“But, bless you,” pursued Mrs. Boffin, “if you could have seen him of a night, at that time of it! The way he’d sit and chuckle over himself! The way he’d say ‘I’ve been a regular brown bear today,’ and take himself in his arms and hug himself at the thoughts of the brute he had pretended. But every night he says to me: ‘Better and better, old lady. What did we say of her? She’ll come through it, the true golden gold. This’ll be the happiest piece of work we ever done.’ And then he’d say, ‘I’ll be a grislier old growler tomorrow!’ and laugh, he would, till John and me was often forced to slap his back, and bring it out of his windpipes with a little water.”
Mr. Boffin, with his face bent over his heavy hand, made no sound, but rolled his shoulders when thus referred to, as if he were vastly enjoying himself.
“And so, my good and pretty,” pursued Mrs. Boffin, “you was married, and there was we hid up in the church-organ by this husband of yours; for he wouldn’t let us out with it then, as was first meant. ‘No,’ he says, ‘she’s so unselfish and contented, that I can’t afford to be rich yet. I must wait a little longer.’ Then, when baby was expected, he says, ‘She is such a cheerful, glorious housewife that I can’t afford to be rich yet. I must wait a little longer.’ Then when baby was born, he says, ‘She is so much better than she ever was, that I can’t afford to be rich yet. I must wait a little longer.’ And so he goes on and on, till I says outright, ‘Now, John, if you don’t fix a time for setting her up in her own house and home, and letting us walk out of it, I’ll turn informer.’ Then he says he’ll only wait to triumph beyond what we ever thought possible, and to show her to us better than even we ever supposed; and he says, ‘She shall see me under suspicion of having murdered myself, and you shall see how trusting and how true she’ll be.’ Well! Noddy and me agreed to that, and he was right, and here you are, and the horses is in, and the story is done, and God bless you my Beauty, and God bless us all!”