‘Upon my word, I don’t know what to put
it at,’ the Golden Dustman muttered.
‘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
six—a sum I would not hear of, for I should
have lost by it—and there was a stool,
a umbrella, a clothes-horse, 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 following
additional items.
’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 you, Mr Boffin.’
‘Come!’ said Mr Boffin. ‘Here’s
a couple of pound.’
‘In justice to myself, I couldn’t take
it, sir.’
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 feat, achieved
with great dexterity, and with a prodigious splash.
WHAT WAS CAUGHT IN THE TRAPS THAT WERE SET
How Bradley Headstone had been racked and riven in
his mind since the quiet evening when by the river-side
he had risen, as it were, out of the ashes of the
Bargeman, none but he could have told. Not even
he could have told, for such misery can only be felt.
