Grewgious, feeling strangely drawn towards, and at the same time strangely repelled by this individual with the blue spectacles, “just as if,” he says to himself, “I were a hard old bit of iron, which I very likely am, and he a magnet, continually changing poles.”
“So far, all being satisfactory,” continues Mr. Grewgious, who has been stroking his head to bring that too, if possible, to a satisfactory degree of smoothness, though apparently without the wished-for result, for he still looks perplexed and dissatisfied, “there only remains the business form of consulting your testimonials. May I trouble you for them?”
The result of this very natural question is a startling one. The stranger springs to his feet; and approaches Mr. Grewgious with a passionate gesture.
“Have I not told you,” he says, “that I have none? Have I not said that I am a stranger in the city — in the country itself, and that I have no acquaintance or friend to speak a word in my favour? Painful family affairs, which have tainted me although I am innocent, have forced me to begin life again, and to begin it at the foot of the ladder. You are a good and kind-hearted man, sir. I feel it. I have heard others say so. Do not send me away on that account, as others have done over and over again. For, sir, the devil is always close at hand to tempt desperate men, and there is such a thing as desperation, there is such a condition as despair.”
The repulsive power of the magnet is strongly brought to bear upon Mr. Grewgious during this speech, and makes him turn a cold ear to the passionate appeal. For he can read no confirmation of its truth in the eyes of the speaker. Their cold, glassy covering baffles all his efforts to penetrate it, and he draws back stiffly, to say, drily and coldly —
“That is all very well, though hardly a business way of going to work, and may be true, may be. I have no right to doubt it, but I am a remarkably unimaginative man, and I find it difficult to bring any imagination to bear upon such a case. It is, however, excuse me, so unusual for a young man to have attained your age, and attained it blamelessly, without being able to produce any one, personally or by letter, to testify to that fact, that, as a well-wisher, I should advise you to lose no time in endeavouring to hunt up some one to perform that friendly office for you. I should indeed, should indeed.”
“That is impossible,” answers the stranger, burying his agitated face in his trembling hands, and the tone of his voice strikes cold on the warm heart of the old man, for it is a tone of anguish. Then, after a pause, he raises his head again, to make one last effort.
“Oh, sir, can you not feel that I am honest? Can you not hear that I am only longing for work; and willing and wishful to perform that work to the best of my ability? Is there no possibility of my getting anything to do without testimonials? Is it utterly hopeless to think of obtaining work without a character?”
“As a man of business,” answers Mr. Grewgious, clearing his voice, which is getting husky, and smoothing his smooth head again, “I should say it is. As a man acquainted with the ways of the world, and its customs, and its requirements, as a rule, I should say decidedly yes!”
“Then may God save me, and protect me from evil,” says the young man, taking his hat, “and help me, if it be possible, to find some one who thinks differently. I have heard, casually heard, you spoken of as a kind-hearted, benevolent man, and that gave me courage to come to you. Otherwise, I would never have crossed your threshold; otherwise, I would have gone to the world’s end, rather than have risked what I have risked in coming here to-night. Not that I blame you; you are acting, no doubt, according to your lights. God help me now, for there is no help in man!”
Uttering these last words under his breath, more to himself than to his hearer, he turns hurriedly to go — would have been gone in another moment, but that Mr. Grewgious, in whose benevolent heart his last words seem to ring like a knell, crossing the room with an agility utterly unexpected in him, lays a detaining hand upon his shoulder.
“Wait a bit; wait a bit!” he pants, out of breath, “and sit down again. We haven’t done with one another yet. Who told you I didn’t mean to try you?