that I have. Here is Caddy engaged to a dancing-master’s son—mixed up with people who have no more sympathy with the destinies of the human race than she has herself! This, too, when Mr. Quale, one of the first philanthropists of our time, has mentioned to me that he was really disposed to be interested in her!", "pos": 737406}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Ma, I always hated and detested Mr. Quale!", "pos": 737890}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Jellyby", "text": "Caddy, Caddy! I have no doubt you did. How could you do otherwise, being totally destitute of the sympathies with which he overflows! Now, if my public duties were not a favourite child to me, if I were not occupied with large measures on a vast scale, these petty details might grieve me very much, Miss Summerson. But can I permit the film of a silly proceeding on the part of Caddy (from whom I expect nothing else) to interpose between me and the great African continent? No. No. No, indeed.", "pos": 737949}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "I hope, Ma, you are not angry?", "pos": 738970}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Jellyby", "text": "Oh, Caddy, you really are an absurd girl, to ask such questions after what I have said of the preoccupation of my mind.", "pos": 739032}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "And I hope, Ma, you give us your consent and wish us well?", "pos": 739179}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Jellyby", "text": "You are a nonsensical child to have done anything of this kind, and a degenerate child, when you might have devoted yourself to the great public measure. But the step is taken, and I have engaged a boy, and there is no more to be said. Now, pray, Caddy, don’t delay me in my work, but let me clear off this heavy batch of papers before the afternoon post comes in!", "pos": 739252}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "You won’t object to my bringing him to see you, Ma?", "pos": 739787}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Jellyby", "text": "Oh, dear me, Caddy, have you begun again? Bring whom?", "pos": 739841}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Him, Ma.", "pos": 739969}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Jellyby", "text": "Caddy, Caddy! Then you must bring him some evening which is not a Parent Society night, or a Branch night, or a Ramification night. You must accommodate the visit to the demands upon my time. My dear Miss Summerson, it was very kind of you to come here to help out this silly chit. Good-bye! When I tell you that I have fifty-eight new letters from manufacturing families anxious to understand the details of the native and coffee-cultivation question this morning, I need not apologize for having very little leisure.", "pos": 739980}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Come in!", "pos": 743124}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "If you please, miss. I am Charley.", "pos": 743225}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Why, so you are. How glad am I to see you, Charley!", "pos": 743302}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "If you please, miss. I’m your maid.", "pos": 743419}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Charley?", "pos": 743499}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "If you please, miss, I’m a present to you, with Mr. Jarndyce’s love. And oh, miss,", "pos": 743510}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Come in, my dears! Rick and I, Ada, are not quite of one mind. Come, come, Rick, put a brighter face upon it!", "pos": 748376}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "You are very hard with me, sir. The harder because you have been so considerate to me in all other respects and have done me kindnesses that I can never acknowledge. I never could have been set right without you, sir.", "pos": 748638}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I want to set you more right yet. I want to set you more right with yourself.", "pos": 748907}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "I hope you will excuse my saying, sir, that I think I am the best judge about myself.", "pos": 748987}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I hope you will excuse my saying, my dear Rick, that it’s quite natural in you to think so, but I don’t think so. I must do my duty, Rick, or you could never care for me in cool blood; and I hope you will always care for me, cool and hot. It’s nothing, my dear, it’s nothing. Rick and I have only had a friendly difference, which we must state to you, for you are the theme. Now you are afraid of what’s coming.", "pos": 749132}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "I am not indeed, cousin John, if it is to come from you.", "pos": 749721}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Thank you, my dear. Do you give me a minute’s calm attention, without looking at Rick. And, little woman, do you likewise. My dear girl, you recollect the talk we had, we four when the little woman told me of a little love affair?", "pos": 749808}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "It is not likely that either Richard or I can ever forget your kindness that day, cousin John.", "pos": 750109}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "I can never forget it.", "pos": 750206}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "And I can never forget it.", "pos": 750245}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Ada, my bird, you should know that Rick has now chosen his profession for the last time. All that he has of certainty will be expended when he is fully equipped. He has exhausted his resources and is bound henceforward to the tree he has planted.", "pos": 750450}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Quite true that I have exhausted my present resources, and I am quite content to know it. But what I have of certainty, sir, is not all I have.", "pos": 750699}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Rick, Rick! For the love of God, don’t found a hope or expectation on the family curse! Whatever you do on this side the grave, never give one lingering glance towards the horrible phantom that has haunted us so many years. Better to borrow, better to beg, better to die! Ada, my dear, these are strong words of advice, but I live in Bleak House and have seen a sight here. Enough of that. All Richard had to start him in the race of life is ventured. I recommend to him and you, for his sake and your own, that he should depart from us with the understanding that there is no sort of contract between you. I must go further. I will be plain with you both. You were to confide freely in me, and I will confide freely in you. I ask you wholly to relinquish, for the present, any tie but your relationship.", "pos": 751005}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Better to say at once, sir, that you renounce all confidence in me and that you advise Ada to do the same.", "pos": 752040}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Better to say nothing of the sort, Rick, because I don’t mean it.", "pos": 752169}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "You think I have begun ill, sir. I HAVE, I know.", "pos": 752237}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "How I hoped you would begin, and how go on, I told you when we spoke of these things last. You have not made that beginning yet, but there is a time for all things, and yours is not gone by; rather, it is just now fully come. Make a clear beginning altogether. You two (very young, my dears) are cousins. As yet, you are nothing more. What more may come must come of being worked out, Rick, and no sooner.", "pos": 752308}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "You are very hard with me, sir. Harder than I could have supposed you would be.", "pos": 752773}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "My dear boy, I am harder with myself when I do anything that gives you pain. You have your remedy in your own hands. Ada, it is better for him that he should be free and that there should be no youthful engagement between you. Rick, it is better for her, much better; you owe it to her. Come! Each of you will do what is best for the other, if not what is best for yourselves.", "pos": 752892}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Why is it best, sir? It was not when we opened our hearts to you. You did not say so then.", "pos": 753271}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I have had experience since. I don’t blame you, Rick, but I have had experience since.", "pos": 753392}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "You mean of me, sir.", "pos": 753481}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Well! Yes, of both of you. The time is not come for your standing pledged to one another. It is not right, and I must not recognize it. Come, come, my young cousins, begin afresh! Bygones shall be bygones, and a new page turned for you to write your lives in. I have avoided saying one word to either of you or to Esther until now, in order that we might be open as the day, and all on equal terms. I now affectionately advise, I now most earnestly entreat, you two to part as you came here. Leave all else to time, truth, and steadfastness. If you do otherwise, you will do wrong, and you will have made me do wrong in ever bringing you together.", "pos": 753532}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Good morning, Mr. George. Mr. Carstone will be here directly. Meanwhile, Miss Summerson is very happy to see you, I know. Sit down. You are as punctual as the sun,", "pos": 757299}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Military time, sir. Force of habit. A mere habit in me, sir. I am not at all business-like.", "pos": 757690}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Yet you have a large establishment, too, I am told?", "pos": 757798}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Not much of a one, sir. I keep a shooting gallery, but not much of a one.", "pos": 757871}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "And what kind of a shot and what kind of a swordsman do you make of Mr. Carstone?", "pos": 757947}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Pretty good, sir. If Mr. Carstone was to give his full mind to it, he would come out very good.", "pos": 758049}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "But he don’t, I suppose?", "pos": 758223}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "He did at first, sir, but not afterwards. Not his full mind. Perhaps he has something else upon it—some young lady, perhaps.", "pos": 758268}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "He has not me upon his mind, I assure you, Mr. George, though you seem to suspect me.", "pos": 758450}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "No offence, I hope, miss. I am one of the roughs.", "pos": 758626}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Not at all. I take it as a compliment.", "pos": 758678}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I beg your pardon, sir, but you did me the honour to mention the young lady’s name—", "pos": 758827}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Miss Summerson.", "pos": 758971}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Miss Summerson,", "pos": 758989}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Do you know the name?", "pos": 759044}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "No, miss. To my knowledge I never heard it. I thought I had seen you somewhere.", "pos": 759077}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I think not. I remember faces very well.", "pos": 759159}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "So do I, miss! Humph! What set me off, now, upon that!", "pos": 759357}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Have you many pupils, Mr. George?", "pos": 759643}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "They vary in their number, sir. Mostly they’re but a small lot to live by.", "pos": 759679}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "And what classes of chance people come to practise at your gallery?", "pos": 759756}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "All sorts, sir. Natives and foreigners. From gentlemen to ’prentices. I have had Frenchwomen come, before now, and show themselves dabs at pistol-shooting. Mad people out of number, of course, but THEY go everywhere where the doors stand open.", "pos": 759826}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "People don’t come with grudges and schemes of finishing their practice with live targets, I hope?", "pos": 760072}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Not much of that, sir, though that HAS happened. Mostly they come for skill—or idleness. Six of one, and half-a-dozen of the other. I beg your pardon, but I believe you’re a Chancery suitor, if I have heard correct?", "pos": 760199}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I am sorry to say I am.", "pos": 760496}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I have had one of YOUR compatriots in my time, sir.", "pos": 760522}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "A Chancery suitor? How was that?", "pos": 760576}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Why, the man was so badgered and worried and tortured by being knocked about from post to pillar, and from pillar to post, that he got out of sorts. I don’t believe he had any idea of taking aim at anybody, but he was in that condition of resentment and violence that he would come and pay for fifty shots and fire away till he was red hot. One day I said to him when there was nobody by and he had been talking to me angrily about his wrongs, ‘If this practice is a safety-valve, comrade, well and good; but I don’t altogether like your being so bent upon it in your present state of mind; I’d rather you took to something else.’ I was on my guard for a blow, he was that passionate; but he received it in very good part and left off directly. We shook hands and struck up a sort of friendship.", "pos": 760635}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "What was that man?", "pos": 761452}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Why, he began by being a small Shropshire farmer before they made a baited bull of him,", "pos": 761518}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Was his name Gridley?", "pos": 761625}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "It was, sir. I don’t know, what it is that sets me off again—but—bosh! What’s my head running against!", "pos": 761649}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I am sorry to learn that the same state of mind has got this Gridley into new troubles and that he is in hiding,", "pos": 762311}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "So I am told, sir. So I am told.", "pos": 762444}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "You don’t know where?", "pos": 762542}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "No, sir. I can’t say anything about him. He will be worn out soon, I expect. You may file a strong man’s heart away for a good many years, but it will tell all of a sudden at last.", "pos": 762566}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "I beg your pardon, Mr. Carstone, and Miss Summerson’s also, but there’s a lady here, a friend of mine, who knows her and wishes to have the pleasure of shaking hands.", "pos": 768165}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rachael", "text": "How do you do, Esther? Do you recollect me? I wonder you remember those times, Esther. They are changed now. Well! I am glad to see you, and glad you are not too proud to know me.", "pos": 768487}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Proud, Mrs. Rachael!", "pos": 768846}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rachael", "text": "I am married, Esther, and am Mrs. Chadband. Well! I wish you good day, and I hope you’ll do well.", "pos": 768885}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "George! You are well met, sir. And you, miss. Could you point a person out for me, I want? I don’t understand these places. There’s a little cracked old woman, that— You remember, miss, that we passed some conversation on a certain man this morning? Gridley,", "pos": 769615}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Yes,", "pos": 770408}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "He is hiding at my place. I couldn’t mention it. Hadn’t his authority. He is on his last march, miss, and has a whim to see her. He says they can feel for one another, and she has been almost as good as a friend to him here. I came down to look for her, for when I sat by Gridley this afternoon, I seemed to hear the roll of the muffled drums.", "pos": 770423}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Shall I tell her?", "pos": 770769}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Would you be so good? It’s a providence I met you, miss; I doubt if I should have known how to get on with that lady.", "pos": 770797}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "My angry friend from Shropshire! Almost as celebrated as myself! Now really! My dear, I will wait upon him with the greatest pleasure.", "pos": 771145}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "He is living concealed at Mr. George’s. Hush! This is Mr. George.", "pos": 771299}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "In—deed! Very proud to have the honour! A military man, my dear. You know, a perfect general!", "pos": 771377}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "not to desert him", "pos": 771910}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "Fitz Jarndyce, my dear, you will accompany us, of course.", "pos": 772048}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Gridley’s mind had run on Mr. Jarndyce all the afternoon after hearing of their interview in the morning,", "pos": 772266}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "where we were gone and why.", "pos": 772425}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I ask your pardon, my good friend, but is this George’s Shooting Gallery? It is, sir. My name is George, sir, and I have rung the bell. No, sir. You have the advantage of me. Oh, indeed? Then it was your young man who came for me. I am a physician and was requested—five minutes ago—to come and visit a sick man at George’s Shooting Gallery. The muffled drums. It’s quite correct, sir. Will you please to walk in.", "pos": 773053}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Now lookee here, George. You know me, and I know you. You’re a man of the world, and I’m a man of the world. My name’s Bucket, as you are aware, and I have got a peace-warrant against Gridley. You have kept him out of the way a long time, and you have been artful in it, and it does you credit. Now, George, you’re a sensible man and a well-conducted man; that’s what YOU are, beyond a doubt. And mind you, I don’t talk to you as a common character, because you have served your country and you know that when duty calls we must obey. Consequently you’re very far from wanting to give trouble. If I required assistance, you’d assist me; that’s what YOU’D do. Phil Squod, don’t you go a-sidling round the gallery like that because I know you and won’t have it.", "pos": 774419}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Phil!", "pos": 775535}
{"speaker": "Phil Squod", "text": "Yes, guv’ner.", "pos": 775560}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Be quiet.", "pos": 775576}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Ladies and gentlemen, you’ll excuse anything that may appear to be disagreeable in this, for my name’s Inspector Bucket of the Detective, and I have a duty to perform. George, I know where my man is because I was on the roof last night and saw him through the skylight, and you along with him. He is in there, you know, that’s where HE is—on a sofy. Now I must see my man, and I must tell my man to consider himself in custody; but you know me, and you know I don’t want to take any uncomfortable measures. You give me your word, as from one man to another (and an old soldier, mind you, likewise), that it’s honourable between us two, and I’ll accommodate you to the utmost of my power.", "pos": 775635}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I give it. But it wasn’t handsome in you, Mr. Bucket.", "pos": 776356}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Gammon, George! Not handsome? I don’t say it wasn’t handsome in you to keep my man so close, do I? Be equally good-tempered to me, old boy! Old William Tell, Old Shaw, the Life Guardsman! Why, he’s a model of the whole British army in himself, ladies and gentlemen. I’d give a fifty-pun’ note to be such a figure of a man!", "pos": 776429}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "on the chance, of being able to do any little thing for a poor fellow involved in the same misfortune as himself.", "pos": 777933}
{"speaker": "Gridley", "text": "Mr. Jarndyce, it is very kind of you to come to see me. I am not long to be seen, I think. I am very glad to take your hand, sir. You are a good man, superior to injustice, and God knows I honour you. It may seem strange to you, sir. I should not have liked to see you if this had been the first time of our meeting. But you know I made a fight for it, you know I stood up with my single hand against them all, you know I told them the truth to the last, and told them what they were, and what they had done to me; so I don’t mind your seeing me, this wreck.", "pos": 779494}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "You have been courageous with them many and many a time,", "pos": 780156}
{"speaker": "Gridley", "text": "Sir, I have been. I told you what would come of it when I ceased to be so, and see here! Look at us—look at us! This ends it. Of all my old associations, of all my old pursuits and hopes, of all the living and the dead world, this one poor soul alone comes natural to me, and I am fit for. There is a tie of many suffering years between us two, and it is the only tie I ever had on earth that Chancery has not broken.", "pos": 780237}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "Accept my blessing, Gridley. Accept my blessing!", "pos": 780771}
{"speaker": "Gridley", "text": "I thought, boastfully, that they never could break my heart, Mr. Jarndyce. I was resolved that they should not. I did believe that I could, and would, charge them with being the mockery they were until I died of some bodily disorder. But I am worn out. How long I have been wearing out, I don’t know; I seemed to break down in an hour. I hope they may never come to hear of it. I hope everybody here will lead them to believe that I died defying them, consistently and perseveringly, as I did through so many years.", "pos": 780850}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Come, come! Don’t go on in that way, Mr. Gridley. You are only a little low. We are all of us a little low sometimes. I am. Hold up, hold up! You’ll lose your temper with the whole round of ’em, again and again; and I shall take you on a score of warrants yet, if I have luck. Don’t shake your head, nod it; that’s what I want to see you do. Why, Lord bless your soul, what times we have had together! Haven’t I seen you in the Fleet over and over again for contempt? Haven’t I come into court, twenty afternoons for no other purpose than to see you pin the Chancellor like a bull-dog? Don’t you remember when you first began to threaten the lawyers, and the peace was sworn against you two or three times a week? Ask the little old lady there; she has been always present. Hold up, Mr. Gridley, hold up, sir!", "pos": 781490}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "What are you going to do about him?", "pos": 782374}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "I don’t know yet. Worn out, Mr. Gridley? After dodging me for all these weeks and forcing me to climb the roof here like a tom cat and to come to see you as a doctor? That ain’t like being worn out. I should think not! Now I tell you what you want. You want excitement, you know, to keep YOU up; that’s what YOU want. You’re used to it, and you can’t do without it. I couldn’t myself. Very well, then; here’s this warrant got by Mr. Tulkinghorn of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, and backed into half-a-dozen counties since. What do you say to coming along with me, upon this warrant, and having a good angry argument before the magistrates? It’ll do you good; it’ll freshen you up and get you into training for another turn at the Chancellor. Give in? Why, I am surprised to hear a man of your energy talk of giving in. You mustn’t do that. You’re half the fun of the fair in the Court of Chancery. George, you lend Mr. Gridley a hand, and let’s see now whether he won’t be better up than down.", "pos": 782441}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "He is very weak,", "pos": 783512}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Is he? I only want to rouse him. I don’t like to see an old acquaintance giving in like this. It would cheer him up more than anything if I could make him a little waxy with me. He’s welcome to drop into me, right and left, if he likes. I shall never take advantage of it.", "pos": 783564}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "Oh, no, Gridley! Not without my blessing. After so many years!", "pos": 783943}
{"speaker": "Mr. Chadband", "text": "Peace, my friends. Peace be with us! My friends, why with us? Because, it cannot be against us, because it must be for us; because it is not hardening, because it is softening; because it does not make war like the hawk, but comes home unto us like the dove. Therefore, my friends, peace be with us! My human boy, come forward!", "pos": 792040}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "You let me alone. I never said nothink to you. You let me alone.", "pos": 792734}
{"speaker": "Mr. Chadband", "text": "No, my young friend. I will not let you alone. And why? Because I am a harvest-labourer, because I am a toiler and a moiler, because you are delivered over unto me and are become as a precious instrument in my hands. My friends, may I so employ this instrument as to use it to your advantage, to your profit, to your gain, to your welfare, to your enrichment! My young friend, sit upon this stool. My friends!", "pos": 792801}
{"speaker": "Mr. Chadband", "text": "We have here among us, my friends, a Gentile and a heathen, a dweller in the tents of Tom-all-Alone’s and a mover-on upon the surface of the earth. We have here among us, my friends, a brother and a boy. Devoid of parents, devoid of relations, devoid of flocks and herds, devoid of gold and silver and of precious stones. Now, my friends, why do I say he is devoid of these possessions? Why? Why is he?", "pos": 794841}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "I don’t know, I’m sure, sir.", "pos": 795828}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Snagsby", "text": "For shame!", "pos": 795925}
{"speaker": "Mr. Chadband", "text": "I hear a voice, is it a still small voice, my friends? I fear not, though I fain would hope so—", "pos": 795938}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Snagsby", "text": "Ah—h!", "pos": 796053}
{"speaker": "Mr. Chadband", "text": "Which says, ‘I don’t know.’ Then I will tell you why. I say this brother present here among us is devoid of parents, devoid of relations, devoid of flocks and herds, devoid of gold, of silver, and of precious stones because he is devoid of the light that shines in upon some of us. What is that light? What is it? I ask you, what is that light? It is, the ray of rays, the sun of suns, the moon of moons, the star of stars. It is the light of Terewth. Of Terewth. Say not to me that it is NOT the lamp of lamps. I say to you it is. I say to you, a million of times over, it is. It is! I say to you that I will proclaim it to you, whether you like it or not; nay, that the less you like it, the more I will proclaim it to you. With a speaking-trumpet! I say to you that if you rear yourself against it, you shall fall, you shall be bruised, you shall be battered, you shall be flawed, you shall be smashed. My friends, to pursue the subject we are endeavouring with our lowly gifts to improve, let us in a spirit of love inquire what is that Terewth to which I have alluded. For, my young friends, if I am told by the doctor that calomel or castor-oil is good for me, I may naturally ask what is calomel, and what is castor-oil. I may wish to be informed of that before I dose myself with either or with both. Now, my young friends, what is this Terewth then? Firstly (in a spirit of love), what is the common sort of Terewth—the working clothes—the every-day wear, my young friends? Is it deception?", "pos": 796080}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Snagsby", "text": "Ah—h!", "pos": 798745}
{"speaker": "Mr. Chadband", "text": "Is it suppression? Is it reservation? No, my friends, it is neither of these. Neither of these names belongs to it. When this young heathen now among us—who is now, my friends, asleep, the seal of indifference and perdition being set upon his eyelids; but do not wake him, for it is right that I should have to wrestle, and to combat and to struggle, and to conquer, for his sake—when this young hardened heathen told us a story of a cock, and of a bull, and of a lady, and of a sovereign, was THAT the Terewth? No. Or if it was partly, was it wholly and entirely? No, my friends, no! Or, my juvenile friends, if the master of this house was to go forth into the city and there see an eel, and was to come back, and was to call unto him the mistress of this house, and was to say, ‘Sarah, rejoice with me, for I have seen an elephant!’ would THAT be Terewth? Or put it, my juvenile friends, that he saw an elephant, and returning said ‘Lo, the city is barren, I have seen but an eel,’ would THAT be Terewth?", "pos": 798772}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "sobbing loudly", "pos": 800304}
{"speaker": "Mr. Chadband", "text": "Or put it, my juvenile friends, that the unnatural parents of this slumbering heathen—for parents he had, my juvenile friends, beyond a doubt—after casting him forth to the wolves and the vultures, and the wild dogs and the young gazelles, and the serpents, went back to their dwellings and had their pipes, and their pots, and their flutings and their dancings, and their malt liquors, and their butcher’s meat and poultry, would THAT be Terewth?", "pos": 800321}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "It an’t no good my waiting here no longer. Mr. Snagsby an’t a-going to say nothink to me to-night.", "pos": 802393}
{"speaker": "Guster", "text": "Here’s something to eat, poor boy,", "pos": 802851}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Thank’ee, mum,", "pos": 802901}
{"speaker": "Guster", "text": "Are you hungry?", "pos": 802927}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Jist!", "pos": 802945}
{"speaker": "Guster", "text": "What’s gone of your father and your mother, eh?", "pos": 802962}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "I never know’d nothink about ’em,", "pos": 803257}
{"speaker": "Guster", "text": "No more didn’t I of mine,", "pos": 803302}
{"speaker": "the law-stationer", "text": "Jo,", "pos": 803465}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Here I am, Mr. Snagsby!", "pos": 803537}
{"speaker": "the law-stationer", "text": "I didn’t know you were gone—there’s another half-crown, Jo. It was quite right of you to say nothing about the lady the other night when we were out together. It would breed trouble. You can’t be too quiet, Jo.", "pos": 803563}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "I am fly, master!", "pos": 803776}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "And so, Phil, you were dreaming of the country last night?", "pos": 807499}
{"speaker": "Phil", "text": "Yes, guv’ner.", "pos": 807710}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "What was it like?", "pos": 807726}
{"speaker": "Phil", "text": "I hardly know what it was like, guv’ner,", "pos": 807746}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "How did you know it was the country?", "pos": 807813}
{"speaker": "Phil", "text": "On account of the grass, I think. And the swans upon it,", "pos": 807852}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "What were the swans doing on the grass?", "pos": 807950}
{"speaker": "Phil", "text": "They was a-eating of it, I expect,", "pos": 807992}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "The country, why, I suppose you never clapped your eyes on the country, Phil?", "pos": 808905}
{"speaker": "Phil", "text": "I see the marshes once,", "pos": 809031}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "What marshes?", "pos": 809102}
{"speaker": "Phil", "text": "THE marshes, commander,", "pos": 809118}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Where are they?", "pos": 809158}
{"speaker": "Phil", "text": "I don’t know where they are, but I see ’em, guv’ner. They was flat. And miste.", "pos": 809176}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I was born in the country, Phil.", "pos": 809416}
{"speaker": "Phil", "text": "Was you indeed, commander?", "pos": 809451}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Yes. And bred there. There’s not a bird’s note that I don’t know. Not many an English leaf or berry that I couldn’t name. Not many a tree that I couldn’t climb yet if I was put to it. I was a real country boy, once. My good mother lived in the country.", "pos": 809480}
{"speaker": "Phil", "text": "She must have been a fine old lady, guv’ner,", "pos": 809907}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Aye! And not so old either, five and thirty years ago. But I’ll wager that at ninety she would be near as upright as me, and near as broad across the shoulders.", "pos": 809969}
{"speaker": "Phil", "text": "Did she die at ninety, guv’ner?", "pos": 810151}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "No. Bosh! Let her rest in peace, God bless her! What set me on about country boys, and runaways, and good-for-nothings? You, to be sure! So you never clapped your eyes upon the country—marshes and dreams excepted. Eh?", "pos": 810200}
{"speaker": "Phil", "text": "N-no, I don’t know as I do, particular,", "pos": 810487}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "The town’s enough for you, eh?", "pos": 810540}
{"speaker": "Phil", "text": "Why, you see, commander, I ain’t acquainted with anythink else, and I doubt if I ain’t a-getting too old to take to novelties.", "pos": 810573}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "How old ARE you, Phil?", "pos": 810715}
{"speaker": "Phil", "text": "I’m something with a eight in it. It can’t be eighty. Nor yet eighteen. It’s betwixt ’em, somewheres.", "pos": 810812}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Why, what the deuce, Phil—", "pos": 811027}
{"speaker": "Phil", "text": "I was just eight, agreeable to the parish calculation, when I went with the tinker. I was sent on a errand, and I see him a-sittin under a old buildin with a fire all to himself wery comfortable, and he says, ‘Would you like to come along a me, my man?’ I says ‘Yes,’ and him and me and the fire goes home to Clerkenwell together. That was April Fool Day. I was able to count up to ten; and when April Fool Day come round again, I says to myself, ‘Now, old chap, you’re one and a eight in it.’ April Fool Day after that, I says, ‘Now, old chap, you’re two and a eight in it.’ In course of time, I come to ten and a eight in it; two tens and a eight in it. When it got so high, it got the upper hand of me, but this is how I always know there’s a eight in it.", "pos": 811122}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Ah! And where’s the tinker?", "pos": 811896}
{"speaker": "Phil", "text": "Drink put him in the hospital, guv’ner, and the hospital put him—in a glass-case, I HAVE heerd,", "pos": 811969}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "By that means you got promotion? Took the business, Phil?", "pos": 812094}
{"speaker": "Phil", "text": "Yes, commander, I took the business. Such as it was. It wasn’t much of a beat—round Saffron Hill, Hatton Garden, Clerkenwell, Smiffeld, and there—poor neighbourhood, where they uses up the kettles till they’re past mending. Most of the tramping tinkers used to come and lodge at our place; that was the best part of my master’s earnings. But they didn’t come to me. I warn’t like him. He could sing ’em a good song. I couldn’t! He could play ’em a tune on any sort of pot you please, so as it was iron or block tin. I never could do nothing with a pot but mend it or bile it—never had a note of music in me. Besides, I was too ill-looking, and their wives complained of me.", "pos": 812154}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "They were mighty particular. You would pass muster in a crowd, Phil!", "pos": 812830}
{"speaker": "Phil", "text": "No, guv’ner. No, I shouldn’t. I was passable enough when I went with the tinker, though nothing to boast of then; but what with blowing the fire with my mouth when I was young, and spileing my complexion, and singeing my hair off, and swallering the smoke, and what with being nat’rally unfort’nate in the way of running against hot metal and marking myself by sich means, and what with having turn-ups with the tinker as I got older, almost whenever he was too far gone in drink—which was almost always—my beauty was queer, wery queer, even at that time. As to since, what with a dozen years in a dark forge where the men was given to larking, and what with being scorched in a accident at a gas-works, and what with being blowed out of winder case-filling at the firework business, I am ugly enough to be made a show on! It was after the case-filling blow-up when I first see you, commander. You remember?", "pos": 812941}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I remember, Phil. You were walking along in the sun.", "pos": 814034}
{"speaker": "Phil", "text": "Crawling, guv’ner, again a wall—", "pos": 814089}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "True, Phil—shouldering your way on—", "pos": 814124}
{"speaker": "Phil", "text": "In a night-cap!", "pos": 814162}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "In a night-cap—", "pos": 814204}
{"speaker": "Phil", "text": "And hobbling with a couple of sticks!", "pos": 814222}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "With a couple of sticks. When—", "pos": 814294}
{"speaker": "Phil", "text": "When you stops, you know, and says to me, ‘What, comrade! You have been in the wars!’ I didn’t say much to you, commander, then, for I was took by surprise that a person so strong and healthy and bold as you was should stop to speak to such a limping bag of bones as I was. But you says to me, says you, delivering it out of your chest as hearty as possible, so that it was like a glass of something hot, ‘What accident have you met with? You have been badly hurt. What’s amiss, old boy? Cheer up, and tell us about it!’ Cheer up! I was cheered already! I says as much to you, you says more to me, I says more to you, you says more to me, and here I am, commander! Here I am, commander! If a mark’s wanted, or if it will improve the business, let the customers take aim at me. They can’t spoil MY beauty. I’M all right. Come on! If they want a man to box at, let ’em box at me. Let ’em knock me well about the head. I don’t mind. If they want a light-weight to be throwed for practice, Cornwall, Devonshire, or Lancashire, let ’em throw me. They won’t hurt ME. I have been throwed, all sorts of styles, all my life!", "pos": 814327}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Mr. George, my dear friend, how de do? You’re surprised to see me, my dear friend.", "pos": 817508}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I should hardly have been more surprised to have seen your friend in the city,", "pos": 817726}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "I am very seldom out. I haven’t been out for many months. It’s inconvenient—and it comes expensive. But I longed so much to see you, my dear Mr. George. How de do, sir?", "pos": 817827}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I am well enough. I hope you are the same.", "pos": 818021}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "You can’t be too well, my dear friend. I have brought my granddaughter Judy. I couldn’t keep her away. She longed so much to see you. So we got a hackney-cab, and put a chair in it, and just round the corner they lifted me out of the cab and into the chair, and carried me here that I might see my dear friend in his own establishment! This, is the driver of the cab. He has nothing extra. It is by agreement included in his fare. This person, we engaged in the street outside for a pint of beer. Which is twopence. Judy, give the person twopence. I was not sure you had a workman of your own here, my dear friend, or we needn’t have employed this person. Judy, my child, give the person his twopence. It’s a great deal for what he has done. My dear Mr. George, would you be so kind as help to carry me to the fire? I am accustomed to a fire, and I am an old man, and I soon chill. Oh, dear me! O Lord! Oh, dear me! Oh, my stars! My dear friend, your workman is very strong—and very prompt. O Lord, he is very prompt! Judy, draw me back a little. I’m being scorched in the legs. Oh, dear me! O Lord! My dear friend! So happy in this meeting! And this is your establishment? It’s a delightful place. It’s a picture! You never find that anything goes off here accidentally, do you, my dear friend?", "pos": 818085}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "No, no. No fear of that.", "pos": 821121}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "And your workman. He—Oh, dear me!—he never lets anything off without meaning it, does he, my dear friend?", "pos": 821148}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "He has never hurt anybody but himself,", "pos": 821256}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "But he might, you know. He seems to have hurt himself a good deal, and he might hurt somebody else. He mightn’t mean it—or he even might. Mr. George, will you order him to leave his infernal fire-arms alone and go away? And you’re doing well, Mr. George? You are prospering, please the Powers?", "pos": 821323}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Go on. You have not come to say that, I know.", "pos": 821945}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "You are so sprightly, Mr. George. You are such good company.", "pos": 821993}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Ha ha! Go on!", "pos": 822093}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "My dear friend! But that sword looks awful gleaming and sharp. It might cut somebody, by accident. It makes me shiver, Mr. George. Curse him! He owes me money, and might think of paying off old scores in this murdering place. I wish your brimstone grandmother was here, and he’d shave her head off.", "pos": 822126}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Now for it!", "pos": 822670}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Ho! Yes. Now for it. Now for what, my dear friend?", "pos": 822684}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "For a pipe,", "pos": 822802}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "I tell you what,", "pos": 824381}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "If you want to converse with me, you must speak out. I am one of the roughs, and I can’t go about and about. I haven’t the art to do it. I am not clever enough. It don’t suit me. When you go winding round and round me, damme, if I don’t feel as if I was being smothered! If you have come to give me a friendly call, I am obliged to you; how are you? If you have come to see whether there’s any property on the premises, look about you; you are welcome. If you want to out with something, out with it!", "pos": 824417}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "You see! It’s her opinion too. And why the devil that young woman won’t sit down like a Christian,", "pos": 825214}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I can’t comprehend.", "pos": 825369}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "She keeps at my side to attend to me, sir. I am an old man, my dear Mr. George, and I need some attention. I can carry my years; I am not a brimstone poll-parrot but I need attention, my dear friend.", "pos": 825391}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Well! Now then?", "pos": 825679}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "My friend in the city, Mr. George, has done a little business with a pupil of yours.", "pos": 825760}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Has he? I am sorry to hear it.", "pos": 825847}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Yes, sir. He is a fine young soldier now, Mr. George, by the name of Carstone. Friends came forward and paid it all up, honourable.", "pos": 825899}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Did they? Do you think your friend in the city would like a piece of advice?", "pos": 826072}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "I think he would, my dear friend. From you.", "pos": 826173}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I advise him, then, to do no more business in that quarter. There’s no more to be got by it. The young gentleman, to my knowledge, is brought to a dead halt.", "pos": 826219}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "No, no, my dear friend. No, no, Mr. George. No, no, no, sir. Not quite a dead halt, I think. He has good friends, and he is good for his pay, and he is good for the selling price of his commission, and he is good for his chance in a lawsuit, and he is good for his chance in a wife, and—oh, do you know, Mr. George, I think my friend would consider the young gentleman good for something yet? But to pass from one subject to another. To promote the conversation. To pass, Mr. George, from the ensign to the captain.", "pos": 826379}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "What are you up to, now? What captain?", "pos": 827320}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Our captain. The captain we know of. Captain Hawdon.", "pos": 827448}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Oh! That’s it, is it? You are there! Well? What about it? Come, I won’t be smothered any more. Speak!", "pos": 827503}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "My dear friend. I was applied—Judy, shake me up a little!—I was applied to yesterday about the captain, and my opinion still is that the captain is not dead.", "pos": 827711}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Bosh!", "pos": 827894}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "What was your remark, my dear friend?", "pos": 827923}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Bosh!", "pos": 828010}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Ho! Mr. George, of my opinion you can judge for yourself according to the questions asked of me and the reasons given for asking ’em. Now, what do you think the lawyer making the inquiries wants?", "pos": 828018}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "A job,", "pos": 828246}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Nothing of the kind!", "pos": 828272}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Can’t be a lawyer, then,", "pos": 828295}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "My dear friend, he is a lawyer, and a famous one. He wants to see some fragment in Captain Hawdon’s writing. He don’t want to keep it. He only wants to see it and compare it with a writing in his possession.", "pos": 828393}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Well?", "pos": 828603}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Well, Mr. George. Happening to remember the advertisement concerning Captain Hawdon and any information that could be given respecting him, he looked it up and came to me—just as you did, my dear friend. WILL you shake hands? So glad you came that day! I should have missed forming such a friendship if you hadn’t come! I had no such thing. I have nothing but his signature. Plague pestilence and famine, battle murder and sudden death upon him. I have half a million of his signatures, I think! you, my dear Mr. George, are likely to have some letter or paper that would suit the purpose. Anything would suit the purpose, written in the hand.", "pos": 828611}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Some writing in that hand, may be, I have.", "pos": 829613}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "My dearest friend!", "pos": 829689}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "May be, I have not.", "pos": 829710}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Ho!", "pos": 829732}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "But if I had bushels of it, I would not show as much as would make a cartridge without knowing why. Sir. Sir, I have told you why. My dear Mr. George, I have told you why. Not enough. I must know more, and approve it.", "pos": 829780}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Then, will you come to the lawyer? My dear friend, will you come and see the gentleman? I told him it was probable I might call upon him between ten and eleven this forenoon, and it’s now half after ten. Will you come and see the gentleman, Mr. George?", "pos": 830037}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Hum! I don’t mind that. Though why this should concern you so much, I don’t know.", "pos": 830398}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Everything concerns me that has a chance in it of bringing anything to light about him. Didn’t he take us all in? Didn’t he owe us immense sums, all round? Concern me? Who can anything about him concern more than me? Not, my dear friend, that I want YOU to betray anything. Far from it. Are you ready to come, my dear friend?", "pos": 830501}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Aye! I’ll come in a moment. I promise nothing, you know.", "pos": 830878}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "No, my dear Mr. George; no.", "pos": 830937}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "And you mean to say you’re going to give me a lift to this place, wherever it is, without charging for it?", "pos": 830967}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "He’s so very prompt! Are you sure you can do it carefully, my worthy man?", "pos": 831815}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "What, Mr. Tulkinghorn’s your man, is he?", "pos": 832951}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Yes, my dear friend. Do you know him, Mr. George?", "pos": 832994}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Why, I have heard of him—seen him too, I think. But I don’t know him, and he don’t know me.", "pos": 833046}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Good morning, Mr. Smallweed, good morning! You have brought the sergeant, I see. Sit down, sergeant. Sit down, sergeant. Now, I can feel what I am about Mr. Smallweed.", "pos": 834833}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "You have brought our good friend the sergeant, I see. Yes, sir,", "pos": 835696}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Well, George—I believe your name is George?", "pos": 836232}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "It is so, Sir.", "pos": 836278}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "What do you say, George?", "pos": 836295}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I ask your pardon, sir, but I should wish to know what YOU say?", "pos": 836322}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Do you mean in point of reward?", "pos": 836411}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I mean in point of everything, sir.", "pos": 836445}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "You’re a brimstone beast!", "pos": 836565}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "I supposed, sergeant, that Mr. Smallweed might have sufficiently explained the matter. It lies in the smallest compass, however. You served under Captain Hawdon at one time, and were his attendant in illness, and rendered him many little services, and were rather in his confidence, I am told. That is so, is it not?", "pos": 836752}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Yes, sir, that is so,", "pos": 837156}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Therefore you may happen to have in your possession something—anything, no matter what; accounts, instructions, orders, a letter, anything—in Captain Hawdon’s writing. I wish to compare his writing with some that I have. If you can give me the opportunity, you shall be rewarded for your trouble. Three, four, five, guineas, you would consider handsome, I dare say.", "pos": 837219}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Noble, my dear friend!", "pos": 837587}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "If not, say how much more, in your conscience as a soldier, you can demand. There is no need for you to part with the writing, against your inclination—though I should prefer to have it. The question is, first, whether you have any of Captain Hawdon’s writing?", "pos": 837663}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "First, whether I have any of Captain Hawdon’s writing, sir,", "pos": 838151}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Secondly, what will satisfy you for the trouble of producing it?", "pos": 838233}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Secondly, what will satisfy me for the trouble of producing it, sir,", "pos": 838300}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Thirdly, you can judge for yourself whether it is at all like that,", "pos": 838391}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Whether it is at all like that, sir. Just so,", "pos": 838548}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Well? What do you say?", "pos": 838952}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Well, sir. I would rather, if you’ll excuse me, have nothing to do with this.", "pos": 839001}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Why not?", "pos": 839192}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Why, sir. Except on military compulsion, I am not a man of business. Among civilians I am what they call in Scotland a ne’er-do-weel. I have no head for papers, sir. I can stand any fire better than a fire of cross questions. I mentioned to Mr. Smallweed, only an hour or so ago, that when I come into things of this kind I feel as if I was being smothered. And that is my sensation, at the present moment.", "pos": 839203}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "You are the best judge of your own interest, sergeant. Take care you do no harm by this. Please yourself, please yourself. If you know what you mean, that’s quite enough.", "pos": 840600}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I do assure you, sir, not to say it offensively, that between you and Mr. Smallweed here, I really am being smothered fifty times over. I really am, sir. I am not a match for you gentlemen. Will you allow me to ask why you want to see the captain’s hand, in the case that I could find any specimen of it?", "pos": 841170}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "No. If you were a man of business, sergeant, you would not need to be informed that there are confidential reasons, very harmless in themselves, for many such wants in the profession to which I belong. But if you are afraid of doing any injury to Captain Hawdon, you may set your mind at rest about that.", "pos": 841537}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Aye! He is dead, sir.", "pos": 841844}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "IS he?", "pos": 841868}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Well, sir. I am sorry not to have given you more satisfaction. If it would be any satisfaction to any one that I should be confirmed in my judgment that I would rather have nothing to do with this by a friend of mine who has a better head for business than I have, and who is an old soldier, I am willing to consult with him. I—I really am so completely smothered myself at present, that I don’t know but what it might be a satisfaction to me. I’ll consult my friend, then, by your leave, sir, and I’ll take the liberty of looking in again with the final answer in the course of the day. Mr. Smallweed, if you wish to be carried downstairs—", "pos": 841921}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "In a moment, my dear friend, in a moment. Will you first let me speak half a word with this gentleman in private?", "pos": 843031}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Certainly, sir. Don’t hurry yourself on my account.", "pos": 843147}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "If I wasn’t as weak as a brimstone baby, sir. I’d tear the writing away from him. He’s got it buttoned in his breast. I saw him put it there. Judy saw him put it there. Speak up, you crabbed image for the sign of a walking-stick shop, and say you saw him put it there!", "pos": 843322}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Violence will not do for me, my friend,", "pos": 844006}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "No, no, I know, I know, sir. But it’s chafing and galling—it’s—it’s worse than your smattering chattering magpie of a grandmother, to know he has got what’s wanted and won’t give it up. He, not to give it up! HE! A vagabond! But never mind, sir, never mind. At the most, he has only his own way for a little while. I have him periodically in a vice. I’ll twist him, sir. I’ll screw him, sir. If he won’t do it with a good grace, I’ll make him do it with a bad one, sir! Now, my dear Mr. George. I am ready for your kind assistance, my excellent friend!", "pos": 844085}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "She’s as usual, washing greens. I never saw her, except upon a baggage-waggon, when she wasn’t washing greens!", "pos": 846572}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "George, I never see you but I wish you was a hundred mile away! I never. George, consider Matthew Bagnet safe a minute when you’re near him. You are that restless and that roving—", "pos": 847000}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Yes! I know I am, Mrs. Bagnet. I know I am.", "pos": 847402}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "You know you are! What’s the use of that? WHY are you?", "pos": 847448}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "The nature of the animal, I suppose,", "pos": 847525}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "Ah! But what satisfaction will the nature of the animal be to me when the animal shall have tempted my Mat away from the musical business to New Zealand or Australey?", "pos": 847601}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Mrs. Bagnet. I am on my parole with you. Mat will get no harm from me. You may trust me so far.", "pos": 848412}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "Well, I think I may. But the very looks of you are unsettling. Ah, George, George! If you had only settled down and married Joe Pouch’s widow when he died in North America, SHE’D have combed your hair for you.", "pos": 848530}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "It was a chance for me, certainly, but I shall never settle down into a respectable man now. Joe Pouch’s widow might have done me good—there was something in her, and something of her—but I couldn’t make up my mind to it. If I had had the luck to meet with such a wife as Mat found! Why, Quebec, my poppet. And little Malta, too! Come and kiss your Bluffy!", "pos": 848765}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "And how’s young Woolwich?", "pos": 850061}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "Ah! There now! Would you believe it? Got an engagement at the theayter, with his father, to play the fife in a military piece.", "pos": 850106}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Well done, my godson!", "pos": 850350}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "I believe you! He’s a Briton. That’s what Woolwich is. A Briton!", "pos": 850412}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "And Mat blows away at his bassoon, and you’re respectable civilians one and all. Family people. Children growing up. Mat’s old mother in Scotland, and your old father somewhere else, corresponded with, and helped a little, and—well, well! To be sure, I don’t know why I shouldn’t be wished a hundred mile away, for I have not much to do with all this!", "pos": 850499}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "George. You know me. It’s my old girl that advises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained. Wait till the greens is off her mind. Then we’ll consult. Whatever the old girl says, do—do it!", "pos": 852346}
{"speaker": "Mat", "text": "I intend to, Mat. I would sooner take her opinion than that of a college.", "pos": 852598}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "College. What college could you leave—in another quarter of the world—with nothing but a grey cloak and an umbrella—to make its way home to Europe? The old girl would do it to-morrow. Did it once!", "pos": 852695}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "You are right,", "pos": 852949}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "What college, could you set up in life—with two penn’orth of white lime—a penn’orth of fuller’s earth—a ha’porth of sand—and the rest of the change out of sixpence in money? That’s what the old girl started on. In the present business.", "pos": 852983}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I am rejoiced to hear it’s thriving, Mat.", "pos": 853239}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "The old girl, saves. Has a stocking somewhere. With money in it. I never saw it. But I know she’s got it. Wait till the greens is off her mind. Then she’ll set you up.", "pos": 853283}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "She is a treasure!", "pos": 853485}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "She’s more. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained. It was the old girl that brought out my musical abilities. I should have been in the artillery now but for the old girl. Six years I hammered at the fiddle. Ten at the flute. The old girl said it wouldn’t do; intention good, but want of flexibility; try the bassoon. The old girl borrowed a bassoon from the bandmaster of the Rifle Regiment. I practised in the trenches. Got on, got another, get a living by it! The old girl, is a thoroughly fine woman. Consequently she is like a thoroughly fine day. Gets finer as she gets on. I never saw the old girl’s equal. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained!", "pos": 853527}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "That’s the whole of it, is it, George?", "pos": 856563}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "That’s the whole of it.", "pos": 856613}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "You act according to my opinion?", "pos": 856639}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I shall be guided, entirely by it.", "pos": 856674}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "Old girl, give him my opinion. You know it. Tell him what it is.", "pos": 856729}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "A family home, however small it is, makes a man like me look lonely. But it’s well I never made that evolution of matrimony. I shouldn’t have been fit for it. I am such a vagabond still, even at my present time of life, that I couldn’t hold to the gallery a month together if it was a regular pursuit or if I didn’t camp there, gipsy fashion. Come! I disgrace nobody and cumber nobody; that’s something. I have not done that for many a long year!", "pos": 858008}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Who is that? What are you doing there?", "pos": 858929}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I ask your pardon, sir. It’s George. The sergeant.", "pos": 858970}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "And couldn’t George, the sergeant, see that my door was locked?", "pos": 859023}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Why, no, sir, I couldn’t. At any rate, I didn’t,", "pos": 859089}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Have you changed your mind? Or are you in the same mind?", "pos": 859174}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "In the same mind, sir.", "pos": 859296}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "I thought so. That’s sufficient. You can go. So you are the man, in whose hiding-place Mr. Gridley was found?", "pos": 859321}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Yes, I AM the man. What then, sir?", "pos": 859488}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "What then? I don’t like your associates. You should not have seen the inside of my door this morning if I had thought of your being that man. Gridley? A threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow.", "pos": 859580}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "A pretty character to bear. A threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow!", "pos": 860077}
{"speaker": "Volumnia", "text": "I occasionally meet on my staircase here, one of the prettiest girls, I think, that I ever saw in my life.", "pos": 867399}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "A protégée of my Lady’s,", "pos": 867629}
{"speaker": "Volumnia", "text": "I thought so. I felt sure that some uncommon eye must have picked that girl out. She really is a marvel. A dolly sort of beauty perhaps, but in its way, perfect; such bloom I never saw!", "pos": 867680}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Indeed, if there is any uncommon eye in the case, it is Mrs. Rouncewell’s, and not mine. Rosa is her discovery.", "pos": 868009}
{"speaker": "Volumnia", "text": "Your maid, I suppose?", "pos": 868152}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "No. My anything; pet—secretary—messenger—I don’t know what.", "pos": 868176}
{"speaker": "Volumnia", "text": "You like to have her about you, as you would like to have a flower, or a bird, or a picture, or a poodle—no, not a poodle, though—or anything else that was equally pretty? Yes, how charming now! And how well that delightful old soul Mrs. Rouncewell is looking. She must be an immense age, and yet she is as active and handsome! She is the dearest friend I have, positively!", "pos": 868238}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "You are right, Volumnia,", "pos": 868861}
{"speaker": "Volumnia", "text": "She has no daughter of her own, has she?", "pos": 868930}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Mrs. Rouncewell? No, Volumnia. She has a son. Indeed, she had two.", "pos": 868973}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "And it is a remarkable example of the confusion into which the present age has fallen; of the obliteration of landmarks, the opening of floodgates, and the uprooting of distinctions, that I have been informed by Mr. Tulkinghorn that Mrs. Rouncewell’s son has been invited to go into Parliament. Yes, indeed. Into Parliament.", "pos": 869205}
{"speaker": "Volumnia", "text": "I never heard of such a thing! Good gracious, what is the man?", "pos": 869644}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "He is called, I believe—an—ironmaster. He has declined the proposal, if my information from Mr. Tulkinghorn be correct, as I have no doubt it is. Mr. Tulkinghorn being always correct and exact; still that does not, that does not lessen the anomaly, which is fraught with strange considerations—startling considerations, as it appears to me. I must beg you, my Lady, to remain a few moments, for this individual of whom I speak arrived this evening shortly before dinner and requested in a very becoming note I am bound to say, in a very becoming and well-expressed note, the favour of a short interview with yourself and MYself on the subject of this young girl. As it appeared that he wished to depart to-night, I replied that we would see him before retiring. Make my compliments to Mr. Rouncewell, in the housekeeper’s apartments, and say I can receive him now.", "pos": 869728}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, as I have already apologized for intruding on you, I cannot do better than be very brief. I thank you, Sir Leicester. In these busy times, when so many great undertakings are in progress, people like myself have so many workmen in so many places that we are always on the flight.", "pos": 871853}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "Lady Dedlock has been so kind, as to place near her a young beauty of the name of Rosa. Now, my son has fallen in love with Rosa and has asked my consent to his proposing marriage to her and to their becoming engaged if she will take him—which I suppose she will. I have never seen Rosa until to-day, but I have some confidence in my son’s good sense—even in love. I find her what he represents her, to the best of my judgment; and my mother speaks of her with great commendation.", "pos": 872906}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "She in all respects deserves it,", "pos": 873460}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "I am happy, Lady Dedlock, that you say so, and I need not comment on the value to me of your kind opinion of her.", "pos": 873509}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "That, must be quite unnecessary.", "pos": 873625}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "Quite unnecessary, Sir Leicester. Now, my son is a very young man, and Rosa is a very young woman. As I made my way, so my son must make his; and his being married at present is out of the question. But supposing I gave my consent to his engaging himself to this pretty girl, if this pretty girl will engage herself to him, I think it a piece of candour to say at once—I am sure, Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, you will understand and excuse me—I should make it a condition that she did not remain at Chesney Wold. Therefore, before communicating further with my son, I take the liberty of saying that if her removal would be in any way inconvenient or objectionable, I will hold the matter over with him for any reasonable time and leave it precisely where it is.", "pos": 873760}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Am I to understand, sir, and is my Lady to understand am I to understand, Mr. Rouncewell, and is my Lady to understand, sir, that you consider this young woman too good for Chesney Wold or likely to be injured by remaining here?", "pos": 874835}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "Certainly not, Sir Leicester,", "pos": 875222}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "I am glad to hear it.", "pos": 875254}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Pray, Mr. Rouncewell, explain to me what you mean.", "pos": 875311}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "Willingly, Lady Dedlock. There is nothing I could desire more. I am the son of your housekeeper, Lady Dedlock, and passed my childhood about this house. My mother has lived here half a century and will die here I have no doubt. She is one of those examples—perhaps as good a one as there is—of love, and attachment, and fidelity in such a nation, which England may well be proud of, but of which no order can appropriate the whole pride or the whole merit, because such an instance bespeaks high worth on two sides—on the great side assuredly, on the small one no less assuredly. Pardon me for saying what is so obvious, but I wouldn’t have it hastily supposed, that I am ashamed of my mother’s position here, or wanting in all just respect for Chesney Wold and the family. I certainly may have desired—I certainly have desired, Lady Dedlock—that my mother should retire after so many years and end her days with me. But as I have found that to sever this strong bond would be to break her heart, I have long abandoned that idea. I have been, an apprentice and a workman. I have lived on workman’s wages, years and years, and beyond a certain point have had to educate myself. My wife was a foreman’s daughter, and plainly brought up. We have three daughters besides this son of whom I have spoken, and being fortunately able to give them greater advantages than we have had ourselves, we have educated them well, very well. It has been one of our great cares and pleasures to make them worthy of any station. All this is so frequent, Lady Dedlock, where I live, and among the class to which I belong, that what would be generally called unequal marriages are not of such rare occurrence with us as elsewhere. A son will sometimes make it known to his father that he has fallen in love, say, with a young woman in the factory. The father, who once worked in a factory himself, will be a little disappointed at first very possibly. It may be that he had other views for his son. However, the chances are that having ascertained the young woman to be of unblemished character, he will say to his son, ‘I must be quite sure you are in earnest here. This is a serious matter for both of you. Therefore I shall have this girl educated for two years,’ or it may be, ‘I shall place this girl at the same school with your sisters for such a time, during which you will give me your word and honour to see her only so often. If at the expiration of that time, when she has so far profited by her advantages as that you may be upon a fair equality, you are both in the same mind, I will do my part to make you happy.’ I know of several cases such as I describe, my Lady, and I think they indicate to me my own course now.", "pos": 875474}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Mr. Rouncewell, do you draw a parallel between Chesney Wold and a— a factory?", "pos": 879187}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "I need not reply, Sir Leicester, that the two places are very different; but for the purposes of this case, I think a parallel may be justly drawn between them.", "pos": 879443}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Are you aware, sir, that this young woman whom my Lady—my Lady—has placed near her person was brought up at the village school outside the gates?", "pos": 879744}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "Sir Leicester, I am quite aware of it. A very good school it is, and handsomely supported by this family.", "pos": 879892}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Then, Mr. Rouncewell, the application of what you have said is, to me, incomprehensible.", "pos": 880000}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "Will it be more comprehensible, Sir Leicester, if I say, that I do not regard the village school as teaching everything desirable to be known by my son’s wife?", "pos": 880116}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "My Lady, I beg your pardon. Permit me, for one moment! Mr. Rouncewell, our views of duty, and our views of station, and our views of education, and our views of—in short, ALL our views—are so diametrically opposed, that to prolong this discussion must be repellent to your feelings and repellent to my own. This young woman is honoured with my Lady’s notice and favour. If she wishes to withdraw herself from that notice and favour or if she chooses to place herself under the influence of any one who may in his peculiar opinions—you will allow me to say, in his peculiar opinions, though I readily admit that he is not accountable for them to me—who may, in his peculiar opinions, withdraw her from that notice and favour, she is at any time at liberty to do so. We are obliged to you for the plainness with which you have spoken. It will have no effect of itself, one way or other, on the young woman’s position here. Beyond this, we can make no terms; and here we beg—if you will be so good—to leave the subject. Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock, allow me to thank you for your attention and only to observe that I shall very seriously recommend my son to conquer his present inclinations. Good night!", "pos": 881004}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Mr. Rouncewell, it is late, and the roads are dark. I hope your time is not so precious but that you will allow my Lady and myself to offer you the hospitality of Chesney Wold, for to-night at least.", "pos": 882379}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I hope so,", "pos": 882653}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "I am much obliged to you, but I have to travel all night in order to reach a distant part of the country punctually at an appointed time in the morning.", "pos": 882680}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Come to me, child. Tell me the truth. Are you in love?", "pos": 883135}
{"speaker": "Rosa", "text": "Oh! My Lady!", "pos": 883192}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Who is it? Is it Mrs. Rouncewell’s grandson?", "pos": 883273}
{"speaker": "Rosa", "text": "Yes, if you please, my Lady. But I don’t know that I am in love with him—yet.", "pos": 883320}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Yet, you silly little thing! Do you know that he loves YOU, yet?", "pos": 883400}
{"speaker": "Rosa", "text": "I think he likes me a little, my Lady.", "pos": 883467}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Listen to me, child. You are young and true, and I believe you are attached to me.", "pos": 883717}
{"speaker": "Rosa", "text": "Indeed I am, my Lady. Indeed there is nothing in the world I wouldn’t do to show how much.", "pos": 883802}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "And I don’t think you would wish to leave me just yet, Rosa, even for a lover?", "pos": 883895}
{"speaker": "Rosa", "text": "No, my Lady! Oh, no!", "pos": 883976}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Confide in me, my child. Don’t fear me. I wish you to be happy, and will make you so—if I can make anybody happy on this earth.", "pos": 884066}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "The man who wrote this article, has a well-balanced mind. Very true indeed. Very properly put. I have frequently made the same remark myself,", "pos": 890377}
{"speaker": "Mercury", "text": "The young man, my Lady, of the name of Guppy.", "pos": 891313}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "The young man of the name of Guppy? Pray, what do you mean by announcing with this abruptness a young man of the name of Guppy?", "pos": 891419}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "I beg your pardon, Sir Leicester, but my Lady said she would see the young man whenever he called. I was not aware that you were here, Sir Leicester.", "pos": 891753}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "It’s quite right. I gave him those directions. Let the young man wait.", "pos": 892091}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "By no means, my Lady. Since he has your orders to come, I will not interrupt you.", "pos": 892180}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "That your ladyship would have the kindness to oblige me with a little conversation. You are, of course, the person who has written me so many letters?", "pos": 892640}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Several, your ladyship. Several before your ladyship condescended to favour me with an answer.", "pos": 892827}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "And could you not take the same means of rendering a Conversation unnecessary? Can you not still? You have been strangely importunate. If it should appear, after all, that what you have to say does not concern me—and I don’t know how it can, and don’t expect that it will—you will allow me to cut you short with but little ceremony. Say what you have to say, if you please.", "pos": 892924}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "With your ladyship’s permission, then,", "pos": 893521}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "I will now enter on my business. Hem! I am, as I told your ladyship in my first letter, in the law. Being in the law, I have learnt the habit of not committing myself in writing, and therefore I did not mention to your ladyship the name of the firm with which I am connected and in which my standing—and I may add income—is tolerably good. I may now state to your ladyship, in confidence, that the name of that firm is Kenge and Carboy, of Lincoln’s Inn, which may not be altogether unknown to your ladyship in connexion with the case in Chancery of Jarndyce and Jarndyce.", "pos": 893582}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Now, I may say to your ladyship at once,", "pos": 894290}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "it is no matter arising out of Jarndyce and Jarndyce that made me so desirous to speak to your ladyship, which conduct I have no doubt did appear, and does appear, obtrusive—in fact, almost blackguardly.", "pos": 894370}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "If it had been Jarndyce and Jarndyce, I should have gone at once to your ladyship’s solicitor, Mr. Tulkinghorn, of the Fields. I have the pleasure of being acquainted with Mr. Tulkinghorn—at least we move when we meet one another—and if it had been any business of that sort, I should have gone to him.", "pos": 894689}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "You had better sit down.", "pos": 895033}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Thank your ladyship.", "pos": 895060}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Now, your ladyship—I—Oh, yes!—I place myself entirely in your ladyship’s hands. If your ladyship was to make any complaint to Kenge and Carboy or to Mr. Tulkinghorn of the present visit, I should be placed in a very disagreeable situation. That, I openly admit. Consequently, I rely upon your ladyship’s honour.", "pos": 895284}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Thank your ladyship,", "pos": 895722}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "quite satisfactory. Now—I—dash it!—The fact is that I put down a head or two here of the order of the points I thought of touching upon, and they’re written short, and I can’t quite make out what they mean. If your ladyship will excuse me taking it to the window half a moment, I—", "pos": 895761}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "I beg your pardon, I am sure.", "pos": 896145}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "C.S. What’s C.S. for? Oh! C.S.! Oh, I know! Yes, to be sure!", "pos": 896342}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "I am not aware,", "pos": 896433}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "whether your ladyship ever happened to hear of, or to see, a young lady of the name of Miss Esther Summerson.", "pos": 896514}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I saw a young lady of that name not long ago. This past autumn.", "pos": 896659}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Now, did it strike your ladyship that she was like anybody?", "pos": 896725}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "No.", "pos": 896954}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Not like your ladyship’s family?", "pos": 896960}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "No.", "pos": 896995}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "I think your ladyship,", "pos": 897001}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "can hardly remember Miss Summerson’s face?", "pos": 897042}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I remember the young lady very well. What has this to do with me?", "pos": 897087}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Your ladyship, I do assure you that having Miss Summerson’s image imprinted on my ’eart—which I mention in confidence—I found, when I had the honour of going over your ladyship’s mansion of Chesney Wold while on a short out in the county of Lincolnshire with a friend, such a resemblance between Miss Esther Summerson and your ladyship’s own portrait that it completely knocked me over, so much so that I didn’t at the moment even know what it WAS that knocked me over. And now I have the honour of beholding your ladyship near (I have often, since that, taken the liberty of looking at your ladyship in your carriage in the park, when I dare say you was not aware of me, but I never saw your ladyship so near), it’s really more surprising than I thought it.", "pos": 897155}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Young man of the name of Guppy! what do you suppose that his taste for likenesses has to do with her?", "pos": 897915}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Your ladyship,", "pos": 898332}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "I am coming to that. Dash these notes! Oh! ‘Mrs. Chadband.’ Yes.", "pos": 898398}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "A—stop a minute, though!", "pos": 898676}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "E.S. twice? Oh, yes! Yes, I see my way now, right on.", "pos": 898727}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Your ladyship, there is a mystery about Miss Esther Summerson’s birth and bringing up. I am informed of that fact because—which I mention in confidence—I know it in the way of my profession at Kenge and Carboy’s. Now, as I have already mentioned to your ladyship, Miss Summerson’s image is imprinted on my ’eart. If I could clear this mystery for her, or prove her to be well related, or find that having the honour to be a remote branch of your ladyship’s family she had a right to be made a party in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, why, I might make a sort of a claim upon Miss Summerson to look with an eye of more dedicated favour on my proposals than she has exactly done as yet. In fact, as yet she hasn’t favoured them at all. Now, it’s a very singular circumstance, your ladyship, though one of those circumstances that do fall in the way of us professional men—which I may call myself, for though not admitted, yet I have had a present of my articles made to me by Kenge and Carboy, on my mother’s advancing from the principal of her little income the money for the stamp, which comes heavy—that I have encountered the person who lived as servant with the lady who brought Miss Summerson up before Mr. Jarndyce took charge of her. That lady was a Miss Barbary, your ladyship. Did your ladyship, ever happen to hear of Miss Barbary?", "pos": 898874}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I don’t know. I think so. Yes.", "pos": 900515}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Was Miss Barbary at all connected with your ladyship’s family? NOT connected? Oh! Oh! Not to your ladyship’s knowledge, perhaps? Ah! But might be? Yes. Very good! Now, this Miss Barbary was extremely close—seems to have been extraordinarily close for a female, females being generally (in common life at least) rather given to conversation—and my witness never had an idea whether she possessed a single relative. On one occasion, and only one, she seems to have been confidential to my witness on a single point, and she then told her that the little girl’s real name was not Esther Summerson, but Esther Hawdon.", "pos": 900548}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "My God!", "pos": 901312}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Your ladyship is acquainted with the name of Hawdon?", "pos": 902051}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I have heard it before.", "pos": 902106}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Name of any collateral or remote branch of your ladyship’s family?", "pos": 902132}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "No.", "pos": 902201}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Now, your ladyship. I come to the last point of the case, so far as I have got it up. It’s going on, and I shall gather it up closer and closer as it goes on. Your ladyship must know—if your ladyship don’t happen, by any chance, to know already—that there was found dead at the house of a person named Krook, near Chancery Lane, some time ago, a law-writer in great distress. Upon which law-writer there was an inquest, and which law-writer was an anonymous character, his name being unknown. But, your ladyship, I have discovered very lately that that law-writer’s name was Hawdon.", "pos": 902207}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "And what is THAT to me?", "pos": 902810}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Aye, your ladyship, that’s the question! Now, your ladyship, a queer thing happened after that man’s death. A lady started up, a disguised lady, your ladyship, who went to look at the scene of action and went to look at his grave. She hired a crossing-sweeping boy to show it her. If your ladyship would wish to have the boy produced in corroboration of this statement, I can lay my hand upon him at any time. Oh, I assure your ladyship it’s a very queer start indeed. If you was to hear him tell about the rings that sparkled on her fingers when she took her glove off, you’d think it quite romantic. It was supposed, your ladyship, that he left no rag or scrap behind him by which he could be possibly identified. But he did. He left a bundle of old letters. They were taken and secreted. And to-morrow night, your ladyship, they will come into my possession.", "pos": 902836}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Still I ask you, what is this to me?", "pos": 904131}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Your ladyship, I conclude with that. If you think there’s enough in this chain of circumstances put together—in the undoubted strong likeness of this young lady to your ladyship, which is a positive fact for a jury; in her having been brought up by Miss Barbary; in Miss Barbary stating Miss Summerson’s real name to be Hawdon; in your ladyship’s knowing both these names VERY WELL; and in Hawdon’s dying as he did—to give your ladyship a family interest in going further into the case, I will bring these papers here. I don’t know what they are, except that they are old letters: I have never had them in my possession yet. I will bring those papers here as soon as I get them and go over them for the first time with your ladyship. I have told your ladyship my object. I have told your ladyship that I should be placed in a very disagreeable situation if any complaint was made, and all is in strict confidence.", "pos": 904170}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "You may bring the letters,", "pos": 905458}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "if you choose.", "pos": 905501}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Your ladyship is not very encouraging, upon my word and honour,", "pos": 905518}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "You may bring the letters, if you—please.", "pos": 905618}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "It shall be done. I wish your ladyship good day. Oh! I assure your ladyship I am not actuated by any motives of that sort, and I couldn’t accept anything of the kind. I wish your ladyship good day, and am much obliged to you all the same.", "pos": 905694}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "O my child, my child! Not dead in the first hours of her life, as my cruel sister told me, but sternly nurtured by her, after she had renounced me and my name! O my child, O my child!", "pos": 906855}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Woodcourt", "text": "So, Miss Summerson, this, you see, is the fortune inherited by my son. Wherever my son goes, he can claim kindred with Ap-Kerrig. He may not have money, but he always has what is much better—family, my dear. It IS, my dear, a great thing. It has its disadvantages; my son’s choice of a wife, for instance, is limited by it, but the matrimonial choice of the royal family is limited in much the same manner. Poor Mr. Woodcourt, my dear, was descended from a great Highland family, the MacCoorts of MacCoort. He served his king and country as an officer in the Royal Highlanders, and he died on the field. My son is one of the last representatives of two old families. With the blessing of heaven he will set them up again and unite them with another old family. My dear, you have so much sense and you look at the world in a quiet manner so superior to your time of life that it is a comfort to me to talk to you about these family matters of mine. You don’t know much of my son, my dear; but you know enough of him, I dare say, to recollect him?", "pos": 908906}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Yes, ma’am. I recollect him.", "pos": 910702}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Woodcourt", "text": "Yes, my dear. Now, my dear, I think you are a judge of character, and I should like to have your opinion of him.", "pos": 910733}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Oh, Mrs. Woodcourt, that is so difficult!", "pos": 910848}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Woodcourt", "text": "Why is it so difficult, my dear? I don’t see it myself.", "pos": 910902}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "To give an opinion—", "pos": 910976}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Woodcourt", "text": "On so slight an acquaintance, my dear. THAT’S true. You do him justice! You define him exactly. Allan is a dear fellow, and in his profession faultless. I say it, though I am his mother. Still, I must confess he is not without faults, love.", "pos": 910998}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "None of us are,", "pos": 911576}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Woodcourt", "text": "Ah! But his really are faults that he might correct, and ought to correct. I am so much attached to you that I may confide in you, my dear, as a third party wholly disinterested, that he is fickleness itself.", "pos": 911602}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I should have thought it hardly possible that he could have been otherwise than constant to his profession and zealous in the pursuit of it, judging from the reputation he had earned.", "pos": 911876}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Woodcourt", "text": "You are right again, my dear, but I don’t refer to his profession, look you.", "pos": 912061}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Oh!", "pos": 912165}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Woodcourt", "text": "No. I refer, my dear, to his social conduct. He is always paying trivial attentions to young ladies, and always has been, ever since he was eighteen. Now, my dear, he has never really cared for any one of them and has never meant in doing this to do any harm or to express anything but politeness and good nature. Still, it’s not right, you know; is it?", "pos": 912179}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "No,", "pos": 912547}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Woodcourt", "text": "And it might lead to mistaken notions, you see, my dear.", "pos": 912591}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Mother, I will be; but you know me better than anybody else does, and you know I mean no harm—in short, mean nothing.", "pos": 912826}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Woodcourt", "text": "And you, my dear, regarding your dear self, my love?", "pos": 913167}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Me, Mrs. Woodcourt?", "pos": 913276}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Woodcourt", "text": "Not to be always selfish, talking of my son, who has gone to seek his fortune and to find a wife—when do you mean to seek YOUR fortune and to find a husband, Miss Summerson? Hey, look you! Now you blush!", "pos": 913298}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I don’t think I did blush—at all events, it was not important if I did—and I said my present fortune perfectly contented me and I had no wish to change it.", "pos": 913503}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Woodcourt", "text": "Shall I tell you what I always think of you and the fortune yet to come for you, my love?", "pos": 913660}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "If you believe you are a good prophet,", "pos": 913773}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Woodcourt", "text": "Why, then, it is that you will marry some one very rich and very worthy, much older—five and twenty years, perhaps—than yourself. And you will be an excellent wife, and much beloved, and very happy.", "pos": 913822}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "That is a good fortune. But why is it to be mine?", "pos": 914023}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Woodcourt", "text": "My dear, there’s suitability in it—you are so busy, and so neat, and so peculiarly situated altogether that there’s suitability in it, and it will come to pass. And nobody, my love, will congratulate you more sincerely on such a marriage than I shall.", "pos": 914085}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "I was the best adviser that ever was known. gone through the Gazette,", "pos": 916226}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "custom-house and general agent,", "pos": 917313}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And your papa, Caddy. What did he say?", "pos": 918331}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Oh! Poor Pa, only cried and said he hoped we might get on better than he and Ma had got on. He didn’t say so before Prince, he only said so to me. And he said, ‘My poor girl, you have not been very well taught how to make a home for your husband, but unless you mean with all your heart to strive to do it, you had better murder him than marry him—if you really love him.’", "pos": 918372}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And how did you reassure him, Caddy?", "pos": 918761}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Why, it was very distressing, you know, to see poor Pa so low and hear him say such terrible things, and I couldn’t help crying myself. But I told him that I DID mean it with all my heart and that I hoped our house would be a place for him to come and find some comfort in of an evening and that I hoped and thought I could be a better daughter to him there than at home. Then I mentioned Peepy’s coming to stay with me, and then Pa began to cry again and said the children were Indians.", "pos": 918800}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Indians, Caddy?", "pos": 919290}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Yes, wild Indians. And Pa said that he was sensible the best thing that could happen to them was their being all tomahawked together. No, of course I know Pa wouldn’t like his family to be weltering in their blood, but he means that they are very unfortunate in being Ma’s children and that he is very unfortunate in being Ma’s husband; and I am sure that’s true, though it seems unnatural to say so. Oh! You know what Ma is, Esther. It’s impossible to say whether she knows it or not. She has been told it often enough; and when she IS told it, she only gives me a placid look, as if I was I don’t know what—a steeple in the distance, and then she shakes her head and says ‘Oh, Caddy, Caddy, what a tease you are!’ and goes on with the Borrioboola letters.", "pos": 919308}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And about your wardrobe, Caddy?", "pos": 920405}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Well, my dear Esther. I must do the best I can and trust to my dear Prince never to have an unkind remembrance of my coming so shabbily to him. If the question concerned an outfit for Borrioboola, Ma would know all about it and would be quite excited. Being what it is, she neither knows nor cares.", "pos": 920487}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Caddy, I am sure you are very welcome to learn anything that you can learn of ME, my dear,", "pos": 922794}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Jellyby", "text": "My dear Miss Summerson, these are really ridiculous preparations, though your assisting them is a proof of your kindness. There is something so inexpressibly absurd to me in the idea of Caddy being married! Oh, Caddy, you silly, silly, silly puss! My good Miss Summerson, at half the cost, this weak child might have been equipped for Africa! Will my room be required, my dear Miss Summerson? For it’s quite impossible that I can put my papers away. Well, my dear Miss Summerson, you know best, I dare say. But by obliging me to employ a boy, Caddy has embarrassed me to that extent, overwhelmed as I am with public business, that I don’t know which way to turn. We have a Ramification meeting, too, on Wednesday afternoon, and the inconvenience is very serious.", "pos": 925654}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "It is not likely to occur again. Caddy will be married but once, probably.", "pos": 927004}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Jellyby", "text": "That’s true, that’s true, my dear. I suppose we must make the best of it!", "pos": 927100}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Poor Pa! It seems unkind to leave him, Esther. But what could I do if I stayed! Since I first knew you, I have tidied and tidied over and over again, but it’s useless. Ma and Africa, together, upset the whole house directly. We never have a servant who don’t drink. Ma’s ruinous to everything. My heart aches for him; that it does! I can’t help thinking to-night, Esther, how dearly I hope to be happy with Prince, and how dearly Pa hoped, I dare say, to be happy with Ma. What a disappointed life!", "pos": 929722}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jellyby", "text": "My dear Caddy!", "pos": 930444}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Yes, Pa!", "pos": 930590}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jellyby", "text": "My dear Caddy. Never have—", "pos": 930661}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Not Prince, Pa? Not have Prince?", "pos": 930710}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jellyby", "text": "Yes, my dear. Have him, certainly. But, never have—", "pos": 930763}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "What do you wish me not to have? Don’t have what, dear Pa?", "pos": 931111}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jellyby", "text": "Never have a mission, my dear child.", "pos": 931228}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "My dear sir, these young people will live with me; my house is large enough for their accommodation, and they shall not want the shelter of my roof. I could have wished—you will understand the allusion, Mr. Jarndyce, for you remember my illustrious patron the Prince Regent—I could have wished that my son had married into a family where there was more deportment, but the will of heaven be done!", "pos": 932914}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Jellyby", "text": "Oh, you naughty Peepy, what a shocking little pig you are!", "pos": 936980}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "No,", "pos": 937113}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "I am very sorry I couldn’t go on writing from dictation, Ma. I hope you forgive me now.", "pos": 938311}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Jellyby", "text": "Oh, Caddy, Caddy! I have told you over and over again that I have engaged a boy, and there’s an end of it.", "pos": 938417}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "You are sure you are not the least angry with me, Ma? Say you are sure before I go away, Ma?", "pos": 938547}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Jellyby", "text": "You foolish Caddy, do I look angry, or have I inclination to be angry, or time to be angry? How CAN you?", "pos": 938642}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Take a little care of Pa while I am gone, Mama!", "pos": 938774}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Jellyby", "text": "You romantic child. Go along. I am excellent friends with you. Now, good-bye, Caddy, and be very happy!", "pos": 938870}
{"speaker": "Prince", "text": "Thank you over and over again, father! I am very grateful for all your kindness and consideration regarding our marriage, and so, I can assure you, is Caddy.", "pos": 939488}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Very. Ve-ry!", "pos": 939681}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "My dear son, and dear daughter, I have done my duty. If the spirit of a sainted wooman hovers above us and looks down on the occasion, that, and your constant affection, will be my recompense. You will not fail in YOUR duty, my son and daughter, I believe?", "pos": 939712}
{"speaker": "Prince", "text": "Dear father, never!", "pos": 939994}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Never, never, dear Mr. Turveydrop!", "pos": 940030}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "This, is as it should be. My children, my home is yours, my heart is yours, my all is yours. I will never leave you; nothing but death shall part us. My dear son, you contemplate an absence of a week, I think?", "pos": 940079}
{"speaker": "Prince", "text": "A week, dear father. We shall return home this day week.", "pos": 940318}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "My dear child, let me, even under the present exceptional circumstances, recommend strict punctuality. It is highly important to keep the connexion together; and schools, if at all neglected, are apt to take offence.", "pos": 940377}
{"speaker": "Prince", "text": "This day week, father, we shall be sure to be home to dinner.", "pos": 940619}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "Good! You will find fires, my dear Caroline, in your own room, and dinner prepared in my apartment. Yes, yes, Prince! You and our Caroline will be strange in the upper part of the premises and will, therefore, dine that day in my apartment. Now, bless ye!", "pos": 940683}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "You are very welcome, sir. Pray don’t mention it! I hope this marriage is for the best, guardian,", "pos": 941480}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I hope it is, little woman. Patience. We shall see.", "pos": 941626}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Is the wind in the east to-day?", "pos": 941680}
{"speaker": "he", "text": "No.", "pos": 941771}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "But it must have been this morning, I think,", "pos": 941777}
{"speaker": "he", "text": "No", "pos": 941844}
{"speaker": "my dear girl", "text": "No", "pos": 941904}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Much YOU know of east winds, my ugly darling. Well! It was only their love for me, I know very well, and it is a long time ago. I must write it even if I rub it out again, because it gives me so much pleasure. They said there could be no east wind where Somebody was; they said that wherever Dame Durden went, there was sunshine and summer air.", "pos": 942023}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Well, Charley, we are improving. If we only get to make it round, we shall be perfect, Charley. Never mind, Charley. We shall do it in time.", "pos": 943139}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "Thank you, miss. If you please, miss, did you know a poor person of the name of Jenny?", "pos": 943735}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "A brickmaker’s wife, Charley? Yes.", "pos": 943824}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "She came and spoke to me when I was out a little while ago, and said you knew her, miss. She asked me if I wasn’t the young lady’s little maid—meaning you for the young lady, miss—and I said yes, miss.", "pos": 943861}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I thought she had left this neighbourhood altogether, Charley.", "pos": 944065}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "So she had, miss, but she’s come back again to where she used to live—she and Liz. Did you know another poor person of the name of Liz, miss?", "pos": 944130}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I think I do, Charley, though not by name.", "pos": 944274}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "That’s what she said! They have both come back, miss, and have been tramping high and low.", "pos": 944319}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Tramping high and low, have they, Charley?", "pos": 944432}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "Yes, miss. And this poor person came about the house three or four days, hoping to get a glimpse of you, miss—all she wanted, she said—but you were away. That was when she saw me. She saw me a-going about, miss, and she thought I looked like your maid!", "pos": 944477}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Did she though, really, Charley?", "pos": 944948}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "Yes, miss! Really and truly.", "pos": 944983}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And where did you see her, Charley?", "pos": 945403}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "By the doctor’s shop, miss. Like as Tom might have been, miss, if Emma and me had died after father,", "pos": 945499}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And she was getting medicine for him, Charley?", "pos": 945937}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "She said, miss, how that he had once done as much for her.", "pos": 945986}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Well, Charley, it appears to me that you and I can do no better than go round to Jenny’s and see what’s the matter.", "pos": 946243}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "I won’t go no more to the berryin ground. I ain’t a-going there, so I tell you!", "pos": 949208}
{"speaker": "Jenny", "text": "Don’t mind him, ma’am. He’ll soon come back to his head. Jo, Jo, what’s the matter?", "pos": 949382}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "I know wot she’s come for!", "pos": 949487}
{"speaker": "Jenny", "text": "Who?", "pos": 949531}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "The lady there. She’s come to get me to go along with her to the berryin ground. I won’t go to the berryin ground. I don’t like the name on it. She might go a-berryin ME.", "pos": 949538}
{"speaker": "Jenny", "text": "He has been talking off and on about such like all day, ma’am. Why, how you stare! This is MY lady, Jo.", "pos": 949795}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Is it? She looks to me the t’other one. It ain’t the bonnet, nor yet it ain’t the gownd, but she looks to me the t’other one. I say! YOU tell me. Ain’t the lady the t’other lady? Oh! Then I s’pose she ain’t.", "pos": 949922}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I came to see if I could do you any good. What is the matter with you?", "pos": 950682}
{"speaker": "the boy", "text": "I’m a-being froze, and then burnt up, and then froze, and then burnt up, ever so many times in a hour. And my head’s all sleepy, and all a-going mad-like—and I’m so dry—and my bones isn’t half so much bones as pain.", "pos": 950765}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "When did he come here?", "pos": 951054}
{"speaker": "the woman", "text": "This morning, ma’am, I found him at the corner of the town. I had known him up in London yonder. Hadn’t I, Jo?", "pos": 951098}
{"speaker": "the boy", "text": "Tom-all-Alone’s,", "pos": 951211}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "When did he come from London?", "pos": 951425}
{"speaker": "the boy", "text": "I come from London yes’day. I’m a-going somewheres.", "pos": 951466}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Where is he going?", "pos": 951565}
{"speaker": "the boy", "text": "Somewheres. I have been moved on, and moved on, more nor ever I was afore, since the t’other one give me the sov’ring. Mrs. Snagsby, she’s always a-watching, and a-driving of me—what have I done to her?—and they’re all a-watching and a-driving of me. Every one of ’em’s doing of it, from the time when I don’t get up, to the time when I don’t go to bed. And I’m a-going somewheres. That’s where I’m a-going. She told me, down in Tom-all-Alone’s, as she came from Stolbuns, and so I took the Stolbuns Road. It’s as good as another.", "pos": 951595}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "What is to be done with him? He could not travel in this state even if he had a purpose and knew where he was going!", "pos": 952208}
{"speaker": "the woman", "text": "I know no more, ma’am, than the dead. Perhaps the dead know better, if they could only tell us. I’ve kept him here all day for pity’s sake, and I’ve given him broth and physic, and Liz has gone to try if any one will take him in (here’s my pretty in the bed—her child, but I call it mine); but I can’t keep him long, for if my husband was to come home and find him here, he’d be rough in putting him out and might do him a hurt. Hark! Here comes Liz back!", "pos": 952361}
{"speaker": "the other woman", "text": "Jenny, your master’s on the road home, and mine’s not far behind, and the Lord help the boy, for we can do no more for him!", "pos": 953813}
{"speaker": "its mother", "text": "Give me the child, my dear, and thank you kindly too! Jenny, woman dear, good night! Young lady, if my master don’t fall out with me, I’ll look down by the kiln by and by, where the boy will be most like, and again in the morning!", "pos": 954096}
{"speaker": "the boy", "text": "I don’t want no shelter. I can lay amongst the warm bricks.", "pos": 955368}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "But don’t you know that people die there?", "pos": 955441}
{"speaker": "the boy", "text": "They dies everywheres. They dies in their lodgings—she knows where; I showed her—and they dies down in Tom-all-Alone’s in heaps. They dies more than they lives, according to what I see. If she ain’t the t’other one, she ain’t the forrenner. Is there THREE of ’em then?", "pos": 955502}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "This is a sorrowful case. What do you say, Harold?", "pos": 956995}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "You had better turn him out,", "pos": 957143}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "What do you mean?", "pos": 957193}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "My dear Jarndyce, you know what I am: I am a child. Be cross to me if I deserve it. But I have a constitutional objection to this sort of thing. I always had, when I was a medical man. He’s not safe, you know. There’s a very bad sort of fever about him. You’ll say it’s childish. Well, I dare say it may be; but I AM a child, and I never pretend to be anything else. If you put him out in the road, you only put him where he was before. He will be no worse off than he was, you know. Even make him better off, if you like. Give him sixpence, or five shillings, or five pound ten—you are arithmeticians, and I am not—and get rid of him!", "pos": 957251}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And what is he to do then?", "pos": 958098}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Upon my life. I have not the least idea what he is to do then. But I have no doubt he’ll do it.", "pos": 958146}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Now, is it not a horrible reflection, is it not a horrible reflection,", "pos": 958314}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "My dear Jarndyce, you’ll pardon the simplicity of the question, coming as it does from a creature who is perfectly simple in worldly matters, but why ISN’T he a prisoner then? Our young friend is not to be suspected of any delicacy, I should imagine. It seems to me that it would be wiser, as well as in a certain kind of way more respectable, if he showed some misdirected energy that got him into prison. There would be more of an adventurous spirit in it, and consequently more of a certain sort of poetry.", "pos": 958693}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I believe, that there is not such another child on earth as yourself.", "pos": 959380}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Do you really? I dare say! But I confess I don’t see why our young friend, in his degree, should not seek to invest himself with such poetry as is open to him. He is no doubt born with an appetite—probably, when he is in a safer state of health, he has an excellent appetite. Very well. At our young friend’s natural dinner hour, most likely about noon, our young friend says in effect to society, ‘I am hungry; will you have the goodness to produce your spoon and feed me?’ Society, which has taken upon itself the general arrangement of the whole system of spoons and professes to have a spoon for our young friend, does NOT produce that spoon; and our young friend, therefore, says ‘You really must excuse me if I seize it.’ Now, this appears to me a case of misdirected energy, which has a certain amount of reason in it and a certain amount of romance; and I don’t know but what I should be more interested in our young friend, as an illustration of such a case, than merely as a poor vagabond—which any one can be.", "pos": 959502}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "In the meantime,", "pos": 960546}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "In the meantime, as Miss Summerson, with her practical good sense, observes, he is getting worse. Therefore I recommend your turning him out before he gets still worse.", "pos": 960611}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Of course, little woman. I can ensure his admission into the proper place by merely going there to enforce it, though it’s a bad state of things when, in his condition, that is necessary. But it’s growing late, and is a very bad night, and the boy is worn out already. There is a bed in the wholesome loft-room by the stable; we had better keep him there till morning, when he can be wrapped up and removed. We’ll do that.", "pos": 960884}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Oh! Are you going back to our young friend?", "pos": 961348}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Yes,", "pos": 961475}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "How I envy you your constitution, Jarndyce! You don’t mind these things; neither does Miss Summerson. You are ready at all times to go anywhere, and do anything. Such is will! I have no will at all—and no won’t—simply can’t.", "pos": 961500}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "You can’t recommend anything for the boy, I suppose?", "pos": 961776}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "My dear Jarndyce, I observed a bottle of cooling medicine in his pocket, and it’s impossible for him to do better than take it. You can tell them to sprinkle a little vinegar about the place where he sleeps and to keep it moderately cool and him moderately warm. But it is mere impertinence in me to offer any recommendation. Miss Summerson has such a knowledge of detail and such a capacity for the administration of detail that she knows all about it.", "pos": 961980}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Thrown on the wide world, doomed to wander and roam, Bereft of his parents, bereft of a home.", "pos": 964071}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "It’s the boy, miss,", "pos": 965670}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Is he worse?", "pos": 965701}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Gone, miss.", "pos": 965728}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Dead!", "pos": 965742}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Dead, miss? No. Gone clean off.", "pos": 965750}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "Charley,", "pos": 967729}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "are you so cold?", "pos": 967748}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "I think I am, miss. I don’t know what it is. I can’t hold myself still. I felt so yesterday at about this same time, miss. Don’t be uneasy, I think I’m ill.", "pos": 967767}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Not now, my dearest. Go away. There’s nothing the matter; I will come to you presently.", "pos": 968187}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "You’re getting quite strong, Charley, are you not?", "pos": 973795}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "Oh, quite!", "pos": 973848}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Strong enough to be told a secret, I think, Charley?", "pos": 973875}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "Quite strong enough for that, miss! Oh, miss, it’s my doing! It’s my doing!", "pos": 973930}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Now, Charley, if I am to be ill, my great trust, humanly speaking, is in you. And unless you are as quiet and composed for me as you always were for yourself, you can never fulfil it, Charley.", "pos": 974249}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "If you’ll let me cry a little longer, miss. Oh, my dear, my dear! If you’ll only let me cry a little longer. Oh, my dear! I’ll be good. Trust in me now, if you please, miss. I am listening to everything you say.", "pos": 974497}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "It’s very little at present, Charley. I shall tell your doctor to-night that I don’t think I am well and that you are going to nurse me. And in the morning, when you hear Miss Ada in the garden, if I should not be quite able to go to the window-curtain as usual, do you go, Charley, and say I am asleep—that I have rather tired myself, and am asleep. At all times keep the room as I have kept it, Charley, and let no one come.", "pos": 974931}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Don’t disturb her, Charley, for the world!", "pos": 976010}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "How does my own Pride look, Charley?", "pos": 976055}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "Disappointed, miss,", "pos": 976106}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "But I know she is very beautiful this morning.", "pos": 976171}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "She is indeed, miss. Still looking up at the window.", "pos": 976220}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Now, Charley, when she knows I am ill, she will try to make her way into the room. Keep her out, Charley, if you love me truly, to the last! Charley, if you let her in but once, only to look upon me for one moment as I lie here, I shall die.", "pos": 976439}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "I never will! I never will!", "pos": 976683}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I believe it, my dear Charley. And now come and sit beside me for a little while, and touch me with your hand. For I cannot see you, Charley; I am blind.", "pos": 976730}
{"speaker": "Little Swills", "text": "Listen, listen, listen, tew the wa-ter fall!", "pos": 979098}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Perkins", "text": "Sooner than which, myself. I would get my living by selling lucifers.", "pos": 979638}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "What, Mr. Weevle? Are YOU there?", "pos": 982117}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Aye! Here I am, Mr. Snagsby.", "pos": 982193}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Airing yourself, as I am doing, before you go to bed?", "pos": 982239}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Why, there’s not much air to be got here; and what there is, is not very freshening,", "pos": 982319}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Very true, sir. Don’t you observe, don’t you observe, Mr. Weevle, that you’re—not to put too fine a point upon it—that you’re rather greasy here, sir?", "pos": 982454}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Why, I have noticed myself that there is a queer kind of flavour in the place to-night. I suppose it’s chops at the Sol’s Arms.", "pos": 982672}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Chops, do you think? Oh! Chops, eh? Well, sir, I suppose it is. But I should say their cook at the Sol wanted a little looking after. She has been burning ’em, sir! And I don’t think I don’t think—not to put too fine a point upon it—that they were quite fresh when they were shown the gridiron.", "pos": 982824}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "That’s very likely. It’s a tainting sort of weather.", "pos": 983233}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "It IS a tainting sort of weather, and I find it sinking to the spirits.", "pos": 983288}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "By George! I find it gives me the horrors,", "pos": 983382}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Then, you see, you live in a lonesome way, and in a lonesome room, with a black circumstance hanging over it. I couldn’t live in that room alone, as you do, sir. I should get so fidgety and worried of an evening, sometimes, that I should be driven to come to the door and stand here sooner than sit there. But then it’s very true that you didn’t see, in your room, what I saw there. That makes a difference.", "pos": 983447}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "I know quite enough about it,", "pos": 983991}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "It’s not agreeable, is it? Mr. Krook ought to consider it in the rent. I hope he does, I am sure.", "pos": 984037}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "I hope he does. But I doubt it.", "pos": 984215}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "You find the rent too high, do you, sir? Rents ARE high about here. I don’t know how it is exactly, but the law seems to put things up in price. Not, that I mean to say a word against the profession I get my living by. It’s a curious fact, sir, that he should have been—", "pos": 984262}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Who’s he?", "pos": 984884}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "The deceased, you know,", "pos": 984919}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Ah, to be sure! I thought we had done with him.", "pos": 985065}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "I was only going to say it’s a curious fact, sir, that he should have come and lived here, and been one of my writers, and then that you should come and live here, and be one of my writers too. Which there is nothing derogatory, but far from it in the appellation, because I have known writers that have gone into brewers’ houses and done really very respectable indeed. Eminently respectable, sir,", "pos": 985179}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "It’s a curious coincidence, as you say,", "pos": 985777}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Seems a fate in it, don’t there?", "pos": 985877}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "There does.", "pos": 985936}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Just so. Quite a fate in it. Quite a fate. Well, Mr. Weevle, I am afraid I must bid you good night my little woman will be looking for me else. Good night, sir!", "pos": 985950}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "You’ll know me again, ma’am, at all events, and I can’t compliment you on your appearance, whoever you are, with your head tied up in a bundle. Is this fellow NEVER coming! I thought you had gone to Jericho at least instead of coming here. Why, I said about ten. You said about ten. Yes, so you did say about ten. But according to my count, it’s ten times ten—it’s a hundred o’clock. I never had such a night in my life! That’s it! Nothing has been the matter. But here have I been stewing and fuming in this jolly old crib till I have had the horrors falling on me as thick as hail. THERE’S a blessed-looking candle!", "pos": 986671}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "That’s easily improved,", "pos": 987795}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "IS it? Not so easily as you think. It has been smouldering like that ever since it was lighted.", "pos": 987874}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Why, what’s the matter with you, Tony?", "pos": 987994}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "William Guppy, I am in the downs. It’s this unbearably dull, suicidal room—and old Boguey downstairs, I suppose. Yes, and he—yes, it was Snagsby,", "pos": 988134}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "On business?", "pos": 988675}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "No. No business. He was only sauntering by and stopped to prose.", "pos": 988690}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "I thought it was Snagsby, and thought it as well that he shouldn’t see me, so I waited till he was gone.", "pos": 988757}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "There we go again, William G.! So mysterious and secret! By George, if we were going to commit a murder, we couldn’t have more mystery about it!", "pos": 988882}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Tony. I can make allowances for lowness of spirits, for no man knows what it is when it does come upon a man better than I do, and no man perhaps has a better right to know it than a man who has an unrequited image imprinted on his ’eart. But there are bounds to these things when an unoffending party is in question, and I will acknowledge to you, Tony, that I don’t think your manner on the present occasion is hospitable or quite gentlemanly.", "pos": 989678}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "This is strong language, William Guppy,", "pos": 990393}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Sir, it may be, but I feel strongly when I use it. No! Dash it, Tony, you really ought to be careful how you wound the feelings of a man who has an unrequited image imprinted on his ’eart and who is NOT altogether happy in those chords which vibrate to the tenderest emotions. You, Tony, possess in yourself all that is calculated to charm the eye and allure the taste. It is not—happily for you, perhaps, and I may wish that I could say the same—it is not your character to hover around one flower. The ole garden is open to you, and your airy pinions carry you through it. Still, Tony, far be it from me, I am sure, to wound even your feelings without a cause!", "pos": 990455}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "William Guppy, drop it!", "pos": 991475}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "I never should have taken it up, Tony, of my own accord.", "pos": 991539}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "And now, touching this same bundle of letters. Isn’t it an extraordinary thing of Krook to have appointed twelve o’clock to-night to hand ’em over to me?", "pos": 991598}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Very. What did he do it for?", "pos": 991786}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "What does he do anything for? HE don’t know. Said to-day was his birthday and he’d hand ’em over to-night at twelve o’clock. He’ll have drunk himself blind by that time. He has been at it all day.", "pos": 991817}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Forgotten? Trust him for that. He never forgets anything. I saw him to-night, about eight—helped him to shut up his shop—and he had got the letters then in his hairy cap. He pulled it off and showed ’em me. When the shop was closed, he took them out of his cap, hung his cap on the chair-back, and stood turning them over before the fire. I heard him a little while afterwards, through the floor here, humming like the wind, the only song he knows—about Bibo, and old Charon, and Bibo being drunk when he died, or something or other. He has been as quiet since as an old rat asleep in his hole. At twelve. And as I tell you, when you came it seemed to me a hundred. Tony, he can’t read yet, can he?", "pos": 992063}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Read! He’ll never read. He can make all the letters separately, and he knows most of them separately when he sees them; he has got on that much, under me; but he can’t put them together. He’s too old to acquire the knack of it now—and too drunk.", "pos": 992871}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Tony, how do you suppose he spelt out that name of Hawdon?", "pos": 993119}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "He never spelt it out. You know what a curious power of eye he has and how he has been used to employ himself in copying things by eye alone. He imitated it, evidently from the direction of a letter, and asked me what it meant.", "pos": 993234}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Tony, should you say that the original was a man’s writing or a woman’s?", "pos": 993464}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "A woman’s. Fifty to one a lady’s—slopes a good deal, and the end of the letter ‘n,’ long and hasty.", "pos": 993599}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Why, Tony, what on earth is going on in this house to-night? Is there a chimney on fire? Ah! See how the soot’s falling. See here, on my arm! See again, on the table here! Confound the stuff, it won’t blow off—smears like black fat!", "pos": 993947}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "It’s all right and all quiet, and quotes the remark he lately made to Mr. Snagsby about their cooking chops at the Sol’s Arms.", "pos": 994362}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "And it was then, that he told you of his having taken the bundle of letters from his lodger’s portmanteau?", "pos": 994490}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "That was the time, sir. Whereupon I wrote a line to my dear boy, the Honourable William Guppy, informing him of the appointment for to-night and advising him not to call before, Boguey being a slyboots.", "pos": 994808}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "You are to bring the letters to your room to read and compare, and to get yourself into a position to tell him all about them. That’s the arrangement, isn’t it, Tony?", "pos": 995318}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "You can’t speak too low. Yes. That’s what he and I agreed.", "pos": 995536}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "I tell you what, Tony—", "pos": 995597}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "You can’t speak too low,", "pos": 995622}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "I tell you what. The first thing to be done is to make another packet like the real one so that if he should ask to see the real one while it’s in my possession, you can show him the dummy.", "pos": 995755}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "And suppose he detects the dummy as soon as he sees it, which with his biting screw of an eye is about five hundred times more likely than not,", "pos": 995947}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Then we’ll face it out. They don’t belong to him, and they never did. You found that, and you placed them in my hands—a legal friend of yours—for security. If he forces us to it, they’ll be producible, won’t they?", "pos": 996108}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Ye-es,", "pos": 996324}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "how you look! You don’t doubt William Guppy? You don’t suspect any harm?", "pos": 996408}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "I don’t suspect anything more than I know, William,", "pos": 996483}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "And what do you know? What do you know?", "pos": 996564}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "I know three things. First, I know that here we are whispering in secrecy, a pair of conspirators.", "pos": 996823}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Well! And we had better be that than a pair of noodles, which we should be if we were doing anything else, for it’s the only way of doing what we want to do. Secondly?", "pos": 996924}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Secondly, it’s not made out to me how it’s likely to be profitable, after all.", "pos": 997112}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Tony, you are asked to leave that to the honour of your friend. Besides its being calculated to serve that friend in those chords of the human mind which—which need not be called into agonizing vibration on the present occasion—your friend is no fool. What’s that?", "pos": 997287}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "It’s eleven o’clock striking by the bell of Saint Paul’s. Listen and you’ll hear all the bells in the city jangling.", "pos": 997554}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Yes, Tony? You were going to say, thirdly?", "pos": 998368}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "It’s far from a pleasant thing to be plotting about a dead man in the room where he died, especially when you happen to live in it.", "pos": 998494}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "But we are plotting nothing against him, Tony.", "pos": 998628}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "May be not, still I don’t like it. Live here by yourself and see how YOU like it.", "pos": 998677}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "As to dead men, Tony, there have been dead men in most rooms.", "pos": 998761}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "I know there have, but in most rooms you let them alone, and—and they let you alone,", "pos": 998870}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Fah! Here’s more of this hateful soot hanging about. Let us open the window a bit and get a mouthful of air. It’s too close. By the by, Tony, don’t forget old Smallweed. I have not let him into this, you know. That grandfather of his is too keen by half. It runs in the family.", "pos": 999259}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "I remember. I am up to all that.", "pos": 1000068}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "And as to Krook. Now, do you suppose he really has got hold of any other papers of importance, as he has boasted to you, since you have been such allies?", "pos": 1000116}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "I don’t know. Can’t imagine. If we get through this business without rousing his suspicions, I shall be better informed, no doubt. How can I know without seeing them, when he don’t know himself? He is always spelling out words from them, and chalking them over the table and the shop-wall, and asking what this is and what that is; but his whole stock from beginning to end may easily be the waste-paper he bought it as, for anything I can say. It’s a monomania with him to think he is possessed of documents. He has been going to learn to read them this last quarter of a century, I should judge, from what he tells me.", "pos": 1000315}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "How did he first come by that idea, though? That’s the question. He may have found papers in something he bought, where papers were not supposed to be, and may have got it into his shrewd head from the manner and place of their concealment that they are worth something.", "pos": 1000938}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Or he may have been taken in, in some pretended bargain. Or he may have been muddled altogether by long staring at whatever he HAS got, and by drink, and by hanging about the Lord Chancellor’s Court and hearing of documents for ever,", "pos": 1001287}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "What, in the devil’s name, is this! Look at my fingers!", "pos": 1001765}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "I pouring out of window! Nothing, I swear! Never, since I have been here!", "pos": 1002111}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "This is a horrible house. Give me some water or I shall cut my hand off.", "pos": 1002398}
{"speaker": "the lodger", "text": "It’s the appointed time at last. Shall I go?", "pos": 1002871}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Have you got them? Got them! No. The old man’s not there.", "pos": 1003217}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "What’s the matter?", "pos": 1003411}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "I couldn’t make him hear, and I softly opened the door and looked in. And the burning smell is there—and the soot is there, and the oil is there—and he is not there!", "pos": 1003432}
{"speaker": "the lodger", "text": "Look! I told you so. When I saw him last, he took his cap off, took out the little bundle of old letters, hung his cap on the back of the chair—his coat was there already, for he had pulled that off before he went to put the shutters up—and I left him turning the letters over in his hand, standing just where that crumbled black thing is upon the floor.", "pos": 1004172}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "See! At the foot of the same chair there lies a dirty bit of thin red cord that they tie up pens with. That went round the letters. He undid it slowly, leering and laughing at me, before he began to turn them over, and threw it there. I saw it fall.", "pos": 1004669}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "What’s the matter with the cat? Look at her!", "pos": 1004938}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Mad, I think. And no wonder in this evil place.", "pos": 1005003}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Help, help, help!", "pos": 1005688}
{"speaker": "the pot-boy", "text": "There’ll be a run upon us!", "pos": 1009952}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bogsby", "text": "This is not a time, to haggle about money, give your orders, you two gentlemen, and you’re welcome to whatever you put a name to.", "pos": 1010709}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Good gracious, gentlemen! What’s this I hear!", "pos": 1012545}
{"speaker": "one of the policemen", "text": "Why, it’s true. That’s what it is. Now move on here, come!", "pos": 1012624}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Why, good gracious, gentlemen. I was at this door last night betwixt ten and eleven o’clock in conversation with the young man who lodges here.", "pos": 1012717}
{"speaker": "the policeman", "text": "Indeed? You will find the young man next door then. Now move on here, some of you.", "pos": 1012914}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Not hurt, I hope?", "pos": 1013024}
{"speaker": "the policeman", "text": "Hurt? No. What’s to hurt him!", "pos": 1013062}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "And Mr. Guppy likewise! Dear, dear, dear! What a fate there seems in all this! And my lit— My dear, will you take anything? A little—not to put too fine a point upon it—drop of shrub?", "pos": 1013343}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Snagsby", "text": "No,", "pos": 1013881}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "My love, you know these two gentlemen?", "pos": 1013906}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Snagsby", "text": "Yes!", "pos": 1013947}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "My little woman, why do you look at me in that way? Pray don’t do it.", "pos": 1014190}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Snagsby", "text": "I can’t help my looks, and if I could I wouldn’t.", "pos": 1014262}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Wouldn’t you really, my dear? This is a dreadful mystery, my love!", "pos": 1014385}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Snagsby", "text": "It IS, a dreadful mystery.", "pos": 1014566}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "My little woman, don’t for goodness’ sake speak to me with that bitter expression and look at me in that searching way! I beg and entreat of you not to do it. Good Lord, you don’t suppose that I would go spontaneously combusting any person, my dear?", "pos": 1014678}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Snagsby", "text": "I can’t say,", "pos": 1014930}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "My life, would you have any objections to mention why, being in general so delicately circumspect in your conduct, you come into a wine-vaults before breakfast?", "pos": 1015384}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Snagsby", "text": "Why do YOU come here?", "pos": 1015577}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "My dear, merely to know the rights of the fatal accident which has happened to the venerable party who has been—combusted. I should then have related them to you, my love, over your French roll.", "pos": 1015624}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Snagsby", "text": "I dare say you would! You relate everything to me, Mr. Snagsby. I should be glad, if you would come home with me; I think you may be safer there, Mr. Snagsby, than anywhere else.", "pos": 1015873}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "My love, I don’t know but what I may be, I am sure. I am ready to go.", "pos": 1016170}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "There can be no more favourable time than the present, Tony, for a word or two between us upon a point on which we must, with very little delay, come to an understanding.", "pos": 1017092}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Now, I tell you what, William G.! If it’s a point of conspiracy, you needn’t take the trouble to mention it. I have had enough of that, and I ain’t going to have any more. We shall have YOU taking fire next or blowing up with a bang.", "pos": 1017348}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Tony, I should have thought that what we went through last night would have been a lesson to you never to be personal any more as long as you lived.", "pos": 1017765}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "William, I should have thought it would have been a lesson to YOU never to conspire any more as long as you lived.", "pos": 1017945}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Who’s conspiring?", "pos": 1018087}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Why, YOU are!", "pos": 1018137}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "No, I am not.", "pos": 1018181}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Yes, you are!", "pos": 1018233}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Who says so?", "pos": 1018277}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "I say so!", "pos": 1018322}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Oh, indeed?", "pos": 1018362}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Yes, indeed!", "pos": 1018406}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Tony, when I say there is a point on which we must come to an understanding pretty soon, I say so quite apart from any kind of conspiring, however innocent. You know it is professionally arranged beforehand in all cases that are tried what facts the witnesses are to prove. Is it or is it not desirable that we should know what facts we are to prove on the inquiry into the death of this unfortunate old mo—gentleman?", "pos": 1019012}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "What facts? THE facts.", "pos": 1019529}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "The facts bearing on that inquiry. Those are what we knew of his habits, when you saw him last, what his condition was then, the discovery that we made, and how we made it.", "pos": 1019554}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Yes. Those are about the facts.", "pos": 1019771}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "We made the discovery in consequence of his having, in his eccentric way, an appointment with you at twelve o’clock at night, when you were to explain some writing to him as you had often done before on account of his not being able to read. I, spending the evening with you, was called down—and so forth. The inquiry being only into the circumstances touching the death of the deceased, it’s not necessary to go beyond these facts, I suppose you’ll agree?", "pos": 1019824}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "No! I suppose not.", "pos": 1020282}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "And this is not a conspiracy, perhaps?", "pos": 1020325}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "No, if it’s nothing worse than this, I withdraw the observation.", "pos": 1020390}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Now, Tony. I should like to know, in a friendly way, whether you have yet thought over the many advantages of your continuing to live at that place?", "pos": 1020479}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "What do you mean?", "pos": 1020696}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Whether you have yet thought over the many advantages of your continuing to live at that place?", "pos": 1020737}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "At what place? THAT place? Why, I wouldn’t pass another night there for any consideration that you could offer me,", "pos": 1020876}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Do you mean it though, Tony?", "pos": 1021101}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Mean it! Do I look as if I mean it? I feel as if I do; I know that,", "pos": 1021132}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Then the possibility or probability—for such it must be considered—of your never being disturbed in possession of those effects lately belonging to a lone old man who seemed to have no relation in the world, and the certainty of your being able to find out what he really had got stored up there, don’t weigh with you at all against last night, Tony, if I understand you?", "pos": 1021247}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Certainly not. Talk in that cool way of a fellow’s living there? Go and live there yourself.", "pos": 1021685}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Oh! I, Tony! I have never lived there and couldn’t get a lodging there now, whereas you have got one.", "pos": 1021812}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "You are welcome to it, and—ugh!—you may make yourself at home in it.", "pos": 1021948}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Then you really and truly at this point, give up the whole thing, if I understand you, Tony?", "pos": 1022041}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "You never, said a truer word in all your life. I do!", "pos": 1022154}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "How de do, sir! How de do!", "pos": 1022857}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "What do Chick and his family want here at this time of the morning, I wonder!", "pos": 1022886}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "My dear sir, would you do me a favour? Would you and your friend be so very obleeging as to carry me into the public-house in the court, while Bart and his sister bring their grandmother along? Would you do an old man that good turn, sir?", "pos": 1023007}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "The public-house in the court?", "pos": 1023333}
{"speaker": "patriarch", "text": "There’s your fare! Ask me for a penny more, and I’ll have my lawful revenge upon you. My dear young men, be easy with me, if you please. Allow me to catch you round the neck. I won’t squeeze you tighter than I can help. Oh, Lord! Oh, dear me! Oh, my bones!", "pos": 1023431}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Oh, Lord! Oh, dear me! Oh, my bones and back! Oh, my aches and pains! Sit down, you dancing, prancing, shambling, scrambling poll-parrot! Sit down!", "pos": 1024187}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "My dear sir, there has been a calamity here. Have you heard of it, either of you?", "pos": 1025177}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Heard of it, sir! Why, we discovered it.", "pos": 1025322}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "You discovered it. You two discovered it! Bart, THEY discovered it! My dear friends. I owe you a thousand thanks for discharging the melancholy office of discovering the ashes of Mrs. Smallweed’s brother.", "pos": 1025365}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Eh?", "pos": 1025706}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Mrs. Smallweed’s brother, my dear friend—her only relation. We were not on terms, which is to be deplored now, but he never WOULD be on terms. He was not fond of us. He was eccentric—he was very eccentric. Unless he has left a will (which is not at all likely) I shall take out letters of administration. I have come down to look after the property; it must be sealed up, it must be protected. I have come down, to look after the property.", "pos": 1025728}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "I think, Small, you might have mentioned that the old man was your uncle.", "pos": 1026265}
{"speaker": "Small", "text": "You two were so close about him that I thought you would like me to be the same. Besides, I wasn’t proud of him.", "pos": 1026376}
{"speaker": "Judy", "text": "Besides which, it was nothing to you, you know, whether he was or not,", "pos": 1026547}
{"speaker": "Small", "text": "He never saw me in his life to know me. I don’t know why I should introduce HIM, I am sure!", "pos": 1026668}
{"speaker": "old gentleman", "text": "No, he never communicated with us, which is to be deplored, but I have come to look after the property—to look over the papers, and to look after the property. We shall make good our title. It is in the hands of my solicitor. Mr. Tulkinghorn, of Lincoln’s Inn Fields, over the way there, is so good as to act as my solicitor; and grass don’t grow under HIS feet, I can tell ye. Krook was Mrs. Smallweed’s only brother; she had no relation but Krook, and Krook had no relation but Mrs. Smallweed. I am speaking of your brother, you brimstone black-beetle, that was seventy-six years of age.", "pos": 1026780}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Smallweed", "text": "Seventy-six pound seven and sevenpence! Seventy-six thousand bags of money! Seventy-six hundred thousand million of parcels of bank-notes!", "pos": 1027467}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Will somebody give me a quart pot? Will somebody obleege me with a spittoon? Will somebody hand me anything hard and bruising to pelt at her? You hag, you cat, you dog, you brimstone barker! Shake me up, somebody, if you’ll be so good. I have come to look after the property. Shake me up, and call in the police on duty at the next house to be explained to about the property. My solicitor will be here presently to protect the property. Transportation or the gallows for anybody who shall touch the property! The—the property! The property! Property!", "pos": 1027608}
{"speaker": "coroner", "text": "that would seem to be an unlucky house next door, gentlemen, a destined house; but so we sometimes find it, and these are mysteries we can’t account for!", "pos": 1033816}
{"speaker": "Mercury", "text": "to pitch into the young man", "pos": 1035064}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "I have to beg your ladyship’s pardon. This is an inconvenient time—", "pos": 1035546}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I told you, you could come at any time.", "pos": 1035653}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Thank your ladyship. Your ladyship is very affable.", "pos": 1035763}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "You can sit down.", "pos": 1035817}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "I don’t know, your ladyship, that it’s worth while my sitting down and detaining you, for I—I have not got the letters that I mentioned when I had the honour of waiting on your ladyship.", "pos": 1035879}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Have you come merely to say so?", "pos": 1036068}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Merely to say so, your ladyship.", "pos": 1036102}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "In short, your ladyship, the person I was to have had the letters of, has come to a sudden end, and—", "pos": 1036681}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "And the letters are destroyed with the person?", "pos": 1036884}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "I believe so, your ladyship.", "pos": 1036993}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Is this all you have to say? You had better be sure that you wish to say nothing more to me, this being the last time you will have the opportunity. That is enough. I will dispense with excuses. Good evening to you!", "pos": 1037275}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "I beg your pardon, Lady Dedlock. I beg your pardon a thousand times. It is so very unusual to find you here at this hour. I supposed the room was empty. I beg your pardon!", "pos": 1038230}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Stay! Remain here, I beg. I am going out to dinner. I have nothing more to say to this young man!", "pos": 1038404}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Aye, aye? From Kenge and Carboy’s, surely?", "pos": 1038652}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Kenge and Carboy’s, Mr. Tulkinghorn. Name of Guppy, sir.", "pos": 1038802}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "To be sure. Why, thank you, Mr. Guppy, I am very well!", "pos": 1038861}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Happy to hear it, sir. You can’t be too well, sir, for the credit of the profession.", "pos": 1038918}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Thank you, Mr. Guppy!", "pos": 1039005}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Now, what. Now, what may this be? Is it blank cartridge or ball? A flash in the pan or a shot?", "pos": 1039307}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Phil! Attention, Phil! Listen to this.", "pos": 1040252}
{"speaker": "Phil Squod", "text": "Steady, commander, steady.", "pos": 1040613}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "‘Sir. Allow me to remind you (though there is no legal necessity for my doing so, as you are aware) that the bill at two months’ date drawn on yourself by Mr. Matthew Bagnet, and by you accepted, for the sum of ninety-seven pounds four shillings and ninepence, will become due to-morrow, when you will please be prepared to take up the same on presentation. Yours, Joshua Smallweed.’ What do you make of that, Phil?", "pos": 1040643}
{"speaker": "Phil Squod", "text": "Mischief, guv’ner.", "pos": 1041060}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Why?", "pos": 1041081}
{"speaker": "Phil Squod", "text": "I think that mischeevious consequences is always meant when money’s asked for.", "pos": 1041187}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Lookye, Phil. First and last, I have paid, I may say, half as much again as this principal in interest and one thing and another. And lookye further, Phil. There has always been an understanding that this bill was to be what they call renewed. And it has been renewed no end of times. What do you say now?", "pos": 1041268}
{"speaker": "Phil Squod", "text": "I say that I think the times is come to a end at last.", "pos": 1041882}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "You do? Humph! I am much of the same mind myself.", "pos": 1041939}
{"speaker": "Phil Squod", "text": "Joshua Smallweed is him that was brought here in a chair?", "pos": 1041991}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "The same.", "pos": 1042051}
{"speaker": "Phil Squod", "text": "Guv’ner, he’s a leech in his dispositions, he’s a screw and a wice in his actions, a snake in his twistings, and a lobster in his claws. There IS a way, commander, of settling this.", "pos": 1042099}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Paying the money, I suppose? I wish I could.", "pos": 1042710}
{"speaker": "Phil Squod", "text": "No, guv’ner, no; not so bad as that. There IS a way, what I’m a-doing at present.", "pos": 1042779}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Whitewashing. A pretty way that would be! Do you know what would become of the Bagnets in that case? Do you know they would be ruined to pay off my old scores? YOU’RE a moral character, upon my life you are, Phil!", "pos": 1042917}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "Well, George, old fellow, and how do YOU do, this sunshiny morning?", "pos": 1045489}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "Now, George, here we are, Lignum and myself just looked in, we have, to make it all correct as usual about that security. Give him the new bill to sign, George, and he’ll sign it like a man.", "pos": 1046084}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I was coming to you this morning,", "pos": 1046553}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "Yes, we thought you’d come to us this morning, but we turned out early and left Woolwich, the best of boys, to mind his sisters and came to you instead—as you see! For Lignum, he’s tied so close now, and gets so little exercise, that a walk does him good. But what’s the matter, George? You don’t look yourself.", "pos": 1046623}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I am not quite myself. I have been a little put out, Mrs. Bagnet.", "pos": 1046988}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "George! Don’t tell me there’s anything wrong about that security of Lignum’s! Don’t do it, George, on account of the children! George,", "pos": 1047128}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "I am ashamed of you! George, I couldn’t have believed you would have done it! I always knew you to be a rolling stone that gathered no moss, but I never thought you would have taken away what little moss there was for Bagnet and the children to lie upon. You know what a hard-working, steady-going chap he is. You know what Quebec and Malta and Woolwich are, and I never did think you would, or could, have had the heart to serve us so. Oh, George! How could you do it?", "pos": 1048030}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Mat. I am sorry you take it so much to heart, because I do hope it’s not so bad as that comes to. I certainly have, this morning, received this letter but I hope it may be set right yet. As to a rolling stone, why, what you say is true. I AM a rolling stone, and I never rolled in anybody’s way, I fully believe, that I rolled the least good to. But it’s impossible for an old vagabond comrade to like your wife and family better than I like ’em, Mat, and I trust you’ll look upon me as forgivingly as you can. Don’t think I’ve kept anything from you. I haven’t had the letter more than a quarter of an hour.", "pos": 1048805}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "will you tell him my opinion?", "pos": 1049578}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "Oh! Why didn’t he marry. Joe Pouch’s widder in North America? Then he wouldn’t have got himself into these troubles.", "pos": 1049610}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "puts it correct—why didn’t you?", "pos": 1049816}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Well, she has a better husband by this time, I hope. Anyhow, here I stand, this present day, NOT married to Joe Pouch’s widder. What shall I do? You see all I have got about me. It’s not mine; it’s yours. Give the word, and I’ll sell off every morsel. If I could have hoped it would have brought in nearly the sum wanted, I’d have sold all long ago. Don’t believe that I’ll leave you or yours in the lurch, Mat. I’d sell myself first. I only wish, that I knew of any one who’d buy such a second-hand piece of old stores.", "pos": 1049850}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "give him another bit of my mind.", "pos": 1050496}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "George, you are not so much to be blamed, on full consideration, except for ever taking this business without the means.", "pos": 1050531}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "And that was like me! Like me, I know.", "pos": 1050675}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "Silence! The old girl, is correct—in her way of giving my opinions—hear me out!", "pos": 1050767}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "That was when you never ought to have asked for the security, George, and when you never ought to have got it, all things considered. But what’s done can’t be undone. You are always an honourable and straightforward fellow, as far as lays in your power, though a little flighty. On the other hand, you can’t admit but what it’s natural in us to be anxious with such a thing hanging over our heads. So forget and forgive all round, George. Come! Forget and forgive all round!", "pos": 1050868}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I do assure you both, there’s nothing I wouldn’t do to discharge this obligation. But whatever I have been able to scrape together has gone every two months in keeping it up. We have lived plainly enough here, Phil and I. But the gallery don’t quite do what was expected of it, and it’s not—in short, it’s not the mint. It was wrong in me to take it? Well, so it was. But I was in a manner drawn into that step, and I thought it might steady me, and set me up, and you’ll try to overlook my having such expectations, and upon my soul, I am very much obliged to you, and very much ashamed of myself.", "pos": 1051500}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "George, hear me out! Old girl, go on! the letter must be attended to without any delay, that it is advisable that George and he should immediately wait on Mr. Smallweed in person, and that the primary object is to save and hold harmless Mr. Bagnet, who had none of the money.", "pos": 1052370}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Don’t you mind a woman’s hasty word, George,", "pos": 1052876}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "I trust my old Lignum to you, and I am sure you’ll bring him through it.", "pos": 1052970}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "kindly said and that he WILL bring Lignum through it somehow.", "pos": 1053077}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "George, you know the old girl—she’s as sweet and as mild as milk. But touch her on the children—or myself—and she’s off like gunpowder.", "pos": 1053955}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "It does her credit, Mat!", "pos": 1054093}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "George, the old girl—can’t do anything—that don’t do her credit. More or less. I never say so. Discipline must be maintained.", "pos": 1054120}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "She’s worth her weight in gold,", "pos": 1054296}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "In gold? I’ll tell you what. The old girl’s weight—is twelve stone six. Would I take that weight—in any metal—for the old girl? No. Why not? Because the old girl’s metal is far more precious—than the preciousest metal. And she’s ALL metal!", "pos": 1054348}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "You are right, Mat!", "pos": 1054609}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "When she took me—and accepted of the ring—she ’listed under me and the children—heart and head; for life. She’s that earnest, and true to her colours—that, touch us with a finger—and she turns out—and stands to her arms. If the old girl fires wide—once in a way—at the call of duty—look over it, George. For she’s loyal!", "pos": 1054631}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Why, bless her, Mat. I think the higher of her for it!", "pos": 1054973}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "You are right!", "pos": 1055053}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "My dear friend. How de do? How de do? Who is our friend, my dear friend?", "pos": 1056012}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Why this, is Matthew Bagnet, who has obliged me in that matter of ours, you know.", "pos": 1056178}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Oh! Mr. Bagnet? Surely! Hope you’re well, Mr. Bagnet? Fine man, Mr. George! Military air, sir! Judy, bring the pipe.", "pos": 1056323}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Why, I don’t know, that the young woman need give herself that trouble, for to tell you the truth, I am not inclined to smoke it to-day.", "pos": 1056702}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Ain’t you? Judy, bring the pipe.", "pos": 1056866}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "The fact is, Mr. Smallweed, that I find myself in rather an unpleasant state of mind. It appears to me, sir, that your friend in the city has been playing tricks.", "pos": 1056924}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Oh, dear no! He never does that!", "pos": 1057108}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Don’t he? Well, I am glad to hear it, because I thought it might be HIS doing. This, you know, I am speaking of. This letter. What does it mean?", "pos": 1057173}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Judy. Have you got the pipe? Give it to me. Did you say what does it mean, my good friend?", "pos": 1057417}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Aye! Now, come, come, you know, Mr. Smallweed, a good lot of money has passed between us, and we are face to face at the present moment, and are both well aware of the understanding there has always been. I am prepared to do the usual thing which I have done regularly and to keep this matter going. I never got a letter like this from you before, and I have been a little put about by it this morning, because here’s my friend Matthew Bagnet, who, you know, had none of the money—", "pos": 1057530}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "I DON’T know it, you know,", "pos": 1058201}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Why, con-found you—it, I mean—I tell you so, don’t I?", "pos": 1058256}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Oh, yes, you tell me so. But I don’t know it.", "pos": 1058312}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Well! I know it.", "pos": 1058393}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Ah! That’s quite another thing! But it don’t matter. Mr. Bagnet’s situation is all one, whether or no.", "pos": 1058498}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "That’s just what I mean. As you say, Mr. Smallweed, here’s Matthew Bagnet liable to be fixed whether or no. Now, you see, that makes his good lady very uneasy in her mind, and me too, for whereas I’m a harum-scarum sort of a good-for-nought that more kicks than halfpence come natural to, why he’s a steady family man, don’t you see? Now, Mr. Smallweed, although you and I are good friends enough in a certain sort of a way, I am well aware that I can’t ask you to let my friend Bagnet off entirely.", "pos": 1058759}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Oh, dear, you are too modest. You can ASK me anything, Mr. George.", "pos": 1059356}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "And you can refuse, you mean, eh? Or not you so much, perhaps, as your friend in the city? Ha ha ha!", "pos": 1059499}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Ha ha ha!", "pos": 1059602}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Come! I am glad to find we can be pleasant, because I want to arrange this pleasantly. Here’s my friend Bagnet, and here am I. We’ll settle the matter on the spot, if you please, Mr. Smallweed, in the usual way. And you’ll ease my friend Bagnet’s mind, and his family’s mind, a good deal if you’ll just mention to him what our understanding is.", "pos": 1059802}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Oh, good gracious! Oh!", "pos": 1060233}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "But I think you asked me, Mr. George I think you asked me, what did the letter mean?", "pos": 1060492}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Why, yes, I did, but I don’t care to know particularly, if it’s all correct and pleasant.", "pos": 1060663}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "That’s what it means, my dear friend. I’ll smash you. I’ll crumble you. I’ll powder you. Go to the devil! Go to the devil! I’ll have no more of your pipe-smokings and swaggerings. What? You’re an independent dragoon, too! Go to my lawyer (you remember where; you have been there before) and show your independence now, will you? Come, my dear friend, there’s a chance for you. Open the street door, Judy; put these blusterers out! Call in help if they don’t go. Put ’em out!", "pos": 1060927}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Come, Mat, we must try the lawyer. Now, what do you think of this rascal?", "pos": 1062033}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "If my old girl had been here—I’d have told him!", "pos": 1062282}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "I beg your pardon, sir, but I think those gentlemen are military?", "pos": 1063437}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "Yes, ma’am. Formerly.", "pos": 1063671}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "I thought so. I was sure of it. My heart warms, gentlemen, at the sight of you. It always does at the sight of such. God bless you, gentlemen! You’ll excuse an old woman, but I had a son once who went for a soldier. A fine handsome youth he was, and good in his bold way, though some people did disparage him to his poor mother. I ask your pardon for troubling you, sir. God bless you, gentlemen!", "pos": 1063695}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "Same to you, ma’am! Don’t be cast down! ‘Why, soldiers, why—should we be melancholy, boys?’ Cheer up, my hearty!", "pos": 1064094}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Let ’em come in then! Now, you men, what do you want? Sergeant, I told you the last time I saw you that I don’t desire your company here. I have nothing to say to you. If you get into debt, you must pay your debts or take the consequences. You have no occasion to come here to learn that, I suppose? Very well! Then the other man—this man, if this is he—must pay it for you. Very well! Then you must pay it between you or you must both be sued for it and both suffer. You have had the money and must refund it. You are not to pocket other people’s pounds, shillings, and pence and escape scot-free.", "pos": 1064802}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I tell you, sergeant, I have nothing to say to you. I don’t like your associates and don’t want you here. This matter is not at all in my course of practice and is not in my office. Mr. Smallweed is good enough to offer these affairs to me, but they are not in my way. You must go to Melchisedech’s in Clifford’s Inn. I must make an apology to you, sir, for pressing myself upon you with so little encouragement—which is almost as unpleasant to me as it can be to you—but would you let me say a private word to you?", "pos": 1066004}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Now! I have no time to waste.", "pos": 1066638}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Well, sir, this man with me is the other party implicated in this unfortunate affair—nominally, only nominally—and my sole object is to prevent his getting into trouble on my account. He is a most respectable man with a wife and family, formerly in the Royal Artillery—", "pos": 1066866}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "My friend, I don’t care a pinch of snuff for the whole Royal Artillery establishment—officers, men, tumbrils, waggons, horses, guns, and ammunition.", "pos": 1067157}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "’Tis likely, sir. But I care a good deal for Bagnet and his wife and family being injured on my account. And if I could bring them through this matter, I should have no help for it but to give up without any other consideration what you wanted of me the other day.", "pos": 1067309}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Have you got it here?", "pos": 1067575}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I have got it here, sir.", "pos": 1067599}
{"speaker": "lawyer", "text": "Sergeant, make up your mind while I speak to you, for this is final. After I have finished speaking I have closed the subject, and I won’t re-open it. Understand that. You can leave here, for a few days, what you say you have brought here if you choose; you can take it away at once if you choose. In case you choose to leave it here, I can do this for you—I can replace this matter on its old footing, and I can go so far besides as to give you a written undertaking that this man Bagnet shall never be troubled in any way until you have been proceeded against to the utmost, that your means shall be exhausted before the creditor looks to his. This is in fact all but freeing him. Have you decided?", "pos": 1067626}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I must do it, sir. ’Tis only a letter of instructions, sir. The last I ever had from him.", "pos": 1068524}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "You can go. Show these men out, there!", "pos": 1069462}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "Old girl!", "pos": 1070876}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "Why, George! How low you are!", "pos": 1070946}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Am I? Not good company? Well, I am afraid I am not.", "pos": 1071028}
{"speaker": "Malta", "text": "He ain’t at all like Bluffy, mother!", "pos": 1071082}
{"speaker": "Quebec", "text": "Because he ain’t well, I think, mother,", "pos": 1071141}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Sure that’s a bad sign not to be like Bluffy, too! But it’s true, true, I am afraid. These little ones are always right!", "pos": 1071196}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "George, if I thought you cross enough to think of anything that a shrill old soldier’s wife—who could have bitten her tongue off afterwards and ought to have done it almost—said this morning, I don’t know what I shouldn’t say to you now.", "pos": 1071384}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "My kind soul of a darling. Not a morsel of it.", "pos": 1071660}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "Because really and truly, George, what I said and meant to say was that I trusted Lignum to you and was sure you’d bring him through it. And you HAVE brought him through it, noble!", "pos": 1071732}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Thankee, my dear! I am glad of your good opinion. See there, my boy, there’s a good loving forehead for you! All bright with love of you, my boy. A little touched by the sun and the weather through following your father about and taking care of you, but as fresh and wholesome as a ripe apple on a tree. The time will come, my boy, when this hair of your mother’s will be grey, and this forehead all crossed and re-crossed with wrinkles, and a fine old lady she’ll be then. Take care, while you are young, that you can think in those days, ‘I never whitened a hair of her dear head—I never marked a sorrowful line in her face!’ For of all the many things that you can think of when you are a man, you had better have THAT by you, Woolwich!", "pos": 1071915}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Oh, more of these never-ending stairs, Charley—more and more—piled up to the sky’, I think!", "pos": 1075430}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Never, my sweet girl, never!", "pos": 1076975}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Charley, if you go on in this way, I must lie down again, my darling, for I am weaker than I thought I was!", "pos": 1078690}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Yet, Charley. I miss something, surely, that I am accustomed to? Are the pictures all as they used to be?", "pos": 1079591}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "Every one of them, miss,", "pos": 1079841}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And the furniture, Charley?", "pos": 1079882}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "Except where I have moved it about to make more room, miss.", "pos": 1079912}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And yet. I miss some familiar object. Ah, I know what it is, Charley! It’s the looking-glass. It matters very little, Charley. I hope I can do without my old face very well.", "pos": 1079974}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "My dear, dear girl!", "pos": 1081033}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "My little woman,", "pos": 1081640}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Only for the best, guardian,", "pos": 1081752}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "For the best?", "pos": 1081791}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Why, no, my dear,", "pos": 1082194}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "I have thought it better not to mention it to her.", "pos": 1082226}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "And you speak of his writing to YOU,", "pos": 1082279}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "He thinks he could, my love,", "pos": 1082447}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "It has not changed yours, guardian.", "pos": 1082982}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "IS it possible, guardian,", "pos": 1083956}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Ah, my love, my love,", "pos": 1084042}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "It is a terrible misfortune, guardian.", "pos": 1084244}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "It is a terrible misfortune, little woman,", "pos": 1084285}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "We must not say so, Dame Durden,", "pos": 1084876}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "We WILL hope so, my Esther,", "pos": 1085351}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "When shall Ada come to see you, my love?", "pos": 1086763}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Dear guardian,", "pos": 1086969}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "As I have kept Ada out so long,", "pos": 1087365}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Our spoilt little woman,", "pos": 1088124}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "I swear if Miss Summerson do not come down and take possession of my house, which I vacate for her this day at one o’clock, P.M.", "pos": 1088727}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Now, little housewife,", "pos": 1089295}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Now, pet,", "pos": 1089813}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "My dear Fitz Jarndyce! Dear me! I have nothing here but documents, my dear Fitz Jarndyce; I must borrow a pocket handkerchief. With pleasure, my dear Fitz Jarndyce. Not the least pain. Pleasure to see you well again. Pleasure at having the honour of being admitted to see you. I am so much fonder of you, my love, than of the Chancellor. Though I DO attend court regularly. By the by, my dear, mentioning pocket handkerchiefs— Ve-ry right! Ve-ry correct. Truly! Highly indiscreet of me to mention it; but my dear Miss Fitz Jarndyce, I am afraid I am at times (between ourselves, you wouldn’t think it) a little—rambling you know. Nothing more.", "pos": 1091774}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "What were you going to tell me? You have roused my curiosity, and now you must gratify it.", "pos": 1092945}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "If you please, ma’am, you had better tell then,", "pos": 1093164}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "So sagacious, our young friend. Diminutive. But ve-ry sagacious! Well, my dear, it’s a pretty anecdote. Nothing more. Still I think it charming. Who should follow us down the road from the coach, my dear, but a poor person in a very ungenteel bonnet—", "pos": 1093263}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "Jenny, if you please, miss,", "pos": 1093556}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "Just so! Jenny. Ye-es! And what does she tell our young friend but that there has been a lady with a veil inquiring at her cottage after my dear Fitz Jarndyce’s health and taking a handkerchief away with her as a little keepsake merely because it was my amiable Fitz Jarndyce’s! Now, you know, so very prepossessing in the lady with the veil!", "pos": 1093600}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "If you please, miss. Jenny says that when her baby died, you left a handkerchief there, and that she put it away and kept it with the baby’s little things. I think, if you please, partly because it was yours, miss, and partly because it had covered the baby.", "pos": 1093996}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "Diminutive. But exceedingly sagacious! And so dear! My love, she’s clearer than any counsel I ever heard!", "pos": 1094312}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Yes, Charley. I remember it. Well?", "pos": 1094528}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "Well, miss, and that’s the handkerchief the lady took. And Jenny wants you to know that she wouldn’t have made away with it herself for a heap of money but that the lady took it and left some money instead. Jenny don’t know her at all, if you please, miss!", "pos": 1094579}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Why, who can she be?", "pos": 1094854}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "My love, in MY opinion—don’t mention this to our diminutive friend—she’s the Lord Chancellor’s wife. He’s married, you know. And I understand she leads him a terrible life. Throws his lordship’s papers into the fire, my dear, if he won’t pay the jeweller!", "pos": 1094885}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "You have attended on the Lord Chancellor many years, Miss Flite?", "pos": 1096270}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "Oh, many, many, many years, my dear. But I expect a judgment. Shortly.", "pos": 1096337}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Would it not be wiser, to expect this judgment no more?", "pos": 1096876}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "Why, my dear, of course it would!", "pos": 1096944}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And to attend the court no more?", "pos": 1097005}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "Equally of course. Very wearing to be always in expectation of what never comes, my dear Fitz Jarndyce! Wearing, I assure you, to the bone! Aye, aye, aye! You think so because I am a little rambling. Ve-ry absurd, to be a little rambling, is it not? Ve-ry confusing, too. To the head. I find it so. But, my dear, I have been there many years, and I have noticed. It’s the mace and seal upon the table.", "pos": 1097040}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "What could they do, did she think?", "pos": 1097928}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "Draw. Draw people on, my dear. Draw peace out of them. Sense out of them. Good looks out of them. Good qualities out of them. I have felt them even drawing my rest away in the night. Cold and glittering devils! Let me see. I’ll tell you my own case. Before they ever drew me—before I had ever seen them—what was it I used to do? Tambourine playing? No. Tambour work. I and my sister worked at tambour work. Our father and our brother had a builder’s business. We all lived together. Ve-ry respectably, my dear! First, our father was drawn—slowly. Home was drawn with him. In a few years he was a fierce, sour, angry bankrupt without a kind word or a kind look for any one. He had been so different, Fitz Jarndyce. He was drawn to a debtors’ prison. There he died. Then our brother was drawn—swiftly—to drunkenness. And rags. And death. Then my sister was drawn. Hush! Never ask to what! Then I was ill and in misery, and heard, as I had often heard before, that this was all the work of Chancery. When I got better, I went to look at the monster. And then I found out how it was, and I was drawn to stay there. You don’t quite credit me, my dear! Well, well! You will, some day. I am a little rambling. But I have noticed. I have seen many new faces come, unsuspicious, within the influence of the mace and seal in these many years. As my father’s came there. As my brother’s. As my sister’s. As my own. I hear Conversation Kenge and the rest of them say to the new faces, ‘Here’s little Miss Flite. Oh, you are new here; and you must come and be presented to little Miss Flite!’ Ve-ry good. Proud I am sure to have the honour! And we all laugh. But, Fitz Jarndyce, I know what will happen. I know, far better than they do, when the attraction has begun. I know the signs, my dear. I saw them begin in Gridley. And I saw them end. Fitz Jarndyce, my love. I saw them beginning in our friend the ward in Jarndyce. Let some one hold him back. Or he’ll be drawn to ruin. Yes, my dear, as I was saying, I expect a judgment shortly. Then I shall release my birds, you know, and confer estates. But, my dear. You have not congratulated me on my physician. Positively not once, yet!", "pos": 1097984}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I did not quite know what she meant.", "pos": 1101232}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "My physician, Mr. Woodcourt, my dear, who was so exceedingly attentive to me. Though his services were rendered quite gratuitously. Until the Day of Judgment. I mean THE judgment that will dissolve the spell upon me of the mace and seal.", "pos": 1101270}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Mr. Woodcourt is so far away, now, that I thought the time for such congratulation was past, Miss Flite.", "pos": 1101510}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "But, my child, is it possible that you don’t know what has happened?", "pos": 1101627}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "No,", "pos": 1101714}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "Not what everybody has been talking of, my beloved Fitz Jarndyce!", "pos": 1101728}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "No. You forget how long I have been here.", "pos": 1101796}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "True! My dear, for the moment—true. I blame myself. But my memory has been drawn out of me, with everything else, by what I mentioned. Ve-ry strong influence, is it not? Well, my dear, there has been a terrible shipwreck over in those East Indian seas.", "pos": 1101850}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Mr. Woodcourt shipwrecked!", "pos": 1102105}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "Don’t be agitated, my dear. He is safe. An awful scene. Death in all shapes. Hundreds of dead and dying. Fire, storm, and darkness. Numbers of the drowning thrown upon a rock. There, and through it all, my dear physician was a hero. Calm and brave through everything. Saved many lives, never complained in hunger and thirst, wrapped naked people in his spare clothes, took the lead, showed them what to do, governed them, tended the sick, buried the dead, and brought the poor survivors safely off at last! My dear, the poor emaciated creatures all but worshipped him. They fell down at his feet when they got to the land and blessed him. The whole country rings with it. Stay! Where’s my bag of documents? I have got it there, and you shall read it, you shall read it!", "pos": 1102134}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "My dear, my brave physician ought to have a title bestowed upon him. And no doubt he will. You are of that opinion?", "pos": 1103953}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Why not, Fitz Jarndyce? it was not the custom in England to confer titles on men distinguished by peaceful services, however good and great, unless occasionally when they consisted of the accumulation of some very large amount of money.", "pos": 1104196}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "Why, good gracious, how can you say that? Surely you know, my dear, that all the greatest ornaments of England in knowledge, imagination, active humanity, and improvement of every sort are added to its nobility! Look round you, my dear, and consider. YOU must be rambling a little now, I think, if you don’t know that this is the great reason why titles will always last in the land!", "pos": 1104468}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Esther, my dear, I think you are quite sensible enough to sit down now and write a note of thanks to your host.", "pos": 1107676}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Esther, if you are to be happy, if you are to have any right to pray to be true-hearted, you must keep your word, my dear.", "pos": 1108861}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "Dear, dear, miss! Is that you?", "pos": 1111211}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Yes, Charley. And I am very well indeed, and very happy.", "pos": 1111271}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Stubbs, I am surprised you don’t canter when you know how much I like it; and I think you might oblige me, for you are only getting stupid and going to sleep,", "pos": 1112921}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Now, Stubbs, I feel quite sure from what I know of you that you will go on if I ride a little while,", "pos": 1114060}
{"speaker": "a child", "text": "Mother, why is the lady not a pretty lady now like she used to be?", "pos": 1116000}
{"speaker": "the bride", "text": "He’s a dear good fellow, miss; but he can’t write yet—he’s going to learn of me—and I wouldn’t shame him for the world!", "pos": 1117004}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Miss Summerson, I am afraid I have startled you. You can scarcely be strong yet. You have been very ill, I know. I have been much concerned to hear it. You are recovering again?", "pos": 1120573}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I was quite well but a moment ago, Lady Dedlock.", "pos": 1121120}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Is this your young attendant?", "pos": 1121171}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Yes.", "pos": 1121203}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Will you send her on before and walk towards your house with me?", "pos": 1121210}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Charley, take your flowers home, and I will follow you directly.", "pos": 1121277}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Oh, my child, my child, I am your wicked and unhappy mother! Oh, try to forgive me!", "pos": 1121983}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "To bless and receive me, it is far too late. I must travel my dark road alone, and it will lead me where it will. From day to day, sometimes from hour to hour, I do not see the way before my guilty feet. This is the earthly punishment I have brought upon myself. I bear it, and I hide it. I must keep this secret, if by any means it can be kept, not wholly for myself. I have a husband, wretched and dishonouring creature that I am!", "pos": 1123394}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "But is the secret safe so far? Is it safe now, dearest mother?", "pos": 1125633}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "No. It has been very near discovery. It was saved by an accident. It may be lost by another accident—to-morrow, any day.", "pos": 1125709}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Do you dread a particular person?", "pos": 1125853}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Hush! Do not tremble and cry so much for me. I am not worthy of these tears. I dread one person very much.", "pos": 1125889}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "An enemy?", "pos": 1126034}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Not a friend. One who is too passionless to be either. He is Sir Leicester Dedlock’s lawyer, mechanically faithful without attachment, and very jealous of the profit, privilege, and reputation of being master of the mysteries of great houses.", "pos": 1126046}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Has he any suspicions?", "pos": 1126291}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Many.", "pos": 1126316}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Not of you?", "pos": 1126324}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Yes! He is always vigilant and always near me. I may keep him at a standstill, but I can never shake him off.", "pos": 1126354}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Has he so little pity or compunction?", "pos": 1126466}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "He has none, and no anger. He is indifferent to everything but his calling. His calling is the acquisition of secrets and the holding possession of such power as they give him, with no sharer or opponent in it.", "pos": 1126506}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Could you trust in him?", "pos": 1126719}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I shall never try. The dark road I have trodden for so many years will end where it will. I follow it alone to the end, whatever the end be. It may be near, it may be distant; while the road lasts, nothing turns me.", "pos": 1126745}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Dear mother, are you so resolved?", "pos": 1126963}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I AM resolved. I have long outbidden folly with folly, pride with pride, scorn with scorn, insolence with insolence, and have outlived many vanities with many more. I will outlive this danger, and outdie it, if I can. It has closed around me almost as awfully as if these woods of Chesney Wold had closed around the house, but my course through it is the same. I have but one; I can have but one.", "pos": 1126999}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Mr. Jarndyce—", "pos": 1127398}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Does HE suspect?", "pos": 1127465}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "No. No, indeed! Be assured that he does not! But he is so good and sensible, that perhaps if he knew—", "pos": 1127484}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Confide fully in him. You have my free consent—a small gift from such a mother to her injured child!—but do not tell me of it. Some pride is left in me even yet.", "pos": 1127794}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "My child, my child! For the last time! These kisses for the last time! These arms upon my neck for the last time! We shall meet no more. To hope to do what I seek to do, I must be what I have been so long. Such is my reward and doom. If you hear of Lady Dedlock, brilliant, prosperous, and flattered, think of your wretched mother, conscience-stricken, underneath that mask! Think that the reality is in her suffering, in her useless remorse, in her murdering within her breast the only love and truth of which it is capable! And then forgive her if you can, and cry to heaven to forgive her, which it never can!", "pos": 1128747}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Charley, I will go by myself and walk along the road until she comes.", "pos": 1139219}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "Here she comes, miss! Here she is!", "pos": 1140102}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Esther, my dear, my love, where are you? Little woman, dear Dame Durden!", "pos": 1140312}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "Oh! If you please, miss. You’re wanted at the Dedlock Arms.", "pos": 1142945}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Why, Charley, who can possibly want me at the public-house?", "pos": 1143081}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "I don’t know, miss, but it’s a gentleman, miss, and his compliments, and will you please to come without saying anything about it.", "pos": 1143153}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Whose compliments, Charley?", "pos": 1143472}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "His’n, miss,", "pos": 1143502}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And how do you come to be the messenger, Charley?", "pos": 1143600}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "I am not the messenger, if you please, miss. It was W. Grubble, miss.", "pos": 1143652}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And who is W. Grubble, Charley?", "pos": 1143751}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "Mister Grubble, miss. Don’t you know, miss? The Dedlock Arms, by W. Grubble,", "pos": 1143785}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Aye? The landlord, Charley?", "pos": 1143953}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "Yes, miss. If you please, miss, his wife is a beautiful woman, but she broke her ankle, and it never joined. And her brother’s the sawyer that was put in the cage, miss, and they expect he’ll drink himself to death entirely on beer,", "pos": 1143983}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "My dear Esther! My best friend! Answering my very thoughts—always the same dear girl! Always the same dear girl! My love, there is no one with whom I have a greater wish to talk than you, for I want you to understand me.", "pos": 1145808}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And I want you, Richard, to understand some one else.", "pos": 1146658}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Since you refer so immediately to John Jarndyce, —I suppose you mean him?", "pos": 1146741}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Of course I do.", "pos": 1146833}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Then I may say at once that I am glad of it, because it is on that subject that I am anxious to be understood. By you, mind—you, my dear! I am not accountable to Mr. Jarndyce or Mr. Anybody. Well, well, my dear, we won’t go into that now. I want to appear quietly in your country-house here, with you under my arm, and give my charming cousin a surprise. I suppose your loyalty to John Jarndyce will allow that?", "pos": 1146851}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "My dear Richard, you know you would be heartily welcome at his house—your home, if you will but consider it so; and you are as heartily welcome here!", "pos": 1147346}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Spoken like the best of little women! Oh, I like it well enough! It’s all right. It does as well as anything else, for a time. I don’t know that I shall care about it when I come to be settled, but I can sell out then and—however, never mind all that botheration at present. I am in town on leave just now,", "pos": 1147512}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Indeed?", "pos": 1148092}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Yes. I have run over to look after my—my Chancery interests before the long vacation. We are beginning to spin along with that old suit at last, I promise you. As you say, it’s not a pleasant subject. Let it go to the four winds for to-night. Puff! Gone! Who do you suppose is with me?", "pos": 1148102}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Was it Mr. Skimpole’s voice I heard?", "pos": 1148531}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "That’s the man! He does me more good than anybody. What a fascinating child it is! And he is worth—not to say his sordid expenses—but thrice his weight in gold. He is such a cheery fellow. No worldliness about him. Fresh and green-hearted!", "pos": 1148570}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "My dear Miss Summerson, here is our friend Richard, full of the brightest visions of the future, which he evokes out of the darkness of Chancery. Now that’s delightful, that’s inspiriting, that’s full of poetry! In old times the woods and solitudes were made joyous to the shepherd by the imaginary piping and dancing of Pan and the nymphs. This present shepherd, our pastoral Richard, brightens the dull Inns of Court by making Fortune and her train sport through them to the melodious notes of a judgment from the bench. That’s very pleasant, you know! Some ill-conditioned growling fellow may say to me, ‘What’s the use of these legal and equitable abuses? How do you defend them?’ I reply, ‘My growling friend, I DON’T defend them, but they are very agreeable to me. There is a shepherd—youth, a friend of mine, who transmutes them into something highly fascinating to my simplicity. I don’t say it is for this that they exist—for I am a child among you worldly grumblers, and not called upon to account to you or myself for anything—but it may be so.’", "pos": 1149927}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Ada, my love, I have brought a gentleman to visit you.", "pos": 1151901}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "For I am constantly being taken in these nets, and am constantly being bailed out—like a boat. Or paid off—like a ship’s company. Somebody always does it for me. I can’t do it, you know, for I never have any money. But somebody does it. I get out by somebody’s means; I am not like the starling; I get out. If you were to ask me who somebody is, upon my word I couldn’t tell you. Let us drink to somebody. God bless him!", "pos": 1153765}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "This is a lovely place. None of the jar and discord of law-suits here! I tell you what, my dear girl, when I get affairs in general settled, I shall come down here, I think, and rest.", "pos": 1154810}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Would it not be better to rest now?", "pos": 1155074}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Oh, as to resting NOW, or as to doing anything very definite NOW, that’s not easy. In short, it can’t be done; I can’t do it at least.", "pos": 1155121}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Why not?", "pos": 1155274}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "You know why not, Esther. If you were living in an unfinished house, liable to have the roof put on or taken off—to be from top to bottom pulled down or built up—to-morrow, next day, next week, next month, next year—you would find it hard to rest or settle. So do I. Now? There’s no now for us suitors.", "pos": 1155293}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "My dear Richard, this is a bad beginning of our conversation.", "pos": 1155833}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "I knew you would tell me so, Dame Durden.", "pos": 1155907}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And not I alone, dear Richard. It was not I who cautioned you once never to found a hope or expectation on the family curse.", "pos": 1155951}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "There you come back to John Jarndyce! Well! We must approach him sooner or later, for he is the staple of what I have to say, and it’s as well at once. My dear Esther, how can you be so blind? Don’t you see that he is an interested party and that it may be very well for him to wish me to know nothing of the suit, and care nothing about it, but that it may not be quite so well for me?", "pos": 1156078}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Oh, Richard, is it possible that you can ever have seen him and heard him, that you can ever have lived under his roof and known him, and can yet breathe, even to me in this solitary place where there is no one to hear us, such unworthy suspicions?", "pos": 1156495}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Esther, I am sure you know that I am not a mean fellow and that I have some sense of suspicion and distrust being poor qualities in one of my years.", "pos": 1156909}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I know it very well. I am not more sure of anything.", "pos": 1157060}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "That’s a dear girl, and like you, because it gives me comfort. I had need to get some scrap of comfort out of all this business, for it’s a bad one at the best, as I have no occasion to tell you.", "pos": 1157124}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I know perfectly. I know as well, Richard—what shall I say? as well as you do—that such misconstructions are foreign to your nature. And I know, as well as you know, what so changes it.", "pos": 1157342}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Come, sister, come, you will be fair with me at all events. If I have the misfortune to be under that influence, so has he. If it has a little twisted me, it may have a little twisted him too. I don’t say that he is not an honourable man, out of all this complication and uncertainty; I am sure he is. But it taints everybody. You know it taints everybody. You have heard him say so fifty times. Then why should HE escape?", "pos": 1157540}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Because, his is an uncommon character, and he has resolutely kept himself outside the circle, Richard.", "pos": 1158001}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Oh, because and because! I am not sure, my dear girl, but that it may be wise and specious to preserve that outward indifference. It may cause other parties interested to become lax about their interests; and people may die off, and points may drag themselves out of memory, and many things may smoothly happen that are convenient enough. Esther, you are not to suppose that I have come here to make underhanded charges against John Jarndyce. I have only come to justify myself. What I say is, it was all very well and we got on very well while I was a boy, utterly regardless of this same suit; but as soon as I began to take an interest in it and to look into it, then it was quite another thing. Then John Jarndyce discovers that Ada and I must break off and that if I don’t amend that very objectionable course, I am not fit for her. Now, Esther, I don’t mean to amend that very objectionable course: I will not hold John Jarndyce’s favour on those unfair terms of compromise, which he has no right to dictate. Whether it pleases him or displeases him, I must maintain my rights and Ada’s. I have been thinking about it a good deal, and this is the conclusion I have come to. So I tell him honourably (you are to know I have written to him about all this) that we are at issue and that we had better be at issue openly than covertly. I thank him for his goodwill and his protection, and he goes his road, and I go mine. The fact is, our roads are not the same. Under one of the wills in dispute, I should take much more than he. I don’t mean to say that it is the one to be established, but there it is, and it has its chance.", "pos": 1158116}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I have not to learn from you, my dear Richard, of your letter. I had heard of it already without an offended or angry word.", "pos": 1160164}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Indeed? I am glad I said he was an honourable man, out of all this wretched affair. But I always say that and have never doubted it. Now, my dear Esther, I know these views of mine appear extremely harsh to you, and will to Ada when you tell her what has passed between us. But if you had gone into the case as I have, if you had only applied yourself to the papers as I did when I was at Kenge’s, if you only knew what an accumulation of charges and counter-charges, and suspicions and cross-suspicions, they involve, you would think me moderate in comparison.", "pos": 1160300}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Perhaps so. But do you think that, among those many papers, there is much truth and justice, Richard?", "pos": 1160894}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "There is truth and justice somewhere in the case, Esther—", "pos": 1161008}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Or was once, long ago,", "pos": 1161068}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Is—is—must be somewhere, and must be brought out. To allow Ada to be made a bribe and hush-money of is not the way to bring it out. You say the suit is changing me; John Jarndyce says it changes, has changed, and will change everybody who has any share in it. Then the greater right I have on my side when I resolve to do all I can to bring it to an end.", "pos": 1161101}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "All you can, Richard! Do you think that in these many years no others have done all they could? Has the difficulty grown easier because of so many failures?", "pos": 1161489}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "It can’t last for ever. I am young and earnest, and energy and determination have done wonders many a time. Others have only half thrown themselves into it. I devote myself to it. I make it the object of my life.", "pos": 1161648}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Oh, Richard, my dear, so much the worse, so much the worse!", "pos": 1161968}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "No, no, no, don’t you be afraid for me. You’re a dear, good, wise, quiet, blessed girl; but you have your prepossessions. So I come round to John Jarndyce. I tell you, my good Esther, when he and I were on those terms which he found so convenient, we were not on natural terms.", "pos": 1162030}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Are division and animosity your natural terms, Richard?", "pos": 1162340}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "No, I don’t say that. I mean that all this business puts us on unnatural terms, with which natural relations are incompatible. See another reason for urging it on! I may find out when it’s over that I have been mistaken in John Jarndyce. My head may be clearer when I am free of it, and I may then agree with what you say to-day. Very well. Then I shall acknowledge it and make him reparation. Now, my best of confidantes. I want my cousin Ada to understand that I am not captious, fickle, and wilful about John Jarndyce, but that I have this purpose and reason at my back. I wish to represent myself to her through you, because she has a great esteem and respect for her cousin John; and I know you will soften the course I take, even though you disapprove of it; and—and in short. I—I don’t like to represent myself in this litigious, contentious, doubting character to a confiding girl like Ada. that may be true enough, my love. I rather feel it to be so. But I shall be able to give myself fair-play by and by. I shall come all right again, then, don’t you be afraid.", "pos": 1162398}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Richard, you place great confidence in me, but I fear you will not take advice from me?", "pos": 1165131}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "It’s impossible that I can on this subject, my dear girl. On any other, readily.", "pos": 1165231}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "But I may ask you a question, Richard?", "pos": 1165423}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "I think so. I don’t know who may not, if you may not.", "pos": 1165464}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "You say, yourself, you are not leading a very settled life.", "pos": 1165541}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "How can I, my dear Esther, with nothing settled!", "pos": 1165603}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Are you in debt again?", "pos": 1165654}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Why, of course I am. My dear child, certainly. I can’t throw myself into an object so completely without expense. You forget, or perhaps you don’t know, that under either of the wills Ada and I take something. It’s only a question between the larger sum and the smaller. I shall be within the mark any way. Bless your heart, my excellent girl. I shall be all right! I shall pull through, my dear!", "pos": 1165679}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Esther has told me all you said to her this morning. I write this to repeat most earnestly for myself all that she said to you and to let you know how sure I am that you will sooner or later find our cousin John a pattern of truth, sincerity, and goodness, when you will deeply, deeply grieve to have done him (without intending it) so much wrong. I do not quite know how to write what I wish to say next, but I trust you will understand it as I mean it. I have some fears, my dearest cousin, that it may be partly for my sake you are now laying up so much unhappiness for yourself—and if for yourself, for me. In case this should be so, or in case you should entertain much thought of me in what you are doing, I most earnestly entreat and beg you to desist. You can do nothing for my sake that will make me half so happy as for ever turning your back upon the shadow in which we both were born. Do not be angry with me for saying this. Pray, pray, dear Richard, for my sake, and for your own, and in a natural repugnance for that source of trouble which had its share in making us both orphans when we were very young, pray, pray, let it go for ever. We have reason to know by this time that there is no good in it and no hope, that there is nothing to be got from it but sorrow. My dearest cousin, it is needless for me to say that you are quite free and that it is very likely you may find some one whom you will love much better than your first fancy. I am quite sure, if you will let me say so, that the object of your choice would greatly prefer to follow your fortunes far and wide, however moderate or poor, and see you happy, doing your duty and pursuing your chosen way, than to have the hope of being, or even to be, very rich with you (if such a thing were possible) at the cost of dragging years of procrastination and anxiety and of your indifference to other aims. You may wonder at my saying this so confidently with so little knowledge or experience, but I know it for a certainty from my own heart. Ever, my dearest cousin, your most affectionate", "pos": 1167172}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "We would fairly try, he said, who was right and who was wrong—he would show us—we should see!", "pos": 1169326}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Responsibility, my dear Miss Summerson? I am the last man in the world for such a thing. I never was responsible in my life—I can’t be.", "pos": 1169916}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I am afraid everybody is obliged to be,", "pos": 1170118}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "No, really? But every man’s not obliged to be solvent? I am not. I never was. See, my dear Miss Summerson, there’s so much money. I have not an idea how much. I have not the power of counting. Call it four and ninepence—call it four pound nine. They tell me I owe more than that. I dare say I do. I dare say I owe as much as good-natured people will let me owe. If they don’t stop, why should I? There you have Harold Skimpole in little. If that’s responsibility, I am responsible. Now, when you mention responsibility. I am disposed to say that I never had the happiness of knowing any one whom I should consider so refreshingly responsible as yourself. You appear to me to be the very touchstone of responsibility. When I see you, my dear Miss Summerson, intent upon the perfect working of the whole little orderly system of which you are the centre, I feel inclined to say to myself—in fact I do say to myself very often—THAT’S responsibility! Most willingly, if I could. But, my dear Miss Summerson, I have no art, no disguise. If he takes me by the hand and leads me through Westminster Hall in an airy procession after fortune, I must go. If he says, ‘Skimpole, join the dance!’ I must join it. Common sense wouldn’t, I know, but I have NO common sense.", "pos": 1170230}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "It was very unfortunate for Richard,", "pos": 1172126}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Do you think so! Don’t say that, don’t say that. Let us suppose him keeping company with Common Sense—an excellent man—a good deal wrinkled—dreadfully practical—change for a ten-pound note in every pocket—ruled account-book in his hand—say, upon the whole, resembling a tax-gatherer. Our dear Richard, sanguine, ardent, overleaping obstacles, bursting with poetry like a young bud, says to this highly respectable companion, ‘I see a golden prospect before me; it’s very bright, it’s very beautiful, it’s very joyous; here I go, bounding over the landscape to come at it!’ The respectable companion instantly knocks him down with the ruled account-book; tells him in a literal, prosaic way that he sees no such thing; shows him it’s nothing but fees, fraud, horsehair wigs, and black gowns. Now you know that’s a painful change—sensible in the last degree, I have no doubt, but disagreeable. I can’t do it. I haven’t got the ruled account-book, I have none of the tax-gathering elements in my composition, I am not at all respectable, and I don’t want to be. Odd perhaps, but so it is!", "pos": 1172172}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Dear me! Vholes! Friend and legal adviser. Now, my dear Miss Summerson, if you want common sense, responsibility, and respectability, all united—if you want an exemplary man—Vholes is THE man. When he emerged from legal infancy, he parted from our conversational friend Kenge and took up, I believe, with Vholes. Indeed, I know he did, because I introduced him to Vholes.", "pos": 1174621}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Had you known him long?", "pos": 1175195}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Vholes? My dear Miss Clare, I had had that kind of acquaintance with him which I have had with several gentlemen of his profession. He had done something or other in a very agreeable, civil manner—taken proceedings, I think, is the expression—which ended in the proceeding of his taking ME. Somebody was so good as to step in and pay the money—something and fourpence was the amount; I forget the pounds and shillings, but I know it ended with fourpence, because it struck me at the time as being so odd that I could owe anybody fourpence—and after that I brought them together. Vholes asked me for the introduction, and I gave it. Now I come to think of it. Vholes bribed me, perhaps? He gave me something and called it commission. Was it a five-pound note? Do you know, I think it MUST have been a five-pound note!", "pos": 1175232}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "I hope I don’t disturb you, ladies. I arranged with Mr. Carstone that he should always know when his cause was in the Chancellor’s paper, and being informed by one of my clerks last night after post time that it stood, rather unexpectedly, in the paper for to-morrow, I put myself into the coach early this morning and came down to confer with him.", "pos": 1176623}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Yes, we don’t do these things in the old slow way now. We spin along now! Mr. Vholes, we must hire something to get over to the post town in, and catch the mail to-night, and go up by it!", "pos": 1177077}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "Anything you please, sir. I am quite at your service.", "pos": 1177332}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Let me see. If I run down to the Dedlock, and get my portmanteau fastened up, and order a gig, or a chaise, or whatever’s to be got, we shall have an hour then before starting. I’ll come back to tea. Cousin Ada, will you and Esther take care of Mr. Vholes when I am gone?", "pos": 1177411}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Is Mr. Carstone’s presence necessary to-morrow, Sir? Can it do any good?", "pos": 1177856}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "No, miss. I am not aware that it can. Mr. Carstone has laid down the principle of watching his own interests, and when a client lays down his own principle, and it is not immoral, it devolves upon me to carry it out. I wish in business to be exact and open. I am a widower with three daughters—Emma, Jane, and Caroline—and my desire is so to discharge the duties of life as to leave them a good name. This appears to be a pleasant spot, miss. Indeed? I have the privilege of supporting an aged father in the Vale of Taunton—his native place—and I admire that country very much. I had no idea there was anything so attractive here.", "pos": 1177941}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "To keep up the conversation, I asked Mr. Vholes if he would like to live altogether in the country.", "pos": 1178850}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "There, miss, you touch me on a tender string. My health is not good (my digestion being much impaired), and if I had only myself to consider, I should take refuge in rural habits, especially as the cares of business have prevented me from ever coming much into contact with general society, and particularly with ladies’ society, which I have most wished to mix in. But with my three daughters, Emma, Jane, and Caroline—and my aged father—I cannot afford to be selfish. It is true I have no longer to maintain a dear grandmother who died in her hundred and second year, but enough remains to render it indispensable that the mill should be always going. You will excuse my having mentioned my daughters. They are my weak point. I wish to leave the poor girls some little independence, as well as a good name. You will drive me, will you, sir? It is all the same to me, sir. Anything you please. I am quite at your service.", "pos": 1178951}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Once more, duty, duty, Esther, and if you are not overjoyed to do it, more than cheerfully and contentedly, through anything and everything, you ought to be. That’s all I have to say to you, my dear!", "pos": 1182532}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And how is your mama, Caddy?", "pos": 1184531}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Why, I hear of her, Esther, through Pa, but I see very little of her. We are good friends, I am glad to say, but Ma thinks there is something absurd in my having married a dancing-master, and she is rather afraid of its extending to her.", "pos": 1184570}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And your papa, Caddy?", "pos": 1185105}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "He comes here every evening, and is so fond of sitting in the corner there that it’s a treat to see him.", "pos": 1185129}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And you, Caddy, you are always busy, I’ll be bound?", "pos": 1185420}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Well, my dear. I am indeed, for to tell you a grand secret, I am qualifying myself to give lessons. Prince’s health is not strong, and I want to be able to assist him. What with schools, and classes here, and private pupils, AND the apprentices, he really has too much to do, poor fellow! Four. One in-door, and three out. They are very good children; only when they get together they WILL play—children-like—instead of attending to their work. So the little boy you saw just now waltzes by himself in the empty kitchen, and we distribute the others over the house as well as we can.", "pos": 1185484}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "That is only for their steps, of course?", "pos": 1186204}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Only for their steps. In that way they practise, so many hours at a time, whatever steps they happen to be upon. They dance in the academy, and at this time of year we do figures at five every morning.", "pos": 1186255}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Why, what a laborious life!", "pos": 1186473}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "I assure you, my dear, when the out-door apprentices ring us up in the morning (the bell rings into our room, not to disturb old Mr. Turveydrop), and when I put up the window and see them standing on the door-step with their little pumps under their arms, I am actually reminded of the Sweeps. You see, my dear, to save expense I ought to know something of the piano, and I ought to know something of the kit too, and consequently I have to practise those two instruments as well as the details of our profession. If Ma had been like anybody else, I might have had some little musical knowledge to begin upon. However, I hadn’t any; and that part of the work is, at first, a little discouraging, I must allow. But I have a very good ear, and I am used to drudgery—I have to thank Ma for that, at all events—and where there’s a will there’s a way, you know, Esther, the world over. Don’t laugh at me, please; that’s a dear girl! My dear, you can’t think how you cheer me. I shall owe you, you don’t know how much. What changes, Esther, even in my small world! You recollect that first night, when I was so unpolite and inky? Who would have thought, then, of my ever teaching people to dance, of all other possibilities and impossibilities!", "pos": 1186516}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Old Mr. Turveydrop is so sorry, that he has not finished dressing yet and cannot have the pleasure of seeing you before you go. You are such a favourite of his, Esther. It takes him a long time to dress, because he is very much looked up to in such things, you know, and has a reputation to support. You can’t think how kind he is to Pa. He talks to Pa of an evening about the Prince Regent, and I never saw Pa so interested.", "pos": 1191338}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I asked Caddy if he brought her papa out much.", "pos": 1192038}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "No. I don’t know that he does that, but he talks to Pa, and Pa greatly admires him, and listens, and likes it. Of course I am aware that Pa has hardly any claims to deportment, but they get on together delightfully. You can’t think what good companions they make. I never saw Pa take snuff before in my life, but he takes one pinch out of Mr. Turveydrop’s box regularly and keeps putting it to his nose and taking it away again all the evening. As to Peepy, whom I was most afraid of—next to having any family of my own, Esther—as an inconvenience to Mr. Turveydrop, the kindness of the old gentleman to that child is beyond everything. He asks to see him, my dear! He lets him take the newspaper up to him in bed; he gives him the crusts of his toast to eat; he sends him on little errands about the house; he tells him to come to me for sixpences. In short, and not to prose, I am a very fortunate girl and ought to be very grateful. Where are we going, Esther?", "pos": 1192085}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "To the Old Street Road, where I have a few words to say to the solicitor’s clerk who was sent to meet me at the coach-office on the very day when I came to London and first saw you, my dear. Now I think of it, the gentleman who brought us to your house.", "pos": 1193319}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Then, indeed, I seem to be naturally the person to go with you,", "pos": 1193585}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Miss Summerson, this is indeed an oasis. Mother, will you be so good as to put a chair for the other lady and get out of the gangway.", "pos": 1194537}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I took the liberty of sending you a note, sir,", "pos": 1195040}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Could I speak to you alone for a moment? Miss Summerson, you will excuse the waywardness of a parent ever mindful of a son’s appiness. My mother, though highly exasperating to the feelings, is actuated by maternal dictates.", "pos": 1195362}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "I—I—beg your pardon, but in our profession—we—we—find it necessary to be explicit. You have referred to an occasion, miss, when I—when I did myself the honour of making a declaration which— A kind of giddy sensation has come upon me, miss, which rather knocks me over. I—er—a little subject to this sort of thing—er—by George! My intention was to remark, miss, dear me—something bronchial, I think—hem!—to remark that you was so good on that occasion as to repel and repudiate that declaration. You—you wouldn’t perhaps object to admit that? Though no witnesses are present, it might be a satisfaction to—to your mind—if you was to put in that admission.", "pos": 1196617}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "There can be no doubt, that I declined your proposal without any reservation or qualification whatever, Mr. Guppy.", "pos": 1197711}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Thank you, miss. So far that’s satisfactory, and it does you credit. Er—this is certainly bronchial!—must be in the tubes—er—you wouldn’t perhaps be offended if I was to mention—not that it’s necessary, for your own good sense or any person’s sense must show ’em that—if I was to mention that such declaration on my part was final, and there terminated?", "pos": 1197838}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I quite understand that,", "pos": 1198254}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Perhaps—er—it may not be worth the form, but it might be a satisfaction to your mind—perhaps you wouldn’t object to admit that, miss?", "pos": 1198289}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I admit it most fully and freely,", "pos": 1198441}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Thank you. Very honourable, I am sure. I regret that my arrangements in life, combined with circumstances over which I have no control, will put it out of my power ever to fall back upon that offer or to renew it in any shape or form whatever, but it will ever be a retrospect entwined—er—with friendship’s bowers.", "pos": 1198485}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I may now perhaps mention what I wished to say to you?", "pos": 1198908}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "I shall be honoured, I am sure. I am so persuaded that your own good sense and right feeling, miss, will—will keep you as square as possible—that I can have nothing but pleasure, I am sure, in hearing any observations you may wish to offer.", "pos": 1198974}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "You were so good as to imply, on that occasion—", "pos": 1199235}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Excuse me, miss, but we had better not travel out of the record into implication. I cannot admit that I implied anything.", "pos": 1199285}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "You said on that occasion, that you might possibly have the means of advancing my interests and promoting my fortunes by making discoveries of which I should be the subject. I presume that you founded that belief upon your general knowledge of my being an orphan girl, indebted for everything to the benevolence of Mr. Jarndyce. Now, the beginning and the end of what I have come to beg of you is, Mr. Guppy, that you will have the kindness to relinquish all idea of so serving me. I have thought of this sometimes, and I have thought of it most lately—since I have been ill. At length I have decided, in case you should at any time recall that purpose and act upon it in any way, to come to you and assure you that you are altogether mistaken. You could make no discovery in reference to me that would do me the least service or give me the least pleasure. I am acquainted with my personal history, and I have it in my power to assure you that you never can advance my welfare by such means. You may, perhaps, have abandoned this project a long time. If so, excuse my giving you unnecessary trouble. If not, I entreat you, on the assurance I have given you, henceforth to lay it aside. I beg you to do this, for my peace.", "pos": 1199427}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "I am bound to confess, that you express yourself, miss, with that good sense and right feeling for which I gave you credit. Nothing can be more satisfactory than such right feeling, and if I mistook any intentions on your part just now, I am prepared to tender a full apology. I should wish to be understood, miss, as hereby offering that apology—limiting it, as your own good sense and right feeling will point out the necessity of, to the present proceedings.", "pos": 1200669}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "If you will allow me to finish what I have to say at once so that I may have no occasion to resume, you will do me a kindness, sir. I come to you as privately as possible because you announced this impression of yours to me in a confidence which I have really wished to respect—and which I always have respected, as you remember. I have mentioned my illness. There really is no reason why I should hesitate to say that I know very well that any little delicacy I might have had in making a request to you is quite removed. Therefore I make the entreaty I have now preferred, and I hope you will have sufficient consideration for me to accede to it.", "pos": 1201322}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Upon my word and honour, upon my life, upon my soul, Miss Summerson, as I am a living man, I’ll act according to your wish! I’ll never go another step in opposition to it. I’ll take my oath to it if it will be any satisfaction to you. In what I promise at this present time touching the matters now in question. I speak the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, so—", "pos": 1202194}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I am quite satisfied, and I thank you very much. Caddy, my dear, I am ready!", "pos": 1202656}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Miss Summerson, upon my honour and soul, you may depend upon me!", "pos": 1203177}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I do,", "pos": 1203244}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "I beg your pardon, miss, but this lady being present—your own witness—it might be a satisfaction to your mind (which I should wish to set at rest) if you was to repeat those admissions.", "pos": 1203346}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Well, Caddy, perhaps you will not be surprised when I tell you, my dear, that there never has been any engagement—", "pos": 1203534}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "No proposal or promise of marriage whatsoever,", "pos": 1203677}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "No proposal or promise of marriage whatsoever, between this gentleman—", "pos": 1203747}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "William Guppy, of Penton Place, Pentonville, in the county of Middlesex,", "pos": 1203830}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Between this gentleman, Mr. William Guppy, of Penton Place, Pentonville, in the county of Middlesex, and myself.", "pos": 1203918}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Thank you, miss. Very full—er—excuse me—lady’s name, Christian and surname both? Married woman, I believe? Married woman. Thank you. Formerly Caroline Jellyby, spinster, then of Thavies Inn, within the city of London, but extra-parochial; now of Newman Street, Oxford Street. Much obliged. Touching that matter, you know, I really and truly am very sorry that my arrangements in life, combined with circumstances over which I have no control, should prevent a renewal of what was wholly terminated some time back, but it couldn’t be. Now COULD it, you know! I only put it to you.", "pos": 1204033}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "It certainly could not.", "pos": 1204769}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "It’s very honourable of you, miss, I am sure. If an altar could be erected in the bowers of friendship—but, upon my soul, you may rely upon me in every respect save and except the tender passion only!", "pos": 1204892}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Again nothing done! Nothing, nothing done!", "pos": 1212513}
{"speaker": "Vholes", "text": "Don’t say nothing done, sir. That is scarcely fair, sir, scarcely fair!", "pos": 1212574}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Why, what IS done?", "pos": 1212677}
{"speaker": "Vholes", "text": "That may not be the whole question. The question may branch off into what is doing, what is doing?", "pos": 1212739}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "And what is doing?", "pos": 1212858}
{"speaker": "Vholes", "text": "A good deal is doing, sir. We have put our shoulders to the wheel, Mr. Carstone, and the wheel is going round.", "pos": 1213130}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Yes, with Ixion on it. How am I to get through the next four or five accursed months?", "pos": 1213243}
{"speaker": "Vholes", "text": "Mr. C., your spirits are hasty, and I am sorry for it on your account. Excuse me if I recommend you not to chafe so much, not to be so impetuous, not to wear yourself out so. You should have more patience. You should sustain yourself better.", "pos": 1213405}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "I ought to imitate you, in fact, Mr. Vholes?", "pos": 1213719}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "Sir, I should not have had the presumption to propose myself as a model for your imitation or any man’s. Let me but leave the good name to my three daughters, and that is enough for me; I am not a self-seeker. But since you mention me so pointedly, I will acknowledge that I should like to impart to you a little of my—come, sir, you are disposed to call it insensibility, and I am sure I have no objection—say insensibility—a little of my insensibility.", "pos": 1214127}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Mr. Vholes, I had no intention to accuse you of insensibility.", "pos": 1214625}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "I think you had, sir, without knowing it. Very naturally. It is my duty to attend to your interests with a cool head, and I can quite understand that to your excited feelings I may appear, at such times as the present, insensible. My daughters may know me better; my aged father may know me better. But they have known me much longer than you have, and the confiding eye of affection is not the distrustful eye of business. Not that I complain, sir, of the eye of business being distrustful; quite the contrary. In attending to your interests, I wish to have all possible checks upon me; it is right that I should have them; I court inquiry. But your interests demand that I should be cool and methodical, Mr. Carstone; and I cannot be otherwise—no, sir, not even to please you. What are you to do, sir, you inquire, during the vacation. I should hope you gentlemen of the army may find many means of amusing yourselves if you give your minds to it. If you had asked me what I was to do during the vacation, I could have answered you more readily. I am to attend to your interests. I am to be found here, day by day, attending to your interests. That is my duty, Mr. C., and term-time or vacation makes no difference to me. If you wish to consult me as to your interests, you will find me here at all times alike. Other professional men go out of town. I don’t. Not that I blame them for going; I merely say I don’t go. This desk is your rock, sir!", "pos": 1214690}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "I am perfectly aware, Mr. Vholes, that you are the most reliable fellow in the world and that to have to do with you is to have to do with a man of business who is not to be hoodwinked. But put yourself in my case, dragging on this dislocated life, sinking deeper and deeper into difficulty every day, continually hoping and continually disappointed, conscious of change upon change for the worse in myself, and of no change for the better in anything else, and you will find it a dark-looking case sometimes, as I do.", "pos": 1216614}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "You know that I never give hopes, sir. I told you from the first, Mr. C., that I never give hopes. Particularly in a case like this, where the greater part of the costs comes out of the estate, I should not be considerate of my good name if I gave hopes. It might seem as if costs were my object. Still, when you say there is no change for the better, I must, as a bare matter of fact, deny that.", "pos": 1217208}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Aye? But how do you make it out?", "pos": 1217607}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "Mr. Carstone, you are represented by—", "pos": 1217674}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "You said just now—a rock.", "pos": 1217714}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "Yes, sir, a rock. That’s something. You are separately represented, and no longer hidden and lost in the interests of others. THAT’S something. The suit does not sleep; we wake it up, we air it, we walk it about. THAT’S something. It’s not all Jarndyce, in fact as well as in name. THAT’S something. Nobody has it all his own way now, sir. And THAT’S something, surely.", "pos": 1217880}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Mr. Vholes! If any man had told me when I first went to John Jarndyce’s house that he was anything but the disinterested friend he seemed—that he was what he has gradually turned out to be—I could have found no words strong enough to repel the slander; I could not have defended him too ardently. So little did I know of the world! Whereas now I do declare to you that he becomes to me the embodiment of the suit; that in place of its being an abstraction, it is John Jarndyce; that the more I suffer, the more indignant I am with him; that every new delay and every new disappointment is only a new injury from John Jarndyce’s hand.", "pos": 1218330}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "No, no. Don’t say so. We ought to have patience, all of us. Besides, I never disparage, sir. I never disparage.", "pos": 1218981}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Mr. Vholes, You know as well as I that he would have strangled the suit if he could.", "pos": 1219123}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "He was not active in it. He certainly was not active in it. But however, but however, he might have had amiable intentions. Who can read the heart, Mr. C.!", "pos": 1219264}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "You can. Well enough to know what his intentions were. Are or are not our interests conflicting? Tell—me—that!", "pos": 1219422}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "Mr. C., I should be wanting in my duty as your professional adviser, I should be departing from my fidelity to your interests, if I represented those interests as identical with the interests of Mr. Jarndyce. They are no such thing, sir. I never impute motives; I both have and am a father, and I never impute motives. But I must not shrink from a professional duty, even if it sows dissensions in families. I understand you to be now consulting me professionally as to your interests? You are so? I reply, then, they are not identical with those of Mr. Jarndyce.", "pos": 1219728}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Of course they are not! You found that out long ago.", "pos": 1220294}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "Mr. C., I wish to say no more of any third party than is necessary. I wish to leave my good name unsullied, together with any little property of which I may become possessed through industry and perseverance, to my daughters Emma, Jane, and Caroline. I also desire to live in amity with my professional brethren. When Mr. Skimpole did me the honour, sir—I will not say the very high honour, for I never stoop to flattery—of bringing us together in this room, I mentioned to you that I could offer no opinion or advice as to your interests while those interests were entrusted to another member of the profession. And I spoke in such terms as I was bound to speak of Kenge and Carboy’s office, which stands high. You, sir, thought fit to withdraw your interests from that keeping nevertheless and to offer them to me. You brought them with clean hands, sir, and I accepted them with clean hands. Those interests are now paramount in this office. My digestive functions, as you may have heard me mention, are not in a good state, and rest might improve them; but I shall not rest, sir, while I am your representative. Whenever you want me, you will find me here. Summon me anywhere, and I will come. During the long vacation, sir, I shall devote my leisure to studying your interests more and more closely and to making arrangements for moving heaven and earth (including, of course, the Chancellor) after Michaelmas term; and when I ultimately congratulate you, sir, when I ultimately congratulate you, sir, with all my heart, on your accession to fortune—which, but that I never give hopes, I might say something further about—you will owe me nothing beyond whatever little balance may be then outstanding of the costs as between solicitor and client not included in the taxed costs allowed out of the estate. I pretend to no claim upon you, Mr. C., but for the zealous and active discharge—not the languid and routine discharge, sir: that much credit I stipulate for—of my professional duty. My duty prosperously ended, all between us is ended. For there have been many little consultations and attendances of late, sir, and these things mount up, and I don’t profess to be a man of capital. When we first entered on our present relations I stated to you openly—it is a principle of mine that there never can be too much openness between solicitor and client—that I was not a man of capital and that if capital was your object you had better leave your papers in Kenge’s office. No, Mr. C., you will find none of the advantages or disadvantages of capital here, sir. This, is your rock; it pretends to be nothing more.", "pos": 1220384}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "Always here, sir. Personally, or by letter, you will always find me here, sir, with my shoulder to the wheel.", "pos": 1224030}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "William, there’s combustion going on there! It’s not a case of spontaneous, but it’s smouldering combustion it is.", "pos": 1227073}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Ah! He wouldn’t keep out of Jarndyce, and I suppose he’s over head and ears in debt. I never knew much of him. He was as high as the monument when he was on trial at our place. A good riddance to me, whether as clerk or client! Well, Tony, that as I was mentioning is what they’re up to. They are still up to it, sir, still taking stock, still examining papers, still going over the heaps and heaps of rubbish. At this rate they’ll be at it these seven years.", "pos": 1227190}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "And Small is helping?", "pos": 1227800}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Small left us at a week’s notice. Told Kenge his grandfather’s business was too much for the old gentleman and he could better himself by undertaking it. There had been a coolness between myself and Small on account of his being so close. But he said you and I began it, and as he had me there—for we did—I put our acquaintance on the old footing. That’s how I come to know what they’re up to.", "pos": 1227824}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "You haven’t looked in at all?", "pos": 1228220}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Tony, to be unreserved with you, I don’t greatly relish the house, except in your company, and therefore I have not; and therefore I proposed this little appointment for our fetching away your things. There goes the hour by the clock! Tony it is necessary that I should impress upon your mind once more that circumstances over which I have no control have made a melancholy alteration in my most cherished plans and in that unrequited image which I formerly mentioned to you as a friend. That image is shattered, and that idol is laid low. My only wish now in connexion with the objects which I had an idea of carrying out in the court with your aid as a friend is to let ’em alone and bury ’em in oblivion. Do you think it possible, do you think it at all likely (I put it to you, Tony, as a friend), from your knowledge of that capricious and deep old character who fell a prey to the—spontaneous element, do you, Tony, think it at all likely that on second thoughts he put those letters away anywhere, after you saw him alive, and that they were not destroyed that night? Tony, once again understand me, as a friend. Without entering into further explanations, I may repeat that the idol is down. I have no purpose to serve now but burial in oblivion. To that I have pledged myself. I owe it to myself, and I owe it to the shattered image, as also to the circumstances over which I have no control. If you was to express to me by a gesture, by a wink, that you saw lying anywhere in your late lodgings any papers that so much as looked like the papers in question, I would pitch them into the fire, sir, on my own responsibility.", "pos": 1228251}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Aha! How de do, gentlemen, how de do! Come to fetch your property, Mr. Weevle? That’s well, that’s well. Ha! Ha! We should have been forced to sell you up, sir, to pay your warehouse room if you had left it here much longer. You feel quite at home here again, I dare say? Glad to see you, glad to see you! How de do, sir—how de—how— Gentleman so kind as to act as my solicitor. I am not the sort of client for a gentleman of such note, but he is so good!", "pos": 1234086}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "A good deal of property here, sir, I should say,", "pos": 1235310}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Principally rags and rubbish, my dear friend! Rags and rubbish! Me and Bart and my granddaughter Judy are endeavouring to make out an inventory of what’s worth anything to sell. But we haven’t come to much as yet; we—haven’t—come—to—hah!", "pos": 1235398}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Well, sir. We won’t intrude any longer if you’ll allow us to go upstairs.", "pos": 1235770}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Anywhere, my dear sir, anywhere! You’re at home. Make yourself so, pray!", "pos": 1235865}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jobling", "text": "Look here. Here’s that horrible cat coming in!", "pos": 1236414}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Small told me of her. She went leaping and bounding and tearing about that night like a dragon, and got out on the house-top, and roamed about up there for a fortnight, and then came tumbling down the chimney very thin. Did you ever see such a brute? Looks as if she knew all about it, don’t she? Almost looks as if she was Krook. Shoohoo! Get out, you goblin!", "pos": 1236522}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Mr. Guppy, could I have a word with you?", "pos": 1237195}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Sir. I wish to act with courtesy towards every member of the profession, and especially, I am sure, towards a member of it so well known as yourself—I will truly add, sir, so distinguished as yourself. Still, Mr. Tulkinghorn, sir, I must stipulate that if you have any word with me, that word is spoken in the presence of my friend.", "pos": 1237413}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Oh, indeed?", "pos": 1237773}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Yes, sir. My reasons are not of a personal nature at all, but they are amply sufficient for myself.", "pos": 1237809}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "No doubt, no doubt. The matter is not of that consequence that I need put you to the trouble of making any conditions, Mr. Guppy. You are to be congratulated, Mr. Guppy; you are a fortunate young man, sir.", "pos": 1237911}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Pretty well so, Mr. Tulkinghorn; I don’t complain.", "pos": 1238289}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Complain? High friends, free admission to great houses, and access to elegant ladies! Why, Mr. Guppy, there are people in London who would give their ears to be you.", "pos": 1238342}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Sir, if I attend to my profession and do what is right by Kenge and Carboy, my friends and acquaintances are of no consequence to them nor to any member of the profession, not excepting Mr. Tulkinghorn of the Fields. I am not under any obligation to explain myself further; and with all respect for you, sir, and without offence—I repeat, without offence—", "pos": 1238658}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Oh, certainly!", "pos": 1239016}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "—I don’t intend to do it.", "pos": 1239033}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Quite so. Very good; I see by these portraits that you take a strong interest in the fashionable great, sir? A virtue in which few Englishmen are deficient. Who is this? ‘Lady Dedlock.’ Ha! A very good likeness in its way, but it wants force of character. Good day to you, gentlemen; good day!", "pos": 1239061}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Tony, let us be quick in putting the things together and in getting out of this place. It were in vain longer to conceal from you, Tony, that between myself and one of the members of a swan-like aristocracy whom I now hold in my hand, there has been undivulged communication and association. The time might have been when I might have revealed it to you. It never will be more. It is due alike to the oath I have taken, alike to the shattered idol, and alike to circumstances over which I have no control, that the whole should be buried in oblivion. I charge you as a friend, by the interest you have ever testified in the fashionable intelligence, and by any little advances with which I may have been able to accommodate you, so to bury it without a word of inquiry!", "pos": 1239805}
{"speaker": "Thomas", "text": "She is not well, ma’am,", "pos": 1247665}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "My Lady not well! What’s the matter?", "pos": 1247743}
{"speaker": "Thomas", "text": "Why, my Lady has been but poorly, ma’am, since she was last here—I don’t mean with the family, ma’am, but when she was here as a bird of passage like. My Lady has not been out much, for her, and has kept her room a good deal.", "pos": 1247782}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "Chesney Wold, Thomas, will set my Lady up! There is no finer air and no healthier soil in the world!", "pos": 1248010}
{"speaker": "Volumnia", "text": "How are we getting on? ARE we safe?", "pos": 1250878}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Volumnia, we are doing tolerably.", "pos": 1251202}
{"speaker": "Volumnia", "text": "Only tolerably!", "pos": 1251291}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Volumnia, we are doing tolerably.", "pos": 1251621}
{"speaker": "Volumnia", "text": "At least there is no opposition to YOU,", "pos": 1251657}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "No, Volumnia. This distracted country has lost its senses in many respects, I grieve to say, but—", "pos": 1251733}
{"speaker": "Volumnia", "text": "It is not so mad as that. I am glad to hear it!", "pos": 1251833}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "A sensible woman this, on the whole, though occasionally precipitate. You will have the goodness to make these materials into two members of Parliament and to send them home when done. I regret to say, Volumnia, that in many places the people have shown a bad spirit, and that this opposition to the government has been of a most determined and most implacable description.", "pos": 1252022}
{"speaker": "Volumnia", "text": "W-r-retches!", "pos": 1252787}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Even, even in many—in fact, in most—of those places in which the government has carried it against a faction— —Even in them I am shocked, for the credit of Englishmen, to be constrained to inform you that the party has not triumphed without being put to an enormous expense. Hundreds, hundreds of thousands of pounds!", "pos": 1252817}
{"speaker": "Volumnia", "text": "What for?", "pos": 1253736}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Volumnia. Volumnia!", "pos": 1253748}
{"speaker": "Volumnia", "text": "No, no, I don’t mean what for. How stupid I am! I mean what a pity!", "pos": 1253825}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "I am glad, that you do mean what a pity. I am glad, Volumnia, that you do mean what a pity. It is disgraceful to the electors. But as you, though inadvertently and without intending so unreasonable a question, asked me ‘what for?’ let me reply to you. For necessary expenses. And I trust to your good sense, Volumnia, not to pursue the subject, here or elsewhere.", "pos": 1253946}
{"speaker": "Volumnia", "text": "I suppose. I suppose Mr. Tulkinghorn has been worked to death.", "pos": 1255092}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "I don’t know, why Mr. Tulkinghorn should be worked to death. I don’t know what Mr. Tulkinghorn’s engagements may be. He is not a candidate.", "pos": 1255256}
{"speaker": "A languid cousin", "text": "man told him ya’as’dy that Tulkinghorn had gone down t’ that iron place t’ give legal ’pinion ’bout something, and that contest being over t’ day, ’twould be highly jawlly thing if Tulkinghorn should ’pear with news that Coodle man was floored.", "pos": 1256018}
{"speaker": "Volumnia", "text": "He has not been here once, since I came. I really had some thoughts of breaking my heart for the inconstant creature. I had almost made up my mind that he was dead.", "pos": 1256906}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Mr. Tulkinghorn is always welcome here and always discreet wheresoever he is. A very valuable person, and deservedly respected.", "pos": 1257268}
{"speaker": "Volumnia", "text": "’normously rich fler.", "pos": 1257437}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "He has a stake in the country. I have no doubt. He is, of course, handsomely paid, and he associates almost on a footing of equality with the highest society.", "pos": 1257460}
{"speaker": "Volumnia", "text": "Good gracious, what’s that?", "pos": 1257690}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "A rat. And they have shot him.", "pos": 1257768}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "No, no, I think not. My Lady, do you object to the twilight? Tulkinghorn, I beg your pardon. How do you do?", "pos": 1257908}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Now. How has that contest gone?", "pos": 1258771}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Oh, hollow from the beginning. Not a chance. They have brought in both their people. You are beaten out of all reason. Three to one. you are beaten It’s the place, you know, where they wanted to put up Mrs. Rouncewell’s son.", "pos": 1258805}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "A proposal which, as you correctly informed me at the time, he had the becoming taste and perception to decline. I cannot say that I by any means approve of the sentiments expressed by Mr. Rouncewell when he was here for some half-hour in this room, but there was a sense of propriety in his decision which I am glad to acknowledge.", "pos": 1259438}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Ha! It did not prevent him from being very active in this election, though.", "pos": 1259800}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Did I understand you? Did you say that Mr. Rouncewell had been very active in this election?", "pos": 1259961}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Uncommonly active.", "pos": 1260056}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Against—", "pos": 1260077}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Oh, dear yes, against you. He is a very good speaker. Plain and emphatic. He made a damaging effect, and has great influence. In the business part of the proceedings he carried all before him. by his son.", "pos": 1260088}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "By his son, sir?", "pos": 1260467}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "By his son.", "pos": 1260531}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Then upon my honour, upon my life, upon my reputation and principles, the floodgates of society are burst open, and the waters have—a—obliterated the landmarks of the framework of the cohesion by which things are held together!", "pos": 1260765}
{"speaker": "Volumnia", "text": "it is really high time, you know, for somebody in power to step in and do something strong.", "pos": 1261049}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "I beg that we may not comment further on this circumstance. Comment is superfluous. My Lady, let me suggest in reference to that young woman—", "pos": 1261260}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I have no intention of parting with her.", "pos": 1261404}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "That was not my meaning. I am glad to hear you say so. I would suggest that as you think her worthy of your patronage, you should exert your influence to keep her from these dangerous hands. You might show her what violence would be done in such association to her duties and principles, and you might preserve her for a better fate. You might point out to her that she probably would, in good time, find a husband at Chesney Wold by whom she would not be—", "pos": 1261535}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "however, that these people are, in their way, very proud.", "pos": 1262394}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Proud?", "pos": 1262454}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "I should not be surprised if they all voluntarily abandoned the girl—yes, lover and all—instead of her abandoning them, supposing she remained at Chesney Wold under such circumstances.", "pos": 1262497}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Well! Well! You should know, Mr. Tulkinghorn. You have been among them.", "pos": 1262684}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Really, Sir Leicester. I state the fact. Why, I could tell you a story—with Lady Dedlock’s permission.", "pos": 1262792}
{"speaker": "Volumnia", "text": "A story! Oh, he is going to tell something at last! A ghost in it, Volumnia hopes?", "pos": 1262967}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "No. Real flesh and blood. Real flesh and blood, Miss Dedlock. Sir Leicester, these particulars have only lately become known to me. They are very brief. They exemplify what I have said. I suppress names for the present. Lady Dedlock will not think me ill-bred, I hope? A townsman of this Mr. Rouncewell, a man in exactly parallel circumstances as I am told, had the good fortune to have a daughter who attracted the notice of a great lady. I speak of really a great lady, not merely great to him, but married to a gentleman of your condition, Sir Leicester.", "pos": 1263051}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Yes, Mr. Tulkinghorn,", "pos": 1263913}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "The lady was wealthy and beautiful, and had a liking for the girl, and treated her with great kindness, and kept her always near her. Now this lady preserved a secret under all her greatness, which she had preserved for many years. In fact, she had in early life been engaged to marry a young rake—he was a captain in the army—nothing connected with whom came to any good. She never did marry him, but she gave birth to a child of which he was the father. The captain in the army being dead, she believed herself safe; but a train of circumstances with which I need not trouble you led to discovery. As I received the story, they began in an imprudence on her own part one day when she was taken by surprise, which shows how difficult it is for the firmest of us (she was very firm) to be always guarded. There was great domestic trouble and amazement, you may suppose; I leave you to imagine, Sir Leicester, the husband’s grief. But that is not the present point. When Mr. Rouncewell’s townsman heard of the disclosure, he no more allowed the girl to be patronized and honoured than he would have suffered her to be trodden underfoot before his eyes. Such was his pride, that he indignantly took her away, as if from reproach and disgrace. He had no sense of the honour done him and his daughter by the lady’s condescension; not the least. He resented the girl’s position, as if the lady had been the commonest of commoners. That is the story. I hope Lady Dedlock will excuse its painful nature.", "pos": 1264055}
{"speaker": "the debilitated cousin", "text": "no business—Rouncewell’s fernal townsman.", "pos": 1265981}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Lady Dedlock?", "pos": 1269834}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Why have you told my story to so many persons?", "pos": 1269994}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Lady Dedlock, it was necessary for me to inform you that I knew it.", "pos": 1270043}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "How long have you known it?", "pos": 1270113}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "I have suspected it a long while—fully known it a little while.", "pos": 1270143}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Months?", "pos": 1270209}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Days.", "pos": 1270219}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Is this true concerning the poor girl? You know what you related. Is it true? Do her friends know my story also? Is it the town-talk yet? Is it chalked upon the walls and cried in the streets?", "pos": 1270594}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "No, Lady Dedlock. No, Lady Dedlock. That was a hypothetical case, arising out of Sir Leicester’s unconsciously carrying the matter with so high a hand. But it would be a real case if they knew—what we know.", "pos": 1271143}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Then they do not know it yet?", "pos": 1271334}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "No.", "pos": 1271366}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Can I save the poor girl from injury before they know it?", "pos": 1271372}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Really, Lady Dedlock, I cannot give a satisfactory opinion on that point.", "pos": 1271432}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Sir, I will make it plainer. I do not dispute your hypothetical case. I anticipated it, and felt its truth as strongly as you can do, when I saw Mr. Rouncewell here. I knew very well that if he could have had the power of seeing me as I was, he would consider the poor girl tarnished by having for a moment been, although most innocently, the subject of my great and distinguished patronage. But I have an interest in her, or I should rather say—no longer belonging to this place—I had, and if you can find so much consideration for the woman under your foot as to remember that, she will be very sensible of your mercy. You have prepared me for my exposure, and I thank you for that too. Is there anything that you require of me? Is there any claim that I can release or any charge or trouble that I can spare my husband in obtaining HIS release by certifying to the exactness of your discovery? I will write anything, here and now, that you will dictate. I am ready to do it.", "pos": 1271798}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "I will not trouble you, Lady Dedlock. Pray spare yourself.", "pos": 1273007}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I have long expected this, as you know. I neither wish to spare myself nor to be spared. You can do nothing worse to me than you have done. Do what remains now.", "pos": 1273068}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Lady Dedlock, there is nothing to be done. I will take leave to say a few words when you have finished.", "pos": 1273231}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Of repentance or remorse or any feeling of mine, I say not a word. If I were not dumb, you would be deaf. Let that go by. It is not for your ears. Of other and very different things I come to speak to you. My jewels are all in their proper places of keeping. They will be found there. So, my dresses. So, all the valuables I have. Some ready money I had with me, please to say, but no large amount. I did not wear my own dress, in order that I might avoid observation. I went to be henceforward lost. Make this known. I leave no other charge with you.", "pos": 1273908}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Excuse me, Lady Dedlock, I am not sure that I understand you. You want—", "pos": 1274588}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "To be lost to all here. I leave Chesney Wold to-night. I go this hour. Do you know the relief that my disappearance will be? Have you forgotten the stain and blot upon this place, and where it is, and who it is?", "pos": 1274701}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "No, Lady Dedlock, not by any means. Lady Dedlock, have the goodness to stop and hear me, or before you reach the staircase I shall ring the alarm-bell and rouse the house. And then I must speak out before every guest and servant, every man and woman, in it. Have the goodness to hear me, Lady Dedlock. The relations between us are of an unfortunate description, Lady Dedlock; but as they are not of my making, I will not apologize for them. The position I hold in reference to Sir Leicester is so well known to you that I can hardly imagine but that I must long have appeared in your eyes the natural person to make this discovery.", "pos": 1275146}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Sir, I had better have gone. It would have been far better not to have detained me. I have no more to say.", "pos": 1276412}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Excuse me, Lady Dedlock, if I add a little more to hear.", "pos": 1276521}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I wish to hear it at the window, then. I can’t breathe where I am.", "pos": 1276580}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Lady Dedlock, I have not yet been able to come to a decision satisfactory to myself on the course before me. I am not clear what to do or how to act next. I must request you, in the meantime, to keep your secret as you have kept it so long and not to wonder that I keep it too. Pardon me, Lady Dedlock. This is an important subject. You are honouring me with your attention?", "pos": 1277115}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I am.", "pos": 1277529}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Thank you. I might have known it from what I have seen of your strength of character. I ought not to have asked the question, but I have the habit of making sure of my ground, step by step, as I go on. The sole consideration in this unhappy case is Sir Leicester.", "pos": 1277537}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Then why do you detain me in his house?", "pos": 1277893}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Because he IS the consideration. Lady Dedlock, I have no occasion to tell you that Sir Leicester is a very proud man, that his reliance upon you is implicit, that the fall of that moon out of the sky would not amaze him more than your fall from your high position as his wife. I declare to you, Lady Dedlock, that with anything short of this case that I have, I would as soon have hoped to root up by means of my own strength and my own hands the oldest tree on this estate as to shake your hold upon Sir Leicester and Sir Leicester’s trust and confidence in you. And even now, with this case, I hesitate. Not that he could doubt (that, even with him, is impossible), but that nothing can prepare him for the blow.", "pos": 1277935}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Not my flight? Think of it again.", "pos": 1278782}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Your flight, Lady Dedlock, would spread the whole truth, and a hundred times the whole truth, far and wide. It would be impossible to save the family credit for a day. It is not to be thought of. When I speak of Sir Leicester being the sole consideration, he and the family credit are one. Sir Leicester and the baronetcy, Sir Leicester and Chesney Wold, Sir Leicester and his ancestors and his patrimony are, I need not say to you, Lady Dedlock, inseparable.", "pos": 1278834}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Go on!", "pos": 1279402}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Therefore, I have much to consider. This is to be hushed up if it can be. How can it be, if Sir Leicester is driven out of his wits or laid upon a death-bed? If I inflicted this shock upon him to-morrow morning, how could the immediate change in him be accounted for? What could have caused it? What could have divided you? Lady Dedlock, the wall-chalking and the street-crying would come on directly, and you are to remember that it would not affect you merely (whom I cannot at all consider in this business) but your husband, Lady Dedlock, your husband. There is another point of view, in which the case presents itself. Sir Leicester is devoted to you almost to infatuation. He might not be able to overcome that infatuation, even knowing what we know. I am putting an extreme case, but it might be so. If so, it were better that he knew nothing. Better for common sense, better for him, better for me. I must take all this into account, and it combines to render a decision very difficult. My experience teaches me, Lady Dedlock, that most of the people I know would do far better to leave marriage alone. It is at the bottom of three fourths of their troubles. So I thought when Sir Leicester married, and so I always have thought since. No more about that. I must now be guided by circumstances. In the meanwhile I must beg you to keep your own counsel, and I will keep mine.", "pos": 1279476}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I am to drag my present life on, holding its pains at your pleasure, day by day?", "pos": 1281262}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Yes, I am afraid so, Lady Dedlock.", "pos": 1281389}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "It is necessary, you think, that I should be so tied to the stake?", "pos": 1281426}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "I am sure that what I recommend is necessary.", "pos": 1281495}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I am to remain on this gaudy platform on which my miserable deception has been so long acted, and it is to fall beneath me when you give the signal?", "pos": 1281543}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Not without notice, Lady Dedlock. I shall take no step without forewarning you.", "pos": 1281711}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "We are to meet as usual?", "pos": 1281897}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Precisely as usual, if you please.", "pos": 1281924}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "And I am to hide my guilt, as I have done so many years?", "pos": 1281960}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "As you have done so many years. I should not have made that reference myself, Lady Dedlock, but I may now remind you that your secret can be no heavier to you than it was, and is no worse and no better than it was. I know it certainly, but I believe we have never wholly trusted each other.", "pos": 1282019}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Is there anything more to be said to-night?", "pos": 1282391}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Why. I should like to be assured of your acquiescence in my arrangements, Lady Dedlock.", "pos": 1282437}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "You may be assured of it.", "pos": 1282595}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Good. And I would wish in conclusion to remind you, as a business precaution, in case it should be necessary to recall the fact in any communication with Sir Leicester, that throughout our interview I have expressly stated my sole consideration to be Sir Leicester’s feelings and honour and the family reputation. I should have been happy to have made Lady Dedlock a prominent consideration, too, if the case had admitted of it; but unfortunately it does not.", "pos": 1282623}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I can attest your fidelity, sir.", "pos": 1283085}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Is that Snagsby?", "pos": 1287142}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Yes, sir. I hope you are well, sir. I was just giving you up, sir, and going home. Aye? What is it? What do you want with me?", "pos": 1287161}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Well, sir, I was wishful to say a word to you, sir.", "pos": 1287395}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Can you say it here?", "pos": 1287449}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Perfectly, sir.", "pos": 1287472}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Say it then.", "pos": 1287490}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "It is relating—not to put too fine a point upon it—to the foreigner, sir!", "pos": 1287699}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "What foreigner?", "pos": 1287820}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "The foreign female, sir. French, if I don’t mistake? I am not acquainted with that language myself, but I should judge from her manners and appearance that she was French; anyways, certainly foreign. Her that was upstairs, sir, when Mr. Bucket and me had the honour of waiting upon you with the sweeping-boy that night.", "pos": 1287838}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Oh! Yes, yes. Mademoiselle Hortense.", "pos": 1288160}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Indeed, sir? I am not acquainted myself with the names of foreigners in general, but I have no doubt it WOULD be that.", "pos": 1288199}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "And what can you have to say, Snagsby, about her?", "pos": 1288531}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Well, sir, it falls a little hard upon me. My domestic happiness is very great—at least, it’s as great as can be expected, I’m sure—but my little woman is rather given to jealousy. Not to put too fine a point upon it, she is very much given to jealousy. And you see, a foreign female of that genteel appearance coming into the shop, and hovering—I should be the last to make use of a strong expression if I could avoid it, but hovering, sir—in the court—you know it is—now ain’t it? I only put it to yourself, sir.", "pos": 1288675}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "And that’s all, is it, Snagsby?", "pos": 1291300}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Why yes, sir, that’s all. and it’s enough too—for me.", "pos": 1291334}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "I don’t know what Mademoiselle Hortense may want or mean, unless she is mad.", "pos": 1291449}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Even if she was, you know, sir, it wouldn’t be a consolation to have some weapon or another in the form of a foreign dagger planted in the family.", "pos": 1291545}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "No. Well, well! This shall be stopped. I am sorry you have been inconvenienced. If she comes again, send her here. These women were created to give trouble the whole earth over. The mistress not being enough to deal with, here’s the maid now! But I will be short with THIS jade at least!", "pos": 1291734}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Who’s this? Aye, aye, mistress, it’s you, is it? You appear at a good time. I have just been hearing of you. Now! What do you want?", "pos": 1292822}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "I have had great deal of trouble to find you, sir.", "pos": 1293251}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "HAVE you!", "pos": 1293304}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "I have been here very often, sir. It has always been said to me, he is not at home, he is engage, he is this and that, he is not for you.", "pos": 1293316}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Quite right, and quite true.", "pos": 1293456}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "Not true. Lies!", "pos": 1293487}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Now, mistress, If you have anything to say, say it, say it.", "pos": 1293864}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "Sir, you have not use me well. You have been mean and shabby.", "pos": 1293993}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Mean and shabby, eh?", "pos": 1294057}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "Yes. What is it that I tell you? You know you have. You have attrapped me—catched me—to give you information; you have asked me to show you the dress of mine my Lady must have wore that night, you have prayed me to come in it here to meet that boy. Say! Is it not?", "pos": 1294131}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "You are a vixen, a vixen! Well, wench, well. I paid you.", "pos": 1294442}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "You paid me! Two sovereign! I have not change them, I re-fuse them, I des-pise them, I throw them from me! Now! You have paid me? Eh, my God, oh yes!", "pos": 1294588}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "You must be rich, my fair friend, to throw money about in that way!", "pos": 1295184}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "I AM rich. I am very rich in hate. I hate my Lady, of all my heart. You know that.", "pos": 1295295}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Know it? How should I know it?", "pos": 1295380}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "Because you have known it perfectly before you prayed me to give you that information. Because you have known perfectly that I was en-r-r-r-raged!", "pos": 1295413}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Oh! I knew that, did I?", "pos": 1295762}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "Yes, without doubt. I am not blind. You have made sure of me because you knew that. You had reason! I det-est her.", "pos": 1295842}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Having said this, have you anything else to say, mademoiselle?", "pos": 1296058}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "I am not yet placed. Place me well. Find me a good condition! If you cannot, or do not choose to do that, employ me to pursue her, to chase her, to disgrace and to dishonour her. I will help you well, and with a good will. It is what YOU do. Do I not know that?", "pos": 1296123}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "You appear to know a good deal.", "pos": 1296387}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "Do I not? Is it that I am so weak as to believe, like a child, that I come here in that dress to rec-eive that boy only to decide a little bet, a wager? Eh, my God, oh yes!", "pos": 1296446}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Now, let us see, how this matter stands.", "pos": 1296880}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "Ah! Let us see,", "pos": 1297011}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "You come here to make a remarkably modest demand, which you have just stated, and it not being conceded, you will come again.", "pos": 1297095}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "And again. And yet again. And yet again. And many times again. In effect, for ever!", "pos": 1297275}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "And not only here, but you will go to Mr. Snagsby’s too, perhaps? That visit not succeeding either, you will go again perhaps? Very well. Now, Mademoiselle Hortense, let me recommend you to take the candle and pick up that money of yours. I think you will find it behind the clerk’s partition in the corner yonder. You will not, eh?", "pos": 1297361}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "No, I will not!", "pos": 1297925}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "So much the poorer you; so much the richer I! Look, mistress, this is the key of my wine-cellar. It is a large key, but the keys of prisons are larger. In this city there are houses of correction (where the treadmills are, for women), the gates of which are very strong and heavy, and no doubt the keys too. I am afraid a lady of your spirit and activity would find it an inconvenience to have one of those keys turned upon her for any length of time. What do you think?", "pos": 1297943}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "I think that you are a miserable wretch.", "pos": 1298491}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Probably. But I don’t ask what you think of myself; I ask what you think of the prison.", "pos": 1298587}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "Nothing. What does it matter to me?", "pos": 1298677}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Why, it matters this much, mistress, the law is so despotic here that it interferes to prevent any of our good English citizens from being troubled, even by a lady’s visits against his desire. And on his complaining that he is so troubled, it takes hold of the troublesome lady and shuts her up in prison under hard discipline. Turns the key upon her, mistress.", "pos": 1298715}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "Truly? That is droll! But—my faith!—still what does it matter to me?", "pos": 1299251}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "My fair friend, make another visit here, or at Mr. Snagsby’s, and you shall learn.", "pos": 1299322}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "In that case you will send me to the prison, perhaps?", "pos": 1299431}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Perhaps. In a word, mistress, I am sorry to be unpolite, but if you ever present yourself uninvited here—or there—again, I will give you over to the police. Their gallantry is great, but they carry troublesome people through the streets in an ignominious manner, strapped down on a board, my good wench.", "pos": 1299487}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "I will prove you. I will try if you dare to do it!", "pos": 1300023}
{"speaker": "the lawyer", "text": "And if. I place you in that good condition of being locked up in jail, it will be some time before you find yourself at liberty again.", "pos": 1300126}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "I will prove you,", "pos": 1300305}
{"speaker": "the lawyer", "text": "And now, you had better go. Think twice before you come here again.", "pos": 1300369}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "Think you, twice two hundred times!", "pos": 1300489}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "You were dismissed by your lady, you know, as the most implacable and unmanageable of women. Now turn over a new leaf and take warning by what I say to you. For what I say, I mean; and what I threaten, I will do, mistress.", "pos": 1300542}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Rick is mistaken, my dear. Well, well! We have all been mistaken over and over again. We must trust to you and time to set him right.", "pos": 1303314}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Adviser! My dear, who would advise with Skimpole?", "pos": 1304626}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Encourager would perhaps have been a better word,", "pos": 1304712}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Encourager! Who could be encouraged by Skimpole?", "pos": 1304772}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Not Richard?", "pos": 1304853}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "No. Such an unworldly, uncalculating, gossamer creature is a relief to him and an amusement. But as to advising or encouraging or occupying a serious station towards anybody or anything, it is simply not to be thought of in such a child as Skimpole.", "pos": 1304877}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Pray, cousin John, what made him such a child?", "pos": 1305143}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "What made him such a child? Why, he is all sentiment, and—and susceptibility, and—and sensibility, and—and imagination. And these qualities are not regulated in him, somehow. I suppose the people who admired him for them in his youth attached too much importance to them and too little to any training that would have balanced and adjusted them, and so he became what he is. Hey? What do you think, you two?", "pos": 1305260}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "it was a pity he should be an expense to Richard.", "pos": 1305909}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "So it is, so it is. That must not be. We must arrange that. I must prevent it. That will never do.", "pos": 1305960}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Did he? Oh, yes!", "pos": 1306219}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Exactly! There you have the man! If he had meant any harm by it or was conscious of any harm in it, he wouldn’t tell it. He tells it as he does it in mere simplicity. But you shall see him in his own home, and then you’ll understand him better. We must pay a visit to Harold Skimpole and caution him on these points. Lord bless you, my dears, an infant, an infant!", "pos": 1306638}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Here I am, you see! Here I am! This is my frugal breakfast. Some men want legs of beef and mutton for breakfast; I don’t. Give me my peach, my cup of coffee, and my claret; I am content. I don’t want them for themselves, but they remind me of the sun. There’s nothing solar about legs of beef and mutton. Mere animal satisfaction! Yes, this is the bird’s cage. This is where the bird lives and sings. They pluck his feathers now and then and clip his wings, but he sings, he sings! He sings! Not an ambitious note, but still he sings. No. No! Some amiable gardener sells them. His man wanted to know, when he brought them last evening, whether he should wait for the money. ‘Really, my friend,’ I said, ‘I think not—if your time is of any value to you.’ I suppose it was, for he went away. This is a day, that will ever be remembered here. We shall call it Saint Clare and Saint Summerson day. You must see my daughters. I have a blue-eyed daughter who is my Beauty daughter, I have a Sentiment daughter, and I have a Comedy daughter. You must see them all. They’ll be enchanted.", "pos": 1309526}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "My dear Jarndyce,", "pos": 1311333}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "as many moments as you please. Time is no object here. We never know what o’clock it is, and we never care. Not the way to get on in life, you’ll tell me? Certainly. But we DON’T get on in life. We don’t pretend to do it.", "pos": 1311400}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Now, Harold, the word I have to say relates to Rick.", "pos": 1311688}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "The dearest friend I have! I suppose he ought not to be my dearest friend, as he is not on terms with you. But he is, I can’t help it; he is full of youthful poetry, and I love him. If you don’t like it, I can’t help it. I love him.", "pos": 1311755}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "You are welcome to love him as much as you like, but we must save his pocket, Harold.", "pos": 1312183}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Oh! His pocket? Now you are coming to what I don’t understand.", "pos": 1312296}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "If you go with him here or there, you must not let him pay for both.", "pos": 1312561}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "My dear Jarndyce, what am I to do? If he takes me anywhere, I must go. And how can I pay? I never have any money. If I had any money, I don’t know anything about it. Suppose I say to a man, how much? Suppose the man says to me seven and sixpence? I know nothing about seven and sixpence. It is impossible for me to pursue the subject with any consideration for the man. I don’t go about asking busy people what seven and sixpence is in Moorish—which I don’t understand. Why should I go about asking them what seven and sixpence is in Money—which I don’t understand?", "pos": 1312660}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Well, if you come to any kind of journeying with Rick, you must borrow the money of me (never breathing the least allusion to that circumstance), and leave the calculation to him.", "pos": 1313312}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "My dear Jarndyce. I will do anything to give you pleasure, but it seems an idle form—a superstition. Besides, I give you my word, Miss Clare and my dear Miss Summerson, I thought Mr. Carstone was immensely rich. I thought he had only to make over something, or to sign a bond, or a draft, or a cheque, or a bill, or to put something on a file somewhere, to bring down a shower of money.", "pos": 1313562}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Indeed it is not so, sir. He is poor.", "pos": 1313976}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "No, really? You surprise me.", "pos": 1314028}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "And not being the richer for trusting in a rotten reed, be you very careful not to encourage him in that reliance, Harold.", "pos": 1314106}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "My dear good friend, and my dear Miss Simmerson, and my dear Miss Clare, how can I do that? It’s business, and I don’t know business. It is he who encourages me. He emerges from great feats of business, presents the brightest prospects before me as their result, and calls upon me to admire them. I do admire them—as bright prospects. But I know no more about them, and I tell him so.", "pos": 1314327}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "This, is my Beauty daughter, Arethusa—plays and sings odds and ends like her father. This is my Sentiment daughter, Laura—plays a little but don’t sing. This is my Comedy daughter, Kitty—sings a little but don’t play. We all draw a little and compose a little, and none of us have any idea of time or money. It is pleasant, and it is whimsically interesting to trace peculiarities in families. In this family we are all children, and I am the youngest. My dears, it is true, is it not? So it is, and so it must be, because like the dogs in the hymn, ‘it is our nature to.’ Now, here is Miss Summerson with a fine administrative capacity and a knowledge of details perfectly surprising. It will sound very strange in Miss Summerson’s ears, I dare say, that we know nothing about chops in this house. But we don’t, not the least. We can’t cook anything whatever. A needle and thread we don’t know how to use. We admire the people who possess the practical wisdom we want, but we don’t quarrel with them. Then why should they quarrel with us? Live and let live, we say to them. Live upon your practical wisdom, and let us live upon you! We have sympathy, my roses, sympathy for everything. Have we not?", "pos": 1315838}
{"speaker": "the three daughters", "text": "Oh, yes, papa!", "pos": 1317623}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "In fact, that is our family department, in this hurly-burly of life. We are capable of looking on and of being interested, and we DO look on, and we ARE interested. What more can we do? Here is my Beauty daughter, married these three years. Now I dare say her marrying another child, and having two more, was all wrong in point of political economy, but it was very agreeable. We had our little festivities on those occasions and exchanged social ideas. She brought her young husband home one day, and they and their young fledglings have their nest upstairs. I dare say at some time or other Sentiment and Comedy will bring THEIR husbands home and have THEIR nests upstairs too. So we get on, we don’t know how, but somehow.", "pos": 1317667}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "My roses, take care of mama. She is poorly to-day. By going home with Mr. Jarndyce for a day or two, I shall hear the larks sing and preserve my amiability. It has been tried, you know, and would be tried again if I remained at home.", "pos": 1319540}
{"speaker": "The Comedy daughter", "text": "That bad man!", "pos": 1319805}
{"speaker": "Laura", "text": "At the very time when he knew papa was lying ill by his wallflowers, looking at the blue sky,", "pos": 1319847}
{"speaker": "Arethusa", "text": "And when the smell of hay was in the air!", "pos": 1319961}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "It showed a want of poetry in the man. It was coarse. There was an absence of the finer touches of humanity in it! My daughters have taken great offence, at an honest man—", "pos": 1320020}
{"speaker": "the three daughters", "text": "Not honest, papa. Impossible!", "pos": 1320271}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "At a rough kind of fellow—a sort of human hedgehog rolled up, who is a baker in this neighbourhood and from whom we borrowed a couple of arm-chairs. We wanted a couple of arm-chairs, and we hadn’t got them, and therefore of course we looked to a man who HAD got them, to lend them. Well! This morose person lent them, and we wore them out. When they were worn out, he wanted them back. He had them back. He was contented, you will say. Not at all. He objected to their being worn. I reasoned with him, and pointed out his mistake. I said, ‘Can you, at your time of life, be so headstrong, my friend, as to persist that an arm-chair is a thing to put upon a shelf and look at? That it is an object to contemplate, to survey from a distance, to consider from a point of sight? Don’t you KNOW that these arm-chairs were borrowed to be sat upon?’ He was unreasonable and unpersuadable and used intemperate language. Being as patient as I am at this minute, I addressed another appeal to him. I said, ‘Now, my good man, however our business capacities may vary, we are all children of one great mother, Nature. On this blooming summer morning here you see me’ (I was on the sofa) ‘with flowers before me, fruit upon the table, the cloudless sky above me, the air full of fragrance, contemplating Nature. I entreat you, by our common brotherhood, not to interpose between me and a subject so sublime, the absurd figure of an angry baker!’ But he did, he did interpose that ridiculous figure, and he does, and he will again. And therefore I am very glad to get out of his way and to go home with my friend Jarndyce.", "pos": 1320329}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Sir Leicester Dedlock! I do myself the honour of calling here—", "pos": 1323818}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "You do ME the honour, Sir Leicester.", "pos": 1324368}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Thank you—of calling here on my road from Lincolnshire to express my regret that any cause of complaint, however strong, that I may have against a gentleman who—who is known to you and has been your host, and to whom therefore I will make no farther reference, should have prevented you, still more ladies under your escort and charge, from seeing whatever little there may be to gratify a polite and refined taste at my house, Chesney Wold.", "pos": 1324407}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "You are exceedingly obliging, Sir Leicester, and on behalf of those ladies (who are present) and for myself, I thank you very much.", "pos": 1324851}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "It is possible, Mr. Jarndyce, that the gentleman to whom, for the reasons I have mentioned, I refrain from making further allusion—it is possible, Mr. Jarndyce, that that gentleman may have done me the honour so far to misapprehend my character as to induce you to believe that you would not have been received by my local establishment in Lincolnshire with that urbanity, that courtesy, which its members are instructed to show to all ladies and gentlemen who present themselves at that house. I merely beg to observe, sir, that the fact is the reverse. It has given me pain, Mr. Jarndyce. I assure you, sir, it has given—me—pain—to learn from the housekeeper at Chesney Wold that a gentleman who was in your company in that part of the county, and who would appear to possess a cultivated taste for the fine arts, was likewise deterred by some such cause from examining the family pictures with that leisure, that attention, that care, which he might have desired to bestow upon them and which some of them might possibly have repaid. Mr. Hirrold—Herald—Harold—Skampling—Skumpling—I beg your pardon—Skimpole.", "pos": 1324985}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "This is Mr. Harold Skimpole,", "pos": 1326315}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Oh! I am happy to meet Mr. Skimpole and to have the opportunity of tendering my personal regrets. I hope, sir, that when you again find yourself in my part of the county, you will be under no similar sense of restraint.", "pos": 1326385}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "You are very obliging, Sir Leicester Dedlock. So encouraged, I shall certainly give myself the pleasure and advantage of another visit to your beautiful house. The owners of such places as Chesney Wold, are public benefactors. They are good enough to maintain a number of delightful objects for the admiration and pleasure of us poor men; and not to reap all the admiration and pleasure that they yield is to be ungrateful to our benefactors.", "pos": 1326634}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "An artist, sir?", "pos": 1327192}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "No. A perfectly idle man. A mere amateur.", "pos": 1327210}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Mr. Skimpole mentioned, mentioned to the housekeeper, who, as he may have observed, is an old and attached retainer of the family—", "pos": 1327504}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "That is, when I walked through the house the other day, on the occasion of my going down to visit Miss Summerson and Miss Clare,", "pos": 1327704}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "—That the friend with whom he had formerly been staying there was Mr. Jarndyce. And hence I became aware of the circumstance for which I have professed my regret. That this should have occurred to any gentleman, Mr. Jarndyce, but especially a gentleman formerly known to Lady Dedlock, and indeed claiming some distant connexion with her, and for whom (as I learn from my Lady herself) she entertains a high respect, does, I assure you, give—me—pain.", "pos": 1327873}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Pray say no more about it, Sir Leicester. I am very sensible, as I am sure we all are, of your consideration. Indeed the mistake was mine, and I ought to apologize for it.", "pos": 1328375}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "I mentioned the subject to Lady Dedlock, and my Lady informed me that she had had the pleasure of exchanging a few words with Mr. Jarndyce and his wards on the occasion of an accidental meeting during their sojourn in the vicinity. Permit me, Mr. Jarndyce, to repeat to yourself, and to these ladies, the assurance I have already tendered to Mr. Skimpole. Circumstances undoubtedly prevent my saying that it would afford me any gratification to hear that Mr. Boythorn had favoured my house with his presence, but those circumstances are confined to that gentleman himself and do not extend beyond him.", "pos": 1329024}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "You know my old opinion of him. An amiable bull who is determined to make every colour scarlet!", "pos": 1329658}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "May I come in, guardian?", "pos": 1330935}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Surely, little woman. What’s the matter?", "pos": 1330962}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Nothing is the matter. I thought I would like to take this quiet time of saying a word to you about myself.", "pos": 1331005}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "What concerns you, my dear Esther, concerns us all. You cannot be more ready to speak than I am to hear.", "pos": 1331403}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I know that, guardian. But I have such need of your advice and support. Oh! You don’t know how much need I have to-night.", "pos": 1331521}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Or how anxious I have been to speak to you,", "pos": 1331718}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "ever since the visitor was here to-day.", "pos": 1331772}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "The visitor, my dear! Sir Leicester Dedlock?", "pos": 1331814}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Yes.", "pos": 1331861}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Why, Esther, our visitor and you are the two last persons on earth I should have thought of connecting together!", "pos": 1332056}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Oh, yes, guardian, I know it. And I too, but a little while ago. Do you remember, when we were overtaken by the thunder-storm, Lady Dedlock’s speaking to you of her sister?", "pos": 1332171}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Of course. Of course. Of course I do.", "pos": 1332538}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And reminding you that she and her sister had differed, had gone their several ways? Why did they separate, guardian?", "pos": 1332567}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "My child, what questions are these! I never knew. No one but themselves ever did know, I believe. Who could tell what the secrets of those two handsome and proud women were! You have seen Lady Dedlock. If you had ever seen her sister, you would know her to have been as resolute and haughty as she. I never knew. No one but themselves ever did know, I believe. Who could tell what the secrets of those two handsome and proud women were! You have seen Lady Dedlock. If you had ever seen her sister, you would know her to have been as resolute and haughty as she.", "pos": 1332745}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Oh, guardian, I have seen her many and many a time!", "pos": 1333046}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Seen her? Then, Esther, when you spoke to me long ago of Boythorn, and when I told you that he was all but married once, and that the lady did not die, but died to him, and that that time had had its influence on his later life—did you know it all, and know who the lady was?", "pos": 1333100}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "No, guardian. Nor do I know yet.", "pos": 1333416}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Lady Dedlock’s sister.", "pos": 1333512}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And why, why, guardian, pray tell me why were THEY parted?", "pos": 1333537}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "It was her act, and she kept its motives in her inflexible heart. He afterwards did conjecture (but it was mere conjecture) that some injury which her haughty spirit had received in her cause of quarrel with her sister had wounded her beyond all reason, but she wrote him that from the date of that letter she died to him—as in literal truth she did—and that the resolution was exacted from her by her knowledge of his proud temper and his strained sense of honour, which were both her nature too. In consideration for those master points in him, and even in consideration for them in herself, she made the sacrifice, she said, and would live in it and die in it. She did both, I fear; certainly he never saw her, never heard of her from that hour. Nor did any one.", "pos": 1333626}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Oh, guardian, what have I done! what sorrow have I innocently caused!", "pos": 1334394}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "You caused, Esther?", "pos": 1334501}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Yes, guardian. Innocently, but most surely. That secluded sister is my first remembrance.", "pos": 1334523}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "No, no!", "pos": 1334615}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Yes, guardian, yes! And HER sister is my mother!", "pos": 1334645}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Nor do I understand, that any doubts tend towards you, my dear. Much suspicion may exist without that connexion.", "pos": 1336390}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "With the lawyer. But two other persons have come into my mind since I have been anxious. Then I told him all about Mr. Guppy, who I feared might have had his vague surmises when I little understood his meaning, but in whose silence after our last interview I expressed perfect confidence.", "pos": 1336516}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Well. Then we may dismiss him for the present. Who is the other? Ha! That is a more alarming person than the clerk. But after all, my dear, it was but seeking for a new service. She had seen you and Ada a little while before, and it was natural that you should come into her head. She merely proposed herself for your maid, you know. She did nothing more.", "pos": 1336821}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Her manner was strange,", "pos": 1337325}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Yes, and her manner was strange when she took her shoes off and showed that cool relish for a walk that might have ended in her death-bed. It would be useless self-distress and torment to reckon up such chances and possibilities. There are very few harmless circumstances that would not seem full of perilous meaning, so considered. Be hopeful, little woman. You can be nothing better than yourself; be that, through this knowledge, as you were before you had it. It is the best you can do for everybody’s sake. I, sharing the secret with you—", "pos": 1337359}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And lightening it, guardian, so much,", "pos": 1337925}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "—will be attentive to what passes in that family, so far as I can observe it from my distance. And if the time should come when I can stretch out a hand to render the least service to one whom it is better not to name even here, I will not fail to do it for her dear daughter’s sake. My dear Esther. I have long had something in my thoughts that I have wished to say to you.", "pos": 1337973}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Indeed?", "pos": 1338684}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I have had some difficulty in approaching it, and I still have. I should wish it to be so deliberately said, and so deliberately considered. Would you object to my writing it?", "pos": 1338694}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Dear guardian, how could I object to your writing anything for ME to read?", "pos": 1338872}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Then see, my love, am I at this moment quite as plain and easy—do I seem as open, as honest and old-fashioned—as I am at any time?", "pos": 1338949}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Quite.", "pos": 1339146}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Do I look as if I suppressed anything, meant anything but what I said, had any reservation at all, no matter what? Can you fully trust me, and thoroughly rely on what I profess, Esther?", "pos": 1339312}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Most thoroughly,", "pos": 1339585}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "My dear girl, give me your hand. You have wrought changes in me, little woman, since the winter day in the stage-coach. First and last you have done me a world of good since that time.", "pos": 1339632}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Ah, guardian, what have you done for me since that time!", "pos": 1340064}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "But, that is not to be remembered now.", "pos": 1340123}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "It never can be forgotten.", "pos": 1340175}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Yes, Esther, it is to be forgotten now, to be forgotten for a while. You are only to remember now that nothing can change me as you know me. Can you feel quite assured of that, my dear?", "pos": 1340204}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I can, and I do,", "pos": 1340429}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "That’s much. That’s everything. But I must not take that at a word. I will not write this something in my thoughts until you have quite resolved within yourself that nothing can change me as you know me. If you doubt that in the least degree, I will never write it. If you are sure of that, on good consideration, send Charley to me this night week—‘for the letter.’ But if you are not quite certain, never send. Mind, I trust to your truth, in this thing as in everything. If you are not quite certain on that one point, never send!", "pos": 1340456}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Guardian. I am already certain, I can no more be changed in that conviction than you can be changed towards me. I shall send Charley for the letter. Go and knock at Mr. Jarndyce’s door, Charley, and say you have come from me—‘for the letter.’ Lay it on the table, Charley,", "pos": 1341007}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Oh, Esther, Esther, can that be you! That is more like the composed look you comforted me with, my dear, when you showed me such a change! When you are mistress of Bleak House, you are to be as cheerful as a bird. In fact, you are always to be cheerful; so let us begin for once and for all. And so Esther, my dear, you are happy for life. Happy with your best friends, happy in your old home, happy in the power of doing a great deal of good, and happy in the undeserved love of the best of men.", "pos": 1346835}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Don’t you remember, my plain dear, what Mrs. Woodcourt said before those scars were there about your marrying—", "pos": 1348549}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Aye, it’s you, little woman, is it?", "pos": 1350858}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Guardian, when would you like to have the answer to the letter Charley came for?", "pos": 1350999}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "When it’s ready, my dear,", "pos": 1351125}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I think it is ready,", "pos": 1351165}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Is Charley to bring it?", "pos": 1351196}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "No. I have brought it myself, guardian,", "pos": 1351243}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "was this the mistress of Bleak House,", "pos": 1351357}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "yes;", "pos": 1351406}
{"speaker": "Charley", "text": "Oh, if you please, miss, would you step and speak to Mr. Jarndyce! step and speak Yes, miss. Him as come down in the country with Mr. Richard.", "pos": 1352187}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "You know Mr. Vholes, my dear, has brought an ugly report of our most unfortunate Rick. most unfortunate And as Rick and you are happily good friends, I should like to know, what you think, my dear. Would you be so good as to—as to speak up, Mr. Vholes?", "pos": 1353396}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "I have been saying that I have reason to know, Miss Summerson, as Mr. C.’s professional adviser, that Mr. C.’s circumstances are at the present moment in an embarrassed state. Not so much in point of amount as owing to the peculiar and pressing nature of liabilities Mr. C. has incurred and the means he has of liquidating or meeting the same. I have staved off many little matters for Mr. C., but there is a limit to staving off, and we have reached it. I have made some advances out of pocket to accommodate these unpleasantnesses, but I necessarily look to being repaid, for I do not pretend to be a man of capital, and I have a father to support in the Vale of Taunton, besides striving to realize some little independence for three dear girls at home. My apprehension is, Mr. C.’s circumstances being such, lest it should end in his obtaining leave to part with his commission, which at all events is desirable to be made known to his connexions.", "pos": 1354326}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Imagine the poor fellow without even his present resource. Yet what can I do? You know him, Esther. He would never accept of help from me now. To offer it or hint at it would be to drive him to an extremity, if nothing else did.", "pos": 1355453}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "What Mr. Jarndyce remarks, miss, is no doubt the case, and is the difficulty. I do not see that anything is to be done. I do not say that anything is to be done. Far from it. I merely come down here under the seal of confidence and mention it in order that everything may be openly carried on and that it may not be said afterwards that everything was not openly carried on. My wish is that everything should be openly carried on. I desire to leave a good name behind me. If I consulted merely my own interests with Mr. C., I should not be here. So insurmountable, as you must well know, would be his objections. This is not a professional attendance. This can he charged to nobody. I have no interest in it except as a member of society and a father— AND a son,", "pos": 1355750}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Well, sir. Miss Summerson will communicate with Mr. Carstone, and you can only hope that his position may be yet retrievable. You will allow me to order you lunch after your journey, sir.", "pos": 1357268}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "I thank you, Mr. Jarndyce, not any. I thank you, no, not a morsel. My digestion is much impaired, and I am but a poor knife and fork at any time. If I was to partake of solid food at this period of the day, I don’t know what the consequences might be. Everything having been openly carried on, sir, I will now with your permission take my leave.", "pos": 1357479}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "And I would that you could take your leave, and we could all take our leave, Mr. Vholes, of a cause you know of.", "pos": 1357914}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "We whose ambition it is to be looked upon in the light of respectable practitioners, sir, can but put our shoulders to the wheel. We do it, sir. At least, I do it myself; and I wish to think well of my professional brethren, one and all. You are sensible of an obligation not to refer to me, miss, in communicating with Mr. C.? Just so, miss. Good morning. Mr. Jarndyce, good morning, sir.", "pos": 1358282}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Now then!", "pos": 1363099}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Can I come in, Richard? It’s only Dame Durden.", "pos": 1363221}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Good heaven, my dear little woman, how do you come here? Who could have thought of seeing you! Nothing the matter? Ada is well?", "pos": 1363852}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Quite well. Lovelier than ever, Richard!", "pos": 1363993}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Ah! My poor cousin! I was writing to you, Esther.", "pos": 1364036}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Have you been at the trouble of writing all that, and am I not to read it after all?", "pos": 1364291}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Oh, my dear. You may read it in the whole room. It is all over here. Like you, Esther, but useless, and so NOT like you! I am away on leave this day—should have been gone in another hour—and that is to smooth it over, for my selling out. Well! Let bygones be bygones. So this calling follows the rest. I only want to have been in the church to have made the round of all the professions.", "pos": 1364387}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Richard, it is not so hopeless as that?", "pos": 1365021}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Esther, it is indeed. I am just so near disgrace as that those who are put in authority over me (as the catechism goes) would far rather be without me than with me. And they are right. Apart from debts and duns and all such drawbacks, I am not fit even for this employment. I have no care, no mind, no heart, no soul, but for one thing. Why, if this bubble hadn’t broken now, how could I have gone abroad? I must have been ordered abroad, but how could I have gone? How could I, with my experience of that thing, trust even Vholes unless I was at his back! No, Dame Durden! Two subjects I forbid—must forbid. The first is John Jarndyce. The second, you know what. Call it madness, and I tell you I can’t help it now, and can’t be sane. But it is no such thing; it is the one object I have to pursue. It is a pity I ever was prevailed upon to turn out of my road for any other. It would be wisdom to abandon it now, after all the time, anxiety, and pains I have bestowed upon it! Oh, yes, true wisdom. It would be very agreeable, too, to some people; but I never will. Am I to read it now? Of course, Esther, you know what she says here?", "pos": 1365074}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Yes, Richard.", "pos": 1367225}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Offers me, the little inheritance she is certain of so soon—just as little and as much as I have wasted—and begs and prays me to take it, set myself right with it, and remain in the service.", "pos": 1367241}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I know your welfare to be the dearest wish of her heart. And, oh, my dear Richard, Ada’s is a noble heart.", "pos": 1367481}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "I am sure it is. I—I wish I was dead! And this is the heart that the same John Jarndyce, who is not otherwise to be mentioned between us, stepped in to estrange from me. And the dear girl makes me this generous offer from under the same John Jarndyce’s roof, and with the same John Jarndyce’s gracious consent and connivance, I dare say, as a new means of buying me off. I will not hear you say such shameful words! If you please, my dear Richard, do not speak in such a tone to me. Consider! To accept this offer, my dear Esther, —once more, pray, pray forgive me; I am deeply grieved—to accept my dearest cousin’s offer is, I need not say, impossible. Besides, I have letters and papers that I could show you which would convince you it is all over here. I have done with the red coat, believe me. But it is some satisfaction, in the midst of my troubles and perplexities, to know that I am pressing Ada’s interests in pressing my own. Vholes has his shoulder to the wheel, and he cannot help urging it on as much for her as for me, thank God! No, no! If every farthing of Ada’s little fortune were mine, no part of it should be spent in retaining me in what I am not fit for, can take no interest in, and am weary of. It should be devoted to what promises a better return, and should be used where she has a larger stake. Don’t be uneasy for me! I shall now have only one thing on my mind, and Vholes and I will work it. I shall not be without means. Free of my commission, I shall be able to compound with some small usurers who will hear of nothing but their bond now—Vholes says so. I should have a balance in my favour anyway, but that would swell it. Come, come! You shall carry a letter to Ada from me, Esther, and you must both of you be more hopeful of me and not believe that I am quite cast away just yet, my dear.", "pos": 1367600}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Charley, Charley, come away! My dear, there is no reason—there is and there can be no reason at all—why it should be worse for you now than it ever has been. What you were last month, you are to-day; you are no worse, you are no better. This is not your resolution; call it up, Esther, call it up! No, my dear, no. No, no, no! You have been in shipwreck and peril since you left us, Mr. Woodcourt, but we can hardly call that a misfortune which enabled you to be so useful and so brave. We read of it with the truest interest. It first came to my knowledge through your old patient, poor Miss Flite, when I was recovering from my severe illness.", "pos": 1372212}
{"speaker": "Mr. Allan Woodcourt", "text": "Ah! Little Miss Flite! She lives the same life yet?", "pos": 1374175}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Just the same. Her gratitude to you, Mr. Woodcourt, is delightful. She is a most affectionate creature, as I have reason to say.", "pos": 1374240}
{"speaker": "Mr. Allan Woodcourt", "text": "You—you have found her so? I—I am glad of that.", "pos": 1374466}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I assure you, that I was deeply touched by her sympathy and pleasure at the time I have referred to.", "pos": 1374589}
{"speaker": "Mr. Allan Woodcourt", "text": "I was grieved to hear that you had been very ill.", "pos": 1374702}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I was very ill.", "pos": 1374754}
{"speaker": "Mr. Allan Woodcourt", "text": "But you have quite recovered?", "pos": 1374772}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I have quite recovered my health and my cheerfulness. You know how good my guardian is and what a happy life we lead, and I have everything to be thankful for and nothing in the world to desire.", "pos": 1374804}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I saw you observe him rather closely. Do you think him so changed?", "pos": 1376937}
{"speaker": "Mr. Allan Woodcourt", "text": "He is changed. It is not, his being so much younger or older, or thinner or fatter, or paler or ruddier, as there being upon his face such a singular expression. I never saw so remarkable a look in a young person. One cannot say that it is all anxiety or all weariness; yet it is both, and like ungrown despair.", "pos": 1377016}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "You do not think he is ill? That he cannot be at peace in mind, we have too much reason to know. Mr. Woodcourt, you are going to London?", "pos": 1377523}
{"speaker": "Mr. Allan Woodcourt", "text": "To-morrow or the next day.", "pos": 1377717}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "There is nothing Richard wants so much as a friend. He always liked you. Pray see him when you get there. Pray help him sometimes with your companionship if you can. You do not know of what service it might be. You cannot think how Ada, and Mr. Jarndyce, and even I—how we should all thank you, Mr. Woodcourt!", "pos": 1377746}
{"speaker": "Mr. Allan Woodcourt", "text": "Miss Summerson, before heaven, I will be a true friend to him! I will accept him as a trust, and it shall be a sacred one!", "pos": 1378058}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "God bless you! Ada loves him—we all love him, but Ada loves him as we cannot. I will tell her what you say. Thank you, and God bless you, in her name!", "pos": 1378238}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Woodcourt, pray let us meet in London!", "pos": 1378591}
{"speaker": "Mr. Allan Woodcourt", "text": "Meet? I have scarcely a friend there now but you. Where shall I find you?", "pos": 1378678}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Why, I must get a lodging of some sort. Say at Vholes’s, Symond’s Inn.", "pos": 1378776}
{"speaker": "Mr. Allan Woodcourt", "text": "Good! Without loss of time.", "pos": 1378876}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "What is the matter?", "pos": 1383529}
{"speaker": "Woman", "text": "Nothing, sir.", "pos": 1383551}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Can’t you make them hear? Do you want to be let in?", "pos": 1383567}
{"speaker": "Woman", "text": "I’m waiting till they get up at another house—a lodging-house—not here. I’m waiting here because there will be sun here presently to warm me.", "pos": 1383621}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "I am afraid you are tired. I am sorry to see you sitting in the street.", "pos": 1383796}
{"speaker": "Woman", "text": "Thank you, sir. It don’t matter.", "pos": 1383870}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Let me look at your forehead. I am a doctor. Don’t be afraid. I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.", "pos": 1384168}
{"speaker": "Woman", "text": "It’s nothing", "pos": 1384433}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Aye! A bad bruise, and the skin sadly broken. This must be very sore.", "pos": 1384542}
{"speaker": "Woman", "text": "It do ache a little, sir,", "pos": 1384614}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Let me try to make it more comfortable. My handkerchief won’t hurt you.", "pos": 1384696}
{"speaker": "Woman", "text": "Oh, dear no, sir, I’m sure of that!", "pos": 1384770}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "And so your husband is a brickmaker?", "pos": 1385095}
{"speaker": "Woman", "text": "How do you know that, sir?", "pos": 1385134}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Why, I suppose so from the colour of the clay upon your bag and on your dress. And I know brickmakers go about working at piecework in different places. And I am sorry to say I have known them cruel to their wives too.", "pos": 1385191}
{"speaker": "surgeon", "text": "Where is he now?", "pos": 1385623}
{"speaker": "Woman", "text": "He got into trouble last night, sir; but he’ll look for me at the lodging-house.", "pos": 1385660}
{"speaker": "surgeon", "text": "He will get into worse trouble if he often misuses his large and heavy hand as he has misused it here. But you forgive him, brutal as he is, and I say no more of him, except that I wish he deserved it. You have no young child?", "pos": 1385743}
{"speaker": "Woman", "text": "One as I calls mine, sir, but it’s Liz’s.", "pos": 1385999}
{"speaker": "surgeon", "text": "Your own is dead. I see! Poor little thing! I suppose you have some settled home. Is it far from here?", "pos": 1386043}
{"speaker": "Woman", "text": "It’s a good two or three and twenty mile from here, sir. At Saint Albans. You know Saint Albans, sir? I thought you gave a start like, as if you did.", "pos": 1386293}
{"speaker": "surgeon", "text": "Yes, I know something of it. And now I will ask you a question in return. Have you money for your lodging?", "pos": 1386445}
{"speaker": "Woman", "text": "Yes, sir, really and truly.", "pos": 1386554}
{"speaker": "Woman", "text": "Stop him, stop him! Stop him, sir! Stop him, sir, pray stop him!", "pos": 1388270}
{"speaker": "Woman", "text": "Oh, you, Jo! What? I have found you at last!", "pos": 1389252}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Jo. Jo! Stay. To be sure! I recollect this lad some time ago being brought before the coroner.", "pos": 1389318}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Yes, I see you once afore at the inkwhich. What of that? Can’t you never let such an unfortnet as me alone? An’t I unfortnet enough for you yet? How unfortnet do you want me fur to be? I’ve been a-chivied and a-chivied, fust by one on you and nixt by another on you, till I’m worritted to skins and bones. The inkwhich warn’t MY fault. I done nothink. He wos wery good to me, he wos; he wos the only one I knowed to speak to, as ever come across my crossing. It ain’t wery likely I should want him to be inkwhiched. I only wish I wos, myself. I don’t know why I don’t go and make a hole in the water, I’m sure I don’t.", "pos": 1389463}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Miserable creature, what has he done?", "pos": 1390388}
{"speaker": "Woman", "text": "Oh, you Jo, you Jo. I have found you at last!", "pos": 1390524}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "What has he done? Has he robbed you?", "pos": 1390572}
{"speaker": "Woman", "text": "No, sir, no. Robbed me? He did nothing but what was kind-hearted by me, and that’s the wonder of it. But he was along with me, sir. Oh, you Jo! He was along with me, sir, down at Saint Albans, ill, and a young lady, Lord bless her for a good friend to me, took pity on him when I durstn’t, and took him home— Yes, sir, yes. Took him home, and made him comfortable, and like a thankless monster he ran away in the night and never has been seen or heard of since till I set eyes on him just now. And that young lady that was such a pretty dear caught his illness, lost her beautiful looks, and wouldn’t hardly be known for the same young lady now if it wasn’t for her angel temper, and her pretty shape, and her sweet voice. Do you know it? You ungrateful wretch, do you know that this is all along of you and of her goodness to you?", "pos": 1390625}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Richard told me— I mean, I have heard of this—don’t mind me for a moment, I will speak presently. You hear what she says. But get up, get up! You hear what she says, and I know it’s true. Have you been here ever since?", "pos": 1392034}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Wishermaydie if I seen Tom-all-Alone’s till this blessed morning,", "pos": 1392782}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Why have you come here now?", "pos": 1392871}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "I don’t know how to do nothink, and I can’t get nothink to do. I’m wery poor and ill, and I thought I’d come back here when there warn’t nobody about, and lay down and hide somewheres as I knows on till arter dark, and then go and beg a trifle of Mr. Snagsby. He wos allus willin fur to give me somethink he wos, though Mrs. Snagsby she was allus a-chivying on me—like everybody everywheres.", "pos": 1393011}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Where have you come from? Did you hear me ask you where you have come from?", "pos": 1393405}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Tramp then,", "pos": 1393643}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Now tell me, tell me how it came about that you left that house when the good young lady had been so unfortunate as to pity you and take you home.", "pos": 1393666}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Come, Jo. Tell me. No. I dustn’t. I dustn’t, or I would.", "pos": 1394533}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "But I must know, all the same. Come, Jo.", "pos": 1394639}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Well, I’ll tell you something. I was took away. There!", "pos": 1394822}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Took away? In the night?", "pos": 1394879}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Ah!", "pos": 1394906}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Who took you away?", "pos": 1395143}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "I dustn’t name him. I dustn’t do it, sir.", "pos": 1395164}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "But I want, in the young lady’s name, to know. You may trust me. No one else shall hear.", "pos": 1395218}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Ah, but I don’t know, as he DON’T hear.", "pos": 1395309}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Why, he is not in this place.", "pos": 1395393}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Oh, ain’t he though? He’s in all manner of places, all at wanst.", "pos": 1395425}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Aye! Why, what had you been doing?", "pos": 1395773}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Nothink, sir. Never done nothink to get myself into no trouble, ’sept in not moving on and the inkwhich. But I’m a-moving on now. I’m a-moving on to the berryin ground—that’s the move as I’m up to.", "pos": 1395824}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "No, no, we will try to prevent that. But what did he do with you?", "pos": 1396024}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Put me in a horsepittle, till I was discharged, then giv me a little money—four half-bulls, wot you may call half-crowns—and ses ‘Hook it! Nobody wants you here,’ he ses. ‘You hook it. You go and tramp,’ he ses. ‘You move on,’ he ses. ‘Don’t let me ever see you nowheres within forty mile of London, or you’ll repent it.’ So I shall, if ever he doos see me, and he’ll see me if I’m above ground,", "pos": 1396092}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "He is not so ungrateful as you supposed. He had a reason for going away, though it was an insufficient one.", "pos": 1396696}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Thankee, sir, thankee! There now! See how hard you wos upon me. But ony you tell the young lady wot the genlmn ses, and it’s all right. For YOU wos wery good to me too, and I knows it.", "pos": 1396806}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Now, Jo, come with me and I will find you a better place than this to lie down and hide in. If I take one side of the way and you the other to avoid observation, you will not run away, I know very well, if you make me a promise.", "pos": 1397008}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "I won’t, not unless I wos to see HIM a-coming, sir.", "pos": 1397279}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Very well. I take your word. Half the town is getting up by this time, and the whole town will be broad awake in another hour. Come along. Good day again, my good woman.", "pos": 1397333}
{"speaker": "Woman", "text": "Good day again, sir, and I thank you kindly many times again.", "pos": 1397505}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Ony you tell the young lady as I never went fur to hurt her and wot the genlmn ses!", "pos": 1397666}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "I thought I was amost a-starvin, sir, but I don’t know nothink—not even that. I don’t care for eating wittles nor yet for drinking on ’em.", "pos": 1399667}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Draw breath, Jo!", "pos": 1399976}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "It draws, as heavy as a cart. I’m a-moving on, sir.", "pos": 1399995}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "We may repeat that dose, Jo. So! Now we will take five minutes’ rest, and then go on again.", "pos": 1400368}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "My dear physician! My meritorious, distinguished, honourable officer!", "pos": 1402073}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Where can I lodge him hereabouts for the present? Now, you have a fund of knowledge and good sense and can advise me.", "pos": 1402439}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "Gridley! Gridley! To be sure! Of course! My dear physician! General George will help us out.", "pos": 1402759}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Your servant, sir. Your servant, sir! Excuse me, sir. A sailor, I believe?", "pos": 1404004}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "I am proud to find I have the air of one, but I am only a sea-going doctor.", "pos": 1404395}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Indeed, sir! I should have thought you was a regular blue-jacket myself. You are very good, sir. As I know by experience that it’s not disagreeable to Miss Flite, and since it’s equally agreeable to yourself— And that’s the lad, sir, is it?", "pos": 1404490}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "That’s he. And, Mr. George, I am in this difficulty about him. I am unwilling to place him in a hospital, even if I could procure him immediate admission, because I foresee that he would not stay there many hours if he could be so much as got there. The same objection applies to a workhouse, supposing I had the patience to be evaded and shirked, and handed about from post to pillar in trying to get him into one, which is a system that I don’t take kindly to.", "pos": 1405279}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "No man does, sir,", "pos": 1405758}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "I am convinced that he would not remain in either place, because he is possessed by an extraordinary terror of this person who ordered him to keep out of the way; in his ignorance, he believes this person to be everywhere, and cognizant of everything.", "pos": 1405798}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I ask your pardon, sir. But you have not mentioned that party’s name. Is it a secret, sir?", "pos": 1406052}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "The boy makes it one. But his name is Bucket.", "pos": 1406164}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Bucket the detective, sir?", "pos": 1406212}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "The same man.", "pos": 1406241}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "The man is known to me, sir, and the boy is so far correct that he undoubtedly is a—rum customer.", "pos": 1406257}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Now, I wish Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson at least to know that this Jo, who tells so strange a story, has reappeared, and to have it in their power to speak with him if they should desire to do so. Therefore I want to get him, for the present moment, into any poor lodging kept by decent people where he would be admitted. Decent people and Jo, Mr. George, have not been much acquainted, as you see. Hence the difficulty. Do you happen to know any one in this neighbourhood who would receive him for a while on my paying for him beforehand?", "pos": 1406526}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Well, sir. I can assure you that I would willingly be knocked on the head at any time if it would be at all agreeable to Miss Summerson, and consequently I esteem it a privilege to do that young lady any service, however small. We are naturally in the vagabond way here, sir, both myself and Phil. You see what the place is. You are welcome to a quiet corner of it for the boy if the same would meet your views. No charge made, except for rations. We are not in a flourishing state of circumstances here, sir. We are liable to be tumbled out neck and crop at a moment’s notice. However, sir, such as the place is, and so long as it lasts, here it is at your service. I take it for granted, sir, you being one of the medical staff, that there is no present infection about this unfortunate subject? Because, sir, we have had enough of that. Do you consider him in present danger, sir? Then, sir, it appears to me—being naturally in the vagabond way myself—that the sooner he comes out of the street, the better. You, Phil! Bring him in!", "pos": 1407467}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Look here, Jo! This is Mr. George. He is a kind friend to you, for he is going to give you lodging room here.", "pos": 1410370}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "wery thankful.", "pos": 1410771}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "You are quite safe here. All you have to do at present is to be obedient and to get strong. And mind you tell us the truth here, whatever you do, Jo.", "pos": 1410788}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Wishermaydie if I don’t, sir. I never done nothink yit, but wot you knows on, to get myself into no trouble. I never was in no other trouble at all, sir, ’sept not knowin’ nothink and starwation.", "pos": 1410940}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "My intention merely was, sir, to point out to him where he can lie down and get a thorough good dose of sleep. Now, look here. There you are, you see! Here is a mattress, and here you may rest, on good behaviour, as long as Mr., I ask your pardon, sir Mr. Woodcourt pleases. Don’t you be alarmed if you hear shots; they’ll be aimed at the target, and not you. Now, there’s another thing I would recommend, sir. Phil, come here! Here is a man, sir, who was found, when a baby, in the gutter. Consequently, it is to be expected that he takes a natural interest in this poor creature. You do, don’t you, Phil?", "pos": 1411266}
{"speaker": "Phil", "text": "Certainly and surely I do, guv’ner,", "pos": 1412200}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "that if this man was to take him to a bath and was to lay out a few shillings in getting him one or two coarse articles—", "pos": 1412400}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Mr. George, my considerate friend, it is the very favour I would have asked.", "pos": 1412523}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I take it, sir, that you know Miss Summerson pretty well? Not related to her, sir? Excuse the apparent curiosity. It seemed to me probable that you might take more than a common interest in this poor creature because Miss Summerson had taken that unfortunate interest in him. ’Tis MY case, sir, I assure you.", "pos": 1413284}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "And mine, Mr. George.", "pos": 1413670}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Since you have been out, sir, I have been thinking that I unquestionably know the rooms in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where Bucket took the lad, according to his account. Though he is not acquainted with the name, I can help you to it. It’s Tulkinghorn. That’s what it is. Tulkinghorn. That’s the name, sir. I know the man, and know him to have been in communication with Bucket before, respecting a deceased person who had given him offence. I know the man, sir. To my sorrow.", "pos": 1413836}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "What kind of man! Do you mean to look at? I think I know that much of him. I mean to deal with. Generally, what kind of man?", "pos": 1414410}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Why, then I’ll tell you, sir, he is a confoundedly bad kind of man. He is a slow-torturing kind of man. He is no more like flesh and blood than a rusty old carbine is. He is a kind of man—by George!—that has caused me more restlessness, and more uneasiness, and more dissatisfaction with myself than all other men put together. That’s the kind of man Mr. Tulkinghorn is!", "pos": 1414539}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "I am sorry, to have touched so sore a place.", "pos": 1415044}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Sore? It’s no fault of yours, sir; but you shall judge. He has got a power over me. He is the man I spoke of just now as being able to tumble me out of this place neck and crop. He keeps me on a constant see-saw. He won’t hold off, and he won’t come on. If I have a payment to make him, or time to ask him for, or anything to go to him about, he don’t see me, don’t hear me—passes me on to Melchisedech’s in Clifford’s Inn, Melchisedech’s in Clifford’s Inn passes me back again to him—he keeps me prowling and dangling about him as if I was made of the same stone as himself. Why, I spend half my life now, pretty well, loitering and dodging about his door. What does he care? Nothing. Just as much as the rusty old carbine I have compared him to. He chafes and goads me till—Bah! Nonsense! I am forgetting myself. Mr. Woodcourt, all I say is, he is an old man; but I am glad I shall never have the chance of setting spurs to my horse and riding at him in a fair field. For if I had that chance, in one of the humours he drives me into—he’d go down, sir!", "pos": 1415105}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Let me lay here quiet and not be chivied no more, and be so kind any person as is a-passin nigh where I used fur to sleep, as jist to say to Mr. Sangsby that Jo, wot he known once, is a-moving on right forards with his duty, and I’ll be wery thankful. I’d be more thankful than I am aready if it wos any ways possible for an unfortnet to be it.", "pos": 1417599}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "You don’t remember me, Mr. Snagsby? No, sir, I am not. Are you a married man, sir? Would you make the attempt, though single, to speak as low as you can? For my little woman is a-listening somewheres, or I’ll forfeit the business and five hundred pound! I never had a secret of my own, sir. I can’t charge my memory with ever having once attempted to deceive my little woman on my own account since she named the day. I wouldn’t have done it, sir. Not to put too fine a point upon it, I couldn’t have done it, I dursn’t have done it. Whereas, and nevertheless, I find myself wrapped round with secrecy and mystery, till my life is a burden to me. You couldn’t name an individual human being—except myself—that my little woman is more set and determined against than Jo,", "pos": 1418677}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "why?", "pos": 1420338}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Why? How should I know why? But you are a single person, sir, and may you long be spared to ask a married person such a question! There again! At it again, in a new direction! A certain person charges me, in the solemnest way, not to talk of Jo to any one, even my little woman. Then comes another certain person, in the person of yourself, and charges me, in an equally solemn way, not to mention Jo to that other certain person above all other persons. Why, this is a private asylum! Why, not to put too fine a point upon it, this is Bedlam, sir!", "pos": 1420343}
{"speaker": "the stationer", "text": "And how do you find yourself, my poor lad?", "pos": 1422041}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "I am in luck, Mr. Sangsby, I am. Mr. Sangsby, I went and giv a illness to the lady as wos and yit as warn’t the t’other lady, and none of ’em never says nothink to me for having done it, on accounts of their being ser good and my having been s’unfortnet. The lady come herself and see me yesday, and she ses, ‘Ah, Jo!’ she ses. ‘We thought we’d lost you, Jo!’ she ses. And she sits down a-smilin so quiet, and don’t pass a word nor yit a look upon me for having done it, she don’t, and I turns agin the wall, I doos, Mr. Sangsby. And Mr. Jarnders, I see him a-forced to turn away his own self. And Mr. Woodcot, he come fur to giv me somethink fur to ease me, wot he’s allus a-doin’ on day and night, and wen he come a-bending over me and a-speakin up so bold, I see his tears a-fallin, Mr. Sangsby. Wot I was a-thinkin on, Mr. Sangsby, wos, as you wos able to write wery large, p’raps?", "pos": 1422137}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Yes, Jo, please God,", "pos": 1423472}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Uncommon precious large, p’raps?", "pos": 1423518}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Yes, my poor boy.", "pos": 1423577}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Wot I wos a-thinking on then, Mr. Sangsby, wos, that when I wos moved on as fur as ever I could go and couldn’t be moved no furder, whether you might be so good p’raps as to write out, wery large so that any one could see it anywheres, as that I wos wery truly hearty sorry that I done it and that I never went fur to do it, and that though I didn’t know nothink at all, I knowd as Mr. Woodcot once cried over it and wos allus grieved over it, and that I hoped as he’d be able to forgive me in his mind. If the writin could be made to say it wery large, he might.", "pos": 1423622}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "It shall say it, Jo. Very large.", "pos": 1424188}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Thankee, Mr. Sangsby. It’s wery kind of you, sir, and it makes me more cumfbler nor I was afore.", "pos": 1424240}
{"speaker": "Phil Squod", "text": "Hold up, my boy! Hold up!", "pos": 1425046}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "I thought. I thought I was in Tom-all-Alone’s agin. Ain’t there nobody here but you, Mr. Woodcot?", "pos": 1426295}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Nobody.", "pos": 1426444}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "And I ain’t took back to Tom-all-Alone’s. Am I, sir?", "pos": 1426454}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "No.", "pos": 1426509}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "I’m wery thankful.", "pos": 1426546}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Jo! Did you ever know a prayer?", "pos": 1426691}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Never knowd nothink, sir.", "pos": 1426725}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Not so much as one short prayer?", "pos": 1426753}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "No, sir. Nothink at all. Mr. Chadbands he wos a-prayin wunst at Mr. Sangsby’s and I heerd him, but he sounded as if he wos a-speakin’ to hisself, and not to me. He prayed a lot, but I couldn’t make out nothink on it. Different times there was other genlmen come down Tom-all-Alone’s a-prayin, but they all mostly sed as the t’other ’wuns prayed wrong, and all mostly sounded to be a-talking to theirselves, or a-passing blame on the t’others, and not a-talkin to us. WE never knowd nothink. I never knowd what it wos all about.", "pos": 1426788}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Stay, Jo! What now?", "pos": 1427549}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "It’s time for me to go to that there berryin ground, sir. Where they laid him as wos wery good to me, wery good to me indeed, he wos. It’s time fur me to go down to that there berryin ground, sir, and ask to be put along with him. I wants to go there and be berried. He used fur to say to me, ‘I am as poor as you to-day, Jo,’ he ses. I wants to tell him that I am as poor as him now and have come there to be laid along with him.", "pos": 1427571}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "By and by, Jo. By and by.", "pos": 1428085}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Ah! P’raps they wouldn’t do it if I wos to go myself. But will you promise to have me took there, sir, and laid along with him?", "pos": 1428113}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "I will, indeed.", "pos": 1428243}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Thankee, sir. Thankee, sir. They’ll have to get the key of the gate afore they can take me in, for it’s allus locked. And there’s a step there, as I used for to clean with my broom. It’s turned wery dark, sir. Is there any light a-comin?", "pos": 1428261}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "It is coming fast, Jo.", "pos": 1428501}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "I hear you, sir, in the dark, but I’m a-gropin—a-gropin—let me catch hold of your hand.", "pos": 1428630}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Jo, can you say what I say?", "pos": 1428720}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "I’ll say anythink as you say, sir, for I knows it’s good.", "pos": 1428750}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Our Father.", "pos": 1428810}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Our Father! Yes, that’s wery good, sir.", "pos": 1428824}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Which art in heaven.", "pos": 1428866}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Art in heaven—is the light a-comin, sir?", "pos": 1428889}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "It is close at hand. Hallowed be thy name!", "pos": 1428932}
{"speaker": "Jo", "text": "Hallowed be—thy—", "pos": 1428977}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Rosa. See to the door. Is it shut? I am about to place confidence in you, child, for I know I may trust your attachment, if not your judgment. In what I am going to do, I will not disguise myself to you at least. But I confide in you. Say nothing to any one of what passes between us. Do you know, Rosa, that I am different to you from what I am to any one?", "pos": 1432082}
{"speaker": "Rosa", "text": "Yes, my Lady. Much kinder. But then I often think I know you as you really are.", "pos": 1432771}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "You often think you know me as I really am? Poor child, poor child! Do you think, Rosa, you are any relief or comfort to me? Do you suppose your being young and natural, and fond of me and grateful to me, makes it any pleasure to me to have you near me?", "pos": 1432853}
{"speaker": "Rosa", "text": "I don’t know, my Lady; I can scarcely hope so. But with all my heart, I wish it was so.", "pos": 1433207}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "It is so, little one.", "pos": 1433297}
{"speaker": "Rosa", "text": "My Lady! Have I offended you?", "pos": 1433615}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "In nothing. Come here. I told you, Rosa, that I wished you to be happy and that I would make you so if I could make anybody happy on this earth. I cannot. There are reasons now known to me, reasons in which you have no part, rendering it far better for you that you should not remain here. You must not remain here. I have determined that you shall not. I have written to the father of your lover, and he will be here to-day. All this I have done for your sake.", "pos": 1433647}
{"speaker": "Rosa", "text": "Ah, my Lady, I have sometimes thought—forgive my being so free—that YOU are not happy.", "pos": 1434546}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I!", "pos": 1434635}
{"speaker": "Rosa", "text": "Will you be more so when you have sent me away? Pray, pray, think again. Let me stay a little while!", "pos": 1434640}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I have said, my child, that what I do, I do for your sake, not my own. It is done. What I am towards you, Rosa, is what I am now—not what I shall be a little while hence. Remember this, and keep my confidence. Do so much for my sake, and thus all ends between us!", "pos": 1434743}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Sir Leicester, I am desirous—but you are engaged.", "pos": 1435577}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Oh, dear no! Not at all. Only Mr. Tulkinghorn.", "pos": 1435628}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I beg your pardon, Lady Dedlock. Will you allow me to retire?", "pos": 1435759}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Only that Mr. Rouncewell is here (he has called by my appointment) and that we had better make an end of the question of that girl. I am tired to death of the matter. What can I do—to—assist? Let us see him here and have done with it. Will you tell them to send him up? Mr. Tulkinghorn, be so good as to ring. Thank you. Request, request the iron gentleman to walk this way. I hope you are well, Mr. Rouncewell. Be seated. (My solicitor, Mr. Tulkinghorn.) My Lady was desirous, Mr. Rouncewell, was desirous to speak with you. Hem!", "pos": 1437746}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "I shall be very happy, to give my best attention to anything Lady Dedlock does me the honour to say.", "pos": 1438622}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Pray, sir, may I be allowed to inquire whether anything has passed between you and your son respecting your son’s fancy?", "pos": 1439018}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "If my memory serves me, Lady Dedlock, I said, when I had the pleasure of seeing you before, that I should seriously advise my son to conquer that—fancy.", "pos": 1439275}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "And did you?", "pos": 1439492}
{"speaker": "Mr.Rouncewell", "text": "Oh! Of course I did.", "pos": 1439507}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "And pray has he done so?", "pos": 1439758}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "Really, Lady Dedlock, I cannot make you a definite reply. I fear not. Probably not yet. In our condition of life, we sometimes couple an intention with our—our fancies which renders them not altogether easy to throw off. I think it is rather our way to be in earnest.", "pos": 1439785}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Because. I have been thinking of the subject, which is tiresome to me.", "pos": 1440295}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "I am very sorry, I am sure.", "pos": 1440388}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "And also of what Sir Leicester said upon it, in which I quite concur and if you cannot give us the assurance that this fancy is at an end, I have come to the conclusion that the girl had better leave me.", "pos": 1440418}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "I can give no such assurance, Lady Dedlock. Nothing of the kind.", "pos": 1440650}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Then she had better go.", "pos": 1440717}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Excuse me, my Lady, but perhaps this may be doing an injury to the young woman which she has not merited. Here is a young woman, whose good fortune it is to have attracted the notice and favour of an eminent lady and to live, under the protection of that eminent lady, surrounded by the various advantages which such a position confers, and which are unquestionably very great—I believe unquestionably very great, sir—for a young woman in that station of life. The question then arises, should that young woman be deprived of these many advantages and that good fortune simply because she has has attracted the notice of Mr Rouncewell’s son? Now, has she deserved this punishment? Is this just towards her? Is this our previous understanding?", "pos": 1440743}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "I beg your pardon. Sir Leicester, will you allow me? I think I may shorten the subject. Pray dismiss that from your consideration. If you remember anything so unimportant—which is not to be expected—you would recollect that my first thought in the affair was directly opposed to her remaining here.", "pos": 1441753}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "It is not necessary, to enter into these matters on either side. The girl is a very good girl; I have nothing whatever to say against her, but she is so far insensible to her many advantages and her good fortune that she is in love—or supposes she is, poor little fool—and unable to appreciate them. As Sir Leicester observed, Mr. Rouncewell, on the last occasion when we were fatigued by this business, we cannot make conditions with you. Without conditions, and under present circumstances, the girl is quite misplaced here and had better go. I have told her so. Would you wish to have her sent back to the village, or would you like to take her with you, or what would you prefer?", "pos": 1442344}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "Lady Dedlock, if I may speak plainly—", "pos": 1443373}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "By all means.", "pos": 1443413}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "—I should prefer the course which will the soonest relieve you of the incumbrance and remove her from her present position.", "pos": 1443429}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "And to speak as plainly, so should I. Do I understand that you will take her with you?", "pos": 1443555}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Sir Leicester, will you ring? I had forgotten you. Thank you.", "pos": 1443732}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "You are taken charge of, you see, and are going away well protected. I have mentioned that you are a very good girl, and you have nothing to cry for.", "pos": 1444210}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "She seems after all, as if she were crying at going away.", "pos": 1444398}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "Why, she is not well-bred, you see, and she is an inexperienced little thing and knows no better. If she had remained here, sir, she would have improved, no doubt.", "pos": 1444540}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "No doubt,", "pos": 1444820}
{"speaker": "Rosa", "text": "I am very sorry to leave my Lady, and that she was happy at Chesney Wold, and has been happy with my Lady, and that she thanks my Lady over and over again.", "pos": 1444889}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "Out, you silly little puss! Have a spirit, if you’re fond of Watt!", "pos": 1445046}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "There, there, child! You are a good girl. Go away!", "pos": 1445243}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "Sir Leicester and Lady Dedlock. I beg to take my leave, with an apology for having again troubled you, though not of my own act, on this tiresome subject. I can very well understand, I assure you, how tiresome so small a matter must have become to Lady Dedlock. If I am doubtful of my dealing with it, it is only because I did not at first quietly exert my influence to take my young friend here away without troubling you at all. But it appeared to me—I dare say magnifying the importance of the thing—that it was respectful to explain to you how the matter stood and candid to consult your wishes and convenience. I hope you will excuse my want of acquaintance with the polite world.", "pos": 1445553}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Mr. Rouncewell, do not mention it. Justifications are unnecessary, I hope, on either side.", "pos": 1446373}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "I am glad to hear it, Sir Leicester; and if I may, by way of a last word, revert to what I said before of my mother’s long connexion with the family and the worth it bespeaks on both sides, I would point out this little instance here on my arm who shows herself so affectionate and faithful in parting and in whom my mother, I dare say, has done something to awaken such feelings—though of course Lady Dedlock, by her heartfelt interest and her genial condescension, has done much more.", "pos": 1446480}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "What do you want, sir?", "pos": 1448842}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Why, Lady Dedlock. I am rather surprised by the course you have taken.", "pos": 1448867}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Indeed?", "pos": 1449077}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Yes, decidedly. I was not prepared for it. I consider it a departure from our agreement and your promise. It puts us in a new position, Lady Dedlock. I feel myself under the necessity of saying that I don’t approve of it.", "pos": 1449087}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I do not quite understand you.", "pos": 1449540}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Oh, yes you do, I think. I think you do. Come, come, Lady Dedlock, we must not fence and parry now. You know you like this girl.", "pos": 1449573}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Well, sir?", "pos": 1449704}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "And you know—and I know—that you have not sent her away for the reasons you have assigned, but for the purpose of separating her as much as possible from—excuse my mentioning it as a matter of business—any reproach and exposure that impend over yourself.", "pos": 1449717}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Well, sir?", "pos": 1449974}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Well, Lady Dedlock. I object to that. I consider that a dangerous proceeding. I know it to be unnecessary and calculated to awaken speculation, doubt, rumour, I don’t know what, in the house. Besides, it is a violation of our agreement. You were to be exactly what you were before. Whereas, it must be evident to yourself, as it is to me, that you have been this evening very different from what you were before. Why, bless my soul, Lady Dedlock, transparently so!", "pos": 1449987}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "If, sir, in my knowledge of my secret—", "pos": 1450526}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Now, Lady Dedlock, this is a matter of business, and in a matter of business the ground cannot be kept too clear. It is no longer your secret. Excuse me. That is just the mistake. It is my secret, in trust for Sir Leicester and the family. If it were your secret, Lady Dedlock, we should not be here holding this conversation.", "pos": 1450604}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "That is very true. If in my knowledge of THE secret I do what I can to spare an innocent girl (especially, remembering your own reference to her when you told my story to the assembled guests at Chesney Wold) from the taint of my impending shame, I act upon a resolution I have taken. Nothing in the world, and no one in the world, could shake it or could move me.", "pos": 1450933}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Really? Then you see, Lady Dedlock, you are not to be trusted. You have put the case in a perfectly plain way, and according to the literal fact; and that being the case, you are not to be trusted.", "pos": 1451522}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Perhaps you may remember that I expressed some anxiety on this same point when we spoke at night at Chesney Wold?", "pos": 1451736}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Yes. Yes. I recollect, Lady Dedlock, that you certainly referred to the girl, but that was before we came to our arrangement, and both the letter and the spirit of our arrangement altogether precluded any action on your part founded upon my discovery. There can be no doubt about that. As to sparing the girl, of what importance or value is she? Spare! Lady Dedlock, here is a family name compromised. One might have supposed that the course was straight on—over everything, neither to the right nor to the left, regardless of all considerations in the way, sparing nothing, treading everything under foot.", "pos": 1451852}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Lady Dedlock, the most disagreeable part of this business interview remains, but it is business. Our agreement is broken. A lady of your sense and strength of character will be prepared for my now declaring it void and taking my own course.", "pos": 1453555}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I am quite prepared.", "pos": 1453798}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "That is all I have to trouble you with, Lady Dedlock.", "pos": 1453856}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "This is the notice I was to receive? I wish not to misapprehend you.", "pos": 1453969}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Not exactly the notice you were to receive, Lady Dedlock, because the contemplated notice supposed the agreement to have been observed. But virtually the same, virtually the same. The difference is merely in a lawyer’s mind.", "pos": 1454040}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "You intend to give me no other notice?", "pos": 1454267}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "You are right. No.", "pos": 1454308}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Do you contemplate undeceiving Sir Leicester to-night?", "pos": 1454329}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "A home question! No, not to-night.", "pos": 1454386}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "To-morrow?", "pos": 1454518}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "All things considered, I had better decline answering that question, Lady Dedlock. If I were to say I don’t know when, exactly, you would not believe me, and it would answer no purpose. It may be to-morrow. I would rather say no more. You are prepared, and I hold out no expectations which circumstances might fail to justify. I wish you good evening.", "pos": 1454531}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Do you intend to remain in the house any time? I heard you were writing in the library. Are you going to return there?", "pos": 1455025}
{"speaker": "Mr. Tulkinghorn", "text": "Only for my hat. I am going home. And what do YOU say. What do you say? Why, you are worse than I thought you. Two minutes wrong? At this rate you won’t last my time. Don’t go home! Don’t go home! Don’t go home! Don’t come here!", "pos": 1455146}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "What’s that? Who fired a gun or pistol? Where was it?", "pos": 1460349}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "If he could only tell what he saw!", "pos": 1462690}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "What is your name? Who gave you that name? And how do you like that name?", "pos": 1465625}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "At half after one. To the minute. They’ll be done. You shall have a dinner, old girl. Fit for a queen.", "pos": 1468097}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "George will look us up. At half after four. To the moment. How many years, old girl. Has George looked us up. This afternoon?", "pos": 1468929}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "Ah, Lignum, Lignum, as many as make an old woman of a young one, I begin to think. Just about that, and no less,", "pos": 1469076}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "Old girl, never mind. You’d be as young as ever you was. If you wasn’t younger. Which you are. As everybody knows.", "pos": 1469243}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "Do you know, Lignum, salt! I begin to think George is in the roving way again.", "pos": 1469524}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "George, will never desert. And leave his old comrade. In the lurch. Don’t be afraid of it.", "pos": 1469760}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "No, Lignum. No. I don’t say he will. I don’t think he will. But if he could get over this money trouble of his, I believe he would be off. Well. George seems to me to be getting not a little impatient and restless. I don’t say but what he’s as free as ever. Of course he must be free or he wouldn’t be George, but he smarts and seems put out.", "pos": 1469875}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "He’s extra-drilled. By a lawyer. Who would put the devil out.", "pos": 1470276}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "There’s something in that, but so it is, Lignum.", "pos": 1470359}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "George! Military time.", "pos": 1473450}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Happy returns to all!", "pos": 1473622}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "But, George, old man! What’s come to you?", "pos": 1473662}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Come to me?", "pos": 1473753}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "Ah! You are so white, George—for you—and look so shocked. Now don’t he, Lignum?", "pos": 1473767}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "George, tell the old girl. What’s the matter.", "pos": 1473849}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I didn’t know I looked white, and I didn’t know I looked shocked, and I’m sorry I do. But the truth is, that boy who was taken in at my place died yesterday afternoon, and it has rather knocked me over.", "pos": 1473916}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "Poor creetur! Is he gone? Dear, dear!”", "pos": 1474173}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I didn’t mean to say anything about it, for it’s not birthday talk, but you have got it out of me, you see, before I sit down. I should have roused up in a minute, but you’re so quick, Mrs. Bagnet.", "pos": 1474254}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "You’re right. The old girl. Is as quick. As powder.", "pos": 1474507}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "And what’s more, she’s the subject of the day, and we’ll stick to her. See here, I have brought a little brooch along with me. It’s a poor thing, you know, but it’s a keepsake. That’s all the good it is, Mrs. Bagnet.", "pos": 1474580}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "Old girl. Tell him my opinion of it.", "pos": 1474987}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "Why, it’s a wonder, George! It’s the beautifullest thing that ever was seen!", "pos": 1475045}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "Good! My opinion.", "pos": 1475148}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "It’s so pretty, George, that it seems too choice for me.", "pos": 1475187}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "Bad! Not my opinion.", "pos": 1475327}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "But whatever it is, a hundred thousand thanks, old fellow, and though I have been a crossgrained soldier’s wife to you sometimes, George, we are as strong friends, I am sure, in reality, as ever can be. Now you shall fasten it on yourself, for good luck, if you will, George. Oh, Lignum, Lignum, what a precious old chap you are!”", "pos": 1475369}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Would any one believe this? I am so out of sorts that I bungle at an easy job like this!", "pos": 1476114}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "If that don’t bring you round, George, just throw your eye across here at your present now and then, and the two together MUST do it.", "pos": 1476480}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "You ought to do it of yourself. I know that very well, Mrs. Bagnet. I’ll tell you how, one way and another, the blues have got to be too many for me. Here was this poor lad. ’Twas dull work to see him dying as he did, and not be able to help him.", "pos": 1476628}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "What do you mean, George? You did help him. You took him under your roof.", "pos": 1476895}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I helped him so far, but that’s little. I mean, Mrs. Bagnet, there he was, dying without ever having been taught much more than to know his right hand from his left. And he was too far gone to be helped out of that.", "pos": 1476971}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "Ah, poor creetur!", "pos": 1477189}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Then, that brought up Gridley in a man’s mind. His was a bad case too, in a different way. Then the two got mixed up in a man’s mind with a flinty old rascal who had to do with both. And to think of that rusty carbine, stock and barrel, standing up on end in his corner, hard, indifferent, taking everything so evenly—it made flesh and blood tingle, I do assure you.", "pos": 1477227}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "My advice to you, is to light your pipe and tingle that way. It’s wholesomer and comfortabler, and better for the health altogether.", "pos": 1477685}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "You’re right, and I’ll do it.", "pos": 1477843}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "George. Woolwich. Quebec. Malta. This is her birthday. Take a day’s march. And you won’t find such another. Here’s towards her!", "pos": 1478410}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "And wishing yours! Here’s a man!", "pos": 1478709}
{"speaker": "the man", "text": "George, how do you find yourself?", "pos": 1479212}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Why, it’s Bucket!", "pos": 1479273}
{"speaker": "the man", "text": "Yes. I was going down the street here when I happened to stop and look in at the musical instruments in the shop-window—a friend of mine is in want of a second-hand wiolinceller of a good tone—and I saw a party enjoying themselves, and I thought it was you in the corner; I thought I couldn’t be mistaken. How goes the world with you, George, at the present moment? Pretty smooth? And with you, ma’am? And with you, governor? And Lord,", "pos": 1479311}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "here’s children too! You may do anything with me if you only show me children. Give us a kiss, my pets. No occasion to inquire who YOUR father and mother is. Never saw such a likeness in my life! You pretty dears, give us another kiss; it’s the only thing I’m greedy in. Lord bless you, how healthy you look! And what may be the ages of these two, ma’am? I should put ’em down at the figures of about eight and ten.", "pos": 1479832}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "You’re very near, sir,", "pos": 1480379}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "I generally am near, being so fond of children. A friend of mine has had nineteen of ’em, ma’am, all by one mother, and she’s still as fresh and rosy as the morning. Not so much so as yourself, but, upon my soul, she comes near you! And what do you call these, my darling? These are peaches, these are. Bless your heart! And what do you think about father? Do you think father could recommend a second-hand wiolinceller of a good tone for Mr. Bucket’s friend, my dear? My name’s Bucket. Ain’t that a funny name? Not in his usual spirits? Why, I never heard of such a thing! What’s the matter, George? You don’t intend to tell me you’ve been out of spirits. What should you be out of spirits for? You haven’t got anything on your mind, you know.", "pos": 1480422}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Nothing particular,", "pos": 1481660}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "I should think not. What could you have on your mind, you know! And have these pets got anything on THEIR minds, eh? Not they, but they’ll be upon the minds of some of the young fellows, some of these days, and make ’em precious low-spirited. I ain’t much of a prophet, but I can tell you that, ma’am. There, ma’am! Would you believe it? No, I haven’t. My wife and a lodger constitute my family. Mrs. Bucket is as fond of children as myself and as wishful to have ’em, but no. So it is. Worldly goods are divided unequally, and man must not repine. What a very nice backyard, ma’am! Any way out of that yard, now? Ain’t there really? I should have thought there might have been. Well, I don’t know as I ever saw a backyard that took my fancy more. Would you allow me to look at it? Thank you. No, I see there’s no way out. But what a very good-proportioned yard it is! How are your spirits now, George?", "pos": 1481703}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "All right now,", "pos": 1482929}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "That’s your sort! Why should you ever have been otherwise? A man of your fine figure and constitution has no right to be out of spirits. That ain’t a chest to be out of spirits, is it, ma’am? And you haven’t got anything on your mind, you know, George; what could you have on your mind! And this is brother, is it, my dears? And a nice brother he is—half-brother I mean to say. For he’s too old to be your boy, ma’am.", "pos": 1482967}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "I can certify at all events that he is not anybody else’s, laughing.”", "pos": 1483807}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Well, you do surprise me! Yet he’s like you, there’s no denying. Lord, he’s wonderfully like you! But about what you may call the brow, you know, THERE his father comes out! George’s godson, is he? I must shake hands over again with George’s godson. Godfather and godson do credit to one another. And what do you intend to make of him, ma’am? Does he show any turn for any musical instrument?", "pos": 1483899}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "Plays the fife. Beautiful.", "pos": 1484560}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Would you believe it, governor, that when I was a boy I played the fife myself? Not in a scientific way, as I expect he does, but by ear. Lord bless you! ‘British Grenadiers’—there’s a tune to warm an Englishman up! COULD you give us ‘British Grenadiers,’ my fine fellow? British Gra-a-anadeers!", "pos": 1484589}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "singer.”", "pos": 1485339}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Believe Me, if All Those Endearing Young Charms.” to come up to the scratch.”", "pos": 1485676}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Respecting that second-hand wiolinceller, governor—could you recommend me such a thing?", "pos": 1487792}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "Scores,", "pos": 1487882}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "I am obliged to you. You’re a friend in need. A good tone, mind you! My friend is a regular dab at it. Ecod, he saws away at Mozart and Handel and the rest of the big-wigs like a thorough workman. And you needn’t, you needn’t commit yourself to too low a figure, governor. I don’t want to pay too large a price for my friend, but I want you to have your proper percentage and be remunerated for your loss of time. That is but fair. Every man must live, and ought to it. Suppose I was to give you a look in, say, at half arter ten to-morrow morning. Perhaps you could name the figures of a few wiolincellers of a good tone? Thank you, thank you. Good night, ma’am. Good night, governor. Good night, darlings. I am much obliged to you for one of the pleasantest evenings I ever spent in my life. Now George, old boy, come along!", "pos": 1487909}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "almost clings to George like, and seems to be really fond of him.", "pos": 1489526}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Wait half a minute, George. I should wish to speak to you first.", "pos": 1489854}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Now, George, duty is duty, and friendship is friendship. I never want the two to clash if I can help it. I have endeavoured to make things pleasant to-night, and I put it to you whether I have done it or not. You must consider yourself in custody, George.", "pos": 1490063}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Custody? What for?", "pos": 1490340}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Now, George, duty, as you know very well, is one thing, and conversation is another. It’s my duty to inform you that any observations you may make will be liable to be used against you. Therefore, George, be careful what you say. You don’t happen to have heard of a murder?", "pos": 1490397}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Murder!", "pos": 1490761}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Now, George, bear in mind what I’ve said to you. I ask you nothing. You’ve been in low spirits this afternoon. I say, you don’t happen to have heard of a murder?", "pos": 1490771}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "No. Where has there been a murder?", "pos": 1491011}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Now, George, don’t you go and commit yourself. I’m a-going to tell you what I want you for. There has been a murder in Lincoln’s Inn Fields—gentleman of the name of Tulkinghorn. He was shot last night. I want you for that.", "pos": 1491048}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Bucket! It’s not possible that Mr. Tulkinghorn has been killed and that you suspect ME?", "pos": 1491420}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "George, it is certainly possible, because it’s the case. This deed was done last night at ten o’clock. Now, you know where you were last night at ten o’clock, and you’ll be able to prove it, no doubt.", "pos": 1491510}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Last night! Last night? Why, great heaven, I was there last night!", "pos": 1491765}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "So I have understood, George. So I have understood. Likewise you’ve been very often there. You’ve been seen hanging about the place, and you’ve been heard more than once in a wrangle with him, and it’s possible—I don’t say it’s certainly so, mind you, but it’s possible—that he may have been heard to call you a threatening, murdering, dangerous fellow. Now, George, my wish is, as it has been all the evening, to make things pleasant. I tell you plainly there’s a reward out, of a hundred guineas, offered by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. You and me have always been pleasant together; but I have got a duty to discharge; and if that hundred guineas is to be made, it may as well be made by me as any other man. On all of which accounts, I should hope it was clear to you that I must have you, and that I’m damned if I don’t have you. Am I to call in any assistance, or is the trick done?", "pos": 1491896}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Come. I am ready.", "pos": 1493090}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "George, wait a bit! This is a serious charge, George, and such is my duty.", "pos": 1493121}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "There! Put them on!", "pos": 1493457}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "How do you find them? Are they comfortable? If not, say so, for I wish to make things as pleasant as is consistent with my duty, and I’ve got another pair in my pocket. They’ll do as they are? Very well! Now, you see, George I was mindful of your feelings when I come out, and brought this on purpose. There! Who’s the wiser?", "pos": 1493516}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Only I, but as I know it, do me one more good turn and pull my hat over my eyes.", "pos": 1494068}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Really, though! Do you mean it? Ain’t it a pity? It looks so.", "pos": 1494174}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I can’t look chance men in the face with these things on. Do, for God’s sake, pull my hat forward.", "pos": 1494238}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Now, little woman, little woman, this will never do. Constant dropping will wear away a stone, and constant coaching will wear out a Dame Durden. We will go to London for a while and take possession of our old lodgings.", "pos": 1497224}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Not for me, dear guardian, for I never feel tired,", "pos": 1497446}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "For me then, or for Ada, or for both of us. It is somebody’s birthday to-morrow, I think.", "pos": 1497578}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Truly I think it is,", "pos": 1497694}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Well, that’s a great occasion and will give my fair cousin some necessary business to transact in assertion of her independence, and will make London a more convenient place for all of us. So to London we will go. That being settled, there is another thing—how have you left Caddy?", "pos": 1497780}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Very unwell, guardian. I fear it will be some time before she regains her health and strength.", "pos": 1498121}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "What do you call some time, now?", "pos": 1498218}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Some weeks, I am afraid.", "pos": 1498285}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Ah! Now, what do you say about her doctor? Is he a good doctor, my love?", "pos": 1498312}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I felt obliged to confess that I knew nothing to the contrary but that Prince and I had agreed only that evening that we would like his opinion to be confirmed by some one.", "pos": 1498494}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Well, you know, there’s Woodcourt. You don’t object to him, little woman?", "pos": 1498668}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Object to him, guardian? Oh no!", "pos": 1498945}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "And you don’t think the patient would object to him? Very good. He has been here to-day, my dear, and I will see him about it to-morrow.", "pos": 1498979}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Jellyby", "text": "Well, Caddy, child, and how do you do to-day?", "pos": 1503450}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "My Caroline. Tell me that you are better to-day.", "pos": 1504606}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Oh, much better, thank you, Mr. Turveydrop,", "pos": 1504736}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "Delighted! Enchanted! And our dear Miss Summerson. She is not quite prostrated by fatigue?", "pos": 1504801}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Not at all,", "pos": 1505061}
{"speaker": "Mr. Turveydrop", "text": "Charming! We must take care of our dear Caroline, Miss Summerson. We must spare nothing that will restore her. We must nourish her. My dear Caroline want for nothing, my love. Frame a wish and gratify it, my daughter. Everything this house contains, everything my room contains, is at your service, my dear. Do not, even allow my simple requirements to be considered if they should at any time interfere with your own, my Caroline. Your necessities are greater than mine. Nay, my dears. Nay, nay! I have promised never to leave ye. Be dutiful and affectionate towards me, and I ask no other return. Now, bless ye! I am going to the Park.", "pos": 1505095}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jellyby", "text": "how she was,", "pos": 1507061}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "So, Dame Trot, so Woodcourt has restored Caddy Jellyby to the full enjoyment of life again?", "pos": 1510342}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Yes, and to be repaid by such gratitude as hers is to be made rich, guardian.", "pos": 1510524}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I wish it was, with all my heart. Aye! We would make him as rich as a Jew if we knew how. Would we not, little woman? True. I had forgotten that. But we would agree to make him rich enough to live, I suppose? Rich enough to work with tolerable peace of mind? Rich enough to have his own happy home and his own household gods—and household goddess, too, perhaps? To be sure,", "pos": 1510614}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Oh, my dear good Esther, if I could only make up my mind to speak to you and my cousin John when you are together!", "pos": 1513622}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Why, my love! Ada, why should you not speak to us! You surely don’t forget, my beauty, what quiet, old-fashioned people we are and how I have settled down to be the discreetest of dames? You don’t forget how happily and peacefully my life is all marked out for me, and by whom? I am certain that you don’t forget by what a noble character, Ada. That can never be.", "pos": 1513751}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "No, never, Esther.", "pos": 1514218}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Why then, my dear, there can be nothing amiss—and why should you not speak to us?", "pos": 1514239}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Nothing amiss, Esther? Oh, when I think of all these years, and of his fatherly care and kindness, and of the old relations among us, and of you, what shall I do, what shall I do!", "pos": 1514349}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "Just so, sir. Mr. C.’s address is not a hundred miles from here, sir, Mr. C.’s address is not a hundred miles from here. Would you take a seat, sir? Just so, sir. I believe, sir, that you have influence with Mr. C. Indeed I am aware that you have.", "pos": 1516684}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "I was not aware of it myself, but I suppose you know best.", "pos": 1517133}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "Sir, it is a part of my professional duty to know best. It is a part of my professional duty to study and to understand a gentleman who confides his interests to me. In my professional duty I shall not be wanting, sir, if I know it. I may, with the best intentions, be wanting in it without knowing it; but not if I know it, sir.", "pos": 1517220}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Give me leave, sir,", "pos": 1517658}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "Bear with me for a moment. Sir, Mr. C. is playing for a considerable stake, and cannot play without—need I say what?", "pos": 1517697}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Money, I presume?", "pos": 1517816}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "Sir, to be honest with you (honesty being my golden rule, whether I gain by it or lose, and I find that I generally lose), money is the word. Now, sir, upon the chances of Mr. C.’s game I express to you no opinion, NO opinion. It might be highly impolitic in Mr. C., after playing so long and so high, to leave off; it might be the reverse; I say nothing. No, sir, nothing.", "pos": 1517836}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "You seem to forget, that I ask you to say nothing and have no interest in anything you say.", "pos": 1518314}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "Pardon me, sir! You do yourself an injustice. No, sir! Pardon me! You shall not—shall not in my office, if I know it—do yourself an injustice. You are interested in anything, and in everything, that relates to your friend. I know human nature much better, sir, than to admit for an instant that a gentleman of your appearance is not interested in whatever concerns his friend.", "pos": 1518434}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Well, that may be. I am particularly interested in his address.", "pos": 1518836}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "The number, sir. I believe I have already mentioned. If Mr. C. is to continue to play for this considerable stake, sir, he must have funds. Understand me! There are funds in hand at present. I ask for nothing; there are funds in hand. But for the onward play, more funds must be provided, unless Mr. C. is to throw away what he has already ventured, which is wholly and solely a point for his consideration. This, sir, I take the opportunity of stating openly to you as the friend of Mr. C. Without funds I shall always be happy to appear and act for Mr. C. to the extent of all such costs as are safe to be allowed out of the estate, not beyond that. I could not go beyond that, sir, without wronging some one. I must either wrong my three dear girls or my venerable father, who is entirely dependent on me, in the Vale of Taunton; or some one. Whereas, sir, my resolution is (call it weakness or folly if you please) to wrong no one.", "pos": 1518927}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "I wish, sir, to leave a good name behind me. Therefore I take every opportunity of openly stating to a friend of Mr. C. how Mr. C. is situated. As to myself, sir, the labourer is worthy of his hire. If I undertake to put my shoulder to the wheel, I do it, and I earn what I get. I am here for that purpose. My name is painted on the door outside, with that object. And Mr. Carstone’s address, Mr. Vholes?", "pos": 1519967}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "Sir, as I believe I have already mentioned, it is next door. On the second story you will find Mr. C.’s apartments. Mr. C. desires to be near his professional adviser, and I am far from objecting, for I court inquiry.", "pos": 1520395}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Woodcourt, my dear fellow, you come upon my vision like a ghost.", "pos": 1521289}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "A friendly one, and only waiting, as they say ghosts do, to be addressed. How does the mortal world go?", "pos": 1521406}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Badly enough, and slowly enough, speaking at least for my part of it.", "pos": 1521563}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "What part is that?", "pos": 1521651}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "The Chancery part.", "pos": 1521672}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "I never heard, of its going well yet.", "pos": 1521693}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Nor I. Who ever did? Woodcourt, I should be sorry to be misunderstood by you, even if I gained by it in your estimation. You must know that I have done no good this long time. I have not intended to do much harm, but I seem to have been capable of nothing else. It may be that I should have done better by keeping out of the net into which my destiny has worked me, but I think not, though I dare say you will soon hear, if you have not already heard, a very different opinion. To make short of a long story, I am afraid I have wanted an object; but I have an object now—or it has me—and it is too late to discuss it. Take me as I am, and make the best of me.", "pos": 1521777}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "A bargain. Do as much by me in return.", "pos": 1522533}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Oh! You, you can pursue your art for its own sake, and can put your hand upon the plough and never turn, and can strike a purpose out of anything. You and I are very different creatures. Well, well! Everything has an end. We shall see! So you will take me as I am, and make the best of me?", "pos": 1522596}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Aye! Indeed I will.", "pos": 1523009}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "You come as a godsend, for I have seen nobody here yet but Vholes. Woodcourt, there is one subject I should like to mention, for once and for all, in the beginning of our treaty. You can hardly make the best of me if I don’t. You know, I dare say, that I have an attachment to my cousin Ada?", "pos": 1523147}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "I had hinted as much to him.", "pos": 1523483}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Now pray, don’t think me a heap of selfishness. Don’t suppose that I am splitting my head and half breaking my heart over this miserable Chancery suit for my own rights and interests alone. Ada’s are bound up with mine; they can’t be separated; Vholes works for both of us. Do think of that! You see, to an upright fellow like you, bringing a friendly face like yours here, I cannot bear the thought of appearing selfish and mean. I want to see Ada righted, Woodcourt, as well as myself; I want to do my utmost to right her, as well as myself; I venture what I can scrape together to extricate her, as well as myself. Do, I beseech you, think of that!", "pos": 1523513}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "My dear, you have not had any difference with Richard since I have been so much away?", "pos": 1525195}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "No, Esther.", "pos": 1525293}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Not heard of him, perhaps?", "pos": 1525307}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Yes, I have heard of him,", "pos": 1525344}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "We are not likely to be far out, my love, if we go in that direction. Or Mr. Vholes’s office will do, for Mr. Vholes’s office is next door.", "pos": 1526370}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "If you had come a little earlier, you would have found Woodcourt here. There never was such a good fellow as Woodcourt is. He finds time to look in between-whiles, when anybody else with half his work to do would be thinking about not being able to come. And he is so cheery, so fresh, so sensible, so earnest, so—everything that I am not, that the place brightens whenever he comes, and darkens whenever he goes again.", "pos": 1527398}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "God bless him, for his truth to me!", "pos": 1527831}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "He is not so sanguine, Ada, as Vholes and I are usually, but he is only an outsider and is not in the mysteries. We have gone into them, and he has not. He can’t be expected to know much of such a labyrinth.", "pos": 1527882}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Is this a healthy place to live in, Richard, do you think?", "pos": 1528377}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Why, my dear Minerva, it is neither a rural nor a cheerful place; and when the sun shines here, you may lay a pretty heavy wager that it is shining brightly in an open spot. But it’s well enough for the time. It’s near the offices and near Vholes.", "pos": 1528446}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Perhaps, a change from both—", "pos": 1528739}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Might do me good? I shouldn’t wonder! But it can only come in one way now—in one of two ways, I should rather say. Either the suit must be ended, Esther, or the suitor. But it shall be the suit, my dear girl, the suit, my dear girl! We are doing very well. Vholes will tell you so. We are really spinning along. Ask Vholes. We are giving them no rest. Vholes knows all their windings and turnings, and we are upon them everywhere. We have astonished them already. We shall rouse up that nest of sleepers, mark my words!", "pos": 1528782}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "The sight of our dear little woman, is so natural to me, and her compassionate face is so like the face of old days— —So exactly like the face of old days, that I can’t make pretences with her. I fluctuate a little; that’s the truth. Sometimes I hope, my dear, and sometimes I—don’t quite despair, but nearly. I get, so tired! I get, so tired. It is such weary, weary work!", "pos": 1530240}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Esther, dear. I am not going home again. Never any more. I am going to stay with my dear husband. We have been married above two months. Go home without me, my own Esther; I shall never go home any more!", "pos": 1531299}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Speak to Esther, my dearest. Tell her how it was.", "pos": 1531748}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "My pet. My love. My poor, poor girl!", "pos": 1531997}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Esther, will you forgive me? Will my cousin John forgive me?", "pos": 1532156}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "My dear, to doubt it for a moment is to do him a great wrong. And as to me!", "pos": 1532219}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "All I had was Richard’s, and Richard would not take it, Esther, and what could I do but be his wife when I loved him dearly!", "pos": 1532631}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "And you were so fully and so kindly occupied, excellent Dame Durden, that how could we speak to you at such a time! And besides, it was not a long-considered step. We went out one morning and were married.", "pos": 1532770}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "And when it was done, Esther. I was always thinking how to tell you and what to do for the best. And sometimes I thought you ought to know it directly, and sometimes I thought you ought not to know it and keep it from my cousin John; and I could not tell what to do, and I fretted very much.", "pos": 1532994}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Now Esther, if you do, I’ll never speak to you again! Why, I declare. I never saw such a wife. I don’t think she loves her husband at all. Here, Richard, take my child, for goodness’ sake. I give this dear young couple notice, that I am only going away to come back to-morrow and that I shall be always coming backwards and forwards until Symond’s Inn is tired of the sight of me. So I shall not say good-bye, Richard. For what would be the use of that, you know, when I am coming back so soon! I had given my darling to him now, and I meant to go; but I lingered for one more look of the precious face which it seemed to rive my heart to turn from. So I said (in a merry bustling manner) that unless they gave me some encouragement to come back, I was not sure that I could take that liberty, upon which my dear girl looked up, faintly smiling through her tears, and I folded her lovely face between my hands, and gave it one last kiss, and laughed, and ran away.", "pos": 1534782}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Little woman. You have been crying.", "pos": 1538802}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Why, yes, guardian. I am afraid I have been, a little. Ada has been in such distress, and is so very sorry, guardian.", "pos": 1538851}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Is she married, my dear? She has no need of it. Heaven bless her and her husband! Poor girl, poor girl! Poor Rick! Poor Ada! Well, well, my dear! Bleak House is thinning fast.", "pos": 1539107}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "But its mistress remains, guardian. She will do all she can to make it happy,", "pos": 1539510}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "She will succeed, my love! She will succeed, my dear. Nevertheless, Bleak House is thinning fast, O little woman!", "pos": 1539701}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Guardian, you don’t think it possible that he is justly accused?", "pos": 1541878}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "My dear, I CAN’T think so. This man whom we have seen so open-hearted and compassionate, who with the might of a giant has the gentleness of a child, who looks as brave a fellow as ever lived and is so simple and quiet with it, this man justly accused of such a crime? I can’t believe it. It’s not that I don’t or I won’t. I can’t!", "pos": 1541945}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "And I can’t. Still, whatever we believe or know of him, we had better not forget that some appearances are against him. He bore an animosity towards the deceased gentleman. He has openly mentioned it in many places. He is said to have expressed himself violently towards him, and he certainly did about him, to my knowledge. He admits that he was alone on the scene of the murder within a few minutes of its commission. I sincerely believe him to be as innocent of any participation in it as I am, but these are all reasons for suspicion falling upon him.", "pos": 1542279}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "True. It would be doing him a very bad service, my dear, to shut our eyes to the truth in any of these respects. Heaven forbid! We will stand by him, as he himself stood by the two poor creatures who are gone.", "pos": 1542859}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "This is a load off my mind, I do assure you, miss and gentlemen. And now I don’t so much care how it ends. This is even a rougher place than my gallery to receive a lady in, but I know Miss Summerson will make the best of it. I thank you, miss,", "pos": 1545403}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Now, George, as we require no new assurances on your part, so I believe we need give you none on ours.", "pos": 1546001}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Not at all, sir. I thank you with all my heart. If I was not innocent of this crime, I couldn’t look at you and keep my secret to myself under the condescension of the present visit. I feel the present visit very much. I am not one of the eloquent sort, but I feel it, Miss Summerson and gentlemen, deeply.", "pos": 1546130}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "First, can we do anything for your personal comfort, George?", "pos": 1546627}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "For which, sir?", "pos": 1546710}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "For your personal comfort. Is there anything you want that would lessen the hardship of this confinement?", "pos": 1546762}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Well, sir. I am equally obliged to you, but tobacco being against the rules, I can’t say that there is.", "pos": 1546870}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "You will think of many little things perhaps, by and by. Whenever you do, George, let us know.", "pos": 1547021}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Thank you, sir. Howsoever, a man who has been knocking about the world in a vagabond kind of a way as long as I have gets on well enough in a place like the present, so far as that goes.", "pos": 1547118}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Next, as to your case,", "pos": 1547362}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Exactly so, sir,", "pos": 1547409}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "How does it stand now?", "pos": 1547535}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Why, sir, it is under remand at present. Bucket gives me to understand that he will probably apply for a series of remands from time to time until the case is more complete. How it is to be made more complete I don’t myself see, but I dare say Bucket will manage it somehow.", "pos": 1547560}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Why, heaven save us, man, you talk of yourself as if you were somebody else!", "pos": 1547837}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "No offence, sir. I am very sensible of your kindness. But I don’t see how an innocent man is to make up his mind to this kind of thing without knocking his head against the walls unless he takes it in that point of view.", "pos": 1547986}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "That is true enough to a certain extent. But my good fellow, even an innocent man must take ordinary precautions to defend himself.", "pos": 1548228}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Certainly, sir. And I have done so. I have stated to the magistrates, ‘Gentlemen, I am as innocent of this charge as yourselves; what has been stated against me in the way of facts is perfectly true; I know no more about it.’ I intend to continue stating that, sir. What more can I do? It’s the truth.", "pos": 1548396}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "But the mere truth won’t do,", "pos": 1548700}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Won’t it indeed, sir? Rather a bad look-out for me!", "pos": 1548753}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "You must have a lawyer. We must engage a good one for you.", "pos": 1548844}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I ask your pardon, sir. I am equally obliged. But I must decidedly beg to be excused from anything of that sort.", "pos": 1548928}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "You won’t have a lawyer?", "pos": 1549083}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "No, sir. I thank you all the same, sir, but—no lawyer!", "pos": 1549110}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Why not?", "pos": 1549224}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I don’t take kindly to the breed. Gridley didn’t. And—if you’ll excuse my saying so much—I should hardly have thought you did yourself, sir.", "pos": 1549235}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "That’s equity, that’s equity, George.", "pos": 1549397}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Is it, indeed, sir? I am not acquainted with those shades of names myself, but in a general way I object to the breed.", "pos": 1549482}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Pray think, once more, Mr. George. Have you no wish in reference to your case?", "pos": 1550106}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I certainly could wish it to be tried, miss, by court-martial; but that is out of the question, as I am well aware. If you will be so good as to favour me with your attention for a couple of minutes, miss, not more, I’ll endeavour to explain myself as clearly as I can. You see, miss, I have been handcuffed and taken into custody and brought here. I am a marked and disgraced man, and here I am. My shooting gallery is rummaged, high and low, by Bucket; such property as I have—’tis small—is turned this way and that till it don’t know itself; and (as aforesaid) here I am! I don’t particular complain of that. Though I am in these present quarters through no immediately preceding fault of mine, I can very well understand that if I hadn’t gone into the vagabond way in my youth, this wouldn’t have happened. It HAS happened. Then comes the question how to meet it. I am such a short-winded talker that I must think a bit. How to meet it. Now, the unfortunate deceased was himself a lawyer and had a pretty tight hold of me. I don’t wish to rake up his ashes, but he had, what I should call if he was living, a devil of a tight hold of me. I don’t like his trade the better for that. If I had kept clear of his trade, I should have kept outside this place. But that’s not what I mean. Now, suppose I had killed him. Suppose I really had discharged into his body any one of those pistols recently fired off that Bucket has found at my place, and dear me, might have found there any day since it has been my place. What should I have done as soon as I was hard and fast here? Got a lawyer. I should have got a lawyer, and he would have said (as I have often read in the newspapers), ‘My client says nothing, my client reserves his defence’: my client this, that, and t’other. Well, ’tis not the custom of that breed to go straight, according to my opinion, or to think that other men do. Say I am innocent and I get a lawyer. He would be as likely to believe me guilty as not; perhaps more. What would he do, whether or not? Act as if I was—shut my mouth up, tell me not to commit myself, keep circumstances back, chop the evidence small, quibble, and get me off perhaps! But, Miss Summerson, do I care for getting off in that way; or would I rather be hanged in my own way—if you’ll excuse my mentioning anything so disagreeable to a lady? I would rather be hanged in my own way. And I mean to be! I don’t intend to say, that I am more partial to being hanged than another man. What I say is, I must come off clear and full or not at all. Therefore, when I hear stated against me what is true, I say it’s true; and when they tell me, ‘whatever you say will be used,’ I tell them I don’t mind that; I mean it to be used. If they can’t make me innocent out of the whole truth, they are not likely to do it out of anything less, or anything else. And if they are, it’s worth nothing to me. I thank you, miss and gentlemen both, many times for your attention, and many times more for your interest. That’s the plain state of the matter as it points itself out to a mere trooper with a blunt broadsword kind of a mind. I have never done well in life beyond my duty as a soldier, and if the worst comes after all, I shall reap pretty much as I have sown. When I got over the first crash of being seized as a murderer—it don’t take a rover who has knocked about so much as myself so very long to recover from a crash—I worked my way round to what you find me now. As such I shall remain. No relations will be disgraced by me or made unhappy for me, and—and that’s all I’ve got to say. Miss Summerson and gentlemen, this is an old comrade of mine, Matthew Bagnet. And this is his wife, Mrs. Bagnet.", "pos": 1550197}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "With a second-hand wiolinceller. Of a good tone. For a friend. That money was no object to.", "pos": 1555306}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Mat, you have heard pretty well all I have been saying to this lady and these two gentlemen. I know it meets your approval?", "pos": 1555468}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "Old girl. Tell him. Whether or not. It meets my approval.", "pos": 1555657}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "Why, George, you ought to know it don’t. You ought to know it’s enough to drive a person wild to hear you. You won’t be got off this way, and you won’t be got off that way—what do you mean by such picking and choosing? It’s stuff and nonsense, George.", "pos": 1555879}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Don’t be severe upon me in my misfortunes, Mrs. Bagnet,", "pos": 1556133}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "Oh! Bother your misfortunes, if they don’t make you more reasonable than that comes to. I never was so ashamed in my life to hear a man talk folly as I have been to hear you talk this day to the present company. Lawyers? Why, what but too many cooks should hinder you from having a dozen lawyers if the gentleman recommended them to you.", "pos": 1556217}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "This is a very sensible woman. I hope you will persuade him, Mrs. Bagnet.", "pos": 1556578}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "Persuade him, sir? Lord bless you, no. You don’t know George. Now, there! There he stands! As self-willed and as determined a man, in the wrong way, as ever put a human creature under heaven out of patience! You could as soon take up and shoulder an eight and forty pounder by your own strength as turn that man when he has got a thing into his head and fixed it there. Why, don’t I know him! Don’t I know you, George! You don’t mean to set up for a new character with ME after all these years, I hope? But I have given up talking to you, old fellow, years and years, and when ladies and gentlemen know you as well as I do, they’ll give up talking to you too. If you are not too headstrong to accept of a bit of dinner, here it is.", "pos": 1556674}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I accept it with many thanks,", "pos": 1557928}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "Do you though, indeed? I’m sure I’m surprised at that. I wonder you don’t starve in your own way also. It would only be like you. Perhaps you’ll set your mind upon THAT next.", "pos": 1557982}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "We hope you will think better of it, Mr. George, and we shall come to see you again, trusting to find you more reasonable.", "pos": 1558476}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "More grateful, Miss Summerson, you can’t find me,", "pos": 1558611}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "But more persuadable we can, I hope. And let me entreat you to consider that the clearing up of this mystery and the discovery of the real perpetrator of this deed may be of the last importance to others besides yourself.", "pos": 1558676}
{"speaker": "he", "text": "’Tis curious. And yet I thought so at the time! Why, sir, when my ill fortune took me to the dead man’s staircase on the night of his murder, I saw a shape so like Miss Summerson’s go by me in the dark that I had half a mind to speak to it.", "pos": 1559164}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "It came downstairs as I went up, and crossed the moonlighted window with a loose black mantle on; I noticed a deep fringe to it. However, it has nothing to do with the present subject, excepting that Miss Summerson looked so like it at the moment that it came into my head.", "pos": 1559575}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "I didn’t let George see what I thought about it, you know, miss, but he’s in a bad way, poor old fellow!", "pos": 1560516}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Not with care and prudence and good help,", "pos": 1560664}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "A gentleman like you ought to know best, sir, but I am uneasy for him. He has been so careless and said so much that he never meant. The gentlemen of the juries might not understand him as Lignum and me do. And then such a number of circumstances have happened bad for him, and such a number of people will be brought forward to speak against him, and Bucket is so deep.", "pos": 1560726}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "With a second-hand wiolinceller. And said he played the fife. When a boy,", "pos": 1561179}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "Now, I tell you, miss, and when I say miss, I mean all! Just come into the corner of the wall and I’ll tell you!", "pos": 1561294}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "Old girl! Tell ’em!", "pos": 1561554}
{"speaker": "the old girl", "text": "Why, then, miss, you could as soon move Dover Castle as move George on this point unless you had got a new power to move him with. And I have got it!", "pos": 1561576}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "You are a jewel of a woman. Go on!", "pos": 1561802}
{"speaker": "she", "text": "Now, I tell you, miss, that what he says concerning no relations is all bosh. They don’t know of him, but he does know of them. He has said more to me at odd times than to anybody else, and it warn’t for nothing that he once spoke to my Woolwich about whitening and wrinkling mothers’ heads. For fifty pounds he had seen his mother that day. She’s alive and must be brought here straight!", "pos": 1561859}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "Lignum, you take care of the children, old man, and give me the umbrella! I’m away to Lincolnshire to bring that old lady here.", "pos": 1562552}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "But, bless the woman, how is she going? What money has she got?", "pos": 1562702}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "Never you mind for me, miss. I’m a soldier’s wife and accustomed to travel my own way. Lignum, old boy, one for yourself, three for the children. Now I’m away into Lincolnshire after George’s mother!", "pos": 1563007}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Mr. Bagnet. Do you mean to let her go in that way?", "pos": 1563411}
{"speaker": "he", "text": "Can’t help it. Made her way home once from another quarter of the world. With the same grey cloak. And same umbrella. Whatever the old girl says, do. Do it! Whenever the old girl says, I’LL do it. She does it.", "pos": 1563484}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Then she is as honest and genuine as she looks, and it is impossible to say more for her.", "pos": 1563711}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bagnet", "text": "She’s Colour-Sergeant of the Nonpareil battalion. And there’s not such another. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be maintained.", "pos": 1563827}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "And there you are, my partner, eh? And so you are. And so you are! And very well indeed you are looking, Mrs. Bucket! There you are, my partner, eh? And our lodger with you. I’m taking notice of you, Mrs. Bucket; I hope you’re all right in your health, my dear!", "pos": 1567886}
{"speaker": "Mercury", "text": "Here’s another letter for you, Mr. Bucket, come by post,", "pos": 1570100}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Another one, eh? Do you happen to carry a box? Could you fetch me a pinch from anywheres? Thankee. It don’t matter what it is; I’m not particular as to the kind. Thankee!", "pos": 1570177}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "And this, is in the same hand, and consists of the same two words. Lady Dedlock. Yes, yes. But I could have made the money without this anonymous information.", "pos": 1571779}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "No, there’s none in that hand. It’s only me as is written to. I can break it to Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to-morrow.", "pos": 1573064}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "You are a swell about town, and you know me, and I know you.", "pos": 1573731}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Have you anything new to communicate, officer? Do you wish to hold any conversation with me in private?", "pos": 1573876}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Why—not to-night, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet.", "pos": 1574008}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Because my time, is wholly at your disposal with a view to the vindication of the outraged majesty of the law.", "pos": 1574060}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "I do assure you, you’re a pretty creetur. I’ve seen hundreds worse looking at your time of life, I have indeed.", "pos": 1574304}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "If I have not, in the most emphatic manner, adjured you, officer, to exercise your utmost skill in this atrocious case, I particularly desire to take the present opportunity of rectifying any omission I may have made. Let no expense be a consideration. I am prepared to defray all charges. You can incur none in pursuit of the object you have undertaken that I shall hesitate for a moment to bear. My mind, has not, as may be easily supposed, recovered its tone since the late diabolical occurrence. It is not likely ever to recover its tone. But it is full of indignation to-night after undergoing the ordeal of consigning to the tomb the remains of a faithful, a zealous, a devoted adherent.", "pos": 1574707}
{"speaker": "he", "text": "I declare. I solemnly declare that until this crime is discovered and, in the course of justice, punished, I almost feel as if there were a stain upon my name. A gentleman who has devoted a large portion of his life to me, a gentleman who has devoted the last day of his life to me, a gentleman who has constantly sat at my table and slept under my roof, goes from my house to his own, and is struck down within an hour of his leaving my house. I cannot say but that he may have been followed from my house, watched at my house, even first marked because of his association with my house—which may have suggested his possessing greater wealth and being altogether of greater importance than his own retiring demeanour would have indicated. If I cannot with my means and influence and my position bring all the perpetrators of such a crime to light, I fail in the assertion of my respect for that gentleman’s memory and of my fidelity towards one who was ever faithful to me.", "pos": 1575684}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "The ceremony of to-day, strikingly illustrative of the respect in which my deceased friend was held by the flower of the land, has, I say, aggravated the shock I have received from this most horrible and audacious crime. If it were my brother who had committed it, I would not spare him.", "pos": 1576938}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "You must feel it as a deprivation to you, miss, no doubt. He was calculated to BE a deprivation, I’m sure he was. It gives a start to a delicate female, but it’ll wear off. Why you see, miss, my dear it ain’t easy to answer those questions at the present moment. Not at the present moment. I’ve kept myself on this case, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to his satisfaction.", "pos": 1577431}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "The officer, Volumnia, is faithful to his duty, and perfectly right. In fact, Volumnia, it is not holding up a good model for imitation to ask the officer any such questions as you have put to him. He is the best judge of his own responsibility; he acts upon his responsibility. And it does not become us, who assist in making the laws, to impede or interfere with those who carry them into execution. Or who vindicate their outraged majesty. Very well, Volumnia. Then you cannot be too discreet.", "pos": 1579730}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I have no objections to telling this lady, with your leave and among ourselves, that I look upon the case as pretty well complete. It is a beautiful case—a beautiful case—and what little is wanting to complete it, I expect to be able to supply in a few hours.", "pos": 1580835}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "I am very glad indeed to hear it. Highly creditable to you.", "pos": 1581129}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. I hope it may at one and the same time do me credit and prove satisfactory to all. When I depict it as a beautiful case, you see, miss. I mean from my point of view. As considered from other points of view, such cases will always involve more or less unpleasantness. Very strange things comes to our knowledge in families, miss; bless your heart, what you would think to be phenomenons, quite. Aye, and even in gen-teel families, in high families, in great families. I have had the honour of being employed in high families before, and you have no idea—come, I’ll go so far as to say not even YOU have any idea, sir, what games goes on!", "pos": 1581213}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Very good. Thank you! You will not forget, officer, that I am at your disposal when you please.", "pos": 1582371}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Might I ask, by the by, who posted the reward-bill on the staircase.", "pos": 1582939}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "I ordered it to be put up there,", "pos": 1583058}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Would it be considered a liberty, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, if I was to ask you why?", "pos": 1583116}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Not at all. I chose it as a conspicuous part of the house. I think it cannot be too prominently kept before the whole establishment. I wish my people to be impressed with the enormity of the crime, the determination to punish it, and the hopelessness of escape. At the same time, officer, if you in your better knowledge of the subject see any objection—", "pos": 1583209}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Why, you’re six foot two, I suppose?", "pos": 1584018}
{"speaker": "Mercury", "text": "Three,", "pos": 1584074}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Are you so much? But then, you see, you’re broad in proportion and don’t look it. You’re not one of the weak-legged ones, you ain’t. Was you ever modelled now? and a friend of mine that you’ll hear of one day as a Royal Academy sculptor would stand something handsome to make a drawing of your proportions for the marble. My Lady’s out, ain’t she? Out to dinner. Goes out pretty well every day, don’t she?", "pos": 1584097}
{"speaker": "Mercury", "text": "Yes.", "pos": 1584680}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Not to be wondered at! Such a fine woman as her, so handsome and so graceful and so elegant, is like a fresh lemon on a dinner-table, ornamental wherever she goes. Was your father in the same way of life as yourself? Mine was. My father was first a page, then a footman, then a butler, then a steward, then an inn-keeper. Lived universally respected, and died lamented. Said with his last breath that he considered service the most honourable part of his career, and so it was. I’ve a brother in service, AND a brother-in-law. My Lady a good temper?", "pos": 1584687}
{"speaker": "Mercury", "text": "As good as you can expect.", "pos": 1585320}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Ah! A little spoilt? A little capricious? Lord! What can you anticipate when they’re so handsome as that? And we like ’em all the better for it, don’t we?", "pos": 1585349}
{"speaker": "Mercury", "text": "Talk of the angels,", "pos": 1585756}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Here she is! Mr. Bucket, my Lady. Are you waiting to see Sir Leicester? No, my Lady, I’ve seen him! Have you anything to say to me? Not just at present, my Lady. Have you made any new discoveries? A few, my Lady. She’s a lovely woman, too, she really is. Don’t look quite healthy though.", "pos": 1585795}
{"speaker": "Mercury", "text": "Is not quite healthy. Suffers much from headaches.", "pos": 1587020}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Really? That’s a pity! Walking, Mr. Bucket would recommend for that.", "pos": 1587092}
{"speaker": "Mercury", "text": "Walks sometimes for two hours when she has them bad. By night, too.", "pos": 1587203}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Are you sure you’re quite so much as six foot three? Begging your pardon for interrupting you a moment?", "pos": 1587272}
{"speaker": "Mercury", "text": "Not a doubt about it.", "pos": 1587396}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "You’re so well put together that I shouldn’t have thought it. But the household troops, though considered fine men, are built so straggling. Walks by night, does she? When it’s moonlight, though?", "pos": 1587419}
{"speaker": "Mercury", "text": "Oh, yes. When it’s moonlight! Of course. Oh, of course!", "pos": 1587616}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "I suppose you ain’t in the habit of walking yourself? Not much time for it, I should say?", "pos": 1587719}
{"speaker": "Mercury", "text": "Besides which, Mercury don’t like it. Prefers carriage exercise.", "pos": 1587829}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "To be sure. That makes a difference. Now I think of it, she went out walking the very night of this business.", "pos": 1587895}
{"speaker": "Mercury", "text": "To be sure she did! I let her into the garden over the way.", "pos": 1588100}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "And left her there. Certainly you did. I saw you doing it.", "pos": 1588162}
{"speaker": "Mercury", "text": "I didn’t see YOU,", "pos": 1588223}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "I was rather in a hurry, for I was going to visit a aunt of mine that lives at Chelsea—next door but two to the old original Bun House—ninety year old the old lady is, a single woman, and got a little property. Yes, I chanced to be passing at the time. Let’s see. What time might it be? It wasn’t ten.", "pos": 1588257}
{"speaker": "Mercury", "text": "Half-past nine.", "pos": 1588583}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "You’re right. So it was. And if I don’t deceive myself, my Lady was muffled in a loose black mantle, with a deep fringe to it?", "pos": 1588601}
{"speaker": "Mercury", "text": "Of course she was.", "pos": 1588730}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Refreshed by sleep, Mr. Bucket rises betimes in the morning and prepares for a field-day. just to mention quietly to Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, that whenever he’s ready for me, I’m ready for him.", "pos": 1589119}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "I am sorry to have kept you waiting, officer, but I am rather later than my usual hour this morning. I am not well. The agitation and the indignation from which I have recently suffered have been too much for me. I am subject to—gout indisposition and would have said it to anybody else, but Mr. Bucket palpably knows all about it and recent circumstances have brought it on. I am not aware, officer, whether you wish us to be alone, but that is entirely as you please. If you do, well and good. If not, Miss Dedlock would be interested—", "pos": 1590690}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Why, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, we can’t be too private just at present. You will presently see that we can’t be too private. A lady, under the circumstances, and especially in Miss Dedlock’s elevated station of society, can’t but be agreeable to me, but speaking without a view to myself, I will take the liberty of assuring you that I know we can’t be too private.", "pos": 1591481}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "That is enough.", "pos": 1591970}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "So much so, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, that I was on the point of asking your permission to turn the key in the door.", "pos": 1591988}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "By all means.", "pos": 1592135}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I mentioned yesterday evening that I wanted but a very little to complete this case. I have now completed it and collected proof against the person who did this crime.", "pos": 1592347}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Against the soldier?", "pos": 1592549}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "No, Sir Leicester Dedlock; not the soldier.", "pos": 1592572}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Is the man in custody?", "pos": 1592662}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "It was a woman.", "pos": 1592724}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Good heaven!", "pos": 1592810}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it’s my duty to prepare you for a train of circumstances that may, and I go so far as to say that will, give you a shock. But Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, you are a gentleman, and I know what a gentleman is and what a gentleman is capable of. A gentleman can bear a shock when it must come, boldly and steadily. A gentleman can make up his mind to stand up against almost any blow. Why, take yourself, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. If there’s a blow to be inflicted on you, you naturally think of your family. You ask yourself, how would all them ancestors of yours, away to Julius Caesar—not to go beyond him at present—have borne that blow; you remember scores of them that would have borne it well; and you bear it well on their accounts, and to maintain the family credit. That’s the way you argue, and that’s the way you act, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, thus preparing you, let me beg of you not to trouble your mind for a moment as to anything having come to MY knowledge. I know so much about so many characters, high and low, that a piece of information more or less don’t signify a straw. I don’t suppose there’s a move on the board that would surprise ME, and as to this or that move having taken place, why my knowing it is no odds at all, any possible move whatever (provided it’s in a wrong direction) being a probable move according to my experience. Therefore, what I say to you, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, is, don’t you go and let yourself be put out of the way because of my knowing anything of your family affairs.", "pos": 1592825}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "I thank you for your preparation, which I hope is not necessary; though I give it credit for being well intended. Be so good as to go on. Also also, to take a seat, if you have no objection.", "pos": 1594704}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, with this short preface I come to the point. Lady Dedlock— Lady Dedlock, you see she’s universally admired. That’s what her ladyship is; she’s universally admired,", "pos": 1595103}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "I would greatly prefer, officer, my Lady’s name being entirely omitted from this discussion.", "pos": 1595450}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "So would I, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, but—it’s impossible.", "pos": 1595578}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Impossible?", "pos": 1595645}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it’s altogether impossible. What I have got to say is about her ladyship. She is the pivot it all turns on.", "pos": 1595698}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Officer, you know your duty. Do your duty, but be careful not to overstep it. I would not suffer it. I would not endure it. You bring my Lady’s name into this communication upon your responsibility—upon your responsibility. My Lady’s name is not a name for common persons to trifle with!", "pos": 1595840}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I say what I must say, and no more.", "pos": 1596192}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "I hope it may prove so. Very well. Go on. Go on, sir!", "pos": 1596262}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it becomes my duty to tell you that the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn long entertained mistrusts and suspicions of Lady Dedlock.", "pos": 1596518}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "If he had dared to breathe them to me, sir—which he never did—I would have killed him myself!", "pos": 1596676}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Sir Leicester Dedlock, the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn was deep and close, and what he fully had in his mind in the very beginning I can’t quite take upon myself to say. But I know from his lips that he long ago suspected Lady Dedlock of having discovered, through the sight of some handwriting—in this very house, and when you yourself, Sir Leicester Dedlock, were present—the existence, in great poverty, of a certain person who had been her lover before you courted her and who ought to have been her husband. Ought to have been her husband, not a doubt about it. I know from his lips that when that person soon afterwards died, he suspected Lady Dedlock of visiting his wretched lodging and his wretched grave, alone and in secret. I know from my own inquiries and through my eyes and ears that Lady Dedlock did make such visit in the dress of her own maid, for the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn employed me to reckon up her ladyship—if you’ll excuse my making use of the term we commonly employ—and I reckoned her up, so far, completely. I confronted the maid in the chambers in Lincoln’s Inn Fields with a witness who had been Lady Dedlock’s guide, and there couldn’t be the shadow of a doubt that she had worn the young woman’s dress, unknown to her. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I did endeavour to pave the way a little towards these unpleasant disclosures yesterday by saying that very strange things happened even in high families sometimes. All this, and more, has happened in your own family, and to and through your own Lady. It’s my belief that the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn followed up these inquiries to the hour of his death and that he and Lady Dedlock even had bad blood between them upon the matter that very night. Now, only you put that to Lady Dedlock, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and ask her ladyship whether, even after he had left here, she didn’t go down to his chambers with the intention of saying something further to him, dressed in a loose black mantle with a deep fringe to it. You put that to her ladyship, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, from me, Inspector Bucket of the Detective. And if her ladyship makes any difficulty about admitting of it, you tell her that it’s no use, that Inspector Bucket knows it and knows that she passed the soldier as you called him (though he’s not in the army now) and knows that she knows she passed him on the staircase. Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, why do I relate all this?", "pos": 1597019}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "True.", "pos": 1601217}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, this unfortunate family affair has taken air, as I expected it might, the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn being cut down so sudden. The chance to hush it is to let in these people now in a wrangle with your footmen. Would you mind sitting quiet—on the family account—while I reckon ’em up? And would you just throw in a nod when I seem to ask you for it?", "pos": 1601543}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Officer. The best you can, the best you can!", "pos": 1601961}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Now, perhaps you may know me, ladies and gentlemen. I am Inspector Bucket of the Detective, I am; and this, is my authority. Now, you wanted to see Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. Well! You do see him, and mind you, it ain’t every one as is admitted to that honour. Your name, old gentleman, is Smallweed; that’s what your name is; I know it well.", "pos": 1602574}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Well, and you never heard any harm of it!", "pos": 1603042}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "You don’t happen to know why they killed the pig, do you?", "pos": 1603130}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "No!", "pos": 1603260}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Why, they killed him, on account of his having so much cheek. Don’t YOU get into the same position, because it isn’t worthy of you. You ain’t in the habit of conversing with a deaf person, are you?", "pos": 1603285}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Yes, my wife’s deaf.", "pos": 1603485}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "That accounts for your pitching your voice so high. But as she ain’t here; just pitch it an octave or two lower, will you, and I’ll not only be obliged to you, but it’ll do you more credit. This other gentleman is in the preaching line, I think?", "pos": 1603532}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Name of Chadband,", "pos": 1603799}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Once had a friend and brother serjeant of the same name, and consequently feel a liking for it. Mrs. Chadband, no doubt?", "pos": 1603883}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "And Mrs. Snagsby,", "pos": 1604044}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Husband a law-stationer and a friend of my own. Love him like a brother! Now, what’s up?", "pos": 1604090}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Do you mean what business have we come upon?", "pos": 1604200}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Ah! You know what I mean. Let us hear what it’s all about in presence of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. Come.", "pos": 1604315}
{"speaker": "Mr. Chadband", "text": "Yes. You first!", "pos": 1604640}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "I was the client and friend of Mr. Tulkinghorn. I did business with him. I was useful to him, and he was useful to me. Krook, dead and gone, was my brother-in-law. He was own brother to a brimstone magpie—leastways Mrs. Smallweed. I come into Krook’s property. I examined all his papers and all his effects. They was all dug out under my eyes. There was a bundle of letters belonging to a dead and gone lodger as was hid away at the back of a shelf in the side of Lady Jane’s bed—his cat’s bed. He hid all manner of things away, everywheres. Mr. Tulkinghorn wanted ’em and got ’em, but I looked ’em over first. I’m a man of business, and I took a squint at ’em. They was letters from the lodger’s sweetheart, and she signed Honoria. Dear me, that’s not a common name, Honoria, is it? There’s no lady in this house that signs Honoria is there? Oh, no, I don’t think so! Oh, no, I don’t think so! And not in the same hand, perhaps? Oh, no, I don’t think so! Oh, dear me! Oh, Lord! I’m shaken all to pieces!", "pos": 1604691}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Now, when you’re ready, to come to anything that concerns Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, here the gentleman sits, you know.", "pos": 1605887}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Haven’t I come to it, Mr. Bucket? Isn’t the gentleman concerned yet? Not with Captain Hawdon, and his ever affectionate Honoria, and their child into the bargain? Come, then, I want to know where those letters are. That concerns me, if it don’t concern Sir Leicester Dedlock. I will know where they are. I won’t have ’em disappear so quietly. I handed ’em over to my friend and solicitor, Mr. Tulkinghorn, not to anybody else.", "pos": 1606014}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Why, he paid you for them, you know, and handsome too,", "pos": 1606474}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "I don’t care for that. I want to know who’s got ’em. And I tell you what we want—what we all here want, Mr. Bucket. We want more painstaking and search-making into this murder. We know where the interest and the motive was, and you have not done enough. If George the vagabond dragoon had any hand in it, he was only an accomplice, and was set on. You know what I mean as well as any man.", "pos": 1606548}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Now I tell you what. I am damned if I am a-going to have my case spoilt, or interfered with, or anticipated by so much as half a second of time by any human being in creation. YOU want more painstaking and search-making! YOU do? Do you see this hand, and do you think that I don’t know the right time to stretch it out and put it on the arm that fired that shot? The advice I give you is, don’t you trouble your head about the murder. That’s my affair. You keep half an eye on the newspapers, and I shouldn’t wonder if you was to read something about it before long, if you look sharp. I know my business, and that’s all I’ve got to say to you on that subject. Now about those letters. You want to know who’s got ’em. I don’t mind telling you. I have got ’em. Is that the packet? What have you got to say next? Now, don’t open your mouth too wide, because you don’t look handsome when you do it.", "pos": 1606939}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "I want five hundred pound.", "pos": 1608338}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "No, you don’t; you mean fifty. That is, I am deputed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to consider (without admitting or promising anything) this bit of business, and you ask me to consider a proposal of five hundred pounds. Why, it’s an unreasonable proposal! Two fifty would be bad enough, but better than that. Hadn’t you better say two fifty?", "pos": 1608367}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Then,", "pos": 1608919}
{"speaker": "Mr. Chadband", "text": "My friends, we are now—Rachael, my wife, and I—in the mansions of the rich and great. Why are we now in the mansions of the rich and great, my friends? Is it because we are invited? Because we are bidden to feast with them, because we are bidden to rejoice with them, because we are bidden to play the lute with them, because we are bidden to dance with them? No. Then why are we here, my friends? Air we in possession of a sinful secret, and do we require corn, and wine, and oil, or what is much the same thing, money, for the keeping thereof? Probably so, my friends.", "pos": 1609260}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "You’re a man of business, you are, and consequently you’re going on to mention what the nature of your secret is. You are right. You couldn’t do better.", "pos": 1609833}
{"speaker": "Mr. Chadband", "text": "Let us then, my brother, in a spirit of love, proceed unto it. Rachael, my wife, advance!", "pos": 1610026}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Chadband", "text": "Since you want to know what we know, I’ll tell you. I helped to bring up Miss Hawdon, her ladyship’s daughter. I was in the service of her ladyship’s sister, who was very sensitive to the disgrace her ladyship brought upon her, and gave out, even to her ladyship, that the child was dead—she WAS very nearly so—when she was born. But she’s alive, and I know her. ladyship", "pos": 1610301}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "I suppose now. YOU will be expecting a twenty-pound note or a present of about that figure?", "pos": 1610825}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Chadband", "text": "offer", "pos": 1611007}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "My friend the law-stationer’s good lady, over there. What may YOUR game be, ma’am?", "pos": 1611029}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Very good. Now I understand you, you know, and being deputed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to look into this little matter, can give it my fair and full attention. Now I won’t allude to conspiring to extort money or anything of that sort, because we are men and women of the world here, and our object is to make things pleasant. But I tell you what I DO wonder at; I am surprised that you should think of making a noise below in the hall. It was so opposed to your interests. That’s what I look at.", "pos": 1614172}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "We wanted to get in,", "pos": 1614772}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Why, of course you wanted to get in, but for a old gentleman at your time of life—what I call truly venerable, mind you!—with his wits sharpened, as I have no doubt they are, by the loss of the use of his limbs, which occasions all his animation to mount up into his head, not to consider that if he don’t keep such a business as the present as close as possible it can’t be worth a mag to him, is so curious! You see your temper got the better of you; that’s where you lost ground,", "pos": 1614817}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "I only said I wouldn’t go without one of the servants came up to Sir Leicester Dedlock,", "pos": 1615396}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "That’s it! That’s where your temper got the better of you. Now, you keep it under another time and you’ll make money by it. Shall I ring for them to carry you down?", "pos": 1615509}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Chadband", "text": "When are we to hear more of this?", "pos": 1615676}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Bless your heart for a true woman! Always curious, your delightful sex is! I shall have the pleasure of giving you a call to-morrow or next day—not forgetting Mr. Smallweed and his proposal of two fifty.", "pos": 1615743}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Five hundred!", "pos": 1615986}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "All right! Nominally five hundred. SHALL I wish you good day for the present on the part of myself and the gentleman of the house? Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, it’s for you to consider whether or not to buy this up. I should recommend, on the whole, it’s being bought up myself; and I think it may be bought pretty cheap. You see, that little pickled cowcumber of a Mrs. Snagsby has been used by all sides of the speculation and has done a deal more harm in bringing odds and ends together than if she had meant it. Mr. Tulkinghorn, deceased, he held all these horses in his hand and could have drove ’em his own way, I haven’t a doubt; but he was fetched off the box head-foremost, and now they have got their legs over the traces, and are all dragging and pulling their own ways. So it is, and such is life. The cat’s away, and the mice they play; the frost breaks up, and the water runs. Now, with regard to the party to be apprehended. The party to be apprehended is now in this house, and I’m about to take her into custody in your presence. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, don’t you say a word nor yet stir. There’ll be no noise and no disturbance at all. I’ll come back in the course of the evening, if agreeable to you, and endeavour to meet your wishes respecting this unfortunate family matter and the nobbiest way of keeping it quiet. Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, don’t you be nervous on account of the apprehension at present coming off. You shall see the whole case clear, from first to last.", "pos": 1616026}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "I ask you pardon. They tell me there was no one here.", "pos": 1618486}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "This is my lodger, Sir Leicester Dedlock. This foreign young woman has been my lodger for some weeks back.", "pos": 1618703}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "What do Sir Leicester care for that, you think, my angel?", "pos": 1618847}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Why, my angel, we shall see.", "pos": 1618949}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "You are very mysterieuse. Are you drunk?", "pos": 1619114}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Tolerable sober, my angel,", "pos": 1619157}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "I come from arriving at this so detestable house with your wife. Your wife have left me since some minutes. They tell me downstairs that your wife is here. I come here, and your wife is not here. What is the intention of this fool’s play, say then? Ah, my God, you are an unhappy idiot! Leave me to pass downstairs, great pig.", "pos": 1619206}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Now, mademoiselle, you go and sit down upon that sofy.", "pos": 1619793}
{"speaker": "she", "text": "I will not sit down upon nothing,", "pos": 1619894}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Now, mademoiselle, you sit down upon that sofy.", "pos": 1619965}
{"speaker": "she", "text": "Why?", "pos": 1620085}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Because I take you into custody on a charge of murder, and you don’t need to be told it. Now, I want to be polite to one of your sex and a foreigner if I can. If I can’t, I must be rough, and there’s rougher ones outside. What I am to be depends on you. So I recommend you, as a friend, afore another half a blessed moment has passed over your head, to go and sit down upon that sofy.", "pos": 1620092}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "You are a devil.", "pos": 1620588}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Now, you see, you’re comfortable and conducting yourself as I should expect a foreign young woman of your sense to do. So I’ll give you a piece of advice, and it’s this, don’t you talk too much. You’re not expected to say anything here, and you can’t keep too quiet a tongue in your head. In short, the less you PARLAY, the better, you know.", "pos": 1620607}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "Oh, you Bucket, you are a devil!", "pos": 1621258}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Now, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, this young woman, my lodger, was her ladyship’s maid at the time I have mentioned to you; and this young woman, besides being extraordinary vehement and passionate against her ladyship after being discharged—", "pos": 1621293}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "Lie! I discharge myself.", "pos": 1621609}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Now, why don’t you take my advice? I’m surprised at the indiscreetness you commit. You’ll say something that’ll be used against you, you know. You’re sure to come to it. Never you mind what I say till it’s given in evidence. It is not addressed to you.", "pos": 1621658}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "Discharge, too, by her ladyship! Eh, my faith, a pretty ladyship! Why, I r-r-r-ruin my character by remaining with a ladyship so infame!", "pos": 1621982}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Upon my soul I wonder at you! I thought the French were a polite nation, I did, really. Yet to hear a female going on like that before Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet!", "pos": 1622153}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "He is a poor abused! I spit upon his house, upon his name, upon his imbecility. Oh, that he is a great man! Oh, yes, superb! Oh, heaven! Bah!", "pos": 1622349}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Well, Sir Leicester Dedlock, this intemperate foreigner also angrily took it into her head that she had established a claim upon Mr. Tulkinghorn, deceased, by attending on the occasion I told you of at his chambers, though she was liberally paid for her time and trouble.", "pos": 1622562}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "Lie! I ref-use his money all togezzer.", "pos": 1622859}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "If you WILL PARLAY, you know, you must take the consequences. Now, whether she became my lodger, Sir Leicester Dedlock, with any deliberate intention then of doing this deed and blinding me, I give no opinion on; but she lived in my house in that capacity at the time that she was hovering about the chambers of the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn with a view to a wrangle, and likewise persecuting and half frightening the life out of an unfortunate stationer.", "pos": 1622922}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "Lie! All lie!", "pos": 1623414}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "The murder was committed, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and you know under what circumstances. Now, I beg of you to follow me close with your attention for a minute or two. I was sent for, and the case was entrusted to me. I examined the place, and the body, and the papers, and everything. From information I received (from a clerk in the same house) I took George into custody as having been seen hanging about there on the night, and at very nigh the time of the murder, also as having been overheard in high words with the deceased on former occasions—even threatening him, as the witness made out. If you ask me, Sir Leicester Dedlock, whether from the first I believed George to be the murderer, I tell you candidly no, but he might be, notwithstanding, and there was enough against him to make it my duty to take him and get him kept under remand. Now, observe! I went home, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, at night and found this young woman having supper with my wife, Mrs. Bucket. She had made a mighty show of being fond of Mrs. Bucket from her first offering herself as our lodger, but that night she made more than ever—in fact, overdid it. Likewise she overdid her respect, and all that, for the lamented memory of the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn. By the living Lord it flashed upon me, as I sat opposite to her at the table and saw her with a knife in her hand, that she had done it!", "pos": 1623452}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "You are a devil.", "pos": 1625204}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Now where, had she been on the night of the murder? She had been to the theayter. (She really was there, I have since found, both before the deed and after it.) I knew I had an artful customer to deal with and that proof would be very difficult; and I laid a trap for her—such a trap as I never laid yet, and such a venture as I never made yet. I worked it out in my mind while I was talking to her at supper. When I went upstairs to bed, our house being small and this young woman’s ears sharp, I stuffed the sheet into Mrs. Bucket’s mouth that she shouldn’t say a word of surprise and told her all about it. My dear, don’t you give your mind to that again, or I shall link your feet together at the ankles.", "pos": 1625223}
{"speaker": "she", "text": "What is the matter with you now?", "pos": 1626072}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Don’t you think any more, of throwing yourself out of window. That’s what’s the matter with me. Come! Just take my arm. You needn’t get up; I’ll sit down by you. Now take my arm, will you? I’m a married man, you know; you’re acquainted with my wife. Just take my arm. Now we’re all right again. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, this case could never have been the case it is but for Mrs. Bucket, who is a woman in fifty thousand—in a hundred and fifty thousand! To throw this young woman off her guard, I have never set foot in our house since, though I’ve communicated with Mrs. Bucket in the baker’s loaves and in the milk as often as required. My whispered words to Mrs. Bucket when she had the sheet in her mouth were, ‘My dear, can you throw her off continually with natural accounts of my suspicions against George, and this, and that, and t’other? Can you do without rest and keep watch upon her night and day? Can you undertake to say, ‘She shall do nothing without my knowledge, she shall be my prisoner without suspecting it, she shall no more escape from me than from death, and her life shall be my life, and her soul my soul, till I have got her, if she did this murder?’ Mrs. Bucket says to me, as well as she could speak on account of the sheet, ‘Bucket, I can!’ And she has acted up to it glorious! Bucket, I can!", "pos": 1626121}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "Lies! All lies, my friend!", "pos": 1627593}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, how did my calculations come out under these circumstances? When I calculated that this impetuous young woman would overdo it in new directions, was I wrong or right? I was right. What does she try to do? Don’t let it give you a turn? To throw the murder on her ladyship. And she got encouragement in it from hearing that I was always here, which was done a-purpose. Now, open that pocket-book of mine, Sir Leicester Dedlock, if I may take the liberty of throwing it towards you, and look at the letters sent to me, each with the two words ‘Lady Dedlock’ in it. Open the one directed to yourself, which I stopped this very morning, and read the three words ‘Lady Dedlock, Murderess’ in it. These letters have been falling about like a shower of lady-birds. What do you say now to Mrs. Bucket, from her spy-place having seen them all written by this young woman? What do you say to Mrs. Bucket having, within this half-hour, secured the corresponding ink and paper, fellow half-sheets and what not? What do you say to Mrs. Bucket having watched the posting of ’em every one by this young woman, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet? There is no doubt that her ladyship was on the spot at the eventful period, and my foreign friend here saw her, I believe, from the upper part of the staircase. Her ladyship and George and my foreign friend were all pretty close on one another’s heels. But that don’t signify any more, so I’ll not go into it. I found the wadding of the pistol with which the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn was shot. It was a bit of the printed description of your house at Chesney Wold. Not much in that, you’ll say, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. No. But when my foreign friend here is so thoroughly off her guard as to think it a safe time to tear up the rest of that leaf, and when Mrs. Bucket puts the pieces together and finds the wadding wanting, it begins to look like Queer Street.", "pos": 1627649}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "These are very long lies. You prose great deal. Is it that you have almost all finished, or are you speaking always?", "pos": 1630083}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, the last point in the case which I am now going to mention shows the necessity of patience in our business, and never doing a thing in a hurry. I watched this young woman yesterday without her knowledge when she was looking at the funeral, in company with my wife, who planned to take her there; and I had so much to convict her, and I saw such an expression in her face, and my mind so rose against her malice towards her ladyship, and the time was altogether such a time for bringing down what you may call retribution upon her, that if I had been a younger hand with less experience, I should have taken her, certain. Equally, last night, when her ladyship, as is so universally admired I am sure, come home looking—why, Lord, a man might almost say like Venus rising from the ocean—it was so unpleasant and inconsistent to think of her being charged with a murder of which she was innocent that I felt quite to want to put an end to the job. What should I have lost? Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I should have lost the weapon. My prisoner here proposed to Mrs. Bucket, after the departure of the funeral, that they should go per bus a little ways into the country and take tea at a very decent house of entertainment. Now, near that house of entertainment there’s a piece of water. At tea, my prisoner got up to fetch her pocket-handkercher from the bedroom where the bonnets was; she was rather a long time gone and came back a little out of wind. As soon as they came home this was reported to me by Mrs. Bucket, along with her observations and suspicions. I had the piece of water dragged by moonlight, in presence of a couple of our men, and the pocket pistol was brought up before it had been there half-a-dozen hours. Now, my dear, put your arm a little further through mine, and hold it steady, and I shan’t hurt you! That’s one. Now the other, darling. Two, and all told!", "pos": 1630229}
{"speaker": "she", "text": "Where, where is your false, your treacherous, and cursed wife?", "pos": 1632373}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "She’s gone forrard to the Police Office. You’ll see her there, my dear.", "pos": 1632545}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "I would like to kiss her!", "pos": 1632641}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "You’d bite her, I suspect,", "pos": 1632723}
{"speaker": "she", "text": "I would! I would love to tear her limb from limb.", "pos": 1632769}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Bless you, darling. I’m fully prepared to hear that. Your sex have such a surprising animosity against one another when you do differ. You don’t mind me half so much, do you?", "pos": 1632851}
{"speaker": "she", "text": "No. Though you are a devil still.", "pos": 1633075}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Angel and devil by turns, eh? But I am in my regular employment, you must consider. Let me put your shawl tidy. I’ve been lady’s maid to a good many before now. Anything wanting to the bonnet? There’s a cab at the door.", "pos": 1633111}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "Listen then, my angel. You are very spiritual. But can you restore him back to life?", "pos": 1633508}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Not exactly.", "pos": 1633656}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "That is droll. Listen yet one time. You are very spiritual. Can you make a honourable lady of her?", "pos": 1633671}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Don’t be so malicious,", "pos": 1633772}
{"speaker": "Mademoiselle Hortense", "text": "Or a haughty gentleman of HIM? Eh! Oh, then regard him! The poor infant! Ha! Ha! Ha!", "pos": 1633814}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Come, come, why this is worse PARLAYING than the other. Come along!", "pos": 1633974}
{"speaker": "she", "text": "You cannot do these things? Then you can do as you please with me. It is but the death, it is all the same. Let us go, my angel. Adieu, you old man, grey. I pity you, and I despise you!", "pos": 1634063}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "You are a mother, my dear soul, and you found out my George’s mother!", "pos": 1638117}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "Why, George, was always free with me, ma’am, and when he said at our house to my Woolwich that of all the things my Woolwich could have to think of when he grew to be a man, the comfortablest would be that he had never brought a sorrowful line into his mother’s face or turned a hair of her head grey, then I felt sure, from his way, that something fresh had brought his own mother into his mind. I had often known him say to me, in past times, that he had behaved bad to her.", "pos": 1638212}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "Never, my dear! My blessing on him, never! He was always fond of me, and loving to me, was my George! But he had a bold spirit, and he ran a little wild and went for a soldier. And I know he waited at first, in letting us know about himself, till he should rise to be an officer; and when he didn’t rise, I know he considered himself beneath us, and wouldn’t be a disgrace to us. For he had a lion heart, had my George, always from a baby!", "pos": 1638714}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "So I says to George when I goes to call him in to tea (he pretended to be smoking his pipe outside), ‘What ails you this afternoon, George, for gracious sake? I have seen all sorts, and I have seen you pretty often in season and out of season, abroad and at home, and I never see you so melancholy penitent.’", "pos": 1640012}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Why, Mrs. Bagnet, it’s because I AM melancholy and penitent both, this afternoon, that you see me so.", "pos": 1640322}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "What have you done, old fellow?", "pos": 1640441}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "what I have done has been done this many a long year, and is best not tried to be undone now. If I ever get to heaven it won’t be for being a good son to a widowed mother; I say no more.", "pos": 1640534}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "Now, ma’am, when George says to me that it’s best not tried to be undone now, I have my thoughts as I have often had before, and I draw it out of George how he comes to have such things on him that afternoon. Then George tells me that he has seen by chance, at the lawyer’s office, a fine old lady that has brought his mother plain before him, and he runs on about that old lady till he quite forgets himself and paints her picture to me as she used to be, years upon years back. So I says to George when he has done, who is this old lady he has seen? And George tells me it’s Mrs. Rouncewell, housekeeper for more than half a century to the Dedlock family down at Chesney Wold in Lincolnshire. George has frequently told me before that he’s a Lincolnshire man, and I says to my old Lignum that night, ‘Lignum, that’s his mother for five and for-ty pound!’", "pos": 1640722}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "Bless you, and thank you. Bless you, and thank you, my worthy soul!", "pos": 1641804}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Bagnet", "text": "Dear heart! No thanks to me, I am sure. Thanks to yourself, ma’am, for being so ready to pay ’em! And mind once more, ma’am, what you had best do on finding George to be your own son is to make him—for your sake—have every sort of help to put himself in the right and clear himself of a charge of which he is as innocent as you or me. It won’t do to have truth and justice on his side; he must have law and lawyers,", "pos": 1641898}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "He shall have, all the help that can be got for him in the world, my dear. I will spend all I have, and thankfully, to procure it. Sir Leicester will do his best, the whole family will do their best. I—I know something, my dear; and will make my own appeal, as his mother parted from him all these years, and finding him in a jail at last. My Lady, my Lady, my Lady!", "pos": 1642528}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "George Rouncewell! Oh, my dear child, turn and look at me!", "pos": 1645475}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "My George, my dearest son! Always my favourite, and my favourite still, where have you been these cruel years and years? Grown such a man too, grown such a fine strong man. Grown so like what I knew he must be, if it pleased God he was alive!", "pos": 1645859}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Mother, forgive me first of all, for I know my need of it. Mother, I have been an undutiful trouble to you, and I have my reward; but of late years I have had a kind of glimmering of a purpose in me too. When I left home I didn’t care much, mother—I am afraid not a great deal—for leaving; and went away and ’listed, harum-scarum, making believe to think that I cared for nobody, no not I, and that nobody cared for me. So I wrote a line home, mother, as you too well know, to say I had ’listed under another name, and I went abroad. Abroad, at one time I thought I would write home next year, when I might be better off; and when that year was out, I thought I would write home next year, when I might be better off; and when that year was out again, perhaps I didn’t think much about it. So on, from year to year, through a service of ten years, till I began to get older, and to ask myself why should I ever write.", "pos": 1646393}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "I don’t find any fault, child—but not to ease my mind, George? Not a word to your loving mother, who was growing older too?", "pos": 1648062}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Heaven forgive me, mother, but I thought there would be small consolation then in hearing anything about me. There were you, respected and esteemed. There was my brother, as I read in chance North Country papers now and then, rising to be prosperous and famous. There was I a dragoon, roving, unsettled, not self-made like him, but self-unmade—all my earlier advantages thrown away, all my little learning unlearnt, nothing picked up but what unfitted me for most things that I could think of. What business had I to make myself known? After letting all that time go by me, what good could come of it? The worst was past with you, mother. I knew by that time (being a man) how you had mourned for me, and wept for me, and prayed for me; and the pain was over, or was softened down, and I was better in your mind as it was. No, I don’t say that it was so, mother, but that I made it out to be so. I said just now, what good could come of it? Well, my dear mother, some good might have come of it to myself—and there was the meanness of it. You would have sought me out; you would have purchased my discharge; you would have taken me down to Chesney Wold; you would have brought me and my brother and my brother’s family together; you would all have considered anxiously how to do something for me and set me up as a respectable civilian. But how could any of you feel sure of me when I couldn’t so much as feel sure of myself? How could you help regarding as an incumbrance and a discredit to you an idle dragooning chap who was an incumbrance and a discredit to himself, excepting under discipline? How could I look my brother’s children in the face and pretend to set them an example—I, the vagabond boy who had run away from home and been the grief and unhappiness of my mother’s life? ‘No, George.’ Such were my words, mother, when I passed this in review before me: ‘You have made your bed. Now, lie upon it.’", "pos": 1648308}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "This was the way I brought myself to think, mother, that my best amends was to lie upon that bed I had made, and die upon it. And I should have done it (though I have been to see you more than once down at Chesney Wold, when you little thought of me) but for my old comrade’s wife here, who I find has been too many for me. But I thank her for it. I thank you for it, Mrs. Bagnet, with all my heart and might.", "pos": 1650862}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Mother, ’tis little enough to consent to, tell me what I shall do, and I’ll make a late beginning and do it. Mrs. Bagnet, you’ll take care of my mother, I know?", "pos": 1651902}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Then grant me this one great favour. Don’t let my brother know. Not know of me. In fact, mother, I can’t bear it; I can’t make up my mind to it. He has proved himself so different from me and has done so much to raise himself while I’ve been soldiering that I haven’t brass enough in my composition to see him in this place and under this charge. How could a man like him be expected to have any pleasure in such a discovery? It’s impossible. No, keep my secret from him, mother; do me a greater kindness than I deserve and keep my secret from my brother, of all men. Why, mother, perhaps not for good and all—though I may come to ask that too—but keep it now, I do entreat you. If it’s ever broke to him that his rip of a brother has turned up, I could wish, to break it myself and be governed as to advancing or retreating by the way in which he seems to take it. In all other respects, my dear mother, I’ll be as tractable and obedient as you can wish; on this one alone, I stand out. So now I am ready even for the lawyers. I have been drawing up, an exact account of what I knew of the deceased and how I came to be involved in this unfortunate affair. It’s entered, plain and regular, like an orderly-book; not a word in it but what’s wanted for the facts. I did intend to read it, straight on end, whensoever I was called upon to say anything in my defence. I hope I may be let to do it still; but I have no longer a will of my own in this case, and whatever is said or done, I give my promise not to have any. Where are you going to take my mother, Mrs. Bagnet?", "pos": 1652658}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "I am going to the town house, my dear, the family house. I have some business there that must be looked to directly,", "pos": 1654825}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Will you see my mother safe there in a coach, Mrs. Bagnet? But of course I know you will. Why should I ask it! Take her, my old friend, and take my gratitude along with you. Kisses to Quebec and Malta, love to my godson, a hearty shake of the hand to Lignum, and this for yourself, and I wish it was ten thousand pound in gold, my dear!", "pos": 1654969}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "Trouble, my Lady. Sad trouble. Oh, my Lady, may I beg a word with you? What is the matter? Sit down and take your breath. Oh, my Lady, my Lady. I have found my son—my youngest, who went away for a soldier so long ago. And he is in prison.", "pos": 1656194}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "For debt?", "pos": 1656649}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "Oh, no, my Lady; I would have paid any debt, and joyful.", "pos": 1656661}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "For what is he in prison then?", "pos": 1656720}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "Charged with a murder, my Lady, of which he is as innocent as—as I am. Accused of the murder of Mr. Tulkinghorn. Lady Dedlock, my dear Lady, my good Lady, my kind Lady! You must have a heart to feel for me, you must have a heart to forgive me. I was in this family before you were born. I am devoted to it. But think of my dear son wrongfully accused.", "pos": 1656753}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I do not accuse him.", "pos": 1657232}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "No, my Lady, no. But others do, and he is in prison and in danger. Oh, Lady Dedlock, if you can say but a word to help to clear him, say it! My Lady, I came away last night from Chesney Wold to find my son in my old age, and the step upon the Ghost’s Walk was so constant and so solemn that I never heard the like in all these years. Night after night, as it has fallen dark, the sound has echoed through your rooms, but last night it was awfullest. And as it fell dark last night, my Lady, I got this letter. Hush! Hush! My Lady, I have not breathed a word of it, I don’t believe what’s written in it, I know it can’t be true, I am sure and certain that it is not true. But my son is in danger, and you must have a heart to pity me. If you know of anything that is not known to others, if you have any suspicion, if you have any clue at all, and any reason for keeping it in your own breast, oh, my dear Lady, think of me, and conquer that reason, and let it be known! This is the most I consider possible. I know you are not a hard lady, but you go your own way always without help, and you are not familiar with your friends; and all who admire you—and all do—as a beautiful and elegant lady, know you to be one far away from themselves who can’t be approached close. My Lady, you may have some proud or angry reasons for disdaining to utter something that you know; if so, pray, oh, pray, think of a faithful servant whose whole life has been passed in this family which she dearly loves, and relent, and help to clear my son! My Lady, my good Lady, I am so humble in my place and you are by nature so high and distant that you may not think what I feel for my child, but I feel so much that I have come here to make so bold as to beg and pray you not to be scornful of us if you can do us any right or justice at this fearful time!", "pos": 1657255}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Am I to read this?", "pos": 1659532}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "When I am gone, my Lady, if you please, and then remembering the most that I consider possible.", "pos": 1659553}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "I know of nothing I can do. I know of nothing I reserve that can affect your son. I have never accused him.", "pos": 1659651}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "My Lady, you may pity him the more under a false accusation after reading the letter.", "pos": 1659761}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Let him come in!", "pos": 1661016}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Your ladyship may not be at first disposed to excuse this visit from one who has never been welcome to your ladyship but I hope when I mention my motives to your ladyship you will not find fault with me. Do so. Thank your ladyship. I ought first to explain to your ladyship, that Miss Summerson, whose image, as I formerly mentioned to your ladyship, was at one period of my life imprinted on my ’eart until erased by circumstances over which I had no control, communicated to me, after I had the pleasure of waiting on your ladyship last, that she particularly wished me to take no steps whatever in any manner at all relating to her. And Miss Summerson’s wishes being to me a law (except as connected with circumstances over which I have no control), I consequently never expected to have the distinguished honour of waiting on your ladyship again. And yet I am here now. My object being to communicate to your ladyship, under the seal of confidence, why I am here. Nor can I, too particularly request your ladyship to take particular notice that it’s no personal affair of mine that brings me here. I have no interested views of my own to serve in coming here. If it was not for my promise to Miss Summerson and my keeping of it sacred—I, in point of fact, shouldn’t have darkened these doors again, but should have seen ’em further first. Your ladyship will remember when I mention it that the last time I was here I run against a party very eminent in our profession and whose loss we all deplore. That party certainly did from that time apply himself to cutting in against me in a way that I will call sharp practice, and did make it, at every turn and point, extremely difficult for me to be sure that I hadn’t inadvertently led up to something contrary to Miss Summerson’s wishes. Self-praise is no recommendation, but I may say for myself that I am not so bad a man of business neither. Indeed, it has been made so hard, to have any idea what that party was up to in combination with others that until the loss which we all deplore I was gravelled—an expression which your ladyship, moving in the higher circles, will be so good as to consider tantamount to knocked over. Small likewise—a name by which I refer to another party, a friend of mine that your ladyship is not acquainted with—got to be so close and double-faced that at times it wasn’t easy to keep one’s hands off his ’ead. However, what with the exertion of my humble abilities, and what with the help of a mutual friend by the name of Mr. Tony Weevle (who is of a high aristocratic turn and has your ladyship’s portrait always hanging up in his room), I have now reasons for an apprehension as to which I come to put your ladyship upon your guard. First, will your ladyship allow me to ask you whether you have had any strange visitors this morning? I don’t mean fashionable visitors, but such visitors, for instance, as Miss Barbary’s old servant, or as a person without the use of his lower extremities, carried upstairs similarly to a guy?", "pos": 1661256}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "No!", "pos": 1664946}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Then I assure your ladyship that such visitors have been here and have been received here. Because I saw them at the door, and waited at the corner of the square till they came out, and took half an hour’s turn afterwards to avoid them.", "pos": 1664952}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "What have I to do with that, or what have you? I do not understand you. What do you mean?", "pos": 1665191}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Your ladyship, I come to put you on your guard. There may be no occasion for it. Very well. Then I have only done my best to keep my promise to Miss Summerson. I strongly suspect (from what Small has dropped, and from what we have corkscrewed out of him) that those letters I was to have brought to your ladyship were not destroyed when I supposed they were. That if there was anything to be blown upon, it IS blown upon. That the visitors I have alluded to have been here this morning to make money of it. And that the money is made, or making. Your ladyship, you know best whether there’s anything in what I say or whether there’s nothing. Something or nothing, I have acted up to Miss Summerson’s wishes in letting things alone and in undoing what I had begun to do, as far as possible; that’s sufficient for me. In case I should be taking a liberty in putting your ladyship on your guard when there’s no necessity for it, you will endeavour, I should hope, to outlive my presumption, and I shall endeavour to outlive your disapprobation. I now take my farewell of your ladyship, and assure you that there’s no danger of your ever being waited on by me again.", "pos": 1665283}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "Where is Sir Leicester? Has Sir Leicester had any visitors this morning?", "pos": 1666609}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "if some mortal stroke would but fall on this old man and take him from my way!", "pos": 1668450}
{"speaker": "Lady Dedlock", "text": "If I am sought for, or accused of, his murder, believe that I am wholly innocent. Believe no other good of me, for I am innocent of nothing else that you have heard, or will hear, laid to my charge. He prepared me, on that fatal night, for his disclosure of my guilt to you. After he had left me, I went out on pretence of walking in the garden where I sometimes walk, but really to follow him and make one last petition that he would not protract the dreadful suspense on which I have been racked by him, you do not know how long, but would mercifully strike next morning. I found his house dark and silent. I rang twice at his door, but there was no reply, and I came home. I have no home left. I will encumber you no more. May you, in your just resentment, be able to forget the unworthy woman on whom you have wasted a most generous devotion—who avoids you only with a deeper shame than that with which she hurries from herself—and who writes this last adieu.", "pos": 1669429}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Chesney Wold?", "pos": 1674558}
{"speaker": "His old housekeeper", "text": "It is not an illness of any serious consequence, Sir Leicester. You will be much better to-morrow, Sir Leicester. All the gentlemen say so.", "pos": 1674746}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "My Lady.", "pos": 1675068}
{"speaker": "His old housekeeper", "text": "My Lady went out, Sir Leicester, before you were taken ill, and don’t know of your illness yet.", "pos": 1675079}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "My Lady. For God’s sake, where?", "pos": 1675403}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I’m sorry to see you like this. I hope you’ll cheer up. I’m sure you will, on account of the family credit. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I understand you.", "pos": 1676921}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Full forgiveness. Find—", "pos": 1677400}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I’ll find her. But my search after her must be begun out of hand. Not a minute must be lost. Bring it here, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet? Certainly. Open it with one of these here keys? Certainly. The littlest key? TO be sure. Take the notes out? So I will. Count ’em? That’s soon done. Twenty and thirty’s fifty, and twenty’s seventy, and fifty’s one twenty, and forty’s one sixty. Take ’em for expenses? That I’ll do, and render an account of course. Don’t spare money? No I won’t. You’re George’s mother, old lady; that’s about what you are, I believe?", "pos": 1677453}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "Yes, sir, I am his distressed mother.", "pos": 1678466}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "So I thought, according to what he mentioned to me just now. Well, then, I’ll tell you something. You needn’t be distressed no more. Your son’s all right. Now, don’t you begin a-crying, because what you’ve got to do is to take care of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and you won’t do that by crying. As to your son, he’s all right, I tell you; and he sends his loving duty, and hoping you’re the same. He’s discharged honourable; that’s about what HE is; with no more imputation on his character than there is on yours, and yours is a tidy one, I’LL bet a pound. You may trust me, for I took your son. He conducted himself in a game way, too, on that occasion; and he’s a fine-made man, and you’re a fine-made old lady, and you’re a mother and son, the pair of you, as might be showed for models in a caravan. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, what you’ve trusted to me I’ll go through with. Don’t you be afraid of my turning out of my way, right or left, or taking a sleep, or a wash, or a shave till I have found what I go in search of. Say everything as is kind and forgiving on your part? Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I will. And I wish you better, and these family affairs smoothed over—as, Lord, many other family affairs equally has been, and equally will be, to the end of time.", "pos": 1678506}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "A spicy boudoir, this. Must have cost a sight of money. Rum articles to cut away from, these; she must have been hard put to it! One might suppose I was a-moving in the fashionable circles and getting myself up for Almack’s. I begin to think I must be a swell in the Guards without knowing it. Hum! Let’s have a look at YOU. What should YOU be kept by yourself for? What’s YOUR motive? Are you her ladyship’s property, or somebody else’s? You’ve got a mark upon you somewheres or another, I suppose? Oh! Come, I’ll take YOU.", "pos": 1680384}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Unbear him half a moment to freshen him up, and I’ll be back.", "pos": 1682790}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "I thought I should, George, after what you have gone through, my lad. I haven’t a word to spare. Now, honour! All to save a woman. Miss Summerson that was here when Gridley died—that was the name, I know—all right—where does she live? You won’t repent it, George. Good night! Don’t be alarmed, sir. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing you before. Inspector Bucket. Look at that handkerchief, sir, Miss Esther Summerson’s. Found it myself put away in a drawer of Lady Dedlock’s, quarter of an hour ago. Not a moment to lose. Matter of life or death. You know Lady Dedlock?", "pos": 1682927}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Yes.", "pos": 1684064}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "There has been a discovery there to-day. Family affairs have come out. Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, has had a fit—apoplexy or paralysis—and couldn’t be brought to, and precious time has been lost. Lady Dedlock disappeared this afternoon and left a letter for him that looks bad. Run your eye over it. Here it is! I don’t know. It looks like suicide. Anyways, there’s more and more danger, every minute, of its drawing to that. I’d give a hundred pound an hour to have got the start of the present time. Now, Mr. Jarndyce, I am employed by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, to follow her and find her, to save her and take her his forgiveness. I have money and full power, but I want something else. I want Miss Summerson.", "pos": 1684071}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Miss Summerson?", "pos": 1684895}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Now, Mr. Jarndyce I speak to you as a gentleman of a humane heart, and under such pressing circumstances as don’t often happen. If ever delay was dangerous, it’s dangerous now; and if ever you couldn’t afterwards forgive yourself for causing it, this is the time. Eight or ten hours, worth, as I tell you, a hundred pound apiece at least, have been lost since Lady Dedlock disappeared. I am charged to find her. I am Inspector Bucket. Besides all the rest that’s heavy on her, she has upon her, as she believes, suspicion of murder. If I follow her alone, she, being in ignorance of what Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, has communicated to me, may be driven to desperation. But if I follow her in company with a young lady, answering to the description of a young lady that she has a tenderness for—I ask no question, and I say no more than that—she will give me credit for being friendly. Let me come up with her and be able to have the hold upon her of putting that young lady for’ard, and I’ll save her and prevail with her if she is alive. Let me come up with her alone—a hard matter—and I’ll do my best, but I don’t answer for what the best may be. Time flies; it’s getting on for one o’clock. When one strikes, there’s another hour gone, and it’s worth a thousand pound now instead of a hundred.", "pos": 1684913}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Are you well wrapped up, Miss Summerson? It’s a desperate sharp night for a young lady to be out in. It may be a long job, but so that it ends well, never mind, miss.", "pos": 1692549}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I pray to heaven it may end well!", "pos": 1692829}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "You see, whatever you do, don’t you go and fret yourself. You keep yourself cool and equal for anything that may happen, and it’ll be the better for you, the better for me, the better for Lady Dedlock, and the better for Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. Now, Miss Summerson, we are off, if you please!", "pos": 1692897}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Don’t you be alarmed, Miss Summerson, on account of our coming down here. I only want to have everything in train and to know that it is in train by looking after it myself. Get on, my lad!", "pos": 1696130}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "An old acquaintance of yours, this road, Miss Summerson,", "pos": 1698062}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Yes. Have you gathered any intelligence?", "pos": 1698149}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "None that can be quite depended on as yet, but it’s early times as yet. Get on, my lad! Drink it, Miss Summerson, it’ll do you good. You’re beginning to get more yourself now, ain’t you? You was what you may call stunned at first, and Lord, no wonder! Don’t speak loud, my dear. It’s all right. She’s on ahead. Passed through here on foot this evening about eight or nine. I heard of her first at the archway toll, over at Highgate, but couldn’t make quite sure. Traced her all along, on and off. Picked her up at one place, and dropped her at another; but she’s before us now, safe. Take hold of this cup and saucer, ostler. Now, if you wasn’t brought up to the butter trade, look out and see if you can catch half a crown in your t’other hand. One, two, three, and there you are! Now, my lad, try a gallop! As this is your regular abode, Miss Summerson, you see. I should like to know whether you’ve been asked for by any stranger answering the description, or whether Mr. Jarndyce has. I don’t much expect it, but it might be. When you passed a man upon the road, just yonder, you know. That was me. I drove down in a gig that afternoon to look after that boy. You might have heard my wheels when you came out to look after him yourself, for I was aware of you and your little maid going up when I was walking the horse down. Making an inquiry or two about him in the town, I soon heard what company he was in and was coming among the brick-fields to look for him when I observed you bringing him home here.", "pos": 1698206}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Had he committed any crime?", "pos": 1701270}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "None was charged against him, but I suppose he wasn’t over-particular. No. What I wanted him for was in connexion with keeping this very matter of Lady Dedlock quiet. He had been making his tongue more free than welcome as to a small accidental service he had been paid for by the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn; and it wouldn’t do, at any sort of price, to have him playing those games. So having warned him out of London, I made an afternoon of it to warn him to keep out of it now he WAS away, and go farther from it, and maintain a bright look-out that I didn’t catch him coming back again.", "pos": 1701309}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Poor creature!", "pos": 1701947}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Poor enough, and trouble enough, and well enough away from London, or anywhere else. I was regularly turned on my back when I found him taken up by your establishment, I do assure you. Why, my dear? Naturally there was no end to his tongue then. He might as well have been born with a yard and a half of it, and a remnant over. Ah! Here we are, and a nice retired place it is. Puts a man in mind of the country house in the Woodpecker-tapping, that was known by the smoke which so gracefully curled. They’re early with the kitchen fire, and that denotes good servants. But what you’ve always got to be careful of with servants is who comes to see ’em; you never know what they’re up to if you don’t know that. And another thing, my dear. Whenever you find a young man behind the kitchen-door, you give that young man in charge on suspicion of being secreted in a dwelling-house with an unlawful purpose. Do you generally put that elderly young gentleman in the same room when he’s on a visit here, Miss Summerson?", "pos": 1701972}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "You know Mr. Skimpole!", "pos": 1703689}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "What do you call him again? Skimpole, is it? I’ve often wondered what his name might be. Skimpole. Not John, I should say, nor yet Jacob?", "pos": 1703722}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Harold,", "pos": 1703907}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Harold. Yes. He’s a queer bird is Harold,", "pos": 1703929}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "He is a singular character,", "pos": 1704023}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "No idea of money. He takes it, though! Why, now I’ll tell you, Miss Summerson. Your mind will be all the better for not running on one point too continually, and I’ll tell you for a change. It was him as pointed out to me where Toughey was. I made up my mind that night to come to the door and ask for Toughey, if that was all; but willing to try a move or so first, if any such was on the board, I just pitched up a morsel of gravel at that window where I saw a shadow. As soon as Harold opens it and I have had a look at him, thinks I, you’re the man for me. So I smoothed him down a bit about not wanting to disturb the family after they was gone to bed and about its being a thing to be regretted that charitable young ladies should harbour vagrants; and then, when I pretty well understood his ways, I said I should consider a fypunnote well bestowed if I could relieve the premises of Toughey without causing any noise or trouble. Then says he, lifting up his eyebrows in the gayest way, ‘It’s no use mentioning a fypunnote to me, my friend, because I’m a mere child in such matters and have no idea of money.’ Of course I understood what his taking it so easy meant; and being now quite sure he was the man for me, I wrapped the note round a little stone and threw it up to him. Well! He laughs and beams, and looks as innocent as you like, and says, ‘But I don’t know the value of these things. What am I to DO with this?’ ‘Spend it, sir,’ says I. ‘But I shall be taken in,’ he says, ‘they won’t give me the right change, I shall lose it, it’s no use to me.’ Lord, you never saw such a face as he carried it with! Of course he told me where to find Toughey, and I found him. It’s no use mentioning a fypunnote to me, my friend, because I’m a mere child in such matters and have no idea of money. But I don’t know the value of these things. What am I to DO with this? Spend it, sir. But I shall be taken in, they won’t give me the right change, I shall lose it, it’s no use to me. Bounds, my dear? Bounds? Now, Miss Summerson, I’ll give you a piece of advice that your husband will find useful when you are happily married and have got a family about you. Whenever a person says to you that they are as innocent as can be in all concerning money, look well after your own money, for they are dead certain to collar it if they can. Whenever a person proclaims to you ‘In worldly matters I’m a child,’ you consider that that person is only a-crying off from being held accountable and that you have got that person’s number, and it’s Number One. Now, I am not a poetical man myself, except in a vocal way when it goes round a company, but I’m a practical one, and that’s my experience. So’s this rule. Fast and loose in one thing, fast and loose in everything. I never knew it fail. No more will you. Nor no one. With which caution to the unwary, my dear, I take the liberty of pulling this here bell, and so go back to our business. Then, Miss Summerson, we can’t be too soon at the cottage where those brickmakers are to be found. Most inquiries there I leave to you, if you’ll be so good as to make ’em. The naturalest way is the best way, and the naturalest way is your own way.", "pos": 1704061}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Liz. I have come a long way in the night and through the snow to inquire after a lady—", "pos": 1708983}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Who has been here, you know, that’s the lady the young lady means. The lady that was here last night, you know.", "pos": 1709082}
{"speaker": "Jenny’s husband", "text": "And who told YOU as there was anybody here?", "pos": 1709282}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "A person of the name of Michael Jackson, with a blue welveteen waistcoat with a double row of mother of pearl buttons,", "pos": 1709439}
{"speaker": "Jenny’s husband", "text": "He had as good mind his own business, whoever he is,", "pos": 1709593}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "He’s out of employment, I believe, and so gets talking.", "pos": 1709665}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I should like to have seen Jenny very much, for I am sure she would have told me all she could about this lady, whom I am very anxious indeed—you cannot think how anxious—to overtake. Will Jenny be here soon? Where is she?", "pos": 1710236}
{"speaker": "Jenny’s husband", "text": "I’m not partial to gentlefolks coming into my place, as you’ve heerd me say afore now, I think, miss. I let their places be, and it’s curious they can’t let my place be. There’d be a pretty shine made if I was to go a-wisitin THEM, I think. Howsoever, I don’t so much complain of you as of some others, and I’m agreeable to make you a civil answer, though I give notice that I’m not a-going to be drawed like a badger. Will Jenny be here soon? No she won’t. Where is she? She’s gone up to Lunnun.", "pos": 1710715}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Did she go last night?", "pos": 1711214}
{"speaker": "Jenny’s husband", "text": "Did she go last night? Ah! She went last night,", "pos": 1711248}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "But was she here when the lady came? And what did the lady say to her? And where is the lady gone? I beg and pray you to be so kind as to tell me, for I am in great distress to know.", "pos": 1711341}
{"speaker": "the woman", "text": "If my master would let me speak, and not say a word of harm—", "pos": 1711536}
{"speaker": "Jenny’s husband", "text": "Your master, will break your neck if you meddle with wot don’t concern you. Wos Jenny here when the lady come? Yes, she wos here when the lady come. Wot did the lady say to her? Well, I’ll tell you wot the lady said to her. She said, ‘You remember me as come one time to talk to you about the young lady as had been a-wisiting of you? You remember me as give you somethink handsome for a handkercher wot she had left?’ Ah, she remembered. So we all did. Well, then, wos that young lady up at the house now? No, she warn’t up at the house now. Well, then, lookee here. The lady was upon a journey all alone, strange as we might think it, and could she rest herself where you’re a setten for a hour or so. Yes she could, and so she did. Then she went—it might be at twenty minutes past eleven, and it might be at twenty minutes past twelve; we ain’t got no watches here to know the time by, nor yet clocks. Where did she go? I don’t know where she go’d. She went one way, and Jenny went another; one went right to Lunnun, and t’other went right from it. That’s all about it. Ask this man. He heerd it all, and see it all. He knows. You remember me as come one time to talk to you about the young lady as had been a-wisiting of you? You remember me as give you somethink handsome for a handkercher wot she had left?", "pos": 1711624}
{"speaker": "The other man", "text": "That’s all about it.", "pos": 1712976}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Was the lady crying?", "pos": 1712999}
{"speaker": "The first man", "text": "Devil a bit. Her shoes was the worse, and her clothes was the worse, but she warn’t—not as I see.", "pos": 1713034}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I hope so. I hope you will not object to my asking your wife, how the lady looked.", "pos": 1713401}
{"speaker": "Jenny’s husband", "text": "Come, then! You hear what she says. Cut it short and tell her.", "pos": 1713485}
{"speaker": "the woman", "text": "Bad. Pale and exhausted. Very bad.", "pos": 1713577}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Did she speak much?", "pos": 1713635}
{"speaker": "the woman", "text": "Not much, but her voice was hoarse.", "pos": 1713657}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Was she faint? Did she eat or drink here?", "pos": 1713757}
{"speaker": "Jenny’s husband", "text": "Go on! Tell her and cut it short.", "pos": 1713811}
{"speaker": "the woman", "text": "She had a little water, miss, and Jenny fetched her some bread and tea. But she hardly touched it.", "pos": 1713889}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And when she went from here,", "pos": 1713990}
{"speaker": "Jenny’s husband", "text": "When she went from here, she went right away nor’ard by the high road. Ask on the road if you doubt me, and see if it warn’t so. Now, there’s the end. That’s all about it.", "pos": 1714084}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Now, Miss Summerson. They’ve got her ladyship’s watch among ’em. That’s a positive fact.", "pos": 1714486}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "You saw it?", "pos": 1714620}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Just as good as saw it. Else why should he talk about his ‘twenty minutes past’ and about his having no watch to tell the time by? Twenty minutes! He don’t usually cut his time so fine as that. If he comes to half-hours, it’s as much as HE does. Now, you see, either her ladyship gave him that watch or he took it. I think she gave it him. Now, what should she give it him for? What should she give it him for? If time could be spared, which is the only thing that can’t be spared in this case, I might get it out of that woman; but it’s too doubtful a chance to trust to under present circumstances. They are up to keeping a close eye upon her, and any fool knows that a poor creetur like her, beaten and kicked and scarred and bruised from head to foot, will stand by the husband that ill uses her through thick and thin. There’s something kept back. It’s a pity but what we had seen the other woman. It’s possible, Miss Summerson, that her ladyship sent her up to London with some word for you, and it’s possible that her husband got the watch to let her go. It don’t come out altogether so plain as to please me, but it’s on the cards. Now, I don’t take kindly to laying out the money of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, on these roughs, and I don’t see my way to the usefulness of it at present. No! So far our road, Miss Summerson, is for’ard—straight ahead—and keeping everything quiet!", "pos": 1714646}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Get on, my lad! Keep up your spirits. It’s certainly true that she came on here, Miss Summerson. There’s not a doubt of the dress by this time, and the dress has been seen here.", "pos": 1718027}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Still on foot?", "pos": 1718488}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Still on foot. I think the gentleman you mentioned must be the point she’s aiming at, and yet I don’t like his living down in her own part of the country neither.", "pos": 1718513}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I know so little. There may be some one else nearer here, of whom I never heard.", "pos": 1718678}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "That’s true. But whatever you do, don’t you fall a-crying, my dear; and don’t you worry yourself no more than you can help. Get on, my lad!", "pos": 1718771}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Get on, my lad!", "pos": 1720007}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "What is it? Is she here?", "pos": 1724625}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "No, no. Don’t deceive yourself, my dear. Nobody’s here. But I’ve got it! Now, Miss Summerson, don’t you be disappointed at what I’m a-going to do. You know me. I’m Inspector Bucket, and you can trust me. We’ve come a long way; never mind. Four horses out there for the next stage up! Quick! Up, I tell you! Up! Ain’t it English? Up!", "pos": 1724672}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Up? To London! Are we going back?", "pos": 1725326}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Miss Summerson, back. Straight back as a die. You know me. Don’t be afraid. I’ll follow the other, by G——", "pos": 1725384}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "The other? Who?", "pos": 1725507}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "You called her Jenny, didn’t you? I’ll follow her. Bring those two pair out here for a crown a man. Wake up, some of you!", "pos": 1725539}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "You will not desert this lady we are in search of; you will not abandon her on such a night and in such a state of mind as I know her to be in!", "pos": 1725663}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "You are right, my dear, I won’t. But I’ll follow the other. Look alive here with them horses. Send a man for’ard in the saddle to the next stage, and let him send another for’ard again, and order four on, up, right through. My darling, don’t you be afraid! My dear, —you’ll excuse me if I’m too familiar—don’t you fret and worry yourself no more than you can help. I say nothing else at present; but you know me, my dear; now, don’t you?", "pos": 1725853}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I know he was far more capable than I of deciding what we ought to do, but was he sure that this was right? Could I not go forward by myself in search of—I grasped his hand again in my distress and whispered it to him—of my own mother.", "pos": 1726672}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "My dear. I know, I know, and would I put you wrong, do you think? Inspector Bucket. Now you know me, don’t you?", "pos": 1726909}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "What could I say but yes!", "pos": 1727037}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Then you keep up as good a heart as you can, and you rely upon me for standing by you, no less than by Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. Now, are you right there?", "pos": 1727064}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "All right, sir!", "pos": 1727227}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Off she goes, then. And get on, my lads!", "pos": 1727245}
{"speaker": "Blaze and Sparkle", "text": "Our people, Mr. Jones, our people, sir, are sheep—mere sheep. Where two or three marked ones go, all the rest follow. Keep those two or three in your eye, Mr. Jones, and you have the flock.", "pos": 1728981}
{"speaker": "Mr. Sladdery", "text": "Why yes, sir, there certainly ARE reports concerning Lady Dedlock, very current indeed among my high connexion, sir. You see, my high connexion must talk about something, sir; and it’s only to get a subject into vogue with one or two ladies I could name to make it go down with the whole. Just what I should have done with those ladies, sir, in the case of any novelty you had left to me to bring in, they have done of themselves in this case through knowing Lady Dedlock and being perhaps a little innocently jealous of her too, sir. You’ll find, sir, that this topic will be very popular among my high connexion. If it had been a speculation, sir, it would have brought money. And when I say so, you may trust to my being right, sir, for I have made it my business to study my high connexion and to be able to wind it up like a clock, sir.", "pos": 1729541}
{"speaker": "Honourable Mr. Stables", "text": "she was the best-groomed woman in the stud, he had no idea she was a bolter.", "pos": 1730747}
{"speaker": "the Speaker", "text": "Order at the bar!", "pos": 1731752}
{"speaker": "The old housekeeper", "text": "No, he has not come back yet, Sir Leicester. It was late last night when he went. He has been but a little time gone yet.", "pos": 1733298}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "For I dread, George. I dread, my dear, that my Lady will never more set foot within these walls.", "pos": 1734019}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "That’s a bad presentiment, mother.", "pos": 1734217}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "Nor yet within the walls of Chesney Wold, my dear.", "pos": 1734254}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "That’s worse. But why, mother?", "pos": 1734307}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "When I saw my Lady yesterday, George, she looked to me—and I may say at me too—as if the step on the Ghost’s Walk had almost walked her down.", "pos": 1734340}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Come, come! You alarm yourself with old-story fears, mother.", "pos": 1734484}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "No I don’t, my dear. No I don’t. It’s going on for sixty year that I have been in this family, and I never had any fears for it before. But it’s breaking up, my dear; the great old Dedlock family is breaking up.", "pos": 1734547}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I hope not, mother.", "pos": 1734761}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "I am thankful I have lived long enough to be with Sir Leicester in this illness and trouble, for I know I am not too old nor too useless to be a welcomer sight to him than anybody else in my place would be. But the step on the Ghost’s Walk will walk my Lady down, George; it has been many a day behind her, and now it will pass her and go on.", "pos": 1734783}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Well, mother dear, I say again, I hope not.", "pos": 1735128}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "Ah, so do I, George. But if my fears come true, and he has to know it, who will tell him!", "pos": 1735174}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Are these her rooms?", "pos": 1735337}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "These are my Lady’s rooms, just as she left them.", "pos": 1735360}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Why, now. I begin to understand how you come to think as you do think, mother. Rooms get an awful look about them when they are fitted up, like these, for one person you are used to see in them, and that person is away under any shadow, let alone being God knows where.", "pos": 1735412}
{"speaker": "Volumnia", "text": "He is asleep.", "pos": 1737296}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "I am not.", "pos": 1737404}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "Miss Dedlock don’t speak of my eldest son, Sir Leicester, but my youngest. I have found him. He has come home.", "pos": 1739355}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "George? Your son George come home, Mrs. Rouncewell?", "pos": 1739515}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "Thank God. Yes, Sir Leicester.", "pos": 1739605}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Why did you not tell me, Mrs. Rouncewell?", "pos": 1740065}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "It happened only yesterday, Sir Leicester, and I doubted your being well enough to be talked to of such things.", "pos": 1740109}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Where is your son George, Mrs. Rouncewell?", "pos": 1740536}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "in London.", "pos": 1740693}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Where in London? Bring him here to my room. Bring him directly.", "pos": 1740705}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Good heaven, and it is really George Rouncewell! Do you remember me, George?", "pos": 1741538}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I must have a very bad memory, indeed, Sir Leicester, if I failed to remember you.", "pos": 1741821}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "When I look at you, George Rouncewell. I see something of a boy at Chesney Wold—I remember well—very well.", "pos": 1741906}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I ask your pardon, Sir Leicester, but would you accept of my arms to raise you up? You would lie easier, Sir Leicester, if you would allow me to move you.", "pos": 1742160}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "If you please, George Rouncewell; if you will be so good. Thank you. You have your mother’s gentleness, and your own strength. Thank you. Why did you wish for secrecy?", "pos": 1742337}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Truly I am not much to boast of, Sir Leicester, and I—I should still, Sir Leicester, if you was not so indisposed—which I hope you will not be long—I should still hope for the favour of being allowed to remain unknown in general. That involves explanations not very hard to be guessed at, not very well timed here, and not very creditable to myself. However opinions may differ on a variety of subjects, I should think it would be universally agreed, Sir Leicester, that I am not much to boast of.", "pos": 1742813}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "You have been a soldier, and a faithful one.", "pos": 1743313}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "As far as that goes, Sir Leicester, I have done my duty under discipline, and it was the least I could do.", "pos": 1743417}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "You find me, far from well, George Rouncewell.", "pos": 1743526}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I am very sorry both to hear it and to see it, Sir Leicester.", "pos": 1743640}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "I am sure you are. No. In addition to my older malady, I have had a sudden and bad attack. Something that deadens, and confuses,", "pos": 1743704}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "Thank you, George. You are another self to me. You have often carried my spare gun at Chesney Wold, George. You are familiar to me in these strange circumstances, very familiar. I was about to add. I was about to add, respecting this attack, that it was unfortunately simultaneous with a slight misunderstanding between my Lady and myself. I do not mean that there was any difference between us (for there has been none), but that there was a misunderstanding of certain circumstances important only to ourselves, which deprives me, for a little while, of my Lady’s society. She has found it necessary to make a journey—I trust will shortly return. Volumnia, do I make myself intelligible? The words are not quite under my command in the manner of pronouncing them. Therefore, Volumnia, I desire to say in your presence—and in the presence of my old retainer and friend, Mrs. Rouncewell, whose truth and fidelity no one can question, and in the presence of her son George, who comes back like a familiar recollection of my youth in the home of my ancestors at Chesney Wold—in case I should relapse, in case I should not recover, in case I should lose both my speech and the power of writing, though I hope for better things— Therefore I desire to say, and to call you all to witness—beginning, Volumnia, with yourself, most solemnly—that I am on unaltered terms with Lady Dedlock. That I assert no cause whatever of complaint against her. That I have ever had the strongest affection for her, and that I retain it undiminished. Say this to herself, and to every one. If you ever say less than this, you will be guilty of deliberate falsehood to me.", "pos": 1744443}
{"speaker": "Volumnia", "text": "I will observe his injunctions to the letter.", "pos": 1746817}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "Dear Sir Leicester, my honoured master. I must, for your own good, and my duty, take the freedom of begging and praying that you will not lie here in the lone darkness watching and waiting and dragging through the time. Let me draw the curtains, and light the candles, and make things more comfortable about you. The church-clocks will strike the hours just the same, Sir Leicester, and the night will pass away just the same. My Lady will come back, just the same.", "pos": 1749638}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "I know it, Mrs. Rouncewell, but I am weak—and she has been so long gone.", "pos": 1750129}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Rouncewell", "text": "Not so very long, Sir Leicester. Not twenty-four hours yet.", "pos": 1750204}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "But that is a long time. Oh, it is a long time! As you say, Mrs. Rouncewell, it is no worse for being confessed. It is getting late, and they are not come. Light the room!", "pos": 1750266}
{"speaker": "Volumnia", "text": "of anything happening", "pos": 1752863}
{"speaker": "Volumnia", "text": "How is Sir Leicester now, Mr. George?", "pos": 1754422}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Why, Sir Leicester is much the same, miss. He is very low and ill, and he even wanders a little sometimes.", "pos": 1754515}
{"speaker": "Volumnia", "text": "Has he asked for me?", "pos": 1754624}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Why, no, I can’t say he has, miss. Not within my hearing, that is to say.", "pos": 1754675}
{"speaker": "Volumnia", "text": "This is a truly sad time, Mr. George.", "pos": 1754751}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "It is indeed, miss. Hadn’t you better go to bed?", "pos": 1754791}
{"speaker": "the maid", "text": "You had a deal better go to bed, Miss Dedlock,", "pos": 1754842}
{"speaker": "Volumnia", "text": "if anything was to happen", "pos": 1755039}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Hadn’t you better go to bed, miss?", "pos": 1755920}
{"speaker": "the maid", "text": "You had a deal better go to bed, Miss Dedlock!", "pos": 1756011}
{"speaker": "Volumnia", "text": "Do with me what you think best!", "pos": 1756087}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "All is still in readiness, George Rouncewell?", "pos": 1757888}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Quite orderly and right, Sir Leicester.", "pos": 1757936}
{"speaker": "Sir Leicester", "text": "No word of any kind? No letter that can possibly have been overlooked?", "pos": 1757978}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Look what I am bringing you who watch there!", "pos": 1758603}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "Who will tell him!", "pos": 1758648}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Get on, my lads!", "pos": 1759455}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Why, my dear! How wet you are! Now, my dear. We’re a-going to mark this person down. It may take a little time, but you don’t mind that. You’re pretty sure that I’ve got a motive. Ain’t you? So you may have, my dear. And I tell you what! If you only repose half as much confidence in me as I repose in you after what I’ve experienced of you, that’ll do. Lord! You’re no trouble at all. I never see a young woman in any station of society—and I’ve seen many elevated ones too—conduct herself like you have conducted yourself since you was called out of your bed. You’re a pattern, you know, that’s what you are, you’re a pattern. My dear, when a young lady is as mild as she’s game, and as game as she’s mild, that’s all I ask, and more than I expect. She then becomes a queen, and that’s about what you are yourself.", "pos": 1760747}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Now, Miss Summerson, you won’t be alarmed whatever comes off, I know. It’s not necessary for me to give you any further caution than to tell you that we have marked this person down and that you may be of use to me before I know it myself. I don’t like to ask such a thing, my dear, but would you walk a little way? It ain’t so easy to keep your feet, but take time.", "pos": 1763821}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Are we in Holborn?", "pos": 1764381}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Yes. Do you know this turning?", "pos": 1764415}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "It looks like Chancery Lane.", "pos": 1764467}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "And was christened so, my dear,", "pos": 1764498}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "My dear Miss Summerson, that you should be out at this hour, and in such weather!", "pos": 1765234}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Why, you see, Mr. Woodcourt we are a-going at present into the next street. Inspector Bucket. That’s a good move, too, a very good move.", "pos": 1765558}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "May I go with you?", "pos": 1765871}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Why, Lord! Of course you may.", "pos": 1765959}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "I have just left Richard. I have been sitting with him since ten o’clock last night.", "pos": 1766127}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Oh, dear me, he is ill!", "pos": 1766236}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "No, no, believe me; not ill, but not quite well. He was depressed and faint—you know he gets so worried and so worn sometimes—and Ada sent to me of course; and when I came home I found her note and came straight here. Well! Richard revived so much after a little while, and Ada was so happy and so convinced of its being my doing, though God knows I had little enough to do with it, that I remained with him until he had been fast asleep some hours. As fast asleep as she is now, I hope!", "pos": 1766262}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "I will accept him as a trust, and it shall be a sacred one!", "pos": 1767117}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Mr. Woodcourt, our business takes us to a law-stationer’s here, a certain Mr. Snagsby’s. What, you know him, do you?", "pos": 1767221}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Yes, I know a little of him and have called upon him at this place.", "pos": 1767448}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Indeed, sir? Then you will be so good as to let me leave Miss Summerson with you for a moment while I go and have half a word with him?", "pos": 1767518}
{"speaker": "The other police-officer", "text": "Don’t be alarmed, miss. It’s Snagsby’s servant.", "pos": 1767838}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Why, you see. Why, you see, the girl’s subject to fits, and has ’em bad upon her to-night. A most contrary circumstance it is, for I want certain information out of that girl, and she must be brought to reason somehow.", "pos": 1767903}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "At all events, they wouldn’t be up yet if it wasn’t for her, Mr. Bucket,", "pos": 1768129}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "She’s been at it pretty well all night, sir.", "pos": 1768224}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Well, that’s true. My light’s burnt out. Show yours a moment.", "pos": 1768271}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Miss Summerson, if without obtruding myself on your confidence I may remain near you, pray let me do so.", "pos": 1768656}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "You are truly kind. I need wish to keep no secret of my own from you; if I keep any, it is another’s.", "pos": 1768785}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "I quite understand. Trust me, I will remain near you only so long as I can fully respect it.", "pos": 1768903}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I trust implicitly to you. I know and deeply feel how sacredly you keep your promise.", "pos": 1768998}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Please to come in, Miss Summerson, and sit down by the fire. Mr. Woodcourt, from information I have received I understand you are a medical man. Would you look to this girl and see if anything can be done to bring her round. She has a letter somewhere that I particularly want. It’s not in her box, and I think it must be about her; but she is so twisted and clenched up that she is difficult to handle without hurting.", "pos": 1769222}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "Downstairs, if you please, Mr. Bucket. The lady will excuse the front kitchen; we use it as our workaday sitting-room. The back is Guster’s bedroom, and in it she’s a-carrying on, poor thing, to a frightful extent! My little woman, to wave—not to put too fine a point upon it, my dear—hostilities for one single moment in the course of this prolonged night, here is Inspector Bucket, Mr. Woodcourt, and a lady. My little woman, it is not unlikely that you may inquire of me why Inspector Bucket, Mr. Woodcourt, and a lady call upon us in Cook’s Court, Cursitor Street, at the present hour. I don’t know. I have not the least idea. If I was to be informed, I should despair of understanding, and I’d rather not be told.", "pos": 1769926}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Now, Mr. Snagsby, the best thing you can do is to go along with Mr. Woodcourt to look after your Guster—", "pos": 1771275}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "My Guster, Mr. Bucket! Go on, sir, go on. I shall be charged with that next.", "pos": 1771393}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "And to hold the candle, or hold her, or make yourself useful in any way you’re asked. Which there’s not a man alive more ready to do, for you’re a man of urbanity and suavity, you know, and you’ve got the sort of heart that can feel for another. Mr. Woodcourt, would you be so good as see to her, and if you can get that letter from her, to let me have it as soon as ever you can? Don’t you be at all put out, miss, by the want of a hospitable look from Mrs. Snagsby there, because she’s under a mistake altogether. She’ll find that out sooner than will be agreeable to a lady of her generally correct manner of forming her thoughts, because I’m a-going to explain it to her. Now, the first thing that I say to you, as a married woman possessing what you may call charms, you know—‘Believe Me, if All Those Endearing,’ and cetrer—you’re well acquainted with the song, because it’s in vain for you to tell me that you and good society are strangers—charms—attractions, mind you, that ought to give you confidence in yourself—is, that you’ve done it.", "pos": 1771493}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Snagsby", "text": "what did Mr. Bucket mean.", "pos": 1772946}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "What does Mr. Bucket mean? I’ll tell you what he means, ma’am. Go and see Othello acted. That’s the tragedy for you.", "pos": 1772973}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Snagsby", "text": "why", "pos": 1773306}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Why? Because you’ll come to that if you don’t look out. Why, at the very moment while I speak, I know what your mind’s not wholly free from respecting this young lady. But shall I tell you who this young lady is? Now, come, you’re what I call an intellectual woman—with your soul too large for your body, if you come to that, and chafing it—and you know me, and you recollect where you saw me last, and what was talked of in that circle. Don’t you? Yes! Very well. This young lady is that young lady. And Toughey—him as you call Jo—was mixed up in the same business, and no other; and the law-writer that you know of was mixed up in the same business, and no other; and your husband, with no more knowledge of it than your great grandfather, was mixed up (by Mr. Tulkinghorn, deceased, his best customer) in the same business, and no other; and the whole bileing of people was mixed up in the same business, and no other. And yet a married woman, possessing your attractions, shuts her eyes (and sparklers too), and goes and runs her delicate-formed head against a wall. Why, I am ashamed of you! (I expected Mr. Woodcourt might have got it by this time.) Is that all? No. See what happens. Another person mixed up in that business and no other, a person in a wretched state, comes here to-night and is seen a-speaking to your maid-servant; and between her and your maid-servant there passes a paper that I would give a hundred pound for, down. What do you do? You hide and you watch ’em, and you pounce upon that maid-servant—knowing what she’s subject to and what a little thing will bring ’em on—in that surprising manner and with that severity that, by the Lord, she goes off and keeps off, when a life may be hanging upon that girl’s words! Now, Mrs. Snagsby, the only amends you can make, is to let me speak a word to this young lady in private here. And if you know of any help that you can give to that gentleman in the next kitchen there or can think of any one thing that’s likelier than another to bring the girl round, do your swiftest and best! Now my dear, you’re steady and quite sure of yourself?", "pos": 1773312}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Quite,", "pos": 1775932}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Whose writing is that? You know the hand, and if you are firm enough to read it to me, do! But be particular to a word.", "pos": 1775949}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "‘I came.’ That was written,", "pos": 1776774}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Take courage. There’s only a few words more. Cheer up! Don’t think me hard with you, my dear, but as soon as ever you feel equal to it, get your shoes on and be ready.", "pos": 1777384}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "My poor girl, it seems cruel to trouble you now, but more depends on our knowing something about this letter than I could tell you in an hour.", "pos": 1779222}
{"speaker": "Guster", "text": "Yes, dear lady, I will, and tell you true. I’ll tell true, indeed, Mrs. Snagsby.", "pos": 1779629}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I am sure of that. And how was it?", "pos": 1779712}
{"speaker": "Guster", "text": "I had been out on an errand, dear lady—long after it was dark—quite late; and when I came home, I found a common-looking person, all wet and muddy, looking up at our house. When she saw me coming in at the door, she called me back and said did I live here. And I said yes, and she said she knew only one or two places about here, but had lost her way and couldn’t find them. Oh, what shall I do, what shall I do! They won’t believe me! She didn’t say any harm to me, and I didn’t say any harm to her, indeed, Mrs. Snagsby!", "pos": 1779759}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "She could not find those places,", "pos": 1780428}
{"speaker": "Guster", "text": "No! Couldn’t find them. And she was so faint, and lame, and miserable, Oh so wretched, that if you had seen her, Mr. Snagsby, you’d have given her half a crown, I know!", "pos": 1780471}
{"speaker": "Mr. Snagsby", "text": "I hope I should.", "pos": 1780750}
{"speaker": "Guster", "text": "And yet she was so well spoken, that it made a person’s heart bleed. And so she said to me, did I know the way to the burying ground? And I asked her which burying ground. And she said, the poor burying ground. And so I told her I had been a poor child myself, and it was according to parishes. But she said she meant a poor burying ground not very far from here, where there was an archway, and a step, and an iron gate. What shall I do, what shall I do! She meant the burying ground where the man was buried that took the sleeping-stuff—that you came home and told us of, Mr. Snagsby—that frightened me so, Mrs. Snagsby. Oh, I am frightened again. Hold me!", "pos": 1780769}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "You are so much better now. Pray, pray tell me more.", "pos": 1781699}
{"speaker": "Guster", "text": "Yes I will, yes I will! But don’t be angry with me, that’s a dear lady, because I have been so ill. There! Now I will, now I will. So she said, could I tell her how to find it, and I said yes, and I told her; and she looked at me with eyes like almost as if she was blind, and herself all waving back. And so she took out the letter, and showed it me, and said if she was to put that in the post-office, it would be rubbed out and not minded and never sent; and would I take it from her, and send it, and the messenger would be paid at the house. And so I said yes, if it was no harm, and she said no—no harm. And so I took it from her, and she said she had nothing to give me, and I said I was poor myself and consequently wanted nothing. And so she said God bless you, and went. Yes. Yes! She went the way I had shown her. Then I came in, and Mrs. Snagsby came behind me from somewhere and laid hold of me, and I was frightened.", "pos": 1781764}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Don’t leave me now!", "pos": 1782931}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "You’ll be better with us, we may want you; don’t lose time!", "pos": 1782975}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Miss Summerson, you’ll understand me, if you think a moment. They changed clothes at the cottage. And one returned, and one went on. And the one that went on only went on a certain way agreed upon to deceive and then turned across country and went home. Think a moment!", "pos": 1784794}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Shall she go?", "pos": 1786308}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "She had better go. Her hands should be the first to touch her. They have a higher right than ours.", "pos": 1786324}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Dame Trot, welcome to the growlery again, my dear. I have a scheme to develop, little woman. I propose to remain here, perhaps for six months, perhaps for a longer time—as it may be. Quite to settle here for a while, in short.", "pos": 1787422}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And in the meanwhile leave Bleak House?", "pos": 1787688}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Aye, my dear? Bleak House, must learn to take care of itself. Bleak House, must learn to take care of itself. It is a long way from Ada, my dear, and Ada stands much in need of you.", "pos": 1787738}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "It’s like you, guardian, to have been taking that into consideration for a happy surprise to both of us.", "pos": 1788114}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Not so disinterested either, my dear, if you mean to extol me for that virtue, since if you were generally on the road, you could be seldom with me. And besides, I wish to hear as much and as often of Ada as I can in this condition of estrangement from poor Rick. Not of her alone, but of him too, poor fellow.", "pos": 1788231}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Have you seen Mr. Woodcourt, this morning, guardian?", "pos": 1788544}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I see Mr. Woodcourt every morning, Dame Durden.", "pos": 1788599}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Does he still say the same of Richard?", "pos": 1788649}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Just the same. He knows of no direct bodily illness that he has; on the contrary, he believes that he has none. Yet he is not easy about him; who CAN be?", "pos": 1788690}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Dear, unfortunate, mistaken Richard. When will he awake from his delusion!", "pos": 1789430}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "He is not in the way to do so now, my dear. The more he suffers, the more averse he will be to me, having made me the principal representative of the great occasion of his suffering.", "pos": 1789517}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "So unreasonably!", "pos": 1789750}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Ah, Dame Trot, Dame Trot, what shall we find reasonable in Jarndyce and Jarndyce! Unreason and injustice at the top, unreason and injustice at the heart and at the bottom, unreason and injustice from beginning to end—if it ever has an end—how should poor Rick, always hovering near it, pluck reason out of it? He no more gathers grapes from thorns or figs from thistles than older men did in old times. I suppose the Lord Chancellor, and the Vice Chancellors, and the whole Chancery battery of great guns would be infinitely astonished by such unreason and injustice in one of their suitors. When those learned gentlemen begin to raise moss-roses from the powder they sow in their wigs, I shall begin to be astonished too! Well, well, little woman! To go on, my dear. This rock we must leave to time, chance, and hopeful circumstance. We must not shipwreck Ada upon it. She cannot afford, and he cannot afford, the remotest chance of another separation from a friend. Therefore I have particularly begged of Woodcourt, and I now particularly beg of you, my dear, not to move this subject with Rick. Let it rest. Next week, next month, next year, sooner or later, he will see me with clearer eyes. I can wait. So he tells me. Very good. He has made his protest, and Dame Durden has made hers, and there is nothing more to be said about it. Now I come to Mrs. Woodcourt. How do you like her, my dear? I think so too. Less pedigree? Not so much of Morgan ap—what’s his name?", "pos": 1789769}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "That was what I meant,", "pos": 1791827}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Still, upon the whole, he is as well in his native mountains. I agree with you. Then, little woman, can I do better for a time than retain Mrs. Woodcourt here?", "pos": 1791939}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "No.", "pos": 1792120}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "You see, our neighbourhood is in Woodcourt’s way, and he can come here to see her as often as he likes, which is agreeable to them both; and she is familiar to us and fond of you.", "pos": 1792462}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Yes. It is a very good plan indeed, dear guardian, and we could not do better.", "pos": 1792663}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Sure, little woman?", "pos": 1792925}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Quite sure.", "pos": 1792946}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Good. It shall be done. Carried unanimously.", "pos": 1793056}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Carried unanimously. You said, dear guardian, when we spoke of Mr. Woodcourt before Ada left us, that you thought he would give a long trial to another country. Have you been advising him since?", "pos": 1793123}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Yes, little woman, pretty often.", "pos": 1793698}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Has he decided to do so?", "pos": 1793733}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I rather think not.", "pos": 1793760}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Some other prospect has opened to him, perhaps?", "pos": 1793782}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Why—yes—perhaps. About half a year hence or so, there is a medical attendant for the poor to be appointed at a certain place in Yorkshire. It is a thriving place, pleasantly situated—streams and streets, town and country, mill and moor—and seems to present an opening for such a man. I mean a man whose hopes and aims may sometimes lie (as most men’s sometimes do, I dare say) above the ordinary level, but to whom the ordinary level will be high enough after all if it should prove to be a way of usefulness and good service leading to no other. All generous spirits are ambitious, I suppose, but the ambition that calmly trusts itself to such a road, instead of spasmodically trying to fly over it, is of the kind I care for. It is Woodcourt’s kind.", "pos": 1793840}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And will he get this appointment?", "pos": 1794668}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Why, little woman, not being an oracle, I cannot confidently say, but I think so. His reputation stands very high; there were people from that part of the country in the shipwreck; and strange to say, I believe the best man has the best chance. You must not suppose it to be a fine endowment. It is a very, very commonplace affair, my dear, an appointment to a great amount of work and a small amount of pay; but better things will gather about it, it may be fairly hoped.", "pos": 1794713}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "The poor of that place will have reason to bless the choice if it falls on Mr. Woodcourt, guardian.", "pos": 1795221}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "You are right, little woman; that I am sure they will.", "pos": 1795323}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "My dear! So delighted! How do you do! So glad to see you. And you are going to visit our interesting Jarndyce wards? TO be sure! Our beauty is at home, my dear, and will be charmed to see you.", "pos": 1797829}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Then Richard is not come in yet? I am glad of that, for I was afraid of being a little late.", "pos": 1798024}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "No, he is not come in. He has had a long day in court. I left him there with Vholes. You don’t like Vholes, I hope? DON’T like Vholes. Dan-gerous man!", "pos": 1798129}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I am afraid you see Richard oftener than ever now,", "pos": 1798305}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "My dearest, daily and hourly. You know what I told you of the attraction on the Chancellor’s table? My dear, next to myself he is the most constant suitor in court. He begins quite to amuse our little party. Ve-ry friendly little party, are we not? In short, my valued friend. I must tell you a secret. I have made him my executor. Nominated, constituted, and appointed him. In my will. Ye-es.", "pos": 1798366}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Indeed?", "pos": 1798963}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "Ye-es, my executor, administrator, and assign. (Our Chancery phrases, my love.) I have reflected that if I should wear out, he will be able to watch that judgment. Being so very regular in his attendance. I did at one time mean, to nominate, constitute, and appoint poor Gridley. Also very regular, my charming girl. I assure you, most exemplary! But he wore out, poor man, so I have appointed his successor. Don’t mention it. This is in confidence. Another secret, my dear. I have added to my collection of birds.", "pos": 1798981}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Really, Miss Flite?", "pos": 1799754}
{"speaker": "Miss Flite", "text": "Two more. I call them the Wards in Jarndyce. They are caged up with all the others. With Hope, Joy, Youth, Peace, Rest, Life, Dust, Ashes, Waste, Want, Ruin, Despair, Madness, Death, Cunning, Folly, Words, Wigs, Rags, Sheepskin, Plunder, Precedent, Jargon, Gammon, and Spinach!", "pos": 1799942}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "A dull place, Miss Summerson, for a life that is not an official one,", "pos": 1800961}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "There is not much to see here,", "pos": 1801117}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "Nor to hear, miss. A little music does occasionally stray in, but we are not musical in the law and soon eject it. I hope Mr. Jarndyce is as well as his friends could wish him?", "pos": 1801158}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I thanked Mr. Vholes and said he was quite well.", "pos": 1801359}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "I have not the pleasure to be admitted among the number of his friends myself, and I am aware that the gentlemen of our profession are sometimes regarded in such quarters with an unfavourable eye. Our plain course, however, under good report and evil report, and all kinds of prejudice (we are the victims of prejudice), is to have everything openly carried on. How do you find Mr. C. looking, Miss Summerson?", "pos": 1801409}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "He looks very ill. Dreadfully anxious.", "pos": 1801840}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "Just so. Mr. Woodcourt is in attendance upon Mr. C., I believe?", "pos": 1801881}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Mr. Woodcourt is his disinterested friend,", "pos": 1802233}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "But I mean in professional attendance, medical attendance.", "pos": 1802290}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "That can do little for an unhappy mind,", "pos": 1802351}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "Just so. Miss Summerson, this was an ill-advised marriage of Mr. C.’s.", "pos": 1802401}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I begged he would excuse me from discussing it. They had been engaged when they were both very young, I told him (a little indignantly) and when the prospect before them was much fairer and brighter. When Richard had not yielded himself to the unhappy influence which now darkened his life.", "pos": 1802798}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "Just so. Still, with a view to everything being openly carried on, I will, with your permission, Miss Summerson, observe to you that I consider this a very ill-advised marriage indeed. I owe the opinion not only to Mr. C.’s connexions, against whom I should naturally wish to protect myself, but also to my own reputation—dear to myself as a professional man aiming to keep respectable; dear to my three girls at home, for whom I am striving to realize some little independence; dear, I will even say, to my aged father, whom it is my privilege to support.”", "pos": 1803090}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "It would become a very different marriage, a much happier and better marriage, another marriage altogether, Mr. Vholes, if Richard were persuaded to turn his back on the fatal pursuit in which you are engaged with him.", "pos": 1803678}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "Miss Summerson, it may be so; and I freely admit that the young lady who has taken Mr. C.’s name upon herself in so ill-advised a manner—you will I am sure not quarrel with me for throwing out that remark again, as a duty I owe to Mr. C.’s connexions—is a highly genteel young lady. Business has prevented me from mixing much with general society in any but a professional character; still I trust I am competent to perceive that she is a highly genteel young lady. As to beauty, I am not a judge of that myself, and I never did give much attention to it from a boy, but I dare say the young lady is equally eligible in that point of view. She is considered so (I have heard) among the clerks in the Inn, and it is a point more in their way than in mine. In reference to Mr. C.’s pursuit of his interests—", "pos": 1804050}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Oh! His interests, Mr. Vholes!", "pos": 1804869}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "Pardon me. Mr. C. takes certain interests under certain wills disputed in the suit. It is a term we use. In reference to Mr. C,’s pursuit of his interests, I mentioned to you, Miss Summerson, the first time I had the pleasure of seeing you, in my desire that everything should be openly carried on—I used those words, for I happened afterwards to note them in my diary, which is producible at any time—I mentioned to you that Mr. C. had laid down the principle of watching his own interests, and that when a client of mine laid down a principle which was not of an immoral (that is to say, unlawful) nature, it devolved upon me to carry it out. I HAVE carried it out; I do carry it out. But I will not smooth things over to any connexion of Mr. C.’s on any account. As open as I was to Mr. Jarndyce, I am to you. I regard it in the light of a professional duty to be so, though it can be charged to no one. I openly say, unpalatable as it may be, that I consider Mr. C.’s affairs in a very bad way, that I consider Mr. C. himself in a very bad way, and that I regard this as an exceedingly ill-advised marriage. Am I here, sir? Yes, I thank you; I am here, Mr. C., and enjoying the pleasure of some agreeable conversation with Miss Summerson, for which I have to thank you very much, sir!”", "pos": 1804902}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Always devoted to business, Vholes!", "pos": 1808111}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "Yes, Mr. C., the interests of clients are never to be neglected, sir. They are paramount in the thoughts of a professional man like myself, who wishes to preserve a good name among his fellow-practitioners and society at large. My denying myself the pleasure of the present agreeable conversation may not be wholly irrespective of your own interests, Mr. C.”", "pos": 1808164}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Richard expressed himself quite sure of that and lighted Mr. Vholes out.", "pos": 1808538}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "Esther, my dearest. Richard is never so well and I am never so easy about him as when he is with Allan Woodcourt. We have to thank you for that. All true, but that he is such a devoted friend to us we owe to you. Esther, my dearest, I want to be a good wife, a very, very good wife indeed. You shall teach me. When I married Richard I was not insensible to what was before him. I had been perfectly happy for a long time with you, and I had never known any trouble or anxiety, so loved and cared for, but I understood the danger he was in, dear Esther.”", "pos": 1810076}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I know, I know, my darling.", "pos": 1811242}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "When we were married I had some little hope that I might be able to convince him of his mistake, that he might come to regard it in a new way as my husband and not pursue it all the more desperately for my sake—as he does. But if I had not had that hope, I would have married him just the same, Esther. Just the same! You are not to think, my dearest Esther, that I fail to see what you see and fear what you fear. No one can understand him better than I do. The greatest wisdom that ever lived in the world could scarcely know Richard better than my love does. I see him at his worst every day. I watch him in his sleep. I know every change of his face. But when I married Richard I was quite determined, Esther, if heaven would help me, never to show him that I grieved for what he did and so to make him more unhappy. I want him, when he comes home, to find no trouble in my face. I want him, when he looks at me, to see what he loved in me. I married him to do this, and this supports me. And something else supports me, Esther. I look forward a little while, and I don’t know what great aid may come to me. When Richard turns his eyes upon me then, there may be something lying on my breast more eloquent than I have been, with greater power than mine to show him his true course and win him back. If that little creature should fail too, Esther, I still look forward. I look forward a long while, through years and years, and think that then, when I am growing old, or when I am dead perhaps, a beautiful woman, his daughter, happily married, may be proud of him and a blessing to him. Or that a generous brave man, as handsome as he used to be, as hopeful, and far more happy, may walk in the sunshine with him, honouring his grey head and saying to himself, ‘I thank God this is my father! Ruined by a fatal inheritance, and restored through me!’ These hopes uphold me, my dear Esther, and I know they will. Though sometimes even they depart from me before a dread that arises when I look at Richard. That he may not live to see his child.", "pos": 1811272}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "My dear Miss Summerson, most joyfully! Of course, of course it’s not business. Then it’s pleasure! Then, my dear Miss Summerson, don’t allude to it. Why should you allude to anything that is NOT a pleasant matter? I never do. And you are a much pleasanter creature, in every point of view, than I. You are perfectly pleasant; I am imperfectly pleasant; then, if I never allude to an unpleasant matter, how much less should you! So that’s disposed of, and we will talk of something else.", "pos": 1816099}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I should think it a mistake,", "pos": 1816902}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "if I thought Miss Summerson capable of making one. But I don’t!", "pos": 1816972}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Mr. Skimpole. I have so often heard you say that you are unacquainted with the common affairs of life—", "pos": 1817038}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Meaning our three banking-house friends, L, S, and who’s the junior partner? D? Not an idea of them!", "pos": 1817176}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "—That perhaps, you will excuse my boldness on that account. I think you ought most seriously to know that Richard is poorer than he was.", "pos": 1817310}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Dear me! So am I, they tell me.", "pos": 1817462}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And in very embarrassed circumstances.", "pos": 1817517}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Parallel case, exactly!", "pos": 1817558}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "This at present naturally causes Ada much secret anxiety, and as I think she is less anxious when no claims are made upon her by visitors, and as Richard has one uneasiness always heavy on his mind, it has occurred to me to take the liberty of saying that—if you would—not—", "pos": 1817632}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Not go there? Certainly not, my dear Miss Summerson, most assuredly not. Why SHOULD I go there? When I go anywhere, I go for pleasure. I don’t go anywhere for pain, because I was made for pleasure. Pain comes to ME when it wants me. Now, I have had very little pleasure at our dear Richard’s lately, and your practical sagacity demonstrates why. Our young friends, losing the youthful poetry which was once so captivating in them, begin to think, ‘This is a man who wants pounds.’ So I am; I always want pounds; not for myself, but because tradespeople always want them of me. Next, our young friends begin to think, becoming mercenary, ‘This is the man who HAD pounds, who borrowed them,’ which I did. I always borrow pounds. So our young friends, reduced to prose (which is much to be regretted), degenerate in their power of imparting pleasure to me. Why should I go to see them, therefore? Absurd! Besides, if I don’t go anywhere for pain—which would be a perversion of the intention of my being, and a monstrous thing to do—why should I go anywhere to be the cause of pain? If I went to see our young friends in their present ill-regulated state of mind, I should give them pain. The associations with me would be disagreeable. They might say, ‘This is the man who had pounds and who can’t pay pounds,’ which I can’t, of course; nothing could be more out of the question! Then kindness requires that I shouldn’t go near them—and I won’t. Nothing but Miss Summerson’s fine tact,", "pos": 1818051}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Mr. Skimpole. I must take the liberty of saying before I conclude my visit that I was much surprised to learn, on the best authority, some little time ago, that you knew with whom that poor boy left Bleak House and that you accepted a present on that occasion. I have not mentioned it to my guardian, for I fear it would hurt him unnecessarily; but I may say to you that I was much surprised.", "pos": 1820112}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "No? Really surprised, my dear Miss Summerson?", "pos": 1820517}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Greatly surprised.", "pos": 1820621}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "You know what a child I am. Why surprised?", "pos": 1820799}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I was reluctant to enter minutely into that question, but as he begged I would, for he was really curious to know, I gave him to understand in the gentlest words I could use that his conduct seemed to involve a disregard of several moral obligations.", "pos": 1820843}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "No. No, really? You know I don’t intend to be responsible. I never could do it. Responsibility is a thing that has always been above me—or below me. I don’t even know which; but as I understand the way in which my dear Miss Summerson (always remarkable for her practical good sense and clearness) puts this case, I should imagine it was chiefly a question of money, do you know? Ah! Then you see. I am hopeless of understanding it.", "pos": 1821158}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I suggested, as I rose to go, that it was not right to betray my guardian’s confidence for a bribe.", "pos": 1821726}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "My dear Miss Summerson. I can’t be bribed.", "pos": 1821827}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Not by Mr. Bucket?", "pos": 1821931}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "Not by anybody. I don’t attach any value to money. I don’t care about it, I don’t know about it, I don’t want it, I don’t keep it—it goes away from me directly. How can I be bribed?", "pos": 1821975}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I showed that I was of a different opinion, though I had not the capacity for arguing the question.", "pos": 1822158}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "On the contrary,", "pos": 1822259}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Mr. Skimpole,", "pos": 1822282}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "I am exactly the man to be placed in a superior position in such a case as that. I am above the rest of mankind in such a case as that. I can act with philosophy in such a case as that. I am not warped by prejudices, as an Italian baby is by bandages. I am as free as the air. I feel myself as far above suspicion as Caesar’s wife. Observe the case, my dear Miss Summerson. Here is a boy received into the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to. The boy being in bed, a man arrives—like the house that Jack built. Here is the man who demands the boy who is received into the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to. Here is a bank-note produced by the man who demands the boy who is received into the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to. Here is the Skimpole who accepts the bank-note produced by the man who demands the boy who is received into the house and put to bed in a state that I strongly object to. Those are the facts. Very well. Should the Skimpole have refused the note? WHY should the Skimpole have refused the note? Skimpole protests to Bucket, ‘What’s this for? I don’t understand it, it is of no use to me, take it away.’ Bucket still entreats Skimpole to accept it. Are there reasons why Skimpole, not being warped by prejudices, should accept it? Yes. Skimpole perceives them. What are they? Skimpole reasons with himself, this is a tamed lynx, an active police-officer, an intelligent man, a person of a peculiarly directed energy and great subtlety both of conception and execution, who discovers our friends and enemies for us when they run away, recovers our property for us when we are robbed, avenges us comfortably when we are murdered. This active police-officer and intelligent man has acquired, in the exercise of his art, a strong faith in money; he finds it very useful to him, and he makes it very useful to society. Shall I shake that faith in Bucket because I want it myself; shall I deliberately blunt one of Bucket’s weapons; shall I positively paralyse Bucket in his next detective operation? And again. If it is blameable in Skimpole to take the note, it is blameable in Bucket to offer the note—much more blameable in Bucket, because he is the knowing man. Now, Skimpole wishes to think well of Bucket; Skimpole deems it essential, in its little place, to the general cohesion of things, that he SHOULD think well of Bucket. The state expressly asks him to trust to Bucket. And he does. And that’s all he does!", "pos": 1822297}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I had nothing to offer in reply to this exposition and therefore took my leave.", "pos": 1825020}
{"speaker": "Mr. Skimpole", "text": "He entertained me on the way with a variety of delightful conversation and assured me, at parting, that he should never forget the fine tact with which I had found that out for him about our young friends.", "pos": 1825254}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "When I returned, when I came back, no richer than when I went away, and found you newly risen from a sick bed, yet so inspired by sweet consideration for others and so free from a selfish thought—", "pos": 1830255}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Oh, Mr. Woodcourt, forbear, forbear! I do not deserve your high praise. I had many selfish thoughts at that time, many!", "pos": 1830468}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Heaven knows, beloved of my life, that my praise is not a lover’s praise, but the truth. You do not know what all around you see in Esther Summerson, how many hearts she touches and awakens, what sacred admiration and what love she wins.", "pos": 1830609}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Oh, Mr. Woodcourt, it is a great thing to win love, it is a great thing to win love! I am proud of it, and honoured by it; and the hearing of it causes me to shed these tears of mingled joy and sorrow—joy that I have won it, sorrow that I have not deserved it better; but I am not free to think of yours.", "pos": 1830860}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "I should poorly show the trust that I have in the dear one who will evermore be as dear to me as now if, after her assurance that she is not free to think of my love, I urged it. Dear Esther, let me only tell you that the fond idea of you which I took abroad was exalted to the heavens when I came home. I have always hoped, in the first hour when I seemed to stand in any ray of good fortune, to tell you this. I have always feared that I should tell it you in vain. My hopes and fears are both fulfilled to-night. I distress you. I have said enough.", "pos": 1831645}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Dear Mr. Woodcourt, before we part to-night, something is left for me to say. I never could say it as I wish—I never shall—but— —I am deeply sensible of your generosity, and I shall treasure its remembrance to my dying hour. I know full well how changed I am, I know you are not unacquainted with my history, and I know what a noble love that is which is so faithful. What you have said to me could have affected me so much from no other lips, for there are none that could give it such a value to me. It shall not be lost. It shall make me better. If, in the unchanged intercourse we shall have together—in tending Richard and Ada, and I hope in many happier scenes of life—you ever find anything in me which you can honestly think is better than it used to be, believe that it will have sprung up from to-night and that I shall owe it to you. And never believe, dear dear Mr. Woodcourt, never believe that I forget this night or that while my heart beats it can be insensible to the pride and joy of having been beloved by you.", "pos": 1832529}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "I am induced by what you said just now, to hope that you have succeeded in your endeavour. I have. With such help from Mr. Jarndyce as you who know him so well can imagine him to have rendered me, I have succeeded.", "pos": 1833868}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Heaven bless him for it, and heaven bless you in all you do!", "pos": 1834112}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "I shall do it better for the wish, it will make me enter on these new duties as on another sacred trust from you.", "pos": 1834204}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Ah! Richard! What will he do when you are gone!", "pos": 1834335}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "I am not required to go yet; I would not desert him, dear Miss Summerson, even if I were.", "pos": 1834414}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Mr. Woodcourt, you will be glad to know from my lips before I say good night that in the future, which is clear and bright before me, I am most happy, most fortunate, have nothing to regret or desire. From my childhood I have been, the object of the untiring goodness of the best of human beings, to whom I am so bound by every tie of attachment, gratitude, and love, that nothing I could do in the compass of a life could express the feelings of a single day.", "pos": 1834657}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "I share those feelings,", "pos": 1835191}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "You know his virtues well, but few can know the greatness of his character as I know it. All its highest and best qualities have been revealed to me in nothing more brightly than in the shaping out of that future in which I am so happy. And if your highest homage and respect had not been his already—which I know they are—they would have been his, I think, on this assurance and in the feeling it would have awakened in you towards him for my sake. Good night. Good-bye.", "pos": 1835259}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "The first until we meet to-morrow, the second as a farewell to this theme between us for ever. Yes. Good night; good-bye.", "pos": 1835843}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Why, little woman, you look fresher than your flowers!", "pos": 1837640}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Woodcourt", "text": "I am like a mountain with the sun upon it.", "pos": 1837794}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Well, Dame Durden? You want money?", "pos": 1838166}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "No, indeed, I have plenty in hand.", "pos": 1838285}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "There never was such a Dame Durden for making money last.", "pos": 1838322}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Dear guardian. I want to speak to you. Have I been remiss in anything?", "pos": 1839150}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Remiss in anything, my dear!", "pos": 1839233}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Have I not been what I have meant to be since—I brought the answer to your letter, guardian?", "pos": 1839264}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "You have been everything I could desire, my love.", "pos": 1839359}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I am very glad indeed to hear that. You know, you said to me, was this the mistress of Bleak House. And I said, yes.", "pos": 1839411}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Yes,", "pos": 1839544}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Since then, we have never spoken on the subject except once.", "pos": 1839693}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "And then I said Bleak House was thinning fast; and so it was, my dear.", "pos": 1839766}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "And I said, but its mistress remained. Dear guardian. I know how you have felt all that has happened, and how considerate you have been. As so much time has passed, and as you spoke only this morning of my being so well again, perhaps you expect me to renew the subject. Perhaps I ought to do so. I will be the mistress of Bleak House when you please.", "pos": 1839839}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "See, what a sympathy there must be between us! I have had nothing else, poor Rick excepted—it’s a large exception—in my mind. When you came in, I was full of it. When shall we give Bleak House its mistress, little woman?", "pos": 1840325}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "When you please.", "pos": 1840569}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Next month?", "pos": 1840588}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Next month, dear guardian.", "pos": 1840602}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "The day on which I take the happiest and best step of my life—the day on which I shall be a man more exulting and more enviable than any other man in the world—the day on which I give Bleak House its little mistress—shall be next month then,", "pos": 1840631}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Mr. Jarndyce and Miss Summerson, with all apologies for intruding, WILL you allow me to order up a person that’s on the stairs and that objects to being left there in case of becoming the subject of observations in his absence? Thank you. Be so good as chair that there member in this direction, will you? Now you see, Mr. Jarndyce, you know me, and Miss Summerson knows me. This gentleman likewise knows me, and his name is Smallweed. The discounting line is his line principally, and he’s what you may call a dealer in bills. That’s about what YOU are, you know, ain’t you? Now, moral, you know! Don’t you contradict when there ain’t no occasion, and you won’t be took in that way. Now, Mr. Jarndyce, I address myself to you. I’ve been negotiating with this gentleman on behalf of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and one way and another I’ve been in and out and about his premises a deal. His premises are the premises formerly occupied by Krook, marine store dealer—a relation of this gentleman’s that you saw in his lifetime if I don’t mistake?", "pos": 1841140}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Yes.", "pos": 1842919}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Well! You are to understand, that this gentleman he come into Krook’s property, and a good deal of magpie property there was. Vast lots of waste-paper among the rest. Lord bless you, of no use to nobody! Among them odd heaps of old papers, this gentleman, when he comes into the property, naturally begins to rummage, don’t you see?", "pos": 1842926}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "To which? Say that again,", "pos": 1843777}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "To rummage. Being a prudent man and accustomed to take care of your own affairs, you begin to rummage among the papers as you have come into; don’t you?", "pos": 1843851}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Of course I do,", "pos": 1844029}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Of course you do, and much to blame you would be if you didn’t. And so you chance to find, you know, and so you chance to find, you know, a paper with the signature of Jarndyce to it. Don’t you? what do you find it to be but a will, you see. That’s the drollery of it, what do you find it to be but a will?", "pos": 1844068}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "I don’t know that it’s good as a will or as anything else,", "pos": 1844931}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Notwithstanding which, you get a little doubtful and uncomfortable in your mind about it, having a very tender mind of your own.", "pos": 1845287}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Eh? What do you say I have got of my own?", "pos": 1845437}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "A very tender mind.", "pos": 1845527}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Ho! Well, go on,", "pos": 1845549}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "And as you’ve heard a good deal mentioned regarding a celebrated Chancery will case of the same name, and as you know what a card Krook was for buying all manner of old pieces of furniter, and books, and papers, and what not, and never liking to part with ’em, and always a-going to teach himself to read, you begin to think—and you never was more correct in your born days—‘Ecod, if I don’t look about me, I may get into trouble regarding this will.’", "pos": 1845588}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "Now, mind how you put it, Bucket. Speak up; none of your brimstone tricks. Pick me up; I want to hear better. Oh, Lord, I am shaken to bits!", "pos": 1846042}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "So, as I happen to be in the habit of coming about your premises, you take me into your confidence, don’t you? and I go into the business with you—very pleasant we are over it; and I confirm you in your well-founded fears that you will get yourself into a most precious line if you don’t come out with that there will, and accordingly you arrange with me that it shall be delivered up to this present Mr. Jarndyce, on no conditions. If it should prove to be valuable, you trusting yourself to him for your reward; that’s about where it is, ain’t it?", "pos": 1846574}
{"speaker": "Mr. Smallweed", "text": "That’s what was agreed,", "pos": 1847481}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "In consequence of which, you’ve got that will upon your person at the present time, and the only thing that remains for you to do is just to out with it!", "pos": 1847555}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Hadn’t settled how to make their market of it. Quarrelled and hinted about it. I laid out twenty pound upon it. First the avaricious grandchildren split upon him on account of their objections to his living so unreasonably long, and then they split on one another. Lord! There ain’t one of the family that wouldn’t sell the other for a pound or two, except the old lady—and she’s only out of it because she’s too weak in her mind to drive a bargain.", "pos": 1848727}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Mr Bucket, whatever the worth of this paper may be to any one, my obligations are great to you; and if it be of any worth, I hold myself bound to see Mr. Smallweed remunerated accordingly.", "pos": 1849179}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Not according to your merits, you know. According to its value.", "pos": 1849396}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "That is what I mean. You may observe, Mr. Bucket, that I abstain from examining this paper myself. The plain truth is, I have forsworn and abjured the whole business these many years, and my soul is sick of it. But Miss Summerson and I will immediately place the paper in the hands of my solicitor in the cause, and its existence shall be made known without delay to all other parties interested.", "pos": 1849551}
{"speaker": "Mr. Bucket", "text": "Mr. Jarndyce can’t say fairer than that, you understand. And it being now made clear to you that nobody’s a-going to be wronged—which must be a great relief to YOUR mind—we may proceed with the ceremony of chairing you home again.", "pos": 1849970}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "I hope, that the genial influence of Miss Summerson, may have induced Mr. Jarndyce, to forego some little of his animosity towards a cause and towards a court which are—shall I say, which take their place in the stately vista of the pillars of our profession?", "pos": 1850857}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I am inclined to think, that Miss Summerson has seen too much of the effects of the court and the cause to exert any influence in their favour. Nevertheless, they are a part of the occasion of my being here. Mr. Kenge, before I lay this paper on your desk and have done with it, let me tell you how it has come into my hands.", "pos": 1851174}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "It could not, sir, have been stated more plainly and to the purpose if it had been a case at law.", "pos": 1851559}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Did you ever know English law, or equity either, plain and to the purpose?", "pos": 1851677}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "Oh, fie! Mr. Jarndyce, you have perused this?", "pos": 1851772}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Not I!", "pos": 1852068}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "But, my dear sir, it is a will of later date than any in the suit. It appears to be all in the testator’s handwriting. It is duly executed and attested. And even if intended to be cancelled, as might possibly be supposed to be denoted by these marks of fire, it is NOT cancelled. Here it is, a perfect instrument!", "pos": 1852099}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Well! What is that to me?", "pos": 1852433}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "Mr. Guppy! I beg your pardon, Mr. Jarndyce.", "pos": 1852481}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Sir.", "pos": 1852565}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "Mr. Vholes of Symond’s Inn. My compliments. Jarndyce and Jarndyce. Glad to speak with him. You ask me what is this to you, Mr. Jarndyce. If you had perused this document, you would have seen that it reduces your interest considerably, though still leaving it a very handsome one, still leaving it a very handsome one. You would further have seen that the interests of Mr. Richard Carstone and of Miss Ada Clare, now Mrs. Richard Carstone, are very materially advanced by it.", "pos": 1852572}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Kenge, if all the flourishing wealth that the suit brought into this vile court of Chancery could fall to my two young cousins, I should be well contented. But do you ask ME to believe that any good is to come of Jarndyce and Jarndyce?", "pos": 1853134}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "Oh, really, Mr. Jarndyce! Prejudice, prejudice. My dear sir, this is a very great country, a very great country. Its system of equity is a very great system, a very great system. Really, really!", "pos": 1853392}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "Well! But this is a very remarkable document, Mr. Vholes,", "pos": 1854539}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "Very much so.", "pos": 1854632}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "And a very important document, Mr. Vholes,", "pos": 1854648}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "Very much so.", "pos": 1854732}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "And as you say, Mr. Vholes, when the cause is in the paper next term, this document will be an unexpected and interesting feature in it,", "pos": 1854748}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "when is next term?", "pos": 1855218}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "Next term, Mr. Jarndyce, will be next month. Of course we shall at once proceed to do what is necessary with this document and to collect the necessary evidence concerning it; and of course you will receive our usual notification of the cause being in the paper.", "pos": 1855239}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "To which I shall pay, of course, my usual attention.", "pos": 1855522}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "Still bent, my dear sir, still bent, even with your enlarged mind, on echoing a popular prejudice? We are a prosperous community, Mr. Jarndyce, a very prosperous community. We are a great country, Mr. Jarndyce, we are a very great country. This is a great system, Mr. Jarndyce, and would you wish a great country to have a little system? Now, really, really!", "pos": 1855577}
{"speaker": "workman", "text": "Why, master, do I know my own name?", "pos": 1857261}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "’Tis so well known here, is it, comrade?", "pos": 1857321}
{"speaker": "workman", "text": "Rouncewell’s? Ah! You’re right.", "pos": 1857381}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "And where might it be now?", "pos": 1857415}
{"speaker": "workman", "text": "The bank, the factory, or the house?", "pos": 1857487}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Hum! Rouncewell’s is so great apparently, that I have as good as half a mind to go back again. Why, I don’t know which I want. Should I find Mr. Rouncewell at the factory, do you think?", "pos": 1857553}
{"speaker": "workman", "text": "Tain’t easy to say where you’d find him—at this time of the day you might find either him or his son there, if he’s in town; but his contracts take him away.", "pos": 1857783}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "This is a place to make a man’s head ache too! Who comes here? This is very like me before I was set up. This ought to be my nephew, if likenesses run in families. Your servant, sir.", "pos": 1859312}
{"speaker": "young man", "text": "Yours, sir. Are you looking for any one?", "pos": 1859557}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Excuse me. Young Mr. Rouncewell, I believe?", "pos": 1859600}
{"speaker": "young man", "text": "Yes.", "pos": 1859646}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I was looking for your father, sir. I wish to have a word with him. Steel,", "pos": 1859653}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Well, Mr. Rouncewell. I am not without my expectations that in the present visit I may prove to be more free than welcome. I have served as a dragoon in my day, and a comrade of mine that I was once rather partial to was, if I don’t deceive myself, a brother of yours. I believe you had a brother who gave his family some trouble, and ran away, and never did any good but in keeping away?", "pos": 1860925}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "Are you quite sure, that your name is Steel?", "pos": 1861450}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "You are too quick for me! How do you do, my dear old fellow? I never could have thought you would have been half so glad to see me as all this. How do you do, my dear old fellow, how do you do! So far from it. I had very little idea of making myself known. I thought if you took by any means forgivingly to my name I might gradually get myself up to the point of writing a letter. But I should not have been surprised, brother, if you had considered it anything but welcome news to hear of me.", "pos": 1861657}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "We will show you at home what kind of news we think it, George. This is a great day at home, and you could not have arrived, you bronzed old soldier, on a better. I make an agreement with my son Watt to-day that on this day twelvemonth he shall marry as pretty and as good a girl as you have seen in all your travels. She goes to Germany to-morrow with one of your nieces for a little polishing up in her education. We make a feast of the event, and you will be made the hero of it.", "pos": 1862538}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Mr. George is so entirely overcome at first by this prospect that he resists the proposed honour with great earnestness. Being overborne, however, by his brother and his nephew—concerning whom he renews his protestations that he never could have thought they would have been half so glad to see him—he is taken home to an elegant house in all the arrangements of which there is to be observed a pleasant mixture of the originally simple habits of the father and mother with such as are suited to their altered station and the higher fortunes of their children. Here Mr. George is much dismayed by the graces and accomplishments of his nieces that are and by the beauty of Rosa, his niece that is to be, and by the affectionate salutations of these young ladies, which he receives in a sort of dream. He is sorely taken aback, too, by the dutiful behaviour of his nephew and has a woeful consciousness upon him of being a scapegrace. However, there is great rejoicing and a very hearty company and infinite enjoyment, and Mr. George comes bluff and martial through it all, and his pledge to be present at the marriage and give away the bride is received with universal favour. A whirling head has Mr. George that night when he lies down in the state-bed of his brother’s house to think of all these things and to see the images of his nieces (awful all the evening in their floating muslins) waltzing, after the German manner, over his counterpane. Brother, I thank you a million times for your more than brotherly welcome, and a million times more to that for your more than brotherly intentions. But my plans are made. Before I say a word as to them, I wish to consult you upon one family point. How, how is my mother to be got to scratch me?", "pos": 1863045}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "I am not sure that I understand you, George,", "pos": 1865120}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "I say, brother, how is my mother to be got to scratch me? She must be got to do it somehow.", "pos": 1865191}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "Scratch you out of her will, I think you mean?", "pos": 1865285}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Of course I do. In short. I mean—TO—scratch me!", "pos": 1865334}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "My dear George, is it so indispensable that you should undergo that process?", "pos": 1865442}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Quite! Absolutely! I couldn’t be guilty of the meanness of coming back without it. I should never be safe not to be off again. I have not sneaked home to rob your children, if not yourself, brother, of your rights. I, who forfeited mine long ago! If I am to remain and hold up my head, I must be scratched. Come. You are a man of celebrated penetration and intelligence, and you can tell me how it’s to be brought about.", "pos": 1865544}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "I can tell you, George, how it is not to be brought about, which I hope may answer the purpose as well. Look at our mother, think of her, recall her emotion when she recovered you. Do you believe there is a consideration in the world that would induce her to take such a step against her favourite son? Do you believe there is any chance of her consent, to balance against the outrage it would be to her (loving dear old lady!) to propose it? If you do, you are wrong. No, George! You must make up your mind to remain UNscratched, I think. I think you may manage almost as well as if the thing were done, though.", "pos": 1865967}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "How, brother?", "pos": 1866739}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "Being bent upon it, you can dispose by will of anything you have the misfortune to inherit in any way you like, you know.", "pos": 1866755}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "That’s true! Would you mind mentioning that, brother, to your wife and family?", "pos": 1866879}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "Not at all.", "pos": 1867053}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "Thank you. You wouldn’t object to say, perhaps, that although an undoubted vagabond, I am a vagabond of the harum-scarum order, and not of the mean sort?", "pos": 1867067}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "Well,", "pos": 1867646}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "next and last, those plans of mine. You have been so brotherly as to propose to me to fall in here and take my place among the products of your perseverance and sense. I thank you heartily. It’s more than brotherly, as I said before, and I thank you heartily for it. But the truth is, brother, I am a—I am a kind of a weed, and it’s too late to plant me in a regular garden.", "pos": 1867700}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "My dear George, leave that to me, and let me try.", "pos": 1868116}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "You could do it, I have not a doubt, if anybody could; but it’s not to be done. Not to be done, sir! Whereas it so falls out, on the other hand, that I am able to be of some trifle of use to Sir Leicester Dedlock since his illness—brought on by family sorrows—and that he would rather have that help from our mother’s son than from anybody else.", "pos": 1868284}
{"speaker": "Mr. Rouncewell", "text": "Well, my dear George, if you prefer to serve in Sir Leicester Dedlock’s household brigade—", "pos": 1868632}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "There it is, brother, there it is! You don’t take kindly to that idea; I don’t mind it. You are not used to being officered; I am. Everything about you is in perfect order and discipline; everything about me requires to be kept so. We are not accustomed to carry things with the same hand or to look at ’em from the same point. I don’t say much about my garrison manners because I found myself pretty well at my ease last night, and they wouldn’t be noticed here, I dare say, once and away. But I shall get on best at Chesney Wold, where there’s more room for a weed than there is here; and the dear old lady will be made happy besides. Therefore I accept of Sir Leicester Dedlock’s proposals. When I come over next year to give away the bride, or whenever I come, I shall have the sense to keep the household brigade in ambuscade and not to manoeuvre it on your ground. I thank you heartily again and am proud to think of the Rouncewells as they’ll be founded by you.", "pos": 1868789}
{"speaker": "the elder brother", "text": "You know yourself, George, and perhaps you know me better than I know myself. Take your way. So that we don’t quite lose one another again, take your way.", "pos": 1869830}
{"speaker": "Mr. George", "text": "No fear of that! Now, before I turn my horse’s head homewards, brother, I will ask you—if you’ll be so good—to look over a letter for me. I brought it with me to send from these parts, as Chesney Wold might be a painful name just now to the person it’s written to. I am not much accustomed to correspondence myself, and I am particular respecting this present letter because I want it to be both straightforward and delicate.", "pos": 1870045}
{"speaker": "the elder brother", "text": "A little formal,", "pos": 1872166}
{"speaker": "the younger", "text": "But nothing that might not be sent to a pattern young lady?", "pos": 1872247}
{"speaker": "the elder brother", "text": "Nothing at all.", "pos": 1872327}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "This is for next month, my dear.", "pos": 1873450}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Would you like to come and see me married to-morrow, my pet?", "pos": 1874064}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Full of curiosity, no doubt, little woman, to know why I have brought you here?", "pos": 1877640}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Well, guardian, without thinking myself a Fatima or you a Blue Beard, I am a little curious about it.", "pos": 1877722}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Then to ensure your night’s rest, my love,", "pos": 1877836}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Tut, tut! You make too much of it, little woman. Why, how you sob, Dame Durden, how you sob!", "pos": 1878971}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "It is with exquisite pleasure, guardian—with a heart full of thanks.", "pos": 1879066}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Well, well, I am delighted that you approve. I thought you would. I meant it as a pleasant surprise for the little mistress of Bleak House.", "pos": 1879148}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I know now! I have seen this in your face a long while.", "pos": 1879322}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "No; have you really, my dear? What a Dame Durden it is to read a face!", "pos": 1879390}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "You see, my dear, knowing there could be no better plan, I borrowed yours.", "pos": 1880155}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "My child, come and see. My dear child, don’t you guess the name?", "pos": 1882270}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "No!", "pos": 1882444}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "My darling girl, in what there has been between us, I have, I hope, been really solicitous for your happiness. When I wrote you the letter to which you brought the answer, I had my own too much in view; but I had yours too. Whether, under different circumstances, I might ever have renewed the old dream I sometimes dreamed when you were very young, of making you my wife one day, I need not ask myself. I did renew it, and I wrote my letter, and you brought your answer. You are following what I say, my child? Hear me, my love, but do not speak. It is for me to speak now. When it was that I began to doubt whether what I had done would really make you happy is no matter. Woodcourt came home, and I soon had no doubt at all. Lie lightly, confidently here, my child. I am your guardian and your father now. Rest confidently here. Understand me, my dear girl. I had no doubt of your being contented and happy with me, being so dutiful and so devoted; but I saw with whom you would be happier. That I penetrated his secret when Dame Durden was blind to it is no wonder, for I knew the good that could never change in her better far than she did. Well! I have long been in Allan Woodcourt’s confidence, although he was not, until yesterday, a few hours before you came here, in mine. But I would not have my Esther’s bright example lost; I would not have a jot of my dear girl’s virtues unobserved and unhonoured; I would not have her admitted on sufferance into the line of Morgan ap-Kerrig, no, not for the weight in gold of all the mountains in Wales! Hush, little woman! Don’t cry; this is to be a day of joy. I have looked forward to it for months on months! A few words more, Dame Trot, and I have said my say. Determined not to throw away one atom of my Esther’s worth, I took Mrs. Woodcourt into a separate confidence. ‘Now, madam,’ said I, ‘I clearly perceive—and indeed I know, to boot—that your son loves my ward. I am further very sure that my ward loves your son, but will sacrifice her love to a sense of duty and affection, and will sacrifice it so completely, so entirely, so religiously, that you should never suspect it though you watched her night and day.’ Then I told her all our story—ours—yours and mine. ‘Now, madam,’ said I, ‘come you, knowing this, and live with us. Come you, and see my child from hour to hour; set what you see against her pedigree, which is this, and this’—for I scorned to mince it—‘and tell me what is the true legitimacy when you shall have quite made up your mind on that subject.’ Why, honour to her old Welsh blood, my dear, I believe the heart it animates beats no less warmly, no less admiringly, no less lovingly, towards Dame Durden than my own! One more last word. When Allan Woodcourt spoke to you, my dear, he spoke with my knowledge and consent—but I gave him no encouragement, not I, for these surprises were my great reward, and I was too miserly to part with a scrap of it. He was to come and tell me all that passed, and he did. I have no more to say. My dearest, Allan Woodcourt stood beside your father when he lay dead—stood beside your mother. This is Bleak House. This day I give this house its little mistress; and before God, it is the brightest day in all my life! Allan, take from me a willing gift, the best wife that ever man had. What more can I say for you than that I know you deserve her! Take with her the little home she brings you. You know what she will make it, Allan; you know what she has made its namesake. Let me share its felicity sometimes, and what do I sacrifice? Nothing, nothing. Esther, my dearest, after so many years, there is a kind of parting in this too. I know that my mistake has caused you some distress. Forgive your old guardian, in restoring him to his old place in your affections; and blot it out of your memory. Allan, take my dear. I shall be found about here somewhere. It’s a west wind, little woman, due west! Let no one thank me any more, for I am going to revert to my bachelor habits, and if anybody disregards this warning, I’ll run away and never come back!", "pos": 1882649}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "How de do, sir?", "pos": 1889541}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "How do you do, sir?", "pos": 1889559}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Thank you, sir, I am tolerable. Will you allow me to introduce my mother, Mrs. Guppy of the Old Street Road, and my particular friend, Mr. Weevle. That is to say, my friend has gone by the name of Weevle, but his name is really and truly Jobling. Tony. Will you open the case? Well, Mr. Jarndyce, sir. I had an idea that I should see Miss Summerson by herself and was not quite prepared for your esteemed presence. But Miss Summerson has mentioned to you, perhaps, that something has passed between us on former occasions?", "pos": 1889603}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "has made a communication to that effect to me.", "pos": 1890569}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "That makes matters easier. Sir, I have come out of my articles at Kenge and Carboy’s, and I believe with satisfaction to all parties. I am now admitted (after undergoing an examination that’s enough to badger a man blue, touching a pack of nonsense that he don’t want to know) on the roll of attorneys and have taken out my certificate, if it would be any satisfaction to you to see it.", "pos": 1890637}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Thank you, Mr. Guppy. I am quite willing—I believe I use a legal phrase—to admit the certificate.", "pos": 1891026}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "I have no capital myself, but my mother has a little property which takes the form of an annuity and a few pounds for expenses out of pocket in conducting business will never be wanting, free of interest, which is an advantage, you know. I HAVE some connexion, and it lays in the direction of Walcot Square, Lambeth. I have therefore taken a ’ouse in that locality, which, in the opinion of my friends, is a hollow bargain (taxes ridiculous, and use of fixtures included in the rent), and intend setting up professionally for myself there forthwith. It’s a six-roomer, exclusive of kitchens, and in the opinion of my friends, a commodious tenement. When I mention my friends, I refer principally to my friend Jobling, who I believe has known me, from boyhood’s hour. My friend Jobling will render me his assistance in the capacity of clerk and will live in the ’ouse. My mother will likewise live in the ’ouse when her present quarter in the Old Street Road shall have ceased and expired; and consequently there will be no want of society. My friend Jobling is naturally aristocratic by taste, and besides being acquainted with the movements of the upper circles, fully backs me in the intentions I am now developing. Certainly Now, I have no occasion to mention to you, sir, you being in the confidence of Miss Summerson, (mother, I wish you’d be so good as to keep still), that Miss Summerson’s image was formerly imprinted on my ’eart and that I made her a proposal of marriage.", "pos": 1891245}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "That I have heard,", "pos": 1893375}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Circumstances, over which I had no control, but quite the contrary, weakened the impression of that image for a time. At which time Miss Summerson’s conduct was highly genteel; I may even add, magnanimous. Now, sir. I have got into that state of mind myself that I wish for a reciprocity of magnanimous behaviour. I wish to prove to Miss Summerson that I can rise to a heighth of which perhaps she hardly thought me capable. I find that the image which I did suppose had been eradicated from my ’eart is NOT eradicated. Its influence over me is still tremenjous, and yielding to it, I am willing to overlook the circumstances over which none of us have had any control and to renew those proposals to Miss Summerson which I had the honour to make at a former period. I beg to lay the ’ouse in Walcot Square, the business, and myself before Miss Summerson for her acceptance.", "pos": 1893439}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Very magnanimous indeed, sir,", "pos": 1894398}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Well, sir, my wish is to BE magnanimous. I do not consider that in making this offer to Miss Summerson I am by any means throwing myself away; neither is that the opinion of my friends. Still, there are circumstances which I submit may be taken into account as a set off against any little drawbacks of mine, and so a fair and equitable balance arrived at.", "pos": 1894452}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "I take upon myself, sir, to reply to your proposals on behalf of Miss Summerson. She is very sensible of your handsome intentions, and wishes you good evening, and wishes you well.", "pos": 1894845}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Oh! Is that tantamount, sir, to acceptance, or rejection, or consideration?", "pos": 1895078}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "To decided rejection, if you please,", "pos": 1895192}
{"speaker": "Mr. Guppy", "text": "Indeed? Then, Jobling, if you was the friend you represent yourself, I should think you might hand my mother out of the gangway instead of allowing her to remain where she ain’t wanted.", "pos": 1895388}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Guppy", "text": "Why, get along with you, what do you mean? Ain’t my son good enough for you? You ought to be ashamed of yourself. Get out with you!", "pos": 1895674}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "My good lady,", "pos": 1895835}
{"speaker": "Mrs. Guppy", "text": "Get out with you. If we ain’t good enough for you, go and procure somebody that is good enough. Go along and find ’em. Go along and find somebody that’s good enough for you. Get out! Why don’t you get out? What are you stopping here for? Mother. WILL you hold your tongue? No, William. I won’t! Not unless he gets out, I won’t! who began to be quite abusive that we should immediately go and find somebody who was good enough for us, and above all things that we should get out.", "pos": 1895978}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Esther! My dear Esther! Esther!", "pos": 1898103}
{"speaker": "Caddy", "text": "Silence!", "pos": 1899631}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "Here is Miss Summerson, sir. How do you do? Glad to see you. Mr. Jarndyce is not here? Really, it is as well that he is NOT here to-day, for his—shall I say, in my good friend’s absence, his indomitable singularity of opinion?—might have been strengthened, perhaps; not reasonably, but might have been strengthened. I beg your pardon? What has been done What has been done to-day? Quite so. Yes. Why, not much has been done; not much. We have been checked—brought up suddenly, I would say—upon the—shall I term it threshold?", "pos": 1901792}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Is this will considered a genuine document, sir? Will you tell us that?", "pos": 1902622}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "Most certainly, if I could,", "pos": 1902710}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "We have not gone into that,", "pos": 1902818}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "You are to reflect, Mr. Woodcourt,", "pos": 1902909}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "And patience has sat upon it a long time,", "pos": 1903216}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "Very well indeed, sir. Very well! You are further to reflect, Mr. Woodcourt, that on the numerous difficulties, contingencies, masterly fictions, and forms of procedure in this great cause, there has been expended study, ability, eloquence, knowledge, intellect, Mr. Woodcourt, high intellect. For many years, the—a—I would say the flower of the bar, and the—a—I would presume to add, the matured autumnal fruits of the woolsack—have been lavished upon Jarndyce and Jarndyce. If the public have the benefit, and if the country have the adornment, of this great grasp, it must be paid for in money or money’s worth, sir.", "pos": 1903271}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Mr. Kenge. Excuse me, our time presses. Do I understand that the whole estate is found to have been absorbed in costs?", "pos": 1903998}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "Hem! I believe so. Mr. Vholes, what do YOU say?", "pos": 1904172}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "I believe so,", "pos": 1904244}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "And that thus the suit lapses and melts away?", "pos": 1904277}
{"speaker": "Mr. Kenge", "text": "Probably. Mr. Vholes?", "pos": 1904325}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "Probably,", "pos": 1904371}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "My dearest life, this will break Richard’s heart!", "pos": 1904400}
{"speaker": "Mr. Vholes", "text": "In case you should be wanting Mr. C., sir, you’ll find him in court. I left him there resting himself a little. Good day, sir; good day, Miss Summerson.", "pos": 1904716}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "My dear love, leave to me, for a little while, the charge you gave me. Go home with this intelligence and come to Ada’s by and by!", "pos": 1905290}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Little woman, to have done with the suit on any terms is a greater blessing than I had looked for. But my poor young cousins!", "pos": 1905659}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Dame Durden, kiss me, my dear!", "pos": 1907042}
{"speaker": "my darling", "text": "Yes, surely, dearest Richard!", "pos": 1907700}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Where is Woodcourt? Who is that, Dame Durden?", "pos": 1908205}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "Yes,", "pos": 1908495}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Oh, sir, you are a good man, you are a good man!", "pos": 1908626}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "My dear Rick, the clouds have cleared away, and it is bright now. We can see now. We were all bewildered, Rick, more or less. What matters! And how are you, my dear boy?", "pos": 1908827}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "I am very weak, sir, but I hope I shall be stronger. I have to begin the world.", "pos": 1909010}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Aye, truly; well said!", "pos": 1909092}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "I will not begin it in the old way now. I have learned a lesson now, sir. It was a hard one, but you shall be assured, indeed, that I have learned it.", "pos": 1909136}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Well, well, well, well, well, dear boy!", "pos": 1909322}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "I was thinking, sir, that there is nothing on earth I should so much like to see as their house—Dame Durden’s and Woodcourt’s house. If I could be removed there when I begin to recover my strength, I feel as if I should get well there sooner than anywhere.", "pos": 1909400}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Why, so have I been thinking too, Rick, and our little woman likewise; she and I have been talking of it this very day. I dare say her husband won’t object. What do you think?", "pos": 1909678}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "I say nothing of Ada, but I think of her, and have thought of her very much. Look at her! See her here, sir, bending over this pillow when she has so much need to rest upon it herself, my dear love, my poor girl! When I get down to Bleak House. I shall have much to tell you, sir, and you will have much to show me. You will go, won’t you?", "pos": 1909968}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Undoubtedly, dear Rick.", "pos": 1910490}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Thank you; like you, like you. But it’s all like you. They have been telling me how you planned it and how you remembered all Esther’s familiar tastes and ways. It will be like coming to the old Bleak House again.", "pos": 1910516}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "And you will come there too, I hope, Rick. I am a solitary man now, you know, and it will be a charity to come to me. A charity to come to me, my love!", "pos": 1910748}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "It was a troubled dream?", "pos": 1911078}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Nothing more, Rick; nothing more.", "pos": 1911162}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "And you, being a good man, can pass it as such, and forgive and pity the dreamer, and be lenient and encouraging when he wakes?", "pos": 1911198}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Indeed I can. What am I but another dreamer, Rick?", "pos": 1911328}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "I will begin the world! When shall I go from this place to that pleasant country where the old times are, where I shall have strength to tell what Ada has been to me, where I shall be able to recall my many faults and blindnesses, where I shall prepare myself to be a guide to my unborn child? When shall I go?", "pos": 1911381}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Dear Rick, when you are strong enough,", "pos": 1911857}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "Ada, my darling! I have done you many wrongs, my own. I have fallen like a poor stray shadow on your way, I have married you to poverty and trouble, I have scattered your means to the winds. You will forgive me all this, my Ada, before I begin the world?", "pos": 1911920}
{"speaker": "Unknown", "text": "But I never own to it before the old girl. Discipline must be maintained.", "pos": 1917328}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "Both houses are your home, my dear, but the older Bleak House claims priority. When you and my boy are strong enough to do it, come and take possession of your home.", "pos": 1923748}
{"speaker": "Ada", "text": "her dearest cousin, John.", "pos": 1923942}
{"speaker": "Mr. Jarndyce", "text": "no, it must be guardian now.", "pos": 1923982}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Yes, dear guardian!", "pos": 1928047}
{"speaker": "Richard", "text": "he has two mamas, and I am one.", "pos": 1928827}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "My precious little woman, what are you doing here?", "pos": 1929897}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "The moon is shining so brightly, Allan, and the night is so delicious, that I have been sitting here thinking.", "pos": 1929962}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "What have you been thinking about, my dear?", "pos": 1930075}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "How curious you are! I am almost ashamed to tell you, but I will. I have been thinking about my old looks—such as they were.", "pos": 1930138}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "And what have you been thinking about THEM, my busy bee?", "pos": 1930275}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "I have been thinking that I thought it was impossible that you COULD have loved me any better, even if I had retained them.", "pos": 1930346}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "‘Such as they were’?", "pos": 1930473}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "Such as they were, of course.", "pos": 1930517}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "My dear Dame Durden, do you ever look in the glass?", "pos": 1930549}
{"speaker": "Esther", "text": "You know I do; you see me do it.", "pos": 1930645}
{"speaker": "Mr. Woodcourt", "text": "And don’t you know that you are prettier than you ever were?", "pos": 1930680}