BOOK THE FIRST: THE CUP AND THE LIP
Chapter 15: Two New Servants (continued)
Then farewell my trim-built wherry,
Oars and coat and badge farewell!
Never more at Chelsea Ferry,
Shall your Thomas take a spell!
--My father got over it, Mr Boffin, and so shall I.'
While delivering these valedictory observations, Wegg continually
disappointed Mr Boffin of his hand by flourishing it in the air. He
now darted it at his patron, who took it, and felt his mind relieved
of a great weight: observing that as they had arranged their joint
affairs so satisfactorily, he would now he glad to look into those
of Bully Sawyers. Which, indeed, had been left over-night in a
very unpromising posture, and for whose impending expedition
against the Persians the weather had been by no means favourable
all day.
Mr Wegg resumed his spectacles therefore. But Sawyers was not
to be of the party that night; for, before Wegg had found his place,
Mrs Boffin's tread was heard upon the stairs, so unusually heavy
and hurried, that Mr Boffin would have started up at the sound,
anticipating some occurrence much out of the common course,
even though she had not also called to him in an agitated tone.
Mr Boffin hurried out, and found her on the dark staircase,
panting, with a lighted candle in her hand.
'What's the matter, my dear?'
'I don't know; I don't know; but I wish you'd come up-stairs.'
Much surprised, Mr Boffin went up stairs and accompanied Mrs
Boffin into their own room: a second large room on the same floor
as the room in which the late proprietor had died. Mr Boffin
looked all round him, and saw nothing more unusual than various
articles of folded linen on a large chest, which Mrs Boffin had been
sorting.
'What is it, my dear? Why, you're frightened! YOU frightened?'
'I am not one of that sort certainly,' said Mrs Boffin, as she sat
down in a chair to recover herself, and took her husband's arm; 'but
it's very strange!'
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