_The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ I must do your Lordship the justice to say, that you too started with a degree of celerity highly creditable to your capacity of natural locomotion; and if that ugly monster, the dumb Baronet, had not knocked us both down in the incipiency of our progression—— [Illustration: _Perched on the summit of the rock._] _Lord Anophel Achthar._ We should have escaped as our two rascals did, who shall bitterly rue their dereliction. But as to the dumb Baronet, who has treated me with gross impertinence on various occasions, I shall certainly call him out, to give me the satisfaction of a gentleman. _The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ Oh, my Lord. Though with pistols ’tis the fashion To satisfy your passion; Yet where’s the satisfaction, If you perish in the action? _Lord Anophel Achthar._ One of us must perish, Grovelgrub, ‘pon honour. Death or revenge! We’re blown, Grovelgrub. He took off our masks; and though he can’t speak, he can write, no doubt, and read too, as I shall try with a challenge. _The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ Can’t speak, my Lord, is by no means clear. Won’t speak, perhaps; none are so dumb as those who won’t speak. Don’t you think, my Lord, there was a sort of melancholy about him—a kind of sullenness? Crossed in love, I suspect. People crossed in love, Saint Chrysostom says, lose their voice. _Lord Anophel Achthar._ Then I wish you were crossed in love, Grovelgrub, with all my heart. _The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ Nay, my Lord, what so sweet in calamity as the voice of the spiritual comforter? All shall be well yet, my Lord. I have an infallible project hatching here; Miss Melincourt shall be ensconced in Alga Castle, and then the day is our own. _Lord Anophel Achthar._ Grovelgrub, you know the old receipt for stewing a carp: ‘First, catch your carp.’ _The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ Your Lordship is pleased to be facetious; but if the carp be not caught, let me be devilled like a biscuit after the second bottle, or a turkey’s leg at a twelfth night supper. The carp shall be caught. _Lord Anophel Achthar._ Well, Grovelgrub, only take notice that I’ll not come again within ten miles of dummy. _The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ You may rely upon it, my Lord, I shall always know my distance from the Honourable Baronet. But my plot is a good plot, and cannot fail of success. _Lord Anophel Achthar._ You are a very skilful contriver, to be sure; this is your contrivance, our perch on the top of this rock. Now contrive, if you can, some way of getting to the bottom of it. _The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ My Lord, there is a passage in Aeschylus very applicable to our situation, where the chorus wishes to be in precisely such a place. _Lord Anophel Achthar._ Then I wish the chorus were here instead of us, Grovelgrub, with all my soul. _The Rev. Mr. Grovelgrub._ It is a very fine passage, my Lord, and worth your attention: the rock is described as