第144章

Mr Dobbs Broughton and Mr Musselboro were sitting together on a certain morning at their office in the City, discussing the affairs of their joint business. The City office was a very poor place indeed, in comparison with the fine house which Mr Dobbs occupied at the West End;but then City offices are poor places, and there are certain City occupations which seem to enjoy the greater credit the poorer are the material circumstances by which they are surrounded. Turing out of a lane which turns out of Lombard Street, there is a desolate, forlorn-looking, dark alley, which is called Hook Court. The entrance to this alley is beneath the first-floor of one of the houses in the lane, and in passing under this covered way the visitor to the place finds himself in a small paved square court, at the two further corners of which thee are two open doors; for in Hook Court there are only two houses. There is No 1 Hook Court, and No 2 Hook Court. The entire premises indicated by No 1 are occupied by a firm of wine and spirit merchants, in connexion with whose trade one side and two angles of the court are always lumbered with crates, hampers, and wooden cases. And nearly in the middle of the court, though somewhat more to the wine-merchant's side than to the other, there is always gaping open a trap-door, leading down to the vaults below; and over the trap there is a great board with a bright advertisement in very large letters:--BURTON AND BANGLES HIMALAYA WINES 22s 6d per dozen And this notice is so bright and so large, and the trap-door is so conspicuous in the court, that no visitor, even to No 2, ever afterwards can quite divest his memory of those names, Burton and Bangles, Himalaya wines. It may therefore be acknowledged that Burton and Bangles have achieved their object in putting up the notice. The house No 2, small as it seems to be, standing in the jamb of a corner, is divided among different occupiers, whose names are painted in small letters upon the very dirty posts of the doorway. Nothing can be more remarkable than the contrast between Burton and Bangles and these other City gentlemen in the method taken by them in declaring their presence to visitors in the court. The names of Dobbs Broughton and of A. Musselboro--the Christian name of Mr Musselboro was Augustus--were on one of those dirty posts, not joined together by any visible 'and', so as to declare boldly that they were partners; but in close vicinity--showing at least that the two gentlemen would be found in apartments very near to each other. And on the first-floor of this house Dobbs Broughton and his friend did occupy three rooms --or rather two rooms and a closet--between them. The larger and front room was tenanted by an old clerk, who sat within a rail in one corner of it. And there was a broad, short counter, which jutted out from the wall into the middle of the room, intended for the use of such of the public as might come to transact miscellaneous business with Dobbs Broughton or Augustus Musselboro. But anyone accustomed to the look of offices might have seen with half an eye that very little business was ever done on that counter. Behind this large room was a smaller one, belonging to Dobbs Broughton, in the furnishing and arrangement of which some regard was paid to comfort. The room was carpeted, and there was a sofa in it, though a very old one, and two arm-chairs and a mahogany office-table, and a cellaret, which was generally well supplied with wine which Dobbs Broughton did not get out of the vaults of his neighbours, Burton and Bangles. Behind this again, but with a separate entrance from the passage, was the closet; and this closet was specially devoted to the use of Mr Musselboro. Closet as it was--or cupboard as it might have almost been called--it contained a table and two chairs; and it had a window of its own, which opened out upon a blank wall which was distant from it not above four feet. As the house to which this wall belonged was four storeys high, it would sometimes happen that Mr Musselboro's cupboard was rather dark. But this mattered the less as in these days Mr Musselboro seldom used it. Mr Musselboro, who was very constant at his place of business--much more constant than his friend Dobbs Broughton,--was generally to be found in his friend's room. Only on some special occasions, on which it was thought expedient that the commercial world should be made to understand that Mr Augustus Musselboro had an individual existence of his own, did that gentleman really seat himself in the dark closet. Mr Dobbs Broughton, had he been asked what was his trade, would have said that he was a stockbroker; and he would have answered truly, for he was a stockbroker. A man may be a stockbroker though he never sells any stock;as he may be a barrister though has not practiced at the bar. I do not say that Mr Broughton never sold any stocks; but the buying and selling of stock for other people was certainly not his chief business. And had Mr Musselboro been asked what was his trade, he would have probably given an evasive answer. At any rate in the City, and among people who understood City matters, he would not have said that he was a stockbroker. Both Mr Broughton and Mr Musselboro bought and sold a good deal, but it was chiefly on account. The shares which were bought and sold very generally did not pass from hand to hand; but the difference in the price of the shares did do so. And then they had another little business between them. They lent money on interest. And in this business there was a third partner, whose name did not appear on the dirty door-post. That third partner was Mrs Van Siever, the mother of Clara Van Siever whom Mr Conway Dalrymple intended to portray as Jael driving a nail into Sisera's head.