Category: Novels

A Little World

"Some people are such fools!" said Richard Pellet; and, if public judgment was right, he knew what a fool was as well as any man in the great city of London. He was a big man was Richard Pellet, Esq., C.C., shipper, of Austin Friars, and known among city men as "the six-hundre...

Chapters

13. Volume 1, Chapter XIII.

Brownjohn Street, Decadia, on a bright summer's morning, when improvements had not made the neighbourhood a little less dingy than of old; when the pleasant district named after...

48. Volume 2, Chapter XIX.

"But you'll sit down, Mr Ruggles," said Mrs Jared, kindly, as the little man stood with one arm resting upon the chimney-piece, heedless of the chair Patty had set for him.

71. Volume 3, Chapter XVI.

Mr Purkis stood in his shop carefully cutting out strips of white paper for the measurement of future customers' feet, when he heard the pattering of feet, and anticipating trad...

41. Volume 2, Chapter XII.

We leave it to the statistician to decide upon the number of bushels of whelks boiled and consumed, after deposition in little white saucers, and peppering with dust; the loads...

55. Volume 2, Chapter XXVI.

"Hullo! I say! what's all this here about?" cried a familiar voice, and D. Wragg began to jerk himself fiercely into the shop. "Don't you make no mistake. What! hullo! eh! I say...

82. Volume 3, Chapter XXVII.

Jared Pellet used to declare with a grim smile that he thought he had been more happy as a poor man in Duplex Street than he was now that he had inherited his brother's property...

43. Volume 2, Chapter XIV.

Whish-ish! whoosh-oosh! over and over again, Ichabod had pumped the wind-chest full, till the handle came down heavily, and the boy had balanced himself upon it with the hard wo...

5. Volume 1, Chapter V.

There were grand rejoicings in Duplex Street when Jared obtained official announcement, under the hand and seal of Mr Timson the tea-dealer, of his appointment to the post of or...

19. Volume 1, Chapter XIX.

Time glided on, and the brothers Pellet did not meet. There was estrangement too between Richard Pellet and his stepson, who came up during his vacations, but only to leave home...

30. Volume 2, Chapter I.

Mrs Ruggles thought that it was her place, and said so; but Mr Purkis was of opinion that it was his place, and he said so--bringing forward, too, the fact that he had looked af...

38. Volume 2, Chapter IX.

Harry Clayton had been gone three months, and, clothed in a perfect Joseph's coat of a dressing-gown, Lionel Redgrave lolled upon his sofa, talking pettishly to his landlord, wh...

59. Volume 3, Chapter IV.

"Yes, sir. A man came from down Bermondsey way, and said he had some news, and I daren't refuse him. You know, sir, it might be valuable, and it would not do for me to be shutti...

57. Volume 3, Chapter II.

D. Wragg seemed to think that, in spite of his words, the mistake might be on his side if he made any complaints about the treatment he had received from the police. Once or twi...

12. Volume 1, Chapter XII.

"You see, ma'am," said Tim Ruggles, looking very mysterious, "that little one's name was Prosperine or Propserpine, I'm not sure which, unless I look at where we've got it writt...

20. Volume 1, Chapter XX.

Mr Richard Pellet was back at Norwood Station at about the same time as his stepson reached the terminus at Shoreditch, where he caught the express, and ran back to Cambridge, t...

74. Volume 3, Chapter XIX.

The clerk whose duty it was to show visitors into Richard Pellet's private office ought to have been well paid, for he must have been a valuable acquisition to his employer. Dou...

52. Volume 2, Chapter XXIII.

Harry Clayton was fortunate, for he was shown into the great Mr Whittrick's presence directly; and, as soon as seated, he had the pleasure of feeling that the private inquirer w...

51. Volume 2, Chapter XXII.

"I'm getting soft and stupid and blue-moulded," said Mr Timson, as he stood warming himself with his hands under his coat, and twitching them tail-fashion before the fire; "but...

50. Volume 2, Chapter XXI.

"Pellet,"--repeated the clerk, hesitatingly; "I'm afraid he's engaged;" and he looked hard at the shabby visitor to Austin Friars, as much as to say, "You're a poor relation, or...

24. Volume 1, Chapter XXIV.

"Sarvant, gentlemen," said the new-comer, who must now be fully introduced. He made four steps forward into the room, each step being accomplished by the planting of a heavy boo...

11. Volume 1, Chapter XI.

This was a busy day in Duplex Street: in fact, most days were busy there, and Mrs Jared and Patty were in a state of bustle from morning till night. For, being a poor man's wife...

69. Volume 3, Chapter XIV.

"Been here five minutes, sir," said Sergeant Falkner, as Harry Clayton entered the passage of the Regent Street house. "Yes, five minutes exactly," he continued, referring to hi...

25. Volume 1, Chapter XXV.

"Brownjohn Street? First to the left, and secun' to the right. Better button up your pockets," said a policeman, setting his neck in his shining stock, and looking hard at the i...

8. Volume 1, Chapter VIII.

Carnaby Street, Golden Square, where the private doors have their jambs ornamented with series of bell-pulls like the stops of an organ, and the knockers seem intended to form h...

75. Volume 3, Chapter XX.

"Now!" exclaimed Richard Pellet, as soon as he and his unwelcome visitor were in the cab, "will you wait patiently, if I take you somewhere, till I can place you where you will...

6. Volume 1, Chapter VI.

Matters wore a rather serious aspect at Duplex Street; for a whole month Jared had been enjoying all the sensations known only to the wealthy. He had been congratulated by his f...

16. Volume 1, Chapter XVI.

"I'm always glad to get out of this place," said Mrs Jared; and she hurried her steps as they turned out of Brownjohn Street, where they had left Janet in safety, Monsieur Canau...

72. Volume 3, Chapter XVII.

"It's all against rule and regulation, and that sort of thing," said the sergeant, as he and Harry Clayton were being jolted over the stones in a Hansom cab; "but ours is a part...

76. Volume 3, Chapter XXI.

"Mr Pellet, sir," said Tim Ruggles, "I ran out of Mr Purkis's shop, sir, like a madman. Yesterday, sir, I think it was: no, it wasn't, it was the day before, or some other time,...

78. Volume 3, Chapter XXIII.

"Perhaps, after all, he has not come," said Harry to his silent companion, for no word left her lips; she only restlessly led him from place to place, pressing his arm with her...

56. Volume 3, Chapter I.

Five minutes after, his brain in a whirl from the reaction that had taken place, when--wound up to expect some great horror--he had found nothing but that which was trifling and...

27. Volume 1, Chapter XXVII.

Mrs Winks was bound under contract to spend the next day at Duplex Street; but she made known just now her presence in the Dials, being busy enough in the lower regions of D. Wr...

67. Volume 3, Chapter XII.

"One o'clock, mum," said Mr James Chawner, cordwainer, and member of the society of Campanological Brothers, commonly known by the _soubriquet_ of Beaky Jem, tenor in St Runwald...

70. Volume 3, Chapter XV.

It was very evident to the young man that the father was losing hope, and that he was having a hard struggle to resign himself to what had fallen to his lot. Two months had now...

34. Volume 2, Chapter V.

Jared Pellet was right. Mr Gray was in a sad way about the affair, for it was a problem that he was not likely to solve. At first he had made a point of keeping the matter secre...

63. Volume 3, Chapter VIII.

"And the box not been touched since," muttered Jared Pellet,--"not been touched since;" and he repeated the words which he had heard from Mr Timson but a few days before, as he...

80. Volume 3, Chapter XXV.

"Yes, Mr Canau is at home," said a very mealy-faced girl, who replied to Harry Clayton's knock; and he was shown into a barely-furnished but neat parlour, to wait while, apparen...

23. Volume 1, Chapter XXIII.

The letter which Harry Clayton found at his chambers was in answer to an advertisement in the _Times_; for, finding himself somewhat straitened for money, and, in his pride, det...

64. Volume 3, Chapter IX.

It was a bitter day without, and now it seemed as cold within. The very fire in the bright little grate appeared to have turned duller, and the air more chill. As to the cold sc...

65. Volume 3, Chapter X.

Out into the keen night air went Jared Pellet; but as soon as he was outside his own door, his heart seemed to sink down, heavy, heavier, heaviest, for he was going for his last...

28. Volume 1, Chapter XXVIII.

By nine o'clock in the morning of the day succeeding that of his dinner-party at Norwood, Mr Richard Pellet, eager and anxious, was in Borton Street. He would have been there ho...

37. Volume 2, Chapter VIII.

Gentlemanly or ungentlemanly, to blame in making a friend of the churchwarden, a tea-dealer, or not, the vicar was thoroughly conscientious, and this constant plundering of a li...

62. Volume 3, Chapter VII.

There was far from being peace in the house of Wragg, for the place had gained a most unenviable notoriety. Wrong-doings were prevalent enough in Decadia, but they were ordinary...

77. Volume 3, Chapter XXII.

"Five o'clock," said Harry Clayton, as the clerk came in to lay a couple of letters upon the table of his employer's private office. "How long have I been waiting this time?"

39. Volume 2, Chapter X.

D. Wragg was out on business, down by the docks. He had left home directly after breakfast, telling his lodger, the little Frenchman, that he was "good to buy five hundred of ze...

36. Volume 2, Chapter VII.

For quite a month, as far as the vicar could tell, the poor-boxes had rest, and Mr Timson's ears were not so much troubled with the objectionable money texts. Divers games of cr...

66. Volume 3, Chapter XI.

"Was it ghostly--was it spiritual?" Jared Pellet asked himself, as he sat with strained nerves eager to catch the slightest sound. But now all was silent, and he listened in vai...

45. Volume 2, Chapter XVI.

Upon the principle that it never rains but it pours, trouble seemed just now to be rife, and Patty took upon herself more than her share. Janet used to say again and again that...

2. Volume 1, Chapter II.

Jared Pellet sat in the front parlour--_pro tem_, his workshop--while, to keep the sun from troubling him, Patty had been pinning up the broad sheet of a newspaper over the wind...

14. Volume 1, Chapter XIV.

Mr D. Wragg rented the whole of the house in Brownjohn Street, and his lodgers were confined to Mrs Winks and the little Frenchman, the attics being used for store purposes--old...

15. Volume 1, Chapter XV.

Nimrod may have been a mighty hunter in his day, but he was never anything to compare with Jared Pellet, who for twenty long years--that is to say, years of the ordinary length-...

79. Volume 3, Chapter XXIV.

"I cannot refrain from writing to congratulate you, my dear Clayton," wrote Sir Francis Redgrave, in a letter the young man sat reading in his rooms at Cambridge, as he leaned b...

21. Volume 1, Chapter XXI.

"There you are," said Tim Ruggles, shaking up a bottle, and carefully pouring out a dessert-spoonful of cod-liver oil into a wineglass, previously well wetted round with the thi...

31. Volume 2, Chapter II.

"I was only thinking," was the reply, and then they walked on again in silence; for Harry Clayton was indeed thinking, deeply too, of his position. There was a vague sense of da...

29. Volume 1, Chapter XXIX.

"You ought to have been a woman, Mr Ruggles," said Mrs Jared, one Sunday, when Tim came to see them after church, bringing with him little Pine. "He had taken her for a treat,"...

44. Volume 2, Chapter XV.

A quarter of an hour after leaving the church, Jared was at the door of the vicar's residence, where his summons was answered by the old Lincolnshire woman who had come up to Lo...

22. Volume 1, Chapter XXII.

"I don't know what to make of that child, ma'am," said Tim, on one of his visits to Duplex Street. "I'm afraid she's in a bad way, and that we ought to see another doctor;" and...

18. Volume 1, Chapter XVIII.

"I mean," said the vicar, taking not the slightest notice of the interruption, "she never seems to give offence about people's sittings; for her's is a delicate task, and one no...

32. Volume 2, Chapter III.

On reaching Lionel's chambers, a show of cordiality was kept up; but during the walk back, Harry, filled with bitterness, had decided upon his future course--rashly enough, he k...

58. Volume 3, Chapter III.

Upon several occasions when Monsieur Canau saw Patty home to the pleasant manufacturing shades of Duplex Street, he sought to open up this affair with Jared Pellet, so as to hea...

35. Volume 2, Chapter VI.

No doubt, if little Patty had been more highly educated, more refined, and had no more engrossing occupations than reading and paying visits, she too would have worn a Mariana-l...

3. Volume 1, Chapter III.

A busy day at St Runwald's. Mrs Nimmer, the pew-opener, in a clean cap, like a white satin raised pie. Mr Purkis, the beadle--of "Purkis's Shoe Emporium," in private life--in fu...

60. Volume 3, Chapter V.

Harry Clayton felt his breath come thick and fast as he caught sight of the low place by his side. It was a boat-house evidently, and was roughly built of the hole-filled planks...

17. Volume 1, Chapter XVII.

There was no very great difficulty in the matter. Jared Pellet, under protest, wrote a note to the Rev. John Gray, the vicar, telling him that a friend--he haggled a great deal...

4. Volume 1, Chapter IV.

For the last half hour Jared had been wishing himself in Duplex Street, and for the last five minutes he had indulged in a hope that he would be passed over and forgotten. But a...

47. Volume 2, Chapter XVIII.

Harry Clayton stopped short upon entering D. Wragg's parlour, as if he had been smitten, for he found himself face to face with Patty, who stood before him pale and trembling, b...

49. Volume 2, Chapter XX.

Harry Clayton walked hastily back towards Lionel's chambers, his mind confused by what he had seen and heard. He was half pained, half pleased; at one moment he felt elate, and...

46. Volume 2, Chapter XVII.

Harry Clayton's brain was very busy, for he was able to evoke from his imagination much of that which had in reality occurred. He did not give Lionel the credit of being worse t...

7. Volume 1, Chapter VII.

An hour later and the party were back in Duplex Street, having travelled home in silence, with Patty weeping her sin the whole way, while she now sat sobbing by the fireside alm...

1. Volume 1, Chapter I.

"Some people are such fools!" said Richard Pellet; and, if public judgment was right, he knew what a fool was as well as any man in the great city of London. He was a big man wa...

9. Volume 1, Chapter IX.

The room door closed upon Mrs Ruggles' rigid figure, her loud step, indicative of the woman's firmness, was heard upon the stairs, and then Tim and little Pine ceased from their...

53. Volume 2, Chapter XXIV.

Mr John Screwby's face would have formed a worthy study for a painter; or, could some instantaneous photographer have secured his aspect, a _carte_ could have been produced that...

10. Volume 1, Chapter X.

"Now then," said Tim Ruggles, "we mustn't have no more sobbing and sighing, you know, but get on with working, and eddication, and what not, before some one comes home, and goes...

81. Volume 3, Chapter XXVI.

Parted at last, for Harry had seen father and daughter into an omnibus, one which must have been Ben Jonson's "chariot at hand here of love, in which my lady rideth," and drawn...

42. Volume 2, Chapter XIII.

Janet went to her lonely room, sad and sinking of heart, to kneel upon a box by the window, gazing out above the house-tops, as if her wishes were far away in the country from w...

40. Volume 2, Chapter XI.

"There! I told you I would," cried Lionel, who had hurried round the end of the counter, but not quickly enough to arrest the fleeing girl. "You know I met Wragg--"

54. Volume 2, Chapter XXV.

As the rough, brutal fellow uttered those, words, accompanying them with a low cunning grin of satisfaction at his success, the walls of the room seemed to swim round before Har...

68. Volume 3, Chapter XIII.

"No news," day after day--day after day, till Harry was weary of repeating the words to the troubled father. Sergeant Falkner came often enough to repeat his story, that so far...

61. Volume 3, Chapter VI.

"Ah! you are back!" he said, impatiently. "I fell asleep for quite two hours, and then I should have come after you, only the address the man gave had quite glided from my memor...

26. Volume 1, Chapter XXVI.

"Thanks! yes. A saucy little prude! she knows how to play her cards. We've got the receipt, and he's got the ten pounds; but I don't mean to go without value for my cash, if I t...

73. Volume 3, Chapter XVIII.

"Sarvant, sir--sarvant, sir!" exclaimed D. Wragg, flourishing his hat first at Sir Francis, and then at Harry Clayton, while he worked and jerked himself about in a way that was...

33. Volume 2, Chapter IV.

"Don't know what to say, ma'am," said Tim; "but somehow I fancy she's better since I changed her oil. This one seems to agree with her different to what the last one did. Oils v...