BOOK THE FIRST: THE CUP AND THE LIP
Chapter 5: Boffin's Bower (continued)
'What do you think I was doing, Wegg?'
'I should judge, sir, that you might be glancing your eye down the
street.'
'No, Wegg. I was a listening.'
'Was you, indeed?' said Mr Wegg, dubiously.
'Not in a dishonourable way, Wegg, because you was singing to
the butcher; and you wouldn't sing secrets to a butcher in the
street, you know.'
'It never happened that I did so yet, to the best of my
remembrance,' said Mr Wegg, cautiously. 'But I might do it. A
man can't say what he might wish to do some day or another.'
(This, not to release any little advantage he might derive from Mr
Boffin's avowal.)
'Well,' repeated Boffin, 'I was a listening to you and to him. And
what do you--you haven't got another stool, have you? I'm rather
thick in my breath.'
'I haven't got another, but you're welcome to this,' said Wegg,
resigning it. 'It's a treat to me to stand.'
'Lard!' exclaimed Mr Boffin, in a tone of great enjoyment, as he
settled himself down, still nursing his stick like a baby, 'it's a
pleasant place, this! And then to be shut in on each side, with
these ballads, like so many book-leaf blinkers! Why, its
delightful!'
'If I am not mistaken, sir,' Mr Wegg delicately hinted, resting a
hand on his stall, and bending over the discursive Boffin, 'you
alluded to some offer or another that was in your mind?'
'I'm coming to it! All right. I'm coming to it! I was going to say
that when I listened that morning, I listened with hadmiration
amounting to haw. I thought to myself, "Here's a man with a
wooden leg--a literary man with--"'
'N--not exactly so, sir,' said Mr Wegg.
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