candles a little
nearer, sir?' This to have a special opportunity of bestowing a stare
upon his comrade.

'Which of 'em have you got in that lot?' asked Mr Boffin. 'Can you find
out pretty easy?'

'Well, sir,' replied Silas, turning to the table of contents and slowly
fluttering the leaves of the book, 'I should say they must be pretty
well all here, sir; here's a large assortment, sir; my eye catches John
Overs, sir, John Little, sir, Dick Jarrel, John Elwes, the Reverend Mr
Jones of Blewbury, Vulture Hopkins, Daniel Dancer--'

'Give us Dancer, Wegg,' said Mr Boffin.

With another stare at his comrade, Silas sought and found the place.

'Page a hundred and nine, Mr Boffin. Chapter eight. Contents of chapter,
"His birth and estate. His garments and outward appearance. Miss Dancer
and her feminine graces. The Miser's Mansion. The finding of a treasure.
The Story of the Mutton Pies. A Miser's Idea of Death. Bob, the Miser's
cur. Griffiths and his Master. How to turn a penny. A substitute for a
Fire. The Advantages of keeping a Snuff-box. The Miser dies without a
Shirt. The Treasures of a Dunghill--"'

'Eh? What's that?' demanded Mr Boffin.

'"The Treasures," sir,' repeated Silas, reading very distinctly, '"of a
Dunghill." Mr Venus, sir, would you obleege with the snuffers?' This, to
secure attention to his adding with his lips only, 'Mounds!'

Mr Boffin drew an arm-chair into the space where he stood, and said,
seating himself and slyly rubbing his hands:

'Give us Dancer.'

Mr Wegg pursued the biography of that eminent man through its various
phases of avarice and dirt, through Miss Dancer's death on a sick
regimen of cold dumpling, and through Mr Dancer's keeping his rags
together with a hayband, and warming his dinner by sitting upon it, down
to the consolatory incident of his dying naked in a sack. After which he
read on as follows:

'"The house, or rather the heap of ruins, in which Mr Dancer lived, and
which at his death devolved to the right of Captain Holmes, was a most
miserable, decayed building, for it had not been repaired for more than
half a century."'

(Here Mr Wegg eyes his comrade and the room in which they sat: which had
not been repaired for a long time.)

'"But though poor in external structure, the ruinous fabric was very
rich in the interior. It took many weeks to explore its whole contents;
and Captain Holmes found it a very agreeable task to dive into the
miser's secret hoards."'