dickens.txt

And in taking up this position we would have it distinctly understood that we do not seek alone the sympathy of bachelors, in whose objection to loving couples we recognise interested motives and personal considerations.  We grant that to that unfortunate class of society there may be something very irritating, tantalising, and provoking, in being compelled to witness those gentle endearments and chaste interchanges which to loving couples are quite the ordinary business of life.  But while we recognise the natural character of the prejudice to which these unhappy men are subject, we can neither receive their biassed evidence, nor address ourself to their inflamed and angered minds.  Dispassionate experience is our only guide; and in these moral essays we seek no less to reform hymeneal offenders than to hold out a timely warning to all rising couples, and even to those who have not yet set forth upon their pilgrimage towards the matrimonial market. 
If David could have read the thoughts that were in Steerforth's mind he would have grieved that he had ever brought him to that peaceful, innocent spot. For Steerforth had changed since the old school-days when David had been so fond of him. He had learned wickedness, and now, while he was exerting himself in every way to make the Peggottys like and admire him, in his heart he was trying to fascinate little Em'ly and to steal her love that she had given to Ham, till she would leave her home and run away with him to a foreign country. This, however, David could not guess, nor could any of the others, who regretted when the two friends' visit was over. 
‘Servant, young genelman,’ said John. 
|Many very gallant exploits were performed during this short and sanguinary period by loyalist irregulars; but probably the defence of Clonard may be placed foremost among numerous occurrences, in which the boundless gallantry of a determined handful of daring spirits repulsed the overwhelming masses to which they were opposed, and proved that no physical superiority can quench the courage of men devoted to home and altar, and determined ‘to do or die.’ The little garrison of Clonard consisted of a weak corps of yeoman infantry, and its commander was a self-taught soldier. But military talent is intuitive, and Lieutenant Tyrrell proved that the ruder the storm, the more extensively the resources of a brave man will be developed. 
Miss Mowcher replaced her handkerchief in her pocket, looking at me with very intent expression all the while, and pursued: 
At an early hour, but not before Uncle Sol and Walter had questioned each other at some length about their voyages and dangers, they all, except Walter, vacated Florence’s room, and went down to the parlour. Here they were soon afterwards joined by Walter, who told them Florence was a little sorrowful and heavy-hearted, and had gone to bed. Though they could not have disturbed her with their voices down there, they all spoke in a whisper after this: and each, in his different way, felt very lovingly and gently towards Walter’s fair young bride: and a long explanation there was of everything relating to her, for the satisfaction of Uncle Sol; and very sensible Mr Toots was of the delicacy with which Walter made his name and services important, and his presence necessary to their little council. 
‘We know the fact,’ repeated Craggs. 
‘Where?’ cries Wegg, starting. 
"You talk so prettily about these stones; you seem to know all about them." 
‘I’ll say anything of him, you like,’ returned the other, ‘and not another word to his disparagement.’ 
You wonder why that common phrase, So all unmeaning to your ear, Should stay me in my merriest mood, And thrill my soul to hear-- How can you tell what ancient charm Has made me hold it dear? 
This required no answer, and received none. Poor Mr Twemlow, who had betrayed the keenest mental terrors since his noble kinsman loomed in the perspective, rose with a sigh to take his departure. ‘I thank you very much, sir,’ he said, offering Fledgeby his feverish hand. ‘You have done me an unmerited service. Thank you, thank you!’ 
Miss Murdstone merely answers with a frown and a formal bend: Mr. Chillip, discomfited, goes into a corner, keeping me with him, and opens his mouth no more. 
Mr Codlin would have risen to receive it, but the child hurried towards him and placed it in his hand.  He stuck it in his buttonhole with an air of ineffable complacency for a misanthrope, and leering exultingly at the unconscious Short, muttered, as he laid himself down again, ‘Tom Codlin’s the friend, by G--!’ 
Says Podsnap, something sternly, ‘Now, first of all, Veneering, do you ask my advice?’ 
"Ghost of the Future!" he exclaimed, "I fear you more than any specter I have seen. But as I know your purpose is to do me good, and as I hope to live to be another man from what I was, I am prepared to bear you company, and do it with a thankful heart. Will you not speak to me?" 
‘Well, ma’am, he died of drink,’ said Mrs. Crupp, in confidence. ‘And smoke.’ 
The child saw with astonishment and alarm that his whole appearance had undergone a complete change.  His face was flushed and eager, his eyes were strained, his teeth set, his breath came short and thick, and the hand he laid upon her arm trembled so violently that she shook beneath its grasp. 
And there, too, was a sprinkling of less distinguished Parliamentary Barnacles, who had not as yet got anything snug, and were going through their probation to prove their worthiness. These Barnacles perched upon staircases and hid in passages, waiting their orders to make houses or not to make houses; and they did all their hearing, and ohing, and cheering, and barking, under directions from the heads of the family; and they put dummy motions on the paper in the way of other men’s motions; and they stalled disagreeable subjects off until late in the night and late in the session, and then with virtuous patriotism cried out that it was too late; and they went down into the country, whenever they were sent, and swore that Lord Decimus had revived trade from a swoon, and commerce from a fit, and had doubled the harvest of corn, quadrupled the harvest of hay, and prevented no end of gold from flying out of the Bank. Also these Barnacles were dealt, by the heads of the family, like so many cards below the court-cards, to public meetings and dinners; where they bore testimony to all sorts of services on the part of their noble and honourable relatives, and buttered the Barnacles on all sorts of toasts. And they stood, under similar orders, at all sorts of elections; and they turned out of their own seats, on the shortest notice and the most unreasonable terms, to let in other men; and they fetched and carried, and toadied and jobbed, and corrupted, and ate heaps of dirt, and were indefatigable in the public service. And there was not a list, in all the Circumlocution Office, of places that might fall vacant anywhere within half a century, from a lord of the Treasury to a Chinese consul, and up again to a governor-general of India, but as applicants for such places, the names of some or of every one of these hungry and adhesive Barnacles were down. 
Mr. Pickwick thought so also; but, under all the circumstances, he considered it a matter of sound policy to be silent. 
"At length we reached the end of a long gallery, and stopped in a small closet-like place, but well filled with light, and containing numerous emblems of the divining art of the being who ruled as mistress of the whole. There were globes of considerable magnitude, diagrams of the heavenly bodies, curious geometrical figures, two enormous skulls on pedestals, a human skeleton in a glass-case, stuffed snakes, mirrors that unnaturally enlarged the human features,--in short, the place was literally crowded with strange things to attract, or rather to distract, the attention. Here we lingered a few minutes, and then a small door was thrown open, into an extremely dark passage hung with black cloth, and lighted only by a diminutive lamp, that scarcely sent its feeble rays from one extremity to the other; the sombre appearance was well calculated to strike terror, and bewilder the weak minds that traversed its gloom. 'Pass on,' said my conductor; 'open the farther door! I quit you here.' I obeyed without hesitation, though I must own that, when I heard the portal close heavily behind me, and the key harshly grating in the lock, a sickening sensation crept over my spirit, and I was almost fainting with the closeness of the place. I pushed on with what haste I could, and, throwing open the door at the extremity, burst at once from darkness and gloom into a scene of resplendent brightness that dazzled the eyes; and, before I could recover my senses, I felt myself enclosed in the arms of some one who, by her dress, I concluded was the sibyl herself. Such a greeting appalled me, from its being so totally unexpected; but a well-remembered voice soon dispelled alarm. I was in the embrace of my venerable relative,--she who had influenced every action of my early life;--it was Madame T----! 
‘A little drop of spirits, master, if it’s all the same,’ replied Blathers. ‘It’s a cold ride from London, ma’am; and I always find that spirits comes home warmer to the feelings.’ 
"Are you alone?" asked Agnes. 
‘Charity.  A morsel of bread.’ 
‘For nothing. Or--it’s much the same--because something I happened to say about my sister didn’t happen to please him.’ 
‘You dog,’ snarled Quilp, ‘I’ll beat you with an iron rod, I’ll scratch you with a rusty nail, I’ll pinch your eyes, if you talk to me--I will.’ 
"What a fool am I!" said I, mentally; "what _harm_ can this man do my dying mother? but, then, _she_ may see him--this being that resembles a demi-god--and _she_ too of so peculiar a mind, so enamoured of all that is great and wonderful; so romantic, too! Wretch that I am! is my beloved mother's life to be sacrificed--at least the chance of saving her--to a wild and jealous fantasy? No!" and I walked up again to the table. 
Not being conchologists, we shall not attempt to describe the shell in which it was pretended that John Pooledoune was buried. In that shell no muscle of his ever reposed; it held a few of the paving-stones of the adjacent lane, which, if John had been alive to submit to his galvanic battery, would have been demonstrated to be composed of bumble bees' sacchyrometers. About the same hour that the stones were interred with the solemn ritual of the church service by the chaplain, the body also furnished the subject of a lecture by the surgeon of the workhouse to the pupils in an adjoining hospital. The scull in particular was singularly formed, at least it was so declared by the phrenologists, who were allowed to claw it, and who clearly showed that the bumps (caused by the watermen's drags) were organs of philoprogenitiveness, amativeness, and destructiveness. 
Miss Pupford's assistant with the Parisian accent, may be regarded as in some sort an inspired lady, for she never conversed with a Parisian, and was never out of England--except once in the pleasure-boat Lively, in the foreign waters that ebb and flow two miles off Margate at high water. Even under those geographically favourable circumstances for the acquisition of the French language in its utmost politeness and purity, Miss Pupford's assistant did not fully profit by the opportunity; for the pleasure-boat, Lively, so strongly asserted its title to its name on that occasion, that she was reduced to the condition of lying in the bottom of the boat pickling in brine--as if she were being salted down for the use of the Navy--undergoing at the same time great mental alarm, corporeal distress, and clear-starching derangement. 
"'And so had I,' said Snaps seriously: 'but what do you think, Pounce?' and my master beckoned me close to him. 
‘--And a rainy night,’ added the stout man. 
‘I no sooner mentioned your name, Clennam, than he said, “That will never do!” What did he mean by that? I asked him. No matter, Meagles; that would never do. Why would it never do? You’ll hardly believe it, Clennam,’ said Mr Meagles, laughing within himself, ‘but it came out that it would never do, because you and he, walking down to Twickenham together, had glided into a friendly conversation in the course of which he had referred to his intention of taking a partner, supposing at the time that you were as firmly and finally settled as St Paul’s Cathedral. “Whereas,” says he, “Mr Clennam might now believe, if I entertained his proposition, that I had a sinister and designing motive in what was open free speech. Which I can’t bear,” says he, “which I really am too proud to bear.”’ 
‘I have seen,’ said Betty, still with that light beat upon her hard rough hand, ‘so many of them on my lap. And they are all gone but this one! I am ashamed to seem so selfish, but I don’t really mean it. It’ll be the making of his fortune, and he’ll be a gentleman when I am dead. I--I--don’t know what comes over me. I--try against it. Don’t notice me!’ The light beat stopped, the resolute mouth gave way, and the fine strong old face broke up into weakness and tears. 
The door was thrown open at this juncture, and Miss Pecksniff entered, tottering, and supported by her three bridesmaids. The strong-minded woman brought up the rear; having waited outside until now, for the purpose of spoiling the effect. 
‘What for?’ asked Oliver, recoiling. 
“That is the very reason. If it was mine or yours, do you think I should not have taken it in hand long ago? All my draining goes for little while that shallow ditch keeps my ground a continual sop. It is all uneven along the bottom;--not the same depth for three feet together anywhere, and not deep enough by two feet in any part. So there it is, choked up and putrid; and, after an hour or two of rain, my garden gets such a soaking that the next frost is destruction.” 
And she proceeded to arrange all the details of her plan. 
Vendale had the letter on his desk, and waited a moment to steady his mind under the shock that had fallen on it.  At the time of all others when it was most important to him to increase the value of his business, that business was threatened with a loss of five hundred pounds.  He thought of Marguerite, as he took the key from his pocket and opened the iron chamber in the wall in which the books and papers of the firm were kept. 
The affection which exists between these two—the master and the pupil—is as far removed from all ordinary care and regard, as the circumstances in which it has had its growth, are apart from the common occurrences of life.  He is occupied now, in devising means of imparting to her, higher knowledge; and of conveying to her some adequate idea of the Great Creator of that universe in which, dark and silent and scentless though it be to her, she has such deep delight and glad enjoyment. 
First of all, he took a refreshing draught of the beer, and then he looked up at the window, and bestowed a Platonic wink on a young lady who was peeling potatoes thereat. Then he opened the paper, and folded it so as to get the police reports outwards; and this being a vexatious and difficult thing to do, when there is any wind stirring, he took another draught of the beer when he had accomplished it. Then he read two lines of the paper, and stopped short to look at a couple of men who were finishing a game of rackets, which being concluded, he cried out "wery good" in an approving manner, and looked round upon the spectators, to ascertain whether their sentiments coincided with his own. This involved the necessity of looking up at the windows also; and as the young lady was still there, it was an act of common politeness to wink again, and to drink to her good health in dumb show, in another draught of the beer, which Sam did; and having frowned hideously upon a small boy who had noted this latter proceeding with open eyes, he threw one leg over the other, and holding the newspaper in both hands, began to read in real earnest. 
“Say so!” replied the landlord. “He han’t no call to say so.” 
‘What is a man?’ continued the red-faced specimen of the species, jerking his hat indignantly from its peg on the wall.  ‘What is an Englishman? Is he to be trampled upon by every oppressor?  Is he to be knocked down at everybody’s bidding?  What’s freedom?  Not a standing army.  What’s a standing army?  Not freedom.  What’s general happiness?  Not universal misery.  Liberty ain’t the window-tax, is it?  The Lords ain’t the Commons, are they?’  And the red-faced man, gradually bursting into a radiating sentence, in which such adjectives as ‘dastardly,’ ‘oppressive,’ ‘violent,’ and ‘sanguinary,’ formed the most conspicuous words, knocked his hat indignantly over his eyes, left the room, and slammed the door after him. 
"I see the lives, for which I lay down mine, peaceful and happy in that England I shall see no more. I see Lucie and Darnay with a child that bears my name, and I see that I shall hold a place in their hearts for ever. I see her weeping for me on the anniversary of this day. I see the blot I threw upon my name faded away, and I know that till they die neither shall be more honored in the soul of the other than I am honored in the souls of both. It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to than I have ever known!" 
‘Yes!’ cried Mrs Varden, bursting into tears, ‘yes, you would. I don’t doubt it, Varden. Certainly you would. That’s as much as to tell me that you would be hovering round me like a vulture, waiting till the breath was out of my body, that you might go and marry somebody else.’ 
Before Mr Swiveller could make any reply, Mr Chuckster took occasion to enter his indignant protest against this form of inquiry; which he held to be of a disrespectful and snobbish tendency, inasmuch as the inquirer, seeing two gentlemen then and there present, should have spoken of the other gentleman; or rather (for it was not impossible that the object of his search might be of inferior quality) should have mentioned his name, leaving it to his hearers to determine his degree as they thought proper.  Mr Chuckster likewise remarked, that he had some reason to believe this form of address was personal to himself, and that he was not a man to be trifled with--as certain snobs (whom he did not more particularly mention or describe) might find to their cost. 
‘“EDUCATION.--At Mr. Wackford Squeers’s Academy, Dotheboys Hall, at the delightful village of Dotheboys, near Greta Bridge in Yorkshire, Youth are boarded, clothed, booked, furnished with pocket-money, provided with all necessaries, instructed in all languages living and dead, mathematics, orthography, geometry, astronomy, trigonometry, the use of the globes, algebra, single stick (if required), writing, arithmetic, fortification, and every other branch of classical literature. Terms, twenty guineas per annum. No extras, no vacations, and diet unparalleled. Mr. Squeers is in town, and attends daily, from one till four, at the Saracen’s Head, Snow Hill. N.B. An able assistant wanted. Annual salary 5 pounds. A Master of Arts would be preferred.” 
Neither will there be found, in these pages, any grave examination into the government or misgovernment of any portion of the country.  No visitor of that beautiful land can fail to have a strong conviction on the subject; but as I chose when residing there, a Foreigner, to abstain from the discussion of any such questions with any order of Italians, so I would rather not enter on the inquiry now.  During my twelve months’ occupation of a house at Genoa, I never found that authorities constitutionally jealous were distrustful of me; and I should be sorry to give them occasion to regret their free courtesy, either to myself or any of my countrymen. 
"No," said Mrs. Townsend, shading her face with her hand, and speaking unsteadily; "no, her husband is dead." 
"Thank you," said I--"I am in want of nothing, and shall presently start. Do many people ascend Snowdon from your house?" 
‘What do you suppose he cares for you, you conceited woman?’ said Mr Flintwinch. 
“’Twas easy to find him if you knew where to go.” 
The last glimpse of the wrinkled face of the mother, with that patched colour on it which the sun made infinitely more haggard and dismal than any want of colour could have been, and of the proud beauty of the daughter with her graceful figure and erect deportment, engendered such an involuntary disposition on the part of both the Major and Mr Dombey to look after them, that they both turned at the same moment. The Page, nearly as much aslant as his own shadow, was toiling after the chair, uphill, like a slow battering-ram; the top of Cleopatra’s bonnet was fluttering in exactly the same corner to the inch as before; and the Beauty, loitering by herself a little in advance, expressed in all her elegant form, from head to foot, the same supreme disregard of everything and everybody. 
And now, indeed, it seemed that Quilp’s malignant career was drawing to a close, and that retribution, which often travels slowly--especially when heaviest--had tracked his footsteps with a sure and certain scent and was gaining on him fast.  Unmindful of her stealthy tread, her victim holds his course in fancied triumph.  Still at his heels she comes, and once afoot, is never turned aside! 
“Let’s have a glim,” said Sikes, “or we shall go breaking our necks, or treading on the dog. Look after your legs if you do, that’s all.” 
"I had supper long ago, but really I think I can take something more," said Mrs. Townsend, drawing her chair nearer to the table. 
‘Nor the child, I hope?’ said Trotty. 
Gride gladly availed himself of the pretext for going to the window to see. Ralph, keeping his face steadily the other way, tore at his shirt with the hand which he had thrust into his breast, and muttered in a hoarse whisper: 
As she applied herself to set the tea-things, Joe peeped down at me over his leg, as if he were mentally casting me and himself up, and calculating what kind of pair we practically should make, under the grievous circumstances foreshadowed. After that, he sat feeling his right-side flaxen curls and whisker, and following Mrs. Joe about with his blue eyes, as his manner always was at squally times. 
The fond father was about to reply, and had already summoned into his face a look of most intense sensibility, when the sound he had already noticed was repeated. 
Florence related it, and everything belonging to it, even down to the friendship of Mr Toots, of whom she could hardly speak in her distress without a tearful smile, although she was deeply grateful to him. When she had concluded her account, to the whole of which Edith, holding her hand, listened with close attention, and when a silence had succeeded, Edith said: 
‘They know of this, at home,’ said Dolly. ‘For your sake, I would leave even them; but they know it, and are glad of it, and are as proud of you as I am, and as full of gratitude.--You’ll not come and see me as a poor friend who knew me when I was a girl, will you, dear Joe?’ 
An ungainly, awkward-looking man, extremely short-sighted, and prematurely bald, availed himself of this permission; and seeing that Mr Pecksniff sat with his back towards him, gazing at the fire, stood hesitating, with the door in his hand. He was far from handsome certainly; and was drest in a snuff-coloured suit, of an uncouth make at the best, which, being shrunk with long wear, was twisted and tortured into all kinds of odd shapes; but notwithstanding his attire, and his clumsy figure, which a great stoop in his shoulders, and a ludicrous habit he had of thrusting his head forward, by no means redeemed, one would not have been disposed (unless Mr Pecksniff said so) to consider him a bad fellow by any means. He was perhaps about thirty, but he might have been almost any age between sixteen and sixty; being one of those strange creatures who never decline into an ancient appearance, but look their oldest when they are very young, and get it over at once. 
As they gave the answer, they recalled their outstretched hands; and where their figures had been, there the Bells were. 
‘That’s right--look sharp. Now the tongue--now the pigeon pie. Take care of that veal and ham--mind the lobsters--take the salad out of the cloth--give me the dressing.’ Such were the hurried orders which issued from the lips of Mr. Wardle, as he handed in the different articles described, and placed dishes in everybody’s hands, and on everybody’s knees, in endless number. 
‘It’s very unfortunate,’ said the stranger, with a sigh. 
Obenreizer stopped in his smoking to look at Vendale, and then smoked heavily, looked up the road, looked down the road, looked down at the stones in the road at his feet. 
"Beg your Lordship's pardon, Phunky." 
Other imperfect ideas thronged upon his bewildered brain. A glimmering recollection of digging up the chest crossed him, but he fancied he must have taken out its contents and buried them deeper in the ground. Somewhat calmed by the idea, he commenced digging anew with frightful ardour, and soon cleared out the soil to nearly the depth of three feet. But as he found nothing, his apprehensions returned with new force and paralysed his efforts. 
As they had spoken in a subdued tone, while speaking of Em'ly, I had no doubt that she was near. On my asking now, if that were not so, Mr. Omer nodded yes, and nodded towards the door of the parlor. My hurried inquiry if I might peep in, was answered with a free permission; and, looking through the glass, I saw her sitting at her work. I saw her, a most beautiful little creature, with the cloudless blue eyes, that had looked into my childish heart, turned laughingly upon another child of Minnie's who was playing near her; with enough of wilfulness in her bright face to justify what I had heard; with much of the old capricious coyness lurking in it; but with nothing in her pretty looks, I am sure, but what was meant for goodness and for happiness, and what was on a good and happy course. 
It was the first time she had ever called me by my name. Of course she did so purposely, and knew that I should treasure it up. 
‘Kills himself, in fact,’ said Wilkins Flasher, Esquire. 
Toby was greatly moved. 
The mutual inspection was at length brought to a close by Ralph withdrawing his eyes, with a great show of disdain, and calling Nicholas ‘a boy.’ This word is much used as a term of reproach by elderly gentlemen towards their juniors: probably with the view of deluding society into the belief that if they could be young again, they wouldn’t on any account. 
The captain rode away and gave the message. 
He had been made prisoner that evening. ‘If you are sure it’s me you want,’ he said to the officers, who waited outside with the warrant for his arrest on a charge of High Treason, ‘I am ready to accompany you--’ which he did without resistance. He was conducted first before the Privy Council, and afterwards to the Horse Guards, and then was taken by way of Westminster Bridge, and back over London Bridge (for the purpose of avoiding the main streets), to the Tower, under the strongest guard ever known to enter its gates with a single prisoner. 
And vainly, too, the other, looking Smiling up through hopeful tears, Asked in his heart of hearts, "Where is she, She I love these many years?" He heard no echo calling faintly: "Lo, she lieth cold and pale, And her smile so calm and saintly Heeds not grieving sob or wail-- Heeds not the lilies strewn upon her, Pure as she is, and as white, Or the solemn chanting voices, Or the taper's ghastly light." But silent still was the ancient forest, Silent were the gloomy trees, He only heard the wailing sound Of the summer breeze, That sadly played around The acacia trees 
He again begged to remark that he had not finished. 
When we had those meetings in the garden of the square, and sat within the dingy summer-house, so happy, that I love the London sparrows to this hour, for nothing else, and see the plumage of the tropics in their smoky feathers! When we had our first great quarrel (within a week of our betrothal), and when Dora sent me back the ring, enclosed in a despairing cocked-hat note, wherein she used the terrible expression that ‘our love had begun in folly, and ended in madness!’ which dreadful words occasioned me to tear my hair, and cry that all was over! 
‘Lauk, Mrs. Bardell,’ said Mrs. Cluppins, ‘see what you’ve been and done!’ 
The term had commenced, and my guardian found an intimation from Mr. Kenge that the cause would come on in two days. As I had sufficient hopes of the will to be in a flutter about it, Allan and I agreed to go down to the court that morning. Richard was extremely agitated and was so weak and low, though his illness was still of the mind, that my dear girl indeed had sore occasion to be supported. But she looked forward--a very little way now--to the help that was to come to her, and never drooped. 
‘Miss Sally couldn’t kill me if she know’d I went down there, so I’ll come,’ said Richard, putting the cards into his pocket.  ‘Why, how thin you are!  What do you mean by it?’ 
‘What!’ exclaimed Mr. Snodgrass, suddenly recovering the power of speech, of which intense astonishment had previously bereft him, and rushing between the two, at the imminent hazard of receiving an application on the temple from each--‘what! Mr. Pickwick, with the eyes of the world upon you! Mr. Tupman! who, in common with us all, derives a lustre from his undying name! For shame, gentlemen; for shame.’ 
"What be ye after here, Injun?" he growled. "Hump yerself outer here--git a-goin'!" 
‘Anything means everything, don’t it, Papa?’ asked his son: not observing, or possibly not understanding, the qualification. 
Ham staggered, as well he might, under the blow Mr. Peggotty dealt him in his unbounded joy, as a mark of confidence and friendship; but feeling called upon to say something to us, he said, with much faltering and great difficulty: 
‘Whatever I am to call him, Mr. Gradgrind, when he is married to Louisa! I must call him something.  It’s impossible,’ said Mrs. Gradgrind, with a mingled sense of politeness and injury, ‘to be constantly addressing him and never giving him a name.  I cannot call him Josiah, for the name is insupportable to me.  You yourself wouldn’t hear of Joe, you very well know.  Am I to call my own son-in-law, Mister!  Not, I believe, unless the time has arrived when, as an invalid, I am to be trampled upon by my relations.  Then, what am I to call him!’ 
‘Take this little villain away,’ said the agonised Mr. Pickwick, ‘he’s mad.’ 
‘I am glad of that,’ observed Paul, rubbing his hands thoughtfully. ‘That’s a very good thing.’ 
‘Not a syllable,’ replied Hugh. ‘I never want to. I don’t believe I ever shall. He’s dead long ago, I hope.’ 
But he wishes to see my Lady. Within a few more minutes he is reported as sending his respects, and could my Lady please to receive him for a word or two after her dinner? My Lady will receive him now. He comes now, apologizing for intruding, even by her permission, while she is at table. When they are alone, my Lady waves her hand to dispense with such mockeries. 
The only bit of youth was Nell herself; and yet she had a strange intermingling of dignity and responsibility, in spite of her small figure and childish ways.  Her fourteen years of life had left her undecided between childhood and girlhood.  She had not begun to grow up; and yet she was an orphan, accustomed to doing everything for herself. 
I happened to arrive at the first factory just as the dinner hour was over, and the girls were returning to their work; indeed the stairs of the mill were thronged with them as I ascended.  They were all well dressed, but not to my thinking above their condition; for I like to see the humbler classes of society careful of their dress and appearance, and even, if they please, decorated with such little trinkets as come within the compass of their means.  Supposing it confined within reasonable limits, I would always encourage this kind of pride, as a worthy element of self-respect, in any person I employed; and should no more be deterred from doing so, because some wretched female referred her fall to a love of dress, than I would allow my construction of the real intent and meaning of the Sabbath to be influenced by any warning to the well-disposed, founded on his backslidings on that particular day, which might emanate from the rather doubtful authority of a murderer in Newgate. 
“Apparently the Citizen-Doctor is not in his right mind? The Revolution-fever will have been too much for him?” 
“I am sure of it. Charles Darnay, mysteries arise out of close love, as well as out of wide division; in the former case, they are subtle and delicate, and difficult to penetrate. My daughter Lucie is, in this one respect, such a mystery to me; I can make no guess at the state of her heart.” 
“Your servant, Sir,” said Joe, “which I hope as you and Pip”—here his eye fell on the Avenger, who was putting some toast on table, and so plainly denoted an intention to make that young gentleman one of the family, that I frowned it down and confused him more—“I meantersay, you two gentlemen,—which I hope as you get your elths in this close spot? For the present may be a werry good inn, according to London opinions,” said Joe, confidentially, “and I believe its character do stand it; but I wouldn’t keep a pig in it myself,—not in the case that I wished him to fatten wholesome and to eat with a meller flavour on him.” 
‘That’s to be taken care of, sir; that bites.’ 
I felt that I made them as uncomfortable as they made me. If I came into the room where they were, and they were talking together and my mother seemed cheerful, an anxious cloud would steal over her face from the moment of my entrance. If Mr. Murdstone were in his best humor, I checked him. If Miss Murdstone were in her worst, I intensified it. I had perception enough to know that my mother was the victim always; that she was afraid to speak to me or be kind to me, lest she should give them some offence by her manner of doing so, and receive a lecture afterwards; that she was not only ceaselessly afraid of her own offending, but of my offending, and uneasily watched their looks if I only moved. Therefore I resolved to keep myself as much out of their way as I could; and many a wintry hour did I hear the church-clock strike, when I was sitting in my cheerless bedroom, wrapped in my little great-coat, poring over a book. 
Sam had scarcely recovered his usual composure of countenance, which had been greatly disturbed by the secret communication of his respected relative, when Mr. Pickwick accosted him. 
"Mister Grubble, miss," returned Charley. "Don't you know, miss? The Dedlock Arms, by W. Grubble," which Charley delivered as if she were slowly spelling out the sign. 
And yet he is here now, Lady Dedlock moodily reminds him. 
“I wish,” said Toby turning to Mr. Chitling, “that you had picked out some other crib when the two old ones got too warm, and not come here, my fine feller.” 
"How do you find yourself?" said Mr. Dick, with an anxious look. 
First New England Christmas           103 HEZEKIAH BUTTERWORTH. 
Oliver was precisely in the condition I have described. He saw the Jew with his half-closed eyes, heard his low whistling, and recognised the sound of the spoon grating against the saucepan's sides; and yet the self-same senses were mentally engaged at the same time, in busy action with almost everybody he had ever known. 
The woman led the way up-stairs to the front room, and paused at the door, to let him enter first.  It was scantily furnished with an old deal box, a few chairs, and a tent bedstead, without hangings or cross-rails, which was covered with a patchwork counterpane.  The dim light admitted through the curtain which he had noticed from the outside, rendered the objects in the room so indistinct, and communicated to all of them so uniform a hue, that he did not, at first, perceive the object on which his eye at once rested when the woman rushed frantically past him, and flung herself on her knees by the bedside. 
Disturbed as Florence was, she raised her eyes to his face with an imploring and expressive look, that plainly besought him, if he knew--which he as plainly did--that any message between her and her father was an uncommon charge, but that one most of all, to spare her. Mr Carker smiled and bowed low, and being charged by Sir Barnet with the best compliments of himself and Lady Skettles, took his leave, and rode away: leaving a favourable impression on that worthy couple. Florence was seized with such a shudder as he went, that Sir Barnet, adopting the popular superstition, supposed somebody was passing over her grave. Mr Carker turning a corner, on the instant, looked back, and bowed, and disappeared, as if he rode off to the churchyard straight, to do it. 
Oliver was awakened in the morning, by a loud kicking at the outside of the shop-door: which, before he could huddle on his clothes, was repeated, in an angry and impetuous manner, about twenty-five times. When he began to undo the chain, the legs desisted, and a voice began. 
‘I am the Deputy Lock, on job, and this is the Lock-house. (Lock or Deputy Lock, it’s all one, while the t’other man’s in the hospital.) What’s your Parish?’ 
‘Let me see then,’ resumed Mr Boffin, with his hand to his chin. ‘It was Secretary that you named; wasn’t it?’ 
With this, the speaker snatched that article of dress from Mr. Pickwick's head, and fixed it in a twinkling on that of the drunken man, who, firmly impressed with the belief that he was delighting a numerous assembly, continued to hammer away at the comic song in the most melancholy strains imaginable. 
He had gone into every late or early public-house where there was a light (they were not a few at that time, the road being then much frequented by drovers) and had got down to talk to the turnpike-keepers. I had heard him ordering drink, and chinking money, and making himself agreeable and merry everywhere; but whenever he took his seat upon the box again, his face resumed its watchful steady look, and he always said to the driver in the same business tone, "Get on, my lad!" 
‘You speak truly, sir,’ said Mr. Pickwick. 
‘Oh! he’s much the same as usual,’ was the reply. ‘No better and no worse.’ 
‘No no, sir--certainly not; not by any means,’ returned Brass. 
"Love her, love her, love her! If she favors you, love her! If she tears your heart to pieces, love her, love her, love her!" 
‘Uriah Heep,’ said Mr. Wickfield, in a monotonous forced way, ‘is active in the business, Trotwood. What he says, I quite concur in. You know I had an old interest in you. Apart from that, what Uriah says I quite concur in!’ 
They have but to cross what was once the vineyard, belonging to what was once the Monastery, to come into the narrow back lane wherein stands the crazy wooden house of two low stories currently known as the Travellers’ Twopenny:—a house all warped and distorted, like the morals of the travellers, with scant remains of a lattice-work porch over the door, and also of a rustic fence before its stamped-out garden; by reason of the travellers being so bound to the premises by a tender sentiment (or so fond of having a fire by the roadside in the course of the day), that they can never be persuaded or threatened into departure, without violently possessing themselves of some wooden forget-me-not, and bearing it off. 
"Why, my love!" I remonstrated. "Ada, why should you not speak to us!" 
"Still bent, my dear sir," said Mr. Kenge, showing us through the outer office to the door, "still bent, even with your enlarged mind, on echoing a popular prejudice? We are a prosperous community, Mr. Jarndyce, a very prosperous community. We are a great country, Mr. Jarndyce, we are a very great country. This is a great system, Mr. Jarndyce, and would you wish a great country to have a little system? Now, really, really!" 
‘Mind!’ interposed Charley. ‘What should he have to mind?’ 
On the contrary, the other three--knaves and gamesters by their trade--while intent upon their game, were yet as cool and quiet as if every virtue had been centered in their breasts.  Sometimes one would look up to smile to another, or to snuff the feeble candle, or to glance at the lightning as it shot through the open window and fluttering curtain, or to listen to some louder peal of thunder than the rest, with a kind of momentary impatience, as if it put him out; but there they sat, with a calm indifference to everything but their cards, perfect philosophers in appearance, and with no greater show of passion or excitement than if they had been made of stone. 
Always with the proviso that Podsnap will rally round him, Veneering thinks it is so. 
I found Mr. Waterbrook to be a middle-aged gentleman, with a short throat, and a good deal of shirt-collar, who only wanted a black nose to be the portrait of a pug-dog. He told me he was happy to have the honour of making my acquaintance; and when I had paid my homage to Mrs. Waterbrook, presented me, with much ceremony, to a very awful lady in a black velvet dress, and a great black velvet hat, whom I remember as looking like a near relation of Hamlet’s--say his aunt. 
AN URGENT REMONSTRANCE, &c. 
‘Then once more, good night!’ 
“Joe,” said I, taking hold of his rolled-up shirt sleeve, and twisting it between my finger and thumb, “you remember all that about Miss Havisham’s?” 
VERSE: LIFE IN DEATH AND DEATH IN LIFE 
The reader, if he have not seen these passages before, will, we are sure, sympathise with us in our regrets that the work from which we extract them, carries us only in its two volumes to the year 1785,--a period at which Colman's fame and reputation had yet to be made. 
The friends of the acquitted prisoner had dispersed, under the impression--which he himself had originated--that he would not be released that night. The lights were nearly all extinguished in the passages, the iron gates were being closed with a jar and a rattle, and the dismal place was deserted until to-morrow morning's interest of gallows, pillory, whipping-post, and branding-iron, should repeople it. Walking between her father and Mr. Darnay, Lucie Manette passed into the open air. A hackney-coach was called, and the father and daughter departed in it. 
“That man must be delivered up by you,” said the gentleman. 
I replied that I should have known her, anywhere. Which was true enough. 
‘You have nothing at all to urge? You are sure of that! If you have, no matter what it is, speak freely. I will oppose nothing that you ask of me,’ said the old man. 
All this season the pantomime was played first, which arrangement released him at half-past eight o'clock, thus affording him an opportunity, which he enjoyed for the first time in his life, of being abroad in the evening, in the spring and summer of the year. During the greater portion of his life in those seasons, he had entered Sadler's Wells every night at six o'clock, and remained there until twelve. The novelty of being at liberty before it was yet dark was so great, that he scarcely knew what to do with himself, sometimes strolling about the streets in perfect astonishment at finding himself there, and then turning home in pure lack of employment. 
‘Very like that--only more genteel,’ replied Miss Squeers. 
That he well deserved one, yes. That he would ever have one, no. 
Having quitted the carriage, and ordered a dinner at the Hôtel de l’Abbaye, the young couple proceeded to visit Mademoiselle Hortense de Bellefonds, who was overjoyed to see her sister and new brother-in-law, and doubly so when she found that they had obtained permission to take her out to spend the afternoon with them. As there is little to be seen at St. Denis but the Abbey, on quitting that part of it devoted to education, they proceeded to visit the church, with its various objects of interest; and as De Chaulieu’s thoughts were now forced into another direction, his cheerfulness began insensibly to return. Natalie looked so beautiful, too, and the affection betwixt the two young sisters was so pleasant to behold! And they spent a couple of hours wandering about with Hortense, who was almost as well informed as the Suisse, till the brazen doors were open which admitted them to the Royal vault. Satisfied, at length, with what they had seen, they began to think of returning to the inn, the more especially as De Chaulieu, who had not eaten a morsel of food since the previous evening, owned to being hungry; so they directed their steps to the door, lingering here and there as they went, to inspect a monument or a painting, when, happening to turn his head aside to see if his wife, who had stopt to take a last look at the tomb of King Dagobert, was following, he beheld with horror the face of Jacques Rollet appearing from behind a column! At the same instant his wife joined him, and took his arm, inquiring if he was not very much delighted with what he had seen. He attempted to say yes, but the word would not be forced out; and staggering out of the door, he alleged that a sudden faintness had overcome him. 
Bella remaining invisible and silent, her father remained at his dessert and wine, until he remembered it was time for him to get home to Holloway. ‘Though I positively cannot tear myself away,’ he cherubically added, ‘--it would be a sin--without drinking to many, many happy returns of this most happy day.’ 
"Yes," replied the Jew, "wherever she lays hands on him. Find him, find him out, that's all; and I shall know what to do next, never fear." 
‘To make the people laugh?’ said Louisa, with a nod of intelligence. 
But keeping the old man close, according to his design, would serve his turn. His purpose was to escape, when the first alarm and wonder had subsided; and when he could make the attempt without awakening instant suspicion. In the meanwhile these women would keep him quiet; and if the talking humour came upon him, would not be easily startled. He knew their trade. 
It was a question much discussed between him and my guardian what arrangements should be made for his living in London while he experimented on the law, for we had long since gone back to Bleak House, and it was too far off to admit of his coming there oftener than once a week. My guardian told me that if Richard were to settle down at Mr. Kenge's he would take some apartments or chambers where we too could occasionally stay for a few days at a time; "but, little woman," he added, rubbing his head very significantly, "he hasn't settled down there yet!" The discussions ended in our hiring for him, by the month, a neat little furnished lodging in a quiet old house near Queen Square. He immediately began to spend all the money he had in buying the oddest little ornaments and luxuries for this lodging; and so often as Ada and I dissuaded him from making any purchase that he had in contemplation which was particularly unnecessary and expensive, he took credit for what it would have cost and made out that to spend anything less on something else was to save the difference. 
“Normandy, I’m going into society. Will you go with me?” 
"You must let them know at home, if you please, Mr. Peggotty," I said, "when that letter is sent, that Mr. Steerforth is very kind to me, and that I don't know what I should ever do here without him." 
Thus I have come to the end of the Roman time in England.  It is but little that is known of those five hundred years; but some remains of them are still found.  Often, when labourers are digging up the ground, to make foundations for houses or churches, they light on rusty money that once belonged to the Romans.  Fragments of plates from which they ate, of goblets from which they drank, and of pavement on which they trod, are discovered among the earth that is broken by the plough, or the dust that is crumbled by the gardener's spade.  Wells that the Romans sunk, still yield water; roads that the Romans made, form part of our highways.  In some old battle-fields, British spear-heads and Roman armour have been found, mingled together in decay, as they fell in the thick pressure of the fight.  Traces of Roman camps overgrown with grass, and of mounds that are the burial-places of heaps of Britons, are to be seen in almost all parts of the country.  Across the bleak moors of Northumberland, the wall of SEVERUS, overrun with moss and weeds, still stretches, a strong ruin; and the shepherds and their dogs lie sleeping on it in the summer weather.  On Salisbury Plain, Stonehenge yet stands: a monument of the earlier time when the Roman name was unknown in Britain, and when the Druids, with their best magic wands, could not have written it in the sands of the wild sea-shore. 
‘How!’ exclaimed Mrs. Crummles, with a tragic recoil. 
‘Go on,’ said the judge. 
If the old woman had not been very deaf, she must have heard, when she last went to the door, the breathing of two persons close behind it: and if those two persons had been unacquainted with her infirmity, they must probably have chosen that moment either for presenting themselves or taking to flight. But, knowing with whom they had to deal, they remained quite still, and now, not only appeared unobserved at the door--which was not bolted, for the bolt had no hasp--but warily, and with noiseless footsteps, advanced into the room. 
GENTLEMEN,—To say that I thank you for the earnest manner in which you have drunk the toast just now so eloquently proposed to you—to say that I give you back your kind wishes and good feelings with more than compound interest; and that I feel how dumb and powerless the best acknowledgments would be beside such genial hospitality as yours, is nothing.  To say that in this winter season, flowers have sprung up in every footstep’s length of the path which has brought me here; that no country ever smiled more pleasantly than yours has smiled on me, and that I have rarely looked upon a brighter summer prospect than that which lies before me now, {63} is nothing. 
‘Merry, my darling!’ said the fair Miss Pecksniff, opening the door of the usual sitting-room. ‘Here are Mr Pinch and his sister come to see you! I thought we should find you here, Mrs Todgers! How do you do, Mrs Gamp? And how do you do, Mr Chuffey, though it’s of no use asking you the question, I am well aware.’ 
She had put her hand entreatingly on his arm, to stop him; and was very, very, pale. 
‘Or injurious to any one else.’ 
Her uncle shook his head and said, ‘Since when, my dear; since when?’ 
‘Rather a dangerous process, I should imagine,’ said Mr. Pickwick, with a smile. 
‘No,’ said Johnny, with a quiet air of pity for himself; and without opening his eyes. 
As he said these words he advanced towards her. Dolly retreated till she could go no farther, and then sank down upon the floor. Thinking it very possible that this might be maiden modesty, Simon essayed to raise her; on which Dolly, goaded to desperation, wound her hands in his hair, and crying out amidst her tears that he was a dreadful little wretch, and always had been, shook, and pulled, and beat him, until he was fain to call for help, most lustily. Hugh had never admired her half so much as at that moment. 
John Owen having been thus rebuked, and being in perfect possession of the speech aside, the bachelor singled out another boy. 
‘Dear Agnes,’ I said, ‘it is presumptuous for me, who am so poor in all in which you are so rich--goodness, resolution, all noble qualities--to doubt or direct you; but you know how much I love you, and how much I owe you. You will never sacrifice yourself to a mistaken sense of duty, Agnes?’ 
‘I am sorry for it, too,’ said my aunt, rubbing her nose. ‘I have had no peace of mind, Trot, since I have been here.’ Before I could ask why, she told me. 
No slight circumstance, perhaps, could have better illustrated the difference of character between John Westlock and Martin Chuzzlewit, than the manner in which each of the young men contemplated Tom Pinch, after the little rupture just described. There was a certain amount of jocularity in the looks of both, no doubt, but there all resemblance ceased. The old pupil could not do enough to show Tom how cordially he felt towards him, and his friendly regard seemed of a graver and more thoughtful kind than before. The new one, on the other hand, had no impulse but to laugh at the recollection of Tom’s extreme absurdity; and mingled with his amusement there was something slighting and contemptuous, indicative, as it appeared, of his opinion that Mr Pinch was much too far gone in simplicity to be admitted as the friend, on serious and equal terms, of any rational man. 
Mr Flintwinch, finishing his tea, not only took a longer gulp than he had taken yet, but made his succeeding pause under new circumstances: that is to say, with his head thrown back and his cup held still at his lips, while his eyes were still directed at the invalid. She had that force of face, and that concentrated air of collecting her firmness or obstinacy, which represented in her case what would have been gesture and action in another, as she replied with her deliberate strength of speech: 
‘I think,’ said Mr Milvey, ‘that you have never had a child of your own, Mr and Mrs Boffin?’ 
"Destiny, indeed!" thought I, as a superstitious feeling seemed to prepare me for the proofs of it. 
‘Precisely my view of the case, Eugene. But show me a good opportunity, show me something really worth being energetic about, and I’ll show you energy.’ 
“Do you see it?” I asked him, taking particular note of his face.  His eyes were prominent and strained, but not very much more so, perhaps, than my own had been when I had directed them earnestly towards the same spot. 
Mr. Pott darted a look of contempt, which might have withered an anchor. 
Mr. Jasper is in beautiful voice this day.  In the pathetic supplication to have his heart inclined to keep this law, he quite astonishes his fellows by his melodious power.  He has never sung difficult music with such skill and harmony, as in this day’s Anthem.  His nervous temperament is occasionally prone to take difficult music a little too quickly; to-day, his time is perfect. 
"And so do I," repeated John. "But, Dot! _I_ hope and pray that I might learn to love you? How you talk! I had learnt that long before I brought you here, to be the Cricket's little mistress, Dot!" 
In the morning, when I came out, the early church bell was ringing, and he was walking up and down with his mother. He addressed me as if nothing had happened, and I could do no less than reply. I had struck him hard enough to give him the toothache, I suppose. At all events his face was tied up in a black silk handkerchief, which, with his hat perched on the top of it, was far from improving his appearance. I heard that he went to a dentist's in London on the Monday morning, and had a tooth out. I hope it was a double one. 
It must, however, be recollected that this was an _exparte_ story. Wicks, as Sir F. Lockwood hints, may have coloured it up, to amuse his brethren.  The truth is these poor helpless debtors, who fall into the hands of legal "sharks" and money-lenders, have _their_ tricks also. They will often "do" those they employ if they can.  And further, let this be considered.  Before Ramsey paid his visit the affidavit _had_ been prepared, and was actually in Fogg's pocket.  Such affidavit would not be allowed for in the costs unless necessary to the case, so that Fogg's statement that it had been filed was very near the truth.  Perker himself was playing the same game of hide and seek with another unfortunate--one Watty--who was trying to see him, and learn something about his case, but was always put off with the excuse or falsehood, that Perker was out, though he was within.  But then, "Perker was an honourable man." 
"A place where Miners live, who labour in the bowels of the earth," returned the Spirit. "But they know me. See!" 
What would the sleepy old town have been without the soldiers, seeing that even with them it had so overslept itself as to have slept its echoes hoarse, its defensive bars and locks and bolts and chains all rusty, and its ditches stagnant!  From the days when VAUBAN engineered it to that perplexing extent that to look at it was like being knocked on the head with it, the stranger becoming stunned and stertorous under the shock of its incomprehensibility,--from the days when VAUBAN made it the express incorporation of every substantive and adjective in the art of military engineering, and not only twisted you into it and twisted you out of it, to the right, to the left, opposite, under here, over there, in the dark, in the dirt, by the gateway, archway, covered way, dry way, wet way, fosse, portcullis, drawbridge, sluice, squat tower, pierced wall, and heavy battery, but likewise took a fortifying dive under the neighbouring country, and came to the surface three or four miles off, blowing out incomprehensible mounds and batteries among the quiet crops of chicory and beet-root,--from those days to these the town had been asleep, and dust and rust and must had settled on its drowsy Arsenals and Magazines, and grass had grown up in its silent streets. 
‘Lovely. Full of flowers. There’s buttercups, and there’s daisies, and there’s’--the turnkey hesitated, being short of floral nomenclature--‘there’s dandelions, and all manner of games.’ 
"Get on with your yarn, Bobbo," said Joe Nighthead in an under tone; "and just you take a reef in your bellows, Mister Mungo, and don't speak so loud again." 
Like most dishonest men, the Prince and the favourite complained that the people whom they had deluded were dishonest.  They made such misrepresentations of the treachery of the Spaniards in this business of the Spanish match, that the English nation became eager for a war with them.  Although the gravest Spaniards laughed at the idea of his Sowship in a warlike attitude, the Parliament granted money for the beginning of hostilities, and the treaties with Spain were publicly declared to be at an end.  The Spanish ambassador in London--probably with the help of the fallen favourite, the Earl of Somerset--being unable to obtain speech with his Sowship, slipped a paper into his hand, declaring that he was a prisoner in his own house, and was entirely governed by Buckingham and his creatures.  The first effect of this letter was that his Sowship began to cry and whine, and took Baby Charles away from Steenie, and went down to Windsor, gabbling all sorts of nonsense.  The end of it was that his Sowship hugged his dog and slave, and said he was quite satisfied. 
‘And of a blessed yesterday,’ said his lordship, raising his head. 
‘And you are determined to leave us, Mark?’ cried Mrs Lupin. 
‘Not if you live a thousand years,’ added Miss Sally.  Whereupon the brother and sister took each a noisy pinch of snuff from the little tin box, and fell into a gloomy thoughtfulness. 
On the evening following that upon which the three worthies mentioned in the last chapter, disposed of their little matter of business as therein narrated, Mr. William Sikes, awakening from a nap, drowsily growled forth an inquiry what time of night it was. 
"Mr. Clennam, will he pay all his debts before he leaves here?" 
When the circus first came, her father, who loved her very much, had brought her to the Gradgrind house and begged that she be allowed to attend school. Mr. Gradgrind had consented. Now, however, at Bounderby's advice, he wished he had not done so, and started off with the other to The Pegasus's Arms to find Signor Jupe and deny to little Sissy the right of any more schooling. 
“To-morrow morning,” replied the Jew. 
It had set in snowing at daybreak, and it now snowed hard. The air was so thick with the darkness of the day and the density of the fall that we could see but a very little way in any direction. Although it was extremely cold, the snow was but partially frozen, and it churned--with a sound as if it were a beach of small shells--under the hoofs of the horses into mire and water. They sometimes slipped and floundered for a mile together, and we were obliged to come to a standstill to rest them. One horse fell three times in this first stage, and trembled so and was so shaken that the driver had to dismount from his saddle and lead him at last. 
‘N-no, sir,’ replied Wegg, coolly, ‘I should hardly describe it so, sir. I should say, mellers it. Mellers it, is the word I should employ, Mr Boffin.’ 
"Well," said the cobbler, "he left five thousand pound behind him." 
Ralph smiled again, but made no answer. 
‘Oh Di, you bad, forgetful dog! Dear Mr Toots, I am so rejoiced to see you!’ 
"In the evening, after the governor had set off for the Elms, I went into the room to see how the run-away couple was getting on. The gentleman was on the window seat, supporting the lady in his arms. She had tears upon her face, and was lying very tired and half asleep, with her head upon his shoulder. 
The sharpness of the retort was next to telling the Secretary that he lied. But it brought no change of expression into the set face. 
These games of chess, played with live pieces, are played before small audiences, and are chronicled nowhere.  The interest of the game supports the player.  Its results are enough for justice.  To compare great things with small, suppose LEVERRIER or ADAMS informing the public that from information he had received he had discovered a new planet; or COLUMBUS informing the public of his day that from information he had received he had discovered a new continent; so the Detectives inform it that they have discovered a new fraud or an old offender, and the process is unknown. 
"I'll tell you what it is, young boa-constructer," said Mr. Weller, impressively; "if you don't sleep a little less, and exercise a little more, ven you come to be a man you'll lay yourself open to the same sort of personal inconwenience as was inflicted on the old gen'l'm'n as wore the pigtail." 
"Certainly, ma'am, certainly," replied the porteress, still harping on the amount of her New Year's gift. "But have you made out nothing of these people's occupations? You're two floors nigher to 'em than me. If I was in _your_ place----" 
Well! (Mr. Goodchild went on to report) very nice company.  Where were they?  Why, there they were.  Mr. Idle could see the tops of their hats, he supposed.  What?  Those nine straw hats again, five gentlemen’s and four ladies’?  Yes, to be sure.  Mr. Goodchild hoped the company were not to be expected to wear helmets, to please Mr. Idle. 
Mr. Lillyvick bent forward to pronounce the last word with greater emphasis; and having done so, drew himself up, and frowned and nodded a great many times. 
I was all of a maze, but I said, “Done, sir.” 
"Mr. James and myself, sir----" 
With them who stood upon the brink of the great gulf which none can see beyond, Time, so soon to lose itself in vast Eternity, rolled on like a mighty river, swollen and rapid as it nears the sea. It was morning but now; they had sat and talked together in a dream; and here was evening. The dreadful hour of separation, which even yesterday had seemed so distant, was at hand. 
“There I’ve got you!” interrupted Mr. Blenkinsop, exultingly. “I beg your pardon, Sir,” he added, with a sense of the freedom he had taken; “but everybody talks of the times of good Queen Bess, you know!” 
‘Yes, yes, I will,’ said Gride. ‘But--but--you don’t think she’s coming just yet, do you?’ 
‘You may go, Sam,’ said Mr. Pickwick. 
"Oh, Jasus! gentlemen! Pace, for the sake of the blessed Mother!" cried the butler from below. 
Not a syllable of this reflection shaped itself in any scrap of Mr Fledgeby’s breath, lest it should tend to put his servant’s price up. But looking at the old man as he stood quiet with his head bowed and his eyes cast down, he felt that to relinquish an inch of his baldness, an inch of his grey hair, an inch of his coat-skirt, an inch of his hat-brim, an inch of his walking-staff, would be to relinquish hundreds of pounds. 
In the morning a white squall came on, and was succeeded by other squalls of various colours.  It thundered and lightened heavily for six weeks. Hurricanes then set in for two months.  Waterspouts and tornadoes followed.  The oldest sailor on board—and he was a very old one—had never seen such weather.  ‘The Beauty’ lost all idea where she was, and the carpenter reported six feet two of water in the hold.  Everybody fell senseless at the pumps every day. 
‘Jobling, my dear friend,’ said Tigg, ‘long life to you.’ 
"Well," said Mr. Sowerberry, taking up his hat, "the sooner this job is done, the better. Noah, look after the shop. Oliver, put on your cap, and come with me." Oliver obeyed; and followed his master on his professional mission. 
‘Let us not talk of her in her sleep, but as she used to be when you were journeying together, far away--as she was at home, in the old house from which you fled together--as she was, in the old cheerful time,’ said the schoolmaster. 
"Perhaps we had better be walking," said Mr. Smauker, consulting a copper timepiece which dwelt at the bottom of a deep watch-pocket, and was raised to the surface by means of a black string, with a copper key at the other end. 
“Rose, my dear?” said the elder lady. 
Greatly wondering, Pip went on, and at the right spot he found the man who had frightened him in the graveyard. He seemed now to be almost starved, for he snatched the food and ate it like a hungry dog. He asked Pip if he had seen any one else on his way there, and Pip told him of the other man in gray who also wore an iron on his leg. 
The lady in question was by this time in the doorway, curtseying to Mrs Mould. At the same moment a peculiar fragrance was borne upon the breeze, as if a passing fairy had hiccoughed, and had previously been to a wine-vaults. 
‘I take it, without having the gift of prophecy, that you have done me the favour of looking in to mention that you are going down yonder—where I can tell you, you are expected—and to offer to execute any little commission from me to my charming ward, and perhaps to sharpen me up a bit in any proceedings?  Eh, Mr. Edwin?’ 
In fact, I found out afterwards that Mr. Dick had been for upwards of ten years endeavouring to keep King Charles the First out of the Memorial; but he had been constantly getting into it, and was there now. 
Miss Tox, being, in good time, bonneted and shawled, and Polly too, Rob hugged his mother, and followed his new mistress away; so much to the hopeful admiration of Polly, that something in her eyes made luminous rings round the gas-lamps as she looked after him. Polly then put out her light, locked the house-door, delivered the key at an agent’s hard by, and went home as fast as she could go; rejoicing in the shrill delight that her unexpected arrival would occasion there. The great house, dumb as to all that had been suffered in it, and the changes it had witnessed, stood frowning like a dark mute on the street; baulking any nearer inquiries with the staring announcement that the lease of this desirable Family Mansion was to be disposed of. 
"I am sorry I struck you so hard, child; I did not mean to do it;" and she averted her head. 
"Well then, you _won't_ smoke me," coolly remarked the sooty demon;--"but," added he, in tones that made the marrow in Jacob's bones turn cold as ice, "I'LL SMOKE YOU!" 
“Oh, Harry, Harry,” said the young lady, bursting into tears, “I wish I could, and spare myself this pain.” 
Eugene is also in attendance, with a pervading air upon him of having presupposed the ceremony to be a funeral, and of being disappointed. The scene is the Vestry-room of St James’s Church, with a number of leathery old registers on shelves, that might be bound in Lady Tippinses. 
‘Too much!’ echoed Sam, ‘I think it is too much--rayther! Now, what have you got to say to me, eh?’ 
Now, Mr. Pickwick being in the very best health and spirits, had been making himself perfectly delightful all dinner-time, and was at this moment engaged in an energetic conversation with Emily and Mr. Winkle: bowing his head, courteously, in the emphasis of his discourse, gently waving his left hand to lend force to his observations, and all glowing with placid smiles. He took a piece of cheese from the plate, and was on the point of turning round to renew the conversation, when the fat boy, stooping so as to bring his head on a level with that of Mr. Pickwick, pointed with his thumb over his shoulder, and made the most horrible and hideous face that was ever seen out of a Christmas pantomime. 
‘So John Harmon died, and Julius Handford disappeared, and John Rokesmith was born. John Rokesmith’s intent to-night has been to repair a wrong that he could never have imagined possible, coming to his ears through the Lightwood talk related to him, and which he is bound by every consideration to remedy. In that intent John Rokesmith will persevere, as his duty is. 
Boats were putting off, torches were lighting up, people were rushing tumultuously to the water’s edge. Some man fell in with a splash, and was pulled out again with a roar of laughter. The drags were called for. A cry for the life-buoy passed from mouth to mouth. It was impossible to make out what was going on upon the river, for every boat that put off sculled into the fog and was lost to view at a boat’s length. Nothing was clear but that the unpopular steamer was assailed with reproaches on all sides. She was the Murderer, bound for Gallows Bay; she was the Manslaughterer, bound for Penal Settlement; her captain ought to be tried for his life; her crew ran down men in row-boats with a relish; she mashed up Thames lightermen with her paddles; she fired property with her funnels; she always was, and she always would be, wreaking destruction upon somebody or something, after the manner of all her kind. The whole bulk of the fog teemed with such taunts, uttered in tones of universal hoarseness. All the while, the steamer’s lights moved spectrally a very little, as she lay-to, waiting the upshot of whatever accident had happened. Now, she began burning blue-lights. These made a luminous patch about her, as if she had set the fog on fire, and in the patch--the cries changing their note, and becoming more fitful and more excited--shadows of men and boats could be seen moving, while voices shouted: ‘There!’ ‘There again!’ ‘A couple more strokes a-head!’ ‘Hurrah!’ ‘Look out!’ ‘Hold on!’ ‘Haul in!’ and the like. Lastly, with a few tumbling clots of blue fire, the night closed in dark again, the wheels of the steamer were heard revolving, and her lights glided smoothly away in the direction of the sea. 
"No, sir, nor never has done.  You see, her mother (who died when she was a year and two months old) was subject to very bad fits, and as she had never mentioned to me that she _was_ subject to fits, they couldn't be guarded against.  Consequently, she dropped the baby when took, and this happened." 
“And must obey,” said I. 
It was at this period that the great O. P. Row began, of which so much has been said, and sung, and written, that little of novelty or interest could accompany the description of it here. Everybody knows that the O. P. Row originated in the indignation with which the play-going public regarded an increase in the prices of admission of one shilling each person to the boxes, and sixpence to the pit, with which was coupled a considerable increase in the number of private boxes; and everybody knows, moreover, that the before-mentioned play-going public expressed their dissatisfaction night after night in scenes of the most extraordinary and unparalelled nature. The noises made by the audience utterly overwhelmed every attempt that the actors could make to render themselves audible. Not a word that was said on the stage could be distinguished even in the front row of the pit, and the O. P. (Old Price) rioters, fearful that the exercise of their voices would not create sufficient uproar, were in the habit of bringing the most extraordinary variety of curious and ill-toned instruments with them, to add to the noise and discordance of the scene. One gentleman, who constantly seated himself in the boxes, regaled himself and the company with a watchman's rattle, which he sprang vigorously at short intervals throughout the performances; another took his seat regularly every night in the centre of the pit, armed with a large dustman's bell, which he rang with a perseverance and strength of arm quite astounding to all beholders;[52] and a party of three or four pleasant fellows brought live pigs, which were pinched at the proper times, and added considerably to the effect of the performances. 
Mr Tite Barnacle, who, like Dr Johnson’s celebrated acquaintance, had only one idea in his head and that was a wrong one, had appeared by this time. This eminent gentleman and Mr Merdle, seated diverse ways and with ruminating aspects on a yellow ottoman in the light of the fire, holding no verbal communication with each other, bore a strong general resemblance to the two cows in the Cuyp picture over against them. 
‘You bear upon your body certain marks I gave you,’ said Nicholas, looking quietly away, ‘and may talk in acknowledgment of them as much as you please. You’ll talk a long time before you rub them out, Mr Squeers.’ 
"Bless my soul," said Mr. Winkle. "I declare I forgot the cap!" 
‘I ask you again,’ thundered the doctor, ‘are you, on your solemn oaths, able to identify that boy?’ 
“It shall be done, sir.” 
With this prelude, Mr. Samuel Weller burst at once into the following wild and beautiful legend, which, under the impression that it is not generally known, we take the liberty of quoting. We would beg to call particular attention to the monosyllable at the end of the second and fourth lines, which not only enables the singer to take breath at those points, but greatly assists the metre. 
Eden was a hard school to learn so hard a lesson in; but there were teachers in the swamp and thicket, and the pestilential air, who had a searching method of their own. 
‘She’s at school, sir,’ said Mr. Peggotty, wiping the heat consequent on the porterage of Peggotty’s box from his forehead; ‘she’ll be home,’ looking at the Dutch clock, ‘in from twenty minutes to half-an-hour’s time. We all on us feel the loss of her, bless ye!’ 
“Miss Havisham was good enough to ask me,” I returned, “whether she could do nothing for me, and I told her No.” 
They entered a homely bedchamber, garnished in a scanty way with chairs, whose spindle-shanks bespoke their age, and other furniture of very little worth; but clean and neatly kept. Reclining in an easy-chair before the fire, pale and weak from waste of blood, was Edward Chester, the young gentleman who had been the first to quit the Maypole on the previous night, and who, extending his hand to the locksmith, welcomed him as his preserver and friend. 
After a full enjoyment of this joke, Mr Hannibal Chollop sat smoking and improving the circle, without making any attempts either to converse or to take leave; apparently labouring under the not uncommon delusion that for a free and enlightened citizen of the United States to convert another man’s house into a spittoon for two or three hours together, was a delicate attention, full of interest and politeness, of which nobody could ever tire. At last he rose. 
Without any further expostulation, he led or rather pulled the frightened handmaid into the house, and shut the door; then bidding her walk upstairs before him, followed without more ceremony. 
‘Who is she?’ inquired Mr. Tupman. 
As he said it, he rose, shook himself, scratched himself, tied his brown coat loosely round his neck by the sleeves (he had previously used it as a coverlet), and sat down upon the pavement yawning, with his back against the wall opposite to the grating. 
'Not too strong,' replied Mr. Bumble, with a delicate cough. 
'No, sir,' replied Oliver. 
Leaving the others to search the house, and the females to bewail their loss, which was really a very severe one, Grimaldi beckoned a Mr. King, one of the persons who had accompanied him home from the theatre, and suggested in a whisper that they should search the garden together. 
"And his master, too, I think you said, Noah?" added Mr. Bumble. 
‘Don’t show ‘em to me, Miss Floy, if you please,’ returned Nipper, ‘I’d as soon see Mrs Pipchin.’ 
Very much aghast at this invitation, Martin wrote back, civilly declining it; and had scarcely done so, when he received another letter. 
‘You were with him at the time, were you?’ said Mr Tappertit. 
The man obeyed; and the room and its master being both purified, nothing remained for Mr Chester but to demand his hat, to fold it jauntily under his arm, to take his seat in the chair and be carried off; humming a fashionable tune. 
UNCOMMERCIAL.  But you have been in the Mormon Territory? 
‘--Must sometimes be quaffed in blood, colonel,’ cried Brick. And when he said ‘blood,’ he gave the great pair of scissors a sharp snap, as if THEY said blood too, and were quite of his opinion. 
‘He’s bad! He’s bad!’ said Betty. ‘I begin to be afeerd he’ll not be yours any more than mine. All others belonging to him have gone to the Power and the Glory, and I have a mind that they’re drawing him to them--leading him away.’ 
"Sister Clarissa," said Miss Lavinia, "the rest is with you." 
"But, solitary as the place looks, the Italian did not know that there are several _chalets_, mine among the rest, in the Alp; and herdsmen. As for me, I happened to be down in the plain, or I might have been an eye-witness of much of what I am about to describe. I was saying that the spot seemed to suit his purpose; and his impatience to ease his master of his gold was such, that, happily for the ends of justice, he could not wait till night-fall, or none but (and here he pointed to the sky) He above might have been privy to the crime. It was, however, mid-day. Into the deep-worn pass I have mentioned runs a rivulet, which, sparkling on the green bank, had made for itself a little basin. The day was hot and sultry; and the young gentleman, tempted, it would seem, by the gentle murmur of the water as it fell rippling over the turf, and its crystal brightness, stooped down to drink. The Italian watched this opportunity, sprung upon him like a tiger, and plunged a dagger, which he always carried concealed about him, into the Englishman's back. Fortunately, however, the point hit upon the belt in which he carried his money, perhaps on the napoleons; for, before the assassin could give him a second blow, he sprang up and screamed for help, calling 'Murder, murder!' 
‘With which view,’ continued Mr. Pickwick, ‘I made use of the argument which my experience of men has taught me is the most likely to succeed in any case.’ 
‘I heard no dog last night,’ thought Clennam. The gate was opened by one of the rosy maids, and on the lawn were the Newfoundland dog and the man. 
By this time they had reached the road. Cordial farewells were exchanged, and the party separated. Doctor Slammer and his friends repaired to the barracks, and Mr. Winkle, accompanied by Mr. Snodgrass, returned to their inn. 
‘It’s very probable, sir, that you won’t be wanted upstairs for several minutes, Sir, because _my_ master is at this moment particularly engaged in settling the hash of _your _master, Sir; and therefore you’ll have leisure, Sir, for a little private talk with me, Sir. Do you understand that, Sir?’ 
‘That’s well said!’ Mrs Clennam quickly returned. ‘That’s the truth! You are a good, thoughtful girl. You are a grateful girl too, or I much mistake you.’ 
Far be it from me to assert that what everybody says must be true. Everybody is, often, as likely to be wrong as right.  In the general experience, everybody has been wrong so often, and it has taken, in most instances, such a weary while to find out how wrong, that the authority is proved to be fallible.  Everybody may sometimes be right; “but _that’s_ no rule,” as the ghost of Giles Scroggins says in the ballad. 
‘No,’ said John, pulling off his outer coat.  ‘It’s very true, Dot.  I don’t know much about it.  I only know that I’ve been fighting pretty stiffly with the wind to-night.  It’s been blowing north-east, straight into the cart, the whole way home.’ 
‘You say well. You have reason to be thankful: greater reason than it is possible for you, who have seen but one night of these cruel outrages, to imagine.’ 
‘That person was your companion,’ said the doctor, pointing to the still unmoved stranger. 
‘Not even like to? Well, you generally know best. Only you haven’t always lived among it as I have lived--and your back isn’t bad and your legs are not queer.’ 
"Upon my word, it is very ridiculous, and I don't know what the neighbors would say if they saw me." 
‘--that you had some knowledge of one Blandois, lately killed in London by a violent accident. Now, don’t mistake me! I know it was a slight knowledge,’ said Mr Meagles, dexterously forestalling an angry interruption which he saw about to break. ‘I am fully aware of that. It was a slight knowledge, I know. But the question is,’ Mr Meagles’s voice here became comfortable again, ‘did he, on his way to England last time, leave a box of papers, or a bundle of papers, or some papers or other in some receptacle or other--any papers--with you: begging you to allow him to leave them here for a short time, until he wanted them?’ 
‘The strange gentleman--him as had his arm hurt--a-kissin’ and huggin’-- ‘ 
"Cert'nly, sir," rejoined Mr. Weller, "fire away, sir." 
The Captain glanced, in passing through the outer counting-house, at the desk where he knew poor Walter had been used to sit, now occupied by another young boy, with a face almost as fresh and hopeful as his on the day when they tapped the famous last bottle but one of the old Madeira, in the little back parlour. The nation of ideas, thus awakened, did the Captain a great deal of good; it softened him in the very height of his anger, and brought the tears into his eyes. 
The freshness of the day, the singing of the birds, the beauty of the waving grass, the deep green leaves, the wild flowers, and the thousand exquisite scents and sounds that floated in the air--deep joys to most of us, but most of all to those whose life is in a crowd or who live solitarily in great cities as in the bucket of a human well--sunk into their breasts and made them very glad.  The child had repeated her artless prayers once that morning, more earnestly perhaps than she had ever done in all her life, but as she felt all this, they rose to her lips again.  The old man took off his hat--he had no memory for the words--but he said amen, and that they were very good. 
God bless that stewardess for her piously fraudulent account of January voyages!  God bless her for her clear recollection of the companion passage of last year, when nobody was ill, and everybody dancing from morning to night, and it was ‘a run’ of twelve days, and a piece of the purest frolic, and delight, and jollity!  All happiness be with her for her bright face and her pleasant Scotch tongue, which had sounds of old Home in it for my fellow-traveller; and for her predictions of fair winds and fine weather (all wrong, or I shouldn’t be half so fond of her); and for the ten thousand small fragments of genuine womanly tact, by which, without piecing them elaborately together, and patching them up into shape and form and case and pointed application, she nevertheless did plainly show that all young mothers on one side of the Atlantic were near and close at hand to their little children left upon the other; and that what seemed to the uninitiated a serious journey, was, to those who were in the secret, a mere frolic, to be sung about and whistled at!  Light be her heart, and gay her merry eyes, for years! 
"Is Mr. Steerforth coming from Oxford?" 
The phenomenon, being of an affectionate nature and moreover excitable, raised a loud cry, and Miss Belvawney and Miss Bravassa actually shed tears. Even the male performers stopped in their conversation, and echoed the word ‘Going!’ although some among them (and they had been the loudest in their congratulations that day) winked at each other as though they would not be sorry to lose such a favoured rival; an opinion, indeed, which the honest Mr. Folair, who was ready dressed for the savage, openly stated in so many words to a demon with whom he was sharing a pot of porter. 
"Then upon my honour," says Sir Leicester after a terrific pause during which he has been heard to snort and felt to stare, "then upon my honour, upon my life, upon my reputation and principles, the floodgates of society are burst open, and the waters have--a--obliterated the landmarks of the framework of the cohesion by which things are held together!" 
Durdles complies, not over-steadily; opens the door at the top of the steps with the key he has already used; and so emerges on the Cathedral level, in a passage at the side of the chancel.  Here, the moonlight is so very bright again that the colours of the nearest stained-glass window are thrown upon their faces.  The appearance of the unconscious Durdles, holding the door open for his companion to follow, as if from the grave, is ghastly enough, with a purple hand across his face, and a yellow splash upon his brow; but he bears the close scrutiny of his companion in an insensible way, although it is prolonged while the latter fumbles among his pockets for a key confided to him that will open an iron gate, so to enable them to pass to the staircase of the great tower. 
‘Why, what hurt do I do him, child?’ returned the old woman. 
‘I think these cads want to be _set down_,’ returned the attorney’s clerk, chuckling at his sally. 
‘It wasn’t the wine,’ murmured Mr. Snodgrass, in a broken voice. ‘It was the salmon.’ (Somehow or other, it never is the wine, in these cases.) 
CHAPTER 37. More Warnings than One 
“Until within these few weeks I was afraid of you, and I believed that you would never, never, forgive.” 
“You know the Old Bailey well, no doubt?” said one of the oldest of clerks to Jerry the messenger. 
Thus Rosa had grown to be an amiable, giddy, wilful, winning little creature; spoilt, in the sense of counting upon kindness from all around her; but not in the sense of repaying it with indifference.  Possessing an exhaustless well of affection in her nature, its sparkling waters had freshened and brightened the Nuns’ House for years, and yet its depths had never yet been moved: what might betide when that came to pass; what developing changes might fall upon the heedless head, and light heart, then; remained to be seen. 
The tranquillity and peace belonging, of old, to that quiet ground in my memory, pervaded it again. When dinner was done, Mr. Wickfield taking no wine, and I desiring none, we went up-stairs; where Agnes and her little charges sang and played, and worked. After tea the children left us; and we three sat together, talking of the bygone days. 
‘To _be_ my guardian?  I’ll tell you, sir.  I suppose you know that we come (my sister and I) from Ceylon?’ 
‘This is a confoundedly out-of-the-way place,’ said Mortimer, slipping over the stones and refuse on the shore, as the boy turned the corner sharp. 
"Let him deny it," said Steerforth. 
The Perkins Institution and Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind, at Boston, is superintended by a body of trustees who make an annual report to the corporation.  The indigent blind of that state are admitted gratuitously.  Those from the adjoining state of Connecticut, or from the states of Maine, Vermont, or New Hampshire, are admitted by a warrant from the state to which they respectively belong; or, failing that, must find security among their friends, for the payment of about twenty pounds English for their first year’s board and instruction, and ten for the second.  ‘After the first year,’ say the trustees, ‘an account current will be opened with each pupil; he will be charged with the actual cost of his board, which will not exceed two dollars per week;’ a trifle more than eight shillings English; ‘and he will be credited with the amount paid for him by the state, or by his friends; also with his earnings over and above the cost of the stock which he uses; so that all his earnings over one dollar per week will be his own.  By the third year it will be known whether his earnings will more than pay the actual cost of his board; if they should, he will have it at his option to remain and receive his earnings, or not.  Those who prove unable to earn their own livelihood will not be retained; as it is not desirable to convert the establishment into an alms-house, or to retain any but working bees in the hive.  Those who by physical or mental imbecility are disqualified from work, are thereby disqualified from being members of an industrious community; and they can be better provided for in establishments fitted for the infirm.’ 
In the mean time, there had been a pretty sharp commotion at John Peerybingle's; for little Mrs. Peerybingle naturally couldn't think of going anywhere without the Baby; and to get the Baby under weigh, took time. Not that there was much of the Baby: speaking of it as a thing of weight and measure: but there was a vast deal to do about and about it, and it all had to be done by easy stages. For instance: when the Baby was got, by hook and by crook, to a certain point of dressing, and you might have rationally supposed that another touch or two would finish him off, and turn him out a tip-top Baby, challenging the world, he was unexpectedly extinguished in a flannel cap, and hustled off to bed; where he simmered (so to speak) between two blankets for the best part of an hour. From this state of inaction he was then recalled, shining very much and roaring violently, to partake of--well! I would rather say, if you'll permit me to speak generally--of a slight repast. After which, he went to sleep again. Mrs. Peerybingle took advantage of this interval, to make herself as smart in a small way as ever you saw anybody in all your life; and during the same short truce, Miss Slowboy insinuated herself into a spencer of a fashion so surprising and ingenious, that it had no connection with herself or anything else in the universe, but was a shrunken, dog's-eared, independent fact, pursuing its lonely course without the least regard to anybody. By this time, the Baby, being all alive again, was invested, by the united efforts of Mrs. Peerybingle and Miss Slowboy, with a cream-coloured mantle for its body, and a sort of nankeen raised-pie for its head; and so in course of time they all three got down to the door, where the old horse had already taken more than the full value of his day's toll out of the Turnpike Trust, by tearing up the road with his impatient autographs--and whence Boxer might be dimly seen in the remote perspective, standing looking back, and tempting him to come on without orders. 
‘Your memory does me more honour than my insignificance deserves.  I availed myself of your obliging hints to correct my timidity, and it is unnecessary to add that they were perfectly accurate.  Mrs. Sparsit’s talent for—in fact for anything requiring accuracy—with a combination of strength of mind—and Family—is too habitually developed to admit of any question.’  He was almost falling asleep over this compliment; it took him so long to get through, and his mind wandered so much in the course of its execution. 
A knell from the church bell broke harshly on these youthful thoughts. Another! Again! It was tolling for the funeral service. A group of humble mourners entered the gate: wearing white favours; for the corpse was young. They stood uncovered by a grave; and there was a mother--a mother once--among the weeping train. But the sun shone brightly, and the birds sang on. 
I told him that I thought it would be right to do so--that I was thoroughly convinced it would be, since he felt it to be right. 
“Mrs. Corney, ma’am,” said Mr. Bumble, slowly, and marking the time with his teaspoon, “I mean to say this, ma’am, that any cat or kitten that could live with you, ma’am, and _not_ be fond of its home, must be a ass, ma’am.” 
‘Dear me! Are you not well, Mr Rokesmith?’ 
‘Egad!’ cried Tigg, gravely nodding his head as if some ground of objection occurred to him at that moment for the first time, ‘it’s very possible you may be right. Would you entertain the same sort of objection to lending me five shillings now?’ 
‘“Well; but they may be one day filled again,” said the baron. 
"A 1," replied Mr. Roker. 
"Jarndyce and Jarndyce. The great suit, Krook," returned his lodger. 
icy water. The sky was gloomy, and the shortest streets were choked up with a dingy mist, half thawed half frozen, whose heavier particles descended in a shower of sooty atoms, as if all the chimneys in Great Britain had, by one consent, caught fire, and were blazing away to their dear hearts' content. There was nothing very cheerful in the climate or the town, and yet was there an air of cheerfulness abroad that the clearest summer air and brightest summer sun might have endeavoured to diffuse in vain. 
"Damn that boy!" thought old Mr. Wardle to himself.--He had heard the story from his mother. "Damn that boy! He _must_ have been asleep. It's all imagination." 
‘Oh yes, I can talk. I get on better when I talk,’ said Noah, cutting a monstrous slice of bread. ‘Where’s Charlotte?’ 
TO THE READERS OF “MASTER HUMPHREY’S CLOCK” 
"I call her Esther Summerson," says Mrs. Chadband with austerity. "There was no Miss-ing of the girl in my time. It was Esther. 'Esther, do this! Esther, do that!' and she was made to do it." 
‘But what nonsense that is!’ returned Miss Pecksniff, speaking apart to Tom. ‘He is not at home, I am certain. I know he is not; and Merry hasn’t the least idea that you ever--’ 
‘Oh!’ said Mrs Milvey, reassured for her own little boys. 
“I tell you he is,” retorted the old gentleman sharply. “What do you mean by ‘can’t be’? We have just heard a full account of him from his birth, and he has been a thorough-paced little villain all his life.” 
He stopped to listen, and then turning upon the boy with a suddenness and ferocity that made him start, asked at what hour that London coach passed the corner of the road.  The boy replied, at one. 
"A sweet lady, Master Copperfield!" said Uriah Heep. "She has a great admiration for Miss Agnes, Master Copperfield, I believe?" 
The pen dropped from Darnay's fingers on the table, and he looked about him vacantly. 
The above examination of a child of tender years took place while Mr. and Mrs. Raddle and the cab-driver were having an altercation concerning the fare, which, terminating at this point in favour of the cabman, Mrs. Raddle came up tottering. 
A terrible sound arose when the reading of this document was done. A sound of craving and eagerness that had nothing articulate in it but blood. The narrative called up the most revengeful passions of the time, and there was not a head in the nation but must have dropped before it. 
"I never dance," said I. 
"For I dread, George," the old lady says to her son, who waits below to keep her company when she has a little leisure, "I dread, my dear, that my Lady will never more set foot within these walls." 
"It's the easiest thing in the world," rejoined the Mayor. 
‘Well,’ said the same gentleman, after a pause, ‘wot’s to be done--anything? Is it only a small crack, or a out-and-out smash? A break-up of the constitootion is it?--werry good. Then Mr. Tom Tix, esk-vire, you must inform your angel wife and lovely family as you won’t sleep at home for three nights to come, along of being in possession here. Wot’s the good of the lady a fretting herself?’ continued Mr Scaley, as Madame Mantalini sobbed. ‘A good half of wot’s here isn’t paid for, I des-say, and wot a consolation oughtn’t that to be to her feelings!’ 
He offered no reply to the mother, but fixed his eyes on the proud daughter, as though he would only be bidden by her, and was resolved to be bidden by her. Edith, in spite of herself sat down, and slightly motioned with her hand to him to be seated too. No action could be colder, haughtier, more insolent in its air of supremacy and disrespect, but she had struggled against even that concession ineffectually, and it was wrested from her. That was enough! Mr Carker sat down. 
The reply was given in a murmur of ‘Shame!’ and ‘Shabby!’ 
The old chimney quivered with the shock, but stood it bravely. The murderer swung lifeless against the wall; and the boy, thrusting aside the dangling body which obscured his view, called to the people to come and take him out, for God's sake. 
‘And whatever you do, father,’ said Meg, ‘don’t eat tripe again, without asking some doctor whether it’s likely to agree with you; for how you _have_ been going on, Good gracious!’ 
But still the red-faced gentleman extolled the good old times, the grand old times, the great old times.  No matter what anybody else said, he still went turning round and round in one set form of words concerning them; as a poor squirrel turns and turns in its revolving cage; touching the mechanism, and trick of which, it has probably quite as distinct perceptions, as ever this red-faced gentleman had of his deceased Millennium. 
‘Good-bye, Miss Amy. Good-bye!’ 
‘What did you take it for, then?’ inquired the cabman. 
"Who's he?" interrupts Mr. Weevle. 
"And so she did for anything of plain work," replied the brat; "but this was a choice customer, and a bit of fancy work; a great big grey _barbet_, which stands as high as a rocking-horse, whose master is curious in his shaving. The gentleman's a poet, what does the off-rights _romantique_ for Victor Hugo's plaything playhouse at the Porte St. Antoine; and, as the vulgars is apt to have their poodles lion-fashion, Monsieur Eugène gives hisn a mane and forelock; which, with cropped ears, looks for all the world like a unicorn!" 
Maybe those were harder words than I meant 'em; but from that time forth my wife took to brooding, and would sit in the cart or walk beside it, hours at a stretch, with her arms crossed, and her eyes looking on the ground.  When her furies took her (which was rather seldomer than before) they took her in a new way, and she banged herself about to that extent that I was forced to hold her.  She got none the better for a little drink now and then, and through some years I used to wonder, as I plodded along at the old horse's head, whether there was many carts upon the road that held so much dreariness as mine, for all my being looked up to as the King of the Cheap Jacks.  So sad our lives went on till one summer evening, when, as we were coming into Exeter, out of the farther West of England, we saw a woman beating a child in a cruel manner, who screamed, "Don't beat me!  O mother, mother, mother!"  Then my wife stopped her ears, and ran away like a wild thing, and next day she was found in the river. 
‘That there man,’ said the Captain, ‘has left me in charge here by a piece of writing, but though he was a’most as good as my sworn brother, I know no more where he’s gone, or why he’s gone; if so be to seek his nevy, or if so be along of being not quite settled in his mind; than you do. One morning at daybreak, he went over the side,’ said the Captain, ‘without a splash, without a ripple I have looked for that man high and low, and never set eyes, nor ears, nor nothing else, upon him from that hour.’ 
‘My dear sir!’ cried Pecksniff, ‘I shall be delighted. Merry, my child, the lantern.’ 
Though this visit took him so near the old forge, Pip did not go to see Joe and Biddy. Indeed, only once in the months that followed did he see them--when he went to attend the funeral of Mrs. Joe. 
She soothed him; asked him for his forgiveness if she had been, or seemed to have been, undutiful; told him, Heaven knows truly, that she could not honour him more if he were the favourite of Fortune and the whole world acknowledged him. When his tears were dried, and he sobbed in his weakness no longer, and was free from that touch of shame, and had recovered his usual bearing, she prepared the remains of his supper afresh, and, sitting by his side, rejoiced to see him eat and drink. For now he sat in his black velvet cap and old grey gown, magnanimous again; and would have comported himself towards any Collegian who might have looked in to ask his advice, like a great moral Lord Chesterfield, or Master of the ethical ceremonies of the Marshalsea. 
Meantime, some of the young men had gone down below the precipice on which the children had stood, and, feeling amongst the loose stones, had found the body of poor little David. He was truly dead! 
Obedient to this direction, the coach stopped at Mr. Snawley’s door. Mr. Snawley may be remembered as the sleek and sanctified gentleman who confided two sons (in law) to the parental care of Mr. Squeers, as narrated in the fourth chapter of this history. Mr. Snawley’s house was on the extreme borders of some new settlements adjoining Somers Town, and Mr. Squeers had taken lodgings therein for a short time, as his stay was longer than usual, and the Saracen, having experience of Master Wackford’s appetite, had declined to receive him on any other terms than as a full-grown customer. 
"Other Wise," said Styles, as Smith waddled up the garden, "this won't do for me. I couldn't make a speech of ten consecutive lines, if the revenues of the Duchy of Cornwall were depending upon it." 
Besides the inseparables, were present, on this occasion, a Prussian colonel and a Polish count. The dinner was _recherché_; the dishes having been sent from different _restaurants_ famous for their _cuisine_: the _ravioli_, for instance, from an Italian house, and the _omelette Russe_ from the _café de Paris_. The mock and real champagne were well iced, and the Chambertín a bouquet of violets. I endeavoured to find a Lethe in the glass, which circulated freely, though it only circulated; for the prince, on the plea of health, drank lemonade, and his guests, as the Italians say, baptised their Lafitte with water. Two nights such as I had passed did not diminish the effect of the wine; and when it was proposed to play at faro, though I knew nothing of the game, I made no objection. It was suggested that the baron should be banker. He had come ready prepared; opened his strong box, and produced his five hundred louis. The practised neatness with which he turned up the cards, the accuracy of his calculations, and correctness of his accounts, might have excited the admiration of any _croupier_ at the _salon_; certainly none of them understood his _métier_ better. I began with very small stakes, which were unlimited. I soon, however, followed the example of the circle, and played higher. I lost. The two strangers appeared to lose also, and retired at an early hour. 
The board being now clear of the more substantial articles of food, and punch, wine, and spirits being placed upon it and handed about, the guests, who had been previously conversing in little groups of three or four, gradually fell off into a dead silence, while the majority of those present glanced from time to time at Mr. Snittle Timberry, and the bolder spirits did not even hesitate to strike the table with their knuckles, and plainly intimate their expectations, by uttering such encouragements as ‘Now, Tim,’ ‘Wake up, Mr. Chairman,’ ‘All charged, sir, and waiting for a toast,’ and so forth. 
She started, and looked up.  "O, no!" she exclaimed innocently.  The instant the words passed her lips, she saw the construction that might be placed on them.  Her confession had escaped her in spite of herself.  A lovely flush of colour overspread her face.  She made a momentary effort to disengage herself from her lover's embrace.  She looked up at him entreatingly.  She tried to speak.  The words died on her lips in the kiss that Vendale pressed on them.  "Let me go, Mr. Vendale!" she said faintly. 
"So we agreed," I returned. "And our places by the coach are taken, you know." 
"Not the least doubt of it," replied Mr. Winkle, in the fulness of his heart. "That is--yes--oh yes--certainly." 
"That puts me in mind of M'Flummery," said Pounce, the lawyer's clerk, putting his hand--accidentally, I suppose, of course,--into Shortcut's open screw of tobacco, and filling his pipe therefrom; "I mean him as was hung at the Old Bailey some ten years back." 
‘What did you do with her?’ asked Fledgeby, feeling his cheek. 
‘Now I’ll tell you what it is. I’m a most confoundedly soft-hearted kind of fellow in my way, and I cannot stand by, and see you two blades cutting each other’s throats when there’s nothing to be got by it. Mr Pecksniff, you’re the cousin of the testator upstairs and we’re the nephew--I say we, meaning Chiv. Perhaps in all essential points you are more nearly related to him than we are. Very good. If so, so be it. But you can’t get at him, neither can we. I give you my brightest word of honour, sir, that I’ve been looking through that keyhole with short intervals of rest, ever since nine o’clock this morning, in expectation of receiving an answer to one of the most moderate and gentlemanly applications for a little temporary assistance--only fifteen pounds, and MY security--that the mind of man can conceive. In the meantime, sir, he is perpetually closeted with, and pouring his whole confidence into the bosom of, a stranger. Now I say decisively with regard to this state of circumstances, that it won’t do; that it won’t act; that it can’t be; and that it must not be suffered to continue.’ 
‘Has she money in her own right in any case?’ 
‘I don’t say that. I don’t mean that. But after the first wonder and pleasure of being noticed by one so different from any one who had ever spoken to me, I began to feel that it might have been better if I had never seen you.’ 
"--I don't know how it may appear to you, Sally, but so it appears to me." 
When he had quite exhausted all beholders, Mr. Griggins received the welcomes and congratulations of the circle, and went through the needful introductions with much ease and many puns.  This ceremony over, he avowed his intention of sitting in somebody’s lap unless the young ladies made room for him on the sofa, which being done, after a great deal of tittering and pleasantry, he squeezed himself among them, and likened his condition to that of love among the roses.  At this novel jest we all roared once more.  ‘You should consider yourself highly honoured, sir,’ said we.  ‘Sir,’ replied Mr. Griggins, ‘you do me proud.’  Here everybody laughed again; and the stout gentleman by the fire whispered in our ear that Griggins was making a dead set at us. 
‘HE never scraped and clawed into his pouch all her hard savings; dazzling her with prospects of your happiness and advancement, which he knew (and no man better) never would be realised! HE never speculated and traded on her pride in you, and her having educated you, and on her desire that you at least should live to be a gentleman. Not he, Tom!’ 
There was something so very cool and collected in the gentleman’s manner, that the waiter put the five shillings in his pocket, and led him upstairs without another word. 
Bella involuntarily raising her eyes, when this sudden reference was made to herself, met those of Mr Rokesmith. He was pale and seemed agitated. Then her eyes passed on to Mrs Boffin’s, and she met the look again. In a flash it enlightened her, and she began to understand what she had done. 
All this was very snug and pleasant: and when the difficulties of the stile were at last surmounted, and they once more entered on the open field, old Wardle informed Mr. Pickwick how they had all been down in a body to inspect the furniture and fittings-up of the house, which the young couple were to tenant, after the Christmas holidays; at which communication Bella and Trundle both coloured up, as red as the fat boy after the tap-room fire; and the young lady with the black eyes and the fur round the boots, whispered something in Emily’s ear, and then glanced archly at Mr. Snodgrass, to which Emily responded that she was a foolish girl, but turned very red, notwithstanding; and Mr. Snodgrass, who was as modest as all great geniuses usually are, felt the crimson rising to the crown of his head, and devoutly wished, in the inmost recesses of his own heart, that the young lady aforesaid, with her black eyes, and her archness, and her boots with the fur round the top, were all comfortably deposited in the adjacent county. 
The three cronies were therefore reduced to the necessity of shaking his elbows; having performed that ceremony, and brought from the house their hats, and sticks, and greatcoats, they bade him good night and departed; promising to bring him on the morrow full and true accounts of the real state of the city, and if it were quiet, to give him the full merit of his victory. 
"Thank your ladyship," says Mr. Guppy; "quite satisfactory. Now--I--dash it!--The fact is that I put down a head or two here of the order of the points I thought of touching upon, and they're written short, and I can't quite make out what they mean. If your ladyship will excuse me taking it to the window half a moment, I--" 
‘Not at all,’ returned Louisa 
"Past it rather," Peter answered, shutting up his book. "But I think he has walked a little slower than he used, these few last evenings, mother." 
And when Mr. Sowerberry presently came home, he gave Oliver a whipping on his own account for good measure. 
“Good boy,” said Mr. Brownlow stoutly. “Have you given him any nourishment, Bedwin?—any slops, eh?” 
Fascination Fledgeby, left alone in the counting-house, strolled about with his hat on one side, whistling, and investigating the drawers, and prying here and there for any small evidences of his being cheated, but could find none. ‘Not his merit that he don’t cheat me,’ was Mr Fledgeby’s commentary delivered with a wink, ‘but my precaution.’ He then with a lazy grandeur asserted his rights as lord of Pubsey and Co. by poking his cane at the stools and boxes, and spitting in the fireplace, and so loitered royally to the window and looked out into the narrow street, with his small eyes just peering over the top of Pubsey and Co.’s blind. As a blind in more senses than one, it reminded him that he was alone in the counting-house with the front door open. He was moving away to shut it, lest he should be injudiciously identified with the establishment, when he was stopped by some one coming to the door. 
‘Do you wish to see it?’ asked Venus. 
‘Mis-ter Spark-ler!’ repeated Fanny, with unbounded scorn, as if he were the last subject in the Solar system that could possibly be near her mind. ‘No, Miss Bat, it is not.’ 
"At his wake!" said I, with a look of disgust. 
“No knowledge; no result of study; nothing but the intertwisted chain of feelings and associations, each in its turn dependent on, and nourished by, the banished recollections.  Those will go.” 
‘Strangers are nothing to me, grandfather,’ said the young fellow catching at the word, ‘nor I to them, I hope. The best they can do, is to keep an eye to their business and leave me to mine. There’s a friend of mine waiting outside, and as it seems that I may have to wait some time, I’ll call him in, with your leave.’ 
But I ran no farther than the house door, for there I ran headforemost into a party of soldiers with their muskets, one of whom held out a pair of handcuffs to me, saying, "Here you are, look sharp, come on!" 
As to the naval officer of the station, with his hearty fresh face, and his blue eye that has pierced all kinds of weather, it warms our hearts when he comes into church on a Sunday, with that bright mixture of blue coat, buff waistcoat, black neck-kerchief, and gold epaulette, that is associated in the minds of all Englishmen with brave, unpretending, cordial, national service.  We like to look at him in his Sunday state; and if we were First Lord (really possessing the indispensable qualification for the office of knowing nothing whatever about the sea), we would give him a ship to-morrow. 
Here there was a general scream. 
‘Not dead!’ cried the other. 
"We have not gone into that," repeated Mr. Vholes as if his low inward voice were an echo. 
‘Gay!’ said Pancks. ‘I’m in wonderful feather, sir. I can’t stop a minute, or I shall be missed, and I don’t want ‘em to miss me.--Eh, Miss Dorrit?’ 
'Nobody?' inquired Fagin, in a tone of surprise:  which perhaps might mean that Barney was at liberty to tell the truth. 
‘Oh, I might have been much the better for her, if I had had a better heart!’ exclaimed the girl, with most forlorn regret; ‘for she was always good to me! She never spoke a word to me but what was pleasant and right. Is it likely I would try to make her what I am myself, knowing what I am myself, so well? When I lost everything that makes life dear, the worst of all my thoughts was that I was parted for ever from her!’ 
‘And pleads for her?’ inquired the Carrier. 
The Carrier turned upon him quickly. 
Now, these rays were so bright, and they seemed to make such a shining way from earth to Heaven, that when the child went to his solitary bed, he dreamed about the star; and dreamed that, lying where he was, he saw a train of people taken up that sparkling road by angels.  And the star, opening, showed him a great world of light, where many more such angels waited to receive them. 
"Why, that servant, or friend, or whatever he is; _you_ know; Trotter." 
"Barkis will be so glad," said Peggotty, wiping her eyes with her apron, "that it'll do him more good than pints of liniment. May I go and tell him you are here? Will you come up and see him, my dear?" 
'Then, mind what I told you,' said the matron: 'and be careful to say as little as you can, or you'll betray us at once.' 
‘Of whom else are we speaking?’ returned the other, with a movement of his foot, as if Rogue Riderhood were beginning to sneak before him in the body as well as the spirit, and he spurned him off. ‘I have heard of a daughter, and a son. I ask for information; I ask YOUR daughter; I prefer to speak to her. What children did Hexam leave?’ 
'I am going to sit here, as long as I think proper, ma'am,' rejoined Mr. Bumble; 'and although I was _not_ snoring, I shall snore, gape, sneeze, laugh, or cry, as the humour strikes me; such being my prerogative.' 
‘I wish he had given me his direction,’ returned her cousin, ‘and then I should have found you out before. Why, I shouldn’t have found you even now, if I hadn’t met him in the street this morning. What a sleek, sly chap he is! Just like a tomcat, an’t he?’ 
“Are they alive now?” 
She stopped at the bottom of the steep, broad flight of stairs; but we looked back as we went up, and she was still there, saying, still with a curtsy and a smile between every little sentence, "Youth. And hope. And beauty. And Chancery. And Conversation Kenge! Ha! Pray accept my blessing!" 
‘He is one of the Barnacles. Tite Barnacle’s son, Clarence Barnacle, who is in his father’s Department. I can at least guarantee that the river shall not suffer from his visit. He won’t set it on fire.’ 
Of this chamber, Nicholas became the tenant; and having hired a few common articles of furniture from a neighbouring broker, and paid the first week’s hire in advance, out of a small fund raised by the conversion of some spare clothes into ready money, he sat himself down to ruminate upon his prospects, which, like the prospect outside his window, were sufficiently confined and dingy. As they by no means improved on better acquaintance, and as familiarity breeds contempt, he resolved to banish them from his thoughts by dint of hard walking. So, taking up his hat, and leaving poor Smike to arrange and rearrange the room with as much delight as if it had been the costliest palace, he betook himself to the streets, and mingled with the crowd which thronged them. 
This was the landlord, in a Greek cap, and a dress half Greek and half English.  As master of the ceremonies, he called all the figures, and occasionally addressed himself parenthetically—after this manner.  When he was very loud, I use capitals. 
‘Oh, Ben and I have hit upon a dozen such,’ replied Bob Sawyer, with great glee. ‘The lamplighter has eighteenpence a week to pull the night- bell for ten minutes every time he comes round; and my boy always rushes into the church just before the psalms, when the people have got nothing to do but look about ‘em, and calls me out, with horror and dismay depicted on his countenance. “Bless my soul,” everybody says, “somebody taken suddenly ill! Sawyer, late Nockemorf, sent for. What a business that young man has!”’ 
All this was very genteel and pleasant; and to make matters still more comfortable, Mr. Smangle assured Mr. Pickwick a great many times that he entertained a very high respect for the feelings of a gentleman; which sentiment, indeed, did him infinite credit, as he could be in no wise supposed to understand them. 
‘No, sir,’ replied Tom. ‘I do not.’ 
‘I do not dine at home,’ she repeated. 
Once I passed a fortnight at an Inn in the North of England, where I was haunted by the ghost of a tremendous pie.  It was a Yorkshire pie, like a fort,--an abandoned fort with nothing in it; but the waiter had a fixed idea that it was a point of ceremony at every meal to put the pie on the table.  After some days I tried to hint, in several delicate ways, that I considered the pie done with; as, for example, by emptying fag-ends of glasses of wine into it; putting cheese-plates and spoons into it, as into a basket; putting wine-bottles into it, as into a cooler; but always in vain, the pie being invariably cleaned out again and brought up as before.  At last, beginning to be doubtful whether I was not the victim of a spectral illusion, and whether my health and spirits might not sink under the horrors of an imaginary pie, I cut a triangle out of it, fully as large as the musical instrument of that name in a powerful orchestra. Human provision could not have foreseen the result--but the waiter mended the pie.  With some effectual species of cement, he adroitly fitted the triangle in again, and I paid my reckoning and fled. 
These gentlemen had not yet quite recovered the jest, when dinner was announced, and then they were thrown into fresh ecstasies by a similar cause; for Sir Mulberry Hawk, in an excess of humour, shot dexterously past Lord Frederick Verisopht who was about to lead Kate downstairs, and drew her arm through his up to the elbow. 
‘I don’t see it at all,’ blustered Wegg. ‘You’ll have as much as I shall. And who are you?’ 
‘Oh dear no!’ said Traddles. 
‘He an’t blown away, I suppose,’ said Parkes. ‘It’s enough to carry a man of his figure off his legs, and easy too. Do you hear it? It blows great guns, indeed. There’ll be many a crash in the Forest to-night, I reckon, and many a broken branch upon the ground to-morrow.’ 
"You went, I know, aunt." 
'I tried to get it down,' rejoined the other.  'But her teeth were tight set, and she clenched the mug so hard that it was as much as I could do to get it back again.  So I drank it; and it did me good!' 
The knocking came again.  No, it wasn't he.  He never knocked like that. 
‘I have never felt it!’ cried the Blind Girl.  ‘I have never felt it, in its fulness.  Never!  I have sometimes wished that I could see you, or could see him—only once, dear father, only for one little minute—that I might know what it is I treasure up,’ she laid her hands upon her breast, ‘and hold here!  That I might be sure and have it right!  And sometimes (but then I was a child) I have wept in my prayers at night, to think that when your images ascended from my heart to Heaven, they might not be the true resemblance of yourselves.  But I have never had these feelings long.  They have passed away and left me tranquil and contented.’ 
"Not half so strange as a miraculous circumstance as happened to my own father, at an election time, in this wery place, sir," replied Sam. 
"I knowed you'd want a room for yourself, bless you!" said Mr. Roker. "Let me see. You'll want some furniture. You'll hire that of me, I suppose? That's the reg'lar thing." 
“Mugby Junction!” said the traveller, pulling up the woollen muffler round his throat with both hands.  “At past three o’clock of a tempestuous morning!  So!” 
They resumed their journey; and certainly the prospect before them was by no means encouraging. The stage was fifteen miles long, the night was dark, the wind high, and the rain pouring in torrents. It was impossible to make any great way against such obstacles united; it was hard upon one o’clock already; and nearly two hours were consumed in getting to the end of the stage. Here, however, an object presented itself, which rekindled their hopes, and reanimated their drooping spirits. 
However, Polly seemed to think it a good idea, and added, “I suppose I must give you a kiss, though you _are_ cool.”  The kiss given and taken, they sat down to breakfast in a highly conversational tone. 
Lizzie Hexam and Jenny Wren. For whom, perhaps with some old instinct of his race, the gentle Jew had spread a carpet. Seated on it, against no more romantic object than a blackened chimney-stack over which some bumble creeper had been trained, they both pored over one book; both with attentive faces; Jenny with the sharper; Lizzie with the more perplexed. Another little book or two were lying near, and a common basket of common fruit, and another basket full of strings of beads and tinsel scraps. A few boxes of humble flowers and evergreens completed the garden; and the encompassing wilderness of dowager old chimneys twirled their cowls and fluttered their smoke, rather as if they were bridling, and fanning themselves, and looking on in a state of airy surprise. 
The Spirit touched him on the arm, and pointed to his younger self, intent upon his reading. Suddenly a man, in foreign garments--wonderfully real and distinct to look at--stood outside the window, with an axe stuck in his belt, and leading by the bridle an ass laden with wood. 
For the sense of loneliness he had, he might have been in jail a year. Made eager by the hope of companionship, he quickened his pace, and hastened to meet the man half way-- 
"Why, he _is_ rather small," replied Mr. Bumble, looking at Oliver as if it were his fault that he wasn't bigger; "he is small,--there's no denying it. But he'll grow, Mrs. Sowerberry,--he'll grow." 
My duty to Agnes, who loved me with a love, which, if I disquieted, I wronged most selfishly and poorly, and could never restore; my matured assurance that I, who had worked out my own destiny, and won what I had impetuously set my heart on, had no right to murmur, and must bear; comprised what I felt and what I had learned. But I loved her: and now it even became some consolation to me, vaguely to conceive a distant day when I might blamelessly avow it; when all this should be over; when I could say ‘Agnes, so it was when I came home; and now I am old, and I never have loved since!’ 
She laughed aloud—such a merry, mocking, musical laugh, like a chime of silver bells! 
‘Blame Mr. Neville for it, Sept, and not me,’ said the old lady, with stately severity. 
It is difficult to say what dire plans of destruction and desolation might not have been suggested in the family council, had not another rap at the door, louder, if possible, and more authoritative than the footman's, interrupted the discussion. All and every one ran to the windows. Mr. Carrydot, Lord Wittington's steward, was at the entrance of Wick-Hall, and desired a private interview with Mr. Cannon. 
“Dear Mr. Edmund,” said Milly, looking round, “they told me there was a gentleman here.” 
“Ha! that boy! Zounds! how boys do grow! What that’s the child that Jenny Deg was carrying when she came to Stockington; and what a strong, handsome, bright-looking fellow he is now!” 
‘Oh Simmun,’ cried Miggs, ‘this is worse than all. I know if I come down, you’ll go, and--’ 
"Bless me, you are surely not mad enough to think of leaving your patients without anybody to attend them!" remonstrated Mr. Pickwick in a very serious tone. 
“I didn’t say so, Pip. I am putting a case. If he should turn to and beat her, he may possibly get the strength on his side; if it should be a question of intellect, he certainly will not. It would be chance work to give an opinion how a fellow of that sort will turn out in such circumstances, because it’s a toss-up between two results.” 
Mr. Bagnet suddenly interposes, "Plays the fife. Beautiful." 
‘Louisa, my dear, I have never, that I know of, seen this man.  Do you believe him to be implicated?’ 
"Nonsense; it ain't no harm. It's natur; ain't it, cook?" 
He was very anxious about his first appearance at Covent Garden, and studied Orson with great assiduity and application for some time. He made his first appearance in the character on the 10th of October, 1806, Farley playing Valentine. The piece, which was received with most decided success, was acted nearly every night until the production of the pantomime at Christmas rendered its withdrawal imperative. 
‘I have always worn it round my neck! If I had gone down in the deep, it would have been with me at the bottom of the sea.’ 
From his first appearance in October, 1758, Grimaldi continued at Drury Lane as Maître de Ballet, Primo Buffo, Clown, Pantaloon, or Cherokee, or any part required in the ballet, till his death. The dancers, it would appear, were not paid during the whole season, but for certain periods; in the interim they were employed, under certain restrictions, at other places of amusement. Those belonging to Drury Lane, in Garrick's time, were in the summer months, and from Easter to Michaelmas attached to Sadler's Wells; and in the bills which announced the opening of that suburban theatre, at Easter, 1763 and 1764, Signor Grimaldi appears as Maître de Ballet, and chief dancer. On May 1, in the latter year, Grimaldi, and an English dancer named Aldridge, of considerable eminence in his profession, jointly had a benefit; Shakspeare's "Tempest" was performed, as also the pantomime of "Fortunatus," Harlequin by Signor Grimaldi. In the September of the same year, at Sadler's Wells, the Signor had another benefit; the bill of the evening is subjoined: 
‘At Bury St. Edmunds, not many miles from here. But dear me, Mr. Pickwick, you are not going to leave us; surely Mr. Pickwick you cannot think of going so soon?’ 
John said these latter words outside the door, whither he had hurried with the candle in his hand. 
‘May I come in?’ said Mr. Gabriel Parsons, peeping in at the door. 
For the first time the hand appeared to shake. 
So, Oliver kept very still; partly because he was anxious to obey the kind old lady in all things; and partly, to tell the truth, because he was completely exhausted with what he had already said.  He soon fell into a gentle doze, from which he was awakened by the light of a candle:  which, being brought near the bed, showed him a gentleman with a very large and loud-ticking gold watch in his hand, who felt his pulse, and said he was a great deal better. 
The master was a fat, healthy man, but he turned very pale.  He gazed in stupefied astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper.  The assistants were paralyzed with wonder; the boys with fear. 
‘Sophronia, darling, Mr and Mrs Boffin will remind you of the old adage, that self-praise is no recommendation.’ 
‘I have parted with the plate myself,’ said Mrs. Micawber. ‘Six tea, two salt, and a pair of sugars, I have at different times borrowed money on, in secret, with my own hands. But the twins are a great tie; and to me, with my recollections, of papa and mama, these transactions are very painful. There are still a few trifles that we could part with. Mr. Micawber’s feelings would never allow him to dispose of them; and Clickett’--this was the girl from the workhouse--‘being of a vulgar mind, would take painful liberties if so much confidence was reposed in her. Master Copperfield, if I might ask you--’ 
"I can't, upon my life. There's nothing I should like better, but I _must_ remain with these two fellows. We are all three off together to-morrow morning." 
‘I dare say he does not,’ said Mrs Varden; ‘and I dare say you do not, Varden. It’s a very unpleasant subject, I have no doubt, though I won’t say it’s personal’--Miggs coughed--‘whatever I may be forced to think’--Miggs sneezed expressively. ‘You never will know, Varden, and nobody at young Mr Willet’s age--you’ll excuse me, sir--can be expected to know, what a woman suffers when she is waiting at home under such circumstances. If you don’t believe me, as I know you don’t, here’s Miggs, who is only too often a witness of it--ask her.’ 
‘It might have been Rule Britannia,’ muttered Eugene, ‘but it wasn’t. Mortimer!’ 
Mitchell, Captain, 46, 47, 49, 55, 57. 
"They have subpoena'd my servant too," said Mr. Pickwick, quitting the other point; for there Mr. Perker's question had somewhat staggered him. 
To tell how Kit then hustled into the box all sorts of things which could, by no remote contingency, be wanted, and how he left out everything likely to be of the smallest use; how a neighbour was persuaded to come and stop with the children, and how the children at first cried dismally, and then laughed heartily on being promised all kinds of impossible and unheard-of toys; how Kit’s mother wouldn’t leave off kissing them, and how Kit couldn’t make up his mind to be vexed with her for doing it; would take more time and room than you and I can spare.  So, passing over all such matters, it is sufficient to say that within a few minutes after the two hours had expired, Kit and his mother arrived at the Notary’s door, where a post-chaise was already waiting. 
"My dear girl," said Mr. Pickwick, kindly, "it is no fault of yours. It was impossible to foresee that the old gentleman would be so strongly prepossessed against his son's marriage, you know. I am sure," added Mr. Pickwick, glancing at her pretty face, "he can have very little idea of the pleasure he denies himself." 
The disappearance of his old friend was a great blow to bluff Captain Cuttle, but, determined to do his part, he left his own lodgings and took up his place at the sign of the wooden midshipman to wait for news either of Walter or of old Solomon Gills. 
At present, in this vicinity, the best part of the land is not private property; the landscape is not owned, and the walker enjoys comparative freedom. But possibly the day will come when it will be partitioned off into so-called pleasure-grounds, in which a few will take a narrow and exclusive pleasure only,--when fences shall be multiplied, and mantraps and other engines invented to confine men to the _public road_, and walking over the surface of God's earth shall be construed to mean trespassing on some gentleman's grounds. To enjoy a thing exclusively is commonly to exclude yourself from the true enjoyment of it. Let us improve our opportunities, then, before the evil days come. 
‘Don’t be above calling it wages, man,’ said Mr Boffin, testily. ‘What the deuce! I never talked of any salary when I was in service.’ 
The condemned criminal was seated on his bed, rocking himself from side to side, with a countenance more like that of a snared beast than the face of a man. His mind was evidently wandering to his old life, for he continued to mutter, without seeming conscious of their presence otherwise than as a part of his vision. 
Queenston, at which place the steamboats start for Toronto (or I should rather say at which place they call, for their wharf is at Lewiston, on the opposite shore), is situated in a delicious valley, through which the Niagara river, in colour a very deep green, pursues its course.  It is approached by a road that takes its winding way among the heights by which the town is sheltered; and seen from this point is extremely beautiful and picturesque.  On the most conspicuous of these heights stood a monument erected by the Provincial Legislature in memory of General Brock, who was slain in a battle with the American forces, after having won the victory.  Some vagabond, supposed to be a fellow of the name of Lett, who is now, or who lately was, in prison as a felon, blew up this monument two years ago, and it is now a melancholy ruin, with a long fragment of iron railing hanging dejectedly from its top, and waving to and fro like a wild ivy branch or broken vine stem.  It is of much higher importance than it may seem, that this statue should be repaired at the public cost, as it ought to have been long ago.  Firstly, because it is beneath the dignity of England to allow a memorial raised in honour of one of her defenders, to remain in this condition, on the very spot where he died.  Secondly, because the sight of it in its present state, and the recollection of the unpunished outrage which brought it to this pass, is not very likely to soothe down border feelings among English subjects here, or compose their border quarrels and dislikes. 
‘Mr. Copperfield,’ said Mr. Micawber, gravely, ‘I hope I see you well?’ 
‘Miss Wilfer,’ said the Secretary, with a beaming face, ‘if you could know with what delight I make the discovery that Fortune isn’t spoiling YOU, you would know that it more than compensates me for any slight at any other hands.’ 
‘What is it?’ inquired the beadle. 
‘Then he must have a hint of it,’ said Wegg, ‘and a strong one that’ll jog his terrors a bit. Give him an inch, and he’ll take an ell. Let him alone this time, and what’ll he do with our property next? I tell you what, Mr Venus; it comes to this; I must be overbearing with Boffin, or I shall fly into several pieces. I can’t contain myself when I look at him. Every time I see him putting his hand in his pocket, I see him putting it into my pocket. Every time I hear him jingling his money, I hear him taking liberties with my money. Flesh and blood can’t bear it. No,’ said Mr Wegg, greatly exasperated, ‘and I’ll go further. A wooden leg can’t bear it!’ 
‘Not for that,’ said Mrs. Tugby, with great energy.  ‘Not for that! Neither did I marry you for that.  Don’t think it, Tugby.  I won’t have it.  I won’t allow it.  I’d be separated first, and never see your face again.  When my widow’s name stood over that door, as it did for many years: this house being known as Mrs. Chickenstalker’s far and wide, and never known but to its honest credit and its good report: when my widow’s name stood over that door, Tugby, I knew him as a handsome, steady, manly, independent youth; I knew her as the sweetest-looking, sweetest-tempered girl, eyes ever saw; I knew her father (poor old creetur, he fell down from the steeple walking in his sleep, and killed himself), for the simplest, hardest-working, childest-hearted man, that ever drew the breath of life; and when I turn them out of house and home, may angels turn me out of Heaven.  As they would!  And serve me right!’ 
Mr. Scarve was an old man, and looked much older than he really was--being only sixty-five, whereas he appeared like eighty. His frame was pinched as if by self-denial, and preternaturally withered and shrivelled; and there was a thin, haggard, and almost hungry look about his face, extremely painful to contemplate. His features were strongly marked, and sharp, and his eye, grey, keen, and piercing. He was dressed in a thread-bare cloth robe, trimmed with sable, and wore a velvet nightcap, lined with cotton, on his head. The rest of his habiliments were darned and patched in an unseemly manner. Beside him was a small table, on which was laid a ragged and dirty cloth, covered with the remains of his scanty meal, which Randulph’s arrival had interrupted. Part of a stale loaf, a slice of cheese, and a little salt constituted the repast. 
“My father,” exclaimed Lucie, “you are ill!” 
_Fitz-Growl._--Certainly; a manager ought to have assurance enough for anything. But I tell you, sir, if you want to succeed, you must open with my piece. 
Lavvy declining equally to repeat or to explain, Bella gradually lapsed over her hair-dressing into a soliloquy on the miseries of being poor, as exemplified in having nothing to put on, nothing to go out in, nothing to dress by, only a nasty box to dress at instead of a commodious dressing-table, and being obliged to take in suspicious lodgers. On the last grievance as her climax, she laid great stress--and might have laid greater, had she known that if Mr Julius Handford had a twin brother upon earth, Mr John Rokesmith was the man. 
‘Shall I order a private room, Sir?’ inquired Sam, when they reached the Bush. 
I was too bashful to do so then--I was afraid of confusing her, and I was no less afraid of confusing myself.--but I informed myself of the hour at which she left of an evening, in order that our visit might be timed accordingly; and taking leave of Mr. Omer, and his pretty daughter, and her little children, went away to my dear old Peggotty’s. 
```How you awake the deeping sword of war; 
He crossed over, and glanced up at the window, to be sure that nothing was visible from the outside.  There was the curtain still drawn, which she would have opened to admit the light she never saw again.  It lay nearly under there.  _He_ knew that.  God, how the sun poured down upon the very spot! 
‘You will make me happier than I can tell you,’ replied the young lady. ‘To think that my dear good aunt should have been the means of rescuing any one from such sad misery as you have described to us, would be an unspeakable pleasure to me; but to know that the object of her goodness and compassion was sincerely grateful and attached, in consequence, would delight me, more than you can well imagine. Do you understand me?’ she inquired, watching Oliver’s thoughtful face. 
At the sound of it, a thrill went through my frame. For it was Emily's! 
"Then she had better go." 
"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet," proceeds Mr. Bucket, who delights in a full title and does violence to himself when he dispenses with any fragment of it, "the last point in the case which I am now going to mention shows the necessity of patience in our business, and never doing a thing in a hurry. I watched this young woman yesterday without her knowledge when she was looking at the funeral, in company with my wife, who planned to take her there; and I had so much to convict her, and I saw such an expression in her face, and my mind so rose against her malice towards her ladyship, and the time was altogether such a time for bringing down what you may call retribution upon her, that if I had been a younger hand with less experience, I should have taken her, certain. Equally, last night, when her ladyship, as is so universally admired I am sure, come home looking--why, Lord, a man might almost say like Venus rising from the ocean--it was so unpleasant and inconsistent to think of her being charged with a murder of which she was innocent that I felt quite to want to put an end to the job. What should I have lost? Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I should have lost the weapon. My prisoner here proposed to Mrs. Bucket, after the departure of the funeral, that they should go per bus a little ways into the country and take tea at a very decent house of entertainment. Now, near that house of entertainment there's a piece of water. At tea, my prisoner got up to fetch her pocket handkercher from the bedroom where the bonnets was; she was rather a long time gone and came back a little out of wind. As soon as they came home this was reported to me by Mrs. Bucket, along with her observations and suspicions. I had the piece of water dragged by moonlight, in presence of a couple of our men, and the pocket pistol was brought up before it had been there half-a-dozen hours. Now, my dear, put your arm a little further through mine, and hold it steady, and I shan't hurt you!" 
‘They’ve been carrying on this game,’ thought Jonas in a brown study, ‘for the last two or three weeks. I never saw my father take so much notice of him as he has in that time. What! You’re legacy hunting, are you, Mister Chuff? Eh?’ 
‘Oh yes, I understand--perfectly,’ replied Fagin, telling the truth for once. ‘Good-night! Good-night!’ 
I was born with a caul, which was advertised for sale, in the newspapers, at the low price of fifteen guineas. Whether sea-going people were short of money about that time, or were short of faith and preferred cork jackets, I don’t know; all I know is, that there was but one solitary bidding, and that was from an attorney connected with the bill-broking business, who offered two pounds in cash, and the balance in sherry, but declined to be guaranteed from drowning on any higher bargain. Consequently the advertisement was withdrawn at a dead loss--for as to sherry, my poor dear mother’s own sherry was in the market then--and ten years afterwards, the caul was put up in a raffle down in our part of the country, to fifty members at half-a-crown a head, the winner to spend five shillings. I was present myself, and I remember to have felt quite uncomfortable and confused, at a part of myself being disposed of in that way. The caul was won, I recollect, by an old lady with a hand-basket, who, very reluctantly, produced from it the stipulated five shillings, all in halfpence, and twopence halfpenny short--as it took an immense time and a great waste of arithmetic, to endeavour without any effect to prove to her. It is a fact which will be long remembered as remarkable down there, that she was never drowned, but died triumphantly in bed, at ninety-two. I have understood that it was, to the last, her proudest boast, that she never had been on the water in her life, except upon a bridge; and that over her tea (to which she was extremely partial) she, to the last, expressed her indignation at the impiety of mariners and others, who had the presumption to go ‘meandering’ about the world. It was in vain to represent to her that some conveniences, tea perhaps included, resulted from this objectionable practice. She always returned, with greater emphasis and with an instinctive knowledge of the strength of her objection, ‘Let us have no meandering.’ 
Here the small servant had another cough. 
Never was man so delighted as Nicholas Tulrumble; never was woman so charmed as Nicholas Tulrumble’s wife.  Here was a sight for the common people of Mudfog!  A live man in brass armour!  Why, they would go wild with wonder! 
‘What cheer, my pretty?’ said the Captain. ‘What cheer now? You’ve done her some good, my lad, I believe,’ said the Captain, under his breath, and throwing an approving glance upon his watch. ‘Put you back half-an-hour every morning, and about another quarter towards the arternoon, and you’re a watch as can be ekalled by few and excelled by none. What cheer, my lady lass!’ 
XXXI     INVOLVES A CRITICAL POSITION 
‘Won’t you sit down?’ said Mr Carker, smiling. 
Mr. L---- answered me only with a most mysterious look, and another shudder. I took out my watch, and struck the hour; it had the desired effect, for he was sensitive in the highest degree. 
Nor did they forget Bella Wilfer (for whose disappointment, at not getting the rich husband she had expected, they felt very sorry), and soon invited her to live with them. Bella was a good-tempered, pretty girl, though inclined to be somewhat selfish and spoiled, and she was not sure, after all, that she would have liked a husband who had been willed to her like a dozen silver spoons; so she did not grieve greatly, and accepted Mr. and Mrs. Boffin's offer gratefully. 
It was not exactly the word on Clennam’s lips, but he forbore to interrupt his good-humoured friend. 
The bell was rung, and the fat boy appeared. 
Fanny had, in Isabel’s absence, folded Thomas’ shawl, and hung it across her arm. “I thought, Miss,” answered she, blushing, “that I might just carry it to show Thomas that I did not forget his present, or think it too homely to go to church with me.” 
"And did none of them ever grow older?" 
"O, dear no, ma'am," said Trottle, shaking his head with decision; "it won't let.  It never does let, ma'am." 
Then came the night--dark, dismal, silent night.  Other watchers are glad to hear this church-clock strike, for they tell of life and coming day.  To him they brought despair.  The boom of every iron bell came laden with the one, deep, hollow sound--Death. What availed the noise and bustle of cheerful morning, which penetrated even there, to him? It was another form of knell, with mockery added to the warning. 
"The executor will sell that House, Trottle?" said I. 
He had been trying in vain, for half an hour, to read this newspaper, when the waiter appeared and said, at once mysteriously and apologetically: 
'Not a penny,' replied the girl, waving her hand. 
‘How do you do, Mr Doyce?’ said Clennam, overtaking him. ‘I am glad to see you again, and in a healthier place than the Circumlocution Office.’ 
It was characteristic of Martin, that all this while he had either forgotten Mark Tapley as completely as if there had been no such person in existence, or, if for a moment the figure of that gentleman rose before his mental vision, had dismissed it as something by no means of a pressing nature, which might be attended to by-and-bye, and could wait his perfect leisure. But, being now in the streets again, it occurred to him as just coming within the bare limits of possibility that Mr Tapley might, in course of time, grow tired of waiting on the threshold of the Rowdy Journal Office, so he intimated to his new friend, that if they could conveniently walk in that direction, he would be glad to get this piece of business off his mind. 
All these proceedings naturally made the child more watchful and suspicious, and she soon observed that whenever they halted to perform outside a village alehouse or other place, Mr Codlin while he went through his share of the entertainments kept his eye steadily upon her and the old man, or with a show of great friendship and consideration invited the latter to lean upon his arm, and so held him tight until the representation was over and they again went forward.  Even Short seemed to change in this respect, and to mingle with his good-nature something of a desire to keep them in safe custody.  This increased the child’s misgivings, and made her yet more anxious and uneasy. 
It was not until he was left alone in the silence and stillness of the gloomy workshop of the undertaker, that Oliver gave way to the feelings which the day's treatment may be supposed likely to have awakened in a mere child. He had listened to their taunts with a look of dogged contempt; he had borne the lash without a cry, for he felt that pride swelling in his heart which would have kept down a shriek to the last, if they had roasted him alive. But, now that there were none to see or hear him, he fell upon his knees on the floor, and, hiding his face in his hands, wept such tears as God send for the credit of our nature, few so young may ever have cause to pour out before him. 
The keen look that had been fixed upon him with so much earnestness, had gradually sought the ground. 
‘What do you think of that letter?’ said Traddles, casting his eyes upon me, when I had read it twice. 
Under this ferocious banter, she sat breathing harder, and her mouth was disturbed. Her lips quivered and opened, in spite of her utmost efforts to keep them still. 
"Does he exercise the same influence over Mr. Wickfield still, Agnes?" 
"Who's this? Aye, aye, mistress, it's you, is it? You appear at a good time. I have just been hearing of you. Now! What do you want?" 
"It's all true as Gospel, Muster Savage," responded Joe: "I seed it, and suffered it myself, and afore I dropped asleep--'Mayhap,' thinks I, 'if I could steal a mummy for myself to give to my ould mother, it 'ud be a reg'lar fortin to her,--dead two thousand years, and yet drink brandy and chaw tobacco!' So I sleeps pretty sound, though for how many bells I'm blessed if I can tell; but I was waked up by a raking fire abaft, that warmed my starn, and I sits upright to clear my eyes of the spray, and there laid King Herod alongside of me, with one of the canteens as a pillow, and all the ould chaps had come down out o' their niches, and formed a complete circle round us, that made me fancy all sorts of conjuration and bedevilment; so I jumps up on to my feet, and lets fly my broadsides to starboard and port, now and then throwing out a long shot a-head, and occasionally discharging my starn chasers abaft till I'd floored all the mummies, and the whole place wrung with shouts of laughter, though not a living soul could I see, nor dead uns either,--seeing as they'd nothing but bodies. Well, shipmates, if the thought didn't come over me again about bolting with one on 'em, and so I catches up King Herod, and away I starts up some steps,--for the moon had got the watch on deck by that time, and showed her commodore's light to make every thing plain:--Away I starts with King Herod, who began to hollow out like fun, 'Stop--stop, sailor! stop!--where are you going to take me? I'm Corporal Stunt.'--'Corporal H--!' says I, 'you arn't going to do me in that way,--you said yourself you was King Herod.'--'It was all a trick,' says he, again, kicking and sputtering like blazes; 'I'm not King Herod, I'm ounly Corporal Stunt,' says he.--'That be d--;' says I, 'you're conwicted by your own mouth. And didn't the woice tell me you was the barbarous blaggard as murdered the babbies?'--'Yes,--yes; but I did it myself,' says he.--'I know you did,' says I, fetching him a poke in the ribs,--for, shipmates, I made sure he warn't privileged above ground,--'I know you did,' says I, 'and I'm blessed if the first leftenant shan't bring you to the gangway for it!' And then he shouts out, and I hears the sound of feet astarn coming up in chase, and I carries on a taut press, till I catches sight of Clipsypaddyree's needle, that sarved me for a beacon, and I hears the whole fleet of mummies come 'pad-pad' in my wake, and hailing from their leather-lungs, 'Stop, sailor--stop!' but I know'd a trick worth two of that, shipmates; so I made more sail, and the little ould chap tries to shift ballast so as to bring me down by the head; but it wouldn't do, and he kept crying out, 'Let me down! pray let me go, I'm ounly Corporal Stunt!'--'Corporal Stunt or Corporal Devil,' says I, giving him another punch to keep him quiet; 'I knows who are you, and I'm blessed if the ould woman shan't have you packed up in a glass cage for a show! you shall have plenty o' pigtail and brandy:' and on I carries, every stitch set, and rattling along at a ten-knot pace, afeard o' nothing but their sending a handful o' monyments arter me from their bow-chasers, that might damage some of my spars. At last I makes out the battery, and bore up for the entrance, when one of the sodgers, as was sentry, hails, 'Who goes there?'--'No--no!' says I, seeing as I warn't even a petty officer.--'That won't do,' says the sodger; 'you must give the countersign.'--'What the blazes should I know about them there things?' axes I, 'you may see I'm a blue-jacket.'--'You can't pass without the countersign,' says he.--'That be d--d!' says I, 'arn't I got King Herod here? and arn't there King Fairer, and King Dollyme, and King Hangabull, and a whole fleet more on 'em in chase!' says I.--'Oh, Tom Morris, is that you?' says King Herod.--'Yes,' says the sentry; 'why, I say, sailor, you've got hould o' the corporal!'--'Tell that to the marines,' says I, 'for I knows well enough who he is, and so shall my ould mother when I gets him home! But, I'm blessed, but here they come!' and, shipmates, I heard 'em quite plain close aboard o' me, so that it was all my eye to be backing and filling palavering there afore the sentry, and get captured, and with that I knocks him down with King Herod, and in I bolts with my prize right into the officer's quarters. 'Halloo! who the devil have we got here?' shouts the leftenant, starting up from his cot.--'It's not the devil, your honour,' says I, 'not by no manner o' means; it's Joe Nighthead, and King Herod,' and I pitches the wagabone upright on to his lower stancheons afore the officer.--'There, your majesty,' says I, 'now speak for yourself.'--'Majesty!' says the leftenant, onshipping the ould fellow's turban and overhauling his face,--'majesty! why, it's the corporal--Corporal Stunt; and pray, Muster Corporal, what cruise have you been on to-night?'--and then there was the clattering of feet in the battery, and, 'Here they all are, your honour!' says I, 'all the ould ancient kings of Egypt as are rigged out for mummies. My eyes, take care o' the grog bottles, for them fellows are the very devil's own at a dram! Stand by, your honour! there's King Dollyme and all on 'em close aboard of us! but, I'm blowed if I don't floor some on 'em again as I did in the wault!' Well, messmates, in they came; but, instead of mummies in their oil jars, I'm bless'd if they warn't rigged out like sodger officers, and they stood laughing at me ready to split their sides when they saw me squaring away my yards all clear for action." 
Mr Flintwinch, to whom these words were spoken, repaid the stranger’s wonder in full. He gazed at him with blank astonishment; he looked over his own shoulder, as expecting to see some one he had not been aware of standing behind him; he gazed at the stranger again, speechlessly, at a loss to know what he meant; he looked to his wife for explanation; receiving none, he pounced upon her, and shook her with such heartiness that he shook her cap off her head, saying between his teeth, with grim raillery, as he did it, ‘Affery, my woman, you must have a dose, my woman! This is some of your tricks! You have been dreaming again, mistress. What’s it about? Who is it? What does it mean! Speak out or be choked! It’s the only choice I’ll give you.’ 
‘That’s not it?’ said I. ‘That ship-looking thing?’ 
“No; I cannot wait, settle it out at once.” 
The room, though two or three feet higher than the door, is so low that the head of the tallest of the visitors would touch the blackened ceiling if he stood upright. It is offensive to every sense; even the gross candle burns pale and sickly in the polluted air. There are a couple of benches and a higher bench by way of table. The men lie asleep where they stumbled down, but the women sit by the candle. Lying in the arms of the woman who has spoken is a very young child. 
"And now for the last act enters Somerset himself upon the stage, who, being told, as the manner is, by the lieutenant, that he must provide to go next day to his trial, did absolutely refuse it, and said they should carry him in his bed; that the king had assured him he should not come to any trial, neither durst the king to bring him to trial. This was in a high strain, and in a language not well understood by George Moore, [Sir George Moore, lieutenant in the room of Elwes,] that made Moore quiver and shake; and, however he was accounted a wise man, yet he was near at his wit's end. Yet away goes Moore to Greenwich, as late as it was, being twelve at night; bounceth at the back-stairs as if mad; to whom came Jo. Loveston, one of the grooms, out of his bed, inquiring the reason of that distemper at so late a season. Moore tells him he must speak with the king. Loverton replies, 'He is quiet,' which in the Scottish dialect is, fast asleep. Moore says, 'You must wake him.' Moore was called in (the chamber left to the king and Moore). He tells the king those passages, and desired to be directed by the king, for he was gone beyond his own reason to hear such bold and undutiful expressions from a faulty subject against a just sovereign. The king falls into a passion of tears: 'On my soul, Moore, I wot not what to do: thou art a wise man; help me in this great strait, and thou shalt find thou dost it for a thankful master;' with other sad expressions. Moore leaves the king in that passion, but assures him he will prove the utmost of his wit to serve his majesty. Sir George Moore returns to Somerset about three o'clock next morning of that day he was to come to trial, enters Somerset's chamber, tells him he had been with the king, found him a most affectionate master unto him, and full of grace in his intentions towards him. 'But,' said he, 'to satisfy justice you must appear, although you return instantly again without any further procedure; only you shall know your enemies and their malice, though they shall have no power over you.' With this trick of wit he allayed his fury, and got him quietly, about eight in the morning, to the Hall; yet feared his former bold language might revert again, and, being brought by this trick into the toil, might have more enraged him to fly out into some strange discovery, that he had two servants placed on each side of him, with a cloak on their arms, giving them a peremptory order that if Somerset did any way fly out on the king, they should instantly hoodwink him with that cloak, take him violently from the bar, and carry him away; for which he would secure them from any danger, and they should not want a bountiful reward. But the earl, finding himself overreached, recollected a better temper, and went on calmly in his trial, where he held the company until seven at night. But who had seen the king's restless motion all that day, sending to every boat he saw landing at the bridge, and cursing all that came without tidings, would have easily judged all was not right, and that there had been some grounds for his fear of Somerset's boldness. But at last one bringing him word he was condemned, and the passages, all was quiet." 
‘Slap through the town,’ whispered Sikes; ‘there’ll be nobody in the way, to-night, to see us.’ 
It was not long before each had told the other all that had happened. Tom decided that they should part no more, and they set out together to find a lodging. They took some rooms in a quiet neighborhood and settled down together till Tom could find something to do. 
‘One man, Miss Abbey.’ 
"I haven't touched a drop of spirits this morning," said the man, who was as sober a fellow as need be. 
The first subject on which I had to consult Traddles was this,--I had heard that many men distinguished in various pursuits had begun life by reporting the debates in Parliament. Traddles having mentioned newspapers to me, as one of his hopes, I had put the two things together, and told Traddles in my letter that I wished to know how I could qualify myself for this pursuit. Traddles now informed me, as the result of his inquiries, that the mere mechanical acquisition necessary, except in rare cases, for thorough excellence in it, that is to say, a perfect and entire command of the mystery of short-hand writing and reading, was about equal in difficulty to the mastery of six languages; and that it might perhaps be attained, by dint of perseverance, in the course of a few years. Traddles reasonably supposed that this would settle the business; but I, only feeling that here indeed were a few tall trees to be hewn down, immediately resolved to work my way on to Dora through this thicket, axe in hand. 
Hay, Lieut., 59, 60, 66, 67, 113. 
My Lady's figure begins to be expressive of some attention. She has ceased to toss the screen and holds it as if she were listening. 
Perhaps they replied, or argued the point, or tried to encourage me to believe that I was better than I thought. Forasmuch as they hang in my memory by only this one slender thread, I don’t know what they did, except that they forbore to remove me. 
‘I do,’ replied the serjeant with an oath, ‘and a finer young fellow or one better qualified to serve his king and country, I never set my--’ he used an adjective in this place--‘eyes on.’ 
‘Ha ha ha!’ laughed Hugh, waving one arm above his head. ‘He talks of friends to me--talks of relations to a man whose mother died the death in store for her son, and left him, a hungry brat, without a face he knew in all the world! He talks of this to me!’ 
"Don't you know," said she, "the changes which have taken place since you were here last? Rotten boroughs and nomination boroughs have been abolished. Schedule A. and schedule B. have been all the fashion of late; we talk of nothing else; and there are to be members for Marylebone, and Figsby is canvassing as hard as he can; and I am sure, prince, if you can help him with a vote, you will." 
'The very same man I told you of, who came so suddenly upon me at the inn,' said Oliver.  'We had our eyes fixed full upon each other; and I could swear to him.' 
"We are not likely to encounter soon again;--a source of satisfaction to us both, no doubt, for such meetings as this can never be agreeable. I do not expect that you, who always rebelled against my just authority, exerted for your benefit and reformation, should owe me any good will now. There is an antipathy between us----" 
"Hurt his feelings and lost him his situation." 
‘It is. Why, in the name of Heaven, do you darken it?’ 
"Shall we say--sunset this evening?" inquired the officer, in a careless tone. 
"Truly I am not much to boast of, Sir Leicester, and I--I should still, Sir Leicester, if you was not so indisposed--which I hope you will not be long--I should still hope for the favour of being allowed to remain unknown in general. That involves explanations not very hard to be guessed at, not very well timed here, and not very creditable to myself. However opinions may differ on a variety of subjects, I should think it would be universally agreed, Sir Leicester, that I am not much to boast of." 
"I beg your worship's pardon," said Mr. Bumble, incredulous of his having heard aright,--"did your worship speak to me?" 
‘I know who has been putting that in your head,’ rejoined her son disconsolately; ‘that’s Little Bethel again.  Now I say, mother, pray don’t take to going there regularly, for if I was to see your good-humoured face that has always made home cheerful, turned into a grievous one, and the baby trained to look grievous too, and to call itself a young sinner (bless its heart) and a child of the devil (which is calling its dead father names); if I was to see this, and see little Jacob looking grievous likewise, I should so take it to heart that I’m sure I should go and list for a soldier, and run my head on purpose against the first cannon-ball I saw coming my way.’ 
A groan from the young ladies, kep’ up by me. 
‘Oh, Mr. Bumble, sir!’ said Noah: ‘Oliver, sir,--Oliver has--’ 
‘Size!’ repeated Mr. Crummles; ‘why, it’s the essence of the combat that there should be a foot or two between them. How are you to get up the sympathies of the audience in a legitimate manner, if there isn’t a little man contending against a big one?--unless there’s at least five to one, and we haven’t hands enough for that business in our company.’ 
‘How far is it to any town or village?’ she asked of the husband. 
‘Not a bit,’ said Toodle. ‘Polly heerd it. She’s awake, Sir.’ 
His own hand shook, as he accepted a rose or two from hers and thanked her. They were now by an avenue of trees. Whether they turned into it on his movement or on hers matters little. He never knew how that was. 
‘Sir, not at all like.’ 
"I want you to go and see her, wherever she may be, and say to her, 'Maria,'--what makes you start so?" 
In the morning, when I came out, the early church-bell was ringing, and he was walking up and down with his mother. He addressed me as if nothing had happened, and I could do no less than reply. I had struck him hard enough to give him the toothache, I suppose. At all events his face was tied up in a black silk handkerchief, which, with his hat perched on the top of it, was far from improving his appearance. I heard that he went to a dentist’s in London on the Monday morning, and had a tooth out. I hope it was a double one. 
"Where is she now? Still happy with her husband, I suppose, and never giving a thought to the poor fellow she drove out into the world?" 
‘You go and do your duty, sir,’ said Mr Slyme, angrily, ‘and borrow money for travelling expenses; and whoever you borrow it of, let ‘em know that I possess a haughty spirit, and a proud spirit, and have infernally finely-touched chords in my nature, which won’t brook patronage. Do you hear? Tell ‘em I hate ‘em, and that that’s the way I preserve my self-respect; and tell ‘em that no man ever respected himself more than I do!’ 
‘Glad to see you, sir.  I congratulate myself on having the honour of receiving you here for the first time.’  Mr. Sapsea does the honours of his house in this wise. 
“How could I do otherwise!” 
"Ay,--ay, sergeant!" said Joe, affecting to laugh, "it's all wery well what you're overhauling upon, but I'm blessed if you'll ever make me log that ere down about Corporal Stunt and the wentiller consarn. I ounly wish I had the canteens now." 
‘It is a cut,’ said Nicholas, turning scarlet as he spoke,--‘a blow; but I returned it to the giver, and with good interest too.’ 
‘No; to no Captain. To Mr. Chestle, a hop-grower.’ 
Mrs. Sowerberry burst into a flood of tears. 
‘No, indeed, uncle,’ replied the weeping girl. ‘I will try to do anything that will gain me a home and bread.’ 
‘All that one of them has ever done, or may do—may do, dearest father—to cause you pain or grief, forgive her,’ said Marion, ‘forgive her now, when her heart is full.  Say that you forgive her.  That you will forgive her.  That she shall always share your love, and—,’ and the rest was not said, for her face was hidden on the old man’s shoulder. 
‘Wring its neck,’ rejoined Quilp. 
‘Good gracious, Edmund!’ said Mrs Sparkler more fretfully still, ‘you are absolutely putting mignonette up your nose! Pray don’t!’ 
"I should rayther think so," replied Sam. 
‘If you don’t throw the doors open, we shall break ‘em down,’ said Hugh; ‘for we will have the rioters out.’ 
‘Bah, bah, bah! I repudiate, for the moment, my politeness, and say, Lies, lies, lies. You know you suppressed the deed and kept the money.’ 
‘Which fellow?’ asked Thomas Idle. 
"Secondly, what will satisfy me for the trouble of producing it, sir," repeats Mr. George. 
"You've been stopping to over all the posts in Bristol, you idle young scamp!" said Mr. Bob Sawyer. 
It certainly was; for they had been two kindred spirits. At the ominous word "liberality" Scrooge frowned, and shook his head, and handed the credentials back. 
‘Ah!’ returned Paul: ‘that’s the name sure enough. Do you know him?’ 
Something to be worked so much and paid so much, and there ended; something to be infallibly settled by laws of supply and demand; something that blundered against those laws, and floundered into difficulty; something that was a little pinched when wheat was dear, and over-ate itself when wheat was cheap; something that increased at such a rate of percentage, and yielded such another percentage of crime, and such another percentage of pauperism; something wholesale, of which vast fortunes were made; something that occasionally rose like a sea, and did some harm and waste (chiefly to itself), and fell again; this she knew the Coketown Hands to be.  But, she had scarcely thought more of separating them into units, than of separating the sea itself into its component drops. 
His nephew left the room without an angry word, notwithstanding. He stopped at the outer door to bestow the greetings of the season on the clerk, who, cold as he was, was warmer than Scrooge; for he returned them cordially. 
Although the niece of Mrs Pipchin did not expect to find that exemplary dragon prostrate on the hearth-rug when she went downstairs, she was relieved to find her unusually fractious and severe, and with every present appearance of intending to live a long time to be a comfort to all who knew her. Nor had she any symptoms of declining, in the course of the ensuing week, when the constitutional viands still continued to disappear in regular succession, notwithstanding that Paul studied her as attentively as ever, and occupied his usual seat between the black skirts and the fender, with unwavering constancy. 
‘You will have the goodness to recollect, Miss Nickleby,’ said Mrs Wititterly, ‘that when you use such terms as “unjust”, and “unfounded”, you charge me, in effect, with stating that which is untrue.’ 
THE twilight was beginning to close in, when Mr. Brownlow alighted from a hackney-coach at his own door, and knocked softly. The door being opened, a sturdy man got out of the coach and stationed himself on one side of the steps, while another man who had been seated on the box dismounted too, and stood upon the other side. At a sign from Mr. Brownlow, they helped out a third man, and taking him between them, hurried him into the house. This man was Monks. 
‘He hung about, not to come over here afore dark, but he’ll be here soon,’ replied Chitling. ‘There’s nowhere else to go to now, for the people at the Cripples are all in custody, and the bar of the ken--I went up there and see it with my own eyes--is filled with traps.’ 
These sequestered nooks are the public offices of the legal profession, where writs are issued, judgments signed, declarations filed, and numerous other ingenious machines put in motion for the torture and torment of His Majesty’s liege subjects, and the comfort and emolument of the practitioners of the law. They are, for the most part, low- roofed, mouldy rooms, where innumerable rolls of parchment, which have been perspiring in secret for the last century, send forth an agreeable odour, which is mingled by day with the scent of the dry-rot, and by night with the various exhalations which arise from damp cloaks, festering umbrellas, and the coarsest tallow candles. 
‘True,’ said Ralph ‘I have not observed the way we came. I should like a glass of water. You have that in the house, I suppose?’ 
"Well, Wickfield!" said my aunt; and he looked up at her for the first time. "I have been telling your daughter how well I have been disposing of my money for myself, because I couldn't trust it to you, as you were growing rusty in business matters. We have been taking counsel together, and getting on very well, all things considered. Agnes is worth the whole firm, in my opinion." 
‘The first day they passed in landing arms and ammunition; the second in clothing and arming the natives, of whom great multitudes flocked to their standard, and granting commissions to Irish officers.’ 
“He answered, like one in a trance, ‘_His_—only his—always his!’  He stood still a moment, and then, with a loud and terrific scream, repeated those words, ‘ALWAYS HIS, ALWAYS HIS,’ and fell down in a fit before me. 
After a time, he told his attendants to take him to the French town of Chinon--a town he had been fond of, during many years.  But he was fond of no place now; it was too true that he could care for nothing more upon this earth.  He wildly cursed the hour when he was born, and cursed the children whom he left behind him; and expired. 
At the foot of a flight of steps, leading to the house door, which was guarded on either side by an American aloe in a green tub, the sedan-chair stopped. Mr. Pickwick and his friends were conducted into the hall, whence, having been previously announced by Muzzle, and ordered in by Mr. Nupkins, they were ushered into the worshipful presence of that public-spirited officer. 
‘Then bring them here to dinner,’ I returned. ‘Do you think they would come?’ 
‘And say I think the chaise had better be ordered for one o’clock.’ 
‘His dress,’ said Hugh, looking at her keenly, ‘like--like any of ours now? I know all the people hereabouts, and maybe could give a guess at the man, if I had anything to guide me.’ 
‘Also to see you, Toots, in such good company,’ says Doctor Blimber. 
CONTINUATION OF THE ENTERPRISE OF MR JONAS AND HIS FRIEND 
‘Stephen Blackpool,’ said the chairman, rising, ‘think on ’t agen.  Think on ’t once agen, lad, afore thou’rt shunned by aw owd friends.’ 
The showmen had, in fact, got it into their heads that the two wayfarers were not common people, but runaways for whom a reward must even now be posted in London.  And so they resolved to deliver them over to the proper authorities at the first opportunity and claim the reward. 
“Oh! certainly, sir; I shall be proud to do it,” exclaimed Oliver, greatly delighted with the commission. 
There were only a couple of women in the dock, who were nodding to their admiring friends, while the clerk read some depositions to a couple of policemen and a man in plain clothes who leant over the table.  A jailer stood reclining against the dock-rail, tapping his nose listlessly with a large key, except when he repressed an undue tendency to conversation among the idlers, by proclaiming silence; or looked sternly up to bid some woman 'Take that baby out,' when the gravity of justice was disturbed by feeble cries, half-smothered in the mother's shawl, from some meagre infant.  The room smelt close and unwholesome; the walls were dirt-discoloured; and the ceiling blackened.  There was an old smoky bust over the mantel-shelf, and a dusty clock above the dock--the only thing present, that seemed to go on as it ought; for depravity, or poverty, or an habitual acquaintance with both, had left a taint on all the animate matter, hardly less unpleasant than the thick greasy scum on every inanimate object that frowned upon it. 
‘That was it, you know,’ interposed the same small quiet voice that had spoken once before.  ‘I was quite abroad, mother, quite desolate, and to think that the sea was between us--oh, I never shall forget what I felt when I first thought that the sea was between us!’ 
'Nobody, my dear,' replied the Jew; 'not a soul, Tom.  I don't know one of 'em that would do it besides you; not one of 'em, my dear.' 
It is curious, however, that the Chief Justice, in spite of his indisposition, should still be associated with the case; for he had tried the momentous case of Norton _v._ Melbourne, and had heard there letters read, which were parodied in the "chops and tomato sauce" correspondence, so Boz had him well before him.  The case had to be tried at the Guildhall Sessions; so a fair and rational judge would have spoilt all sport.  Further, as Boz had seen the fairness and dignity of the Chief Justice he was naturally reluctant to exhibit him unfavorably.  The only thing was to make the Chief Justice become suddenly "indisposed," and have his place taken by a grotesque judge. 
“Like him? It’s himself, you know. The cast was made in Newgate, directly after he was taken down. You had a particular fancy for me, hadn’t you, Old Artful?” said Wemmick. He then explained this affectionate apostrophe, by touching his brooch representing the lady and the weeping willow at the tomb with the urn upon it, and saying, “Had it made for me, express!” 
Six tumbrils roll along the streets. Change these back again to what they were, thou powerful enchanter, Time, and they shall be seen to be the carriages of absolute monarchs, the equipages of feudal nobles, the toilettes of flaring Jezebels, the churches that are not my father's house but dens of thieves, the huts of millions of starving peasants! No; the great magician who majestically works out the appointed order of the Creator, never reverses his transformations. “If thou be changed into this shape by the will of God,” say the seers to the enchanted, in the wise Arabian stories, “then remain so! But, if thou wear this form through mere passing conjuration, then resume thy former aspect!” 
‘Under these circumstances,’ said Mr Dorrit, ‘I believe I express the sentiments of--ha--Mrs General, no less than my own, when I say that there is no objection, but--ha hum--quite the contrary--to your gratifying your desire, Amy. I trust I may--ha--hail--this desire,’ said Mr Dorrit, in an encouraging and forgiving manner, ‘as an auspicious omen. It is quite right to know these people. It is a very proper thing. Mr Merdle’s is a name of--ha--world-wide repute. Mr Merdle’s undertakings are immense. They bring him in such vast sums of money that they are regarded as--hum--national benefits. Mr Merdle is the man of this time. The name of Merdle is the name of the age. Pray do everything on my behalf that is civil to Mr and Mrs Gowan, for we will--ha--we will certainly notice them.’ 
“Sing something for me, pretty damsel,” said Leon, “and I will give you another rouble, a new and shining one.” 
"Sir," said he, with tears starting to his weather-beaten face, which, with his trembling lips, was ashy pale, "will you come over yonder?" 
"Well, I am sure," he said. "This is indeed an unexpected pleasure! To have, as I may say, all friends round Saint Paul's, at once, is a treat unlooked for! Mr. Copperfield, I hope I see you well, and--if I may umbly express self so--friendly towards them as is ever your friends, whether or not. Mrs. Copperfield, sir, I hope she's getting on. We have been made quite uneasy by the poor accounts we have had of her state, lately, I do assure you." 
He rose up when it was broad day, and washed and dressed himself.  He couldn’t go about his customary cheerful avocations—he wanted spirit for them—but it mattered the less, that it was Tackleton’s wedding-day, and he had arranged to make his rounds by proxy.  He thought to have gone merrily to church with Dot.  But such plans were at an end.  It was their own wedding-day too.  Ah! how little he had looked for such a close to such a year! 
‘You had better let me have the key then,’ says Durdles. 
"Still, so it was," continued Mrs. Micawber. "Under such circumstances, what could a man of Mr. Micawber's spirit do? But one obvious course was left. To borrow, of that branch of my family, the money to return to London, and to return at any sacrifice." 
"The good people! who the devil are they?"--"The fairies, your honour." 
In spite of his respect for Captain Cuttle, Walter could not help inwardly rejoicing at the absence of this sage, and devoutly hoping that his limpid intellect might not be brought to bear on his difficulties until they were quite settled. 
The voice made answer that the twin brothers wished to know whether the man whom he had seen that night was to be detained; and that although it was now midnight they had sent, in their anxiety to do right. 
‘With pleasure,’ replied Mr. Pickwick. ‘I am not quite certain whether I have any friends here or not, though. Is there any gentleman of the name of Tupman here, waiter?’ 
"I thought you had lost it?" 
"Yes; don't worrit your poor mother," said Mrs. Sanders. 
‘You do not, R. W.’ said Mrs Wilfer from her stately corner, ‘inquire for your daughter Bella.’ 
'Stop, stop!' said the old woman in a loud whisper.  'Will she be buried to-morrow, or next day, or to-night?  I laid her out; and I must walk, you know.  Send me a large cloak: a good warm one: for it is bitter cold.  We should have cake and wine, too, before we go!  Never mind; send some bread--only a loaf of bread and a cup of water.  Shall we have some bread, dear?' she said eagerly: catching at the undertaker's coat, as he once more moved towards the door. 
But one of them yet remained in the darkness before her; and while she tracked that one she must be right.  ‘Oh, my dearest love,’ thought Mrs. Sparsit, ‘you little think how well attended you are!’ 
Paul turned up the old face for a moment, in which there was a sharp understanding of the reference conveyed in these words: but it was a young and childish face immediately afterwards, when he slipped down from his father’s knee, and ran to tell Florence not to cry any more, for he was going to let young Gay have the money. 
The theatrical young gentleman has a great reverence for all that is connected with the stage department of the different theatres.  He would, at any time, prefer going a street or two out of his way, to omitting to pass a stage-entrance, into which he always looks with a curious and searching eye.  If he can only identify a popular actor in the street, he is in a perfect transport of delight; and no sooner meets him, than he hurries back, and walks a few paces in front of him, so that he can turn round from time to time, and have a good stare at his features.  He looks upon a theatrical-fund dinner as one of the most enchanting festivities ever known; and thinks that to be a member of the Garrick Club, and see so many actors in their plain clothes, must be one of the highest gratifications the world can bestow. 
The agonised way in which she poured this out, as if it burst of itself from her suppressed heart, made it difficult for Clennam to keep the tears from his eyes as he saw and heard her. 
"I had a curious episode happen to me once.  A client wrote to apply to the court to excuse a juror on the ground that he was a chemist and had no assistant who understood the drugs.  It was not till I made the application and the Court began to laugh that I remembered the Pickwick Trial.  I believe the application was quite bona fide, and not at all an imitation of it."  An interesting communication from one who might be styled "Buzfuz's son;" and, as Judge Bompas alludes to his own likeness to his sire, I may add that the likeness to the portrait in the court scene, is very striking indeed.  There is the same fullness of face, the large features.  Buzfuz was certainly a counsel of power and ability, and I think lawyers will admit he managed Mrs. Bardell's case with much adroitness.  His speech, besides being a sort of satirical abstract of the unamiable thundering boisterousness addressed to juries in such cases, is one of much ability.  He makes the most of every topic that he thought likely to "tell" on a city jury.  We laugh heartily at his would-be solemn and pathetic passages, but these are little exaggerated. Buzfuz's statement is meant to show how counsel, quite legitimately, can bring quite innocent acts to the support of their case by marshalling them in suspicious order, and suggesting that they had a connection with the charge made.  Many a client thus becomes as bewildered as Mr. Pickwick was, on seeing his own harmless proceedings assuming quite a guilty complexion. 
‘Tell him,’ said Edith, addressing her proud face to Carker, ‘that I wish for a separation between us, That there had better be one. That I recommend it to him, Tell him it may take place on his own terms--his wealth is nothing to me--but that it cannot be too soon.’ 
"Much or little, you're sort preoccupied; ain't you?" 
"And did the poor child die of her distress?" said I. "Alas! so young!" 
"I often thought that though I wasn't good enough for her, I should make her a kind husband, and perhaps know her value better than another; and in this way I reconciled it to myself, and came to think it might be possible that we should be married. And, in the end, it came about, and we _were_ married!" 
‘It is not possible,’ said Mr Abel. 
"To what?" asked Norah. 
"I look back on my life, child," said my aunt, "and I think of some who are in their graves, with whom I might have been on kinder terms. If I judged harshly of other people's mistakes in marriage, it may have been because I had bitter reason to judge harshly of my own. Let that pass. I have been a grumpy, frumpy, wayward sort of a woman, a good many years. I am still, and I always shall be. But you and I have done one another some good, Trot,--at all events, you have done me good, my dear; and division must not come between us, at this time of day." 
‘It was a piteous spectacle to see that woman in the prison-yard from day to day, eagerly and fervently attempting, by affection and entreaty, to soften the hard heart of her obdurate son. It was in vain. He remained moody, obstinate, and unmoved. Not even the unlooked-for commutation of his sentence to transportation for fourteen years, softened for an instant the sullen hardihood of his demeanour. 
"Oh!" said Mr. Guppy with a blank look. "Is that tantamount, sir, to acceptance, or rejection, or consideration?" 
Mr Toots instantly seized the Captain’s hand, and requested the favour of his friendship. 
Still keeping his eye on Nicholas, Mr. Crummles shook his head twice or thrice with profound gravity, and remarking, that he could not for the life of him imagine how the newspapers found out the things they did, folded up the extracts and put them in his pocket again. 
Several of the gentlemen got up, one by one, and walked off as they swallowed their last morsel; pausing generally by the stove for a minute or so to refresh themselves at the brass spittoons. A few sedentary characters, however, remained at table full a quarter of an hour, and did not rise until the ladies rose, when all stood up. 
While he was thus engaged, and the two men sat by in silence with their eyes fixed upon the floor, a pattering noise was heard upon the stairs, and Sikes's dog bounded into the room.  They ran to the window, downstairs, and into the street.  The dog had jumped in at an open window; he made no attempt to follow them, nor was his master to be seen. 
To this address, my aunt had listened with the closest attention, sitting perfectly upright, with her hands folded on one knee, and looking grimly on the speaker. When he had finished, she turned her eyes so as to command Miss Murdstone, without otherwise disturbing her attitude, and said: 
‘Walking about?’ I inquired. 
"Oh, my eyes and limbs!" he then cried, peeping hideously out of the shop, after a long pause, "will you go for twopence more?" 
‘I will not look for blushes in such a quarter,’ said Miss Squeers, haughtily, ‘for that countenance is a stranger to everything but hignominiousness and red-faced boldness.’ 
Of all the five hundred proposals for his relief which the good woman poured out in less than half an hour, he would entertain but one. That was that he should go to bed. And it was in the preparation of his bed and the arrangement of his chamber, that all the stir was made in the room behind the Dragon. 
'They took this way?' demanded Harry:  'are you sure?' 
‘Light your match, and try.’ 
Agnes came, and was there when Dora died. But for her comfort all the world would have been blank for poor David as he sat alone, longing for the child-wife who could never be his again! 
"That's exactly what I came here for," said Mr. Pickwick, handing over the document. "If anything particular occurs, you can write to me at the post-office, Ipswich." 
When Mr. Goodchild and Mr. Idle had first alighted at the door, and stepped into the sombre, handsome old hall, they had been received by half-a-dozen noiseless old men in black, all dressed exactly alike, who glided up the stairs with the obliging landlord and waiter—but without appearing to get into their way, or to mind whether they did or no—and who had filed off to the right and left on the old staircase, as the guests entered their sitting-room.  It was then broad, bright day.  But, Mr. Goodchild had said, when their door was shut, ‘Who on earth are those old men?’  And afterwards, both on going out and coming in, he had noticed that there were no old men to be seen. 
‘I am the brother of the young lady who has been the subject of conversation here,’ said Nicholas. ‘I denounce this person as a liar, and impeach him as a coward. If he has a friend here, he will save him the disgrace of the paltry attempt to conceal his name--and utterly useless one--for I will find it out, nor leave him until I have.’ 
‘Have you ever seen this young man before?’ his master asked in a low voice. 
Rosa could only look apologetically sensible of being very much in her own way and in everybody else’s.  Some passing idea of living, fireproof, up a good many stairs in Furnival’s Inn for the rest of her life, was the only thing in the nature of a plan that occurred to her. 
"She has tried," said the poor Carrier, with greater emotion than he had exhibited yet; "I only now begin to know how hard she has tried; to be my dutiful and zealous wife. How good she has been; how much she has done; how brave and strong a heart she has; let the happiness I have known under this roof bear witness! It will be some help and comfort to me, when I am here alone." 
Coffee, chocolate, and champagne were then handed round by Antoine and the page; and while this was going on, the clergyman and his assistant were announced. 
The broad sky seemed on fire. Rising into the air with showers of sparks, and rolling one above the other, were sheets of flame, lighting the atmosphere for miles round, and driving clouds of smoke in the direction where he stood. The shouts grew louder as new voices swelled the roar, and he could hear the cry of Fire mingled with the ringing of an alarm-bell, the fall of heavy bodies, and the crackling of flames as they twined round some new obstacle, and shot aloft as though refreshed by food. The noise increased as he looked. There were people there—men and women—light, bustle. It was like new life to him. He darted onward—straight, headlong—dashing through brier and brake and leaping gate and fence as madly as the dog who careered with loud and sounding bark before him. 
‘Jinkins is a man of superior talents,’ observed Mr Pecksniff. ‘I have conceived a great regard for Jinkins. I take Jinkins’s desire to pay polite attention to my daughters, as an additional proof of the friendly feeling of Jinkins, Mrs Todgers.’ 
‘Why, that’s the very thing,’ replied Mr. Nickleby, as though his thoughts were about them at that moment. ‘They are both alive.’ 
"Oh, let's see the jacket!" cried the old man. "Oh, my heart on fire, show the jacket to us! Oh, my eyes and limbs, bring the jacket out!" 
‘Only his playfulness, gen’lm’n,’ said the head hostler encouragingly; ‘jist kitch hold on him, Villiam.’ The deputy restrained the animal’s impetuosity, and the principal ran to assist Mr. Winkle in mounting. 
‘No, my lad,’ returned the Captain. ‘No.’ 
"It was some broken wittle—that’s what it was—and a dram of liquor, and a pie." 
Instantly the people of that town uprose as one man.  They made Wat Tyler their leader; they joined with the people of Essex, who were in arms under a priest called JACK STRAW; they took out of prison another priest named JOHN BALL; and gathering in numbers as they went along, advanced, in a great confused army of poor men, to Blackheath.  It is said that they wanted to abolish all property, and to declare all men equal.  I do not think this very likely; because they stopped the travellers on the roads and made them swear to be true to King Richard and the people.  Nor were they at all disposed to injure those who had done them no harm, merely because they were of high station; for, the King's mother, who had to pass through their camp at Blackheath, on her way to her young son, lying for safety in the Tower of London, had merely to kiss a few dirty- faced rough-bearded men who were noisily fond of royalty, and so got away in perfect safety.  Next day the whole mass marched on to London Bridge. 
‘Above all things remember! It will not be true. I have nothing more to say, Charley dear, except, be good, and get learning, and only think of some things in the old life here, as if you had dreamed them in a dream last night. Good-bye, my Darling!’ 
Nowhere in the course of the play does he seek to beguile us of our tears. We feel no more interest in the gracious Duncan, in Banquo, in Lady Macduff, than we do in the slaughtered grooms. We feel that they have been brutally murdered; and, if similar occurrences were to take place in Wapping or Rotherhithe, London would be in commotion. All the police from A to Z would be set on the alert, the newspapers crammed with paragraphs, and a hot search instigated after the murderer. If taken, he would be duly tried, wondered at, gazed after, convicted, hanged, and forgotten. We should think no more of his victim than we now think of Hannah Browne. The other characters of the play, with the exception of the two principal, are nonentities. We care nothing for Malcolm or Donalbain, or Lenox or Rosse, or the rest of the Scottish nobles. Pathetic, indeed, are the words which burst from Macduff when he hears the astounding tidings that all his pretty chickens and their dam have been carried off at one fell swoop; but he soon shakes the woman out of his eyes, and dreams only of revenge. His companions are slightly affected by the bloody deed, and grief is in a moment converted into rage. It is but a short passage of sorrow, and the only one of the kind. What is equally remarkable is, that we have but one slight piece of comic in the play,--the few sentences given to the porter;[38] and their humour turns upon a gloomy subject for jest,--the occupation of the keeper of the gates of hell. With these two exceptions,--the brief pathos of Macduff, and the equally brief comedy of the porter,--all the rest is blood. Tears and laughter have no place in this cavern of death. 
“What an extraordinary thing it is, Winkle,” said Mr. Pickwick, rather pettishly, “that you couldn’t have taken your place before.” 
‘How do you do? So glad to know you. Charming house you have here. I hope we are not late. So glad of the opportunity, I am sure!’ 
"What is a place in this obscene state of dilapidation but a Nuisance? What is a man in your obscene state of dilapidation but a Nuisance?  Then, as you very well know, you cannot do without an audience, and your audience is a Nuisance.  You attract all the disreputable vagabonds and prowlers within ten miles around, by exhibiting yourself to them in that objectionable blanket, and by throwing copper money among them, and giving them drink out of those very dirty jars and bottles that I see in there (their stomachs need be strong!); and in short," said Mr. Traveller, summing up in a quietly and comfortably settled manner, "you are a Nuisance, and this kennel is a Nuisance, and the audience that you cannot possibly dispense with is a Nuisance, and the Nuisance is not merely a local Nuisance, because it is a general Nuisance to know that there _can be_ such a Nuisance left in civilisation so very long after its time." 
It was not much sooner said than done. Tom accompanied his companion over the house and grounds, making sundry critical observations on all he saw therein,--on painting, architecture, gardening, the sublime and beautiful, the scientific and picturesque,--in a manner which I doubt not much resembled the average style of reviewing those matters in what we now call the best public instructors. 
"Stay, sir," said Mr. Pickwick; "before you apply those epithets to the gentleman in question, consider, dispassionately, the extent of his fault, and above all remember that he is a friend of mine." 
‘Please God we’ll make such a lady of you for Sundays, mother! such a scholar of Jacob, such a child of the baby, such a room of the one up stairs!  Six pound a year!’ 
‘Go thy ways, Sim, go thy ways,’ said the locksmith, as soon as he could speak. ‘I have done my best for thee, poor lad, and would have saved thee, but the rope is round thy neck, I fear.’ 
"Friend of yours!--My dear sir, how are you?--Friend of _my_ friend's--give me your hand, sir"--and the stranger grasped Mr. Wardle's hand with all the fervour of a close intimacy of many years, and then stepped back a pace or two as if to take a full survey of his face and figure, and then shook hands with him again, if possible, more warmly than before. 
‘Do you know a friend of Mr Gills, called Captain Cuttle?’ inquired Florence, after a moment’s reflection. 
“But I thought,” said she to the surgeon, “I thought my mother was most ill of the two.” 
‘I cannot say that, father, until I hear it.  Prepared or unprepared, I wish to hear it all from you.  I wish to hear you state it to me, father.’ 
As the dogs of shy neighbourhoods usually betray a slinking consciousness of being in poor circumstances—for the most part manifested in an aspect of anxiety, an awkwardness in their play, and a misgiving that somebody is going to harness them to something, to pick up a living—so the cats of shy neighbourhoods exhibit a strong tendency to relapse into barbarism. Not only are they made selfishly ferocious by ruminating on the surplus population around them, and on the densely crowded state of all the avenues to cat’s meat; not only is there a moral and politico-economical haggardness in them, traceable to these reflections; but they evince a physical deterioration.  Their linen is not clean, and is wretchedly got up; their black turns rusty, like old mourning; they wear very indifferent fur; and take to the shabbiest cotton velvet, instead of silk velvet.  I am on terms of recognition with several small streets of cats, about the Obelisk in Saint George’s Fields, and also in the vicinity of Clerkenwell-green, and also in the back settlements of Drury-lane.  In appearance, they are very like the women among whom they live.  They seem to turn out of their unwholesome beds into the street, without any preparation.  They leave their young families to stagger about the gutters, unassisted, while they frouzily quarrel and swear and scratch and spit, at street corners.  In particular, I remark that when they are about to increase their families (an event of frequent recurrence) the resemblance is strongly expressed in a certain dusty dowdiness, down-at-heel self-neglect, and general giving up of things.  I cannot honestly report that I have ever seen a feline matron of this class washing her face when in an interesting condition. 
As we sat under the willow-tree and ate the cherries (fair, for Alice shared them out), we played at being ninety.  Nettie complained that she had a bone in her old back, and it made her hobble; and Alice sang a song in an old woman’s way, but it was very pretty, and we were all merry.  At least, I don’t know about merry exactly, but all comfortable. 
The master himself was a man of about forty, with black hair, and carefully combed whiskers. He was dressed in a particularly gorgeous manner, with plenty of articles of jewellery about him--all about three sizes larger than those which are usually worn by gentlemen--and a rough greatcoat to crown the whole. Into one pocket of this greatcoat, he thrust his left hand the moment he dismounted, while from the other he drew forth, with his right, a very bright and glaring silk handkerchief, with which he whisked a speck or two of dust from his boots, and then, crumpling it in his hand, swaggered up the court. 
‘In England,’ said Mr Meagles. 
‘No, Sir,’ replied Polly. ‘He’s down the line at present.’ 
My sister went out to get it. I heard her steps proceed to the pantry. I saw Mr. Pumblechook balance his knife. I saw reawakening appetite in the Roman nostrils of Mr. Wopsle. I heard Mr. Hubble remark that “a bit of savory pork pie would lay atop of anything you could mention, and do no harm,” and I heard Joe say, “You shall have some, Pip.” I have never been absolutely certain whether I uttered a shrill yell of terror, merely in spirit, or in the bodily hearing of the company. I felt that I could bear no more, and that I must run away. I released the leg of the table, and ran for my life. 
They shook hands heartily. When I was seated in the coach and Richard was yet standing in the street, Mr. Woodcourt laid his friendly hand on Richard's shoulder and looked at me. I understood him and waved mine in thanks. 
A month soon passes, even at its tardiest pace. The month appointed to elapse between that night and the return, was quick of foot, and went by, like a vapour. 
‘Yes,’ said Rose, recoiling a few steps, as if to be nearer assistance in case she should require it. ‘Why?’ 
A little longer ere Life true, immortal, (Not this our shadowy Life,) will be thine own; And thou shalt stand where winged Archangels worship, And trembling bow before the Great White Throne. 
‘I think so, sometimes,’ returned Mr Dombey, glancing at his newspaper. 
Without a word of inquiry, therefore, the Two Idle Apprentices drifted out resignedly into a fine, soft, close, drowsy, penetrating rain; got into the landlord’s light dog-cart, and rattled off through the village for the foot of Carrock.  The journey at the outset was not remarkable. The Cumberland road went up and down like all other roads; the Cumberland curs burst out from backs of cottages and barked like other curs, and the Cumberland peasantry stared after the dog-cart amazedly, as long as it was in sight, like the rest of their race.  The approach to the foot of the mountain resembled the approaches to the feet of most other mountains all over the world.  The cultivation gradually ceased, the trees grew gradually rare, the road became gradually rougher, and the sides of the mountain looked gradually more and more lofty, and more and more difficult to get up.  The dog-cart was left at a lonely farm-house.  The landlord borrowed a large umbrella, and, assuming in an instant the character of the most cheerful and adventurous of guides, led the way to the ascent.  Mr. Goodchild looked eagerly at the top of the mountain, and, feeling apparently that he was now going to be very lazy indeed, shone all over wonderfully to the eye, under the influence of the contentment within and the moisture without.  Only in the bosom of Mr. Thomas Idle did Despondency now hold her gloomy state.  He kept it a secret; but he would have given a very handsome sum, when the ascent began, to have been back again at the inn.  The sides of Carrock looked fearfully steep, and the top of Carrock was hidden in mist.  The rain was falling faster and faster.  The knees of Mr. Idle—always weak on walking excursions—shivered and shook with fear and damp.  The wet was already penetrating through the young man’s outer coat to a brand-new shooting-jacket, for which he had reluctantly paid the large sum of two guineas on leaving town; he had no stimulating refreshment about him but a small packet of clammy gingerbread nuts; he had nobody to give him an arm, nobody to push him gently behind, nobody to pull him up tenderly in front, nobody to speak to who really felt the difficulties of the ascent, the dampness of the rain, the denseness of the mist, and the unutterable folly of climbing, undriven, up any steep place in the world, when there is level ground within reach to walk on instead.  Was it for this that Thomas had left London?  London, where there are nice short walks in level public gardens, with benches of repose set up at convenient distances for weary travellers—London, where rugged stone is humanely pounded into little lumps for the road, and intelligently shaped into smooth slabs for the pavement!  No! it was not for the laborious ascent of the crags of Carrock that Idle had left his native city, and travelled to Cumberland.  Never did he feel more disastrously convinced that he had committed a very grave error in judgment than when he found himself standing in the rain at the bottom of a steep mountain, and knew that the responsibility rested on his weak shoulders of actually getting to the top of it. 
Florence blushingly complied. 
Two incidents united to intensify the old unreasoning abhorrence--granted in a previous place to be unreasoning, because the people always are unreasoning, and invariably make a point of producing all their smoke without fire. 
‘Do you think I don’t know,’ said my aunt, turning a deaf ear to the sister, and continuing to address the brother, and to shake her head at him with infinite expression, ‘what kind of life you must have led that poor, unhappy, misdirected baby? Do you think I don’t know what a woeful day it was for the soft little creature when you first came in her way--smirking and making great eyes at her, I’ll be bound, as if you couldn’t say boh! to a goose!’ 
‘Good-night, Susan,’ said Florence. 
Vain limitation!—a fortnight before the reading every place was taken, and half a guinea and a guinea were the current rates for front seat tickets. 
Miss Tox was often in the habit of assuring Mrs Chick, that nothing could exceed her interest in all connected with the development of that sweet child; and an observer of Miss Tox’s proceedings might have inferred so much without declaratory confirmation. She would preside over the innocent repasts of the young heir, with ineffable satisfaction, almost with an air of joint proprietorship with Richards in the entertainment. At the little ceremonies of the bath and toilette, she assisted with enthusiasm. The administration of infantine doses of physic awakened all the active sympathy of her character; and being on one occasion secreted in a cupboard (whither she had fled in modesty), when Mr Dombey was introduced into the nursery by his sister, to behold his son, in the course of preparation for bed, taking a short walk uphill over Richards’s gown, in a short and airy linen jacket, Miss Tox was so transported beyond the ignorant present as to be unable to refrain from crying out, ‘Is he not beautiful Mr Dombey! Is he not a Cupid, Sir!’ and then almost sinking behind the closet door with confusion and blushes. 
It appeared, however, that she had only clapped her hands for joy; for directly afterward she began to laugh, and then to cry; declaring, not in choice Arabic but in familiar English, that she was ‘so glad, she didn’t know what to do.’ 
‘Tell Mr Gills to come here.’ 
Howbeit, Twemlow doth at length invest himself with collar and cravat and wristbands to his knuckles, and goeth forth to breakfast. And to breakfast with whom but his near neighbours, the Lammles of Sackville Street, who have imparted to him that he will meet his distant kinsman, Mr Fledgely. The awful Snigsworth might taboo and prohibit Fledgely, but the peaceable Twemlow reasons, If he IS my kinsman I didn’t make him so, and to meet a man is not to know him.’ 
"Yes, he's a sortin' the wipes. Up with you!" The candle was drawn back, and the face disappeared. 
‘Oh dear no!’ cried Cherry, shaking her head. ‘Oh no, Mrs Todgers. Thank you. No! not for any consideration he could offer.’ 
‘I suppose he’d better not wear his best clothes tomorrow, Fagin, had he?’ inquired Charley Bates. 
"Handel, Mozart, Haydn, Kent, Purcell, Doctor Arne, Greene, Mendelssohn. I know the choruses to those anthems by heart.  Foundling Chapel Collection.  Why shouldn't we learn them together?" 
Mr Meagles with a despondent countenance in which the goodness of his heart was even more expressed than in his times of cheerfulness and gaiety, stroked his face down from his forehead to his chin, and shook his head again. 
‘Of course--she don’t like it--but must be done--avert suspicion--afraid of her brother--says there’s no help for it--only a few days more--when old folks blinded--crown your happiness.’ 
Another dance was near its close, when Mr. Snitchey touched his partner, who was looking on, upon the arm. 
Mr. Winkle's first impulse was to give a violent pull at the nearest bell-handle, but that unfortunately happened to be immediately behind Mr. Dowler's head. He had made one step towards it, before he checked himself. As he did so, Mr. Dowler very hastily drew back. 
"Yes, yes," cried Dot. "Yes! Certainly!" 
‘You are ill,’ said Gabriel. ‘Let me call some neighbour in.’ 
"Can't it, though!" exclaimed the boatswain's mate, sharply, and at the same time giving the mountain of tobacco in his cheek a thorough twist. "If it don't, then I'm d----! and, setting a case, it's just this here: when we first came within hail of each other, she was as handsome a craft as ever had God A'mighty for a builder; every timber in her hull was fashioned in Natur's own mould-loft, and she was so pinned and bolted together that each plank did its own proper duty." 
With this very slight clue to guide him, it was determined that Mr. Weller should start next morning on an expedition of discovery; it was also arranged that Mr. Pickwick and Mr. Winkle, who were less confident of their powers, should parade the town meanwhile, and accidentally drop in upon Mr. Bob Sawyer in the course of the day, in the hope of seeing or hearing something of the young lady's whereabout. 
"Four dogs," said I. 
It is scarcely necessary for me to say, that our child had been expected. In fact, it had been expected, with comparative confidence, for some months.  Mrs. Meek’s mother, who resides with us—of the name of Bigby—had made every preparation for its admission to our circle. 
"There's the saucepan that the gruel was in!" cried Scrooge, starting off again, and going round the fireplace. "There's the door by which the Ghost of Jacob Marley entered! There's the corner where the Ghost of Christmas Present sat! There's the window where I saw the wandering Spirits! It's all right, it's all true, it all happened. Ha, ha, ha!" 
She was by this time assisting him to rise. 
“Look at me,” said Miss Havisham. “You are not afraid of a woman who has never seen the sun since you were born?” 
Rosa wanted for nothing, and therefore it was ample. 
Thomas, with an enforced idleness grafted on the natural and voluntary power of his disposition, was not of this mind; objecting that a man compelled to lie on his back on a floor, a sofa, a table, a line of chairs, or anything he could get to lie upon, was not in racing condition, and that he desired nothing better than to lie where he was, enjoying himself in looking at the flies on the ceiling.  But, Francis Goodchild, who had been walking round his companion in a circuit of twelve miles for two days, and had begun to doubt whether it was reserved for him ever to be idle in his life, not only overpowered this objection, but even converted Thomas Idle to a scheme he formed (another idle inspiration), of conveying the said Thomas to the sea-coast, and putting his injured leg under a stream of salt-water. 
‘Didn’t say a word, ma’am,’ answered Mr Sparkler. ‘As silent a feller as myself. Equally hard up for a remark.’ 
"Sam," said Mr. Pickwick. 
Mr Fips, hearing a violent concussion between a human hat and his office door, was apprised, by the usual means of communication, that somebody had come to call upon him, and giving that somebody admission, observed that it was ‘rather dark.’ 
You cannot surely mean that?’ said Mr. Winkle. ‘The stock itself--’ 
BY HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. 
"Downstairs, if you please, Mr. Bucket," said he. "The lady will excuse the front kitchen; we use it as our workaday sitting-room. The back is Guster's bedroom, and in it she's a-carrying on, poor thing, to a frightful extent!" 
"Miss Dartle," I entreated her. "For Heaven's sake----" 
The Father of the Marshalsea said, with a shrug of modest self-depreciation, ‘Oh! You might be like me, my dear Frederick; you might be, if you chose!’ and forbore, in the magnanimity of his strength, to press his fallen brother further. 
‘Ah, so am I. Most people are when they’ve little to do and less to get. Poet, Sir?’ 
This invested the turnkey with a new proprietary share in the child, over and above his former official one.  When she began to walk and talk, he became fond of her; bought a little arm-chair and stood it by the high fender of the lodge fireplace; liked to have her company when he was on the lock; and used to bribe her with cheap toys to come and talk to him.  The child, for her part, soon grew so fond of the turnkey, that she would come climbing up the lodge steps of her own accord at all hours of the day.  When she fell asleep in the little arm-chair by the high fender, the turnkey would cover her with his pocket handkerchief; and when she sat in it dressing and undressing a doll—which soon came to be unlike dolls on the other side of the lock—he would contemplate her from the top of his stool, with exceeding gentleness.  Witnessing these things, the inmates would express an opinion that the turnkey, who was a bachelor, had been cut out by nature for a family man. But the turnkey thanked them, and said, "No, on the whole it was enough for him to see other people’s children there." 
“I don’t mean in the village only, but up town?” 
Oliver looked at Sikes, in mute and timid wonder; and drawing a stool to the fire, sat with his aching head upon his hands, scarecely knowing where he was, or what was passing around him. 
From the foldings of its robe it brought two children, wretched, abject, frightful, hideous, miserable. They knelt down at its feet, and clung upon the outside of its garment. 
Other and lighter portions of the Tale refer to the adventures of a young man on his first introduction to town life about the middle of the eighteenth century, when Ranelagh was in its zenith, and Vauxhall and Marylebone Gardens in vogue; when the Thames boasted its Folly; and when coffee-houses filled the place of clubs. The descriptions I believe to be tolerably accurate; and they are at all events carefully done, with the view of giving a correct idea of the manners, habits, and pursuits of our great-grandfathers and great-grandmothers. Temptations to pleasurable excess were no doubt sufficiently abundant then. 
"I see you, father," she said, clasping her hands, "as plainly as if I had the eyes I never want when you are with me. A blue coat----" 
‘From under his very nose,’ replied Squeers; ‘and I’m told the young chap cut up rough besides, and broke the winders, and forced him to swaller his wedding favour which nearly choked him.’ 
‘Which,’ cried Mr Pecksniff after a pause, during which he seemed to have been casting about for a new moral, and not quite successfully, ‘which is also very soothing. Mercy, my dear, stir the fire and throw up the cinders.’ 
“Monsieur, it is a cell.” 
In such an establishment, the white-aproned pot-boy with his shirt-sleeves arranged in a tight roll on each bare shoulder, was a mere hint of the possibility of physical force, thrown out as a matter of state and form. Exactly at the closing hour, all the guests who were left, filed out in the best order: Miss Abbey standing at the half door of the bar, to hold a ceremony of review and dismissal. All wished Miss Abbey good-night and Miss Abbey wished good-night to all, except Riderhood. The sapient pot-boy, looking on officially, then had the conviction borne in upon his soul, that the man was evermore outcast and excommunicate from the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters. 
‘Have I the lady’s promise for that?’ asked the girl. 
The Barnacle family had for some time helped to administer the Circumlocution Office. The Tite Barnacle Branch, indeed, considered themselves in a general way as having vested rights in that direction, and took it ill if any other family had much to say to it. The Barnacles were a very high family, and a very large family. They were dispersed all over the public offices, and held all sorts of public places. Either the nation was under a load of obligation to the Barnacles, or the Barnacles were under a load of obligation to the nation. It was not quite unanimously settled which; the Barnacles having their opinion, the nation theirs. 
'Lock the door on the outside,' said Mr. Brownlow to the attendants, 'and come when I ring.' 
"And I should say you have been familiar with them all?" 
"Some people hold dancing to be below the dignity of a regular theatre; but I can by no means subscribe to their opinion, since one of the principal ends of every theatre, is to delight; and everything that can contribute to that purpose, under proper restrictions, has an undoubted right to a place there. I shall not affect to show my learning, by adding, the ancients not only admitted dancing, but thought it a necessary ornament in the performance of the most celebrated tragedies. 
Gashford walked stealthily about, listening to all he heard, and diffusing or confirming, whenever he had an opportunity, such false intelligence as suited his own purpose; and, busily occupied in this way, turned into Holborn for the twentieth time, when a great many women and children came flying along the street--often panting and looking back--and the confused murmur of numerous voices struck upon his ear. Assured by these tokens, and by the red light which began to flash upon the houses on either side, that some of his friends were indeed approaching, he begged a moment’s shelter at a door which opened as he passed, and running with some other persons to an upper window, looked out upon the crowd. 
Short girl--black eyes--niece Emily.’ 
‘Yes,’ returned Nicholas. ‘Rather dull.’ 
I have come out in another way. I have taken with fear and trembling to authorship. I wrote a little something, in secret, and sent it to a magazine, and it was published in the magazine. Since then, I have taken heart to write a good many trifling pieces. Now, I am regularly paid for them. Altogether, I am well off; when I tell my income on the fingers of my left hand, I pass the third finger and take in the fourth to the middle joint. 
But even then, their very kindness shaped itself into their usual course of policy, and though Dolly was in a swoon, it was rendered clear to the meanest capacity, that Mrs Varden was the sufferer. Thus when Dolly began to get a little better, and passed into that stage in which matrons hold that remonstrance and argument may be successfully applied, her mother represented to her, with tears in her eyes, that if she had been flurried and worried that day, she must remember it was the common lot of humanity, and in especial of womankind, who through the whole of their existence must expect no less, and were bound to make up their minds to meek endurance and patient resignation. Mrs Varden entreated her to remember that one of these days she would, in all probability, have to do violence to her feelings so far as to be married; and that marriage, as she might see every day of her life (and truly she did) was a state requiring great fortitude and forbearance. She represented to her in lively colours, that if she (Mrs V.) had not, in steering her course through this vale of tears, been supported by a strong principle of duty which alone upheld and prevented her from drooping, she must have been in her grave many years ago; in which case she desired to know what would have become of that errant spirit (meaning the locksmith), of whose eye she was the very apple, and in whose path she was, as it were, a shining light and guiding star? 
That WAS all. Whether Newman Noggs had looked round the pump, in a slanting direction, so long, that his sight became impaired; or whether, finding that there was time to spare, he had recruited himself with a few drops of something stronger than the pump could yield--by whatsoever means it had come to pass, this was his mistake. And Nicholas went home to brood upon it, and to meditate upon the charms of the unknown young lady, now as far beyond his reach as ever. 
‘And how do you know that, Affery?’ 
Stealing gently down the little stairs, and assuming the air of some early lounger who had dropped in from the street, he walked up to the foot of each pedestal in turn, and attentively examined the figure it supported.  There could be no doubt about the features of either; he recollected the exact expression they had worn at different passages of their conversation, and recognised in every line and lineament the Giants of the night.  Assured that it was no vision, but that he had heard and seen with his own proper senses, he walked forth, determining at all hazards to conceal himself in the Guildhall again that evening.  He further resolved to sleep all day, so that he might be very wakeful and vigilant, and above all that he might take notice of the figures at the precise moment of their becoming animated and subsiding into their old state, which he greatly reproached himself for not having done already. 
_Fanny._ Dear, dear brother! I have come to bring you home, dear brother. (_Clapping her hands and laughing gleefully._) To bring you home, home, home! 
‘“Through the door,” replied the figure. 
‘A thousand pardons! The sudden apprehension that it might have been forgotten had struck him;’ a bald man, with a large beard from a neighbouring restaurant; ‘with despair! Monsieur had said that supper was to be ready at that hour: also that he had forewarned Madame of the commands he had given, in his letter. Monsieur had done the Golden Head the honour to request that the supper should be choice and delicate. Monsieur would find that his confidence in the Golden Head was not misplaced.’ 
He wore, hanging with a long strap round his neck, a kind of scrip or wallet, in which to carry food. The widow set some bread and cheese before him, but he thanked her, and said that through the kindness of the charitable he had broken his fast once since morning, and was not hungry. When he had made her this reply, he opened his wallet, and took out a few pence, which was all it appeared to contain. 
I pressed his manly hand again, and told him I would charge myself to do this as well as I could. 
‘I don’t know,’ said the unfortunate Watkins. 
‘Ecod! you’ve been prepared for that a pretty long time, I should think,’ said Jonas. 
"I can't afford to sing," said Tackleton. "I'm glad _you_ can. I hope you can afford to work too. Hardly time for both, I should think?" 
De Lancey, Lady, 12; 
"Let me go," said Mr. Pickwick. 
Not she. She had seen nothing but her father until now. She saw Mr Jonas now, though; and blushed, and hung her head down, as she gave him welcome. 
At that moment a simple-looking servant-girl with a bandbox came across the Green, and a fight commenced between the _conducteurs_ of the rival vehicles for the unfortunate woman, in which she got not a little pulled about. The Red Rover, however, won the day; and glad enough was I when we started, at a rattling pace. But my pleasure was of short duration. 
Nicholas folded his arms, and biting his lip, sat perfectly quiet; sufficiently expressing by his manner, however, a firm determination to carry his threat of following Sir Mulberry home, into steady execution. 
“We will set him above their mercies very soon. I left him climbing to the window, and I came to tell you. There is no one here to see. You may kiss your hand towards that highest shelving roof.” 
Tim stopped, looked steadily and severely at Ralph, nodded his head once, in a curt manner which seemed to say there was a little more behind, and vanished. After a short interval, he returned, and, ushering Ralph into the presence of the two brothers, remained in the room himself. 
‘I understand.  It was quite natural.’ 
‘My dear Rosa! who ought to be in our confidence, if not Jack?’ 
I cannot say what an impression this made upon me, or how impossible I found it, when I thought of her afterwards, to separate her from this look, and remember her face in its innocent loveliness again. It haunted me when I got home. I seemed to have left the Doctor’s roof with a dark cloud lowering on it. The reverence that I had for his grey head, was mingled with commiseration for his faith in those who were treacherous to him, and with resentment against those who injured him. The impending shadow of a great affliction, and a great disgrace that had no distinct form in it yet, fell like a stain upon the quiet place where I had worked and played as a boy, and did it a cruel wrong. I had no pleasure in thinking, any more, of the grave old broad-leaved aloe-trees, which remained shut up in themselves a hundred years together, and of the trim smooth grass-plot, and the stone urns, and the Doctor’s walk, and the congenial sound of the Cathedral bell hovering above them all. It was as if the tranquil sanctuary of my boyhood had been sacked before my face, and its peace and honour given to the winds. 
‘I am no foe to the distressed and helpless,’ said Will.  ‘Are ye among that number? ye should be by your looks.’ 
Mr Arthur Clennam sat in the window of the coffee-house on Ludgate Hill, counting one of the neighbouring bells, making sentences and burdens of songs out of it in spite of himself, and wondering how many sick people it might be the death of in the course of the year. As the hour approached, its changes of measure made it more and more exasperating. At the quarter, it went off into a condition of deadly-lively importunity, urging the populace in a voluble manner to Come to church, Come to church, Come to church! At the ten minutes, it became aware that the congregation would be scanty, and slowly hammered out in low spirits, They _won’t_ come, they _won’t_ come, they _won’t_ come! At the five minutes, it abandoned hope, and shook every house in the neighbourhood for three hundred seconds, with one dismal swing per second, as a groan of despair. 
It were tedious to follow Boldheart (for such was his name) through the commencing stages of his history. Suffice it that we find him bearing the rank of Captain Boldheart, reclining in full uniform on a crimson hearth-rug spread out upon the quarter-deck of his schooner the Beauty, in the China Seas. It was a lovely evening, and as his crew lay grouped about him, he favoured them with the following melody: 
‘Come out, sir!—go out, hoo!’ cried poor Augustus, keeping, nevertheless, at a very respectful distance from the dog; having read of a case of hydrophobia in the paper of that morning.  By dint of great exertion, much shouting, and a marvellous deal of poking under the tables with a stick and umbrella, the dog was at last dislodged, and placed on the landing outside the door, where he immediately commenced a most appalling howling; at the same time vehemently scratching the paint off the two nicely-varnished bottom panels, until they resembled the interior of a backgammon-board. 
Mr. Winkle, with great self-denial, expressed himself quite satisfied already. 
The Chemist looked at the man, standing in self-abasement and degradation before him, and would have looked longer, in an ineffectual struggle for enlightenment, but that Milly resumed her late position by his side, and attracted his attentive gaze to her own face. 
When this ceremony of introduction had been gone through, the cook and Mary retired into the back kitchen to titter, for ten minutes; then returning, all giggles and blushes, they sat down to dinner. 
‘His father is dead, he is wholly ignorant of the world, has no resources whatever, and wants something to do,’ said Ralph. ‘I recommend him to this splendid establishment of yours, as an opening which will lead him to fortune if he turns it to proper account. Do you see that?’ 
A thunderbolt in the great hall had been a _bagatelle_ to it. 
‘I was so surprised at first,’ said I, giving him welcome with all the cordiality I felt, ‘that I had hardly breath to greet you with, Steerforth.’ 
‘Why, so the men of business say,’ he answered, resuming the walk and laughing outright. ‘I don’t know why we unfortunate creatures should be supposed to want common sense, but it is generally taken for granted that we do. Even the best friend I have in the world, our excellent friend over yonder,’ said Doyce, nodding towards Twickenham, ‘extends a sort of protection to me, don’t you know, as a man not quite able to take care of himself?’ 
May uttered no word, good or bad, but sat quite still, with her eyes cast down; and made no sign of interest in what had passed. The good lady her mother now interposed: observing, in the first instance, that girls were girls, and byegones byegones, and that so long as young people were young and thoughtless, they would probably conduct themselves like young and thoughtless persons: with two or three other positions of a no less sound and incontrovertible character. She then remarked, in a devout spirit, that she thanked Heaven she had always found in her daughter May, a dutiful and obedient child; for which she took no credit to herself, though she had every reason to believe it was entirely owing to herself. With regard to Mr. Tackleton she said, That he was in a moral point of view an undeniable individual; and That he was in an eligible point of view a son-in-law to be desired, no one in their senses could doubt. (She was very emphatic here). With regard to the family into which he was so soon about, after some solicitation, to be admitted, she believed Mr. Tackleton knew that, although reduced in purse, it had some pretensions to gentility; and that if certain circumstances, not wholly unconnected, she would go so far as to say, with the Indigo Trade, but to which she would not more particularly refer, had happened differently, it might perhaps have been in possession of Wealth. She then remarked that she would not allude to the past, and would not mention that her daughter had for some time rejected the suit of Mr. Tackleton; and that she would not say a great many other things which she did say, at great length. Finally, she delivered it as the general result of her observation and experience, that those marriages in which there was least of what was romantically and sillily called love, were always the happiest; and that she anticipated the greatest possible amount of bliss--not rapturous bliss; but the solid, steady-going article--from the approaching nuptials. She concluded by informing the company that to-morrow was the day she had lived for, expressly; and that when it was over, she would desire nothing better than to be packed up and disposed of, in any genteel place of burial. 
‘Be it so,’ replied Sir Norfolk. And he strode off with Hilda, followed by Jacob; while Randulph, without staying to exchange a word with Lady Brabazon, walked away in the opposite direction. 
“But, Madam, the man is starving. I have strong reasons for believing he is entitled to property, and if you refuse any assistance, I must take other measures.” She rang the bell, wrote something rapidly on a card; and, as the footman appeared, pushed it towards me across the table, with the air of touching a toad, saying, “There, Sir, is the address of my solicitors; apply to them if you think you have any claim. Robert, show the person out, and take care he is not admitted again.” 
‘Who are you?’ said Mr. Fang. 
And now I come to a very important passage in Oliver's history, for I have to record an act, slight and unimportant perhaps in appearance, but which indirectly produced a most material change in all his future prospects and proceedings. 
‘You praise your own work very freely.’ 
'Men's courses will foreshadow certain ends, to which, if persevered in, they must lead,' said Scrooge. 'But if the courses be departed from, the ends will change. Say it is thus with what you show me!' 
"But here they are at last," said Trotty, setting out the tea things, "all correct! I was pretty sure it was tea and a rasher. So it is. Meg my pet, if you'll just make the tea, while your unworthy father toasts the bacon, we shall be ready immediate. It's a curious circumstance," said Trotty, proceeding in his cookery, with the assistance of the toasting-fork, "curious, but well known to my friends, that I never care, myself, for rashers, nor for tea. I like to see other people enjoy 'em," said Trotty, speaking very loud to impress the fact upon his guest, "but to me, as food, they are disagreeable." 
‘You marry Matilda Maplesone?’ 
"Lady, see your infant smiling, With its flaxen curling hair-- I remember when your mother Was a baby just as fair. 
'God Almighty help me, I am!' cried the girl passionately; 'and I wish I had been struck dead in the street, or had changed places with them we passed so near to-night, before I had lent a hand in bringing him here.  He's a thief, a liar, a devil, all that's bad, from this night forth.  Isn't that enough for the old wretch, without blows?' 
Mrs. Peerybingle instantly struck in.  ‘Two months and three da-ays! Vaccinated just six weeks ago-o!  Took very fine-ly!  Considered, by the doctor, a remarkably beautiful chi-ild!  Equal to the general run of children at five months o-old!  Takes notice, in a way quite won-der-ful! May seem impossible to you, but feels his legs al-ready!’ 
'If you insist upon that, I'll do that also,' replied Monks. 
‘You have quite incited my curiosity,’ said Mrs. Bloss, as she rose to depart.  ‘How I long to see him!’ 
"Yes, my lord, she had indeed departed, and was the inmate of that _fiacre_ I had passed on my hurried way to the prison. The truth instantly flashed upon me; in my disregard for the sufferings of another, I had consigned her to an ignominious end. I had the pardon in my hand. I might be her murderer!--Might be? there was a hope in that surmise; and, resuming the document, I flew rather than ran towards the fatal spot. People stared at my headlong speed, and gave way before me. I saw the guillotine, with the prostituted figure of Liberty presiding over it. My breath began to fail; but yet I shouted. There was a commotion in the crowd as I held up the paper high above my head. I rushed forward. The few persons who had collected opened a passage, and I reached the scaffold at the very moment the axe fell, and the decapitated trunk of the young and beautiful, sent forth its gush of blood to waste the fountain of life! At first I stood speechless with horror and amazement; but when the head was raised, and I saw those tresses I had loved to weave amongst my fingers, stained with gore,--when I beheld the cheek that had been pressed to mine still quivering in the last death-pang,--phrensy drove reason from her seat. I raved till the air rang with my maledictions. I cursed the Convention, and denounced the monsters Robespierre and Danton. The guard were about to seize my person, when a young man caught me by the arm, claimed me as his brother, and declared I was a lunatic, escaped from the control of my keepers. He dragged me away with him to his lodgings, and, when my fit of passion was passed, I recognised the youth I had saved from drowning during the earthquake of Messina. 
I was sitting at the window with my guardian on the following morning, and Ada was busy writing--of course to Richard--when Miss Jellyby was announced, and entered, leading the identical Peepy, whom she had made some endeavours to render presentable by wiping the dirt into corners of his face and hands and making his hair very wet and then violently frizzling it with her fingers. Everything the dear child wore was either too large for him or too small. Among his other contradictory decorations he had the hat of a bishop and the little gloves of a baby. His boots were, on a small scale, the boots of a ploughman, while his legs, so crossed and recrossed with scratches that they looked like maps, were bare below a very short pair of plaid drawers finished off with two frills of perfectly different patterns. The deficient buttons on his plaid frock had evidently been supplied from one of Mr. Jellyby's coats, they were so extremely brazen and so much too large. Most extraordinary specimens of needlework appeared on several parts of his dress, where it had been hastily mended, and I recognized the same hand on Miss Jellyby's. She was, however, unaccountably improved in her appearance and looked very pretty. She was conscious of poor little Peepy being but a failure after all her trouble, and she showed it as she came in by the way in which she glanced first at him and then at us. 
Having, in the absence of any more words, put this sudden climax to what he had faintly intended should be a long explanation of the whole life and character of his man, the oracular John Willet led the gentleman up his wide dismantled staircase into the Maypole’s best apartment. 
Mr. Brownlow, seeming to apprehend that his singular friend was about to say something disagreeable, asked Oliver to step down stairs, and tell Mrs. Bedwin they were ready for tea, which, as he did not half like the visitor's manner, he was very happy to do. 
"What foolish, impudent creatures!" cried my mother, laughing and covering her face. "What ridiculous men! An't they? Davy dear----" 
“Then, my dear Handel,” said he, turning round as the door opened, “here is the dinner, and I must beg of you to take the top of the table, because the dinner is of your providing.” 
'I don't know what day of the month it is,' said Scrooge. 'I don't know how long I have been among the Spirits. I don't know anything. I'm quite a baby. Never mind. I don't care. I'd rather be a baby. Hallo! Whoop! Hallo here!' 
‘Would it make any difference in the vote if the sign was altered, sir?’ asked Britain. 
The company murmured their compliments. Uncle Pumblechook, sensible of having deserved well of his fellow-creatures, said,—quite vivaciously, all things considered,—“Well, Mrs. Joe, we’ll do our best endeavours; let us have a cut at this same pie.” 
‘I am dreadfully poor, my child.’ 
"It is a very philosophical one," replied Mr. Pickwick. "But breakfast is waiting, Mr. Magnus. Come." 
Jacques Three demanded how he afterwards recognised him then? 
"George," Mr. Bagnet gruffly whispers when he does turn from the almanac at last. "Don't be cast down! 'Why, soldiers, why--should we be melancholy, boys?' Cheer up, my hearty!" 
Here there was another laugh, and another cry of silence. 
‘He’s drunk it all up, every drop,’ said Chitling after watching the dog some time in silence. ‘Covered with mud--lame--half blind--he must have come a long way.’ 
“Jerry, Jerry, Jerry!” his wife implored. 
"Oh, no, sir!" said the keeper, who, with his wife, was looking after her. "Hortense is not one of that sort. She has as good a head-piece as the best. But she's mortal high and passionate--powerful high and passionate; and what with having notice to leave, and having others put above her, she don't take kindly to it." 
Off she came, soon after it was light next morning, and lying alongside an hour or more--during which period her very firemen were objects of hardly less interest and curiosity than if they had been so many angels, good or bad--took all her living freight aboard. Among them Mark, who still had his friend and her three children under his close protection; and Martin, who had once more dressed himself in his usual attire, but wore a soiled, old cloak above his ordinary clothes, until such time as he should separate for ever from his late companions. 
‘Now, don’t argue with me about it, Amy,’ said she, ‘because I know better.’ Feeling that she had been sharp again, she dabbed her sister’s forehead again, and blew upon it again. ‘To resume once more, my dear. It then becomes a question with me (I am proud and spirited, Amy, as you very well know: too much so, I dare say) whether I shall make up my mind to take it upon myself to carry the family through.’ 
Arthur then told her, in the fewest words, that it was their little friend he came to see; and what he had to announce to their little friend. At which astounding intelligence, Flora clasped her hands, fell into a tremble, and shed tears of sympathy and pleasure, like the good-natured creature she really was. 
In this strange scene, and with these strange spectres flitting about him, Arthur Clennam looked on at the preparations as if they were part of a dream. Pending which, the long-initiated Tip, with an awful enjoyment of the Snuggery’s resources, pointed out the common kitchen fire maintained by subscription of collegians, the boiler for hot water supported in like manner, and other premises generally tending to the deduction that the way to be healthy, wealthy, and wise, was to come to the Marshalsea. 
Mrs. Leigh knelt down by the bed, and spoke in the most soothing tones. 
Little Dorrit glanced seriously and doubtfully in her face, but Fanny was not to be so brought to a check. She furled her fan of black and gold, and used it to tap her sister’s nose; with the air of a proud beauty and a great spirit, who toyed with and playfully instructed a homely companion. 
‘Won’t like it, Captain Kedgick!’ said Martin. 
It might as well have lighted on a feather-bed.--His air of imperturbable unconsciousness defied examination; and as he would not, and Flora could not, expound, that injured individual was compelled to pocket up her wrongs. Others of the household soon dropped in, and clustered round the board dedicated to the most sociable of meals; the urn was paraded "hissing hot," and the cups which "cheer, but not inebriate," steamed redolent of hyson and pekoe; muffins and marmalade, newspapers and Finnon haddies, left little room for observation on the character of Charles's warlike "turn-out." At length a look from Caroline, followed by a smile that nearly ripened to a titter, caused him to turn abruptly and address his neighbour. It was Miss Simpkinson, who, deeply engaged in sipping her tea and turning over her album, seemed, like a female Chrononotonthologos, "immersed in congibundity of cogitation." An interrogatory on the subject of her studies drew from her the confession that she was at that moment employed in putting the finishing touches to a poem inspired by the romantic shades of Bolsover. The entreaties of the company were of course urgent. Mr. Peters, who "liked verses," was especially persevering, and Sappho at length compliant. After a preparatory hem! and a glance at the mirror to ascertain that her look was sufficiently sentimental, the poetess began:-- 
"The murder was committed, Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and you know under what circumstances. Now, I beg of you to follow me close with your attention for a minute or two. I was sent for, and the case was entrusted to me. I examined the place, and the body, and the papers, and everything. From information I received (from a clerk in the same house) I took George into custody as having been seen hanging about there on the night, and at very nigh the time of the murder, also as having been overheard in high words with the deceased on former occasions--even threatening him, as the witness made out. If you ask me, Sir Leicester Dedlock, whether from the first I believed George to be the murderer, I tell you candidly no, but he might be, notwithstanding, and there was enough against him to make it my duty to take him and get him kept under remand. Now, observe!" 
"And odd," he said, slowly considering with himself, "ain't even.  Is it, Gill?" 
Mr John, who had already got both his hands in his pockets over the wrists, and was on the very threshold of that same canine chorus which had given Mrs Chick so much offence on a former occasion, protested that he was perfectly comfortable. 
"Surely, none in the world, child." 
It beat him from the window as if it had lighted on himself. As he staggered into a chair, he thought of the change in Mrs Gamp exhibited in her new-born tenderness to her charge. Was that because it was found?--because she knew of it?--because she suspected him? 
At supper, Mr. Tupple shows to still greater advantage than he has done throughout the evening, and when Pa requests every one to fill their glasses for the purpose of drinking happiness throughout the year, Mr. Tupple is _so_ droll: insisting on all the young ladies having their glasses filled, notwithstanding their repeated assurances that they never can, by any possibility, think of emptying them and subsequently begging permission to say a few words on the sentiment which has just been uttered by Pa—when he makes one of the most brilliant and poetical speeches that can possibly be imagined, about the old year and the new one.  After the toast has been drunk, and when the ladies have retired, Mr. Tupple requests that every gentleman will do him the favour of filling his glass, for he has a toast to propose: on which all the gentlemen cry ‘Hear! hear!’ and pass the decanters accordingly: and Mr. Tupple being informed by the master of the house that they are all charged, and waiting for his toast, rises, and begs to remind the gentlemen present, how much they have been delighted by the dazzling array of elegance and beauty which the drawing-room has exhibited that night, and how their senses have been charmed, and their hearts captivated, by the bewitching concentration of female loveliness which that very room has so recently displayed.  (Loud cries of ‘Hear!’)  Much as he (Tupple) would be disposed to deplore the absence of the ladies, on other grounds, he cannot but derive some consolation from the reflection that the very circumstance of their not being present, enables him to propose a toast, which he would have otherwise been prevented from giving—that toast he begs to say is—‘The Ladies!’  (Great applause.)  The Ladies! among whom the fascinating daughters of their excellent host, are alike conspicuous for their beauty, their accomplishments, and their elegance.  He begs them to drain a bumper to ‘The Ladies, and a happy new year to them!’  (Prolonged approbation; above which the noise of the ladies dancing the Spanish dance among themselves, overhead, is distinctly audible.) 
‘Now tell him all!’ cried Dot.  ‘Tell him all, Edward; and don’t spare me, for nothing shall make me spare myself in his eyes, ever again.’ 
On the fifth day of the trial, when the case for the prosecution was drawing to a close, a miniature of the murdered man, missing from his bedroom upon the discovery of the deed, and afterwards found in a hiding-place where the Murderer had been seen digging, was put in evidence.  Having been identified by the witness under examination, it was handed up to the Bench, and thence handed down to be inspected by the Jury.  As an officer in a black gown was making his way with it across to me, the figure of the second man who had gone down Piccadilly impetuously started from the crowd, caught the miniature from the officer, and gave it to me with his own hands, at the same time saying, in a low and hollow tone,—before I saw the miniature, which was in a locket,—“_I was younger then_, _and my face was not then drained of blood_.”  It also came between me and the brother juryman to whom I would have given the miniature, and between him and the brother juryman to whom he would have given it, and so passed it on through the whole of our number, and back into my possession.  Not one of them, however, detected this. 
"Are you the Spirit, sir, whose coming was foretold to me?" asked Scrooge. 
"Ah, that's just the wery thing, sir," rejoined Sam, "_they_ don't mind it; it's a regular holiday to them--all porter and skittles. It's the t'other vuns as gets done over, vith this sort o' thing: them down-hearted fellers as can't svig avay at the beer, nor play at skittles neither; them as vould pay if they could, and gets low by being boxed up. I'll tell you wot it is, sir; them as is alvays a idlin' in public-houses it don't damage at all, and them as is alvays a workin' ven they can, it damages too much. 'It's unekal,' as my father used to say ven his grog worn't made half-and-half. It's unekal, and that's the fault on it." 
Now I can reason calmly, And, looking back again, Can see divinest meaning Threading each separate pain. 
{Catherine was old, so he fell in love with Anne Boleyn: p0.jpg} 
Here the bell rang, and we heard the sound of the visitors’ feet as they went out. 
With this hurried adjuration, he cocked his blunderbuss, and stood on the offensive. 
The bed itself was decorated with a patchwork quilt of great antiquity; and at the upper end, upon the side nearest to the door, hung a scanty curtain of blue check, which prevented the Zephyrs that were abroad in Kingsgate Street, from visiting Mrs Gamp’s head too roughly. Some rusty gowns and other articles of that lady’s wardrobe depended from the posts; and these had so adapted themselves by long usage to her figure, that more than one impatient husband coming in precipitately, at about the time of twilight, had been for an instant stricken dumb by the supposed discovery that Mrs Gamp had hanged herself. One gentleman, coming on the usual hasty errand, had said indeed, that they looked like guardian angels ‘watching of her in her sleep.’ But that, as Mrs Gamp said, ‘was his first;’ and he never repeated the sentiment, though he often repeated his visit. 
‘HIS murderer!’ cried Mr Chuzzlewit, looking from one to another. 
‘He sleeps,’ murmured the spinster aunt. (His organs of vision had been closed nearly twenty seconds.) ‘Dear--dear--Mr. Tupman!’ 
The brothers interchanged looks, and coughed some half-dozen times without speaking. 
Mr. Calton, the remaining boarder, shortly afterwards made his appearance, and proved a surprising promoter of the conversation.  Mr. Calton was a superannuated beau—an old boy.  He used to say of himself that although his features were not regularly handsome, they were striking.  They certainly were.  It was impossible to look at his face without being reminded of a chubby street-door knocker, half-lion half-monkey; and the comparison might be extended to his whole character and conversation.  He had stood still, while everything else had been moving.  He never originated a conversation, or started an idea; but if any commonplace topic were broached, or, to pursue the comparison, if anybody _lifted him up_, he would hammer away with surprising rapidity. He had the tic-douloureux occasionally, and then he might be said to be muffled, because he did not make quite as much noise as at other times, when he would go on prosing, rat-tat-tat the same thing over and over again.  He had never been married; but he was still on the look-out for a wife with money.  He had a life interest worth about 300_l._ a year—he was exceedingly vain, and inordinately selfish.  He had acquired the reputation of being the very pink of politeness, and he walked round the park, and up Regent-street, every day. 
"Oh do, please, Mr. Pickwick!" cried all the ladies. 
Mr. Stiggins began a third round of toast, and nodded assent. 
He entered an hotel near Charing Cross, and ordered some refreshment and a bed. He saw that his faint and worn appearance attracted the attention of the landlord and his waiters; and thinking that they might suppose him to be penniless, took out his purse, and laid it on the table. It was not that, the landlord said, in a faltering voice. If he were one of those who had suffered by the rioters, he durst not give him entertainment. He had a family of children, and had been twice warned to be careful in receiving guests. He heartily prayed his forgiveness, but what could he do? 
"I shall make short work of the rest on't, I promise ye, sir," sobbed the tender-hearted foster-mother; "it ben't much use to dwell upon the finish." 
Then, while a thousand words repeat Unmeaning clamours all, Melodious golden echoes sweet Shall answer when you call. 
‘Not much,’ said Nicholas, colouring, ‘but I can make it enough. Where there’s a will, there’s a way, you know.’ 
"He wants you particklar; and no one else'll do, as the Devil's private secretary said ven he fetched avay Doctor Faustus," replied Mr. Weller. 
We have made it a practice since, to take the Horse Guards in our daily walk, and we find it is the custom of military young gentlemen to plant themselves opposite the sentries, and contemplate them at leisure, in periods varying from fifteen minutes to fifty, and averaging twenty-five. We were much struck a day or two since, by the behaviour of a very promising young butcher who (evincing an interest in the service, which cannot be too strongly commanded or encouraged), after a prolonged inspection of the sentry, proceeded to handle his boots with great curiosity, and as much composure and indifference as if the man were wax-work. 
Mr. Carton's manner was so careless as to be almost insolent. He stood, half turned from the prisoner, lounging with his elbow against the bar. 
"Now I was thinking, sir," says Mr. George in a martial sort of confidence, as if he were giving his opinion in a council of war at a drum-head, "that if this man was to take him to a bath and was to lay out a few shillings in getting him one or two coarse articles--" 
These were his moments of occupation, but he contrived to find moments of amusement besides, which were devoted to the breeding of pigeons, and collecting of insects, which latter amusement he pursued with such success, as to form a cabinet containing no fewer than 4000 specimens of flies, "collected," he says, "at the expense of a great deal of time, a great deal of money, and a great deal of vast and actual labour,"--for all of which, no doubt, the entomologist will deem him sufficiently rewarded. He appears in old age to have entertained a peculiar relish for the recollection of these pursuits, and calls to mind a part of Surrey where there was a very famous fly, and a part of Kent where there was another famous fly; one of these was called the Camberwell Beauty (which he adds was very ugly), and another, the Dartford Blue, by which Dartford Blue he seems to have set great store; and which were pursued and caught in the manner following, in June, 1794, when they regularly make their first appearance for the season. 
Oh, a wonderful pudding! Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Mrs. Cratchit said that now the weight was off her mind, she would confess she had her doubts about the quantity of flour. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing. 
“There is no reason why I should detain you here,” he replied. 
He died, after Waterford and Dublin had been taken, and various successes achieved; and Strongbow became King of Leinster.  Now came King Henry's opportunity.  To restrain the growing power of Strongbow, he himself repaired to Dublin, as Strongbow's Royal Master, and deprived him of his kingdom, but confirmed him in the enjoyment of great possessions.  The King, then, holding state in Dublin, received the homage of nearly all the Irish Kings and Chiefs, and so came home again with a great addition to his reputation as Lord of Ireland, and with a new claim on the favour of the Pope.  And now, their reconciliation was completed--more easily and mildly by the Pope, than the King might have expected, I think. 
"I thank _you_, sir, if you please;" and with that, and with a little inclination of his head when he passed the bedside, as an apology for correcting me, he went out, shutting the door as delicately as if I had just fallen into a sweet sleep on which my life depended. 
Mr. Kenge now retired, and Richard with him, to where I was, near the door, leaving my pet (it is so natural to me that again I can't help it!) sitting near the Lord Chancellor, with whom his lordship spoke a little part, asking her, as she told me afterwards, whether she had well reflected on the proposed arrangement, and if she thought she would be happy under the roof of Mr. Jarndyce of Bleak House, and why she thought so? Presently he rose courteously and released her, and then he spoke for a minute or two with Richard Carstone, not seated, but standing, and altogether with more ease and less ceremony, as if he still knew, though he WAS Lord Chancellor, how to go straight to the candour of a boy. 
The old gentleman was a very respectable-looking personage, with a powdered head and gold spectacles. He was dressed in a bottle-green coat with a black velvet collar; wore white trousers; and carried a smart bamboo cane under his arm. He had taken up a book from the stall, and there he stood, reading away, as hard as if he were in his elbow-chair, in his own study. It is very possible that he fancied himself there, indeed; for it was plain, from his abstraction, that he saw not the book-stall, nor the street, nor the boys, nor, in short, anything but the book itself: which he was reading straight through: turning over the leaf when he got to the bottom of a page, beginning at the top line of the next one, and going regularly on, with the greatest interest and eagerness. 
"I'm afeerd there's a orkard gen'l'm'n in 'em, sir," replied Sam. 
‘Pretty well, sir,’ replied Dick. 
When she returned, the children were on the watch for her; and little Moss had strong hopes that she would not know him. He had a great cap of rushes on his head, with a heavy bulrush for a feather; he was stuck all over with water-flags and bulrushes, and carried a long osier wand, wherewith to flog all those who did not admire him enough in his new style of dress. The children were clamorous for their mother to come down, and see the nice places where they got these new playthings; and she would have gone, but that their father came up, and decreed it otherwise. She was heated and tired, he said; and he would not have her go till she was easy and comfortable enough to see things in the best light. 
The dreadful suspicion of Jasper, which Rosa was so shocked to have received into her imagination, appeared to have no harbour in Mr. Crisparkle’s.  If it ever haunted Helena’s thoughts or Neville’s, neither gave it one spoken word of utterance.  Mr. Grewgious took no pains to conceal his implacable dislike of Jasper, yet he never referred it, however distantly, to such a source.  But he was a reticent as well as an eccentric man; and he made no mention of a certain evening when he warmed his hands at the gatehouse fire, and looked steadily down upon a certain heap of torn and miry clothes upon the floor. 
"Do the people of the plain wonder how they came there?" 
Poor little Dorrit! She was far lonelier now than she had ever been before in the debtors' prison--lonelier and unhappier than Arthur Clennam in London could have guessed. The gay, fashionable life of her brother and sister did not attract her. She was timid of joining in their gaieties. She asked leave only to be left alone, and went about the city in a gondola in a quiet, scared, lost manner. It often seemed to her as if the Marshalsea must be just behind the next big building, or Mrs. Clennam's house, where she had first met Arthur, just around the next corner. And she used to look into gondolas as they passed, as if she might see Arthur any minute. 
I never heard (said the Genoese courier, drawing a long breath) that she was ever traced beyond that spot.  All I know is, that she vanished into infamous oblivion, with the dreaded face beside her that she had seen in her dream. 
"Pardon me.  You take Locataires?" says the gentleman. 
'Come, get up,' said the man, roughly. 
"I was her father! I was her father!" cried the old man, stretching out his hands to the dark shadows flying on above. "Have mercy on her, and on me! Where does she go? Turn her back! I was her father!" 
The whitewashed room was pure white as of old, the methodical book-keeping was in peaceful progress as of old, and some distant howler was banging against a cell door as of old. The sanctuary was not a permanent abiding-place, but a kind of criminal Pickford’s. The lower passions and vices were regularly ticked off in the books, warehoused in the cells, carted away as per accompanying invoice, and left little mark upon it. 
"God forgive me!" said Mr. Openshaw. 
Meanwhile Mr. Brownlow had acted very quickly, so that Monks had got no warning. He had had men watching for the latter and now, having found out all he wanted to know, he had him seized in the street, put into a coach and driven to his office, where he brought him face to face with Oliver. 
Adopting Mr. Kenwigs’s suggestion, the company spoke very loudly, to look easy and unembarrassed; and almost as soon as they had begun to do so, a short old gentleman in drabs and gaiters, with a face that might have been carved out of LIGNUM VITAE, for anything that appeared to the contrary, was led playfully in by Miss Morleena Kenwigs, regarding whose uncommon Christian name it may be here remarked that it had been invented and composed by Mrs. Kenwigs previous to her first lying-in, for the special distinction of her eldest child, in case it should prove a daughter. 
“What does Jem say?” inquired the old lady. “There ain’t any thing the matter, is there?” 
‘I cannot keep my feelings down, Mr. Weller,’ said Job, after a short pause. ‘To think that my master should have suspected the conversation I had with yours, and so dragged me away in a post-chaise, and after persuading the sweet young lady to say she knew nothing of him, and bribing the school-mistress to do the same, deserted her for a better speculation! Oh! Mr. Weller, it makes me shudder.’ 
‘Mrs. Bounderby,’ said Harthouse, perfectly hearing this under-strain as it went on; ‘your brother’s face is quite familiar to me.  Can I have seen him abroad?  Or at some public school, perhaps?’ 
Martin darted an impatient look at him, without taking it, and walked rapidly up and down the kitchen several times, with one boot and a stocking on. But, mindful of his Eden resolution, he had already gained many victories over himself when Mark was in the case, and he resolved to conquer now. So he came back to the book-jack, laid his hand on Mark’s shoulder to steady himself, pulled the boot off, picked up his slippers, put them on, and sat down again. He could not help thrusting his hands to the very bottom of his pockets, and muttering at intervals, ‘Pecksniff too! That fellow! Upon my soul! In-deed! What next?’ and so forth; nor could he help occasionally shaking his fist at the chimney, with a very threatening countenance; but this did not last long; and he heard Mrs Lupin out, if not with composure, at all events in silence. 
It was quite late in the afternoon when he awoke; and by the time he had washed and dressed, and broken his fast, it was growing dusk again. This was all the better, for it was now a matter of absolute necessity that he should part with his watch to some obliging pawn-broker. He would have waited until after dark for this purpose, though it had been the longest day in the year, and he had begun it without a breakfast. 
Rosa, having no relation that she knew of in the world, had, from the seventh year of her age, known no home but the Nuns’ House, and no mother but Miss Twinkleton.  Her remembrance of her own mother was of a pretty little creature like herself (not much older than herself it seemed to her), who had been brought home in her father’s arms, drowned.  The fatal accident had happened at a party of pleasure.  Every fold and colour in the pretty summer dress, and even the long wet hair, with scattered petals of ruined flowers still clinging to it, as the dead young figure, in its sad, sad beauty lay upon the bed, were fixed indelibly in Rosa’s recollection.  So were the wild despair and the subsequent bowed-down grief of her poor young father, who died broken-hearted on the first anniversary of that hard day. 
‘I feel that now, sir,’ returned John Chivery; ‘but I didn’t before, and Heaven knows I meant no harm, sir.’ 
I thought it best to hint, through the medium of a meditative look, that this might be occasioned by circumstances over which I had no control. 
‘Or ask him,’ said Mr. Micawber, ‘if he ever burnt one there. If he says yes, and asks you where the ashes are, refer him to Wilkins Micawber, and he will hear of something not at all to his advantage!’ 
‘Onerous nature of our position in public may--I have forgotten the exact term.’ 
‘No,’ said the poor creature, shaking his head, ‘no, never.’ 
“First,” said Mr. Cruncher, who was all in a tremble, and who spoke with an ashy and solemn visage, “them poor things well out o' this, never no more will I do it, never no more!” 
‘God knows you have, ma’am,’ returned Peggotty. ‘Then, how can you dare,’ said my mother--‘you know I don’t mean how can you dare, Peggotty, but how can you have the heart--to make me so uncomfortable and say such bitter things to me, when you are well aware that I haven’t, out of this place, a single friend to turn to?’ 
"Lies!" mademoiselle interposes. "All lies, my friend!" 
The baby was the soul of honour, and protested with all its might. It doubled itself up the wrong way over Mrs. Pocket’s arm, exhibited a pair of knitted shoes and dimpled ankles to the company in lieu of its soft face, and was carried out in the highest state of mutiny. And it gained its point after all, for I saw it through the window within a few minutes, being nursed by little Jane. 
"What I mean, sir," said Sam, "is, that the poorer a place is, the greater call there seems to be for oysters. Look here, sir; here's a oyster stall to every half-dozen houses. The street's lined vith 'em. Blessed if I don't think that ven a man's wery poor, he rushes out of his lodgings, and eats oysters in reg'lar desperation." 
But many a man who would have stood within a home dismantled, strong in his passion and design of vengeance, has had the firmness of his nature conquered by the razing of an air-built castle. When the log-hut received them for the second time, Martin laid down upon the ground, and wept aloud. 
‘I am extremely sorry, my dear Emma,’ said Mr. Micawber, relenting, ‘to have been betrayed into any expressions that might, even remotely, have the appearance of being strong expressions. All I would say is, that I can go abroad without your family coming forward to favour me,--in short, with a parting Shove of their cold shoulders; and that, upon the whole, I would rather leave England with such impetus as I possess, than derive any acceleration of it from that quarter. At the same time, my dear, if they should condescend to reply to your communications--which our joint experience renders most improbable--far be it from me to be a barrier to your wishes.’ 
Mr. Tulkinghorn was so well-known that the murder made a great sensation. The police went at once to the shooting-gallery to arrest Mr. George and he was put into jail. 
‘For her own sake,’ repeated Bradley, warming, ‘and for her brother’s, and as a perfectly disinterested person.’ 
‘I should have been in the river long ago,’ she said, glancing at it with a terrible expression, ‘if any wrong to her had been upon my mind. I never could have kept out of it a single winter’s night, if I had not been free of any share in that!’ 
When our honourable friend issued his preliminary address to the constituent body of Verbosity on the occasion of one particular glorious triumph, it was supposed by some of his enemies, that even he would be placed in a situation of difficulty by the following comparatively trifling conjunction of circumstances.  The dozen noblemen and gentlemen whom our honourable friend supported, had ‘come in,’ expressly to do a certain thing.  Now, four of the dozen said, at a certain place, that they didn’t mean to do that thing, and had never meant to do it; another four of the dozen said, at another certain place, that they did mean to do that thing, and had always meant to do it; two of the remaining four said, at two other certain places, that they meant to do half of that thing (but differed about which half), and to do a variety of nameless wonders instead of the other half; and one of the remaining two declared that the thing itself was dead and buried, while the other as strenuously protested that it was alive and kicking.  It was admitted that the parliamentary genius of our honourable friend would be quite able to reconcile such small discrepancies as these; but, there remained the additional difficulty that each of the twelve made entirely different statements at different places, and that all the twelve called everything visible and invisible, sacred and profane, to witness, that they were a perfectly impregnable phalanx of unanimity.  This, it was apprehended, would be a stumbling-block to our honourable friend. 
I was in the very height of the pleasure which the contemplation of this scene afforded me, when I saw the old clergyman making his way towards us.  I trembled for an angry interruption to the sport, and was almost on the point of crying out, to warn the cricketers of his approach; he was so close upon me, however, that I could do nothing but remain still, and anticipate the reproof that was preparing.  What was my agreeable surprise to see the old gentleman standing at the stile, with his hands in his pockets, surveying the whole scene with evident satisfaction!  And how dull I must have been, not to have known till my friend the grandfather (who, by-the-bye, said he had been a wonderful cricketer in his time) told me, that it was the clergyman himself who had established the whole thing: that it was his field they played in; and that it was he who had purchased stumps, bats, ball, and all! 
She rose to clear the things away. He assisted her, and somehow their hands had a queer knack of touching as they carried the dishes to the pantry shelves. Coming back to the kitchen, she put the apples and cider in their old places, and brought out a clean pipe and a box of tobacco from an arched recess near the chimney. 
‘Yes, I couldn’t do it, indeed,’ said Mr Pecksniff. 
‘And this fellow,’ exclaimed Lammle, stopping and making the most of his chest--‘This fellow presumes on my having selected him out of all the young fellows I know, for an advantageous opportunity! This fellow presumes on my having in my desk round the corner, his dirty note of hand for a wretched sum payable on the occurrence of a certain event, which event can only be of my and my wife’s bringing about! This fellow, Fledgeby, presumes to be impertinent to me, Lammle. Give me your nose sir!’ 
The old clergyman was present. 
“Let ’em hear!” said Sikes; “I don’t care.” But as Mr. Sikes _did_ care, upon reflection he dropped his voice as he said the words, and grew calmer. 
Such as he was, he came slowly creeping on towards the table, until at last he crept into the vacant chair, from which, as his dim faculties became conscious of the presence of strangers, and those strangers ladies, he rose again, apparently intending to make a bow. But he sat down once more without having made it, and breathing on his shrivelled hands to warm them, remained with his poor blue nose immovable above his plate, looking at nothing, with eyes that saw nothing, and a face that meant nothing. Take him in that state, and he was an embodiment of nothing. Nothing else. 
Jonas maintained a dogged silence. 
"Is Miss Wickfield at home?" said I. 
There was something charmingly cordial and engaging in the manner in which after saying “Now, Handel,” as if it were the grave beginning of a portentous business exordium, he had suddenly given up that tone, stretched out his honest hand, and spoken like a schoolboy. 
There is a kind of sleep that steals upon us sometimes, which, while it holds the body prisoner, does not free the mind from a sense of things about it, and enable it to ramble at its pleasure. So far as an overpowering heaviness, a prostration of strength, and an utter inability to control our thoughts or power of motion, can be called sleep, this is it; and yet, we have a consciousness of all that is going on about us, and, if we dream at such a time, words which are really spoken, or sounds which really exist at the moment, accommodate themselves with surprising readiness to our visions, until reality and imagination become so strangely blended that it is afterwards almost matter of impossibility to separate the two. Nor is this, the most striking phenomenon incidental to such a state. It is an undoubted fact, that although our senses of touch and sight be for the time dead, yet our sleeping thoughts, and the visionary scenes that pass before us, will be influenced and materially influenced, by the _mere silent presence_ of some external object; which may not have been near us when we closed our eyes: and of whose vicinity we have had no waking consciousness. 
This had passed almost in a whisper, for the distinguished gentleman alluded to sat on Martin’s other hand. 
I, who tell you this story, was then staying with a medical friend of mine, in practice at Doncaster, taking care of his patients for him, during his absence in London; and I, for the time being, was the nearest doctor.  They had sent for me from the Inn, when the stranger was taken ill in the afternoon; but I was not at home, and medical assistance was sought for elsewhere.  When the man from The Two Robins rang the night-bell, I was just thinking of going to bed.  Naturally enough, I did not believe a word of his story about ‘a dead man who had come to life again.’  However, I put on my hat, armed myself with one or two bottles of restorative medicine, and ran to the Inn, expecting to find nothing more remarkable, when I got there, than a patient in a fit. 
It was in truth a shabby house outside, with very dim parlour windows and very small show of blinds, and very dirty muslin curtains dangling across the lower panes on very loose and limp strings. Neither, when the door was opened, did the inside appear to belie the outward promise, as there was faded carpeting on the stairs and faded oil-cloth in the passage; in addition to which discomforts a gentleman Ruler was smoking hard in the front parlour (though it was not yet noon), while the lady of the house was busily engaged in turpentining the disjointed fragments of a tent-bedstead at the door of the back parlour, as if in preparation for the reception of some new lodger who had been fortunate enough to engage it. 
It would be difficult to name any particular part of town as the principal resort of shabby-genteel men.  We have met a great many persons of this description in the neighbourhood of the inns of court.  They may be met with, in Holborn, between eight and ten any morning; and whoever has the curiosity to enter the Insolvent Debtors’ Court will observe, both among spectators and practitioners, a great variety of them.  We never went on ‘Change, by any chance, without seeing some shabby-genteel men, and we have often wondered what earthly business they can have there.  They will sit there, for hours, leaning on great, dropsical, mildewed umbrellas, or eating Abernethy biscuits.  Nobody speaks to them, nor they to any one.  On consideration, we remember to have occasionally seen two shabby-genteel men conversing together on ‘Change, but our experience assures us that this is an uncommon circumstance, occasioned by the offer of a pinch of snuff, or some such civility. 
In ten minutes I had ceased to believe in such fables of a golden time as youth, the prime of life, or a hale old age.  In ten minutes, all the lights of womankind seemed to have been blown out, and nothing in that way to be left this vault to brag of, but the flickering and expiring snuffs. 
‘Come in,’ said a female voice. And in they went. 
‘Ashamed of themselves!’ said Mrs. Raddle. ‘Why don’t you go down and knock ‘em every one downstairs? You would if you was a man.’ 
‘Right,’ said Mr Carker, ‘I have no doubt.’ 
The fat boy rose, opened his eyes, swallowed the huge piece of pie he had been in the act of masticating when he last fell asleep, and slowly obeyed his master’s orders--gloating languidly over the remains of the feast, as he removed the plates, and deposited them in the hamper. The fresh bottle was produced, and speedily emptied: the hamper was made fast in its old place--the fat boy once more mounted the box--the spectacles and pocket-glass were again adjusted--and the evolutions of the military recommenced. There was a great fizzing and banging of guns, and starting of ladies--and then a mine was sprung, to the gratification of everybody--and when the mine had gone off, the military and the company followed its example, and went off too. 
Paul thanked Mr Feeder for these hints, and pocketing his invitation, sat down on a stool by the side of Mr Toots, as usual. But Paul’s head, which had long been ailing more or less, and was sometimes very heavy and painful, felt so uneasy that night, that he was obliged to support it on his hand. And yet it dropped so, that by little and little it sunk on Mr Toots’s knee, and rested there, as if it had no care to be ever lifted up again. 
Slackbridge, the delegate, had to address his audience too that night; and Slackbridge had obtained a clean bill from the printer, and had brought it in his pocket.  Oh, my friends and fellow-countrymen, the down-trodden operatives of Coketown, oh, my fellow-brothers and fellow-workmen and fellow-citizens and fellow-men, what a to-do was there, when Slackbridge unfolded what he called ‘that damning document,’ and held it up to the gaze, and for the execration of the working-man community!  ‘Oh, my fellow-men, behold of what a traitor in the camp of those great spirits who are enrolled upon the holy scroll of Justice and of Union, is appropriately capable!  Oh, my prostrate friends, with the galling yoke of tyrants on your necks and the iron foot of despotism treading down your fallen forms into the dust of the earth, upon which right glad would your oppressors be to see you creeping on your bellies all the days of your lives, like the serpent in the garden—oh, my brothers, and shall I as a man not add, my sisters too, what do you say, _now_, of Stephen Blackpool, with a slight stoop in his shoulders and about five foot seven in height, as set forth in this degrading and disgusting document, this blighting bill, this pernicious placard, this abominable advertisement; and with what majesty of denouncement will you crush the viper, who would bring this stain and shame upon the God-like race that happily has cast him out for ever!  Yes, my compatriots, happily cast him out and sent him forth!  For you remember how he stood here before you on this platform; you remember how, face to face and foot to foot, I pursued him through all his intricate windings; you remember how he sneaked and slunk, and sidled, and splitted of straws, until, with not an inch of ground to which to cling, I hurled him out from amongst us: an object for the undying finger of scorn to point at, and for the avenging fire of every free and thinking mind to scorch and scar!  And now, my friends—my labouring friends, for I rejoice and triumph in that stigma—my friends whose hard but honest beds are made in toil, and whose scanty but independent pots are boiled in hardship; and now, I say, my friends, what appellation has that dastard craven taken to himself, when, with the mask torn from his features, he stands before us in all his native deformity, a What?  A thief!  A plunderer!  A proscribed fugitive, with a price upon his head; a fester and a wound upon the noble character of the Coketown operative!  Therefore, my band of brothers in a sacred bond, to which your children and your children’s children yet unborn have set their infant hands and seals, I propose to you on the part of the United Aggregate Tribunal, ever watchful for your welfare, ever zealous for your benefit, that this meeting does Resolve: That Stephen Blackpool, weaver, referred to in this placard, having been already solemnly disowned by the community of Coketown Hands, the same are free from the shame of his misdeeds, and cannot as a class be reproached with his dishonest actions!’ 
“I remembered your name,” he said, “when it was mentioned to me down stairs, just now; and I recollect your face.  We have held but very little personal communication together?” 
“Oh!” said Mr. Jaggers, turning to the man, who was pulling a lock of hair in the middle of his forehead, like the Bull in Cock Robin pulling at the bell-rope; “your man comes on this afternoon. Well?” 
‘Will you let me kiss you?’ 
‘Umps!’ said Mr. Grewgious.  ‘He didn’t say he was coming, perhaps?’ 
"He is off!" said she.  "The cow-house and stable are locked up, so he can’t be there; and he’s not downstairs anywhere, for the girl has looked.  He must have gone York way, and by a public road too." 
WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY GEORGE CRUIKSHANK, 
The Pickwickians' stay at Bath came to an end soon after this adventure, and their leader, with Sam Weller, returned to London. 
‘Of whose husband you were the--follower, I think?’ 
‘The girl’s family have made,’ said Mrs Gowan, ‘of course, the most strenuous endeavours to--as the lawyers say--to have and to hold Henry.’ 
Hubert, who relied upon the King's word, though I think he was old enough to have known better, came out of Merton Abbey upon these conditions, and journeyed away to see his wife: a Scottish Princess who was then at St. Edmund's-Bury. 
‘I don’t mean marrying her now’--returned the brother angrily; ‘say in two year’s time, in three, in four. Does the old man look like a long-liver?’ 
Mr. Bounderby being restrained by this mild suggestion, Mr. Gradgrind found an opening for his eminently practical exposition of the subject. 
"Up with you," said the stranger, assisting Mr. Pickwick on to the roof with so much precipitation as to impair the gravity of that gentleman's deportment very materially. 
‘No,’ said Mr. Wickfield. ‘No. Not yet.’ 
‘Why, you know Slingo by sight?’ 
“Yes, Joe. I tell you, I heard her.” 
"Been along with your friend again, Bart?" 
'This is young Oliver Twist, whom we were speaking about,' said Mr. Brownlow. 
He had a glass and bottle in his hand, and was in the act of drinking. I stopped short, among the thick foliage outside, for the moon was up now, though obscured; and I recognised the man whom I had once supposed to be a delusion of Mr. Dick's, and had once encountered with my aunt in the streets of the city. 
It was a very dirty place. The rooms upstairs had great high wooden chimney-pieces and large doors, with panelled walls and cornices to the ceiling; which, although they were black with neglect and dust, were ornamented in various ways. From all of these tokens Oliver concluded that a long time ago, before the old Jew was born, it had belonged to better people, and had perhaps been quite gay and handsome: dismal and dreary as it looked now. 
For many years, then, he had swung and creaked, and flapped himself about, before the two windows of the best bedroom of that house of entertainment to which he lent his name; but never in all his swinging, creaking, and flapping, had there been such a stir within its dingy precincts, as on the evening next after that upon which the incidents, detailed in the last chapter occurred; when there was such a hurrying up and down stairs of feet, such a glancing of lights, such a whispering of voices, such a smoking and sputtering of wood newly lighted in a damp chimney, such an airing of linen, such a scorching smell of hot warming-pans, such a domestic bustle and to-do, in short, as never dragon, griffin, unicorn, or other animal of that species presided over, since they first began to interest themselves in household affairs. 
The man upon the bed ruefully interposed, ‘Here’s my legs.  The skin’s broke, besides the swelling.  I have had a many kicks, working, one way and another.’ 
‘Very well, thankee, uncle,’ returned Mr. Sempronius, who had just appeared, looking something like a ringdove, with a small circle round each eye: the result of his constant corking.  ‘Of course we see you on Thursday.’ 
"I shan't wait about, all night for him," cried a diminutive gentleman disguised in a coalheaver's hat worn jockey-fashion, who, seizing Tweasle by the collar, lifted him from the ground, and giving him a shake that was sufficient to render any human nerves unsteady for eternity, asked the tottering man in a voice of angry expostulation, "Why the devil he couldn't stand still?" 
‘By a dream of a face.  For three nights before her marriage, she saw a face in a dream—always the same face, and only One.’ 
At length Mr. Snittle Timberry rose in the most approved attitude, with one hand in the breast of his waistcoat and the other on the nearest snuff-box, and having been received with great enthusiasm, proposed, with abundance of quotations, his friend Mr. Vincent Crummles: ending a pretty long speech by extending his right hand on one side and his left on the other, and severally calling upon Mr. and Mrs. Crummles to grasp the same. This done, Mr. Vincent Crummles returned thanks, and that done, the African Swallower proposed Mrs. Vincent Crummles, in affecting terms. Then were heard loud moans and sobs from Mrs. Crummles and the ladies, despite of which that heroic woman insisted upon returning thanks herself, which she did, in a manner and in a speech which has never been surpassed and seldom equalled. It then became the duty of Mr. Snittle Timberry to give the young Crummleses, which he did; after which Mr. Vincent Crummles, as their father, addressed the company in a supplementary speech, enlarging on their virtues, amiabilities, and excellences, and wishing that they were the sons and daughter of every lady and gentleman present. These solemnities having been succeeded by a decent interval, enlivened by musical and other entertainments, Mr. Crummles proposed that ornament of the profession, the African Swallower, his very dear friend, if he would allow him to call him so; which liberty (there being no particular reason why he should not allow it) the African Swallower graciously permitted. The literary gentleman was then about to be drunk, but it being discovered that he had been drunk for some time in another acceptation of the term, and was then asleep on the stairs, the intention was abandoned, and the honour transferred to the ladies. Finally, after a very long sitting, Mr Snittle Timberry vacated the chair, and the company with many adieux and embraces dispersed. 
‘Now, Master,’ said the Chicken, doggedly, when he, at length, caught Mr Toots’s eye, ‘I want to know whether this here gammon is to finish it, or whether you’re a going in to win?’ 
‘Bobster!’ repeated Nicholas, more emphatically than before. ‘That must be the servant’s name.’ 
The Spirit was immovable as ever. 
"What's the matter, sir?" inquired Sam. 
But no such day had ever dawned on Mr Dombey, or his wife; and the course of each was taken. 
‘Set your hand to a statement of truth and facts, and repeat it before witnesses?’ 
"Here's the receipt, Mr. Weller," said Mrs. Bardell, "and here's the change, and I hope you'll take a little drop of something to keep the cold out, if it's only for old acquaintance' sake, Mr. Weller." 
"What do you think, George," Wilding asked him next day, "of Mr. Obenreizer?  (I won't ask you what you think of Miss Obenreizer.)" 
‘He’s a bright fellow, and I like him,’ said Pancks. ‘Something has gone amiss with him to-day. Have you any idea of any cause that can have overset him?’ 
A-bed in these miserable rooms, here on bedsteads, there (for a change, as I understood it) on the floor, were women in every stage of distress and disease.  None but those who have attentively observed such scenes, can conceive the extraordinary variety of expression still latent under the general monotony and uniformity of colour, attitude, and condition. The form a little coiled up and turned away, as though it had turned its back on this world for ever; the uninterested face at once lead-coloured and yellow, looking passively upward from the pillow; the haggard mouth a little dropped, the hand outside the coverlet, so dull and indifferent, so light, and yet so heavy; these were on every pallet; but when I stopped beside a bed, and said ever so slight a word to the figure lying there, the ghost of the old character came into the face, and made the Foul ward as various as the fair world.  No one appeared to care to live, but no one complained; all who could speak, said that as much was done for them as could be done there, that the attendance was kind and patient, that their suffering was very heavy, but they had nothing to ask for.  The wretched rooms were as clean and sweet as it is possible for such rooms to be; they would become a pest-house in a single week, if they were ill-kept. 
‘I am sure you never would,’ she answered, the bright tears standing in her eyes. 
I entered and he swung it, and locked it, and took the key out. “Yes!” said he, facing round, after doggedly preceding me a few steps towards the house. “Here I am!” 
Kit, who knew no particular reason why he should keep the matter secret now, related the purpose for which he had come on that occasion, and the proposal he had made. 
Dick nodded assent, and drained his glass. 
"This is the even-handed dealing of the world!" he said. "There is nothing on which it is so hard as poverty; and there is nothing it professes to condemn with such severity as the pursuit of wealth!" 
‘Who is?’ asked the gentleman, laughing. I looked up, quickly; being curious to know. 
“I fear you are not well, Mr. Carton!” 
We had no attendants. We drove to the same hotel in which I had been before. We were shown into the same room; but the marks upon the floor were gone,--new boards were there. We ordered dinner _for three_; and I went out in search of the cloaked stranger. 
‘On that understanding,’ said my aunt, ‘though it doesn’t lessen the real obligation, I shall be very glad to leave him.’ 
"It is not an illness of any serious consequence, Sir Leicester. You will be much better to-morrow, Sir Leicester. All the gentlemen say so." This, with the tears coursing down her fair old face. 
For a moment she hid her face in her hands and wept; but resisting the strong impulse which evidently moved her to reply, opened the door--no wider than was sufficient for the passage of his body--and motioned him away. As the locksmith stood upon the step, it was chained and locked behind him, and the raven, in furtherance of these precautions, barked like a lusty house-dog. 
‘Why no, not exactly,’ said Fledgeby. ‘In fact I don’t know a note of it.’ 
"Perhaps I do, to my sorrow." 
"You look ill, sir!" he exclaimed. "Take the advice of an old sailor; only try one of my cigars; _they are not of common use_; one or two whiffs will drive away your nausea. I never knew them fail." 
Mr. Micawber inclined his head. "They are as well, ma'am," he desperately observed after a pause, "as Aliens and Outcasts can ever hope to be." 
‘I thought it would surprise you a bit,’ said Squeers, rubbing his hands. ‘It was pretty neatly done, and pretty quick too.’ 
"Here, clean them shoes for number seventeen directly, and take 'em to private sitting-room, number five, first floor." 
The carriages were now three abreast; in broader places four; often stationary for a long time together, always one close mass of variegated brightness; showing, the whole street-full, through the storm of flowers, like flowers of a larger growth themselves.  In some, the horses were richly caparisoned in magnificent trappings; in others they were decked from head to tail, with flowing ribbons.  Some were driven by coachmen with enormous double faces: one face leering at the horses: the other cocking its extraordinary eyes into the carriage: and both rattling again, under the hail of sugar-plums.  Other drivers were attired as women, wearing long ringlets and no bonnets, and looking more ridiculous in any real difficulty with the horses (of which, in such a concourse, there were a great many) than tongue can tell, or pen describe.  Instead of sitting _in_ the carriages, upon the seats, the handsome Roman women, to see and to be seen the better, sit in the heads of the barouches, at this time of general licence, with their feet upon the cushions—and oh, the flowing skirts and dainty waists, the blessed shapes and laughing faces, the free, good-humoured, gallant figures that they make! There were great vans, too, full of handsome girls—thirty, or more together, perhaps—and the broadsides that were poured into, and poured out of, these fairy fire-shops, splashed the air with flowers and bon-bons for ten minutes at a time.  Carriages, delayed long in one place, would begin a deliberate engagement with other carriages, or with people at the lower windows; and the spectators at some upper balcony or window, joining in the fray, and attacking both parties, would empty down great bags of confétti, that descended like a cloud, and in an instant made them white as millers.  Still, carriages on carriages, dresses on dresses, colours on colours, crowds upon crowds, without end.  Men and boys clinging to the wheels of coaches, and holding on behind, and following in their wake, and diving in among the horses’ feet to pick up scattered flowers to sell again; maskers on foot (the drollest generally) in fantastic exaggerations of court-dresses, surveying the throng through enormous eye-glasses, and always transported with an ecstasy of love, on the discovery of any particularly old lady at a window; long strings of Policinelli, laying about them with blown bladders at the ends of sticks; a waggon-full of madmen, screaming and tearing to the life; a coach-full of grave mamelukes, with their horse-tail standard set up in the midst; a party of gipsy-women engaged in terrific conflict with a shipful of sailors; a man-monkey on a pole, surrounded by strange animals with pigs’ faces, and lions’ tails, carried under their arms, or worn gracefully over their shoulders; carriages on carriages, dresses on dresses, colours on colours, crowds upon crowds, without end.  Not many actual characters sustained, or represented, perhaps, considering the number dressed, but the main pleasure of the scene consisting in its perfect good temper; in its bright, and infinite, and flashing variety; and in its entire abandonment to the mad humour of the time—an abandonment so perfect, so contagious, so irresistible, that the steadiest foreigner fights up to his middle in flowers and sugar-plums, like the wildest Roman of them all, and thinks of nothing else till half-past four o’clock, when he is suddenly reminded (to his great regret) that this is not the whole business of his existence, by hearing the trumpets sound, and seeing the dragoons begin to clear the street. 
‘Yes,’ said Mr Pecksniff, tapping his left hand with a letter which he held in his right. ‘I have a summons here to repair to London; on professional business, my dear Martin; strictly on professional business; and I promised my girls, long ago, that whenever that happened again, they should accompany me. We shall go forth to-night by the heavy coach--like the dove of old, my dear Martin--and it will be a week before we again deposit our olive-branches in the passage. When I say olive-branches,’ observed Mr Pecksniff, in explanation, ‘I mean, our unpretending luggage.’ 
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A GOOD JOKE. 
With Barnacle junior, he signified his desire to confer; and found that young gentleman singeing the calves of his legs at the parental fire, and supporting his spine against the mantel-shelf. It was a comfortable room, handsomely furnished in the higher official manner; an presenting stately suggestions of the absent Barnacle, in the thick carpet, the leather-covered desk to sit at, the leather-covered desk to stand at, the formidable easy-chair and hearth-rug, the interposed screen, the torn-up papers, the dispatch-boxes with little labels sticking out of them, like medicine bottles or dead game, the pervading smell of leather and mahogany, and a general bamboozling air of How not to do it. 
‘My poor girl, what is the matter?’ 
'It is required of every man,' the Ghost returned, 'that the spirit within him should walk abroad among his fellow-men, and travel far and wide; and, if that spirit goes not forth in life, it is condemned to do so after death. It is doomed to wander through the world--oh, woe is me!--and witness what it cannot share, but might have shared on earth, and turned to happiness!' 
Oliver considered a little while, and at last said he should think it would be a much better thing to be a bookseller; upon which the old gentleman laughed heartily, and declared he had said a very good thing, which Oliver felt glad to have done, though he by no means knew what it was. 
'No, no,' replied Fagin, 'not so bad as that.  Not quite so bad.' 
One day when Mr. Creakle kept the house from indisposition, which naturally diffused a lively joy through the school, there was a good deal of noise in the course of the morning's work. The great relief and satisfaction experienced by the boys made them difficult to manage; and though the dreaded Tungay brought his wooden leg in twice or thrice, and took notes of the principal offenders' names, no great impression was made by it, as they were pretty sure of getting into trouble to-morrow do what they would, and thought it wise, no doubt, to enjoy themselves to-day. 
This accumulated testimony effectually staggered Mr. Monks. His protestations had gradually become less and less vehement as they proceeded in their search without making any discovery; and now he gave vent to several very grim laughs, and confessed it could only have been his excited imagination. He declined any renewal of the conversation, however, for that night, suddenly remembering that it was past one o’clock: and so the amiable couple parted. 
Suddenly Maypole Hugh rushed from the crowd with a shout of recognition, and, thrusting a flagstaff into Barnaby's hands, drew him into the ranks. 
"Then come along, sir," said Sam, setting his master on his feet again. "Come between us, sir. Not half a mile to run. Think you're vinnin' a cup, sir. Now for it." 
‘I don’t understand,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. 
As we arrive in the vicinity of Lincoln’s-inn-fields, Bedford-row, and other legal haunts, we drop a great many of our original passengers, and take up fresh ones, who meet with a very sulky reception.  It is rather remarkable, that the people already in an omnibus, always look at newcomers, as if they entertained some undefined idea that they have no business to come in at all.  We are quite persuaded the little old man has some notion of this kind, and that he considers their entry as a sort of negative impertinence. 
"Mind them top bannisters," says she, as Trottle laid his hand on them. "They are as rotten as medlars every one of 'em." 
‘You should be careful not to irritate her, James. Her temper has been soured, remember, and ought not to be tried.’ 
In Genoa, and thereabouts, they train the vines on trellis-work, supported on square clumsy pillars, which, in themselves, are anything but picturesque.  But, here, they twine them around trees, and let them trail among the hedges; and the vineyards are full of trees, regularly planted for this purpose, each with its own vine twining and clustering about it.  Their leaves are now of the brightest gold and deepest red; and never was anything so enchantingly graceful and full of beauty. Through miles of these delightful forms and colours, the road winds its way.  The wild festoons, the elegant wreaths, and crowns, and garlands of all shapes; the fairy nets flung over great trees, and making them prisoners in sport; the tumbled heaps and mounds of exquisite shapes upon the ground; how rich and beautiful they are!  And every now and then, a long, long line of trees, will be all bound and garlanded together: as if they had taken hold of one another, and were coming dancing down the field! 
"Rather hard, I suppose?" said I. 
It may be imagined, from the text of this note, that Adeliza had profited not a little by the perusal of Mrs. Swipes's novels; and it also gives a pretty clear notion of the condition of her lover. When that gentleman was a professor at Bulgaria House, his costume had strictly accorded with his pretensions. He wore a black German coat loaded with frogs and silk trimming, a white broad-brimmed beaver, hessians, and nankeen tights. His costume at present was singularly changed for the worse: a rough brown frock-coat dangled down to the calves of his brawny legs, where likewise ended a pair of greasy shepherd's-plaid trousers; a dubious red waistcoat, a blue or bird's-eye neckerchief, and bluchers, (or half-boots,) remarkable for thickness and for mud, completed his attire. But he looked superior to his fortune; he wore his grey hat very much on one ear; he incessantly tugged at his smoky shirt-collar, and walked jingling the halfpence (when he had any) in his pocket. He was, in fact, no better than an adventurer, and the innocent Adeliza was his prey. 
‘You have had sorrow enough, child,’ said my aunt, affectionately, ‘without the addition of my little miseries. I could have no other motive, Trot, in keeping anything from you.’ 
“I hope it would,” he answered.  “I believe it would.” 
‘In a word, my love,’ said John, ‘the China House is broken up and abolished. There is no such thing any more.’ 
Withers the Wan, at this period, handing round the tea, Mr Dombey again addressed himself to Edith. 
The child’s voice was lost in sobs, as she clasped her arms about the old man’s neck; nor did she weep alone. 
“It is a part of Miss Havisham’s plans for me, Pip,” said Estella, with a sigh, as if she were tired; “I am to write to her constantly and see her regularly and report how I go on,—I and the jewels,—for they are nearly all mine now.” 
George Cruikshank was too candidly honest an artist to conceal his appreciative sense of the popular success which these xiii generally familiar works had happily secured. The artist himself scorned to disguise his pride in ‘these creatures of his brain,’ as he esteemed them, with paternal admiration! On the strength of these famous dramatic _suites_, with the designs so well known as constituting the pictorial skeleton or framework of _Oliver Twist_, the designer extended his claim for fuller recognition, to the point of feeling it a deep personal grievance that the respective ‘gifted authors’ had wilfully adopted all his best ideas, without the formality of acknowledging their literary obligations and indebtedness to the artist himself. To do him full justice, it must be acknowledged that from the date of their first appearance in monthly parts, Cruikshank made these claims persistently amongst friends and in the presence of mutual acquaintances. 
In a handsome room:  though its furniture had rather the air of old-fashioned comfort, than of modern elegance:  there sat two ladies at a well-spread breakfast-table.  Mr. Giles, dressed with scrupulous care in a full suit of black, was in attendance upon them.  He had taken his station some half-way between the side-board and the breakfast-table; and, with his body drawn up to its full height, his head thrown back, and inclined the merest trifle on one side, his left leg advanced, and his right hand thrust into his waist-coat, while his left hung down by his side, grasping a waiter, looked like one who laboured under a very agreeable sense of his own merits and importance. 
Fagin stealthily descended the kitchen stairs. After a short absence, he returned with a lighted candle, and the intelligence that Toby Crackit was asleep in the back room below, and that the boys were in the front one. Beckoning the man to follow him, he led the way upstairs. 
‘Try a little something green,’ said Young John, handing him the basket. 
Flora tried in vain to soothe the excellent woman by explaining that they were going home to dinner. Mr F.’s Aunt persisted in replying, ‘Bring him for’ard and I’ll chuck him out o’ winder!’ Having reiterated this demand an immense number of times, with a sustained glare of defiance at Little Dorrit, Mr F.’s Aunt folded her arms, and sat down in the corner of the pie-shop parlour; steadfastly refusing to budge until such time as ‘he’ should have been ‘brought for’ard,’ and the chucking portion of his destiny accomplished. 
'And now you do see me,' said Monks, rising boldly, 'what then? Fraud and robbery are high-sounding words--justified, you think, by a fancied resemblance in some young imp to an idle daub of a dead man's Brother! You don't even know that a child was born of this maudlin pair; you don't even know that.' 
Mr. Pickwick complied. 
‘Now, my dear Dora, you must know that I never said that!’ 
‘Ecod, sir,’ returned Young Barnacle, ‘he said he wanted to know, you know! Pervaded our Department--without an appointment--and said he wanted to know!’ 
“Why, what does the boy mean?” exclaimed Mr. Bumble, on whom the earnest manner and wan aspect of the child had made some impression, accustomed as he was to such things. “What do you mean, sir?” 
“No, sir,” replied Oliver. 
I deigned to make him no reply; and, taking up my hat, was going out to bed, when he came between me and the door. 
In another moment we were in the brewery, so long disused, and she pointed to the high gallery where I had seen her going out on that same first day, and told me she remembered to have been up there, and to have seen me standing scared below. As my eyes followed her white hand, again the same dim suggestion that I could not possibly grasp crossed me. My involuntary start occasioned her to lay her hand upon my arm. Instantly the ghost passed once more and was gone. 
With a few last blessings, a few last dutiful messages to good Mr. Forley, and a few last friendly hints not to forget next Monday at dusk, Trottle contrived to struggle through the sickening business of leave- taking; to get the door opened; and to find himself, to his own indescribable relief, once more on the outer side of the House To Let. 
Ladies and gentlemen, upon this, and upon a hundred other grounds, this assembly is not less interesting to me, believe me—although, personally, almost a stranger here—than it is interesting to you; and I take it, that it is not of greater importance to all of us than it is to every man who has learned to know that he has an interest in the moral and social elevation, the harmless relaxation, the peace, happiness, and improvement, of the community at large.  Not even those who saw the first foundation of your Athenæum laid, and watched its progress, as I know they did, almost as tenderly as if it were the progress of a living creature, until it reared its beautiful front, an honour to the town—not even they, nor even you who, within its walls, have tasted its usefulness, and put it to the proof, have greater reason, I am persuaded, to exult in its establishment, or to hope that it may thrive and prosper, than scores of thousands at a distance, who—whether consciously or unconsciously, matters not—have, in the principle of its success and bright example, a deep and personal concern. 
‘We can only guess, from that communication,’ replied Mr. Snodgrass, taking a letter from his pocket, and placing it in his friend’s hand. ‘Yesterday morning, when a letter was received from Mr. Wardle, stating that you would be home with his sister at night, the melancholy which had hung over our friend during the whole of the previous day, was observed to increase. He shortly afterwards disappeared: he was missing during the whole day, and in the evening this letter was brought by the hostler from the Crown, at Muggleton. It had been left in his charge in the morning, with a strict injunction that it should not be delivered until night.’ 
To the housekeeper he left an annuity, sufficient for her comfortable maintenance and support through life.  For the barber, who had attended him many years, he made a similar provision.  And I may make two remarks in this place: first, that I think this pair are very likely to club their means together and make a match of it; and secondly, that I think my friend had this result in his mind, for I have heard him say, more than once, that he could not concur with the generality of mankind in censuring equal marriages made in later life, since there were many cases in which such unions could not fail to be a wise and rational source of happiness to both parties. 
"I am glad to hear it," said the fierce man. "I withdraw my expressions. I tender an apology. There's my card. Give me your acquaintance." 
So time went by peacefully till a strange thing happened: Charles Darnay, who had been so kind to Lucie and her father on the boat, was arrested on a charge of treason. 
"He's extra-drilled," says Mr. Bagnet. "By a lawyer. Who would put the devil out." 
‘I am young, as you see; I am alone, as you see.  In coming to you, sir, I have no advice or encouragement beyond my own hope.’  He thought, ‘But that is very strong,’ as he followed the momentary upward glance of her eyes.  He thought besides, ‘This is a very odd beginning.  I don’t see where we are going.’ 
To which Mr Chuckster replied, with an elevation of speech becoming a Glorious Apollo, that he was ‘everlastingly blessed’ if he did. 
Presently, Joe came back, saying that the man was gone, but that he, Joe, had left word at the Three Jolly Bargemen concerning the notes. Then my sister sealed them up in a piece of paper, and put them under some dried rose-leaves in an ornamental teapot on the top of a press in the state parlour. There they remained, a nightmare to me, many and many a night and day. 
They left the high-road, by a well remembered lane, and soon approached a mansion of dull red brick, with a little weathercock-surmounted cupola, on the roof, and a bell hanging in it. It was a large house, but one of broken fortunes; for the spacious offices were little used, their walls were damp and mossy, their windows broken, and their gates decayed. Fowls clucked and strutted in the stables; and the coach-houses and sheds were overrun with grass. Nor was it more retentive of its ancient state, within; for entering the dreary hall, and glancing through the open doors of many rooms, they found them poorly furnished, cold, and vast. There was an earthy savour in the air, a chilly bareness in the place, which associated itself somehow with too much getting up by candle-light, and not too much to eat. 
"Well, I am the most disinterested among you, after all," said the first speaker, "for I never wear black gloves, and I never eat lunch. But I'll offer to go, if anybody else will. When I come to think of it, I'm not at all sure that I wasn't his most particular friend, for we used to stop and speak whenever we met. By-by!" 
Mr. Scrooge, are you serious?" 
He applied to Daniel Doyce for help, as they stood together, looking out of window. 
I believe I can remember these two at a little distance apart, dwarfed to my sight by stooping down or kneeling on the floor, and I going unsteadily from the one to the other. I have an impression on my mind which I cannot distinguish from actual remembrance, of the touch of Peggotty's fore-finger as she used to hold it out to me, and of its being roughened by needlework, like a pocket nutmeg-grater. 
From his oppressed slumber, Young Jerry in his closet was awakened after daybreak and before sunrise, by the presence of his father in the family room. Something had gone wrong with him; at least, so Young Jerry inferred, from the circumstance of his holding Mrs. Cruncher by the ears, and knocking the back of her head against the head-board of the bed. 
Mr Lammle, striking in here, proclaims aloud that there is a sequel to the story of the man from somewhere. Silence ensues upon the proclamation. 
“Two or three. She herself knows nothing, but that she was left an orphan and I adopted her.” 
When he has walked out, Mr. Guppy, in a great perspiration, nerves himself to the hasty completion of the taking down of the Galaxy Gallery, concluding with Lady Dedlock. 
He told the story of the lady having spoken to him, while he sat at dinner with the other boys in the Foundling, and of all that had followed in his innocently communicative way.  "My poor mother could never have discovered me," he added, "if she had not met with one of the matrons who pitied her.  The matron consented to touch the boy whose name was 'Walter Wilding' as she went round the dinner-tables--and so my mother discovered me again, after having parted from me as an infant at the Foundling doors." 
I believed, from the solitary and thoughtful way in which my mother murmured her song, that she was alone. And I went softly into the room. She was sitting by the fire, suckling an infant, whose tiny hand she held against her neck. Her eyes were looking down upon its face, and she sat singing to it. I was so far right, that she had no other companion. 
“That crack down in the back lane at Edmonton, Blathers,” said Mr. Duff, assisting his colleague’s memory. 
"If you please, sir," said Oliver. 
A thousand representations were made to me that the Bottle must be left at this place, or that, and called for again.  I never yielded to one of them, and never parted from the Bottle, on any pretence, consideration, threat, or entreaty.  I had no faith in any official receipt for the Bottle, and nothing would induce me to accept one.  These unmanageable politics at last brought me and the Bottle, still triumphant, to Genoa. There, I took a tender and reluctant leave of him for a few weeks, and consigned him to a trusty English captain, to be conveyed to the Port of London by sea. 
More serious of face, and more slow of action, than he had been, the boy completed his dressing, and came and sat down at the little breakfast-table, with his eyes amazedly directed to her face. 
It is of no use saying how that preposterous John answered her, because he answered in a manner which is untranslatable on paper though highly satisfactory in itself. But what he conveyed was, No no no, sweet Ruth; or something to that effect. 
The valet bowed, and left the noble lord to his meditations. At three he was in his cab,--at five in May-fair,--at eight in the green-room. 
There was another boy, a fair, meek boy, with a delicate complexion and rich curling hair, who, we found out, or thought we found out (we have no idea now, and probably had none then, on what grounds, but it was confidentially revealed from mouth to mouth), was the son of a Viscount who had deserted his lovely mother.  It was understood that if he had his rights, he would be worth twenty thousand a year.  And that if his mother ever met his father, she would shoot him with a silver pistol, which she carried, always loaded to the muzzle, for that purpose.  He was a very suggestive topic.  So was a young Mulatto, who was always believed (though very amiable) to have a dagger about him somewhere.  But, we think they were both outshone, upon the whole, by another boy who claimed to have been born on the twenty-ninth of February, and to have only one birthday in five years.  We suspect this to have been a fiction—but he lived upon it all the time he was at Our School. 
Down in to the Yard, by way of the steps, came Daniel Doyce, Mr Meagles, and Clennam. Passing along the Yard, and between the open doors on either hand, all abundantly garnished with light children nursing heavy ones, they arrived at its opposite boundary, the gateway. Here Arthur Clennam stopped to look about him for the domicile of Plornish, plasterer, whose name, according to the custom of Londoners, Daniel Doyce had never seen or heard of to that hour. 
‘Who said he was to have six pound a year?’ said Quilp, looking sharply round.  ‘Did the old man say it, or did little Nell say it?  And what’s he to have it for, and where are they, eh!’ 
The Captain did not, however, in his musings, neglect his own improvement, or the mental culture of Rob the Grinder. That young man was generally required to read out of some book to the Captain, for one hour, every evening; and as the Captain implicitly believed that all books were true, he accumulated, by this means, many remarkable facts. On Sunday nights, the Captain always read for himself, before going to bed, a certain Divine Sermon once delivered on a Mount; and although he was accustomed to quote the text, without book, after his own manner, he appeared to read it with as reverent an understanding of its heavenly spirit, as if he had got it all by heart in Greek, and had been able to write any number of fierce theological disquisitions on its every phrase. 
Mrs. Pratchett allotted him the room, and took his bag to it.  He then went back before the fire, and fell a biting his nails. 
‘Now, Edmund,’ she said, stretching out her fan, and touching him with it at arm’s length, ‘what I was going to say to you when you began as usual to prose and worry, is, that I shall guard against our being alone any more, and that when circumstances prevent my going out to my own satisfaction, I must arrange to have some people or other always here; for I really cannot, and will not, have another such day as this has been.’ 
‘What man,’ thought Nicholas proudly, while on his way, soon afterwards, to the brothers’ house, ‘would not be sufficiently rewarded for any sacrifice of fortune by the possession of such a heart as Kate’s, which, but that hearts weigh light, and gold and silver heavy, is beyond all praise? Frank has money, and wants no more. Where would it buy him such a treasure as Kate? And yet, in unequal marriages, the rich party is always supposed to make a great sacrifice, and the other to get a good bargain! But I am thinking like a lover, or like an ass: which I suppose is pretty nearly the same.’ 
"No!" she answered merrily. 
‘Very well, ma’am,’ said Ralph, turning to the door, for these encomiums on poverty irritated him; ‘I have done my duty, and perhaps more than I ought: of course nobody will thank me for saying what I have.’ 
Arriving at home and going upstairs, we found that my guardian was out and that Mrs. Woodcourt was out too. We were in the very same room into which I had brought my blushing girl when her youthful lover, now her so altered husband, was the choice of her young heart, the very same room from which my guardian and I had watched them going away through the sunlight in the fresh bloom of their hope and promise. 
Mr and Mrs Lammle have walked for some time on the Shanklin sands, and one may see by their footprints that they have not walked arm in arm, and that they have not walked in a straight track, and that they have walked in a moody humour; for, the lady has prodded little spirting holes in the damp sand before her with her parasol, and the gentleman has trailed his stick after him. As if he were of the Mephistopheles family indeed, and had walked with a drooping tail. 
"I!" cried the Spirit. 
"Oh, I don't want her intimate at Lewis's," said the Doctor, and immediately he came out behind his wife. 
"No porter!--in an alley!--Oh, the wretch!" 
"Ah! madam," resumed Dick, bursting at once into a sentimental vein, for he felt that every minute was precious, "happy am I to see that enchanting face once more." 
‘It is for whom you will,’ she answered. ‘It is given to you, and is obtained by you. He never could have had it otherwise.’ 
‘A murrain on the young devils!’ cried the stranger; ‘I speak of one; a meek-looking, pale-faced boy, who was apprenticed down here, to a coffin-maker--I wish he had made his coffin, and screwed his body in it--and who afterwards ran away to London, as it was supposed. 
THE EGOTISTICAL COUPLE 
I HAVE been looking on, this evening, at a merry company of children assembled round that pretty German toy, a Christmas Tree.  The tree was planted in the middle of a great round table, and towered high above their heads.  It was brilliantly lighted by a multitude of little tapers; and everywhere sparkled and glittered with bright objects.  There were rosy-cheeked dolls, hiding behind the green leaves; and there were real watches (with movable hands, at least, and an endless capacity of being wound up) dangling from innumerable twigs; there were French-polished tables, chairs, bedsteads, wardrobes, eight-day clocks, and various other articles of domestic furniture (wonderfully made, in tin, at Wolverhampton), perched among the boughs, as if in preparation for some fairy housekeeping; there were jolly, broad-faced little men, much more agreeable in appearance than many real men—and no wonder, for their heads took off, and showed them to be full of sugar-plums; there were fiddles and drums; there were tambourines, books, work-boxes, paint-boxes, sweetmeat-boxes, peep-show boxes, and all kinds of boxes; there were trinkets for the elder girls, far brighter than any grown-up gold and jewels; there were baskets and pincushions in all devices; there were guns, swords, and banners; there were witches standing in enchanted rings of pasteboard, to tell fortunes; there were teetotums, humming-tops, needle-cases, pen-wipers, smelling-bottles, conversation-cards, bouquet-holders; real fruit, made artificially dazzling with gold leaf; imitation apples, pears, and walnuts, crammed with surprises; in short, as a pretty child, before me, delightedly whispered to another pretty child, her bosom friend, “There was everything, and more.”  This motley collection of odd objects, clustering on the tree like magic fruit, and flashing back the bright looks directed towards it from every side—some of the diamond-eyes admiring it were hardly on a level with the table, and a few were languishing in timid wonder on the bosoms of pretty mothers, aunts, and nurses—made a lively realisation of the fancies of childhood; and set me thinking how all the trees that grow and all the things that come into existence on the earth, have their wild adornments at that well-remembered time. 
‘It must be some mistake,’ said Nicholas, carelessly. ‘We know nobody who would come here at this hour.’ 
The struggle was scarce over Last Christmas Eve had brought: The fibres still were quivering Of the one wounded thought, When Herbert--who, unconscious, Had guessed no inward strife-- Bade her, in pride and pleasure, Welcome his fair young wife. 
"Oh, come!" cried Grimaldi, "it's not so bad as I thought,--333_l._ 13_s._ is not so much among six persons!" which was the number of proprietors at that time. 
‘Why are you in hopes?’ returned Miss Sally.  ‘What harm do they do?’ 
“I can’t guess what it is, ma’am.” 
‘You reproach me with my origin,’ said Bradley Headstone; ‘you cast insinuations at my bringing-up. But I tell you, sir, I have worked my way onward, out of both and in spite of both, and have a right to be considered a better man than you, with better reasons for being proud.’ 
"Well," said that suddenly transformed individual, as he took his seat on the outside of the Eatanswill coach next morning; "I wonder whether I'm meant to be a footman, or a groom, or a gamekeeper, or a seedsman. I looks like a sort of compo of every one on 'em. Never mind; there's change of air, plenty to see, and little to do; and all this suits my complaint uncommon; so long life to the Pickvicks, says I!" 
"Well, Joe, still living--eh?" 
The spirit of contradiction was strong in Mr. Grimwig’s breast, at the moment; and it was rendered stronger by his friend’s confident smile. 
‘ALL is now over; and, upon one point at least, I am at length enabled to set the minds of your readers at rest.  The three professors arrived at ten minutes after two o’clock, and, instead of taking up their quarters at the Original Pig, as it was universally understood in the course of yesterday that they would assuredly have done, drove straight to the Pig and Tinder-box, where they threw off the mask at once, and openly announced their intention of remaining.  Professor Wheezy may reconcile this very extraordinary conduct with _his_ notions of fair and equitable dealing, but I would recommend Professor Wheezy to be cautious how he presumes too far upon his well-earned reputation.  How such a man as Professor Snore, or, which is still more extraordinary, such an individual as Professor Doze, can quietly allow himself to be mixed up with such proceedings as these, you will naturally inquire.  Upon this head, rumour is silent; I have my speculations, but forbear to give utterance to them just now.’ 
"Not at all," gruffly remarked the elder Mr. Weller. "More widders is married than single wimin." 
‘Where were you,’ said the boy, advancing a step as he lowered his voice, ‘when it was done? Stop! I don’t ask that. Don’t tell me. If you force your confidence upon me, Mr Headstone, I’ll give up every word of it. Mind! Take notice. I’ll give up it, and I’ll give up you. I will!’ 
‘It is easy to see you’re a favourite, my dear,’ said little Mrs Milvey, not quite pleased. 
‘Eh, lad!’ said he; ‘Sylvy’s right.  You’re as moody and broody a lad as never I set eyes on yet.’ 
But John had brought this new visitor to the door, and he walked in unbidden, as the words were uttered; giving to view the form and features, rough attire, and reckless air, of Hugh. 
With his Fortunatus’s goblet ready in his hand, Mr Riderhood sat down on one side of the table before the fire, and the strange man on the other: Pleasant occupying a stool between the latter and the fireside. The background, composed of handkerchiefs, coats, shirts, hats, and other old articles ‘On Leaving,’ had a general dim resemblance to human listeners; especially where a shiny black sou’wester suit and hat hung, looking very like a clumsy mariner with his back to the company, who was so curious to overhear, that he paused for the purpose with his coat half pulled on, and his shoulders up to his ears in the uncompleted action. 
‘I am sure I don’t know what you mean, Mr Swiviller,’ said Miss Sophy with downcast eyes. ‘I’m very sorry if--’ 
"Here, waiter!" shouted the stranger, ringing the bell with tremendous violence, "glasses round,--brandy and water, hot and strong, and sweet, and plenty,--eye damaged, sir? Waiter! raw beef-steak for the gentleman's eye,--nothing like raw beef-steak for a bruise, sir; cold lamp-post very good, but lamp-post inconvenient--damned odd standing in the open street half-an-hour, with your eye against a lamp-post--eh,--very good,--ha! ha!" And the stranger, without stopping to take breath, swallowed at a draught full half-a-pint of the reeking brandy and water, and flung himself into a chair with as much ease as if nothing uncommon had occurred. 
"Oh, I shall soon do that! I am so much better, you don't know!" 
"What the devil's the meaning of all this?" exclaimed the host. 
‘And you’ll excuse my saying, Doctor,’ pursued Mr. Snitchey, ‘having been already put a thousand times in possession of my opinion, in the course of our discussions, that, in its having gone to law, and in its legal system altogether, I do observe a serious side—now, really, a something tangible, and with a purpose and intention in it—’ 
The spy lay hid till he had heard all Nancy said; then he slipped out and ran as fast as his legs would carry him back to Fagin. The latter sent for Bill Sikes, knowing him to be the most brutal and bloodthirsty ruffian of all, and told him what Nancy had done. 
‘No, not that place,’ returns the unmoved Mortimer, ‘that’s where they make the Port. My man comes from the country where they make the Cape Wine. But look here, old fellow; its not at all statistical and it’s rather odd.’ 
The Captain stood rubbing his chin, and looking at the Manager. The Manager glanced at the unopened letters lying on his desk, and took up the newspaper. 
‘Is he in a good way of business; that’s where it is!’ responded Noah, winking one of his little eyes. 
Suddenly, there was a noise of trumpets.  ‘Attention!’ was among the foot-soldiers instantly.  They were marched up to the scaffold and formed round it.  The dragoons galloped to their nearer stations too.  The guillotine became the centre of a wood of bristling bayonets and shining sabres.  The people closed round nearer, on the flank of the soldiery.  A long straggling stream of men and boys, who had accompanied the procession from the prison, came pouring into the open space.  The bald spot was scarcely distinguishable from the rest.  The cigar and pastry-merchants resigned all thoughts of business, for the moment, and abandoning themselves wholly to pleasure, got good situations in the crowd.  The perspective ended, now, in a troop of dragoons.  And the corpulent officer, sword in hand, looked hard at a church close to him, which he could see, but we, the crowd, could not. 
"Yes, my dear. I suppose," said Mr. Turveydrop, shutting his eyes and lifting up his shoulders with modest consciousness, "that I must show myself, as usual, about town." 
The Poll-tax died with Wat.  The Smiths to the King and Royal Family, could make no chains in which the King could hang the people's recollection of him; so the Poll-tax was never collected. 
‘There!  Stop where you are, ma’am,’ said Mr. Bounderby, ‘stop where you are!  Mrs. Bounderby will be very glad to be relieved of the trouble, I believe.’ 
"That is a black shadow to be following the girl," said Steerforth, standing still; "what does it mean?" 
Whether it was the sense of freedom and independence which a rational animal may be supposed to feel when he sits on a table in an easy attitude, smoking a pipe, swinging one leg carelessly to and fro, and having his boots cleaned all the time without even the past trouble of having taken them off, or the prospective misery of putting them on, to disturb his reflections; or whether it was the goodness of the tobacco that soothed the feelings of the Dodger, or the mildness of the beer that mollified his thoughts, he was evidently tinctured for the nonce with a spice of romance and enthusiasm foreign to his general nature. He looked down on Oliver with a thoughtful countenance for a brief space, and then, raising his head, and heaving a gentle sigh, said, half in abstraction, and half to Master Bates, 
But even here, two men who watched the light had made a fire, that through the loophole in the thick stone wall shed out a ray of brightness on the awful sea. Joining their horny hands over the rough table at which they sat, they wished each other Merry Christmas in their can of grog; and one of them--the elder, too, with his face all damaged and scarred with hard weather, as the figurehead of an old ship might be--struck up a sturdy song that was like a gale in itself. 
‘Unnecessary to pursue the subject,’ returned Flora, ‘and would not have mentioned it on any account except as supposing it a favourable and only letter of introduction but as to being fact no doubt whatever and you may set your mind at rest for the very dress I have on now can prove it and sweetly made though there is no denying that it would tell better on a better figure for my own is much too fat though how to bring it down I know not, pray excuse me I am roving off again.’ 
“Don’t you think I might say that I did not, Joe?” 
‘Then, take care, you,’ said Wegg, ‘that you stick to your conditions. Mr Venus, if on this auspicious occasion, you should happen to have a drop of anything not quite so mild as tea in the ‘ouse, I think I’d take the friendly liberty of asking you for a specimen of it.’ 
‘I shall have something to propose to her when she comes back,’ said Mr. Gradgrind. 
‘John Edward,’ said the pensioner, slowly laying down his knife and fork to consider. ‘How old, sir? Let me think now.’ 
‘I say,’ answered Mrs Merdle composedly, ‘that you ought to make yourself fit for it by being more degage, and less preoccupied. There is a positive vulgarity in carrying your business affairs about with you as you do.’ 
"A young friend of mine, my dear," replied the Jew. 
As old John was not in the way at the moment, Joe, who was sitting in the bar ruminating on his dismal fate and the manifold perfections of Dolly Varden, ran out to hold the guest’s stirrup and assist him to mount. Mr Chester was scarcely in the saddle, and Joe was in the very act of making him a graceful bow, when old John came diving out of the porch, and collared him. 
It is unnecessary to say, that those shameful tumults, while they reflect indelible disgrace upon the time in which they occurred, and all who had act or part in them, teach a good lesson. That what we falsely call a religious cry is easily raised by men who have no religion, and who in their daily practice set at nought the commonest principles of right and wrong; that it is begotten of intolerance and persecution; that it is senseless, besotted, inveterate and unmerciful; all History teaches us. But perhaps we do not know it in our hearts too well, to profit by even so humble an example as the ‘No Popery’ riots of Seventeen Hundred and Eighty. 
‘How can that be done? Should I make a seamstress of her, or a governess?’ 
"Certainly not. Talk in that cool way of a fellow's living there?" cries Mr. Weevle indignantly. "Go and live there yourself." 
"Ah! you want me?" said the Count, turning back. 
‘Oh, Mr. Linkinwater, you’re joking!’ 
"Why, Daisy, old boy, dumb-foundered!" laughed Steerforth, shaking my hand heartily, and throwing it gaily away. "Have I detected you in another feast, you Sybarite! These Doctors' Commons fellows are the gayest men in town, I believe, and beat us sober Oxford people all to nothing!" His bright glance went merrily round the room, as he took the seat on the sofa opposite to me, which Mrs. Micawber had recently vacated, and stirred the fire into a blaze. 
‘Quite unpossible to identify any gen’l’m’n vith any degree o’ mental satisfaction, vithout lookin’ at him, Sir,’ replied the voice dogmatically. 
‘You must have patience.’ 
"Until within these few weeks I was afraid of you, and I believed that you would never, never forgive." 
Passing through a warehouse which presented every indication of a thriving business, Mr. Cheeryble (for such Nicholas supposed him to be, from the respect which had been shown him by the warehousemen and porters whom they passed) led him into a little partitioned-off counting-house like a large glass case, in which counting-house there sat--as free from dust and blemish as if he had been fixed into the glass case before the top was put on, and had never come out since--a fat, elderly, large-faced clerk, with silver spectacles and a powdered head. 
‘Now I understand you, Steerforth!’ said I, exultingly. ‘You pretend to have bought it for yourself, but you have really done so to confer a benefit on him. I might have known as much at first, knowing you. My dear kind Steerforth, how can I tell you what I think of your generosity?’ 
The fat boy almost laughed again when he heard this suggestion. Mary, after a little more whispering, tripped forth from the group, and said: 
“I promise you that in that case, if the truth is forced from him, there the matter will rest; there must be circumstances in Oliver’s little history which it would be painful to drag before the public eye, and if the truth is once elicited, they shall go scot free.” 
Hugh obeyed in silence. 
The Spectre, without stirring, and with its unwinking, cruel eyes still fixed upon his face, went on: 
The wooden-legged man turned me about so as to exhibit the placard; and having afforded time for a full survey of it, turned me about again, with my face to Mr. Creakle, and posted himself at Mr. Creakle's side. Mr. Creakle's face was fiery, and his eyes were small, and deep in his head; he had thick veins in his forehead, a little nose, and a large chin. He was bald on the top of his head; and had some thin wet-looking hair that was just turning grey, brushed across each temple, so that the two sides interlaced on his forehead. But the circumstance about him which impressed me most, was, that he had no voice, but spoke in a whisper. The exertion this cost him, or the consciousness of talking in that feeble way, made his angry face so much more angry, and his thick veins so much thicker, when he spoke, that I am not surprised, on looking back, at this peculiarity striking me as his chief one. 
The natural phenomena of which he has been the victim, are of a most astounding nature.  He has had two children who have never grown up; who have never had anything to cover them at night; who have been continually driving him mad, by asking in vain for food; who have never come out of fevers and measles (which, I suppose, has accounted for his fuming his letters with tobacco smoke, as a disinfectant); who have never changed in the least degree through fourteen long revolving years.  As to his wife, what that suffering woman has undergone, nobody knows.  She has always been in an interesting situation through the same long period, and has never been confined yet.  His devotion to her has been unceasing.  He has never cared for himself; he could have perished—he would rather, in short—but was it not his Christian duty as a man, a husband, and a father,—to write begging letters when he looked at her?  (He has usually remarked that he would call in the evening for an answer to this question.) 
"Ah!  Sickened, drooped, and died!" I says. 
"Your welfare!" said the Ghost. 
They passed on, talking (he could make out) about a skeleton which had been dug up yesterday, in some work of excavation near at hand, and was supposed to be that of a murdered man. ‘So murder is not always found out, you see,’ they said to one another as they turned the corner. 
"A precious sight more so, I hope--bearing in mind the general run of that class of crittur," said the captain.  "But I interrupt." 
We needn’t tell you all this, however, for if you have an atom of observation, one glance at his sleek, knowing-looking head and face—his prim white neckerchief, with the wooden tie into which it has been regularly folded for twenty years past, merging by imperceptible degrees into a small-plaited shirt-frill—and his comfortable-looking form encased in a well-brushed suit of black—would give you a better idea of his real character than a column of our poor description could convey. 
He looked to the spot where Defarge the vendor of wine had stood, a moment before; but the wretched father was grovelling on his face on the pavement in that spot, and the figure that stood beside him was the figure of a dark stout woman, knitting. 
What he was in toys, he was (as most men are) in other things.  You may easily suppose, therefore, that within the great green cape, which reached down to the calves of his legs, there was buttoned up to the chin an uncommonly pleasant fellow; and that he was about as choice a spirit, and as agreeable a companion, as ever stood in a pair of bull-headed-looking boots with mahogany-coloured tops. 
Nell could not help following at a little distance.  They went to the house of an old nurse, where the elder sister had engaged a bed-room for the child.  ‘I shall come to you early every morning,’ she said, ‘and we can be together all the day.’ 
We all started to hear him say those words.  “I am dying,” said Strange; “will you not grant me my request?” 
"Inconsequent foolishness is lunacy, I suppose?" said the Hermit. 
"Me!" exclaimed Mr. Snodgrass. 
‘Hush! don’t trouble yourself, ma’am,’ said Mr Pecksniff, as the landlady was about to answer. ‘This young’--in spite of himself he hesitated when “person” rose to his lips, and substituted another word: ‘this young stranger, Mrs Lupin, will excuse me for replying briefly, that I reside in this village; it may be in an influential manner, however, undeserved; and that I have been summoned here by you. I am here, as I am everywhere, I hope, in sympathy for the sick and sorry.’ 
Thus expressing himself, the little gentleman poked his snuff-box first into the chest of Mr. Pickwick, and then into the waistcoat of Mr. Wardle, upon which they all three laughed, especially the two last-named gentlemen, who at once shook hands again, without any obvious or particular reason. 
‘Very natural under the circumstances,’ observed the Notary.  ‘Mr Abel’s feelings did credit to his nature, and credit to your nature, ma’am, and his father’s nature, and human nature.  I trace the same current now, flowing through all his quiet and unobtrusive proceedings.--I am about to sign my name, you observe, at the foot of the articles which Mr Chuckster will witness; and placing my finger upon this blue wafer with the vandyked corners, I am constrained to remark in a distinct tone of voice--don’t be alarmed, ma’am, it is merely a form of law--that I deliver this, as my act and deed.  Mr Abel will place his name against the other wafer, repeating the same cabalistic words, and the business is over.  Ha ha ha!  You see how easily these things are done!’ 
I saw him wink, solemnly, at his sister, as he rose and said, taking up the cane: 
‘Now, Cavalletto,’ said Clennam, gently turning him by the arm, so that they looked into each other’s eyes. ‘I am certain that for the little I have been able to do for you, you are the most sincerely grateful of men.’ 
One thing more, I had to do, before yielding myself to the shock of these emotions. It was, to conceal what had occurred, from those who were going away; and to dismiss them on their voyage in happy ignorance. In this, no time was to be lost. 
'I was away from London, a week and more, my dear, on a plant,' replied the Jew. 
‘That is my understanding,’ assented Mr. Grewgious, as they shook hands to part.  ‘God bless them both!’ 
"He is a kind friend to you, for he is going to give you lodging room here." 
"I should indeed," replied Nicholas. 
CHAPTER XIII A JAUNT TO THE LOOKING-GLASS PRAIRIE AND BACK 
'Let me leave it alone, then,' said Scrooge. 'Much good may it do you! Much good it has ever done you!' 
‘PROFESSOR QUEERSPECK explained that City gentlemen would run in trains, being handcuffed together to prevent confusion or unpleasantness.  For instance, trains would start every morning at eight, nine, and ten o’clock, from Camden Town, Islington, Camberwell, Hackney, and various other places in which City gentlemen are accustomed to reside.  It would be necessary to have a level, but he had provided for this difficulty by proposing that the best line that the circumstances would admit of, should be taken through the sewers which undermine the streets of the metropolis, and which, well lighted by jets from the gas pipes which run immediately above them, would form a pleasant and commodious arcade, especially in winter-time, when the inconvenient custom of carrying umbrellas, now so general, could be wholly dispensed with.  In reply to another question, Professor Queerspeck stated that no substitute for the purposes to which these arcades were at present devoted had yet occurred to him, but that he hoped no fanciful objection on this head would be allowed to interfere with so great an undertaking. 
"I have witnessed some, certainly," replied the old gentleman; "but the incidents and characters have been of a homely and ordinary nature, my sphere of action being so very limited." 
‘Oh! I hope so!’ cried Oliver. ‘They were so good to me; so very, very good to me.’ 
"My time grows short," observed the Spirit. "Quick!" 
‘Mr Casby, could you, for the satisfaction of the friends I have mentioned, and under any obligation of secrecy that you may consider it your duty to impose, give me any information at all touching Miss Wade? I have seen her abroad, and I have seen her at home, but I know nothing of her. Could you give me any account of her whatever?’ 
After calling at one or two flat places, with low dams stretching out into the lake, whereon were stumpy lighthouses, like windmills without sails, the whole looking like a Dutch vignette, we came at midnight to Cleveland, where we lay all night, and until nine o’clock next morning. 
“I cannot help this weakness, and it makes my purpose stronger,” said Rose, extending her hand. “I must leave you now, indeed.” 
‘Sorry to hear from Tope that you have not been well, Jasper.’ 
Mr. Giles walked into the corner with much importance, and some wonder, and was honoured with a short whispering conference with the doctor, on the termination of which, he made a great many bows, and retired with steps of unusual stateliness.  The subject matter of this conference was not disclosed in the parlour, but the kitchen was speedily enlightened concerning it; for Mr. Giles walked straight thither, and having called for a mug of ale, announced, with an air of majesty, which was highly effective, that it had pleased his mistress, in consideration of his gallant behaviour on the occasion of that attempted robbery, to deposit, in the local savings-bank, the sum of five-and-twenty pounds, for his sole use and benefit.  At this, the two women-servants lifted up their hands and eyes, and supposed that Mr. Giles, pulling out his shirt-frill, replied, 'No, no'; and that if they observed that he was at all haughty to his inferiors, he would thank them to tell him so.  And then he made a great many other remarks, no less illustrative of his humility, which were received with equal favour and applause, and were, withal, as original and as much to the purpose, as the remarks of great men commonly are. 
"Snodgrass! Since last Christmas!" were the first broken words that issued from the lips of the confounded gentleman. 
‘Thank you, sir. But none on my accounts,’ said Mrs Bangham. 
After a short silence, a gentleman in an embroidered coat reaching down to his heels, and a waistcoat of the same which kept one half of his legs warm, stirred his gin and water with great energy, and putting himself upon his feet, all at once, by a violent effort, said he was desirous of offering a few remarks to the company: whereupon the person in the cocked hat had no doubt that the company would be very happy to hear any remarks that the man in the long coat might wish to offer. 
It was in these ways that I began to form a shy disposition; to be of a timidly silent character under misconstruction; to have an inexpressible, perhaps a morbid, dread of ever being sordid or worldly.  It was in these ways that my nature came to shape itself to such a mould, even before it was affected by the influences of the studious and retired life of a poor scholar. 
‘Lard!’ exclaimed Mr Boffin, in a tone of great enjoyment, as he settled himself down, still nursing his stick like a baby, ‘it’s a pleasant place, this! And then to be shut in on each side, with these ballads, like so many book-leaf blinkers! Why, its delightful!’ 
Jealous of the custody of the box, and yet fearful of opening it under the existing circumstances, Wegg hesitated. ‘Come, I tell you,’ repeated Venus, chafing, ‘to my place.’ Not very well seeing his way to a refusal, Mr Wegg then rejoined in a gush, ‘--Hear me out!--Certainly.’ So he locked up the Bower and they set forth: Mr Venus taking his arm, and keeping it with remarkable tenacity. 
The door was barred and locked again, and once again she stood beneath her father's roof. Not bowed down by the secret that she brought there, though so young; but with that same expression on her face, for which I had no name before, and shining through her tears. 
The first thing John Harmon saw after he was well enough to walk was a printed notice announcing the finding of his own dead body--which gave him a very queer sensation. Lying there he had had time to think over the adventure and he had guessed pretty nearly how it all had happened. He went at once to the police station to look at the corpse and saw it was that of his false friend, who had tried to lure him to his death. So it was the real John Harmon who had so excitedly appeared that night to the police inspectors, and had vanished immediately, and whom they had searched for so long in vain, under the suspicion that he himself was the murderer. 
‘Shorn indeed!’ thought Kit.  ‘Pretty close!’ But he didn’t say _so_. 
You should see our Bandolining Room at Mugby Junction.  It's led to by the door behind the counter, which you'll notice usually stands ajar, and it's the room where Our Missis and our young ladies Bandolines their hair.  You should see 'em at it, betwixt trains, Bandolining away, as if they was anointing themselves for the combat.  When you're telegraphed, you should see their noses all a-going up with scorn, as if it was a part of the working of the same Cooke and Wheatstone electrical machinery.  You should hear Our Missis give the word, "Here comes the Beast to be Fed!" and then you should see 'em indignantly skipping across the Line, from the Up to the Down, or Wicer Warsaw, and begin to pitch the stale pastry into the plates, and chuck the sawdust sangwiches under the glass covers, and get out the--ha, ha, ha!--the sherry,--O my eye, my eye!--for your Refreshment. 
“You’ll drive me on to something desperate,” muttered the girl placing both hands upon her breast as though to keep down by force some violent outbreak. “Let me go, will you,—this minute,—this instant—” 
There, the table was laid for his supper, and his old grey gown was ready for him on his chair-back at the fire. His daughter put her little prayer-book in her pocket--had she been praying for pity on all prisoners and captives!--and rose to welcome him. 
‘Was it so angry?’ asked her daughter, roused to interest in a moment. 
Crackit went to the window, and, shaking all over, drew in his head. There was no need to tell them who it was; his pale face was enough. The dog too was on the alert in an instant, and ran whining to the door. 
Each of us had a glassful, and it was delicious; and each of us drank the toast, ‘Our love at parting.’  The colonel drank his wine last; and it got into my head directly that it got into his directly.  Anyhow, his eyes rolled immediately after he had turned the glass upside down; and he took me on one side and proposed in a hoarse whisper, that we should ‘Cut ‘em out still.’ 
Though convivial in his youth, yet, for the greatest portion of his life, Nash was rigidly abstemious in his habits. He loved plain dishes, seldom remained long at table, and usually contented himself with two glasses of wine. But he liked to see his friends enjoy themselves, and would encourage them in these elegant and emphatic terms: "Eat, gentlemen,--eat and drink, in God's name; spare, and the devil choke you!" His favourite meal was supper; and so fond was he of potatoes, which he called the English pine-apple, that he used to eat them, like fruit, after dinner. He was also remarkable for his love of early rising, being seldom in bed after four in summer, and five in winter. His generosity and benevolence were unbounded. He gave away enormous sums in charity, and founded a hospital at Bath, the expenses of which for a time almost beggared him. Though he had a great respect for rank, yet he discouraged anything like aristocratic assumption; and, whenever he heard a young lord boasting of his family, never failed to put him down with a sneer. In this respect he resembles the late John Kemble, of whom it is recorded, that, when dining with the Dukes of Hamilton and Gordon, who were boasting somewhat ostentatiously of the antiquity of their blood, he lost all patience, and put an abrupt stop to their egotism by exclaiming, "D--n both your bloods; pass the bottle!" Owing to his frequent intercourse with small poets, Nash fancied that he was a judge of the art. A volume of Pope, who was his favourite writer, generally lay on his table, though we question much whether he ever got beyond the "Rape of the Lock." This, however, was a production every way calculated to please him; and, accordingly,--a rich trait of character,--he was never weary of repeating the lines, 
After it had passed away they were ten times merrier than before, from the mere relief of Scrooge the Baleful being done with. Bob Cratchit told them how he had a situation in his eye for Master Peter, which would bring in, if obtained, full five-and-sixpence weekly. The two young Cratchits laughed tremendously at the idea of Peter's being a man of business; and Peter himself looked thoughtfully at the fire from between his collars, as if he were deliberating what particular investments he should favour when he came into the receipt of that bewildering income. Martha, who was a poor apprentice at a milliner's, then told them what kind of work she had to do, and how many hours she worked at a stretch, and how she meant to lie abed to-morrow morning for a good long rest; to-morrow being a holiday she passed at home. Also how she had seen a countess and a lord some days before, and how the lord "was much about as tall as Peter"; at which Peter pulled up his collars so high, that you couldn't have seen his head if you had been there. All this time the chestnuts and the jug went round and round; and by-and-by they had a song, about a lost child travelling in the snow, from Tiny Tim, who had a plaintive little voice, and sang it very well indeed. 
It was the first time I had heard my aunt refer to her past history. There was a magnanimity in her quiet way of doing so, and of dismissing it, which would have exalted her in my respect and affection, if any thing could. 
"I have seen her in the streets," he answered, with a shiver. 
‘You will consider that it is done,’ he repeated, ‘by Master Paul. I have explained that to him, and he understands it. I wish no more to be said.’ 
‘And nice acquaintances you will make!’ remarked uncle Abel sneeringly. 
‘Then how am I to know!’ inquired the mayor.  ‘Of course he will not give his own name at the bar.’ 
"I will not trouble you, Lady Dedlock. Pray spare yourself." 
‘Here, waiter!’ shouted the stranger, ringing the bell with tremendous violence, ‘glasses round--brandy-and-water, hot and strong, and sweet, and plenty,--eye damaged, Sir? Waiter! raw beef-steak for the gentleman’s eye--nothing like raw beef-steak for a bruise, sir; cold lamp-post very good, but lamp-post inconvenient--damned odd standing in the open street half an hour, with your eye against a lamp-post--eh,-- very good--ha! ha!’ And the stranger, without stopping to take breath, swallowed at a draught full half a pint of the reeking brandy-and-water, and flung himself into a chair with as much ease as if nothing uncommon had occurred. 
The people had been thrown into the strangest state of confusion by his flight, and had taken it into their heads that the Irish part of the army were going to murder the Protestants.  Therefore, they set the bells a ringing, and lighted watch-fires, and burned Catholic Chapels, and looked about in all directions for Father Petre and the Jesuits, while the Pope's ambassador was running away in the dress of a footman.  They found no Jesuits; but a man, who had once been a frightened witness before Jeffreys in court, saw a swollen, drunken face looking through a window down at Wapping, which he well remembered.  The face was in a sailor's dress, but he knew it to be the face of that accursed judge, and he seized him.  The people, to their lasting honour, did not tear him to pieces.  After knocking him about a little, they took him, in the basest agonies of terror, to the Lord Mayor, who sent him, at his own shrieking petition, to the Tower for safety.  There, he died. 
Tom came. Constrained and altered in his manner, downcast and dejected, visibly confused; not liking to look Pecksniff in the face. 
‘No one knows it. Don’t look towards me; look towards him. He will turn his face in a moment. No one knows it, but I am sure he did. You are?’ 
"Oh, mamma!" she exclaimed, "I never--" and then she went off again. 
External heat and cold had little influence on Scrooge. No warmth could warm, nor wintry weather chill him. No wind that blew was bitterer than he, no falling snow was more intent upon its purpose, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather didn't know where to have him. The heaviest rain, and snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of the advantage over him in only one respect. They often "came down" handsomely, and Scrooge never did. 
Tom went into his room, and went to bed, full of uncomfortable thoughts. That there should be any such tremendous division in the family as he knew must have taken place to convert Charity Pecksniff into his friend, for any reason, but, above all, for that which was clearly the real one; that Jonas, who had assailed him with such exceeding coarseness, should have been sufficiently magnanimous to keep the secret of their quarrel; and that any train of circumstances should have led to the commission of an assault and battery by Thomas Pinch upon any man calling himself the friend of Seth Pecksniff; were matters of such deep and painful cogitation that he could not close his eyes. His own violence, in particular, so preyed upon the generous mind of Tom, that coupling it with the many former occasions on which he had given Mr Pecksniff pain and anxiety (occasions of which that gentleman often reminded him), he really began to regard himself as destined by a mysterious fate to be the evil genius and bad angel of his patron. But he fell asleep at last, and dreamed--new source of waking uneasiness--that he had betrayed his trust, and run away with Mary Graham. 
‘I dare say you are surprised, my dear sir, that I have listened to your recital with so little astonishment. That is easily explained. Your uncle has been here this morning.’ 
"The Spirit of the Chimes is your companion," said the figure. "Go! It stands behind you!" 
This Penautier was a man of wealth and station, holding the office of treasurer of the province of Languedoc and of the clergy. He was discovered to have been intimately connected with St. Croix and Madame de Brinvillier, and strongly suspected of having been a participator in their crimes. He was accused by the widow of M. de Saint Laurent, receiver-general of the clergy, of having employed St. Croix to poison her husband, in order to obtain his place, and of having accomplished this object by means of a valet whom St. Croix had got into her husband's service. Penautier was put in prison; but Madame de Sevigné says that the investigation was stifled by the influence of powerful protectors, among whom were the Archbishop of Paris and the celebrated Colbert. In one of her letters she says, "Penautier is fortunate; never was a man so well protected. He will get out of this business, but without being justified in the eyes of the world. Extraordinary things have transpired in the course of this investigation; but they cannot be mentioned." He was released, resumed the exercise of his offices, and lived in his former splendour. The first people had no objection to enjoy his luxurious table; but his character with the public was irrecoverably gone. Cardinal de Bonzy, who had to pay some annuities with which his archbishopric of Narbonne was burdened, survived all the annuitants, and said that, thanks to his star! he had buried them. Madame de Sevigné, seeing him one day in his carriage with Penautier, said to a friend, "There goes the Archbishop of Narbonne with _his star_!" 
‘Aye!’ returned the other, gruffly. ‘Is it known to anybody else? Come! Don’t waver about that.’ 
‘Lookie yonder.  You see that there winder and door?’ 
The Phantom moved away as it had come towards him. Scrooge followed in the shadow of its dress, which bore him up, he thought, and carried him along. 
Here, the little gentleman paused, and took a long pull at his brandy-and-water.  Mr. Watkins Tottle took a sip of his, stirred the fire, and assumed an air of profound attention. 
‘Should you?’ was the only reply of the bagman, who continued to smoke with great vehemence. 
With this, Master Bates laid himself flat on the floor, and kicked convulsively for five minutes, in an ecstasy of joy.  Then jumping to his feet, he snatched the cleft stick from the Dodger, and, advancing to Oliver, viewed him round and round, while the Jew, taking off his nightcap, made a great number of low bows to the bewildered boy.  The Artful, meantime, who seldom gave way to merriment when it interfered with business, rifled Oliver’s pockets thoroughly. 
“Doctor Manette. My dear friend, Doctor Manette!” 
"Oh, well! we'll go as far as Dover; there's no occasion to cross that odious channel." 
'He cannot be hardened in vice,' said Rose; 'It is impossible.' 
"The messenger!" said Trottle, under his breath.  He went out instantly to answer the knock; and returned, leading in a respectable-looking elderly man, dressed like Trottle, all in black, with a white cravat, but otherwise not at all resembling him. 
"Have you no more respect for me? and don't you know that I am your master, the devil?" 
Even with that success, twelve hours would have ended the treasonable triumph. More blood might have been shed, but the end would have been the same, and by noon the next day the insurrection would have terminated as it commenced--in slaughter. 
Hard by here is a large Palazzo, formerly belonging to some member of the Brignole family, but just now hired by a school of Jesuits for their summer quarters.  I walked into its dismantled precincts the other evening about sunset, and couldn’t help pacing up and down for a little time, drowsily taking in the aspect of the place: which is repeated hereabouts in all directions. 
Though she looked steadily at me, I saw that she was rather confused. Estella, pausing a moment in her knitting with her eyes upon me, and then going on, I fancied that I read in the action of her fingers, as plainly as if she had told me in the dumb alphabet, that she perceived I had discovered my real benefactor. 
‘To be sure you couldn’t have known him before unless you had been in China or had corresponded neither of which is likely,’ returned Flora, ‘for travelling-people usually get more or less mahogany and you are not at all so and as to corresponding what about? that’s very true unless tea, so it was at his mother’s was it really that you knew him first, highly sensible and firm but dreadfully severe--ought to be the mother of the man in the iron mask.’ 
She was very kind to me.  She kept me there all day, and left me alone sometimes; and I cried and wore myself to sleep, and awoke and cried again. 
The window indicated was the office window. We all three went to it, behind the wire blind, and presently saw the client go by in an accidental manner, with a murderous-looking tall individual, in a short suit of white linen and a paper cap. This guileless confectioner was not by any means sober, and had a black eye in the green stage of recovery, which was painted over. 
‘Oh, I say. Look here! My father’s not in the way, and won’t be in the way to-day,’ said Barnacle Junior. ‘Is this anything that I can do?’ 
‘No,’ said Smike, ‘no. Come, let us walk on.’ 
‘I hoped so. I am so thankful. So well done of you, Charley dear! It is better for me not to come (except when he wants me) between him and his prospects. You think so, Mr Headstone?’ 
'On the wings of the wind,' replied the Ghost. 
‘He’s uncommon pale,’ replied his father, ‘’cept about the nose, which is redder than ever. His appetite is wery so-so, but he imbibes wonderful.’ 
"I know it," said Mr. Pickwick. "I observed it once before, when I was in this town. You may depend upon me." 
‘Oh!’ sneered Sally, looking after him as she entered.  ‘There goes your pet, Sammy, eh?’ 
‘Good evening, Richards.’ 
‘The House will once again, Mrs Dombey,’ said Mr Dombey, ‘be not only in name but in fact Dombey and Son;’ and he added, in a tone of luxurious satisfaction, with his eyes half-closed as if he were reading the name in a device of flowers, and inhaling their fragrance at the same time; ‘Dom-bey and Son!’ 
‘I do, sir!’ replied Snitchey; ‘and I have also reason to know that it will be broken to her sister to-morrow evening.  They have given her that promise.  In the meantime, perhaps you’ll give me the honour of your company at my house; being unexpected at your own.  But, not to run the chance of any more such difficulties as you have had here, in case you should be recognised—though you’re a good deal changed; I think I might have passed you myself, Mr. Warden—we had better dine here, and walk on in the evening.  It’s a very good place to dine at, Mr. Warden: your own property, by-the-bye.  Self and Craggs (deceased) took a chop here sometimes, and had it very comfortably served.  Mr. Craggs, sir,’ said Snitchey, shutting his eyes tight for an instant, and opening them again, ‘was struck off the roll of life too soon.’ 
Mr. and Mrs. Chirrup are the nice little couple in question.  Mr. Chirrup has the smartness, and something of the brisk, quick manner of a small bird.  Mrs. Chirrup is the prettiest of all little women, and has the prettiest little figure conceivable.  She has the neatest little foot, and the softest little voice, and the pleasantest little smile, and the tidiest little curls, and the brightest little eyes, and the quietest little manner, and is, in short, altogether one of the most engaging of all little women, dead or alive.  She is a condensation of all the domestic virtues,—a pocket edition of the young man’s best companion,—a little woman at a very high pressure, with an amazing quantity of goodness and usefulness in an exceedingly small space.  Little as she is, Mrs. Chirrup might furnish forth matter for the moral equipment of a score of housewives, six feet high in their stockings—if, in the presence of ladies, we may be allowed the expression—and of corresponding robustness. 
Thus were these great criminals brought to justice; and they received, it may be supposed, the punishment of their crimes. No: they were pardoned by the king,--nay more, received especial marks of royal favour! They were imprisoned in the Tower till January 1621, when the king, by an order in council, granted them the liberty of retiring to a country-house. "Whereas his Majesty is graciously pleased," thus ran the order, "to enlarge and set at liberty the Earl of Somerset and his lady, now prisoners in the Tower of London, and that nevertheless it is thought fit that both the said earl and his lady be confined to some convenient place; it is therefore, according to his majesty's gracious pleasure and command, ordered that the Earl of Somerset and his lady do repair either to Greys or Cowsham, the Lord Wallingford's houses in the county of Oxon, and remain confined to one or other of the said houses, and within three miles' compass of either of the same, until further order be given by his majesty." In 1624, they both obtained full pardons; the lady, on the ground that "the process and judgment against her were not as of a principal, but as of an accessory before the fact;" and the earl, merely on the ground of the king's regard for his family. Nor was this all: his majesty granted the earl an income of four thousand pounds a-year out of his forfeited estate; and, what was still worse, in order to save this minion from disgrace, committed a gross outrage on the order of knighthood to which he belonged. "The king," says Camden, "ordered that the arms of the Earl of Somerset, notwithstanding his being condemned of felony, should not be removed out of the chapel at Windsor, and that felony should not be reckoned amongst the disgraces for those who were to be excluded from the order of St. George; which was without precedent." Without precedent indeed! 
“Outside the blinds. Open the blinds.” 
‘Yes,’ she answered, wondering. 
Oh, moralists, who treat of happiness and self-respect, innate in every sphere of life, and shedding light on every grain of dust in God’s highway, so smooth below your carriage-wheels, so rough beneath the tread of naked feet, bethink yourselves in looking on the swift descent of men who HAVE lived in their own esteem, that there are scores of thousands breathing now, and breathing thick with painful toil, who in that high respect have never lived at all, nor had a chance of life! Go ye, who rest so placidly upon the sacred Bard who had been young, and when he strung his harp was old, and had never seen the righteous forsaken, or his seed begging their bread; go, Teachers of content and honest pride, into the mine, the mill, the forge, the squalid depths of deepest ignorance, and uttermost abyss of man’s neglect, and say can any hopeful plant spring up in air so foul that it extinguishes the soul’s bright torch as fast as it is kindled! And, oh! ye Pharisees of the nineteen hundredth year of Christian Knowledge, who soundingly appeal to human nature, see that it be human first. Take heed it has not been transformed, during your slumber and the sleep of generations, into the nature of the Beasts! 
There was a delicious sense of cleaning-up and making a quiet pause before going on in life afresh, in our village on Saturday nights, which stimulated Joe to dare to stay out half an hour longer on Saturdays than at other times. The half-hour and the rum and water running out together, Joe got up to go, and took me by the hand. 
I inclined my head, without knowing what she meant; and she said, ‘Come here!’ again; and returned, followed by the respectable Mr. Littimer, who, with undiminished respectability, made me a bow, and took up his position behind her. The air of wicked grace: of triumph, in which, strange to say, there was yet something feminine and alluring: with which she reclined upon the seat between us, and looked at me, was worthy of a cruel Princess in a Legend. 
Mr Pecksniff straightened himself by a surprising effort, as every one turned hastily towards him; and standing on his feet, regarded the assembly with a look of ineffable wisdom. Gradually it gave place to a smile; a feeble, helpless, melancholy smile; bland, almost to sickliness. ‘Do not repine, my friends,’ said Mr Pecksniff, tenderly. ‘Do not weep for me. It is chronic.’ And with these words, after making a futile attempt to pull off his shoes, he fell into the fireplace. 
The windows stood open, and the twilight was gathering without. 
‘I should say not,’ assents Durdles; ‘then we won’t try to give it a name.’ 
Grip was by no means an idle or unprofitable member of the humble household. Partly by dint of Barnaby’s tuition, and partly by pursuing a species of self-instruction common to his tribe, and exerting his powers of observation to the utmost, he had acquired a degree of sagacity which rendered him famous for miles round. His conversational powers and surprising performances were the universal theme: and as many persons came to see the wonderful raven, and none left his exertions unrewarded--when he condescended to exhibit, which was not always, for genius is capricious--his earnings formed an important item in the common stock. Indeed, the bird himself appeared to know his value well; for though he was perfectly free and unrestrained in the presence of Barnaby and his mother, he maintained in public an amazing gravity, and never stooped to any other gratuitous performances than biting the ankles of vagabond boys (an exercise in which he much delighted), killing a fowl or two occasionally, and swallowing the dinners of various neighbouring dogs, of whom the boldest held him in great awe and dread. 
Though still she would turn, again and again, before going to bed herself from the simple air that had lulled him to rest so often, long ago, and from the other low soft broken strain of music, back to that house. But that she ever thought of it, or watched it, was a secret which she kept within her own young breast. 
‘I should lose some of the best recollections, best encouragements, and best objects, that I carry through my daily life. I should lose my belief that if I had been his equal, and he had loved me, I should have tried with all my might to make him better and happier, as he would have made me. I should lose almost all the value that I put upon the little learning I have, which is all owing to him, and which I conquered the difficulties of, that he might not think it thrown away upon me. I should lose a kind of picture of him--or of what he might have been, if I had been a lady, and he had loved me--which is always with me, and which I somehow feel that I could not do a mean or a wrong thing before. I should leave off prizing the remembrance that he has done me nothing but good since I have known him, and that he has made a change within me, like--like the change in the grain of these hands, which were coarse, and cracked, and hard, and brown when I rowed on the river with father, and are softened and made supple by this new work as you see them now.’ 
‘What you asked, Sol Gills?’ repeated the Captain. 
While upon this last expedition, he received a letter from Mr. Harris, in which that gentleman informed him that it would be necessary for him to be in London by the 7th of September, to attend the opening of Covent Garden; in consequence of which he was obliged to forego his Edinburgh engagement with Mr. Murray, which annoyed him greatly, for he had calculated upon clearing pretty nigh five hundred pounds by that portion of his trip; besides, being at Newcastle, he was within one day's journey of Edinburgh. However, he was obliged to attend to the summons, and so returned to London, where a few days afterwards he encountered Mr. Harris, with whom he had the following vexatious colloquy. 
The Spirit of the Past. 
Caleb drew his hand across his eyes before he answered her. 
Now, some demon of discord, flying over the Saracen’s Head at that moment, on casting down his eyes in mere idle curiosity, happened to behold Slurk established comfortably by the kitchen fire, and Pott slightly elevated with wine in another room; upon which the malicious demon, darting down into the last-mentioned apartment with inconceivable rapidity, passed at once into the head of Mr. Bob Sawyer, and prompted him for his (the demon’s) own evil purpose to speak as follows:-- 
All might have gone well but for the fame of Mr. Merdle. His wealth seemed so enormous, and his plans so sure, that many people throughout England, just as old Mr. Dorrit had done, put their money in his care. Even Pancks, the rent collector, did so, and strongly advised Arthur to do the same. Convinced by such advice Arthur was unhappily led to invest the money of the new firm in Merdle's schemes. 
‘It’s a proof of the kindness of human nature,’ said Tom, characteristically putting himself quite out of sight in the matter, ‘that everybody who comes here, as you have done, is more considerate and affectionate to me than I should have any right to hope, if I were the most sanguine creature in the world; or should have any power to express, if I were the most eloquent. It really overpowers me. But trust me,’ said Tom, ‘that I am not ungrateful--that I never forget--and that if I can ever prove the truth of my words to you, I will.’ 
‘The wretch!’ exclaimed the spinster, with energetic indignation. (Mr. Jingle’s doubts were resolved. She _had_ money.) 
A person who was evidently going to Mr Pecksniff’s house, passed them at this moment. He raised his eyes at the mention of the architect’s name; and when he had gone on a few yards, stopped and gazed at them. Mr Tapley, also, looked over his shoulder, and so did Martin; for the stranger, as he passed, had looked very sharply at them. 
During the last few minutes, Mrs. Heep had been clamoring to her son to be "umble;" and had been going down on her knees to all of us in succession, and making the wildest promises. Her son sat her down in his chair; and, standing sulkily by her, holding her arm with his hand, but not rudely, said to me, with a ferocious look: 
‘True,’ said Bar, with his light-comedy laugh for special jury-men, which was a very different thing from his low-comedy laugh for comic tradesmen on common juries: ‘he has been in Parliament for some time. Yet hitherto our star has been a vacillating and wavering star? Humph?’ 
The packages and parcels for the errand cart, were numerous; and there were many stoppages to take them in and give them out, which were not by any means the worst parts of the journey.  Some people were so full of expectation about their parcels, and other people were so full of wonder about their parcels, and other people were so full of inexhaustible directions about their parcels, and John had such a lively interest in all the parcels, that it was as good as a play.  Likewise, there were articles to carry, which required to be considered and discussed, and in reference to the adjustment and disposition of which, councils had to be holden by the Carrier and the senders: at which Boxer usually assisted, in short fits of the closest attention, and long fits of tearing round and round the assembled sages and barking himself hoarse.  Of all these little incidents, Dot was the amused and open-eyed spectatress from her chair in the cart; and as she sat there, looking on—a charming little portrait framed to admiration by the tilt—there was no lack of nudgings and glancings and whisperings and envyings among the younger men.  And this delighted John the Carrier, beyond measure; for he was proud to have his little wife admired, knowing that she didn’t mind it—that, if anything, she rather liked it perhaps. 
In which Nicholas falls in Love. He employs a Mediator, whose Proceedings are crowned with unexpected Success, excepting in one solitary Particular 
Seeing that what he said had no effect on me or any of us, he sat on the edge of his table with his hands in his pockets, and one of his splay feet twisted round the other leg, waiting doggedly for what might follow. 
She was too intent upon her work, and too earnest in what she said, and too composed and quiet altogether, to be on the watch for any look he might direct towards her in reply; so the shaft of his ungrateful glance fell harmless, and did not wound her. 
'I suppose it was,' replied Oliver, 'because heaven is a long way off; and they are too happy there, to come down to the bedside of a poor boy.  But if she knew I was ill, she must have pitied me, even there; for she was very ill herself before she died.  She can't know anything about me though,' added Oliver after a moment's silence.  'If she had seen me hurt, it would have made her sorrowful; and her face has always looked sweet and happy, when I have dreamed of her.' 
Shortly after his return to town, and about a week before Easter, he saw with great astonishment that it was announced, or, to use the theatrical term, "underlined," in the Drury Lane bills, that "Harlequin Amulet" would be revived at Easter, and that Mr. Grimaldi would sustain his original character. This announcement being in direct violation of his articles of agreement at Drury Lane, and wholly inconsistent with the terms of his engagement at Sadler's Wells, he had no alternative but at once to wait upon Mr. John Kemble, the stage-manager of the former theatre, and explain to him the exact nature of his position. 
‘Those times, however,’ pursued Mr Casby, ‘are past and gone, past and gone. I do myself the pleasure of making a visit to your respected mother occasionally, and of admiring the fortitude and strength of mind with which she bears her trials, bears her trials.’ 
We discovered the secret at last; the metropolitan Members always dined at home.  The rascals!  As for giving additional Members to Ireland, it was even worse—decidedly unconstitutional.  Why, sir, an Irish Member would go up there, and eat more dinner than three English Members put together.  He took no wine; drank table-beer by the half-gallon; and went home to Manchester-buildings, or Millbank-street, for his whiskey-and-water.  And what was the consequence?  Why, the concern lost—actually lost, sir—by his patronage.  A queer old fellow is Nicholas, and as completely a part of the building as the house itself. We wonder he ever left the old place, and fully expected to see in the papers, the morning after the fire, a pathetic account of an old gentleman in black, of decent appearance, who was seen at one of the upper windows when the flames were at their height, and declared his resolute intention of falling with the floor.  He must have been got out by force.  However, he was got out—here he is again, looking as he always does, as if he had been in a bandbox ever since the last session.  There he is, at his old post every night, just as we have described him: and, as characters are scarce, and faithful servants scarcer, long may he be there, say we! 
The applause consequent on this toast, has scarcely subsided, when a young gentleman in a pink under-waistcoat, sitting towards the bottom of the table, is observed to grow very restless and fidgety, and to evince strong indications of some latent desire to give vent to his feelings in a speech, which the wary Tupple at once perceiving, determines to forestall by speaking himself.  He, therefore, rises again, with an air of solemn importance, and trusts he may be permitted to propose another toast (unqualified approbation, and Mr. Tupple proceeds).  He is sure they must all be deeply impressed with the hospitality—he may say the splendour—with which they have been that night received by their worthy host and hostess.  (Unbounded applause.)  Although this is the first occasion on which he has had the pleasure and delight of sitting at that board, he has known his friend Dobble long and intimately; he has been connected with him in business—he wishes everybody present knew Dobble as well as he does.  (A cough from the host.)  He (Tupple) can lay his hand upon his (Tupple’s) heart, and declare his confident belief that a better man, a better husband, a better father, a better brother, a better son, a better relation in any relation of life, than Dobble, never existed. (Loud cries of ‘Hear!’)  They have seen him to-night in the peaceful bosom of his family; they should see him in the morning, in the trying duties of his office.  Calm in the perusal of the morning papers, uncompromising in the signature of his name, dignified in his replies to the inquiries of stranger applicants, deferential in his behaviour to his superiors, majestic in his deportment to the messengers.  (Cheers.)  When he bears this merited testimony to the excellent qualities of his friend Dobble, what can he say in approaching such a subject as Mrs. Dobble?  Is it requisite for him to expatiate on the qualities of that amiable woman? No; he will spare his friend Dobble’s feelings; he will spare the feelings of his friend—if he will allow him to have the honour of calling him so—Mr. Dobble, junior.  (Here Mr. Dobble, junior, who has been previously distending his mouth to a considerable width, by thrusting a particularly fine orange into that feature, suspends operations, and assumes a proper appearance of intense melancholy).  He will simply say—and he is quite certain it is a sentiment in which all who hear him will readily concur—that his friend Dobble is as superior to any man he ever knew, as Mrs. Dobble is far beyond any woman he ever saw (except her daughters); and he will conclude by proposing their worthy ‘Host and Hostess, and may they live to enjoy many more new years!’ 
"I greatly regret to hear it," said the other. "But pray tell me his condition without reserve: you may safely be communicative to me. What is the nature of the disorder? what is it called?" 
Guided by his breathing, the visitor advanced to where he sat; and stopping beside him, and stretching out his hand to assure himself that he was right, remained, for a good space, silent. 
‘No, don’t,’ said Sir Mulberry, folding his crushed hat to lay his elbow on, and bringing himself still closer to the young lady; ‘upon my life, you oughtn’t to. Such a devoted slave of yours, Miss Nickleby--it’s an infernal thing to treat him so harshly, upon my soul it is.’ 
“Yes, Ma’am,” answered the girl, “and the vicarage is just the other side of it.” 
At breakfast-time my sister declared her intention of going to town with us, and being left at Uncle Pumblechook’s and called for “when we had done with our fine ladies”—a way of putting the case, from which Joe appeared inclined to augur the worst. The forge was shut up for the day, and Joe inscribed in chalk upon the door (as it was his custom to do on the very rare occasions when he was not at work) the monosyllable HOUT, accompanied by a sketch of an arrow supposed to be flying in the direction he had taken. 
‘Why then, we’ll all go back to the factory, or walk in that direction,’ returned Mr Meagles cheerfully. ‘Mr Clennam won’t be deterred by its being in Bleeding Heart Yard.’ 
"Married!" cried the Blind Girl, starting from him. 
To make his example the more impressive, Mr. Micawber drank a glass of punch with an air of great enjoyment and satisfaction, and whistled the College Hornpipe. 
‘Statistics,’ said Louisa. 
‘Ah, bless ‘em, that I do, dear as it is,’ replied the nurse. ‘I couldn’t see ‘em suffer before my very eyes, you know sir.’ 
As each dark vision passed and spoke I prayed it to depart: At each some buried sorrow woke And stirred within my heart. 
Nothing more being said of repairing to Riah’s, they went direct to Lizzie’s lodging. A little short of the house-door she parted from them, and went in alone. 
'Yo ho, my boys!' said Fezziwig. 'No more work to-night. Christmas Eve, Dick. Christmas, Ebenezer! Let's have the shutters up,' cried old Fezziwig, with a sharp clap of his hands, 'before a man can say Jack Robinson!' 
The reader will have the goodness to imagine the Sanctum Sanctorum of Household Words.  Anything that best suits the reader’s fancy, will best represent that magnificent chamber.  We merely stipulate for a round table in the middle, with some glasses and cigars arranged upon it; and the editorial sofa elegantly hemmed in between that stately piece of furniture and the wall. 
At first she wouldn’t come at all; and then she pleaded for five minutes by my watch. When at length she put her arm through mine, to be taken to the drawing-room, her charming little face was flushed, and had never been so pretty. But, when we went into the room, and it turned pale, she was ten thousand times prettier yet. 
‘Brother,’ cried the hangman, as, following an officer, he traversed under these novel circumstances the remains of passages with which he was well acquainted, ‘am I going to be along with anybody?’ 
'Humph!' rejoined the doctor.  'There is nothing very alarming in his appearance.  Have you any objection to see him in my presence?' 
‘I never had one,’ he returned, shaking his head.  ‘She’s my brother’s child: a orphan.  Nine year old, though you’d hardly think it; but she’s tired and worn out now.  They’d have taken care on her, the Union—eight-and-twenty mile away from where we live—between four walls (as they took care of my old father when he couldn’t work no more, though he didn’t trouble ’em long); but I took her instead, and she’s lived with me ever since.  Her mother had a friend once, in London here.  We are trying to find her, and to find work too; but it’s a large place.  Never mind.  More room for us to walk about in, Lilly!’ 
‘That’s me,’ said the lady.  ‘I am Mrs Jarley.’ 
‘What is this!’ said Gashford, turning it over with an air of perfectly natural surprise. ‘Where did you get it from, my good fellow; what does it mean? I don’t understand this at all.’ 
"No, nor yet to the recover, I'll be sworn," observed Plumstone; "no doubt he grounded his arms and his head too." 
The kindling eye and heightened colour of the boy, who had risen from his seat in the earnestness of what he said and felt, seemed to remind old Sol of something he had forgotten, or that his encircling mist had hitherto shut out. Instead of proceeding with any more anecdotes, as he had evidently intended but a moment before, he gave a short dry cough, and said, ‘Well! suppose we change the subject.’ 
There were various other samples of his handicraft besides Dolls in Caleb Plummer's room. There were Noah's arks, in which the Birds and Beasts were an uncommonly tight fit, I assure you; though they could be crammed in, anyhow, at the roof, and rattled and shaken into the smallest compass. By a bold poetical licence, most of these Noah's arks had knockers on the doors; inconsistent appendages, perhaps, as suggestive of morning callers and a Postman, yet a pleasant finish to the outside of the building. There were scores of melancholy little carts, which, when the wheels went round, performed most doleful music. Many small fiddles, drums, and other instruments of torture; no end of cannon, shields, swords, spears, and guns. There were little tumblers in red breeches, incessantly swarming up high obstacles of red tape, and coming down, head first, on the other side; and there were innumerable old gentlemen of respectable, not to say venerable appearance, insanely flying over horizontal pegs, inserted, for the purpose, in their own street-doors. There were beasts of all sorts; horses, in particular, of every breed, from the spotted barrel on four pegs with a small tippet for a mane, to the thorough-bred rocker on his highest mettle. As it would have been hard to count the dozens upon dozens of grotesque figures that were ever ready to commit all sorts of absurdities on the turning of a handle, so it would have been no easy task to mention any human folly, vice, or weakness that had not its type, immediate or remote, in Caleb Plummer's room. And not in an exaggerated form, for very little handles will move men and women to as strange performances as any Toy was ever made to undertake. 
There was a great deal, the next day and afterwards, which Paul could not quite get clear in his mind.  As, why they stopped at Mrs. Pipchin’s for a while instead of going straight home; why he lay in bed, with Florence sitting by him; whether that had been his father in the room, or only a tall shadow on the wall. 
‘Not without our knowledge surely, sir.’ 
My aunt rubbed her nose sometimes when she happened to be alone with me, and said she couldn’t make it out; she wished they were happier; she didn’t think our military friend (so she always called the Old Soldier) mended the matter at all. My aunt further expressed her opinion, ‘that if our military friend would cut off those butterflies, and give ‘em to the chimney-sweepers for May-day, it would look like the beginning of something sensible on her part.’ 
If Miss Tox could believe the evidence of one of her senses, it was a very cold day. That was quite clear. She took an early opportunity of promoting the circulation in the tip of her nose by secretly chafing it with her pocket handkerchief, lest, by its very low temperature, it should disagreeably astonish the baby when she came to kiss it. 
‘I think there’s a pain somewhere in the room,’ said Mrs. Gradgrind, ‘but I couldn’t positively say that I have got it.’ 
The mandate was obeyed, and the indignant Mr. Brownlow was conveyed out, with the book in one hand and the bamboo cane in the other, in a perfect phrenzy of rage and defiance. 
‘I can’t imagine,’ replied Miss Kate, bursting with vexation; for the very fierce air with which the gallant captain regarded the company, had impressed her with a high sense of his importance. 
A night of quiet and repose in the profound silence of Dingley Dell, and an hour's breathing of its fresh and fragrant air on the ensuing morning, completely recovered Mr. Pickwick from the effects of his late fatigue of body and anxiety of mind. That illustrious man had been separated from his friends and followers, for two whole days; and it was with a degree of pleasure and delight, which no common imagination can adequately conceive, that he stepped forward to greet Mr. Winkle and Mr. Snodgrass, as he encountered those gentlemen on his return from his early walk. The pleasure was mutual; for who could ever gaze on Mr. Pickwick's beaming face without experiencing the sensation? But still a cloud seemed to hang over his companions which that great man could not but be sensible of, and was wholly at a loss to account for. There was a mysterious air about them both, as unusual as it was alarming. 
"Can you show me the place as I go back?" 
Mr Lammle sparkled at him, but frowned at him too. 
The girl at the table left off biting her pen and made a return to our recognition, which was half bashful and half sulky. 
"Which is," returned the other, "according to Eternal Providence, that we must arise and wash our faces and do our gregarious work and act and re- act on one another, leaving only the idiot and the palsied to sit blinking in the corner.  Come!" apostrophising the gate.  "Open Sesame! Show his eyes and grieve his heart!  I don't care who comes, for I know what must come of it!" 
"Are spirits' lives so short?" asked Scrooge. 
Triumphing in having been the first to communicate this extraordinary intelligence, Mrs. Nickleby nodded and smiled a great many times, to impress its full magnificence on Kate’s wondering mind, and then flew off, at an acute angle, to a committee of ways and means. 
In an irresolute way, and stealing a clumsy look at her, Bradley rose to place a chair for her, and then returned to his own. 
"To decided rejection, if you please," returned my guardian. 
See the rivers flowing Downwards to the sea, Pouring all their treasures Bountiful and free-- Yet to help their giving Hidden springs arise; Or, if need be, showers Feed them from the skies! 
At length and at last, the promised wind came up in right good earnest, and away we went before it, with every stitch of canvas set, slashing through the water nobly.  There was a grandeur in the motion of the splendid ship, as overshadowed by her mass of sails, she rode at a furious pace upon the waves, which filled one with an indescribable sense of pride and exultation.  As she plunged into a foaming valley, how I loved to see the green waves, bordered deep with white, come rushing on astern, to buoy her upward at their pleasure, and curl about her as she stooped again, but always own her for their haughty mistress still!  On, on we flew, with changing lights upon the water, being now in the blessed region of fleecy skies; a bright sun lighting us by day, and a bright moon by night; the vane pointing directly homeward, alike the truthful index to the favouring wind and to our cheerful hearts; until at sunrise, one fair Monday morning—the twenty-seventh of June, I shall not easily forget the day—there lay before us, old Cape Clear, God bless it, showing, in the mist of early morning, like a cloud: the brightest and most welcome cloud, to us, that ever hid the face of Heaven’s fallen sister—Home. 
‘Governors Both,’ returned the man, in what he meant to be a wheedling tone, ‘which on you might be Lawyer Lightwood?’ 
Hah! That is felt on all hands to be a shot in the bull’s eye. How CAN people do that! The Analytical Chemist going round with champagne, looks very much as if HE could give them a pretty good idea how people did that, if he had a mind. 
As brisk as bees, if not altogether as light as fairies, did the four Pickwickians assemble on the morning of the twenty-second day of December, in the year of grace in which these, their faithfully-recorded adventures, were undertaken and accomplished. Christmas was close at hand, in all his bluff and hearty honesty; it was the season of hospitality, merriment, and open-heartedness; the old year was preparing, like an ancient philosopher, to call his friends around him, and amidst the sound of feasting and revelry to pass gently and calmly away. Gay and merry was the time; and right gay and merry were at least four of the numerous hearts that were gladdened by its coming. 
She was a cruel nurse, and her way of making a sick man swallow a dose of medicine was by choking him till he gasped and then putting the spoon down his throat. 
Thus the child came to be an old man, and his once smooth face was wrinkled, and his steps were slow and feeble, and his back was bent.  And one night as he lay upon his bed, his children standing round, he cried, as he had cried so long ago: 
"I am really afraid he does not," says my mother. 
Obenreizer offered a suggestion. 
Mrs. Nupkins's tears continued to gush forth, with great velocity, until she had gained a little time to think the matter over: when she decided, in her own mind, that the best thing to do would be to ask Mr. Pickwick and his friends to remain until the Captain's arrival, and then to give Mr. Pickwick the opportunity he sought. If it appeared that he had spoken truly, the Captain could be turned out of the house without noising the matter abroad, and they could easily account to the Porkenhams for his disappearance, by saying that he had been appointed, through the Court influence of his family, to the Governor-Generalship of Sierra Leone, or Saugur Point, or any other of those salubrious climates which enchant Europeans so much that when they once get there, they can hardly ever prevail upon themselves to come back again. 
Provisions now ran very low. Our hero put the crew on short allowance, and put himself on shorter allowance than any man in the ship. But his spirit kept him fat. In this extremity, the gratitude of Boozey, the captain of the foretop whom our readers may remember, was truly affecting. The loving though lowly William repeatedly requested to be killed, and preserved for the captain's table. 
‘What do you think,’ said Mr. Craggs, ‘about—’ 
'Strange to have forgotten it for so many years!' observed the Ghost. 'Let us go on.' 
‘Ay, ay, ay! To meet at an appointed place,’ chuckled the old woman, after a moment’s silent and keen scrutiny of his face. 
Upon that, Mr. Skimpole began to talk, for the first time since our arrival, in his usual gay strain. He said, Well, it was really very pleasant to see how things lazily adapted themselves to purposes. Here was this Mr. Gridley, a man of a robust will and surprising energy--intellectually speaking, a sort of inharmonious blacksmith--and he could easily imagine that there Gridley was, years ago, wandering about in life for something to expend his superfluous combativeness upon--a sort of Young Love among the thorns--when the Court of Chancery came in his way and accommodated him with the exact thing he wanted. There they were, matched, ever afterwards! Otherwise he might have been a great general, blowing up all sorts of towns, or he might have been a great politician, dealing in all sorts of parliamentary rhetoric; but as it was, he and the Court of Chancery had fallen upon each other in the pleasantest way, and nobody was much the worse, and Gridley was, so to speak, from that hour provided for. Then look at Coavinses! How delightfully poor Coavinses (father of these charming children) illustrated the same principle! He, Mr. Skimpole, himself, had sometimes repined at the existence of Coavinses. He had found Coavinses in his way. He could had dispensed with Coavinses. There had been times when, if he had been a sultan, and his grand vizier had said one morning, "What does the Commander of the Faithful require at the hands of his slave?" he might have even gone so far as to reply, "The head of Coavinses!" But what turned out to be the case? That, all that time, he had been giving employment to a most deserving man, that he had been a benefactor to Coavinses, that he had actually been enabling Coavinses to bring up these charming children in this agreeable way, developing these social virtues! Insomuch that his heart had just now swelled and the tears had come into his eyes when he had looked round the room and thought, "I was the great patron of Coavinses, and his little comforts were MY work!" 
‘No, you don’t, Sir,’ said Mr. Tuckle. ‘Very far from it, Sir.’ 
'In good time I'll tell you.' said the woman.  'I judge that she had kept the trinket, for some time, in the hope of turning it to better account; and then had pawned it; and had saved or scraped together money to pay the pawnbroker's interest year by year, and prevent its running out; so that if anything came of it, it could still be redeemed.  Nothing had come of it; and, as I tell you, she died with the scrap of paper, all worn and tattered, in her hand.  The time was out in two days; I thought something might one day come of it too; and so redeemed the pledge.' 
‘Were you obliged to have medical attendance?’ inquired Ralph. 
The opening of the little door in the panneled wall made me start and turn. Her beautiful serene eyes met mine as she came towards me. She stopped and laid her hand upon her bosom, and I caught her in my arms. 
‘Say so!  Do you ever say so?  No, you only showed it.  O, she did it so well!’ cries Rosa, in a sudden ecstasy with her counterfeit betrothed. 
In this safe were three shelves and two small drawers. Ranged on the shelves were several small bottles of crystal, hermetically stopped. They contained colorless volatile essences, of what nature I shall say no more than that they were not poisons; phosphor and ammonia entered into some of them. There were also some very curious glass tubes, and a small pointed rod of iron, with a large lump of rock-crystal, and another of amber, also a loadstone of great power. 
‘If it is in the way of school,’ said Bradley, always sustaining his dark look at the other, and speaking in his suppressed voice, ‘you may.’ 
Mr. Dick--with rather a scared look, as if he had forgotten it--returned a hasty answer in the affirmative. 
"Ay, ay, messmate!" uttered Joe. "'Well,' says the genelman in the niche, 'I'll thank you for a thimbleful of that 'ere stuff.'--'With all the pleasure in life, your honour,' says I as I filled up the tot, and was going to carry it to him, but----'Give it to me, I'll take it,' says King Herod;' and up he gets,--my eyes! I never seed such a queer little ould chap in all my life!--and off he bolts to t'other mummy, steering precious wild, by the way; and he tips him the _likser witey_, and then back again he comes, and brings up in his ould anchorage. 'May I make bould to ax your majesty,' says I, 'what the name o' that genelman is as you've just sarved out the stuff to?'--'He's not a genelman, not by no manner o' means,' says he, 'in regard of his being a king.'--'And King who?' axes I.--'You're werry quizative, Muster Sailor,' says he; 'but it's in the natur o' things to want to know your company. That's King Hangabull.'--'And a devilish queer name, too,' says I, 'for a fellow to turn into his hammock with. Is he of Irish distraction?'--'His mother was an Irishman,' says the king, 'and his father came out of a Cartridge.'--'And a pretty breed they'd make of it,' says I, 'somut atwixt a salt cod and a marmaid.'--'Will you steal me a mummy?' comes the whisper again; 'you'd better, Joe.'--'No threats, if you please,' says I.--'I never threatened you,' says the king, who thought I was directing my discourse to him; 'but, sailor, I must call over all their names now to see there's none absent without leave,'--and I'm blow'd if he didn't begin with King Fairer; but there was a whole fleet of King Fairers and King Rabshakers, and King Dollyme, and ever so many more, every one answering muster, as if it had been a rope-yarn Sunday for a clean shirt and a shave, till at last I got fairly foozlified, and hove down on my beam-ends as fast asleep as a parish-clerk in sarmon time." 
"Twenty fair cousins have I," resumed Glorvina, "whose beauty far surpasses mine. They shall accompany me to the hold of Turgesius; he shall compare them with me, and if he finds one among them whom he prefers, her shall he take as my ransom. I doubt not of their consent. In ten days we shall present ourselves at his gate. Agrees he to wait that time, and retire to his hold till it expires? The conqueror of a king is not unworthy a king's daughter!" 
‘I am sure,’ said Miss Podsnap, ‘Mr Lammle is like a lover. At least I--I should think he was.’ 
Various surmises were hazarded on the Sunday morning, as to the mode of conveyance which the anxiously-expected Horatio would adopt.  Did he keep a gig?—was it possible he could come on horseback?—or would he patronize the stage?  These, and other various conjectures of equal importance, engrossed the attention of Mrs. Malderton and her daughters during the whole morning after church. 
‘My secret was out; and my only struggle now was for liberty and freedom. I gained my feet before a hand was on me, threw myself among my assailants, and cleared my way with my strong arm, as if I bore a hatchet in my hand, and hewed them down before me. I gained the door, dropped over the banisters, and in an instant was in the street. 
‘Is he conscious?’ asked the little dressmaker, as the figure took its station by the pillow. For, Jenny had given place to it immediately, and could not see the sufferer’s face, in the dark room, from her new and removed position. 
It stands on a height within the walls of Genoa, but aloof from the town: surrounded by beautiful gardens of its own, adorned with statues, vases, fountains, marble basins, terraces, walks of orange-trees and lemon-trees, groves of roses and camellias.  All its apartments are beautiful in their proportions and decorations; but the great hall, some fifty feet in height, with three large windows at the end, overlooking the whole town of Genoa, the harbour, and the neighbouring sea, affords one of the most fascinating and delightful prospects in the world.  Any house more cheerful and habitable than the great rooms are, within, it would be difficult to conceive; and certainly nothing more delicious than the scene without, in sunshine or in moonlight, could be imagined.  It is more like an enchanted place in an Eastern story than a grave and sober lodging. 
As nobody else appeared and it would soon be dark, Nell at length took courage, and when he had resumed his pipe and seat, ventured to draw near, leading her grandfather by the hand.  The slight noise they made in raising the latch of the wicket-gate, caught his attention.  He looked at them kindly but seemed disappointed too, and slightly shook his head. 
“As if there could be any doubt!” 
‘Many thanks. Nothing.’ 
‘Which way?’ asked Newman, wistfully. 
You saw nothing in Coketown but what was severely workful.  If the members of a religious persuasion built a chapel there—as the members of eighteen religious persuasions had done—they made it a pious warehouse of red brick, with sometimes (but this is only in highly ornamental examples) a bell in a birdcage on the top of it.  The solitary exception was the New Church; a stuccoed edifice with a square steeple over the door, terminating in four short pinnacles like florid wooden legs.  All the public inscriptions in the town were painted alike, in severe characters of black and white.  The jail might have been the infirmary, the infirmary might have been the jail, the town-hall might have been either, or both, or anything else, for anything that appeared to the contrary in the graces of their construction.  Fact, fact, fact, everywhere in the material aspect of the town; fact, fact, fact, everywhere in the immaterial.  The M’Choakumchild school was all fact, and the school of design was all fact, and the relations between master and man were all fact, and everything was fact between the lying-in hospital and the cemetery, and what you couldn’t state in figures, or show to be purchaseable in the cheapest market and saleable in the dearest, was not, and never should be, world without end, Amen. 
‘My good Flora, we settled that before. It was all quite right.’ 
“Worse,” said the Jew thoughtfully. “I never knew her like this, for such a little cause.” 
(Still looking at Mr Flintwinch, as if he were the portrait.) 
‘Which, Mr Chuzzlewit,’ she said, ‘is well beknown to Mrs Harris as has one sweet infant (though she DO not wish it known) in her own family by the mother’s side, kep in spirits in a bottle; and that sweet babe she see at Greenwich Fair, a-travelling in company with a pink-eyed lady, Prooshan dwarf, and livin’ skelinton, which judge her feelings when the barrel organ played, and she was showed her own dear sister’s child, the same not bein’ expected from the outside picter, where it was painted quite contrairy in a livin’ state, a many sizes larger, and performing beautiful upon the Arp, which never did that dear child know or do; since breathe it never did, to speak on in this wale! And Mrs Harris, Mr Chuzzlewit, has knowed me many year, and can give you information that the lady which is widdered can’t do better and may do worse, than let me wait upon her, which I hope to do. Permittin’ the sweet faces as I see afore me.’ 
“Guard!  What place is this?” 
“O sir! pray trust me!” said he, grinning with delight. 
Nothing was said on either side for a minute or two afterwards; and by the expiration of that time, Mr. Bumble had illustrated the position by removing his left arm from the back of Mrs. Corney’s chair, where it had previously rested, to Mrs. Corney’s apron-string, round which it gradually became intwined. 
Monsieur Ramin heard Catherine with great attention, forgot to finish his soup, and remained for five minutes in profound rumination, without so much as perceiving two customers who had entered the shop and were waiting to be served. When aroused, he was heard to exclaim: 
‘There’s plenty more of it at the same shop,’ said Mr Swiveller, by turns advancing and retreating in a threatening attitude, ‘a large and extensive assortment always on hand--country orders executed with promptitude and despatch--will you have a little more, Sir--don’t say no, if you’d rather not.’ 
"You can go to the Fleet, my dear sir, if you're determined to go somewhere," said Perker. 
"The fellow has brought actions against ME for trespass, and I have brought actions against HIM for trespass," returned Mr. Boythorn. "By heaven, he is the proudest fellow breathing. It is morally impossible that his name can be Sir Leicester. It must be Sir Lucifer." 
And first of Mr Pecksniff it may be observed, that having provided for his youngest daughter that choicest of blessings, a tender and indulgent husband; and having gratified the dearest wish of his parental heart by establishing her in life so happily; he renewed his youth, and spreading the plumage of his own bright conscience, felt himself equal to all kinds of flights. It is customary with fathers in stage-plays, after giving their daughters to the men of their hearts, to congratulate themselves on having no other business on their hands but to die immediately; though it is rarely found that they are in a hurry to do it. Mr Pecksniff, being a father of a more sage and practical class, appeared to think that his immediate business was to live; and having deprived himself of one comfort, to surround himself with others. 
"Darby," said I, "I promised you something on your return (though you did not come back as soon as I expected); there's a guinea for you." 
We feel again all the pride of standing in a body on the platform, the observed of all observers in the crowd below, while the junior usher pays away twenty-four ninepences to a stout gentleman under a Gothic arch, with a hoop of variegated lamps swinging over his head. Again we catch a glimpse (too brief, alas!) of the lady with a green parasol in her hand, on the outside stage of the next show but one, who supports herself on one foot, on the back of a majestic horse, blotting-paper coloured and white; and once again our eyes open wide with wonder, and our hearts throb with emotion, as we deliver our card-board check into the very hands of the Harlequin himself, who, all glittering with spangles, and dazzling with many colours, deigns to give us a word of encouragement and commendation as we pass into the booth! 
‘Um, a pretty voice, at any rate,’ murmured the little old gentleman; ‘but that’s nothing.’ As he said this, he opened the door and walked in. Arabella, who was sitting at work, rose on beholding a stranger--a little confused--but by no means ungracefully so. 
I said I should be delighted to see her. 
‘I scarcely know how, or where, to begin,’ said Nicholas. ‘If ever one mortal had reason to be penetrated with love and reverence for another: with such attachment as would make the hardest service in his behalf a pleasure and delight: with such grateful recollections as must rouse the utmost zeal and fidelity of his nature: those are the feelings which I should entertain for you, and do, from my heart and soul, believe me!’ 
"And I have no doubt she loves you like a brother?" said I. 
There was a silence. Mr. Peggotty, to relieve it, took two prodigious lobsters, and an enormous crab, and a large canvas bag of shrimps, out of his pockets, and piled them up in Ham's arms. 
"When she told you you would be a Judge? But it was not the town talk _then_!" 
"I believe not directly," he returned. 
"Come, according to promise, to bid farewell to 't, eh, Mas'r Davy!" he said, taking up the candle. "Bare enough now, an't it?" 
‘Good Gracious!’ exclaimed Fanny, starting up again. ‘It’s beyond all patience! This is the most wearisome day that ever did dawn upon the world, I am certain.’ 
‘Why should you cry?’ asked Miss La Creevy, smiling. 
‘Often!’ cried Barnaby. ‘Never!’ 
‘’Cos ugliness and svindlin’ never ought to be formiliar with elegance and wirtew,’ replied Mr. Weller. ‘Ought they, Mr. Muzzle?’ 
Mr. Bumble nodded blandly in acknowledgment of Mrs. Mann's curtsey, and inquired how the children were. 
"It may be, partly, because I know nothing of the value of money," said Mr. Skimpole, "but I often feel this. It seems so reasonable! My butcher says to me he wants that little bill. It's a part of the pleasant unconscious poetry of the man's nature that he always calls it a 'little' bill--to make the payment appear easy to both of us. I reply to the butcher, 'My good friend, if you knew it, you are paid. You haven't had the trouble of coming to ask for the little bill. You are paid. I mean it.'" 
"It's her surname," said my mother, faintly. "Mr. Copperfield called her by it, because her Christian name was the same as mine." 
‘I do not recall all this to widen the breach between yourself and Mr Dombey, Madam--Heaven forbid! what would it profit me?--but as an example of the hopelessness of impressing Mr Dombey with a sense that anybody is to be considered when he is in question. We who are about him, have, in our various positions, done our part, I daresay, to confirm him in his way of thinking; but if we had not done so, others would--or they would not have been about him; and it has always been, from the beginning, the very staple of his life. Mr Dombey has had to deal, in short, with none but submissive and dependent persons, who have bowed the knee, and bent the neck, before him. He has never known what it is to have angry pride and strong resentment opposed to him.’ 
If he had known his child to be alive; if no deceit had been ever practised, and he had grown up beneath his eye; he might have been a careless, indifferent, rough, harsh father--like enough--he felt that; but the thought would come that he might have been otherwise, and that his son might have been a comfort to him, and they two happy together. He began to think now, that his supposed death and his wife’s flight had had some share in making him the morose, hard man he was. He seemed to remember a time when he was not quite so rough and obdurate; and almost thought that he had first hated Nicholas because he was young and gallant, and perhaps like the stripling who had brought dishonour and loss of fortune on his head. 
Obenreizer listened for a moment, and started back from the door. 
‘He can’t be here,’ thought Nicholas. ‘I’ll lay it on his table.’ 
‘Kate,’ said the lady, after another moment of silence, ‘I will tell you the whole truth about Florence as I have heard it, and believe it to be. Tell no one else, my dear, because it may be little known here, and your doing so would give her pain.’ 
‘Cowardly!’ interrupted his friend. 
‘How vexation, Chivery?’ asked the benignant father. 
This flow of quotation and hospitality in Wegg indicated his observation of some little querulousness on the part of Venus. 
"Thank you," said Mr. Pickwick. "Will you take a glass of wine?" 
"Arrange the procession," cried the twenty committee-men. 
"I am," said Mr. Murdstone. 
‘What?’ said the magistrate. Mr. Pickwick repeated his request. 
Everybody knows the story of another experimental philosopher who had a great theory about a horse being able to live without eating, and who demonstrated it so well, that he had got his own horse down to a straw a day, and would unquestionably have rendered him a very spirited and rampacious animal on nothing at all, if he had not died, four-and-twenty hours before he was to have had his first comfortable bait of air.  Unfortunately for, the experimental philosophy of the female to whose protecting care Oliver Twist was delivered over, a similar result usually attended the operation of _her_ system; for at the very moment when the child had contrived to exist upon the smallest possible portion of the weakest possible food, it did perversely happen in eight and a half cases out of ten, either that it sickened from want and cold, or fell into the fire from neglect, or got half-smothered by accident; in any one of which cases, the miserable little being was usually summoned into another world, and there gathered to the fathers it had never known in this. 
Those dreadful walls of Newgate, which have hidden so much misery and such unspeakable anguish, not only from the eyes, but, too often, and too long, from the thoughts, of men, never held so dread a spectacle as that. The few who lingered as they passed, and wondered what the man was doing who was to be hanged to-morrow, would have slept but ill that night, if they could have seen him. 
In a lofty room, ill-lighted and worse ventilated, situated in Portugal Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, there sit nearly the whole year round, one, two, three, or four gentlemen in wigs, as the case may be, with little writing-desks before them, constructed after the fashion of those used by the judges of the land, barring the French polish. There is a box of barristers on their right hand; there is an enclosure of insolvent debtors on their left; and there is an inclined plane of most especially dirty faces in their front. These gentlemen are the Commissioners of the Insolvent Court, and the place in which they sit, is the Insolvent Court itself. 
Everybody scolded me excep' mamma. I had spoiled my sister's white rug and broken all of Tommy's toys, and the snow what went in through the scuttle melted and marked the parlor ceiling, besides I guess it cost papa a good deal to get my arm mended. Nobody would believe that I had jes' meant to make some fun for Tommy, and my arm and all my bruised places hurt me awful for a long time. If I live to be a million I am never goin' to play Santa Claus ag'in. 
‘Well,’ remarked the coachman, ‘if the way seemed long with such cattle as you’ve sat behind, you MUST have been most uncommon anxious;’ and so saying, he let out his whip-lash and touched up a little boy on the calves of his legs by way of emphasis. 
"God bless you, dear Tip.  Don’t be too proud to come and see us, when you have made your fortune." 
Tracy Tupman, and Augustus Snodgrass, were severally called into the box; both corroborated the testimony of their unhappy friend; and each was driven to the verge of desperation by excessive badgering. 
“That was not the last time either, Biddy?” 
I had never seen the speaker before.  He was a small, dark man, muffled up about the throat, with blue glasses, a large black beard, and his hat drawn low upon his eyes. 
Having gone through this very extraordinary performance, he took off the cocked hat again, and, spreading himself before the fire with his back towards it, seemed to be mentally engaged in taking an exact inventory of the furniture. 
Mrs. Pipchin was a cross-grained old lady who gained a livelihood by taking care of delicate children.  But she was not unkind to Paul, whose patient little face and strange way of asking questions attracted her, as they did everybody else. 
‘Perhaps,’ observed Traddles, ‘it was mere purposeless impertinence?’ 
‘And will you betray me?’ eagerly inquired Hicks, who in his alarm had even forgotten to quote. 
CHAPTER 56. THE NEW WOUND, AND THE OLD 
‘That instant knocked,’ said Pyke. 
There is no possibility of misconstruing Sir Leicester's burning wish to see him or the desire he signifies to have the room cleared of every one but the housekeeper. It is speedily done, and Mr. Bucket appears. Of all men upon earth, Sir Leicester seems fallen from his high estate to place his sole trust and reliance upon this man. 
‘That makes five hundred and twenty-one men, all dressed alike, and with the same distortion on their faces, that have passed in at the window, and out at the door,’ he cried, anxiously. ‘Look there! Five hundred and twenty-two--twenty-three--twenty-four. Do you see them?’ 
Page 318, “arter” changed to “after” (after ruminating for) 
Scrooge reverently disclaimed all intention to offend or any knowledge of having wilfully "bonneted" the Spirit at any period of his life. He then made bold to inquire what business brought him there. 
‘Yes, funny, are they not?’ replied the little old man, with a diabolical leer; and then, without pausing for an answer, he continued-- 
There was at that time a mania for foreign alliances. The grand tour, which almost every family of distinction had taken, introduced a rage for Continental customs and manners, which had in some degree superseded our own. 
‘What’ll yer give me?’ asked Noah, setting down his cup, and looking his employer, eagerly, in the face. 
Inspector Field holds that it’s all one whether Bark likes the visit or don’t like it.  He, Inspector Field, is an Inspector of the Detective Police, Detective Sergeant is Detective Sergeant, Black and Green are constables in uniform.  Don’t you be a fool, Bark, or you know it will be the worse for you.—I don’t care, says Bark.  Give me my adjective trousers! 
‘Have you--did anybody--has nothing been heard--about me?’ 
"'_You_ a miserable man!' said the goblin, in a tone of excessive contempt. 'You!' He appeared disposed to add more, but indignation choked his utterance, so he lifted up one of his very pliable legs, and flourishing it above his head a little, to insure his aim, administered a good sound kick to Gabriel Grub; immediately after which, all the goblins in waiting crowded round the wretched sexton, and kicked him without mercy: according to the established and invariable custom of courtiers upon earth, who kick whom royalty kicks, and hug whom royalty hugs. 
‘I think I don’t want to know,’ said Dora. 
It was almost dark, and she was sitting near the window, with her head upon her hand, looking down, when, sensible of a sudden increase in the gloom of the apartment, she raised her eyes, and uttered an involuntary cry. Close to the glass, a pale scared face gazed in; vacantly, for an instant, as searching for an object; then the eyes rested on herself, and lighted up. 
‘What do I deduce from this?’ Mrs. Micawber went on to say, still with the same air of putting a case lucidly. ‘What is the conclusion, my dear Mr. Copperfield, to which I am irresistibly brought? Am I wrong in saying, it is clear that we must live?’ 
‘You will go on, sir,’ she answered, ‘and speak more plainly yet, in justice both to him and me.’ 
I used frequently to dream of it afterwards, and now my heart aches for that child as if I had never been he, when I think how often he awoke from some fairy change to his own old form, and sobbed himself to sleep again. 
"My thoughts will never be unjust or harsh towards him, believe me." 
Bella, who was still on her knees at Mr Boffin’s feet, gradually sank down into a sitting posture on the ground, as she meditated more and more thoughtfully, with her eyes upon his beaming face. 
Having put down Mrs. Briggs upon this theme, and settled the question thus, the egotistical gentleman turned to us, and, after a few preliminary remarks, all tending towards and leading up to the point he had in his mind, inquired if we happened to be acquainted with the Dowager Lady Snorflerer.  On our replying in the negative, he presumed we had often met Lord Slang, or beyond all doubt, that we were on intimate terms with Sir Chipkins Glogwog.  Finding that we were equally unable to lay claim to either of these distinctions, he expressed great astonishment, and turning to his wife with a retrospective smile, inquired who it was that had told that capital story about the mashed potatoes.  ‘Who, my dear?’ returned the egotistical lady, ‘why Sir Chipkins, of course; how can you ask!  Don’t you remember his applying it to our cook, and saying that you and I were so like the Prince and Princess, that he could almost have sworn we were they?’  ‘To be sure, I remember that,’ said the egotistical gentleman, ‘but are you quite certain that didn’t apply to the other anecdote about the Emperor of Austria and the pump?’  ‘Upon my word then, I think it did,’ replied his wife.  ‘To be sure it did,’ said the egotistical gentleman, ‘it was Slang’s story, I remember now, perfectly.’  However, it turned out, a few seconds afterwards, that the egotistical gentleman’s memory was rather treacherous, as he began to have a misgiving that the story had been told by the Dowager Lady Snorflerer the very last time they dined there; but there appearing, on further consideration, strong circumstantial evidence tending to show that this couldn’t be, inasmuch as the Dowager Lady Snorflerer had been, on the occasion in question, wholly engrossed by the egotistical lady, the egotistical gentleman recanted this opinion; and after laying the story at the doors of a great many great people, happily left it at last with the Duke of Scuttlewig:—observing that it was not extraordinary he had forgotten his Grace hitherto, as it often happened that the names of those with whom we were upon the most familiar footing were the very last to present themselves to our thoughts. 
‘Indeed I hardly know--we have not determined yet,’ replied the child. 
The gentleman for Nowhere clapped him on the shoulder, and they faced about again. 
‘She is right on one point at all events,’ said the old gentleman cheerfully. ‘Ring for the wine!’ 
‘Oh!’ said the dwarf after a little consideration.  ‘Then, I think they’ll come to you yet.’ 
Both Mr. and Mrs. Boffin were so glad to know he was really alive they fell to crying with joy. The Golden Dustman declared that, no matter how the last will read, John should have the fortune for his own. Rokesmith (or Harmon) at first refused to do this, but Mr. Boffin swore that if he did not he himself would not touch the money, and it would have to go to the Crown anyway. So at last it was agreed that Mr. Boffin should keep a small portion for his own, but that the other should take all the rest. 
"Fifty pounds each," whispered Jinks, "and householders, of course." 
"Your conduct is most noble, sir," said Mr. Pickwick; and he grasped the hand of the magnanimous Pott. 
‘He is sleeping now. He was very restless towards daylight, and for some hours tossed and tumbled sadly. But the fever has left him, and the doctor says he will soon mend. He must not be removed until to-morrow.’ 
Ugh! They were black, cold rooms; and seemed to be in mourning, like the inmates of the house. The books precisely matched as to size, and drawn up in line, like soldiers, looked in their cold, hard, slippery uniforms, as if they had but one idea among them, and that was a freezer. The bookcase, glazed and locked, repudiated all familiarities. Mr Pitt, in bronze, on the top, with no trace of his celestial origin about him, guarded the unattainable treasure like an enchanted Moor. A dusty urn at each high corner, dug up from an ancient tomb, preached desolation and decay, as from two pulpits; and the chimney-glass, reflecting Mr Dombey and his portrait at one blow, seemed fraught with melancholy meditations. 
"Master Copperfield," he began--"but am I keeping you up?" 
Of all the pantomimic _dramatis personæ_, we consider the pantaloon the most worthless and debauched. Independent of the dislike, one naturally feels at seeing a gentleman of his years engaged in pursuits highly unbecoming his gravity and time of life, we cannot conceal from ourselves the fact that he is a treacherous worldly-minded old villain, constantly enticing his younger companion, the clown, into acts of fraud or petty larceny, and generally standing aside to watch the result of the enterprise: if it be successful, he never forgets to return for his share of the spoil; but if it turn out a failure, he generally retires with remarkable caution and expedition, and keeps carefully aloof until the affair has blown over. His amorous propensities, too, are eminently disagreeable; and his mode of addressing ladies in the open street at noon-day is downright improper, being usually neither more nor less than a perceptible tickling of the aforesaid ladies in the waist, after committing which, he starts back, manifestly ashamed (as well he may be) of his own indecorum and temerity; continuing, nevertheless, to ogle and beckon to them from a distance in a very unpleasant and immoral manner. 
I heard that the man with the wooden leg, whose name was Tungay, was an obstinate barbarian who had formerly assisted in the hop business, but had come into the scholastic line with Mr. Creakle, in consequence, as was supposed among the boys, of his having broken his leg in Mr. Creakle's service, and having done a deal of dishonest work for him, and knowing his secrets. I heard that with the single exception of Mr. Creakle, Tungay considered the whole establishment, masters and boys, as his natural enemies, and that the only delight of his life was to be sour and malicious. I heard that Mr. Creakle had a son, who had not been Tungay's friend, and who, assisting in the school, had once held some remonstrance with his father on an occasion when its discipline was very cruelly exercised, and was supposed, besides, to have protested against his father's usage of his mother. I heard that Mr. Creakle had turned him out of doors, in consequence; and that Mrs. and Miss Creakle had been in a sad way, ever since. 
‘Ready, eh?’ said the doctor. ‘Very good, Mr Pecksniff, I’ll take an opportunity of relating the rest in the coach. It’s rather curious. Ready, eh? No rain, I hope?’ 
"Now," said Perker, turning round before he entered one of the offices, to see that his companions were close behind him. "In here, my dear sir. Hallo, what do _you_ want?" 
After a short return of the stupor in which he had been so long plunged, Oliver: urged by a creeping sickness at his heart, which seemed to warn him that if he lay there, he must surely die: got upon his feet, and essayed to walk. His head was dizzy, and he staggered to and fro like a drunken man. But he kept up, nevertheless, and, with his head drooping languidly on his breast, went stumbling onward, he knew not whither. 
The first part of the command Marsh hesitated not to obey; the second was more difficult of observance. 
‘Madam,’ said Mr Carker, sitting down in a chair that was near her, with an air of the most profound and most considerate respect, ‘why should I hesitate now, being altogether devoted to your service, to speak plainly? It was natural that a lady, endowed as you are, should think it feasible to change her husband’s character in some respects, and mould him to a better form.’ 
Soon afterwards there came another, and another, and then the first returned again, and so, by little and little, their tale was this:--That the mob gathering round Lord Mansfield’s house, had called on those within to open the door, and receiving no reply (for Lord and Lady Mansfield were at that moment escaping by the backway), forced an entrance according to their usual custom. That they then began to demolish the house with great fury, and setting fire to it in several parts, involved in a common ruin the whole of the costly furniture, the plate and jewels, a beautiful gallery of pictures, the rarest collection of manuscripts ever possessed by any one private person in the world, and worse than all, because nothing could replace this loss, the great Law Library, on almost every page of which were notes in the Judge’s own hand, of inestimable value,--being the results of the study and experience of his whole life. That while they were howling and exulting round the fire, a troop of soldiers, with a magistrate among them, came up, and being too late (for the mischief was by that time done), began to disperse the crowd. That the Riot Act being read, and the crowd still resisting, the soldiers received orders to fire, and levelling their muskets shot dead at the first discharge six men and a woman, and wounded many persons; and loading again directly, fired another volley, but over the people’s heads it was supposed, as none were seen to fall. That thereupon, and daunted by the shrieks and tumult, the crowd began to disperse, and the soldiers went away, leaving the killed and wounded on the ground: which they had no sooner done than the rioters came back again, and taking up the dead bodies, and the wounded people, formed into a rude procession, having the bodies in the front. That in this order they paraded off with a horrible merriment; fixing weapons in the dead men’s hands to make them look as if alive; and preceded by a fellow ringing Lord Mansfield’s dinner-bell with all his might. 
They were lost on Squeers, however, whose gaze was fastened on the luckless Smike, as he inquired, according to custom in such cases, whether he had anything to say for himself. 
"Wa'al, _I_ hope so," observed the captain, quite at his ease; "more than that, I believe so,--though you don't.  Now, Mr. Tregarthen, you don't want to exchange words of mistrust with me; and if you did, you couldn't, because I wouldn't.  You and I are old enough to know better than to judge against experience from surfaces and appearances; and if you haven't lived to find out the evil and injustice of such judgments, you are a lucky man." 
"On the wings of the wind," replied the Ghost. 
"Stay! Nay, prithee, stay!" cried Marsh eagerly, "I was wrong; in faith I was. A change, and that a sudden and most marvellous, hath come over me; I am free; I breathe again; I feel as though a load of years had been removed; and--is it possible?--hast thou done this?" 
‘Do you deny, then, madam, that you left your son to—to be brought up in the gutter?’ 
During the whole of this time, Scrooge had acted like a man out of his wits. His heart and soul were in the scene, and with his former self. He corroborated everything, remembered everything, enjoyed everything, and underwent the strangest agitation. It was not until now, when the bright faces of his former self and Dick were turned from them, that he remembered the Ghost, and became conscious that it was looking full upon him, while the light upon its head burnt very clear. 
“Do you believe, Mr. Edmund,” she asked, rising and going nearer to him, “that I spoke of the poor people of the house, with any reference to myself?  To me?” laying her hand upon her bosom with a simple and innocent smile of astonishment. 
There was no doubt respecting the particular amusement in which these heedless spirits were indulging, for even in the close and stifling atmosphere of the vault, the noise sounded like distant thunder. It certainly appeared, at first sight, a singular spot to choose, for that or any other purpose of relaxation, if the other cellars answered to the one in which this brief colloquy took place; for the floors were of sodden earth, the walls and roof of damp bare brick tapestried with the tracks of snails and slugs; the air was sickening, tainted, and offensive. It seemed, from one strong flavour which was uppermost among the various odours of the place, that it had, at no very distant period, been used as a storehouse for cheeses; a circumstance which, while it accounted for the greasy moisture that hung about it, was agreeably suggestive of rats. It was naturally damp besides, and little trees of fungus sprung from every mouldering corner. 
All I know of the rest of the evening is, that I heard the empress of my heart sing enchanted ballads in the French language, generally to the effect that, whatever was the matter, we ought always to dance, Ta ra la, Ta ra la! accompanying herself on a glorified instrument, resembling a guitar. That I was lost in blissful delirium. That I refused refreshment. That my soul recoiled from punch particularly. That when Miss Murdstone took her into custody and led her away, she smiled and gave me her delicious hand. That I caught a view of myself in a mirror, looking perfectly imbecile and idiotic. That I retired to bed in a most maudlin state of mind, and got up in a crisis of feeble infatuation. 
‘Veway hot, Bantam,’ said his Lordship. 
Dick murmured something about never wanting a friend or a bottle to give him, and also gasped forth his favourite allusion to the wing of friendship and its never moulting a feather; but his faculties appeared to be absorbed in the contemplation of Miss Sally Brass, at whom he stared with blank and rueful looks, which delighted the watchful dwarf beyond measure.  As to the divine Miss Sally herself, she rubbed her hands as men of business do, and took a few turns up and down the office with her pen behind her ear. 
“He is so jolly green!” said Charley when he recovered, as an apology to the company for his unpolite behaviour. 
“If you could say, with truth, to your own solitary heart, to-night, 'I have secured to myself the love and attachment, the gratitude or respect, of no human creature; I have won myself a tender place in no regard; I have done nothing good or serviceable to be remembered by!' your seventy-eight years would be seventy-eight heavy curses; would they not?” 
He started up, as if to follow in pursuit; but, when they gave way to let him pass, looked wildly round upon them, staggered back, and sunk down in his former attitude, clasping one of Grace’s cold hands in his own. 
I will call upon you to drink “Prosperity to the Gardeners’ Benevolent Institution,” and I beg to couple with that toast the name of its noble President, the Duke of Devonshire, whose worth is written in all his deeds, and who has communicated to his title and his riches a lustre which no title and no riches could confer. 
The golden ripple on the wall came back again, and nothing else stirred in the room. The old, old fashion! The fashion that came in with our first garments, and will last unchanged until our race has run its course, and the wide firmament is rolled up like a scroll. The old, old fashion--Death! 
Soon afterwards, all being in readiness, the bride prepared to set forth under the care of Abel Beechcroft, who, before they quitted the house, in an earnest tone, invoked a blessing on her head and on that of his nephew. And both felt that the blessing of so good a man would not be thrown away. 
Ruth thought of several things; such as his digestion, his tailor, his mother, and the like. But hesitating to give utterance to any one of them, she refrained from expressing an opinion. 
"Is the town quiet now?" 
Snodgrass, unluckily, stayed too long. As he was leaving, he heard Mr. Wardle, with Mr. Pickwick and Winkle, coming up the stair. He was obliged to retreat, and took refuge in Mr. Wardle's bedroom, from which there was no escape, save through the dining-room. 
‘You alarm yourself without cause,’ said Mr Haredale. ‘Why are you so foolish? Surely you can answer me. You know that I have but to put the question to Emma and learn the truth directly. Have you the answer with you?’ 
Mr. Phunky bowed. He _had_ had the pleasure of seeing the Serjeant, and of envying him too, with all a poor man's envy, for eight years and a quarter. 
‘No! he’s out, or he would have murdered him,’ replied Noah. ‘He said he wanted to.’ 
‘He was a dear, grateful, gentle child, sir,’ retorted Mrs. Bedwin, indignantly. ‘I know what children are, sir; and have done these forty years; and people who can’t say the same, shouldn’t say anything about them. That’s my opinion!’ 
till it tapered off into nothing. 
France was a far richer country than Scotland, and the King had a much greater mind to conquer it.  So, he let Scotland alone, and pretended that he had a claim to the French throne in right of his mother.  He had, in reality, no claim at all; but that mattered little in those times.  He brought over to his cause many little princes and sovereigns, and even courted the alliance of the people of Flanders--a busy, working community, who had very small respect for kings, and whose head man was a brewer.  With such forces as he raised by these means, Edward invaded France; but he did little by that, except run into debt in carrying on the war to the extent of three hundred thousand pounds.  The next year he did better; gaining a great sea-fight in the harbour of Sluys.  This success, however, was very shortlived, for the Flemings took fright at the siege of Saint Omer and ran away, leaving their weapons and baggage behind them.  Philip, the French King, coming up with his army, and Edward being very anxious to decide the war, proposed to settle the difference by single combat with him, or by a fight of one hundred knights on each side.  The French King said, he thanked him; but being very well as he was, he would rather not.  So, after some skirmishing and talking, a short peace was made. 
‘See here!’ cried the locksmith. ‘See here! where would any of us have been without these two? Oh, Mr Edward, Mr Edward--oh, Joe, Joe, how light, and yet how full, you have made my old heart to-night!’ 
“What became of the two men?” I asked, after again considering the subject. 
There was no querulous complaining in the words, but they were not the less touching for that. 
EGOTISM in couples is of two kinds.—It is our purpose to show this by two examples. 
Jasper opines that such accuracy ‘is a gift.’ 
I said I should be delighted to see her. 
“The little child was a daughter, sir.” 
‘No! No, indeed!’ replied Oliver. 
‘You have been used to eaves-dropping. Do you know what that means?’ 
‘Now, as I came down to-day, I found that your friend, Mr Doyce, is looking for a partner in his business--not a partner in his mechanical knowledge, but in the ways and means of turning the business arising from it to the best account.’ 
The two wrestlers, or gladiators I might say, got on the table together, and, according to the terms or conditions agreed on between the students and the officers, rested their swords on the toes of their boots. A traveller from a commercial house who happened to be present, and could have no interest in the scene other than what its novelty excited, was fixed on to clap his hands three times, and at the third the swords were upraised in the air, and the two combatants came to guard. 
‘When he came down stairs and joined the lady who wouldn’t let me come up, he gave me the pieces for you, and I was to say, “With Mr Alfred Lammle’s compliments on his leaving England.”’ Miss Jenny said it with such spiteful satisfaction, and such a hitch of her chin and eyes as might have added to Mr Fledgeby’s miseries, if he could have noticed either, in his bodily pain with his hand to his head. 
‘Ah me!’ said he, ‘what might have been is not what is!’ 
‘Ay,’ said the old man. ‘Don’t you know, Ned? Sure you have not forgotten? Every time I wrote to you.’ 
"The fact is," Richard proceeded, half thoughtfully and half jocosely, "it is not quite in my way. I don't take to it. And I get too much of Mrs. Bayham Badger's first and second." 
‘Oh there’s Ma being awful with somebody with a glass in his eye! Oh I know she’s going to bring him here! Oh don’t bring him, don’t bring him! Oh he’ll be my partner with his glass in his eye! Oh what shall I do!’ This time Georgiana accompanied her ejaculations with taps of her feet upon the floor, and was altogether in quite a desperate condition. But, there was no escape from the majestic Mrs Podsnap’s production of an ambling stranger, with one eye screwed up into extinction and the other framed and glazed, who, having looked down out of that organ, as if he descried Miss Podsnap at the bottom of some perpendicular shaft, brought her to the surface, and ambled off with her. And then the captive at the piano played another ‘set,’ expressive of his mournful aspirations after freedom, and other sixteen went through the former melancholy motions, and the ambler took Miss Podsnap for a furniture walk, as if he had struck out an entirely original conception. 
It has been reported that Mr Willet, previously to making answer, winked. But as he was never known to be guilty of such lightness of conduct either before or afterwards, this may be looked upon as a malicious invention of his enemies--founded, perhaps, upon the undisputed circumstance of his taking his guest by the third breast button of his coat, counting downwards from the chin, and pouring his reply into his ear: 
‘I have seen, sir,’ returned the locksmith with evident reluctance, ‘I have seen in connection with her, something that has filled me with distrust and uneasiness. She has made bad friends, how, or when, I don’t know; but that her house is a refuge for one robber and cut-throat at least, I am certain. There, sir! Now it’s out.’ 
“And I have no doubt,” said Mr. Lorry, “that I was right in the conversation we had. My opinion is confirmed, and I reiterate my advice.” 
‘He shall be taught,’ said Mr. Hawkyard, ‘(O, yes, he shall be taught!) but what is to be done with him for the present?  He may be infected.  He may disseminate infection.’  The ring widened considerably.  ‘What is to be done with him?’ 
‘I am going to the London Tavern this morning,’ said Mr. Nickleby. 
"Thank'ee, Mr. Weller," said Mrs. Bardell fervently. 
The first is situated in the green and wooded country near Norwood. It is not a mansion; it is of no pretensions as to size; but it is beautifully arranged, and tastefully kept. The lawn, the soft, smooth slope, the flower-garden, the clumps of trees where graceful forms of ash and willow are not wanting, the conservatory, the rustic verandah with sweet-smelling creeping plants entwined about the pillars, the simple exterior of the house, the well-ordered offices, though all upon the diminutive scale proper to a mere cottage, bespeak an amount of elegant comfort within, that might serve for a palace. This indication is not without warrant; for, within, it is a house of refinement and luxury. Rich colours, excellently blended, meet the eye at every turn; in the furniture--its proportions admirably devised to suit the shapes and sizes of the small rooms; on the walls; upon the floors; tingeing and subduing the light that comes in through the odd glass doors and windows here and there. There are a few choice prints and pictures too; in quaint nooks and recesses there is no want of books; and there are games of skill and chance set forth on tables--fantastic chessmen, dice, backgammon, cards, and billiards. 
‘The last time that I saw her like her own old self, was the night when you came home, my dear. The day you went away, she said to me, “I never shall see my pretty darling again. Something tells me so, that tells the truth, I know.” 
‘I do,’ said Mr. Pickwick, growing energetic, as was his wont in speaking of a subject which interested him--‘I do, indeed; and to tell you the truth, Mrs. Bardell, I have made up my mind.’ 
Mr. Bumble caught at the inquiry very quickly, and shook his head with portentous solemnity. 
‘For a journey, sir!’ cried Kit. 
‘I have none,’ she said. 
‘Thank you:--whether people, who are like each other in their moral constitution, are in greater danger than people not so circumstanced, supposing any serious cause of variance to arise between them, of being divided angrily and deeply?’ 
“You don't hear much about them now?” said the spy. 
"He don't belong to them, you see," said John. "I must give him a hint to go." 
“Decidedly not,” said Bob. And the particular friends resumed their attack upon the breakfast, more freely than before, as if the recollection of last night’s supper had imparted a new relish to the meal. 
"I despise 'em," said the beadle, growing very red in the face. 
‘Not every one,’ reasoned Mr. Lillyvick, mildly. 
He had pushed away his plate. With the natural need of a strong rough man in anger, to do something forcible, he now clutched his knife overhand, and struck downward with it at the end of every succeeding sentence. As he would have struck with his own clenched fist if there had chanced to be nothing in it. 
Crackit went down to the door, and returned followed by a man with the lower part of his face buried in a handkerchief, and another tied over his head under his hat.  He drew them slowly off.  Blanched face, sunken eyes, hollow cheeks, beard of three days' growth, wasted flesh, short thick breath; it was the very ghost of Sikes. 
As the old gentleman said this in a low voice, more to himself than to his companion, and remained silent for a short time afterwards, Oliver sat quite still, almost afraid to breathe. 
‘It is very wrong in Mr Jinkins; I know it is perfectly inexcusable in Mr Jinkins, if he intends it,’ observed Mrs Todgers 
“‘They,--who?’ I asked, affecting a smile. 
‘A well-spoken gentleman, apparently?’ 
‘Now I think of it,’ said Mr Riderhood, evasively, for he was substituting those words for ‘Now I see you so jealous,’ which was the phrase really in his mind; ‘P’r’aps he went and took me down wrong, a purpose, on account o’ being sweet upon her!’ 
‘Wery hard, indeed, I s’pose?’ said Sam drily. 
But, one morning long afterwards to be remembered, it was black midnight with the Golden Dustman when he first appeared. His altered character had never been so grossly marked. His bearing towards his Secretary was so charged with insolent distrust and arrogance, that the latter rose and left the table before breakfast was half done. The look he directed at the Secretary’s retiring figure was so cunningly malignant, that Bella would have sat astounded and indignant, even though he had not gone the length of secretly threatening Rokesmith with his clenched fist as he closed the door. This unlucky morning, of all mornings in the year, was the morning next after Mr Boffin’s interview with Mrs Lammle in her little carriage. 
‘I am sorry, Madam,’ said Mr Dombey, ‘that you should not have thought it your duty--’ 
‘From Mr. Ralph Nickleby,’ said Newman, announcing his errand, when he got upstairs, with all possible brevity. 
So firmly had Mr. Gradgrind put his trust in the gospel of facts which he had taught Louisa and Tom that he was greatly shocked one day to catch them (instead of studying any one of the dry sciences ending in "ology" which he made them learn) peeping through the knot holes in a wooden pavilion along the road at the performance of a traveling circus. 
"Why should she be inclined to forgive him now?" said my mother, rather sharply. 
‘Let us say “good night”, my fine boy,’ said the gentleman, when he had bent his head--I saw him!--over my mother’s little glove. 
Harriet was withdrawing her hand to open the book, when Alice detained it for a moment. 
"No, never, father!" they all cried again. 
‘No, I have not, ma’am,’ rejoined Miss La Creevy. 
In my house at Poplar, along with this old lady, I lived quiet for best part of a year: having had a long spell of it among the Islands, and having (which was very uncommon in me) taken the fever rather badly.  At last, being strong and hearty, and having read every book I could lay hold of, right out, I was walking down Leadenhall Street in the City of London, thinking of turning-to again, when I met what I call Smithick and Watersby of Liverpool.  I chanced to lift up my eyes from looking in at a ship's chronometer in a window, and I saw him bearing down upon me, head on. 
He walked to Cloisterham Weir. 
‘A bachelor is a miserable wretch, sir,’ said Mr. Lillyvick. 
“Why not?” rejoined Sikes. “You’re a-going to accommodate us, and wot’s to prevent my standing treat for a pint or so, in return?” 
"He's got it!" cried Miss Murdstone. "The boy has got the baby!" 
Again there was a dead silence, and again the same voice called upon him to deliver himself up. 
‘Did you skin the gentleman, Sir?’ inquired Mr. Winkle, with a very pale face. 
'You don't mean to go yourself, I suppose?' said Charley with a humorous leer. 
About three o'clock Dr Hume and Mr Powell came. I must do the former the justice to say he was grave enough now. Sir William repeated his request to have the wound dressed. Dr Hume consented, and they went away to prepare something to wash it with; they remained away half an hour. I sat down by my husband and took his hand; he said he wished I would not look so unhappy. I wept; and he spoke to me with so much affection. He repeated every endearing expression. He bade me kiss him. He called me his dear wife. The surgeons returned. My husband turned on one side with great difficulty; it seemed to give much pain. 
Sloppy held it up, for his edification. 
‘I hope,’ said the impressive lady, ‘I am incapable of it.’ 
‘Supper’s ready, sir,’ was the prompt reply. 
‘I can--not help it, and it don’t signify,’ sobbed Mrs. Kenwigs; ‘oh! they’re too beautiful to live, much too beautiful!’ 
‘It’s getting late, my dear,’ said Mr. Peggotty, ‘and here’s Ham come fur to take you home. Theer! Go along with t’other loving art! What’ Em’ly? Eh, my pretty?’ 
‘No, really!’ said Tom, with great pleasure. ‘Are you serious?’ 
‘John Grueby,’ said the long-winded gentleman, in a tone of mild reproof, ‘his lordship said Amen.’ 
‘Oh! by all means,’ rejoined Quilp. 
‘If you are not satisfied with your position, sir,’ observed Miss Lavinia, with much politeness, ‘we can set you down at any turning you may please to indicate to my sister’s coachman.’ 
They turned into the wine-shop, which was closed (for it was midnight), and where Madame Defarge immediately took her post at her desk, counted the small moneys that had been taken during her absence, examined the stock, went through the entries in the book, made other entries of her own, checked the serving man in every possible way, and finally dismissed him to bed. Then she turned out the contents of the bowl of money for the second time, and began knotting them up in her handkerchief, in a chain of separate knots, for safe keeping through the night. All this while, Defarge, with his pipe in his mouth, walked up and down, complacently admiring, but never interfering; in which condition, indeed, as to the business and his domestic affairs, he walked up and down through life. 
While I heard and saw the mother as she said these words, I seemed to hear and see the son, defying them. All that I had ever seen in him of an unyielding, wilful spirit, I saw in her. All the understanding that I had now of his misdirected energy, became an understanding of her character too, and a perception that it was, in its strongest springs, the same. 
(Here Mr Wegg eyes his comrade and the room in which they sat: which had not been repaired for a long time.) 
It is a mercy I have not a red and green lamp and a night-bell at my door, for in my very young days I was taken to so many lyings-in that I wonder I escaped becoming a professional martyr to them in after-life.  I suppose I had a very sympathetic nurse, with a large circle of married acquaintance.  However that was, as I continued my walk through Dullborough, I found many houses to be solely associated in my mind with this particular interest.  At one little greengrocer’s shop, down certain steps from the street, I remember to have waited on a lady who had had four children (I am afraid to write five, though I fully believe it was five) at a birth.  This meritorious woman held quite a reception in her room on the morning when I was introduced there, and the sight of the house brought vividly to my mind how the four (five) deceased young people lay, side by side, on a clean cloth on a chest of drawers; reminding me by a homely association, which I suspect their complexion to have assisted, of pigs’ feet as they are usually displayed at a neat tripe-shop.  Hot candle was handed round on the occasion, and I further remembered as I stood contemplating the greengrocer’s, that a subscription was entered into among the company, which became extremely alarming to my consciousness of having pocket-money on my person.  This fact being known to my conductress, whoever she was, I was earnestly exhorted to contribute, but resolutely declined: therein disgusting the company, who gave me to understand that I must dismiss all expectations of going to Heaven. 
‘They must have been very happy,’ said Blandois. 
‘What a cold spring it is!’ whimpered old Anthony, drawing near the evening fire, ‘It was a warmer season, sure, when I was young!’ 
‘Are you afraid of him here?’ 
‘Good bye, John,’ returned Caleb. 
‘A very fine evening, Mr Headstone,’ said Miss Peecher. ‘Are you taking a walk?’ 
‘I know,’ he replied, again with dignity. 
‘I am a plain, rough man,’ pursued the Carrier, ‘with very little to recommend me.  I am not a clever man, as you very well know.  I am not a young man.  I loved my little Dot, because I had seen her grow up, from a child, in her father’s house; because I knew how precious she was; because she had been my life, for years and years.  There’s many men I can’t compare with, who never could have loved my little Dot like me, I think!’ 
Before it was possible that an answer could be returned, Mrs Gamp, growing redder in the face, went on to say: 
This favoured tavern, sacred to the evening orgies of Mr. Lowten and his companions, was what ordinary people would designate a public-house. That the landlord was a man of a money-making turn, was sufficiently testified by the fact of a small bulkhead beneath the tap-room window, in size and shape not unlike a sedan-chair, being underlet to a mender of shoes: and that he was a being of a philanthropic mind, was evident from the protection he afforded to a pie-man, who vended his delicacies without fear of interruption on the very door-step. In the lower windows, which were decorated with curtains of a saffron hue, dangled two or three printed cards, bearing reference to Devonshire cider and Dantzig spruce, while a large black board, announcing in white letters to an enlightened public that there were 500,000 barrels of double stout in the cellars of the establishment, left the mind in a state of not unpleasing doubt and uncertainty as to the precise direction in the bowels of the earth, in which this mighty cavern might be supposed to extend. When we add, that the weather-beaten signboard bore the half-obliterated semblance of a magpie intently eyeing a crooked streak of brown paint, which the neighbours had been taught from infancy to consider as the "stump," we have said all that need be said of the exterior of the edifice. 
‘Horses are paid, Tom,’ screamed Mrs. Williamson; and away went the chaise, at the rate of fourteen miles an hour, with Mr. Alexander Trott and Miss Julia Manners carefully shut up in the inside. 
She went into several shops to purchase various kinds of household necessaries, and round every place at which she stopped he hovered like her evil spirit; following her when she reappeared. It was nigh eleven o’clock, and the passengers in the streets were thinning fast, when she turned, doubtless to go home. The phantom still followed her. 
Her father seized a candle that was flaming on the ground--someone had put it down there, and forgotten it--and came running upstairs with such fury, that Florence, in her fear, had hardly time to fly before him. She heard him striking in the door, as she ran on, with her hands widely spread, and her hair streaming, and her face like a distracted person’s, back to her own room. 
As she was crossing the green to go home the Poganuc stage drove in, with Hiel seated on high, whipping up his horses to make them execute that grand _entrée_ which was the glory of his daily existence. 
The portrait of the fair Marian hangs yet in the Gallery of Tappington; and near it is another, of a young man in the prime of life, whom Mrs. Botherby pronounces her father. It exhibits a mild and rather melancholy countenance, with a high forehead, and the picked beard and moustaches of the seventeenth century. The signet-finger of the left hand is gone, and appears, on close inspection, to have been painted out by some later artist; possibly in compliment to the tradition, which, _teste Botherby_, records that of Mr. Marsh to have gangrened, and to have undergone amputation at the knuckle-joint. If really the resemblance of the gentleman alluded to, it must have been taken at some period antecedent to his marriage. There is neither date nor painter's name; but, a little above the head, on the dexter side of the picture, is an escutcheon, bearing Quarterly, Gules and Argent; in the first quarter, a horse's head of the second; beneath it are the words "_Ætatis suæ_, 26." On the opposite side is the following marks which Mr. Simpkinson declares to be that of a Merchant of the Staple, and pretends to discover in the anagram comprised in it all the characters which compose the name of THOMAS MARSH, of MARSHTON. 
The old gentleman smiled good-humouredly as he drew his chair forward-- the remainder of the party drew their chairs closer together, especially Mr. Tupman and the spinster aunt, who were possibly rather hard of hearing; and the old lady’s ear-trumpet having been duly adjusted, and Mr. Miller (who had fallen asleep during the recital of the verses) roused from his slumbers by an admonitory pinch, administered beneath the table by his ex-partner the solemn fat man, the old gentleman, without further preface, commenced the following tale, to which we have taken the liberty of prefixing the title of 
‘I don’t know, mother.’ Rob hesitated, and looked down. ‘Father--when’s he coming home?’ 
"An intelligent boy!" said Scrooge. "A remarkable boy! Do you know whether they've sold the prize turkey that was hanging up there?" 
He felt his father’s breath upon his cheek, before the words had parted from his lips. 
"For many hundred years before that time, there had been handed down, from age to age, an old legend, that the illustrious Prince being afflicted with leprosy, on his return from reaping a rich harvest of knowledge in Athens, shunned the court of his royal father, and consorted moodily with husbandmen and pigs. Among the herd (so said the legend) was a pig of grave and solemn countenance, with whom the Prince had a fellow feeling--for he too was wise--a pig of thoughtful and reserved demeanour; an animal superior to his fellows, whose grunt was terrible, and whose bite was sharp. The young prince sighed deeply as he looked upon the countenance of the majestic swine; he thought of his royal father, and his eyes were bedewed with tears. 
"Answer what?" said Mr. Pickwick. 
‘Without lime,’ returned that unmoved barrister-at-law, ‘my existence would be unilluminated by a ray of hope.’ 
The animal came up from the very force of habit; but as Sikes stooped to attach the handkerchief to his throat, he uttered a low growl and started back. 
One beautiful evening, when the first shades of twilight were beginning to settle upon the earth, Oliver sat at this window, intent upon his books. He had been poring over them for some time; and, as the day had been uncommonly sultry, and he had exerted himself a great deal, it is no disparagement to the authors, whoever they may have been, to say, that gradually and by slow degrees, he fell asleep. 
On the night of his death,[95] he was carried home in the usual manner, and cheerfully bidding his companion good night, observed that he should be ready for him on the morrow at the customary time. He had not long been in bed, when his housekeeper fancying she heard a noise in his room, hurried down, but all was quiet: she went in again later in the night, and found him dead. The body was cold, for he had been dead some hours. 
‘When I add, I can discern for myself what the general tongue says of you--that you are quite unspoiled by Fortune, and not uplifted--I trust you will not, as a man of an open nature, suspect that I mean to flatter you, but will believe that all I mean is to excuse myself, these being my only excuses for my present intrusion.’ 
‘Wag, Sir. Wagging from school.’ 
"What did he mean by talking about favorites, then?" said Steerforth at length. 
‘Because, my pretty cross-examiner,’ replied the doctor: ‘because, viewed with their eyes, there are many ugly points about it; he can only prove the parts that look ill, and none of those that look well. Confound the fellows, they _will_ have the why and the wherefore, and will take nothing for granted. On his own showing, you see, he has been the companion of thieves for some time past; he has been carried to a police-officer, on a charge of picking a gentleman’s pocket; he has been taken away, forcibly, from that gentleman’s house, to a place which he cannot describe or point out, and of the situation of which he has not the remotest idea. He is brought down to Chertsey, by men who seem to have taken a violent fancy to him, whether he will or no; and is put through a window to rob a house; and then, just at the very moment when he is going to alarm the inmates, and so do the very thing that would set him all to rights, there rushes into the way, a blundering dog of a half-bred butler, and shoots him! As if on purpose to prevent his doing any good for himself! Don’t you see all this?’ 
‘My information is, unfortunately, but too correct,’ said the middle- aged lady; ‘I was present at the quarrel.’ 
She gives it me, not displeased; and I put it to my lips, and then into my breast. Miss Larkins, laughing, draws her hand through my arm, and says, "Now take me back to Captain Bailey." 
‘Come, come, my lass, awast, awast!’ said Bunsby. 
But fashion is Mr. Weevle's, as it was Tony Jobling's, weakness. To borrow yesterday's paper from the Sol's Arms of an evening and read about the brilliant and distinguished meteors that are shooting across the fashionable sky in every direction is unspeakable consolation to him. To know what member of what brilliant and distinguished circle accomplished the brilliant and distinguished feat of joining it yesterday or contemplates the no less brilliant and distinguished feat of leaving it to-morrow gives him a thrill of joy. To be informed what the Galaxy Gallery of British Beauty is about, and means to be about, and what Galaxy marriages are on the tapis, and what Galaxy rumours are in circulation, is to become acquainted with the most glorious destinies of mankind. Mr. Weevle reverts from this intelligence to the Galaxy portraits implicated, and seems to know the originals, and to be known of them. 
‘“Hasten here, Sir, in God’s name; help, help, sir, for the love of Heaven. He is my son, Sir, my only son!” said the old man frantically, as he advanced to meet him. “My only son, Sir, and he is dying before his father’s eyes!” 
‘You said in your last letter that she was quite well,’ said Nicholas, rather hastily, and colouring as he spoke. ‘Has nothing been said, since I have been away, about any future arrangements that the brothers have in contemplation for her?’ 
'They have him now,' cried a man on the nearest bridge. 'Hurrah!' 
"What is Life, Father?" "A Battle, my child, Where the strongest lance may fail, Where the wariest eyes may be beguiled, And the stoutest heart may quail. Where the foes are gathered on every hand, And rest not day or night, And the feeble little ones must stand In the thickest of the fight." 
‘He is—he is indeed!’ exclaimed Belinda Waters energetically.  As her eye caught that of Mr. Cymon Tuggs, she withdrew it from his features in bashful confusion. 
It was a dark street with a dead wall on one side.  Nearly all the outer doors of the houses stood open.  I took the first entry, and knocked at a parlour-door.  Might I come in?  I might, if I plased, sur. 
“And the least given to peaching,” added Charley Bates. 
‘Oh! You employed him, Boffin? Very good. Mr Venus, we raise our terms, and we can’t do better than proceed to business. Bof--fin! I want the room cleared of these two scum.’ 
‘Take care, Pa!’ pointing her forefinger at him, merrily. ‘You have promised and vowed. It’s perjury, you know.’ 
_Mrs. C._ But he was very light to carry, and his father loved him so, that it was no trouble; no trouble. And there is your father at the door. 
With this prelude, Mr. Pickwick placed four closely written sides of extra superfine wire-woven penitence in the hands of the astounded Mr. Winkle senior. Then reseating himself in his chair, he watched his looks and manner: anxiously, it is true, but with the open front of a gentleman who feels he has taken no part which he need excuse or palliate. 
‘A wreck! Close by!’ 
Says our historical authority:--‘One rebel, emboldened by fanaticism and drunkenness, advanced before his comrades, seized a gun, crammed his hat and wig into it, and cried out, “Come on, boys! her mouth is stopped!” unfortunate savage to atoms. Incredible as this instance of savage ignorance may appear, the fact has been verified by the affidavit of a person who saw it from a window.’ 
"Will you address the meeting, brother?" said Mr. Humm, with a smile of invitation. 
He wished me good-night, and held up his light.  I walked by the side of the down Line of rails (with a very disagreeable sensation of a train coming behind me) until I found the path.  It was easier to mount than to descend, and I got back to my inn without any adventure. 
‘Say you have no such thought, dear Agnes! Much more than sister! Think of the priceless gift of such a heart as yours, of such a love as yours!’ 
‘She is very rich. Shall she be handsome?’ 
‘I’d go ten thousand mile,’ he said, ‘I’d go till I dropped dead, to lay that money down afore him. If I do that, and find my Em’ly, I’m content. If I doen’t find her, maybe she’ll come to hear, sometime, as her loving uncle only ended his search for her when he ended his life; and if I know her, even that will turn her home at last!’ 
Mr Wegg, in a languid transport, again dropped over on Mr Venus, and again recovering himself, masked his emotions with a sneeze. 
Craggs, who seemed to be represented by Snitchey, and to be conscious of little or no separate existence or personal individuality, offered a remark of his own in this place. It involved the only idea of which he did not stand seised and possessed in equal moieties with Snitchey; but he had some partners in it among the wise men of the world. 
"Yes, I am rather nervous," he replied.  "Whew!  Don't, Polly!  Don't flourish your spoon, or you'll go over sideways.  Don't tilt up your legs when you laugh, Polly, or you'll go over backwards.  Whew!  Polly, Polly, Polly," said Barbox Brothers, nearly succumbing to despair, "we are environed with dangers!" 
‘Dear boy, I know it, but I can’t give it. I thirst for information. What do I mean? If my taking so much trouble to recover her does not mean that I care for her, what does it mean? “If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled pepper, where’s the peck,” &c.?’ 
These crawling things had fascinated my attention, and I was watching them from a distance, when Miss Havisham laid a hand upon my shoulder. In her other hand she had a crutch-headed stick on which she leaned, and she looked like the Witch of the place. 
The attendant did as she was told:  shaking her head meanwhile, to intimate that the woman would not die so easily; having done so, she resumed her seat by the side of the other nurse, who had by this time returned.  The mistress, with an expression of impatience, wrapped herself in her shawl, and sat at the foot of the bed. 
The heavy sigh was repeated as if by an echo, an hour afterwards, when Riah, who had been sitting on some dark steps in a corner over against the house, arose and went his patient way; stealing through the streets in his ancient dress, like the ghost of a departed Time. 
The jackal removed the towels from his head, which had been steaming again, shook himself, yawned, shivered, and complied. 
‘What a lovely day, dear!’ said Charlotta. 
‘Oh, Di! Oh, dear Di! Love me for his sake!’ 
‘I am afraid I have inadvertently touched upon a tender theme.’ 
‘He is right in saying that you were with this hag the night she died; and that she told you something--’ 
‘To the first charge, Alfred, I plead guilty. But to the second, oh no, no!’ 
The last words had a visible effect upon her.  She stopped in her wild crying, a little detached herself from Emma Gordon, and turned her face full upon her patron.  The whole company perceived the force of the change, and drew a long breath together, that plainly said, ‘she will go!’ 
‘You never spoke a truer word than that!’ said Mrs Gamp. ‘Go along with you!’ 
‘Fancy! Do I fancy that I killed him? Do I fancy that as I left the chamber where he lay, I saw the face of a man peeping from a dark door, who plainly showed me by his fearful looks that he suspected what I had done? Do I remember that I spoke fairly to him--that I drew nearer--nearer yet--with the hot knife in my sleeve? Do I fancy how HE died? Did he stagger back into the angle of the wall into which I had hemmed him, and, bleeding inwardly, stand, not fall, a corpse before me? Did I see him, for an instant, as I see you now, erect and on his feet--but dead!’ 
A vacant and contemptuous laugh, was all his answer. 
And so Oliver remained all that day, and for the greater part of many subsequent days, seeing nobody, between early morning and midnight, and left during the long hours to commune with his own thoughts. Which, never failing to revert to his kind friends, and the opinion they must long ago have formed of him, were sad indeed. 
Old John would have it that they must sit in the bar, and nobody objecting, into the bar they went. All bars are snug places, but the Maypole’s was the very snuggest, cosiest, and completest bar, that ever the wit of man devised. Such amazing bottles in old oaken pigeon-holes; such gleaming tankards dangling from pegs at about the same inclination as thirsty men would hold them to their lips; such sturdy little Dutch kegs ranged in rows on shelves; so many lemons hanging in separate nets, and forming the fragrant grove already mentioned in this chronicle, suggestive, with goodly loaves of snowy sugar stowed away hard by, of punch, idealised beyond all mortal knowledge; such closets, such presses, such drawers full of pipes, such places for putting things away in hollow window-seats, all crammed to the throat with eatables, drinkables, or savoury condiments; lastly, and to crown all, as typical of the immense resources of the establishment, and its defiances to all visitors to cut and come again, such a stupendous cheese! 
‘I have felt, lying here, that I should like you to know this. It might explain, I have thought, something that used to help to harden me. I had heard so much, in my wrongdoing, of my neglected duty, that I took up with the belief that duty had not been done to me, and that as the seed was sown, the harvest grew. I somehow made it out that when ladies had bad homes and mothers, they went wrong in their way, too; but that their way was not so foul a one as mine, and they had need to bless God for it. That is all past. It is like a dream, now, which I cannot quite remember or understand. It has been more and more like a dream, every day, since you began to sit here, and to read to me. I only tell it you, as I can recollect it. Will you read to me a little more?’ 
"Take courage," said Mr. Bucket. "There's only a few words more." 
‘That knife was the knife of a seaman named George Radfoot.’ 
“What a vision of horror that was, in the great dark empty room, in a silence that was something more than negative, that ghastly figure frozen into stone by some unexplained terror!  And the silence and the stillness!  The very thunder had ceased now.  My heart stood still with fear.  Then, moved by some instinctive feeling, under whose influence I acted mechanically, I crept with slow steps nearer and nearer to the table, and at last, half expecting to see some spectre even more horrible than this which I saw already, I looked over his shoulder into the looking-glass.  I happened to touch his arm, though only in the lightest manner.  In that one moment the spell which had held him—who knows how long?—enchained, seemed broken, and he lived in this world again.  He turned round upon me, as suddenly as a tiger makes its spring, and seized me by the arm. 
‘Exactly,’ bawled the dwarf nodding his head; ‘that’s very well observed.  Then will you consider about it, neighbour?’ 
“Then you may rely upon it,” said Herbert, “that there would be great danger of his doing it. That is his power over you as long as he remains in England, and that would be his reckless course if you forsook him.” 
‘Perhaps you have,’ rejoined the immovable Mr. Folair; ‘if you have, he said this before he was silenced: Lenville says that you’re a regular stick of an actor, and that it’s only the mystery about you that has caused you to go down with the people here, and that Crummles keeps it up for his own sake; though Lenville says he don’t believe there’s anything at all in it, except your having got into a scrape and run away from somewhere, for doing something or other.’ 
‘Dear mother,’ he said kindly, ‘don’t you see that if there were really any serious inclination on the part of Mr. Frank towards Kate, and we suffered ourselves for a moment to encourage it, we should be acting a most dishonourable and ungrateful part? I ask you if you don’t see it, but I need not say that I know you don’t, or you would have been more strictly on your guard. Let me explain my meaning to you. Remember how poor we are.’ 
‘Are you sure?’ asked Tom. 
‘Or p’raps,’ said the turnkey, offering his suggestions from the the top of his well-worn wooden stool, as he might have offered them to a child for whose weakness he felt a compassion, ‘p’raps she’ll get her brother, or her sister, to come along with her.’ 
‘Once resolved to try him, I was resolute to pursue the trial to the end; but while I was bent on fathoming the depth of his duplicity, I made a sacred compact with myself that I would give him credit on the other side for any latent spark of goodness, honour, forbearance--any virtue--that might glimmer in him. For first to last there has been no such thing. Not once. He cannot say I have not given him opportunity. He cannot say I have ever led him on. He cannot say I have not left him freely to himself in all things; or that I have not been a passive instrument in his hands, which he might have used for good as easily as evil. Or if he can, he Lies! And that’s his nature, too.’ 
"A nice house in the Regent's Park." 
"Remove me!" Scrooge exclaimed. "I cannot bear it!" 
The patience of a Dutchman may be great, but the concentrated patience of all Holland could not stand unmoved on so trying an occasion as that which occurred to Jacob Kats. He saw his multitudinous tormentors form into regular rank and file, and then, as if his mouth had been a breach which he had "armed to the teeth," they presented their stems like so many bayonets, and charged in military fashion, screaming, laughing, and shouting, in a manner sufficiently terrible to scare the senses out of all the cobblers in Christendom. Slowly the trembling wretch retreated before the threatening phalanx; but he was surrounded--his back was against the wall--there was no escape; and with one leap the enemy were in the citadel. Extraordinary as it may appear, Jacob did not lose his presence of mind. As they were all jostling, and giggling, and crying out to be smoked, the unconquered cobbler firmly grasped the whole mass of his foes in both his hands to make a last attempt at their destruction, by throwing them into a tub of water, in which he soaked his leather, that happened to be just within reach; but, in a manner inexplicable to him, he felt that the more vigorously he grasped them in a body, the more rapidly they seemed to shrink from his touch, till nothing was left but the original pipe, which suddenly slipped out of his hands. 
The stranger stopped. 
Inexpressible was the astonishment of the little party when they returned, to find that Mr. Pickwick had disappeared, and taken the wheel-barrow with him. It was the most mysterious and unaccountable thing that was ever heard of. For a lame man to have got upon his legs without any previous notice, and walked off, would have been most extraordinary; but when it came to his wheeling a heavy barrow before him, by way of amusement, it grew positively miraculous. They searched every nook and corner round, together and separately; they shouted, whistled, laughed, called--and all with the same result. Mr. Pickwick was not to be found. After some hours of fruitless search, they arrived at the unwelcome conclusion that they must go home without him. 
‘His money could do nothing to save him, and he was hanged.  _I_ am He, and I was hanged at Lancaster Castle with my face to the wall, a hundred years ago!’ 
MASTER HUMPHREY’S VISITOR 
"You can't go to Whitecross Street, my dear sir," said Perker. "Impossible! There are sixty beds in a ward; and the bolt's on sixteen hours out of the four-and-twenty." 
Old Mr. Wardle without a hat, and his clothes torn in several places, stood by his side, and the fragments of the chaise lay scattered at their feet. The post-boys, who had succeeded in cutting the traces, were standing, disfigured with mud and disordered by hard riding, by the horses’ heads. About a hundred yards in advance was the other chaise, which had pulled up on hearing the crash. The postillions, each with a broad grin convulsing his countenance, were viewing the adverse party from their saddles, and Mr. Jingle was contemplating the wreck from the coach window, with evident satisfaction. The day was just breaking, and the whole scene was rendered perfectly visible by the grey light of the morning. 
She put her hands before her face; but otherwise remained quiet. 
Mrs Boffin complied, by reciting the verses in which this obliging offer had been made, exactly as she had received them. 
_Fitz-Growl._--Ah! he's an old friend of mine. He plays the devil in all my pieces. 
‘Of course he knows it, love, and will never forget it,’ said Miss Ledrook. 
When the schoolmaster went away Riderhood followed him, watched him change clothes in the bushes and rescued the bloody garments the other threw away. 
‘We were trespassing, it seems,’ said Wardle. 
Meanwhile, Ralph walked to and fro in his little back-office, troubled in mind by what had just occurred. To say that Ralph loved or cared for--in the most ordinary acceptation of those terms--any one of God’s creatures, would be the wildest fiction. Still, there had somehow stolen upon him from time to time a thought of his niece which was tinged with compassion and pity; breaking through the dull cloud of dislike or indifference which darkened men and women in his eyes, there was, in her case, the faintest gleam of light--a most feeble and sickly ray at the best of times--but there it was, and it showed the poor girl in a better and purer aspect than any in which he had looked on human nature yet. 
"Madam," returned Mr. Micawber, "it was the dream of my youth, and the fallacious aspiration of my riper years." I am thoroughly persuaded, by the bye, that he had never thought of it in his life. 
‘Yes!’ said the client, falling back in his chair, and surveying the Firm with his hands in his pockets.  ‘Deep in love.’ 
Scrooge glanced about him on the floor, in the expectation of finding himself surrounded by some fifty or sixty fathoms of iron cable; but he could see nothing. 
‘Justice or no justice,’ said the young fellow, ‘here I am and here I shall stop till such time as I think fit to go, unless you send for assistance to put me out--which you won’t do, I know. I tell you again that I want to see my sister.’ 
‘He was. Without him, I should have lacked my right hand. He is an older man than I; but nothing can conquer him.’ 
The mirth of Mr. Bob Sawyer was rapidly ripening into the furious; Mr. Ben Allen was fast relapsing into the sentimental, and the punch had well-nigh disappeared altogether, when the boy hastily running in, announced that a young woman had just come over, to say that Sawyer late Nockemorf was wanted directly, a couple of streets off. This broke up the party. Mr. Bob Sawyer understanding the message after some twenty repetitions, tied a wet cloth round his head to sober himself, and, having partially succeeded, put on his green spectacles and issued forth. Resisting all entreaties to stay till he came back, and finding it quite impossible to engage Mr. Ben Allen in any intelligible conversation on the subject nearest his heart, or indeed on any other, Mr. Winkle took his departure, and returned to The Bush. 
‘And the people of those other two places, now,’ pursued Bar, with a bright twinkle in his keen eye, as it slightly turned in the direction of his magnificent neighbour; ‘we lawyers are always curious, always inquisitive, always picking up odds and ends for our patchwork minds, since there is no knowing when and where they may fit into some corner;--the people of those other two places now? Do they yield so laudably to the vast and cumulative influence of such enterprise and such renown; do those little rills become absorbed so quietly and easily, and, as it were by the influence of natural laws, so beautifully, in the swoop of the majestic stream as it flows upon its wondrous way enriching the surrounding lands; that their course is perfectly to be calculated, and distinctly to be predicated?’ 
It is enough for me, to know, that what I have set down in these pages, cannot cost me a single friend on the other side of the Atlantic, who is, in anything, deserving of the name.  For the rest, I put my trust, implicitly, in the spirit in which they have been conceived and penned; and I can bide my time. 
The sister may have sometimes sadly thought that if she had remained with him, the companion and friend she had been once, he might have escaped the crime into which he had fallen. If she ever thought so, it was still without regret for what she had done, without the least doubt of her duty, without any pricing or enhancing of her self-devotion. But when this possibility presented itself to the erring and repentant brother, as it sometimes did, it smote upon his heart with such a keen, reproachful touch as he could hardly bear. No idea of retort upon his cruel brother came into his mind. New accusation of himself, fresh inward lamentings over his own unworthiness, and the ruin in which it was at once his consolation and his self-reproach that he did not stand alone, were the sole kind of reflections to which the discovery gave rise in him. 
"I was to have gone to him elsewhere to-morrow," said the man, accompanying Toby, "but I am uneasy under suspicion, and want to clear myself and to be free to go and seek my bread--I don't know where. So, maybe he'll forgive my going to his house to-night." 
"I thought you came from Oxford?" I returned. 
There was something in the sound of the last word which roused the unctuous boy. He jumped up, and the leaden eyes which twinkled behind his mountainous cheeks leered horribly upon the food as he unpacked it from the basket. 
‘Saw I was anxious!’ muttered Ralph; ‘they all watch me, now. Where is this person? You did not say I was not down yet, I hope?’ 
There was something of a very refreshing nature in the smell of this extraordinary-looking cigar, which was burning steadily in my hand. I resolved to try its boasted efficacy; and accordingly put it to my lips, and inhaled its fragrance. In a moment I was well, more than well; for a delicious languor seized me. After that, my nerves were braced, invigorated; I felt as a hunter does after a long day's sport, hungry almost to famine, and I descended to the saloon, and called lustily to the steward to bring me a cold fowl, a plate of ham, and a bottle of porter. No more nausea, no more livid lips and blue cheeks. All of a sudden I became eloquent, poetical, and brimful of the tender passion. I wished to console some of my fair companions who were languishing around me, and offered my cigar to all who would accept it. Had it not been for an occasional thought of my mother's illness, which would intrude upon me whether I wished it or not, what folly and entanglement might I have got into with a pretty milliner on board, just returned from Paris, with fashions in her head, and French levity in her heart! 
‘There’s your pay, Mister Rokesmith,’ said the Golden Dustman, jerking the folded scrap of paper he had in his hand, towards his late Secretary. ‘I dare say you can stoop to pick it up, after what you have stooped to here.’ 
"How much of this indecision of character," Mr. Jarndyce said to me, "is chargeable on that incomprehensible heap of uncertainty and procrastination on which he has been thrown from his birth, I don't pretend to say; but that Chancery, among its other sins, is responsible for some of it, I can plainly see. It has engendered or confirmed in him a habit of putting off--and trusting to this, that, and the other chance, without knowing what chance--and dismissing everything as unsettled, uncertain, and confused. The character of much older and steadier people may be even changed by the circumstances surrounding them. It would be too much to expect that a boy's, in its formation, should be the subject of such influences and escape them." 
‘Think not?’ said Sam. 
Mrs. Sowerberry emerged from a little room behind the shop, and presented the form of a short, then, squeezed-up woman, with a vixenish countenance. 
‘She was beautiful, Mrs Todgers,’ he said, turning his glazed eye again upon her, without the least preliminary notice. ‘She had a small property.’ 
Her father sat silent, with his face bent down. His breathing was a little quickened; but he repressed all other signs of agitation. 
"Mrs. Chillip does go so far as to say," pursued the meekest of little men, much encouraged, "that what such people miscall their religion, is a vent for their bad-humors and arrogance. And do you know I must say, sir," he continued, mildly laying his head on one side, "that I _don't_ find authority for Mr. and Miss Murdstone in the New Testament?" 
I thought then, growing uneasy, that I ought to write an answer. I tried over and over again in my own room at night, but I could not write an answer that at all began like a good answer, so I thought each night I would wait one more day. And I waited seven more days, and he never said a word. 
"Faith. I'll be as dumb as the dumb baste." 
With such exclamations, she hurried upstairs, followed by Kate who, although she did not quite participate in the fond wife’s apprehensions, was a little flurried, nevertheless. The dressing-room door being hastily flung open, Mr. Mantalini was disclosed to view, with his shirt-collar symmetrically thrown back: putting a fine edge to a breakfast knife by means of his razor strop. 
Mr. Perker had had a dinner party that day, as was testified by the appearance of lights in the drawing-room windows, the sound of an improved grand piano, and an improvable cabinet voice issuing therefrom, and a rather overpowering smell of meat which pervaded the steps and entry. In fact a couple of very good country agencies happening to come up to town, at the same time, an agreeable little party had been got together to meet them comprising Mr. Snicks the Life Office Secretary, Mr. Prosee the eminent counsel, three solicitors, one commissioner of bankrupts, a special pleader from the Temple, a small-eyed peremptory young gentleman his pupil, who had written a lively book about the law of demises, with a vast quantity of marginal notes and references; and several other eminent and distinguished personages. From this society, little Mr. Perker detached himself, on his clerk being announced in a whisper; and repairing to the dining-room, there found Mr. Lowten and Job Trotter looking very dim and shadowy by the light of a kitchen candle, which the gentleman who condescended to appear in plush shorts and cottons for a quarterly stipend, had, with a becoming contempt for the clerk and all things appertaining to "the office," placed upon the table. 
‘We have been afield, mother--leaping ditches, scrambling through hedges, running down steep banks, up and away, and hurrying on. The wind has been blowing, and the rushes and young plants bowing and bending to it, lest it should do them harm, the cowards--and Grip--ha ha ha!--brave Grip, who cares for nothing, and when the wind rolls him over in the dust, turns manfully to bite it--Grip, bold Grip, has quarrelled with every little bowing twig--thinking, he told me, that it mocked him--and has worried it like a bulldog. Ha ha ha!’ 
“Compeyson spoke hardy, but he was always a coward. ‘Go up alonger this drivelling sick man,’ he says to his wife, ‘and Magwitch, lend her a hand, will you?’ But he never come nigh himself. 
"And patience has sat upon it a long time," said Allan. 
Of course I did not understand then that this was an allusion to her supposed experience of the stricken Pidger; but I saw, from the gravity with which Miss Clarissa nodded her head, that great weight was attached to these words. 
So, everybody found out all in a moment that the country _must_ be prosperous and happy, having another Stuart to condescend to reign over it; and there was a prodigious firing off of guns, lighting of bonfires, ringing of bells, and throwing up of caps.  The people drank the King's health by thousands in the open streets, and everybody rejoiced.  Down came the Arms of the Commonwealth, up went the Royal Arms instead, and out came the public money.  Fifty thousand pounds for the King, ten thousand pounds for his brother the Duke of York, five thousand pounds for his brother the Duke of Gloucester.  Prayers for these gracious Stuarts were put up in all the churches; commissioners were sent to Holland (which suddenly found out that Charles was a great man, and that it loved him) to invite the King home; Monk and the Kentish grandees went to Dover, to kneel down before him as he landed.  He kissed and embraced Monk, made him ride in the coach with himself and his brothers, came on to London amid wonderful shoutings, and passed through the army at Blackheath on the twenty-ninth of May (his birthday), in the year one thousand six hundred and sixty.  Greeted by splendid dinners under tents, by flags and tapestry streaming from all the houses, by delighted crowds in all the streets, by troops of noblemen and gentlemen in rich dresses, by City companies, train-bands, drummers, trumpeters, the great Lord Mayor, and the majestic Aldermen, the King went on to Whitehall.  On entering it, he commemorated his Restoration with the joke that it really would seem to have been his own fault that he had not come long ago, since everybody told him that he had always wished for him with all his heart. 
“Tell me the name again of that blacksmith of yours.” 
‘_You_ have come fast, considering!’ retorted Quilp; ‘you creep, you dog, you crawl, you measure distance like a worm.  There are the chimes now, half-past twelve.’ 
‘He’ll do, I think, my dear?’ said the manager, taking a pinch of snuff. 
"Oh!" said Mrs. Mann. 
The words no sooner escaped her lips, than Mr. Grimwig, who had been affecting to dip into a large book that lay on the table, upset it with a great crash, and falling back in his chair, discharged from his features every expression but one of unmitigated wonder, and indulged in a prolonged and vacant stare; then, as if ashamed of having betrayed so much emotion, he jerked himself, as it were, by a convulsion into his former attitude, and looking out straight before him emitted a long deep whistle, which seemed, at last, not to be discharged on empty air, but to die away in the innermost recesses of his stomach. 
“It's the damp, sir, what settles on my chest and voice,” said Jerry. “I leave you to judge what a damp way of earning a living mine is.” 
The most intense emotion now prevailed.  Several members clustered in remonstrance round the Captain, and several round Mr. Tiddypot; but, both were obdurate.  Mr. Chib then presented himself amid tremendous cheering, and said, that not to shrink from the discharge of his painful duty, he must now move that both honourable gentlemen be taken into custody by the beadle, and conveyed to the nearest police-office, there to be held to bail.  The union of parties still continuing, the motion was seconded by Mr. Wigsby—on all usual occasions Mr. Chib’s opponent—and rapturously carried with only one dissentient voice.  This was Dogginson’s, who said from his place ‘Let ’em fight it out with fistes;’ but whose coarse remark was received as it merited. 
The man followed to the chariot door, uttering the wildest imprecations and curses all the way; but as Mr. Losberne turned to speak to the driver, he looked into the carriage, and eyed Oliver for an instant with a glance so sharp and fierce, and at the same time so furious and vindictive, that, waking or sleeping, he could not forget it for months afterwards. He continued to utter the most fearful imprecations until the driver had resumed his seat, and when they were once more on their way, they could see him some distance behind, beating his feet upon the ground, and tearing his hair in transports of frenzied rage. 
‘Yes, sir?’ he rejoined with a sarcastic smile, finding the secretary stopped. ‘You were saying’-- 
Having paid the tribute of a sigh to the instability of human existence, Flora hurried on with her purpose. 
‘Prodigal--prodigal son, Sir,’ suggested Mr. Pell, mildly. 
It was quite out of Walter’s power to be coherent; but he rendered himself as explanatory as he could, in his breathless state, and stated why he had come alone. 
Now. Is there any other witness? No other witness. 
It is the old girl's birthday, and that is the greatest holiday and reddest-letter day in Mr. Bagnet's calendar. The auspicious event is always commemorated according to certain forms settled and prescribed by Mr. Bagnet some years since. Mr. Bagnet, being deeply convinced that to have a pair of fowls for dinner is to attain the highest pitch of imperial luxury, invariably goes forth himself very early in the morning of this day to buy a pair; he is, as invariably, taken in by the vendor and installed in the possession of the oldest inhabitants of any coop in Europe. Returning with these triumphs of toughness tied up in a clean blue and white cotton handkerchief (essential to the arrangements), he in a casual manner invites Mrs. Bagnet to declare at breakfast what she would like for dinner. Mrs. Bagnet, by a coincidence never known to fail, replying fowls, Mr. Bagnet instantly produces his bundle from a place of concealment amidst general amazement and rejoicing. He further requires that the old girl shall do nothing all day long but sit in her very best gown and be served by himself and the young people. As he is not illustrious for his cookery, this may be supposed to be a matter of state rather than enjoyment on the old girl's part, but she keeps her state with all imaginable cheerfulness. 
"Her happiness is no object to me, sir," said Mr. Benjamin Allen, with a flourish of the hand. 
‘Of hypocrisy,’ said Mary. 
"And pray," I entreated, "do not allow me to be the cause of any more delay." 
"She will," said Sheridan. 
UNCOMMERCIAL.  It must cost you a great deal of money to go so far, three strong. 
This manoeuvring was so exceedingly ingenious, and, withal, performed with such immovable composure and coolness, that Mr. Pickwick would have had no wish to disturb it, even if he had had the power. In a short time Mr. Mivins returned, bearing the sherry, which Mr. Smangle dispensed in two little cracked mugs; considerately remarking, with reference to himself, that a gentleman must not be particular under such circumstances, and that, for his part, he was not too proud to drink out of the jug. In which, to show his sincerity, he forthwith pledged the company in a draught which half emptied it. 
‘It gave me (my dearest Edith too, I am sure) infinite pleasure to receive Mr Dombey. As a friend of yours, my dear Major, we were naturally disposed to be prepossessed in his favour; and I fancied that I observed an amount of Heart in Mr Dombey, that was excessively refreshing.’ 
Matrimony is proverbially a serious undertaking.  Like an over-weening predilection for brandy-and-water, it is a misfortune into which a man easily falls, and from which he finds it remarkably difficult to extricate himself.  It is of no use telling a man who is timorous on these points, that it is but one plunge, and all is over.  They say the same thing at the Old Bailey, and the unfortunate victims derive as much comfort from the assurance in the one case as in the other. 
‘But I do mind,’ said David. 
Morning had broken by this time, and a bright and beautiful morning it was. Eva, overpowered by fatigue, had sunk to sleep; Conla sate beside her, deep anxiety lowering on his brow, and his soul rent with the most agonizing emotions. Meantime his body was just as much disturbed, for the island was now heaving and pitching worse than before, upon the longer billows of the ocean; and he occasionally had to hold on with both his hands to the stones and shrubs near him, to prevent himself from being what sailors would call "hove overboard" by the violent motion of the strange craft in, or rather _on_, which he was embarked. Disliking his situation exceedingly, and greatly fearing that he would have still more reason to do so, he saw that there was no chance of his delivery from it, if he could not succeed in mollifying the enraged enchantress. Espying her again seated upon the steamer's taffrail, he therefore hailed her, and sought by humble prayers and entreaties to induce her to release him and his Eva; or, if one should suffer, to set her free, and vent the heaviest vengeance upon his head. But the Black Lady let him talk on. He had a very sweet voice, and she liked to hear that; and, when he had done, she contented herself with simply shaking her head in token of refusal: then, as he again stooped his proud spirit to still more vehement entreaties and supplications, and raved in the intensity of his anguish, she mocked at him, and laughed loud and long in scorn, till at length, wearied out and despairing, he sunk his head upon his bosom, and was silent. Slowly the day wore on, but quickly the headlands and bays of the southern shore of Ireland glided by; and great was the wonder and amaze of those who looked to seaward from that shore. Many were the noble fishes left that day in the depths of the ocean with the barbed hook fast in their jaws, as the wild natives of the coast, in terror at the sight of the demon vessel and her charge, hove overboard their rude fishing-gear to lighten their frail coracles, and plied sail and oar to seek refuge on the land. It has been even surmised that it was some such sight as this, that scared that first great geographer, Ptolemy, and made him fly the Irish coast ere he had completed his survey. However, this is a point that has never been fully ascertained. 
‘By this token, though you mayn’t believe it, That a young gentleman gave me three-and-sixpence as I was coughing my breath away on this very grass.  I asked him for three-and-sixpence, and he gave it me.’ 
It is necessary that I should observe that I have a great delight in pictures.  I am no painter myself, but I have studied pictures and written about them.  I have seen all the most famous pictures in the world; my education and reading have been sufficiently general to possess me beforehand with a knowledge of most of the subjects to which a Painter is likely to have recourse; and, although I might be in some doubt as to the rightful fashion of the scabbard of King Lear’s sword, for instance, I think I should know King Lear tolerably well, if I happened to meet with him. 
'Is he coming up?' inquired Mr. Brownlow. 
"Do you know what I can't help thinking of, Traddles, as I sit here looking at you?" I asked him. 
Nicholas had not the least objection in the world, but on the contrary was rather pleased to have an opportunity of talking on the subject which occupied his thoughts; so, he sat down again, and (his sanguine imagination warming as he spoke) entered into a fervent and glowing description of all the honours and advantages to be derived from his appointment at that seat of learning, Dotheboys Hall. 
I do not think that the best embodiment of chivalry, the realization of the handsomest and most romantic figure ever imagined by painter, could have said this, with a more impressive and affecting dignity than the plain old Doctor did. 
“Mr. Waldengarver,” said the man, “would be glad to have the honour.” 
"Ah!" said the old lady, shaking her head, "I can't hear you." 
At Bury, however, after the boarding-school adventure, he was to be painfully awakened.  He was sitting with his friends after dinner at the "Angel," in his happiest mood.  Winkle had related his quarrel with Pott _in re_ Mrs. Pott, in a humorous fashion when one of the most delightful of humorous scenes followed. 
‘It’s of no use saying any,’ replied Nancy. 
Blunderstone Rookery would come, however, in spite of her, when the carrier’s horse pleased--and did. How well I recollect it, on a cold grey afternoon, with a dull sky, threatening rain! 
Mr Toots, with the assistance of his pipe--which he is extremely glad to devote to oratorical purposes, as its proper use affects him with a very uncomfortable sensation--does such grand justice to this prophetic sentence of his wife’s, that the Captain, throwing away his glazed hat in a state of the greatest excitement, cries: 
‘I’ll come a little way, if you will but walk: not run,’ said Noggs. 
‘Generally, I confess myself a man to be doubted,’ returned Eugene, coolly, ‘for all that.’ 
‘Ha!’ exclaimed Mr. Jingle, with another start--‘removal! remove my unhappiness, and your love bestowed upon a man who is insensible to the blessing--who even now contemplates a design upon the affections of the niece of the creature who--but no; he is my friend; I will not expose his vices. Miss Wardle--farewell!’ At the conclusion of this address, the most consecutive he was ever known to utter, Mr. Jingle applied to his eyes the remnant of a handkerchief before noticed, and turned towards the door. 
‘But it is the same,’ interrupted Nicholas. ‘Madeline is not the near relation of our benefactors, but she is closely bound to them by ties as dear; and I was first intrusted with her history, specially because they reposed unbounded confidence in me, and believed that I was as true as steel. How base would it be of me to take advantage of the circumstances which placed her here, or of the slight service I was happily able to render her, and to seek to engage her affections when the result must be, if I succeeded, that the brothers would be disappointed in their darling wish of establishing her as their own child, and that I must seem to hope to build my fortunes on their compassion for the young creature whom I had so meanly and unworthily entrapped: turning her very gratitude and warmth of heart to my own purpose and account, and trading in her misfortunes! I, too, whose duty, and pride, and pleasure, Kate, it is to have other claims upon me which I will never forget; and who have the means of a comfortable and happy life already, and have no right to look beyond it! I have determined to remove this weight from my mind. I doubt whether I have not done wrong, even now; and today I will, without reserve or equivocation, disclose my real reasons to Mr Cherryble, and implore him to take immediate measures for removing this young lady to the shelter of some other roof.’ 
‘There M. R. F. ceases to be amusing, because my intentions are opposed to touching the lady.’ 
"In the first transports of her mental anguish, the suffering mother threw herself upon her knees at my feet, and fervently besought the Almighty Being who had hitherto supported her in all her troubles, to release her from a world of woe and misery, and to spare the life of her only child. A burst of grief, and a violent struggle, such as I hope I may never have to witness again, succeeded. I knew that her heart was breaking from that hour; but I never once heard complaint or murmur escape her lips. 
‘A bureau was found opened, and a cash-box, which Mr Haredale had brought down that day, and was supposed to contain a large sum of money, was gone. The steward and gardener were both missing and both suspected for a long time, but they were never found, though hunted far and wide. And far enough they might have looked for poor Mr Rudge the steward, whose body--scarcely to be recognised by his clothes and the watch and ring he wore--was found, months afterwards, at the bottom of a piece of water in the grounds, with a deep gash in the breast where he had been stabbed with a knife. He was only partly dressed; and people all agreed that he had been sitting up reading in his own room, where there were many traces of blood, and was suddenly fallen upon and killed before his master. 
‘If I know you better than quite to believe (unfortunate dog though I am!) that you hate me, or even that you are wholly indifferent to me, Lizzie, let me know so much more from yourself before we separate. Let me know how you would have dealt with me if you had regarded me as being what you would have considered on equal terms with you.’ 
"Be good then," said the old lady, "and don't!" 
‘I don’t know,’ said the Deputy, with deliberation, ‘as I ought to let you go. I’m a honest man as gets my living by the sweat of my brow, and I may fall into trouble by letting you go. I’ve fell into trouble afore now, by George, and I know what it is, and it’s made me careful. You might be took with your deadness again, half a mile off--or half of half a quarter, for the matter of that--and then it would be asked, Why did that there honest Deputy Lock, let her go, instead of putting her safe with the Parish? That’s what a man of his character ought to have done, it would be argueyfied,’ said the Deputy Lock, cunningly harping on the strong string of her terror; ‘he ought to have handed her over safe to the Parish. That was to be expected of a man of his merits.’ 
In reply to this incoherent questioning, the old man informed the deeply affected sister that Oliver had been taken ill in the office, and discharged in consequence of a witness having proved the robbery to have been committed by another boy, not in custody; and that the prosecutor had carried him away, in an insensible condition, to his own residence:  of and concerning which, all the informant knew was, that it was somewhere in Pentonville, he having heard that word mentioned in the directions to the coachman. 
MY CHRISTMAS DINNER. 
It was not the dullest part of this goad in its galling of Bradley Headstone, that he had made it himself in a moment of incautious anger. He tried to set his lips so as to prevent their quivering, but they quivered fast. 
“There you quite mistake him,” said I. “I know better.” 
‘You’ll be down by the first coach on Saturday,’ said Mr. Gabriel Parsons. 
There, I was roused by Mr. Pumblechook’s hailing me. He was a long way down the sunny street, and was making expressive gestures for me to stop. I stopped, and he came up breathless. 
“What I had to say to Estella, Miss Havisham, I will say before you, presently—in a few moments. It will not surprise you, it will not displease you. I am as unhappy as you can ever have meant me to be.” 
Having revolved these things in his mind and arrived at this conclusion, he communicated to Mr Swiveller as much of his meditations as he thought proper (Dick would have been perfectly satisfied with less), and giving him the day to recover himself from his late salamandering, accompanied him at evening to Mr Quilp’s house. 
‘Come,’ said Mr Brass one afternoon, ‘this is two days without a Punch. I’m in hopes he has run through ‘em all, at last.’ 
‘But perhaps you will let me, instead, say something to you. I want to say it earnestly, and with as plain a meaning as it is possible to express. When you think of us, John--I mean my brother, and sister, and me--don’t think of us as being any different from the rest; for, whatever we once were (which I hardly know) we ceased to be long ago, and never can be any more. It will be much better for you, and much better for others, if you will do that instead of what you are doing now.’ 
“Why do you want to know?” 
When this dreadful exordium was over, and Tungay had stumped out again, Mr. Creakle came to where I sat, and told me that if I were famous for biting, he was famous for biting, too. He then showed me the cane, and asked me what I thought of _that_, for a tooth? Was it a sharp tooth, hey? Was it a double tooth, hey? Had it a deep prong, hey? Did it bite, hey? Did it bite? At every question he gave me a fleshy cut with it that made me writhe; so I was very soon made free of Salem House (as Steerforth said), and very soon in tears also. 
‘His father’s name, Mrs Dombey, and his grandfather’s! I wish his grandfather were alive this day! There is some inconvenience in the necessity of writing Junior,’ said Mr Dombey, making a fictitious autograph on his knee; ‘but it is merely of a private and personal complexion. It doesn’t enter into the correspondence of the House. Its signature remains the same.’ And again he said ‘Dombey and Son,’ in exactly the same tone as before. 
Christian George King had vanished before we touched the ground.  But, the word was already passing from hut to hut to turn out quietly, and we knew that the nimble barbarian had got hold of the truth, or something near it. 
"Don't they? How should I know?" demanded Guguste, polishing the pewter spoon on his sleeve as he was accustomed to do those of his master's double-threaded silver. "What do I see of playhouses?" 
‘Hospitals,’ interposed Maggy, still nursing her knees. ‘Let him have hospitals, because they’re so comfortable. Hospitals with lots of Chicking.’ 
On the Saturday after this pleasant termination of a scene which threatened to be attended with very different results, the house in Penton-street was taken possession of, and next Easter Sunday the young couple were asked in church for the first time. Sadler's Wells opened as usual on Easter Monday,[23] and Grimaldi appeared in a new part, a more prominent one than he had yet had, and one which increased his reputation considerably. 
As yet there had been no symptom of the news having any better foundation than in the fears of those who brought it, but The Boot had not been deserted five minutes, when there appeared, coming across the fields, a body of men who, it was easy to see, by the glitter of their arms and ornaments in the sun, and by their orderly and regular mode of advancing--for they came on as one man--were soldiers. In a very little time, Barnaby knew that they were a strong detachment of the Foot Guards, having along with them two gentlemen in private clothes, and a small party of Horse; the latter brought up the rear, and were not in number more than six or eight. 
‘“Prove it, John!” we says,’ repeated Mrs Boffin. ‘“Prove it and overcome your doubts with triumph, and be happy for the first time in your life, and for the rest of your life.” This puts John in a state, to be sure. Then we says, “What will content you? If she was to stand up for you when you was slighted, if she was to show herself of a generous mind when you was oppressed, if she was to be truest to you when you was poorest and friendliest, and all this against her own seeming interest, how would that do?” “Do?” says John, “it would raise me to the skies.” being my firm belief that up you go!”’ 
“And me, and me,” said a couple of poor relations at the bottom of the table, who had eaten and drank very heartily, and laughed at every thing. 
There! I have wiped them away now and can go on again properly. 
"Oh, dear Mrs. Kenwigs, while Mr. Noggs is making that punch to drink happy returns in, do let Morleena go through that figure dance before Mr. Lillyvick." 
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN,—You receive me with so much cordiality that I fear you believe that I really did once sit in a Lord Mayor’s state coach. Permit me to assure you, in spite of the information received from Mr. Alderman Cotton, that I never had that honour.  Furthermore, I beg to assure you that I never witnessed a Lord Mayor’s show except from the point of view obtained by the other vagabonds upon the pavement.  Now, ladies and gentlemen, in spite of this great cordiality of yours, I doubt if you fully know yet what a blessing it is to you that I occupy this chair to-night, because, having filled it on several previous occasions for the society on whose behalf we are assembled, and having said everything that I could think of to say about it, and being, moreover, the president of the institution itself, I am placed to-night in the modest position of a host who is not so much to display himself as to call out his guests—perhaps even to try to induce some among them to occupy his place on another occasion.  And, therefore, you may be safely sure that, like Falstaff, but with a modification almost as large as himself, I shall try rather to be the cause of speaking in others than to speak myself to-night.  Much in this manner they exhibit at the door of a snuff shop the effigy of a Highlander with an empty mull in his hand, who, having apparently taken all the snuff he can carry, and discharged all the sneezes of which he is capable, politely invites his friends and patrons to step in and try what they can do in the same line. 
He stepped aside to the ledge where the vine leaves yet lay strewn about, collected two or three, and stood wiping his hands upon them, with his back to the light. 
"Maria's gift, at all events," he said, taking it up and giving it a slight wave in his hand; when out fell a lozenge-box upon the floor, much more heavily than a lozenge-box with any ordinary lozenges inside would do. 
"Now Joe has become such a favourite," said one, "he ought to look out for a sweetheart." 
‘Madam,’ pursued that gentleman, ‘as you have had the kindness to undertake the--hum--formation of my daughters, and as I am persuaded that nothing nearly affecting them can--ha--be indifferent to you--’ 
'What do you want, then?' demanded the hunchback.  'Will you take yourself off, before I do you a mischief?  Curse you!' 
"Then let us go," said the captain, quite resignedly, "let us go, gentlemen, and see what ails this infernal cow; I can't eat my breakfast without milk, and breakfast is the meal that I generally enjoy most." 
"Not at all. I chose it as a conspicuous part of the house. I think it cannot be too prominently kept before the whole establishment. I wish my people to be impressed with the enormity of the crime, the determination to punish it, and the hopelessness of escape. At the same time, officer, if you in your better knowledge of the subject see any objection--" 
Mr Swiveller replied by taking from his pocket a small and very greasy parcel, slowly unfolding it, and displaying a little slab of plum-cake extremely indigestible in appearance, and bordered with a paste of white sugar an inch and a half deep. 
CHAPTER V—MR. DURDLES AND FRIEND 
There was mutton, a steak, and an apple-pie--nothing in the remotest way connected with ganders--and the dinner went on like a disenchanted feast, as it truly was. Once upon a time Clennam had sat at that table taking no heed of anything but Flora; now the principal heed he took of Flora was to observe, against his will, that she was very fond of porter, that she combined a great deal of sherry with sentiment, and that if she were a little overgrown, it was upon substantial grounds. The last of the Patriarchs had always been a mighty eater, and he disposed of an immense quantity of solid food with the benignity of a good soul who was feeding some one else. Mr Pancks, who was always in a hurry, and who referred at intervals to a little dirty notebook which he kept beside him (perhaps containing the names of the defaulters he meant to look up by way of dessert), took in his victuals much as if he were coaling; with a good deal of noise, a good deal of dropping about, and a puff and a snort occasionally, as if he were nearly ready to steam away. 
‘A choker!’ said Miss Tox, quite aghast. 
The following night, when it was quite dark, the hollow echoes of old London Bridge responded to the rumbling of the cart which contained the ghastly load, the object of Will Marks’ care.  Sufficiently disguised to attract no attention by his garb, Will walked at the horse’s head, as unconcerned as a man could be who was sensible that he had now arrived at the most dangerous part of his undertaking, but full of boldness and confidence. 
‘Ah!’ said Fledgeby, on whose intelligence this doll-fancy made rather strong demands; ‘she’s been buying that basketful to-day, I suppose?’ 
With all her perfections on her head, my Lady Dedlock has come up from her place in Lincolnshire (hotly pursued by the fashionable intelligence) to pass a few days at her house in town previous to her departure for Paris, where her ladyship intends to stay some weeks, after which her movements are uncertain. And at her house in town, upon this muddy, murky afternoon, presents himself an old-fashioned old gentleman, attorney-at-law and eke solicitor of the High Court of Chancery, who has the honour of acting as legal adviser of the Dedlocks and has as many cast-iron boxes in his office with that name outside as if the present baronet were the coin of the conjuror's trick and were constantly being juggled through the whole set. Across the hall, and up the stairs, and along the passages, and through the rooms, which are very brilliant in the season and very dismal out of it--fairy-land to visit, but a desert to live in--the old gentleman is conducted by a Mercury in powder to my Lady's presence. 
"Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, I mentioned yesterday evening that I wanted but a very little to complete this case. I have now completed it and collected proof against the person who did this crime." 
Mrs Milvey, with the most unaffected grace in the world, congratulated them, and was glad to see them. Yet her engaging face, being an open as well as a perceptive one, was not without her husband’s latent smile. 
‘There would certainly seem to have been something wrong somewhere,’ said he; ‘but I am prepared to prove that the authorities out there, are the best of all possible authorities.’ 
Doctor and Mrs Blimber, accompanied (much against his will) by their valued charge, Master Barnet, were already gone back to Brighton, where that young gentleman and his fellow-pilgrims to Parnassus were then, no doubt, in the continual resumption of their studies. The holiday time was past and over; most of the juvenile guests at the villa had taken their departure; and Florence’s long visit was come to an end. 
"Because I fell in love." 
‘My love,’ he observed, ‘perhaps you will allow me to remark that it is barely possible that I DO feel my position at the present moment.’ 
“This used to be one of the family favourites, I recollect,” said Tetterby, in a forlorn and stupid way, “and used to draw tears from the children, and make ’em good, if there was any little bickering or discontent among ’em, next to the story of the robin redbreasts in the wood.  ‘Melancholy case of destitution.  Yesterday a small man, with a baby in his arms, and surrounded by half-a-dozen ragged little ones, of various ages between ten and two, the whole of whom were evidently in a famishing condition, appeared before the worthy magistrate, and made the following recital:’—Ha!  I don’t understand it, I’m sure,” said Tetterby; “I don’t see what it has got to do with us.” 
‘The late Mr. Sniggs, Mrs. Tulrumble,’ said Mr. Tulrumble sharply, for he by no means approved of the notion of unceremoniously designating a gentleman who filled the high office of Mayor, as ‘Old Sniggs,’—‘The late Mr. Sniggs, Mrs. Tulrumble, is dead.’ 
‘The boy is very well, sir,’ said Mr. Giles, recovering his usual tone of patronage; ‘and sends his respectful duty, sir.’ 
When the Chicken put this question he dropped his hat, made a dodge and a feint with his left hand, hit a supposed enemy a violent blow with his right, shook his head smartly, and recovered himself. 
‘I never felt such an interest in any one in my life,’ ejaculated Mrs. Bloss.  A little double-knock interrupted the conversation; Dr. Wosky was announced, and duly shown in.  He was a little man with a red face—dressed of course in black, with a stiff white neckerchief.  He had a very good practice, and plenty of money, which he had amassed by invariably humouring the worst fancies of all the females of all the families he had ever been introduced into.  Mrs. Tibbs offered to retire, but was entreated to stay. 
"Exactly so; and you shall have it all this very day, for it so happens that I'm going into the City to receive payment of a debt that has been owing me since November last. And this reminds me that I have not yet breakfasted; so pray send up--now don't apologise, for you could not possibly have known that I had an appointment in Fenchurch-street at ten o'clock." 
Bella caught Mr Boffin’s twinkling eye for half an instant; but he got it away from her, and restored it to his broad brown hand. 
‘Humph!’ he said when he had scanned his features; ‘I don’t know you.’ 
Here, all eyes were turned upon Brittles, who fixed his upon the speaker, and stared at him, with his mouth wide open, and his face expressive of the most unmitigated horror. 
They were cleverly "built," of a light grey mixture, a broad stripe of the most vivid scarlet traversing each seam in a perpendicular direction from hip to ancle,--in short, the regimental costume of the Royal Bombay Fencibles. The animal, educated in the country, had never seen such a pair of breeches in her life--_Omne ignotum pro magnifico!_ The scarlet streak, inflamed as it was by the reflection of the fire, seemed to act on Flora's nerves as the same colour does on those of bulls and turkeys, she advanced at the _pas de charge_; and her vociferation, like her amazement, was unbounded. A sound kick from the disgusted officer changed its character, and induced a retreat at the very moment when the mistress of the pugnacious quadruped entered to the rescue. 
The meek little stationer, with a broken and unfinished cough, slips down his fourth half-crown--he has never been so close to a case requiring so many--and is fain to depart. And Jo and he, upon this little earth, shall meet no more. No more. 
Tom saw that Martin looked at Mr Pecksniff as though he could have easily found it in his heart to give HIM an invitation to a very warm place; but he was quite silent, and standing opposite that gentleman at the table, regarded him attentively. 
Beneath the watching and attentive eyes of Time--so far another Major--Paul’s slumbers gradually changed. More and more light broke in upon them; distincter and distincter dreams disturbed them; an accumulating crowd of objects and impressions swarmed about his rest; and so he passed from babyhood to childhood, and became a talking, walking, wondering Dombey. 
The tobacco business round the corner of Horsemonger Lane was carried out in a rural establishment one story high, which had the benefit of the air from the yards of Horsemonger Lane jail, and the advantage of a retired walk under the wall of that pleasant establishment. The business was of too modest a character to support a life-size Highlander, but it maintained a little one on a bracket on the door-post, who looked like a fallen Cherub that had found it necessary to take to a kilt. 
If the principal tower of Rochester Castle had suddenly walked from its foundation, and stationed itself opposite the coffee-room window, Mr. Winkle’s surprise would have been as nothing compared with the profound astonishment with which he had heard this address. His first impression was that his coat had been stolen. ‘Will you allow me to detain you one moment?’ said he. 
‘Tell him I am sorry that we ever met.’ 
She stole away to bed as quickly as she could, and when she was alone, gave free vent to the sorrow with which her breast was overcharged. But the sad scene she had witnessed, was not without its lesson of content and gratitude; of content with the lot which left her health and freedom; and gratitude that she was spared to the one relative and friend she loved, and to live and move in a beautiful world, when so many young creatures--as young and full of hope as she--were stricken down and gathered to their graves.  How many of the mounds in that old churchyard where she had lately strayed, grew green above the graves of children!  And though she thought as a child herself, and did not perhaps sufficiently consider to what a bright and happy existence those who die young are borne, and how in death they lose the pain of seeing others die around them, bearing to the tomb some strong affection of their hearts (which makes the old die many times in one long life), still she thought wisely enough, to draw a plain and easy moral from what she had seen that night, and to store it, deep in her mind. 
We shook hands heartily. At first neither of us could speak a word. 
Mr. Pott darted a look of contempt, which might have withered an anchor. 
‘Why it was only just now,’ said the little creature, pointing at him, ‘that I fancied I saw him come out of his grave! He toiled out at that low door so bent and worn, and then he took his breath and stood upright, and looked all round him at the sky, and the wind blew upon him, and his life down in the dark was over!--Till he was called back to life,’ she added, looking round at Fledgeby with that lower look of sharpness. ‘Why did you call him back?’ 
Absolutely impossible my Lords and Gentlemen and Honourable Boards, by any stretch of legislative wisdom to set these perverse people right in their logic? 
A Chancery judge once had the kindness to inform me, as one of a company of some hundred and fifty men and women not labouring under any suspicions of lunacy, that the Court of Chancery, though the shining subject of much popular prejudice (at which point I thought the judge's eye had a cast in my direction), was almost immaculate. There had been, he admitted, a trivial blemish or so in its rate of progress, but this was exaggerated and had been entirely owing to the "parsimony of the public," which guilty public, it appeared, had been until lately bent in the most determined manner on by no means enlarging the number of Chancery judges appointed--I believe by Richard the Second, but any other king will do as well. 
"Indeed!" said Mr. Brownlow. 
The transparent windows with the fire and light, looking so bright and warm from the cold darkness out of doors, were soon gone, and again we were crushing and churning the loose snow. We went on with toil enough, but the dismal roads were not much worse than they had been, and the stage was only nine miles. My companion smoking on the box--I had thought at the last inn of begging him to do so when I saw him standing at a great fire in a comfortable cloud of tobacco--was as vigilant as ever and as quickly down and up again when we came to any human abode or any human creature. He had lighted his little dark lantern, which seemed to be a favourite with him, for we had lamps to the carriage; and every now and then he turned it upon me to see that I was doing well. There was a folding-window to the carriage-head, but I never closed it, for it seemed like shutting out hope. 
'I'm better now,' said Mrs. Corney, falling back, after drinking half of it. 
"It is the steps of thy fingers along the strings then!" rejoined the king. "Come!--strike! A joyful strain!" 
‘Yes,’ returned the other, rising and turning upon him, and looking fiercely round as if in apprehension of a general attack. 
‘With whom I saw you in the Strand in London,’ hinted Arthur. 
‘I should greatly like it. I have heard so much of its story.’ 
"The snow, my lord." 
“It’s very true, you’re matron here, my dear,” submitted Mr. Bumble; “but I thought you mightn’t be in the way just then.” 
“What!” cried the Jew, grasping the coward round the body with both arms as he sprung to his feet. “Where?” 
‘The will was not wanting. There was one came upon me and raised the hue-and-cry, that it would have gone hard with, but for his nimbleness. I made a thrust at him.’ 
THE BEGINNING OF A LONG JOURNEY. 
"What do you call this?" said Joe. "Bed-curtains?" 
"Twhit-twhit!" gs the boatswain's call, followed by a voice like a distant thunderclap, "Hammocks ahoy!" and away flies every man to the nettings; but not a lashing is touched till the whole have found owners, (the occupation of a minute,) when the first lieutenant's "Pipe down!" draws forth a lark-like chirping of the calls, and in a few seconds the whole have disappeared; even the hammock-men to the young gentlemen have fetched their duplicate, and the cloths are rolled up for the night. The gallant Nelson had his coffin publicly exhibited in his cabin; but what of that? the seaman constantly sleeps in his coffin, for such is his hammock should he die at sea. 
‘Not go to bed!’ repeated Mr. Winkle. 
"Never in body, frequently in mind." 
They could not very well avoid looking at them, however, especially as some obstruction on the pavement, at a little distance, happened to detain them where they were for a few moments. Miss Pecksniff had quite the air of having taken the unhappy Moddle captive, and brought him up to the contemplation of the furniture like a lamb to the altar. He offered no resistance, but was perfectly resigned and quiet. The melancholy depicted in the turn of his languishing head, and in his dejected attitude, was extreme; and though there was a full-sized four-post bedstead in the window, such a tear stood trembling in his eye as seemed to blot it out. 
“It is not indeed, my friend,” rejoined Mr. Brownlow, “but my business with this man is intimately connected with him, and as this child has seen him in the full career of his success and villany, I think it better—even at the cost of some pain and fear—that he should see him now.” 
"It is true," replied Mr. Hughes, "and I fear you will not be able to clear yourself from it: however, in justice to you, the charge shall be fully stated in your own presence. Repeat, sir, if you please," he continued, addressing the accuser, "what you told me last night." 
The Spirit signed to him to listen to the two apprentices, who were pouring out their hearts in praise of Fezziwig: and when he had done so, said, 
Smike opened his mouth to speak, but John Browdie stopped him. 
‘Nor from me?’ said Mr. Spenlow. 
The footman (who had as many large buttons with the Barnacle crest upon them on the flaps of his pockets, as if he were the family strong box, and carried the plate and jewels about with him buttoned up) pondered over the card a little; then said, ‘Walk in.’ It required some judgment to do it without butting the inner hall-door open, and in the consequent mental confusion and physical darkness slipping down the kitchen stairs. The visitor, however, brought himself up safely on the door-mat. 
‘What was in it, Boffin?’ inquired Silas. 
Excuse errors. I should forget how to wear a whole coat now. I have forgotten all my old ways. My spelling may have gone with them. 
When I got to the top of the stairs--the house was only a story high above the ground floor--Traddles was on the landing to meet me. He was delighted to see me, and gave me welcome, with great heartiness, to his little room. It was in the front of the house, and extremely neat, though sparely furnished. It was his only room, I saw; for there was a sofa-bedstead in it, and his blacking-brushes and blacking were among his books--on the top shelf, behind a dictionary. His table was covered with papers, and he was hard at work in an old coat. I looked at nothing, that I know of, but I saw everything, even to the prospect of a church upon his china inkstand, as I sat down--and this, too, was a faculty confirmed in me in the old Micawber times. Various ingenious arrangements he had made, for the disguise of his chest of drawers, and the accommodation of his boots, his shaving-glass, and so forth, particularly impressed themselves upon me, as evidences of the same Traddles who used to make models of elephants’ dens in writing-paper to put flies in; and to comfort himself under ill usage, with the memorable works of art I have so often mentioned. 
My Lady removes her eyes from him no more. 
‘I believe nothing is so good for making children lively and cheerful, Sir, as seeing other children playing about ‘em,’ observed Polly, taking courage. 
"Yes; and the sense of being unfit for it, or of not having understood it, or of having shown his condition in spite of himself, seems to make him so uneasy, that next day he is worse, and next day worse, and so he becomes jaded and haggard. Do not be alarmed by what I say, Agnes, but in this state I saw him, only the other evening, lay down his head upon his desk, and shed tears like a child." 
"What then?" he retorted. "Even if I have grown so much wiser, what then? I am not changed towards you." 
‘Oh, that’s the joke, is it?’ said Mr. Pickwick. 
‘Riding today, Trot?’ said my aunt, putting her head in at the door. 
"One moment, Mr. Snitchey," said that lady. "It is not in my nature to rake up the ashes of the departed." 
‘But they mustn’t know it to-night, my precious soul,’ said Mark; ‘so have the house shut, and the kitchen fire made up; and when it’s all ready, put a light in the winder, and we’ll come in. One more! I long to hear about old friends. You’ll tell me all about ‘em, won’t you; Mr Pinch, and the butcher’s dog down the street, and the terrier over the way, and the wheelwright’s, and every one of ‘em. When I first caught sight of the church to-night, I thought the steeple would have choked me, I did. One more! Won’t you? Not a very little one to finish off with?’ 
His resolution was made. He must go to Paris. 
'I see a vacant seat,' replied the Ghost, 'in the poor chimney corner, and a crutch without an owner, carefully preserved. If these shadows remain unaltered by the Future, the child will die.' 
"Hush! Don't speak lightly of a true heart, which is all your own, Marion," cried her sister, "even in jest. There is not a truer heart than Alfred's in the world!" 
‘Gentleman in the coffee-room, sir,’ replied the Boots, as Mr. Winkle opened the door and confronted him; ‘gentleman says he’ll not detain you a moment, Sir, but he can take no denial.’ 
Repressing an indignant look, indicative of anything but a disposition to excuse him, Silas pursues his point. 
Mr. Maguire did not respond to the young squire's risibility; the cast of his countenance was decidedly serious. 
‘In substance, all.’ 
As Martin made him an encouraging reply, he listened attentively to his voice, and smiled. 
“What did they do to him?” inquired the fat boy, in a faltering voice. 
"Because you fell in love!" growled Scrooge, as if that were the only one thing in the world more ridiculous than a merry Christmas. "Good afternoon!" 
His mother shrieked and ran forward, but she was thrown to the ground; Barnaby was whirled away into the moving mass and she saw him no more. 
‘Where is he? What’s he doing, Sam?’ inquired Mr. Winkle. 
‘On my way to--where I am going.’ 
'Never, father!' cried they all. 
"So you gave him notice?" said my guardian. 
Both Mr. and Mrs. Chopper wear an extraordinary quantity of flannel, and have a habit of putting their feet in hot water to an unnatural extent. They likewise indulge in chamomile tea and such-like compounds, and rub themselves on the slightest provocation with camphorated spirits and other lotions applicable to mumps, sore-throat, rheumatism, or lumbago. 
There was a lovely garden to Mr. Spenlow’s house; and though that was not the best time of the year for seeing a garden, it was so beautifully kept, that I was quite enchanted. There was a charming lawn, there were clusters of trees, and there were perspective walks that I could just distinguish in the dark, arched over with trellis-work, on which shrubs and flowers grew in the growing season. ‘Here Miss Spenlow walks by herself,’ I thought. ‘Dear me!’ 
Oliver, more dead than alive, gasped out, “Yes;” and Sikes, pointing to the street-door with the pistol-barrel, briefly advised him to take notice that he was within shot all the way, and that if he faltered he would fall dead that instant. 
"Last night, I believe." 
That brought her back. Her eyes were closing, but they opened again. 
‘Then listen, if you please. Can you hear me now?’ 
“No, sir?” he whispered, greedily opening his eyes.  “’Ooded lady, sir?” 
In Chapel Lane the rebels lay three deep, and throughout the approaches to the main guard the streets were heaped with corpses. 
He paced the room again in the same restless and unsteady way; and then sat down upon the bedstead, leaning his chin upon his hand, and looking at the table. When he had looked at it for a long time, he remembered his supper; and resuming the chair he had first occupied, began to eat with great rapacity; not like a hungry man, but as if he were determined to do it. He drank too, roundly; sometimes stopping in the middle of a draught to walk, and change his seat and walk again, and dart back to the table and fall to, in a ravenous hurry, as before. 
This remark, perhaps, reminded Mr. Squeers that he was in for a hundred pound at any rate. His countenance relaxed, and he raised his glass to his mouth with an air of greater enjoyment of its contents than he had before evinced. 
TIME was, and not very long ago either, when a singular epidemic raged among the young gentlemen, vast numbers of whom, under the influence of the malady, tore off their neckerchiefs, turned down their shirt collars, and exhibited themselves in the open streets with bare throats and dejected countenances, before the eyes of an astonished public.  These were poetical young gentlemen.  The custom was gradually found to be inconvenient, as involving the necessity of too much clean linen and too large washing bills, and these outward symptoms have consequently passed away; but we are disposed to think, notwithstanding, that the number of poetical young gentlemen is considerably on the increase. 
The Christmas pantomime at Covent Garden was entitled "Baron Munchausen,"[71] and proved as successful as its predecessors had done for some years. During its run, a circumstance occurred worthy of mention, as an instance of the brutality of a man belonging to the theatre. 
|The rebellious movement which, in 1798, openly burst into the horrors of civil war, had for years been maturing. The success of the American colonists in defeating the mother country, and the upheaval in France, the great Revolution, proved fatal precedents, and the easily excited minds of the Irish people led the disloyal and disaffected of the sister kingdom to contemplate the forcible carrying out of a similar policy. As will be seen, this fratricidal struggle largely resolved itself into a religious campaign between the Catholic and Protestant sections of the community. 
The mother and daughter sat for a long time without interchanging a word: almost without motion. The old woman’s face was shrewdly anxious and expectant; that of her daughter was expectant too, but in a less sharp degree, and sometimes it darkened, as if with gathering disappointment and incredulity. The old woman, without heeding these changes in its expression, though her eyes were often turned towards it, sat mumbling and munching, and listening confidently. 
‘Then,’ suggested Miss Abbey, though with a deeper shade of perplexity than before, ‘you criminate yourself.’ 
The Doctor was sitting in his easy chair by the fireside, and his young wife was on a stool at his feet. The Doctor, with a complacent smile, was reading aloud some manuscript explanation or statement of a theory out of that interminable Dictionary, and she was looking up at him. But, with such a face as I never saw. It was so beautiful in its form, it was so ashy pale, it was so fixed in its abstraction, it was so full of a wild, sleep-walking, dreamy horror of I don't know what. The eyes were wide open, and her brown hair fell in two rich clusters on her shoulders, and on her white dress, disordered by the want of the lost ribbon. Distinctly as I recollect her look, I cannot say of what it was expressive. I cannot even say of what it is expressive to me now, rising again before my older judgment. Penitence, humiliation, shame, pride, love, and trustfulness--I see them all; and in them all, I see that horror of I don't know what. 
‘By the Lord, you have more than I have, though!’ cried Mr Meagles. 
Young John, almost overwhelmed by the touching nature of this greeting, professed himself to that effect. 
"I ask your pardon, sir," says Cobbs.  "What was it you--?" 
‘Would you have had me come myself?’ returned the other. 
‘By your shadow,’ said the locksmith. 
He pointed to the old man.  She looked down.  I think she trembled. 
Mr. Pickwick looked round him. The attachment and fervour of his followers, lighted up a glow of enthusiasm within him. He was their leader, and he felt it. 
‘That’s not Sir Geoffrey’s land, is it?’ 
Mary Anne again hailed. 
‘The military now poured in from all quarters; the rebels were routed with considerable slaughter, and, before twelve, the insurrection was completely quelled.’ 
Drawing his arm through his own, he took him down Ludgate-hill to Fleet-street, and so, up a covered way, into a tavern. Here, they were shown into a little room, where Charles Darnay was soon recruiting his strength with a good plain dinner and good wine: while Carton sat opposite to him at the same table, with his separate bottle of port before him, and his fully half-insolent manner upon him. 
‘It’s the only change he takes,’ said Mrs Chivery, shaking her head afresh. ‘He won’t go out, even in the back-yard, when there’s no linen; but when there’s linen to keep the neighbours’ eyes off, he’ll sit there, hours. Hours he will. Says he feels as if it was groves!’ Mrs Chivery shook her head again, put her apron in a motherly way to her eyes, and reconducted her visitor into the regions of the business. 
‘That Barkis is willing,’ I repeated, innocently. ‘Is that all the message?’ 
‘Five shillings!’ pursued Mr Tigg, musing; ‘and to be punctually repaid next week; that’s the best of it. You heard that?’ 
The old man turned to close the door as he made this reflection, and the noise thus occasioned roused the girl. She eyed his crafty face narrowly, as she inquired whether there was any news, and listened to his recital of Toby Crackit’s story. When it was concluded, she sunk into her former attitude, but spoke not a word. She pushed the candle impatiently away, and once or twice, as she feverishly changed her position, shuffled her feet upon the ground; but this was all. 
‘Now, wait a bit, Boffin; there’s something more. You’ll leave me in sole custody of these Mounds till they’re all laid low. If any waluables should be found in ‘em, I’ll take care of such waluables. You’ll produce your contract for the sale of the Mounds, that we may know to a penny what they’re worth, and you’ll make out likewise an exact list of all the other property. When the Mounds is cleared away to the last shovel-full, the final diwision will come off.’ 
He recoiled in terror, for the scene had changed, and now he almost touched a bed: a bare, uncurtained bed: on which, beneath a ragged sheet, there lay a something covered up which, though it was dumb, announced itself in awful language. 
‘You must ha’ been an uncommon nice boy, to go to school vith,’ said Sam. 
"Now, just a little drop," said Mrs. Mann persuasively. 
‘And that’s ours,’ he rejoined, moving uneasily in his seat, and biting his nails as though he would pare them to the quick. ‘There can be no doubt of ours being the true one. You feel as certain of that as I do, Gashford, don’t you?’ 
‘Don’t hurt him,’ said the old gentleman, compassionately. 
‘A charming woman indeed, sir,’ said Mr. Chillip; ‘as amiable, I am sure, as it was possible to be! Mrs. Chillip’s opinion is, that her spirit has been entirely broken since her marriage, and that she is all but melancholy mad. And the ladies,’ observed Mr. Chillip, timorously, ‘are great observers, sir.’ 
We now come to a very curious fact.  Mr. R. H. Horne pointed out twenty-five years ago, {337} that a great portion of the scenes describing the death of Little Nell in the “Old Curiosity Shop,” will be found to be written—whether by design or harmonious accident, of which the author was not even subsequently fully conscious—in blank verse, of irregular metre and rhythms, which Southey, Shelley, and some other poets have occasionally adopted.  The following passage, properly divided into lines, will stand thus: 
"Good," said the stranger. "Coachman, I get down here. Guard, my carpet-bag!" 
He looked at the four behind him, and he looked at the four before him. They all returned his look.  He resumed his way.  The four in advance went on, constantly looking back; the four in the rear came closing up. 
Stretched upon the bed, closely enveloped in a linen wrapper, and covered with blankets, lay a human form, stiff and motionless.  The head and face, which were those of a man, were uncovered, save by a bandage which passed over the head and under the chin.  The eyes were closed.  The left arm lay heavily across the bed, and the woman held the passive hand. 
‘Energetic, eh?’ said Mr. Pickwick. 
"Alicia," said the King, one evening when she wished him Good Night. 
‘No, no,’ I returned. 
"Oh, what a reward it is," said Uriah, drawing up one leg, at the risk of bringing down upon himself another visitation from my aunt, "to be so trusted in! But I hope I am able to do something to relieve him from the fatigues of business, Master Copperfield!" 
‘Eldest, Ma’am,’ said Polly. ‘Yes, indeed, it is. That’s the little fellow, Ma’am, that was the innocent cause of so much.’ 
The cheeks and arms of Peggotty, so hard and red in my childish days, when I wondered why the birds didn't peck her in preference to apples, are shrivelled now; and her eyes, that used to darken their whole neighbourhood in her face, are fainter (though they glitter still); but her rough forefinger, which I once associated with a pocket nutmeg grater, is just the same, and when I see my least child catching at it as it totters from my aunt to her, I think of our little parlor at home, when I could scarcely walk. My aunt's old disappointment is set right, now. She is godmother to a real living Betsey Trotwood; and Dora (the next in order) says she spoils her. 
On approaching nearer, Bella discerned that the refection had the appearance of a small cottage-loaf and a pennyworth of milk. Simultaneously with this discovery on her part, her father discovered her, and invoked the echoes of Mincing Lane to exclaim ‘My gracious me!’ 
‘I am not dreadful now, Dora?’ said I, tenderly. 
'I said the word, ma'am,' said Mr. Bumble.  'The prerogative of a man is to command.' 
‘Then,’ said Mr. Scaley, producing a small document from his pocket and unfolding it very slowly, ‘this is a writ of execution, and if it’s not conwenient to settle we’ll go over the house at wunst, please, and take the inwentory.’ 
“Come here, little one.  Tell me whose house is that?” 
"Why what else are you?" returned John, looking down upon her with a smile, and giving her waist as light a squeeze as his huge hand and arm could give. "A dot and"--here he glanced at the Baby--"a dot and carry--I won't say it, for fear I should spoil it; but I was very near a joke. I don't know as ever I was nearer." 
“Tell your governor that Blathers and Duff is here, will you?” said the stouter man, smoothing down his hair, and laying a pair of handcuffs on the table. “Oh! good evening, master. Can I have a word or two with you in private, if you please?” 
‘Oh, don’t, Captain!’ cried the Grinder. ‘I wonder how you can! what have I done to be looked at, like that?’ 
'All right,' cried Sikes, glancing cautiously about. 
‘Miss Amy, I am afraid I disturbed you by speaking to you.’ 
‘After a while, instead of labels, the individual letters were given to her on detached bits of paper: they were arranged side by side so as to spell _book_, _key_, &c.; then they were mixed up in a heap and a sign was made for her to arrange them herself so as to express the words _book_, _key_, &c.; and she did so. 
"Oh! my lord, it is not possible to tell the commotions which constantly agitated my mind. I saw the relative whom I had revered from infancy almost, incessantly engaged in overturning the throne, and annihilating royalty. She held an unaccountable control over my actions, and urged me on in the same career with herself; whilst the innocence of the queen, and my affection for the countess, stirred up the better feelings of my nature, and prompted me to fly from Paris. But the noble young lady's attachment to her royal mistress prevailed over every other sentiment, and she would not leave the queen. Day by day the crisis gradually approached. I ventured to reason with Madame T----, and was silenced by reproach; had she used threats we might have been saved. From thenceforth I was narrowly watched; my position with the countess became known; and the sibyl of Paris, to my surprise, rather encouraged than opposed it,--nay, she bade me look forward, as Calonne had done, to popular supremacy as most conducive to the happiness I sought. 
A few days have elapsed, and a stately ship is out at sea, spreading its white wings to the favouring wind. 
O, we were happy, we were happy! Our tears were not for the trials (hers so much the greater) through which we had come to be thus, but for the rapture of being thus, never to be divided more! 
Edith sat with her dark eyes gazing steadfastly before her, and did not reply until Florence had repeated her entreaty; when she drew her hand within her arm, and said, with the same thoughtful gaze upon the night outside: 
"Ah! sir, his is a sorry story too; but of that anon. He was a gentleman born, sir, bless his dear soul! but, before he was barely out of his teens, study and such like turned his wits, and poor George was placed in our care, an idiot. Oh! how he would watch and wait upon his "young mistress," as he used to call the dear child! and Harri--for so we nicknamed our little Harriet--seemed to look up to him for all her amusements and happiness. Good heart! to see him racing round the garden till he was fairly tired and beat for breath, trundling her in the wheelbarrow, and fancying himself her coachman; and then how he'd follow her wherever she went, as if to protect her; always at a distance when he fancied she didn't wish him with her, but never out of sight. She appeared to be his only care; his poor head seemed filled with nothing but thoughts of her. His friends used to send him trinkets, and money, and baubles, to amuse him; and his greatest pride was to take little Harri into his room, and show her his stores, hang his gilt chains and beads about her neck, seat her in his large arm-chair, and stand behind it as if he were her footman, and play all kinds of pranks to make her laugh; for he seemed pleased when she laughed at him, though he wouldn't bear a smile from anybody else at the same cause. His senses served him at times, and then he would fall into fits of the bitterest melancholy as he sat looking in our sweet child's face, as if reflecting how much he loved her, and how little his wandering mind was able to prove his affection! Ah, poor dear fellow! it's well his sufferings ended when they did, for they would have been terrible indeed if he had lived till now; but all who loved her best, fell off from her either by death or desertion when her day of trouble came." 
During this space he had not been to his mother’s dismal old house. One of his customary evenings for repairing thither now coming round, he left his dwelling and his partner at nearly nine o’clock, and slowly walked in the direction of that grim home of his youth. 
_I_ took an engagement once (pursued the German courier) with an English gentleman, elderly and a bachelor, to travel through my country, my Fatherland.  He was a merchant who traded with my country and knew the language, but who had never been there since he was a boy—as I judge, some sixty years before. 
On the 15th of the next month, his first benefit for that season took place at Sadler's Wells. He sustained the part of Don Juan; and his son, J. S. Grimaldi, played Scaramouch, being his second appearance. He acted the part capitally, and had a great reception, so that his father now in good earnest began to hope he would not only support the name of Grimaldi, but confer upon it increased popularity. The receipts of this night were 231_l._ 14_s._ Three months afterwards his second benefit occurred: Monday, the 9th of October, was the day fixed for it, but on the preceding Saturday he was suddenly seized with severe illness, originating in a most distressing impediment in his breathing. Medical assistance was immediately called in, and he was bled until nigh fainting. This slightly relieved him; but shortly afterwards he had a relapse, and four weeks passed before he recovered sufficiently to leave the house. There is no doubt but that some radical change had occurred in his constitution, for previously to this attack he had never been visited with a single day's illness, while after its occurrence he never had a single day of perfect health. 
I feel that I am getting rusty.  That any attempt to think, would be accompanied with a creaking noise.  That there is nothing, anywhere, to be done, or needing to be done.  That there is no more human progress, motion, effort, or advancement, of any kind beyond this.  That the whole scheme stopped here centuries ago, and laid down to rest until the Day of Judgment. 
To the best of our belief, Paris is the only city in Europe where a prize is annually distributed for the encouragement of VIRTUE. In England--that Joseph Surface of the civilized globe--we give premiums for the growth of fat sheep and piccotees, we boast of prize-oxen and prize-heartsease; but at present we have no prize-virtue. The celebrated benefaction founded by Monsieur de Monthyon (confided to the administration of the French Academy) consists in annual premiums for the production of the finest trait of moral excellence, and the literary work best calculated to promote its recurrence. 
It was Miss Edwards, and everybody said it was Miss Edwards, and Miss Edwards herself admitted that it was. 
"Yes, sir," replied Oliver, weeping bitterly. 
Mr Lammle smiled, and even patted her on the head. In his sinister relish of the scheme, as he stood above her, making it the subject of his cogitations, he seemed to have twice as much nose on his face as he had ever had in his life. 
This was not addressed to Scrooge, or to any one whom he could see, but it produced an immediate effect. For again Scrooge saw himself. He was older now; a man in the prime of life. His face had not the harsh and rigid lines of later years; but it had begun to wear the signs of care and avarice. There was an eager, greedy, restless motion in the eye, which showed the passion that had taken root, and where the shadow of the growing tree would fall. 
Mr. Sapsea then proposes a hit at backgammon, which, seasoned with his own improving conversation, and terminating in a supper of cold roast beef and salad, beguiles the golden evening until pretty late.  Mr. Sapsea’s wisdom being, in its delivery to mortals, rather of the diffuse than the epigrammatic order, is by no means expended even then; but his visitor intimates that he will come back for more of the precious commodity on future occasions, and Mr. Sapsea lets him off for the present, to ponder on the instalment he carries away. 
"What old gen'l'm'n?" inquired Sam, with deep disdain. 
To a mind so disposed, temptation is unnecessary. The thing was done. Duncan was marked out for murder before the letter was written to Lady Macbeth, and she only followed the thought of her husband. 
Although well used to ghostly company by this time, Scrooge feared the silent shape so much that his legs trembled beneath him, and he found that he could hardly stand when he prepared to follow it. The Spirit paused a moment, as observing his condition, and giving him time to recover. 
Therefore it is sealed and deposited for posting among the iron correspondence of the day. This done, Mr. George takes a hearty farewell of the family party and prepares to saddle and mount. His brother, however, unwilling to part with him so soon, proposes to ride with him in a light open carriage to the place where he will bait for the night, and there remain with him until morning, a servant riding for so much of the journey on the thoroughbred old grey from Chesney Wold. The offer, being gladly accepted, is followed by a pleasant ride, a pleasant dinner, and a pleasant breakfast, all in brotherly communion. Then they once more shake hands long and heartily and part, the ironmaster turning his face to the smoke and fires, and the trooper to the green country. Early in the afternoon the subdued sound of his heavy military trot is heard on the turf in the avenue as he rides on with imaginary clank and jingle of accoutrements under the old elm-trees. 
Just then another lady, named Mrs. Alicumpaine, came calling at the street-door with a ring-ting-ting. 
‘Yes. I went up to the house you told me of; and got put down upon the muster. There was another man there, named Dennis--’ 
AMONG other public buildings in a certain town which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning, and to which I will assign no fictitious name, it boasts of one which is common to most towns, great or small, to wit, a workhouse; and in this workhouse was born, on a day and date which I need not take upon myself to repeat, inasmuch as it can be of no possible consequence to the reader, in this stage of the business at all events, the item of mortality whose name is prefixed to the head of this chapter. For a long time after he was ushered into this world of sorrow and trouble, by the parish surgeon, it remained a matter of considerable doubt whether the child would survive to bear any name at all; in which case it is somewhat more than probable that these memoirs would never have appeared, or, if they had, being comprised within a couple of pages, that they would have possessed the inestimable merit of being the most concise and faithful specimen of biography extant in the literature of any age or country. Although I am not disposed to maintain that the being born in a workhouse is in itself the most fortunate and enviable circumstance that can possibly befal a human being, I do mean to say that in this particular instance it was the best thing for Oliver Twist that could by possibility have occurred. The fact is, that there was considerable difficulty in inducing Oliver to take upon himself the office of respiration,—a troublesome practice, but one which custom has rendered necessary to our easy existence,—and for some time he lay gasping on a little flock mattress, rather unequally poised between this world and the next, the balance being decidedly in favour of the latter. Now, if during this brief period, Oliver had been surrounded by careful grandmothers, anxious aunts, experienced nurses, and doctors of profound wisdom, he would most inevitably and indubitably have been killed in no time. There being nobody by, however, but a pauper old woman, who was rendered rather misty by an unwonted allowance of beer, and a parish surgeon who did such matters by contract, Oliver and nature fought out the point between them. The result was, that, after a few struggles, Oliver breathed, sneezed, and proceeded to advertise to the inmates of the workhouse the fact of a new burden having been imposed upon the parish, by setting up as loud a cry as could reasonably have been expected from a male infant who had not been possessed of that very useful appendage, a voice, for a much longer space of time than three minutes and a quarter. 
“Oh!” said I, poker in hand; “it’s you, is it? How do you do? I was wondering who it was, who kept the fire off.” 
‘I wouldn’t say it if I was sober!’ retorted Jonas. ‘You know better. Have I never said it when I was sober?’ 
“Ah!” feebly moaned the man upon the bed.  “The waste since then, the waste of life since then!” 
My box was at my old lodging, over the water, and I had written a direction for it on the back of one of our address cards that we nailed on the casks: "Master David, to be left till called for, at the Coach Office, Dover." This I had in my pocket ready to put on the box, after I should have got it out of the house; and as I went towards my lodging, I looked about me for some one who would help me to carry it to the booking-office. 
A curtain was drawn across the lower portion of the window, and he could not see into the room.  But there was no shadow thrown upon it from within.  To have gained a footing on the wall and tried to look in from above, would have been attended with some danger--certainly with some noise, and the chance of terrifying the child, if that really were her habitation.  Again and again he listened; again and again the same wearisome blank. 
Toddles was the pet-name of the boy; Poddles of the girl. At their little unsteady pace, they came across the floor, hand-in-hand, as if they were traversing an extremely difficult road intersected by brooks, and, when they had had their heads patted by Mrs Betty Higden, made lunges at the orphan, dramatically representing an attempt to bear him, crowing, into captivity and slavery. All the three children enjoyed this to a delightful extent, and the sympathetic Sloppy again laughed long and loud. When it was discreet to stop the play, Betty Higden said ‘Go to your seats Toddles and Poddles,’ and they returned hand-in-hand across country, seeming to find the brooks rather swollen by late rains. 
But as the children dispersed, he cut off one small straggler—a brown faced boy with flaxen hair—and said to him: 
"Oh heavens! how blind I have been, how could you father, and I so helpless!" Poor Caleb hung his head. 
‘Yes. I appeal to you, sir,’ proceeded Bella with increasing spirit, ‘not to pursue me. I appeal to you not to take advantage of your position in this house to make my position in it distressing and disagreeable. I appeal to you to discontinue your habit of making your misplaced attentions as plain to Mrs Boffin as to me.’ 
But sleep she could not. The wide, bright, wistful blue eyes lay shining like two stars toward the fading light in the window, and the little ears were strained to catch every sound. She heard the shouts of Tom and Bill and the loud barking of Spring as they swept out of the door; and the sound went to her heart. Spring--her faithful attendant, the most loving and sympathetic of dogs, her friend and confidential counselor in many a solitary ramble--Spring had gone with the boys to see the sight, and left her alone. She began to pity herself and cry softly on her pillow. For a while she could hear Nabby's energetic movements below, washing up dishes, putting back chairs, and giving energetic thumps and bangs here and there, as her way was of producing order. But by and by that was all over, and she heard the loud shutting of the kitchen door and Nabby's voice chatting with her attendant as she went off to the scene of gaiety. 
‘What was she doing there I wonder!’ said Mr Meagles. ‘Not going to it, I should think.’ 
She told me that everything would be arranged for me by Mr. Wickfield, and that I should want for nothing, and gave me the kindest words and the best advice. 
Lady Dedlock dines alone in her own room to-day. Sir Leicester is whipped in to the rescue of the Doodle Party and the discomfiture of the Coodle Faction. Lady Dedlock asks on sitting down to dinner, still deadly pale (and quite an illustration of the debilitated cousin's text), whether he is gone out? Yes. Whether Mr. Tulkinghorn is gone yet? No. Presently she asks again, is he gone YET? No. What is he doing? Mercury thinks he is writing letters in the library. Would my Lady wish to see him? Anything but that. 
If the funeral had been yesterday, I could not recollect it better. The very air of the best parlor, when I went in at the door, the bright condition of the fire, the shining of the wine in the decanters, the patterns of the glasses and plates, the faint sweet smell of cake, the odour of Miss Murdstone's dress, and our black clothes. Mr. Chillip is in the room, and comes to speak to me. 
"The Poor Gentleman" is an excellent play; and "Who wants a Guinea?" although not so decidedly successful as its predecessors, teems with that rich humour and quaintness of thought which so strongly characterise the writing of its author. His farces of "The Review," "Love laughs at Locksmiths," "We fly by Night," and several others, are all admirable in their way. These were given to the town as the reductions of Arthur Griffinhoofe, a _nom de guerre_, however, which proved quite inefficient in making the public mistake the source whence their amusement was derived. 
But when he walked into the parlour where the old man was engaged as Jane had said; with pen and ink and paper on a table close at hand (for Mr Pecksniff was always very particular to have him well supplied with writing materials), he became less cheerful. He was not angry, he was not vindictive, he was not cross, he was not moody, but he was grieved; he was sorely grieved. As he sat down by the old man’s side, two tears--not tears like those with which recording angels blot their entries out, but drops so precious that they use them for their ink--stole down his meritorious cheeks. 
Dolly trotted off to school well content with the prospect before her: a nooning, with leave to play with the girls at school, was not an unpleasant idea. 
Sir Bulkeley looked majestically round, and his attendants became instantly mute. At the same time, Jacob forced Mr. Scarve into the house; and Hilda, hastily expressing her thanks to the baronet, withdrew. In a few seconds, the whole of the bags of money were collected, and placed on the threshold. Sir Bulkeley would not, however, depart till Jacob returned, when he committed the heap to his custody. 
CHAPTER XXXVI -- IS A VERY SHORT ONE, AND MAY APPEAR OF NO GREAT IMPORTANCE IN ITS PLACE, BUT IT SHOULD BE READ NOTWITHSTANDING, AS A SEQUEL TO THE LAST, AND A KEY TO ONE THAT WILL FOLLOW WHEN ITS TIME ARRIVES 
"And what does the boy say?" said my aunt. "Are you ready to go, David?" 
Mr. Murdstone took no heed of me when I went into the parlor where he was, but sat by the fireside, weeping silently, and pondering in his elbow-chair.  Miss Murdstone, who was busy at her writing-desk, which was covered with letters and papers, gave me her cold finger-nails, and asked me, in an iron whisper, if I had been measured for my mourning. 
‘After you first came to me to get your precious grandson packed off to sea?’ said Quilp. 
‘Not wash myself!’ exclaimed Nicholas. 
Durdles is a stonemason; chiefly in the gravestone, tomb, and monument way, and wholly of their colour from head to foot.  No man is better known in Cloisterham.  He is the chartered libertine of the place.  Fame trumpets him a wonderful workman—which, for aught that anybody knows, he may be (as he never works); and a wonderful sot—which everybody knows he is.  With the Cathedral crypt he is better acquainted than any living authority; it may even be than any dead one.  It is said that the intimacy of this acquaintance began in his habitually resorting to that secret place, to lock-out the Cloisterham boy-populace, and sleep off fumes of liquor: he having ready access to the Cathedral, as contractor for rough repairs.  Be this as it may, he does know much about it, and, in the demolition of impedimental fragments of wall, buttress, and pavement, has seen strange sights.  He often speaks of himself in the third person; perhaps, being a little misty as to his own identity, when he narrates; perhaps impartially adopting the Cloisterham nomenclature in reference to a character of acknowledged distinction.  Thus he will say, touching his strange sights: ‘Durdles come upon the old chap,’ in reference to a buried magnate of ancient time and high degree, ‘by striking right into the coffin with his pick.  The old chap gave Durdles a look with his open eyes, as much as to say, “Is your name Durdles? Why, my man, I’ve been waiting for you a devil of a time!”  And then he turned to powder.’  With a two-foot rule always in his pocket, and a mason’s hammer all but always in his hand, Durdles goes continually sounding and tapping all about and about the Cathedral; and whenever he says to Tope: ‘Tope, here’s another old ’un in here!’  Tope announces it to the Dean as an established discovery. 
‘More than that, you say, do you?’ cried the other, pushing back his battered hat, and drawing his hand across his forehead. ‘Very like. It seems a long, long time.’ 
"Stop!" he growled to me; and wiped his hot face with his hand. "Mother, hold your noise. Well! Let'em have that deed. Go and fetch it!" 
‘The old man raised his eyes to the stranger’s face, bade him “good- evening,” and walked slowly on. He had forgotten him. 
That she should have had a greater scorn for her husband after his late cowardice and treachery than she had had before, was natural enough. There is little doubt that she now began to love Bothwell instead, and to plan with him means of getting rid of Darnley.  Bothwell had such power over her that he induced her even to pardon the assassins of Rizzio.  The arrangements for the Christening of the young Prince were entrusted to him, and he was one of the most important people at the ceremony, where the child was named JAMES: Elizabeth being his godmother, though not present on the occasion.  A week afterwards, Darnley, who had left Mary and gone to his father's house at Glasgow, being taken ill with the small- pox, she sent her own physician to attend him.  But there is reason to apprehend that this was merely a show and a pretence, and that she knew what was doing, when Bothwell within another month proposed to one of the late conspirators against Rizzio, to murder Darnley, 'for that it was the Queen's mind that he should be taken away.'  It is certain that on that very day she wrote to her ambassador in France, complaining of him, and yet went immediately to Glasgow, feigning to be very anxious about him, and to love him very much.  If she wanted to get him in her power, she succeeded to her heart's content; for she induced him to go back with her to Edinburgh, and to occupy, instead of the palace, a lone house outside the city called the Kirk of Field.  Here, he lived for about a week.  One Sunday night, she remained with him until ten o'clock, and then left him, to go to Holyrood to be present at an entertainment given in celebration of the marriage of one of her favourite servants.  At two o'clock in the morning the city was shaken by a great explosion, and the Kirk of Field was blown to atoms. 
"Wages?" inquired Sam. 
IT is a dangerous thing to see anything in the sphere of a vain blusterer, before the vain blusterer sees it himself.  Mr. Bounderby felt that Mrs. Sparsit had audaciously anticipated him, and presumed to be wiser than he.  Inappeasably indignant with her for her triumphant discovery of Mrs. Pegler, he turned this presumption, on the part of a woman in her dependent position, over and over in his mind, until it accumulated with turning like a great snowball.  At last he made the discovery that to discharge this highly connected female—to have it in his power to say, ‘She was a woman of family, and wanted to stick to me, but I wouldn’t have it, and got rid of her’—would be to get the utmost possible amount of crowning glory out of the connection, and at the same time to punish Mrs. Sparsit according to her deserts. 
(‘Take care of the wards, Mr. Jasper.’) 
‘You’ll take me in?’ said the benevolent old clergyman. 
‘Ah! wait till you hear her laugh!’ said Bailey. 
So every item of my plan was crowned with success.  Our reunited life was more than all that we had looked forward to.  Content and joy went with us as the wheels of the two carts went round, and the same stopped with us when the two carts stopped.  I was as pleased and as proud as a Pug- Dog with his muzzle black-leaded for a evening party, and his tail extra curled by machinery. 
Mr. and Mrs. Davis, and their party, had, probably, been brought from London in about nine or ten days.  Eighteen hundred years ago, the Roman legions under Claudius, protested against being led into Mr. and Mrs. Davis’s country, urging that it lay beyond the limits of the world. 
“If you don’t take pocket-hankechers and watches,” said the Dodger, reducing his conversation to the level of Oliver’s capacity, “some other cove will; so that the coves that lose ’em will be all the worse, and you’ll be all the worse too, and nobody half a ha’p’orth the better, except the chaps wot gets them—and you’ve just as good a right to them as they have.” 
If we had to make a classification of society, there is a particular kind of men whom we should immediately set down under the head of ‘Old Boys;’ and a column of most extensive dimensions the old boys would require.  To what precise causes the rapid advance of old-boy population is to be traced, we are unable to determine.  It would be an interesting and curious speculation, but, as we have not sufficient space to devote to it here, we simply state the fact that the numbers of the old boys have been gradually augmenting within the last few years, and that they are at this moment alarmingly on the increase. 
‘Thank you,’ said Mrs Wilfer. ‘I make false statements, it appears? So be it. If my daughter flies in my face, surely my husband may. The one thing is not more unnatural than the other. There seems a fitness in the arrangement. By all means!’ Assuming, with a shiver of resignation, a deadly cheerfulness. 
‘Not a farthing more,’ was the firm reply of Mr. Limbkins. 
He started up, and listened again. 
Finding it was as impossible to argue with this financial genius as if he had been Chancellor of the Exchequer, and consequently the right man in the right place, I passed on meekly. 
"Go along, you dog, do!" cried the little creature, making a whisk at him with the handkerchief with which she was wiping her face, "and don't be impudent! But I give you my word and honor I was at Lady Mithers's last week--_there's_ a woman! How _she_ wears!--and Mithers himself came into the room where I was waiting for her--_there's_ a man! How _he_ wears! and his wig too, for he's had it these ten years--and he went on at that rate in the complimentary line, that I began to think I should be obliged to ring the bell. Ha! ha! ha! He's a pleasant wretch, but he wants principle." 
Mr. Gradgrind had drawn his chair a little nearer to her, and taken her hand.  But, her repetition of these words seemed to strike with some little discord on his ear.  He paused to look at her, and, still holding her hand, said: 
“Strange!” echoed the doctor. “Blathers and Duff themselves could make nothing of it.” 
Dear Mr Clennam, it is possible that I have thought of you--and others--so much by day, that I have no thoughts left to wander round you by night. For I must now confess to you that I suffer from home-sickness--that I long so ardently and earnestly for home, as sometimes, when no one sees me, to pine for it. I cannot bear to turn my face further away from it. My heart is a little lightened when we turn towards it, even for a few miles, and with the knowledge that we are soon to turn away again. So dearly do I love the scene of my poverty and your kindness. O so dearly, O so dearly! 
‘Must find out Mr. Sleary, who would then let him know where you went.  I should have no power of keeping you against his wish, and he would have no difficulty, at any time, in finding Mr. Thomas Gradgrind of Coketown. I am well known.’ 
‘Sometimes, I suppose?’ 
‘No, no. Nonsense. Upon my word I’ve no right to draw the commission,’ said the doctor, ‘I haven’t really. It’s picking your pocket. I don’t recommend anybody here. I only say what I know. My patients ask me what I know, and I tell ‘em what I know. Nothing else. Caution is my weak side, that’s the truth; and always was from a boy. That is,’ said the doctor, filling his glass, ‘caution in behalf of other people. Whether I would repose confidence in this company myself, if I had not been paying money elsewhere for many years--that’s quite another question.’ 
‘Have you been far?’ 
Bleeding Hearts had but paid, the undertaking would have been a complete success; whereas, by reason of their exclusively confining themselves to owing, the profits actually realised had not yet begun to appear in the books. 
Cornelius Cannon (commonly called Colcannon, having had an Irish godfather,) made a horrible mistake, by drinking out of his finger-glass instead of his tumbler. 
“Oh! I remember. Very well, very well.” 
The Carrier, with a troubled glance at Dot, who still kept far away from him, replied, ‘Well! that’s but fair.  I will.’ 
"Major," I whispers, looking in at the parlours, "I beg and pray of you don't go out." 
‘You dare propose to me to—’ 
Mr. Pickwick's mind, like those of all truly great men, was open to conviction. He was a quick and powerful reasoner; and a moment's reflection sufficed to remind him of the impotency of his rage. It subsided as quickly as it had been roused. He panted for breath, and looked benignantly round upon his friends. 
After another silence, the husband of the absent woman, turning to me again, answered me with his usual grumbling unwillingness. 
A man, sitting in a pigeon-hole-place, looked out of the fog, and took money from somebody, inquiring if I was one of the gentlemen paid for, and appearing rather doubtful (as I remember in the glimpse I had of him) whether to take the money for me or not. Shortly afterwards, we were very high up in a very hot theatre, looking down into a large pit, that seemed to me to smoke; the people with whom it was crammed were so indistinct. There was a great stage, too, looking very clean and smooth after the streets; and there were people upon it, talking about something or other, but not at all intelligibly. There was an abundance of bright lights, and there was music, and there were ladies down in the boxes, and I don't know what more. The whole building looked to me, as if it were learning to swim; it conducted itself in such an unaccountable manner, when I tried to steady it. 
She gave him the gloved hand she had maimed last night. He took it in one of his, and kissed it, and withdrew. And when he had closed the door, he waved the hand with which he had taken hers, and thrust it in his breast. 
‘Fact, fact, fact!’ said the gentleman.  And ‘Fact, fact, fact!’ repeated Thomas Gradgrind. 
She was no quicker, and no slower, in her reply. ‘It would seem that you have obtained possession of a paper--or of papers--which I assuredly have the inclination to recover.’ 
"Well, my own!" said I, kissing her bright hair, which was all I could see. "And what about him?" 
Oh! long, long afterwards, I saw that face rise up before me, with its momentary look, not wondering, not accusing, not regretting. Oh, long, long afterwards, I saw that look subside, as it did now, into the lovely smile, with which she told me she had no fear for herself--I need have none for her--and parted from me by the name of Brother, and was gone! 
"Hush!" replied the Dodger.  "Do you see that old cove at the book-stall?" 
‘He has just been speaking to me,’ said Walter, in breathless explanation. 
The next morning David saw his mother, very pale and with red eyes. He ran to her arms and begged her to forgive him. 
"What has been done to-day?" 
Said his sister’s angel to the leader, “Is my brother come?” 
“What, I suppose he was——” 
“No. It has been kept from her, and I hope will always be kept from her. It is known only to myself, and to one other who may be trusted.” 
‘Disappointed?’ he went on, as he walked between them under the trees. ‘Yes. No doubt I am disappointed. Hurt? Yes. No doubt I am hurt. That’s only natural. But what I mean when I say that people who put themselves in the same position are mostly used in the same way--’ 
‘_Old_,’ said Mr. Jingle briefly but emphatically. 
‘No,’ said Arthur Clennam. ‘That is what I wish to have.’ 
By way of making the white one whiter, Bella hastened to stipulate that he was not in pain. Mrs Milvey was SO glad of it. 
‘Eleven years she had lived in the dark house and its gloomy garden.  He was jealous of the very light and air getting to her, and they kept her close.  He stopped the wide chimneys, shaded the little windows, left the strong-stemmed ivy to wander where it would over the house-front, the moss to accumulate on the untrimmed fruit-trees in the red-walled garden, the weeds to over-run its green and yellow walks.  He surrounded her with images of sorrow and desolation.  He caused her to be filled with fears of the place and of the stories that were told of it, and then on pretext of correcting them, to be left in it in solitude, or made to shrink about it in the dark.  When her mind was most depressed and fullest of terrors, then, he would come out of one of the hiding-places from which he overlooked her, and present himself as her sole resource. 
‘Old Fireworks, Sir; by which, I’ve no doubt, they meant you, Sir.’ 
"Oh, indeed?" said Ben. 
Unlike the driver of the old Manchester mail, I regard this altered state of things with feelings of unmingled pleasure and satisfaction. 
Such were the two worthies to whom Mr. Pickwick was introduced, as he took his seat at the breakfast table on Christmas morning. 
"So all I've come about, is jest this here," said Sam, disregarding the interruption: "First, to give my governor's notice--there it is. Secondly, to pay the rent--here it is. Thirdly, to say as all his things is to be put together, and give to anybody as we sends for 'em. Fourthly, that you may let the place as soon as you like--and that's all." 
“Why, the deed may not have merited quite so terrible a name,” said Herbert, “but, she was tried for it, and Mr. Jaggers defended her, and the reputation of that defence first made his name known to Provis. It was another and a stronger woman who was the victim, and there had been a struggle—in a barn. Who began it, or how fair it was, or how unfair, may be doubtful; but how it ended is certainly not doubtful, for the victim was found throttled.” 
I looked surprised and inquisitive. The old lady, becoming more and more incensed against the master of deportment as she dwelt upon the subject, gave me some particulars of his career, with strong assurances that they were mildly stated. 
‘I hope it is enough that you have ruined yourself. Rest contented without more ruin. Jeremiah Flintwinch is my messenger and representative. Your affectionate M. C.’ 
"You are the famous Barbone, of whom I have heard so much, and long wished to see?" 
‘Oh, by all means, if you please,’ returned Ralph drily. ‘Here are walls to speak to, sir, a desk, and two stools: most attentive auditors, and certain not to interrupt you. Go on, I beg; make my house yours, and perhaps by the time I return from my walk, you will have finished what you have to say, and will yield me up possession again.’ 
"Excuse me, ladies and gentlemen," said the sergeant, "but as I have mentioned at the door to this smart young shaver" (which he hadn’t), "I am on a chase in the name of the king, and I want the blacksmith." 
Now the Englishman, in taking his Appartement,--or, as one might say on our side of the Channel, his set of chambers,--had given his name, correct to the letter, LANGLEY.  But as he had a British way of not opening his mouth very wide on foreign soil, except at meals, the Brewery had been able to make nothing of it but L'Anglais.  So Mr. The Englishman he had become and he remained. 
‘You,’ said the man, ‘among others.’ 
Mr. Winkle, stooping forward, with his body half doubled up, was being assisted over the ice by Mr. Weller, in a very singular and un-swan-like manner, when Mr. Pickwick most innocently shouted from the opposite bank-- 
Arthur Gride had enrobed himself in his marriage garments of bottle-green, a full hour before Mrs. Sliderskew, shaking off her more heavy slumbers, knocked at his chamber door; and he had hobbled downstairs in full array and smacked his lips over a scanty taste of his favourite cordial, ere that delicate piece of antiquity enlightened the kitchen with her presence. 
In an instant the whole mystery of the hankerchiefs, and the watches, and the jewels, and the Jew, rushed upon the boy’s mind. 
‘Mrs Chick,’ said a very bland female voice outside, ‘how are you now, my dear friend?’ 
"Driven to do it, were you?" said Squeers. "Oh! it wasn’t your fault; it was mine, I suppose—eh?" 
So many times had Rosa seen such dispersals, and so very little did she know of any other Home, that she was contented to remain where she was, and was even better contented than ever before, having her latest friend with her.  And yet her latest friendship had a blank place in it of which she could not fail to be sensible.  Helena Landless, having been a party to her brother’s revelation about Rosa, and having entered into that compact of silence with Mr. Crisparkle, shrank from any allusion to Edwin Drood’s name.  Why she so avoided it, was mysterious to Rosa, but she perfectly perceived the fact.  But for the fact, she might have relieved her own little perplexed heart of some of its doubts and hesitations, by taking Helena into her confidence.  As it was, she had no such vent: she could only ponder on her own difficulties, and wonder more and more why this avoidance of Edwin’s name should last, now that she knew—for so much Helena had told her—that a good understanding was to be reëstablished between the two young men, when Edwin came down. 
He so washes, and rubs, and scrubs, and smells, and washes, that he has not long restored himself with a glass of brandy and stood silently before the fire when Saint Paul's bell strikes twelve and all those other bells strike twelve from their towers of various heights in the dark air, and in their many tones. When all is quiet again, the lodger says, "It's the appointed time at last. Shall I go?" 
“May I ask, sir, if you think she is--” As he hesitated, her father supplied the rest. 
“Vell, young twenty stun,” said Sam, “you’re a nice specimen of a prize boy, you are.” 
With a remembrance of her father’s old life in prison hanging about her like the burden of a sorrowful tune, Little Dorrit would wake from a dream of her birth-place into a whole day’s dream. The painted room in which she awoke, often a humbled state-chamber in a dilapidated palace, would begin it; with its wild red autumnal vine-leaves overhanging the glass, its orange-trees on the cracked white terrace outside the window, a group of monks and peasants in the little street below, misery and magnificence wrestling with each other upon every rood of ground in the prospect, no matter how widely diversified, and misery throwing magnificence with the strength of fate. To this would succeed a labyrinth of bare passages and pillared galleries, with the family procession already preparing in the quadrangle below, through the carriages and luggage being brought together by the servants for the day’s journey. Then breakfast in another painted chamber, damp-stained and of desolate proportions; and then the departure, which, to her timidity and sense of not being grand enough for her place in the ceremonies, was always an uneasy thing. For then the courier (who himself would have been a foreign gentleman of high mark in the Marshalsea) would present himself to report that all was ready; and then her father’s valet would pompously induct him into his travelling-cloak; and then Fanny’s maid, and her own maid (who was a weight on Little Dorrit’s mind--absolutely made her cry at first, she knew so little what to do with her), would be in attendance; and then her brother’s man would complete his master’s equipment; and then her father would give his arm to Mrs General, and her uncle would give his to her, and, escorted by the landlord and Inn servants, they would swoop down-stairs. There, a crowd would be collected to see them enter their carriages, which, amidst much bowing, and begging, and prancing, and lashing, and clattering, they would do; and so they would be driven madly through narrow unsavoury streets, and jerked out at the town gate. 
“If we ever get back to our native land,” said Miss Pross, “you may rely upon my telling Mrs. Cruncher as much as I may be able to remember and understand of what you have so impressively said; and at all events you may be sure that I shall bear witness to your being thoroughly in earnest at this dreadful time. Now, pray let us think! My esteemed Mr. Cruncher, let us think!” 
‘IF,’ said John Willet, turning his eyes from the ceiling to the face of his interrupter, and uttering the monosyllable in capitals, to apprise him that he had put in his oar, as the vulgar say, with unbecoming and irreverent haste; ‘IF, sir, Natur has fixed upon me the gift of argeyment, why should I not own to it, and rather glory in the same? Yes, sir, I AM a tough customer that way. You are right, sir. My toughness has been proved, sir, in this room many and many a time, as I think you know; and if you don’t know,’ added John, putting his pipe in his mouth again, ‘so much the better, for I an’t proud and am not going to tell you.’ 
“Oh! quite, sir, quite,” replied Oliver. 
We were up early. As we walked to and fro, all four together, before breakfast, I deemed it right to recount what I had seen. Again our charge was the least anxious of the party. It was very likely that the men belonged to the Custom House, he said quietly, and that they had no thought of us. I tried to persuade myself that it was so,—as, indeed, it might easily be. However, I proposed that he and I should walk away together to a distant point we could see, and that the boat should take us aboard there, or as near there as might prove feasible, at about noon. This being considered a good precaution, soon after breakfast he and I set forth, without saying anything at the tavern. 
Woodruffe smiled, and said he owed a duty to Allan. He did not like to see him so hard worked as to be unable to take due care of his own corner of the garden;--unable to enter fairly into the competition for the prizes at the Horticultural Show in the summer. Becky now, too, ought to be spared from all but occasional help in the garden. Above all, the ground was now in such an improving state that it would be waste not to bestow due labor upon it. Put in the spade where you would, the soil was loose and well-aired as needs be: the manure penetrated it thoroughly; the frost and heat pulverized, instead of binding it; and the crops were succeeding each other so fast, that the year would be a very profitable one. 
"I am very sorry, sir," said Bob. "I _am_ behind my time." 
Muzzle was an undersized footman, with a long body and short legs. 
‘Do you remain long here?’ inquired Doctor Slammer of Mr. Winkle, as they walked on most amicably together. 
There was neither knocker nor bell-handle at the open door where Oliver and his master stopped; so, groping his way cautiously through the dark passage, and bidding Oliver keep close to him and not be afraid, the undertaker mounted to the top of the first flight of stairs, and, stumbling against a door on the landing, rapped at it with his knuckles. 
‘Yes,’ answered Martin; ‘but my friend can answer this better than I can, for I was very ill at the time. Mark! The gentleman is speaking of Mr Chollop.’ 
"Silence there in amidships," said Mr. Parallel: "you make so much noise that I can't keep my glass steady. Spin your yarns, Mr. Pearl, with your mouth shut, like an oyster;" and then, addressing the captain, "We rise her fast, my lord, and the breeze freshens: the ould beauty knows she's got some work cut out for her; she begins to smell garlic, and walks along like an ostrich on the stretch--legs and wings, and all in full play." 
‘Allow me to open the door, ma’am.’ 
May Fielding was already come; and so was her mother--a little querulous chip of an old lady with a peevish face, who, in right of having preserved a waist like a bedpost, was supposed to be a most transcendant figure; and who, in consequence of having once been better off, or of labouring under an impression that she might have been, if something had happened which never did happen, and seemed to have never been particularly likely to come to pass--but it's all the same--was very genteel and patronising indeed. Gruff and Tackleton was also there, doing the agreeable; with the evident sensation of being as perfectly at home, and as unquestionably in his own element, as a fresh young salmon on the top of the Great Pyramid. 
‘All right?’ inquired Mr. Pickwick, with an inward presentiment that it was all wrong. 
‘’Rack punch!’ cried Mr. Jukes furiously. ‘I haven’t tasted a drop! You call him Mr. Willars, ma’am,’ he added to Mrs. Nettleship. ‘He’s deceiving you, ma’am. He’s not Mr. Willars--he’s Mr. Willars’s gentleman--his valet.’ 
"You never," returns Tony with a most convincing steadfastness, "said a truer word in all your life. I do!" 
The church-clock struck one. A cracked trumpet from the front-garden of Mudfog Hall produced a feeble flourish, as if some asthmatic person had coughed into it accidentally; the gate flew open, and out came a gentleman, on a moist-sugar coloured charger, intended to represent a herald, but bearing a much stronger resemblance to a court-card on horseback. This was one of the Circus people, who always came down to Mudfog at that time of the year, and who had been engaged by Nicholas Tulrumble expressly for the occasion. There was the horse, whisking his tail about, balancing himself on his hind-legs, and flourishing away with his fore-feet, in a manner which would have gone to the hearts and souls of any reasonable crowd. But a Mudfog crowd never was a reasonable one, and in all probability never will be. Instead of scattering the very fog with their shouts, as they ought most indubitably to have done, and were fully intended to do, by Nicholas Tulrumble, they no sooner recognised the herald, than they began to growl forth the most unqualified disapprobation at the bare notion of his riding like any other man. If he had come out on his head indeed, or jumping through a hoop, or flying through a red-hot drum, or even standing on one leg with his other foot in his mouth, they might have had something to say to him; but for a professional gentleman to sit astride in the saddle, with his feet in the stirrups, was rather too good a joke. So, the herald was a decided failure, and the crowd hooted with great energy, as he pranced ingloriously away. 
The lawyer saw that they were in Lady Dedlock's penmanship; it remained to prove that the dead Nemo had really been Captain Hawdon. 
They took one silent turn backward and forward in the shade of the wall, getting, at the height on which the quarantine barracks are placed, what cool refreshment of sea breeze there was at seven in the morning. Mr Meagles’s companion resumed the conversation. 
‘But for you,’ said the outcast, ‘I should die. They would kill me; they would; I know they would.’ 
‘But are you sure they are at the worst?’ asked Emma with a smile. 
_Scro._ It is Belle, as sure as I am a living sinner. 
This is not what Rogers wants to know, however.  What Rogers wants to know, is, whether you _will_ clear the way here, some of you, or whether you won’t; because if you don’t do it right on end, he’ll lock you up! ‘What!  _You_ are there, are you, Bob Miles?  You haven’t had enough of it yet, haven’t you?  You want three months more, do you?  Come away from that gentleman!  What are you creeping round there for?’ 
I spent the night at Uncle Pumblechook’s, and the next morning after breakfast we proceeded to Miss Havisham’s.  It was a dismal looking house with a great many iron bars to it. Some of the windows had been walled up, and the others were rustily barred.  There was a courtyard in front, which was also barred; so we had to wait, after ringing the bell, for some one to open it. 
Herbert said from behind (at the same time poking me), “Capitally.” So I said “Capitally.” 
We found it very difficult to get away from the house. It was not Miss Flite who detained us; she was as reasonable a little creature in consulting the convenience of others as there possibly could be. It was Mr. Krook. He seemed unable to detach himself from Mr. Jarndyce. If he had been linked to him, he could hardly have attended him more closely. He proposed to show us his Court of Chancery and all the strange medley it contained; during the whole of our inspection (prolonged by himself) he kept close to Mr. Jarndyce and sometimes detained him under one pretence or other until we had passed on, as if he were tormented by an inclination to enter upon some secret subject which he could not make up his mind to approach. I cannot imagine a countenance and manner more singularly expressive of caution and indecision, and a perpetual impulse to do something he could not resolve to venture on, than Mr. Krook's was that day. His watchfulness of my guardian was incessant. He rarely removed his eyes from his face. If he went on beside him, he observed him with the slyness of an old white fox. If he went before, he looked back. When we stood still, he got opposite to him, and drawing his hand across and across his open mouth with a curious expression of a sense of power, and turning up his eyes, and lowering his grey eyebrows until they appeared to be shut, seemed to scan every lineament of his face. 
The clerk smiled faintly. 
‘Monks, do you mean?’ inquired the landlord, hesitating. 
Considering it a matter of delicacy to abstain from introducing either Bob Sawyer or Ben Allen to the young couple, until they were fully prepared to expect them, and wishing to spare Arabella’s feelings as much as possible, Mr. Pickwick proposed that he and Sam should alight in the neighbourhood of the George and Vulture, and that the two young men should for the present take up their quarters elsewhere. To this they very readily agreed, and the proposition was accordingly acted upon; Mr. Ben Allen and Mr. Bob Sawyer betaking themselves to a sequestered pot- shop on the remotest confines of the Borough, behind the bar door of which their names had in other days very often appeared at the head of long and complex calculations worked in white chalk. 
‘Very much, indeed, if you’ll teach me, sir,’ replied Oliver. 
‘Puffer,’ assents Deputy, with a shrewd leer of recognition, and smoking an imaginary pipe, with his head very much on one side and his eyes very much out of their places: ‘Hopeum Puffer.’ 
‘Why I thought such a connection wouldn’t suit you, Mark, on any terms!’ cried Tom. 
"Just the wery thing, to be sure," said Mr. Weller, brightening up; "o' course you can, sir." 
‘In this blessed Little Bethel,’ returned her son, peevishly. 
‘Who entereth herein, a conqueror hath bin; 
‘With no one else?’ inquires Miss Larkins. 
‘Not to make amends?’ insinuated Mr Boffin. 
‘Why,’ replied Mr. Pickwick, slightly embarrassed by the question, ‘the fact is, I have been so much engaged in other ways, that I really have not had an opportunity of perusing them.’ 
"Trotwood," said he. "Let me see. I know the name, too. Old lady?" 
"Well?" said the surly man, touching his hat to the old lady. 
She was insensible, and I was afraid to have her moved, or even touched. Assistance was sent for, and I held her until it came, as if I unreasonably fancied (I think I did) that, if I let her go, the fire would break out again and consume her. When I got up, on the surgeon’s coming to her with other aid, I was astonished to see that both my hands were burnt; for, I had no knowledge of it through the sense of feeling. 
It was only for half a minute or so.  A man can't at all times be quite master of himself, and it was only for half a minute or so.  Then I up and went to my hut, and turned into my hammock, and fell asleep with wet eyelashes, and a sore, sore heart.  Just as I had often done when I was a child, and had been worse used than usual. 
Mr Fledgeby appeared to be on the verge of some mutinous expressions, when his hand happened to touch his nose. A certain remembrance connected with that feature operating as a timely warning, he took it thoughtfully between his thumb and forefinger, and pondered; Lammle meanwhile eyeing him with furtive eyes. 
No, nor did he believe it even now. Though he looked the phantom through and through, and saw it standing before him; though he felt the chilling influence of its death-cold eyes; and marked the very texture of the folded kerchief bound about its head and chin, which wrapper he had not observed before: he was still incredulous, and fought against his senses. 
He had improved his own spirits, no less than Mrs. Gummidge's, for they were again at their usual flow, and he was full of vivacious conversation as we went along. 
‘My dear Eugene, I am here.’ 
It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor. When Scrooge's nephew laughed in this way--holding his sides, rolling his head, and twisting his face into the most extravagant contortions--Scrooge's niece, by marriage, laughed as heartily as he, and their assembled friends being not a bit behindhand, roared out lustily. 
‘There is a kind of selfishness,’ said Martin--‘I have learned it in my own experience of my own breast--which is constantly upon the watch for selfishness in others; and holding others at a distance, by suspicions and distrusts, wonders why they don’t approach, and don’t confide, and calls that selfishness in them. Thus I once doubted those about me--not without reason in the beginning--and thus I once doubted you, Martin.’ 
‘What a dragon!’ said Sam, refilling his companion’s glass. ‘It’s some boarding-school in this town, I suppose, ain’t it?’ Now, although this question was put in the most careless tone imaginable, Mr. Job Trotter plainly showed by gestures that he perceived his new friend’s anxiety to draw forth an answer to it. He emptied his glass, looked mysteriously at his companion, winked both of his small eyes, one after the other, and finally made a motion with his arm, as if he were working an imaginary pump-handle; thereby intimating that he (Mr. Trotter) considered himself as undergoing the process of being pumped by Mr. Samuel Weller. 
I explained with tolerable firmness, that I really did not know where my means of subsistence were to come from, unless I could earn them for myself. I had no fear for the future, I said--and I laid great emphasis on that, as if to imply that I should still be decidedly eligible for a son-in-law one of these days--but, for the present, I was thrown upon my own resources. ‘I am extremely sorry to hear this, Copperfield,’ said Mr. Spenlow. ‘Extremely sorry. It is not usual to cancel articles for any such reason. It is not a professional course of proceeding. It is not a convenient precedent at all. Far from it. At the same time--’ 
The Man in the Monument was quite as mysterious a being to Tom as the Man in the Moon. It immediately occurred to him that the lonely creature who held himself aloof from all mankind in that pillar like some old hermit was the very man of whom to ask his way. Cold, he might be; little sympathy he had, perhaps, with human passion--the column seemed too tall for that; but if Truth didn’t live in the base of the Monument, notwithstanding Pope’s couplet about the outside of it, where in London (thought Tom) was she likely to be found! 
‘Hush, Bill, hush!’ said the Jew, who had in vain attempted to stop this burst of indignation; ‘somebody will hear us, my dear. Somebody will hear us.’ 
The way she learnt to understand any look of mine was truly surprising. When I sold of a night, she would sit in the cart unseen by them outside, and would give a eager look into my eyes when I looked in, and would hand me straight the precise article or articles I wanted.  And then she would clap her hands, and laugh for joy.  And as for me, seeing her so bright, and remembering what she was when I first lighted on her, starved and beaten and ragged, leaning asleep against the muddy cart-wheel, it give me such heart that I gained a greater heighth of reputation than ever, and I put Pickleson down (by the name of Mim's Travelling Giant otherwise Pickleson) for a fypunnote in my will. 
My lady had, in our first interview, unconsciously overstated the accommodation of my pretty house.  There was room in it for only one pupil.  He was a young gentleman near coming of age, very well connected, but what is called a poor relation.  His parents were dead.  The charges of his living and reading with me were defrayed by an uncle; and he and I were to do our utmost together for three years towards qualifying him to make his way.  At this time he had entered into his second year with me. He was well-looking, clever, energetic, enthusiastic; bold; in the best sense of the term, a thorough young Anglo-Saxon. 
"No, no, my dear,--I know you're not," said the Jew; "but----" and again the old man paused. 
‘Did I ever tempt you to seek my hand? Did I ever use any art to win you? Was I ever more conciliating to you when you pursued me, than I have been since our marriage? Was I ever other to you than I am?’ 
"You would do something, whatever you were, my dear Traddles," thought I, "that would be pleasant and amiable! And by the way," I said aloud, "I suppose you never draw any skeletons now?" 
‘Do you think he don’t know that?’ returned the other scornfully. ‘But come, Pinch, before I say anything more to you, just run over the reasons you have for being grateful to him at all, will you? Change hands first, for the box is heavy. That’ll do. Now, go on.’ 
Although we could have dispensed with the length at which Mr. and Mrs. Badger pursued the conversation, we both felt that it was disinterested in them to express the opinion they had communicated to us and that there was a great probability of its being sound. We agreed to say nothing to Mr. Jarndyce until we had spoken to Richard; and as he was coming next evening, we resolved to have a very serious talk with him. 
But she did not rise. After looking at him for a little while, she sank down closer to him, laid her arm across his knee, and dropping her head upon it, said: 
‘--For,’ said Mr Tapley, pursuing the theme by way of soliloquy in a low tone of voice; ‘the sea is as nonsensical a thing as any going. It never knows what to do with itself. It hasn’t got no employment for its mind, and is always in a state of vacancy. Like them Polar bears in the wild-beast shows as is constantly a-nodding their heads from side to side, it never CAN be quiet. Which is entirely owing to its uncommon stupidity.’ 
‘There is some spell about that boy,’ said Ralph, grinding his teeth. ‘Circumstances conspire to help him. Talk of fortune’s favours! What is even money to such Devil’s luck as this?’ 
“Now you know all about it, Syd,” said Mr. Stryver. “I don't care about fortune: she is a charming creature, and I have made up my mind to please myself: on the whole, I think I can afford to please myself. She will have in me a man already pretty well off, and a rapidly rising man, and a man of some distinction: it is a piece of good fortune for her, but she is worthy of good fortune. Are you astonished?” 
"I am the Baon Ri Dhuv," said the enchantress, trying to look dignified, and to smooth away the scowl that had darkened her visage since she perceived his companion,--"the Queen of the South!" 
When I got up in the morning, refreshed and stronger yet, I was full of my resolution to tell Joe all, without delay. I would tell him before breakfast. I would dress at once and go to his room and surprise him; for, it was the first day I had been up early. I went to his room, and he was not there. Not only was he not there, but his box was gone. 
‘Yer lie, I didn’t!’ replies Deputy, in his one form of polite contradiction. 
One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey; but I like to go by myself. I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when alone. 
Prone on the sofa, Thomas made no attempt to get through the hours, but passively allowed the hours to get through _him_.  Where other men in his situation would have read books and improved their minds, Thomas slept and rested his body.  Where other men would have pondered anxiously over their future prospects, Thomas dreamed lazily of his past life.  The one solitary thing he did, which most other people would have done in his place, was to resolve on making certain alterations and improvements in his mode of existence, as soon as the effects of the misfortune that had overtaken him had all passed away.  Remembering that the current of his life had hitherto oozed along in one smooth stream of laziness, occasionally troubled on the surface by a slight passing ripple of industry, his present ideas on the subject of self-reform, inclined him—not as the reader may be disposed to imagine, to project schemes for a new existence of enterprise and exertion—but, on the contrary, to resolve that he would never, if he could possibly help it, be active or industrious again, throughout the whole of his future career. 
"Not so disinterested either, my dear, if you mean to extol me for that virtue, since if you were generally on the road, you could be seldom with me. And besides, I wish to hear as much and as often of Ada as I can in this condition of estrangement from poor Rick. Not of her alone, but of him too, poor fellow." 
He walked into a lofty stone hall, refreshingly cool and gloomy after the glare of a Southern day's travel.  Extending along the four sides of this hall was a gallery, leading to suites of rooms; and it was lighted from the top.  Still no bell was to be seen. 
‘Just the wery thing, to be sure,’ said Mr. Weller, brightening up; ‘o’ course you can, sir.’ 
‘No, but are you?’ said the old gentleman. 
"Now, Mr. Pip," pursued the lawyer, "I address the rest of what I have to say to you. You are to understand, first, that it is the request of the person from whom I take my instructions, that you always bear the name of Pip.  You will have no objection, I dare say, to that easy condition.  But if you have any objection, this is the time to mention it." 
He was always a glib speaker, but he delivered this short address very glibly; having been at some pains to compose it outside the coach. 
‘Oh yes!’ cried Miss Tox. ‘To be sure she does!’ 
He pressed his hand upon his brow, looked vacantly round, and as if impelled by a sudden thought, crossed the road, and entered the sexton’s house.  He and his deaf assistant were sitting before the fire.  Both rose up, on seeing who it was. 
And now, gentlemen, in conclusion, let me again solemnly disclaim all pretensions on my own part to the character of a professional man. I never attempted any murder in my life, except in the year 1801, upon the body of a tom-cat; and _that_ turned out differently from my intention. My purpose, I own, was downright murder. “Semper ego auditor tantum?” said I, “nunquamne reponam?” And I went down stairs in search of Tom at one o’clock on a dark night, with the “animus” and no doubt with the fiendish looks of a murderer. But when I found him, he was in the act of plundering the pantry of bread and other things. Now this gave a new turn to the affair; for the time being one of general scarcity, when even Christians were reduced to the use of potato-bread, rice-bread, and all sorts of things, it was downright treason in a tom-cat to be wasting good wheaten-bread in the way he was doing. It instantly became a patriotic duty to put him to death; and as I raised aloft and shook the glittering steel, I fancied myself rising like Brutus, effulgent from a crowd of patriots, and, as I stabbed him, I 
‘What do you mean by that, Sam?’ said Mr. Pickwick. He raised himself in bed, and extended his hand, as if he were about to say something more; but suddenly checking himself, turned round, and bade his valet ‘Good- night.’ 
I was a little disappointed, I must confess, but thoroughly charmed by his good-nature too. I told him how I esteemed his good-nature; and said that his hair must have taken all the obstinacy out of his character, for _he_ had none. 
Oh, delicious were these woods! In the river there were islands, which were covered in summer with the greenest grass, and the freshest of willows, and the clear waters rushed around them in the most inviting manner imaginable. And there were numbers of people extremely ready to accept this delectable invitation of these waters. There they came in fine weather, and as these islands were only separated from the main-land by a little and very shallow stream, it was delightful for lovers to get across--with laughter, and treading on stepping stones, and slipping off the stepping-stones up to the ankles into the cool brook, and pretty screams, and fresh laughter, and then landing on those sunny, and to them really enchanted, islands. And then came fishermen, solitary fishermen, and fishermen in rows; fishermen lying in the flowery grass, with fragrant meadow-sweet and honey-breathing clover all about their ears; and fishermen standing in file, as if they were determined to clear all the river of fish in one day. And there were other lovers, and troops of loiterers, and shouting roysterers, going along under the boughs of the wood, and following the turns of that most companionable of rivers. And there were boats going up and down; boats full of young people, all holiday finery and mirth, and boats with duck-hunters and other, to Sir Roger, detestable marauders, with guns and dogs, and great bottles of beer. In the fine grove, on summer days, there might be found hundreds of people. There were pic-nic parties, fathers and mothers with whole families of children, and a grand promenade of the delighted artisans and their wives or sweethearts. 
Mrs. Billickin then sent into her back parlour for her shawl (it being a state fiction, dating from immemorial antiquity, that she could never go anywhere without being wrapped up), and having been enrolled by her attendant, led the way.  She made various genteel pauses on the stairs for breath, and clutched at her heart in the drawing-room as if it had very nearly got loose, and she had caught it in the act of taking wing. 
Controlling myself on my visitor's account, I dismissed Peggy, stifled my indignation, and prepared, as politely as might be, to listen to Jarber. 
The day wore on; its heat was gently giving place to the cool of evening; a light wind sprung up, fanning his long hair, and making the banner rustle pleasantly above his head. There was a freedom and freshness in the sound and in the time, which chimed exactly with his mood. He was happier than ever. 
“No, no,” said Biddy, gently. “You must marry.” 
"My dearest," I remonstrated, "don't talk preposterous nonsense! Who has made the least allusion to gold watches?" 
‘I wish the maxim were more generally acted on, in all cases,’ said the grey-headed gentleman. 
I rejoice that horses and steers have to be broken before they can be made the slaves of men, and that men themselves have some wild oats still left to sow before they become submissive members of society. Undoubtedly, all men are not equally fit subjects for civilisation; and because the majority, like dogs and sheep, are tame by inherited disposition, this is no reason why the others should have their natures broken that they may be reduced to the same level. Men are in the main alike, but they were made several in order that they might be various. If a low use is to be served, one man will do nearly or quite as well as another; if a high one, individual excellence is to be regarded. Any man can stop a hole to keep the wind away, but no other man could serve so rare a use as the author of this illustration did. Confucius says--"The skins of the tiger and the leopard, when they are tanned, are as the skins of the dog and the sheep tanned." But it is not the part of a true culture to tame tigers, any more than it is to make sheep ferocious; and tanning their skins for shoes is not the best use to which they can be put. 
"What's that you said, sir?" inquired Mr. Pott, looking up, trembling all over with passion.