We don't want any documents.So.There's a lad named Kit--'
Miss Sally nodded, implying that she knew of him.
'Kit!' said Mr Sampson.--'Kit! Ha! I've heard the name before, but I don't exactly call to mind--I don't exactly--'
'You're as slow as a tortoise, and more thick-headed than a rhinoceros,' returned his obliging client with an impatient gesture.
'He's extremely pleasant!' cried the obsequious Sampson.'His acquaintance with Natural History too is surprising.Quite a Buffoon, quite!'
There is no doubt that Mr Brass intended some compliment or other;and it has been argued with show of reason that he would have said Buffon, but made use of a superfluous vowel.Be this as it may, Quilp gave him no time for correction, as he performed that office himself by more than tapping him on the head with the handle of his umbrella.
'Don't let's have any wrangling,' said Miss Sally, staying his hand.'I've showed you that I know him, and that's enough.'
'She's always foremost!' said the dwarf, patting her on the back and looking contemptuously at Sampson.'I don't like Kit, Sally.'
'Nor I,' rejoined Miss Brass.
'Nor I,' said Sampson.
'Why, that's right!' cried Quilp.'Half our work is done already.
This Kit is one of your honest people; one of your fair characters;a prowling prying hound; a hypocrite; a double- faced, white-livered, sneaking spy; a crouching cur to those that feed and coax him, and a barking yelping dog to all besides.'
'Fearfully eloquent!' cried Brass with a sneeze.'Quite appalling!'
'Come to the point,' said Miss Sally, 'and don't talk so much.'
'Right again!' exclaimed Quilp, with another contemptuous look at Sampson, 'always foremost! I say, Sally, he is a yelping, insolent dog to all besides, and most of all, to me.In short, I owe him a grudge.'
'That's enough, sir,' said Sampson.
'No, it's not enough, sir,' sneered Quilp; 'will you hear me out?
Besides that I owe him a grudge on that account, he thwarts me at this minute, and stands between me and an end which might otherwise prove a golden one to us all.Apart from that, I repeat that he crosses my humour, and I hate him.Now, you know the lad, and can guess the rest.Devise your own means of putting him out of my way, and execute them.Shall it be done?'
'It shall, sir,' said Sampson.
'Then give me your hand,' retorted Quilp.'Sally, girl, yours.Irely as much, or more, on you than him.Tom Scott comes back.
Lantern, pipes, more grog, and a jolly night of it!'
No other word was spoken, no other look exchanged, which had the slightest reference to this, the real occasion of their meeting.
The trio were well accustomed to act together, and were linked to each other by ties of mutual interest and advantage, and nothing more was needed.Resuming his boisterous manner with the same ease with which he had thrown it off, Quilp was in an instant the same uproarious, reckless little savage he had been a few seconds before.It was ten o'clock at night before the amiable Sally supported her beloved and loving brother from the Wilderness, by which time he needed the utmost support her tender frame could render; his walk being from some unknown reason anything but steady, and his legs constantly doubling up in unexpected places.
Overpowered, notwithstanding his late prolonged slumbers, by the fatigues of the last few days, the dwarf lost no time in creeping to his dainty house, and was soon dreaming in his hammock.Leaving him to visions, in which perhaps the quiet figures we quitted in the old church porch were not without their share, be it our task to rejoin them as they sat and watched.