and standing before the fire with his back towards it, 'I am reminded

of the sweetest little face that ever my eyes beheld. I remember your

coming there, twice or thrice, when we were in possession. Ah Kit, my

dear fellow, gentleman in my profession have such painful duties to

perform sometimes, that you needn't envy us - you needn't indeed!'

I don't, sir,' said Kit, 'though it isn't for the like of me to judge.'

'Our only consolation, Kit,' pursued the lawyer, looking at him in a

sort of pensive abstraction, 'is, that although we cannot turn away the

wind, we can soften it; we can temper it, if I may say so, to the shorn

lambs.'

'Shorn indeed!' thought Kit. 'Pretty close!' But he didn't say SO.

'On that occasion, Kit,' said Mr Brass, 'on that occasion that I have

just alluded to, I had a hard battle with Mr Quilp (for Mr Quilp is a

very hard man) to obtain them the indulgence they had. It might have

cost me a client. But suffering virtue inspired me, and I prevailed.'

He's not so bad after all,' thought honest Kit, as the attorney pursed

up his lips and looked like a man who was struggling with his better

feelings.

'I respect you, Kit,' said Brass with emotion. 'I saw enough of your

conduct, at that time, to respect you, though your station is humble,

and your fortune lowly. It isn't the waistcoat that I look at. It is the

heart. The checks in the waistcoat are but the wires of the cage. But

the heart is the bird. Ah! How many sich birds are perpetually

moulting, and putting their beaks through the wires to peck at all

mankind!'

This poetic figure, which Kit took to be in a special allusion to his own

checked waistcoat, quite overcame him; Mr Brass's voice and manner

added not a little to its effect, for he discoursed with all the mild

austerity of a hermit, and wanted but a cord round the waist of his

rusty surtout, and a skull on the chimney-piece, to be completely set

up in that line of business.

Well, well,' said Sampson, smiling as good men smile when they

compassionate their own weakness or that of their fellow- creatures,

this is wide of the bull's-eye. You're to take that, if you please.' As he

spoke, he pointed to a couple of half-crowns on the desk.

Kit looked at the coins, and then at Sampson, and hesitated.

'For yourself,' said Brass. 'From - '

The Old Curiosity Shop