in
it, that he had become a mere somnambulist. He was too tired to rest in
his sleep, until he was even tired out of being too tired, and dropped
into oblivion. Late in the afternoon he awoke, and in some anxiety sent
round to Eugene's lodging hard by, to inquire if he were up yet?

Oh yes, he was up. In fact, he had not been to bed. He had just come
home. And here he was, close following on the heels of the message.

'Why what bloodshot, draggled, dishevelled spectacle is this!' cried
Mortimer.

'Are my feathers so very much rumpled?' said Eugene, coolly going up to
the looking-glass. They ARE rather out of sorts. But consider. Such a
night for plumage!'

'Such a night?' repeated Mortimer. 'What became of you in the morning?'

'My dear fellow,' said Eugene, sitting on his bed, 'I felt that we
had bored one another so long, that an unbroken continuance of those
relations must inevitably terminate in our flying to opposite points of
the earth. I also felt that I had committed every crime in the Newgate
Calendar. So, for mingled considerations of friendship and felony, I
took a walk.'

Chapter 15

TWO NEW SERVANTS

Mr and Mrs Boffin sat after breakfast, in the Bower, a prey to
prosperity. Mr Boffin's face denoted Care and Complication. Many
disordered papers were before him, and he looked at them about as
hopefully as an innocent civilian might look at a crowd of troops whom
he was required at five minutes' notice to manoeuvre and review. He had
been engaged in some attempts to make notes of these papers; but being
troubled (as men of his stamp often are) with an exceedingly distrustful
and corrective thumb, that busy member had so often interposed to
smear his notes, that they were little more legible than the various
impressions of itself; which blurred his nose and forehead. It is
curious to consider, in such a case as Mr Boffin's, what a cheap article
ink is, and how far it may be made to go. As a grain of musk will scent
a drawer for many years, and still lose nothing appreciable of its
original weight, so a halfpenny-worth of ink would blot Mr Boffin to the
roots of his hair and the calves of his legs, without inscribing a line
on the paper before him, or appearing to diminish in the inkstand.

Mr Boffin was in such severe literary difficulties that his eyes were
prominent and fixed, and his breathing was stertorous, when, to the
great relief of Mrs Boffin, who observed these symptoms with alarm, th