In Browne’s woodcut below, the grandfather is drawn into a card game using Nell’s hard-earned money: a turning point that strikes the underlying note of doom that characterises their flight from Quilp. Dickens frames the scene with two sentences that skilfully demonstrate the interplay between language and image:

As he spoke he drew a chair to the table; and the other three closing round it at the same time, the game commenced.The child sat by, and watched its progress with a troubled mind.

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