`Oh! very well!' observed Squeers, `it don't matter to me; you asked me, you know. I shouldn't charge you nothing, being a friend. You're the best judge of course; but you're a bold woman, Slider--that's all.'

`How do you mean, bold?' said Peg.

`Why, I only mean that if it was me, I wouldn't keep papers as might hang me, littering about when they might be turned into money--them as wasn't useful made away with, and them as was, laid by somewheres, safe; that's all,' returned Squeers; `but everybody's the best judge of their own affairs. All I say is, Slider, I wouldn't do it.'

`Come,' said Peg, `then you shall see 'em.'

`I don't want to see 'em,' replied Squeers, affecting to be out of humour; `don't talk as if it was a treat. Show 'em to somebody else, and take their advice.'

Mr Squeers would, very likely, have carried on the farce of being offended a little longer, if Mrs Sliderskew, in her anxiety to restore herself to her former high position in his good graces, had not become so extremely affectionate that he stood at some risk of being smothered by her caresses. Repressing, with as good a grace as possible, these little familiarities--for which, there is reason to believe, the black bottle was at least as much to blame as any constitutional infirmity on the part of Mrs Sliderskew--he protested that he had only been joking: and, in proof of his unimpaired good-humour, that he was ready to examine the deeds at once, if, by so doing, he could afford any satisfaction or relief of mind to his fair friend.

`And now you're up, my Slider,' bawled Squeers, as she rose to fetch them, `bolt the door.'

Peg trotted to the door, and after fumbling at the bolt, crept to the other end of the room, and from beneath the coals which filled the bottom of the cupboard, drew forth a small deal box. Having placed this on the floor at Squeers's feet, she brought, from under the pillow of her bed, a small key, with which she signed to that gentleman to open it. Mr Squeers, who had eagerly followed her every motion, lost no time in obeying this hint: and, throwing back the lid, gazed with rapture on the documents which lay within.

`Now you see,' said Peg, kneeling down on the floor beside him, and staying his impatient hand; `what's of no use we'll burn; what we can get any money by, we'll keep; and if there's any we could get him into trouble by, and fret and waste away his heart to shreds, those we'll take particular care of; for that's what I want to do, and what I hoped to do when I left him.'

`I thought,' said Squeers, `that you didn't bear him any particular good-will. But, I say, why didn't you take some money besides?'

`Some what?' asked Peg.

`Some money,' roared Squeers. `I do believe the woman hears me, and wants to make me break a wessel, so that she may have the pleasure of nursing me. Some money, Slider--money!'

`Why, what a man you are to ask!' cried Peg, with some contempt. `If I had taken money from Arthur Gride, he'd have scoured the whole earth to find me--ay, and he'd have smelt it out, and raked it up, somehow, if I had buried it at the bottom of the deepest well in England. No, no! I knew better than that. I took what I thought his secrets were hid in: and them he couldn't afford to make public, let'em be worth ever so much money. He's an old dog; a sly, old, cunning, thankless dog! He first starved, and then tricked me; and if I could I'd kill him.'

`All right, and very laudable,' said Squeers. `But, first and foremost, Slider, burn the box. You should never keep things as may lead to discovery--always mind that. So while you pull it to pieces (which you can easily do, for it's very old and rickety) and burn it in little bits, I'll look over the papers and tell you what they are.'