He finished by genially kissing my hand and thanking me.  Nothing but Miss Summerson’s fine tact, he said, would have found this out for him.

I was much disconcerted, but I reflected that if the main point were gained, it mattered little how strangely he perverted everything leading to it.  I had determined to mention something else, however, and I thought I was not to be put off in that.

“Mr. Skimpole,” said I, “I must take the liberty of saying before I conclude my visit that I was much surprised to learn, on the best authority, some little time ago, that you knew with whom that poor boy left Bleak House and that you accepted a present on that occasion.  I have not mentioned it to my guardian, for I fear it would hurt him unnecessarily; but I may say to you that I was much surprised.”

“No?  Really surprised, my dear Miss Summerson?” he returned inquiringly, raising his pleasant eyebrows.

“Greatly surprised.”

He thought about it for a little while with a highly agreeable and whimsical expression of face, then quite gave it up and said in his most engaging manner, “You know what a child I am.  Why surprised?”

I was reluctant to enter minutely into that question, but as he begged I would, for he was really curious to know, I gave him to understand in the gentlest words I could use that his conduct seemed to involve a disregard of several moral obligations.  He was much amused and interested when he heard this and said, “No, really?” with ingenuous simplicity.

“You know I don’t intend to be responsible.  I never could do it.  Responsibility is a thing that has always been above me—­or below me,” said Mr. Skimpole.  “I don’t even know which; but as I understand the way in which my dear Miss Summerson (always remarkable for her practical good sense and clearness) puts this case, I should imagine it was chiefly a question of money, do you know?”

I incautiously gave a qualified assent to this.

“Ah!  Then you see,” said Mr. Skimpole, shaking his head, “I am hopeless of understanding it.”

I suggested, as I rose to go, that it was not right to betray my guardian’s confidence for a bribe.

“My dear Miss Summerson,” he returned with a candid hilarity that was all his own, “I can’t be bribed.”

“Not by Mr. Bucket?” said I.

“No,” said he.  “Not by anybody.  I don’t attach any value to money.  I don’t care about it, I don’t know about it, I don’t want it, I don’t keep it—­it goes away from me directly.  How can I be bribed?”

I showed that I was of a different opinion, though I had not the capacity for arguing the question.

“On the contrary,” said Mr. Skimpole, “I am exactly the man to be placed in a superior position in such a case as that.  I am above the rest of mankind in such a case as that.  I can act with philosophy in such a case as that.  I am not warped by prejudices, as an Italian baby is by bandages.  I am as free as the air.  I feel myself as far above suspicion as Caesar’s wife.”