Page 441 - bleak-house

Grandfather Smallweed.
‘Ho! It’s you!’ cries the old gentleman. ‘How de do? How
de do?’
‘Middling,’ replies Mr. George, taking a chair. ‘Your
granddaughter I have had the honour of seeing before; my
service to you, miss.’
‘This is my grandson,’ says Grandfather Smallweed. ‘You
ha’n’t seen him before. He is in the law and not much at
home.’
‘My service to him, too! He is like his sister. He is very
like his sister. He is devilish like his sister,’ says Mr. George,
laying a great and not altogether complimentary stress on
his last adjective.
‘And how does the world use you, Mr. George?’ Grandfa-
ther Smallweed inquires, slowly rubbing his legs.
‘Pretty much as usual. Like a football.’
He is a swarthy brown man of fifty, well made, and good
looking, with crisp dark hair, bright eyes, and a broad chest.
His sinewy and powerful hands, as sunburnt as his face,
have evidently been used to a pretty rough life. What is cu-
rious about him is that he sits forward on his chair as if he
were, from long habit, allowing space for some dress or ac-
coutrements that he has altogether laid aside. His step too is
measured and heavy and would go well with a weighty clash
and jingle of spurs. He is close-shaved now, but his mouth
is set as if his upper lip had been for years familiar with a
great moustache; and his manner of occasionally laying the
open palm of his broad brown hand upon it is to the same
effect. Altogether one might guess Mr. George to have been

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