"I _desire_ you to leave us, sir," said Lord De la Zouch, with irrepressible sternness; "you are very intrusive. How can we catch a syllable of what is going on while you are chattering in this way?" Titmouse saw that Mr. Aubrey looked towards him with a very different expression from that exhibited by his forbidding companion, and would perhaps have stood his ground, but for a glimpse he caught of a huge, powdered, broad-shouldered footman, in a splendid livery, one of Lord De la Zouch's servants, who, with a great thick silver-headed cane in his hand, was standing at a little distance behind, in attendance on the carriage, which was in the Castle-yard. This man's face looked so ready for mischief, that Titmouse slowly walked off. There were a good many standers-by, who seemed all to look with dislike and distrust at Titmouse. He made many ineffectual attempts to persuade the doorkeeper, who had assisted in his extrusion, to readmit him; but the incorruptible janitor was proof against a sixpence--even against a shilling; and at length Titmouse gave himself up to despair, and thought himself the most miserable man in the whole world--as very probably, indeed, he was: for consider what a horrid interval of suspense he had to endure, from the closing of Mr. Subtle's speech, till the delivery of the verdict. But at length, through this portentous and apparently impenetrable cloud burst the rich sunlight of success.
"Mr. Titmouse!--Mr. Titmouse!--Mr. Tit"----
"Here! Here I am! Here!"--exclaimed the little wretch, jumping off the window-seat on which he had been sitting for the last hour in the dark, half-stupefied with grief and exhaustion. The voice which called him was a blessed voice--a familiar voice--the voice of Mr. Gammon; who, as soon as the jury had begun to come back, on some pretence or other had quitted his seat between Quirk and Snap, in order, if the verdict should be for the plaintiff, to be the very first to communicate it to him. In a moment or two Mr. Gammon had grasped both Mr. Titmouse's hands. "My dear, dear Mr. Titmouse, I congratulate you! You are victorious! God grant you long life to enjoy your good fortune! God bless you, Titmouse!" He wrung Titmouse's hands--and his voice trembled with the intensity of his emotions! Mr. Titmouse had grown very white, and for a while spoke not, but stood staring at Mr. Gammon, as if hardly aware of the import of his communication.