‘All this time,’ said the stranger, producing a little pocket-book and taking out a card, ‘I have not mentioned my name. My name is Rokesmith. I lodge at one Mr Wilfer’s, at Holloway.’
Mr Boffin stared again.
‘Father of Miss Bella Wilfer?’ said he.
‘My landlord has a daughter named Bella. Yes; no doubt.’
Now, this name had been more or less in Mr Boffin’s thoughts all the morning, and for days before; therefore he said:
‘That’s singular, too!’ unconsciously staring again, past all bounds of good manners, with the card in his hand. ‘Though, by-the-bye, I suppose it was one of that family that pinted me out?’
‘No. I have never been in the streets with one of them.’
‘Heard me talked of among ‘em, though?’
‘No. I occupy my own rooms, and have held scarcely any communication with them.’
‘Odder and odder!’ said Mr Boffin. ‘Well, sir, to tell you the truth, I don’t know what to say to you.’
‘Say nothing,’ returned Mr Rokesmith; ‘allow me to call on you in a few days. I am not so unconscionable as to think it likely that you would accept me on trust at first sight, and take me out of the very street. Let me come to you for your further opinion, at your leisure.’
‘That’s fair, and I don’t object,’ said Mr Boffin; ‘but it must be on condition that it’s fully understood that I no more know that I shall ever be in want of any gentleman as Secretary – it was Secretary you said; wasn’t it?’
‘Yes.’
Again Mr Boffin’s eyes opened wide, and he stared at the applicant from head to foot, repeating ‘Queer! – You’re sure it was Secretary? Are you?’
‘I am sure I said so.’
– ‘As Secretary,’ repeated Mr Boffin, meditating upon the word; ‘I no more know that I may ever want a Secretary, or what not, than I do that I shall ever be in want of the man in the moon. Me and Mrs Boffin have not even settled that we shall make any change in our way of life. Mrs Boffin’s inclinations certainly do tend towards Fashion; but, being already set up in a fashionable way at the Bower, she may not make further alterations. However, sir, as you don’t press yourself, I wish to meet you so far as saying, by all means call at the Bower if you like. Call in the course of a week or two. At the same time, I consider that I ought to name, in addition to what I have already named, that I have in my employment a literary man —with a wooden leg – as I have no thoughts of parting from.’
‘I regret to hear I am in some sort anticipated,’ Mr Rokesmith answered, evidently having heard it with surprise; ‘but perhaps other duties might arise?’
‘You see,’ returned Mr Boffin, with a confidential sense of dignity, ‘as to my literary man’s duties, they’re clear. Professionally he declines and he falls, and as a friend he drops into poetry.’
Without observing that these duties seemed by no means clear to Mr Rokesmith’s astonished comprehension, Mr Boffin went on:
‘And now, sir, I’ll wish you good-day. You can call at the Bower any time in a week or two. It’s not above a mile or so from you, and your landlord can direct you to it. But as he may not know it by its new name of Boffin’s Bower, say, when you inquire of him, it’s Harmon’s; will you?’
‘Harmoon’s,’ repeated Mr Rokesmith, seeming to have caught the sound imperfectly, ‘Harmarn’s. How do you spell it?’
‘Why, as to the spelling of it,’ returned Mr Boffin, with great presence of mind, ‘that’s your look out. Harmon’s is all you’ve got to say to him. Morning, morning, morning!’ And so departed, without looking back.
Chapter 9
MR AND MRS BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION
Betaking himself straight homeward, Mr Boffin, without further let or hindrance, arrived at the Bower, and gave Mrs Boffin (in a walking dress of black velvet and feathers, like a mourning coach-horse) an account of all he had said and done since breakfast.
‘This brings us round, my dear,’ he then pursued, ‘to the question we left unfinished: namely, whether there’s to be any new go-in for Fashion.’
‘Now, I’ll tell you what I want, Noddy,’ said Mrs Boffin, smoothing her dress with an air of immense enjoyment, ‘I want Society.’
‘Fashionable Society, my dear?’
‘Yes!’ cried Mrs Boffin, laughing with the glee of a child. ‘Yes! It’s no good my being kept here like Wax-Work; is it now?’
‘People have to pay to see Wax-Work, my dear,’ returned her husband, ‘whereas (though you’d be cheap at the same money) the neighbours is welcome to see you for nothing.’
‘But it don’t answer,’ said the cheerful Mrs Boffin. ‘When we worked like the neighbours, we suited one another. Now we have left work off; we have left off suiting one another.’
‘What, do you think of beginning work again?’ Mr Boffin hinted.
‘Out of the question! We have come into a great fortune, and we must do what’s right by our fortune; we must act up to it.’
Mr Boffin, who had a deep respect for his wife’s intuitive wisdom, replied, though rather pensively: ‘I suppose we must.’
‘It’s never been acted up to yet, and, consequently, no good has come of it,’ said Mrs Boffin.
‘True, to the present time,’ Mr Boffin assented, with his former pensiveness, as he took his seat upon his settle. ‘I hope good may be coming of it in the future time. Towards which, what’s your views, old lady?’
Mrs Boffin, a smiling creature, broad of figure and simple of nature, with her hands folded in her lap, and with buxom creases in her throat, proceeded to expound her views.
‘I say, a good house in a good neighbourhood, good things about us, good living, and good society. I say, live like our means, without extravagance, and be happy.’
‘Yes. I say be happy, too,’ assented the still pensive Mr Boffin. ‘Lor-a-mussy!’ exclaimed Mrs Boffin, laughing and clapping her hands, and gaily rocking herself to and fro, ‘when I think of me in a light yellow chariot and pair, with silver boxes to the wheels – ’
‘Oh! you was thinking of that, was you, my dear?’
‘Yes!’ cried the delighted creature. ‘And with a footman up behind, with a bar across, to keep his legs from being poled! And with a coachman up in front, sinking down into a seat big enough for three of him, all covered with upholstery in green and white! And with two bay horses tossing their heads and stepping higher than they trot long-ways! And with you and me leaning back inside, as grand as ninepence! Oh-h-h-h My! Ha ha ha ha ha!’
Mrs Boffin clapped her hands again, rocked herself again, beat her feet upon the floor, and wiped the tears of laughter from her eyes.
‘And what, my old lady,’ inquired Mr Boffin, when he also had sympathetically laughed: ‘what’s your views on the subject of the Bower?’
‘Shut it up. Don’t part with it, but put somebody in it, to keep it.’
‘Any other views?’
‘Noddy,’ said Mrs Boffin, coming from her fashionable sofa to his side on the plain settle, and hooking her comfortable arm through his, ‘Next I think – and I really have been thinking early and late – of the disappointed girl; her that was so cruelly disappointed, you know, both of her husband and his riches. Don’t you think we might do something for her? Have her to live with us? Or something of that sort?’
‘Ne-ver