He did say something—in his own way, of course; the fingers went to work. “I’ve d—” said the fingers.
“’One it,” cried Kuppins, dreadfully excited by this time, “done it! you’ve done it! Didn’t I always say you would? Didn’t I know you would? Didn’t I always dream you would, three times running, and a house on fire?—that meant the river; and an army of soldiers—that meant the boat; and everybody in black clothes—meaning joy and happiness. It’s come true; it’s all come out. Oh, I’m so happy!” In proof of which Kuppins immediately commenced a series of evolutions of the limbs and exercises of the human voice, popularly known in the neighbourhood as strong hysterics—so strong, in fact, that Mr. Peters couldn’t have held her still if he had tried. Perhaps that’s why he didn’t try; but he looked about in every direction for something cold to put down her back, and finding nothing handy but the poker, he stirred her up with that in the neighbourhood of the spinal marrow, as if she had been a bad fire; whereon she came to.
“And where’s the blessed boy?” she asked, presently.
Mr. Peters signified upon his fingers that the blessed boy was still at the asylum, and that there he must remain till such time as he should be able to leave without raising suspicion.
“And to think,” said Kuppins, “that we should have seen the advertisement for a boy to wait upon poor Mr. Marwood; and to think that we should have thought of sending our Slosh to take the situation; and to think that he should have been so clever in helping you through with it! Oh my!” As Kuppins here evinced a desire for a second edition of the hysterics, Mr. Peters changed the conversation by looking inquiringly towards a couple of saucepans on the fire.
“Tripe,” said Kuppins, answering the look, “and taters, floury ones;” whereon she began to lay the supper-table. Kuppins was almost mistress of the house now, for the elderly proprietress was a sufferer from rheumatism, and kept to her room, enlivened by the society of a large black cat, and such gossip as Kuppins collected about the neighbourhood in the course of the day and retailed to her mistress in the evening. So we leave Mr. Peters smoking his pipe and roasting his legs at his own hearth, while Kuppins dishes the tripe and onions, and strips the floury potatoes of their russet jackets.
Where all this time is the Emperor Napoleon?
There are two gentlemen pacing up and down the platform of the Birmingham station, waiting for the 10 p.m. London express. One of them is Mr. Augustus Darley; the other is a man wrapped in a greatcoat, who has red hair and whiskers, and wears a pair of spectacles; but behind these spectacles there are dark brown eyes, which scarcely match the red hair, any better than the pale dark complexion agrees with the very roseate hue of the whiskers. These two gentlemen have come across the country from a little station a few miles from Slopperton-on-the-Sloshy.
“Well, Dick,” said Darley, “doesn’t this bring back old times, my boy?”
The red-haired gentleman, who was smoking a cigar, took it from his mouth and clasped his companion by the hand, and said—
“It does, Gus, old fellow; and when I forget the share you’ve had in today’s work, may I—may I go back to that place and eat out my own heart, as I have done for eight years!”
There was something so very like a mist behind his spectacles, and such an ominous thickness in his voice, as the red-haired gentleman said this, that Gus proposed a glass of brandy before the train started.
“Come, Dick, old fellow, you’re quite womanish tonight, I declare. This won’t do, you know. I shall have to knock up some of our old pals and make a jolly night of it, when we get to London; though it will be tomorrow morning if you go on in this way.”
“I’ll tell you what it is, Gus,” replied the red-haired gentleman, “nobody who hadn’t gone through what I’ve gone through could tell what I feel tonight. I think, Gus, I shall end by being mad in real earnest; and that my release will do what my imprisonment even couldn’t effect—turn my brain. But I say, Gus, tell me, tell me the truth; did any of the old fellows—did they ever think me guilty?”
“Not one of them, Dick, not one; and I know if one of them had so much as hinted at such a thought, the others would have throttled him before he could have said the words. Have another drop of brandy,” he said hastily, thrusting the glass into his hand; “you’ve no more pluck than a kitten or a woman, Dick.”
“I had pluck enough to bear eight years of that,” said the young man, pointing in the direction of Slopperton, “but this does rather knock me over. My mother, you’ll write to her, Gus—the sight of my hand might upset her, without a word of warning—you’ll write and tell her that I’ve got a chance of escaping; and then you’ll write and say that I have escaped. We must guard against a shock, Gus; she has suffered too much already on my account.”
At this moment the bell rang for the train’s starting: the young men took their seats in a second-class carriage; and away sped the engine, out through the dingy manufacturing town, into the open moonlit country.
Gus and Richard light their cigars, and wrap themselves in their railway rugs. Gus throws himself back and drops off to sleep (he can almost smoke in his sleep), and
