than anything in Mr Venus's rare collection. That
light-haired gentleman followed close upon their heels, at least backing
up Mr Boffin in a literal sense, if he had not had recent opportunities
of doing so spiritually; while Mr Boffin, trotting on as hard as he
could trot, involved Silas Wegg in frequent collisions with the public,
much as a pre-occupied blind man's dog may be seen to involve his
master.

Thus they reached Mr Venus's establishment, somewhat heated by the
nature of their progress thither. Mr Wegg, especially, was in a flaming
glow, and stood in the little shop, panting and mopping his head with
his pocket-handkerchief, speechless for several minutes.

Meanwhile, Mr Venus, who had left the duelling frogs to fight it out in
his absence by candlelight for the public delectation, put the shutters
up. When all was snug, and the shop-door fastened, he said to the
perspiring Silas: 'I suppose, Mr Wegg, we may now produce the paper?'

'Hold on a minute, sir,' replied that discreet character; 'hold on a
minute. Will you obligingly shove that box--which you mentioned on a
former occasion as containing miscellanies--towards me in the midst of
the shop here?'

Mr Venus did as he was asked.

'Very good,' said Silas, looking about: 've--ry good. Will you hand me
that chair, sir, to put a-top of it?'

Venus handed him the chair.

'Now, Boffin,' said Wegg, 'mount up here and take your seat, will you?'

Mr Boffin, as if he were about to have his portrait painted, or to be
electrified, or to be made a Freemason, or to be placed at any other
solitary disadvantage, ascended the rostrum prepared for him.

'Now, Mr Venus,' said Silas, taking off his coat, 'when I catches our
friend here round the arms and body, and pins him tight to the back of
the chair, you may show him what he wants to see. If you'll open it and
hold it well up in one hand, sir, and a candle in the other, he can read
it charming.'

Mr Boffin seemed rather inclined to object to these precautionary
arrangements, but, being immediately embraced by Wegg, resigned himself.
Venus then produced the document, and Mr Boffin slowly spelt it out
aloud: so very slowly, that Wegg, who was holding him in the chair
with the grip of a wrestler, became again exceedingly the worse for his
exertions. 'Say when you've put it safe back, Mr Venus,' he uttered with
difficulty, 'for the strain of this is terrimenjious.'

At length the document was restored to its p