ll that Mr. Titmouse could get out of Mr. Gammon, who, hailing
a coach off the stand beside them, got in, and it was soon making its
way eastward. What a miserable mixture of doubts, hopes, and fears, had
he left Titmouse! He felt as if he were a squeezed orange; he had told
everything he knew about himself, and got nothing in return out of the
smooth, imperturbable, impenetrable Mr. Gammon, but empty
civilities.--"Lord, Lord!" thought Titmouse, as Mr. Gammon's coach
turned the corner; "what would I give to know half about it that that
gent knows! But Mr. Tag-rag! by Jove! what _will_ he say? It's struck
twelve. I've been more than an hour away--and he gave me ten minutes!
Sha'n't I catch it?"

And he did. Almost the very first person whom he met, on entering the
shop, was his respected employer; who, plucking his watch out of his
fob, and looking furiously at it, motioned the trembling Titmouse to
follow him to the farther end of the long shop, where there happened to
be then no customers.

"Is this your ten minutes, sir, eh?"

"I am sorry"----

"Where may you have been, sir, all this while?"

"With that gentleman, sir, and I really did not know"----

"You didn't know, sir! Who cares what you know, or don't know? _This_,
at any rate, you know--that you ought to have been back fifty-five
minutes ago, sir. You do, sir! Isn't your time my property, sir? Don't I
pay for it, sir? An hour!--in the middle of the day! I've not had such a
thing happen this five years! I'll stop it out of your salary, sir."

Titmouse did not attempt to interrupt him.

"And pray what have you been gossiping about, sir, in this disgraceful
manner?"

"Something that he wanted to say to me, sir."

"You low puppy!--do you suppose I don't see your impertinence? I
_insist_, sir, on knowing what all this gossiping with that fellow has
been about?"

"Then you _won't_ know, sir, that's flat!" replied Titmouse, doggedly;
returning to his usual station behind the counter.

"I _sha'n't_!!" exclaimed Mr. Tag-rag, almost aghast at the presumption
of his inferior.

"No, sir, you _sha'n't_ know a single word about it."

"Sha'n't know a single word about it! Vastly good, sir!!--Do you know
whom you're talking to, sir? Do you really know in whose presence you
are, sir?" inquired Mr. Tag-rag, nearly trembling with rage.

"Mr. Tag-rag, I presume, of the firm of Tag-rag and Co.," replied
Titmouse, looking him full in the face.--One or two of his co