themselves you know. So,
whenever I see an old rusty key anywhere, I picked it up and tried if
it would fit the door, and at last I found in the dust cellar a key
that did fit it.'

Here, Mr Swiveller made a violent demonstration with his legs. But the
small servant immediately pausing in her talk, he subsided again, and
pleading a momentary forgetfulness of their compact, entreated her to
proceed.

'They kept me very short,' said the small servant. 'Oh! you can't
think how short they kept me! So I used to come out at night after
they'd gone to bed, and feel about in the dark for bits of biscuit, or
sangwitches that you'd left in the office, or even pieces of orange
peel to put into cold water and make believe it was wine. Did you ever
taste orange peel and water?'

Mr Swiveller replied that he had never tasted that ardent liquor; and
once more urged his friend to resume the thread of her narrative.

'If you make believe very much, it's quite nice,' said the small
servant, 'but if you don't, you know, it seems as if it would bear a
little more seasoning, certainly. Well, sometimes I used to come out
after they'd gone to bed, and sometimes before, you know; and one or
two nights before there was all that precious noise in the office--when
the young man was took, I mean--I come upstairs while Mr Brass and Miss
Sally was a-sittin' at the office fire; and I tell you the truth, that
I come to listen again, about the key of the safe.'

Mr Swiveller gathered up his knees so as to make a great cone of the
bedclothes, and conveyed into his countenance an expression of the
utmost concern. But the small servant pausing, and holding up her
finger, the cone gently disappeared, though the look of concern did not.

'There was him and her,' said the small servant, 'a-sittin' by the
fire, and talking softly together. Mr Brass says to Miss Sally, "Upon
my word," he says "it's a dangerous thing, and it might get us into a
world of trouble, and I don't half like it." She says--you know her
way--she says, "You're the chickenest-hearted, feeblest, faintest man I
ever see, and I think," she says, "that I ought to have been the
brother, and you the sister. Isn't Quilp," she says, "our principal
support?" "He certainly is," says Mr Brass, "And an't we," she says,
"constantly ruining somebody or other in the way of business?" "We
certainly are," says Mr Brass. "Then does it signify," she says,
"about ruining this Kit when Quilp