ng gentleman
of tender years, angling for mud with a headless wooden horse and line.
In this young sportsman, distinguished by a crisply curling auburn head
and a bluff countenance, the Secretary descried the orphan.

It unfortunately happened as they quickened their pace, that the orphan,
lost to considerations of personal safety in the ardour of the moment,
overbalanced himself and toppled into the street. Being an orphan of a
chubby conformation, he then took to rolling, and had rolled into the
gutter before they could come up. From the gutter he was rescued by John
Rokesmith, and thus the first meeting with Mrs Higden was inaugurated by
the awkward circumstance of their being in possession--one would say at
first sight unlawful possession--of the orphan, upside down and purple
in the countenance. The board across the doorway too, acting as a trap
equally for the feet of Mrs Higden coming out, and the feet of Mrs
Boffin and John Rokesmith going in, greatly increased the difficulty of
the situation: to which the cries of the orphan imparted a lugubrious
and inhuman character.

At first, it was impossible to explain, on account of the orphan's
'holding his breath': a most terrific proceeding, super-inducing in the
orphan lead-colour rigidity and a deadly silence, compared with which
his cries were music yielding the height of enjoyment. But as he
gradually recovered, Mrs Boffin gradually introduced herself; and
smiling peace was gradually wooed back to Mrs Betty Higden's home.

It was then perceived to be a small home with a large mangle in it, at
the handle of which machine stood a very long boy, with a very little
head, and an open mouth of disproportionate capacity that seemed to
assist his eyes in staring at the visitors. In a corner below the
mangle, on a couple of stools, sat two very little children: a boy and a
girl; and when the very long boy, in an interval of staring, took a turn
at the mangle, it was alarming to see how it lunged itself at those two
innocents, like a catapult designed for their destruction, harmlessly
retiring when within an inch of their heads. The room was clean and
neat. It had a brick floor, and a window of diamond panes, and a flounce
hanging below the chimney-piece, and strings nailed from bottom to top
outside the window on which scarlet-beans were to grow in the coming
season if the Fates were propitious. However propitious they might have
been in the seasons that were gone, to Be