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Chapter XXXIII
As the course of this tale requires that we should become acquainted,
somewhere hereabouts, with a few particulars connected with the
domestic economy of Mr Sampson Brass, and as a more convenient
place than the present is not likely to occur for that purpose, the
historian takes the friendly reader by the hand, and springing with
him into the air, and cleaving the same at a greater rate than ever Don
Cleophas Leandro Perez Zambullo and his familiar travelled through
that pleasant region in company, alights with him upon the pavement
of Bevis Marks.
The intrepid aeronauts alight before a small dark house, once the
residence of Mr Sampson Brass.
In the parlour window of this little habitation, which is so close upon
the footway that the passenger who takes the wall brushes the dim
glass with his coat sleeve - much to its improvement, for it is very
dirty - in this parlour window in the days of its occupation by
Sampson Brass, there hung, all awry and slack, and discoloured by
the sun, a curtain of faded green, so threadbare from long service as
by no means to intercept the view of the little dark room, but rather to
afford a favourable medium through which to observe it accurately.
There was not much to look at. A rickety table, with spare bundles of
papers, yellow and ragged from long carriage in the pocket,
ostentatiously displayed upon its top; a couple of stools set face to
face on opposite sides of this crazy piece of furniture; a treacherous
old chair by the fire-place, whose withered arms had hugged full many
a client and helped to squeeze him dry; a second-hand wig box, used
as a depository for blank writs and declarations and other small forms
of law, once the sole contents of the head which belonged to the wig
which belonged to the box, as they were now of the box itself; two or
three common books of practice; a jar of ink, a pounce box, a stunted
hearth-broom, a carpet trodden to shreds but still clinging with the
tightness of desperation to its tacks - these, with the yellow wainscot
of the walls, the smoke-discoloured ceiling, the dust and cobwebs,
were among the most prominent decorations of the office of Mr
Sampson Brass.
But this was mere still-life, of no greater importance than the plate,
'BRASS, Solicitor,' upon the door, and the bill, 'First floor to let to a
single gentleman,' which was tied to the knocker. The office commonly
held two examples of animated nature, more to the purpose of this
history, and in whom it has a stronger interest and more particular
concern.
Of these, one was Mr Brass himself, who has already appeared in
these pages. The other was his clerk, assistant, housekeeper,
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