As the gentleman was not
honourable enough to keep his engagement, he came again next day, with
his pocket-book in such a state of distention that he was regarded in
the bar as a man of large property. After that, he repeated his visits
every day, and had so much writing to do, that he made nothing of
emptying a capacious leaden inkstand in two sittings. Although he never
talked much, still, by being there among the regular customers, he made
their acquaintance, and in course of time became quite intimate with Mr
Tacker, Mr Mould's foreman; and even with Mr Mould himself, who openly
said he was a long-headed man, a dry one, a salt fish, a deep file, a
rasper; and made him the subject of many other flattering encomiums.
At the same time, too, he told the people at the Assurance Office, in
his own mysterious way, that there was something wrong (secretly wrong,
of course) in his liver, and that he feared he must put himself
under the doctor's hands. He was delivered over to Jobling upon this
representation; and though Jobling could not find out where his liver
was wrong, wrong Mr Nadgett said it was; observing that it was his
own liver, and he hoped he ought to know.
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