Chapter I (2)

"Now, Tit," whispered Huckaback, after they had paused for a second or two--"now for it--pluck up a sperrit--ring!"

"I--I--'pon my life--I feel all of a sudden uncommon funky--I think that last cigar of yours wasn't"----

"Stuff, Tit--ring! ring away! Faint heart never wins!"

"Well, it _must_ be done: so--here goes at any rate!" he replied; and with a short nervous jerk, he caused a startling clatter within, which was so distinctly audible without, that both of them instinctively _hemmed_, as if to drown the noise which was so much greater than they had expected. In a very few moments they heard some one undoing the fastenings of the door, and the gentlemen looked at one another with an expression of mingled expectation and apprehension. A little old woman at length, with a candle in her hand, retaining the heavy door-chain in its fastening, peered round the edge of the door at them.

"Who are you?" she exclaimed crustily.

"Is this Messrs.--What is it, Huck?--Oh! Messrs. Quirk & Co.'s?" inquired Titmouse, tapping the end of his cane against his chin, with a desperate effort to appear at his ease.

"Why, where's your eyes?" she replied angrily, "I should think you might have seen what was wrote on this here plate--it's large enough, one should have thought, to be read by them as _can_ read--Is your's Newgate business? Because if----"

"We want--Give us the paper, Hucky"--he added, addressing his companion, who produced it in a moment; and Titmouse would have proceeded to possess the old lady of all his little heart, when she cut him short by saying snappishly--"They aren't none on 'em in; nor never is on Sundays--so you'll just call to-morrow if you wants 'em. What's your names?"

"Mr. Tittlebat Titmouse," answered that gentleman, with a very particular emphasis on every syllable.

"Mr. _who_?" exclaimed the old woman, opening her eyes very wide, and raising her hand to the back of her ear. Mr. Titmouse repeated his name more loudly and distinctly.

"Tippetytippety--what's that?"

"No, no!" exclaimed Titmouse, peevishly; "I said, Mr. Tit-el-bat Tit-mouse!--will that suit you?"

"Tick-a-tick-a-tick?--Well, gracious! if ever I heard such a name. Oh!--I see!--you're making a fool of me! Get off, or I'll call a constable in!--Get along with you, you couple of jail-birds! Is this the way"----

"I tell you," interposed Mr. Huckaback, angrily, "that this gentleman's name is Mr. Tittlebat Titmouse; and you'd better take care what you're at, old woman, for we've come on business of _wital consequence_!"

"I dare say it'll keep, then, till to-morrow," tartly added the old woman.

The friends consulted for a moment, and then Titmouse asked if he might come in and write a letter to Messrs. Quirk and Co.

"No indeed!" said she; "how do I know who you are? There's a public-house close by, where you may write what you like, and bring it here, and they'll get it the first thing in the morning. So that's what you may take away with you!"--with which the complaisant old janitrix shut the door in their faces.

"Huck, 'pon my life, I am afraid there's nothing in it," said Titmouse, despondingly, to his friend--both of them remaining rooted to the spot.

"Oudacious old toad!" muttered Huckaback, very indignantly.

"Hucky--I'm _sure_ there's nothing in it!" exclaimed Titmouse, after a long pause, looking earnestly at his friend, hoping to draw from him a contrary opinion.

"I--I own I don't half like the looks of it," replied Huckaback, putting his newspaper into his pocket again; "but we'll try if we can't write a letter to sound 'em, and so far take the old creature's advice. Here's the public-house she told us of. Come, let's see what's to be done!"

Titmouse, greatly depressed, followed his friend; and they soon provided themselves with two glasses of stout, and after a little difficulty, with implements for writing. That they made good use of their time and materials, let the following epistle prove. It was their joint composition, and here is an exact copy of it:--

"_To Messrs._ QUIRK, GAMMON _and_ SNAP.

"SIR,

"Your Names being Put In an Advertisement in This present _Sunday
Flash_, Newspaper of To Day's Date, Mr. T. T. Begs To inform Your
respectable House I feel Uncommon anxious To speak with them On
This _truly interesting subject_, seeing It mentions The Name Of
Gabriel Tittlebat Titmouse, which Two last Names Of That Deceased
Person _my Own Name Is_, which can _Any_ Day (As soon As Possible)
call and _prove_ To you, By telling you The Same, _truly_. He being
Engaged in Business During the week Very close, (for The Present,)
I hope that If they Have Anything particular To say To Him, they
will write To me without The least Delay, and please address T. T.,
At Tag-rag and Co.'s, No. 375, Oxford Street, Post-Paid, which will
ensure Its Being duly Taken In By my Employers, and am,

"Gents,
"Your's to Command,
"TITTLEBAT TITMOUSE.

"P. S.--My Friend, which Is With me writing This, (Mr. Robert
Huckaback,) can prove who I am If necessiated so to do.

"N. B.--Shall have no objections to do the Liberal Thing if
anything suitable Turns Up Of It.
"T. T.
"(_Sunday Evening, 9/7/18--._

"Forgot to Say, am The only Child of my Honored Parents, one of
which (my Mother) Died; before I knew them In Lawful Wedloc, and
Was 27 last Birth Day, Never having Seen your Advertisement Till
This Night, w^h, if Necessary _can Prove_.)"

This perspicuous and truly elegant performance having been thrice subjected to the critical examination of the friends, (the paragraph concerning Huckaback having been inserted at the instance of that gentleman, who wished to be mixed up from the beginning with so promising an affair,) was then folded up, and directed to "Messrs. Quirk and Co.," a great straggling wet wafer having been first put upon it. It was safely deposited, a few minutes afterwards, with the old lady at Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap's; and then the two West-End gentlemen hastened away from that truly plebeian part of the town! Under three different gas-lights did they stop, take out the newspaper, and spell over the advertisement; by which ingenious processes they at length succeeded in satisfying themselves that there _was_ something in it--a fact of which, upon the old woman shutting the door in their faces, it may be recollected they had had grievous misgivings. They parted, however, with a considerable abatement of the excitement with which they had set out on their voyage of discovery.

Mr. Titmouse did not, on reaching his room, take off and lay aside his precious Sunday apparel with his accustomed care and deliberation. On the contrary, he peeled it off, as it were, and threw himself on the bed as quickly as possible, in order that he might calmly revolve the immense event of the day in his little mind, which it had agitated like a stone thrown into a stagnant pool by the roadside. Oh, how restless was he!--not more so could he have been had he lain between horse-hair sheets. He repeatedly got up and walked about two or three little steps, which were all that his room admitted of. At the very first peep of daylight he started out of bed, got out of his pocket the newspaper which Huckaback had lent him, strove to decipher the advertisement, and then sank into bed again--but not to sleep, till four or five o'clock; having nevertheless to rise at half-past six, to resume his detested duties at Tag-rag and Co.'s, whose shop he assisted in opening at seven o'clock, as usual. When he and his shopmates were sitting together at breakfast, he could not for the life of him help letting out a little, vaguely and mysteriously, about "something that _might_ happen in the course of the day;" and thereby succeeded in satisfying his experienced companions that he expected the visit of a policeman, for some _row_ he had been concerned in over-night.--Well:--eight, nine, ten o'clock wore away heavily, and nothing transpired, alas! to vary the monotonous duties in which Mr. Titmouse was engaged; bale after bale, and package after package, he took down and put up again, at the bidding of pretty, capricious customers; silk, satin, bombazines, crapes, muslins, ribbons, gloves, he assisted in displaying, disposing of, or replacing as usual; but it was clear that his powerful understanding could no longer settle itself, as before, upon his responsible and arduous duties. Every other minute he cast a feverish furtive glance towards the door. He almost dropped, at one time, as a postman crossed from the opposite side of the street, as if to enter their shop--then passing on immediately, however, to the next door. Not a person, in short, entered the premises, whom he did not scrutinize narrowly and anxiously, but in vain. No--buying and selling was the order of the day, as usual!--Eleven o'clock struck, and he sighed. "You don't seem well," said a pretty young woman, to whom, in a somewhat absent manner, he was exhibiting and describing the qualities of some cambric. "Oh--ye--es, uncommon!" he replied; "never better, ma'am, than when so well employed!" accompanying the latter words with what he conceived to be a very arch, but which was in fact a very impudent, look at his fair customer. At that moment a voice called out to him from the farther end of the shop, near the door--"Titmouse! Wanted!"

"Coming!" he shouted, turning as white as the cambric he held in his hands--which became suddenly cold; while his heart went thump, thump, as he hastily exclaimed to the astonished lady, "Excuse me, ma'am, if you please--Jones," addressing the shopman next him, "will you attend to this lady?" and he hastened whither he had been called, amid a prevalent grin and "hem!" from his companions on each side, as he passed along the shop, till he reached the spot where stood the stranger who had inquired for him. He was of a slight and gentlemanly figure, above the average height. His countenance was very striking: he was dressed with simplicity--somewhat carelessly perhaps; and appeared somewhere about thirty-six or thirty-seven years of age. He bowed slightly as Titmouse approached him, and an air of very serious surprise came over his expressive countenance.

"Mr. Titmouse?" he inquired blandly.

"Ye-e-s, sir, at your service," replied Titmouse, trembling involuntarily all over. The stranger again slightly inclined towards him, and--still more slightly--touched his hat; fixing on him, at the same time, an inquisitive penetrating eye, which really abashed, or rather perhaps alarmed him.

"You left--you favored us by leaving--a note at our office last night, sir, addressed to Messrs. Quirk, Gammon, and Snap?" he inquired, lowering his voice to a whisper.

"Yes, sir, hoping it was no"----

"Pray, Mr. Titmouse, can we be alone for about five or ten minutes?"

"I--I--don't exactly know, _here_, sir; I'm afraid--against the rules of the house--but I'll ask. Here _is_ Mr. Tag-rag.--May I step into the cloak-room with this gentleman for a few minutes, sir?" he continued, addressing his imperious employer, who, with a pen behind his right ear, his left hand in his breeches pocket, and his right hand impatiently tweedling about his watch-seals, had followed Titmouse, on hearing him inquired for in the manner I have described, and stood at a yard or two's distance, eying the two with a truculent dissatisfied look, wondering what on earth any one _could_ want with one of _his_ young men.

As Mr. Tag-rag will be rather a prominent figure on my canvas, I may as well here give the reader a slight preparatory sketch of that gentleman. He was about fifty-two years old; a great tyrant in his little way; a compound of ignorance, selfishness, cant, and conceit. He knew nothing on earth except the price of his goods, and how to make the most of his business. He was of middle size, with a tendency to corpulence; and almost invariably wore a black coat and waistcoat, a white neck handkerchief very primly tied, and gray trousers. He had a dull, gray eye, with white eyelashes, and no eyebrows; a forehead which seemed ashamed of his face, it retreated so far and so abruptly back from it; his face was pretty deeply pitted with the small-pox; his nose--or rather semblance of a nose--consisted of two great nostrils looking at you--as it were, impudently--out of the middle of his face; there was a perfect level space from cheek-bone to cheek-bone; his gray whiskers, trimly and closely cut, came in points to each corner of his mouth, which was large, shapeless, and sensual-looking. This may serve, for the present, to give you an idea of the man who had contrived to excite towards himself the hatred and contempt of everybody over whom he had any control--with whom in fact he had anything to do.

"You know quite well, sir, we never allow anything of the sort," was his short reply, in a very disagreeable tone and manner, to Titmouse's modest request.

"May I beg the favor of a few minutes' private conversation with Mr. Titmouse," said the stranger, politely, "on a matter of the last importance to him? My name, sir, is Gammon, and I am a solicitor of the firm of Quirk, Gammon, and Snap"----

"Why, sir," answered Tag-rag, somewhat cowed by the calm and gentlemanly, but at the same time decisive manner of Mr. Gammon--"it's really very inconvenient, and decidedly against the rules of the house, for any of my young men to be absent on business of their own during _my_ business hours; but--I suppose--what must be must be--I'll give him ten minutes--and he'd better not stay longer," he subjoined fiercely--looking significantly first at his watch, and then at Titmouse. "It's only for the sake of my other young men, you know, sir. In a large establishment like ours, we're obliged, you know, sir," &c. &c. &c., he added, in a low cringing tone, deprecatory of the contemptuous air with which he _felt_ that Mr. Gammon was regarding him.

That gentleman, with a slight bow, and a sarcastic smile, presently quitted the shop, accompanied by Titmouse, who scarce knew whether his head or heels were uppermost.

"How far do you live from this place, Mr. Titmouse?" inquired Mr. Gammon, as soon as they had got into the street.

"Not four minutes' walk, sir; but--hem!"--he was flustered at the idea of showing so eminent a person into his wretched room--"Suppose we were to step into this tavern here, sir--I dare say they have a room at our service"----

"Pray, allow me to ask, Mr. Titmouse--have you any private papers--family writings, or things of that sort, at your rooms?"

Titmouse seemed considering.

"I--I think I have, sir," he replied--"one or two--but they're of no consequence."

"Are you a _judge_ on that point, Mr. Titmouse?" inquired Mr. Gammon, with a smile; "pray let us, my dear sir, at once proceed to your rooms--time is very short and valuable. I should vastly like to look at these same insignificant papers of yours!"

In less than two minutes' further time, Mr. Gammon was sitting at Titmouse's little rickety round table, at his lodgings, with a sheet of paper before him, and a small pencil-case in his hand, asking him a number of questions concerning his birth and family connections, and taking down his answers very carefully. Mr. Titmouse was surprised at the gentleman's knowledge of the family history of the Titmouses. As for papers, &c., Mr. Titmouse succeeded in producing four or five old letters and memoranda from the bottom of his trunk, and one or two entries, in faded ink, on the fly-leaf of a Bible of his father's, which he did not recollect having opened before for very many years, and of which said entries, till pressed on the subject by Mr. Gammon, he had been hardly aware of even the existence. With these several documents Mr. Gammon was so much struck that he proposed to take them away with him, for better and more leisurely examination, and safer custody, at their office; but Mr. Titmouse significantly hinted at his very recent acquaintance with Mr. Gammon, who, he intimated, was at liberty to come and make exact copies of them whenever he pleased, in his (Mr. Titmouse's) presence.

"Oh, certainly--yes," replied Mr. Gammon, slightly coloring at the distrust implied by this observation; "I applaud your caution, Mr. Titmouse. By all means keep these documents, and most carefully; because, (I do not say that they _are_,) but it is quite possible that they may become rather valuable--to _you_."

"Thank you, sir; and now, hoping you'll excuse the liberty," said Titmouse, with a very anxious air, "I should most uncommonly like to know what all this means--what is to turn up out of it all?"

"The law, my dear sir, is proverbially uncertain"----

"Oh, Lord! but the law can surely give one a _hint_"----

"_The law never hints_," interrupted Mr. Gammon, impressively, with a bland smile.

"Well then, how did you come, sir, to know that there ever was such a person as Mr. Gabriel Titmouse, my father? And what can come from _him_, seeing he was only a bit of a shoemaker--unless he's _heir_ to something?"

"Ah, yes--exactly; those are very interesting questions, Mr. Titmouse--very!"----

"Yes, sir; and them and many more I was going to ask long ago, but I saw you were"----

"Sir, I perceive that we have positively been absent from your place of business nearly an hour--your employers will be getting rather impatient."

"Meaning no offence, sir--bother _their_ impatience! _I'm_ impatient, I assure you, to know what all this means. Come, sir, 'pon my life I've told _you_ everything! It isn't quite fair!"

"Why, certainly, you see, Mr. Titmouse," said Gammon, with an agreeable smile--(it was that smile of his which had been the making of Mr. Gammon)--"it is only candid in me to acknowledge that your curiosity is perfectly reasonable, and your frankness very obliging; and I see no difficulty in admitting at once, that _I have_ had a--motive"----

"Yes, sir--and all that--_I_ know, sir,"--hastily interrupted Titmouse, but without irritating or disturbing the placid speaker.

"And that we waited with some anxiety for the result of our advertisement."

"Ah, you can't escape from _that_, you know, sir!" interposed Titmouse, with a confident air.

"But it is a maxim with us, my dear sir, never to be premature in anything, especially when it may be--very prejudicial; you've really no idea, my dear Mr. Titmouse, of the world of mischief that is often done by precipitancy in legal matters; and in the present stage of the business--the _present_ stage, my dear sir--I really do see it necessary not to--do anything premature, and without consulting my partners."

"Lord, sir!" exclaimed Titmouse, getting more and more irritated and impatient as he reflected on the length of his absence from Tag-rag & Co.'s.

"I quite feel for your anxiety--so perfectly natural"----

"Oh, dear sir! if you'd only tell me the _least bit_"----

"If, my dear sir, I were to disclose just now the exact object we had in inserting that advertisement in the papers"----

"How did you come to know of it at all, sir? Come, there can't be any harm in _that_ anyhow"----

"Not the least, my dear sir. It was in the course of business--in the course of business."

"Is it money that's been left me--or--anything of that sort?"

"It quite pains me, I assure you, Mr. Titmouse, to suppose that our having put this advertisement into the papers may have misled you, and excited false hopes--I think, by the way"--added Gammon, suddenly, as something occurred to him of their previous conversation, which he was not quite sure of--"you told me that that Bible had been given you by your father."

"Oh yes, sir! yes--- no doubt of it; surely _that_ can't signify, seeing he's dead, and I'm his only son?" asked Titmouse, quickly and eagerly.

"Oh, 'tis only a circumstance--a mere circumstance; but in business, you know, Mr. Titmouse, every little helps--and you really, by the way, have no recollection of your mother, Mr. Titmouse?"

"No, sir, I said so! And--meaning no offence, sir--I can't abide being put off in this kind of way,--I must own!--See what I have told you--you've told _me_ nothing at all. I hope you haven't been only making me a cat's-paw of? 'Pon my soul, I _hate_ being made a cat's-paw of, sir!"

"Good heavens, Mr. Titmouse! how can you imagine it? Matters in some degree connected with one or two former members of your family, are at this moment the object of some little of our anxiety"----

"Not meaning it rudely, sir--please to tell me at once, plainly, am I to be the better for anything you're now about, or was that advertisement all fudge?"

"That may or may not be, sir," answered Mr. Gammon, in the same imperturbable manner, drawing on his gloves, and rising from his chair. "In justice to yourself, and other parties concerned"----

"Oh! is anybody to _share_ in it?" exclaimed Titmouse, alarmedly.

"I am sure," said Gammon, smiling, "that you will give us credit for consulting your best interests, if they should prove to be in any degree concerned in our present inquiries! We should, in that event, sincerely desire to advance them. But--it is _really_," looking at his watch, "upwards of an hour since we quitted your place of business--I fear I shall get into disgrace with that respectable gentleman, your employer. Will you favor us with a call at our office to-morrow night, when the business of the day is over? When do you quit at night?"

"About half-past nine o'clock, sir; but really--to-morrow night! Couldn't I come to-night, sir?"

"Not to-night, I fear, my dear sir. We have a very important engagement. Let us say to-morrow night, at a quarter past ten--shall we say that hour?" inquired Mr. Gammon, with an imperative smile.

"Well, sir, if not before--yes--I'll be with you. But I _must_ say"---- quoth Titmouse, with a sulky disconcerted air.

"Good-day, Mr. Titmouse," said Mr. Gammon--they were by this time in Oxford Street again.--"Good-day, my dear sir--good-day--to-morrow night, as soon after ten as possible--eh? Good-by."

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.

"Ye--es, sir," was the meekly reluctant answer.

"This day month you leave, sir!" said Mr. Tag-rag, solemnly--as if conscious that he was passing a sort of sentence of death upon the presumptuous delinquent.

"Very well, Mr. Tag-rag--anything that pleases you pleases your humble servant. I _will_ go this day month, and welcome--I've long wished--and now, p'r'aps," he added significantly--"it's rather convenient than otherwise"----

"Then you _sha'n't_ leave, sir," said Tag-rag, furiously.

"But I will, sir. You've given me warning; and, if you haven't, now I give _you_ warning," replied Titmouse; turning, however, very pale, and experiencing a certain sudden sinking of the heart--for this was a serious and most unlooked-for event, and for a while put out of his head all the agitating thoughts of the last few hours. Poor Titmouse had enough to bear--what with the delicate raillery and banter of his refined companions for the rest of the day, find the galling tyranny of Mr. Tag-rag, (who dogged him about all day, setting him about the most menial and troublesome offices he could, and constantly saying mortifying things to him before customers,) and the state of miserable suspense in which Mr. Gammon had thought fit to leave him; I say that surely all this was enough for him to bear without having to encounter at night, as he did, on his return to his lodgings, his blustering landlady, who vowed that if she sold him out and out she would be put off no longer--and his pertinacious and melancholy tailor, who, with sallow unshaven face, told him of five children at home, all ill of the small-pox, and his wife in an hospital--and he _implored_ a payment on account. This sufferer succeeded in squeezing out of Titmouse seven shillings on account, and his landlady extorted ten; which staved off a distress--direful word!--for some week or two longer; and so they left him in the possession of eight shillings or so, to last till next quarter-day--six weeks off! He sighed heavily, barred his door, and sat down opposite his little table, on which was nothing but a solitary thin candle, and on which his eyes rested unconsciously, till the stench of it, burning right down into the socket, roused him from his wretched revery. Then he unlocked his box, and took out his Bible and the papers which had been produced to Mr. Gammon, and gazed at them with intense but useless scrutiny. Unable to conjecture what bearing they could have upon himself or his fortunes, he hastily replaced them in his box, threw off his clothes, and flung himself on his bed, to pass a far more dismal night than he had known for years.

He ran the gantlet at Messrs. Tag-rag and Co.'s all Tuesday as he had done on the day preceding. One should have supposed that when his companions beheld him persecuted by their common tyrant, whom they all equally hated, they would have made common cause with their suffering companion, or at all events given no countenance to his persecution; yet it was far otherwise. Without stopping to analyze the feeling which produced it, (and which the moderately reflective reader may easily analyze for himself if so disposed,) I am grieved to have to say, that when all the young men saw that Tag-rag would be gratified by their _cutting_ poor Titmouse, who, with all his little vanities, fooleries, and even selfishness, had never personally offended or injured any of them--they did cut him; and, when Tag-rag observed it, his miserable mind was unspeakably gratified with what they had done: and he spoke to all of them with unusual blandness; to the sinner, Titmouse, with augmented bitterness and sternness.