Our Mutual Friend

to make a little circuit, by reason that he folds his screen early, now that he combines another source of income with it, and also that he feels it due to himself to be

s in him, for Nature has alre

become me to leave it here. It wouldn’t he respectable.’ Animated by this reflection, he stumps fas

eighbourhood. But, his sensations in this regard halt as to their strict morality, as he halts in his gait; for, they suggest the delights of a coat of i

and of brokers, and of dealers in dogs and singing-birds. From these, in a narrow and a dirty street devoted to such callings, Mr Wegg selects one dark shop-window with a tallow candle dimly burning in it, surrounded by a muddle of objects vaguely resembling pieces of leather and dry stick, but among which nothing is resolvable into anything distinct, save the candle itself in its old tin candlestick

to the face,

opened his tumbled shirt-collar to work with the more ease. For the same reason he has no coat on: only a loose waistcoat over his yellow linen. Hi

Mr Venus. Don’t

lds his candle over the little counter, and holds it do

e says, then. ‘

w,’ that gentl

the other. ‘Hos

,’ says

o you do? Sit down by the fire,

n on a box in front of the fire, and inhales a warm and comfortable smell which is not the smell of the shop. ‘For that,’ Mr Wegg inwardly decides, as he take

y muffin is on the hob, M

ecause it is close under the candle, and does not see from what mysterious recess Mr Venus produces another for himself until it is under his nose. Concurrently, Wegg perceives a pretty little dead bird lying on the counter, with its head droop

e breast of Cock Robin, he proceeds to toast it on the end of that cruel instrument. W

rks. As the muffins disappear, little by little, the black shelves and nooks and corners begin to appear, and Mr Wegg gradually acquires an imperfect notion that over against

Wegg approaches his object by asking, as he lightly taps h

n going on, this lo

ys Mr Venus, u

home?’ asks Wegg, wit

ys at

Wegg, but he veils his feelings, and obser

‘to what to attribute it, Mr Wegg. I can’t work you into a miscellaneous one, no how. Do what I will, you can’t

me little irritation, ‘that can’t be personal and peculi

every man has his own ribs, and no other man’s will go with them; but elseways I can be miscellaneous. I have just sent home a Beauty — a perfect Beauty — to a school of

er a pause sulkily opines ‘that it must be the fault of the other peop

ully pure, and put together with exquisite neatness. These he compares with Mr Wegg’s leg; that gentleman looking on, as if he were being measured fo

wn limb, and suspiciously at the pattern wit

nd that ain’t a

much into foreign! No, it bel

or ‘that French gentleman,’ whom he at length descries to be represented (in a very workmanlike manne

ere all right enough in your own country, but I hope no objections will be take

ently pushed inward, and a boy follows

the stuffe

nce,’ returns Venus; ‘

taking the candle to assist his search, Mr Wegg observes that he has a convenient little shelf near his knees, exclusively appropriated to skeleton ha

twig, making up his mind to hop! Take care of h

d the door open by a leather strap nailed t

oung villain! You’ve got a

e of your teeth; I’ve got enough of my own.’ So the boy pipes,

hit ME because you see I’m down. I’m low enough without that. It dropped into the till, I su

gues the boy, ‘what d

eyes, ‘Don’t sauce ME, in the wicious pride of your youth; don’t hit ME, because you s

have its effect on the boy

man’s bench. A Wice. Tools. Bones, warious. Skulls, warious. Preserved Indian baby. African ditto. Bottled preparations, warious. Everything within reach of your hand, in good preservation. The mouldy ones a-top. What’s in t

ediently when they were named, and then retire again, Mr Venus despondently repeats, ‘Oh dear me, dea

I?’ asks

yard, sir; and speaking quite candidly, I wish

e, what did yo

he darkness, over the smoke of it, as if he were modernizing the old origi

the improved form of ‘Wh

his tea, ‘I’m not prepared, at a mo

account I’m not worth much,

valuable yet, as a —’ here Mr Venus takes a gulp of tea, so hot that it makes hi

tive of anything but a disposition t

r Venus, and I think yo

at every gulp, and opening them again in a spasmo

gly, ‘and I shouldn’t like — I tell you openly I should NOT like — under such circumstances, to be what I may cal

Then I’ll tell you what I’ll do with you; I’ll hold you over. I am a man of my word, and you nee

Wegg looks on as he sighs and pours himself out more tea, an

low, Mr Venus.

was s

hand ou

leton at the West End if you like, and pay the West End price, but it’ll be my putting together. I’ve as muc

d, his smoking saucer in his left hand, protesting as

of things to make

h by sight and by name I’m perfect. Mr Wegg, if you was brought here loose in a bag to be articulated, I’d name your smallest bones blindfold equally wi

as last time), ‘THAT ain’t a state of things to be

. But it’s the heart that lowers me, it is the hear

nus takes from a wonderful litter in a dra

Ven

. Go

of Animals

. Go

tor of hum

Potentate!’ Here Silas is rather alarmed by Mr Venus’s springing to his feet in the hurry of his spirits, and haggardly confronting him with h

now the pro

and she objects to it. “I do not wish,” she writes in her own handwrit

tea, with a look and in an att

y trophies of my art, and what have they done for me? Ruined me. Brought me to the pass of being informed that “she does not wish to regard herself, nor yet

n. By sticking to it till one or two in the morning, I get oblivi

s, rising, ‘but because I’ve got an ap

s. ‘Harmon’s, up B

that he is boun

f you’ve worked yourself in there.

ou should catch it up so quick,

re and worth of everything that was found in the dust; and many

lly,

he’s buried quite in this neigh

ively nodding his head. He also follows with his eyes, the t

says Venus. (She hadn’t written her cutting refusal a

towards one of the dark shelves, and Mr W

ories about his having hidden all kinds of property in those dust mou

Wegg, who has never hea

e detain you

the movement so shakes the crazy shop, and so shakes a momentary flare out of the candle, as that the babies — Hindoo, African, and British — the ‘human warious’, the French gentleman, the green glass-eyed cats, the dogs, the ducks, and all the re