Crack. Sharply on the part of Edwin Drood.

Silence on both sides.

'Have you lost your tongue, Jack?'

'Have you found yours, Ned?'

'No, but really;--isn't it, you know, after all--'

Mr. Jasper lifts his dark eyebrows inquiringly.

'Isn't it unsatisfactory to be cut off from choice in such a
matter? There, Jack! I tell you! If I could choose, I would
choose Pussy from all the pretty girls in the world.'

'But you have not got to choose.'

'That's what I complain of. My dead and gone father and Pussy's
dead and gone father must needs marry us together by anticipation.
Why the--Devil, I was going to say, if it had been respectful to
their memory--couldn't they leave us alone?'

'Tut, tut, dear boy,' Mr. Jasper remonstrates, in a tone of gentle
deprecation.

'Tut, tut? Yes, Jack, it's all very well for YOU. YOU can take it
easily. YOUR life is not laid down to scale, and lined and dotted
out for you, like a surveyor's plan. YOU have no uncomfortable