There was a neat little girl in attendance, who looked after the
Aged in the day. When she had laid the supper-cloth, the bridge was
lowered to give her means of egress, and she withdrew for the
night. The supper was excellent; and though the Castle was rather
subject to dry-rot insomuch that it tasted like a bad nut, and
though the pig might have been farther off, I was heartily pleased
with my whole entertainment. Nor was there any drawback on my
little turret bedroom, beyond there being such a very thin ceiling
between me and the flagstaff, that when I lay down on my back in
bed, it seemed as if I had to balance that pole on my forehead all
night.
Wemmick was up early in the morning, and I am afraid I heard him
cleaning my boots. After that, he fell to gardening, and I saw him
from my gothic window pretending to employ the Aged, and nodding at
him in a most devoted manner. Our breakfast was as good as the
supper, and at half-past eight precisely we started for Little
Britain. By degrees, Wemmick got dryer and harder as we went along,
and his mouth tightened into a post-office again. At last, when we
got to his place of business and he pulled out his key from his
coat-collar, he looked as unconscious of his Walworth property as
if the Castle and the drawbridge and the arbor and the lake and
the fountain and the Aged, had all been blown into space together
by the last discharge of the Stinger.
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