ied the dwarf. 'Which is more extraordinary,
as I know how rich he really is.'

'I suppose you should,' said Trent.

'I think I should indeed,' rejoined the dwarf; and in that, at least,
he spoke the truth.

After a few more whispered words, they returned to the table, and the
young man rousing Richard Swiveller informed him that he was waiting to
depart. This was welcome news to Dick, who started up directly. After
a few words of confidence in the result of their project had been
exchanged, they bade the grinning Quilp good night.

Quilp crept to the window as they passed in the street below, and
listened. Trent was pronouncing an encomium upon his wife, and they
were both wondering by what enchantment she had been brought to marry
such a misshapen wretch as he. The dwarf after watching their
retreating shadows with a wider grin than his face had yet displayed,
stole softly in the dark to bed.

In this hatching of their scheme, neither Trent nor Quilp had had one
thought about the happiness or misery of poor innocent Nell. It would
have been strange if the careless profligate, who was the butt of both,
had been harassed by any such consideration; for his high opinion of
his own merits and deserts rendered the project rather a laudable one
than otherwise; and if he had been visited by so unwonted a guest as
reflection, he would--being a brute only in the gratification of his
appetites--have soothed his conscience with the plea that he did not
mean to beat or kill his wife, and would therefore, after all said and
done, be a very tolerable, average husband.

CHAPTER 24

It was not until they were quite exhausted and could no longer maintain
the pace at which they had fled from the race-ground, that the old man
and the child ventured to stop, and sit down to rest upon the borders
of a little wood. Here, though the course was hidden from their view,
they could yet faintly distinguish the noise of distant shouts, the hum
of voices, and the beating of drums. Climbing the eminence which lay
between them and the spot they had left, the child could even discern
the fluttering flags and white tops of booths; but no person was
approaching towards them, and their resting-place was solitary and
still.

Some time elapsed before she could reassure her trembling companion, or
restore him to a state of moderate tranquillity. His disordered
imagination represented to him a crowd of persons stealing towards them