The first was that he himself had been there for five-and-twenty years without suffering by it; and the second was, that the defects of drainage were so radical that (the place belonging to that period of house-building when the system of drainage was often worse than none at all) half the premises, if not half the street, would have to be pulled down for any effectual remedy.
So it was left as it was, and when Mr.Burton, the head clerk, had worse headaches than usual, he used to give me sixpence for chloride of lime, which I distributed at my discretion, and on those days Moses Benson used generally to say that he "fancied he smelt something." Moses Benson was an articled clerk to my uncle, but he had no pretensions to be considered a gentleman.

His father kept a small shop where second-hand watches were the most obvious goods; but the old man was said to have money, though the watches did not seem to sell very fast, and his son had duly qualified for his post, and had paid a good premium.

Moses was only two or three years older than I, not that I could have told anything about his age from his looks.

He was sallow, and had a big nose; his hands were fat, his feet were small, and I think his head was large, but perhaps his hair made it look larger than it was, for it was thick and very black, and though it was curly, it was not like Jem's; the curls were more like short ringlets, and if he bent over his desk they hid his forehead, and when he put his head back to think, they lay on his coat-collar.

And I suppose it was partly because he could not smell with his nose, that he used such very strong hair-oil, and so much of it.