"
He went back to Mugby Junction, and, in point of fact, he established
himself at Mugby Junction. It was the convenient place to live in, for
brightening Phoebe's life. It was the convenient place to live in, for
having her taught music by Beatrice. It was the convenient place to live
in, for occasionally borrowing Polly. It was the convenient place to
live in, for being joined at will to all sorts of agreeable places and
persons. So, he became settled there, and, his house standing in an
elevated situation, it is noteworthy of him in conclusion, as Polly
herself might (not irreverently) have put it:
"There was an Old Barbox who lived on a hill,
And if he ain't gone, he lives there still."
Here follows the substance of what was seen, heard, or otherwise picked
up, by the gentleman for Nowhere, in his careful study of the Junction.
CHAPTER III--THE BOY AT MUGBY
I am the boy at Mugby. That's about what _I_ am.
You don't know what I mean? What a pity! But I think you do. I think
you must. Look here. I am the boy at what is called The Refreshment
Room at Mugby Junction, and what's proudest boast is, that it never yet
refreshed a mortal being.
Up in a corner of the Down Refreshment Room at Mugby Junction, in the
height of twenty-seven cross draughts (I've often counted 'em while they
brush the First-Class hair twenty-seven ways), behind the bottles, among
the glasses, bounded on the nor'west by the beer, stood pretty far to the
right of a metallic object that's at times the tea-urn and at times the
soup-tureen, according to the nature of the last twang imparted to its
contents which are the same groundwork, fended off from the traveller by
a barrier of stale sponge-cakes erected atop of the counter, and lastly
exposed sideways to the glare of Our Missis's eye--you ask a Boy so
sitiwated, next time you stop in a hurry at Mugby, for anything to drink;
you take particular notice that he'll try to seem not to hear you, that
he'll appear in a absent manner to survey the Line through a transparent
medium composed of your head and body, and that he won't serve you as
long as you can possibly bear it.
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