"Capital! couldn't be better! couldn't be better! Ah, ha, ha--you've catched the goose, and must bring me its eggs. Ah, ha, ha! a touch in _your_ line, old gent!" said he, slapping Mr. Quirk's knee.

"Ha, ha, ha! excellent! ah, ha, ha!" laughed the three partners at the wit of their new client. Mr. t.i.tmouse joined them, and snapped his fingers in the air. Then he added suddenly--

"Lord--by the way--I've just thought of Tag-rag and Company's--I seem as if I hadn't seen or heard of those gents for Lord knows how long! Only fancy old Tag-rag making me a beggar on the 10th of next month--ha, ha, ha!--I sha'n't see _that_ infernal hole any more, anyhow!"

["There!" whispered Mr. Gammon, suddenly and apprehensively, in the ear of Mr. Quirk, "you hear that? A little wretch! We have been perfectly insane in going so far already with him! Is not this what I predicted?"--"I don't care," said Mr. Quirk, stubbornly. "Who first found it out, Mr. Gammon? and who's to be at the expense and responsibility? Pshaw! I know what I'm about--_I'll_ make him knuckle down--never fear me! Caleb Quirk a'n't a man to be trifled with!"]

"_That_," continued t.i.tmouse, snapping his fingers with an air of defiance--"for Mr. Tag-rag! _That_ for Mother Squallop--Ah, ha, gents!

It won't do to go back to that--eugh!--eh? will it?--you know what I mean! Fancy Mr. t.i.ttlebat t.i.tmouse--or Mr. t.i.ttlebat t.i.tmouse, _Esquire_--standing behind"----

The partners looked rather blank at this unexpected sally.

"We would venture to suggest, Mr. t.i.tmouse," said Mr. Gammon, seriously, "the _absolute necessity_ there is for everything on your part, and our parts, to go on as quietly as before, for a little time to come: to be safe and successful, my dear sir, we must be very--very _secret_."

"Oh, I see, gents! I see; mum--mum's the word, for the present! But, I _must_ say, if there is any one whom I want to hear of it, sooner than another, it's"----

"Rag-bag and Co., I suppose! ha, ha, ha!" interrupted Mr. Gammon, his partners echoing his gentle laugh.

"Ha, ha, ha! Cuss the cats--that's it--ha, ha, ha!" echoed Mr. t.i.tmouse; who, getting up out of his chair, could not resist capering to and fro, sticking his hands on his hips, in something of the att.i.tude of a hornpipe dancer, whistling and humming by turns, and indulging in various other wild antics.

"And now, gents--excuse me, but, to do a bit of business--when am I to _begin_ scattering the shiners, eh?" he inquired, interrupting a low-toned, but somewhat vehement conversation, between the two senior partners; while Snap sat silently eying him like a terrier a rat coming within his reach!

"Oh, of course, sir!" replied Mr. Gammon, rather coldly, "very--considerable--delay is unavoidable. All we have done, as yet, is to discover that, as far as we are advised, and can judge, you will turn out to be the right owner; but--as we've already intimated--very extensive and expensive operations must be immediately commenced, before you can be put into possession. There are some who won't be persuaded to _part_ with 10,000 a-year, Mr. t.i.tmouse, for the mere asking!" added Mr. Gammon, with an anxious and bitter smile.

"The devil there are! _Who_ are they that want to keep me any longer out of what's my own?--what's justly mine? Eh? I want to know! Haven't they kept me out long enough?--hang 'em! Put 'em in prison directly--don't spare 'em--the villains!"

"They'll probably, ere long, find their way in that direction--for how,"

replied Mr. Quirk, "he's ever to make up, poor devil, the mesne profits"----

"_Mean_ profits?--is that all you call them, gents? 'Pon my life, it's rogue's money--villain's profits! So don't spare him--d--n him!--he's robbed the fatherless, which I am, and an orphan. Keep me out of what's mine, indeed! Curse me if he shall, though!"

"My dear Mr. t.i.tmouse," said Gammon, very gravely, "we are getting on too fast--dreadfully too fast. It will never do, matters of such immense importance as these cannot be hurried on, or talked of, in this way"----

"I like that, sir!--I do, by Jove!"--exclaimed t.i.tmouse, scornfully.

"You will really, if you go on in this wild way, Mr. t.i.tmouse, make us regret the trouble we have taken in the affair, and especially the promptness with which we have communicated to you the extent of your _possible_ good fortune."

"Beg pardon, I'm sure, gents, but mean no offence: am monstrous obliged to you for what you've done for me--but, by Jove, it's taken me rather a-back, I own, to hear that I'm to be kept so long out of it all! Why can't you offer him, whoever he is that has my property, a slapping sum to go out at once? Gents, I'll own to you I'm most uncommon low--never so low in my life--devilish low! Done up, and yet it seems a'n't to get what's justly mine! What am I to do in the meanwhile? Consider _that_, gents!"

"You are rather excited just now, Mr. t.i.tmouse," said Mr. Quirk, seriously; "suppose we now break up, and resume our conversation to-morrow, when we are all in better and calmer trim?"

"No, sir, thanking you all the same; but I think we'd better go on with it now," replied t.i.tmouse, impetuously. "Do you think I can stoop to go back to that nasty, beastly shop, and stand behind that odious counter?--I'd almost as lieve go to the gallows!"

"Our _decided_ opinion, Mr. t.i.tmouse," said Mr. Quirk, emphatically--his other partners getting graver and graver in their looks--"that is, if our opinion is worth offering"----

"That, by Jove! remains to be seen," said t.i.tmouse, with a pettish shake of the head.

"Well, such as it is, we offer it you; and it is, that for many reasons you must continue, for a little while longer, in your present situation"----

"What! own Tag-rag for my master--and I worth 10,000 a-year?"

interrupted t.i.tmouse, furiously.

"My dear sir, you've not _got_ it yet," said Mr. Quirk, with a very bitter smile.

"Do you think you'd have told me what you have, if you weren't sure that I _should_, though? No, no! you've gone too far, by Jove!--but I shall burst, I shall! Me to go on as before!--they use me worse and worse every day. Gents, you'll excuse me--I hope you will; but business is business, gents--it is; and if you won't do mine, I must look out for them that will--'pon my soul, I must, and"--If Mr. t.i.tmouse could have seen, or having seen, appreciated, the looks which the three partners interchanged, on hearing this absurd, ungrateful, and insolent speech of his--the expression that flitted across their shrewd faces; that was, of intense contempt for him, hardly overmastered and concealed by a vivid perception of their own interest, which was, of course, to _manage_, to soothe, to conciliate him!

How the reptile propensities of his mean nature had thriven beneath the sudden sunshine of unexpected prosperity!--See already his selfishness, truculence, rapacity, in full play!

"So, gents," said he, after a long and keen expostulation with them on the same subject, "I'm really to go to-morrow morning to Tag-rag and Co.'s, and go on with the cursed life I led there to-day, all as if nothing had happened--ha, ha, ha!--I do so like that!"

"In your present humor, Mr. t.i.tmouse, it would be in vain to discuss the matter," said Mr. Quirk, sternly. "Again I tell you that the course we have recommended is, in our opinion, the proper one; excuse me if I add, that you are entirely in our hands--and if I ask you--what _can_ you do but adopt our advice?"

"Why, hang me if I won't employ somebody else--that's flat! S' elp me, Heaven, I will! So, good-night, gents; you'll find that t.i.ttlebat t.i.tmouse isn't to be trifled with!" So saying, Mr. t.i.tmouse clapped his hat on his head, bounced out of the room, and, no attempt being made to stop him, he was in the street in a twinkling.

Mr. Gammon gazed at Mr. Quirk with a look, the significance of which the astounded old gentleman thoroughly understood--'twas compounded of triumph, reproach, and apprehension.

"Did you ever see such a little beast!" exclaimed Mr. Quirk, with an air of disgust, turning to Mr. Snap.

"Beggar on horseback!" exclaimed Snap, with a bitter sneer.

"It won't do, however," said Mr. Quirk, with a most chagrined and apprehensive air, "for him to go at large in his present frame of mind--he may ruin the thing altogether"----

"As good as 500 a-year out of the way of the office," quoth Snap.

"It cannot be helped _now_," said Mr. Gammon, with a sigh of vexation, turning to Mr. Quirk, and seizing his hat--"he must be managed--so I'll go after him instantly, and bring him back at all hazards; and we must really try and do something for him in the meanwhile, to keep him quiet till the thing's brought a little into train." So out went after t.i.tmouse, Mr. Gammon, from whose lips dropped persuasion sweeter than honey;[3] and I should not be surprised if he were to succeed in bringing back that little stubborn piece of conceited stupidity.

As soon as Mr. t.i.tmouse heard the street door shut after him with a kind of _bang_, he snapped his fingers once or twice, by way of letting off a little of the inflammable air that was in him, and muttered, "Pretty chaps those, upon my soul!" said he, disdainfully. "I'll expose them all! I'll apply to the lord-mayor--they're a pack of swindlers, they are! This is the way they treat _me_, who've got a t.i.tle to 10,000 a-year! To be sure"--He stood still for a moment--and another moment--and another--and then dismay came quickly over him; for the thought suddenly occurred to his partially obfuscated intellect--what _hold_ had he got on Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap?--what _could_ he do?--or rather, what HAD he done?

Ah--the golden vision of the last few hours was fading away momentarily, like a dream! Each second of his deep and rapid reflection, rendered more impetuous his desire and determination to return and make his peace with Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap. By submission for the present, he could get the whip-hand of them hereafter! He was in the act of turning round towards the office, when Mr. Gammon gently laid his hand upon the shoulder of his repentant client.

"Mr. t.i.tmouse! my dear sir," said Mr. Gammon, softly, "what is the matter with you? How could we so misunderstand each other?"

t.i.tmouse's small cunning was on the _qui vive_, and he saw and followed up his advantage. "I am going," said he, in a resolute tone, "to speak to some one else in the morning."

"Ah, to be sure!" replied Mr. Gammon, with a smile of utter unconcern--"I supposed as much--'tis a matter which of course, however, signifies nothing to any one--but yourself. You will take any steps, my dear sir, that occur to you, and act as you may be advised!"

"Monstrous kind of you, 'pon my life! to come and give me such good advice!" exclaimed t.i.tmouse, with a sneer--but consciously baffled.

"Oh, don't mention it!" said Gammon, coolly; "I came out of pure good-nature, to a.s.sure you that our office, notwithstanding what has pa.s.sed, entertains not the slightest personal ill feeling towards you, in thus throwing off our hands a fearfully expensive, and most hara.s.sing enterprise--which we have feared from the first had been too rashly undertaken"----

"Hem!" exclaimed t.i.tmouse, involuntarily, once or twice.

"So good-night, Mr. t.i.tmouse--good-night! G.o.d bless you! and think hereafter of all this as a mere idle dream--as far as _we_ are concerned!" Mr. Gammon, in the act of returning to the door, extended his hand to Mr. t.i.tmouse, whom he instantly perceived to be melting rapidly.

"Why, sir," quoth t.i.tmouse, with a mixture of embarra.s.sment and alarm, "if I thought you all meant the correct thing--hem! I say, the _correct_ thing by me--I shouldn't so much mind a little disappointment for the time; but you must own, Mr. Gammon, it is very hard being kept out of one's own so long--honor, now! isn't it?"

"True, very true, Mr. t.i.tmouse. Very hard it is, indeed, to bear, and we all felt deeply for you, and would have set everything in train"----