A man made of money — Inside the Classic

richo, with accessory boon-fellows, had partaken of a luxurious repast; little caring that his own stinted lares were served with, at best, metaphoric cold mutton. Mr. Jericho had tested the best resources of the larder and cellar of the Apollo Tavern; and full of meat and wine, and his brain singing with fantastic humours, he had surveyed the river Thames with simpering complacency; had seen big-bellied ships, stowed with India and Africa, drop silently with the tide towards their haven. It was impossible to enjoy a serener evening or a nobler sight. The setting sun, with a magnificence quite worthy of the west-end, coloured all things gold and ruby; the black hulls of ships glowed darkly and richly; and their sails were, for the time, from Tyrian looms. The gorgeousness of the hour enriched every common object with glorious beauty. Every cold, mean common-place of the common day seemed suffused in one wide harmonious splendour. And the brain of Jericho, meditating the scene, was expanded and melted into it; and in that prodigal wealth of colour, the illusion a little assisted by the swallowed colours within him, Jericho felt himself a part and parcel of the absorbing richness. The wine in his heart, a Bacchus’ jack-o’-lantern, reflected the rosy, golden light that came upon him.

This sweet illusion lasted its pleasant time, fading a little when the bill was rung for. Nevertheless, Jericho, by the force of the scene and the wine, felt himself in much easier circumstances than the hard tyranny of truth, when he was in a calm condition to respect its dictum, was likely to allow. And so, at that hour when sparrows look down reproachfully from their eaves at the flushed man trying the street-door—at that penitential hour, with the hues of the past romantic evening becoming very cold within him—Mr. Jericho stood beneath his own oppressive roof.

Mrs. Jericho was gone to bed.

Mr. Jericho breathed a little lighter. Such a load was taken off him, that he mounted the staircase tenderly, as though he trod upon flowers; as though every woollen blossom in the carpet from the stair to the bed itself was living heart’s-ease; which it was not.

Being somewhat ashamed of Mr. Jericho who, as it has been shown, left his wife to the solitude of her dinner-table, whilst he, luxurious spendthrift, could dine with company abroad,—we should be very happy if we could, without any more ado, put him to bed at once, and indignantly tucking him up, and with perhaps an allowed allusion to the sort of head that awaited him in the morning, let the good-for-nothing fellow snore till the curtain-rings danced again, allowing him only to wake up in time for the next chapter. But this we cannot do. The stern, iron moral it is our wish to impress upon the world—yielding as it always is to such impressions—compels us to steady Mr. Jericho to his bed-side; and even when there, not for awhile to leave him.

In the reproachful quietude of his dressing-room, Jericho prepared himself for his couch. Tenderly did his fingers dwell upon and wander about buttons. He caught a sight of himself in the looking-glass, and—to dodge his conscience—set himself to feign to whistle: and then it struck him it must be very, very late, his beard had grown so much. And the day in a moment seemed to have opened its broad, staring eye; and the sparrows cried more saucily; and the reproachful voice of the pigeons perched upon the chimney-top, came down in muffled murmur upon Solomon’s ear; and with a very little more he would have felt himself a villain.

The culprit placed his hand upon the handle of the bed-room door. Had he been a burglar with a felonious intention upon Mrs. Jericho’s repeater, instead of the man responsible for the rent and taxes of the house in which he at that moment stood in his shirt and shuddered,—had he, we say, at that point of time been an unlawful thief _in posse_, in lieu of a lawful husband _in esse_, his knees—unless he had been a very young and sensitive rogue indeed—could not have so knocked together. With his face crumpled into a thousand lines, he opened the door. What a blessing; the hinges did not that time creak, and before they always did! Assured by the omen, Jericho took a little bit of heart. The night-light was winking its last. There was not a sound. The bed-curtains hung like curtained marble. Jericho paused, turning up his ear. Still not a sound. Sabilla did not ordinarily sleep so light. The stillness was peculiar—curious—very odd.

“And if my Lucy should be dead!”