somewhere till he was old. They kept him in a dark place, like a

cheese, until he had the full Tellson flavour and blue-mould upon

him. Then only was he permitted to be seen, spectacularly poring

over large books, and casting his breeches and gaiters into the

general weight of the establishment.

Outside Tellson’snever by any means in it, unless called in

was an odd-job-man, an occasional porter and messenger, who

served as the live sign of the house. He was never absent during

business hours, unless upon an errand, and then he was

represented by his son: a grisly urchin of twelve, who was his

express image. People understood that Tellson’s, in a stately way,

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tolerated the odd-job-man. The house had always tolerated some

person in that capacity, and time and tide had drifted this person

to the post. His surname was Cruncher, and on the youthful

occasion of his renouncing by proxy the works of darkness, in the

easterly parish church of Houndsditch, he had received the added

appellation of Jerry.

The scene was Mr. Cruncher’s private lodging in Hangingsword

Alley, Whitefriars: the time, half-past seven of the clock and

a windy March morning, Anno Domini seventeen hundred and

eighty. (Mr. Cruncher himself always spoke of the year of our Lord

as Anna Dominoes: apparently under the impression that the

Christian era dated from the invention of a popular game, by a

lady who had bestowed her name upon it.) Mr. Cruncher’s

apartments were not in a savoury neighbourhood, and were but

two in number, even if a closet with a single pane of glass in it

might be counted as one. But they were very decently kept. Early

as it was, on the windy March morning, the room in which he lay

a-bed was already scrubbed throughout; and between the cups

and saucers arranged for breakfast, and the lumbering deal table,

a very clean white cloth was spread.

Mr. Cruncher reposed under a patchwork counterpane, like a

Harlequin at home. At first, he slept heavily, but, by degrees,

began to roll and surge in bed, until he rose above the surface,

with his spiky hair looking as if it must tear the sheets to ribbons.

At which juncture, he exclaimed, in a voice of dire exasperation:

“Bust me, if she ain’t at it agin!”

A woman of orderly and industrious appearance rose from her

knees in a corner, with sufficient haste and trepidation to show

that she was the person referred to.

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“What!” said Mr. Cruncher, looking out of bed for a boot.

“You’re at it agin, are you?”

After hailing the morn with this second salutation, he threw a

boot at the woman as a third. It was a very muddy boot, and may

introduce the odd circumstance connected with Mr. Cruncher’s

domestic economy, that, whereas he often came home after

banking hours with clean boots, he often got up next morning to

find the same boots covered with clay.