Vanity Fair - Page 158/573

It was these weighty considerations which made him think too that the

marriage should take place as quickly as possible. Was he anxious

himself, I wonder, to have it over?--as people, when death has

occurred, like to press forward the funeral, or when a parting is

resolved upon, hasten it. It is certain that Mr. Dobbin, having taken

the matter in hand, was most extraordinarily eager in the conduct of

it. He urged on George the necessity of immediate action: he showed

the chances of reconciliation with his father, which a favourable

mention of his name in the Gazette must bring about. If need were he

would go himself and brave both the fathers in the business. At all

events, he besought George to go through with it before the orders

came, which everybody expected, for the departure of the regiment from

England on foreign service.

Bent upon these hymeneal projects, and with the applause and consent of

Mrs. Sedley, who did not care to break the matter personally to her

husband, Mr. Dobbin went to seek John Sedley at his house of call in

the City, the Tapioca Coffee-house, where, since his own offices were

shut up, and fate had overtaken him, the poor broken-down old

gentleman used to betake himself daily, and write letters and receive

them, and tie them up into mysterious bundles, several of which he

carried in the flaps of his coat. I don't know anything more dismal

than that business and bustle and mystery of a ruined man: those

letters from the wealthy which he shows you: those worn greasy

documents promising support and offering condolence which he places

wistfully before you, and on which he builds his hopes of restoration

and future fortune. My beloved reader has no doubt in the course of his

experience been waylaid by many such a luckless companion. He takes

you into the corner; he has his bundle of papers out of his gaping coat

pocket; and the tape off, and the string in his mouth, and the

favourite letters selected and laid before you; and who does not know

the sad eager half-crazy look which he fixes on you with his hopeless

eyes?

Changed into a man of this sort, Dobbin found the once florid, jovial,

and prosperous John Sedley. His coat, that used to be so glossy and

trim, was white at the seams, and the buttons showed the copper. His

face had fallen in, and was unshorn; his frill and neckcloth hung limp

under his bagging waistcoat. When he used to treat the boys in old

days at a coffee-house, he would shout and laugh louder than anybody

there, and have all the waiters skipping round him; it was quite

painful to see how humble and civil he was to John of the Tapioca, a

blear-eyed old attendant in dingy stockings and cracked pumps, whose

business it was to serve glasses of wafers, and bumpers of ink in

pewter, and slices of paper to the frequenters of this dreary house of

entertainment, where nothing else seemed to be consumed. As for

William Dobbin, whom he had tipped repeatedly in his youth, and who had

been the old gentleman's butt on a thousand occasions, old Sedley gave

his hand to him in a very hesitating humble manner now, and called him

"Sir." A feeling of shame and remorse took possession of William Dobbin

as the broken old man so received and addressed him, as if he himself

had been somehow guilty of the misfortunes which had brought Sedley so

low.