“Why, you know every one of these songs by name and by tune, and if you want to read or to sing any one on ’em off straight, you’ve only to whip on your spectacles and do it!” cried Mr. Boffin. “I see you at it!”

“Well, sir,” returned Mr. Wegg, with a conscious inclination of the head; “we’ll say literary, then.”

“ ‘A literary man⁠— with a wooden leg⁠—and all print is open to him!’ That’s what I thought to myself, that morning,” pursued Mr. Boffin, leaning forward to describe, uncramped by the clotheshorse, as large an arc as his right arm could make; “ ‘all print is open to him!’ And it is, ain’t it?”