Vacant, and ready for your acceptance.'
'Good gracious me!' cried Tom; 'a hundred pounds a year! My dear John!
Ruth, my love! A hundred pounds a year!'
'But the strangest part of the story,' resumed John Westlock, laying his
hand on Tom's wrist, to bespeak his attention, and repress his ecstasies
for the moment; 'the strangest part of the story, Miss Pinch, is this. I
don't know this man from Adam; neither does this man know Tom.'
'He can't,' said Tom, in great perplexity, 'if he's a Londoner. I don't
know any one in London.'
'And on my observing,' John resumed, still keeping his hand upon Tom's
wrist, 'that I had no doubt he would excuse the freedom I took in
inquiring who directed him to me; how he came to know of the change
which had taken place in my friend's position; and how he came to be
acquainted with my friend's peculiar fitness for such an office as he
had described; he drily said that he was not at liberty to enter into
any explanations.'
'Not at liberty to enter into any explanations!' repeated Tom, drawing a
long breath.
'"I must be perfectly aware," he said,' John added, '"that to any person
who had ever been in Mr Pecksniff's neighbourhood, Mr Thomas Pinch and
his acquirements were as well known as the Church steeple, or the Blue
Dragon.
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