e had
borrowed and lost all that, too. And he begged the dwarf to loan him a
little more so that he might tempt luck again.

Any one but Quilp would have pitied the poor old man, but not he. He
refused, and thinking of a lie which would make the other yet more
miserable, he told him as he left that it was Kit who had told him where
the money was going.

The first Kit knew of this was that night when little Nell came to tell
him her grandfather was very ill, and that he raved continually against
Kit so that he must never come to the shop again. Kit was stupefied at
this, but there was no help for it, so little Nell went sorrowfully back
alone.

The Old Curiosity Shop belonged to the dwarf now and he at once moved
into the parlor. He took little Nell's own bed for himself and she had
to sleep on a pallet on the floor up stairs. She was busy nursing her
grandfather, for he was very ill for some time, and she scarcely ever
came down because she was so afraid of the dwarf.

Quilp was waiting for the old man to die, thinking that then he would
have the shop for his own, and meantime he did a hundred disagreeable
things, such as filling the house with strong tobacco smoke from a big
pipe he used all the time and driving every one away who came to ask how
the sick man was. He even drove off Kit when he came below the window to
beg little Nell to come and bring her grandfather to live at his own
mother's house.

The old man would certainly have died if little Nell had not nursed him
so faithfully, all alone, till he grew better and at length was able to
sit up.

But it was a bitter thing to live as they did, and one day little Nell
begged her grandfather to come away with her--to wander anywhere in the
world, only so it was under God's sky and away from every one that
pursued them--and he agreed.

So that night they dressed and stole down stairs very quietly in order
not to waken the dwarf who was snoring frightfully in the back room, and
went through the shop to the front door. The bolts were rusty and
creaked loudly, and, worst of all, they found the key was not in the
lock. Little Nell had to take off her shoes and creep into the back room
to get it out of the dwarf's pocket.

She was terribly frightened at the sight of Quilp, for he was having a
bad dream, and was hanging so far out of bed that he was almost standing
on his head; his ugly mouth was wide open, and his breath came in a sort
of growl. But she found t