'Oh nothing!' cried Spottletoe, still gasping. 'Nothing at all! It's of
no consequence! Ask him! HE'll tell you!'
'I do not understand our friend,' said Mr Pecksniff, looking about him
in utter amazement. 'I assure you that he is quite unintelligible to
me.'
'Unintelligible, sir!' cried the other. 'Unintelligible! Do you mean
to say, sir, that you don't know what has happened! That you haven't
decoyed us here, and laid a plot and a plan against us! Will you venture
to say that you didn't know Mr Chuzzlewit was going, sir, and that you
don't know he's gone, sir?'
'Gone!' was the general cry.
'Gone,' echoed Mr Spottletoe. 'Gone while we were sitting here. Gone.
Nobody knows where he's gone. Oh, of course not! Nobody knew he was
going. Oh, of course not! The landlady thought up to the very last
moment that they were merely going for a ride; she had no other
suspicion. Oh, of course not! She's not this fellow's creature. Oh, of
course not!'
Adding to these exclamations a kind of ironical howl, and gazing upon
the company for one brief instant afterwards, in a sudden silence, the
irritated gentleman started off again at the same tremendous pace, and
was seen no more.
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