“Upon my word, I don’t know what to put it at,” the Golden Dustman muttered.
“There was likewise,” resumed Wegg, “a pair of trestles, for which alone a Irish person, who was deemed a judge of trestles, offered five and six—a sum I would not hear of, for I should have lost by it—and there was a stool, a umbrella, a clotheshorse, and a tray. But I leave it to you, Mr. Boffin.”
The Golden Dustman seeming to be engaged in some abstruse calculation, Mr. Wegg assisted him with the following additional items.
“There was, further, Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker. Ah! When a man thinks of the loss of such patronage as that; when a man finds so fair a garden rooted up by pigs; he finds it hard indeed, without going high, to work it into money. But I leave it wholly to you, sir.”
Mr. Sloppy still continued his singular, and on the surface his incomprehensible, movement.
“Leading on has been mentioned,” said Wegg with a melancholy air, “and it’s not easy to say how far the tone of my mind may have been lowered by unwholesome reading on the subject of misers, when you was leading me and others on to think you one yourself, sir. All I can say is, that I felt my tone of mind a lowering at the time. And how can a man put a price upon his mind! There was likewise a hat just now. But I leave the ole to you, Mr. Boffin.”
“Come!” said Mr. Boffin. “Here’s a couple of pound.”
“In justice to myself, I couldn’t take it, sir.”
The words were but out of his mouth when John Harmon lifted his finger, and Sloppy, who was now close to Wegg, backed to Wegg’s back,