ley-corner. Will you perform upon a pipe, sir?'

'I am but an indifferent performer, sir,' returns the other; 'but I'll
accompany you with a whiff or two at intervals.'

So, Mr Venus mixes, and Wegg mixes; and Mr Venus lights and puffs, and
Wegg lights and puffs.

'And there's alloy even in this metal of yours, Mr Wegg, you was
remarking?'

'Mystery,' returns Wegg. 'I don't like it, Mr Venus. I don't like to
have the life knocked out of former inhabitants of this house, in the
gloomy dark, and not know who did it.'

'Might you have any suspicions, Mr Wegg?'

'No,' returns that gentleman. 'I know who profits by it. But I've no
suspicions.'

Having said which, Mr Wegg smokes and looks at the fire with a most
determined expression of Charity; as if he had caught that cardinal
virtue by the skirts as she felt it her painful duty to depart from him,
and held her by main force.

'Similarly,' resumes Wegg, 'I have observations as I can offer upon
certain points and parties; but I make no objections, Mr Venus. Here
is an immense fortune drops from the clouds upon a person that shall be
nameless. Here is a weekly allowance, with a certain weight of coals,
drops from the clouds upon me. Which of us is the better man? Not the
person that shall be nameless. That's an observation of mine, but I
don't make it an objection. I take my allowance and my certain weight of
coals. He takes his fortune. That's the way it works.'

'It would be a good thing for me, if I could see things in the calm
light you do, Mr Wegg.'

'Again look here,' pursues Silas, with an oratorical flourish of his
pipe and his wooden leg: the latter having an undignified tendency
to tilt him back in his chair; 'here's another observation, Mr Venus,
unaccompanied with an objection. Him that shall be nameless is liable to
be talked over. He gets talked over. Him that shall be nameless, having
me at his right hand, naturally looking to be promoted higher, and you
may perhaps say meriting to be promoted higher--'

(Mr Venus murmurs that he does say so.)

'--Him that shall be nameless, under such circumstances passes me by,
and puts a talking-over stranger above my head. Which of us two is the
better man? Which of us two can repeat most poetry? Which of us two has,
in the service of him that shall be nameless, tackled the Romans, both
civil and military, till he has got as husky as if he'd been weaned and
ever since brought up on sawdust? Not the talking-ov