“The deceased, you know,” says Mr Snagsby, twitching his head and right eyebrow towards the staircase, and tapping his acquaintance on the button.

“Ah to be sure!” returns the other, as if he were not over-fond of the subject. “I thought we had done with him.”

“I was only going to say, it’s a curious fact, sir, that he should have come and lived here, and been one of my writers, and then that you should come and live here, and be one of my writers, too. Which there is nothing derogatory, but far from it in the appellation,” says Mr Snagsby, breaking off with a mistrust that he may have unpolitely asserted a kind of proprietorship in Mr Weevle, “because I have known writers that have gone into Brewers’ houses and done really very respectable indeed. Eminently respectable, sir,” adds Mr Snagsby, with a misgiving that he has not improved the matter.

“It’s a curious coincidence, as you say,” answers Weevle, once more glancing up and down the court.

“Seems a Fate in it, don’t there?” suggests the stationer.

“There does.”

“Just so,” observes the stationer, with his confirmatory cough. “Quite a Fate in it. Quite a Fate. Well, Mr Weevle, I am afraid I must bid you good night;” Mr Snagsby speaks as if it made him desolate to go, though he has been casting about for any means of escape ever since he stopped to speak; “my little woman will be looking for me else. Good night, sir!”

If Mr Snagsby hastens home to save his little woman the trouble of looking for him, he might set his mind at rest on that score. His little woman has had her eye upon him round the Sol’s Arms all this time, and now glides after him with a pocket handkerchief wrapped over her head; honourmg Mr Weevle and his doorway with a searching glance as she goes past.

“You’ll know me again, ma’am, at all events,” says Mr Weevle to himself; “and I can’t compliment you on your appearance, whoever you are, with your head tied up in a bundle. Is this fellow never coming!”

This fellow approaches as he speaks. Mr Weevle softly holds up his finger, and draws him into the passage, and closes the street door. Then they go up stairs; Mr Weevle heavily, and Mr Guppy (for it is he) very lightly indeed. When they are shut into the back room, they speak low.

“I thought you had gone to Jericho at least, instead of coming here,” says Tony.

“Why, I said about ten.”

“You said about ten,” Tony repeats. “Yes, so you did say about ten. But according to my count, it’s ten times ten — it’s a hundred o’clock. I never had such a night in my life!”

“What has been the matter?”

“That’s it!” says Tony. “Nothing has been the matter. But, here have I been stewing and fuming in this jolly old crib, till I have had the horrors falling on me as thick as hail. There’s a blessed-looking candle!” says Tony, pointing to the heavily-burning taper on his table with a great cabbage head and a long winding- sheet.

“That’s easily improved,” Mr Guppy observes, as he takes the snuffers in hand.

Is it?” returns his friend. “Not so easily as you think. It has been smouldering like that, ever since it was lighted.”


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