As abrupt in his conclusion as in his commencement and progress, he jerked this inquiry at Edwin, and stopped when one might have supposed him in the middle of his oration.

‘I should say, sir,’ stammered Edwin, ’as you refer the question to me—­’

‘Yes,’ said Mr. Grewgious, ‘I refer it to you, as an authority.’

‘I should say, then, sir,’ Edwin went on, embarrassed, ’that the picture you have drawn is generally correct; but I submit that perhaps you may be rather hard upon the unlucky lover.’

‘Likely so,’ assented Mr. Grewgious, ’likely so.  I am a hard man in the grain.’

‘He may not show,’ said Edwin, ‘all he feels; or he may not—­’

There he stopped so long, to find the rest of his sentence, that Mr. Grewgious rendered his difficulty a thousand times the greater by unexpectedly striking in with: 

‘No to be sure; he may not!’

After that, they all sat silent; the silence of Mr. Bazzard being occasioned by slumber.

‘His responsibility is very great, though,’ said Mr. Grewgious at length, with his eyes on the fire.

Edwin nodded assent, with his eyes on the fire.

‘And let him be sure that he trifles with no one,’ said Mr. Grewgious; ‘neither with himself, nor with any other.’

Edwin bit his lip again, and still sat looking at the fire.

’He must not make a plaything of a treasure.  Woe betide him if he does!  Let him take that well to heart,’ said Mr. Grewgious.

Though he said these things in short sentences, much as the supposititious charity boy just now referred to might have repeated a verse or two from the Book of Proverbs, there was something dreamy (for so literal a man) in the way in which he now shook his right forefinger at the live coals in the grate, and again fell silent.

But not for long.  As he sat upright and stiff in his chair, he suddenly rapped his knees, like the carved image of some queer Joss or other coming out of its reverie, and said:  ’We must finish this bottle, Mr. Edwin.  Let me help you.  I’ll help Bazzard too, though he is asleep.  He mightn’t like it else.’

He helped them both, and helped himself, and drained his glass, and stood it bottom upward on the table, as though he had just caught a bluebottle in it.

‘And now, Mr. Edwin,’ he proceeded, wiping his mouth and hands upon his handkerchief:  ’to a little piece of business.  You received from me, the other day, a certified copy of Miss Rosa’s father’s will.  You knew its contents before, but you received it from me as a matter of business.  I should have sent it to Mr. Jasper, but for Miss Rosa’s wishing it to come straight to you, in preference.  You received it?’

‘Quite safely, sir.’

‘You should have acknowledged its receipt,’ said Mr. Grewgious; ’business being business all the world over.  However, you did not.’