‘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, Aunt Jane, and Uncle
Parker, before you two?’
‘Gently, Mr Wegg, gently,’ Venus urged.
‘Milk and water-erily you mean, sir,’
he returned, with some little thickness of speech,
in consequence of the Gum-Ticklers 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.”
—Boffin, I’ll see you home.’
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
good-night, and had let himself in with his key, and
had softly closed the door, even there and then, the
all-powerful Silas must needs claim another assertion
of his newly-asserted power.
‘Bof—fin!’ he called through
the keyhole.
‘Yes, Wegg,’ was the reply through the
same channel.
‘Come out. Show yourself again. Let’s
have another look at you!’ Mr Boffin—ah,
how fallen from the high estate of his honest simplicity!—opened
the door and obeyed.
‘Go in. You may get to bed now,’
said Wegg, with a grin.
The door was hardly closed, when he again called through
the keyhole: ‘Bof—fin!’
‘Yes, Wegg.’
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.
A RUNAWAY MATCH
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 stairs—was
sitting on the bottom stair, in fact—to
receive Pa when he came down, but her only object
seemed to be to get Pa well out of the house.
‘Your breakfast is ready, sir,’ whispered
Bella, after greeting him with a hug, ’and all
you have to do, is, to eat it up and drink it up, and
escape. How do you feel, Pa?’
’To the best of my judgement, like a housebreaker
new to the business, my dear, who can’t make
himself quite comfortable till he is off the premises.’
