in a friendly move,” added Wegg, benignantly taking him by both hands again, and clapping him on both knees again, “say have I completed my labour of love to your perfect satisfaction, and are you sap—pur—IZED?”

Mr. Venus contemplated his fellow-man and partner with doubting eyes, and then rejoined stiffly:

“This is great news indeed, Mr. Wegg. There’s no denying it. But I could have wished you had told it me before you got your fright to-night, and I could have wished you had ever asked me as your partner what we were to do, before you thought you were dividing a responsibility.”

“— Hear me out!” cried Wegg. “I knew you was a-going to say so. But alone I bore the anxiety, and alone I’ll bear the blame!” This with an air of great magnanimity.

“No,” said Venus. “Let’s see this will and this box.”

“Do I understand, brother,” returned Wegg with considerable reluctance, “that it is your wish to see this will and this —?”

Mr. Venus smote the table with his hand.

“— Hear me out!” said Wegg. “Hear me out! I’ll go and fetch ’em.”

After being some time absent, as if in his covetousness he could hardly make up his mind to produce the treasure to his partner, he returned with an old leathern hat-box, into which he had put the other box, for the better preservation of commonplace appearances, and for the disarming of suspicion. “But I don’t half like opening it here,” said Silas in a low voice, looking around: “he might come back, he may not be gone; we don’t know what he may be up to, after what we’ve seen.”

“There’s something in that,” assented Venus. “Come to my place.”

Jealous of the custody of the box, and yet fearful of opening it under the existing circumstances, Wegg hesitated. “Come, I tell you,” repeated Venus, chafing, “to my place.” Not very well seeing his way to a refusal, Mr. Wegg then rejoined in a gush, “— Hear me out! — Certainly.” So he locked up the Bower and they set forth: Mr. Venus taking his arm, and keeping it with remarkable tenacity.

They found the usual dim light burning in the window of Mr. Venus’s establishment, imperfectly disclosing to the public the usual pair of preserved frogs, sword in hand, with their point of honour still unsettled. Mr. Venus had closed his shop door on coming out, and now opened it with the key and shut it again as soon as they were within; but not before he had put up and barred the shutters of the shop window. “No one can get in without being let in,” said he then, “and we couldn’t be more snug than here.” So he raked together the yet warm cinders in the rusty grate, and made a fire, and trimmed the candle on the little counter. As the fire cast its flickering gleams here and there upon the dark greasy walls; the Hindoo baby, the African baby, the articulated English baby, the assortment of skulls, and the rest of the collection, came starting to their various stations as if they had all been out, like their master, and were punctual in a general rendezvous to assist at the secret. The French gentleman had grown considerably since Mr. Wegg last saw him, being now accommodated with a pair of legs and a head, though his arms were yet in abeyance. To whomsoever the head had originally belonged, Silas Wegg would have regarded it as a personal favour if he had not cut quite so many teeth.

Silas took his seat in silence on the wooden box before the fire, and Venus dropping into his low chair produced from among his skeleton hands, his tea-tray and tea-cups, and put the kettle on. Silas inwardly approved of these preparations, trusting they might end in Mr. Venus’s diluting his intellect.

“Now, sir,” said Venus, “all is safe and quiet. Let us see this discovery.”