Mr Wegg, glancing in great dudgeon towards the French gentleman's corner, seemed to notice something new there, which induced him to glance at the opposite corner, and then to put on his glasses and stare at all the nooks and corners of the dim shop in succession.
'Why, you've been having the place cleaned up!' he exclaimed.
'Yes, Mr Wegg. By the hand of adorable woman.'
'Then what you're going to do next, I suppose, is to get married?'
'That's it, sir.'
Silas took off his glasses again--finding himself too intensely disgusted by the sprightly appearance of his friend and partner to bear a magnified view of him and made the inquiry:
'To the old party?'
'Mr Wegg!' said Venus, with a sudden flush of wrath. 'The lady in question is not a old party.'
'I meant,' exclaimed Wegg, testily, 'to the party as formerly objected?'
'Mr Wegg,' said Venus, 'in a case of so much delicacy, I must trouble you to say what you mean. There are strings that must not be played upon. No sir! Not sounded, unless in the most respectful and tuneful manner. Of such melodious strings is Miss Pleasant Riderhood formed.'
'Then it IS the lady as formerly objected?' said Wegg.
'Sir,' returned Venus with dignity, 'I accept the altered phrase. It is the lady as formerly objected.'
'When is it to come off?' asked Silas.
'Mr Wegg,' said Venus, with another flush. 'I cannot permit it to be put in the form of a Fight. I must temperately but firmly call upon you, sir, to amend that question.'
'When is the lady,' Wegg reluctantly demanded, constraining his ill temper in remembrance of the partnership and its stock in trade, 'a going to give her 'and where she has already given her 'art?'
'Sir,' returned Venus, 'I again accept the altered phrase, and with pleasure. The lady is a going to give her 'and where she has already given her 'art, next Monday.'
'Then the lady's objection has been met?' said Silas.
'Mr Wegg,' said Venus, 'as I did name to you, I think, on a former occasion, if not on former occasions--'
'On former occasions,' interrupted Wegg.
'--What,' pursued Venus, 'what the nature of the lady's objection was, I may impart, without violating any of the tender confidences since sprung up between the lady and myself, how it has been met, through the kind interference of two good friends of mine: one, previously acquainted with the lady: and one, not. The pint was thrown out, sir, by those two friends when they did me the great service of waiting on the lady to try if a union betwixt the lady and me could not be brought to bear--the pint, I say, was thrown out by them, sir, whether if, after marriage, I confined myself to the articulation of men, children, and the lower animals, it might not relieve the lady's mind of her feeling respecting being as a lady--regarded in a bony light. It was a happy thought, sir, and it took root.'
'It would seem, Mr Venus,' observed Wegg, with a touch of distrust, 'that you are flush of friends?'
'Pretty well, sir,' that gentleman answered, in a tone of placid mystery. 'So-so, sir. Pretty well.'
'However,' said Wegg, after eyeing him with another touch of distrust, 'I wish you joy. One man spends his fortune in one way, and another in another. You are going to try matrimony. I mean to try travelling.'
'Indeed, Mr Wegg?'
'Change of air, sea-scenery, and my natural rest, I hope may bring me round after the persecutions I have undergone from the dustman with his head tied up, which I just now mentioned. The tough job being ended and the Mounds laid low, the hour is come for Boffin to stump up. Would ten to-morrow morning suit you, partner, for finally bringing Boffin's nose to the grindstone?'
Ten to-morrow morning would quite suit Mr Venus for that excellent purpose.
'You have had him well under inspection, I hope?' said Silas.
Mr Venus had had him under inspection pretty well every day.
'Suppose you was just to step round to-night then, and give him orders from me--I say from me, because he knows I won't be played with--to be ready with his papers, his accounts, and his cash, at that time in the morning?' said Wegg. 'And as a matter of form, which will be agreeable to your own feelings, before we go out (for I'll walk with you part of the way, though my leg gives under me with weariness), let's have a look at the stock in trade.'
Mr Venus produced it, and it was perfectly correct; Mr Venus undertook to produce it again in the morning, and to keep tryst with Mr Wegg on Boffin's doorstep as the clock struck ten. At a certain point of the road between Clerkenwell and Boffin's house (Mr Wegg expressly insisted that there should be no prefix to the Golden Dustman's name) the partners separated for the night.
It was a very bad night; to which succeeded a very bad morning.
The streets were so unusually slushy, muddy, and miserable, in the morning, that Wegg rode to the scene of action; arguing that a man who was, as it were, going to the Bank to draw out a handsome property, could well afford that trifling expense.
Venus was punctual, and Wegg undertook to knock at the door, and conduct the conference. Door knocked at. Door opened.
'Boffin at home?'
The servant replied that MR Boffin was at home.
'He'll do,' said Wegg, 'though it ain't what I call him.'
The servant inquired if they had any appointment?
'Now, I tell you what, young fellow,' said Wegg, 'I won't have it.
This won't do for me. I don't want menials. I want Boffin.'
They were shown into a waiting-room, where the all-powerful Wegg wore his hat, and whistled, and with his forefinger stirred up a clock that stood upon the chimneypiece, until he made it strike.
