"Have you really? Hang me if anything can escape your lynx's eyes!—Well! there is no accounting for tastes, is there?—especially among the women? Poor Dora's quite lost her heart—quite—she has—so help me Heaven!" continued Mr. Quirk, energetically.
"Well, my dear sir, and why this surprise?" inquired Gammon, earnestly. "I consider Titmouse to be a very handsome young fellow; and that he is already rapidly acquiring very gentlemanly manners; and as to his fortune—really—when one thinks of the thing—it would be most desirable to bring it about! Indeed, the sooner his heart's fixed, and his word's pledged, the better—for you must of course be aware that there will be many schemers on the look-out to entrap his frank and inexperienced nature—look, for instance, at Tag-rag."
"Eugh!" exclaimed Mr. Quirk, with a sudden motion of sickening disgust—"the old beast! I smoked him long ago! Now, that I call villany, Gammon; infernal villany! Don't you?"
"Indeed, indeed, Mr. Quirk, I do; I quite agree with you! Upon my honor, I think it is a part of even my duty towards our confiding and inexperienced client, if possible, to protect him against such infamous designs."
"Right—right, Gammon; by Jove, you're quite right—I quite agree with you!" replied Quirk, earnestly, not observing the lambent smile upon the features of his calm, crafty, and sarcastic companion.
"You see, however," said Gammon, "we've a very delicate and difficult game to play with old Tag-rag. He's certainly a toad, ugly and venomous—but then he's got a jewel in his head—he's got money, you know, and, to serve our purposes, we must really give him some hopes about his daughter and Titmouse."
"Faugh! eugh! feugh! Nasty wretch! a little trollop! It makes one sick to hear of her! And, by the way, now we're on that subject, Gammon, what do we want of this wretch Tag-rag, now that Titmouse has actually got the property?"
"Want of him? Money—security, my dear sir!—money!"
"But, curse me! (excuse me, Gammon,) why go to Tag-rag? That's what I can't understand! Surely any one will advance almost any amount of money to Titmouse, with such security as he can now give!"
"Very possibly—probably"——