| 468 | 469 | 470 | 471 | 472 |
| 1 | 133 | 265 | 398 | 530 |
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himself, but had been unremitting in their endeavours to procure a
mitigation of his sentence; how they had been perfectly distracted
between the strong proofs of his guilt, and their own fading hopes of
his innocence; and how he, Richard Swiveller, might keep his mind at
rest, for everything should be happily adjusted between that time and
night; - after telling him all this, and adding a great many kind and
cordial expressions, personal to himself, which it is unnecessary to
recite, Mr Garland, the notary, and the single gentleman, took their
leaves at a very critical time, or Richard Swiveller must assuredly have
been driven into another fever, whereof the results might have been
fatal.
Mr Abel remained behind, very often looking at his watch and at the
room door, until Mr Swiveller was roused from a short nap, by the
setting-down on the landing-place outside, as from the shoulders of a
porter, of some giant load, which seemed to shake the house, and
made the little physic bottles on the mantel-shelf ring again. Directly
this sound reached his ears, Mr Abel started up, and hobbled to the
door, and opened it; and behold! there stood a strong man, with a
mighty hamper, which, being hauled into the room and presently
unpacked, disgorged such treasures as tea, and coffee, and wine, and
rusks, and oranges, and grapes, and fowls ready trussed for boiling,
and calves'-foot jelly, and arrow-root, and sago, and other delicate
restoratives, that the small servant, who had never thought it possible
that such things could be, except in shops, stood rooted to the spot in
her one shoe, with her mouth and eyes watering in unison, and her
power of speech quite gone. But, not so Mr Abel; or the strong man
who emptied the hamper, big as it was, in a twinkling; and not so the
nice old lady, who appeared so suddenly that she might have come
out of the hamper too (it was quite large enough), and who, bustling
about on tiptoe and without noise - now here, now there, now
everywhere at once - began to fill out the jelly in tea-cups, and to
make chicken broth in small saucepans, and to peel oranges for the
sick man and to cut them up in little pieces, and to ply the small
servant with glasses of wine and choice bits of everything until more
substantial meat could be prepared for her refreshment. The whole of
which appearances were so unexpected and bewildering, that Mr
Swiveller, when he had taken two oranges and a little jelly, and had
seen the strong man walk off with the empty basket, plainly leaving all
that abundance for his use and benefit, was fain to lie down and fall
asleep again, from sheer inability to entertain such wonders in his
mind.
Meanwhile, the single gentleman, the Notary, and Mr Garland,
repaired to a certain coffee-house, and from that place indited and
sent a letter to Miss Sally Brass, requesting her, in terms mysterious
and brief, to favour an unknown friend who wished to consult her,
with her company there, as speedily as possible. The communication
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