“Very well, then,” argues the boy, “what do you call names for?”
To which Mr. Venus only replies, shaking his shock of dusty hair, and winking his weak eyes, “Don’t sauce me , in the wicious pride of your youth; don’t hit me , because you see I’m down. You’ve no idea how small you’d come out, if I had the articulating of you.”
This consideration seems to have its effect on the boy, for he goes out grumbling.
“Oh dear me, dear me!” sighs Mr. Venus, heavily, snuffing the candle, “the world that appeared so flowery has ceased to blow! You’re casting your eye round the shop, Mr. Wegg. Let me show you a light. My working bench. My young man’s bench. A wice. Tools. Bones, warious. Skulls, warious. Preserved Indian baby. African ditto. Bottled preparations, warious. Everything within reach of your hand, in good preservation. The mouldy ones atop. What’s in those hampers over them again, I don’t quite remember. Say, human warious. Cats. Articulated English baby. Dogs. Ducks. Glass eyes, warious. Mummied bird. Dried cuticle, warious. Oh, dear me! That’s the general panoramic view.”
Having so held and waved the candle as that all these heterogeneous objects seemed to come forward obediently when they were named, and then retire again, Mr. Venus despondently repeats, “Oh dear me, dear me!” resumes his seat, and with drooping despondency upon him, falls to pouring himself out more tea.
“Where am I?” asks Mr. Wegg.
“You’re somewhere in the back shop across the yard, sir; and speaking quite candidly, I wish I’d never bought you of the Hospital Porter.”
“Now, look here, what did you give for me?”
“Well,” replies Venus, blowing his tea: his head and face peering out of the darkness, over the smoke of it, as if he were modernizing the old