Read The Mystery of Edwin Drood for Free Online Page B

railed-off
garden. Mr. Sapsea has a bottle of port wine on a table before the fire—the
fire is an early luxury, but pleasant on the cool, chilly autumn evening—and is
characteristically attended by his portrait, his eight-day clock, and his
weather-glass. Characteristically, because he would uphold himself against mankind,
his weather-glass against weather, and his clock against time.
     
  By Mr. Sapsea's side on the table are a
writing-desk and writing materials. Glancing at a scrap of manuscript, Mr.
Sapsea reads it to himself with a lofty air, and then, slowly pacing the room
with his thumbs in the arm-holes of his waistcoat, repeats it from memory: so
internally, though with much dignity, that the word “Ethelinda” is alone
audible.
     
  There are three clean wineglasses in a
tray on the table. His serving-maid entering, and announcing “Mr. Jasper is
come, sir,” Mr. Sapsea waves “Admit him,” and draws two wineglasses from the
rank, as being claimed.
     
  “Glad to see you, sir. I congratulate
myself on having the honour of receiving you here for the first time.” Mr.
Sapsea does the honours of his house in this wise.
     
  “You are very good. The honour is mine
and the self-congratulation is mine.”
     
  “You are pleased to say so, sir. But I
do assure you that it is a satisfaction to me to receive you in my humble home.
And that is what I would not say to everybody.” Ineffable loftiness on Mr.
Sapsea's part accompanies these words, as leaving the sentence to be
understood: “You will not easily believe that your society can be a
satisfaction to a man like myself; nevertheless, it is.”
     
  “I have for some time desired to know
you, Mr. Sapsea.”
     
  “And I, sir, have long known you by
reputation as a man of taste. Let me fill your glass. I will give you, sir,”
says Mr. Sapsea, filling his own:
     
   
     
  “When the French come over, May we meet
them at Dover!”
     
   
     
  This was a patriotic toast in Mr.
Sapsea's infancy, and he is therefore fully convinced of its being appropriate
to any subsequent era.
     
  “You can scarcely be ignorant, Mr.
Sapsea,” observes Jasper, watching the auctioneer with a smile as the latter
stretches out his legs before the fire, “that you know the world.”
     
  “Well, sir,” is the chuckling reply, “I
think I know something of it; something of it.”
     
  “Your reputation for that knowledge has
always interested and surprised me, and made me wish to know you. For Cloisterham
is a little place. Cooped up in it myself, I know nothing beyond it, and feel
it to be a very little place.”
     
  “If I have not gone to foreign
countries, young man,” Mr. Sapsea begins, and then stops:'You will excuse me
calling you young man, Mr. Jasper? You are much my junior.”
     
  “By all means.”
     
  “If I have not gone to foreign
countries, young man, foreign countries have come to me. They have come to me
in the way of business, and I have improved upon my opportunities. Put it that
I take an inventory, or make a catalogue. I see a French clock. I never saw him
before, in my life, but I instantly lay my finger on him and say “Paris!” I see
some cups and saucers of Chinese make, equally strangers to me personally: I
put my finger on them, then and there, and I say “Pekin, Nankin, and Canton.”
It is the same with Japan, with Egypt, and with bamboo and sandalwood from the
East Indies; I put my finger on them all. I have put my finger on the North
Pole before now, and said “Spear of Esquimaux make, for half a pint of pale
sherry!"”
     
  “Really? A very remarkable way, Mr.
Sapsea, of acquiring a knowledge of men and things.”
     
  “I mention it, sir,” Mr. Sapsea rejoins,
with unspeakable complacency, “because, as I say, it don't do to boast of what
you are; but show how you came to be it, and then you prove it.”
     
  “Most interesting. We were to speak of
the late