along in silence, until at length young Westlock burst into
a loud laugh, and at intervals into another, and another. Still there
was no response from his companion.

'I'll tell you what, Pinch!' he said abruptly, after another lengthened
silence--'You haven't half enough of the devil in you. Half enough! You
haven't any.'

'Well!' said Pinch with a sigh, 'I don't know, I'm sure. It's compliment
to say so. If I haven't, I suppose, I'm all the better for it.'

'All the better!' repeated his companion tartly: 'All the worse, you
mean to say.'

'And yet,' said Pinch, pursuing his own thoughts and not this last
remark on the part of his friend, 'I must have a good deal of what
you call the devil in me, too, or how could I make Pecksniff so
uncomfortable? I wouldn't have occasioned him so much distress--don't
laugh, please--for a mine of money; and Heaven knows I could find good
use for it too, John. How grieved he was!'

'HE grieved!' returned the other.

'Why didn't you observe that the tears were almost starting out of his
eyes!' cried Pinch. 'Bless my soul, John, is it nothing to see a man
moved to that extent and know one's self to be the cause! And did you
hear him say that he could have shed his blood for me?'

'Do you WANT any blood shed for you?' returned his friend, with
considerable irritation. 'Does he shed anything for you that you DO
want? Does he shed employment for you, instruction for you, pocket
money for you? Does he shed even legs of mutton for you in any decent
proportion to potatoes and garden stuff?'

'I am afraid,' said Pinch, sighing again, 'that I am a great eater; I
can't disguise from myself that I'm a great eater. Now, you know that,
John.'

'You a great eater!' retorted his companion, with no less indignation
than before. 'How do you know you are?'

There appeared to be forcible matter in this inquiry, for Mr Pinch only
repeated in an undertone that he had a strong misgiving on the subject,
and that he greatly feared he was.

'Besides, whether I am or no,' he added, 'that has little or nothing to
do with his thinking me ungrateful. John, there is scarcely a sin in the
world that is in my eyes such a crying one as ingratitude; and when
he taxes me with that, and believes me to be guilty of it, he makes me
miserable and wretched.'

'Do you think he don't know that?' returned the other scornfully.
'But come, Pinch, before I say anything more to you, just run over the
reasons you hav