fancied that he looked like a man of a revengeful disposition, who had hung all his enemies, and was enjoying himself.
My late experiences with Mr. and Mrs. Micawber suggested to me that here might be a means of keeping off the wolf for a little while. I went up the next bystreet, took off my waistcoat, rolled it neatly under my arm, and came back to the shop door.
“If you please, sir,” I said, “I am to sell this for a fair price.”
Mr. Dolloby—Dolloby was the name over the shop door, at least—took the waistcoat, stood his pipe on its head, against the doorpost, went into the shop, followed by me, snuffed the two candles with his fingers, spread the waistcoat on the counter, and looked at it there, held it up against the light, and looked at it there, and ultimately said:
“What do you call a price, now, for this here little weskit?”
“Oh! you know best, sir,” I returned modestly.
“I can’t be buyer and seller too,” said Mr. Dolloby. “Put a price on this here little weskit.”
“Would eighteenpence be?”—I hinted, after some hesitation.
Mr. Dolloby rolled it up again, and gave it me back. “I should rob my family,” he said, “if I was to offer ninepence for it.”
This was a disagreeable way of putting the business; because it imposed upon me, a perfect stranger, the unpleasantness of asking Mr. Dolloby to rob his family on my account. My circumstances being so very pressing, however, I said I would take ninepence for it, if he pleased. Mr. Dolloby, not without some grumbling, gave ninepence. I wished him good night, and walked out of the shop the richer by that sum, and the poorer by a waistcoat. But when I buttoned my jacket, that was not