 if he had come back to
get another he would have done well enough, but that his returning to work out
the former gift was a stain upon his moral character which no penitence or
contrition could ever wash away.
    Mr. Swiveller, having always been in some measure of a philosophic and
reflective turn, grew immensely contemplative, at times, in the smoking- and was
accustomed at such periods to debate in his own mind the mysterious question of
Sophronia's parentage. Sophronia herself supposed she was an orphan; but Mr.
Swiveller, putting various slight circumstances together, often thought Miss
Brass must know better than that; and, having heard from his wife of her strange
interview with Quilp, entertained sundry misgivings whether that person, in his
lifetime, might not also have been able to solve the riddle, had he chosen.
These speculations, however, gave him no uneasiness; for Sophronia was ever a
most cheerful, affectionate, and provident wife to him; and Dick (excepting for
an occasional outbreak with Mr. Chuckster, which she had the good sense rather
to encourage than oppose) was to her an attached and domesticated husband. And
they played many hundred thousand games of cribbage together. And let it be
added, to Dick's honour, that, though we have called her Sophronia, he called
her the Marchioness from first to last; and that upon every anniversary of the
day on which he found her in his sick-room, Mr. Chuckster came to dinner, and
there was great glorification.
    The gamblers, Isaac List and Jowl, with their trusty confederate Mr. James
Groves of unimpeachable memory, pursued their course with varying success, until
the failure of a spirited enterprise in the way of their profession, dispersed
them in various directions, and caused their career to receive a sudden check
from the long and strong arm of the law. This defeat had its origin in the
untoward detection of a new associate - young Frederick Trent - who thus became
the unconscious instrument of their punishment and his own.
    For the young man himself, he rioted abroad for a brief term, living by his
wits - which means by the abuse of every faculty that worthily employed raises
man above the beasts, and so degraded, sinks him far below them. It was not long
before his body was recognised by a stranger, who chanced to visit that hospital
in Paris where the drowned are laid out to be owned; despite the bruises and
disfigurements which were said to have been occasioned by some previous scuffle.
But the stranger kept his own counsel until he returned home, and it was
