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appetite, but he sat down on the ground, and ate as hard as he could,

while, at every morsel he put into his mouth, his mother sobbed and

wept afresh, though with a softened grief that bespoke the satisfaction

the sight afforded her.

While he was thus engaged, Kit made some anxious inquiries about his

employers, and whether they had expressed any opinion concerning him;

but all he could learn was that Mr Abel had himself broken the

intelligence to his mother, with great kindness and delicacy, late on

the previous night, but had himself expressed no opinion of his

innocence or guilt. Kit was on the point of mustering courage to ask

Barbara's mother about Barbara, when the turnkey who had conducted him,

reappeared, a second turnkey appeared behind his visitors, and the

third turnkey with the newspaper cried 'Time's up!'--adding in the same

breath 'Now for the next party!' and then plunging deep into his

newspaper again. Kit was taken off in an instant, with a blessing from

his mother, and a scream from little Jacob, ringing in his ears. As he

was crossing the next yard with the basket in his hand, under the

guidance of his former conductor, another officer called to them to

stop, and came up with a pint pot of porter in his hand.

'This is Christopher Nubbles, isn't it, that come in last night for

felony?' said the man.

His comrade replied that this was the chicken in question.

'Then here's your beer,' said the other man to Christopher. 'What are

you looking at? There an't a discharge in it.'

'I beg your pardon,' said Kit. 'Who sent it me?'

'Why, your friend,' replied the man. 'You're to have it every day, he

says. And so you will, if he pays for it.'

'My friend!' repeated Kit.

'You're all abroad, seemingly,' returned the other man. 'There's his

letter. Take hold!'

Kit took it, and when he was locked up again, read as follows.

'Drink of this cup, you'll find there's a spell in its every drop

'gainst the ills of mortality. Talk of the cordial that sparkled for

Helen! HER cup was a fiction, but this is reality (Barclay and

Co.'s).--If they ever send it in a flat state, complain to the

Governor. Yours, R. S.'

'R. S.!' said Kit, after some consideration. 'It must be Mr Richard

Swiveller. Well, its very kind of him, and I thank him heartily.'

CHAPTER 62

A faint light, twinkling from the window of the counting-house on

Quilp's wharf, and looking inflamed and red through the night-fog, as

though it suffered from it like an eye, forewarned Mr Sampson Brass, as

he approached the wooden cabin with a cautious step, that the excellent

proprietor, his esteemed client, was inside, and probably waiting with

his accustomed patience and sweetness of temper the fulfilment of the

appointment which now brought Mr Brass within his fair domain.

'A treacherous place to pick one's steps in, of a dark night,' muttered

Sampson, as he stumbled for the twentieth time over some stray lumber,

and limped in pain. 'I believe that boy strews the ground differently

every day, on purpose to bruise and maim one; unless his master does it

with his own hands, which is more than likely. I hate to come to this

place without Sally. She's more protection than a dozen men.'

As he paid this compliment to the merit of the absent charmer, Mr Brass

came to a halt; looking doubtfully towards the light, and over his

shoulder.

'What's he about, I wonder?' murmured the lawyer, standing on tiptoe,

and endeavouring to obtain a glimpse of what was passing inside, which

at that distance was impossible--'drinking, I suppose,--making himself

more fiery and furious, and heating his malice and mischievousness till

they boil. I'm always afraid to come here by myself, when his

account's a pretty large one. I don't believe he'd mind throttling me,

and dropping me softly into the river when the tide was at its

strongest, any more than he'd mind killing a rat--indeed I don't know

whether he wouldn't consider it a pleasant joke. Hark! Now he's

singing!'

Mr Quilp was certainly entertaining himself with vocal exercise, but it

was rather a kind of chant than a song; being a monotonous repetition

of one sentence in a very rapid manner, with a long stress upon the

last word, which he swelled into a dismal roar. Nor did the burden of

this performance bear any reference to love, or war, or wine, or

loyalty, or any other, the standard topics of song, but to a subject

not often set to music or generally known in ballads; the words being

these:--'The worthy magistrate, after remarking that the prisoner would

find some difficulty in persuading a jury to believe his tale,

committed him to take his trial at the approaching sessions; and

directed the customary recognisances to be entered into for the

pros-e-cu-tion.'

Every time he came to this concluding word, and had exhausted all

possible stress upon it, Quilp burst into a shriek of laughter, and

began again.

'He's dreadfully imprudent,' muttered Brass, after he had listened to

two or three repetitions of the chant. 'Horribly imprudent. I wish he

was dumb. I wish he was deaf. I wish he was blind. Hang him,' cried

Brass, as the chant began again. 'I wish he was dead!'

Giving utterance to these friendly aspirations in behalf of his client,

Mr Sampson composed his face into its usual state of smoothness, and

waiting until the shriek came again and was dying away, went up to the

wooden house, and knocked at the door.

'Come in!' cried the dwarf.

'How do you do to-night sir?' said Sampson, peeping in. 'Ha ha ha!

How do you do sir? Oh dear me, how very whimsical! Amazingly

whimsical to be sure!'

'Come in, you fool!' returned the dwarf, 'and don't stand there shaking

your head and showing your teeth. Come in, you false witness, you

perjurer, you suborner of evidence, come in!'

'He has the richest humour!' cried Brass, shutting the door behind him;

'the most amazing vein of comicality! But isn't it rather injudicious,

sir--?'

'What?' demanded Quilp. 'What, Judas?'

'Judas!' cried Brass. 'He has such extraordinary spirits! His humour

is so extremely playful! Judas! Oh yes--dear me, how very good! Ha

ha ha!'

All this time, Sampson was rubbing his hands, and staring, with

ludicrous surprise and dismay, at a great, goggle-eyed, blunt-nosed

figure-head of some old ship, which was reared up against the wall in a

corner near the stove, looking like a goblin or hideous idol whom the

dwarf worshipped. A mass of timber on its head, carved into the dim

and distant semblance of a cocked hat, together with a representation

of a star on the left breast and epaulettes on the shoulders, denoted

that it was intended for the effigy of some famous admiral; but,

without those helps, any observer might have supposed it the authentic

portrait of a distinguished merman, or great sea-monster. Being

originally much too large for the apartment which it was now employed

to decorate, it had been sawn short off at the waist. Even in this

state it reached from floor to ceiling; and thrusting itself forward,

with that excessively wide-awake aspect, and air of somewhat obtrusive

politeness, by which figure-heads are usually characterised, seemed to

reduce everything else to mere pigmy proportions.

'Do you know it?' said the dwarf, watching Sampson's eyes. 'Do you see

the likeness?'

'Eh?' said Brass, holding his head on one side, and throwing it a

little back, as connoisseurs do. 'Now I look at it again, I fancy I

see a--yes, there certainly is something in the smile that reminds me

of--and yet upon my word I--'

Now, the fact was, that Sampson, having never seen anything in the

smallest degree resembling this substantial phantom, was much

perplexed; being uncertain whether Mr Quilp considered it like himself,

and had therefore bought it for a family portrait; or whether he was

pleased to consider it as the likeness of some enemy. He was not very

long in doubt; for, while he was surveying it with that knowing look

which people assume when they are contemplating for the first time

portraits which they ought to recognise but don't, the dwarf threw down

the newspaper from which he had been chanting the words already quoted,

and seizing a rusty iron bar, which he used in lieu of poker, dealt the

figure such a stroke on the nose that it rocked again.

'Is it like Kit--is it his picture, his image, his very self?' cried

the dwarf, aiming a shower of blows at the insensible countenance, and

covering it with deep dimples. 'Is it the exact model and counterpart

of the dog--is it--is it--is it?' And with every repetition of the

question, he battered the great image, until the perspiration streamed

down his face with the violence of the exercise.

Although this might have been a very comical thing to look at from a

secure gallery, as a bull-fight is found to be a comfortable spectacle

by those who are not in the arena, and a house on fire is better than a

play to people who don't live near it, there was something in the

earnestness of Mr Quilp's manner which made his legal adviser feel that

the counting-house was a little too small, and a deal too lonely, for

the complete enjoyment of these humours. Therefore, he stood as far

off as he could, while the dwarf was thus engaged; whimpering out but

feeble applause; and when Quilp left off and sat down again from pure

exhaustion, approached with more obsequiousness than ever.

'Excellent indeed!' cried Brass. 'He he! Oh, very good Sir. You

know,' said Sampson, looking round as if in appeal to the bruised

animal, 'he's quite a remarkable man--quite!'

'Sit down,' said the dwarf. 'I bought the dog yesterday. I've been

screwing gimlets into him, and sticking forks in his eyes, and cutting

my name on him. I mean to burn him at last.'

'Ha ha!' cried Brass. 'Extremely entertaining, indeed!'

'Come here,' said Quilp, beckoning him to draw near. 'What's

injudicious, hey?'

'Nothing Sir--nothing. Scarcely worth mentioning Sir; but I thought

that song--admirably humorous in itself you know--was perhaps rather--'

'Yes,' said Quilp, 'rather what?'

'Just bordering, or as one may say remotely verging, upon the confines

of injudiciousness perhaps, Sir,' returned Brass, looking timidly at

the dwarf's cunning eyes, which were turned towards the fire and

reflected its red light.

'Why?' inquired Quilp, without looking up.

'Why, you know, sir,' returned Brass, venturing to be more familiar:

'--the fact is, sir, that any allusion to these little combinings

together, of friends, for objects in themselves extremely laudable, but

which the law terms conspiracies, are--you take me, sir?--best kept

snug and among friends, you know.'

'Eh!' said Quilp, looking up with a perfectly vacant countenance.

'What do you mean?'

'Cautious, exceedingly cautious, very right and proper!' cried Brass,

nodding his head. 'Mum, sir, even here--my meaning, sir, exactly.'

'YOUR meaning exactly, you brazen scarecrow,--what's your meaning?'

retorted Quilp. 'Why do you talk to me of combining together? Do I

combine? Do I know anything about your combinings?'

'No no, sir--certainly not; not by any means,' returned Brass.

'If you so wink and nod at me,' said the dwarf, looking about him as if

for his poker, 'I'll spoil the expression of your monkey's face, I

will.'

'Don't put yourself out of the way I beg, sir,' rejoined Brass,

checking himself with great alacrity. 'You're quite right, sir, quite

right. I shouldn't have mentioned the subject, sir. It's much better

not to. You're quite right, sir. Let us change it, if you please.

You were asking, sir, Sally told me, about our lodger. He has not

returned, sir.'

'No?' said Quilp, heating some rum in a little saucepan, and watching

it to prevent its boiling over. 'Why not?'

'Why, sir,' returned Brass, 'he--dear me, Mr Quilp, sir--'

'What's the matter?' said the dwarf, stopping his hand in the act of

carrying the saucepan to his mouth.

'You have forgotten the water, sir,' said Brass. 'And--excuse me,

sir--but it's burning hot.'

Deigning no other than a practical answer to this remonstrance, Mr

Quilp raised the hot saucepan to his lips, and deliberately drank off

all the spirit it contained, which might have been in quantity about

half a pint, and had been but a moment before, when he took it off the

fire, bubbling and hissing fiercely. Having swallowed this gentle

stimulant, and shaken his fist at the admiral, he bade Mr Brass proceed.

'But first,' said Quilp, with his accustomed grin, 'have a drop

yourself--a nice drop--a good, warm, fiery drop.'

'Why, sir,' replied Brass, 'if there was such a thing as a mouthful of

water that could be got without trouble--'

'There's no such thing to be had here,' cried the dwarf. 'Water for

lawyers! Melted lead and brimstone, you mean, nice hot blistering

pitch and tar--that's the thing for them--eh, Brass, eh?'

'Ha ha ha!' laughed Mr Brass. 'Oh very biting! and yet it's like being

tickled--there's a pleasure in it too, sir!'

'Drink that,' said the dwarf, who had by this time heated some more.

'Toss it off, don't leave any heeltap, scorch your throat and be happy!'