66 on his knees, and clasping his hands to- make up my mind what to do to you!" he gether, as he perceived Huckaback rapidly exclaimed. "I-I-suppose you're going reviving. mad, or gone mad, and I must forgive you. "Why-what is the matter?" repeat-But get away with you-out with you, or— ed that gentleman, with a wondering air, or-I'll call inraising his hand to his nose, from which the blood was still trickling. The fact is, that he had lost his senses, not so much from the violence of the injuries he had received, as from the suddenness with which they had been inflicted. "I did it all-yes, I did!" continued Titmouse, gazing on him with a look of agony and remorse. "Why I can't be awake-I can't!" said Huckaback, rubbing his eyes, and then staring at his stained shirt-front and hands. "Oh, yes, you are-you are!" groaned Titmouse; and I'm going mad as fast as I can! Do what you like to me! Lick me if you please! Call in a constable! Send me to jail! Say I came to rob youany thing-I don't care what becomes of me!" "Why-what does all this jabber mean, Titmouse?" inquired Huckaback sternly, apparently meditating reprisals. "Oh, yes, I see! Now you are going to give it me! I won't stir. So hit away, Hucky." Forgive me forgive me, dear Hucky! Don't send me away-I shall go and drown myself if you do." "What the d-1 do I care if you do? You'd much better have gone and done it before you came here. Nay, be off and do it now, instead of blubbering here in this way.' "Go on! Hit away-it's doing me goodthe worse the better!" sobbed Titmouse. "Come, come-none of this noise here I'm tired of it." "But, pray, don't send me away from you. I shall go straight to the devil if you do. I've no friend but you, Hucky. Yet I've been such a villain to you!-But it quite put the devil into me, when all of a sudden I found it was you.' "Me!-Why what are you after ?" interrupted Huckaback, with an air of angry wonder. "Oh dear, dear!" groaned Titmouse; if I've been a brute to you, which is quite true, you've been the ruin of me clean! I'm clean done for, Huck. Cleaned out! You've done my business for me; knocked "Why are you mad?" inquired Hucka-it all in the head. I shan't never hear any back, grasping him by the collar rather roughly. "Yes, quite! Mad!-ruined!-gone to the devil all at once!" "And what if you are? What did it matter to me? What brought you to me, here?" continued Huckaback, in a tone of increasing vehemence. "What have I done to offend you? How dare you come here? And at this time of night, too? Eh?" "What, indeed! Oh lud, oh lud, oh lud! Kick me, I say-strike me! You'll do me good, and bring me to my senses. Me to do all this to you? And we've been such precious good friends always. I'm a brute, Hucky, I've been mad, stark mad, Hucky-and that's all I can say." more of it-they've said as much in their letter-they say that you've called Huckaback now began to have a glimmering notion of his having been, in some considerable degree, connected with the mischief of the day-an unconscious agent in it. He audibly drew in his breath, as it were, as he more and more distinctly recollected his visit to Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap; and adverted more particularly to his threats, uttered, too, in Titmouse's name, and as if by his authority. Whew! here was a kettle of fish! Now strange and unaccountable as, at first thought, it may appear, the very circumstance which one would have thought calculated to assuage his resentment against Titmouse-namely, that he had really inHuckaback stared at him more and more; jured Titmouse most seriously, (if not indeed and began at length to suspect how matters irreparably,) and so provoked the drubbing stood-namely, that the Sunday's incident which had just been administered to himhad turned Titmouse's head he having had quite the contrary effect. Paradoxical also, no doubt, heard some desperate bad as it may seem, matter of clear mitigation news during the day, smashing all his was at once converted into matter of aggrahopes. A mixture of emotions kept him si-vation. Were the feelings which Huckalent. Astonishment-apprehension-doubt back then experienced akin to that which -pride-pique-resentment. He had been struck-his blood had been drawn-by the man there before him on his knees, formerly his friend, now, he supposed, a madman. "Why, curse me, Titmouse, if I can 66 often produces hatred of a person whom one has injured? May it be thus accounted for? That there is a secret satisfaction in the mere consciousness of being a sufferer-a martyr-and that, too, in the presence of a which had for some time given out only a few faint fitful flashes or flickerings in the distance had passed away. Titmouse, with many grievous sighs, took out the letter which had produced the paroxysms we have been describing, and read it aloud. "And only see how they've spelled your name, Huckaback-look!" he added, handing his friend the letter. person whom one perceives to be aware | It was by this time clear that the storm that he has wantonly injured; that one's bruised spirit is soothed by the sight of his remorse by the consciousness that he is punishing himself infinitely more severely than we could punish him; and of the claim one has obtained to the sympathy of every body who sees, or may hear of one's sufferings, (that rich and grateful balm to injured feeling.) But when, as in the case of Huckaback, feelings of this description (in a coarse and small way, to be sure, according to his kind) were suddenly encountered by a consciousness of his having deserved his sufferings; when the martyr felt himself quickly sinking into the culprit and offender; when, I say, Huckaback felt an involuntary consciousness that the gross indignities which Titmouse had just inflicted on him, had been justified by the provocation-nay, far less, that his mischievous and impudent interference had deserved, nay, when feelings of this sort, moreover, were sharpened by a certain tingling sense of physical pain from the blows which he had received the result was, that the sleeping lion of Huckaback's courage was very near awakening. "How particular vulgar!" exclaimed Huckaback, with a contemptuous air, which, overspreading his features, half closed as was his left eye, and swollen as was his cheek and nose, would have made him a queer object to one who had leisure to observe such matters. "And so this is all they say of me," he continued. "How do you come to know that I've been doing you a mischief? All I did was just to look in as respectful as possible, to ask how you was, and they very civilly told me you was very well, and we parted—” “Nay, and that's a lie, Huckaback, and you know it!" interrupted Titmouse. "It's true, so help me !" vehemently asseverated Huckaback. "Why, perhaps you'll deny that you wrote and told me all you said," interrupted Titmouse, indignantly, feeling in his pocket for Huckaback's letter, which that worthy had at that moment quite forgotten having sent, and certainly seemed rather nonplussed on being reminded of. "Oh-ay, if you mean that,-hem!"he stammered. "I've half a mind, Titmouse "—said Huckaback, knitting his brows, and appearing inclined to raise his arm. There was an ominous pause for a moment or two, during which Titmouse's feelings also underwent a slight alteration. His allusion to Huckaback's ruinous insult to Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap, unconsciously converted his remorse into rage, which it rather perhaps resuscitated. He rose from his knees. "Ah!" said he, in quite an altered tone, "you may look fierce! you "The pot and kettle, any how, Tit, as may !—you'd better strike me, Huckaback, far as that goes-but let's spell over this do! Finish the mischief you've begun this letter; we haven't studied it yet; I'm a day! Hit away-you're quite safe," and hand rather at getting at what's said in a he secretly prepared himself for the mis-letter!-Come"-and they drew their chairs chief which-did not come. I think you will very rarely find an impudent man to be a courageous one;-and Huckaback had certainly considerable pretensions to the former character. "You have ruined me! you have, Huckaback!" continued Titmouse, with increasing vehemence; "and I shall be cutting my throat-nay," striking his fist on the table, "I will." "You don't say so!" exclaimed Huckaback, apprehensively. "No, Titmouse, don't don't think of it; it will all come right yet, depend on't; you see if it don't!" "Oh, no! it's all done for-it's all up with me!" "But what's been done?-let us hear," said Huckaback, as he passed a wet towel to and fro over his ensanguined features. "Come, you know you're a liar, Huckbut it's no good now; liar or no liar, it's all over." together, Huckaback reading over the letter, slowly, alone; Titmouse's eyes travelling incessantly from his friend's countenance to the letter, and so back again, to gather what might be the effect of its perusal. "There's a glimpse of daylight yet, Titty!" said Huckaback, as he concluded reading it. "Now, is there really? Do tell me, Hucky." "Why, first and foremost, how uncommon polite they are, except that they haven't manners enough to spell my name right." 66 Really-and so they are!" exclaimed Titmouse, rather elatedly. "And then, you see, there's another thing-if they'd meant to give the thing the go-by altogether, what could have been easier than to have said so?-but they haven't said any thing of the sort, so they don't mean to give it all up." probably, they had hardly anticipated its being so soon afterwards subjected to the scrutiny of the acute intellects which were now engaged upon it. "And then, again, you know they're "Lord, Huck! what would I give for such a head as yours! What you say is quite true," said Titmouse, still more cheer-lawyers; and do they ever write any thing fully. "To be sure, they do say there's an obstacle an obstacle, you see-nay, its obstacles, which is several, and that". Titmouse's face fell. "But they say again, that it's-it'scurse their big words-they say it's to be got over in time." "Well-that's something, isn't it?" "To be sure it is; and ain't any thing better than nothing? But then, again, here's a stone in the other pocket-they say there's a circumstance!-don't you hate circumstances, Titty ?—I do." "So do I! What does it mean? I've often heard-isn't it a thing. And that may be any thing." “There's a great dif-hem! And they go on to say it's happened since you was there" "Curse me, then, if that don't mean you, Huckaback!" interrupted Titmouse, with returning anger. "No, that can't be it; they said they'd no control over the circumstance;-now they had over me; for they ordered me to the door, and I went; ain't that so, Titty? Lord, how my eyes does smart, to be sure!" This was judiciously thrown in at that moment by Huckaback, as a kind of set-off. "And don't I smart all over, inside and out, if it come to that?" inquired Titmouse, dolefully. "There's nothing particular in the rest of the letter-only uncommon civil, and saying if any thing turns up you shall hear.' "I could make that out myself—so there's nothing in that" said Titmouse, quickly. "Well--if it is all over-what a pity! Such things as we could have done, Titty, if we'd got the thing-eh?" Titmouse groaned at this glimpse of the heaven he seemed shut out of for ever. "Can't you find any thing-nothing at all, comfortable-like, in the letter?" he inquired, with a deep sigh. Huckaback again took up the letter and spelt it over. "Well," said he, striving to give himself an appearance of thinking, "there's something in it, that, after all, I don't seem quite to get at the bottom ofthey've seemingly taken a deal of pains with it." And undoubtedly it was a document that had been pretty well considered by its framers, before being sent out; though, that hasn't got more in it than any body can find out? These gents that wrote this, they're a trick too keen for the thieves even-and how can we-hem!-but I wonder if that fat, old, bald-headed gent, with sharp eyes, was Mr. Quirk" "To be sure it was," interrupted Titmouse, with a half shudder. "Was it? Well, then, I'd advise Old Nick to look sharp before he tackles that old gent, that's all!" "Give me Mr. Gammon for my moneysuch an uncommon gentlemanlike—he's quite taken to me “Ah, that was he with the black velvet waistcoat, and white hands! But he can look stern, too, Tit! You should have seen him ring-hem!-But what was I saying about the letter? Don't you see they say they'll be sure to write if any thing turns up?" "So they do, to be sure! Well—I'd forgot that!" interrupted Titmouse, brightening up. 66 Then, isn't there their advertisement in the Flash? They hadn't their eye on any thing when they put it there, I dare say!— They can't get out of that, any how!'"' "I begin to feel all of a sweat, Hucky; I'm sure there's something in the wind, yet!" said Titmouse, drawing nearer still to his comforter. "And more than thatwould they have said half they did to me last night "Eh! hollo, by the way! I've not heard of what went on last night! So you went to 'em? Well-tell us all that happenedand nothing but the truth, be sure you don't; come, Titty!" said Huckaback snuffing the candle, and then turning eagerly to his companion. "Well-they'd such a number of queerlooking papers before them, some with old German-text writing, and others with zigzag marks-and they were so uncommon polite-they all three got up as I went in, and made me bows, one after the other, and said, 'Yours most obediently, Mr. Titmouse, and a great many more such things." "Well-and then?" "Why, Hucky, so help me .! and 'pon my soul, that old gent, Mr. Quirk, told me"-Titmouse's voice trembled at the recollection-"he says, Sir, you're the real owner of ten thousand a year-"" "La!" ejaculated Huckaback, opening wider and wider his eyes and ears as his friend went on. sudden amazement; totally forgetting that that same brandy and water he had asked for-" and me never to think of it at the time!" "And a title-a lord, or something of that sort and you've a great many country seats; and there's been £10,000 a year saving up for you ever since you was born-a and heaps of interest—"" "Lord, Tit! you take my breath away," gasped Huckaback, his eyes fixed intently on his friend's face. "Yes; and they said I might marry the most beautifulest woman that ever my eyes saw for the asking." "You'll forget poor Bob Huckaback, Tit!" murmured his friend, despondingly. "Not I" "Have you been to Dowlas's to-day, after hearing all this?" The thermometer seemed to have been plunged out of hot water into cold; Titmouse was down at zero in a trice. "Oh! that's it! 'Tis all gone again! What a fool I am! We've clean forgot this cursed letter; and that leads me to the end of what took place last night. That cursed shop was what we split on!" "Split on the shop! eh? What's the meaning of that?" inquired Huckaback, with eager anxiety. "Now are you quite sure you wasn't in dream last night, all the while?" 66 Oh, dear, I wish I had been-I do indeed, Hucky!" "Well-you went into the street-what then?" inquired Huckaback, with a sigh of exhausted attention. 66 Why, when I'd got there I was fit to bite my tongue off, as one may suppose; but, just as I was a-turning to go in again, who should come up to me but Mr. Gammon, saying, he humbly hoped there was no offence." "Oh, glorious! So it was all set right again, then-eh?" 66 Why-I-I can't quite exactly say that much, either-but-when I went back, (being obligated by Mr. Gammon being so pressing,) the other two was sitting as pale as death; and though Mr. Gammon and me went on our knees to the old gent, it wasn't any use for a long time; and all that he could be got to say was, that perhaps I might look in again to-night-(but they first made me swear a solemn oath on the Bible never to tell any one any thing about the fortune)-and then-you went, Huckaback, and you did the business; they of course concluding I'd sent you!" thing!" "Why, that's the thing," continued Titmouse, in a faltering tone, and with a depressed look-"That was what I wanted to know myself; for they said I'd better go back!! So I said, 'Gents,' said I, 'I'll "Bother! that can't be. Don't you see be if I'll go back to the shop any how civilly they speak of me in their letter? more; and I snapped my fingers at them- They're afraid of me, you may depend on so! (for you know what a chap I am when it. By the way, Tit, how much did you my blood's up.) And they all turned ghast-promise to come down, if you got the ly pale-they did, upon my life-you never saw any thing like it! And one of them said then, in an humble way, 'Wouldn't I please to go back to the shop, just for a day or two, till things is got to rights a bit.' 'Not a day nor a minute!' said I, in an immense rage. 'We think you'd better, really,' said they. "Then,' says 1, ' if that's your plan, curse me if I won't cut with you all, and I'll employ some one else!' and would you believe me! out I went, bang! into the street!" "You did, Tit!" "They shouldn't have given me so much brandy and water as they did; I didn't well know what I was about, what with the news and the spirits!" "And you went into the street?" inquired Huckaback, with a kind of horror. "I did, indeed." "They'd given you the spirits to see what kind of chap you'd be if you got the property-only to try you, depend on it!" "Come down!-I-really-by Jove, I didn't! No!-I'm sure I didn't!" answered Titmouse, as if new light had burst in upon him. 66 "Why, Tit, I never seed such a goose! That's it, depend upon it-it's the whole thing. That's what they're driving at, in the note!-Why, Tit, where was your wits? D'ye think such gents as them-great lawyers, too-will work for nothing?-You write and tell them you will come down handsome say a couple of hundreds, besides expenses-Gad! twill set you on your pins again, Titty!-Rot me! now I think of it, if I didn't dream last night that you was a member of Parliament, or something of that sort." · "A member of Parliament! And so 1 shall, if all this turns up well." "You see if my dream don't come true! You see, Titty, I'm always a-thinking of you, day and night. Never was two felex-lows that was such close friends as we was from the beginning." "Lord! I-I dare say they did!" claimed Titmouse, elevating his head with They had been acquainted with each other about a year. If Titmouse had been many degrees higher in the grade of society, he would still have met with his Huckaback-a trifle more polished, perhaps, but hardly more quick "Hucky, what a cruel scamp I was to behave to you in the manner I did-curse me, if I couldn't cry to see your eye bung-sighted or effective than, in his way, had ed up in that way!" "Pho! dear Titty, I knew you loved me, all the while and meant no harm; you wasn't yourself when you did it-and besides, I deserved ten times more.-If you had killed me, I should have liked you as much as ever!" "Give us your hand, Hucky! Let's forgive one another!" cried Titmouse, excitedly and their hands were quickly locked together. been the vulgar being he had just quitted! Titmouse hastened homeward. How it was, he knew not; but the feelings of elation with which he had quitted Huckaback did not last long; they rapidly sunk, in the cold night air, lower and lower, the farther he got from Leicester Square. He tried to recollect what it was that had made him take so very different a view of his affairs from that with which he had entered Huckaback's room. He had still a vague impression that they were not desperate; that Huckaback had told him so, and somehow "If we don't mismanage the thing, we shall be all right yet, Titty; but you won't do any thing without speaking to me first-proved it, but how he now knew not-he will you, Titty ?" could not recollect. As Huckaback had "The thoughts of it all going right again gone on, from time to time, Titmouse's little is enough to set me wild, Hucky!-But what mind seemed to him to comprehend and apshall we do to set the thing going again?" preciate what was said, and to gather en"Quarter past one!" quivered the voice couragement from it; but now-consume of the paralytic watchman beneath, startling it!-he stopped-rubbed his foreheadthe friends out of their exciting colloquy; what the deuce was it? By the time that his warning being at the same time silently he had reached his own door, he felt in as seconded by the long-wicked candle, burn-deploring and despairing a humour as ever. ing within half an inch of its socket. They He sat down to write his letter at once; hastily agreed that Titmouse should imme- but, after many vain efforts to express his diately write to Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, meaning—his feelings being not in the least and Snap, a proper, i. e. a most abject let-degree relieved by the many oaths he utterter, solemnly pledging himself to obey their injunctions in every thing for the future, and offering them a handsome reward for their exertions, if successful. ed-he at length furiously dashed his pen, point-wise, upon the table, and thereby destroyed the only implement of the sort which he possessed. Then he tore, rather "Well-good-night, Huck! good night," than pulled off, his clothes; blew out his said Titmouse, rising. "I am not the candle with a furious puff; and threw himleast sleepy-I shan't sleep a wink all self on the bed-but in so doing banged the night long! I shall sit up to write my let-back of his head against the back of the ter-you haven't got a sheet of paper, here, by the way?-I've used all mine." That was, he had, some months before, bought a sheet to write a letter, and had so used it. Huckaback produced a sheet, somewhat crumpled, from a drawer. "I'd give a hundred if I had them!" said he; "Isha'n't care a straw for the hiding I've got tonight-though I'm a leetle sore after it, too-and what the deuce am I to say to-morrow to Messrs. Diaper―" "Oh, you can't hardly be at a loss for a lie that'll suit them, surely!-So good night, Hucky-good night!" Huckaback wrung his friend's hand, and was in a moment or two alone. "Haven't my fingers been itching all the while to be at the fellow!" exclaimed he as he shut the door. "But, somehow, I've got too soft a sperrit, and can't bear to hurt any one-and then-if the chap gets his £10,000 a year-why-hem! Titty ain't such a bad fellow, in the main, after all." bed-and which suffered most, for some time after, probably Mr. Titmouse was best able to tell. Hath, then-oh, Titmouse! fated to undergo much!-the blind jade Fortune, in her mad vagaries-she, the goddess whom thou hast so long foolishly worshipped-at length cast her sportful eye upon thee, and singled thee out to become the envy of millions of admiring fools, by reason of the pranks she will presently make thee exhibit for her amusement? If this be indeed, as at present it promises, her intent, she truly, to me calmly watching her movements, appears resolved first to wreak her spite upon thee to the uttermost, and make thee pass through intense sufferings! Oh me! Oh me! Alas! The accident, for such it was, by which Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap became possessed of the important information which put them into motion, as we have seen, to find out by advertisement one yet |