Works of Charles Dickens - Charles Dickens [4981]
'Why?' inquired Quilp, without looking up.
'Why, you know, sir,' returned Brass, venturing to be more familiar: '--the fact is, sir, that any allusion to these little combinings together, of friends, for objects in themselves extremely laudable, but which the law terms conspiracies, are--you take me, sir?--best kept snug and among friends, you know.'
'Eh!' said Quilp, looking up with a perfectly vacant countenance. 'What do you mean?'
'Cautious, exceedingly cautious, very right and proper!' cried Brass, nodding his head. 'Mum, sir, even here--my meaning, sir, exactly.'
'YOUR meaning exactly, you brazen scarecrow,--what's your meaning?' retorted Quilp. 'Why do you talk to me of combining together? Do I combine? Do I know anything about your combinings?'
'No no, sir--certainly not; not by any means,' returned Brass.
'if you so wink and nod at me,' said the dwarf, looking about him as if for his poker, 'I'll spoil the expression of your monkey's face, I will.' 'Don't put yourself out of the way I beg, sir,' rejoined Brass, checking himself with great alacrity. 'You're quite right, sir, quite right. I shouldn't have mentioned the subject, sir. It's much better not to. You're quite right, sir. Let us change it, if you please. You were asking, sir, Sally told me, about our lodger. He has not returned, sir.'
'No?' said Quilp, heating some rum in a little saucepan, and watching it to prevent its boiling over. 'Why not?'
'Why, sir,' returned Brass, 'he--dear me, Mr Quilp, sir--'
'What's the matter?' said the dwarf, stopping his hand in the act of carrying the saucepan to his mouth.
'You have forgotten the water, sir,' said Brass. 'And--excuse me, sir--but it's burning hot.'
Deigning no other than a practical answer to this remonstrance, Mr Quilp raised the hot saucepan to his lips, and deliberately drank off all the spirit it contained, which might have been in quantity about half a pint, and had been but a moment before, when he took it off the fire, bubbling and hissing fiercely. Having swallowed this gentle stimulant, and shaken his fist at the admiral, he bade Mr Brass proceed.
'But first,' said Quilp, with his accustomed grin, 'have a drop yourself--a nice drop--a good, warm, fiery drop.'
'Why, sir,' replied Brass, 'if there was such a thing as a mouthful of water that could be got without trouble--'
'There's no such thing to be had here,' cried the dwarf. 'Water for lawyers! Melted lead and brimstone, you mean, nice hot blistering pitch and tar--that's the thing for them--eh, Brass, eh?'
'Ha ha ha!' laughed Mr Brass. 'Oh very biting! and yet it's like being tickled--there's a pleasure in it too, sir!'
'Drink that,' said the dwarf, who had by this time heated some more. 'Toss it off, don't leave any heeltap, scorch your throat and be happy!'
The wretched Sampson took a few short sips of the liquor, which immediately distilled itself into burning tears, and in that form came rolling down his cheeks into the pipkin again, turning the colour of his face and eyelids to a deep red, and giving rise to a violent fit of coughing, in the midst of which he was still heard to declare, with the constancy of a martyr, that it was 'beautiful indeed!' While he was yet in unspeakable agonies, the dwarf renewed their conversation.
'The lodger,' said Quilp, '--what about him?' 'He is still, sir,' returned Brass, with intervals of coughing, 'stopping with the Garland family. He has only been home once, Sir, since the day of the examination of that culprit. He informed Mr Richard, sir, that he couldn't bear the house after what had taken place; that he was wretched in it; and that he looked upon himself as being in a certain kind of way the cause of the occurrence.--A very excellent lodger Sir. I hope we may not lose him.'
'Yah!' cried the dwarf. 'Never thinking of anybody but yourself-- why don't you retrench then--scrape