peevishly, 'one of my objections to it is, that it
DON'T move.'

'Rome, brother,' returned Wegg: 'a city which (it may not be generally
known) originated in twins and a wolf; and ended in Imperial marble:
wasn't built in a day.'

'Did I say it was?' asked Venus.

'No, you did not, brother. Well-inquired.'

'But I do say,' proceeded Venus, 'that I am taken from among my trophies
of anatomy, am called upon to exchange my human warious for mere
coal-ashes warious, and nothing comes of it. I think I must give up.'

'No, sir!' remonstrated Wegg, enthusiastically. 'No, Sir!

"Charge, Chester, charge,
On, Mr Venus, on!"

Never say die, sir! A man of your mark!'

'It's not so much saying it that I object to,' returned Mr Venus, 'as
doing it. And having got to do it whether or no, I can't afford to waste
my time on groping for nothing in cinders.'

'But think how little time you have given to the move, sir, after all,'
urged Wegg. 'Add the evenings so occupied together, and what do they
come to? And you, sir, harmonizer with myself in opinions, views, and
feelings, you with the patience to fit together on wires the whole
framework of society--I allude to the human skelinton--you to give in so
soon!'

'I don't like it,' returned Mr Venus moodily, as he put his head between
his knees and stuck up his dusty hair. 'And there's no encouragement to
go on.'

'Not them Mounds without,' said Mr Wegg, extending his right hand with
an air of solemn reasoning, 'encouragement? Not them Mounds now looking
down upon us?'

'They're too big,' grumbled Venus. 'What's a scratch here and a scrape
there, a poke in this place and a dig in the other, to them. Besides;
what have we found?'

'What HAVE we found?' cried Wegg, delighted to be able to acquiesce.
'Ah! There I grant you, comrade. Nothing. But on the contrary, comrade,
what MAY we find? There you'll grant me. Anything.'

'I don't like it,' pettishly returned Venus as before. 'I came into
it without enough consideration. And besides again. Isn't your own Mr
Boffin well acquainted with the Mounds? And wasn't he well acquainted
with the deceased and his ways? And has he ever showed any expectation
of finding anything?'

At that moment wheels were heard.

'Now, I should be loth,' said Mr Wegg, with an air of patient injury,
'to think so ill of him as to suppose him capable of coming at this time
of night. And yet it sounds like him.'

A ring at the yard bell.