that the robbery was committed by young Tom Gradgrind in Hard Times. Blimber, Cornelia is a prim school-matron in Dombey & Son. Boffin, Henrietta Noddy Boffin's wife in Our Mutual Friend. Boffin, Noddy John Harmon's servant. When John's son is supposed drowned, Boffin and his wife inherit the Harmon fortune, in Our Mutual Friend. Bounderby, Josiah Coketown Banker, mill owner, and 'self-made man' proud that he raised himself in the streets after being abandoned as a child. His story is exposed as a sham when Mrs Pegler, his loving mother whom he has discarded, is found. Bounderby marries his friend Gradgrind's daughter, Louisa, and later discards her in Hard Times. Boythorn, Lawrence A former soldier and an old friend of John Jarndyce in Bleak House. He is very loud and harsh, but goodhearted, and always speaks in superlatives. He is a neighbour of Sir Leicester Dedlock, with whom he is engaged in an epic tangle of lawsuits over a right-of-way across Boythorn's property that Sir Leicester asserts the legal right to close. The character is based on Walter Savage Landor. Brass, Sally Sister and partner of Quilp's unscrupulous attorney, Sampson Brass, in The Old Curiosity Shop. Brass, Sampson "An attorney of no good repute" and "One of the greatest scoundrels unhung". Brass served as Daniel Quilp's lawyer. He helps Quilp get the Curiosity Shop from Nell's grandfather and when he tries to help Quilp frame Kit Nubbles he is undone with the help of his clerk Dick Swiveler and the Marchioness, his below-stairs maid in The Old Curiosity Shop. Bray, Madeline Girl with whom Nicholas falls in love when he first sees her at an employment office. She cares for her selfish, invalid father who tries to sell her in marriage to Arthur Gride, assisted by Ralph Nickleby. Her father dies and the scheme is exposed. She marries Nicholas at the end of the story in Nicholas Nickleby. Bray, Walter Tyrannical father of Madeline. Heavily in debt, and living in the Rules of the King's Bench debtors' prison, he promises his daughter's hand in marriage to Arthur Gride in return for the forgiveness of his debt to Gride and Ralph Nickleby. He dies on the morning of the wedding thus saving Madeline from the unwanted marriage Nicholas Nickleby. Brick, Jefferson War correspondent for the New York Rowdy Journal, edited by Colonel Diver in Martin Chuzzlewit. Browdie, John Son of a