‘If this ain’t Mr Chuzzlewit, ain’t it!’ exclaimed the visitor ‘How do you git along, sir?’
Martin shook his head, and drew the blanket over it involuntarily; for he felt that Hannibal was going to spit; and his eye, as the song says, was upon him.
‘You need not regard me, sir,’ observed Mr Chollop, complacently. ‘I am fever-proof, and likewise agur.’
‘Mine was a more selfish motive,’ said Martin, looking out again. ‘I was afraid you were going to—’
‘I can calc’late my distance, sir,’ returned Mr Chollop, ‘to an inch.’
With a proof of which happy faculty he immediately favoured him.
‘I re-quire, sir,’ said Hannibal, ‘two foot clear in a circ’lar di-rection, and can engage my-self toe keep within it. I have gone ten foot, in a circ’lar di-rection, but that was for a wager.’
‘I hope you won it, sir,’ said Mark.
‘Well, sir, I realised the stakes,’ said Chollop. ‘Yes, sir.’
He was silent for a time, during which he was actively engaged in the formation of a magic circle round the chest on which he sat. When it was completed, he began to talk again.