In which a Friendly Move is Originated

THE arrangement between Mr Boffin and his literary man, Mr Silas Wegg, so far altered with the altered habits of Mr Boffin’s life, as that the Roman Empire usually declined in the morning and in the eminently aristocratic family mansion, rather than in the evening, as of yore, and in Boffin’s Bower. There were occasions, however, when Mr Boffin, seeking a brief refuge from the blandishments of fashion, would present himself at the Bower after dark, to anticipate the next sallying forth of Wegg, and would there, on the old settle, pursue the downward fortunes of those enervated and corrupted masters of the world who were by this time on their last legs. If Wegg had been worse paid for his office, or better qualified to discharge it, he would have considered these visits complimentary and agreeable; but, holding the position of a handsomely-remunerated humbug, he resented them. This was quite according to rule, for the incompetent servant, by whomsoever employed, is always against his employer. Even those born governors, noble and right honorable creatures, who have been the most imbecile in high places, have uniformly shown themselves the most opposed (sometimes in belying distrust, sometimes in vapid insolence) to their employer. What is in such wise true of the public master and servant, is equally true of the private master and servant all the world over.

When Mr Silas Wegg did at last obtain free access to “Our House,” as he had been wont to call the mansion outside which he had sat shelterless so long, and when he did at last find it in all particulars as different from his mental plans of it as according to the nature of things it well could be, that far-seeing and far-reaching character, by way of asserting himself and making out a case for compensation, affected to fall into a melancholy strain of musing over the mournful past; as if the house and he had had a fall in life together.

“And this, sir,” Silas would say to his patron, sadly nodding his head and musing, “was once Our House! This, sir, is the building from which I have so often seen those great creatures, Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker” — whose very names were of his own inventing — “pass and repass! And has it come to this, indeed! Ah dear me, dear me!”

So tender were his lamentations, that the kindly Mr Boffin was quite sorry for him, and almost felt mistrustful that in buying the house he had done him an irreparable injury.

Two or three diplomatic interviews, the result of great subtlety on Mr Wegg’s part, but assuming the mask of careless yielding to a fortuitous combination of circumstances impelling him towards Clerkenwell, had enabled him to complete his bargain with Mr Venus.

“Bring me round to the Bower,” said Silas, when the bargain was closed, “next Saturday evening, and if a sociable glass of old Jamaikey warm should meet your views, I am not the man to begrudge it.”

“You are aware of my being poor company, sir,” replied Mr Venus, “but be it so.”

It being so, here is Saturday evening come, and here is Mr Venus come, and ringing at the Bower-gate.

Mr Wegg opens the gate, descries a sort of brown paper truncheon under Mr Venus’s arm, and remarks, in a dry tone: “Oh! I thought perhaps you might have come in a cab.”

“No, Mr Wegg,” replies Venus. “I am not above a parcel.”

“Above a parcel! No!” says Wegg, with some dissatisfaction. But does not openly growl, “a certain sort of parcel might be above you.”

“Here is your purchase, Mr Wegg,” says Venus, politely handing it over, “and I am glad to restore it to the source from whence it — flowed.”

“Thankee,” says Wegg. “Now this affair is concluded, I may mention to you in a friendly way that I’ve my doubts whether, if I had consulted a lawyer, you could have kept this article back from me. I only throw it out as a legal point.”