eserved for his own
use) and an especially hideous and uncomfortable one (which he
considerately appropriated to the accommodation of his friend) he
caused them to be carried into this room, and took up his position in
great state. The apartment was very far removed from the old man's
chamber, but Mr Quilp deemed it prudent, as a precaution against
infection from fever, and a means of wholesome fumigation, not only to
smoke, himself, without cessation, but to insist upon it that his legal
friend did the like. Moreover, he sent an express to the wharf for the
tumbling boy, who arriving with all despatch was enjoined to sit
himself down in another chair just inside the door, continually to
smoke a great pipe which the dwarf had provided for the purpose, and to
take it from his lips under any pretence whatever, were it only for one
minute at a time, if he dared. These arrangements completed, Mr Quilp
looked round him with chuckling satisfaction, and remarked that he
called that comfort.

The legal gentleman, whose melodious name was Brass, might have called
it comfort also but for two drawbacks: one was, that he could by no
exertion sit easy in his chair, the seat of which was very hard,
angular, slippery, and sloping; the other, that tobacco-smoke always
caused him great internal discomposure and annoyance. But as he was
quite a creature of Mr Quilp's and had a thousand reasons for
conciliating his good opinion, he tried to smile, and nodded his
acquiescence with the best grace he could assume.

This Brass was an attorney of no very good repute, from Bevis Marks in
the city of London; he was a tall, meagre man, with a nose like a wen,
a protruding forehead, retreating eyes, and hair of a deep red. He
wore a long black surtout reaching nearly to his ankles, short black
trousers, high shoes, and cotton stockings of a bluish grey. He had a
cringing manner, but a very harsh voice; and his blandest smiles were
so extremely forbidding, that to have had his company under the least
repulsive circumstances, one would have wished him to be out of temper
that he might only scowl.

Quilp looked at his legal adviser, and seeing that he was winking very
much in the anguish of his pipe, that he sometimes shuddered when he
happened to inhale its full flavour, and that he constantly fanned the
smoke from him, was quite overjoyed and rubbed his hands with glee.

'Smoke away, you dog,' said Quilp, turning to the boy; 'fill your pi