'What's the matter, Wegg?'

'Why, it comes into my mind, do you know, sir,' said Wegg with an air
of insinuating frankness (having first again looked hard at the book),
'that you made a little mistake this morning, which I had meant to set
you right in, only something put it out of my head. I think you said
Rooshan Empire, sir?'

'It is Rooshan; ain't it, Wegg?'

'No, sir. Roman. Roman.'

'What's the difference, Wegg?'

'The difference, sir?' Mr Wegg was faltering and in danger of breaking
down, when a bright thought flashed upon him. 'The difference, sir?
There you place me in a difficulty, Mr Boffin. Suffice it to observe,
that the difference is best postponed to some other occasion when Mrs
Boffin does not honour us with her company. In Mrs Boffin's presence,
sir, we had better drop it.'

Mr Wegg thus came out of his disadvantage with quite a chivalrous air,
and not only that, but by dint of repeating with a manly delicacy,
'In Mrs Boffin's presence, sir, we had better drop it!' turned the
disadvantage on Boffin, who felt that he had committed himself in a very
painful manner.

Then, Mr Wegg, in a dry unflinching way, entered on his task; going
straight across country at everything that came before him; taking all
the hard words, biographical and geographical; getting rather shaken by