Knowing that you've nothing at stake, you can afford to come the independent game. Why, you're just so much smeary glass to see through, you know! But Mr Harmon is in another sitiwation.
What Mr Harmon risks, is quite another pair of shoes. Now, I've heerd something lately about this being Mr Harmon--I make out now, some hints that I've met on that subject in the newspaper--and I drop you, Bof--fin, as beneath my notice. I ask Mr Harmon whether he has any idea of the contents of this present paper?'
'It is a will of my late father's, of more recent date than the will proved by Mr Boffin (address whom again, as you have addressed him already, and I'll knock you down), leaving the whole of his property to the Crown,' said John Harmon, with as much indifference as was compatible with extreme sternness.
'Bight you are!' cried Wegg. 'Then,' screwing the weight of his body upon his wooden leg, and screwing his wooden head very much on one side, and screwing up one eye: 'then, I put the question to you, what's this paper worth?'
'Nothing,' said John Harmon.
Wegg had repeated the word with a sneer, and was entering on some sarcastic retort, when, to his boundless amazement, he found himself gripped by the cravat; shaken until his teeth chattered;shoved back, staggering, into a corner of the room; and pinned there.
'You scoundrel!' said John Harmon, whose seafaring hold was like that of a vice.
'You're knocking my head against the wall,' urged Silas faintly.
'I mean to knock your head against the wall,' neturned John Harmon, suiting his action to his words, with the heartiest good will; 'and I'd give a thousand pounds for leave to knock your brains out. Listen, you scoundrel, and look at that Dutch bottle.'
Sloppy held it up, for his edification.
'That Dutch bottle, scoundrel, contained the latest will of the many wills made by my unhappy self-tormenting father. That will gives everything absolutely to my noble benefactor and yours, Mr Boffin, excluding and reviling me, and my sister (then already dead of a broken heart), by name. That Dutch bottle was found by my noble benefactor and yours, after he entered on possession of the estate.
That Dutch bottle distressed him beyond measure, because, though I and my sister were both no more, it cast a slur upon our memory which he knew we had done nothing in our miserable youth, to deserve. That Dutch bottle, therefore, he buried in the Mound belonging to him, and there it lay while you, you thankless wretch, were prodding and poking--often very near it, I dare say. His intention was, that it should never see the light; but he was afraid to destroy it, lest to destroy such a document, even with his great generous motive, might be an offence at law. After the discovery was made here who I was, Mr Boffin, still restless on the subject, told me, upon certain conditions impossible for such a hound as you to appreciate, the secret of that Dutch bottle. I urged upon him the necessity of its being dug up, and the paper being legally produced and established. The first thing you saw him do, and the second thing has been done without your knowledge.
Consequently, the paper now rattling in your hand as I shake you--and I should like to shake the life out of you--is worth less than the rotten cork of the Dutch bottle, do you understand?'
Judging from the fallen countenance of Silas as his head wagged backwards and forwards in a most uncomfortable manner, he did understand.
Now, scoundrel,' said John Harmon, taking another sailor-like turn on his cravat and holding him in his corner at arms' length, 'I shall make two more short speeches to you, because I hope they will torment you. Your discovery was a genuine discovery (such as it was), for nobody had thought of looking into that place. Neither did we know you had made it, until Venus spoke to Mr Boffin, though I kept you under good observation from my first appearance here, and though Sloppy has long made it the chief occupation and delight of his life, to attend you like your shadow. I tell you this, that you may know we knew enough of you to persuade Mr Boffin to let us lead you on, deluded, to the last possible moment, in order that your disappointment might be the heaviest possible disappointment. That's the first short speech, do you understand?'
Here, John Harmon assisted his comprehension with another shake.
'Now, scoundrel,' he pursued, 'I am going to finish. You supposed me just now, to be the possessor of my father's property.--So I am.
But through any act of my father's, or by any right I have? No.