The Montgomery advertiser., 1907-05-19

| 'NOQ0y BOIIln was content tO iNc in the dingy old place surrounded by dust heaps where his master had lived l before him. but. as he explained. My old woman is something of high | flyer at fashion and we have decided to move into bigger house." | However, he kept Boffin's Bower, as he called it-Harmony Jail. as the l neighbors called it-intact1 and estab- lished there his literary man." one legged old rascal named Silas Wegg whom Mir. Boffin had taken from a little sidewalk stall and engaged at | good salary to read to him evenings Mir. Boffin himself not being strong | on reading. but having a fancy to learn what books were all about anyway l especially what was contained In set of "The Decline and Fall of the Roman | Empire" which he had purchased ns a bargain and misread into the 'Roosian Empire"
 Wegg being thoroughly incompetent | of course hated his employer It Is I peculiarity of all incompetent servants from Prime Ministers down, that the more incompetent they are the more they consider that they have a griev- ance against their employers So | wegg was accumtomed to refer to MT Boffin, when in conversation with his | friend Mir. Venus. as 'The Minion or Fortune and the Worm of the Hour, and plotted dark things against him. Which is the better man?" Wegg would say over his rum and water. "ne | or him as I declines and falls for?' 1 MT. Boffin upon his accession to for l tune took under his protection two l other people who were destined to play | an important part in his life story: Mir. John Rokesmith and Miss Bella wilfer. 1 Rokesmith was secretary. managed l Mir. Boffin's affairs generally and stood 1 between the Golden Dustman. as the people called him. and very eager l grasping world. The young man had | presented himself to Boffin and asked l for the job when the Golden Dustman | moved into his new house and began l trying on his new shoes of Fortuna 1 tus.
 Boffin had said: Well. well!s Call on me some day and we will see" Rokesmith had called on him and found | him heIplessly and hopelessly involved in a maze of letters. bills and other documents which covered the table Let me see" said the Golden Dust man. "Tt was secretary you men toned; wasn't 1t? It rather puzzled me at the time. and 1t rather puzzled me and Mrs. Boffin when we came tc talk 1t over. We have always sup 1 posed secretary to be piece of furni- | ture lined with green baize and lot of little draws in It.. Now, you won't think take a liberty when I say you can't possibly be that"
 | Rokesmith explained the duties of a secretary, and illustrated his explana- tion by sorting and arranging the docu- ments before MT. Boffin.
 ''wonderfulw said Mir Boffin. How do you do 1t without getting ink on | you?"
 And I tell you Nobby," chimed in fat, motherly, good-natured Mrs. Dust man, If you ever go a-muddlin' with | them things again as ain't made for you nor meant for you you'll have an l apoplexy-besides ironmolding your linen and break my heart"
 Miss Bella Wilfer, the other impor- tant addition to Mir. Boffin's household had regretted the death of young John | Harmon quite as much as good Mir. and Mrs. Boffin. though from a different | reason. "As if 1t wasn't absurd enough l to be given away in a mans will like piece of furniture" she said to her family. "here I have to go and wear this absurd mourning for man I never saw and should have hated if I had seen him. And worst of all. after seeing money-of which there Is little enough to see in this household, good ness knows-almost within my grasp | here it is all snatched away again.
 
 fer. stately lady who had her head enveloped in a handkerchief and looked like Lady Macbeth with the toothache
 And none of you have any sympathy for me- continued Bella. "Oh, yes you have. pa; dear pa"-and the mer- cenary little creature threw her arms around the neck of her cherubic pa.
 Pas name was Reginald Wilfer, which suggests castles and knights in armor but he was short, good natured little | fellow, the exact reverse in nature and appearance of his wife; and his as- sociates in the Minsing Lane office where he was clerk. called him Rumpty as being more appropriate name than Reginald.
 MT. John Rokesmith had lodgings iu Rumpty's house. and the Boffins, after asking him about his landlords daugh- ter Bella. came in chariot one day and carried her off ito their fine man sion. where they proposed to treat neI as their daughter and leave her a pot of money when they died as a repara- ton for the wrong John Harmon hat done her in dying.
 Bella took very kindly to her new life for all the world and his lady called upon MT. and Mrs. Boffin now--the Veneerings, the stately Podsnaps. little MT. Twemlow. who was second cousin to a real earl; the Lammles. who had married each other under the entirely mistaken notion that each had money and. in short. Socity including Eugene the former more languid than ever and given to haunting places where he might catch glimpse of Lizzie Hexam
 So behold Mir. Boffn in the hands of | society; Bella Wilfer, who accepted his l pocketbook; John Rokesmith, who | stood between him and that same society; Bella Wilfer. woh accepted his 1 benefactiOns as a matter of course. and Silas Wegg, who busi1y devised methods of getting increased pay out of him and looked sharply for some means of doing him an injury.
 Rokesmith was a hermit4crab sort of a secretary. kept generally in his own room, would never appear at the table when there was company. and most of all, seemed to avoid meeting Wrayburn and Lightwood.
 It might have been propinquity, it in spite of all her imperfections, which he knew, the secretary fell in love with Bella. More than that if had the pre- sumption to tell the young lady about | it. and she gave him to understand at once that she was for his betters. The idea of marrying a secretary with a salary of 100 pounds a years--it was too | ridiculousl But she did not tell MT and Mrs. Boffin about it.
 Shortly after this episode Bella noticed that her dear patron, for whom she had really begun to have an affec- tion-she had begun to love Mrs. Boftin l from the first--began to change in his