"Yes, quite! Mad!--ruined!--gone to the devil all at once!" "And what if you are? What did it matter to _me_? What brought you here?" continued Huckaback, in a tone of increasing vehemence. "What have I done to offend you? How _dare_ you come _here_? And at this time of night, too? Eh?" "What, indeed! Oh lud, oh lud, oh lud! Kick me, I say--strike me! You'll do me good, and bring me to my senses. _Me_ to do all this to you! And we've been such precious good friends always. I'm a brute, Hucky--I've been mad, stark mad, Hucky--and that's all I can say!" Huckaback stared at him more and more; and began at length to suspect how matters stood--namely, that the Sunday's incident had turned Titmouse's head--he having also, no doubt, heard some desperate bad news during the day, smashing all his hopes. A mixture of emotions kept Huckaback silent. Astonishment--apprehension--doubt--pride--pique--resentment. He had been _struck_--his blood had been drawn--by the man there before him on his knees, formerly his friend; now, he supposed, a madman. "Why, curse me, Titmouse, if I can make up my mind what to do to you!" he exclaimed, "I--I suppose you are going mad, or gone mad, and I must forgive you. But get away with you--out with you, or--or--I'll call in"---- "Forgive me--forgive me, dear Hucky! Don't send me away--I shall go and drown myself if you do." "What the d--l do I care if you do? You'd much better have gone and done it before you came here. Nay, be off and do it _now_, instead of blubbering here in this way." "Go on! go on!--it's doing me good--the worse the better!" sobbed Titmouse. "Come, come," said Huckaback, roughly, "none of this noise here. I'm tired of it!" "But, pray, don't send me away from you. I shall go straight to the devil if you do! I've no friend but you, Hucky. Yet I've been such a villain to you!--But it quite put the devil into me, when all of a sudden I found it was _you_." "Me!--Why, what _are_ you after?" interrupted Huckaback, with an air of angry wonder. "Oh dear, dear!" groaned Titmouse; "if I've been a brute to you, which is quite true, _you've_ been the _ruin_ of me, clean! I'm clean done for, Huck. Cleaned out! You've done my business for me; knocked it all on the head!--I sha'n't never hear any more of it--they've said as much in their letter--they say you called to-day"---- Huckaback now began to have a glimmering notion of his having been, in some considerable degree, connected with the mischief of the day--an unconscious agent in it. He audibly drew in his breath, as it were, as he more and more distinctly recollected his visit to Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap; and adverted more particularly to his _threats_, uttered, too, in Titmouse's name, and as if by his authority. Whew! here was a kettle of fish.