"This old man and grandchild should be as poor as frozen rats." Chapter LXII of Dickens's Old Curiosity Shop by Thomas Worth in the first Household Edition volume published by Harper & Bros., New York (1872), 195: 4 ⅛ x 5 ⅜ inches (10.5 x 13.7 cm) framed. [Click on the image to enlarge it.]

Context of the Illustration: Quilp assaults the Ship's Figurehead at the wharf

"Upon my word, Sir," said Brass, "I wasn’t prepared for this —"

"How could you be?" sneered the dwarf, "when I wasn’t? How often am I to tell you that I brought him to you that I might always have my eye on him and know where he was — and that I had a plot, a scheme, a little quiet piece of enjoyment afoot, of which the very cream and essence was, that this old man and grandchild (who have sunk underground I think) should be, while he and his precious friend believed them rich, in reality as poor as frozen rats?"

"I quite understood that, sir," rejoined Brass. "Thoroughly."

"Well, Sir," retorted Quilp, "and do you understand now, that they’re not poor — that they can’t be, if they have such men as your lodger searching for them, and scouring the country far and wide?"

"Of course I do, Sir," said Sampson. [Chapter LXII, 195]

Related Material about The Old Curiosity Shop

Scanned image and text by Philip V. Allingham. [You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the person who scanned the image and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Bibliography

Dickens, Charles. The Old Curiosity Shop. Illustrated by Thomas Worth. The Household Edition. 16 vols. New York: Harper & Bros., 1872. I.


Created 4 August 2020

Last modified 26 November 2020