d by the close of the labour, to grumble to any great extent.
A foreman-representative of the dust contractors, purchasers of the
Mounds, had worn Mr Wegg down to skin and bone. This supervisor of the
proceedings, asserting his employers' rights to cart off by daylight,
nightlight, torchlight, when they would, must have been the death of
Silas if the work had lasted much longer. Seeming never to need sleep
himself, he would reappear, with a tied-up broken head, in fantail hat
and velveteen smalls, like an accursed goblin, at the most unholy and
untimely hours. Tired out by keeping close ward over a long day's work
in fog and rain, Silas would have just crawled to bed and be dozing,
when a horrid shake and rumble under his pillow would announce an
approaching train of carts, escorted by this Demon of Unrest, to fall to
work again. At another time, he would be rumbled up out of his soundest
sleep, in the dead of the night; at another, would be kept at his post
eight-and-forty hours on end. The more his persecutor besought him not
to trouble himself to turn out, the more suspicious was the crafty Wegg
that indications had been observed of something hidden somewhere, and
that attempts were on foot to circumvent him. So continually broken was
his rest through these means, that he led the life of having wagered
to keep ten thousand dog-watches in ten thousand hours, and looked
piteously upon himself as always getting up and yet never going to bed.
So gaunt and haggard had he grown at last, that his wooden leg showed
disproportionate, and presented a thriving appearance in contrast
with the rest of his plagued body, which might almost have been termed
chubby.

However, Wegg's comfort was, that all his disagreeables were now over,
and that he was immediately coming into his property. Of late, the
grindstone did undoubtedly appear to have been whirling at his own nose
rather than Boffin's, but Boffin's nose was now to be sharpened fine.
Thus far, Mr Wegg had let his dusty friend off lightly, having been
baulked in that amiable design of frequently dining with him, by the
machinations of the sleepless dustman. He had been constrained to depute
Mr Venus to keep their dusty friend, Boffin, under inspection, while he
himself turned lank and lean at the Bower.

To Mr Venus's museum Mr Wegg repaired when at length the Mounds
were down and gone. It being evening, he found that gentleman, as he
expected, seated over his fire; but did n