“And I hope you’ll like it, Wegg.”
“Thank you, sir,” returned that reticent individual. “I hope it may prove so. On all accounts, I am sure.” (This, as a philanthropic aspiration.)
“What do you think,” said Mr. Boffin, “of not keeping a stall, Wegg?”
“I think, sir,” replied Wegg, “that I should like to be shown the gentleman prepared to make it worth my while!”
“Here he is,” said Mr. Boffin.
Mr. Wegg was going to say, My Benefactor, and had said My Bene, when a grandiloquent change came over him.
“No, Mr. Boffin, not you sir. Anybody but you. Do not fear, Mr. Boffin, that I shall contaminate the premises which your gold has bought, with my lowly pursuits. I am aware, sir, that it would not become me to carry on my little traffic under the windows of your mansion. I have already thought of that, and taken my measures. No need to be bought out, sir. Would Stepney Fields be considered intrusive? If not remote enough, I can go remoter. In the words of the poet’s song, which I do not quite remember:
Thrown on the wide world, doom’d to wander and roam, Bereft of my parents, bereft of a home, A stranger to something and what’s his name joy, Behold little Edmund the poor peasant boy.
—And equally,” said Mr. Wegg, repairing the want of direct application in the last line, “behold myself on a similar footing!”
“Now, Wegg, Wegg, Wegg,” remonstrated the excellent Boffin. “You are too sensitive.”