“Look in here, my dear,” Mr. Boffin would say, checking Bella’s arm at a bookseller’s window; “you can read at sight, and your eyes are as sharp as they’re bright. Now, look well about you, my dear, and tell me if you see any book about a miser.”
If Bella saw such a book, Mr. Boffin would instantly dart in and buy it. And still, as if they had not found it, they would seek out another bookshop, and Mr. Boffin would say, “Now, look well all round, my dear, for a Life of a Miser, or any book of that sort; any Lives of odd characters who may have been misers.”
Bella, thus directed, would examine the window with the greatest attention, while Mr. Boffin would examine her face. The moment she pointed out any book as being entitled Lives of eccentric personages, Anecdotes of strange characters, Records of remarkable individuals, or anything to that purpose, Mr. Boffin’s countenance would light up, and he would instantly dart in and buy it. Size, price, quality, were of no account. Any book that seemed to promise a chance of miserly biography, Mr. Boffin purchased without a moment’s delay and carried home. Happening to be informed by a bookseller that a portion of the Annual Register was devoted to “Characters,” Mr. Boffin at once bought a whole set of that ingenious compilation, and began to carry it home piecemeal, confiding a volume to Bella, and bearing three himself. The completion of this labour occupied them about a fortnight. When the task was done, Mr. Boffin, with his appetite for misers whetted instead of satiated, began to look out again.
It very soon became unnecessary to tell Bella what to look for, and an understanding was established between her and Mr. Boffin that she was always to look for Lives of Misers. Morning after morning they roamed about the town together, pursuing this singular research. Miserly literature not being abundant, the proportion of failures to successes may have been as a hundred to one; still Mr. Boffin, never wearied,