barge-load of bad names chucked at me, and being forced to eat my words, which is a unsatisfying sort of food wotever a man's appetite! And when you mention the middle of the night, T'otherest Governor," growled Mr. Riderhood, winding up his monotonous summary of his wrongs, "throw your eye on this here bundle under my arm, and bear in mind that I'm a walking back to my Lock, and that the Temple laid upon my line of road." Bradley Headstone's face had changed during this latter recital, and he had observed the speaker with a more sustained attention. "Do you know," said he, after a pause, during which they walked on side by side, "that I believe I could tell you your name, if I tried ?" "Prove your opinion," was the answer, accompanied with a stop and a stare. "Try." "Your name is Riderhood." "I'm blest if it ain't," returned that gentleman. "But I don't know your'n." was furthest from his new friend; "For you." "what's this "Why, o' course I know that," said Riderhood, as arguing something that was self-evident. "O' course I know very well as no man in his right senses would suppose as any think would make me give it up agin when I'd once got it. But what do you want for it ?" "I don't know that I want any thing for it. Or if I do want any thing for it, I don't know what it is." Bradley gave this answer in a stolid, vacant, and self-communing manner, which Mr. Riderhood found very extraordinary. “You have no good-will toward this Wrayburn," said Bradley, coming to the name in a reluctant and forced way, as if he were dragged to it. "No." "Neither have I." Riderhood nodded, and asked: "Is it for "That's quite another thing," said Bradley. that?" "I never supposed you did." As Bradley walked on meditating, the Rogue walked on at his side muttering. The purport of the muttering was: "that Rogue Riderhood, by George! seemed to be made public property on, now, and that every man seemed to think himself free to handle his name as if it was a Street Pump." The purport of the meditating was: "Here is an instrument. Can I use it?" They had walked along the Strand, and into Pall Mall, and had turned up-hill toward Hyde Park Corner; Bradley Headstone waiting on the pace and lead of Riderhood, and leaving him to indicate the course. So slow were the schoolmaster's thoughts, and so indistinct his purposes when they were but tributary to the one absorbing purpose or rather when, like dark trees under a stormy sky, they only lined the long vista at the end of which he saw those two figures of Wrayburn and Lizzie on which his eyes were fixed-that at least a good half-mile was traversed before he spoke again. Even then, it was only to ask: "Where is your Lock ?" "Twenty mile and odd-call it five-and-twenty mile and odd, if you like-up stream," was the sullen reply. "How is it called ?" "Plashwater Weir Mill Lock." "Suppose I was to offer you five shillings; what then?" "Why, then, I'd take it," said Mr. Riderhood. The schoolmaster put his hand in his pocket, and produced two half-crowns, and placed them in Mr. Riderhood's palm: who stopped at a convenient door-step to ring them both, before acknowledging their receipt. "There's one thing about you, T'otherest Governor," said Riderhood, faring on again, "as looks well and goes fur. You're a readymoney man. Now;" when he had carefully pocketed the coins on that side of himself which "It's as much for that as any thing else. It's something to be agreed with, on a subject that occupies so much of one's thoughts." "It don't agree with you," returned Mr. Riderhood, bluntly. "No! It don't, T'otherest Governor, and it's no use a lookin' as if you wanted to make out that it did. I tell you it rankles in you. It rankles in you, rusts in you, and pisons you." "Say that it does so," returned Bradley, with quivering lips; "is there no cause for it ?" "Cause enough, I'll bet a pound!" said Mr. Riderhood. "Haven't you yourself declared that the fellow has heaped provocations, insults, and affronts on you, or something to that effect? He has done the same by me. He is made of venomous insults and affronts, from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot. Are you so hopeful or so stupid as not to know that he and the other will treat your application with contempt, and light their cigars with it?" "I shouldn't wonder if they did, by George!" said Riderhood, turning angrily. If they did! They will. Let me ask you a question. I know something more than your name about you; I knew something about Gaffer Hexam. When did you last set eyes upon his daughter?" "When did I last set eyes upon his daughter, T'otherest Governor ?" repeated Mr. Riderhood, growing intentionally slower of comprehension as the other quickened in his speech. "Yes. Not to speak to her. To see herany where?" The Rogue had got the clew he wanted, though he held it with a clumsy hand. Looking perplexedly at the passionate face, as if he were trying to work out a sum in his mind, he slowly answered: "I ain't set eyes upon her-never once-not since the day of Gaffer's death." "You know her well, by sight?" "Curse the name! Is it so agrecable to you|ly, he did not know. He asked Riderhood if that you want to hear it again?" "Oh! Him?" said Riderhood, who had craftily worked the schoolmaster into this corner, that he might again take note of his face under its evil possession. "I'd know him among a thousand." "Did you-" Bradley tried to ask it quietly; but, do what he might with his voice, he could not subdue his face;-"did you ever see them together?" he would be willing, in case any intelligence of her, or of Wrayburn as seeking her or associating with her, should fall in his way, to communicate it if it were paid for? He would be very willing indeed. He was "agin 'em both," he said, with an oath, and for why? 'Cause they had both stood betwixt him and his getting his living by the sweat of his brow. "It will not be long then," said Bradley Headstone, after some more discourse to this (The Rogue had got the clew in both hands effect, "before we see one another again. Here now.) "I see 'em together, T'otherest Governor, on the very day when Gaffer was towed ashore." Bradley could have hidden a reserved piece of information from the sharp eyes of a whole inquisitive class, but he could not veil from the eyes of the ignorant Riderhood the withheld question next in his breast. "You shall put it plain if you want it answered," thought the Rogue, doggedly; "I ain't a-going a wolunteering." "Well! was he insolent to her too?" asked Bradley, after a struggle. "Or did he make a show of being kind to her?" "He made a show of being most uncommon kind to her," said Riderhood. "By George! now I-" is the country road, and here is the day. Both have come upon me by surprise." "But, T'otherest Governor," urged Mr. Riderhood, "I don't know where to find you." "It is of no consequence. I know where to find you, and I'll come to your Lock." "But, T'otherest Governor," urged Mr. Rider. hood again, "no luck never come yet of a dry acquaintance. Let's wet it, in a mouthful of rum and milk, T'otherest Governor." Bradley assenting, went with him into an early public house, haunted by unsavory smells of musty hay and stale straw, where returning carts, farmers' men, gaunt dogs, fowls of a beery breed, and certain human night-birds fluttering home to roost, were solacing themselves after their several manners; and where not one of the night-birds hovering about the sloppy bar failed to discern at a glance in the passion-wasted night-bird with respectable feathers, the worst night-bird of all. His flying off at a tangent was indisputably natural. Bradley looked at him for the reason. "Now I think of it," said Mr. Riderhood, evasively, for he was substituting those words for "Now I see you so jealous," which was the An inspiration of affection for a half-drunken phrase really in his mind; "P'r'aps he went carter going his way led to Mr. Riderhood's beand took me down wrong, a purpose, on accounting elevated on a high heap of baskets on a wago' being sweet upon her!" on, and pursuing his journey recumbent on his The baseness of confirming him in this sus-back with his head on his bundle. Bradley then picion or pretense of one (for he could not have really entertained it), was a line's breadth beyond the mark the schoolmaster had reached. The baseness of communing and intriguing with the fellow who would have set that stain upon her, and upon her brother too, was attained. The line's breadth further lay beyond. He made no reply, but walked on with a lowering face. turned to retrace his steps, and by-and-by struck off through little-traversed ways, and by-and-by reached school and home. Up came the sun to find him washed and brushed, methodically dressed in decent black coat and waistcoat, decent formal black tie, and pepper-and-salt pantaloons, with his decent silver watch in its pocket, and its decent hair-guard round his neck; a scholastic huntsman clad for the field, with his fresh pack yelping and barking around him. What he might gain by this acquaintance he could not work out in his slow and cumbrous Yet more really bewitched than the miserable thoughts. The man had an injury against the creatures of the much-lamented times, who acobject of his hatred, and that was something; cused themselves of impossibilities under a conthough it was less than he supposed, for there tagion of horror and the strongly suggestive indwelt in the man no such deadly rage and re-fluences of Torture, he had been ridden hard by sentment as burned in his own breast. The man Evil Spirits in the night that was newly gone. knew her, and might by a fortunate chance sce❘ He had been spurred and whipped and heavily her, or hear of her; that was something, as enlisting one pair of eyes and ears the more. The man was a bad man, and willing enough to be in his pay. That was something, for his own state and purpose were as bad as bad could be, and he seemed to derive a vague support from sweated. If a record of the sport had usurped the places of the peaceful texts from Scripture on the wall, the most advanced of the scholars might have taken fright and run away from their master. CHAPTER XII. MEANING MISCHIEF. UP came the sun, streaming all over London, and in its glorious impartiality even condescending to make prismatic sparkles in the whiskers of Mr. Alfred Lammle as he sat at breakfast. In need of some brightening from without was Mr. Alfred Lammle, for he had the air of being dull enough within, and looked grievously discontented. Mrs. Alfred Lammle faced her lord. The happy pair of swindlers, with the comfortable tie between them that each had swindled the other, sat moodily observant of the table-cloth. Things looked so gloomy in the breakfast-room, albeit on the sunny side of Sackville Street, that any of the family tradespeople glancing through the blinds might have taken the hint to send in his account and press for it. But this, indeed, most of the family tradespeople had already done, without the hint. "It seems to me," said Mrs. Lammle, "that you have had no money at all, ever since we have been married." "What seems to you," said Mr. Lammle, "to have been the case, may possibly have been the case. It doesn't matter." Was it the specialty of Mr. and Mrs. Lammle, or does it ever obtain with other loving couples? In these matrimonial dialogues they never addressed each other, but always some invisible presence that appeared to take a station about midway between them. Perhaps the skeleton in the cupboard comes out to be talked to on such domestic occasions? "I have never seen any money in the house,” said Mrs. Lammle to the skeleton, "except my own annuity. That I swear." 66 "Well ?" "Attend to me, if you please." He eyed her sternly until she did attend, and then went on. "I want to take counsel with you. Come, come; no more trifling. You know our league and covenant. We are to work together for our joint interest, and you are as knowing a hand as I am. We shouldn't be together, if you were not. What's to be done? We are hemmed into a corner. What shall we do ?" "Have you no scheme on foot that will bring in any thing?" Mr. Lammle plunged into his whiskers for reflection, and came out hopeless: "No; as adventurers we are obliged to play rash games for chances of high winnings, and there has been a run of luck against us." She was resuming, "Have you nothing-" when he stopped her. "We, Sophronia. We, we, we." "Have we nothing to sell?" "Deuce a bit. I have given a Jew a bill of sale on this furniture, and he could take it tomorrow, to-day, now. He would have taken it before now, I believe, but for Fledgeby." "What has Fledgeby to do with him?" "Knew him. Cautioned me against him before I got into his claws. Couldn't persuade him then, in behalf of somebody else." "Do you mean that Fledgeby has at all softened him toward you?" "Us, Sophronia. Us, us, us." "Toward us?" "I mean that the Jew has not yet done what he might have done, and that Fledgeby takes the credit of having got him to hold his hand." "Do you believe Fledgeby?" Sophronia, I never believe any body. I never have, my dear, since I believed you. it looks like it." But Having given her this back-handed reminder of her mutinous observations to the skeleton, Mr. Lammle rose from table-perhaps, the better to "You needn't take the trouble of swearing," said Mrs. Lammle to the skeleton; once more, it doesn't matter. You never turned your annuity to so good an account." "Good an account! In what way?" asked conceal a smile, and a white dint or two about Mrs. Lammle. his nose-and took a turn on the carpet and "In the way of getting credit, and living came to the hearth-rug. well," said Mrs. Lammle. Perhaps the skeleton laughed scornfully on being intrusted with this question and this answer; certainly Mrs. Lammle did, and Mr. Lammle did. "If we could have packed the brute off with Georgiana; but however; that's spilled milk." As Lammle, standing gathering up the skirts of his dressing-gown with his back to the fire, said this, looking down at his wife, she turned "And what is to happen next?" asked Mrs. pale and looked down at the ground. With a Lammle of the skeleton. sense of disloyalty upon her, and perhaps with a "Smash is to happen next," said Mr. Lammle sense of personal danger-for she was afraid of to the same authority. After this, Mrs. Lammle looked disdainfully at the skeleton-but without carrying the look on to Mr. Lammle- and drooped her eyes. After that, Mr. Lammle did exactly the same thing, and drooped his eyes. A servant then entering with toast, the skeleton retired into the closet, and shut itself up. "Sophronia," said Mr. Lammle, when the servant bad withdrawn. And then, very much louder: "Sophronia!" him-even afraid of his hand and afraid of his foot, though he had never done her violence— she hastened to put herself right in his eyes. "If we could borrow money, Alfred—” "Beg money, borrow money, or steal money. It would be all one to us, Sophronia," her husband struck in. "Then, we could weather this ?" "No doubt. To offer another original and undeniable remark, Sophronia, two and two make four." But, seeing that she was turning something in her mind, he gathered up the skirts of his dressing gown again, and, tucking them under one arm, and collecting his ample whiskers in his other hand, kept his eye upon her, silently. "It is natural, Alfred," she said, looking up with some timidity into his face, "to think in such an emergency of the richest people we know, and the simplest." "Just so, Sophronia." "The Boffins." "Just so, Sophronia." "Is there nothing to be done with them ?" "What is there to be done with them, Sophronia ?" She cast about in her thoughts again, and he kept his eye upon her as before. "Of course I have repeatedly thought of the Boffins, Sophronia," he resumed, after a fruitless silence; "but I have seen my way to nothing. They are well guarded. That infernal Secretary stands between them and—people of merit." "If he could be got rid of?" said she, brightening a little, after more casting about. "Take time, Sophronia," observed her watchful husband, in a patronizing manner. "If working him out of the way could be presented in the light of a service to Mr. Boffin ?" "Take time, Sophronia." "You remark that he is well guarded," she pursued. "I think so too. But if this should lead to his discharging his Secretary, there would be a weak place made." "Go on expounding, Sophronia. I begin to like this very much." "Having, in our unimpeachable rectitude, done him the service of opening his eyes to the treachery of the person he trusted, we shall have established a claim upon him and a confidence with him. Whether it can be made much of, or little of, we must wait-because we can't help it to see. Probably we shall make the most of it that is to be made." "Probably," said Lammle. "Do you think it impossible," she asked, in the same cold plotting way, "that you might replace the Secretary ?" "Not impossible, Sophronia. It might be brought about. At any rate it might be skillfully led up to." She nodded her understanding of the hint, as she looked at the fire. "Mr. Lammle," she said, musingly: not without a slight ironical touch: "Mr. Lammle would be so delighted to do any thing in his power. Mr. Lammle, himself a man of business as well as a capitalist. Mr. Lammle, accustomed to be intrusted with the most delicate affairs. Mr. Lammle, who has managed my own little fortune so admirably, but who, to be sure, began to make his reputa "We have remarked lately, Alfred, that the tion with the advantage of being a man of propold man is turning very suspicious and distrust-erty, above temptation, and beyond suspicion." ful." T "Miserly, too, my dear; which is far the most unpromising for us. Nevertheless, take time, Sophronia, take time." She took time, and then said: "Suppose we should address ourselves to that tendency in him of which we have made ourselves quite sure. Suppose my conscience-" "And we know what a conscience it is, my soul. Yes?" "Suppose my conscience should not allow me to keep to myself any longer what that upstart girl told me of the Secretary's having made a declaration to her. Suppose my conscience should oblige me to repeat it to Mr. Boffin." "I rather like that," said Lammle. "Suppose I so repeated it to Mr. Boffin, as to insinuate that my sensitive delicacy and honor-" "Very good words, Sophronia." "As to insinuate that our sensitive delicacy and honor," she resumed, with a bitter stress upon the phrase, “would not allow us to be silent parties to so mercenary and designing a speculation on the Secretary's part, and so gross a breach of faith toward his confiding employer. Suppose I had imparted my virtuous uneasiness to my excellent husband, and he had said, in his integrity, Sophronia, you must immediately disclose this to Mr. Boffin.'" "Once more, Sophronia," observed Lammle, changing the leg on which he stood, "I rather like that." Mr. Lammle smiled, and even patted her on the head. In his sinister relish of the scheme, as he stood above her, making it the subject of his cogitations, he seemed to have twice as much nose on his face as he had ever had in his life. He stood pondering, and she sat looking at the dusty fire without moving for some time. But the moment he began to speak again she looked up with a wince and attended to him, as if that double-dealing of hers had been in her mind, and the fear were revived in her of his hand or his foot. "It appears to me, Sophronia, omitted one branch of the subject. for women understand women. the girl herself?" that you have Perhaps not, We might oust "She has an Mrs. Lammle shook her head. immensely strong hold upon them both, Alfred. Not to be compared with that of a paid secretary." "But the dear child," said Lammle, with a crooked smile, "ought to have been open with her benefactor and benefactress. The darling love ought to have reposed unbounded confidence in her benefactor and benefactress." Sophronia shook her head again. "Well! Women understand women," said her husband, rather disappointed. "I don't press it. It might be the making of our fortune to make a clean sweep of them both. With me to manage the property, and my wife to manage the people-Whew!" Again shaking her head, she returned: "They will never quarrel with the girl. They will never punish the girl. We must accept the girl, rely upon it." "Well!" cried Lammle, shrugging his shoulders, "so be it: only always remember that we don't want her." "Oh, indeed?" said Fledgeby. "Not to me, dear Mr. Fledgeby. I am his wife." "Yes. I-I always understood so," said Mr. Fledgeby. "And as the wife of Alfred, may I, dear Mr. Fledgeby, wholly without his authority or knowl "Now the sole remaining question is," said edge, as I am sure your discernment will perMrs. Lammle, "when shall I begin?" ceive, entreat you to continue that great service, and once more use your well-earned influence with Mr. Riah for a little more indulgence? The name I have heard Alfred mention, tossing in his dreams, is Riah; is it not?" "The name of the Creditor is Riah," said Mr. Fledgeby, with a rather uncompromising accent on his noun-substantive. "Saint Mary Axe. Pubsey and Co." "I must secure Mr. Boffin alone, Alfred. If his wife was present, she would throw oil upon the waters. I know I should fail to move him to an angry outburst, if his wife was there. And as to the girl herself as I am going to betray her "Oh yes!" exclaimed Mrs. Lammle, claspconfidence, she is equally out of the question."ing her hands with a certain gushing wildness. "It wouldn't do to write for an appoint- "Pubsey and Co. !" ment ?" said Lammle. "No, certainly not. They would wonder among themselves why I wrote, and I want to have him wholly unprepared." "Call, and ask to see him alone?" suggested Lammle. "I would rather not do that either. Leave it to me. Spare me the little carriage for to-day, and for to-morrow (if I don't succeed to-day), and I'll lie in wait for him." It was barely settled when a manly form was seen to pass the windows and heard to knock and ring. "Here's Fledgeby," said Lammle. "He admires you, and has a high opinion of you. I'll be out. Coax him to use his influence with the Jew. His name is Riah, of the House of Pubsey and Co." Adding these words under his breath, lest he should be audible in the erect cars of Mr. Fledgeby, through two keyholes and the hall, Lammle, making signals of discretion to his servant, went softly up stairs. "Mr. Fledgeby," said Mrs. Lammle, giving him a very gracious reception, "so glad to see you! My poor dear Alfred, who is greatly worried just now about his affairs, went out rather early. Dear Mr. Fledgeby, do sit down." "The pleading of the feminine-" Mr. Fledgeby began, and there stuck so long for a word to get on with, that Mrs. Lammle offered him sweetly, "Heart ?" "No," said Mr. Fledgeby, "Gender-is ever what a man is bound to listen to, and I wish it rested with myself. But this Riah is a nasty one, Mrs. Lammle; he really is." "Not if you speak to him, dear Mr. Fledgeby." "Upon my soul and body he is!" said Fledgeby. "Try. Try once more, dearest Mr. Fledgeby. What is there you can not do, if you will!" "Thank you,” said Fledgeby, "you're very complimentary to say so. I don't mind 'trying him again at your request. But of course I can't answer for the consequences. Riah is a tough subject, and when he says he'll do a thing, he'll do it." "Exactly so," cried Mrs. Lammle, "and when he says to you he'll wait, he'll wait." ("She is a devilish clever woman," thought Fledgeby. "I didn't see that opening, but she spies it out and cuts into it as soon as it's made.") "In point of fact, dear Mr. Fledgeby," Mrs. Lammle went on in a very interesting manner, "not to affect concealment of Alfred's hopes, to you who are so much his friend, there is a distant break in his horizon." Dear Mr. Fledgeby did sit down, and satisfied himself (or, judging from the expression of his countenance, dissatisfied himself) that nothing new had occurred in the way of whisker-sprout This figure of speech seemed rather mysterisince he came round the corner from the Al-ous to Fascination Fledgeby, who said, "There's bany. a what in his-eh?" "Dear Mr. Fledgeby, it was needless to mention to you that my poor dear Alfred is much worried about his affairs at present, for he has told me what a comfort you are to him in his temporary difficulties, and what a great service you have rendered him." "Oh!" said Mr. Fledgeby. "Not to me," said Mrs. Lammle, with deep appearances." feeling. "Oh!" said Fledgeby. "Then you think, |