 his property and testamentary intentions; gained great credit for
disinterestedness and virtue; and, in addition to all, was finally accommodated
with a much larger tumbler of punch than that which Newman Noggs had so
feloniously made off with.
    »I say! I beg everybody's pardon for intruding again,« said Crowl, looking
in at this happy juncture; »but what a queer business this is, isn't it? Noggs
has lived in this house, now going on for five years, and nobody has ever been
to see him before, within the memory of the oldest inhabitant.«
    »It's a strange time of night to be called away, sir, certainly,« said the
collector; »and the behaviour of Mr. Noggs himself, is, to say the least of it,
mysterious.«
    »Well, so it is,« rejoined Crowl; »and I'll tell you what's more - I think
these two geniuses, whoever they are, have run away from somewhere.«
    »What makes you think that, sir?« demanded the collector, who seemed, by a
tacit understanding, to have been chosen and elected mouthpiece to the company.
»You have no reason to suppose that they have run away from anywhere without
paying the rates and taxes due, I hope?«
    Mr. Crowl, with a look of some contempt, was about to enter a general
protest against the payment of rates or taxes, under any circumstances, when he
was checked by a timely whisper from Kenwigs, and several frowns and winks from
Mrs. K., which providentially stopped him.
    »Why the fact is,« said Crowl, who had been listening at Newman's door, with
all his might and main; »the fact is, that they have been talking so loud, that
they quite disturbed me in my room, and so I couldn't help catching a word here,
and a word there; and all I heard, certainly seemed to refer to their having
bolted from some place or other. I don't wish to alarm Mrs. Kenwigs; but I hope
they haven't come from any jail or hospital, and brought away a fever or some
unpleasantness of that sort, which might be catching for the children.«
    Mrs. Kenwigs was so overpowered by this supposition, that it needed all the
tender attentions of Miss Petowker, of the Theatre Royal, Drury Lane, to restore
her to anything like a state of calmness; not to mention the assiduity of Mr.
Kenwigs, who held a
