much?' thought Mr Boffin. 'It must be coming to money. How much?')

'You will probably change your manner of living, Mr Boffin, in your
changed circumstances. You will probably keep a larger house, have many
matters to arrange, and be beset by numbers of correspondents. If you
would try me as your Secretary--'

'As WHAT?' cried Mr Boffin, with his eyes wide open.

'Your Secretary.'

'Well,' said Mr Boffin, under his breath, 'that's a queer thing!'

'Or,' pursued the stranger, wondering at Mr Boffin's wonder, 'if you
would try me as your man of business under any name, I know you would
find me faithful and grateful, and I hope you would find me useful. You
may naturally think that my immediate object is money. Not so, for
I would willingly serve you a year--two years--any term you might
appoint--before that should begin to be a consideration between us.'

'Where do you come from?' asked Mr Boffin.

'I come,' returned the other, meeting his eye, 'from many countries.'

Boffin's acquaintances with the names and situations of foreign lands
being limited in extent and somewhat confused in quality, he shaped his
next question on an elastic model.

'From--any particular place?'

'I have been in many places.'

'What have you been?' asked Mr Boffin.

Here again he made no great advance, for the reply was, 'I have been a
student and a traveller.'

'But if it ain't a liberty to plump it out,' said Mr Boffin, 'what do
you do for your living?'

'I have mentioned,' returned the other, with another look at him, and
a smile, 'what I aspire to do. I have been superseded as to some slight
intentions I had, and I may say that I have now to begin life.'

Not very well knowing how to get rid of this applicant, and feeling the
more embarrassed because his manner and appearance claimed a delicacy
in which the worthy Mr Boffin feared he himself might be deficient, that
gentleman glanced into the mouldy little plantation or cat-preserve, of
Clifford's Inn, as it was that day, in search of a suggestion. Sparrows
were there, cats were there, dry-rot and wet-rot were there, but it was
not otherwise a suggestive spot.

'All this time,' said the stranger, producing a little pocket-book and
taking out a card, 'I have not mentioned my name. My name is Rokesmith.
I lodge at one Mr Wilfer's, at Holloway.'

Mr Boffin stared again.

'Father of Miss Bella Wilfer?' said he.

'My landlord has a daughter named Bella. Yes; no doubt.'