deservedly crushed in the endeavour.

'So now, Wegg,' said Mr Boffin, wiping his mouth with an air of much
refreshment, 'you begin to know us as we are. This is a charming spot,
is the Bower, but you must get to apprechiate it by degrees. It's a spot
to find out the merits of; little by little, and a new'un every day.
There's a serpentining walk up each of the mounds, that gives you the
yard and neighbourhood changing every moment. When you get to the top,
there's a view of the neighbouring premises, not to be surpassed. The
premises of Mrs Boffin's late father (Canine Provision Trade), you look
down into, as if they was your own. And the top of the High Mound is
crowned with a lattice-work Arbour, in which, if you don't read out loud
many a book in the summer, ay, and as a friend, drop many a time into
poetry too, it shan't be my fault. Now, what'll you read on?'

'Thank you, sir,' returned Wegg, as if there were nothing new in his
reading at all. 'I generally do it on gin and water.'

'Keeps the organ moist, does it, Wegg?' asked Mr Boffin, with innocent
eagerness.

'N-no, sir,' replied Wegg, coolly, 'I should hardly describe it so, sir.
I should say, mellers it. Mellers it, is the word I should employ, Mr
Boffin.'

His wooden conceit and craft kept exact pace with the delighted
expectation of his victim. The visions rising before his mercenary mind,
of the many ways in which this connexion was to be turned to account,
never obscured the foremost idea natural to a dull overreaching man,
that he must not make himself too cheap.