Thus they reached Mr. Venus’s establishment, somewhat heated by the nature of their progress thither. Mr. Wegg, especially, was in a flaming glow, and stood in the little shop, panting and mopping his head with his pocket-handkerchief, speechless for several minutes.

Meanwhile, Mr. Venus, who had left the duelling frogs to fight it out in his absence by candlelight for the public delectation, put the shutters up. When all was snug, and the shop-door fastened, he said to the perspiring Silas: “I suppose, Mr. Wegg, we may now produce the paper?”

“Hold on a minute, sir,” replied that discreet character; “hold on a minute. Will you obligingly shove that box⁠—which you mentioned on a former occasion as containing miscellanies⁠—towards me in the midst of the shop here?”