hat new
touch of craftiness added to it. 'It has fetched a penny. It'll begin to
be carted off to-morrow.'

'Have you been out to take leave of your old friend, sir?' asked Silas,
jocosely.

'No,' said Mr Boffin. 'What the devil put that in your head?'

He was so sudden and rough, that Wegg, who had been hovering closer
and closer to his skirts, despatching the back of his hand on exploring
expeditions in search of the bottle's surface, retired two or three
paces.

'No offence, sir,' said Wegg, humbly. 'No offence.'

Mr Boffin eyed him as a dog might eye another dog who wanted his bone;
and actually retorted with a low growl, as the dog might have retorted.

'Good-night,' he said, after having sunk into a moody silence, with
his hands clasped behind him, and his eyes suspiciously wandering about
Wegg.--'No! stop there. I know the way out, and I want no light.'

Avarice, and the evening's legends of avarice, and the inflammatory
effect of what he had seen, and perhaps the rush of his ill-conditioned
blood to his brain in his descent, wrought Silas Wegg to such a pitch of
insatiable appetite, that when the door closed he made a swoop at it and
drew Venus along with him.

'He mustn't go,' he cried. 'We mustn't let him go? He has got that
bottle about him. We must have that bottle.'

'Why, you wouldn't take it by force?' said Venus, restraining him.

'Wouldn't I? Yes I would. I'd take it by any force, I'd have it at any
price! Are you so afraid of one old man as to let him go, you coward?'

'I am so afraid of you, as not to let YOU go,' muttered Venus, sturdily,
clasping him in his arms.

'Did you hear him?' retorted Wegg. 'Did you hear him say that he was
resolved to disappoint us? Did you hear him say, you cur, that he was
going to have the Mounds cleared off, when no doubt the whole place will
be rummaged? If you haven't the spirit of a mouse to defend your rights,
I have. Let me go after him.'

As in his wildness he was making a strong struggle for it, Mr Venus
deemed it expedient to lift him, throw him, and fall with him; well
knowing that, once down, he would not be up again easily with his wooden
leg. So they both rolled on the floor, and, as they did so, Mr Boffin
shut the gate.

Chapter 7

THE FRIENDLY MOVE TAKES UP A STRONG POSITION

The friendly movers sat upright on the floor, panting and eyeing one
another, after Mr Boffin had slammed the gate and gone away. In the weak
eyes of Venus,