Charles Dickens: Our Mutual Friend

BOOK THE THIRD: A LONG LANE Chapter 6: The Golden Dustman Falls Into Worse Company (continued)

'I don't like it,' pettishly returned Venus as before. 'I came into it without enough consideration. And besides again. Isn't your own Mr Boffin well acquainted with the Mounds? And wasn't he well acquainted with the deceased and his ways? And has he ever showed any expectation of finding anything?'

At that moment wheels were heard.

'Now, I should be loth,' said Mr Wegg, with an air of patient injury, 'to think so ill of him as to suppose him capable of coming at this time of night. And yet it sounds like him.'

A ring at the yard bell.

'It is him,' said Mr Wegg, 'and he it capable of it. I am sorry, because I could have wished to keep up a little lingering fragment of respect for him.'

Here Mr Boffin was heard lustily calling at the yard gate, 'Halloa! Wegg! Halloa!'

'Keep your seat, Mr Venus,' said Wegg. 'He may not stop.' And then called out, 'Halloa, sir! Halloa! I'm with you directly, sir! Half a minute, Mr Boffin. Coming, sir, as fast as my leg will bring me!' And so with a show of much cheerful alacrity stumped out to the gate with a light, and there, through the window of a cab, descried Mr Boffin inside, blocked up with books.

'Here! lend a hand, Wegg,' said Mr Boffin excitedly, 'I can't get out till the way is cleared for me. This is the Annual Register, Wegg, in a cab-full of wollumes. Do you know him?'

'Know the Animal Register, sir?' returned the Impostor, who had caught the name imperfectly. 'For a trifling wager, I think I could find any Animal in him, blindfold, Mr Boffin.'

'And here's Kirby's Wonderful Museum,' said Mr Boffin, 'and Caulfield's Characters, and Wilson's. Such Characters, Wegg, such Characters! I must have one or two of the best of 'em to- night. It's amazing what places they used to put the guineas in, wrapped up in rags. Catch hold of that pile of wollumes, Wegg, or it'll bulge out and burst into the mud. Is there anyone about, to help?'