| 360 | 361 | 362 | 363 | 364 |
| 1 | 133 | 265 | 398 | 530 |
|
The small servant, perhaps frightened by his looks, returned no
audible reply; but it appeared from the motion of her lips that she was
inwardly repeating the same form of expression concerning the note or
message.
'Do they use you ill here? is your mistress a Tartar?' said Quilp with a
chuckle.
In reply to the last interrogation, the small servant, with a look of
infinite cunning mingled with fear, screwed up her mouth very tight
and round, and nodded violently. Whether there was anything in the
peculiar slyness of her action which fascinated Mr Quilp, or anything
in the expression of her features at the moment which attracted his
attention for some other reason; or whether it merely occurred to him
as a pleasant whim to stare the small servant out of countenance;
certain it is, that he planted his elbows square and firmly on the desk,
and squeezing up his cheeks with his hands, looked at her fixedly.
'
Where do you come from?' he said after a long pause, stroking his
chin.
'
'
'
'
I don't know.'
What's your name?'
Nothing.'
Nonsense!' retorted Quilp. 'What does your mistress call you when
she wants you?'
'A little devil,' said the child.
She added in the same breath, as if fearful of any further questioning,
'But please will you leave a card or message?'
These unusual answers might naturally have provoked some more
inquiries. Quilp, however, without uttering another word, withdrew
his eyes from the small servant, stroked his chin more thoughtfully
than before, and then, bending over the note as if to direct it with
scrupulous and hair-breadth nicety, looked at her, covertly but very
narrowly, from under his bushy eyebrows. The result of this secret
survey was, that he shaded his face with his hands, and laughed slyly
and noiselessly, until every vein in it was swollen almost to bursting.
Pulling his hat over his brow to conceal his mirth and its effects, he
tossed the letter to the child, and hastily withdrew.
Once in the street, moved by some secret impulse, he laughed, and
held his sides, and laughed again, and tried to peer through the dusty
Page
Quick Jump
|