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allop will sell me out, bag and baggage, if I don't give her something to-morrow!" "Well, if I really thought--hem!--would you mind giving me, now, a bit of black and white for it--just (as one might say) to show you was in earnest?" "I'll do anything you like; only let me feel the ten shillings in my fingers!" "Well, no sooner said than done, if you're a man of your word," said Huckaback, in a trice producing a bit of paper, and a pen and ink. "So, only just for the fun of it; but--Lord! what stuff!--I'm only bargaining for a hundred pounds of moonshine. Ha, ha! I shall never see the color of your money, not I; so I may as well say two hundred when I'm about it, as one hundred"---- "Why, hem! Two hundred, Huck, _is_ rather a large figure; one hundred's odds enough, I'm sure!" quoth Titmouse, meekly. "P'r'aps, Tit, you forget the _licking_ you gave me the other day," said Huckaback, with sudden sternness. "Suppose I was to go to an attorney, and get the law of you, what a sight of damages I should have--three hundred pounds at least!" Titmouse appeared even yet hesitating. "Well, then!" said Huckaback, flinging down his pen, "suppose I have them damages yet"---- "Come, come, Hucky, 't is all past and gone, all that"-- "Is it? Well, I never! I shall never be again the same man I was before that 'ere licking. I've a sort of a--a--of a--feeling inside, as if--my breast was--I shall carry it to my grave--curse me if I sha'n't!" [It never once occurred to Titmouse, not having his friend Mr. Gammon at his elbow, that the plaintiff in the action of _Huckaback v. Titmouse_ might have been slightly at a loss for a _witness_ of the assault; but something quite as good in its way--a heaven-sent suggestion--_did_ occur to him.] "Ah," said Titmouse, suddenly, "that's true; and uncommon sorry am I; but still, a hundred pounds is a hundred pounds, and a large sum for the use of ten shillings, and a licking; but never you think it's all moonshine about my business with Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap! I didn't intend to have said a word--but--you should only have heard what _I've_ heard to-day from those gents; hem! but I won't split _again_ either!" he added mysteriously. "Eh? What? Heard from those gents at Saffron Hill?" interrupted Huckaback, briskly; "come, Titty, out with it--out with it; no secrets between friends, Titty!" "No, I'll be hanged if I do--I won't spoil it all again; and now, since I've
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