'I'm very sorry--' 'Who doubts it!' cried the dwarf.

'You very sorry! to be sure you are.
Who doubts that you're VERY sorry!' 'I don't mean sorry that you have come home again alive and well,' said his wife, 'but sorry that I should have been led into such a belief.

I am glad to see you, Quilp; indeed I am.' In truth Mrs Quilp did seem a great deal more glad to behold her lord than might have been expected, and did evince a degree of interest in his safety which, all things considered, was rather unaccountable.
Upon Quilp, however, this circumstance made no impression, farther than as it moved him to snap his fingers close to his wife's eyes, with divers grins of triumph and derision.
'How could you go away so long, without saying a word to me or letting me hear of you or know anything about you ?' asked the poor little woman, sobbing.

'How could you be so cruel, Quilp ?' 'How could I be so cruel! cruel!' cried the dwarf.

'Because I was in the humour.