-up
inflammatory-faced old gentleman appeared but imperfectly to appreciate.

The only article in which Silas dealt, that was not hard, was
gingerbread. On a certain day, some wretched infant having purchased the
damp gingerbread-horse (fearfully out of condition), and the adhesive
bird-cage, which had been exposed for the day's sale, he had taken a tin
box from under his stool to produce a relay of those dreadful specimens,
and was going to look in at the lid, when he said to himself, pausing:
'Oh! Here you are again!'

The words referred to a broad, round-shouldered, one-sided old fellow in
mourning, coming comically ambling towards the corner, dressed in a pea
over-coat, and carrying a large stick. He wore thick shoes, and thick
leather gaiters, and thick gloves like a hedger's. Both as to his dress
and to himself, he was of an overlapping rhinoceros build, with folds
in his cheeks, and his forehead, and his eyelids, and his lips, and his
ears; but with bright, eager, childishly-inquiring, grey eyes, under his
ragged eyebrows, and broad-brimmed hat. A very odd-looking old fellow
altogether.

'Here you are again,' repeated Mr Wegg, musing. 'And what are you now?
Are you in the Funns, or where are you? Have you lately come to settle
in this neighbourhood, or do you own to another neighbourhood? Are you
in independent circumstances, or is it wasting the motions of a bow on
you? Come! I'll speculate! I'll invest a bow in you.'

Which Mr Wegg, having replaced his tin box, accordingly did, as he rose
to bait his gingerbread-trap for some other devoted infant. The salute
was acknowledged with:

'Morning, sir! Morning! Morning!'

('Calls me Sir!' said Mr Wegg, to himself; 'HE won't answer. A bow
gone!')

'Morning, morning, morning!'

'Appears to be rather a 'arty old cock, too,' said Mr Wegg, as before;
'Good morning to YOU, sir.'

'Do you remember me, then?' asked his new acquaintance, stopping in
his amble, one-sided, before the stall, and speaking in a pounding way,
though with great good-humour.

'I have noticed you go past our house, sir, several times in the course
of the last week or so.'

'Our house,' repeated the other. 'Meaning--?'

'Yes,' said Mr Wegg, nodding, as the other pointed the clumsy forefinger
of his right glove at the corner house.

'Oh! Now, what,' pursued the old fellow, in an inquisitive manner,
carrying his knotted stick in his left arm as if it were a baby, 'what
do they allow you