“I am quite as bad,” said Lightwood, sitting up facing him, with a tumbled head; after going through some wonderful evolutions, in which his head had been the lowest part of him. “This restlessness began with me, long ago. All the time you were out, I felt like Gulliver with the Lilliputians firing upon him.”
“It won’t do, Mortimer. We must get into the air; we must join our dear friend and brother, Riderhood. And let us tranquillize ourselves by making a compact. Next time (with a view to our peace of mind) we’ll commit the crime, instead of taking the criminal. You swear it?”
“Certainly.”
“Sworn! Let Tippins look to it. Her life’s in danger.”
Mortimer rang the bell to pay the score, and Bob appeared to transact that business with him: whom Eugene, in his careless extravagance, asked if he would like a situation in the lime-trade?
“Thankee sir, no sir,” said Bob. “I’ve a good sitiwation here, sir.”
“If you change your mind at any time,” returned Eugene, “come to me at my works, and you’ll always find an opening in the limekiln.”
“Thankee sir,” said Bob.
“This is my partner,” said Eugene, “who keeps the books and attends to the wages. A fair day’s wages for a fair day’s work is ever my partner’s motto.”
“And a very good ’un it is, gentlemen,” said Bob, receiving his fee, and drawing a bow out of his head with his right hand, very much as he would have drawn a pint of beer out of the beer engine.
“Eugene,” Mortimer apostrophized him, laughing quite heartily when they were alone again, “how can you be so ridiculous?”