Mr. Neefit\'s conduct during this period of disappointment was not exactly what it should to have been, either in the bosom of his family or among his dependents in Conduit Street. Herr Bawwah, over a pot of beer in the public-house opposite, suggested to Mr. Waddle that "the governor might be ——," in a manner that affected Mr. Waddle greatly. It was an eloquent and energetic expression of opinion,—almost an expression of a settled purpose as coming from the German as it did come; and Waddle was bound to admit that cause had been given. "Fritz," said Waddle pathetically, "don\'t think about it. You can\'t better the wages." Herr Bawwah looked up from his pot of beer and muttered a German oath. He had been told that he was beastly, skulking, pig-headed, obstinate, drunken, with some other perhaps stronger epithets which may be omitted,—and he had been told that he was a German. In that had lain the venom. There was the word that rankled. He had another pot of beer, and though it was then only twelve o\'clock on a Monday morning Herr Bawwah swore that he was going to make a day of it, and that old Neefit might cut out the stuff for himself if he pleased. As they were now at the end of March, which is not a busy time of the year in Mr. Neefit\'s trade, the great artist\'s defalcation was of less immediate importance; but, as Waddle knew, the German was given both to beer and obstinacy when aroused to wrath; and what would become of the firm should the obstinacy continue?
"Where\'s that pig-headed German brute?" asked Mr. Neefit, when Mr. Waddle returned to the establishment. Mr. Waddle made no reply; and when Neefit repeated the question with a free use of the epithets previously omitted by us, Waddle still was dumb, leaning over his ledger as though in that there were matters so great as to absorb his powers of hearing. "The two of you may go and be —— together!" said Mr. Neefit. If any order requiring immediate obedience were contained in this, Mr. Waddle disobeyed that order. He still bent himself over the ledger, and was dumb. Waddle had been trusted with his master\'s private view in the matter of the Newton marriage, and felt that on this account he owed a debt of forbearance to the unhappy father.
The breeches-maker was in truth very unhappy. He had accused his German assistant of obstinacy, but the German could hardly have been more obstinate than his master. Mr. Neefit had set his heart upon making his daughter Mrs. Newton, and had persisted in declaring that the marriage should be made to take place. The young man had once given him a promise, and should be compelled to keep the promise so given. And in these days Mr. Neefit seemed to have lost that discretion for which his friends had once given him credit. On the occasion of his visit to the Moonbeam early in the hunting season he had spoken out very freely among the sportsmen there assembled; and from that time all reticence respecting his daughter seemed to have been abandoned. He had paid the debts of this young man, who was now lord of wide domains, when the young man hadn\'t "a red copper in his pocket,"—so did Mr. Neefit explain the matter to his friends,—and he didn\'t intend that the young man should be off his bargain. "No;—he wasn\'t going to put up with that;—not if he knew it." All this he declared freely to his general acquaintance. He was very eloquent on the subject in a personal interview which he had with Mr. Moggs senior, in consequence of a visit made to Hendon by Mr. Moggs junior, during which he feared that Polly had shown some tendency towards yielding to the young politician. Mr. Moggs senior might take this for granted;—that if Moggs junior made himself master of Polly, it would be of Polly pure and simple, of Polly without a shilling of dowry. "He\'ll have to take her in her smock." That was the phrase in which Mr. Neefit was pleased to express his resolution. To all of which Mr. Moggs senior answered never a word. It was on returning from Mr. Moggs\'s establishment in Bond Street to his own in Conduit Street that Mr. Neefit made himself so very unpleasant to the unfortunate German. When Ontario put on his best clothes, and took himself out to Hendon on the previous Sunday, he did not probably calculate that, as one consequence of that visit, the Herr Bawwah would pass a whole week of intoxication in the little back parlour of the public-house near St. George\'s Church.
It may be imagined how very unpleasant all this must have been to Miss Neefit herself. Poor Polly indeed suffered many things; but she bore them with an admirable and a persistent courage. Indeed, she possessed a courage which greatly mitigated her sufferings. Let her father be as indiscreet as he might, he could not greatly lower her, as long as she herself was prudent. It was thus that Polly argued with herself. She knew her own value, and was not afraid that she should ever lack a lover when she wanted to find a husband. Of course it was not a nice thing to be thrown at a man\'s head, as her father was constantly throwing her at the head of young Newton; but such a man as she would give herself to at last would understand all that. Ontario Moggs, could she ever bring herself to accept Ontario, would not be less devoted to her because of her father\'s ill-arranged ambition. Polly could be obstinate too, but with her obstinacy there was combined a fund of feminine strength which, as we think, quite justified the devotion of Ontario Moggs.
Amidst all these troubles Mrs. Neefit also had a bad time of it; so bad a time that she was extremely anxious that Ontario should at once carry off the prize;—Ontario, or the gasfitter, or almost anybody. Neefit was taking to drink in the midst of all this confusion, and was making himself uncommonly unpleasant in the bosom of his family. On the Sunday,—the Sunday before the Monday on which the Herr decided that his wisest course of action would be to abstain from work and make a beast of himself, in order that he might spite his master,—Mr. Neefit had dined at one o\'clock, and had insisted on his gin-and-water and pipe immediately after his dinner. Now Mr. Neefit, when he took too much, did not fall into the extreme sins which disgraced his foreman. He simply became very cross till he fell asleep, very heavy while sleeping, and more cross than ever when again awake. While he was asleep on this Sunday afternoon Ontario Moggs came down to Hendon dressed in his Sunday best. Mrs. Neefit whispered a word to him before he was left alone with Polly. "You be round with her, and run your chance about the money." "Mrs. Neefit," said Ontario, laying his hand upon his heart, "all the bullion in the Bank of England don\'t make a feather\'s weight in the balance." "You never was mercenary, Mr. Ontario," said the lady. "My sweetheart is to me more than a coined hemisphere," said Ontario. The expression may have been absurd, but the feeling was there.
Polly was not at all coy of her presence,—was not so, though she had been specially ordered by her father not to have anything to say to that long-legged, ugly fool. "Handsome is as handsome does," Polly had answered. Whereupon Mr. Neefit had shown his teeth and growled;—but Polly, though she loved her father, and after a fashion respected him, was not afraid of him; and now, when her mother left her alone with Ontario, she was free enough of her conversation. "Oh, Polly," he said, after a while, "you know why I\'m here."
"Yes; I know," said Polly.
"I don\'t think you do care for that young gentleman."
"I\'m not going to break my heart about him, Mr. Moggs."
"I\'d try to be the death of him, if you did."
"That would be a right down tragedy, because then you\'d be hung,—and so there\'d be an end of us all. I don\'t think I\'d do that, Mr. Moggs."
"Polly, I sometimes feel as though I didn\'t know what to do."
"Tell me the whole story of how you went on down at Percycross. I was so anxious you should get in."
"Were you now?"
"Right down sick at heart about it;—that I was. Don\'t you think we should all be proud to know a member of Parliament?"
"Oh; if that\'s all—"
"I shouldn\'t think anything of Mr. Newton for being in Parliament. Whether he was in Parliament or out would be all the same. Of course he\'s a friend, and we like him very well; but his being in Parliament would be nothing. But if you were there—!"
"I don\'t know what\'s the difference," said Moggs despondently.
"Because you\'re one of us."
"Yes; I am," said Moggs, rising to his legs and preparing himself for an oration on the rights of labour. "I thank my God that I am no aristocrat." Then there came upon him a feeling that this was not a time convenient for political fervour. "But, I\'ll tell you............