Betteredge took a chair and seated himself at the table. He produced a
huge old-fashioned leather pocket-book, with a pencil of dimensions to
match. Having put on his spectacles, he opened the pocket-book, at a
blank page, and addressed himself to me once more.
"I have lived," said Betteredge, looking at me sternly, "nigh on fifty
years in the service of my late lady. I was page-boy before that, in the
service of the old lord, her father. I am now somewhere between seventy
and eighty years of age--never mind exactly where! I am reckoned to have
got as pretty a knowledge and experience of the world as most men. And
what does it all end in? It ends, Mr. Ezra Jennings, in a conjuring
trick being performed on Mr. Franklin Blake, by a doctor's assistant
with a bottle of laudanum--and by the living jingo, I'm appointed, in my
old age, to be conjurer's boy!"
Mr. Blake burst out laughing. I attempted to speak. Betteredge held up
his hand, in token that he had not done yet.
"Not a word, Mr. Jennings!" he said, "It don't want a word, sir, from
you. I have got my principles, thank God. If an order comes to me, which
is own brother to an order come from Bedlam, it don't matter. So long
as I get it from my master or mistress, as the case may be, I obey it. I
may have my own opinion, which is also, you will please to remember, the
opinion of Mr. Bruff--the Great Mr. Bruff!" said Betteredge, raising his
voice, and shaking his head at me solemnly. "It don't matter; I withdraw
my opinion, for all that. My young lady says, 'Do it.' And I say, 'Miss,
it shall be done.' Here I am, with my book and my pencil--the latter not
pointed so well as I could wish, but when Christians take leave of their
senses, who is to expect that pencils will keep their points? Give
me your orders, Mr. Jennings. I'll have them in writing, sir. I'm
determined not to be behind 'em, or before 'em, by so much as a hair's
breadth. I'm a blind agent--that's what I am. A blind agent!" repeated
Betteredge, with infinite relish of his own description of himself.
"I am very sorry," I began, "that you and I don't agree----"
"Don't bring ME, into it!" interposed Betteredge. "This is not a
matter of agreement, it's a matter of obedience. Issue your directions,
sir--issue your directions!"
Mr. Blake made me a sign to take him at his word. I "issued my
directions" as plainly and as gravely as I could.