gentleman that's a going to decline and fall off the Rooshan Empire.'

'And I am sure I hope it'll do you both good,' said Mrs Boffin.

It was the queerest of rooms, fitted and furnished more like a luxurious
amateur tap-room than anything else within the ken of Silas Wegg. There
were two wooden settles by the fire, one on either side of it, with
a corresponding table before each. On one of these tables, the eight
volumes were ranged flat, in a row, like a galvanic battery; on the
other, certain squat case-bottles of inviting appearance seemed to stand
on tiptoe to exchange glances with Mr Wegg over a front row of tumblers
and a basin of white sugar. On the hob, a kettle steamed; on the hearth,
a cat reposed. Facing the fire between the settles, a sofa, a footstool,
and a little table, formed a centrepiece devoted to Mrs Boffin.
They were garish in taste and colour, but were expensive articles of
drawing-room furniture that had a very odd look beside the settles
and the flaring gaslight pendent from the ceiling. There was a flowery
carpet on the floor; but, instead of reaching to the fireside, its
glowing vegetation stopped short at Mrs Boffin's footstool, and gave
place to a region of sand and sawdust. Mr Wegg also noticed, with
admiring eyes, that, while the flowery land displayed such hollow
ornamentation as stuffed birds and waxen fruits under glass-shades,
there were, in the territory where vegetation ceased, compensatory
shelves on which the best part of a large pie and likewise of a cold
joint were plainly discernible among other solids. The room itself was
large, though low; and the heavy frames of its old-fashioned windows,
and the heavy beams in its crooked ceiling, seemed to indicate that it
had once been a house of some mark standing alone in the country.

'Do you like it, Wegg?' asked Mr Boffin, in his pouncing manner.