LITMIR.BIZ

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'You will probably change your manner of living, Mr Boffin, in your changed circumstances. You will probably keep a larger house,

       have many matters to arrange, and be beset by numbers of correspondents. If you would try me as your Secretary--'

       'As WHAT?' cried Mr Boffin, with his eyes wide open.

       'Your Secretary.'

       'Well,' said Mr Boffin, under his breath, 'that's a queer thing!'

       'Or,' pursued the stranger, wondering at Mr Boffin's wonder, 'if you would try me as your man of business under any name, I know you would find me faithful and grateful, and I hope you would find me useful. You may naturally think that my immediate object is money. Not so, for I would willingly serve you a year--two years--any term you might appoint--before that should begin to be a consideration between us.'

       'Where do you come from?' asked Mr Boffin.

       'I come,' returned the other, meeting his eye, 'from many countries.'

       Boffin's acquaintances with the names and situations of foreign lands being limited in extent and somewhat confused in quality, he shaped his next question on an elastic model.

       'From--any particular place?'

       'I have been in many places.'

       'What have you been?' asked Mr Boffin.

       Here again he made no great advance, for the reply was, 'I have been a student and a traveller.'

       'But if it ain't a liberty to plump it out,' said Mr Boffin, 'what do you do for your living?'

       'I have mentioned,' returned the other, with another look at him, and a smile, 'what I aspire to do. I have been superseded as to some slight intentions I had, and I may say that I have now to begin life.'

       Not very well knowing how to get rid of this applicant, and feeling the more embarrassed because his manner and appearance claimed a delicacy in which the worthy Mr Boffin feared he himself might be deficient, that gentleman glanced into the mouldy little plantation or cat-preserve, of Clifford's Inn, as it was that day, in search of a suggestion. Sparrows were there, cats were there, dry-rot and wet-rot were there, but it was not otherwise a suggestive spot.

       'All this time,' said the stranger, producing a little pocketbook and taking out a card, 'I have not mentioned my name. My name is

       Rokesmith. I lodge at one Mr Wilfer's, at Holloway.'

       Mr Boffin stared again.

       'Father of Miss Bella Wilfer?' said he.

       'My landlord has a daughter named Bella. Yes; no doubt.'

       Now, this name had been more or less in Mr Boffin's thoughts all the morning, and for days before; therefore he said:

       'That's singular, too!' unconsciously staring again, past all bounds of good manners, with the card in his hand. 'Though, by-the-bye, I

       suppose it was one of that family that pinted me out?'

       'No. I have never been in the streets with one of them.'

       'Heard me talked of among 'em, though?'

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       'No. I occupy my own rooms, and have held scarcely any communication with them.'

       'Odder and odder!' said Mr Boffin. 'Well, sir, to tell you the truth, I don't know what to say to you.'

       'Say nothing,' returned Mr Rokesmith; 'allow me to call on you in a few days. I am not so unconscionable as to think it likely that

       you would accept me on trust at first sight, and take me out of the very street. Let me come to you for your further opinion, at your

       leisure.'

       'That's fair, and I don't object,' said Mr Boffin; 'but it must be on condition that it's fully understood that I no more know that I shall ever be in want of any gentleman as Secretary--it WAS Secretary you said; wasn't it?'

       'Yes.'

       Again Mr Boffin's eyes opened wide, and he stared at the applicant from head to foot, repeating 'Queer!--You're sure it was Secretary? Are you?'

       'I am sure I said so.'

       --'As Secretary,' repeated Mr Boffin, meditating upon the word; 'I no more know that I may ever want a Secretary, or what not, than

       I do that I shall ever be in want of the man in the moon. Me and Mrs Boffin have not even settled that we shall make any change in our way of life. Mrs Boffin's inclinations certainly do tend towards Fashion; but, being already set up in a fashionable way at the Bower, she may not make further alterations. However, sir, as you don't press yourself, I wish to meet you so far as saying, by all means call at the Bower if you like. Call in the course of a week or two. At the same time, I consider that I ought to name, in addition to what I have already named, that I have in my employment a literary man--WITH a wooden leg--as I have no thoughts of parting from.'

       'I regret to hear I am in some sort anticipated,' Mr Rokesmith answered, evidently having heard it with surprise; 'but perhaps other

       duties might arise?'

       'You see,' returned Mr Boffin, with a confidential sense of dignity, 'as to my literary man's duties, they're clear. Professionally he

       declines and he falls, and as a friend he drops into poetry.'

       Without observing that these duties seemed by no means clear to Mr Rokesmith's astonished comprehension, Mr Boffin went on:

       'And now, sir, I'll wish you good-day. You can call at the Bower any time in a week or two. It's not above a mile or so from you, and your landlord can direct you to it. But as he may not know it by its new name of Boffin's Bower, say, when you inquire of him, it's Harmon's; will you?'

       'Harmoon's,' repeated Mr Rokesmith, seeming to have caught the sound imperfectly, 'Harmarn's. How do you spell it?'

       'Why, as to the spelling of it,' returned Mr Boffin, with great presence of mind, 'that's YOUR look out. Harmon's is all you've got to say to HIM. Morning, morning, morning!' And so departed, without looking back.

       Chapter 9

       MR AND MRS BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION

       Betaking himself straight homeward, Mr Boffin, without further let or hindrance, arrived at the Bower, and gave Mrs Boffin (in a

       walking dress of black velvet and feathers, like a mourning coach-horse) an account of all he had said and done since breakfast.

       'This brings us round, my dear,' he then pursued, 'to the question we left unfinished: namely, whether there's to be any new go-in for

       Fashion.'

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       'Now, I'll tell you what I want, Noddy,' said Mrs Boffin, smoothing her dress with an air of immense enjoyment, 'I want Society.'

       'Fashionable Society, my dear?'

       'Yes!' cried Mrs Boffin, laughing with the glee of a child. 'Yes! It's no good my being kept here like Wax-Work; is it now?'

       'People have to pay to see Wax-Work, my dear,' returned her husband, 'whereas (though you'd be cheap at the same money) the neighbours is welcome to see YOU for nothing.'

       'But it don't answer,' said the cheerful Mrs Boffin. 'When we worked like the neighbours, we suited one another. Now we have left work off; we have left off suiting one another.'

       'What, do you think of beginning work again?' Mr Boffin hinted.

       'Out of the question! We have come into a great fortune, and we must do what's right by our fortune; we must act up to it.' Mr Boffin, who had a deep respect for his wife's intuitive wisdom, replied, though rather pensively: 'I suppose we must.'

       'It's never been acted up to yet, and, consequently, no good has come of it,' said Mrs Boffin.

       'True, to the present time,' Mr Boffin assented, with his former pensiveness, as he took his seat upon his settle. 'I hope good may be

       coming of it in the future time. Towards which, what's your views, old lady?'

       Mrs Boffin, a smiling creature, broad of figure

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