Our Mutual Friend

his remaining foot in a basket in cold weather, picking up a living on this wise:— Every morning at eight o’clock, he stumped

tool planted within it became his post for the rest of the day. All weathers saw the man at the post. This is to be accepted in a double sense, for he contrived a back to his wooden stool, by placing it against the lamp-post. When the weather was wet, he put up his umbrella over his s

of the house gave. A howling corner in the winter time, a dusty corner in the summer time, an undesirable corner at the best of times. Shelterless fragments of straw and paper got up revo

ttle placard, like a kettleholder, beari

nds

wit

ity

and G

re

umble

as

it and was bound to leal and loyal interest in it. For this reason, he always spoke of it as ‘Our House,’ and, though his knowledge of its affairs was mostly speculative and all wrong, claimed to be in its confidence. On similar grounds he never beheld an inmate at any one of its windows but he touched his h

wonderfully; but this was no impediment to his arranging it according to a plan of his own. It was a great dingy house with a quantity of dim side window and blank back premises, and it cost his mind a world of trouble so to lay it out as to account for everything in its external appearance. But, this o

e, and was considered to represent the penn’orth appointed by Magna Charta. Whether from too much east wind or no — it was an easterly corner — the stall, the stock, and the keeper, were all as dry as the Desert. Wegg was a knotty man, and a close-grained, with a face carved out of very hard material, that had just as much play of expression as a watchman’s ra

the rector, he addressed a bow, compounded of lay deference, and a slight touch of the shady preliminary meditation at church; to the doctor, a confidential bow, as to a gentleman whose acquaintance with his inside he begged respectfully to acknowledge; before the Quality he

ad-horse (fearfully out of condition), and the adhesive bird-cage, which had been exposed for the day’s sale, he had taken a tin box from under his s

ick shoes, and thick leather gaiters, and thick gloves like a hedger’s. Both as to his dress and to himself, he was of an overlapping rhinoceros build, with folds in his cheeks, and his forehead

ave you lately come to settle in this neighbourhood, or do you own to another neighbourhood? Are you in independ

did, as he rose to bait his gingerbread-trap for some

ir! Morning

Wegg, to himself; ‘HE w

morning,

d cock, too,’ said Mr Wegg, as b

stopping in his amble, one-sided, before the stall, and

house, sir, several times in the

peated the othe

other pointed the clumsy forefinger o

itive manner, carrying his knotted stick in his left

turned Silas, drily, and with reticence; ‘i

ance? No! It’s not yet brought to an exact

qualifying his former good opinion, as the other ambled

u get your

y to this personal inqu

ou li

egg made answer, in a sort of desperation o

as he gave it a hug; ‘he hasn’t got — ha! — ha! — to k

restive under this examination. ‘I n

ou li

g, again approaching despe

’t you l

etorted Mr Wegg, approaching

make you sorry for that,’ said the s

Implying in his manner the offensive

Boffin, smiling still, ‘Do you like the name

ncholy candour; it is not a name as I could wish any one that I had a respect for, to call ME by; but there may be per

. ‘Noddy. That’s my name. Noddy — o

himself to take the same precaution as before, ‘

ck closer, ‘I want to make a sort of offer t

ink. I ain’t quite sure, and yet I generally take a powerful sight of notice, too. Was it on a Monday morning, when the butcher-

ght! But he boug

Here was him as it might be, and here was myself as it might be, and there was you, Mr Boffin, as you identically are, with your self-same stick under your very same arm, and your very sa

think I was

t you might be glancing y

I was a l

ed?’ said Mr W

was singing to the butcher; and you wouldn’t si

tiously. ‘But I might do it. A man can’t say what he might wish to do some day or anoth

and to him. And what do you — you haven’t got anoth

elcome to this,’ said Wegg, resignin

till nursing his stick like a baby, ‘it’s a pleasant place, this! And then to be shut in

g a hand on his stall, and bending over the discursive Boffin,

n I listened that morning, I listened with hadmiration amounting to haw. I

ly so, sir,’

u want to read or to sing any one on ‘em off straight, you’ve only to

th a conscious inclination of the

self, that morning,’ pursued Mr Boffin, leaning forward to describe, uncramped by the clotheshors

believe you couldn’t show me the piece of English prin

ot?’ said

the

ere am I, a man without a wooden le

ed with increasing self-compl

word for it. I don’t mean to say but what if you showed me a

, throwing in a little encourag

d Mr Boffin, ‘but I’ll ta

ould be wished by an inquiring

in — which her father’s name was Henery, and her mother’s name was Hetty, and s

man dea

me reading — some fine bold reading, some splendid book in a gorging Lord-Mayor’s-Show of wollumes’ (probably meaning gorgeous, but misled by association of ideas); ‘as’ll reach right down your pint of view, and

eginning to regard himself in quite a new ligh

o you l

ering of it,

lloway direction — and you’ve only got to go East-and-by-North when you’ve finished here, and you’re there. Twopence halfpenny an hour,’ said Boffin, taking a piece of chalk from his pocket and getting off the stool to work the sum on the top of it in his own way; ‘two lon

actory one, Mr Boffin smeared it out with his

meditating. ‘Yes. (It ain’t

ek, you

upon the intellect now. Was you thinking

e dearer?’ Mr

omes to grind off poetry night after night, it is but right he

so fur as this:— If you was to happen now and then to feel yourself in the mind t

l, I should be loath to engage myself for that; and therefore when I dropped

rnestly by the hand: protesting that it was more than he

s, Wegg?’ Mr Boffin then deman

and who had begun to understand his man very well, replied with an a

n, I neve

, sir. I never did ‘aggle and I never will ‘aggle. Consequently I

assented, with the remark, ‘You know better what it ought to

to night, Wegg?’

rness to him. ‘I see no difficulty if you wish it. You

es. Red and gold. Purple ribbon in every wollume, to

ame, sir?’ in

htly disappointed. ‘His name is Decline-And-Fall-Off-The-Rooshan-Empi

nodding his head with an

ow him,

But know him? Old familiar declining and falling off the Rooshan? Rather, sir! Ever since I was not so high as your stick. Ever si

cottage doo

as on he

oft a snowy

other noticed) flut

a prayer for

he coold

her lean'd upon hi

ed away

r Wegg, as exemplified in his so soon dropping into poetry, Mr Boffin again shook han

or say and a quarter if you like, up Maiden Lane, Battle Bridge, ask for Harmony Jail, and you’ll be put right. I shall expect you, Wegg,’ said Mr Boffin, clapping him on the shoulder with the greatest enthusiasm, ‘most joyfully. I shall have no peace or patience till you come.

e he considered within himself that this was an old fellow of rare simplicity, that this was an opportunity to be improved, and that here might he money to be got beyond present calculation, still he compromised himself by no admission that his new engagement was at all out of his way, or involved the least element of the ridiculous. Mr Wegg would even have picked a handsome quarrel with any one who should have chall

him to commercial greatness, but rather to littleness, insomuch that if it had been within the possibilities of things for the wooden measure to hold fewer

ated, inquired for the Bower half a dozen times without the least success, until he remembered to ask for Harmony

o was driving his donkey in a truck, with a carrot for a whip. ‘Why

entleman invited his attention to

’s ears. What was it as

pered, ‘Boff

on his ears) cut awa

ars lying back, re

ntly pricked up his ears to their utmost, and rattled off at such a pace t

ail?’ asked Mr W

ted to,’ returned his escort; ‘they giv’ it the nam

ey-callitharm-O

body. Like a speeches of chaff. Harmon’s J

st-Erboff-in?

t here. Eddard knows him. (Keep yer h

in the air, greatly accelerating the pace and increasing the jolting, that Mr Wegg was fain to devote his attention exclusively to hol

e truck. The moment he was landed, his late driver with a wave of the carrot, said ‘Supper, Eddard!’ and h

es. A white figure advancing along this path, proved to be nothing more ghostly than Mr Boffin, easily attired for the pursuit of knowledge, in an undress garment of short white smock-frock. Having received his literary friend with great cordiality, h

e does it credit. As to myself I ain’t yet as Fash’nable as I may come to be. Henerietty,

it’ll do you both go

on the hearth, a cat reposed. Facing the fire between the settles, a sofa, a footstool, and a little table, formed a centrepiece devoted to Mrs Boffin. They were garish in taste and colour, but were expensive articles of drawing-room furniture that had a very odd look beside the settles and the flaring gaslight pendent from the ceiling. There was a flowery carpet on the floor; but, instead of reaching to the fireside, its glowing vegetation stopped short at Mrs Boffin’s footstool, and gave place to a region of sand and sawdust. Mr Wegg also notice

?’ asked Mr Boffin, i

’ said Wegg. ‘Peculiar com

nderstand

owly and knowingly, with his head stuck on one side, a

uarrelling over it? We never did quarrel, before we come into Boffin’s Bower as a property; why quarrel when we HAVE come into Boffin’s Bower as a property? So Mrs Boffin, she keeps up her part of the room, in her way; I keep up my part of the room in mine. In consequence of which we have at once, Sociability (I should go melancholy mad without Mrs B

gh her lord’s, most willingly complied. Fashion, in the form of her black velvet

y. There’s a serpentining walk up each of the mounds, that gives you the yard and neighbourhood changing every moment. When you get to the top, there’s a view of the neighbouring premises, not to be surpassed. The premises of Mrs Boffin’s late father (Canine Provision Trade), yo

here were nothing new in his reading at

s it, Wegg?’ asked Mr Boffi

y describe it so, sir. I should say, mellers it. M

sing before his mercenary mind, of the many ways in which this connexion was to be turned to account, nev

g for her literary guest, or asking if he found the result to his liking. On his returning a gracious answer and taking his

gether. Oh! and another thing I forgot to name! When you come in here of an evening, and lo

is spectacles, immediately laid them

es deceive me, or is that object up

Boffin, with a glance of some little

r fruits, or is it a app

nd ham pie,’ s

name the pie that is a better pie than a weal and

some,

ut at yours, sir! — And meaty jelly too, especially when a little salt, which is the case where there’s ham, is meller

it was not strictly Fashionable to keep the contents of a larder thus exposed to view, he (Mr Boffin) considered it hospitable; for the reason, that instead of saying, in a comparatively unmeaning manner, to a vis

ed with beaming eyes into the opening world before him, and Mrs Boffin reclined in a fashionable manner on her sofa

irst chapter of the first wollume of the Decline and F

the matt

ng first again looked hard at the book), ‘that you made a little mistake this morning, which I had m

shan; ain’

. Roman.

e differen

ference, sir? There you place me in a difficulty, Mr Boffin. Suffice it to observe, that the difference is best postponed to

dint of repeating with a manly delicacy, ‘In Mrs Boffin’s presence, sir, we had better drop it!’

ustus; finally, getting over the ground well with Commodus: who, under the appellation of Commodious, was held by Mr Boffin to have been quite unworthy of his English origin, and ‘not to have acted up to his name’ in his government of the Roman people. With the death of this personage, Mr Wegg terminated his first reading; long before which consummation several total eclipses of Mrs Boffin’s candle behind her black velvet disc, would have been very alarming, but for being regularly accompanied

l at once! As if that wasn’t stunning enough, Commodious, in another character, kills ‘em all off in a hundred goes! As if that wasn’t stunning enough, Vittle-us (and well named too) eats six millions’ worth, English money, in seven months! Wegg takes it easy, but uponmy-soul to a old bird like myself