With still reluctant hands, and not without several glances towards the skeleton hands, as if he mistrusted that a couple of them might spring forth and clutch the document, Wegg opened the hat-box and revealed the cash-box, opened the cash-box and revealed the will. He held a corner of it tight, while Venus, taking hold of another corner, searchingly and attentively read it.

“Was I correct in my account of it, partner?” said Mr. Wegg at length.

“Partner, you were,” said Mr. Venus.

Mr. Wegg thereupon made an easy, graceful movement, as though he would fold it up; but Mr. Venus held on by his corner.

“No, sir,” said Mr. Venus, winking his weak eyes and shaking his head. “No, partner. The question is now brought up, who is going to take care of this. Do you know who is going to take care of this, partner?”

“I am,” said Wegg.

“Oh dear no, partner,” retorted Venus. “That’s a mistake. I am. Now look here, Mr. Wegg. I don’t want to have any words with you, and still less do I want to have any anatomical pursuits with you.”

“What do you mean?” said Wegg, quickly.

“I mean, partner,” replied Venus, slowly, “that it’s hardly possible for a man to feel in a more amiable state towards another man than I do towards you at this present moment. But I am on my own ground, I am surrounded by the trophies of my art, and my tools is very handy.”

“What do you mean, Mr. Venus?” asked Wegg again.

“I am surrounded, as I have observed,” said Mr. Venus, placidly, “by the trophies of my art. They are numerous, my stock of human warious is large, the shop is pretty well crammed, and I don’t just now want any more trophies of my art. But I like my art, and I know how to exercise my art.”

“No man better,” assented Mr. Wegg, with a somewhat staggered air.

“There’s the Miscellanies of several human specimens,” said Venus, “(though you mightn’t think it) in the box on which you’re sitting. There’s the Miscellanies of several human specimens, in the lovely compo- one behind the door;” with a nod towards the French gentleman. “It still wants a pair of arms. I don’t say that I’m in any hurry for ’em.”

“You must be wandering in your mind, partner,” Silas remonstrated.

“You’ll excuse me if I wander,” returned Venus; “I am sometimes rather subject to it. I like my art, and I know how to exercise my art, and I mean to have the keeping of this document.”

“But what has that got to do with your art, partner?” asked Wegg, in an insinuating tone.

Mr. Venus winked his chronically-fatigued eyes both at once, and adjusting the kettle on the fire, remarked to himself, in a hollow voice, “She’ll bile in a couple of minutes.”

Silas Wegg glanced at the kettle, glanced at the shelves, glanced at the French gentleman behind the door, and shrank a little as he glanced at Mr. Venus winking his red eyes, and feeling in his waistcoat pocket — as for a lancet, say — with his unoccupied hand. He and Venus were necessarily seated close together, as each held a corner of the document, which was but a common sheet of paper.

“Partner,” said Wegg, even more insinuatingly than before, “I propose that we cut it in half, and each keep a half.”