Bleak House: Chapter 19 Summary & Analysis

It is the summer and Chancery is on its annual vacation, which lasts several months and, during which, the lawyers go abroad. The cases are suspended, and the clients can make no progress with their suits. The clerks are bored and have no work. Miraculously, the country carries on while its legal system grinds temporarily to a halt. Chancery Lane boils in the heat and fills up with stray dogs looking for shade. Krook sits outside of his shop and teaches himself to read on the pavement.

In Mr. Snagsby’s house, they prepare to have guests. Mr. Chadband, a minister, and his wife, Mrs. Chadband, are friends of Mrs. Snagsby, who is a staunchly religious woman. Guster lays out tea in the drawing room—for Mr. Chadband eats a great deal—and Mr. and Mrs. Snagsby await their guests’ arrival.

The guests arrive slightly late, much to the dismay of Mr. Snagsby, who is hungry. Mr. Chadband is a large but simpering man with very oily hair and skin. He makes a long speech as he enters, blessing the Snagsbys’ house. Once inside, he launches into his sermon but is interrupted by Guster, who tells them that the cabman who drove the Chadbands to the Snagsbys’ needs to be paid. Mr. Chadband allows Mrs. Chadband to pay and makes a great show of his generosity.

The party begins to eat—after Mr. Chadband has made a long, pious speech about the food—and Mr. Chadband demolishes the platter set before him. Guster enters the room once more, drops a plate on Mr. Chadband’s head by accident, and stammeringly tells Mr. Snagsby that he is needed in the shop. Mr. Snagsby finds Jo in the shop, in tears because he has been asked to “move on” by a policeman, who is with him.

Jo insists desperately that he has nowhere to “move on” to, and the policeman says that this is not his business. He asks Mr. Snagsby if he knows the boy and Mrs. Snagsby, who has been listening on the stairs, screams that he does not. She rushes downstairs and into the room and Mr. and Mrs. Chadband also join them. The policeman says that, when he arrested Jo, the boy said that he knew Mr. Snagsby and a young man who was in the vicinity confirmed this.

The young man, Mr. Guppy, arrives at this moment and joins the conversation. He greets Mr. Snagsby and tells him that he thought he’d better intervene on Jo’s behalf. The policeman knows that Jo lives in Tom-all-Alone’s—a notoriously criminal area—and wants to know where Jo got the money he has. Jo, who is very upset, tells them that a mysterious lady gave him the money to show her the burial ground where Nemo was interred.

The constable is skeptical about Jo’s story but leaves him with Mr. Snagsby. Jo’s story has piqued Mr. Guppy’s interest, and he wishes to interrogate the boy. Mrs. Snagsby invites Mr. Guppy upstairs, and Mr. Guppy politely agrees and takes Jo up with him. Mr. Guppy is introduced to the Chadbands. When she hears that Mr. Guppy works for Kenge and Carboy’s, Mrs. Chadband tells him that, before her marriage, she was the maid of a young child, named Esther Summerson, who was sent by Kenge and Carboy’s.

Mr. Guppy announces that he, too, knows Esther and begins to ingratiate himself to Mrs. Chadband. Mr. Chadband then begins to soliloquize on the spiritual nature of Jo, who is very confused by the whole thing, and lectures Jo about his amazing potential. Jo understands nothing of this speech and listens miserably. Mr. Chadband concludes this speech by telling Jo that he can leave, but that he must return the next day for instruction. Jo shuffles off and Mr. Snagsby slips him some scraps from the table as he goes.