"He'll want some one at night, sir, please; I could not undertake myself, sir, for both day and night," said brown Miss Rumble, very quietly. "_There!_ That'sh it!" exclaimed Levi, with a vicious chuckle, and a scowl, extending his open hand energetically toward Miss Rumble, and glaring from Mr. Larkin to his partner. "Nothing but _pay_; down with the dust, Goldshed and Levi. Bleed like a pair o' beashtly pigs, Goldshed and Levi, _do_! There's death in that fellow's face, I say. It's all bosh, doctors and nurses; throwing good money after bad, and then, five pounds to bury him, drat him!" "Bury? ho, no! the parish, the workhoushe-authorities shall bury him," said Mr. Goldshed, briskly. "Dead--dead--dead, as a Mameluke--dead as a Janizary--eh? eh?--bowstrung!" exclaimed, Mr. Dingwell, and went off into an indistinct conversation in a foreign language. "Stuff a stocking down his throat, will you?" urged Mr. Levi; a duty, however, which no one undertook. "I see that cove's booked; he looks just like old Solomon's looked when _he_ had it. It isn't no use; all rot, throwing good money arter bad, I say; let him be; let him die." "I'll _not_ let him die; no, he shan't. I'll _make_ him pay. I made the Theatre of Fascination pay," said Mr. Goldshed serenely, alluding to a venture of his devising, by which the partnership made ever so much money in spite of a prosecution and heavy fines and other expenses. "I say 'tisn't my principle to throw up the game, by no means--_no_--with my ball in hand, and the stakes in the pocket--_never_!" Here Mr. Goldshed wagged his head slowly with a solemn smile, and Mr. Dingwell, from the bed, said with a moan-- "Move it, will you? That way--I wish you'd help--b-bags, sir--sacks, sir--awfully hard lying--full of ears and--ay--_noses_--egad!--why not? cut them all off, I say. D--n the Greeks! Will you move it? _Do_ move that sack--it hurts his ribs--ribs--_I_ never got the bastinado." "Not but what you deserved it," remarked Mr. Levi. And Mr. Dingwell's babbling went on, but too indistinctly to be unravelled. "I say," continued Mr. Goldshed, sublimely, "if that 'ere speculative thing in the bed there comes round, and gets all square and right, I'll make him pay. I'm not funked--who's afraid--wiry old brick!" "I think so," acquiesced Mr. Larkin with gentle solemnity; "Mr. Dingwell is certainly, as you say, wiry. There are many things in his favour, and Providence, Mr. Goldshed--Providence is over us all." "Providence, to be sure," said Mr. Goldshed, who did not disdain help from any quarter. "Where does he keep his money, ma'am?" "Under his bolster, please, sir--under his head," answered Sarah Rumble. "Take it out, please," said Mr. Goldshed. She hesitated. "_Give_ the man hish money, woman, ca-a-ant you?" bawled Mr. Levi fiercely, and extending his arm toward the bed.