rviceable. Mr John
Rokesmith will please enter on his duties immediately."'

'Well! Now, Noddy!' cried Mrs Boffin, clapping her hands, 'That IS a
good one!'

Mr Boffin was no less delighted; indeed, in his own bosom, he regarded
both the composition itself and the device that had given birth to it,
as a very remarkable monument of human ingenuity.

'And I tell you, my deary,' said Mrs Boffin, 'that if you don't close
with Mr Rokesmith now at once, and if you ever go a muddling yourself
again with things never meant nor made for you, you'll have an
apoplexy--besides iron-moulding your linen--and you'll break my heart.'

Mr Boffin embraced his spouse for these words of wisdom, and then,
congratulating John Rokesmith on the brilliancy of his achievements,
gave him his hand in pledge of their new relations. So did Mrs Boffin.

'Now,' said Mr Boffin, who, in his frankness, felt that it did not
become him to have a gentleman in his employment five minutes, without
reposing some confidence in him, 'you must be let a little more into our
affairs, Rokesmith. I mentioned to you, when I made your acquaintance,
or I might better say when you made mine, that Mrs Boffin's inclinations
was setting in the way of Fashion, but that I didn't know how
fashionable we might or might not grow. Well! Mrs Boffin has carried the
day, and we're going in neck and crop for Fashion.'

'I rather inferred that, sir,' replied John Rokesmith, 'from the scale
on which your new establishment is to be maintained.'

'Yes,' said Mr Boffin, 'it's to be a Spanker. The fact is, my
literary man named to me that a house with which he is, as I may say,
connected--in which he has an interest--'

'As property?' inquired John Rokesmith.

'Why no,' said Mr Boffin, 'not exactly that; a sort of a family tie.'

'Association?' the Secretary suggested.

'Ah!' said Mr Boffin. 'Perhaps. Anyhow, he named to me that the house
had a board up, "This Eminently Aristocratic Mansion to be let or sold."
Me and Mrs Boffin went to look at it, and finding it beyond a doubt
Eminently Aristocratic (though a trifle high and dull, which after all
may be part of the same thing) took it. My literary man was so friendly
as to drop into a charming piece of poetry on that occasion, in which he
complimented Mrs Boffin on coming into possession of--how did it go, my
dear?'

Mrs Boffin replied:

'"The gay, the gay and festive scene,
The halls, the halls of dazzling light.