'
Nobody spoke, but I thought I detected in one quarter that this was
really the case.
'If I have no assurance to the contrary,' I added, therefore, 'I
shall take it for granted that he has done so, and that even these
papers come within our new agreement. Everybody being mute, we
hold that understanding if you please.'
And here I was about to begin again, when Jack informed us softly,
that during the progress of our last narrative, Mr. Weller's Watch
had adjourned its sittings from the kitchen, and regularly met
outside our door, where he had no doubt that august body would be
found at the present moment. As this was for the convenience of
listening to our stories, he submitted that they might be suffered
to come in, and hear them more pleasantly.
To this we one and all yielded a ready assent, and the party being
discovered, as Jack had supposed, and invited to walk in, entered
(though not without great confusion at having been detected), and
were accommodated with chairs at a little distance.
Then, the lamp being trimmed, the fire well stirred and burning
brightly, the hearth clean swept, the curtains closely drawn, the
clock wound up, we entered on our new story.
It is again midnight. My fire burns cheerfully; the room is filled
with my old friend's sober voice; and I am left to muse upon the
story we have just now finished.
It makes me smile, at such a time as this, to think if there were
any one to see me sitting in my easy-chair, my gray head hanging
down, my eyes bent thoughtfully upon the glowing embers, and my
crutch - emblem of my helplessness - lying upon the hearth at my
feet, how solitary I should seem.
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