young sinless child whose life they would have sweetened and made

happy. What would they have contracted? The means of corruption,

wretchedness, and misery. Who would not have hoped in such a

cause? Tell me that! Who would not have hoped as I did?'

When did you first begin this mad career?' asked Quilp, his taunting

inclination subdued, for a moment, by the old man's grief and

wildness.

When did I first begin?' he rejoined, passing his hand across his brow.

When was it, that I first began? When should it be, but when I began

to think how little I had saved, how long a time it took to save at all,

how short a time I might have at my age to live, and how she would be

left to the rough mercies of the world, with barely enough to keep her

from the sorrows that wait on poverty; then it was that I began to

think about it.'

After you first came to me to get your precious grandson packed off to

sea?' said Quilp.

Shortly after that,' replied the old man. 'I thought of it a long time,

and had it in my sleep for months. Then I began. I found no pleasure

in it, I expected none. What has it ever brought me but anxious days

and sleepless nights; but loss of health and peace of mind, and gain of

feebleness and sorrow!'

You lost what money you had laid by, first, and then came to me.

While I thought you were making your fortune (as you said you were)

you were making yourself a beggar, eh? Dear me! And so it comes to

pass that I hold every security you could scrape together, and a bill of

sale upon the - upon the stock and property,' said Quilp standing up

and looking about him, as if to assure himself that none of it had been

taken away. 'But did you never win?'

'Never!' groaned the old man. 'Never won back my loss!'

I thought,' sneered the dwarf, 'that if a man played long enough he

was sure to win at last, or, at the worst, not to come off a loser.'

'And so he is,' cried the old man, suddenly rousing himself from his

state of despondency, and lashed into the most violent excitement, 'so

he is; I have felt that from the first, I have always known it, I've seen

it, I never felt it half so strongly as I feel it now. Quilp, I have dreamed,

three nights, of winning the same large sum, I never could dream that

dream before, though I have often tried. Do not desert me, now I have

this chance. I have no resource but you, give me some help, let me try

this one last hope.'

The Old Curiosity Shop