GOING INTO SOCIETY


At one period of its reverses, the House fell into the occupation of a
Showman. He was found registered as its occupier, on the parish books of
the time when he rented the House, and there was therefore no need of any
clue to his name. But, he himself was less easy to be found; for, he had
led a wandering life, and settled people had lost sight of him, and
people who plumed themselves on being respectable were shy of admitting
that they had ever known anything of him. At last, among the marsh lands
near the river's level, that lie about Deptford and the neighbouring
market-gardens, a Grizzled Personage in velveteen, with a face so cut up
by varieties of weather that he looked as if he had been tattooed, was
found smoking a pipe at the door of a wooden house on wheels. The wooden
house was laid up in ordinary for the winter, near the mouth of a muddy
creek; and everything near it, the foggy river, the misty marshes, and
the steaming market-gardens, smoked in company with the grizzled man. In
the midst of this smoking party, the funnel-chimney of the wooden house
on wheels was not remiss, but took its pipe with the rest in a
companionable manner.

On being asked if it were he who had once rented the House to Let,
Grizzled Velveteen looked surprised, and said yes. Then his name was
Magsman? That was it, Toby Magsman--which lawfully christened Robert;
but called in the line, from a infant, Toby. There was nothing agin Toby
Magsman, he believed? If there was suspicion of such--mention it!

There was no suspicion of such, he might rest assured. But, some
inquiries were making about that House, and would he object to say why he
left it?