Our Mutual Friend
In these times of ours, though concerning the exact year there is no need to be precise, a boat of dirty and disreputable appearance, with two figures in it, floated on the Thames, between Southwark bridge which is of iron, and London Bridge which is of stone, as an autumn evening was closing in.
The figures in this boat were those of a strong man with ragged grizzled hair and a sun-browned face, and a dark girl of nineteen or twenty, sufficiently like him to be recognizable as his daughter. The girl rowed, pulling a pair of sculls very easily; the man, with the rudder-lines slack in his hands, and his hands loose in his waistband, kept an eager look out. He had no net, hook, or line, and he could not be a fisherman; his boat had no cushion for a sitter, no paint, no inscription, no appliance beyond a rusty boathook and a coil of rope, and he could not be a waterman; his boat was too crazy and too small to take in cargo for delivery, and he could not be a lighterman or river-carrier; there was no clue to what he looked for, but he looked for something, with a most intent and searching gaze. The tide, which had turned an hour before, was running down, and his eyes watched every little race and eddy in its broad sweep, as the boat made slight head-way against it, or drove stern foremost before it, according as he directed his daughter by a movement of his head. She watched his face as earnestly as he watched the river. But, in the intensity of her look there was a touch of dread or horror.
Allied to the bottom of the river rather than the surface, by reason of the slime and ooze with which it was covered, and its sodden state, this boat and the two figures in it obviously were doing something that they often did, and were seeking what they often sought. Half savage as the man showed, with no covering on his matted head, with his brown arms bare to between the elbow and the shoulder, with the loose knot of a looser kerchief lying low on his bare breast in a wilderness of beard and whisker, with such dress as he wore seeming to be made out of the mud that begrimed his boat, still there was a business-like usage in his steady gaze. So with every lithe action of the girl, with every turn of her wrist, perhaps most of all with her look of dread or horror; they were things of usage.
Charles Dickens
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OUR MUTUAL FRIEND
Charles Dickens
CONTENTS
BOOK THE FIRST — THE CUP AND THE LIP
Chapter 1
ON THE LOOK OUT
Chapter 2
THE MAN FROM SOMEWHERE
Chapter 3
ANOTHER MAN
Chapter 4
THE R. WILFER FAMILY
Chapter 5
BOFFIN’S BOWER
Chapter 6
CUT ADRIFT
Chapter 7
MR WEGG LOOKS AFTER HIMSELF
Chapter 8
MR BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION
Chapter 9
MR AND MRS BOFFIN IN CONSULTATION
Chapter 10
A MARRIAGE CONTRACT
Chapter 11
PODSNAPPERY
Chapter 12
THE SWEAT OF AN HONEST MAN’S BROW
Chapter 13
TRACKING THE BIRD OF PREY
Chapter 14
THE BIRD OF PREY BROUGHT DOWN
Chapter 15
TWO NEW SERVANTS
Chapter 16
MINDERS AND RE-MINDERS
Chapter 17
A DISMAL SWAMP
BOOK THE SECOND — BIRDS OF A FEATHER
Chapter 1
OF AN EDUCATIONAL CHARACTER
Chapter 2
STILL EDUCATIONAL
Chapter 3
A PIECE OF WORK
Chapter 4
CUPID PROMPTED
Chapter 5
MERCURY PROMPTING
Chapter 6
A RIDDLE WITHOUT AN ANSWER
Chapter 7
IN WHICH A FRIENDLY MOVE IS ORIGINATED
Chapter 8
IN WHICH AN INNOCENT ELOPEMENT OCCURS
Chapter 9
IN WHICH THE ORPHAN MAKES HIS WILL
Chapter 10
A SUCCESSOR
Chapter 11
SOME AFFAIRS OF THE HEART
Chapter 12
MORE BIRDS OF PREY
Chapter 13
A SOLO AND A DUETT
Chapter 14
STRONG OF PURPOSE
Chapter 15
THE WHOLE CASE SO FAR
Chapter 16
AN ANNIVERSARY OCCASION
BOOK THE THIRD — A LONG LANE
Chapter 1
LODGERS IN QUEER STREET
Chapter 2
A RESPECTED FRIEND IN A NEW ASPECT
Chapter 3
THE SAME RESPECTED FRIEND IN MORE ASPECTS THAN ONE
Chapter 4
A HAPPY RETURN OF THE DAY
Chapter 5
THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN FALLS INTO BAD COMPANY
Chapter 6
THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN FALLS INTO WORSE COMPANY
Chapter 7
THE FRIENDLY MOVE TAKES UP A STRONG POSITION
Chapter 8
THE END OF A LONG JOURNEY
Chapter 9
SOMEBODY BECOMES THE SUBJECT OF A PREDICTION
Chapter 10
SCOUTS OUT
Chapter 11
IN THE DARK
Chapter 12
MEANING MISCHIEF
Chapter 13
GIVE A DOG A BAD NAME, AND HANG HIM
Chapter 14
MR WEGG PREPARES A GRINDSTONE FOR MR BOFFIN’S NOSE
Chapter 15
THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN AT HIS WORST
Chapter 16
THE FEAST OF THE THREE HOBGOBLINS
Chapter 17
A SOCIAL CHORUS
BOOK THE FOURTH — A TURNING
Chapter 1
SETTING TRAPS
Chapter 2
THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN RISES A LITTLE
Chapter 3
THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN SINKS AGAIN
Chapter 4
A RUNAWAY MATCH
Chapter 5
CONCERNING THE MENDICANT’S BRIDE
Chapter 6
A CRY FOR HELP
Chapter 7
BETTER TO BE ABEL THAN CAIN
Chapter 8
A FEW GRAINS OF PEPPER
Chapter 9
TWO PLACES VACATED
Chapter 10
THE DOLLS’ DRESSMAKER DISCOVERS A WORD
Chapter 11
EFFECT IS GIVEN TO THE DOLLS’ DRESSMAKER’S DISCOVERY
Chapter 12
THE PASSING SHADOW
Chapter 13
SHOWING HOW THE GOLDEN DUSTMAN HELPED TO SCATTER DUST
Chapter 14
CHECKMATE TO THE FRIENDLY MOVE
Chapter 15
WHAT WAS CAUGHT IN THE TRAPS THAT WERE SET
Chapter 16
PERSONS AND THINGS IN GENERAL
Chapter 17
THE VOICE OF SOCIETY
POSTSCRIPT
IN LIEU OF PREFACE