Thereupon he stirred the fire, and sat down on one side of it. It struck eleven, and he made believe to compose himself patiently. But gradually he took the fidgets in one leg, and then in the other leg, and then in one arm, and then in the other arm, and then in his chin, and then in his back, and then in his forehead, and then in his hair, and then in his nose; and then he stretched himself recumbent on two chairs, and groaned; and then he started up.

“Invisible insects of diabolical activity swarm in this place. I am tickled and twitched all over. Mentally, I have now committed a burglary under the meanest circumstances, and the myrmidons of justice are at my heels.”

“I am quite as bad,” said Lightwood, sitting up facing him, with a tumbled head, after going through some wonderful evolutions, in which his head had been the lowest part of him. “This restlessness began, with me, long ago. All the time you were out, I felt like Gulliver with the Lilliputians firing upon him.”

“It won’t do, Mortimer. We must get into the air; we must join our dear friend and brother, Riderhood. And let us tranquillize ourselves by making a compact. Next time (with a view to our peace of mind) we’ll commit the crime, instead of taking the criminal. You swear it?”

“Certainly.”

“Sworn! Let Tippins look to it. Her life’s in danger.”

Mortimer rang the bell to pay the score, and Bob appeared to transact that business with him: whom Eugene, in his careless extravagance, asked if he would like a situation in the lime-trade?

“Thankee sir, no sir,” said Bob. “I’ve a good sitiwation here, sir.”

“If you change your mind at any time,” returned Eugene, “come to me at my works, and you’ll always find an opening in the lime-kiln.”

“Thankee sir,” said Bob.

“This is my partner,” said Eugene, “who keeps the books and attends to the wages. A fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work is ever my partner’s motto.”

“And a very good ’un it is, gentlemen,” said Bob, receiving his fee, and drawing a bow out of his head with his right hand, very much as he would have drawn a pint of beer out of the beer engine.

“Eugene,” Mortimer apostrophized him, laughing quite heartily when they were alone again, “how can you be so ridiculous?”

“I am in a ridiculous humour,” quoth Eugene; “I am a ridiculous fellow. Everything is ridiculous. Come along!”

It passed into Mortimer Lightwood’s mind that a change of some sort, best expressed perhaps as an intensification of all that was wildest and most negligent and reckless in his friend, had come upon him in the last half-hour or so. Thoroughly used to him as he was, he found something new and strained in him that was for the moment perplexing. This passed into his mind, and passed out again; but he remembered it afterwards.

“There’s where she sits, you see,” said Eugene, when they were standing under the bank, roared and riven at by the wind. “There’s the light of her fire.”

“I’ll take a peep through the window,” said Mortimer.

“No, don’t!” Eugene caught him by the arm. “Best not make a show of her. Come to our honest friend.”