This was all that Mr. Titmouse could get out of Mr. Gammon, who, hailing a coach off the stand beside them, got in, and it was soon making its way eastward. What a miserable mixture of doubts, hopes, and fears, had he left Titmouse! He felt as if he were a squeezed orange; he had told everything he knew about himself, and got nothing in return out of the smooth, imperturbable, impenetrable Mr. Gammon, but empty civilities.--"Lord, Lord!" thought Titmouse, as Mr. Gammon's coach turned the corner; "what would I give to know half about it that that gent knows! But Mr. Tag-rag! by Jove! what _will_ he say? It's struck twelve. I've been more than an hour away--and he gave me ten minutes! Sha'n't I catch it?" And he did. Almost the very first person whom he met, on entering the shop, was his respected employer; who, plucking his watch out of his fob, and looking furiously at it, motioned the trembling Titmouse to follow him to the farther end of the long shop, where there happened to be then no customers. "Is this your ten minutes, sir, eh?" "I am sorry"---- "Where may you have been, sir, all this while?" "With that gentleman, sir, and I really did not know"---- "You didn't know, sir! Who cares what you know, or don't know? _This_, at any rate, you know--that you ought to have been back fifty-five minutes ago, sir. You do, sir! Isn't your time my property, sir? Don't I pay for it, sir? An hour!--in the middle of the day! I've not had such a thing happen this five years! I'll stop it out of your salary, sir." Titmouse did not attempt to interrupt him. "And pray what have you been gossiping about, sir, in this disgraceful manner?" "Something that he wanted to say to me, sir." "You low puppy!--do you suppose I don't see your impertinence? I _insist_, sir, on knowing what all this gossiping with that fellow has been about?" "Then you _won't_ know, sir, that's flat!" replied Titmouse, doggedly; returning to his usual station behind the counter. "I _sha'n't_!!" exclaimed Mr. Tag-rag, almost aghast at the presumption of his inferior. "No, sir, you _sha'n't_ know a single word about it." "Sha'n't know a single word about it! Vastly good, sir!!--Do you know whom you're talking to, sir? Do you really know in whose presence you are, sir?" inquired Mr. Tag-rag, nearly trembling with rage. "Mr. Tag-rag, I presume, of the firm of Tag-rag and Co.," replied Titmouse, looking him full in the face.--One or two of his companions near him, almost turned pale at the audacity he was displaying. "And who are _you_, sir, that dare to presume to bandy words with ME, sir?" inquired Tag-rag, his deeply pitted face having turned quite white, and his whole body quivering with rage. "Tittlebat Titmouse, at your service," was the answer, in a glib tone, and with a sufficiently saucy air; for Titmouse then felt that he had passed the Rubicon. "You heard that, I hope?" inquired Tag-rag, with forced calmness, of a pale-faced young man, the nearest to him.