First, he reviewed the circumstances which had led to his repairing to

that spot, which were briefly these. Dropping in at Mr Sampson

Brass's office on the previous evening, in the absence of that

gentleman and his learned sister, he had lighted upon Mr Swiveller,

who chanced at the moment to be sprinkling a glass of warm gin and

water on the dust of the law, and to be moistening his clay, as the

phrase goes, rather copiously. But as clay in the abstract, when too

much moistened, becomes of a weak and uncertain consistency,

breaking down in unexpected places, retaining impressions but

faintly, and preserving no strength or steadiness of character, so Mr

Swiveller's clay, having imbibed a considerable quantity of moisture,

was in a very loose and slippery state, insomuch that the various

ideas impressed upon it were fast losing their distinctive character,

and running into each other. It is not uncommon for human clay in

this condition to value itself above all things upon its great prudence

and sagacity; and Mr Swiveller, especially prizing himself upon these

qualities, took occasion to remark that he had made strange

discoveries in connection with the single gentleman who lodged above,

which he had determined to keep within his own bosom, and which

neither tortures nor cajolery should ever induce him to reveal. Of this

determination Mr Quilp expressed his high approval, and setting

himself in the same breath to goad Mr Swiveller on to further hints,

soon made out that the single gentleman had been seen in

communication with Kit, and that this was the secret which was never

to be disclosed.

Possessed of this piece of information, Mr Quilp directly supposed that

the single gentleman above stairs must be the same individual who

had waited on him, and having assured himself by further inquiries

that this surmise was correct, had no difficulty in arriving at the

conclusion that the intent and object of his correspondence with Kit

was the recovery of his old client and the child. Burning with curiosity

to know what proceedings were afoot, he resolved to pounce upon

Kit's mother as the person least able to resist his arts, and

consequently the most likely to be entrapped into such revelations as

he sought; so taking an abrupt leave of Mr Swiveller, he hurried to her

house. The good woman being from home, he made inquiries of a

neighbour, as Kit himself did soon afterwards, and being directed to

the chapel be took himself there, in order to waylay her, at the

conclusion of the service.

He had not sat in the chapel more than a quarter of an hour, and with

his eyes piously fixed upon the ceiling was chuckling inwardly over

the joke of his being there at all, when Kit himself appeared. Watchful

as a lynx, one glance showed the dwarf that he had come on business.

Absorbed in appearance, as we have seen, and feigning a profound

abstraction, he noted every circumstance of his behaviour, and when

he withdrew with his family, shot out after him. In fine, he traced

The Old Curiosity Shop