old settle, pursue the downward
fortunes of those enervated and corrupted masters of the world who were
by this time on their last legs. If Wegg had been worse paid for his
office, or better qualified to discharge it, he would have considered
these visits complimentary and agreeable; but, holding the position of
a handsomely-remunerated humbug, he resented them. This was quite
according to rule, for the incompetent servant, by whomsoever employed,
is always against his employer. Even those born governors, noble and
right honourable creatures, who have been the most imbecile in high
places, have uniformly shown themselves the most opposed (sometimes in
belying distrust, sometimes in vapid insolence) to THEIR employer. What
is in such wise true of the public master and servant, is equally true
of the private master and servant all the world over.

When Mr Silas Wegg did at last obtain free access to 'Our House', as he
had been wont to call the mansion outside which he had sat shelterless
so long, and when he did at last find it in all particulars as different
from his mental plans of it as according to the nature of things it
well could be, that far-seeing and far-reaching character, by way of
asserting himself and making out a case for compensation, affected to
fall into a melancholy strain of musing over the mournful past; as if
the house and he had had a fall in life together.

'And this, sir,' Silas would say to his patron, sadly nodding his head
and musing, 'was once Our House! This, sir, is the building from which I
have so often seen those great creatures, Miss Elizabeth, Master
George, Aunt Jane, and Uncle Parker'--whose very names were of his own
inventing--'pass and repass! And has it come to this, indeed! Ah dear
me, dear me!'

So tender were his lamentations, that the kindly Mr Boffin was quite
sorry for him, and almost felt mistrustful that in buying the house he
had done him an irreparable injury.

Two or three diplomatic interviews, the result of great subtlety on Mr
Wegg's part, but assuming the mask of careless yielding to a fortuitous
combination of circumstances impelling him towards Clerkenwell, had
enabled him to complete his bargain with Mr Venus.

'Bring me round to the Bower,' said Silas, when the bargain was closed,
'next Saturday evening, and if a sociable glass of old Jamaikey warm
should meet your views, I am not the man to begrudge it.'

'You are aware of my being poor company, sir,' rep