 kind of solemn legerdemain into the
same region as before.
    He withdrew with another bow and without a word; opening the door no wider
than was sufficient for his passage out; and shutting it as carefully as before.
The chairman of the board employed the rest of the morning in affixing his
sign-manual of gracious acceptance to various new proposals of annuity-purchase
and assurance. The Company was looking up, for they flowed in gaily.
 

                                 Chapter XXVIII

            Mr. Montague at Home. And Mr. Jonas Chuzzlewit at Home.

There were many powerful reasons for Jonas Chuzzlewit being strongly
prepossessed in favour of the scheme which its great originator had so boldly
laid open to him; but three among them stood prominently forward. Firstly, there
was money to be made by it. Secondly, the money had the peculiar charm of being
sagaciously obtained at other people's cost. Thirdly, it involved much outward
show of homage and distinction: a board being an awful institution in its own
sphere, and a director a mighty man. »To make a swingeing profit, have a lot of
chaps to order about, and get into regular good society by one and the same
means, and them so easy to one's hand, ain't such a bad look out,« thought
Jonas. The latter considerations were only second to his avarice; for, conscious
that there was nothing in his person, conduct, character, or accomplishments, to
command respect, he was greedy of power, and was, in his heart, as much a tyrant
as any laurelled conqueror on record.
    But he determined to proceed with cunning and caution, and to be very keen
in his observation of the gentility of Mr. Montague's private establishment. For
it no more occurred to this shallow knave that Montague wanted him to be so, or
he wouldn't have invited him while his decision was yet in abeyance, than the
possibility of that genius being able to overreach him in any way, pierced
through his self-conceit by the inlet of a needle's point. He had said, in the
outset, that Jonas was too sharp for him; and Jonas, who would have been sharp
enough to believe him in nothing else, though he had solemnly sworn it, believed
him in that, instantly.
    It was with a faltering hand, and yet with an imbecile attempt at a swagger,
that he knocked at his new friend's door in Pall Mall when the appointed hour
arrived. Mr. Bailey quickly answered to the summons. He was not proud, and was
kindly disposed to
