 I declare I felt positively apologetic, Pumblechook's indignant
stare so taxed me with it. Wopsle, too, took pains to present me in the worst
light. At once ferocious and maudlin, I was made to murder my uncle with no
extenuating circumstances whatever; Millwood put me down in argument, on every
occasion; it became sheer monomania in my master's daughter to care a button for
me; and all I can say for my gasping and procrastinating conduct on the fatal
morning, is, that it was worthy of the general feebleness of my character. Even
after I was happily hanged and Wopsle had closed the book, Pumblechook sat
staring at me, and shaking his head, and saying, »Take warning, boy, take
warning!« as if it were a well-known fact that I contemplated murdering a near
relation, provided I could only induce one to have the weakness to become my
benefactor.
    It was a very dark night when it was all over, and when I set out with Mr.
Wopsle on the walk home. Beyond town, we found a heavy mist out, and it fell wet
and thick. The turnpike lamp was a blur, quite out of the lamp's usual place
apparently, and its rays looked solid substance on the fog. We were noticing
this, and saying how that the mist rose with a change of wind from a certain
quarter of our marshes, when we came upon a man, slouching under the lee of the
turnpike house.
    »Halloa!« we said, stopping. »Orlick there?«
    »Ah!« he answered, slouching out. »I was standing by, a minute, on the
chance of company.«
    »You are late,« I remarked.
    Orlick not unnaturally answered, »Well? And you're late.«
    »We have been,« said Mr. Wopsle, exalted with his late performance, »we have
been indulging, Mr. Orlick, in an intellectual evening.«
    Old Orlick growled, as if he had nothing to say about that, and we all went
on together. I asked him presently whether he had been spending his half-holiday
up and down town?
    »Yes,« said he, »all of it. I come in behind yourself. I didn't see you, but
I must have been pretty close behind you. By-the-bye, the guns is going again.«
    »At the Hulks?« said I.
    »Ay! There's some of the birds flown from the cages. The guns
