"Haven't come to them yet; give a man time, Titty!" replied Huckaback, fixing his feet on another chair, and drawing the candle closer to the paper. "It says, by the way, that the Duke of Dunderhead is certainly making up to Mrs. Thumps, the rich cheesemonger's widow;—a precious good hit that, isn't it? You know the Duke's as poor as a rat!"
"Oh! that's no news. It's been in the papers for I don't know how long. Egad, 't will quite set him up—and no mistake. Seen the Duke ever?"
"Ye—es! Oh, several times!" replied Huckaback. This was a lie, and Huckaback knew that it was.
"Deuced good-looking, I suppose?"
"Why—middling; I should say middling. Know some that needn't fear to compare with him—eh! Tit?"—and Huckaback winked archly at his friend, meaning him, however, to consider the words as applicable to the speaker.
"Ah, ha, ha!—a pretty joke! But come, that's a good chap!—You can't be reading both of those two sheets at once—give us the other sheet, and set the candle right betwixt us!—Come, fair's the word among gents, you know!"
Huckaback thus appealed to, did as his friend requested; and the two gentlemen read and smoked for some minutes in silence.
"Well—I shall spell over the advertisements now," said Titmouse, very emphatically; "there's a pretty lot of them—and I've read everything else—(though precious little there is, here besides!)—So, here goes!—One may hear of a prime situation, you know—and I'm quite sick of Tag-rag!"
Another interval of silence ensued. Huckaback was deep in the ghastly but instructive details of a trial for murder; and Titmouse, after having glanced listlessly over the entertaining first sheet of advertisements, was on the point of laying down his half of the paper, when he suddenly started in his chair, turned very pale, and stammered—
"Hollo!—hollo, Hucky!—Why"——