‘Good morning, Mr Richard,’ said Brass, on the second day of Mr Swiveller’s clerkship. ‘Sally found you a second-hand stool, Sir, yesterday evening, in Whitechapel. She’s a rare fellow at a bargain, I can tell you, Mr Richard. You’ll find that a first-rate stool, Sir, take my word for it.’
‘It’s rather a crazy one to look at,’ said Dick.
‘You’ll find it a most amazing stool to sit down upon, you may depend,’ returned Mr Brass. ‘It was bought in the open street just opposite the hospital, and as it has been standing there a month of two, it has got rather dusty and a little brown from being in the sun, that’s all.’
‘I hope it hasn’t got any fevers or anything of that sort in it,’ said Dick, sitting himself down discontentedly, between Mr Sampson and the chaste Sally. ‘One of the legs is longer than the others.’
‘Then we get a bit of timber in, Sir,’ retorted Brass. ‘Ha, ha, ha! We get a bit of timber in, Sir, and that’s another advantage of my sister’s going to market for us. Miss Brass, Mr Richard is the—’
‘Will you keep quiet?’ interrupted the fair subject of these remarks, looking up from her papers. ‘How am I to work if you keep on chattering?’
‘What an uncertain chap you are!’ returned the lawyer. ‘Sometimes you’re all for a chat. At another time you’re all for work. A man never knows what humour he’ll find you in.’
‘I’m in a working humour now,’ said Sally, ‘so don’t disturb me, if you please. And don’t take him,’ Miss Sally pointed with the feather of her pen to Richard, ‘off his business. He won’t do more than he can help, I dare say.’
Mr Brass had evidently a strong inclination to make an angry reply, but was deterred by prudent or timid considerations, as he only muttered something about aggravation and a vagabond; not associating the terms with any individual, but mentioning them as connected with some abstract ideas which happened to occur to him. They went on writing for a long time in silence after this—in such a dull silence that Mr Swiveller (who required excitement) had several times fallen asleep, and written divers strange words in an unknown character with his eyes shut, when Miss Sally at length broke in upon the monotony of the office by pulling out the little tin box, taking a noisy pinch of snuff, and then expressing her opinion that Mr Richard Swiveller had ‘done it.’
‘Done what, ma’am?’ said Richard.