Wegg did not say what organ, but spoke with a cheerful generality.
So, the pie was brought down, and the worthy Mr Boffin exercised his
patience until Wegg, in the exercise of his knife and fork, had finished
the dish: only profiting by the opportunity to inform Wegg that although
it was not strictly Fashionable to keep the contents of a larder thus
exposed to view, he (Mr Boffin) considered it hospitable; for the
reason, that instead of saying, in a comparatively unmeaning manner, to
a visitor, 'There are such and such edibles down stairs; will you have
anything up?' you took the bold practical course of saying, 'Cast your
eye along the shelves, and, if you see anything you like there, have it
down.'
And now, Mr Wegg at length pushed away his plate and put on his
spectacles, and Mr Boffin lighted his pipe and looked with beaming
eyes into the opening world before him, and Mrs Boffin reclined in a
fashionable manner on her sofa: as one who would be part of the audience
if she found she could, and would go to sleep if she found she couldn't.
'Hem!' began Wegg, 'This, Mr Boffin and Lady, is the first chapter of
the first wollume of the Decline and Fall off--' here he looked hard at
the book, and stopped.
'What's the matter, Wegg?'
'Why, it comes into my mind, do you know, sir,' said Wegg with an air
of insinuating frankness (having first again looked hard at the book),
'that you made a little mistake this morning, which I had meant to set
you right in, only something put it out of my head. I think you said
Rooshan Empire, sir?'
'It is Rooshan; ain't it, Wegg?'
'No, sir. Roman. Roman.'
'What's the difference, Wegg?'
'The difference, sir?' Mr Wegg was faltering and in danger of breaking
down, when a bright thought flashed upon him. 'The difference, sir?
There you place me in a difficulty, Mr Boffin. Suffice it to observe,
that the difference is best postponed to some other occasion when Mrs
Boffin does not honour us with her company. In Mrs Boffin's presence,
sir, we had better drop it.'
Mr Wegg thus came out of his disadvantage with quite a chivalrous air,
and not only that, but by dint of repeating with a manly delicacy,
'In Mrs Boffin's presence, sir, we had better drop it!' turned the
disadvantage on Boffin, who felt that he had committed himself in a very
painful manner.
Then, Mr Wegg, in a dry unflinching way, entered on his task; going
straight across country at everything that came before h
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