“Look in here, my dear,” Mr. Boffin would say, checking Bella’s arm at a bookseller’s window; “you can read at sight, and your eyes are as sharp as they’re bright. Now, look well about you, my dear, and tell me if you see any book about a miser.”

If Bella saw such a book, Mr. Boffin would instantly dart in and buy it. And still, as if they had not found it, they would seek out another bookshop, and Mr. Boffin would say, “Now, look well all round, my dear, for a Life of a Miser, or any book of that sort; any Lives of odd characters who may have been misers.”