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Updated: May 6, 2025
It would be hard to say how the rumour first got into the City on this Monday morning. Though the elder Longestaffe had first heard of the matter only on the previous Saturday, Mr Squercum had been at work for above a week.
Mr Melmotte, therefore, though he was not where he had been before that wretched Squercum had set afloat the rumours as to the purchase of Pickering, was able to hold his head much higher than on the unfortunate night of the great banquet. He had replied to the letter from Messrs. Slow and Bideawhile, by a note written in the ordinary way in the office, and only signed by himself.
He charged Slow and Bideawhile with having delivered up the title-deeds on the authority of a mere note, and that a note with a forged signature. He demanded that the note should be impounded. On the receipt by Mr Bideawhile of Melmotte's rather curt reply Mr Squercum was informed that Mr Melmotte had promised to pay the money at once, but that a day or two must be allowed.
He believed, probably without much reason, that all his family troubles came to him from Squercum, thinking that if his son would have left his affairs in the hands of the old Slows and the old Bideawhiles, money would never have been scarce with him, and that he would not have made this terrible blunder about the Pickering property.
All this was perfectly clear to Squercum, who thought that he saw before him a most attractive course of proceeding against the Great Financier. It was pure ambition rather than any hope of lucre that urged him on.
Squercum sat at a desk, covered with papers in chaotic confusion, on a chair which moved on a pivot. His desk was against the wall, and when clients came to him, he turned himself sharp round, sticking out his dirty shoes, throwing himself back till his body was an inclined plane, with his hands thrust into his pockets.
'They say that the things in the square, and the plate, and the carriages and horses, and all that, ought to fetch between twenty and thirty thousand. There were a lot of jewels, but the women have taken them, said Squercum. 'By George, they ought to be made to give up everything.
So Squercum raged among the Bideawhiles, who were unable altogether to shut their doors against him. They could not dare to bid defiance to Squercum, feeling that they had themselves blundered, and feeling also that they must be careful not to seem to screen a fault by a falsehood.
No doubt all danger in that Longestaffe affair might be bought off by payment of the price stipulated for the Pickering property. Neither would Dolly Longestaffe nor Squercum, of whom Mr Melmotte had already heard, concern himself in this matter if the money claimed were paid.
'By George! It depended chiefly upon him whether such a man as Melmotte should or should not be charged before the Lord Mayor. 'Perhaps I oughtn't to have promised, he said to Squercum, sitting in the lawyer's office on a high-legged stool with a cigar in his mouth.
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