wiveller took an
easy observation of the family over Mr Quilp's head, and Quilp himself,
with his hands in his pockets, smiled in an exquisite enjoyment of the
commotion he occasioned.

'Don't be frightened, mistress,' said Quilp, after a pause. 'Your son
knows me; I don't eat babies; I don't like 'em. It will be as well to
stop that young screamer though, in case I should be tempted to do him
a mischief. Holloa, sir! Will you be quiet?'

Little Jacob stemmed the course of two tears which he was squeezing out
of his eyes, and instantly subsided into a silent horror.

'Mind you don't break out again, you villain,' said Quilp, looking
sternly at him, 'or I'll make faces at you and throw you into fits, I
will. Now you sir, why haven't you been to me as you promised?'

'What should I come for?' retorted Kit. 'I hadn't any business with
you, no more than you had with me.'

'Here, mistress,' said Quilp, turning quickly away, and appealing from
Kit to his mother. 'When did his old master come or send here last?
Is he here now? If not, where's he gone?'

'He has not been here at all,' she replied. 'I wish we knew where they
have gone, for it would make my son a good deal easier in his mind, and
me too. If you're the gentleman named Mr Quilp, I should have thought
you'd have known, and so I told him only this very day.'

'Humph!' muttered Quilp, evidently disappointed to believe that this
was true. 'That's what you tell this gentleman too, is it?'

'If the gentleman comes to ask the same question, I can't tell him
anything else, sir; and I only wish I could, for our own sakes,' was
the reply.

Quilp glanced at Richard Swiveller, and observed that having met him on
the threshold, he assumed that he had come in search of some
intelligence of the fugitives. He supposed he was right?

'Yes,' said Dick, 'that was the object of the present expedition. I
fancied it possible--but let us go ring fancy's knell. I'll begin it.'

'You seem disappointed,' observed Quilp.

'A baffler, Sir, a baffler, that's all,' returned Dick. 'I have
entered upon a speculation which has proved a baffler; and a Being of
brightness and beauty will be offered up a sacrifice at Cheggs's altar.
That's all, sir.'

The dwarf eyed Richard with a sarcastic smile, but Richard, who had
been taking a rather strong lunch with a friend, observed him not, and
continued to deplore his fate with mournful and despondent looks.
Quilp plainly dis