“Man alive, don’t I tell you? A diseased governor? Now, it’s too late for me to begin shovelling and sifting at alphabeds and grammar-books. I’m getting to be a old bird, and I want to take it easy. But I want some reading⁠—some fine bold reading, some splendid book in a gorging Lord-Mayor’s-Show of wollumes” (probably meaning gorgeous, but misled by association of ideas); “as’ll reach right down your pint of view, and take time to go by you. How can I get that reading, Wegg? By,” tapping him on the breast with the head of his thick stick, “paying a man truly qualified to do it, so much an hour (say twopence) to come and do it.”

“Hem! Flattered, sir, I am sure,” said Wegg, beginning to regard himself in quite a new light. “Hew! This is the offer you mentioned, sir?”

“Yes. Do you like it?”

“I am considering of it, Mr. Boffin.”