'I haven't got another, but you're welcome to this,' said Wegg,
resigning it. 'It's a treat to me to stand.'

'Lard!' exclaimed Mr Boffin, in a tone of great enjoyment, as he settled
himself down, still nursing his stick like a baby, 'it's a pleasant
place, this! And then to be shut in on each side, with these ballads,
like so many book-leaf blinkers! Why, its delightful!'

'If I am not mistaken, sir,' Mr Wegg delicately hinted, resting a hand
on his stall, and bending over the discursive Boffin, 'you alluded to
some offer or another that was in your mind?'

'I'm coming to it! All right. I'm coming to it! I was going to say that
when I listened that morning, I listened with hadmiration amounting to
haw. I thought to myself, "Here's a man with a wooden leg--a literary
man with--"'

'N--not exactly so, sir,' said Mr Wegg.

'Why, you know every one of these songs by name and by tune, and if you
want to read or to sing any one on 'em off straight, you've only to whip
on your spectacles and do it!' cried Mr Boffin. 'I see you at it!'

'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 clotheshorse, as large an