In a rather ill-favoured and ill-savoured neighbourhood, though oneof its rising grounds bears the name of Mount Pleasant, the ElfinSmallweed, christened Bartholomew and known on the domestic hearthas Bart, passes that limited portion of his time on which theoffice and its contingencies have no claim. He dwells in a littlenarrow street, always solitary, shady, and sad, closely bricked inon all sides like a tomb, but where there yet lingers the stump ofan old forest tree whose flavour is about as fresh and natural asthe Smallweed smack of youth.

　　There has been only one child in the Smallweed family for severalgenerations. Little old men and women there have been, but nochild, until Mr. Smallweed's grandmother, now living, became weakin her intellect and fell (for the first time) into a childishstate. With such infantine graces as a total want of observation,memory, understanding, and interest, and an eternal disposition tofall asleep over the fire and into it, Mr. Smallweed's grandmotherhas undoubtedly brightened the family.

　　Mr. Smallweed's grandfather is likewise of the party. He is in ahelpless condition as to his lower, and nearly so as to his upper,limbs, but his mind is unimpaired. It holds, as well as it everheld, the first four rules of arithmetic and a certain smallcollection of the hardest facts. In respect of ideality,reverence, wonder, and other such phrenological attributes, it isno worse off than it used to be. Everything that Mr. Smallweed'sgrandfather ever put away in his mind was a grub at first, and is agrub at last. In all his life he has never bred a singlebutterfly.

　　The father of this pleasant grandfather, of the neighbourhood ofMount Pleasant, was a horny-skinned, two-legged, money-gettingspecies of spider who spun webs to catch unwary flies and retiredinto holes until they were entrapped. The name of this old pagan'sgod was Compound Interest. He lived for it, married it, died ofit. Meeting with a heavy loss in an honest little enterprise inwhich all the loss was intended to have been on the other side, hebroke something--something necessary to his existence, therefore itcouldn't have been his heart--and made an end of his career. Ashis character was not good, and he had been bred at a charityschool in a complete course, according to question and answer, ofthose ancient people the Amorites and Hittites, he was frequentlyquoted as an example of the failure of education.

　　His spirit shone through his son, to whom he had always preached of"going out" early in life and whom he made a clerk in a sharpscrivener's office at twelve years old. There the young gentlemanimproved his mind, which was of a lean and anxious character, anddeveloping the family gifts, gradually elevated himself into thediscounting profession. Going out early in life and marrying late,as his father had done before him, he too begat a lean and anxious-minded son, who in his turn, going out early in life and marryinglate, became the father of Bartholomew and Judith Smallweed, twins.

　　During the whole time consumed in the slow growth of this familytree, the house of Smallweed, always early to go out and late tomarry, has strengthened itself in its practical character, hasdiscarded all amusements, discountenanced all story-books, fairy-tales, fictions, and fables, and banished all levities whatsoever.

　　Hence the gratifying fact that it has had no child born to it andthat the complete little men and women whom it has produced havebeen observed to bear a likeness to old monkeys with somethingdepressing on their minds.

　　At the present time, in the dark little parlour certain feet belowthe level of the street--a grim, hard, uncouth parlour, onlyornamented with the coarsest of baize table-covers, and the hardestof sheet-iron tea-trays, and offering in its decorative characterno bad allegorical representation of Grandfather Smallweed's mind--seated in two black horsehair porter's chairs, one on each side ofthe fire-place, the superannuated Mr. and Mrs. Smallweed while awaythe rosy hours. On the stove are a couple of trivets for the potsand kettles which it is Grandfather Smallweed's usual occupation towatch, and projecting from the chimney-piece between them is a sortof brass gallows for roasting, which he also superintends when itis in action. Under the venerable Mr. Smallweed's seat and guardedby his spindle legs is a drawer in his chair, reported to containproperty to a fabulous amount. Beside him is a spare cushion withwhich he is always provided in order that he may have something tothrow at the venerable partner of his respected age whenever shemakes an allusion to money--a subject on which he is particularlysensitive.

　　"And where's Bart?" Grandfather Smallweed inquires of Judy, Bart'stwin sister.

　　"He an't come in yet," says Judy.

　　"It's his tea-time, isn't it?""No.""How much do you mean to say it wants then?""Ten minutes.""Hey?""Ten minutes." (Loud on the part of Judy.)"Ho!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "Ten minutes."Grandmother Smallweed, who has been mumbling and shaking her headat the trivets, hearing figures mentioned, connects them with moneyand screeches like a horrible old parrot without any plumage, "Tenten-pound notes!"Grandfather Smallweed immediately throws the cushion at her.

　　"Drat you, be quiet!" says the good old man.

　　The effect of this act of jaculation is twofold. It not onlydoubles up Mrs. Smallweed's head against the side of her porter'schair and causes her to present, when extricated by hergranddaughter, a highly unbecoming state of cap, but the necessaryexertion recoils on Mr. Smallweed himself, whom it throws back intoHIS porter's chair like a broken puppet. The excellent oldgentleman being at these times a mere clothes-bag with a blackskull-cap on the top of it, does not present a very animatedappearance until he has undergone the two operations at the handsof his granddaughter of being shaken up like a great bottle andpoked and punched like a great bolster. Some indication of a neckbeing developed in him by these means, he and the sharer of hislife's evening again fronting one another in their two porter'schairs, like a couple of sentinels long forgotten on their post bythe Black Serjeant, Death.

　　Judy the twin is worthy company for these associates. She is soindubitably sister to Mr. Smallweed the younger that the twokneaded into one would hardly make a young person of averageproportions, while she so happily exemplifies the before-mentionedfamily likeness to the monkey tribe that attired in a spangled robeand cap she might walk about the table-land on the top of a barrel-organ without exciting much remark as an unusual specimen. Underexisting circumstances, however, she is dressed in a plain, sparegown of brown stuff.

　　Judy never owned a doll, never heard of Cinderella, never played atany game. She once or twice fell into children's company when shewas about ten years old, but the children couldn't get on withJudy, and Judy couldn't get on with them. She seemed like ananimal of another species, and there was instinctive repugnance onboth sides. It is very doubtful whether Judy knows how to laugh.

　　She has so rarely seen the thing done that the probabilities arestrong the other way. Of anything like a youthful laugh, shecertainly can have no conception. If she were to try one, shewould find her teeth in her way, modelling that action of her face,as she has unconsciously modelled all its other expressions, on herpattern of sordid age. Such is Judy.

　　And her twin brother couldn't wind up a top for his life. He knowsno more of Jack the Giant Killer or of Sinbad the Sailor than heknows of the people in the stars. He could as soon play at leap-frog or at cricket as change into a cricket or a frog himself. Buthe is so much the better off than his sister that on his narrowworld of fact an opening has dawned into such broader regions aslie within the ken of Mr. Guppy. Hence his admiration and hisemulation of that shining enchanter.

　　Judy, with a gong-like clash and clatter, sets one of the sheet-iron tea-trays on the table and arranges cups and saucers. Thebread she puts on in an iron basket, and the butter (and not muchof it) in a small pewter plate. Grandfather Smallweed looks hardafter the tea as it is served out and asks Judy where the girl is.

　　"Charley, do you mean?" says Judy.

　　"Hey?" from Grandfather Smallweed.

　　"Charley, do you mean?"This touches a spring in Grandmother Smallweed, who, chuckling asusual at the trivets, cries, "Over the water! Charley over thewater, Charley over the water, over the water to Charley, Charleyover the water, over the water to Charley!" and becomes quiteenergetic about it. Grandfather looks at the cushion but has notsufficiently recovered his late exertion.

　　"Ha!" he says when there is silence. "If that's her name. Sheeats a deal. It would be better to allow her for her keep."Judy, with her brother's wink, shakes her head and purses up hermouth into no without saying it.

　　"No?" returns the old man. "Why not?""She'd want sixpence a day, and we can do it for less," says Judy.

　　"Sure?"Judy answers with a nod of deepest meaning and calls, as shescrapes the butter on the loaf with every precaution against wasteand cuts it into slices, "You, Charley, where are you?" Timidlyobedient to the summons, a little girl in a rough apron and a largebonnet, with her hands covered with soap and water and a scrubbingbrush in one of them, appears, and curtsys.

　　"What work are you about now?" says Judy, making an ancient snap ather like a very sharp old beldame.

　　"I'm a-cleaning the upstairs back room, miss," replies Charley.

　　"Mind you do it thoroughly, and don't loiter. Shirking won't dofor me. Make haste! Go along!" cries Judy with a stamp upon theground. "You girls are more trouble than you're worth, by half."On this severe matron, as she returns to her task of scraping thebutter and cutting the bread, falls the shadow of her brother,looking in at the window. For whom, knife and loaf in hand, sheopens the street-door.

　　"Aye, aye, Bart!" says Grandfather Smallweed. "Here you are, hey?""Here I am," says Bart.

　　"Been along with your friend again, Bart?"Small nods.

　　"Dining at his expense, Bart?"Small nods again.

　　"That's right. Live at his expense as much as you can, and takewarning by his foolish example. That's the use of such a friend.

　　The only use you can put him to," says the venerable sage.

　　His grandson, without receiving this good counsel as dutifully ashe might, honours it with all such acceptance as may lie in aslight wink and a nod and takes a chair at the tea-table. The fourold faces then hover over teacups like a company of ghastlycherubim, Mrs. Smallweed perpetually twitching her head andchattering at the trivets and Mr. Smallweed requiring to berepeatedly shaken up like a large black draught.

　　"Yes, yes," says the good old gentleman, reverting to his lesson ofwisdom. "That's such advice as your father would have given you,Bart. You never saw your father. More's the pity. He was my trueson." Whether it is intended to be conveyed that he wasparticularly pleasant to look at, on that account, does not appear.

　　"He was my true son," repeats the old gentleman, folding his breadand butter on his knee, "a good accountant, and died fifteen yearsago."Mrs. Smallweed, following her usual instinct, breaks out with"Fifteen hundred pound. Fifteen hundred pound in a black box,fifteen hundred pound locked up, fifteen hundred pound put away andhid!" Her worthy husband, setting aside his bread and butter,immediately discharges the cushion at her, crushes her against theside of her chair, and falls back in his own, overpowered. Hisappearance, after visiting Mrs. Smallweed with one of theseadmonitions, is particularly impressive and not whollyprepossessing, firstly because the exertion generally twists hisblack skull-cap over one eye and gives him an air of goblinrakishness, secondly because he mutters violent imprecationsagainst Mrs. Smallweed, and thirdly because the contrast betweenthose powerful expressions and his powerless figure is suggestiveof a baleful old malignant who would be very wicked if he could.

　　All this, however, is so common in the Smallweed family circle thatit produces no impression. The old gentleman is merely shaken andhas his internal feathers beaten up, the cushion is restored to itsusual place beside him, and the old lady, perhaps with her capadjusted and perhaps not, is planted in her chair again, ready tobe bowled down like a ninepin.

　　Some time elapses in the present instance before the old gentlemanis sufficiently cool to resume his discourse, and even then hemixes it up with several edifying expletives addressed to theunconscious partner of his bosom, who holds communication withnothing on earth but the trivets. As thus: "If your father, Bart,had lived longer, he might have been worth a deal of money--youbrimstone chatterer!--but just as he was beginning to build up thehouse that he had been making the foundations for, through many ayear--you jade of a magpie, jackdaw, and poll-parrot, what do youmean!--he took ill and died of a low fever, always being a sparingand a spare man, fule been a good son, and I think I meant tohave been one. But I wasn't. I was a thundering bad son, that'sthe long and the short of it, and never was a credit to anybody.""Surprising!" cries the old man.

　　"However," Mr. George resumes, "the less said about it, the betternow. Come! You know the agreement. Always a pipe out of the twomonths' interest! (Bosh! It's all correct. You needn't be afraidto order the pipe. Here's the new bill, and here's the two months'

　　interest-money, and a devil-and-all of a scrape it is to get ittogether in my business.)"Mr. George sits, with his arms folded, consuming the family and theparlour while Grandfather Smallweed is assisted by Judy to twoblack leathern cases out of a locked bureau, in one of which hesecures the document he has just received, and from the other takesanother similar document which hl of business care--I should like to throw acat at you instead of a cushion, and I will too if you make such aconfounded fool of yourself!--and your mother, who was a prudentwoman as dry as a chip, just dwindled away like touchwood after youand Judy were born--you are an old pig. You are a brimstone pig.

　　You're a head of swine!"Judy, not interested in what she has often heard, begins to collectin a basin various tributary streams of tea, from the bottoms ofcups and saucers and from the bottom of the teapot for the littlecharwoman's evening meal. In like manner she gets together, in theiron bread-basket, as many outside fragments and worn-down heels ofloaves as the rigid economy of the house has left in existence.

　　"But your father and me were partners, Bart," says the oldgentleman, "and when I am gone, you and Judy will have all thereis. It's rare for you both that you went out early in life--Judyto the flower business, and you to the law. You won't want tospend it. You'll get your living without it, and put more to it.

　　When I am gone, Judy will go back to the flower business and you'llstill stick to the law."One might infer from Judy's appearance that her business rather laywith the thorns than the flowers, but she has in her time beenapprenticed to the art and mystery of artificial flower-making. Aclose observer might perhaps detect both in her eye and herbrother's, when their venerable grandsire anticipates his beinggone, some little impatience to know when he may be going, and someresentful opinion that it is time he went.

　　"Now, if everybody has done," says Judy, completing herpreparations, "I'll have that girl in to her tea. She would neverleave off if she took it by herself in the kitchen."Charley is accordingly introduced, and under a heavy fire of eyes,sits down to her basin and a Druidical ruin of bread and butter.

　　In the active superintendence of this young person, Judy Smallweedappears to attain a perfectly geological age and to date from theremotest periods. Her systematic manner of flying at her andpouncing on her, with or without pretence, whether or no, iswonderful, evincing an accomplishment in the art of girl-drivingseldom reached by the oldest practitioners.

　　"Now, don't stare about you all the afternoon," cries Judy, shakingher head and stamping her foot as she happens to catch the glancewhich has been previously sounding the basin of tea, "but take yourvictuals and get back to your work.""Yes, miss," says Charley.

　　"Don't say yes," returns Miss Smallweed, "for I know what you girlsare. Do it without saying it, and then I may begin to believeyou."Charley swallows a great gulp of tea in token of submission and sodisperses the Druidical ruins that Miss Smallweed charges her notto gormandize, which "in you girls," she observes, is disgusting.

　　Charley might find some more difficulty in meeting her views on thegeneral subject of girls but for a knock at the door.

　　"See who it is, and don't chew when you open it!" cries Judy.

　　The object of her attentions withdrawing for the purpose, MissSmallweed takes that opportunity of jumbling the remainder of thebread and butter together and launching two or three dirty tea-cupsinto the ebb-tide of the basin of tea as a hint that she considersthe eating and drinking terminated.

　　"Now! Who is it, and what's wanted?" says the snappish Judy.

　　It is one Mr. George, it appears. Without other announcement orceremony, Mr. George walks in.

　　"Whew!" says Mr. George. "You are hot here. Always a fire, eh?

　　Well! Perhaps you do right to get used to one." Mr. George makesthe latter remark to himself as he nods to Grandfather Smallweed.

　　"Ho! It's you!" cries the old gentleman. "How de do? How de do?""Middling," replies Mr. George, taking a chair. "Yourgranddaughter I have had the honour of seeing before; my service toyou, miss.""This is my grandson," says Grandfather Smallweed. "You ha'n'tseen him before. He is in the law and not much at home.""My service to him, too! He is like his sister. He is very likehis sister. He is devilish like his sister," says Mr. George,laying a great and not altogether complimentary stress on his lastadjective.

　　"And how does the world use you, Mr. George?" Grandfather Smallweedinquires, slowly rubbing his legs.

　　"Pretty much as usual. Like a football."He is a swarthy brown man of fifty, well made, and good looking,with crisp dark hair, bright eyes, and a broad chest. His sinewyand powerful hands, as sunburnt as his face, have evidently beenused to a pretty rough life. What is curious about him is that hesits forward on his chair as if he were, from long habit, allowingspace for some dress or accoutrements that he has altogether laidaside. His step too is measured and heavy and would go well with aweighty clash and jingle of spurs. He is close-shaved now, but hismouth is set as if his upper lip had been for years familiar with agreat moustache; and his manner of occasionally laying the openpalm of his broad brown hand upon it is to the same effect.

　　Altogether one might guess Mr. George to have been a trooper onceupon a time.

　　A special contrast Mr. George makes to the Smallweed family.

　　Trooper was never yet billeted upon a household more unlike him.