"Lord, Tit! you take my breath away," gasped Huckaback, his eyes fixed intently on his friend's face.
"Yes; and they said I might marry the most beautifulest woman that ever my eyes saw, for the asking."
"You'll forget poor Bob Huckaback, Tit!" murmured his friend, despondingly.
"Not I, Huckaback—if I get my rights, and you know how to behave yourself!"
"Have you been to Tag-rag's to-day, after hearing all this?"
[The thermometer seemed to have been here plunged out of hot water into cold—Titmouse was down at zero in a trice.]
"Oh!—that's it! 'Tis all gone again! What a fool I am! We've clean forgot this cursed letter—and that leads me to the end of what took place last night. That cursed shop was what we split on!"
"Split on the shop! eh? What's the meaning of that?" inquired Huckaback, with eager anxiety.
"Why, that's the thing," continued Titmouse, in a faltering tone, and with a depressed look—"That was what I wanted to know myself; for they said I'd better go back!! So I said, 'Gents,' said I, 'I'll be—— if I'll go back to the shop any more;' and I snapped my fingers at them—so! (for you know what a chap I am when my blood's up.) And they all turned gashly pale—they did, upon my life—you never saw anything like it! And one of them said then, in a humble way, 'Wouldn't I please to go back to the shop, just for a day or two, till things is got to rights a bit.' 'Not a day nor a minute!' says I, in an immense rage. 'We think you'd better, really,' said they. 'Then,' says I, 'if that's your plan, curse me if I won't cut with you all, and I'll employ some one else!' and—would you believe me?—out I went, bang! into the street!!"
"You did, Tit!!" echoed Huckaback, aghast.