“Pretty well, sir,” that gentleman answered, in a tone of placid mystery. “So-so, 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.”
“Indeed, Mr. Wegg?”
“Change of air, sea-scenery, 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, partner, for finally bringing Boffin’s nose to the grindstone?”
Ten tomorrow morning would quite suit Mr. Venus for that excellent purpose.
“You have had him well under inspection, I hope?” said Silas.
Mr. Venus had had him under inspection pretty well every day.
“Suppose you was just to step round tonight then, and give him orders from me—I say from me, because he knows I won’t be played with—to 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 the stock in trade.”
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 Golden Dustman’s name) the partners separated for the night.
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 at. Door opened.
“Boffin at home?”
The servant replied that Mr Boffin was at home.
“He’ll do,” said Wegg, “though it ain’t what I call him.”
The servant inquired if they had any appointment?
“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 want Boffin.”
They were shown into a waiting-room, where the all-powerful 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 library-table, 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 for the purpose.
“Be careful what insolent liberties you take in that gentleman’s presence,” said the owner of the hand which had done this, “or I will throw you after it.”
Wegg involuntarily clapped his hand to his bare head, and stared at the Secretary. For, it was he addressed him with a severe countenance, and who had come in quietly by the folding-doors.
“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!”
“No, nor I ain’t gone,” said another voice.
Somebody else had come in quietly by the folding-doors. Turning his head, Wegg beheld his persecutor, the ever-wakeful dustman, accoutred with fantail hat and velveteen smalls complete. Who, untying his tied-up broken head, revealed a head that was whole, and a face that was Sloppy’s.
“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 police-news 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 head to peal again, revealed incalculable buttons.
“Oh!” said Wegg, slightly discomfited, but not much as yet: “one and one is two not dismissed, is it? Bof—fin! Just let me ask a question. Who set this chap on, in this dress, when the carting began? Who employed this fellow?”
“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 proceed to business. Bof—fin! I want the room cleared of these two scum.”
“That’s not going to be done, Wegg,” replied Mr. Boffin, sitting composedly on the library-table, at one end, while the Secretary sat composedly on it at the other.
“Bof—fin! Not going to be done?” repeated Wegg. “Not at your peril?”
“No, Wegg,” said Mr. Boffin, shaking his head good-humouredly. “Not at my peril, and not on any other terms.”
Wegg reflected a moment, and then said: “Mr. Venus, will you be so good as hand me over that same dockyment?”
“Certainly, sir,” replied Venus, handing it to him with much politeness. “There
