other man’s will go with them; but elseways I can be miscellaneous. I have just sent home a beauty—a perfect beauty—to a school of art. One leg Belgian, one leg English, and the pickings of eight other people in it. Talk of not being qualified to be miscellaneous! By rights you ought to be, Mr. Wegg.”
Silas looks as hard at his one leg as he can in the dim light, and after a pause sulkily opines “that it must be the fault of the other people. Or how do you mean to say it comes about?” he demands impatiently.
“I don’t know how it comes about. Stand up a minute. Hold the light.” Mr. Venus takes from a corner by his chair, the bones of a leg and foot, beautifully pure, and put together with exquisite neatness. These he compares with Mr. Wegg’s leg; that gentleman looking on, as if he were being measured for a riding-boot. “No, I don’t know how it is, but so it is. You have got