th
hands. 'There's burning fever here, and something now and then to
which I fear to give a name.'

The dwarf said never a word, but watched his companion as he paced
restlessly up and down the room, and presently returned to his seat.
Here he remained, with his head bowed upon his breast for some time,
and then suddenly raising it, said,

'Once, and once for all, have you brought me any money?'

'No!' returned Quilp.

'Then,' said the old man, clenching his hands desperately, and looking
upwards, 'the child and I are lost!'

'Neighbour,' said Quilp glancing sternly at him, and beating his hand
twice or thrice upon the table to attract his wandering attention, 'let
me be plain with you, and play a fairer game than when you held all the
cards, and I saw but the backs and nothing more. You have no secret
from me now.'

The old man looked up, trembling.

'You are surprised,' said Quilp. 'Well, perhaps that's natural. You
have no secret from me now, I say; no, not one. For now, I know, that
all those sums of money, that all those loans, advances, and supplies
that you have had from me, have found their way to--shall I say the
word?'

'Aye!' replied the old man, 'say it, if you will.'

'To the gaming-table,' rejoined Quilp, 'your nightly haunt. This was
the precious scheme to make your fortune, was it; this was the secret
certain source of wealth in which I was to have sunk my money (if I had
been the fool you took me for); this was your inexhaustible mine of
gold, your El Dorado, eh?'

'Yes,' cried the old man, turning upon him with gleaming eyes, 'it was.
It is. It will be, till I die.'

'That I should have been blinded,' said Quilp looking contemptuously at
him, 'by a mere shallow gambler!'

'I am no gambler,' cried the old man fiercely. 'I call Heaven to
witness that I never played for gain of mine, or love of play; that at
every piece I staked, I whispered to myself that orphan's name and
called on Heaven to bless the venture;--which it never did. Whom did
it prosper? Who were those with whom I played? Men who lived by
plunder, profligacy, and riot; squandering their gold in doing ill, and
propagating vice and evil. My winnings would have been from them, my
winnings would have been bestowed to the last farthing on a young
sinless child whose life they would have sweetened and made happy.
What would they have contracted? The means of corruption,
wretchedness, and misery. Who would not have