Chapter 26 - Page 2

sent home and had 'got em.
Furthermore, that Mrs Higden's days and nights being devoted to
Our Johnny, who was never out of her lap, the whole of the
mangling arrangements had devolved upon himself, and he had
had 'rayther a tight time'. The ungainly piece of honesty beamed
and blushed as he said it, quite enraptured with the remembrance
of having been serviceable.

'Last night,' said Sloppy, 'when I was a-turning at the wheel pretty
late, the mangle seemed to go like Our Johnny's breathing. It
begun beautiful, then as it went out it shook a little and got
unsteady, then as it took the turn to come home it had a rattle-like
and lumbered a bit, then it come smooth, and so it went on till I
scarce know'd which was mangle and which was Our Johnny. Nor
Our Johnny, he scarce know'd either, for sometimes when the
mangle lumbers he says, "Me choking, Granny!" and Mrs Higden
holds him up in her lap and says to me "Bide a bit, Sloppy," and
we all stops together. And when Our Johnny gets his breathing
again, I turns again, and we all goes on together.'

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?'

'I think she might have been mistrustful, mum,' returned Sloppy
with submission, 'of standing in Our Johnny's light. There's so
much trouble in illness, and so much expense, and she's seen such
a lot of its being objected to.'

'But she never can have thought,' said Mrs Boffin, 'that I would
grudge the dear child anything?'