both knees, like an affectionate patron who entreated him not to mention so small a service as that which it had been his happy privilege to render.
“Your speaking countenance,” said Wegg, “being answered to its satisfaction, only asks then, ‘What have you found?’ Why, I hear it say the words!”
“Well?” retorted Venus snappishly, after waiting in vain. “If you hear it say the words, why don’t you answer it?”
“Hear me out!” said Wegg. “I’m a-going to. Hear me out! Man and brother, partner in feelings equally with undertakings and actions, I have found a cashbox.”
“Where?”
“—Hear me out!” said Wegg. (He tried to reserve whatever he could, and, whenever disclosure was forced upon him, broke into a radiant gush of Hear me out.) “On a certain day, sir—”
“When?” said Venus bluntly.
“N—no,” returned Wegg, shaking his head at once observantly, thoughtfully, and playfully. “No, sir! That’s not your expressive countenance which asks that question. That’s your voice; merely your voice. To proceed. On a certain day, sir, I happened to be walking in the yard—taking my lonely round—for in the words of a friend of my own family, the author of All’s Well arranged as a duet:
‘Deserted, as you will remember Mr. Venus, by the waning moon, When stars, it will occur to you before I mention it, proclaim night’s cheerless noon, On tower, fort, or tented ground, The sentry walks his lonely round, The sentry walks;’