y the waterside, advanced money to the seamen and petty
officers of merchant vessels, had a share in the ventures of divers
mates of East Indiamen, smoked his smuggled cigars under the very nose
of the Custom House, and made appointments on 'Change with men in
glazed hats and round jackets pretty well every day. On the Surrey side
of the river was a small rat-infested dreary yard called 'Quilp's
Wharf,' in which were a little wooden counting-house burrowing all awry
in the dust as if it had fallen from the clouds and ploughed into the
ground; a few fragments of rusty anchors; several large iron rings;
some piles of rotten wood; and two or three heaps of old sheet copper,
crumpled, cracked, and battered. On Quilp's Wharf, Daniel Quilp was a
ship-breaker, yet to judge from these appearances he must either have
been a ship-breaker on a very small scale, or have broken his ships up
very small indeed. Neither did the place present any extraordinary
aspect of life or activity, as its only human occupant was an
amphibious boy in a canvas suit, whose sole change of occupation was
from sitting on the head of a pile and throwing stones into the mud
when the tide was out, to standing with his hands in his pockets gazing
listlessly on the motion and on the bustle of the river at high-water.

The dwarf's lodging on Tower hill comprised, besides the needful
accommodation for himself and Mrs Quilp, a small sleeping-closet for
that lady's mother, who resided with the couple and waged perpetual war
with Daniel; of whom, notwithstanding, she stood in no slight dread.
Indeed, the ugly creature contrived by some means or other--whether by
his ugliness or his ferocity or his natural cunning is no great
matter--to impress with a wholesome fear of his anger, most of those
with whom he was brought into daily contact and communication. Over
nobody had he such complete ascendance as Mrs Quilp herself--a pretty
little, mild-spoken, blue-eyed woman, who having allied herself in
wedlock to the dwarf in one of those strange infatuations of which
examples are by no means scarce, performed a sound practical penance
for her folly, every day of her life.

It has been said that Mrs Quilp was pining in her bower. In her bower
she was, but not alone, for besides the old lady her mother of whom
mention has recently been made, there were present some half-dozen
ladies of the neighborhood who had happened by a strange accident (and
also by a little understan