Bella looked half frightened, and yet half laughed.

“But, bless you,” pursued Mrs. Boffin, “if you could have seen him of a night, at that time of it! The way he’d sit and chuckle over himself! The way he’d say ‘I’ve been a regular brown bear today,’ and take himself in his arms and hug himself at the thoughts of the brute he had pretended. But every night he says to me: ‘Better and better, old lady. What did we say of her? She’ll come through it, the true golden gold. This’ll be the happiest piece of work we ever done.’ And then he’d say, ‘I’ll be a grislier old growler tomorrow!’ and laugh, he would, till John and me was often forced to slap his back, and bring it out of his windpipes with a little water.”

Mr. Boffin, with his face bent over his heavy hand, made no sound, but rolled his shoulders when thus referred to, as if he were vastly enjoying himself.