wing each other!"

[They had been acquainted with each other about half a year.]

"Hucky, what a cruel scamp I was to behave to you in the way I
did--curse me, if I couldn't cry to see your eye bunged up in that way!"

"Pho! dear Titty, I knew you loved me all the while"--whined Huckaback,
"and meant no harm; you wasn't yourself when you did it--and besides, I
deserved ten times more! If you had killed me I should have liked you as
much as ever!"

"Give us your hand, Hucky! Let's forgive one another!" cried Titmouse,
excitedly; and their hands were quickly locked together.

"If we don't mismanage the thing, we shall be all right yet, Titty; but
you won't do anything without speaking to _me_ first--will you, Titty?"

"The thoughts of it all going right again is enough to set me wild,
Hucky--But what shall we do to set the thing going again?"

"_Quarter past one!_" quivered the voice of the paralytic watchman
beneath, startling the friends out of their exciting colloquy; his
warning being at the same time silently seconded by the long-wicked
candle, burning within half an inch of its socket. They hastily agreed
that Titmouse should immediately write to Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and
Snap, a proper [_i. e._ a most abject] letter, solemnly pledging himself
to obey their injunctions in everything for the future, and offering
them a handsome reward for their exertions, if successful.

"Well--good-night, Huck! good-night," said Titmouse, rising. "I'm not
the least sleepy--I sha'n't sleep a wink all night long! I shall sit up
to write my letter--you haven't got a sheet of paper here, by the
way?--I've used all mine." [That was, he had, some months before, bought
a sheet to write a letter, and had so used it.]

Huckaback produced a sheet, somewhat crumpled, from a drawer. "I'd give
a hundred if I had them!" said he; "I sha'n't care a straw for the
hiding I've got to-night--though I'm a _leetle_ sore after it, too--and
what the deuce am I to say to-morrow to Messrs. Diaper"----

"Oh, you can't hardly be at a loss for a lie that'll suit _them_,
surely!--So good-night, Hucky--good-night!"

Huckaback wrung his friend's hand, and was in a moment or two alone.
"Haven't my fingers been itching all the while to be at the fellow!"
exclaimed he, as he shut the door. "But, somehow, I've got too soft a
sperrit, and can't bear to hurt any one;--and then--if the chap gets his
L10,000 a-year--why--hem! Titty a'n't such a bad fellow, in