but I'm sure he is now. It was a happy
release. I believe he had suffered a long time?'

The old lady gave a gasp, but nothing came of it; Quilp resumed, with
the same malice in his eye and the same sarcastic politeness on his
tongue.

'You look ill, Mrs Jiniwin; I know you have been exciting yourself too
much--talking perhaps, for it is your weakness. Go to bed. Do go to
bed.'

'I shall go when I please, Quilp, and not before.'

'But please to do now. Do please to go now,' said the dwarf.

The old woman looked angrily at him, but retreated as he advanced, and
falling back before him, suffered him to shut the door upon her and
bolt her out among the guests, who were by this time crowding
downstairs. Being left along with his wife, who sat trembling in a
corner with her eyes fixed upon the ground, the little man planted
himself before her, and folding his arms looked steadily at her for a
long time without speaking.

'Mrs Quilp,' he said at last.

'Yes, Quilp,' she replead meekly.

Instead of pursing the theme he had in his mind, Quilp folded his arms
again, and looked at her more sternly than before, while she averted
her eyes and kept them on the ground.

'Mrs Quilp.'

'Yes, Quilp.'

'If ever you listen to these beldames again, I'll bite you.'

With this laconic threat, which he accompanied with a snarl that gave
him the appearance of being particularly in earnest, Mr Quilp bade her
clear the teaboard away, and bring the rum. The spirit being set before
him in a huge case-bottle, which had originally come out of some ship's
locker, he settled himself in an arm-chair with his large head and face
squeezed up against the back, and his little legs planted on the table.

'Now, Mrs Quilp,' he said; 'I feel in a smoking humour, and shall
probably blaze away all night. But sit where you are, if you please, in
case I want you.'

His wife returned no other reply than the necessary 'Yes, Quilp,' and
the small lord of the creation took his first cigar and mixed his first
glass of grog. The sun went down and the stars peeped out, the Tower
turned from its own proper colours to grey and from grey to black, the
room became perfectly dark and the end of the cigar a deep fiery red,
but still Mr Quilp went on smoking and drinking in the same position,
and staring listlessly out of window with the doglike smile always on
his face, save when Mrs Quilp made some involuntary movement of
restlessness or fatigue; and then i