Chapter II

After combating, for nearly a week, the feeling which impelled me to

revisit the place I had quitted under the circumstances already

detailed, I yielded to it at length; and determining that this time I

would present myself by the light of day, bent my steps thither early

in the morning.

I walked past the house, and took several turns in the street, with

that kind of hesitation which is natural to a man who is conscious

that the visit he is about to pay is unexpected, and may not be very

acceptable. However, as the door of the shop was shut, and it did not

appear likely that I should be recognized by those within, if I

continued merely to pass up and down before it, I soon conquered this

irresolution, and found myself in the Curiosity Dealer's warehouse.

The old man and another person were together in the back part, and

there seemed to have been high words between them, for their voices

which were raised to a very high pitch suddenly stopped on my

entering, and the old man advancing hastily towards me, said in a

tremulous tone that he was very glad I had come.

'You interrupted us at a critical moment,' said he, pointing to the man

whom I had found in company with him; 'this fellow will murder me

one of these days. He would have done so, long ago, if he had dared.'

'Bah! You would swear away my life if you could,' returned the other,

after bestowing a stare and a frown on me; 'we all know that!'

'I almost think I could,' cried the old man, turning feebly upon him. 'If

oaths, or prayers, or words, could rid me of you, they should. I would

be quit of you, and would be relieved if you were dead.'

I know it,' returned the other. 'I said so, didn't I? But neither oaths, or

prayers, nor words, WILL kill me, and therefore I live, and mean to

live.'

And his mother died!' cried the old man, passionately clasping his

hands and looking upward; 'and this is Heaven's justice!'

The other stood lunging with his foot upon a chair, and regarded him

with a contemptuous sneer. He was a young man of one-and-twenty

or thereabouts; well made, and certainly handsome, though the

expression of his face was far from prepossessing, having in common

with his manner and even his dress, a dissipated, insolent air which

repelled one.

The Old Curiosity Shop