MR BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION
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, common-law clerk, conveyancing clerk, chancery
clerk, every refinement and department of clerk, of Mr Mortimer Lightwood,
erewhile called in the newspapers eminent solicitor.
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 pre-occupied 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 dismal boy, whose appropriate name was Blight.
'Governor in?'
'Mr Lightwood gave you an appointment, sir, I think?'
'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
Lightwood will be in directly.'
'I'm not in a hurry,' said Mr Boffin
'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 Falley, Mr Galley, Mr Halley, Mr Lalley, Mr Malley. And Mr Boffin.'
'Strict system here; eh, my lad?' said Mr Boffin, as he was booked.
'Yes, sir,' returned the boy. 'I couldn't get on without it.'
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 drinking-cup 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.
'I've been in the law, now, sir, about three years.'
'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.
'What wages do you get?'
'Half what I could wish,' replied young Blight.
'What's the whole that you could wish?'
'Fifteen shillings a week,' said the boy.
'About how long might it take you now, at a average rate of going, to be a
Judge?' asked Mr Boffin, after surveying his small stature in silence.
The boy answered that he had not yet quite worked out that little
calculation.
'I suppose there's nothing to prevent your going in for it?' said Mr Boffin.
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 coming out with
it.
'Would a couple of pound help you up at all?' asked Mr Boffin.
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 good as settled.
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
sealing-wax, and a pen, and a box of wafers, and an apple, and a
writing-pad--all very dusty--and at a number of inky smears and blots, and at an
imperfectly-disguised gun-case pretending to be something legal, and at an iron
box labelled HARMON ESTATE, until Mr Lightwood appeared.
Mr Lightwood explained that he came from the proctor's, with whom he had been
engaged in transacting Mr Boffin's affairs.
'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, &c., and so forth, Court of Chancery having been moved, &c.
and so forth, he, Mr Lightwood, had now the gratification, honour, and
happiness, again &c. 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
&c. and so forth.
'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 cash-box to-morrow morning, and take it with you to--say, 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 service of that gigantic range of
geographical bores.'
Without following this last remark very closely, Mr Boffin cast his perplexed
gaze first at the ceiling, and then at the carpet.
'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 to take care of.'
'My dear Mr Boffin, then DON'T take care of it!'
'Eh?' said that gentleman.
'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 people will take the trouble off
your hands.'
'Well! I don't quite see it,' retorted Mr Boffin, still perplexed. 'That's
not satisfactory, you know, what you're a-saying.'
'Is Anything satisfactory, Mr Boffin?' asked Mortimer, raising his eyebrows.
'I used to find it so,' answered Mr Boffin, with a wistful look. 'While I was
foreman at the Bower--afore it WAS the Bower--I 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!'
Mr Lightwood coughed, not convinced.
'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. Dropped her.'
Mr Lightwood murmured 'Equal honour--Mrs Boffin's head and heart.'
'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, in my
presence, he was a flinty-hearted rascal.'
Mr Lightwood murmured 'Vigorous Saxon spirit--Mrs Boffin's
ancestors--bowmen--Agincourt and Cressy.'
'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 coach-money. Mrs Boffin, then quite a young woman and pictur of a
full-blown 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
pain--in 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 gently wore out, as many
things do.'
'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 window-sill 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 neck-cloth
under the little archway in Saint Paul's Churchyard--'
'Doctors' Commons,' observed Lightwood.
'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 satisfactoriness is, that after all the money never
gets to him.'
'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 offer a reward of one tithe of the property--a reward of Ten
Thousand Pound.'
'Mr Boffin, it's too much.'
'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 tool-box 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 openly declared in the new notices
that must now be put about in our names--'
'In your name, Mr Boffin; in your name.'
'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 coming into it.'
'Your lawyer, Mr Boffin,' returned Lightwood, making a very short note of it
with a very rusty pen, 'has the gratification of taking the instruction. There
is another?'
'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 you can,
using those words; but make it tight.'
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--'
'I mean tight,' Mr Boffin explained.
'Exactly so. And nothing can be more laudable. But is the tightness to bind
Mrs Boffin to any and what conditions?'
'Bind Mrs Boffin?' interposed her husband. 'No! What are you thinking of!
What I want is, to make it all hers so tight as that her hold of it can't be
loosed.'
'Hers freely, to do what she likes with? Hers absolutely?'
'Absolutely?' repeated Mr Boffin, with a short sturdy laugh. 'Hah! I should
think so! It would be handsome in me to begin to bind Mrs Boffin at this time of
day!'
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.
'Delighted,' said Eugene--though he didn't look so--'to know Mr Boffin.'
'Thankee, sir, thankee,' returned that gentleman. 'And how do YOU like the
law?'
'A--not particularly,' returned Eugene.
'Too dry for you, eh? Well, I suppose it wants some years of sticking to,
before you master it. But there's nothing like work. Look at the bees.'
'I beg your pardon,' returned Eugene, with a reluctant smile, 'but will you
excuse my mentioning that I always protest against being referred to the bees?'
'Do you!' said Mr Boffin.
'I object on principle,' said Eugene, 'as a biped--'
'As a what?' asked Mr Boffin.
'As a two-footed creature;--I object on principle, as a two-footed creature,
to being constantly referred to insects and four-footed 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. Besides, I am not fitted up with a
convenient cool cellar to keep my drink in.'
'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 Circular? I am not clear, Mr Boffin, but that the hive may be
satirical.'
'At all events, they work,' said Mr Boffin.
'Ye-es,' 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 eat--they 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 respect for you.'
'Thankee,' said Mr Boffin. 'Morning, morning!'
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 aware
that he was closely tracked and observed by a man of genteel appearance.
'Now then?' said Mr Boffin, stopping short, with his meditations brought to
an abrupt check, 'what's the next article?'
'I beg your pardon, Mr Boffin.'
'My name too, eh? How did you come by it? I don't know you.'
'No, sir, you don't know me.'
Mr Boffin looked full at the man, and the man looked full at him.
'No,' said Mr Boffin, after a glance at the pavement, as if it were made of
faces and he were trying to match the man's, 'I DON'T know you.'
'I am nobody,' said the stranger, 'and not likely to be known; but Mr
Boffin's wealth--'
'Oh! that's got about already, has it?' muttered Mr Boffin.
'--And his romantic manner of acquiring it, make him conspicuous. You were
pointed out to me the other day.'
'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? Not in the law, are
you?'
'No, sir.'
'No information to give, for a reward?'
'No, sir.'
There may have been a momentary mantling in the face of the man as he made
the last answer, but it passed directly.
'If I don't mistake, you have followed me from my lawyer's and tried to fix
my attention. Say out! Have you? Or haven't you?' demanded Mr Boffin, rather
angry.
'Yes.'
'Why 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 place--I think it is called Clifford's
Inn--where 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 aforesaid.)
'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. Then I waited outside
till you came out.'
('Don't quite sound like skittles, nor yet country gentleman, nor yet
jewellery,' thought Mr Boffin, 'but there's no knowing.')
'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
yourself--which is more likely--what 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 you are blessed in a wife distinguished by
the same qualities.'
'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 ground--though conscious, for
all that, of Mr Boffin's observation--and he spoke in a subdued voice. But his
words came easily, and his voice was agreeable in tone, albeit constrained.
'When I add, I can discern for myself what the general tongue says of
you--that you are quite unspoiled by Fortune, and not uplifted--I 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.'
('How much?' thought Mr Boffin. 'It must be coming to money. How much?')
'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 you would try me as your
Secretary--'
'As WHAT?' cried Mr Boffin, with his eyes wide open.
'Your Secretary.'
'Well,' said Mr Boffin, under his breath, 'that's a queer thing!'
'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
year--two years-- any term you might appoint--before that should begin to be a
consideration between us.'
'Where do you come from?' asked Mr Boffin.
'I come,' returned the other, meeting his eye, 'from many countries.'
Boffin's acquaintances with the names and situations of foreign lands being
limited in extent and somewhat confused in quality, he shaped his next question
on an elastic model.
'From--any particular place?'
'I have been in many places.'
'What have you been?' asked Mr Boffin.
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 cat-preserve, of Clifford's Inn, as it was
that day, in search of a suggestion. Sparrows were there, cats were there,
dry-rot and wet-rot were there, but it was not otherwise a suggestive spot.
'All this time,' said the stranger, producing a little pocket-book and taking
out a card, 'I have not mentioned my name. My name is Rokesmith. I lodge at one
Mr Wilfer's, at Holloway.'
Mr Boffin stared again.
'Father of Miss Bella Wilfer?' said he.
'My landlord has a daughter named Bella. Yes; no doubt.'
Now, this name had been more or less in Mr Boffin's thoughts all the morning,
and for days before; therefore he said:
'That's singular, too!' unconsciously staring again, past all bounds of good
manners, with the card in his hand. 'Though, by-the-bye, I suppose it was one of
that family that pinted me out?'
'No. I have never been in the streets with one of them.'
'Heard me talked of among 'em, though?'
'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 come to you for
your further opinion, at your leisure.'
'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 Secretary--it WAS Secretary you said; wasn't it?'
'Yes.'
Again Mr Boffin's eyes opened wide, and he stared at the applicant from head
to foot, repeating 'Queer!--You're sure it was Secretary? Are you?'
'I am sure I said so.'
--'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 man--WITH a wooden leg--as I have no thoughts of parting
from.'
'I regret to hear I am in some sort anticipated,' Mr Rokesmith answered,
evidently having heard it with surprise; 'but perhaps other duties might arise?'
'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, Mr Boffin went on:
'And now, sir, I'll wish you good-day. 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 Boffin's Bower,
say, when you inquire of him, it's Harmon's; will you?'
'Harmoon's,' repeated Mr Rokesmith, seeming to have caught the sound
imperfectly, 'Harmarn's. How do you spell it?'
'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 back.
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