"I have been desperate bad, Tim," was the answer; "or I shouldn't lie quiet in such a damned empty garret as this here, you may take your davy. But when did you get out?"
"My time was up to-day at eleven o'clock," returned Tim. "I called at the old crib in Castle Street—Thompson's, twenty-three, and stayed with Mutton-Face till now. She told me you'd been ill, and also where I should find you. So I've come round to see you, old feller—and, may be, arrange a little job that I've got in my head. But since you're unable to get up——"
"Tim, my boy," interrupted Josh, "I've just had a deuced good supper, and I'm sure of a breakfast and a dinner too, and may be a supper also, to-morrow; and if I ain't well with all that in two days' time, my name isn't Pedler. So, if you've got any thing that'll keep so long, do let me be in it. Matilda, my dear, this is my friend Mr. Timothy Splint, generally knowed as Tim the Snammer: and Tim, this young o'oman is my jomen. We was regularly spliced at the padding-ken by old Barlow; and she's staunch to the backbone. So now you're acquainted with each other; and you needn't be afraid, Tim, of talking secrets. But how goes the gin, Tilda?"
"There's plenty left—and I borrowed two glasses of the landlord as I came up," answered the young woman: "so here's one for Mr. Splint."
"Call me Tim, my dear," said that individual "We have no misters and missuses among us. Here's your health, Tilda, then—since that's your name: here's to ye, Josh."
"Thank'ee. But what plan is it that you've got in your head?" asked Pedler.
"I'll tell you in a brace of shakes," returned Splint, smacking his lips in approval of the dram which he had just imbibed. "You may very well suppose that I've no great reason to be pleased with the conduct of that scoundrel Old Death."
"The damned thief!" cried Josh. "He sacked the sixteen pounds, and then never made a move to help you when you was had up again afore the beak."
"No thanks to him that I wasn't transported," said Tim Splint, with a fierce expression of countenance. "The prigging wasn't proved very clearly, and so I got off with two months at the mill as a rogue and vagabond. But, by hell! I'll have my revenge on the bilking old scoundrel that humbugged you and Mutton-Face Sal. And what's more, I know how to go to work, too."
"What do you mean, Tim?" demanded Josh Pedler.