other circumstances, would have failed to provoke. Having cleared
away, and disposed everything comfortably about him again, she sat down
at the table to take her own tea.

'Marchioness,' said Mr Swiveller, 'how's Sally?'

The small servant screwed her face into an expression of the very
uttermost entanglement of slyness, and shook her head.

'What, haven't you seen her lately?' said Dick.

'Seen her!' cried the small servant. 'Bless you, I've run away!'

Mr Swiveller immediately laid himself down again quite flat, and so
remained for about five minutes. By slow degrees he resumed his
sitting posture after that lapse of time, and inquired:

'And where do you live, Marchioness?'

'Live!' cried the small servant. 'Here!'

'Oh!' said Mr Swiveller.

And with that he fell down flat again, as suddenly as if he had been
shot. Thus he remained, motionless and bereft of speech, until she had
finished her meal, put everything in its place, and swept the hearth;
when he motioned her to bring a chair to the bedside, and, being
propped up again, opened a farther conversation.

'And so,' said Dick, 'you have run away?'

'Yes,' said the Marchioness, 'and they've been a tizing of me.'

'Been--I beg your pardon,' said Dick--'what have they been doing?'

'Been a tizing of me--tizing you know--in the newspapers,' rejoined the
Marchioness.

'Aye, aye,' said Dick, 'advertising?'

The small servant nodded, and winked. Her eyes were so red with waking
and crying, that the Tragic Muse might have winked with greater
consistency. And so Dick felt.

'Tell me,' said he, 'how it was that you thought of coming here.'

'Why, you see,' returned the Marchioness, 'when you was gone, I hadn't
any friend at all, because the lodger he never come back, and I didn't
know where either him or you was to be found, you know. But one
morning, when I was-'

'Was near a keyhole?' suggested Mr Swiveller, observing that she
faltered.

'Well then,' said the small servant, nodding; 'when I was near the
office keyhole--as you see me through, you know--I heard somebody
saying that she lived here, and was the lady whose house you lodged at,
and that you was took very bad, and wouldn't nobody come and take care
of you. Mr Brass, he says, "It's no business of mine," he says; and
Miss Sally, she says, "He's a funny chap, but it's no business of
mine;" and the lady went away, and slammed the door to, when she went
out, I can tell you. So I r