Page:Bleak House.djvu/423

They look at one another, and Tony goes listening to the door, and a little way up stairs, and a little way down stairs. Comes back, and says it's all right, and all quiet and quotes the remark he lately made to Mr. Snagsby, about their cooking chops at the Sol's Arms.

“And it was then,” resumes Mr. Guppy, still glancing with remarkable aversion at his coat-sleeve, as they pursue their conversation before the fire, leaning on opposite sides of the table with their heads very near together, “that he told you of his having taken the bundle of letters from his lodger's portmanteau?”

“That was the time, sir,” answers Tony, faintly adjusting his whiskers. “Whereupon I wrote a line to my dear boy, the Honourable William Guppy, informing him of the appointment for to-night, and advising him not to call before: Boguey being a Slyboots.”

The light vivacious tone of fashionable life which is usually assumed by Mr. Weevle, sits so ill upon him to-night, that he abandons that and his whiskers together; and, after looking over his shoulder, appears to yield himself up, a prey to the horrors again.

“You are to bring the letters to your room to read and compare, and to get yourself into a position to tell him all about them. That's the arrangement, isn't it, Tony?” asks Mr. Guppy, anxiously biting his thumb-nail.

“You can't speak too low. Yes. That's what he and I agreed.”

“I tell you what, Tony———”

“You can't speak too low,” says Tony once more. Mr. Guppy nods his sagacious head, advances it yet closer, and drops into a whisper.

“I tell you what. The first thing to be done is, to make another packet, like the real one; so that, if he should ask to see the real one while it's in my possession, you can show him the dummy.”

“And suppose he detects the dummy as soon as he sees it—which with his biting screw of an eye is about five hundred times more likely than not,” suggests Tony.

“Then we'll face it out. They don't belong to him, and they never did. You found that; and you placed them in my hands—a legal friend of yours—for security. If he forces us to it, they'll be producible, won't they?”

“Ye-es,” is Mr. Weevle's reluctant admission.

“Why, Tony,” remonstrates his friend, “how you look! You don't doubt William Guppy? You don't suspect any harm?”

“I don't suspect anything more than I know, William,” returns the other, gravely.

“And what do you know? urges Mr. Guppy, raising his voice a little; but on his friend's once more warning him, “I tell you, you can't speak too low,” he repeats his question without any sound at all; forming with his lips only the words, “What do you know?”

“I know three things. First, I know that here we are whispering in secrecy; a pair of conspirators.”

“Well!” says Mr. Guppy, “and we had better be that, than a pair of noodles, which we should be, if we were doing any thing else; for it's the only way of doing what we want to do. Secondly?”

“Secondly, it's not made out to me how it's likely to be profitable, after all.”