Chapter 10

MR. EASY’S WONDERFUL INVENTION FULLY EXPLAINED BY HIMSELF— MUCH TO THE SATISFACTION OF OUR HERO, AND IT IS TO BE PRESUMED TO THAT ALSO OF THE READER

At last the packet anchored in Falmouth Roads. Jack, accompanied by Mesty, was soon on shore with his luggage, threw himself into the mail, arrived in London, and waiting there two or three days, to obtain what he considered necessary from a fashionable tailor, ordered a chaise to Forest Hill. He had not written to his father to announce his arrival, and it was late in the morning when the chaise drew up at his father’s door.

Jack stepped out and rang the bell. The servants who opened the door did not know him; they were not the same as those he left.

“Where is Mr. Easy?” demanded Jack.

“Who are you?” replied one of the men, in a gruff tone.

“By de powers, you very soon find out who he is,” observed Mesty.

“Stay here, and I’ll see if he is at home.”

“Stay here! stay in the hall like a footman? What do you mean, you rascal?” cried Jack, attempting to push by the man.

“Oh, that won’t do here, master; this is Equality Hall; one man’s as good as another.”

“Not always,” replied Jack, knocking him down.

“Take that for your insolence, pack up your traps, and walk out of the house to-morrow morning.”

Mesty, in the meantime, had seized the other by the throat.

“What I do with this fellow, Massa Easy?”

“Leave him now, Mesty; we’ll settle their account to-morrow morning. I presume I shall find my father in the library.”

“His father!” said one of the men to the other; “he’s not exactly a chip of the old block.”

“We shall have a change, I expect,” replied the other, as they walked away.

“Mesty,” cried Jack, in an authoritative tone, “bring those two rascals back to take the luggage out of the chaise; pay the postilion, and tell the housekeeper to show you my room and yours. Come to me for orders as soon as you have done this.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Mesty. “Now come here, you d— n blackguard, and take tings out of chaise, or by de holy poker I choak your luff, both of you.”

The filed teeth, the savage look, and determination of Mesty had the due effect. The men sullenly returned, and unloaded the chaise. In the meantime, Jack walked into his father’s study; his father was there— the study was lighted up with argand lamps, and Jack looked with astonishment. Mr. Easy was busy with a plaster cast of a human head, which he pored over, so that he did not perceive the entrance of his son. The cast of the skull was divided into many compartments, with writing on each; but what most astonished our hero, was the alteration in the apartment. The bookcases and books had all been removed, and in the centre, suspended from the ceiling, was an apparatus which would have puzzled any one, composed of rods in every direction, with screws at the end of them, and also tubes in equal number,