ho loses forty-seven pound ten in one morning
by his honesty, is a man to be envied. If it had been eighty pound,
the luxuriousness of feeling would have been increased. Every pound
lost, would have been a hundredweight of happiness gained. The still
small voice, Christopher,' cries Brass, smiling, and tapping himself on
the bosom, 'is a-singing comic songs within me, and all is happiness
and joy!'

Kit is so improved by the conversation, and finds it go so completely
home to his feelings, that he is considering what he shall say, when Mr
Garland appears. The old gentleman is helped into the chaise with
great obsequiousness by Mr Sampson Brass; and the pony, after shaking
his head several times, and standing for three or four minutes with all
his four legs planted firmly on the ground, as if he had made up his
mind never to stir from that spot, but there to live and die, suddenly
darts off, without the smallest notice, at the rate of twelve English
miles an hour. Then, Mr Brass and his sister (who has joined him at
the door) exchange an odd kind of smile--not at all a pleasant one in
its expression--and return to the society of Mr Richard Swiveller,
who, during their absence, has been regaling himself with various feats
of pantomime, and is discovered at his desk, in a very flushed and
heated condition, violently scratching out nothing with half a penknife.

Whenever Kit came alone, and without the chaise, it always happened
that Sampson Brass was reminded of some mission, calling Mr Swiveller,
if not to Peckham Rye again, at all events to some pretty distant place
from Which he could not be expected to return for two or three hours,
or in all probability a much longer period, as that gentleman was not,
to say the truth, renowned for using great expedition on such
occasions, but rather for protracting and spinning out the time to the
very utmost limit of possibility. Mr Swiveller out of sight, Miss
Sally immediately withdrew. Mr Brass would then set the office-door
wide open, hum his old tune with great gaiety of heart, and smile
seraphically as before. Kit coming down-stairs would be called in;
entertained with some moral and agreeable conversation; perhaps
entreated to mind the office for an instant while Mr Brass stepped over
the way; and afterwards presented with one or two half-crowns as the
case might be. This occurred so often, that Kit, nothing doubting but
that they came from the single gentleman who