“And this, sir,” Silas would say to his patron, sadly nodding his head and musing, “was once Our House! This, sir, is the building from which I have so often seen those great creatures, Miss Elizabeth, Master George, Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker”—whose very names were of his own inventing—“pass and repass! And has it come to this, indeed! Ah dear me, dear me!”
So tender were his lamentations, that the kindly Mr. Boffin was quite sorry for him, and almost felt mistrustful that in buying the house he had done him an irreparable injury.
Two or three diplomatic interviews, the result of great subtlety on Mr. Wegg’s part, but assuming the mask of careless yielding to a fortuitous combination of circumstances impelling him towards Clerkenwell, had enabled him to complete his bargain with Mr. Venus.
“Bring me round to the Bower,” said Silas, when the bargain was closed, “next Saturday evening, and if a sociable glass of old Jamaikey warm should meet your views, I am not the man to begrudge it.”
“You are aware of my being poor company, sir,” replied Mr. Venus, “but be it so.”
It being so, here is Saturday evening come, and here is Mr. Venus come, and ringing at the Bower-gate.
Mr. Wegg opens the gate, descries a sort of brown paper truncheon under Mr. Venus’s arm, and remarks, in a dry tone: “Oh! I thought perhaps you might have come in a cab.”
“No, Mr. Wegg,” replies Venus. “I am not above a parcel.”
“Above a parcel! No!” says Wegg, with some dissatisfaction. But does not openly growl, “a certain sort of parcel might be above you.”