You say with
us, no doubt, if somebody must escape, let it be any one but he.'
'Yes,' returned Dick, 'certainly. That is if somebody must--but
upon my word, I'm unwilling that Anybody should. Since laws were
made for every degree, to curb vice in others as well as in me--
and so forth you know--doesn't it strike you in that light?'
The single gentleman smiled as if the light in which Mr Swiveller
had put the question were not the clearest in the world, and
proceeded to explain that they contemplated proceeding by stratagem
in the first instance; and that their design was to endeavour to
extort a confession from the gentle Sarah.
'When she finds how much we know, and how we know it,' he said,
'and that she is clearly compromised already, we are not without
strong hopes that we may be enabled through her means to punish the
other two effectually. If we could do that, she might go scot-free
for aught I cared.'
Dick received this project in anything but a gracious manner,
representing with as much warmth as he was then capable of showing,
that they would find the old buck (meaning Sarah) more difficult to
manage than Quilp himself--that, for any tampering, terrifying, or
cajolery, she was a very unpromising and unyielding subject--that
she was of a kind of brass not easily melted or moulded into shape--
in short, that they were no match for her, and would be signally
defeated.
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