e head with the handle of his umbrella.

'Don't let's have any wrangling,' said Miss Sally, staying his hand.
'I've showed you that I know him, and that's enough.'

'She's always foremost!' said the dwarf, patting her on the back and
looking contemptuously at Sampson. 'I don't like Kit, Sally.'

'Nor I,' rejoined Miss Brass.

'Nor I,' said Sampson.

'Why, that's right!' cried Quilp. 'Half our work is done already.
This Kit is one of your honest people; one of your fair characters; a
prowling prying hound; a hypocrite; a double-faced, white-livered,
sneaking spy; a crouching cur to those that feed and coax him, and a
barking yelping dog to all besides.'

'Fearfully eloquent!' cried Brass with a sneeze. 'Quite appalling!'

'Come to the point,' said Miss Sally, 'and don't talk so much.'

'Right again!' exclaimed Quilp, with another contemptuous look at
Sampson, 'always foremost! I say, Sally, he is a yelping, insolent dog
to all besides, and most of all, to me. In short, I owe him a grudge.'
'That's enough, sir,' said Sampson.

'No, it's not enough, sir,' sneered Quilp; 'will you hear me out?
Besides that I owe him a grudge on that account, he thwarts me at this
minute, and stands between me and an end which might otherwise prove a
golden one to us all. Apart from that, I repeat that he crosses my
humour, and I hate him. Now, you know the lad, and can guess the rest.
Devise your own means of putting him out of my way, and execute them.
Shall it be done?'

'It shall, sir,' said Sampson.

'Then give me your hand,' retorted Quilp. 'Sally, girl, yours. I rely
as much, or more, on you than him. Tom Scott comes back. Lantern,
pipes, more grog, and a jolly night of it!'

No other word was spoken, no other look exchanged, which had the
slightest reference to this, the real occasion of their meeting. The
trio were well accustomed to act together, and were linked to each
other by ties of mutual interest and advantage, and nothing more was
needed. Resuming his boisterous manner with the same ease with which
he had thrown it off, Quilp was in an instant the same uproarious,
reckless little savage he had been a few seconds before. It was ten
o'clock at night before the amiable Sally supported her beloved and
loving brother from the Wilderness, by which time he needed the utmost
support her tender frame could render; his walk being from some unknown
reason anything but steady, and his legs constantly doubling