Perhaps it was with the malicious intent of urging him on to his worst that Mr. Venus looked as if he doubted that.

“What? Was it outside the house at present ockypied, to its disgrace, by that minion of fortune and worm of the hour,” said Wegg, falling back upon his strongest terms of reprobation, and slapping the counter, “that I, Silas Wegg, five hundred times the man he ever was, sat in all weathers, waiting for a errand or a customer? Was it outside that very house as I first set eyes upon him, rolling in the lap of luxury, when I was selling halfpenny ballads there for a living? And am I to grovel in the dust for him to walk over? No!”