“You seem very low, Mr. Venus. Is business bad?”

“Never was so good.”

“Is your hand out at all?”

“Never was so well in. Mr. Wegg, I’m not only first in the trade, but I’m the trade. You may go and buy a skeleton at the West End if you like, and pay the West End price, but it’ll be my putting together. I’ve as much to do as I can possibly do, with the assistance of my young man, and I take a pride and a pleasure in it.”

Mr. Venus thus delivers himself, his right hand extended, his smoking saucer in his left hand, protesting as though he were going to burst into a flood of tears.