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and there goes the clock again! If he would but leave off for a minute,
or if they'd only sing!'
But there was little encouragement to believe that either event would
happen for a couple of hours to come. The preacher went on telling
them what he meant to convince them of before he had done, and it
was clear that if he only kept to one-half of his promises and forgot
the other, he was good for that time at least.
In his desperation and restlessness Kit cast his eyes about the chapel,
and happening to let them fall upon a little seat in front of the clerk's
desk, could scarcely believe them when they showed him - Quilp!
He rubbed them twice or thrice, but still they insisted that Quilp was
there, and there indeed he was, sitting with his hands upon his knees,
and his hat between them on a little wooden bracket, with the
accustomed grin on his dirty face, and his eyes fixed upon the ceiling.
He certainly did not glance at Kit or at his mother, and appeared
utterly unconscious of their presence; still Kit could not help feeling,
directly, that the attention of the sly little fiend was fastened upon
them, and upon nothing else.
But, astounded as he was by the apparition of the dwarf among the
Little Bethelites, and not free from a misgiving that it was the
forerunner of some trouble or annoyance, he was compelled to subdue
his wonder and to take active measures for the withdrawal of his
parent, as the evening was now creeping on, and the matter grew
serious. Therefore, the next time little Jacob woke, Kit set himself to
attract his wandering attention, and this not being a very difficult task
(
one sneeze effected it), he signed to him to rouse his mother.
Ill-luck would have it, however, that, just then, the preacher, in a
forcible exposition of one head of his discourse, leaned over upon the
pulpit-desk so that very little more of him than his legs remained
inside; and, while he made vehement gestures with his right hand,
and held on with his left, stared, or seemed to stare, straight into little
Jacob's eyes, threatening him by his strained look and attitude - so it
appeared to the child - that if he so much as moved a muscle, he, the
preacher, would be literally, and not figuratively, 'down upon him' that
instant. In this fearful state of things, distracted by the sudden
appearance of Kit, and fascinated by the eyes of the preacher, the
miserable Jacob sat bolt upright, wholly incapable of motion, strongly
disposed to cry but afraid to do so, and returning his pastor's gaze
until his infant eyes seemed starting from their sockets.
'
If I must do it openly, I must,' thought Kit. With that he walked softly
out of his pew and into his mother's, and as Mr Swiveller would have
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