Dick looked very earnestly at his little friend: and his eyes, being
large and hollow from illness, assisted the expression so much, that
she was quite frightened, and besought him not to think any more about
it. What had already fallen from her, however, had not only piqued his
curiosity, but seriously alarmed him, wherefore he urged her to tell
him the worst at once.

'Oh there's no worst in it,' said the small servant. 'It hasn't
anything to do with you.'

'Has it anything to do with--is it anything you heard through chinks or
keyholes--and that you were not intended to hear?' asked Dick, in a
breathless state.

'Yes,' replied the small servant.

'In--in Bevis Marks?' pursued Dick hastily. 'Conversations between
Brass and Sally?'

'Yes,' cried the small servant again.

Richard Swiveller thrust his lank arm out of bed, and, gripping her by
the wrist and drawing her close to him, bade her out with it, and
freely too, or he would not answer for the consequences; being wholly
unable to endure the state of excitement and expectation. She, seeing
that he was greatly agitated, and that the effects of postponing her
revelation might be much more injurious than any that were likely to
ensue from its being made at once, promised compliance, on condition
that the patient kept himself perfectly quiet, and abstained from
starting up or tossing about.

'But if you begin to do that,' said the small servant, 'I'll leave off.
And so I tell you.'

'You can't leave off, till you have gone on,' said Dick. 'And do go
on, there's a darling. Speak, sister, speak. Pretty Polly say. Oh
tell me when, and tell me where, pray Marchioness, I beseech you!'

Unable to resist these fervent adjurations, which Richard Swiveller
poured out as passionately as if they had been of the most solemn and
tremendous nature, his companion spoke thus:

'Well! Before I run away, I used to sleep in the kitchen--where we
played cards, you know. Miss Sally used to keep the key of the kitchen
door in her pocket, and she always come down at night to take away the
candle and rake out the fire. When she had done that, she left me to
go to bed in the dark, locked the door on the outside, put the key in
her pocket again, and kept me locked up till she come down in the
morning--very early I can tell you--and let me out. I was terrible
afraid of being kept like this, because if there was a fire, I thought
they might forget me and only take care of