His wife

John Harmon Mr. Harmon's son
Later Mr. Boffin's secretary, under the name
of "John Rokesmith"

Mr. Veneering A rich man with social and political
ambitions

Mr. Wilfer A clerk in Mr. Veneering's office

Bella His daughter

Silas Wegg A one-legged ballad seller

"Rogue" Riderhood A riverman of bad reputation
Later a lock tender

Hexam A riverman

Charley His son

Lizzie His daughter

"Jenny Wren" A crippled friend of Lizzie's, known
as "The Dolls' Dressmaker"

Eugene Wrayburn A reckless young lawyer

Headstone A schoolmaster

Mr. Venus A dismal young man with a dismal trade--the
stringing together of human skeletons on wires

OUR MUTUAL FRIEND

I

WHAT HAPPENED TO JOHN HARMON

In London there once lived an old man named Harmon who had made a great
fortune by gathering the dust and ashes of the city and sorting it for
whatever it contained of value. He lived in a house surrounded by great
mounds of dust that he had collected.

He was a hard-hearted man and when his daughter would not marry as he
wished he turned her out of the house on a winter's night. The poor girl
died soon after, and her younger brother (a boy of only fourteen),
indignant at his father's cruelty, ran away to a foreign country, where
for years he was not heard of.

The old man, hard-hearted as he was, and though he never spoke of the
son save with anger and curses, felt this keenly, for in his own way he
had loved the boy.

A Mr. Boffin was foreman of Harmon's dust business, and both he and his
wife had loved the two children. Being kind and just people, they did
not hesitate to let the father know how wicked they considered his
action, and they never ceased to grieve for the poor little John who
had run away. So, though they did not guess it, the old man made up his
mind they were an honest and deserving pair.

One morning