“Very well where you are! I am ashamed to have brought Mr. Headstone with me. How came you to get into such company as that little witch’s?”

“By chance at first, as it seemed, Charley. But I think it must have been by something more than chance, for that child⁠—You remember the bills upon the walls at home?”

“Confound the bills upon the walls at home! I want to forget the bills upon the walls at home, and it would be better for you to do the same,” grumbled the boy. “Well; what of them?”

“This child is the grandchild of the old man.”

“What old man?”

“The terrible drunken old man, in the list slippers and the nightcap.”