“You’ll throttle me, master,” whispered the boy. “Let go, will you.”
“Who’s upstairs you dog?” retorted Quilp in the same tone. “Tell me. And don’t speak above your breath, or I’ll choke you in good earnest.”
The boy could only point to the window, and reply with a stifled giggle, expressive of such intense enjoyment, that Quilp clutched him by the throat again and might have carried his threat into execution, or at least have made very good progress towards that end, but for the boy’s nimbly extricating himself from his grasp, and fortifying himself behind the nearest post, at which, after some fruitless attempts to catch him by the hair of his head, his master was obliged to come to a parley.
“Will you answer me?” said Quilp. “What’s going on, above?”
“You won’t let one speak,” replied the boy. “They—ha ha ha!—they think you’re—you’re dead. Ha ha ha!”
“Dead!” cried Quilp, relaxing into a grim laugh himself. “No. Do they? Do they really, you dog?”
“They think you’re—you’re drowned,” replied the boy, who in his malicious nature had a strong infusion of his master. “You was last seen on the brink of the wharf, and they think you tumbled over. Ha ha!”
The prospect of playing the spy under such delicious circumstances, and of disappointing them all by walking in alive, gave more delight to Quilp than the greatest stroke of good fortune could possibly have inspired him with. He was no less tickled than his hopeful assistant, and they both stood for some seconds, grinning and gasping, and wagging their heads at each other, on either side of the post, like an unmatchable pair of Chinese idols.
“Not a word,” said Quilp, making towards the door on tiptoe. “Not a sound, not so much as a creaking board, or a stumble against a cobweb. Drowned, eh, Mrs. Quilp? Drowned!”
So saying, he blew out the candle, kicked off his shoes, and groped his way upstairs; leaving his delighted young friend in an ecstacy of summersets on the pavement.
The bedroom-door on the staircase being unlocked, Mr. Quilp slipped in, and planted himself behind the door of communication between that chamber and the sitting-room, which standing ajar to render both more airy, and having a very convenient chink (of which he had often availed himself for purposes of espial, and had indeed enlarged with his pocketknife), enabled him not only to hear, but to see distinctly, what was passing.
Applying his eye to this convenient place, he descried Mr. Brass seated at the table with pen, ink, and paper, and the case-bottle of rum—his own case-bottle, and his own particular Jamaica—convenient to his hand; with hot water, fragrant lemons, white lump sugar, and all things fitting; from which choice materials, Sampson, by no means insensible to their claims upon his attention, had compounded a mighty glass of punch reeking hot; which he was at that very moment stirring up with a teaspoon, and contemplating with looks in which a faint assumption of sentimental regret, struggled but weakly with a bland and comfortable joy. At the same table, with both her elbows upon it, was Mrs. Jiniwin; no longer sipping other people’s punch feloniously with teaspoons, but taking deep draughts from a jorum of her own; while her daughter—not exactly with ashes on her head, or sackcloth on her back, but preserving a very decent and becoming appearance of sorrow nevertheless—was reclining in an easy-chair, and soothing her grief with a smaller allowance of the same glib liquid. There were also present, a couple of waterside men, bearing between them certain machines called drags; even these fellows were accommodated with a stiff glass apiece; and as they drank with a great relish, and were naturally of a red-nosed, pimple-faced, convivial look, their presence rather increased than detracted from that decided appearance of comfort, which was the great characteristic of the party.
“If I could poison that dear old lady’s rum and water” murmured Quilp, “I’d die happy.”
“Ah!” said Mr. Brass, breaking the silence, and raising his eyes to the ceiling with a sigh, “Who knows but he may be looking down upon us now! Who knows but he may be surveying of us from—from somewheres or another, and contemplating us with a watchful eye! Oh Lor!”
Here Mr. Brass stopped to drink half his punch, and then resumed; looking at the other half, as he spoke, with a dejected smile.
“I can almost fancy” said the lawyer shaking his head, “that I see his eye glistening down at the very bottom of my liquor. When shall we look upon his like again? Never, never! One minute we are here”—holding his tumbler before his eyes—“the next we are there”—gulping down its contents, and striking himself emphatically a little below the chest—“in the silent tomb. To think that I should be drinking his very rum! It seems like a dream.”
With the view, no doubt, of testing the reality of his position, Mr. Brass pushed his tumbler as he spoke towards Mrs. Jiniwin for the purpose of being replenished; and turned towards the attendant mariners.
“The search has been quite unsuccessful then?”
“Quite, master. But I should say that if he turns up anywhere, he’ll come ashore somewhere about Grinidge tomorrow, at ebb tide, eh, mate?”
The other gentleman assented, observing that he was expected at the Hospital, and that several pensioners would be ready to receive him whenever he arrived.
“Then we have nothing for it but resignation” said Mr. Brass; “nothing but resignation, and expectation. It would be a comfort to have his body; it would be a dreary comfort.”
“Oh, beyond a doubt” assented Mrs. Jiniwin hastily; “if we once had that, we should be quite sure.”
“With regard to the descriptive advertisement” said Sampson Brass, taking up his pen. “It is a melancholy pleasure to
