| 467 | 468 | 469 | 470 | 471 |
| 1 | 133 | 265 | 398 | 530 |
|
'
'
Meaning hers?' said Dick, pointing towards the Marchioness.
- Meaning hers, of course. While we have no doubt of that, or that a
proper use of it would procure the poor lad's immediate pardon and
liberation, we have a great doubt whether it would, by itself, enable us
to reach Quilp, the chief agent in this villany. I should tell you that
this doubt has been confirmed into something very nearly
approaching certainty by the best opinions we have been enabled, in
this short space of time, to take upon the subject. You'll agree with us,
that to give him even the most distant chance of escape, if we could
help it, would be monstrous. You say with us, no doubt, if somebody
must escape, let it be any one but he.'
'
Yes,' returned Dick, 'certainly. That is if somebody must - but upon
my word, I'm unwilling that Anybody should. Since laws were made
for every degree, to curb vice in others as well as in me - and so forth
you know - doesn't it strike you in that light?'
The single gentleman smiled as if the light in which Mr Swiveller had
put the question were not the clearest in the world, and proceeded to
explain that they contemplated proceeding by stratagem in the first
instance; and that their design was to endeavour to extort a
confession from the gentle Sarah.
'
'
When she finds how much we know, and how we know it,' he said,
and that she is clearly compromised already, we are not without
strong hopes that we may be enabled through her means to punish
the other two effectually. If we could do that, she might go scot-free for
aught I cared.'
Dick received this project in anything but a gracious manner,
representing with as much warmth as he was then capable of
showing, that they would find the old buck (meaning Sarah) more
difficult to manage than Quilp himself - that, for any tampering,
terrifying, or cajolery, she was a very unpromising and unyielding
subject - that she was of a kind of brass not easily melted or moulded
into shape - in short, that they were no match for her, and would be
signally defeated. But it was in vain to urge them to adopt some other
course. The single gentleman has been described as explaining their
joint intentions, but it should have been written that they all spoke
together; that if any one of them by chance held his peace for a
moment, he stood gasping and panting for an opportunity to strike in
again: in a word, that they had reached that pitch of impatience and
anxiety where men can neither be persuaded nor reasoned with; and
that it would have been as easy to turn the most impetuous wind that
ever blew, as to prevail on them to reconsider their determination. So,
after telling Mr Swiveller how they had not lost sight of Kit's mother
and the children; how they had never once even lost sight of Kit
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