“Letting you go on,” replied Mr. Boffin, nodding his head soothingly, as who should say, We won’t be harder on you than we can help; we’ll make the best of it. “It’s not above-board and it’s not fair. When the old lady is uncomfortable, there’s sure to be good reason for it. I see she is uncomfortable, and I plainly see this is the good reason wherefore. Have you breakfasted, ma’am.”

Mrs. Lammle, settling into her defiant manner, pushed her plate away, looked at her husband, and laughed; but by no means gaily.

“Have You breakfasted, sir?” inquired Mr. Boffin.

“Thank you,” replied Alfred, showing all his teeth. “If Mrs. Boffin will oblige me, I’ll take another cup of tea.”

He spilled a little of it over the chest which ought to have been so effective, and which had done so little; but on the whole drank it with something of an air, though the coming and going dints got almost as large, the while, as if they had been made by pressure of the teaspoon. “A thousand thanks,” he then observed. “I have breakfasted.”

“Now, which,” said Mr. Boffin softly, taking out a pocket-book, “which of you two is Cashier?”

“Sophronia, my dear,” remarked her husband, as he leaned back in his chair, waving his right hand towards her, while he hung his left hand by the thumb in the arm-hole of his waistcoat: “it shall be your department.”

“I would rather,” said Mr. Boffin, “that it was your husband’s, ma’am, because — but never mind, because. I would rather have to do with him. However, what I have to say, I will say with as little offence as possible; if I can say it without any, I shall be heartily glad. You two have done me a service, a very great service, in doing what you did (my old lady knows what it was), and I have put into this envelope a bank note for a hundred pound. I consider the service well worth a hundred pound, and I am well pleased to pay the money. Would you do me the favour to take it, and likewise to accept my thanks?”

With a haughty action, and without looking towards him, Mrs. Lammle held out her left hand, and into it Mr. Boffin put the little packet. When she had conveyed it to her bosom, Mr. Lammle had the appearance of feeling relieved, and breathing more freely, as not having been quite certain that the hundred pounds were his, until the note had been safely transferred out of Mr. Boffin’s keeping into his own Sophronia’s.

“It is not impossible,” said Mr. Boffin, addressing Alfred, “that you have had some general idea, sir, of replacing Rokesmith, in course of time?”

“It is not,” assented Alfred, with a glittering smile and a great deal of nose, “not impossible.”

“And perhaps, ma’am,” pursued Mr. Boffin, addressing Sophronia, “you have been so kind as to take up my old lady in your own mind, and to do her the honor of turning the question over whether you mightn’t one of these days have her in charge, like? Whether you mightn’t be a sort of Miss Bella Wilfer to her, and something more?”

“I should hope,” returned Mrs. Lammle, with a scornful look and in a loud voice, “that if I were anything to your wife, sir, I could hardly fail to be something more than Miss Bella Wilfer, as you call her.”

“What do you call her, ma’am?” asked Mr. Boffin.

Mrs. Lammle disdained to reply, and sat defiantly beating one foot on the ground.

“Again I think I may say, that’s not impossible. Is it, sir?” asked Mr. Boffin, turning to Alfred.

“It is not,” said Alfred, smiling assent as before, “not impossible.”