BOOK THE FIRST: THE CUP AND THE LIP
Chapter 15: Two New Servants (continued)
Mr Boffin then showed his new man of business the Mounds, and
his own particular Mound which had been left him as his legacy
under the will before he acquired the whole estate.
'It would have been enough for us,' said Mr Boffin, 'in case it had
pleased God to spare the last of those two young lives and
sorrowful deaths. We didn't want the rest.'
At the treasures of the yard, and at the outside of the house, and at
the detached building which Mr Boffin pointed out as the residence
of himself and his wife during the many years of their service, the
Secretary looked with interest. It was not until Mr Boffin had
shown him every wonder of the Bower twice over, that he
remembered his having duties to discharge elsewhere.
'You have no instructions to give me, Mr Boffin, in reference to
this place?'
'Not any, Rokesmith. No.'
'Might I ask, without seeming impertinent, whether you have any
intention of selling it?'
'Certainly not. In remembrance of our old master, our old master's
children, and our old service, me and Mrs Boffin mean to keep it
up as it stands.'
The Secretary's eyes glanced with so much meaning in them at the
Mounds, that Mr Boffin said, as if in answer to a remark:
'Ay, ay, that's another thing. I may sell THEM, though I should be
sorry to see the neighbourhood deprived of 'em too. It'll look but a
poor dead flat without the Mounds. Still I don't say that I'm going
to keep 'em always there, for the sake of the beauty of the
landscape. There's no hurry about it; that's all I say at present. I
ain't a scholar in much, Rokesmith, but I'm a pretty fair scholar in
dust. I can price the Mounds to a fraction, and I know how they
can be best disposed of; and likewise that they take no harm by
standing where they do. You'll look in to-morrow, will you be so
kind?'
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