r,' said Mr Wegg.

'Why, you know every one of these songs by name and by tune, and if you
want to read or to sing any one on 'em off straight, you've only to whip
on your spectacles and do it!' cried Mr Boffin. 'I see you at it!'

'Well, sir,' returned Mr Wegg, with a conscious inclination of the head;
'we'll say literary, then.'

'"A literary man--WITH a wooden leg--and all Print is open to him!"
That's what I thought to myself, that morning,' pursued Mr Boffin,
leaning forward to describe, uncramped by the clotheshorse, as large an
arc as his right arm could make; '"all Print is open to him!" And it is,
ain't it?'

'Why, truly, sir,' Mr Wegg admitted, with modesty; 'I believe you
couldn't show me the piece of English print, that I wouldn't be equal to
collaring and throwing.'

'On the spot?' said Mr Boffin.

'On the spot.'

'I know'd it! Then consider this. Here am I, a man without a wooden leg,
and yet all print is shut to me.'

'Indeed, sir?' Mr Wegg returned with increasing self-complacency.
'Education neglected?'

'Neg--lected!' repeated Boffin, with emphasis. 'That ain't no word for
it. I don't mean to say but what if you showed me a B, I could so far
give you change for it, as to answer Boffin.'

'Come, come, sir,' said Mr Wegg, throwing in a little encouragement,
'that's something, too.'

'It's something,' answered Mr Boffin, 'but I'll take my oath it ain't
much.'

'Perhaps it's not as much as could be wished by an inquiring mind, sir,'
Mr Wegg admitted.

'Now, look here. I'm retired from business. Me and Mrs
Boffin--Henerietty Boffin--which her father's name was Henery, and her
mother's name was Hetty, and so you get it--we live on a compittance,
under the will of a diseased governor.'

'Gentleman dead, sir?'

'Man alive, don't I tell you? A diseased governor? Now, it's too late
for me to begin shovelling and sifting at alphabeds and grammar-books.
I'm getting to be a old bird, and I want to take it easy. But I want
some reading--some fine bold reading, some splendid book in a gorging
Lord-Mayor's-Show of wollumes' (probably meaning gorgeous, but misled
by association of ideas); 'as'll reach right down your pint of view, and
take time to go by you. How can I get that reading, Wegg? By,' tapping
him on the breast with the head of his thick stick, 'paying a man truly
qualified to do it, so much an hour (say twopence) to come and do it.'

'Hem! Flattered, sir, I am sure,' said Wegg, beginni