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Applying his eye to this convenient place, he descried Mr Brass seated
at the table with pen, ink, and paper, and the case-bottle of rum - his
own case-bottle, and his own particular Jamaica - convenient to his
hand; with hot water, fragrant lemons, white lump sugar, and all
things fitting; from which choice materials, Sampson, by no means
insensible to their claims upon his attention, had compounded a
mighty glass of punch reeking hot; which he was at that very moment
stirring up with a teaspoon, and contemplating with looks in which a
faint assumption of sentimental regret, struggled but weakly with a
bland and comfortable joy. At the same table, with both her elbows
upon it, was Mrs Jiniwin; no longer sipping other people's punch
feloniously with teaspoons, but taking deep draughts from a jorum of
her own; while her daughter - not exactly with ashes on her head, or
sackcloth on her back, but preserving a very decent and becoming
appearance of sorrow nevertheless - was reclining in an easy chair,
and soothing her grief with a smaller allowance of the same glib liquid.
There were also present, a couple of water-side men, bearing between
them certain machines called drags; even these fellows were
accommodated with a stiff glass a-piece; and as they drank with a
great relish, and were naturally of a red-nosed, pimple-faced, convivial
look, their presence rather increased than detracted from that decided
appearance of comfort, which was the great characteristic of the party.
'
If I could poison that dear old lady's rum and water,' murmured
Quilp, 'I'd die happy.'
'Ah!' said Mr Brass, breaking the silence, and raising his eyes to the
ceiling with a sigh, 'Who knows but he may be looking down upon us
now! Who knows but he may be surveying of us from - from
somewheres or another, and contemplating us with a watchful eye! Oh
Lor!'
Here Mr Brass stopped to drink half his punch, and then resumed;
looking at the other half, as he spoke, with a dejected smile.
'
I can almost fancy,' said the lawyer shaking his head, 'that I see his
eye glistening down at the very bottom of my liquor. When shall we
look upon his like again? Never, never!' One minute we are here' -
holding his tumbler before his eyes - 'the next we are there' - gulping
down its contents, and striking himself emphatically a little below the
chest - 'in the silent tomb. To think that I should be drinking his very
rum! It seems like a dream.'
With the view, no doubt, of testing the reality of his position, Mr Brass
pushed his tumbler as he spoke towards Mrs Jiniwin for the purpose
of being replenished; and turned towards the attendant mariners.
'
The search has been quite unsuccessful then?'
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