Charles Dickens: Our Mutual Friend

BOOK THE FIRST: THE CUP AND THE LIP Chapter 8: Mr Boffin in Consultation (continued)

'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.'