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the truth with the quiet constancy of a martyr.

'In the name of all that's calculated to drive one crazy, man,' said

the unfortunate single gentleman, 'have you not, for some reason of

your own, taken upon yourself my errand? don't you know with what

object I have come here, and if you do know, can you throw no light

upon it?'

'You think I'm a conjuror, sir,' replied Quilp, shrugging up his

shoulders. 'If I was, I should tell my own fortune--and make it.'

'Ah! we have said all we need say, I see,' returned the other, throwing

himself impatiently upon a sofa. 'Pray leave us, if you please.'

'Willingly,' returned Quilp. 'Most willingly. Christopher's mother,

my good soul, farewell. A pleasant journey--back, sir. Ahem!'

With these parting words, and with a grin upon his features altogether

indescribable, but which seemed to be compounded of every monstrous

grimace of which men or monkeys are capable, the dwarf slowly retreated

and closed the door behind him.

'Oho!' he said when he had regained his own room, and sat himself down

in a chair with his arms akimbo. 'Oho! Are you there, my friend?

In-deed!'

Chuckling as though in very great glee, and recompensing himself for

the restraint he had lately put upon his countenance by twisting it

into all imaginable varieties of ugliness, Mr Quilp, rocking himself to

and fro in his chair and nursing his left leg at the same time, fell

into certain meditations, of which it may be necessary to relate the

substance.

First, he reviewed the circumstances which had led to his repairing to

that spot, which were briefly these. Dropping in at Mr Sampson Brass's

office on the previous evening, in the absence of that gentleman and

his learned sister, he had lighted upon Mr Swiveller, who chanced at

the moment to be sprinkling a glass of warm gin and water on the dust

of the law, and to be moistening his clay, as the phrase goes, rather

copiously. But as clay in the abstract, when too much moistened,

becomes of a weak and uncertain consistency, breaking down in

unexpected places, retaining impressions but faintly, and preserving no

strength or steadiness of character, so Mr Swiveller's clay, having

imbibed a considerable quantity of moisture, was in a very loose and

slippery state, insomuch that the various ideas impressed upon it were

fast losing their distinctive character, and running into each other.

It is not uncommon for human clay in this condition to value itself

above all things upon its great prudence and sagacity; and Mr

Swiveller, especially prizing himself upon these qualities, took

occasion to remark that he had made strange discoveries in connection

with the single gentleman who lodged above, which he had determined to

keep within his own bosom, and which neither tortures nor cajolery

should ever induce him to reveal. Of this determination Mr Quilp

expressed his high approval, and setting himself in the same breath to

goad Mr Swiveller on to further hints, soon made out that the single

gentleman had been seen in communication with Kit, and that this was

the secret which was never to be disclosed.

Possessed of this piece of information, Mr Quilp directly supposed that

the single gentleman above stairs must be the same individual who had

waited on him, and having assured himself by further inquiries that

this surmise was correct, had no difficulty in arriving at the

conclusion that the intent and object of his correspondence with Kit

was the recovery of his old client and the child. Burning with

curiosity to know what proceedings were afoot, he resolved to pounce

upon Kit's mother as the person least able to resist his arts, and

consequently the most likely to be entrapped into such revelations as

he sought; so taking an abrupt leave of Mr Swiveller, he hurried to her

house. The good woman being from home, he made inquiries of a

neighbour, as Kit himself did soon afterwards, and being directed to

the chapel be took himself there, in order to waylay her, at the

conclusion of the service.

He had not sat in the chapel more than a quarter of an hour, and with

his eyes piously fixed upon the ceiling was chuckling inwardly over the

joke of his being there at all, when Kit himself appeared. Watchful as

a lynx, one glance showed the dwarf that he had come on business.

Absorbed in appearance, as we have seen, and feigning a profound

abstraction, he noted every circumstance of his behaviour, and when he

withdrew with his family, shot out after him. In fine, he traced them

to the notary's house; learnt the destination of the carriage from one

of the postilions; and knowing that a fast night-coach started for the

same place, at the very hour which was on the point of striking, from a

street hard by, darted round to the coach-office without more ado, and

took his seat upon the roof. After passing and repassing the carriage

on the road, and being passed and repassed by it sundry times in the

course of the night, according as their stoppages were longer or

shorter; or their rate of travelling varied, they reached the town

almost together. Quilp kept the chaise in sight, mingled with the

crowd, learnt the single gentleman's errand, and its failure, and

having possessed himself of all that it was material to know, hurried

off, reached the inn before him, had the interview just now detailed,

and shut himself up in the little room in which he hastily reviewed all

these occurrences.

'You are there, are you, my friend?' he repeated, greedily biting his

nails. 'I am suspected and thrown aside, and Kit's the confidential

agent, is he? I shall have to dispose of him, I fear. If we had come

up with them this morning,' he continued, after a thoughtful pause, 'I

was ready to prove a pretty good claim. I could have made my profit.

But for these canting hypocrites, the lad and his mother, I could get

this fiery gentleman as comfortably into my net as our old friend--our

mutual friend, ha! ha!--and chubby, rosy Nell. At the worst, it's a

golden opportunity, not to be lost. Let us find them first, and I'll

find means of draining you of some of your superfluous cash, sir, while

there are prison bars, and bolts, and locks, to keep your friend or

kinsman safely. I hate your virtuous people!' said the dwarf, throwing

off a bumper of brandy, and smacking his lips, 'ah! I hate 'em every

one!'

This was not a mere empty vaunt, but a deliberate avowal of his real

sentiments; for Mr Quilp, who loved nobody, had by little and little

come to hate everybody nearly or remotely connected with his ruined

client:--the old man himself, because he had been able to deceive him

and elude his vigilance--the child, because she was the object of Mrs

Quilp's commiseration and constant self-reproach--the single gentleman,

because of his unconcealed aversion to himself--Kit and his mother,

most mortally, for the reasons shown. Above and beyond that general

feeling of opposition to them, which would have been inseparable from

his ravenous desire to enrich himself by these altered circumstances,

Daniel Quilp hated them every one.

In this amiable mood, Mr Quilp enlivened himself and his hatreds with

more brandy, and then, changing his quarters, withdrew to an obscure

alehouse, under cover of which seclusion he instituted all possible

inquiries that might lead to the discovery of the old man and his

grandchild. But all was in vain. Not the slightest trace or clue

could be obtained. They had left the town by night; no one had seen

them go; no one had met them on the road; the driver of no coach, cart,

or waggon, had seen any travellers answering their description; nobody

had fallen in with them, or heard of them. Convinced at last that for

the present all such attempts were hopeless, he appointed two or three

scouts, with promises of large rewards in case of their forwarding him

any intelligence, and returned to London by next day's coach.

It was some gratification to Mr Quilp to find, as he took his place

upon the roof, that Kit's mother was alone inside; from which

circumstance he derived in the course of the journey much cheerfulness

of spirit, inasmuch as her solitary condition enabled him to terrify

her with many extraordinary annoyances; such as hanging over the side

of the coach at the risk of his life, and staring in with his great

goggle eyes, which seemed in hers the more horrible from his face being

upside down; dodging her in this way from one window to another;

getting nimbly down whenever they changed horses and thrusting his head

in at the window with a dismal squint: which ingenious tortures had

such an effect upon Mrs Nubbles, that she was quite unable for the time

to resist the belief that Mr Quilp did in his own person represent and

embody that Evil Power, who was so vigorously attacked at Little

Bethel, and who, by reason of her backslidings in respect of Astley's

and oysters, was now frolicsome and rampant.

Kit, having been apprised by letter of his mother's intended return,

was waiting for her at the coach-office; and great was his surprise

when he saw, leering over the coachman's shoulder like some familiar

demon, invisible to all eyes but his, the well-known face of Quilp.

'How are you, Christopher?' croaked the dwarf from the coach-top. 'All

right, Christopher. Mother's inside.'

'Why, how did he come here, mother?' whispered Kit.

'I don't know how he came or why, my dear,' rejoined Mrs Nubbles,

dismounting with her son's assistance, 'but he has been a terrifying of

me out of my seven senses all this blessed day.'

'He has?' cried Kit.

'You wouldn't believe it, that you wouldn't,' replied his mother, 'but

don't say a word to him, for I really don't believe he's human. Hush!

Don't turn round as if I was talking of him, but he's a squinting at me

now in the full blaze of the coach-lamp, quite awful!'

In spite of his mother's injunction, Kit turned sharply round to look.

Mr Quilp was serenely gazing at the stars, quite absorbed in celestial

contemplation.

'Oh, he's the artfullest creetur!' cried Mrs Nubbles. 'But come away.

Don't speak to him for the world.'

'Yes I will, mother. What nonsense. I say, sir--'

Mr Quilp affected to start, and looked smilingly round.

'You let my mother alone, will you?' said Kit. 'How dare you tease a

poor lone woman like her, making her miserable and melancholy as if she

hadn't got enough to make her so, without you. An't you ashamed of

yourself, you little monster?'

'Monster!' said Quilp inwardly, with a smile. 'Ugliest dwarf that

could be seen anywhere for a penny--monster--ah!'

'You show her any of your impudence again,' resumed Kit, shouldering

the bandbox, 'and I tell you what, Mr Quilp, I won't bear with you any

more. You have no right to do it; I'm sure we never interfered with

you. This isn't the first time; and if ever you worry or frighten her

again, you'll oblige me (though I should be very sorry to do it, on

account of your size) to beat you.'

Quilp said not a word in reply, but walking so close to Kit as to bring

his eyes within two or three inches of his face, looked fixedly at him,

retreated a little distance without averting his gaze, approached

again, again withdrew, and so on for half-a-dozen times, like a head in

a phantasmagoria. Kit stood his ground as if in expectation of an

immediate assault, but finding that nothing came of these gestures,

snapped his fingers and walked away; his mother dragging him off as

fast as she could, and, even in the midst of his news of little Jacob

and the baby, looking anxiously over her shoulder to see if Quilp were

following.

CHAPTER 49

Kit's mother might have spared herself the trouble of looking back so

often, for nothing was further from Mr Quilp's thoughts than any

intention of pursuing her and her son, or renewing the quarrel with

which they had parted. He went his way, whistling from time to time

some fragments of a tune; and with a face quite tranquil and composed,

jogged pleasantly towards home; entertaining himself as he went with

visions of the fears and terrors of Mrs Quilp, who, having received no

intelligence of him for three whole days and two nights, and having had

no previous notice of his absence, was doubtless by that time in a

state of distraction, and constantly fainting away with anxiety and

grief.

This facetious probability was so congenial to the dwarf's humour, and

so exquisitely amusing to him, that he laughed as he went along until

the tears ran down his cheeks; and more than once, when he found

himself in a bye-street, vented his delight in a shrill scream, which

greatly terrifying any lonely passenger, who happened to be walking on

before him expecting nothing so little, increased his mirth, and made

him remarkably cheerful and light-hearted.

In this happy flow of spirits, Mr Quilp reached Tower Hill, when,

gazing up at the window of his own sitting-room, he thought he descried

more light than is usual in a house of mourning. Drawing nearer, and

listening attentively, he could hear several voices in earnest

conversation, among which he could distinguish, not only those of his

wife and mother-in-law, but the tongues of men.

'Ha!' cried the jealous dwarf, 'What's this! Do they entertain

visitors while I'm away!'

A smothered cough from above, was the reply. He felt in his pockets

for his latch-key, but had forgotten it. There was no resource but to

knock at the door.

'A light in the passage,' said Quilp, peeping through the keyhole. 'A

very soft knock; and, by your leave, my lady, I may yet steal upon you

unawares. Soho!'