nhappy orphan, and that if he had not been
an unhappy orphan things had never come to this.

'Left an infant by my parents, at an early age,' said Mr Swiveller,
bewailing his hard lot, 'cast upon the world in my tenderest period,
and thrown upon the mercies of a deluding dwarf, who can wonder at my
weakness! Here's a miserable orphan for you. Here,' said Mr Swiveller
raising his voice to a high pitch, and looking sleepily round, 'is a
miserable orphan!'

'Then,' said somebody hard by, 'let me be a father to you.'

Mr Swiveller swayed himself to and fro to preserve his balance, and,
looking into a kind of haze which seemed to surround him, at last
perceived two eyes dimly twinkling through the mist, which he observed
after a short time were in the neighbourhood of a nose and mouth.
Casting his eyes down towards that quarter in which, with reference to
a man's face, his legs are usually to be found, he observed that the
face had a body attached; and when he looked more intently he was
satisfied that the person was Mr Quilp, who indeed had been in his
company all the time, but whom he had some vague idea of having left a
mile or two behind.

'You have deceived an orphan, Sir,' said Mr Swiveller solemnly.'

'I! I'm a second father to you,' replied Quilp.

'You my father, Sir!' retorted Dick. 'Being all right myself, Sir, I
request to be left alone--instantly, Sir.'

'What a funny fellow you are!' cried Quilp.

'Go, Sir,' returned Dick, leaning against a post and waving his hand.
'Go, deceiver, go, some day, Sir, p'r'aps you'll waken, from pleasure's
dream to know, the grief of orphans forsaken. Will you go, Sir?'

The dwarf taking no heed of this adjuration, Mr Swiveller advanced with
the view of inflicting upon him condign chastisement. But forgetting
his purpose or changing his mind before he came close to him, he seized
his hand and vowed eternal friendship, declaring with an agreeable
frankness that from that time forth they were brothers in everything
but personal appearance. Then he told his secret over again, with the
addition of being pathetic on the subject of Miss Wackles, who, he gave
Mr Quilp to understand, was the occasion of any slight incoherency he
might observe in his speech at that moment, which was attributable
solely to the strength of his affection and not to rosy wine or other
fermented liquor. And then they went on arm-in-arm, very lovingly
together.

'I'm as sharp,' said Quilp to