“And there’s alloy even in this metal of yours, Mr. Wegg, you was remarking?”

“Mystery,” returns Wegg. “I don’t like it, Mr. Venus. I don’t like to have the life knocked out of former inhabitants of this house, in the gloomy dark, and not know who did it.”

“Might you have any suspicions, Mr. Wegg?”

“No,” returns that gentleman. “I know who profits by it. But I’ve no suspicions.”

Having said which, Mr. Wegg smokes and looks at the fire with a most determined expression of Charity; as if he had caught that cardinal virtue by the skirts as she felt it her painful duty to depart from him, and held her by main force.