rk, digging among stuff that was far more ours than his
(seeing that we could deprive him of every grain of it, if he didn't buy
us at our own figure), and carrying off treasure from its bowels? No,
it was not to be borne. And for that, too, his nose shall be put to the
grindstone.'

'How do you propose to do it, Mr Wegg?'

'To put his nose to the grindstone? I propose,' returned that estimable
man, 'to insult him openly. And, if looking into this eye of mine, he
dares to offer a word in answer, to retort upon him before he can take
his breath, "Add another word to that, you dusty old dog, and you're a
beggar."'

'Suppose he says nothing, Mr Wegg?'

'Then,' replied Wegg, 'we shall have come to an understanding with very
little trouble, and I'll break him and drive him, Mr Venus. I'll put
him in harness, and I'll bear him up tight, and I'll break him and drive
him. The harder the old Dust is driven, sir, the higher he'll pay. And I
mean to be paid high, Mr Venus, I promise you.'

'You speak quite revengefully, Mr Wegg.'

'Revengefully, sir? Is it for him that I have declined and falled,
night after night? Is it for his pleasure that I've waited at home of an
evening, like a set of skittles, to be set up and knocked over, set up
and knocked over, by whatever balls--or books--he chose to bring against
me? Why, I'm a hundred times the man he is, sir; five hundred times!'

Perhaps it was with the malicious intent of urging him on to his worst
that Mr Venus looked as if he doubted that.

'What? Was it outside the house at present ockypied, to its disgrace,
by that minion of fortune and worm of the hour,' said Wegg, falling back
upon his strongest terms of reprobation, and slapping the counter,
'that I, Silas Wegg, five hundred times the man he ever was, sat in all
weathers, waiting for a errand or a customer? Was it outside that very
house as I first set eyes upon him, rolling in the lap of luxury, when I
was selling halfpenny ballads there for a living? And am I to grovel in
the dust for HIM to walk over? No!'

There was a grin upon the ghastly countenance of the French gentleman
under the influence of the firelight, as if he were computing how many
thousand slanderers and traitors array themselves against the fortunate,
on premises exactly answering to those of Mr Wegg. One might have
fancied that the big-headed babies were toppling over with their
hydrocephalic attempts to reckon up the children of men who transf