e family too, and
Christopher? Do they thrive? Do they flourish? Are they growing into
worthy citizens, eh?'

Making his voice ascend in the scale with every succeeding question, Mr
Quilp finished in a shrill squeak, and subsided into the panting look
which was customary with him, and which, whether it were assumed or
natural, had equally the effect of banishing all expression from his
face, and rendering it, as far as it afforded any index to his mood or
meaning, a perfect blank.

'Mr Quilp,' said the single gentleman.

The dwarf put his hand to his great flapped ear, and counterfeited the
closest attention.

'We two have met before--'

'Surely,' cried Quilp, nodding his head. 'Oh surely, sir. Such an
honour and pleasure--it's both, Christopher's mother, it's both--is
not to be forgotten so soon. By no means!'

'You may remember that the day I arrived in London, and found the house
to which I drove, empty and deserted, I was directed by some of the
neighbours to you, and waited upon you without stopping for rest or
refreshment?'

'How precipitate that was, and yet what an earnest and vigorous
measure!' said Quilp, conferring with himself, in imitation of his
friend Mr Sampson Brass.

'I found,' said the single gentleman, 'you most unaccountably, in
possession of everything that had so recently belonged to another man,
and that other man, who up to the time of your entering upon his
property had been looked upon as affluent, reduced to sudden beggary,
and driven from house and home.'

'We had warrant for what we did, my good sir,' rejoined Quilp, 'we had
our warrant. Don't say driven either. He went of his own
accord--vanished in the night, sir.'

'No matter,' said the single gentleman angrily. 'He was gone.'

'Yes, he was gone,' said Quilp, with the same exasperating composure.
'No doubt he was gone. The only question was, where. And it's a
question still.'

'Now, what am I to think,' said the single gentleman, sternly regarding
him, 'of you, who, plainly indisposed to give me any information
then--nay, obviously holding back, and sheltering yourself with all
kinds of cunning, trickery, and evasion--are dogging my footsteps now?'

'I dogging!' cried Quilp.

'Why, are you not?' returned his questioner, fretted into a state of
the utmost irritation. 'Were you not a few hours since, sixty miles
off, and in the chapel to which this good woman goes to say her
prayers?'

'She was there too,