you?'

'No, sir.'

'No information to give, for a reward?'

'No, sir.'

There may have been a momentary mantling in the face of the man as he
made the last answer, but it passed directly.

'If I don't mistake, you have followed me from my lawyer's and tried
to fix my attention. Say out! Have you? Or haven't you?' demanded Mr
Boffin, rather angry.

'Yes.'

'Why have you?'

'If you will allow me to walk beside you, Mr Boffin, I will tell you.
Would you object to turn aside into this place--I think it is called
Clifford's Inn--where we can hear one another better than in the roaring
street?'

('Now,' thought Mr Boffin, 'if he proposes a game at skittles, or meets
a country gentleman just come into property, or produces any article
of jewellery he has found, I'll knock him down!' With this discreet
reflection, and carrying his stick in his arms much as Punch carries
his, Mr Boffin turned into Clifford's Inn aforesaid.)

'Mr Boffin, I happened to be in Chancery Lane this morning, when I saw
you going along before me. I took the liberty of following you, trying
to make up my mind to speak to you, till you went into your lawyer's.
Then I waited outside till you came out.'

('Don't quite sound like skittles, nor yet country gentleman, nor yet
jewellery,' thought Mr Boffin, 'but there's no knowing.')

'I am afraid my object is a bold one, I am afraid it has little of the
usual practical world about it, but I venture it. If you ask me, or if
you ask yourself--which is more likely--what emboldens me, I answer, I
have been strongly assured, that you are a man of rectitude and plain
dealing, with the soundest of sound hearts, and that you are blessed in
a wife distinguished by the same qualities.'

'Your information is true of Mrs Boffin, anyhow,' was Mr Boffin's
answer, as he surveyed his new friend again. There was something
repressed in the strange man's manner, and he walked with his eyes
on the ground--though conscious, for all that, of Mr Boffin's
observation--and he spoke in a subdued voice. But his words came easily,
and his voice was agreeable in tone, albeit constrained.

'When I add, I can discern for myself what the general tongue says of
you--that you are quite unspoiled by Fortune, and not uplifted--I trust
you will not, as a man of an open nature, suspect that I mean to flatter
you, but will believe that all I mean is to excuse myself, these being
my only excuses for my present intrusion.'

('How