Mr and Mrs John Harmon had so timed their taking possession of their rightful name and their London house, that the event befel on the very day when the last waggon-load of the last Mound¹ was driven out at the gates of Boffin’s Bower³. As it jolted⁴ away, Mr Wegg felt that the last load was correspondingly removed from his mind, and hailed the auspicious⁵ season when that black sheep, Boffin, was to be closely sheared⁶.

Over the whole slow process of levelling the Mounds⁷, Silas had kept watch with rapacious⁸ eyes. But, eyes no less rapacious had watched the growth of the Mounds in years bygone, and had vigilantly⁹ sifted¹⁰ the dust of which they were composed. No valuables turned up. How should there be any, seeing that the old hard jailer of Harmony Jail had coined every waif and stray into money, long before?

Though disappointed by this bare result, Mr Wegg felt too sensibly relieved by the close of the labour, to grumble¹¹ to any great extent. A foreman-representative of the dust contractors¹³, purchasers of the Mounds, had worn Mr Wegg down to skin and bone. This supervisor¹⁴ of the proceedings¹⁵, asserting his employers’ rights to cart off by daylight, nightlight, torchlight, when they would, must have been the death of Silas if the work had lasted much longer. Seeming never to need sleep himself, he would reappear, with a tied-up broken head, in fantail hat and velveteen smalls, like an accursed goblin, at the most unholy and untimely hours. Tired out by keeping close

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