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 liberal thing for once.’
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 blind.
‘There, my Cinderella dear,’ said the
old man in a whisper, and with a worn-out look, ‘the
basket’s full now. Bless you! And get
you gone!’
‘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 had ever shaken it at her grim old child at
home.
‘You are not the godmother at all!’ said
she. ’You are the Wolf in the Forest, the
wicked Wolf! And if ever my dear Lizzie is sold
and betrayed, I shall know who sold and betrayed her!’
MR WEGG PREPARES A GRINDSTONE FOR MR BOFFIN’S NOSE
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 gentleman—lest,
being too much left to himself, he should be tempted
to play any tricks with the precious document in his
keeping—that 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 whenever the opportunity
arises, and it is not for me to baulk your feelings.’
