Accordingly, Mr Venus slipped past Mr Wegg and towed him down. But Mr Wegg's descent was not accomplished without some personal inconvenience, for his self-willed leg sticking into the ashes about half way down, and time pressing, Mr Venus took the liberty of hauling him from his tether by the collar: which occasioned him to make the rest of the journey on his back, with his head enveloped in the skirts of his coat, and his wooden leg coming last, like a drag. So flustered was Mr Wegg by this mode of travelling, that when he was set on the level ground with his intellectual developments uppermost, he was quite unconscious of his bearings, and had not the least idea where his place of residence was to be found, until Mr Venus shoved him into it.
Even then he staggered round and round, weakly staring about him, until Mr Venus with a hard brush brushed his senses into him and the dust out of him.
Mr Boffin came down leisurely, for this brushing process had been well accomplished, and Mr Venus had had time to take his breath, before he reappeared. That he had the bottle somewhere about him could not be doubted; where, was not so clear. He wore a large rough coat, buttoned over, and it might be in any one of half a dozen pockets.
'What's the matter, Wegg?' said Mr Boffin. 'You are as pale as a candle.'
Mr Wegg replied, with literal exactness, that he felt as if he had had a turn.
'Bile,' said Mr Boffin, blowing out the light in the lantern, shutting it up, and stowing it away in the breast of his coat as before. 'Are you subject to bile, Wegg?'
Mr Wegg again replied, with strict adherence to truth, that he didn't think he had ever had a similar sensation in his head, to anything like the same extent.
'Physic yourself to-morrow, Wegg,' said Mr Boffin, 'to be in order for next night. By-the-by, this neighbourhood is going to have a loss, Wegg.'
'A loss, sir?'
'Going to lose the Mounds.'
The friendly movers made such an obvious effort not to look at one another, that they might as well have stared at one another with all their might.
'Have you parted with them, Mr Boffin?' asked Silas.
'Yes; they're going. Mine's as good as gone already.'
'You mean the little one of the three, with the pole atop, sir.'
'Yes,' said Mr Boffin, rubbing his ear in his old way, with that new touch of craftiness added to it. 'It has fetched a penny. It'll begin to be carted off to-morrow.'
'Have you been out to take leave of your old friend, sir?' asked Silas, jocosely.
'No,' said Mr Boffin. 'What the devil put that in your head?'
He was so sudden and rough, that Wegg, who had been hovering closer and closer to his skirts, despatching the back of his hand on exploring expeditions in search of the bottle's surface, retired two or three paces.
'No offence, sir,' said Wegg, humbly. 'No offence.'
Mr Boffin eyed him as a dog might eye another dog who wanted his bone; and actually retorted with a low growl, as the dog might have retorted.
'Good-night,' he said, after having sunk into a moody silence, with his hands clasped behind him, and his eyes suspiciously wandering about Wegg.--'No! stop there. I know the way out, and I want no light.'
Avarice, and the evening's legends of avarice, and the inflammatory effect of what he had seen, and perhaps the rush of his ill-conditioned blood to his brain in his descent, wrought Silas Wegg to such a pitch of insatiable appetite, that when the door closed he made a swoop at it and drew Venus along with him.
'He mustn't go,' he cried. 'We mustn't let him go? He has got that bottle about him. We must have that bottle.'
'Why, you wouldn't take it by force?' said Venus, restraining him.
'Wouldn't I? Yes I would. I'd take it by any force, I'd have it at any price! Are you so afraid of one old man as to let him go, you coward?'
'I am so afraid of you, as not to let YOU go,' muttered Venus, sturdily, clasping him in his arms.
'Did you hear him?' retorted Wegg. 'Did you hear him say that he was resolved to disappoint us? Did you hear him say, you cur, that he was going to have the Mounds cleared off, when no doubt the whole place will be rummaged? If you haven't the spirit of a mouse to defend your rights, I have. Let me go after him.'
As in his wildness he was making a strong struggle for it, Mr Venus deemed it expedient to lift him, throw him, and fall with him; well knowing that, once down, he would not he up again easily with his wooden leg. So they both rolled on the floor, and, as they did so, Mr Boffin shut the gate.
