Then his thoughts wandered away to Larkin, and to his instrument, Mr. Dingwell, "who looks as if he came from the galleys. We have heard nothing of him for a year or more. Among the Greek and Malay scoundrels again, I suppose; the Turks are too good for him." But Mr. Dingwell had not taken his departure, and was not thinking of any such step _yet_, at least. He had business still on his hands, and a mission unaccomplished. Still in the same queer lodgings, and more jealously shut up during the daytime than ever, Mr. Dingwell lived his odd life, professing to hate England--certainly in danger there--he yet lingered on for a set purpose, over which he brooded and laughed in his hermitage. To so chatty a person as Mr. Dingwell solitude for a whole day was irksome. Sarah Rumble was his occasional resource, and when she brought him his cup of black coffee he would make her sit down by the wall, like a servant at prayers, and get from her all the news of the dingy little neighbourhood, with a running commentary of his own flighty and savage irony, and he would sometimes entertain her, between the whiffs of his long pipe, with talk of his own, which he was at no pains to adapt to her comprehension, and delivered rather for his own sole entertainment. "The world, the flesh, and the devil, ma'am. The two first we know pretty well--hey? the other we take for granted. I suppose there _is_ somebody of the sort. We are all pigs, ma'am--unclean animals--and this is a sty we live in--slime and abomination. Strong delusion is, unseen, circling in the air. Our ideas of beauty, delights of sense, vanities of intellect--all a most comical and frightful cheat--egad! What fun we must be, ma'am, to the spirits who _have_ sight and intellect! I think, ma'am, we're meant for their pantomime--don't you? Our airs, and graces, and dignities, and compliments, and beauties, and dandies--our metal coronets, and lawn sleeves, and whalebone wigs--fun, ma'am, lots of fun! And here we are, a wonderful work of God. Eh? Come, ma'am--a word in your ear--all _putrefaction_--pah! nothing clean but fire, and that makes us roar and vanish--a very odd position we're placed in; hey, ma'am?" Mr. Dingwell had at first led Sarah Rumble a frightful life, for she kept the door where the children were peremptorily locked, at which he took umbrage, and put her on fatigue duty, more than trebling her work by his caprices, and requiting her with his ironies and sneers, finding fault with everything, pretending to miss money out of his desk, and every day threatening to invoke Messrs. Levi and Goldshed, and invite an incursion of the police, and showing in his face, his tones--his jeers pointed and envenomed by revenge--that his hatred was active and fiendish.