is eyebrows
with his toes, and he says, "I can't imagine, Mr. Magsman"--which he
never could imagine nothin, and was monotonous company.
The noise not leavin off, I laid down my pipe, and I took up a candle,
and I went down and opened the door. I looked out into the street; but
nothin could I see, and nothin was I aware of, until I turned round
quick, because some creetur run between my legs into the passage. There
was Mr. Chops!
"Magsman," he says, "take me, on the old terms, and you've got me; if
it's done, say done!"
I was all of a maze, but I said, "Done, sir."
"Done to your done, and double done!" says he. "Have you got a bit of
supper in the house?"
Bearin in mind them sparklin warieties of foreign drains as we'd guzzled
away at in Pall Mall, I was ashamed to offer him cold sassages and gin-
and-water; but he took 'em both and took 'em free; havin a chair for his
table, and sittin down at it on a stool, like hold times. I, all of a
maze all the while.
It was arter he had made a clean sweep of the sassages (beef, and to the
best of my calculations two pound and a quarter), that the wisdom as was
in that little man began to come out of him like prespiration.
"Magsman," he says, "look upon me! You see afore you, One as has both
gone into Society and come out."
"O! You _are_ out of it, Mr. Chops? How did you get out, sir?"
"SOLD OUT!" says he. You never saw the like of the wisdom as his Ed
expressed, when he made use of them two words.
"My friend Magsman, I'll impart to you a discovery I've made. It's
wallable; it's cost twelve thousand five hundred pound; it may do you
good in life--The secret of this matter is, that it ain't so much that a
person goes into Society, as that Society goes into a person."
Not exactly keepin up with his meanin, I shook my head, put on a deep
look, and said, "You're right there, Mr. Chops."
"Magsman," he says, twitchin me by the leg, "Society has gone into me, to
the tune of every penny of my property."
I felt that I went pale, and though nat'rally a bold speaker, I couldn't
hardly say, "Where's Normandy?"
"Bolted. With the plate," said Mr. Chops.
"And t'other one?" meaning him as formerly wore the bishop's mitre.
"Bolted. With the jewels," said Mr. Chops.
I sat down and looked at him, and he stood up and looked at me.
"Magsman," he says, and he seemed to myself to get wiser as he got
hoarser; "Society, taken in the lump, is all dwarfs.
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