you will not, as a man of an open nature, suspect that I mean to flatter you, but will believe that all I mean is to excuse myself, these being my only excuses for my present intrusion.”
(“How much?” thought Mr. Boffin. “It must be coming to money. How much?”)
“You will probably change your manner of living, Mr. Boffin, in your changed circumstances. You will probably keep a larger house, have many matters to arrange, and be beset by numbers of correspondents. If you would try me as your Secretary—”
“As what ?” cried Mr. Boffin, with his eyes wide open.
“Your Secretary.”
“Well,” said Mr. Boffin, under his breath, “that’s a queer thing!”
“Or,” pursued the stranger, wondering at Mr. Boffin’s wonder, “if you would try me as your man of business under any name, I know you would find me faithful and grateful, and I hope you would find me useful. You may naturally think that my immediate object is money. Not so, for I would willingly serve you a year—two years—any term you might appoint—before that should begin to be a consideration between us.”
“Where do you come from?” asked Mr. Boffin.
“I come,” returned the other, meeting his eye, “from many countries.”
Boffin’s acquaintances with the names and situations of foreign lands being limited in extent and somewhat confused in quality, he shaped his next question on an elastic model.
“From—any particular place?”