gathering, they had been tarrying in that part of the country, watching the sale of certain eligible investments, which they had had in their copartnership eye when they came down; for it was their custom, Mr. Jonas said, whenever such a thing was practicable, to kill two birds with one stone, and never to throw away sprats, but as bait for whales. When he had communicated, to Mr. Pecksniff, these pithy scraps of intelligence, he said "That if it was all the same to him, he would turn him over to father, and have a chat with the gals;" and in furtherance of this polite scheme, he vacated his seat adjoining that gentleman, and established himself in the opposite corner, next to the fair Miss Mercy.
The education of Mr. Jonas had been conducted from his cradle on the strictest principles of the main chance. The very first word he learnt to spell was "gain," and the second (when he got into two syllables), "money." But for two results, which were not clearly foreseen perhaps by his watchful parent in the beginning, his training may be said to have been unexceptionable. One of these flaws was, that having been long taught by his father to over-reach everybody, he had imperceptibly acquired a love of over-reaching that venerable monitor himself. The other, that from his early habits of considering everything as a question of property, he had gradually come to look, with impatience, on his parent as a certain amount of personal estate, which had no right whatever to be going at large, but ought to be secured in that particular description of iron safe which is commonly called a coffin, and banked in the grave.
"Well, cousin!" said Mr. Jonas—"Because we are cousins, you know, a few times removed—So you 're going to London?"
Miss Mercy replied in the affirmative, pinching her sister's arm at the same time, and giggling excessively.
"Lots of beaux in London, cousin!" said Mr. Jonas, slightly advancing his elbow.
"Indeed, sir!" cried the young lady. "They won't hurt us, sir, I dare say." And having given him this answer with great demureness, she was so overcome by her own humour, that she was fain to stifle her merriment in her sister's shawl.
"Merry," cried that more prudent damsel, "really I am ashamed of you. How can you go on so? you wild thing!" At which Miss Merry only laughed the more, of course.
"I saw a wildness in her eye, t'other day," said Mr. Jonas, addressing Charity. "But you 're the one to sit solemn! I say—you were regularly prim, cousin!"
"Oh! The old-fashioned fright!" cried Merry, in a whisper. "Cherry, my dear, upon my word you must sit next him. I shall die outright if he talks to me any more; I shall positively!" To prevent which fatal consequence, the buoyant creature skipped out of her seat as she spoke, and squeezed her sister into the place from which she had risen.
"Don't mind crowding me," cried Mr. Jonas. "I like to be crowded by gals. Come a little closer, cousin."
"No, thank you, sir," said Charity.
"There's that other one a laughing again," said Mr. Jonas; "she's a laughing at my father, I shouldn't wonder. If he puts on that old
