Mr. Fledgeby appeared to be on the verge of some mutinous expressions, when his hand happened to touch his nose. A certain remembrance connected with that feature operating as a timely warning, he took it thoughtfully between his thumb and forefinger, and pondered; Lammle meanwhile eyeing him with furtive eyes.

“Well!” said Fledgeby. “This won’t improve with talking about. If we ever find out who did it, we’ll mark that person. There’s nothing more to be said, except that you undertook to do what circumstances prevent your doing.”

“And that you undertook to do what you might have done by this time, if you had made a prompter use of circumstances,” snarled Lammle.

“Hah! That,” remarked Fledgeby, with his hands in the Turkish trousers, “is matter of opinion.”

“Mr. Fledgeby,” said Lammle, in a bullying tone, “am I to understand that you in any way reflect upon me, or hint dissatisfaction with me, in this affair?”

“No,” said Fledgeby. “provided you have brought my promissory note in your pocket, and now hand it over.”

Lammle produced it, not without reluctance. Fledgeby looked at it, identified it, twisted it up, and threw it into the fire. They both looked at it as it blazed, went out, and flew in feathery ash up the chimney.

“Now, Mr.Fledgeby,” said Lammle, as before; “am I to understand that you in any way reflect upon me, or hint dissatisfaction with me, in this affair?”

“No,” said Fledgeby.

“Finally and unreservedly no?”

“Yes.”

“Fledgeby, my hand.”

Mr. Fledgeby took it, saying, “And if we ever find out who did this, we’ll mark that person. And in the most friendly manner, let me mention one thing more. I don’t know what your circumstances are, and I don’t ask. You have sustained a loss here. Many men are liable to be involved at times, and you may be, or you may not be. But whatever you do, Lammle, don’t — don’t — don’t, I beg of you — ever fall into the hands of Pubsey and Co. in the next room, for they are grinders. Regular flayers and grinders, my dear Lammle,” repeated Fledgeby with a peculiar relish, “and they’ll skin you by the inch, from the nape of your neck to the sole of your foot, and grind every inch of your skin to tooth-powder. You have seen what Mr. Riah is. Never fall into his hands, Lammle, I beg of you as a friend!”

Mr. Lammle, disclosing some alarm at the solemnity of this affectionate adjuration, demanded why the devil he ever should fall into the hands of Pubsey and Co.?

“To confess the fact, I was made a little uneasy,” said the candid Fledgeby, “by the manner in which that Jew looked at you when he heard your name. I didn’t like his eye. But it may have been the heated fancy of a friend. Of course if you are sure that you have no personal security out, which you may not be quite equal to meeting, and which can have got into his hands, it must have been fancy. Still, I didn’t like his eye.”

The brooding Lammle, with certain white dints coming and going in his palpitating nose, looked as if some tormenting imp were pinching it. Fledgeby, watching him with a twitch in his mean face which did duty there for a smile, looked very like the tormentor who was pinching.