"Well—if it is all over—what a pity! Such things as we could have done, Titty, if we'd got the thing—eh?"
Titmouse groaned at this glimpse of the heaven he seemed shut out of forever.
"Can't you find anything—nothing at all comfortable-like, in the letter?" he inquired with a deep sigh.
Huckaback again took up the letter and spelled it over.
"Well," said he, striving to give himself an appearance of thinking, "there's something in it that, after all, I don't seem quite to get to the bottom of—they've seemingly taken a deal of pains with it!"
[And undoubtedly it was a document which had been pretty well considered by its framers before being sent out; though, probably, they had hardly anticipated its being so soon afterwards subjected to the scrutiny of such acute intellects as were now engaged upon it.]
"And then, again, you know they're lawyers; and do they ever write anything that hasn't got more in it than anybody can find out? These gents that wrote this, they're a trick too keen for the thieves even—and how can we—hem!—but I wonder if that fat, old, bald-headed gent, with sharp eyes, was Mr. Quirk"——
"To be sure it was," interrupted Titmouse, with a half shudder.
"Was it? Well, then, I'd advise Old Nick to look sharp before he tackles that old gent, that's all!"
"Give me Mr. Gammon for my money," said Titmouse, sighing, "such an uncommon gentlemanlike gent—he's quite taken to me"——