But come in, come in!' Chattering in this way, Mr.Bob Sawyer pushed Mr.
Winkle into the back room, where, amusing himself by boring little circular caverns in the chimney-piece with a red-hot poker, sat no less a person than Mr.Benjamin Allen.
'Well!' said Mr.Winkle.

'This is indeed a pleasure I did not expect.
What a very nice place you have here!' 'Pretty well, pretty well,' replied Bob Sawyer.

'I PASSED, soon after that precious party, and my friends came down with the needful for this business; so I put on a black suit of clothes, and a pair of spectacles, and came here to look as solemn as I could.' 'And a very snug little business you have, no doubt ?' said Mr.Winkle knowingly.
'Very,' replied Bob Sawyer.

'So snug, that at the end of a few years you might put all the profits in a wine-glass, and cover 'em over with a gooseberry leaf.' 'You cannot surely mean that ?' said Mr.Winkle.
'The stock itself--' 'Dummies, my dear boy,' said Bob Sawyer; 'half the drawers have nothing in 'em, and the other half don't open.' 'Nonsense!' said Mr.Winkle.
'Fact--honour!' returned Bob Sawyer, stepping out into the shop, and demonstrating the veracity of the assertion by divers hard pulls at the little gilt knobs on the counterfeit drawers.

'Hardly anything real in the shop but the leeches, and THEY are second-hand.' 'I shouldn't have thought it!' exclaimed Mr.Winkle, much surprised.
'I hope not,' replied Bob Sawyer, 'else where's the use of appearances, eh?
But what will you take?
Do as we do?
That's right.