'I object to
regard myself.'

'I'll bear it in memory, sir.'

'If you'll be so good.' Mr Wegg slowly subdues his ironical tone and his
lingering irritation, and resumes his pipe. 'We were talking of old Mr
Harmon being a friend of yours.'

'Not a friend, Mr Wegg. Only known to speak to, and to have a little
deal with now and then. A very inquisitive character, Mr Wegg, regarding
what was found in the dust. As inquisitive as secret.'

'Ah! You found him secret?' returns Wegg, with a greedy relish.

'He had always the look of it, and the manner of it.'

'Ah!' with another roll of his eyes. 'As to what was found in the dust
now. Did you ever hear him mention how he found it, my dear friend?
Living on the mysterious premises, one would like to know. For instance,
where he found things? Or, for instance, how he set about it? Whether
he began at the top of the mounds, or whether he began at the bottom.
Whether he prodded'; Mr Wegg's pantomime is skilful and expressive here;
'or whether he scooped? Should you say scooped, my dear Mr Venus; or
should you as a man--say prodded?'

'I should say neither, Mr Wegg.'

'As a fellow-man, Mr Venus--mix again--why neither?'

'Because I suppose, sir, that what was found, was found in the sorting
and sifting. All the mounds are sorted and sifted?'

'You shall see 'em and pass your opinion. Mix again.'

On each occasion of his saying 'mix again', Mr Wegg, with a hop on
his wooden leg, hitches his chair a little nearer; more as if he were
proposing that himself and Mr Venus should mix again, than that they
should replenish their glasses.

'Living (as I said before) on the mysterious premises,' says Wegg when
the other has acted on his hospitable entreaty, 'one likes to know.
Would you be inclined to say now--as a brother--that he ever hid things
in the dust, as well as found 'em?'

'Mr Wegg, on the whole I should say he might.'

Mr Wegg claps on his spectacles, and admiringly surveys Mr Venus from
head to foot.

'As a mortal equally with myself, whose hand I take in mine for the
first time this day, having unaccountably overlooked that act so full of
boundless confidence binding a fellow-creetur TO a fellow creetur,' says
Wegg, holding Mr Venus's palm out, flat and ready for smiting, and now
smiting it; 'as such--and no other--for I scorn all lowlier ties betwixt
myself and the man walking with his face erect that alone I call my
Twin--regarded and regarding in this trust