calculation, still he compromised himself by no admission that his new
engagement was at all out of his way, or involved the least element of
the ridiculous. Mr Wegg would even have picked a handsome quarrel with
any one who should have challenged his deep acquaintance with those
aforesaid eight volumes of Decline and Fall. His gravity was unusual,
portentous, and immeasurable, not because he admitted any doubt of
himself but because he perceived it necessary to forestall any doubt of
himself in others. And herein he ranged with that very numerous class
of impostors, who are quite as determined to keep up appearances to
themselves, as to their neighbours.

A certain loftiness, likewise, took possession of Mr Wegg; a
condescending sense of being in request as an official expounder of
mysteries. It did not move him to commercial greatness, but rather to
littleness, insomuch that if it had been within the possibilities of
things for the wooden measure to hold fewer nuts than usual, it would
have done so that day. But, when night came, and with her veiled eyes
beheld him stumping towards Boffin's Bower, he was elated too.

The Bower was as difficult to find, as Fair Rosamond's without the clue.
Mr Wegg, having reached the quarter indicated, inquired for the Bower
half a dozen times without the least success, until he remembered to
ask for Harmony Jail. This occasioned a quick change in the spirits of a
hoarse gentleman and a donkey, whom he had much perplexed.

'Why, yer mean Old Harmon's, do yer?' said the hoarse gentleman, who was
driving his donkey in a truck, with a carrot for a whip. 'Why didn't yer
niver say so? Eddard and me is a goin' by HIM! Jump in.'

Mr Wegg complied, and the hoarse gentleman invited his attention to the