"How will it be," said Mrs. Pamflett, not in the slightest way ruffled, "when you're laid up a week at a time, and can't go to London to attend your customers? It will happen; I know what lumbago is. Once get it into your bones, there's no driving it out."
"It isn't in my bones; it's only a slight attack. I can walk now if I please. See; I can stand up straight, and—Oh! oh!"
Down he fell again, and when Mrs. Pamflett attempted to assist him he screamed out, "Let me be! let me be! You're twisting me wrong! You want to kill me!"
Presently, when there was less need for his comical physical contortions, which did not elicit from Mrs. Pamflett either a smile or the slightest expression of sympathy, she returned to the attack.
"Jeremiah is the very person you want. If you don't have him, I shall obtain another situation for him, and then you will lose a treasure."
"A treasure!" he retorted, scornfully. "Of course: every cock crows on its own dunghill. Jeremiah's a precious stone, eh? A very precious stone!"
"He is. He's the brightest, cleverest lad you've ever come across."
"Ah," he said, with a cunning cock of his head; "but we don't want'm too clever; do we?"
"He will do everything you want done in the way you wish," said Mrs. Pamflett, calmly; "and if that doesn't content you, nothing will. He writes well, as you have seen; he knows all about book-keeping; and he's as sharp as a needle."
"Takes after his mother?" observed Miser Farebrother, with a sardonic leer.