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