Colambre had undertaken to pay him and it a visit, and to make all
proper inquiries. Accordingly, he went to the coachmaker's, and,
obtaining no satisfaction from the underlings, desired to see the head
of the house. He was answered, that Mr. Mordicai was not at home. His
lordship had never seen Mr. Mordicai; but, just then, he saw, walking
across the yard, a man, who looked something like a Bond Street coxcomb,
but not the least like a gentleman, who called, in the tone of a master,
for 'Mr. Mordicai's barouche!' It appeared; and he was stepping into it
when Lord Colambre took the liberty of stopping him; and, pointing to
the wreck of Mr. Berryl's curricle, now standing in the yard, began a
statement of his friend's grievances, and an appeal to common justice
and conscience, which he, unknowing the nature of the man with whom he
had to deal, imagined must be irresistible. Mr. Mordicai stood without
moving a muscle of his dark wooden face. Indeed, in his face there
appeared to be no muscles, or none which could move; so that, though
he had what are generally called handsome features, there was, all
together, something unnatural and shocking in his countenance. When, at
last, his eyes turned, and his lips opened, this seemed to be done by
machinery, and not by the will of a living creature, or from the impulse
of a rational soul. Lord Colambre was so much struck with this strange
physiognomy, that he actually forgot much he had to say of springs and
wheels. But it was no matter. Whatever he had said, it would have come
to the same thing; and Mordicai would have answered as he now did--

'Sir, it was my partner made that bargain, not myself; and I don't
hold myself bound by it, for he is the sleeping-partner only, and not
empowered to act in the way of business. Had Mr. Berryl bargained with
me, I should have told him that he should have looked to these things
before his carriage went out of our yard.'