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Chapter XXVII
More Old Soldiers Than One
Mr. George has not far to ride with folded arms upon the box, for
their destination is Lincoln's Inn Fields. When the driver stops
his horses, Mr. George alights, and looking in at the window, says,
"What, Mr. Tulkinghorn's your man, is he?"
"Yes, my dear friend. Do you know him, Mr. George?"
"Why, I have heard of him--seen him too, I think. But I don't know
him, and he don't know me."
There ensues the carrying of Mr. Smallweed upstairs, which is done
to perfection with the trooper's help. He is borne into Mr.
Tulkinghorn's great room and deposited on the Turkey rug before the
fire. Mr. Tulkinghorn is not within at the present moment but will
be back directly. The occupant of the pew in the hall, having said
thus much, stirs the fire and leaves the triumvirate to warm
themselves.
Mr. George is mightily curious in respect of the room. He looks up
at the painted ceiling, looks round at the old law-books,
contemplates the portraits of the great clients, reads aloud the
names on the boxes.
"'Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,'" Mr. George reads thoughtfully.
"Ha! 'Manor of Chesney Wold.' Humph!" Mr. George stands looking
at these boxes a long while--as if they were pictures--and comes
back to the fire repeating, "Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and
Manor of Chesney Wold, hey?"
"Worth a mint of money, Mr. George!" whispers Grandfather
Smallweed, rubbing his legs. "Powerfully rich!"
"Who do you mean? This old gentleman, or the Baronet?"
"This gentleman, this gentleman."
"So I have heard; and knows a thing or two, I'll hold a wager. Not
bad quarters, either," says Mr. George, looking round again. "See
the strong-box yonder!"
This reply is cut short by Mr. Tulkinghorn's arrival. There is no
change in him, of course. Rustily drest, with his spectacles in
his hand, and their very case worn threadbare. In manner, close
and dry. In voice, husky and low. In face, watchful behind a
blind; habitually not uncensorious and contemptuous perhaps. The
peerage may have warmer worshippers and faithfuller believers than
Mr. Tulkinghorn, after all, if everything were known.
"Good morning, Mr. Smallweed, good morning!" he says as he comes
in. "You have brought the sergeant, I see. Sit down, sergeant."
As Mr. Tulkinghorn takes off his gloves and puts them in his hat,
he looks with half-closed eyes across the room to where the trooper
stands and says within himself perchance, "You'll do, my friend!"
"Sit down, sergeant," he repeats as he comes to his table, which is
set on one side of the fire, and takes his easy-chair. "Cold and
raw this morning, cold and raw!" Mr. Tulkinghorn warms before the
bars, alternately, the palms and knuckles of his hands and looks
(from behind that blind which is always down) at the trio sitting
in a little semicircle before him.
"Now, I can feel what I am about" (as perhaps he can in two
senses), "Mr. Smallweed." The old gentleman is newly shaken up by
Judy to bear his part in the conversation. "You have brought our
good friend the sergeant, I see."
"Yes, sir," returns Mr. Smallweed, very servile to the lawyer's
wealth and influence.
"And what does the sergeant say about this business?"
"Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed with a tremulous wave of
his shrivelled hand, "this is the gentleman, sir."
Mr. George salutes the gentleman but otherwise sits bolt upright
and profoundly silent--very forward in his chair, as if the full
complement of regulation appendages for a field-day hung about him.
Mr. Tulkinghorn proceeds, "Well, George--I believe your name is
George?"
"It is so, Sir."
"What do you say, George?"
"I ask your pardon, sir," returns the trooper, "but I should wish
to know what YOU say?"
"Do you mean in point of reward?"
"I mean in point of everything, sir."
This is so very trying to Mr. Smallweed's temper that he suddenly
breaks out with "You're a brimstone beast!" and as suddenly asks
pardon of Mr. Tulkinghorn, excusing himself for this slip of the
tongue by saying to Judy, "I was thinking of your grandmother, my
dear."
"I supposed, sergeant," Mr. Tulkinghorn resumes as he leans on one
side of his chair and crosses his legs, "that Mr. Smallweed might
have sufficiently explained the matter. It lies in the smallest
compass, however. You served under Captain Hawdon at one time, and
were his attendant in illness, and rendered him many little
services, and were rather in his confidence, I am told. That is
so, is it not?"
"Yes, sir, that is so," says Mr. George with military brevity.
"Therefore you may happen to have in your possession something--
anything, no matter what; accounts, instructions, orders, a letter,
anything--in Captain Hawdon's writing. I wish to compare his
writing with some that I have. If you can give me the opportunity,
you shall be rewarded for your trouble. Three, four, five,
guineas, you would consider handsome, I dare say."
"Noble, my dear friend!" cries Grandfather Smallweed, screwing up
his eyes.
"If not, say how much more, in your conscience as a soldier, you
can demand. There is no need for you to part with the writing,
against your inclination--though I should prefer to have it."
Mr. George sits squared in exactly the same attitude, looks at the
painted ceiling, and says never a word. The irascible Mr.
Smallweed scratches the air.
"The question is," says Mr. Tulkinghorn in his methodical, subdued,
uninterested way, "first, whether you have any of Captain Hawdon's
writing?"
"First, whether I have any of Captain Hawdon's writing, sir,"
repeats Mr. George.
"Secondly, what will satisfy you for the trouble of producing it?"
"Secondly, what will satisfy me for the trouble of producing it,
sir," repeats Mr. George.
"Thirdly, you can judge for yourself whether it is at all like
that," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, suddenly handing him some sheets of
written paper tied together.
"Whether it is at all like that, sir. Just so," repeats Mr.
George.
All three repetitions Mr. George pronounces in a mechanical manner,
looking straight at Mr. Tulkinghorn; nor does he so much as glance
at the affidavit in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, that has been given to
him for his inspection (though he still holds it in his hand), but
continues to look at the lawyer with an air of troubled meditation.
"Well?" says Mr. Tulkinghorn. "What do you say?"
"Well, sir," replies Mr. George, rising erect and looking immense,
"I would rather, if you'll excuse me, have nothing to do with
this."
Mr. Tulkinghorn, outwardly quite undisturbed, demands, "Why not?"
"Why, sir," returns the trooper. "Except on military compulsion, I
am not a man of business. Among civilians I am what they call in
Scotland a ne'er-do-weel. I have no head for papers, sir. I can
stand any fire better than a fire of cross questions. I mentioned
to Mr. Smallweed, only an hour or so ago, that when I come into
things of this kind I feel as if I was being smothered. And that
is my sensation," says Mr. George, looking round upon the company,
"at the present moment."
With that, he takes three strides forward to replace the papers on
the lawyer's table and three strides backward to resume his former
station, where he stands perfectly upright, now looking at the
ground and now at the painted ceillhg, with his hands behind him as
if to prevent himself from accepting any other document whatever.
Under this provocation, Mr. Smallweed's favourite adjective of
disparagement is so close to his tongue that he begins the words
"my dear friend" with the monosyllable "brim," thus converting the
possessive pronoun into brimmy and appearing to have an impediment
in his speech. Once past this difficulty, however, he exhorts his
dear friend in the tenderest manner not to be rash, but to do what
so eminent a gentleman requires, and to do it with a good grace,
confident that it must be unobjectionable as well as profitable.
Mr. Tulkinghorn merely utters an occasional sentence, as, "You are
the best judge of your own interest, sergeant." "Take care you do
no harm by this." "Please yourself, please yourself." "If you
know what you mean, that's quite enough." These he utters with an
appearance of perfect indifference as he looks over the papers on
his table and prepares to write a letter.
Mr. George looks distrustfully from the painted ceiling to the
ground, from the ground to Mr. Smallweed, from Mr. Smallweed to Mr.
Tulkinghorn, and from Mr. Tulkinghorn to the painted ceiling again,
often in his perplexity changing the leg on which he rests.
"I do assure you, sir," says Mr. George, "not to say it
offensively, that between you and Mr. Smallweed here, I really am
being smothered fifty times over. I really am, sir. I am not a
match for you gentlemen. Will you allow me to ask why you want to
see the captain's hand, in the case that I could find any specimen
of it?"
Mr. Tulkinghorn quietly shakes his head. "No. If you were a man
of business, sergeant, you would not need to be informed that there
are confidential reasons, very harmless in themselves, for many
such wants in the profession to which I belong. But if you are
afraid of doing any injury to Captain Hawdon, you may set your mind
at rest about that."
"Aye! He is dead, sir."
"IS he?" Mr. Tulkinghorn quietly sits down to write.
"Well, sir," says the trooper, looking into his hat after another
disconcerted pause, "I am sorry not to have given you more
satisfaction. If it would be any satisfaction to any one that I
should be confirmed in my judgment that I would rather have nothing
to do with this by a friend of mine who has a better head for
business than I have, and who is an old soldier, I am willing to
consult with him. I--I really am so completely smothered myself at
present," says Mr. George, passing his hand hopelessly across his
brow, "that I don't know but what it might be a satisfaction to
me."
Mr. Smallweed, hearing that this authority is an old soldier, so
strongly inculcates the expediency of the trooper's taking counsel
with him, and particularly informing him of its being a question of
five guineas or more, that Mr. George engages to go and see him.
Mr. Tulkinghorn says nothing either way.
"I'll consult my friend, then, by your leave, sir," says the
trooper, "and I'll take the liberty of looking in again with the
final answer in the course of the day. Mr. Smallweed, if you wish
to be carried downstairs--"
"In a moment, my dear friend, in a moment. Will you first let me
speak half a word with this gentleman in private?"
"Certainly, sir. Don't hurry yourself on my account." The trooper
retires to a distant part of the room and resumes his curious
inspection of the boxes, strong and otherwise.
"If I wasn't as weak as a brimstone baby, sir," whispers
Grandfather Smallweed, drawing the lawyer down to his level by the
lapel of his coat and flashing some half-quenched green fire out of
his angry eyes, "I'd tear the writing away from him. He's got it
buttoned in his breast. I saw him put it there. Judy saw him put
it there. Speak up, you crabbed image for the sign of a walking-
stick shop, and say you saw him put it there!"
This vehement conjuration the old gentleman accompanies with such a
thrust at his granddaughter that it is too much for his strength,
and he slips away out of his chair, drawing Mr. Tulkinghorn with
him, until he is arrested by Judy, and well shaken.
"Violence will not do for me, my friend," Mr. Tulkinghorn then
remarks coolly.
"No, no, I know, I know, sir. But it's chafing and galling--it's--
it's worse than your smattering chattering magpie of a grandmother,"
to the imperturbable Judy, who only looks at the fire, "to know he
has got what's wanted and won't give it up. He, not to give it up!
HE! A vagabond! But never mind, sir, never mind. At the most, he
has only his own way for a little while. I have him periodically
in a vice. I'll twist him, sir. I'll screw him, sir. If he won't
do it with a good grace, I'll make him do it with a bad one, sir!
Now, my dear Mr. George," says Grandfather Smallweed, winking at
the lawyer hideously as he releases him, "I am ready for your kind
assistance, my excellent friend!"
Mr. Tulkinghorn, with some shadowy sign of amusement manifesting
itself through his self-possession, stands on the hearth-rug with
his back to the fire, watching the disappearance of Mr. Smallweed
and acknowledging the trooper's parting salute with one slight nod.
It is more difficult to get rid of the old gentleman, Mr. George
finds, than to bear a hand in carrying him downstairs, for when he
is replaced in his conveyance, he is so loquacious on the subject
of the guineas and retains such an affectionate hold of his button
--having, in truth, a secret longing to rip his coat open and rob
him--that some degree of force is necessary on the trooper's part
to effect a separation. It is accomplished at last, and he
proceeds alone in quest of his adviser.
By the cloisterly Temple, and by Whitefriars (there, not without a
glance at Hanging-Sword Alley, which would seem to be something in
his way), and by Blackfriars Bridge, and Blackfriars Road, Mr.
George sedately marches to a street of little shops lying somewhere
in that ganglion of roads from Kent and Surrey, and of streets from
the bridges of London, centring in the far-famed elephant who has
lost his castle formed of a thousand four-horse coaches to a
stronger iron monster than he, ready to chop him into mince-meat
any day he dares. To one of the little shops in this street, which
is a musician's shop, having a few fiddles in the window, and some
Pan's pipes and a tambourine, and a triangle, and certain elongated
scraps of music, Mr. George directs his massive tread. And halting
at a few paces from it, as he sees a soldierly looking woman, with
her outer skirts tucked up, come forth with a small wooden tub, and
in that tub commence a-whisking and a-splashing on the margin of
the pavement, Mr. George says to himself, "She's as usual, washing
greens. I never saw her, except upon a baggage-waggon, when she
wasn't washing greens!"
The subject of this reflection is at all events so occupied in
washing greens at present that she remains unsuspicious of Mr.
George's approach until, lifting up herself and her tub together
when she has poured the water off into the gutter, she finds him
standing near her. Her reception of him is not flattering.
"George, I never see you but I wish you was a hundred mile away!"
The trooper, without remarking on this welcome, follows into the
musical-instrument shop, where the lady places her tub of greens
upon the counter, and having shaken hands with him, rests her arms
upon it.
"I never," she says, "George, consider Matthew Bagnet safe a minute
when you're near him. You are that resfless and that roving--"
"Yes! I know I am, Mrs. Bagnet. I know I am."
"You know you are!" says Mrs. Bagnet. "What's the use of that?
WHY are you?"
"The nature of the animal, I suppose," returns the trooper good-
humouredly.
"Ah!" cries Mrs. Bagnet, something shrilly. "But what satisfaction
will the nature of the animal be to me when the animal shall have
tempted my Mat away from the musical business to New Zealand or
Australey?"
Mrs. Bagnet is not at all an ill-looking woman. Rather large-
boned, a little coarse in the grain, and freckled by the sun and
wind which have tanned her hair upon the forehead, but healthy,
wholesome, and bright-eyed. A strong, busy, active, honest-faced
woman of from forty-five to fifty. Clean, hardy, and so
economically dressed (though substantially) that the only article
of ornament of which she stands possessed appear's to be her
wedding-ring, around which her finger has grown to be so large
since it was put on that it will never come off again until it
shall mingle with Mrs. Bagnet's dust.
"Mrs. Bagnet," says the trooper, "I am on my parole with you. Mat
will get no harm from me. You may trust me so far."
"Well, I think I may. But the very looks of you are unsettling,"
Mrs. Bagnet rejoins. "Ah, George, George! If you had only settled
down and married Joe Pouch's widow when he died in North America,
SHE'D have combed your hair for you."
"It was a chance for me, certainly," returns the trooper half
laughingly, half seriously, "but I shall never settle down into a
respectable man now. Joe Pouch's widow might have done me good--
there was something in her, and something of her--but I couldn't
make up my mind to it. If I had had the luck to meet with such a
wife as Mat found!"
Mrs. Bagnet, who seems in a virtuous way to be under little reserve
with a good sort of fellow, but to be another good sort of fellow
herself for that matter, receives this compliment by flicking Mr.
George in the face with a head of greens and taking her tub into
the little room behind the shop.
"Why, Quebec, my poppet," says George, following, on invitation,
into that department. "And little Malta, too! Come and kiss your
Bluffy!"
These young ladies--not supposed to have been actually christened
by the names applied to them, though always so called in the family
from the places of their birth in barracks--are respectively
employed on three-legged stools, the younger (some five or six
years old) in learning her letters out of a penny primer, the elder
(eight or nine perhaps) in teaching her and sewing with great
assiduity. Both hail Mr. George with acclamations as an old friend
and after some kissing and romping plant their stools beside him.
"And how's young Woolwich?" says Mr. George.
"Ah! There now!" cries Mrs. Bagnet, turning about from her
saucepans (for she is cooking dinner) with a bright flush on her
face. "Would you believe it? Got an engagement at the theayter,
with his father, to play the fife in a military piece."
"Well done, my godson!" cries Mr. George, slapping his thigh.
"I believe you!" says Mrs. Bagnet. "He's a Briton. That's what
Woolwich is. A Briton!"
"And Mat blows away at his bassoon, and you're respectable
civilians one and all," says Mr. George. "Family people. Children
growing up. Mat's old mother in Scotland, and your old father
somewhere else, corresponded with, and helped a little, and--well,
well! To be sure, I don't know why I shouldn't be wished a hundred
mile away, for I have not much to do with all this!"
Mr. George is becoming thoughtful, sitting before the fire in the
whitewashed room, which has a sanded floor and a barrack smell and
contains nothing superfluous and has not a visible speck of dirt or
dust in it, from the faces of Quebec and Malta to the bright tin
pots and pannikins upon the dresser shelves--Mr. George is becoming
thoughtful, sitting here while Mrs. Bagnet is busy, when Mr. Bagnet
and young Woolwich opportunely come home. Mr. Bagnet is an ex-
artilleryman, tall and upright, with shaggy eyebrows and whiskers
like the fibres of a coco-nut, not a hair upon his head, and a
torrid complexion. His voice, short, deep, and resonant, is not at
all unlike the tones of the instrument to which he is devoted.
Indeed there may be generally observed in him an unbending,
unyielding, brass-bound air, as if he were himself the bassoon of
the human orchestra. Young Woolwich is the type and model of a
young drummer.
Both father and son salute the trooper heartily. He saying, in due
season, that he has come to advise with Mr. Bagnet, Mr. Bagnet
hospitably declares that he will hear of no business until after
dinner and that his friend shall not partake of his counsel without
first partaking of boiled pork and greens. The trooper yielding to
this invitation, he and Mr. Bagnet, not to embarrass the domestic
preparations, go forth to take a turn up and down the little
street, which they promenade with measured tread and folded arms,
as if it were a rampart.
"George," says Mr. Bagnet. "You know me. It's my old girl that
advises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her.
Discipline must be maintained. Wait till the greens is off her
mind. Then we'll consult. Whatever the old girl says, do--do it!"
"I intend to, Mat," replies the other. "I would sooner take her
opinion than that of a college."
"College," returns Mr. Bagnet in short sentences, bassoon-like.
"What college could you leave--in another quarter of the world--
with nothing but a grey cloak and an umbrella--to make its way home
to Europe? The old girl would do it to-morrow. Did it once!"
"You are right," says Mr. George.
"What college," pursues Bagnet, "could you set up in life--with two
penn'orth of white lime--a penn'orth of fuller's earth--a ha'porth
of sand--and the rest of the change out of sixpence in money?
That's what the old girl started on. In the present business."
"I am rejoiced to hear it's thriving, Mat."
"The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, acquiescing, "saves. Has a
stocking somewhere. With money in it. I never saw it. But I know
she's got it. Wait till the greens is off her mind. Then she'll
set you up."
"She is a treasure!" exclaims Mr. George.
"She's more. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be
maintained. It was the old girl that brought out my musical
abilities. I should have been in the artillery now but for the old
girl. Six years I hammered at the fiddle. Ten at the flute. The
old girl said it wouldn't do; intention good, but want of
flexibility; try the bassoon. The old girl borrowed a bassoon from
the bandmaster of the Rifle Regiment. I practised in the trenches.
Got on, got another, get a living by it!"
George remarks that she looks as fresh as a rose and as sound as an
apple.
"The old girl," says Mr. Bagnet in reply, "is a thoroughly fine
woman. Consequently she is like a thoroughly fine day. Gets finer
as she gets on. I never saw the old girl's equal. But I never own
to it before her. Discipline must be maintained!"
Proceeding to converse on indifferent matters, they walk up and
down the little street, keeping step and time, until summoned by
Quebec and Malta to do justice to the pork and greens, over which
Mrs. Bagnet, like a military chaplain, says a short grace. In the
distribution of these comestibles, as in every other household
duty, Mrs. Bagnet developes an exact system, sitting with every
dish before her, allotting to every portion of pork its own portion
of pot-liquor, greens, potatoes, and even mustard, and serving it
out complete. Having likewise served out the beer from a can and
thus supplied the mess with all things necessary, Mrs. Bagnet
proceeds to satisfy her own hunger, which is in a healthy state.
The kit of the mess, if the table furniture may be so denominated,
is chiefly composed of utensils of horn and tin that have done duty
in several parts of the world. Young Woolwich's knife, in
particular, which is of the oyster kind, with the additional
feature of a strong shutting-up movement which frequently balks the
appetite of that young musician, is mentioned as having gone in
various hands the complete round of foreign service.
The dinner done, Mrs. Bagnet, assisted by the younger branches (who
polish their own cups and platters, knives and forks), makes all
the dinner garniture shine as brightly as before and puts it all
away, first sweeping the hearth, to the end that Mr. Bagnet and the
visitor may not be retarded in the smoking of their pipes. These
household cares involve much pattening and counter-pattening in the
backyard and considerable use of a pail, which is finally so happy
as to assist in the ablutions of Mrs. Bagnet herself. That old
girl reappearing by and by, quite fresh, and sitting down to her
needlework, then and only then--the greens being only then to be
considered as entirely off her mind--Mr. Bagnet requests the
trooper to state his case.
This Mr. George does with great discretion, appearing to address
himself to Mr. Bagnet, but having an eye solely on the old girl all
the time, as Bagnet has himself. She, equally discreet, busies
herself with her needlework. The case fully stated, Mr. Bagnet
resorts to his standard artifice for the maintenance of discipline.
"That's the whole of it, is it, George?" says he.
"That's the whole of it."
"You act according to my opinion?"
"I shall be guided," replies George, "entirely by it."
"Old girl," says Mr. Bagnet, "give him my opinion. You know it.
Tell him what it is."
It is that he cannot have too little to do with people who are too
deep for him and cannot be too careful of interference with matters
he does not understand--that the plain rule is to do nothing in the
dark, to be a party to nothing underhanded or mysterious, and never
to put his foot where he cannot see the ground. This, in effect,
is Mr. Bagnet's opinion, as delivered through the old girl, and it
so relieves Mr. George's mind by confirming his own opinion and
banishing his doubts that he composes himself to smoke another pipe
on that exceptional occasion and to have a talk over old times with
the whole Bagnet family, according to their various ranges of
experience.
Through these means it comes to pass that Mr. George does not again
rise to his full height in that parlour until the time is drawing
on when the bassoon and fife are expected by a British public at
the theatre; and as it takes time even then for Mr. George, in his
domestic character of Bluffy, to take leave of Quebec and Malta and
insinuate a sponsorial shilling into the pocket of his godson with
felicitations on his success in life, it is dark when Mr. George
again turns his face towards Lincoln's Inn Fields.
"A family home," he ruminates as he marches along, "however small
it is, makes a man like me look lonely. But it's well I never made
that evolution of matrimony. I shouldn't have been fit for it. I
am such a vagabond still, even at my present time of life, that I
couldn't hold to the gallery a month together if it was a regular
pursuit or if I didn't camp there, gipsy fashion. Come! I
disgrace nobody and cumber nobody; that's something. I have not
done that for many a long year!"
So he whistles it off and marches on.
Arrived in Lincoln's Inn Fields and mounting Mr. Tulkinghorn's
stair, he finds the outer door closed and the chambers shut, but
the trooper not knowing much about outer doors, and the staircase
being dark besides, he is yet fumbling and groping about, hoping to
discover a bell-handle or to open the door for himself, when Mr.
Tulkinghorn comes up the stairs (quietly, of course) and angrily
asks, "Who is that? What are you doing there?"
"I ask your pardon, sir. It's George. The sergeant."
"And couldn't George, the sergeant, see that my door was locked?"
"Why, no, sir, I couldn't. At any rate, I didn't," says the
trooper, rather nettled.
"Have you changed your mind? Or are you in the same mind?" Mr.
Tulkinghorn demands. But he knows well enough at a glance.
"In the same mind, sir."
"I thought so. That's sufficient. You can go. So you are the
man," says Mr. Tulkinghorn, opening his door with the key, "in
whose hiding-place Mr. Gridley was found?"
"Yes, I AM the man," says the trooper, stopping two or three stairs
down. "What then, sir?"
"What then? I don't like your associates. You should not have
seen the inside of my door this morning if I had thought of your
being that man. Gridley? A threatening, murderous, dangerous
fellow."
With these words, spoken in an unusually high tone for him, the
lawyer goes into his rooms and shuts the door with a thundering
noise.
Mr. George takes his dismissal in great dudgeon, the greater
because a clerk coming up the stairs has heard the last words of
all and evidently applies them to him. "A pretty character to
bear," the trooper growls with a hasty oath as he strides
downstairs. "A threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow!" And
looking up, he sees the clerk looking down at him and marking him
as he passes a lamp. This so intensifies his dudgeon that for five
minutes he is in an ill humour. But he whistles that off like the
rest of it and marches home to the shooting gallery.
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