 Chapter 6 Little Nils stood timidly by, with her eyes raised to the countenance of Mr. Quill, as he read the letter, plainly showing by her looks that while she entertained some fear and distrust of the little man, she was much inclined to laugh at his uncouth appearance and grotesque attitude. And yet there was visible on the part of the child a plainful anxiety for his reply and consciousness of his power to render it disagreeable or distressing, which was strongly at variance with this impulse and restrained it more effectively than she could possibly have done by any efforts of her own. That Mr. Quill was himself perplexed and that in no small degree by the contents of the letter was sufficiently obvious. Before he had got through the first two or three lines, he began to open his eyes very wide and to frown most horribly. The next two or three caused him to scratch his head in an uncommonly vicious manner and when he came to the conclusion, he gave a long dismal whistle indicative of surprise and dismay. After folding and laying it down beside him, he bit the nails of all his ten fingers with extreme veracity and, taking it up sharply, read it again. The second perusal was to all appearance as unsatisfactory as the first and plunged him into a profound reverie from which he awakened to another assault upon his nails and a long stare at the child, who with her eyes turned towards the ground, awaited his further pleasure. Hello here! He said at length in a voice and with the suddenness which made the child start as though a gun had been fired off at her ear. Nellie? Yes, sir? Do you know what's inside this letter, Nell? No, sir. Are you sure? Quite sure. Quite certain. Upon your soul. Quite sure, sir. Do you wish you may die if you do know, hey? said the dwarf. Indeed, I don't know. Returned the child. Well, muttered Quill pesky marked her earnest look. I believe you. Hm, gone already. Gone in four and twenty hours. What the devil has he done with it? That's the mystery. This reflection set him scratching his head and biting his nails once more. While he was thus employed, his features gradually relaxed into what was with him a cheerful smile, but which in any other man would have been a ghastly grin of pain, and when the child looked up again, she found that he was regarding her with extraordinary favor and complacency. You look very pretty today, Nellie. Charmingly pretty. Are you tired, Nellie? No, sir. I'm in a hurry to get back, for he will be anxious while I am away. There is no hurry, little Nell. No hurry at all. Said Quillpe. How should you like to be my number two, Nellie? To be what, sir? My number two, Nellie. My second. My Mrs. Quillpe. Said the dwarf. The child looked frightened, but seemed not to understand him, which Mr. Quillpe observing hastened to make his meaning more distinctly. To be Mrs. Quillpe the second, when Mrs. Quillpe the first is dead, sweet Nell. Said Quillpe, wrinkling up his eyes and luring her towards him with his bent forefinger. To be my wife? My little cheery, cheeked, red-lipped wife. Say what, Mrs. Quillpe lips five year? Only four. You will be just the proper age for me. Ha-ha! Be a good girl, Nellie. A very good girl, to see if one of these days you don't come to be Mrs. Quillpe of Tower Hill. So far from being sustained and stimulated by this delightful prospect, the child shrank from him in great agitation, and trembled violently. Mr. Quillpe, either because frightening anybody afforded him a constitutional delight, or because it was pleasant to contemplate the death of Mrs. Quillpe number one, and the elevation of Mrs. Quillpe number two to her post and title, or because he was determined from purposes of his own to be agreeable and good-humoured at that particular time, only laughed and feigned to take no heed of her alarm. You shall home with me to Tower Hill, and see Mrs. Quillpe that is directly, said the dwarf. She is very fond of you, Nell, though not so fond as I am. You shall come home with me. I must go back indeed, said the child. He told me to return directly. I had the answer. But you haven't it, Nell. Retorted the dwarf, and won't have it, and can't have it, until I have been home. So you see that to do your errand you must go with me. Reach beyond the hat, my dear, and will go directly. With that, Mr. Quillpe suffered himself to roll gradually off the desk until his short legs touched the ground, when he got upon them and led the way from the counting-house to the dwarf outside, when the first objects that presented themselves were the boy who had stood on his head, and another young gentleman of about his own stature, rolling in the mud together, locked in a tight embrace, and cuffing each other with mutual heartiness. It's Kit! cried Nellie, clasping her hand. Poor Kit, who came with me! Oh, pray stop them, Mr. Quillpe! I'll stop them! cried Quillpe, diving into the little counting-house, and returning with a thick stick. I'll stop them! Now my boys, fight away! I'll fight you both! I'll take both of you! Both together! Both together! With which defiance the dwarf flourished his cudgel, and dancing round the competence and treading upon them and skipping over them, in a kind of frenzy, laid about him, now on one, and now on the other, in a most desperate manner. Always aiming at their heads and dealing such blows as none but the various little savage would have inflicted. This being warmer work than they had calculated upon, speedily cooled the courage of the belligerents who scrambled to their feet and called for quarter. I'll beat you to a pulpy dogs, said Quillpe, vainly endeavouring to get near either of them for a parting blow. I'll bruise you until you're copper-coloured, I'll break your faces till you have on the profile between you, I will. Calm, you drop that stick and it'll be worse for you, said his boy, dodging round him and watching an opportunity to rush in. You drop that stick. Calm a little nearer and I'll drop it on your skull, you dog, said Quillpe with gleaming eyes. A little nearer, nearer yet. But the boy declined the invitation until his master was apparently a little off his guard, when he darted in and seizing the weapon tried to rest it from his grasp. Quillpe, who was as strong as a lion, easily kept his hold until the boy was tagging at it with his utmost power, when he suddenly let it go and sent him reeling backwards, so that he fell violently upon his head. The success of this manoeuvre tickled Mr. Quillpe beyond description, and he laughed and stamped upon the ground as a most irresistible jest. Never mind, said the boy, noting his head and rubbing it at the same time. You see, if ever I offer to strike anybody again, because they say you're an ugly dwarf that can't be seen anywhere as for a penny, that's all. Do you mean to say I'm not your dog? returned Quillpe. No, retorted the boy. Then what do you fight on my war for, you villain? said Quillpe, because he said so, replied the boy, pointing to Kit, not because you aren't. Then why did he say, bold Kit, that Miss Nelly was ugly and that she and my master was obliged to do whatever his master liked? Why did he say that? He said what he did because he's a fool, and you said what you did because you're a very wise and clever, almost too clever to live, unless you're very careful of yourself, Kit, said Quillpe, with great gravity in his manner, but still more of quite malice about his eyes and mouth. Here's expense for you, Kit. Always speak the truth. At all times, Kit, speak the truth. Lock the counting-house, you dog, and bring me the key. The other boy, to whom this order was addressed, did as he was told, and was rewarded for his partisanship in behalf of his master by a dexterous wrap on the nose with the key, which brought the water into his eyes. Then Mr. Quillpe departed with the child and Kit in a boat, and the boy revenged himself by dancing on his scattered intervals on the extreme verge of the wharf, during the whole time they crossed the river. There was only Mrs. Quillpe at home, and she, little expecting the return of her lord, was just composing herself for a refreshing slumber when the sound of his footsteps roused her. She could barely time to seem to be occupied in some needlework when he entered, accompanied by the child, having left Kit downstairs. Here's Nelly Trent, dear Mrs. Quillpe, said her husband. A glass of wine, my dear, and a biscuit, but she has had a long walk. She'll sit with you, my soul, while I write a letter. Mrs. Quillpe looked tremblingly in her spouse's face, to know what this unusual courtesy might potent, and a bid into the summons she saw in his gesture followed him into the next room. Mind what I say to you, whispered Quillpe. See if you can get out of her anything about her grandfather, or what they do, or how they live, or what he tells her. I have my reasons for knowing if I can. You women talk more freely to one another than you do to us, and you have a soft mild way with you that'll win upon her. Do you hear? Yes, Quillpe. Go then. What's the matter now? Dear Quillpe, folded his wife, I love the child, if he could do without making me deceive her. The dwarf, muttering a terrible oath, looked around as if for some weapon with which to inflict combined punishment upon his disobedient wife. The submissive little woman hurriedly entreated him not to be angry and promised to do as he bade her. Do you hear me? whispered Quillpe, nipping and pinching her arm. Warn yourself into her secrets. I know you can. I'm listening. Recollect. If you're not sharp enough, I'll creak the door, and will be tied you if I have to creak it much. Go. Mrs. Quillpe departed according to order, and her amiable husband, ensconcing himself behind the partly open door, and applying his ear close to it, began to listen with a face of great craftiness and attention. Poor Mrs. Quillpe was thinking, however, in what manner to begin or what kind of enquiries she could make. And it was not until the door creaking in a very urgent manner warned her to proceed without further consideration. That the sound of her voice was heard. Oh, very often you have come backwards and forwards lately to Mr. Quillpe, my dear. I have said so to grandfather a hundred times, returned null innocently. And what has he said to that? All aside, and dropped his head, and seemed so sad and wretched that if you could have seen him, I am assure you must have cried. You could not have helped it more than I, I know. How that door creaks. Oh, it often does, returned Mrs. Quillpe with an uneasy glance towards it. But your grandfather used not to be so wretched. Oh, no, said the child eagerly, so different. We were once so happy, and he so cheerful and contented. You cannot think what a sad change has fallen in our sins. I am very, very sorry to hear you speak like this, my dear, said Mrs. Quillpe, and she spoke the truth. Thank you, returned the child kissing her cheek. You are always kind to me, and it is a pleasure to talk to you. I can speak to no one else about him, but poor kid. I am very happy still, I ought to feel happier perhaps than I do, but you cannot think how it grieves me sometimes to see him alter so. He'll alter again, Nellie, said Mrs. Quillpe, and be what he was before. Oh, if God would only let that come about, said the child with streaming eyes. But it is a long time now, since he first began to... I thought I saw that door moving. It's the wind, said Mrs. Quillpe faintly, began to... To be so thoughtful and dejected, and to forget our old way of spending the time in the long evenings, said the child. I used to read to him by the fireside, his head listening, and when I stopped, we began to talk, and he told me about my mother, and how she once looked and spoke just like me when she was a little child. Then he used to take me on his knee, and try to make me understand that she was not lying in her grave, but had flown to a beautiful country beyond the sky, where nothing died or ever grew old. We were very happy ones. Nearly, nearly, said the poor woman, I can't bear to see one as young as you, so sorrowful, pray, don't cry. I do so very seldom, said Nell, but I have kept this to myself a long time, and I'm not quite well, I think, for the tears come into my eyes, and I cannot keep them back. I don't mind telling you my grief, for I know you will not tell it to anyone again. Mrs. Quill turned away her head and made no answer. Then, said the child, we often walked in the fields and among the green trees. When we came home at night, we liked it better for being tired, and said what a happy place it was. And if it was dark and rather dull, we used to say what did it matter to us, for it only made us remember our last walk with greater pleasure, and look forward to our next one. But now we never have these walks, and though it is the same house, it is darker and much more gloomy than it used to be indeed. She posed here, but though the door creaked more than once, Mrs. Quill said nothing. Mind you don't suppose, said the child earnestly, that grandfather is less kind to me than he was. I think he loves me better every day, and it is kinder and more affectionate than he was the day before. You do not know how fond is he of me. I am sure he loves you dearly, said Mrs. Quill. Indeed, indeed he does, cried Nell, as dearly as I love him. But I have not told you the greatest change of all, and this you must never breathe again to anyone. He has no sleep or rest, but that which he takes by day in his easy chair, for every night and nearly all night long he is away from home. Nearly. Hush, said the child laying her finger on her lip and looking round. When he comes home in the morning, which is generally just before day, I let him in. Last night he was very late, and it was quite light. I saw that his face was deadly pale, that his eyes were bloodshot, and that his legs trembled as he walked. When I had gone to bed again, I heard him groan. I got up and ran back to him and heard him say, before he knew that I was there, that he could not bear his life much longer, and if it was not for the child, would wish to die. What shall I do? Oh, what shall I do? The fountains of her heart were opened. The child, overpowered by the weight of her sorrows and anxieties, by the first confidence she had ever shown, and the sympathy with which her little tale had been received, hit her face in the arms of her helpless friend, and burst into a passion of tears. In a few minutes Mr Quill returned, and expressed the utmost surprise to find her in this condition, which he did very naturally and with admirable effect, for that kind of acting had been rendered familiar to him by long practice, and he was quite at home in it. She stied, you see, Mrs Quillp, said the dwarf, squinting in a hideous manner to imply that his wife was to follow his lead. It's a long way from her home to the dwarf, and then she was alarmed to see a couple of young scoundrels fighting, and was timorous on the water besides. All this together has been too much for her. Poor Nell. Mr Quill, unintentionally, adopted the very best means he could have devised for the recovery of his young visitor, by patting her on the head. Such an application from any other hand might not have produced a remarkable effect, but the child shrank so quickly from his touch, and failed such an instinctive desire to get out of his reach, that she rose directly and declared herself ready to return. But you'd better wait, and dine with Mrs Quillp and me, said the dwarf. I have been away too long, sir, already. Returned now, drying her eyes. Well, said Mr Quillp, if you will go, you will, Nellie. Here is the note. It's only to say that I shall see him tomorrow, or maybe next day, and that I couldn't do that little business for him this morning. Good-bye, Nellie. Here you are, sir. Take care of her, dear! Kit, who appeared at the summons, danged to make no reply to so needless an injunction, and after staring at Quillp in a threatening manner, as if he doubted whether he might not have been the cause of Nellie shedding tears, felt more than half disposed to revenge the fact upon him on the mere suspicion. Turned about, and followed his young mistress, who had by this time taken her leave of Mrs Quillp and departed. You're a keen questioner, aren't you, Mrs Quillp? Said the dwarf, turning upon her as soon as they were left alone. What more could I do? return his wife mildly. What more could you do? sneered Quillp. Couldn't you have done something less? Couldn't you have done what you had to do, without appearing in your favorite part of the crocodile you minx? I'm very sorry for the child, Quillp, said his wife. Surely I've done enough. I've led her on to tell her secret, she supposed, we were alone. And you were by God forgive me. You led her on! You did a great deal truly, said Quillp. What did I tell you about making me creak the door? It's lucky for you that from what she let fall, I've got the clue I want, for if I hadn't, I'd have visited the failure upon you, I can tell you. Mrs Quillp, being fully persuaded of this, made no reply. Her husband did it with some exaltation. But you may thank your fortunate stars, the same stars that made you, Mrs Quillp, you may thank them, that I'm upon the old gentleman's track, and have got a new light. So let me hear no more about this matter now, or at any other time, and don't get anything too nice for dinner, for I shan't be home to it. So saying, Mr Quillp put his hat on and took himself off, and Mrs Quillp was afflicted beyond measure by the recollection of the part she had just acted, shut herself up in her chamber, and smothering her head in the bedclothes, bemoaned her fault more bitterly than many less tender-hearted persons would have mourned a much greater offence. For in the majority of cases, conscience is an elastic and very flexible article, which will bear a deal of stretching and adapt itself to a great variety of circumstances. Some people, by prudent management, and leaving it off piece by piece like a flannel waistcoat in warm weather, even contrive in time to dispense with it altogether. But there be others who can assume the garment and throw it off at pleasure. And this, being the greatest and most convenient improvement, is the one most in vogue. End of Chapter 6 Chapter 7 of The Old Curiosity Shop This is LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens Chapter 7 Fred said Mr Swivola Remember the once popular melody of Beacon Dolcaire? Fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship, and pass the rosy wine. Mr Richard Swivola's apartments were in the neighbourhood of Drury Lane, and in addition to this convenience of situation, he had the advantage of being over at a back in his shop, so that he was enabled to procure a refreshing sneeze at any time by merely stepping out upon the staircase, and was saved the trouble and expense of maintaining a snuff box. It was in these apartments that Mr Swivola made use of the expressions above recorded for the consolation and encouragement of his desponding friend. And it may not be uninteresting or improper to remark that even these brief observations partook in a double sense of the figurative and poetic character of Mr Swivola's mind, as the rosy wine was in fact represented by one glass of cold gin and water, which was replenished as occasion required from a bottle and jug upon the table, and was passed from one to another in a scarcity of tumblers which, as Mr Swivola's was a bachelor's establishment, may be acknowledged without a blush. By a like pleasant fiction his single chamber was always mentioned in a plural number. In its disengaged times the tobacconist had announced it in his window as apartments for a single gentleman, and Mr Swivola, following up the hint, never failed to speak of it as his rooms, his lodgings, or his chambers, conveying to his hearers a notion of indefinite space, and leaving their imaginations to wander through long suites of lofty halls at pleasure. In this flight of fancy Mr Swivola was assisted by a deceptive piece of furniture, in reality a bedstead, but in semblance a bookcase, which occupied a prominent situation in his chamber, and seemed to defy suspicion and challenging inquiry. There is no doubt that by day Mr Swivola firmly believed this secret convenience to be a bookcase and nothing more, that he closed his eyes to the bed, resolutely denied the existence of the blankets, and spurned the bolster from his thoughts. No word of its real use, no hint of its nightly service, no allusion to its peculiar properties had ever passed between him and his most intimate friends. Implicit faith in the deception was the first article of his creed. To be the friend of Swivola you must reject all circumstantial evidence, all reason, observation and experience, and repose a blind belief in the bookcase. It was his pet weakness and he cherished it. Fred, said Mr Swivola, finding that his former adoration had been productive of no effect. Past the rosy. Young Trent, with an impatient gesture, pushed the glass towards him, and fell again in the moody attitude from which he had been unwillingly roused. I'll give you, Fred, said his friend, stirring the mixture, a little sentiment appropriate to the occasion. Here's May the... Interpose the other. You worry me to death with your chattering. You can't be merry under any circumstances. Why, Mr Trent? Returned dick. There is a proverb which talks about being merry and wise. There are some people who can be merry and can't be wise, and some who can be wise or think they can and can't be merry. I am one of the first sorts. If the proverb's a good one, I suppose it's better to keep to half of it than none. At all events, I'd rather be merry and not wise than like you, neither one nor the other. Bah! muttered his friend, peevishly. With all my heart, said Mr Swivola, in the polite circles I believe this sort of thing isn't usually said to a gentleman in his own apartments, but never mind that. Make yourself at home. Adding to this retort, an observation to the effect that his friend appeared to be rather cranky in point of temper. Richard Swivola finished the rosy and applied himself to the composition of another glassful, in which, after tasting it with great relish, he proposed a toast to an imaginary company. Gentlemen, I'll give you, if you please, success to the ancient family of the Swivolas, and good luck to Mr Richard in particular. Mr Richard, gentlemen, said Dick with great emphasis, who spends all his money on his friends and is barred for his pains. Here, here. Dick, said the other, returning to his seat after having paced the room twice or thrice. Will you talk seriously for two minutes, if I show you a way to make your fortune with very little trouble? You've shown me so many, returned Dick, and nothing has come of any one of them, but empty pockets. You'll tell a different story of this one before a very long time is over, said his companion, drawing his chair to the table. You saw my sister, Mel. What about her? Returned Dick. She has a pretty face, has she not? Why, certainly, replied Dick. I must say for her that there is not any very strong family likeness between her and you. Has she a pretty face? Repeated his friend impatiently. Yes, said Dick. She has a pretty face, a very pretty face. What of that? I'll tell you, returned his friend. It's very plain that the old man and I will remain a daggers drawn to the end of our lives, and that I have nothing to expect from him. You see that, I suppose? I bet might see that, with the sun shining, said Dick. It's equally plain that the money which the old flin to rot him first taught me to expect that I should share with her at his death will all be hers, is it not? I should say it was, replied Dick, unless the way in which I put the case to him made an impression. It may have done so. It was powerful, Fred. Here is a jolly old grandfather that was strong. I thought, very friendly and natural. Did it strike you in that way? It didn't strike him, returned the other. So we didn't discuss it. Now look here. Nell is nearly fourteen. Fine girl of her age, but small. Observed Richard Swivelor parenthetically. If I am to go on, be quiet for one minute. Returned Trent, fretting at the slight interest the other appeared to take in the conversation. Now I am coming to the point. That's right, said Dick. The girl has strong affections and brought up as she has been may at her age be easily influenced and persuaded. If I take her in hand, I will be bound by very little coaxing and threatening to bend her to my will. Not to beat about the bush, for the advantages of the scheme would take a week to tell. What's to prevent you marrying her? Richard Swivelor, who had been looking over the rim of the tumbler, while his companion addressed the foregoing remarks to him with great energy and earnestness of manner. No sooner heard these words than he evinced the utmost consternation, and with difficulty ejaculated the monosyllable. What? I say, what's to prevent? Repeated the other with the steadiness of manner, of the effect of which upon his companion he was well assured by long experience. What's to prevent you marrying her? And she nearly fourteen, cried Dick. I don't mean marrying her now, returned the brother angrily. Say in two years time, in three, in four. Does the old man look like a long liver? He don't look like it, said Dick, shaking his head. But these old people, there is no trusting them, Fred. There's an aunt of mine down in Dorseture. That I was going to die when I was eighty years old, and hasn't kept her word yet. There so aggravating, so unprincipled, so spiteful, unless there's upper plex in the family, Fred, you can't calculate upon them, and even then they deceive you just as often as not. Look at the worst side of the question then, said Trent as steadily as before, and keeping his eyes upon his friend. Suppose he lives? To be sure, said Dick, there's the rub. I say, resumed his friend, suppose he lives, and I persuade it, or if the word sounds more feasible, forced Ned to a secret marriage with you. What do you think would come of that? A family and an annual income of nothing to keep him on, said Richard Swiveller after some reflection. I tell you, return the other with an increased earnestness which, whether it were real or resumed, had the same effect on his companion, that he lives for her and his all energies and thoughts are bound up in her, that he would no more disinherit her for an act of disobedience than he would take me into his favor again for an act of obedience or virtue that I could possibly be guilty of. He could not do it. You, or any other man with eyes in his head may see that if he chooses. It seems improbable, certainly, said Dick Musing. It seems improbable because it is improbable, his friend returned. If you would furnish him with an additional inducement to forgive you. Let there be an irreconcilable breach, a most deadly quarrel between you and me. Let there be a pretence of such a thing, I mean, of course, and he'll do fast enough. Ask him now. Constant dropping will wear away a stone. You know, you may trust to me as far as she is concerned. So, whether he lives or dies, what does it come to? That you become the sole inheritor of the wealth of this rich old hunks. That you and I spend it together, and that you get into the bargain a beautiful young wife. I suppose there is no doubt about his being rich. Said Dick. Doubt. Did you hear what he left for the other day when we were there? Doubt. What will you doubt next, Dick? It would be tedious to pursue the conversation through all its artful windings or to develop the gradual approaches by which the heart of Richard Swivola was gained. It is sufficient to know that vanity, interest, poverty, and every spent thrift consideration urged him to look upon the proposal with favour, and that where all inducements were wanting, the habitual carelessness of his disposition stepped in and still weighed down the scale on the same side. To these impulses must be added the complete ascendancy which his friend had long been accustomed to exercise over him. An ascendancy exerted in the beginning solely at the expense of his friend's vices, and was in nine cases out of ten looked upon as his designing tempter, when he was indeed nothing but his thoughtless, lightheaded tool. The motives on the other side were something deeper than any which Richard Swivola entertained or understood, but these being left to their own development require no present elucidation. The negotiation was concluded very pleasantly, and Mr. Swivola was in the act of stating in flowery terms that he had no insurmountable objection to marrying anybody, plentiful in doubt with money or moveables who could be induced to take him, when he was interrupted in his observations by a knock at the door, and the consequent necessity of crying, Come in! The door was opened but nothing came in except a soapy arm and a strong gush of tobacco. The gush of tobacco came from the shop downstairs, and the soapy arm proceeded from the body of a servant girl, who, being then and there engaged in cleaning the stairs, had just drawn it out of a warm pail to take in a letter, which letter she now held in her hand, proclaiming aloud, with that quick perception of surnames peculiar to her class, that it was for Mr. Snivelling. Dick looked rather pale and foolish when he glanced at the direction, and still more so when he came to look at the inside, observing that it was one of the inconveniences of being a lady's man, and that it was very easy to talk, as they had been talking, but he had quite forgotten her. Her? Who? Demanded Trent. Sophie Wackles, said Dick, who's she? She's all my fancy painted her, sir, that's what she is, said Mr. Swivola, taking a long pull at the Rosie, and looking gravely at his friend. She's lovely, she's divine, you know her? I remember, said his companion carelessly. What of her? Why, sir, return Dick, between Miss Sophie Wackles and the humble individual who has now the honour to address you, warm and tender sentiments have been engendered, sentiments of the most honourable and inspiring kind. The goddess Diana, sir, that calls aloud for the chase, is not more particular in her behaviour than Sophie Wackles, I can tell you that. Am I to believe there's anything real in what you say? Demanded his friend. You don't mean to say that any love-making has been going on? Love-making, yes. Promising, no. Said Dick. There can be no action for breach, there's one comfort. I've never committed myself in writing, Fred. And what's in the letter, pray? A reminder, Fred, for tonight. A small party of twenty, making two hundred light fantastic toes in all. Supposing every lady and gentleman to have the proper compliment, I must go, if it's only to begin breaking off the affair. I'll do it, don't you be afraid. I should like to know whether she left this herself, if she did, unconscious of any bar to her happiness it's affecting, Fred. To solve this question, Mr Swivola summoned the handmaid and ascertained that Miss Sophie Wackles had indeed left the letter with her own hands, and that she had come accompanied, for decorum's sake no doubt, by a younger Miss Wackles. And that on learning that Mr Swivola was at home and being requested to walk upstairs, she was extremely shocked and professed that she would rather die. Mr Swivola heard this account with a degree of admiration, not altogether consistent with the project in which he had just concurred, but his friend attached very little importance to his behaviour in this respect. Probably because he knew that he had influenced sufficient to control Richard Swivola's proceedings in this or any other matter, whenever he deemed it necessary, for the advancement of his own purposes to exert it. End of Chapter 7 Chapter 8 of The Old Curiosity Shop This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens Chapter 8 Business Disposed of Mr Swivola was inwardly reminded of its being night in a time, and to the intent that his health might not be endangered by longer abstinence, dispatched a message to the nearest eating house, requiring an immediate supply of boiled beef and greens for two. With this demand, however, the eating house having experience of its customer declined to comply. Cherishly sending back for answer that if Mr Swivola stood in need of beef, perhaps he would be so obliging as to come there and eat it, bringing with him as grace before meat, the amount of a certain small account which had long been outstanding. Not at all intimidated by this rebuff, but rather sharpened in wits and appetite, Mr Swivola forwarded the same message to another and more distant eating house, adding to it by way of writer that the gentleman was induced to send so far, not only by the great fame and popularity its beef had acquired, but in consequence of the extreme toughness of the beef retailed at the obdurate cook's shop, which rendered it quite unfit not merely for gentlemanly food, but for any human consumption. The good effect of this politic cause was demonstrated by the speedy arrival of a small pewter pyramid. Curiously constructed of platters and covers, whereof the boiled beef plates formed the base, and a foaming quartpot the apex. The structure being resolved into its component parts afforded all things requisite and necessary for a hearty meal, to which Mr Swivola and his friend applied themselves with great keenness and enjoyment. Made a present moment, said Dick, sticking his fork into a large carbuncular potato, be the worst of our lives. I like the plan of sending him with the peel on. There's a charm in drawing a potato from its native element, if I may so express it, to which the rich and powerful are strangers. Ah, man wants but little here below, nor wants that little long. How true that is, after dinner. I hope the eating-house keeper will want but little, and that he may not want that little long, returned his companion. But I suspect you've no means of paying for this. I shall be passing present, and I'll call. Said Dick, winking his eye significantly. The waiter's quite helpless. The goods are gone, Fred, and there's an end of it. In point of fact, it would seem that the waiter felt this wholesome truth, for when he returned for the empty plates and dishes, and was informed by Mr. Swivola with dignified carelessness, that he would call and settle when he should be passing presently, he displayed some perturbation of spirit, and muttered a few remarks about payment on delivery, and no trust, and other unpleasant subjects, but was feigned to contend himself with inquiring at what hour it was likely that the gentleman would call, in order that being presently responsible for the beef, greens and sundries, he might take to be in the way at the time. Mr. Swivola, after mentally calculating his engagements to a nicety, replied that he should look in at from two minutes before six and seven minutes past, and the man disappearing with this feeble consolation, Richard Swivola, took a greasy memorandum book from his pocket and made an entry therein. Is that a reminder in case you should forget to call? said Trent with a sneer. Not exactly, Fred. Replied the imperturbable, Richard, continuing to write with a businesslike air. I enter in this little book the names of the streets that I can't go down while the shops are open. This dinner to-day closes long ago, I bought a pair of boots in Great Queen Street last week, and made that no thoroughfare too. There's only one avenue to the strand left open now, and I shall have to stop up that tonight with a pair of gloves. The roads are closing so fast in every direction that in a month's time, unless my aunt sends me a remittance, I shall have to go three or four miles out of town to get over the way. There's no fear of failing in the end, said Trent. Why, I hope not, returned Mr. Swivola, but the average number of letters it takes to soften her heart is six. And this time we have got as far as eight without any effect at all. I'll write another tomorrow morning. I mean to blot it a good deal, and shake some water over it of the peppercaster to make it look penitent. I am in such a state of mind that I hardly know what I write, blot. If you could see me at this minute shedding tears for my past misconduct, peppercaster, my hand trembles when I think blot again. If that don't produce the effect it's all over. By this time Mr. Swivola had finished his entry, and he now replaced his pencil in its little sheath and closed the book, in a perfectly grave and serious frame of mind. His friend discovered that it was time for him to fulfill some other engagement, and Richard Swivola was accordingly left alone, in company with the rosy wine, and his own meditations touching Miss Sophie Wackles. It's rather sudden, said Dick, shaking his head with the look of infinite wisdom, and running on as he was accustomed to do, with scraps of verse, as if there were only prose in a hurry. When the heart of a man is depressed with fears, the mist is dispelled when Miss Wackles appears. She's a very nice girl. She's like the red red rose that's newly sprung in June. There is no denying that. She's also like a melody that's sweetly played in tune. It's really very sudden. Not that there's any need on account of Fred's little sister to turn cool directly, but it's better not to go too far. If I begin to cool at all, I must begin at once. I see that there's the chance of an action for breach. That's another. There's the chance of... no. There's no chance of that, but it's as well to be on the safe side. This undeveloped was the possibility which Richard Swivola sought to conceal even from himself, of his not being proof against the charms of Miss Wackles, and in some unguarded moment by linking his fortunes to hers forever, of putting it out of his own power to further the notable scheme to which he had so readily become a party. For all these reasons he decided to pick a quarrel with Miss Wackles without delay, and casting about for a pretext determined in favor of groundless jealousy. Having made up his mind on this important point, he circulated the glass from his right hand to left and back again pretty freely to enable him to act his part with greater discretion, and then, after making some slight improvements in his toilet, bent his steps towards the spot hallowed by the fair object of his meditations. The spot was at Chessie, for there Miss Sophia Wackles resided with her widowed mother and two sisters, in conjunction with whom she maintained very small day school for young ladies of proportionate dimensions. A circumstance which was made known to the neighborhood by an oval board over the front first floor windows, whereupon appeared in Circumambian flourishes the words, Lady's Seminary, and which was further published and proclaimed at intervals between the hours of half past nine and ten in the morning, by a straggling and solitary young lady of tender years, standing on the scraper on the tips of her toes and making futile attempts to reach the knocker with spelling book. The several duties of instruction in this establishment were thus discharged, English grammar, composition, geography, and the use of dumbbells by Miss Melissa Wackles. Writing, arithmetic, dancing, music, and general fascination by Miss Sophia Wackles. The art of needlework, marking, and samplary by Miss Jane Wackles, corporal punishment, fasting, and other tortures and terrors by Mrs. Wackles. Miss Melissa Wackles was the eldest daughter, Miss Sophie the next, and Miss Jane the youngest. Miss Melissa might have seen five and thirty summers or thereabouts, and verged on the autumnal. Miss Sophie was a fresh, good-humored, buxom girl of twenty, and Miss Jane numbered scarcely sixteen years. Mrs. Wackles was an excellent but rather venomous old lady of three score. To this lady's seminary then Richard Swivola hide, with designs obnoxious to the peace of the fair Sophia, who, arrayed in virgin white embellished by no ornament but one blushing rose, received him on his arrival in the midst of very elegant, not to say brilliant, preparations. Such as the embellishment of the room with the little flower pots which always stood on the windowsill outside, save in windy weather when they blew into the area. The choice attire of the day scholars who were allowed to grace the festival, the unwarranted curls of Miss Jane Wackles, who had kept her head during the whole of the preceding day, screwed up tight in a yellow playbill, and the solemn gentility and stately bearing of the old lady and Haroldus' daughter, which struck Mr. Swivola as being uncommon, but made no further impression upon him. The truth is, and as there is no counting for tastes, even a taste so strange as this may be recorded without being looked upon as a willful and malicious invention, the truth is that neither Mrs. Wackles nor Haroldus' daughter had at any time greatly favoured the pretentious of Mr. Swivola, being accustomed to make slight mention of him as a gay young man and to sigh and shake their heads ominously whenever his name was mentioned. Mr. Swivola's conduct in respect to Miss Sophie having been of that vague and delitry kind which is usually looked upon as betokening no fixed matrimonial intentions, the young lady herself began in cause of time to deem it highly desirable, that it should be brought to an issue one way or other. Hence, she had at last consented to play off against Richard Swivola a stricken market garden unknown to be ready with his offer on the smallest encouragement, and hence, as this occasion had been specially assigned for the purpose, that great anxiety on her part for Richard Swivola's presence, which had occasioned her to leave the note he has been seen to receive. If he has any expectations at all or any means of keeping a wife well, said Mrs. Wackles to Haroldus' daughter, he'll state them to us now or never. If he really cares about me, thought Miss Sophie, he must tell me so tonight. But all these sayings and doings and thinkings being unknown to Mr. Swivola affected him not in the least. He was debating in his mind how he could best turn jealous, and wishing that Sophie were for that occasion only far less pretty than she was, or that she were her own sister, which would have served his turn as well. When the company came, and among them the market gardener whose name was Cheggs. But Mr. Cheggs came not alone or unsupported for he prudently brought along with him his sister, Miss Cheggs, who making straight to Miss Sophie and taking her by both hands, and kissing her on both cheeks, hoped in an audible whisper that they had not come too early. Too early? No, replied Miss Sophie. Oh, my dear, rejoined Miss Cheggs in the same whisper as before. I've been so tormented, so worried, that it's a mercy we were not here at four o'clock in the afternoon. Alec has been in such a state of impatience to come. You'd hardly believe that he was dressed before dinner time, and has been looking at the clock and teasing me ever since. It's all your fault, you naughty thing. Here upon Miss Sophie blushed, and Mr. Cheggs, who was bashful before ladies, blushed too. And Miss Sophie's mother and sisters, to prevent Mr. Cheggs from blushing more, lavish civilities and detentions upon him, and left Richard Swivola to take care of himself. Here was the very thing he wanted. Here was good cause, reason, and foundation for pretending to be angry. But having this cause, reason, and foundation which he had come expressly to seek, not expecting to find, Richard Swivola was angry in sound earnest, and wondered what the devil Cheggs meant by his impudence. However, Mr. Swivola had Miss Sophie's hand for the first quadril. Country dances being low were utterly proscribed, and so gained an advantage over his rival, who sat despondingly in a corner, and contemplated the glorious figure of the young lady, as she moved through the mazy dance. Nor was this the only start Mr. Swivola had of the market gardener, for determining to show the family what quality of man they trifled with, and influenced perhaps by his late libations, he performed such feats of agility, and such spins and twirls as filled the company with astonishment, and in particular caused a very long gentleman who was dancing with a very short scholar, to stand quite transfixed by wonder and admiration. Even Mrs. Wackles forgot for the moment to snap three small young ladies who were inclined to be happy, and could not repress a rising thought, that to have such a dancer, as that in the family would be a pride indeed. At this momentous crisis, Miss Cheggs proved herself a vigorous and useful ally, for not confining herself to expressing by scornful smiles a contempt for Mr. Swivola's accomplishments. She took every opportunity of whispering into Miss Sophie's ear expressions of condolence and sympathy on her being worried by such a ridiculous creature, declaring that she was frightened to death lest Alec should fall upon and beat him in the fullness of his wrath, and in treating Miss Sophie to observe how the eyes of the said Alec gleamed with love and fury. Passions, it may be observed, which being too much for his eyes rushed into his nose also, and suffused it with a crimson glow. You must dance with Miss Cheggs, said Miss Sophie to Dick Swivola, after she had herself danced twice with Mr. Cheggs, and made great show of encouraging his advances. She's a nice girl, and her brother's quite delightful. Quite delightful, is he? Mother Dick. Quite delighted, too, I should say, from the manner in which he is looking this way. Here Miss Jane, previously instructed for the purpose, interposed her many curls and whispered her sister to observe how jealous Mr. Cheggs was. Jealous? Like his impudence, said Richard Swivola. His impudence, Mr. Swivola, said Miss Jane, tossing her head. Take care, he don't hear you, sir, or you may be sorry for it. Oh, pray Jane, said Miss Sophie. Nonsense, replied her sister. Why shouldn't Mr. Cheggs be jealous if he likes? I like that, certainly. Mr. Cheggs has good a right to be jealous as anyone else has, and perhaps he may have a better right soon if he hasn't already. You know best about that, Sophie. Though this was a concerted plot between Miss Sophie and her sister, originating in humane intentions and having for its object the inducing Mr. Swivola to declare himself in time, it failed in its effect. For Miss Jane, being one of those young ladies who are prematurely shrill and shrewish, gave such an due importance to her part that Mr. Swivola retired in dungeon, resigning his mistress to Mr. Cheggs and conveying a defiance into his looks, which that gentleman indignantly returned. Did you speak to me, sir? said Mr. Cheggs, following him into a corner. Have the kindness to smile, sir, in order that we may not be suspected. Did you speak to me, sir? Mr. Swivola looked with a supercilious smile at Mr. Cheggs' toes, then raised his eyes from them to his ankles, from that to his chin, from that to his knee, and so on very gradually, keeping up his right leg until he reached his waistcoat, when he raised his eyes from button to button until he reached his chin, and traveling straight up the middle of his nose came at last to his eyes when he said abruptly, No, sir, I didn't. Hem! said Mr. Cheggs, glancing over his shoulder. Have the goodness to smile again, sir. Perhaps you wish to speak to me, sir? No, sir, I didn't do that either. Perhaps you may have nothing to say to me now, sir, said Mr. Cheggs fiercely. At these words Richard Swivola withdrew his eyes from Mr. Cheggs' face, and traveling down the middle of his nose and down his waistcoat and down his right leg reached his toes again and carefully surveyed him. This done he crossed over and coming up the other leg and then approaching by the waistcoat as before, said when had got to his eyes. No, sir, I haven't. Oh, indeed, sir, said Mr. Cheggs. I'm glad to hear it. You know where I am to be found, I suppose, sir, in case you should have anything to say to me. I can easily inquire, sir, when I want to know. There's nothing more we need to say, I believe, sir? Nothing more, sir. With that they closed the tremendous dialogue by frowning mutually. Mr. Cheggs hastened to tender his hand to Miss Sophie, and Mr. Swivola sat himself down in a corner in a very moody state. Hard by this corner, Mrs. Wackles and Miss Wackles were seated, looking on at the dance. And unto Mrs. and Miss Wackles, Miss Cheggs occasionally darted when her partner was occupied with his share of the figure, and made some remark, or rather, which was gall and wormward, to Richard Swivola's soul. Looking into the eyes of Mrs. and Miss Wackles for encouragement, and sitting very upright and uncomfortable on a couple of hard stools, were two of the day's callers. And when Miss Wackles smiled, and Mr. Wackles smiled, the two little girls on the stools sought to curry favour by smiling likewise, in gracious acknowledgement of which attention the old lady frowned them down instantly, and said that if they dared to be guilty of such an impertinence again, they should be sent under convoy to their respective homes. This threat caused one of the young ladies, she being of a weak and trembling temperament, to shed tears. And for this offence they were both filed off immediately with a dreadful promptitude that struck Tara into the souls of all the pupils. I've got such news for you, said Miss Cheggs, approaching once more. Alec has been saying such things to Sophie. Upon my word, you know, it's quite serious and in earnest, that's clear. Was he been saying, my dear? demanded Mrs. Wackles. All manner of things replied Miss Cheggs. You can't think how out he has been speaking. Richard Swivola considered it advisable to hear no more, but taking advantage of a pause in the dancing, and the approach of Mr. Cheggs to pay his court to the old lady, swaggered with an extremely careful assumption of extreme carelessness toward the door, passing on the way Miss Jane Wackles, who, in all the glory of her curls, was holding a flirtation, as good practice when no better was to be had, with a feeble old gentleman who lodged in the parlour. Near the door sat Miss Sophie, still fluttered and confused by the attentions of Mr. Cheggs, and by her side Richard Swivola lingered for a moment to exchange a few parting words. My boat is on the shore, and my bark is on the sea, but before I pass this door I will say farewell to thee, murmured Dick, looking gloomyly upon her. Are you going? said Miss Sophie, whose heart sank within her, at the result of her stratagem, but who affected a light indifference notwithstanding. Am I going? echoed Dick bitterly. Yes, I am. What then? Nothing except that it's very early, said Miss Sophie, but you're your own master, of course. I would that I had been my own mistress too, said Dick, before I had ever entertained a thought of you. Miss Wackles, I believed you true, and I was blessed in so believing, but now I am more on that ere I knew a girl so fair yet so deceiving. Miss Sophie bit her lip and affected to look with great interest after Mr. Cheggs, who was quuffing lemonade in the distance. I came here, said Dick rather oblivious of the purpose with which he had really come, with my bosom expanded, my heart dilated, and my sentiments of a corresponding description. I go away with feelings that may be conceived by cannot be described, feeling within myself that desolating truth that my best affections have experienced this night's stifler. I am sure I don't know what you mean, Mr. Swibola, said Miss Sophie with downcast eyes. I'm very sorry, if— Sorry, ma'am, said Dick, sorry in the possession of a Cheggs. But I wish you a very good night, concluding with this slight remark that there is a young lady growing up at this present moment for me, who has not only great personal attractions, but great wealth, and who has requested her next of kin to propose for my hand, which, having a regard for some members of her family, I have consented to promise. It's a gratifying circumstance which you'll be glad to hear that a young and lovely girl is growing into a woman expressly on my account, and is now saving up for me. I thought I'd mention it. I have now merely to apologize for trespassing so long upon your attention, good night. There's one good thing springs out of all this, said Richard Swibola to himself when he had reached home, and was hanging over the candle with the extinguisher in his hand, which is that I now go heart and soul, neck and heels, with Fred in all his scheme about little nally, and ride glad he'll be to find me so strong upon it. He shall know all about that tomorrow, and in the meantime, as it's rather late, I'll try and get a wing of the barmy. The barmy came almost as soon as it was courted. In a very few minutes Mr. Swibola was fast asleep, dreaming that he had married Nelly Trent and come into the property, and that his first act of power was to lay waste the market garden of Mr. Cheggs and turn it into a brick field. End of Chapter 8 Chapter 9 of The Old Curiosity Shop This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens Chapter 9 The Child In her confidence with Mrs. Quillpe, he had but feebly described the sadness and sorrow of her thoughts, or the heaviness of the cloud which overhung her home, and cast dark shadows on its hearth. Besides, that it was very difficult to impart to any person not intimately acquainted with the life she led, an adequate sense of its gloom and loneliness, a constant fear of in some way committing or injuring the old man to whom she was so tenderly attached, had restrained her, even in the midst of her hearts overflowing, and made her timid evolution to the main cause of her anxiety and distress. For it was not the monotonous days uncheckered by variety, and and cheered by pleasant companionship, it was not the dark dreary evenings, or the long solitary nights, it was not the absence of every slight and easy pleasure for which young hearts beat high, or the knowing nothing of childhood but its weakness, and its easily wounded spirit, that could wrung such tears from knell. To see the old man struck down beneath the pressure of some hidden grief, to mark his wavering and unsettled state, to be agitated at times with a dreadful fear, that his mind was wandering, and to trace in his words and looks the dawning of despondent madness. To watch and wait, and listen for confirmation of these things day after day, and to feel and know, that come what might, they were alone in the world, with no one to help or advise or care about them. These were causes of depression and anxiety, that might have sat heavily on an older breast with many influences at work to cheer and gladden it, but how heavily on the mind of a young child, to whom they were ever present, and who was constantly surrounded by all that could keep such thoughts in restless action. And yet, to the old man's vision knell was still the same, when he could for a moment disengage his mind from the phantom that haunted and brooded on it always. There was his young companion, with the same smile for him, the same earnest words, the same merry laugh, the same love and care, that sinking deep into his soul seemed to have been present to him through his whole life. And so he went on, content to read the book of her heart from the page first presented to him, little dreaming of the story, that lay hidden in its other leaves, and murmuring within himself that at least the child was happy. She had been once. She had gone singing through the dim rooms, and moving with the gay and light some step among their dusty treasures, making them older by her young life, and sterner and more grim by her gay and cheerful presence. But now, the chambers were cold and gloomy, and when she left her own little room to wile away the tedious hours, and sat in one of them, she was still and motionless as their inanimate occupants, and had no heart to startle the echoes, hoarse from their long silence with her voice. In one of these rooms was a window looking into the street, where the child sat many and many a long evening, and often far into the night, alone and thoughtful. None are so anxious as those who watch and wait. At these times, mournful fancies came flocking on her mind in crowds. She would take her station here at dusk, and watch the people as they passed up and down the street, or appeared at the windows of the opposite houses, wondering whether those rooms were as lonesome as that in which she sat, and whether those people felt it company to see her sitting there, as she did only to see them look out and draw in their heads again. There was a crooked stack of chimneys on one of the roofs, in which by often looking at them she had fancy ugly faces that were frowning over at her, and trying to peer into the room. And she felt glad when it grew too dark to make them out, though she was sorry too when the man came to light the lamps in the street, for it made it late, and very dull inside. Then she would draw in her head to look round the room, and see that everything was in its place and hadn't moved. And looking out into the street again, would perhaps see a man passing with a coffin on his back, and two or three others silently following him to a house where somebody lay dead, which made her shudder and think of such things until they suggested afresh the old man's altered face and manner, and a new train of fears and speculations. If he were to die, if sudden illness had happened to him, and he were never to come home again, alive, if one night he should come home and kiss and bless her as usual, and after she had gone to bed and had fallen asleep, and was perhaps dreaming pleasantly, and smiling in her sleep, he should kill himself and his blood come creeping, creeping on the ground to her own bedroom door. These thoughts were too terrible to dwell upon, and again she would have recourse to the street, now trodden by fewer feet, and darker and more silent than before. The shops were closing fast, and lights began to shine from the upper windows, as the neighbors went to bed. By degrees, these dwindled away and disappeared or were replaced here and there by a feeble rush candle which was to burn all night. Still, there was one late shop at no great distance, which sent forth a ruddy glare upon the pavement even yet, and looked bright and compassionable. But in a little time, this closed, the light was extinguished and always gloomy and quiet, except when some stray footsteps sounded on the pavement or a neighbor, out later than his wound, knocked last to let his house door to rouse the sleeping inmates. When the night had worn away thus far, and seldom now until it had, the child would close the window and still softly downstairs, thinking as she went that if one of those hideous faces below, which often mingled with her dreams, were to meet her by the way, rendering itself visible by some strange light of its own, how terrified she would be. But these fears vanished before a well-trimmed lamp and the familiar aspect of her own room. After praying fervently and with many bursting tears for the old man, and the restoration of his peace of mind, and the happiness they had once enjoyed, she would lay her head upon the pillow and sob herself to sleep, often starting up again, before the daylight came, to listen for the bell and respond to the imaginary summons which had roused her from her slumber. One night, the third afternoon his interview with Mrs. Quilp, the old man who had been weak until all day, said he should not leave home. The child's eyes sparkled at the intelligence, but her joy subsided when they reverted to his worn and sickly face. Two days, he said, two whole clear days have passed and there is no reply. What did he tell the Inel? Exactly what I told you, dear grandfather, indeed. True, said the old man faintly. Yes, but tell me again, Nel, my head fails me. What was it that he told the nothing more than that he would see me tomorrow or next day? That was in the note. Nothing more, said the child. Shall I go to him again tomorrow, dear grandfather? Very early. I will be there and back before breakfast. The old man shook his head and sighing mournfully drew her towards him. It would be of no use, my dear, no earthly use, but if he deserts me, Nel, at this moment, if he deserts me now, when I should, with his assistance, be recompensed for all the time and money I have lost and all the agony of mind I have undergone, which makes me what you see. I am ruined and worse, far worse than that. You have ruined thee for whom I ventured all, if we are beggars. What if we are? said the child boldly. Let us be beggars and be happy. Beggars and happy? said the old man. Poor child. Dear grandfather cried the girl with an energy which shown in her flashed face, trembling voice and impassionate gesture. I am not a child in that, I think, but even if I am, oh hear me pray that we may beg or work in open roads or fields to earn a scanty living rather than live as we do now. Nelly, said the old man. Yes, yes, rather than live as we do now, the child repeated more earnestly than before. If you are sorrowful, let me know why and be sorrowful too. If you waste away and are paler and weaker every day, let me be your nurse and try to comfort you. If you are poor, let us be poor together, but let me be with you. Do let me be with you. Do not let me see such change and know not why, or I shall break my heart and die. Dear grandfather, let us leave this sad place tomorrow and beg our way from door to door. The old man covered his face with his hands and hid it in the pillow of the couch on which he lay. Let us be beggars, said the child passing an arm round his neck. I have no fear, but we shall have enough. I am sure we shall. Let us walk through country places and sleep in fields and under trees, and never think of money again or anything that can make you sad, but rest at nights and have the sun and wind upon our faces in the day, and thank God together. Let us never set foot in dark rooms or melancholy houses any more, but wander up and down wherever we like to go. And when you are tired, you shall stop to rest in the pleasantest place that we can find, and I will go and beg for both. The child's voice was lost in sobs as she dropped upon the old man's neck, nor did she weep alone. These were not words for other years, nor was it a scene for other eyes. And yet, other ears and eyes were there and greedily taking in all that past, and moreover they were the ears and eyes of no lesser person than Mr. Daniel Quillpe, who, having entered and seen when the child first placed herself at the old man's side refrained, actuated no doubt by motives of the purest delicacy from interrupting the conversation and stood looking on with his accustomed grin. Standing, however, being a tiresome attitude to a gentleman already fatigued with walking, and a dwarf being one of that kind of persons who usually make themselves at home, he soon cast his eyes upon a chair, into which he skipped with uncommon agility and perching himself on the back with his feet upon the seat, was thus enabled to look on and listen with greater comfort to himself, besides gratifying at the same time that taste for doing something fantastic and monkey-like, which on all occasions had strong possession of him. Here, then, he said, one leg cocked carefully over the other, his chin resting on the palm of his hand, his head turned a little on one side, and his ugly features twisted into a complacent grimace, and in this position the old man, happening in cause of time to look that way, at length chanced to see him, to his unbounded astonishment. The child uttered a suppressed shriek on beholding this agreeable figure. In their first surprise, both she and the old man, not knowing what to say and half doubting its reality, looked shrinkingly at it. Not at all disconcerted by this reception, Daniel Quilp preserved the same attitude, merely nodding twice or thrice with great condescension. At length, the old man pronounced his name and inquired how he came there. Through the door, said Quilp, pointing over his shoulder with his thumb, I'm not quite small enough to get through keyholes, I wish I was. I want to have some talk with you, particularly and in private, with nobody present neighbor. Goodbye, little Nelly. Nell looked at the old man who nodded to her to retire, and kissed her cheek. Ah, said the dwarf, smacking his lips, what a nice kiss that was, just upon the rosy part, what a capital kiss. Nell was none the slower in going away for this remark. Quilp looked after her with an admiring lear, and when she had closed the door, felt a complimenting the old man upon her charms. Such a fresh, blooming, modus little bud neighbor, said Quilp, nursing his short leg and making his eyes twinkle very much, such a chubby, rosy, cozy little Nell. The old man answered by a forced smile, and was plainly struggling with a feeling of the keenest and most exquisite impatience. It was not lost upon Quilp who delighted in torturing him, or indeed anybody else, when he could. She so, said Quilp speaking very slowly, and feigning to be quite absorbed in the subject, so small, so compact, so beautifully modelled, so fair, with such blue veins and such a transparent skin, and such little feet, and such a winning ways, but bless me, your nervous. Why, neighbor, what's the matter? I swear to you, continued the dwarf dismounting from the chair and sitting down in it, with a careful slowness of gesture very different from the rapidity with which he had sprung up and heard. I swear to you that I had no idea old blood ran so fast, or kept so warm. I thought it was sluggish in its course, and cool, quite cool. I am pretty sure it ought to be. Yours must be out of order, neighbor. I believe it is. Grown the old man, clasping his head with both hands. There's burning fever here, and something now and then to which I fear to give a name. The dwarf said never a word, but watched his companion as he paced restlessly up and down the room, and presently returned to his seat. Here he remained, with his head bowed upon his breast for some time, and then suddenly raising it said, once and once for all, have you brought me any money? No, returned Quilp. Then, said the old man, clenching his hands desperately and looking upwards, the child and I are lost. Neighbor said Quilp glancing sternly at him, and beating his hand twice or thrice upon the table to attract his wandering attention. Let me be playing with you, and play a fairer game than when you held all the cards, and I saw but the backs and nothing more. You have no secret from me now. The old man looked up, trembling. You are surprised, said Quilp. Well, perhaps that's natural. You have no secret from me now. I say, no, not one. For now I know that all the sums of money that all those loans, advances and supplies that you have had from me have found their way to, shall I say the word? I replied the old man. Say it, if you will. To the gaming table, rejoined Quilp, your nightly haunt. This was the precious scheme to make your fortune, was it? This was the secret certain source of wealth in which I was to have sunk my money, if I had been the fool you took me for. This was your inexhaustible mind of gold, your El Dorado, eh? Yes, cried the old man, turning upon him with gleaming eyes. It was. It is. It will be till I die. That I should have been blinded, said Quilp, looking contemptuously at him, by a mere shallow gambler. I am no gambler, cried the old man fiercely. I call heaven to witness that I never played for gain of mine or love of play, that at every piece I staked I whispered to myself that orphan's name and called on heaven to bless the venture, which it never did. Whom did it prosper? Who were those with whom I played? Men who lived by plunder, profligacy and riot, squandering their gold in doing ill and propagating vice and evil. My winnings would have been from them. My winnings would have been bestowed to the last fathering on a young, sinless child whose life they would have sweetened and made happy. What would they have contracted? The means of corruption, wretchedness and misery. Who would not have hoped in such a cause? Tell me that. Who would not have hoped as I did? When did you first begin this mad career? Asked Quilp, his taunting inclinations subdued for a moment by the old man's grief and wildness. When did I first begin? He rejoined, passing his hand across his brow. When was it that I first began? When should it be, but when I began to think how little I had saved, how long a time it took to save at all, how short a time I might have at my age to live, and how she would be left to the rough mercies of the world with barely enough to keep her from the sorrows that wait on poverty? Then it was that I began to think about it. After you first came to me to get your precious grandson backed off to see, said Quilp. Shortly after that replied the old man. I thought of it a long time, and had it in my sleep for months. Then I began. I found no pleasure in it. I expected none. What has it ever brought me but anxious days and sleepless nights, but loss of health and peace of mind and gain of feebleness and sorrow? You lost what money you had laid by first, and then came to me. While I thought you were making your fortune, as you said you were, you were making yourself a beggar? Dear me! And so it comes to pass that I hold every security you could scrape together, and a bill of sale upon me, upon the stock and property. Said Quilp, standing up and looking about him, as if to assure himself that none of it had been taken away. But did you never win? Never, grown the old man, never won back my loss. I thought, sneered the dwarf, that if a man played long enough he was sure to win at last, or at the worst not to come off a loser. And so he is, cried the old man, suddenly rousing himself from his state of despondency and lashed into the most violent excitement. So he is. I have felt that from the first. I have always known it. I've seen it. I never felt it half so strongly as I feel it now. Quilp, I have dreamed three nights of winning the same large sum I never could dream that dream before, though I have often tried. Do not desert me. Now I have this chance. I have no resource, but you. Give me some help. Let me try this one last hope. The dwarf shrugged his shoulders and took his head. See, Quilp. Good tender-hearted Quilp, said the old man, drawing some scraps of paper from his pocket with a trembling hand, and clasping the dwarf's arm. Only see here. Look at these figures. The result of long calculation and painful and hard experience. I must win. I only want a little help once more, a few pounds, but two score pounds, dear Quilp. The last advance was seventy, said the dwarf, and it went in one night. I know it did, answered the old man, but that was the very worst fortune of all, and the time had not come then. Quilp, consider, consider. The old man cried, trembling so much the while, that the papers in his hand fluttered as if they were shaken by the wind. That orphan child, if I were alone, I could die with gladness, perhaps even anticipate that doom which is dealt out so unequally, coming as it does on the proud and happy in their strength and shining the needy and afflicted, and all who caught it in their despair. But what I have done has been for her. Help me for her sake, I implore you, not for mine, for hers. I am sorry, I've got an appointment in the city, said Quilp, looking at his watch with perfect self-possession. Or I should have been very glad to have spent half an hour with you while you composed yourself very glad. Nay, Quilp, good Quilp, gasped the old man, catching at his skirts. You and I have talked together more than once of her poor mother's story. The fear of her coming to poverty has perhaps been bred in me by that. Do not be hard upon me, but take that into account. You are a great gainer by me. How spare me the money for this one last hope! I couldn't do it really, said Quilp with unusual politeness, though I tell you what. And this is a circumstance worth bearing in mind as showing how the sharpest among us may be taken in sometimes. I was so deceived by the penurious way in which you lived, alone with Nelly. All done to save money for tempting fortune, and to make her triumph greater, cried the old man. Yes, yes, I understand that now, said Quilp, but I was going to say, I was so deceived by that your mishily way, the reputation you had among those who knew you of being rich, and your repeated assurances that you would make of my advances treble and quadruple the interest you paid me, that I'd have advanced you, even now, what you want, on your simple note of hand, if I hadn't unexpectedly become acquainted with your secret way of life. Who is it, retorted the old man desperately, that notwithstanding all my caution told you, come, let me know the name, the person? The crafty dwarf, the thinking himself that he is giving up the child would lead to the disclosure of the artifice he had employed, which as nothing was to be gained by it, it was well to conceal, stopped short in his answer and said, Now, who do you think? It was Kit, it must have been the boy. He played the spy, and you tampered with him, said the old man. How came you to think of him? said the dwarf in a tone of great commiseration. Yes, it was Kit, poor Kit. So saying, he nodded in a friendly manner and took his leave, stopping when he had passed the outer door a little distance, and grinning with extraordinary delight. Poor Kit, muttered quillp. I think it was Kit who said I was an uglier dwarf than could be seen anywhere for a penny, wasn't it? Haha, poor Kit. And with that he went his way still chuckling as he went. End of chapter 9, chapter 10 of The Old Curiosity Shop. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens Chapter 10 Daniel Quillp neither entered nor left the old man's house and observed. In the shadow of an archway nearly opposite, leading to one of the many passages which diverged from the main street, there lingered one who, having taken up his position when the twilight first came on, still maintained it with undiminished patience, and leaning against the wall with the manner of a person who had a long time to wait and being well used to it, was quite resigned, scarcely changed his attitude for the hour together. This patient lounger attracted little attention from many of those who passed, and bestowed as little upon them. His eyes were constantly directed towards one object, the window at which the child was accustomed to sit. If he withdrew them for a moment, it was only to glance at a clock in some neighbouring shop, and then to strain his sight once more, in the old quarter with increased earnestness and attention. It had been remarked that this personage evinced no weariness in his place of concealment, nor did he, long as his waiting was. But as the time went on, he manifested some anxiety and surprise, glancing at the clock more frequently, and at the window less hopefully than before. At length, the clock was hidden from his sight by some envious shutters, then the church steeples proclaimed eleven at night, then the quarter passed, and then the conviction seemed to obtrude itself on his mind that it was no use tearing there any longer. That at the conviction was an unwelcome one, and that he was by no means willing to yield to it, was apparent from his reluctance to quit the spot. From the tardy steps with which he often left it, still looking over his shoulder at the same window, and from the precipitation with which he is often returned, when a fancied noise or the changing and imperfect light induced him to suppose it had been softly raised. At length, he gave the matter up, as hopeless for that night, and suddenly breaking into a run as though to force himself away, scampered off at his utmost speed, nor once ventured to look behind him lest he should be tempted back again. Without relaxing his pace or stopping to take breath, this mysterious individual dashed on through a great many alleys and narrowways, until he at length arrived in a square paved court, when he subsided into a walk, and making for a small house from the window of which a light was shining, lifted the latch of the door and passed in. Bless us! cried a woman, turning sharply round. Who's that? Oh, it's you, Kit! Yes, mother, it's me. Why, how tired you look, my dear! Old master and gone out tonight, said Kit, and so she hasn't been at the window at all. With which words he sat down by the fire and looked very mournful and discontented. The room in which Kit sat himself down, in this condition, was an extremely poor and homely place, but with that air of comfort about it, nevertheless, which, or the spot must be a wretched one indeed, cleanliness and order can always impart in some degree. Late as the Dutch clock showed it to be, the poor woman was still hard at work at an ironing table, a young child lay sleeping in a cradle near the fire, and another, a sturdy boy of two or three years old, very wide awake, with a very tight nightcap on his head, and a night gown very much too small for him on his body, was sitting bolt upright in a closed basket, staring over the rim with his great round eyes, and looking as if he had thoroughly made up his mind never to go to sleep anymore. Which, as he had already declined to take his natural rest and had been brought out of bed in consequence, opened a cheerful prospect for his relations and friends. It was rather a queer looking family, Kit, his mother, and the children being all strongly alike. Kit was disposed to be out of temper, as the best of us are too often, but he looked at the youngest child who was sleeping soundly, and from him to his other brother in the clothes basket, and from him to their mother, who had been at work without complaints since morning, and thought it would be a better and kinder thing to be good-humored. So he rocked the cradle with his foot, made a face at the rebel in the clothes basket, which put him in high good-humor directly, and stoutly determined to be talkative and make himself agreeable. Ah, mother, said Kit, taking out his clasp knife, and falling upon a great piece of bread and meat which he had had ready for him hours before. What a one you are! There aren't many such as you I know. I hope there are many a great deal better, Kit, said Mrs. Knubbles, and that there are or ought to be according to what the pastor in a chapel says. Much he knows about it, returned Kit contemptuously. Wait till he's aware there and works like you do, and gets as little and does as much, and keeps his spirit up the same, and then I'll ask him what a clock and trust him for being right to half a second. Well, said Mrs. Knubbles, evading the point, your beer's down there by the fender, Kit. I see, replied her son, taking up the pot-a-pot, my love to you, mother, and the pastor's health too, if you like. I don't bear him any malice, not I. Did you tell me just now that your master hadn't gone out tonight? Inquired Mrs. Knubbles. Yes, said Kit, worse luck. You should say better luck, I think, returned his mother, because Miss Nelly won't have been left alone. Ah, said Kit, I forgot that. I said worse luck because I've been watching ever since eight o'clock and seen nothing of her. I wonder what you'd say, cried his mother, stopping in her work and looking round. If she knew that every night, when she, poor thing, is sitting alone at that window, you're watching in the open street fear any harm should come to her, and that you never leave the place or come home to your bed, though you are ever so tired, till such time as you think she's saving hers. Never mind what you'd say. Replied Kit, with something like a blush on his uncouth face. She'll never know nothing, and consequently, she'll never say nothing. Mrs. Knubbles ironed her way in silence for a minute or two, and coming to the fireplace for another iron, glanced stealthily at Kit while she rubbed it on her board and dusted it with a duster, but said nothing until she had returned to her table again. When holding the iron at an alarmingly short distance from her cheek, to test its temperature, and looking round with a smile, she observed. I know what some people would say, Kit. Nonsense. Interposed Kit with a perfect apprehension of what was to follow. No, but they would indeed. Some people would say that you'd fallen in love with her. I know they would. To this Kit only replied by bashfully beating his mother, Get out, and forming sundry strange figures with his legs and arms, accompanied by sympathetic contortions of his face. Not deriving from these means the relief which he sought. He bit off an immense mouthful from the bread and meat, and took a quick drink of the porter. By which artificial aids he choked himself and affected a diversion of the subject. Speaking seriously, though, Kit, said his mother, taking up the theme afresh after a time. For of course I was only in joke just now. It's very good and thoughtful, and like you to do this, and never let anybody know it, though someday I hope she may come to know it, for I am sure she would be very grateful to you and feel it very much. It's a cruel thing to keep the dear child shut up there. I don't wonder that the old gentleman wants to keep it from you. He don't think his cruel bless you, said Kit, and don't mean it to be so, or he wouldn't do it. I do consider mother that he wouldn't do it for all the gold and silver in the world. No, no, that he wouldn't. I know him better than that. Then what does he do it for, and why does he keep it so close from you? said Mrs. Nobles. That I don't know. Returned her son. If he hadn't tried to keep it so close, though, I should never have found it out. For it was he's getting me away at night and sending me off so much early than he used to, that first made me curious to know what was going on. Huck, what's that? It's only somebody outside. It's somebody crossing over here, said Kit, standing up to listen, and coming very fast too. He can't have gone out after I left in the house called Firemother. The boy stood for a moment really bereft by the apprehension he had conjured up of the power to move. The footsteps drew nearer, the door was opened with a hasty hand. And the child herself, pale and breathless, and hastily wrapped in a few disordered garments, hurried into the room. Miss Nelly, what is the matter? cried Mother and Son together. I must not stay for a moment, she returned. Grandfather has been taken very ill. I found him in a fit upon the floor. I'll run for a doctor, said Kit, seizing his brimless hat. I'll be there directly. No, no! cried Nell. There is one there. You're not wanted. You, you must never come near us any more. What? roared Kit. Never again, said the child. Don't ask me why, for I don't know. Pray, don't ask me why. Pray, don't be sorry. Pray, don't be vexed with me. I have nothing to do with it indeed. Kit looked at her with his eyes stretched wide, and opened and shut his mouth a great many times, but couldn't get out one word. He complains and raves of you, said the child. I don't know what you have done, but I hope it's nothing very bad. I done? roared Kit. He cries that you are the cause of all his misery. Returned the child with tearful eyes. He screamed and called for you. They say you must not come near him, or he will die. You must not return to us any more. I came to tell you. I thought it would be better that I should come than somebody quite strange. Oh, Kit, what have you done? You in whom I trusted so much, and who are almost the only friend I had. The unfortunate Kit looked at his young mistress harder and harder, and with eyes growing wider and wider, but was perfectly motionless and silent. I have brought his money for the week, said the child, looking to the woman and laying it on the table. And a little more, for he was always good and kind to me. I hope he will be sorry, and do well somewhere else, and not take this too hard too much. It grieves me very much to part with him like this, but there is no help. It must be done. Good night. With the tears streaming down her face and her slight figure trembling with the agitation of the scene she had left, the shock she had received, the errand she had just discharged, and a thousand painful and affectionate feelings, the child hastened to the door and disappeared as rapidly as she had come. The poor woman, who had no cause to doubt her son, but every reason for relying on his honesty and truth, was staggered, notwithstanding, by his not having advanced one word in his defence. Visions of gallantry, mavery, robbery, and of the nightly absences from home for which he had accounted so strangely, having been occasioned by some unlawful pursuit, flocked into her brain and rendered her afraid to question him. She rocked herself upon a chair, wringing her hands and weeping bitterly, but Kit made no attempt to comfort her, and remained quite bewildered. The baby in the cradle woke up and cried. The boy in the clothes basket fell over on his back with the basket upon him, and was seen no more. The mother wept louder yet and rocked faster, but Kit, insensible to all the din and tumult, remained in a state of utter stupefaction. End of Chapter 10 Chapter 11 of The Old Curiosity Shop This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Old Curiosity Shop by Charles Dickens Chapter 11 Quiet and solitude were destined to hold uninterrupted rule no longer, beneath the roof that sheltered the child. Next morning, the old man was in a raging fever accompanied with delirium, and sinking under the influence of this disorder, he lay for many weeks in imminent peril of his life. There was watching enough now, but it was the watching of strangers, who made a greedy trade of it, and who in the intervals in their attendance upon the sick man, huddled together in a ghastly good fellowship, and ate and drank and made merry. For disease and death were their ordinary household gods. Yet, in all the hurry and crowding of such a time, the child was more alone than she had ever been before, alone in spirit, alone in her devotion to him who was wasting away upon his burning bed, alone in her unfaithful sorrow and her unpurchased sympathy. Day after day, and night after night, found her still by the pillow of the unconscious sufferer, still anticipating his every want, still listening to those repetitions of her name, and those anxieties and cares for her, which were ever uppermost among his feverish wanderings. The house was no longer theirs, even the sick chamber seemed to be retained on the uncertain tenure of Mr. Quilb's favor. The old man's illness had not lasted many days when he took formal possession of the premises and all upon them, in virtue of certain legal powers to that effect, which few understood and none presumed to call in question. This important step secured with the assistance of a man of law whom he brought with him for the purpose, the dwarf proceeded to establish himself and his co-editor in the house as an assertion of his claim against all comers, and then set about making his quarters comfortable after his own fashion. To this end, Mr. Quilb been camped in the back parlor, having first put an effectual stop to any further business by shutting up the shop. Having looked out, from among the old furniture the handsomest and most commodious chair he could possibly find, which he reserved for his own use, and an especially hideous and uncomfortable one, which he considerately appropriated to the accommodation of his friend, he caused them to be carried into this room, and took up his position in great state. The apartment was very far removed from the old man's chamber, but Mr. Quilb deemed it prudent as a precaution against infection from fever, and a means of wholesome fumigation, not only to smoke himself without cessation, but to insist upon it that his legal friend did the like. Moreover, he sent an express to the wharf for the tumbling boy who, arriving with all dispatch, was enjoined to sit himself down in another chair just inside the door, continually to smoke a great pipe which the dwarf had provided for the purpose, and to take it from his lips under any pretense whatever were it only for one minute at a time if he dared. These arrangements completed, Mr. Quilb looked round him with chuckling satisfaction and remarked that he called that comfort. The legal gentleman, whose melodious name was Brass, might have called it comfort also, but for two drawbacks. One was that he could by no exertion sit easy in his chair, the seat of which was very hard, angular, slippery and sloping. The other, that tobacco smoke always caused him great internal discomposure and annoyance, but as he was quite a creature of Mr. Quilb's, and had a thousand reasons for conciliating his good opinion, he tried to smile and nodded his acquiescence with the best grace he could assume. This Brass was an attorney of no very good repute from beavis marks in the city of London. He was a tall, meager man with a nose like a wane, a protruding forehead, retreating eyes, and hair of deep red. He wore a long black shirt, too, reaching nearly to his ankles, short black trousers, high shoes, and cotton stockings of a bluish gray. He had a cringing manner but a very harsh voice, and his blandest smiles were so extremely forbidding that to have had his company under the least repulsive circumstances, one would have wished him to be out of temper that he might own his cow. Quilb looked at his legal advisor, and seeing that he was winking very much in the anguish of his pipe, that he sometimes shattered when he happened to inhale its full flavor, and that he constantly fanned the smoke from him, was quite overjoyed and rubbed his hands with glee. Smoke away, you dog, said Quilb, turning to the boy. Fill your pipe again and smoke it fast, down to the last whiff, or I'll put the ceiling wax tender within the fire and rub it red hot upon your tongue. Luckily, the boy was case hardened, and would have smoked a small lime kiln if anybody had treated him with it. Therefore, he only muttered a brief defiance of his master, and did as he was ordered. Is it good, Brass? Is it nice? Is it fragrant? Do you feel like the grand Turk? said Quilb. Mr. Brass thought that if he did, the grand Turk's feelings were by no means to be envied, but he said it was famous, and he had no doubt he felt very like that potentate. This is the way to keep off fever, said Quilb. This is the way to keep off every calamity of life. We'll never leave off all the time we stop here. Smoke away, you dog, or you shall swallow the pipe. Shall we stop here long, Mr. Quilb? Inquired his legal friend when the dwarf had given his boy this gentle admonition. We must stop, I suppose, till the old gentleman upstairs is dead. Returned Quilb. Loved Mr. Brass. Oh, very good. Smoke away, cried Quilb. Never stop. You can talk as you smoke. Don't lose time. Cried Brass faintly as he again applied himself to the odious pipe. But if he should get better, Mr. Quilb? Then we shall stop till he does, and no longer. Returned the dwarf. How kind it is of you, sir, to wait till then, said Brass. Some people, sir, would have sold or removed the goods. Oh, dear, the very instant the law allowed them. Some people, sir, would have been old flintiness and granite. Some people, sir, would have... Some people would have spared themselves the jubbering of such a parrot as you. Interposed the dwarf. Cried Brass. You have such spirits. The smoking sentinel at the door interposed in this place, and without taking his pipe from his lips growled. Here's the girl coming down. The what, you dog? said Quilb. The girl. Returned the boy. Are you deaf? Oh, said Quilb, drawing in his breath with great relish as if he were taking soup. You and I will have such a settling presently. There's such a scratching and bruising in stuff, you, my dear young friend. Aha! Nelly, how is he now, my duck of diamonds? He's very bad, replied the weeping child. What a pretty little knell, cried Quilb. Oh, beautiful sir, beautiful indeed, said Brass, quite charming. Has she come to sit upon Quilb's knee, said the dwarf, in what he meant to be a soothing tone, or is she going to bed in her own little room inside here? Which is poor Nelly going to do? What a remarkable, pleasant way he has with children, muttered Brass, as if in confidence between himself and the ceiling, upon my word it's quite a treat to hear him. I'm not going to stay at all, faulted knell. I want a few things out of that room, and then I... I won't come down here any more. And a very nice little room it is, said the dwarf, looking into it as the child entered. Quite a bower. You're sure you're not going to use it? You're sure you're not coming back, Nelly? No, replied the child, hurrying away. With a few articles of dress she had come to remove. Never again, never again. She's very sensitive, said Quilb, looking after her. Very sensitive, that's a pity. The bedstead is much about my size. I think I shall make it my little room. Mr. Brass, encouraging this idea as he would have encouraged any other emanating from the same source, the dwarf walked in to try the effect. This he did by throwing himself on his back upon the bed with his pipe in his mouth, and then kicking up his legs and smoking violently. Mr. Brass, applauding this picture very much, and the bed being soft and comfortable, Mr. Quilb determined to use it, both as a sleeping place by night and as a kind of divan by day, and in order that it might be converted to the latter purpose at once, remained where he was and smoked his pipe out. The legal gentleman, being by this time rather giddy and perplexed in his ideas, for this was one of the operations of the tobacco on his nervous system, took the opportunity of slinking away into the open air, where in cause of time he recovered sufficiently to return with a countenance of tolerable composure. He was soon led on by the malicious dwarf to smoke himself into relapse, and in that state stumbled upon a settee where he slept till morning. Such were Mr. Quilb's first proceedings on entering upon his new property. He was for some days restrained by business from performing any particular pranks, as his time was pretty well occupied between taking, with the assistance of Mr. Brass a minute inventory of all the goods in the place, and going abroad upon his other concerns which happily engaged him for several hours at a time. His avarice and caution being now thoroughly awakened, however, he was never absent from the house one night, and his eagerness for some termination, good or bad, to the old man's disorder, increasing rapidly as the time passed by, soon began to vent itself in open murmurs and exclamations of impatience. Nail shrank timidly from all the dwarfs' advances towards conversation, and fled from the very sound of his voice. Nor were the lawyer's smiles less terrible to her than Quilb's grimaces. She lived in such continual dread and apprehension of meeting one or other of them, on the stairs or in the passages if she stirred from her grandfather's chamber, that she seldom left it for a moment until late at night, when the silence encouraged her to venture forth and breathe the purer air of some empty room. One night, she got stolen to her usual window, and was sitting there very sorrowfully, for the old man had been worse that day, when she thought she heard her name pronounced by a voice in the street. Looking down, she recognized Kit, whose endeavours to attract her attention had roused her from her sad reflections. Miss Nail, said the boy in a low voice. Yes, replied the child, doubtful whether she ought to hold any communication with the supposed culprit, but inclining to her old favourites still. What do you want? I have wanted to say a word to you for a long time, the boy replied, but the people below have driven me away and wouldn't let me see you. You don't believe. I hope you don't really believe that I deserve to be cast off as I have been. Do you miss? I must believe it, returned the child. Or why would grandfather have been so angry with you? I don't know, replied Kit. I'm sure I never deserved it from him, no, nor from you. I can say that with a true and honest heart anyway. And then to be driven from the door, when I only came to ask how old Master was. They never told me that, said the child. I didn't know it indeed. I wouldn't have had them do it for the world. Thank you, miss, returned Kit. It's comfortable to hear you say that. I said I never would believe that it was your doing. That was right, said the child eagerly. Miss Nail, cried the boy coming under the window and speaking in a lower tone. There are new Masters downstairs. It's a change for you. It is indeed, replied the child. And so it will be for him when he gets better, said the boy pointing toward the sick room. If he ever does, added the child and able to restrain her tears. Oh, he'll do that, he'll do that, said Kit. I'm sure he will. You mustn't be cast down, Miss Nail. Now don't be, pray. These words of encouragement and consolation were few and roughly said, but they affected the child and made her for the moment weep the more. He'll be sure to get better now, said the boy anxiously. If you don't give way to low spirits and turn ill yourself, which would make him worse and throw him back just as he was recovering. When he does, say a good word, say a kind word for me, Miss Nail. He tell me I must not even mention your name to him for a long, long time. Rejoin the child. I dare not. And even if I might, what good would a kind word do you, Kit? We shall be very poor. We shall scarcely have bread to eat. It's not that I may be taken back, said the boy, but I ask the favor of you. It isn't for the sake of food and wages that I've been waiting about so long in hopes to see you. Don't think that I'd come in a time of trouble to talk of such things as them. The child looked grateful and kindly at him, but waited that he might speak again. No, it's not that, said Kit hesitating. It's something very different from that. I haven't got much sense, I know, but if he could be brought to believe that I'd been a faithful servant to him, doing the best I could and never meaning harm, perhaps he mightn't. Here Kit faltered so long that the child entreated him to speak out and quickly, for it was very late, and time to shut the window. Perhaps he mightn't think it over, ventures some of me to say, well, then, to say this, cried Kit, with sudden boldness. This home is gone from you and him. Mother and I have got a poor one, but that's better than this with all these people here. And why not come there till he's had time to look about and find a better? The child did not speak. Kit, in the relief of having made his proposition, found his tongue loosened, and spoke out in its favor with his utmost eloquence. You think, said the boy, that it's very small and inconvenient. So it is, but it's very clean. Perhaps you think it would be noisy, but there's not a quieter court than ours in all the town. Don't be afraid of the children. The baby hardly ever cries, and the other one is very good besides. I'd mind them. They wouldn't vex you much, I'm sure. Do try, Miss Nell. Do try. The little front room upstairs is very pleasant. You can see a piece of the church clock through the chimneys and almost tell the time. Mother says it would be just the thing for you, and so it would. And you'd have her to wait upon you both and me to run a variance. We don't mean money, bless you. You're not to think of that. Will you try him, Miss Nell? Only say you will try him. Do try to make Old Master come, and ask him first what I have done. Will you only promise that, Miss Nell? Before the child could reply to this earnest solicitation, the street door opened, and Mr. Brass, thrusting out his night-capped head, called in a surly voice, Who's there? Kit immediately glided away, and Nell, closing the window softly, drew back into the room. Before Mr. Brass had repeated his inquiry many times, Mr. Quilp, also embellished with a night-cap, emerged from the same door and looked carefully up and down the street, and up at all the windows of the house from the opposite side. Finding that there was nobody inside, he presently returned into the house with his legal friend, protesting, as the child heard from the staircase, that there was a league and plot against him, that he was in danger of being robbed and plundered by a band of conspirators who prowled about the house at all seasons, and that he would delay no longer but take immediate steps for disposing of the property and returning to his own peaceful roof. Having growled forth these, and a great many other threats of the same nature, he coiled himself once more in the child's little bed, and Nell crept softly up the stairs. It was natural enough that her short and unfinished dialogue with Kit should leave a strong impression on her mind, and influence her dreams that night and her recollections for a long, long time, surrounded by unfeeling creditors and mercenary attendants upon the sick, and meeting in the height of her anxiety and sorrow with little regard or sympathy even from the woman about her. It is not surprising that the affectionate heart of the child should have been touched to the quick by one kind and generous spirit, however uncouth the temple in which it dwelt.