Page 448 - bleak-house

‘But natural affection, Mr. George,’ hints Grandfather
Smallweed.
‘For two good names, hey?’ says Mr. George, shaking his
head and still composedly smoking. ‘No. That’s not my sort
either.’
Grandfather Smallweed has been gradually sliding down
in his chair since his last adjustment and is now a bundle
of clothes with a voice in it calling for Judy. That houri, ap-
pearing, shakes him up in the usual manner and is charged
by the old gentleman to remain near him. For he seems
chary of putting his visitor to the trouble of repeating his
late attentions.
‘Ha!’ he observes when he is in trim again. ‘If you could
have traced out the captain, Mr. George, it would have been
the making of you. If when you first came here, in conse-
quence of our advertisement in the newspapers—when I say
‘our,’ I’m alluding to the advertisements of my friend in the
city, and one or two others who embark their capital in the
same way, and are so friendly towards me as sometimes to
give me a lift with my little pittance— if at that time you
could have helped us, Mr. George, it would have been the
making of you.’
‘I was willing enough to be ‘made,’ as you call it,’ says Mr.
George, smoking not quite so placidly as before, for since
the entrance of Judy he has been in some measure disturbed
by a fascination, not of the admiring kind, which obliges
him to look at her as she stands by her grandfather’s chair,
‘but on the whole, I am glad I wasn’t now.’
‘Why, Mr. George? In the name of—of brimstone, why?’

448 Bleak House