Sloppy had gradually expanded with his description into a stare and a vacant grin. He now contracted, being silent, into a half-repressed gush of tears, and, under pretence of being heated, drew the under part of his sleeve across his eyes with a singularly awkward, laborious, and roundabout smear.
‘This is unfortunate,’ said Rokesmith. ‘I must go and break it to Mrs Boffin. Stay you here, Sloppy.’
Sloppy stayed there, staring at the pattern of the paper on the wall, until the Secretary and Mrs Boffin came back together. And with Mrs Boffin was a young lady (Miss Bella Wilfer by name) who was better worth staring at, it occurred to Sloppy, than the best of wall-papering.
‘Ah, my poor dear pretty little John Harmon!’ exclaimed Mrs Boffin.
‘Yes mum,’ said the sympathetic Sloppy.
‘You don’t think he is in a very, very bad way, do you?’ asked the pleasant creature with her wholesome cordiality.
Put upon his good faith, and finding it in collision with his inclinations, Sloppy threw back his head and uttered a mellifluous howl, rounded off with a sniff.
‘So bad as that!’ cried Mrs Boffin. ‘And Betty Higden not to tell me of it sooner!’
‘I think she might have been mistrustful, mum,’ answered Sloppy, hesitating.
‘Of what, for Heaven’s sake?’