“Well, sir,” returned Mr Wegg, with a conscious inclination of the head; “we’ll say literary, then.”

“ ‘A literary man — with a wooden leg — and all Print is open to him!’ That’s what I thought to myself, that morning,” pursued Mr Boffin, leaning forward to describe, uncramped by the clothes-horse, as large an arc as his right arm could make; “ ‘all Print is open to him!’ And it is, ain’t it?”

“Why, truly, sir,” Mr Wegg admitted, with modesty; “I believe you couldn’t show me the piece of English print, that I wouldn’t be equal to collaring and throwing.”

“On the spot?” said Mr Boffin.

“On the spot.”

“I know’d it! Then consider this. Here am I, a man without a wooden leg, and yet all print is shut to me.”

“Indeed, sir?” Mr Wegg returned with increasing self-complacency. “Education neglected?”

“Neg—lected!” repeated Boffin, with emphasis. “That ain’t no word for it. I don’t mean to say but what if you showed me a B, I could so far give you change for it, as to answer Boffin.”

“Come, come, sir,” said Mr Wegg, throwing in a little encouragement, “that’s something, too.”

“It’s something,” answered Mr Boffin, “but I’ll take my oath it ain’t much.”

“Perhaps it’s not as much as could be wished by an inquiring mind, sir,” Mr Wegg admitted.

“Now, look here. I’m retired from business. Me and Mrs Boffin — Henerietty Boffin — which her father’s name was Henery, and her mother’s name was Hetty, and so you get it — we live on a compittance, under the will of a diseased governor.”

“Gentleman dead, sir?”

“Man alive, don’t I tell you? A diseased governor? Now, it’s too late for me to begin shovelling and sifting at alphabeds and grammar-books. I’m getting to be a old bird, and I want to take it easy. But I want some 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 take time to go by you. How can I get that reading, Wegg? By,” tapping him on the breast with the head of his thick stick, “paying a man truly qualified to do it, so much an hour (say twopence) to come and do it.”

“Hem! Flattered, sir, I am sure,” said Wegg, beginning to regard himself in quite a new light. “Hem! This is the offer you mentioned, sir?”

“Yes. Do you like it?”

“I am considering of it, Mr Boffin.”

“I don’t,” said Boffin, in a free-handed manner, “want to tie a literary man — with a wooden leg — down too tight. A halfpenny an hour shan’t part us. The hours are your own to choose, after you’ve done for the day with your house here. I live over Maiden-Lane way — out Holloway 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 long’uns and a short’un — twopence halfpenny; two short’uns is a long’un and two two long’uns is four long’uns — making five long’uns; six nights a week at five long’uns a night,” scoring them all down separately, “and you mount up to thirty long’uns. A round’un! Half a crown!”