me grow older and older in the old man's service, living and working pretty hard in it, till the old man is discovered dead in his bed. Then Mrs. Boffin and me seal up his box, always standing on the table at the side of his bed; and, having frequently heard tell of the Temple as a spot where lawyers' dust is contracted for, I come down here in search of a lawyer to advise, and I see your young man up at this present elevation chopping at the flies on the window-sill with his penknife, and I give him a Hoy!' not then having the pleasure of your acquaintance, and by that means come to gain the honor. Then you, and the gentleman in the uncomfortable neck-cloth under the little archway in Saint Paul's Churchyard”. "

"Doctors' Commons," observed Lightwood.

"I understood it was another name," said Mr. Boffin, pausing: "but you know best. Then you and Doctor Scommons, you go to work, and you do the thing that's proper; and you and Doctor S. take steps for finding out the poor boy: and at last you do find out the poor boy, and me and Mrs. Boffin often exchange the observation, 'We shall see him again under happy circumstances.' But it was never to be; and the want of satisfactoriness is, that, after all, the money never gets to him."

Mr. Boffin closes his interview with Mr. Lightwood by authorizing him to offer a reward of ten thousand pounds for the arrest of the murderer of John Harmon, the younger. John Harmon, however, is not dead; though he has but barely escaped being murdered. Learning of the condition in his father's will under which he is to inherit, it occurs to him to take advantage of the false report of his death to make the acquaintance of the young lady (Miss Bella Wilfer), and, if he likes her, to try to win her without disclosing himself. He accordingly assumes the name of John Rokesmith, and hires a room at her father's house, which gives him an opportunity of thus seeing and speaking to her. He also succeeds in making an engagement to act as secretary and man of business to Mr. Boffin, who shortly afterward adopts Miss Wilfer, who is thus brought daily into contact with Mr. Rokesmith. She treats him with great disdain; but he comes, in time, to love her devotedly. At last his features, which have long attracted and puzzled Mrs. Boffin, betray him; and he is forced to acknowledge the truth about himself. The discovery is kept a profound secret from Miss Wilfer, however; and Mr. Boffin comes to Harmon's assistance, and endeavors to win her love for him by first exciting her sympathy. He therefore pretends to become very miserly, and grows so anxious about the management of his estate, that he shamefully abuses his factotum for not taking better care of it. In the end, this strategy proves successful, and Bella marries the poor secretary, who still retains the name of Rokesmith. Meanwhile, Mr. Boffin has discovered, secreted in an old Dutch

bottle, a later will than the one he has proved, and under which he has entered upon possession of the estate. By this document, every thing is given to him absolutely, excluding and reviling the son by name. But, with rare disinterestedness and munificence, Mr. Boffin transfers the entire property to the rightful heir, reserving for himself only the house occupied by his late master, which is popularly called "Harmon's Jail," on account of his solitary manner of life, or "Harmony Jail," on account of his never agreeing with anybody; but which Mrs. Boffin renames "Boffin's Bower." With respect to his personal appearance, Mr. Boffin is described

as

A broad, round-shouldered, one-sided old fellow. . . dressed in a pea overcoat, and carrying a large stick. He wore thick shoes, and thick leather gaiters, and thick gloves like a hedger's. Both as to his dress and to himself, he was of an overlapping, rhinoceros build, with folds in his cheeks, and his forehead, and his eyelids, and his lips, and his ears, but with bright, eager, childishlyinquiring gray eyes under his ragged eyebrows and broad-brimmed hat. A very odd-looking old fellow altogether.

These two ignorant and unpolished people [Mr. and Mrs. Boffin] had guided themselves so far in their journey of life by a religious sense of duty and desire to do right. Ten thousand weaknesses and absurdities might have been detected in the breasts of both; ten thousand vanities additional, possibly, in the breast of the woman. But the hard, wrathful, and sordid nature that had wrung as much work out of them as could be got in their best days for as little money as could be paid to hurry on their worst had never been so warped but that it knew their moral straightness, and respected it. In its own despite, in a constant conflict with itself and them, it had done so. And this is the eternal law. For evil often stops short at itself, and dies with the doer of it; but good never.

(Bk. I, ch. v, viii, ix, xv–xvii; Bk. II, ch. vii, viii, x, xiv; Bk. III, ch. iv-vii, xiv, xv ; Bk. IV, ch. ii, iii, xii-xiv, xvi.)

MON (JOHN), Wegg (Silas).

Boots, Mr.
Brewer, Mr.

See HAR

Fashionable toadies; friends of the Veneerings. (Bk. I, ch. ii, x; Bk. II, ch. iii, xvi; Bk. III, ch. xvii; Bk. IV, ch. xvi.)

Cherub, The. See WILFER, REGINALD.

Cleaver, Fanny, called JENNY WREN.

A doll's dressmaker. Lizzie Hexam, after her father's death, has temporary lodgings with her; and one day her brother calls to see her.

The boy knocked at a door; and the door promptly opened with a spring and a click. A parlor-door within a small entry stood open, and disclosed a child. a dwarf, a girl, a something, sitting on a little low old-fashioned arm-chair, which had a kind of little working-bench before it.

"I can't get up," said the child, "because my back 's bad, and my legs are queer; but I'm the person of the house."

"Who else is at home?" asked Charley Hexam, staring.

"Nobody 's at home at present," returned the child, with a glib assertion of her dignity, "except the person of the house. What did you want, young man ?” "I wanted to see my sister."

"Many young men have sisters," returned the child. young man?"

"Give me your name,

The queer little figure, and the queer but not ugly little face, with its bright gray eyes, were so sharp, that the sharpness of the manner seemed unavoidable, - as if, being turned out of that mould, it must be sharp.

"Hexam is my name."

"I thought it might be. Your

"Ah, indeed?" said the person of the house. sister will be in in about a quarter of an hour. I am very fond of your sister. She's my particular friend. Take a seat. And this gentleman's name?"

"Mr. Headstone, my schoolmaster."

"Take a seat. And would you please to shut the street-door first? I can't very well do it myself, because my back 's so bad, and my legs are so queer.”

They complied in silence, and the little figure went on with its work of gumming or gluing together with a camel's-hair brush certain pieces of cardboard and thin wood, previously cut into various shapes. The scissors and knives upon the bench showed that the child herself had cut them; and the bright scraps of velvet and silk and ribbon, also strewn upon the bench, showed that, when duly stuffed (and stuffing too was there), she was to cover them smartly. The dexterity of her nimble fingers was remarkable; and, as she brought two thin edges accurately together by giving them a little bite, she would glance at the visitors, out of the corners of her gray eyes, with a look that outsharpened all her other sharp

ness.

"You can't tell me the name of my trade, I'll be bound," she said after taking

several of these observations.

"You make pincushions," said Charley.

"What else do I make?"

"Penwipers," said Bradley Headstone.

"Ha, ha! What else do I make? You 're a schoolmaster; but you can't tell me."

"You do something," he returned, pointing to a corner of the little bench, "with straw; but I don't know what."

"Well done you!" cried the person of the house. "I only make pincushions and penwipers to use up my waste. But my straw really does belong to my business. Try again. What do I make with my straw?"

"Dinner-mats ?"

"A schoolmaster, and says dinner-mats! I'll give you a clew to my trade in a game of forfeits. I love my love with a B because she's beautiful; I hate my love with a B because she 's brazen; I took her to the sign of the Blue Boar, and I treated her with bonnets; her name 's Bouncer, and she lives in Bedlam. Now, what do I make with my straw?"

"Ladies' bonnets?"

"Fine ladies'," said the person of the house, nodding assent. doll's dressmaker."

"I hope it's a good business?"

The person of the house shrugged her shoulders and shook her head.

"No.

Poorly paid. And I'm often so pressed for time! I had a doll married last week, and was obliged to work all night. And it's not good for me, on account of my back being so bad, and my legs so queer."

They looked at the little creature with a wonder that did not diminish; and the schoolmaster said, "I am sorry your fine ladies are so inconsiderate."

"It's the way with them," said the person of the house, shrugging her shoulders again. "And they take no care of their clothes; and they never keep to the same fashions a month. I work for a doll with three daughters. Bless you, she's enough to ruin her husband!"

The person of the house gave a weird little laugh here, and gave them another look out of the corners of her eyes. She had an elfin chin that was capable of great expression; and, whenever she gave this look, she hitched this chin up, as if her eyes and her chin worked together on the same wires.

"Are you always as busy as you are now?"

"Busier. I'm slack just now. I finished a large mourning order the day before yesterday. Doll I work for lost a canary-bird." The person of the house gave another little laugh, and then nodded her head several times, as who should moralize, "Oh, this world, this world!"

"Are you alone all day?" asked Bradley Headstone. boring children?"—

"Don't any of the neigh

"Ah, lud!” cried the person of the house with a little scream, as if the word had pricked her. "Don't talk of children. I can't bear children. I know their tricks and their manners." She said this with an angry little shake of her right

fist close before her eyes.

Perhaps it scarcely required the teacher-habit to perceive that the doll's dressmaker was inclined to be bitter on the difference between herself and other children; but both master and pupil understood it so.

"Always running about and screeching, always playing and fighting, always skip-skip-skipping on the pavement, and chalking it for their games. Oh! I know their tricks and their manners!" Shaking the little fist as before. "And that's not all. Ever so often calling names in through a person's keyhole, and imitating a person's back and legs. Oh! I know their tricks and their manners; and I'll tell you what I'd do to punish 'em. There's doors under the church in the square, - black doors, leading into black vaults. Well, I'd open one of those doors, and I 'd cram 'em all in, and then I'd lock the door, and through the keyhole I'd blow in pepper."

"What would be the good of blowing in pepper?" asked Charley Hexam.

"To set 'em sneezing," said the person of the house, " and make their eyes water; and, when they were all sneezing and inflamed, I'd mock 'em through the keyhole, just as they, with their tricks and their manners, mock a person through a person's keyhole!"

An uncommonly emphatic shake of her little fist close before her eyes seemed to ease the mind of the person of the house; for she added with recovered composure, No, no, no! No children for me. Give me grown ups."

66

It was difficult to guess the age of this strange creature; for her poor figure furnished no clew to it, and her face was at once so young and so old. Twelve, or, at the most, thirteen, might be near the mark.

(Bk. II, ch. i, ii, v, xi, xv; Bk. III, ch. ii, iii, x, xiii; Bk. IV, ch. viii-xi, xv.)

Cleaver, Mr., called MR. DOLLS. Her father; a good workman at his trade, but a weak, wretched, trembling creature, falling to pieces, and never sober. (Bk. II, ch. ii; Bk. III, ch. x, xvii; Bk. IV, ch. viii, ix.)

Dolls, Mr. See CLEAVER, MR.

Fledgeby, Mr., called FASCINATION FLEDGEBY. A dandified young man, who is a dolt in most matters, but sharp and sight enough where money is concerned.

Young Fledgeby had a peachy cheek, or a cheek compounded of the peach and the red red red wall on which it grows, and was an awkward, sandy-haired, small-eyed youth, exceeding slim (his enemies would have said lanky), and prone to self-examination in the articles of whisker and mustache. While feeling for the whisker that he anxiously expected, Fledgeby underwent remarkable fluctuations of spirits, ranging along the whole scale from confidence to despair. There were times when he started, as exclaiming " By Jupiter, here it is at last!" There were other times when, being equally depressed, he would be seen to shake his head, and give up hope. To see him at those periods, leaning on a chimney-piece, like as on an urn containing the ashes of his ambition, with the cheek that would not sprout upon the hand on which that cheek had forced conviction, was a distressing sight.

...

In facetious homage to the smallness of his talk and the jerky nature of his manners, Fledgeby's familiars had agreed to confer upon him (behind his back) the honorary title of Fascination Fledgeby.

He is an acquaintance of Mr. Lammle, who unsuccessfully endeavors to marry him to Miss Georgiana Podsnap, Fledgeby having given him his note for one thousand pounds in case he effects the arrangement. Fledgeby is a money-broker, and has an office, which is kept by an aged Jew in his service, and is known under the firm-name of Pubsey & Co.'s. Under the pretence of using his influence with Pubsey & Co., he often strolls into the counting-house with some unfortunate acquaintance, and pleads with the Jew for an extension on their overdue bills. The old man often watches his face for some sign of permission to do so, which is never given; yet Fledgeby habitually reviles him and his race for not granting the accommodation that he has himself forced him to deny. (Bk. II, ch. iv, v, xvi; Bk. III, ch. i, xii, xiii, xvii; Bk. IV, ch. viii, ix, xvi.) See RIAH, Mr.

Glamour, Bob. A customer at the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters. (Bk. I, ch. vi; Bk. III, ch. iii.)

Gliddery, Bob.

(Bk. I, ch. vi, xiii;

Pot-boy at the Six Jolly Fellowship Porters.
Bk. III, ch. iii.)

Golden Dustman, The. See BOFFIN, NICODEMUS.