Our Mutual Friend.............................................................................................................................................1

Charles Dickens.......................................................................................................................................1

BOOK THE FIRST. THE CUP AND THE LIP ......................................................................................2

Chapter 1. ON THE LOOK OUT ............................................................................................................2

Chapter 2. THE MAN FROM SOMEWHERE.......................................................................................6

Chapter 3. ANOTHER MAN................................................................................................................13

Chapter 4. THE R. WILFER FAMILY.................................................................................................24

Chapter 5. BOFFIN'S BOWER.............................................................................................................32

Chapter 6. CUT ADRIFT......................................................................................................................43

Chapter 7. MR WEGG LOOKS AFTER HIMSELF .............................................................................55

Chapter 8. MR BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION...................................................................................61

Chapter 9. MR AND MRS BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION................................................................70

Chapter 10. A MARRIAGE CONTRACT............................................................................................81

Chapter 11. PODSNAPPERY...............................................................................................................90

Chapter 12. THE SWEAT OF AN HONEST MAN'S BROW...........................................................101

Chapter 13. TRACKING THE BIRD OF PREY .................................................................................113

Chapter 14. THE BIRD OF PREY BROUGHT DOWN....................................................................120

Chapter 15. TWO NEW SERVANTS .................................................................................................126

Chapter 16. MINDERS AND REMINDERS ....................................................................................136

Chapter 17. A DISMAL SWAMP .......................................................................................................147

BOOK THE SECOND. BIRDS OF A FEATHER ..............................................................................149

Chapter 1. OF AN EDUCATIONAL CHARACTER.........................................................................149

Chapter 2. STILL EDUCATIONAL...................................................................................................163

Chapter 3. A PIECE OF WORK ..........................................................................................................172

Chapter 4. CUPID PROMPTED.........................................................................................................178

Chapter 5. MERCURY PROMPTING ................................................................................................188

Chapter 6. A RIDDLE WITHOUT AN ANSWER .............................................................................199

Chapter 7. IN WHICH A FRIENDLY MOVE IS ORIGINATED.....................................................208

Chapter 8. IN WHICH AN INNOCENT ELOPEMENT OCCURS...................................................217

Chapter 9. IN WHICH THE ORPHAN MAKES HIS WILL.............................................................228

Chapter 10. A SUCCESSOR...............................................................................................................233

Chapter 11. SOME AFFAIRS OF THE HEART................................................................................238

Chapter 12. MORE BIRDS OF PREY................................................................................................247

Chapter 13. A SOLO AND A DUETT ................................................................................................258

Chapter 14. STRONG OF PURPOSE.................................................................................................267

Chapter 15. THE WHOLE CASE SO FAR .........................................................................................276

Chapter 16. AN ANNIVERSARY OCCASION .................................................................................287

BOOK THE THIRD. A LONG LANE ................................................................................................295

Chapter 1. LODGERS IN QUEER STREET......................................................................................295

Chapter 2. A RESPECTED FRIEND IN A NEW ASPECT ...............................................................304

Chapter 3. THE SAME RESPECTED FRIEND IN MORE ASPECTS THAN ONE ........................312

Chapter 4. A HAPPY RETURN OF THE DAY.................................................................................316

Chapter 5. THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN FALLS INTO BAD COMPANY ........................................324

Chapter 6. THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN FALLS INTO WORSE COMPANY..................................334

Chapter 7. THE FRIENDLY MOVE TAKES UP A STRONG POSITION......................................346

Chapter 8. THE END OF A LONG JOURNEY ..................................................................................354

Chapter 9. SOMEBODY BECOMES THE SUBJECT OF A PREDICTION....................................362

Chapter 10. SCOUTS OUT.................................................................................................................374

Chapter 11. IN THE DARK .................................................................................................................384

Chapter 12. MEANING MISCHIEF...................................................................................................391

Chapter 13. GIVE A DOG A BAD NAME, AND HANG HIM .........................................................398

Chapter 14. MR WEGG PREPARES A GRINDSTONE FOR MR BOFFIN'S NOSE ......................406

Chapter 15. THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN AT HIS WORST...............................................................415

Chapter 16. THE FEAST OF THE THREE HOBGOBLINS.............................................................425

Chapter 17. A SOCIAL CHORUS......................................................................................................436

BOOK THE FOURTH. A TURNING .................................................................................................443

Chapter 1. SETTING TRAPS ..............................................................................................................443

Chapter 2. THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN RISES A LITTLE ................................................................452

Chapter 3. THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN SINKS AGAIN...................................................................459

Chapter 4. A RUNAWAY MATCH ....................................................................................................467

Chapter 5. CONCERNING THE MENDICANT'S BRIDE ................................................................473

Chapter 6. A CRY FOR HELP ............................................................................................................485

Chapter 7. BETTER TO BE ABEL THAN CAIN ..............................................................................495

Chapter 8. A FEW GRAINS OF PEPPER..........................................................................................502

Chapter 9. TWO PLACES VACATED ...............................................................................................510

Chapter 10. THE DOLLS' DRESSMAKER DISCOVERS A WORD...............................................518

Chapter 11. EFFECT IS GIVEN TO THE DOLLS' DRESSMAKER'S DISCOVERY .....................523

Chapter 12. THE PASSING SHADOW ..............................................................................................532

Chapter 14. CHECKMATE TO THE FRIENDLY MOVE................................................................548

Chapter 15. WHAT WAS CAUGHT IN THE TRAPS THAT WERE SET .......................................556

Chapter 16. PERSONS AND THINGS IN GENERAL......................................................................564

Chapter 17. THE VOICE OF SOCIETY .............................................................................................572

POSTSCRIPT. IN LIEU OF PREFACE.............................................................................................576

In these times of ours, though concerning the exact year there is no need to be precise, a boat of dirty and

disreputable appearance, with two figures in it, floated on the Thames, between Southwark bridge which is of

The figures in this boat were those of a strong man with ragged grizzled hair and a sunbrowned face, and a

dark girl of nineteen or twenty, sufficiently like him to be recognizable as his daughter. The girl rowed,

pulling a pair of sculls very easily; the man, with the rudderlines slack in his hands, and his hands loose in

his waistband, kept an eager look out. He had no net, hook, or line, and he could not be a fisherman; his boat

had no cushion for a sitter, no paint, no inscription, no appliance beyond a rusty boathook and a coil of rope,

and he could not be a waterman; his boat was too crazy and too small to take in cargo for delivery, and he

could not be a lighterman or rivercarrier; there was no clue to what he looked for, but he looked for

something, with a most intent and searching gaze. The tide, which had turned an hour before, was running

down, and his eyes watched every little race and eddy in its broad sweep, as the boat made slight headway

against it, or drove stern foremost before it, according as he directed his daughter by a movement of his head.

She watched his face as earnestly as he watched the river. But, in the intensity of her look there was a touch

Allied to the bottom of the river rather than the surface, by reason of the slime and ooze with which it was

covered, and its sodden state, this boat and the two figures in it obviously were doing something that they

often did, and were seeking what they often sought. Half savage as the man showed, with no covering on his

matted head, with his brown arms bare to between the elbow and the shoulder, with the loose knot of a looser

kerchief lying low on his bare breast in a wilderness of beard and whisker, with such dress as he wore

seeming to be made out of the mud that begrimed his boat, still there was a businesslike usage in his steady

gaze. So with every lithe action of the girl, with every turn of her wrist, perhaps most of all with her look of

'Keep her out, Lizzie. Tide runs strong here. Keep her well afore the sweep of it.'

Trusting to the girl's skill and making no use of the rudder, he eyed the coming tide with an absorbed

attention. So the girl eyed him. But, it happened now, that a slant of light from the setting sun glanced into

the bottom of the boat, and, touching a rotten stain there which bore some resemblance to the outline of a

muffled human form, coloured it as though with diluted blood. This caught the girl's eye, and she shivered.

'What ails you?' said the man, immediately aware of it, though so intent on the advancing waters; 'I see

The red light was gone, the shudder was gone, and his gaze, which had come back to the boat for a moment,

travelled away again. Wheresoever the strong tide met with an impediment, his gaze paused for an instant. At

every mooringchain and rope, at every stationery boat or barge that split the current into a broad

arrowhead, at the offsets from the piers of Southwark Bridge, at the paddles of the river steamboats as they

beat the filthy water, at the floating logs of timber lashed together lying off certain wharves, his shining eyes

darted a hungry look. After a darkening hour or so, suddenly the rudderlines tightened in his hold, and he

Always watching his face, the girl instantly answered to the action in her sculling; presently the boat swung

round, quivered as from a sudden jerk, and the upper half of the man was stretched out over the stern.

The girl pulled the hood of a cloak she wore, over her head and over her face, and, looking backward so that

the front folds of this hood were turned down the river, kept the boat in that direction going before the tide.

Until now, the boat had barely held her own, and had hovered about one spot; but now, the banks changed

swiftly, and the deepening shadows and the kindling lights of London Bridge were passed, and the tiers of

It was not until now that the upper half of the man came back into the boat. His arms were wet and dirty, and

he washed them over the side. In his right hand he held something, and he washed that in the river too. It was

money. He chinked it once, and he blew upon it once, and he spat upon it once,'for luck,' he hoarsely said

The girl turned her face towards him with a start, and rowed in silence. Her face was very pale. He was a

hooknosed man, and with that and his bright eyes and his ruffled head, bore a certain likeness to a roused

He was moving towards her to change places, but her terrified expostulation stopped him and he resumed his

At these latter words the girl shivered again, and for a moment paused in her rowing, seeming to turn deadly

faint. It escaped his attention, for he was glancing over the stern at something the boat had in tow.

'How can you be so thankless to your best friend, Lizzie? The very fire that warmed you when you were a

babby, was picked out of the river alongside the coal barges. The very basket that you slept in, the tide

washed ashore. The very rockers that I put it upon to make a cradle of it, I cut out of a piece of wood that

Lizzie took her right hand from the scull it held, and touched her lips with it, and for a moment held it out

lovingly towards him: then, without speaking, she resumed her rowing, as another boat of similar appearance,

though in rather better trim, came out from a dark place and dropped softly alongside.

'In luck again, Gaffer?' said a man with a squinting leer, who sculled her and who was alone, 'I know'd you

There was now a tender yellow moonlight on the river, and the new comer, keeping half his boat's length

'I says to myself,' he went on, 'directly you hove in view, yonder's Gaffer, and in luck again, by George if he

ain't! Scull it is, pardnerdon't fret yourselfI didn't touch him.' This was in answer to a quick impatient

movement on the part of Gaffer: the speaker at the same time unshipping his scull on that side, and laying his

'He's had touches enough not to want no more, as well as I make him out, Gaffer! Been a knocking about

with a pretty many tides, ain't he pardner? Such is my outofluck ways, you see! He must have passed me

when he went up last time, for I was on the lookout below bridge here. I a'most think you're like the wulturs,

He spoke in a dropped voice, and with more than one glance at Lizzie who had pulled on her hood again.

'No,' said the other. In so surly a tone that the man, after a blank stare, acknowledged it with the retort:

'Why, yes, I have,' said Gaffer. 'I have been swallowing too much of that word, Pardner. I am no pardner of

'Since you was accused of robbing a man. Accused of robbing a live man!' said Gaffer, with great

'No. Has a dead man any use for money? Is it possible for a dead man to have money? What world does a

dead man belong to? 'Tother world. What world does money belong to? This world. How can money be a

corpse's? Can a corpse own it, want it, spend it, claim it, miss it? Don't try to go confounding the rights and

wrongs of things in that way. But it's worthy of the sneaking spirit that robs a live man.'

'No you won't. I'll tell you what it is. You got off with a short time of it for putting you're hand in the pocket

of a sailor, a live sailor. Make the most of it and think yourself lucky, but don't think after that to come over

ME with your pardners. We have worked together in time past, but we work together no more in time present

'If I don't get rid of you this way, I'll try another, and chop you over the fingers with the stretcher, or take a

pick at your head with the boathook. Cast off! Pull you, Lizzie. Pull home, since you won't let your father

Lizzie shot ahead, and the other boat fell astern. Lizzie's father, composing himself into the easy attitude of

one who had asserted the high moralities and taken an unassailable position, slowly lighted a pipe, and

smoked, and took a survey of what he had in tow. What he had in tow, lunged itself at him sometimes in an

awful manner when the boat was checked, and sometimes seemed to try to wrench itself away, though for the

most part it followed submissively. A neophyte might have fancied that the ripples passing over it were

dreadfully like faint changes of expression on a sightless face; but Gaffer was no neophyte and had no

Mr and Mrs Veneering were brannew people in a brannew house in a brannew quarter of London.

Everything about the Veneerings was spick and span new. All their furniture was new, all their friends were

new, all their servants were new, their plate was new, their carriage was new, their harness was new, their

horses were new, their pictures were new, they themselves were new, they were as newly married as was

lawfully compatible with their having a brannew baby, and if they had set up a greatgrandfather, he would

have come home in matting from the Pantechnicon, without a scratch upon him, French polished to the crown

For, in the Veneering establishment, from the hallchairs with the new coat of arms, to the grand pianoforte

with the new action, and upstairs again to the new fireescape, all things were in a state of high varnish and

polish. And what was observable in the furniture, was observable in the Veneeringsthe surface smelt a

There was an innocent piece of dinnerfurniture that went upon easy castors and was kept over a livery

stableyard in Duke Street, Saint James's, when not in use, to whom the Veneerings were a source of blind

confusion. The name of this article was Twemlow. Being first cousin to Lord Snigsworth, he was in frequent

requisition, and at many houses might be said to represent the diningtable in its normal state. Mr and Mrs

Veneering, for example, arranging a dinner, habitually started with Twemlow, and then put leaves in him, or

added guests to him. Sometimes, the table consisted of Twemlow and half a dozen leaves; sometimes, of

Twemlow and a dozen leaves; sometimes, Twemlow was pulled out to his utmost extent of twenty leaves. Mr

and Mrs Veneering on occasions of ceremony faced each other in the centre of the board, and thus the

parallel still held; for, it always happened that the more Twemlow was pulled out, the further he found

himself from the center, and nearer to the sideboard at one end of the room, or the windowcurtains at the

But, it was not this which steeped the feeble soul of Twemlow in confusion. This he was used to,and could

take soundings of. The abyss to which he could find no bottom, and from which started forth the engrossing

and everswelling difficulty of his life, was the insoluble question whether he was Veneering's oldest friend,

or newest friend. To the excogitation of this problem, the harmless gentleman had devoted many anxious

hours, both in his lodgings over the livery stableyard, and in the cold gloom, favourable to meditation, of

Saint James's Square. Thus. Twemlow had first known Veneering at his club, where Veneering then knew

nobody but the man who made them known to one another, who seemed to be the most intimate friend he had

in the world, and whom he had known two daysthe bond of union between their souls, the nefarious

conduct of the committee respecting the cookery of a fillet of veal, having been accidentally cemented at that

date. Immediately upon this, Twemlow received an invitation to dine with Veneering, and dined: the man

being of the party. Immediately upon that, Twemlow received an invitation to dine with the man, and dined:

Veneering being of the party. At the man's were a Member, an Engineer, a Payeroff of the National Debt, a

Poem on Shakespeare, a Grievance, and a Public Office, who all seem to be utter strangers to Veneering. And

yet immediately after that, Twemlow received an invitation to dine at Veneerings, expressly to meet the

Member, the Engineer, the Payeroff of the National Debt, the Poem on Shakespeare, the Grievance, and the

Public Office, and, dining, discovered that all of them were the most intimate friends Veneering had in the

world, and that the wives of all of them (who were all there) were the objects of Mrs Veneering's most

Thus it had come about, that Mr Twemlow had said to himself in his lodgings, with his hand to his forehead:

'I must not think of this. This is enough to soften any man's brain,'and yet was always thinking of it, and

This evening the Veneerings give a banquet. Eleven leaves in the Twemlow; fourteen in company all told.

Four pigeonbreasted retainers in plain clothes stand in line in the hall. A fifth retainer, proceeding up the

staircase with a mournful airas who should say, 'Here is another wretched creature come to dinner; such is

Mrs Veneering welcomes her sweet Mr Twemlow. Mr Veneering welcomes his dear Twemlow. Mrs

Veneering does not expect that Mr Twemlow can in nature care much for such insipid things as babies, but so

old a friend must please to look at baby. 'Ah! You will know the friend of your family better, Tootleums,'

says Mr Veneering, nodding emotionally at that new article, 'when you begin to take notice.' He then begs to

make his dear Twemlow known to his two friends, Mr Boots and Mr Brewerand clearly has no distinct

'My dear,' says Mr Veneering to Mrs Veneering, with an air of much friendly interest, while the door stands

A too, too smiling large man, with a fatal freshness on him, appearing with his wife, instantly deserts his wife

'How do you do? So glad to know you. Charming house you have here. I hope we are not late. So glad of the

When the first shock fell upon him, Twemlow twice skipped back in his neat little shoes and his neat little

silk stockings of a bygone fashion, as if impelled to leap over a sofa behind him; but the large man closed

'Let me,' says the large man, trying to attract the attention of his wife in the distance, 'have the pleasure of

presenting Mrs Podsnap to her host. She will be,' in his fatal freshness he seems to find perpetual verdure and

eternal youth in the phrase, 'she will be so glad of the opportunity, I am sure!'

In the meantime, Mrs Podsnap, unable to originate a mistake on her own account, because Mrs Veneering is

the only other lady there, does her best in the way of handsomely supporting her husband's, by looking

towards Mr Twemlow with a plaintive countenance and remarking to Mrs Veneering in a feeling manner,

firstly, that she fears he has been rather bilious of late, and, secondly, that the baby is already very like him.

It is questionable whether any man quite relishes being mistaken for any other man; but, Mr Veneering

having this very evening set up the shirtfront of the young Antinous in new worked cambric just come

home, is not at all complimented by being supposed to be Twemlow, who is dry and weazen and some thirty

years older. Mrs Veneering equally resents the imputation of being the wife of Twemlow. As to Twemlow,

he is so sensible of being a much better bred man than Veneering, that he considers the large man an

In this complicated dilemma, Mr Veneering approaches the large man with extended hand and, smilingly

assures that incorrigible personage that he is delighted to see him: who in his fatal freshness instantly replies:

'Thank you. I am ashamed to say that I cannot at this moment recall where we met, but I am so glad of this

Then pouncing upon Twemlow, who holds back with all his feeble might, he is haling him off to present him,

as Veneering, to Mrs Podsnap, when the arrival of more guests unravels the mistake. Whereupon, having

reshaken hands with Veneering as Veneering, he reshakes hands with Twemlow as Twemlow, and winds

it all up to his own perfect satisfaction by saying to the lastnamed, 'Ridiculous opportunitybut so glad of

Now, Twemlow having undergone this terrific experience, having likewise noted the fusion of Boots in

Brewer and Brewer in Boots, and having further observed that of the remaining seven guests four discrete

characters enter with wandering eyes and wholly declined to commit themselves as to which is Veneering,

until Veneering has them in his grasp;Twemlow having profited by these studies, finds his brain

wholesomely hardening as he approaches the conclusion that he really is Veneering's oldest friend, when his

brain softens again and all is lost, through his eyes encountering Veneering and the large man linked together

as twin brothers in the back drawingroom near the conservatory door, and through his ears informing him in

Thus the melancholy retainer, as who should say, 'Come down and be poisoned, ye unhappy children of men!'

Twemlow, having no lady assigned him, goes down in the rear, with his hand to his forehead. Boots and

Brewer, thinking him indisposed, whisper, 'Man faint. Had no lunch.' But he is only stunned by the

Revived by soup, Twemlow discourses mildly of the Court Circular with Boots and Brewer. Is appealed to, at

the fish stage of the banquet, by Veneering, on the disputed question whether his cousin Lord Snigsworth is

in or out of town? Gives it that his cousin is out of town. 'At Snigsworthy Park?' Veneering inquires. 'At

Snigsworthy,' Twemlow rejoins. Boots and Brewer regard this as a man to be cultivated; and Veneering is

clear that he is a renumerative article. Meantime the retainer goes round, like a gloomy Analytical Chemist:

always seeming to say, after 'Chablis, sir?''You wouldn't if you knew what it's made of.'

The great lookingglass above the sideboard, reflects the table and the company. Reflects the new Veneering

crest, in gold and eke in silver, frosted and also thawed, a camel of all work. The Heralds' College found out a

Crusading ancestor for Veneering who bore a camel on his shield (or might have done it if he had thought of

it), and a caravan of camels take charge of the fruits and flowers and candles, and kneel down be loaded with

the salt. Reflects Veneering; forty, wavyhaired, dark, tending to corpulence, sly, mysterious, filmya kind

of sufficiently welllooking veiled prophet, not prophesying. Reflects Mrs Veneering; fair, aquiline nosed

and fingered, not so much light hair as she might have, gorgeous in raiment and jewels, enthusiastic,

propitiatory, conscious that a corner of her husband's veil is over herself. Reflects Podsnap; prosperously

feeding, two little lightcoloured wiry wings, one on either side of his else bald head, looking as like his

hairbrushes as his hair, dissolving view of red beads on his forehead, large allowance of crumpled

shirtcollar up behind. Reflects Mrs Podsnap; fine woman for Professor Owen, quantity of bone, neck and

nostrils like a rockinghorse, hard features, majestic headdress in which Podsnap has hung golden offerings.

Reflects Twemlow; grey, dry, polite, susceptible to east wind, FirstGentlemaninEurope collar and cravat,

cheeks drawn in as if he had made a great effort to retire into himself some years ago, and had got so far and

had never got any farther. Reflects mature young lady; raven locks, and complexion that lights up well when

well powderedas it iscarrying on considerably in the captivation of mature young gentleman; with too

much nose in his face, too much ginger in his whiskers, too much torso in his waistcoat, too much sparkle in

his studs, his eyes, his buttons, his talk, and his teeth. Reflects charming old Lady Tippins on Veneering's

right; with an immense obtuse drab oblong face, like a face in a tablespoon, and a dyed Long Walk up the top

of her head, as a convenient public approach to the bunch of false hair behind, pleased to patronize Mrs

Veneering opposite, who is pleased to be patronized. Reflects a certain 'Mortimer', another of Veneering's

oldest friends; who never was in the house before, and appears not to want to come again, who sits

disconsolate on Mrs Veneering's left, and who was inveigled by Lady Tippins (a friend of his boyhood) to

come to these people's and talk, and who won't talk. Reflects Eugene, friend of Mortimer; buried alive in the

back of his chair, behind a shoulderwith a powderepaulette on itof the mature young lady, and

gloomily resorting to the champagne chalice whenever proffered by the Analytical Chemist. Lastly, the

lookingglass reflects Boots and Brewer, and two other stuffed Buffers interposed between the rest of the

The Veneering dinners are excellent dinnersor new people wouldn't comeand all goes well. Notably,

Lady Tippins has made a series of experiments on her digestive functions, so extremely complicated and

daring, that if they could be published with their results it might benefit the human race. Having taken in

provisions from all parts of the world, this hardy old cruiser has last touched at the North Pole, when, as the

(Poor Twemlow's hand approaches his forehead, for it would seem now, that Lady Tippins is going to be the

'I assure you, my dear Veneering, that it is the oddest affair! Like the advertising people, I don't ask you to

trust me, without offering a respectable reference. Mortimer there, is my reference, and knows all about it.'

Mortimer raises his drooping eyelids, and slightly opens his mouth. But a faint smile, expressive of 'What's

'Now, Mortimer,' says Lady Tippins, rapping the sticks of her closed green fan upon the knuckles of her left

handwhich is particularly rich in knuckles, 'I insist upon your telling all that is to be told about the man

'Give you my honour I never heard of any man from Jamaica, except the man who was a brother,' replies

'Except,' Eugene strikes in: so unexpectedly that the mature young lady, who has forgotten all about him, with

a start takes the epaulette out of his way: 'except our friend who long lived on rice pudding and isinglass, till

at length to his something or other, his physician said something else, and a leg of mutton somehow ended in

A reviving impression goes round the table that Eugene is coming out. An unfulfilled impression, for he goes

'Now, my dear Mrs Veneering,' quoth Lady Tippins, I appeal to you whether this is not the basest conduct

ever known in this world? I carry my lovers about, two or three at a time, on condition that they are very

obedient and devoted; and here is my oldest loverinchief, the head of all my slaves, throwing off his

allegiance before company! And here is another of my lovers, a rough Cymon at present certainly, but of

whom I had most hopeful expectations as to his turning out well in course of time, pretending that he can't

remember his nursery rhymes! On purpose to annoy me, for he knows how I doat upon them!'

A grisly little fiction concerning her lovers is Lady Tippins's point. She is always attended by a lover or two,

and she keeps a little list of her lovers, and she is always booking a new lover, or striking out an old lover, or

putting a lover in her black list, or promoting a lover to her blue list, or adding up her lovers, or otherwise

posting her book. Mrs Veneering is charmed by the humour, and so is Veneering. Perhaps it is enhanced by a

certain yellow play in Lady Tippins's throat, like the legs of scratching poultry.

'I banish the false wretch from this moment, and I strike him out of my Cupidon (my name for my Ledger,

my dear,) this very night. But I am resolved to have the account of the man from Somewhere, and I beg you

to elicit it for me, my love,' to Mrs Veneering, 'as I have lost my own influence. Oh, you perjured man!' This

'We are all very much interested in the man from Somewhere,' Veneering observes.

And then Mrs Veneeringfor the Lady Tippins's winning wiles are contagiousfolds her hands in the

manner of a supplicating child, turns to her left neighbour, and says, 'Tease! Pay! Man from Tumwhere!' At

which the four Buffers, again mysteriously moved all four at once, explain, 'You can't resist!'

'Upon my life,' says Mortimer languidly, 'I find it immensely embarrassing to have the eyes of Europe upon

me to this extent, and my only consolation is that you will all of you execrate Lady Tippins in your secret

hearts when you find, as you inevitably will, the man from Somewhere a bore. Sorry to destroy romance by

fixing him with a local habitation, but he comes from the place, the name of which escapes me, but will

'No, not that place,' returns the unmoved Mortimer, 'that's where they make the Port. My man comes from the

country where they make the Cape Wine. But look here, old fellow; its not at all statistical and it's rather odd.'

It is always noticeable at the table of the Veneerings, that no man troubles himself much about the

Veneerings themselves, and that any one who has anything to tell, generally tells it to anybody else in

'The man,' Mortimer goes on, addressing Eugene, 'whose name is Harmon, was only son of a tremendous old

'And a ladder and basket if you like. By which means, or by others, he grew rich as a Dust Contractor, and

lived in a hollow in a hilly country entirely composed of Dust. On his own small estate the growling old

vagabond threw up his own mountain range, like an old volcano, and its geological formation was Dust.

Coaldust, vegetabledust, bonedust, crockery dust, rough dust and sifted dust,all manner of Dust.'

A passing remembrance of Mrs Veneering, here induces Mortimer to address his next halfdozen words to

her; after which he wanders away again, tries Twemlow and finds he doesn't answer, ultimately takes up with

'The moral beingI believe that's the right expressionof this exemplary person, derived its highest

gratification from anathematizing his nearest relations and turning them out of doors. Having begun (as was

natural) by rendering these attentions to the wife of his bosom, he next found himself at leisure to bestow a

similar recognition on the claims of his daughter. He chose a husband for her, entirely to his own satisfaction

and not in the least to hers, and proceeded to settle upon her, as her marriage portion, I don't know how much

Dust, but something immense. At this stage of the affair the poor girl respectfully intimated that she was

secretly engaged to that popular character whom the novelists and versifiers call Another, and that such a

marriage would make Dust of her heart and Dust of her lifein short, would set her up, on a very extensive

scale, in her father's business. Immediately, the venerable parenton a cold winter's night, it is said

Here, the Analytical Chemist (who has evidently formed a very low opinion of Mortimer's story) concedes a

little claret to the Buffers; who, again mysteriously moved all four at once, screw it slowly into themselves

'The pecuniary resources of Another were, as they usually are, of a very limited nature. I believe I am not

using too strong an expression when I say that Another was hard up. However, he married the young lady,

and they lived in a humble dwelling, probably possessing a porch ornamented with honeysuckle and

woodbine twining, until she died. I must refer you to the Registrar of the District in which the humble

dwelling was situated, for the certified cause of death; but early sorrow and anxiety may have had to do with

it, though they may not appear in the ruled pages and printed forms. Indisputably this was the case with

Another, for he was so cut up by the loss of his young wife that if he outlived her a year it was as much as he

There is that in the indolent Mortimer, which seems to hint that if good society might on any account allow

itself to be impressible, he, one of good society, might have the weakness to be impressed by what he here

relates. It is hidden with great pains, but it is in him. The gloomy Eugene too, is not without some kindred

touch; for, when that appalling Lady Tippins declares that if Another had survived, he should have gone

down at the head of her list of loversand also when the mature young lady shrugs her epaulettes, and

laughs at some private and confidential comment from the mature young gentlemanhis gloom deepens to

'We must now return, as novelists say, and as we all wish they wouldn't, to the man from Somewhere. Being

a boy of fourteen, cheaply educated at Brussels when his sister's expulsion befell, it was some little time

before he heard of itprobably from herself, for the mother was dead; but that I don't know. Instantly, he

absconded, and came over here. He must have been a boy of spirit and resource, to get here on a stopped

allowance of five sous a week; but he did it somehow, and he burst in on his father, and pleaded his sister's

cause. Venerable parent promptly resorts to anathematization, and turns him out. Shocked and terrified boy

takes flight, seeks his fortune, gets aboard ship, ultimately turns up on dry land among the Cape wine: small

At this juncture, shuffling is heard in the hall, and tapping is heard at the diningroom door. Analytical

Chemist goes to the door, confers angrily with unseen tapper, appears to become mollified by descrying

'So he was discovered, only the other day, after having been expatriated about fourteen years.'

A Buffer, suddenly astounding the other three, by detaching himself, and asserting individuality, inquires:

Same Buffer inquires with smartness, 'What of?' But herein perishes a melancholy example; being regarded

by the three other Buffers with a stony stare, and attracting no further attention from any mortal.

'Venerable parent,' Mortimer repeats with a passing remembrance that there is a Veneering at table, and for

The gratified Veneering repeats, gravely, 'dies'; and folds his arms, and composes his brow to hear it out in a

'His will is found,' said Mortimer, catching Mrs Podsnap's rocking horse's eye. 'It is dated very soon after

the son's flight. It leaves the lowest of the range of dustmountains, with some sort of a dwellinghouse at its

foot, to an old servant who is sole executor, and all the rest of the propertywhich is very considerableto

the son. He directs himself to be buried with certain eccentric ceremonies and precautions against his coming

to life, with which I need not bore you, and that's allexcept' and this ends the story.

The Analytical Chemist returning, everybody looks at him. Not because anybody wants to see him, but

because of that subtle influence in nature which impels humanity to embrace the slightest opportunity of

'Except that the son's inheriting is made conditional on his marrying a girl, who at the date of the will, was

a child of four or five years old, and who is now a marriageable young woman. Advertisement and inquiry

discovered the son in the man from Somewhere, and at the present moment, he is on his way home from

thereno doubt, in a state of great astonishmentto succeed to a very large fortune, and to take a wife.'

Mrs Podsnap inquires whether the young person is a young person of personal charms? Mortimer is unable to

Mr Podsnap inquires what would become of the very large fortune, in the event of the marriage condition not

being fulfilled? Mortimer replies, that by special testamentary clause it would then go to the old servant

above mentioned, passing over and excluding the son; also, that if the son had not been living, the same old

Mrs Veneering has just succeeded in waking Lady Tippins from a snore, by dexterously shunting a train of

plates and dishes at her knuckles across the table; when everybody but Mortimer himself becomes aware that

the Analytical Chemist is, in a ghostly manner, offering him a folded paper. Curiosity detains Mrs Veneering

Mortimer, in spite of all the arts of the chemist, placidly refreshes himself with a glass of Madeira, and

remains unconscious of the Document which engrosses the general attention, until Lady Tippins (who has a

habit of waking totally insensible), having remembered where she is, and recovered a perception of

surrounding objects, says: 'Falser man than Don Juan; why don't you take the note from the commendatore?'

Upon which, the chemist advances it under the nose of Mortimer, who looks round at him, and says:

Mortimer stares at him, and unfolds the paper. Reads it, reads it twice, turns it over to look at the blank

'This arrives in an extraordinarily opportune manner,' says Mortimer then, looking with an altered face round

'Why, no,' says Mortimer; 'remarkable thing, you are all wrong. The story is completer and rather more

As the disappearing skirts of the ladies ascended the Veneering staircase, Mortimer, following them forth

from the diningroom, turned into a library of brannew books, in brannew bindings liberally gilded, and

requested to see the messenger who had brought the paper. He was a boy of about fifteen. Mortimer looked at

the boy, and the boy looked at the brannew pilgrims on the wall, going to Canterbury in more gold frame

The boy hesitated, looked reproachfully at the pilgrims as if they had involved him in a little difficulty, then

said, folding a plait in the right leg of his trousers, 'He gets his living alongshore.'

'Is which far?' asked the boy, upon his guard, and again upon the road to Canterbury.

'It's a goodish stretch, sir. I come up in a cab, and the cab's waiting to be paid. We could go back in it before

you paid it, if you liked. I went first to your office, according to the direction of the papers found in the

pockets, and there I see nobody but a chap of about my age who sent me on here.'

There was a curious mixture in the boy, of uncompleted savagery, and uncompleted civilization. His voice

was hoarse and coarse, and his face was coarse, and his stunted figure was coarse; but he was cleaner than

other boys of his type; and his writing, though large and round, was good; and he glanced at the backs of the

books, with an awakened curiosity that went below the binding. No one who can read, ever looks at a book,

'Were any means taken, do you know, boy, to ascertain if it was possible to restore life?' Mortimer inquired,

'You wouldn't ask, sir, if you knew his state. Pharaoh's multitude that were drowned in the Red Sea, ain't

more beyond restoring to life. If Lazarus was only half as far gone, that was the greatest of all the miracles.'

'Halloa!' cried Mortimer, turning round with his hat upon his head, 'you seem to be at home in the Red Sea,

'Yes, and him too. But don't you tell my father! We should have no peace in our place, if that got touched

'She ain't half bad,' said the boy; 'but if she knows her letters it's the most she doesand them I learned her.'

The gloomy Eugene, with his hands in his pockets, had strolled in and assisted at the latter part of the

dialogue; when the boy spoke these words slightingly of his sister, he took him roughly enough by the chin,

Eugene vouchsafed no answer; but made the proposal to Mortimer, 'I'll go with you, if you like?' So, they all

three went away together in the vehicle that had brought the boy; the two friends (once boys together at a

public school) inside, smoking cigars; the messenger on the box beside the driver.

'Let me see,' said Mortimer, as they went along; 'I have been, Eugene, upon the honourable roll of solicitors

of the High Court of Chancery, and attorneys at Common Law, five years; andexcept gratuitously taking

instructions, on an average once a fortnight, for the will of Lady Tippins who has nothing to leaveI have

'And I,' said Eugene, 'have been "called" seven years, and have had no business at all, and never shall have

'I am far from being clear as to the last particular,' returned Mortimer, with great composure, 'that I have

'I hate,' said Eugene, putting his legs up on the opposite seat, 'I hate my profession.'

'Shall I incommode you, if I put mine up too?' returned Mortimer. 'Thank you. I hate mine.'

'It was forced upon me,' said the gloomy Eugene, 'because it was understood that we wanted a barrister in the

'It was forced upon me,' said Mortimer, 'because it was understood that we wanted a solicitor in the family.

'There are four of us, with our names painted on a doorpost in right of one black hole called a set of

chambers,' said Eugene; 'and each of us has the fourth of a clerkCassim Baba, in the robber's caveand

'I am one by myself, one,' said Mortimer, 'high up an awful staircase commanding a burialground, and I

have a whole clerk to myself, and he has nothing to do but look at the burialground, and what he will turn

out when arrived at maturity, I cannot conceive. Whether, in that shabby rook's nest, he is always plotting

wisdom, or plotting murder; whether he will grow up, after so much solitary brooding, to enlighten his

fellowcreatures, or to poison them; is the only speck of interest that presents itself to my professional view.

'Then idiots talk,' said Eugene, leaning back, folding his arms, smoking with his eyes shut, and speaking

slightly through his nose, 'of Energy. If there is a word in the dictionary under any letter from A to Z that I

abominate, it is energy. It is such a conventional superstition, such parrot gabble! What the deuce! Am I to

rush out into the street, collar the first man of a wealthy appearance that I meet, shake him, and say, "Go to

law upon the spot, you dog, and retain me, or I'll be the death of you"? Yet that would be energy.'

'Precisely my view of the case, Eugene. But show me a good opportunity, show me something really worth

And it is likely enough that ten thousand other young men, within the limits of the London Postoffice town

The wheels rolled on, and rolled down by the Monument and by the Tower, and by the Docks; down by

Ratcliffe, and by Rotherhithe; down by where accumulated scum of humanity seemed to be washed from

higher grounds, like so much moral sewage, and to be pausing until its own weight forced it over the bank

and sunk it in the river. In and out among vessels that seemed to have got ashore, and houses that seemed to

have got afloatamong bowsplits staring into windows, and windows staring into shipsthe wheels rolled

on, until they stopped at a dark corner, riverwashed and otherwise not washed at all, where the boy alighted

'You must walk the rest, sir; it's not many yards.' He spoke in the singular number, to the express exclusion of

'This is a confoundedly outoftheway place,' said Mortimer, slipping over the stones and refuse on the

The low building had the look of having once been a mill. There was a rotten wart of wood upon its forehead

that seemed to indicate where the sails had been, but the whole was very indistinctly seen in the obscurity of

the night. The boy lifted the latch of the door, and they passed at once into a low circular room, where a man

stood before a red fire, looking down into it, and a girl sat engaged in needlework. The fire was in a rusty

brazier, not fitted to the hearth; and a common lamp, shaped like a hyacinth root, smoked and flared in the

neck of a stone bottle on the table. There was a wooden bunk or berth in a corner, and in another corner a

wooden stair leading aboveso clumsy and steep that it was little better than a ladder. Two or three old

sculls and oars stood against the wall, and against another part of the wall was a small dresser, making a spare

show of the commonest articles of crockery and cookingvessels. The roof of the room was not plastered, but

was formed of the flooring of the room above. This, being very old, knotted, seamed, and beamed, gave a

lowering aspect to the chamber; and roof, and walls, and floor, alike abounding in old smears of flour,

redlead (or some such stain which it had probably acquired in warehousing), and damp, alike had a look of

The figure at the red fire turned, raised its ruffled head, and looked like a bird of prey.

'Mortimer Lightwood is my name. What you found,' said Mortimer, glancing rather shrinkingly towards the

''Tain't not to say here, but it's close by. I do everything reg'lar. I've giv' notice of the circumstarnce to the

police, and the police have took possession of it. No time ain't been lost, on any hand. The police have put

Taking up the bottle with the lamp in it, he held it near a paper on the wall, with the police heading, BODY

FOUND. The two friends read the handbill as it stuck against the wall, and Gaffer read them as he held the

'Only papers on the unfortunate man, I see,' said Lightwood, glancing from the description of what was

Gaffer Hexam nodded. 'But that's common. Whether it's the wash of the tide or no, I can't say. Now, here,'

moving the light to another similar placard, 'HIS pockets was found empty, and turned inside out. And here,'

moving the light to another, 'HER pocket was found empty, and turned inside out. And so was this one's. And

so was that one's. I can't read, nor I don't want to it, for I know 'em by their places on the wall. This one was a

sailor, with two anchors and a flag and G. F. T. on his arm. Look and see if he warn't.'

'This one was the young woman in grey boots, and her linen marked with a cross. Look and see if she warn't.'

'This is him as had a nasty cut over the eye. This is them two young sisters what tied themselves together with

a handkecher. This the drunken old chap, in a pair of list slippers and a nightcap, wot had offeredit

afterwards come outto make a hole in the water for a quartern of rum stood aforehand, and kept to his

word for the first and last time in his life. They pretty well papers the room, you see; but I know 'em all. I'm

He waved the light over the whole, as if to typify the light of his scholarly intelligence, and then put it down

on the table and stood behind it looking intently at his visitors. He had the special peculiarity of some birds of

'Mr Eugene Wrayburn, is it? And what might Mr Eugene Wrayburn have asked of me?'

'Do you suppose there has been much violence and robbery, beforehand, among these cases?'

'I don't suppose at all about it,' returned Gaffer. 'I ain't one of the supposing sort. If you'd got your living to

haul out of the river every day of your life, you mightn't be much given to supposing. Am I to show the way?'

As he opened the door, in pursuance of a nod from Lightwood, an extremely pale and disturbed face appeared

'IIam a stranger, and don't know the way. IIwant to find the place where I can see what is

described here. It is possible I may know it.' He was panting, and could hardly speak; but, he showed a copy

of the newlyprinted bill that was still wet upon the wall. Perhaps its newness, or perhaps the accuracy of his

During a pause, Mortimer and the stranger confronted each other. Neither knew the other.

'I think, sir,' said Mortimer, breaking the awkward silence with his airy selfpossession, 'that you did me the

'Then I believe I can assure you that you are on a fruitless errand, and will not find what you fear to find. Will

A little winding through some muddy alleys that might have been deposited by the last illsavoured tide,

brought them to the wicket gate and bright lamp of a Police Station; where they found the NightInspector,

with a pen and ink, and ruler, posting up his books in a whitewashed office, as studiously as if he were in a

monastery on top of a mountain, and no howling fury of a drunken woman were banging herself against a

celldoor in the backyard at his elbow. With the same air of a recluse much given to study, he desisted from

his books to bestow a distrustful nod of recognition upon Gaffer, plainly importing, 'Ah! we know all about

YOU, and you'll overdo it some day;' and to inform Mr Morrimer Lightwood and friends, that he would

attend them immediately. Then, he finished ruling the work he had in hand (it might have been illuminating a

missal, he was so calm), in a very neat and methodical manner, showing not the slightest consciousness of the

woman who was banging herself with increased violence, and shrieking most terrifically for some other

'A bull'seye,' said the NightInspector, taking up his keys. Which a deferential satellite produced. 'Now,

With one of his keys, he opened a cool grot at the end of the yard, and they all went in. They quickly came

out again, no one speaking but Eugene: who remarked to Mortimer, in a whisper, 'Not MUCH worse than

So, back to the whitewashed library of the monasterywith that liver still in shrieking requisition, as it had

been loudly, while they looked at the silent sight they came to seeand there through the merits of the case

as summed up by the Abbot. No clue to how body came into river. Very often was no clue. Too late to know

for certain, whether injuries received before or after death; one excellent surgical opinion said, before; other

excellent surgical opinion said, after. Steward of ship in which gentleman came home passenger, had been

round to view, and could swear to identity. Likewise could swear to clothes. And then, you see, you had the

papers, too. How was it he had totally disappeared on leaving ship, 'till found in river? Well! Probably had

been upon some little game. Probably thought it a harmless game, wasn't up to things, and it turned out a fatal

'It appears to have knocked your friend overknocked him completely off his legs,' Mr Inspector remarked,

when he had finished his summing up. 'It has given him a bad turn to be sure!' This was said in a very low

'Indeed?' said Mr Inspector, with an attentive ear; 'where did you pick him up?'

Mr Inspector had delivered his summing up, and had added these words, with his elbows leaning on his desk,

and the fingers and thumb of his right hand, fitting themselves to the fingers and thumb of his left. Mr

The stranger, who was leaning against the chimneypiece with drooping head, looked round and answered,

'Who did you think it might have been?' asked Mr Inspector. 'Give us a description, sir. Perhaps we can help

Mr Inspector had not moved, and had given no order; but, the satellite slipped his back against the wicket,

and laid his left arm along the top of it, and with his right hand turned the bull'seye he had taken from his

'You missed a friend, you know; or you missed a foe, you know; or you wouldn't have come here, you know.

'You must excuse my telling you. No class of man can understand better than you, that families may not

choose to publish their disagreements and misfortunes, except on the last necessity. I do not dispute that you

discharge your duty in asking me the question; you will not dispute my right to withhold the answer.

Again he turned towards the wicket, where the satellite, with his eye upon his chief, remained a dumb statue.

'At least,' said Mr Inspector, 'you will not object to leave me your card, sir?'

'I should not object, if I had one; but I have not.' He reddened and was much confused as he gave the answer.

'At least,' said Mr Inspector, with no change of voice or manner, 'you will not object to write down your name

Mr Inspector dipped a pen in his inkstand, and deftly laid it on a piece of paper close beside him; then

resumed his former attitude. The stranger stepped up to the desk, and wrote in a rather tremulous handMr

Inspector taking sidelong note of every hair of his head when it was bent down for the purpose'Mr Julius

The satellite removed his arm and opened the wicket, and Mr Julius Handford went out.

'Reserve!' said Mr Inspector. 'Take care of this piece of paper, keep him in view without giving offence,

The satellite was gone; and Mr Inspector, becoming once again the quiet Abbot of that Monastery, dipped his

pen in his ink and resumed his books. The two friends who had watched him, more amused by the

professional manner than suspicious of Mr Julius Handford, inquired before taking their departure too

The Abbot replied with reticence, couldn't say. If a murder, anybody might have done it. Burglary or

pocketpicking wanted 'prenticeship. Not so, murder. We were all of us up to that. Had seen scores of people

come to identify, and never saw one person struck in that particular way. Might, however, have been Stomach

and not Mind. If so, rum stomach. But to be sure there were rum everythings. Pity there was not a word of

truth in that superstition about bodies bleeding when touched by the hand of the right person; you never got a

sign out of bodies. You got row enough out of such as hershe was good for all night now (referring here to

the banging demands for the liver), 'but you got nothing out of bodies if it was ever so.'

There being nothing more to be done until the Inquest was held next day, the friends went away together, and

Gaffer Hexam and his son went their separate way. But, arriving at the last corner, Gaffer bade his boy go

home while he turned into a redcurtained tavern, that stood dropsically bulging over the causeway, 'for a

The boy lifted the latch he had lifted before, and found his sister again seated before the fire at her work. Who

'One of the gentlemen, the one who didn't speak while I was there, looked hard at me. And I was afraid he

might know what my face meant. But there! Don't mind me, Charley! I was all in a tremble of another sort

'Ah! But I made believe I wrote so badly, as that it was odds if any one could read it. And when I wrote

slowest and smeared but with my finger most, father was best pleased, as he stood looking over me.'

The girl put aside her work, and drawing her seat close to his seat by the fire, laid her arm gently on his

'Yes, Charley, yes. You work hard at your learning, I know. And I work a little, Charley, and plan and

contrive a little (wake out of my sleep contriving sometimes), how to get together a shilling now, and a

shilling then, that shall make father believe you are beginning to earn a stray living along shore.'

'I wish I could, Charley! For if I could make him believe that learning was a good thing, and that we might

She placed her hands in one another on his shoulder, and laying her rich brown cheek against them as she

'At the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters,' the boy struck in, with a backward nod of his head towards the

'Yes. Then as I sit alooking at the fire, I seem to see in the burning coallike where that glow is now'

'That's gas, that is,' said the boy, 'coming out of a bit of a forest that's been under the mud that was under the

water in the days of Noah's Ark. Look here! When I take the pokersoand give it a dig'

'Don't disturb it, Charley, or it'll be all in a blaze. It's that dull glow near it, coming and going, that I mean.

'Why, there are you and me, Charley, when you were quite a baby that never knew a mother'

'Don't go saying I never knew a mother,' interposed the boy, 'for I knew a little sister that was sister and

The girl laughed delightedly, and here eyes filled with pleasant tears, as he put both his arms round her waist

'There are you and me, Charley, when father was away at work and locked us out, for fear we should set

ourselves afire or fall out of window, sitting on the doorsill, sitting on other doorsteps, sitting on the bank

of the river, wandering about to get through the time. You are rather heavy to carry, Charley, and I am often

obliged to rest. Sometimes we are sleepy and fall asleep together in a corner, sometimes we are very hungry,

sometimes we are a little frightened, but what is oftenest hard upon us is the cold. You remember, Charley?'

'I remember,' said the boy, pressing her to him twice or thrice, 'that I snuggled under a little shawl, and it was

'Sometimes it rains, and we creep under a boat or the like of that: sometimes it's dark, and we get among the

gaslights, sitting watching the people as they go along the streets. At last, up comes father and takes us home.

And home seems such a shelter after out of doors! And father pulls my shoes off, and dries my feet at the fire,

and has me to sit by him while he smokes his pipe long after you are abed, and I notice that father's is a large

hand but never a heavy one when it touches me, and that father's is a rough voice but never an angry one

when it speaks to me. So, I grow up, and little by little father trusts me, and makes me his companion, and, let

The listening boy gave a grunt here, as much as to say 'But he strikes ME though!'

'Cut away again,' said the boy, 'and give us a fortunetelling one; a future one.'

'Well! There am I, continuing with father and holding to father, because father loves me and I love father. I

can't so much as read a book, because, if I had learned, father would have thought I was deserting him, and I

should have lost my influence. I have not the influence I want to have, I cannot stop some dreadful things I

try to stop, but I go on in the hope and trust that the time will come. In the meanwhile I know that I am in

some things a stay to father, and that if I was not faithful to him he wouldin revengelike, or in

'I was passing on to them, Charley,' said the girl, who had not changed her attitude since she began, and who

'There seems to be the deuceandall in the hollow down by the flare,' said the boy, glancing from her eyes

'There are you, Charley, working your way, in secret from father, at the school; and you get prizes; and you

go on better and better; and you come to be awhat was it you called it when you told me about that?'

'Ha, ha! Fortunetelling not know the name!' cried the boy, seeming to be rather relieved by this default on

'You come to be a pupilteacher, and you still go on better and better, and you rise to be a master full of

learning and respect. But the secret has come to father's knowledge long before, and it has divided you from

'Yes it has, Charley. I see, as plain as plain can be, that your way is not ours, and that even if father could be

got to forgive your taking it (which he never could be), that way of yours would be darkened by our way. But

'Ah! Still. That it is a great work to have cut you away from father's life, and to have made a new and good

beginning. So there am I, Charley, left alone with father, keeping him as straight as I can, watching for more

influence than I have, and hoping that through some fortunate chance, or when he is ill, or whenI don't

'You said you couldn't read a book, Lizzie. Your library of books is the hollow down by the flare, I think.'

'I should be very glad to be able to read real books. I feel my want of learning very much, Charley. But I

should feel it much more, if I didn't know it to be a tie between me and father.Hark! Father's tread!'

It being now past midnight, the bird of prey went straight to roost. At midday following he reappeared at the

Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, in the character, not new to him, of a witness before a Coroner's Jury.

Mr Mortimer Lightwood, besides sustaining the character of one of the witnesses, doubled the part with that

of the eminent solicitor who watched the proceedings on behalf of the representatives of the deceased, as was

duly recorded in the newspapers. Mr Inspector watched the proceedings too, and kept his watching closely to

himself. Mr Julius Handford having given his right address, and being reported in solvent circumstances as to

his bill, though nothing more was known of him at his hotel except that his way of life was very retired, had

no summons to appear, and was merely present in the shades of Mr Inspector's mind.

The case was made interesting to the public, by Mr Mortimer Lighiwood's evidence touching the

circumstances under which the deceased, Mr John Harmon, had returned to England; exclusive private

proprietorship in which circumstances was set up at dinner tables for several days, by Veneering, Twemlow,

Podsnap, and all the Buffers: who all related them irreconcilably with one another, and contradicted

themselves. It was also made interesting by the testimony of Job Potterson, the ship's steward, and one Mr

Jacob Kibble, a fellowpassenger, that the deceased Mr John Harmon did bring over, in a handvalise with

which he did disembark, the sum realized by the forced sale of his little landed property, and that the sum

exceeded, in ready money, seven hundred pounds. It was further made interesting, by the remarkable

experiences of Jesse Hexam in having rescued from the Thames so many dead bodies, and for whose behoof

a rapturous admirer subscribing himself 'A friend to Burial' (perhaps an undertaker), sent eighteen postage

Upon the evidence adduced before them, the Jury found, That the body of Mr John Harmon had been

discovered floating in the Thames, in an advanced state of decay, and much injured; and that the said Mr John

Harmon had come by his death under highly suspicious circumstances, though by whose act or in what

precise manner there was no evidence before this Jury to show. And they appended to their verdict, a

recommendation to the Home Office (which Mr Inspector appeared to think highly sensible), to offer a

reward for the solution of the mystery. Within eightandforty hours, a reward of One Hundred Pounds was

proclaimed, together with a free pardon to any person or persons not the actual perpetrator or perpetrators,

This Proclamation rendered Mr Inspector additionally studious, and caused him to stand meditating on

riverstairs and causeways, and to go lurking about in boats, putting this and that together. But, according to

the success with which you put this and that together, you get a woman and a fish apart, or a Mermaid in

combination. And Mr Inspector could turn out nothing better than a Mermaid, which no Judge and Jury

Thus, like the tides on which it had been borne to the knowledge of men, the Harmon Murderas it came to

be popularly calledwent up and down, and ebbed and flowed, now in the town, now in the country, now

among palaces, now among hovels, now among lords and ladies and gentlefolks, now among labourers and

hammerers and ballastheavers, until at last, after a long interval of slack water it got out to sea and drifted

Reginald Wilfer is a name with rather a grand sound, suggesting on first acquaintance brasses in country

churches, scrolls in stainedglass windows, and generally the De Wilfers who came over with the Conqueror.

For, it is a remarkable fact in genealogy that no De Any ones ever came over with Anybody else.

But, the Reginald Wilfer family were of such commonplace extraction and pursuits that their forefathers had

for generations modestly subsisted on the Docks, the Excise Office, and the Custom House, and the existing

R. Wilfer was a poor clerk. So poor a clerk, though having a limited salary and an unlimited family, that he

had never yet attained the modest object of his ambition: which was, to wear a complete new suit of clothes,

hat and boots included, at one time. His black hat was brown before he could afford a coat, his pantaloons

were white at the seams and knees before he could buy a pair of boots, his boots had worn out before he

could treat himself to new pantaloons, and, by the time he worked round to the hat again, that shining modern

If the conventional Cherub could ever grow up and be clothed, he might be photographed as a portrait of

Wilfer. His chubby, smooth, innocent appearance was a reason for his being always treated with

condescension when he was not put down. A stranger entering his own poor house at about ten o'clock P.M.

might have been surprised to find him sitting up to supper. So boyish was he in his curves and proportions,

that his old schoolmaster meeting him in Cheapside, might have been unable to withstand the temptation of

caning him on the spot. In short, he was the conventional cherub, after the supposititious shoot just

mentioned, rather grey, with signs of care on his expression, and in decidedly insolvent circumstances.

He was shy, and unwilling to own to the name of Reginald, as being too aspiring and selfassertive a name.

In his signature he used only the initial R., and imparted what it really stood for, to none but chosen friends,

under the seal of confidence. Out of this, the facetious habit had arisen in the neighbourhood surrounding

Mincing Lane of making christian names for him of adjectives and participles beginning with R. Some of

these were more or less appropriate: as Rusty, Retiring, Ruddy, Round, Ripe, Ridiculous, Ruminative; others,

derived their point from their want of application: as Raging, Rattling, Roaring, Raffish. But, his popular

name was Rumty, which in a moment of inspiration had been bestowed upon him by a gentleman of

convivial habits connected with the drugmarkets, as the beginning of a social chorus, his leading part in the

execution of which had led this gentleman to the Temple of Fame, and of which the whole expressive burden

Thus he was constantly addressed, even in minor notes on business, as 'Dear Rumty'; in answer to which, he

He was clerk in the drughouse of Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles. Chicksey and Stobbles, his former

masters, had both become absorbed in Veneering, once their traveller or commission agent: who had

signalized his accession to supreme power by bringing into the business a quantity of plateglass window and

R. Wilfer locked up his desk one evening, and, putting his bunch of keys in his pocket much as if it were his

pegtop, made for home. His home was in the Holloway region north of London, and then divided from it by

fields and trees. Between Battle Bridge and that part of the Holloway district in which he dwelt, was a tract of

suburban Sahara, where tiles and bricks were burnt, bones were boiled, carpets were beat, rubbish was shot,

dogs were fought, and dust was heaped by contractors. Skirting the border of this desert, by the way he took,

when the light of its kilnfires made lurid smears on the fog, R. Wilfer sighed and shook his head.

With which commentary on human life, indicating an experience of it not exclusively his own, he made the

Mrs Wilfer was, of course, a tall woman and an angular. Her lord being cherubic, she was necessarily

majestic, according to the principle which matrimonially unites contrasts. She was much given to tying up her

head in a pockethandkerchief, knotted under the chin. This headgear, in conjunction with a pair of gloves

worn within doors, she seemed to consider as at once a kind of armour against misfortune (invariably

assuming it when in low spirits or difficulties), and as a species of full dress. It was therefore with some

sinking of the spirit that her husband beheld her thus heroically attired, putting down her candle in the little

hall, and coming down the doorsteps through the little front court to open the gate for him.

Something had gone wrong with the housedoor, for R. Wilfer stopped on the steps, staring at it, and cried:

'Yes,' said Mrs Wilfer, 'the man came himself with a pair of pincers, and took it off, and took it away. He said

that as he had no expectation of ever being paid for it, and as he had an order for another LADIES' SCHOOL

'You are master here, R. W.,' returned his wife. 'It is as you think; not as I do. Perhaps it might have been

'It is as you think, R. W.; not as I do.' With those submissive words, the dutiful wife preceded him down a

few stairs to a little basement front room, half kitchen, half parlour, where a girl of about nineteen, with an

exceedingly pretty figure and face, but with an impatient and petulant expression both in her face and in her

shoulders (which in her sex and at her age are very expressive of discontent), sat playing draughts with a

younger girl, who was the youngest of the House of Wilfer. Not to encumber this page by telling off the

Wilfers in detail and casting them up in the gross, it is enough for the present that the rest were what is called

'out in the world,' in various ways, and that they were Many. So many, that when one of his dutiful children

called in to see him, R. Wilfer generally seemed to say to himself, after a little mental arithmetic, 'Oh! here's

another of 'em!' before adding aloud, 'How de do, John,' or Susan, as the case might be.

'Well Piggywiggies,' said R. W., 'how de do tonight? What I was thinking of, my dear,' to Mrs Wilfer

already seated in a corner with folded gloves, 'was, that as we have let our first floor so well, and as we have

'The milkman said he knew of two young ladies of the highest respectability who were in search of a suitable

establishment, and he took a card,' interposed Mrs Wilfer, with severe monotony, as if she were reading an

'In addition to which, my dear,' her husband urged, 'if you have no place to put two young persons into'

'Pardon me,' Mrs Wilfer again interposed; 'they were not young persons. Two young ladies of the highest

'No it is not,' said Mrs Wilfer, with the same impressive monotony. 'Pardon me!'

'I mean, my dear, it is the same thing as to space. As to space. If you have no space in which to put two

youthful fellowcreatures, however eminently respectable, which I do not doubt, where are those youthful

fellowcreatures to be accommodated? I carry it no further than that. And solely looking at it,' said her

husband, making the stipulation at once in a conciliatory, complimentary, and argumentative tone'as I am

'I have nothing more to say,' returned Mrs Wilfer, with a meek renunciatory action of her gloves. 'It is as you

Here, the huffing of Miss Bella and the loss of three of her men at a swoop, aggravated by the coronation of

an opponent, led to that young lady's jerking the draughtboard and pieces off the table: which her sister went

It was one of the worthy woman's specialities that she had an amazing power of gratifying her splenetic or

wordlyminded humours by extolling her own family: which she thus proceeded, in the present case, to do.

'No, R. W. Lavinia has not known the trial that Bella has known. The trial that your daughter Bella has

undergone, is, perhaps, without a parallel, and has been borne, I will say, Nobly. When you see your daughter

Bella in her black dress, which she alone of all the family wears, and when you remember the circumstances

which have led to her wearing it, and when you know how those circumstances have been sustained, then, R.

Here, Miss Lavinia, from her kneeling situation under the table, put in that she didn't want to be 'poored by

'I am sure you do not, my dear,' returned her mother, 'for you have a fine brave spirit. And your sister Cecilia

has a fine brave spirit of another kind, a spirit of pure devotion, a beautiful spirit! The selfsacrifice of

Cecilia reveals a pure and womanly character, very seldom equalled, never surpassed. I have now in my

pocket a letter from your sister Cecilia, received this morningreceived three months after her marriage,

poor child!in which she tells me that her husband must unexpectedly shelter under their roof his reduced

aunt. "But I will be true to him, mamma," she touchingly writes, "I will not leave him, I must not forget that

he is my husband. Let his aunt come!" If this is not pathetic, if this is not woman's devotion!' The good

lady waved her gloves in a sense of the impossibility of saying more, and tied the pocket handkerchief over

Bella, who was now seated on the rug to warm herself, with her brown eyes on the fire and a handful of her

'I am sure,' said she, 'though you have no feeling for me, pa, I am one of the most unfortunate girls that ever

lived. You know how poor we are' (it is probable he did, having some reason to know it!), 'and what a

glimpse of wealth I had, and how it melted away, and how I am here in this ridiculous mourningwhich I

hate!a kind of a widow who never was married. And yet you don't feel for me.Yes you do, yes you do.'

This abrupt change was occasioned by her father's face. She stopped to pull him down from his chair in an

attitude highly favourable to strangulation, and to give him a kiss and a pat or two on the cheek.

'Yes, and I say you ought to. If they had only left me alone and told me nothing about it, it would have

mattered much less. But that nasty Mr Lightwood feels it his duty, as he says, to write and tell me what is in

Here, Lavinia, rising to the surface with the last draughtman rescued, interposed, 'You never cared for George

'And did I say I did, miss?' Then, pouting again, with the curls in her mouth; 'George Sampson was very fond

'And did I say I wasn't, miss? I am not setting up to be sentimental about George Sampson. I only say George

'You are a chit and a little idiot,' returned Bella, 'or you wouldn't make such a dolly speech. What did you

expect me to do? Wait till you are a woman, and don't talk about what you don't understand. You only show

your ignorance!' Then, whimpering again, and at intervals biting the curls, and stopping to look how much

was bitten off, 'It's a shame! There never was such a hard case! I shouldn't care so much if it wasn't so

ridiculous. It was ridiculous enough to have a stranger coming over to marry me, whether he liked it or not. It

was ridiculous enough to know what an embarrassing meeting it would be, and how we never could pretend

to have an inclination of our own, either of us. It was ridiculous enough to know I shouldn't like himhow

COULD I like him, left to him in a will, like a dozen of spoons, with everything cut and dried beforehand,

like orange chips. Talk of orange flowers indeed! I declare again it's a shame! Those ridiculous points would

have been smoothed away by the money, for I love money, and want moneywant it dreadfully. I hate to be

poor, and we are degradingly poor, offensively poor, miserably poor, beastly poor. But here I am, left with all

the ridiculous parts of the situation remaining, and, added to them all, this ridiculous dress! And if the truth

was known, when the Harmon murder was all over the town, and people were speculating on its being

suicide, I dare say those impudent wretches at the clubs and places made jokes about the miserable creature's

having preferred a watery grave to me. It's likely enough they took such liberties; I shouldn't wonder! I

declare it's a very hard case indeed, and I am a most unfortunate girl. The idea of being a kind of a widow,

and never having been married! And the idea of being as poor as ever after all, and going into black, besides,

for a man I never saw, and should have hatedas far as HE was concernedif I had seen!'

The young lady's lamentations were checked at this point by a knuckle, knocking at the halfopen door of the

room. The knuckle had knocked two or three times already, but had not been heard.

A gentleman coming in, Miss Bella, with a short and sharp exclamation, scrambled off the hearthrug and

'The servant girl had her key in the door as I came up, and directed me to this room, telling me I was

'Pardon me,' returned Mrs Wilfer. 'Not at all. Two of my daughters. R. W., this is the gentleman who has

taken your first floor. He was so good as to make an appointment for tonight, when you would be at home.'

A dark gentleman. Thirty at the utmost. An expressive, one might say handsome, face. A very bad manner. In

the last degree constrained, reserved, diffident, troubled. His eyes were on Miss Bella for an instant, and then

'Seeing that I am quite satisfied, Mr Wilfer, with the rooms, and with their situation, and with their price, I

suppose a memorandum between us of two or three lines, and a payment down, will bind the bargain? I wish

Two or three times during this short address, the cherub addressed had made chubby motions towards a chair.

The gentleman now took it, laying a hesitating hand on a corner of the table, and with another hesitating hand

'The gentleman, R. W.,' said Mrs Wilfer, 'proposes to take your apartments by the quarter. A quarter's notice

'Shall I mention, sir,' insinuated the landlord, expecting it to be received as a matter of course, 'the form of a

'I think,' returned the gentleman, after a pause, 'that a reference is not necessary; neither, to say the truth, is it

convenient, for I am a stranger in London. I require no reference from you, and perhaps, therefore, you will

require none from me. That will be fair on both sides. Indeed, I show the greater confidence of the two, for I

will pay in advance whatever you please, and I am going to trust my furniture here. Whereas, if you were in

Conscience causing R. Wilfer to colour, Mrs Wilfer, from a corner (she always got into stately corners) came

'Well!' observed R. Wilfer, cheerfully, 'money and goods are certainly the best of references.'

'Do you think they ARE the best, pa?' asked Miss Bella, in a low voice, and without looking over her

'I should have thought, myself, it was so easy to add the usual kind of one,' said Bella, with a toss of her curls.

The gentleman listened to her, with a face of marked attention, though he neither looked up nor changed his

attitude. He sat, still and silent, until his future landlord accepted his proposals, and brought writing materials

When the agreement was ready in duplicate (the landlord having worked at it like some cherubic scribe, in

what is conventionally called a doubtful, which means a not at all doubtful, Old Master), it was signed by the

contracting parties, Bella looking on as scornful witness. The contracting parties were R. Wilfer, and John

When it came to Bella's turn to sign her name, Mr Rokesmith, who was standing, as he had sat, with a

hesitating hand upon the table, looked at her stealthily, but narrowly. He looked at the pretty figure bending

down over the paper and saying, 'Where am I to go, pa? Here, in this corner?' He looked at the beautiful

brown hair, shading the coquettish face; he looked at the free dash of the signature, which was a bold one for

As there was nothing more to do but pay eight sovereigns in earnest of the bargain, pocket the agreement,

appoint a time for the arrival of his furniture and himself, and go, Mr Rokesmith did that as awkwardly as it

might be done, and was escorted by his landlord to the outer air. When R. Wilfer returned, candlestick in

'To see him unable for his life to look anybody in the face!' said Bella. 'There never was such an exhibition.'

'My dears,' said their father, 'he is a diffident gentleman, and I should say particularly so in the society of girls

'Nonsense, our age!' cried Bella, impatiently. 'What's that got to do with him?'

'Never YOU mind, Lavvy,' retorted Bella; 'you wait till you are of an age to ask such questions. Pa, mark my

words! Between Mr Rokesmith and me, there is a natural antipathy and a deep distrust; and something will

'My dear, and girls,' said the cherubpatriarch, 'between Mr Rokesmith and me, there is a matter of eight

sovereigns, and something for supper shall come of it, if you'll agree upon the article.'

This was a neat and happy turn to give the subject, treats being rare in the Wilfer household, where a

monotonous appearance of Dutchcheese at ten o'clock in the evening had been rather frequently commented

on by the dimpled shoulders of Miss Bella. Indeed, the modest Dutchman himself seemed conscious of his

want of variety, and generally came before the family in a state of apologetic perspiration. After some

discussion on the relative merits of vealcutlet, sweetbread, and lobster, a decision was pronounced in favour

of vealcutlet. Mrs Wilfer then solemnly divested herself of her handkerchief and gloves, as a preliminary

sacrifice to preparing the fryingpan, and R. W. himself went out to purchase the viand. He soon returned,

bearing the same in a fresh cabbageleaf, where it coyly embraced a rasher of ham. Melodious sounds were

not long in rising from the fryingpan on the fire, or in seeming, as the firelight danced in the mellow halls of

The cloth was laid by Lavvy. Bella, as the acknowledged ornament of the family, employed both her hands in

giving her hair an additional wave while sitting in the easiest chair, and occasionally threw in a direction

touching the supper: as, 'Very brown, ma;' or, to her sister, 'Put the saltcellar straight, miss, and don't be a

Meantime her father, chinking Mr Rokesmith's gold as he sat expectant between his knife and fork, remarked

that six of those sovereigns came just in time for their landlord, and stood them in a little pile on the white

But, observing a fall in her father's face, she went and sat down by him at the table, and began touching up

his hair with the handle of a fork. It was one of the girl's spoilt ways to be always arranging the family's

hairperhaps because her own was so pretty, and occupied so much of her attention.

'At any rate I, for one, want it more than another,' said Bella, holding him by the chin, as she stuck his flaxen

hair on end, 'and I grudge this money going to the Monster that swallows up so much, when we all

wantEverything. And if you say (as you want to say; I know you want to say so, pa) "that's neither

reasonable nor honest, Bella," then I answer, "Maybe not, pavery likelybut it's one of the consequences

of being poor, and of thoroughly hating and detesting to be poor, and that's my case." Now, you look lovely,

pa; why don't you always wear your hair like that? And here's the cutlet! If it isn't very brown, ma, I can't eat

However, as it was brown, even to Bella's taste, the young lady graciously partook of it without

reconsignment to the fryingpan, and also, in due course, of the contents of the two bottles: whereof one held

Scotch ale and the other rum. The latter perfume, with the fostering aid of boiling water and lemonpeel,

diffused itself throughout the room, and became so highly concentrated around the warm fireside, that the

wind passing over the house roof must have rushed off charged with a delicious whiff of it, after buzzing like

'Pa,' said Bella, sipping the fragrant mixture and warming her favourite ankle; 'when old Mr Harmon made

such a fool of me (not to mention himself, as he is dead), what do you suppose he did it for?'

'Impossible to say, my dear. As I have told you time out of number since his will was brought to light, I doubt

if I ever exchanged a hundred words with the old gentleman. If it was his whim to surprise us, his whim

'And I was stamping my foot and screaming, when he first took notice of me; was I?' said Bella,

'You were stamping your little foot, my dear, and screaming with your little voice, and laying into me with

your little bonnet, which you had snatched off for the purpose,' returned her father, as if the remembrance

gave a relish to the rum; 'you were doing this one Sunday morning when I took you out, because I didn't go

the exact way you wanted, when the old gentleman, sitting on a seat near, said, "That's a nice girl; that's a

'Then he asked your name, my dear, and mine; and on other Sunday mornings, when we walked his way, we

As that was all the rum and water too, or, in other words, as R. W. delicately signified that his glass was

empty, by throwing back his head and standing the glass upside down on his nose and upper lip, it might have

been charitable in Mrs Wilfer to suggest replenishment. But that heroine briefly suggesting 'Bedtime' instead,

the bottles were put away, and the family retired; she cherubically escorted, like some severe saint in a

'And by this time tomorrow,' said Lavinia when the two girls were alone in their room, 'we shall have Mr

'You needn't stand between me and the candle for all that,' retorted Bella. 'This is another of the consequences

of being poor! The idea of a girl with a really fine head of hair, having to do it by one flat candle and a few

'You caught George Sampson with it, Bella, bad as your means of dressing it are.'

'You low little thing. Caught George Sampson with it! Don't talk about catching people, miss, till your own

Lavvy declining equally to repeat or to explain, Bella gradually lapsed over her hairdressing into a soliloquy

on the miseries of being poor, as exemplified in having nothing to put on, nothing to go out in, nothing to

dress by, only a nasty box to dress at instead of a commodious dressingtable, and being obliged to take in

suspicious lodgers. On the last grievance as her climax, she laid great stressand might have laid greater,

had she known that if Mr Julius Handford had a twin brother upon earth, Mr John Rokesmith was the man.

Over against a London house, a corner house not far from Cavendish Square, a man with a wooden leg had

sat for some years, with his remaining foot in a basket in cold weather, picking up a living on this

wise:Every morning at eight o'clock, he stumped to the corner, carrying a chair, a clotheshorse, a pair of

trestles, a board, a basket, and an umbrella, all strapped together. Separating these, the board and trestles

became a counter, the basket supplied the few small lots of fruit and sweets that he offered for sale upon it

and became a footwarmer, the unfolded clotheshorse displayed a choice collection of halfpenny ballads

and became a screen, and the stool planted within it became his post for the rest of the day. All weathers saw

the man at the post. This is to be accepted in a double sense, for he contrived a back to his wooden stool, by

placing it against the lamppost. When the weather was wet, he put up his umbrella over his stock in trade,

not over himself; when the weather was dry, he furled that faded article, tied it round with a piece of yarn,

and laid it crosswise under the trestles: where it looked like an unwholesomelyforced lettuce that had lost

He had established his right to the corner, by imperceptible prescription. He had never varied his ground an

inch, but had in the beginning diffidently taken the corner upon which the side of the house gave. A howling

corner in the winter time, a dusty corner in the summer time, an undesirable corner at the best of times.

Shelterless fragments of straw and paper got up revolving storms there, when the main street was at peace;

and the water cart, as if it were drunk or shortsighted, came blundering and jolting round it, making it

On the front of his saleboard hung a little placard, like a kettle holder, bearing the inscription in his own

Errands gone On with fi Delity By Ladies and Gentlemen I remain Your humble Servt: Silas Wegg

He had not only settled it with himself in course of time, that he was errandgoer by appointment to the

house at the corner (though he received such commissions not half a dozen times in a year, and then only as

some servant's deputy), but also that he was one of the house's retainers and owed vassalage to it and was

bound to leal and loyal interest in it. For this reason, he always spoke of it as 'Our House,' and, though his

knowledge of its affairs was mostly speculative and all wrong, claimed to be in its confidence. On similar

grounds he never beheld an inmate at any one of its windows but he touched his hat. Yet, he knew so little

about the inmates that he gave them names of his own invention: as 'Miss Elizabeth', 'Master George', 'Aunt

Jane', 'Uncle Parker 'having no authority whatever for any such designations, but particularly the lastto

Over the house itself, he exercised the same imaginary power as over its inhabitants and their affairs. He had

never been in it, the length of a piece of fat black waterpipe which trailed itself over the areadoor into a

damp stone passage, and had rather the air of a leech on the house that had 'taken' wonderfully; but this was

no impediment to his arranging it according to a plan of his own. It was a great dingy house with a quantity

of dim side window and blank back premises, and it cost his mind a world of trouble so to lay it out as to

account for everything in its external appearance. But, this once done, was quite satisfactory, and he rested

persuaded, that he knew his way about the house blindfold: from the barred garrets in the high roof, to the

two iron extinguishers before the main doorwhich seemed to request all lively visitors to have the kindness

Assuredly, this stall of Silas Wegg's was the hardest little stall of all the sterile little stalls in London. It gave

you the faceache to look at his apples, the stomachache to look at his oranges, the toothache to look at his

nuts. Of the latter commodity he had always a grim little heap, on which lay a little wooden measure which

had no discernible inside, and was considered to represent the penn'orth appointed by Magna Charta.

Whether from too much east wind or noit was an easterly cornerthe stall, the stock, and the keeper, were

all as dry as the Desert. Wegg was a knotty man, and a closegrained, with a face carved out of very hard

material, that had just as much play of expression as a watchman's rattle. When he laughed, certain jerks

occurred in it, and the rattle sprung. Sooth to say, he was so wooden a man that he seemed to have taken his

wooden leg naturally, and rather suggested to the fanciful observer, that he might be expectedif his

development received no untimely checkto be completely set up with a pair of wooden legs in about six

Mr Wegg was an observant person, or, as he himself said, 'took a powerful sight of notice'. He saluted all his

regular passersby every day, as he sat on his stool backed up by the lamppost; and on the adaptable

character of these salutes he greatly plumed himself. Thus, to the rector, he addressed a bow, compounded of

lay deference, and a slight touch of the shady preliminary meditation at church; to the doctor, a confidential

bow, as to a gentleman whose acquaintance with his inside he begged respectfully to acknowledge; before the

Quality he delighted to abase himself; and for Uncle Parker, who was in the army (at least, so he had settled

it), he put his open hand to the side of his hat, in a military manner which that angryeyed buttonedup

The only article in which Silas dealt, that was not hard, was gingerbread. On a certain day, some wretched

infant having purchased the damp gingerbreadhorse (fearfully out of condition), and the adhesive birdcage,

which had been exposed for the day's sale, he had taken a tin box from under his stool to produce a relay of

those dreadful specimens, and was going to look in at the lid, when he said to himself, pausing: 'Oh! Here

The words referred to a broad, roundshouldered, onesided old fellow in mourning, coming comically

ambling towards the corner, dressed in a pea overcoat, and carrying a large stick. He wore thick shoes, and

thick leather gaiters, and thick gloves like a hedger's. Both as to his dress and to himself, he was of an

overlapping rhinoceros build, with folds in his cheeks, and his forehead, and his eyelids, and his lips, and his

ears; but with bright, eager, childishlyinquiring, grey eyes, under his ragged eyebrows, and broadbrimmed

'Here you are again,' repeated Mr Wegg, musing. 'And what are you now? Are you in the Funns, or where are

you? Have you lately come to settle in this neighbourhood, or do you own to another neighbourhood? Are

you in independent circumstances, or is it wasting the motions of a bow on you? Come! I'll speculate! I'll

Which Mr Wegg, having replaced his tin box, accordingly did, as he rose to bait his gingerbreadtrap for

'Appears to be rather a 'arty old cock, too,' said Mr Wegg, as before; 'Good morning to YOU, sir.'

'Do you remember me, then?' asked his new acquaintance, stopping in his amble, onesided, before the stall,

'I have noticed you go past our house, sir, several times in the course of the last week or so.'

'Yes,' said Mr Wegg, nodding, as the other pointed the clumsy forefinger of his right glove at the corner

'Oh! Now, what,' pursued the old fellow, in an inquisitive manner, carrying his knotted stick in his left arm as

'It's job work that I do for our house,' returned Silas, drily, and with reticence; 'it's not yet brought to an exact

'Oh! It's not yet brought to an exact allowance? No! It's not yet brought to an exact allowance.

'Appears to be rather a cracked old cock,' thought Silas, qualifying his former good opinion, as the other

'Well! I haven't got to keep it warm,' Mr Wegg made answer, in a sort of desperation occasioned by the

'He hasn't,' repeated the other to his knotted stick, as he gave it a hug; 'he hasn't gotha!ha!to keep it

'No,' said Mr Wegg, who was growing restive under this examination. 'I never did hear of the name of

'I don't know why I don't,' retorted Mr Wegg, approaching frenzy, 'but I don't at all.'

'Now, I'll tell you something that'll make you sorry for that,' said the stranger, smiling. 'My name's Boffin.'

'I can't help it!' returned Mr Wegg. Implying in his manner the offensive addition, 'and if I could, I wouldn't.'

'But there's another chance for you,' said Mr Boffin, smiling still, 'Do you like the name of Nicodemus? Think

'It is not, sir,' Mr Wegg rejoined, as he sat down on his stool, with an air of gentle resignation, combined with

melancholy candour; it is not a name as I could wish any one that I had a respect for, to call ME by; but there

may be persons that would not view it with the same objections.I don't know why,' Mr Wegg added,

'Noddy Boffin,' said that gentleman. 'Noddy. That's my name. Noddyor NickBoffin. What's your name?'

'Silas Wegg.I don't,' said Mr Wegg, bestirring himself to take the same precaution as before, 'I don't know

'Now, Wegg,' said Mr Boffin, hugging his stick closer, 'I want to make a sort of offer to you. Do you

The wooden Wegg looked at him with a meditative eye, and also with a softened air as descrying possibility

of profit. 'Let me think. I ain't quite sure, and yet I generally take a powerful sight of notice, too. Was it on a

Monday morning, when the butcherboy had been to our house for orders, and bought a ballad of me, which,

'Yes, to be sure, sir; he bought several; and wishing to lay out his money to the best, he took my opinion to

guide his choice, and we went over the collection together. To be sure we did. Here was him as it might be,

and here was myself as it might be, and there was you, Mr Boffin, as you identically are, with your selfsame

stick under your very same arm, and your very same back towards us. Tobesure!' added Mr Wegg,

looking a little round Mr Boffin, to take him in the rear, and identify this last extraordinary coincidence, 'your

'Not in a dishonourable way, Wegg, because you was singing to the butcher; and you wouldn't sing secrets to

'It never happened that I did so yet, to the best of my remembrance,' said Mr Wegg, cautiously. 'But I might

do it. A man can't say what he might wish to do some day or another.' (This, not to release any little

'Well,' repeated Boffin, 'I was a listening to you and to him. And what do youyou haven't got another stool,

'I haven't got another, but you're welcome to this,' said Wegg, resigning it. 'It's a treat to me to stand.'

'Lard!' exclaimed Mr Boffin, in a tone of great enjoyment, as he settled himself down, still nursing his stick

like a baby, 'it's a pleasant place, this! And then to be shut in on each side, with these ballads, like so many

'If I am not mistaken, sir,' Mr Wegg delicately hinted, resting a hand on his stall, and bending over the

discursive Boffin, 'you alluded to some offer or another that was in your mind?'

'I'm coming to it! All right. I'm coming to it! I was going to say that when I listened that morning, I listened

with hadmiration amounting to haw. I thought to myself, "Here's a man with a wooden lega literary man

'Why, you know every one of these songs by name and by tune, and if you want to read or to sing any one on

'em off straight, you've only to whip on your spectacles and do it!' cried Mr Boffin. 'I see you at it!'

'Well, sir,' returned Mr Wegg, with a conscious inclination of the head; 'we'll say literary, then.'

'"A literary manWITH a wooden legand all Print is open to him!" That's what I thought to myself, that

morning,' pursued Mr Boffin, leaning forward to describe, uncramped by the clotheshorse, as large an arc as

'Why, truly, sir,' Mr Wegg admitted, with modesty; 'I believe you couldn't show me the piece of English print,

'I know'd it! Then consider this. Here am I, a man without a wooden leg, and yet all print is shut to me.'

'Indeed, sir?' Mr Wegg returned with increasing selfcomplacency. 'Education neglected?'

'Neglected!' repeated Boffin, with emphasis. 'That ain't no word for it. I don't mean to say but what if you

'Come, come, sir,' said Mr Wegg, throwing in a little encouragement, 'that's something, too.'

'Perhaps it's not as much as could be wished by an inquiring mind, sir,' Mr Wegg admitted.

'Now, look here. I'm retired from business. Me and Mrs Boffin Henerietty Boffinwhich her father's

name was Henery, and her mother's name was Hetty, and so you get itwe live on a compittance, under the

'Man alive, don't I tell you? A diseased governor? Now, it's too late for me to begin shovelling and sifting at

alphabeds and grammarbooks. I'm getting to be a old bird, and I want to take it easy. But I want some

readingsome fine bold reading, some splendid book in a gorging LordMayor'sShow of wollumes'

(probably meaning gorgeous, but misled by association of ideas); 'as'll reach right down your pint of view,

and take time to go by you. How can I get that reading, Wegg? By,' tapping him on the breast with the head

of his thick stick, 'paying a man truly qualified to do it, so much an hour (say twopence) to come and do it.'

'Hem! Flattered, sir, I am sure,' said Wegg, beginning to regard himself in quite a new light. 'Hew! This is the

'I don't,' said Boffin, in a freehanded manner, 'want to tie a literary manWITH a wooden legdown too

tight. A halfpenny an hour shan't part us. The hours are your own to choose, after you've done for the day

with your house here. I live over MaidenLane way out Holloway directionand you've only got to go

Eastandby North when you've finished here, and you're there. Twopence halfpenny an hour,' said Boffin,

taking a piece of chalk from his pocket and getting off the stool to work the sum on the top of it in his own

way; 'two long'uns and a short'untwopence halfpenny; two short'uns is a long'un and two two long'uns is

four long'uns making five long'uns; six nights a week at five long'uns a night,' scoring them all down

Pointing to this result as a large and satisfactory one, Mr Boffin smeared it out with his moistened glove, and

'Half a crown,' said Wegg, meditating. 'Yes. (It ain't much, sir.) Half a crown.'

'Per week. Yes. As to the amount of strain upon the intellect now. Was you thinking at all of poetry?' Mr

'It would come dearer,' Mr Wegg returned. 'For when a person comes to grind off poetry night after night, it is

'To tell you the truth Wegg,' said Boffin, 'I wasn't thinking of poetry, except in so fur as this:If you was to

happen now and then to feel yourself in the mind to tip me and Mrs Boffin one of your ballads, why then we

'I follow you, sir,' said Wegg. 'But not being a regular musical professional, I should be loath to engage

myself for that; and therefore when I dropped into poetry, I should ask to be considered so fur, in the light of

At this, Mr Boffin's eyes sparkled, and he shook Silas earnestly by the hand: protesting that it was more than

'What do you think of the terms, Wegg?' Mr Boffin then demanded, with unconcealed anxiety.

Silas, who had stimulated this anxiety by his hard reserve of manner, and who had begun to understand his

man very well, replied with an air; as if he were saying something extraordinarily generous and great:

'So I should have thought of you!' said Mr Boffin, admiringly. 'No, sir. I never did 'aggle and I never will

'aggle. Consequently I meet you at once, free and fair, withDone, for double the money!'

Mr Boffin seemed a little unprepared for this conclusion, but assented, with the remark, 'You know better

'Yes, sir,' said Mr Wegg, careful to leave all the eagerness to him. 'I see no difficulty if you wish it. You are

'Bought him at a sale,' said Mr Boffin. 'Eight wollumes. Red and gold. Purple ribbon in every wollume, to

'I thought you might have know'd him without it,' said Mr Boffin slightly disappointed. 'His name is

DeclineAndFallOffThe RooshanEmpire.' (Mr Boffin went over these stones slowly and with much

'Ay indeed!' said Mr Wegg, nodding his head with an air of friendly recognition.

'I haven't been not to say right slap through him, very lately,' Mr Wegg made answer, 'having been otherways

employed, Mr Boffin. But know him? Old familiar declining and falling off the Rooshan? Rather, sir! Ever

since I was not so high as your stick. Ever since my eldest brother left our cottage to enlist into the army. On

'Beside that cottage door, Mr Boffin, A girl was on her knees; She held aloft a snowy scarf, Sir, Which (my

eldest brother noticed) fluttered in the breeze. She breathed a prayer for him, Mr Boffin; A prayer he coold

not hear. And my eldest brother lean'd upon his sword, Mr Boffin, And wiped away a tear.'

Much impressed by this family circumstance, and also by the friendly disposition of Mr Wegg, as

exemplified in his so soon dropping into poetry, Mr Boffin again shook hands with that ligneous sharper, and

'Where I live,' said Mr Boffin, 'is called The Bower. Boffin's Bower is the name Mrs Boffin christened it

when we come into it as a property. If you should meet with anybody that don't know it by that name (which

hardly anybody does), when you've got nigh upon about a odd mile, or say and a quarter if you like, up

Maiden Lane, Battle Bridge, ask for Harmony Jail, and you'll be put right. I shall expect you, Wegg,' said Mr

Boffin, clapping him on the shoulder with the greatest enthusiasm, 'most joyfully. I shall have no peace or

patience till you come. Print is now opening ahead of me. This night, a literary manWITH a wooden

leg' he bestowed an admiring look upon that decoration, as if it greatly enhanced the relish of Mr Wegg's

attainments'will begin to lead me a new life! My fist again, Wegg. Morning, morning, morning!'

Left alone at his stall as the other ambled off, Mr Wegg subsided into his screen, produced a small

pockethandkerchief of a penitentiallyscrubbing character, and took himself by the nose with a thoughtful

aspect. Also, while he still grasped that feature, he directed several thoughtful looks down the street, after the

retiring figure of Mr Boffin. But, profound gravity sat enthroned on Wegg's countenance. For, while he

considered within himself that this was an old fellow of rare simplicity, that this was an opportunity to be

improved, and that here might he money to be got beyond present calculation, still he compromised himself

by no admission that his new engagement was at all out of his way, or involved the least element of the

ridiculous. Mr Wegg would even have picked a handsome quarrel with any one who should have challenged

his deep acquaintance with those aforesaid eight volumes of Decline and Fall. His gravity was unusual,

portentous, and immeasurable, not because he admitted any doubt of himself but because he perceived it

necessary to forestall any doubt of himself in others. And herein he ranged with that very numerous class of

impostors, who are quite as determined to keep up appearances to themselves, as to their neighbours.

A certain loftiness, likewise, took possession of Mr Wegg; a condescending sense of being in request as an

official expounder of mysteries. It did not move him to commercial greatness, but rather to littleness,

insomuch that if it had been within the possibilities of things for the wooden measure to hold fewer nuts than

usual, it would have done so that day. But, when night came, and with her veiled eyes beheld him stumping

The Bower was as difficult to find, as Fair Rosamond's without the clue. Mr Wegg, having reached the

quarter indicated, inquired for the Bower half a dozen times without the least success, until he remembered to

ask for Harmony Jail. This occasioned a quick change in the spirits of a hoarse gentleman and a donkey,

'Why, yer mean Old Harmon's, do yer?' said the hoarse gentleman, who was driving his donkey in a truck,

with a carrot for a whip. 'Why didn't yer niver say so? Eddard and me is a goin' by HIM! Jump in.'

Mr Wegg complied, and the hoarse gentleman invited his attention to the third person in company, thus;

'Eddard! (keep yer hi on his ears) cut away to Old Harmon's.' Edward instantly pricked up his ears to their

utmost, and rattled off at such a pace that Mr Wegg's conversation was jolted out of him in a most dislocated

'Not a proper jail, wot you and me would get committed to,' returned his escort; 'they giv' it the name, on

'On accounts of his never agreeing with nobody. Like a speeches of chaff. Harmon's Jail; Harmony Jail.

'I should think so! Everybody do about here. Eddard knows him. (Keep yer hi on his ears.) Noddy Boffin,

The effect of the name was so very alarming, in respect of causing a temporary disappearance of Edward's

head, casting his hind hoofs in the air, greatly accelerating the pace and increasing the jolting, that Mr Wegg

was fain to devote his attention exclusively to holding on, and to relinquish his desire of ascertaining whether

Presently, Edward stopped at a gateway, and Wegg discreetly lost no time in slipping out at the back of the

truck. The moment he was landed, his late driver with a wave of the carrot, said 'Supper, Eddard!' and he, the

hind hoofs, the truck, and Edward, all seemed to fly into the air together, in a kind of apotheosis.

Pushing the gate, which stood ajar, Wegg looked into an enclosed space where certain tall dark mounds rose

high against the sky, and where the pathway to the Bower was indicated, as the moonlight showed, between

two lines of broken crockery set in ashes. A white figure advancing along this path, proved to be nothing

more ghostly than Mr Boffin, easily attired for the pursuit of knowledge, in an undress garment of short white

smockfrock. Having received his literary friend with great cordiality, he conducted him to the interior of the

Bower and there presented him to Mrs Boffin:a stout lady of a rubicund and cheerful aspect, dressed (to

Mr Wegg's consternation) in a low eveningdress of sable satin, and a large black velvet hat and feathers.

'Mrs Boffin, Wegg,' said Boffin, 'is a highflyer at Fashion. And her make is such, that she does it credit. As to

myself I ain't yet as Fash'nable as I may come to be. Henerietty, old lady, this is the gentleman that's a going

It was the queerest of rooms, fitted and furnished more like a luxurious amateur taproom than anything else

within the ken of Silas Wegg. There were two wooden settles by the fire, one on either side of it, with a

corresponding table before each. On one of these tables, the eight volumes were ranged flat, in a row, like a

galvanic battery; on the other, certain squat casebottles of inviting appearance seemed to stand on tiptoe to

exchange glances with Mr Wegg over a front row of tumblers and a basin of white sugar. On the hob, a kettle

steamed; on the hearth, a cat reposed. Facing the fire between the settles, a sofa, a footstool, and a little table,

formed a centrepiece devoted to Mrs Boffin. They were garish in taste and colour, but were expensive articles

of drawingroom furniture that had a very odd look beside the settles and the flaring gaslight pendent from

the ceiling. There was a flowery carpet on the floor; but, instead of reaching to the fireside, its glowing

vegetation stopped short at Mrs Boffin's footstool, and gave place to a region of sand and sawdust. Mr Wegg

also noticed, with admiring eyes, that, while the flowery land displayed such hollow ornamentation as stuffed

birds and waxen fruits under glass shades, there were, in the territory where vegetation ceased,

compensatory shelves on which the best part of a large pie and likewise of a cold joint were plainly

discernible among other solids. The room itself was large, though low; and the heavy frames of its

oldfashioned windows, and the heavy beams in its crooked ceiling, seemed to indicate that it had once been

'I admire it greatly, sir,' said Wegg. 'Peculiar comfort at this fireside, sir.'

'Why, in a general way, sir,' Mr Wegg was beginning slowly and knowingly, with his head stuck on one side,

'You DON'T understand it, Wegg, and I'll explain it. These arrangements is made by mutual consent between

Mrs Boffin and me. Mrs Boffin, as I've mentioned, is a highflyer at Fashion; at present I'm not. I don't go

higher than comfort, and comfort of the sort that I'm equal to the enjoyment of. Well then. Where would be

the good of Mrs Boffin and me quarrelling over it? We never did quarrel, before we come into Boffin's

Bower as a property; why quarrel when we HAVE come into Boffin's Bower as a property? So Mrs Boffin,

she keeps up her part of the room, in her way; I keep up my part of the room in mine. In consequence of

which we have at once, Sociability (I should go melancholy mad without Mrs Boffin), Fashion, and Comfort.

If I get by degrees to be a higher flyer at Fashion, then Mrs Boffin will by degrees come for'arder. If Mrs

Boffin should ever be less of a dab at Fashion than she is at the present time, then Mrs Boffin's carpet would

go back'arder. If we should both continny as we are, why then HERE we are, and give us a kiss, old lady.'

Mrs Boffin who, perpetually smiling, had approached and drawn her plump arm through her lord's, most

willingly complied. Fashion, in the form of her black velvet hat and feathers, tried to prevent it; but got

'So now, Wegg,' said Mr Boffin, wiping his mouth with an air of much refreshment, 'you begin to know us as

we are. This is a charming spot, is the Bower, but you must get to apprechiate it by degrees. It's a spot to find

out the merits of; little by little, and a new'un every day. There's a serpentining walk up each of the mounds,

that gives you the yard and neighbourhood changing every moment. When you get to the top, there's a view

of the neighbouring premises, not to be surpassed. The premises of Mrs Boffin's late father (Canine Provision

Trade), you look down into, as if they was your own. And the top of the High Mound is crowned with a

latticework Arbour, in which, if you don't read out loud many a book in the summer, ay, and as a friend,

drop many a time into poetry too, it shan't be my fault. Now, what'll you read on?'

'Thank you, sir,' returned Wegg, as if there were nothing new in his reading at all. 'I generally do it on gin and

'Keeps the organ moist, does it, Wegg?' asked Mr Boffin, with innocent eagerness.

'Nno, sir,' replied Wegg, coolly, 'I should hardly describe it so, sir. I should say, mellers it. Mellers it, is the

His wooden conceit and craft kept exact pace with the delighted expectation of his victim. The visions rising

before his mercenary mind, of the many ways in which this connexion was to be turned to account, never

obscured the foremost idea natural to a dull overreaching man, that he must not make himself too cheap.

Mrs Boffin's Fashion, as a less inexorable deity than the idol usually worshipped under that name, did not

forbid her mixing for her literary guest, or asking if he found the result to his liking. On his returning a

gracious answer and taking his place at the literary settle, Mr Boffin began to compose himself as a listener,

'Sorry to deprive you of a pipe, Wegg,' he said, filling his own, 'but you can't do both together. Oh! and

another thing I forgot to name! When you come in here of an evening, and look round you, and notice

Wegg, who had been going to put on his spectacles, immediately laid them down, with the sprightly

'You read my thoughts, sir. DO my eyes deceive me, or is that object up there aa pie? It can't be a pie.'

'Yes, it's a pie, Wegg,' replied Mr Boffin, with a glance of some little discomfiture at the Decline and Fall.

'Is it indeed, sir? And it would be hard, sir, to name the pie that is a better pie than a weal and hammer,' said

'Thank you, Mr Boffin, I think I will, at your invitation. I wouldn't at any other party's, at the present juncture;

but at yours, sir!And meaty jelly too, especially when a little salt, which is the case where there's ham, is

mellering to the organ, is very mellering to the organ.' Mr Wegg did not say what organ, but spoke with a

So, the pie was brought down, and the worthy Mr Boffin exercised his patience until Wegg, in the exercise of

his knife and fork, had finished the dish: only profiting by the opportunity to inform Wegg that although it

was not strictly Fashionable to keep the contents of a larder thus exposed to view, he (Mr Boffin) considered

it hospitable; for the reason, that instead of saying, in a comparatively unmeaning manner, to a visitor, 'There

are such and such edibles down stairs; will you have anything up?' you took the bold practical course of

saying, 'Cast your eye along the shelves, and, if you see anything you like there, have it down.'

And now, Mr Wegg at length pushed away his plate and put on his spectacles, and Mr Boffin lighted his pipe

and looked with beaming eyes into the opening world before him, and Mrs Boffin reclined in a fashionable

manner on her sofa: as one who would be part of the audience if she found she could, and would go to sleep

'Hem!' began Wegg, 'This, Mr Boffin and Lady, is the first chapter of the first wollume of the Decline and

'Why, it comes into my mind, do you know, sir,' said Wegg with an air of insinuating frankness (having first

again looked hard at the book), 'that you made a little mistake this morning, which I had meant to set you

right in, only something put it out of my head. I think you said Rooshan Empire, sir?'

'The difference, sir?' Mr Wegg was faltering and in danger of breaking down, when a bright thought flashed

upon him. 'The difference, sir? There you place me in a difficulty, Mr Boffin. Suffice it to observe, that the

difference is best postponed to some other occasion when Mrs Boffin does not honour us with her company.

Mr Wegg thus came out of his disadvantage with quite a chivalrous air, and not only that, but by dint of

repeating with a manly delicacy, 'In Mrs Boffin's presence, sir, we had better drop it!' turned the disadvantage

Then, Mr Wegg, in a dry unflinching way, entered on his task; going straight across country at everything

that came before him; taking all the hard words, biographical and geographical; getting rather shaken by

Hadrian, Trajan, and the Antonines; stumbling at Polybius (pronounced Polly Beeious, and supposed by Mr

Boffin to be a Roman virgin, and by Mrs Boffin to be responsible for that necessity of dropping it); heavily

unseated by Titus Antoninus Pius; up again and galloping smoothly with Augustus; finally, getting over the

ground well with Commodus: who, under the appellation of Commodious, was held by Mr Boffin to have

been quite unworthy of his English origin, and 'not to have acted up to his name' in his government of the

Roman people. With the death of this personage, Mr Wegg terminated his first reading; long before which

consummation several total eclipses of Mrs Boffin's candle behind her black velvet disc, would have been

very alarming, but for being regularly accompanied by a potent smell of burnt pens when her feathers took

fire, which acted as a restorative and woke her. Mr Wegg, having read on by rote and attached as few ideas as

possible to the text, came out of the encounter fresh; but, Mr Boffin, who had soon laid down his unfinished

pipe, and had ever since sat intently staring with his eyes and mind at the confounding enormities of the

Romans, was so severely punished that he could hardly wish his literary friend Goodnight, and articulate

'Commodious,' gasped Mr Boffin, staring at the moon, after letting Wegg out at the gate and fastening it:

'Commodious fights in that wildbeastshow, seven hundred and thirtyfive times, in one character only! As

if that wasn't stunning enough, a hundred lions is turned into the same wildbeastshow all at once! As if that

wasn't stunning enough, Commodious, in another character, kills 'em all off in a hundred goes! As if that

wasn't stunning enough, Vittleus (and well named too) eats six millions' worth, English money, in seven

months! Wegg takes it easy, but upon mysoul to a old bird like myself these are scarers. And even now

that Commodious is strangled, I don't see a way to our bettering ourselves.' Mr Boffin added as he turned his

pensive steps towards the Bower and shook his head, 'I didn't think this morning there was half so many

The Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, already mentioned as a tavern of a dropsical appearance, had long settled

down into a state of hale infirmity. In its whole constitution it had not a straight floor, and hardly a straight

line; but it had outlasted, and clearly would yet outlast, many a bettertrimmed building, many a sprucer

public house. Externally, it was a narrow lopsided wooden jumble of corpulent windows heaped one upon

another as you might heap as many toppling oranges, with a crazy wooden verandah impending over the

water; indeed the whole house, inclusive of the complaining flagstaff on the roof, impended over the water,

but seemed to have got into the condition of a fainthearted diver who has paused so long on the brink that he

This description applies to the riverfrontage of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters. The back of the

establishment, though the chief entrance was there, so contracted that it merely represented in its connexion

with the front, the handle of a flat iron set upright on its broadest end. This handle stood at the bottom of a

wilderness of court and alley: which wilderness pressed so hard and close upon the Six Jolly Fellowship

Porters as to leave the hostelry not an inch of ground beyond its door. For this reason, in combination with

the fact that the house was all but afloat at high water, when the Porters had a family wash the linen subjected

to that operation might usually be seen drying on lines stretched across the receptionrooms and

The wood forming the chimneypieces, beams, partitions, floors and doors, of the Six Jolly Fellowship

Porters, seemed in its old age fraught with confused memories of its youth. In many places it had become

gnarled and riven, according to the manner of old trees; knots started out of it; and here and there it seemed to

twist itself into some likeness of boughs. In this state of second childhood, it had an air of being in its own

way garrulous about its early life. Not without reason was it often asserted by the regular frequenters of the

Porters, that when the light shone full upon the grain of certain panels, and particularly upon an old corner

cupboard of walnutwood in the bar, you might trace little forests there, and tiny trees like the parent tree, in

The bar of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters was a bar to soften the human breast. The available space in it

was not much larger than a hackneycoach; but no one could have wished the bar bigger, that space was so

girt in by corpulent little casks, and by cordialbottles radiant with fictitious grapes in bunches, and by

lemons in nets, and by biscuits in baskets, and by the polite beerpulls that made low bows when customers

were served with beer, and by the cheese in a snug corner, and by the landlady's own small table in a snugger

corner near the fire, with the cloth everlastingly laid. This haven was divided from the rough world by a glass

partition and a halfdoor, with a leaden sill upon it for the convenience of resting your liquor; but, over this

halfdoor the bar's snugness so gushed forth that, albeit customers drank there standing, in a dark and

draughty passage where they were shouldered by other customers passing in and out, they always appeared to

For the rest, both the tap and parlour of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters gave upon the river, and had red

curtains matching the noses of the regular customers, and were provided with comfortable fireside tin

utensils, like models of sugarloaf hats, made in that shape that they might, with their pointed ends, seek out

for themselves glowing nooks in the depths of the red coals, when they mulled your ale, or heated for you

those delectable drinks, Purl, Flip, and Dog's Nose. The first of these humming compounds was a speciality

of the Porters, which, through an inscription on its doorposts, gently appealed to your feelings as, 'The Early

Purl House'. For, it would seem that Purl must always be taken early; though whether for any more distinctly

stomachic reason than that, as the early bird catches the worm, so the early purl catches the customer, cannot

here be resolved. It only remains to add that in the handle of the flat iron, and opposite the bar, was a very

little room like a threecornered hat, into which no direct ray of sun, moon, or star, ever penetrated, but

which was superstitiously regarded as a sanctuary replete with comfort and retirement by gaslight, and on the

Miss Potterson, sole proprietor and manager of the Fellowship Porters, reigned supreme on her throne, the

Bar, and a man must have drunk himself mad drunk indeed if he thought he could contest a point with her.

Being known on her own authority as Miss Abbey Potterson, some waterside heads, which (like the water)

were none of the clearest, harboured muddled notions that, because of her dignity and firmness, she was

named after, or in some sort related to, the Abbey at Westminster. But, Abbey was only short for Abigail, by

which name Miss Potterson had been christened at Limehouse Church, some sixty and odd years before.

'Now, you mind, you Riderhood,' said Miss Abbey Potterson, with emphatic forefinger over the halfdoor,

'the Fellowship don't want you at all, and would rather by far have your room than your company; but if you

were as welcome here as you are not, you shouldn't even then have another drop of drink here this night, after

'But you know, Miss Potterson,' this was suggested very meekly though, 'if I behave myself, you can't help

'I am the law here, my man,' returned Miss Abbey, 'and I'll soon convince you of that, if you doubt it at all.'

Abbey the supreme threw the customer's halfpence into the till, and, seating herself in her firesidechair,

resumed the newspaper she had been reading. She was a tall, upright, wellfavoured woman, though severe

of countenance, and had more of the air of a schoolmistress than mistress of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters.

The man on the other side of the halfdoor, was a watersideman with a squinting leer, and he eyed her as if

Miss Potterson read her newspaper with contracted brows, and took no notice until he whispered:

Deigning then to turn her eyes sideways towards the suppliant, Miss Potterson beheld him knuckling his low

forehead, and ducking at her with his head, as if he were asking leave to fling himself head foremost over the

'Well?' said Miss Potterson, with a manner as short as she herself was long, 'say your half word. Bring it out.'

'Miss Potterson! Ma'am! Would you 'sxcuse me taking the liberty of asking, is it my character that you take

'You really are so cruel hard upon me! What I was going to make inquiries was no more than, might you have

any apprehensions leastways beliefs or suppositionsthat the company's property mightn't be altogether

'Well, Miss Abbey, respectfully meaning no offence to you, it would be some satisfaction to a man's mind, to

understand why the Fellowship Porters is not to be free to such as me, and is to be free to such as Gaffer.'

The face of the hostess darkened with some shadow of perplexity, as she replied: 'Gaffer has never been

'Signifying in Quod, Miss? Perhaps not. But he may have merited it. He may be suspected of far worse than

'YOU are not much,' said Miss Abbey Potterson, knitting her brows again with disdain.

'But I was his pardner. Mind you, Miss Abbey, I was his pardner. As such I know more of the ins and outs of

him than any person living does. Notice this! I am the man that was his pardner, and I am the man that

'Then,' suggested Miss Abbey, though with a deeper shade of perplexity than before, 'you criminate yourself.'

'No I don't, Miss Abbey. For how does it stand? It stands this way. When I was his pardner, I couldn't never

give him satisfaction. Why couldn't I never give him satisfaction? Because my luck was bad; because I

couldn't find many enough of 'em. How was his luck? Always good. Notice this! Always good! Ah! There's a

many games, Miss Abbey, in which there's chance, but there's a many others in which there's skill too, mixed

'That Gaffer has a skill in finding what he finds, who doubts, man?' asked Miss Abbey.

'A skill in purwiding what he finds, perhaps,' said Riderhood, shaking his evil head.

Miss Abbey knitted her brow at him, as he darkly leered at her. 'If you're out upon the river pretty nigh every

tide, and if you want to find a man or woman in the river, you'll greatly help your luck, Miss Abbey, by

'Mind you!' returned the other, stretching forward over the half door to throw his words into the bar; for his

voice was as if the head of his boat's mop were down his throat; 'I say so, Miss Abbey! And mind you! I'll

follow him up, Miss Abbey! And mind you! I'll bring him to hook at last, if it's twenty year hence, I will!

Who's he, to he favoured along of his daughter? Ain't I got a daughter of my own!'

With that flourish, and seeming to have talked himself rather more drunk and much more ferocious than he

had begun by being, Mr Riderhood took up his pint pot and swaggered off to the taproom.

Gaffer was not there, but a pretty strong muster of Miss Abbey's pupils were, who exhibited, when occasion

required, the greatest docility. On the clock's striking ten, and Miss Abbey's appearing at the door, and

addressing a certain person in a faded scarlet jacket, with 'George Jones, your time's up! I told your wife you

should be punctual,' Jones submissively rose, gave the company goodnight, and retired. At halfpast ten, on

Miss Abbey's looking in again, and saying, 'William Williams, Bob Glamour, and Jonathan, you are all due,'

Williams, Bob, and Jonathan with similar meekness took their leave and evaporated. Greater wonder than

these, when a bottlenosed person in a glazed hat had after some considerable hesitation ordered another

glass of gin and water of the attendant potboy, and when Miss Abbey, instead of sending it, appeared in

person, saying, 'Captain Joey, you have had as much as will do you good,' not only did the captain feebly rub

his knees and contemplate the fire without offering a word of protest, but the rest of the company murmured,

'Ay, ay, Captain! Miss Abbey's right; you be guided by Miss Abbey, Captain.' Nor, was Miss Abbey's

vigilance in anywise abated by this submission, but rather sharpened; for, looking round on the deferential

faces of her school, and descrying two other young persons in need of admonition, she thus bestowed it: 'Tom

Tootle, it's time for a young fellow who's going to be married next month, to be at home and asleep. And you

needn't nudge him, Mr Jack Mullins, for I know your work begins early tomorrow, and I say the same to you.

So come! Goodnight, like good lads!' Upon which, the blushing Tootle looked to Mullins, and the blushing

Mullins looked to Tootle, on the question who should rise first, and finally both rose together and went out on

the broad grin, followed by Miss Abbey; in whose presence the cormpany did not take the liberty of grinning

In such an establishment, the whiteaproned potboy with his shirt sleeves arranged in a tight roll on each

bare shoulder, was a mere hint of the possibility of physical force, thrown out as a matter of state and form.

Exactly at the closing hour, all the guests who were left, filed out in the best order: Miss Abbey standing at

the half door of the bar, to hold a ceremony of review and dismissal. All wished Miss Abbey goodnight and

Miss Abbey wished good night to all, except Riderhood. The sapient potboy, looking on officially, then

had the conviction borne in upon his soul, that the man was evermore outcast and excommunicate from the

'You Bob Gliddery,' said Miss Abbey to this potboy, 'run round to Hexam's and tell his daughter Lizzie that

With exemplary swiftness Bob Gliddery departed, and returned. Lizzie, following him, arrived as one of the

two female domestics of the Fellowship Porters arranged on the snug little table by the bar fire, Miss

'I have had mine too, I think,' said Miss Abbey, pushing away the untasted dish, 'and more than enough of it. I

'There, there. Don't look astonished. I ought to have begun with a word of explanation, but it's my way to

make short cuts at things. I always was a pepperer. You Bob Gliddery there, put the chain upon the door and

With an alacrity that seemed no less referable to the pepperer fact than to the supper fact, Bob obeyed, and

'Lizzie Hexam, Lizzie Hexam,' then began Miss Potterson, 'how often have I held out to you the opportunity

'Very often? Yes! And I might as well have spoken to the iron funnel of the strongest seagoing steamer that

'I vow and declare I am half ashamed of myself for taking such an interest in you,' said Miss Abbey, pettishly,

'for I don't believe I should do it if you were not goodlooking. Why ain't you ugly?'

'However, you ain't,' resumed Miss Potterson, 'so it's no use going into that. I must take you as I find you.

'Never was an obstinate person yet, who would own to the word!' remarked Miss Potterson, rubbing her

vexed nose; 'I'm sure I would, if I was obstinate; but I am a pepperer, which is different. Lizzie Hexam,

'Do I know the worst of father!' she repeated, opening her eyes. 'Do you know the suspicions to which your

father makes himself liable? Do you know the suspicions that are actually about, against him?'

The consciousness of what he habitually did, oppressed the girl heavily, and she slowly cast down her eyes.

'Please to tell me what the suspicions are, Miss,' she asked after a silence, with her eyes upon the ground.

'It's not an easy thing to tell a daughter, but it must be told. It is thought by some, then, that your father helps

The relief of hearing what she felt sure was a false suspicion, in place of the expected real and true one, so

lightened Lizzie's breast for the moment, that Miss Abbey was amazed at her demeanour. She raised her eyes

('She takes it,' thought Miss Abbey, 'very quietly. She takes it with extraordinary quietness!')

'And perhaps,' said Lizzie, as a recollection flashed upon her, 'it is some one who has a grudge against father;

'Yes! He was father's partner, and father broke with him, and now he revenges himself. Father broke with him

when I was by, and he was very angry at it. And besides, Miss Abbey!Will you never, without strong

'It was on the night when the Harmon murder was found out, through father, just above bridge. And just

below bridge, as we were sculling home, Riderhood crept out of the dark in his boat. And many and many

times afterwards, when such great pains were taken to come to the bottom of the crime, and it never could be

come near, I thought in my own thoughts, could Riderhood himself have done the murder, and did he

purposely let father find the body? It seemed a'most wicked and cruel to so much as think such a thing; but

now that he tries to throw it upon father, I go back to it as if it was a truth. Can it be a truth? That was put into

She asked this question, rather of the fire than of the hostess of the Fellowship Porters, and looked round the

But, Miss Potterson, as a ready schoolmistress accustomed to bring her pupils to book, set the matter in a

'You poor deluded girl,' she said, 'don't you see that you can't open your mind to particular suspicions of one

of the two, without opening your mind to general suspicions of the other? They had worked together. Their

goingson had been going on for some time. Even granting that it was as you have had in your thoughts,

'You don't know father, Miss, when you talk like that. Indeed, indeed, you don't know father.'

'Lizzie, Lizzie,' said Miss Potterson. 'Leave him. You needn't break with him altogether, but leave him. Do

well away from him; not because of what I have told you tonightwe'll pass no judgment upon that, and

we'll hope it may not bebut because of what I have urged on you before. No matter whether it's owing to

your good looks or not, I like you and I want to serve you. Lizzie, come under my direction. Don't fling

In the sound good feeling and good sense of her entreaty, Miss Abbey had softened into a soothing tone, and

had even drawn her arm round the girl's waist. But, she only replied, 'Thank you, thank you! I can't. I won't. I

must not think of it. The harder father is borne upon, the more he needs me to lean on.'

And then Miss Abbey, who, like all hard people when they do soften, felt that there was considerable

'I have done what I can,' she said, 'and you must go your way. You make your bed, and you must lie on it. But

'The Fellowships,' returned Miss Abbey, 'has itself to look to, as well as others. It has been hard work to

establish order here, and make the Fellowships what it is, and it is daily and nightly hard work to keep it so.

The Fellowships must not have a taint upon it that may give it a bad name. I forbid the house to Riderhood,

and I forbid the house to Gaffer. I forbid both, equally. I find from Riderhood and you together, that there are

suspicions against both men, and I'm not going to take upon myself to decide betwixt them. They are both

tarred with a dirty brush, and I can't have the Fellowships tarred with the same brush. That's all I know.'

'I can believe a good deal,' returned the stately Abbey, 'so I'll try to believe that too, Lizzie.'

No supper did Miss Potterson take that night, and only half her usual tumbler of hot Port Negus. And the

female domesticstwo robust sisters, with staring black eyes, shining flat red faces, blunt noses, and strong

black curls, like dollsinterchanged the sentiment that Missis had had her hair combed the wrong way by

somebody. And the potboy afterwards remarked, that he hadn't been 'so rattled to bed', since his late mother

The chaining of the door behind her, as she went forth, disenchanted Lizzie Hexam of that first relief she had

felt. The night was black and shrill, the riverside wilderness was melancholy, and there was a sound of

castingout, in the rattling of the ironlinks, and the grating of the bolts and staples under Miss Abbey's

hand. As she came beneath the lowering sky, a sense of being involved in a murky shade of Murder dropped

upon her; and, as the tidal swell of the river broke at her feet without her seeing how it gathered, so, her

thoughts startled her by rushing out of an unseen void and striking at her heart.

Of her father's being groundlessly suspected, she felt sure. Sure. Sure. And yet, repeat the word inwardly as

often as she would, the attempt to reason out and prove that she was sure, always came after it and failed.

Riderhood had done the deed, and entrapped her father. Riderhood had not done the deed, but had resolved in

his malice to turn against her father, the appearances that were ready to his hand to distort. Equally and

swiftly upon either putting of the case, followed the frightful possibility that her father, being innocent, yet

might come to be believed guilty. She had heard of people suffering Death for bloodshed of which they were

afterwards proved pure, and those illfated persons were not, first, in that dangerous wrong in which her

father stood. Then at the best, the beginning of his being set apart, whispered against, and avoided, was a

certain fact. It dated from that very night. And as the great black river with its dreary shores was soon lost to

her view in the gloom, so, she stood on the river's brink unable to see into the vast blank misery of a life

suspected, and fallen away from by good and bad, but knowing that it lay there dim before her, stretching

One thing only, was clear to the girl's mind. Accustomed from her very babyhood promptly to do the thing

that could be done whether to keep out weather, to ward off cold, to postpone hunger, or what notshe

The room was quiet, and the lamp burnt on the table. In the bunk in the corner, her brother lay asleep. She

'By the time of Miss Abbey's closing, and by the run of the tide, it must be one. Tide's running up. Father at

Chiswick, wouldn't think of coming down, till after the turn, and that's at half after four. I'll call Charley at

Very quietly, she placed a chair before the scanty fire, and sat down in it, drawing her shawl about her.

The clock struck two, and the clock struck three, and the clock struck four, and she remained there, with a

woman's patience and her own purpose. When the morning was well on between four and five, she slipped

off her shoes (that her going about, might not wake Charley), trimmed the fire sparingly, put water on to boil,

and set the table for breakfast. Then she went up the ladder, lamp in hand, and came down again, and glided

about and about, making a little bundle. Lastly, from her pocket, and from the chimneypiece, and from an

inverted basin on the highest shelf she brought halfpence, a few sixpences, fewer shillings, and fell to

laboriously and noiselessly counting them, and setting aside one little heap. She was still so engaged, when

'Jump! Didn't you make ME jump, when I opened my eyes a moment ago, and saw you sitting there, like the

'It seems to be a precious small one, if that's it,' said the boy. 'What are you putting that little pile of money by

Her composed manner, and her low distinct voice, always had an influence over him. His head was soon in a

basin of water, and out of it again, and staring at her through a storm of towelling.

'I never,' towelling at himself as if he were his bitterest enemy, 'saw such a girl as you are. What IS the move,

More serious of face, and more slow of action, than he had been, the boy completed his dressing, and came

and sat down at the little breakfasttable, with his eyes amazedly directed to her face.

'You see, Charley dear, I have made up my mind that this is the right time for your going away from us. Over

and above all the blessed change of byandbye, you'll be much happier, and do much better, even so soon as

'I don't quite know how, Charley, but I do.' In spite of her unchanged manner of speaking, and her unchanged

appearance of composure, she scarcely trusted herself to look at him, but kept her eyes employed on the

cutting and buttering of his bread, and on the mixing of his tea, and other such little preparations. 'You must

'You don't stand upon ceremony, I think,' grumbled the boy, throwing his bread and butter about, in an

'I tell you what,' said the boy, then, bursting out into an angry whimpering, 'you're a selfish jade, and you

'If you believe so, Charley,yes, then I believe too, that I am a selfish jade, and that I think there's not

It was only when the boy rushed at her, and threw his arms round her neck, that she lost her selfrestraint.

'Don't cry, don't cry! I am satisfied to go, Liz; I am satisfied to go. I know you send me away for my good.'

After a silence, she loosed him, to dry her eyes and regain her strong quiet influence.

'Now listen, Charley dear. We both know it must be done, and I alone know there is good reason for its being

done at once. Go straight to the school, and say that you and I agreed upon itthat we can't overcome

father's oppositionthat father will never trouble them, but will never take you back. You are a credit to the

school, and you will be a greater credit to it yet, and they will help you to get a living. Show what clothes you

have brought, and what money, and say that I will send some more money. If I can get some in no other way,

'I say!' cried her brother, quickly. 'Don't you have it of that chap that took hold of me by the chin! Don't you

Perhaps a slight additional tinge of red flushed up into her face and brow, as with a nod she laid a hand upon

'And above all things mind this, Charley! Be sure you always speak well of father. Be sure you always give

father his full due. You can't deny that because father has no learning himself he is set against it in you; but

favour nothing else against him, and be sure you sayas you knowthat your sister is devoted to him. And

if you should ever happen to hear anything said against father that is new to you, it will not be true.

The boy looked at her with some doubt and surprise, but she went on again without heeding it.

'Above all things remember! It will not be true. I have nothing more to say, Charley dear, except, be good,

and get learning, and only think of some things in the old life here, as if you had dreamed them in a dream

Though so young, she infused in these parting words a love that was far more like a mother's than a sister's,

and before which the boy was quite bowed down. After holding her to his breast with a passionate cry, he

The white face of the winter day came sluggishly on, veiled in a frosty mist; and the shadowy ships in the

river slowly changed to black substances; and the sun, bloodred on the eastern marshes behind dark masts

and yards, seemed filled with the ruins of a forest it had set on fire. Lizzie, looking for her father, saw him

He had nothing with him but his boat, and came on apace. A knot of those amphibious humancreatures who

appear to have some mysterious power of extracting a subsistence out of tidal water by looking at it, were

gathered together about the causeway. As her father's boat grounded, they became contemplative of the mud,

Gaffer saw it, too, in so far as that he was moved when he set foot on shore, to stare around him. But, he

promptly set to work to haul up his boat, and make her fast, and take the sculls and rudder and rope out of

'Sit close to the fire, father, dear, while I cook your breakfast. It's all ready for cooking, and only been waiting

'Well, Lizzie, I ain't of a glow; that's certain. And my hands seem nailed through to the sculls. See how dead

they are!' Something suggestive in their colour, and perhaps in her face, struck him as he held them up; he

'There's a drop of brandy for your tea, father, if you'll put it in while I turn this bit of meat. If the river was to

'Ah! there's always enough of that,' said Gaffer, dropping the liquor into his cup from a squat black bottle,

and dropping it slowly that it might seem more; 'distress is for ever a going about, like sut in the airAin't

'The meat's ready now, father. Eat it while it's hot and comfortable. After you have finished, we'll turn round

But, he perceived that he was evaded, and, having thrown a hasty angry glance towards the bunk, plucked at a

'Father, if you'll begin your breakfast, I'll sit by and tell you.' He looked at her, stirred his tea and took two or

three gulps, then cut at his piece of hot steak with his caseknife, and said, eating:

'And that having this gift, and not being equally good at other things, he has made shift to get some

'And that knowing you have nothing to spare, father, and not wishing to be a burden on you, he gradually

made up his mind to go seek his fortune out of learning. He went away this morning, father, and he cried very

'Let him never come a nigh me to ask me my forgiveness,' said the father, again emphasizing his words with

the knife. 'Let him never come within sight of my eyes, nor yet within reach of my arm. His own father ain't

good enough for him. He's disowned his own father. His own father therefore, disowns him for ever and ever,

He had pushed away his plate. With the natural need of a strong rough man in anger, to do something

forcible, he now clutched his knife overhand, and struck downward with it at the end of every succeeding

sentence. As he would have struck with his own clenched fist if there had chanced to be nothing in it.

'He's welcome to go. He's more welcome to go than to stay. But let him never come back. Let him never put

his head inside that door. And let you never speak a word more in his favour, or you'll disown your own

father, likewise, and what your father says of him he'll have to come to say of you. Now I see why them men

yonder held aloof from me. They says to one another, "Here comes the man as ain't good enough for his own

But, she stopped him with a cry. Looking at her he saw her, with a face quite strange to him, shrinking back

Confounded by her appearance and exclamation, he tossed it away, and stood up with his open hands held out

'Nothing, dear father. On my knees, I am certain, in my heart and soul I am certain, nothing! But it was too

dreadful to bear; for it looked' her hands covering her face again, 'O it looked'

The recollection of his murderous figure, combining with her trial of last night, and her trial of the morning,

He had never seen her so before. He raised her with the utmost tenderness, calling her the best of daughters,

and 'my poor pretty creetur', and laid her head upon his knee, and tried to restore her. But failing, he laid her

head gently down again, got a pillow and placed it under her dark hair, and sought on the table for a spoonful

of brandy. There being none left, he hurriedly caught up the empty bottle, and ran out at the door.

He returned as hurriedly as he had gone, with the bottle still empty. He kneeled down by her, took her head

on his arm, and moistened her lips with a little water into which he dipped his fingers: saying, fiercely, as he

'Have we got a pest in the house? Is there summ'at deadly sticking to my clothes? What's let loose upon us?

Silas Wegg, being on his road to the Roman Empire, approaches it by way of Clerkenwell. The time is early

in the evening; the weather moist and raw. Mr Wegg finds leisure to make a little circuit, by reason that he

folds his screen early, now that he combines another source of income with it, and also that he feels it due to

himself to be anxiously expected at the Bower. 'Boffin will get all the eagerer for waiting a bit,' says Silas,

screwing up, as he stumps along, first his right eye, and then his left. Which is something superfluous in him,

'If I get on with him as I expect to get on,' Silas pursues, stumping and meditating, 'it wouldn't become me to

leave it here. It wouldn't he respectable.' Animated by this reflection, he stumps faster, and looks a long way

Aware of a workingjeweller population taking sanctuary about the church in Clerkenwell, Mr Wegg is

conscious of an interest in, and a respect for, the neighbourhood. But, his sensations in this regard halt as to

their strict morality, as he halts in his gait; for, they suggest the delights of a coat of invisibility in which to

walk off safely with the precious stones and watchcases, but stop short of any compunction for the people

Not, however, towards the 'shops' where cunning artificers work in pearls and diamonds and gold and silver,

making their hands so rich, that the enriched water in which they wash them is bought for the refiners;not

towards these does Mr Wegg stump, but towards the poorer shops of small retail traders in commodities to

eat and drink and keep folks warm, and of Italian framemakers, and of barbers, and of brokers, and of

dealers in dogs and singingbirds. From these, in a narrow and a dirty street devoted to such callings, Mr

Wegg selects one dark shopwindow with a tallow candle dimly burning in it, surrounded by a muddle of

objects vaguely resembling pieces of leather and dry stick, but among which nothing is resolvable into

anything distinct, save the candle itself in its old tin candlestick, and two preserved frogs fighting a small

sword duel. Stumping with fresh vigour, he goes in at the dark greasy entry, pushes a little greasy dark

reluctant sidedoor, and follows the door into the little dark greasy shop. It is so dark that nothing can be

made out in it, over a little counter, but another tallow candle in another old tin candlestick, close to the face

The face looking up is a sallow face with weak eyes, surmounted by a tangle of reddishdusty hair. The

owner of the face has no cravat on, and has opened his tumbled shirtcollar to work with the more ease. For

the same reason he has no coat on: only a loose waistcoat over his yellow linen. His eyes are like the

overtried eyes of an engraver, but he is not that; his expression and stoop are like those of a shoemaker, but

With slowly dawning remembrance, Mr Venus rises, and holds his candle over the little counter, and holds it

'Yes, yes,' quoth Venus. 'How do you do? Sit down by the fire, and warm youryour other one.'

'The little counter being so short a counter that it leaves the fireplace, which would have been behind it if it

had been longer, accessible, Mr Wegg sits down on a box in front of the fire, and inhales a warm and

comfortable smell which is not the smell of the shop. 'For that,' Mr Wegg inwardly decides, as he takes a

corrective sniff or two, 'is musty, leathery, feathery, cellary, gluey, gummy, and,' with another sniff, 'as it

It being one of Mr Wegg's guiding rules in life always to partake, he says he will. But, the little shop is so

excessively dark, is stuck so full of black shelves and brackets and nooks and corners, that he sees Mr

Venus's cup and saucer only because it is close under the candle, and does not see from what mysterious

recess Mr Venus produces another for himself until it is under his nose. Concurrently, Wegg perceives a

pretty little dead bird lying on the counter, with its head drooping on one side against the rim of Mr Venus's

saucer, and a long stiff wire piercing its breast. As if it were Cock Robin, the hero of the ballad, and Mr

Venus were the sparrow with his bow and arrow, and Mr Wegg were the fly with his little eye.

Mr Venus dives, and produces another muffin, yet untoasted; taking the arrow out of the breast of Cock

Robin, he proceeds to toast it on the end of that cruel instrument. When it is brown, he dives again and

Mr Wegg, as an artful man who is sure of his supper byandbye, presses muffin on his host to soothe him

into a compliant state of mind, or, as one might say, to grease his works. As the muffins disappear, little by

little, the black shelves and nooks and corners begin to appear, and Mr Wegg gradually acquires an imperfect

notion that over against him on the chimneypiece is a Hindoo baby in a bottle, curved up with his big head

tucked under him, as he would instantly throw a summersault if the bottle were large enough.

When he deems Mr Venus's wheels sufficiently lubricated, Mr Wegg approaches his object by asking, as he

This would seem to be secretly agreeable to Wegg, but he veils his feelings, and observes, 'Strange. To what

'I don't know,' replies Venus, who is a haggard melancholy man, speaking in a weak voice of querulous

complaint, 'to what to attribute it, Mr Wegg. I can't work you into a miscellaneous one, no how. Do what I

will, you can't be got to fit. Anybody with a passable knowledge would pick you out at a look, and say,"No

'Well, but hang it, Mr Venus,' Wegg expostulates with some little irritation, 'that can't be personal and

'With ribs (I grant you) always. But not else. When I prepare a miscellaneous one, I know beforehand that I

can't keep to nature, and be miscellaneous with ribs, because every man has his own ribs, and no other man's

will go with them; but elseways I can be miscellaneous. I have just sent home a Beautya perfect Beauty

to a school of art. One leg Belgian, one leg English, and the pickings of eight other people in it. Talk of not

Silas looks as hard at his one leg as he can in the dim light, and after a pause sulkily opines 'that it must be the

fault of the other people. Or how do you mean to say it comes about?' he demands impatiently.

'I don't know how it comes about. Stand up a minute. Hold the light.' Mr Venus takes from a corner by his

chair, the bones of a leg and foot, beautifully pure, and put together with exquisite neatness. These he

compares with Mr Wegg's leg; that gentleman looking on, as if he were being measured for a ridingboot.

'No, I don't know how it is, but so it is. You have got a twist in that bone, to the best of my belief. I never saw

Mr Wegg having looked distrustfully at his own limb, and suspiciously at the pattern with which it has been

'An easy wager, when we run so much into foreign! No, it belongs to that French gentleman.'

As he nods towards a point of darkness behind Mr Wegg, the latter, with a slight start, looks round for 'that

French gentleman,' whom he at length descries to be represented (in a very workmanlike manner) by his ribs

only, standing on a shelf in another corner, like a piece of armour or a pair of stays.

'Oh!' says Mr Wegg, with a sort of sense of being introduced; 'I dare say you were all right enough in your

own country, but I hope no objections will be taken to my saying that the Frenchman was never yet born as I

At this moment the greasy door is violently pushed inward, and a boy follows it, who says, after having let it

The boy produces four shillings. Mr Venus, always in exceedingly low spirits and making whimpering

sounds, peers about for the stuffed canary. On his taking the candle to assist his search, Mr Wegg observes

that he has a convenient little shelf near his knees, exclusively appropriated to skeleton hands, which have

very much the appearance of wanting to lay hold of him. From these Mr Venus rescues the canary in a glass

'There!' he whimpers. 'There's animation! On a twig, making up his mind to hop! Take care of him; he's a

The boy gathers up his change and has pulled the door open by a leather strap nailed to it for the purpose,

'Stop him! Come back, you young villain! You've got a tooth among them halfpence.'

'How was I to know I'd got it? You giv it me. I don't want none of your teeth; I've got enough of my own.' So

'Don't sauce ME, in the wicious pride of your youth,' Mr Venus retorts pathetically.' Don't hit ME because

you see I'm down. I'm low enough without that. It dropped into the till, I suppose. They drop into everything.

To which Mr Venus only replies, shaking his shock of dusty hair, and winking his weak eyes, 'Don't sauce

ME, in the wicious pride of your youth; don't hit ME, because you see I'm down. You've no idea how small

This consideration seems to have its effect on the boy, for he goes out grumbling.

'Oh dear me, dear me!' sighs Mr Venus, heavily, snuffing the candle, 'the world that appeared so flowery has

ceased to blow! You're casting your eye round the shop, Mr Wegg. Let me show you a light. My working

bench. My young man's bench. A Wice. Tools. Bones, warious. Skulls, warious. Preserved Indian baby.

African ditto. Bottled preparations, warious. Everything within reach of your hand, in good preservation. The

mouldy ones atop. What's in those hampers over them again, I don't quite remember. Say, human warious.

Cats. Articulated English baby. Dogs. Ducks. Glass eyes, warious. Mummied bird. Dried cuticle, warious.

Having so held and waved the candle as that all these heterogeneous objects seemed to come forward

obediently when they were named, and then retire again, Mr Venus despondently repeats, 'Oh dear me, dear

me!' resumes his seat, and with drooping despondency upon him, falls to pouring himself out more tea.

'You're somewhere in the back shop across the yard, sir; and speaking quite candidly, I wish I'd never bought

'Well,' replies Venus, blowing his tea: his head and face peering out of the darkness, over the smoke of it, as

if he were modernizing the old original rise in his family: 'you were one of a warious lot, and I don't know.'

'Well,' replies Venus, still blowing his tea, 'I'm not prepared, at a moment's notice, to tell you, Mr Wegg.'

'Come! According to your own account I'm not worth much,' Wegg reasons persuasively.

'Not for miscellaneous working in, I grant you, Mr Wegg; but you might turn out valuable yet, as a' here

Mr Venus takes a gulp of tea, so hot that it makes him choke, and sets his weak eyes watering; 'as a

Repressing an indignant look, indicative of anything but a disposition to excuse him, Silas pursues his point.

Mr Venus takes gulps of hot tea, shutting his eyes at every gulp, and opening them again in a spasmodic

'I have a prospect of getting on in life and elevating myself by my own independent exertions,' says Wegg,

feelingly, 'and I shouldn't likeI tell you openly I should NOT likeunder such circumstances, to be what I

may call dispersed, a part of me here, and a part of me there, but should wish to collect myself like a genteel

'It's a prospect at present, is it, Mr Wegg? Then you haven't got the money for a deal about you? Then I'll tell

you what I'll do with you; I'll hold you over. I am a man of my word, and you needn't be afraid of my

Fain to accept his promise, and wishing to propitiate him, Mr Wegg looks on as he sighs and pours himself

'Never was so well in. Mr Wegg, I'm not only first in the trade, but I'm THE trade. You may go and buy a

skeleton at the West End if you like, and pay the West End price, but it'll be my putting together. I've as much

to do as I can possibly do, with the assistance of my young man, and I take a pride and a pleasure in it.'

Mr Venus thus delivers hmself, his right hand extended, his smoking saucer in his left hand, protesting as

'Mr Wegg, I know it ain't. Mr Wegg, not to name myself as a workman without an equal, I've gone on

improving myself in my knowledge of Anatomy, till both by sight and by name I'm perfect. Mr Wegg, if you

was brought here loose in a bag to be articulated, I'd name your smallest bones blindfold equally with your

largest, as fast as I could pick 'em out, and I'd sort 'em all, and sort your wertebrae, in a manner that would

'Well,' remarks Silas (though not quite so readily as last time), 'THAT ain't a state of things to be low

'Mr Wegg, I know it ain't; Mr Wegg, I know it ain't. But it's the heart that lowers me, it is the heart! Be so

Silas receives one from his hand, which Venus takes from a wonderful litter in a drawer, and putting on his

'That's it,' with a groan. 'That's it! Mr Wegg, I'm thirtytwo, and a bachelor. Mr Wegg, I love her. Mr Wegg,

she is worthy of being loved by a Potentate!' Here Silas is rather alarmed by Mr Venus's springing to his feet

in the hurry of his spirits, and haggardly confronting him with his hand on his coat collar; but Mr Venus,

begging pardon, sits down again, saying, with the calmness of despair, 'She objects to the business.'

'She knows the profits of it, but she don't appreciate the art of it, and she objects to it. "I do not wish," she

writes in her own handwriting, "to regard myself, nor yet to be regarded, in that boney light".'

Mr Venus pours himself out more tea, with a look and in an attitude of the deepest desolation.

'And so a man climbs to the top of the tree, Mr Wegg, only to see that there's no lookout when he's up there!

I sit here of a night surrounded by the lovely trophies of my art, and what have they done for me? Ruined me.

Brought me to the pass of being informed that "she does not wish to regard herself, nor yet to be regarded, in

that boney light"!' Having repeated the fatal expressions, Mr Venus drinks more tea by gulps, and offers an

'It lowers me. When I'm equally lowered all over, lethargy sets in. By sticking to it till one or two in the

morning, I get oblivion. Don't let me detain you, Mr Wegg. I'm not company for any one.'

'It is not on that account,' says Silas, rising, 'but because I've got an appointment. It's time I was at Harmon's.'

'You ought to be in a good thing, if you've worked yourself in there. There's lots of money going, there.'

'To think,' says Silas, 'that you should catch it up so quick, and know about it. Wonderful!'

'Not at all, Mr Wegg. The old gentleman wanted to know the nature and worth of everything that was found

in the dust; and many's the bone, and feather, and what not, that he's brought to me.'

'Yes. (Oh dear me, dear me!) And he's buried quite in this neighbourhood, you know. Over yonder.'

Mr Wegg does not know, but he makes as if he did, by responsively nodding his head. He also follows with

'I took an interest in that discovery in the river,' says Venus. (She hadn't written her cutting refusal at that

He had raised the candle at arm's length towards one of the dark shelves, and Mr Wegg had turned to look,

'The old gentleman was well known all round here. There used to be stories about his having hidden all kinds

of property in those dust mounds. I suppose there was nothing in 'em. Probably you know, Mr Wegg?'

The unfortunate Mr Venus gives him a shake of the hand with a shake of his own head, and drooping down in

his chair, proceeds to pour himself out more tea. Mr Wegg, looking back over his shoulder as he pulls the

door open by the strap, notices that the movement so shakes the crazy shop, and so shakes a momentary flare

out of the candle, as that the babiesHindoo, African, and Britishthe 'human warious', the French

gentleman, the green glasseyed cats, the dogs, the ducks, and all the rest of the collection, show for an

instant as if paralytically animated; while even poor little Cock Robin at Mr Venus's elbow turns over on his

innocent side. Next moment, Mr Wegg is stumping under the gaslights and through the mud.

Whosoever had gone out of Fleet Street into the Temple at the date of this history, and had wandered

disconsolate about the Temple until he stumbled on a dismal churchyard, and had looked up at the dismal

windows commanding that churchyard until at the most dismal window of them all he saw a dismal boy,

would in him have beheld, at one grand comprehensive swoop of the eye, the managing clerk, junior clerk,

commonlaw clerk, conveyancing clerk, chancery clerk, every refinement and department of clerk, of Mr

Mr Boffin having been several times in communication with this clerkly essence, both on its own ground and

at the Bower, had no difficulty in identifying it when he saw it up in its dusty eyrie. To the second floor on

which the window was situated, he ascended, much preoccupied in mind by the uncertainties besetting the

Roman Empire, and much regretting the death of the amiable Pertinax: who only last night had left the

Imperial affairs in a state of great confusion, by falling a victim to the fury of the praetorian guards.

'Morning, morning, morning!' said Mr Boffin, with a wave of his hand, as the office door was opened by the

'I don't want him to give it, you know,' returned Mr Boffin; 'I'll pay my way, my boy.'

'No doubt, sir. Would you walk in? Mr Lightwood ain't in at the present moment, but I expect him back very

shortly. Would you take a seat in Mr Lightwood's room, sir, while I look over our Appointment Book?'

Young Blight made a great show of fetching from his desk a long thin manuscript volume with a brown paper

cover, and running his finger down the day's appointments, murmuring, 'Mr Aggs, Mr Baggs, Mr Caggs, Mr

Daggs, Mr Faggs, Mr Gaggs, Mr Boffin. Yes, sir; quite right. You are a little before your time, sir. Mr

'Thank you, sir. I'll take the opportunity, if you please, of entering your name in our Callers' Book for the

day.' Young Blight made another great show of changing the volume, taking up a pen, sucking it, dipping it,

and running over previous entries before he wrote. As, 'Mr Alley, Mr Balley, Mr Calley, Mr Dalley, Mr

By which he probably meant that his mind would have been shattered to pieces without this fiction of an

occupation. Wearing in his solitary confinement no fetters that he could polish, and being provided with no

drinkingcup that he could carve, be had fallen on the device of ringing alphabetical changes into the two

volumes in question, or of entering vast numbers of persons out of the Directory as transacting business with

Mr Lightwood. It was the more necessary for his spirits, because, being of a sensitive temperament, he was

apt to consider it personally disgraceful to himself that his master had no clients.

'How long have you been in the law, now?' asked Mr Boffin, with a pounce, in his usual inquisitive way.

'Must have been as good as born in it!' said Mr Boffin, with admiration. 'Do you like it?'

'I don't mind it much,' returned Young Blight, heaving a sigh, as if its bitterness were past.

'About how long might it take you now, at a average rate of going, to be a Judge?' asked Mr Boffin, after

The boy virtually replied that as he had the honour to be a Briton who never never never, there was nothing to

prevent his going in for it. Yet he seemed inclined to suspect that there might be something to prevent his

On this head, young Blight had no doubt whatever, so Mr Boffin made him a present of that sum of money,

and thanked him for his attention to his (Mr Boffin's) affairs; which, he added, were now, he believed, as

Then Mr Boffin, with his stick at his ear, like a Familiar Spirit explaining the office to him, sat staring at a

little bookcase of Law Practice and Law Reports, and at a window, and at an empty blue bag, and at a stick of

sealingwax, and a pen, and a box of wafers, and an apple, and a writingpadall very dustyand at a

number of inky smears and blots, and at an imperfectlydisguised guncase pretending to be something

Mr Lightwood explained that he came from the proctor's, with whom he had been engaged in transacting Mr

'And they seem to have taken a deal out of you!' said Mr Boffin, with commiseration.

Mr Lightwood, without explaining that his weariness was chronic, proceeded with his exposition that, all

forms of law having been at length complied with, will of Harmon deceased having been proved, death of

Harmon next inheriting having been proved, and so forth, Court of Chancery having been moved, and so

forth, he, Mr Lightwood, had now the gratification, honour, and happiness, again and so forth, of

congratulating Mr Boffin on coming into possession as residuary legatee, of upwards of one hundred

thousand pounds, standing in the books of the Governor and Company of the Bank of England, again and so

'And what is particularly eligible in the property Mr Boffin, is, that it involves no trouble. There are no estates

to manage, no rents to return so much per cent upon in bad times (which is an extremely dear way of getting

your name into the newspapers), no voters to become parboiled in hot water with, no agents to take the cream

off the milk before it comes to table. You could put the whole in a cashbox tomorrow morning, and take it

with you tosay, to the Rocky Mountains. Inasmuch as every man,' concluded Mr Lightwood, with an

indolent smile, 'appears to be under a fatal spell which obliges him, sooner or later, to mention the Rocky

Mountains in a tone of extreme familiarity to some other man, I hope you'll excuse my pressing you into the

Without following this last remark very closely, Mr Boffin cast his perplexed gaze first at the ceiling, and

'Well,' he remarked, 'I don't know what to say about it, I am sure. I was a'most as well as I was. It's a great lot

'Speaking now,' returned Mortimer, 'with the irresponsible imbecility of a private individual, and not with the

profundity of a professional adviser, I should say that if the circumstance of its being too much, weighs upon

your mind, you have the haven of consolation open to you that you can easily make it less. And if you should

be apprehensive of the trouble of doing so, there is the further haven of consolation that any number of

'Well! I don't quite see it,' retorted Mr Boffin, still perplexed. 'That's not satisfactory, you know, what you're

'I used to find it so,' answered Mr Boffin, with a wistful look. 'While I was foreman at the Bowerafore it

WAS the BowerI considered the business very satisfactory. The old man was a awful Tartar (saying it, I'm

sure, without disrespect to his memory) but the business was a pleasant one to look after, from before

daylight to past dark. It's a'most a pity,' said Mr Boffin, rubbing his ear, 'that he ever went and made so much

money. It would have been better for him if he hadn't so given himself up to it. You may depend upon it,'

making the discovery all of a sudden, 'that HE found it a great lot to take care of!'

'And speaking of satisfactory,' pursued Mr Boffin, 'why, Lord save us! when we come to take it to pieces, bit

by bit, where's the satisfactoriness of the money as yet? When the old man does right the poor boy after all,

the poor boy gets no good of it. He gets made away with, at the moment when he's lifting (as one may say)

the cup and sarser to his lips. Mr Lightwood, I will now name to you, that on behalf of the poor dear boy, me

and Mrs Boffin have stood out against the old man times out of number, till he has called us every name be

could lay his tongue to. I have seen him, after Mrs Boffin has given him her mind respecting the claims of the

nat'ral affections, catch off Mrs Boffin's bonnet (she wore, in general, a black straw, perched as a matter of

convenience on the top of her head), and send it spinning across the yard. I have indeed. And once, when he

did this in a manner that amounted to personal, I should have given him a rattler for himself, if Mrs Boffin

hadn't thrown herself betwixt us, and received flush on the temple. Which dropped her, Mr Lightwood.

'You understand; I name this,' pursued Mr Boffin, 'to show you, now the affairs are wound up, that me and

Mrs Boffin have ever stood as we were in Christian honour bound, the children's friend. Me and Mrs Boffin

stood the poor girl's friend; me and Mrs Boffin stood the poor boy's friend; me and Mrs Boffin up and faced

the old man when we momently expected to be turned out for our pains. As to Mrs Boffin,' said Mr Boffin

lowering his voice, 'she mightn't wish it mentioned now she's Fashionable, but she went so far as to tell him,

Mr Lightwood murmured 'Vigorous Saxon spiritMrs Boffin's ancestorsbowmenAgincourt and

'The last time me and Mrs Boffin saw the poor boy,' said Mr Boffin, warming (as fat usually does) with a

tendency to melt, 'he was a child of seven year old. For when he came back to make intercession for his

sister, me and Mrs Boffin were away overlooking a country contract which was to be sifted before carted, and

he was come and gone in a single hour. I say he was a child of seven year old. He was going away, all alone

and forlorn, to that foreign school, and he come into our place, situate up the yard of the present Bower, to

have a warm at our fire. There was his little scanty travelling clothes upon him. There was his little scanty

box outside in the shivering wind, which I was going to carry for him down to the steamboat, as the old man

wouldn't hear of allowing a sixpence coachmoney. Mrs Boffin, then quite a young woman and pictur of a

fullblown rose, stands him by her, kneels down at the fire, warms her two open hands, and falls to rubbing

his cheeks; but seeing the tears come into the child's eyes, the tears come fast into her own, and she holds him

round the neck, like as if she was protecting him, and cries to me, "I'd give the wide wide world, I would, to

run away with him!" I don't say but what it cut me, and but what it at the same time heightened my feelings

of admiration for Mrs Boffin. The poor child clings to her for awhile, as she clings to him, and then, when the

old man calls, he says "I must go! God bless you!" and for a moment rests his heart against her bosom, and

looks up at both of us, as if it was in painin agony. Such a look! I went aboard with him (I gave him first

what little treat I thought he'd like), and I left him when he had fallen asleep in his berth, and I came back to

Mrs Boffin. But tell her what I would of how I had left him, it all went for nothing, for, according to her

thoughts, he never changed that look that he had looked up at us two. But it did one piece of good. Mrs

Boffin and me had no child of our own, and had sometimes wished that how we had one. But not now. "We

might both of us die," says Mrs Boffin, "and other eyes might see that lonely look in our child." So of a night,

when it was very cold, or when the wind roared, or the rain dripped heavy, she would wake sobbing, and call

out in a fluster, "Don't you see the poor child's face? O shelter the poor child!"till in course of years it

'My dear Mr Boffin, everything wears to rags,' said Mortimer, with a light laugh.

'I won't go so far as to say everything,' returned Mr Boffin, on whom his manner seemed to grate, 'because

there's some things that I never found among the dust. Well, sir. So Mrs Boffin and me grow older and older

in the old man's service, living and working pretty hard in it, till the old man is discovered dead in his bed.

Then Mrs Boffin and me seal up his box, always standing on the table at the side of his bed, and having

frequently heerd tell of the Temple as a spot where lawyer's dust is contracted for, I come down here in

search of a lawyer to advise, and I see your young man up at this present elevation, chopping at the flies on

the windowsill with his penknife, and I give him a Hoy! not then having the pleasure of your acquaintance,

and by that means come to gain the honour. Then you, and the gentleman in the uncomfortable neckcloth

'I understood it was another name,' said Mr Boffin, pausing, 'but you know best. Then you and Doctor

Scommons, you go to work, and you do the thing that's proper, and you and Doctor S. take steps for finding

out the poor boy, and at last you do find out the poor boy, and me and Mrs Boffin often exchange the

observation, "We shall see him again, under happy circumstances." But it was never to be; and the want of

'But it gets,' remarked Lightwood, with a languid inclination of the head, 'into excellent hands.'

'It gets into the hands of me and Mrs Boffin only this very day and hour, and that's what I am working round

to, having waited for this day and hour a' purpose. Mr Lightwood, here has been a wicked cruel murder. By

that murder me and Mrs Boffin mysteriously profit. For the apprehension and conviction of the murderer, we

'Mr Lightwood, me and Mrs Boffin have fixed the sum together, and we stand to it.'

'But let me represent to you,' returned Lightwood, 'speaking now with professional profundity, and not with

individual imbecility, that the offer of such an immense reward is a temptation to forced suspicion, forced

construction of circumstances, strained accusation, a whole toolbox of edged tools.'

'Well,' said Mr Boffin, a little staggered, 'that's the sum we put o' one side for the purpose. Whether it shall be

'Very well; in my name, which is the same as Mrs Boffin's, and means both of us, is to be considered in

drawing 'em up. But this is the first instruction that I, as the owner of the property, give to my lawyer on

'Your lawyer, Mr Boffin,' returned Lightwood, making a very short note of it with a very rusty pen, 'has the

'There is just one other, and no more. Make me as compact a little will as can be reconciled with tightness,

leaving the whole of the property to "my beloved wife, Henerietty Boffin, sole executrix". Make it as short as

At some loss to fathom Mr Boffin's notions of a tight will, Lightwood felt his way.

'I beg your pardon, but professional profundity must be exact. When you say tight'

'Exactly so. And nothing can be more laudable. But is the tightness to bind Mrs Boffin to any and what

'Bind Mrs Boffin?' interposed her husband. 'No! What are you thinking of! What I want is, to make it all hers

'Absolutely?' repeated Mr Boffin, with a short sturdy laugh. 'Hah! I should think so! It would be handsome in

So that instruction, too, was taken by Mr Lightwood; and Mr Lightwood, having taken it, was in the act of

showing Mr Boffin out, when Mr Eugene Wrayburn almost jostled him in the door way. Consequently Mr

Lightwood said, in his cool manner, 'Let me make you two known to one another,' and further signified that

Mr Wrayburn was counsel learned in the law, and that, partly in the way of business and partly in the way of

pleasure, he had imparted to Mr Wrayburn some of the interesting facts of Mr Boffin's biography.

'Thankee, sir, thankee,' returned that gentleman. 'And how do YOU like the law?'

'Too dry for you, eh? Well, I suppose it wants some years of sticking to, before you master it. But there's

'I beg your pardon,' returned Eugene, with a reluctant smile, 'but will you excuse my mentioning that I always

'As a twofooted creature;I object on principle, as a twofooted creature, to being constantly referred to

insects and fourfooted creatures. I object to being required to model my proceedings according to the

proceedings of the bee, or the dog, or the spider, or the camel. I fully admit that the camel, for instance, is an

excessively temperate person; but he has several stomachs to entertain himself with, and I have only one.

'But I said, you know,' urged Mr Boffin, rather at a loss for an answer, 'the bee.'

'Exactly. And may I represent to you that it's injudicious to say the bee? For the whole case is assumed.

Conceding for a moment that there is any analogy between a bee, and a man in a shirt and pantaloons (which

I deny), and that it is settled that the man is to learn from the bee (which I also deny), the question still

remains, what is he to learn? To imitate? Or to avoid? When your friends the bees worry themselves to that

highly fluttered extent about their sovereign, and become perfectly distracted touching the slightest

monarchical movement, are we men to learn the greatness of Tuft hunting, or the littleness of the Court

'Yees,' returned Eugene, disparagingly, 'they work; but don't you think they overdo it? They work so much

more than they need they make so much more than they can eatthey are so incessantly boring and

buzzing at their one idea till Death comes upon them that don't you think they overdo it? And are human

labourers to have no holidays, because of the bees? And am I never to have change of air, because the bees

don't? Mr Boffin, I think honey excellent at breakfast; but, regarded in the light of my conventional

schoolmaster and moralist, I protest against the tyrannical humbug of your friend the bee. With the highest

But, the worthy Mr Boffin jogged away with a comfortless impression he could have dispensed with, that

there was a deal of unsatisfactoriness in the world, besides what he had recalled as appertaining to the

Harmon property. And he was still jogging along Fleet Street in this condition of mind, when he became

'Now then?' said Mr Boffin, stopping short, with his meditations brought to an abrupt check, 'what's the next

'No,' said Mr Boffin, after a glance at the pavement, as if it were made of faces and he were trying to match

'I am nobody,' said the stranger, 'and not likely to be known; but Mr Boffin's wealth'

'And his romantic manner of acquiring it, make him conspicuous. You were pointed out to me the other

'Well,' said Mr Boffin, 'I should say I was a disappintment to you when I WAS pinted out, if your politeness

would allow you to confess it, for I am well aware I am not much to look at. What might you want with me?

There may have been a momentary mantling in the face of the man as he made the last answer, but it passed

'If I don't mistake, you have followed me from my lawyer's and tried to fix my attention. Say out! Have you?

'If you will allow me to walk beside you, Mr Boffin, I will tell you. Would you object to turn aside into this

placeI think it is called Clifford's Innwhere we can hear one another better than in the roaring street?'

('Now,' thought Mr Boffin, 'if he proposes a game at skittles, or meets a country gentleman just come into

property, or produces any article of jewellery he has found, I'll knock him down!' With this discreet

reflection, and carrying his stick in his arms much as Punch carries his, Mr Boffin turned into Clifford's Inn

'Mr Boffin, I happened to be in Chancery Lane this morning, when I saw you going along before me. I took

the liberty of following you, trying to make up my mind to speak to you, till you went into your lawyer's.

('Don't quite sound like skittles, nor yet country gentleman, nor yet jewellery,' thought Mr Boffin, 'but there's

'I am afraid my object is a bold one, I am afraid it has little of the usual practical world about it, but I venture

it. If you ask me, or if you ask yourselfwhich is more likelywhat emboldens me, I answer, I have been

strongly assured, that you are a man of rectitude and plain dealing, with the soundest of sound hearts, and that

'Your information is true of Mrs Boffin, anyhow,' was Mr Boffin's answer, as he surveyed his new friend

again. There was something repressed in the strange man's manner, and he walked with his eyes on the

groundthough conscious, for all that, of Mr Boffin's observationand he spoke in a subdued voice. But

'When I add, I can discern for myself what the general tongue says of youthat you are quite unspoiled by

Fortune, and not upliftedI trust you will not, as a man of an open nature, suspect that I mean to flatter you,

but will believe that all I mean is to excuse myself, these being my only excuses for my present intrusion.'

'You will probably change your manner of living, Mr Boffin, in your changed circumstances. You will

probably keep a larger house, have many matters to arrange, and be beset by numbers of correspondents. If

'Or,' pursued the stranger, wondering at Mr Boffin's wonder, 'if you would try me as your man of business

under any name, I know you would find me faithful and grateful, and I hope you would find me useful. You

may naturally think that my immediate object is money. Not so, for I would willingly serve you a yeartwo

years any term you might appointbefore that should begin to be a consideration between us.'

Boffin's acquaintances with the names and situations of foreign lands being limited in extent and somewhat

Here again he made no great advance, for the reply was, 'I have been a student and a traveller.'

'But if it ain't a liberty to plump it out,' said Mr Boffin, 'what do you do for your living?'

'I have mentioned,' returned the other, with another look at him, and a smile, 'what I aspire to do. I have been

superseded as to some slight intentions I had, and I may say that I have now to begin life.'

Not very well knowing how to get rid of this applicant, and feeling the more embarrassed because his manner

and appearance claimed a delicacy in which the worthy Mr Boffin feared he himself might be deficient, that

gentleman glanced into the mouldy little plantation or catpreserve, of Clifford's Inn, as it was that day, in

search of a suggestion. Sparrows were there, cats were there, dryrot and wetrot were there, but it was not

'All this time,' said the stranger, producing a little pocketbook and taking out a card, 'I have not mentioned

Now, this name had been more or less in Mr Boffin's thoughts all the morning, and for days before; therefore

'That's singular, too!' unconsciously staring again, past all bounds of good manners, with the card in his hand.

'No. I occupy my own rooms, and have held scarcely any communication with them.'

'Odder and odder!' said Mr Boffin. 'Well, sir, to tell you the truth, I don't know what to say to you.'

'Say nothing,' returned Mr Rokesmith; 'allow me to call on you in a few days. I am not so unconscionable as

to think it likely that you would accept me on trust at first sight, and take me out of the very street. Let me

'That's fair, and I don't object,' said Mr Boffin; 'but it must be on condition that it's fully understood that I no

more know that I shall ever be in want of any gentleman as Secretaryit WAS Secretary you said; wasn't it?'

Again Mr Boffin's eyes opened wide, and he stared at the applicant from head to foot, repeating

'As Secretary,' repeated Mr Boffin, meditating upon the word; 'I no more know that I may ever want a

Secretary, or what not, than I do that I shall ever be in want of the man in the moon. Me and Mrs Boffin have

not even settled that we shall make any change in our way of life. Mrs Boffin's inclinations certainly do tend

towards Fashion; but, being already set up in a fashionable way at the Bower, she may not make further

alterations. However, sir, as you don't press yourself, I wish to meet you so far as saying, by all means call at

the Bower if you like. Call in the course of a week or two. At the same time, I consider that I ought to name,

in addition to what I have already named, that I have in my employment a literary manWITH a wooden

'I regret to hear I am in some sort anticipated,' Mr Rokesmith answered, evidently having heard it with

'You see,' returned Mr Boffin, with a confidential sense of dignity, 'as to my literary man's duties, they're

clear. Professionally he declines and he falls, and as a friend he drops into poetry.'

Without observing that these duties seemed by no means clear to Mr Rokesmith's astonished comprehension,

'And now, sir, I'll wish you goodday. You can call at the Bower any time in a week or two. It's not above a

mile or so from you, and your landlord can direct you to it. But as he may not know it by it's new name of

'Harmoon's,' repeated Mr Rokesmith, seeming to have caught the sound imperfectly, 'Harmarn's. How do you

'Why, as to the spelling of it,' returned Mr Boffin, with great presence of mind, 'that's YOUR look out.

Harmon's is all you've got to say to HIM. Morning, morning, morning!' And so departed, without looking

Betaking himself straight homeward, Mr Boffin, without further let or hindrance, arrived at the Bower, and

gave Mrs Boffin (in a walking dress of black velvet and feathers, like a mourning coach horse) an account

'This brings us round, my dear,' he then pursued, 'to the question we left unfinished: namely, whether there's

'Now, I'll tell you what I want, Noddy,' said Mrs Boffin, smoothing her dress with an air of immense

'Yes!' cried Mrs Boffin, laughing with the glee of a child. 'Yes! It's no good my being kept here like

'People have to pay to see WaxWork, my dear,' returned her husband, 'whereas (though you'd be cheap at

'But it don't answer,' said the cheerfial Mrs Boffin. 'When we worked like the neighbours, we suited one

'Out of the question! We have come into a great fortune, and we must do what's right by our fortune; we must

Mr Boffin, who had a deep respect for his wife's intuitive wisdom, replied, though rather pensively: 'I

'It's never been acted up to yet, and, consequently, no good has come of it,' said Mrs Boffin.

'True, to the present time,' Mr Boffin assented, with his former pensiveness, as he took his seat upon his

settle. 'I hope good may be coming of it in the future time. Towards which, what's your views, old lady?'

Mrs Boffin, a smiling creature, broad of figure and simple of nature, with her hands folded in her lap, and

'I say, a good house in a good neighbourhood, good things about us, good living, and good society. I say, live

'Yes. I say be happy, too,' assented the still pensive Mr Boffin. 'Loramussy!' exclaimed Mrs Boffin,

laughing and clapping her hands, and gaily rocking herself to and fro, 'when I think of me in a light yellow

'Yes!' cried the delighted creature. 'And with a footman up behind, with a bar across, to keep his legs from

being poled! And with a coachman up in front, sinking down into a seat big enough for three of him, all

covered with upholstery in green and white! And with two bay horses tossing their heads and stepping higher

than they trot longways! And with you and me leaning back inside, as grand as ninepence! Ohhhh My!

Mrs Boffin clapped her hands again, rocked herself again, beat her feet upon the floor, and wiped the tears of

'And what, my old lady,' inquired Mr Boffin, when he also had sympathetically laughed: 'what's your views

'Noddy,' said Mrs Boffin, coming from her fashionable sofa to his side on the plain settle, and hooking her

comfortable arm through his, 'Next I thinkand I really have been thinking early and lateof the

disappointed girl; her that was so cruelly disappointed, you know, both of her husband and his riches. Don't

you think we might do something for her? Have her to live with us? Or something of that sort?'

'Never once thought of the way of doing it!' cried Mr Boffin, smiting the table in his admiration. 'What a

thinking steamingein this old lady is. And she don't know how she does it. Neither does the ingein!'

Mrs Boffin pulled his nearest ear, in acknowledgment of this piece of philosophy, and then said, gradually

toning down to a motherly strain: 'Last, and not least, I have taken a fancy. You remember dear little John

Harmon, before he went to school? Over yonder across the yard, at our fire? Now that he is past all benefit of

the money, and it's come to us, I should like to find some orphan child, and take the boy and adopt him and

give him John's name, and provide for him. Somehow, it would make me easier, I fancy. Say it's only a

'That's as much as to say you agree? Good and kind of you, and like you, deary! And don't you begin to find

it pleasant now,' said Mrs Boffin, once more radiant in her comely way from head to foot, and once more

smoothing her dress with immense enjoyment, 'don't you begin to find it pleasant already, to think that a child

will be made brighter, and better, and happier, because of that poor sad child that day? And isn't it pleasant to

'Yes; and it's pleasant to know that you are Mrs Boffin,' said her husband, 'and it's been a pleasant thing to

know this many and many a year!' It was ruin to Mrs Boffin's aspirations, but, having so spoken, they sat side

These two ignorant and unpolished people had guided themselves so far on in their journey of life, by a

religious sense of duty and desire to do right. Ten thousand weaknesses and absurdities might have been

detected in the breasts of both; ten thousand vanities additional, possibly, in the breast of the woman. But the

hard wrathful and sordid nature that had wrung as much work out of them as could be got in their best days,

for as little money as could be paid to hurry on their worst, had never been so warped but that it knew their

moral straightness and respected it. In its own despite, in a constant conflict with itself and them, it had done

so. And this is the eternal law. For, Evil often stops short at itself and dies with the doer of it; but Good,

Through his most inveterate purposes, the dead Jailer of Harmony Jail had known these two faithful servants

to be honest and true. While he raged at them and reviled them for opposing him with the speech of the

honest and true, it had scratched his stony heart, and he had perceived the powerlessness of all his wealth to

buy them if he had addressed himself to the attempt. So, even while he was their griping taskmaster and never

gave them a good word, he had written their names down in his will. So, even while it was his daily

declaration that he mistrusted all mankindand sorely indeed he did mistrust all who bore any resemblance

to himselfhe was as certain that these two people, surviving him, would be trustworthy in all things from

Mr and Mrs Boffin, sitting side by side, with Fashion withdrawn to an immeasurable distance, fell to

discussing how they could best find their orphan. Mrs Boffin suggested advertisement in the newspapers,

requesting orphans answering annexed description to apply at the Bower on a certain day; but Mr Boffin

wisely apprehending obstruction of the neighbouring thoroughfares by orphan swarms, this course was

negatived. Mrs Boffin next suggested application to their clergyman for a likely orphan. Mr Boffin thinking

better of this scheme, they resolved to call upon the reverend gentleman at once, and to take the same

opportunity of making acquaintance with Miss Bella Wilfer. In order that these visits might be visits of state,

This consisted of a long hammerheaded old horse, formerly used in the business, attached to a fourwheeled

chaise of the same period, which had long been exclusively used by the Harmony Jail poultry as the favourite

layingplace of several discreet hens. An unwonted application of corn to the horse, and of paint and varnish

to the carriage, when both fell in as a part of the Boffin legacy, had made what Mr Boffin considered a neat

turnout of the whole; and a driver being added, in the person of a long hammerheaded young man who was

a very good match for the horse, left nothing to be desired. He, too, had been formerly used in the business,

but was now entombed by an honest jobbing tailor of the district in a perfect Sepulchre of coat and gaiters,

Behind this domestic, Mr and Mrs Boffin took their seats in the back compartment of the vehicle: which was

sufficiently commodious, but had an undignified and alarming tendency, in getting over a rough crossing, to

hiccup itself away from the front compartment. On their being descried emerging from the gates of the

Bower, the neighbourhood turned out at door and window to salute the Boffins. Among those who were ever

and again left behind, staring after the equipage, were many youthful spirits, who hailed it in stentorian tones

with such congratulations as 'Noddy Boffin!' 'Boffin's money!' 'Down with the dust, Boffin!' and other

similar compliments. These, the hammerheaded young man took in such ill part that he often impaired the

majesty of the progress by pulling up short, and making as though he would alight to exterminate the

offenders; a purpose from which he only allowed himself to be dissuaded after long and lively arguments

At length the Bower district was left behind, and the peaceful dwelling of the Reverend Frank Milvey was

gained. The Reverend Frank Milvey's abode was a very modest abode, because his income was a very modest

income. He was officially accessible to every blundering old woman who had incoherence to bestow upon

him, and readily received the Boffins. He was quite a young man, expensively educated and wretchedly paid,

with quite a young wife and half a dozen quite young children. He was under the necessity of teaching and

translating from the classics, to eke out his scanty means, yet was generally expected to have more time to

spare than the idlest person in the parish, and more money than the richest. He accepted the needless

inequalities and inconsistencies of his life, with a kind of conventional submission that was almost slavish;

and any daring layman who would have adjusted such burdens as his, more decently and graciously, would

With a ready patient face and manner, and yet with a latent smile that showed a quick enough observation of

Mrs Boffin's dress, Mr Milvey, in his little bookroomcharged with sounds and cries as though the six

children above were coming down through the ceiling, and the roasting leg of mutton below were coming up

'I think,' said Mr Milvey, 'that you have never had a child of your own, Mr and Mrs Boffin?'

'But, like the Kings and Queens in the Fairy Tales, I suppose you have wished for one?'

Mr Milvey smiled again, as he remarked to himself 'Those kings and queens were always wishing for

children.' It occurring to him, perhaps, that if they had been Curates, their wishes might have tended in the

'I think,' he pursued, 'we had better take Mrs Milvey into our Council. She is indispensable to me. If you

So, Mr Milvey called, 'Margaretta, my dear!' and Mrs Milvey came down. A pretty, bright little woman,

something worn by anxiety, who had repressed many pretty tastes and bright fancies, and substituted in their

stead, schools, soup, flannel, coals, and all the weekday cares and Sunday coughs of a large population,

young and old. As gallantly had Mr Milvey repressed much in himself that naturally belonged to his old

studies and old fellowstudents, and taken up among the poor and their children with the hard crumbs of life.

Mrs Milvey, with the most unaffected grace in the world, congratulated them, and was glad to see them. Yet

her engaging face, being an open as well as a perceptive one, was not without her husband's latent smile.

'And I was thinking, Margaretta, that perhaps old Mrs Goody's grandchild might answer the purpose.

The smiling Mrs Boffin, feeling it incumbent on her to take part in the conversation, and being charmed with

the emphatic little wife and her ready interest, here offered her acknowledgments and inquired what there was

'I DON'T think,' said Mrs Milvey, glancing at the Reverend Frank' and I believe my husband will agree

with me when he considers it againthat you could possibly keep that orphan clean from snuff. Because his

'But he would not be living with his grandmother then, Margaretta,' said Mr Milvey.

'No, Frank, but it would be impossible to keep her from Mrs Boffin's house; and the MORE there was to eat

and drink there, the oftener she would go. And she IS an inconvenient woman. I HOPE it's not uncharitable to

remember that last Christmas Eve she drank eleven cups of tea, and grumbled all the time. And she is NOT a

grateful woman, Frank. You recollect her addressing a crowd outside this house, about her wrongs, when, one

night after we had gone to bed, she brought back the petticoat of new flannel that had been given her, because

'That's true,' said Mr Milvey. 'I don't think that would do. Would little Harrison'

'That's true again,' said Mr Milvey, becoming haggard with perplexity. 'If a little girl would do'

'But I DOUBT, Frank,' Mrs Milvey hinted, after a little hesitation, 'if Mrs Boffin wants an orphan QUITE

Mr Milvey referred the point to Mrs Boffin in a look; on that smiling lady's shaking her black velvet bonnet

'I am sure,' said Mrs Boffin, concerned at giving so much trouble, 'that if I had known you would have taken

'No, don't say that,' assented Mr Milvey, 'because we are so much obliged to you for giving us the preference.'

Which Mrs Milvey confirmed; and really the kind, conscientious couple spoke, as if they kept some

profitable orphan warehouse and were personally patronized. 'But it is a responsible trust,' added Mr Milvey,

'and difficult to discharge. At the same time, we are naturally very unwilling to lose the chance you so kindly

give us, and if you could afford us a day or two to look about us,you know, Margaretta, we might carefully

'We have orphans, I know,' pursued Mr Milvey, quite with the air as if he might have added, 'in stock,' and

quite as anxiously as if there were great competition in the business and he were afraid of losing an order,

'over at the claypits; but they are employed by relations or friends, and I am afraid it would come at last to a

transaction in the way of barter. And even if you exchanged blankets for the childor books and firingit

Accordingly, it was resolved that Mr and Mrs Milvey should search for an orphan likely to suit, and as free as

possible from the foregoing objections, and should communicate again with Mrs Boffin. Then, Mr Boffin

took the liberty of mentioning to Mr Milvey that if Mr Milvey would do him the kindness to be perpetually

his banker to the extent of 'a twentypound note or so,' to be expended without any reference to him, he

would be heartily obliged. At this, both Mr Milvey and Mrs Milvey were quite as much pleased as if they had

no wants of their own, but only knew what poverty was, in the persons of other people; and so the interview

'Now, old lady,' said Mr Boffin, as they resumed their seats behind the hammerheaded horse and man:

It appeared, on their drawing up at the family gate, that to try Wilfer's was a thing more easily projected than

done, on account of the extreme difficulty of getting into that establishment; three pulls at the bell producing

no external result; though each was attended by audible sounds of scampering and rushing within. At the

fourth tugvindictively administered by the hammerheaded young man Miss Lavinia appeared,

emerging from the house in an accidental manner, with a bonnet and parasol, as designing to take a

contemplative walk. The young lady was astonished to find visitors at the gate, and expressed her feelings in

'Here's Mr and Mrs Boffin!' growled the hammerheaded young man through the bars of the gate, and at the

same time shaking it, as if he were on view in a Menagerie; 'they've been here half an hour.'

Miss Lavinia tripped up the steps to the housedoor, tripped down the steps with the key, tripped across the

little garden, and opened the gate. 'Please to walk in,' said Miss Lavinia, haughtily. 'Our servant is out.'

Mr and Mrs Boffin complying, and pausing in the little hall until Miss Lavinia came up to show them where

to go next, perceived three pairs of listening legs upon the stairs above. Mrs Wilfer's legs, Miss Bella's legs,

'Mr and Mrs Boffin, I think?' said Lavinia, in a warning voice. Strained attention on the part of Mrs Wilfer's

'If you'll step this waydown these stairsI'll let Ma know.' Excited flight of Mrs Wilfer's legs, of Miss

After waiting some quarter of an hour alone in the family sitting room, which presented traces of having

been so hastily arranged after a meal, that one might have doubted whether it was made tidy for visitors, or

cleared for blindman's buff, Mr and Mrs Boffin became aware of the entrance of Mrs Wilfer, majestically

faint, and with a condescending stitch in her side: which was her company manner.

'Pardon me,' said Mrs Wilfer, after the first salutations, and as soon as she had adjusted the handkerchief

under her chin, and waved her gloved hands, 'to what am I indebted for this honour?'

'To make short of it, ma'am,' returned Mr Boffin, 'perhaps you may be acquainted with the names of me and

'I have heard, sir,' returned Mrs Wilfer, with a dignified bend of her head, 'of such being the case.'

'And I dare say, ma'am,' pursued Mr Boffin, while Mrs Boffin added confirmatory nods and smiles, 'you are

'Pardon me,' said Mrs Wilfer. ''Twere unjust to visit upon Mr and Mrs Boffin, a calamity which was doubtless

a dispensation.' These words were rendered the more effective by a serenely heroic expression of suffering.

'That's fairly meant, I am sure,' remarked the honest Mr Boffin; 'Mrs Boffin and me, ma'am, are plain people,

and we don't want to pretend to anything, nor yet to go round and round at anything because there's always a

straight way to everything. Consequently, we make this call to say, that we shall be glad to have the honour

and pleasure of your daughter's acquaintance, and that we shall be rejoiced if your daughter will come to

consider our house in the light of her home equally with this. In short, we want to cheer your daughter, and to

give her the opportunity of sharing such pleasures as we are a going to take ourselves. We want to brisk her

Mrs Wilfer bent her head in a distant manner to her lady visitor, and with majestic monotony replied to the

'Pardon me. I have several daughters. Which of my daughters am I to understand is thus favoured by the kind

'Don't you see?' the eversmiling Mrs Boffin put in. 'Naturally, Miss Bella, you know.'

'Ohh!' said Mrs Wilfer, with a severely unconvinced look. 'My daughter Bella is accessible and shall speak

for herself.' Then opening the door a little way, simultaneously with a sound of scuttling outside it, the good

lady made the proclamation, 'Send Miss Bella to me!' which proclamation, though grandly formal, and one

might almost say heraldic, to hear, was in fact enunciated with her maternal eyes reproachfully glaring on that

young lady in the fleshand in so much of it that she was retiring with difficulty into the small closet under

'The avocations of R. W., my husband,' Mrs Wilfer explained, on resuming her seat, 'keep him fully engaged

in the City at this time of the day, or he would have had the honour of participating in your reception beneath

'Pardon me, sir,' returned Mrs Wilfer, correcting him, 'it is the abode of conscious though independent

Finding it rather difficult to pursue the conversation down this road, Mr and Mrs Boffin sat staring at

midair, and Mrs Wilfer sat silently giving them to understand that every breath she drew required to be

drawn with a selfdenial rarely paralleled in history, until Miss Bella appeared: whom Mrs Wilfer presented,

'I am much obliged to you, I am sure,' said Miss Bella, coldly shaking her curls, 'but I doubt if I have the

'Yes, do what your Ma says, and conquer it, my dear,' urged Mrs Boffin, 'because we shall be so glad to have

you, and because you are much too pretty to keep yourself shut up.' With that, the pleasant creature gave her

a kiss, and patted her on her dimpled shoulders; Mrs Wilfer sitting stiffly by, like a functionary presiding over

'We are going to move into a nice house,' said Mrs Boffin, who was woman enough to compromise Mr

Boffin on that point, when he couldn't very well contest it; 'and we are going to set up a nice carriage, and

we'll go everywhere and see everything. And you mustn't,' seating Bella beside her, and patting her hand, 'you

mustn't feel a dislike to us to begin with, because we couldn't help it, you know, my dear.'

With the natural tendency of youth to yield to candour and sweet temper, Miss Bella was so touched by the

simplicity of this address that she frankly returned Mrs Boffin's kiss. Not at all to the satisfaction of that good

woman of the world, her mother, who sought to hold the advantageous ground of obliging the Boffins instead

'My youngest daughter, Lavinia,' said Mrs Wilfer, glad to make a diversion, as that young lady reappeared.

The friend of the family was in that stage of tender passion which bound him to regard everybody else as the

foe of the family. He put the round head of his cane in his mouth, like a stopper, when he sat down. As if he

felt himself full to the throat with affronting sentiments. And he eyed the Boffins with implacable eyes.

'If you like to bring your sister with you when you come to stay with us,' said Mrs Boffin, 'of course we shall

be glad. The better you please yourself, Miss Bella, the better you'll please us.'

'Lavvy,' said her sister, in a low voice, 'have the goodness to be seen and not heard.'

'No, I won't,' replied the sharp Lavinia. 'I'm not a child, to be taken notice of by strangers.'

'Lavinia!' said Mrs Wilfer. 'Hold! I will not allow you to utter in my presence the absurd suspicion that any

strangersI care not what their namescan patronize my child. Do you dare to suppose, you ridiculous girl,

that Mr and Mrs Boffin would enter these doors upon a patronizing errand; or, if they did, would remain

within them, only for one single instant, while your mother had the strength yet remaining in her vital frame

to request them to depart? You little know your mother if you presume to think so.'

'Hold! I will not allow this. Do you not know what is due to guests? Do you not comprehend that in

presuming to hint that this lady and gentleman could have any idea of patronizing any member of your

familyI care not whichyou accuse them of an impertinence little less than insane?'

'Never mind me and Mrs Boffin, ma'am,' said Mr Boffin, smilingly: 'we don't care.'

'And I require my audacious child,' proceeded Mrs Wilfer, with a withering look at her youngest, on whom it

had not the slightest effect, 'to please to be just to her sister Bella; to remember that her sister Bella is much

sought after; and that when her sister Bella accepts an attention, she considers herself to be conferring

But, here Miss Bella repudiated, and said quietly, 'I can speak for myself; you know, ma. You needn't bring

'And it's all very well aiming at others through convenient me,' said the irrepressible Lavinia, spitefully; 'but I

'Mr Sampson,' proclaimed Mrs Wilfer, seeing that young gentleman take his stopper out, and so darkly fixing

him with her eyes as that he put it in again: 'Mr Sampson, as a friend of this family and a frequenter of this

house, is, I am persuaded, far too wellbred to interpose on such an invitation.'

This exaltation of the young gentleman moved the conscientious Mrs Boffin to repentance for having done

him an injustice in her mind, and consequently to saying that she and Mr Boffin would at any time be glad to

see him; an attention which he handsomely acknowledged by replying, with his stopper unremoved, 'Much

However, Bella compensating for all drawbacks by responding to the advances of the Boffins in an engaging

way, that easy pair were on the whole well satisfied, and proposed to the said Bella that as soon as they

should be in a condition to receive her in a manner suitable to their desires, Mrs Boffin should return with

notice of the fact. This arrangement Mrs Wilfer sanctioned with a stately inclination of her head and wave of

her gloves, as who should say, 'Your demerits shall be overlooked, and you shall be mercifully gratified, poor

'Bythebye, ma'am,' said Mr Boffin, turning back as he was going, 'you have a lodger?'

'A gentleman,' Mrs Wilfer answered, qualifying the low expression, 'undoubtedly occupies our first floor.'

'I may call him Our Mutual Friend,' said Mr Boffin. 'What sort of a fellow IS Our Mutual Friend, now? Do

'Because,' Mr Boffin explained, 'you must know that I'm not particularly well acquainted with Our Mutual

Friend, for I have only seen him once. You give a good account of him. Is he at home?'

'Mr Rokesmith is at home,' said Mrs Wilfer; 'indeed,' pointing through the window, 'there he stands at the

Bella had closely attended to this short dialogue. Accompanying Mrs Boffin to the gate, she as closely

'How are you, sir, how are you?' said Mr Boffin. 'This is Mrs Boffin. Mr Rokesmith, that I told you of; my

She gave him good day, and he bestirred himself and helped her to her seat, and the like, with a ready hand.

'Goodbye for the present, Miss Bella,' said Mrs Boffin, calling out a hearty parting. 'We shall meet again

Mr Rokesmith, who was at the wheel adjusting the skirts of her dress, suddenly looked behind him, and

around him, and then looked up at her, with a face so pale that Mrs Boffin cried:

'It's only an adopted child. One I have told her of. One I'm going to give the name to!'

'You took me by surprise,' said Mr Rokesmith, 'and it sounded like an omen, that you should speak of

Now, Bella suspected by this time that Mr Rokesmith admired her. Whether the knowledge (for it was rather

that than suspicion) caused her to incline to him a little more, or a little less, than she had done at first;

whether it rendered her eager to find out more about him, because she sought to establish reason for her

distrust, or because she sought to free him from it; was as yet dark to her own heart. But at most times he

occupied a great amount of her attention, and she had set her attention closely on this incident.

That he knew it as well as she, she knew as well as he, when they were left together standing on the path by

He smiled, reproaching her, and she coloured, reproaching herself both, with the knowledge that she had

'You thought it strange that, feeling much interested in you, I should start at what sounded like a proposal to

bring you into contact with the murdered man who lies in his grave. I might have knownof course in a

moment should have knownthat it could not have that meaning. But my interest remains.'

Reentering the familyroom in a meditative state, Miss Bella was received by the irrepressible Lavinia with:

'There, Bella! At last I hope you have got your wishes realizedby your Boffins. You'll be rich enough

nowwith your Boffins. You can have as much flirting as you likeat your Boffins. But you won't take

'If,' quoth Mr George Sampson, moodily pulling his stopper out, 'Miss Bella's Mr Boffin comes any more of

his nonsense to ME, I only wish him to understand, as betwixt man and man, that he does it at his per' and

was going to say peril; but Miss Lavinia, having no confidence in his mental powers, and feeling his oration

to have no definite application to any circumstances, jerked his stopper in again, with a sharpness that made

And now the worthy Mrs Wilfer, having used her youngest daughter as a layfigure for the edification of

these Boffins, became bland to her, and proceeded to develop her last instance of force of character, which

was still in reserve. This was, to illuminate the family with her remarkable powers as a physiognomist;

powers that terrified R. W. when ever let loose, as being always fraught with gloom and evil which no

inferior prescience was aware of. And this Mrs Wilfer now did, be it observed, in jealousy of these Boffins, in

the very same moments when she was already reflecting how she would flourish these very same Boffins and

'Of their manners,' said Mrs Wilfer, 'I say nothing. Of their appearance, I say nothing. Of the

disinterestedness of their intentions towards Bella, I say nothing. But the craft, the secrecy, the dark deep

As an incontrovertible proof that those baleful attributes were all there, Mrs Wilfer shuddered on the spot.

There is excitement in the Veneering mansion. The mature young lady is going to be married (powder and

all) to the mature young gentleman, and she is to be married from the Veneering house, and the Veneerings

are to give the breakfast. The Analytical, who objects as a matter of principle to everything that occurs on the

premises, necessarily objects to the match; but his consent has been dispensed with, and a springvan is

delivering its load of greenhouse plants at the door, in order that tomorrow's feast may be crowned with

The mature young lady is a lady of property. The mature young gentleman is a gentleman of property. He

invests his property. He goes, in a condescending amateurish way, into the City, attends meetings of

Directors, and has to do with traffic in Shares. As is well known to the wise in their generation, traffic in

Shares is the one thing to have to do with in this world. Have no antecedents, no established character, no

cultivation, no ideas, no manners; have Shares. Have Shares enough to be on Boards of Direction in capital

letters, oscillate on mysterious business between London and Paris, and be great. Where does he come from?

Shares. Where is he going to? Shares. What are his tastes? Shares. Has he any principles? Shares. What

squeezes him into Parliament? Shares. Perhaps he never of himself achieved success in anything, never

originated anything, never produced anything? Sufficient answer to all; Shares. O mighty Shares! To set

those blaring images so high, and to cause us smaller vermin, as under the influence of henbane or opium, to

cry out, night and day, 'Relieve us of our money, scatter it for us, buy us and sell us, ruin us, only we beseech

While the Loves and Graces have been preparing this torch for Hymen, which is to be kindled tomorrow,

Mr Twemlow has suffered much in his mind. It would seem that both the mature young lady and the mature

young gentleman must indubitably be Veneering's oldest friends. Wards of his, perhaps? Yet that can

scarcely be, for they are older than himself. Veneering has been in their confidence throughout, and has done

much to lure them to the altar. He has mentioned to Twemlow how he said to Mrs Veneering, 'Anastatia, this

must be a match.' He has mentioned to Twemlow how he regards Sophronia Akershem (the mature young

lady) in the light of a sister, and Alfred Lammle (the mature young gentleman) in the light of a brother.

Twemlow has asked him whether he went to school as a junior with Alfred? He has answered, 'Not exactly.'

Whether Sophronia was adopted by his mother? He has answered, 'Not precisely so.' Twemlow's hand has

But, two or three weeks ago, Twemlow, sitting over his newspaper, and over his drytoast and weak tea, and

over the stableyard in Duke Street, St James's, received a highlyperfumed cockedhat and monogram from

Mrs Veneering, entreating her dearest Mr T., if not particularly engaged that day, to come like a charining

soul and make a fourth at dinner with dear Mr Podsnap, for the discussion of an interesting family topic; the

last three words doubly underlined and pointed with a note of admiration. And Twemlow replying, 'Not

'My dear Twemlow,' says Veneering, 'your ready response to Anastatia's unceremonious invitation is truly

Twemlow ought to know the dear friend Podsnap who covered him with so much confusion, and he says he

does know him, and Podsnap reciprocates. Apparently, Podsnap has been so wrought upon in a short time, as

to believe that he has been intimate in the house many, many, many years. In the friendliest manner he is

making himself quite at home with his back to the fire, executing a statuette of the Colossus at Rhodes.

Twemlow has before noticed in his feeble way how soon the Veneering guests become infected with the

Veneering fiction. Not, however, that he has the least notion of its being his own case.

'Our friends, Alfred and Sophronia,' pursues Veneering the veiled prophet: 'our friends Alfred and Sophronia,

you will be glad to hear, my dear fellows, are going to be married. As my wife and I make it a family affair

the entire direction of which we take upon ourselves, of course our first step is to communicate the fact to our

('Oh!' thinks Twemlow, with his eyes on Podsnap, 'then there are only two of us, and he's the other.')

'I did hope,' Veneering goes on, 'to have had Lady Tippins to meet you; but she is always in request, and is

('Oh!' thinks Twemlow, with his eyes wandering, 'then there are three of us, and SHE'S the other.')

'Mortimer Lightwood,' resumes Veneering, 'whom you both know, is out of town; but he writes, in his

whimsical manner, that as we ask him to be bridegroom's best man when the ceremony takes place, he will

('Oh!' thinks Twemlow, with his eyes rolling, 'then there are four of us, and HE'S the other.')

'Boots and Brewer,' observes Veneering, 'whom you also know, I have not asked today; but I reserve them

('Then,' thinks Twemlow, with his eyes shut, 'there are si' But here collapses and does not completely

recover until dinner is over and the Analytical has been requested to withdraw.)

'We now come,' says Veneering, 'to the point, the real point, of our little family consultation. Sophronia,

'My dear Podsnap, no. For three reasons. Firstly, because I couldn't take so much upon myself when I have

respected family friends to remember. Secondly, because I am not so vain as to think that I look the part.

Thirdly, because Anastatia is a little superstitious on the subject and feels averse to my giving away anybody

'My dear Mr Podsnap, it's very foolish I know, but I have an instinctive presentiment that if Hamilton gave

away anybody else first, he would never give away baby.' Thus Mrs Veneering; with her open hands pressed

together, and each of her eight aquiline fingers looking so very like her one aquiline nose that the brannew

'But, my dear Podsnap,' quoth Veneering, 'there IS a tried friend of our family who, I think and hope you will

agree with me, Podsnap, is the friend on whom this agreeable duty almost naturally devolves. That friend,'

saying the words as if the company were about a hundred and fifty in number, 'is now among us. That friend

'That friend,' Veneering repeats with greater firmness, 'is our dear good Twemlow. And I cannot sufficiently

express to you, my dear Podsnap, the pleasure I feel in having this opinion of mine and Anastatia's so readily

confirmed by you, that other equally familiar and tried friend who stands in the proud positionI mean who

proudly stands in the positionor I ought rather to say, who places Anastatia and myself in the proud

position of himself standing in the simple positionof baby's godfather.' And, indeed, Veneering is much

relieved in mind to find that Podsnap betrays no jealousy of Twemlow's elevation.

So, it has come to pass that the springvan is strewing flowers on the rosy hours and on the staircase, and that

Twemlow is surveying the ground on which he is to play his distinguished part to morrow. He has already

been to the church, and taken note of the various impediments in the aisle, under the auspices of an extremely

dreary widow who opens the pews, and whose left hand appears to be in a state of acute rheumatism, but is in

And now Veneering shoots out of the Study wherein he is accustomed, when contemplative, to give his mind

to the carving and gilding of the Pilgrims going to Canterbury, in order to show Twemlow the little flourish

he has prepared for the trumpets of fashion, describing how that on the seventeenth instant, at St James's

Church, the Reverend Blank Blank, assisted by the Reverend Dash Dash, united in the bonds of matrimony,

Alfred Lammle Esquire, of Sackville Street, Piccadilly, to Sophronia, only daughter of the late Horatio

Akershem, Esquire, of Yorkshire. Also how the fair bride was married from the house of Hamilton

Veneering, Esquire, of Stucconia, and was given away by Melvin Twemlow, Esquire, of Duke Street, St

James's, second cousin to Lord Snigsworth, of Snigsworthy Park. While perusing which composition,

Twemlow makes some opaque approach to perceiving that if the Reverend Blank Blank and the Reverend

Dash Dash fail, after this introduction, to become enrolled in the list of Veneering's dearest and oldest friends,

After which, appears Sophronia (whom Twemlow has seen twice in his lifetime), to thank Twemlow for

counterfeiting the late Horatio Akershem Esquire, broadly of Yorkshire. And after her, appears Alfred (whom

Twemlow has seen once in his lifetime), to do the same and to make a pasty sort of glitter, as if he were

constructed for candlelight only, and had been let out into daylight by some grand mistake. And after that,

comes Mrs Veneering, in a pervadingly aquiline state of figure, and with transparent little knobs on her

temper, like the little transparent knob on the bridge of her nose, 'Worn out by worry and excitement,' as she

tells her dear Mr Twemlow, and reluctantly revived with curacoa by the Analytical. And after that, the

bridesmaids begin to come by rail road from various parts of the country, and to come like adorable recruits

enlisted by a sergeant not present; for, on arriving at the Veneering depot, they are in a barrack of strangers.

So, Twemlow goes home to Duke Street, St James's, to take a plate of mutton broth with a chop in it, and a

look at the marriage service, in order that he may cut in at the right place tomorrow; and he is low, and

feels it dull over the livery stableyard, and is distinctly aware of a dint in his heart, made by the most

adorable of the adorable bridesmaids. For, the poor little harmless gentleman once had his fancy, like the rest

of us, and she didn't answer (as she often does not), and he thinks the adorable bridesmaid is like the fancy as

she was then (which she is not at all), and that if the fancy had not married some one else for money, but had

married him for love, he and she would have been happy (which they wouldn't have been), and that she has a

tenderness for him still (whereas her toughness is a proverb). Brooding over the fire, with his dried little head

in his dried little hands, and his dried little elbows on his dried little knees, Twemlow is melancholy. 'No

Adorable to bear me company here!' thinks he. 'No Adorable at the club! A waste, a waste, a waste, my

Betimes next morning, that horrible old Lady Tippins (relict of the late Sir Thomas Tippins, knighted in

mistake for somebody else by His Majesty King George the Third, who, while performing the ceremony, was

graciously pleased to observe, 'What, what, what? Who, who, who? Why, why, why?') begins to be dyed and

varnished for the interesting occasion. She has a reputation for giving smart accounts of things, and she must

be at these people's early, my dear, to lose nothing of the fun. Whereabout in the bonnet and drapery

announced by her name, any fragment of the real woman may be concealed, is perhaps known to her maid;

but you could easily buy all you see of her, in Bond Street; or you might scalp her, and peel her, and scrape

her, and make two Lady Tippinses out of her, and yet not penetrate to the genuine article. She has a large

gold eyeglass, has Lady Tippins, to survey the proceedings with. If she had one in each eye, it might keep

that other drooping lid up, and look more uniform. But perennial youth is in her artificial flowers, and her list

'Mortimer, you wretch,' says Lady Tippins, turning the eyeglass about and about, 'where is your charge, the

'Beyond an impression that he is to sit upon my knee and be seconded at some point of the solemnities, like a

principal at a prizefight, I assure you I have no notion what my duty is,' returns Mortimer.

Eugene is also in attendance, with a pervading air upon him of having presupposed the ceremony to be a

funeral, and of being disappointed. The scene is the Vestryroom of St James's Church, with a number of

But, hark! A carriage at the gate, and Mortimer's man arrives, looking rather like a spurious Mephistopheles

and an unacknowledged member of that gentleman's family. Whom Lady Tippins, surveying through her

eyeglass, considers a fine man, and quite a catch; and of whom Mortimer remarks, in the lowest spirits, as

he approaches, 'I believe this is my fellow, confound him!' More carriages at the gate, and lo the rest of the

characters. Whom Lady Tippins, standing on a cushion, surveying through the eyeglass, thus checks off.

'Bride; fiveandforty if a day, thirty shillings a yard, veil fifteen pound, pockethandkerchief a present.

Bridesmaids; kept down for fear of outshining bride, consequently not girls, twelve and sixpence a yard,

Veneering's flowers, snub nosed one rather pretty but too conscious of her stockings, bonnets three pound

ten. Twemlow; blessed release for the dear man if she really was his daughter, nervous even under the

pretence that she is, well he may be. Mrs Veneering; never saw such velvet, say two thousand pounds as she

stands, absolute jeweller's window, father must have been a pawnbroker, or how could these people do it?

Ceremony performed, register signed, Lady Tippins escorted out of sacred edifice by Veneering, carriages

rolling back to Stucconia, servants with favours and flowers, Veneering's house reached, drawingrooms

most magnificent. Here, the Podsnaps await the happy party; Mr Podsnap, with his hairbrushes made the

most of; that imperial rockinghorse, Mrs Podsnap, majestically skittish. Here, too, are Boots and Brewer,

and the two other Buffers; each Buffer with a flower in his buttonhole, his hair curled, and his gloves

buttoned on tight, apparently come prepared, if anything had happened to the bridegroom, to be married

instantly. Here, too, the bride's aunt and next relation; a widowed female of a Medusa sort, in a stoney cap,

glaring petrifaction at her fellow creatures. Here, too, the bride's trustee; an oilcakefed style of

businessgentleman with mooney spectacles, and an object of much interest. Veneering launching himself

upon this trustee as his oldest friend (which makes seven, Twemlow thought), and confidentially retiring with

him into the conservatory, it is understood that Veneering is his cotrustee, and that they are arranging about

the fortune. Buffers are even overheard to whisper Thirty Thousand Pounds! with a smack and a relish

suggestive of the very finest oysters. Pokey unknowns, amazed to find how intimately they know Veneering,

pluck up spirit, fold their arms, and begin to contradict him before breakfast. What time Mrs Veneering,

carrying baby dressed as a bridesmaid, flits about among the company, emitting flashes of manycoloured

The Analytical, in course of time achieving what he feels to be due to himself in bringing to a dignified

conclusion several quarrels he has on hand with the pastrycook's men, announces breakfast. Diningroom no

less magnificent than drawingroom; tables superb; all the camels out, and all laden. Splendid cake, covered

with Cupids, silver, and truelovers' knots. Splendid bracelet, produced by Veneering before going down,

and clasped upon the arrn of bride. Yet nobody seems to think much more of the Veneerings than if they were

a tolerable landlord and landlady doing the thing in the way of business at so much a head. The bride and

bridegroom talk and laugh apart, as has always been their manner; and the Buffers work their way through

the dishes with systematic perseverance, as has always been THEIR manner; and the pokey unknowns are

exceedingly benevolent to one another in invitations to take glasses of champagne; but Mrs Podsnap, arching

her mane and rocking her grandest, has a far more deferential audience than Mrs Veneering; and Podsnap all

Another dismal circumstance is, that Veneering, having the captivating Tippins on one side of him and the

bride's aunt on the other, finds it immensely difficult to keep the peace. For, Medusa, besides unmistakingly

glaring petrifaction at the fascinating Tippins, follows every lively remark made by that dear creature, with an

audible snort: which may be referable to a chronic cold in the head, but may also be referable to indignation

and contempt. And this snort being regular in its reproduction, at length comes to be expected by the

company, who make embarrassing pauses when it is falling due, and by waiting for it, render it more

emphatic when it comes. The stoney aunt has likewise an injurious way of rejecting all dishes whereof Lady

Tippins partakes: saying aloud when they are proffered to her, 'No, no, no, not for me. Take it away!' As with

a set purpose of implying a misgiving that if nourished upon similar meats, she might come to be like that

charmer, which would be a fatal consummation. Aware of her enemy, Lady Tippins tries a youthful sally or

two, and tries the eye glass; but, from the impenetrable cap and snorting armour of the stoney aunt all

Another objectionable circumstance is, that the pokey unknowns support each other in being unimpressible.

They persist in not being frightened by the gold and silver camels, and they are banded together to defy the

elaborately chased icepails. They even seem to unite in some vague utterance of the sentiment that the

landlord and landlady will make a pretty good profit out of this, and they almost carry themselves like

customers. Nor is there compensating influence in the adorable bridesmaids; for, having very little interest in

the bride, and none at all in one another, those lovely beings become, each one of her own account,

depreciatingly contemplative of the millinery present; while the bridegroom's man, exhausted, in the back of

his chair, appears to be improving the occasion by penitentially contemplating all the wrong he has ever

done; the difference between him and his friend Eugene, being, that the latter, in the back of HIS chair,

appears to be contemplating all the wrong he would like to doparticularly to the present company.

In which state of affairs, the usual ceremonies rather droop and flag, and the splendid cake when cut by the

fair hand of the bride has but an indigestible appearance. However, all the things indispensable to be said are

said, and all the things indispensable to be done are done (including Lady Tippins's yawning, falling asleep,

and waking insensible), and there is hurried preparation for the nuptial journey to the Isle of Wight, and the

outer air teems with brass bands and spectators. In full sight of whom, the malignant star of the Analytical has

preordained that pain and ridicule shall befall him. For he, standing on the doorsteps to grace the departure,

is suddenly caught a most prodigious thump on the side of his head with a heavy shoe, which a Buffer in the

hall, champagneflushed and wild of aim, has borrowed on the spur of the moment from the pastrycook's

So they all go up again into the gorgeous drawingroomsall of them flushed with breakfast, as having

taken scarlatina sociably and there the combined unknowns do malignant things with their legs to

ottomans, and take as much as possible out of the splendid furniture. And so, Lady Tippins, quite

undetermined whether today is the day before yesterday, or the day after tomorrow, or the week after next,

fades away; and Mortimer Lightwood and Eugene fade away, and Twemlow fades away, and the stoney aunt

goes awayshe declines to fade, proving rock to the lastand even the unknowns are slowly strained off,

All over, that is to say, for the time being. But, there is another time to come, and it comes in about a

fortnight, and it comes to Mr and Mrs Lammle on the sands at Shanklin, in the Isle of Wight.

Mr and Mrs Lammle have walked for some time on the Shanklin sands, and one may see by their footprints

that they have not walked arm in arm, and that they have not walked in a straight track, and that they have

walked in a moody humour; for, the lady has prodded little spirting holes in the damp sand before her with

her parasol, and the gentleman has trailed his stick after him. As if he were of the Mephistopheles family

Thus he begins after a long silence, when Sophronia flashes fiercely, and turns upon him.

Mr Lammle falls silent again, and they walk as before. Mrs Lammle opens her nostrils and bites her

underlip; Mr Lammle takes his gingerous whiskers in his left hand, and, bringing them together, frowns

'Do I mean to say!' Mrs Lammle after a time repeats, with indignation. 'Putting it on me! The unmanly

Mrs Lammle haughtily replies, without stopping, and without looking back. 'The meanness.'

He is at her side again in a pace or two, and he retorts, 'That is not what you said. You said disingenuousness.'

'The face, too!' replied Mrs Lammle, staring at him with cold scorn. 'Pray, how dare you, sir, utter the word to

As this happens to be true, Mrs Lammle is thrown on the feminine resource of saying, 'I don't care what you

After a little more walking and a little more silence, Mr Lammle breaks the latter.

'You shall proceed in your own way. You claim a right to ask me do I mean to tell you. Do I mean to tell you

'So be it. Next comes what you mean to say. Do you mean to say you are a woman of property?'

'If you were so dull a fortunehunter that you deceived yourself, or if you were so greedy and grasping that

you were overwilling to be deceived by appearances, is it my fault, you adventurer?' the lady demands, with

'No. I have no trustee, but the one you saw on the day when you fraudulently married me. And his trust is not

a very difficult one, for it is only an annuity of a hundred and fifteen pounds. I think there are some odd

Mr Lammle bestows a by no means loving look upon the partner of his joys and sorrows, and he mutters

'Question for question. It is my turn again, Mrs Lammle. What made you suppose me a man of property?'

'You made me suppose you so. Perhaps you will deny that you always presented yourself to me in that

'But you asked somebody, too. Come, Mrs Lammle, admission for admission. You asked somebody?'

'And Veneering knew as much of me as he knew of you, or as anybody knows of him.'

After more silent walking, the bride stops short, to say in a passionate manner:

With that, they walk again; she, making those angry spirts in the sand; he, dragging that dejected tail. The

tide is low, and seems to have thrown them together high on the bare shore. A gull comes sweeping by their

heads and flouts them. There was a golden surface on the brown cliffs but now, and behold they are only

damp earth. A taunting roar comes from the sea, and the farout rollers mount upon one another, to look at

'Do you pretend to believe,' Mrs Lammle resumes, sternly, 'when you talk of my marrying you for worldly

advantages, that it was within the bounds of reasonable probability that I would have married you for

'Again there are two sides to the question, Mrs Lammle. What do you pretend to believe?'

'So you first deceive me and then insult me!' cries the lady, with a heaving bosom.

His colour has turned to a livid white, and ominous marks have come to light about his nose, as if the finger

of the very devil himself had, within the last few moments, touched it here and there. But he has repressive

'Throw it away,' he coolly recommends as to the parasol; 'you have made it useless; you look ridiculous with

Whereupon she calls him in her rage, 'A deliberate villain,' and so casts the broken thing from her as that it

strikes him in falling. The fingermarks are something whiter for the instant, but he walks on at her side.

She bursts into tears, declaring herself the wretchedest, the most deceived, the worstused, of women. Then

she says that if she had the courage to kill herself, she would do it. Then she calls him vile impostor. Then

she asks him, why, in the disappointment of his base speculation, he does not take her life with his own hand,

under the present favourable circumstances. Then she cries again. Then she is enraged again, and makes some

mention of swindlers. Finally, she sits down crying on a block of stone, and is in all the known and unknown

humours of her sex at once. Pending her changes, those aforesaid marks in his face have come and gone, now

here now there, like white steps of a pipe on which the diabolical performer has played a tune. Also his livid

Raising her head, she looks contemptuously in his face, and repeats, 'You tell me! Tell me, forsooth!'

She affects not to know that his eyes are fastened on her as she droops her head again; but her whole figure

Yielding to his hand, she rises, and they walk again; but this time with their faces turned towards their place

'Mrs Lammle, we have both been deceiving, and we have both been deceived. We have both been biting, and

'Tut! Let us have done with that. WE know very well how it was. Why should you and I talk about it, when

you and I can't disguise it? To proceed. I am disappointed and cut a poor figure.'

'Some oneand I was coming to you, if you had waited a moment. You, too, are disappointed and cut a poor

'You are now cool enough, Sophronia, to see that you can't be injured without my being equally injured; and

that therefore the mere word is not to the purpose. When I look back, I wonder how I can have been such a

'And when you look back, you wonder how you can have been you'll excuse the word?'

'Such a fool as to take ME to so great an extent upon trust. But the folly is committed on both sides. I

'I don't know. A mutual understanding follows, and I think it may carry us through. Here I split my discourse

(give me your arm, Sophronia), into three heads, to make it shorter and plainer. Firstly, it's enough to have

been done, without the mortification of being known to have been done. So we agree to keep the fact to

'Possible! We have pretended well enough to one another. Can't we, united, pretend to the world? Agreed.

Secondly, we owe the Veneerings a grudge, and we owe all other people the grudge of wishing them to be

'We come smoothly to thirdly. You have called me an adventurer, Sophronia. So I am. In plain

uncomplimentary English, so I am. So are you, my dear. So are many people. We agree to keep our own

'Any scheme that will bring us money. By our own schemes, I mean our joint interest. Agreed?'

'Carried at once, you see! Now, Sophronia, only half a dozen words more. We know one another perfectly.

Don't be tempted into twitting me with the past knowledge that you have of me, because it is identical with

the past knowledge that I have of you, and in twitting me, you twit yourself, and I don't want to hear you do

it. With this good understanding established between us, it is better never done. To wind up all:You have

shown temper today, Sophronia. Don't be betrayed into doing so again, because I have a Devil of a temper

So, the happy pair, with this hopeful marriage contract thus signed, sealed, and delivered, repair homeward.

If, when those infernal fingermarks were on the white and breathless countenance of Alfred Lammle,

Esquire, they denoted that he conceived the purpose of subduing his dear wife Mrs Alfred Lammle, by at

once divesting her of any lingering reality or pretence of selfrespect, the purpose would seem to have been

presently executed. The mature young lady has mighty little need of powder, now, for her downcast face, as

Mr Podsnap was well to do, and stood very high in Mr Podsnap's opinion. Beginning with a good inheritance,

he had married a good inheritance, and had thriven exceedingly in the Marine Insurance way, and was quite

satisfied. He never could make out why everybody was not quite satisfied, and he felt conscious that he set a

brilliant social example in being particularly well satisfied with most things, and, above all other things, with

Thus happily acquainted with his own merit and importance, Mr Podsnap settled that whatever he put behind

him he put out of existence. There was a dignified conclusivenessnot to add a grand conveniencein this

way of getting rid of disagreeables which had done much towards establishing Mr Podsnap in his lofty place

in Mr Podsnap's satisfaction. 'I don't want to know about it; I don't choose to discuss it; I don't admit it!' Mr

Podsnap had even acquired a peculiar flourish of his right arm in often clearing the world of its most difficult

problems, by sweeping them behind him (and consequently sheer away) with those words and a flushed face.

Mr Podsnap's world was not a very large world, morally; no, nor even geographically: seeing that although

his business was sustained upon commerce with other countries, he considered other countries, with that

important reservation, a mistake, and of their manners and customs would conclusively observe, 'Not

English!' when, PRESTO! with a flourish of the arm, and a flush of the face, they were swept away.

Elsewhere, the world got up at eight, shaved close at a quarterpast, breakfasted at nine, went to the City at

ten, came home at halfpast five, and dined at seven. Mr Podsnap's notions of the Arts in their integrity might

have been stated thus. Literature; large print, respectfully descriptive of getting up at eight, shaving close at a

quarter past, breakfasting at nine, going to the City at ten, coming home at halfpast five, and dining at seven.

Painting and Sculpture; models and portraits representing Professors of getting up at eight, shaving close at a

quarter past, breakfasting at nine, going to the City at ten, coming home at halfpast five, and dining at seven.

Music; a respectable performance (without variations) on stringed and wind instruments, sedately expressive

of getting up at eight, shaving close at a quarter past, breakfasting at nine, going to the City at ten, coming

home at halfpast five, and dining at seven. Nothing else to be permitted to those same vagrants the Arts, on

As a so eminently respectable man, Mr Podsnap was sensible of its being required of him to take Providence

under his protection. Consequently he always knew exactly what Providence meant. Inferior and less

respectable men might fall short of that mark, but Mr Podsnap was always up to it. And it was very

remarkable (and must have been very comfortable) that what Providence meant, was invariably what Mr

These may be said to have been the articles of a faith and school which the present chapter takes the liberty of

calling, after its representative man, Podsnappery. They were confined within close bounds, as Mr Podsnap's

own head was confined by his shirt collar; and they were enunciated with a sounding pomp that smacked of

There was a Miss Podsnap. And this young rockinghorse was being trained in her mother's art of prancing

in a stately manner without ever getting on. But the high parental action was not yet imparted to her, and in

truth she was but an undersized damsel, with high shoulders, low spirits, chilled elbows, and a rasped surface

of nose, who seemed to take occasional frosty peeps out of childhood into womanhood, and to shrink back

again, overcome by her mother's headdress and her father from head to footcrushed by the mere

A certain institution in Mr Podsnap's mind which he called 'the young person' may be considered to have

been embodied in Miss Podsnap, his daughter. It was an inconvenient and exacting institution, as requiring

everything in the universe to be filed down and fitted to it. The question about everything was, would it bring

a blush into the cheek of the young person? And the inconvenience of the young person was, that, according

to Mr Podsnap, she seemed always liable to burst into blushes when there was no need at all. There appeared

to be no line of demarcation between the young person's excessive innocence, and another person's guiltiest

knowledge. Take Mr Podsnap's word for it, and the soberest tints of drab, white, lilac, and grey, were all

The Podsnaps lived in a shady angle adjoining Portman Square. They were a kind of people certain to dwell

in the shade, wherever they dwelt. Miss Podsnap's life had been, from her first appearance on this planet,

altogether of a shady order; for, Mr Podsnap's young person was likely to get little good out of association

with other young persons, and had therefore been restricted to companionship with not very congenial older

persons, and with massive furniture. Miss Podsnap's early views of life being principally derived from the

reflections of it in her father's boots, and in the walnut and rosewood tables of the dim drawing rooms, and

in their swarthy giants of lookingglasses, were of a sombre cast; and it was not wonderful that now, when

she was on most days solemnly tooled through the Park by the side of her mother in a great tall

custardcoloured phaeton, she showed above the apron of that vehicle like a dejected young person sitting up

in bed to take a startled look at things in general, and very strongly desiring to get her head under the

Said Mr Podsnap then to Mrs Podsnap, 'Really I think we should have some people on Georgiana's birthday.'

Said Mrs Podsnap then to Mr Podsnap, 'Which will enable us to clear off all those people who are due.'

So it came to pass that Mr and Mrs Podsnap requested the honour of the company of seventeen friends of

their souls at dinner; and that they substituted other friends of their souls for such of the seventeen original

friends of their souls as deeply regretted that a prior engagement prevented their having the honour of dining

with Mr and Mrs Podsnap, in pursuance of their kind invitation; and that Mrs Podsnap said of all these

inconsolable personages, as she checked them off with a pencil in her list, 'Asked, at any rate, and got rid of;'

and that they successfully disposed of a good many friends of their souls in this way, and felt their

There were still other friends of their souls who were not entitled to be asked to dinner, but had a claim to be

invited to come and take a haunch of mutton vapourbath at halfpast nine. For the clearing off of these

worthies, Mrs Podsnap added a small and early evening to the dinner, and looked in at the musicshop to

bespeak a wellconducted automaton to come and play quadrilles for a carpet dance.

Mr and Mrs Veneering, and Mr and Mrs Veneering's brannew bride and bridegroom, were of the dinner

company; but the Podsnap establishment had nothing else in common with the Veneerings. Mr Podsnap

could tolerate taste in a mushroom man who stood in need of that sort of thing, but was far above it himself.

Hideous solidity was the characteristic of the Podsnap plate. Everything was made to look as heavy as it

could, and to take up as much room as possible. Everything said boastfully, 'Here you have as much of me in

my ugliness as if I were only lead; but I am so many ounces of precious metal worth so much an

ounce;wouldn't you like to melt me down?' A corpulent straddling epergne, blotched all over as if it had

broken out in an eruption rather than been ornamented, delivered this address from an unsightly silver

platform in the centre of the table. Four silver winecoolers, each furnished with four staring heads, each

head obtrusively carrying a big silver ring in each of its ears, conveyed the sentiment up and down the table,

and handed it on to the pot bellied silver saltcellars. All the big silver spoons and forks widened the

mouths of the company expressly for the purpose of thrusting the sentiment down their throats with every

The majority of the guests were like the plate, and included several heavy articles weighing ever so much.

But there was a foreign gentleman among them: whom Mr Podsnap had invited after much debate with

himselfbelieving the whole European continent to be in mortal alliance against the young personand

there was a droll disposition, not only on the part of Mr Podsnap but of everybody else, to treat him as if he

As a delicate concession to this unfortunatelyborn foreigner, Mr Podsnap, in receiving him, had presented

his wife as 'Madame Podsnap;' also his daughter as 'Mademoiselle Podsnap,' with some inclination to add 'ma

fille,' in which bold venture, however, he checked himself. The Veneerings being at that time the only other

arrivals, he had added (in a condescendingly explanatory manner), 'Monsieur Veynairreeng,' and had then

'How Do You Like London?' Mr Podsnap now inquired from his station of host, as if he were administering

something in the nature of a powder or potion to the deaf child; 'London, Londres, London?'

'Enormously Rich, We say,' returned Mr Podsnap, in a condescending manner. 'Our English adverbs do Not

terminate in Mong, and We Pronounce the "ch" as if there were a "t" before it. We say Ritch.'

'And Do You Find, Sir,' pursued Mr Podsnap, with dignity, 'Many Evidences that Strike You, of our British

Constitution in the Streets Of The World's Metropolis, London, Londres, London?'

'The Constitution Britannique,' Mr Podsnap explained, as if he were teaching in an infant school.' We Say

British, But You Say Britannique, You Know' (forgivingly, as if that were not his fault). 'The Constitution,

A youngish sallowish gentleman in spectacles, with a lumpy forehead, seated in a supplementary chair at a

corner of the table, here caused a profound sensation by saying, in a raised voice, 'ESKER,' and then stopping

'Mais oui,' said the foreign gentleman, turning towards him. 'Estce que? Quoi donc?'

But the gentleman with the lumpy forehead having for the time delivered himself of all that he found behind

'I Was Inquiring,' said Mr Podsnap, resuming the thread of his discourse, 'Whether You Have Observed in

The foreign gentleman, with patient courtesy entreated pardon; 'But what was tokenz?'

'We call it Horse,' said Mr Podsnap, with forbearance. 'In England, Angleterre, England, We Aspirate the

'Our Language,' said Mr Podsnap, with a gracious consciousness of being always right, 'is Difficult. Ours is a

But the lumpy gentleman, unwilling to give it up, again madly said, 'ESKER,' and again spake no more.

'It merely referred,' Mr Podsnap explained, with a sense of meritorious proprietorship, 'to Our Constitution,

Sir. We Englishmen are Very Proud of our Constitution, Sir. It Was Bestowed Upon Us By Providence. No

'And ozer countries?' the foreign gentleman was beginning, when Mr Podsnap put him right again.

'We do not say Ozer; we say Other: the letters are "T" and "H;" You say Tay and Aish, You Know; (still with

'They do, Sir,' returned Mr Podsnap, gravely shaking his head; 'they doI am sorry to be obliged to say

'It was a little particular of Providence,' said the foreign gentleman, laughing; 'for the frontier is not large.'

'Undoubtedly,' assented Mr Podsnap; 'But So it is. It was the Charter of the Land. This Island was Blest, Sir,

to the Direct Exclusion of such Other Countries asas there may happen to be. And if we were all

Englishmen present, I would say,' added Mr Podsnap, looking round upon his compatriots, and sounding

solemnly with his theme, 'that there is in the Englishman a combination of qualities, a modesty, an

independence, a responsibility, a repose, combined with an absence of everything calculated to call a blush

into the cheek of a young person, which one would seek in vain among the Nations of the Earth.'

Having delivered this little summary, Mr Podsnap's face flushed, as he thought of the remote possibility of its

being at all qualified by any prejudiced citizen of any other country; and, with his favourite rightarm

flourish, he put the rest of Europe and the whole of Asia, Africa, and America nowhere.

The audience were much edified by this passage of words; and Mr Podsnap, feeling that he was in rather

'Nothing more,' returned Veneering, 'than that he has come into possession of the property. I am told people

now call him The Golden Dustman. I mentioned to you some time ago, I think, that the young lady whose

'Yes, you told me that,' said Podsnap; 'and bythebye, I wish you would tell it again here, for it's a curious

coincidencecurious that the first news of the discovery should have been brought straight to your table

(when I was there), and curious that one of your people should have been so nearly interested in it. Just relate

Veneering was more than ready to do it, for he had prospered exceedingly upon the Harmon Murder, and had

turned the social distinction it conferred upon him to the account of making several dozen of brannew

bosomfriends. Indeed, such another lucky hit would almost have set him up in that way to his satisfaction.

So, addressing himself to the most desirable of his neighbours, while Mrs Veneering secured the next most

desirable, he plunged into the case, and emerged from it twenty minutes afterwards with a Bank Director in

his arms. In the mean time, Mrs Veneering had dived into the same waters for a wealthy ShipBroker, and

had brought him up, safe and sound, by the hair. Then Mrs Veneering had to relate, to a larger circle, how she

had been to see the girl, and how she was really pretty, and (considering her station) presentable. And this she

did with such a successful display of her eight aquiline fingers and their encircling jewels, that she happily

laid hold of a drifting General Officer, his wife and daughter, and not only restored their animation which had

Although Mr Podsnap would in a general way have highly disapproved of Bodies in rivers as ineligible topics

with reference to the cheek of the young person, he had, as one may say, a share in this affair which made

him a part proprietor. As its returns were immediate, too, in the way of restraining the company from

And now the haunch of mutton vapourbath having received a gamey infusion, and a few last touches of

sweets and coffee, was quite ready, and the bathers came; but not before the discreet automaton had got

behind the bars of the piano musicdesk, and there presented the appearance of a captive languishing in a

rose wood jail. And who now so pleasant or so well assorted as Mr and Mrs Alfred Lammle, he all sparkle,

she all gracious contentment, both at occasional intervals exchanging looks like partners at cards who played

There was not much youth among the bathers, but there was no youth (the young person always excepted) in

the articles of Podsnappery. Bald bathers folded their arms and talked to Mr Podsnap on the hearthrug;

sleekwhiskered bathers, with hats in their hands, lunged at Mrs Podsnap and retreated; prowling bathers,

went about looking into ornamental boxes and bowls as if they had suspicions of larceny on the part of the

Podsnaps, and expected to find something they had lost at the bottom; bathers of the gentler sex sat silently

comparing ivory shoulders. All this time and always, poor little Miss Podsnap, whose tiny efforts (if she had

made any) were swallowed up in the magnificence of her mother's rocking, kept herself as much out of sight

and mind as she could, and appeared to be counting on many dismal returns of the day. It was somehow

understood, as a secret article in the state proprieties of Podsnappery that nothing must be said about the day.

Consequently this young damsel's nativity was hushed up and looked over, as if it were agreed on all hands

The Lammles were so fond of the dear Veneerings that they could not for some time detach themselves from

those excellent friends; but at length, either a very open smile on Mr Lammle's part, or a very secret elevation

of one of his gingerous eyebrowscertainly the one or the otherseemed to say to Mrs Lammle, 'Why don't

you play?' And so, looking about her, she saw Miss Podsnap, and seeming to say responsively, 'That card?'

It promised to be a very quiet talk, for Miss Podsnap replied in a flutter, 'Oh! Indeed, it's very kind of you, but

'Let us make a beginning,' said the insinuating Mrs Lammle, with her best smile.

That was plainly to be seen, for Ma was talking then at her usual canter, with arched head and mane, opened

'Mmmmmusic. So insinuating was Mrs Lammle that she got half a dozen ms into the word before she

(At exactly the same canter, and with a certain flourishing appearance of doing something, Ma did, in fact,

'I can't say,' observed Miss Podsnap, after hesitating considerably, and stealing several timid looks at Mrs

Lammle's carefully arranged face, 'how I might have liked it if I had been ayou won't mention it, WILL

'No, I am sure you won't. I can't say then how I should have liked it, if I had been a chimneysweep on

'Upon my word, my love,' said Mrs Lammle, 'you make me ten times more desirous, now I talk to you, to

know you well than I was when I sat over yonder looking at you. How I wish we could be real friends! Try

me as a real friend. Come! Don't fancy me a frumpy old married woman, my dear; I was married but the

other day, you know; I am dressed as a bride now, you see. About the chimneysweeps?'

'Don't you be too sure of that,' said Miss Podsnap, in a lower voice. 'Well, what I mean is, that they seem to

'How is it possible?' said Miss Podsnap. 'Oh it is such a dreadful thing! If I was wicked enoughand strong

This was such an entirely new view of the Terpsichorean art as socially practised, that Mrs Lammle looked at

her young friend in some astonishment. Her young friend sat nervously twiddling her fingers in a pinioned

attitude, as if she were trying to hide her elbows. But this latter Utopian object (in short sleeves) always

Mrs Lammle, not very well knowing what to answer, resolved herself into a look of smiling encouragement.

'But it is, and it always has been,' pursued Miss Podsnap, 'such a trial to me! I so dread being awful. And it is

so awful! No one knows what I suffered at Madame Sauteuse's, where I learnt to dance and make

presentationcurtseys, and other dreadful things or at least where they tried to teach me. Ma can do it.'

'Yes, it's over,' returned Miss Podsnap, 'but there's nothing gained by that. It's worse here, than at Madame

Sauteuse's. Ma was there, and Ma's here; but Pa wasn't there, and company wasn't there, and there were not

real partners there. Oh there's Ma speaking to the man at the piano! Oh there's Ma going up to somebody! Oh

I know she's going to bring him to me! Oh please don't, please don't, please don't! Oh keep away, keep away,

keep away!' These pious ejaculations Miss Podsnap uttered with her eyes closed, and her head leaning back

But the Ogre advanced under the pilotage of Ma, and Ma said, 'Georgiana, Mr Grompus,' and the Ogre

clutched his victim and bore her off to his castle in the top couple. Then the discreet automaton who had

surveyed his ground, played a blossomless tuneless 'set,' and sixteen disciples of Podsnappery went through

the figures of 1, Getting up at eight and shaving close at a quarter past 2, Breakfasting at nine 3, Going

to the City at ten 4, Coming home at halfpast five 5, Dining at seven, and the grand chain.

While these solemnities were in progress, Mr Alfred Lammle (most loving of husbands) approached the chair

of Mrs Alfred Lammle (most loving of wives), and bending over the back of it, trifled for some few seconds

with Mrs Lammle's bracelet. Slightly in contrast with this brief airy toying, one might have noticed a certain

dark attention in Mrs Lammle's face as she said some words with her eyes on Mr Lammle's waistcoat, and

seemed in return to receive some lesson. But it was all done as a breath passes from a mirror.

And now, the grand chain riveted to the last link, the discreet automaton ceased, and the sixteen, two and two,

took a walk among the furniture. And herein the unconsciousness of the Ogre Grompus was pleasantly

conspicuous; for, that complacent monster, believing that he was giving Miss Podsnap a treat, prolonged to

the utmost stretch of possibility a peripatetic account of an archery meeting; while his victim, heading the

procession of sixteen as it slowly circled about, like a revolving funeral, never raised her eyes except once to

At length the procession was dissolved by the violent arrival of a nutmeg, before which the drawingroom

door bounced open as if it were a cannonball; and while that fragrant article, dispersed through several

glasses of coloured warm water, was going the round of society, Miss Podsnap returned to her seat by her

'Oh my goodness,' said Miss Podsnap. 'THAT'S over! I hope you didn't look at me.'

'I'll tell you something I know about you, my dear,' returned Mrs Lammle in her winning way, 'and that is,

'Ma ain't,' said Miss Podsnap. 'I detest you! Go along!' This shot was levelled under her breath at the

'Pardon me if I scarcely see, my dear Miss Podsnap,' Mrs Lammle was beginning when the young lady

'If we are going to be real friends (and I suppose we are, for you are the only person who ever proposed it)

don't let us be awful. It's awful enough to BE Miss Podsnap, without being called so. Call me Georgiana.'

'Dearest Georgiana, pardon me if I scarcely see, my love, why your mamma's not being shy, is a reason why

'Don't you really see that?' asked Miss Podsnap, plucking at her fingers in a troubled manner, and furtively

'My dearest Georgiana, you defer much too readily to my poor opinion. Indeed it is not even an opinion,

'Oh YOU are not dull,' returned Miss Podsnap. 'I am dull, but you couldn't have made me talk if you were.'

Some little touch of conscience answering this perception of her having gained a purpose, called bloom

enough into Mrs Lammle's face to make it look brighter as she sat smiling her best smile on her dear

Georgiana, and shaking her head with an affectionate playfulness. Not that it meant anything, but that

'What I mean is,' pursued Georgiana, 'that Ma being so endowed with awfulness, and Pa being so endowed

with awfulness, and there being so much awfulness everywhereI mean, at least, everywhere where I

amperhaps it makes me who am so deficient in awfulness, and frightened at itI say it very badlyI

'Perfectly, dearest Georgiana!' Mrs Lammle was proceeding with every reassuring wile, when the head of that

'Oh there's Ma being awful with somebody with a glass in his eye! Oh I know she's going to bring him here!

Oh don't bring him, don't bring him! Oh he'll be my partner with his glass in his eye! Oh what shall I do!'

This time Georgiana accompanied her ejaculations with taps of her feet upon the floor, and was altogether in

quite a desperate condition. But, there was no escape from the majestic Mrs Podsnap's production of an

ambling stranger, with one eye screwed up into extinction and the other framed and glazed, who, having

looked down out of that organ, as if he descried Miss Podsnap at the bottom of some perpendicular shaft,

brought her to the surface, and ambled off with her. And then the captive at the piano played another 'set,'

expressive of his mournful aspirations after freedom, and other sixteen went through the former melancholy

motions, and the ambler took Miss Podsnap for a furniture walk, as if he had struck out an entirely original

In the mean time a stray personage of a meek demeanour, who had wandered to the hearthrug and got among

the heads of tribes assembled there in conference with Mr Podsnap, eliminated Mr Podsnap's flush and

flourish by a highly unpolite remark; no less than a reference to the circumstance that some halfdozen

people had lately died in the streets, of starvation. It was clearly illtimed after dinner. It was not adapted to

The meek man was afraid we must take it as proved, because there were the Inquests and the Registrar's

Veneering and other elders of tribes commended this way out of it. At once a short cut and a broad road.

The man of meek demeanour intimated that truly it would seem from the facts, as if starvation had been

forced upon the culprits in questionas if, in their wretched manner, they had made their weak protests

against itas if they would have taken the liberty of staving it off if they couldas if they would rather not

'There is not,' said Mr Podsnap, flushing angrily, 'there is not a country in the world, sir, where so noble a

The meek man was quite willing to concede that, but perhaps it rendered the matter even worse, as showing

The meek man hinted Wouldn't it be well to try, very seriously, to find out where?

'Ah!' said Mr Podsnap. 'Easy to say somewhere; not so easy to say where! But I see what you are driving at. I

knew it from the first. Centralization. No. Never with my consent. Not English.'

An approving murmur arose from the heads of tribes; as saying, 'There you have him! Hold him!'

He was not aware (the meek man submitted of himself) that he was driving at any ization. He had no

favourite ization that he knew of. But he certainly was more staggered by these terrible occurrences than he

was by names, of howsoever so many syllables. Might he ask, was dying of destitution and neglect

The meek man supposed he did, but supposed that had absolutely nothing to do with it, if its laws were well

'And you know; at least I hope you know;' said Mr Podsnap, with severity, 'that Providence has declared that

'I am glad to hear it,' said Mr Podsnap with a portentous air. 'I am glad to hear it. It will render you cautious

In reference to that absurd and irreverent conventional phrase, the meek man said, for which Mr Podsnap was

not responsible, he the meek man had no fear of doing anything so impossible; but

But Mr Podsnap felt that the time had come for flushing and flourishing this meek man down for good. So he

'I must decline to pursue this painful discussion. It is not pleasant to my feelings; it is repugnant to my

feelings. I have said that I do not admit these things. I have also said that if they do occur (not that I admit it),

the fault lies with the sufferers themselves. It is not for ME'Mr Podsnap pointed 'me' forcibly, as adding by

implication though it may be all very well for YOU'it is not for me to impugn the workings of Providence.

I know better than that, I trust, and I have mentioned what the intentions of Providence are. Besides,' said Mr

Podsnap, flushing high up among his hair brushes, with a strong consciousness of personal affront, 'the

subject is a very disagreeable one. I will go so far as to say it is an odious one. It is not one to be introduced

among our wives and young persons, and I' He finished with that flourish of his arm which added more

Simultaneously with this quenching of the meek man's ineffectual fire; Georgiana having left the ambler up a

lane of sofa, in a No Thoroughfare of back drawingroom, to find his own way out, came back to Mrs

'Alfred, my love, here is my friend. Georgiana, dearest girl, you must like my husband next to me.

Mr Lammle was proud to be so soon distinguished by this special commendation to Miss Podsnap's favour.

But if Mr Lammle were prone to be jealous of his dear Sophronia's friendships, he would be jealous of her

'Towardsshall I?Georgiana.' Mr Lammle uttered the name, with a delicate curve of his right hand, from

his lips outward. 'For never have I known Sophronia (who is not apt to take sudden likings) so attracted and

The object of this homage sat uneasily enough in receipt of it, and then said, turning to Mrs Lammle, much

'Well! That may be. For I think I like you for your difference from all around me,' said Georgiana with a

'We must be going with the rest,' observed Mrs Lammle, rising with a show of unwillingness, amidst a

She had established an attraction over the shrinking nature upon which her smiling eyes were fixed, for

Charming to see Mr and Mrs Lammle taking leave so gracefully, and going down the stairs so lovingly and

sweetly. Not quite so charming to see their smiling faces fall and brood as they dropped moodily into separate

corners of their little carriage. But to he sure that was a sight behind the scenes, which nobody saw, and

Certain big, heavy vehicles, built on the model of the Podsnap plate, took away the heavy articles of guests

weighing ever so much; and the less valuable articles got away after their various manners; and the Podsnap

plate was put to bed. As Mr Podsnap stood with his back to the drawingroom fire, pulling up his shirtcollar,

like a veritable cock of the walk literally pluming himself in the midst of his possessions, nothing would have

astonished him more than an intimation that Miss Podsnap, or any other young person properly born and

bred, could not be exactly put away like the plate, brought out like the plate, polished like the plate, counted,

weighed, and valued like the plate. That such a young person could possibly have a morbid vacancy in the

heart for anything younger than the plate, or less monotonous than the plate; or that such a young person's

thoughts could try to scale the region bounded on the north, south, east, and west, by the plate; was a

monstrous imagination which he would on the spot have flourished into space. This perhaps in some sort

arose from Mr Podsnap's blushing young person being, so to speak, all cheek; whereas there is a possibility

If Mr Podsnap, pulling up his shirtcollar, could only have beard himself called 'that fellow' in a certain short

dialogue, which passed between Mr and Mrs Lammle in their opposite corners of their little carriage, rolling

'Very likely, I should think, after that fellow's company. Attend to what I am going to say.'

'I have attended to what you have already said, have I not? What else have I been doing all tonight.'

'Attend, I tell you,' (in a raised voice) 'to what I am going to say. Keep close to that idiot girl. Keep her under

'I foresee there is money to be made out of this, besides taking that fellow down a peg. We owe each other

Mrs Lammle winced a little at the reminder, but only enough to shake her scents and essences anew into the

atmosphere of the little carriage, as she settled herself afresh in her own dark corner.

Mr Mortimer Lightwood and Mr Eugene Wrayburn took a coffee house dinner together in Mr Lightwood's

office. They had newly agreed to set up a joint establishment together. They had taken a bachelor cottage

near Hampton, on the brink of the Thames, with a lawn, and a boathouse; and all things fitting, and were to

It was not summer yet, but spring; and it was not gentle spring ethereally mild, as in Thomson's Seasons, but

nipping spring with an easterly wind, as in Johnson's, Jackson's, Dickson's, Smith's, and Jones's Seasons. The

grating wind sawed rather than blew; and as it sawed, the sawdust whirled about the sawpit. Every street was

a sawpit, and there were no topsawyers; every passenger was an undersawyer, with the sawdust blinding

That mysterious paper currency which circulates in London when the wind blows, gyrated here and there and

everywhere. Whence can it come, whither can it go? It hangs on every bush, flutters in every tree, is caught

flying by the electric wires, haunts every enclosure, drinks at every pump, cowers at every grating, shudders

upon every plot of grass, seeks rest in vain behind the legions of iron rails. In Paris, where nothing is wasted,

costly and luxurious city though it be, but where wonderful human ants creep out of holes and pick up every

scrap, there is no such thing. There, it blows nothing but dust. There, sharp eyes and sharp stomachs reap

The wind sawed, and the sawdust whirled. The shrubs wrung their many hands, bemoaning that they had

been overpersuaded by the sun to bud; the young leaves pined; the sparrows repented of their early

marriages, like men and women; the colours of the rainbow were discernible, not in floral spring, but in the

faces of the people whom it nibbled and pinched. And ever the wind sawed, and the sawdust whirled.

When the spring evenings are too long and light to shut out, and such weather is rife, the city which Mr

Podsnap so explanatorily called London, Londres, London, is at its worst. Such a black shrill city, combining

the qualities of a smoky house and a scolding wife; such a gritty city; such a hopeless city, with no rent in the

leaden canopy of its sky; such a beleaguered city, invested by the great Marsh Forces of Essex and Kent. So

the two old schoolfellows felt it to be, as, their dinner done, they turned towards the fire to smoke. Young

Blight was gone, the coffee house waiter was gone, the plates and dishes were gone, the wine was

'The wind sounds up here,' quoth Eugene, stirring the fire, 'as if we were keeping a lighthouse. I wish we

'Not more than any other place. And there would be no Circuit to go. But that's a selfish consideration,

'And no clients to come,' added Lightwood. 'Not that that's a selfish consideration at all personal to ME.'

'If we were on an isolated rock in a stormy sea,' said Eugene, smoking with his eyes on the fire, 'Lady Tippins

couldn't put off to visit us, or, better still, might put off and get swamped. People couldn't ask one to wedding

breakfasts. There would be no Precedents to hammer at, except the plainsailing Precedent of keeping the

'But otherwise,' suggested Lightwood, 'there might be a degree of sameness in the life.'

'I have thought of that also,' said Eugene, as if he really had been considering the subject in its various

bearings with an eye to the business; 'but it would be a defined and limited monotony. It would not extend

beyond two people. Now, it's a question with me, Mortimer, whether a monotony defined with that precision

and limited to that extent, might not be more endurable than the unlimited monotony of one's

As Lightwood laughed and passed the wine, he remarked, 'We shall have an opportunity, in our boating

'An imperfect one,' Eugene acquiesced, with a sigh, 'but so we shall. I hope we may not prove too much for

'Now, regarding your respected father,' said Lightwood, bringing him to a subject they had expressly

appointed to discuss: always the most slippery eel of eels of subjects to lay hold of.

'Yes, regarding my respected father,' assented Eugene, settling himself in his armchair. 'I would rather have

approached my respected father by candlelight, as a theme requiring a little artificial brilliancy; but we will

'My respected father has found, down in the parental neighbourhood, a wife for his notgenerallyrespected

'With some money, of course, or he would not have found her. My respected fatherlet me shorten the

dutiful tautology by substituting in future M. R. F., which sounds military, and rather like the Duke of

'Not at all, I assure you. M. R. F. having always in the clearest manner provided (as he calls it) for his

children by prearranging from the hour of the birth of each, and sometimes from an earlier period, what the

devoted little victim's calling and course in life should be, M. R. F. prearranged for myself that I was to be

the barrister I am (with the slight addition of an enormous practice, which has not accrued), and also the

'The first I have often told you. Considering myself sufficiently incongruous on my legal eminence, I have

until now suppressed my domestic destiny. You know M. R. F., but not as well as I do. If you knew him as

'Perfectly so, believe me; and with every sentiment of affectionate deference towards M. R. F. But if he

amuses me, I can't help it. When my eldest brother was born, of course the rest of us knew (I mean the rest of

us would have known, if we had been in existence) that he was heir to the Family Embarrassmentswe call

it before the company the Family Estate. But when my second brother was going to be born byandby,

"this," says M. R. F., "is a little pillar of the church." WAS born, and became a pillar of the church; a very

shaky one. My third brother appeared, considerably in advance of his engagement to my mother; but M. R.

F., not at all put out by surprise, instantly declared him a Circumnavigator. Was pitchforked into the Navy,

but has not circumnavigated. I announced myself and was disposed of with the highly satisfactory results

embodied before you. When my younger brother was half an hour old, it was settled by M. R. F. that he

should have a mechanical genius. And so on. Therefore I say that M. R. F. amuses me.'

'There M. R. F. ceases to be amusing, because my intentions are opposed to touching the lady.'

'My dear Mortimer, you have studied my character. Could I possibly go down there, labelled "ELIGIBLE.

ON VIEW," and meet the lady, similarly labelled? Anything to carry out M. R. F.'s arrangements, I am sure,

with the greatest pleasureexcept matrimony. Could I possibly support it? I, so soon bored, so constantly, so

'In susceptibility to boredom,' returned that worthy, 'I assure you I am the most consistent of mankind.'

'Why, it was but now that you were dwelling in the advantages of a monotony of two.'

'In a lighthouse. Do me the justice to remember the condition. In a lighthouse.'

Mortimer laughed again, and Eugene, having laughed too for the first time, as if he found himself on

reflection rather entertaining, relapsed into his usual gloom, and drowsily said, as he enjoyed his cigar, 'No,

there is no help for it; one of the prophetic deliveries of M. R. F. must for ever remain unfulfilled. With every

It had grown darker as they talked, and the wind was sawing and the sawdust was whirling outside paler

windows. The underlying churchyard was already settling into deep dim shade, and the shade was creeping

up to the housetops among which they sat. 'As if,' said Eugene, 'as if the churchyard ghosts were rising.'

He had walked to the window with his cigar in his mouth, to exalt its flavour by comparing the fireside with

'Apparently one of the ghosts has lost its way, and dropped in to be directed. Look at this phantom!'

Lightwood, whose back was towards the door, turned his head, and there, in the darkness of the entry, stood a

something in the likeness of a man: to whom he addressed the not irrelevant inquiry, 'Who the devil are you?'

'I ask your pardons, Governors,' replied the ghost, in a hoarse doublebarrelled whisper, 'but might either on

'I ask your pardons, Governors,' replied the ghost, as before, 'but probable you was not aware your door stood

Hereunto the ghost again hoarsely replied, in its doublebarrelled manner, 'I ask your pardons, Governors,

'All right, Governors Both,' returned the ghost, carefully closing the room door; ''tickler business.'

Mortimer lighted the candles. They showed the visitor to be an ill looking visitor with a squinting leer, who,

as he spoke, fumbled at an old sodden fur cap, formless and mangey, that looked like a furry animal, dog or

'Governors Both,' returned the man, in what he meant to be a wheedling tone, 'which on you might be Lawyer

'Lawyer Lightwood,' ducking at him with a servile air, 'I am a man as gets my living, and as seeks to get my

living, by the sweat of my brow. Not to risk being done out of the sweat of my brow, by any chances, I

The visitor, clearly anything but reliant on this assurance, doggedly muttered 'Alfred David.'

(Which Eugene, smoking and contemplating him, interpreted as meaning Affidavit.)

'I tell you, my good fellow,' said Lightwood, with his indolent laugh, 'that I have nothing to do with

'He can swear AT you,' Eugene explained; 'and so can I. But we can't do more for you.'

Much discomfited by this information, the visitor turned the drowned dog or cat, puppy or kitten, about and

about, and looked from one of the Governors Both to the other of the Governors Both, while he deeply

'It's about,' said the man, taking a step forward, dropping his hoarse voice, and shading it with his hand, 'it's

about from five to ten thousand pound reward. That's what it's about. It's about Murder. That's what it's

It was given him. Making a stiff arm to the elbow, he poured the wine into his mouth, tilted it into his right

cheek, as saying, 'What do you think of it?' tilted it into his left cheek, as saying, 'What do YOU think of it?'

jerked it into his stomach, as saying, 'What do YOU think of it?' To conclude, smacked his lips, as if all three

'Yes, I will,' he repeated, 'and I don't deceive you, Governors.' And also repeated the other proceedings.

'Why, there you're rather fast, Lawyer Lightwood,' he replied, in a remonstrant manner. 'Don't you see,

Lawyer Lightwood? There you're a little bit fast. I'm going to earn from five to ten thousand pound by the

sweat of my brow; and as a poor man doing justice to the sweat of my brow, is it likely I can afford to part

Deferring to the man's sense of the binding powers of pen and ink and paper, Lightwood nodded acceptance

of Eugene's nodded proposal to take those spells in hand. Eugene, bringing them to the table, sat down as

'I should wish, Lawyer Lightwood,' he stipulated, 'to have that T'other Governor as my witness that what I

said I said. Consequent, will the T'other Governor be so good as chuck me his name and where he lives?'

Eugene, cigar in mouth and pen in hand, tossed him his card. After spelling it out slowly, the man made it

into a little roll, and tied it up in an end of his neckerchief still more slowly.

'Now,' said Lightwood, for the third time, 'if you have quite completed your various preparations, my friend,

and have fully ascertained that your spirits are cool and not in any way hurried, what's your name?'

Not quite so glib with this answer as with the previous two, Mr Riderhood gave in the definition, 'Waterside

Rather baulked, Mr Riderhood evasively remarked, with an innocent air, that he believed the T'other

'Of seaman's pocket,' said Mr Riderhood. 'Whereby I was in reality the man's best friend, and tried to take

Eugene leaned back in his chair, and smoked with his eyes negligently turned on the informer, and his pen

ready to reduce him to more writing. Lightwood also smoked, with his eyes negligently turned on the

'Now let me be took down again,' said Riderhood, when he had turned the drowned cap over and under, and

had brushed it the wrong way (if it had a right way) with his sleeve. 'I give information that the man that done

the Harmon Murder is Gaffer Hexam, the man that found the body. The hand of Jesse Hexam, commonly

called Gaffer on the river and along shore, is the hand that done that deed. His hand and no other.'

The two friends glanced at one another with more serious faces than they had shown yet.

'On the grounds,' answered Riderhood, wiping his face with his sleeve, 'that I was Gaffer's pardner, and

suspected of him many a long day and many a dark night. On the grounds that I knowed his ways. On the

grounds that I broke the pardnership because I see the danger; which I warn you his daughter may tell you

another story about that, for anythink I can say, but you know what it'll be worth, for she'd tell you lies, the

world round and the heavens broad, to save her father. On the grounds that it's well understood along the

cause'ays and the stairs that he done it. On the grounds that he's fell off from, because he done it. On the

grounds that I will swear he done it. On the grounds that you may take me where you will, and get me sworn

to it. I don't want to back out of the consequences. I have made up MY mind. Take me anywheres.'

'Merely nothing. It goes to no more than that you suspect this man of the crime. You may do so with some

reason, or you may do so with no reason, but he cannot be convicted on your suspicion.'

'Haven't I saidI appeal to the T'other Governor as my witness haven't I said from the first minute that I

opened my mouth in this here worldwithoutendeverlasting chair' (he evidently used that form of words as

next in force to an affidavit), 'that I was willing to swear that he done it? Haven't I said, Take me and get me

'Surely not; but you only offer to swear to your suspicion, and I tell you it is not enough to swear to your

'And did I say it WAS enough? Now, I appeal to the T'other Governor. Now, fair! Did I say so?'

'He certainly has not said that he had no more to tell,' Eugene observed in a low voice without looking at him,

'Hah!' cried the informer, triumphantly perceiving that the remark was generally in his favour, though

'Let me be took down then!' cried the informer, eagerly and anxiously. 'Let me be took down, for by George

and the Draggin I'm a coming to it now! Don't do nothing to keep back from a honest man the fruits of the

sweat of his brow! I give information, then, that he told me that he done it. Is THAT enough?'

'Lawyer Lightwood, take care, you, what I say; for I judge you'll be answerable for follering it up!' Then,

slowly and emphatically beating it all out with his open right hand on the palm of his left; 'I, Roger

Riderhood, Lime'us Hole, Waterside character, tell you, Lawyer Lightwood, that the man Jesse Hexam,

commonly called upon the river and alongshore Gaffer, told me that he done the deed. What's more, he told

me with his own lips that he done the deed. What's more, he said that he done the deed. And I'll swear it!'

'Outside,' replied Riderhood, always beating it out, with his head determinedly set askew, and his eyes

watchfully dividing their attention between his two auditors, 'outside the door of the Six Jolly Fellowships,

towards a quarter after twelve o'clock at midnightbut I will not in my conscience undertake to swear to so

fine a matter as five minuteson the night when he picked up the body. The Six Jolly Fellowships won't run

away. If it turns out that he warn't at the Six Jolly Fellowships that night at midnight, I'm a liar.'

'I'll tell you (take me down, T'other Governor, I ask no better). He come out first; I come out last. I might be a

minute arter him; I might be half a minute, I might be a quarter of a minute; I cannot swear to that, and

'I found him a waiting to speak to me. He says to me, "Rogue Riderhood"for that's the name I'm mostly

called bynot for any meaning in it, for meaning it has none, but because of its being similar to Roger.'

''Scuse ME, Lawyer Lightwood, it's a part of the truth, and as such I do mind it, and I must mind it and I will

mind it. "Rogue Riderhood," he says, "words passed betwixt us on the river tonight." Which they had; ask his

daughter! "I threatened you," he says, "to chop you over the fingers with my boat's stretcher, or take a aim at

your brains with my boathook. I did so on accounts of your looking too hard at what I had in tow, as if you

was suspicious, and on accounts of your holding on to the gunwale of my boat." I says to him, "Gaffer, I

know it." He says to me, "Rogue Riderhood, you are a man in a dozen"I think he said in a score, but of that

I am not positive, so take the lowest figure, for precious be the obligations of a Alfred David. "And," he says,

"when your fellowmen is up, be it their lives or be it their watches, sharp is ever the word with you. Had

you suspicions?" I says, "Gaffer, I had; and what's more, I have." He falls a shaking, and he says, "Of what?"

I says, "Of foul play." He falls a shaking worse, and he says, "There WAS foul play then. I done it for his

There was a silence, broken only by the fall of the ashes in the grate. An opportunity which the informer

improved by smearing himself all over the head and neck and face with his drowned cap, and not at all

'Now, I'm blest if I understand you, Governors Both,' said the informer, in a creeping manner: propitiating

'Far be it from me, Lawyer Lightwood! I was so troubled in my mind, that I wouldn't have knowed more, no,

not for the sum as I expect to earn from you by the sweat of my brow, twice told! I had put an end to the

pardnership. I had cut the connexion. I couldn't undo what was done; and when he begs and prays, "Old

pardner, on my knees, don't split upon me!" I only makes answer "Never speak another word to Roger

Having given these words a swing to make them mount the higher and go the further, Rogue Riderhood

poured himself out another glass of wine unbidden, and seemed to chew it, as, with the half emptied glass in

Mortimer glanced at Eugene, but Eugene sat glowering at his paper, and would give him no responsive

Giving his wine a final chew, and swallowing it, the informer answered in a single word:

'When all that stir was made, when the Government reward was offered, when the police were on the alert,

'Hah!' Mr Riderhood very slowly and hoarsely chimed in, with several retrospective nods of his head. 'Warn't

'When conjecture ran wild, when the most extravagant suspicions were afloat, when half a dozen innocent

people might have been laid by the heels any hour in the day!' said Mortimer, almost warming.

'Hah!' Mr Riderhood chimed in, as before. 'Warn't I troubled in my mind through it all!'

'But he hadn't,' said Eugene, drawing a lady's head upon his writingpaper, and touching it at intervals, 'the

'The T'other Governor hits the nail, Lawyer Lightwood! It was that as turned me. I had many times and again

struggled to relieve myself of the trouble on my mind, but I couldn't get it off. I had once very nigh got it off

to Miss Abbey Potterson which keeps the Six Jolly Fellowshipsthere is the 'ouse, it won't run

away,there lives the lady, she ain't likely to be struck dead afore you get there ask her!but I couldn't

do it. At last, out comes the new bill with your own lawful name, Lawyer Lightwood, printed to it, and then I

asks the question of my own intellects, Am I to have this trouble on my mind for ever? Am I never to throw it

off? Am I always to think more of Gaffer than of my own self? If he's got a daughter, ain't I got a daughter?'

'Yes, governor. Twoandtwenty last October. And then I put it to myself, "Regarding the money. It is a pot

of money." For it IS a pot,' said Mr Riderhood, with candour, 'and why deny it?'

'"It is a pot of money; but is it a sin for a labouring man that moistens every crust of bread he earns, with his

tearsor if not with them, with the colds he catches in his headis it a sin for that man to earn it? Say there

is anything again earning it." This I put to myself strong, as in duty bound; "how can it be said without

blaming Lawyer Lightwood for offering it to be earned?" And was it for ME to blame Lawyer Lightwood?

'Certainly not, Governor,' Mr Riderhood acquiesced. 'So I made up my mind to get my trouble off my mind,

and to earn by the sweat of my brow what was held out to me. And what's more, he added, suddenly turning

bloodthirsty, 'I mean to have it! And now I tell you, once and away, Lawyer Lightwood, that Jesse Hexam,

commonly called Gaffer, his hand and no other, done the deed, on his own confession to me. And I give him

After another silence, broken only by the fall of the ashes in the grate, which attracted the informer's attention

as if it were the chinking of money, Mortimer Lightwood leaned over his friend, and said in a whisper:

'I suppose I must go with this fellow to our imperturbable friend at the policestation.'

'I believe him to be a thorough rascal. But he may tell the truth, for his own purpose, and for this occasion

'HE doesn't,' said Eugene. 'But neither is his late partner, whom he denounces, a prepossessing person. The

firm are cutthroat Shepherds both, in appearance. I should like to ask him one thing.'

The subject of this conference sat leering at the ashes, trying with all his might to overhear what was said, but

'You mentioned (twice, I think) a daughter of this Hexam's,' said Eugene, aloud. 'You don't mean to imply

The honest man, after consideringperhaps considering how his answer might affect the fruits of the sweat

'It ain't what I implicate, it's what Gaffer implicated,' was the dogged and determined answer. 'I don't pretend

Having exchanged the question and answer, they prepared themselves for going out, and Mr Riderhood rose.

While extinguishing the candles, Lightwood, quite as a matter of course took up the glass from which that

honest gentleman had drunk, and coolly tossed it under the grate, where it fell shivering into fragments.

'Now, if you will take the lead,' said Lightwood, 'Mr Wrayburn and I will follow. You know where to go, I

The waterside character pulled his drowned cap over his ears with both hands, and making himself more

roundshouldered than nature had made him, by the sullen and persistent slouch with which he went, went

down the stairs, round by the Temple Church, across the Temple into Whitefriars, and so on by the waterside

'It strikes me rather as a hangMAN air,' returned Eugene. 'He has undeniable intentions that way.'

They said little else as they followed. He went on before them as an ugly Fate might have done, and they kept

him in view, and would have been glad enough to lose sight of him. But on he went before them, always at

the same distance, and the same rate. Aslant against the hard implacable weather and the rough wind, he was

no more to be driven back than hurried forward, but held on like an advancing Destiny. There came, when

they were about midway on their journey, a heavy rush of hail, which in a few minutes pelted the streets

clear, and whitened them. It made no difference to him. A man's life being to be taken and the price of it got,

the hailstones to arrest the purpose must lie larger and deeper than those. He crnshed through them, leaving

marks in the fast melting slush that were mere shapeless holes; one might have fancied, following, that the

The blast went by, and the moon contended with the fastflying clouds, and the wild disorder reigning up

there made the pitiful little tumults in the streets of no account. It was not that the wind swept all the brawlers

into places of shelter, as it had swept the hail still lingering in heaps wherever there was refuge for it; but that

it seemed as if the streets were absorbed by the sky, and the night were all in the air.

'If he has had time to think of it,' said Eugene, he has not had time to think better of itor differently of it, if

that's better. There is no sign of drawing back in him; and as I recollect this place, we must be close upon the

In fact, a few abrupt turns brought them to the river side, where they had slipped about among the stones, and

where they now slipped more; the wind coming against them in slants and flaws, across the tide and the

windings of the river, in a furious way. With that habit of getting under the lee of any shelter which waterside

characters acquire, the waterside character at present in question led the way to the leeside of the Six Jolly

'Look round here, Lawyer Lightwood, at them red curtains. It's the Fellowships, the 'ouse as I told you

Not showing himself much impressed by this remarkable confirmation of the informer's evidence, Lightwood

'I wished you to see the Fellowships for yourself, Lawyer Lightwood, that you might judge whether I'm a liar;

and now I'll see Gaffer's window for myself, that we may know whether he's at home.'

'Gaffer's out, and his boat's out. His daughter's at home, sitting a looking at the fire. But there's some supper

getting ready, so Gaffer's expected. I can find what move he's upon, easy enough, presently.'

Then he beckoned and led the way again, and they came to the policestation, still as clean and cool and

steady as before, saving that the flame of its lampbeing but a lampflame, and only attached to the Force

Also, within doors, Mr Inspector was at his studies as of yore. He recognized the friends the instant they

reappeared, but their reappearance had no effect on his composure. Not even the circumstance that Riderhood

was their conductor moved him, otherwise than that as he took a dip of ink he seemed, by a settlement of his

chin in his stock, to propound to that personage, without looking at him, the question, 'What have YOU been

Mortimer Lightwood asked him, would he be so good as look at those notes? Handing him Eugene's.

Having read the first few lines, Mr Inspector mounted to that (for him) extraordinary pitch of emotion that he

said, 'Does either of you two gentlemen happen to have a pinch of snuff about him?' Finding that neither had,

'Are these notes correct, now, as to the information you bring here and the evidence you mean to give?' he

'They are. They are as correct,' returned Mr Riderhood, 'as I am. I can't say more than that for 'em.'

'I'll take this man myself, sir,' said Mr Inspector to Lightwood. Then to Riderhood, 'Is he at home? Where is

he? What's he doing? You have made it your business to know all ahout him, no doubt.'

Riderhood said what he did know, and promised to find out in a few minutes what he didn't know.

'Stop,' said Mr Inspector; 'not till I tell you: We mustn't look like business. Would you two gentlemen object

to making a pretence of taking a glass of something in my company at the Fellowships? Wellconducted

They replied that they would be happy to substitute a reality for the pretence, which, in the main, appeared to

'Very good,' said he, taking his hat from its peg, and putting a pair of handcuffs in his pocket as if they were

his gloves. 'Reserve!' Reserve saluted. 'You know where to find me?' Reserve again saluted. 'Riderhood,

when you have found out concerning his coming home, come round to the window of Cosy, tap twice at it,

As the three went out together, and Riderhood slouched off from under the trembling lamp his separate way,

Mr Inspector replied, with due generality and reticence, that it was always more likely that a man had done a

bad thing than that he hadn't. That he himself had several times 'reckoned up' Gaffer, but had never been able

to bring him to a satisfactory criminal total. That if this story was true, it was only in part true. That the two

men, very shy characters, would have been jointly and pretty equally 'in it;' but that this man had 'spotted' the

'And I think,' added Mr Inspector, in conclusion, 'that if all goes well with him, he's in a tolerable way of

getting it. But as this is the Fellowships, gentlemen, where the lights are, I recommend dropping the subject.

You can't do better than be interested in some lime works anywhere down about Northfleet, and doubtful

'You hear Eugene?' said Lightwood, over his shoulder. 'You are deeply interested in lime.'

'Without lime,' returned that unmoved barristeratlaw, 'my existence would be unilluminated by a ray of

The two lime merchants, with their escort, entered the dominions of Miss Abbey Potterson, to whom their

escort (presenting them and their pretended business over the halfdoor of the bar, in a confidential way)

preferred his figurative request that 'a mouthful of fire' might be lighted in Cosy. Always well disposed to

assist the constituted authorities, Miss Abbey bade Bob Gliddery attend the gentlemen to that retreat, and

promptly enliven it with fire and gaslight. Of this commission the barearmed Bob, leading the way with a

flaming wisp of paper, so speedily acquitted himself, that Cosy seemed to leap out of a dark sleep and

'They burn sherry very well here,' said Mr Inspector, as a piece of local intelligence. 'Perhaps you gentlemen

The answer being By all means, Bob Gliddery received his instructions from Mr Inspector, and departed in a

'It's a certain fact,' said Mr Inspector, 'that this man we have received our information from,' indicating

Riderhood with his thumb over his shoulder, 'has for some time past given the other man a bad name arising

out of your lime barges, and that the other man has been avoided in consequence. I don't say what it means or

proves, but it's a certain fact. I had it first from one of the opposite sex of my acquaintance,' vaguely

indicating Miss Abbey with his thumb over his shoulder, 'down away at a distance, over yonder.'

Then probably Mr Inspector was not quite unprepared for their visit that evening? Lightwood hinted.

'Well you see,' said Mr Inspector, 'it was a question of making a move. It's of no use moving if you don't

know what your move is. You had better by far keep still. In the matter of this lime, I certainly had an idea

that it might lie betwixt the two men; I always had that idea. Still I was forced to wait for a start, and I wasn't

so lucky as to get a start. This man that we have received our information from, has got a start, and if he don't

meet with a check he may make the running and come in first. There may turn out to be something

considerable for him that comes in second, and I don't mention who may or who may not try for that place.

There's duty to do, and I shall do it, under any circumstances; to the best of my judgment and ability.'

'Which no man has a better right to do than yourself, you know,' said Mr Inspector.

'I hope not,' said Eugene; 'my father having been a shipper of lime before me, and my grandfather before

himin fact we having been a family immersed to the crowns of our heads in lime during several

generationsI beg to observe that if this missing lime could be got hold of without any young female

relative of any distinguished gentleman engaged in the lime trade (which I cherish next to my life) being

present, I think it might be a more agreeable proceeding to the assisting bystanders, that is to say,

'I also,' said Lightwood, pushing his friend aside with a laugh, 'should much prefer that.'

'It shall be done, gentlemen, if it can be done conveniently,' said Mr Inspector, with coolness. 'There is no

wish on my part to cause any distress in that quarter. Indeed, I am sorry for that quarter.'

'No,' said Mr Inspector.' He has quitted those works. He is otherwise disposed of.'

Bob's reappearance with a steaming jug broke off the conversation. But although the jug steamed forth a

delicious perfume, its contents had not received that last happy touch which the surpassing finish of the Six

Jolly Fellowship Porters imparted on such momentous occasions. Bob carried in his left hand one of those

iron models of sugarloaf hats, before mentioned, into which he emptied the jug, and the pointed end of

which he thrust deep down into the fire, so leaving it for a few moments while he disappeared and reappeared

with three bright drinkingglasses. Placing these on the table and bending over the fire, meritoriously

sensible of the trying nature of his duty, he watched the wreaths of steam, until at the special instant of

projection he caught up the iron vessel and gave it one delicate twirl, causing it to send forth one gentle hiss.

Then he restored the contents to the jug; held over the steam of the jug, each of the three bright glasses in

succession; finally filled them all, and with a clear conscience awaited the applause of his fellowcreatures.

It was bestowed (Mr Inspector having proposed as an appropriate sentiment 'The lime trade!') and Bob

withdrew to report the commendations of the guests to Miss Abbey in the bar. It may be here in confidence

admitted that, the room being close shut in his absence, there had not appeared to be the slightest reason for

the elaborate maintenance of this same lime fiction. Only it had been regarded by Mr Inspector as so

uncommonly satisfactory, and so fraught with mysterious virtues, that neither of his clients had presumed to

Two taps were now heard on the outside of the window. Mr Inspector, hastily fortifying himself with another

glass, strolled out with a noiseless foot and an unoccupied countenance. As one might go to survey the

'This is becoming grim, Mortimer,' said Eugene, in a low voice. 'I don't like this.'

'Being here, let us stay. You ought to see it out, and I won't leave you. Besides, that lonely girl with the dark

hair runs in my head. It was little more than a glimpse we had of her that last time, and yet I almost see her

waiting by the fire tonight. Do you feel like a dark combination of traitor and pickpocket when you think of

Their escort strolled back again, and reported. Divested of its various limelights and shadows, his report

went to the effect that Gaffer was away in his boat, supposed to be on his old lookout; that he had been

expected last highwater; that having missed it for some reason or other, he was not, according to his usual

habits at night, to be counted on before next highwater, or it might be an hour or so later; that his daughter,

surveyed through the window, would seem to be so expecting him, for the supper was not cooking, but set

out ready to be cooked; that it would be high water at about one, and that it was now barely ten; that there

was nothing to be done but watch and wait; that the informer was keeping watch at the instant of that present

reporting, but that two heads were better than one (especially when the second was Mr Inspector's); and that

the reporter meant to share the watch. And forasmuch as crouching under the lee of a hauledup boat on a

night when it blew cold and strong, and when the weather was varied with blasts of hail at times, might be

wearisome to amateurs, the reporter closed with the recommendation that the two gentlemen should remain,

for a while at any rate, in their present quarters, which were weathertight and warm.

They were not inclined to dispute this recommendation, but they wanted to know where they could join the

watchers when so disposed. Rather than trust to a verbal description of the place, which might mislead,

Eugene (with a less weighty sense of personal trouble on him than he usually had) would go out with Mr

On the shelving bank of the river, among the slimy stones of a causewaynot the special causeway of the

Six Jolly Fellowships, which had a landingplace of its own, but another, a little removed, and very near to

the old windmill which was the denounced man's dwellingplacewere a few boats; some, moored and

already beginning to float; others, hauled up above the reach of the tide. Under one of these latter, Eugene's

companion disappeared. And when Eugene had observed its position with reference to the other boats, and

had made sure that he could not miss it, he turned his eyes upon the building where, as he had been told, the

He could see the light of the fire shining through the window. Perhaps it drew him on to look in. Perhaps he

had come out with the express intention. That part of the bank having rank grass growing on it, there was no

difficulty in getting close, without any noise of footsteps: it was but to scramble up a ragged face of pretty

hard mud some three or four feet high and come upon the grass and to the window. He came to the window

She had no other light than the light of the fire. The unkindled lamp stood on the table. She sat on the ground,

looking at the brazier, with her face leaning on her hand. There was a kind of film or flicker on her face,

which at first he took to be the fitful firelight; but, on a second look, he saw that she was weeping. A sad and

It was a little window of but four pieces of glass, and was not curtained; he chose it because the larger

window near it was. It showed him the room, and the bills upon the wall respecting the drowned people

starting out and receding by turns. But he glanced slightly at them, though he looked long and steadily at her.

A deep rich piece of colour, with the brown flush of her cheek and the shining lustre of her hair, though sad

She started up. He had been so very still that he felt sure it was not he who had disturbed her, so merely

withdrew from the window and stood near it in the shadow of the wall. She opened the door, and said in an

alarmed tone, 'Father, was that you calling me?' And again, 'Father!' And once again, after listening, 'Father! I

No response. As she reentered at the door, he dropped over the bank and made his way back, among the

ooze and near the hiding place, to Mortimer Lightwood: to whom he told what he had seen of the girl, and

'If the real man feels as guilty as I do,' said Eugene, 'he is remarkably uncomfortable.'

'I am not at all obliged to it for making me Guy Fawkes in the vault and a Sneak in the area both at once,' said

Lightwood helped him to some more of that stuff, but it had been cooling, and didn't answer now.

'Pooh,' said Eugene, spitting it out among the ashes. 'Tastes like the wash of the river.'

'I seem to be tonight. I feel as if I had been half drowned, and swallowing a gallon of it.'

'You are mighty learned tonight, you and your influences,' returned Eugene. 'How long shall we stay here?'

'If I could choose, I should say a minute,' replied Eugene, 'for the Jolly Fellowship Porters are not the jolliest

dogs I have known. But I suppose we are best here until they turn us out with the other suspicious characters,

Thereupon he stirred the fire, and sat down on one side of it. It struck eleven, and he made believe to

compose himself patiently. But gradually he took the fidgets in one leg, and then in the other leg, and then in

one arm, and then in the other arm, and then in his chin, and then in his back, and then in his forehead, and

then in his hair, and then in his nose; and then he stretched himself recumbent on two chairs, and groaned;

'Invisible insects of diabolical activity swarm in this place. I am tickled and twitched all over. Mentally, I

have now committed a burglary under the meanest circumstances, and the myrmidons of justice are at my

'I am quite as bad,' said Lightwood, sitting up facing him, with a tumbled head; after going through some

wonderful evolutions, in which his head had been the lowest part of him. 'This restlessness began with me,

long ago. All the time you were out, I felt like Gulliver with the Lilliputians firing upon him.'

'It won't do, Mortimer. We must get into the air; we must join our dear friend and brother, Riderhood. And let

us tranquillize ourselves by making a compact. Next time (with a view to our peace of mind) we'll commit

Mortimer rang the bell to pay the score, and Bob appeared to transact that business with him: whom Eugene,

in his careless extravagance, asked if he would like a situation in the limetrade?

'If you change your mind at any time,' returned Eugene, 'come to me at my works, and you'll always find an

'This is my partner,' said Eugene, 'who keeps the books and attends to the wages. A fair day's wages for a fair

'And a very good 'un it is, gentlemen,' said Bob, receiving his fee, and drawing a bow out of his head with his

right hand, very much as he would have drawn a pint of beer out of the beer engine.

'Eugene,' Mortimer apostrophized him, laughing quite heartily when they were alone again, 'how CAN you

'I am in a ridiculous humour,' quoth Eugene; 'I am a ridiculous fellow. Everything is ridiculous. Come along!'

It passed into Mortimer Lightwood's mind that a change of some sort, best expressed perhaps as an

intensification of all that was wildest and most negligent and reckless in his friend, had come upon him in the

last halfhour or so. Thoroughly used to him as he was, he found something new and strained in him that was

for the moment perplexing. This passed into his mind, and passed out again; but he remembered it afterwards.

'There's where she sits, you see,' said Eugene, when they were standing under the bank, roared and riven at by

'No, don't!' Eugene caught him by the arm. 'Best, not make a show of her. Come to our honest friend.'

He led him to the post of watch, and they both dropped down and crept under the lee of the boat; a better

shelter than it had seemed before, being directly contrasted with the blowing wind and the bare night.

'And our friend of the perspiring brow is at the far corner there? Good. Anything happened?'

'His daughter has been out, thinking she heard him calling, unless it was a sign to him to keep out of the way.

'It might have been Rule Britannia,' muttered Eugene, 'but it wasn't. Mortimer!'

They were all silent for a long while. As it got to be floodtide, and the water came nearer to them, noises on

the river became more frequent, and they listened more. To the turning of steam paddles, to the clinking of

iron chain, to the creaking of blocks, to the measured working of oars, to the occasional violent barking of

some passing dog on shipboard, who seemed to scent them lying in their hidingplace. The night was not so

dark but that, besides the lights at bows and mastheads gliding to and fro, they could discern some shadowy

bulk attached; and now and then a ghostly lighter with a large dark sail, like a warning arm, would start up

very near them, pass on, and vanish. At this time of their watch, the water close to them would be often

agitated by some impulsion given it from a distance. Often they believed this beat and plash to be the boat

they lay in wait for, running in ashore; and again and again they would have started up, but for the immobility

The wind carried away the striking of the great multitude of city church clocks, for those lay to leeward of

them; but there were bells to windward that told them of its being OneTwoThree. Without that aid they

would have known how the night wore, by the falling of the tide, recorded in the appearance of an ever

widening black wet strip of shore, and the emergence of the paved causeway from the river, foot by foot.

As the time so passed, this slinking business became a more and more precarious one. It would seem as if the

man had had some intimation of what was in hand against him, or had taken fright? His movements might

have been planned to gain for him, in getting beyond their reach, twelve hours' advantage? The honest man

who had expended the sweat of his brow became uneasy, and began to complain with bitterness of the

Their retreat was so chosen that while they could watch the river, they could watch the house. No one had

passed in or out, since the daughter thought she heard the father calling. No one could pass in or out without

'Look here,' said Riderhood, 'what do you say to this? He may have been lurking in and out, and just holding

'What if I put off in her and take a look round? I know his ways, and the likely nooks he favours. I know

where he'd be at such a time of the tide, and where he'd be at such another time. Ain't I been his pardner?

None of you need show. None of you need stir. I can shove her off without help; and as to me being seen, I'm

'You might have given a worse opinion,' said Mr Inspector, after brief consideration. 'Try it.'

'Stop a bit. Let's work it out. If I want you, I'll drop round under the Fellowships and tip you a whistle.'

'If I might so far presume as to offer a suggestion to my honourable and gallant friend, whose knowledge of

naval matters far be it from me to impeach,' Eugene struck in with great deliberation, 'it would be, that to tip a

whistle is to advertise mystery and invite speculation. My honourable and gallant friend will, I trust, excuse

me, as an independent member, for throwing out a remark which I feel to be due to this house and the

'Was that the T'other Governor, or Lawyer Lightwood?' asked Riderhood. For, they spoke as they crouched or

'In reply to the question put by my honourable and gallant friend,' said Eugene, who was lying on his back

with his hat on his face, as an attitude highly expressive of watchfulness, 'I can have no hesitation in replying

(it not being inconsistent with the public service) that those accents were the accents of the T'other Governor.'

'You've tolerable good eyes, ain't you, Governor? You've all tolerable good eyes, ain't you?' demanded the

'Then if I row up under the Fellowship and lay there, no need to whistle. You'll make out that there's a speck

of something or another there, and you'll know it's me, and you'll come down that cause'ay to me. Understood

In a moment, with the wind cutting keenly at him sideways, he was staggering down to his boat; in a few

Eugene had raised himself on his elbow to look into the darkness after him. 'I wish the boat of my honourable

and gallant friend,' he murmured, lying down again and speaking into his hat, 'may be endowed with

'Three burglaries, two forgeries, and a midnight assassination.' Yet in spite of having those weights on his

conscience, Eugene was somewhat enlivened by the late slight change in the circumstances of affairs. So

were his two companions. Its being a change was everything. The suspense seemed to have taken a new

lease, and to have begun afresh from a recent date. There was something additional to look for. They were all

three more sharply on the alert, and less deadened by the miserable influences of the place and time.

More than an hour had passed, and they were even dozing, when one of the threeeach said it was he, and

he had NOT dozed made out Riderhood in his boat at the spot agreed on. They sprang up, came out from

their shelter, and went down to him. When he saw them coming, he dropped alongside the causeway; so that

they, standing on the causeway, could speak with him in whispers, under the shadowy mass of the Six Jolly

'What HAVE you seen?' asked Lightwood. For, he was staring at them in the strangest way.

'Yes, empty. And what's more,adrift. And what's more,with one scull gone. And what's more,with

t'other scull jammed in the thowels and broke short off. And what's more,the boat's drove tight by the tide

'atwixt two tiers of barges. And what's more,he's in luck again, by George if he ain't!'

Cold on the shore, in the raw cold of that leaden crisis in the four andtwenty hours when the vital force of

all the noblest and prettiest things that live is at its lowest, the three watchers looked each at the blank faces

'Gaffer's boat, Gaffer in luck again, and yet no Gaffer!' So spake Riderhood, staring disconsolate.

As if with one accord, they all turned their eyes towards the light of the fire shining through the window. It

was fainter and duller. Perhaps fire, like the higher animal and vegetable life it helps to sustain, has its

greatest tendency towards death, when the night is dying and the day is not yet born.

'If it was me that had the law of this here job in hand,' growled Riderhood with a threatening shake of his

'Ay, but it is not you,' said Eugene. With something so suddenly fierce in him that the informer returned

submissively; 'Well, well, well, t'other governor, I didn't say it was. A man may speak.'

Astonished by his friend's unusual heat, Lightwood stared too, and then said: 'What can have become of this

'Can't imagine. Unless he dived overboard.' The informer wiped his brow ruefully as he said it, sitting in his

'She's fast enough till the tide runs back. I couldn't make her faster than she is. Come aboard of mine, and see

There was a little backwardness in complying, for the freight looked too much for the boat; but on

Riderhood's protesting 'that he had had half a dozen, dead and alive, in her afore now, and she was nothing

deep in the water nor down in the stern even then, to speak of;' they carefully took their places, and trimmed

the crazy thing. While they were doing so, Riderhood still sat staring disconsolate.

'Give way, by George!' repeated Riderhood, before shoving off. 'If he's gone and made off any how Lawyer

Lightwood, it's enough to make me give way in a different manner. But he always WAS a cheat, confound

him! He always was a infernal cheat, was Gaffer. Nothing straightfor'ard, nothing on the square. So mean, so

'Hallo! Steady!' cried Eugene (he had recovered immediately on embarking), as they bumped heavily against

a pile; and then in a lower voice reversed his late apostrophe by remarking ('I wish the boat of my honourable

and gallant friend may be endowed with philanthropy enough not to turn bottomupward and extinguish us!)

Steady, steady! Sit close, Mortimer. Here's the hail again. See how it flies, like a troop of wild cats, at Mr

Indeed he had the full benefit of it, and it so mauled him, though he bent his head low and tried to present

nothing but the mangy cap to it, that he dropped under the lee of a tier of shipping, and they lay there until it

was over. The squall had come up, like a spiteful messenger before the morning; there followed in its wake a

ragged tear of light which ripped the dark clouds until they showed a great grey hole of day.

They were all shivering, and everything about them seemed to be shivering; the river itself; craft, rigging,

sails, such early smoke as there yet was on the shore. Black with wet, and altered to the eye by white patches

of hail and sleet, the huddled buildings looked lower than usual, as if they were cowering, and had shrunk

with the cold. Very little life was to be seen on either bank, windows and doors were shut, and the staring

black and white letters upon wharves and warehouses 'looked,' said Eugene to Mortimer, 'like inscriptions

As they glided slowly on, keeping under the shore and sneaking in and out among the shipping by

backalleys of water, in a pilfering way that seemed to be their boatman's normal manner of progression, all

the objects among which they crept were so huge in contrast with their wretched boat, as to threaten to crush

it. Not a ship's hull, with its rusty iron links of cable run out of hawse holes long discoloured with the iron's

rusty tears, but seemed to be there with a fell intention. Not a figurehead but had the menacing look of

bursting forward to run them down. Not a sluice gate, or a painted scale upon a post or wall, showing the

depth of water, but seemed to hint, like the dreadfully facetious Wolf in bed in Grandmamma's cottage,

'That's to drown YOU in, my dears!' Not a lumbering black barge, with its cracked and blistered side

impending over them, but seemed to suck at the river with a thirst for sucking them under. And everything so

vaunted the spoiling influences of waterdiscoloured copper, rotten wood, honey combed stone, green

dank depositthat the afterconsequences of being crushed, sucked under, and drawn down, looked as ugly

Some halfhour of this work, and Riderhood unshipped his sculls, stood holding on to a barge, and hand over

hand longwise along the barge's side gradually worked his boat under her head into a secret little nook of

scummy water. And driven into that nook, and wedged as he had described, was Gaffer's boat; that boat with

('With a morbid expectation,' murmured Eugene to Lightwood, 'that somebody is always going to tell him the

'Look at the broken scull. Look at the t'other scull gone. NOW tell me I am a liar!' said the honest man.

'And see now!' added Riderhood, creeping aft, and showing a stretched rope made fast there and towing

'Easy to say haul in,' answered Riderhood. 'Not so easy done. His luck's got fouled under the keels of the

barges. I tried to haul in last time, but I couldn't. See how taut the line is!'

'I must have it up,' said Mr Inspector. 'I am going to take this boat ashore, and his luck along with it. Try easy

'I am not going to do either, not even to your Grandmother,' said Mr Inspector; 'but I mean to have it. Come!'

he added, at once persuasively and with authority to the hidden object in the water, as he played the line

again; 'it's no good this sort of game, you know. You MUST come up. I mean to have you.'

There was so much virtue in this distinctly and decidedly meaning to have it, that it yielded a little, even

'I told you so,' quoth Mr Inspector, pulling off his outer coat, and leaning well over the stern with a will.

It was an awful sort of fishing, but it no more disconcerted Mr Inspector than if he had been fishing in a punt

on a summer evening by some soothing weir high up the peaceful river. After certain minutes, and a few

directions to the rest to 'ease her a little for'ard,' and 'now ease her a trifle aft,' and the like, he said

Accepting Lightwood's proffered hand to help him up, he then put on his coat, and said to Riderhood, 'Hand

me over those spare sculls of yours, and I'll pull this in to the nearest stairs. Go ahead you, and keep out in

His directions were obeyed, and they pulled ashore directly; two in one boat, two in the other.

'Now,' said Mr Inspector, again to Riderhood, when they were all on the slushy stones; 'you have had more

practice in this than I have had, and ought to be a better workman at it. Undo the tow rope, and we'll help

Riderhood got into the boat accordingly. It appeared as if he had scarcely had a moment's time to touch the

rope or look over the stern, when he came scrambling back, as pale as the morning, and gasped out:

He pointed behind him at the boat, and gasped to that degree that he dropped upon the stones to get his

They ran to the rope, leaving him gasping there. Soon, the form of the bird of prey, dead some hours, lay

stretched upon the shore, with a new blast storming at it and clotting the wet hair with hail stones.

Father, was that you calling me? Father! I thought I heard you call me twice before! Words never to be

answered, those, upon the earthside of the grave. The wind sweeps jeeringly over Father, whips him with

the frayed ends of his dress and his jagged hair, tries to turn him where he lies stark on his back, and force his

face towards the rising sun, that he may be shamed the more. A lull, and the wind is secret and prying with

him; lifts and lets falls a rag; hides palpitating under another rag; runs nimbly through his hair and beard.

Then, in a rush, it cruelly taunts him. Father, was that you calling me? Was it you, the voiceless and the dead?

Was it you, thus buffeted as you lie here in a heap? Was it you, thus baptized unto Death, with these flying

impurities now flung upon your face? Why not speak, Father? Soaking into this filthy ground as you lie here,

is your own shape. Did you never see such a shape soaked into your boat? Speak, Father. Speak to us, the

'Now see,' said Mr Inspector, after mature deliberation: kneeling on one knee beside the body, when they had

stood looking down on the drowned man, as he had many a time looked down on many another man: 'the

way of it was this. Of course you gentlemen hardly failed to observe that he was towing by the neck and

'And you will have observed before, and you will observe now, that this knot, which was drawn chocktight

round his neck by the strain of his own arms, is a slipknot': holding it up for demonstration.

'Likewise you will have observed how he had run the other end of this rope to his boat.'

It had the curves and indentations in it still, where it had been twined and bound.

'Now see,' said Mr Inspector, 'see how it works round upon him. It's a wild tempestuous evening when this

man that was,' stooping to wipe some hailstones out of his hair with an end of his own drowned jacket,

'there! Now he's more like himself; though he's badly bruised,when this man that was, rows out upon

the river on his usual lay. He carries with him this coil of rope. He always carries with him this coil of rope.

It's as well known to me as he was himself. Sometimes it lay in the bottom of his boat. Sometimes he hung it

loose round his neck. He was a lightdresser was this man;you see?' lifting the loose neckerchief over his

breast, and taking the opportunity of wiping the dead lips with it 'and when it was wet, or freezing, or blew

cold, he would hang this coil of line round his neck. Last evening he does this. Worse for him! He dodges

about in his boat, does this man, till he gets chilled. His hands,' taking up one of them, which dropped like a

leaden weight, 'get numbed. He sees some object that's in his way of business, floating. He makes ready to

secure that object. He unwinds the end of his coil that he wants to take some turns on in his boat, and he takes

turns enough on it to secure that it shan't run out. He makes it too secure, as it happens. He is a little longer

about this than usual, his hands being numbed. His object drifts up, before he is quite ready for it. He catches

at it, thinks he'll make sure of the contents of the pockets anyhow, in case he should be parted from it, bends

right over the stern, and in one of these heavy squalls, or in the crossswell of two steamers, or in not being

quite prepared, or through all or most or some, gets a lurch, overbalances and goes headforemost overboard.

Now see! He can swim, can this man, and instantly he strikes out. But in such strikingout he tangles his

arms, pulls strong on the slipknot, and it runs home. The object he had expected to take in tow, floats by,

and his own boat tows him dead, to where we found him, all entangled in his own line. You'll ask me how I

make out about the pockets? First, I'll tell you more; there was silver in 'em. How do I make that out? Simple

and satisfactory. Because he's got it here.' The lecturer held up the tightly clenched right hand.

'If you wouldn't object to standing by him half a minute, sir,' was the reply, 'I'll find the nearest of our men to

come and take charge of him;I still call it HIM, you see,' said Mr Inspector, looking back as he went, with

'Eugene,' said Lightwood and was about to add 'we may wait at a little distance,' when turning his head he

It was broad daylight now, and he looked about. But no Eugene was in all the view.

Mr Inspector speedily returning down the wooden stairs, with a police constable, Lightwood asked him if he

had seen his friend leave them? Mr Inspector could not exactly say that he had seen him go, but had noticed

'I wish it had not been a part of his singular entertaining combination to give me the slip under these dreary

circumstances at this time of the morning,' said Lightwood. 'Can we get anything hot to drink?'

We could, and we did. In a publichouse kitchen with a large fire. We got hot brandy and water, and it

revived us wonderfully. Mr Inspector having to Mr Riderhood announced his official intention of 'keeping his

eye upon him', stood him in a corner of the fireplace, like a wet umbrella, and took no further outward and

visible notice of that honest man, except ordering a separate service of brandy and water for him: apparently

As Mortimer Lightwood sat before the blazing fire, conscious of drinking brandy and water then and there in

his sleep, and yet at one and the same time drinking burnt sherry at the Six Jolly Fellowships, and lying under

the boat on the river shore, and sitting in the boat that Riderhood rowed, and listening to the lecture recently

concluded, and having to dine in the Temple with an unknown man, who described himself as M. H. F.

Eugene Gaffer Harmon, and said he lived at Hailstorm,as he passed through these curious vicissitudes of

fatigue and slumber, arranged upon the scale of a dozen hours to the second, he became aware of answering

aloud a communication of pressing importance that had never been made to him, and then turned it into a

cough on beholding Mr Inspector. For, he felt, with some natural indignation, that that functionary might

'And had hot brandy and water too, you see,' said Mr Inspector, 'and then cut off at a great rate.'

After hearing, in a mist through which Mr Inspector loomed vague and large, that the officer took upon

himself to prepare the dead man's daughter for what had befallen in the night, and generally that he took

everything upon himself, Mortimer Lightwood stumbled in his sleep to a cabstand, called a cab, and had

entered the army and committed a capital military offence and been tried by court martial and found guilty

and had arranged his affairs and been marched out to be shot, before the door banged.

Hard work rowing the cab through the City to the Temple, for a cup of from five to ten thousand pounds

value, given by Mr Boffin; and hard work holding forth at that immeasurable length to Eugene (when he had

been rescued with a rope from the running pavement) for making off in that extraordinary manner! But he

offered such ample apologies, and was so very penitent, that when Lightwood got out of the cab, he gave the

driver a particular charge to he careful of him. Which the driver (knowing there was no other fare left inside)

In short, the night's work had so exhausted and worn out this actor in it, that he had become a mere

somnambulist. He was too tired to rest in his sleep, until he was even tired out of being too tired, and dropped

into oblivion. Late in the afternoon he awoke, and in some anxiety sent round to Eugene's lodging hard by, to

Oh yes, he was up. In fact, he had not been to bed. He had just come home. And here he was, close following

'Are my feathers so very much rumpled?' said Eugene, coolly going up to the lookingglass. They ARE

'My dear fellow,' said Eugene, sitting on his bed, 'I felt that we had bored one another so long, that an

unbroken continuance of those relations must inevitably terminate in our flying to opposite points of the

earth. I also felt that I had committed every crime in the Newgate Calendar. So, for mingled considerations of

Mr and Mrs Boffin sat after breakfast, in the Bower, a prey to prosperity. Mr Boffin's face denoted Care and

Complication. Many disordered papers were before him, and he looked at them about as hopefully as an

innocent civilian might look at a crowd of troops whom he was required at five minutes' notice to manoeuvre

and review. He had been engaged in some attempts to make notes of these papers; but being troubled (as men

of his stamp often are) with an exceedingly distrustful and corrective thumb, that busy member had so often

interposed to smear his notes, that they were little more legible than the various impressions of itself; which

blurred his nose and forehead. It is curious to consider, in such a case as Mr Boffin's, what a cheap article ink

is, and how far it may be made to go. As a grain of musk will scent a drawer for many years, and still lose

nothing appreciable of its original weight, so a halfpennyworth of ink would blot Mr Boffin to the roots of

his hair and the calves of his legs, without inscribing a line on the paper before him, or appearing to diminish

Mr Boffin was in such severe literary difficulties that his eyes were prominent and fixed, and his breathing

was stertorous, when, to the great relief of Mrs Boffin, who observed these symptoms with alarm, the yard

Mr Boffin drew a long breath, laid down his pen, looked at his notes as doubting whether he had the pleasure

of their acquaintance, and appeared, on a second perusal of their countenances, to be confirmed in his

impression that he had not, when there was announced by the hammerheaded young man:

'Oh!' said Mr Boffin. 'Oh indeed! Our and the Wilfers' Mutual Friend, my dear. Yes. Ask him to come in.'

'Sit down, sir,' said Mr Boffin, shaking hands with him. 'Mrs Boffin you're already acquainted with. Well, sir,

I am rather unprepared to see you, for, to tell you the truth, I've been so busy with one thing and another, that

'That's apology for both of us: for Mr Boffin, and for me as well,' said the smiling Mrs Boffin. 'But Lor! we

'Let me see then,' resumed Mr Boffin, with his hand to his chin. 'It was Secretary that you named; wasn't it?'

'It rather puzzled me at the time,' said Mr Boffin, 'and it rather puzzled me and Mrs Boffin when we spoke of

it afterwards, because (not to make a mystery of our belief) we have always believed a Secretary to be a piece

of furniture, mostly of mahogany, lined with green baize or leather, with a lot of little drawers in it. Now, you

Certainly not, said Mr Rokesmith. But he had used the word in the sense of Steward.

'Why, as to Steward, you see,' returned Mr Boffin, with his hand still to his chin, 'the odds are that Mrs Boffin

and me may never go upon the water. Being both bad sailors, we should want a Steward if we did; but there's

Mr Rokesmith again explained; defining the duties he sought to undertake, as those of general superintendent,

'Now, for instancecome!' said Mr Boffin, in his pouncing way. 'If you entered my employment, what

'I would keep exact accounts of all the expenditure you sanctioned, Mr Boffin. I would write your letters,

under your direction. I would transact your business with people in your pay or employment. I would,' with a

'And so arrange them as to have them always in order for immediate reference, with a note of the contents

'I tell you what,' said Mr Boffin, slowly crumpling his own blotted note in his hand; 'if you'll turn to at these

present papers, and see what you can make of 'em, I shall know better what I can make of you.'

No sooner said than done. Relinquishing his hat and gloves, Mr Rokesmith sat down quietly at the table,

arranged the open papers into an orderly heap, cast his eyes over each in succession, folded it, docketed it on

the outside, laid it in a second heap, and, when that second heap was complete and the first gone, took from

his pocket a piece of string and tied it together with a remarkably dexterous hand at a running curve and a

'Good!' said Mr Boffin. 'Very good! Now let us hear what they're all about; will you be so good?'

John Rokesmith read his abstracts aloud. They were all about the new house. Decorator's estimate, so much.

Furniture estimate, so much. Estimate for furniture of offices, so much. Coachmaker's estimate, so much.

Horsedealer's estimate, so much. Harness maker's estimate, so much. Goldsmith's estimate, so much.

Total, so very much. Then came correspondence. Acceptance of Mr Boffin's offer of such a date, and to such

an effect. Rejection of Mr Boffin's proposal of such a date and to such an effect. Concerning Mr Boffin's

'Applepie order!' said Mr Boffin, after checking off each inscription with his hand, like a man beating time.

'And whatever you do with your ink, I can't think, for you're as clean as a whistle after it. Now, as to a letter.

Let's,' said Mr Boffin, rubbing his hands in his pleasantly childish admiration, 'let's try a letter next.'

'"Mr Boffin presents his compliments to Mr John Rokesmith, and begs to say that he has decided on giving

Mr John Rokesmith a trial in the capacity he desires to fill. Mr Boffin takes Mr John Rokesmith at his word,

in postponing to some indefinite period, the consideration of salary. It is quite understood that Mr Boffin is in

no way committed on that point. Mr Boffin has merely to add, that he relies on Mr John Rokesmith's

assurance that he will be faithful and serviceable. Mr John Rokesmith will please enter on his duties

Mr Boffin was no less delighted; indeed, in his own bosom, he regarded both the composition itself and the

device that had given birth to it, as a very remarkable monument of human ingenuity.

'And I tell you, my deary,' said Mrs Boffin, 'that if you don't close with Mr Rokesmith now at once, and if

you ever go a muddling yourself again with things never meant nor made for you, you'll have an

Mr Boffin embraced his spouse for these words of wisdom, and then, congratulating John Rokesmith on the

brilliancy of his achievements, gave him his hand in pledge of their new relations. So did Mrs Boffin.

'Now,' said Mr Boffin, who, in his frankness, felt that it did not become him to have a gentleman in his

employment five minutes, without reposing some confidence in him, 'you must be let a little more into our

affairs, Rokesmith. I mentioned to you, when I made your acquaintance, or I might better say when you made

mine, that Mrs Boffin's inclinations was setting in the way of Fashion, but that I didn't know how fashionable

we might or might not grow. Well! Mrs Boffin has carried the day, and we're going in neck and crop for

'I rather inferred that, sir,' replied John Rokesmith, 'from the scale on which your new establishment is to be

'Yes,' said Mr Boffin, 'it's to be a Spanker. The fact is, my literary man named to me that a house with which

'Ah!' said Mr Boffin. 'Perhaps. Anyhow, he named to me that the house had a board up, "This Eminently

Aristocratic Mansion to be let or sold." Me and Mrs Boffin went to look at it, and finding it beyond a doubt

Eminently Aristocratic (though a trifle high and dull, which after all may be part of the same thing) took it.

My literary man was so friendly as to drop into a charming piece of poetry on that occasion, in which he

'That's it! And it was made neater by there really being two halls in the house, a front 'un and a back 'un,

besides the servants'. He likewise dropped into a very pretty piece of poetry to be sure, respecting the extent

to which he would be willing to put himself out of the way to bring Mrs Boffin round, in case she should ever

get low in her spirits in the house. Mrs Boffin has a wonderful memory. Will you repeat it, my dear?'

Mrs Boffin complied, by reciting the verses in which this obliging offer had been made, exactly as she had

'"I'll tell thee how the maiden wept, Mrs Boffin, When her true love was slain ma'am, And how her broken

spirit slept, Mrs Boffin, And never woke again ma'am. I'll tell thee (if agreeable to Mr Boffin) how the steed

drew nigh, And left his lord afar; And if my tale (which I hope Mr Boffin might excuse) should make you

'Correct to the letter!' said Mr Boffin. 'And I consider that the poetry brings us both in, in a beautiful manner.'

The effect of the poem on the Secretary being evidently to astonish him, Mr Boffin was confirmed in his high

'Now, you see, Rokesmith,' he went on, 'a literary manWITH a wooden legis liable to jealousy. I shall

therefore cast about for comfortable ways and means of not calling up Wegg's jealousy, but of keeping you in

'Lor!' cried Mrs Boffin. 'What I say is, the world's wide enough for all of us!'

'So it is, my dear,' said Mr Boffin, 'when not literary. But when so, not so. And I am bound to bear in mind

that I took Wegg on, at a time when I had no thought of being fashionable or of leaving the Bower. To let him

feel himself anyways slighted now, would be to be guilty of a meanness, and to act like having one's head

turned by the halls of dazzling light. Which Lord forbid! Rokesmith, what shall we say about your living in

'That will be as you please, Mr Boffin. I hold myself quite at your disposal. You know where I live at

'Well!' said Mr Boffin, after considering the point; 'suppose you keep as you are for the present, and we'll

decide byandby. You'll begin to take charge at once, of all that's going on in the new house, will you?'

Mr Boffin repeated it, and the Secretary wrote it down in his pocketbook. Mrs Boffin took the opportunity

of his being so engaged, to get a better observation of his face than she had yet taken. It impressed her in his

A gloomy house the Bower, with sordid signs on it of having been, through its long existence as Harmony

Jail, in miserly holding. Bare of paint, bare of paper on the walls, bare of furniture, bare of experience of

human life. Whatever is built by man for man's occupation, must, like natural creations, fulfil the intention of

its existence, or soon perish. This old house had wastedmore from desuetude than it would have wasted

A certain leanness falls upon houses not sufficiently imbued with life (as if they were nourished upon it),

which was very noticeable here. The staircase, balustrades, and rails, had a spare lookan air of being

denuded to the bonewhich the panels of the walls and the jambs of the doors and windows also bore. The

scanty moveables partook of it; save for the cleanliness of the place, the dustinto which they were all

resolving would have lain thick on the floors; and those, both in colour and in grain, were worn like old faces

The bedroom where the clutching old man had lost his grip on life, was left as he had left it. There was the

old grisly fourpost bedstead, without hangings, and with a jaillike upper rim of iron and spikes; and there

was the old patchwork counterpane. There was the tightclenched old bureau, receding atop like a bad and

secret forehead; there was the cumbersome old table with twisted legs, at the bedside; and there was the box

upon it, in which the will had lain. A few old chairs with patchwork covers, under which the more precious

stuff to be preserved had slowly lost its quality of colour without imparting pleasure to any eye, stood against

'The room was kept like this, Rokesmith,' said Mr Boffin, 'against the son's return. In short, everything in the

house was kept exactly as it came to us, for him to see and approve. Even now, nothing is changed but our

own room belowstairs that you have just left. When the son came home for the last time in his life, and for

the last time in his life saw his father, it was most likely in this room that they met.'

As the Secretary looked all round it, his eyes rested on a side door in a corner.

'Another staircase,' said Mr Boffin, unlocking the door, 'leading down into the yard. We'll go down this way,

as you may like to see the yard, and it's all in the road. When the son was a little child, it was up and down

these stairs that he mostly came and went to his father. He was very timid of his father. I've seen him sit on

these stairs, in his shy way, poor child, many a time. Mr and Mrs Boffin have comforted him, sitting with his

'Ah! And his poor sister too,' said Mrs Boffin. 'And here's the sunny place on the white wall where they one

day measured one another. Their own little hands wrote up their names here, only with a pencil; but the

'We must take care of the names, old lady,' said Mr Boffin. 'We must take care of the names. They shan't be

rubbed out in our time, nor yet, if we can help it, in the time after us. Poor little children!'

They had opened the door at the bottom of the staircase giving on the yard, and they stood in the sunlight,

looking at the scrawl of the two unsteady childish hands two or three steps up the staircase. There was

something in this simple memento of a blighted childhood, and in the tenderness of Mrs Boffin, that touched

Mr Boffin then showed his new man of business the Mounds, and his own particular Mound which had been

'It would have been enough for us,' said Mr Boffin, 'in case it had pleased God to spare the last of those two

At the treasures of the yard, and at the outside of the house, and at the detached building which Mr Boffin

pointed out as the residence of himself and his wife during the many years of their service, the Secretary

looked with interest. It was not until Mr Boffin had shown him every wonder of the Bower twice over, that he

'Might I ask, without seeming impertinent, whether you have any intention of selling it?'

'Certainly not. In remembrance of our old master, our old master's children, and our old service, me and Mrs

The Secretary's eyes glanced with so much meaning in them at the Mounds, that Mr Boffin said, as if in

'Ay, ay, that's another thing. I may sell THEM, though I should be sorry to see the neighbourhood deprived of

'em too. It'll look but a poor dead flat without the Mounds. Still I don't say that I'm going to keep 'em always

there, for the sake of the beauty of the landscape. There's no hurry about it; that's all I say at present. I ain't a

scholar in much, Rokesmith, but I'm a pretty fair scholar in dust. I can price the Mounds to a fraction, and I

know how they can be best disposed of; and likewise that they take no harm by standing where they do.

'Every day. And the sooner I can get you into your new house, complete, the better you will be pleased, sir?'

'Well, it ain't that I'm in a mortal hurry,' said Mr Boffin; 'only when you DO pay people for looking alive, it's

'Now,' said Mr Boffin to himself; subsiding into his regular series of turns in the yard, 'if I can make it

The man of low cunning had, of course, acquired a mastery over the man of high simplicity. The mean man

had, of course, got the better of the generous man. How long such conquests last, is another matter; that they

are achieved, is everyday experience, not even to be flourished away by Podsnappery itself. The

undesigning Boffin had become so far immeshed by the wily Wegg that his mind misgave him he was a very

designing man indeed in purposing to do more for Wegg. It seemed to him (so skilful was Wegg) that he was

plotting darkly, when he was contriving to do the very thing that Wegg was plotting to get him to do. And

thus, while he was mentally turning the kindest of kind faces on Wegg this morning, he was not absolutely

For these reasons Mr Boffin passed but anxious hours until evening came, and with it Mr Wegg, stumping

leisurely to the Roman Empire. At about this period Mr Boffin had become profoundly interested in the

fortunes of a great military leader known to him as Bully Sawyers, but perhaps better known to fame and

easier of identification by the classical student, under the less Britannic name of Belisarius. Even this

general's career paled in interest for Mr Boffin before the clearing of his conscience with Wegg; and hence,

when that literary gentleman had according to custom eaten and drunk until he was all aglow, and when he

took up his book with the usual chirping introduction, 'And now, Mr Boffin, sir, we'll decline and we'll fall!'

'You remember, Wegg, when I first told you that I wanted to make a sort of offer to you?'

'Let me get on my considering cap, sir,' replied that gentleman, turning the open book face downward. 'When

you first told me that you wanted to make a sort of offer to me? Now let me think.' (as if there were the least

necessity) 'Yes, to be sure I do, Mr Boffin. It was at my corner. To be sure it was! You had first asked me

whether I liked your name, and Candour had compelled a reply in the negative case. I little thought then, sir,

'Do you, Mr Boffin? Much obliged to you, I'm sure. Is it your pleasure, sir, that we decline and we fall?' with

Mr Wegg (who had had nothing else in his mind for several nights) took off his spectacles with an air of

'Thank you, sir,' returned that reticent individual. 'I hope it may prove so. On all accounts, I am sure.' (This, as

'I think, sir,' replied Wegg, 'that I should like to be shown the gentleman prepared to make it worth my while!'

Mr Wegg was going to say, My Benefactor, and had said My Bene, when a grandiloquent change came over

'No, Mr Boffin, not you sir. Anybody but you. Do not fear, Mr Boffin, that I shall contaminate the premises

which your gold has bought, with MY lowly pursuits. I am aware, sir, that it would not become me to carry

on my little traffic under the windows of your mansion. I have already thought of that, and taken my

measures. No need to be bought out, sir. Would Stepney Fields be considered intrusive? If not remote

enough, I can go remoter. In the words of the poet's song, which I do not quite remember:

Thrown on the wide world, doom'd to wander and roam, Bereft of my parents, bereft of a home, A stranger to

And equally,' said Mr Wegg, repairing the want of direct application in the last line, 'behold myself on a

'Now, Wegg, Wegg, Wegg,' remonstrated the excellent Boffin. 'You are too sensitive.'

'I know I am, sir,' returned Wegg, with obstinate magnanimity. 'I am acquainted with my faults. I always was,

'But listen,' pursued the Golden Dustman; 'hear me out, Wegg. You have taken it into your head that I mean

'True, sir,' returned Wegg, still with an obstinate magnanimity. 'I am acquainted with my faults. Far be it from

The assurance seemed hardly as comforting to Mr Wegg, as Mr Boffin intended it to be. Indeed, an

'No,' pursued Mr Boffin; 'because that would express, as I understand it, that you were not going to do

'That, sir,' replied Mr Wegg, cheering up bravely, 'is quite another pair of shoes. Now, my independence as a

Weep for the hour, When to Boffinses bower, The Lord of the valley with offers came; Neither does the

moon hide her light From the heavens tonight, And weep behind her clouds o'er any individual in the

'Thank'ee, Wegg, both for your confidence in me and for your frequent dropping into poetry; both of which is

friendly. Well, then; my idea is, that you should give up your stall, and that I should put you into the Bower

here, to keep it for us. It's a pleasant spot; and a man with coals and candles and a pound a week might be in

'Hem! Would that man, sirwe will say that man, for the purposes of argueyment;' Mr Wegg made a smiling

demonstration of great perspicuity here; 'would that man, sir, be expected to throw any other capacity in, or

would any other capacity be considered extra? Now let us (for the purposes of argueyment) suppose that man

to be engaged as a reader: say (for the purposes of argunyment) in the evening. Would that man's pay as a

reader in the evening, be added to the other amount, which, adopting your language, we will call clover; or

'I suppose it would, sir. You are right, sir. Exactly my own views, Mr Boffin.' Here Wegg rose, and balancing

himself on his wooden leg, fluttered over his prey with extended hand. 'Mr Boffin, consider it done. Say no

more, sir, not a word more. My stall and I are for ever parted. The collection of ballads will in future be

reserved for private study, with the object of making poetry tributary'Wegg was so proud of having found

this word, that he said it again, with a capital letter'Tributary, to friendship. Mr Boffin, don't allow yourself

to be made uncomfortable by the pang it gives me to part from my stock and stall. Similar emotion was

undergone by my own father when promoted for his merits from his occupation as a waterman to a situation

under Government. His Christian name was Thomas. His words at the time (I was then an infant, but so deep

Then farewell my trimbuilt wherry, Oars and coat and badge farewell! Never more at Chelsea Ferry, Shall

While delivering these valedictory observations, Wegg continually disappointed Mr Boffin of his hand by

flourishing it in the air. He now darted it at his patron, who took it, and felt his mind relieved of a great

weight: observing that as they had arranged their joint affairs so satisfactorily, he would now he glad to look

into those of Bully Sawyers. Which, indeed, had been left overnight in a very unpromising posture, and for

whose impending expedition against the Persians the weather had been by no means favourable all day.

Mr Wegg resumed his spectacles therefore. But Sawyers was not to be of the party that night; for, before

Wegg had found his place, Mrs Boffin's tread was heard upon the stairs, so unusually heavy and hurried, that

Mr Boffin would have started up at the sound, anticipating some occurrence much out of the common course,

Mr Boffin hurried out, and found her on the dark staircase, panting, with a lighted candle in her hand.

Much surprised, Mr Boffin went up stairs and accompanied Mrs Boffin into their own room: a second large

room on the same floor as the room in which the late proprietor had died. Mr Boffin looked all round him,

and saw nothing more unusual than various articles of folded linen on a large chest, which Mrs Boffin had

'I am not one of that sort certainly,' said Mrs Boffin, as she sat down in a chair to recover herself, and took her

'Noddy, the faces of the old man and the two children are all over the house tonight.'

'My dear?' exclaimed Mr Boffin. But not without a certain uncomfortable sensation gliding down his back.

'No. Felt them in the air. I was sorting those things on the chest, and not thinking of the old man or the

children, but singing to myself, when all in a moment I felt there was a face growing out of the dark.'

'For a moment it was the old man's, and then it got younger. For a moment it was both the children's, and then

it got older. For a moment it was a strange face, and then it was all the faces.'

'Here, at the chest. Well; I got the better of it, and went on sorting, and went on singing to myself. "Lor!" I

says, "I'll think of something elsesomething comfortableand put it out of my head." So I thought of the

new house and Miss Bella Wilfer, and was thinking at a great rate with that sheet there in my hand, when all

of a sudden, the faces seemed to be hidden in among the folds of it and I let it drop.'

As it still lay on the floor where it had fallen, Mr Boffin picked it up and laid it on the chest.

'No. I thought I'd try another room, and shake it off. I says to myself, "I'll go and walk slowly up and down

the old man's room three times, from end to end, and then I shall have conquered it." I went in with the candle

'Yes, and I even felt that they were in the dark behind the side door, and on the little staircase, floating away

Mr Boffin, lost in amazement, looked at Mrs Boffin. Mrs Boffin, lost in her own fluttered inability to make

'I think, my dear,' said the Golden Dustman, 'I'll at once get rid of Wegg for the night, because he's coming to

inhabit the Bower, and it might be put into his head or somebody else's, if he heard this and it got about that

'I never had the feeling in the house before,' said Mrs Boffin; 'and I have been about it alone at all hours of

the night. I have been in the house when Death was in it, and I have been in the house when Murder was a

'And won't again, my dear,' said Mr Boffin. 'Depend upon it, it comes of thinking and dwelling on that dark

This draft on Mr Boffin's philosophy could only be met by that gentleman with the remark that everything

that is at all, must begin at some time. Then, tucking his wife's arm under his own, that she might not be left

by herself to be troubled again, he descended to release Wegg. Who, being something drowsy after his

plentiful repast, and constitutionally of a shirking temperament, was well enough pleased to stump away,

Mr Boffin then put on his hat, and Mrs Boffin her shawl; and the pair, further provided with a bunch of keys

and a lighted lantern, went all over the dismal housedismal everywhere, but in their own two

roomsfrom cellar to cockloft. Not resting satisfied with giving that much chace to Mrs Boffin's fancies,

they pursued them into the yard and outbuildings, and under the Mounds. And setting the lantern, when all

was done, at the foot of one of the Mounds, they comfortably trotted to and fro for an evening walk, to the

There, my dear!' said Mr Boffin when they came in to supper. 'That was the treatment, you see. Completely

'Yes, deary,' said Mrs Boffin, laying aside her shawl. 'I'm not nervous any more. I'm not a bit troubled now.

'Why then,' said Mrs Boffin, speaking with her eyes closed, and her left hand thoughtfully touching her brow,

'then, there they are! The old man's face, and it gets younger. The two children's faces, and they get older. A

Opening her eyes again, and seeing her husband's face across the table, she leaned forward to give it a pat on

the cheek, and sat down to supper, declaring it to be the best face in the world.

The Secretary lost no time in getting to work, and his vigilance and method soon set their mark on the Golden

Dustman's affairs. His earnestness in determining to understand the length and breadth and depth of every

piece of work submitted to him by his employer, was as special as his despatch in transacting it. He accepted

no information or explanation at second hand, but made himself the master of everything confided to him.

One part of the Secretary's conduct, underlying all the rest, might have been mistrusted by a man with a better

knowledge of men than the Golden Dustman had. The Secretary was as far from being inquisitive or intrusive

as Secretary could be, but nothing less than a complete understanding of the whole of the affairs would

content him. It soon became apparent (from the knowledge with which he set out) that he must have been to

the office where the Harmon will was registered, and must have read the will. He anticipated Mr Boffin's

consideration whether he should be advised with on this or that topic, by showing that he already knew of it

and understood it. He did this with no attempt at concealment, seeming to be satisfied that it was part of his

duty to have prepared himself at all attainable points for its utmost discharge.

This mightlet it be repeatedhave awakened some little vague mistrust in a man more worldlywise than

the Golden Dustman. On the other hand, the Secretary was discerning, discreet, and silent, though as zealous

as if the affairs had been his own. He showed no love of patronage or the command of money, but distinctly

preferred resigning both to Mr Boffin. If, in his limited sphere, he sought power, it was the power of

As on the Secretary's face there was a nameless cloud, so on his manner there was a shadow equally

indefinable. It was not that he was embarrassed, as on that first night with the Wilfer family; he was

habitually unembarrassed now, and yet the something remained. It was not that his manner was bad, as on

that occasion; it was now very good, as being modest, gracious, and ready. Yet the something never left it. It

has been written of men who have undergone a cruel captivity, or who have passed through a terrible strait, or

who in selfpreservation have killed a defenceless fellow creature, that the record thereof has never faded

He established a temporary office for himself in the new house, and all went well under his hand, with one

singular exception. He manifestly objected to communicate with Mr Boffin's solicitor. Two or three times,

when there was some slight occasion for his doing so, he transferred the task to Mr Boffin; and his evasion of

it soon became so curiously apparent, that Mr Boffin spoke to him on the subject of his reluctance.

'No. But while I am in your employment, sir, I would rather he excused from going between the lawyer and

the client. Of course if you press it, Mr Boffin, I am ready to comply. But I should take it as a great favour if

Now, it could not be said that there WAS urgent occasion, for Lightwood retained no other affairs in his

hands than such as still lingered and languished about the undiscovered criminal, and such as arose out of the

purchase of the house. Many other matters that might have travelled to him, now stopped short at the

Secretary, under whose administration they were far more expeditiously and satisfactorily disposed of than

they would have been if they had got into Young Blight's domain. This the Golden Dustman quite

understood. Even the matter immediately in hand was of very little moment as requiring personal appearance

on the Secretary's part, for it amounted to no more than this:The death of Hexam rendering the sweat of the

honest man's brow unprofitable, the honest man had shufflingly decided to moisten his brow for nothing, with

that severe exertion which is known in legal circles as swearing your way through a stone wall.

Consequently, that new light had gone sputtering out. But, the airing of the old facts had led some one

concerned to suggest that it would be well before they were reconsigned to their gloomy shelfnow

probably for everto induce or compel that Mr Julius Handford to reappear and be questioned. And all

traces of Mr Julius Handford being lost, Lightwood now referred to his client for authority to seek him

'Then perhaps you'll write him a line, and say he is free to do what he likes. I don't think it promises.'

'I will write immediately. Let me thank you for so considerately yielding to my disinclination. It may seem

less unreasonable, if I avow to you that although I don't know Mr Lightwood, I have a disagreeable

association connected with him. It is not his fault; he is not at all to blame for it, and does not even know my

Mr Boffin dismissed the matter with a nod or two. The letter was written, and next day Mr Julius Handford

was advertised for. He was requested to place himself in communication with Mr Mortimer Lightwood, as a

possible means of furthering the ends of justice, and a reward was offered to any one acquainted with his

whereabout who would communicate the same to the said Mr Mortimer Lightwood at his office in the

Temple. Every day for six weeks this advertisement appeared at the head of all the newspapers, and every

day for six weeks the Secretary, when he saw it, said to himself; in the tone in which he had said to his

Among his first occupations the pursuit of that orphan wanted by Mrs Boffin held a conspicuous place. From

the earliest moment of his engagement he showed a particular desire to please her, and, knowing her to have

Mr and Mrs Milvey had found their search a difficult one. Either an eligible orphan was of the wrong sex

(which almost always happened) or was too old, or too young, or too sickly, or too dirty, or too much

accustomed to the streets, or too likely to run away; or, it was found impossible to complete the philanthropic

transaction without buying the orphan. For, the instant it became known that anybody wanted the orphan, up

started some affectionate relative of the orphan who put a price upon the orphan's head. The suddenness of an

orphan's rise in the market was not to be paralleled by the maddest records of the Stock Exchange. He would

be at five thousand per cent discount out at nurse making a mud pie at nine in the morning, and (being

inquired for) would go up to five thousand per cent premium before noon. The market was 'rigged' in various

artful ways. Counterfeit stock got into circulation. Parents boldly represented themselves as dead, and

brought their orphans with them. Genuine orphanstock was surreptitiously withdrawn from the market. It

being announced, by emissaries posted for the purpose, that Mr and Mrs Milvey were coming down the court,

orphan scrip would be instantly concealed, and production refused, save on a condition usually stated by the

brokers as 'a gallon of beer'. Likewise, fluctuations of a wild and SouthSea nature were occasioned, by

orphanholders keeping back, and then rushing into the market a dozen together. But, the uniform principle

at the root of all these various operations was bargain and sale; and that principle could not be recognized by

At length, tidings were received by the Reverend Frank of a charming orphan to be found at Brentford. One

of the deceased parents (late his parishioners) had a poor widowed grandmother in that agreeable town, and

she, Mrs Betty Higden, had carried off the orphan with maternal care, but could not afford to keep him.

The Secretary proposed to Mrs Boffin, either to go down himself and take a preliminary survey of this

orphan, or to drive her down, that she might at once form her own opinion. Mrs Boffin preferring the latter

course, they set off one morning in a hired phaeton, conveying the hammerheaded young man behind them.

The abode of Mrs Betty Higden was not easy to find, lying in such complicated back settlements of muddy

Brentford that they left their equipage at the sign of the Three Magpies, and went in search of it on foot. After

many inquiries and defeats, there was pointed out to them in a lane, a very small cottage residence, with a

board across the open doorway, hooked on to which board by the armpits was a young gentleman of tender

years, angling for mud with a headless wooden horse and line. In this young sportsman, distinguished by a

crisply curling auburn head and a bluff countenance, the Secretary descried the orphan.

It unfortunately happened as they quickened their pace, that the orphan, lost to considerations of personal

safety in the ardour of the moment, overbalanced himself and toppled into the street. Being an orphan of a

chubby conformation, he then took to rolling, and had rolled into the gutter before they could come up. From

the gutter he was rescued by John Rokesmith, and thus the first meeting with Mrs Higden was inaugurated by

the awkward circumstance of their being in possessionone would say at first sight unlawful

possessionof the orphan, upside down and purple in the countenance. The board across the doorway too,

acting as a trap equally for the feet of Mrs Higden coming out, and the feet of Mrs Boffin and John

Rokesmith going in, greatly increased the difficulty of the situation: to which the cries of the orphan imparted

At first, it was impossible to explain, on account of the orphan's 'holding his breath': a most terrific

proceeding, superinducing in the orphan leadcolour rigidity and a deadly silence, compared with which his

cries were music yielding the height of enjoyment. But as he gradually recovered, Mrs Boffin gradually

introduced herself; and smiling peace was gradually wooed back to Mrs Betty Higden's home.

It was then perceived to be a small home with a large mangle in it, at the handle of which machine stood a

very long boy, with a very little head, and an open mouth of disproportionate capacity that seemed to assist

his eyes in staring at the visitors. In a corner below the mangle, on a couple of stools, sat two very little

children: a boy and a girl; and when the very long boy, in an interval of staring, took a turn at the mangle, it

was alarming to see how it lunged itself at those two innocents, like a catapult designed for their destruction,

harmlessly retiring when within an inch of their heads. The room was clean and neat. It had a brick floor, and

a window of diamond panes, and a flounce hanging below the chimneypiece, and strings nailed from bottom

to top outside the window on which scarletbeans were to grow in the coming season if the Fates were

propitious. However propitious they might have been in the seasons that were gone, to Betty Higden in the

matter of beans, they had not been very favourable in the matter of coins; for it was easy to see that she was

She was one of those old women, was Mrs Betty Higden, who by dint of an indomitable purpose and a strong

constitution fight out many years, though each year has come with its new knockdown blows fresh to the

fight against her, wearied by it; an active old woman, with a bright dark eye and a resolute face, yet quite a

tender creature too; not a logicallyreasoning woman, but God is good, and hearts may count in Heaven as

'Yes sure!' said she, when the business was opened, 'Mrs Milvey had the kindness to write to me, ma'am, and

The visitors glanced at the long boy, who seemed to indicate by a broader stare of his mouth and eyes that in

'For I aint, you must know,' said Betty, 'much of a hand at reading writinghand, though I can read my Bible

and most print. And I do love a newspaper. You mightn't think it, but Sloppy is a beautiful reader of a

The visitors again considered it a point of politeness to look at Sloppy, who, looking at them, suddenly threw

back his head, extended his mouth to its utmost width, and laughed loud and long. At this the two innocents,

with their brains in that apparent danger, laughed, and Mrs Higden laughed, and the orphan laughed, and then

Then Sloppy seeming to be seized with an industrious mania or fury, turned to at the mangle, and impelled it

at the heads of the innocents with such a creaking and rumbling, that Mrs Higden stopped him.

'Johnny, too!' cried Mrs Boffin, turning to the Secretary; 'already Johnny! Only one of the two names left to

With his chin tucked down in his shy childish manner, he was looking furtively at Mrs Boffin out of his blue

eyes, and reaching his fat dimpled hand up to the lips of the old woman, who was kissing it by times.

'Yes, ma'am, he's a pretty boy, he's a dear darling boy, he's the child of my own last left daughter's daughter.

'Those are not his brother and sister?' said Mrs Boffin. 'Oh, dear no, ma'am. Those are Minders.'

'Left to he Minded, sir. I keep a MindingSchool. I can take only three, on account of the Mangle. But I love

Toddles was the petname of the boy; Poddles of the girl. At their little unsteady pace, they came across the

floor, handinhand, as if they were traversing an extremely difficult road intersected by brooks, and, when

they had had their heads patted by Mrs Betty Higden, made lunges at the orphan, dramatically representing an

attempt to bear him, crowing, into captivity and slavery. All the three children enjoyed this to a delightful

extent, and the sympathetic Sloppy again laughed long and loud. When it was discreet to stop the play, Betty

Higden said 'Go to your seats Toddles and Poddles,' and they returned handinhand across country, seeming

'And Masteror MisterSloppy?' said the Secretary, in doubt whether he was man, boy, or what.

'A lovechild,' returned Betty Higden, dropping her voice; 'parents never known; found in the street. He was

'Dislike the mention of it?' answered the old woman. 'Kill me sooner than take me there. Throw this pretty

child under cart horses feet and a loaded waggon, sooner than take him there. Come to us and find us all

adying, and set a light to us all where we lie and let us all blaze away with the house into a heap of cinders

A surprising spirit in this lonely woman after so many years of hard working, and hard living, my Lords and

Gentlemen and Honourable Boards! What is it that we call it in our grandiose speeches? British

independence, rather perverted? Is that, or something like it, the ring of the cant?

'Do I never read in the newspapers,' said the dame, fondling the child'God help me and the like of

me!how the wornout people that do come down to that, get driven from post to pillar and pillar to post,

apurpose to tire them out! Do I never read how they are put off, put off, put offhow they are grudged,

grudged, grudged, the shelter, or the doctor, or the drop of physic, or the bit of bread? Do I never read how

they grow heartsick of it and give it up, after having let themsleves drop so low, and how they after all die out

for want of help? Then I say, I hope I can die as well as another, and I'll die without that disgrace.'

Absolutely impossible my Lords and Gentlemen and Honourable Boards, by any stretch of legislative

'Johnny, my pretty,' continued old Betty, caressing the child, and rather mourning over it than speaking to it,

'your old Granny Betty is nigher fourscore year than threescore and ten. She never begged nor had a penny of

the Union money in all her life. She paid scot and she paid lot when she had money to pay; she worked when

she could, and she starved when she must. You pray that your Granny may have strength enough left her at

the last (she's strong for an old one, Johnny), to get up from her bed and run and hide herself and swown to

death in a hole, sooner than fall into the hands of those Cruel Jacks we read of that dodge and drive, and

A brilliant success, my Lords and Gentlemen and Honourable Boards to have brought it to this in the minds

of the best of the poor! Under submission, might it be worth thinking of at any odd time?

The fright and abhorrence that Mrs Betty Higden smoothed out of her strong face as she ended this diversion,

'And does he work for you?' asked the Secretary, gently bringing the discourse back to Master or Mister

'Yes,' said Betty with a goodhumoured smile and nod of the head. 'And well too.'

'He lives more here than anywhere. He was thought to be no better than a Natural, and first come to me as a

Minder. I made interest with Mr Blogg the Beadle to have him as a Minder, seeing him by chance up at

church, and thinking I might do something with him. For he was a weak ricketty creetur then.'

'Why, you see, speaking quite correctly, he has no right name. I always understood he took his name from

'Bless you, sir, there's not a bit of him,' returned Betty, 'that's not amiable. So you may judge how amiable he

Of an ungainly make was Sloppy. Too much of him longwise, too little of him broadwise, and too many

sharp angles of him angle wise. One of those shambling male human creatures, born to be indiscreetly

candid in the revelation of buttons; every button he had about him glaring at the public to a quite preternatural

extent. A considerable capital of knee and elbow and wrist and ankle, had Sloppy, and he didn't know how to

dispose of it to the best advantage, but was always investing it in wrong securities, and so getting himself into

embarrassed circumstances. FullPrivate Number One in the Awkward Squad of the rank and file of life, was

As Johnny, with his chin tucked in and lips pouting, reclined in Betty's lap, concentrating his blue eyes on the

visitors and shading them from observation with a dimpled arm, old Betty took one of his fresh fat hands in

'If you trust the dear child to me,' said Mrs Boffin, with a face inviting trust, 'he shall have the best of homes,

the best of care, the best of education, the best of friends. Please God I will be a true good mother to him!'

'I am thankful to you, ma'am, and the dear child would be thankful if he was old enough to understand.' Still

lightly beating the little hand upon her own. 'I wouldn't stand in the dear child's light, not if I had all my life

before me instead of a very little of it. But I hope you won't take it ill that I cleave to the child closer than

'Take it ill, my dear soul? Is it likely? And you so tender of him as to bring him home here!'

'I have seen,' said Betty, still with that light beat upon her hard rough hand, 'so many of them on my lap. And

they are all gone but this one! I am ashamed to seem so selfish, but I don't really mean it. It'll be the making

of his fortune, and he'll be a gentleman when I am dead. IIdon't know what comes over me. Itry

against it. Don't notice me!' The light beat stopped, the resolute mouth gave way, and the fine strong old face

Now, greatly to the relief of the visitors, the emotional Sloppy no sooner beheld his patroness in this

condition, than, throwing back his head and throwing open his mouth, he lifted up his voice and bellowed.

This alarming note of something wrong instantly terrified Toddles and Poddles, who were no sooner heard to

roar surprisingly, than Johnny, curving himself the wrong way and striking out at Mrs Boffin with a pair of

indifferent shoes, became a prey to despair. The absurdity of the situation put its pathos to the rout. Mrs Betty

Higden was herself in a moment, and brought them all to order with that speed, that Sloppy, stopping short in

a polysyllabic bellow, transferred his energy to the mangle, and had taken several penitential turns before he

'There, there, there!' said Mrs Boffin, almost regarding her kind self as the most ruthless of women. 'Nothing

is going to be done. Nobody need be frightened. We're all comfortable; ain't we, Mrs Higden?'

'And there really is no hurry, you know,' said Mrs Boffin in a lower voice. 'Take time to think of it, my good

'Don't you fear ME no more, ma'am,' said Betty; 'I thought of it for good yesterday. I don't know what come

'Well, then, Johnny shall have more time to think of it,' returned Mrs Boffin; 'the pretty child shall have time

to get used to it. And you'll get him more used to it, if you think well of it; won't you?'

'Lor,' cried Mrs Boffin, looking radiantly about her, 'we want to make everybody happy, not dismal!And

perhaps you wouldn't mind letting me know how used to it you begin to get, and how it all goes on?'

'And this gentleman who has come with me will pay him for his trouble,' said Mrs Boffin. 'And Mr Sloppy,

whenever you come to my house, be sure you never go away without having had a good dinner of meat, beer,

This still further brightened the face of affairs; for, the highly sympathetic Sloppy, first broadly staring and

grinning, and then roaring with laughter, Toddles and Poddles followed suit, and Johnny trumped the trick. T

and P considering these favourable circumstances for the resumption of that dramatic descent upon Johnny,

again came acrosscountry handinhand upon a buccaneermg expedition; and this having been fought out

in the chimney corner behind Mrs Higden's chair, with great valour on both sides, those desperate pirates

'You must tell me what I can do for you, Betty my friend,' said Mrs Boffin confidentially, 'if not today, next

'Thank you all the same, ma'am, but I want nothing for myself. I can work. I'm strong. I can walk twenty mile

if I'm put to it.' Old Betty was proud, and said it with a sparkle in her bright eyes.

'Yes, but there are some little comforts that you wouldn't be the worse for,' returned Mrs Boffin. 'Bless ye, I

'It seems to me,' said Betty, smiling, 'that you were born a lady, and a true one, or there never was a lady

born. But I couldn't take anything from you, my dear. I never did take anything from any one. It ain't that I'm

'Well, well!' returned Mrs Boffin. 'I only spoke of little things, or I wouldn't have taken the liberty.'

Betty put her visitor's hand to her lips, in acknowledgment of the delicate answer. Wonderfully upright her

figure was, and wonderfully selfreliant her look, as, standing facing her visitor, she explained herself

'If I could have kept the dear child, without the dread that's always upon me of his coming to that fate I have

spoken of, I could never have parted with him, even to you. For I love him, I love him, I love him! I love my

husband long dead and gone, in him; I love my children dead and gone, in him; I love my young and hopeful

days dead and gone, in him. I couldn't sell that love, and look you in your bright kind face. It's a free gift. I

am in want of nothing. When my strength fails me, if I can but die out quick and quiet, I shall be quite

content. I have stood between my dead and that shame I have spoken of; and it has been kept off from every

one of them. Sewed into my gown,' with her hand upon her breast, 'is just enough to lay me in the grave. Only

see that it's rightly spent, so as I may rest free to the last from that cruelty and disgrace, and you'll have done

much more than a little thing for me, and all that in this present world my heart is set upon.'

Mrs Betty Higden's visitor pressed her hand. There was no more breaking up of the strong old face into

weakness. My Lords and Gentlemen and Honourable Boards, it really was as composed as our own faces,

And now, Johnny was to be inveigled into occupying a temporary position on Mrs Boffin's lap. It was not

until he had been piqued into competition with the two diminutive Minders, by seeing them successively

raised to that post and retire from it without injury, that he could be by any means induced to leave Mrs Betty

Higden's skirts; towards which he exhibited, even when in Mrs Boffin's embrace, strong yearnings, spiritual

and bodily; the former expressed in a very gloomy visage, the latter in extended arms. However, a general

description of the toywonders lurking in Mr Boffin's house, so far conciliated this worldlyminded orphan

as to induce him to stare at her frowningly, with a fist in his mouth, and even at length to chuckle when a

richlycaparisoned horse on wheels, with a miraculous gift of cantering to cakeshops, was mentioned. This

sound being taken up by the Minders, swelled into a rapturous trio which gave general satisfaction.

So, the interview was considered very successful, and Mrs Boffin was pleased, and all were satisfied. Not

least of all, Sloppy, who undertook to conduct the visitors back by the best way to the Three Magpies, and

This piece of business thus put in train, the Secretary drove Mrs Boffin back to the Bower, and found

employment for himself at the new house until evening. Whether, when evening came, he took a way to his

lodgings that led through fields, with any design of finding Miss Bella Wilfer in those fields, is not so certain

No longer in mourning, Miss Bella was dressed in as pretty colours as she could muster. There is no denying

that she was as pretty as they, and that she and the colours went very prettily together. She was reading as she

walked, and of course it is to be inferred, from her showing no knowledge of Mr Rokesmith's approach, that

'Eh?' said Miss Bella, raising her eyes from her book, when he stopped before her. 'Oh! It's you.'

'Is it?' said Bella, looking coldly round. 'I suppose it is, now you mention it. I have not been thinking of the

'Oh dear no, or I shouldn't be reading it. It's more about money than anything else.'

'Upon my word,' returned Bella, 'I forget what it says, but you can find out for yourself if you like, Mr

The Secretary took the bookshe had fluttered the leaves as if it were a fanand walked beside her.

'From Mrs Boffin. She desired me to assure you of the pleasure she has in finding that she will be ready to

Bella turned her head towards him, with her prettilyinsolent eyebrows raised, and her eyelids drooping. As

'I have been waiting for an opportunity of telling you that I am Mr Boffin's Secretary.'

'I am as wise as ever,' said Miss Bella, loftily, 'for I don't know what a Secretary is. Not that it signifies.'

A covert glance at her face, as he walked beside her, showed him that she had not expected his ready assent

'Then are you going to be always there, Mr Rokesmith?' she inquired, as if that would be a drawback.

'But my position there as Secretary, will be very different from yours as guest. You will know little or

nothing about me. I shall transact the business: you will transact the pleasure. I shall have my salary to earn;

'Attract, sir?' said Bella, again with her eyebrows raised, and her eyelids drooping. 'I don't understand you.'

('There!' was Miss Bella's mental exclamation. 'What did I say to them at home? Everybody noticed that

'When I first saw you in your black dress, I was at a loss to account for that distinction between yourself and

'I hope not, I am sure,' said Miss Bella, haughtily. 'But you ought to know best how you speculated upon it.'

'Since I have been entrusted with Mr Boffin's affairs, I have necessarily come to understand the little mystery.

I venture to remark that I feel persuaded that much of your loss may be repaired. I speak, of course, merely of

wealth, Miss Wilfer. The loss of a perfect stranger, whose worth, or worthlessness, I cannot estimatenor

you eitheris beside the question. But this excellent gentleman and lady are so full of simplicity, so full of

generosity, so inclined towards you, and so desirous tohow shall I express it?to make amends for their

As he watched her with another covert look, he saw a certain ambitious triumph in her face which no

'As we have been brought under one roof by an accidental combination of circumstances, which oddly

extends itself to the new relations before us, I have taken the liberty of saying these few words. You don't

'Really, Mr Rokesmith, I can't say what I consider them,' returned the young lady. 'They are perfectly new to

These same fields were opposite the Wilfer premises. The discreet Mrs Wilfer now looking out of window

and beholding her daughter in conference with her lodger, instantly tied up her head and came out for a

'I have been telling Miss Wilfer,' said John Rokesmith, as the majestic lady came stalking up, 'that I have

'I have not,' returned Mrs Wilfer, waving her gloves in her chronic state of dignity, and vague illusage, 'the

honour of any intimate acquaintance with Mr Boffin, and it is not for me to congratulate that gentleman on

'Pardon me,' returned Mrs Wilfer, 'the merits of Mr Boffin may be highly distinguishedmay be more

distinguished than the countenance of Mrs Boffin would implybut it were the insanity of humility to deem

'You are very good. I have also been telling Miss Wilfer that she is expected very shortly at the new residence

'Having tacitly consented,' said Mrs Wilfer, with a grand shrug of her shoulders, and another wave of her

gloves, 'to my child's acceptance of the proffered attentions of Mrs Boffin, I interpose no objection.'

'I say,' repeated Mrs Wilfer, with a vast access of grandeur, 'that I am NOT going to interpose objections. If

Mrs Boffin (to whose countenance no disciple of Lavater could possibly for a single moment subscribe),'

with a shiver, 'seeks to illuminate her new residence in town with the attractions of a child of mine, I am

'You use the word, ma'am, I have myself used,' said Rokesmith, with a glance at Bella, 'when you speak of

'Pardon me,' returned Mrs Wilfer, with dreadful solemnity, 'but I had not finished.'

'I was about to say,' pursued Mrs Wilfer, who clearly had not had the faintest idea of saying anything more:

'that when I use the term attractions, I do so with the qualification that I do not mean it in any way whatever.'

The excellent lady delivered this luminous elucidation of her views with an air of greatly obliging her

hearers, and greatly distinguishing herself. Whereat Miss Bella laughed a scornful little laugh and said:

'Quite enough about this, I am sure, on all sides. Have the goodness, Mr Rokesmith, to give my love to Mrs

('Say Miss Wilfer's love, and Mrs Wilfer's compliments,' the Secretary proposed, as a compromise.)

'And I shall be very glad to come when she is ready for me. The sooner, the better.'

'One last word, Bella,' said Mrs Wilfer, 'before descending to the family apartment. I trust that as a child of

mine you will ever be sensible that it will be graceful in you, when associating with Mr and Mrs Boffin upon

equal terms, to remember that the Secretary, Mr Rokesmith, as your father's lodger, has a claim on your good

The condescension with which Mrs Wilfer delivered this proclamation of patronage, was as wonderful as the

swiftness with which the lodger had lost caste in the Secretary. He smiled as the mother retired down stairs;

'So insolent, so trivial, so capricious, so mercenary, so careless, so hard to touch, so hard to turn!' he said,

She knew that he was shaking the house by his walking to and fro; and she declared it another of the miseries

of being poor, that you couldn't get rid of a haunting Secretary, stumpstumpstumping overhead in the

And now, in the blooming summer days, behold Mr and Mrs Boffin established in the eminently aristocratic

family mansion, and behold all manner of crawling, creeping, fluttering, and buzzing creatures, attracted by

Foremost among those leaving cards at the eminently aristocratic door before it is quite painted, are the

Veneerings: out of breath, one might imagine, from the impetuosity of their rush to the eminently aristocratic

steps. One copperplate Mrs Veneering, two copperplate Mr Veneerings, and a connubial copperplate Mr

and Mrs Veneering, requesting the honour of Mr and Mrs Boffin's company at dinner with the utmost

Analytical solemnities. The enchanting Lady Tippins leaves a card. Twemlow leaves cards. A tall

custardcoloured phaeton tooling up in a solemn manner leaves four cards, to wit, a couple of Mr Podsnaps,

a Mrs Podsnap, and a Miss Podsnap. All the world and his wife and daughter leave cards. Sometimes the

world's wife has so many daughters, that her card reads rather like a Miscellaneous Lot at an Auction;

comprising Mrs Tapkins, Miss Tapkins, Miss Frederica Tapkins, Miss Antonina Tapkins, Miss Malvina

Tapkins, and Miss Euphemia Tapkins; at the same time, the same lady leaves the card of Mrs Henry George

Alfred Swoshle, NEE Tapkins; also, a card, Mrs Tapkins at Home, Wednesdays, Music, Portland Place.

Miss Bella Wilfer becomes an inmate, for an indefinite period, of the eminently aristocratic dwelling. Mrs

Boffin bears Miss Bella away to her Milliner's and Dressmaker's, and she gets beautifully dressed. The

Veneerings find with swift remorse that they have omitted to invite Miss Bella Wilfer. One Mrs Veneering

and one Mr and Mrs Veneering requesting that additional honour, instantly do penance in white cardboard on

the hall table. Mrs Tapkins likewise discovers her omission, and with promptitude repairs it; for herself; for

Miss Tapkins, for Miss Frederica Tapkins, for Miss Antonina Tapkins, for Miss Malvina Tapkins, and for

Miss Euphemia Tapkins. Likewise, for Mrs Henry George Alfred Swoshle NEE Tapkins. Likewise, for Mrs

Tradesmen's books hunger, and tradesmen's mouths water, for the gold dust of the Golden Dustman. As Mrs

Boffin and Miss Wilfer drive out, or as Mr Boffin walks out at his jogtrot pace, the fishmonger pulls off his

hat with an air of reverence founded on conviction. His men cleanse their fingers on their woollen aprons

before presuming to touch their foreheads to Mr Boffin or Lady. The gaping salmon and the golden mullet

lying on the slab seem to turn up their eyes sideways, as they would turn up their hands if they had any, in

worshipping admiration. The butcher, though a portly and a prosperous man, doesn't know what to do with

himself; so anxious is he to express humility when discovered by the passing Boffins taking the air in a

mutton grove. Presents are made to the Boffin servants, and bland strangers with business cards meeting

said servants in the street, offer hypothetical corruption. As, 'Supposing I was to be favoured with an order

from Mr Boffin, my dear friend, it would be worth my while'to do a certain thing that I hope might not

But no one knows so well as the Secretary, who opens and reads the letters, what a set is made at the man

marked by a stroke of notoriety. Oh the varieties of dust for ocular use, offered in exchange for the gold dust

of the Golden Dustman! Fiftyseven churches to be erected with halfcrowns, fortytwo parsonage houses to

be repaired with shillings, sevenandtwenty organs to be built with halfpence, twelve hundred children to

be brought up on postage stamps. Not that a halfcrown, shilling, halfpenny, or postage stamp, would be

particularly acceptable from Mr Boffin, but that it is so obvious he is the man to make up the deficiency. And

then the charities, my Christian brother! And mostly in difficulties, yet mostly lavish, too, in the expensive

articles of print and paper. Large fat private double letter, sealed with ducal coronet. 'Nicodemus Boffin,

Esquire. My Dear Sir,Having consented to preside at the forthcoming Annual Dinner of the Family Party

Fund, and feeling deeply impressed with the immense usefulness of that noble Institution and the great

importance of its being supported by a List of Stewards that shall prove to the public the interest taken in it

by popular and distinguished men, I have undertaken to ask you to become a Steward on that occasion.

Soliciting your favourable reply before the 14th instant, I am, My Dear Sir, Your faithful Servant, LINSEED.

P.S. The Steward's fee is limited to three Guineas.' Friendly this, on the part of the Duke of Linseed (and

thoughtful in the postscript), only lithographed by the hundred and presenting but a pale individuality of an

address to Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, in quite another hand. It takes two noble Earls and a Viscount,

combined, to inform Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, in an equally flattering manner, that an estimable lady in the

West of England has offered to present a purse containing twenty pounds, to the Society for Granting

Annuities to Unassuming Members of the Middle Classes, if twenty individuals will previously present

purses of one hundred pounds each. And those benevolent noblemen very kindly point out that if Nicodemus

Boffin, Esquire, should wish to present two or more purses, it will not be inconsistent with the design of the

estimable lady in the West of England, provided each purse be coupled with the name of some member of his

These are the corporate beggars. But there are, besides, the individual beggars; and how does the heart of the

Secretary fail him when he has to cope with THEM! And they must be coped with to some extent, because

they all enclose documents (they call their scraps documents; but they are, as to papers deserving the name,

what minced veal is to a calf), the nonreturn of which would be their ruin. That is say, they are utterly

ruined now, but they would be more utterly ruined then. Among these correspondents are several daughters

of general officers, long accustomed to every luxury of life (except spelling), who little thought, when their

gallant fathers waged war in the Peninsula, that they would ever have to appeal to those whom Providence, in

its inscrutable wisdom, has blessed with untold gold, and from among whom they select the name of

Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, for a maiden effort in this wise, understanding that he has such a heart as never

was. The Secretary learns, too, that confidence between man and wife would seem to obtain but rarely when

virtue is in distress, so numerous are the wives who take up their pens to ask Mr Boffin for money without

the knowledge of their devoted husbands, who would never permit it; while, on the other hand, so numerous

are the husbands who take up their pens to ask Mr Boffin for money without the knowledge of their devoted

wives, who would instantly go out of their senses if they had the least suspicion of the circumstance. There

are the inspired beggars, too. These were sitting, only yesterday evening, musing over a fragment of candle

which must soon go out and leave them in the dark for the rest of their nights, when surely some Angel

whispered the name of Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, to their souls, imparting rays of hope, nay confidence, to

which they had long been strangers! Akin to these are the suggestivelybefriended beggars. They were

partaking of a cold potato and water by the flickering and gloomy light of a lucifermatch, in their lodgings

(rent considerably in arrear, and heartless landlady threatening expulsion 'like a dog' into the streets), when a

gifted friend happening to look in, said, 'Write immediately to Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire,' and would take

no denial. There are the nobly independent beggars too. These, in the days of their abundance, ever regarded

gold as dross, and have not yet got over that only impediment in the way of their amassing wealth, but they

want no dross from Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire; No, Mr Boffin; the world may term it pride, paltry pride if

you will, but they wouldn't take it if you offered it; a loan, sirfor fourteen weeks to the day, interest

calculated at the rate of five per cent per annum, to be bestowed upon any charitable institution you may

nameis all they want of you, and if you have the meanness to refuse it, count on being despised by these

great spirits. There are the beggars of punctual businesshabits too. These will make an end of themselves at

a quarter to one P.M. on Tuesday, if no Post office order is in the interim received from Nicodemus Boffin,

Esquire; arriving after a quarter to one P.M. on Tuesday, it need not be sent, as they will then (having made

an exact memorandum of the heartless circumstances) be 'cold in death.' There are the beggars on horseback

too, in another sense from the sense of the proverb. These are mounted and ready to start on the highway to

affluence. The goal is before them, the road is in the best condition, their spurs are on, the steed is willing,

but, at the last moment, for want of some special thinga clock, a violin, an astronomical telescope, an

electrifying machinethey must dismount for ever, unless they receive its equivalent in money from

Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire. Less given to detail are the beggars who make sporting ventures. These, usually

to be addressed in reply under initials at a country postoffice, inquire in feminine hands, Dare one who

cannot disclose herself to Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, but whose name might startle him were it revealed,

solicit the immediate advance of two hundred pounds from unexpected riches exercising their noblest

In such a Dismal Swamp does the new house stand, and through it does the Secretary daily struggle

breasthigh. Not to mention all the people alive who have made inventions that won't act, and all the jobbers

who job in all the jobberies jobbed; though these may be regarded as the Alligators of the Dismal Swamp,

But the old house. There are no designs against the Golden Dustman there? There are no fish of the shark

tribe in the Bower waters? Perhaps not. Still, Wegg is established there, and would seem, judged by his secret

proceedings, to cherish a notion of making a discovery. For, when a man with a wooden leg lies prone on his

stomach to peep under bedsteads; and hops up ladders, like some extinct bird, to survey the tops of presses

and cupboards; and provides himself an iron rod which he is always poking and prodding into dustmounds;

The school at which young Charley Hexam had first learned from a bookthe streets being, for pupils of his

degree, the great Preparatory Establishment in which very much that is never unlearned is learned without

and before bookwas a miserable loft in an unsavoury yard. Its atmosphere was oppressive and

disagreeable; it was crowded, noisy, and confusing; half the pupils dropped asleep, or fell into a state of

waking stupefaction; the other half kept them in either condition by maintaining a monotonous droning noise,

as if they were performing, out of time and tune, on a ruder sort of bagpipe. The teachers, animated solely by

good intentions, had no idea of execution, and a lamentable jumble was the upshot of their kind endeavours.

It was a school for all ages, and for both sexes. The latter were kept apart, and the former were partitioned off

into square assortments. But, all the place was pervaded by a grimly ludicrous pretence that every pupil was

childish and innocent. This pretence, much favoured by the ladyvisitors, led to the ghastliest absurdities.

Young women old in the vices of the commonest and worst life, were expected to profess themselves

enthralled by the good child's book, the Adventures of Little Margery, who resided in the village cottage by

the mill; severely reproved and morally squashed the miller, when she was five and he was fifty; divided her

porridge with singing birds; denied herself a new nankeen bonnet, on the ground that the turnips did not wear

nankeen bonnets, neither did the sheep who ate them; who plaited straw and delivered the dreariest orations

to all comers, at all sorts of unseasonable times. So, unwieldy young dredgers and hulking mudlarks were

referred to the experiences of Thomas Twopence, who, having resolved not to rob (under circumstances of

uncommon atrocity) his particular friend and benefactor, of eighteenpence, presently came into supernatural

possession of three and sixpence, and lived a shining light ever afterwards. (Note, that the benefactor came to

no good.) Several swaggering sinners had written their own biographies in the same strain; it always

appearing from the lessons of those very boastful persons, that you were to do good, not because it WAS

good, but because you were to make a good thing of it. Contrariwise, the adult pupils were taught to read (if

they could learn) out of the New Testament; and by dint of stumbling over the syllables and keeping their

bewildered eyes on the particular syllables coming round to their turn, were as absolutely ignorant of the

sublime history, as if they had never seen or heard of it. An exceedingly and confoundingly perplexing

jumble of a school, in fact, where black spirits and grey, red spirits and white, jumbled jumbled jumbled

jumbled, jumbled every night. And particularly every Sunday night. For then, an inclined plane of

unfortunate infants would be handed over to the prosiest and worst of all the teachers with good intentions,

whom nobody older would endure. Who, taking his stand on the floor before them as chief executioner,

would be attended by a conventional volunteer boy as executioner's assistant. When and where it first became

the conventional system that a weary or inattentive infant in a class must have its face smoothed downward

with a hot hand, or when and where the conventional volunteer boy first beheld such system in operation, and

became inflamed with a sacred zeal to administer it, matters not. It was the function of the chief executioner

to hold forth, and it was the function of the acolyte to dart at sleeping infants, yawning infants, restless

infants, whimpering infants, and smooth their wretched faces; sometimes with one hand, as if he were

anointing them for a whisker; sometimes with both hands, applied after the fashion of blinkers. And so the

jumble would be in action in this department for a mortal hour; the exponent drawling on to My Dearert

Childerrenerr, let us say, for example, about the beautiful coming to the Sepulchre; and repeating the word

Sepulchre (commonly used among infants) five hundred times, and never once hinting what it meant; the

conventional boy smoothing away right and left, as an infallible commentary; the whole hotbed of flushed

and exhausted infants exchanging measles, rashes, whoopingcough, fever, and stomach disorders, as if they

Even in this temple of good intentions, an exceptionally sharp boy exceptionally determined to learn, could

learn something, and, having learned it, could impart it much better than the teachers; as being more knowing

than they, and not at the disadvantage in which they stood towards the shrewder pupils. In this way it had

come about that Charley Hexam had risen in the jumble, taught in the jumble, and been received from the

'Why, she is not settled yet, Mr Headstone. I'd rather you didn't see her till she is settled, if it was all the same

'Look here, Hexam.' Mr Bradley Headstone, highly certificated stipendiary schoolmaster, drew his right

forefinger through one of the buttonholes of the boy's coat, and looked at it attentively. 'I hope your sister

Bradley Headstone looked at his finger again, took it out of the buttonhole and looked at it closer, bit the side

'You see, Hexam, you will be one of us. In good time you are sure to pass a creditable examination and

The boy waited so long for the question, while the schoolmaster looked at a new side of his finger, and bit it,

'I do not say so, because I do not know. I put it to you. I ask you to think of it. I want you to consider. You

'Perceiving the necessity of it,' acquiesced the schoolmaster, 'and making up her mind fully to the separation.

The boy, with a return of that former reluctance or struggle or whatever it was, seemed to debate with

'I wish you'd come with me and see her, Mr Headstone, though she is not settled. I wish you'd come with me,

'My sister Lizzie,' said the boy, proudly, 'wants no preparing, Mr Headstone. What she is, she is, and shows

His confidence in her, sat more easily upon him than the indecision with which he had twice contended. It

was his better nature to be true to her, if it were his worse nature to be wholly selfish. And as yet the better

'Well, I can spare the evening,' said the schoolmaster. 'I am ready to walk with you.'

Bradley Headstone, in his decent black coat and waistcoat, and decent white shirt, and decent formal black

tie, and decent pantaloons of pepper and salt, with his decent silver watch in his pocket and its decent

hairguard round his neck, looked a thoroughly decent young man of sixandtwenty. He was never seen in

any other dress, and yet there was a certain stiffness in his manner of wearing this, as if there were a want of

adaptation between him and it, recalling some mechanics in their holiday clothes. He had acquired

mechanically a great store of teacher's knowledge. He could do mental arithmetic mechanically, sing at sight

mechanically, blow various wind instruments mechanically, even play the great church organ mechanically.

From his early childhood up, his mind had been a place of mechanical stowage. The arrangement of his

wholesale warehouse, so that it might be always ready to meet the demands of retail dealers history here,

geography there, astronomy to the right, political economy to the leftnatural history, the physical sciences,

figures, music, the lower mathematics, and what not, all in their several placesthis care had imparted to his

countenance a look of care; while the habit of questioning and being questioned had given him a suspicious

manner, or a manner that would be better described as one of lying in wait. There was a kind of settled

trouble in the face. It was the face belonging to a naturally slow or inattentive intellect that had toiled hard to

get what it had won, and that had to hold it now that it was gotten. He always seemed to be uneasy lest

anything should be missing from his mental warehouse, and taking stock to assure himself.

Suppression of so much to make room for so much, had given him a constrained manner, over and above. Yet

there was enough of what was animal, and of what was fiery (though smouldering), still visible in him, to

suggest that if young Bradley Headstone, when a pauper lad, had chanced to be told off for the sea, he would

not have been the last man in a ship's crew. Regarding that origin of his, he was proud, moody, and sullen,

In some visits to the Jumble his attention had been attracted to this boy Hexam. An undeniable boy for a

pupilteacher; an undeniable boy to do credit to the master who should bring him on. Combined with this

consideration, there may have been some thought of the pauper lad now never to be mentioned. Be that how

it might, he had with pains gradually worked the boy into his own school, and procured him some offices to

discharge there, which were repaid with food and lodging. Such were the circumstances that had brought

together, Bradley Headstone and young Charley Hexam that autumn evening. Autumn, because full half a

The schoolsfor they were twofold, as the sexeswere down in that district of the flat country tending to

the Thames, where Kent and Surrey meet, and where the railways still bestride the market gardens that will

soon die under them. The schools were newly built, and there were so many like them all over the country,

that one might have thought the whole were but one restless edifice with the locomotive gift of Aladdin's

palace. They were in a neighbourhood which looked like a toy neighbourhood taken in blocks out of a box by

a child of particularly incoherent mind, and set up anyhow; here, one side of a new street; there, a large

solitary publichouse facing nowhere; here, another unfinished street already in ruins; there, a church; here,

an immense new warehouse; there, a dilapidated old country villa; then, a medley of black ditch, sparkling

cucumberframe, rank field, richly cultivated kitchengarden, brick viaduct, archspanned canal, and

disorder of frowziness and fog. As if the child had given the table a kick, and gone to sleep.

But, even among schoolbuildings, schoolteachers, and school pupils, all according to pattern and all

engendered in the light of the latest Gospel according to Monotony, the older pattern into which so many

fortunes have been shaped for good and evil, comes out. It came out in Miss Peecher the schoolmistress,

watering her flowers, as Mr Bradley Headstone walked forth. It came out in Miss Peecher the schoolmistress,

watering the flowers in the little dusty bit of garden attached to her small official residence, with little

windows like the eyes in needles, and little doors like the covers of schoolbooks.

Small, shining, neat, methodical, and buxom was Miss Peecher; cherrycheeked and tuneful of voice. A little

pincushion, a little housewife, a little book, a little workbox, a little set of tables and weights and measures,

and a little woman, all in one. She could write a little essay on any subject, exactly a slate long, beginning at

the lefthand top of one side and ending at the righthand bottom of the other, and the essay should be

strictly according to rule. If Mr Bradley Headstone had addressed a written proposal of marriage to her, she

would probably have replied in a complete little essay on the theme exactly a slate long, but would certainly

have replied Yes. For she loved him. The decent hairguard that went round his neck and took care of his

decent silver watch was an object of envy to her. So would Miss Peecher have gone round his neck and taken

Miss Peecher's favourite pupil, who assisted her in her little household, was in attendance with a can of water

to replenish her little wateringpot, and sufficiently divined the state of Miss Peecher's affections to feel it

necessary that she herself should love young Charley Hexam. So, there was a double palpitation among the

double stocks and double wallflowers, when the master and the boy looked over the little gate.

'A very fine evening, Mr Headstone,' said Miss Peecher. 'Are you taking a walk?'

'Ours is rather on business than mere pleasure,' said the Master. Miss Peecher inverting her wateringpot, and

very carefully shaking out the few last drops over a flower, as if there were some special virtue in them which

would make it a Jack's beanstalk before morning, called for replenishment to her pupil, who had been

The pupil had been, in her state of pupilage, so imbued with the classcustom of stretching out an arm, as if

to hail a cab or omnibus, whenever she found she had an observation on hand to offer to Miss Peecher, that

'But that can't be, I think,' returned Miss Peecher: 'because Mr Headstone can have no business with HER.'

'That may be,' said Miss Peecher. 'I didn't think of that. Not that it matters at all.'

'Oh, Mary Anne, Mary Anne!' returned Miss Peecher, slightly colouring and shaking her head, a little out of

humour; 'how often have I told you not to use that vague expression, not to speak in that general way? When

Mary Anne hooked her right arm behind her in her left hand, as being under examination, and replied:

'I beg your pardon, ma'am,' said Mary Anne, disconcerted now she came to think of it; 'but I don't know that I

'I felt convinced of it,' returned Miss Peecher, smiling again. 'Now pray, Mary Anne, be careful another time.

He says is very different from they say, remember. Difference between he says and they say? Give it me.'

Mary Anne immediately hooked her right arm behind her in her left handan attitude absolutely necessary

to the situationand replied: 'One is indicative mood, present tense, third person singular, verb active to say.

Other is indicative mood, present tense, third person plural, verb active to say.'

'Very good indeed,' remarked Miss Peecher, with encouragement. 'In fact, could not be better. Don't forget to

apply it, another time, Mary Anne.' This said, Miss Peecher finished the watering of her flowers, and went

into her little official residence, and took a refresher of the principal rivers and mountains of the world, their

breadths, depths, and heights, before settling the measurements of the body of a dress for her own personal

Bradley Headstone and Charley Hexam duly got to the Surrey side of Westminster Bridge, and crossed the

bridge, and made along the Middlesex shore towards Millbank. In this region are a certain little street called

Church Street, and a certain little blind square, called Smith Square, in the centre of which last retreat is a

very hideous church with four towers at the four corners, generally resembling some petrified monster,

frightful and gigantic, on its back with its legs in the air. They found a tree near by in a corner, and a

blacksmith's forge, and a timber yard, and a dealer's in old iron. What a rusty portion of a boiler and a great

iron wheel or so meant by lying halfburied in the dealer's fore court, nobody seemed to know or to want to

know. Like the Miller of questionable jollity in the song, They cared for Nobody, no not they, and Nobody

After making the round of this place, and noting that there was a deadly kind of repose on it, more as though

it had taken laudanum than fallen into a natural rest, they stopped at the point where the street and the square

joined, and where there were some little quiet houses in a row. To these Charley Hexam finally led the way,

'This must be where my sister lives, sir. This is where she came for a temporary lodging, soon after father's

'Why, only twice, sir,' returned the boy, with his former reluctance; 'but that's as much her doing as mine.'

'She was always a fair needlewoman, and she keeps the stockroom of a seaman's outfitter.'

'Sometimes; but her regular hours and regular occupation are at their place of business, I believe, sir. This is

The boy knocked at a door, and the door promptly opened with a spring and a click. A parlour door within a

small entry stood open, and disclosed a childa dwarfa girla somethingsitting on a little low

'I can't get up,' said the child, 'because my back's bad, and my legs are queer. But I'm the person of the house.'

'Nobody's at home at present,' returned the child, with a glib assertion of her dignity, 'except the person of the

'Many young men have sisters,' returned the child. 'Give me your name, young man?'

The queer little figure, and the queer but not ugly little face, with its bright grey eyes, were so sharp, that the

sharpness of the manner seemed unavoidable. As if, being turned out of that mould, it must be sharp.

'Ah, indeed?' said the person of the house. 'I thought it might be. Your sister will be in, in about a quarter of

an hour. I am very fond of your sister. She's my particular friend. Take a seat. And this gentleman's name?'

'Take a seat. And would you please to shut the street door first? I can't very well do it myself; because my

They complied in silence, and the little figure went on with its work of gumming or gluing together with a

camel'shair brush certain pieces of cardboard and thin wood, previously cut into various shapes. The

scissors and knives upon the bench showed that the child herself had cut them; and the bright scraps of velvet

and silk and ribbon also strewn upon the bench showed that when duly stuffed (and stuffing too was there),

she was to cover them smartly. The dexterity of her nimble fingers was remarkable, and, as she brought two

thin edges accurately together by giving them a little bite, she would glance at the visitors out of the corners

'You can't tell me the name of my trade, I'll be bound,' she said, after taking several of these observations.

'You do something,' he returned, pointing to a corner of the little bench, 'with straw; but I don't know what.'

'Well done you!' cried the person of the house. 'I only make pincushions and penwipers, to use up my waste.

But my straw really does belong to my business. Try again. What do I make with my straw?'

'A schoolmaster, and says dinnermats! I'll give you a clue to my trade, in a game of forfeits. I love my love

with a B because she's Beautiful; I hate my love with a B because she is Brazen; I took her to the sign of the

Blue Boar, and I treated her with Bonnets; her name's Bouncer, and she lives in Bedlam.Now, what do I

'Fine ladies',' said the person of the house, nodding assent. 'Dolls'. I'm a Doll's Dressmaker.'

The person of the house shrugged her shoulders and shook her head. 'No. Poorly paid. And I'm often so

pressed for time! I had a doll married, last week, and was obliged to work all night. And it's not good for me,

They looked at the little creature with a wonder that did not diminish, and the schoolmaster said: 'I am sorry

'It's the way with them,' said the person of the house, shrugging her shoulders again. 'And they take no care of

their clothes, and they never keep to the same fashions a month. I work for a doll with three daughters. Bless

you, she's enough to ruin her husband!' The person of the house gave a weird little laugh here, and gave them

another look out of the corners of her eyes. She had an elfin chin that was capable of great expression; and

whenever she gave this look, she hitched this chin up. As if her eyes and her chin worked together on the

'Busier. I'm slack just now. I finished a large mourning order the day before yesterday. Doll I work for, lost a

canarybird.' The person of the house gave another little laugh, and then nodded her head several times, as

'Are you alone all day?' asked Bradley Headstone. 'Don't any of the neighbouring children?'

'Ah, lud!' cried the person of the house, with a little scream, as if the word had pricked her. 'Don't talk of

children. I can't bear children. I know their tricks and their manners.' She said this with an angry little shake

Perhaps it scarcely required the teacherhabit, to perceive that the doll's dressmaker was inclined to be bitter

on the difference between herself and other children. But both master and pupil understood it so.

'Always running about and screeching, always playing and fighting, always skipskipskipping on the

pavement and chalking it for their games! Oh! I know their tricks and their manners!' Shaking the little fist as

before. 'And that's not all. Ever so often calling names in through a person's keyhole, and imitating a person's

back and legs. Oh! I know their tricks and their manners. And I'll tell you what I'd do, to punish 'em. There's

doors under the church in the Squareblack doors, leading into black vaults. Well! I'd open one of those

doors, and I'd cram 'em all in, and then I'd lock the door and through the keyhole I'd blow in pepper.'

'To set 'em sneezing,' said the person of the house, 'and make their eyes water. And when they were all

sneezing and inflamed, I'd mock 'em through the keyhole. Just as they, with their tricks and their manners,

An uncommonly emphatic shake of her little fist close before her eyes, seemed to ease the mind of the person

of the house; for she added with recovered composure, 'No, no, no. No children for me. Give me grownups.'

It was difficult to guess the age of this strange creature, for her poor figure furnished no clue to it, and her

face was at once so young and so old. Twelve, or at the most thirteen, might be near the mark.

'I always did like grownups,' she went on, 'and always kept company with them. So sensible. Sit so quiet.

Don't go prancing and capering about! And I mean always to keep among none but grownups till I marry. I

She listened to a step outside that caught her ear, and there was a soft knock at the door. Pulling at a handle

within her reach, she said, with a pleased laugh: 'Now here, for instance, is a grownup that's my particular

Taking him to her arms in the old wayof which he seemed a little ashamedshe saw no one else.

'There, there, there, Liz, all right my dear. See! Here's Mr Headstone come with me.'

Her eyes met those of the schoolmaster, who had evidently expected to see a very different sort of person,

and a murmured word or two of salutation passed between them. She was a little flurried by the unexpected

'I told Mr Headstone you were not settled, Liz, but he was so kind as to take an interest in coming, and so I

'Ah! Don't she, don't she?' cried the person of the house, resuming her occupation, though the twilight was

'I didn't expect a visit from you, Charley,' said his sister. 'I supposed that if you wanted to see me you would

have sent to me, appointing me to come somewhere near the school, as I did last time. I saw my brother near

the school, sir,' to Bradley Headstone, 'because it's easier for me to go there, than for him to come here. I

'You don't see much of one another,' said Bradley, not improving in respect of ease.

'No.' With a rather sad shake of her head. 'Charley always does well, Mr Headstone?'

'I hoped so. I am so thankful. So well done of you, Charley dear! It is better for me not to come (except when

Conscious that his pupilteacher was looking for his answer, that he himself had suggested the boy's keeping

aloof from this sister, now seen for the first time face to face, Bradley Headstone stammered:

'Your brother is very much occupied, you know. He has to work hard. One cannot but say that the less his

attention is diverted from his work, the better for his future. When he shall have established himself, why

Lizzie shook her head again, and returned, with a quiet smile: 'I always advised him as you advise him. Did I

'And she always has the use of this room for visitors,' said the person of the house, screwing up one of her

little bony fists, like an operaglass, and looking through it, with her eyes and her chin in that quaint

It happened that Bradley Headstone noticed a very slight action of Lizzie Hexam's hand, as though it checked

the doll's dressmaker. And it happened that the latter noticed him in the same instant; for she made a double

eyeglass of her two hands, looked at him through it, and cried, with a waggish shake of her head: 'Aha!

It might have fallen out so, any way; but Bradley Headstone also noticed that immediately after this, Lizzie,

who had not taken off her bonnet, rather hurriedly proposed that as the room was getting dark they should go

out into the air. They went out; the visitors saying goodnight to the doll's dressmaker, whom they left,

leaning back in her chair with her arms crossed, singing to herself in a sweet thoughtful little voice.

'I'll saunter on by the river,' said Bradley. 'You will be glad to talk together.'

As his uneasy figure went on before them among the evening shadows, the boy said to his sister, petulantly:

'When are you going to settle yourself in some Christian sort of place, Liz? I thought you were going to do it

'Very well where you are! I am ashamed to have brought Mr Headstone with me. How came you to get into

'By chance at first, as it seemed, Charley. But I think it must have been by something more than chance, for

'Confound the bills upon the walls at home! I want to forget the bills upon the walls at home, and it would be

The boy asked, rubbing his nose in a manner that half expressed vexation at hearing so much, and half

'The child's father is employed by the house that employs me; that's how I came to know it, Charley. The

father is like his own father, a weak wretched trembling creature, falling to pieces, never sober. But a good

workman too, at the work he does. The mother is dead. This poor ailing little creature has come to be what

she is, surrounded by drunken people from her cradleif she ever had one, Charley.'

The boy looked doggedly at the river. They were at Millbank, and the river rolled on their left. His sister

'Any compensationrestitutionnever mind the word, you know my meaning. Father's grave.'

But he did not respond with any tenderness. After a moody silence he broke out in an illused tone:

'It'll be a very hard thing, Liz, if, when I am trying my best to get up in the world, you pull me back.'

'Yes, you, Liz. Why can't you let bygones be bygones? Why can't you, as Mr Headstone said to me this very

evening about another matter, leave well alone? What we have got to do, is, to turn our faces full in our new

'You are such a dreamer,' said the boy, with his former petulance. 'It was all very well when we sat before the

firewhen we looked into the hollow down by the flarebut we are looking into the real world, now.'

'I understand what you mean by that, but you are not justified in it. I don't want, as I raise myself to shake you

off, Liz. I want to carry you up with me. That's what I want to do, and mean to do. I know what I owe you. I

said to Mr Headstone this very evening, "After all, my sister got me here." Well, then. Don't pull me back,

'I am not here selfishly, Charley. To please myself I could not be too far from that river.'

'Nor could you be too far from it to please me. Let us get quit of it equally. Why should you linger about it

'I can't get away from it, I think,' said Lizzie, passing her hand across her forehead. 'It's no purpose of mine

'There you go, Liz! Dreaming again! You lodge yourself of your own accord in a house with a

drunkentailor, I supposeor something of the sort, and a little crooked antic of a child, or old person, or

whatever it is, and then you talk as if you were drawn or driven there. Now, do be more practical.'

She had been practical enough with him, in suffering and striving for him; but she only laid her hand upon his

shouldernot reproachfullyand tapped it twice or thrice. She had been used to do so, to soothe him when

'Upon my word, Liz,' drawing the back of his hand across them, 'I mean to be a good brother to you, and to

prove that I know what I owe you. All I say is, that I hope you'll control your fancies a little, on my account.

I'll get a school, and then you must come and live with me, and you'll have to control your fancies then, so

'Say you are sure I didn't mean to. Come! There's Mr Headstone stopping and looking over the wall at the

tide, to hint that it's time to go. Kiss me, and tell me that you know I didn't mean to hurt you.'

She told him so, and they embraced, and walked on and came up with the schoolmaster.

'But we go your sister's way,' he remarked, when the boy told him he was ready. And with his cumbrous and

uneasy action he stiffly offered her his arm. Her hand was just within it, when she drew it back. He looked

round with a start, as if he thought she had detected something that repelled her, in the momentary touch.

'I will not go in just yet,' said Lizzie. 'And you have a distance before you, and will walk faster without me.'

Being by this time close to Vauxhall Bridge, they resolved, in consequence, to take that way over the

Thames, and they left her; Bradley Headstone giving her his hand at parting, and she thanking him for his

The master and the pupil walked on, rapidly and silently. They had nearly crossed the bridge, when a

gentleman came coolly sauntering towards them, with a cigar in his mouth, his coat thrown back, and his

hands behind him. Something in the careless manner of this person, and in a certain lazily arrogant air with

which he approached, holding possession of twice as much pavement as another would have claimed,

instantly caught the boy's attention. As the gentleman passed the boy looked at him narrowly, and then stood

'Why!' said the boy, with a confused and pondering frown upon his face, 'It IS that Wrayburn one!'

Bradley Headstone scrutinized the boy as closely as the boy had scrutinized the gentleman.

'I beg your pardon, Mr Headstone, but I couldn't help wondering what in the world brought HIM here!'

Though he said it as if his wonder were pastat the same time resuming the walkit was not lost upon the

master that he looked over his shoulder after speaking, and that the same perplexed and pondering frown was

'He took hold of me by the chin in a precious impertinent way, the first time I ever saw him,' said the boy.

'For nothing. Orit's much the samebecause something I happened to say about my sister didn't happen to

The boy had so lost himself that he looked at Mr Bradley Headstone as they walked on side by side, without

attempting to reply until the question had been repeated; then he nodded and answered, 'Yes, sir.'

'It can't be!' said the boy, quickly. 'He doesn't know her well enough. I should like to catch him at it!'

When they had walked on for a time, more rapidly than before, the master said, clasping the pupil's arm

'You were going to tell me something about that person. What did you say his name was?'

'Wrayburn. Mr Eugene Wrayburn. He is what they call a barrister, with nothing to do. The first time be came

to our old place was when my father was alive. He came on business; not that it was HIS businessHE

'There was only one other time that I know of. When my father was killed by accident, he chanced to be one

of the finders. He was mooning about, I suppose, taking liberties with people's chins; but there he was,

somehow. He brought the news home to my sister early in the morning, and brought Miss Abbey Potterson, a

neighbour, to help break it to her. He was mooning about the house when I was fetched home in the

afternoonthey didn't know where to find me till my sister could be brought round sufficiently to tell

Bradley Headstone gradually released the boy's arm, as if he were thoughtful, and they walked on side by

'I supposeyour sister' with a curious break both before and after the words, 'has received hardly any

'Sacrificed, no doubt, to her father's objections. I remember them in your case. Yetyour sisterscarcely

'Lizzie has as much thought as the best, Mr Headstone. Too much, perhaps, without teaching. I used to call

the fire at home, her books, for she was always full of fanciessometimes quite wise fancies,

His pupil was a little surprised by this striking in with so sudden and decided and emotional an objection, but

took it as a proof of the master's interest in himself. It emboldened him to say:

'I have never brought myself to mention it openly to you, Mr Headstone, and you're my witness that I couldn't

even make up my mind to take it from you before we came out tonight; but it's a painful thing to think that

if I get on as well as you hope, I shall beI won't say disgraced, because I don't mean disgraced�but

rather put to the blush if it was knownby a sister who has been very good to me.'

'Yes,' said Bradley Headstone in a slurring way, for his mind scarcely seemed to touch that point, so smoothly

did it glide to another, 'and there is this possibility to consider. Some man who had worked his way might

come to admireyour sisterand might even in time bring himself to think of marryingyour sisterand

it would be a sad drawback and a heavy penalty upon him, if; overcoming in his mind other inequalities of

condition and other considerations against it, this inequality and this consideration remained in full force.'

'Ay, ay,' said Bradley Headstone, 'but you spoke of a mere brother. Now, the case I have supposed would be a

much stronger case; because an admirer, a husband, would form the connexion voluntarily, besides being

obliged to proclaim it: which a brother is not. After all, you know, it must be said of you that you couldn't

help yourself: while it would be said of him, with equal reason, that he could.'

'That's true, sir. Sometimes since Lizzie was left free by father's death, I have thought that such a young

woman might soon acquire more than enough to pass muster. And sometimes I have even thought that

'For the purpose, I would advise Not Miss Peecher,' Bradley Headstone struck in with a recurrence of his late

'Yes, Hexam, yes. I'll think of it. I'll think maturely of it. I'll think well of it.'

Their walk was almost a silent one afterwards, until it ended at the schoolhouse. There, one of neat Miss

Peecher's little windows, like the eyes in needles, was illuminated, and in a corner near it sat Mary Anne

watching, while Miss Peecher at the table stitched at the neat little body she was making up by brown paper

pattern for her own wearing. N.B. Miss Peecher and Miss Peecher's pupils were not much encouraged in the

Miss Peecher repressed a sigh as she gathered her work together for bed, and transfixed that part of her dress

where her heart would have been if she had had the dress on, with a sharp, sharp needle.

The person of the house, doll's dressmaker and manufacturer of ornamental pincushions and penwipers, sat

in her quaint little low armchair, singing in the dark, until Lizzie came back. The person of the house had

attained that dignity while yet of very tender years indeed, through being the only trustworthy person IN the

'Well LizzieMizzieWizzie,' said she, breaking off in her song. 'what's the news out of doors?'

'What's the news in doors?' returned Lizzie, playfully smoothing the bright long fair hair which grew very

'Let me see, said the blind man. Why the last news is, that I don't mean to marry your brother.'

Lizzie finished putting the hair carefully back over the misshapen shoulders, and then lighted a candle. It

showed the little parlour to be dingy, but orderly and clean. She stood it on the mantelshelf, remote from the

dressmaker's eyes, and then put the room door open, and the house door open, and turned the little low chair

and its occupant towards the outer air. It was a sultry night, and this was a fineweather arrangement when

the day's work was done. To complete it, she seated herself in a chair by the side of the little chair, and

'This is what your loving Jenny Wren calls the best time in the day and night,' said the person of the house.

Her real name was Fanny Cleaver; but she had long ago chosen to bestow upon herself the appellation of

'I have been thinking,' Jenny went on, 'as I sat at work today, what a thing it would be, if I should be able to

have your company till I am married, or at least courted. Because when I am courted, I shall make Him do

some of the things that you do for me. He couldn't brush my hair like you do, or help me up and down stairs

like you do, and he couldn't do anything like you do; but he could take my work home, and he could call for

orders in his clumsy way. And he shall too. I'LL trot him about, I can tell him!'

Jenny Wren had her personal vanitieshappily for herand no intentions were stronger in her breast than

the various trials and torments that were, in the fulness of time, to be inflicted upon 'him.'

'Wherever he may happen to be just at present, or whoever he may happen to be,' said Miss Wren, 'I know his

'Don't you think you are rather hard upon him?' asked her friend, smiling, and smoothing her hair.

'Not a bit,' replied the sage Miss Wren, with an air of vast experience. 'My dear, they don't care for you, those

fellows, if you're NOT hard upon 'em. But I was saying If I should be able to have your company. Ah! What

'You're more to be relied upon than silver and gold.' As she said it, Miss Wren suddenly broke off, screwed

A man's figure paused on the pavement at the outer door. 'Mr Eugene Wrayburn, ain't it?' said Miss Wren.

He gave his hand to Jenny Wren, and he gave his hand to Lizzie, and he stood leaning by the door at Lizzie's

side. He had been strolling with his cigar, he said, (it was smoked out and gone by this time,) and he had

strolled round to return in that direction that he might look in as he passed. Had she not seen her brother to

Gracious condescension on our brother's part! Mr Eugene Wrayburn thought he had passed my young

Lizzie sat so still, that one could not have said wherein the fact of her manner being troubled was expressed;

and yet one could not have doubted it. Eugene was as easy as ever; but perhaps, as she sat with her eyes cast

down, it might have been rather more perceptible that his attention was concentrated upon her for certain

moments, than its concentration upon any subject for any short time ever was, elsewhere.

'I have nothing to report, Lizzie,' said Eugene. 'But, having promised you that an eye should be always kept

on Mr Riderhood through my friend Lightwood, I like occasionally to renew my assurance that I keep my

'Generally, I confess myself a man to be doubted,' returned Eugene, coolly, 'for all that.'

'Because, my dear,' returned Eugene, 'there's nobody who makes it worth my while. Have you considered my

suggestion, Lizzie?' This in a lower voice, but only as if it were a graver matter; not at all to the exclusion of

'I have thought of it, Mr Wrayburn, but I have not been able to make up my mind to accept it.'

'False pride!' repeated Eugene. 'Why, what else is it? The thing is worth nothing in itself. The thing is worth

nothing to me. What can it be worth to me? You know the most I make of it. I propose to be of some use to

somebodywhich I never was in this world, and never shall be on any other occasionby paying some

qualified person of your own sex and age, so many (or rather so few) contemptible shillings, to come here,

certain nights in the week, and give you certain instruction which you wouldn't want if you hadn't been a

selfdenying daughter and sister. You know that it's good to have it, or you would never have so devoted

yourself to your brother's having it. Then why not have it: especially when our friend Miss Jenny here would

profit by it too? If I proposed to be the teacher, or to attend the lessonsobviously incongruous!but as to

that, I might as well be on the other side of the globe, or not on the globe at all. False pride, Lizzie. Because

true pride wouldn't shame, or be shamed by, your thankless brother. True pride wouldn't have schoolmasters

brought here, like doctors, to look at a bad case. True pride would go to work and do it. You know that, well

enough, for you know that your own true pride would do it tomorrow, if you had the ways and means which

false pride won't let me supply. Very well. I add no more than this. Your false pride does wrong to yourself

'How to your father? Can you ask! By perpetuating the consequences of his ignorant and blind obstinacy. By

resolving not to set right the wrong he did you. By determining that the deprivation to which he condemned

It chanced to be a subtle string to sound, in her who had so spoken to her brother within the hour. It sounded

far more forcibly, because of the change in the speaker for the moment; the passing appearance of

earnestness, complete conviction, injured resentment of suspicion, generous and unselfish interest. All these

qualities, in him usually so light and careless, she felt to be inseparable from some touch of their opposites in

her own breast. She thought, had she, so far below him and so different, rejected this disinterestedness,

because of some vain misgiving that he sought her out, or heeded any personal attractions that he might

descry in her? The poor girl, pure of heart and purpose, could not bear to think it. Sinking before her own

eyes, as she suspected herself of it, she drooped her head as though she had done him some wicked and

'Don't be distressed,' said Eugene, very, very kindly. 'I hope it is not I who have distressed you. I meant no

more than to put the matter in its true light before you; though I acknowledge I did it selfishly enough, for I

'It won't break my heart,' laughed Eugene; 'it won't stay by me eightandforty hours; but I am genuinely

disappointed. I had set my fancy on doing this little thing for you and for our friend Miss Jenny. The novelty

of my doing anything in the least useful, had its charms. I see, now, that I might have managed it better. I

might have affected to do it wholly for our friend Miss J. I might have got myself up, morally, as Sir Eugene

Bountiful. But upon my soul I can't make flourishes, and I would rather be disappointed than try.'

If he meant to follow home what was in Lizzie's thoughts, it was skilfully done. If he followed it by mere

'It opened out so naturally before me,' said Eugene. 'The ball seemed so thrown into my hands by accident! I

happen to be originally brought into contact with you, Lizzie, on those two occasions that you know of. I

happen to be able to promise you that a watch shall be kept upon that false accuser, Riderhood. I happen to be

able to give you some little consolation in the darkest hour of your distress, by assuring you that I don't

believe him. On the same occasion I tell you that I am the idlest and least of lawyers, but that I am better than

none, in a case I have noted down with my own hand, and that you may be always sure of my best help, and

incidentally of Lightwood's too, in your efforts to clear your father. So, it gradually takes my fancy that I may

help youso easily!to clear your father of that other blame which I mentioned a few minutes ago, and

which is a just and real one. I hope I have explained myself; for I am heartily sorry to have distressed you. I

hate to claim to mean well, but I really did mean honestly and simply well, and I want you to know it.'

'I have never doubted that, Mr Wrayburn,' said Lizzie; the more repentant, the less he claimed.

'I am very glad to hear it. Though if you had quite understood my whole meaning at first, I think you would

'It's not easy for me to talk to you,' returned Lizzie, in some confusion, 'for you see all the consequences of

'Take all the consequences,' laughed Eugene, 'and take away my disappointment. Lizzie Hexam, as I truly

respect you, and as I am your friend and a poor devil of a gentleman, I protest I don't even now understand

There was an appearance of openness, trustfulness, unsuspecting generosity, in his words and manner, that

won the poor girl over; and not only won her over, but again caused her to feel as though she had been

'I will not hesitate any longer, Mr Wrayburn. I hope you will not think the worse of me for having hesitated at

The little creature had been leaning back, attentive, with her elbows resting on the elbows of her chair, and

her chin upon her hands. Without changing her attitude, she answered, 'Yes!' so suddenly that it rather

'Agreed! Dismissed!' said Eugene, giving Lizzie his hand before lightly waving it, as if he waved the whole

Then he fell to talking playfully with Jenny Wren. 'I think of setting up a doll, Miss Jenny,' he said.

'But that makes good for trade, you know, Miss Wren,' returned Eugene. 'Much as people's breaking promises

'I don't know about that,' Miss Wren retorted; 'but you had better by half set up a penwiper, and turn

'Why, if we were all as industrious as you, little BusyBody, we should begin to work as soon as we could

'Do you mean,' returned the little creature, with a flush suffusing her face, 'bad for your backs and your legs?'

'No, no, no,' said Eugene; shockedto do him justiceat the thought of trifling with her infirmity. 'Bad for

business, bad for business. If we all set to work as soon as we could use our hands, it would be all over with

'There's something in that,' replied Miss Wren; 'you have a sort of an idea in your noddle sometimes.' Then, in

a changed tone; 'Talking of ideas, my Lizzie,' they were sitting side by side as they had sat at first, 'I wonder

how it happens that when I am work, work, working here, all alone in the summertime, I smell flowers.'

'As a commonplace individual, I should say,' Eugene suggested languidlyfor he was growing weary of the

'No I don't,' said the little creature, resting one arm upon the elbow of her chair, resting her chin upon that

hand, and looking vacantly before her; 'this is not a flowery neighbourhood. It's anything but that. And yet as

I sit at work, I smell miles of flowers. I smell roses, till I think I see the roseleaves lying in heaps, bushels,

on the floor. I smell fallen leaves, till I put down my handsoand expect to make them rustle. I smell the

white and the pink May in the hedges, and all sorts of flowers that I never was among. For I have seen very

'Pleasant fancies to have, Jenny dear!' said her friend: with a glance towards Eugene as if she would have

'So I think, Lizzie, when they come to me. And the birds I hear! Oh!' cried the little creature, holding out her

There was something in the face and action for the moment, quite inspired and beautiful. Then the chin

'I dare say my birds sing better than other birds, and my flowers smell better than other flowers. For when I

was a little child,' in a tone as though it were ages ago, 'the children that I used to see early in the morning

were very different from any others that I ever saw. They were not like me; they were not chilled, anxious,

ragged, or beaten; they were never in pain. They were not like the children of the neighbours; they never

made me tremble all over, by setting up shrill noises, and they never mocked me. Such numbers of them too!

All in white dresses, and with something shining on the borders, and on their heads, that I have never been

able to imitate with my work, though I know it so well. They used to come down in long bright slanting rows,

and say all together, "Who is this in pain! Who is this in pain!" When I told them who it was, they answered,

"Come and play with us!" When I said "I never play! I can't play!" they swept about me and took me up, and

made me light. Then it was all delicious ease and rest till they laid me down, and said, all together, "Have

patience, and we will come again." Whenever they came back, I used to know they were coming before I saw

the long bright rows, by hearing them ask, all together a long way off, "Who is this in pain! Who is this in

pain!" And I used to cry out, "O my blessed children, it's poor me. Have pity on me. Take me up and make

By degrees, as she progressed in this remembrance, the hand was raised, the late ecstatic look returned, and

she became quite beautiful. Having so paused for a moment, silent, with a listening smile upon her face, she

'What poor fun you think me; don't you, Mr Wrayburn? You may well look tired of me. But it's Saturday

'That is to say, Miss Wren,' observed Eugene, quite ready to profit by the hint, 'you wish me to go?'

'Well, it's Saturday night,' she returned, and my child's coming home. And my child is a troublesome bad

child, and costs me a world of scolding. I would rather you didn't see my child.'

But Lizzie, with her lips only, shaping the two words, 'Her father,' he delayed no longer. He took his leave

immediately. At the corner of the street he stopped to light another cigar, and possibly to ask himself what he

was doing otherwise. If so, the answer was indefinite and vague. Who knows what he is doing, who is

A man stumbled against him as he turned away, who mumbled some maudlin apology. Looking after this

'Don't go away, Miss Hexam,' he said in a submissive manner, speaking thickly and with difficulty. 'Don't fly

from unfortunate man in shattered state of health. Give poor invalid honour of your company. It ain'tain't

Lizzie murmured that she had something to do in her own room, and went away upstairs.

'How's my Jenny?' said the man, timidly. 'How's my Jenny Wren, best of children, object dearest affections

To which the person of the house, stretching out her arm in an attitude of command, replied with irresponsive

asperity: 'Go along with you! Go along into your corner! Get into your corner directly!'

The wretched spectacle made as if he would have offered some remonstrance; but not venturing to resist the

person of the house, thought better of it, and went and sat down on a particular chair of disgrace.

'Ohhh!' cried the person of the house, pointing her little finger, 'You bad old boy! Ohhh you naughty,

The shaking figure, unnerved and disjointed from head to foot, put out its two hands a little way, as making

overtures of peace and reconciliation. Abject tears stood in its eyes, and stained the blotched red of its cheeks.

The swollen leadcoloured under lip trembled with a shameful whine. The whole indecorous threadbare ruin,

from the broken shoes to the prematurelygrey scanty hair, grovelled. Not with any sense worthy to be called

a sense, of this dire reversal of the places of parent and child, but in a pitiful expostulation to be let off from a

'I know your tricks and your manners,' cried Miss Wren. 'I know where you've been to!' (which indeed it did

The very breathing of the figure was contemptible, as it laboured and rattled in that operation, like a

'Slave, slave, slave, from morning to night,' pursued the person of the house, 'and all for this! WHAT do you

There was something in that emphasized 'What,' which absurdly frightened the figure. As often as the person

of the house worked her way round to iteven as soon as he saw that it was coming he collapsed in an

'I wish you had been taken up, and locked up,' said the person of the house. 'I wish you had been poked into

cells and black holes, and run over by rats and spiders and beetles. I know their tricks and their manners, and

'Then,' said the person of the house, terrifying him by a grand muster of her spirits and forces before recurring

'Circumstances over which had no control,' was the miserable creature's plea in extenuation.

'I'LL circumstance you and control you too,' retorted the person of the house, speaking with vehement

sharpness, 'if you talk in that way. I'll give you in charge to the police, and have you fined five shillings when

you can't pay, and then I won't pay the money for you, and you'll be transported for life. How should you like

'Shouldn't like it. Poor shattered invalid. Trouble nobody long,' cried the wretched figure.

'Come, come!' said the person of the house, tapping the table near her in a businesslike manner, and shaking

her head and her chin; 'you know what you've got to do. Put down your money this instant.'

'Spent a fortune out of your wages, I'll be bound!' said the person of the house. 'Put it here! All you've got

Such a business as he made of collecting it from his dogs'eared pockets; of expecting it in this pocket, and

not finding it; of not expecting it in that pocket, and passing it over; of finding no pocket where that other

'Is this all?' demanded the person of the house, when a confused heap of pence and shillings lay on the table.

'Let me make sure. You know what you've got to do. Turn all your pockets inside out, and leave 'em so!' cried

He obeyed. And if anything could have made him look more abject or more dismally ridiculous than before,

'Here's but seven and eightpence halfpenny!' exclaimed Miss Wren, after reducing the heap to order. 'Oh, you

'If you were treated as you ought to be,' said Miss Wren, 'you'd be fed upon the skewers of cats' meat;only

When he stumbled out of the corner to comply, he again put out both his hands, and pleaded: 'Circumstances

'Get along with you to bed!' cried Miss Wren, snapping him up. 'Don't speak to me. I'm not going to forgive

Seeing another emphatic 'What' upon its way, he evaded it by complying and was heard to shuffle heavily up

stairs, and shut his door, and throw himself on his bed. Within a little while afterwards, Lizzie came down.

'Ah! bless us and save us, we need have something to keep us going,' returned Miss Jenny, shrugging her

Lizzie laid a cloth upon the little bench (more handy for the person of the house than an ordinary table), and

put upon it such plain fare as they were accustomed to have, and drew up a stool for herself.

'I was thinking,' she returned, coming out of a deep study, 'what I would do to Him, if he should turn out a

'I shall try to take care of it beforehand, but he might deceive me. Oh, my dear, all those fellows with their

tricks and their manners do deceive!' With the little fist in full action. 'And if so, I tell you what I think I'd do.

When he was asleep, I'd make a spoon red hot, and I'd have some boiling liquor bubbling in a saucepan, and

I'd take it out hissing, and I'd open his mouth with the other hand or perhaps he'd sleep with his mouth

'Not even like to? Well, you generally know best. Only you haven't always lived among it as I have

As they went on with their supper, Lizzie tried to bring her round to that prettier and better state. But, the

charm was broken. The person of the house was the person of a house full of sordid shames and cares, with

an upper room in which that abased figure was infecting even innocent sleep with sensual brutality and

degradation. The doll's dressmaker had become a little quaint shrew; of the world, worldly; of the earth,

Poor doll's dressmaker! How often so dragged down by hands that should have raised her up; how often so

misdirected when losing her way on the eternal road, and asking guidance! Poor, poor little doll's dressmaker!

Britannia, sitting meditating one fine day (perhaps in the attitude in which she is presented on the copper

coinage), discovers all of a sudden that she wants Veneering in Parliament. It occurs to her that Veneering is

'a representative man'which cannot in these times be doubtedand that Her Majesty's faithful Commons

are incomplete without him. So, Britannia mentions to a legal gentleman of her acquaintance that if

Veneering will 'put down' five thousand pounds, he may write a couple of initial letters after his name at the

extremely cheap rate of two thousand five hundred per letter. It is clearly understood between Britannia and

the legal gentleman that nobody is to take up the five thousand pounds, but that being put down they will

The legal gentleman in Britannia's confidence going straight from that lady to Veneering, thus commissioned,

Veneering declares himself highly flattered, but requires breathing time to ascertain 'whether his friends will

rally round him.' Above all things, he says, it behoves him to be clear, at a crisis of this importance, 'whether

his friends will rally round him.' The legal gentleman, in the interests of his client cannot allow much time for

this purpose, as the lady rather thinks she knows somebody prepared to put down six thousand pounds; but he

Veneering then says to Mrs Veneering, 'We must work,' and throws himself into a Hansom cab. Mrs

Veneering in the same moment relinquishes baby to Nurse; presses her aquiline hands upon her brow, to

arrange the throbbing intellect within; orders out the carriage; and repeats in a distracted and devoted manner,

compounded of Ophelia and any selfimmolating female of antiquity you may prefer, 'We must work.'

Veneering having instructed his driver to charge at the Public in the streets, like the LifeGuards at Waterloo,

is driven furiously to Duke Street, Saint James's. There, he finds Twemlow in his lodgings, fresh from the

hands of a secret artist who has been doing something to his hair with yolks of eggs. The process requiring

that Twemlow shall, for two hours after the application, allow his hair to stick upright and dry gradually, he is

in an appropriate state for the receipt of startling intelligence; looking equally like the Monument on Fish

Street Hill, and King Priam on a certain incendiary occasion not wholly unknown as a neat point from the

'My dear Twemlow,' says Veneering, grasping both his bands, as the dearest and oldest of my friends'

('Then there can be no more doubt about it in future,' thinks Twemlow, 'and I AM!')

'Are you of opinion that your cousin, Lord Snigsworth, would give his name as a Member of my

Committee? I don't go so far as to ask for his lordship; I only ask for his name. Do you think he would give

'My political opinions,' says Veneering, not previously aware of having any, 'are identical with those of Lord

Snigsworth, and perhaps as a matter of public feeling and public principle, Lord Snigswotth would give me

'It might be so,' says Twemlow; 'but' And perplexedly scratching his head, forgetful of the yolks of eggs, is

'Between such old and intimate friends as ourselves,' pursues Veneering, 'there should in such a case be no

reserve. Promise me that if I ask you to do anything for me which you don't like to do, or feel the slightest

This, Twemlow is so kind as to promise, with every appearance of most heartily intending to keep his word.

'Would you have any objection to write down to Snigsworthy Park, and ask this favour of Lord Snigsworth?

Of course if it were granted I should know that I owed it solely to you; while at the same time you would put

it to Lord Snigsworth entirely upon public grounds. Would you have any objection?'

Says Twemlow, with his hand to his forehead, 'You have exacted a promise from me.'

'ON the whole, then;observe me,' urges Twemlow with great nicety, as if; in the case of its having been off

the whole, he would have done it directly'ON the whole, I must beg you to excuse me from addressing any

'Bless you, bless you!' says Veneering; horribly disappointed, but grasping him by both hands again, in a

It is not to be wondered at that poor Twemlow should decline to inflict a letter on his noble cousin (who has

gout in the temper), inasmuch as his noble cousin, who allows him a small annuity on which he lives, takes it

out of him, as the phrase goes, in extreme severity; putting him, when he visits at Snigsworthy Park, under a

kind of martial law; ordaining that he shall hang his hat on a particular peg, sit on a particular chair, talk on

particular subjects to particular people, and perform particular exercises: such as sounding the praises of the

Family Varnish (not to say Pictures), and abstaining from the choicest of the Family Wines unless expressly

'One thing, however, I CAN do for you,' says Twemlow; 'and that is, work for you.'

'I'll go,' says Twemlow, in a rising hurry of spirits, 'to the club;let us see now; what o'clock is it?'

'I'll be,' says Twemlow, 'at the club by ten minutes to twelve, and I'll never leave it all day.'

Veneering feels that his friends are rallying round him, and says, 'Thank you, thank you. I knew I could rely

upon you. I said to Anastatia before leaving home just now to come to youof course the first friend I have

seen on a subject so momentous to me, my dear TwemlowI said to Anastatia, "We must work."'

'Good!' cries Twemlow, polite little gentleman that he is. 'A woman's tact is invaluable. To have the dear sex

'But you have not imparted to me,' remarks Veneering, 'what you think of my entering the House of

Veneering again blesses him, plunges down stairs, rushes into his Hansom, and directs the driver to be up and

Meanwhile Twemlow, in an increasing hurry of spirits, gets his hair down as well as he canwhich is not

very well; for, after these glutinous applications it is restive, and has a surface on it somewhat in the nature of

pastryand gets to the club by the appointed time. At the club he promptly secures a large window, writing

materials, and all the newspapers, and establishes himself; immoveable, to be respectfully contemplated by

Pall Mall. Sometimes, when a man enters who nods to him, Twemlow says, 'Do you know Veneering?' Man

says, 'No; member of the club?' Twemlow says, 'Yes. Coming in for PocketBreaches.' Man says, 'Ah! Hope

he may find it worth the money!' yawns, and saunters out. Towards six o'clock of the afternoon, Twemlow

begins to persuade himself that he is positively jaded with work, and thinks it much to be regretted that he

From Twemlow's, Veneering dashes at Podsnap's place of business. Finds Podsnap reading the paper,

standing, and inclined to be oratorical over the astonishing discovery he has made, that Italy is not England.

Respectfully entreats Podsnap's pardon for stopping the flow of his words of wisdom, and informs him what

is in the wind. Tells Podsnap that their political opinions are identical. Gives Podsnap to understand that he,

Veneering, formed his political opinions while sitting at the feet of him, Podsnap. Seeks earnestly to know

Says Podsnap, something sternly, 'Now, first of all, Veneering, do you ask my advice?'

'Yes, yes, that's all very well,' says Podsnap; 'but have you made up your mind to take this borough of

PocketBreaches on its own terms, or do you ask my opinion whether you shall take it or leave it alone?'

Veneering repeats that his heart's desire and his soul's thirst are, that Podsnap shall rally round him.

'Now, I'll be plain with you, Veneering,' says Podsnap, knitting his brows. 'You will infer that I don't care

Why, of course Veneering knows that! Of course Veneering knows that if Podsnap chose to go there, he

would be there, in a space of time that might be stated by the light and thoughtless as a jiffy.

'It is not worth my while,' pursues Podsnap, becoming handsomely mollified, 'and it is the reverse of

important to my position. But it is not my wish to set myself up as law for another man, differently situated.

You think it IS worth YOUR while, and IS important to YOUR position. Is that so?'

Always with the proviso that Podsnap will rally round him, Veneering thinks it is so.

'Then you don't ask my advice,' says Podsnap. 'Good. Then I won't give it you. But you do ask my help.

Veneering instantly blesses him, and apprises him that Twemlow is already working. Podsnap does not quite

approve that anybody should be already workingregarding it rather in the light of a libertybut tolerates

'I have nothing very particular to do today,' adds Podsnap, 'and I'll mix with some influential people. I had

engaged myself to dinner, but I'll send Mrs Podsnap and get off going myself; and I'll dine with you at eight.

It's important we should report progress and compare notes. Now, let me see. You ought to have a couple of

'Whom I have met at your house,' says Podsnap. 'Yes. They'll do very well. Let them each have a cab, and go

Veneering immediately mentions what a blessing he feels it, to possess a friend capable of such grand

administrative suggestions, and really is elated at this going about of Boots and Brewer, as an idea wearing an

electioneering aspect and looking desperately like business. Leaving Podsnap, at a handgallop, he descends

upon Boots and Brewer, who enthusiastically rally round him by at once bolting off in cabs, taking opposite

directions. Then Veneering repairs to the legal gentleman in Britannia's confidence, and with him transacts

some delicate affairs of business, and issues an address to the independent electors of PocketBreaches,

announcing that he is coming among them for their suffrages, as the mariner returns to the home of his early

childhood: a phrase which is none the worse for his never having been near the place in his life, and not even

Mrs Veneering, during the same eventful hours, is not idle. No sooner does the carriage turn out, all

complete, than she turns into it, all complete, and gives the word 'To Lady Tippins's.' That charmer dwells

over a staymaker's in the Belgravian Borders, with a lifesize model in the window on the ground floor of a

distinguished beauty in a blue petticoat, staylace in hand, looking over her shoulder at the town in innocent

Lady Tippins at home? Lady Tippins at home, with the room darkened, and her back (like the lady's at the

groundfloor window, though for a different reason) cunningly turned towards the light. Lady Tippins is so

surprised by seeing her dear Mrs Veneering so earlyin the middle of the night, the pretty creature calls

To whom Mrs Veneering incoherently communicates, how that Veneering has been offered

PocketBreaches; how that it is the time for rallying round; how that Veneering has said 'We must work';

how that she is here, as a wife and mother, to entreat Lady Tippins to work; how that the carriage is at Lady

Tippins's disposal for purposes of work; how that she, proprietress of said bran new elegant equipage, will

return home on footon bleeding feet if need beto work (not specifying how), until she drops by the side

'My love,' says Lady Tippins, 'compose yourself; we'll bring him in.' And Lady Tippins really does work, and

work the Veneering horses too; for she clatters about town all day, calling upon everybody she knows, and

showing her entertaining powers and green fan to immense advantage, by rattling on with, My dear soul,

what do you think? What do you suppose me to be? You'll never guess. I'm pretending to be an electioneering

agent. And for what place of all places? PocketBreaches. And why? Because the dearest friend I have in the

world has bought it. And who is the dearest friend I have in the world? A man of the name of Veneering. Not

omitting his wife, who is the other dearest friend I have in the world; and I positively declare I forgot their

baby, who is the other. And we are carrying on this little farce to keep up appearances, and isn't it refreshing!

Then, my precious child, the fun of it is that nobody knows who these Veneerings are, and that they know

nobody, and that they have a house out of the Tales of the Genii, and give dinners out of the Arabian Nights.

Curious to see 'em, my dear? Say you'll know 'em. Come and dine with 'em. They shan't bore you. Say who

shall meet you. We'll make up a party of our own, and I'll engage that they shall not interfere with you for one

single moment. You really ought to see their gold and silver camels. I call their dinnertable, the Caravan. Do

come and dine with my Veneerings, my own Veneerings, my exclusive property, the dearest friends I have in

the world! And above all, my dear, be sure you promise me your vote and interest and all sorts of plumpers

for PocketBreaches; for we couldn't think of spending sixpence on it, my love, and can only consent to be

brought in by the spontaneous thingummies of the incorruptible whatdoyoucallums.

Now, the point of view seized by the bewitching Tippins, that this same working and rallying round is to

keep up appearances, may have something in it, but not all the truth. More is done, or considered to be

donewhich does as wellby taking cabs, and 'going about,' than the fair Tippins knew of. Many vast

vague reputations have been made, solely by taking cabs and going about. This particularly obtains in all

Parliamentary affairs. Whether the business in hand be to get a man in, or get a man out, or get a man over, or

promote a railway, or jockey a railway, or what else, nothing is understood to be so effectual as scouring

Probably because this reason is in the air, Twemlow, far from being singular in his persuasion that he works

like a Trojan, is capped by Podsnap, who in his turn is capped by Boots and Brewer. At eight o'clock when all

these hard workers assemble to dine at Veneering's, it is understood that the cabs of Boots and Brewer

mustn't leave the door, but that pails of water must be brought from the nearest baitingplace, and cast over

the horses' legs on the very spot, lest Boots and Brewer should have instant occasion to mount and away.

Those fleet messengers require the Analytical to see that their hats are deposited where they can be laid hold

of at an instant's notice; and they dine (remarkably well though) with the air of firemen in charge of an

Mrs Veneering faintly remarks, as dinner opens, that many such days would be too much for her.

'Many such days would be too much for all of us,' says Podsnap; 'but we'll bring him in!'

'We'll bring him in,' says Lady Tippins, sportively waving her green fan. 'Veneering for ever!'

Strictly speaking, it would be hard to show cause why they should not bring him in, PocketBreaches having

closed its little bargain, and there being no opposition. However, it is agreed that they must 'work' to the last,

and that if they did not work, something indefinite would happen. It is likewise agreed that they are all so

exhausted with the work behind them, and need to be so fortified for the work before them, as to require

peculiar strengthening from Veneering's cellar. Therefore, the Analytical has orders to produce the cream of

the cream of his binns, and therefore it falls out that rallying becomes rather a trying word for the occasion;

Lady Tippins being observed gamely to inculcate the necessity of rearing round their dear Veneering;

Podsnap advocating roaring round him; Boots and Brewer declaring their intention of reeling round him; and

Veneering thanking his devoted friends one and all, with great emotion, for rarullarulling round him.

In these inspiring moments, Brewer strikes out an idea which is the great hit of the day. He consults his

watch, and says (like Guy Fawkes), he'll now go down to the House of Commons and see how things look.

'I'll keep about the lobby for an hour or so,' says Brewer, with a deeply mysterious countenance, 'and if things

Veneering expresses his inability ever to acknowledge this last service. Tears stand in Mrs Veneering's

affectionate eyes. Boots shows envy, loses ground, and is regarded as possessing a second rate mind. They

all crowd to the door, to see Brewer off. Brewer says to his driver, 'Now, is your horse pretty fresh?' eyeing

the animal with critical scrutiny. Driver says he's as fresh as butter. 'Put him along then,' says Brewer; 'House

of Commons.' Driver darts up, Brewer leaps in, they cheer him as he departs, and Mr Podsnap says, 'Mark my

When the time comes for Veneering to deliver a neat and appropriate stammer to the men of

PocketBreaches, only Podsnap and Twemlow accompany him by railway to that sequestered spot. The legal

gentleman is at the PocketBreaches Branch Station, with an open carriage with a printed bill 'Veneering for

ever' stuck upon it, as if it were a wall; and they gloriously proceed, amidst the grins of the populace, to a

feeble little town hall on crutches, with some onions and bootlaces under it, which the legal gentleman says

are a Market; and from the front window of that edifice Veneering speaks to the listening earth. In the

moment of his taking his hat off, Podsnap, as per agreement made with Mrs Veneering, telegraphs to that

Veneering loses his way in the usual No Thoroughfares of speech, and Podsnap and Twemlow say Hear hear!

and sometimes, when he can't by any means back himself out of some very unlucky No Thoroughfare,

'Heaar Heaar!' with an air of facetious conviction, as if the ingenuity of the thing gave them a

sensation of exquisite pleasure. But Veneering makes two remarkably good points; so good, that they are

supposed to have been suggested to him by the legal gentleman in Britannia's confidence, while briefly

Point the first is this. Veneering institutes an original comparison between the country, and a ship; pointedly

calling the ship, the Vessel of the State, and the Minister the Man at the Helm. Veneering's object is to let

PocketBreaches know that his friend on his right (Podsnap) is a man of wealth. Consequently says he, 'And,

gentlemen, when the timbers of the Vessel of the State are unsound and the Man at the Helm is unskilful,

would those great Marine Insurers, who rank among our worldfamed merchant princeswould they

insure her, gentlemen? Would they underwrite her? Would they incur a risk in her? Would they have

confidence in her? Why, gentlemen, if I appealed to my honourable friend upon my right, himself among the

greatest and most respected of that great and much respected class, he would answer No!'

Point the second is this. The telling fact that Twemlow is related to Lord Snigsworth, must be let off.

Veneering supposes a state of public affairs that probably never could by any possibility exist (though this is

not quite certain, in consequence of his picture being unintelligible to himself and everybody else), and thus

proceeds. 'Why, gentlemen, if I were to indicate such a programme to any class of society, I say it would be

received with derision, would be pointed at by the finger of scorn. If I indicated such a programme to any

worthy and intelligent tradesman of your townnay, I will here be personal, and say Our townwhat

would he reply? He would reply, "Away with it!" That's what HE would reply, gentlemen. In his honest

indignation he would reply, "Away with it!" But suppose I mounted higher in the social scale. Suppose I

drew my arm through the arm of my respected friend upon my left, and, walking with him through the

ancestral woods of his family, and under the spreading beeches of Snigsworthy Park, approached the noble

hall, crossed the courtyard, entered by the door, went up the staircase, and, passing from room to room, found

myself at last in the august presence of my friend's near kinsman, Lord Snigsworth. And suppose I said to

that venerable earl, "My Lord, I am here before your lordship, presented by your lordship's near kinsman, my

friend upon my left, to indicate that programme;" what would his lordship answer? Why, he would answer,

"Away with it!" That's what he would answer, gentlemen. "Away with it!" Unconsciously using, in his

exalted sphere, the exact language of the worthy and intelligent tradesman of our town, the near and dear

Veneering finishes with this last success, and Mr Podsnap telegraphs to Mrs Veneering, 'He's down.'

Then, dinner is had at the Hotel with the legal gentleman, and then there are in due succession, nomination,

and declaration. Finally Mr Podsnap telegraphs to Mrs Veneering, 'We have brought him in.'

Another gorgeous dinner awaits them on their return to the Veneering halls, and Lady Tippins awaits them,

and Boots and Brewer await them. There is a modest assertion on everybody's part that everybody

singlehanded 'brought him in'; but in the main it is conceded by all, that that stroke of business on Brewer's

part, in going down to the house that night to see how things looked, was the masterstroke.

A touching little incident is related by Mrs Veneering, in the course of the evening. Mrs Veneering is

habitually disposed to be tearful, and has an extra disposition that way after her late excitement. Previous to

withdrawing from the dinnertable with Lady Tippins, she says, in a pathetic and physically weak manner:

'You will all think it foolish of me, I know, but I must mention it. As I sat by Baby's crib, on the night before

The Analytical chemist, who is gloomily looking on, has diabolical impulses to suggest 'Wind' and throw up

'After an interval almost convulsive, Baby curled her little hands in one another and smiled.'

Mrs Veneering stopping here, Mr Podsnap deems it incumbent on him to say: 'I wonder why!'

'Could it be, I asked myself,' says Mrs Veneering, looking about her for her pockethandkerchief, 'that the

So overcome by the sentiment is Mrs Veneering, that they all get up to make a clear stage for Veneering, who

goes round the table to the rescue, and bears her out backward, with her feet impressively scraping the carpet:

after remarking that her work has been too much for her strength. Whether the fairies made any mention of

Poor little Twemlow, quite done up, is touched. and still continues touched after he is safely housed over the

liverystable yard in Duke Street, Saint James's. But there, upon his sofa, a tremendous consideration breaks

'Gracious heavens! Now I have time to think of it, he never saw one of his constituents in all his days, until

After having paced the room in distress of mind, with his hand to his forehead, the innocent Twemlow returns

'I shall either go distracted, or die, of this man. He comes upon me too late in life. I am not strong enough to

To use the cold language of the world, Mrs Alfred Lammle rapidly improved the acquaintance of Miss

Podsnap. To use the warm language of Mrs Lammle, she and her sweet Georgiana soon became one: in heart,

Whenever Georgiana could escape from the thraldom of Podsnappery; could throw off the bedclothes of the

custard coloured phaeton, and get up; could shrink out of the range of her mother's rocking, and (so to

speak) rescue her poor little frosty toes from being rocked over; she repaired to her friend, Mrs Alfred

Lammle. Mrs Podsnap by no means objected. As a consciously 'splendid woman,' accustomed to overhear

herself so denominated by elderly osteologists pursuing their studies in dinner society, Mrs Podsnap could

dispense with her daughter. Mr Podsnap, for his part, on being informed where Georgiana was, swelled with

patronage of the Lammles. That they, when unable to lay hold of him, should respectfully grasp at the hem of

his mantle; that they, when they could not bask in the glory of him the sun, should take up with the pale

reflected light of the watery young moon his daughter; appeared quite natural, becoming, and proper. It gave

him a better opinion of the discretion of the Lammles than he had heretofore held, as showing that they

appreciated the value of the connexion. So, Georgiana repairing to her friend, Mr Podsnap went out to dinner,

and to dinner, and yet to dinner, arm in arm with Mrs Podsnap: settling his obstinate head in his cravat and

shirtcollar, much as if he were performing on the Pandean pipes, in his own honour, the triumphal march,

It was a trait in Mr Podsnap's character (and in one form or other it will be generally seen to pervade the

depths and shallows of Podsnappery), that he could not endure a hint of disparagement of any friend or

acquaintance of his. 'How dare you?' he would seem to say, in such a case. 'What do you mean? I have

licensed this person. This person has taken out MY certificate. Through this person you strike at me, Podsnap

the Great. And it is not that I particularly care for the person's dignity, but that I do most particularly care for

Podsnap's.' Hence, if any one in his presence had presumed to doubt the responsibility of the Lammles, he

would have been mightily huffed. Not that any one did, for Veneering, M.P., was always the authority for

their being very rich, and perhaps believed it. As indeed he might, if he chose, for anything he knew of the

Mr and Mrs Lammle's house in Sackville Street, Piccadilly, was but a temporary residence. It has done well

enough, they informed their friends, for Mr Lammle when a bachelor, but it would not do now. So, they were

always looking at palatial residences in the best situations, and always very nearly taking or buying one, but

never quite concluding the bargain. Hereby they made for themselves a shining little reputation apart. People

said, on seeing a vacant palatial residence, 'The very thing for the Lammles!' and wrote to the Lammles about

it, and the Lammles always went to look at it, but unfortunately it never exactly answered. In short, they

suffered so many disappointments, that they began to think it would he necessary to build a palatial residence.

And hereby they made another shining reputation; many persons of their acquaintance becoming by

anticipation dissatisfied with their own houses, and envious of the nonexistent Lammle structure.

The handsome fittings and furnishings of the house in Sackville Street were piled thick and high over the

skeleton upstairs, and if it ever whispered from under its load of upholstery, 'Here I am in the closet!' it was

to very few ears, and certainly never to Miss Podsnap's. What Miss Podsnap was particularly charmed with,

next to the graces of her friend, was the happiness of her friend's married life. This was frequently their theme

'I am sure,' said Miss Podsnap, 'Mr Lammle is like a lover. At least II should think he was.'

'Alfred, you know,' hinted Mrs Lammle, playfully shaking her head. 'You were never to say Mr Lammle any

'Oh! Alfred, then. I am glad it's no worse. I was afraid I had said something shocking. I am always saying

Mrs Lammle bestowed a sweet and loving smile upon her friend, which Miss Podsnap returned as she best

'I don't say that, Sophronia,' Georgiana replied, beginning to conceal her elbows. 'I haven't any notion of a

lover. The dreadful wretches that ma brings up at places to torment me, are not lovers. I only mean that

'Loves you so. He always treats you with such delicate gallantry and attention. Now, don't he?'

'Truly, my dear,' said Mrs Lammle, with a rather singular expression crossing her face. 'I believe that he loves

'But do you know, my Georgiana,' Mrs Lammle resumed presently, 'that there is something suspicious in your

'Doesn't it rather suggest,' said Mrs Lammle archly, 'that my Georgiana's little heart is'

'Oh don't!' Miss Podsnap blushingly besought her. 'Please don't! I assure you, Sophronia, that I only praise

Sophronia's glance was as if a rather new light broke in upon her. It shaded off into a cool smile, as she said,

'You are quite wrong, my love, in your guess at my meaning. What I insinuated was, that my Georgiana's

'No, no, no,' said Georgiana. 'I wouldn't have anybody say anything to me in that way for I don't know how

'In what way, my Georgiana?' inquired Mrs Lammle, still smiling coolly with her eyes upon her lunch, and

'YOU know,' returned poor little Miss Podsnap. 'I think I should go out of my mind, Sophronia, with vexation

and shyness and detestation, if anybody did. It's enough for me to see how loving you and your husband are.

That's a different thing. I couldn't bear to have anything of that sort going on with myself. I should beg and

Ah! here was Alfred. Having stolen in unobserved, he playfully leaned on the back of Sophronia's chair, and,

as Miss Podsnap saw him, put one of Sophronia's wandering locks to his lips, and waved a kiss from it

'What is this about husbands and detestations?' inquired the captivating Alfred.

'Why, they say,' returned his wife, 'that listeners never hear any good of themselves; though youbut pray

'Then I may go onthough if you had been here but a moment or two sooner, you would have heard your

'Only, if they were to be called praises at all which I really don't think they were,' explained Miss Podsnap in

'Sophronia!' murmured Alfred. 'My life!' and kissed her hand. In return for which she kissed his watchchain.

'But it was not I who was to be taken away and trampled upon, I hope?' said Alfred, drawing a seat between

'But if you are determined to know, Mr Inquisitive Pet, as I suppose you are,' said the happy and fond

'Sophronia, my love,' remonstrated Mr Lammle, becoming graver, 'you are not serious?'

'Now this,' said Mr Lammle, 'shows the accidental combinations that there are in things! Could you believe,

my Ownest, that I came in here with the name of an aspirant to our Georgiana on my lips?'

'Of course I could believe, Alfred,' said Mrs Lammle, 'anything that YOU told me.'

How delightful those interchanges, and the looks accompanying them! Now, if the skeleton upstairs had

taken that opportunity, for instance, of calling out 'Here I am, suffocating in the closet!'

'You do, my darlingthat I came into the room all but uttering young Fledgeby's name. Tell Georgiana,

'Oh no, don't! Please don't!' cried Miss Podsnap, putting her fingers in her ears. 'I'd rather not.'

Mrs Lammle laughed in her gayest manner, and, removing her Georgiana's unresisting hands, and playfully

holding them in her own at arms' length, sometimes near together and sometimes wide apart, went on:

'You must know, you dearly beloved little goose, that once upon a time there was a certain person called

young Fledgeby. And this young Fledgeby, who was of an excellent family and rich, was known to two other

certain persons, dearly attached to one another and called Mr and Mrs Alfred Lammle. So this young

Fledgeby, being one night at the play, there sees with Mr and Mrs Alfred Lammle, a certain heroine called'

'No, don't say Georgiana Podsnap!' pleaded that young lady almost in tears. 'Please don't. Oh do do do say

'No other,' said Mrs Lammle, laughing airily, and, full of affectionate blandishments, opening and closing

Georgiana's arms like a pair of compasses, than my little Georgiana Podsnap. So this young Fledgeby goes to

'Oh pleeeease don't!' Georgiana, as if the supplication were being squeezed out of her by powerful

'Oh, I don't know what he said,' cried Georgiana wildly, 'but I hate him all the same for saying it.'

'My dear,' said Mrs Lammle, always laughing in her most captivating way, 'the poor young fellow only says

'Oh, what shall I ever do!' interposed Georgiana. 'Oh my goodness what a Fool he must be!'

'And implores to be asked to dinner, and to make a fourth at the play another time. And so he dines

tomorrow and goes to the Opera with us. That's all. Except, my dear Georgianaand what will you think of

this!that he is infinitely shyer than you, and far more afraid of you than you ever were of any one in all

In perturbation of mind Miss Podsnap still fumed and plucked at her hands a little, but could not help

laughing at the notion of anybody's being afraid of her. With that advantage, Sophronia flattered her and

rallied her more successfully, and then the insinuating Alfred flattered her and rallied her, and promised that

at any moment when she might require that service at his hands, he would take young Fledgeby out and

trample on him. Thus it remained amicably understood that young Fledgeby was to come to admire, and that

Georgiana was to come to be admired; and Georgiana with the entirely new sensation in her breast of having

that prospect before her, and with many kisses from her dear Sophronia in present possession, preceded six

feet one of discontented footman (an amount of the article that always came for her when she walked home)

'If I understand this girl, sir, your dangerous fascinations have produced some effect upon her. I mention the

conquest in good time because I apprehend your scheme to be more important to you than your vanity.'

There was a mirror on the wall before them, and her eyes just caught him smirking in it. She gave the

reflected image a look of the deepest disdain, and the image received it in the glass. Next moment they

quietly eyed each other, as if they, the principals, had had no part in that expressive transaction.

It may have been that Mrs Lammle tried in some manner to excuse her conduct to herself by depreciating the

poor little victim of whom she spoke with acrimonious contempt. It may have been too that in this she did not

quite succeed, for it is very difficult to resist confidence, and she knew she had Georgiana's.

Nothing more was said between the happy pair. Perhaps conspirators who have once established an

understanding, may not be overfond of repeating the terms and objects of their conspiracy. Next day came;

Georgiana had by this time seen a good deal of the house and its frequenters. As there was a certain

handsome room with a billiard table in iton the ground floor, eating out a backyardwhich might have

been Mr Lammle's office, or library, but was called by neither name, but simply Mr Lammle's room, so it

would have been hard for stronger female heads than Georgiana's to determine whether its frequenters were

men of pleasure or men of business. Between the room and the men there were strong points of general

resemblance. Both were too gaudy, too slangey, too odorous of cigars, and too much given to horseflesh; the

latter characteristic being exemplified in the room by its decorations, and in the men by their conversation.

Highstepping horses seemed necessary to all Mr Lammle's friendsas necessary as their transaction of

business together in a gipsy way at untimely hours of the morning and evening, and in rushes and snatches.

There were friends who seemed to be always coming and going across the Channel, on errands about the

Bourse, and Greek and Spanish and India and Mexican and par and premium and discount and three quarters

and seven eighths. There were other friends who seemed to be always lolling and lounging in and out of the

City, on questions of the Bourse, and Greek and Spanish and India and Mexican and par and premium and

discount and three quarters and seven eighths. They were all feverish, boastful, and indefinably loose; and

they all ate and drank a great deal; and made bets in eating and drinking. They all spoke of sums of money,

and only mentioned the sums and left the money to be understood; as 'five and forty thousand Tom,' or 'Two

hundred and twentytwo on every individual share in the lot Joe.' They seemed to divide the world into two

classes of people; people who were making enormous fortunes, and people who were being enormously

ruined. They were always in a hurry, and yet seemed to have nothing tangible to do; except a few of them

(these, mostly asthmatic and thicklipped) who were for ever demonstrating to the rest, with gold

pencilcases which they could hardly hold because of the big rings on their forefingers, how money was to

be made. Lastly, they all swore at their grooms, and the grooms were not quite as respectful or complete as

other men's grooms; seeming somehow to fall short of the groom point as their masters fell short of the

Young Fledgeby was none of these. Young Fledgeby had a peachy cheek, or a cheek compounded of the

peach and the red red red wall on which it grows, and was an awkward, sandy haired, smalleyed youth,

exceeding slim (his enemies would have said lanky), and prone to selfexamination in the articles of whisker

and moustache. While feeling for the whisker that he anxiously expected, Fledgeby underwent remarkable

fluctuations of spirits, ranging along the whole scale from confidence to despair. There were times when he

started, as exclaiming 'By Jupiter here it is at last!' There were other times when, being equally depressed, he

would be seen to shake his head, and give up hope. To see him at those periods leaning on a chimneypiece,

like as on an urn containing the ashes of his ambition, with the cheek that would not sprout, upon the hand on

Not so was Fledgeby seen on this occasion. Arrayed in superb raiment, with his opera hat under his arm, he

concluded his self examination hopefully, awaited the arrival of Miss Podsnap, and talked smalltalk with

Mrs Lammle. In facetious homage to the smallness of his talk, and the jerky nature of his manners,

Fledgeby's familiars had agreed to confer upon him (behind his back) the honorary title of Fascination

'Warm weather, Mrs Lammle,' said Fascination Fledgeby. Mrs Lammle thought it scarcely as warm as it had

been yesterday. 'Perhaps not,' said Fascination Fledgeby, with great quickness of repartee; 'but I expect it will

'Some people,' said Fascination Fledgeby, 'are accustomed to take long drives; but it generally appears to me

Being in such feather, he might have surpassed himself in his next sally, had not Miss Podsnap been

announced. Mrs Lammle flew to embrace her darling little Georgy, and when the first transports were over,

presented Mr Fledgeby. Mr Lammle came on the scene last, for he was always late, and so were the

frequenters always late; all hands being bound to be made late, by private information about the Bourse, and

Greek and Spanish and India and Mexican and par and premium and discount and three quarters and seven

A handsome little dinner was served immediately, and Mr Lammle sat sparkling at his end of the table, with

his servant behind his chair, and HIS everlingering doubts upon the subject of his wages behind himself. Mr

Lammle's utmost powers of sparkling were in requisition today, for Fascination Fledgeby and Georgiana not

only struck each other speechless, but struck each other into astonishing attitudes; Georgiana, as she sat

facing Fledgeby, making such efforts to conceal her elbows as were totally incompatible with the use of a

knife and fork; and Fledgeby, as he sat facing Georgiana, avoiding her countenance by every possible device,

and betraying the discomposure of his mind in feeling for his whiskers with his spoon, his wine glass, and his

'Georgiana,' said Mr Lammle, low and smiling, and sparkling all over, like a harlequin; 'you are not in your

Georgiana faltered that she was much the same as she was in general; she was not aware of being different.

'Not aware of being different!' retorted Mr Alfred Lammle. 'You, my dear Georgiana! Who are always so

natural and unconstrained with us! Who are such a relief from the crowd that are all alike! Who are the

Miss Podsnap looked at the door, as if she entertained confused thoughts of taking refuge from these

'Now, I will be judged,' said Mr Lammle, raising his voice a little, 'by my friend Fledgeby.'

'Oh DON'T!' Miss Podsnap faintly ejaculated: when Mrs Lammle took the promptbook.

'I beg your pardon, Alfred, my dear, but I cannot part with Mr Fledgeby quite yet; you must wait for him a

Fledgeby must have conducted it on his side with immense art, for no appearance of uttering one syllable had

'A personal discussion, Sophronia, my love? What discussion? Fledgeby, I am jealous. What discussion,

Trying to look as if he knew anything about it, Fascination replied, 'Yes, tell him.'

'We were discussing then,' said Mrs Lammle, 'if you MUST know, Alfred, whether Mr Fledgeby was in his

'Why, that is the very point, Sophronia, that Georgiana and I were discussing as to herself! What did

'Oh, a likely thing, sir, that I am going to tell you everything, and be told nothing! What did Georgiana say?'

'Georgiana said she was doing her usual justice to herself today, and I said she was not.'

'Precisely,' exclaimed Mrs Lammle, 'what I said to Mr Fledgeby.' Still, it wouldn't do. They would not look at

one another. No, not even when the sparkling host proposed that the quartette should take an appropriately

sparkling glass of wine. Georgiana looked from her wine glass at Mr Lammle and at Mrs Lammle; but

mightn't, couldn't, shouldn't, wouldn't, look at Mr Fledgeby. Fascination looked from his wine glass at Mrs

Lammle and at Mr Lammle; but mightn't, couldn't, shouldn't, wouldn't, look at Georgiana.

More prompting was necessary. Cupid must be brought up to the mark. The manager had put him down in

'Georgy, my love,' remarked Mrs Lammle aside to her dear girl, 'I rely upon you not to go over to the

Fascination wished to know if the colour were not called rose colour? Yes, said Mr Lammle; actually he

knew everything; it was really rosecolour. Fascination took rosecolour to mean the colour of roses. (In this

he was very warmly supported by Mr and Mrs Lammle.) Fascination had heard the term Queen of Flowers

applied to the Rose. Similarly, it might be said that the dress was the Queen of Dresses. ('Very happy,

Fledgeby!' from Mr Lammle.) Notwithstanding, Fascination's opinion was that we all had our eyesor at

least a large majority of usand thatandand his farther opinion was several ands, with nothing beyond

'Oh, Mr Fledgeby,' said Mrs Lammle, 'to desert me in that way! Oh, Mr Fledgeby, to abandon my poor dear

'But what,' said Mrs Lammle, stealing her affectionate hand towards her dear girl's, 'what does Georgy say?'

'She says,' replied Mr Lammle, interpreting for her, 'that in her eyes you look well in any colour, Sophronia,

and that if she had expected to be embarrassed by so pretty a compliment as she has received, she would have

worn another colour herself. Though I tell her, in reply, that it would not have saved her, for whatever colour

'He says,' replied Mrs Lammle, interpreting for him, and patting the back of her dear girl's hand, as if it were

Fledgeby who was patting it, 'that it was no compliment, but a little natural act of homage that he couldn't

resist. And,' expressing more feeling as if it were more feeling on the part of Fledgeby, 'he is right, he is

Still, no not even now, would they look at one another. Seeming to gnash his sparkling teeth, studs, eyes, and

buttons, all at once, Mr Lammle secretly bent a dark frown on the two, expressive of an intense desire to

'Have you heard this opera of tonight, Fledgeby?' he asked, stopping very short, to prevent himself from

'Neither do you know it, Georgy?' said Mrs Lammle. 'Nno,' replied Georgiana, faintly, under the

'Why, then,' said Mrs Lammle, charmed by the discovery which flowed from the premises, 'you neither of

Even the craven Fledgeby felt that the time was now come when he must strike a blow. He struck it by

saying, partly to Mrs Lammle and partly to the circumambient air, 'I consider myself very fortunate in being

As he stopped dead, Mr Lammle, making that gingerous bush of his whiskers to look out of, offered him the

'No, I wasn't going to say that,' said Fledgeby. 'I was going to say Fate. I consider it very fortunate that Fate

has written in the book ofin the book which is its own propertythat I should go to that opera for the first

To which Georgiana replied, hooking her two little fingers in one another, and addressing the tablecloth,

'Thank you, but I generally go with no one but you, Sophronia, and I like that very much.'

Content perforce with this success for the time, Mr Lammle let Miss Podsnap out of the room, as if he were

opening her cage door, and Mrs Lammle followed. Coffee being presently served up stairs, he kept a watch

on Fledgeby until Miss Podsnap's cup was empty, and then directed him with his finger (as if that young

gentleman were a slow Retriever) to go and fetch it. This feat he performed, not only without failure, but

even with the original embellishment of informing Miss Podsnap that green tea was considered bad for the

nerves. Though there Miss Podsnap unintentionally threw him out by faltering, 'Oh, is it indeed? How does it

The carriage announced, Mrs Lammle said; 'Don't mind me, Mr Fledgeby, my skirts and cloak occupy both

my hands, take Miss Podsnap.' And he took her, and Mrs Lammle went next, and Mr Lammle went last,

But he was all sparkle and glitter in the box at the Opera, and there he and his dear wife made a conversation

between Fledgeby and Georgiana in the following ingenious and skilful manner. They sat in this order: Mrs

Lammle, Fascination Fledgeby, Georgiana, Mr Lammle. Mrs Lammle made leading remarks to Fledgeby,

only requiring monosyllabic replies. Mr Lammle did the like with Georgiana. At times Mrs Lammle would

'Alfred, my dear, Mr Fledgeby very justly says, apropos of the last scene, that true constancy would not

require any such stimulant as the stage deems necessary.' To which Mr Lammle would reply, 'Ay, Sophronia,

my love, but as Georgiana has observed to me, the lady had no sufficient reason to know the state of the

gentleman's affections.' To which Mrs Lammle would rejoin, 'Very true, Alfred; but Mr Fledgeby points out,'

this. To which Alfred would demur: 'Undoubtedly, Sophronia, but Georgiana acutely remarks,' that. Through

this device the two young people conversed at great length and committed themselves to a variety of delicate

sentiments, without having once opened their lips, save to say yes or no, and even that not to one another.

Fledgeby took his leave of Miss Podsnap at the carriage door, and the Lammles dropped her at her own

home, and on the way Mrs Lammle archly rallied her, in her fond and protecting manner, by saying at

intervals, 'Oh little Georgiana, little Georgiana!' Which was not much; but the tone added, 'You have enslaved

And thus the Lammles got home at last, and the lady sat down moody and weary, looking at her dark lord

engaged in a deed of violence with a bottle of sodawater as though he were wringing the neck of some

unlucky creature and pouring its blood down his throat. As he wiped his dripping whiskers in an ogreish way,

'You sneer, perhaps; and you take a lofty air upon yourself perhaps! But I tell you this:when that young

fellow's interest is concerned, he holds as tight as a horseleech. When money is in question with that young

'He is. Almost as good a one as you thought me for you. He has no quality of youth in him, but such as you

have seen today. Touch him upon money, and you touch no booby then. He really is a dolt, I suppose, in

'Ay! she has money in her own right in any case. You have done so well today, Sophronia, that I answer the

question, though you know I object to any such questions. You have done so well to day, Sophronia, that

Fledgeby deserved Mr Alfred Lammle's eulogium. He was the meanest cur existing, with a single pair of

legs. And instinct (a word we all clearly understand) going largely on four legs, and reason always on two,

The father of this young gentleman had been a moneylender, who had transacted professional business with

the mother of this young gentleman, when he, the latter, was waiting in the vast dark ante chambers of the

present world to be born. The lady, a widow, being unable to pay the moneylender, married him; and in due

course, Fledgeby was summoned out of the vast dark ante chambers to come and be presented to the

RegistrarGeneral. Rather a curious speculation how Fledgehy would otherwise have disposed of his leisure

Fledgeby's mother offended her family by marrying Fledgeby's father. It is one of the easiest achievements in

life to offend your family when your family want to get rid of you. Fledgeby's mother's family had been very

much offended with her for being poor, and broke with her for becoming comparatively rich. Fledgeby's

mother's family was the Snigsworth family. She had even the high honour to be cousin to Lord

Snigsworthso many times removed that the noble Earl would have had no compunction in removing her

one time more and dropping her clean outside the cousinly pale; but cousin for all that.

Among her prematrimonial transactions with Fledgeby's father, Fledgeby's mother had raised money of him

at a great disadvantage on a certain reversionary interest. The reversion falling in soon after they were

married, Fledgeby's father laid hold of the cash for his separate use and benefit. This led to subjective

differences of opinion, not to say objective interchanges of boot jacks, backgammon boards, and other such

domestic missiles, between Fledgeby's father and Fledgeby's mother, and those led to Fledgeby's mother

spending as much money as she could, and to Fledgeby's father doing all he couldn't to restrain her.

Fledgeby's childhood had been, in consequence, a stormy one; but the winds and the waves had gone down in

He lived in chambers in the Albany, did Fledgeby, and maintained a spruce appearance. But his youthful fire

was all composed of sparks from the grindstone; and as the sparks flew off, went out, and never warmed

anything, be sure that Fledgeby had his tools at the grindstone, and turned it with a wary eye.

Mr Alfred Lammle came round to the Albany to breakfast with Fledgeby. Present on the table, one scanty pot

of tea, one scanty loaf, two scanty pats of butter, two scanty rashers of bacon, two pitiful eggs, and an

'You misunderstand me,' said Fledgeby. 'I don't mean I'll tell you that. I mean I'll tell you something else.'

'Ah, but there you misunderstand me again,' said Fledgeby. 'I mean I'll tell you nothing.'

'Look here,' said Fledgeby. 'You're deep and you're ready. Whether I am deep or not, never mind. I am not

ready. But I can do one thing, Lammle, I can hold my tongue. And I intend always doing it.'

'May be, or may not be. If I am a shorttongued fellow, it may amount to the same thing. Now, Lammle, I am

'Never mind. It seemed so, but things are not always what they seem. I saw a man examined as a witness in

Westminster Hall. Questions put to him seemed the simplest in the world, but turned out to be anything rather

than that, after he had answered 'em. Very well. Then he should have held his tongue. If he had held his

'If I had held my tongue, you would never have seen the subject of my question,' remarked Lammle,

'Now, Lammle,' said Fascination Fledgeby, calmly feeling for his whisker, 'it won't do. I won't be led on into

'Can?' Mr Lammie fell back upon propitiation. 'I should think you could! Why, when these fellows of our

acquaintance drink and you drink with them, the more talkative they get, the more silent you get. The more

'I don't object, Lammle,' returned Fledgeby, with an internal chuckle, 'to being understood, though I object to

'And when all the rest of us are discussing our ventures, none of us ever know what a single venture of yours

'And none of you ever will from me, Lammle,' replied Fledgeby, with another internal chuckle; 'that certainly

'Why of course it is, I know!' rejoined Lammle, with a flourish of frankness, and a laugh, and stretching out

his hands as if to show the universe a remarkable man in Fledgeby. 'If I hadn't known it of my Fledgeby,

'Ah!' remarked Fascination, shaking his head slyly. 'But I am not to be got at in that way. I am not vain. That

sort of vanity don't pay, Lammle. No, no, no. Compliments only make me hold my tongue the more.'

Alfred Lammle pushed his plate away (no great sacrifice under the circumstances of there being so little in

it), thrust his hands in his pockets, leaned back in his chair, and contemplated Fledgeby in silence. Then he

slowly released his left hand from its pocket, and made that bush of his whiskers, still contemplating him in

silence. Then he slowly broke silence, and slowly said: 'What theDevil is this fellow about this

'Now, look here, Lammle,' said Fascination Fledgeby, with the meanest of twinkles in his meanest of eyes:

which were too near together, by the way: 'look here, Lammle; I am very well aware that I didn't show to

advantage last night, and that you and your wifewho, I consider, is a very clever woman and an agreeable

womandid. I am not calculated to show to advantage under that sort of circumstances. I know very well

you two did show to advantage, and managed capitally. But don't you on that account come talking to me as

'And all this,' cried Alfred, after studying with a look the meanness that was fain to have the meanest help,

and yet was so mean as to turn upon it: 'all this because of one simple natural question!'

'You should have waited till I thought proper to say something about it of myself. I don't like your coming

'Well, when you are in the gracious mind to say anything about it of yourself,' retorted Lammle, 'pray do.'

'I have done it. I have said you managed capitally. You and your wife both. If you'll go on managing

'Or,' pursued the other'or take it in your head that people are your puppets because they don't come out to

advantage at the particular moments when you do, with the assistance of a very clever and agreeable wife. All

the rest keep on doing, and let Mrs Lammle keep on doing. Now, I have held my tongue when I thought

proper, and I have spoken when I thought proper, and there's an end of that. And now the question is,'

'Perhaps you're right and will find yourself better without it,' replied Fascination, in greatly improved spirits.

'To ask you if you'll have another rasher would be unmeaning flattery, for it would make you thirsty all day.

'Then I will,' said Fascination. And it was not a mere retort for the sound's sake, but was a cheerful cogent

consequence of the refusal; for if Lammle had applied himself again to the loaf, it would have been so

heavily visited, in Fledgeby's opinion, as to demand abstinence from bread, on his part, for the remainder of

Whether this young gentleman (for he was but threeandtwenty) combined with the miserly vice of an old

man, any of the open handed vices of a young one, was a moot point; so very honourably did he keep his

own counsel. He was sensible of the value of appearances as an investment, and liked to dress well; but he

drove a bargain for every moveable about him, from the coat on his back to the china on his breakfasttable;

and every bargain by representing somebody's ruin or somebody's loss, acquired a peculiar charm for him. It

was a part of his avarice to take, within narrow bounds, long odds at races; if he won, he drove harder

bargains; if he lost, he half starved himself until next time. Why money should be so precious to an Ass too

dull and mean to exchange it for any other satisfaction, is strange; but there is no animal so sure to get laden

with it, as the Ass who sees nothing written on the face of the earth and sky but the three letters L. S. D.not

Luxury, Sensuality, Dissoluteness, which they often stand for, but the three dry letters. Your concentrated

Fascination Fledgeby feigned to be a young gentleman living on his means, but was known secretly to be a

kind of outlaw in the billbroking line, and to put money out at high interest in various ways. His circle of

familiar acquaintance, from Mr Lammle round, all had a touch of the outlaw, as to their rovings in the merry

greenwood of Jobbery Forest, lying on the outskirts of the ShareMarket and the Stock Exchange.

'I suppose you, Lammle,' said Fledgeby, eating his bread and butter, 'always did go in for female society?'

'The sex were pleased to like me, sir,' said Lammle sulkily, but with the air of a man who had not been able to

'My late governor made a mess of it,' said Fledgeby. 'But Georis the right name Georgina or Georgiana?'

'I was thinking yesterday, I didn't know there was such a name. I thought it must end in ina.

'Why, you playif you canthe Concertina, you know,' replied Fledgeby, meditating very slowly. 'And you

havewhen you catch itthe Scarlatina. And you can come down from a balloon in a parachno you can't

'You were going to remark of Georgiana?' Lammle moodily hinted, after waiting in vain.

'I was going to remark of Georgiana, sir,' said Fledgeby, not at all pleased to be reminded of his having

forgotten it, 'that she don't seem to be violent. Don't seem to be of the pitchingin order.'

'Of course you'll say so,' replied Fledgeby, sharpening, the moment his interest was touched by another. 'But

you know, the real look out is this:what I say, not what you say. I say having my late governor and my

The respected Mr Lammle was a bully, by nature and by usual practice. Perceiving, as Fledgeby's affronts

cumulated, that conciliation by no means answered the purpose here, he now directed a scowling look into

Fledgeby's small eyes for the effect of the opposite treatment. Satisfied by what he saw there, he burst into a

violent passion and struck his hand upon the table, making the china ring and dance.

'You are a very offensive fellow, sir,' cried Mr Lammle, rising. 'You are a highly offensive scoundrel. What

'You are a very offensive fellow sir,' repeated Mr Lammle. 'You are a highly offensive scoundrel!'

'Why, you coarse and vulgar vagabond!' said Mr Lammle, looking fiercely about him, 'if your servant was

here to give me sixpence of your money to get my boots cleaned afterwardsfor you are not worth the

'I tell you what, Mr Fledgeby,' said Lammle advancing on him. 'Since you presume to contradict me, I'll

Fledgeby covered it with his hand instead, and said, retreating, 'I beg you won't!'

Still covering that feature and backing, Mr Fledgeby reiterated (apparently with a severe cold in his head), 'I

'And this fellow,' exclaimed Lammle, stopping and making the most of his chest'This fellow presumes on

my having selected him out of all the young fellows I know, for an advantageous opportunity! This fellow

presumes on my having in my desk round the corner, his dirty note of hand for a wretched sum payable on

the occurrence of a certain event, which event can only be of my and my wife's bringing about! This fellow,

'Repeat your words louder, sir. The just indignation of a gentleman has sent the blood boiling to my head. I

'I say,' repeated Fledgeby, with laborious explanatory politeness, 'I beg your pardon.'

Mr Lammle paused. 'As a man of honour,' said he, throwing himself into a chair, 'I am disarmed.'

Mr Fledgeby also took a chair, though less demonstratively, and by slow approaches removed his hand from

his nose. Some natural diffidence assailed him as to blowing it, so shortly after its having assumed a personal

and delicate, not to say public, character; but he overcame his scruples by degrees, and modestly took that

'Lammle,' he said sneakingly, when that was done, 'I hope we are friends again?'

'I must have gone too far in making myself disagreeable,' said Fledgeby, 'but I never intended it.'

'Say no more, say no more!' Mr Lammle repeated in a magnificent tone. 'Give me your'Fledgeby

They shook hands, and on Mr Lammle's part, in particular, there ensued great geniality. For, he was quite as

much of a dastard as the other, and had been in equal danger of falling into the second place for good, when

he took heart just in time, to act upon the information conveyed to him by Fledgeby's eye.

The breakfast ended in a perfect understanding. Incessant machinations were to be kept at work by Mr and

Mrs Lammle; love was to be made for Fledgeby, and conquest was to be insured to him; he on his part very

humbly admitting his defects as to the softer social arts, and entreating to be backed to the utmost by his two

Little recked Mr Podsnap of the traps and toils besetting his Young Person. He regarded her as safe within the

Temple of Podsnappery, hiding the fulness of time when she, Georgiana, should take him, FitzPodsnap,

who with all his worldly goods should her endow. It would call a blush into the cheek of his standard Young

Person to have anything to do with such matters save to take as directed, and with worldly goods as per

settlement to be endowed. Who giveth this woman to be married to this man? I, Podsnap. Perish the daring

It was a public holiday, and Fledgeby did not recover his spirits or his usual temperature of nose until the

afternoon. Walking into the City in the holiday afternoon, he walked against a living stream setting out of it;

and thus, when he turned into the precincts of St Mary Axe, he found a prevalent repose and quiet there. A

yellow overhanging plasterfronted house at which be stopped was quiet too. The blinds were all drawn

down, and the inscription Pubsey and Co. seemed to doze in the countinghouse window on the groundfloor

Fledgeby knocked and rang, and Fledgeby rang and knocked, but no one came. Fledgeby crossed the narrow

street and looked up at the housewindows, but nobody looked down at Fledgeby. He got out of temper,

crossed the narrow street again, and pulled the housebell as if it were the house's nose, and he were taking a

hint from his late experience. His ear at the keyhole seemed then, at last, to give him assurance that

something stirred within. His eye at the keyhole seemed to confirm his ear, for he angrily pulled the house's

nose again, and pulled and pulled and continued to pull, until a human nose appeared in the dark doorway.

He addressed an old Jewish man in an ancient coat, long of skirt, and wide of pocket. A venerable man, bald

and shining at the top of his head, and with long grey hair flowing down at its sides and mingling with his

beard. A man who with a graceful Eastern action of homage bent his head, and stretched out his hands with

'Generous Christian master,' urged the Jewish man, 'it being holiday, I looked for no one.'

'Holiday he blowed!' said Fledgeby, entering. 'What have YOU got to do with holidays? Shut the door.'

With his former action the old man obeyed. In the entry hung his rusty largebrimmed lowcrowned hat, as

long out of date as his coat; in the corner near it stood his staffno walkingstick but a veritable staff.

Fledgeby turned into the countinghouse, perched himself on a business stool, and cocked his hat. There

were light boxes on shelves in the countinghouse, and strings of mock beads hanging up. There were

samples of cheap clocks, and samples of cheap vases of flowers. Foreign toys, all.

Perched on the stool with his hat cocked on his head and one of his legs dangling, the youth of Fledgeby

hardly contrasted to advantage with the age of the Jewish man as he stood with his bare head bowed, and his

eyes (which he only raised in speaking) on the ground. His clothing was worn down to the rusty hue of the

hat in the entry, but though he looked shabby he did not look mean. Now, Fledgeby, though not shabby, did

'You have not told me what you were up to, you sir,' said Fledgeby, scratching his head with the brim of his

'Sir,' the old man represented with a grave and patient air, 'there must be two parties to the transaction of

'Your people need speak the truth sometimes, for they lie enough,' remarked Fascination Fledgeby.

'Sir, there is,' returned the old man with quiet emphasis, 'too much untruth among all denominations of men.'

Rather dashed, Fascination Fledgeby took another scratch at his intellectual head with his hat, to gain time for

'For instance,' he resumed, as though it were he who had spoken last, 'who but you and I ever heard of a poor

'The Jews,' said the old man, raising his eyes from the ground with his former smile. 'They hear of poor Jews

'Bother that!' returned Fledgeby. 'You know what I mean. You'd persuade me if you could, that you are a

poor Jew. I wish you'd confess how much you really did make out of my late governor. I should have a better

'Don't go on posturing like a Deaf and Dumb School,' said the ingenious Fledgeby, 'but express yourself like

'I had had sickness and misfortunes, and was so poor,' said the old man, 'as hopelessly to owe the father,

principal and interest. The son inheriting, was so merciful as to forgive me both, and place me here.'

He made a little gesture as though he kissed the hem of an imaginary garment worn by the noble youth before

'You won't say more, I see,' said Fledgeby, looking at him as if he would like to try the effect of extracting a

doubletooth or two, 'and so it's of no use my putting it to you. But confess this, Riah; who believes you to be

'No one,' repeated the old man with a grave slow wave of his head. 'All scout it as a fable. Were I to say "This

little fancy business is not mine";' with a lithe sweep of his easilyturning hand around him, to comprehend

the various objects on the shelves; '"it is the little business of a Christian young gentleman who places me, his

servant, in trust and charge here, and to whom I am accountable for every single bead," they would laugh.

'Sir, I tell them no more than I am about to repeat. When I tell them, "I cannot promise this, I cannot answer

for the other, I must see my principal, I have not the money, I am a poor man and it does not rest with me,"

they are so unbelieving and so impatient, that they sometimes curse me in Jehovah's name.'

'And at other times they say, "Can it never be done without these tricks, Mr Riah? Come, come, Mr Riah, we

know the arts of your people"my people!"If the money is to be lent, fetch it, fetch it; if it is not to be

'They say, "We know, Mr Riah, we know. We have but to look at you, and we know."'

'Oh, a good 'un are you for the post,' thought Fledgeby, 'and a good 'un was I to mark you out for it! I may be

Not a syllable of this reflection shaped itself in any scrap of Mr Fledgeby's breath, lest it should tend to put

his servant's price up. But looking at the old man as he stood quiet with his bead bowed and his eyes cast

down, he felt that to relinquish an inch of his baldness, an inch of his grey hair, an inch of his coatskirt, an

inch of his hatbrim, an inch of his walkingstaff, would be to relinquish hundreds of pounds.

'Look here, Riah,' said Fledgeby, mollified by these selfapproving considerations. 'I want to go a little more

'Casting my eye over the accounts, I find that branch of business pays pretty fairly, and I am game for

'Put it about in the right quarters, that you'll buy queer bills by the lumpby the pound weight if that's

allsupposing you see your way to a fair chance on looking over the parcel. And there's one thing more.

Come to me with the books for periodical inspection as usual, at eight on Monday morning.'

'That's all I wanted to say at the present time,' continued Fledgeby in a grudging vein, as he got off the stool,

'except that I wish you'd take the air where you can hear the bell, or the knocker, either one of the two or

both. Bytheby how DO you take the air at the top of the house? Do you stick your head out of a

'A thumbnail's space of garden would hold the treasure I bury, master,' said Riah. 'Twelve shillings a week,

'I should like to know what you really are worth,' returned Fledgeby, with whom his growing rich on that

stipend and gratitude was a very convenient fiction. 'But come! Let's have a look at your garden on the tiles,

'Have you, by George!' said Fledgeby; 'I suppose you happen to know whose premises these are?'

'Oh! I thought you might have overlooked that,' retorted Fledgeby, with his eyes on Riah's beard as he felt for

'Come up and see the guests, sir. I hope for your admission that they can do no harm.'

Passing him with a courteous reverence, specially unlike any action that Mr Fledgeby could for his life have

imparted to his own head and hands, the old man began to ascend the stairs. As he toiled on before, with his

palm upon the stairrail, and his long black skirt, a very gaberdine, overhanging each successive step, he

might have been the leader in some pilgrimage of devotional ascent to a prophet's tomb. Not troubled by any

such weak imagining, Fascination Fledgeby merely speculated on the time of life at which his beard had

Some final wooden steps conducted them, stooping under a low penthouse roof, to the housetop. Riah stood

Lizzie Hexam and Jenny Wren. For whom, perhaps with some old instinct of his race, the gentle Jew had

spread a carpet. Seated on it, against no more romantic object than a blackened chimney stack over which

some bumble creeper had been trained, they both pored over one book; both with attentive faces; Jenny with

the sharper; Lizzie with the more perplexed. Another little book or two were lying near, and a common

basket of common fruit, and another basket full of strings of beads and tinsel scraps. A few boxes of humble

flowers and evergreens completed the garden; and the encompassing wilderness of dowager old chimneys

twirled their cowls and fluttered their smoke, rather as if they were bridling, and fanning themselves, and

Taking her eyes off the book, to test her memory of something in it, Lizzie was the first to see herself

observed. As she rose, Miss Wren likewise became conscious, and said, irreverently addressing the great

chief of the premises: 'Whoever you are, I can't get up, because my back's bad and my legs are queer.'

('Don't look like anybody's master,' observed Miss Wren to herself, with a hitch of her chin and eyes.)

'This, sir,' pursued the old man, 'is a little dressmaker for little people. Explain to the master, Jenny.'

'Dolls; that's all,' said Jenny, shortly. 'Very difficult to fit too, because their figures are so uncertain. You

'Her friend,' resumed the old man, motioning towards Lizzie; 'and as industrious as virtuous. But that they

both are. They are busy early and late, sir, early and late; and in byetimes, as on this holiday, they go to

'I made acquaintance with my guests, sir,' pursued the Jew, with an evident purpose of drawing out the

dressmaker, 'through their coming here to buy of our damage and waste for Miss Jenny's millinery. Our waste

goes into the best of company, sir, on her rosycheeked little customers. They wear it in their hair, and on

'Ah!' said Fledgeby, on whose intelligence this dollfancy made rather strong demands; 'she's been buying

'I suppose she has,' Miss Jenny interposed; 'and paying for it too, most likely!'

'Let's have a look at it,' said the suspicious chief. Riah handed it to him. 'How much for this now?'

Riah confirmed her with two nods, as Fledgeby looked to him. A nod for each shilling.

'Well,' said Fledgeby, poking into the contents of the basket with his forefinger, 'the price is not so bad. You

'You have got good measure, Miss Jenny; but the price is not so bad.And you,' said Fledgeby, turning to

Looking askew at the questioner, Jenny stole her hand up to her friend's, and drew her friend down, so that

'We are thankful to come here for rest, sir,' said Jenny. 'You see, you don't know what the rest of this place is

'The quiet!' repeated Fledgeby, with a contemptuous turn of his head towards the City's roar. 'And the air!'

'Ah!' said Jenny. 'But it's so high. And you see the clouds rushing on above the narrow streets, not minding

them, and you see the golden arrows pointing at the mountains in the sky from which the wind comes, and

'Oh, so tranquil!' cried the little creature, smiling. 'Oh, so peaceful and so thankful! And you hear the people

who are alive, crying, and working, and calling to one another down in the close dark streets, and you seem to

pity them so! And such a chain has fallen from you, and such a strange good sorrowful happiness comes upon

'Why it was only just now,' said the little creature, pointing at him, 'that I fancied I saw him come out of his

grave! He toiled out at that low door so bent and worn, and then he took his breath and stood upright, and

looked all round him at the sky, and the wind blew upon him, and his life down in the dark was over!Till

he was called back to life,' she added, looking round at Fledgeby with that lower look of sharpness. 'Why did

Mr Fledgeby seemed to think it rather a good suggestion, and with a nod turned round. As Riah followed to

attend him down the stairs, the little creature called out to the Jew in a silvery tone, 'Don't be long gone.

Come back, and be dead!' And still as they went down they heard the little sweet voice, more and more

faintly, half calling and half singing, 'Come back and be dead, Come back and be dead!'

When they got down into the entry, Fledgeby, pausing under the shadow of the broad old hat, and

'At all events,' observed Fledgeby, with a dry whistle, 'I hope she ain't bad enough to put any chap up to the

fastenings, and get the premises broken open. You look out. Keep your weather eye awake and don't make

any more acquaintances, however handsome. Of course you always keep my name to yourself?'

'If they ask it, say it's Pubsey, or say it's Co, or say it's anything you like, but what it is.'

His grateful servantin whose race gratitude is deep, strong, and enduringbowed his head, and actually

did now put the hem of his coat to his lips: though so lightly that the wearer knew nothing of it.

Thus, Fascination Fledgeby went his way, exulting in the artful cleverness with which he had turned his

thumb down on a Jew, and the old man went his different way upstairs. As he mounted, the call or song

began to sound in his ears again, and, looking above, he saw the face of the little creature looking down out

of a Glory of her long bright radiant hair, and musically repeating to him, like a vision:

Again Mr Mortimer Lightwood and Mr Eugene Wrayburn sat together in the Temple. This evening, however,

they were not together in the place of business of the eminent solicitor, but in another dismal set of chambers

facing it on the same secondfloor; on whose dungeonlike black outerdoor appeared the legend:

Appearances indicated that this establishment was a very recent institution. The white letters of the

inscription were extremely white and extremely strong to the sense of smell, the complexion of the tables and

chairs was (like Lady Tippins's) a little too blooming to be believed in, and the carpets and floorcloth seemed

to rush at the beholder's face in the unusual prominency of their patterns. But the Temple, accustomed to tone

down both the still life and the human life that has much to do with it, would soon get the better of all that.

'Well!' said Eugene, on one side of the fire, 'I feel tolerably comfortable. I hope the upholsterer may do the

'To be sure,' pursued Eugene, reflecting, 'he is not in the secret of our pecuniary affairs, so perhaps he may be

'I mean to pay him, Eugene, for my part,' said Mortimer, in a slightly injured tone.

'Ah! I mean to pay him too,' retorted Eugene. 'But then I mean so much that Ithat I don't mean.'

'So much that I only mean and shall always only mean and nothing more, my dear Mortimer. It's the same

His friend, lying back in his easy chair, watched him lying back in his easy chair, as he stretched out his legs

on the hearthrug, and said, with the amused look that Eugene Wrayburn could always awaken in him

'Calls the domestic virtues vagaries!' exclaimed Eugene, raising his eyes to the ceiling.

'This very complete little kitchen of ours,' said Mortimer, 'in which nothing will ever be cooked'

'My dear, dear Mortimer,' returned his friend, lazily lifting his head a little to look at him, 'how often have I

'Do me the favour,' said Eugene, getting out of his chair with much gravity, 'to come and inspect that feature

of our establishment which you rashly disparage.' With that, taking up a candle, he conducted his chum into

the fourth room of the set of chambersa little narrow roomwhich was very completely and neatly fitted

as a kitchen. 'See!' said Eugene, 'miniature flourbarrel, rolling pin, spicebox, shelf of brown jars,

choppingboard, coffeemill, dresser elegantly furnished with crockery, saucepans and pans, roasting jack, a

charming kettle, an armoury of dishcovers. The moral influence of these objects, in forming the domestic

virtues, may have an immense influence upon me; not upon you, for you are a hopeless case, but upon me. In

fact, I have an idea that I feel the domestic virtues already forming. Do me the favour to step into my

bedroom. Secretaire, you see, and abstruse set of solid mahogany pigeonholes, one for every letter of the

alphabet. To what use do I devote them? I receive a billsay from Jones. I docket it neatly at the secretaire,

JONES, and I put it into pigeonhole J. It's the next thing to a receipt and is quite as satisfactory to ME. And I

very much wish, Mortimer,' sitting on his bed, with the air of a philosopher lecturing a disciple, 'that my

example might induce YOU to cultivate habits of punctuality and method; and, by means of the moral

influences with which I have surrounded you, to encourage the formation of the domestic virtues.'

Mortimer laughed again, with his usual commentaries of 'How CAN you be so ridiculous, Eugene!' and

'What an absurd fellow you are!' but when his laugh was out, there was something serious, if not anxious, in

his face. Despite that pernicious assumption of lassitude and indifference, which had become his second

nature, he was strongly attached to his friend. He had founded himself upon Eugene when they were yet boys

at school; and at this hour imitated him no less, admired him no less, loved him no less, than in those

'Eugene,' said he, 'if I could find you in earnest for a minute, I would try to say an earnest word to you.'

'An earnest word?' repeated Eugene. 'The moral influences are beginning to work. Say on.'

'In this desire for earnestness,' murmured Eugene, with the air of one who was meditating deeply, 'I trace the

'Eugene,' resumed Mortimer, disregarding the light interruption, and laying a hand upon Eugene's shoulder,

as he, Mortimer, stood before him seated on his bed, 'you are withholding something from me.'

'All this past summer, you have been withholding something from me. Before we entered on our boating

vacation, you were as bent upon it as I have seen you upon anything since we first rowed together. But you

cared very little for it when it came, often found it a tie and a drag upon you, and were constantly away. Now

it was well enough halfadozen times, a dozen times, twenty times, to say to me in your own odd manner,

which I know so well and like so much, that your disappearances were precautions against our boring one

another; but of course after a short while I began to know that they covered something. I don't ask what it is,

'I give you my word of honour, Mortimer,' returned Eugene, after a serious pause of a few moments, 'that I

'Upon my soul, don't know. I know less about myself than about most people in the world, and I don't know.'

'At any rate, you have some subject of interest there which used not to be there?'

'I really can't say,' replied Eugene, shaking his head blankly, after pausing again to reconsider. 'At times I

have thought yes; at other times I have thought no. Now, I have been inclined to pursue such a subject; now I

have felt that it was absurd, and that it tired and embarrassed me. Absolutely, I can't say. Frankly and

So replying, he clapped a hand, in his turn, on his friend's shoulder, as he rose from his seat upon the bed, and

'You must take your friend as he is. You know what I am, my dear Mortimer. You know how dreadfully

susceptible I am to boredom. You know that when I became enough of a man to find myself an embodied

conundrum, I bored myself to the last degree by trying to find out what I meant. You know that at length I

gave it up, and declined to guess any more. Then how can I possibly give you the answer that I have not

discovered? The old nursery form runs, "Riddlemeriddlemeree, p'raps you can't tell me what this may

So much of what was fantastically true to his own knowledge of this utterly careless Eugene, mingled with

the answer, that Mortimer could not receive it as a mere evasion. Besides, it was given with an engaging air

of openness, and of special exemption of the one friend he valued, from his reckless indifference.

'Come, dear boy!' said Eugene. 'Let us try the effect of smoking. If it enlightens me at all on this question, I

They returned to the room they had come from, and, finding it heated, opened a window. Having lighted their

cigars, they leaned out of this window, smoking, and looking down at the moonlight, as it shone into the

'No enlightenment,' resumed Eugene, after certain minutes of silence. 'I feel sincerely apologetic, my dear

'If nothing comes,' returned Mortimer, 'nothing can come from it. So I shall hope that this may hold good

throughout, and that there may be nothing on foot. Nothing injurious to you, Eugene, or'

Eugene stayed him for a moment with his hand on his arm, while he took a piece of earth from an old

flowerpot on the windowsill and dexterously shot it at a little point of light opposite; having done which to

'How,' said Eugene, taking another little piece of earth, and shooting it with great precision at the former

Checking himself with another piece of earth in his hand, Eugene looked at his friend inquiringly and a little

'Two belated wanderers in the mazes of the law,' said Eugene, attracted by the sound of footsteps, and

glancing down as he spoke, 'stray into the court. They examine the doorposts of number one, seeking the

name they want. Not finding it at number one, they come to number two. On the hat of wanderer number two,

the shorter one, I drop this pellet. Hitting him on the hat, I smoke serenely, and become absorbed in

Both the wanderers looked up towards the window; but, after interchanging a mutter or two, soon applied

themselves to the doorposts below. There they seemed to discover what they wanted, for they disappeared

from view by entering at the doorway. 'When they emerge,' said Eugene, 'you shall see me bring them both

He had not reckoned on their seeking his name, or Lightwood's. But either the one or the other would seem to

be in question, for now there came a knock at the door. 'I am on duty tonight,' said Mortimer, 'stay you

where you are, Eugene.' Requiring no persuasion, he stayed there, smoking quietly, and not at all curious to

know who knocked, until Mortimer spoke to him from within the room, and touched him. Then, drawing in

his head, he found the visitors to be young Charley Hexam and the schoolmaster; both standing facing him,

'Let me look at him,' returned Wrayburn, coolly. 'Oh, yes, yes. I recollect him!'

He had not been about to repeat that former action of taking him by the chin, but the boy had suspected him

of it, and had thrown up his arm with an angry start. Laughingly, Wrayburn looked to Lightwood for an

'Yes, I do say so,' interposed the boy. 'And I mean to say what I want to say, too, Mr Eugene Wrayburn!'

Passing him with his eyes as if there were nothing where he stood, Eugene looked on to Bradley Headstone.

With consummate indolence, he turned to Mortimer, inquiring: 'And who may this other person be?'

'I am Charles Hexam's friend,' said Bradley; 'I am Charles Hexam's schoolmaster.'

Composedly smoking, he leaned an elbow on the chimneypiece, at the side of the fire, and looked at the

schoolmaster. It was a cruel look, in its cold disdain of him, as a creature of no worth. The schoolmaster

looked at him, and that, too, was a cruel look, though of the different kind, that it had a raging jealousy and

Very remarkably, neither Eugene Wrayburn nor Bradley Headstone looked at all at the boy. Through the

ensuing dialogue, those two, no matter who spoke, or whom was addressed, looked at each other. There was

some secret, sure perception between them, which set them against one another in all ways.

'In some high respects, Mr Eugene Wrayburn,' said Bradley, answering him with pale and quivering lips, 'the

'In most respects, I dare say,' replied Eugene, enjoying his cigar, 'though whether high or low is of no

'True,' interposed Eugene, striking sharply and cutting him short at his mistake, 'it does not concern me at all

to know. I can say Schoolmaster, which is a most respectable title. You are right, Schoolmaster.'

It was not the dullest part of this goad in its galling of Bradley Headstone, that he had made it himself in a

moment of incautious anger. He tried to set his lips so as to prevent their quivering, but they quivered fast.

'Mr Eugene Wrayburn,' said the boy, 'I want a word with you. I have wanted it so much, that we have looked

out your address in the book, and we have been to your office, and we have come from your office here.'

'You have given yourself much trouble, Schoolmaster,' observed Eugene, blowing the feathery ash from his

'And I am glad to speak,' pursued the boy, 'in presence of Mr Lightwood, because it was through Mr

For a mere moment, Wrayburn turned his eyes aside from the schoolmaster to note the effect of the last word

on Mortimer, who, standing on the opposite side of the fire, as soon as the word was spoken, turned his face

'Similarly, it was through Mr Lightwood that you ever saw her again, for you were with him on the night

when my father was found, and so I found you with her on the next day. Since then, you have seen my sister

'Was this worth while, Schoolmaster?' murmured Eugene, with the air of a disinterested adviser. 'So much

'I don't know, Mr Wrayburn,' answered Bradley, with his passion rising, 'why you address me'

He said it so tauntingly in his perfect placidity, that the respectable righthand clutching the respectable

hairguard of the respectable watch could have wound it round his throat and strangled him with it. Not

another word did Eugene deem it worth while to utter, but stood leaning his head upon his hand, smoking,

and looking imperturbably at the chafing Bradley Headstone with his clutching righthand, until Bradley was

'Mr Wrayburn,' proceeded the boy, 'we not only know this that I have charged upon you, but we know more.

It has not yet come to my sister's knowledge that we have found it out, but we have. We had a plan, Mr

Headstone and I, for my sister's education, and for its being advised and overlooked by Mr Headstone, who is

a much more competent authority, whatever you may pretend to think, as you smoke, than you could

produce, if you tried. Then, what do we find? What do we find, Mr Lightwood? Why, we find that my sister

is already being taught, without our knowing it. We find that while my sister gives an unwilling and cold ear

to our schemes for her advantageI, her brother, and Mr Headstone, the most competent authority, as his

certificates would easily prove, that could be producedshe is wilfully and willingly profiting by other

schemes. Ay, and taking pains, too, for I know what such pains are. And so does Mr Headstone! Well!

Somebody pays for this, is a thought that naturally occurs to us; who pays? We apply ourselves to find out,

Mr Lightwood, and we find that your friend, this Mr Eugene Wrayburn, here, pays. Then I ask him what right

has he to do it, and what does he mean by it, and how comes he to be taking such a liberty without my

consent, when I am raising myself in the scale of society by my own exertions and Mr Headstone's aid, and

have no right to have any darkness cast upon my prospects, or any imputation upon my respectability,

The boyish weakness of this speech, combined with its great selfishness, made it a poor one indeed. And yet

Bradley Headstone, used to the little audience of a school, and unused to the larger ways of men, showed a

'Now I tell Mr Eugene Wrayburn,' pursued the boy, forced into the use of the third person by the hopelessness

of addressing him in the first, 'that I object to his having any acquaintance at all with my sister, and that I

request him to drop it altogether. He is not to take it into his head that I am afraid of my sister's caring for

(As the boy sneered, the Master sneered, and Eugene blew off the feathery ash again.)

'But I object to it, and that's enough. I am more important to to my sister than he thinks. As I raise myself, I

intend to raise her; she knows that, and she has to look to me for her prospects. Now I understand all this very

well, and so does Mr Headstone. My sister is an excellent girl, but she has some romantic notions; not about

such things as your Mr Eugene Wrayburns, but about the death of my father and other matters of that sort. Mr

Wrayburn encourages those notions to make himself of importance, and so she thinks she ought to be grateful

to him, and perhaps even likes to be. Now I don't choose her to be grateful to him, or to be grateful to

anybody but me, except Mr Headstone. And I tell Mr Wrayburn that if he don't take heed of what I say, it will

be worse for her. Let him turn that over in his memory, and make sure of it. Worse for her!'

'May I suggest, Schoolmaster,' said Eugene, removing his fast waning cigar from his lips to glance at it, 'that

'And Mr Lightwood,' added the boy, with a burning face, under the flaming aggravation of getting no sort of

answer or attention, 'I hope you'll take notice of what I have said to your friend, and of what your friend has

heard me say, word by word, whatever he pretends to the contrary. You are bound to take notice of it, Mr

Lightwood, for, as I have already mentioned, you first brought your friend into my sister's company, and but

for you we never should have seen him. Lord knows none of us ever wanted him, any more than any of us

will ever miss him. Now Mr Headstone, as Mr Eugene Wrayburn has been obliged to hear what I had to say,

and couldn't help himself, and as I have said it out to the last word, we have done all we wanted to do, and

'Go downstairs, and leave me a moment, Hexam,' he returned. The boy complying with an indignant look

and as much noise as he could make, swung out of the room; and Lightwood went to the window, and leaned

'You think me of no more value than the dirt under your feet,' said Bradley to Eugene, speaking in a carefully

'Mr Wrayburn, at least I know very well that it would be idle to set myself against you in insolent words or

overbearing manners. That lad who has just gone out could put you to shame in halfa dozen branches of

knowledge in half an hour, but you can throw him aside like an inferior. You can do as much by me, I have

'But I am more than a lad,' said Bradley, with his clutching hand, 'and I WILL be heard, sir.'

'As a schoolmaster,' said Eugene, 'you are always being heard. That ought to content you.'

'But it does not content me,' replied the other, white with passion. 'Do you suppose that a man, in forming

himself for the duties I discharge, and in watching and repressing himself daily to discharge them well,

'I suppose you,' said Eugene, 'judging from what I see as I look at you, to be rather too passionate for a good

'Passionate with you, sir, I admit I am. Passionate with you, sir, I respect myself for being. But I have not

'This more. Oh, what a misfortune is mine,' cried Bradley, breaking off to wipe the starting perspiration from

his face as he shook from head to foot, 'that I cannot so control myself as to appear a stronger creature than

this, when a man who has not felt in all his life what I have felt in a day can so command himself!' He said it

in a very agony, and even followed it with an errant motion of his hands as if he could have torn himself.

Eugene Wrayburn looked on at him, as if he found him beginning to be rather an entertaining study.

'Come, come, Schoolmaster,' returned Eugene, with a languid approach to impatience as the other again

struggled with himself; 'say what you have to say. And let me remind you that the door is standing open, and

'When I accompanied that youth here, sir, I did so with the purpose of adding, as a man whom you should not

be permitted to put aside, in case you put him aside as a boy, that his instinct is correct and right.' Thus

'No, sir,' said the other, flushed and fierce. 'I strongly support him in his disapproval of your visits to his

sister, and in his objection to your officiousnessand worsein what you have taken upon yourself to do

'No, sir. I determined to tell you that you are not justified in these proceedings, and that they are injurious to

'Are you her schoolmaster as well as her brother's?Or perhaps you would like to be?' said Eugene.

It was a stab that the blood followed, in its rush to Bradley Headstone's face, as swiftly as if it had been dealt

'A natural ambition enough,' said Eugene, coolly. Far be it from me to say otherwise. The sister who is

something too much upon your lips, perhapsis so very different from all the associations to which she had

been used, and from all the low obscure people about her, that it is a very natural ambition.'

'That can hardly be, for I know nothing concerning it, Schoolmaster, and seek to know nothing.'

'You reproach me with my origin,' said Bradley Headstone; 'you cast insinuations at my bringingup. But I

tell you, sir, I have worked my way onward, out of both and in spite of both, and have a right to be considered

'How I can reproach you with what is not within my knowledge, or how I can cast stones that were never in

my hand, is a problem for the ingenuity of a schoolmaster to prove,' returned Eugene. 'Is THAT all?'

'If you suppose that boy to be friendless, Mr Wrayburn, you deceive yourself. I am his friend, and you shall

'You may have promised yourself, sir, that you could do what you chose here, because you had to deal with a

mere boy, inexperienced, friendless, and unassisted. But I give you warning that this mean calculation is

wrong. You have to do with a man also. You have to do with me. I will support him, and, if need be, require

'I scorn your shifty evasions, and I scorn you,' said the schoolmaster. 'In the meanness of your nature you

revile me with the meanness of my birth. I hold you in contempt for it. But if you don't profit by this visit,

and act accordingly, you will find me as bitterly in earnest against you as I could be if I deemed you worth a

With a consciously bad grace and stiff manner, as Wrayburn looked so easily and calmly on, he went out with

these words, and the heavy door closed like a furnacedoor upon his red and white heats of rage.

'A curious monomaniac,' said Eugene. 'The man seems to believe that everybody was acquainted with his

Mortimer Lightwood being still at the window, to which he had in delicacy withdrawn, Eugene called to him,

'My dear fellow,' said Eugene, as he lighted another cigar, 'I fear my unexpected visitors have been

troublesome. If as a setoff (excuse the legal phrase from a barristeratlaw) you would like to ask Tippins

'Eugene, Eugene, Eugene,' replied Mortimer, still pacing the room, 'I am sorry for this. And to think that I

'What were your words that night at the riverside publichouse?' said Lightwood, stopping. 'What was it

that you asked me? Did I feel like a dark combination of traitor and pickpocket when I thought of that girl?'

His friend made no direct reply, but observed, after a few whiffs of his cigar, 'Don't mistake the situation.

There is no better girl in all this London than Lizzie Hexam. There is no better among my people at home; no

'There,' said Eugene, looking after him dubiously as he paced away to the other end of the room, 'you put me

'My dear fellow, I don't design anything. I have no design whatever. I am incapable of designs. If I conceived

'My dear Mortimer, not that tone of melancholy reproach, I entreat. What can I do more than tell you all I

know, and acknowledge my ignorance of all I don't know! How does that little old song go, which, under

pretence of being cheerful, is by far the most lugubrious I ever heard in my life?

"Away with melancholy, Nor doleful changes ring On life and human folly, But merrily merrily sing Fal la!"

Don't let us sing Fal la, my dear Mortimer (which is comparatively unmeaning), but let us sing that we give

'Are you in communication with this girl, Eugene, and is what these people say true?'

'My dear Mortimer, one would think the schoolmaster had left behind him a catechizing infection. You are

ruffled by the want of another cigar. Take one of these, I entreat. Light it at mine, which is in perfect order.

So! Now do me the justice to observe that I am doing all I can towards selfimprovement, and that you have

a light thrown on those household implements which, when you only saw them as in a glass darkly, you were

hastilyI must say hastilyinclined to depreciate. Sensible of my deficiencies, I have surrounded myself

with moral influences expressly meant to promote the formation of the domestic virtues. To those influences,

and to the improving society of my friend from boyhood, commend me with your best wishes.'

'Ah, Eugene!' said Lightwood, affectionately, now standing near him, so that they both stood in one little

cloud of smoke; 'I would that you answered my three questions! What is to come of it? What are you doing?

'And my dear Mortimer,' returned Eugene, lightly fanning away the smoke with his hand for the better

exposition of his frankness of face and manner, 'believe me, I would answer them instantly if I could. But to

enable me to do so, I must first have found out the troublesome conundrum long abandoned. Here it is.

Eugene Wrayburn.' Tapping his forehead and breast. 'Riddleme, riddle meree, perhaps you can't tell me

The arrangement between Mr Boffin and his literary man, Mr Silas Wegg, so far altered with the altered

habits of Mr Boffin's life, as that the Roman Empire usually declined in the morning and in the eminently

aristocratic family mansion, rather than in the evening, as of yore, and in Boffin's Bower. There were

occasions, however, when Mr Boffin, seeking a brief refuge from the blandishments of fashion, would

present himself at the Bower after dark, to anticipate the next sallying forth of Wegg, and would there, on the

old settle, pursue the downward fortunes of those enervated and corrupted masters of the world who were by

this time on their last legs. If Wegg had been worse paid for his office, or better qualified to discharge it, he

would have considered these visits complimentary and agreeable; but, holding the position of a

handsomelyremunerated humbug, he resented them. This was quite according to rule, for the incompetent

servant, by whomsoever employed, is always against his employer. Even those born governors, noble and

right honourable creatures, who have been the most imbecile in high places, have uniformly shown

themselves the most opposed (sometimes in belying distrust, sometimes in vapid insolence) to THEIR

employer. What is in such wise true of the public master and servant, is equally true of the private master and

When Mr Silas Wegg did at last obtain free access to 'Our House', as he had been wont to call the mansion

outside which he had sat shelterless so long, and when he did at last find it in all particulars as different from

his mental plans of it as according to the nature of things it well could be, that farseeing and farreaching

character, by way of asserting himself and making out a case for compensation, affected to fall into a

melancholy strain of musing over the mournful past; as if the house and he had had a fall in life together.

'And this, sir,' Silas would say to his patron, sadly nodding his head and musing, 'was once Our House! This,

sir, is the building from which I have so often seen those great creatures, Miss Elizabeth, Master George,

Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker'whose very names were of his own inventing'pass and repass! And has it

So tender were his lamentations, that the kindly Mr Boffin was quite sorry for him, and almost felt mistrustful

Two or three diplomatic interviews, the result of great subtlety on Mr Wegg's part, but assuming the mask of

careless yielding to a fortuitous combination of circumstances impelling him towards Clerkenwell, had

'Bring me round to the Bower,' said Silas, when the bargain was closed, 'next Saturday evening, and if a

sociable glass of old Jamaikey warm should meet your views, I am not the man to begrudge it.'

'You are aware of my being poor company, sir,' replied Mr Venus, 'but be it so.'

It being so, here is Saturday evening come, and here is Mr Venus come, and ringing at the Bowergate.

Mr Wegg opens the gate, descries a sort of brown paper truncheon under Mr Venus's arm, and remarks, in a

'Above a parcel! No!' says Wegg, with some dissatisfaction. But does not openly growl, 'a certain sort of

'Here is your purchase, Mr Wegg,' says Venus, politely handing it over, 'and I am glad to restore it to the

'Thankee,' says Wegg. 'Now this affair is concluded, I may mention to you in a friendly way that I've my

doubts whether, if I had consulted a lawyer, you could have kept this article back from me. I only throw it out

'You can't buy human flesh and blood in this country, sir; not alive, you can't,' says Wegg, shaking his head.

'I am not competent to speak upon that, Mr Wegg,' says Venus, reddening and growing something louder;

'but upon a point of fact I think myself competent to speak; and as a point of fact I would have seen

'I wouldn't say more than further, if I was you,' Mr Wegg suggests, pacifically.

'Before I'd have given that packet into your hand without being paid my price for it. I don't pretend to

know how the point of law may stand, but I'm thoroughly confident upon the point of fact.'

As Mr Venus is irritable (no doubt owing to his disappointment in love), and as it is not the cue of Mr Wegg

to have him out of temper, the latter gentleman soothingly remarks, 'I only put it as a little case; I only put it

'Then I'd rather, Mr Wegg, you put it another time, penn'orth etically,' is Mr Venus's retort, 'for I tell you

Arrived by this time in Mr Wegg's sittingroom, made bright on the chilly evening by gaslight and fire, Mr

Venus softens and compliments him on his abode; profiting by the occasion to remind Wegg that he (Venus)

'Tolerable,' Wegg rejoins. 'But bear in mind, Mr Venus, that there's no gold without its alloy. Mix for yourself

'I am but an indifferent performer, sir,' returns the other; 'but I'll accompany you with a whiff or two at

So, Mr Venus mixes, and Wegg mixes; and Mr Venus lights and puffs, and Wegg lights and puffs.

'Mystery,' returns Wegg. 'I don't like it, Mr Venus. I don't like to have the life knocked out of former

'No,' returns that gentleman. 'I know who profits by it. But I've no suspicions.'

Having said which, Mr Wegg smokes and looks at the fire with a most determined expression of Charity; as

if he had caught that cardinal virtue by the skirts as she felt it her painful duty to depart from him, and held

'Similarly,' resumes Wegg, 'I have observations as I can offer upon certain points and parties; but I make no

objections, Mr Venus. Here is an immense fortune drops from the clouds upon a person that shall be

nameless. Here is a weekly allowance, with a certain weight of coals, drops from the clouds upon me. Which

of us is the better man? Not the person that shall be nameless. That's an observation of mine, but I don't make

it an objection. I take my allowance and my certain weight of coals. He takes his fortune. That's the way it

'It would be a good thing for me, if I could see things in the calm light you do, Mr Wegg.'

'Again look here,' pursues Silas, with an oratorical flourish of his pipe and his wooden leg: the latter having

an undignified tendency to tilt him back in his chair; 'here's another observation, Mr Venus, unaccompanied

with an objection. Him that shall be nameless is liable to be talked over. He gets talked over. Him that shall

be nameless, having me at his right hand, naturally looking to be promoted higher, and you may perhaps say

'Him that shall be nameless, under such circumstances passes me by, and puts a talkingover stranger

above my head. Which of us two is the better man? Which of us two can repeat most poetry? Which of us

two has, in the service of him that shall be nameless, tackled the Romans, both civil and military, till he has

got as husky as if he'd been weaned and ever since brought up on sawdust? Not the talkingover stranger. Yet

the house is as free to him as if it was his, and he has his room, and is put upon a footing, and draws about a

thousand a year. I am banished to the Bower, to be found in it like a piece of furniture whenever wanted.

Merit, therefore, don't win. That's the way it works. I observe it, because I can't help observing it, being

accustomed to take a powerful sight of notice; but I don't object. Ever here before, Mr Venus?'

Mr Wegg rolls his eyes all round the room, in that ever unsatisfied quest of his, and then rolls his eyes all

round Mr Venus; as if suspicious of his having something about him to be found out.

'And yet, sir,' he pursues, 'being acquainted with old Mr Harmon, one would have thought it might have been

polite in you, too, to give him a call. And you're naturally of a polite disposition, you are.' This last clause as

'It is true, sir,' replies Venus, winking his weak eyes, and running his fingers through his dusty shock of hair,

'that I was so, before a certain observation soured me. You understand to what I allude, Mr Wegg? To a

certain written statement respecting not wishing to be regarded in a certain light. Since that, all is fled, save

'Yes, sir,' returns Venus, 'all! The world may deem it harsh, but I'd quite as soon pitch into my best friend as

Involuntarily making a pass with his wooden leg to guard himself as Mr Venus springs up in the emphasis of

this unsociable declaration, Mr Wegg tilts over on his back, chair and all, and is rescued by that harmless

'And about time to do it,' grumbles Silas, 'when a man's visitors, without a word of notice, conduct

themselves with the sudden wiciousness of Jacksinboxes! Don't come flying out of your chair like that, Mr

'Yes, but hang it,' says Wegg argumentatively, 'a wellgoverned mind can be soured sitting! And as to being

regarded in lights, there's bumpey lights as well as bony. IN which,' again rubbing his head, 'I object to regard

'If you'll be so good.' Mr Wegg slowly subdues his ironical tone and his lingering irritation, and resumes his

'Not a friend, Mr Wegg. Only known to speak to, and to have a little deal with now and then. A very

inquisitive character, Mr Wegg, regarding what was found in the dust. As inquisitive as secret.'

'Ah!' with another roll of his eyes. 'As to what was found in the dust now. Did you ever hear him mention

how he found it, my dear friend? Living on the mysterious premises, one would like to know. For instance,

where he found things? Or, for instance, how he set about it? Whether he began at the top ot the mounds, or

whether he began at the bottom. Whether he prodded'; Mr Wegg's pantomime is skilful and expressive here;

'or whether he scooped? Should you say scooped, my dear Mr Venus; or should you as a mansay prodded?'

'Because I suppose, sir, that what was found, was found in the sorting and sifting. All the mounds are sorted

On each occasion of his saying 'mix again', Mr Wegg, with a hop on his wooden leg, hitches his chair a little

nearer; more as if he were proposing that himself and Mr Venus should mix again, than that they should

'Living (as I said before) on the mysterious premises,' says Wegg when the other has acted on his hospitable

entreaty, 'one likes to know. Would you be inclined to say nowas a brotherthat he ever hid things in the

Mr Wegg claps on his spectacles, and admiringly surveys Mr Venus from head to foot.

'As a mortal equally with myself, whose hand I take in mine for the first time this day, having unaccountably

overlooked that act so full of boundless confidence binding a fellowcreetur TO a fellow creetur,' says Wegg,

holding Mr Venus's palm out, flat and ready for smiting, and now smiting it; 'as suchand no otherfor I

scorn all lowlier ties betwixt myself and the man walking with his face erect that alone I call my

Twinregarded and regarding in this trustful bondwhat do you think he might have hid?'

'As a Being with his hand upon his heart,' cries Wegg; and the apostrophe is not the less impressive for the

Being's hand being actually upon his rum and water; 'put your supposition into language, and bring it out, Mr

'He was the species of old gentleman, sir,' slowly returns that practical anatomist, after drinking, 'that I should

judge likely to take such opportunities as this place offered, of stowing away money, valuables, maybe

'As one that was ever an ornament to human life,' says Mr Wegg, again holding out Mr Venus's palm as if he

were going to tell his fortune by chiromancy, and holding his own up ready for smiting it when the time

should come; 'as one that the poet might have had his eye on, in writing the national naval words:

Helm aweather, now lay her close, Yard arm and yard arm she lies; Again, cried I, Mr Venus, give her

that is to say, regarded in the light of true British Oak, for such you are explain, Mr Venus, the expression

'Seeing that the old gentleman was generally cutting off some near relation, or blocking out some natural

affection,' Mr Venus rejoins, 'he most likely made a good many wills and codicils.'

The palm of Silas Wegg descends with a sounding smack upon the palm of Venus, and Wegg lavishly

Having now hitched his wooden leg and his chair close in front of Mr Venus, Mr Wegg rapidly mixes for

both, gives his visitor his glass, touches its rim with the rim of his own, puts his own to his lips, puts it down,

'Mr Venus. It ain't that I object to being passed over for a stranger, though I regard the stranger as a more than

doubtful customer. It ain't for the sake of making money, though money is ever welcome. It ain't for myself,

though I am not so haughty as to be above doing myself a good turn. It's for the cause of the right.'

Mr Venus, passively winking his weak eyes both at once, demands: 'What is, Mr Wegg?'

'If there IS anything to be found on these premises, let us find it together. Let us make the friendly move of

agreeing to look for it together. Let us make the friendly move of agreeing to share the profits of it equally

'Then,' says Mr Venus, looking up, after meditating with his hair held in his hands, as if he could only fix his

attention by fixing his head; 'if anything was to be unburied from under the dust, it would be kept a secret by

'That would depend upon what it was, Mr Venus. Say it was money, or plate, or jewellery, it would be as

'In the cause of the right it would. Because it would be unknowingly sold with the mounds else, and the buyer

would get what he was never meant to have, and never bought. And what would that be, Mr Venus, but the

'According to what they contained we should offer to dispose of 'em to the parties most interested,' replies

'Always so, Mr Venus. If the parties should use them in the cause of the wrong, that would be their act and

deed. Mr Venus. I have an opinion of you, sir, to which it is not easy to give mouth. Since I called upon you

that evening when you were, as I may say, floating your powerful mind in tea, I have felt that you required to

be roused with an object. In this friendly move, sir, you will have a glorious object to rouse you.'

Mr Wegg then goes on to enlarge upon what throughout has been uppermost in his crafty mind:the

qualifications of Mr Venus for such a search. He expatiates on Mr Venus's patient habits and delicate

manipulation; on his skill in piecing little things together; on his knowledge of various tissues and textures;

on the likelihood of small indications leading him on to the discovery of great concealments. 'While as to

myself,' says Wegg, 'I am not good at it. Whether I gave myself up to prodding, or whether I gave myself up

to scooping, I couldn't do it with that delicate touch so as not to show that I was disturbing the mounds. Quite

different with YOU, going to work (as YOU would) in the light of a fellow man, holily pledged in a friendly

move to his brother man.' Mr Wegg next modestly remarks on the want of adaptation in a wooden leg to

ladders and such like airy perches, and also hints at an inherent tendency in that timber fiction, when called

into action for the purposes of a promenade on an ashey slope, to stick itself into the yielding foothold, and

peg its owner to one spot. Then, leaving this part of the subject, he remarks on the special phenomenon that

before his installation in the Bower, it was from Mr Venus that he first heard of the legend of hidden wealth

in the Mounds: 'which', he observes with a vaguely pious air, 'was surely never meant for nothing.' Lastly, he

returns to the cause of the right, gloomily foreshadowing the possibility of something being unearthed to

criminate Mr Boffin (of whom he once more candidly admits it cannot be denied that he profits by a murder),

and anticipating his denunciation by the friendly movers to avenging justice. And this, Mr Wegg expressly

points out, not at all for the sake of the rewardthough it would be a want of principle not to take it.

To all this, Mr Venus, with his shock of dusty hair cocked after the manner of a terrier's ears, attends

profoundly. When Mr Wegg, having finished, opens his arms wide, as if to show Mr Venus how bare his

breast is, and then folds them pending a reply, Mr Venus winks at him with both eyes some little time before

'I see you have tried it by yourself, Mr Wegg,' he says when he does speak. 'You have found out the

'No, it can hardly be said that I have tried it,' replies Wegg, a little dashed by the hint. 'I have just skimmed it.

'I scarcely know what to say to this, Mr Wegg,' observes Venus, after ruminating for a while.

'If I wasn't soured, my answer would be no. But being soured, Mr Wegg, and driven to reckless madness and

Wegg joyfully reproduces the two glasses, repeats the ceremony of clinking their rims, and inwardly drinks

with great heartiness to the health and success in life of the young lady who has reduced Mr Venus to his

The articles of the friendly move are then severally recited and agreed upon. They are but secrecy, fidelity,

and perseverance. The Bower to be always free of access to Mr Venus for his researches, and every

precaution to be taken against their attracting observation in the neighbourhood.

They are in the act of ratifying the treaty of friendly move, by shaking hands upon it. They softly break off,

light their pipes which have gone out, and lean back in their chairs. No doubt, a footstep. It approaches the

window, and a hand taps at the glass. 'Come in!' calls Wegg; meaning come round by the door. But the heavy

oldfashioned sash is slowly raised, and a head slowly looks in out of the dark background of night.

The friendly movers might not have been quite at their ease, even though the visitor had entered in the usual

manner. But, leaning on the breasthigh window, and staring in out of the darkness, they find the visitor

extremely embarrassing. Expecially Mr Venus: who removes his pipe, draws back his head, and stares at the

'Good evening, Mr Wegg. The yard gatelock should be looked to, if you please; it don't catch.'

'It is Mr Rokesmith. Don't let me disturb you. I am not coming in. I have only a message for you, which I

undertook to deliver on my way home to my lodgings. I was in two minds about coming beyond the gate

'I wish I had,' mutters Wegg, with his back turned as he rose from his chair. St! Hush! The talkingover

'Oh! I beg his pardon. Mr Boffin wishes you to know that he does not expect you to stay at home any

evening, on the chance of his coming. It has occurred to him that he may, without intending it, have been a tie

upon you. In future, if he should come without notice, he will take his chance of finding you, and it will be all

With that, and 'Good night,' the Secretary lowers the window, and disappears. They listen, and hear his

'And for that individual, Mr Venus,' remarks Wegg, when he is fully gone, 'I have been passed over! Let me

Apparently, Mr Venus does not know what to think of him, for he makes sundry efforts to reply, without

delivering himself of any other articulate utterance than that he has 'a singular look'.

'A double look, you mean, sir,' rejoins Wegg, playing bitterly upon the word. 'That's HIS look. Any amount

of singular look for me, but not a double look! That's an underhanded mind, sir.'

'Something against him?' repeats Wegg. 'Something? What would the relief be to my feelingsas a

fellowmanif I wasn't the slave of truth, and didn't feel myself compelled to answer, Everything!'

See into what wonderful maudlin refuges, featherless ostriches plunge their heads! It is such unspeakable

moral compensation to Wegg, to be overcome by the consideration that Mr Rokesmith has an underhanded

'On this starlight night, Mr Venus,' he remarks, when he is showing that friendly mover out across the yard,

and both are something the worse for mixing again and again: 'on this starlight night to think that

talkingover strangers, and underhanded minds, can go walking home under the sky, as if they was all

'The spectacle of those orbs,' says Mr Venus, gazing upward with his hat tumbling off; 'brings heavy on me

her crushing words that she did not wish to regard herself nor yet to be regarded in that'

'I know! I know! You needn't repeat 'em,' says Wegg, pressing his hand. 'But think how those stars steady me

in the cause of the right against some that shall be nameless. It isn't that I bear malice. But see how they

Mr Venus begins drearily replying, 'Of her words, in her own handwriting, that she does not wish to regard

'No, sir! Remembrances of Our House, of Master George, of Aunt Jane, of Uncle Parker, all laid waste! All

The minion of fortune and the worm of the hour, or in less cutting language, Nicodemus Boffin, Esquire, the

Golden Dustman, had become as much at home in his eminently aristocratic family mansion as he was likely

ever to be. He could not but feel that, like an eminently aristocratic family cheese, it was much too large for

his wants, and bred an infinite amount of parasites; but he was content to regard this drawback on his

property as a sort of perpetual Legacy Duty. He felt the more resigned to it, forasmuch as Mrs Boffin enjoyed

That young lady was, no doubt, and acquisition to the Boffins. She was far too pretty to be unattractive

anywhere, and far too quick of perception to be below the tone of her new career. Whether it improved her

heart might be a matter of taste that was open to question; but as touching another matter of taste, its

And thus it soon came about that Miss Bella began to set Mrs Boffin right; and even further, that Miss Bella

began to feel ill at ease, and as it were responsible, when she saw Mrs Boffin going wrong. Not that so sweet

a disposition and so sound a nature could ever go very wrong even among the great visiting authorities who

agreed that the Boffins were 'charmingly vulgar' (which for certain was not their own case in saying so), but

that when she made a slip on the social ice on which all the children of Podsnappery, with genteel souls to be

saved, are required to skate in circles, or to slide in long rows, she inevitably tripped Miss Bella up (so that

young lady felt), and caused her to experience great confusion under the glances of the more skilful

At Miss Bella's time of life it was not to be expected that she should examine herself very closely on the

congruity or stability of her position in Mr Boffin's house. And as she had never been sparing of complaints

of her old home when she had no other to compare it with, so there was no novelty of ingratitude or disdain in

'An invaluable man is Rokesmith,' said Mr Boffin, after some two or three months. 'But I can't quite make

'He takes more care of my affairs, morning, noon, and night,' said Mr Boffin, 'than fifty other men put

together either could or would; and yet he has ways of his own that are like tying a scaffoldingpole right

across the road, and bringing me up short when I am almost awalking arm in arm with him.'

'Well, my dear,' said Mr Boffin, 'he won't meet any company here, but you. When we have visitors, I should

wish him to have his regular place at the table like ourselves; but no, he won't take it.'

'If he considers himself above it,' said Miss Bella, with an airy toss of her head, 'I should leave him alone.'

'It ain't that, my dear,' replied Mr Boffin, thinking it over. 'He don't consider himself above it.'

'Perhaps he considers himself beneath it,' suggested Bella. 'If so, he ought to know best.'

'No, my dear; nor it ain't that, neither. No,' repeated Mr Boffin, with a shake of his head, after again thinking

'Dashed if I know!' said Mr Boffin. 'It seemed that first as if it was only Lightwood that he objected to meet.

Oho! thought Miss Bella. 'Indeed! That's it, is it!' For Mr Mortimer Lightwood had dined there two or

three times, and she had met him elsewhere, and he had shown her some attention. 'Rather cool in a

That Pa's daughter should be so contemptuous of Pa's lodger was odd; but there were odder anomalies than

that in the mind of the spoilt girl: spoilt first by poverty, and then by wealth. Be it this history's part, however,

'A little too much, I think,' Miss Bella reflected scornfully, 'to have Pa's lodger laying claim to me, and

keeping eligible people off! A little too much, indeed, to have the opportunities opened to me by Mr and Mrs

Yet it was not so very long ago that Bella had been fluttered by the discovery that this same Secretary and

lodger seem to like her. Ah! but the eminently aristocratic mansion and Mrs Boffin's dressmaker had not

In spite of his seemingly retiring manners a very intrusive person, this Secretary and lodger, in Miss Bella's

opinion. Always a light in his officeroom when we came home from the play or Opera, and he always at the

carriagedoor to hand us out. Always a provoking radiance too on Mrs Boffin's face, and an abominably

cheerful reception of him, as if it were possible seriously to approve what the man had in his mind!

'You never charge me, Miss Wilfer,' said the Secretary, encountering her by chance alone in the great

drawingroom, 'with commissions for home. I shall always be happy to execute any commands you may

'Pray what may you mean, Mr Rokesmith?' inquired Miss Bella, with languidly drooping eyelids.

She coloured under the retortso skilfully thrust, that the words seemed to be merely a plain answer, given

'Only little words of remembrance as I assume you sent somehow or other,' replied the Secretary with his

former air. 'It would be a pleasure to me if you would make me the bearer of them. As you know, I come and

She was too quick in this petulant sally against 'Pa's lodger'; and she felt that she had been so when she met

'They don't send manywhat was your expression?words of remembrance to me,' said Bella, making

'They frequently ask me about you, and I give them such slight intelligence as I can.'

'I hope you cannot doubt it, for it would be very much against you, if you could.'

'No, I do not doubt it. I deserve the reproach, which is very just indeed. I beg your pardon, Mr Rokesmith.'

'I should beg you not to do so, but that it shows you to such admirable advantage,' he replied with

earnestness. 'Forgive me; I could not help saying that. To return to what I have digressed from, let me add

that perhaps they think I report them to you, deliver little messages, and the like. But I forbear to trouble you,

'I am going, sir,' said Bella, looking at him as if he had reproved her, 'to see them tomorrow.'

'You can if you like, Mr Rokesmith. Message or no message, I am going to see them tomorrow.'

He lingered a moment, as though to give her the opportunity of prolonging the conversation if she wished. As

she remained silent, he left her. Two incidents of the little interview were felt by Miss Bella herself, when

alone again, to be very curious. The first was, that he unquestionably left her with a penitent air upon her, and

a penitent feeling in her heart. The second was, that she had not an intention or a thought of going home, until

'What can I mean by it, or what can he mean by it?' was her mental inquiry: 'He has no right to any power

Mrs Boffin, insisting that Bella should make tomorrow's expedition in the chariot, she went home in great

grandeur. Mrs Wilfer and Miss Lavinia had speculated much on the probabilities and improbabilities of her

coming in this gorgeous state, and, on beholding the chariot from the window at which they were secreted to

look out for it, agreed that it must be detained at the door as long as possible, for the mortification and

confusion of the neighbours. Then they repaired to the usual family room, to receive Miss Bella with a

The family room looked very small and very mean, and the downward staircase by which it was attained

looked very narrow and very crooked. The little house and all its arrangements were a poor contrast to the

eminently aristocratic dwelling. 'I can hardly believe, thought Bella, that I ever did endure life in this place!'

Gloomy majesty on the part of Mrs Wilfer, and native pertness on the part of Lavvy, did not mend the matter.

'This,' said Mrs Wilfer, presenting a cheek to be kissed, as sympathetic and responsive as the back of the bowl

of a spoon, 'is quite an honour! You will probably find your sister Lavvy grown, Bella.'

'Ma,' Miss Lavinia interposed, 'there can be no objection to your being aggravating, because Bella richly

deserves it; but I really must request that you will not drag in such ridiculous nonsense as my having grown

'Very well, Ma,' returned Lavvy, 'then I think you had much better have left it alone.'

The lofty glare with which the majestic woman received this answer, might have embarrassed a less pert

opponent, but it had no effect upon Lavinia: who, leaving her parent to the enjoyment of any amount of

glaring at she might deem desirable under the circumstances, accosted her sister, undismayed.

'I suppose you won't consider yourself quite disgraced, Bella, if I give you a kiss? Well! And how do you do,

'My goodness me! How are your Spoffins, then?' said Lavvy, 'since Ma so very much objects to your

'I don't care whether I am a Minx, or a Sphinx,' returned Lavinia, coolly, tossing her head; 'it's exactly the

same thing to me, and I'd every bit as soon be one as the other; but I know thisI'll not grow after I'm

'But it was to be expected;' thus she spake. 'A child of mine deserts me for the proud and prosperous, and

'Ma,' Bella struck in, 'Mr and Mrs Boffin are prosperous, no doubt; but you have no right to say they are

'In short, Ma,' said Lavvy, bouncing over to the enemy without a word of notice, you must know very

wellor if you don't, more shame for you!that Mr and Mrs Boffin are just absolute perfection.'

'Truly,' returned Mrs Wilfer, courteously receiving the deserter, it would seem that we are required to think

so. And this, Lavinia, is my reason for objecting to a tone of levity. Mrs Boffin (of whose physiognomy I can

never speak with the composure I would desire to preserve), and your mother, are not on terms of intimacy. It

is not for a moment to be supposed that she and her husband dare to presume to speak of this family as the

Wilfers. I cannot therefore condescend to speak of them as the Boffins. No; for such a tonecall it

familiarity, levity, equality, or what you will would imply those social interchanges which do not exist. Do

Without taking the least notice of this inquiry, albeit delivered in an imposing and forensic manner, Lavinia

reminded her sister, 'After all, you know, Bella, you haven't told us how your Whatshisnames are.'

'I don't want to speak of them here,' replied Bella, suppressing indignation, and tapping her foot on the floor.

'Why put it so?' demanded Mrs Wilfer, with biting sarcasm. 'Why adopt a circuitous form of speech? It is

polite and it is obliging; but why do it? Why not openly say that they are much too kind and too good for US?

'Ma,' said Bella, with one beat of her foot, 'you are enough to drive a saint mad, and so is Lavvy.'

'Unfortunate Lavvy!' cried Mrs Wilfer, in a tone of commiseration. 'She always comes for it. My poor child!'

But Lavvy, with the suddenness of her former desertion, now bounced over to the other enemy: very sharply

'I only wonder,' resumed Mrs Wilfer, directing her observations to her elder daughter, as safer on the whole

than her utterly unmanageable younger, 'that you found time and inclination to tear yourself from Mr and Mrs

Boffin, and come to see us at all. I only wonder that our claims, contending against the superior claims of Mr

and Mrs Boffin, had any weight. I feel I ought to be thankful for gaining so much, in competition with Mr

and Mrs Boffin.' (The good lady bitterly emphasized the first letter of the word Boffin, as if it represented her

chief objection to the owners of that name, and as if she could have born Doffin, Moffin, or Poffin much

'Ma,' said Bella, angrily, 'you force me to say that I am truly sorry I did come home, and that I never will

come home again, except when poor dear Pa is here. For, Pa is too magnanimous to feel envy and spite

towards my generous friends, and Pa is delicate enough and gentle enough to remember the sort of little claim

they thought I had upon them and the unusually trying position in which, through no act of my own, I had

been placed. And I always did love poor dear Pa better than all the rest of you put together, and I always do

Here Bella, deriving no comfort from her charming bonnet and her elegant dress, burst into tears.

'I think, R.W.,' cried Mrs Wilfer, lifting up her eyes and apostrophising the air, 'that if you were present, it

would be a trial to your feelings to hear your wife and the mother of your family depreciated in your name.

But Fate has spared you this, R.W., whatever it may have thought proper to inflict upon her!'

'I hate the Boffins!' protested Miss Lavinia. I don't care who objects to their being called the Boffins. I WILL

call 'em the Boffins. The Boffins, the Boffins, the Boffins! And I say they are mischiefmaking Boffins, and I

say the Boffins have set Bella against me, and I tell the Boffins to their faces:' which was not strictly the fact,

but the young lady was excited: 'that they are detestable Boffins, disreputable Boffins, odious Boffins, beastly

The front gardengate clanked, and the Secretary was seen coming at a brisk pace up the steps. 'Leave Me to

open the door to him,' said Mrs Wilfer, rising with stately resignation as she shook her head and dried her

eyes; 'we have at present no stipendiary girl to do so. We have nothing to conceal. If he sees these traces of

With those words she stalked out. In a few moments she stalked in again, proclaiming in her heraldic manner,

Mr Rokesmith followed close upon his name, and of course saw what was amiss. But he discreetly affected to

'Mr Boffin intended to have placed this in the carriage for you this morning. He wished you to have it, as a

little keepsake he had preparedit is only a purse, Miss Wilferbut as he was disappointed in his fancy, I

'We have been quarrelling here a little, Mr Rokesmith, but not more than we used; you know our agreeable

ways among ourselves. You find me just going. Goodbye, mamma. Good bye, Lavvy!' and with a kiss for

each Miss Bella turned to the door. The Secretary would have attended her, but Mrs Wilfer advancing and

saying with dignity, 'Pardon me! Permit me to assert my natural right to escort my child to the equipage

which is in waiting for her,' he begged pardon and gave place. It was a very magnificent spectacle indeed, too

see Mrs Wilfer throw open the housedoor, and loudly demand with extended gloves, 'The male domestic of

Mrs Boffin!' To whom presenting himself, she delivered the brief but majestic charge, 'Miss Wilfer. Coming

out!' and so delivered her over, like a female Lieutenant of the Tower relinquishing a State Prisoner. The

effect of this ceremonial was for some quarter of an hour afterwards perfectly paralyzing on the neighbours,

and was much enhanced by the worthy lady airing herself for that term in a kind of splendidly serene trance

When Bella was seated in the carriage, she opened the little packet in her hand. It contained a pretty purse,

and the purse contained a bank note for fifty pounds. 'This shall be a joyful surprise for poor dear Pa,' said

As she was uninformed respecting the exact locality of the place of business of Chicksey Veneering and

Stobbles, but knew it to be near Mincing Lane, she directed herself to be driven to the corner of that

darksome spot. Thence she despatched 'the male domestic of Mrs Boffin,' in search of the countinghouse of

Chicksey Veneering and Stobbles, with a message importing that if R. Wilfer could come out, there was a

lady waiting who would be glad to speak with him. The delivery of these mysterious words from the mouth

of a footman caused so great an excitement in the countinghouse, that a youthful scout was instantly

appointed to follow Rumty, observe the lady, and come in with his report. Nor was the agitation by any

means diminished, when the scout rushed back with the intelligence that the lady was 'a slapup gal in a

Rumty himself, with his pen behind his ear under his rusty hat, arrived at the carriagedoor in a breathless

condition, and had been fairly lugged into the vehicle by his cravat and embraced almost unto choking, before

he recognized his daughter. 'My dear child!' he then panted, incoherently. 'Good gracious me! What a lovely

woman you are! I thought you had been unkind and forgotten your mother and sister.'

'They are sometimes a little liable to it,' observed the patient cherub; 'but I hope you made allowances, Bella,

'No. I was disagreeable too, Pa; we were all of us disagreeable together. But I want you to come and dine

'Why, my dear, I have already partaken of aif one might mention such an article in this superb chariotof

aSaveloy,' replied R. Wilfer, modestly dropping his voice on the word, as he eyed the canarycoloured

'Truly, it ain't as much as one could sometimes wish it to be, my dear,' he admitted, drawing his hand across

his mouth. 'Still, when circumstances over which you have no control, interpose obstacles between yourself

and Small Germans, you can't do better than bring a contented mind to hear on'again dropping his voice in

'You poor good Pa! Pa, do, I beg and pray, get leave for the rest of the day, and come and pass it with me!'

'But before you cut back,' said Bella, who had already taken him by the chin, pulled his hat off, and begun to

stick up his hair in her old way, 'do say that you are sure I am giddy and inconsiderate, but have never really

'My dear, I say it with all my heart. And might I likewise observe,' her father delicately hinted, with a glance

out at window, 'that perhaps it might he calculated to attract attention, having one's hair publicly done by a

Bella laughed and put on his hat again. But when his boyish figure bobbed away, its shabbiness and cheerful

patience smote the tears out of her eyes. 'I hate that Secretary for thinking it of me,' she said to herself, 'and

Back came her father, more like a boy than ever, in his release from school. 'All right, my dear. Leave given

'Now where can we find some quiet place, Pa, in which I can wait for you while you go on an errand for me,

It demanded cogitation. 'You see, my dear,' he explained, 'you really have become such a very lovely woman,

that it ought to he a very quiet place.' At length he suggested, 'Near the garden up by the Trinity House on

Tower Hill.' So, they were driven there, and Bella dismissed the chariot; sending a pencilled note by it to Mrs

'Now, Pa, attend to what I am going to say, and promise and vow to be obedient.'

'You ask no questions. You take this purse; you go to the nearest place where they keep everything of the

very very best, ready made; you buy and put on, the most beautiful suit of clothes, the most beautiful hat, and

the most beautiful pair of bright boots (patent leather, Pa, mind!) that are to be got for money; and you come

'Take care, Pa!' pointing her forefinger at him, merrily. 'You have promised and vowed. It's perjury, you

There was water in the foolish little fellow's eyes, but she kissed them dry (though her own were wet), and he

bobbed away again. After half an hour, he came back, so brilliantly transformed, that Bella was obliged to

walk round him in ecstatic admiration twenty times, before she could draw her arm through his, and

'Now, Pa,' said Bella, hugging him close, 'take this lovely woman out to dinner.'

'Greenwich!' said Bella, valiantly. 'And be sure you treat this lovely woman with everything of the best.'

While they were going along to take boat, 'Don't you wish, my dear,' said R. W., timidly, 'that your mother

'No, I don't, Pa, for I like to have you all to myself today. I was always your little favourite at home, and you

'Ah, to be sure we have! Many a Sunday when your mother was was a little liable to it,' repeating his

'Yes, and I am afraid I was seldom or never as good as I ought to have been, Pa. I made you carry me, over

and over again, when you should have made me walk; and I often drove you in harness, when you would

'Sometimes, sometimes. But Lor, what a child you were! What a companion you were!'

'You are safe to succeed, my love. Your brothers and sisters have all in their turns been companions to me, to

a certain extent, but only to a certain extent. Your mother has, throughout life, been a companion that any

'Weell, yees,' he returned, thinking about it, not quite satisfied with the phrase: 'or perhaps I might say, if it

was in him. Supposing, for instance, that a man wanted to be always marching, he would find your mother an

inestimable companion. But if he had any taste for walking, or should wish at any time to break into a trot, he

might sometimes find it a little difficult to keep step with your mother. Or take it this way, Bella,' he added,

after a moment's reflection; 'Supposing that a man had to go through life, we won't say with a companion, but

we'll say to a tune. Very good. Supposing that the tune allotted to him was the Dead March in Saul. Well. It

would be a very suitable tune for particular occasionsnone betterbut it would be difficult to keep time

with in the ordinary run of domestic transactions. For instance, if he took his supper after a hard day, to the

Dead March in Saul, his food might be likely to sit heavy on him. Or, if he was at any time inclined to relieve

his mind by singing a comic song or dancing a hornpipe, and was obliged to do it to the Dead March in Saul,

'Now, what I will say for you, my dear,' the cherub pursued mildly and without a notion of complaining, 'is,

'Indeed I am afraid I have shown a wretched temper, Pa. I am afraid I have been very complaining, and very

capricious. I seldom or never thought of it before. But when I sat in the carriage just now and saw you

A happy and a chatty man was Pa in his new clothes that day. Take it for all in all, it was perhaps the happiest

day he had ever known in his life; not even excepting that on which his heroic partner had approached the

The little expedition down the river was delightful, and the little room overlooking the river into which they

were shown for dinner was delightful. Everything was delightful. The park was delightful, the punch was

delightful, the dishes of fish were delightful, the wine was delightful. Bella was more delightful than any

other item in the festival; drawing Pa out in the gayest manner; making a point of always mentioning herself

as the lovely woman; stimulating Pa to order things, by declaring that the lovely woman insisted on being

treated with them; and in short causing Pa to be quite enraptured with the consideration that he WAS the Pa

And then, as they sat looking at the ships and steamboats making their way to the sea with the tide that was

running down, the lovely woman imagined all sorts of voyages for herself and Pa. Now, Pa, in the character

of owner of a lumbering squaresailed collier, was tacking away to Newcastle, to fetch black diamonds to

make his fortune with; now, Pa was going to China in that handsome threemasted ship, to bring home opium,

with which he would for ever cut out Chicksey Veneering and Stobbles, and to bring home silks and shawls

without end for the decoration of his charming daughter. Now, John Harmon's disastrous fate was all a

dream, and he had come home and found the lovely woman just the article for him, and the lovely woman

had found him just the article for her, and they were going away on a trip, in their gallant bark, to look after

their vines, with streamers flying at all points, a band playing on deck and Pa established in the great cabin.

Now, John Harmon was consigned to his grave again, and a merchant of immense wealth (name unknown)

had courted and married the lovely woman, and he was so enormously rich that everything you saw upon the

river sailing or steaming belonged to him, and he kept a perfect fleet of yachts for pleasure, and that little

impudent yacht which you saw over there, with the great white sail, was called The Bella, in honour of his

wife, and she held her state aboard when it pleased her, like a modern Cleopatra. Anon, there would embark

in that troopship when she got to Gravesend, a mighty general, of large property (name also unknown), who

wouldn't hear of going to victory without his wife, and whose wife was the lovely woman, and she was

destined to become the idol of all the red coats and blue jackets alow and aloft. And then again: you saw that

ship being towed out by a steamtug? Well! where did you suppose she was going to? She was going among

the coral reefs and cocoanuts and all that sort of thing, and she was chartered for a fortunate individual of

the name of Pa (himself on board, and much respected by all hands), and she was going, for his sole profit

and advantage, to fetch a cargo of sweetsmelling woods, the most beautiful that ever were seen, and the

most profitable that ever were heard of; and her cargo would be a great fortune, as indeed it ought to be: the

lovely woman who had purchased her and fitted her expressly for this voyage, being married to an Indian

Prince, who was a SomethingorOther, and who wore Cashmere shawls all over himself and diamonds and

emeralds blazing in his turban, and was beautifully coffee coloured and excessively devoted, though a little

too jealous. Thus Bella ran on merrily, in a manner perfectly enchanting to Pa, who was as willing to put his

head into the Sultan's tub of water as the beggarboys below the window were to put THEIR heads in the

'I suppose, my dear,' said Pa after dinner, 'we may come to the conclusion at home, that we have lost you for

Bella shook her head. Didn't know. Couldn't say. All she was able to report was, that she was most

handsomely supplied with everything she could possibly want, and that whenever she hinted at leaving Mr

'And now, Pa,' pursued Bella, 'I'll make a confession to you. I am the most mercenary little wretch that ever

'I should hardly have thought it of you, my dear,' returned her father, first glancing at himself; and then at the

'I understand what you mean, Pa, but it's not that. It's not that I care for money to keep as money, but I do

'But not to the dreadful extent that I do, Pa. Oo!' cried Bella, screwing the exclamation out of herself with a

With a wistful glance R. W. said, in default of having anything better to say: 'About when did you begin to

'That's it, Pa. That's the terrible part of it. When I was at home, and only knew what it was to be poor, I

grumbled but didn't so much mind. When I was at home expecting to be rich, I thought vaguely of all the

great things I would do. But when I had been disappointed of my splendid fortune, and came to see it from

day to day in other hands, and to have before my eyes what it could really do, then I became the mercenary

'I can assure you it's nothing of the sort, Pa!' said Bella, nodding at him, with her very pretty eyebrows raised

as high as they would go, and looking comically frightened. 'It's a fact. I am always avariciously scheming.'

'I'll tell you, Pa. I don't mind telling YOU, because we have always been favourites of each other's, and

because you are not like a Pa, but more like a sort of a younger brother with a dear venerable chubbiness on

him. And besides,' added Bella, laughing as she pointed a rallying finger at his face, 'because I have got you

in my power. This is a secret expedition. If ever you tell of me, I'll tell of you. I'll tell Ma that you dined at

'Well; seriously, my dear,' observed R. W., with some trepidation of manner, 'it might be as well not to

'Aha!' laughed Bella. 'I knew you wouldn't like it, sir! So you keep my confidence, and I'll keep yours. But

betray the lovely woman, and you shall find her a serpent. Now, you may give me a kiss, Pa, and I should like

to give your hair a turn, because it has been dreadfully neglected in my absence.'

R. W. submitted his head to the operator, and the operator went on talking; at the same time putting separate

locks of his hair through a curious process of being smartly rolled over her two revolving forefingers, which

were then suddenly pulled out of it in opposite lateral directions. On each of these occasions the patient

'I have made up my mind that I must have money, Pa. I feel that I can't beg it, borrow it, or steal it; and so I

R. W. cast up his eyes towards her, as well as he could under the operating circumstances, and said in a tone

'Have resolved, I say, Pa, that to get money I must marry money. In consequence of which, I am always

'Yes, Pa, that is the state of the case. If ever there was a mercenary plotter whose thoughts and designs were

always in her mean occupation, I am the amiable creature. But I don't care. I hate and detest being poor, and I

won't be poor if I can marry money. Now you are deliciously fluffy, Pa, and in a state to astonish the waiter

'I told you so, Pa, but you wouldn't believe it,' returned Bella, with a pleasant childish gravity. 'Isn't it

'Well, Pa, I can only tell you that I mean nothing else. Talk to me of love!' said Bella, contemptuously:

though her face and figure certainly rendered the subject no incongruous one. 'Talk to me of fiery dragons!

But talk to me of poverty and wealth, and there indeed we touch upon realities.'

'My Dear, this is becoming Awful' her father was emphatically beginning: when she stopped him.

Bella hummed the Dead March in Saul, and said, after all it signified very little! But seeing him look grave

and downcast, she took him round the neck and kissed him back to cheerfulness again.

'I didn't mean that last touch, Pa; it was only said in joke. Now mind! You are not to tell of me, and I'll not

tell of you. And more than that; I promise to have no secrets from you, Pa, and you may make certain that,

whatever mercenary things go on, I shall always tell you all about them in strict confidence.'

Fain to be satisfied with this concession from the lovely woman, R. W. rang the bell, and paid the bill. 'Now,

all the rest of this, Pa,' said Bella, rolling up the purse when they were alone again, hammering it small with

her little fist on the table, and cramming it into one of the pockets of his new waistcoat, 'is for you, to buy

presents with for them at home, and to pay bills with, and to divide as you like, and spend exactly as you

think proper. Last of all take notice, Pa, that it's not the fruit of any avaricious scheme. Perhaps if it was, your

After which, she tugged at his coat with both hands, and pulled him all askew in buttoning that garment over

the precious waistcoat pocket, and then tied her dimples into her bonnetstrings in a very knowing way, and

took him back to London. Arrived at Mr Boffin's door, she set him with his back against it, tenderly took him

by the ears as convenient handles for her purpose, and kissed him until he knocked muffled double knocks at

the door with the back of his head. That done, she once more reminded him of their compact and gaily parted

Not so gaily, however, but that tears filled her eyes as he went away down the dark street. Not so gaily, but

that she several times said, 'Ah, poor little Pa! Ah, poor dear struggling shabby little Pa!' before she took heart

to knock at the door. Not so gaily, but that the brilliant furniture seemed to stare her out of countenance as if

it insisted on being compared with the dingy furniture at home. Not so gaily, but that she fell into very low

spirits sitting late in her own room, and very heartily wept, as she wished, now that the deceased old John

Harmon had never made a will about her, now that the deceased young John Harmon had lived to marry her.

'Contradictory things to wish,' said Bella, 'but my life and fortunes are so contradictory altogether that what

The Secretary, working in the Dismal Swamp betimes next morning, was informed that a youth waited in the

hall who gave the name of Sloppy. The footman who communicated this intelligence made a decent pause

before uttering the name, to express that it was forced on his reluctance by the youth in question, and that if

the youth had had the good sense and good taste to inherit some other name it would have spared the feelings

'Mrs Boffin will be very well pleased,' said the Secretary in a perfectly composed way. 'Show him in.'

Mr Sloppy being introduced, remained close to the door: revealing in various parts of his form many

'I am glad to see you,' said John Rokesmith, in a cheerful tone of welcome. 'I have been expecting you.'

Sloppy explained that he had meant to come before, but that the Orphan (of whom he made mention as Our

Mr Sloppy having shaken his head to a considerable extent, proceeded to remark that he thought Johnny

'must have took 'em from the Minders.' Being asked what he meant, he answered, them that come out upon

him and partickler his chest. Being requested to explain himself, he stated that there was some of 'em wot you

couldn't kiver with a sixpence. Pressed to fall back upon a nominative case, he opined that they wos about as

red as ever red could be. 'But as long as they strikes out'ards, sir,' continued Sloppy, 'they ain't so much. It's

John Rokesmith hoped the child had had medical attendance? Oh yes, said Sloppy, he had been took to the

doctor's shop once. And what did the doctor call it? Rokesmith asked him. After some perplexed reflection,

Sloppy answered, brightening, 'He called it something as wos wery long for spots.' Rokesmith suggested

measles. 'No,' said Sloppy with confidence, 'ever so much longer than THEM, sir!' (Mr Sloppy was elevated

by this fact, and seemed to consider that it reflected credit on the poor little patient.)

'Mrs Higden said so, sir, when she kep it from her, hoping as Our Johnny would work round.'

'I hope so,' answered Sloppy. 'It all depends on their striking in'ards.' He then went on to say that whether

Johnny had 'took 'em' from the Minders, or whether the Minders had 'took em from Johnny, the Minders had

been sent home and had 'got em. Furthermore, that Mrs Higden's days and nights being devoted to Our

Johnny, who was never out of her lap, the whole of the mangling arrangements had devolved upon himself,

and he had had 'rayther a tight time'. The ungainly piece of honesty beamed and blushed as he said it, quite

'Last night,' said Sloppy, 'when I was aturning at the wheel pretty late, the mangle seemed to go like Our

Johnny's breathing. It begun beautiful, then as it went out it shook a little and got unsteady, then as it took the

turn to come home it had a rattlelike and lumbered a bit, then it come smooth, and so it went on till I scarce

know'd which was mangle and which was Our Johnny. Nor Our Johnny, he scarce know'd either, for

sometimes when the mangle lumbers he says, "Me choking, Granny!" and Mrs Higden holds him up in her

lap and says to me "Bide a bit, Sloppy," and we all stops together. And when Our Johnny gets his breathing

Sloppy had gradually expanded with his description into a stare and a vacant grin. He now contracted, being

silent, into a half repressed gush of tears, and, under pretence of being heated, drew the under part of his

sleeve across his eyes with a singularly awkward, laborious, and roundabout smear.

'This is unfortunate,' said Rokesmith. 'I must go and break it to Mrs Boffin. Stay you here, Sloppy.'

Sloppy stayed there, staring at the pattern of the paper on the wall, until the Secretary and Mrs Boffin came

back together. And with Mrs Boffin was a young lady (Miss Bella Wilfer by name) who was better worth

'You don't think he is in a very, very bad way, do you?' asked the pleasant creature with her wholesome

Put upon his good faith, and finding it in collision with his inclinations, Sloppy threw back his head and

'So bad as that!' cried Mrs Boffin. 'And Betty Higden not to tell me of it sooner!'

'I think she might have been mistrustful, mum,' returned Sloppy with submission, 'of standing in Our Johnny's

light. There's so much trouble in illness, and so much expense, and she's seen such a lot of its being objected

'But she never can have thought,' said Mrs Boffin, 'that I would grudge the dear child anything?'

'No mum, but she might have thought (as a habitlike) of its standing in Johnny's light, and might have tried

Sloppy knew his ground well. To conceal herself in sickness, like a lower animal; to creep out of sight and

coil herself away and die; had become this woman's instinct. To catch up in her arms the sick child who was

dear to her, and hide it as if it were a criminal, and keep off all ministration but such as her own ignorant

tenderness and patience could supply, had become this woman's idea of maternal love, fidelity, and duty. The

shameful accounts we read, every week in the Christian year, my lords and gentlemen and honourable boards,

the infamous records of small official inhumanity, do not pass by the people as they pass by us. And hence

these irrational, blind, and obstinate prejudices, so astonishing to our magnificence, and having no more

reason in themGod save the Queen and Confound their politicsno, than smoke has in coming from fire!

'It's not a right place for the poor child to stay in,' said Mrs Boffin. 'Tell us, dear Mr Rokesmith, what to do

He had already thought what to do, and the consultation was very short. He could pave the way, he said, in

half an hour, and then they would go down to Brentford. 'Pray take me,' said Bella. Therefore a carriage was

ordered, of capacity to take them all, and in the meantime Sloppy was regaled, feasting alone in the

Secretary's room, with a complete realization of that fairy vision meat, beer, vegetables, and pudding. In

consequence of which his buttons became more importunate of public notice than before, with the exception

of two or three about the region of the waistband, which modestly withdrew into a creasy retirement.

Punctual to the time, appeared the carriage and the Secretary. He sat on the box, and Mr Sloppy graced the

rumble. So, to the Three Magpies as before: where Mrs Boffin and Miss Bella were handed out, and whence

But, on the way down, they had stopped at a toyshop, and had bought that noble charger, a description of

whose points and trappings had on the last occasion conciliated the then worldly minded orphan, and also a

Noah's ark, and also a yellow bird with an artificial voice in him, and also a military doll so well dressed that

if he had only been of lifesize his brotherofficers in the Guards might never have found him out. Bearing

these gifts, they raised the latch of Betty Higden's door, and saw her sitting in the dimmest and furthest corner

'He's bad! He's bad!' said Betty. 'I begin to be afeerd he'll not be yours any more than mine. All others

belonging to him have gone to the Power and the Glory, and I have a mind that they're drawing him to

'I don't know why else he clenches his little hand as if it had hold of a finger that I can't see. Look at it,' said

Betty, opening the wrappers in which the flushed child lay, and showing his small right hand lying closed

'No,' said Johnny, with a quiet air of pity for himself; and without opening his eyes.

Johnny could bear the lady, with complete indifference, but not the horse. Opening his heavy eyes, he slowly

broke into a smile on beholding that splendid phenomenon, and wanted to take it in his arms. As it was much

too big, it was put upon a chair where he could hold it by the mane and contemplate it. Which he soon forgot

But, Johnny murmuring something with his eyes closed, and Mrs Boffin not knowing what, old Betty bent

her ear to listen and took pains to understand. Being asked by her to repeat what he had said, he did so two or

three times, and then it came out that he must have seen more than they supposed when he looked up to see

the horse, for the murmur was, 'Who is the boofer lady?' Now, the boofer, or beautiful, lady was Bella; and

whereas this notice from the poor baby would have touched her of itself; it was rendered more pathetic by the

late melting of her heart to her poor little father, and their joke about the lovely woman. So, Bella's behaviour

was very tender and very natural when she kneeled on the brick floor to clasp the child, and when the child,

'Now, my good dear Betty,' said Mrs Boffin, hoping that she saw her opportunity, and laying her hand

persuasively on her arm; 'we have come to remove Johnny from this cottage to where he can be taken better

Instantly, and before another word could be spoken, the old woman started up with blazing eyes, and rushed

'Stand away from me every one of ye!' she cried out wildly. 'I see what ye mean now. Let me go my way, all

'I understand too well. I know too much about it, sir. I've run from it too many a year. No! Never for me, nor

The terror, the shame, the passion of horror and repugnance, firing the worn face and perfectly maddening it,

would have been a quite terrible sight, if embodied in one old fellowcreature alone. Yet it 'crops up'as our

slang goesmy lords and gentlemen and honourable boards, in other fellowcreatures, rather frequently!

'It's been chasing me all my life, but it shall never take me nor mine alive!' cried old Betty. 'I've done with ye.

I'd have fastened door and window and starved out, afore I'd ever have let ye in, if I had known what ye came

But, catching sight of Mrs Boffin's wholesome face, she relented, and crouching down by the door and

bending over her burden to hush it, said humbly: 'Maybe my fears has put me wrong. If they have so, tell me,

and the good Lord forgive me! I'm quick to take this fright, I know, and my head is summ'at light with

'There, there, there!' returned Mrs Boffin. 'Come, come! Say no more of it, Betty. It was a mistake, a mistake.

'Now, see, Betty,' pursued the sweet compassionate soul, holding the hand kindly, 'what I really did mean,

and what I should have begun by saying out, if I had only been a little wiser and handier. We want to move

Johnny to a place where there are none but children; a place set up on purpose for sick children; where the

good doctors and nurses pass their lives with children, talk to none but children, touch none but children,

'Yes, Betty, on my word, and you shall see it. If my home was a better place for the dear boy, I'd take him to

'You shall take him,' returned Betty, fervently kissing the comforting hand, 'where you will, my deary. I am

not so hard, but that I believe your face and voice, and I will, as long as I can see and hear.'

This victory gained, Rokesmith made haste to profit by it, for he saw how woefully time had been lost. He

despatched Sloppy to bring the carriage to the door; caused the child to be carefully wrapped up; bade old

Betty get her bonnet on; collected the toys, enabling the little fellow to comprehend that his treasures were to

be transported with him; and had all things prepared so easily that they were ready for the carriage as soon as

it appeared, and in a minute afterwards were on their way. Sloppy they left behind, relieving his overcharged

At the Children's Hospital, the gallant steed, the Noah's ark, yellow bird, and the officer in the Guards, were

made as welcome as their childowner. But the doctor said aside to Rokesmith, 'This should have been days

However, they were all carried up into a fresh airy room, and there Johnny came to himself, out of a sleep or

a swoon or whatever it was, to find himself lying in a little quiet bed, with a little platform over his breast, on

which were already arranged, to give him heart and urge him to cheer up, the Noah's ark, the noble steed, and

the yellow bird; with the officer in the Guards doing duty over the whole, quite as much to the satisfaction of

his country as if he had been upon Parade. And at the bed's head was a coloured picture beautiful to see,

representing as it were another Johnny seated on the knee of some Angel surely who loved little children.

And, marvellous fact, to lie and stare at: Johnny had become one of a little family, all in little quiet beds

(except two playing dominoes in little armchairs at a little table on the hearth): and on all the little beds were

little platforms whereon were to be seen dolls' houses, woolly dogs with mechanical barks in them not very

dissimilar from the artificial voice pervading the bowels of the yellow bird, tin armies, Moorish tumblers,

As Johnny murmured something in his placid admiration, the ministering women at his bed's head asked him

what he said. It seemed that he wanted to know whether all these were brothers and sisters of his? So they

told him yes. It seemed then, that he wanted to know whether God had brought them all together there? So

they told him yes again. They made out then, that he wanted to know whether they would all get out of pain?

So they answered yes to that question likewise, and made him understand that the reply included himself.

Johnny's powers of sustaining conversation were as yet so very imperfectly developed, even in a state of

health, that in sickness they were little more than monosyllabic. But, he had to be washed and tended, and

remedies were applied, and though those offices were far, far more skilfully and lightly done than ever

anything had been done for him in his little life, so rough and short, they would have hurt and tired him but

for an amazing circumstance which laid hold of his attention. This was no less than the appearance on his

own little platform in pairs, of All Creation, on its way into his own particular ark: the elephant leading, and

the fly, with a diffident sense of his size, politely bringing up the rear. A very little brother lying in the next

bed with a broken leg, was so enchanted by this spectacle that his delight exalted its enthralling interest; and

'I see you are not afraid to leave the dear child here, Betty,' whispered Mrs Boffin.

So, they kissed him, and left him there, and old Betty was to come back early in the morning, and nobody but

Rokesmith knew for certain how that the doctor had said, 'This should have been days ago. Too late!'

But, Rokesmith knowing it, and knowing that his bearing it in mind would be acceptable thereafter to that

good woman who had been the only light in the childhood of desolate John Harmon dead and gone, resolved

that late at night he would go back to the bedside of John Harmon's namesake, and see how it fared with him.

The family whom God had brought together were not all asleep, but were all quiet. From bed to bed, a light

womanly tread and a pleasant fresh face passed in the silence of the night. A little head would lift itself up

into the softened light here and there, to be kissed as the face went byfor these little patients are very

loving and would then submit itself to be composed to rest again. The mite with the broken leg was

restless, and moaned; but after a while turned his face towards Johnny's bed, to fortify himself with a view of

the ark, and fell asleep. Over most of the beds, the toys were yet grouped as the children had left them when

they last laid themselves down, and, in their innocent grotesqueness and incongruity, they might have stood

The doctor came in too, to see how it fared with Johnny. And he and Rokesmith stood together, looking down

'What is it, Johnny?' Rokesmith was the questioner, and put an arm round the poor baby as he made a

The doctor was quick to understand children, and, taking the horse, the ark, the yellow bird, and the man in

the Guards, from Johnny's bed, softly placed them on that of his next neighbour, the mite with the broken leg.

With a weary and yet a pleased smile, and with an action as if he stretched his little figure out to rest, the

child heaved his body on the sustaining arm, and seeking Rokesmith's face with his lips, said:

Having now bequeathed all he had to dispose of, and arranged his affairs in this world, Johnny, thus

Some of the Reverend Frank Milvey's brethren had found themselves exceedingly uncomfortable in their

minds, because they were required to bury the dead too hopefully. But, the Reverend Frank, inclining to the

belief that they were required to do one or two other things (say out of nineandthirty) calculated to trouble

their consciences rather more if they would think as much about them, held his peace.

Indeed, the Reverend Frank Milvey was a forbearing man, who noticed many sad warps and blights in the

vineyard wherein he worked, and did not profess that they made him savagely wise. He only learned that the

more he himself knew, in his little limited human way, the better he could distantly imagine what

Wherefore, if the Reverend Frank had had to read the words that troubled some of his brethren, and profitably

touched innumerable hearts, in a worse case than Johnny's, he would have done so out of the pity and

humility of his soul. Reading them over Johnny, he thought of his own six children, but not of his poverty,

and read them with dimmed eyes. And very seriously did he and his bright little wife, who had been listening,

There was grief in the aristocratic house, and there was joy in the Bower. Mr Wegg argued, if an orphan were

wanted, was he not an orphan himself; and could a better be desired? And why go beating about Brentford

bushes, seeking orphans forsooth who had established no claims upon you and made no sacrifices for you,

when here was an orphan ready to your hand who had given up in your cause, Miss Elizabeth, Master

Mr Wegg chuckled, consequently, when he heard the tidings. Nay, it was afterwards affirmed by a witness

who shall at present be nameless, that in the seclusion of the Bower he poked out his wooden leg, in the

stageballet manner, and executed a taunting or triumphant pirouette on the genuine leg remaining to him.

John Rokesmith's manner towards Mrs Boffin at this time, was more the manner of a young man towards a

mother, than that of a Secretary towards his employer's wife. It had always been marked by a subdued

affectionate deference that seemed to have sprung up on the very day of his engagement; whatever was odd

in her dress or her ways had seemed to have no oddity for him; he had sometimes borne a quietlyamused

face in her company, but still it had seemed as if the pleasure her genial temper and radiant nature yielded

him, could have been quite as naturally expressed in a tear as in a smile. The completeness of his sympathy

with her fancy for having a little John Harmon to protect and rear, he had shown in every act and word, and

now that the kind fancy was disappointed, he treated it with a manly tenderness and respect for which she

'But I do thank you, Mr Rokesmith,' said Mrs Boffin, 'and I thank you most kindly. You love children.'

'They ought,' said Mrs Boffin; 'but we don't all of us do what we ought, do us?'

John Rokesmith replied, 'Some among us supply the shortcomings of the rest. You have loved children well,

Not a bit better than he has, but that's his way; he puts all the good upon me. You speak rather sadly, Mr

At this point of the dialogue Bella came in with a light step. She paused at the door a moment, hesitating

'Now, don't mind an old lady's talk,' said Mrs Boffin, 'but tell me. Are you quite sure, Mr Rokesmith, that you

'Why, for this reason. Sometimes you have a kind of keptdown manner with you, which is not like your age.

Deeming it high time to make her presence known, Bella coughed here to attract attention, begged pardon,

'No, don't go,' rejoined Mrs Boffin, 'because we are coming to business, instead of having begun it, and you

belong to it as much now, my dear Bella, as I do. But I want my Noddy to consult with us. Would somebody

Rokesmith departed on that errand, and presently returned accompanied by Mr Boffin at his jogtrot. Bella

felt a little vague trepidation as to the subjectmatter of this same consultation, until Mrs Boffin announced

'Now, you come and sit by me, my dear,' said that worthy soul, taking her comfortable place on a large

ottoman in the centre of the room, and drawing her arm through Bella's; 'and Noddy, you sit here, and Mr

Rokesmith you sit there. Now, you see, what I want to talk about, is this. Mr and Mrs Milvey have sent me

the kindest note possible (which Mr Rokesmith just now read to me out aloud, for I ain't good at

handwritings), offering to find me another little child to name and educate and bring up. Well. This has set

('And she is a steamingein at it,' murmured Mr Boffin, in an admiring parenthesis, 'when she once begins. It

'This has set me thinking, I say,' repeated Mrs Boffin, cordially beaming under the influence of her

husband's compliment, 'and I have thought two things. First of all, that I have grown timid of reviving John

Harmon's name. It's an unfortunate name, and I fancy I should reproach myself if I gave it to another dear

'Now, whether,' said Mr Boffin, gravely propounding a case for his Secretary's opinion; 'whether one might

'It is a matter of feeling with Mrs Boffin,' said Rokesmith, gently. 'The name has always been unfortunate. It

has now this new unfortunate association connected with it. The name has died out. Why revive it? Might I

'It has not been a fortunate name for me,' said Bella, colouring'or at least it was not, until it led to my being

herebut that is not the point in my thoughts. As we had given the name to the poor child, and as the poor

child took so lovingly to me, I think I should feel jealous of calling another child by it. I think I should feel as

'And that's your opinion?' remarked Mr Boffin, observant of the Secretary's face and again addressing him.

'I say again, it is a matter of feeling,' returned the Secretary. 'I think Miss Wilfer's feeling very womanly and

'Then,' said Mrs Boffin, 'we agree not to revive John Harmon's name, but to let it rest in the grave. It is, as Mr

Rokesmith says, a matter of feeling, but Lor how many matters ARE matters of feeling! Well; and so I come

to the second thing I have thought of. You must know, Bella, my dear, and Mr Rokesmith, that when I first

named to my husband my thoughts of adopting a little orphan boy in remembrance of John Harmon, I further

named to my husband that it was comforting to think that how the poor boy would be benefited by John's

'No, not Ancoar, Noddy, my dear,' returned Mrs Boffin, 'because I am going to say something else. I meant

that, I am sure, as I much as I still mean it. But this little death has made me ask myself the question,

seriously, whether I wasn't too bent upon pleasing myself. Else why did I seek out so much for a pretty child,

and a child quite to my liking? Wanting to do good, why not do it for its own sake, and put my tastes and

'Perhaps,' said Bella; and perhaps she said it with some little sensitiveness arising out of those old curious

relations of hers towards the murdered man; 'perhaps, in reviving the name, you would not have liked to give

'Well, my dear,' returned Mrs Boffin, giving her a squeeze, 'it's kind of you to find that reason out, and I hope

it may have been so, and indeed to a certain extent I believe it was so, but I am afraid not to the whole extent.

'Much better said, my dear; laid it up as a remembrance. Well then; I have been thinking if I take any orphan

to provide for, let it not be a pet and a plaything for me, but a creature to be helped for its own sake.'

'No,' returned Mrs Boffin. 'Not necessarily so. That's as it may happen. A welldisposed boy comes in my

way who may be even a little wanting in such advantages for getting on in life, but is honest and industrious

and requires a helping hand and deserves it. If I am very much in earnest and quite determined to be

Here the footman whose feelings had been hurt on the former occasion, appeared, and crossing to Rokesmith

The four members of Council looked at one another, and paused. 'Shall he be brought here, ma'am?' asked

'Yes,' said Mrs Boffin. Whereupon the footman disappeared, reappeared presenting Sloppy, and retired much

The consideration of Mrs Boffin had clothed Mr Sloppy in a suit of black, on which the tailor had received

personal directions from Rokesmith to expend the utmost cunning of his art, with a view to the concealment

of the cohering and sustaining buttons. But, so much more powerful were the frailties of Sloppy's form than

the strongest resources of tailoring science, that he now stood before the Council, a perfect Argus in the way

of buttons: shining and winking and gleaming and twinkling out of a hundred of those eyes of bright metal, at

the dazzled spectators. The artistic taste of some unknown hatter had furnished him with a hatband of

wholesale capacity which was fluted behind, from the crown of his hat to the brim, and terminated in a black

bunch, from which the imagination shrunk discomfited and the reason revolted. Some special powers with

which his legs were endowed, had already hitched up his glossy trousers at the ankles, and bagged them at the

knees; while similar gifts in his arms had raised his coat sleeves from his wrists and accumulated them at his

elbows. Thus set forth, with the additional embellishments of a very little tail to his coat, and a yawning gulf

'Thankee, mum,' said Sloppy, 'she do pretty nicely, and sending her dooty and many thanks for the tea and all

'No, mum. But I mean to it. For I ain't forgotten your handsome orders that I was never to go away without

having had a good 'un off of meat and beer and puddingno: there was four of 'em, for I reckoned 'em up

when I had 'em; meat one, beer two, vegetables three, and which was four?Why, pudding, HE was four!'

Here Sloppy threw his head back, opened his mouth wide, and laughed rapturously.

Mrs Boffin looked on the other three members of Council, and then said, beckoning with her finger:

'Off of all four on 'em, mum? O mum!' Sloppy's feelings obliged him to squeeze his hat, and contract one leg

'Yes. And should you like to be always taken care of here, if you were industrious and deserving?'

'Oh, mum!But there's Mrs Higden,' said Sloppy, checking himself in his raptures, drawing back, and

shaking his head with very serious meaning. 'There's Mrs Higden. Mrs Higden goes before all. None can ever

be better friends to me than Mrs Higden's been. And she must be turned for, must Mrs Higden. Where would

Mrs Higden be if she warn't turned for!' At the mere thought of Mrs Higden in this inconceivable affliction,

Mr Sloppy's countenance became pale, and manifested the most distressful emotions.

'You are as right as right can be, Sloppy,' said Mrs Boffin 'and far be it from me to tell you otherwise. It shall

be seen to. If Betty Higden can be turned for all the same, you shall come here and be taken care of for life,

'Even as to that, mum,' answered the ecstatic Sloppy, 'the turning might be done in the night, don't you see? I

could be here in the day, and turn in the night. I don't want no sleep, I don't. Or even if I any ways should

want a wink or two,' added Sloppy, after a moment's apologetic reflection, 'I could take 'em turning. I've took

On the grateful impulse of the moment, Mr Sloppy kissed Mrs Boffin's hand, and then detaching himself

from that good creature that he might have room enough for his feelings, threw back his head, opened his

mouth wide, and uttered a dismal howl. It was creditable to his tenderness of heart, but suggested that he

might on occasion give some offence to the neighbours: the rather, as the footman looked in, and begged

pardon, finding he was not wanted, but excused himself; on the ground 'that he thought it was Cats.'

Little Miss Peecher, from her little official dwellinghouse, with its little windows like the eyes in needles,

and its little doors like the covers of schoolbooks, was very observant indeed of the object of her quiet

affections. Love, though said to be afflicted with blindness, is a vigilant watchman, and Miss Peecher kept

him on double duty over Mr Bradley Headstone. It was not that she was naturally given to playing the

spyit was not that she was at all secret, plotting, or meanit was simply that she loved the irresponsive

Bradley with all the primitive and homely stock of love that had never been examined or certificated out of

her. If her faithful slate had had the latent qualities of sympathetic paper, and its pencil those of invisible ink,

many a little treatise calculated to astonish the pupils would have come bursting through the dry sums in

schooltime under the warming influence of Miss Peecher's bosom. For, oftentimes when school was not,

and her calm leisure and calm little house were her own, Miss Peecher would commit to the confidential slate

an imaginary description of how, upon a balmy evening at dusk, two figures might have been observed in the

marketgarden ground round the corner, of whom one, being a manly form, bent over the other, being a

womanly form of short stature and some compactness, and breathed in a low voice the words, 'Emma

Peecher, wilt thou be my own?' after which the womanly form's head reposed upon the manly form's

shoulder, and the nightingales tuned up. Though all unseen, and unsuspected by the pupils, Bradley

Headstone even pervaded the school exercises. Was Geography in question? He would come triumphantly

flying out of Vesuvius and Aetna ahead of the lava, and would boil unharmed in the hot springs of Iceland,

and would float majestically down the Ganges and the Nile. Did History chronicle a king of men? Behold

him in pepperandsalt pantaloons, with his watchguard round his neck. Were copies to be written? In

capital B's and H's most of the girls under Miss Peecher's tuition were half a year ahead of every other letter

in the alphabet. And Mental Arithmetic, administered by Miss Peecher, often devoted itself to providing

Bradley Headstone with a wardrobe of fabulous extent: fourscore and four neckties at two and

ninepencehalfpenny, two gross of silver watches at four pounds fifteen and sixpence, seventyfour black

The vigilant watchman, using his daily opportunities of turning his eyes in Bradley's direction, soon apprized

Miss Peecher that Bradley was more preoccupied than had been his wont, and more given to strolling about

with a downcast and reserved face, turning something difficult in his mind that was not in the scholastic

syllabus. Putting this and that togethercombining under the head 'this,' present appearances and the

intimacy with Charley Hexam, and ranging under the head 'that' the visit to his sister, the watchman reported

'I wonder,' said Miss Peecher, as she sat making up her weekly report on a halfholiday afternoon, 'what they

'She can hardly be named Lizzie, I think, Mary Anne,' returned Miss Peecher, in a tunefully instructive voice.

Mary Anne laid down her work, rose, hooked herself behind, as being under catechization, and replied: 'No, it

'Who gave her that name?' Miss Peecher was going on, from the mere force of habit, when she checked

herself; on Mary Anne's evincing theological impatience to strike in with her godfathers and her godmothers,

'Right, Mary Anne. Whether there were any Lizzies in the early Christian Church must be considered very

doubtful, very doubtful.' Miss Peecher was exceedingly sage here. 'Speaking correctly, we say, then, that

Hexam's sister is called Lizzie; not that she is named so. Do we not, Mary Anne?'

'And where,' pursued Miss Peecher, complacent in her little transparent fiction of conducting the examination

in a semiofficial manner for Mary Anne's benefit, not her own, 'where does this young woman, who is called

'In Church Street, Smith Square, by Mill Bank,' repeated Miss Peecher, as if possessed beforehand of the

book in which it was written. Exactly so. And what occupation does this young woman pursue, Mary Anne?

'Oh!' said Miss Peecher, pondering on it; but smoothly added, in a confirmatory tone, 'At an outfitter's in the

'Says,' Mary Anne went on, 'that he is not pleased with his sister, and that his sister won't be guided by his

'Mr Headstone coming across the garden!' exclaimed Miss Peecher, with a flushed glance at the

lookingglass. 'You have answered very well, Mary Anne. You are forming an excellent habit of arranging

The discreet Mary Anne resumed her seat and her silence, and stitched, and stitched, and was stitching when

the schoolmaster's shadow came in before him, announcing that he might be instantly expected.

'Good evening, Miss Peecher,' he said, pursuing the shadow, and taking its place.

'Thank you,' said Bradley, seating himself in his constrained manner. 'This is but a flying visit. I have looked

'Church Street, Smith Square, by Mill Bank,' repeated Miss Peecher, in her own thoughts.

'Charley Hexam has gone to get a book or two he wants, and will probably be back before me. As we leave

my house empty, I took the liberty of telling him I would leave the key here. Would you kindly allow me to

'Business in Church Street, Smith Square, by Mill Bank,' repeated Miss Peecher to herself.

'Having said which,' pursued Bradley, laying his doorkey on the table, 'I must be already going. There is

'Mill Bank,' Miss Peecher repeated in her own thoughts once again. 'No, thank you, Mr Headstone; I'll not

'Ah!' returned Miss Peecher, though not aloud; 'but you can trouble ME!' And for all her quiet manner, and

She was right touching his destination. He held as straight a course for the house of the dolls' dressmaker as

the wisdom of his ancestors, exemplified in the construction of the intervening streets, would let him, and

walked with a bent head hammering at one fixed idea. It had been an immoveable idea since he first set eyes

upon her. It seemed to him as if all that he could suppress in himself he had suppressed, as if all that he could

restrain in himself he had restrained, and the time had comein a rush, in a momentwhen the power of

selfcommand had departed from him. Love at first sight is a trite expression quite sufficiently discussed;

enough that in certain smouldering natures like this man's, that passion leaps into a blaze, and makes such

head as fire does in a rage of wind, when other passions, but for its mastery, could be held in chains. As a

multitude of weak, imitative natures are always lying by, ready to go mad upon the next wrong idea that may

be broachedin these times, generally some form of tribute to Somebody for something that never was

done, or, if ever done, that was done by Somebody Elseso these less ordinary natures may lie by for years,

The schoolmaster went his way, brooding and brooding, and a sense of being vanquished in a struggle might

have been pieced out of his worried face. Truly, in his breast there lingered a resentful shame to find himself

defeated by this passion for Charley Hexam's sister, though in the very selfsame moments he was

concentrating himself upon the object of bringing the passion to a successful issue.

He appeared before the dolls' dressmaker, sitting alone at her work. 'Oho!' thought that sharp young

'Do you?' returned Miss Wren. 'Sit down. I hope it's mutual.' Bradley glanced distrustfully at the shrewd face

'There! Don't call her that. I can't bear you to call her that,' returned Miss Wren, snapping her fingers in a

'No.' Miss Wren wrinkled her nose, to express dislike. 'Selfish. Thinks only of himself. The way with all of

'Soso,' replied Miss Wren, with a shrug and a laugh. 'Don't know much about you.'

'But I was not aware it was the way with all of us,' said Bradley, returning to the accusation, a little injured.

'Meaning,' returned the little creature, 'every one of you, but you. Hah! Now look this lady in the face. This is

Bradley glanced at the doll she held up for his observationwhich had been lying on its face on her bench,

while with a needle and thread she fastened the dress on at the backand looked from it to her.

'I stand the Honourable Mrs T. on my bench in this corner against the wall, where her blue eyes can shine

upon you,' pursued Miss Wren, doing so, and making two little dabs at him in the air with her needle, as if

she pricked him with it in his own eyes; 'and I defy you to tell me, with Mrs T. for a witness, what you have

'You don't say so!' retorted Miss Wren, hitching her chin. 'But on whose account?'

'To reason with her,' pursued Bradley, half humouring what was present, and half angry with what was not

'For her own sake,' repeated Bradley, warming, 'and for her brother's, and as a perfectly disinterested person.'

'Really, Mrs T.,' remarked the dressmaker, 'since it comes to this, we must positively turn you with your face

to the wall.' She had hardly done so, when Lizzie Hexam arrived, and showed some surprise on seeing

Bradley Headstone there, and Jenny shaking her little fist at him close before her eyes, and the Honourable

'Here's a perfectly disinterested person, Lizzie dear,' said the knowing Miss Wren, 'come to talk with you, for

your own sake and your brother's. Think of that. I am sure there ought to be no third party present at anything

so very kind and so very serious; and so, if you'll remove the third party upstairs, my dear, the third party will

Lizzie took the hand which the dolls' dressmaker held out to her for the purpose of being supported away, but

'The third party hobbles awfully, you know, when she's left to herself;' said Miss Wren, 'her back being so

bad, and her legs so queer; so she can't retire gracefully unless you help her, Lizzie.'

'She can do no better than stay where she is,' returned Lizzie, releasing the hand, and laying her own lightly

In an irresolute way, and stealing a clumsy look at her, Bradley rose to place a chair for her, and then returned

'Strictly speaking,' said he, 'I come from Charley, because I left him only a little while ago; but I am not

With her elbows on her bench, and her chin upon her hands, Miss Jenny Wren sat looking at him with a

'The fact is,' began Bradley, with a mouth so dry that he had some difficulty in articulating his words: the

consciousness of which rendered his manner still more ungainly and undecided; 'the truth is, that Charley,

having no secrets from me (to the best of my belief), has confided the whole of this matter to me.'

'I thought,' returned the schoolmaster, stealing another look at her, and seeming to try in vain to sustain it; for

the look dropped as it lighted on her eyes, 'that it might be so superfluous as to be almost impertinent, to enter

upon a definition of it. My allusion was to this matter of your having put aside your brother's plans for you,

and given the preference to those of MrI believe the name is Mr Eugene Wrayburn.'

He made this point of not being certain of the name, with another uneasy look at her, which dropped like the

Nothing being said on the other side, he had to begin again, and began with new embarrassment.

'Your brother's plans were communicated to me when he first had them in his thoughts. In point of fact he

spoke to me about them when I was last herewhen we were walking back together, and when Iwhen the

There might have been no meaning in it, but the little dressmaker here removed one of her supporting hands

from her chin, and musingly turned the Honourable Mrs T. with her face to the company. That done, she fell

'I approved of his idea,' said Bradley, with his uneasy look wandering to the doll, and unconsciously resting

there longer than it had rested on Lizzie, 'both because your brother ought naturally to be the originator of any

such scheme, and because I hoped to be able to promote it. I should have had inexpressible pleasure, I should

have taken inexpressible interest, in promoting it. Therefore I must acknowledge that when your brother was

disappointed, I too was disappointed. I wish to avoid reservation or concealment, and I fully acknowledge

He appeared to have encouraged himself by having got so far. At all events he went on with much greater

firmness and force of emphasis: though with a curious disposition to set his teeth, and with a curious

tightscrewing movement of his right hand in the clenching palm of his left, like the action of one who was

'I am a man of strong feelings, and I have strongly felt this disappointment. I do strongly feel it. I don't show

what I feel; some of us are obliged habitually to keep it down. To keep it down. But to return to your brother.

He has taken the matter so much to heart that he has remonstrated (in my presence he remonstrated) with Mr

Eugene Wrayburn, if that be the name. He did so, quite ineffectually. As any one not blinded to the real

He looked at Lizzie again, and held the look. And his face turned from burning red to white, and from white

'Finally, I resolved to come here alone, and appeal to you. I resolved to come here alone, and entreat you to

retract the course you have chosen, and instead of confiding in a mere strangera person of most insolent

behaviour to your brother and othersto prefer your brother and your brother's friend.'

Lizzie Hexam had changed colour when those changes came over him, and her face now expressed some

anger, more dislike, and even a touch of fear. But she answered him very steadily.

'I cannot doubt, Mr Headstone, that your visit is well meant. You have been so good a friend to Charley that I

have no right to doubt it. I have nothing to tell Charley, but that I accepted the help to which he so much

objects before he made any plans for me; or certainly before I knew of any. It was considerately and

delicately offered, and there were reasons that had weight with me which should be as dear to Charley as to

His lips trembled and stood apart, as he followed this repudiation of himself; and limitation of her words to

'I should have told Charley, if he had come to me,' she resumed, as though it were an afterthought, 'that

Jenny and I find our teacher very able and very patient, and that she takes great pains with us. So much so,

that we have said to her we hope in a very little while to be able to go on by ourselves. Charley knows about

teachers, and I should also have told him, for his satisfaction, that ours comes from an institution where

'I should like to ask you,' said Bradley Headstone, grinding his words slowly out, as though they came from a

rusty mill; 'I should like to ask you, if I may without offence, whether you would have objectedno; rather, I

should like to say, if I may without offence, that I wish I had had the opportunity of coming here with your

'But I fear,' he pursued, after a pause, furtively wrenching at the seat of his chair with one hand, as if he

would have wrenched the chair to pieces, and gloomily observing her while her eyes were cast down, 'that my

She made no reply, and the poor stricken wretch sat contending with himself in a heat of passion and torment.

'There is only one thing more I had to say, but it is the most important. There is a reason against this matter,

there is a personal relation concerned in this matter, not yet explained to you. It mightI don't say it

wouldit mightinduce you to think differently. To proceed under the present circumstances is out of the

question. Will you please come to the understanding that there shall be another interview on the subject?'

'Withwell,' he answered, breaking off, 'yes! Say with him too. Will you please come to the understanding

that there must be another interview under more favourable circumstances, before the whole case can be

'I don't,' said Lizzie, shaking her head, 'understand your meaning, Mr Headstone.'

'Limit my meaning for the present,' he interrupted, 'to the whole case being submitted to you in another

'Youyou shall be informed in the other interview.' Then he said, as if in a burst of irrepressible despair,

'II leave it all incomplete! There is a spell upon me, I think!' And then added, almost as if he asked for pity,

He held out his hand. As she, with manifest hesitation, not to say reluctance, touched it, a strange tremble

passed over him, and his face, so deadly white, was moved as by a stroke of pain. Then he was gone.

The dolls' dressmaker sat with her attitude unchanged, eyeing the door by which he had departed, until Lizzie

pushed her bench aside and sat down near her. Then, eyeing Lizzie as she had previously eyed Bradley and

the door, Miss Wren chopped that very sudden and keen chop in which her jaws sometimes indulged, leaned

'Humph! If heI mean, of course, my dear, the party who is coming to court me when the time

comesshould be THAT sort of man, he may spare himself the trouble. HE wouldn't do to be trotted about

'Not so easily,' returned Miss Wren. 'He wouldn't blow up alone. He'd carry me up with him. I know his tricks

'Mightn't exactly want to do it, my dear,' returned Miss Wren; 'but a lot of gunpowder among lighted

'I wish he was so very strange a man as to be a total stranger,' answered the sharp little thing.

It being Lizzie's regular occupation when they were alone of an evening to brush out and smooth the long fair

hair of the dolls' dressmaker, she unfastened a ribbon that kept it back while the little creature was at her

work, and it fell in a beautiful shower over the poor shoulders that were much in need of such adorning rain.

'Not now, Lizzie, dear,' said Jenny; 'let us have a talk by the fire.' With those words, she in her turn loosened

her friend's dark hair, and it dropped of its own weight over her bosom, in two rich masses. Pretending to

compare the colours and admire the contrast, Jenny so managed a mere touch or two of her nimble hands, as

that she herself laying a cheek on one of the dark folds, seemed blinded by her own clustering curls to all but

the fire, while the fine handsome face and brow of Lizzie were revealed without obstruction in the sombre

Something sparkled down among the fair hair resting on the dark hair; and if it were not a starwhich it

couldn't beit was an eye; and if it were an eye, it was Jenny Wren's eye, bright and watchful as the bird's

'For no better reason than because I'm in the humour. I wonder whether he's rich!'

'Ah! To be sure! Yes, he's a gentleman. Not of our sort; is he?' A shake of the head, a thoughtful shake of the

The dolls' dressmaker had an arm round her friend's waist. Adjusting the arm, she slyly took the opportunity

of blowing at her own hair where it fell over her face; then the eye down there, under lighter shadows

'When He turns up, he shan't be a gentleman; I'll very soon send him packing, if he is. However, he's not Mr

'Is it not very likely that some lady has been taken by him, and that he may love her dearly?'

'Perhaps. I don't know. What would you think of him, Lizzie, if you were a lady?'

'I a lady! I, a poor girl who used to row poor father on the river. I, who had rowed poor father out and home

on the very night when I saw him for the first time. I, who was made so timid by his looking at me, that I got

('He did look at you, even that night, though you were not a lady!' thought Miss Wren.)

'I a lady!' Lizzie went on in a low voice, with her eyes upon the fire. 'I, with poor father's grave not even

cleared of undeserved stain and shame, and he trying to clear it for me! I a lady!'

'Too much, Jenny, dear, too much! My fancy is not able to get that far.' As the low fire gleamed upon her, it

'But I am in the humour, and I must be humoured, Lizzie, because after all I am a poor little thing, and have

had a hard day with my bad child. Look in the fire, as I like to hear you tell how you used to do when you

lived in that dreary old house that had once been a windmill. Look in thewhat was its name when you told

The sparkling eye looked steadfastly up, as the musing face looked thoughtfully down. 'Well?' said the dolls'

'What does she say about him?' asked Miss Jenny, in a low voice: watchful, through an intervening silence, of

'She is glad, glad, to be rich, that he may have the money. She is glad, glad, to be beautiful, that he may be

'Her heartis given him, with all its love and truth. She would joyfully die with him, or, better than that, die

for him. She knows he has failings, but she thinks they have grown up through his being like one cast away,

for the want of something to trust in, and care for, and think well of. And she says, that lady rich and

beautiful that I can never come near, "Only put me in that empty place, only try how little I mind myself, only

prove what a world of things I will do and bear for you, and I hope that you might even come to be much

better than you are, through me who am so much worse, and hardly worth the thinking of beside you."'

As the face looking at the fire had become exalted and forgetful in the rapture of these words, the little

creature, openly clearing away her fair hair with her disengaged hand, had gazed at it with earnest attention

and something like alarm. Now that the speaker ceased, the little creature laid down her head again, and

'Yes, but not the old pain. Lay me down, lay me down. Don't go out of my sight tonight. Lock the door and

keep close to me. Then turning away her face, she said in a whisper to herself, 'My Lizzie, my poor Lizzie! O

my blessed children, come back in the long bright slanting rows, and come for her, not me. She wants help

She had stretched her hands up with that higher and better look, and now she turned again, and folded them

Rogue Riderhood dwelt deep and dark in Limehouse Hole, among the riggers, and the mast, oar and block

makers, and the boat builders, and the saillofts, as in a kind of ship's hold stored full of waterside

characters, some no better than himself, some very much better, and none much worse. The Hole, albeit in a

general way not over nice in its choice of company, was rather shy in reference to the honour of cultivating

the Rogue's acquaintance; more frequently giving him the cold shoulder than the warm hand, and seldom or

never drinking with him unless at his own expense. A part of the Hole, indeed, contained so much public

spirit and private virtue that not even this strong leverage could move it to good fellowship with a tainted

accuser. But, there may have been the drawback on this magnanimous morality, that its exponents held a true

witness before Justice to be the next unneighbourly and accursed character to a false one.

Had it not been for the daughter whom he often mentioned, Mr Riderhood might have found the Hole a mere

grave as to any means it would yield him of getting a living. But Miss Pleasant Riderhood had some little

position and connection in Limehouse Hole. Upon the smallest of small scales, she was an unlicensed

pawnbroker, keeping what was popularly called a Leaving Shop, by lending insignificant sums on

insignificant articles of property deposited with her as security. In her fourandtwentieth year of life,

Pleasant was already in her fifth year of this way of trade. Her deceased mother had established the business,

and on that parent's demise she had appropriated a secret capital of fifteen shillings to establishing herself in

it; the existence of such capital in a pillow being the last intelligible confidential communication made to her

by the departed, before succumbing to dropsical conditions of snuff and gin, incompatible equally with

Why christened Pleasant, the late Mrs Riderhood might possibly have been at some time able to explain, and

possibly not. Her daughter had no information on that point. Pleasant she found herself, and she couldn't help

it. She had not been consulted on the question, any more than on the question of her coming into these

terrestrial parts, to want a name. Similarly, she found herself possessed of what is colloquially termed a

swivel eye (derived from her father), which she might perhaps have declined if her sentiments on the subject

had been taken. She was not otherwise positively illlooking, though anxious, meagre, of a muddy

As some dogs have it in the blood, or are trained, to worry certain creatures to a certain point, sonot to

make the comparison disrespectfiallyPleasant Riderhood had it in the blood, or had been trained, to regard

seamen, within certain limits, as her prey. Show her a man in a blue jacket, and, figuratively speaking, she

pinned him instantly. Yet, all things considered, she was not of an evil mind or an unkindly disposition. For,

observe how many things were to be considered according to her own unfortunate experience. Show Pleasant

Riderhood a Wedding in the street, and she only saw two people taking out a regular licence to quarrel and

fight. Show her a Christening, and she saw a little heathen personage having a quite superfluous name

bestowed upon it, inasmuch as it would be commonly addressed by some abusive epithet: which little

personage was not in the least wanted by anybody, and would be shoved and banged out of everybody's way,

until it should grow big enough to shove and bang. Show her a Funeral, and she saw an unremunerative

ceremony in the nature of a black masquerade, conferring a temporary gentility on the performers, at an

immense expense, and representing the only formal party ever given by the deceased. Show her a live father,

and she saw but a duplicate of her own father, who from her infancy had been taken with fits and starts of

discharging his duty to her, which duty was always incorporated in the form of a fist or a leathern strap, and

being discharged hurt her. All things considered, therefore, Pleasant Riderhood was not so very, very bad.

There was even a touch of romance in herof such romance as could creep into Limehouse Holeand

maybe sometimes of a summer evening, when she stood with folded arms at her shop door, looking from

the reeking street to the sky where the sun was setting, she may have had some vaporous visions of faroff

islands in the southern seas or elsewhere (not being geographically particular), where it would be good to

roam with a congenial partner among groves of breadfruit, waiting for ships to be wafted from the hollow

ports of civilization. For, sailors to be got the better of, were essential to Miss Pleasant's Eden.

Not on a summer evening did she come to her little shopdoor, when a certain man standing over against the

house on the opposite side of the street took notice of her. That was on a cold shrewd windy evening, after

dark. Pleasant Riderhood shared with most of the lady inhabitants of the Hole, the peculiarity that her hair

was a ragged knot, constantly coming down behind, and that she never could enter upon any undertaking

without first twisting it into place. At that particular moment, being newly come to the threshold to take a

look out of doors, she was winding herself up with both hands after this fashion. And so prevalent was the

fashion, that on the occasion of a fight or other disturbance in the Hole, the ladies would be seen flocking

from all quarters universally twisting their backhair as they came along, and many of them, in the hurry of

It was a wretched little shop, with a roof that any man standing in it could touch with his hand; little better

than a cellar or cave, down three steps. Yet in its illlighted window, among a flaring handkerchief or two, an

old peacoat or so, a few valueless watches and compasses, a jar of tobacco and two crossed pipes, a bottle of

walnut ketchup, and some horrible sweets these creature discomforts serving as a blind to the main business

Taking notice of Pleasant Riderhood at the door, the man crossed so quickly that she was still winding herself

It was a tentative reply, the man having a seafaring appearance. Her father was not at home, and Pleasant

knew it. 'Take a seat by the fire,' were her hospitable words when she had got him in; 'men of your calling are

His manner was the manner of a sailor, and his hands were the hands of a sailor, except that they were

smooth. Pleasant had an eye for sailors, and she noticed the unused colour and texture of the hands, sunburnt

though they were, as sharply as she noticed their unmistakable loosneness and suppleness, as he sat himself

down with his left arm carelessly thrown across his left leg a little above the knee, and the right arm as

carelessly thrown over the elbow of the wooden chair, with the hand curved, half open and half shut, as if it

'Might you be looking for a BoardingHouse?' Pleasant inquired, taking her observant stand on one side of

'No,' assented Pleasant, 'you've got too much of an outfit on you for that. But if you should want either, this is

'Ay, ay!' said the man, glancing round the place. 'I know. I've been here before.'

'Did you Leave anything when you were here before?' asked Pleasant, with a view to principal and interest.

'What DID you do here when you were here before?' asked Pleasant. 'For I don't remember you.'

'It's not at all likely you should. I only stood at the door, one nighton the lower step therewhile a

shipmate of mine looked in to speak to your father. I remember the place well.' Looking very curiously round

The man with a keen look, a quick smile, and a change of manner, caught her up. 'You're a good observer.

Pleasant was somewhat disquieted by his look, and returned it suspiciously. Not only was his change of

manner, though very sudden, quite collected, but his former manner, which he resumed, had a certain

'As you supposed he was at home, it would seem that he has just gone out? How's that?'

'Oh! You supposed he had come home? Then he has been some time out? How's that?'

'I don't know what you mean,' said Pleasant, shrinking a step back. 'What on earth d'ye want?'

'I don't want to hurt your father. I don't want to say I might, if I chose. I want to speak to him. Not much in

that, is there? There shall be no secrets from you; you shall be by. And plainly, Miss Riderhood, there's

nothing to be got out of me, or made of me. I am not good for the Leaving Shop, I am not good for the

BoardingHouse, I am not good for anything in your way to the extent of sixpenn'orth of halfpence. Put the

'But you're a seafaring man?' argued Pleasant, as if that were a sufficient reason for his being good for

'Yes and no. I have been, and I may be again. But I am not for you. Won't you take my word for it?'

The conversation had arrived at a crisis to justify Miss Pleasant's hair in tumbling down. It tumbled down

accordingly, and she twisted it up, looking from under her bent forehead at the man. In taking stock of his

familiarly worn roughweather nautical clothes, piece by piece, she took stock of a formidable knife in a

sheath at his waist ready to his hand, and of a whistle hanging round his neck, and of a short jagged knotted

club with a loaded head that peeped out of a pocket of his loose outer jacket or frock. He sat quietly looking

at her; but, with these appendages partially revealing themselves, and with a quantity of bristling oakum

Pleasant answered with a short dumb nod. He rejoined with another short dumb nod. Then he got up and

stood with his arms folded, in front of the fire, looking down into it occasionally, as she stood with her arms

'To wile away the time till your father comes,' he said,'pray is there much robbing and murdering of

'Complaints of that sort are sometimes made, about Ratcliffe and Wapping and up that way. But who knows

'That's what I say,' observed Pleasant. 'Where's the reason for it? Bless the sailors, it ain't as if they ever could

'You're right. Their money may be soon got out of them, without violence,' said the man.

'Of course it may,' said Pleasant; 'and then they ship again and get more. And the best thing for 'em, too, to

ship again as soon as ever they can be brought to it. They're never so well off as when they're afloat.'

'I'll tell you why I ask,' pursued the visitor, looking up from the fire. 'I was once beset that way myself, and

'It happened,' returned the man, with a ruminative air, as he drew his right hand across his chin, and dipped

the other in the pocket of his rough outer coat, 'it happened somewhere about here as I reckon. I don't think it

'I was muddled, but not with fair drinking. I had not been drinking, you understand. A mouthful did it.'

Pleasant with a grave look shook her head; importing that she understood the process, but decidedly

'Fair trade is one thing,' said she, 'but that's another. No one has a right to carry on with Jack in THAT way.'

'The sentiment does you credit,' returned the man, with a grim smile; and added, in a mutter, 'the more so, as I

believe it's not your father's.Yes, I had a bad time of it, that time. I lost everything, and had a sharp

'A tremendous punishment followed,' said the man, more seriously; 'but it was not of my bringing about.'

The man pointed upward with his forefinger, and, slowly recovering that hand, settled his chin in it again as

he looked at the fire. Bringing her inherited eye to bear upon him, Pleasant Riderhood felt more and more

'Anyways,' said the damsel, 'I am glad punishment followed, and I say so. Fair trade with seafaring men gets

a bad name through deeds of violence. I am as much against deeds of violence being done to seafaring men,

as seafaring men can be themselves. I am of the same opinion as my mother was, when she was living. Fair

trade, my mother used to say, but no robbery and no blows.' In the way of trade Miss Pleasant would have

takenand indeed did take when she couldas much as thirty shillings a week for board that would be dear

at five, and likewise conducted the Leaving business upon correspondingly equitable principles; yet she had

that tenderness of conscience and those feelings of humanity, that the moment her ideas of trade were

overstepped, she became the seaman's champion, even against her father whom she seldom otherwise

But, she was here interrupted by her father's voice exclaiming angrily, 'Now, Poll Parrot!' and by her father's

hat being heavily flung from his hand and striking her face. Accustomed to such occasional manifestations of

his sense of parental duty, Pleasant merely wiped her face on her hair (which of course had tumbled down)

before she twisted it up. This was another common procedure on the part of the ladies of the Hole, when

'Blest if I believe such a Poll Parrot as you was ever learned to speak!' growled Mr Riderhood, stooping to

pick up his hat, and making a feint at her with his head and right elbow; for he took the delicate subject of

robbing seamen in extraordinary dudgeon, and was out of humour too. 'What are you Poll Parroting at now?

Ain't you got nothing to do but fold your arms and stand a Poll Parroting all night?'

'Let her alone too!' retorted Mr Riderhood, eyeing him all over. 'Do you know she's my daughter?'

'And don't you know that I won't have no Poll Parroting on the part of my daughter? No, nor yet that I won't

'Well,' said Mr Riderhood, quailing a little, 'I am willing to be silent for the purpose of hearing. But don't Poll

'Are you thirsty, you?' the man asked, in the same fierce short way, after returning his look.

'Why nat'rally,' said Mr Riderhood, 'ain't I always thirsty!' (Indignant at the absurdity of the question.)

'Sherry wine,' returned Mr Riderhood, in the same sharp tone, 'if you're capable of it.'

The man put his hand in his pocket, took out half a sovereign, and begged the favour of Miss Pleasant that

she would fetch a bottle. 'With the cork undrawn,' he added, emphatically, looking at her father.

'I'll take my Alfred David,' muttered Mr Riderhood, slowly relaxing into a dark smile, 'that you know a move.

The man replied, 'No, you don't know me.' And so they stood looking at one another surlily enough, until

'There's small glasses on the shelf,' said Riderhood to his daughter. 'Give me the one without a foot. I gets my

living by the sweat of my brow, and it's good enough for ME.' This had a modest self denying appearance;

but it soon turned out that as, by reason of the impossibility of standing the glass upright while there was

anything in it, it required to be emptied as soon as filled, Mr Riderhood managed to drink in the proportion of

With his Fortunatus's goblet ready in his hand, Mr Riderhood sat down on one side of the table before the

fire, and the strange man on the other: Pleasant occupying a stool between the latter and the fireside. The

background, composed of handkerchiefs, coats, shirts, hats, and other old articles 'On Leaving,' had a general

dim resemblance to human listeners; especially where a shiny black sou'wester suit and hat hung, looking

very like a clumsy mariner with his back to the company, who was so curious to overhear, that he paused for

the purpose with his coat half pulled on, and his shoulders up to his ears in the uncompleted action.

The visitor first held the bottle against the light of the candle, and next examined the top of the cork. Satisfied

that it had not been tampered with, he slowly took from his breastpocket a rusty clasp knife, and, with a

corkscrew in the handle, opened the wine. That done, he looked at the cork, unscrewed it from the corkscrew,

laid each separately on the table, and, with the end of the sailor's knot of his neckerchief, dusted the inside of

At first Riderhood had sat with his footless glass extended at arm's length for filling, while the very deliberate

stranger seemed absorbed in his preparations. But, gradually his arm reverted home to him, and his glass was

lowered and lowered until he rested it upside down upon the table. By the same degrees his attention became

concentrated on the knife. And now, as the man held out the bottle to fill all round, Riderhood stood up,

He motioned to him to hold up his glass, and filled it. Riderhood emptied it to the last drop and began again.

'Stop,' said the man, composedly. 'I was going to drink to your daughter. Your health, Miss Riderhood.'

'Death has come to him. Death came to him in an ugly shape. He looked,' said the man, 'very horrible after it.'

Only answering with a shrug, the man filled the footless glass, and Riderhood emptied it: looking amazedly

'You don't mean to tell a honest man' he was recommencing with his empty glass in his hand, when his eye

became fascinated by the stranger's outer coat. He leaned across the table to see it nearer, touched the sleeve,

turned the cuff to look at the sleeve lining (the man, in his perfect composure, offering not the least

objection), and exclaimed, 'It's my belief as this here coat was George Radfoot's too!'

'You are right. He wore it the last time you ever saw him, and the last time you ever will see himin this

'It's my belief you mean to tell me to my face you killed him!' exclaimed Riderhood; but, nevertheless,

'Wish I may die if I know what to be up to with this chap!' said Riderhood, after staring at him, and tossing

his last glassful down his throat. 'Let's know what to make of you. Say something plain.'

'I will,' returned the other, leaning forward across the table, and speaking in a low impressive voice. 'What a

The honest witness rose, and made as though he would fling his glass in the man's face. The man not

wincing, and merely shaking his forefinger half knowingly, half menacingly, the piece of honesty thought

'And when you went to that lawyer yonder in the Temple with that invented story,' said the stranger, in an

exasperatingly comfortable sort of confidence, 'you might have had your strong suspicions of a friend of your

'It was possessed by, and was the property ofhim as I have made mention on,' said Riderhood, stupidly

'That there article of clothing likeways belonged to, and was wore byhim as I have made mention on,' was

'I suspect that you gave him the credit of the deed, and of keeping cleverly out of the way. But there was

small cleverness in HIS keeping out of the way. The cleverness would have been, to have got back for one

'Things is come to a pretty pass,' growled Mr Riderhood, rising to his feet, goaded to stand at bay, 'when

bullyers as is wearing dead men's clothes, and bullyers as is armed with dead men's knives, is to come into

the houses of honest live men, getting their livings by the sweats of their brows, and is to make these here

sort of charges with no rhyme and no reason, neither the one nor yet the other! Why should I have had my

'Because you knew him,' replied the man; 'because you had been one with him, and knew his real character

under a fair outside; because on the night which you had afterwards reason to believe to be the very night of

the murder, he came in here, within an hour of his having left his ship in the docks, and asked you in what

'I'll take my worldwithoutend everlasting Alfred David that you warn't with him,' answered Riderhood.

'You talk big, you do, but things look pretty black against yourself, to my thinking. You charge again' me that

George Radfoot got lost sight of, and was no more thought of. What's that for a sailor? Why there's fifty such,

out of sight and out of mind, ten times as long as himthrough entering in different names, reshipping

when the out'ard voyage is made, and what nota turning up to light every day about here, and no matter

made of it. Ask my daughter. You could go on Poll Parroting enough with her, when I warn't come in: Poll

Parrot a little with her on this pint. You and your suspicions of my suspicions of him! What are my

suspicions of you? You tell me George Radfoot got killed. I ask you who done it and how you know it. You

carry his knife and you wear his coat. I ask you how you come by 'em? Hand over that there bottle!' Here Mr

Riderhood appeared to labour under a virtuous delusion that it was his own property. 'And you,' he added,

turning to his daughter, as he filled the footless glass, 'if it warn't wasting good sherry wine on you, I'd chuck

this at you, for Poll Parroting with this man. It's along of Poll Parroting that such like as him gets their

suspicions, whereas I gets mine by argueyment, and being nat'rally a honest man, and sweating away at the

brow as a honest man ought.' Here he filled the footless goblet again, and stood chewing one half of its

contents and looking down into the other as he slowly rolled the wine about in the glass; while Pleasant,

whose sympathetic hair had come down on her being apostrophised, rearranged it, much in the style of the

'No,' said Riderhood, 'I ain't. Far from it. Now then! I want to know how George Radfoot come by his death,

'No Poll Parroting!' he vociferated, in return. 'Keep your mouth shut!I want to know, you sir, whether you

'I alone know,' returned the man, sternly shaking his head, 'the mysteries of that crime. I alone know that your

trumpedup story cannot possibly be true. I alone know that it must be altogether false, and that you must

know it to be altogether false. I come here tonight to tell you so much of what I know, and no more.'

Mr Riderhood, with his crooked eye upon his visitor, meditated for some moments, and then refilled his

'Shut the shopdoor!' he then said to his daughter, putting the glass suddenly down. 'And turn the key and

stand by it! If you know all this, you sir,' getting, as he spoke, between the visitor and the door, 'why han't

'Don't you know that, if you didn't do the deed, what you say you could tell is worth from five to ten thousand

The honest man paused, and drew a little nearer to the visitor, and a little further from the door.

'I know it,' repeated the man, quietly, 'as well as I know that you and George Radfoot were one together in

more than one dark business; and as well as I know that you, Roger Riderhood, conspired against an innocent

man for bloodmoney; and as well as I know that I canand that I swear I will!give you up on both

'Father!' cried Pleasant, from the door. 'Don't defy him! Give way to him! Don't get into more trouble, father!'

'Will you leave off a Poll Parroting, I ask you?' cried Mr Riderhood, half beside himself between the two.

Then, propitiatingly and crawlingly: 'You sir! You han't said what you want of me. Is it fair, is it worthy of

'I don't want much,' said the man. 'This accusation of yours must not be left half made and half unmade. What

'Captain, then,' urged Mr Riderhood; 'there! You won't object to Captain. It's a honourable title, and you fully

'They can hurt the memory of a dead man, and they can hurt his living children. How many children had this

'Of whom else are we speaking?' returned the other, with a movement of his foot, as if Rogue Riderhood were

beginning to sneak before him in the body as well as the spirit, and he spurned him off. 'I have heard of a

daughter, and a son. I ask for information; I ask YOUR daughter; I prefer to speak to her. What children did

Pleasant, looking to her father for permission to reply, that honest man exclaimed with great bitterness:

'Why the devil don't you answer the Captain? You can Poll Parrot enough when you ain't wanted to Poll

Thus encouraged, Pleasant explained that there were only Lizzie, the daughter in question, and the youth.

'It is dreadful that any stigma should attach to them,' said the visitor, whom the consideration rendered so

uneasy that he rose, and paced to and fro, muttering, 'Dreadful! Unforeseen? How could it be foreseen!' Then

Pleasant further explained that only the daughter had resided with the father at the time of his accidental

'I know that,' said the man, 'for I have been to the place they dwelt in, at the time of the inquest. Could you

Pleasant had no doubt she could do that. Within what time, did she think? Within a day. The visitor said that

was well, and he would return for the information, relying on its being obtained. To this dialogue Riderhood

'Captain! Mentioning them unfort'net words of mine respecting Gaffer, it is contrairily to be bore in mind that

Gaffer always were a precious rascal, and that his line were a thieving line. Likeways when I went to them

two Governors, Lawyer Lightwood and the t'other Governor, with my information, I may have been a little

overeager for the cause of justice, or (to put it another way) a little overstimilated by them feelings which

rouses a man up, when a pot of money is going about, to get his hand into that pot of money for his family's

sake. Besides which, I think the wine of them two Governors wasI will not say a hocussed wine, but fur

from a wine as was elthy for the mind. And there's another thing to be remembered, Captain. Did I stick to

them words when Gaffer was no more, and did I say bold to them two Governors, "Governors both, wot I

informed I still inform; wot was took down I hold to"? No. I says, frank and openno shuffling, mind you,

Captain!"I may have been mistook, I've been a thinking of it, it mayn't have been took down correct on

this and that, and I won't swear to thick and thin, I'd rayther forfeit your good opinions than do it. And so far

as I know,' concluded Mr Riderhood, by way of proof and evidence to character, 'I HAVE actiwally forfeited

the good opinions of several personseven your own, Captain, if I understand your wordsbut I'd sooner

'You shall sign,' said the visitor, taking very little heed of this oration, 'a statement that it was all utterly false,

and the poor girl shall have it. I will bring it with me for your signature, when I come again.'

'When might you be expected, Captain?' inquired Riderhood, again dubiously getting between him and door.

'"Shall" is summ'at of a hard word, Captain,' urged Riderhood, still feebly dodging between him and the door,

as he advanced. 'When you say a man "shall" sign this and that and t'other, Captain, you order him about in a

'Father, father!' entreated Pleasant, from the door, with her disengaged hand nervously trembling at her lips;

'Hear me out, Captain, hear me out! All I was wishing to mention, Captain, afore you took your departer,' said

the sneaking Mr Riderhood, falling out of his path, 'was, your handsome words relating to the reward.'

'When I claim it,' said the man, in a tone which seemed to leave some such words as 'you dog,' very distinctly

Looking stedfastly at Riderhood, he once more said in a low voice, this time with a grim sort of admiration of

him as a perfect piece of evil, 'What a liar you are!' and, nodding his head twice or thrice over the

The honest man who gained his living by the sweat of his brow remained in a state akin to stupefaction, until

the footless glass and the unfinished bottle conveyed themselves into his mind. From his mind he conveyed

them into his hands, and so conveyed the last of the wine into his stomach. When that was done, he awoke to

a clear perception that Poll Parroting was solely chargeable with what had passed. Therefore,not to be remiss

in his duty as a father, he threw a pair of seaboots at Pleasant, which she ducked to avoid, and then cried,

The wind was blowing so hard when the visitor came out at the shopdoor into the darkness and dirt of

Limehouse Hole, that it almost blew him in again. Doors were slamming violently, lamps were flickering or

blown out, signs were rocking in their frames, the water of the kennels, winddispersed, flew about in drops

like rain. Indifferent to the weather, and even preferring it to better weather for its clearance of the streets, the

man looked about him with a scrutinizing glance. 'Thus much I know,' he murmured. 'I have never been here

since that night, and never was here before that night, but thus much I recognize. I wonder which way did we

take when we came out of that shop. We turned to the right as I have turned, but I can recall no more. Did we

He tried both, but both confused him equally, and he came straying back to the same spot. 'I remember there

were poles pushed out of upper windows on which clothes were drying, and I remember a low publichouse,

and the sound flowing down a narrow passage belonging to it of the scraping of a fiddle and the shuffling of

feet. But here are all these things in the lane, and here are all these things in the alley. And I have nothing else

He tried a new direction, but made nothing of it; walls, dark doorways, flights of stairs and rooms, were too

abundant. And, like most people so puzzled, he again and again described a circle, and found himself at the

point from which he had begun. 'This is like what I have read in narratives of escape from prison,' said he,

'where the little track of the fugitives in the night always seems to take the shape of the great round world, on

Here he ceased to be the oakumheaded, oakumwhiskered man on whom Miss Pleasant Riderhood had

looked, and, allowing for his being still wrapped in a nautical overcoat, became as like that same lost wanted

Mr Julius Handford, as never man was like another in this world. In the breast of the coat he stowed the

bristling hair and whisker, in a moment, as the favouring wind went with him down a solitary place that it had

swept clear of passengers. Yet in that same moment he was the Secretary also, Mr Boffin's Secretary. For

John Rokesmith, too, was as like that same lost wanted Mr Julius Handford as never man was like another in

'I have no clue to the scene of my death,' said he. 'Not that it matters now. But having risked discovery by

venturing here at all, I should have been glad to track some part of the way.' With which singular words he

abandoned his search, came up out of Limehouse Hole, and took the way past Limehouse Church. At the

great iron gate of the churchyard he stopped and looked in. He looked up at the high tower spectrally resisting

the wind, and he looked round at the white tombstones, like enough to the dead in their windingsheets, and

'It is a sensation not experienced by many mortals,' said he, 'to be looking into a churchyard on a wild windy

night, and to feel that I no more hold a place among the living than these dead do, and even to know that I lie

buried somewhere else, as they lie buried here. Nothing uses me to it. A spirit that was once a man could

hardly feel stranger or lonelier, going unrecognized among mankind, than I feel.

'But this is the fanciful side of the situation. It has a real side, so difficult that, though I think of it every day, I

never thoroughly think it out. Now, let me determine to think it out as I walk home. I know I evade it, as

many menperhaps most mendo evade thinking their way through their greatest perplexity. I will try to

'When I came to England, attracted to the country with which I had none but most miserable associations, by

the accounts of my fine inheritance that found me abroad, I came back, shrinking from my father's money,

shrinking from my father's memory, mistrustful of being forced on a mercenary wife, mistrustful of my

father's intention in thrusting that marriage on me, mistrustful that I was already growing avaricious,

mistrustful that I was slackening in gratitude to the two dear noble honest friends who had made the only

sunlight in my childish life or that of my hearthroken sister. I came back, timid, divided in my mind, afraid of

myself and everybody here, knowing of nothing but wretchedness that my father's wealth had ever brought

about. Now, stop, and so far think it out, John Harmon. Is that so? That is exactly so.

'On board serving as third mate was George Radfoot. I knew nothing of him. His name first became known to

me about a week before we sailed, through my being accosted by one of the ship agent's clerks as "Mr

Radfoot." It was one day when I had gone aboard to look to my preparations, and the clerk, coming behind

me as I stood on deck, tapped me on the shoulder, and said, "Mr Radfoot, look here," referring to some

papers that he had in his hand. And my name first became known to Radfoot, through another clerk within a

day or two, and while the ship was yet in port, coming up behind him, tapping him on the shoulder and

beginning, "I beg your pardon, Mr Harmon." I believe we were alike in bulk and stature but not otherwise,

and that we were not strikingly alike, even in those respects, when we were together and could be compared.

'However, a sociable word or two on these mistakes became an easy introduction between us, and the weather

was hot, and he helped me to a cool cabin on deck alongside his own, and his first school had been at

Brussels as mine had been, and he had learnt French as I had learnt it, and he had a little history of himself to

relateGod only knows how much of it true, and how much of it falsethat had its likeness to mine. I had

been a seaman too. So we got to be confidential together, and the more easily yet, because he and every one

on board had known by general rumour what I was making the voyage to England for. By such degrees and

means, he came to the knowledge of my uneasiness of mind, and of its setting at that time in the direction of

desiring to see and form some judgment of my allotted wife, before she could possibly know me for myself;

also to try Mrs Boffin and give her a glad surprise. So the plot was made out of our getting common sailors'

dresses (as he was able to guide me about London), and throwing ourselves in Bella Wilfer's neighbourhood,

and trying to put ourselves in her way, and doing whatever chance might favour on the spot, and seeing what

came of it. If nothing came of it, I should be no worse off, and there would merely be a short delay in my

presenting myself to Lightwood. I have all these facts right? Yes. They are all accurately right.

'His advantage in all this was, that for a time I was to be lost. It might be for a day or for two days, but I must

be lost sight of on landing, or there would be recognition, anticipation, and failure. Therefore, I disembarked

with my valise in my handas Potterson the steward and Mr Jacob Kibble my fellowpassenger afterwards

rememberedand waited for him in the dark by that very Limehouse Church which is now behind me.

'As I had always shunned the port of London, I only knew the church through his pointing out its spire from

on board. Perhaps I might recall, if it were any good to try, the way by which I went to it alone from the river;

but how we two went from it to Riderhood's shop, I don't knowany more than I know what turns we took

and doubles we made, after we left it. The way was purposely confused, no doubt.

'But let me go on thinking the facts out, and avoid confusing them with my speculations. Whether be took me

by a straight way or a crooked way, what is that to the purpose now? Steady, John Harmon.

'When we stopped at Riderhood's, and he asked that scoundrel a question or two, purporting to refer only to

the lodginghouses in which there was accommodation for us, had I the least suspicion of him? None.

Certainly none until afterwards when I held the clue. I think he must have got from Riderhood in a paper, the

drug, or whatever it was, that afterwards stupefied me, but I am far from sure. All I felt safe in charging on

him tonight, was old companionship in villainy between them. Their undisguised intimacy, and the

character I now know Riderhood to bear, made that not at all adventurous. But I am not clear about the drug.

Thinking out the circumstances on which I found my suspicion, they are only two. One: I remember his

changing a small folded paper from one pocket to another, after we came out, which he had not touched

before. Two: I now know Riderhood to have been previously taken up for being concerned in the robbery of

'It is my conviction that we cannot have gone a mile from that shop, before we came to the wall, the dark

doorway, the flight of stairs, and the room. The night was particularly dark and it rained hard. As I think the

circumstances back, I hear the rain splashing on the stone pavement of the passage, whch was not under

cover. The room overlooked the river, or a dock, or a creek, and the tide was out. Being possessed of the time

down to that point, I know by the hour that it must have been about low water; but while the coffee was

getting ready, I drew back the curtain (a darkbrown curtain), and, looking out, knew by the kind of

reflection below, of the few neighbouring lights, that they were reflected in tidal mud.

'He had carried under his arm a canvas bag, containing a suit of his clothes. I had no change of outer clothes

with me, as I was to buy slops. "You are very wet, Mr Harmon,"I can hear him saying"and I am quite

dry under this good waterproof coat. Put on these clothes of mine. You may find on trying them that they will

answer your purpose tomorrow, as well as the slops you mean to buy, or better. While you change, I'll hurry

the hot coffee." When he came back, I had his clothes on, and there was a black man with him, wearing a

linen jacket, like a steward, who put the smoking coffee on the table in a tray and never looked at me. I am so

'Now, I pass to sick and deranged impressions; they are so strong, that I rely upon them; but there are spaces

between them that I know nothing about, and they are not pervaded by any idea of time.

'I had drank some coffee, when to my sense of sight he began to swell immensely, and something urged me to

rush at him. We had a struggle near the door. He got from me, through my not knowing where to strike, in the

whirling round of the room, and the flashing of flames of fire between us. I dropped down. Lying helpless on

the ground, I was turned over by a foot. I was dragged by the neck into a corner. I heard men speak together. I

was turned over by other feet. I saw a figure like myself lying dressed in my clothes on a bed. What might

have been, for anything I knew, a silence of days, weeks, months, years, was broken by a violent wrestling of

men all over the room. The figure like myself was assailed, and my valise was in its hand. I was trodden upon

and fallen over. I heard a noise of blows, and thought it was a woodcutter cutting down a tree. I could not

have said that my name was John HarmonI could not have thought itI didn't know itbut when I heard

the blows, I thought of the woodcutter and his axe, and had some dead idea that I was lying in a forest.

'This is still correct? Still correct, with the exception that I cannot possibly express it to myself without using

the word I. But it was not I. There was no such thing as I, within my knowledge.

'It was only after a downward slide through something like a tube, and then a great noise and a sparkling and

crackling as of fires, that the consciousness came upon me, "This is John Harmon drowning! John Harmon,

struggle for your life. John Harmon, call on Heaven and save yourself!" I think I cried it out aloud in a great

agony, and then a heavy horrid unintelligible something vanished, and it was I who was struggling there

'I was very weak and faint, frightfully oppressed with drowsiness, and driving fast with the tide. Looking over

the black water, I saw the lights racing past me on the two banks of the river, as if they were eager to be gone

and leave me dying in the dark. The tide was running down, but I knew nothing of up or down then. When,

guiding myself safely with Heaven's assistance before the fierce set of the water, I at last caught at a boat

moored, one of a tier of boats at a causeway, I was sucked under her, and came up, only just alive, on the

'Was I long in the water? Long enough to be chilled to the heart, but I don't know how long. Yet the cold was

merciful, for it was the cold night air and the rain that restored me from a swoon on the stones of the

causeway. They naturally supposed me to have toppled in, drunk, when I crept to the publichouse it

belonged to; for I had no notion where I was, and could not articulatethrough the poison that had made me

insensible having affected my speechand I supposed the night to be the previous night, as it was still dark

'I have checked the calculation often, and it must have been two nights that I lay recovering in that

publichouse. Let me see. Yes. I am sure it was while I lay in that bed there, that the thought entered my head

of turning the danger I had passed through, to the account of being for some time supposed to have

disappeared mysteriously, and of proving Bella. The dread of our being forced on one another, and

perpetuating the fate that seemed to have fallen on my father's richesthe fate that they should lead to

nothing but evilwas strong upon the moral timidity that dates from my childhood with my poor sister.

'As to this hour I cannot understand that side of the river where I recovered the shore, being the opposite side

to that on which I was ensnared, I shall never understand it now. Even at this moment, while I leave the river

behind me, going home, I cannot conceive that it rolls between me and that spot, or that the sea is where it is.

'I could not have done it, but for the fortune in the waterproof belt round my body. Not a great fortune, forty

and odd pounds for the inheritor of a hundred and odd thousand! But it was enough. Without it I must have

disclosed myself. Without it, I could never have gone to that Exchequer Coffee House, or taken Mrs Wilfer's

'Some twelve days I lived at that hotel, before the night when I saw the corpse of Radfoot at the Police

Station. The inexpressible mental horror that I laboured under, as one of the consequences of the poison,

makes the interval seem greatly longer, but I know it cannot have been longer. That suffering has gradually

weakened and weakened since, and has only come upon me by starts, and I hope I am free from it now; but

even now, I have sometimes to think, constrain myself, and stop before speaking, or I could not say the words

'Again I ramble away from thinking it out to the end. It is not so far to the end that I need be tempted to break

'I examined the newspapers every day for tidings that I was missing, but saw none. Going out that night to

walk (for I kept retired while it was light), I found a crowd assembled round a placard posted at Whitehall. It

described myself, John Harmon, as found dead and mutilated in the river under circumstances of strong

suspicion, described my dress, described the papers in my pockets, and stated where I was lying for

recognition. In a wild incautious way I hurried there, and therewith the horror of the death I had escaped,

before my eyes in its most appalling shape, added to the inconceivable horror tormenting me at that time

when the poisonous stuff was strongest on meI perceived that Radfoot had been murdered by some

unknown hands for the money for which he would have murdered me, and that probably we had both been

shot into the river from the same dark place into the same dark tide, when the stream ran deep and strong.

'That night I almost gave up my mystery, though I suspected no one, could offer no information, knew

absolutely nothing save that the murdered man was not I, but Radfoot. Next day while I hesitated, and next

day while I hesitated, it seemed as if the whole country were determined to have me dead. The Inquest

declared me dead, the Government proclaimed me dead; I could not listen at my fireside for five minutes to

'So John Harmon died, and Julius Handford disappeared, and John Rokesmith was born. John Rokesmith's

intent tonight has been to repair a wrong that he could never have imagined possible, coming to his ears

through the Lightwood talk related to him, and which he is bound by every consideration to remedy. In that

'Now, is it all thought out? All to this time? Nothing omitted? No, nothing. But beyond this time? To think it

out through the future, is a harder though a much shorter task than to think it out through the past. John

'Take yes, first. To enlighten human Justice concerning the offence of one far beyond it who may have a

living mother. To enlighten it with the lights of a stone passage, a flight of stairs, a brown windowcurtain,

and a black man. To come into possession of my father's money, and with it sordidly to buy a beautiful

creature whom I loveI cannot help it; reason has nothing to do with it; I love her against reasonbut who

would as soon love me for my own sake, as she would love the beggar at the corner. What a use for the

'Now, take no. The reasons why John Harmon should not come to life. Because he has passively allowed

these dear old faithful friends to pass into possession of the property. Because he sees them happy with it,

making a good use of it, effacing the old rust and tarnish on the money. Because they have virtually adopted

Bella, and will provide for her. Because there is affection enough in her nature, and warmth enough in her

heart, to develop into something enduringly good, under favourable conditions. Because her faults have been

intensified by her place in my father's will, and she is already growing better. Because her marriage with John

Harmon, after what I have heard from her own lips, would be a shocking mockery, of which both she and I

must always be conscious, and which would degrade her in her mind, and me in mine, and each of us in the

other's. Because if John Harmon comes to life and does not marry her, the property falls into the very hands

'What would I have? Dead, I have found the true friends of my lifetime still as true as tender and as faithful as

when I was alive, and making my memory an incentive to good actions done in my name. Dead, I have found

them when they might have slighted my name, and passed greedily over my grave to ease and wealth,

lingering by the way, like singlehearted children, to recall their love for me when I was a poor frightened

child. Dead, I have heard from the woman who would have been my wife if I had lived, the revolting truth

that I should have purchased her, caring nothing for me, as a Sultan buys a slave.

'What would I have? If the dead could know, or do know, how the living use them, who among the hosts of

dead has found a more disinterested fidelity on earth than I? Is not that enough for me? If I had come back,

these noble creatures would have welcomed me, wept over me, given up everything to me with joy. I did not

come back, and they have passed unspoiled into my place. Let them rest in it, and let Bella rest in hers.

'What course for me then? This. To live the same quiet Secretary life, carefully avoiding chances of

recognition, until they shall have become more accustomed to their altered state, and until the great swarm of

swindlers under many names shall have found newer prey. By that time, the method I am establishing

through all the affairs, and with which I will every day take new pains to make them both familiar, will be, I

may hope, a machine in such working order as that they can keep it going. I know I need but ask of their

generosity, to have. When the right time comes, I will ask no more than will replace me in my former path of

life, and John Rokesmith shall tread it as contentedly as he may. But John Harmon shall come back no more.

'That I may never, in the days to come afar off, have any weak misgiving that Bella might, in any

contingency, have taken me for my own sake if I had plainly asked her, I WILL plainly ask her: proving

beyond all question what I already know too well. And now it is all thought out, from the beginning to the

So deeply engaged had the livingdead man been, in thus communing with himself, that he had regarded

neither the wind nor the way, and had resisted the former instinctively as he had pursued the latter. But being

now come into the City, where there was a coachstand, he stood irresolute whether to go to his lodgings, or

to go first to Mr Boffin's house. He decided to go round by the house, arguing, as he carried his overcoat

upon his arm, that it was less likely to attract notice if left there, than if taken to Holloway: both Mrs Wilfer

and Miss Lavinia being ravenously curious touching every article of which the lodger stood possessed.

Arriving at the house, he found that Mr and Mrs Boffin were out, but that Miss Wilfer was in the

drawingroom. Miss Wilfer had remained at home, in consequence of not feeling very well, and had inquired

Miss Wilfer's compliments came down in return, and, if it were not too much trouble, would Mr Rokesmith

Oh she looked very pretty, she looked very, very pretty! If the father of the late John Harmon had but left his

money unconditionally to his son, and if his son had but lighted on this loveable girl for himself, and had the

'A mere nothing. I had a headachegone nowand was not quite fit for a hot theatre, so I stayed at home. I

She was on a low ottoman before the fire, with a little shining jewel of a table, and her book and her work,

beside her. Ah! what a different life the late John Harmon's, if it had been his happy privilege to take his

place upon that ottoman, and draw his arm about that waist, and say, 'I hope the time has been long without

But, the present John Rokesmith, far removed from the late John Harmon, remained standing at a distance. A

little distance in respect of space, but a great distance in respect of separation.

'Mr Rokesmith,' said Bella, taking up her work, and inspecting it all round the corners, 'I wanted to say

something to you when I could have the opportunity, as an explanation why I was rude to you the other day.

The sharp little way in which she darted a look at him, half sensitively injured, and half pettishly, would have

'Truly, you must have a very high opinion of me, Mr Rokesmith, when you believe that in prosperity I neglect

'I took the liberty of reminding you of a little omission into which you had falleninsensibly and naturally

'And I beg leave to ask you, Mr Rokesmith,' said Bella, 'why you took that liberty?I hope there is no

'Because I am truly, deeply, profoundly interested in you, Miss Wilfer. Because I wish to see you always at

'No, sir,' returned Bella, with a burning face, 'you have said more than enough. I beg that you will NOT go

The late John Harmon, looking at the proud face with the down cast eyes, and at the quick breathing as it

stirred the fall of bright brown hair over the beautiful neck, would probably have remained silent.

'I wish to speak to you, sir,' said Bella, 'once for all, and I don't know how to do it. I have sat here all this

evening, wishing to speak to you, and determining to speak to you, and feeling that I must. I beg for a

He remained silent, and she remained with her face averted, sometimes making a slight movement as if she

'You know how I am situated here, sir, and you know how I am situated at home. I must speak to you for

myself, since there is no one about me whom I could ask to do so. It is not generous in you, it is not

The late John Harmon might have thought it rather a contemptuous and lofty word of repudiation.

'I now feel obliged to go on,' pursued the Secretary, 'though it were only in selfexplanation and

selfdefence. I hope, Miss Wilfer, that it is not unpardonableeven in meto make an honest declaration

'I must request, sir,' said Bella, taking refuge in a touch of timely resentment, 'that I may not be questioned.

'Oh, Miss Wilfer, this is hardly charitable. I ask you nothing but what your own emphasis suggests. However,

I waive even that question. But what I have declared, I take my stand by. I cannot recall the avowal of my

'I should be blind and deaf if I were not prepared for the reply. Forgive my offence, for it carries its

'Is my present endurance none? But excuse me; I did not mean to crossexamine you again.'

'You take advantage of a hasty word of mine,' said Bella with a little sting of selfreproach, 'to make me

seemI don't know what. I spoke without consideration when I used it. If that was bad, I am sorry; but you

repeat it after consideration, and that seems to me to be at least no better. For the rest, I beg it may be

understood, Mr Rokesmith, that there is an end of this between us, now and for ever.'

'Yes. I appeal to you, sir,' proceeded Bella with increasing spirit, 'not to pursue me. I appeal to you not to take

advantage of your position in this house to make my position in it distressing and disagreeable. I appeal to

you to discontinue your habit of making your misplaced attentions as plain to Mrs Boffin as to me.'

'I should think you have,' replied Bella. 'In any case it is not your fault if you have not, Mr Rokesmith.'

'I hope you are wrong in that impression. I should be very sorry to have justified it. I think I have not. For the

'I am much relieved to hear it,' said Bella. 'I have far other views in life, and why should you waste your

His curious tone caused Bella to glance at the curious smile with which he said it. It was gone as he glanced

back. 'Pardon me, Miss Wilfer,' he proceeded, when their eyes met; 'you have used some hard words, for

which I do not doubt you have a justification in your mind, that I do not understand. Ungenerous and

'I would rather not ask, but the question is imposed upon me. Kindly explain; or if not kindly, justly.'

'Oh, sir!' said Bella, raising her eyes to his, after a little struggle to forbear, 'is it generous and honourable to

use the power here which your favour with Mr and Mrs Boffin and your ability in your place give you,

'Is it generous and honourable to form a plan for gradually bringing their influence to bear upon a suit which I

The late John Harmon could have borne a good deal, but he would have been cut to the heart by such a

'Would it be generous and honourable to step into your placeif you did so, for I don't know that you did,

and I hope you did not anticipating, or knowing beforehand, that I should come here, and designing to take

The Secretary kept silence for a little while; then merely said, 'You are wholly mistaken, Miss Wilfer;

wonderfully mistaken. I cannot say, however, that it is your fault. If I deserve better things of you, you do not

'At least, sir,' retorted Bella, with her old indignation rising, 'you know the history of my being here at all. I

have heard Mr Boffin say that you are master of every line and word of that will, as you are master of all his

affairs. And was it not enough that I should have been willed away, like a horse, or a dog, or a bird; but must

you too begin to dispose of me in your mind, and speculate in me, as soon as I had ceased to be the talk and

'I doubt if you ever will. Goodnight. Of course I shall be careful to conceal any traces of this interview from

Mr and Mrs Boffin, as long as I remain here. Trust me, what you have complained of is at an end for ever.'

'I am glad I have spoken, then, Mr Rokesmith. It has been painful and difficult, but it is done. If I have hurt

you, I hope you will forgive me. I am inexperienced and impetuous, and I have been a little spoilt; but I really

He quitted the room when Bella had said this, relenting in her wilful inconsistent way. Left alone, she threw

herself back on her ottoman, and said, 'I didn't know the lovely woman was such a Dragon!' Then, she got up

and looked in the glass, and said to her image, 'You have been positively swelling your features, you little

fool!' Then, she took an impatient walk to the other end of the room and back, and said, 'I wish Pa was here to

have a talk about an avaricious marriage; but he is better away, poor dear, for I know I should pull his hair if

he WAS here.' And then she threw her work away, and threw her book after it, and sat down and hummed a

He went down to his room, and buried John Harmon many additional fathoms deep. He took his hat, and

walked out, and, as he went to Holloway or anywhere elsenot at all minding where heaped mounds

upon mounds of earth over John Harmon's grave. His walking did not bring him home until the dawn of day.

And so busy had he been all night, piling and piling weights upon weights of earth above John Harmon's

grave, that by that time John Harmon lay buried under a whole Alpine range; and still the Sexton Rokesmith

accumulated mountains over him, lightening his labour with the dirge, 'Cover him, crush him, keep him

The sextontask of piling earth above John Harmon all night long, was not conducive to sound sleep; but

Rokesmith had some broken morning rest, and rose strengthened in his purpose. It was all over now. No

ghost should trouble Mr and Mrs Boffin's peace; invisible and voiceless, the ghost should look on for a little

while longer at the state of existence out of which it had departed, and then should for ever cease to haunt the

He went over it all again. He had lapsed into the condition in which he found himself, as many a man lapses

into many a condition, without perceiving the accumulative power of its separate circumstances. When in the

distrust engendered by his wretched childhood and the action for evilnever yet for good within his

knowledge thenof his father and his father's wealth on all within their influence, he conceived the idea of

his first deception, it was meant to be harmless, it was to last but a few hours or days, it was to involve in it

only the girl so capriciously forced upon him and upon whom he was so capriciously forced, and it was

honestly meant well towards her. For, if he had found her unhappy in the prospect of that marriage (through

her heart inclining to another man or for any other cause), be would seriously have said: 'This is another of

the old perverted uses of the miserymaking money. I will let it go to my and my sister's only protectors and

friends.' When the snare into which he fell so outstripped his first intention as that he found himself placarded

by the police authorities upon the London walls for dead, he confusedly accepted the aid that fell upon him,

without considering how firmly it must seem to fix the Boffins in their accession to the fortune. When he saw

them, and knew them, and even from his vantageground of inspection could find no flaw in them, he asked

himself, 'And shall I come to life to dispossess such people as these?' There was no good to set against the

putting of them to that hard proof. He had heard from Bella's own lips when he stood tapping at the door on

that night of his taking the lodgings, that the marriage would have been on her part thoroughly mercenary. He

had since tried her, in his own unknown person and supposed station, and she not only rejected his advances

but resented them. Was it for him to have the shame of buying her, or the meanness of punishing her? Yet, by

coming to life and accepting the condition of the inheritance, he must do the former; and by coming to life

Another consequence that he had never foreshadowed, was the implication of an innocent man in his

supposed murder. He would obtain complete retraction from the accuser, and set the wrong right; but clearly

the wrong could never have been done if he had never planned a deception. Then, whatever inconvenience or

distress of mind the deception cost him, it was manful repentantly to accept as among its consequences, and

Thus John Rokesmith in the morning, and it buried John Harmon still many fathoms deeper than he had been

Going out earlier than he was accustomed to do, he encountered the cherub at the door. The cherub's way was

It was impossible not to notice the change in the cherub's appearance. The cherub felt very conscious of it,

The words gave the Secretary a stroke of pleasure, for he remembered the fifty pounds, and he still loved the

girl. No doubt it was very weakit always IS very weak, some authorities hold but he loved the girl.

'I don't know whether you happen to have read many books of African Travel, Mr Rokesmith?' said R. W.

'Well, you know, there's usually a King George, or a King Boy, or a King Sambo, or a King Bill, or Bull, or

'Anywhere. Anywhere in Africa, I mean. Pretty well everywhere, I may say; for black kings are cheapand I

'I was going to say, the king is generally dressed in a London hat only, or a Manchester pair of braces, or one

epaulette, or an uniform coat with his legs in the sleeves, or something of that kind.'

'In confidence, I assure you, Mr Rokesmith,' observed the cheerful cherub, 'that when more of my family

were at home and to be provided for, I used to remind myself immensely of that king. You have no idea, as a

single man, of the difficulty I have had in wearing more than one good article at a time.'

'I only mention it,' said R. W. in the warmth of his heart, 'as a proof of the amiable, delicate, and considerate

affection of my daughter Bella. If she had been a little spoilt, I couldn't have thought so very much of it,

under the circumstances. But no, not a bit. And she is so very pretty! I hope you agree with me in finding her

'I hope so,' said the cherub. 'Indeed, I have no doubt of it. This is a great advancement for her in life, Mr

'Impossible!' said the gratified cherub. 'Really I begin to think things are very well as they are. If Mr John

'No, I won't go so far as to say that,' urged the cherub, a little remonstrant against the very decisive and

unpitying tone; 'but he mightn't have suited Bella, or Bella mightn't have suited him, or fifty things, whereas

'Has sheas you place the confidence in me of speaking on the subject, you will excuse my askinghas

'Young ladies sometimes,' Rokesmith hinted, 'choose without mentioning their choice to their fathers.'

'Not in this case, Mr Rokesmith. Between my daughter Bella and me there is a regular league and covenant of

confidence. It was ratified only the other day. The ratification dates fromthese,' said the cherub, giving a

little pull at the lappels of his coat and the pockets of his trousers. 'Oh no, she has not chosen. To be sure,

R. W. looked at him with surprise, as thinking he had contracted an unaccountable spite against the poor

deceased, and continued: 'In the days when Mr John Harmon was being sought out, young George Sampson

certainly was hovering about Bella, and Bella let him hover. But it never was seriously thought of, and it's

still less than ever to be thought of now. For Bella is ambitious, Mr Rokesmith, and I think I may predict will

marry fortune. This time, you see, she will have the person and the property before her together, and will be

able to make her choice with her eyes open. This is my road. I am very sorry to part company so soon. Good

The Secretary pursued his way, not very much elevated in spirits by this conversation, and, arriving at the

'I should thank you kindly, sir,' said Betty, 'if I might make so bold as have a word or two wi' you.'

She should have as many words as she liked, he told her; and took her into his room, and made her sit down.

''Tis concerning Sloppy, sir,' said Betty. 'And that's how I come here by myself. Not wishing him to know

Betty Higden gravely shook her head. 'I am strong for my time of life, sir, but not young, thank the Lord!'

'Yes, sir. If I was young, it would all have to be gone through again, and the end would be a weary way off,

''Tis just this, sir. It can't be reasoned out of his head by any powers of mine but what that he can do right by

your kind lady and gentleman and do his work for me, both together. Now he can't. To give himself up to

being put in the way of arning a good living and getting on, he must give me up. Well; he won't.'

'DO ye, sir? I don't know but what I do myself. Still that don't make it right to let him have his way. So as he

With an astonished look at the indomitable old face and the bright eyes, the Secretary repeated, 'Run away

'Yes, sir,' said Betty, with one nod. And in the nod and in the firm set of her mouth, there was a vigour of

'Come, come!' said the Secretary. 'We must talk about this. Let us take our time over it, and try to get at the

'Now, lookee here, by dear,' returned old Betty'asking your excuse for being so familiar, but being of a

time of life a'most to be your grandmother twice over. Now, lookee, here. 'Tis a poor living and a hard as is to

be got out of this work that I'm a doing now, and but for Sloppy I don't know as I should have held to it this

long. But it did just keep us on, the two together. Now that I'm alonewith even Johnny goneI'd far

sooner be upon my feet and tiring of myself out, than a sitting folding and folding by the fire. And I'll tell you

why. There's a deadness steals over me at times, that the kind of life favours and I don't like. Now, I seem to

have Johnny in my armsnow, his mothernow, his mother's mothernow, I seem to be a child myself, a

lying once again in the arms of my own motherthen I get numbed, thought and sense, till I start out of my

seat, afeerd that I'm a growing like the poor old people that they brick up in the Unions, as you may

sometimes see when they let 'em out of the four walls to have a warm in the sun, crawling quite scared about

the streets. I was a nimble girl, and have always been a active body, as I told your lady, first time ever I see

her good face. I can still walk twenty mile if I am put to it. I'd far better be a walking than a getting numbed

and dreary. I'm a good fair knitter, and can make many little things to sell. The loan from your lady and

gentleman of twenty shillings to fit out a basket with, would be a fortune for me. Trudging round the country

and tiring of myself out, I shall keep the deadness off, and get my own bread by my own labour. And what

'Show me a better! My deary, show me a better! Why, I know very well,' said old Betty Higden, 'and you

know very well, that your lady and gentleman would set me up like a queen for the rest of my life, if so be

that we could make it right among us to have it so. But we can't make it right among us to have it so. I've

never took charity yet, nor yet has any one belonging to me. And it would be forsaking of myself indeed, and

forsaking of my children dead and gone, and forsaking of their children dead and gone, to set up a

'It might come to be justifiable and unavoidable at last,' the Secretary gently hinted, with a slight stress on the

'I hope it never will! It ain't that I mean to give offence by being anyways proud,' said the old creature simply,

'but that I want to be of a piece like, and helpful of myself right through to my death.'

'And to be sure,' added the Secretary, as a comfort for her, 'Sloppy will be eagerly looking forward to his

'Trust him for that, sir!' said Betty, cheerfully. 'Though he had need to be something quick about it, for I'm a

getting to be an old one. But I'm a strong one too, and travel and weather never hurt me yet! Now, be so kind

as speak for me to your lady and gentleman, and tell 'em what I ask of their good friendliness to let me do,

The Secretary felt that there was no gainsaying what was urged by this brave old heroine, and he presently

repaired to Mrs Boffin and recommended her to let Betty Higden have her way, at all events for the time. 'It

would be far more satisfactory to your kind heart, I know,' he said, 'to provide for her, but it may be a duty to

respect this independent spirit.' Mrs Boffin was not proof against the consideration set before her. She and her

husband had worked too, and had brought their simple faith and honour clean out of dustheaps. If they owed

'But, Betty,' said Mrs Boffin, when she accompanied John Rokesmith back to his room, and shone upon her

with the light of her radiant face, 'granted all else, I think I wouldn't run away'.

''Twould come easier to Sloppy,' said Mrs Higden, shaking her head. ''Twould come easier to me too. But 'tis

'Now,' was the bright and ready answer. 'Today, my deary, to morrow. Bless ye, I am used to it. I know

many parts of the country well. When nothing else was to be done, I have worked in many a marketgarden

'If I give my consent to your going, Bettywhich Mr Rokesmith thinks I ought to do'

'We must not lose sight of you. We must not let you pass out of our knowledge. We must know all about

'Yes, my deary, but not through letterwriting, because letter writingindeed, writing of most sorts hadn't

much come up for such as me when I was young. But I shall be to and fro. No fear of my missing a chance of

giving myself a sight of your reviving face. Besides,' said Betty, with logical good faith, 'I shall have a debt to

pay off, by littles, and naturally that would bring me back, if nothing else would.'

After more discussion it was agreed that it should be done, and Mrs Boffin summoned Bella to note down the

little purchases that were necessary to set Betty up in trade. 'Don't ye be timorous for me, my dear,' said the

stanch old heart, observant of Bella's face: when I take my seat with my work, clean and busy and fresh, in a

country marketplace, I shall turn a sixpence as sure as ever a farmer's wife there.'

The Secretary took that opportunity of touching on the practical question of Mr Sloppy's capabilities. He

would have made a wonderful cabinetmaker, said Mrs Higden, 'if there had been the money to put him to it.'

She had seen him handle tools that he had borrowed to mend the mangle, or to knock a broken piece of

furniture together, in a surprising manner. As to constructing toys for the Minders, out of nothing, he had

done that daily. And once as many as a dozen people had got together in the lane to see the neatness with

which he fitted the broken pieces of a foreign monkey's musical instrument. 'That's well,' said the Secretary.

John Harmon being buried under mountains now, the Secretary that very same day set himself to finish his

affairs and have done with him. He drew up an ample declaration, to be signed by Rogue Riderhood

(knowing he could get his signature to it, by making him another and much shorter evening call), and then

considered to whom should he give the document? To Hexam's son, or daughter? Resolved speedily, to the

daughter. But it would be safer to avoid seeing the daughter, because the son had seen Julius Handford,

andhe could not be too carefulthere might possibly be some comparison of notes between the son and

daughter, which would awaken slumbering suspicion, and lead to consequences. 'I might even,' he reflected,

'be apprehended as having been concerned in my own murder!' Therefore, best to send it to the daughter

under cover by the post. Pleasant Riderhood had undertaken to find out where she lived, and it was not

necessary that it should be attended by a single word of explanation. So far, straight.

But, all that he knew of the daughter he derived from Mrs Boffin's accounts of what she heard from Mr

Lightwood, who seemed to have a reputation for his manner of relating a story, and to have made this story

quite his own. It interested him, and he would like to have the means of knowing moreas, for instance, that

she received the exonerating paper, and that it satisfied herby opening some channel altogether

independent of Lightwood: who likewise had seen Julius Handford, who had publicly advertised for Julius

Handford, and whom of all men he, the Secretary, most avoided. 'But with whom the common course of

things might bring me in a moment face to face, any day in the week or any hour in the day.'

Now, to cast about for some likely means of opening such a channel. The boy, Hexam, was training for and

with a schoolmaster. The Secretary knew it, because his sister's share in that disposal of him seemed to be the

best part of Lightwood's account of the family. This young fellow, Sloppy, stood in need of some instruction.

If he, the Secretary, engaged that schoolmaster to impart it to him, the channel might be opened. The next

point was, did Mrs Boffin know the schoolmaster's name? No, but she knew where the school was. Quite

enough. Promptly the Secretary wrote to the master of that school, and that very evening Bradley Headstone

The Secretary stated to the schoolmaster how the object was, to send to him for certain occasional evening

instruction, a youth whom Mr and Mrs Boffin wished to help to an industrious and useful place in life. The

schoolmaster was willing to undertake the charge of such a pupil. The Secretary inquired on what terms? The

'May I ask, sir,' said Bradley Headstone, 'to whose good opinion I owe a recommendation to you?'

'You should know that I am not the principal here. I am Mr Boffin's Secretary. Mr Boffin is a gentleman who

inherited a property of which you may have heard some public mention; the Harmon property.'

'Mr Harmon,' said Bradley: who would have been a great deal more at a loss than he was, if he had known to

'No,' interposed the Secretary, smiling, 'it was not he who recommended you. Mr Boffin heard of you through

'I know as much of him as I wish to know, sir. I have no acquaintance with Mr Lightwood, and I desire none.

I have no objection to Mr Lightwood, but I have a particular objection to some of Mr Lightwood's

He could hardly get the words out, even then and there, so fierce did he grow (though keeping himself down

with infinite pains of repression), when the careless and contemptuous bearing of Eugene Wrayburn rose

The Secretary saw there was a strong feeling here on some sore point, and he would have made a diversion

'I have no objection to mention the friend by name,' he said, doggedly. 'The person I object to, is Mr Eugene

The Secretary remembered him. In his disturbed recollection of that night when he was striving against the

drugged drink, there was but a dim image of Eugene's person; but he remembered his name, and his manner

of speaking, and how he had gone with them to view the body, and where he had stood, and what he had said.

'Pray, Mr Headstone, what is the name,' he asked, again trying to make a diversion, 'of young Hexam's sister?'

'Her name is Lizzie,' said the schoolmaster, with a strong contraction of his whole face.

'She is sufficiently remarkable to be very superior to Mr Eugene Wrayburnthough an ordinary person

might be that,' said the schoolmaster; 'and I hope you will not think it impertinent in me, sir, to ask why you

'By mere accident,' returned the Secretary. 'Observing that Mr Wrayburn was a disagreeable subject with you,

'Then perhaps the names cannot be put together on the authority of any representation of his?'

'I took the liberty to ask,' said Bradley, after casting his eyes on the ground, 'because he is capable of making

any representation, in the swaggering levity of his insolence. II hope you will not misunderstand me, sir.

II am much interested in this brother and sister, and the subject awakens very strong feelings within me.

Very, very, strong feelings.' With a shaking hand, Bradley took out his handkerchief and wiped his brow.

The Secretary thought, as he glanced at the schoolmaster's face, that he had opened a channel here indeed,

and that it was an unexpectedly dark and deep and stormy one, and difficult to sound. All at once, in the

midst of his turbulent emotions, Bradley stopped and seemed to challenge his look. Much as though he

'The brother, young Hexam, was your real recommendation here,' said the Secretary, quietly going back to

the point; 'Mr and Mrs Boffin happening to know, through Mr Lightwood, that he was your pupil. Anything

that I ask respecting the brother and sister, or either of them, I ask for myself out of my own interest in the

subject, and not in my official character, or on Mr Boffin's behalf. How I come to be interested, I need not

explain. You know the father's connection with the discovery of Mr Harmon's body.'

'Sir,' replied Bradley, very restlessly indeed, 'I know all the circumstances of that case.'

'Pray tell me, Mr Headstone,' said the Secretary. 'Does the sister suffer under any stigma because of the

impossible accusation groundless would be a better wordthat was made against the father, and

'The sister,' said Bradley, separating his words overcarefully, and speaking as if he were repeating them

from a book, 'suffers under no reproach that repels a man of unimpeachable character who had made for

himself every step of his way in life, from placing her in his own station. I will not say, raising her to his own

station; I say, placing her in it. The sister labours under no reproach, unless she should unfortunately make it

for herself. When such a man is not deterred from regarding her as his equal, and when he has convinced

himself that there is no blemish on her, I think the fact must be taken to be pretty expressive.'

Bradley Headstone knotted his brows, and squared his large lower jaw, and fixed his eyes on the ground with

an air of determination that seemed unnecessary to the occasion, as he replied: 'And there is such a man.'

The Secretary had no reason or excuse for prolonging the conversation, and it ended here. Within three hours

the oakum headed apparition once more dived into the Leaving Shop, and that night Rogue Riderhood's

recantation lay in the post office, addressed under cover to Lizzie Hexam at her right address.

All these proceedings occupied John Rokesmith so much, that it was not until the following day that he saw

Bella again. It seemed then to be tacitly understood between them that they were to be as distantly easy as

they could, without attracting the attention of Mr and Mrs Boffin to any marked change in their manner. The

fitting out of old Betty Higden was favourable to this, as keeping Bella engaged and interested, and as

'I think,' said Rokesmith, when they all stood about her, while she packed her tidy basketexcept Bella, who

was busily helping on her knees at the chair on which it stood; 'that at least you might keep a letter in your

pocket, Mrs Higden, which I would write for you and date from here, merely stating, in the names of Mr and

Mrs Boffin, that they are your friends;I won't say patrons, because they wouldn't like it.'

'No, no, no,' said Mr Boffin; 'no patronizing! Let's keep out of THAT, whatever we come to.'

'There's more than enough of that about, without us; ain't there, Noddy?' said Mrs Boffin.

'But people sometimes like to be patronized; don't they, sir?' asked Bella, looking up.

'I don't. And if THEY do, my dear, they ought to learn better,' said Mr Boffin. 'Patrons and Patronesses, and

VicePatrons and VicePatronesses, and Deceased Patrons and Deceased Patronesses, and ExVicePatrons

and ExVicePatronesses, what does it all mean in the books of the Charities that come pouring in on

Rokesmith as he sits among 'em pretty well up to his neck! If Mr Tom Noakes gives his five shillings ain't he

a Patron, and if Mrs Jack Styles gives her five shillings ain't she a Patroness? What the deuce is it all about?

'Warm!' cried Mr Boffin. 'It's enough to make a man smoking hot. I can't go anywhere without being

Patronized. I don't want to be Patronized. If I buy a ticket for a Flower Show, or a Music Show, or any sort of

Show, and pay pretty heavy for it, why am I to be Patroned and Patronessed as if the Patrons and Patronesses

treated me? If there's a good thing to be done, can't it be done on its own merits? If there's a bad thing to be

done, can it ever be Patroned and Patronessed right? Yet when a new Institution's going to be built, it seems

to me that the bricks and mortar ain't made of half so much consequence as the Patrons and Patronesses; no,

nor yet the objects. I wish somebody would tell me whether other countries get Patronized to anything like

the extent of this one! And as to the Patrons and Patronesses themselves, I wonder they're not ashamed of

themselves. They ain't Pills, or HairWashes, or Invigorating Nervous Essences, to be puffed in that way!'

Having delivered himself of these remarks, Mr Boffin took a trot, according to his usual custom, and trotted

'As to the letter, Rokesmith,' said Mr Boffin, 'you're as right as a trivet. Give her the letter, make her take the

letter, put it in her pocket by violence. She might fall sick. You know you might fall sick,' said Mr Boffin.

'That's right!' said Mr Boffin. 'Come! That's sensible. And don't be thankful to us (for we never thought of it),

'No, no, no; not the letter,' said Mr Boffin; 'the idea. Are you sure you're strong enough to carry out the idea?'

'I shall be stronger, and keep the deadness off better, this way, than any way left open to me, sir.'

'Don't say than any way left open, you know,' urged Mr Boffin; 'because there are ways without end. A

housekeeper would be acceptable over yonder at the Bower, for instance. Wouldn't you like to see the Bower,

and know a retired literary man of the name of Wegg that lives thereWITH a wooden leg?'

Old Betty was proof even against this temptation, and fell to adjusting her black bonnet and shawl.

'I wouldn't let you go, now it comes to this, after all,' said Mr Boffin, 'if I didn't hope that it may make a man

and a workman of Sloppy, in as short a time as ever a man and workman was made yet. Why, what have you

It was the man in the Guards who had been on duty over Johnny's bed. The solitary old woman showed what

it was, and put it up quietly in her dress. Then, she gratefully took leave of Mrs Boffin, and of Mr Boffin, and

of Rokesmith, and then put her old withered arms round Bella's young and blooming neck, and said,

The Secretary looked on from a doorway at the boofer lady thus encircled, and still looked on at the boofer

lady standing alone there, when the determined old figure with its steady bright eyes was trudging through

Bradley Headstone held fast by that other interview he was to have with Lizzie Hexam. In stipulating for it,

he had been impelled by a feeling little short of desperation, and the feeling abided by him. It was very soon

after his interview with the Secretary, that he and Charley Hexam set out one leaden evening, not unnoticed

'That dolls' dressmaker,' said Bradley, 'is favourable neither to me nor to you, Hexam.'

'A pert crooked little chit, Mr Headstone! I knew she would put herself in the way, if she could, and would be

sure to strike in with something impertinent. It was on that account that I proposed our going to the City

'So I supposed,' said Bradley, getting his gloves on his nervous hands as he walked. 'So I supposed.'

'Nobody but my sister,' pursued Charley, 'would have found out such an extraordinary companion. She has

done it in a ridiculous fancy of giving herself up to another. She told me so, that night when we went there.'

'Oh!' said the boy, colouring. 'One of her romantic ideas! I tried to convince her so, but I didn't succeed.

However, what we have got to do, is, to succeed tonight, Mr Headstone, and then all the rest follows.'

'Except your sister, perhaps,' thought Bradley. But he only gloomily thought it, and said nothing.

'Everything on our side,' repeated the boy with boyish confidence. 'Respectability, an excellent connexion for

'To be sure, your sister has always shown herself a devoted sister,' said Bradley, willing to sustain himself on

'Naturally, Mr Headstone, I have a good deal of influence with her. And now that you have honoured me with

your confidence and spoken to me first, I say again, we have everything on our side.'

A grey dusty withered evening in London city has not a hopeful aspect. The closed warehouses and offices

have an air of death about them, and the national dread of colour has an air of mourning. The towers and

steeples of the many house encompassed churches, dark and dingy as the sky that seems descending on

them, are no relief to the general gloom; a sundial on a churchwall has the look, in its useless black shade,

of having failed in its business enterprise and stopped payment for ever; melancholy waifs and strays of

housekeepers and porter sweep melancholy waifs and strays of papers and pins into the kennels, and other

more melancholy waifs and strays explore them, searching and stooping and poking for anything to sell. The

set of humanity outward from the City is as a set of prisoners departing from gaol, and dismal Newgate seems

On such an evening, when the city grit gets into the hair and eyes and skin, and when the fallen leaves of the

few unhappy city trees grind down in corners under wheels of wind, the schoolmaster and the pupil emerged

upon the Leadenhall Street region, spying eastward for Lizzie. Being something too soon in their arrival, they

lurked at a corner, waiting for her to appear. The best looking among us will not look very well, lurking at a

As they advanced, she saw them coming, and seemed rather troubled. But she greeted her brother with the

'Yes. We are going to walk with you. But don't let us take the great leading streets where every one walks,

and we can't hear ourselves speak. Let us go by the quiet backways. Here's a large paved court by this church,

She had not released his hand, and, still holding it, looked at him with a kind of appeal. He avoided her eyes,

under pretence of saying, 'Come along, Mr Headstone.' Bradley walked at his side not at hersand the

brother and sister walked hand in hand. The court brought them to a churchyard; a paved square court, with a

raised bank of earth about breast high, in the middle, enclosed by iron rails. Here, conveniently and heathfully

elevated above the level of the living, were the dead, and the tombstones; some of the latter droopingly

They paced the whole of this place once, in a constrained and uncomfortable manner, when the boy stopped

'Lizzie, Mr Headstone has something to say to you. I don't wish to be an interruption either to him or to you,

and so I'll go and take a little stroll and come back. I know in a general way what Mr Headstone intends to

say, and I very highly approve of it, as I hopeand indeed I do not doubtyou will. I needn't tell you,

Lizzie, that I am under great obligations to Mr Headstone, and that I am very anxious for Mr Headstone to

succeed in all he undertakes. As I hopeand as, indeed, I don't doubtyou must be.'

'Charley,' returned his sister, detaining his hand as he withdrew it, 'I think you had better stay. I think Mr

'Perhaps you don't? No, Liz, I should think not. If you knew what it was, you would give me a very different

answer. There; let go; be sensible. I wonder you don't remember that Mr Headstone is looking on.'

She allowed him to separate himself from her, and he, after saying, 'Now Liz, be a rational girl and a good

sister,' walked away. She remained standing alone with Bradley Headstone, and it was not until she raised her

'I said,' he began, 'when I saw you last, that there was something unexplained, which might perhaps influence

you. I have come this evening to explain it. I hope you will not judge of me by my hesitating manner when I

speak to you. You see me at my greatest disadvantage. It is most unfortunate for me that I wish you to see me

'It seems egotistical to begin by saying so much about myself,' he resumed, 'but whatever I say to you seems,

even in my own ears, below what I want to say, and different from what I want to say. I can't help it. So it is.

She started at the passionate sound of the last words, and at the passionate action of his hands, with which

'Yes! you are the ruinthe ruinthe ruinof me. I have no resources in myself, I have no confidence in

myself, I have no government of myself when you are near me or in my thoughts. And you are always in my

thoughts now. I have never been quit of you since I first saw you. Oh, that was a wretched day for me! That

A touch of pity for him mingled with her dislike of him, and she said: 'Mr Headstone, I am grieved to have

'There!' he cried, despairingly. 'Now, I seem to have reproached you, instead of revealing to you the state of

my own mind! Bear with me. I am always wrong when you are in question. It is my doom.'

Struggling with himself, and by times looking up at the deserted windows of the houses as if there could be

anything written in their grimy panes that would help him, he paced the whole pavement at her side, before

'I must try to give expression to what is in my mind; it shall and must be spoken. Though you see me so

confoundedthough you strike me so helplessI ask you to believe that there are many people who think

well of me; that there are some people who highly esteem me; that I have in my way won a Station which is

'Surely, Mr Headstone, I do believe it. Surely I have always known it from Charley.'

'I ask you to believe that if I were to offer my home such as it is, my station such as it is, my affections such

as they are, to any one of the best considered, and best qualified, and most distinguished, among the young

women engaged in my calling, they would probably be accepted. Even readily accepted.'

'I have sometimes had it in my thoughts to make that offer and to settle down as many men of my class do: I

on the one side of a school, my wife on the other, both of us interested in the same work.'

'Far better that I never did! The only one grain of comfort I have had these many weeks,' he said, always

speaking passionately, and, when most emphatic, repeating that former action of his hands, which was like

flinging his heart's blood down before her in drops upon the pavementstones; 'the only one grain of comfort

I have had these many weeks is, that I never did. For if I had, and if the same spell had come upon me for my

She glanced at him with a glance of fear, and a shrinking gesture. He answered, as if she had spoken.

'No! It would not have been voluntary on my part, any more than it is voluntary in me to be here now. You

draw me to you. If I were shut up in a strong prison, you would draw me out. I should break through the wall

to come to you. If I were lying on a sick bed, you would draw me upto stagger to your feet and fall there.'

The wild energy of the man, now quite let loose, was absolutely terrible. He stopped and laid his hand upon a

piece of the coping of the burialground enclosure, as if he would have dislodged the stone.

'No man knows till the time comes, what depths are within him. To some men it never comes; let them rest

and be thankful! To me, you brought it; on me, you forced it; and the bottom of this raging sea,' striking

'Mr Headstone, I have heard enough. Let me stop you here. It will be better for you and better for me. Let us

'Not yet. It shall and must be spoken. I have been in torments ever since I stopped short of it before. You are

alarmed. It is another of my miseries that I cannot speak to you or speak of you without stumbling at every

syllable, unless I let the check go altogether and run mad. Here is a man lighting the lamps. He will be gone

directly. I entreat of you let us walk round this place again. You have no reason to look alarmed; I can

She yielded to the entreatyhow could she do otherwise!and they paced the stones in silence. One by one

the lights leaped up making the cold grey church tower more remote, and they were alone again. He said no

more until they had regained the spot where he had broken off; there, he again stood still, and again grasped

the stone. In saying what he said then, he never looked at her; but looked at it and wrenched at it.

'You know what I am going to say. I love you. What other men may mean when they use that expression, I

cannot tell; what I mean is, that I am under the influence of some tremendous attraction which I have resisted

in vain, and which overmasters me. You could draw me to fire, you could draw me to water, you could draw

me to the gallows, you could draw me to any death, you could draw me to anything I have most avoided, you

could draw me to any exposure and disgrace. This and the confusion of my thoughts, so that I am fit for

nothing, is what I mean by your being the ruin of me. But if you would return a favourable answer to my

offer of myself in marringe, you could draw me to any goodevery goodwith equal force. My

circumstances are quite easy, and you would want for nothing. My reputation stands quite high, and would be

a shield for yours. If you saw me at my work, able to do it well and respected in it, you might even come to

take a sort of pride in me;I would try hard that you should. Whatever considerations I may have thought of

against this offer, I have conquered, and I make it with all my heart. Your brother favours me to the utmost,

and it is likely that we might live and work together; anyhow, it is certain that he would have my best

influence and support. I don't know what I could say more if I tried. I might only weaken what is ill enough

said as it is. I only add that if it is any claim on you to be in earnest, I am in thorough earnest, dreadful

The powdered mortar from under the stone at which he wrenched, rattled on the pavement to confirm his

'Stop! I implore you, before you answer me, to walk round this place once more. It will give you a minute's

Again she yielded to the entreaty, and again they came back to the same place, and again he worked at the

'Mr Headstone, I thank you sincerely, I thank you gratefully, and hope you may find a worthy wife before

'Is no short time necessary for reflection; no weeks or days?' he asked, in the same halfsuffocated way.

'I am quite decided, Mr Headstone, and I am bound to answer I am certain there is none.'

'Then,' said he, suddenly changing his tone and turning to her, and bringing his clenched hand down upon the

stone with a force that laid the knuckles raw and bleeding; 'then I hope that I may never kill him!'

The dark look of hatred and revenge with which the words broke from his livid lips, and with which he stood

holding out his smeared hand as if it held some weapon and had just struck a mortal blow, made her so afraid

'It is I who should call for help,' he said; 'you don't know yet how much I need it.'

The working of his face as she shrank from it, glancing round for her brother and uncertain what to do, might

have extorted a cry from her in another instant; but all at once he sternly stopped it and fixed it, as if Death

With much of the dignity of courage, as she recalled her self reliant life and her right to be free from

accountability to this man, she released her arm from his grasp and stood looking full at him. She had never

been so handsome, in his eyes. A shade came over them while he looked back at her, as if she drew the very

'This time, at least, I will leave nothing unsaid,' he went on, folding his hands before him, clearly to prevent

his being betrayed into any impetuous gesture; 'this last time at least I will not be tortured with afterthoughts

'Was it of him you spoke in your ungovernable rage and violence?' Lizzie Hexam demanded with spirit.

Her look dropped for an instant to his bleeding hand. He lifted it to his mouth, wiped it on his sleeve, and

'Because it is the text of the little I have left to say. Observe! There are no threats in it. If I utter a threat, stop

A worse threat than was conveyed in his manner of uttering the name, could hardly have escaped him.

'He haunts you. You accept favours from him. You are willing enough to listen to HIM. I know it, as well as

'Mr Wrayburn has been considerate and good to me, sir,' said Lizzie, proudly, 'in connexion with the death

'No doubt. He is of course a very considerate and a very good man, Mr Eugene Wrayburn.'

'He is nothing to you, I think,' said Lizzie, with an indignation she could not repress.

'Mr Headstone,' returned Lizzie, with a burning face, 'it is cowardly in you to speak to me in this way. But it

makes me able to tell you that I do not like you, and that I never have liked you from the first, and that no

other living creature has anything to do with the effect you have produced upon me for yourself.'

His head bent for a moment, as if under a weight, and he then looked up again, moistening his lips. 'I was

going on with the little I had left to say. I knew all this about Mr Eugene Wrayhurn, all the while you were

drawing me to you. I strove against the knowledge, but quite in vain. It made no difference in me. With Mr

Eugene Wrayburn in my mind, I went on. With Mr Eugene Wrayburn in my mind, I spoke to you just now.

With Mr Eugene Wrayburn in my mind, I have been set aside and I have been cast out.'

'If you give those names to my thanking you for your proposal and declining it, is it my fault, Mr Headstone?'

said Lizzie, compassionating the bitter struggle he could not conceal, almost as much as she was repelled and

'I am not complaining,' he returned, 'I am only stating the case. I had to wrestle with my selfrespect when I

submitted to be drawn to you in spite of Mr Wrayburn. You may imagine how low my selfrespect lies now.'

She was hurt and angry; but repressed herself in consideration of his suffering, and of his being her brother's

'And it lies under his feet,' said Bradley, unfolding his hands in spite of himself, and fiercely motioning with

them both towards the stones of the pavement. 'Remember that! It lies under that fellow's feet, and he treads

'He does!' said Bradley. 'I have stood before him face to face, and he crushed me down in the dirt of his

contempt, and walked over me. Why? Because he knew with triumph what was in store for me tonight.'

'Quite collectedly. I know what I say too well. Now I have said all. I have used no threat, remember; I have

At this moment her brother sauntered into view close by. She darted to him, and caught him by the hand.

'Charley Hexam, I am going home. I must walk home by myself tonight, and get shut up in my room

without being spoken to. Give me half an hour's start, and let me be, till you find me at my work in the

Clasping his hands, he uttered a short unearthly broken cry, and went his way. The brother and sister were

left looking at one another near a lamp in the solitary churchyard, and the boy's face clouded and darkened, as

he said in a rough tone: 'What is the meaning of this? What have you done to my best friend? Out with the

'I am not in the humour for consideration, or for nonsense of any sort,' replied the boy. 'What have you been

'You were obliged to tell him,' repeated the boy angrily, between his teeth, and rudely pushing her away. 'You

'You mean that you are conscious that you can't appreciate him, and don't deserve him, I suppose?'

'Upon my soul,' exclaimed the boy, 'you are a nice picture of a sister! Upon my soul, you are a pretty piece of

disinterestedness! And so all my endeavours to cancel the past and to raise myself in the world, and to raise

'Hear her!' exclaimed the boy, looking round at the darkness. 'She won't reproach me! She does her best to

destroy my fortunes and her own, and she won't reproach me! Why, you'll tell me, next, that you won't

reproach Mr Headstone for coming out of the sphere to which he is an ornament, and putting himself at

'No, Charley; I will only tell you, as I told himself, that I thank him for doing so, that I am sorry he did so,

Some touch of compunction smote the boy's hardening heart as he looked upon her, his patient little nurse in

infancy, his patient friend, adviser, and reclaimer in boyhood, the selfforgetting sister who had done

'Now, come, Liz; don't let us quarrel: let us be reasonable and talk this over like brother and sister. Will you

'Oh, Charley!' she replied through her starting tears; 'do I not listen to you, and hear many hard things!'

'Then I am sorry. There, Liz! I am unfeignedly sorry. Only you do put me out so. Now see. Mr Headstone is

perfectly devoted to you. He has told me in the strongest manner that he has never been his old self for one

single minute since I first brought him to see you. Miss Peecher, our schoolmistresspretty and young, and

all thatis known to be very much attached to him, and he won't so much as look at her or hear of her. Now,

his devotion to you must be a disinterested one; mustn't it? If he married Miss Peecher, he would be a great

deal better off in all worldly respects, than in marrying you. Well then; he has nothing to get by it, has he?'

'Very well then,' said the boy; 'that's something in his favour, and a great thing. Then I come in. Mr

Headstone has always got me on, and he has a good deal in his power, and of course if he was my

brotherinlaw he wouldn't get me on less, but would get me on more. Mr Headstone comes and confides in

me, in a very delicate way, and says, "I hope my marrying your sister would be agreeable to you, Hexam, and

useful to you?" I say, "There's nothing in the world, Mr Headstone, that I could he better pleased with." Mr

Headstone says, "Then I may rely upon your intimate knowledge of me for your good word with your sister,

Hexam?" And I say, "Certainly, Mr Headstone, and naturally I have a good deal of influence with her." So I

'Well said! Now, you see, we begin to get on, the moment we begin to be really talking it over, like brother

and sister. Very well. Then YOU come in. As Mr Headstone's wife you would be occupying a most

respectable station, and you would be holding a far better place in society than you hold now, and you would

at length get quit of the riverside and the old disagreeables belonging to it, and you would be rid for good of

dolls' dressmakers and their drunken fathers, and the like of that. Not that I want to disparage Miss Jenny

Wren: I dare say she is all very well in her way; but her way is not your way as Mr Headstone's wife. Now,

you see, Liz, on all three accountson Mr Headstone's, on mine, on yoursnothing could be better or more

They were walking slowly as the boy spoke, and here he stood still, to see what effect he had made. His

sister's eyes were fixed upon him; but as they showed no yielding, and as she remained silent, he walked her

on again. There was some discomfiture in his tone as he resumed, though he tried to conceal it.

'Having so much influence with you, Liz, as I have, perhaps I should have done better to have had a little chat

with you in the first instance, before Mr Headstone spoke for himself. But really all this in his favour seemed

so plain and undeniable, and I knew you to have always been so reasonable and sensible, that I didn't

consider it worth while. Very likely that was a mistake of mine. However, it's soon set right. All that need be

done to set it right, is for you to tell me at once that I may go home and tell Mr Headstone that what has taken

He stopped again. The pale face looked anxiously and lovingly at him, but she shook her head.

'I am very unwilling to speak, Charley. If I must, I must. I cannot authorize you to say any such thing to Mr

Headstone: I cannot allow you to say any such thing to Mr Headstone. Nothing remains to be said to him

'And this girl,' cried the boy, contemptuously throwing her off again, 'calls herself a sister!'

'Charley, dear, that is the second time that you have almost struck me. Don't be hurt by my words. I don't

meanHeaven forbid! that you intended it; but you hardly know with what a sudden swing you removed

'However!' said the boy, taking no heed of the remonstrance, and pursuing his own mortified disappointment,

'That's not true,' said the boy in a violent tone, 'and you know it's not. It means your precious Mr Wrayburn;

'But you shall not disgrace me,' doggedly pursued the boy. 'I am determined that after I have climbed up out

of the mire, you shall not pull me down. You can't disgrace me if I have nothing to do with you, and I will

'Charley! On many a night like this, and many a worse night, I have sat on the stones of the street, hushing

you in my arms. Unsay those words without even saying you are sorry for them, and my arms are open to you

'I'll not unsay them. I'll say them again. You are an inveterately bad girl, and a false sister, and I have done

He threw up his ungrateful and ungracious hand as if it set up a barrier between them, and flung himself upon

his heel and left her. She remained impassive on the same spot, silent and motionless, until the striking of the

church clock roused her, and she turned away. But then, with the breaking up of her immobility came the

breaking up of the waters that the cold heart of the selfish boy had frozen. And 'O that I were lying here with

the dead!' and 'O Charley, Charley, that this should be the end of our pictures in the fire!' were all the words

A figure passed by, and passed on, but stopped and looked round at her. It was the figure of an old man with

a bowed head, wearing a large brimmed lowcrowned hat, and a longskirted coat. After hesitating a little,

the figure turned back, and, advancing with an air of gentleness and compassion, said:

'Pardon me, young woman, for speaking to you, but you are under some distress of mind. I cannot pass upon

my way and leave you weeping here alone, as if there was nothing in the place. Can I help you? Can I do

She raised her head at the sound of these kind words, and answered gladly, 'O, Mr Riah, is it you?'

'My daughter,' said the old man, 'I stand amazed! I spoke as to a stranger. Take my arm, take my arm. What

'He is a thankless dog,' said the Jew, angrily. 'Let him go.' Shake the dust from thy feet and let him go. Come,

daughter! Come home with meit is but across the roadand take a little time to recover your peace and to

make your eyes seemly, and then I will bear you company through the streets. For it is past your usual time,

and will soon be late, and the way is long, and there is much company out of doors tonight.'

She accepted the support he offered her, and they slowly passed out of the churchyard. They were in the act

of emerging into the main thoroughfare, when another figure loitering discontentedly by, and looking up the

street and down it, and all about, started and exclaimed, 'Lizzie! why, where have you been? Why, what's the

As Eugene Wrayburn thus addressed her, she drew closer to the Jew, and bent her head. The Jew having

taken in the whole of Eugene at one sharp glance, cast his eyes upon the ground, and stood mute.

'Mr Wrayburn, I cannot tell you now. I cannot tell you tonight, if I ever can tell you. Pray leave me.'

'But, Lizzie, I came expressly to join you. I came to walk home with you, having dined at a coffeehouse in

this neighbourhood and knowing your hour. And I have been lingering about,' added Eugene, 'like a bailiff;

'Mr Wrayburn, pray, pray, leave me with this protector. And one thing more. Pray, pray be careful of

'Mysteries of Udolpho!' said Eugene, with a look of wonder. 'May I be excused for asking, in the elderly

'I will relieve him of his trust,' returned Eugene. 'But you must tell me, Lizzie, what is the matter?'

'Our brother the matter?' returned Eugene, with airy contempt. 'Our brother is not worth a thought, far less a

The old man lifted up his eyes again, with one grave look at Wrayburn, and one grave glance at Lizzie, as she

stood looking down. Both were so full of meaning that even Eugene was checked in his light career, and

With an air of perfect patience the old man, remaining mute and keeping his eyes cast down, stood, retaining

Lizzie's arm, as though in his habit of passive endurance, it would be all one to him if he had stood there

'If Mr Aaron,' said Eugene, who soon found this fatiguing, 'will be good enough to relinquish his charge to

me, he will be quite free for any engagement he may have at the Synagogue. Mr Aaron, will you have the

'Good evening, Mr Aaron,' said Eugene, politely; 'we need not detain you.' Then turning to Lizzie, 'Is our

'My hearing is very good, Christian gentleman,' replied the old man, calmly; 'but I will hear only one voice

tonight, desiring me to leave this damsel before I have conveyed her to her home. If she requests it, I will do

'Excuse me. If she asks me, I will tell her,' replied the old man. 'I will tell no one else.'

'I do not ask you,' said Lizzie, 'and I beg you to take me home. Mr Wrayburn, I have had a bitter trial

tonight, and I hope you will not think me ungrateful, or mysterious, or changeable. I am neither; I am

'My dear Lizzie,' he returned, in a low voice, bending over her on the other side; 'of what? Of whom?'

He snapped his fingers and laughed. 'Come,' said he, 'since no better may be, Mr Aaron and I will divide this

trust, and see you home together. Mr Aaron on that side; I on this. If perfectly agreeable to Mr Aaron, the

He knew his power over her. He knew that she would not insist upon his leaving her. He knew that, her fears

for him being aroused, she would be uneasy if he were out of her sight. For all his seeming levity and

And going on at her side, so gaily, regardless of all that had been urged against him; so superior in his sallies

and selfpossession to the gloomy constraint of her suitor and the selfish petulance of her brother; so faithful

to her, as it seemed, when her own stock was faithless; what an immense advantage, what an overpowering

influence, were his that night! Add to the rest, poor girl, that she had heard him vilified for her sake, and that

she had suffered for his, and where the wonder that his occasional tones of serious interest (setting off his

carelessness, as if it were assumed to calm her), that his lightest touch, his lightest look, his very presence

beside her in the dark common street, were like glimpses of an enchanted world, which it was natural for

jealousy and malice and all meanness to be unable to bear the brightness of, and to gird at as bad spirits

Nothing more being said of repairing to Riah's, they went direct to Lizzie's lodging. A little short of the

'Mr Aaron,' said Eugene, when they were left together in the street, 'with many thanks for your company, it

'Sir,' returned the other, 'I give you good night, and I wish that you were not so thoughtless.'

'Mr Aaron,' returned Eugene, 'I give you good night, and I wish (for you are a little dull) that you were not so

But now, that his part was played out for the evening, and when in turning his back upon the Jew he came off

the stage, he was thoughtful himself. 'How did Lightwood's catechism run?' he murmured, as he stopped to

light his cigar. 'What is to come of it? What are you doing? Where are you going? We shall soon know now.

The heavy sigh was repeated as if by an echo, an hour afterwards, when Riah, who had been sitting on some

dark steps in a corner over against the house, arose and went his patient way; stealing through the streets in

The estimable Twemlow, dressing himself in his lodgings over the stableyard in Duke Street, Saint James's,

and hearing the horses at their toilette below, finds himself on the whole in a disadvantageous position as

compared with the noble animals at livery. For whereas, on the one hand, he has no attendant to slap him

soundingly and require him in gruff accents to come up and come over, still, on the other hand, he has no

attendant at all; and the mild gentleman's fingerjoints and other joints working rustily in the morning, he

could deem it agreeable even to be tied up by the countenance at his chamberdoor, so he were there skilfully

rubbed down and slushed and sluiced and polished and clothed, while himself taking merely a passive part in

How the fascinating Tippins gets on when arraying herself for the bewilderment of the senses of men, is

known only to the Graces and her maid; but perhaps even that engaging creature, though not reduced to the

selfdependence of Twemlow could dispense with a good deal of the trouble attendant on the daily

restoration of her charms, seeing that as to her face and neck this adorable divinity is, as it were, a diurnal

species of lobsterthrowing off a shell every forenoon, and needing to keep in a retired spot until the new

Howbeit, Twemlow doth at length invest himself with collar and cravat and wristbands to his knuckles, and

goeth forth to breakfast. And to breakfast with whom but his near neighbours, the Lammles of Sackville

Street, who have imparted to him that he will meet his distant kinsman, Mr Fledgely. The awful Snigsworth

might taboo and prohibit Fledgely, but the peaceable Twemlow reasons, If he IS my kinsman I didn't make

It is the first anniversary of the happy marriage of Mr and Mrs Lammle, and the celebration is a breakfast,

because a dinner on the desired scale of sumptuosity cannot be achieved within less limits than those of the

nonexistent palatial residence of which so many people are madly envious. So, Twemlow trips with not a

little stiffness across Piccadilly, sensible of having once been more upright in figure and less in danger of

being knocked down by swift vehicles. To be sure that was in the days when he hoped for leave from the

dread Snigsworth to do something, or be something, in life, and before that magnificent Tartar issued the

ukase, 'As he will never distinguish himself, he must be a poor gentlemanpensioner of mine, and let him

Ah! my Twemlow! Say, little feeble grey personage, what thoughts are in thy breast today, of the

Fancyso still to call her who bruised thy heart when it was green and thy head brownand whether it be

better or worse, more painful or less, to believe in the Fancy to this hour, than to know her for a greedy

armour plated crocodile, with no more capacity of imagining the delicate and sensitive and tender spot

behind thy waistcoat, than of going straight at it with a knittingneedle. Say likewise, my Twemlow, whether

it be the happier lot to be a poor relation of the great, or to stand in the wintry slush giving the hack horses to

drink out of the shallow tub at the coachstand, into which thou has so nearly set thy uncertain foot.

As he approaches the Lammles' door, drives up a little onehorse carriage, containing Tippins the divine.

Tippins, letting down the window, playfully extols the vigilance of her cavalier in being in waiting there to

hand her out. Twemlow hands her out with as much polite gravity as if she were anything real, and they

proceed upstairs. Tippins all abroad about the legs, and seeking to express that those unsteady articles are

And dear Mrs Lammle and dear Mr Lammle, how do you do, and when are you going down to

what'sitsname placeGuy, Earl of Warwick, you knowwhat is it?Dun Cowto claim the flitch of

bacon? And Mortimer, whose name is for ever blotted out from my list of lovers, by reason first of fickleness

and then of base desertion, how do YOU do, wretch? And Mr Wrayburn, YOU here! What can YOU come

for, because we are all very sure beforehand that you are not going to talk! And Veneering, M.P., how are

things going on down at the house, and when will you turn out those terrible people for us? And Mrs

Veneering, my dear, can it positively be true that you go down to that stifling place night after night, to hear

those men prose? Talking of which, Veneering, why don't you prose, for you haven't opened your lips there

yet, and we are dying to hear what you have got to say to us! Miss Podsnap, charmed to see you. Pa, here?

No! Ma, neither? Oh! Mr Boots! Delighted. Mr Brewer! This IS a gathering of the clans. Thus Tippins, and

surveys Fledgeby and outsiders through golden glass, murmuring as she turns about and about, in her

innocent giddy way, Anybody else I know? No, I think not. Nobody there. Nobody THERE. Nobody

Mr Lammle, all aglitter, produces his friend Fledgeby, as dying for the honour of presentation to Lady

Tippins. Fledgeby presented, has the air of going to say something, has the air of going to say nothing, has an

air successively of meditation, of resignation, and of desolation, backs on Brewer, makes the tour of Boots,

and fades into the extreme background, feeling for his whisker, as if it might have turned up since he was

But Lammle has him out again before he has so much as completely ascertained the bareness of the land. He

would seem to be in a bad way, Fledgeby; for Lammle represents him as dying again. He is dying now, of

Twemlow offers his hand. Glad to see him. 'Your mother, sir, was a connexion of mine.'

'You like town,' says Twemlow. But is felled flat by Fledgeby's taking it quite ill, and replying, No, he don't

like town. Lammle tries to break the force of the fall, by remarking that some people do not like town.

Fledgeby retorting that he never heard of any such case but his own, Twemlow goes down again heavily.

'There is nothing new this morning, I suppose?' says Twemlow, returning to the mark with great spirit.

Somehow the execution of this little concerted piece appears to raise the general spirits as with a sense of

duty done, and sets the company a going. Everybody seems more equal than before, to the calamity of being

in the society of everybody else. Even Eugene standing in a window, moodily swinging the tassel of a blind,

Breakfast announced. Everything on table showy and gaudy, but with a selfassertingly temporary and

nomadic air on the decorations, as boasting that they will be much more showy and gaudy in the palatial

residence. Mr Lammle's own particular servant behind his chair; the Analytical behind Veneering's chair;

instances in point that such servants fall into two classes: one mistrusting the master's acquaintances, and the

other mistrusting the master. Mr Lammle's servant, of the second class. Appearing to be lost in wonder and

low spirits because the police are so long in coming to take his master up on some charge of the first

Veneering, M.P., on the right of Mrs Lammle; Twemlow on her left; Mrs Veneering, W.M.P. (wife of

Member of Parliament), and Lady Tippins on Mr Lammle's right and left. But be sure that well within the

fascination of Mr Lammle's eye and smile sits little Georgiana. And be sure that close to little Georgiana, also

Oftener than twice or thrice while breakfast is in progress, Mr Twemlow gives a little sudden turn towards

Mrs Lammle, and then says to her, 'I beg your pardon!' This not being Twemlow's usual way, why is it his

way today? Why, the truth is, Twemlow repeatedly labours under the impression that Mrs Lammle is going

to speak to him, and turning finds that it is not so, and mostly that she has her eyes upon Veneering. Strange

Lady Tippins partaking plentifully of the fruits of the earth (including grapejuice in the category) becomes

livelier, and applies herself to elicit sparks from Mortimer Lightwood. It is always understood among the

initiated, that that faithless lover must be planted at table opposite to Lady Tippins, who will then strike

conversational fire out of him. In a pause of mastication and deglutition, Lady Tippins, contemplating

Mortimer, recalls that it was at our dear Veneerings, and in the presence of a party who are surely all here,

that he told them his story of the man from somewhere, which afterwards became so horribly interesting and

'Then we expect you,' retorts the charmer, 'to sustain your reputation, and tell us something else.'

'Lady Tippins, I exhausted myself for life that day, and there is nothing more to be got out of me.'

Mortimer parries thus, with a sense upon him that elsewhere it is Eugene and not he who is the jester, and that

in these circles where Eugene persists in being speechless, he, Mortimer, is but the double of the friend on

'But,' quoth the fascinating Tippins, 'I am resolved on getting something more out of you. Traitor! what is this

'Monster, away!' retorts Lady Tippins. 'Your own Golden Dustman referred me to you.'

Mr Lammle, striking in here, proclaims aloud that there is a sequel to the story of the man from somewhere.

'I assure you,' says Lightwood, glancing round the table, 'I have nothing to tell.' But Eugene adding in a low

voice, 'There, tell it, tell it!' he corrects himself with the addition, 'Nothing worth mentioning.'

Boots and Brewer immediately perceive that it is immensely worth mentioning, and become politely

clamorous. Veneering is also visited by a perception to the same effect. But it is understood that his attention

is now rather used up, and difficult to hold, that being the tone of the House of Commons.

'Pray don't be at the trouble of composing yourselves to listen,' says Mortimer Lightwood, 'because I shall

have finished long before you have fallen into comfortable attitudes. It's like'

"I'll tell you a story Of Jack a Manory, And now my story's begun; I'll tell you another Of Jack and his

Eugene says this with a sound of vexation in his voice, leaning back in his chair and looking balefully at

Lady Tippins, who nods to him as her dear Bear, and playfully insinuates that she (a self evident

'The reference,' proceeds Mortimer, 'which I suppose to be made by my honourable and fair enslaver

opposite, is to the following circumstance. Very lately, the young woman, Lizzie Hexam, daughter of the late

Jesse Hexam, otherwise Gaffer, who will be remembered to have found the body of the man from

somewhere, mysteriously received, she knew not from whom, an explicit retraction of the charges made

against her father, by another waterside character of the name of Riderhood. Nobody believed them,

because little Rogue RiderhoodI am tempted into the paraphrase by remembering the charming wolf who

would have rendered society a great service if he had devoured Mr Riderhood's father and mother in their

infancyhad previously played fast and loose with the said charges, and, in fact, abandoned them. However,

the retraction I have mentioned found its way into Lizzie Hexam's hands, with a general flavour on it of

having been favoured by some anonymous messenger in a dark cloak and slouched hat, and was by her

forwarded, in her father's vindication, to Mr Boffin, my client. You will excuse the phraseology of the shop,

but as I never had another client, and in all likelihood never shall have, I am rather proud of him as a natural

Although as easy as usual on the surface, Lightwood is not quite as easy as usual below it. With an air of not

minding Eugene at all, he feels that the subject is not altogether a safe one in that connexion.

'The natural curiosity which forms the sole ornament of my professional museum,' he resumes, 'hereupon

desires his Secretaryan individual of the hermitcrab or oyster species, and whose name, I think, is

Chokesmithbut it doesn't in the least mattersay Artichoketo put himself in communication with

Lizzie Hexam. Artichoke professes his readiness so to do, endeavours to do so, but fails.'

'Pardon me,' returns Lightwood,' I must postpone the reply for one moment, or we shall have an anticlimax.

Artichoke failing signally, my client refers the task to me: his purpose being to advance the interests of the

object of his search. I proceed to put myself in communication with her; I even happen to possess some

special means,' with a glance at Eugene, 'of putting myself in communication with her; but I fail too, because

'Disappeared,' says Mortimer. 'Nobody knows how, nobody knows when, nobody knows where. And so ends

Tippins, with a bewitching little scream, opines that we shall every one of us be murdered in our beds.

Eugene eyes her as if some of us would be enough for him. Mrs Veneering, W.M.P., remarks that these social

mysteries make one afraid of leaving Baby. Veneering, M.P., wishes to be informed (with something of a

secondhand air of seeing the Right Honourable Gentleman at the head of the Home Department in his place)

whether it is intended to be conveyed that the vanished person has been spirited away or otherwise harmed?

Instead of Lightwood's answering, Eugene answers, and answers hastily and vexedly: 'No, no, no; he doesn't

However, the great subject of the happiness of Mr and Mrs Lammle must not be allowed to vanish with the

other vanishmentswith the vanishing of the murderer, the vanishing of Julius Handford, the vanishing of

Lizzie Hexam,and therefore Veneering must recall the present sheep to the pen from which they have

strayed. Who so fit to discourse of the happiness of Mr and Mrs Lammle, they being the dearest and oldest

friends he has in the world; or what audience so fit for him to take into his confidence as that audience, a

noun of multitude or signifying many, who are all the oldest and dearest friends he has in the world? So

Veneering, without the formality of rising, launches into a familiar oration, gradually toning into the

Parliamentary singsong, in which he sees at that board his dear friend Twemlow who on that day

twelvemonth bestowed on his dear friend Lammle the fair hand of his dear friend Sophronia, and in which he

also sees at that board his dear friends Boots and Brewer whose rallying round him at a period when his dear

friend Lady Tippins likewise rallied round himay, and in the foremost rank he can never forget while

memory holds her seat. But he is free to confess that he misses from that board his dear old friend Podsnap,

though he is well represented by his dear young friend Georgiana. And he further sees at that board (this he

announces with pomp, as if exulting in the powers of an extraordinary telescope) his friend Mr Fledgeby, if

he will permit him to call him so. For all of these reasons, and many more which he right well knows will

have occurred to persons of your exceptional acuteness, he is here to submit to you that the time has arrived

when, with our hearts in our glasses, with tears in our eyes, with blessings on our lips, and in a general way

with a profusion of gammon and spinach in our emotional larders, we should one and all drink to our dear

friends the Lammles, wishing them many years as happy as the last, and many many friends as congenially

united as themselves. And this he will add; that Anastatia Veneering (who is instantly heard to weep) is

formed on the same model as her old and chosen friend Sophronia Lammle, in respect that she is devoted to

Seeing no better way out of it, Veneering here pulls up his oratorical Pegasus extremely short, and plumps

Then Lammle. Too much of him every way; pervadingly too much nose of a coarse wrong shape, and his

nose in his mind and his manners; too much smile to be real; too much frown to be false; too many large teeth

to be visible at once without suggesting a bite. He thanks you, dear friends, for your kindly greeting, and

hopes to receive youit may be on the next of these delightfiil occasionsin a residence better suited to

your claims on the rites of hospitality. He will never forget that at Veneering's he first saw Sophronia.

Sophronia will never forget that at Veneering's she first saw him. 'They spoke of it soon after they were

married, and agreed that they would never forget it. In fact, to Veneering they owe their union. They hope to

show their sense of this some day ('No, no, from Veneering)oh yes, yes, and let him rely upon it, they will

if they can! His marriage with Sophronia was not a marriage of interest on either side: she had her little

fortune, he had his little fortune: they joined their little fortunes: it was a marriage of pure inclination and

suitability. Thank you! Sophronia and he are fond of the society of young people; but he is not sure that their

house would be a good house for young people proposing to remain single, since the contemplation of its

domestic bliss might induce them to change their minds. He will not apply this to any one present; certainly

not to their darling little Georgiana. Again thank you! Neither, bytheby, will he apply it to his friend

Fledgeby. He thanks Veneering for the feeling manner in which he referred to their common friend Fledgeby,

for he holds that gentleman in the highest estimation. Thank you. In fact (returning unexpectedly to

Fledgeby), the better you know him, the more you find in him that you desire to know. Again thank you! In

Mrs Lammle has sat quite still, with her eyes cast down upon the tablecloth. As Mr Lammle's address ends,

Twemlow once more turns to her involuntarily, not cured yet of that often recurring impression that she is

going to speak to him. This time she really is going to speak to him. Veneering is talking with his other next

He answers, 'I beg your pardon? Yes?' Still a little doubtful, because of her not looking at him.

'You have the soul of a gentleman, and I know I may trust you. Will you give me the opportunity of saying a

'Don't seem to do so, if you please, and don't think it inconsistent if my manner should be more careless than

Intensely astonished, Twemlow puts his hand to his forehead, and sinks back in his chair meditating. Mrs

Lammle rises. All rise. The ladies go up stairs. The gentlemen soon saunter after them. Fledgeby has devoted

the interval to taking an observation of Boots's whiskers, Brewer's whiskers, and Lammle's whiskers, and

considering which pattern of whisker he would prefer to produce out of himself by friction, if the Genie of

In the drawingroom, groups form as usual. Lightwood, Boots, and Brewer, flutter like moths around that

yellow wax candle guttering down, and with some hint of a windingsheet in itLady Tippins. Outsiders

cultivate Veneering, M P., and Mrs Veneering, W.M.P. Lammle stands with folded arms, Mephistophelean in

a corner, with Georgiana and Fledgeby. Mrs Lammle, on a sofa by a table, invites Mr Twemlow's attention to

Mr Twemlow takes his station on a settee before her, and Mrs Lammle shows him a portrait.

'You have reason to be surprised,' she says softly, 'but I wish you wouldn't look so.'

'I think, Mr Twemlow, you never saw that distant connexion of yours before today?'

'If you knew more of him, you would be less inclined to acknowledge him. Here is another portrait. What do

Twemlow has just presence of mind enough to say aloud: 'Very like! Uncommonly like!'

'You have noticed, perhaps, whom he favours with his attentions? You notice where he is now, and how

She darts a look at him which he cannot comprehend, and shows him another portrait.

'So like as to be almost a caricature?Mr Twemlow, it is impossible to tell you what the struggle in my

mind has been, before I could bring myself to speak to you as I do now. It is only in the conviction that I may

trust you never to betray me, that I can proceed. Sincerely promise me that you never will betray my

confidencethat you will respect it, even though you may no longer respect me,and I shall be as satisfied

'Thank you. I can desire no more. Mr Twemlow, I implore you to save that child!'

'Georgiana. She will be sacrificed. She will be inveigled and married to that connexion of yours. It is a

partnership affair, a moneyspeculation. She has no strength of will or character to help herself and she is on

'Amazing! But what can I do to prevent it?' demands Twemlow, shocked and bewildered to the last degree.

Aghast at the light manner of her throwing her head back to look at it critically, Twemlow still dimly

perceives the expediency of throwing his own head back, and does so. Though he no more sees the portrait

'And ex' But Twemlow, in his demolished state, cannot command the word, and trails off into 'actly so.'

'Mr Twemlow, your word will have weight with her pompous, selfblinded father. You know how much he

By great good fortune Twemlow receives a stimulant at this critical instant. The stimulant is Lammle's voice.

She puts the book down, takes another book up, turns the leaves, and presents the portrait to Twemlow.

'That is the last of Mr Lammle. Do you think it good?Warn her father against me. I deserve it, for I have

been in the scheme from the first. It is my husband's scheme, your connexion's, and mine. I tell you this, only

to show you the necessity of the poor little foolish affectionate creature's being befriended and rescued. You

will not repeat this to her father. You will spare me so far, and spare my husband. For, though this celebration

of today is all a mockery, he is my husband, and we must live.Do you think it like?'

Twemlow, in a stunned condition, feigns to compare the portrait in his hand with the original looking towards

'Very well indeed!' are at length the words which Twemlow with great difficulty extracts from himself.

'I am glad you think so. On the whole, I myself consider it the best. The others are so dark. Now here, for

'But I don't understand; I don't see my way,' Twemlow stammers, as he falters over the book with his glass at

his eye. 'How warn her father, and not tell him? Tell him how much? Tell him how little? IIam getting

'Tell him I am a matchmaker; tell him I am an artful and designing woman; tell him you are sure his

daughter is best out of my house and my company. Tell him any such things of me; they will all be true. You

know what a puffedup man he is, and how easily you can cause his vanity to take the alarm. Tell him as

much as will give him the alarm and make him careful of her, and spare me the rest. Mr Twemlow, I feel my

sudden degradation in your eyes; familiar as I am with my degradation in my own eyes, I keenly feel the

change that must have come upon me in yours, in these last few moments. But I trust to your good faith with

me as implicitly as when I began. If you knew how often I have tried to speak to you today, you would

almost pity me. I want no new promise from you on my own account, for I am satisfied, and I always shall be

satisfied, with the promise you have given me. I can venture to say no more, for I see that I am watched. If

you would set my mind at rest with the assurance that you will interpose with the father and save this

harmless girl, close that book before you return it to me, and I shall know what you mean, and deeply thank

you in my heart.Alfred, Mr Twemlow thinks the last one the best, and quite agrees with you and me.'

Alfred advances. The groups break up. Lady Tippins rises to go, and Mrs Veneering follows her leader. For

the moment, Mrs Lammle does not turn to them, but remains looking at Twemlow looking at Alfred's portrait

through his eyeglass. The moment past, Twemlow drops his eyeglass at its ribbon's length, rises, and closes

the book with an emphasis which makes that fragile nursling of the fairies, Tippins, start.

Then goodbye and goodbye, and charming occasion worthy of the Golden Age, and more about the flitch

of bacon, and the like of that; and Twemlow goes staggering across Piccadilly with his hand to his forehead,

and is nearly run down by a flushed lettercart, and at last drops safe in his easychair, innocent good

It was a foggy day in London, and the fog was heavy and dark. Animate London, with smarting eyes and

irritated lungs, was blinking, wheezing, and choking; inanimate London was a sooty spectre, divided in

purpose between being visible and invisible, and so being wholly neither. Gaslights flared in the shops with a

haggard and unblest air, as knowing themselves to be night creatures that had no business abroad under the

sun; while the sun itself when it was for a few moments dimly indicated through circling eddies of fog,

showed as if it had gone out and were collapsing flat and cold. Even in the surrounding country it was a

foggy day, but there the fog was grey, whereas in London it was, at about the boundary line, dark yellow, and

a little within it brown, and then browner, and then browner, until at the heart of the City which call Saint

Mary Axeit was rustyblack. From any point of the high ridge of land northward, it might have been

discerned that the loftiest buildings made an occasional struggle to get their heads above the foggy sea, and

especially that the great dome of Saint Paul's seemed to die hard; but this was not perceivable in the streets at

their feet, where the whole metropolis was a heap of vapour charged with muffled sound of wheels, and

At nine o'clock on such a morning, the place of business of Pubsey and Co. was not the liveliest object even

in Saint Mary Axewhich is not a very lively spotwith a sobbing gaslight in the counting house

window, and a burglarious stream of fog creeping in to strangle it through the keyhole of the main door. But

the light went out, and the main door opened, and Riah came forth with a bag under his arm.

Almost in the act of coming out at the door, Riah went into the fog, and was lost to the eyes of Saint Mary

Axe. But the eyes of this history can follow him westward, by Cornhill, Cheapside, Fleet Street, and the

Strand, to Piccadilly and the Albany. Thither he went at his grave and measured pace, staff in hand, skirt at

heel; and more than one head, turning to look back at his venerable figure already lost in the mist, supposed it

to be some ordinary figure indistinctly seen, which fancy and the fog had worked into that passing likeness.

Arrived at the house in which his master's chambers were on the second floor, Riah proceeded up the stairs,

and paused at Fascination Fledgeby's door. Making free with neither bell nor knocker, he struck upon the

door with the top of his staff, and, having listened, sat down on the threshold. It was characteristic of his

habitual submission, that he sat down on the raw dark staircase, as many of his ancestors had probably sat

After a time, when he had grown so cold as to be fain to blow upon his fingers, he arose and knocked with his

staff again, and listened again, and again sat down to wait. Thrice he repeated these actions before his

listening ears were greeted by the voice of Fledgeby, calling from his bed, 'Hold your row!I'll come and

open the door directly!' But, in lieu of coming directly, he fell into a sweet sleep for some quarter of an hour

more, during which added interval Riah sat upon the stairs and waited with perfect patience.

At length the door stood open, and Mr Fledgeby's retreating drapery plunged into bed again. Following it at a

respectful distance, Riah passed into the bedchamber, where a fire had been sometime lighted, and was

'Why, what time of night do you mean to call it?' inquired Fledgeby, turning away beneath the clothes, and

presenting a comfortable rampart of shoulder to the chilled figure of the old man.

'Chill and bitter,' said Riah, drawing out a handkerchief, and wiping the moisture from his beard and long

grey hair as he stood on the verge of the rug, with his eyes on the acceptable fire.

'You needn't brag about it,' returned Fledgeby, disappointed in his desire to heighten the contrast between his

bed and the streets. 'But you're always bragging about something. Got the books there?'

'All right. I'll turn the general subject over in my mind for a minute or two, and while I'm about it you can

With another comfortable plunge, Mr Fledgeby fell asleep again. The old man, having obeyed his directions,

sat down on the edge of a chair, and, folding his hands before him, gradually yielded to the influence of the

warmth, and dozed. He was roused by Mr Fledgeby's appearing erect at the foot of the bed, in Turkish

slippers, rosecoloured Turkish trousers (got cheap from somebody who had cheated some other somebody

out of them), and a gown and cap to correspond. In that costume he would have left nothing to be desired, if

he had been further fitted out with a bottomless chair, a lantern, and a bunch of matches.

'Now, old 'un!' cried Fascination, in his light raillery, 'what dodgery are you up to next, sitting there with your

'Not you!' returned Fledgeby, with a cunning look. 'A telling move with a good many, I dare say, but it won't

put ME off my guard. Not a bad notion though, if you want to look indifferent in driving a bargain. Oh, you

The old man shook his head, gently repudiating the imputation, and suppresed a sigh, and moved to the table

at which Mr Fledgeby was now pouring out for himself a cup of steaming and fragrant coffee from a pot that

had stood ready on the hob. It was an edifying spectacle, the young man in his easy chair taking his coffee,

'Now!' said Fledgeby. 'Fork out your balance in hand, and prove by figures how you make it out that it ain't

Riah obeyed, and then taking a bag from his breast, and referring to the sum in the accounts for which they

made him responsible, told it out upon the table. Fledgeby told it again with great care, and rang every

'I suppose,' he said, taking one up to eye it closely, 'you haven't been lightening any of these; but it's a trade of

your people's, you know. YOU understand what sweating a pound means, don't you?'

'Much as you do, sir,' returned the old man, with his hands under opposite cuffs of his loose sleeves, as he

stood at the table, deferentially observant of the master's face. 'May I take the liberty to say something?'

'Do you not, sirwithout intending itof a surety without intending itsometimes mingle the character I

fairly earn in your employment, with the character which it is your policy that I should bear?'

'I don't find it worth my while to cut things so fine as to go into the inquiry,' Fascination coolly answered.

'Jews and generosity!' said Fledgeby. 'That's a good connexion! Bring out your vouchers, and don't talk

The vouchers were produced, and for the next halfhour Mr Fledgeby concentrated his sublime attention on

them. They and the accounts were all found correct, and the books and the papers resumed their places in the

'Next,' said Fledgeby, 'concerning that billbroking branch of the business; the branch I like best. What queer

bills are to be bought, and at what prices? You have got your list of what's in the market?'

'Sir, a long list,' replied Riah, taking out a pocketbook, and selecting from its contents a folded paper, which,

'Whew!' whistled Fledgeby, as he took it in his hand. 'Queer Street is full of lodgers just at present! These are

'In parcels as set forth,' returned the old man, looking over his master's shoulder; 'or the lump.'

'Half the lump will be wastepaper, one knows beforehand,' said Fledgeby. 'Can you get it at wastepaper

Riah shook his head, and Fledgeby cast his small eyes down the list. They presently began to twinkle, and he

no sooner became conscious of their twinkling, than he looked up over his shoulder at the grave face above

him, and moved to the chimneypiece. Making a desk of it, he stood there with his back to the old man,

warming his knees, perusing the list at his leisure, and often returning to some lines of it, as though they were

particularly interesting. At those times he glanced in the chimneyglass to see what note the old man took of

him. He took none that could be detected, but, aware of his employer's suspicions, stood with his eyes on the

Mr Fledgeby was thus amiably engaged when a step was heard at the outer door, and the door was heard to

open hastily. 'Hark! That's your doing, you Pump of Israel,' said Fledgeby; 'you can't have shut it.' Then the

step was heard within, and the voice of Mr Alfred Lammle called aloud, 'Are you anywhere here, Fledgeby?'

To which Fledgeby, after cautioning Riah in a low voice to take his cue as it should be given him, replied,

'Come in!' said Fledgeby. 'This gentleman is only Pubsey and Co. of Saint Mary Axe, that I am trying to

make terms for an unfortunate friend with in a matter of some dishonoured bills. But really Pubsey and Co.

are so strict with their debtors, and so hard to move, that I seem to be wasting my time. Can't I make ANY

'I am but the representative of another, sir,' returned the Jew in a low voice. 'I do as I am bidden by my

principal. It is not my capital that is invested in the business. It is not my profit that arises therefrom.'

'Devilish good, ain't it, Lammle?' said Fledgeby, unspeakably amused by his hidden joke.

'Riah, Pubsey and Co. Saint Mary Axe,' Fledgeby put in, as he wiped away the tears that trickled from his

'Mr Riah is bound to observe the invaRiahle forms for such cases made and provided,' said Lammle.

'He is only the representative of another!' cried Fledgeby. 'Does as he is told by his principal! Not his capital

that's invested in the business. Oh, that's good! Ha ha ha ha!' Mr Lammle joined in the laugh and looked

knowing; and the more he did both, the more exquisite the secret joke became for Mr Fledgeby.

'However,' said that fascinating gentleman, wiping his eyes again, 'if we go on in this way, we shall seem to

be almost making game of Mr Riah, or of Pubsey and Co. Saint Mary Axe, or of somebody: which is far from

our intention. Mr Riah, if you would have the kindness to step into the next room for a few moments while I

speak with Mr Lammle here, I should like to try to make terms with you once again before you go.'

The old man, who had never raised his eyes during the whole transaction of Mr Fledgeby's joke, silently

bowed and passed out by the door which Fledgeby opened for him. Having closed it on him, Fledgeby

returned to Lammle, standing with his back to the bedroom fire, with one hand under his coatskirts, and all

'Well then; there is,' said Lammle; 'there IS something wrong; the whole thing's wrong.'

'I say!' remonstrated Fascination very slowly, and sitting down with his hands on his knees to stare at his

'I tell you, Fledgeby,' repeated Lammle, with a sweep of his right arm, 'the whole thing's wrong. The game's

Fledgeby took a note from his extended hand and read it aloud. 'Alfred Lammle, Esquire. Sir: Allow Mrs

Podsnap and myself to express our united sense of the polite attentions of Mrs Alfred Lammle and yourself

towards our daughter, Georgiana. Allow us also, wholly to reject them for the future, and to communicate our

final desire that the two families may become entire strangers. I have the honour to be, Sir, your most

obedient and very humble servant, JOHN PODSNAP.' Fledgeby looked at the three blank sides of this note,

quite as long and earnestly as at the first expressive side, and then looked at Lammle, who responded with

'Perhaps,' suggested Fledgeby, after reflecting with a very discontented brow, 'somebody has been giving you

Mr Fledgeby appeared to be on the verge of some mutinous expressions, when his hand happened to touch

his nose. A certain remembrance connected with that feature operating as a timely warning, he took it

thoughtfully between his thumb and forefinger, and pondered; Lammle meanwhile eyeing him with furtive

'Well!' said Fledgeby. 'This won't improve with talking about. If we ever find out who did it, we'll mark that

person. There's nothing more to be said, except that you undertook to do what circumstances prevent your

'And that you undertook to do what you might have done by this time, if you had made a prompter use of

'Hah! That,' remarked Fledgeby, with his hands in the Turkish trousers, 'is matter of opinion.'

'Mr Fledgeby,' said Lammle, in a bullying tone, 'am I to understand that you in any way reflect upon me, or

'No,' said Fledgeby; 'provided you have brought my promissory note in your pocket, and now hand it over.'

Lammle produced it, not without reluctance. Fledgeby looked at it, identified it, twisted it up, and threw it

into the fire. They both looked at it as it blazed, went out, and flew in feathery ash up the chimney.

'NOW, Mr Fledgeby,' said Lammle, as before; 'am I to understand that you in any way reflect upon me, or

Mr Fledgeby took it, saying, 'And if we ever find out who did this, we'll mark that person. And in the most

friendly manner, let me mention one thing more. I don't know what your circumstances are, and I don't ask.

You have sustained a loss here. Many men are liable to be involved at times, and you may be, or you may not

be. But whatever you do, Lammle, don'tdon'tdon't, I beg of youever fall into the hands of Pubsey and

Co. in the next room, for they are grinders. Regular flayers and grinders, my dear Lammle,' repeated

Fledgeby with a peculiar relish, 'and they'll skin you by the inch, from the nape of your neck to the sole of

your foot, and grind every inch of your skin to toothpowder. You have seen what Mr Riah is. Never fall into

Mr Lammle, disclosing some alarm at the solemnity of this affectionate adjuration, demanded why the devil

'To confess the fact, I was made a little uneasy,' said the candid Fledgeby, 'by the manner in which that Jew

looked at you when he heard your name. I didn't like his eye. But it may have been the heated fancy of a

friend. Of course if you are sure that you have no personal security out, which you may not be quite equal to

meeting, and which can have got into his hands, it must have been fancy. Still, I didn't like his eye.'

The brooding Lammle, with certain white dints coming and going in his palpitating nose, looked as if some

tormenting imp were pinching it. Fledgeby, watching him with a twitch in his mean face which did duty there

'But I mustn't keep him waiting too long,' said Fledgeby, 'or he'll revenge it on my unfortunate friend. How's

'I think she would have been more so,' answered Lammle, 'if there had been more go in YOU?'

'Don't break out, Lammle,' urged Fledgeby, in a submissive tone, 'because there's no occasion. I only asked a

'Very good,' said Fledgeby, plainly seeing that she did. 'My compliments to her. Goodbye!'

They shook hands, and Lammle strode out pondering. Fledgeby saw him into the fog, and, returning to the

fire and musing with his face to it, stretched the legs of the rosecoloured Turkish trousers wide apart, and

'You have a pair of whiskers, Lammle, which I never liked,' murmured Fledgeby, 'and which money can't

produce; you are boastful of your manners and your conversation; you wanted to pull my nose, and you have

let me in for a failure, and your wife says I am the cause of it. I'll bowl you down. I will, though I have no

whiskers,' here he rubbed the places where they were due, 'and no manners, and no conversation!'

Having thus relieved his noble mind, he collected the legs of the Turkish trousers, straightened himself on his

knees, and called out to Riah in the next room, 'Halloa, you sir!' At sight of the old man reentering with a

gentleness monstrously in contrast with the character he had given him, Mr Fledgeby was so tickled again,

'Now, old 'un,' proceeded Fledgeby, when he had had his laugh out, 'you'll buy up these lots that I mark with

my pencilthere's a tick there, and a tick there, and a tick thereand I wager twopence you'll afterwards

go on squeezing those Christians like the Jew you are. Now, next you'll want a chequeor you'll say you

want it, though you've capital enough somewhere, if one only knew where, but you'd be peppered and salted

When he had unlocked a drawer and taken a key from it to open another drawer, in which was another key

that opened another drawer, in which was another key that opened another drawer, in which was the cheque

book; and when he had written the cheque; and when, reversing the key and drawer process, he had placed

his cheque book in safety again; he beckoned the old man, with the folded cheque, to come and take it.

'Old 'un,' said Fledgeby, when the Jew had put it in his pocketbook, and was putting that in the breast of his

outer garment; 'so much at present for my affairs. Now a word about affairs that are not exactly mine. Where

With his hand not yet withdrawn from the breast of his garment, Riah started and paused.

Showing that he was taken by surprise, the old man looked at his master with some passing confusion, which

'Is she in the house I pay rent and taxes for in Saint Mary Axe?' demanded Fledgeby.

'Is she in your garden up atop of that housegone up to be dead, or whatever the game is?' asked Fledgeby.

Riah bent his eyes upon the ground, as if considering whether he could answer the question without breach of

'Come!' said Fledgeby. 'I won't press that just now. But I want to know this, and I will know this, mind you.

The old man, with an apologetic action of his head and hands, as not comprehending the master's meaning,

'You can't be a gallivanting dodger,' said Fledgeby. 'For you're a "regular pity the sorrows", you knowif

you DO know any Christian rhyme"whose trembling limbs have borne him to"et cetrer. You're one of

the Patriarchs; you're a shaky old card; and you can't be in love with this Lizzie?'

'Then why,' retorted Fledgeby, with some slight tinge of a blush, 'don't you out with your reason for having

'Sir, I will tell you the truth. But (your pardon for the stipulation) it is in sacred confidence; it is strictly upon

'Honour too!' cried Fledgeby, with a mocking lip. 'Honour among Jews. Well. Cut away.'

The old man, never bidden to sit down, stood with an earnest hand laid on the back of the young man's easy

chair. The young man sat looking at the fire with a face of listening curiosity, ready to check him off and

Mr Fledgeby could only express the feelings to which this incredible statement gave rise in his breast, by a

'How I came to know, and much to esteem and to respect, this damsel, I mentioned when you saw her in my

'The better I knew her, the more interest I felt in her fortunes. They gathered to a crisis. I found her beset by a

selfish and ungrateful brother, beset by an unacceptable wooer, beset by the snares of a more powerful lover,

'Sir, it was only natural that she should incline towards him, for he had many and great advantages. But he

was not of her station, and to marry her was not in his mind. Perils were closing round her, and the circle was

fast darkening, when Ibeing as you have said, sir, too old and broken to be suspected of any feeling for her

but a father'sstepped in, and counselled flight. I said, "My daughter, there are times of moral danger when

the hardest virtuous resolution to form is flight, and when the most heroic bravery is flight." She answered,

she had had this in her thoughts; but whither to fly without help she knew not, and there were none to help

'I placed her,' said the old man, 'at a distance;' with a grave smooth outward sweep from one another of his

two open hands at arm's length; 'at a distanceamong certain of our people, where her industry would serve

Fledgeby's eyes had come from the fire to notice the action of his hands when he said 'at a distance.' Fledgeby

now tried (very unsuccessfully) to imitate that action, as he shook his head and said, 'Placed her in that

With one hand across his breast and the other on the easy chair, Riah, without justifying himself, waited for

further questioning. But, that it was hopeless to question him on that one reserved point, Fledgeby, with his

'Lizzie,' said Fledgeby, looking at the fire again, and then looking up. 'Humph, Lizzie. You didn't tell me the

other name in your garden atop of the house. I'll be more communicative with you. The other name's Hexam.'

'Look here, you sir,' said Fledgeby. 'I have a notion I know something of the inveigling chap, the powerful

'By Jupiter!' cried Fledgeby. 'That one, is it? I thought it might be the other, but I never dreamt of that one! I

shouldn't object to your baulking either of the pair, dodger, for they are both conceited enough; but that one is

as cool a customer as ever I met with. Got a beard besides, and presumes upon it. Well done, old 'un! Go on

Brightened by this unexpected commendation, Riah asked were there more instructions for him?

'No,' said Fledgeby, 'you may toddle now, Judah, and grope about on the orders you have got.' Dismissed

with those pleasing words, the old man took his broad hat and staff, and left the great presence: more as if he

were some superior creature benignantly blessing Mr Fledgeby, than the poor dependent on whom he set his

'Well done you!' said Fascination to himself. 'Slow, you may be; sure, you are!' This he twice or thrice

repeated with much complacency, as he again dispersed the legs of the Turkish trousers and bent the knees.

'A tidy shot that, I flatter myself,' he then soliloquised. 'And a Jew brought down with it! Now, when I heard

the story told at Lammle's, I didn't make a jump at Riah. Not a hit of it; I got at him by degrees.' Herein he

was quite accurate; it being his habit, not to jump, or leap, or make an upward spring, at anything in life, but

'I got at him,' pursued Fledgeby, feeling for his whisker, 'by degrees. If your Lammles or your Lightwoods

had got at him anyhow, they would have asked him the question whether he hadn't something to do with that

gal's disappearance. I knew a better way of going to work. Having got behind the hedge, and put him in the

light, I took a shot at him and brought him down plump. Oh! It don't count for much, being a Jew, in a match

'As to Christians,' proceeded Fledgeby, 'look out, fellow Christians, particularly you that lodge in Queer

Street! I have got the run of Queer Street now, and you shall see some games there. To work a lot of power

over you and you not know it, knowing as you think yourselves, would be almost worth laying out money

upon. But when it comes to squeezing a profit out of you into the bargain, it's something like!'

With this apostrophe Mr Fledgeby appropriately proceeded to divest himself of his Turkish garments, and

invest himself with Christian attire. Pending which operation, and his morning ablutions, and his anointing of

himself with the last infallible preparation for the production of luxuriant and glossy hair upon the human

countenance (quacks being the only sages he believed in besides usurers), the murky fog closed about him

and shut him up in its sooty embrace. If it had never let him out any more, the world would have had no

In the evening of this same foggy day when the yellow window blind of Pubsey and Co. was drawn down

upon the day's work, Riah the Jew once more came forth into Saint Mary Axe. But this time he carried no

bag, and was not bound on his master's affairs. He passed over London Bridge, and returned to the Middlesex

shore by that of Westminster, and so, ever wading through the fog, waded to the doorstep of the dolls'

Miss Wren expected him. He could see her through the window by the light of her low firecarefully

banked up with damp cinders that it might last the longer and waste the less when she was out sitting

waiting for him in her bonnet. His tap at the glass roused her from the musing solitude in which she sat, and

'Well!' exclaimed Miss Wren, delighted. 'Now you ARE a clever old boy! If we gave prizes at this

establishment (but we only keep blanks), you should have the first silver medal, for taking me up so quick.'

As she spake thus, Miss Wren removed the key of the housedoor from the keyhole and put it in her pocket,

and then bustlingly closed the door, and tried it as they both stood on the step. Satisfied that her dwelling was

safe, she drew one hand through the old man's arm and prepared to ply her crutchstick with the other. But

the key was an instrument of such gigantic proportions, that before they started Riah proposed to carry it.

'No, no, no! I'll carry it myself,' returned Miss Wren. 'I'm awfully lopsided, you know, and stowed down in

my pocket it'll trim the ship. To let you into a secret, godmother, I wear my pocket on my high side, o'

'Yes, it was truly sharp of you, godmother,' resumed Miss Wren with great approbation, 'to understand me.

But, you see, you ARE so like the fairy godmother in the bright little books! You look so unlike the rest of

people, and so much as if you had changed yourself into that shape, just this moment, with some benevolent

object. Boh!' cried Miss Jenny, putting her face close to the old man's. 'I can see your features, godmother,

'Ah! That it does! If you'd only borrow my stick and tap this piece of pavementthis dirty stone that my foot

'And I'll tell you what I must ask you to do, godmother. I must ask you to be so kind as give my child a tap,

and change him altogether. O my child has been such a bad, bad child of late! It worries me nearly out of my

wits. Not done a stroke of work these ten days. Has had the horrors, too, and fancied that four copper

'Dangerous, godmother? My child is always dangerous, more or less. He might'here the little creature

glanced back over her shoulder at the sky'be setting the house on fire at this present moment. I don't know

who would have a child, for my part! It's no use shaking him. I have shaken him till I have made myself

giddy. "Why don't you mind your Commandments and honour your parent, you naughty old boy?" I said to

'What shall be changed, after him?' asked Riah in a compassionately playful voice.

'Upon my word, godmother, I am afraid I must be selfish next, and get you to set me right in the back and the

legs. It's a little thing to you with your power, godmother, but it's a great deal to poor weak aching me.'

There was no querulous complaining in the words, but they were not the less touching for that.

'Yes, and thenYOU know, godmother. We'll both jump up into the coach and six and go to Lizzie. This

reminds me, godmother, to ask you a serious question. You are as wise as wise can be (having been brought

up by the fairies), and you can tell me this: Is it better to have had a good thing and lost it, or never to have

'I feel so much more solitary and helpless without Lizzie now, than I used to feel before I knew her.' (Tears

'Some beloved companionship fades out of most lives, my dear,' said the Jew,'that of a wife, and a fair

daughter, and a son of promise, has faded out of my own lifebut the happiness was.'

'Ah!' said Miss Wren thoughtfully, by no means convinced, and chopping the exclamation with that sharp

little hatchet of hers; 'then I tell you what change I think you had better begin with, godmother. You had

'Would that suit your case? Would you not be always in pain then?' asked the old man tenderly.

'Right!' exclaimed Miss Wren with another chop. 'You have changed me wiser, godmother.Not,' she added

with the quaint hitch of her chin and eyes, 'that you need be a very wonderful godmother to do that deed.'

Thus conversing, and having crossed Westminster Bridge, they traversed the ground that Riah had lately

traversed, and new ground likewise; for, when they had recrossed the Thames by way of London Bridge, they

But previously, as they were going along, Jenny twisted her venerable friend aside to a brilliantlylighted

This referred to a dazzling semicircle of dolls in all the colours of the rainbow, who were dressed for

presentation at court, for going to balls, for going out driving, for going out on horseback, for going out

walking, for going to get married, for going to help other dolls to get married, for all the gay events of life.'

'Pretty, pretty, pretty!' said the old man with a clap of his hands. 'Most elegant taste!'

'Glad you like 'em,' returned Miss Wren, loftily. 'But the fun is, godmother, how I make the great ladies try

my dresses on. Though it's the hardest part of my business, and would be, even if my back were not bad and

'Bless you, godmother,' said Miss Wren, 'I have to scud about town at all hours. If it was only sitting at my

bench, cutting out and sewing, it would be comparatively easy work; but it's the tryingon by the great ladies

'What a mooney godmother you are, after all!' returned Miss Wren. 'Look here. There's a Drawing Room, or a

grand day in the Park, or a Show, or a Fete, or what you like. Very well. I squeeze among the crowd, and I

look about me. When I see a great lady very suitable for my business, I say "You'll do, my dear!' and I take

particular notice of her, and run home and cut her out and baste her. Then another day, I come scudding back

again to try on, and then I take particular notice of her again. Sometimes she plainly seems to say, 'How that

little creature is staring!' and sometimes likes it and sometimes don't, but much more often yes than no. All

the time I am only saying to myself, "I must hollow out a bit here; I must slope away there;" and I am making

a perfect slave of her, with making her try on my doll's dress. Evening parties are severer work for me,

because there's only a doorway for a full view, and what with hobbling among the wheels of the carriages and

the legs of the horses, I fully expect to be run over some night. However, there I have 'em, just the same.

When they go bobbing into the hall from the carriage, and catch a glimpse of my little physiognomy poked

out from behind a policeman's cape in the rain, I dare say they think I am wondering and admiring with all

my eyes and heart, but they little think they're only working for my dolls! There was Lady Belinda Whitrose.

I made her do double duty in one night. I said when she came out of the carriage, "YOU'll do, my dear!" and I

ran straight home and cut her out and basted her. Back I came again, and waited behind the men that called

the carriages. Very bad night too. At last, "Lady Belinda Whitrose's carriage! Lady Belinda Whitrose coming

down!" And I made her try onoh! and take pains about it toobefore she got seated. That's Lady Belinda

hanging up by the waist, much too near the gaslight for a wax one, with her toes turned in.'

When they had plodded on for some time nigh the river, Riah asked the way to a certain tavern called the Six

Jolly Fellowship Porters. Following the directions he received, they arrived, after two or three puzzled

stoppages for consideration, and some uncertain looking about them, at the door of Miss Abbey Potterson's

dominions. A peep through the glass portion of the door revealed to them the glories of the bar, and Miss

Abbey herself seated in state on her snug throne, reading the newspaper. To whom, with deference, they

Taking her eyes off her newspaper, and pausing with a suspended expression of countenance, as if she must

finish the paragraph in hand before undertaking any other business whatever, Miss Abbey demanded, with

By this time Miss Abbey's eyes had possessed themselves of the small figure of Miss Jenny Wren. For the

closer observation of which, Miss Abbey laid aside her newspaper, rose, and looked over the halfdoor of the

bar. The crutchstick seemed to entreat for its owner leave to come in and rest by the fire; so, Miss Abbey

'My name is Riah,' said the old man, with courteous action, 'and my avocation is in London city. This, my

'Stop a bit,' interposed Miss Wren. 'I'll give the lady my card.' She produced it from her pocket with an air,

after struggling with the gigantic doorkey which had got upon the top of it and kept it down. Miss Abbey,

with manifest tokens of astonishment, took the diminutive document, and found it to run concisely thus:

'We take the liberty of coming, my young companion and I, madam,' said Riah, 'on behalf of Lizzie Hexam.'

Miss Potterson was stooping to loosen the bonnetstrings of the dolls' dressmaker. She looked round rather

'She would be so proud,' returned Riah, dexterously, 'to stand well in your good opinion, that before she

'For where, in the name of the Cape of Good Hope?' asked Miss Potterson, as though supposing her to have

'For the country,' was the cautious answer,'she made us promise to come and show you a paper, which she

left in our hands for that special purpose. I am an unserviceable friend of hers, who began to know her after

her departure from this neighbourhood. She has been for some time living with my young companion, and

has been a helpful and a comfortable friend to her. Much needed, madam,' he added, in a lower voice.

'I can believe that,' said Miss Abbey, with a softening glance at the little creature.

'And if it's proud to have a heart that never hardens, and a temper that never tires, and a touch that never

hurts,' Miss Jenny struck in, flushed, 'she is proud. And if it's not, she is NOT.'

Her set purpose of contradicting Miss Abbey point blank, was so far from offending that dread authority, as

to elicit a gracious smile. 'You do right, child,' said Miss Abbey, 'to speak well of those who deserve well of

'Right or wrong,' muttered Miss Wren, inaudibly, with a visible hitch of her chin, 'I mean to do it, and you

'Here is the paper, madam,' said the Jew, delivering into Miss Potterson's hands the original document drawn

'You shall try. And, if you find it good, I'll mix some for you with hot water. Put your poor little feet on the

fender. It's a cold, cold night, and the fog clings so.' As Miss Abbey helped her to turn her chair, her loosened

bonnet dropped on the floor. 'Why, what lovely hair!' cried Miss Abbey. 'And enough to make wigs for all the

'Call THAT a quantity?' returned Miss Wren. 'Poof! What do you say to the rest of it?' As she spoke, she

untied a band, and the golden stream fell over herself and over the chair, and flowed down to the ground.

Miss Abbey's admiration seemed to increase her perplexity. She beckoned the Jew towards her, as she

'You are talking about Me, good people,' thought Miss Jenny, sitting in her golden bower, warming her feet. 'I

The shrub, when tasted from a spoon, perfectly harmonizing with Miss Jenny's palate, a judicious amount

was mixed by Miss Potterson's skilful hands, whereof Riah too partook. After this preliminary, Miss Abbey

read the document; and, as often as she raised her eyebrows in so doing, the watchful Miss Jenny

accompanied the action with an expressive and emphatic sip of the shrub and water.

'As far as this goes,' said Miss Abbey Potterson, when she had read it several times, and thought about it, 'it

proves (what didn't much need proving) that Rogue Riderhood is a villain. I have my doubts whether he is not

the villain who solely did the deed; but I have no expectation of those doubts ever being cleared up now. I

believe I did Lizzie's father wrong, but never Lizzie's self; because when things were at the worst I trusted

her, had perfect confidence in her, and tried to persuade her to come to me for a refuge. I am very sorry to

have done a man wrong, particularly when it can't be undone. Be kind enough to let Lizzie know what I say;

not forgetting that if she will come to the Porters, after all, bygones being bygones, she will find a home at

the Porters, and a friend at the Porters. She knows Miss Abbey of old, remind her, and she knows whatlike

the home, and whatlike the friend, is likely to turn out. I am generally short and sweetor short and sour,

according as it may be and as opinions vary' remarked Miss Abbey, 'and that's about all I have got to say,

But before the shrub and water was sipped out, Miss Abbey bethought herself that she would like to keep a

copy of the paper by her. 'It's not long, sir,' said she to Riah, 'and perhaps you wouldn't mind just jotting it

down.' The old man willingly put on his spectacles, and, standing at the little desk in the corner where Miss

Abbey filed her receipts and kept her sample phials (customers' scores were interdicted by the strict

administration of the Porters), wrote out the copy in a fair round character. As he stood there, doing his

methodical penmanship, his ancient scribelike figure intent upon the work, and the little dolls' dressmaker

sitting in her golden bower before the fire, Miss Abbey had her doubts whether she had not dreamed those

two rare figures into the bar of the Six Jolly Fellowships, and might not wake with a nod next moment and

Miss Abbey had twice made the experiment of shutting her eyes and opening them again, still finding the

figures there, when, dreamlike, a confused hubbub arose in the public room. As she started up, and they all

three looked at one another, it became a noise of clamouring voices and of the stir of feet; then all the

windows were heard to be hastily thrown up, and shouts and cries came floating into the house from the river.

A moment more, and Bob Gliddery came clattering along the passage, with the noise of all the nails in his

'It's summut run down in the fog, ma'am,' answered Bob. 'There's ever so many people in the river.'

'Tell 'em to put on all the kettles!' cried Miss Abbey. 'See that the boiler's full. Get a bath out. Hang some

blankets to the fire. Heat some stone bottles. Have your senses about you, you girls down stairs, and use 'em.'

While Miss Abbey partly delivered these directions to Bobwhom she seized by the hair, and whose head

she knocked against the wall, as a general injunction to vigilance and presence of mind and partly hailed

the kitchen with themthe company in the public room, jostling one another, rushed out to the causeway,

'Come and look,' said Miss Abbey to her visitors. They all three hurried to the vacated public room, and

'Does anybody down there know what has happened?' demanded Miss Abbey, in her voice of authority.

'She's ablowing off her steam, Miss Abbey, and that's what makes the fog and the noise worse, don't you

Boats were putting off, torches were lighting up, people were rushing tumultuously to the water's edge. Some

man fell in with a splash, and was pulled out again with a roar of laughter. The drags were called for. A cry

for the lifebuoy passed from mouth to mouth. It was impossible to make out what was going on upon the

river, for every boat that put off sculled into the fog and was lost to view at a boat's length. Nothing was clear

but that the unpopular steamer was assailed with reproaches on all sides. She was the Murderer, bound for

Gallows Bay; she was the Manslaughterer, bound for Penal Settlement; her captain ought to be tried for his

life; her crew ran down men in rowboats with a relish; she mashed up Thames lightermen with her paddles;

she fired property with her funnels; she always was, and she always would be, wreaking destruction upon

somebody or something, after the manner of all her kind. The whole bulk of the fog teemed with such taunts,

uttered in tones of universal hoarseness. All the while, the steamer's lights moved spectrally a very little, as

she lay to, waiting the upshot of whatever accident had happened. Now, she began burning bluelights.

These made a luminous patch about her, as if she had set the fog on fire, and in the patchthe cries changing

their note, and becoming more fitful and more excitedshadows of men and boats could be seen moving,

while voices shouted: 'There!' 'There again!' 'A couple more strokes a head!' 'Hurrah!' 'Look out!' 'Hold on!'

'Haul in!' and the like. Lastly, with a few tumbling clots of blue fire, the night closed in dark again, the

wheels of the steamer were heard revolving, and her lights glided smoothly away in the direction of the sea.

It appeared to Miss Abbey and her two companions that a considerable time had been thus occupied. There

was now as eager a set towards the shore beneath the house as there had been from it; and it was only on the

'If that's Tom Tootle,' Miss Abbey made proclamation, in her most commanding tones, 'let him instantly

'Yes. He's been under water a long time, Miss; but they've grappled up the body.'

'Let 'em bring it here. You, Bob Gliddery, shut the housedoor and stand by it on the inside, and don't you

'After they have brought the body in, keep the crowd out, will you? And help Bob Gliddery to shut 'em out.'

The autocratic landlady withdrew into the house with Riah and Miss Jenny, and disposed those forces, one on

'You two stand close here,' said Miss Abbey, 'and you'll come to no hurt, and see it brought in. Bob, you

That sentinel, smartly giving his rolled shirtsleeves an extra and a final tuck on his shoulders, obeyed.

Sound of advancing voices, sound of advancing steps. Shuffle and talk without. Momentary pause. Two

peculiarly blunt knocks or pokes at the door, as if the dead man arriving on his back were striking at it with

'That's the stretcher, or the shutter, whichever of the two they are carrying,' said Miss Abbey, with

Door opened. Heavy tread of laden men. A halt. A rush. Stoppage of rush. Door shut. Baffled boots from the

'Come on, men!' said Miss Abbey; for so potent was she with her subjects that even then the bearers awaited

The entry being low, and the staircase being low, they so took up the burden they had set down, as to carry

that low. The recumbent figure, in passing, lay hardly as high as the half door.

Miss Abbey started back at sight of it. 'Why, good God!' said she, turning to her two companions, 'that's the

very man who made the declaration we have just had in our hands. That's Riderhood!'

In sooth, it is Riderhood and no other, or it is the outer husk and shell of Riderhood and no other, that is borne

into Miss Abbey's firstfloor bedroom. Supple to twist and turn as the Rogue has ever been, he is sufficiently

rigid now; and not without much shuffling of attendant feet, and tilting of his bier this way and that way, and

peril even of his sliding off it and being tumbled in a heap over the balustrades, can he be got up stairs.

'Fetch a doctor,' quoth Miss Abbey. And then, 'Fetch his daughter.' On both of which errands, quick

The doctorseeking messenger meets the doctor halfway, coming under convoy of police. Doctor examines

the dank carcase, and pronounces, not hopefully, that it is worth while trying to reanimate the same. All the

best means are at once in action, and everybody present lends a hand, and a heart and soul. No one has the

least regard for the man; with them all, he has been an object of avoidance, suspicion, and aversion; but the

spark of life within him is curiously separable from himself now, and they have a deep interest in it, probably

In answer to the doctor's inquiry how did it happen, and was anyone to blame, Tom Tootle gives in his

verdict, unavoidable accident and no one to blame but the sufferer. 'He was slinking about in his boat,' says

Tom, 'which slinking were, not to speak ill of the dead, the manner of the man, when he come right athwart

the steamer's bows and she cut him in two.' Mr Tootle is so far figurative, touching the dismemberment, as

Captain Joey, the bottlenosed regular customer in the glazed hat, is a pupil of the muchrespected old

school, and (having insinuated himself into the chamber, in the execution of the impontant service of carrying

the drowned man's neckkerchief) favours the doctor with a sagacious oldscholastic suggestion that the

body should be hung up by the heels, 'sim'lar', says Captain Joey, 'to mutton in a butcher's shop,' and should

then, as a particularly choice manoeuvre for promoting easy respiration, be rolled upon casks. These scraps of

the wisdom of the captain's ancestors are received with such speechless indignation by Miss Abbey, that she

instantly seizes the Captain by the collar, and without a single word ejects him, not presuming to remonstrate,

There then remain, to assist the doctor and Tom, only those three other regular customers, Bob Glamour,

William Williams, and Jonathan (family name of the latter, if any, unknown to mankind), who are quite

enough. Miss Abbey having looked in to make sure that nothing is wanted, descends to the bar, and there

If you are not gone for good, Mr Riderhood, it would be something to know where you are hiding at present.

This flabby lump of mortality that we work so hard at with such patient perseverance, yields no sign of you.

If you are gone for good, Rogue, it is very solemn, and if you are coming back, it is hardly less so. Nay, in the

suspense and mystery of the latter question, involving that of where you may be now, there is a solemnity

even added to that of death, making us who are in attendance alike afraid to look on you and to look off you,

and making those below start at the least sound of a creaking plank in the floor.

Stay! Did that eyelid tremble? So the doctor, breathing low, and closely watching, asks himself.

This artificial respiration ceasing, do I feel any faint flutter under my hand upon the chest?

See! A token of life! An indubitable token of life! The spark may smoulder and go out, or it may glow and

expand, but see! The four rough fellows, seeing, shed tears. Neither Riderhood in this world, nor Riderhood

in the other, could draw tears from them; but a striving human soul between the two can do it easily.

He is struggling to come back. Now, he is almost here, now he is far away again. Now he is struggling harder

to get back. And yet like us all, when we swoonlike us all, every day of our lives when we wakehe is

instinctively unwilling to be restored to the consciousness of this existence, and would be left dormant, if he

Bob Gliddery returns with Pleasant Riderhood, who was out when sought for, and hard to find. She has a

shawl over her head, and her first action, when she takes it off weeping, and curtseys to Miss Abbey, is to

'I am bound to say, girl, I didn't know who it was,' returns Miss Abbey; 'but I hope it would have been pretty

Poor Pleasant, fortified with a sip of brandy, is ushered into the firstfloor chamber. She could not express

much sentiment about her father if she were called upon to pronounce his funeral oration, but she has a

greater tenderness for him than he ever had for her, and crying bitterly when she sees him stretched

unconscious, asks the doctor, with clasped hands: 'Is there no hope, sir? O poor father! Is poor father dead?'

To which the doctor, on one knee beside the body, busy and watchful, only rejoins without looking round:

'Now, my girl, unless you have the selfcommand to be perfectly quiet, I cannot allow you to remain in the

Pleasant, consequently, wipes her eyes with her backhair, which is in fresh need of being wound up, and

having got it out of the way, watches with terrified interest all that goes on. Her natural woman's aptitude

soon renders her able to give a little help. Anticipating the doctor's want of this or that, she quietly has it

ready for him, and so by degrees is intrusted with the charge of supporting her father's head upon her arm.

It is something so new to Pleasant to see her father an object of sympathy and interest, to find any one very

willing to tolerate his society in this world, not to say pressingly and soothingly entreating him to belong to it,

that it gives her a sensation she never experienced before. Some hazy idea that if affairs could remain thus for

a long time it would be a respectable change, floats in her mind. Also some vague idea that the old evil is

drowned out of him, and that if he should happily come back to resume his occupation of the empty form that

lies upon the bed, his spirit will be altered. In which state of mind she kisses the stony lips, and quite believes

that the impassive hand she chafes will revive a tender hand, if it revive ever.

Sweet delusion for Pleasant Riderhood. But they minister to him with such extraordinary interest, their

anxiety is so keen, their vigilance is so great, their excited joy grows so intense as the signs of life strengthen,

that how can she resist it, poor thing! And now he begins to breathe naturally, and he stirs, and the doctor

declares him to have come back from that inexplicable journey where he stopped on the dark road, and to be

Tom Tootle, who is nearest to the doctor when he says this, grasps the doctor fervently by the hand. Bob

Glamour, William Williams, and Jonathan of the no surname, all shake hands with one another round, and

with the doctor too. Bob Glamour blows his nose, and Jonathan of the no surname is moved to do likewise,

but lacking a pocket handkerchief abandons that outlet for his emotion. Pleasant sheds tears deserving her

There is intelligence in his eyes. He wants to ask a question. He wonders where he is. Tell him.

He stares at his daughter, stares all around him, closes his eyes, and lies slumbering on her arm.

The shortlived delusion begins to fade. The low, bad, unimpressible face is coming up from the depths of

the river, or what other depths, to the surface again. As he grows warm, the doctor and the four men cool. As

'He will do now,' says the doctor, washing his hands, and looking at the patient with growing disfavour.

'Many a better man,' moralizes Tom Tootle with a gloomy shake of the head, 'ain't had his luck.'

'It's to be hoped he'll make a better use of his life,' says Bob Glamour, 'than I expect he will.'

They speak in a low tone because of his daughter, but she sees that they have all drawn off, and that they

stand in a group at the other end of the room, shunning him. It would be too much to suspect them of being

sorry that he didn't die when he had done so much towards it, but they clearly wish that they had had a better

subject to bestow their pains on. Intelligence is conveyed to Miss Abbey in the bar, who reappears on the

scene, and contemplates from a distance, holding whispered discourse with the doctor. The spark of life was

deeply interesting while it was in abeyance, but now that it has got established in Mr Riderhood, there

appears to be a general desire that circumstances had admitted of its being developed in anybody else, rather

'However,' says Miss Abbey, cheering them up, 'you have done your duty like good and true men, and you

This they all do, leaving the daughter watching the father. To whom, in their absence, Bob Gliddery presents

'When he finds himself here, you know,' Bob explains. 'Cause Miss Abbey forbid him the house and ordered

him out of it. But what you may call the Fates ordered him into it again. Which is rumness; ain't it?'

'He wouldn't have come here of his own accord,' returns poor Pleasant, with an effort at a little pride.

The short delusion is quite dispelled now. As plainly as she sees on her arm the old father, unimproved,

Pleasant sees that everybody there will cut him when he recovers consciousness. 'I'll take him away ever so

Presently they all return, and wait for him to become conscious that they will all be glad to get rid of him.

Some clothes are got together for him to wear, his own being saturated with water, and his present dress

Becoming more and more uncomfortable, as though the prevalent dislike were finding him out somewhere in

his sleep and expressing itself to him, the patient at last opens his eyes wide, and is assisted by his daughter to

He replies gruffly, 'Nothing to boast on.' Having, in fact, returned to life in an uncommonly sulky state.

'I don't mean to preach; but I hope,' says the doctor, gravely shaking his head, 'that this escape may have a

The patient's discontented growl of a reply is not intelligible; his daughter, however, could interpret, if she

Mr Riderhood next demands his shirt; and draws it on over his head (with his daughter's help) exactly as if he

He then buttons his linen very moodily, twice or thrice stopping to examine his arms and hands, as if to see

what punishment he has received in the Fight. He then doggedly demands his other garments, and slowly gets

them on, with an appearance of great malevolence towards his late opponent and all the spectators. He has an

impression that his nose is bleeding, and several times draws the back of his hand across it, and looks for the

result, in a pugilistic manner, greatly strengthening that incongruous resemblance.

'Where's my fur cap?' he asks in a surly voice, when he has shuffled his clothes on.

'And warn't there no honest man to pick it up? O' course there was though, and to cut off with it arterwards.

Thus, Mr Riderhood: taking from the hands of his daughter, with special illwill, a lent cap, and grumbling as

he pulls it down over his ears. Then, getting on his unsteady legs, leaning heavily upon her, and growling,

'Hold still, can't you? What! You must be a staggering next, must you?' he takes his departure out of the ring

Mr and Mrs Wilfer had seen a full quarter of a hundred more anniversaries of their wedding day than Mr and

Mrs Lammle had seen of theirs, but they still celebrated the occasion in the bosom of their family. Not that

these celebrations ever resulted in anything particularly agreeable, or that the family was ever disappointed

by that circumstance on account of having looked forward to the return of the auspicious day with sanguine

anticipations of enjoyment. It was kept morally, rather as a Fast than a Feast, enabling Mrs Wilfer to hold a

sombre darkling state, which exhibited that impressive woman in her choicest colours.

The noble lady's condition on these delightful occasions was one compounded of heroic endurance and heroic

forgiveness. Lurid indications of the better marriages she might have made, shone athwart the awful gloom of

her composure, and fitfully revealed the cherub as a little monster unaccountably favoured by Heaven, who

had possessed himself of a blessing for which many of his superiors had sued and contended in vain. So

firmly had this his position towards his treasure become established, that when the anniversary arrived, it

always found him in an apologetic state. It is not impossible that his modest penitence may have even gone

the length of sometimes severely reproving him for that he ever took the liberty of making so exalted a

As for the children of the union, their experience of these festivals had been sufficiently uncomfortable to

lead them annually to wish, when out of their tenderest years, either that Ma had married somebody else

instead of muchteased Pa, or that Pa had married somebody else instead of Ma. When there came to be but

two sisters left at home, the daring mind of Bella on the next of these occasions scaled the height of

wondering with droll vexation 'what on earth Pa ever could have seen in Ma, to induce him to make such a

The revolving year now bringing the day round in its orderly sequence, Bella arrived in the Boffin chariot to

assist at the celebration. It was the family custom when the day recurred, to sacrifice a pair of fowls on the

altar of Hymen; and Bella had sent a note beforehand, to intimate that she would bring the votive offering

with her. So, Bella and the fowls, by the united energies of two horses, two men, four wheels, and a

plumpudding carriage dog with as uncomfortable a collar on as if he had been George the Fourth, were

deposited at the door of the parental dwelling. They were there received by Mrs Wilfer in person, whose

dignity on this, as on most special occasions, was heightened by a mysterious toothache.

The male domestic of Mrs Boffin touched his hat, and in the act of departure had an awful glare bestowed

upon him by Mrs Wilfer, intended to carry deep into his audacious soul the assurance that, whatever his

'That's exactly what Ma has been doing,' interposed Lavvy, over the maternal shoulder, 'ever since we got up

this morning. It's all very well to laugh, Bella, but anything more exasperating it is impossible to conceive.'

Mrs Wilfer, with a look too full of majesty to be accompanied by any words, attended both her daughters to

'Mr Rokesmith,' said she, resignedly, 'has been so polite as to place his sittingroom at our disposal today.

You will therefore, Bella, be entertained in the humble abode of your parents, so far in accordance with your

present style of living, that there will be a drawingroom for your reception as well as a diningroom. Your

papa invited Mr Rokesmith to partake of our lowly fare. In excusing himself on account of a particular

Bella happened to know that he had no engagement out of his own room at Mr Boffin's, but she approved of

his staying away. 'We should only have put one another out of countenance,' she thought, 'and we do that

Yet she had sufficient curiosity about his room, to run up to it with the least possible delay, and make a close

inspection of its contents. It was tastefully though economically furnished, and very neatly arranged. There

were shelves and stands of books, English, French, and Italian; and in a portfolio on the writingtable there

were sheets upon sheets of memoranda and calculations in figures, evidently referring to the Boffin property.

On that table also, carefully backed with canvas, varnished, mounted, and rolled like a map, was the placard

descriptive of the murdered man who had come from afar to be her husband. She shrank from this ghostly

surprise, and felt quite frightened as she rolled and tied it up again. Peeping about here and there, she came

upon a print, a graceful head of a pretty woman, elegantly framed, hanging in the corner by the easy chair.

'Oh, indeed, sir!' said Bella, after stopping to ruminate before it. 'Oh, indeed, sir! I fancy I can guess whom

you think THAT'S like. But I'll tell you what it's much more likeyour impudence!' Having said which she

decamped: not solely because she was offended, but because there was nothing else to look at.

'Now, Ma,' said Bella, reappearing in the kitchen with some remains of a blush, 'you and Lavvy think

magnificent me fit for nothing, but I intend to prove the contrary. I mean to be Cook today.'

'Hold!' rejoined her majestic mother. 'I cannot permit it. Cook, in that dress!'

'As for my dress, Ma,' returned Bella, merrily searching in a dresserdrawer, 'I mean to apron it and towel it

She girded herself with a white apron, and busily with knots and pins contrived a bib to it, coming close and

tight under her chin, as if it had caught her round the neck to kiss her. Over this bib her dimples looked

delightful, and under it her pretty figure not less so. 'Now, Ma,' said Bella, pushing back her hair from her

'First,' returned Mrs Wilfer solemnly, 'if you persist in what I cannot but regard as conduct utterly

'Tobesure!' cried Bella; 'and flour them, and twirl them round, and there they go!' sending them

'Next,' said Mrs Wilfer with a wave of her gloves, expressive of abdication under protest from the culinary

throne, 'I would recommend examination of the bacon in the saucepan on the fire, and also of the potatoes by

the application of a fork. Preparation of the greens will further become necessary if you persist in this

Persisting, Bella gave her attention to one thing and forgot the other, and gave her attention to the other and

forgot the third, and remembering the third was distracted by the fourth, and made amends whenever she

went wrong by giving the unfortunate fowls an extra spin, which made their chance of ever getting cooked

exceedingly doubtful. But it was pleasant cookery too. Meantime Miss Lavinia, oscillating between the

kitchen and the opposite room, prepared the diningtable in the latter chamber. This office she (always doing

her household spiriting with unwillingness) performed in a startling series of whisks and bumps; laying the

tablecloth as if she were raising the wind, putting down the glasses and saltcellars as if she were knocking

at the door, and clashing the knives and forks in a skirmishing manner suggestive of handtohand conflict.

'Look at Ma,' whispered Lavinia to Bella when this was done, and they stood over the roasting fowls. 'If one

was the most dutiful child in existence (of course on the whole one hopes one is), isn't she enough to make

one want to poke her with something wooden, sitting there bolt upright in a corner?'

'Only suppose,' returned Bella, 'that poor Pa was to sit bolt upright in another corner.'

'My dear, he couldn't do it,' said Lavvy. 'Pa would loll directly. But indeed I do not believe there ever was any

human creature who could keep so bolt upright as Ma, 'or put such an amount of aggravation into one back!

'Doubtless I am very well,' returned Mrs Wilfer, turning her eyes upon her youngest born, with scornful

'Brisk?' repeated her parent, 'Brisk? Whence the low expression, Lavinia? If I am uncomplaining, if I am

'Well, Ma,' returned Lavvy, 'since you will force it out of me, I must respectfully take leave to say that your

family are no doubt under the greatest obligations to you for having an annual toothache on your wedding

day, and that it's very disinterested in you, and an immense blessing to them. Still, on the whole, it is possible

'You incarnation of sauciness,' said Mrs Wilfer, 'do you speak like that to me? On this day, of all days in the

year? Pray do you know what would have become of you, if I had not bestowed my hand upon R. W., your

'No, Ma,' replied Lavvy, 'I really do not; and, with the greatest respect for your abilities and information, I

Whether or no the sharp vigour of this sally on a weak point of Mrs Wilfer's entrenchments might have

routed that heroine for the time, is rendered uncertain by the arrival of a flag of truce in the person of Mr

George Sampson: bidden to the feast as a friend of the family, whose affections were now understood to be in

course of transference from Bella to Lavinia, and whom Lavinia kept possibly in remembrance of his bad

taste in having overlooked her in the first instanceunder a course of stinging discipline.

'I congratulate you, Mrs Wilfer,' said Mr George Sampson, who had meditated this neat address while coming

along, 'on the day.' Mrs Wilfer thanked him with a magnanimous sigh, and again became an unresisting prey

'I am surprised,' said Mr Sampson feebly, 'that Miss Bella condescends to cook.'

Here Miss Lavinia descended on the illstarred young gentleman with a crushing supposition that at all

events it was no business of his. This disposed of Mr Sampson in a melancholy retirement of spirit, until the

However, she persisted in dishing the dinner as well as cooking it, and then sat down, bibless and apronless,

to partake of it as an illustrious guest: Mrs Wilfer first responding to her husband's cheerful 'For what we are

about to receive'with a sepulchral Amen, calculated to cast a damp upon the stoutest appetite.

'But what,' said Bella, as she watched the carving of the fowls, 'makes them pink inside, I wonder, Pa! Is it

'No, I don't think it's the breed, my dear,' returned Pa. 'I rather think it is because they are not done.'

'Yes, I am aware they ought to be, my dear,' rejoined her father, 'but theyain't.'

So, the gridiron was put in requisition, and the goodtempered cherub, who was often as uncherubically

employed in his own family as if he had been in the employment of some of the Old Masters, undertook to

grill the fowls. Indeed, except in respect of staring about him (a branch of the public service to which the

pictorial cherub is much addicted), this domestic cherub discharged as many odd functions as his prototype;

with the difference, say, that he performed with a blackingbrush on the family's boots, instead of performing

on enormous wind instruments and doublebasses, and that he conducted himself with cheerful alacrity to

much useful purpose, instead of foreshortening himself in the air with the vaguest intentions.

Bella helped him with his supplemental cookery, and made him very happy, but put him in mortal terror too

by asking him when they sat down at table again, how he supposed they cooked fowls at the Greenwich

dinners, and whether he believed they really were such pleasant dinners as people said? His secret winks and

nods of remonstrance, in reply, made the mischievous Bella laugh until she choked, and then Lavinia was

But her mother was a fine corrective at the other end of the table; to whom her father, in the innocence of his

goodfellowship, at intervals appealed with: 'My dear, I am afraid you are not enjoying yourself?'

'I like it as well as I like anything, R. W.' The stately woman would then, with a meritorious appearance of

devoting herself to the general good, pursue her dinner as if she were feeding somebody else on high public

Bella had brought dessert and two bottles of wine, thus shedding unprecedented splendour on the occasion.

Mrs Wilfer did the honours of the first glass by proclaiming: 'R. W. I drink to you.

'Permit me,' Mrs Wilfer interposed, with outstretched glove. 'No. I think not. I drank to your papa. If,

'Why, Lor, Ma,' interposed Lavvy the bold, 'isn't it the day that made you and Pa one and the same? I have no

'By whatever other circumstance the day may be marked, it is not the day, Lavinia, on which I will allow a

child of mine to pounce upon me. I begnay, command!that you will not pounce. R. W., it is appropriate

to recall that it is for you to command and for me to obey. It is your house, and you are master at your own

'I really am a little afraid, my dear,' hinted the cherub meekly, 'that you are not enjoying yourself?'

'My face might be a martyrdom, but what would that import, or who should know it, if I smiled?'

And she did smile; manifestly freezing the blood of Mr George Sampson by so doing. For that young

gentleman, catching her smiling eye, was so very much appalled by its expression as to cast about in his

'The mind naturally falls,' said Mrs Wilfer, 'shall I say into a reverie, or shall I say into a retrospect? on a day

Lavvy, sitting with defiantly folded arms, replied (but not audibly), 'For goodness' sake say whichever of the

'The mind,' pursued Mrs Wilfer in an oratorical manner, 'naturally reverts to Papa and MammaI here allude

to my parentsat a period before the earliest dawn of this day. I was considered tall; perhaps I was. Papa and

Mamma were unquestionably tall. I have rarely seen a finer women than my mother; never than my father.'

The irrepressible Lavvy remarked aloud, 'Whatever grandpapa was, he wasn't a female.'

'Your grandpapa,' retorted Mrs Wilfer, with an awful look, and in an awful tone, 'was what I describe him to

have been, and would have struck any of his grandchildren to the earth who presumed to question it. It was

one of mamma's cherished hopes that I should become united to a tall member of society. It may have been a

weakness, but if so, it was equally the weakness, I believe, of King Frederick of Prussia.' These remarks

being offered to Mr George Sampson, who had not the courage to come out for single combat, but lurked

with his chest under the table and his eyes cast down, Mrs Wilfer proceeded, in a voice of increasing

sternness and impressiveness, until she should force that skulker to give himself up. 'Mamma would appear to

have had an indefinable foreboding of what afterwards happened, for she would frequently urge upon me,

"Not a little man. Promise me, my child, not a little man. Never, never, never, marry a little man!" Papa also

would remark to me (he possessed extraordinary humour),"that a family of whales must not ally themselves

with sprats." His company was eagerly sought, as may be supposed, by the wits of the day, and our house was

their continual resort. I have known as many as three copperplate engravers exchanging the most exquisite

sallies and retorts there, at one time.' (Here Mr Sampson delivered himself captive, and said, with an uneasy

movement on his chair, that three was a large number, and it must have been highly entertaining.) 'Among the

most prominent members of that distinguished circle, was a gentleman measuring six feet four in height. HE

was NOT an engraver.' (Here Mr Sampson said, with no reason whatever, Of course not.) 'This gentleman

was so obliging as to honour me with attentions which I could not fail to understand.' (Here Mr Sampson

murmured that when it came to that, you could always tell.) 'I immediately announced to both my parents that

those attentions were misplaced, and that I could not favour his suit. They inquired was he too tall? I replied

it was not the stature, but the intellect was too lofty. At our house, I said, the tone was too brilliant, the

pressure was too high, to be maintained by me, a mere woman, in everyday domestic life. I well remember

mamma's clasping her hands, and exclaiming "This will end in a little man!"' (Here Mr Sampson glanced at

his host and shook his head with despondency.) 'She afterwards went so far as to predict that it would end in a

little man whose mind would be below the average, but that was in what I may denominate a paroxysm of

maternal disappointment. Within a month,' said Mrs Wilfer, deepening her voice, as if she were relating a

terrible ghost story, 'within amonth, I first saw R. W. my husband. Within a year, I married him. It is natural

Mr Sampson at length released from the custody of Mrs Wilfer's eye, now drew a long breath, and made the

original and striking remark that there was no accounting for these sort of presentiments. R. W. scratched his

head and looked apologetically all round the table until he came to his wife, when observing her as it were

shrouded in a more sombre veil than before, he once more hinted, 'My dear, I am really afraid you are not

altogether enjoying yourself?' To which she once more replied, 'On the contrary, R. W. Quite so.'

The wretched Mr Sampson's position at this agreeable entertainment was truly pitiable. For, not only was he

exposed defenceless to the harangues of Mrs Wilfer, but he received the utmost contumely at the hands of

Lavinia; who, partly to show Bella that she (Lavinia) could do what she liked with him, and partly to pay him

off for still obviously admiring Bella's beauty, led him the life of a dog. Illuminated on the one hand by the

stately graces of Mrs Wilfer's oratory, and shadowed on the other by the checks and frowns of the young lady

to whom he had devoted himself in his destitution, the sufferings of this young gentleman were distressing to

witness. If his mind for the moment reeled under them, it may be urged, in extenuation of its weakness, that it

The rosy hours were thus beguiled until it was time for Bella to have Pa's escort back. The dimples duly tied

up in the bonnet strings and the leavetaking done, they got out into the air, and the cherub drew a long

Bella drew his arm closer through hers as they walked along, and gave it a number of consolatory pats.

'Thank you, my dear,' he said, as if she had spoken; 'I am all right, my dear. Well, and how do you get on,

'I am worse, Pa. I make so many calculations how much a year I must have when I marry, and what is the

least I can manage to do with, that I am beginning to get wrinkles over my nose. Did you notice any wrinkles

'You won't laugh, sir, when you see your lovely woman turning haggard. You had better be prepared in time,

I can tell you. I shall not be able to keep my greediness for money out of my eyes long, and when you see it

there you'll be sorry, and serve you right for not being warned in time. Now, sir, we entered into a bond of

'Oh! did you indeed, sir? Then why didn't you ask me, the moment we came out? The confidences of lovely

women are not to be slighted. However, I forgive you this once, and look here, Pa; that's'Bella laid the

little forefinger of her right glove on her lip, and then laid it on her father's lip'that's a kiss for you. And

now I am going seriously to tell youlet me see how manyfour secrets. Mind! Serious, grave, weighty

'Number one, my dear?' said her father, settling her arm comfortably and confidentially.

'Number one,' said Bella, 'will electrify you, Pa. Who do you think has'she was confused here in spite of

Pa looked in her face, and looked at the ground, and looked in her face again, and declared he could never

'Mister Rokesmith, Pa,' said Bella separating the syllables for emphasis. 'What do you say to THAT?'

Pa answered quietly with the counterquestion, 'What did YOU say to that, my love?'

'And I told him why I thought it a betrayal of trust on his part, and an affront to me,' said Bella.

'Yes. To be sure. I am astonished indeed. I wonder he committed himself without seeing more of his way

'A hackney coachman may admire me,' remarked Bella, with a touch of her mother's loftiness.

'Number two, Pa, is much to the same purpose, though not so preposterous. Mr Lightwood would propose to

Bella again saying, with her former emphasis, 'Why, of course not!' her father felt himself bound to echo, 'Of

'No, Pa, it's NOT enough,' rejoined Bella, giving him another shake or two. 'Haven't I told you what a

mercenary little wretch I am? It only becomes enough when he has no money, and no clients, and no

'Number three, Pa, is a better thing. A generous thing, a noble thing, a delightful thing. Mrs Boffin has herself

told me, as a secret, with her own kind lipsand truer lips never opened or closed in this life, I am

surethat they wish to see me well married; and that when I marry with their consent they will portion me

'Don't cry, my darling,' said her father, with his hand to his eyes; 'it's excusable in me to be a little overcome

when I find that my dear favourite child is, after all disappointments, to be so provided for and so raised in

the world; but don't YOU cry, don't YOU cry. I am very thankful. I congratulate you with all my heart, my

dear.' The good soft little fellow, drying his eyes, here, Bella put her arms round his neck and tenderly kissed

him on the high road, passionately telling him he was the best of fathers and the best of friends, and that on

her weddingmorning she would go down on her knees to him and beg his pardon for having ever teased him

or seemed insensible to the worth of such a patient, sympathetic, genial, fresh young heart. At every one of

her adjectives she redoubled her kisses, and finally kissed his hat off, and then laughed immoderately when

When he had recovered his hat and his breath, and they were going on again once more, said her father then:

Bella's countenance fell in the midst of her mirth. 'After all, perhaps I had better put off number four, Pa. Let

me try once more, if for never so short a time, to hope that it may not really be so.'

The change in her, strengthened the cherub's interest in number four, and he said quietly: 'May not be so, my

'My love,' returned her father, 'you make me quite uncomfortable. Have you said No to anybody else, my

'Is there anybody else who would take his chance between Yes and No, if you would let him, my dear?'

'There can't be somebody who won't take his chance when you want him to?' said the cherub, as a last

'No, of course not,' he assented. 'Bella, my dear, I am afraid I must either have no sleep tonight, or I must

'Oh, Pa, there is no good in number four! I am so sorry for it, I am so unwilling to believe it, I have tried so

earnestly not to see it, that it is very hard to tell, even to you. But Mr Boffin is being spoilt by prosperity, and

'I have hoped and trusted not too, Pa; but every day he changes for the worse, and for the worse. Not to

mehe is always much the same to mebut to others about him. Before my eyes he grows suspicious,

capricious, hard, tyrannical, unjust. If ever a good man were ruined by good fortune, it is my benefactor. And

yet, Pa, think how terrible the fascination of money is! I see this, and hate this, and dread this, and don't know

but that money might make a much worse change in me. And yet I have money always in my thoughts and

my desires; and the whole life I place before myself is money, money, money, and what money can make of

Were Bella Wilfer's bright and ready little wits at fault, or was the Golden Dustman passing through the

furnace of proof and coming out dross? Ill news travels fast. We shall know full soon.

On that very night of her return from the Happy Return, something chanced which Bella closely followed

with her eyes and ears. There was an apartment at the side of the Boffin mansion, known as Mr Boffin's

room. Far less grand than the rest of the house, it was far more comfortable, being pervaded by a certain air

of homely snugness, which upholstering despotism had banished to that spot when it inexorably set its face

against Mr Boffin's appeals for mercy in behalf of any other chamber. Thus, although a room of modest

situationfor its windows gave on Silas Wegg's old cornerand of no pretensions to velvet, satin, or

gilding, it had got itself established in a domestic position analogous to that of an easy dressinggown or pair

of slippers; and whenever the family wanted to enjoy a particularly pleasant fireside evening, they enjoyed it,

Mr and Mrs Boffin were reported sitting in this room, when Bella got back. Entering it, she found the

Secretary there too; in official attendance it would appear, for he was standing with some papers in his hand

by a table with shaded candles on it, at which Mr Boffin was seated thrown back in his easy chair.

'Not at all, my dear, not at all. You're one of ourselves. We never make company of you. Come in, come in.

Mrs Boffin adding her nod and smile of welcome to Mr Boffin's words, Bella took her book to a chair in the

fireside corner, by Mrs Boffin's worktable. Mr Boffin's station was on the opposite side.

'Now, Rokesmith,' said the Golden Dustman, so sharply rapping the table to bespeak his attention as Bella

'You were saying, sir,' returned the Secretary, with an air of some reluctance and a glance towards those

others who were present, 'that you considered the time had come for fixing my salary.'

'Don't be above calling it wages, man,' said Mr Boffin, testily. 'What the deuce! I never talked of any salary

'Because I never was, when I was poor,' said Mr Boffin. 'Poverty and pride don't go at all well together. Mind

that. How can they go well together? Why it stands to reason. A man, being poor, has nothing to be proud of.

With a slight inclination of his head, and a look of some surprise, the Secretary seemed to assent by forming

'Why didn't you sit down before?' asked Mr Boffin, distrustfully. 'I hope that wasn't pride? But about these

wages. Now, I've gone into the matter, and I say two hundred a year. What do you think of it? Do you think

'I don't say, you know,' Mr Boffin stipulated, 'but what it may be more than enough. And I'll tell you why,

Rokesmith. A man of property, like me, is bound to consider the marketprice. At first I didn't enter into that

as much as I might have done; but I've got acquainted with other men of property since, and I've got

acquainted with the duties of property. I mustn't go putting the marketprice up, because money may happen

not to be an object with me. A sheep is worth so much in the market, and I ought to give it and no more. A

secretary is worth so much in the market, and I ought to give it and no more. However, I don't mind

'Then we put the figure,' said Mr Boffin, 'at two hundred a year. Then the figure's disposed of. Now, there

must be no misunderstanding regarding what I buy for two hundred a year. If I pay for a sheep, I buy it out

'Certainly I do. Look here,' said Mr Boffin, 'it ain't that I want to occupy your whole time; you can take up a

book for a minute or two when you've nothing better to do, though I think you'll a'most always find

something useful to do. But I want to keep you in attendance. It's convenient to have you at all times ready on

the premises. Therefore, betwixt your breakfast and your supper,on the premises I expect to find you.'

'In bygone days, when I was in service myself,' said Mr Boffin, 'I couldn't go cutting about at my will and

pleasure, and you won't expect to go cutting about at your will and pleasure. You've rather got into a habit of

that, lately; but perhaps it was for want of a right specification betwixt us. Now, let there be a right

Again the Secretary bowed. His manner was uneasy and astonished, and showed a sense of humiliation.

'I'll have a bell,' said Mr Boffin, 'hung from this room to yours, and when I want you, I'll touch it. I don't call

The Secretary rose, gathered up his papers, and withdrew. Bella's eyes followed him to the door, lighted on

Mr Boffin complacently thrown back in his easy chair, and drooped over her book.

'I have let that chap, that young man of mine,' said Mr Boffin, taking a trot up and down the room, get above

his work. It won't do. I must have him down a peg. A man of property owes a duty to other men of property,

Bella felt that Mrs Boffin was not comfortable, and that the eyes of that good creature sought to discover

from her face what attention she had given to this discourse, and what impression it had made upon her. For

which reason Bella's eyes drooped more engrossedly over her book, and she turned the page with an air of

'Excuse my putting it to you, Noddy, but now really! Haven't you been a little strict with Mr Rokesmith

tonight? Haven't you been a littlejust a little littlenot quite like your old self?'

'Our old selves wouldn't do here, old lady. Haven't you found that out yet? Our old selves would be fit for

nothing here but to be robbed and imposed upon. Our old selves weren't people of fortune; our new selves

'Ah!' said Mrs Boffin, pausing in her work again, softly to draw a long breath and to look at the fire. 'A great

'And we must be up to the difference,' pursued her husband; 'we must be equal to the change; that's what we

must be. We've got to hold our own now, against everybody (for everybody's hand is stretched out to be

dipped into our pockets), and we have got to recollect that money makes money, as well as makes everything

'Mentioning recollecting,' said Mrs Boffin, with her work abandoned, her eyes upon the fire, and her chin

upon her hand, 'do you recollect, Noddy, how you said to Mr Rokesmith when he first came to see us at the

Bower, and you engaged himhow you said to him that if it had pleased Heaven to send John Harmon to his

fortune safe, we could have been content with the one Mound which was our legacy, and should never have

'Ay, I remember, old lady. But we hadn't tried what it was to have the rest then. Our new shoes had come

home, but we hadn't put 'em on. We're wearing 'em now, we're wearing 'em, and must step out accordingly.'

'As to Rokesmith, that young man of mine,' said Mr Boffin, dropping his voice and glancing towards the door

with an apprehension of being overheard by some eavesdropper there, 'it's the same with him as with the

footmen. I have found out that you must either scrunch them, or let them scrunch you. If you ain't imperious

with 'em, they won't believe in your being any better than themselves, if as good, after the stories (lies

mostly) that they have heard of your beginnings. There's nothing betwixt stiffening yourself up, and throwing

Bella ventured for a moment to look stealthily towards him under her eyelashes, and she saw a dark cloud of

A deceiving Bella she was, to look at him with that pensively abstracted air, as if her mind were full of her

'Hah! Better employed than to attend to it,' said Mr Boffin. 'That's right, that's right. Especially as you have

Colouring a little under this compliment, Bella returned, 'I hope sir, you don't think me vain?'

'Not a bit, my dear,' said Mr Boffin. 'But I think it's very creditable in you, at your age, to be so well up with

the pace of the world, and to know what to go in for. You are right. Go in for money, my love. Money's the

article. You'll make money of your good looks, and of the money Mrs Boffin and me will have the pleasure

of settling upon you, and you'll live and die rich. That's the state to live and die in!' said Mr Boffin, in an

There was an expression of distress in Mrs Boffin's face, as, after watching her husband's, she turned to their

'I don't mean that,' said Mrs Boffin, with a worried look, 'but I mean, don't believe him to be anything but

good and generous, Bella, because he is the best of men. No, I must say that much, Noddy. You are always

She made the declaration as if he were objecting to it: which assuredly he was not in any way.

'And as to you, my dear Bella,' said Mrs Boffin, still with that distressed expression, 'he is so much attached

to you, whatever he says, that your own father has not a truer interest in you and can hardly like you better

'Says too!' cried Mr Boffin. 'Whatever he says! Why, I say so, openly. Give me a kiss, my dear child, in

saying Good Night, and let me confirm what my old lady tells you. I am very fond of you, my dear, and I am

entirely of your mind, and you and I will take care that you shall be rich. These good looks of yours (which

you have some right to be vain of; my dear, though you are not, you know) are worth money, and you shall

make money of 'em. The money you will have, will be worth money, and you shall make money of that too.

Somehow, Bella was not so well pleased with this assurance and this prospect as she might have been.

Somehow, when she put her arms round Mrs Boffin's neck and said Good Night, she derived a sense of

unworthiness from the still anxious face of that good woman and her obvious wish to excuse her husband.

'Why, what need to excuse him?' thought Bella, sitting down in her own room. 'What he said was very

sensible, I am sure, and very true, I am sure. It is only what I often say to myself. Don't I like it then? No, I

don't like it, and, though he is my liberal benefactor, I disparage him for it. Then pray,' said Bella, sternly

putting the question to herself in the lookingglass as usual, 'what do you mean by this, you inconsistent little

The lookingglass preserving a discreet ministerial silence when thus called upon for explanation, Bella went

to bed with a weariness upon her spirit which was more than the weariness of want of sleep. And again in the

morning, she looked for the cloud, and for the deepening of the cloud, upon the Golden Dustman's face.

She had begun by this time to be his frequent companion in his morning strolls about the streets, and it was at

this time that he made her a party to his engaging in a curious pursuit. Having been hard at work in one dull

enclosure all his life, he had a child's delight in looking at shops. It had been one of the first novelties and

pleasures of his freedom, and was equally the delight of his wife. For many years their only walks in London

had been taken on Sundays when the shops were shut; and when every day in the week became their holiday,

they derived an enjoyment from the variety and fancy and beauty of the display in the windows, which

seemed incapable of exhaustion. As if the principal streets were a great Theatre and the play were childishly

new to them, Mr and Mrs Boffin, from the beginning of Bella's intimacy in their house, had been constantly

in the front row, charmed with all they saw and applauding vigorously. But now, Mr Boffin's interest began

to centre in bookshops; and more than thatfor that of itself would not have been muchin one

'Look in here, my dear,' Mr Boffin would say, checking Bella's arm at a bookseller's window; 'you can read at

sight, and your eyes are as sharp as they're bright. Now, look well about you, my dear, and tell me if you see

If Bella saw such a book, Mr Boffin would instantly dart in and buy it. And still, as if they had not found it,

they would seek out another bookshop, and Mr Boffin would say, 'Now, look well all round, my dear, for a

Life of a Miser, or any book of that sort; any Lives of odd characters who may have been Misers.'

Bella, thus directed, would examine the window with the greatest attention, while Mr Boffin would examine

her face. The moment she pointed out any book as being entitled Lives of eccentric personages, Anecdotes of

strange characters, Records of remarkable individuals, or anything to that purpose, Mr Boffin's countenance

would light up, and he would instantly dart in and buy it. Size, price, quality, were of no account. Any book

that seemed to promise a chance of miserly biography, Mr Boffin purchased without a moment's delay and

carried home. Happening to be informed by a bookseller that a portion of the Annual Register was devoted to

'Characters', Mr Boffin at once bought a whole set of that ingenious compilation, and began to carry it home

piecemeal, confiding a volume to Bella, and bearing three himself. The completion of this labour occupied

them about a fortnight. When the task was done, Mr Boffin, with his appetite for Misers whetted instead of

It very soon became unnecessary to tell Bella what to look for, and an understanding was established between

her and Mr Boffin that she was always to look for Lives of Misers. Morning after morning they roamed about

the town together, pursuing this singular research. Miserly literature not being abundant, the proportion of

failures to successes may have been as a hundred to one; still Mr Boffin, never wearied, remained as

avaricious for misers as he had been at the first onset. It was curious that Bella never saw the books about the

house, nor did she ever hear from Mr Boffin one word of reference to their contents. He seemed to save up

his Misers as they had saved up their money. As they had been greedy for it, and secret about it, and had

hidden it, so he was greedy for them, and secret about them, and hid them. But beyond all doubt it was to be

noticed, and was by Bella very clearly noticed, that, as he pursued the acquisition of those dismal records

with the ardour of Don Quixote for his books of chivalry, he began to spend his money with a more sparing

hand. And often when he came out of a shop with some new account of one of those wretched lunatics, she

would almost shrink from the sly dry chuckle with which he would take her arm again and trot away. It did

not appear that Mrs Boffin knew of this taste. He made no allusion to it, except in the morning walks when he

and Bella were always alone; and Bella, partly under the impression that he took her into his confidence by

implication, and partly in remembrance of Mrs Boffin's anxious face that night, held the same reserve.

While these occurrences were in progress, Mrs Lammle made the discovery that Bella had a fascinating

influence over her. The Lammles, originally presented by the dear Veneerings, visited the Boffins on all

grand occasions, and Mrs Lammle had not previously found this out; but now the knowledge came upon her

all at once. It was a most extraordinary thing (she said to Mrs Boffin); she was foolishly susceptible of the

power of beauty, but it wasn't altogether that; she never had been able to resist a natural grace of manner, but

it wasn't altogether that; it was more than that, and there was no name for the indescribable extent and degree

This charming girl having the words repeated to her by Mrs Boffin (who was proud of her being admired, and

would have done anything to give her pleasure), naturally recognized in Mrs Lammle a woman of penetration

and taste. Responding to the sentiments, by being very gracious to Mrs Lammle, she gave that lady the means

of so improving her opportunity, as that the captivation became reciprocal, though always wearing an

appearance of greater sobriety on Bella's part than on the enthusiastic Sophronia's. Howbeit, they were so

much together that, for a time, the Boffin chariot held Mrs Lammle oftener than Mrs Boffin: a preference of

which the latter worthy soul was not in the least jealous, placidly remarking, 'Mrs Lammle is a younger

But between Bella Wilfer and Georgiana Podsnap there was this one difference, among many others, that

Bella was in no danger of being captivated by Alfred. She distrusted and disliked him. Indeed, her perception

was so quick, and her observation so sharp, that after all she mistrusted his wife too, though with her giddy

vanity and wilfulness she squeezed the mistrust away into a corner of her mind, and blocked it up there.

Mrs Lammle took the friendliest interest in Bella's making a good match. Mrs Lammle said, in a sportive

way, she really must show her beautiful Bella what kind of wealthy creatures she and Alfred had on hand,

who would as one man fall at her feet enslaved. Fitting occasion made, Mrs Lammle accordingly produced

the most passable of those feverish, boastful, and indefinably loose gentlemen who were always lounging in

and out of the City on questions of the Bourse and Greek and Spanish and India and Mexican and par and

premium and discount and threequarters and seveneighths. Who in their agreeable manner did homage to

Bella as if she were a compound of fine girl, thoroughbred horse, wellbuilt drag, and remarkable pipe. But

without the least effect, though even Mr Fledgeby's attractions were cast into the scale.

'I fear, Bella dear,' said Mrs Lammle one day in the chariot, 'that you will be very hard to please.'

'I don't expect to be pleased, dear,' said Bella, with a languid turn of her eyes.

'Truly, my love,' returned Sophronia, shaking her head, and smiling her best smile, 'it would not be very easy

'The question is not a man, my dear,' said Bella, coolly, 'but an establishment.'

'My love,' returned Mrs Lammle, 'your prudence amazes me where DID you study life so well!you are

right. In such a case as yours, the object is a fitting establishment. You could not descend to an inadequate

one from Mr Boffin's house, and even if your beauty alone could not command it, it is to be assumed that Mr

A little vexed by a suspicion that she had spoken precipitately, and withal a little defiant of her own vexation,

'That is to say,' she explained, 'they have told me they mean to portion me as their adopted child, if you mean

'Mention it!' replied Mrs Lammle, as if she were full of awakened feeling at the suggestion of such an

With a little short, petulant 'Oh!' Bella complied. 'Oh!Sophronia thenI don't mind telling you,

Sophronia, that I am convinced I have no heart, as people call it; and that I think that sort of thing is

'And so,' pursued Bella, 'as to seeking to please myself, I don't; except in the one respect I have mentioned. I

'But you can't help pleasing, Bella,' said Mrs Lammle, rallying her with an arch look and her best smile, 'you

can't help making a proud and an admiring husband. You may not care to please yourself, and you may not

care to please him, but you are not a free agent as to pleasing: you are forced to do that, in spite of yourself,

my dear; so it may be a question whether you may not as well please yourself too, if you can.'

Now, the very grossness of this flattery put Bella upon proving that she actually did please in spite of herself.

She had a misgiving that she was doing wrongthough she had an indistinct foreshadowing that some harm

might come of it thereafter, she little thought what consequences it would really bring aboutbut she went

'Don't talk of pleasing in spite of one's self, dear,' said Bella. 'I have had enough of that.'

'Never mind, Sophronia, we will not speak of it any more. Don't ask me about it.'

'Tell me, Bella. Come, my dear. What provoking burr has been inconveniently attracted to the charming

'My dear! The hermit Secretary, who creeps up and down the back stairs, and is never seen!'

'I don't know about his creeping up and down the back stairs,' said Bella, rather contemptuously, 'further than

knowing that he does no such thing; and as to his never being seen, I should be content never to have seen

him, though he is quite as visible as you are. But I pleased HIM (for my sins) and he had the presumption to

'Are you sure of that, Sophronia?' said Bella. 'I am not. In fact, I am sure of the contrary.'

'He appeared to be in his senses,' returned Bella, tossing her head, 'and he had plenty to say for himself. I told

him my opinion of his declaration and his conduct, and dismissed him. Of course this has all been very

inconvenient to me, and very disagreeable. It has remained a secret, however. That word reminds me to

observe, Sophronia, that I have glided on into telling you the secret, and that I rely upon you never to mention

This time Sophronia was so much in earnest that she found it necessary to bend forward in the carriage and

give Bella a kiss. A Judas order of kiss; for she thought, while she yet pressed Bella's hand after giving it,

'Upon your own showing, you vain heartless girl, puffed up by the doting folly of a dustman, I need have no

relenting towards YOU. If my husband, who sends me here, should form any schemes for making YOU a

victim, I should certainly not cross him again.' In those very same moments, Bella was thinking, 'Why am I

always at war with myself? Why have I told, as if upon compulsion, what I knew all along I ought to have

withheld? Why am I making a friend of this woman beside me, in spite of the whispers against her that I hear

As usual, there was no answer in the lookingglass when she got home and referred these questions to it.

Perhaps if she had consulted some better oracle, the result might have been more satisfactory; but she did not,

On one point connected with the watch she kept on Mr Boffin, she felt very inquisitive, and that was the

question whether the Secretary watched him too, and followed the sure and steady change in him, as she did?

Her very limited intercourse with Mr Rokesmith rendered this hard to find out. Their communication now, at

no time extended beyond the preservation of commonplace appearances before Mr and Mrs Boffin; and if

Bella and the Secretary were ever left alone together by any chance, he immediately withdrew. She consulted

his face when she could do so covertly, as she worked or read, and could make nothing of it. He looked

subdued; but he had acquired a strong command of feature, and, whenever Mr Boffin spoke to him in Bella's

presence, or whatever revelation of himself Mr Boffin made, the Secretary's face changed no more than a

wall. A slightly knitted brow, that expressed nothing but an almost mechanical attention, and a compression

of the mouth, that might have been a guard against a scornful smilethese she saw from morning to night,

from day to day, from week to week, monotonous, unvarying, set, as in a piece of sculpture.

The worst of the matter was, that it thus fell out insensiblyand most provokingly, as Bella complained to

herself, in her impetuous little mannerthat her observation of Mr Boffin involved a continual observation

of Mr Rokesmith. 'Won't THAT extract a look from him?''Can it be possible THAT makes no impression

on him?' Such questions Bella would propose to herself, often as many times in a day as there were hours in

'Can he be so base as to sell his very nature for two hundred a year?' Bella would think. And then, 'But why

not? It's a mere question of price with others besides him. I suppose I would sell mine, if I could get enough

A kind of illegibility, though a different kind, stole over Mr Boffin's face. Its old simplicity of expression got

masked by a certain craftiness that assimilated even his goodhumour to itself. His very smile was cunning,

as if he had been studying smiles among the portraits of his misers. Saving an occasional burst of impatience,

or coarse assertion of his mastery, his goodhumour remained to him, but it had now a sordid alloy of

distrust; and though his eyes should twinkle and all his face should laugh, he would sit holding himself in his

own arms, as if he had an inclination to hoard himself up, and must always grudgingly stand on the defensive.

What with taking heed of these two faces, and what with feeling conscious that the stealthy occupation must

set some mark on her own, Bella soon began to think that there was not a candid or a natural face among

them all but Mrs Boffin's. None the less because it was far less radiant than of yore, faithfully reflecting in its

'Rokesmith,' said Mr Boffin one evening when they were all in his room again, and he and the Secretary had

been going over some accounts, 'I am spending too much money. Or leastways, you are spending too much

The sharpness of the retort was next to telling the Secretary that he lied. But it brought no change of

'Well,' returned Mr Boffin, 'if I am, that's my business. I am not going to spend at this rate, to please you, or

'Hold your tongue!' said Mr Boffin. 'You oughtn't to like it in any case. There! I didn't mean to he rude, but

you put me out so, and after all I'm master. I didn't intend to tell you to hold your tongue. I beg your pardon.

Don't hold your tongue. Only, don't contradict. Did you ever come across the life of Mr Elwes?' referring to

'Ah, people called him a miser. People are always calling other people something. Did you ever read about

'He never owned to being rich, and yet he might have bought me twice over. Did you ever hear of Daniel

'He was a good 'un,' said Mr Boffin, 'and he had a sister worthy of him. They never called themselves rich

neither. If they HAD called themselves rich, most likely they wouldn't have been so.'

'That exemplary brother and sisterlived and died in the foulest and filthiest degradation.'

'They pleased themselves,' said Mr Boffin, 'and I suppose they could have done no more if they had spent

their money. But however, I ain't going to fling mine away. Keep the expenses down. The fact is, you ain't

enough here, Rokesmith. It wants constant attention in the littlest things. Some of us will be dying in a

'As the persons you have cited,' quietly remarked the Secretary, 'thought they would, if I remember, sir.'

'And very creditable in 'em too,' said Mr Boffin. 'Very independent in 'em! But never mind them just now.

'Then I tell you what,' said Mr Boffin; 'pay the quarter's rentpay the quarter's rent, it'll be the cheapest thing

in the endand come here at once, so that you may be always on the spot, day and night, and keep the

expenses down. You'll charge the quarter's rent to me, and we must try and save it somewhere. You've got

'Then we shan't have to buy any for you. In case you was to think it,' said Mr Boffin, with a look of peculiar

shrewdness, 'so honourably independent in you as to make it a relief to your mind, to make that furniture over

to me in the light of a setoff against the quarter's rent, why ease your mind, ease your mind. I don't ask it,

but I won't stand in your way if you should consider it due to yourself. As to your room, choose any empty

'You can take your pick,' said Mr Boffin, 'and it'll be as good as eight or ten shillings a week added to your

income. I won't deduct for it; I look to you to make it up handsomely by keeping the expenses down. Now, if

you'll show a light, I'll come to your officeroom and dispose of a letter or two.'

On that clear, generous face of Mrs Boffin's, Bella had seen such traces of a pang at the heart while this

dialogue was being held, that she had not the courage to turn her eyes to it when they were left alone.

Feigning to be intent on her embroidery, she sat plying her needle until her busy hand was stopped by Mrs

Boffin's hand being lightly laid upon it. Yielding to the touch, she felt her hand carried to the good soul's lips,

'Oh, my loved husband!' said Mrs Boffin. 'This is hard to see and hear. But my dear Bella, believe me that in

He came back, at the moment when Bella had taken the hand comfortingly between her own.

'Praising me? You are sure? Not blaming me for standing on my own defence against a crew of plunderers,

who could suck me dry by driblets? Not blaming me for getting a little hoard together?'

He came up to them, and his wife folded her hands upon his shoulder, and shook her head as she laid it on her

'There, there, there!' urged Mr Boffin, not unkindly. 'Don't take on, old lady.'

'Nonsense! Recollect we are not our old selves. Recollect, we must scrunch or be scrunched. Recollect, we

must hold our own. Recollect, money makes money. Don't you be uneasy, Bella, my child; don't you be

Bella thought it was well for his wife that she was musing with her affectionate face on his shoulder; for there

was a cunning light in his eyes as he said all this, which seemed to cast a disagreeable illumination on the

It had come to pass that Mr Silas Wegg now rarely attended the minion of fortune and the worm of the hour,

at his (the worm's and minion's) own house, but lay under general instructions to await him within a certain

margin of hours at the Bower. Mr Wegg took this arrangement in great dudgeon, because the appointed hours

were evening hours, and those he considered precious to the progress of the friendly move. But it was quite in

character, he bitterly remarked to Mr Venus, that the upstart who had trampled on those eminent creatures,

Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker, should oppress his literary man.

The Roman Empire having worked out its destruction, Mr Boffin next appeared in a cab with Rollin's

Ancient History, which valuable work being found to possess lethargic properties, broke down, at about the

period when the whole of the army of Alexander the Macedonian (at that time about forty thousand strong)

burst into tears simultaneously, on his being taken with a shivering fit after bathing. The Wars of the Jews,

likewise languishing under Mr Wegg's generalship, Mr Boffin arrived in another cab with Plutarch: whose

Lives he found in the sequel extremely entertaining, though he hoped Plutarch might not expect him to

believe them all. What to believe, in the course of his reading, was Mr Boffin's chief literary difficulty

indeed; for some time he was divided in his mind between half, all, or none; at length, when he decided, as a

moderate man, to compound with half, the question still remained, which half? And that stumbling block he

One evening, when Silas Wegg had grown accustomed to the arrival of his patron in a cab, accompanied by

some profane historian charged with unutterable names of incomprehensible peoples, of impossible descent,

waging wars any number of years and syllables long, and carrying illimitable hosts and riches about, with the

greatest ease, beyond the confines of geographyone evening the usual time passed by, and no patron

appeared. After half an hour's grace, Mr Wegg proceeded to the outer gate, and there executed a whistle,

conveying to Mr Venus, if perchance within hearing, the tidings of his being at home and disengaged. Forth

'Walk in, brother,' said Silas, clapping him on the shoulder, 'and take your seat in my chimley corner; for

"No malice to dread, sir, And no falsehood to fear, But truth to delight me, Mr Venus, And I forgot what to

cheer. Li toddle de om dee. And something to guide, My ain fireside, sir, My ain fireside."'

With this quotation (depending for its neatness rather on the spirit than the words), Mr Wegg conducted his

'And you come, brother,' said Mr Wegg, in a hospitable glow, 'you come like I don't know whatexactly like

Mr Venus appeared doubtful on the point, and looked rather discontentedly at the fire.

'We'll devote the evening, brother,' exclaimed Wegg, 'to prosecute our friendly move. And arterwards,

crushing a flowing winecup which I allude to brewing rum and waterwe'll pledge one another. For

"And you needn't Mr Venus be your black bottle, For surely I'll be mine, And we'll take a glass with a slice of

This flow of quotation and hospitality in Wegg indicated his observation of some little querulousness on the

'Why, as to the friendly move,' observed the lastnamed gentleman, rubbing his knees peevishly, 'one of my

'Rome, brother,' returned Wegg: 'a city which (it may not be generally known) originated in twins and a wolf;

'But I do say,' proceeded Venus, 'that I am taken from among my trophies of anatomy, am called upon to

exchange my human warious for mere coalashes warious, and nothing comes of it. I think I must give up.'

'It's not so much saying it that I object to,' returned Mr Venus, 'as doing it. And having got to do it whether or

'But think how little time you have given to the move, sir, after all,' urged Wegg. 'Add the evenings so

occupied together, and what do they come to? And you, sir, harmonizer with myself in opinions, views, and

feelings, you with the patience to fit together on wires the whole framework of societyI allude to the

'I don't like it,' returned Mr Venus moodily, as he put his head between his knees and stuck up his dusty hair.

'Not them Mounds without,' said Mr Wegg, extending his right hand with an air of solemn reasoning,

'They're too big,' grumbled Venus. 'What's a scratch here and a scrape there, a poke in this place and a dig in

'What HAVE we found?' cried Wegg, delighted to be able to acquiesce. 'Ah! There I grant you, comrade.

Nothing. But on the contrary, comrade, what MAY we find? There you'll grant me. Anything.'

'I don't like it,' pettishly returned Venus as before. 'I came into it without enough consideration. And besides

again. Isn't your own Mr Boffin well acquainted with the Mounds? And wasn't he well acquainted with the

deceased and his ways? And has he ever showed any expectation of finding anything?'

'Now, I should be loth,' said Mr Wegg, with an air of patient injury, 'to think so ill of him as to suppose him

'It is him,' said Mr Wegg, 'and he it capable of it. I am sorry, because I could have wished to keep up a little

Here Mr Boffin was heard lustily calling at the yard gate, 'Halloa! Wegg! Halloa!'

'Keep your seat, Mr Venus,' said Wegg. 'He may not stop.' And then called out, 'Halloa, sir! Halloa! I'm with

you directly, sir! Half a minute, Mr Boffin. Coming, sir, as fast as my leg will bring me!' And so with a show

of much cheerful alacrity stumped out to the gate with a light, and there, through the window of a cab,

'Here! lend a hand, Wegg,' said Mr Boffin excitedly, 'I can't get out till the way is cleared for me. This is the

'Know the Animal Register, sir?' returned the Impostor, who had caught the name imperfectly. 'For a trifling

'And here's Kirby's Wonderful Museum,' said Mr Boffin, 'and Caulfield's Characters, and Wilson's. Such

Characters, Wegg, such Characters! I must have one or two of the best of 'em to night. It's amazing what

places they used to put the guineas in, wrapped up in rags. Catch hold of that pile of wollumes, Wegg, or it'll

'There's a friend of mine, sir, that had the intention of spending the evening with me when I gave you

'Call him out,' cried Mr Boffin in a bustle; 'get him to bear a hand. Don't drop that one under your arm. It's

Dancer. Him and his sister made pies of a dead sheep they found when they were out a walking. Where's your

friend? Oh, here's your friend. Would you be so good as help Wegg and myself with these books? But don't

take Jemmy Taylor of Southwark, nor yet Jemmy Wood of Gloucester. These are the two Jemmys. I'll carry

Not ceasing to talk and bustle, in a state of great excitement, Mr Boffin directed the removal and arrangement

of the books, appearing to be in some sort beside himself until they were all deposited on the floor, and the

'There!' said Mr Boffin, gloating over them. 'There they are, like the fourandtwenty fiddlersall of a row.

Get on your spectacles, Wegg; I know where to find the best of 'em, and we'll have a taste at once of what we

'Why, I've heard of you,' cried Mr Boffin, 'I heard of you in the old man's time. You knew him. Did you ever

'What did he show you?' asked Mr Boffin, putting his hands behind him, and eagerly advancing his head. 'Did

he show you boxes, little cabinets, pocketbooks, parcels, anything locked or sealed, anything tied up?'

'Because if he had ever showed you a teapot, I should be glad to know of it,' said Mr Boffin. And then, with

his right hand at his lips, repeated thoughtfully, 'a Teapot, a Teapot', and glanced over the books on the floor,

as if he knew there was something interesting connected with a teapot, somewhere among them.

Mr Wegg and Mr Venus looked at one another wonderingly: and Mr Wegg, in fitting on his spectacles,

opened his eyes wide, over their rims, and tapped the side of his nose: as an admonition to Venus to keep

'A Teapot,' repeated Mr Boffin, continuing to muse and survey the books; 'a Teapot, a Teapot. Are you ready,

'I am at your service, sir,' replied that gentleman, taking his usual seat on the usual settle, and poking his

wooden leg under the table before it. 'Mr Venus, would you make yourself useful, and take a seat beside me,

Venus complying with the invitation while it was yet being given, Silas pegged at him with his wooden leg,

to call his particular attention to Mr Boffin standing musing before the fire, in the space between the two

'Hem! Ahem!' coughed Mr Wegg to attract his employer's attention. 'Would you wish to commence with an

'No,' said Mr Boffin, 'no, Wegg.' With that, producing a little book from his breastpocket, he handed it with

great care to the literary gentlemen, and inquired, 'What do you call that, Wegg?'

'This, sir,' replied Silas, adjusting his spectacles, and referring to the titlepage, 'is Merryweather's Lives and

Anecdotes of Misers. Mr Venus, would you make yourself useful and draw the candles a little nearer, sir?'

'Which of 'em have you got in that lot?' asked Mr Boffin. 'Can you find out pretty easy?'

'Well, sir,' replied Silas, turning to the table of contents and slowly fluttering the leaves of the book, 'I should

say they must be pretty well all here, sir; here's a large assortment, sir; my eye catches John Overs, sir, John

Little, sir, Dick Jarrel, John Elwes, the Reverend Mr Jones of Blewbury, Vulture Hopkins, Daniel Dancer '

'Page a hundred and nine, Mr Boffin. Chapter eight. Contents of chapter, "His birth and estate. His garments

and outward appearance. Miss Dancer and her feminine graces. The Miser's Mansion. The finding of a

treasure. The Story of the Mutton Pies. A Miser's Idea of Death. Bob, the Miser's cur. Griffiths and his

Master. How to turn a penny. A substitute for a Fire. The Advantages of keeping a Snuffbox. The Miser

'"The Treasures," sir,' repeated Silas, reading very distinctly, '"of a Dunghill." Mr Venus, sir, would you

obleege with the snuffers?' This, to secure attention to his adding with his lips only, 'Mounds!'

Mr Boffin drew an armchair into the space where he stood, and said, seating himself and slyly rubbing his

Mr Wegg pursued the biography of that eminent man through its various phases of avarice and dirt, through

Miss Dancer's death on a sick regimen of cold dumpling, and through Mr Dancer's keeping his rags together

with a hayband, and warming his dinner by sitting upon it, down to the consolatory incident of his dying

'"The house, or rather the heap of ruins, in which Mr Dancer lived, and which at his death devolved to the

right of Captain Holmes, was a most miserable, decayed building, for it had not been repaired for more than

(Here Mr Wegg eyes his comrade and the room in which they sat: which had not been repaired for a long

'"But though poor in external structure, the ruinous fabric was very rich in the interior. It took many weeks to

explore its whole contents; and Captain Holmes found it a very agreeable task to dive into the miser's secret

'"One of Mr Dancer's richest escretoires was found to be a dungheap in the cowhouse; a sum but little short of

two thousand five hundred pounds was contained in this rich piece of manure; and in an old jacket, carefully

tied, and strongly nailed down to the manger, in bank notes and gold were found five hundred pounds more."'

(Here Mr Wegg's wooden leg started forward under the table, and slowly elevated itself as he read on.)

'"Several bowls were discovered filled with guineas and half guineas; and at different times on searching the

corners of the house they found various parcels of bank notes. Some were crammed into the crevices of the

'"Some were reposing snugly at the back of the drawers; and notes amounting to six hundred pounds were

found neatly doubled up in the inside of an old teapot. In the stable the Captain found jugs full of old dollars

and shillings. The chimney was not left unsearched, and paid very well for the trouble; for in nineteen

different holes, all filled with soot, were found various sums of money, amounting together to more than two

On the way to this crisis Mr Wegg's wooden leg had gradually elevated itself more and more, and he had

nudged Mr Venus with his opposite elbow deeper and deeper, until at length the preservation of his balance

became incompatible with the two actions, and he now dropped over sideways upon that gentleman,

squeezing him against the settle's edge. Nor did either of the two, for some few seconds, make any effort to

But the sight of Mr Boffin sitting in the armchair hugging himself, with his eyes upon the fire, acted as a

restorative. Counterfeiting a sneeze to cover their movements, Mr Wegg, with a spasmodic 'Tishho!' pulled

He did not appear to have hidden anything, so went off rather flatly. But an exemplary lady named Wilcocks,

who had stowed away gold and silver in a picklepot in a clockcase, a canisterfull of treasure in a hole

under her stairs, and a quantity of money in an old rattrap, revived the interest. To her succeeded another

lady, claiming to be a pauper, whose wealth was found wrapped up in little scraps of paper and old rag. To

her, another lady, apple woman by trade, who had saved a fortune of ten thousand pounds and hidden it

'here and there, in cracks and corners, behind bricks and under the flooring.' To her, a French gentleman, who

had crammed up his chimney, rather to the detriment of its drawing powers, 'a leather valise, containing

twenty thousand francs, gold coins, and a large quantity of precious stones,' as discovered by a

chimneysweep after his death. By these steps Mr Wegg arrived at a concluding instance of the human

'"Many years ago, there lived at Cambridge a miserly old couple of the name of Jardine: they had two sons:

the father was a perfect miser, and at his death one thousand guineas were discovered secreted in his bed. The

two sons grew up as parsimonious as their sire. When about twenty years of age, they commenced business at

Cambridge as drapers, and they continued there until their death. The establishment of the Messrs Jardine

was the most dirty of all the shops in Cambridge. Customers seldom went in to purchase, except perhaps out

of curiosity. The brothers were most disreputablelooking beings; for, although surrounded with gay apparel

as their staple in trade, they wore the most filthy rags themselves. It is said that they had no bed, and, to save

the expense of one, always slept on a bundle of packingcloths under the counter. In their housekeeping they

were penurious in the extreme. A joint of meat did not grace their board for twenty years. Yet when the first

of the brothers died, the other, much to his surprise, found large sums of money which had been secreted

'There!' cried Mr Boffin. 'Even from him, you see! There was only two of 'em, and yet one of 'em hid from

Mr Venus, who since his introduction to the French gentleman, had been stooping to peer up the chimney,

had his attention recalled by the last sentence, and took the liberty of repeating it.

'Then come again,' said Mr Boffin, 'and hear some more. Come when you like; come the day after

'It's wonderful what's been hid, at one time and another,' said Mr Boffin, ruminating; 'truly wonderful.'

'Meaning sir,' observed Wegg, with a propitiatory face to draw him out, and with another peg at his friend and

Mr Wegg, in a languid transport, again dropped over on Mr Venus, and again recovering himself, masked his

'Hidden and forgot,' said Mr Boffin. 'Why the bookseller that sold me the Wonderful Museumwhere's the

Wonderful Museum?' He was on his knees on the floor in a moment, groping eagerly among the books.

'No, I have got it; here it is,' said Mr Boflin, dusting it with the sleeve of his coat. 'Wollume four. I know it

was the fourth wollume, that the bookseller read it to me out of. Look for it, Wegg.'

'Memoirs of General John Reid, commonly called The Walking Rushlight, sir? With portrait?'

'Why, no, sir,' replied Wegg, consulting the text, 'it appears to have been done by accident. Oh! This next

'"A most extraordinary case,"' read Silas Wegg aloud, '"was tried at the last Maryborough assizes in Ireland.

It was briefly this. Robert Baldwin, in March 1782, made his will, in which he devised the lands now in

question, to the children of his youngest son; soon after which his faculties failed him, and he became

altogether childish and died, above eighty years old. The defendant, the eldest son, immediately afterwards

gave out that his father had destroyed the will; and no will being found, he entered into possession of the

lands in question, and so matters remained for twentyone years, the whole family during all that time

believing that the father had died without a will. But after twenty one years the defendant's wife died, and he

very soon afterwards, at the age of seventyeight, married a very young woman: which caused some anxiety

to his two sons, whose poignant expressions of this feeling so exasperated their father, that he in his

resentment executed a will to disinherit his eldest son, and in his fit of anger showed it to his second son, who

instantly determined to get at it, and destroy it, in order to preserve the property to his brother. With this

view, he broke open his father's desk, where he found not his father's will which he sought after, but the

'There!' said Mr Boffin. 'See what men put away and forget, or mean to destroy, and don't!' He then added in

a slow tone, 'As tonishing!' And as he rolled his eyes all round the room, Wegg and Venus likewise

rolled their eyes all round the room. And then Wegg, singly, fixed his eyes on Mr Boffin looking at the fire

again; as if he had a mind to spring upon him and demand his thoughts or his life.

'However, time's up for tonight,' said Mr Boffin, waving his hand after a silence. 'More, the day after

tomorrow. Range the books upon the shelves, Wegg. I dare say Mr Venus will be so kind as help you.'

While speaking, he thrust his hand into the breast of his outer coat, and struggled with some object there that

was too large to be got out easily. What was the stupefaction of the friendly movers when this object at last

Without at all noticing the effect produced by this little instrument, Mr Boffin stood it on his knee, and,

producing a box of matches, deliberately lighted the candle in the lantern, blew out the kindled match, and

cast the end into the fire. 'I'm going, Wegg,' he then announced, 'to take a turn about the place and round the

yard. I don't want you. Me and this same lantern have taken hundreds thousandsof such turns in our

'But I couldn't think, sirnot on any account, I couldn't,'Wegg was politely beginning, when Mr Boffin,

Wegg looked intelligently thoughtful, as if that had not occurred to his mind until he now brought it to bear

on the circumstance. He had nothing for it but to let Mr Boffin go out and shut the door behind him. But, the

instant he was on the other side of it, Wegg clutched Venus with both hands, and said in a choking whisper,

'Mr Venus, he must be followed, he must be watched, he mustn't be lost sight of for a moment.'

'Comrade, you might have noticed I was a little elewated in spirits when you come in tonight. I've found

'What have you found?' asked Venus, clutching him with both hands, so that they stood interlocked like a

'There's no time to tell you now. I think he must have gone to look for it. We must have an eye upon him

Releasing each other, they crept to the door, opened it softly, and peeped out. It was a cloudy night, and the

black shadow of the Mounds made the dark yard darker. 'If not a double swindler,' whispered Wegg, 'why a

dark lantern? We could have seen what he was about, if he had carried a light one. Softly, this way.'

Cautiously along the path that was bordered by fragments of crockery set in ashes, the two stole after him.

They could hear him at his peculiar trot, crushing the loose cinders as he went. 'He knows the place by heart,'

muttered Silas, 'and don't need to turn his lantern on, confound him!' But he did turn it on, almost in that same

'He's warm,' said Silas in the same tone. 'He's precious warm. He's close. I think he must be going to look for

'A shovel,' answered Venus. 'And he knows how to use it, remember, fifty times as well as either of us.'

'If he looks for it and misses it, partner,' suggested Wegg, 'what shall we do?'

Discreet advice too, for he darkened his lantern again, and the mound turned black. After a few seconds, he

turned the light on once more, and was seen standing at the foot of the second mound, slowly raising the

lantern little by little until he held it up at arm's length, as if he were examining the condition of the whole

'It strikes me,' whispered Venus, 'that he wants to find out whether any one has been groping about there.'

This exclamation was elicited by his having turned the lantern off again, and on again, and being visible at

At a nimbler trot, as if the shovel over his shoulder stimulated him by reviving old associations, Mr Boffin

ascended the 'serpentining walk', up the Mound which he had described to Silas Wegg on the occasion of

their beginning to decline and fall. On striking into it he turned his lantern off. The two followed him,

stooping low, so that their figures might make no mark in relief against the sky when he should turn his

lantern on again. Mr Venus took the lead, towing Mr Wegg, in order that his refractory leg might be promptly

extricated from any pitfalls it should dig for itself. They could just make out that the Golden Dustman

'So he thinks; but he's used to call this his own, because it's the one first left to him; the one that was his

'When he shows his light,' said Venus, keeping watch upon his dusky figure all the time, 'drop lower and keep

He went on again, and they followed again. Gaining the top of the Mound, he turned on his lightbut only

partiallyand stood it on the ground. A bare lopsided weatherbeaten pole was planted in the ashes there, and

had been there many a year. Hard by this pole, his lantern stood: lighting a few feet of the lower part of it and

a little of the ashy surface around, and then casting off a purposeless little clear trail of light into the air.

'He can never be going to dig up the pole!' whispered Venus as they dropped low and kept close.

He was going to dig, with whatsoever object, for he tucked up his cuffs and spat on his hands, and then went

at it like an old digger as he was. He had no design upon the pole, except that he measured a shovel's length

from it before beginning, nor was it his purpose to dig deep. Some dozen or so of expert strokes sufficed.

Then, he stopped, looked down into the cavity, bent over it, and took out what appeared to be an ordinary

casebottle: one of those squat, highshouldered, shortnecked glass bottles which the Dutchman is said to

keep his Courage in. As soon as he had done this, he turned off his lantern, and they could hear that he was

filling up the hole in the dark. The ashes being easily moved by a skilful hand, the spies took this as a hint to

make off in good time. Accordingly, Mr Venus slipped past Mr Wegg and towed him down. But Mr Wegg's

descent was not accomplished without some personal inconvenience, for his selfwilled leg sticking into the

ashes about half way down, and time pressing, Mr Venus took the liberty of hauling him from his tether by

the collar: which occasioned him to make the rest of the journey on his back, with his head enveloped in the

skirts of his coat, and his wooden leg coming last, like a drag. So flustered was Mr Wegg by this mode of

travelling, that when he was set on the level ground with his intellectual developments uppermost, he was

quite unconscious of his bearings, and had not the least idea where his place of residence was to be found,

until Mr Venus shoved him into it. Even then he staggered round and round, weakly staring about him, until

Mr Boffin came down leisurely, for this brushing process had been well accomplished, and Mr Venus had

had time to take his breath, before he reappeared. That he had the bottle somewhere about him could not be

doubted; where, was not so clear. He wore a large rough coat, buttoned over, and it might be in any one of

'Bile,' said Mr Boffin, blowing out the light in the lantern, shutting it up, and stowing it away in the breast of

Mr Wegg again replied, with strict adherence to truth, that he didn't think he had ever had a similar sensation

'Physic yourself tomorrow, Wegg,' said Mr Boffin, 'to be in order for next night. Bytheby, this

The friendly movers made such an obvious effort not to look at one another, that they might as well have

'Yes,' said Mr Boffin, rubbing his ear in his old way, with that new touch of craftiness added to it. 'It has

'Have you been out to take leave of your old friend, sir?' asked Silas, jocosely.

He was so sudden and rough, that Wegg, who had been hovering closer and closer to his skirts, despatching

the back of his hand on exploring expeditions in search of the bottle's surface, retired two or three paces.

Mr Boffin eyed him as a dog might eye another dog who wanted his bone; and actually retorted with a low

'Goodnight,' he said, after having sunk into a moody silence, with his hands clasped behind him, and his

eyes suspiciously wandering about Wegg.'No! stop there. I know the way out, and I want no light.'

Avarice, and the evening's legends of avarice, and the inflammatory effect of what he had seen, and perhaps

the rush of his illconditioned blood to his brain in his descent, wrought Silas Wegg to such a pitch of

insatiable appetite, that when the door closed he made a swoop at it and drew Venus along with him.

'He mustn't go,' he cried. 'We mustn't let him go? He has got that bottle about him. We must have that bottle.'

'Wouldn't I? Yes I would. I'd take it by any force, I'd have it at any price! Are you so afraid of one old man as

'I am so afraid of you, as not to let YOU go,' muttered Venus, sturdily, clasping him in his arms.

'Did you hear him?' retorted Wegg. 'Did you hear him say that he was resolved to disappoint us? Did you hear

him say, you cur, that he was going to have the Mounds cleared off, when no doubt the whole place will be

rummaged? If you haven't the spirit of a mouse to defend your rights, I have. Let me go after him.'

As in his wildness he was making a strong struggle for it, Mr Venus deemed it expedient to lift him, throw

him, and fall with him; well knowing that, once down, he would not he up again easily with his wooden leg.

The friendly movers sat upright on the floor, panting and eyeing one another, after Mr Boffin had slammed

the gate and gone away. In the weak eyes of Venus, and in every reddish dustcoloured hair in his shock of

hair, there was a marked distrust of Wegg and an alertness to fly at him on perceiving the smallest occasion.

In the hardgrained face of Wegg, and in his stiff knotty figure (he looked like a German wooden toy), there

was expressed a politic conciliation, which had no spontaneity in it. Both were flushed, flustered, and

rumpled, by the late scuffle; and Wegg, in coming to the ground, had received a humming knock on the back

of his devoted head, which caused him still to rub it with an air of having been highlybut

disagreeablyastonished. Each was silent for some time, leaving it to the other to begin.

'Brother,' said Wegg, at length breaking the silence, 'you were right, and I was wrong. I forgot myself.'

Mr Venus knowingly cocked his shock of hair, as rather thinking Mr Wegg had remembered himself, in

'But comrade,' pursued Wegg, 'it was never your lot to know Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, nor

Mr Venus admitted that he had never known those distinguished persons, and added, in effect, that he had

'Don't say that, comrade!' retorted Wegg: 'No, don't say that! Because, without having known them, you never

can fully know what it is to be stimilated to frenzy by the sight of the Usurper.'

Offering these excusatory words as if they reflected great credit on himself, Mr Wegg impelled himself with

his hands towards a chair in a corner of the room, and there, after a variety of awkward gambols, attained a

'Comrade,' said Wegg, 'take a seat. Comrade, what a speaking countenance is yours!'

Mr Venus involuntarily smoothed his countenance, and looked at his hand, as if to see whether any of its

'For clearly do I know, mark you,' pursued Wegg, pointing his words with his forefinger, 'clearly do I know

'The question,' returned Wegg, with a sort of joyful affability, 'why I didn't mention sooner, that I had found

something. Says your speaking countenance to me: "Why didn't you communicate that, when I first come in

this evening? Why did you keep it back till you thought Mr Boffin had come to look for the article?" Your

speaking countenance,' said Wegg, 'puts it plainer than language. Now, you can't read in my face what answer

'I knew it! And why not?' returned Wegg, with the same joyful candour. 'Because I lay no claims to a

speaking countenance. Because I am well aware of my deficiencies. All men are not gifted alike. But I can

answer in words. And in what words? These. I wanted to give you a delightful sappurIZE!'

Having thus elongated and emphasized the word Surprise, Mr Wegg shook his friend and brother by both

hands, and then clapped him on both knees, like an affectionate patron who entreated him not to mention so

'Your speaking countenance, ' said Wegg, 'being answered to its satisfaction, only asks then, "What have you

'Well?' retorted Venus snappishly, after waiting in vain. 'If you hear it say the words, why don't you answer

'Hear me out!' said Wegg. 'I'm agoing to. Hear me out! Man and brother, partner in feelings equally with

'Hear me out!' said Wegg. (He tried to reserve whatever he could, and, whenever disclosure was forced

'Nno,' returned Wegg, shaking his head at once observantly, thoughtfully, and playfully. 'No, sir! That's

not your expressive countenance which asks that question. That's your voice; merely your voice. To proceed.

On a certain day, sir, I happened to be walking in the yardtaking my lonely roundfor in the words of a

"Deserted, as you will remember Mr Venus, by the waning moon, When stars, it will occur to you before I

mention it, proclaim night's cheerless noon, On tower, fort, or tented ground, The sentry walks his lonely

under those circumstances, sir, I happened to be walking in the yard early one afternoon, and happened to

have an iron rod in my hand, with which I have been sometimes accustomed to beguile the monotony of a

literary life, when I struck it against an object not necessary to trouble you by naming'

'Hear me out!' said Wegg. 'The Pump.When I struck it against the Pump, and found, not only that the

top was loose and opened with a lid, but that something in it rattled. That something, comrade, I discovered

'There your expressive countenance speaks indeed!' cried Wegg. 'A paper. The box was locked, tied up, and

sealed, and on the outside was a parchment label, with the writing, "MY WILL, JOHN HARMON,

'Exactly so, sir!' returned Wegg, blandly and buoyantly. 'I see I take you with me! Hear, hear, hear! Resolved,

as your discriminating good sense perceives, that if you was to have a sap purIZE, it should be a

complete one! Well, sir. And so, as you have honoured me by anticipating, I examined the document.

Regularly executed, regularly witnessed, very short. Inasmuch as he has never made friends, and has ever had

a rebellious family, he, John Harmon, gives to Nicodemus Boffin the Little Mound, which is quite enough for

'The date of the will that has been proved, must be looked to,' remarked Venus. 'It may be later than this one.'

'Hear me out!' cried Wegg. 'I said so. I paid a shilling (never mind your sixpence of it) to look up that will.

Brother, that will is dated months before this will. And now, as a fellowman, and as a partner in a friendly

move,' added Wegg, benignantly taking him by both hands again, and clapping him on both knees again, 'say

have I completed my labour of love to your perfect satisfaction, and are you sappurIZED?'

Mr Venus contemplated his fellowman and partner with doubting eyes, and then rejoined stiffly:

'This is great news indeed, Mr Wegg. There's no denying it. But I could have wished you had told it me

before you got your fright to night, and I could have wished you had ever asked me as your partner what we

'Hear me out!' cried Wegg. 'I knew you was agoing to say so. But alone I bore the anxiety, and alone I'll

'Do I understand, brother,' returned Wegg with considerable reluctance, 'that it is your wish to see this will

After being some time absent, as if in his covetousness he could hardly make up his mind to produce the

treasure to his partner, he returned with an old leathern hatbox, into which he had put the other box, for the

better preservation of commonplace appearances, and for the disarming of suspicion. 'But I don't half like

opening it here,' said Silas in a low voice, looking around: 'he might come back, he may not be gone; we don't

Jealous of the custody of the box, and yet fearful of opening it under the existing circumstances, Wegg

hesitated. 'Come, I tell you,' repeated Venus, chafing, 'to my place.' Not very well seeing his way to a refusal,

Mr Wegg then rejoined in a gush, 'Hear me out!Certainly.' So he locked up the Bower and they set

They found the usual dim light burning in the window of Mr Venus's establishment, imperfectly disclosing to

the public the usual pair of preserved frogs, sword in hand, with their point of honour still unsettled. Mr

Venus had closed his shop door on coming out, and now opened it with the key and shut it again as soon as

they were within; but not before he had put up and barred the shutters of the shop window. 'No one can get in

without being let in,' said he then, 'and we couldn't be more snug than here.' So he raked together the yet

warm cinders in the rusty grate, and made a fire, and trimmed the candle on the little counter. As the fire cast

its flickering gleams here and there upon the dark greasy walls; the Hindoo baby, the African baby, the

articulated English baby, the assortment of skulls, and the rest of the collection, came starting to their various

stations as if they had all been out, like their master and were punctual in a general rendezvous to assist at the

secret. The French gentleman had grown considerably since Mr Wegg last saw him, being now

accommodated with a pair of legs and a head, though his arms were yet in abeyance. To whomsoever the

head had originally belonged, Silas Wegg would have regarded it as a personal favour if he had not cut quite

Silas took his seat in silence on the wooden box before the fire, and Venus dropping into his low chair

produced from among his skeleton hands, his teatray and teacups, and put the kettle on. Silas inwardly

approved of these preparations, trusting they might end in Mr Venus's diluting his intellect.

With still reluctant hands, and not without several glances towards the skeleton hands, as if he mistrusted that

a couple of them might spring forth and clutch the document, Wegg opened the hatbox and revealed the

cashbox, opened the cashbox and revealed the will. He held a corner of it tight, while Venus, taking hold

Mr Wegg thereupon made an easy, graceful movement, as though he would fold it up; but Mr Venus held on

'No, sir,' said Mr Venus, winking his weak eyes and shaking his head. 'No, partner. The question is now

brought up, who is going to take care of this. Do you know who is going to take care of this, partner?'

'Oh dear no, partner,' retorted Venus. 'That's a mistake. I am. Now look here, Mr Wegg. I don't want to have

any words with you, and still less do I want to have any anatomical pursuits with you.'

'I mean, partner,' replied Venus, slowly, 'that it's hardly possible for a man to feel in a more amiable state

towards another man than I do towards you at this present moment. But I am on my own ground, I am

'I am surrounded, as I have observed,' said Mr Venus, placidly, 'by the trophies of my art. They are numerous,

my stock of human warious is large, the shop is pretty well crammed, and I don't just now want any more

'There's the Miscellanies of several human specimens,' said Venus, '(though you mightn't think it) in the box

on which you're sitting. There's the Miscellanies of several human specimens, in the lovely compoone

behind the door'; with a nod towards the French gentleman. 'It still wants a pair of arms. I DON'T say that I'm

'You'll excuse me if I wander,' returned Venus; 'I am sometimes rather subject to it. I like my art, and I know

'But what has that got to do with your art, partner?' asked Wegg, in an insinuating tone.

Mr Venus winked his chronicallyfatigued eyes both at once, and adjusting the kettle on the fire, remarked to

Silas Wegg glanced at the kettle, glanced at the shelves, glanced at the French gentleman behind the door,

and shrank a little as he glanced at Mr Venus winking his red eyes, and feeling in his waistcoat pocketas

for a lancet, saywith his unoccupied hand. He and Venus were necessarily seated close together, as each

'Partner,' said Wegg, even more insinuatingly than before, 'I propose that we cut it in half, and each keep a

Venus shook his shock of hair, as he replied, 'It wouldn't do to mutilate it, partner. It might seem to be

'Partner,' said Wegg, after a silence, during which they had contemplated one another, 'don't your speaking

Venus shook his shock of hair as he replied, 'Partner, you have kept this paper from me once. You shall never

keep it from me again. I offer you the box and the label to take care of, but I'll take care of the paper.'

Silas hesitated a little longer, and then suddenly releasing his corner, and resuming his buoyant and benignant

tone, exclaimed, 'What's life without trustfulness! What's a fellowman without honour! You're welcome to

Continuing to wink his red eyes both togetherbut in a self communing way, and without any show of

triumphMr Venus folded the paper now left in his hand, and locked it in a drawer behind him, and

pocketed the key. He then proposed 'A cup of tea, partner?' To which Mr Wegg returned, 'Thank'ee, partner,'

'Next,' said Venus, blowing at his tea in his saucer, and looking over it at his confidential friend, 'comes the

On this head, Silas Wegg had much to say. Silas had to say That, he would beg to remind his comrade,

brother, and partner, of the impressive passages they had read that evening; of the evident parallel in Mr

Boffin's mind between them and the late owner of the Bower, and the present circumstances of the Bower; of

the bottle; and of the box. That, the fortunes of his brother and comrade, and of himself were evidently made,

inasmuch as they had but to put their price upon this document, and get that price from the minion of fortune

and the worm of the hour: who now appeared to be less of a minion and more of a worm than had been

previously supposed. That, he considered it plain that such price was stateable in a single expressive word,

and that the word was, 'Halves!' That, the question then arose when 'Halves!' should be called. That, here he

had a plan of action to recommend, with a conditional clause. That, the plan of action was that they should lie

by with patience; that, they should allow the Mounds to be gradually levelled and cleared away, while

retaining to themselves their present opportunity of watching the processwhich would be, he conceived, to

put the trouble and cost of daily digging and delving upon somebody else, while they might nightly turn such

complete disturbance of the dust to the account of their own private investigationsand that, when the

Mounds were gone, and they had worked those chances for their own joint benefit solely, they should then,

and not before, explode on the minion and worm. But here came the conditional clause, and to this he

entreated the special attention of his comrade, brother, and partner. It was not to be borne that the minion and

worm should carry off any of that property which was now to be regarded as their own property. When he,

Mr Wegg, had seen the minion surreptitiously making off with that bottle, and its precious contents unknown,

he had looked upon him in the light of a mere robber, and, as such, would have despoiled him of his

illgotten gain, but for the judicious interference of his comrade, brother, and partner. Therefore, the

conditional clause he proposed was, that, if the minion should return in his late sneaking manner, and if,

being closely watched, he should be found to possess himself of anything, no matter what, the sharp sword

impending over his head should be instantly shown him, he should be strictly examined as to what he knew

or suspected, should be severely handled by them his masters, and should be kept in a state of abject moral

bondage and slavery until the time when they should see fit to permit him to purchase his freedom at the price

of half his possessions. If, said Mr Wegg by way of peroration, he had erred in saying only 'Halves!' he

trusted to his comrade, brother, and partner not to hesitate to set him right, and to reprove his weakness. It

might be more according to the rights of things, to say Twothirds; it might be more according to the rights

Mr Venus, having wafted his attention to this discourse over three successive saucers of tea, signified his

concurrence in the views advanced. Inspirited hereby, Mr Wegg extended his right hand, and declared it to be

a hand which never yet. Without entering into more minute particulars. Mr Venus, sticking to his tea, briefly

professed his beliet as polite forms required of him, that it WAS a hand which never yet. But contented

'Brother,' said Wegg, when this happy understanding was established, 'I should like to ask you something.

You remember the night when I first looked in here, and found you floating your powerful mind in tea?'

'And there you sit, sir,' pursued Wegg with an air of thoughtful admiration, 'as if you had never left off! There

you sit, sir, as if you had an unlimited capacity of assimilating the flagrant article! There you sit, sir, in the

midst of your works, looking as if you'd been called upon for Home, Sweet Home, and was obleeging the

"A exile from home splendour dazzles in vain, O give you your lowly Preparations again, The birds stuffed

so sweetly that can't be expected to come at your call, Give you these with the peace of mind dearer than all.

Be it ever,' added Mr Wegg in prose as he glanced about the shop, 'ever so ghastly, all things considered

'You said you'd like to ask something; but you haven't asked it,' remarked Venus, very unsympathetic in

'Your peace of mind,' said Wegg, offering condolence, 'your peace of mind was in a poor way that night.

'She does not wish,' replied Mr Venus with a comical mixture of indignant obstinacy and tender melancholy,

'to regard herself, nor yet to be regarded, in that particular light. There's no more to be said.'

'Ah, dear me, dear me!' exclaimed Wegg with a sigh, but eyeing him while pretending to keep him company

in eyeing the fire, 'such is Woman! And I remember you said that night, sitting there as I sat heresaid that

night when your peace of mind was first laid low, that you had taken an interest in these very affairs. Such is

'Her father,' rejoined Venus, and then stopped to swallow more tea, 'her father was mixed up in them.'

'You didn't mention her name, sir, I think?' observed Wegg, pensively. 'No, you didn't mention her name that

'Indeed!' cried Wegg. 'Pleasant Riderhood. There's something moving in the name. Pleasant. Dear me!

Seems to express what she might have been, if she hadn't made that unpleasant remark and what she ain't,

in consequence of having made it. Would it at all pour balm into your wounds, Mr Venus, to inquire how you

'I was down at the waterside,' said Venus, taking another gulp of tea and mournfully winking at the

Mr Wegg hinted, to jog his attention: 'You could hardly have been out parrotshooting, in the British climate,

'No, no, no,' said Venus fretfully. 'I was down at the waterside, looking for parrots brought home by sailors,

'And looking for a nice pair of rattlesnakes, to articulate for a Museumwhen I was doomed to fall in

with her and deal with her. It was just at the time of that discovery in the river. Her father had seen the

discovery being towed in the river. I made the popularity of the subject a reason for going back to improve

the acquaintance, and I have never since been the man I was. My very bones is rendered flabby by brooding

over it. If they could be brought to me loose, to sort, I should hardly have the face to claim 'em as mine. To

Mr Wegg, less interested than he had been, glanced at one particular shelf in the dark.

'Why I remember, Mr Venus,' he said in a tone of friendly commiseration '(for I remember every word that

falls from you, sir), I remember that you said that night, you had got up thereand then your words was,

'The parrot that I bought of her,' said Venus, with a despondent rise and fall of his eyes. 'Yes; there it lies

on its side, dried up; except for its plumage, very like myself. I've never had the heart to prepare it, and I

With a disappointed face, Silas mentally consigned this parrot to regions more than tropical, and, seeming for

the time to have lost his power of assuming an interest in the woes of Mr Venus, fell to tightening his wooden

leg as a preparation for departure: its gymnastic performances of that evening having severely tried its

After Silas had left the shop, hatbox in hand, and had left Mr Venus to lower himself to oblivionpoint with

the requisite weight of tea, it greatly preyed on his ingenuous mind that he had taken this artist into

partnership at all. He bitterly felt that he had overreached himself in the beginning, by grasping at Mr Venus's

mere straws of hints, now shown to be worthless for his purpose. Casting about for ways and means of

dissolving the connexion without loss of money, reproaching himself for having been betrayed into an

avowal of his secret, and complimenting himself beyond measure on his purely accidental good luck, he

beguiled the distance between Clerkenwell and the mansion of the Golden Dustman.

For, Silas Wegg felt it to be quite out of the question that he could lay his head upon his pillow in peace,

without first hovering over Mr Boffin's house in the superior character of its Evil Genius. Power (unless it be

the power of intellect or virtue) has ever the greatest attraction for the lowest natures; and the mere defiance

of the unconscious housefront, with his power to strip the roof off the inhabiting family like the roof of a

As he hovered on the opposite side of the street, exulting, the carriage drove up.

'There'll shortly be an end of YOU,' said Wegg, threatening it with the hatbox. 'YOUR varnish is fading.'

'How brisk we are!' said Wegg. 'You won't run so gaily to your old shabby home, my girl. You'll have to go

'I was passed over for you,' said Wegg. 'But you had better provide yourself with another situation, young

Mr Boffin's shadow passed upon the blinds of three large windows as he trotted down the room, and passed

'Yoop!'cried Wegg. 'You're there, are you? Where's the bottle? You would give your bottle for my box,

Having now composed his mind for slumber, he turned homeward. Such was the greed of the fellow, that his

mind had shot beyond halves, twothirds, threefourths, and gone straight to spoliation of the whole.

'Though that wouldn't quite do,' he considered, growing cooler as he got away. 'That's what would happen to

We so judge others by ourselves, that it had never come into his head before, that he might not buy us up, and

might prove honest, and prefer to be poor. It caused him a slight tremor as it passed; but a very slight one, for

'He's grown too fond of money for that,' said Wegg; 'he's grown too fond of money.' The burden fell into a

strain or tune as he stumped along the pavements. All the way home he stumped it out of the rattling streets,

PIANO with his own foot, and FORTE with his wooden leg, 'He's GROWN too FOND of MONEY for

Even next day Silas soothed himself with this melodious strain, when he was called out of bed at daybreak, to

set open the yard gate and admit the train of carts and horses that came to carry off the little Mound. And all

day long, as he kept unwinking watch on the slow process which promised to protract itself through many

days and weeks, whenever (to save himself from being choked with dust) he patrolled a little cinderous beat

he established for the purpose, without taking his eyes from the diggers, he still stumped to the tune: He's

The train of carts and horses came and went all day from dawn to nightfall, making little or no daily

impression on the heap of ashes, though, as the days passed on, the heap was seen to be slowly melting. My

lords and gentlemen and honourable boards, when you in the course of your dustshovelling and

cinderraking have piled up a mountain of pretentious failure, you must off with your honourable coats for

the removal of it, and fall to the work with the power of all the queen's horses and all the queen's men, or it

Yes, verily, my lords and gentlemen and honourable boards, adapting your Catechism to the occasion, and by

God's help so you must. For when we have got things to the pass that with an enormous treasure at disposal to

relieve the poor, the best of the poor detest our mercies, hide their heads from us, and shame us by starving to

death in the midst of us, it is a pass impossible of prosperity, impossible of continuance. It may not be so

wrirten in the Gospel according to Podsnappery; you may not 'find these words' for the text of a sermon, in

the Returns of the Board of Trade; but they have been the truth since the foundations of the universe were

laid, and they will be the truth until the foundations of the universe are shaken by the Builder. This boastful

handiwork of ours, which fails in its terrors for the professional pauper, the sturdy breaker of windows and

the rampant tearer of clothes, strikes with a cruel and a wicked stab at the stricken sufferer, and is a horror to

the deserving and unfortunate. We must mend it, lords and gentlemen and honourable boards, or in its own

Old Betty Higden fared upon her pilgrimage as many ruggedly honest creatures, women and men, fare on

their toiling way along the roads of life. Patiently to earn a spare bare living, and quietly to die, untouched by

Nothing had been heard of her at Mr Boffin's house since she trudged off. The weather had been hard and the

roads had been bad, and her spirit was up. A less stanch spirit might have been subdued by such adverse

influences; but the loan for her little outfit was in no part repaid, and it had gone worse with her than she had

foreseen, and she was put upon proving her case and maintaining her independence.

Faithful soul! When she had spoken to the Secretary of that 'deadness that steals over me at times', her

fortitude had made too little of it. Oftener and ever oftener, it came stealing over her; darker and ever darker,

like the shadow of advancing Death. That the shadow should be deep as it came on, like the shadow of an

actual presence, was in accordance with the laws of the physical world, for all the Light that shone on Betty

The poor old creature had taken the upward course of the river Thames as her general track; it was the track

in which her last home lay, and of which she had last had local love and knowledge. She had hovered for a

little while in the near neighbourhood of her abandoned dwelling, and had sold, and knitted and sold, and

gone on. In the pleasant towns of Chertsey, Walton, Kingston, and Staines, her figure came to be quite well

She would take her stand in marketplaces, where there were such things, on market days; at other times, in

the busiest (that was seldom very busy) portion of the little quiet High Street; at still other times she would

explore the outlying roads for great houses, and would ask leave at the Lodge to pass in with her basket, and

would not often get it. But ladies in carriages would frequently make purchases from her trifling stock, and

were usually pleased with her bright eyes and her hopeful speech. In these and her clean dress originated a

fable that she was well to do in the world: one might say, for her station, rich. As making a comfortable

provision for its subject which costs nobody anything, this class of fable has long been popular.

In those pleasant little towns on Thames, you may hear the fall of the water over the weirs, or even, in still

weather, the rustle of the rushes; and from the bridge you may see the young river, dimpled like a young

child, playfully gliding away among the trees, unpolluted by the defilements that lie in wait for it on its

course, and as yet out of hearing of the deep summons of the sea. It were too much to pretend that Betty

Higden made out such thoughts; no; but she heard the tender river whispering to many like herself, 'Come to

me, come to me! When the cruel shame and terror you have so long fled from, most beset you, come to me! I

am the Relieving Officer appointed by eternal ordinance to do my work; I am not held in estimation

according as I shirk it. My breast is softer than the paupernurse's; death in my arms is peacefuller than

There was abundant place for gentler fancies too, in her untutored mind. Those gentlefolks and their children

inside those fine houses, could they think, as they looked out at her, what it was to be really hungry, really

cold? Did they feel any of the wonder about her, that she felt about them? Bless the dear laughing children! If

they could have seen sick Johnny in her arms, would they have cried for pity? If they could have seen dead

Johnny on that little bed, would they have understood it? Bless the dear children for his sake, anyhow! So

with the humbler houses in the little street, the inner firelight shining on the panes as the outer twilight

darkened. When the families gathered indoors there, for the night, it was only a foolish fancy to feel as if it

were a little hard in them to close the shutter and blacken the flame. So with the lighted shops, and

speculations whether their masters and mistresses taking tea in a perspective of backparlournot so far

within but that the flavour of tea and toast came out, mingled with the glow of light, into the streetate or

drank or wore what they sold, with the greater relish because they dealt in it. So with the churchyard on a

branch of the solitary way to the night's sleeping place. 'Ah me! The dead and I seem to have it pretty much

to ourselves in the dark and in this weather! But so much the better for all who are warmly housed at home.'

But, the old abhorrence grew stronger on her as she grew weaker, and it found more sustaining food than she

did in her wanderings. Now, she would light upon the shameful spectacle of some desolate creatureor

some wretched ragged groups of either sex, or of both sexes, with children among them, huddled together

like the smaller vermin for a little warmthlingering and lingering on a doorstep, while the appointed evader

of the public trust did his dirty office of trying to weary them out and so get rid of them. Now, she would

light upon some poor decent person, like herself, going afoot on a pilgrimage of many weary miles to see

some wornout relative or friend who had been charitably clutched off to a great blank barren Union House,

as far from old home as the County Jail (the remoteness of which is always its worst punishment for small

rural offenders), and in its dietary, and in its lodging, and in its tending of the sick, a much more penal

establishment. Sometimes she would hear a newspaper read out, and would learn how the Registrar General

cast up the units that had within the last week died of want and of exposure to the weather: for which that

Recording Angel seemed to have a regular fixed place in his sum, as if they were its halfpence. All such

things she would hear discussed, as we, my lords and gentlemen and honourable boards, in our

unapproachable magnificence never hear them, and from all such things she would fly with the wings of

This is not to be received as a figure of speech. Old Betty Higden however tired, however footsore, would

start up and be driven away by her awakened horror of falling into the hands of Charity. It is a remarkable

Christian improvement, to have made a pursuing Fury of the Good Samaritan; but it was so in this case, and it

Two incidents united to intensify the old unreasoning abhorrence granted in a previous place to be

unreasoning, because the people always are unreasoning, and invaRiahly make a point of producing all their

One day she was sitting in a marketplace on a bench outside an inn, with her little wares for sale, when the

deadness that she strove against came over her so heavily that the scene departed from before her eyes; when

it returned, she found herself on the ground, her head supported by some goodnatured marketwomen, and

'Are you better now, mother?' asked one of the women. 'Do you think you can do nicely now?'

'You have had a faint like,' was the answer, 'or a fit. It ain't that you've been astruggling, mother, but you've

'Ah!' said Betty, recovering her memory. 'It's the numbness. Yes. It comes over me at times.'

'It's gone now,' said Betty. 'I shall be stronger than I was afore. Many thanks to ye, my dears, and when you

They assisted her to rise, but she could not stand yet, and they supported her when she sat down again upon

'My head's a bit light, and my feet are a bit heavy,' said old Betty, leaning her face drowsily on the breast of

the woman who had spoken before. 'They'll both come nat'ral in a minute. There's nothing more the matter.'

'Ask her,' said some farmers standing by, who had come out from their marketdinner, 'who belongs to her.'

'Yes sure,' answered Betty. 'I heerd the gentleman say it, but I couldn't answer quick enough. There's plenty

'But are any of 'em near here? 'said the men's voices; the women's voices chiming in when it was said, and

'Quite near enough,' said Betty, rousing herself. 'Don't ye be afeard for me, neighbours.'

'But you are not fit to travel. Where are you going?' was the next compassionate chorus she heard.

'I'm a going to London when I've sold out all,' said Betty, rising with difficulty. 'I've right good friends in

London. I want for nothing. I shall come to no harm. Thankye. Don't ye be afeard for me.'

A wellmeaning bystander, yellowlegginged and purplefaced, said hoarsely over his red comforter, as she

'For the Lord's love don't meddle with me!' cried old Betty, all her fears crowding on her. 'I am quite well

She caught up her basket as she spoke and was making an unsteady rush away from them, when the same

bystander checked her with his hand on her sleeve, and urged her to come with him and see the

parishdoctor. Strengthening herself by the utmost exercise of her resolution, the poor trembling creature

shook him off, almost fiercely, and took to flight. Nor did she feel safe until she had set a mile or two of

byroad between herself and the marketplace, and had crept into a copse, like a hunted animal, to hide and

recover breath. Not until then for the first time did she venture to recall how she had looked over her shoulder

before turning out of the town, and had seen the sign of the White Lion hanging across the road, and the

fluttering market booths, and the old grey church, and the little crowd gazing after her but not attempting to

The second frightening incident was this. She had been again as bad, and had been for some days better, and

was travelling along by a part of the road where it touched the river, and in wet seasons was so often

overflowed by it that there were tall white posts set up to mark the way. A barge was being towed towards

her, and she sat down on the bank to rest and watch it. As the towrope was slackened by a turn of the stream

and dipped into the water, such a confusion stole into her mind that she thought she saw the forms of her dead

children and dead grandchildren peopling the barge, and waving their hands to her in solemn measure; then,

as the rope tightened and came up, dropping diamonds, it seemed to vibrate into two parallel ropes and strike

her, with a twang, though it was far off. When she looked again, there was no barge, no river, no daylight,

'I am the Deputy Lock, on job, and this is the Lockhouse. (Lock or Deputy Lock, it's all one, while the

'Parish!' She was up from the trucklebed directly, wildly feeling about her for her basket, and gazing at him

'You'll be asked the question down town,' said the man. 'They won't let you be more than a Casual there.

They'll pass you on to your settlement, Missis, with all speed. You're not in a state to be let come upon

'It was the deadness, there's not a doubt about it,' returned the man. 'I should have thought the deadness was a

mild word for it, if it had been named to me when we brought you in. Have you got any friends, Missis?'

'I should recommend your looking 'em up if you consider 'em game to do anything for you,' said the Deputy

'Well, you know,' said the Deputy Lock, shrugging his shoulders with his hands in his pockets, and shaking

his head in a sulkily ominous manner, 'the parish authorities down town will have it out of you, if you go on,

'They'll make you pay, as fur as your money will go,' pursued the Deputy, 'for your relief as a Casual and for

'Thank ye kindly, Master, for your warning, thank ye for your shelter, and good night.'

'Stop a bit,' said the Deputy, striking in between her and the door. 'Why are you all of a shake, and what's

'Oh, Master, Master,' returned Betty Higden, I've fought against the Parish and fled from it, all my life, and I

'I don't know,' said the Deputy, with deliberation, 'as I ought to let you go. I'm a honest man as gets my living

by the sweat of my brow, and I may fall into trouble by letting you go. I've fell into trouble afore now, by

George, and I know what it is, and it's made me careful. You might be took with your deadness again, half a

mile offor half of half a quarter, for the matter of thatand then it would be asked, Why did that there

honest Deputy Lock, let her go, instead of putting her safe with the Parish? That's what a man of his character

ought to have done, it would be argueyfied,' said the Deputy Lock, cunningly harping on the strong string of

her terror; 'he ought to have handed her over safe to the Parish. That was to be expected of a man of his

As he stood in the doorway, the poor old careworn wayworn woman burst into tears, and clasped her hands,

'As I've told you, Master, I've the best of friends. This letter will show how true I spoke, and they will be

The Deputy Lock opened the letter with a grave face, which underwent no change as he eyed its contents. But

'What amount of small change, Missis,' he said, with an abstracted air, after a little meditation, 'might you call

Hurriedly emptying her pocket, old Betty laid down on the table, a shilling, and two sixpenny pieces, and a

'If I was to let you go instead of handing you over safe to the Parish,' said the Deputy, counting the money

'I'm a man,' said the Deputy, giving her back the letter, and pocketing the coins, one by one, 'as earns his

living by the sweat of his brow;' here he drew his sleeve across his forehead, as if this particular portion of his

humble gains were the result of sheer hard labour and virtuous industry; 'and I won't stand in your way. Go

She was gone out of the Lockhouse as soon as he gave her this permission, and her tottering steps were on

the road again. But, afraid to go back and afraid to go forward; seeing what she fled from, in the skyglare of

the lights of the little town before her, and leaving a confused horror of it everywhere behind her, as if she

had escaped it in every stone of every marketplace; she struck off by side ways, among which she got

bewildered and lost. That night she took refuge from the Samaritan in his latest accredited form, under a

farmer's rick; and ifworth thinking of, perhaps, my fellowChristiansthe Samaritan had in the lonely

night, 'passed by on the other side', she would have most devoutly thanked High Heaven for her escape from

The morning found her afoot again, but fast declining as to the clearness of her thoughts, though not as to the

steadiness of her purpose. Comprehending that her strength was quitting her, and that the struggle of her life

was almost ended, she could neither reason out the means of getting back to her protectors, nor even form the

idea. The overmastering dread, and the proud stubborn resolution it engendered in her to die undegraded,

were the two distinct impressions left in her failing mind. Supported only by a sense that she was bent on

The time was come, now, when the wants of this little life were passing away from her. She could not have

swallowed food, though a table had been spread for her in the next field. The day was cold and wet, but she

scarcely knew it. She crept on, poor soul, like a criminal afraid of being taken, and felt little beyond the terror

of falling down while it was yet daylight, and being found alive. She had no fear that she would live through

Sewn in the breast of her gown, the money to pay for her burial was still intact. If she could wear through the

day, and then lie down to die under cover of the darkness, she would die independent. If she were captured

previously, the money would be taken from her as a pauper who had no right to it, and she would be carried

to the accursed workhouse. Gaining her end, the letter would be found in her breast, along with the money,

and the gentlefolks would say when it was given back to them, 'She prized it, did old Betty Higden; she was

true to it; and while she lived, she would never let it be disgraced by falling into the hands of those that she

held in horror.' Most illogical, inconsequential, and light headed, this; but travellers in the valley of the

shadow of death are apt to be lightheaded; and wornout old people of low estate have a trick of reasoning

as indifferently as they live, and doubtless would appreciate our Poor Law more philosophically on an

So, keeping to byways, and shunning human approach, this troublesome old woman hid herself, and fared on

all through the dreary day. Yet so unlike was she to vagrant hiders in general, that sometimes, as the day

advanced, there was a bright fire in her eyes, and a quicker beating at her feeble heart, as though she said

By what visionary hands she was led along upon that journey of escape from the Samaritan; by what voices,

hushed in the grave, she seemed to be addressed; how she fancied the dead child in her arms again, and times

innumerable adjusted her shawl to keep it warm; what infinite variety of forms of tower and roof and steeple

the trees took; how many furious horsemen rode at her, crying, 'There she goes! Stop! Stop, Betty Higden!'

and melted away as they came close; be these things left untold. Faring on and hiding, hiding and faring on,

the poor harmless creature, as though she were a Murderess and the whole country were up after her, wore

'Watermeadows, or such like,' she had sometimes murmured, on the day's pilgrimage, when she had raised

her head and taken any note of the real objects about her. There now arose in the darkness, a great building,

full of lighted windows. Smoke was issuing from a high chimney in the rear of it, and there was the sound of

a waterwheel at the side. Between her and the building, lay a piece of water, in which the lighted windows

were reflected, and on its nearest margin was a plantation of trees. 'I humbly thank the Power and the Glory,'

said Betty Higden, holding up her withered hands, 'that I have come to my journey's end!'

She crept among the trees to the trunk of a tree whence she could see, beyond some intervening trees and

branches, the lighted windows, both in their reality and their reflection in the water. She placed her orderly

little basket at her side, and sank upon the ground, supporting herself against the tree. It brought to her mind

the foot of the Cross, and she committed herself to Him who died upon it. Her strength held out to enable her

to arrange the letter in her breast, so as that it could be seen that she had a paper there. It had held out for this,

'I am safe here,' was her last benumbed thought. 'When I am found dead at the foot of the Cross, it will be by

some of my own sort; some of the working people who work among the lights yonder. I cannot see the

'I don't understand what you say. Let me wet your lips again with this brandy. I have been away to fetch it.

It is as the face of a woman, shaded by a quantity of rich dark hair. It is the earnest face of a woman who is

young and handsome. But all is over with me on earth, and this must be an Angel.

'I don't understand what you say. Let me wet your lips again. I hurried all I could, and brought no one back

'I cannot understand what you say. Your voice is so low and broken that I cannot hear you. Do you hear me?'

'I was coming from my work just now, along the path outside (I was up with the nighthands last night), and

'Your face is turned up to the sky, and you can't see it. It is close by. You can see my face, here, between you

'Not even lift your head to get it on my arm? I will do it by very gentle degrees. You shall hardly feel it.'

She reads it with surprise, and looks down with a new expression and an added interest on the motionless

'I cannot understand you. Let me wet your lips again, and your forehead. There. O poor thing, poor thing!'

These words through her fastdropping tears. 'What was it that you asked me? Wait till I bring my ear quite

'As you must grow old in time, and come to your dying hour, my dear, you'll not give it up to any one but

'Nor let the Parish touch me, not yet so much as look at me!' with another struggle.

The eyes, which have been darkly fixed upon the sky, turn with meaning in them towards the compassionate

face from which the tears are dropping, and a smile is on the aged lips as they ask:

Lizzie Hexam very softly raised the weatherstained grey head, and lifted her as high as Heaven.

'"We give thee hearty thanks for that it hath pleased thee to deliver this our sister out of the miseries of this

sinful world."' So read the Reverend Frank Milvey in a not untroubled voice, for his heart misgave him that

all was not quite right between us and our sisteror say our sister in LawPoor Lawand that we

sometimes read these words in an awful manner, over our Sister and our Brother too.

And Sloppyon whom the brave deceased had never turned her back until she ran away from him, knowing

that otherwise he would not be separated from herSloppy could not in his conscience as yet find the hearty

thanks required of it. Selfish in Sloppy, and yet excusable, it may be humbly hoped, because our sister had

The words were read above the ashes of Betty Higden, in a corner of a churchyard near the river; in a

churchyard so obscure that there was nothing in it but grassmounds, not so much as one single tombstone. It

might not be to do an unreasonably great deal for the diggers and hewers, in a registering age, if we ticketed

their graves at the common charge; so that a new generation might know which was which: so that the

soldier, sailor, emigrant, coming home, should be able to identify the restingplace of father, mother,

playmate, or betrothed. For, we turn up our eyes and say that we are all alike in death, and we might turn

them down and work the saying out in this world, so far. It would be sentimental, perhaps? But how say ye,

my lords and gentleman and honourable boards, shall we not find good standingroom left for a little

Near unto the Reverend Frank Milvey as he read, stood his little wife, John Rokesmith the Secretary, and

Bella Wilfer. These, over and above Sloppy, were the mourners at the lowly grave. Not a penny had been

added to the money sewn in her dress: what her honest spirit had so long projected, was fulfilled.

'I've took it in my head,' said Sloppy, laying it, inconsolable, against the church door, when all was done: I've

took it in my wretched head that I might have sometimes turned a little harder for her, and it cuts me deep to

The Reverend Frank Milvey, comforting Sloppy, expounded to him how the best of us were more or less

remiss in our turnings at our respective Manglessome of us very much soand how we were all a halting,

'SHE warn't, sir,' said Sloppy, taking this ghostly counsel rather ill, in behalf of his late benefactress. 'Let us

speak for ourselves, sir. She went through with whatever duty she had to do. She went through with me, she

went through with the Minders, she went through with herself, she went through with everythink. O Mrs

Higden, Mrs Higden, you was a woman and a mother and a mangler in a million million!'

With those heartfelt words, Sloppy removed his dejected head from the church door, and took it back to the

grave in the comer, and laid it down there, and wept alone. 'Not a very poor grave,' said the Reverend Frank

Milvey, brushing his hand across his eyes, 'when it has that homely figure on it. Richer, I think, than it could

They left him undisturbed, and passed out at the wicketgate. The waterwheel of the papermill was

audible there, and seemed to have a softening influence on the bright wintry scene. They had arrived but a

little while before, and Lizzie Hexam now told them the little she could add to the letter in which she had

enclosed Mr Rokesmith's letter and had asked for their instructions. This was merely how she had heard the

groan, and what had afterwards passed, and how she had obtained leave for the remains to be placed in that

sweet, fresh, empty storeroom of the mill from which they had just accompanied them to the churchyard,

'I could not have done it all, or nearly all, of myself,' said Lizzie. 'I should not have wanted the will; but I

'The gentleman certainly is a Jew,' said Lizzie, 'and the lady, his wife, is a Jewess, and I was first brought to

'But suppose they try to convert you!' suggested Mrs Milvey, bristling in her good little way, as a clergyman's

Lizzie shook her head, still smiling. 'They have never asked me what my religion is. They asked me what my

story was, and I told them. They asked me to be industrious and faithful, and I promised to be so. They most

willingly and cheerfully do their duty to all of us who are employed here, and we try to do ours to them.

Indeed they do much more than their duty to us, for they are wonderfully mindful of us in many ways.

'It is easy to see you're a favourite, my dear,' said little Mrs Milvey, not quite pleased.

'It would be very ungrateful in me to say I am not,' returned Lizzie, 'for I have been already raised to a place

of confidence here. But that makes no difference in their following their own religion and leaving all of us to

ours. They never talk of theirs to us, and they never talk of ours to us. If I was the last in the mill, it would be

'My dear,' said Mrs Milvey, aside to the Reverend Frank, 'I wish you would talk to her.'

'My dear,' said the Reverend Frank aside to his good little wife, 'I think I will leave it to somebody else. The

circumstances are hardly favourable. There are plenty of talkers going about, my love, and she will soon find

While this discourse was interchanging, both Bella and the Secretary observed Lizzie Hexam with great

attention. Brought face to face for the first time with the daughter of his supposed murderer, it was natural

that John Harmon should have his own secret reasons for a careful scrutiny of her countenance and manner.

Bella knew that Lizzie's father had been falsely accused of the crime which had had so great an influence on

her own life and fortunes; and her interest, though it had no secret springs, like that of the Secretary, was

equally natural. Both had expected to see something very different from the real Lizzie Hexam, and thus it

For, when they had walked on with her to the little house in the clean village by the papermill, where Lizzie

had a lodging with an elderly couple employed in the establishment, and when Mrs Milvey and Bella had

been up to see her room and had come down, the mill bell rang. This called Lizzie away for the time, and left

the Secretary and Bella standing rather awkwardly in the small street; Mrs Milvey being engaged in pursuing

the village children, and her investigations whether they were in danger of becoming children of Israel; and

the Reverend Frank being engagedto say the truthin evading that branch of his spiritual functions, and

'I suppose,' faltered Bella, 'that we ARE both commissioned, or we shouldn't both be here?'

'When I proposed to come with Mr and Mrs Milvey,' said Bella, 'Mrs Boffin urged me to do so, in order that I

might give her my small reportit's not worth anything, Mr Rokesmith, except for it's being a

woman'swhich indeed with you may be a fresh reason for it's being worth nothingof Lizzie Hexam.'

As they spoke they were leaving the little street and emerging on the wooded landscape by the river.

'You think well of her, Mr Rokesmith?' pursued Bella, conscious of making all the advances.

'There is a shade of sadness upon her that is quite touching. At least II am not setting up my own poor

opinion, you know, Mr Rokesmith,' said Bella, excusing and explaining herself in a pretty shy way; 'I am

'I noticed that sadness. I hope it may not,' said the Secretary in a lower voice, 'be the result of the false

When they had passed on a little further without speaking, Bella, after stealing a glance or two at the

'Oh, Mr Rokesmith, don't be hard with me, don't be stern with me; be magnanimous! I want to talk with you

The Secretary as suddenly brightened, and returned: 'Upon my honour I had no thought but for you. I forced

myself to be constrained, lest you might misinterpret my being more natural. There. It's gone.'

'No!' cried the Secretary, eagerly. 'Forgive ME!' For there were tears in her eyes, and they were prettier in his

sight (though they smote him on the heart rather reproachfully too) than any other glitter in the world.

'You were going to speak to me,' said the Secretary, with the shadow so long on him quite thrown off and cast

away, 'about Lizzie Hexam. So was I going to speak to you, if I could have begun.'

'Now that you CAN begin, sir,' returned Bella, with a look as if she italicized the word by putting one of her

'You remember, of course, that in her short letter to Mrs Boffin short, but containing everything to the

purposeshe stipulated that either her name, or else her place of residence, must be kept strictly a secret

'It is my duty to find out why she made that stipulation. I have it in charge from Mr Boffin to discover, and I

am very desirous for myself to discover, whether that retracted accusation still leaves any stain upon her. I

mean whether it places her at any disadvantage towards any one, even towards herself.'

'Yes,' said Bella, nodding thoughtfully; 'I understand. That seems wise, and considerate.'

'You may not have noticed, Miss Wilfer, that she has the same kind of interest in you, that you have in her.

Just as you are attracted by her beautby her appearance and manner, she is attracted by yours.'

'I certainly have NOT noticed it,' returned Bella, again italicizing with the dimple, 'and I should have given

The Secretary with a smile held up his hand, so plainly interposing 'not for better taste', that Bella's colour

'And so,' resumed the Secretary, 'if you would speak with her alone before we go away from here, I feel quite

sure that a natural and easy confidence would arise between you. Of course you would not be asked to betray

it; and of course you would not, if you were. But if you do not object to put this question to herto ascertain

for us her own feeling in this one matteryou can do so at a far greater advantage than I or any else could.

Mr Boffin is anxious on the subject. And I am,' added the Secretary after a moment, 'for a special reason, very

'I shall be happy, Mr Rokesmith,' returned Bella, 'to be of the least use; for I feel, after the serious scene of

'No one is useless in this world,' retorted the Secretary, 'who lightens the burden of it for any one else.'

'It is enough if he only thinks so,' said the Secretary. 'Excuse the interruption: I don't like to hear you

'But YOU once depreciated ME, sir,' thought Bella, pouting, 'and I hope you may be satisfied with the

consequences you brought upon your head!' However, she said nothing to that purpose; she even said

'Mr Rokesmith, it seems so long since we spoke together naturally, that I am embarrassed in approaching

another subject. Mr Boffin. You know I am very grateful to him; don't you? You know I feel a true respect

for him, and am bound to him by the strong ties of his own generosity; now don't you?'

'That makes it,' said Bella, 'so very difficult to speak of him. But. Does he treat you well?'

'You see how he treats me,' the Secretary answered, with a patient and yet proud air.

The Secretary gave her such a radiant look, that if he had thanked her a hundred times, he could not have said

'I see it with pain,' repeated Bella, 'and it often makes me miserable. Miserable, because I cannot bear to be

supposed to approve of it, or have any indirect share in it. Miserable, because I cannot bear to be forced to

'Miss Wilfer,' said the Secretary, with a beaming face, 'if you could know with what delight I make the

discovery that Fortune isn't spoiling YOU, you would know that it more than compensates me for any slight

'Oh, don't speak of ME,' said Bella, giving herself an impatient little slap with her glove. 'You don't know me

'As you know yourself?' suggested the Secretary, finding that she stopped. 'DO you know yourself?'

'I know quite enough of myself,' said Bella, with a charming air of being inclined to give herself up as a bad

'That Mr Boffin's manner to me, or consideration for me, is not what it used to be,' observed the Secretary,

'Are you disposed to deny it, Mr Rokesmith?' asked Bella, with a look of wonder.

'Ought I not to be glad to do so, if I could: though it were only for my own sake?'

'Truly,' returned Bella, 'it must try you very much, andyou must please promise me that you won't take ill

'And it must sometimes, I should think,' said Bella, hesitating, 'a little lower you in your own estimation?'

Assenting with a movement of his head, though not at all looking as if it did, the Secretary replied:

'I have very strong reasons, Miss Wilfer, for bearing with the drawbacks of my position in the house we both

inhabit. Believe that they are not all mercenary, although I have, through a series of strange fatalities, faded

out of my place in life. If what you see with such a gracious and good sympathy is calculated to rouse my

pride, there are other considerations (and those you do not see) urging me to quiet endurance. The latter are

'I think I have noticed, Mr Rokesmith,' said Bella, looking at him with curiosity, as not quite making him out,

'You are right. I repress myself and force myself to act a part. It is not in tameness of spirit that I submit. I

'Sometimes I have fancied, sir,' said Bella, turning away her eyes, 'that your great regard for Mrs Boffin is a

'You are right again; it is. I would do anything for her, bear anything for her. There are no words to express

'Of course you see that she really suffers, when Mr Boffin shows how he is changing?'

'To give her pain?' said Bella, repeating the phrase quickly, with her eyebrows raised.

'Perhaps she says to you, as she often says to me, that he is the best of men, in spite of all.'

'I often overhear her, in her honest and beautiful devotion to him, saying so to you,' returned the Secretary,

Bella met the steady look for a moment with a wistful, musing little look of her own, and then, nodding her

pretty head several times, like a dimpled philosopher (of the very best school) who was moralizing on Life,

heaved a little sigh, and gave up things in general for a bad job, as she had previously been inclined to give

But, for all that, they had a very pleasant walk. The trees were bare of leaves, and the river was bare of

waterlilies; but the sky was not bare of its beautiful blue, and the water reflected it, and a delicious wind ran

with the stream, touching the surface crisply. Perhaps the old mirror was never yet made by human hands,

which, if all the images it has in its time reflected could pass across its surface again, would fail to reveal

some scene of horror or distress. But the great serene mirror of the river seemed as if it might have

reproduced all it had ever reflected between those placid banks, and brought nothing to the light save what

So, they walked, speaking of the newly filledup grave, and of Johnny, and of many things. So, on their

return, they met brisk Mrs Milvey coming to seek them, with the agreeable intelligence that there was no fear

for the village children, there being a Christian school in the village, and no worse Judaical interference with

it than to plant its garden. So, they got back to the village as Lizzie Hexam was coming from the papermill,

'I am afraid it is a poor room for you,' said Lizzie, with a smile of welcome, as she offered the post of honour

'Not so poor as you think, my dear,' returned Bella, 'if you knew all.' Indeed, though attained by some

wonderful winding narrow stairs, which seemed to have been erected in a pure white chimney, and though

very low in the ceiling, and very rugged in the floor, and rather blinking as to the proportions of its lattice

window, it was a pleasanter room than that despised chamber once at home, in which Bella had first

The day was closing as the two girls looked at one another by the fireside. The dusky room was lighted by the

fire. The grate might have been the old brazier, and the glow might have been the old hollow down by the

'It's quite new to me,' said Lizzie, 'to be visited by a lady so nearly of my own age, and so pretty, as you. It's a

'I have nothing left to begin with,' returned Bella, blushing, 'because I was going to say that it was a pleasure

Lizzie took the pretty little hand that was held out in as pretty a little frankness.

'Now, dear,' said Bella, drawing her chair a little nearer, and taking Lizzie's arm as if they were going out for

a walk, 'I am commissioned with something to say, and I dare say I shall say it wrong, but I won't if I can

help it. It is in reference to your letter to Mr and Mrs Boffin, and this is what it is. Let me see. Oh yes! This is

With this exordium, Bella set forth that request of Lizzie's touching secrecy, and delicately spoke of that false

accusation and its retraction, and asked might she beg to be informed whether it had any bearing, near or

remote, on such request. 'I feel, my dear,' said Bella, quite amazing herself by the businesslike manner in

which she was getting on, 'that the subject must be a painful one to you, but I am mixed up in it also; forI

don't know whether you may know it or suspect itI am the willedaway girl who was to have been married

to the unfortunate gentleman, if he had been pleased to approve of me. So I was dragged into the subject

without my consent, and you were dragged into it without your consent, and there is very little to choose

'I had no doubt,' said Lizzie, 'that you were the Miss Wilfer I have often heard named. Can you tell me who

'Who caused the charge against poor father to be contradicted, and sent me the written paper.'

'I should have been glad to thank him,' returned Lizzie. 'He has done a great deal for me. I must hope that he

'Yes. Has either anything to do with my wishing to live quite secret and retired here? No.'

As Lizzie Hexam shook her head in giving this reply and as her glance sought the fire, there was a quiet

'Yes. It's nothing new to me. I used to be always alone many hours together, in the day and in the night, when

'I have a brother, but he is not friendly with me. He is a very good boy though, and has raised himself by his

As she said it, with her eyes upon the fireglow, there was an instantaneous escape of distress into her face.

'Lizzie, I wish you would tell me whether you have any friend of your own sex and age.'

'I have lived that lonely kind of life, that I have never had one,' was the answer.

'Nor I neither,' said Bella. 'Not that my life has been lonely, for I could have sometimes wished it lonelier,

instead of having Ma going on like the Tragic Muse with a faceache in majestic corners, and Lavvy being

spitefulthough of course I am very fond of them both. I wish you could make a friend of me, Lizzie. Do

you think you could? I have no more of what they call character, my dear, than a canarybird, but I know I

The wayward, playful, affectionate nature, giddy for want of the weight of some sustaining purpose, and

capricious because it was always fluttering among little things, was yet a captivating one. To Lizzie it was so

new, so pretty, at once so womanly and so childish, that it won her completely. And when Bella said again,

'Do you think you could, Lizzie?' with her eyebrows raised, her head inquiringly on one side, and an odd

doubt about it in her own bosom, Lizzie showed beyond all question that she thought she could.

'Tell me, my dear,' said Bella, 'what is the matter, and why you live like this.'

Lizzie presently began, by way of prelude, 'You must have many lovers' when Bella checked her with a

'Well! Perhaps one,' said Bella. 'I am sure I don't know. I HAD one, but what he may think about it at the

present time I can't say. Perhaps I have half a one (of course I don't count that Idiot, George Sampson).

'There is a certain man,' said Lizzie, 'a passionate and angry man, who says he loves me, and who I must

believe does love me. He is the friend of my brother. I shrank from him within myself when my brother first

brought him to me; but the last time I saw him he terrified me more than I can say.' There she stopped.

'I am not timid generally, but I am always afraid of him. I am afraid to see a newspaper, or to hear a word

'Then you are not afraid of him for yourself, dear?' said Bella, after pondering on the words.

'I should be even that, if I met him about here. I look round for him always, as I pass to and fro at night.'

'No. He might be fierce enough even to do some violence to himself, but I don't think of that.'

'Then it would almost seem, dear,' said Bella quaintly, 'as if there must be somebody else?'

Lizzie put her hands before her face for a moment before replying: 'The words are always in my ears, and the

blow he struck upon a stone wall as he said them is always before my eyes. I have tried hard to think it not

worth remembering, but I cannot make so little of it. His hand was trickling down with blood as he said to

Rather startled, Bella made and clasped a girdle of her arms round Lizzie's waist, and then asked quietly, in a

'Of a gentleman,' said Lizzie. 'I hardly know how to tell youof a gentleman far above me and my way of

'O no! And of all the world I wouldn't have him know that I am here, or get the least clue where to find me.'

'Lizzie, dear! Why?' asked Bella, in amazement at this burst. But then quickly added, reading Lizzie's face:

There was silence between them. Lizzie, with a drooping head, glanced down at the glow in the fire where

her first fancies had been nursed, and her first escape made from the grim life out of which she had plucked

'You know all now,' she said, raising her eyes to Bella's. 'There is nothing left out. This is my reason for

living secret here, with the aid of a good old man who is my true friend. For a short part of my life at home

with father, I knew of thingsdon't ask me what that I set my face against, and tried to better. I don't think

I could have done more, then, without letting my hold on father go; but they sometimes lie heavy on my

'And wear out too,' said Bella soothingly, 'this weakness, Lizzie, in favour of one who is not worthy of it.'

'No. I don't want to wear that out,' was the flushed reply, 'nor do I want to believe, nor do I believe, that he is

Bella's expressive little eyebrows remonstrated with the fire for some short time before she rejoined:

'Don't think that I press you, Lizzie; but wouldn't you gain in peace, and hope, and even in freedom?

Wouldn't it be better not to live a secret life in hiding, and not to be shut out from your natural and

'Does a woman's heart thatthat has that weakness in it which you have spoken of,' returned Lizzie, 'seek to

The question was so directly at variance with Bella's views in life, as set forth to her father, that she said

internally, 'There, you little mercenary wretch! Do you hear that? Ain't you ashamed of your self?' and

unclasped the girdle of her arms, expressly to give herself a penitential poke in the side.

'But you said, Lizzie,' observed Bella, returning to her subject when she had administered this chastisement,

'that you would lose, besides. Would you mind telling me what you would lose, Lizzie?'

'I should lose some of the best recollections, best encouragements, and best objects, that I carry through my

daily life. I should lose my belief that if I had been his equal, and he had loved me, I should have tried with

all my might to make him better and happier, as he would have made me. I should lose almost all the value

that I put upon the little learning I have, which is all owing to him, and which I conquered the difficulties of,

that he might not think it thrown away upon me. I should lose a kind of picture of himor of what he might

have been, if I had been a lady, and he had loved mewhich is always with me, and which I somehow feel

that I could not do a mean or a wrong thing before. I should leave off prizing the remembrance that he has

done me nothing but good since I have known him, and that he has made a change within me, likelike the

change in the grain of these hands, which were coarse, and cracked, and hard, and brown when I rowed on

the river with father, and are softened and made supple by this new work as you see them now.'

'Understand me, my dear;' thus she went on. I have never dreamed of the possibility of his being anything to

me on this earth but the kind picture that I know I could not make you understand, if the understanding was

not in your own breast already. I have no more dreamed of the possibility of MY being his wife, than he ever

has and words could not be stronger than that. And yet I love him. I love him so much, and so dearly, that

when I sometimes think my life may be but a weary one, I am proud of it and glad of it. I am proud and glad

to suffer something for him, even though it is of no service to him, and he will never know of it or care for it.'

Bella sat enchained by the deep, unselfish passion of this girl or woman of her own age, courageously

revealing itself in the confidence of her sympathetic perception of its truth. And yet she had never

'It was late upon a wretched night,' said Lizzie, 'when his eyes first looked at me in my old riverside home,

very different from this. His eyes may never look at me again. I would rather that they never did; I hope that

they never may. But I would not have the light of them taken out of my life, for anything my life can give me.

I have told you everything now, my dear. If it comes a little strange to me to have parted with it, I am not

sorry. I had no thought of ever parting with a single word of it, a moment before you came in; but you came

Bella kissed her on the cheek, and thanked her warmly for her confidence. 'I only wish,' said Bella, 'I was

'I don't mean in respect of keeping it,' said Bella, 'because any one should tear me to bits before getting at a

syllable of itthough there's no merit in that, for I am naturally as obstinate as a Pig. What I mean is, Lizzie,

Lizzie put up the pretty brown hair that came tumbling down, owing to the energy with which Bella shook

'Oh, it's all very well to call me your dear,' said Bella, with a pettish whimper, 'and I am glad to be called so,

'Such a shallow, cold, worldly, Limited little brute!' said Bella, bringing out her last adjective with

'Do you think,' inquired Lizzie with her quiet smile, the hair being now secured, 'that I don't know better?'

'DO you know better though?' said Bella. 'Do you really believe you know better? Oh, I should be so glad if

Lizzie asked her, laughing outright, whether she ever saw her own face or heard her own voice?

'I suppose so,' returned Bella; 'I look in the glass often enough, and I chatter like a Magpie.'

'I have seen your face, and heard your voice, at any rate,' said Lizzie, 'and they have tempted me to say to

youwith a certainty of not going wrongwhat I thought I should never say to any one. Does that look ill?'

'No, I hope it doesn't,' pouted Bella, stopping herself in something between a humoured laugh and a

'I used once to see pictures in the fire,' said Lizzie playfully, 'to please my brother. Shall I tell you what I see

They had risen, and were standing on the hearth, the time being come for separating; each had drawn an arm

'A heart well worth winning, and well won. A heart that, once won, goes through fire and water for the

'Girl's heart?' asked Bella, with accompanying eyebrows. Lizzie nodded. 'And the figure to which it

So the interview terminated with pleasant words on both sides, and with many reminders on the part of Bella

that they were friends, and pledges that she would soon come down into that part of the country again. There

with Lizzie returned to her occupation, and Bella ran over to the little inn to rejoin her company.

She had nothing else to tell him but that Lizzie Hexam's secret had no reference whatever to the cruel charge,

or its withdrawal. Oh yes though! said Bella; she might as well mention one other thing; Lizzie was very

desirous to thank her unknown friend who had sent her the written retractation. Was she, indeed? observed

the Secretary. Ah! Bella asked him, had he any notion who that unknown friend might be? He had no notion

They were on the borders of Oxfordshire, so far had poor old Betty Higden strayed. They were to return by

the train presently, and, the station being near at hand, the Reverend Frank and Mrs Frank, and Sloppy and

Bella and the Secretary, set out to walk to it. Few rustic paths are wide enough for five, and Bella and the

'Can you believe, Mr Rokesmith,' said Bella, 'that I feel as if whole years had passed since I went into Lizzie

'We have crowded a good deal into the day,' he returned, 'and you were much affected in the churchyard. You

'No, I am not at all tired. I have not quite expressed what I mean. I don't mean that I feel as if a great space of

'You are cold; I felt you tremble. Pray let me put this wrapper of mine about you. May I fold it over this

shoulder without injuring your dress? Now, it will be too heavy and too long. Let me carry this end over my

Yes she had though. How she got it out, in her muffled state, Heaven knows; but she got it out

'I have had a long and interesting talk with Lizzie, Mr Rokesmith, and she gave me her full confidence.'

'I wonder how you come,' said Bella, stopping short as she glanced at him, 'to say to me just what she said

'That if you were inclined to win her confidenceanybody's confidenceyou were sure to do it.'

The railway, at this point, knowingly shutting a green eye and opening a red one, they had to run for it. As

Bella could not run easily so wrapped up, the Secretary had to help her. When she took her opposite place in

the carriage corner, the brightness in her face was so charming to behold, that on her exclaiming, 'What

beautiful stars and what a glorious night!' the Secretary said 'Yes,' but seemed to prefer to see the night and

the stars in the light of her lovely little countenance, to looking out of window.

O boofer lady, fascinating boofer lady! If I were but legally executor of Johnny's will! If I had but the right to

pay your legacy and to take your receipt!Something to this purpose surely mingled with the blast of the

train as it cleared the stations, all knowingly shutting up their green eyes and opening their red ones when

'And so, Miss Wren,' said Mr Eugene Wrayburn, 'I cannot persuade you to dress me a doll?'

'No,' replied Miss Wren snappishly; 'if you want one, go and buy one at the shop.'

'And my charming young goddaughter,' said Mr Wrayburn plaintively, 'down in Hertfordshire'

'is to be put upon the cold footing of the general public, and is to derive no advantage from my private

'If it's any advantage to your charming godchildand oh, a precious godfather she has got!'replied Miss

Wren, pricking at him in the air with her needle, 'to be informed that the Court Dressmaker knows your tricks

Miss Wren was busy at her work by candlelight, and Mr Wrayburn, half amused and half vexed, and all idle

and shiftless, stood by her bench looking on. Miss Wren's troublesome child was in the corner in deep

disgrace, and exhibiting great wretchedness in the shivering stage of prostration from drink.

'Ugh, you disgraceful boy!' exclaimed Miss Wren, attracted by the sound of his chattering teeth, 'I wish they'd

all drop down your throat and play at dice in your stomach! Boh, wicked child! Bee baa, black sheep!'

On her accompanying each of these reproaches with a threatening stamp of the foot, the wretched creature

'Pay five shillings for you indeed!' Miss Wren proceeded; 'how many hours do you suppose it costs me to

earn five shillings, you imfamous boy?Don't cry like that, or I'll throw a doll at you. Pay five shillings fine

for you indeed. Fine in more ways than one, I think! I'd give the dustman five shillings, to carry you off in the

'He's enough to break his mother's heart, is this boy,' said Miss Wren, half appealing to Eugene. 'I wish I had

never brought him up. He'd be sharper than a serpent's tooth, if he wasn't as dull as ditch water. Look at him.

Assuredly, in his worse than swinish state (for swine at least fatten on their guzzling, and make themselves

'A muddling and a swipey old child,' said Miss Wren, rating him with great severity, 'fit for nothing but to be

preserved in the liquor that destroys him, and put in a great glass bottle as a sight for other swipey children of

his own pattern,if he has no consideration for his liver, has he none for his mother?'

'Oh don't and oh don't,' pursued Miss Wren. 'It's oh do and oh do. And why do you?'

'There!' said Miss Wren, covering her eyes with her hand. 'I can't bear to look at you. Go up stairs and get me

my bonnet and shawl. Make yourself useful in some way, bad boy, and let me have your room instead of your

Obeying her, he shambled out, and Eugene Wrayburn saw the tears exude from between the little creature's

fingers as she kept her hand before her eyes. He was sorry, but his sympathy did not move his carelessness to

'I'm going to the Italian Opera to try on,' said Miss Wren, taking away her hand after a little while, and

laughing satirically to hide that she had been crying; 'I must see your back before I go, Mr Wrayburn. Let me

first tell you, once for all, that it's of no use your paying visits to me. You wouldn't get what you want, of me,

'Ah!' returned Miss Wren with a hitch of her chin, 'I am so obstinate. And of course it's on the subject of a

Her degraded charge had come back, and was standing behind her with the bonnet and shawl.

'Give 'em to me and get back into your corner, you naughty old thing!' said Miss Wren, as she turned and

The miserable man, feebly rubbing the back of his faltering hands downward from the wrists, shuffled on to

his post of disgrace; but not without a curious glance at Eugene in passing him, accompanied with what

seemed as if it might have been an action of his elbow, if any action of any limb or joint he had, would have

answered truly to his will. Taking no more particular notice of him than instinctively falling away from the

disagreeable contact, Eugene, with a lazy compliment or so to Miss Wren, begged leave to light his cigar, and

'Now you prodigal old son,' said Jenny, shaking her head and her emphatic little forefinger at her burden, 'you

sit there till I come back. You dare to move out of your corner for a single instant while I'm gone, and I'll

With this admonition, she blew her work candles out, leaving him to the light of the fire, and, taking her big

Eugene lounged slowly towards the Temple, smoking his cigar, but saw no more of the dolls' dressmaker,

through the accident of their taking opposite sides of the street. He lounged along moodily, and stopped at

Charing Cross to look about him, with as little interest in the crowd as any man might take, and was lounging

on again, when a most unexpected object caught his eyes. No less an object than Jenny Wren's bad boy trying

A more ridiculous and feeble spectacle than this tottering wretch making unsteady sallies into the roadway,

and as often staggering back again, oppressed by terrors of vehicles that were a long way off or were

nowhere, the streets could not have shown. Over and over again, when the course was perfectly clear, he set

out, got half way, described a loop, turned, and went back again; when he might have crossed and recrossed

half a dozen times. Then, he would stand shivering on the edge of the pavement, looking up the street and

looking down, while scores of people jostled him, and crossed, and went on. Stimulated in course of time by

the sight of so many successes, he would make another sally, make another loop, would all but have his foot

on the opposite pavement, would see or imagine something coming, and would stagger back again. There, he

would stand making spasmodic preparations as if for a great leap, and at last would decide on a start at

precisely the wrong moment, and would be roared at by drivers, and would shrink back once more, and stand

in the old spot shivering, with the whole of the proceedings to go through again.

'It strikes me,' remarked Eugene coolly, after watching him for some minutes, 'that my friend is likely to be

rather behind time if he has any appointment on hand.' With which remark he strolled on, and took no further

Lightwood was at home when he got to the Chambers, and had dined alone there. Eugene drew a chair to the

fire by which he was having his wine and reading the evening paper, and brought a glass, and filled it for

'My dear Mortimer, you are the express picture of contented industry, reposing (on credit) after the virtuous

'My dear Eugene, you are the express picture of discontented idleness not reposing at all. Where have you

'I have been,' replied Wrayburn, 'about town. I have turned up at the present juncture, with the intention of

consulting my highly intelligent and respected solicitor on the position of my affairs.'

'Your highly intelligent and respect solicitor is of opinion that your affairs are in a bad way, Eugene.'

'Though whether,' said Eugene thoughtfully, 'that can be intelligently said, now, of the affairs of a client who

has nothing to lose and who cannot possibly be made to pay, may be open to question.'

'My dear boy,' returned the debtor, very composedly taking up his glass, 'having previously fallen into the

'I have had an interview today, Eugene, with a Jew, who seems determined to press us hard. Quite a

Shylock, and quite a Patriarch. A picturesque greyheaded and greybearded old Jew, in a shovelhat and

'Not,' said Eugene, pausing in setting down his glass, 'surely not my worthy friend Mr Aaron?'

'Bytheby,' said Eugene, 'it comes into my mind thatno doubt with an instinctive desire to receive him

'Eugene, Eugene,' returned Lightwood, 'you are more ridiculous than usual. Say what you mean.'

'Merely, my dear fellow, that I have the honour and pleasure of a speaking acquaintance with such a Patriarch

as you describe, and that I address him as Mr Aaron, because it appears to me Hebraic, expressive,

appropriate, and complimentary. Notwithstanding which strong reasons for its being his name, it may not be

'I believe you are the absurdest man on the face of the earth,' said Lightwood, laughing.

'Which looks,' remarked Eugene with much gravity, 'like NOT knowing me. I hope it may not be my worthy

friend Mr Aaron, for, to tell you the truth, Mortimer, I doubt he may have a prepossession against me. I

'Everything,' returned Lightwood impatiently, 'seems, by a fatality, to bring us round to Lizzie. "About town"

'My solicitor, do you know,' observed Eugene, turning round to the furniture, 'is a man of infinite

Eugene Wrayburn rose, and put his hands in his pockets, and stood with a foot on the fender, indolently

rocking his body and looking at the fire. After a prolonged pause, he replied: 'I don't know that. I must ask

Having again paused as before, Eugene said: 'I don't know that, either. But tell me. Did you ever see me take

so much trouble about anything, as about this disappearance of hers? I ask, for information.'

'Then you have not? Just so. You confirm my own impression. Does that look as if I cared for her? I ask, for

'Dear boy, I know it, but I can't give it. I thirst for information. What do I mean? If my taking so much trouble

to recover her does not mean that I care for her, what does it mean? "If Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled

Though he said this gaily, he said it with a perplexed and inquisitive face, as if he actually did not know what

to make of himself. 'Look on to the end' Lightwood was beginning to remonstrate, when he caught at the

'Ah! See now! That's exactly what I am incapable of doing. How very acute you are, Mortimer, in finding my

weak place! When we were at school together, I got up my lessons at the last moment, day by day and bit by

bit; now we are out in life together, I get up my lessons in the same way. In the present task I have not got

beyond this:I am bent on finding Lizzie, and I mean to find her, and I will take any means of finding her

that offer themselves. Fair means or foul means, are all alike to me. I ask youfor informationwhat does

that mean? When I have found her I may ask youalso for informationwhat do I mean now? But it would

Lightwood was shaking his head over the air with which his friend held forth thusan air so whimsically

open and argumentative as almost to deprive what he said of the appearance of evasionwhen a shuffling

was heard at the outer door, and then an undecided knock, as though some hand were groping for the

knocker. 'The frolicsome youth of the neighbourhood,' said Eugene, 'whom I should be delighted to pitch

from this elevation into the churchyard below, without any intermediate ceremonies, have probably turned

His friend had barely had time to recall the unprecedented gleam of determination with which he had spoken

of finding this girl, and which had faded out of him with the breath of the spoken words, when Eugene came

back, ushering in a most disgraceful shadow of a man, shaking from head to foot, and clothed in shabby

'This interesting gentleman,' said Eugene, 'is the sonthe occasionally rather trying son, for he has his

failingsof a lady of my acquaintance. My dear MortimerMr Dolls.' Eugene had no idea what his name

was, knowing the little dressmaker's to be assumed, but presented him with easy confidence under the first

'I gather, my dear Mortimer,' pursued Eugene, as Lightwood stared at the obscene visitor, 'from the manner of

Mr Dollswhich is occasionally complicatedthat he desires to make some communication to me. I have

mentioned to Mr Dolls that you and I are on terms of confidence, and have requested Mr Dolls to develop his

The wretched object being much embarrassed by holding what remained of his hat, Eugene airily tossed it to

'It will be necessary, I think,' he observed, 'to wind up Mr Dolls, before anything to any mortal purpose can

A judiciously small quantity of the spirit was given him in a wine glass, and he began to convey it to his

'The nerves of Mr Dolls,' remarked Eugene to Lightwood, 'are considerably unstrung. And I deem it on the

He took the shovel from the grate, sprinkled a few live ashes on it, and from a box on the chimneypiece

took a few pastiles, which he set upon them; then, with great composure began placidly waving the shovel in

'Lord bless my soul, Eugene!' cried Lightwood, laughing again, 'what a mad fellow you are! Why does this

'We shall hear,' said Wrayburn, very observant of his face withal. 'Now then. Speak out. Don't be afraid. State

'Mist Wrayburn!' said the visitor, thickly and huskily. ''TIS Mist Wrayburn, ain't?' With a stupid stare.

'Will you do me the favour, my dear Mortimer, to wind up Mr Dolls again?' said Eugene. 'I am occupied with

A similar quantity was poured into his glass, and he got it to his lips by similar circuitous ways. Having drunk

it, Mr Dolls, with an evident fear of running down again unless he made haste, proceeded to business.

'Mist Wrayburn. Tried to nudge you, but you wouldn't. You want that drection. You want t'know where she

'I am er man,' said Mr Dolls, trying to smite himself on the breast, but bringing his hand to bear upon the

With a most laborious attempt at pride and dignity, Mr Dolls rolled his head for some time, awakening the

highest expectations, and then answered, as if it were the happiest point that could possibly be expected of

Mr Dolls, collapsing in the drowsiest manner after his late intellectual triumph, replied: 'Threepenn'orth

'Eugene, Eugene,' urged Lightwood in a low voice, as he complied, 'can you stoop to the use of such an

'I said,' was the reply, made with that former gleam of determination, 'that I would find her out by any means,

fair or foul. These are foul, and I'll take themif I am not first tempted to break the head of Mr Dolls with

the fumigator. Can you get the direction? Do you mean that? Speak! If that's what you have come for, say

'Fifteen shillingsThreepenn'orths Rum,' said Mr Dolls, making an attempt to stiffen himself.

'I am illused vidual,' said Mr Dolls. 'Blown up morning t'night. Called names. She makes Mint money, sir,

'Get on,' rejoined Eugene, tapping his palsied head with the fire shovel, as it sank on his breast. 'What comes

Making a dignified attempt to gather himself together, but, as it were, dropping half a dozen pieces of himself

while he tried in vain to pick up one, Mr Dolls, swaying his head from side to side, regarded his questioner

'She looks upon me as mere child, sir. I am NOT mere child, sir. Man. Man talent. Lerrers pass betwixt 'em.

'Get it then,' said Eugene; adding very heartily under his breath, 'You Brute! Get it, and bring it here to me,

and earn the money for sixty threepenn'orths of rum, and drink them all, one a top of another, and drink

yourself dead with all possible expedition.' The latter clauses of these special instructions he addressed to the

fire, as he gave it back the ashes he had taken from it, and replaced the shovel.

Mr Dolls now struck out the highly unexpected discovery that he had been insulted by Lightwood, and stated

his desire to 'have it out with him' on the spot, and defied him to come on, upon the liberal terms of a

sovereign to a halfpenny. Mr Dolls then fell a crying, and then exhibited a tendency to fall asleep. This last

manifestation as by far the most alarming, by reason of its threatening his prolonged stay on the premises,

necessitated vigorous measures. Eugene picked up his wornout hat with the tongs, clapped it on his head,

and, taking him by the collarall this at arm's lengthconducted him down stairs and out of the precincts

When he got back, Lightwood was standing over the fire, brooding in a sufficiently lowspirited manner.

'I'll wash my hands of Mr Dolls physically' said Eugene, 'and be with you again directly, Mortimer.'

'I would much prefer,' retorted Mortimer, 'your washing your hands of Mr Dolls, morally, Eugene.'

In a minute or two he resumed his chair, as perfectly unconcerned as usual, and rallied his friend on having so

'I can't be amused on this theme,' said Mortimer, restlessly. 'You can make almost any theme amusing to me,

'Well!' cried Eugene, 'I am a little ashamed of it myself, and therefore let us change the subject.'

'It is so deplorably underhanded,' said Mortimer. 'It is so unworthy of you, this setting on of such a shameful

'We have changed the subject!' exclaimed Eugene, airily. 'We have found a new one in that word, scout.

Don't be like Patience on a mantelpiece frowning at Dolls, but sit down, and I'll tell you something that you

really will find amusing. Take a cigar. Look at this of mine. I light itdraw one puffbreathe the smoke

'Your subject,' said Mortimer, after lighting a cigar, and comforting himself with a whiff or two, 'was scouts,

'Exactly. Isn't it droll that I never go out after dark, but I find myself attended, always by one scout, and often

Lightwood took his cigar from his lips in surprise, and looked at his friend, as if with a latent suspicion that

'On my honour, no,' said Wrayburn, answering the look and smiling carelessly; 'I don't wonder at your

supposing so, but on my honour, no. I say what I mean. I never go out after dark, but I find myself in the

ludicrous situation of being followed and observed at a distance, always by one scout, and often by two.'

'But there's no process out against you. The Jews only threaten. They have done nothing. Besides, they know

'Observe the legal mind!' remarked Eugene, turning round to the furniture again, with an air of indolent

rapture. 'Observe the dyer's hand, assimilating itself to what it works in,or would work in, if anybody

would give it anything to do. Respected solicitor, it's not that. The schoolmaster's abroad.'

'Ay! Sometimes the schoolmaster and the pupil are both abroad. Why, how soon you rust in my absence! You

don't understand yet? Those fellows who were here one night. They are the scouts I speak of, as doing me the

'How long has this been going on?' asked Lightwood, opposing a serious face to the laugh of his friend.

'I apprehend it has been going on, ever since a certain person went off. Probably, it had been going on some

'My dear Mortimer, you know the absorbing nature of my professional occupations; I really have not had

'Why should I ask them what they want, dear fellow, when I am indifferent what they want? Why should I

'You are in your most reckless mood. But you called the situation just now, a ludicrous one; and most men

'You charm me, Mortimer, with your reading of my weaknesses. (Bytheby, that very word, Reading, in its

critical use, always charms me. An actress's Reading of a chambermaid, a dancer's Reading of a hornpipe, a

singer's Reading of a song, a marine painter's Reading of the sea, the kettledrum's Reading of an

instrumental passage, are phrases ever youthful and delightful.) I was mentioning your perception of my

weaknesses. I own to the weakness of objecting to occupy a ludicrous position, and therefore I transfer the

'I wish, Eugene, you would speak a little more soberly and plainly, if it were only out of consideration for my

'Then soberly and plainly, Mortimer, I goad the schoolmaster to madness. I make the schoolmaster so

ridiculous, and so aware of being made ridiculous, that I see him chafe and fret at every pore when we cross

one another. The amiable occupation has been the solace of my life, since I was baulked in the manner

unnecessary to recall. I have derived inexpressible comfort from it. I do it thus: I stroll out after dark, stroll a

little way, look in at a window and furtively look out for the schoolmaster. Sooner or later, I perceive the

schoolmaster on the watch; sometimes accompanied by his hopeful pupil; oftener, pupilless. Having made

sure of his watching me, I tempt him on, all over London. One night I go east, another night north, in a few

nights I go all round the compass. Sometimes, I walk; sometimes, I proceed in cabs, draining the pocket of

the schoolmaster who then follows in cabs. I study and get up abstruse No Thoroughfares in the course of the

day. With Venetian mystery I seek those No Thoroughfares at night, glide into them by means of dark courts,

tempt the schoolmaster to follow, turn suddenly, and catch him before he can retreat. Then we face one

another, and I pass him as unaware of his existence, and he undergoes grinding torments. Similarly, I walk at

a great pace down a short street, rapidly turn the corner, and, getting out of his view, as rapidly turn back. I

catch him coming on post, again pass him as unaware of his existence, and again he undergoes grinding

torments. Night after night his disappointment is acute, but hope springs eternal in the scholastic breast, and

he follows me again tomorrow. Thus I enjoy the pleasures of the chase, and derive great benefit from the

healthful exercise. When I do not enjoy the pleasures of the chase, for anything I know he watches at the

'This is an extraordinary story,' observed Lightwood, who had heard it out with serious attention. 'I don't like

'You are a little hipped, dear fellow,' said Eugene; 'you have been too sedentary. Come and enjoy the

'I forgot to look for him when I was last out,' returned Eugene with the calmest indifference; 'but I dare say he

was there. Come! Be a British sportsman and enjoy the pleasures of the chase. It will do you good.'

'Bravo!' cried Eugene, rising too. 'Or, if Yoicks would be in better keeping, consider that I said Yoicks. Look

to your feet, Mortimer, for we shall try your boots. When you are ready, I amneed I say with a Hey Ho

'I am always serious, but just now I am a little excited by the glorious fact that a southerly wind and a cloudy

sky proclaim a hunting evening. Ready? So. We turn out the lamp and shut the door, and take the field.'

As the two friends passed out of the Temple into the public street, Eugene demanded with a show of

courteous patronage in which direction Mortimer would you like the run to be? 'There is a rather difficult

country about Bethnal Green,' said Eugene, 'and we have not taken in that direction lately. What is your

opinion of Bethnal Green?' Mortimer assented to Bethnal Green, and they turned eastward. 'Now, when we

come to St Paul's churchyard,' pursued Eugene, 'we'll loiter artfully, and I'll show you the schoolmaster.' But,

they both saw him, before they got there; alone, and stealing after them in the shadow of the houses, on the

'Get your wind,' said Eugene, 'for I am off directly. Does it occur to you that the boys of Merry England will

begin to deteriorate in an educational light, if this lasts long? The schoolmaster can't attend to me and the

At what a rate he went, to breathe the schoolmaster; and how he then lounged and loitered, to put his patience

to another kind of wear; what preposterous ways he took, with no other object on earth than to disappoint and

punish him; and how he wore him out by every piece of ingenuity that his eccentric humour could devise; all

this Lightwood noted, with a feeling of astonishment that so careless a man could be so wary, and that so idle

a man could take so much trouble. At last, far on in the third hour of the pleasures of the chase, when he had

brought the poor dogging wretch round again into the City, he twisted Mortimer up a few dark entries,

twisted him into a little square court, twisted him sharp round again, and they almost ran against Bradley

'And you see, as I was saying, Mortimer,' remarked Eugene aloud with the utmost coolness, as though there

were no one within hearing by themselves: 'and you see, as I was sayingundergoing grinding torments.'

It was not too strong a phrase for the occasion. Looking like the hunted and not the hunter, baffled, worn,

with the exhaustion of deferred hope and consuming hate and anger in his face, white lipped, wildeyed,

dragglehaired, seamed with jealousy and anger, and torturing himself with the conviction that he showed it

all and they exulted in it, he went by them in the dark, like a haggard head suspended in the air: so completely

Mortimer Lightwood was not an extraordinarily impressible man, but this face impressed him. He spoke of it

more than once on the remainder of the way home, and more than once when they got home.

They had been abed in their respective rooms two or three hours, when Eugene was partly awakened by

hearing a footstep going about, and was fully awakened by seeing Lightwood standing at his bedside.

'Odd!' said Eugene with a light laugh, 'I can.' And turned over, and fell asleep again.

There was no sleep for Bradley Headstone on that night when Eugene Wrayburn turned so easily in his bed;

there was no sleep for little Miss Peecher. Bradley consumed the lonely hours, and consumed himself in

haunting the spot where his careless rival lay a dreaming; little Miss Peecher wore them away in listening for

the return home of the master of her heart, and in sorrowfully presaging that much was amiss with him. Yet

more was amiss with him than Miss Peecher's simply arranged little workbox of thoughts, fitted with no

The state of the man was murderous, and he knew it. More; he irritated it, with a kind of perverse pleasure

akin to that which a sick man sometimes has in irritating a wound upon his body. Tied up all day with his

disciplined show upon him, subdued to the performance of his routine of educational tricks, encircled by a

gabbling crowd, he broke loose at night like an illtamed wild animal. Under his daily restraint, it was his

compensation, not his trouble, to give a glance towards his state at night, and to the freedom of its being

indulged. If great criminals told the truth which, being great criminals, they do notthey would very

rarely tell of their struggles against the crime. Their struggles are towards it. They buffet with opposing

waves, to gain the bloody shore, not to recede from it. This man perfectly comprehended that he hated his

rival with his strongest and worst forces, and that if he tracked him to Lizzie Hexam, his so doing would

never serve himself with her, or serve her. All his pains were taken, to the end that he might incense himself

with the sight of the detested figure in her company and favour, in her place of concealment. And he knew as

well what act of his would follow if he did, as he knew that his mother had borne him. Granted, that he may

not have held it necessary to make express mention to himself of the one familiar truth any more than of the

He knew equally well that he fed his wrath and hatred, and that he accumulated provocation and

selfjustification, by being made the nightly sport of the reckless and insolent Eugene. Knowing all

this,and still always going on with infinite endurance, pains, and perseverance, could his dark soul doubt

Baffled, exasperated, and weary, he lingered opposite the Temple gate when it closed on Wrayburn and

Lightwood, debating with himself should he go home for that time or should he watch longer. Possessed in

his jealousy by the fixed idea that Wrayburn was in the secret, if it were not altogether of his contriving,

Bradley was as confident of getting the better of him at last by sullenly sticking to him, as he would have

beenand often had beenof mastering any piece of study in the way of his vocation, by the like slow

persistent process. A man of rapid passions and sluggish intelligence, it had served him often and should

The suspicion crossed him as he rested in a doorway with his eyes upon the Temple gate, that perhaps she

was even concealed in that set of Chambers. It would furnish another reason for Wrayburn's purposeless

walks, and it might be. He thought of it and thought of it, until he resolved to steal up the stairs, if the

gatekeeper would let him through, and listen. So, the haggard head suspended in the air flitted across the

road, like the spectre of one of the many heads erst hoisted upon neighbouring Temple Bar, and stopped

'He came back with Mr Lightwood, I know, near upon two hours ago. But if he has gone to bed, I'll put a

The watchman said no more, but opened the gate, though rather doubtfully. Seeing, however, that the visitor

The haggard head floated up the dark staircase, and softly descended nearer to the floor outside the outer door

of the chambers. The doors of the rooms within, appeared to be standing open. There were rays of candlelight

from one of them, and there was the sound of a footstep going about. There were two voices. The words they

uttered were not distinguishable, but they were both the voices of men. In a few moments the voices were

silent, and there was no sound of footstep, and the inner light went out. If Lightwood could have seen the face

which kept him awake, staring and listening in the darkness outside the door as he spoke of it, he might have

'Not there,' said Bradley; 'but she might have been.' The head arose to its former height from the ground,

floated down the stair case again, and passed on to the gate. A man was standing there, in parley with the

Perceiving himself to be the antecedent, Bradley looked from the watchman to the man.

'This man is leaving a letter for Mr Lightwood,' the watchman explained, showing it in his hand; 'and I was

mentioning that a person had just gone up to Mr Lightwood's chambers. It might be the same business

'No,' the man assented in a surly way; 'my letterit's wrote by my daughter, but it's mineis about my

As Bradley passed out at the gate with an undecided foot, he heard it shut behind him, and heard the footstep

''Scuse me,' said the man, who appeared to have been drinking and rather stumbled at him than touched him,

to attract his attention: 'but might you be acquainted with the T'other Governor?'

'With,' returned the man, pointing backward over his right shoulder with his right thumb, 'the T'other

'Why look here,' hooking his proposition on his lefthand fingers with the forefinger of his right. 'There's two

Governors, ain't there? One and one, twoLawyer Lightwood, my first finger, he's one, ain't he? Well;

'I know quite as much of him,' said Bradley, with a frown and a distant look before him, 'as I want to know.'

'Hooroar!' cried the man. 'Hooroar T'other t'other Governor. Hooroar T'otherest Governor! I am of your way

'Don't make such a noise at this dead hour of the night. What are you talking about?'

'Look here, T'otherest Governor,' replied the man, becoming hoarsely confidential. 'The T'other Governor he's

always joked his jokes agin me, owing, as I believe, to my being a honest man as gets my living by the sweat

'T'otherest Governor,' returned the man in a tone of injured innocence, 'if you don't care to hear no more, don't

hear no more. You begun it. You said, and likeways showed pretty plain, as you warn't by no means friendly

to him. But I don't seek to force my company nor yet my opinions on no man. I am a honest man, that's what

I am. Put me in the dock anywhereI don't care where and I says, "My Lord, I am a honest man." Put me

in the witness box anywhereI don't care whereand I says the same to his lordship, and I kisses the

It was not so much in deference to these strong testimonials to character, as in his restless casting about for

any way or help towards the discovery on which he was concentrated, that Bradley Headstone replied: 'You

needn't take offence. I didn't mean to stop you. You were tooloud in the open street; that was all.'

''Totherest Governor,' replied Mr Riderhood, mollified and mysterious, 'I know wot it is to be loud, and I

know wot it is to be soft. Nat'rally I do. It would be a wonder if I did not, being by the Chris'en name of

Roger, which took it arter my own father, which took it from his own father, though which of our fam'ly fust

took it nat'ral I will not in any ways mislead you by undertakin' to say. And wishing that your elth may be

better than your looks, which your inside must be bad indeed if it's on the footing of your out.'

Startled by the implication that his face revealed too much of his mind, Bradley made an effort to clear his

brow. It might be worth knowing what this strange man's business was with Lightwood, or Wrayburn, or

both, at such an unseasonable hour. He set himself to find out, for the man might prove to be a messenger

'Wish I may die,' cried Mr Riderhood, with a hoarse laugh, 'if I warn't a goin' to say the selfsame words to

'And it chanced so with me,' said Riderhood. 'But I don't mind telling you how. Why should I mind telling

you? I'm a Deputy Lockkeeper up the river, and I was off duty yes'day, and I shall be on tomorrow.'

'Yes, and I come to London to look arter my private affairs. My private affairs is to get appinted to the Lock

as reg'lar keeper at fust hand, and to have the law of a busted B'lowBridge steamer which drownded of me. I

'The steamer,' said Mr Riderhood, obstinately, 'run me down and drownded of me. Interference on the part of

other parties brought me round; but I never asked 'em to bring me round, nor yet the steamer never asked 'em

'Was that your business at Mr Lightwood's chambers in the middle of the night?' asked Bradley, eyeing him

'That and to get a writing to be fusthand Lock Keeper. A recommendation in writing being looked for, who

else ought to give it to me? As I says in the letter in my daughter's hand, with my mark put to it to make it

good in law, Who but you, Lawyer Lightwood, ought to hand over this here stifficate, and who but you ought

to go in for damages on my account agin the Steamer? For (as I says under my mark) I have had trouble

enough along of you and your friend. If you, Lawyer Lightwood, had backed me good and true, and if the

T'other Governor had took me down correct (I says under my mark), I should have been worth money at the

present time, instead of having a bargeload of bad names chucked at me, and being forced to eat my words,

which is a unsatisfying sort of food wotever a man's appetite! And when you mention the middle of the night,

T'otherest Governor,' growled Mr Riderhood, winding up his monotonous summary of his wrongs, 'throw

your eye on this here bundle under my arm, and bear in mind that I'm a walking back to my Lock, and that

Bradley Headstone's face had changed during this latter recital, and he had observed the speaker with a more

'Do you know,' said he, after a pause, during which they walked on side by side, 'that I believe I could tell

'Prove your opinion,' was the answer, accompanied with a stop and a stare. 'Try.'

As Bradley walked on meditating, the Rogue walked on at his side muttering. The purport of the muttering

was: 'that Rogue Riderhood, by George! seemed to be made public property on, now, and that every man

seemed to think himself free to handle his name as if it was a Street Pump.' The purport of the meditating

They had walked along the Strand, and into Pall Mall, and had turned uphill towards Hyde Park Corner;

Bradley Headstone waiting on the pace and lead of Riderhood, and leaving him to indicate the course. So

slow were the schoolmaster's thoughts, and so indistinct his purposes when they were but tributary to the one

absorbing purpose or rather when, like dark trees under a stormy sky, they only lined the long vista at the end

of which he saw those two figures of Wrayburn and Lizzie on which his eyes were fixed that at least a

good halfmile was traversed before he spoke again. Even then, it was only to ask:

'Twenty mile and oddcall it fiveandtwenty mile and odd, if you likeup stream,' was the sullen reply.

The schoolmaster put his hand in his pocket, and produced two halfcrowns, and placed them in Mr

Riderhood's palm: who stopped at a convenient doorstep to ring them both, before acknowledging their

'There's one thing about you, T'otherest Governor,' said Riderhood, faring on again, 'as looks well and goes

fur. You're a ready money man. Now;' when he had carefully pocketed the coins on that side of himself

'Why, o' course I know THAT,' said Riderhood, as arguing something that was selfevident. 'O' course I

know very well as no man in his right senses would suppose as anythink would make me give it up agin

'I don't know that I want anything for it. Or if I do want anything for it, I don't know what it is.' Bradley gave

this answer in a stolid, vacant, and selfcommuning manner, which Mr Riderhood found very extraordinary.

'You have no goodwill towards this Wrayburn,' said Bradley, coming to the name in a reluctant and forced

'It's as much for that as anything else. It's something to be agreed with, on a subject that occupies so much of

'It don't agree with YOU,' returned Mr Riderhood, bluntly. 'No! It don't, T'otherest Governor, and it's no use a

lookin' as if you wanted to make out that it did. I tell you it rankles in you. It rankles in you, rusts in you, and

'Say that it does so,' returned Bradley with quivering lips; 'is there no cause for it?'

'Haven't you yourself declared that the fellow has heaped provocations, insults, and affronts on you, or

something to that effect? He has done the same by me. He is made of venomous insults and affronts, from the

crown of his head to the sole of his foot. Are you so hopeful or so stupid, as not to know that he and the other

'If they did! They will. Let me ask you a question. I know something more than your name about you; I knew

'When did I last set eyes upon his daughter, T'otherest Governor?' repeated Mr Riderhood, growing

The Rogue had got the clue he wanted, though he held it with a clumsy hand. Looking perplexedly at the

passionate face, as if he were trying to work out a sum in his mind, he slowly answered:

'Who's him?' asked Riderhood, taking off his hat and rubbing his forehead, as he directed a dull look at his

'Oh! HIM!' said Riderhood, who had craftily worked the schoolmaster into this corner, that he might again

take note of his face under its evil possession. 'I'd know HIM among a thousand.'

'Did you' Bradley tried to ask it quietly; but, do what he might with his voice, he could not subdue his

'I see 'em together, T'otherest Governor, on the very day when Gaffer was towed ashore.'

Bradley could have hidden a reserved piece of information from the sharp eyes of a whole inquisitive class,

but he could not veil from the eyes of the ignorant Riderhood the withheld question next in his breast. 'You

shall put it plain if you want it answered,' thought the Rogue, doggedly; 'I ain't agoing a wolunteering.'

'Well! was he insolent to her too?' asked Bradley after a struggle. 'Or did he make a show of being kind to

'He made a show of being most uncommon kind to her,' said Riderhood. 'By George! now I'

His flying off at a tangent was indisputably natural. Bradley looked at him for the reason.

'Now I think of it,' said Mr Riderhood, evasively, for he was substituting those words for 'Now I see you so

jealous,' which was the phrase really in his mind; 'P'r'aps he went and took me down wrong, a purpose, on

The baseness of confirming him in this suspicion or pretence of one (for he could not have really entertained

it), was a line's breadth beyond the mark the schoolmaster had reached. The baseness of communing and

intriguing with the fellow who would have set that stain upon her, and upon her brother too, was attained.

The line's breadth further, lay beyond. He made no reply, but walked on with a lowering face.

What he might gain by this acquaintance, he could not work out in his slow and cumbrous thoughts. The man

had an injury against the object of his hatred, and that was something; though it was less than he supposed,

for there dwelt in the man no such deadly rage and resentment as burned in his own breast. The man knew

her, and might by a fortunate chance see her, or hear of her; that was something, as enlisting one pair of eyes

and ears the more. The man was a bad man, and willing enough to be in his pay. That was something, for his

own state and purpose were as bad as bad could be, and he seemed to derive a vague support from the

Suddenly he stood still, and asked Riderhood pointblank if he knew where she was? Clearly, he did not

know. He asked Riderhood if he would be willing, in case any intelligence of her, or of Wrayburn as seeking

her or associating with her, should fall in his way, to communicate it if it were paid for? He would be very

willing indeed. He was 'agin 'em both,' he said with an oath, and for why? 'Cause they had both stood betwixt

'It will not be long then,' said Bradley Headstone, after some more discourse to this effect, 'before we see one

another again. Here is the country road, and here is the day. Both have come upon me by surprise.'

'But, T'otherest Governor,' urged Mr Riderhood, 'I don't know where to find you.'

'It is of no consequence. I know where to find you, and I'll come to your Lock.'

'But, T'otherest Governor,' urged Mr Riderhood again, 'no luck never come yet of a dry acquaintance. Let's

Bradley assenting, went with him into an early publichouse, haunted by unsavoury smells of musty hay and

stale straw, where returning carts, farmers' men, gaunt dogs, fowls of a beery breed, and certain human

nightbirds fluttering home to roost, were solacing themselves after their several manners; and where not one

of the nightbirds hovering about the sloppy bar failed to discern at a glance in the passionwasted nightbird

An inspiration of affection for a halfdrunken carter going his way led to Mr Riderhood's being elevated on a

high heap of baskets on a waggon, and pursuing his journey recumbent on his back with his head on his

bundle. Bradley then turned to retrace his steps, and byandby struck off through littletraversed ways, and

byand by reached school and home. Up came the sun to find him washed and brushed, methodically

dressed in decent black coat and waistcoat, decent formal black tie, and pepperandsalt pantaloons, with his

decent silver watch in its pocket, and its decent hairguard round his neck: a scholastic huntsman clad for the

Yet more really bewitched than the miserable creatures of the muchlamented times, who accused

themselves of impossibilities under a contagion of horror and the strongly suggestive influences of Torture,

he had been ridden hard by Evil Spirits in the night that was newly gone. He had been spurred and whipped

and heavily sweated. If a record of the sport had usurped the places of the peaceful texts from Scripture on

the wall, the most advanced of the scholars might have taken fright and run away from the master.

Up came the sun, steaming all over London, and in its glorious impartiality even condescending to make

prismatic sparkles in the whiskers of Mr Alfred Lammle as he sat at breakfast. In need of some brightening

from without, was Mr Alfred Lammle, for he had the air of being dull enough within, and looked grievously

Mrs Alfred Lammle faced her lord. The happy pair of swindlers, with the comfortable tie between them that

each had swindled the other, sat moodily observant of the tablecloth. Things looked so gloomy in the

breakfastroom, albeit on the sunny side of Sackville Street, that any of the family tradespeople glancing

through the blinds might have taken the hint to send in his account and press for it. But this, indeed, most of

'It seems to me,' said Mrs Lammle, 'that you have had no money at all, ever since we have been married.'

'What seems to you,' said Mr Lammle, 'to have been the case, may possibly have been the case. It doesn't

Was it the speciality of Mr and Mrs Lammle, or does it ever obtain with other loving couples? In these

matrimonial dialogues they never addressed each other, but always some invisible presence that appeared to

take a station about midway between them. Perhaps the skeleton in the cupboard comes out to be talked to, on

'I have never seen any money in the house,' said Mrs Lammle to the skeleton, 'except my own annuity. That I

'You needn't take the trouble of swearing,' said Mr Lammle to the skeleton; 'once more, it doesn't matter. You

'In the way of getting credit, and living well,' said Mr Lammle. Perhaps the skeleton laughed scornfully on

being intrusted with this question and this answer; certainly Mrs Lammle did, and Mr Lammle did.

After this, Mrs Lammle looked disdainfully at the skeletonbut without carrying the look on to Mr

Lammleand drooped her eyes. After that, Mr Lammle did exactly the same thing, and drooped HIS eyes. A

servant then entering with toast, the skeleton retired into the closet, and shut itself up.

'Sophronia,' said Mr Lammle, when the servant had withdrawn. And then, very much louder: 'Sophronia!'

'Attend to me, if you please.' He eyed her sternly until she did attend, and then went on. 'I want to take

counsel with you. Come, come; no more trifling. You know our league and covenant. We are to work

together for our joint interest, and you are as knowing a hand as I am. We shouldn't be together, if you were

Mr Lammle plunged into his whiskers for reflection, and came out hopeless: 'No; as adventurers we are

obliged to play rash games for chances of high winnings, and there has been a run of luck against us.'

'Deuce a bit. I have given a Jew a bill of sale on this furniture, and he could take it tomorrow, today, now.

'Knew him. Cautioned me against him before I got into his claws. Couldn't persuade him then, in behalf of

'I mean that the Jew has not yet done what he might have done, and that Fledgeby takes the credit of having

'Sophronia, I never believe anybody. I never have, my dear, since I believed you. But it looks like it.'

Having given her this backhanded reminder of her mutinous observations to the skeleton, Mr Lammle rose

from tableperhaps, the better to conceal a smile, and a white dint or two about his noseand took a turn

'If we could have packed the brute off with Georgiana;but however; that's spilled milk.'

As Lammle, standing gathering up the skirts of his dressinggown with his back to the fire, said this, looking

down at his wife, she turned pale and looked down at the ground. With a sense of disloyalty upon her, and

perhaps with a sense of personal danger for she was afraid of himeven afraid of his hand and afraid of

his foot, though he had never done her violenceshe hastened to put herself right in his eyes.

'Beg money, borrow money, or steal money. It would be all one to us, Sophronia,' her husband struck in.

'No doubt. To offer another original and undeniable remark, Sophronia, two and two make four.'

But, seeing that she was turning something in her mind, he gathered up the skirts of his dressinggown again,

and, tucking them under one arm, and collecting his ample whiskers in his other hand, kept his eye upon her,

'It is natural, Alfred,' she said, looking up with some timidity into his face, 'to think in such an emergency of

'Of course I have repeatedly thought of the Boffins, Sophronia,' he resumed, after a fruitless silence; 'but I

have seen my way to nothing. They are well guarded. That infernal Secretary stands between them

'If he could be got rid of?' said she, brightening a little, after more casting about.

'If working him out of the way could be presented in the light of a service to Mr Boffin?'

'We have remarked lately, Alfred, that the old man is turning very suspicious and distrustful.'

'Miserly too, my dear; which is far the most unpromising for us. Nevertheless, take time, Sophronia, take

'Suppose we should address ourselves to that tendency in him of which we have made ourselves quite sure.

'Suppose my conscience should not allow me to keep to myself any longer what that upstart girl told me of

the Secretary's having made a declaration to her. Suppose my conscience should oblige me to repeat it to Mr

'Suppose I so repeated it to Mr Boffin, as to insinuate that my sensitive delicacy and honour'

'As to insinuate that OUR sensitive delicacy and honour,' she resumed, with a bitter stress upon the phrase,

'would not allow us to be silent parties to so mercenary and designing a speculation on the Secretary's part,

and so gross a breach of faith towards his confiding employer. Suppose I had imparted my virtuous

uneasiness to my excellent husband, and he had said, in his integrity, "Sophronia, you must immediately

'Once more, Sophronia,' observed Lammle, changing the leg on which he stood, 'I rather like that.'

'You remark that he is well guarded,' she pursued. 'I think so too. But if this should lead to his discharging his

'Having, in our unimpeachable rectitude, done him the service of opening his eyes to the treachery of the

person he trusted, we shall have established a claim upon him and a confidence with him. Whether it can be

made much of, or little of, we must wait because we can't help itto see. Probably we shall make the

'Do you think it impossible,' she asked, in the same cold plotting way, 'that you might replace the Secretary?'

'Not impossible, Sophronia. It might be brought about. At any rate it might be skilfully led up to.'

She nodded her understanding of the hint, as she looked at the fire. 'Mr Lammle,' she said, musingly: not

without a slight ironical touch: 'Mr Lammle would be so delighted to do anything in his power. Mr Lammle,

himself a man of business as well as a capitalist. Mr Lammle, accustomed to be intrusted with the most

delicate affairs. Mr Lammle, who has managed my own little fortune so admirably, but who, to be sure,

began to make his reputation with the advantage of being a man of property, above temptation, and beyond

Mr Lammle smiled, and even patted her on the head. In his sinister relish of the scheme, as he stood above

her, making it the subject of his cogitations, he seemed to have twice as much nose on his face as he had ever

He stood pondering, and she sat looking at the dusty fire without moving, for some time. But, the moment he

began to speak again she looked up with a wince and attended to him, as if that double dealing of hers had

'It appears to me, Sophronia, that you have omitted one branch of the subject. Perhaps not, for women

Mrs Lammle shook her head. 'She has an immensely strong hold upon them both, Alfred. Not to be compared

'But the dear child,' said Lammle, with a crooked smile, 'ought to have been open with her benefactor and

benefactress. The darling love ought to have reposed unbounded confidence in her benefactor and

'Well! Women understand women,' said her husband, rather disappointed. 'I don't press it. It might be the

making of our fortune to make a clean sweep of them both. With me to manage the property, and my wife to

Again shaking her head, she returned: 'They will never quarrel with the girl. They will never punish the girl.

'Well!' cried Lammle, shrugging his shoulders, 'so be it: only always remember that we don't want her.'

'You cannot begin too soon, Sophronia. As I have told you, the condition of our affairs is desperate, and may

'I must secure Mr Boffin alone, Alfred. If his wife was present, she would throw oil upon the waters. I know I

should fail to move him to an angry outburst, if his wife was there. And as to the girl herselfas I am going

'No, certainly not. They would wonder among themselves why I wrote, and I want to have him wholly

'I would rather not do that either. Leave it to me. Spare me the little carriage for today, and for tomorrow

It was barely settled when a manly form was seen to pass the windows and heard to knock and ring. 'Here's

Fledgeby,' said Lammle. 'He admires you, and has a high opinion of you. I'll be out. Coax him to use his

influence with the Jew. His name is Riah, of the House of Pubsey and Co.' Adding these words under his

breath, lest he should be audible in the erect ears of Mr Fledgeby, through two keyholes and the hall,

'Mr Fledgeby,' said Mrs Lammle, giving him a very gracious reception, 'so glad to see you! My poor dear

Alfred, who is greatly worried just now about his affairs, went out rather early. Dear Mr Fledgeby, do sit

Dear Mr Fledgeby did sit down, and satisfied himself (or, judging from the expression of his countenance,

DISsatisfied himself) that nothing new had occurred in the way of whiskersprout since he came round the

'Dear Mr Fledgeby, it was needless to mention to you that my poor dear Alfred is much worried about his

affairs at present, for he has told me what a comfort you are to him in his temporary difficulties, and what a

'I didn't know,' remarked Mr Fledgeby, trying a new part of his chair, 'but that Lammle might be reserved

'And as the wife of Alfred, may I, dear Mr Fledgeby, wholly without his authority or knowledge, as I am sure

your discernment will perceive, entreat you to continue that great service, and once more use your

wellearned influence with Mr Riah for a little more indulgence? The name I have heard Alfred mention,

'The name of the Creditor is Riah,' said Mr Fledgehy, with a rather uncompromising accent on his

'Oh yes!' exclaimed Mrs Lammle, clasping her hands with a certain gushing wildness. 'Pubsey and Co.!'

'The pleading of the feminine' Mr Fledgeby began, and there stuck so long for a word to get on with, that

'No,' said Mr Fledgeby, 'Genderis ever what a man is bound to listen to, and I wish it rested with myself.

'Try. Try once more, dearest Mr Fledgeby. What is there you cannot do, if you will!'

'Thank you,' said Fledgeby, 'you're very complimentary to say so. I don't mind trying him again, at your

request. But of course I can't answer for the consequences. Riah is a tough subject, and when he says he'll do

'Exactly so,' cried Mrs Lammle, 'and when he says to you he'll wait, he'll wait.'

('She is a devilish clever woman,' thought Fledgeby. 'I didn't see that opening, but she spies it out and cuts

'In point of fact, dear Mr Fledgeby,' Mrs Lammle went on in a very interesting manner, 'not to affect

concealment of Alfred's hopes, to you who are so much his friend, there is a distant break in his horizon.'

This figure of speech seemed rather mysterious to Fascination Fledgeby, who said, 'There's a what in

'Alfred, dear Mr Fledgeby, discussed with me this very morning before he went out, some prospects he has,

'O yes!' Here Mrs Lammle brought her handkerchief into play. 'And you know, dear Mr Fledgebyyou who

study the human heart, and study the worldwhat an affliction it would be to lose position and to lose credit,

'Oh!' said Fledgeby. 'Then you think, Mrs Lammle, that if Lammle got time, he wouldn't burst up?To use

an expression,' Mr Fledgeby apologetically explained, 'which is adopted in the Money Market.'

'That makes all the difference,' said Fledgeby. 'I'll make a point of seeing Riah at once.'

'Not at all,' said Fledgeby. She gave him her hand. 'The hand,' said Mr Fledgeby, 'of a lovely and

'It wasn't what I was going to say,' returned Fledgeby, who never would, under any circumstances, accept a

suggested expression, 'but you're very complimentary. May I imprint aa oneupon it? Good morning!'

Said Fledgeby, looking back at the door and respectfully kissing his hand, 'You may depend upon it.'

In fact, Mr Fledgeby sped on his errand of mercy through the streets, at so brisk a rate that his feet might have

been winged by all the good spirits that wait on Generosity. They might have taken up their station in his

breast, too, for he was blithe and merry. There was quite a fresh trill in his voice, when, arriving at the

countinghouse in St Mary Axe, and finding it for the moment empty, he trolled forth at the foot of the

'Halloa!' said Fledgeby, falling back, with a wink. 'You mean mischief, Jerusalem!'

'Yes you do,' said Fledgeby. 'Oh, you sinner! Oh, you dodger! What! You're going to act upon that bill of sale

at Lammle's, are you? Nothing will turn you, won't it? You won't be put off for another single minute, won't

Ordered to immediate action by the master's tone and look, the old man took up his hat from the little counter

'You have been told that he might pull through it, if you didn't go in to win, WideAwake; have you?' said

Fledgeby. 'And it's not your game that he should pull through it; ain't it? You having got security, and there

The old man stood irresolute and uncertain for a moment, as if there might be further instructions for him in

'Asks me if he is going!' exclaimed Fledgeby. 'Asks me, as if he didn't know his own purpose! Asks me, as if

he hadn't got his hat on ready! Asks me, as if his sharp old eyewhy, it cuts like a knifewasn't looking at

Fascination Fledgeby, left alone in the countinghouse, strolled about with his hat on one side, whistling, and

investigating the drawers, and prying here and there for any small evidences of his being cheated, but could

find none. 'Not his merit that he don't cheat me,' was Mr Fledgeby's commentary delivered with a wink, 'but

my precaution.' He then with a lazy grandeur asserted his rights as lord of Pubsey and Co. by poking his cane

at the stools and boxes, and spitting in the fireplace, and so loitered royally to the window and looked out into

the narrow street, with his small eyes just peering over the top of Pubsey and Co.'s blind. As a blind in more

senses than one, it reminded him that he was alone in the countinghouse with the front door open. He was

moving away to shut it, lest he should be injudiciously identified with the establishment, when he was

This some one was the dolls' dressmaker, with a little basket on her arm, and her crutch stick in her hand. Her

keen eyes had espied Mr Fledgeby before Mr Fledgeby had espied her, and he was paralysed in his purpose

of shutting her out, not so much by her approaching the door, as by her favouring him with a shower of nods,

the instant he saw her. This advantage she improved by hobbling up the steps with such despatch that before

Mr Fledgeby could take measures for her finding nobody at home, she was face to face with him in the

Fledgeby had dropped into a chair, in the attitude of one waiting wearily. 'I suppose he will be back soon,' he

replied; 'he has cut out and left me expecting him back, in an odd way. Haven't I seen you before?'

'Once beforeif you had your eyesight,' replied Miss Wren; the conditional clause in an undertone.

'When you were carrying on some games up at the top of the house. I remember. How's your friend?'

'Never mind,' said Mr Fledgeby, shutting up one eye, 'any of your friends, all your friends. Are they pretty

Somewhat confounded, Miss Wren parried the pleasantry, and sat down in a corner behind the door, with her

'I beg your pardon, sir, but I am used to find Mr Riah at this time, and so I generally come at this time. I only

want to buy my poor little two shillings' worth of waste. Perhaps you'll kindly let me have it, and I'll trot off

'I let you have it?' said Fledgeby, turning his head towards her; for he had been sitting blinking at the light,

and feeling his cheek. 'Why, you don't really suppose that I have anything to do with the place, or the

'Well; but you said so too,' returned Miss Wren. 'Or at least you took on like the master, and didn't contradict

'One of his dodges,' said Mr Fledgeby, with a cool and contemptuous shrug. 'He's made of dodges. He said to

me, "Come up to the top of the house, sir, and I'll show you a handsome girl. But I shall call you the master."

So I went up to the top of the house and he showed me the handsome girl (very well worth looking at she

was), and I was called the master. I don't know why. I dare say he don't. He loves a dodge for its own sake;

being,' added Mr Fledgeby, after casting about for an expressive phrase, 'the dodgerest of all the dodgers.'

'Oh my head!' cried the dolls' dressmaker, holding it with both her hands, as if it were cracking. 'You can't

This repudiation was not only an act of deliberate policy on Fledgeby's part, in case of his being surprised by

any other caller, but was also a retort upon Miss Wren for her oversharpness, and a pleasant instance of his

humour as regarded the old Jew. 'He has got a bad name as an old Jew, and he is paid for the use of it, and I'll

have my money's worth out of him.' This was Fledgeby's habitual reflection in the way of business, and it was

sharpened just now by the old man's presuming to have a secret from him: though of the secret itself, as

Miss Wren with a fallen countenance sat behind the door looking thoughtfully at the ground, and the long and

patient silence had again set in for some time, when the expression of Mr Fledgeby's face betokened that

through the upper portion of the door, which was of glass, he saw some one faltering on the brink of the

countinghouse. Presently there was a rustle and a tap, and then some more rustling and another tap.

Fledgeby taking no notice, the door was at length softly opened, and the dried face of a mild little elderly

'I am waiting for him, sir,' returned Mr Fledgeby. 'He went out and left me here. I expect him back every

The gentleman took a chair, and put his hand to his forehead, as if he were in a melancholy frame of mind.

The little dried gentleman was so occupied with his own depressed reflections that he did not notice the

remark until the sound of Mr Fledgeby's voice had died out of the countinghouse. Then he started, and said:

Again the little dried gentleman put his hand to his forehead, and again Mr Fledgeby seemed to enjoy his

doing it. When the gentleman changed his attitude with a sigh, Fledgeby spake with a grin.

'Had the pleasure of dining with you at Lammle's,' said Fledgeby. 'Even have the honour of being a

connexion of yours. An unexpected sort of place this to meet in; but one never knows, when one gets into the

City, what people one may knock up against. I hope you have your health, and are enjoying yourself.'

There might have been a touch of impertinence in the last words; on the other hand, it might have been but

the native grace of Mr Fledgeby's manner. Mr Fledgeby sat on a stool with a foot on the rail of another stool,

and his hat on. Mr Twemlow had uncovered on looking in at the door, and remained so. Now the

conscientious Twemlow, knowing what he had done to thwart the gracious Fledgeby, was particularly

disconcerted by this encounter. He was as ill at ease as a gentleman well could be. He felt himself bound to

conduct himself stiffly towards Fledgeby, and he made him a distant bow. Fledgeby made his small eyes

smaller in taking special note of his manner. The dolls' dressmaker sat in her corner behind the door, with her

eyes on the ground and her hands folded on her basket, holding her crutchstick between them, and

'He's a long time,' muttered Mr Fledgeby, looking at his watch. 'What time may you make it, Mr Twemlow?'

'As near as a toucher,' assented Fledgeby. 'I hope, Mr Twemlow, your business here may be of a more

Fledgeby again made his small eyes smaller, as he glanced with great complacency at Twemlow, who was

'What I know of Mr Riah,' said Fledgeby, with a very disparaging utterance of his name, 'leads me to believe

that this is about the shop for disagreeable business. I have always found him the bitingest and tightest screw

Mr Twemlow acknowledged the remark with a little distant bow. It evidently made him nervous.

'So much so,' pursued Fledgeby, 'that if it wasn't to be true to a friend, nobody should catch me waiting here a

single minute. But if you have friends in adversity, stand by them. That's what I say and act up to.'

The equitable Twemlow felt that this sentiment, irrespective of the utterer, demanded his cordial assent. 'You

are very right, sir,' he rejoined with spirit. 'You indicate the generous and manly course.

'Glad to have your approbation,' returned Fledgeby. 'It's a coincidence, Mr Twemlow;' here he descended

from his perch, and sauntered towards him; 'that the friends I am standing by today are the friends at whose

'And when she appealed to me this morning, to come and try what I could do to pacify their creditor, this Mr

Riahthat I certainly have gained some little influence with in transacting business for another friend, but

nothing like so much as she supposesand when a woman like that spoke to me as her dearest Mr Fledgeby,

'Nothing but come. And so I came. But why,' said Fledgeby, putting his hands in his pockets and

counterfeiting deep meditation, 'why Riah should have started up, when I told him that the Lammles entreated

him to hold over a Bill of Sale he has on all their effects; and why he should have cut out, saying he would be

back directly; and why he should have left me here alone so long; I cannot understand.'

The chivalrous Twemlow, Knight of the Simple Heart, was not in a condition to offer any suggestion. He was

too penitent, too remorseful. For the first time in his life he had done an underhanded action, and he had done

wrong. He had secretly interposed against this confiding young man, for no better real reason than because

But, the confiding young man proceeded to heap coals of fire on his sensitive head.

'I beg your pardon, Mr Twemlow; you see I am acquainted with the nature of the affairs that are transacted

here. Is there anything I can do for you here? You have always been brought up as a gentleman, and never as

a man of business;' another touch of possible impertinence in this place; 'and perhaps you are but a poor man

'I am even a poorer man of business than I am a man, sir,' returned Twemlow, 'and I could hardly express my

deficiency in a stronger way. I really do not so much as clearly understand my position in the matter on which

I am brought here. But there are reasons which make me very delicate of accepting your assistance. I am

Good childish creature! Condemned to a passage through the world by such narrow little dimlylighted ways,

'Perhaps,' said Fledgeby, 'you may be a little proud of entering on the topic,having been brought up as a

'It's not that, sir,' returned Twemlow, 'it's not that. I hope I distinguish between true pride and false pride.'

'I have no pride at all, myself,' said Fledgeby, 'and perhaps I don't cut things so fine as to know one from

t'other. But I know this is a place where even a man of business needs his wits about him; and if mine can be

'I don't, you know,' proceeded Fledgeby with an illfavoured glance, 'entertain the vanity of supposing that

my wits could be of any use to you in society, but they might be here. You cultivate society and society

cultivates you, but Mr Riah's not society. In society, Mr Riah is kept dark; eh, Mr Twemlow?'

Twemlow, much disturbed, and with his hand fluttering about his forehead, replied: 'Quite true.'

The confiding young man besought him to state his case. The innocent Twemlow, expecting Fledgeby to be

astounded by what he should unfold, and not for an instant conceiving the possibility of its happening every

day, but treating of it as a terrible phenomenon occurring in the course of ages, related how that he had had a

deceased friend, a married civil officer with a family, who had wanted money for change of place on change

of post, and how he, Twemlow, had 'given him his name,' with the usual, but in the eyes of Twemlow almost

incredible result that he had been left to repay what he had never had. How, in the course of years, he had

reduced the principal by trifling sums, 'having,' said Twemlow, 'always to observe great economy, being in

the enjoyment of a fixed income limited in extent, and that depending on the munificence of a certain

nobleman,' and had always pinched the full interest out of himself with punctual pinches. How he had come,

in course of time, to look upon this one only debt of his life as a regular quarterly drawback, and no worse,

when 'his name' had some way fallen into the possession of Mr Riah, who had sent him notice to redeem it by

paying up in full, in one plump sum, or take tremendous consequences. This, with hazy remembrances of

how he had been carried to some office to 'confess judgment' (as he recollected the phrase), and how he had

been carried to another office where his life was assured for somebody not wholly unconnected with the

sherry trade whom he remembered by the remarkable circumstance that he had a Straduarius violin to dispose

of, and also a Madonna, formed the sum and substance of Mr Twemlow's narrative. Through which stalked

the shadow of the awful Snigsworth, eyed afar off by moneylenders as Security in the Mist, and menacing

To all, Mr Fledgeby listened with the modest gravity becoming a confiding young man who knew it all

beforehand, and, when it was finished, seriously shook his head. 'I don't like, Mr Twemlow,' said Fledgeby, 'I

don't like Riah's calling in the principal. If he's determined to call it in, it must come.'

'To prison,' returned Fledgeby. Whereat Mr Twemlow leaned his innocent head upon his hand, and moaned a

'However,' said Fledgeby, appearing to pluck up his spirits, 'we'll hope it's not so bad as that comes to. If

you'll allow me, I'll mention to Mr Riah when he comes in, who you are, and I'll tell him you're my friend,

and I'll say my say for you, instead of your saying it for yourself; I may be able to do it in a more

'I thank you again and again, sir,' said Twemlow. 'I am strong, strongly, disinclined to avail myself of your

generosity, though my helplessness yields. For I cannot but feel that Ito put it in the mildest form of

'Where CAN he be?' muttered Fledgeby, referring to his watch again. 'What CAN he have gone out for? Did

'He is a thorough Jew to look at, but he is a more thorough Jew to deal with. He's worst when he's quiet. If

he's quiet, I shall take it as a very bad sign. Keep your eye upon him when he comes in, and, if he's quiet,

With these words, which had the effect of causing the harmless Twemlow painful agitation, Mr Fledgeby

The old man, glancing at the stranger, stood stockstill. He perceived that his master was leading up to the

'I really thought,' repeated Fledgeby slowly, 'that you were lost, Mr Riah. Why, now I look at youbut no,

Hat in hand, the old man lifted his head, and looked distressfully at Fledgeby as seeking to know what new

'You can't have rushed out to get the start of everybody else, and put in that bill of sale at Lammle's?' said

'Oh my eye!' cried Fledgeby. 'Tut, tut, tut! Dear, dear, dear! Well! I knew you were a hard customer, Mr Riah,

'Sir,' said the old man, with great uneasiness, 'I do as I am directed. I am not the principal here. I am but the

'Don't say so,' retorted Fledgeby, secretly exultant as the old man stretched out his hands, with a shrinking

action of defending himself against the sharp construction of the two observers. 'Don't play the tune of the

trade, Mr Riah. You've a right to get in your debts, if you're determined to do it, but don't pretend what every

one in your line regularly pretends. At least, don't do it to me. Why should you, Mr Riah? You know I know

The old man clasped the skirt of his long coat with his disengaged hand, and directed a wistful look at

'And don't,' said Fledgeby, 'don't, I entreat you as a favour, Mr Riah, be so devilish meek, for I know what'll

The Jew turned to him and bowed. That poor lamb bowed in return; polite, and terrified.

'I have made such a failure,' proceeded Fledgeby, 'in trying to do anything with you for my friend Lammle,

that I've hardly a hope of doing anything with you for my friend (and connexion indeed) Mr Twemlow. But I

do think that if you would do a favour for anybody, you would for me, and I won't fail for want of trying, and

I've passed my promise to Mr Twemlow besides. Now, Mr Riah, here is Mr Twemlow. Always good for his

interest, always coming up to time, always paying his little way. Now, why should you press Mr Twemlow?

The old man looked into Fledgeby's little eyes for any sign of leave to be easy with Mr Twemlow; but there

'Mr Twemlow is no connexion of yours, Mr Riah,' said Fledgeby; 'you can't want to be even with him for

having through life gone in for a gentleman and hung on to his Family. If Mr Twemlow has a contempt for

'But pardon me,' interposed the gentle victim, 'I have not. I should consider it presumption.'

'There, Mr Riah!' said Fledgeby, 'isn't that handsomely said? Come! Make terms with me for Mr Twemlow.'

The old man looked again for any sign of permission to spare the poor little gentleman. No. Mr Fledgeby

'I am very sorry, Mr Twemlow,' said Riah. 'I have my instructions. I am invested with no authority for

'In full and slap down, do you mean, Mr Riah?' asked Fledgeby, to make things quite explicit.

Mr Fledgeby shook his head deploringly at Twemlow, and mutely expressed in reference to the venerable

figure standing before him with eyes upon the ground: 'What a Monster of an Israelite this is!'

The old man lifted up his eyes once more to the little eyes in Mr Fledgeby's head, with some reviving hope

'Mr Riah, it's of no use my holding back the fact. There's a certain great party in the background in Mr

'Now, I'll put it as a plain point of business, Mr Riah. Are you fully determined (as a plain point of business)

either to have that said great party's security, or that said great party's money?'

'Fully determined,' answered Riah, as he read his master's face, and learnt the book.

'Not at all caring for, and indeed as it seems to me rather enjoying,' said Fledgeby, with peculiar unction, 'the

precious kickup and row that will come off between Mr Twemlow and the said great party?'

This required no answer, and received none. Poor Mr Twemlow, who had betrayed the keenest mental terrors

since his noble kinsman loomed in the perspective, rose with a sigh to take his departure. 'I thank you very

much, sir,' he said, offering Fledgeby his feverish hand. 'You have done me an unmerited service. Thank you,

'Don't mention it,' answered Fledgeby. 'It's a failure so far, but I'll stay behind, and take another touch at Mr

'Do not deceive yourself Mr Twemlow,' said the Jew, then addressing him directly for the first time. 'There is

no hope for you. You must expect no leniency here. You must pay in full, and you cannot pay too promptly,

or you will be put to heavy charges. Trust nothing to me, sir. Money, money, money.' When he had said these

words in an emphatic manner, he acknowledged Mr Twemlow's still polite motion of his head, and that

Fascination Fledgeby was in such a merry vein when the counting house was cleared of him, that he had

nothing for it but to go to the window, and lean his arms on the frame of the blind, and have his silent laugh

out, with his back to his subordinate. When he turned round again with a composed countenance, his

subordinate still stood in the same place, and the dolls' dressmaker sat behind the door with a look of horror.

'Halloa!' cried Mr Fledgeby, 'you're forgetting this young lady, Mr Riah, and she has been waiting long

enough too. Sell her her waste, please, and give her good measure if you can make up your mind to do the

He looked on for a time, as the Jew filled her little basket with such scraps as she was used to buy; but, his

merry vein coming on again, he was obliged to turn round to the window once more, and lean his arms on the

'There, my Cinderella dear,' said the old man in a whisper, and with a wornout look, 'the basket's full now.

'Don't call me your Cinderella dear,' returned Miss Wren. 'O you cruel godmother!'

She shook that emphatic little forefinger of hers in his face at parting, as earnestly and reproachfully as she

'You are not the godmother at all!' said she. 'You are the Wolf in the Forest, the wicked Wolf! And if ever my

Having assisted at a few more expositions of the lives of Misers, Mr Venus became almost indispensable to

the evenings at the Bower. The circumstance of having another listener to the wonders unfolded by Wegg, or,

as it were, another calculator to cast up the guineas found in teapots, chimneys, racks and mangers, and other

such banks of deposit, seemed greatly to heighten Mr Boffin's enjoyment; while Silas Wegg, for his part,

though of a jealous temperament which might under ordinary circumstances have resented the anatomist's

getting into favour, was so very anxious to keep his eye on that gentlemanlest, being too much left to

himself, he should be tempted to play any tricks with the precious document in his keepingthat he never

lost an opportunity of commending him to Mr Boffin's notice as a third party whose company was much to be

desired. Another friendly demonstration towards him Mr Wegg now regularly gratified. After each sitting

was over, and the patron had departed, Mr Wegg invariably saw Mr Venus home. To be sure, he as invariably

requested to be refreshed with a sight of the paper in which he was a joint proprietor; but he never failed to

remark that it was the great pleasure he derived from Mr Venus's improving society which had insensibly

lured him round to Clerkenwell again, and that, finding himself once more attracted to the spot by the social

powers of Mr V., he would beg leave to go through that little incidental procedure, as a matter of form. 'For

well I know, sir,' Mr Wegg would add, 'that a man of your delicate mind would wish to be checked off

A certain rustiness in Mr Venus, which never became so lubricated by the oil of Mr Wegg but that he turned

under the screw in a creaking and stiff manner, was very noticeable at about this period. While assisting at the

literary evenings, he even went so far, on two or three occasions, as to correct Mr Wegg when he grossly

mispronounced a word, or made nonsense of a passage; insomuch that Mr Wegg took to surveying his course

in the day, and to making arrangements for getting round rocks at night instead of running straight upon

them. Of the slightest anatomical reference he became particularly shy, and, if he saw a bone ahead, would go

The adverse destinies ordained that one evening Mr Wegg's labouring bark became beset by polysyllables,

and embarrassed among a perfect archipelago of hard words. It being necessary to take soundings every

minute, and to feel the way with the greatest caution, Mr Wegg's attention was fully employed. Advantage

was taken of this dilemma by Mr Venus, to pass a scrap of paper into Mr Boffin's hand, and lay his finger on

When Mr Boffin got home at night he found that the paper contained Mr Venus's card and these words:

'Should be glad to be honoured with a call respecting business of your own, about dusk on an early evening.'

The very next evening saw Mr Boffin peeping in at the preserved frogs in Mr Venus's shopwindow, and saw

Mr Venus espying Mr Boffin with the readiness of one on the alert, and beckoning that gentleman into his

interior. Responding, Mr Boffin was invited to seat himself on the box of human miscellanies before the fire,

and did so, looking round the place with admiring eyes. The fire being low and fitful, and the dusk gloomy,

the whole stock seemed to be winking and blinking with both eyes, as Mr Venus did. The French gentleman,

though he had no eyes, was not at all behind hand, but appeared, as the flame rose and fell, to open and shut

his no eyes, with the regularity of the glasseyed dogs and ducks and birds. The bigheaded babies were

'I don't like secrecy,' pursued Mr Boffin'at least, not in a general way I don'tbut I dare say you'll show

Mr Boffin glanced about him, as accepting under that inclusive denomination the French gentleman and the

'Sir,' said Mr Venus, 'before entering upon business, I shall have to ask you for your word and honour that we

'Let's wait a bit and understand what the expression means,' answered Mr Boffin. 'In confidence for how

'I take your hint, sir,' said Venus; 'you think you might consider the business, when you came to know it, to

'True, sir. Well, sir,' observed Venus, after clutching at his dusty hair, to brighten his ideas, 'let us put it

another way. I open the business with you, relying upon your honour not to do anything in it, and not to

'My good fellow,' retorted Mr Boffin, 'you have my word; and how you can have that, without my honour

too, I don't know. I've sorted a lot of dust in my time, but I never knew the two things go into separate heaps.'

This remark seemed rather to abash Mr Venus. He hesitated, and said, 'Very true, sir;' and again, 'Very true,

'Mr Boffin, if I confess to you that I fell into a proposal of which you were the subject, and of which you

oughtn't to have been the subject, you will allow me to mention, and will please take into favourable

The Golden Dustman, with his hands folded on the top of his stout stick, with his chin resting upon them, and

with something leering and whimsical in his eyes, gave a nod, and said, 'Quite so, Venus.'

'That proposal, sir, was a conspiring breach of your confidence, to such an extent, that I ought at once to have

Without moving eye or finger, Mr Boffin gave another nod, and placidly repeated, 'Quite so, Venus.'

'Not that I was ever hearty in it, sir,' the penitent anatomist went on, 'or that I ever viewed myself with

anything but reproach for having turned out of the paths of science into the paths of' he was going to say

'villany,' but, unwilling to press too hard upon himself, substituted with great emphasis'Weggery.'

'And now, sir,' said Venus, 'having prepared your mind in the rough, I will articulate the details.' With which

brief professional exordium, he entered on the history of the friendly move, and truly recounted it. One might

have thought that it would have extracted some show of surprise or anger, or other emotion, from Mr Boffin,

By this time the astonishment was all on the other side. It did not, however, so continue. For, when Venus

passed to Wegg's discovery, and from that to their having both seen Mr Boffin dig up the Dutch bottle, that

gentleman changed colour, changed his attitude, became extremely restless, and ended (when Venus ended)

'Now, sir,' said Venus, finishing off; 'you best know what was in that Dutch bottle, and why you dug it up,

and took it away. I don't pretend to know anything more about it than I saw. All I know is this: I am proud of

my calling after all (though it has been attended by one dreadful drawback which has told upon my heart, and

almost equally upon my skeleton), and I mean to live by my calling. Putting the same meaning into other

words, I do not mean to turn a single dishonest penny by this affair. As the best amends I can make you for

having ever gone into it, I make known to you, as a warning, what Wegg has found out. My opinion is, that

Wegg is not to be silenced at a modest price, and I build that opinion on his beginning to dispose of your

property the moment he knew his power. Whether it's worth your while to silence him at any price, you will

decide for yourself, and take your measures accordingly. As far as I am concerned, I have no price. If I am

ever called upon for the truth, I tell it, but I want to do no more than I have now done and ended.'

'Thank'ee, Venus!' said Mr Boffin, with a hearty grip of his hand; 'thank'ee, Venus, thank'ee, Venus!' And

then walked up and down the little shop in great agitation. 'But look here, Venus,' he by andby resumed,

nervously sitting down again; 'if I have to buy Wegg up, I shan't buy him any cheaper for your being out of it.

Instead of his having half the moneyit was to have been half, I suppose? Share and share alike?'

'Instead of that, he'll now have all. I shall pay the same, if not more. For you tell me he's an unconscionable

'Don't you think, Venus,' insinuated Mr Boffin, after looking at the fire for a while'don't you feel as

ifyou might like to pretend to be in it till Wegg was bought up, and then ease your mind by handing over

'No, sir. It seems to me, after maturely thinking it over, that the best amends for having got out of the square

'It appears to me,' said Mr Boffin, grumbling over the fire in an injured manner, 'that the right is with me, if

it's anywhere. I have much more right to the old man's money than the Crown can ever have. What was the

Crown to him except the King's Taxes? Whereas, me and my wife, we was all in all to him.'

Mr Venus, with his head upon his hands, rendered melancholy by the contemplation of Mr Boffin's avarice,

only murmured to steep himself in the luxury of that frame of mind: 'She did not wish so to regard herself,

'And how am I to live,' asked Mr Boffin, piteously, 'if I'm to be going buying fellows up out of the little that

I've got? And how am I to set about it? When am I to get my money ready? When am I to make a bid? You

Venus explained under what conditions, and with what views, the dropping down upon Mr Boffin was held

over until the Mounds should be cleared away. Mr Boffin listened attentively. 'I suppose,' said he, with a

gleam of hope, 'there's no doubt about the genuineness and date of this confounded will?'

'Is it?' he cried, with great eagerness. 'Now, for any liberal sum of money that could be agreed upon, Venus,

The Golden Dustman seemed about to pursue these questions, when a stumping noise was heard outside,

coming towards the door. 'Hush! here's Wegg!' said Venus. 'Get behind the young alligator in the corner, Mr

Boffin, and judge him for yourself. I won't light a candle till he's gone; there'll only be the glow of the fire;

Wegg's well acquainted with the alligator, and he won't take particular notice of him. Draw your legs in, Mr

Boffin, at present I see a pair of shoes at the end of his tail. Get your head well behind his smile, Mr Boffin,

and you'll lie comfortable there; you'll find plenty of room behind his smile. He's a little dusty, but he's very

Mr Boffin had but whispered an affirmative response, when Wegg came stumping in. 'Partner,' said that

'Indeed!' said Wegg: 'sorry, partner, that you're not picking up faster, but your soul's too large for your body,

sir; that's where it is. And how's our stock in trade, partner? Safe bind, safe find, partner? Is that about it?'

'If you please, partner,' said Wegg, rubbing his hands. 'I wish to see it jintly with yourself. Or, in similar

Turning his back and turning a key, Mr Venus produced the document, holding on by his usual corner. Mr

Wegg, holding on by the opposite corner, sat down on the seat so lately vacated by Mr Boffin, and looked it

over. 'All right, sir,' he slowly and unwillingly admitted, in his reluctance to loose his hold, 'all right!' And

greedily watched his partner as he turned his back again, and turned his key again.

'There's nothing new, I suppose?' said Venus, resuming his low chair behind the counter.

'Yes there is, sir,' replied Wegg; 'there was something new this morning. That foxey old grasper and griper'

'Mr Boffin?' inquired Venus, with a glance towards the alligator's yard or two of smile.

'Mister be blowed!' cried Wegg, yielding to his honest indignation. 'Boffin. Dusty Boffin. That foxey old

grunter and grinder, sir, turns into the yard this morning, to meddle with our property, a menial tool of his

own, a young man by the name of Sloppy. Ecod, when I say to him, "What do you want here, young man?

This is a private yard," he pulls out a paper from Boffin's other blackguard, the one I was passed over for.

"This is to authorize Sloppy to overlook the carting and to watch the work." That's pretty strong, I think, Mr

'Then he must have a hint of it,' said Wegg, 'and a strong one that'll jog his terrors a bit. Give him an inch, and

he'll take an ell. Let him alone this time, and what'll he do with our property next? I tell you what, Mr Venus;

it comes to this; I must be overbearing with Boffin, or I shall fly into several pieces. I can't contain myself

when I look at him. Every time I see him putting his hand in his pocket, I see him putting it into my pocket.

Every time I hear him jingling his money, I hear him taking liberties with my money. Flesh and blood can't

bear it. No,' said Mr Wegg, greatly exasperated, 'and I'll go further. A wooden leg can't bear it!'

'But, Mr Wegg,' urged Venus, 'it was your own idea that he should not be exploded upon, till the Mounds

'But it was likewise my idea, Mr Venus,' retorted Wegg, 'that if he came sneaking and sniffing about the

property, he should be threatened, given to understand that he has no right to it, and be made our slave.

'It certainly was, as you say, partner,' assented Wegg, put into a better humour by the ready admission. 'Very

well. I consider his planting one of his menial tools in the yard, an act of sneaking and sniffing. And his nose

'It was not your fault, Mr Wegg, I must admit,' said Venus, 'that he got off with the Dutch bottle that night.'

'As you handsomely say again, partner! No, it was not my fault. I'd have had that bottle out of him. Was it to

be borne that he should come, like a thief in the dark, digging among stuff that was far more ours than his

(seeing that we could deprive him of every grain of it, if he didn't buy us at our own figure), and carrying off

treasure from its bowels? No, it was not to be borne. And for that, too, his nose shall be put to the grindstone.'

'To put his nose to the grindstone? I propose,' returned that estimable man, 'to insult him openly. And, if

looking into this eye of mine, he dares to offer a word in answer, to retort upon him before he can take his

'Then,' replied Wegg, 'we shall have come to an understanding with very little trouble, and I'll break him and

drive him, Mr Venus. I'll put him in harness, and I'll bear him up tight, and I'll break him and drive him. The

harder the old Dust is driven, sir, the higher he'll pay. And I mean to be paid high, Mr Venus, I promise you.'

'Revengefully, sir? Is it for him that I have declined and falled, night after night? Is it for his pleasure that I've

waited at home of an evening, like a set of skittles, to be set up and knocked over, set up and knocked over,

by whatever ballsor bookshe chose to bring against me? Why, I'm a hundred times the man he is, sir;

Perhaps it was with the malicious intent of urging him on to his worst that Mr Venus looked as if he doubted

'What? Was it outside the house at present ockypied, to its disgrace, by that minion of fortune and worm of

the hour,' said Wegg, falling back upon his strongest terms of reprobation, and slapping the counter, 'that I,

Silas Wegg, five hundred times the man he ever was, sat in all weathers, waiting for a errand or a customer?

Was it outside that very house as I first set eyes upon him, rolling in the lap of luxury, when I was selling

halfpenny ballads there for a living? And am I to grovel in the dust for HIM to walk over? No!'

There was a grin upon the ghastly countenance of the French gentleman under the influence of the firelight,

as if he were computing how many thousand slanderers and traitors array themselves against the fortunate, on

premises exactly answering to those of Mr Wegg. One might have fancied that the bigheaded babies were

toppling over with their hydrocephalic attempts to reckon up the children of men who transform their

benefactors into their injurers by the same process. The yard or two of smile on the part of the alligator might

have been invested with the meaning, 'All about this was quite familiar knowledge down in the depths of the

'But,' said Wegg, possibly with some slight perception to the foregoing effect, 'your speaking countenance

remarks, Mr Venus, that I'm duller and savager than usual. Perhaps I HAVE allowed myself to brood too

much. Begone, dull Care! 'Tis gone, sir. I've looked in upon you, and empire resumes her sway. For, as the

"When the heart of a man is depressed with cares, The mist is dispelled if Venus appears. Like the notes of a

'I shall have a word or two to say to you, Mr Wegg, before long,' remarked Venus, 'respecting my share in the

'My time, sir,' returned Wegg, 'is yours. In the meanwhile let it be fully understood that I shall not neglect

bringing the grindstone to bear, nor yet bringing Dusty Boffin's nose to it. His nose once brought to it, shall

With this agreeable promise Wegg stumped out, and shut the shopdoor after him. 'Wait till I light a candle,

Mr Boffin,' said Venus, 'and you'll come out more comfortable.' So, he lighting a candle and holding it up at

arm's length, Mr Boffin disengaged himself from behind the alligator's smile, with an expression of

countenance so very downcast that it not only appeared as if the alligator had the whole of the joke to

himself, but further as if it had been conceived and executed at Mr Boffin's expense.

'That's a treacherous fellow,' said Mr Boffin, dusting his arms and legs as he came forth, the alligator having

'You'll have the goodness to notice, Mr Boffin,' remarked Venus, 'that I said nothing to him about my going

out of the affair altogether, because I didn't wish to take you anyways by surprise. But I can't be too soon out

of it for my satisfaction, Mr Boffin, and I now put it to you when it will suit your views for me to retire?'

'Thank'ee, Venus, thank'ee, Venus; but I don't know what to say,' returned Mr Boflin, 'I don't know what to

do. He'll drop down on me any way. He seems fully determined to drop down; don't he?'

'You might be a sort of protection for me, if you remained in it,' said Mr Boffin; 'you might stand betwixt him

and me, and take the edge off him. Don't you feel as if you could make a show of remaining in it, Venus, till I

Venus naturally inquired how long Mr Boffin thought it might take him to turn himself round?

'I am sure I don't know,' was the answer, given quite at a loss. 'Everything is so at sixes and sevens. If I had

never come into the property, I shouldn't have minded. But being in it, it would be very trying to be turned

Mr Venus preferred, he said, to leave Mr Boffin to arrive at his own conclusions on that delicate question.

'I am sure I don't know what to do,' said Mr Boffin. 'If I ask advice of any one else, it's only letting in another

person to be bought out, and then I shall be ruined that way, and might as well have given up the property and

gone slap to the workhouse. If I was to take advice of my young man, Rokesmith, I should have to buy HIM

out. Sooner or later, of course, he'd drop down upon me, like Wegg. I was brought into the world to be

Mr Venus listened to these lamentations in silence, while Mr Boffin jogged to and fro, holding his pockets as

'After all, you haven't said what you mean to do yourself, Venus. When you do go out of it, how do you mean

Venus replied that as Wegg had found the document and handed it to him, it was his intention to hand it back

to Wegg, with the declaration that he himself would have nothing to say to it, or do with it, and that Wegg

'And then he drops down with his whole weight upon ME!' cried Mr Boffin, ruefully. 'I'd sooner be dropped

Mr Venus could only repeat that it was his fixed intention to betake himself to the paths of science, and to

walk in the same all the days of his life; not dropping down upon his fellowcreatures until they were

'How long could you be persuaded to keep up the appearance of remaining in it?' asked Mr Boffin, retiring on

'Not if I was to show you reason now?' demanded Mr Boffin; 'not if I was to show you good and sufficient

If by good and sufficient reason Mr Boffin meant honest and unimpeachable reason, that might weigh with

Mr Venus against his personal wishes and convenience. But he must add that he saw no opening to the

'Is the reason there, sir?' asked Mr Venus, with an incredulous smile and blink.

'It may be, or may not be,' said Mr Boffin, 'just as you view it. But in the meantime don't go out of the matter.

Look here. Do this. Give me your word that you won't take any steps with Wegg, without my knowledge, just

'And goodnight to the rest of the present company,' said Mr Boffin, glancing round the shop. 'They make a

queer show, Venus, and I should like to be better acquainted with them some day. Goodnight, Venus,

goodnight! Thankee, Venus, thankee, Venus!' With that he jogged out into the street, and jogged upon his

'Now, I wonder,' he meditated as he went along, nursing his stick, 'whether it can be, that Venus is setting

himself to get the better of Wegg? Whether it can be, that he means, when I have bought Wegg out, to have

It was a cunning and suspicious idea, quite in the way of his school of Misers, and he looked very cunning

and suspicious as he went jogging through the streets. More than once or twice, more than twice or thrice, say

half a dozen times, he took his stick from the arm on which he nursed it, and hit a straight sharp rap at the air

with its head. Possibly the wooden countenance of Mr Silas Wegg was incorporeally before him at those

He was within a few streets of his own house, when a little private carriage, coming in the contrary direction,

passed him, turned round, and passed him again. It was a little carriage of eccentric movement, for again he

heard it stop behind him and turn round, and again he saw it pass him. Then it stopped, and then went on, out

of sight. But, not far out of sight, for, when he came to the corner of his own street, there it stood again.

There was a lady's face at the window as he came up with this carriage, and he was passing it when the lady

'Not very well, dear Mr Boffin; I have fluttered myself by being perhaps foolishlyuneasy and anxious. I

Mr Boffin proposed that Mrs Lammle should drive on to his house, a few hundred yards further.

'I would rather not, Mr Boffin, unless you particularly wish it. I feel the difficulty and delicacy of the matter

so much that I would rather avoid speaking to you at your own home. You must think this very strange?'

'It is because I am so grateful for the good opinion of all my friends, and am so touched by it, that I cannot

bear to run the risk of forfeiting it in any case, even in the cause of duty. I have asked my husband (my dear

Alfred, Mr Boffin) whether it is the cause of duty, and he has most emphatically said Yes. I wish I had asked

('Can this be more dropping down upon me!' thought Mr Boffin, quite bewildered.)

'It was Alfred who sent me to you, Mr Boffin. Alfred said, "Don't come back, Sophronia, until you have seen

Mr Boffin, and told him all. Whatever he may think of it, he ought certainly to know it." Would you mind

'Drive slowly anywhere,' Mrs Lammle called to her coachman, 'and don't let the carriage rattle.'

'It MUST he more dropping down, I think,' said Mr Boffin to himself. 'What next?'

The breakfast table at Mr Boffin's was usually a very pleasant one, and was always presided over by Bella.

As though he began each new day in his healthy natural character, and some waking hours were necessary to

his relapse into the corrupting influences of his wealth, the face and the demeanour of the Golden Dustman

were generally unclouded at that meal. It would have been easy to believe then, that there was no change in

him. It was as the day went on that the clouds gathered, and the brightness of the mornmg became obscured.

One might have said that the shadows of avarice and distrust lengthened as his own shadow lengthened, and

But, one morning long afterwards to be remembered, it was black midnight with the Golden Dustman when

he first appeared. His altered character had never been so grossly marked. His bearing towards his Secretary

was so charged with insolent distrust and arrogance, that the latter rose and left the table before breakfast was

half done. The look he directed at the Secretary's retiring figure was so cunningly malignant, that Bella would

have sat astounded and indignant, even though he had not gone the length of secretly threatening Rokesmith

with his clenched fist as he closed the door. This unlucky morning, of all mornings in the year, was the

morning next after Mr Boffin's interview with Mrs Lammle in her little carriage.

Bella looked to Mrs Boffin's face for comment on, or explanation of, this stormy humour in her husband, but

none was there. An anxious and a distressed observation of her own face was all she could read in it. When

they were left alone togetherwhich was not until noon, for Mr Boffin sat long in his easychair, by turns

jogging up and down the breakfastroom, clenching his fist and mutteringBella, in consternation, asked

her what had happened, what was wrong? 'I am forbidden to speak to you about it, Bella dear; I mustn't tell

you,' was all the answer she could get. And still, whenever, in her wonder and dismay, she raised her eyes to

Mrs Boffin's face, she saw in it the same anxious and distressed observation of her own.

Oppressed by her sense that trouble was impending, and lost in speculations why Mrs Boffin should look at

her as if she had any part in it, Bella found the day long and dreary. It was far on in the afternoon when, she

being in her own room, a servant brought her a message from Mr Boffin begging her to come to his.

Mrs Boffin was there, seated on a sofa, and Mr Boffin was jogging up and down. On seeing Bella he stopped,

beckoned her to him, and drew her arm through his. 'Don't be alarmed, my dear,' he said, gently; 'I am not

angry with you. Why you actually tremble! Don't be alarmed, Bella my dear. I'll see you righted.'

'See me righted?' thought Bella. And then repeated aloud in a tone of astonishment: 'see me righted, sir?'

Bella would have been lost in perplexity if there had been pause enough; but the servant found Mr Rokesmith

'Shut the door, sir!' said Mr Boffin. 'I have got something to say to you which I fancy you'll not be pleased to

'I am sorry to reply, Mr Boffin,' returned the Secretary, as, having closed the door, he turned and faced him,

'I mean that it has become no novelty to me to hear from your lips what I would rather not hear.'

'Oh! Perhaps we shall change that,' said Mr Boffin with a threatening roll of his head.

'I hope so,' returned the Secretary. He was quiet and respectful; but stood, as Bella thought (and was glad to

Bella involuntarily raising her eyes, when this sudden reference was made to herself, met those of Mr

Rokesmith. He was pale and seemed agitated. Then her eyes passed on to Mrs Boffin's, and she met the look

again. In a flash it enlightened her, and she began to understand what she had done.

As his glance rested again on Bella for a moment, she thought there was reproach in it. But it is possible that

'How dare you, sir,' said Mr Boffin, 'tamper, unknown to me, with this young lady? How dare you come out

of your station, and your place in my house, to pester this young lady with your impudent addresses?'

'I must decline to answer questions,' said the Secretary, 'that are so offensively asked.'

'You decline to answer?' retorted Mr Boffin. 'You decline to answer, do you? Then I'll tell you what it is,

Rokesmith; I'll answer for you. There are two sides to this matter, and I'll take 'em separately. The first side

The Secretary smiled with some bitterness, as though he would have said, 'So I see and hear.'

'It was sheer Insolence in you, I tell you,' said Mr Boffin, 'even to think of this young lady. This young lady

was far above YOU. This young lady was no match for YOU. This young lady was lying in wait (as she was

Bella hung her head and seemed to shrink a little from Mr Boffin's protecting arm.

'What are you, I should like to know,' pursued Mr Boffin, 'that you were to have the audacity to follow up this

young lady? This young lady was looking about the market for a good bid; she wasn't in it to be snapped up

'Oh, Mr Boffin! Mrs Boffin, pray say something for me!' murmured Bella, disengaging her arm, and covering

'Old lady,' said Mr Boflin, anticipating his wife, 'you hold your tongue. Bella, my dear, don't you let yourself

'But you don't, you don't right me!' exclaimed Bella, with great emphasis. 'You wrong me, wrong me!'

'Don't you be put out, my dear,' complacently retorted Mr Boffin. 'I'll bring this young man to book. Now,

you Rokesmith! You can't decline to hear, you know, as well as to answer. You hear me tell you that the first

side of your conduct was InsolenceInsolence and Presumption. Answer me one thing, if you can. Didn't

'Did I, Mr Rokesmith?' asked Bella with her face still covered. 'O say, Mr Rokesmith! Did I?'

'Ah! You can't deny it, though!' said Mr Boffin, with a knowing shake of his head.

'But I have asked him to forgive me since,' cried Bella; 'and I would ask him to forgive me now again, upon

'Old lady,' said Mr Boffin, 'stop that noise! Tenderhearted in you, Miss Bella; but I mean to have it out right

through with this young man, having got him into a corner. Now, you Rokesmith. I tell you that's one side of

your conductInsolence and Presumption. Now, I'm acoming to the other, which is much worse. This was

'It's of no use your denying it; it doesn't signify a bit whether you deny it or not; I've got a head upon my

shoulders, and it ain't a baby's. What!' said Mr Boffin, gathering himself together in his most suspicious

attitude, and wrinkling his face into a very map of curves and corners. 'Don't I know what grabs are made at a

man with money? If I didn't keep my eyes open, and my pockets buttoned, shouldn't I be brought to the

workhouse before I knew where I was? Wasn't the experience of Dancer, and Elwes, and Hopkins, and

Blewbury Jones, and ever so many more of 'em, similar to mine? Didn't everybody want to make grabs at

what they'd got, and bring 'em to poverty and ruin? Weren't they forced to hide everything belonging to 'em,

for fear it should be snatched from 'em? Of course they was. I shall be told next that they didn't know human

'What do you say?' asked Mr Boffin, snapping at him. 'However, you needn't be at the trouble of repeating it,

for it ain't worth hearing, and won't go down with ME. I'm agoing to unfold your plan, before this young

lady; I'm agoing to show this young lady the second view of you; and nothing you can say will stave it off.

(Now, attend here, Bella, my dear.) Rokesmith, you're a needy chap. You're a chap that I pick up in the street.

'Not appeal to YOU,' retorted Mr Boffin as if he hadn't done so. 'No, I should hope not! Appealing to YOU,

would be rather a rum course. As I was saying, you're a needy chap that I pick up in the street. You come and

He returned no answer. Mr Boffin, after eyeing him with a comical look of discomfited curiosity, was fain to

'This Rokesmith is a needy young man that I take for my Secretary out of the open street. This Rokesmith

gets acquainted with my affairs, and gets to know that I mean to settle a sum of money on this young lady.

"Oho!" says this Rokesmith;' here Mr Boffin clapped a finger against his nose, and tapped it several times

with a sneaking air, as embodying Rokesmith confidentially confabulating with his own nose; '"This will be a

good haul; I'll go in for this!" And so this Rokesmith, greedy and hungering, begins acreeping on his hands

and knees towards the money. Not so bad a speculation either: for if this young lady had had less spirit, or

had had less sense, through being at all in the romantic line, by George he might have worked it out and made

it pay! But fortunately she was too many for him, and a pretty figure he cuts now he is exposed. There he

stands!' said Mr Boffin, addressing Rokesmith himself with ridiculous inconsistency. 'Look at him!'

'are not to be combated by any one, and I address myself to no such hopeless task. But I will say a word

'Yah! Much you care about the truth,' said Mr Boffin, with a snap of his fingers.

'Old lady,' returned Mr Boffin, 'you keep still. I say to this Rokesmith here, much he cares about the truth. I

'Our connexion being at an end, Mr Boffin,' said the Secretary, 'it can be of very little moment to me what

'Oh! You are knowing enough,' retorted Mr Boffin, with a sly look, 'to have found out that our connexion's at

an end, eh? But you can't get beforehand with me. Look at this in my hand. This is your pay, on your

discharge. You can only follow suit. You can't deprive me of the lead. Let's have no pretending that you

'So that I go,' remarked the Secretary, waving the point aside with his hand, 'it is all one to me.'

'Is it?' said Mr Boffin. 'But it's two to me, let me tell you. Allowing a fellow that's found out, to discharge

himself, is one thing; discharging him for insolence and presumption, and likewise for designs upon his

master's money, is another. One and one's two; not one. (Old lady, don't you cut in. You keep still.)'

'Perhaps you will consider whether there are any other strong expressions that you would like to bestow upon

'I'll consider that,' said Mr Boffin, obstinately, 'at my convenience, and not at yours. You want the last word.

'Noddy! My dear, dear Noddy! You sound so hard!' cried poor Mrs Boffin, not to be quite repressed.

'Old lady,' said her husband, but without harshness, 'if you cut in when requested not, I'll get a pillow and

'To you, Mr Boffin, nothing. But to Miss Wilfer and to your good kind wife, a word.'

'Out with it then,' replied Mr Boffin, 'and cut it short, for we've had enough of you.'

'I have borne,' said the Secretary, in a low voice, 'with my false position here, that I might not be separated

from Miss Wilfer. To be near her, has been a recompense to me from day to day, even for the undeserved

treatment I have had here, and for the degraded aspect in which she has often seen me. Since Miss Wilfer

rejected me, I have never again urged my suit, to the best of my belief, with a spoken syllable or a look. But I

have never changed in my devotion to her, exceptif she will forgive my saying sothat it is deeper than it

'Now, mark this chap's saying Miss Wilfer, when he means L.s.d.!' cried Mr Boffin, with a cunning wink.

'Now, mark this chap's making Miss Wilfer stand for Pounds, Shillings, and Pence!'

'My feeling for Miss Wilfer,' pursued the Secretary, without deigning to notice him, 'is not one to be ashamed

of. I avow it. I love her. Let me go where I may when I presently leave this house, I shall go into a blank life,

'Leaving L.s.d. behind me,' said Mr Boffin, by way of commentary, with another wink.

'That I am incapable,' the Secretary went on, still without heeding him, 'of a mercenary project, or a

mercenary thought, in connexion with Miss Wilfer, is nothing meritorious in me, because any prize that I

could put before my fancy would sink into insignificance beside her. If the greatest wealth or the highest rank

were hers, it would only be important in my sight as removing her still farther from me, and making me more

hopeless, if that could be. Say,' remarked the Secretary, looking full at his late master, 'say that with a word

she could strip Mr Boffin of his fortune and take possession of it, she would be of no greater worth in my

'What do you think by this time, old lady,' asked Mr Boffin, turning to his wife in a bantering tone, 'about this

Rokesmith here, and his caring for the truth? You needn't say what you think, my dear, because I don't want

you to cut in, but you can think it all the same. As to taking possession of my property, I warrant you he

'Ha, ha, ha!' laughed Mr Boffin. 'There's nothing like a good 'un while you ARE about it.'

'I have been for a moment,' said the Secretary, turning from him and falling into his former manner, 'diverted

from the little I have to say. My interest in Miss Wilfer began when I first saw her; even began when I had

only heard of her. It was, in fact, the cause of my throwing myself in Mr Boffin's way, and entering his

service. Miss Wilfer has never known this until now. I mention it now, only as a corroboration (though I hope

'Now, this is a very artful dog,' said Mr Boffin, with a deep look. 'This is a longerheaded schemer than I

thought him. See how patiently and methodically he goes to work. He gets to know about me and my

property, and about this young lady, and her share in poor young John's story, and he puts this and that

together, and he says to himself, "I'll get in with Boffin, and I'll get in with this young lady, and I'll work 'em

both at the same time, and I'll bring my pigs to market somewhere." I hear him say it, bless you! I look at

Mr Boffin pointed at the culprit, as it were in the act, and hugged himself in his great penetration.

'But luckily he hadn't to deal with the people he supposed, Bella, my dear!' said Mr Boffin. 'No! Luckily he

had to deal with you, and with me, and with Daniel and Miss Dancer, and with Elwes, and with Vulture

Hopkins, and with Blewbury Jones and all the rest of us, one down t'other come on. And he's beat; that's what

he is; regularly beat. He thought to squeeze money out of us, and he has done for himself instead, Bella my

Bella my dear made no response, gave no sign of acquiescence. When she had first covered her face she had

sunk upon a chair with her hands resting on the back of it, and had never moved since. There was a short

silence at this point, and Mrs Boffin softly rose as if to go to her. But, Mr Boffin stopped her with a gesture,

'There's your pay, Mister Rokesmith,' said the Golden Dustman, jerking the folded scrap of paper he had in

his hand, towards his late Secretary. 'I dare say you can stoop to pick it up, after what you have stooped to

'I have stooped to nothing but this,' Rokesmith answered as he took it from the ground; 'and this is mine, for I

'You're a pretty quick packer, I hope,' said Mr Boffin; 'because the sooner you are gone, bag and baggage, the

'There's just one thing though,' said Mr Boffin, 'that I should like to ask you before we come to a good

riddance, if it was only to show this young lady how conceited you schemers are, in thinking that nobody

'Ask me anything you wish to ask,' returned Rokesmith, 'but use the expedition that you recommend.'

'You pretend to have a mighty admiration for this young lady?' said Mr Boffin, laying his hand protectingly

'Oh! Well. You HAVE a mighty admiration for this young lady since you are so particular?'

'How do you reconcile that, with this young lady's being a weak spirited, improvident idiot, not knowing

what was due to herself, flinging up her money to the churchweathercocks, and racing off at a splitting pace

'Don't you? Or won't you? What else could you have made this young lady out to be, if she had listened to

'What else, if I had been so happy as to win her affections and possess her heart?'

'Win her affections,' retorted Mr Boffin, with ineffable contempt, 'and possess her heart! Mew says the cat,

Quackquack says the duck, Bowwowwow says the dog! Win her affections and possess her heart! Mew,

John Rokesmith stared at him in his outburst, as if with some faint idea that he had gone mad.

'What is due to this young lady,' said Mr Boffin, 'is Money, and this young lady right well knows it.'

'YOU slander the young lady; you with your affections and hearts and trumpery,' returned Mr Boffin. 'It's of a

piece with the rest of your behaviour. I heard of these doings of yours only last night, or you should have

heard of 'em from me, sooner, take your oath of it. I heard of 'em from a lady with as good a headpiece as the

best, and she knows this young lady, and I know this young lady, and we all three know that it's Money she

makes a stand formoney, money, moneyand that you and your affections and hearts are a Lie, sir!'

'Mrs Boffin,' said Rokesmith, quietly turning to her, 'for your delicate and unvarying kindness I thank you

'And now, my dear,' said Mr Boffin, laying his hand on Bella's head again, 'you may begin to make yourself

But, Bella was so far from appearing to feel it, that she shrank from his hand and from the chair, and, starting

up in an incoherent passion of tears, and stretching out her arms, cried, 'O Mr Rokesmith, before you go, if

you could but make me poor again! O! Make me poor again, Somebody, I beg and pray, or my heart will

break if this goes on! Pa, dear, make me poor again and take me home! I was bad enough there, but I have

been so much worse here. Don't give me money, Mr Boffin, I won't have money. Keep it away from me, and

only let me speak to good little Pa, and lay my head upon his shoulder, and tell him all my griefs. Nobody

else can understand me, nobody else can comfort me, nobody else knows how unworthy I am, and yet can

love me like a little child. I am better with Pa than any onemore innocent, more sorry, more glad!' So,

crying out in a wild way that she could not bear this, Bella drooped her head on Mrs Boffin's ready breast.

John Rokesmith from his place in the room, and Mr Boffin from his, looked on at her in silence until she was

silent herself. Then Mr Boffin observed in a soothing and comfortable tone, 'There, my dear, there; you are

righted now, and it's ALL right. I don't wonder, I'm sure, at your being a little flurried by having a scene with

this fellow, but it's all over, my dear, and you're righted, and it'sand it's ALL right!' Which Mr Boffin

'I hate you!' cried Bella, turning suddenly upon him, with a stamp of her little foot'at least, I can't hate you,

'You're a scolding, unjust, abusive, aggravating, bad old creature!' cried Bella. 'I am angry with my ungrateful

Mr Boffin stared here, and stared there, as misdoubting that he must be in some sort of fit.

'I have heard you with shame,' said Bella. 'With shame for myself, and with shame for you. You ought to be

above the base tale bearing of a timeserving woman; but you are above nothing now.'

Mr Boffin, seeming to become convinced that this was a fit, rolled his eyes and loosened his neckcloth.

'When I came here, I respected you and honoured you, and I soon loved you,' cried Bella. 'And now I can't

bear the sight of you. At least, I don't know that I ought to go so far as thatonly you're a you're a

Monster!' Having shot this bolt out with a great expenditure of force, Bella hysterically laughed and cried

'The best wish I can wish you is,' said Bella, returning to the charge, 'that you had not one single farthing in

the world. If any true friend and wellwisher could make you a bankrupt, you would be a Duck; but as a man

After despatching this second bolt with a still greater expenditure of force, Bella laughed and cried still more.

'Mr Rokesmith, pray stay one moment. Pray hear one word from me before you go! I am deeply sorry for the

reproaches you have borne on my account. Out of the depths of my heart I earnestly and truly beg your

As she stepped towards him, he met her. As she gave him her hand, he put it to his lips, and said, 'God bless

you!' No laughing was mixed with Bella's crying then; her tears were pure and fervent.

'There is not an ungenerous word that I have heard addressed to youheard with scorn and indignation, Mr

Rokesmithbut it has wounded me far more than you, for I have deserved it, and you never have. Mr

Rokesmith, it is to me you owe this perverted account of what passed between us that night. I parted with the

secret, even while I was angry with myself for doing so. It was very bad in me, but indeed it was not wicked.

I did it in a moment of conceit and follyone of my many such momentsone of my many such

'Thank you. O thank you! Don't part from me till I have said one other word, to do you justice. The only fault

you can be truly charged with, in having spoken to me as you did that nightwith how much delicacy and

how much forbearance no one but I can know or be grateful to you foris, that you laid yourself open to be

slighted by a worldly shallow girl whose head was turned, and who was quite unable to rise to the worth of

what you offered her. Mr Rokesmith, that girl has often seen herself in a pitiful and poor light since, but never

in so pitiful and poor a light as now, when the mean tone in which she answered yousordid and vain girl

'Mr Boffin's speeches were detestable to me, shocking to me,' said Bella, startling that gentleman with

another stamp of her little foot. 'It is quite true that there was a time, and very lately, when I deserved to be so

He once more put her hand to his lips, and then relinquished it, and left the room. Bella was hurrying back to

the chair in which she had hidden her face so long, when, catching sight of Mrs Boffin by the way, she

stopped at her. 'He is gone,' sobbed Bella indignantly, despairingly, in fifty ways at once, with her arms round

Mrs Boffin's neck. 'He has been most shamefully abused, and most unjustly and most basely driven away,

All this time, Mr Boffin had been rolling his eyes over his loosened neckerchief, as if his fit were still upon

him. Appearing now to think that he was coming to, he stared straight before him for a while, tied his

neckerchief again, took several long inspirations, swallowed several times, and ultimately exclaimed with a

No word, good or bad, did Mrs Boffin say; but she tenderly took care of Bella, and glanced at her husband as

if for orders. Mr Boffin, without imparting any, took his seat on a chair over against them, and there sat

leaning forward, with a fixed countenance, his legs apart, a hand on each knee, and his elbows squared, until

Bella should dry her eyes and raise her head, which in the fulness of time she did.

'I must go home,' said Bella, rising hurriedly. 'I am very grateful to you for all you have done for me, but I

'No, I can't stay here,' said Bella; 'I can't indeed.Ugh! you vicious old thing!' (This to Mr Boffin.)

'I shall never more think well of YOU,' cried Bella, cutting him short, with intense defiance in her expressive

little eyebrows, and championship of the late Secretary in every dimple. 'No! Never again! Your money has

changed you to marble. You are a hard hearted Miser. You are worse than Dancer, worse than Hopkins,

worse than Blackberry Jones, worse than any of the wretches. And more!' proceeded Bella, breaking into

'Why, you don't mean to say, Miss Bella,' the Golden Dustman slowly remonstrated, 'that you set up

Very pretty she looked, though very angry, as she made herself as tall as she possibly could (which was not

extremely tall), and utterly renounced her patron with a lofty toss of her rich brown head.

'I would rather he thought well of me,' said Bella, 'though he swept the street for bread, than that you did,

though you splashed the mud upon him from the wheels of a chariot of pure gold.There!'

'And for a long time past, when you have thought you set yourself above him, I have only seen you under his

feet,' said Bella'There! And throughout I saw in him the master, and I saw in you the manThere! And

when you used him shamefully, I took his part and loved himThere! I boast of it!'

After which strong avowal Bella underwent reaction, and cried to any extent, with her face on the back of her

'Now, look here,' said Mr Boffin, as soon as he could find an opening for breaking the silence and striking in.

'I say,' resumed the Golden Dustman, 'I am not angry, and I mean kindly to you, and I want to overlook this.

'No, I can't stay here,' cried Bella, rising hurriedly again; 'I can't think of staying here. I must go home for

'Now, don't be silly,' Mr Boffin reasoned. 'Don't do what you can't undo; don't do what you're sure to be sorry

'I shall never be sorry for it,' said Bella; 'and I should always be sorry, and should every minute of my life

'At least, Bella,' argued Mr Boffin, 'let there be no mistake about it. Look before you leap, you know. Stay

where you are, and all's well, and all's as it was to be. Go away, and you can never come back.'

'You mustn't expect,' Mr Boffin pursued, 'that I'm agoing to settle money on you, if you leave us like this,

'Expect!' said Bella, haughtily. 'Do you think that any power on earth could make me take it, if you did, sir?'

But there was Mrs Boffin to part from, and, in the full flush of her dignity, the impressible little soul

collapsed again. Down upon her knees before that good woman, she rocked herself upon her breast, and

'You're a dear, a dear, the best of dears!' cried Bella. 'You're the best of human creatures. I can never be

thankful enough to you, and I can never forget you. If I should live to be blind and deaf I know I shall see and

Mrs Boffin wept most heartily, and embraced her with all fondness; but said not one single word except that

she was her dear girl. She said that often enough, to be sure, for she said it over and over again; but not one

Bella broke from her at length, and was going weeping out of the room, when in her own little queer

'I am very glad,' sobbed Bella, 'that I called you names, sir, because you richly deserved it. But I am very

sorry that I called you names, because you used to be so different. Say goodbye!'

'If I knew which of your hands was the least spoilt, I would ask you to let me touch it,' said Bella, 'for the last

time. But not because I repent of what I have said to you. For I don't. It's true!'

'Try the left hand,' said Mr Boffin, holding it out in a stolid manner; 'it's the least used.'

'You have been wonderfully good and kind to me,' said Bella, 'and I kiss it for that. You have been as bad as

bad could be to Mr Rokesmith, and I throw it away for that. Thank you for myself, and goodbye!'

She ran upstairs, and sat down on the floor in her own room, and cried abundantly. But the day was

declining and she had no time to lose. She opened all the places where she kept her dresses; selected only

those she had brought with her, leaving all the rest; and made a great misshapen bundle of them, to be sent for

'I won't take one of the others,' said Bella, tying the knots of the bundle very tight, in the severity of her

resolution. 'I'll leave all the presents behind, and begin again entirely on my own account.' That the resolution

might be thoroughly carried into practice, she even changed the dress she wore, for that in which she had

come to the grand mansion. Even the bonnet she put on, was the bonnet that had mounted into the Boffin

'Now, I am complete,' said Bella. 'It's a little trying, but I have steeped my eyes in cold water, and I won't cry

any more. You have been a pleasant room to me, dear room. Adieu! We shall never see each other again.'

With a parting kiss of her fingers to it, she softly closed the door and went with a light foot down the great

staircase, pausing and listening as she went, that she might meet none of the household. No one chanced to be

about, and she got down to the hall in quiet. The door of the late Secretary's room stood open. She peeped in

as she passed, and divined from the emptiness of his table, and the general appearance of things, that he was

already gone. Softly opening the great hall door, and softly closing it upon herself, she turned and kissed it on

the outsideinsensible old combination of wood and iron that it was!before she ran away from the house

'That was well done!' panted Bella, slackening in the next street, and subsiding into a walk. 'If I had left

myself any breath to cry with, I should have cried again. Now poor dear darling little Pa, you are going to see

The City looked unpromising enough, as Bella made her way along its gritty streets. Most of its moneymills

were slackening sail, or had left off grinding for the day. The mastermillers had already departed, and the

journeymen were departing. There was a jaded aspect on the business lanes and courts, and the very

pavements had a weary appearance, confused by the tread of a million of feet. There must be hours of night

to temper down the day's distraction of so feverish a place. As yet the worry of the newlystopped whirling

and grinding on the part of the money mills seemed to linger in the air, and the quiet was more like the

prostration of a spent giant than the repose of one who was renewing his strength.

If Bella thought, as she glanced at the mighty Bank, how agreeable it would be to have an hour's gardening

there, with a bright copper shovel, among the money, still she was not in an avaricious vein. Much improved

in that respect, and with certain halfformed images which had little gold in their composition, dancing

before her bright eyes, she arrived in the drugflavoured region of Mincing Lane, with the sensation of

The countinghouse of Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles was pointed out by an elderly female accustomed

to the care of offices, who dropped upon Bella out of a publichouse, wiping her mouth, and accounted for its

humidity on natural principles well known to the physical sciences, by explaining that she had looked in at

the door to see what o'clock it was. The countinghouse was a wall eyed ground floor by a dark gateway,

and Bella was considering, as she approached it, could there be any precedent in the City for her going in and

asking for R. Wilfer, when whom should she see, sitting at one of the windows with the plateglass sash

On approaching nearer, Bella discerned that the refection had the appearance of a small cottageloaf and a

pennyworth of milk. Simultaneously with this discovery on her part, her father discovered her, and invoked

He then came cherubically flying out without a hat, and embraced her, and handed her in. 'For it's after hours

and I am all alone, my dear,' he explained, 'and am havingas I sometimes do when they are all gonea

Looking round the office, as if her father were a captive and this his cell, Bella hugged him and choked him

'I never was so surprised, my dear!' said her father. 'I couldn't believe my eyes. Upon my life, I thought they

had taken to lying! The idea of your coming down the Lane yourself! Why didn't you send the footman down

He looked so very much astonished, that Bella could not make up her mind to break it to him just yet.

'The consequence is, Pa, that your lovely woman feels a little faint, and would very much like to share your

The cottage loaf and the pennyworth of milk had been set forth on a sheet of paper on the windowseat. The

cherubic pocketknife, with the first bit of the loaf still on its point, lay beside them where it had been hastily

thrown down. Bella took the bit off, and put it in her mouth. 'My dear child,' said her father, 'the idea of your

partaking of such lowly fare! But at least you must have your own loaf and your own penn'orth. One moment,

Regardless of Bella's dissuasions he ran out, and quickly returned with the new supply. 'My dear child,' he

said, as he spread it on another piece of paper before her, 'the idea of a splendid!' and then looked at her

'of a splendid female,' he resumed more slowly, 'putting up with such accommodation as the present!Is

'Yes, I THOUGHT I bought it my dear!' said the cherub, giving himself a little shake, as if to rouse his

'Well, my love,' he returned, swallowing a bit of the cottage loaf with considerable effort, for it seemed to

stick by the way: 'I should have thought it was hardly sufficiently splendid for existing circumstances.'

'And so, Pa,' said Bella, moving coaxingly to his side instead of remaining opposite, 'you sometimes have a

quiet tea here all alone? I am not in the tea's way, if I draw my arm over your shoulder like this, Pa?'

'Yes, my dear, and no, my dear. Yes to the first question, and Certainly Not to the second. Respecting the

quiet tea, my dear, why you see the occupations of the day are sometimes a little wearing; and if there's

nothing interposed between the day and your mother, why SHE is sometimes a little wearing, too.'

'Yes, my dear. So sometimes I put a quiet tea at the window here, with a little quiet contemplation of the Lane

Bella kissed him. 'And it is in this dark dingy place of captivity, poor dear, that you pass all the hours of your

'Not at home, or not on the road there, or on the road here, my love. Yes. You see that little desk in the

'In the dark corner, furthest both from the light and from the fireplace? The shabbiest desk of all the desks?'

'Now, does it really strike you in that point of view, my dear?' said her father, surveying it artistically with his

'Rumty's. You see, being rather high and up two steps they call it a Perch. And they call ME Rumty.'

'They're playful, Bella my dear; they're playful. They're more or less younger than I am, and they're playful.

What does it matter? It might be Surly, or Sulky, or fifty disagreeable things that I really shouldn't like to be

To inflict a heavy disappointment on this sweet nature, which had been, through all her caprices, the object of

her recognition, love, and admiration from infancy, Bella felt to be the hardest task of her hard day. 'I should

have done better,' she thought, 'to tell him at first; I should have done better to tell him just now, when he had

He was falling back on his loaf and milk, with the pleasantest composure, and Bella stealing her arm a little

closer about him, and at the same time sticking up his hair with an irresistible propensity to play with him

founded on the habit of her whole life, had prepared herself to say: 'Pa dear, don't be cast down, but I must

tell you something disagreeable!' when he interrupted her in an unlookedfor manner.

'My gracious me!' he exclaimed, invoking the Mincing Lane echoes as before. 'This is very extraordinary!'

Sooth to say, Mr Rokesmith not only passed the window, but came into the countinghouse. And not only

came into the counting house, but, finding himself alone there with Bella and her father, rushed at Bella and

caught her in his arms, with the rapturous words 'My dear, dear girl; my gallant, generous, disinterested,

courageous, noble girl!' And not only that even, (which one might have thought astonishment enough for one

dose), but Bella, after hanging her head for a moment, lifted it up and laid it on his breast, as if that were her

'I knew you would come to him, and I followed you,' said Rokesmith. 'My love, my life! You ARE mine?'

To which Bella responded, 'Yes, I AM yours if you think me worth taking!' And after that, seemed to shrink

to next to nothing in the clasp of his arms, partly because it was such a strong one on his part, and partly

The cherub, whose hair would have done for itself under the influence of this amazing spectacle, what Bella

had just now done for it, staggered back into the windowseat from which he had risen, and surveyed the pair

'But we must think of dear Pa,' said Bella; 'I haven't told dear Pa; let us speak to Pa.' Upon which they turned

'I wish first, my dear,' remarked the cherub faintly, 'that you'd have the kindness to sprinkle me with a little

In fact, the good little fellow had become alarmingly limp, and his senses seemed to be rapidly escaping,

from the knees upward. Bella sprinkled him with kisses instead of milk, but gave him a little of that article to

'My dear,' returned the cherub, looking at them both, 'you broke so much in the firstGush, if I may so

'Mr Wilfer,' said John Rokesmith, excitedly and joyfully, 'Bella takes me, though I have no fortune, even no

present occupation; nothing but what I can get in the life before us. Bella takes me!'

'Yes, I should rather have inferred, my dear sir,' returned the cherub feebly, 'that Bella took you, from what I

'You don't know, Pa,' said Bella, 'what a shocking creature I was growing, when he saved me from myself!'

'My dear Bella,' replied the cherub, still pathetically scared, 'and my dear John Rokesmith, if you will allow

'Yes do, Pa, do!' urged Bella. 'I allow you, and my will is his law. Isn't itdear John Rokesmith?'

There was an engaging shyness in Bella, coupled with an engaging tenderness of love and confidence and

pride, in thus first calling him by name, which made it quite excusable in John Rokesmith to do what he did.

What he did was, once more to give her the appearance of vanishing as aforesaid.

'I think, my dears,' observed the cherub, 'that if you could make it convenient to sit one on one side of me,

and the other on the other, we should get on rather more consecutively, and make things rather plainer. John

'Stop a bit, my dear. I wish to lead up to it by degrees. And that Mr Boffin has not treated him well?'

'Of which,' pursued the cherub, enjoining patience with his hand, 'a certain mercenary young person distantly

'Could not approve, sweet Pa,' said Bella, with a tearful laugh and a joyful kiss.

'Upon which,' pursued the cherub, 'the certain mercenary young person distantly related to myself, having

previously observed and mentioned to myself that prosperity was spoiling Mr Boffin, felt that she must not

sell her sense of what was right and what was wrong, and what was true and what was false, and what was

just and what was unjust, for any price that could be paid to her by any one alive? Am I leading up to it

'And thereforeand therefore,' the cherub went on in a glowing voice, as Bella's hand stole gradually up his

waistcoat to his neck, 'this mercenary young person distantly related to myself, refused the price, took off the

splendid fashions that were part of it, put on the comparatively poor dress that I had last given her, and

trusting to my supporting her in what was right, came straight to me. Have I led up to it?'

'The mercenary young person distantly related to myself,' said her good father, 'did well! The mercenary

young person distantly related to myself, did not trust to me in vain! I admire this mercenary young person

distantly related to myself, more in this dress than if she had come to me in China silks, Cashmere shawls,

and Golconda diamonds. I love this young person dearly. I say to the man of this young person's heart, out of

my heart and with all of it, "My blessing on this engagement betwixt you, and she brings you a good fortune

when she brings you the poverty she has accepted for your sake and the honest truth's!"'

The stanch little man's voice failed him as he gave John Rokesmith his hand, and he was silent, bending his

face low over his daughter. But, not for long. He soon looked up, saying in a sprightly tone:

'And now, my dear child, if you think you can entertain John Rokesmith for a minute and a half, I'll run over

to the Dairy, and fetch HIM a cottage loaf and a drink of milk, that we may all have tea together.'

It was, as Bella gaily said, like the supper provided for the three nursery hobgoblins at their house in the

forest, without their thunderous low growlings of the alarming discovery, 'Somebody's been drinking MY

milk!' It was a delicious repast; by far the most delicious that Bella, or John Rokesmith, or even R. Wilfer had

ever made. The uncongenial oddity of its surroundings, with the two brass knobs of the iron safe of Chicksey,

Veneering, and Stobbles staring from a corner, like the eyes of some dull dragon, only made it the more

'To think,' said the cherub, looking round the office with unspeakable enjoyment, 'that anything of a tender

nature should come off here, is what tickles me. To think that ever I should have seen my Bella folded in the

It was not until the cottage loaves and the milk had for some time disappeared, and the foreshadowings of

night were creeping over Mincing Lane, that the cherub by degrees became a little nervous, and said to Bella,

'Yes, Pa. I think we had better not enter into particulars at home. I think it will be quite enough to say that I

'John Rokesmith being acquainted with your Ma, my love,' said her father, after some slight hesitation, 'I need

have no delicacy in hinting before him that you may perhaps find your Ma a little wearing.'

'A little, patient Pa?' said Bella with a tuneful laugh: the tunefuller for being so loving in its tone.

'Well! We'll say, strictly in confidence among ourselves, wearing; we won't qualify it,' the cherub stoutly

'And you must prepare yourself you know, my precious,' said her father, with much gentleness, 'for our

looking very poor and meagre at home, and being at the best but very uncomfortable, after Mr Boffin's

The closing words were not so softly and blushingly said but that John heard them, and showed that he heard

'Well!' said the cherub gaily, and not expressing disapproval, 'when youwhen you come back from

retirement, my love, and reappear on the surface, I think it will be time to lock up and go.'

If the countinghouse of Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles had ever been shut up by three happier people,

glad as most people were to shut it up, they must have been superlatively happy indeed. But first Bella

mounted upon Rumty's Perch, and said, 'Show me what you do here all day long, dear Pa. Do you write like

this?' laying her round cheek upon her plump left arm, and losing sight of her pen in waves of hair, in a

So, the three hobgoblins, having effaced all traces of their feast, and swept up the crumbs, came out of

Mincing Lane to walk to Holloway; and if two of the hobgoblins didn't wish the distance twice as long as it

was, the third hobgoblin was much mistaken. Indeed, that modest spirit deemed himself so much in the way

of their deep enjoyment of the journey, that he apologetically remarked: 'I think, my dears, I'll take the lead

on the other side of the road, and seem not to belong to you.' Which he did, cherubically strewing the path

It was almost ten o'clock when they stopped within view of Wilfer Castle; and then, the spot being quiet and

deserted, Bella began a series of disappearances which threatened to last all night.

'I think, John,' the cherub hinted at last, 'that if you can spare me the young person distantly related to myself,

'I can't spare her,' answered John, 'but I must lend her to you.'My Darling!' A word of magic which caused

'Now, dearest Pa,' said Bella, when she became visible, 'put your hand in mine, and we'll run home as fast as

'My dear,' the cherub faltered, with something of a craven air, 'I was going to observe that if your mother'

'You mustn't hang back, sir, to gain time,' cried Bella, putting out her right foot; 'do you see that, sir? That's

the mark; come up to the mark, sir. Once! Twice! Three times and away, Pa!' Off she skimmed, bearing the

cherub along, nor ever stopped, nor suffered him to stop, until she had pulled at the bell. 'Now, dear Pa,' said

Bella, taking him by both ears as if he were a pitcher, and conveying his face to her rosy lips, 'we are in for

Miss Lavvy came out to open the gate, waited on by that attentive cavalier and friend of the family, Mr

George Sampson. 'Why, it's never Bella!' exclaimed Miss Lavvy starting back at the sight. And then bawled,

This produced, before they could get into the house, Mrs Wilfer. Who, standing in the portal, received them

'My child is welcome, though unlooked for,' said she, at the time presenting her cheek as if it were a cool

slate for visitors to enrol themselves upon. 'You too, R. W., are welcome, though late. Does the male

domestic of Mrs Boffin hear me there?' This deep toned inquiry was cast forth into the night, for response

A dignified shiver pervaded Mrs Wilfer's shoulders and gloves, as who should say, 'An Enigma!' and then she

marched at the head of the procession to the family keepingroom, where she observed:

'Unless, R. W.': who started on being solemnly turned upon: 'you have taken the precaution of making some

addition to our frugal supper on your way home, it will prove but a distasteful one to Bella. Cold neck of

'Pray don't talk like that, Ma dear,' said Bella; 'Mr Boffin's board is nothing to me.'

But, here Miss Lavinia, who had been intently eyeing Bella's bonnet, struck in with 'Why, Bella!'

The Irrepressible lowered her eyes to Bella's dress, and stooped to look at it, exclaiming again: 'Why, Bella!'

'Yes, Lavvy, I know what I have got on. I was going to tell Ma when you interrupted. I have left Mr Boffin's

Mrs Wilfer spake no word, but, having glared at her offspring for a minute or two in an awful silence, retired

into her corner of state backward, and sat down: like a frozen article on sale in a Russian market.

'In short, dear Ma,' said Bella, taking off the depreciated bonnet and shaking out her hair, 'I have had a very

serious difference with Mr Boffin on the subject of his treatment of a member of his household, and it's a

'And I am bound to tell you, my dear,' added R. W., submissively, 'that Bella has acted in a truly brave spirit,

and with a truly right feeling. And therefore I hope, my dear, you'll not allow yourself to be greatly

'George!' said Miss Lavvy, in a sepulchral, warning voice, founded on her mother's; 'George Sampson, speak!

Mr Sampson perceiving his frail bark to be labouring among shoals and breakers, thought it safest not to refer

back to any particular thing that he had been told, lest he should refer back to the wrong thing. With

'Yes! I told George Sampson, as George Sampson tells you, said Miss Lavvy, 'that those hateful Boffins

would pick a quarrel with Bella, as soon as her novelty had worn off. Have they done it, or have they not?

Was I right, or was I wrong? And what do you say to us, Bella, of your Boffins now?'

'Lavvy and Ma,' said Bella, 'I say of Mr and Mrs Boffin what I always have said; and I always shall say of

them what I always have said. But nothing will induce me to quarrel with any one to night. I hope you are

not sorry to see me, Ma dear,' kissing her; 'and I hope you are not sorry to see me, Lavvy,' kissing her too;

Bella playfully setting herself about the task, Mrs Wilfer's impressive countenance followed her with glaring

eyes, presenting a combination of the once popular sign of the Saracen's Head, with a piece of Dutch

clockwork, and suggesting to an imaginative mind that from the composition of the salad, her daughter

might prudently omit the vinegar. But no word issued from the majestic matron's lips. And this was more

terrific to her husband (as perhaps she knew) than any flow of eloquence with which she could have edified

'Now, Ma dear,' said Bella in due course, 'the salad's ready, and it's past suppertime.'

Mrs Wilfer rose, but remained speechless. 'George!' said Miss Lavinia in her voice of warning, 'Ma's chair!'

Mr Sampson flew to the excellent lady's back, and followed her up close chair in hand, as she stalked to the

banquet. Arrived at the table, she took her rigid seat, after favouring Mr Sampson with a glare for himself,

The cherub not presuming to address so tremendous an object, transacted her supper through the agency of a

third person, as 'Mutton to your Ma, Bella, my dear'; and 'Lavvy, I dare say your Ma would take some lettuce

if you were to put it on her plate.' Mrs Wilfer's manner of receiving those viands was marked by petrified

absence of mind; in which state, likewise, she partook of them, occasionally laying down her knife and fork,

as saying within her own spirit, 'What is this I am doing?' and glaring at one or other of the party, as if in

indignant search of information. A magnetic result of such glaring was, that the person glared at could not by

any means successfully pretend to he ignorant of the fact: so that a bystander, without beholding Mrs Wilfer

at all, must have known at whom she was glaring, by seeing her refracted from the countenance of the

Miss Lavinia was extremely affable to Mr Sampson on this special occasion, and took the opportunity of

'It was not worth troubling you about, Bella, when you were in a sphere so far removed from your family as

to make it a matter in which you could be expected to take very little interest,' said Lavinia with a toss of her

Bella was glad to hear it. Mr Sampson became thoughtfully red, and felt called upon to encircle Miss

Lavinia's waist with his arm; but, encountering a large pin in the young lady's belt, scarified a finger, uttered a

'George is getting on very well,' said Miss Lavinia which might not have been supposed at the moment'and

I dare say we shall be married, one of these days. I didn't care to mention it when you were with your Bof'

here Miss Lavinia checked herself in a bounce, and added more placidly, 'when you were with Mr and Mrs

'Thank you, Bella. The truth is, George and I did discuss whether I should tell you; but I said to George that

you wouldn't be much interested in so paltry an affair, and that it was far more likely you would rather detach

'It turns out to be,' replied Miss Lavinia; 'but circumstances have changed, you know, my dear. George is in a

new situation, and his prospects are very good indeed. I shouldn't have had the courage to tell you so

yesterday, when you would have thought his prospects poor, and not worth notice; but I feel quite bold

'I didn't say that I ever felt timid, Bella,' replied the Irrepressible. 'But perhaps I might have said, if I had not

been restrained by delicacy towards a sister's feelings, that I have for some time felt independent; too

independent, my dear, to subject myself to have my intended match (you'll prick yourself again, George)

looked down upon. It is not that I could have blamed you for looking down upon it, when you were looking

Whether the Irrepressible felt slighted by Bella's declaration that she would not quarrel, or whether her

spitefulness was evoked by Bella's return to the sphere of Mr George Sampson's courtship, or whether it was

a necessary fillip to her spirits that she should come into collision with somebody on the present

occasion,anyhow she made a dash at her stately parent now, with the greatest impetuosity.

'Ma, pray don't sit staring at me in that intensely aggravating manner! If you see a black on my nose, tell me

'Don't talk about presuming, Ma, for goodness' sake. A girl who is old enough to be engaged, is quite old

'Audacious one!' said Mrs Wilfer. 'Your grandmamma, if so addressed by one of her daughters, at any age,

'My grandmamma,' returned Lavvy, folding her arms and leaning back in her chair, 'wouldn't have sat staring

'Then it's a pity she didn't know better,' said Lavvy. 'And if my grandmamma wasn't in her dotage when she

took to insisting on people's retiring to dark apartments, she ought to have been. A pretty exhibition my

grandmamma must have made of herself! I wonder whether she ever insisted on people's retiring into the ball

'I have not the slightest intention of being silent, Ma,' returned Lavinia coolly, 'but quite the contrary. I am not

going to be eyed as if I had come from the Boffins, and sit silent under it. I am not going to have George

Sampson eyed as if HE had come from the Boffins, and sit silent under it. If Pa thinks proper to be eyed as if

HE had come from the Boffins also, well and good. I don't choose to. And I won't!'

Lavinia's engineering having made this crooked opening at Bella, Mrs Wilfer strode into it.

'You rebellious spirit! You mutinous child! Tell me this, Lavinia. If in violation of your mother's sentiments,

you had condescended to allow yourself to be patronized by the Boffins, and if you had come from those

'Halls of slavery, Ma, is mere stuff and nonsense,' returned the unmoved Irrepressible.

'I say, presumptuous child, if you had come from the neighbourhood of Portland Place, bending under the

yoke of patronage and attended by its domestics in glittering garb to visit me, do you think my deepseated

'All I think about it, is,' returned Lavinia, 'that I should wish them expressed to the right person.'

'And if,' pursued her mother, 'if making light of my warnings that the face of Mrs Boffin alone was a face

teeming with evil, you had clung to Mrs Boffin instead of to me, and had after all come home rejected by Mrs

Boffin, trampled under foot by Mrs Boffin, and cast out by Mrs Boffin, do you think my feelings could have

Lavinia was about replying to her honoured parent that she might as well have dispensed with her looks

altogether then, when Bella rose and said, 'Good night, dear Ma. I have had a tiring day, and I'll go to bed.'

This broke up the agreeable party. Mr George Sampson shortly afterwards took his leave, accompanied by

Miss Lavinia with a candle as far as the hall, and without a candle as far as the garden gate; Mrs Wilfer,

washing her hands of the Boffins, went to bed after the manner of Lady Macbeth; and R. W. was left alone

But, a light footstep roused him from his meditations, and it was Bella's. Her pretty hair was hanging all

about her, and she had tripped down softly, brush in hand, and barefoot, to say goodnight to him.

'My dear, you most unquestionably ARE a lovely woman,' said the cherub, taking up a tress in his hand.

'Look here, sir,' said Bella; 'when your lovely woman marries, you shall have that piece if you like, and she'll

'Then you shall have it if you're good, sir. I am very, very sorry, dearest Pa, to have brought home all this

'My pet,' returned her father, in the simplest good faith, 'don't make yourself uneasy about that. It really is not

worth mentioning, because things at home would have taken pretty much the same turn any way. If your

mother and sister don't find one subject to get at times a little wearing on, they find another. We're never out

of a wearing subject, my dear, I assure you. I am afraid you find your old room with Lavvy, dreadfully

'Well, my child, you used to complain of it when it wasn't such a contrast as it must be now. Upon my word, I

Here she choked him until her long hair made him sneeze, and then she laughed until she made him laugh,

'Listen, sir,' said Bella. 'Your lovely woman was told her fortune to night on her way home. It won't be a large

fortune, because if the lovely woman's Intended gets a certain appointment that he hopes to get soon, she will

marry on a hundred and fifty pounds a year. But that's at first, and even if it should never be more, the lovely

woman will make it quite enough. But that's not all, sir. In the fortune there's a certain fair mana little man,

the fortuneteller saidwho, it seems, will always find himself near the lovely woman, and will always have

kept, expressly for him, such a peaceful corner in the lovely woman's little house as never was. Tell me the

'Is he a Knave in the pack of cards?' inquired the cherub, with a twinkle in his eyes.

'Yes!' cried Bella, in high glee, choking him again. 'He's the Knave of Wilfers! Dear Pa, the lovely woman

means to look forward to this fortune that has been told for her, so delightfully, and to cause it to make her a

much better lovely woman than she ever has been yet. What the little fair man is expected to do, sir, is to look

forward to it also, by saying to himself when he is in danger of being overworried, "I see land at last!"

'There's a dear Knave of Wilfers!' exclaimed Bella; then putting out her small white bare foot, 'That's the

mark, sir. Come to the mark. Put your boot against it. We keep to it together, mind! Now, sir, you may kiss

the lovely woman before she runs away, so thankful and so happy. O yes, fair little man, so thankful and so

Amazement sits enthroned upon the countenances of Mr and Mrs Alfred Lammle's circle of acquaintance,

when the disposal of their firstclass furniture and effects (including a Billiard Table in capital letters), 'by

auction, under a bill of sale,' is publicly announced on a waving hearthrug in Sackville Street. But, nobody is

half so much amazed as Hamilton Veneering, Esquire, M.P. for PocketBreaches, who instantly begins to

find out that the Lammles are the only people ever entered on his soul's register, who are NOT the oldest and

dearest friends he has in the world. Mrs Veneering, W.M.P. for PocketBreaches, like a faithful wife shares

her husband's discovery and inexpressible astonishment. Perhaps the Veneerings twain may deem the last

unutterable feeling particularly due to their reputation, by reason that once upon a time some of the longer

heads in the City are whispered to have shaken themselves, when Veneering's extensive dealings and great

wealth were mentioned. But, it is certain that neither Mr nor Mrs Veneering can find words to wonder in, and

it becomes necessary that they give to the oldest and dearest friends they have in the world, a wondering

For, it is by this time noticeable that, whatever befals, the Veneerings must give a dinner upon it. Lady

Tippins lives in a chronic state of invitation to dine with the Veneerings, and in a chronic state of

inflammation arising from the dinners. Boots and Brewer go about in cabs, with no other intelligible business

on earth than to beat up people to come and dine with the Veneerings. Veneering pervades the legislative

lobbies, intent upon entrapping his fellowlegislators to dinner. Mrs Veneering dined with five andtwenty

brannew faces over night; calls upon them all to day; sends them every one a dinnercard tomorrow, for

the week after next; before that dinner is digested, calls upon their brothers and sisters, their sons and

daughters, their nephews and nieces, their aunts and uncles and cousins, and invites them all to dinner. And

still, as at first, howsoever, the dining circle widens, it is to be observed that all the diners are consistent in

appearing to go to the Veneerings, not to dine with Mr and Mrs Veneering (which would seem to be the last

Perhaps, after all,who knows?Veneering may find this dining, though expensive, remunerative, in the

sense that it makes champions. Mr Podsnap, as a representative man, is not alone in caring very particularly

for his own dignity, if not for that of his acquaintances, and therefore in angrily supporting the acquaintances

who have taken out his Permit, lest, in their being lessened, he should be. The gold and silver camels, and the

ice pails, and the rest of the Veneering table decorations, make a brilliant show, and when I, Podsnap,

casually remark elsewhere that I dined last Monday with a gorgeous caravan of camels, I find it personally

offensive to have it hinted to me that they are broken kneed camels, or camels labouring under suspicion of

any sort. 'I don't display camels myself, I am above them: I am a more solid man; but these camels have

basked in the light of my countenance, and how dare you, sir, insinuate to me that I have irradiated any but

The camels are polishing up in the Analytical's pantry for the dinner of wonderment on the occasion of the

Lammles going to pieces, and Mr Twemlow feels a little queer on the sofa at his lodgings over the stable yard

in Duke Street, Saint James's, in consequence of having taken two advertised pills at about midday, on the

faith of the printed representation accompanying the box (price one and a penny halfpenny, government

stamp included), that the same 'will be found highly salutary as a precautionary measure in connection with

the pleasures of the table.' To whom, while sickly with the fancy of an insoluble pill sticking in his gullet, and

also with the sensation of a deposit of warm gum languidly wandering within him a little lower down, a

'A lady!' says Twemlow, pluming his ruffled feathers. 'Ask the favour of the lady's name.'

The lady's name is Lammle. The lady will not detain Mr Twemlow longer than a very few minutes. The lady

is sure that Mr Twemlow will do her the kindness to see her, on being told that she particularly desires a short

interview. The lady has no doubt whatever of Mr Twemlow's compliance when he hears her name. Has

begged the servant to be particular not to mistake her name. Would have sent in a card, but has none.

Mr Twemlow's little rooms are modestly furnished, in an old fashioned manner (rather like the

housekeeper's room at Snigsworthy Park), and would be bare of mere ornament, were it not for a fulllength

engraving of the sublime Snigsworth over the chimneypiece, snorting at a Corinthian column, with an

enormous roll of paper at his feet, and a heavy curtain going to tumble down on his head; those accessories

being understood to represent the noble lord as somehow in the act of saving his country.

'Pray take a seat, Mrs Lammle.' Mrs Lammle takes a seat and opens the conversation.

'I have no doubt, Mr Twemlow, that you have heard of a reverse of fortune having befallen us. Of course you

have heard of it, for no kind of news travels so fastamong one's friends especially.'

Mindful of the wondering dinner, Twemlow, with a little twinge, admits the imputation.

'Probably it will not,' says Mrs Lammle, with a certain hardened manner upon her, that makes Twemlow

shrink, 'have surprised you so much as some others, after what passed between us at the house which is now

turned out at windows. I have taken the liberty of calling upon you, Mr Twemlow, to add a sort of postscript

Mr Twemlow's dry and hollow cheeks become more dry and hollow at the prospect of some new

'Really,' says the uneasy little gentleman, 'really, Mrs Lammle, I should take it as a favour if you could excuse

me from any further confidence. It has ever been one of the objects of my lifewhich, unfortunately, has not

had many objectsto be inoffensive, and to keep out of cabals and interferences.'

Mrs Lammle, by far the more observant of the two, scarcely finds it necessary to look at Twemlow while he

'My postscriptto retain the term I have used'says Mrs Lammle, fixing her eyes on his face, to enforce

what she says herself 'coincides exactly with what you say, Mr Twemlow. So far from troubling you with

any new confidence, I merely wish to remind you what the old one was. So far from asking you for

Twemlow going on to reply, she rests her eyes again, knowing her ears to be quite enough for the contents of

'I can, I suppose,' says Twemlow, nervously, 'offer no reasonable objection to hearing anything that you do

me the honour to wish to say to me under those heads. But if I may, with all possible delicacy and politeness,

'Sir,' says Mrs Lammle, raising her eyes to his face again, and quite daunting him with her hardened manner,

'I imparted to you a certain piece of knowledge, to be imparted again, as you thought best, to a certain

'And for doing which, I thank you; though, indeed, I scarcely know why I turned traitress to my husband in

the matter, for the girl is a poor little fool. I was a poor little fool once myself; I can find no better reason.'

Seeing the effect she produces on him by her indifferent laugh and cold look, she keeps her eyes upon him as

she proceeds. 'Mr Twemlow, if you should chance to see my husband, or to see me, or to see both of us, in

the favour or confidence of any one elsewhether of our common acquaintance or not, is of no

consequenceyou have no right to use against us the knowledge I intrusted you with, for one special

purpose which has been accomplished. This is what I came to say. It is not a stipulation; to a gentleman it is

'It is so plain a case,' Mrs Lammle goes on, 'as between me (from the first relying on your honour) and you,

that I will not waste another word upon it.' She looks steadily at Mr Twemlow, until, with a shrug, he makes

her a little onesided bow, as though saying 'Yes, I think you have a right to rely upon me,' and then she

'I trust I have kept the promise I made through your servant, that I would detain you a very few minutes. I

'Stay!' says Twemlow, rising as she rises. 'Pardon me a moment. I should never have sought you out, madam,

to say what I am going to say, but since you have sought me out and are here, I will throw it off my mind.

Was it quite consistent, in candour, with our taking that resolution against Mr Fledgeby, that you should

afterwards address Mr Fledgeby as your dear and confidential friend, and entreat a favour of Mr Fledgeby?

Always supposing that you did; I assert no knowledge of my own on the subject; it has been represented to

'Then he told you?' retorts Mrs Lammle, who again has saved her eyes while listening, and uses them with

'It is strange that he should have told you the truth,' says Mrs Lammle, seriously pondering. 'Pray where did a

Twemlow hesitates. He is shorter than the lady as well as weaker, and, as she stands above him with her

hardened manner and her wellused eyes, he finds himself at such a disadvantage that he would like to be of

'I must confess,' says the mild little gentleman, coming to his answer by degrees, 'that I felt some

compunctions when Mr Fledgeby mentioned it. I must admit that I could not regard myself in an agreeable

light. More particularly, as Mr Fledgeby did, with great civility, which I could not feel that I deserved from

It is a part of the true nobility of the poor gentleman's soul to say this last sentence. 'Otherwise,' he has

reffected, 'I shall assume the superior position of having no difficulties of my own, while I know of hers.

'Was Mr Fledgeby's advocacy as effectual in your case as in ours?' Mrs Lammle demands.

'I beg your pardon. I fully intended to have done so. The reservation was not intentional. I encountered Mr

Fledgeby, quite by accident, on the spot.By the expression, on the spot, I mean at Mr Riah's in Saint Mary

'Unfortunately, madam,' returns Twemlow, 'the one money obligation to which I stand committed, the one

debt of my life (but it is a just debt; pray observe that I don't dispute it), has fallen into Mr Riah's hands.'

'Mr Twemlow,' says Mrs Lammle, fixing his eyes with hers: which he would prevent her doing if he could,

but he can't; 'it has fallen into Mr Fledgeby's hands. Mr Riah is his mask. It has fallen into Mr Fledgeby's

hands. Let me tell you that, for your guidance. The information may be of use to you, if only to prevent your

credulity, in judging another man's truthfulness by your own, from being imposed upon.'

'I scarcely know how I know it. The whole train of circumstances seemed to take fire at once, and show it to

'It is very strange,' says Mrs Lammle, coldly and boldly, and with some disdain, 'how like men are to one

another in some things, though their characters are as different as can be! No two men can have less affinity

between them, one would say, than Mr Twemlow and my husband. Yet my husband replies to me "You have

'But why, madam?' Twemlow ventures gently to argue. 'Consider why the very same words? Because they

'Men are very wise in their way,' quoth Mrs Lammle, glancing haughtily at the Snigsworth portrait, and

shaking out her dress before departing; 'but they have wisdom to learn. My husband, who is not

overconfiding, ingenuous, or inexperienced, sees this plain thing no more than Mr Twemlow

doesbecause there is no proof! Yet I believe five women out of six, in my place, would see it as clearly as I

do. However, I will never rest (if only in remembrance of Mr Fledgeby's having kissed my hand) until my

husband does see it. And you will do well for yourself to see it from this time forth, Mr Twemlow, though I

As she moves towards the door, Mr Twemlow, attending on her, expresses his soothing hope that the

'I don't know,' Mrs Lammle answers, stopping, and sketching out the pattern of the paper on the wall with the

point of her parasol; 'it depends. There may be an opening for him dawning now, or there may be none. We

shall soon find out. If none, we are bankrupt here, and must go abroad, I suppose.'

Mr Twemlow, in his goodnatured desire to make the best of it, remarks that there are pleasant lives abroad.

'Yes,' returns Mrs Lammle, still sketching on the wall; 'but I doubt whether billiardplaying, cardplaying,

and so forth, for the means to live under suspicion at a dirty tabled'hote, is one of them.'

It is much for Mr Lammle, Twemlow politely intimates (though greatly shocked), to have one always beside

him who is attached to him in all his fortunes, and whose restraining influence will prevent him from courses

that would be discreditable and ruinous. As he says it, Mrs Lammle leaves off sketching, and looks at him.

'Restraining influence, Mr Twemlow? We must eat and drink, and dress, and have a roof over our heads.

Always beside him and attached in all his fortunes? Not much to boast of in that; what can a woman at my

age do? My husband and I deceived one another when we married; we must bear the consequences of the

deceptionthat is to say, bear one another, and bear the burden of scheming together for today's dinner and

With those words, she walks out into Duke Street, Saint James's. Mr Twemlow returning to his sofa, lays

down his aching head on its slippery little horsehair bolster, with a strong internal conviction that a painful

interview is not the kind of thing to be taken after the dinner pills which are so highly salutary in connexion

But, six o'clock in the evening finds the worthy little gentleman getting better, and also getting himself into

his obsolete little silk stockings and pumps, for the wondering dinner at the Veneerings. And seven o'clock in

the evening finds him trotting out into Duke Street, to trot to the corner and save a sixpence in coachhire.

Tippins the divine has dined herself into such a condition by this time, that a morbid mind might desire her,

for a blessed change, to sup at last, and turn into bed. Such a mind has Mr Eugene Wrayburn, whom

Twemlow finds contemplating Tippins with the moodiest of visages, while that playful creature rallies him

on being so long overdue at the woolsack. Skittish is Tippins with Mortimer Lightwood too, and has raps to

give him with her fan for having been best man at the nuptials of these deceiving what's theirnames who

have gone to pieces. Though, indeed, the fan is generally lively, and taps away at the men in all directions,

with something of a grisly sound suggestive of the clattering of Lady Tippins's bones.

A new race of intimate friends has sprung up at Veneering's since he went into Parliament for the public

good, to whom Mrs Veneering is very attentive. These friends, like astronomical distances, are only to be

spoken of in the very largest figures. Boots says that one of them is a Contractor who (it has been calculated)

gives employment, directly and indirectly, to five hundred thousand men. Brewer says that another of them is

a Chairman, in such request at so many Boards, so far apart, that he never travels less by railway than three

thousand miles a week. Buffer says that another of them hadn't a sixpence eighteen months ago, and, through

the brilliancy of his genius in getting those shares issued at eightyfive, and buying them all up with no

money and selling them at par for cash, has now three hundred and seventyfive thousand poundsBuffer

particularly insisting on the odd seventyfive, and declining to take a farthing less. With Buffer, Boots, and

Brewer, Lady Tippins is eminently facetious on the subject of these Fathers of the ScripChurch: surveying

them through her eyeglass, and inquiring whether Boots and Brewer and Buffer think they will make her

fortune if she makes love to them? with other pleasantries of that nature. Veneering, in his different way, is

much occupied with the Fathers too, piously retiring with them into the conservatory, from which retreat the

word 'Committee' is occasionally heard, and where the Fathers instruct Veneering how he must leave the

valley of the piano on his left, take the level of the mantelpiece, cross by an open cutting at the candelabra,

seize the carryingtraffic at the console, and cut up the opposition root and branch at the window curtains.

Mr and Mrs Podsnap are of the company, and the Fathers descry in Mrs Podsnap a fine woman. She is

consigned to a FatherBoots's Father, who employs five hundred thousand menand is brought to anchor

on Veneering's left; thus affording opportunity to the sportive Tippins on his right (he, as usual, being mere

vacant space), to entreat to be told something about those loves of Navvies, and whether they really do live

on raw beefsteaks, and drink porter out of their barrows. But, in spite of such little skirmishes it is felt that

this was to be a wondering dinner, and that the wondering must not be neglected. Accordingly, Brewer, as the

man who has the greatest reputation to sustain, becomes the interpreter of the general instinct.

'I took,' says Brewer in a favourable pause, 'a cab this morning, and I rattled off to that Sale.'

'I assure you,' replies Brewer, looking about for anybody else to address his answer to, and giving the

preference to Lightwood; 'I assure you, the things were going for a song. Handsome things enough, but

Lightwood replies that he was consulted certainly, but could give no opinion which would pay off the Bill of

Sale, and therefore violates no confidence in supposing that it came of their living beyond their means.

Hah! That is felt on all hands to be a shot in the bull's eye. How CAN people do that! The Analytical Chemist

going round with champagne, looks very much as if HE could give them a pretty good idea how people did

'How,' says Mrs Veneering, laying down her fork to press her aquiline hands together at the tips of the

fingers, and addressing the Father who travels the three thousand miles per week: 'how a mother can look at

her baby, and know that she lives beyond her husband's means, I cannot imagine.'

Boots is clear that the principle is the same. So is Buffer. It is the unfortunate destiny of Buffer to damage a

cause by espousing it. The rest of the company have meekly yielded to the proposition that the principle is the

same, until Buffer says it is; when instantly a general murmur arises that the principle is not the same.

'But I don't understand,' says the Father of the three hundred and seventyfive thousand pounds, 'if these

people spoken of, occupied the position of being in societythey were in society?'

Veneering is bound to confess that they dined here, and were even married from here.

'Then I don't understand,' pursues the Father, 'how even their living beyond their means could bring them to

what has been termed a total smash. Because, there is always such a thing as an adjustment of affairs, in the

Eugene (who would seem to be in a gloomy state of suggestiveness), suggests, 'Suppose you have no means

This is too insolvent a state of things for the Father to entertain. It is too insolvent a state of things for any one

with any selfrespect to entertain, and is universally scouted. But, it is so amazing how any people can have

come to a total smash, that everybody feels bound to account for it specially. One of the Fathers says,

'Gaming table.' Another of the Fathers says, 'Speculated without knowing that speculation is a science.' Boots

says 'Horses.' Lady Tippins says to her fan, 'Two establishments.' Mr Podsnap, saying nothing, is referred to

for his opinion; which he delivers as follows; much flushed and extremely angry:

'Don't ask me. I desire to take no part in the discussion of these people's affairs. I abhor the subject. It is an

odious subject, an offensive subject, a subject that makes me sick, and I' And with his favourite rightarm

flourish which sweeps away everything and settles it for ever, Mr Podsnap sweeps these inconveniently

unexplainable wretches who have lived beyond their means and gone to total smash, off the face of the

Eugene, leaning back in his chair, is observing Mr Podsnap with an irreverent face, and may be about to offer

a new suggestion, when the Analytical is beheld in collision with the Coachman; the Coachman manifesting a

purpose of coming at the company with a silver salver, as though intent upon making a collection for his wife

and family; the Analytical cutting him off at the sideboard. The superior stateliness, if not the superior

generalship, of the Analytical prevails over a man who is as nothing off the box; and the Coachman, yielding

Then, the Analytical, perusing a scrap of paper lying on the salver, with the air of a literary Censor, adjusts it,

takes his time about going to the table with it, and presents it to Mr Eugene Wrayburn. Whereupon the

With distracting coolness and slownessfor he knows the curiosity of the Charmer to be always

devouringEugene makes a pretence of getting out an eyeglass, polishing it, and reading the paper with

difficulty, long after he has seen what is written on it. What is written on it in wet ink, is:

Eugene looks 'Excuse me,' towards Mrs Veneering, goes out, and finds Young Blight, Mortimer's clerk, at the

'You told me to bring him, sir, to wherever you was, if he come while you was out and I was in,' says that

discreet young gentleman, standing on tiptoe to whisper; 'and I've brought him.'

'He's in a cab, sir, at the door. I thought it best not to show him, you see, if it could be helped; for he's

ashaking all over, like Blight's simile is perhaps inspired by the surrounding dishes of sweets'like Glue

Goes out straightway, and, leisurely leaning his arms on the open window of a cab in waiting, looks in at Mr

Dolls: who has brought his own atmosphere with him, and would seem from its odour to have brought it, for

After carefully reading the dingy scrap of paper handed to him, and as carefully tucking it into his waistcoat

pocket, Eugene tells out the money; beginning incautiously by telling the first shilling into Mr Dolls's hand,

which instantly jerks it out of window; and ending by telling the fifteen shillings on the seat.

Returning to the diningroom, and pausing for an instant behind the screen at the door, Eugene overhears,

above the hum and clatter, the fair Tippins saying: 'I am dying to ask him what he was called out for!'

'Are you?' mutters Eugene, 'then perhaps if you can't ask him, you'll die. So I'll be a benefactor to society, and

go. A stroll and a cigar, and I can think this over. Think this over.' Thus, with a thoughtful face, he finds his

Plashwater Weir Mill Lock looked tranquil and pretty on an evening in the summer time. A soft air stirred the

leaves of the fresh green trees, and passed like a smooth shadow over the river, and like a smoother shadow

over the yielding grass. The voice of the falling water, like the voices of the sea and the wind, were as an

outer memory to a contemplative listener; but not particularly so to Mr Riderhood, who sat on one of the

blunt wooden levers of his lockgates, dozing. Wine must be got into a butt by some agency before it can be

drawn out; and the wine of sentiment never having been got into Mr Riderhood by any agency, nothing in

As the Rogue sat, ever and again nodding himself off his balance, his recovery was always attended by an

angry stare and growl, as if, in the absence of any one else, he had aggressive inclinations towards himself. In

one of these starts the cry of 'Lock, ho! Lock!' prevented his relapse into a doze. Shaking himself as he got up

like the surly brute he was, he gave his growl a responsive twist at the end, and turned his face downstream

It was an amateursculler, well up to his work though taking it easily, in so light a boat that the Rogue

remarked: 'A little less on you, and you'd a'most ha' been a Wagerbut'; then went to work at his windlass

handles and sluices, to let the sculler in. As the latter stood in his boat, holding on by the boathook to the

woodwork at the lock side, waiting for the gates to open, Rogue Riderhood recognized his 'T'other governor,'

Mr Eugene Wrayburn; who was, however, too indifferent or too much engaged to recognize him.

The creaking lockgates opened slowly, and the light boat passed in as soon as there was room enough, and

the creaking lockgates closed upon it, and it floated low down in the dock between the two sets of gates,

until the water should rise and the second gates should open and let it out. When Riderhood had run to his

second windlass and turned it, and while he leaned against the lever of that gate to help it to swing open

presently, he noticed, lying to rest under the green hedge by the towingpath astern of the Lock, a Bargeman.

The water rose and rose as the sluice poured in, dispersing the scum which had formed behind the lumbering

gates, and sending the boat up, so that the sculler gradually rose like an apparition against the light from the

bargeman's point of view. Riderhood observed that the bargeman rose too, leaning on his arm, and seemed to

But, there was the toll to be taken, as the gates were now complaining and opening. The T'other governor

'Ay, ay? It's you, is it, honest friend?' said Eugene, seating himself preparatory to resuming his sculls. 'You

'I got the place, and no thanks to you for it, nor yet none to Lawyer Lightwood,' gruffly answered Riderhood.

'We saved our recommendation, honest fellow,' said Eugene, 'for the next candidatethe one who will offer

himself when you are transported or hanged. Don't be long about it; will you be so good?'

So imperturbable was the air with which he gravely bent to his work that Riderhood remained staring at him,

without having found a retort, until he had rowed past a line of wooden objects by the weir, which showed

like huge teetotums standing at rest in the water, and was almost hidden by the drooping boughs on the left

bank, as he rowed away, keeping out of the opposing current. It being then too late to retort with any

effectif that could ever have been donethe honest man confined himself to cursing and growling in a

grim undertone. Having then got his gates shut, he crossed back by his plank lockbridge to the

If, in so doing, he took another glance at the bargeman, he did it by stealth. He cast himself on the grass by

the Lock side, in an indolent way, with his back in that direction, and, having gathered a few blades, fell to

chewing them. The dip of Eugene Wrayburn's sculls had become hardly audible in his ears when the

bargeman passed him, putting the utmost width that he could between them, and keeping under the hedge.

Then, Riderhood sat up and took a long look at his figure, and then cried: 'HiIi! Lock, ho! Lock!

'Plashwater Weir Mill Lock, T'otherest governorororor!' cried Mr Riderhood, with his hands to

The bargeman turned back. Approaching nearer and nearer, the bargeman became Bradley Headstone, in

'Wish I may die,' said Riderhood, smiting his right leg, and laughing, as he sat on the grass, 'if you ain't ha'

been a imitating me, T'otherest governor! Never thought myself so goodlooking afore!'

Truly, Bradley Headstone had taken careful note of the honest man's dress in the course of that nightwalk

they had had together. He must have committed it to memory, and slowly got it by heart. It was exactly

reproduced in the dress he now wore. And whereas, in his own schoolmaster clothes, he usually looked as if

they were the clothes of some other man, he now looked, in the clothes of some other man or men, as if they

'THIS your Lock?' said Bradley, whose surprise had a genuine air; 'they told me, where I last inquired, it was

'It's my belief, governor,' returned Riderhood, with a wink and shake of his head, 'that you've dropped one in

As he expressively jerked his pointing finger in the direction the boat had taken, a flush of impatience

'It ain't Locks as YOU'VE been a reckoning up,' said Riderhood, when the schoolmaster's eyes came back

'What other calculations do you suppose I have been occupied with? Mathematics?'

'I never heerd it called that. It's a long word for it. Hows'ever, p'raps you call it so,' said Riderhood,

'I'll say them, instead of it, if you like,' was the coolly growled reply. 'It's safer talk too.'

'Spites, affronts, offences giv' and took, deadly aggrawations, such like,' answered Riderhood.

Do what Bradley Headstone would, he could not keep that former flush of impatience out of his face, or so

'Ha ha! Don't be afeerd, T'otherest,' said Riderhood. 'The T'other's got to make way agin the stream, and he

takes it easy. You can soon come up with him. But wot's the good of saying that to you! YOU know how fur

you could have outwalked him betwixt anywheres about where he lost the tidesay Richmondand this, if

'Well! I have, I have,' Bradley admitted. 'But,' with another anxious look up the river, 'he may land.'

'Easy you! He won't be lost if he does land,' said Riderhood. 'He must leave his boat behind him. He can't

'He was speaking to you just now,' said Bradley, kneeling on one knee on the grass beside the Lockkeeper.

'Cheek,' repeated Riderhood, with an angry oath; 'cheek is what he said. He can't say nothing but cheek. I'd

ha' liked to plump down aboard of him, neck and crop, with a heavy jump, and sunk him.'

Bradley turned away his haggard face for a few moments, and then said, tearing up a tuft of grass:

'Hooroar!' cried Riderhood. 'Does you credit! Hooroar! I cry chorus to the T'otherest.'

'What turn,' said Bradley, with an effort at selfrepression that forced him to wipe his face, 'did his insolence

'It took the turn,' answered Riderhood, with sullen ferocity, 'of hoping as I was getting ready to be hanged.'

'Let him look to that,' cried Bradley. 'Let him look to that! It will be bad for him when men he has injured,

and at whom he has jeered, are thinking of getting hanged. Let HIM get ready for HIS fate, when that comes

about. There was more meaning in what he said than he knew of, or he wouldn't have had brains enough to

say it. Let him look to it; let him look to it! When men he has wronged, and on whom he has bestowed his

insolence, are getting ready to be hanged, there is a deathbell ringing. And not for them.'

Riderhood, looking fixedly at him, gradually arose from his recumbent posture while the schoolmaster said

these words with the utmost concentration of rage and hatred. So, when the words were all spoken, he too

'Oh!' said Riderhood, very deliberately spitting out the grass he had been chewing. 'Then, I make out,

'He left London,' answered Bradley, 'yesterday. I have hardly a doubt, this time, that at last he is going to her.'

'I am as sure here,' said Bradley, with a clutch at the breast of his coarse shirt, 'as if it was written there;' with

'Ah! But judging from the looks on you,' retorted Riderhood, completely ridding himself of his grass, and

drawing his sleeve across his mouth, 'you've made ekally sure afore, and have got disapinted. It has told upon

'Listen,' said Bradley, in a low voice, bending forward to lay his hand upon the Lockkeeper's shoulder.

'Are they, by George!' muttered Riderhood, with his eyes on the passionwasted face. 'Your working days

'And I have never left him,' pursued Bradley, waving the interruption aside with an impatient hand, 'since

Riderhood stiffened the knee on which he had been resting, got up, and looked gloomily at his new friend.

After a few moments they walked side by side in the direction the boat had taken, as if by tacit consent;

Bradley pressing forward, and Riderhood holding back; Bradley getting out his neat prim purse into his hand

(a present made him by penny subscription among his pupils); and Riderhood, unfolding his arms to smear

Bradley held a sovereign between his fingers. Slouching at his side with his eyes upon the towingpath,

Riderhood held his left hand open, with a certain slight drawing action towards himself. Bradley dipped in his

purse for another sovereign, and two chinked in Riderhood's hand, the drawing action of which, promptly

'Now, I must follow him,' said Bradley Headstone. 'He takes this riverroadthe fool!to confuse

observation, or divert attention, if not solely to baffle me. But he must have the power of making himself

Riderhood stopped. 'If you don't get disapinted agin, T'otherest, maybe you'll put up at the Lockhouse when

Riderhood nodded, and the figure of the bargeman went its way along the soft turf by the side of the

towingpath, keeping near the hedge and moving quickly. They had turned a point from which a long stretch

of river was visible. A stranger to the scene might have been certain that here and there along the line of

hedge a figure stood, watching the bargeman, and waiting for him to come up. So he himself had often

believed at first, until his eyes became used to the posts, bearing the dagger that slew Wat Tyler, in the City

Within Mr Riderhood's knowledge all daggers were as one. Even to Bradley Headstone, who could have told

to the letter without book all about Wat Tyler, Lord Mayor Walworth, and the King, that it is dutiful for

youth to know, there was but one subject living in the world for every sharp destructive instrument that

summer evening. So, Riderhood looking after him as he went, and he with his furtive hand laid upon the

The boat went on, under the arching trees, and over their tranquil shadows in the water. The bargeman

skulking on the opposite bank of the stream, went on after it. Sparkles of light showed Riderhood when and

where the rower dipped his blades, until, even as he stood idly watching, the sun went down and the

landscape was dyed red. And then the red had the appearance of fading out of it and mounting up to Heaven,

Turning back towards his Lock (he had not gone out of view of it), the Rogue pondered as deeply as it was

within the contracted power of such a fellow to do. 'Why did he copy my clothes? He could have looked like

what he wanted to look like, without that.' This was the subjectmatter in his thoughts; in which, too, there

came lumbering up, by times, like any half floating and half sinking rubbish in the river, the question, Was it

done by accident? The setting of a trap for finding out whether it was accidentally done, soon superseded, as

a practical piece of cunning, the abstruser inquiry why otherwise it was done. And he devised a means.

Rogue Riderhood went into his Lockhouse, and brought forth, into the now sober grey light, his chest of

clothes. Sitting on the grass beside it, he turned out, one by one, the articles it contained, until he came to a

conspicuous bright red neckerchief stained black here and there by wear. It arrested his attention, and he sat

pausing over it, until he took off the rusty colourless wisp that he wore round his throat, and substituted the

red neckerchief, leaving the long ends flowing. 'Now,' said the Rogue, 'if arter he sees me in this

neckhankecher, I see him in a sim'lar neckhankecher, it won't be accident!' Elated by his device, he carried

'Lock ho! Lock!' It was a light night, and a barge coming down summoned him out of a long doze. In due

course he had let the barge through and was alone again, looking to the closing of his gates, when Bradley

'He has put up for the night, at an Angler's Inn,' was the fatigued and hoarse reply. 'He goes on, up the river,

'You want 'em,' said Riderhood, making towards the schoolmaster by his plank bridge.

'I don't want them,' returned Bradley, irritably, 'because I would rather not have them, but would much prefer

to follow him all night. However, if he won't lead, I can't follow. I have been waiting about, until I could

discover, for a certainty, at what time he starts; if I couldn't have made sure of it, I should have stayed

there.This would be a bad pit for a man to be flung into with his hands tied. These slippery smooth walls

'Suck him down, or swaller him up, he wouldn't get out,' said Riderhood. 'Not even, if his hands warn't tied,

he wouldn't. Shut him in at both ends, and I'd give him a pint o' old ale ever to come up to me standing here.'

Bradley looked down with a ghastly relish. 'You run about the brink, and run across it, in this uncertain light,

on a few inches width of rotten wood,' said he. 'I wonder you have no thought of being drowned.'

'No!' said Riderhood, shaking his head with an air of thorough conviction, 'it's well known. I've been brought

out o' drowning, and I can't be drowned. I wouldn't have that there busted B'lowbridger aware on it, or her

people might make it tell agin' the damages I mean to get. But it's well known to waterside characters like

Bradley smiled sourly at the ignorance he would have corrected in one of his pupils, and continued to look

He took no notice, but stood looking down, as if he had not heard the words. There was a very dark

expression on his face; an expression that the Rogue found it hard to understand. It was fierce, and full of

purpose; but the purpose might have been as much against himself as against another. If he had stepped back

for a spring, taken a leap, and thrown himself in, it would have been no surprising sequel to the look. Perhaps

his troubled soul, set upon some violence, did hover for the moment between that violence and another.

'Didn't you say,' asked Riderhood, after watching him for a while with a sidelong glance, 'as you had come

back for a couple o' hours' rest?' But, even then he had to jog him with his elbow before he answered.

With the look of one just awakened, he followed Riderhood into the Lockhouse, where the latter produced

from a cupboard some cold salt beef and half a loaf, some gin in a bottle, and some water in a jug. The last he

'There, T'otherest,' said Riderhood, stooping over him to put it on the table. 'You'd better take a bite and a

sup, afore you takes your snooze.' The draggling ends of the red neckerchief caught the schoolmaster's eyes.

'Oh!' thought that worthy. 'You're ataking notice, are you? Come! You shall have a good squint at it then.'

With which reflection he sat down on the other side of the table, threw open his vest, and made a pretence of

Bradley ate and drank. As he sat at his platter and mug, Riderhood saw him, again and yet again, steal a look

at the neckerchief, as if he were correcting his slow observation and prompting his sluggish memory. 'When

you're ready for your snooze,' said that honest creature, 'chuck yourself on my bed in the corner, T'otherest.

'I shall require no calling,' answered Bradley. And soon afterwards, divesting himself only of his shoes and

Riderhood, leaning back in his wooden armchair with his arms folded on his breast, looked at him lying

with his right hand clenched in his sleep and his teeth set, until a film came over his own sight, and he slept

too. He awoke to find that it was daylight, and that his visitor was already astir, and going out to the river

side to cool his head:'Though I'm blest,' muttered Riderhood at the Lockhouse door, looking after him, 'if

I think there's water enough in all the Thames to do THAT for you!' Within five minutes he had taken his

departure, and was passing on into the calm distance as he had passed yesterday. Riderhood knew when a fish

'Lock ho! Lock!' at intervals all day, and 'Lock ho! Lock!' thrice in the ensuing night, but no return of

Bradley. The second day was sultry and oppressive. In the afternoon, a thunderstorm came up, and had but

newly broken into a furious sweep of rain when he rushed in at the door, like the storm itself.

'At his journey's end. His boat's hauled up for three days. I heard him give the order. Then, I saw him wait for

her and meet her. I saw them'he stopped as though he were suffocating, and began again'I saw them

He dropped into a chair, and laughed. Immediately afterwards, a great spirt of blood burst from his nose.

'I don't know. I can't keep it back. It has happened twicethree timesfour timesI don't know how many

timessince last night. I taste it, smell it, see it, it chokes me, and then it breaks out like this.'

He went into the pelting rain again with his head bare, and, bending low over the river, and scooping up the

water with his two hands, washed the blood away. All beyond his figure, as Riderhood looked from the door,

was a vast dark curtain in solemn movement towards one quarter of the heavens. He raised his head and came

back, wet from head to foot, but with the lower parts of his sleeves, where he had dipped into the river,

'That may well be. I have had no rest since I left here. I don't remember that I have so much as sat down since

The bottle and jug were again produced, and he mixed a weak draught, and another, and drank both in quick

'I tell you,' retorted Bradley, turning upon him in a wild and desperate manner, 'you asked me something,

'Oh! Then?' said Riderhood, backing a little. 'I asked you wot you wos agoing to do.'

'How can a man in this state know?' he answered, protesting with both his tremulous hands, with an action so

vigorously angry that he shook the water from his sleeves upon the floor, as if he had wrung them. 'How can I

'Why, that's what I as good as said,' returned the other. 'Didn't I say lie down?'

'Well! Anyways I says it again. Sleep where you slept last; the sounder and longer you can sleep, the better

His pointing to the truckle bed in the corner, seemed gradually to bring that poor couch to Bradley's

wandering remembrance. He slipped off his worn downtrodden shoes, and cast himself heavily, all wet as

Riderhood sat down in his wooden armchair, and looked through the window at the lightning, and listened

to the thunder. But, his thoughts were far from being absorbed by the thunder and the lightning, for again and

again and again he looked very curiously at the exhausted man upon the bed. The man had turned up the

collar of the rough coat he wore, to shelter himself from the storm, and had buttoned it about his neck.

Unconscious of that, and of most things, he had left the coat so, both when he had laved his face in the river,

and when he had cast himself upon the bed; though it would have been much easier to him if he had

The thunder rolled heavily, and the forked lightning seemed to make jagged rents in every part of the vast

curtain without, as Riderhood sat by the window, glancing at the bed. Sometimes, he saw the man upon the

bed, by a red light; sometimes, by a blue; sometimes, he scarcely saw him in the darkness of the storm;

sometimes he saw nothing of him in the blinding glare of palpitating white fire. Anon, the rain would come

again with a tremendous rush, and the river would seem to rise to meet it, and a blast of wind, bursting upon

the door, would flutter the hair and dress of the man, as if invisible messengers were come around the bed to

carry him away. From all these phases of the storm, Riderhood would turn, as if they were

interruptionsrather striking interruptions possibly, but interruptions stillof his scrutiny of the sleeper.

'He sleeps sound,' he said within himself; 'yet he's that up to me and that noticing of me that my getting out of

my chair may wake him, when a rattling peal won't; let alone my touching of him.'

He very cautiously rose to his feet. 'T'otherest,' he said, in a low, calm voice, 'are you a lying easy? There's a

'That's about what it is a'ready, you see,' muttered Riderhood in a lower and a different voice; 'a coat over

The sleeper moving an arm, he sat down again in his chair, and feigned to watch the storm from the window.

It was a grand spectacle, but not so grand as to keep his eyes, for half a minute together, from stealing a look

It was at the concealed throat of the sleeper that Riderhood so often looked so curiously, until the sleep

seemed to deepen into the stupor of the deadtired in mind and body. Then, Riderhood came from the

'Poor man!' he murmured in a low tone, with a crafty face, and a very watchful eye and ready foot, lest he

should start up; 'this here coat of his must make him uneasy in his sleep. Shall I loosen it for him, and make

He touched the first button with a very cautious hand, and a step backward. But, the sleeper remaining in

profound unconsciousness, he touched the other buttons with a more assured hand, and perhaps the more

lightly on that account. Softly and slowly, he opened the coat and drew it back.

The draggling ends of a brightred neckerchief were then disclosed, and he had even been at the pains of

dipping parts of it in some liquid, to give it the appearance of having become stained by wear. With a

muchperplexed face, Riderhood looked from it to the sleeper, and from the sleeper to it, and finally crept

back to his chair, and there, with his hand to his chin, sat long in a brown study, looking at both.

Mr and Mrs Lammle had come to breakfast with Mr and Mrs Boffin. They were not absolutely uninvited, but

had pressed themselves with so much urgency on the golden couple, that evasion of the honour and pleasure

of their company would have been difficult, if desired. They were in a charming state of mind, were Mr and

'My dear Mrs Boffin,' said Mrs Lammle, 'it imparts new life to me, to see my Alfred in confidential

communication with Mr Boffin. The two were formed to become intimate. So much simplicity combined

with so much force of character, such natural sagacity united to such amiability and gentlenessthese are the

This being said aloud, gave Mr Lammle an opportunity, as he came with Mr Boffin from the window to the

'My Sophronia,' said that gentleman, 'your too partial estimate of your husband's character'

'No! Not too partial, Alfred,' urged the lady, tenderly moved; 'never say that.'

'My child, your favourable opinion, then, of your husbandyou don't object to that phrase, darling?'

'Your favourable opinion then, my Precious, does less than justice to Mr Boffin, and more than justice to me.'

'Less than justice to Mr Boffin, Sophronia,' said Mr Lammle, soaring into a tone of moral grandeur, 'because

it represents Mr Boffin as on my lower level; more than justice to me, Sophronia, because it represents me as

on Mr Boffin's higher level. Mr Boffin bears and forbears far more than I could.'

'No, dear Sophronia. From my lower level, I regard Mr Boffin as too generous, as possessed of too much

clemency, as being too good to persons who are unworthy of him and ungrateful to him. To those noble

qualities I can lay no claim. On the contrary, they rouse my indignation when I see them in action.'

'They rouse my indignation, my dear, against the unworthy persons, and give me a combative desire to stand

between Mr Boffin and all such persons. Why? Because, in my lower nature I am more worldly and less

delicate. Not being so magnanimous as Mr Boffin, I feel his injuries more than he does himself, and feel

It struck Mrs Lammle that it appeared rather difficult this morning to bring Mr and Mrs Boffin into agreeable

conversation. Here had been several lures thrown out, and neither of them had uttered a word. Here were she,

Mrs Lammle, and her husband discoursing at once affectingly and effectively, but discoursing alone.

Assuming that the dear old creatures were impressed by what they heard, still one would like to be sure of it,

the more so, as at least one of the dear old creatures was somewhat pointedly referred to. If the dear old

creatures were too bashful or too dull to assume their required places in the discussion, why then it would

seem desirable that the dear old creatures should be taken by their heads and shoulders and brought into it.

'But is not my husband saying in effect,' asked Mrs Lammie, therefore, with an innocent air, of Mr and Mrs

Boffin, 'that he becomes unmindful of his own temporary misfortunes in his admiration of another whom he

is burning to serve? And is not that making an admission that his nature is a generous one? I am wretched in

Still, neither Mr and Mrs Boffin said a word. He sat with his eyes on his plate, eating his muffins and ham,

and she sat shyly looking at the teapot. Mrs Lammle's innocent appeal was merely thrown into the air, to

mingle with the steam of the urn. Glancing towards Mr and Mrs Boffin, she very slightly raised her

eyebrows, as though inquiring of her husband: 'Do I notice anything wrong here?'

Mr Lammle, who had found his chest effective on a variety of occasions, manoeuvred his capacious shirt

front into the largest demonstration possible, and then smiling retorted on his wife, thus:

'Sophronia, darling, Mr and Mrs Boffin will remind you of the old adage, that selfpraise is no

'No, my dear child. I mean that you cannot fail to remember, if you reflect for a single moment, that what you

are pleased to compliment me upon feeling in the case of Mr Boffin, you have yourself confided to me as

('I shall be beaten by this Lawyer,' Mrs Lammle gaily whispered to Mrs Boffin. 'I am afraid I must admit it, if

Several white dints began to come and go about Mr Lammle's nose, as he observed that Mrs Boffin merely

looked up from the teapot for a moment with an embarrassed smile, which was no smile, and then looked

'Really, I think,' said Mrs Lammle, still gaily, 'I must throw myself on the protection of the Court. Am I

'You needn't, if you don't like, ma'am,' was his answer. 'It's not of the least consequence.'

Both husband and wife glanced at him, very doubtfully. His manner was grave, but not coarse, and derived

Again Mrs Lammle raised her eyebrows for instruction from her husband. He replied in a slight nod, 'Try 'em

'To protect myself against the suspicion of covert selflaudation, my dear Mrs Boffin,' said the airy Mrs

'Ma'am,' said Mr Boffin, 'the Court (if I am the Court) does object. The Court objects for two reasons. First,

because the Court don't think it fair. Secondly, because the dear old lady, Mrs Court (if I am Mr) gets

A very remarkable wavering between two bearingsbetween her propitiatory bearing there, and her defiant

'Letting you go on,' replied Mr Boffin, nodding his head soothingly, as who should say, We won't be harder

on you than we can help; we'll make the best of it. 'It's not aboveboard and it's not fair. When the old lady is

uncomfortable, there's sure to be good reason for it. I see she is uncomfortable, and I plainly see this is the

Mrs Lammle, settling into her defiant manner, pushed her plate away, looked at her husband, and laughed;

'Thank you,' replied Alfred, showing all his teeth. 'If Mrs Boffin will oblige me, I'll take another cup of tea.'

He spilled a little of it over the chest which ought to have been so effective, and which had done so little; but

on the whole drank it with something of an air, though the coming and going dints got almost as large, the

while, as if they had been made by pressure of the teaspoon. 'A thousand thanks,' he then observed. 'I have

'Now, which,' said Mr Boffin softly, taking out a pocketbook, 'which of you two is Cashier?'

'Sophronia, my dear,' remarked her husband, as he leaned back in his chair, waving his right hand towards

her, while he hung his left hand by the thumb in the armhole of his waistcoat: 'it shall be your department.'

'I would rather,' said Mr Boffin, 'that it was your husband's, ma'am, becausebut never mind, because. I

would rather have to do with him. However, what I have to say, I will say with as little offence as possible; if

I can say it without any, I shall be heartily glad. You two have done me a service, a very great service, in

doing what you did (my old lady knows what it was), and I have put into this envelope a bank note for a

hundred pound. I consider the service well worth a hundred pound, and I am well pleased to pay the money.

With a haughty action, and without looking towards him, Mrs Lammle held out her left hand, and into it Mr

Boffin put the little packet. When she had conveyed it to her bosom, Mr Lammle had the appearance of

feeling relieved, and breathing more freely, as not having been quite certain that the hundred pounds were

his, until the note had been safely transferred out of Mr Boffin's keeping into his own Sophronia's.

'It is not impossible,' said Mr Boffin, addressing Alfred, 'that you have had some general idea, sir, of

'It is not,' assented Alfred, with a glittering smile and a great deal of nose, 'not impossible.'

'And perhaps, ma'am,' pursued Mr Boffin, addressing Sophronia, 'you have been so kind as to take up my old

lady in your own mind, and to do her the honour of turning the question over whether you mightn't one of

these days have her in charge, like? Whether you mightn't be a sort of Miss Bella Wilfer to her, and

'I should hope,' returned Mrs Lammle, with a scornful look and in a loud voice, 'that if I were anything to

your wife, sir, I could hardly fail to be something more than Miss Bella Wilfer, as you call her.'

Mrs Lammle disdained to reply, and sat defiantly beating one foot on the ground.

'Again I think I may say, that's not impossible. Is it, sir?' asked Mr Boffin, turning to Alfred.

'Now,' said Mr Boffin, gently, 'it won't do. I don't wish to say a single word that might be afrerwards

'Sophronia, my love,' her husband repeated in a bantering manner, 'you hear? It won't do.'

'No,' said Mr Boffin, with his voice still dropped, 'it really won't. You positively must excuse us. If you'll go

your way, we'll go ours, and so I hope this affair ends to the satisfaction of all parties.'

Mrs Lammle gave him the look of a decidedly dissatisfied party demanding exemption from the category; but

'The best thing we can make of the affair,' said Mr Boffin, 'is a matter of business, and as a matter of business

it's brought to a conclusion. You have done me a great service, a very great service, and I have paid for it. Is

Mr and Mrs Lammle looked at one another across the table, but neither could say that there was. Mr Lammle

'Very good,' said Mr Boffin. 'We hope (my old lady and me) that you'll give us credit for taking the plainest

and honestest shortcut that could be taken under the circumstances. We have talked it over with a deal of

care (my old lady and me), and we have felt that at all to lead you on, or even at all to let you go on of your

own selves, wouldn't be the right thing. So, I have openly given you to understand that' Mr Boffin sought

for a new turn of speech, but could find none so expressive as his former one, repeated in a confidential tone,

'that it won't do. If I could have put the case more pleasantly I would; but I hope I haven't put it very

unpleasantly; at all events I haven't meant to. So,' said Mr Boffin, by way of peroration, 'wishing you well in

the way you go, we now conclude with the observation that perhaps you'll go it.'

Mr Lammle rose with an impudent laugh on his side of the table, and Mrs Lammle rose with a disdainful

frown on hers. At this moment a hasty foot was heard on the staircase, and Georgiana Podsnap broke into the

'Oh, my dear Sophronia,' cried Georgiana, wringing her hands as she ran up to embrace her, 'to think that you

and Alfred should be ruined! Oh, my poor dear Sophronia, to think that you should have had a Sale at your

house after all your kindness to me! Oh, Mr and Mrs Boffin, pray forgive me for this intrusion, but you don't

know how fond I was of Sophronia when Pa wouldn't let me go there any more, or what I have felt for

Sophronia since I heard from Ma of her having been brought low in the world. You don't, you can't, you

never can, think, how I have lain awake at night and cried for my good Sophronia, my first and only friend!'

Mrs Lammle's manner changed under the poor silly girl's embraces, and she turned extremely pale: directing

one appealing look, first to Mrs Boffin, and then to Mr Boffin. Both understood her instantly, with a more

delicate subtlety than much better educated people, whose perception came less directly from the heart, could

'I haven't a minute,' said poor little Georgiana, 'to stay. I am out shopping early with Ma, and I said I had a

headache and got Ma to leave me outside in the phaeton, in Piccadilly, and ran round to Sackville Street, and

heard that Sophronia was here, and then Ma came to see, oh such a dreadful old stony woman from the

country in a turban in Portland Place, and I said I wouldn't go up with Ma but would drive round and leave

cards for the Boffins, which is taking a liberty with the name; but oh my goodness I am distracted, and the

'Oh, no, I didn't,' cried Georgiana. 'It's very impolite, I know, but I came to see my poor Sophronia, my only

friend. Oh! how I felt the separation, my dear Sophronia, before I knew you were brought low in the world,

There were actually tears in the bold woman's eyes, as the soft headed and softhearted girl twined her arms

'But I've come on business,' said Georgiana, sobbing and drying her face, and then searching in a little

reticule, 'and if I don't despatch it I shall have come for nothing, and oh good gracious! what would Pa say if

he knew of Sackville Street, and what would Ma say if she was kept waiting on the doorsteps of that dreadful

turban, and there never were such pawing horses as ours unsettling my mind every moment more and more

when I want more mind than I have got, by pawing up Mr Boffin's street where they have no business to be.

Oh! where is, where is it? Oh! I can't find it!' All this time sobbing, and searching in the little reticule.

'Oh! it's little enough,' replied Georgiana, 'because Ma always treats me as if I was in the nursery (I am sure I

wish I was!), but I hardly ever spend it and it has mounted up to fifteen pounds, Sophronia, and I hope three

fivepound notes are better than nothing, though so little, so little! And now I have found thatoh, my

With that, always sobbing and searching in the reticule, Georgiana produced a necklace.

'Ma says chits and jewels have no business together,' pursued Georgiana, 'and that's the reason why I have no

trinkets except this, but I suppose my aunt Hawkinson was of a different opinion, because she left me this,

though I used to think she might just as well have buried it, for it's always kept in jewellers' cotton. However,

here it is, I am thankful to say, and of use at last, and you'll sell it, dear Sophronia, and buy things with it.'

'Give it to me,' said Mr Boffin, gently taking it. 'I'll see that it's properly disposed of.'

'Oh! are you such a friend of Sophronia's, Mr Boffin?' cried Georgiana. 'Oh, how good of you! Oh, my

gracious! there was something else, and it's gone out of my head! Oh no, it isn't, I remember what it was. My

grandmamma's property, that'll come to me when I am of age, Mr Boffin, will be all my own, and neither Pa

nor Ma nor anybody else will have any control over it, and what I wish to do it so make some of it over

somehow to Sophronia and Alfred, by signing something somewhere that'll prevail on somebody to advance

them something. I want them to have something handsome to bring them up in the world again. Oh, my

goodness me! Being such a friend of my dear Sophronia's, you won't refuse me, will you?'

'Oh, thank you, thank you!' cried Georgiana. 'If my maid had a little note and half a crown, I could run round

to the pastrycook's to sign something, or I could sign something in the Square if somebody would come and

cough for me to let 'em in with the key, and would bring a pen and ink with 'em and a bit of blottingpaper.

Oh, my gracious! I must tear myself away, or Pa and Ma will both find out! Dear, dear Sophronia, good,

The credulous little creature again embraced Mrs Lammle most affectionately, and then held out her hand to

'Goodbye, dear Mr LammleI mean Alfred. You won't think after today that I have deserted you and

Sophronia because you have been brought low in the world, will you? Oh me! oh me! I have been crying my

eyes out of my head, and Ma will he sure to ask me what's the matter. Oh, take me down, somebody, please,

Mr Boffin took her down, and saw her driven away, with her poor little red eyes and weak chin peering over

the great apron of the custardcoloured phaeton, as if she had been ordered to expiate some childish

misdemeanour by going to bed in the daylight, and were peeping over the counterpane in a miserable flutter

of repentance and low spirits. Returning to the breakfastroom, he found Mrs Lammle still standing on her

'I'll take care,' said Mr Boffin, showing the money and the necklace, 'that these are soon given back.'

Mrs Lammle had taken up her parasol from a side table, and stood sketching with it on the pattern of the

'You will not undeceive her I hope, Mr Boffin?' she said, turning her head towards him, but not her eyes.

'I mean, as to the worth and value of her friend,' Mrs Lammle explained, in a measured voice, and with an

'No,' he returned. 'I may try to give a hint at her home that she is in want of kind and careful protection, but I

shall say no more than that to her parents, and I shall say nothing to the young lady herself.'

'Mr and Mrs Boffin,' said Mrs Lammle, still sketching, and seeming to bestow great pains upon it, 'there are

not many people, I think, who, under the circumstances, would have been so considerate and sparing as you

'Well, well, my good sir,' Mr Boffin interposed, 'it's a very good thing to think well of another person, and it's

a very good thing to be thought well of BY another person. Mrs Lammle will be none the worse for it, if she

She stood sketching on the tablecloth, with her face clouded and set, and was silent.

'Because,' said Alfred, 'I am disposed to be sentimental myself, on your appropriation of the jewels and the

money, Mr Boffin. As our little Georgiana said, three fivepound notes are better than nothing, and if you

Alfred followed it with his looks, and also greedily pursued the notes until they vanished into Mr Boffin's

waistcoat pocket. Then he directed a look, half exasperated and half jeering, at his wife. She still stood

sketching; but, as she sketched, there was a struggle within her, which found expression in the depth of the

few last lines the parasol point indented into the tablecloth, and then some tears fell from her eyes.

She walked to the window, flinching under his angry stare, looked out for a moment, and turned round quite

'You have had no former cause of complaint on the sentimental score, Alfred, and you will have none in

future. It is not worth your noticing. We go abroad soon, with the money we have earned here?'

'There is no fear of my taking any sentiment with me. I should soon be eased of it, if I did. But it will be all

She passed out and he followed her. Mr and Mrs Boffin had the curiosity softly to raise a window and look

after them as they went down the long street. They walked arminarm, showily enough, but without

appearing to interchange a syllable. It might have been fanciful to suppose that under their outer bearing there

was something of the shamed air of two cheats who were linked together by concealed handcuffs; but, not so,

to suppose that they were haggardly weary of one another, of themselves, and of all this world. In turning the

street corner they might have turned out of this world, for anything Mr and Mrs Boffin ever saw of them to

The evening of that day being one of the reading evenings at the Bower, Mr Boffin kissed Mrs Boffin after a

five o'clock dinner, and trotted out, nursing his big stick in both arms, so that, as of old, it seemed to be

whispering in his ear. He carried so very attentive an expression on his countenance that it appeared as if the

confidential discourse of the big stick required to be followed closely. Mr Boffin's face was like the face of a

thoughtful listener to an intricate communication, and, in trotting along, he occasionally glanced at that

companion with the look of a man who was interposing the remark: 'You don't mean it!'

Mr Boffin and his stick went on alone together, until they arrived at certain crossways where they would be

likely to fall in with any one coming, at about the same time, from Clerkenwell to the Bower. Here they

'It wants five minutes, good, to Venus's appointment,' said he. 'I'm rather early.'

But Venus was a punctual man, and, even as Mr Boffin replaced his watch in its pocket, was to be descried

coming towards him. He quickened his pace on seeing Mr Boffin already at the place of meeting, and was

It would not have been very evident why he thanked the anatomist, but for his furnishing the explanation in

'All right, Venus, all right. Now, that you've been to see me, and have consented to keep up the appearance

before Wegg of remaining in it for a time, I have got a sort of a backer. All right, Venus. Thank'ee, Venus.

Mr Venus shook the proffered hand with a modest air, and they pursued the direction of the Bower.

'Do you think Wegg is likely to drop down upon me tonight, Venus?' inquired Mr Boffin, wistfully, as they

'Well, sir,' returned that personage, 'the fact is, he has given me another lookin, to make sure of what he calls

our stockintrade being correct, and he has mentioned his intention that he was not to be put off beginning

with you the very next time you should come. And this,' hinted Mr Venus, delicately, 'being the very next

'Why, therefore you suppose he'll turn to at the grindstone, eh, Wegg?' said Mr Boffin.

Mr Boffin took his nose in his hand, as if it were already excoriated, and the sparks were beginning to fly out

of that feature. 'He's a terrible fellow, Venus; he's an awful fellow. I don't know how ever I shall go through

with it. You must stand by me, Venus like a good man and true. You'll do all you can to stand by me, Venus;

Mr Venus replied with the assurance that he would; and Mr Boffin, looking anxious and dispirited, pursued

the way in silence until they rang at the Bower gate. The stumping approach of Wegg was soon heard behind

it, and as it turned upon its hinges he became visible with his hand on the lock.

'Have you indeed, sir?' returned the literary gentleman, with a threatening sneer. 'Hah! I've been looking for

'Yes, I do say so, sir. And if you hadn't come round to me tonight, dash my wig if I wouldn't have come round

'Oh no, Mr Boffin,' was the ironical answer. 'Nothing wrong! What should be wrong in Boffinses Bower!

'"If you'll come to the Bower I've shaded for you, Your bed shan't be roses all spangled with doo: Will you,

will you, will you, will you, come to the Bower? Oh, won't you, won't you, won't you, won't you, come to the

An unholy glare of contradiction and offence shone in the eyes of Mr Wegg, as he turned the key on his

patron, after ushering him into the yard with this vocal quotation. Mr Boffin's air was crestfallen and

submissive. Whispered Wegg to Venus, as they crossed the yard behind him: 'Look at the worm and minion;

he's down in the mouth already.' Whispered Venus to Wegg: 'That's because I've told him. I've prepared the

Mr Boffin, entering the usual chamber, laid his stick upon the settle usually reserved for him, thrust his hands

into his pockets, and, with his shoulders raised and his hat drooping back upon them, looking disconsolately

at Wegg. 'My friend and partner, Mr Venus, gives me to understand,' remarked that man of might, addressing

him, 'that you are aware of our power over you. Now, when you have took your hat off, we'll go into that

Mr Boffin shook it off with one shake, so that it dropped on the floor behind him, and remained in his former

'First of all, I'm agoing to call you Boffin, for short,' said Wegg. 'If you don't like it, it's open to you to lump

'Because if you did want to,' pursued Mr Wegg, the brilliancy of whose point was dimmed by his having been

unexpectedly answered: 'you wouldn't be. I've been your slave long enough. I'm not to be trampled

underfoot by a dustman any more. With the single exception of the salary, I renounce the whole and total

'Since you say it is to be so, Wegg,' returned Mr Boffin, with folded hands, 'I suppose it must be.'

'I suppose it must be,' Wegg retorted. 'Next (to clear the ground before coming to business), you've placed in

Here Mr Venus interposed, and remarked that he conceived Mr Boffin to have taken the description literally;

the rather, forasmuch as he, Mr Venus, had himself supposed the menial to have contracted an affliction or a

habit of the nose, involving a serious drawback on the pleasures of social intercourse, until he had discovered

'Anyhow, and every how,' said Wegg, 'he has been planted here, and he is here. Now, I won't have him here.

So I call upon Boffin, before I say another word, to fetch him in and send him packing to the rightabout.'

The unsuspecting Sloppy was at that moment airing his many buttons within view of the window. Mr Boffin,

after a short interval of impassive discomfiture, opened the window and beckoned him to come in.

'I call upon Boffin,' said Wegg, with one arm akimbo and his head on one side, like a bullying counsel

pausing for an answer from a witness, 'to inform that menial that I am Master here!'

In humble obedience, when the buttongleaming Sloppy entered Mr Boffin said to him: 'Sloppy, my fine

fellow, Mr Wegg is Master here. He doesn't want you, and you are to go from here.'

Sloppy stared, with both his eyes and all his buttons, and his mouth wide open; but was without loss of time

escorted forth by Silas Wegg, pushed out at the yard gate by the shoulders, and locked out.

'The atomspear,' said Wegg, stumping back into the room again, a little reddened by his late exertion, 'is now

freer for the purposes of respiration. Mr Venus, sir, take a chair. Boffin, you may sit down.'

Mr Boffin, still with his hands ruefully stuck in his pockets, sat on the edge of the settle, shrunk into a small

'This gentleman,' said Silas Wegg, pointing out Venus, 'this gentleman, Boffin, is more milk and watery with

you than I'll be. But he hasn't borne the Roman yoke as I have, nor yet he hasn't been required to pander to

'Hold your tongue, Boffin! Answer when you're called upon to answer. You'll find you've got quite enough to

do. Now, you're awareare youthat you're in possession of property to which you've no right at all? Are

'Venus tells me so,' said Mr Boffin, glancing towards him for any support he could give.

'I tell you so,' returned Silas. 'Now, here's my hat, Boffin, and here's my walkingstick. Trifle with me, and

instead of making a bargain with you, I'll put on my hat and take up my walkingstick, and go out, and make

'I say,' returned Mr Boffin, leaning forward in alarmed appeal, with his hands on his knees, 'that I am sure I

'You're too milk and watery with our friend, you are indeed,' remonstrated Silas, with a disapproving shake of

his wooden head. Then at once you confess yourself desirous to come to terms, do you Boffin? Before you

'Willing won't do, Boffin. I won't take willing. Are you desirous to come to terms? Do you ask to be allowed

as a favour to come to terms?' Mr Wegg again planted his arm, and put his head on one side.

'Yes what?' said the inexorable Wegg: 'I won't take yes. I'll have it out of you in full, Boffin.'

'Dear me!' cried that unfortunate gentleman. 'I am so worrited! I ask to be allowed to come to terms,

'Don't you be afraid of that,' said Silas, poking his head at him. 'You shall be satisfied by seeing it. Mr Venus

will show it you, and I'll hold you the while. Then you want to know what the terms are. Is that about the sum

and substance of it? Will you or won't you answer, Boffin?' For he had paused a moment.

'Dear me!' cried that unfortunate gentleman again, 'I am worrited to that degree that I'm almost off my head.

'Now, mark, Boffin,' returned Silas: 'Mark 'em well, because they're the lowest terms and the only terms.

You'll throw your Mound (the little Mound as comes to you any way) into the general estate, and then you'll

divide the whole property into three parts, and you'll keep one and hand over the others.'

Mr Venus's mouth screwed itself up, as Mr Boffin's face lengthened itself, Mr Venus not having been

'Now, wait a bit, Boffin,' Wegg proceeded, 'there's something more. You've been a squandering this

propertylaying some of it out on yourself. THAT won't do. You've bought a house. You'll be charged for

'Now, wait a bit, Boffin; there's something more. You'll leave me in sole custody of these Mounds till they're

all laid low. If any waluables should be found in 'em, I'll take care of such waluables. You'll produce your

contract for the sale of the Mounds, that we may know to a penny what they're worth, and you'll make out

likewise an exact list of all the other property. When the Mounds is cleared away to the last shovelfull, the

'Dreadful, dreadful, dreadful! I shall die in a workhouse!' cried the Golden Dustman, with his hands to his

'Now, wait a bit, Boffin; there's something more. You've been unlawfully ferreting about this yard. You've

been seen in the act of ferreting about this yard. Two pair of eyes at the present moment brought to bear upon

'Not gold, not silver, not bank notes, not jewels, nothing that you could turn into money, Wegg; upon my

'Prepared, Mr Venus,' said Wegg, turning to his partner with a knowing and superior air, 'for an ewasive

answer on the part of our dusty friend here, I have hit out a little idea which I think will meet your views. We

'Now, wait a bit, Boffin; there's something more. In your employment is an underhanded sneak, named

Rokesmith. It won't answer to have HIM about, while this business of ours is about. He must be discharged.'

'Rokesmith is already discharged,' said Mr Boffin, speaking in a muffled voice, with his hands before his

'Already discharged, is he?' returned Wegg, surprised. 'Oh! Then, Boffin, I believe there's nothing more at

The unlucky gentleman continuing to rock himself to and fro, and to utter an occasional moan, Mr Venus

besought him to bear up against his reverses, and to take time to accustom himself to the thought of his new

position. But, his taking time was exactly the thing of all others that Silas Wegg could not be induced to hear

of. 'Yes or no, and no half measures!' was the motto which that obdurate person many times repeated; shaking

his fist at Mr Boffin, and pegging his motto into the floor with his wooden leg, in a threatening and alarming

At length, Mr Boffin entreated to be allowed a quarter of an hour's grace, and a cooling walk of that duration

in the yard. With some difficulty Mr Wegg granted this great favour, but only on condition that he

accompanied Mr Boffin in his walk, as not knowing what he might fraudulently unearth if he were left to

himself. A more absurd sight than Mr Boffin in his mental irritation trotting very nimbly, and Mr Wegg

hopping after him with great exertion, eager to watch the slightest turn of an eyelash, lest it should indicate a

spot rich with some secret, assuredly had never been seen in the shadow of the Mounds. Mr Wegg was much

distressed when the quarter of an hour expired, and came hopping in, a very bad second.

'I can't help myself!' cried Mr Boffin, flouncing on the settle in a forlorn manner, with his hands deep in his

pockets, as if his pockets had sunk. 'What's the good of my pretending to stand out, when I can't help myself?

Wegg, who was all for clinching the nail he had so strongly driven home, announced that Boffin should see it

without an hour's delay. Taking him into custody for that purpose, or overshadowing him as if he really were

his Evil Genius in visible form, Mr Wegg clapped Mr Boffin's hat upon the back of his head, and walked him

out by the arm, asserting a proprietorship over his soul and body that was at once more grim and more

ridiculous than anything in Mr Venus's rare collection. That lighthaired gentleman followed close upon their

heels, at least backing up Mr Boffin in a literal sense, if he had not had recent opportunities of doing so

spiritually; while Mr Boffin, trotting on as hard as he could trot, involved Silas Wegg in frequent collisions

with the public, much as a pre occupied blind man's dog may be seen to involve his master.

Thus they reached Mr Venus's establishment, somewhat heated by the nature of their progress thither. Mr

Wegg, especially, was in a flaming glow, and stood in the little shop, panting and mopping his head with his

Meanwhile, Mr Venus, who had left the duelling frogs to fight it out in his absence by candlelight for the

public delectation, put the shutters up. When all was snug, and the shopdoor fastened, he said to the

'Hold on a minute, sir,' replied that discreet character; 'hold on a minute. Will you obligingly shove that

boxwhich you mentioned on a former occasion as containing miscellaniestowards me in the midst of the

'Very good,' said Silas, looking about: 'very good. Will you hand me that chair, sir, to put atop of it?'

Mr Boffin, as if he were about to have his portrait painted, or to be electrified, or to be made a Freemason, or

to be placed at any other solitary disadvantage, ascended the rostrum prepared for him.

'Now, Mr Venus,' said Silas, taking off his coat, 'when I catches our friend here round the arms and body, and

pins him tight to the back of the chair, you may show him what he wants to see. If you'll open it and hold it

Mr Boffin seemed rather inclined to object to these precautionary arrangements, but, being immediately

embraced by Wegg, resigned himself. Venus then produced the document, and Mr Boffin slowly spelt it out

aloud: so very slowly, that Wegg, who was holding him in the chair with the grip of a wrestler, became again

exceedingly the worse for his exertions. 'Say when you've put it safe back, Mr Venus,' he uttered with

At length the document was restored to its place; and Wegg, whose uncomfortable attitude had been that of a

very persevering man unsuccessfully attempting to stand upon his head, took a seat to recover himself. Mr

Boffin, for his part, made no attempt to come down, but remained aloft disconsolate.

'Well, Boffin!' said Wegg, as soon as he was in a condidon to speak. 'Now, you know.'

'Then, take care, you,' said Wegg, 'that you stick to your conditions. Mr Venus, if on this auspicious occasion,

you should happen to have a drop of anything not quite so mild as tea in the 'ouse, I think I'd take the friendly

Mr Venus, reminded of the duties of hospitality, produced some rum. In answer to the inquiry, 'Will you mix

it, Mr Wegg?' that gentleman pleasantly rejoined, 'I think not, sir. On so auspicious an occasion, I prefer to

Mr Boffin, declining rum, being still elevated on his pedestal, was in a convenient position to be addressed.

Wegg having eyed him with an impudent air at leisure, addressed him, therefore, while refreshing himself

'I haven't mentioned one thing, because it's a detail that comes of course. You must be followed up, you

'Don't you?' sneered Wegg. 'Where's your wits, Boffin? Till the Mounds is down and this business completed,

you're accountable for all the property, recollect. Consider yourself accountable to me. Mr Venus here being

'I've been athinking,' said Mr Boffin, in a tone of despondency, 'that I must keep the knowledge from my old

'The knowledge of the diwision, d'ye mean?' inquired Wegg, helping himself to a third GumTicklerfor he

'Yes. If she was to die first of us two she might then think all her life, poor thing, that I had got the rest of the

'I suspect, Boffin,' returned Wegg, shaking his head sagaciously, and bestowing a wooden wink upon him,

'that you've found out some account of some old chap, supposed to be a Miser, who got himself the credit of

'Don't you see, Wegg?' Mr Boffin feelingly represented to him: 'don't you see? My old lady has got so used to

'I don't see it at all,' blustered Wegg. 'You'll have as much as I shall. And who are you?'

'But then, again,' Mr Boffin gently represented; 'my old lady has very upright principles.'

'Who's your old lady,' returned Wegg, 'to set herself up for having uprighter principles than mine?'

Mr Boffin seemed a little less patient at this point than at any other of the negotiations. But he commanded

himself, and said tamely enough: 'I think it must be kept from my old lady, Wegg.'

'Well,' said Wegg, contemptuously, though, perhaps, perceiving some hint of danger otherwise, 'keep it from

your old lady. I ain't going to tell her. I can have you under close inspection without that. I'm as good a man

as you, and better. Ask me to dinner. Give me the run of your 'ouse. I was good enough for you and your old

lady once, when I helped you out with your weal and hammers. Was there no Miss Elizabeth, Master George,

'Milk and watererily you mean, sir,' he returned, with some little thickness of speech, in consequence of the

GumTicklers having tickled it. 'I've got him under inspection, and I'll inspect him.

"Along the line the signal ran England expects as this present man Will keep Boffin to his duty."

Mr Boffin descended with an air of resignation, and gave himself up, after taking friendly leave of Mr Venus.

Once more, Inspector and Inspected went through the streets together, and so arrived at Mr Boffin's door.

But even there, when Mr Boffin had given his keeper goodnight, and had let himself in with his key, and

had softly closed the door, even there and then, the allpowerful Silas must needs claim another assertion of

'Come out. Show yourself again. Let's have another look at you!' Mr Boffinah, how fallen from the high

This time Silas made no reply, but laboured with a will at turning an imaginary grindstone outside the

keyhole, while Mr Boffin stooped at it within; he then laughed silently, and stumped home.

Cherubic Pa arose with as little noise as possible from beside majestic Ma, one morning early, having a

holiday before him. Pa and the lovely woman had a rather particular appointment to keep.

Yet Pa and the lovely woman were not going out together. Bella was up before four, but had no bonnet on.

She was waiting at the foot of the stairswas sitting on the bottom stair, in factto receive Pa when he

'Your breakfast is ready, sir,' whispered Bella, after greeting him with a hug, 'and all you have to do, is, to eat

'To the best of my judgement, like a housebreaker new to the business, my dear, who can't make himself quite

Bella tucked her arm in his with a merry noiseless laugh, and they went down to the kitchen on tiptoe; she

stopping on every separate stair to put the tip of her forefinger on her rosy lips, and then lay it on his lips,

'I feel as if the Fortuneteller was coming true, dear Pa, and the fair little man was turning out as was

Bella put another of those fingerseals upon his lips, and then said, kneeling down by him as he sat at table:

'Now, look here, sir. If you keep well up to the mark this day, what do you think you deserve? What did I

'Upon my word I don't remember, Precious. Yes, I do, though. Wasn't it one of these beautiful tresses?'

'Wasn't it, too!' returned Bella, pretending to pout. 'Upon my word! Do you know, sir, that the Fortuneteller

would give five thousand guineas (if it was quite convenient to him, which it isn't) for the lovely piece I have

cut off for you? You can form no idea, sir, of the number of times he kissed quite a scrubby little piecein

comparisonthat I cut off for HIM. And he wears it, too, round his neck, I can tell you! Near his heart!' said

Bella, nodding. 'Ah! very near his heart! However, you have been a good, good boy, and you are the best of

all the dearest boys that ever were, this morning, and here's the chain I have made of it, Pa, and you must let

As Pa bent his head, she cried over him a little, and then said (after having stopped to dry her eyes on his

white waistcoat, the discovery of which incongruous circumstance made her laugh): 'Now, darling Pa, give

me your hands that I may fold them together, and do you say after me:My little Bella.'

'You mustn't say anything not dictated to you, sir. You daren't do it in your responses at Church, and you

'A vexatious (do you hear, sir?), a vexatious, capricious, thankless, troublesome, Animal; but I hope you'll do

better in the time to come, and I bless you and forgive you!' Here, she quite forgot that it was Pa's turn to

make the responses, and clung to his neck. 'Dear Pa, if you knew how much I think this morning of what you

told me once, about the first time of our seeing old Mr Harmon, when I stamped and screamed and beat you

with my detestable little bonnet! I feel as if I had been stamping and screaming and beating you with my

'Nonsense, my love. And as to your bonnets, they have always been nice bonnets, for they have always

'Did I hurt you much, poor little Pa?' asked Bella, laughing (notwithstanding her repentance), with fantastic

'Ay, but I am afraid I shouldn't have beat you at all, unless I had meant to hurt you,' said Bella. 'Did I pinch

'Oh, yes!' cried Bella. 'If I go on chattering, you'll be taken alive. Fly, Pa, fly!'

So, they went softly up the kitchen stairs on tiptoe, and Bella with her light hand softly removed the

fastenings of the house door, and Pa, having received a parting hug, made off. When he had gone a little way,

he looked back. Upon which, Bella set another of those finger seals upon the air, and thrust out her little foot

expressive of the mark. Pa, in appropriate action, expressed fidelity to the mark, and made off as fast as he

Bella walked thoughtfully in the garden for an hour and more, and then, returning to the bedroom where

Lavvy the Irrepressible still slumbered, put on a little bonnet of quiet, but on the whole of sly appearance,

which she had yesterday made. 'I am going for a walk, Lavvy,' she said, as she stooped down and kissed her.

The Irrepressible, with a bounce in the bed, and a remark that it wasn't time to get up yet, relapsed into

Behold Bella tripping along the streets, the dearest girl afoot under the summer sun! Behold Pa waiting for

Bella behind a pump, at least three miles from the parental rooftree. Behold Bella and Pa aboard an early

Were they expected at Greenwich? Probably. At least, Mr John Rokesmith was on the pier looking out, about

a couple of hours before the coaly (but to him golddusty) little steamboat got her steam up in London.

Probably. At least, Mr John Rokesmith seemed perfectly satisfied when he descried them on board. Probably.

At least, Bella no sooner stepped ashore than she took Mr John Rokesmith's arm, without evincing surprise,

and the two walked away together with an ethereal air of happiness which, as it were, wafted up from the

earth and drew after them a gruff and glum old pensioner to see it out. Two wooden legs had this gruff and

glum old pensioner, and, a minute before Bella stepped out of the boat, and drew that confiding little arm of

hers through Rokesmith's, he had had no object in life but tobacco, and not enough of that. Stranded was

Gruff and Glum in a harbour of everlasting mud, when all in an instant Bella floated him, and away he went.

Say, cherubic parent taking the lead, in what direction do we steer first? With some such inquiry in his

thoughts, Gruff and Glum, stricken by so sudden an interest that he perked his neck and looked over the

intervening people, as if he were trying to stand on tiptoe with his two wooden legs, took an observation of R.

W. There was no 'first' in the case, Gruff and Glum made out; the cherubic parent was bearing down and

For, Gruff and Glum, though most events acted on him simply as tobaccostoppers, pressing down and

condensing the quids within him, might be imagined to trace a family resemblance between the cherubs in the

church architecture, and the cherub in the white waistcoat. Some remembrance of old Valentines, wherein a

cherub, less appropriately attired for a proverbially uncertain climate, had been seen conducting lovers to the

altar, might have been fancied to inflame the ardour of his timber toes. Be it as it might, he gave his moorings

The cherub went before, all beaming smiles; Bella and John Rokesmith followed; Gruff and Glum stuck to

them like wax. For years, the wings of his mind had gone to look after the legs of his body; but Bella had

He was a slow sailer on a wind of happiness, but he took a cross cut for the rendezvous, and pegged away as

if he were scoring furiously at cribbage. When the shadow of the churchporch swallowed them up,

victorious Gruff and Glum likewise presented himself to be swallowed up. And by this time the cherubic

parent was so fearful of surprise, that, but for the two wooden legs on which Gruff and Glum was

reassuringly mounted, his conscience might have introduced, in the person of that pensioner, his own stately

lady disguised, arrived at Greenwich in a car and griffins, like the spiteful Fairy at the christenings of the

Princesses, to do something dreadful to the marriage service. And truly he had a momentary reason to be pale

of face, and to whisper to Bella, 'You don't think that can be your Ma; do you, my dear?' on account of a

mysterious rustling and a stealthy movement somewhere in the remote neighbourhood of the organ, though it

was gone directly and was heard no more. Albeit it was heard of afterwards, as will afterwards be read in this

Who taketh? I, John, and so do I, Bella. Who giveth? I, R. W. Forasmuch, Gruff and Glum, as John and Bella

have consented together in holy wedlock, you may (in short) consider it done, and withdraw your two

wooden legs from this temple. To the foregoing purport, the Minister speaking, as directed by the Rubric, to

the People, selectly represented in the present instance by G. and G. above mentioned.

And now, the churchporch having swallowed up Bella Wilfer for ever and ever, had it not in its power to

relinquish that young woman, but slid into the happy sunlight, Mrs John Rokesmith instead. And long on the

bright steps stood Gruff and Glum, looking after the pretty bride, with a narcotic consciousness of having

After which, Bella took out from her pocket a little letter, and read it aloud to Pa and John; this being a true

I hope you won't be angry, but I am most happily married to Mr John Rokesmith, who loves me better than I

can ever deserve, except by loving him with all my heart. I thought it best not to mention it beforehand, in

case it should cause any little difference at home. Please tell darling Pa. With love to Lavvy,

Then, John Rokesmith put the queen's countenance on the letter when had Her Gracious Majesty looked so

benign as on that blessed morning!and then Bella popped it into the postoffice, and said merrily, 'Now,

Pa was, at first, in the stirred depths of his conscience, so far from sure of being safe yet, that he made out

majestic matrons lurking in ambush among the harmless trees of Greenwich Park, and seemed to see a stately

countenance tied up in a wellknown pocket handkerchief glooming down at him from a window of the

Observatory, where the Familiars of the Astronomer Royal nightly outwatch the winking stars. But, the

minutes passing on and no Mrs Wilfer in the flesh appearing, he became more confident, and so repaired with

good heart and appetite to Mr and Mrs John Rokesmith's cottage on Blackheath, where breakfast was ready.

A modest little cottage but a bright and a fresh, and on the snowy tablecloth the prettiest of little breakfasts.

In waiting, too, like an attendant summer breeze, a fluttering young damsel, all pink and ribbons, blushing as

if she had been married instead of Bella, and yet asserting the triumph of her sex over both John and Pa, in an

exulting and exalted flurry: as who should say, 'This is what you must all come to, gentlemen, when we

choose to bring you to book.' This same young damsel was Bella's servingmaid, and unto her did deliver a

bunch of keys, commanding treasures in the way of drysaltery, groceries, jams and pickles, the investigation

of which made pastime after breakfast, when Bella declared that 'Pa must taste everything, John dear, or it

will never be lucky,' and when Pa had all sorts of things poked into his mouth, and didn't quite know what to

Then they, all three, out for a charming ride, and for a charming stroll among heath in bloom, and there

behold the identical Gruff and Glum with his wooden legs horizontally disposed before him, apparently

sitting meditating on the vicissitudes of life! To whom said Bella, in her lighthearted surprise: 'Oh! How do

you do again? What a dear old pensioner you are!' To which Gruff and Glum responded that he see her

married this morning, my Beauty, and that if it warn't a liberty he wished her ji and the fairest of fair wind

and weather; further, in a general way requesting to know what cheer? and scrambling up on his two wooden

legs to salute, hat in hand, shipshape, with the gallantry of a manofwarsman and a heart of oak.

It was a pleasant sight, in the midst of the golden bloom, to see this salt old Gruff and Glum, waving his

shovel hat at Bella, while his thin white hair flowed free, as if she had once more launched him into blue

water again. 'You are a charming old pensioner,' said Bella, 'and I am so happy that I wish I could make you

happy, too.' Answered Gruff and Glum, 'Give me leave to kiss your hand, my Lovely, and it's done!' So it was

done to the general contentment; and if Gruff and Glum didn't in the course of the afternoon splice the main

brace, it was not for want of the means of inflicting that outrage on the feelings of the Infant Bands of Hope.

But, the marriage dinner was the crowning success, for what had bride and bridegroom plotted to do, but to

have and to hold that dinner in the very room of the very hotel where Pa and the lovely woman had once

dined together! Bella sat between Pa and John, and divided her attentions pretty equally, but felt it necessary

(in the waiter's absence before dinner) to remind Pa that she was HIS lovely woman no longer.

'I am well aware of it, my dear,' returned the cherub, 'and I resign you willingly.'

'But you know you are not; don't you, poor dear Pa? You know that you have only made a new relation who

will be as fond of you and as thankful to youfor my sake and your own sake bothas I am; don't you, dear

little Pa? Look here, Pa!' Bella put her finger on her own lip, and then on Pa's, and then on her own lip again,

The appearance of dinner here cut Bella short in one of her disappearances: the more effectually, because it

was put on under the auspices of a solemn gentleman in black clothes and a white cravat, who looked much

more like a clergyman than THE clergyman, and seemed to have mounted a great deal higher in the church:

not to say, scaled the steeple. This dignitary, conferring in secrecy with John Rokesmith on the subject of

punch and wines, bent his head as though stooping to the Papistical practice of receiving auricular confession.

Likewise, on John's offering a suggestion which didn't meet his views, his face became overcast and

What a dinner! Specimens of all the fishes that swim in the sea, surely had swum their way to it, and if

samples of the fishes of divers colours that made a speech in the Arabian Nights (quite a ministerial

explanation in respect of cloudiness), and then jumped out of the fryingpan, were not to be recognized, it

was only because they had all become of one hue by being cooked in batter among the whitebait. And the

dishes being seasoned with Bliss an article which they are sometimes out of, at Greenwichwere of

perfect flavour, and the golden drinks had been bottled in the golden age and hoarding up their sparkles ever

The best of it was, that Bella and John and the cherub had made a covenant that they would not reveal to

mortal eyes any appearance whatever of being a wedding party. Now, the supervising dignitary, the

Archbishop of Greenwich, knew this as well as if he had performed the nuptial ceremony. And the loftiness

with which his Grace entered into their confidence without being invited, and insisted on a show of keeping

There was an innocent young waiter of a slender form and with weakish legs, as yet unversed in the wiles of

waiterhood, and but too evidently of a romantic temperament, and deeply (it were not too much to add

hopelessly) in love with some young female not aware of his merit. This guileless youth, descrying the

position of affairs, which even his innocence could not mistake, limited his waiting to languishing admiringly

against the sideboard when Bella didn't want anything, and swooping at her when she did. Him, his Grace the

Archbishop perpetually obstructed, cutting him out with his elbow in the moment of success, despatching

him in degrading quest of melted butter, and, when by any chance he got hold of any dish worth having,

'Pray excuse him, madam,' said the Archbishop in a low stately voice; 'he is a very young man on liking, and

This induced John Rokesmith to observeby way of making the thing more natural'Bella, my love, this is

so much more successful than any of our past anniversaries, that I think we must keep our future

Whereunto Bella replied, with probably the least successful attempt at looking matronly that ever was seen:

Here the Archbishop of Greenwich coughed a stately cough to attract the attention of three of his ministers

present, and staring at them, seemed to say: 'I call upon you by your fealty to believe this!'

With his own hands he afterwards put on the dessert, as remarking to the three guests, 'The period has now

arrived at which we can dispense with the assistance of those fellows who are not in our confidence,' and

would have retired with complete dignity but for a daring action issuing from the misguided brain of the

young man on liking. He finding, by illfortune, a piece of orange flower somewhere in the lobbies now

approached undetected with the same in a fingerglass, and placed it on Bella's right hand. The Archbishop

'I trust, madam,' said his Grace, returning alone, 'that you will have the kindness to overlook it, in

consideration of its being the act of a very young man who is merely here on liking, and who will never

With that, he solemnly bowed and retired, and they all burst into laughter, long and merry. 'Disguise is of no

use,' said Bella; 'they all find me out; I think it must be, Pa and John dear, because I look so happy!'

Her husband feeling it necessary at this point to demand one of those mysterious disappearances on Bella's

part, she dutifully obeyed; saying in a softened voice from her place of concealment:

'No, my dear. How can we tell what coming people are aboard the ships that may be sailing to us now from

Bella remaining invisible and silent, her father remained at his dessert and wine, until he remembered it was

time for him to get home to Holloway. 'Though I positively cannot tear myself away,' he cherubically added,

'it would be a sinwithout drinking to many, many happy returns of this most happy day.'

'Here! ten thousand times!' cried John. 'I fill my glass and my precious wife's.'

'Gentlemen,' said the cherub, inaudibly addressing, in his Anglo Saxon tendency to throw his feelings into

the form of a speech, the boys down below, who were bidding against each other to put their heads in the

mud for sixpence: 'Gentlemenand Bella and John you will readily suppose that it is not my intention to

trouble you with many observations on the present occasion. You will also at once infer the nature and even

the terms of the toast I am about to propose on the present occasion. Gentlemenand Bella and John the

present occasion is an occasion fraught with feelings that I cannot trust myself to express. But

gentlemenand Bella and Johnfor the part I have had in it, for the confidence you have placed in me, and

for the affectionate goodnature and kindness with which you have determined not to find me in the way,

when I am well aware that I cannot be otherwise than in it more or less, I do most heartily thank you.

Gentlemenand Bella and Johnmy love to you, and may we meet, as on the present occasion, on many

future occasions; that is to say, gentlemenand Bella and Johnon many happy returns of the present

Having thus concluded his address, the amiable cherub embraced his daughter, and took his flight to the

steamboat which was to convey him to London, and was then lying at the floating pier, doing its best to bump

the same to bits. But, the happy couple were not going to part with him in that way, and before he had been

on board two minutes, there they were, looking down at him from the wharf above.

'Pa, dear!' cried Bella, beckoning him with her parasol to approach the side, and bending gracefully to

'You are sure you quite forgive me, Pa? Please, Pa, please, forgive me quite!' Half laughing at him and half

crying to him, Bella besought him in the prettiest manner; in a manner so engaging and so playful and so

natural, that her cherubic parent made a coaxing face as if she had never grown up, and said, 'What a silly

So, she leaning on her husband's arm, they turned homeward by a rosy path which the gracious sun struck out

for them in its setting. And O there are days in this life, worth life and worth death. And O what a bright old

song it is, that O 'tis love, 'tis love, 'tis love that makes the world go round!

The impressive gloom with which Mrs Wilfer received her husband on his return from the wedding, knocked

so hard at the door of the cherubic conscience, and likewise so impaired the firmness of the cherubic legs,

that the culprit's tottering condition of mind and body might have roused suspicion in less occupied persons

that the grimly heroic lady, Miss Lavinia, and that esteemed friend of the family, Mr George Sampson. But,

the attention of all three being fully possessed by the main fact of the marriage, they had happily none to

bestow on the guilty conspirator; to which fortunate circumstance he owed the escape for which he was in

'You do not, R. W.' said Mrs Wilfer from her stately corner, 'inquire for your daughter Bella.'

'To be sure, my dear,' he returned, with a most flagrant assumption of unconsciousness, 'I did omit it.

The cherub faintly muttered something to the abortive effect of 'Oh, indeed, my dear!'

'Not here,' repeated Mrs Wilfer, in a stern sonorous voice. 'In a word, R. W., you have no daughter Bella.'

'No. Your daughter Bella,' said Mrs Wilfer, with a lofty air of never having had the least copartnership in that

young lady: of whom she now made reproachful mention as an article of luxury which her husband had set up

entirely on his own account, and in direct opposition to her advice: 'your daughter Bella has bestowed

'Show your father his daughter Bella's letter, Lavinia,' said Mrs Wilfer, in her monotonous Act of Parliament

tone, and waving her hand. 'I think your father will admit it to be documentary proof of what I tell him. I

believe your father is acquainted with his daughter Bella's writing. But I do not know. He may tell you he is

'Posted at Greenwich, and dated this morning,' said the Irrepressible, flouncing at her father in handing him

the evidence. 'Hopes Ma won't be angry, but is happily married to Mr John Rokesmith, and didn't mention it

beforehand to avoid words, and please tell darling you, and love to me, and I should like to know what you'd

'You may well say Dear me!' rejoined Mrs Wilfer, in a deep tone. Upon which encouragement he said it

again, though scarcely with the success he had expected; for the scornful lady then remarked, with extreme

'It's very surprising. But I suppose, my dear,' hinted the cherub, as he folded the letter after a disconcerting

silence, 'that we must make the best of it? Would you object to my pointing out, my dear, that Mr John

Rokesmith is not (so far as I am acquainted with him), strictly speaking, a Mendicant.'

'Indeed?' returned Mrs Wilfer, with an awful air of politeness. 'Truly so? I was not aware that Mr John

Rokesmith was a gentleman of landed property. But I am much relieved to hear it.'

'Thank you,' said Mrs Wilfer. 'I make false statements, it appears? So be it. If my daughter flies in my face,

surely my husband may. The one thing is not more unnatural than the other. There seems a fitness in the

arrangement. By all means!' Assuming, with a shiver of resignation, a deadly cheerfulness.

But, here the Irrepressible skirmished into the conflict, dragging the reluctant form of Mr Sampson after her.

'Ma,' interposed the young lady, 'I must say I think it would be much better if you would keep to the point,

and not hold forth about people's flying into people's faces, which is nothing more nor less than impossible

'Just impossible nonsense, Ma,' returned Lavvy, 'and George Sampson knows it is, as well as I do.'

Mrs Wilfer suddenly becoming petrified, fixed her indignant eyes upon the wretched George: who, divided

between the support due from him to his love, and the support due from him to his love's mamma, supported

'The true point is,' pursued Lavinia, 'that Bella has behaved in a most unsisterly way to me, and might have

severely compromised me with George and with George's family, by making off and getting married in this

very low and disreputable mannerwith some pewopener or other, I suppose, for a bridesmaidwhen she

ought to have confided in me, and ought to have said, "If, Lavvy, you consider it due to your engagement

with George, that you should countenance the occasion by being present, then Lavvy, I beg you to BE

'I say! You know ma'am. Upon my honour you mustn't,' Mr Sampson remonstrated, shaking his head

seriously, 'With the highest respect for you, ma'am, upon my life you mustn't. No really, you know. When a

man with the feelings of a gentleman finds himself engaged to a young lady, and it comes (even on the part of

a member of the family) to vipers, you know!I would merely put it to your own good feeling, you know,'

Mrs Wilfer's baleful stare at the young gentleman in acknowledgment of his obliging interference was of such

a nature that Miss Lavinia burst into tears, and caught him round the neck for his protection.

'My own unnatural mother,' screamed the young lady, 'wants to annihilate George! But you shan't be

Mr Sampson, in the arms of his mistress, still struggled to shake his head at Mrs Wilfer, and to remark: 'With

every sentiment of respect for you, you know, ma'amvipers really doesn't do you credit.'

'You shall not be annihilated, George!' cried Miss Lavinia. 'Ma shall destroy me first, and then she'll be

contented. Oh, oh, oh! Have I lured George from his happy home to expose him to this! George, dear, be

free! Leave me, ever dearest George, to Ma and to my fate. Give my love to your aunt, George dear, and

implore her not to curse the viper that has crossed your path and blighted your existence. Oh, oh, oh!' The

young lady who, hysterically speaking, was only just come of age, and had never gone off yet, here fell into a

highly creditable crisis, which, regarded as a first performance, was very successful; Mr Sampson, bending

over the body meanwhile, in a state of distraction, which induced him to address Mrs Wilfer in the

inconsistent expressions: 'Demonwith the highest respect for youbehold your work!'

The cherub stood helplessly rubbing his chin and looking on, but on the whole was inclined to welcome this

diversion as one in which, by reason of the absorbent properties of hysterics, the previous question would

become absorbed. And so, indeed, it proved, for the Irrepressible gradually coming to herself; and asking

with wild emotion, 'George dear, are you safe?' and further, 'George love, what has happened? Where is Ma?'

Mr Sampson, with words of comfort, raised her prostrate form, and handed her to Mrs Wilfer as if the young

lady were something in the nature of refreshments. Mrs Wilfer with dignity partaking of the refreshments, by

kissing her once on the brow (as if accepting an oyster), Miss Lavvy, tottering, returned to the protection of

Mr Sampson; to whom she said, 'George dear, I am afraid I have been foolish; but I am still a little weak and

giddy; don't let go my hand, George!' And whom she afterwards greatly agitated at intervals, by giving

utterance, when least expected, to a sound between a sob and a bottle of soda water, that seemed to rend the

Among the most remarkable effects of this crisis may be mentioned its having, when peace was restored, an

inexplicable moral influence, of an elevating kind, on Miss Lavinia, Mrs Wilfer, and Mr George Sampson,

from which R. W. was altogether excluded, as an outsider and nonsympathizer. Miss Lavinia assumed a

modest air of having distinguished herself; Mrs Wilfer, a serene air of forgiveness and resignation; Mr

Sampson, an air of having been improved and chastened. The influence pervaded the spirit in which they

'George dear,' said Lavvy, with a melancholy smile, 'after what has passed, I am sure Ma will tell Pa that he

Mr Sampson said he was sure of it too; murmuring how eminently he respected Mrs Wilfer, and ever must,

'Far be it from me,' said Mrs Wilfer, making deep proclamation from her corner, 'to run counter to the

feelings of a child of mine, and of a Youth,' Mr Sampson hardly seemed to like that word, 'who is the object

of her maiden preference. I may feelnay, knowthat I have been deluded and deceived. I may feelnay,

knowthat I have been set aside and passed over. I may feelnay, knowthat after having so far

overcome my repugnance towards Mr and Mrs Boffin as to receive them under this roof, and to consent to

your daughter Bella's,' here turning to her husband, 'residing under theirs, it were well if your daughter Bella,'

again turning to her husband, 'had profited in a worldly point of view by a connection so distasteful, so

disreputable. I may feelnay, knowthat in uniting herself to Mr Rokesmith she has united herself to one

who is, in spite of shallow sophistry, a Mendicant. And I may feel well assured that your daughter Bella,'

again turning to her husband, 'does not exalt her family by becoming a Mendicant's bride. But I suppress what

Mr Sampson murmured that this was the sort of thing you might expect from one who had ever in her own

family been an example and never an outrage. And ever more so (Mr Sampson added, with some degree of

obscurity,) and never more so, than in and through what had passed. He must take the liberty of adding, that

what was true of the mother was true of the youngest daughter, and that he could never forget the touching

feelings that the conduct of both had awakened within him. In conclusion, he did hope that there wasn't a man

with a beating heart who was capable of something that remained undescribed, in consequence of Miss

'Therefore, R. W.' said Mrs Wilfer, resuming her discourse and turning to her lord again, 'let your daughter

Bella come when she will, and she will be received. So,' after a short pause, and an air of having taken

'And I beg, Pa,' said Lavinia, 'that you will not tell Bella what I have undergone. It can do no good, and it

'No, George,' said Lavinia, in a tone of resolute selfdenial. 'No, dearest George, let it be buried in oblivion.'

'Nothing is too noble, dearest George,' returned Lavinia. 'And Pa, I hope you will be careful not to refer

before Bella, if you can help it, to my engagement to George. It might seem like reminding her of her having

cast herself away. And I hope, Pa, that you will think it equally right to avoid mentioning George's rising

prospects, when Bella is present. It might seem like taunting her with her own poor fortunes. Let me ever

remember that I am her younger sister, and ever spare her painful contrasts, which could not but wound her

Mr Sampson expressed his belief that such was the demeanour of Angels. Miss Lavvy replied with solemnity,

Mrs Wilfer, for her part, still further improved the occasion by sitting with her eyes fastened on her husband,

like two great black notes of interrogation, severely inquiring, Are you looking into your breast? Do you

deserve your blessings? Can you lay your hand upon your heart and say that you are worthy of so hysterical a

daughter? I do not ask you if you are worthy of such a wifeput Me out of the questionbut are you

sufficiently conscious of, and thankful for, the pervading moral grandeur of the family spectacle on which

you are gazing? These inquiries proved very harassing to R. W. who, besides being a little disturbed by wine,

was in perpetual terror of committing himself by the utterance of stray words that would betray his guilty

foreknowledge. However, the scene being over, andall things consideredwell over, he sought refuge in a

'Then,' said Mrs Wilfer, with solemn indignation, 'I would recommend you, if you have a human feeling, to

'Thank you, my dear,' he replied; 'I think it IS the best place for me.' And with these unsympathetic words

Within a few weeks afterwards, the Mendicant's bride (arminarm with the Mendicant) came to tea, in

fulfilment of an engagement made through her father. And the way in which the Mendicant's bride dashed at

the unassailable position so considerately to be held by Miss Lavy, and scattered the whole of the works in all

'Dearest Ma,' cried Bella, running into the room with a radiant face, 'how do you do, dearest Ma?' And then

embraced her, joyously. 'And Lavvy darling, how do YOU do, and how's George Sampson, and how is he

getting on, and when are you going to be married, and how rich are you going to grow? You must tell me all

about it, Lavvy dear, immediately. John, love, kiss Ma and Lavvy, and then we shall all be at home and

Mrs Wilfer stared, but was helpless. Miss Lavinia stared, but was helpless. Apparently with no compunction,

and assuredly with no ceremony, Bella tossed her bonnet away, and sat down to make the tea.

'Dearest Ma and Lavvy, you both take sugar, I know. And Pa (you good little Pa), you don't take milk. John

does. I didn't before I was married; but I do now, because John does. John dear, did you kiss Ma and Lavvy?

Oh, you did! Quite correct, John dear; but I didn't see you do it, so I asked. Cut some bread and butter, John;

that's a love. Ma likes it doubled. And now you must tell me, dearest Ma and Lavvy, upon your words and

honours! Didn't you for a momentjust a momentthink I was a dreadful little wretch when I wrote to say

Before Mrs Wilfer could wave her gloves, the Mendicant's bride in her merriest affectionate manner went on

'I think it must have made you rather cross, dear Ma and Lavvy, and I know I deserved that you should be

very cross. But you see I had been such a heedless, heartless creature, and had led you so to expect that I

should marry for money, and so to make sure that I was incapable of marrying for love, that I thought you

couldn't believe me. Because, you see, you didn't know how much of Good, Good, Good, I had learnt from

John. Well! So I was sly about it, and ashamed of what you supposed me to be, and fearful that we couldn't

understand one another and might come to words, which we should all be sorry for afterwards, and so I said

to John that if he liked to take me without any fuss, he might. And as he did like, I let him. And we were

married at Greenwich church in the presence of nobodyexcept an unknown individual who dropped in,'

here her eyes sparkled more brightly, 'and half a pensioner. And now, isn't it nice, dearest Ma and Lavvy, to

know that no words have been said which any of us can be sorry for, and that we are all the best of friends at

Having got up and kissed them again, she slipped back to her chair (after a loop on the road to squeeze her

'And now you will naturally want to know, dearest Ma and Lavvy, how we live, and what we have got to live

upon. Well! And so we live on Blackheath, in the charmingest of dolls' houses, de lightfully furnished,

and we have a clever little servant who is de cidedly pretty, and we are economical and orderly, and do

everything by clockwork, and we have a hundred and fifty pounds a year, and we have all we want, and

more. And lastly, if you would like to know in confidence, as perhaps you may, what is my opinion of my

'And if you would like to know in confidence, as perhaps you may,' said her husband, smiling, as he stood by

her side, without her having detected his approach, 'my opinion of my wife, my opinion is.' But Bella

'Stop, Sir! No, John, dear! Seriously! Please not yet a while! I want to be something so much worthier than

'Not half, not a quarter, so much worthier as I hope you may some day find me! Try me through some

reverse, Johntry me through some trialand tell them after THAT, what you think of me.'

'And I won't,' said John, with a very expressive look of admiration around him, 'speak a word now!'

She laid her laughing cheek upon his breast to thank him, and said, looking at the rest of them sideways out

of her bright eyes: 'I'll go further, Pa and Ma and Lavvy. John don't suspect ithe has no idea of itbut I

Even Mrs Wilfer relaxed under the influence of her married daughter, and seemed in a majestic manner to

imply remotely that if R. W. had been a more deserving object, she too might have condescended to come

down from her pedestal for his beguilement. Miss Lavinia, on the other hand, had strong doubts of the policy

of the course of treatment, and whether it might not spoil Mr Sampson, if experimented on in the case of that

young gentleman. R. W. himself was for his part convinced that he was father of one of the most charming of

girls, and that Rokesmith was the most favoured of men; which opinion, if propounded to him, Rokesmith

The newlymarried pair left early, so that they might walk at leisure to their startingplace from London, for

Greenwich. At first they were very cheerful and talked much; but after a while, Bella fancied that her

'Won't you tell me,' said Bella, looking up into his face, 'what you are thinking of?'

'There's not much in the thought, my soul. I was thinking whether you wouldn't like me to be rich?'

'I should be almost afraid to try, John dear. Was he much the better for his wealth? Was I much the better for

'Nor even most people, it may be hoped. If you were rich, for instance, you would have a great power of

'Yes, sir, for instance,' Bella playfully rejoined; 'but should I exercise the power, for instance? And again, sir,

for instance; should I, at the same time, have a great power of doing harm to myself?'

Laughing and pressing her arm, he retorted: 'But still, again for instance; would you exercise that power?'

'I don't know,' said Bella, thoughtfully shaking her head. 'I hope not. I think not. But it's so easy to hope not

'Why don't you say, my darlinginstead of that phrasebeing poor?' he asked, looking earnestly at her.

'Why don't I say, being poor! Because I am not poor. Dear John, it's not possible that you suppose I think we

'Understand me, sweetheart. I know that I am rich beyond all wealth in having you; but I think OF you, and

think FOR you. In such a dress as you are wearing now, you first charmed me, and in no dress could you ever

look, to my thinking, more graceful or more beautiful. But you have admired many finer dresses this very

'It's very nice that you should wish it, John. It brings these tears of grateful pleasure into my eyes, to hear you

'Again,' he pursued, 'we are now walking through the muddy streets. I love those pretty feet so dearly, that I

feel as if I could not bear the dirt to soil the sole of your shoe. Is it not natural that I wish you could ride in a

'It's very nice,' said Bella, glancing downward at the feet in question, 'to know that you admire them so much,

John dear, and since you do, I am sorry that these shoes are a full size too large. But I don't want a carriage,

'I shouldn't like it for its own sake, half so well as such a wish for it. Dear John, your wishes are as real to me

as the wishes in the Fairy story, that were all fulfilled as soon as spoken. Wish me everything that you can

wish for the woman you dearly love, and I have as good as got it, John. I have better than got it, John!'

They were not the less happy for such talk, and home was not the less home for coming after it. Bella was

fast developing a perfect genius for home. All the loves and graces seemed (her husband thought) to have

Her married life glided happily on. She was alone all day, for, after an early breakfast her husband repaired

every morning to the City, and did not return until their late dinner hour. He was 'in a China house,' he

explained to Bella: which she found quite satisfactory, without pursuing the China house into minuter details

than a wholesale vision of tea, rice, oddsmelling silks, carved boxes, and tighteyed people in more than

doublesoled shoes, with their pigtails pulling their heads of hair off, painted on transparent porcelain. She

always walked with her husband to the railroad, and was always there again to meet him; her old coquettish

ways a little sobered down (but not much), and her dress as daintily managed as if she managed nothing else.

But, John gone to business and Bella returned home, the dress would be laid aside, trim little wrappers and

aprons would be substituted, and Bella, putting back her hair with both hands, as if she were making the most

businesslike arrangements for going dramatically distracted, would enter on the household affairs of the

day. Such weighing and mixing and chopping and grating, such dusting and washing and polishing, such

snipping and weeding and trowelling and other small gardening, such making and mending and folding and

airing, such diverse arrangements, and above all such severe study! For Mrs J. R., who had never been wont

to do too much at home as Miss B. W., was under the constant necessity of referring for advice and support to

a sage volume entitled The Complete British Family Housewife, which she would sit consulting, with her

elbows on the table and her temples on her hands, like some perplexed enchantress poring over the Black Art.

This, principally because the Complete British Housewife, however sound a Briton at heart, was by no means

an expert Briton at expressing herself with clearness in the British tongue, and sometimes might have issued

her directions to equal purpose in the Kamskatchan language. In any crisis of this nature, Bella would

suddenly exclaim aloud, 'Oh you ridiculous old thing, what do you mean by that? You must have been

drinking!' And having made this marginal note, would try the Housewife again, with all her dimples screwed

There was likewise a coolness on the part of the British Housewife, which Mrs John Rokesmith found highly

exasperating. She would say, 'Take a salamander,' as if a general should command a private to catch a Tartar.

Or, she would casually issue the order, 'Throw in a handful' of something entirely unattainable. In these,

the Housewife's most glaring moments of unreason, Bella would shut her up and knock her on the table,

apostrophising her with the compliment, 'O you ARE a stupid old Donkey! Where am I to get it, do you

Another branch of study claimed the attention of Mrs John Rokesmith for a regular period every day. This

was the mastering of the newspaper, so that she might be close up with John on general topics when John

came home. In her desire to be in all things his companion, she would have set herself with equal zeal to

master Algebra, or Euclid, if he had divided his soul between her and either. Wonderful was the way in which

she would store up the City Intelligence, and beamingly shed it upon John in the course of the evening;

incidentally mentioning the commodities that were looking up in the markets, and how much gold had been

taken to the Bank, and trying to look wise and serious over it until she would laugh at herself most

For a City man, John certainly did appear to care as little as might be for the looking up or looking down of

things, as well as for the gold that got taken to the Bank. But he cared, beyond all expression, for his wife, as

a most precious and sweet commodity that was always looking up, and that never was worth less than all the

gold in the world. And she, being inspired by her affection, and having a quick wit and a fine ready instinct,

made amazing progress in her domestic efficiency, though, as an endearing creature, she made no progress at

all. This was her husband's verdict, and he justified it by telling her that she had begun her married life as the

'And you have such a cheerful spirit!' he said, fondly. 'You are like a bright light in the house.'

'Do you know, John dear,' said Bella, taking him by a button of his coat, 'that I sometimes, at odd

'O dear, no, John! The time is so short that I have not a moment too much in the week.'

'When I laugh, I think,' said Bella, laughing as she laid her head upon his shoulder. 'You wouldn't believe, sir,

that I feel serious now? But I do.' And she laughed again, and something glistened in her eyes.

'Regret anything? No!' Bella confidently answered. But then, suddenly changing, she said, between laughing

'I, too, regret that separation very much. But perhaps it is only temporary. Perhaps things may so fall out, as

that you may sometimes see her againas that we may sometimes see her again.' Bella might be very

anxious on the subject, but she scarcely seemed so at the moment. With an absent air, she was investigating

Pa had his special chair and his special corner reserved for him on all occasions, andwithout

disparagement of his domestic joys was far happier there, than anywhere. It was always pleasantly droll to

see Pa and Bella together; but on this present evening her husband thought her more than usually fantastic

'You are a very good little boy,' said Bella, 'to come unexpectedly, as soon as you could get out of school.

'Well, my pet,' replied the cherub, smiling and rubbing his hands as she sat him down in his chair, 'I attend

two schools. There's the Mincing Lane establishment, and there's your mother's Academy. Which might you

'Both, eh? Why, to say the truth, both have taken a little out of me today, my dear, but that was to be

'And what do you do with yourself when you have got your learning by heart, you silly child?'

'Why then, my dear,' said the cherub, after a little consideration, 'I suppose I die.'

'You are a very bad boy,' retorted Bella, 'to talk about dismal things and be out of spirits.'

'My Bella,' rejoined her father, 'I am not out of spirits. I am as gay as a lark.' Which his face confirmed.

'Then if you are sure and certain it's not you, I suppose it must be I,' said Bella; 'so I won't do so any more.

'He has been grubbing and grubbing at school,' said Bella, looking at her father's hand and lightly slapping it,

'Indeed, my dear,' said her father, 'I was going to ask to be allowed to wash my hands, only you find me out

'Come here, sir!' cried Bella, taking him by the front of his coat, 'come here and be washed directly. You are

The cherub, to his genial amusement, was accordingly conducted to a little washingroom, where Bella

soaped his face and rubbed his face, and soaped his hands and rubbed his hands, and splashed him and rinsed

him and towelled him, until he was as red as beet root, even to his very ears: 'Now you must be brushed and

combed, sir,' said Bella, busily. 'Hold the light, John. Shut your eyes, sir, and let me take hold of your chin.

Her father being more than willing to obey, she dressed his hair in her most elaborate manner, brushing it out

straight, parting it, winding it over her fingers, sticking it up on end, and constantly falling back on John to

get a good look at the effect of it. Who always received her on his disengaged arm, and detained her, while

'There!' said Bella, when she had at last completed the final touches. 'Now, you are something like a genteel

The cherub investing himself with his coat was led back to his cornerwhere, but for having no egotism in

his pleasant nature, he would have answered well enough for that radiant though self sufficient boy, Jack

HornerBella with her own hands laid a cloth for him, and brought him his supper on a tray. 'Stop a

moment,' said she, 'we must keep his little clothes clean;' and tied a napkin under his chin, in a very

While he took his supper, Bella sat by him, sometimes admonishing him to hold his fork by the handle, like a

polite child, and at other times carving for him, or pouring out his drink. Fantastic as it all was, and

accustomed as she ever had been to make a plaything of her good father, ever delighted that she should put

him to that account, still there was an occasional something on Bella's part that was new. It could not be said

that she was less playful, whimsical, or natural, than she always had been; but it seemed, her husband

thought, as if there were some rather graver reason than he had supposed for what she had so lately said, and

It was a circumstance in support of this view of the case, that when she had lighted her father's pipe, and

mixed him his glass of grog, she sat down on a stool between her father and her husband, leaning her arm

upon the latter, and was very quiet. So quiet, that when her father rose to take his leave, she looked round

'I have not written to Lizzie Hexam since I wrote and told her that I really had a lovera whole one. I have

often thought I would like to tell her how right she was when she pretended to read in the live coals that I

would go through fire and water for him. I am in the humour to tell her so tonight, John, and I'll stay at

'Not at all tired, John dear, but in the humour to write to Lizzie. Good night, dear Pa. Good night, you dear,

Left to herself she sat down to write, and wrote Lizzie a long letter. She had but completed it and read it over,

when her husband came back. 'You are just in time, sir,' said Bella; 'I am going to give you your first curtain

lecture. It shall be a parlourcurtain lecture. You shall take this chair of mine when I have folded my letter,

and I will take the stool (though you ought to take it, I can tell you, sir, if it's the stool of repentance), and

Her letter folded, sealed, and directed, and her pen wiped, and her middle finger wiped, and her desk locked

up and put away, and these transactions performed with an air of severe business sedateness, which the

Complete British Housewife might have assumed, and certainly would not have rounded off and broken

down in with a musical laugh, as Bella did: she placed her husband in his chair, and placed herself upon her

A question more decidedly rushing at the secret he was keeping from her, could not have astounded him. But

he kept his countenance and his secret, and answered, 'John Rokesmith, my dear.'

With a returning suspicion that something might have betrayed him to her, he answered, interrogatively, 'My

'Pretty good!' said Bella. 'Not goodest good, because you hesitate about it. However, as you know your

Catechism fairly, so far, I'll let you off the rest. Now, I am going to examine you out of my own head. John

dear, why did you go back, this evening, to the question you once asked me beforewould I like to be rich?'

Again, his secret! He looked down at her as she looked up at him, with her hands folded on his knee, and it

'In short, dear John,' said Bella, 'this is the topic of my lecture: I want nothing on earth, and I want you to

'It's not all, John dear,' Bella hesitated. 'It's only Firstly. There's a dreadful Secondly, and a dreadful Thirdly to

comeas I used to say to myself in sermontime when I was a very smallsized sinner at church.'

'Are you sure, John dear; are you absolutely certain in your innermost heart of hearts?'

'No, John, but the key is.Are you absolutely certain that down at the bottom of that heart of hearts, which

you have given to me as I have given mine to you, there is no remembrance that I was once very mercenary?'

'Why, if there were no remembrance in me of the time you speak of,' he softly asked her with his lips to hers,

'could I love you quite as well as I do; could I have in the Calendar of my life the brightest of its days; could I

whenever I look at your dear face, or hear your dear voice, see and hear my noble champion? It can never

'No John, it wasn't that, and still less was it Mrs Boffin, though I love her. Wait a moment, and I'll go on with

the lecture. Give me a moment, because I like to cry for joy. It's so delicious, John dear, to cry for joy.'

She did so on his neck, and, still clinging there, laughed a little when she said, 'I think I am ready now for

'Isn't there?' said Bella, with another laugh. 'I never knew such a quantity! It's like verbs in an exercise. But I

can't get on with less believing. I'll try again. I believe, dear John, that you believe that I believe that we have

'But if our money should by any means be rendered not so muchif we had to stint ourselves a little in

purchases that we can afford to make nowwould you still have the same confidence in my being quite

'Thank you, John dear, thousands upon thousands of times. And I may take it for granted, no doubt,' with a

little faltering, 'that you would be quite as contented yourself John? But, yes, I know I may. For, knowing that

I should be so, how surely I may know that you would be so; you who are so much stronger, and firmer, and

'Hush!' said her husband, 'I must not hear that. You are all wrong there, though otherwise as right as can be.

And now I am brought to a little piece of news, my dearest, that I might have told you earlier in the evening. I

have strong reason for confidently believing that we shall never be in the receipt of a smaller income than our

She might have shown herself more interested in the intelligence; but she had returned to the investigation of

the coatbutton that had engaged her attention a few hours before, and scarcely seemed to heed what he said.

'And now we have got to the bottom of it at last,' cried her husband, rallying her, 'and this is the thing that

'No dear,' said Bella, twisting the button and shaking her head, 'it wasn't this.'

'Why then, Lord bless this little wife of mine, there's a Fourthly!' exclaimed John.

'This worried me a little, and so did Secondly,' said Bella, occupied with the button, 'but it was quite another

sort of seriousnessa much deeper and quieter sort of seriousnessthat I spoke of John dear.'

As he bent his face to hers, she raised hers to meet it, and laid her little right hand on his eyes, and kept it

'Do you remember, John, on the day we were married, Pa's speaking of the ships that might be sailing

'I think...among them...there is a ship upon the ocean...bringing...to you and me...a little baby, John.'

The Paper Mill had stopped work for the night, and the paths and roads in its neighbourhood were sprinkled

with clusters of people going home from their day's labour in it. There were men, women, and children in the

groups, and there was no want of lively colour to flutter in the gentle evening wind. The mingling of various

voices and the sound of laughter made a cheerful impression upon the ear, analogous to that of the fluttering

colours upon the eye. Into the sheet of water reflecting the flushed sky in the foreground of the living picture,

a knot of urchins were casting stones, and watching the expansion of the rippling circles. So, in the rosy

evening, one might watch the everwidening beauty of the landscapebeyond the newlyreleased workers

wending home beyond the silver riverbeyond the deep green fields of corn, so prospering, that the

loiterers in their narrow threads of pathway seemed to float immersed breasthighbeyond the hedgerows

and the clumps of treesbeyond the windmills on the ridgeaway to where the sky appeared to meet the

It was a Saturday evening, and at such a time the village dogs, always much more interested in the doings of

humanity than in the affairs of their own species, were particularly active. At the general shop, at the

butcher's and at the publichouse, they evinced an inquiring spirit never to he satiated. Their especial interest

in the publichouse would seem to imply some latent rakishness in the canine character; for little was eaten

there, and they, having no taste for beer or tobacco (Mrs Hubbard's dog is said to have smoked, but proof is

wanting), could only have been attracted by sympathy with loose convivial habits. Moreover, a most

wretched fiddle played within; a fiddle so unutterably vile, that one lean longbodied cur, with a better ear

than the rest, found himself under compulsion at intervals to go round the corner and howl. Yet, even he

returned to the publichouse on each occasion with the tenacity of a confirmed drunkard.

Fearful to relate, there was even a sort of little Fair in the village. Some despairing gingerbread that had been

vainly trying to dispose of itself all over the country, and had cast a quantity of dust upon its head in its

mortification, again appealed to the public from an infirm booth. So did a heap of nuts, long, long exiled from

Barcelona, and yet speaking English so indifferently as to call fourteen of themselves a pint. A Peepshow

which had originally started with the Battle of Waterloo, and had since made it every other battle of later date

by altering the Duke of Wellington's nose, tempted the student of illustrated history. A Fat Lady, perhaps in

part sustained upon postponed pork, her professional associate being a Learned Pig, displayed her lifesize

picture in a low dress as she appeared when presented at Court, several yards round. All this was a vicious

spectacle as any poor idea of amusement on the part of the rougher hewers of wood and drawers of water in

this land of England ever is and shall be. They MUST NOT vary the rheumatism with amusement. They may

vary it with fever and ague, or with as many rheumatic variations as they have joints; but positively not with

The various sounds arising from this scene of depravity, and floating away into the still evening air, made the

evening, at any point which they just reached fitfully, mellowed by the distance, more still by contrast. Such

was the stillness of the evening to Eugene Wrayburn, as he walked by the river with his hands behind him.

He walked slowly, and with the measured step and preoccupied air of one who was waiting. He walked

between the two points, an osierbed at this end and some floating lilies at that, and at each point stopped and

It was very quiet. Some sheep were grazing on the grass by the riverside, and it seemed to him that he had

never before heard the crisp tearing sound with which they cropped it. He stopped idly, and looked at them.

'You are stupid enough, I suppose. But if you are clever enough to get through life tolerably to your

satisfaction, you have got the better of me, Man as I am, and Mutton as you are!'

A rustle in a field beyond the hedge attracted his attention. 'What's here to do?' he asked himself leisurely

going towards the gate and looking over. 'No jealous papermiller? No pleasures of the chase in this part of

The field had been newly mown, and there were yet the marks of the scythe on the yellowgreen ground, and

the track of wheels where the hay had been carried. Following the tracks with his eyes, the view closed with

Now, if he had gone on to the hayrick, and gone round it? But, say that the event was to be, as the event fell

out, and how idle are such suppositions! Besides, if he had gone; what is there of warning in a Bargeman

'A bird flying to the hedge,' was all he thought about it; and came back, and resumed his walk.

'If I had not a reliance on her being truthful,' said Eugene, after taking some halfdozen turns, 'I should begin

to think she had given me the slip for the second time. But she promised, and she is a girl of her word.'

'I was saying to myself, Lizzie, that you were sure to come, though you were late.'

'I had to linger through the village as if I had no object before me, and I had to speak to several people in

'Are the lads of the villageand the ladiessuch scandalmongers?' he asked, as he took her hand and drew

She submitted to walk slowly on, with downcast eyes. He put her hand to his lips, and she quietly drew it

'Will you walk beside me, Mr Wrayburn, and not touch me?' For, his arm was already stealing round her

She stopped again, and gave him an earnest supplicating look. 'Well, Lizzie, well!' said he, in an easy way

'I cannot help being unhappy, but I do not mean to be reproachful. Mr Wrayburn, I implore you to go away

'Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie!' he remonstrated. 'As well be reproachful as wholly unreasonable. I can't go away.'

'Faith!' said Eugene in his airily candid manner. 'Because you won't let me. Mind! I don't mean to be

reproachful either. I don't complain that you design to keep me here. But you do it, you do it.'

'Will you walk beside me, and not touch me;' for, his arm was coming about her again; 'while I speak to you

'I will do anything within the limits of possibility, for you, Lizzie,' he answered with pleasant gaiety as he

'When you spoke to me as I came from the Mill the night before last,' said Lizzie, fixing her eyes upon him

with the look of supplication which troubled his better nature, 'you told me that you were much surprised to

'It was not,' replied Eugene composedly, 'in the least true. I came here, because I had information that I

'I am afraid, Lizzie,' he openly answered, 'that you left London to get rid of me. It is not flattering to my

'O Mr Wrayburn,' she answered, suddenly breaking into tears, 'is the cruelty on my side! O Mr Wrayburn, Mr

'In the name of all that's goodand that is not conjuring you in my own name, for Heaven knows I am not

'What else can I be, when I know the distance and the difference between us? What else can I be, when to tell

He looked at her with a real sentiment of remorseful tenderness and pity. It was not strong enough to impell

'Lizzie! I never thought before, that there was a woman in the world who could affect me so much by saying

so little. But don't be hard in your construction of me. You don't know what my state of mind towards you is.

You don't know how you haunt me and bewilder me. You don't know how the cursed carelessness that is

overofficious in helping me at every other turning of my life, WON'T help me here. You have struck it

dead, I think, and I sometimes almost wish you had struck me dead along with it.'

She had not been prepared for such passionate expressions, and they awakened some natural sparks of

feminine pride and joy in her breast. To consider, wrong as he was, that he could care so much for her, and

'It grieves you to see me distressed, Mr Wrayburn; it grieves me to see you distressed. I don't reproach you.

Indeed I don't reproach you. You have not felt this as I feel it, being so different from me, and beginning from

another point of view. You have not thought. But I entreat you to think now, think now!'

'I don't mean in that way. Think of me, as belonging to another station, and quite cut off from you in honour.

Remember that I have no protector near me, unless I have one in your noble heart. Respect my good name. If

you feel towards me, in one particular, as you might if I was a lady, give me the full claims of a lady upon

your generous behaviour. I am removed from you and your family by being a working girl. How true a

He would have been base indeed to have stood untouched by her appeal. His face expressed contrition and

'No, no. You may set me quite right. I don't speak of the past, Mr Wrayburn, but of the present and the future.

Are we not here now, because through two days you have followed me so closely where there are so many

'Again, not very flattering to my selflove,' said Eugene, moodily; 'but yes. Yes. Yes.'

'Then I beseech you, Mr Wrayburn, I beg and pray you, leave this neighbourhood. If you do not, consider to

He did consider within himself for a moment or two, and then retorted, 'Drive you? To what shall I drive you,

'You will drive me away. I live here peacefully and respected, and I am well employed here. You will force

me to quit this place as I quitted London, andby following me againwill force me to quit the next place

'Are you so determined, Lizzieforgive the word I am going to use, for its literal truthto fly from a lover?'

'I am so determined,' she answered resolutely, though trembling, 'to fly from such a lover. There was a poor

woman died here but a little while ago, scores of years older than I am, whom I found by chance, lying on the

'Her name was Higden. Though she was so weak and old, she kept true to one purpose to the very last. Even

at the very last, she made me promise that her purpose should be kept to, after she was dead, so settled was

her determination. What she did, I can do. Mr Wrayburn, if I believedbut I do not believethat you could

be so cruel to me as to drive me from place to place to wear me out, you should drive me to death and not do

He looked full at her handsome face, and in his own handsome face there was a light of blended admiration,

anger, and reproach, which shewho loved him so in secret whose heart had long been so full, and he the

cause of its overflowingdrooped before. She tried hard to retain her firmness, but he saw it melting away

under his eyes. In the moment of its dissolution, and of his first full knowledge of his influence upon her, she

'Lizzie! Rest so a moment. Answer what I ask you. If I had not been what you call removed from you and cut

'I swear to you, Lizzie, you shall go directly. I swear to you, you shall go alone. I'll not accompany you, I'll

'How can I, Mr Wrayburn? How can I tell you what I should have done, if you had not been what you are?'

'If I had not been what you make me out to be,' he struck in, skilfully changing the form of words, 'would you

'O Mr Wrayburn,' she replied appealingly, and weeping, 'you know me better than to think I do!'

'If I had not been what you make me out to be, Lizzie, would you still have been indifferent to me?'

There was something in the attitude of her whole figure as he supported it, and she hung her head, which

besought him to be merciful and not force her to disclose her heart. He was not merciful with her, and he

'If I know you better than quite to believe (unfortunate dog though I am!) that you hate me, or even that you

are wholly indifferent to me, Lizzie, let me know so much more from yourself before we separate. Let me

know how you would have dealt with me if you had regarded me as being what you would have considered

'It is impossible, Mr Wrayburn. How can I think of you as being on equal terms with me? If my mind could

put you on equal terms with me, you could not be yourself. How could I remember, then, the night when I

first saw you, and when I went out of the room because you looked at me so attentively? Or, the night that

passed into the morning when you broke to me that my father was dead? Or, the nights when you used to

come to see me at my next home? Or, your having known how uninstructed I was, and having caused me to

be taught better? Or, my having so looked up to you and wondered at you, and at first thought you so good to

'Only "at first" thought me so good, Lizzie? What did you think me after "at first"? So bad?'

'I don't say that. I don't mean that. But after the first wonder and pleasure of being noticed by one so different

from any one who had ever spoken to me, I began to feel that it might have been better if I had never seen

'Because you WERE so different,' she answered in a lower voice. 'Because it was so endless, so hopeless.

'I never supposed until tonight that you needed to be thought for. But if you do need to be; if you do truly

feel at heart that you have indeed been towards me what you have called yourself tonight, and that there is

nothing for us in this life but separation; then Heaven help you, and Heaven bless you!'

The purity with which in these words she expressed something of her own love and her own suffering, made

a deep impression on him for the passing time. He held her, almost as if she were sanctified to him by death,

'I promised that I would not accompany you, nor follow you. Shall I keep you in view? You have been

'I promise. I can bring myself to promise nothing more tonight, Lizzie, except that I will try what I can do.'

'There is but one means, Mr Wrayburn, of sparing yourself and of sparing me, every way. Leave this

As he spoke the words in a grave voice, she put her hand in his, removed it, and went away by the riverside.

'Now, could Mortimer believe this?' murmured Eugene, still remaining, after a while, where she had left him.

He referred to the circumstance that there were tears upon his hand, as he stood covering his eyes. 'A most

ridiculous position this, to be found out in!' was his next thought. And his next struck its root in a little rising

'Yet I have gained a wonderful power over her, too, let her be as much in earnest as she will!'

The reflection brought back the yielding of her face and form as she had drooped under his gaze.

Contemplating the reproduction, he seemed to see, for the second time, in the appeal and in the confession of

'And she loves me. And so earnest a character must be very earnest in that passion. She cannot choose for

herself to be strong in this fancy, wavering in that, and weak in the other. She must go through with her

nature, as I must go through with mine. If mine exacts its pains and penalties all round, so must hers, I

Pursuing the inquiry into his own nature, he thought, 'Now, if I married her. If, outfacing the absurdity of the

situation in correspondence with M. R. F., I astonished M. R. F. to the utmost extent of his respected powers,

by informing him that I had married her, how would M. R. F. reason with the legal mind? "You wouldn't

marry for some money and some station, because you were frightfully likely to become bored. Are you less

frightfully likely to become bored, marrying for no money and no station? Are you sure of yourself?" Legal

mind, in spite of forensic protestations, must secretly admit, "Good reasoning on the part of M. R. F. NOT

In the very act of calling this tone of levity to his aid, he felt it to be profligate and worthless, and asserted her

'And yet,' said Eugene, 'I should like to see the fellow (Mortimer excepted) who would undertake to tell me

that this was not a real sentiment on my part, won out of me by her beauty and her worth, in spite of myself,

and that I would not be true to her. I should particularly like to see the fellow tonight who would tell me so,

or who would tell me anything that could he construed to her disadvantage; for I am wearily out of sorts with

one Wrayburn who cuts a sorry figure, and I would far rather be out of sorts with somebody else. "Eugene,

Eugene, Eugene, this is a bad business." Ah! So go the Mortimer Lightwood bells, and they sound

Strolling on, he thought of something else to take himself to task for. 'Where is the analogy, Brute Beast,' he

said impatiently, 'between a woman whom your father coolly finds out for you and a woman whom you have

found out for yourself, and have ever drifted after with more and more of constancy since you first set eyes

But, again he subsided into a reminiscence of his first full knowledge of his power just now, and of her

disclosure of her heart. To try no more to go away, and to try her again, was the reckless conclusion it turned

uppermost. And yet again, 'Eugene, Eugene, Eugene, this is a bad business!' And, 'I wish I could stop the

Looking above, he found that the young moon was up, and that the stars were beginning to shine in the sky

from which the tones of red and yellow were flickering out, in favour of the calm blue of a summer night. He

was still by the riverside. Turning suddenly, he met a man, so close upon him that Eugene, surprised,

stepped back, to avoid a collision. The man carried something over his shoulder which might have been a

Eugene Wrayburn went the opposite way, with his hands behind him and his purpose in his thoughts. He

passed the sheep, and passed the gate, and came within hearing of the village sounds, and came to the bridge.

The inn where he stayed, like the village and the mill, was not across the river, but on that side of the stream

on which he walked. However, knowing the rushy bank and the backwater on the other side to be a retired

place, and feeling out of humour for noise or company, he crossed the bridge, and sauntered on: looking up at

the stars as they seemed one by one to be kindled in the sky, and looking down at the river as the same stars

seemed to be kindled deep in the water. A landingplace overshadowed by a willow, and a pleasureboat

lying moored there among some stakes, caught his eye as he passed along. The spot was in such dark shadow,

The rippling of the river seemed to cause a correspondent stir in his uneasy reflections. He would have laid

them asleep if he could, but they were in movement, like the stream, and all tending one way with a strong

current. As the ripple under the moon broke unexpectedly now and then, and palely flashed in a new shape

and with a new sound, so parts of his thoughts started, unbidden, from the rest, and revealed their wickedness.

'Out of the question to marry her,' said Eugene, 'and out of the question to leave her. The crisis!'

He had sauntered far enough. Before turning to retrace his steps, he stopped upon the margin, to look down at

the reflected night. In an instant, with a dreadful crash, the reflected night turned crooked, flames shot

Was he struck by lightning? With some incoherent halfformed thought to that effect, he turned under the

blows that were blinding him and mashing his life, and closed with a murderer, whom he caught by a red

Eugene was light, active, and expert; but his arms were broken, or he was paralysed, and could do no more

than hang on to the man, with his head swung back, so that he could see nothing but the heaving sky. After

dragging at the assailant, he fell on the bank with him, and then there was another great crash, and then a

Lizzie Hexam, too, had avoided the noise, and the Saturday movement of people in the straggling street, and

chose to walk alone by the water until her tears should be dry, and she could so compose herself as to escape

remark upon her looking ill or unhappy on going home. The peaceful serenity of the hour and place, having

no reproaches or evil intentions within her breast to contend against, sank healingly into its depths. She had

meditated and taken comfort. She, too, was turning homeward, when she heard a strange sound.

It startled her, for it was like a sound of blows. She stood still, and listened. It sickened her, for blows fell

heavily and cruelly on the quiet of the night. As she listened, undecided, all was silent. As she yet listened,

Her old bold life and habit instantly inspired her. Without vain waste of breath in crying for help where there

were none to hear, she ran towards the spot from which the sounds had come. It lay between her and the

bridge, but it was more removed from her than she had thought; the night being so very quiet, and sound

At length, she reached a part of the green bank, much and newly trodden, where there lay some broken

splintered pieces of wood and some torn fragments of clothes. Stooping, she saw that the grass was bloody.

Following the drops and smears, she saw that the watery margin of the bank was bloody. Following the

current with her eyes, she saw a bloody face turned up towards the moon, and drifting away.

Now, merciful Heaven be thanked for that old time, and grant, O Blessed Lord, that through thy wonderful

workings it may turn to good at last! To whomsoever the drifting face belongs, be it man's or woman's, help

my humble hands, Lord God, to raise it from death and restore it to some one to whom it must be dear!

It was thought, fervently thought, but not for a moment did the prayer check her. She was away before it

welled up in her mind, away, swift and true, yet steady above allfor without steadiness it could never be

doneto the landingplace under the willowtree, where she also had seen the boat lying moored among the

A sure touch of her old practised hand, a sure step of her old practised foot, a sure light balance of her body,

and she was in the boat. A quick glance of her practised eye showed her, even through the deep dark shadow,

the sculls in a rack against the red brick gardenwall. Another moment, and she had cast off (taking the line

with her), and the boat had shot out into the moonlight, and she was rowing down the stream as never other

Intently over her shoulder, without slackening speed, she looked ahead for the driving face. She passed the

scene of the struggle yonder it was, on her left, well over the boat's sternshe passed on her right, the end

of the village street, a hilly street that almost dipped into the river; its sounds were growing faint again, and

she slackened; looking as the boat drove, everywhere, everywhere, for the floating face.

She merely kept the boat before the stream now, and rested on her oars, knowing well that if the face were

not soon visible, it had gone down, and she would overshoot it. An untrained sight would never have seen by

the moonlight what she saw at the length of a few strokes astern. She saw the drowning figure rise to the

surface, slightly struggle, and as if by instinct turn over on its back to float. Just so had she first dimly seen

Firm of look and firm of purpose, she intently watched its coming on, until it was very near; then, with a

touch unshipped her sculls, and crept aft in the boat, between kneeling and crouching. Once, she let the body

evade her, not being sure of her grasp. Twice, and she had seized it by its bloody hair.

It was insensible, if not virtually dead; it was mutilated, and streaked the water all about it with dark red

streaks. As it could not help itself, it was impossible for her to get it on board. She bent over the stern to

secure it with the line, and then the river and its shores rang to the terrible cry she uttered.

But, as if possessed by supernatural spirit and strength, she lashed it safe, resumed her seat, and rowed in,

desperately, for the nearest shallow water where she might run the boat aground. Desperately, but not wildly,

She ran the boat ashore, went into the water, released him from the line, and by main strength lifted him in

her arms and laid him in the bottom of the boat. He had fearful wounds upon him, and she bound them up

with her dress torn into strips. Else, supposing him to be still alive, she foresaw that he must bleed to death

This done very rapidly, she kissed his disfigured forehead, looked up in anguish to the stars, and blessed him

and forgave him, 'if she had anything to forgive.' It was only in that instant that she thought of herself, and

Now, merciful Heaven be thanked for that old time, enabling me, without a wasted moment, to have got the

boat afloat again, and to row back against the stream! And grant, O Blessed Lord God, that through poor me

he may be raised from death, and preserved to some one else to whom he may be dear one day, though never

She rowed hardrowed desperately, but never wildlyand seldom removed her eyes from him in the

bottom of the boat. She had so laid him there, as that she might see his disfigured face; it was so much

disfigured that his mother might have covered it, but it was above and beyond disfigurement in her eyes.

The boat touched the edge of the patch of inn lawn, sloping gently to the water. There were lights in the

windows, but there chanced to be no one out of doors. She made the boat fast, and again by main strength

Surgeons were sent for, and she sat supporting his head. She had oftentimes heard in days that were gone,

how doctors would lift the hand of an insensible wounded person, and would drop it if the person were dead.

She waited for the awful moment when the doctors might lift this hand, all broken and bruised, and let it fall.

The first of the surgeons came, and asked, before proceeding to his examination, 'Who brought him in?'

The surgeon looked at her with great attention, and with some compassion. Having with a grave face touched

He appeared irresolute. He did not retain it, but laid it gently down, took a candle, looked more closely at the

injuries on the head, and at the pupils of the eyes. That done, he replaced the candle and took the hand again.

Another surgeon then coming in, the two exchanged a whisper, and the second took the hand. Neither did he

'Attend to the poor girl,' said the first surgeon then. 'She is quite unconscious. She sees nothing and hears

nothing. All the better for her! Don't rouse her, if you can help it; only move her. Poor girl, poor girl! She

must be amazingly strong of heart, but it is much to be feared that she has set her heart upon the dead. Be

Day was breaking at Plashwater Weir Mill Lock. Stars were yet visible, but there was dull light in the east

that was not the light of night. The moon had gone down, and a mist crept along the banks of the river, seen

through which the trees were the ghosts of trees, and the water was the ghost of water. This earth looked

spectral, and so did the pale stars: while the cold eastern glare, expressionless as to heat or colour, with the

eye of the firmament quenched, might have been likened to the stare of the dead.

Perhaps it was so likened by the lonely Bargeman, standing on the brink of the lock. For certain, Bradley

Headstone looked that way, when a chill air came up, and when it passed on murmuring, as if it whispered

something that made the phantom trees and water trembleor threatenfor fancy might have made it

'Why, T'otherest, I thought you had been and got lost! Two nights away! I a'most believed as you'd giv' me

the slip, and I had as good as half a mind for to advertise you in the newspapers to come for'ard.'

Bradley's face turned so dark on this hint, that Riderhood deemed it expedient to soften it into a compliment.

'But not you, governor, not you,' he went on, stolidly shaking his head. 'For what did I say to myself arter

having amused myself with that there stretch of a comic idea, as a sort of a playful game? Why, I says to

myself; "He's a man o' honour." That's what I says to myself. "He's a man o' double honour."'

Very remarkably, Riderhood put no question to him. He had looked at him on opening the door, and he now

looked at him again (stealthily this time), and the result of his looking was, that he asked him no question.

'You'll be for another forty on 'em, governor, as I judges, afore you turns your mind to breakfast,' said

Riderhood, when his visitor sat down, resting his chin on his hand, with his eyes on the ground. And very

remarkably again: Riderhood feigned to set the scanty furniture in order, while he spoke, to have a show of

'Yes. I had better sleep, I think,' said Bradley, without changing his position.

'I myself should recommend it, governor,' assented Riderhood. 'Might you be anyways dry?'

'Yes. I should like a drink,' said Bradley; but without appearing to attend much.

Mr Riderhood got out his bottle, and fetched his jugfull of water, and administered a potation. Then, he

shook the coverlet of his bed and spread it smooth, and Bradley stretched himself upon it in the clothes he

wore. Mr Riderhood poetically remarking that he would pick the bones of his night's rest, in his wooden

chair, sat in the window as before; but, as before, watched the sleeper narrowly until he was very sound

asleep. Then, he rose and looked at him close, in the bright daylight, on every side, with great minuteness. He

'One of his sleeves is tore right away below the elber, and the t'other's had a good rip at the shoulder. He's

been hung on to, pretty tight, for his shirt's all tore out of the neckgathers. He's been in the grass and he's

been in the water. And he's spotted, and I know with what, and with whose. Hooroar!'

Bradley slept long. Early in the afternoon a barge came down. Other barges had passed through, both ways,

before it; but the Lockkeeper hailed only this particular barge, for news, as if he had made a time calculation

with some nicety. The men on board told him a piece of news, and there was a lingering on their part to

Twelve hours had intervened since Bradley's lying down, when he got up. 'Not that I swaller it,' said

Riderhood, squinting at his Lock, when he saw Bradley coming out of the house, 'as you've been a sleeping

Bradley came to him, sitting on his wooden lever, and asked what o'clock it was? Riderhood told him it was

On both sides, importance seemed attached to this question of relief. Riderhood quite petted his reply; saying

a second time, and prolonging a negative roll of his head, 'nnnot a inch sooner, governor.'

'No, governor,' returned Riderhood, in a cheerful, affable, and conversational manner, 'you did not tell me so.

But most like you meant to it and forgot to it. How, otherways, could a doubt have come into your head about

'So much the more necessairy is a Peck,' returned Riderhood. 'Come in and have it, T'otherest.'

The formality of spreading a tablecloth not being observed in Mr Riderhood's establishment, the serving of

the 'peck' was the affair of a moment; it merely consisting in the handing down of a capacious baking dish

with threefourths of an immense meat pie in it, and the production of two pocketknives, an earthenware

Both ate and drank, but Riderhood much the more abundantly. In lieu of plates, that honest man cut two

triangular pieces from the thick crust of the pie, and laid them, inside uppermost, upon the table: the one

before himself, and the other before his guest. Upon these platters he placed two goodly portions of the

contents of the pie, thus imparting the unusual interest to the entertainment that each partaker scooped out the

inside of his plate, and consumed it with his other fare, besides having the sport of pursuing the clots of

congealed gravy over the plain of the table, and successfully taking them into his mouth at last from the blade

Bradley Headstone was so remarkably awkward at these exercises, that the Rogue observed it.

But, the caution came too late, for Bradley gashed it at the instant. And, what was more unlucky, in asking

Riderhood to tie it up, and in standing close to him for the purpose, he shook his hand under the smart of the

When dinner was done, and when what remained of the platters and what remained of the congealed gravy

had been put back into what remained of the pie, which served as an economical investment for all

miscellaneous savings, Riderhood filled the mug with beer and took a long drink. And now he did look at

'T'otherest!' he said, hoarsely, as he bent across the table to touch his arm. 'The news has gone down the river

'Who do you think,' said Riderhood, with a hitch of his head, as if he disdainfully jerked the feint away,

The convulsive twitching of Bradley Headstone's face, and the sudden hot humour that broke out upon it,

showed how grimly the intelligence touched him. But he said not a single word, good or bad. He only smiled

in a lowering manner, and got up and stood leaning at the window, looking through it. Riderhood followed

him with his eyes. Riderhood cast down his eyes on his own besprinkled clothes. Riderhood began to have an

'I have been so long in want of rest,' said the schoolmaster, 'that with your leave I'll lie down again.'

'And welcome, T'otherest!' was the hospitable answer of his host. He had laid himself down without waiting

for it, and he remained upon the bed until the sun was low. When he arose and came out to resume his

journey, he found his host waiting for him on the grass by the towingpath outside the door.

'Whenever it may be necessary that you and I should have any further communication together,' said Bradley,

'Well, since no better can be,' said Riderhood, turning on his heel, 'Goodnight!' But he turned again as the

other set forth, and added under his breath, looking after him with a leer: 'You wouldn't be let to go like that,

In a word, his real time of relief being that evening at sunset, his mate came lounging in, within a quarter of

an hour. Not staying to fill up the utmost margin of his time, but borrowing an hour or so, to be repaid again

when he should relieve his reliever, Riderhood straightway followed on the track of Bradley Headstone.

He was a better follower than Bradley. It had been the calling of his life to slink and skulk and dog and

waylay, and he knew his calling well. He effected such a forced march on leaving the Lock House that he

was close up with himthat is to say, as close up with him as he deemed it convenient to bebefore

another Lock was passed. His man looked back pretty often as he went, but got no hint of him. HE knew how

to take advantage of the ground, and where to put the hedge between them, and where the wall, and when to

duck, and when to drop, and had a thousand arts beyond the doomed Bradley's slow conception.

But, all his arts were brought to a standstill, like himself when Bradley, turning into a green lane or riding by

the riversidea solitary spot run wild in nettles, briars, and brambles, and encumbered with the scathed

trunks of a whole hedgerow of felled trees, on the outskirts of a little woodbegan stepping on these trunks

and dropping down among them and stepping on them again, apparently as a schoolboy might have done, but

'What are you up to?' muttered Riderhood, down in the ditch, and holding the hedge a little open with both

hands. And soon his actions made a most extraordinary reply. 'By George and the Draggin!' cried Riderhood,

He had passed back, on and among the trunks of trees again, and has passed on to the waterside and had

begun undressing on the grass. For a moment it had a suspicious look of suicide, arranged to counterfeit

accident. 'But you wouldn't have fetched a bundle under your arm, from among that timber, if such was your

game!' said Riderhood. Nevertheless it was a relief to him when the bather after a plunge and a few strokes

came out. 'For I shouldn't,' he said in a feeling manner, 'have liked to lose you till I had made more money out

Prone in another ditch (he had changed his ditch as his man had changed his position), and holding apart so

small a patch of the hedge that the sharpest eyes could not have detected him, Rogue Riderhood watched the

bather dressing. And now gradually came the wonder that he stood up, completely clothed, another man, and

'Aha!' said Riderhood. 'Much as you was dressed that night. I see. You're a taking me with you, now. You're

When the bather had finished dressing, he kneeled on the grass, doing something with his hands, and again

stood up with his bundle under his arm. Looking all around him with great attention, he then went to the

river's edge, and flung it in as far, and yet as lightly as he could. It was not until he was so decidedly upon his

way again as to be beyond a bend of the river and for the time out of view, that Riderhood scrambled from

'Now,' was his debate with himself 'shall I foller you on, or shall I let you loose for this once, and go a

fishing?' The debate continuing, he followed, as a precautionary measure in any case, and got him again in

sight. 'If I was to let you loose this once,' said Riderhood then, still following, 'I could make you come to me

agin, or I could find you out in one way or another. If I wasn't to go a fishing, others might.I'll let you

loose this once, and go a fishing!' With that, he suddenly dropped the pursuit and turned.

The miserable man whom he had released for the time, but not for long, went on towards London. Bradley

was suspicious of every sound he heard, and of every face he saw, but was under a spell which very

commonly falls upon the shedder of blood, and had no suspicion of the real danger that lurked in his life, and

would have it yet. Riderhood was much in his thoughtshad never been out of his thoughts since the

nightadventure of their first meeting; but Riderhood occupied a very different place there, from the place of

pursuer; and Bradley had been at the pains of devising so many means of fitting that place to him, and of

wedging him into it, that his mind could not compass the possibility of his occupying any other. And this is

another spell against which the shedder of blood for ever strives in vain. There are fifty doors by which

discovery may enter. With infinite pains and cunning, he double locks and bars fortynine of them, and

Now, too, was he cursed with a state of mind more wearing and more wearisome than remorse. He had no

remorse; but the evildoer who can hold that avenger at bay, cannot escape the slower torture of incessantly

doing the evil deed again and doing it more efficiently. In the defensive declarations and pretended

confessions of murderers, the pursuing shadow of this torture may be traced through every lie they tell. If I

had done it as alleged, is it conceivable that I would have made this and this mistake? If I had done it as

alleged, should I have left that unguarded place which that false and wicked witness against me so

infamously deposed to? The state of that wretch who continually finds the weak spots in his own crime, and

strives to strengthen them when it is unchangeable, is a state that aggravates the offence by doing the deed a

thousand times instead of once; but it is a state, too, that tauntingly visits the offence upon a sullen

Bradley toiled on, chained heavily to the idea of his hatred and his vengeance, and thinking how he might

have satiated both in many better ways than the way he had taken. The instrument might have been better, the

spot and the hour might have been better chosen. To batter a man down from behind in the dark, on the brink

of a river, was well enough, but he ought to have been instantly disabled, whereas he had turned and seized

his assailant; and so, to end it before chancehelp came, and to be rid of him, he had been hurriedly thrown

backward into the river before the life was fully beaten out of him. Now if it could be done again, it must not

be so done. Supposing his head had been held down under water for a while. Supposing the first blow had

been truer. Supposing he had been shot. Supposing he had been strangled. Suppose this way, that way, the

other way. Suppose anything but getting unchained from the one idea, for that was inexorably impossible.

The school reopened next day. The scholars saw little or no change in their master's face, for it always wore

its slowly labouring expression. But, as he heard his classes, he was always doing the deed and doing it

better. As he paused with his piece of chalk at the black board before writing on it, he was thinking of the

spot, and whether the water was not deeper and the fall straighter, a little higher up, or a little lower down. He

had half a mind to draw a line or two upon the board, and show himself what he meant. He was doing it again

and improving on the manner, at prayers, in his mental arithmetic, all through his questioning, all through the

Charley Hexam was a master now, in another school, under another head. It was evening, and Bradley was

walking in his garden observed from behind a blind by gentle little Miss Peecher, who contemplated offering

him a loan of her smelling salts for headache, when Mary Anne, in faithful attendance, held up her arm.

'Mr Headstone has beckoned young Mr Hexam into his house, ma'am, and he has gone in himself without

waiting for young Mr Hexam to come up, and now HE has gone in too, ma'am, and has shut the door.'

'They must find it rather dull and dark, Miss Peecher, for the parlour blind's down, and neither of them pulls it

'There is no accounting,' said good Miss Peecher with a little sad sigh which she repressed by laying her hand

Charley, entering the dark room, stopped short when he saw his old friend in its yellow shade.

Charley advanced to take the hand that was held out to him; but stopped again, short of it. The heavy,

bloodshot eyes of the schoolmaster, rising to his face with an effort, met his look of scrutiny.

'Mr Headstone, have you heard the news? This news about the fellow, Mr Eugene Wrayburn? That he is

Young Hexam standing looking at him, he moistened his lips with his tongue, looked about the room,

glanced at his former pupil, and looked down. 'I heard of the outrage,' said Bradley, trying to constrain his

'Where were you,' said the boy, advancing a step as he lowered his voice, 'when it was done? Stop! I don't ask

that. Don't tell me. If you force your confidence upon me, Mr Headstone, I'll give up every word of it. Mind!

The wretched creature seemed to suffer acutely under this renunciation. A desolate air of utter and complete

'It's for me to speak, not you,' said the boy. 'If you do, you'll do it at your peril. I am going to put your

selfishness before you, Mr Headstoneyour passionate, violent, and ungovernable selfishness to show

He looked at young Hexam as if he were waiting for a scholar to go on with a lesson that he knew by heart

'If you had any partI don't say whatin this attack,' pursued the boy; 'or if you know anything about itI

don't say how muchor if you know who did itI go no closeryou did an injury to me that's never to be

forgiven. You know that I took you with me to his chambers in the Temple when I told him my opinion of

him, and made myself responsible for my opinion of you. You know that I took you with me when I was

watching him with a view to recovering my sister and bringing her to her senses; you know that I have

allowed myself to be mixed up with you, all through this business, in favouring your desire to marry my

sister. And how do you know that, pursuing the ends of your own violent temper, you have not laid me open

Bradley sat looking steadily before him at the vacant air. As often as young Hexam stopped, he turned his

eyes towards him, as if he were waiting for him to go on with the lesson, and get it done. As often as the boy

'I am going to be plain with you, Mr Headstone,' said young Hexam, shaking his head in a halfthreatening

manner, 'because this is no time for affecting not to know things that I do know except certain things at

which it might not be very safe for you, to hint again. What I mean is this: if you were a good master, I was a

good pupil. I have done you plenty of credit, and in improving my own reputation I have improved yours

quite as much. Very well then. Starting on equal terms, I want to put before you how you have shown your

gratitude to me, for doing all I could to further your wishes with reference to my sister. You have

compromised me by being seen about with me, endeavouring to counteract this Mr Eugene Wrayburn. That's

the first thing you have done. If my character, and my now dropping you, help me out of that, Mr Headstone,

the deliverance is to be attributed to me, and not to you. No thanks to you for it!'

'I am going on, Mr Headstone, don't you be afraid. I am going on to the end, and I have told you beforehand

what the end is. Now, you know my story. You are as well aware as I am, that I have had many disadvantages

to leave behind me in life. You have heard me mention my father, and you are sufficiently acquainted with

the fact that the home from which I, as I may say, escaped, might have been a more creditable one than it

was. My father died, and then it might have been supposed that my way to respectability was pretty clear. No.

He spoke as confidently, and with as entire an absence of any tell tale colour in his cheek, as if there were

no softening old time behind him. Not wonderful, for there WAS none in his hollow empty heart. What is

'When I speak of my sister, I devoutly wish that you had never seen her, Mr Headstone. However, you did see

her, and that's useless now. I confided in you about her. I explained her character to you, and how she

interposed some ridiculous fanciful notions in the way of our being as respectable as I tried for. You fell in

love with her, and I favoured you with all my might. She could not be induced to favour you, and so we came

into collision with this Mr Eugene Wrayburn. Now, what have you done? Why, you have justified my sister

in being firmly set against you from first to last, and you have put me in the wrong again! And why have you

done it? Because, Mr Headstone, you are in all your passions so selfish, and so concentrated upon yourself

The cool conviction with which the boy took up and held his position, could have been derived from no other

'It is,' he went on, actually with tears, 'an extraordinary circumstance attendant on my life, that every effort I

make towards perfect respectability, is impeded by somebody else through no fault of mine! Not content with

doing what I have put before you, you will drag my name into notoriety through dragging my sister's

which you are pretty sure to do, if my suspicions have any foundation at alland the worse you prove to

be, the harder it will be for me to detach myself from being associated with you in people's minds.'

When he had dried his eyes and heaved a sob over his injuries, he began moving towards the door.

'However, I have made up my mind that I will become respectable in the scale of society, and that I will not

be dragged down by others. I have done with my sister as well as with you. Since she cares so little for me as

to care nothing for undermining my respectability, she shall go her way and I will go mine. My prospects are

very good, and I mean to follow them alone. Mr Headstone, I don't say what you have got upon your

conscience, for I don't know. Whatever lies upon it, I hope you will see the justice of keeping wide and clear

of me, and will find a consolation in completely exonerating all but yourself. I hope, before many years are

out, to succeed the master in my present school, and the mistress being a single woman, though some years

older than I am, I might even marry her. If it is any comfort to you to know what plans I may work out by

keeping myself strictly respectable in the scale of society, these are the plans at present occurring to me. In

conclusion, if you feel a sense of having injured me, and a desire to make some small reparation, I hope you

will think how respectable you might have been yourself and will contemplate your blighted existence.'

Was it strange that the wretched man should take this heavily to heart? Perhaps he had taken the boy to heart,

first, through some long laborious years; perhaps through the same years he had found his drudgery lightened

by communication with a brighter and more apprehensive spirit than his own; perhaps a family resemblance

of face and voice between the boy and his sister, smote him hard in the gloom of his fallen state. For

whichsoever reason, or for all, he drooped his devoted head when the boy was gone, and shrank together on

the floor, and grovelled there, with the palms of his hands tightclasping his hot temples, in unutterable

Rogue Riderhood had been busy with the river that day. He had fished with assiduity on the previous

evening, but the light was short, and he had fished unsuccessfully. He had fished again that day with better

luck, and had carried his fish home to Plashwater Weir Mill Lockhouse, in a bundle.

The dolls' dressmaker went no more to the businesspremises of Pubsey and Co. in St Mary Axe, after

chance had disclosed to her (as she supposed) the flinty and hypocritical character of Mr Riah. She often

moralized over her work on the tricks and the manners of that venerable cheat, but made her little purchases

elsewhere, and lived a secluded life. After much consultation with herself, she decided not to put Lizzie

Hexam on her guard against the old man, arguing that the disappointment of finding him out would come

upon her quite soon enough. Therefore, in her communication with her friend by letter, she was silent on this

theme, and principally dilated on the backslidings of her bad child, who every day grew worse and worse.

'You wicked old boy,' Miss Wren would say to him, with a menacing forefinger, 'you'll force me to run away

from you, after all, you will; and then you'll shake to bits, and there'll be nobody to pick up the pieces!'

At this foreshadowing of a desolate decease, the wicked old boy would whine and whimper, and would sit

shaking himself into the lowest of low spirits, until such time as he could shake himself out of the house and

shake another threepennyworth into himself. But dead drunk or dead sober (he had come to such a pass that

he was least alive in the latter state), it was always on the conscience of the paralytic scarecrow that he had

betrayed his sharp parent for sixty threepennyworths of rum, which were all gone, and that her sharpness

would infallibly detect his having done it, sooner or later. All things considered therefore, and addition made

of the state of his body to the state of his mind, the bed on which Mr Dolls reposed was a bed of roses from

which the flowers and leaves had entirely faded, leaving him to lie upon the thorns and stalks.

On a certain day, Miss Wren was alone at her work, with the housedoor set open for coolness, and was

trolling in a small sweet voice a mournful little song which might have been the song of the doll she was

dressing, bemoaning the brittleness and meltability of wax, when whom should she descry standing on the

'Did you?' Miss Wren retorted. 'And I thought it was you, young man. Quite a coincidence. You're not

'I am pretty much as usual, sir,' replied Miss Wren. 'A very unfortunate parent, worried out of my life and

Fledgeby's small eyes opened so wide that they might have passed for ordinarysized eyes, as he stared about

'But you're not a parent,' said Miss Wren, 'and consequently it's of no use talking to you upon a family

'So I had a mind,' pursued Fledgeby, 'to come and have a talk with you about our dodging friend, the child of

'You seem to see a good deal of him,' remarked Miss Wren, with shrewd distrust. 'A good deal of him you

'Haven't you,' inquired the dressmaker, bending over the doll on which her art was being exercised, 'done

'La! Been interceding with him all this time, and sticking to him still?' said Miss Wren, busy with her work.

Miss Wren pursued her occupation with a concentrated air, and asked, after an interval of silent industry:

'Nno,' said Fledgeby. He qualified these two negatives, as if he were not absolutely in either service, but

'Oh!' assented Jenny, screwing up her mouth with an appearance of conviction. 'Yes, to be sure! That

accounts for your having so much time to give to interceding. But only to think how kind and friendly a

Mr Fledgeby found that he was skating round a board marked Dangerous, and had better cut out a fresh track.

'Let's get back to the dodgerest of the dodgers,' said he. 'What's he up to in the case of your friend the

'He won't acknowledge where she's gone,' said Fledgeby; 'and I have a fancy that I should like to have

The quaint little chin met Mr Fledgeby's gaze with such a baffling hitch, that that agreeable gentleman was

for some time at a loss how to resume his fascinating part in the dialogue. At length he said:

'Probably you don't mistake, sir,' was Miss Wren's cool answer; 'because you had it on the best authority.

'Miss Jenny! Instead of coming up and being dead, let's come out and look alive. It'll pay better, I assure you,'

said Fledgeby, bestowing an inveigling twinkle or two upon the dressmaker. 'You'll find it pay better.'

'Perhaps,' said Miss Jenny, holding out her doll at arm's length, and critically contemplating the effect of her

art with her scissors on her lips and her head thrown back, as if her interest lay there, and not in the

conversation; 'perhaps you'll explain your meaning, young man, which is Greek to me.You must have

another touch of blue in your trimming, my dear.' Having addressed the last remark to her fair client, Miss

Wren proceeded to snip at some blue fragments that lay before her, among fragments of all colours, and to

'I am attending, sir,' replied Miss Wren, without the slightest appearance of so doing. 'Another touch of blue

'Well, look here,' said Fledgeby, rather discouraged by the circumstances under which he found himself

('Light blue, my sweet young lady,' remarked Miss Wren, in a sprightly tone, 'being best suited to your fair

'I say, if you're attending,' proceeded Fledgeby, 'it'll pay better in this way. It'll lead in a roundabout manner

to your buying damage and waste of Pubsey and Co. at a nominal price, or even getting it for nothing.'

'Aha!' thought the dressmaker. 'But you are not so roundabout, Little Eyes, that I don't notice your answering

for Pubsey and Co. after all! Little Eyes, Little Eyes, you're too cunning by half.'

'And I take it for granted,' pursued Fledgeby, 'that to get the most of your materials for nothing would be well

'You may take it for granted,' returned the dressmaker with many knowing nods, 'that it's always well worth

'Now,' said Fledgeby approvingly, 'you're answering to a sensible purpose. Now, you're coming out and

looking alive! So I make so free, Miss Jenny, as to offer the remark, that you and Judah were too thick

together to last. You can't come to be intimate with such a deep file as Judah without beginning to see a little

'I must own,' returned the dressmaker, with her eyes upon her work, 'that we are not good friends at present.'

'I know you're not good friends at present,' said Fledgeby. 'I know all about it. I should like to pay off Judah,

by not letting him have his own deep way in everything. In most things he'll get it by hook or by crook,

buthang it all!don't let him have his own deep way in everything. That's too much.' Mr Fledgeby said

this with some display of indignant warmth, as if he was counsel in the cause for Virtue.

'I'll tell you,' said Fledgeby. 'I like to hear you ask it, because it's looking alive. It's what I should expect to

'I should be glad to countermine him, respecting the handsome gal, your friend. He means something there.

You may depend upon it, Judah means something there. He has a motive, and of course his motive is a dark

motive. Now, whatever his motive is, it's necessary to his motive'Mr Fledgeby's constructive powers were

not equal to the avoidance of some tautology here'that it should be kept from me, what he has done with

her. So I put it to you, who know: What HAS he done with her? I ask no more. And is that asking much,

Miss Jenny Wren, who had cast her eyes upon the bench again after her last interruption, sat looking at it,

needle in hand but not working, for some moments. She then briskly resumed her work, and said with a

'I'll look in upon you tomorrow, young man. Those two ladies,' pointing to dolls, 'have an appointment in

Bond Street at ten precisely. When I've dropped 'em there, I'll drive round to you. With a weird little laugh,

'Mark you! I promise you nothing,' said the dolls' dressmaker, dabbing two dabs at him with her needle, as if

'No no. I understand,' returned Fledgeby. 'The damage and waste question shall be settled first. It shall be

Mr Fledgeby's prepossessing form withdrew itself; and the little dressmaker, clipping and snipping and

stitching, and stitching and snipping and clipping, fell to work at a great rate; musing and muttering all the

'Misty, misty, misty. Can't make it out. Little Eyes and the wolf in a conspiracy? Or Little Eyes and the wolf

against one another? Can't make it out. My poor Lizzie, have they both designs against you, either way? Can't

make it out. Is Little Eyes Pubsey, and the wolf Co? Can't make it out. Pubsey true to Co, and Co to Pubsey?

Pubsey false to Co, and Co to Pubsey? Can't make it out. What said Little Eyes? "Now, candidly?" Ah!

However the cat jumps, HE'S a liar. That's all I can make out at present; but you may go to bed in the Albany,

Piccadilly, with THAT for your pillow, young man!' Thereupon, the little dressmaker again dabbed out his

eyes separately, and making a loop in the air of her thread and deftly catching it into a knot with her needle,

For the terrors undergone by Mr Dolls that evening when his little parent sat profoundly meditating over her

work, and when he imagined himself found out, as often as she changed her attitude, or turned her eyes

towards him, there is no adequate name. Moreover it was her habit to shake her head at that wretched old boy

whenever she caught his eye as he shivered and shook. What are popularly called 'the trembles' being in full

force upon him that evening, and likewise what are popularly called 'the horrors,' he had a very bad time of it;

which was not made better by his being so remorseful as frequently to moan 'Sixty threepennorths.' This

imperfect sentence not being at all intelligible as a confession, but sounding like a Gargantuan order for a

dram, brought him into new difficulties by occasioning his parent to pounce at him in a more than usually

What was a bad time for Mr Dolls, could not fail to be a bad time for the dolls' dressmaker. However, she

was on the alert next morning, and drove to Bond Street, and set down the two ladies punctually, and then

directed her equipage to conduct her to the Albany. Arrived at the doorway of the house in which Mr

Fledgeby's chambers were, she found a lady standing there in a travelling dress, holding in her handof all

'You cannot do that at this moment. There is a gentleman with him. I am waiting for the gentleman. His

business with Mr Fledgeby will very soon be transacted, and then you can go up. Until the gentleman comes

While speaking, and afterwards, the lady kept watchfully between her and the staircase, as if prepared to

oppose her going up, by force. The lady being of a stature to stop her with a hand, and looking mightily

'Is it a kind of a spluttering somewhere?' said the dressmaker, with an inquiring look.

Miss Wren had a reasonably good eye for smiles, being well accustomed to them on the part of her young

friends, though their smiles mostly ran smaller than in nature. But she had never seen so singular a smile as

that upon this lady's face. It twitched her nostrils open in a remarkable manner, and contracted her lips and

eyebrows. It was a smile of enjoyment too, though of such a fierce kind that Miss Wren thought she would

'I don't know where,' said Miss Wren, staring about her. 'But I never heard such odd noises. Don't you think I

'I think you had better not,' returned the lady with a significant frown, and drawing closer.

On this hint, the dressmaker relinquished the idea, and stood looking at the lady as hard as the lady looked at

her. Meanwhile the dressmaker listened with amazement to the odd noises which still continued, and the lady

Soon afterwards, came a slamming and banging of doors; and then came running down stairs, a gentleman

'You can go up to Mr Fledgeby as soon as you like,' said the lady, moving haughtily away.

'Oh! And you can take these three pieces of stick with you,' added the gentleman politely, 'and say, if you

please, that they come from Mr Alfred Lammle, with his compliments on leaving England. Mr Alfred

The three pieces of stick were three broken and frayed fragments of a stout lithe cane. Miss Jenny taking

them wonderingly, and the gentleman repeating with a grin, 'Mr Alfred Lammle, if you'll be so good.

Compliments, on leaving England,' the lady and gentleman walked away quite deliberately, and Miss Jenny

and her crutchstick went up stairs. 'Lammle, Lammle, Lammle?' Miss Jenny repeated as she panted from

stair to stair, 'where have I heard that name? Lammle, Lammle? I know! Saint Mary Axe!'

With a gleam of new intelligence in her sharp face, the dolls' dressmaker pulled at Fledgeby's bell. No one

answered; but, from within the chambers, there proceeded a continuous spluttering sound of a highly singular

Pulling at the bell again and getting no reply, she pushed the outer door, and found it standing ajar. No one

being visible on her opening it wider, and the spluttering continuing, she took the liberry of opening an inner

door, and then beheld the extraordinary spectacle of Mr Fledgeby in a shirt, a pair of Turkish trousers, and a

Turkish cap, rolling over and over on his own carpet, and spluttering wonderfully.

'Oh Lord!' gasped Mr Fledgeby. 'Oh my eye! Stop thief! I am strangling. Fire! Oh my eye! A glass of water.

Give me a glass of water. Shut the door. Murder! Oh Lord!' And then rolled and spluttered more than ever.

Hurrying into another room, Miss Jenny got a glass of water, and brought it for Fledgeby's relief: who,

gasping, spluttering, and rattling in his throat betweenwhiles, drank some water, and laid his head faintly on

'Oh my eye!' cried Fledgehy, struggling anew. 'It's salt and snuff. It's up my nose, and down my throat, and in

my windpipe. Ugh! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ahhhh!' And here, crowing fearfully, with his eyes starting out

of his head, appeared to be contending with every mortal disease incidental to poultry.

'And Oh my Eye, I'm so sore!' cried Fledgeby, starting, over on his back, in a spasmodic way that caused the

dressmaker to retreat to the wall. 'Oh I smart so! Do put something to my back and arms, and legs and

shoulders. Ugh! It's down my throat again and can't come up. Ow! Ow! Ow! Ahhhh! Oh I smart so!'

Here Mr Fledgeby bounded up, and bounded down, and went rolling over and over again.

The dolls' dressmaker looked on until he rolled himself into a corner with his Turkish slippers uppermost, and

then, resolving in the first place to address her ministration to the salt and snuff, gave him more water and

slapped his back. But, the latter application was by no means a success, causing Mr Fledgeby to scream, and

However, he gradually ceased to choke and crow, saving at intervals, and Miss Jenny got him into an

easychair: where, with his eyes red and watery, with his features swollen, and with some halfdozen livid

'What ever possessed you to take salt and snuff, young man?' inquired Miss Jenny.

'He did,' answered Fledgeby. 'The assassin. Lammle. He rubbed it into my mouth and up my nose and down

my throatOw! Ow! Ow! Ahhhh! Ugh!to prevent my crying out, and then cruelly assaulted me.'

'That's the weapon,' said Fledgeby, eyeing it with the air of an acquaintance. 'He broke it over me. Oh I smart

'When he ran down stairs and joined the lady he had left in the hall with his hat'Miss Jenny began.

'Oh!' groaned Mr Fledgeby, writhing, 'she was holding his hat, was she? I might have known she was in it.'

'When he came down stairs and joined the lady who wouldn't let me come up, he gave me the pieces for you,

and I was to say, "With Mr Alfred Lammle's compliments on his leaving England."' Miss Jenny said it with

such spiteful satisfaction, and such a hitch of her chin and eyes as might have added to Mr Fledgehy's

miseries, if he could have noticed either, in his bodily pain with his hand to his head.

'Shall I go for the police?' inquired Miss Jenny, with a nimble start towards the door.

'Stop! No, don't!' cried Fledgeby. 'Don't, please. We had better keep it quiet. Will you be so good as shut the

In testimony of the extent to which he smarted, Mr Fledgeby came wallowing out of the easychair, and took

Now the door's shut,' said Mr Fledgeby, sitting up in anguish, with his Turkish cap half on and half off, and

the bars on his face getting bluer, 'do me the kindness to look at my back and shoulders. They must be in an

awful state, for I hadn't got my dressinggown on, when the brute came rushing in. Cut my shirt away from

the collar; there's a pair of scissors on that table. Oh!' groaned Mr Fledgeby, with his hand to his head again.

The busy little dressmaker quickly snipped the shirt away, and laid bare the results of as furious and sound a

thrashing as even Mr Fledgeby merited. 'You may well smart, young man!' exclaimed Miss Jenny. And

stealthily rubbed her little hands behind him, and poked a few exultant pokes with her two forefingers over

'What do you think of vinegar and brown paper?' inquired the suffering Fledgeby, still rocking and moaning.

'Yes,' said Miss Jenny, with a silent chuckle. 'It looks as if it ought to be Pickled.'

Mr Fledgeby collapsed under the word 'Pickled,' and groaned again. 'My kitchen is on this floor,' he said;

'you'll find brown paper in a dresserdrawer there, and a bottle of vinegar on a shelf. Would you have the

'There's smart enough,' whimpered Mr Fledgeby, groaning and writhing again, 'for sixty.'

Miss Jenny repaired to the kitchen, scissors in hand, found the brown paper and found the vinegar, and

skilfully cut out and steeped six large plasters. When they were all lying ready on the dresser, an idea

'I think,' said Miss Jenny with a silent laugh, 'he ought to have a little pepper? Just a few grains? I think the

young man's tricks and manners make a claim upon his friends for a little pepper?'

Mr Fledgeby's evil star showing her the pepperbox on the chimneypiece, she climbed upon a chair, and got

it down, and sprinkled all the plasters with a judicious hand. She then went back to Mr Fledgeby, and stuck

them all on him: Mr Fledgeby uttering a sharp howl as each was put in its place.

'There, young man!' said the dolls' dressmaker. 'Now I hope you feel pretty comfortable?'

Apparently, Mr Fledgeby did not, for he cried by way of answer, 'Ohh how I do smart!'

Miss Jenny got his Persian gown upon him, extinguished his eyes crookedly with his Persian cap, and helped

him to his bed: upon which he climbed groaning. 'Business between you and me being out of the question

today, young man, and my time being precious,' said Miss Jenny then, 'I'll make myself scarce. Are you

The last thing Miss Jenny saw, as she looked back before closing the room door, was Mr Fledgeby in the act

of plunging and gambolling all over his bed, like a porpoise or dolphin in its native element. She then shut the

bedroom door, and all the other doors, and going down stairs and emerging from the Albany into the busy

streets, took omnibus for Saint Mary Axe: pressing on the road all the gailydressed ladies whom she could

see from the window, and making them unconscious layfigures for dolls, while she mentally cut them out

Set down by the omnibus at the corner of Saint Mary Axe, and trusting to her feet and her crutchstick within

its precincts, the dolls' dressmaker proceeded to the place of business of Pubsey and Co. All there was sunny

and quiet externally, and shady and quiet internally. Hiding herself in the entry outside the glass door, she

could see from that post of observation the old man in his spectacles sitting writing at his desk.

'Boh!' cried the dressmaker, popping in her head at the glassdoor. 'Mr Wolf at home?'

The old man took his glasses off, and mildly laid them down beside him. 'Ah Jenny, is it you? I thought you

'And so I had given up the treacherous wolf of the forest,' she replied; 'but, godmother, it strikes me you have

come back. I am not quite sure, because the wolf and you change forms. I want to ask you a question or two,

'Yes, Jenny, yes.' But Riah glanced towards the door, as if he thought his principal might appear there,

'If you're afraid of the fox,' said Miss Jenny, 'you may dismiss all present expectations of seeing that animal.

'I mean, godmother,' replied Miss Wren, sitting down beside the Jew, 'that the fox has caught a famous

flogging, and that if his skin and bones are not tingling, aching, and smarting at this present instant, no fox

did ever tingle, ache, and smart.' Therewith Miss Jenny related what had come to pass in the Albany, omitting

'Now, godmother,' she went on, 'I particularly wish to ask you what has taken place here, since I left the wolf

here? Because I have an idea about the size of a marble, rolling about in my little noddle. First and foremost,

'My idea,' exclaimed Miss Wren, 'is now about the size of an orange. But before it gets any bigger, welcome

The little creature folded her arms about the old man's neck with great earnestness, and kissed him. 'I humbly

beg your forgiveness, godmother. I am truly sorry. I ought to have had more faith in you. But what could I

suppose when you said nothing for yourself, you know? I don't mean to offer that as a justification, but what

could I suppose, when you were a silent party to all he said? It did look bad; now didn't it?'

'It looked so bad, Jenny,' responded the old man, with gravity, 'that I will straightway tell you what an

impression it wrought upon me. I was hateful in mine own eyes. I was hateful to myself, in being so hateful

to the debtor and to you. But more than that, and worse than that, and to pass out far and broad beyond

myselfI reflected that evening, sitting alone in my garden on the housetop, that I was doing dishonour to

my ancient faith and race. I reflectedclearly reflected for the first timethat in bending my neck to the

yoke I was willing to wear, I bent the unwilling necks of the whole Jewish people. For it is not, in Christian

countries, with the Jews as with other peoples. Men say, 'This is a bad Greek, but there are good Greeks. This

is a bad Turk, but there are good Turks.' Not so with the Jews. Men find the bad among us easily enough

among what peoples are the bad not easily found?but they take the worst of us as samples of the best; they

take the lowest of us as presentations of the highest; and they say "All Jews are alike." If, doing what I was

content to do here, because I was grateful for the past and have small need of money now, I had been a

Christian, I could have done it, compromising no one but my individual self. But doing it as a Jew, I could

not choose but compromise the Jews of all conditions and all countries. It is a little hard upon us, but it is the

truth. I would that all our people remembered it! Though I have little right to say so, seeing that it came home

The dolls' dressmaker sat holding the old man by the hand, and looking thoughtfully in his face.

'Thus I reflected, I say, sitting that evening in my garden on the housetop. And passing the painful scene of

that day in review before me many times, I always saw that the poor gentleman believed the story readily,

because I was one of the Jewsthat you believed the story readily, my child, because I was one of the Jews

that the story itself first came into the invention of the originator thereof, because I was one of the Jews.

This was the result of my having had you three before me, face to face, and seeing the thing visibly presented

as upon a theatre. Wherefore I perceived that the obligation was upon me to leave this service. But Jenny, my

dear,' said Riah, breaking off, 'I promised that you should pursue your questions, and I obstruct them.'

'On the contrary, godmother; my idea is as large now as a pumpkinand YOU know what a pumpkin is,

don't you? So you gave notice that you were going? Does that come next?' asked Miss Jenny with a look of

'And what said TinglingTossingAchingScreaming ScratchingSmarter?' asked Miss Wren with an

unspeakable enjoyment in the utterance of those honourable titles and in the recollection of the pepper.

'He held me to certain months of servitude, which were his lawful term of notice. They expire tomorrow.

Upon their expirationnot beforeI had meant to set myself right with my Cinderella.'

'My idea is getting so immense now,' cried Miss Wren, clasping her temples, 'that my head won't hold it!

Listen, godmother; I am going to expound. Little Eyes (that's ScreamingScratching Smarter) owes you a

heavy grudge for going. Little Eyes casts about how best to pay you off. Little Eyes thinks of Lizzie. Little

Eyes says to himself, 'I'll find out where he has placed that girl, and I'll betray his secret because it's dear to

him.' Perhaps Little Eyes thinks, "I'll make love to her myself too;" but that I can't swearall the rest I can.

So, Little Eyes comes to me, and I go to Little Eyes. That's the way of it. And now the murder's all out, I'm

sorry,' added the dolls' dressmaker, rigid from head to foot with energy as she shook her little fist before her

This expression of regret being but partially intelligible to Mr Riah, the old man reverted to the injuries

Fledgeby had received, and hinted at the necessity of his at once going to tend that beaten cur.

'Godmother, godmother, godmother!' cried Miss Wren irritably, 'I really lose all patience with you. One

would think you believed in the Good Samaritan. How can you be so inconsistent?'

'Jenny dear,' began the old man gently, 'it is the custom of our people to help'

'Oh! Bother your people!' interposed Miss Wren, with a toss of her head. 'If your people don't know better

than to go and help Little Eyes, it's a pity they ever got out of Egypt. Over and above that,' she added, 'he

wouldn't take your help if you offered it. Too much ashamed. Wants to keep it close and quiet, and to keep

They were still debating this point when a shadow darkened the entry, and the glass door was opened by a

messenger who brought a letter unceremoniously addressed, 'Riah.' To which he said there was an answer

The letter, which was scrawled in pencil uphill and downhill and round crooked corners, ran thus:

Your accounts being all squared, go. Shut up the place, turn out directly, and send me the key by bearer. Go.

The dolls' dressmaker found it delicious to trace the screaming and smarting of Little Eyes in the distorted

writing of this epistle. She laughed over it and jeered at it in a convenient corner (to the great astonishment of

the messenger) while the old man got his few goods together in a black bag. That done, the shutters of the

upper windows closed, and the office blind pulled down, they issued forth upon the steps with the attendant

messenger. There, while Miss Jenny held the bag, the old man locked the house door, and handed over the

'Well, godmother,' said Miss Wren, as they remained upon the steps together, looking at one another. 'And so

The old man smiled, but looked about him with a look of having lost his way in life, which did not escape the

'Verily, Jenny,' said he, 'the question is to the purpose, and more easily asked than answered. But as I have

experience of the ready goodwill and good help of those who have given occupation to Lizzie, I think I will

It was exactly because he had his staff, and presented so quaint an aspect, that she mistrusted his making the

'The best thing you can do,' said Jenny, 'for the time being, at all events, is to come home with me,

godmother. Nobody's there but my bad child, and Lizzie's lodging stands empty.' The old man when satisfied

that no inconvenience could be entailed on any one by his compliance, readily complied; and the

Now, the bad child having been strictly charged by his parent to remain at home in her absence, of course

went out; and, being in the very last stage of mental decrepitude, went out with two objects; firstly, to

establish a claim he conceived himself to have upon any licensed victualler living, to be supplied with

threepennyworth of rum for nothing; and secondly, to bestow some maudlin remorse on Mr Eugene

Wrayburn, and see what profit came of it. Stumblingly pursuing these two designsthey both meant rum,

the only meaning of which he was capablethe degraded creature staggered into Covent Garden Market and

there bivouacked, to have an attack of the trembles succeeded by an attack of the horrors, in a doorway.

This market of Covent Garden was quite out of the creature's line of road, but it had the attraction for him

which it has for the worst of the solitary members of the drunken tribe. It may be the companionship of the

nightly stir, or it may be the companionship of the gin and beer that slop about among carters and hucksters,

or it may be the companionship of the trodden vegetable refuse which is so like their own dress that perhaps

they take the Market for a great wardrobe; but be it what it may, you shall see no such individual drunkards

on doorsteps anywhere, as there. Of dozing womendrunkards especially, you shall come upon such

specimens there, in the morning sunlight, as you might seek out of doors in vain through London. Such stale

vapid rejected cabbageleaf and cabbagestalk dress, such damagedorange countenance, such squashed

pulp of humanity, are open to the day nowhere else. So, the attraction of the Market drew Mr Dolls to it, and

he had out his two fits of trembles and horrors in a doorway on which a woman had had out her sodden nap a

There is a swarm of young savages always flitting about this same place, creeping off with fragments of

orangechests, and mouldy litterHeaven knows into what holes they can convey them, having no

home!whose bare feet fall with a blunt dull softness on the pavement as the policeman hunts them, and

who are (perhaps for that reason) little heard by the Powers that be, whereas in topboots they would make a

deafening clatter. These, delighting in the trembles and the horrors of Mr Dolls, as in a gratuitous drama,

flocked about him in his doorway, butted at him, leaped at him, and pelted him. Hence, when he came out of

his invalid retirement and shook off that ragged train, he was much bespattered, and in worse case than ever.

But, not yet at his worst; for, going into a publichouse, and being supplied in stress of business with his rum,

and seeking to vanish without payment, he was collared, searched, found penniless, and admonished not to

try that again, by having a pail of dirty water cast over him. This application superinduced another fit of the

trembles; after which Mr Dolls, as finding himself in good cue for making a call on a professional friend,

There was nobody at the chambers but Young Blight. That discreet youth, sensible of a certain incongruity in

the association of such a client with the business that might be coming some day, with the best intentions

temporized with Dolls, and offered a shilling for coachhire home. Mr Dolls, accepting the shilling, promptly

laid it out in two threepennyworths of conspiracy against his life, and two threepennyworths of raging

repentance. Returning to the Chambers with which burden, he was descried coming round into the court, by

the wary young Blight watching from the window: who instantly closed the outer door, and left the miserable

The more the door resisted him, the more dangerous and imminent became that bloody conspiracy against his

life. Force of police arriving, he recognized in them the conspirators, and laid about him hoarsely, fiercely,

staringly, convulsively, foamingly. A humble machine, familiar to the conspirators and called by the

expressive name of Stretcher, being unavoidably sent for, he was rendered a harmless bundle of torn rags by

being strapped down upon it, with voice and consciousness gone out of him, and life fast going. As this

machine was borne out at the Temple gate by four men, the poor little dolls' dressmaker and her Jewish friend

'Let us see what it is,' cried the dressmaker. 'Let us make haste and look, godmother.'

The brisk little crutchstick was but too brisk. 'O gentlemen, gentlemen, he belongs to me!'

'O yes, dear gentlemen, he's my child, out without leave. My poor bad, bad boy! and he don't know me, he

don't know me! O what shall I do,' cried the little creature, wildly beating her hands together, 'when my own

The head of the party looked (as well he might) to the old man for explanation. He whispered, as the dolls'

dressmaker bent over the exhausted form and vainly tried to extract some sign of recognition from it: 'It's her

As the load was put down in the street, Riah drew the head of the party aside, and whispered that he thought

the man was dying. 'No, surely not?' returned the other. But he became less confident, on looking, and

Thither he was brought; the window becoming from within, a wall of faces, deformed into all kinds of shapes

through the agency of globular red bottles, green bottles, blue bottles, and other coloured bottles. A ghastly

light shining upon him that he didn't need, the beast so furious but a few minutes gone, was quiet enough

now, with a strange mysterious writing on his face, reflected from one of the great bottles, as if Death had

The medical testimony was more precise and more to the purpose than it sometimes is in a Court of Justice.

Therefore, the police sent for something to cover it, and it was covered and borne through the streets, the

people falling away. After it, went the dolls' dressmaker, hiding her face in the Jewish skirts, and clinging to

them with one hand, while with the other she plied her stick. It was carried home, and, by reason that the

staircase was very narrow, it was put down in the parlourthe little workingbench being set aside to make

room for itand there, in the midst of the dolls with no speculation in their eyes, lay Mr Dolls with no

Many flaunting dolls had to be gaily dressed, before the money was in the dressmaker's pocket to get

mourning for Mr Dolls. As the old man, Riah, sat by, helping her in such small ways as he could, he found it

difficult to make out whether she really did realize that the deceased had been her father.

'If my poor boy,' she would say, 'had been brought up better, he might have done better. Not that I reproach

'Thank you, godmother. It cheers me to hear you say so. But you see it is so hard to bring up a child well,

when you work, work, work, all day. When he was out of employment, I couldn't always keep him near me.

He got fractious and nervous, and I was obliged to let him go into the streets. And he never did well in the

'How can I say what I might have turned out myself, but for my back having been so bad and my legs so

queer, when I was young!' the dressmaker would go on. 'I had nothing to do but work, and so I worked. I

couldn't play. But my poor unfortunate child could play, and it turned out the worse for him.'

'Well! I don't know, godmother. He suffered heavily, did my unfortunate boy. He was very, very ill

sometimes. And I called him a quantity of names;' shaking her head over her work, and dropping tears. 'I

don't know that his going wrong was much the worse for me. If it ever was, let us forget it.'

'As for patience,' she would reply with a shrug, 'not much of that, godmother. If I had been patient, I should

never have called him names. But I hope I did it for his good. And besides, I felt my responsibility as a

mother, so much. I tried reasoning, and reasoning failed. I tried coaxing, and coaxing failed. I tried scolding

and scolding failed. But I was bound to try everything, you know, with such a charge upon my hands. Where

With such talk, mostly in a cheerful tone on the part of the industrious little creature, the daywork and the

nightwork were beguiled until enough of smart dolls had gone forth to bring into the kitchen, where the

workingbench now stood, the sombre stuff that the occasion required, and to bring into the house the other

sombre preparations. 'And now,' said Miss Jenny, 'having knocked off my rosycheeked young friends, I'll

knock off my whitecheeked self.' This referred to her making her own dress, which at last was done. 'The

disadvantage of making for yourself,' said Miss Jenny, as she stood upon a chair to look at the result in the

glass, 'is, that you can't charge anybody else for the job, and the advantage is, that you haven't to go out to try

on. Humph! Very fair indeed! If He could see me now (whoever he is) I hope he wouldn't repent of his

'I mean to go alone, godmother, in my usual carriage, and you'll be so kind as keep house while I am gone.

It's not far off. And when I return, we'll have a cup of tea, and a chat over future arrangements. It's a very

plain last house that I have been able to give my poor unfortunate boy; but he'll accept the will for the deed if

he knows anything about it; and if he doesn't know anything about it,' with a sob, and wiping her eyes, 'why,

it won't matter to him. I see the service in the Prayerbook says, that we brought nothing into this world and

it is certain we can take nothing out. It comforts me for not being able to hire a lot of stupid undertaker's

things for my poor child, and seeming as if I was trying to smuggle 'em out of this world with him, when of

course I must break down in the attempt, and bring 'em all back again. As it is, there'll be nothing to bring

back but me, and that's quite consistent, for I shan't be brought back, some day!'

After that previous carrying of him in the streets, the wretched old fellow seemed to he twice buried. He was

taken on the shoulders of half a dozen blossomfaced men, who shuffled with him to the churchyard, and

who were preceded by another blossomfaced man, affecting a stately stalk, as if he were a Policeman of the

D(eath) Division, and ceremoniously pretending not to know his intimate acquaintances, as he led the

pageant. Yet, the spectacle of only one little mourner hobbling after, caused many people to turn their heads

At last the troublesome deceased was got into the ground, to be buried no more, and the stately stalker stalked

back before the solitary dressmaker, as if she were bound in honour to have no notion of the way home.

'I must have a very short cry, godmother, before I cheer up for good,' said the little creature, coming in.

It was a longer cry than might have been expected. Howbeit, it wore itself out in a shadowy corner, and then

the dressmaker came forth, and washed her face, and made the tea. 'You wouldn't mind my cutting out

something while we are at tea, would you?' she asked her Jewish friend, with a coaxing air.

'Oh! It's not work, cutting out a pattern isn't,' said Miss Jenny, with her busy little scissors already snipping at

some paper. 'The truth is, godmother, I want to fix it while I have it correct in my mind.'

'Yes, godmother. Saw it just now. It's a surplice, that's what it is. Thing our clergymen wear, you know,'

'Why, godmother,' replied the dressmaker, 'you must know that we Professors who live upon our taste and

invention, are obliged to keep our eyes always open. And you know already that I have many extra expenses

to meet just now. So, it came into my head while I was weeping at my poor boy's grave, that something in my

'Not a funeral, never fear!' returned Miss Jenny, anticipating his objection with a nod. 'The public don't like to

be made melancholy, I know very well. I am seldom called upon to put my young friends into mourning; not

into real mourning, that is; Court mourning they are rather proud of. But a doll clergyman, my dear, glossy

black curls and whiskersuniting two of my young friends in matrimony,' said Miss Jenny, shaking her

forefinger, 'is quite another affair. If you don't see those three at the altar in Bond Street, in a jiffy, my name's

With her expert little ways in sharp action, she had got a doll into whiteybrown paper orders, before the

meal was over, and was displaying it for the edification of the Jewish mind, when a knock was heard at the

streetdoor. Riah went to open it, and presently came back, ushering in, with the grave and courteous air that

The gentleman was a stranger to the dressmaker; but even in the moment of his casting his eyes upon her,

there was something in his manner which brought to her remembrance Mr Eugene Wrayburn.

'Yes, sir,' replied Miss Jenny, instantly on the defensive. 'And Lizzie Hexam's friend.'

'Here is a note from her, entreating you to accede to the request of Mr Mortimer Lightwood, the bearer. Mr

'There was no time to make it longer. Time was so very precious. My dear friend Mr Eugene Wrayburn is

'Is dying,' repeated Lightwood, with emotion, 'at some distance from here. He is sinking under injuries

received at the hands of a villain who attacked him in the dark. I come straight from his bedside. He is almost

always insensible. In a short restless interval of sensibility, or partial sensibility, I made out that he asked for

you to be brought to sit by him. Hardly relying on my own interpretation of the indistinct sounds he made, I

The dressmaker, with her hands still clasped, looked affrightedly from the one to the other of her two

'If you delay, he may die with his request ungratified, with his last wishintrusted to mewe have long

been much more than brothersunfulfilled. I shall break down, if I try to say more.

In a few moments the black bonnet and the crutchstick were on duty, the good Jew was left in possession of

the house, and the dolls' dressmaker, side by side in a chaise with Mortimer Lightwood, was posting out of

A darkened and hushed room; the river outside the windows flowing on to the vast ocean; a figure on the bed,

swathed and bandaged and bound, lying helpless on its back, with its two useless arms in splints at its sides.

Only two days of usage so familiarized the little dressmaker with this scene, that it held the place occupied

He had scarcely moved since her arrival. Sometimes his eyes were open, sometimes closed. When they were

open, there was no meaning in their unwinking stare at one spot straight before them, unless for a moment the

brow knitted into a faint expression of anger, or surprise. Then, Mortimer Lightwood would speak to him,

and on occasions he would be so far roused as to make an attempt to pronounce his friend's name. But, in an

instant consciousness was gone again, and no spirit of Eugene was in Eugene's crushed outer form.

They provided Jenny with materials for plying her work, and she had a little table placed at the foot of his

bed. Sitting there, with her rich shower of hair falling over the chairback, they hoped she might attract his

notice. With the same object, she would sing, just above her breath, when he opened his eyes, or she saw his

brow knit into that faint expression, so evanescent that it was like a shape made in water. But as yet he had

not heeded. The 'they' here mentioned were the medical attendant; Lizzie, who was there in all her intervals

The two days became three, and the three days became four. At length, quite unexpectedly, he said something

Quite unconscious of the long blank, he supposed that they were still speaking together.

The little dressmaker stood up at the foot of the bed, humming her song, and nodded to him brightly. 'I can't

shake hands, Jenny,' said Eugene, with something of his old look; 'but I am very glad to see you.'

Mortimer repeated this to her, for it could only be made out by bending over him and closely watching his

Mortimer could not understand this, neither could Jenny herself, until he added:

'Oh! I know!' cried Jenny. 'I understand him now!' Then, Lightwood yielded his place to her quick approach,

and she said, bending over the bed, with that better look: 'You mean my long bright slanting rows of children,

who used to bring me ease and rest? You mean the children who used to take me up, and make me light?'

'I have not seen them since I saw you. I never see them now, but I am hardly ever in pain now.'

'But I have heard my birds sing,' cried the little creature, 'and I have smelt my flowers. Yes, indeed I have!

'Stay and help to nurse me,' said Eugene, quietly. 'I should like you to have the fancy here, before I die.'

She touched his lips with her hand, and shaded her eyes with that same hand as she went back to her work

and her little low song. He heard the song with evident pleasure, until she allowed it gradually to sink away

'To prevent my wandering away I don't know wherefor I begin to be sensible that I have just come back,

Mortimer gave him such stimulants as could be given him with safety (they were always at hand, ready), and

'Don't tell me not to speak, for I must speak. If you knew the harassing anxiety that gnaws and wears me

when I am wandering in those placeswhere are those endless places, Mortimer? They must be at an

He saw in his friend's face that he was losing himself; for he added after a moment: 'Don't be afraidI am

'You wanted to tell me something, Eugene. My poor dear fellow, you wanted to say something to your old

friendto the friend who has always loved you, admired you, imitated you, founded himself upon you, been

nothing without you, and who, God knows, would be here in your place if he could!'

'Tut, tut!' said Eugene with a tender glance as the other put his hand before his face. 'I am not worth it. I

acknowledge that I like it, dear boy, but I am not worth it. This attack, my dear Mortimer; this murder'

His friend leaned over him with renewed attention, saying: 'You and I suspect some one.'

'More than suspect. But, Mortimer, while I lie here, and when I lie here no longer, I trust to you that the

'Her innocent reputation would be ruined, my friend. She would be punished, not he. I have wronged her

enough in fact; I have wronged her still more in intention. You recollect what pavement is said to be made of

good intentions. It is made of bad intentions too. Mortimer, I am lying on it, and I know!'

'I will, when you have promised me. Dear Mortimer, the man must never be pursued. If he should be accused,

you must keep him silent and save him. Don't think of avenging me; think only of hushing the story and

protecting her. You can confuse the case, and turn aside the circumstances. Listen to what I say to you. It was

not the schoolmaster, Bradley Headstone. Do you hear me? Twice; it was not the schoolmaster, Bradley

Headstone. Do you hear me? Three times; it was not the schoolmaster, Bradley Headstone.'

He stopped, exhausted. His speech had been whispered, broken, and indistinct; but by a great effort he had

Lightwood lifted his head at the neck, and put a wineglass to his lips. He rallied.

'I don't know how long ago it was done, whether weeks, days, or hours. No matter. There is inquiry on foot,

'Check it; divert it! Don't let her be brought in question. Shield her. The guilty man, brought to justice, would

poison her name. Let the guilty man go unpunished. Lizzie and my reparation before all! Promise me!'

In the act of turning his eyes gratefully towards his friend, he wandered away. His eyes stood still, and settled

Hours and hours, days and nights, he remained in this same condition. There were times when he would

calmly speak to his friend after a long period of unconsciousness, and would say he was better, and would ask

The dolls' dressmaker, all softened compassion now, watched him with an earnestness that never relaxed. She

would regularly change the ice, or the cooling spirit, on his head, and would keep her ear at the pillow

betweenwhiles, listening for any faint words that fell from him in his wanderings. It was amazing through

how many hours at a time she would remain beside him, in a crouching attitude, attentive to his slightest

moan. As he could not move a hand, he could make no sign of distress; but, through this close watching (if

through no secret sympathy or power) the little creature attained an understanding of him that Lightwood did

not possess. Mortimer would often turn to her, as if she were an interpreter between this sentient world and

the insensible man; and she would change the dressing of a wound, or ease a ligature, or turn his face, or alter

the pressure of the bedclothes on him, with an absolute certainty of doing right. The natural lightness and

delicacy of touch which had become very refined by practice in her miniature work, no doubt was involved in

The one word, Lizzie, he muttered millions of times. In a certain phase of his distressful state, which was the

worst to those who tended him, he would roll his head upon the pillow, incessantly repeating the name in a

hurried and impatient manner, with the misery of a disturbed mind, and the monotony of a machine. Equally,

when he lay still and staring, he would repeat it for hours without cessation, but then, always in a tone of

subdued warning and horror. Her presence and her touch upon his breast or face would often stop this, and

then they learned to expect that he would for some time remain still, with his eyes closed, and that he would

be conscious on opening them. But, the heavy disappointment of their hoperevived by the welcome silence

of the roomwas, that his spirit would glide away again and be lost, in the moment of their joy that it was

This frequent rising of a drowning man from the deep, to sink again, was dreadful to the beholders. But,

gradually the change stole upon him that it became dreadful to himself. His desire to impart something that

was on his mind, his unspeakable yearning to have speech with his friend and make a communication to him,

so troubled him when he recovered consciousness, that its term was thereby shortened. As the man rising

from the deep would disappear the sooner for fighting with the water, so he in his desperate struggle went

One afternoon when he had been lying still, and Lizzie, unrecognized, had just stolen out of the room to

'But I know there's no hope. Yet I pray it may last long enough for you to do me one last service, and for me

His friend gave him what aid he could, and encouraged him to believe that he was more composed, though

'Keep me here for only a single minute. I am going away again. Don't let me go. Hear me speak first. Stop

'I do try. I try so hard. If you only knew how hard! Don't let me wander till I have spoken. Give me a little

Lightwood complied. Eugene, with a most pathetic struggle against the unconsciousness that was coming

'You can leave me with Jenny, while you speak to her and tell her what I beseech of her. You can leave me

with Jenny, while you are gone. There's not much for you to do. You won't be long away.'

His eyes were fixed again, and the only word that came from his lips was the word millions of times repeated.

But, the watchful little dressmaker had been vigilant as ever in her watch, and she now came up and touched

'Hush!' she said, with her finger on her lips. 'His eyes are closing. He'll be conscious when he next opens

He stooped, and she whispered in his ear. She whispered in his ear one short word of a single syllable.

'Try it,' said the little creature, with an excited and exultant face. She then bent over the unconscious man,

and, for the first time, kissed him on the cheek, and kissed the poor maimed hand that was nearest to her.

Some two hours afterwards, Mortimer Lightwood saw his consciousness come back, and instantly, but very

'Don't speak, Eugene. Do no more than look at me, and listen to me. You follow what I say.'

'I am going on from the point where we broke off. Is the word we should soon have come tois itWife?'

'Hush! Don't be agitated. Don't speak. Hear me, dear Eugene. Your mind will be more at peace, lying here, if

you make Lizzie your wife. You wish me to speak to her, and tell her so, and entreat her to be your wife. You

ask her to kneel at this bedside and be married to you, that your reparation may be complete. Is that so?'

'It shall be done, Eugene. Trust it to me. I shall have to go away for some few hours, to give effect to your

Glancing wistfully around, Eugene saw Miss Jenny at the foot of the bed, looking at him with her elbows on

the bed, and her head upon her hands. There was a trace of his whimsical air upon him, as he tried to smile at

'Yes indeed,' said Lightwood, 'the discovery was hers. Observe my dear Eugene; while I am away you will

know that I have discharged my trust with Lizzie, by finding her here, in my present place at your bedside, to

leave you no more. A final word before I go. This is the right course of a true man, Eugene. And I solemnly

believe, with all my soul, that if Providence should mercifully restore you to us, you will be blessed with a

'No. Touch my face with yours, in case I should not hold out till you come back. I love you, Mortimer. Don't

be uneasy for me while you are gone. If my dear brave girl will take me, I feel persuaded that I shall live long

Miss Jenny gave up altogether on this parting taking place between the friends, and sitting with her back

towards the bed in the bower made by her bright hair, wept heartily, though noiselessly. Mortimer Lightwood

was soon gone. As the evening light lengthened the heavy reflections of the trees in the river, another figure

'Is he conscious?' asked the little dressmaker, as the figure took its station by the pillow. For, Jenny had given

place to it immediately, and could not see the sufferer's face, in the dark room, from her new and removed

Mrs John Rokesmith sat at needlework in her neat little room, beside a basket of neat little articles of

clothing, which presented so much of the appearance of being in the dolls' dressmaker's way of business, that

one might have supposed she was going to set up in opposition to Miss Wren. Whether the Complete British

Family Housewife had imparted sage counsel anent them, did not appear, but probably not, as that cloudy

oracle was nowhere visible. For certain, however, Mrs John Rokesmith stitched at them with so dexterous a

hand, that she must have taken lessons of somebody. Love is in all things a most wonderful teacher, and

perhaps love (from a pictorial point of view, with nothing on but a thimble), had been teaching this branch of

It was near John's time for coming home, but as Mrs John was desirous to finish a special triumph of her skill

before dinner, she did not go out to meet him. Placidly, though rather consequentially smiling, she sat

stitching away with a regular sound, like a sort of dimpled little charming Dresdenchina clock by the very

A knock at the door, and a ring at the bell. Not John; or Bella would have flown out to meet him. Then who,

if not John? Bella was asking herself the question, when that fluttering little fool of a servant fluttered in,

Bella had but time to throw a handkerchief over the basket, when Mr Lightwood made his bow. There was

With a brief reference to the happy time when it had been his privilege to know Mrs Rokesmith as Miss

Wilfer, Mr Lightwood explained what was amiss with him and why he came. He came bearing Lizzie

Bella was so fluttered by the request, and by the short narrative he had feelingly given her, that there never

was a more timely smellingbottle than John's knock. 'My husband,' said Bella; 'I'll bring him in.'

But, that turned out to be more easily said than done; for, the instant she mentioned Mr Lightwood's name,

Bella was amazed by the flush in his face, and by his sudden turning away. 'What can it mean?' she thought,

All very well to say, 'Tell me all about it;' but John was very much confused. His attention evidently trailed

off, now and then, even while Bella told him all about it. Yet she knew that he took a great interest in Lizzie

'Don't you think it's time we went down to Mr Lightwood, John dear?' Bella insinuated.

'My darling, it's almost time you went, but I must ask you to excuse me to him altogether.'

'You never mean, John dear, that you are not going to see him? Why, he knows you have come home. I told

'That's a little unfortunate, but it can't be helped. Unfortunate or fortunate, I positively cannot see him, my

Bella cast about in her mind what could be his reason for this unaccountable behaviour; as she sat on his knee

looking at him in astonishment and pouting a little. A weak reason presented itself.

'Why, my precious child,' returned her husband, laughing outright: 'how could I be jealous of him? Why

'Because, you know, John,' pursued Bella, pouting a little more, 'though he did rather admire me once, it was

'It was your fault that I admired you,' returned her husband, with a look of pride in her, 'and why not your

fault that he admired you? But, I jealous on that account? Why, I must go distracted for life, if I turned

'I am half angry with you, John dear,' said Bella, laughing a little, 'and half pleased with you; because you are

such a stupid old fellow, and yet you say nice things, as if you meant them. Don't be mysterious, sir. What

'He has never done anything to me, my dear. I know no more against him than I know against Mr Wrayburn;

he has never done anything to me; neither has Mr Wrayburn. And yet I have exactly the same objection to

'Oh, John!' retorted Bella, as if she were giving him up for a bad job, as she used to give up herself. 'You are

nothing better than a sphinx! And a married sphinx isn't aisn't a nice confidential husband,' said Bella, in a

'Bella, my life,' said John Rokesmith, touching her cheek, with a grave smile, as she cast down her eyes and

'In earnest, Blue Beard of the secret chamber?' asked Bella, clearing her pretty face.

'In earnest. And I confess to the secret chamber. Don't you remember that you asked me not to declare what I

'The time will come, my darlingI am no prophet, but I say so, when you WILL be tried. The time will

come, I think, when you will undergo a trial through which you will never pass quite triumphantly for me,

'Then you may be sure of me, John dear, for I can put perfect faith in you, and I do, and I always, always will.

Don't judge me by a little thing like this, John. In little things, I am a little thing myselfI always was. But

He was even better convinced of the truth of what she said than she was, as he felt her loving arms about him.

If the Golden Dustman's riches had been his to stake, he would have staked them to the last farthing on the

'Now, I'll go down to, and go away with, Mr Lightwood,' said Bella, springing up. 'You are the most creasing

and tumbling ClumsyBoots of a packer, John, that ever was; but if you're quite good, and will promise never

to do so any more (though I don't know what you have done!) you may pack me a little bag for a night, while

He gaily complied, and she tied her dimpled chin up, and shook her head into her bonnet, and pulled out the

bows of her bonnet strings, and got her gloves on, finger by finger, and finally got them on her little plump

hands, and bade him goodbye and went down. Mr Lightwood's impatience was much relieved when he

'Oh, I forgot!' replied Bella. 'His best compliments. His face is swollen to the size of two faces, and he is to

go to bed directly, poor fellow, to wait for the doctor, who is coming to lance him.'

'It is curious,' observed Lightwood, 'that I have never yet seen Mr Rokesmith, though we have been engaged

'These things happen so oddly sometimes,' said Bella with a steady countenance, 'that there seems a kind of

They started directly, in a little carriage that Lightwood had brought with him from nevertobeforgotten

Greenwich; and from Greenwich they started directly for London; and in London they waited at a railway

station until such time as the Reverend Frank Milvey, and Margaretta his wife, with whom Mortimer

That worthy couple were delayed by a portentous old parishioner of the female gender, who was one of the

plagues of their lives, and with whom they bore with most exemplary sweetness and good humour,

notwithstanding her having an infection of absurdity about her, that communicated itself to everything with

which, and everybody with whom, she came in contact. She was a member of the Reverend Frank's

congregation, and made a point of distinguishing herself in that body, by conspicuously weeping at

everything, however cheering, said by the Reverend Frank in his public ministration; also by applying to

herself the various lamentations of David, and complaining in a personally injured manner (much in arrear of

the clerk and the rest of the respondents) that her enemies were digging pitfalls about her, and breaking her

with rods of iron. Indeed, this old widow discharged herself of that portion of the Morning and Evening

Service as if she were lodging a complaint on oath and applying for a warrant before a magistrate. But this

was not her most inconvenient characteristic, for that took the form of an impression, usually recurring in

inclement weather and at about daybreak, that she had something on her mind and stood in immediate need of

the Reverend Frank to come and take it off. Many a time had that kind creature got up, and gone out to Mrs

Sprodgkin (such was the disciple's name), suppressing a strong sense of her comicality by his strong sense of

duty, and perfectly knowing that nothing but a cold would come of it. However, beyond themselves, the

Reverend Frank Milvey and Mrs Milvey seldom hinted that Mrs Sprodgkin was hardly worth the trouble she

This very exacting member of the fold appeared to be endowed with a sixth sense, in regard of knowing when

the Reverend Frank Milvey least desired her company, and with promptitude appearing in his little hall.

Consequently, when the Reverend Frank had willingly engaged that he and his wife would accompany

Lightwood back, he said, as a matter of course: 'We must make haste to get out, Margaretta, my dear, or we

shall be descended on by Mrs Sprodgkin.' To which Mrs Milvey replied, in her pleasantly emphatic way, 'Oh

YES, for she IS such a marplot, Frank, and DOES worry so!' Words that were scarcely uttered when their

theme was announced as in faithful attendance below, desiring counsel on a spiritual matter. The points on

which Mrs Sprodkgin sought elucidation being seldom of a pressing nature (as Who begat Whom, or some

information concerning the Amorites), Mrs Milvey on this special occasion resorted to the device of buying

her off with a present of tea and sugar, and a loaf and butter. These gifts Mrs Sprodgkin accepted, but still

insisted on dutifully remaining in the hall, to curtsey to the Reverend Frank as he came forth. Who,

incautiously saying in his genial manner, 'Well, Sally, there you are!' involved himself in a discursive address

from Mrs Sprodgkin, revolving around the result that she regarded tea and sugar in the light of myrrh and

frankincense, and considered bread and butter identical with locusts and wild honey. Having communicated

this edifying piece of information, Mrs Sprodgkin was left still unadjourned in the hall, and Mr and Mrs

Milvey hurried in a heated condition to the railway station. All of which is here recorded to the honour of that

good Christian pair, representatives of hundreds of other good Christian pairs as conscientious and as useful,

who merge the smallness of their work in its greatness, and feel in no danger of losing dignity when they

'Detained at the last moment by one who had a claim upon me,' was the Reverend Frank's apology to

Lightwood, taking no thought of himself. To which Mrs Milvey added, taking thought for him, like the

championing little wife she was; 'Oh yes, detained at the last moment. But AS to the claim, Frank, I MUST

say that I DO think you are OVERconsiderate sometimes, and allow THAT to be a LITTLE abused.'

Bella felt conscious, in spite of her late pledge for herself, that her husband's absence would give disagreeable

occasion for surprise to the Milveys. Nor could she appear quite at her ease when Mrs Milvey asked:

It becoming necessary, upon this, to send him to bed again and hold him in waiting to be lanced again, Bella

did it. But not half as well on the second occasion as on the first; for, a twicetold white one seems almost to

'Oh DEAR!' said Mrs Milvey, 'I am SO sorry! Mr Rokesmith took SUCH an interest in Lizzie Hexam, when

we were there before. And if we had ONLY known of his face, we COULD have given him something that

By way of making the white one whiter, Bella hastened to stipulate that he was not in pain. Mrs Milvey was

'I don't know HOW it is,' said Mrs Milvey, 'and I am SURE you don't, Frank, but the clergy and their wives

seem to CAUSE swelled faces. Whenever I take notice of a child in the school, it seems to me as if its face

swelled INSTANTLY. Frank NEVER makes acquaintance with a new old woman, but she gets the face

ache. And another thing is, we DO make the poor children sniff so. I don't know HOW we do it, and I should

be so glad not to; but the MORE we take notice of them, the MORE they sniff. Just as they do when the text

The reference was to a young man of reserved appearance, in a coat and waistcoat of black, and pantaloons of

pepper and salt. He had come into the office of the station, from its interior, in an unsettled way, immediately

after Lightwood had gone out to the train; and he had been hurriedly reading the printed hills and notices on

the wall. He had had a wandering interest in what was said among the people waiting there and passing to and

fro. He had drawn nearer, at about the time when Mrs Milvey mentioned Lizzie Hexam, and had remained

near, since: though always glancing towards the door by which Lightwood had gone out. He stood with his

back towards them, and his gloved hands clasped behind him. There was now so evident a faltering upon

him, expressive of indecision whether or no he should express his having heard himself referred to, that Mr

'I cannot recall your name,' he said, 'but I remember to have seen you in your school.'

'My name is Bradley Headstone, sir,' he replied, backing into a more retired place.

'I ought to have remembered it,' said Mr Milvey, giving him his hand. 'I hope you are well? A little

'All work and no play, Mr Headstone, will not make dulness, in your case, I dare say; but it will make

'I will endeavour to take care, sir. Might I beg leave to speak to you, outside, a moment?'

It was evening, and the office was well lighted. The schoolmaster, who had never remitted his watch on

Lightwood's door, now moved by another door to a corner without, where there was more shadow than light;

'One of your ladies, sir, mentioned within my hearing a name that I am acquainted with; I may say, well

acquainted with. The name of the sister of an old pupil of mine. He was my pupil for a long time, and has got

on and gone upward rapidly. The name of Hexam. The name of Lizzie Hexam.' He seemed to be a shy man,

struggling against nervousness, and spoke in a very constrained way. The break he set between his last two

'I gathered as much, sir. I hope there is nothing amiss with the sister of my old pupil? I hope no bereavement

Mr Milvey thought this a man with a very odd manner, and a dark downward look; but he answered in his

'I am glad to tell you, Mr Headstone, that the sister of your old pupil has not sustained any such loss. You

'That may have been the connexion of ideas, sir, with your clerical character, but I was not conscious of

A man with a very odd manner indeed, and with a lurking look that was quite oppressive.

'No. In fact,' said Mr Milvey, 'since you are so interested in the sister of your old pupil, I may as well tell you

'Not to marry her, myself,' said Mr Milvey, with a smile, 'because I have a wife already. To perform the

Bradley Headstone caught hold of a pillar behind him. If Mr Milvey knew an ashy face when he saw it, he

'It is not much, sir. It will pass over very soon. I am accustomed to be seized with giddiness. Don't let me

detain you, sir; I stand in need of no assistance, I thank you. Much obliged by your sparing me these minutes

As Mr Milvey, who had no more minutes to spare, made a suitable reply and turned back into the office, he

observed the schoolmaster to lean against the pillar with his hat in his hand, and to pull at his neckcloth as if

he were trying to tear it off. The Reverend Frank accordingly directed the notice of one of the attendants to

him, by saying: 'There is a person outside who seems to be really ill, and to require some help, though he says

Lightwood had by this time secured their places, and the departure bell was about to be rung. They took

their seats, and were beginning to move out of the station, when the same attendant came running along the

'Oh! You are here, sir!' he said, springing on the step, and holding the windowframe by his elbow, as the

'I infer from what he told me that he is subject to such attacks. He will come to, in the air, in a little while.'

He was took very bad to be sure, and was biting and knocking about him (the man said) furiously. Would the

gentleman give him his card, as he had seen him first? The gentleman did so, with the explanation that he

knew no more of the man attacked than that he was a man of a very respectable occupation, who had said he

was out of health, as his appearance would of itself have indicated. The attendant received the card, watched

Then, the train rattled among the housetops, and among the ragged sides of houses torn down to make way

for it, and over the swarming streets, and under the fruitful earth, until it shot across the river: bursting over

the quiet surface like a bombshell, and gone again as if it had exploded in the rush of smoke and steam and

glare. A little more, and again it roared across the river, a great rocket: spurning the watery turnings and

doublings with ineffable contempt, and going straight to its end, as Father Time goes to his. To whom it is no

matter what living waters run high or low, reflect the heavenly lights and darknesses, produce their little

growth of weeds and flowers, turn here, turn there, are noisy or still, are troubled or at rest, for their course

Then, a carriage ride succeeded, near the solemn river, stealing away by night, as all things steal away, by

night and by day, so quietly yielding to the attraction of the loadstone rock of Eternity; and the nearer they

drew to the chamber where Eugene lay, the more they feared that they might find his wanderings done. At

last they saw its dim light shining out, and it gave them hope: though Lightwood faltered as he thought: 'If he

But he lay quiet, half in stupor, half in sleep. Bella, entering with a raised admonitory finger, kissed Lizzie

softly, but said not a word. Neither did any of them speak, but all sat down at the foot of the bed, silently

waiting. And now, in this nightwatch, mingling with the flow of the river and with the rush of the train,

came the questions into Bella's mind again: What could be in the depths of that mystery of John's? Why was

it that he had never been seen by Mr Lightwood, whom he still avoided? When would that trial come, through

which her faith in, and her duty to, her dear husband, was to carry her, rendering him triumphant? For, that

had been his term. Her passing through the trial was to make the man she loved with all her heart, triumphant.

Far on in the night, Eugene opened his eyes. He was sensible, and said at once: 'How does the time go? Has

Lightwood was there immediately, to answer for himself. 'Yes, Eugene, and all is ready.'

'Dear boy!' returned Eugene with a smile, 'we both thank you heartily. Lizzie, tell them how welcome they

Then, they all stood around the bed, and Mr Milvey, opening his book, began the service; so rarely associated

with the shadow of death; so inseparable in the mind from a flush of life and gaiety and hope and health and

joy. Bella thought how different from her own sunny little wedding, and wept. Mrs Milvey overflowed with

pity, and wept too. The dolls' dressmaker, with her hands before her face, wept in her golden bower. Reading

in a low clear voice, and bending over Eugene, who kept his eyes upon him, Mr Milvey did his office with

suitable simplicity. As the bridegroom could not move his hand, they touched his fingers with the ring, and so

put it on the bride. When the two plighted their troth, she laid her hand on his and kept it there. When the

ceremony was done, and all the rest departed from the room, she drew her arm under his head, and laid her

'Undraw the curtains, my dear girl,' said Eugene, after a while, 'and let us see our weddingday.'

The sun was rising, and his first rays struck into the room, as she came back, and put her lips to his. 'I bless

'You have made a poor marriage of it, my sweet wife,' said Eugene. 'A shattered graceless fellow, stretched at

'I have made the marriage that I would have given all the world to dare to hope for,' she replied.

'You have thrown yourself away,' said Eugene, shaking his head. 'But you have followed the treasure of your

There were tears in his eyes, and she besought him to close them. 'No,' said Eugene, again shaking his head;

Her own eyes filled under his praises. And when he mustered strength to move his wounded head a very little

'Lizzie,' said Eugene, after a silence: 'when you see me wandering away from this refuge that I have so ill

A little while afterwards, when he appeared to be sinking into insensibility, she said, in a calm loving voice:

'Eugene, my dear husband!' He immediately answered: 'There again! You see how you can recall me!' And

afterwards, when he could not speak, he still answered by a slight movement of his head upon her bosom.

The sun was high in the sky, when she gently disengaged herself to give him the stimulants and nourishment

he required. The utter helplessness of the wreck of him that lay cast ashore there, now alarmed her, but he

'Ah, my beloved Lizzie!' he said, faintly. 'How shall I ever pay all I owe you, if I recover!'

'Live for that, then; live for me, Eugene; live to see how hard I will try to improve myself, and never to

'My darling girl,' he replied, rallying more of his old manner than he had ever yet got together. 'On the

contrary, I have been thinking whether it is not the best thing I can do, to die.'

'I don't mean that, my dear girl. I was not thinking of that. What I was thinking of was this. Out of your

compassion for me, in this maimed and broken state, you make so much of meyou think so well of

'I shall find out that my husband has a mine of purpose and energy, and will turn it to the best account?'

'I hope so, dearest Lizzie,' said Eugene, wistfully, and yet somewhat whimsically. 'I hope so. But I can't

summon the vanity to think so. How can I think so, looking back on such a trifiling wasted youth as mine! I

humbly hope it; but I daren't believe it. There is a sharp misgiving in my conscience that if I were to live, I

should disappoint your good opinion and my ownand that I ought to die, my dear!'

The winds and tides rose and fell a certain number of times, the earth moved round the sun a certain number

of times, the ship upon the ocean made her voyage safely, and brought a babyBella home. Then who so

These were among the first words spoken near the baby Bella as she lay asleep. She soon proved to be a baby

of wonderful intelligence, evincing the strongest objection to her grandmother's society, and being invariably

seized with a painful acidity of the stomach when that dignified lady honoured her with any attention.

It was charming to see Bella contemplating this baby, and finding out her own dimples in that tiny reflection,

as if she were looking in the glass without personal vanity. Her cherubic father justly remarked to her

husband that the baby seemed to make her younger than before, reminding him of the days when she had a

pet doll and used to talk to it as she carried it about. The world might have been challenged to produce

another baby who had such a store of pleasant nonsense said and sung to it, as Bella said and sung to this

baby; or who was dressed and undressed as often in fourandtwenty hours as Bella dressed and undressed

this baby; or who was held behind doors and poked out to stop its father's way when he came home, as this

baby was; or, in a word, who did half the number of baby things, through the lively invention of a gay and

The inexhaustible baby was two or three months old, when Bella began to notice a cloud upon her husband's

brow. Watching it, she saw a gathering and deepening anxiety there, which caused her great disquiet. More

than once, she awoke him muttering in his sleep; and, though he muttered nothing worse than her own name,

it was plain to her that his restlessness originated in some load of care. Therefore, Bella at length put in her

'You know, John dear,' she said, cheerily reverting to their former conversation, 'that I hope I may safely be

trusted in great things. And it surely cannot be a little thing that causes you so much uneasiness. It's very

considerate of you to try to hide from me that you are uncomfortable about something, but it's quite

But no, he evaded that. 'Never mind!' thought Bella, resolutely. 'John requires me to put perfect faith in him,

She went up to London one day, to meet him, in order that they might make some purchases. She found him

waiting for her at her journey's end, and they walked away together through the streets. He was in gay spirits,

though still harping on that notion of their being rich; and he said, now let them make believe that yonder fine

carriage was theirs, and that it was waiting to take them home to a fine house they had; what would Bella, in

that case, best like to find in the house? Well! Bella didn't know: already having everything she wanted, she

couldn't say. But, by degrees she was led on to confess that she would like to have for the inexhaustible baby

such a nursery as never was seen. It was to be 'a very rainbow for colours', as she was quite sure baby noticed

colours; and the staircase was to be adorned with the most exquisite flowers, as she was absolutely certain

baby noticed flowers; and there was to be an aviary somewhere, of the loveliest little birds, as there was not

the smallest doubt in the world that baby noticed birds. Was there nothing else? No, John dear. The

predilections of the inexhaustible baby being provided for, Bella could think of nothing else.

They were chatting on in this way, and John had suggested, 'No jewels for your own wear, for instance?' and

Bella had replied laughing. O! if he came to that, yes, there might be a beautiful ivory case of jewels on her

He stopped as if he were petrified by the sight of Bella's husband, who in the same moment had changed

'Met before, John?' Bella repeated in a tone of wonder. 'Mr Lightwood told me he had never seen you.'

'I did not then know that I had,' said Lightwood, discomposed on her account. I believed that I had only heard

'When Mr Lightwood saw me, my love,' observed her husband, not avoiding his eye, but looking at him, 'my

Julius Handford! The name that Bella had so often seen in old newspapers, when she was an inmate of Mr

Boffin's house! Julius Handford, who had been publicly entreated to appear, and for intelligence of whom a

'I would have avoided mentioning it in your presence,' said Lightwood to Bella, delicately; 'but since your

husband mentions it himself, I must confirm his strange admission. I saw him as Mr Julius Handford, and I

afterwards (unquestionably to his knowledge) took great pains to trace him out.'

'Quite true. But it was not my object or my interest,' said Rokesmith, quietly, 'to be traced out.'

'Mr Lightwood,' pursued her husband, 'as chance has brought us face to face at lastwhich is not to be

wondered at, for the wonder is, that, in spite of all my pains to the contrary, chance has not confronted us

together soonerI have only to remind you that you have been at my house, and to add that I have not

'Sir' returned Lightwood, with a meaning glance towards Bella, 'my position is a truly painful one. I hope that

no complicity in a very dark transaction may attach to you, but you cannot fail to know that your own

'My professional duty,' said Lightwood hesitating, with another glance towards Bella, 'is greatly at variance

with my personal inclination; but I doubt, Mr Handford, or Mr Rokesmith, whether I am justified in taking

'Don't be alarmed, my darling. Mr Lightwood will find that he is quite justified in taking leave of me here. At

all events,' added Rokesmith, 'he will find that I mean to take leave of him here.'

'I think, sir,' said Lightwood, 'you can scarcely deny that when I came to your house on the occasion to which

'Mr Lightwood, I assure you I have no disposition to deny it, or intention to deny it. I should have continued

to avoid you, in pursuance of the same set purpose, for a short time longer, if we had not met now. I am going

straight home, and shall remain at home tomorrow until noon. Hereafter, I hope we may be better

Lightwood stood irresolute, but Bella's husband passed him in the steadiest manner, with Bella on his arm;

and they went home without encountering any further remonstrance or molestation from any one.

When they had dined and were alone, John Rokesmith said to his wife, who had preserved her cheerfulness:

'No, John love. I should dearly like to know, of course;' (which her anxious face confirmed;) 'but I wait until

you can tell me of your own free will. You asked me if I could have perfect faith in you, and I said yes, and I

It did not escape Bella's notice that he began to look triumphant. She wanted no strengthening in her

firmness; but if she had had need of any, she would have derived it from his kindling face.

'You cannot have been prepared, my dearest, for such a discovery as that this mysterious Mr Handford was

'No, John dear, of course not. But you told me to prepare to be tried, and I prepared myself.'

He drew her to nestle closer to him, and told her it would soon be over, and the truth would soon appear. 'And

now,' he went on, 'lay stress, my dear, on these words that I am going to add. I stand in no kind of peril, and I

'Not a hair of my head! Moreover, I have done no wrong, and have injured no man. Shall I swear it?'

'No, John!' cried Bella, laying her hand upon his lips, with a proud look. 'Never to me!'

'But circumstances,' he went on 'I can, and I will, disperse them in a momenthave surrounded me with

one of the strangest suspicions ever known. You heard Mr Lightwood speak of a dark transaction?'

With a fast palpitating heart, Bella grasped him by the arm. 'You cannot be suspected, John?'

There was silence between them, as she sat looking in his face, with the colour quite gone from her own face

and lips. 'How dare they!' she cried at length, in a burst of generous indignation. 'My beloved husband, how

He caught her in his arms as she opened hers, and held her to his heart. 'Even knowing this, you can trust me,

'I can trust you, John dear, with all my soul. If I could not trust you, I should fall dead at your feet.'

The kindling triumph in his face was bright indeed, as he looked up and rapturously exclaimed, what had he

done to deserve the blessing of this dear confiding creature's heart! Again she put her hand upon his lips,

saying, 'Hush!' and then told him, in her own little natural pathetic way, that if all the world were against him,

she would be for him; that if all the world repudiated him, she would believe him; that if he were infamous in

other eyes, he would be honoured in hers; and that, under the worst unmerited suspicion, she could devote her

life to consoling him, and imparting her own faith in him to their little child.

A twilight calm of happiness then succeeding to their radiant noon, they remained at peace, until a strange

voice in the room startled them both. The room being by that time dark, the voice said, 'Don't let the lady be

alarmed by my striking a light,' and immediately a match rattled, and glimmered in a hand. The hand and the

match and the voice were then seen by John Rokesmith to belong to Mr Inspector, once meditatively active in

'I take the liberty,' said Mr Inspector, in a businesslike manner, 'to bring myself to the recollection of Mr

Julius Handford, who gave me his name and address down at our place a considerable time ago. Would the

lady object to my lighting the pair of candles on the chimneypiece, to throw a further light upon the subject?

Mr Inspector, in a darkblue buttonedup frock coat and pantaloons, presented a serviceable, halfpay,

Royal Arms kind of appearance, as he applied his pocket handkerchief to his nose and bowed to the lady.

'You favoured me, Mr Handford,' said Mr Inspector, 'by writing down your name and address, and I produce

the piece of paper on which you wrote it. Comparing the same with the writing on the flyleaf of this book on

the tableand a sweet pretty volume it isI find the writing of the entry, 'Mrs John Rokesmith. From her

husband on her birthday"and very gratifying to the feelings such memorials areto correspond exactly.

'Why,' retorted Mr Inspector, again using his pocket handkerchief, 'though there's nothing for the lady to be at

all alarmed at, still, ladies are apt to take alarm at matters of businessbeing of that fragile sex that they're

not accustomed to them when not of a strictly domestic characterand I do generally make it a rule to

propose retirement from the presence of ladies, before entering upon business topics. Or perhaps,' Mr

Inspector hinted, 'if the lady was to step upstairs, and take a look at baby now!'

'Mrs Rokesmith,'her husband was beginning; when Mr Inspector, regarding the words as an introduction,

'Mrs Rokesmith,' resumed her husband, 'is satisfied that she can have no reason for being alarmed, whatever

'Really? Is that so?' said Mr Inspector. 'But it's a sex to live and learn from, and there's nothing a lady can't

accomplish when she once fully gives her mind to it. It's the case with my own wife. Well, ma'am, this good

gentleman of yours has given rise to a rather large amount of trouble which might have been avoided if he

had come forward and explained himself. Well you see! He DIDN'T come forward and explain himself.

Consequently, now that we meet, him and me, you'll sayand say rightthat there's nothing to be alarmed

at, in my proposing to him TO come forwardor, putting the same meaning in another form, to come along

When Mr Inspector put it in that other form, 'to come along with me,' there was a relishing roll in his voice,

'Why argue?' returned Mr Inspector in a comfortable sort of remonstrance; 'ain't it enough that I propose that

Lord bless my soul and body!' returned Mr Inspector, 'I wonder at it in a man of your education. Why argue?'

'I wonder at you before a lady,' said Mr Inspector, shaking his head reproachfully: 'I wonder, brought up as

you have been, you haven't a more delicate mind! I charge you, then, with being some way concerned in the

Harmon Murder. I don't say whether before, or in, or after, the fact. I don't say whether with having some

'Don't!' said Mr Inspector. 'Why, why argue? It's my duty to inform you that whatever you say, will be used

'But I tell you it will,' said Mr Inspector. 'Now, having received the caution, do you still say that you foresaw

'Yes. And I will say something more, if you will step with me into the next room.'

With a reassuring kiss on the lips of the frightened Bella, her husband (to whom Mr Inspector obligingly

offered his arm), took up a candle, and withdrew with that gentleman. They were a full halfhour in

'I have invited this worthy officer, my dear,' said John, 'to make a short excursion with me in which you shall

be a sharer. He will take something to eat and drink, I dare say, on your invitation, while you are getting your

Mr Inspector declined eating, but assented to the proposal of a glass of brandy and water. Mixing this cold,

and pensively consuming it, he broke at intervals into such soliloquies as that he never did know such a

move, that he never had been so gravelled, and that what a game was this to try the sort of stuff a man's

opinion of himself was made of! Concurrently with these comments, he more than once burst out a laughing,

with the half enjoying and halfpiqued air of a man, who had given up a good conundrum, after much

guessing, and been told the answer. Bella was so timid of him, that she noted these things in a half

shrinking, halfperceptive way, and similarly noted that there was a great change in his manner towards

John. That comingalong withhim deportment was now lost in long musing looks at John and at herself

and sometimes in slow heavy rubs of his hand across his forehead, as if he were ironing cut the creases which

his deep pondering made there. He had had some coughing and whistling satellites secretly gravitating

towards him about the premises, but they were now dismissed, and he eyed John as if he had meant to do him

a public service, but had unfortunately been anticipated. Whether Bella might have noted anything more, if

she had been less afraid of him, she could not determine; but it was all inexplicable to her, and not the faintest

flash of the real state of the case broke in upon her mind. Mr Inspector's increased notice of herself and

knowing way of raising his eyebrows when their eyes by any chance met, as if he put the question 'Don't you

see?' augmented her timidity, and, consequently, her perplexity. For all these reasons, when he and she and

John, at towards nine o'clock of a winter evening went to London, and began driving from London Bridge,

among lowlying waterside wharves and docks and strange places, Bella was in the state of a dreamer;

perfectly unable to account for her being there, perfectly unable to forecast what would happen next, or

whither she was going, or why; certain of nothing in the immediate present, but that she confided in John, and

that John seemed somehow to be getting more triumphant. But what a certainty was that!

They alighted at last at the corner of a court, where there was a building with a bright lamp and wicket gate.

Its orderly appearance was very unlike that of the surrounding neighbourhood, and was explained by the

'Yes, my dear; but of our own accord. We shall come out again as easily, never fear.'

The whitewashed room was pure white as of old, the methodical bookkeeping was in peaceful progress as

of old, and some distant howler was banging against a cell door as of old. The sanctuary was not a permanent

abidingplace, but a kind of criminal Pickford's. The lower passions and vices were regularly ticked off in the

books, warehoused in the cells, carted away as per accompanying invoice, and left little mark upon it.

Mr Inspector placed two chairs for his visitors, before the fire, and communed in a low voice with a brother

of his order (also of a halfpay, and Royal Arms aspect), who, judged only by his occupation at the moment,

might have been a writingmaster, setting copies. Their conference done, Mr Inspector returned to the

fireplace, and, having observed that he would step round to the Fellowships and see how matters stood, went

out. He soon came back again, saying, 'Nothing could be better, for they're at supper with Miss Abbey in the

Still, as in a dream, Bella found herself entering a snug old fashioned publichouse, and found herself

smuggled into a little threecornered room nearly opposite the bar of that establishment. Mr Inspector

achieved the smuggling of herself and John into this queer room, called Cosy in an inscription on the door, by

entering in the narrow passage first in order, and suddenly turning round upon them with extended arms, as if

'Now,' said Mr Inspector to John, turning the gas lower; 'I'll mix with 'em in a casual way, and when I say

John nodded, and Mr Inspector went alone to the halfdoor of the bar. From the dim doorway of Cosy, within

which Bella and her husband stood, they could see a comfortable little party of three persons sitting at supper

The three persons were Miss Abbey and two male guests. To whom collectively, Mr Inspector remarked that

'It need be sharp to suit your wits, sir,' said Miss Abbey. 'What have you got in hand now?'

'Thanking you for your compliment: not much, Miss Abbey,' was Mr Inspector's rejoinder.

'And who are they? If one may ask it without detriment to your deep plans in the interests of the honest

'They are strangers in this part of the town, Miss Abbey. They are waiting till I shall want the gentleman to

Mr Inspector immediately slipped into the bar, and sat down at the side of the halfdoor, with his back

towards the passage, and directly facing the two guests. 'I don't take my supper till later in the night,' said he,

'and therefore I won't disturb the compactness of the table. But I'll take a glass of flip, if that's flip in the jug

'That's flip,' replied Miss Abbey, 'and it's my making, and if even you can find out better, I shall be glad to

know where.' Filling him, with hospitable hands, a steaming tumbler, Miss Abbey replaced the jug by the

fire; the company not having yet arrived at the flipstage of their supper, but being as yet skirmishing with

'Ahh!' cried Mr Inspector. 'That's the smack! There's not a Detective in the Force, Miss Abbey, that could

'Glad to hear you say so,' rejoined Miss Abbey. 'You ought to know, if anybody does.'

'Mr Job Potterson,' Mr Inspector continued, 'I drink your health. Mr Jacob Kibble, I drink yours. Hope you

Mr Kibble, an unctuous broad man of few words and many mouthfuls, said, more briefly than pointedly,

raising his ale to his lips: 'Same to you.' Mr Job Potterson, a semiseafaring man of obliging demeanour, said,

'Lord bless my soul and body!' cried Mr Inspector. 'Talk of trades, Miss Abbey, and the way they set their

marks on men' (a subject which nobody had approached); 'who wouldn't know your brother to be a Steward!

There's a bright and ready twinkle in his eye, there's a neatness in his action, there's a smartness in his figure,

there's an air of reliability about him in case you wanted a basin, which points out the steward! And Mr

Kibble; ain't he Passenger, all over? While there's that mercantile cut upon him which would make you happy

to give him credit for five hundred pound, don't you see the salt sea shining on him too?'

'YOU do, I dare say,' returned Miss Abbey, 'but I don't. And as for stewarding, I think it's time my brother

gave that up, and took his House in hand on his sister's retiring. The House will go to pieces if he don't. I

wouldn't sell it for any money that could be told out, to a person that I couldn't depend upon to be a Law to

'There you're right, Miss,' said Mr Inspector. 'A better kept house is not known to our men. What do I say?

Half so well a kept house is not known to our men. Show the Force the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, and the

'And talk of Time slipping by you, as if it was an animal at rustic sports with its tail soaped,' said Mr

Inspector (again, a subject which nobody had approached); 'why, well you may. Well you may. How has it

slipped by us, since the time when Mr Job Potterson here present, Mr Jacob Kibble here present, and an

Officer of the Force here present, first came together on a matter of Identification!'

'How has Time slipped by us,' Mr Inspector went on slowly, with his eyes narrowly observant of the two

guests, 'since we three very men, at an Inquest in this very houseMr Kibble? Taken ill, sir?'

Mr Kibble had staggered up, with his lower jaw dropped, catching Potterson by the shoulder, and pointing to

the halfdoor. He now cried out: 'Potterson! Look! Look there!' Potterson started up, started back, and

exclaimed: 'Heaven defend us, what's that!' Bella's husband stepped back to Bella, took her in his arms (for

she was terrified by the unintelligible terror of the two men), and shut the door of the little room. A hurry of

voices succeeded, in which Mr Inspector's voice was busiest; it gradually slackened and sank; and Mr

Inspector reappeared. 'Sharp's the word, sir!' he said, looking in with a knowing wink. 'We'll get your lady out

at once.' Immediately, Bella and her husband were under the stars, making their way back, alone, to the

All this was most extraordinary, and Bella could make nothing of it but that John was in the right. How in the

right, and how suspected of being in the wrong, she could not divine. Some vague idea that he had never

really assumed the name of Handford, and that there was a remarkable likeness between him and that

mysterious person, was her nearest approach to any definite explanation. But John was triumphant; that much

When John came home to dinner next day, he said, sitting down on the sofa by Bella and babyBella: 'My

As he seemed to like having left it, Bella took it for granted that there was no misfortune in the case.

'In a word, my love,' said John, 'the China House is broken up and abolished. There is no such thing any

The inexhaustible baby was instantly made to congratulate him, and to say, with appropriate action on the

part of a very limp arm and a speckled fist: 'Three cheers, ladies and gemplemorums. Hooray!'

'I am afraid, my life,' said John, 'that you have become very much attached to this cottage?'

'Yes, my dear, we must move. We must have our headquarters in London now. In short, there's a

He gave her a very blithe look, and a very sly look. Which occasioned the inexhaustible baby to square at him

'My love, you said it was a gain, and I said it was a gain. A very innocent remark, surely.'

'I won't,' said the inexhaustible baby, 'allowyoutomake gameofmyvenerableMa.' At

John having stooped down to receive these punishing visitations, Bella asked him, would it be necessary to

move soon? Why yes, indeed (said John), he did propose that they should move very soon. Taking the

furniture with them, of course? (said Bella). Why, no (said John), the fact was, that the house wasin a sort

The inexhaustible baby, hearing this, resumed the offensive, and said: 'But there's no nursery for me, sir.

What do you mean, marblehearted parent?' To which the marblehearted parent rejoined that there was

asort of a kind of anursery, and it might be 'made to do'. 'Made to do?' returned the Inexhaustible,

administering more punishment, 'what do you take me for?' And was then turned over on its back in Bella's

'But really, John dear,' said Bella, flushed in quite a lovely manner by these exercises, 'will the new house,

'I felt that to be the question,' he returned, 'and therefore I arranged that you should come with me and look at

it, tomorrow morning.' Appointment made, accordingly, for Bella to go up with him to morrow morning;

When they reached London in pursuance of their little plan, they took coach and drove westward. Not only

drove westward, but drove into that particular westward division, which Bella had seen last when she turned

her face from Mr Boffin's door. Not only drove into that particular division, but drove at last into that very

street. Not only drove into that very street, but stopped at last at that very house.

'John dear!' cried Bella, looking out of window in a flutter. 'Do you see where we are?'

The housedoor was opened without any knocking or ringing, and John promptly helped her out. The servant

who stood holding the door, asked no question of John, neither did he go before them or follow them as they

went straight upstairs. It was only her husband's encircling arm, urging her on, that prevented Bella from

stopping at the foot of the staircase. As they ascended, it was seen to be tastefully ornamented with most

Going on a little higher, they came to a charming aviary, in which a number of tropical birds, more gorgeous

in colour than the flowers, were flying about; and among those birds were gold and silver fish, and mosses,

They went on, until they came to a door. As John put out his hand to open it, Bella caught his hand.

Behold Mr and Mrs Boffin, beaming! Behold Mrs Boffin clapping her hands in an ecstacy, running to Bella

with tears of joy pouring down her comely face, and folding her to her breast, with the words: 'My deary

deary, deary girl, that Noddy and me saw married and couldn't wish joy to, or so much as speak to! My deary,

deary, deary, wife of John and mother of his little child! My loving loving, bright bright, Pretty Pretty!

In all the first bewilderment of her wonder, the most bewilderingly wonderful thing to Bella was the shining

countenance of Mr Boffin. That his wife should be joyous, openhearted, and genial, or that her face should

express every quality that was large and trusting, and no quality that was little or mean, was accordant with

Bella's experience. But, that he, with a perfectly beneficent air and a plump rosy face, should be standing

there, looking at her and John, like some jovial good spirit, was marvellous. For, how had he looked when

she last saw him in that very room (it was the room in which she had given him that piece of her mind at

parting), and what had become of all those crooked lines of suspicion, avarice, and distrust, that twisted his

Mrs Boffin seated Bella on the large ottoman, and seated herself beside her, and John her husband seated

himself on the other side of her, and Mr Boffin stood beaming at every one and everything he could see, with

surpassing jollity and enjoyment. Mrs Boffin was then taken with a laughing fit of clapping her hands, and

clapping her knees, and rocking herself to and fro, and then with another laughing fit of embracing Bella, and

'Old lady, old lady,' said Mr Boffin, at length; 'if you don't begin somebody else must.'

'I'm a going to begin, Noddy, my dear,' returned Mrs Boffin. 'Only it isn't easy for a person to know where to

begin, when a person is in this state of delight and happiness. Bella, my dear. Tell me, who's this?'

'No, it ain't!' cried Mrs Boffin, clapping her hands, and shaking her head. 'Not a bit of it.'

'No, it ain't!' cried Mrs Boffin, again clapping her hands and shaking her head. 'Not a bit of it.'

'Ah! I should think so, deary!' cried Mrs Boffin. 'I should hope so! Many and many is the time I have called

him by his name of John. But what's his other name, his true other name? Give a guess, my pretty!'

'I could,' cried Mrs Boffin, 'and what's more, I did! I found him out, all in a flash as I may say, one night.

'Ay! That the old lady did!' said Mr Boffin, with stout pride in the circumstance.

'Harkee to me, deary,' pursued Mrs Boffin, taking Bella's hands between her own, and gently beating on them

from time to time. 'It was after a particular night when John had been disappointedas he thoughtin his

affections. It was after a night when John had made an offer to a certain young lady, and the certain young

lady had refused it. It was after a particular night, when he felt himself castawaylike, and had made up his

mind to go seek his fortune. It was the very next night. My Noddy wanted a paper out of his Secretary's room,

and I says to Noddy, "I am going by the door, and I'll ask him for it." I tapped at his door, and he didn't hear

me. I looked in, and saw him a sitting lonely by his fire, brooding over it. He chanced to look up with a

pleased kind of smile in my company when he saw me, and then in a single moment every grain of the

gunpowder that had been lying sprinkled thick about him ever since I first set eyes upon him as a man at the

Bower, took fire! Too many a time had I seen him sitting lonely, when he was a poor child, to be pitied, heart

and hand! Too many a time had I seen him in need of being brightened up with a comforting word! Too many

and too many a time to be mistaken, when that glimpse of him come at last! No, no! I just makes out to cry,

"I know you now! You're John!" And he catches me as I drops.So what,' says Mrs Boffin, breaking off in

the rush of her speech to smile most radiantly, 'might you think by this time that your husband's name was,

'Don't tremble. Why not possible, deary, when so many things are possible?' demanded Mrs Boffin, in a

'Thought to be,' said Mrs Boffin. 'But if ever John Harmon drew the breath of life on earth, that is certainly

John Harmon's arm round your waist now, my pretty. If ever John Harmon had a wife on earth, that wife is

certainly you. If ever John Harmon and his wife had a child on earth, that child is certainly this.'

By a masterstroke of secret arrangement, the inexhaustible baby here appeared at the door, suspended in

midair by invisible agency. Mrs Boffin, plunging at it, brought it to Bella's lap, where both Mrs and Mr

Boffin (as the saying is) 'took it out of' the Inexhaustible in a shower of caresses. It was only this timely

appearance that kept Bella from swooning. This, and her husband's earnestness in explaining further to her

how it had come to pass that he had been supposed to be slain, and had even been suspected of his own

murder; also, how he had put a pious fraud upon her which had preyed upon his mind, as the time for its

disclosure approached, lest she might not make full allowance for the object with which it had originated, and

'But bless ye, my beauty!' cried Mrs Boflin, taking him up short at this point, with another hearty clap of her

'Of course you don't, my deary,' exclaimed Mrs Boffin. 'How can you till you're told! So now I am a going to

tell you. So you put your two hands between my two hands again,' cried the comfortable creature, embracing

her, 'with that blessed little picter lying on your lap, and you shall be told all the story. Now, I'm a going to

tell the story. Once, twice, three times, and the horses is off. Here they go! When I cries out that night, "I

'That's a very good arrangement,' cried Mrs Boffin. 'Keep it there, John. And as we was all of us in it, Noddy

you come and lay yours a top of his, and we won't break the pile till the story's done.'

'That's capital!' said Mrs Boffin, giving it a kiss. 'Seems quite a family building; don't it? But the horses is off.

Well! When I cries out that night, "I know you now! you're John!" John catches of me, it is true; but I ain't a

light weight, bless ye, and he's forced to let me down. Noddy, he hears a noise, and in he trots, and as soon as

I anyways comes to myself I calls to him, "Noddy, well I might say as I did say, that night at the Bower, for

the Lord be thankful this is John!" On which he gives a heave, and down he goes likewise, with his head

under the writingtable. This brings me round comfortable, and that brings him round comfortable, and then

'Yes! They cry for joy, my darling,' her husband struck in. 'You understand? These two, whom I come to life

'That's right, my dear, don't you mind him,' said Mrs Boffin, 'stick to me. Well! Then we sits down, gradually

gets cool, and holds a confabulation. John, he tells us how he is despairing in his mind on accounts of a

certain fair young person, and how, if I hadn't found him out, he was going away to seek his fortune far and

wide, and had fully meant never to come to life, but to leave the property as our wrongful inheritance for ever

and a day. At which you never see a man so frightened as my Noddy was. For to think that he should have

come into the property wrongful, however innocent, andmore than thatmight have gone on keeping it to

'Don't you mind him, neither, my deary,' resumed Mrs Boffin; 'stick to me. This brings up a confabulation

regarding the certain fair young person; when Noddy he gives it as his opinion that she is a deary creetur.

"She may be a leetle spoilt, and nat'rally spoilt," he says, "by circumstances, but that's only the surface, and I

'Don't you mind him a single morsel, my dear,' proceeded Mrs Boffin, 'but stick to me. Then says John, O, if

he could but prove so! Then we both of us ups and says, that minute, "Prove so!"'

With a start, Bella directed a hurried glance towards Mr Boffin. But, he was sitting thoughtfully smiling at

that broad brown hand of his, and either didn't see it, or would take no notice of it.

'"Prove it, John!" we says,' repeated Mrs Boffin. '"Prove it and overcome your doubts with triumph, and be

happy for the first time in your life, and for the rest of your life." This puts John in a state, to be sure. Then

we says, "What will content you? If she was to stand up for you when you was slighted, if she was to show

herself of a generous mind when you was oppressed, if she was to be truest to you when you was poorest and

friendliest, and all this against her own seeming interest, how would that do?" "Do?" says John, "it would

raise me to the skies." "Then," says my Noddy, "make your preparations for the ascent, John, it being my firm

Bella caught Mr Boffin's twinkling eye for half an instant; but he got it away from her, and restored it to his

'From the first, you was always a special favourite of Noddy's,' said Mrs Boffin, shaking her head. 'O you

were! And if I had been inclined to be jealous, I don't know what I mightn't have done to you. But as I

wasn'twhy, my beauty,' with a hearty laugh and an embrace, 'I made you a special favourite of my own

too. But the horses is coming round the corner. Well! Then says my Noddy, shaking his sides till he was fit to

make 'em ache again: "Look out for being slighted and oppressed, John, for if ever a man had a hard master,

you shall find me from this present time to be such to you. And then he began!' cried Mrs Boffin, in an

ecstacy of admiration. 'Lord bless you, then he began! And how he DID begin; didn't he!'

'But, bless you,' pursued Mrs Boffin, 'if you could have seen him of a night, at that time of it! The way he'd sit

and chuckle over himself! The way he'd say "I've been a regular brown bear today," and take himself in his

arms and hug himself at the thoughts of the brute he had pretended. But every night he says to me: "Better

and better, old lady. What did we say of her? She'll come through it, the true golden gold. This'll be the

happiest piece of work we ever done." And then he'd say, "I'll be a grislier old growler to morrow!" and

laugh, he would, till John and me was often forced to slap his back, and bring it out of his windpipes with a

Mr Boffin, with his face bent over his heavy hand, made no sound, but rolled his shoulders when thus

'And so, my good and pretty,' pursued Mrs Boffin, 'you was married, and there was we hid up in the

churchorgan by this husband of yours; for he wouldn't let us out with it then, as was first meant. "No," he

says, "she's so unselfish and contented, that I can't afford to be rich yet. I must wait a little longer." Then,

when baby was expected, he says, "She is such a cheerful, glorious housewife that I can't afford to be rich yet.

I must wait a little longer." Then when baby was born, he says, "She is so much better than she ever was, that

I can't afford to be rich yet. I must wait a little longer." And so he goes on and on, till I says outright, "Now,

John, if you don't fix a time for setting her up in her own house and home, and letting us walk out of it, I'll

turn Informer." Then he says he'll only wait to triumph beyond what we ever thought possible, and to show

her to us better than even we ever supposed; and he says, "She shall see me under suspicion of having

murdered myself, and YOU shall see how trusting and how true she'll be." Well! Noddy and me agreed to

that, and he was right, and here you are, and the horses is in, and the story is done, and God bless you my

The pile of hands dispersed, and Bella and Mrs Boffin took a good long hug of one another: to the apparent

'John dear,' said Bella, 'you're a good nurse; will you please hold baby?' Having deposited the Inexhaustible

in his arms with those words, Bella looked hard at Mr Boffin, who had moved to a table where he was

leaning his head upon his hand with his face turned away, and, quietly settling herself on her knees at his

side, and drawing one arm over his shoulder, said: 'Please I beg your pardon, and I made a small mistake of a

word when I took leave of you last. Please I think you are better (not worse) than Hopkins, better (not worse)

than Dancer, better (not worse) than Blackberry Jones, better (not worse) than any of them! Please something

more!' cried Bella, with an exultant ringing laugh as she struggled with him and forced him to turn his

delighted face to hers. 'Please I have found out something not yet mentioned. Please I don't believe you are a

hardhearted miser at all, and please I don't believe you ever for one single minute were!'

At this, Mrs Boffin fairly screamed with rapture, and sat beating her feet upon the floor, clapping her hands,

and bobbing herself backwards and forwards, like a demented member of some Mandarin's family.

'O, I understand you now, sir!' cried Bella. 'I want neither you nor any one else to tell me the rest of the story.

'What?' cried Bella, holding him prisoner by the coat with both hands. 'When you saw what a greedy little

wretch you were the patron of, you determined to show her how much misused and misprized riches could

do, and often had done, to spoil people; did you? Not caring what she thought of you (and Goodness knows

THAT was of no consequence!) you showed her, in yourself, the most detestable sides of wealth, saying in

your own mind, "This shallow creature would never work the truth out of her own weak soul, if she had a

hundred years to do it in; but a glaring instance kept before her may open even her eyes and set her thinking."

'I never said anything of the sort,' Mr Boffin declared in a state of the highest enjoyment.

'Then you ought to have said it, sir,' returned Bella, giving him two pulls and one kiss, 'for you must have

thought and meant it. You saw that good fortune was turning my stupid head and hardening my silly

heartwas making me grasping, calculating, insolent, insufferableand you took the pains to be the dearest

and kindest fingerpost that ever was set up anywhere, pointing out the road that I was taking and the end it

'John,' said Mr Boffin, one broad piece of sunshine from head to foot, 'I wish you'd help me out of this.'

'You can't be heard by counsel, sir,' returned Bella. 'You must speak for yourself. Confess instantly!'

'Well, my dear,' said Mr Boffin, 'the truth is, that when we did go in for the little scheme that my old lady has

pinted out, I did put it to John, what did he think of going in for some such general scheme as YOU have

pinted out? But I didn't in any way so word it, because I didn't in any way so mean it. I only said to John,

wouldn't it be more consistent, me going in for being a reg'lar brown bear respecting him, to go in as a reg'lar

'Confess this minute, sir,' said Bella, 'that you did it to correct and amend me!'

'Certainly, my dear child,' said Mr Boffin, 'I didn't do it to harm you; you may be sure of that. And I did hope

it might just hint a caution. Still, it ought to be mentioned that no sooner had my old lady found out John,

than John made known to her and me that he had had his eye upon a thankless person by the name of Silas

Wegg. Partly for the punishment of which Wegg, by leading him on in a very unhandsome and underhanded

game that he was playing, them books that you and me bought so many of together (and, bytheby, my

dear, he wasn't Blackberry Jones, but Blewberry) was read aloud to me by that person of the name of Silas

Bella, who was still on her knees at Mr Boffin's feet, gradually sank down into a sitting posture on the

ground, as she meditated more and more thoughtfully, with her eyes upon his beaming face.

'Still,' said Bella, after this meditative pause, 'there remain two things that I cannot understand. Mrs Boffin

never supposed any part of the change in Mr Boffin to be real; did she?You never did; did you?' asked

'And yet you took it very much to heart,' said Bella. 'I remember its making you very uneasy, indeed.'

'Ecod, you see Mrs John has a sharp eye, John!' cried Mr Boffin, shaking his head with an admiring air.

'You're right, my dear. The old lady nearly blowed us into shivers and smithers, many times.'

'Why, it was a weakness in the old lady,' said Mr Boffin; 'and yet, to tell you the whole truth and nothing but

the truth, I'm rather proud of it. My dear, the old lady thinks so high of me that she couldn't abear to see and

hear me coming out as a reg'lar brown one. Couldn't abear to makebelieve as I meant it! In consequence of

Mrs Boffin laughed heartily at herself; but a certain glistening in her honest eyes revealed that she was by no

'I assure you, my dear,' said Mr Boffin, 'that on the celebrated day when I made what has since been agreed

upon to be my grandest demonstrationI allude to Mew says the cat, Quack quack says the duck, and

Bowwowwow says the dogI assure you, my dear, that on that celebrated day, them flinty and unbeliving

words hit my old lady so hard on my account, that I had to hold her, to prevent her running out after you, and

Mrs Boffin laughed heartily again, and her eyes glistened again, and it then appeared, not only that in that

burst of sarcastic eloquence Mr Boffin was considered by his two fellow conspirators to have outdone

himself, but that in his own opinion it was a remarkable achievement. 'Never thought of it afore the moment,

my dear!' he observed to Bella. 'When John said, if he had been so happy as to win your affections and

possess your heart, it come into my head to turn round upon him with "Win her affections and possess her

heart! Mew says the cat, Quack quack says the duck, and Bowwowwow says the dog." I couldn't tell you

how it come into my head or where from, but it had so much the sound of a rasper that I own to you it

astonished myself. I was awful nigh bursting out a laughing though, when it made John stare!'

'You said, my pretty,' Mrs Boffin reminded Bella, 'that there was one other thing you couldn't understand.'

'O yes!' cried Bella, covering her face with her hands; 'but that I never shall be able to understand as long as I

live. It is, how John could love me so when I so little deserved it, and how you, Mr and Mrs Boffin, could be

so forgetful of yourselves, and take such pains and trouble, to make me a little better, and after all to help him

It was John Harmon's turn thenJohn Harmon now for good, and John Rokesmith for nevermoreto plead

with her (quite unnecessarily) in behalf of his deception, and to tell her, over and over again, that it had been

prolonged by her own winning graces in her supposed station of life. This led on to many interchanges of

endearment and enjoyment on all sides, in the midst of which the Inexhaustible being observed staring, in a

most imbecile manner, on Mrs Boffin's breast, was pronounced to be supernaturally intelligent as to the

whole transaction, and was made to declare to the ladies and gemplemorums, with a wave of the speckled fist

(with difficulty detached from an exceedingly short waist), 'I have already informed my venerable Ma that I

Then, said John Harmon, would Mrs John Harmon come and see her house? And a dainty house it was, and a

tastefully beautiful; and they went through it in procession; the Inexhaustible on Mrs Boffin's bosom (still

staring) occupying the middle station, and Mr Boffin bringing up the rear. And on Bella's exquisite toilette

table was an ivory casket, and in the casket were jewels the like of which she had never dreamed of, and aloft

on an upper floor was a nursery garnished as with rainbows; 'though we were hard put to it,' said John

The house inspected, emissaries removed the Inexhaustible, who was shortly afterwards heard screaming

among the rainbows; whereupon Bella withdrew herself from the presence and knowledge of gemplemorums,

and the screaming ceased, and smiling Peace associated herself with that young olive branch.

Mr Boffin, submitting to be led on tiptoe to the nursery door, looked in with immense satisfaction, although

there was nothing to see but Bella in a musing state of happiness, seated in a little low chair upon the hearth,

with her child in her fair young arms, and her soft eyelashes shading her eyes from the fire.

'It looks as if the old man's spirit had found rest at last; don't it?' said Mrs Boffin.

'And as if his money had turned bright again, after a long long rust in the dark, and was at last a beginning to

But, aware at the instant of a fine opening for a point, Mr Boffin quenched that observation in

thisdelivered in the grisliest growling of the regular brown bear. 'A pretty and a hopeful picter? Mew,

Quack quack, Bowwow!' And then trotted silently downstairs, with his shoulders in a state of the liveliest

Mr and Mrs John Harmon had so timed their taking possession of their rightful name and their London house,

that the event befel on the very day when the last waggonload of the last Mound was driven out at the gates

of Boffin's Bower. As it jolted away, Mr Wegg felt that the last load was correspondingly removed from his

mind, and hailed the auspicious season when that black sheep, Boffin, was to be closely sheared.

Over the whole slow process of levelling the Mounds, Silas had kept watch with rapacious eyes. But, eyes no

less rapacious had watched the growth of the Mounds in years bygone, and had vigilantly sifted the dust of

which they were composed. No valuables turned up. How should there be any, seeing that the old hard jailer

Though disappointed by this bare result, Mr Wegg felt too sensibly relieved by the close of the labour, to

grumble to any great extent. A foremanrepresentative of the dust contractors, purchasers of the Mounds, had

worn Mr Wegg down to skin and bone. This supervisor of the proceedings, asserting his employers' rights to

cart off by daylight, nightlight, torchlight, when they would, must have been the death of Silas if the work

had lasted much longer. Seeming never to need sleep himself, he would reappear, with a tiedup broken

head, in fantail hat and velveteen smalls, like an accursed goblin, at the most unholy and untimely hours.

Tired out by keeping close ward over a long day's work in fog and rain, Silas would have just crawled to bed

and be dozing, when a horrid shake and rumble under his pillow would announce an approaching train of

carts, escorted by this Demon of Unrest, to fall to work again. At another time, he would be rumbled up out

of his soundest sleep, in the dead of the night; at another, would be kept at his post eightandforty hours on

end. The more his persecutor besought him not to trouble himself to turn out, the more suspicious was the

crafty Wegg that indications had been observed of something hidden somewhere, and that attempts were on

foot to circumvent him. So continually broken was his rest through these means, that he led the life of having

wagered to keep ten thousand dogwatches in ten thousand hours, and looked piteously upon himself as

always getting up and yet never going to bed. So gaunt and haggard had he grown at last, that his wooden leg

showed disproportionate, and presented a thriving appearance in contrast with the rest of his plagued body,

However, Wegg's comfort was, that all his disagreeables were now over, and that he was immediately

coming into his property. Of late, the grindstone did undoubtedly appear to have been whirling at his own

nose rather than Boffin's, but Boffin's nose was now to be sharpened fine. Thus far, Mr Wegg had let his

dusty friend off lightly, having been baulked in that amiable design of frequently dining with him, by the

machinations of the sleepless dustman. He had been constrained to depute Mr Venus to keep their dusty

friend, Boffin, under inspection, while he himself turned lank and lean at the Bower.

To Mr Venus's museum Mr Wegg repaired when at length the Mounds were down and gone. It being

evening, he found that gentleman, as he expected, seated over his fire; but did not find him, as he expected,

'Why, you smell rather comfortable here!' said Wegg, seeming to take it ill, and stopping and sniffing as he

'No, Mr Wegg,' said Venus. 'When I use it at all, I mostly use it in cobblers' punch.'

'What do you call cobblers' punch?' demanded Wegg, in a worse humour than before.

'It's difficult to impart the receipt for it, sir,' returned Venus, 'because, however particular you may be in

allotting your materials, so much will still depend upon the individual gifts, and there being a feeling thrown

'Will I partake?' returned Wegg very surlily. 'Why, of course I will! WILL a man partake, as has been

tormented out of his five senses by an everlasting dustman with his head tied up! WILL he, too! As if he

'If you come to that, you don't seem in your usual spirits,' growled Wegg. 'You seem to be setting up for

This circumstance appeared, in his then state of mind, to give Mr Wegg uncommon offence.

'And you've been having your hair cut!' said Wegg, missing the usual dusty shock.

'And I am blest if you ain't getting fat!' said Wegg, with culminating discontent. 'What are you going to do

'Well, Mr Wegg,' said Venus, smiling in a sprightly manner, 'I suspect you could hardly guess what I am

'I don't want to guess,' retorted Wegg. 'All I've got to say is, that it's well for you that the diwision of labour

has been what it has been. It's well for you to have had so light a part in this business, when mine has been so

'Not at all, sir,' said Venus. 'Never rested so well in all my life, I thank you.'

'Ah!' grumbled Wegg, 'you should have been me. If you had been me, and had been fretted out of your bed,

and your sleep, and your meals, and your mind, for a stretch of months together, you'd have been out of

'Certainly, it has trained you down, Mr Wegg,' said Venus, contemplating his figure with an artist's eye.

'Trained you down very low, it has! So weazen and yellow is the kivering upon your bones, that one might

almost fancy you had come to give a lookin upon the French gentleman in the corner, instead of me.'

Mr Wegg, glancing in great dudgeon towards the French gentleman's corner, seemed to notice something

new there, which induced him to glance at the opposite corner, and then to put on his glasses and stare at all

Silas took off his glasses againfinding himself too intensely disgusted by the sprightly appearance of his

'Mr Wegg!' said Venus, with a sudden flush of wrath. 'The lady in question is not a old party.'

'Mr Wegg,' said Venus, 'in a case of so much delicacy, I must trouble you to say what you mean. There are

strings that must not be played upon. No sir! Not sounded, unless in the most respectful and tuneful manner.

'Sir,' returned Venus with dignity, 'I accept the altered phrase. It is the lady as formerly objected.'

'Mr Wegg,' said Venus, with another flush. 'I cannot permit it to be put in the form of a Fight. I must

'When is the lady,' Wegg reluctantly demanded, constraining his ill temper in remembrance of the partnership

and its stock in trade, 'a going to give her 'and where she has already given her 'art?'

'Sir,' returned Venus, 'I again accept the altered phrase, and with pleasure. The lady is a going to give her 'and

'Mr Wegg,' said Venus, 'as I did name to you, I think, on a former occasion, if not on former occasions'

'What,' pursued Venus, 'what the nature of the lady's objection was, I may impart, without violating any of

the tender confidences since sprung up between the lady and myself, how it has been met, through the kind

interference of two good friends of mine: one, previously acquainted with the lady: and one, not. The pint

was thrown out, sir, by those two friends when they did me the great service of waiting on the lady to try if a

union betwixt the lady and me could not be brought to bearthe pint, I say, was thrown out by them, sir,

whether if, after marriage, I confined myself to the articulation of men, children, and the lower animals, it

might not relieve the lady's mind of her feeling respecting being as a lady regarded in a bony light. It was a

'It would seem, Mr Venus,' observed Wegg, with a touch of distrust, 'that you are flush of friends?'

'Pretty well, sir,' that gentleman answered, in a tone of placid mystery. 'Soso, sir. Pretty well.'

'However,' said Wegg, after eyeing him with another touch of distrust, 'I wish you joy. One man spends his

fortune in one way, and another in another. You are going to try matrimony. I mean to try travelling.'

'Change of air, seascenery, and my natural rest, I hope may bring me round after the persecutions I have

undergone from the dustman with his head tied up, which I just now mentioned. The tough job being ended

and the Mounds laid low, the hour is come for Boffin to stump up. Would ten tomorrow morning suit you,

'Suppose you was just to step round tonight then, and give him orders from meI say from me, because he

knows I won't be played withto be ready with his papers, his accounts, and his cash, at that time in the

morning?' said Wegg. 'And as a matter of form, which will be agreeable to your own feelings, before we go

out (for I'll walk with you part of the way, though my leg gives under me with weariness), let's have a look at

Mr Venus produced it, and it was perfectly correct; Mr Venus undertook to produce it again in the morning,

and to keep tryst with Mr Wegg on Boffin's doorstep as the clock struck ten. At a certain point of the road

between Clerkenwell and Boffin's house (Mr Wegg expressly insisted that there should be no prefix to the

It was a very bad night; to which succeeded a very bad morning. The streets were so unusually slushy,

muddy, and miserable, in the morning, that Wegg rode to the scene of action; arguing that a man who was, as

it were, going to the Bank to draw out a handsome property, could well afford that trifling expense.

Venus was punctual, and Wegg undertook to knock at the door, and conduct the conference. Door knocked

'Now, I tell you what, young fellow,' said Wegg, 'I won't have it. This won't do for me. I don't want menials. I

They were shown into a waitingroom, where the allpowerful Wegg wore his hat, and whistled, and with

his forefinger stirred up a clock that stood upon the chimneypiece, until he made it strike. In a few minutes

they were shown upstairs into what used to be Boffin's room; which, besides the door of entrance, had

folding doors in it, to make it one of a suite of rooms when occasion required. Here, Boffin was seated at a

librarytable, and here Mr Wegg, having imperiously motioned the servant to withdraw, drew up a chair and

seated himself, in his hat, close beside him. Here, also, Mr Wegg instantly underwent the remarkable

experience of having his hat twitched off his head and thrown out of a window, which was opened and shut

'Be careful what insolent liberties you take in that gentleman's presence,' said the owner of the hand which

Wegg involuntarily clapped his hand to his bare head, and stared at the Secretary. For, it was he addressed

'Oh!' said Wegg, as soon as he recovered his suspended power of speech. 'Very good! I gave directions for

YOU to be dismissed. And you ain't gone, ain't you? Oh! We'll look into this presently. Very good!'

Somebody else had come in quietly by the foldingdoors. Turning his head, Wegg beheld his persecutor, the

everwakeful dustman, accoutred with fantail hat and velveteen smalls complete. Who, untying his tiedup

'Ha, ha, ha, gentlemen!' roared Sloppy in a peal of laughter, and with immeasureable relish. 'He never thought

as I could sleep standing, and often done it when I turned for Mrs Higden! He never thought as I used to give

Mrs Higden the Policenews in different voices! But I did lead him a life all through it, gentlemen, I hope I

really and truly DID!' Here, Mr Sloppy opening his mouth to a quite alarming extent, and throwing back his

'Oh!' said Wegg, slightly discomfited, but not much as yet: 'one and one is two not dismissed, is it? Boffin!

Just let me ask a question. Who set this chap on, in this dress, when the carting began? Who employed this

'I say!' remonstrated Sloppy, jerking his head forward. 'No fellows, or I'll throw you out of winder!'

Mr Boffin appeased him with a wave of his hand, and said: 'I employed him, Wegg.'

'Oh! You employed him, Boffin? Very good. Mr Venus, we raise our terms, and we can't do better than

'That's not going to be done, Wegg,' replied Mr Boffin, sitting composedly on the librarytable, at one end,

'No, Wegg,' said Mr Boffin, shaking his head goodhumouredly. 'Not at my peril, and not on any other

Wegg reflected a moment, and then said: 'Mr Venus, will you be so good as hand me over that same

'Certainly, sir,' replied Venus, handing it to him with much politeness. 'There it is. Having now, sir, parted

with it, I wish to make a small observation: not so much because it is anyways necessary, or expresses any

new doctrine or discovery, as because it is a comfort to my mind. Silas Wegg, you are a precious old rascal.'

Mr Wegg, who, as if anticipating a compliment, had been beating time with the paper to the other's politeness

'Silas Wegg,' said Venus, 'know that I took the liberty of taking Mr Boffin into our concern as a sleeping

'Quite true,' added Mr Boffin; 'and I tested Venus by making him a pretended proposal or two; and I found

'So Mr Boffin, in his indulgence, is pleased to say,' Venus remarked: 'though in the beginning of this dirt, my

hands were not, for a few hours, quite as clean as I could wish. But I hope I made early and full amends.'

Venus inclined his head with respect and gratitude. 'Thank you, sir. I am much obliged to you, sir, for all. For

your good opinion now, for your way of receiving and encouraging me when I first put myself in

communication with you, and for the influence since so kindly brought to bear upon a certain lady, both by

yourself and by Mr John Harmon.' To whom, when thus making mention of him, he also bowed.

Wegg followed the name with sharp ears, and the action with sharp eyes, and a certain cringing air was

infusing itself into his bullying air, when his attention was reclaimed by Venus.

'Everything else between you and me, Mr Wegg,' said Venus, 'now explains itself, and you can now make

out, sir, without further words from me. But totally to prevent any unpleasantness or mistake that might arise

on what I consider an important point, to be made quite clear at the close of our acquaintance, I beg the leave

of Mr Boffin and Mr John Harmon to repeat an observation which I have already had the pleasure of bringing

'You are a fool,' said Wegg, with a snap of his fingers, 'and I'd have got rid of you before now, if I could have

struck out any way of doing it. I have thought it over, I can tell you. You may go, and welcome. You leave

the more for me. Because, you know,' said Wegg, dividing his next observation between Mr Boffin and Mr

Harmon, 'I am worth my price, and I mean to have it. This getting off is all very well in its way, and it tells

with such an anatomical Pump as this one,' pointing out Mr Venus, 'but it won't do with a Man. I am here to

'Boffin!' replied Wegg, turning upon him with a severe air, 'I understand YOUR newborn boldness. I see

the brass underneath YOUR silver plating. YOU have got YOUR nose out of joint. Knowing that you've

nothing at stake, you can afford to come the independent game. Why, you're just so much smeary glass to see

through, you know! But Mr Harmon is in another sitiwation. What Mr Harmon risks, is quite another pair of

shoes. Now, I've heerd something lately about this being Mr HarmonI make out now, some hints that I've

met on that subject in the newspaper and I drop you, Boffin, as beneath my notice. I ask Mr Harmon

'It is a will of my late father's, of more recent date than the will proved by Mr Boffin (address whom again, as

you have addressed him already, and I'll knock you down), leaving the whole of his property to the Crown,'

said John Harmon, with as much indifference as was compatible with extreme sternness.

'Bight you are!' cried Wegg. 'Then,' screwing the weight of his body upon his wooden leg, and screwing his

wooden head very much on one side, and screwing up one eye: 'then, I put the question to you, what's this

Wegg had repeated the word with a sneer, and was entering on some sarcastic retort, when, to his boundless

amazement, he found himself gripped by the cravat; shaken until his teeth chattered; shoved back, staggering,

'You scoundrel!' said John Harmon, whose seafaring hold was like that of a vice.

'I mean to knock your head against the wall,' neturned John Harmon, suiting his action to his words, with the

heartiest good will; 'and I'd give a thousand pounds for leave to knock your brains out. Listen, you scoundrel,

'That Dutch bottle, scoundrel, contained the latest will of the many wills made by my unhappy

selftormenting father. That will gives everything absolutely to my noble benefactor and yours, Mr Boffin,

excluding and reviling me, and my sister (then already dead of a broken heart), by name. That Dutch bottle

was found by my noble benefactor and yours, after he entered on possession of the estate. That Dutch bottle

distressed him beyond measure, because, though I and my sister were both no more, it cast a slur upon our

memory which he knew we had done nothing in our miserable youth, to deserve. That Dutch bottle, therefore,

he buried in the Mound belonging to him, and there it lay while you, you thankless wretch, were prodding

and pokingoften very near it, I dare say. His intention was, that it should never see the light; but he was

afraid to destroy it, lest to destroy such a document, even with his great generous motive, might be an offence

at law. After the discovery was made here who I was, Mr Boffin, still restless on the subject, told me, upon

certain conditions impossible for such a hound as you to appreciate, the secret of that Dutch bottle. I urged

upon him the necessity of its being dug up, and the paper being legally produced and established. The first

thing you saw him do, and the second thing has been done without your knowledge. Consequently, the paper

now rattling in your hand as I shake you and I should like to shake the life out of youis worth less than

Judging from the fallen countenance of Silas as his head wagged backwards and forwards in a most

Now, scoundrel,' said John Harmon, taking another sailorlike turn on his cravat and holding him in his

corner at arms' length, 'I shall make two more short speeches to you, because I hope they will torment you.

Your discovery was a genuine discovery (such as it was), for nobody had thought of looking into that place.

Neither did we know you had made it, until Venus spoke to Mr Boffin, though I kept you under good

observation from my first appearance here, and though Sloppy has long made it the chief occupation and

delight of his life, to attend you like your shadow. I tell you this, that you may know we knew enough of you

to persuade Mr Boffin to let us lead you on, deluded, to the last possible moment, in order that your

disappointment might be the heaviest possible disappointment. That's the first short speech, do you

'Now, scoundrel,' he pursued, 'I am going to finish. You supposed me just now, to be the possessor of my

father's property.So I am. But through any act of my father's, or by any right I have? No. Through the

munificence of Mr Boffin. The conditions that he made with me, before parting with the secret of the Dutch

bottle, were, that I should take the fortune, and that he should take his Mound and no more. I owe everything

I possess, solely to the disinterestedness, uprightness, tenderness, goodness (there are no words to satisfy me)

of Mr and Mrs Boffin. And when, knowing what I knew, I saw such a mudworm as you presume to rise in

this house against this noble soul, the wonder is,' added John Harmon through his clenched teeth, and with a

very ugly turn indeed on Wegg's cravat, 'that I didn't try to twist your head off, and fling THAT out of

Silas, released, put his hand to his throat, cleared it, and looked as if he had a rather large fishbone in that

region. Simultaneously with this action on his part in his corner, a singular, and on the surface an

incomprehensible, movement was made by Mr Sloppy: who began backing towards Mr Wegg along the wall,

in the manner of a porter or heaver who is about to lift a sack of flour or coals.

'I am sorry, Wegg,' said Mr Boffin, in his clemency, 'that my old lady and I can't have a better opinion of you

than the bad one we are forced to entertain. But I shouldn't like to leave you, after all said and done, worse off

in life than I found you. Therefore say in a word, before we part, what it'll cost to set you up in another stall.'

'And in another place,' John Harmon struck in. 'You don't come outside these windows.'

'Mr Boffin,' returned Wegg in avaricious humiliation: 'when I first had the honour of making your

acquaintance, I had got together a collection of ballads which was, I may say, above price.'

'Then they can't be paid for,' said John Harmon, 'and you had better not try, my dear sir.'

'Pardon me, Mr Boffin,' resumed Wegg, with a malignant glance in the last speaker's direction, 'I was putting

the case to you, who, if my senses did not deceive me, put the case to me. I had a very choice collection of

ballads, and there was a new stock of gingerbread in the tin box. I say no more, but would rather leave it to

'But it's difficult to name what's right,' said Mr Boffin uneasily, with his hand in his pocket, 'and I don't want

to go beyond what's right, because you really have turned out such a very bad fellow. So artful, and so

'There was also,' Mr Wegg went on, in a meditative manner, 'a errand connection, in which I was much

respected. But I would not wish to be deemed covetous, and I would rather leave it to you, Mr Boffin.'

'There was likewise,' resumed Wegg, 'a pair of trestles, for which alone a Irish person, who was deemed a

judge of trestles, offered five and sixa sum I would not hear of, for I should have lost by it and there

was a stool, a umbrella, a clotheshorse, and a tray. But I leave it to you, Mr Boffin.'

The Golden Dustman seeming to be engaged in some abstruse calculation, Mr Wegg assisted him with the

'There was, further, Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker. Ah! When a man thinks of

the loss of such patronage as that; when a man finds so fair a garden rooted up by pigs; he finds it hard

indeed, without going high, to work it into money. But I leave it wholly to you, sir.'

Mr Sloppy still continued his singular, and on the surface his incomprehensible, movement.

'Leading on has been mentioned,' said Wegg with a melancholy air, 'and it's not easy to say how far the tone

of my mind may have been lowered by unwholesome reading on the subject of Misers, when you was leading

me and others on to think you one yourself, sir. All I can say is, that I felt my tone of mind a lowering at the

time. And how can a man put a price upon his mind! There was likewise a hat just now. But I leave the ole to

The words were but out of his mouth when John Harmon lifted his finger, and Sloppy, who was now close to

Wegg, backed to Wegg's back, stooped, grasped his coat collar behind with both hands, and deftly swung him

up like the sack of flour or coals before mentioned. A countenance of special discontent and amazement Mr

Wegg exhibited in this position, with his buttons almost as prominently on view as Sloppy's own, and with

his wooden leg in a highly unaccommodating state. But, not for many seconds was his countenance visible in

the room; for, Sloppy lightly trotted out with him and trotted down the staircase, Mr Venus attending to open

the street door. Mr Sloppy's instructions had been to deposit his burden in the road; but, a scavenger's cart

happening to stand unattended at the corner, with its little ladder planted against the wheel, Mr S. found it

impossible to resist the temptation of shooting Mr Silas Wegg into the cart's contents. A somewhat difficult

How Bradley Headstone had been racked and riven in his mind since the quiet evening when by the

riverside he had risen, as it were, out of the ashes of the Bargeman, none but he could have told. Not even

First, he had to bear the combined weight of the knowledge of what he had done, of that haunting reproach

that he might have done it so much better, and of the dread of discovery. This was load enough to crush him,

and he laboured under it day and night. It was as heavy on him in his scanty sleep, as in his redeyed waking

hours. It bore him down with a dread unchanging monotony, in which there was not a moment's variety. The

overweighted beast of burden, or the overweighted slave, can for certain instants shift the physical load, and

find some slight respite even in enforcing additional pain upon such a set of muscles or such a limb. Not even

that poor mockery of relief could the wretched man obtain, under the steady pressure of the infernal

Time went by, and no visible suspicion dogged him; time went by, and in such public accounts of the attack

as were renewed at intervals, he began to see Mr Lightwood (who acted as lawyer for the injured man)

straying further from the fact, going wider of the issue, and evidently slackening in his zeal. By degrees, a

glimmering of the cause of this began to break on Bradley's sight. Then came the chance meeting with Mr

Milvey at the railway station (where he often lingered in his leisure hours, as a place where any fresh news of

his deed would be circulated, or any placard referring to it would be posted), and then he saw in the light

For, then he saw that through his desperate attempt to separate those two for ever, he had been made the

means of uniting them. That he had dipped his hands in blood, to mark himself a miserable fool and tool.

That Eugene Wrayburn, for his wife's sake, set him aside and left him to crawl along his blasted course. He

thought of Fate, or Providence, or be the directing Power what it might, as having put a fraud upon

New assurance of the truth came upon him in the next few following days, when it was put forth how the

wounded man had been married on his bed, and to whom, and how, though always in a dangerous condition,

he was a shade better. Bradley would far rather have been seized for his murder, than he would have read that

But, not to be still further defrauded and overreachedwhich he would be, if implicated by Riderhood, and

punished by the law for his abject failure, as though it had been a successhe kept close in his school during

the day, ventured out warily at night, and went no more to the railway station. He examined the

advertisements in the newspapers for any sign that Riderhood acted on his hinted threat of so summoning him

to renew their acquaintance, but found none. Having paid him handsomely for the support and

accommodation he had had at the Lock House, and knowing him to be a very ignorant man who could not

write, he began to doubt whether he was to be feared at all, or whether they need ever meet again.

All this time, his mind was never off the rack, and his raging sense of having been made to fling himself

across the chasm which divided those two, and bridge it over for their coming together, never cooled down.

This horrible condition brought on other fits. He could not have said how many, or when; but he saw in the

faces of his pupils that they had seen him in that state, and that they were possessed by a dread of his

One winter day when a slight fall of snow was feathering the sills and frames of the schoolroom windows, he

stood at his black board, crayon in hand, about to commence with a class; when, reading in the countenances

of those boys that there was something wrong, and that they seemed in alarm for him, he turned his eyes to

the door towards which they faced. He then saw a slouching man of forbidding appearance standing in the

midst of the school, with a bundle under his arm; and saw that it was Riderhood.

He sat down on a stool which one of his boys put for him, and he had a passing knowledge that he was in

danger of falling, and that his face was becoming distorted. But, the fit went off for that time, and he wiped

'Beg your pardon, governor! By your leave!' said Riderhood, knuckling his forehead, with a chuckle and a

'Where young folks learns wot's right?' said Riderhood, gravely nodding. 'Beg your pardon, governor! By

'And a lovely thing it must be,' said Riderhood, 'fur to learn young folks wot's right, and fur to know wot

THEY know wot you do it. Beg your pardon, learned governor! By your leave!That there black board;

'Is it though!' said Riderhood. 'Who'd have thought it, from the looks on it! WOULD you be so kind as write

Bradley hesitated for a moment; but placed his usual signature, enlarged, upon the board.

'I ain't a learned character myself,' said Riderhood, surveying the class, 'but I do admire learning in others. I

should dearly like to hear these here young folks read that there name off, from the writing.'

The arms of the class went up. At the miserable master's nod, the shrill chorus arose: 'Bradley Headstone!'

'No?' cried Riderhood. 'You don't mean it? Headstone! Why, that's in a churchyard. Hooroar for another turn!'

'I've got it now!' said Riderhood, after attentively listening, and internally repeating: 'Bradley. I see. Chris'en

name, Bradley sim'lar to Roger which is my own. Eh? Fam'ly name, Headstone, sim'lar to Riderhood which

'Might you be acquainted, learned governor,' said Riderhood, 'with a person of about your own heighth and

breadth, and wot 'ud pull down in a scale about your own weight, answering to a name sounding summat like

With a desperation in him that made him perfectly quiet, though his jaw was heavily squared; with his eyes

upon Riderhood; and with traces of quickened breathing in his nostrils; the schoolmaster replied, in a

'Begging your pardon, learned governor, and by your leave,' said Riderhood, with a laugh, 'how could I

suppose he's here, when there's nobody here but you, and me, and these young lambs wot you're a learning

on? But he is most excellent company, that man, and I want him to come and see me at my Lock, up the

'Having got your word for him,' said Riderhood, 'I shall count upon him. P'raps you'd so fur obleege me,

learned governor, as tell him that if he don't come precious soon, I'll look him up.'

'Thankee. As I says a while ago,' pursued Riderhood, changing his hoarse tone and leering round upon the

class again, 'though not a learned character my own self, I do admire learning in others, to be sure! Being

here and having met with your kind attention, Master, might I, afore I go, ask a question of these here young

'If it is in the way of school,' said Bradley, always sustaining his dark look at the other, and speaking in his

'Oh! It's in the way of school!' cried Riderhood. 'I'll pound it, Master, to be in the way of school. Wot's the

'Seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds,' said Riderhood. 'They've got all the lot, Master! Blowed if I shouldn't have

left out lakes, never having clapped eyes upon one, to my knowledge. Seas, rivers, lakes, and ponds. Wot is

'Good agin!' said Riderhood. 'But wot else is it, my lambs, as they sometimes ketches in rivers?'

'Good agin!' cried Riderhood. 'But it ain't weed neither. You'll never guess, my dears. Wot is it, besides fish,

as they sometimes ketches in rivers? Well! I'll tell you. It's suits o' clothes.'

'Leastways, lambs,' said Riderhood, observing him out of the corners of his eyes, 'that's wot I my own self

sometimes ketches in rivers. For strike me blind, my lambs, if I didn't ketch in a river the wery bundle under

The class looked at the master, as if appealing from the irregular entrapment of this mode of examination.

'I ask your pardon, learned governor,' said Riderhood, smearing his sleeve across his mouth as he laughed

with a relish, 'tain't fair to the lambs, I know. It wos a bit of fun of mine. But upon my soul I drawed this here

bundle out of a river! It's a Bargeman's suit of clothes. You see, it had been sunk there by the man as wore it,

They looked at each other. Bradley, slowly withdrawing his eyes, turned his face to the black board and

'A heap of thanks, Master,' said Riderhood, 'for bestowing so much of your time, and of the lambses' time,

upon a man as hasn't got no other recommendation to you than being a honest man. Wishing to see at my

Lock up the river, the person as we've spoke of, and as you've answered for, I takes my leave of the lambs

With those words, he slouched out of the school, leaving the master to get through his weary work as he

might, and leaving the whispering pupils to observe the master's face until he fell into the fit which had been

The next day but one was Saturday, and a holiday. Bradley rose early, and set out on foot for Plashwater Weir

Mill Lock. He rose so early that it was not yet light when he began his journey. Before extinguishing the

candle by which he had dressed himself, he made a little parcel of his decent silver watch and its decent

guard, and wrote inside the paper: 'Kindly take care of these for me.' He then addressed the parcel to Miss

Peecher, and left it on the most protected corner of the little seat in her little porch.

It was a cold hard easterly morning when he latched the garden gate and turned away. The light snowfall

which had feathered his schoolroom windows on the Thursday, still lingered in the air, and was falling white,

while the wind blew black. The tardy day did not appear until he had been on foot two hours, and had

traversed a greater part of London from east to west. Such breakfast as he had, he took at the comfortless

publichouse where he had parted from Riderhood on the occasion of their nightwalk. He took it, standing

at the littered bar, and looked loweringly at a man who stood where Riderhood had stood that early morning.

He outwalked the short day, and was on the towingpath by the river, somewhat footsore, when the night

closed in. Still two or three miles short of the Lock, he slackened his pace then, but went steadily on. The

ground was now covered with snow, though thinly, and there were floating lumps of ice in the more exposed

parts of the river, and broken sheets of ice under the shelter of the banks. He took heed of nothing but the ice,

the snow, and the distance, until he saw a light ahead, which he knew gleamed from the Lock House window.

It arrested his steps, and he looked all around. The ice, and the snow, and he, and the one light, had absolute

possession of the dreary scene. In the distance before him, lay the place where he had struck the worse than

useless blows that mocked him with Lizzie's presence there as Eugene's wife. In the distance behind him, lay

the place where the children with pointing arms had seemed to devote him to the demons in crying out his

name. Within there, where the light was, was the man who as to both distances could give him up to ruin. To

He mended his pace, keeping his eyes upon the light with a strange intensity, as if he were taking aim at it.

When he approached it so nearly as that it parted into rays, they seemed to fasten themselves to him and draw

him on. When he struck the door with his hand, his foot followed so quickly on his hand, that he was in the

The light was the joint product of a fire and a candle. Between the two, with his feet on the iron fender, sat

He looked up with a surly nod when his visitor came in. His visitor looked down with a surly nod. His outer

clothing removed, the visitor then took a seat on the opposite side of the fire.

'Not a smoker, I think?' said Riderhood, pushing a bottle to him across the table.

'You don't need to be told I am here,' said Bradley at length. 'Who is to begin?'

He finished it with great deliberation, knocked out the ashes on the hob, and put it by.

'And so you shall.' Riderhood had looked hard at his hands and his pockets, apparently as a precautionary

measure lest he should have any weapon about him. But, he now leaned forward, turning the collar of his

'No,' said Riderhood, still louder; 'it's on'y part of what I want of you. I want money of you.'

'Everythink else!' roared Riderhood, in a very loud and furious way. 'Answer me like that, and I won't talk to

'Don't so much as look at me like that, or I won't talk to you at all,' vociferated Riderhood. 'But, instead of

talking, I'll bring my hand down upon you with all its weight,' heavily smiting the table with great force, 'and

'O! I'm a going on. Don't you fear but I'll go on fullfast enough for you, and fur enough for you, without

your telling. Look here, Bradley Headstone, Master. You might have split the T'other governor to chips and

wedges, without my caring, except that I might have come upon you for a glass or so now and then. Else why

have to do with you at all? But when you copied my clothes, and when you copied my neckhankercher, and

when you shook blood upon me after you had done the trick, you did wot I'll be paid for and paid heavy for.

If it come to be throw'd upon you, you was to be ready to throw it upon me, was you? Where else but in

Plashwater Weir Mill Lock was there a man dressed according as described? Where else but in Plashwater

Weir Mill Lock was there a man as had had words with him coming through in his boat? Look at the

Lockkeeper in Plashwater Weir Mill Lock, in them same answering clothes and with that same answering

red neckhankercher, and see whether his clothes happens to be bloody or not. Yes, they do happen to be

'But two could play at your game,' said Riderhood, snapping his fingers at him half a dozen times, 'and I

played it long ago; long afore you tried your clumsy hand at it; in days when you hadn't begun croaking your

lecters or what not in your school. I know to a figure how you done it. Where you stole away, I could steal

away arter you, and do it knowinger than you. I know how you come away from London in your own clothes,

and where you changed your clothes, and hid your clothes. I see you with my own eyes take your own clothes

from their hidingplace among them felled trees, and take a dip in the river to account for your dressing

yourself, to any one as might come by. I see you rise up Bradley Headstone, Master, where you sat down

Bargeman. I see you pitch your Bargeman's bundle into the river. I hooked your Bargeman's bundle out of the

river. I've got your Bargeman's clothes, tore this way and that way with the scuffle, stained green with the

grass, and spattered all over with what bust from the blows. I've got them, and I've got you. I don't care a

curse for the T'other governor, alive or dead, but I care a many curses for my own self. And as you laid your

plots agin me and was a sly devil agin me, I'll be paid for itI'll be paid for itI'll be paid for ittill I've

Bradley looked at the fire, with a working face, and was silent for a while. At last he said, with what seemed

'You can't get out of me what is not in me. You can't wrest from me what I have not got. Mine is but a poor

calling. You have had more than two guineas from me, already. Do you know how long it has taken me

'I don't know, nor I don't care. Yours is a 'spectable calling. To save your 'spectability, it's worth your while to

pawn every article of clothes you've got, sell every stick in your house, and beg and borrow every penny you

can get trusted with. When you've done that and handed over, I'll leave you. Not afore.'

'I mean as I'll keep you company, wherever you go, when you go away from here. Let the Lock take care of

Bradley again looked at the fire. Eyeing him aside, Riderhood took up his pipe, refilled it, lighted it, and sat

smoking. Bradley leaned his elbows on his knees, and his head upon his hands, and looked at the fire with a

'Riderhood,' he said, raising himself in his chair, after a long silence, and drawing out his purse and putting it

on the table. 'Say I part with this, which is all the money I have; say I let you have my watch; say that every

'Say nothink of the sort,' retorted Riderhood, shaking his head as he smoked. 'You've got away once, and I

won't run the chance agin. I've had trouble enough to find you, and shouldn't have found you, if I hadn't seen

you slipping along the street overnight, and watched you till you was safe housed. I'll have one settlement

'Riderhood, I am a man who has lived a retired life. I have no resources beyond myself. I have absolutely no

'That's a lie,' said Riderhood. 'You've got one friend as I knows of; one as is good for a SavingsBank book,

Bradley's face darkened, and his hand slowly closed on the purse and drew it back, as he sat listening for

'I went into the wrong shop, fust, last Thursday,' said Riderhood. 'Found myself among the young ladies, by

George! Over the young ladies, I see a Missis. That Missis is sweet enough upon you, Master, to sell herself

Bradley stared at him so very suddenly that Riderhood, not quite knowing how to take it, affected to be

occupied with the encircling smoke from his pipe; fanning it away with his hand, and blowing it off.

'You spoke to the mistress, did you?' inquired Bradley, with that former composure of voice and feature that

'Poof! Yes,' said Riderhood, withdrawing his attention from the smoke. 'I spoke to her. I didn't say much to

her. She was put in a fluster by my dropping in among the young ladies (I never did set up for a lady's man),

and she took me into her parlour to hope as there was nothink wrong. I tells her, "O no, nothink wrong. The

master's my wery good friend." But I see how the land laid, and that she was comfortable off.'

Bradley put the purse in his pocket, grasped his left wrist with his right hand, and sat rigidly contemplating

'She couldn't live more handy to you than she does,' said Riderhood, 'and when I goes home with you (as of

course I am a going), I recommend you to clean her out without loss of time. You can marry her, arter you

and me have come to a settlement. She's nicelooking, and I know you can't be keeping company with no one

Not one other word did Bradley utter all that night. Not once did he change his attitude, or loosen his hold

upon his wrist. Rigid before the fire, as if it were a charmed flame that was turning him old, he sat, with the

dark lines deepening in his face, its stare becoming more and more haggard, its surface turning whiter and

whiter as if it were being overspread with ashes, and the very texture and colour of his hair degenerating.

Not until the late daylight made the window transparent, did this decaying statue move. Then it slowly arose,

Riderhood had kept his chair all night. In the earlier part of the night he had muttered twice or thrice that it

was bitter cold; or that the fire burnt fast, when he got up to mend it; but, as he could elicit from his

companion neither sound nor movement, he had afterwards held his peace. He was making some disorderly

preparations for coffee, when Bradley came from the window and put on his outer coat and hat.

'Hadn't us better have a bit o' breakfast afore we start?' said Riderhood. 'It ain't good to freeze a empty

Without a sign to show that he heard, Bradley walked out of the Lock House. Catching up from the table a

piece of bread, and taking his Bargeman's bundle under his arm, Riderhood immediately followed him.

The two men trudged on, side by side, in silence, full three miles. Suddenly, Bradley turned to retrace his

Bradley reentered the Lock House. So did Riderhood. Bradley sat down in the window. Riderhood warmed

himself at the fire. After an hour or more, Bradley abruptly got up again, and again went out, but this time

turned the other way. Riderhood was close after him, caught him up in a few paces, and walked at his side.

This time, as before, when he found his attendant not to be shaken off, Bradley suddenly turned back. This

time, as before, Riderhood turned back along with him. But, not this time, as before, did they go into the

Lock House, for Bradley came to a stand on the snow covered turf by the Lock, looking up the river and

down the river. Navigation was impeded by the frost, and the scene was a mere white and yellow desert.

'Come, come, Master,' urged Riderhood, at his side. 'This is a dry game. And where's the good of it? You

can't get rid of me, except by coming to a settlement. I am a going along with you wherever you go.'

Without a word of reply, Bradley passed quickly from him over the wooden bridge on the lock gates. 'Why,

there's even less sense in this move than t'other,' said Riderhood, following. 'The Weir's there, and you'll have

Without taking the least notice, Bradley leaned his body against a post, in a resting attitude, and there rested

with his eyes cast down. 'Being brought here,' said Riderhood, gruffly, 'I'll turn it to some use by changing my

gates.' With a rattle and a rush of water, he then swungto the lock gates that were standing open, before

'You'd better by far be reasonable, Bradley Headstone, Master,' said Riderhood, passing him, 'or I'll drain you

Bradley had caught him round the body. He seemed to be girdled with an iron ring. They were on the brink of

'Let go!' said Riderhood, 'or I'll get my knife out and slash you wherever I can cut you. Let go!'

Bradley was drawing to the Lockedge. Riderhood was drawing away from it. It was a strong grapple, and a

fierce struggle, arm and leg. Bradley got him round, with his back to the Lock, and still worked him

'Let go!' said Riderhood. 'Stop! What are you trying at? You can't drown Me. Ain't I told you that the man as

'I can be!' returned Bradley, in a desperate, clenched voice. 'I am resolved to be. I'll hold you living, and I'll

Riderhood went over into the smooth pit, backward, and Bradley Headstone upon him. When the two were

found, lying under the ooze and scum behind one of the rotting gates, Riderhood's hold had relaxed, probably

in falling, and his eyes were staring upward. But, he was girdled still with Bradley's iron ring, and the rivets

Mr and Mrs John Harmon's first delightful occupation was, to set all matters right that had strayed in any way

wrong, or that might, could, would, or should, have strayed in any way wrong, while their name was in

abeyance. In tracing out affairs for which John's fictitious death was to be considered in any way responsible,

they used a very broad and free construction; regarding, for instance, the dolls' dressmaker as having a claim

on their protection, because of her association with Mrs Eugene Wrayburn, and because of Mrs Eugene's old

association, in her turn, with the dark side of the story. It followed that the old man, Riah, as a good and

serviceable friend to both, was not to be disclaimed. Nor even Mr Inspector, as having been trepanned into an

industrious hunt on a false scent. It may be remarked, in connexion with that worthy officer, that a rumour

shortly afterwards pervaded the Force, to the effect that he had confided to Miss Abbey Potterson, over a jug

of mellow flip in the bar of the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters, that he 'didn't stand to lose a farthing' through

Mr Harmon's coming to life, but was quite as well satisfied as if that gentleman had been barbarously

In all their arrangements of such nature, Mr and Mrs John Harmon derived much assistance from their

eminent solicitor, Mr Mortimer Lightwood; who laid about him professionally with such unwonted despatch

and intention, that a piece of work was vigorously pursued as soon as cut out; whereby Young Blight was

acted on as by that transatlantic dram which is poetically named An Eye Opener, and found himself staring

at real clients instead of out of window. The accessibility of Riah proving very useful as to a few hints

towards the disentanglement of Eugene's affairs, Lightwood applied himself with infinite zest to attacking

and harassing Mr Fledgeby: who, discovering himself in danger of being blown into the air by certain

explosive transactions in which he had been engaged, and having been sufficiently flayed under his beating,

came to a parley and asked for quarter. The harmless Twemlow profited by the conditions entered into,

though he little thought it. Mr Riah unaccountably melted; waited in person on him over the stable yard in

Duke Street, St James's, no longer ravening but mild, to inform him that payment of interest as heretofore, but

henceforth at Mr Lightwood's offices, would appease his Jewish rancour; and departed with the secret that Mr

John Harmon had advanced the money and become the creditor. Thus, was the sublime Snigsworth's wrath

averted, and thus did he snort no larger amount of moral grandeur at the Corinthian column in the print over

Mrs Wilfer's first visit to the Mendicant's bride at the new abode of Mendicancy, was a grand event. Pa had

been sent for into the City, on the very day of taking possession, and had been stunned with astonishment,

and broughtto, and led about the house by one ear, to behold its various treasures, and had been enraptured

and enchanted. Pa had also been appointed Secretary, and had been enjoined to give instant notice of

resignation to Chicksey, Veneering, and Stobbles, for ever and ever. But Ma came later, and came, as was her

The carriage was sent for Ma, who entered it with a bearing worthy of the occasion, accompanied, rather than

supported, by Miss Lavinia, who altogether declined to recognize the maternal majesty. Mr George Sampson

meekly followed. He was received in the vehicle, by Mrs Wilfer, as if admitted to the honour of assisting at a

funeral in the family, and she then issued the order, 'Onward!' to the Mendicant's menial.

'I wish to goodness, Ma,' said Lavvy, throwing herself back among the cushions, with her arms crossed, 'that

'I am sure you look so, Ma. But why one should go out to dine with one's own daughter or sister, as if one's

'Neither do I understand,' retorted Mrs Wilfer, with deep scorn, 'how a young lady can mention the garment in

'Thank you, Ma,' said Lavvy, yawning, 'but I can do it for myself, I am obliged to you, when there's any

Here, Mr Sampson, with the view of establishing harmony, which he never under any circumstances

succeeded in doing, said with an agreeable smile: 'After all, you know, ma'am, we know it's there.' And

'Really, George,' remonstrated Miss Lavinia, 'I must say that I don't understand your allusions, and that I

'Go it!' cried Mr Sampson, becoming, on the shortest notice, a prey to despair. 'Oh yes! Go it, Miss Lavinia

'What you may mean, George Sampson, by your omnibusdriving expressions, I cannot pretend to imagine.

Neither,' said Miss Lavinia, 'Mr George Sampson, do I wish to imagine. It is enough for me to know in my

own heart that I am not going to' having imprudently got into a sentence without providing a way out of it,

Miss Lavinia was constrained to close with 'going to it'. A weak conclusion which, however, derived some

'If you mean to say,' Miss Lavvy cut him short, that you never brought up a young gazelle, you may save

yourself the trouble, because nobody in this carriage supposes that you ever did. We know you better.' (As if

'Lavinia,' returned Mr Sampson, in a dismal vein, I did not mean to say so. What I did mean to say,was, that I

never expected to retain my favoured place in this family, after Fortune shed her beams upon it. Why do you

take me,' said Mr Sampson, 'to the glittering halls with which I can never compete, and then taunt me with

The stately lady, Mrs Wilfer, perceiving her opportunity of delivering a few remarks from the throne, here

'Mr Sampson,' she began, 'I cannot permit you to misrepresent the intentions of a child of mine.'

'Let him alone, Ma,' Miss Lavvy interposed with haughtiness. 'It is indifferent to me what he says or does.'

'Nay, Lavinia,' quoth Mrs Wilfer, 'this touches the blood of the family. If Mr George Sampson attributes,

('I don't see why you should use the word "even", Ma,' Miss Lavvy interposed, 'because I am quite as

'Peace!' said Mrs Wilfer, solemnly. 'I repeat, if Mr George Sampson attributes, to my youngest daughter,

grovelling motives, he attributes them equally to the mother of my youngest daughter. That mother repudiates

them, and demands of Mr George Sampson, as a youth of honour, what he WOULD have? I may be

mistakennothing is more likelybut Mr George Sampson,' proceeded Mrs Wilfer, majestically waving

her gloves, 'appears to me to be seated in a firstclass equipage. Mr George Sampson appears to me to be on

his way, by his own admission, to a residence that may be termed Palatial. Mr George Sampson appears to

me to be invited to participate in theshall I say the Elevation which has descended on the family with

which he is ambitious, shall I say to Mingle? Whence, then, this tone on Mr Sampson's part?'

'It is only, ma'am,' Mr Sampson explained, in exceedingly low spirits, 'because, in a pecuniary sense, I am

painfully conscious of my unworthiness. Lavinia is now highly connected. Can I hope that she will still

remain the same Lavinia as of old? And is it not pardonable if I feel sensitive, when I see a disposition on her

'If you are not satisfied with your position, sir,' observed Miss Lavinia, with much politeness, 'we can set you

'Then if you can't do it in a more agreeable manner,' returned the young lady, 'I wish you wouldn't.'

'I also,' pursued Mr Sampson, 'respect you, ma'am, to an extent which must ever be below your merits, I am

well aware, but still up to an uncommon mark. Bear with a wretch, Lavinia, bear with a wretch, ma'am, who

feels the noble sacrifices you make for him, but is goaded almost to madness,' Mr Sampson slapped his

'When you have to compete with the rich and influential, it will probably be mentioned to you,' said Miss

Mr Sampson immediately expressed his fervent Opinion that this was 'more than human', and was brought

It was the crowning addition indispensable to the full enjoyment of both mother and daughter, to bear Mr

Sampson, a grateful captive, into the glittering halls he had mentioned, and to parade him through the same,

at once a living witness of their glory, and a bright instance of their condescension. Ascending the staircase,

Miss Lavinia permitted him to walk at her side, with the air of saying: 'Notwithstanding all these

surroundings, I am yours as yet, George. How long it may last is another question, but I am yours as yet.' She

also benignantly intimated to him, aloud, the nature of the objects upon which he looked, and to which he

was unaccustomed: as, 'Exotics, George,' 'An aviary, George,' 'An ormolu clock, George,' and the like. While,

through the whole of the decorations, Mrs Wilfer led the way with the bearing of a Savage Chief, who would

feel himself compromised by manifesting the slightest token of surprise or admiration.

Indeed, the bearing of this impressive woman, throughout the day, was a pattern to all impressive women

under similar circumstances. She renewed the acquaintance of Mr and Mrs Boffin, as if Mr and Mrs Boffin

had said of her what she had said of them, and as if Time alone could quite wear her injury out. She regarded

every servant who approached her, as her sworn enemy, expressly intending to offer her affronts with the

dishes, and to pour forth outrages on her moral feelings from the decanters. She sat erect at table, on the right

hand of her soninlaw, as half suspecting poison in the viands, and as bearing up with native force of

character against other deadly ambushes. Her carriage towards Bella was as a carriage towards a young lady

of good position, whom she had met in society a few years ago. Even when, slightly thawing under the

influence of sparkling champagne, she related to her soninlaw some passages of domestic interest

concerning her papa, she infused into the narrative such Arctic suggestions of her having been an

unappreciated blessing to mankind, since her papa's days, and also of that gentleman's having been a frosty

impersonation of a frosty race, as struck cold to the very soles of the feet of the hearers. The Inexhaustible

being produced, staring, and evidently intending a weak and washy smile shortly, no sooner beheld her, than

it was stricken spasmodic and inconsolable. When she took her leave at last, it would have been hard to say

whether it was with the air of going to the scaffold herself, or of leaving the inmates of the house for

immediate execution. Yet, John Harmon enjoyed it all merrily, and told his wife, when he and she were

alone, that her natural ways had never seemed so dearly natural as beside this foil, and that although he did

not dispute her being her father's daughter, he should ever remain stedfast in the faith that she could not be

This visit was, as has been said, a grand event. Another event, not grand but deemed in the house a special

one, occurred at about the same period; and this was, the first interview between Mr Sloppy and Miss Wren.

The dolls' dressmaker, being at work for the Inexhaustible upon a fulldressed doll some two sizes larger

'Come in, sir,' said Miss Wren, who was working at her bench. 'And who may you be?'

'Oh indeed!' cried Jenny. 'Ah! I have been looking forward to knowing you. I heard of your distinguishing

'Did you, Miss?' grinned Sloppy. 'I am sure I am glad to hear it, but I don't know how.'

'Bless us!' exclaimed Miss Wren, with a start. 'Don't open your mouth as wide as that, young man, or it'll

Mr Sloppy opened it, if possible, wider, and kept it open until his laugh was out.

'Why, you're like the giant,' said Miss Wren, 'when he came home in the land of Beanstalk, and wanted Jack

Her visitor glanced round the roomwhich had many comforts in it now, that had not been in it beforeand

The honesty of Mr Sloppy being severely taxed by the question, he twisted a button, grinned, and faltered.

'Out with it!' said Miss Wren, with an arch look. 'Don't you think me a queer little comicality?' In shaking her

Miss Wren, with her usual expressive hitch, went on with her work. But, left her hair as it was; not displeased

'Well!' replied Miss Wren, more seriously. 'With my second father. Or with my first, for that matter.' And she

shook her head, and drew a sigh. 'If you had known a poor child I used to have here,' she added, 'you'd have

'You must have been taught a long time,' said Sloppy, glancing at the array of dolls in hand, 'before you came

'Never was taught a stitch, young man!' returned the dressmaker, tossing her head. 'Just gobbled and

'And here have I,' said Sloppy, in something of a selfreproachful tone, 'been a learning and a learning, and

Mr Sloppy nodded. 'Now that the Mounds is done with, it is. I'll tell you what, Miss. I should like to make

'I could make you,' said Sloppy, surveying the room, 'I could make you a handy set of nests to lay the dolls in.

Or I could make you a handy little set of drawers, to keep your silks and threads and scraps in. Or I could turn

you a rare handle for that crutchstick, if it belongs to him you call your father.'

'It belongs to me,' returned the little creature, with a quick flush of her face and neck. 'I am lame.'

Poor Sloppy flushed too, for there was an instinctive delicacy behind his buttons, and his own hand had

struck it. He said, perhaps, the best thing in the way of amends that could be said. 'I am very glad it's yours,

because I'd rather ornament it for you than for any one else. Please may I look at it?'

Miss Wren was in the act of handing it to him over her bench, when she paused. 'But you had better see me

use it,' she said, sharply. 'This is the way. Hoppetty, Kicketty, Peppegpeg. Not pretty; is it?'

The little dressmaker sat down again, and gave it into his hand, saying, with that better look upon her, and

'And as concerning the nests and the drawers,' said Sloppy, after measuring the handle on his sleeve, and

softly standing the stick aside against the wall, 'why, it would be a real pleasure to me. I've heerd tell that you

can sing most beautiful; and I should be better paid with a song than with any money, for I always loved the

likes of that, and often giv' Mrs Higden and Johnny a comic song myself, with "Spoken" in it. Though that's

'You are a very kind young man,' returned the dressmaker; 'a really kind young man. I accept your offer.I

suppose He won't mind,' she added as an afterthought, shrugging her shoulders; 'and if he does, he may!'

'Him who is coming to court and marry me,' returned Miss Wren. 'Dear me, how slow you are!'

'Oh! HIM!' said Sloppy. And seemed to turn thoughtful and a little troubled. 'I never thought of him. When is

'Why, good gracious, how can I tell! He is coming from somewhere or other, I suppose, and he is coming

This tickled Mr Sloppy as an extraordinarily good joke, and he threw back his head and laughed with

measureless enjoyment. At the sight of him laughing in that absurd way, the dolls' dressmaker laughed very

'There, there, there!' said Miss Wren. 'For goodness' sake, stop, Giant, or I shall be swallowed up alive, before

'I thought as much,' remarked Miss Wren, 'and here is little Miss Harmonses doll waiting for you. She's

folded up in silver paper, you see, as if she was wrapped from head to foot in new Bank notes. Take care of

'I'll take more care of her than if she was a gold image,' said Sloppy, 'and there's both MY hands, Miss, and

But, the greatest event of all, in the new life of Mr and Mrs John Harmon, was a visit from Mr and Mrs

Eugene Wrayburn. Sadly wan and worn was the once gallant Eugene, and walked resting on his wife's arm,

and leaning heavily upon a stick. But, he was daily growing stronger and better, and it was declared by the

medical attendants that he might not be much disfigured byandby. It was a grand event, indeed, when Mr

and Mrs Eugene Wrayburn came to stay at Mr and Mrs John Harmon's house: where, by the way, Mr and

Mrs Boffin (exquisitely happy, and daily cruising about, to look at shops,) were likewise staying indefinitely.

To Mr Eugene Wrayburn, in confidence, did Mrs John Harmon impart what she had known of the state of his

wife's affections, in his reckless time. And to Mrs John Harmon, in confidence, did Mr Eugene Wrayburn

'I make no protestations,' said Eugene; 'who does, who means them!I have made a resolution.'

'But would you believe, Bella,' interposed his wife, coming to resume her nurse's place at his side, for he

never got on well without her: 'that on our wedding day he told me he almost thought the best thing he could

'As I didn't do it, Lizzie,' said Eugene, 'I'll do that better thing you suggestedfor your sake.'

That same afternoon, Eugene lying on his couch in his own room upstairs, Lightwood came to chat with him,

while Bella took his wife out for a ride. 'Nothing short of force will make her go, Eugene had said; so, Bella

'Dear old fellow,' Eugene began with Lightwood, reaching up his hand, 'you couldn't have come at a better

time, for my mind is full, and I want to empty it. First, of my present, before I touch upon my future. M. R.

F., who is a much younger cavalier than I, and a professed admirer of beauty, was so affable as to remark the

other day (he paid us a visit of two days up the river there, and much objected to the accommodation of the

hotel), that Lizzie ought to have her portrait painted. Which, coming from M. R. F., may be considered

'Really,' said Eugene, 'I mean it. When M. R. F. said that, and followed it up by rolling the claret (for which

he called, and I paid), in his mouth, and saying, "My dear son, why do you drink this trash?" it was

tantamount in himto a paternal benediction on our union, accompanied with a gush of tears. The coolness

'That's all,' pursued Eugene, 'that I shall ever hear from M. R. F. on the subject, and he will continue to

saunter through the world with his hat on one side. My marriage being thus solemnly recognized at the family

altar, I have no further trouble on that score. Next, you really have done wonders for me, Mortimer, in easing

my moneyperplexities, and with such a guardian and steward beside me, as the preserver of my life (I am

hardly strong yet, you see, for I am not man enough to refer to her without a trembling voiceshe is so

inexpressibly dear to me, Mortimer!), the little that I can call my own will be more than it ever has been. It

'Worse than nothing, I fancy, Eugene. My own small income (I devoutly wish that my grandfather had left it

to the Ocean rather than to me!) has been an effective Something, in the way of preventing me from turning

'There spake the voice of wisdom,' said Eugene. 'We are shepherds both. In turning to at last, we turn to in

earnest. Let us say no more of that, for a few years to come. Now, I have had an idea, Mortimer, of taking

He said it with such a livelyalmost angryflash, that Mortimer showed himself greatly surprised.

'You think this thumped head of mine is excited?' Eugene went on, with a high look; 'not so, believe me. I can

say to you of the healthful music of my pulse what Hamlet said of his. My blood is up, but wholesomely up,

when I think of it. Tell me! Shall I turn coward to Lizzie, and sneak away with her, as if I were ashamed of

her! Where would your friend's part in this world be, Mortimer, if she had turned coward to him, and on

'And yet, are you sure that you might not feel (for her sake, I say for her sake) any slight coldness towards her

'O! You and I may well stumble at the word,' returned Eugene, laughing. 'Do we mean our Tippins?'

'Faith, we DO!' returned Eugene, with great animation. 'We may hide behind the bush and beat about it, but

we DO! Now, my wife is something nearer to my heart, Mortimer, than Tippins is, and I owe her a little more

than I owe to Tippins, and I am rather prouder of her than I ever was of Tippins. Therefore, I will fight it out

to the last gasp, with her and for her, here, in the open field. When I hide her, or strike for her,

faintheartedly, in a hole or a corner, do you whom I love next best upon earth, tell me what I shall most

righteously deserve to be told:that she would have done well to turn me over with her foot that night when

The glow that shone upon him as he spoke the words, so irradiated his features that he looked, for the time, as

though he had never been mutilated. His friend responded as Eugene would have had him respond, and they

discoursed of the future until Lizzie came back. After resuming her place at his side, and tenderly touching

'Eugene, dear, you made me go out, but I ought to have stayed with you. You are more flushed than you have

'And talking to Mr Lightwood,' said Lizzie, turning to him with a smile. 'But it cannot have been Society that

'Faith, my dear love!' retorted Eugene, in his old airy manner, as he laughed and kissed her, 'I rather think it

The word ran so much in Mortimer Lightwood's thoughts as he went home to the Temple that night, that he

resolved to take a look at Society, which he had not seen for a considerable period.

Behoves Mortimer Lightwood, therefore, to answer a dinner card from Mr and Mrs Veneering requesting the

honour, and to signify that Mr Mortimer Lightwood will be happy to have the other honour. The Veneerings

have been, as usual, indefatigably dealing dinner cards to Society, and whoever desires to take a hand had

best be quick about it, for it is written in the Books of the Insolvent Fates that Veneering shall make a

resounding smash next week. Yes. Having found out the clue to that great mystery how people can contrive

to live beyond their means, and having overjobbed his jobberies as legislator deputed to the Universe by the

pure electors of PocketBreaches, it shall come to pass next week that Veneering will accept the Chiltern

Hundreds, that the legal gentleman in Britannia's confidence will again accept the Pocket Breaches

Thousands, and that the Veneerings will retire to Calais, there to live on Mrs Veneering's diamonds (in which

Mr Veneering, as a good husband, has from time to time invested considerable sums), and to relate to

Neptune and others, how that, before Veneering retired from Parliament, the House of Commons was

composed of himself and the six hundred and fiftyseven dearest and oldest friends he had in the world. It

shall likewise come to pass, at as nearly as possible the same period, that Society will discover that it always

did despise Veneering, and distrust Veneering, and that when it went to Veneering's to dinner it always had

misgivingsthough very secretly at the time, it would seem, and in a perfectly private and confidential

The next week's books of the Insolvent Fates, however, being not yet opened, there is the usual rush to the

Veneerings, of the people who go to their house to dine with one another and not with them. There is Lady

Tippins. There are Podsnap the Great, and Mrs Podsnap. There is Twemlow. There are Buffer, Boots, and

Brewer. There is the Contractor, who is Providence to five hundred thousand men. There is the Chairman,

travelling three thousand miles per week. There is the brilliant genius who turned the shares into that

remarkably exact sum of three hundred and seventy five thousand pounds, no shillings, and nopence.

To whom, add Mortimer Lightwood, coming in among them with a reassumption of his old languid air,

founded on Eugene, and belonging to the days when he told the story of the man from Somewhere.

That fresh fairy, Tippins, all but screams at sight of her false swain. She summons the deserter to her with her

fan; but the deserter, predetermined not to come, talks Britain with Podsnap. Podsnap always talks Britain,

and talks as if he were a sort of Private Watchman employed, in the British interests, against the rest of the

world. 'We know what Russia means, sir,' says Podsnap; 'we know what France wants; we see what America

However, when dinner is served, and Lightwood drops into his old place over against Lady Tippins, she can

be fended off no longer. 'Long banished Robinson Crusoe,' says the charmer, exchanging salutations, 'how

'They were becoming civilized when I left Juan Fernandez,' says Lightwood. 'At least they were eating one

'Tormentor!' returns the dear young creature. 'You know what I mean, and you trifle with my impatience. Tell

'I hope she steered herself, skiffed herself, paddled herself, larboarded and starboarded herself, or whatever

Lady Tippins with a skittish little scream, attracts the general attention. 'Graced it! Take care of me if I faint,

'Pardon me. I mean to tell you nothing, Lady Tippins,' replies Lightwood. And keeps his word by eating his

'You shall not escape me in this way, you morose backwoodsman,' retorts Lady Tippins. 'You shall not evade

the question, to screen your friend Eugene, who has made this exhibition of himself. The knowledge shall be

brought home to you that such a ridiculous affair is condemned by the voice of Society. My dear Mrs

Veneering, do let us resolve ourselves into a Committee of the whole House on the subject.'

Mrs Veneering, always charmed by this rattling sylph, cries. 'Oh yes! Do let us resolve ourselves into a

Committee of the whole House! So delicious!' Veneering says, 'As many as are of that opinion, say

Aye,contrary, Nothe Ayes have it.' But nobody takes the slightest notice of his joke.

('What spirits she has!' exclaims Mrs Veneering; to whom likewise nobody attends.)

'And this,' pursues the sprightly one, 'is a Committee of the whole House to whatyoumaycallitelicit, I

supposethe voice of Society. The question before the Committee is, whether a young man of very fair

family, good appearance, and some talent, makes a fool or a wise man of himself in marrying a female

'Hardly so, I think,' the stubborn Mortimer strikes in. 'I take the question to be, whether such a man as you

describe, Lady Tippins, does right or wrong in marrying a brave woman (I say nothing of her beauty), who

has saved his life, with a wonderful energy and address; whom he knows to be virtuous, and possessed of

remarkable qualities; whom he has long admired, and who is deeply attached to him.'

'But, excuse me,' says Podsnap, with his temper and his shirtcollar about equally rumpled; 'was this young

General sensation against the young woman. Brewer shakes his head. Boots shakes his head. Buffer shakes

'And now, Mr Lightwood, was she ever,' pursues Podsnap, with his indignation rising high into those

General sensation repeated. Brewer says, 'Oh dear!' Boots says, 'Oh dear!' Buffer says, 'Oh dear!' All, in a

'Then all I have to say is,' returns Podsnap, putting the thing away with his right arm, 'that my gorge rises

against such a marriage that it offends and disgusts methat it makes me sickand that I desire to know

('Now I wonder,' thinks Mortimer, amused, 'whether YOU are the Voice of Society!')

'Hear, hear, hear!' cries Lady Tippins. 'Your opinion of this MESALLIANCE, honourable colleagues of the

Mrs Podsnap is of opinion that in these matters there should be an equality of station and fortune, and that a

man accustomed to Society should look out for a woman accustomed to Society and capable of bearing her

part in it withan ease and elegance of carriagethat.' Mrs Podsnap stops there, delicately intimating that

every such man should look out for a fine woman as nearly resembling herself as he may hope to discover.

Lady Tippins next canvasses the Contractor, of five hundred thousand power. It appears to this potentate, that

what the man in question should have done, would have been, to buy the young woman a boat and a small

annuity, and set her up for herself. These things are a question of beefsteaks and porter. You buy the young

woman a boat. Very good. You buy her, at the same time, a small annuity. You speak of that annuity in

pounds sterling, but it is in reality so many pounds of beefsteaks and so many pints of porter. On the one

hand, the young woman has the boat. On the other hand, she consumes so many pounds of beefsteaks and so

many pints of porter. Those beefsteaks and that porter are the fuel to that young woman's engine. She derives

therefrom a certain amount of power to row the boat; that power will produce so much money; you add that

to the small annuity; and thus you get at the young woman's income. That (it seems to the Contractor) is the

The fair enslaver having fallen into one of her gentle sleeps during the last exposition, nobody likes to wake

her. Fortunately, she comes awake of herself, and puts the question to the Wandering Chairman. The

Wanderer can only speak of the case as if it were his own. If such a young woman as the young woman

described, had saved his own life, he would have been very much obliged to her, wouldn't have married her,

and would have got her a berth in an Electric Telegraph Office, where young women answer very well.

What does the Genius of the three hundred and seventyfive thousand pounds, no shillings, and nopence,

think? He can't say what he thinks, without asking: Had the young woman any money?

'Madness and moonshine,' is then the compressed verdict of the Genius. 'A man may do anything lawful, for

Lady Tippins fancies she has collected the suffrages of the whole Committee (nobody dreaming of asking the

Veneerings for their opinion), when, looking round the table through her eyeglass, she perceives Mr

Twemlow has the air of being ill at ease, as he takes his hand from his forehead and replies.

'I am disposed to think,' says he, 'that this is a question of the feelings of a gentleman.'

'A gentleman can have no feelings who contracts such a marriage,' flushes Podsnap.

'Pardon me, sir,' says Twemlow, rather less mildly than usual, 'I don't agree with you. If this gentleman's

feelings of gratitude, of respect, of admiration, and affection, induced him (as I presume they did) to marry

'Sir,' returns Twemlow, with his wristbands bristling a little, 'YOU repeat the word; I repeat the word. This

This being something in the nature of a poser for Podsnap, he merely waves it away with a speechless wave.

'I say,' resumes Twemlow, 'if such feelings on the part of this gentleman, induced this gentleman to marry this

lady, I think he is the greater gentleman for the action, and makes her the greater lady. I beg to say, that when

I use the word, gentleman, I use it in the sense in which the degree may be attained by any man. The feelings

of a gentleman I hold sacred, and I confess I am not comfortable when they are made the subject of sport or

'I should like to know,' sneers Podsnap, 'whether your noble relation would be of your opinion.'

'Mr Podsnap,' retorts Twemlow, 'permit me. He might be, or he might not be. I cannot say. But, I could not

allow even him to dictate to me on a point of great delicacy, on which I feel very strongly.'

Somehow, a canopy of wet blanket seems to descend upon the company, and Lady Tippins was never known

to turn so very greedy or so very cross. Mortimer Lightwood alone brightens. He has been asking himself, as

to every other member of the Committee in turn, 'I wonder whether you are the Voice!' But he does not ask

himself the question after Twemlow has spoken, and he glances in Twemlow's direction as if he were

grateful. When the company disperseby which time Mr and Mrs Veneering have had quite as much as they

want of the honour, and the guests have had quite as much as THEY want of the other honourMortimer

sees Twemlow home, shakes hands with him cordially at parting, and fares to the Temple, gaily.

When I devised this story, I foresaw the likelihood that a class of readers and commentators would suppose

that I was at great pains to conceal exactly what I was at great pains to suggest: namely, that Mr John Harmon

was not slain, and that Mr John Rokesmith was he. Pleasing myself with the idea that the supposition might

in part arise out of some ingenuity in the story, and thinking it worth while, in the interests of art, to hint to an

audience that an artist (of whatever denomination) may perhaps be trusted to know what he is about in his

vocation, if they will concede him a little patience, I was not alarmed by the anticipation.

To keep for a long time unsuspected, yet always working itself out, another purpose originating in that

leading incident, and turning it to a pleasant and useful account at last, was at once the most interesting and

the most difficult part of my design. Its difficulty was much enhanced by the mode of publication; for, it

would be very unreasonable to expect that many readers, pursuing a story in portions from month to month

through nineteen months, will, until they have it before them complete, perceive the relations of its finer

threads to the whole pattern which is always before the eyes of the storyweaver at his loom. Yet, that I hold

the advantages of the mode of publication to outweigh its disadvantages, may be easily believed of one who

revived it in the Pickwick Papers after long disuse, and has pursued it ever since.

There is sometimes an odd disposition in this country to dispute as improbable in fiction, what are the

commonest experiences in fact. Therefore, I note here, though it may not be at all necessary, that there are

hundreds of Will Cases (as they are called), far more remarkable than that fancied in this book; and that the

stores of the Prerogative Office teem with instances of testators who have made, changed, contradicted,

hidden, forgotten, left cancelled, and left uncancelled, each many more wills than were ever made by the

In my social experiences since Mrs Betty Higden came upon the scene and left it, I have found

Circumlocutional champions disposed to be warm with me on the subject of my view of the Poor Law. Mr

friend Mr Bounderby could never see any difference between leaving the Coketown 'hands' exactly as they

were, and requiring them to be fed with turtle soup and venison out of gold spoons. Idiotic propositions of a

parallel nature have been freely offered for my acceptance, and I have been called upon to admit that I would

give Poor Law relief to anybody, anywhere, anyhow. Putting this nonsense aside, I have observed a

suspicious tendency in the champions to divide into two parties; the one, contending that there are no

deserving Poor who prefer death by slow starvation and bitter weather, to the mercies of some Relieving

Officers and some Union Houses; the other, admitting that there are such Poor, but denying that they have

any cause or reason for what they do. The records in our newspapers, the late exposure by THE LANCET,

and the common sense and senses of common people, furnish too abundant evidence against both defences.

But, that my view of the Poor Law may not be mistaken or misrepresented, I will state it. I believe there has

been in England, since the days of the STUARTS, no law so often infamously administered, no law so often

openly violated, no law habitually so illsupervised. In the majority of the shameful cases of disease and

death from destitution, that shock the Public and disgrace the country, the illegality is quite equal to the

On Friday the Ninth of June in the present year, Mr and Mrs Boffin (in their manuscript dress of receiving Mr

and Mrs Lammle at breakfast) were on the South Eastern Railway with me, in a terribly destructive accident.

When I had done what I could to help others, I climbed back into my carriagenearly turned over a viaduct,

and caught aslant upon the turnto extricate the worthy couple. They were much soiled, but otherwise

unhurt. The same happy result attended Miss Bella Wilfer on her wedding day, and Mr Riderhood inspecting

Bradley Headstone's red neckerchief as he lay asleep. I remember with devout thankfulness that I can never

be much nearer parting company with my readers for ever, than I was then, until there shall be written against

68. Chapter 11. EFFECT IS GIVEN TO THE DOLLS' DRESSMAKER'S DISCOVERY, page = 527

70. Chapter 13. SHOWING HOW THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN HELPED TO SCATTER DUST, page = 545