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"Good-bye," he said, and by the droop of his eyelids I judged he too was a little under the influence of that brain-twisting cordial. He recollected something else with a start, felt in his breast-pocket, and produced another packet, this time a cylinder the size and shape of a shaving-stick. "Here," said he. "I'd almost forgotten. Don't open this until I come to-morrow but take it now."
Ah! it has stung or bit you, Captain Roland; for you start and change color, you suppress a cry as you break the seal; you breathe hard as you read; and the letter seems short but it takes time in the reading, for you go over it again and again. Then you fold it up, crumple it, thrust it into your breast-pocket, and look round like a man waking from a dream. Is it a dream of pain, or of pleasure?
Little by little he very slowly took from a breast-pocket a stained, discoloured paper which was much singed upon the outside and a little burnt at the edges, as if it had long ago been thrown upon a fire and hastily snatched off again. Mr. Bucket lost no time in transferring this paper, with the dexterity of a conjuror, from Mr. Smallweed to Mr. Jarndyce.
Putting back in his breast-pocket the bag in which he was accustomed to carry small coins for small charities, his hand touched something which felt like the envelope of a letter. He took it out looked at it with an expression of annoyance and surprise and once more turned aside from the direct way to Lincoln's Inn Fields. The envelope contained his last prescription.
He did not finish the sentence in words, but by gesture conveyed that the missive, now folded and placed in his breast-pocket, was only to be obtained bespattered with his life's blood. And the Abbe wiped his clammy brow with some satisfaction that it should be thus removed from his own timorous custody.
Propped up against the now lighted lamp was a letter addressed to Monsieur Polperro in a peculiar, large handwriting. L'Ami Fritz, again uttering that queer guttural exclamation, snatched up the envelope, and hurriedly put it into his breast-pocket. "I brought that letter out of M'sieur's bed-room," observed the day-servant, cringingly. "I feared M'sieur had forgotten it!
He drew a portrait-case from his breast-pocket, pressing the spring, and handed it to her, saying: 'There is one. He spoke indifferently, but as soon as she had seen the face inside it, with a look at him and a deep breath; she understood that he was an altered brother, and that they were three instead of two. She handed it back to him, saying hushedly and only 'Yes.
Colonel Pierson paid very little attention to his brother-in-law, but the ladies were evidently much to his taste; and when he kissed Cornelia's hand, his eyes grew soft, as at a recollection. "You are what your mother once promised to be," he said. To her he gave that mother's portrait, taking it solemnly from his breast-pocket, and attentively contemplating it before it left his hands.
No wonder there were those who reckoned this single page of manuscript worth a great fortune. Every sentence, every word told its own story. It was a page of the world's history. Then a strange thing happened. Some part of him rebelled against the instinct which prompted him carefully to fold and place in his breast-pocket this wonderful find of his. His nerves seemed suddenly frozen in his body.
In his attractive reserved manner, and in a veiled sympathetic voice he asked: "What is this?" "It is a sort of tale," I answered with an effort. "It is not even finished yet. Nevertheless I would like to know what you think of it." He put the MS. in the breast-pocket of his jacket; I remember perfectly his thin brown fingers folding it lengthwise.
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