'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. 'Hew! 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