'You are not rich, sir?' repeated the Secretary, in measured words.
'Well,' returned Mr Boffin, 'if I am, that's my business. I am not going to spend at this rate, to please you, or anybody. You wouldn't like it, if it was your money.'
'Even in that impossible case, sir, I--'
'Hold your tongue!' said Mr Boffin. 'You oughtn't to like it in any case. There! I didn't mean to he rude, but you put me out so, and after all I'm master. I didn't intend to tell you to hold your tongue.
I beg your pardon. Don't hold your tongue. Only, don't contradict.
Did you ever come across the life of Mr Elwes?' referring to his favourite subject at last.
'The miser?'
'Ah, people called him a miser. People are always calling other people something. Did you ever read about him?'
'I think so.'
'He never owned to being rich, and yet he might have bought me twice over. Did you ever hear of Daniel Dancer?'
'Another miser? Yes.'
'He was a good 'un,' said Mr Boffin, 'and he had a sister worthy of him. They never called themselves rich neither. If they HADcalled themselves rich, most likely they wouldn't have been so.'
'They lived and died very miserably. Did they not, sir?'
'No, I don't know that they did,' said Mr Boffin, curtly.
'Then they are not the Misers I mean. Those abject wretches--'
'Don't call names, Rokesmith,' said Mr Boffin.
'--That exemplary brother and sister--lived and died in the foulest and filthiest degradation.'
'They pleased themselves,' said Mr Boffin, 'and I suppose they could have done no more if they had spent their money. But however, I ain't going to fling mine away. Keep the expenses down. The fact is, you ain't enough here, Rokesmith. It wants constant attention in the littlest things. Some of us will be dying in a workhouse next.'
'As the persons you have cited,' quietly remarked the Secretary, 'thought they would, if I remember, sir.'
'And very creditable in 'em too,' said Mr Boffin. 'Very independent in 'em! But never mind them just now. Have you given notice to quit your lodgings?'
'Under your direction, I have, sir.'
'Then I tell you what,' said Mr Boffin; 'pay the quarter's rent--pay the quarter's rent, it'll be the cheapest thing in the end--and come here at once, so that you may be always on the spot, day and night, and keep the expenses down. You'll charge the quarter's rent to me, and we must try and save it somewhere. You've got some lovely furniture; haven't you?'
'The furniture in my rooms is my own.'
'Then we shan't have to buy any for you. In case you was to think it,' said Mr Boffin, with a look of peculiar shrewdness, 'so honourably independent in you as to make it a relief to your mind, to make that furniture over to me in the light of a set-off against the quarter's rent, why ease your mind, ease your mind. I don't ask it, but I won't stand in your way if you should consider it due to yourself. As to your room, choose any empty room at the top of the house.'
'Any empty room will do for me,' said the Secretary.
'You can take your pick,' said Mr Boffin, 'and it'll be as good as eight or ten shillings a week added to your income. I won't deduct for it; I look to you to make it up handsomely by keeping the expenses down. Now, if you'll show a light, I'll come to your office-room and dispose of a letter or two.'
On that clear, generous face of Mrs Boffin's, Bella had seen such traces of a pang at the heart while this dialogue was being held, that she had not the courage to turn her eyes to it when they were left alone. Feigning to be intent on her embroidery, she sat plying her needle until her busy hand was stopped by Mrs Boffin's hand being lightly laid upon it. Yielding to the touch, she felt her hand carried to the good soul's lips, and felt a tear fall on it.
'Oh, my loved husband!' said Mrs Boffin. 'This is hard to see and hear. But my dear Bella, believe me that in spite of all the change in him, he is the best of men.'
He came back, at the moment when Bella had taken the hand comfortingly between her own.
'Eh?' said he, mistrustfully looking in at the door. 'What's she telling you?'
'She is only praising you, sir,' said Bella.
'Praising me? You are sure? Not blaming me for standing on my own defence against a crew of plunderers, who could suck me dry by driblets? Not blaming me for getting a little hoard together?'
He came up to them, and his wife folded her hands upon his shoulder, and shook her head as she laid it on her hands.
'There, there, there!' urged Mr Boffin, not unkindly. 'Don't take on, old lady.'
'But I can't bear to see you so, my dear.'
'Nonsense! Recollect we are not our old selves. Recollect, we must scrunch or be scrunched. Recollect, we must hold our own.
Recollect, money makes money. Don't you be uneasy, Bella, my child; don't you be doubtful. The more I save, the more you shall have.'
Bella thought it was well for his wife that she was musing with her affectionate face on his shoulder; for there was a cunning light in his eyes as he said all this, which seemed to cast a disagreeable illumination on the change in him, and make it morally uglier.