While speaking, he thrust his hand into the breast of his outer coat, and struggled with some object there that was too large to be got out easily. What was the stupefaction of the friendly movers when this object at last emerging, proved to be a much-dilapidated dark lantern!

Without at all noticing the effect produced by this little instrument, Mr. Boffin stood it on his knee, and, producing a box of matches, deliberately lighted the candle in the lantern, blew out the kindled match, and cast the end into the fire. “I’m going, Wegg,” he then announced, “to take a turn about the place and round the yard. I don’t want you. Me and this same lantern have taken hundreds⁠—thousands⁠—of such turns in our time together.”

“But I couldn’t think, sir⁠—not on any account, I couldn’t,”⁠—Wegg was politely beginning, when Mr. Boffin, who had risen and was going towards the door, stopped: