Page:Bleak House.djvu/594

figure and countenance, into the trooper's face. After a few more puffs at his pipe, the trooper looks down askant at the little man, and the little man winks up at the trooper.

“Well, sir,” says Mr. George, “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.”

With a comprehensive wave of his pipe, Mr. George places the whole building at his visitor's disposal.

“I take it for granted, sir,” he adds, “you being one of the medical staff, that there is no present infection about this unfortunate subject? “

Allan is quite sure of it.

“Because, sir,” says Mr. George, shaking his head sorrowfully, we have had enough of that.”

His tone is no less sorrowfully echoed by his new acquaintance. “Still, I am bound to tell you,” observes Allan, after repeating his former assurance,” that the boy is deplorably low and reduced; and that he may be—I do not say that he is—too far gone to recover.”

“Do you consider him in present danger, sir” inquires the trooper.

“Yes, I fear so.”

“Then, sir,” returns the trooper, in a decisive manner, “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!”

Mr. Squod tacks out, all on one side, to execute the word of command: and the trooper, having smoked his pipe, lays it by. Jo is brought in. He is not one of Mrs. Pardiggle's Tockahoopo Indians; he is not one of Mrs. Jellyby's lambs, being wholly unconnected with Borrioboola-Gha; he is not softened by distance and unfamiliarity; he is not a genuine foreign-grown savage; he is the ordinary home-made article. Dirty, ugly, disagreeable to all the senses, in body a common creature of the common streets, only in soul a heathen. Homely filth begrimes him, homely parasites devour him, homely sores are in him, homely rags are on him: native ignorance, the growth of English soil and climate, sinks his immortal nature lower than the beasts that perish. Stand forth, Jo, in uncompromising colors! From the sole of thy foot to the crown of thy head, there is nothing interesting about thee.

He shuffles slowly into Mr. George's gallery, and stands huddled together in a bundle, looking all about the floor. He seems to know that they have an inclination to shrink from him, partly for what he is, and partly for what he has caused. He, too, shrinks from them. He is not of the same order of things, not of the same place in creation. He is of no order and no place; neither of the beasts, nor of humanity.

“Look here, Jo!” says Allan. “This is Mr. George.”

Jo searches the floor for some time longer, then looks up for a moment, and then down again.