[Oh, Gammon, is not this too bad? What are the papers which you know are now in your pocket, signed only this very evening by Titmouse?]
"You are not a match for Tag-rag, Mr. Titmouse; because he was made for a tradesman—you are not. Do you think he would have parted with his £5 but for value received? Oh, Tag-rag! Tag-rag!"
"I—I really begin to think, Mr. Gammon—'pon my soul, I do think you're right."
"Think!—why—for a man of your acuteness—how could he imagine you could forget the long course of insult and tyranny which you have endured under him: that he should change all of a sudden—just now, when"——
"Ay, by Jove! just when I'm coming into my property," interrupted Titmouse, quickly.
"To be sure—to be sure! just now, I say, to make this sudden change! Bah! bah!"
"I hate Tag-rag, and always did. Now he's trying to take me in, just as he does everybody; but I've found him out; I won't lay out a penny with him!"
"Would you, do you think, ever have seen the inside of Satin Lodge, if you hadn't"——
"Why, I don't know; I really think—hem!"
"Would you, my dear sir?—But now a scheme occurs to me—a very amusing idea indeed! Ah, ha, ha!—Shall I tell you a way of proving to his own face how insincere and interested he is towards you? Go to dinner by all means, eat his good things, hear all that the whole set of them have to say, and just before you go, (it will require you to have your wits about you,) pretend, with a long face, that our affair is all a bottle of smoke: say that Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap have told you the day before that they had made a horrid mistake, and you were the wrong man"——