Chapter 40 - Page 2

language.
Now, you can't read in my face what answer I give?'

'No, I can't,' said Venus.

'I knew it! And why not?' returned Wegg, with the same joyful
candour. 'Because I lay no claims to a speaking countenance.
Because I am well aware of my deficiencies. All men are not
gifted alike. But I can answer in words. And in what words?
These. I wanted to give you a delightful sap--pur--IZE!'

Having thus elongated and emphasized the word Surprise, Mr
Wegg shook his friend and brother by both hands, and then
clapped him on both knees, like an affectionate patron who
entreated him not to mention so small a service as that which it
had been his happy privilege to render.

'Your speaking countenance, ' said Wegg, 'being answered to its
satisfaction, only asks then, "What have you found?" Why, I hear
it say the words!'

'Well?' retorted Venus snappishly, after waiting in vain. 'If you
hear it say the words, why don't you answer it?'

'Hear me out!' said Wegg. 'I'm a-going to. Hear me out! Man and
brother, partner in feelings equally with undertakings and actions, I
have found a cash-box.'

'Where?'

'--Hear me out!' said Wegg. (He tried to reserve whatever he could,
and, whenever disclosure was forced upon him, broke into a
radiant gush of Hear me out.) 'On a certain day, sir--'

'When?' said Venus bluntly.

'N--no,' returned Wegg, shaking his head at once observantly,
thoughtfully, and playfully. 'No, sir! That's not your expressive
countenance which asks that question. That's your voice; merely
your voice. To proceed. On a certain day, sir, I happened to be
walking in the yard--taking my lonely round--for in the words of a
friend of my own family, the author of All's Well arranged as a
duett:

"Deserted, as you will remember Mr Venus, by the waning
moon,
When stars, it will occur to you before I mention it, proclaim
night's cheerless noon,
On tower, fort, or tented ground,
The sentry walks his lonely round,
The sentry walks:"

--under those circumstances, sir, I happened to be walking in the
yard early one afternoon, and happened to have an iron rod in my
hand, with which I have been sometimes accustomed to beguile
the monotony of a literary life, when I struck it against an object
not necessary to trouble you by naming--'

'It is necessary. What object?' demanded Venus, in a wrathful
tone.

'--Hear me out!' said Wegg. 'The Pump.--When I struck it against
the Pump, and found, not only that the top was loose and opened
with a lid, but that something in it rattled. That something,
comrade, I discovered to be a small flat oblong cash-box. Shall I
say it was disappintingly light?'

'There were