"LITTLE DORRIT\n\nBy Charles Dickens\n\n\n\nCONTENTS\n\n\n     Preface to the 1857 Edition\n\n\n     BOOK THE FIRST: POVERTY\n     1.  Sun and Shadow\n     2.  Fellow Travellers\n     3.  Home\n     4.  Mrs Flintwinch has a Dream\n     5.  Family Affairs\n     6.  The Father of the Marshalsea\n     7.  The Child of the Marshalsea\n     8.  The Lock\n     9.  little Mother\n     10.  Containing the whole Science of Government\n     11.  Let Loose\n     12.  Bleeding Heart Yard\n     13.  Patriarchal\n     14.  Little Dorrit's Party\n     15.  Mrs Flintwinch has another Dream\n     16.  Nobody's Weakness\n     17.  Nobody's Rival\n     18.  Little Dorrit's Lover\n     19.  The Father of the Marshalsea in two or three Relations\n     20.  Moving in Society\n     21.  Mr Merdle's Complaint\n     22.  A Puzzle\n     23.  Machinery in Motion\n     24.  Fortune-Telling\n     25.  Conspirators and Others\n     26.  Nobody's State of Mind\n     27.  Five-and-Twenty\n     28.  Nobody's Disappearance\n     29.  Mrs Flintwinch goes on Dreaming\n     30.  The Word of a Gentleman\n     31.  Spirit\n     32.  More Fortune-Telling\n     33.  Mrs Merdle's Complaint\n     34.  A Shoal of Barnacles\n     35.  What was behind Mr Pancks on Little Dorrit's Hand\n     36.  The Marshalsea becomes an Orphan\n\n\n\n     BOOK THE SECOND: RICHES\n\n     1.  Fellow Travellers\n     2.  Mrs General\n     3.  On the Road\n     4.  A Letter from Little Dorrit\n     5.  Something Wrong Somewhere\n     6.  Something Right Somewhere\n     7.  Mostly, Prunes and Prism\n     8.  The Dowager Mrs Gowan is reminded that 'It Never Does'\n     9.  Appearance and Disappearance\n     10.  The Dreams of Mrs Flintwinch thicken\n     11.  A Letter from Little Dorrit\n     12.  In which a Great Patriotic Conference is holden\n     13.  The Progress of an Epidemic\n     14.  Taking Advice\n     15.  No just Cause or Impediment why these Two Persons should\n          not be joined together\n     16.  Getting on\n     17.  Missing\n     18.  A Castle in the Air\n     19.  The Storming of the Castle in the Air\n     20.  Introduces the next\n     21.  The History of a Self-Tormentor\n     22.  Who Passes by this Road so late?\n     23.  Mistress Affery makes a Conditional Promise, respecting her\n          Dreams\n     24.  The Evening of a Long Day\n     25.  The Chief Butler Resigns the Seals of Office\n     26.  Reaping the Whirlwind\n     27.  The Pupil of the Marshalsea\n     28.  An Appearance in the Marshalsea\n     29.  A Plea in the Marshalsea\n     30.  Closing in\n     31.  Closed\n     32.  Going\n     33.  Going!\n     34.  Gone\n\n\n\n\nPREFACE TO THE 1857 EDITION\n\n\nI have been occupied with this story, during many working hours of two\nyears. I must have been very ill employed, if I could not leave its\nmerits and demerits as a whole, to express themselves on its being read\nas a whole. But, as it is not unreasonable to suppose that I may have\nheld its threads with a more continuous attention than anyone else can\nhave given them during its desultory publication, it is not unreasonable\nto ask that the weaving may be looked at in its completed state, and\nwith the pattern finished.\n\nIf I might offer any apology for so exaggerated a fiction as the\nBarnacles and the Circumlocution Office, I would seek it in the\ncommon experience of an Englishman, without presuming to mention the\nunimportant fact of my having done that violence to good manners, in the\ndays of a Russian war, and of a Court of Inquiry at Chelsea. If I might\nmake so bold as to defend that extravagant conception, Mr Merdle, I\nwould hint that it originated after the Railroad-share epoch, in the\ntimes of a certain Irish bank, and of one or two other equally\nlaudable enterprises. If I were to plead anything in mitigation of the\npreposterous fancy that a bad design will sometimes claim to be a good\nand an expressly religious design, it would be the curious coincidence\nthat it has been brought to its climax in these pages, in the days of\nthe public examination of late Directors of a Royal British Bank. But,\nI submit myself to suffer judgment to go by default on all these counts,\nif need be, and to accept the assurance (on good authority) that nothing\nlike them was ever known in this land.\n\nSome of my readers may have an interest in being informed whether or no\nany portions of the Marshalsea Prison are yet standing. I did not know,\nmyself, until the sixth of this present month, when I went to look. I\nfound the outer front courtyard, often mentioned here, metamorphosed\ninto a butter shop; and I then almost gave up every brick of the jail\nfor lost. Wandering, however, down a certain adjacent 'Angel Court,\nleading to Bermondsey', I came to 'Marshalsea Place:' the houses in\nwhich I recognised, not only as the great block of the former prison,\nbut as preserving the rooms that arose in my mind's-eye when I became\nLittle Dorrit's biographer. The smallest boy I ever conversed with,\ncarrying the largest baby I ever saw, offered a supernaturally\nintelligent explanation of the locality in its old uses, and was very\nnearly correct. How this young Newton (for such I judge him to be) came\nby his information, I don't know; he was a quarter of a century too\nyoung to know anything about it of himself. I pointed to the window of\nthe room where Little Dorrit was born, and where her father lived so\nlong, and asked him what was the name of the lodger who tenanted that\napartment at present? He said, 'Tom Pythick.' I asked him who was Tom\nPythick? and he said, 'Joe Pythick's uncle.'\n\nA little further on, I found the older and smaller wall, which used\nto enclose the pent-up inner prison where nobody was put, except for\nceremony. But, whosoever goes into Marshalsea Place, turning out of\nAngel Court, leading to Bermondsey, will find his feet on the very\npaving-stones of the extinct Marshalsea jail; will see its narrow yard\nto the right and to the left, very little altered if at all, except that\nthe walls were lowered when the place got free; will look upon rooms\nin which the debtors lived; and will stand among the crowding ghosts of\nmany miserable years.\n\nIn the Preface to Bleak House I remarked that I had never had so many\nreaders. In the Preface to its next successor, Little Dorrit, I have\nstill to repeat the same words. Deeply sensible of the affection and\nconfidence that have grown up between us, I add to this Preface, as I\nadded to that, May we meet again!\n\nLondon May 1857\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE FIRST: POVERTY\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 1. Sun and Shadow\n\n\nThirty years ago, Marseilles lay burning in the sun, one day.\n\nA blazing sun upon a fierce August day was no greater rarity in southern\nFrance then, than at any other time, before or since. Everything in\nMarseilles, and about Marseilles, had stared at the fervid sky, and been\nstared at in return, until a staring habit had become universal there.\nStrangers were stared out of countenance by staring white houses,\nstaring white walls, staring white streets, staring tracts of arid road,\nstaring hills from which verdure was burnt away. The only things to be\nseen not fixedly staring and glaring were the vines drooping under their\nload of grapes. These did occasionally wink a little, as the hot air\nbarely moved their faint leaves.\n\nThere was no wind to make a ripple on the foul water within the harbour,\nor on the beautiful sea without. The line of demarcation between the two\ncolours, black and blue, showed the point which the pure sea would not\npass; but it lay as quiet as the abominable pool, with which it never\nmixed. Boats without awnings were too hot to touch; ships blistered at\ntheir moorings; the stones of the quays had not cooled, night or\nday, for months. Hindoos, Russians, Chinese, Spaniards, Portuguese,\nEnglishmen, Frenchmen, Genoese, Neapolitans, Venetians, Greeks, Turks,\ndescendants from all the builders of Babel, come to trade at Marseilles,\nsought the shade alike--taking refuge in any hiding-place from a sea too\nintensely blue to be looked at, and a sky of purple, set with one great\nflaming jewel of fire.\n\nThe universal stare made the eyes ache. Towards the distant line of\nItalian coast, indeed, it was a little relieved by light clouds of mist,\nslowly rising from the evaporation of the sea, but it softened nowhere\nelse. Far away the staring roads, deep in dust, stared from the\nhill-side, stared from the hollow, stared from the interminable\nplain. Far away the dusty vines overhanging wayside cottages, and the\nmonotonous wayside avenues of parched trees without shade, drooped\nbeneath the stare of earth and sky. So did the horses with drowsy bells,\nin long files of carts, creeping slowly towards the interior; so did\ntheir recumbent drivers, when they were awake, which rarely happened;\nso did the exhausted labourers in the fields. Everything that lived or\ngrew, was oppressed by the glare; except the lizard, passing swiftly\nover rough stone walls, and the cicala, chirping his dry hot chirp, like\na rattle. The very dust was scorched brown, and something quivered in\nthe atmosphere as if the air itself were panting.\n\nBlinds, shutters, curtains, awnings, were all closed and drawn to keep\nout the stare. Grant it but a chink or keyhole, and it shot in like a\nwhite-hot arrow. The churches were the freest from it. To come out of\nthe twilight of pillars and arches--dreamily dotted with winking lamps,\ndreamily peopled with ugly old shadows piously dozing, spitting, and\nbegging--was to plunge into a fiery river, and swim for life to the\nnearest strip of shade. So, with people lounging and lying wherever\nshade was, with but little hum of tongues or barking of dogs, with\noccasional jangling of discordant church bells and rattling of vicious\ndrums, Marseilles, a fact to be strongly smelt and tasted, lay broiling\nin the sun one day.\n\nIn Marseilles that day there was a villainous prison. In one of its\nchambers, so repulsive a place that even the obtrusive stare blinked at\nit, and left it to such refuse of reflected light as it could find for\nitself, were two men. Besides the two men, a notched and disfigured\nbench, immovable from the wall, with a draught-board rudely hacked upon\nit with a knife, a set of draughts, made of old buttons and soup bones,\na set of dominoes, two mats, and two or three wine bottles. That was all\nthe chamber held, exclusive of rats and other unseen vermin, in addition\nto the seen vermin, the two men.\n\nIt received such light as it got through a grating of iron bars\nfashioned like a pretty large window, by means of which it could be\nalways inspected from the gloomy staircase on which the grating gave.\nThere was a broad strong ledge of stone to this grating where the bottom\nof it was let into the masonry, three or four feet above the ground.\nUpon it, one of the two men lolled, half sitting and half lying, with\nhis knees drawn up, and his feet and shoulders planted against the\nopposite sides of the aperture. The bars were wide enough apart to\nadmit of his thrusting his arm through to the elbow; and so he held on\nnegligently, for his greater ease.\n\nA prison taint was on everything there. The imprisoned air, the\nimprisoned light, the imprisoned damps, the imprisoned men, were all\ndeteriorated by confinement. As the captive men were faded and haggard,\nso the iron was rusty, the stone was slimy, the wood was rotten, the air\nwas faint, the light was dim. Like a well, like a vault, like a tomb,\nthe prison had no knowledge of the brightness outside, and would have\nkept its polluted atmosphere intact in one of the spice islands of the\nIndian ocean.\n\nThe man who lay on the ledge of the grating was even chilled. He jerked\nhis great cloak more heavily upon him by an impatient movement of one\nshoulder, and growled, 'To the devil with this Brigand of a Sun that\nnever shines in here!'\n\nHe was waiting to be fed, looking sideways through the bars that he\nmight see the further down the stairs, with much of the expression of\na wild beast in similar expectation. But his eyes, too close together,\nwere not so nobly set in his head as those of the king of beasts are in\nhis, and they were sharp rather than bright--pointed weapons with little\nsurface to betray them. They had no depth or change; they glittered,\nand they opened and shut. So far, and waiving their use to himself, a\nclockmaker could have made a better pair. He had a hook nose, handsome\nafter its kind, but too high between the eyes by probably just as much\nas his eyes were too near to one another. For the rest, he was large and\ntall in frame, had thin lips, where his thick moustache showed them at\nall, and a quantity of dry hair, of no definable colour, in its shaggy\nstate, but shot with red. The hand with which he held the grating\n(seamed all over the back with ugly scratches newly healed), was\nunusually small and plump; would have been unusually white but for the\nprison grime.\n\nThe other man was lying on the stone floor, covered with a coarse brown\ncoat.\n\n'Get up, pig!' growled the first. 'Don't sleep when I am hungry.'\n\n'It's all one, master,' said the pig, in a submissive manner, and not\nwithout cheerfulness; 'I can wake when I will, I can sleep when I will.\nIt's all the same.'\n\nAs he said it, he rose, shook himself, scratched himself, tied his brown\ncoat loosely round his neck by the sleeves (he had previously used it\nas a coverlet), and sat down upon the pavement yawning, with his back\nagainst the wall opposite to the grating.\n\n'Say what the hour is,' grumbled the first man.\n\n'The mid-day bells will ring--in forty minutes.' When he made the\nlittle pause, he had looked round the prison-room, as if for certain\ninformation.\n\n'You are a clock. How is it that you always know?'\n\n'How can I say? I always know what the hour is, and where I am. I was\nbrought in here at night, and out of a boat, but I know where I am. See\nhere! Marseilles harbour;' on his knees on the pavement, mapping it all\nout with a swarthy forefinger; 'Toulon (where the galleys are), Spain\nover there, Algiers over _there_. Creeping away to the left here, Nice.\nRound by the Cornice to Genoa. Genoa Mole and Harbour. Quarantine\nGround. City there; terrace gardens blushing with the bella donna. Here,\nPorto Fino. Stand out for Leghorn. Out again for Civita Vecchia, so away\nto--hey! there's no room for Naples;' he had got to the wall by this\ntime; 'but it's all one; it's in there!'\n\nHe remained on his knees, looking up at his fellow-prisoner with a\nlively look for a prison. A sunburnt, quick, lithe, little man, though\nrather thickset. Earrings in his brown ears, white teeth lighting up his\ngrotesque brown face, intensely black hair clustering about his brown\nthroat, a ragged red shirt open at his brown breast. Loose, seaman-like\ntrousers, decent shoes, a long red cap, a red sash round his waist, and\na knife in it.\n\n'Judge if I come back from Naples as I went! See here, my master! Civita\nVecchia, Leghorn, Porto Fino, Genoa, Cornice, Off Nice (which is in\nthere), Marseilles, you and me. The apartment of the jailer and his keys\nis where I put this thumb; and here at my wrist they keep the national\nrazor in its case--the guillotine locked up.'\n\nThe other man spat suddenly on the pavement, and gurgled in his throat.\n\nSome lock below gurgled in _its_ throat immediately afterwards, and then\na door crashed. Slow steps began ascending the stairs; the prattle of\na sweet little voice mingled with the noise they made; and the\nprison-keeper appeared carrying his daughter, three or four years old,\nand a basket.\n\n'How goes the world this forenoon, gentlemen? My little one, you see,\ngoing round with me to have a peep at her father's birds. Fie, then!\nLook at the birds, my pretty, look at the birds.'\n\nHe looked sharply at the birds himself, as he held the child up at\nthe grate, especially at the little bird, whose activity he seemed to\nmistrust. 'I have brought your bread, Signor John Baptist,' said he\n(they all spoke in French, but the little man was an Italian); 'and if I\nmight recommend you not to game--'\n\n'You don't recommend the master!' said John Baptist, showing his teeth\nas he smiled.\n\n'Oh! but the master wins,' returned the jailer, with a passing look of\nno particular liking at the other man, 'and you lose. It's quite another\nthing. You get husky bread and sour drink by it; and he gets sausage of\nLyons, veal in savoury jelly, white bread, strachino cheese, and good\nwine by it. Look at the birds, my pretty!'\n\n'Poor birds!' said the child.\n\nThe fair little face, touched with divine compassion, as it peeped\nshrinkingly through the grate, was like an angel's in the prison. John\nBaptist rose and moved towards it, as if it had a good attraction for\nhim. The other bird remained as before, except for an impatient glance\nat the basket.\n\n'Stay!' said the jailer, putting his little daughter on the outer ledge\nof the grate, 'she shall feed the birds. This big loaf is for Signor\nJohn Baptist. We must break it to get it through into the cage. So,\nthere's a tame bird to kiss the little hand! This sausage in a vine\nleaf is for Monsieur Rigaud. Again--this veal in savoury jelly is for\nMonsieur Rigaud. Again--these three white little loaves are for Monsieur\nRigaud. Again, this cheese--again, this wine--again, this tobacco--all\nfor Monsieur Rigaud. Lucky bird!'\n\nThe child put all these things between the bars into the soft, Smooth,\nwell-shaped hand, with evident dread--more than once drawing back\nher own and looking at the man with her fair brow roughened into an\nexpression half of fright and half of anger. Whereas she had put the\nlump of coarse bread into the swart, scaled, knotted hands of John\nBaptist (who had scarcely as much nail on his eight fingers and two\nthumbs as would have made out one for Monsieur Rigaud), with ready\nconfidence; and, when he kissed her hand, had herself passed it\ncaressingly over his face. Monsieur Rigaud, indifferent to this\ndistinction, propitiated the father by laughing and nodding at the\ndaughter as often as she gave him anything; and, so soon as he had\nall his viands about him in convenient nooks of the ledge on which he\nrested, began to eat with an appetite.\n\nWhen Monsieur Rigaud laughed, a change took place in his face, that\nwas more remarkable than prepossessing. His moustache went up under his\nnose, and his nose came down over his moustache, in a very sinister and\ncruel manner.\n\n'There!' said the jailer, turning his basket upside down to beat the\ncrumbs out, 'I have expended all the money I received; here is the note\nof it, and _that's_ a thing accomplished. Monsieur Rigaud, as I expected\nyesterday, the President will look for the pleasure of your society at\nan hour after mid-day, to-day.'\n\n'To try me, eh?' said Rigaud, pausing, knife in hand and morsel in\nmouth.\n\n'You have said it. To try you.'\n\n'There is no news for me?' asked John Baptist, who had begun,\ncontentedly, to munch his bread.\n\nThe jailer shrugged his shoulders.\n\n'Lady of mine! Am I to lie here all my life, my father?'\n\n'What do I know!' cried the jailer, turning upon him with southern\nquickness, and gesticulating with both his hands and all his fingers,\nas if he were threatening to tear him to pieces. 'My friend, how is it\npossible for me to tell how long you are to lie here? What do I know,\nJohn Baptist Cavalletto? Death of my life! There are prisoners here\nsometimes, who are not in such a devil of a hurry to be tried.'\n\nHe seemed to glance obliquely at Monsieur Rigaud in this remark; but\nMonsieur Rigaud had already resumed his meal, though not with quite so\nquick an appetite as before.\n\n'Adieu, my birds!' said the keeper of the prison, taking his pretty\nchild in his arms, and dictating the words with a kiss.\n\n'Adieu, my birds!' the pretty child repeated.\n\nHer innocent face looked back so brightly over his shoulder, as he\nwalked away with her, singing her the song of the child's game:\n\n     'Who passes by this road so late?\n          Compagnon de la Majolaine!\n     Who passes by this road so late?\n          Always gay!'\n\nthat John Baptist felt it a point of honour to reply at the grate, and\nin good time and tune, though a little hoarsely:\n\n     'Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower,\n         Compagnon de la Majolaine!\n     Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower,\n          Always gay!'\n\nWhich accompanied them so far down the few steep stairs, that the\nprison-keeper had to stop at last for his little daughter to hear the\nsong out, and repeat the Refrain while they were yet in sight. Then the\nchild's head disappeared, and the prison-keeper's head disappeared, but\nthe little voice prolonged the strain until the door clashed.\n\nMonsieur Rigaud, finding the listening John Baptist in his way before\nthe echoes had ceased (even the echoes were the weaker for imprisonment,\nand seemed to lag), reminded him with a push of his foot that he had\nbetter resume his own darker place. The little man sat down again\nupon the pavement with the negligent ease of one who was thoroughly\naccustomed to pavements; and placing three hunks of coarse bread before\nhimself, and falling to upon a fourth, began contentedly to work his way\nthrough them as if to clear them off were a sort of game.\n\nPerhaps he glanced at the Lyons sausage, and perhaps he glanced at the\nveal in savoury jelly, but they were not there long, to make his mouth\nwater; Monsieur Rigaud soon dispatched them, in spite of the president\nand tribunal, and proceeded to suck his fingers as clean as he could,\nand to wipe them on his vine leaves. Then, as he paused in his drink\nto contemplate his fellow-prisoner, his moustache went up, and his nose\ncame down.\n\n'How do you find the bread?'\n\n'A little dry, but I have my old sauce here,' returned John Baptist,\nholding up his knife.\n\n'How sauce?'\n\n'I can cut my bread so--like a melon. Or so--like an omelette. Or\nso--like a fried fish. Or so--like Lyons sausage,' said John Baptist,\ndemonstrating the various cuts on the bread he held, and soberly chewing\nwhat he had in his mouth.\n\n'Here!' cried Monsieur Rigaud. 'You may drink. You may finish this.'\n\nIt was no great gift, for there was mighty little wine left; but Signor\nCavalletto, jumping to his feet, received the bottle gratefully, turned\nit upside down at his mouth, and smacked his lips.\n\n'Put the bottle by with the rest,' said Rigaud.\n\nThe little man obeyed his orders, and stood ready to give him a lighted\nmatch; for he was now rolling his tobacco into cigarettes by the aid of\nlittle squares of paper which had been brought in with it.\n\n'Here! You may have one.'\n\n'A thousand thanks, my master!' John Baptist said in his own language,\nand with the quick conciliatory manner of his own countrymen.\n\nMonsieur Rigaud arose, lighted a cigarette, put the rest of his stock\ninto a breast-pocket, and stretched himself out at full length upon the\nbench. Cavalletto sat down on the pavement, holding one of his ankles in\neach hand, and smoking peacefully. There seemed to be some uncomfortable\nattraction of Monsieur Rigaud's eyes to the immediate neighbourhood of\nthat part of the pavement where the thumb had been in the plan. They\nwere so drawn in that direction, that the Italian more than once\nfollowed them to and back from the pavement in some surprise.\n\n'What an infernal hole this is!' said Monsieur Rigaud, breaking a long\npause. 'Look at the light of day. Day? the light of yesterday week, the\nlight of six months ago, the light of six years ago. So slack and dead!'\n\nIt came languishing down a square funnel that blinded a window in the\nstaircase wall, through which the sky was never seen--nor anything else.\n\n'Cavalletto,' said Monsieur Rigaud, suddenly withdrawing his gaze from\nthis funnel to which they had both involuntarily turned their eyes, 'you\nknow me for a gentleman?'\n\n'Surely, surely!'\n\n'How long have we been here?'\n\n'I, eleven weeks, to-morrow night at midnight. You, nine weeks and three\ndays, at five this afternoon.'\n\n'Have I ever done anything here? Ever touched the broom, or spread\nthe mats, or rolled them up, or found the draughts, or collected the\ndominoes, or put my hand to any kind of work?'\n\n'Never!'\n\n'Have you ever thought of looking to me to do any kind of work?'\n\nJohn Baptist answered with that peculiar back-handed shake of the\nright forefinger which is the most expressive negative in the Italian\nlanguage.\n\n'No! You knew from the first moment when you saw me here, that I was a\ngentleman?'\n\n'ALTRO!' returned John Baptist, closing his eyes and giving his head a\nmost vehement toss. The word being, according to its Genoese emphasis,\na confirmation, a contradiction, an assertion, a denial, a taunt,\na compliment, a joke, and fifty other things, became in the present\ninstance, with a significance beyond all power of written expression,\nour familiar English 'I believe you!'\n\n'Haha! You are right! A gentleman I am! And a gentleman I'll live, and\na gentleman I'll die! It's my intent to be a gentleman. It's my game.\nDeath of my soul, I play it out wherever I go!'\n\nHe changed his posture to a sitting one, crying with a triumphant air:\n\n'Here I am! See me! Shaken out of destiny's dice-box into the company\nof a mere smuggler;--shut up with a poor little contraband trader, whose\npapers are wrong, and whom the police lay hold of besides, for placing\nhis boat (as a means of getting beyond the frontier) at the disposition\nof other little people whose papers are wrong; and he instinctively\nrecognises my position, even by this light and in this place. It's well\ndone! By Heaven! I win, however the game goes.'\n\nAgain his moustache went up, and his nose came down.\n\n'What's the hour now?' he asked, with a dry hot pallor upon him, rather\ndifficult of association with merriment.\n\n'A little half-hour after mid-day.'\n\n'Good! The President will have a gentleman before him soon. Come!\nShall I tell you on what accusation? It must be now, or never, for I\nshall not return here. Either I shall go free, or I shall go to be made\nready for shaving. You know where they keep the razor.'\n\nSignor Cavalletto took his cigarette from between his parted lips, and\nshowed more momentary discomfiture than might have been expected.\n\n'I am a'--Monsieur Rigaud stood up to say it--'I am a cosmopolitan\ngentleman. I own no particular country. My father was Swiss--Canton de\nVaud. My mother was French by blood, English by birth. I myself was born\nin Belgium. I am a citizen of the world.'\n\nHis theatrical air, as he stood with one arm on his hip within the folds\nof his cloak, together with his manner of disregarding his companion\nand addressing the opposite wall instead, seemed to intimate that he\nwas rehearsing for the President, whose examination he was shortly to\nundergo, rather than troubling himself merely to enlighten so small a\nperson as John Baptist Cavalletto.\n\n'Call me five-and-thirty years of age. I have seen the world. I have\nlived here, and lived there, and lived like a gentleman everywhere. I\nhave been treated and respected as a gentleman universally. If you try\nto prejudice me by making out that I have lived by my wits--how do\nyour lawyers live--your politicians--your intriguers--your men of the\nExchange?'\n\nHe kept his small smooth hand in constant requisition, as if it were a\nwitness to his gentility that had often done him good service before.\n\n'Two years ago I came to Marseilles. I admit that I was poor; I had been\nill. When your lawyers, your politicians, your intriguers, your men of\nthe Exchange fall ill, and have not scraped money together, _they_ become\npoor. I put up at the Cross of Gold,--kept then by Monsieur Henri\nBarronneau--sixty-five at least, and in a failing state of health. I had\nlived in the house some four months when Monsieur Henri Barronneau had\nthe misfortune to die;--at any rate, not a rare misfortune, that. It\nhappens without any aid of mine, pretty often.'\n\nJohn Baptist having smoked his cigarette down to his fingers' ends,\nMonsieur Rigaud had the magnanimity to throw him another. He lighted the\nsecond at the ashes of the first, and smoked on, looking sideways at his\ncompanion, who, preoccupied with his own case, hardly looked at him.\n\n'Monsieur Barronneau left a widow. She was two-and-twenty. She had\ngained a reputation for beauty, and (which is often another thing) was\nbeautiful. I continued to live at the Cross of Gold. I married Madame\nBarronneau. It is not for me to say whether there was any great\ndisparity in such a match. Here I stand, with the contamination of a\njail upon me; but it is possible that you may think me better suited to\nher than her former husband was.'\n\nHe had a certain air of being a handsome man--which he was not; and\na certain air of being a well-bred man--which he was not. It was mere\nswagger and challenge; but in this particular, as in many others,\nblustering assertion goes for proof, half over the world.\n\n'Be it as it may, Madame Barronneau approved of me. _That_ is not to\nprejudice me, I hope?'\n\nHis eye happening to light upon John Baptist with this inquiry, that\nlittle man briskly shook his head in the negative, and repeated in an\nargumentative tone under his breath, altro, altro, altro, altro--an\ninfinite number of times.\n\n'Now came the difficulties of our position. I am proud. I say nothing\nin defence of pride, but I am proud. It is also my character to govern.\nI can't submit; I must govern. Unfortunately, the property of Madame\nRigaud was settled upon herself. Such was the insane act of her late\nhusband. More unfortunately still, she had relations. When a wife's\nrelations interpose against a husband who is a gentleman, who is proud,\nand who must govern, the consequences are inimical to peace. There\nwas yet another source of difference between us. Madame Rigaud was\nunfortunately a little vulgar. I sought to improve her manners and\nameliorate her general tone; she (supported in this likewise by her\nrelations) resented my endeavours. Quarrels began to arise between us;\nand, propagated and exaggerated by the slanders of the relations of\nMadame Rigaud, to become notorious to the neighbours. It has been said\nthat I treated Madame Rigaud with cruelty. I may have been seen to slap\nher face--nothing more. I have a light hand; and if I have been seen\napparently to correct Madame Rigaud in that manner, I have done it\nalmost playfully.'\n\nIf the playfulness of Monsieur Rigaud were at all expressed by his smile\nat this point, the relations of Madame Rigaud might have said that\nthey would have much preferred his correcting that unfortunate woman\nseriously.\n\n'I am sensitive and brave. I do not advance it as a merit to be\nsensitive and brave, but it is my character. If the male relations of\nMadame Rigaud had put themselves forward openly, I should have known how\nto deal with them. They knew that, and their machinations were conducted\nin secret; consequently, Madame Rigaud and I were brought into frequent\nand unfortunate collision. Even when I wanted any little sum of money\nfor my personal expenses, I could not obtain it without collision--and\nI, too, a man whose character it is to govern! One night, Madame Rigaud\nand myself were walking amicably--I may say like lovers--on a height\noverhanging the sea. An evil star occasioned Madame Rigaud to advert to\nher relations; I reasoned with her on that subject, and remonstrated on\nthe want of duty and devotion manifested in her allowing herself to be\ninfluenced by their jealous animosity towards her husband. Madame Rigaud\nretorted; I retorted; Madame Rigaud grew warm; I grew warm, and provoked\nher. I admit it. Frankness is a part of my character. At length, Madame\nRigaud, in an access of fury that I must ever deplore, threw herself\nupon me with screams of passion (no doubt those that were overheard\nat some distance), tore my clothes, tore my hair, lacerated my hands,\ntrampled and trod the dust, and finally leaped over, dashing herself to\ndeath upon the rocks below. Such is the train of incidents which\nmalice has perverted into my endeavouring to force from Madame Rigaud\na relinquishment of her rights; and, on her persistence in a refusal to\nmake the concession I required, struggling with her--assassinating her!'\n\nHe stepped aside to the ledge where the vine leaves yet lay strewn\nabout, collected two or three, and stood wiping his hands upon them,\nwith his back to the light.\n\n'Well,' he demanded after a silence, 'have you nothing to say to all\nthat?'\n\n'It's ugly,' returned the little man, who had risen, and was brightening\nhis knife upon his shoe, as he leaned an arm against the wall.\n\n'What do you mean?'\n\nJohn Baptist polished his knife in silence.\n\n'Do you mean that I have not represented the case correctly?'\n\n'Al-tro!' returned John Baptist. The word was an apology now, and stood\nfor 'Oh, by no means!'\n\n'What then?'\n\n'Presidents and tribunals are so prejudiced.'\n\n'Well,' cried the other, uneasily flinging the end of his cloak over his\nshoulder with an oath, 'let them do their worst!'\n\n'Truly I think they will,' murmured John Baptist to himself, as he bent\nhis head to put his knife in his sash.\n\nNothing more was said on either side, though they both began walking\nto and fro, and necessarily crossed at every turn. Monsieur Rigaud\nsometimes stopped, as if he were going to put his case in a new light,\nor make some irate remonstrance; but Signor Cavalletto continuing to\ngo slowly to and fro at a grotesque kind of jog-trot pace with his eyes\nturned downward, nothing came of these inclinings.\n\nBy-and-by the noise of the key in the lock arrested them both. The sound\nof voices succeeded, and the tread of feet. The door clashed, the voices\nand the feet came on, and the prison-keeper slowly ascended the stairs,\nfollowed by a guard of soldiers.\n\n'Now, Monsieur Rigaud,' said he, pausing for a moment at the grate, with\nhis keys in his hands, 'have the goodness to come out.'\n\n'I am to depart in state, I see?'\n\n'Why, unless you did,' returned the jailer, 'you might depart in so many\npieces that it would be difficult to get you together again. There's a\ncrowd, Monsieur Rigaud, and it doesn't love you.'\n\nHe passed on out of sight, and unlocked and unbarred a low door in the\ncorner of the chamber. 'Now,' said he, as he opened it and appeared\nwithin, 'come out.'\n\nThere is no sort of whiteness in all the hues under the sun at all like\nthe whiteness of Monsieur Rigaud's face as it was then. Neither is there\nany expression of the human countenance at all like that expression in\nevery little line of which the frightened heart is seen to beat. Both\nare conventionally compared with death; but the difference is the whole\ndeep gulf between the struggle done, and the fight at its most desperate\nextremity.\n\nHe lighted another of his paper cigars at his companion's; put it\ntightly between his teeth; covered his head with a soft slouched hat;\nthrew the end of his cloak over his shoulder again; and walked out into\nthe side gallery on which the door opened, without taking any further\nnotice of Signor Cavalletto. As to that little man himself, his whole\nattention had become absorbed in getting near the door and looking out\nat it. Precisely as a beast might approach the opened gate of his den\nand eye the freedom beyond, he passed those few moments in watching and\npeering, until the door was closed upon him.\n\nThere was an officer in command of the soldiers; a stout, serviceable,\nprofoundly calm man, with his drawn sword in his hand, smoking a cigar.\nHe very briefly directed the placing of Monsieur Rigaud in the midst of\nthe party, put himself with consummate indifference at their head, gave\nthe word 'march!' and so they all went jingling down the staircase. The\ndoor clashed--the key turned--and a ray of unusual light, and a breath\nof unusual air, seemed to have passed through the jail, vanishing in a\ntiny wreath of smoke from the cigar.\n\nStill, in his captivity, like a lower animal--like some impatient ape,\nor roused bear of the smaller species--the prisoner, now left solitary,\nhad jumped upon the ledge, to lose no glimpse of this departure. As he\nyet stood clasping the grate with both hands, an uproar broke upon his\nhearing; yells, shrieks, oaths, threats, execrations, all comprehended\nin it, though (as in a storm) nothing but a raging swell of sound\ndistinctly heard.\n\nExcited into a still greater resemblance to a caged wild animal by his\nanxiety to know more, the prisoner leaped nimbly down, ran round the\nchamber, leaped nimbly up again, clasped the grate and tried to shake\nit, leaped down and ran, leaped up and listened, and never rested until\nthe noise, becoming more and more distant, had died away. How many\nbetter prisoners have worn their noble hearts out so; no man thinking\nof it; not even the beloved of their souls realising it; great kings\nand governors, who had made them captive, careering in the sunlight\njauntily, and men cheering them on. Even the said great personages dying\nin bed, making exemplary ends and sounding speeches; and polite history,\nmore servile than their instruments, embalming them!\n\nAt last, John Baptist, now able to choose his own spot within the\ncompass of those walls for the exercise of his faculty of going to sleep\nwhen he would, lay down upon the bench, with his face turned over on his\ncrossed arms, and slumbered. In his submission, in his lightness, in his\ngood humour, in his short-lived passion, in his easy contentment with\nhard bread and hard stones, in his ready sleep, in his fits and starts,\naltogether a true son of the land that gave him birth.\n\nThe wide stare stared itself out for one while; the Sun went down in\na red, green, golden glory; the stars came out in the heavens, and the\nfire-flies mimicked them in the lower air, as men may feebly imitate\nthe goodness of a better order of beings; the long dusty roads and the\ninterminable plains were in repose--and so deep a hush was on the sea,\nthat it scarcely whispered of the time when it shall give up its dead.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 2 Fellow Travellers\n\n\n'No more of yesterday's howling over yonder to-day, Sir; is there?'\n\n'I have heard none.'\n\n'Then you may be sure there _is_ none. When these people howl, they howl\nto be heard.'\n\n'Most people do, I suppose.'\n\n'Ah! but these people are always howling. Never happy otherwise.'\n\n'Do you mean the Marseilles people?'\n\n'I mean the French people. They're always at it. As to Marseilles, we\nknow what Marseilles is. It sent the most insurrectionary tune into the\nworld that was ever composed. It couldn't exist without allonging and\nmarshonging to something or other--victory or death, or blazes, or\nsomething.'\n\nThe speaker, with a whimsical good humour upon him all the time, looked\nover the parapet-wall with the greatest disparagement of Marseilles; and\ntaking up a determined position by putting his hands in his pockets and\nrattling his money at it, apostrophised it with a short laugh.\n\n'Allong and marshong, indeed. It would be more creditable to you,\nI think, to let other people allong and marshong about their lawful\nbusiness, instead of shutting 'em up in quarantine!'\n\n'Tiresome enough,' said the other. 'But we shall be out to-day.'\n\n'Out to-day!' repeated the first. 'It's almost an aggravation of the\nenormity, that we shall be out to-day. Out! What have we ever been in\nfor?'\n\n'For no very strong reason, I must say. But as we come from the East,\nand as the East is the country of the plague--'\n\n'The plague!' repeated the other. 'That's my grievance. I have had the\nplague continually, ever since I have been here. I am like a sane man\nshut up in a madhouse; I can't stand the suspicion of the thing. I came\nhere as well as ever I was in my life; but to suspect me of the plague\nis to give me the plague. And I have had it--and I have got it.'\n\n'You bear it very well, Mr Meagles,' said the second speaker, smiling.\n\n'No. If you knew the real state of the case, that's the last observation\nyou would think of making. I have been waking up night after night, and\nsaying, _now_ I have got it, _now_ it has developed itself, _now_ I am\nin for it, _now_ these fellows are making out their case for their\nprecautions. Why, I'd as soon have a spit put through me, and be stuck\nupon a card in a collection of beetles, as lead the life I have been\nleading here.'\n\n'Well, Mr Meagles, say no more about it now it's over,' urged a cheerful\nfeminine voice.\n\n'Over!' repeated Mr Meagles, who appeared (though without any\nill-nature) to be in that peculiar state of mind in which the last word\nspoken by anybody else is a new injury. 'Over! and why should I say no\nmore about it because it's over?'\n\nIt was Mrs Meagles who had spoken to Mr Meagles; and Mrs Meagles was,\nlike Mr Meagles, comely and healthy, with a pleasant English face which\nhad been looking at homely things for five-and-fifty years or more, and\nshone with a bright reflection of them.\n\n'There! Never mind, Father, never mind!' said Mrs Meagles. 'For goodness\nsake content yourself with Pet.'\n\n'With Pet?' repeated Mr Meagles in his injured vein. Pet, however,\nbeing close behind him, touched him on the shoulder, and Mr Meagles\nimmediately forgave Marseilles from the bottom of his heart.\n\nPet was about twenty. A fair girl with rich brown hair hanging free in\nnatural ringlets. A lovely girl, with a frank face, and wonderful eyes;\nso large, so soft, so bright, set to such perfection in her kind good\nhead. She was round and fresh and dimpled and spoilt, and there was in\nPet an air of timidity and dependence which was the best weakness in\nthe world, and gave her the only crowning charm a girl so pretty and\npleasant could have been without.\n\n'Now, I ask you,' said Mr Meagles in the blandest confidence, falling\nback a step himself, and handing his daughter a step forward to\nillustrate his question: 'I ask you simply, as between man and man,\nyou know, DID you ever hear of such damned nonsense as putting Pet in\nquarantine?'\n\n'It has had the result of making even quarantine enjoyable.'\n\n'Come!' said Mr Meagles, 'that's something to be sure. I am obliged to\nyou for that remark. Now, Pet, my darling, you had better go along with\nMother and get ready for the boat. The officer of health, and a variety\nof humbugs in cocked hats, are coming off to let us out of this at last:\nand all we jail-birds are to breakfast together in something approaching\nto a Christian style again, before we take wing for our different\ndestinations. Tattycoram, stick you close to your young mistress.'\n\nHe spoke to a handsome girl with lustrous dark hair and eyes, and very\nneatly dressed, who replied with a half curtsey as she passed off in the\ntrain of Mrs Meagles and Pet. They crossed the bare scorched terrace\nall three together, and disappeared through a staring white archway.\nMr Meagles's companion, a grave dark man of forty, still stood looking\ntowards this archway after they were gone; until Mr Meagles tapped him\non the arm.\n\n'I beg your pardon,' said he, starting.\n\n'Not at all,' said Mr Meagles.\n\nThey took one silent turn backward and forward in the shade of the wall,\ngetting, at the height on which the quarantine barracks are placed, what\ncool refreshment of sea breeze there was at seven in the morning. Mr\nMeagles's companion resumed the conversation.\n\n'May I ask you,' he said, 'what is the name of--'\n\n'Tattycoram?' Mr Meagles struck in. 'I have not the least idea.'\n\n'I thought,' said the other, 'that--'\n\n'Tattycoram?' suggested Mr Meagles again.\n\n'Thank you--that Tattycoram was a name; and I have several times\nwondered at the oddity of it.'\n\n'Why, the fact is,' said Mr Meagles, 'Mrs Meagles and myself are, you\nsee, practical people.'\n\n'That you have frequently mentioned in the course of the agreeable and\ninteresting conversations we have had together, walking up and down on\nthese stones,' said the other, with a half smile breaking through the\ngravity of his dark face.\n\n'Practical people. So one day, five or six years ago now, when we took\nPet to church at the Foundling--you have heard of the Foundling Hospital\nin London? Similar to the Institution for the Found Children in Paris?'\n\n'I have seen it.'\n\n'Well! One day when we took Pet to church there to hear the\nmusic--because, as practical people, it is the business of our lives to\nshow her everything that we think can please her--Mother (my usual name\nfor Mrs Meagles) began to cry so, that it was necessary to take her out.\n\"What's the matter, Mother?\" said I, when we had brought her a little\nround: \"you are frightening Pet, my dear.\" \"Yes, I know that, Father,\"\nsays Mother, \"but I think it's through my loving her so much, that it\never came into my head.\" \"That ever what came into your head, Mother?\"\n\"O dear, dear!\" cried Mother, breaking out again, \"when I saw all those\nchildren ranged tier above tier, and appealing from the father none of\nthem has ever known on earth, to the great Father of us all in Heaven,\nI thought, does any wretched mother ever come here, and look among those\nyoung faces, wondering which is the poor child she brought into this\nforlorn world, never through all its life to know her love, her kiss,\nher face, her voice, even her name!\" Now that was practical in Mother,\nand I told her so. I said, \"Mother, that's what I call practical in you,\nmy dear.\"'\n\nThe other, not unmoved, assented.\n\n'So I said next day: Now, Mother, I have a proposition to make that I\nthink you'll approve of. Let us take one of those same little children\nto be a little maid to Pet. We are practical people. So if we should\nfind her temper a little defective, or any of her ways a little wide\nof ours, we shall know what we have to take into account. We shall\nknow what an immense deduction must be made from all the influences and\nexperiences that have formed us--no parents, no child-brother or sister,\nno individuality of home, no Glass Slipper, or Fairy Godmother. And\nthat's the way we came by Tattycoram.'\n\n'And the name itself--'\n\n'By George!' said Mr Meagles, 'I was forgetting the name itself. Why,\nshe was called in the Institution, Harriet Beadle--an arbitrary name,\nof course. Now, Harriet we changed into Hattey, and then into Tatty,\nbecause, as practical people, we thought even a playful name might be\na new thing to her, and might have a softening and affectionate kind of\neffect, don't you see? As to Beadle, that I needn't say was wholly out\nof the question. If there is anything that is not to be tolerated on\nany terms, anything that is a type of Jack-in-office insolence and\nabsurdity, anything that represents in coats, waistcoats, and big sticks\nour English holding on by nonsense after every one has found it out, it\nis a beadle. You haven't seen a beadle lately?'\n\n'As an Englishman who has been more than twenty years in China, no.'\n\n'Then,' said Mr Meagles, laying his forefinger on his companion's breast\nwith great animation, 'don't you see a beadle, now, if you can help it.\nWhenever I see a beadle in full fig, coming down a street on a Sunday\nat the head of a charity school, I am obliged to turn and run away, or\nI should hit him. The name of Beadle being out of the question, and the\noriginator of the Institution for these poor foundlings having been a\nblessed creature of the name of Coram, we gave that name to Pet's little\nmaid. At one time she was Tatty, and at one time she was Coram, until we\ngot into a way of mixing the two names together, and now she is always\nTattycoram.'\n\n'Your daughter,' said the other, when they had taken another silent turn\nto and fro, and, after standing for a moment at the wall glancing down\nat the sea, had resumed their walk, 'is your only child, I know, Mr\nMeagles. May I ask you--in no impertinent curiosity, but because I have\nhad so much pleasure in your society, may never in this labyrinth of\na world exchange a quiet word with you again, and wish to preserve an\naccurate remembrance of you and yours--may I ask you, if I have not\ngathered from your good wife that you have had other children?'\n\n'No. No,' said Mr Meagles. 'Not exactly other children. One other\nchild.'\n\n'I am afraid I have inadvertently touched upon a tender theme.'\n\n'Never mind,' said Mr Meagles. 'If I am grave about it, I am not at all\nsorrowful. It quiets me for a moment, but does not make me unhappy. Pet\nhad a twin sister who died when we could just see her eyes--exactly like\nPet's--above the table, as she stood on tiptoe holding by it.'\n\n'Ah! indeed, indeed!'\n\n'Yes, and being practical people, a result has gradually sprung up in\nthe minds of Mrs Meagles and myself which perhaps you may--or perhaps\nyou may not--understand. Pet and her baby sister were so exactly alike,\nand so completely one, that in our thoughts we have never been able\nto separate them since. It would be of no use to tell us that our dead\nchild was a mere infant. We have changed that child according to the\nchanges in the child spared to us and always with us. As Pet has grown,\nthat child has grown; as Pet has become more sensible and womanly, her\nsister has become more sensible and womanly by just the same degrees.\nIt would be as hard to convince me that if I was to pass into the other\nworld to-morrow, I should not, through the mercy of God, be received\nthere by a daughter, just like Pet, as to persuade me that Pet herself\nis not a reality at my side.'\n\n'I understand you,' said the other, gently.\n\n'As to her,' pursued her father, 'the sudden loss of her little picture\nand playfellow, and her early association with that mystery in which we\nall have our equal share, but which is not often so forcibly presented\nto a child, has necessarily had some influence on her character. Then,\nher mother and I were not young when we married, and Pet has always had\na sort of grown-up life with us, though we have tried to adapt ourselves\nto her. We have been advised more than once when she has been a\nlittle ailing, to change climate and air for her as often as we\ncould--especially at about this time of her life--and to keep her\namused. So, as I have no need to stick at a bank-desk now (though I have\nbeen poor enough in my time I assure you, or I should have married Mrs\nMeagles long before), we go trotting about the world. This is how you\nfound us staring at the Nile, and the Pyramids, and the Sphinxes, and\nthe Desert, and all the rest of it; and this is how Tattycoram will be a\ngreater traveller in course of time than Captain Cook.'\n\n'I thank you,' said the other, 'very heartily for your confidence.'\n\n'Don't mention it,' returned Mr Meagles, 'I am sure you are quite\nwelcome. And now, Mr Clennam, perhaps I may ask you whether you have yet\ncome to a decision where to go next?'\n\n'Indeed, no. I am such a waif and stray everywhere, that I am liable to\nbe drifted where any current may set.'\n\n'It's extraordinary to me--if you'll excuse my freedom in saying\nso--that you don't go straight to London,' said Mr Meagles, in the tone\nof a confidential adviser.\n\n'Perhaps I shall.'\n\n'Ay! But I mean with a will.'\n\n'I have no will. That is to say,'--he coloured a little,--'next to none\nthat I can put in action now. Trained by main force; broken, not bent;\nheavily ironed with an object on which I was never consulted and which\nwas never mine; shipped away to the other end of the world before I\nwas of age, and exiled there until my father's death there, a year ago;\nalways grinding in a mill I always hated; what is to be expected from me\nin middle life? Will, purpose, hope? All those lights were extinguished\nbefore I could sound the words.'\n\n'Light 'em up again!' said Mr Meagles.\n\n'Ah! Easily said. I am the son, Mr Meagles, of a hard father and\nmother. I am the only child of parents who weighed, measured, and priced\neverything; for whom what could not be weighed, measured, and priced,\nhad no existence. Strict people as the phrase is, professors of a stern\nreligion, their very religion was a gloomy sacrifice of tastes and\nsympathies that were never their own, offered up as a part of a bargain\nfor the security of their possessions. Austere faces, inexorable\ndiscipline, penance in this world and terror in the next--nothing\ngraceful or gentle anywhere, and the void in my cowed heart\neverywhere--this was my childhood, if I may so misuse the word as to\napply it to such a beginning of life.'\n\n'Really though?' said Mr Meagles, made very uncomfortable by the picture\noffered to his imagination. 'That was a tough commencement. But come!\nYou must now study, and profit by, all that lies beyond it, like a\npractical man.'\n\n'If the people who are usually called practical, were practical in your\ndirection--'\n\n'Why, so they are!' said Mr Meagles.\n\n'Are they indeed?'\n\n'Well, I suppose so,' returned Mr Meagles, thinking about it. 'Eh? One\ncan but _be_ practical, and Mrs Meagles and myself are nothing else.'\n\n'My unknown course is easier and more helpful than I had expected to\nfind it, then,' said Clennam, shaking his head with his grave smile.\n'Enough of me. Here is the boat.'\n\nThe boat was filled with the cocked hats to which Mr Meagles entertained\na national objection; and the wearers of those cocked hats landed\nand came up the steps, and all the impounded travellers congregated\ntogether. There was then a mighty production of papers on the part of\nthe cocked hats, and a calling over of names, and great work of signing,\nsealing, stamping, inking, and sanding, with exceedingly blurred,\ngritty, and undecipherable results. Finally, everything was done\naccording to rule, and the travellers were at liberty to depart\nwhithersoever they would.\n\nThey made little account of stare and glare, in the new pleasure of\nrecovering their freedom, but flitted across the harbour in gay boats,\nand reassembled at a great hotel, whence the sun was excluded by closed\nlattices, and where bare paved floors, lofty ceilings, and resounding\ncorridors tempered the intense heat. There, a great table in a great\nroom was soon profusely covered with a superb repast; and the quarantine\nquarters became bare indeed, remembered among dainty dishes, southern\nfruits, cooled wines, flowers from Genoa, snow from the mountain tops,\nand all the colours of the rainbow flashing in the mirrors.\n\n'But I bear those monotonous walls no ill-will now,' said Mr Meagles.\n'One always begins to forgive a place as soon as it's left behind; I\ndare say a prisoner begins to relent towards his prison, after he is let\nout.'\n\nThey were about thirty in company, and all talking; but necessarily in\ngroups. Father and Mother Meagles sat with their daughter between them,\nthe last three on one side of the table: on the opposite side sat Mr\nClennam; a tall French gentleman with raven hair and beard, of a swart\nand terrible, not to say genteelly diabolical aspect, but who had\nshown himself the mildest of men; and a handsome young Englishwoman,\ntravelling quite alone, who had a proud observant face, and had either\nwithdrawn herself from the rest or been avoided by the rest--nobody,\nherself excepted perhaps, could have quite decided which. The rest\nof the party were of the usual materials: travellers on business, and\ntravellers for pleasure; officers from India on leave; merchants in\nthe Greek and Turkey trades; a clerical English husband in a meek\nstrait-waistcoat, on a wedding trip with his young wife; a majestic\nEnglish mama and papa, of the patrician order, with a family of three\ngrowing-up daughters, who were keeping a journal for the confusion of\ntheir fellow-creatures; and a deaf old English mother, tough in travel,\nwith a very decidedly grown-up daughter indeed, which daughter went\nsketching about the universe in the expectation of ultimately toning\nherself off into the married state.\n\nThe reserved Englishwoman took up Mr Meagles in his last remark.\n\n'Do you mean that a prisoner forgives his prison?' said she, slowly and\nwith emphasis.\n\n\n'That was my speculation, Miss Wade. I don't pretend to know positively\nhow a prisoner might feel. I never was one before.'\n\n'Mademoiselle doubts,' said the French gentleman in his own language,\n'it's being so easy to forgive?'\n\n'I do.'\n\nPet had to translate this passage to Mr Meagles, who never by any\naccident acquired any knowledge whatever of the language of any country\ninto which he travelled. 'Oh!' said he. 'Dear me! But that's a pity,\nisn't it?'\n\n'That I am not credulous?' said Miss Wade.\n\n'Not exactly that. Put it another way. That you can't believe it easy to\nforgive.'\n\n'My experience,' she quietly returned, 'has been correcting my belief\nin many respects, for some years. It is our natural progress, I have\nheard.'\n\n'Well, well! But it's not natural to bear malice, I hope?' said Mr\nMeagles, cheerily.\n\n'If I had been shut up in any place to pine and suffer, I should always\nhate that place and wish to burn it down, or raze it to the ground. I\nknow no more.'\n\n'Strong, sir?' said Mr Meagles to the Frenchman; it being another of his\nhabits to address individuals of all nations in idiomatic English, with\na perfect conviction that they were bound to understand it somehow.\n'Rather forcible in our fair friend, you'll agree with me, I think?'\n\nThe French gentleman courteously replied, 'Plait-il?' To which Mr\nMeagles returned with much satisfaction, 'You are right. My opinion.'\n\nThe breakfast beginning by-and-by to languish, Mr Meagles made the\ncompany a speech. It was short enough and sensible enough, considering\nthat it was a speech at all, and hearty. It merely went to the effect\nthat as they had all been thrown together by chance, and had all\npreserved a good understanding together, and were now about to disperse,\nand were not likely ever to find themselves all together again, what\ncould they do better than bid farewell to one another, and give one\nanother good-speed in a simultaneous glass of cool champagne all round\nthe table? It was done, and with a general shaking of hands the assembly\nbroke up for ever.\n\nThe solitary young lady all this time had said no more. She rose with\nthe rest, and silently withdrew to a remote corner of the great room,\nwhere she sat herself on a couch in a window, seeming to watch the\nreflection of the water as it made a silver quivering on the bars of the\nlattice. She sat, turned away from the whole length of the apartment, as\nif she were lonely of her own haughty choice. And yet it would have been\nas difficult as ever to say, positively, whether she avoided the rest,\nor was avoided.\n\nThe shadow in which she sat, falling like a gloomy veil across her\nforehead, accorded very well with the character of her beauty. One could\nhardly see the face, so still and scornful, set off by the arched\ndark eyebrows, and the folds of dark hair, without wondering what its\nexpression would be if a change came over it. That it could soften or\nrelent, appeared next to impossible. That it could deepen into anger or\nany extreme of defiance, and that it must change in that direction when\nit changed at all, would have been its peculiar impression upon most\nobservers. It was dressed and trimmed into no ceremony of expression.\nAlthough not an open face, there was no pretence in it. 'I am\nself-contained and self-reliant; your opinion is nothing to me; I have\nno interest in you, care nothing for you, and see and hear you with\nindifference'--this it said plainly. It said so in the proud eyes, in\nthe lifted nostril, in the handsome but compressed and even cruel mouth.\nCover either two of those channels of expression, and the third would\nhave said so still. Mask them all, and the mere turn of the head would\nhave shown an unsubduable nature.\n\nPet had moved up to her (she had been the subject of remark among her\nfamily and Mr Clennam, who were now the only other occupants of the\nroom), and was standing at her side.\n\n'Are you'--she turned her eyes, and Pet faltered--'expecting any one to\nmeet you here, Miss Wade?'\n\n'I? No.'\n\n'Father is sending to the Poste Restante. Shall he have the pleasure of\ndirecting the messenger to ask if there are any letters for you?'\n\n'I thank him, but I know there can be none.'\n\n'We are afraid,' said Pet, sitting down beside her, shyly and half\ntenderly, 'that you will feel quite deserted when we are all gone.'\n\n'Indeed!'\n\n'Not,' said Pet, apologetically and embarrassed by her eyes, 'not, of\ncourse, that we are any company to you, or that we have been able to be\nso, or that we thought you wished it.'\n\n'I have not intended to make it understood that I did wish it.'\n\n'No. Of course. But--in short,' said Pet, timidly touching her hand as\nit lay impassive on the sofa between them, 'will you not allow Father to\ntender you any slight assistance or service? He will be very glad.'\n\n'Very glad,' said Mr Meagles, coming forward with his wife and Clennam.\n'Anything short of speaking the language, I shall be delighted to\nundertake, I am sure.'\n\n'I am obliged to you,' she returned, 'but my arrangements are made, and\nI prefer to go my own way in my own manner.'\n\n'_Do_ you?' said Mr Meagles to himself, as he surveyed her with a puzzled\nlook. 'Well! There's character in that, too.'\n\n'I am not much used to the society of young ladies, and I am afraid I\nmay not show my appreciation of it as others might. A pleasant journey\nto you. Good-bye!'\n\nShe would not have put out her hand, it seemed, but that Mr Meagles put\nout his so straight before her that she could not pass it. She put hers\nin it, and it lay there just as it had lain upon the couch.\n\n'Good-bye!' said Mr Meagles. 'This is the last good-bye upon the list,\nfor Mother and I have just said it to Mr Clennam here, and he only waits\nto say it to Pet. Good-bye! We may never meet again.'\n\n'In our course through life we shall meet the people who are coming to\nmeet _us_, from many strange places and by many strange roads,' was the\ncomposed reply; 'and what it is set to us to do to them, and what it is\nset to them to do to us, will all be done.'\n\nThere was something in the manner of these words that jarred upon Pet's\near. It implied that what was to be done was necessarily evil, and it\ncaused her to say in a whisper, 'O Father!' and to shrink childishly, in\nher spoilt way, a little closer to him. This was not lost on the\nspeaker.\n\n'Your pretty daughter,' she said, 'starts to think of such things. Yet,'\nlooking full upon her, 'you may be sure that there are men and women\nalready on their road, who have their business to do with _you_, and who\nwill do it. Of a certainty they will do it. They may be coming hundreds,\nthousands, of miles over the sea there; they may be close at hand now;\nthey may be coming, for anything you know or anything you can do to\nprevent it, from the vilest sweepings of this very town.'\n\nWith the coldest of farewells, and with a certain worn expression on her\nbeauty that gave it, though scarcely yet in its prime, a wasted look,\nshe left the room.\n\nNow, there were many stairs and passages that she had to traverse in\npassing from that part of the spacious house to the chamber she had\nsecured for her own occupation. When she had almost completed the\njourney, and was passing along the gallery in which her room was, she\nheard an angry sound of muttering and sobbing. A door stood open, and\nwithin she saw the attendant upon the girl she had just left; the maid\nwith the curious name.\n\nShe stood still, to look at this maid. A sullen, passionate girl! Her\nrich black hair was all about her face, her face was flushed and hot,\nand as she sobbed and raged, she plucked at her lips with an unsparing\nhand.\n\n'Selfish brutes!' said the girl, sobbing and heaving between whiles.\n'Not caring what becomes of me! Leaving me here hungry and thirsty and\ntired, to starve, for anything they care! Beasts! Devils! Wretches!'\n\n'My poor girl, what is the matter?'\n\nShe looked up suddenly, with reddened eyes, and with her hands\nsuspended, in the act of pinching her neck, freshly disfigured with\ngreat scarlet blots. 'It's nothing to you what's the matter. It don't\nsignify to any one.'\n\n'O yes it does; I am sorry to see you so.'\n\n'You are not sorry,' said the girl. 'You are glad. You know you are\nglad. I never was like this but twice over in the quarantine yonder; and\nboth times you found me. I am afraid of you.'\n\n'Afraid of me?'\n\n'Yes. You seem to come like my own anger, my own malice, my\nown--whatever it is--I don't know what it is. But I am ill-used, I am\nill-used, I am ill-used!' Here the sobs and the tears, and the tearing\nhand, which had all been suspended together since the first surprise,\nwent on together anew.\n\nThe visitor stood looking at her with a strange attentive smile. It was\nwonderful to see the fury of the contest in the girl, and the bodily\nstruggle she made as if she were rent by the Demons of old.\n\n'I am younger than she is by two or three years, and yet it's me that\nlooks after her, as if I was old, and it's she that's always petted and\ncalled Baby! I detest the name. I hate her! They make a fool of her,\nthey spoil her. She thinks of nothing but herself, she thinks no more of\nme than if I was a stock and a stone!' So the girl went on.\n\n'You must have patience.'\n\n'I _won't_ have patience!'\n\n'If they take much care of themselves, and little or none of you, you\nmust not mind it.'\n\nI _will_ mind it.'\n\n'Hush! Be more prudent. You forget your dependent position.'\n\n'I don't care for that. I'll run away. I'll do some mischief. I won't\nbear it; I can't bear it; I shall die if I try to bear it!'\n\nThe observer stood with her hand upon her own bosom, looking at the\ngirl, as one afflicted with a diseased part might curiously watch the\ndissection and exposition of an analogous case.\n\nThe girl raged and battled with all the force of her youth and fulness\nof life, until by little and little her passionate exclamations trailed\noff into broken murmurs as if she were in pain. By corresponding degrees\nshe sank into a chair, then upon her knees, then upon the ground beside\nthe bed, drawing the coverlet with her, half to hide her shamed head and\nwet hair in it, and half, as it seemed, to embrace it, rather than have\nnothing to take to her repentant breast.\n\n'Go away from me, go away from me! When my temper comes upon me, I\nam mad. I know I might keep it off if I only tried hard enough, and\nsometimes I do try hard enough, and at other times I don't and won't.\nWhat have I said! I knew when I said it, it was all lies. They think I\nam being taken care of somewhere, and have all I want. They are nothing\nbut good to me. I love them dearly; no people could ever be kinder to a\nthankless creature than they always are to me. Do, do go away, for I am\nafraid of you. I am afraid of myself when I feel my temper coming, and I\nam as much afraid of you. Go away from me, and let me pray and cry\nmyself better!'\n\nThe day passed on; and again the wide stare stared itself out; and the\nhot night was on Marseilles; and through it the caravan of the morning,\nall dispersed, went their appointed ways. And thus ever by day and\nnight, under the sun and under the stars, climbing the dusty hills and\ntoiling along the weary plains, journeying by land and journeying by\nsea, coming and going so strangely, to meet and to act and react on one\nanother, move all we restless travellers through the pilgrimage of life.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 3. Home\n\n\nIt was a Sunday evening in London, gloomy, close, and stale. Maddening\nchurch bells of all degrees of dissonance, sharp and flat, cracked\nand clear, fast and slow, made the brick-and-mortar echoes hideous.\nMelancholy streets, in a penitential garb of soot, steeped the souls of\nthe people who were condemned to look at them out of windows, in dire\ndespondency. In every thoroughfare, up almost every alley, and down\nalmost every turning, some doleful bell was throbbing, jerking, tolling,\nas if the Plague were in the city and the dead-carts were going round.\nEverything was bolted and barred that could by possibility furnish\nrelief to an overworked people. No pictures, no unfamiliar animals, no\nrare plants or flowers, no natural or artificial wonders of the ancient\nworld--all _taboo_ with that enlightened strictness, that the ugly South\nSea gods in the British Museum might have supposed themselves at home\nagain. Nothing to see but streets, streets, streets. Nothing to breathe\nbut streets, streets, streets. Nothing to change the brooding mind,\nor raise it up. Nothing for the spent toiler to do, but to compare the\nmonotony of his seventh day with the monotony of his six days, think\nwhat a weary life he led, and make the best of it--or the worst,\naccording to the probabilities.\n\nAt such a happy time, so propitious to the interests of religion and\nmorality, Mr Arthur Clennam, newly arrived from Marseilles by way of\nDover, and by Dover coach the Blue-eyed Maid, sat in the window of a\ncoffee-house on Ludgate Hill. Ten thousand responsible houses surrounded\nhim, frowning as heavily on the streets they composed, as if they were\nevery one inhabited by the ten young men of the Calender's story, who\nblackened their faces and bemoaned their miseries every night. Fifty\nthousand lairs surrounded him where people lived so unwholesomely that\nfair water put into their crowded rooms on Saturday night, would be\ncorrupt on Sunday morning; albeit my lord, their county member, was\namazed that they failed to sleep in company with their butcher's meat.\nMiles of close wells and pits of houses, where the inhabitants gasped\nfor air, stretched far away towards every point of the compass. Through\nthe heart of the town a deadly sewer ebbed and flowed, in the place of\na fine fresh river. What secular want could the million or so of\nhuman beings whose daily labour, six days in the week, lay among these\nArcadian objects, from the sweet sameness of which they had no escape\nbetween the cradle and the grave--what secular want could they possibly\nhave upon their seventh day? Clearly they could want nothing but a\nstringent policeman.\n\nMr Arthur Clennam sat in the window of the coffee-house on Ludgate Hill,\ncounting one of the neighbouring bells, making sentences and burdens of\nsongs out of it in spite of himself, and wondering how many sick\npeople it might be the death of in the course of the year. As the hour\napproached, its changes of measure made it more and more exasperating.\nAt the quarter, it went off into a condition of deadly-lively\nimportunity, urging the populace in a voluble manner to Come to church,\nCome to church, Come to church! At the ten minutes, it became aware\nthat the congregation would be scanty, and slowly hammered out in low\nspirits, They _won't_ come, they _won't_ come, they _won't_ come! At the\nfive minutes, it abandoned hope, and shook every house in the\nneighbourhood for three hundred seconds, with one dismal swing per\nsecond, as a groan of despair.\n\n'Thank Heaven!' said Clennam, when the hour struck, and the bell\nstopped.\n\nBut its sound had revived a long train of miserable Sundays, and the\nprocession would not stop with the bell, but continued to march on.\n'Heaven forgive me,' said he, 'and those who trained me. How I have\nhated this day!'\n\nThere was the dreary Sunday of his childhood, when he sat with his hands\nbefore him, scared out of his senses by a horrible tract which commenced\nbusiness with the poor child by asking him in its title, why he was\ngoing to Perdition?--a piece of curiosity that he really, in a frock and\ndrawers, was not in a condition to satisfy--and which, for the further\nattraction of his infant mind, had a parenthesis in every other line\nwith some such hiccupping reference as 2 Ep. Thess. c. iii, v. 6 &\n7. There was the sleepy Sunday of his boyhood, when, like a military\ndeserter, he was marched to chapel by a picquet of teachers three times\na day, morally handcuffed to another boy; and when he would willingly\nhave bartered two meals of indigestible sermon for another ounce or\ntwo of inferior mutton at his scanty dinner in the flesh. There was the\ninterminable Sunday of his nonage; when his mother, stern of face and\nunrelenting of heart, would sit all day behind a Bible--bound, like her\nown construction of it, in the hardest, barest, and straitest boards,\nwith one dinted ornament on the cover like the drag of a chain, and a\nwrathful sprinkling of red upon the edges of the leaves--as if it, of\nall books! were a fortification against sweetness of temper, natural\naffection, and gentle intercourse. There was the resentful Sunday of a\nlittle later, when he sat down glowering and glooming through the tardy\nlength of the day, with a sullen sense of injury in his heart, and no\nmore real knowledge of the beneficent history of the New Testament than\nif he had been bred among idolaters. There was a legion of Sundays,\nall days of unserviceable bitterness and mortification, slowly passing\nbefore him.\n\n'Beg pardon, sir,' said a brisk waiter, rubbing the table. 'Wish see\nbed-room?'\n\n'Yes. I have just made up my mind to do it.'\n\n'Chaymaid!' cried the waiter. 'Gelen box num seven wish see room!'\n\n'Stay!' said Clennam, rousing himself. 'I was not thinking of what I\nsaid; I answered mechanically. I am not going to sleep here. I am going\nhome.'\n\n'Deed, sir? Chaymaid! Gelen box num seven, not go sleep here, gome.'\n\nHe sat in the same place as the day died, looking at the dull houses\nopposite, and thinking, if the disembodied spirits of former inhabitants\nwere ever conscious of them, how they must pity themselves for their old\nplaces of imprisonment. Sometimes a face would appear behind the dingy\nglass of a window, and would fade away into the gloom as if it had seen\nenough of life and had vanished out of it. Presently the rain began to\nfall in slanting lines between him and those houses, and people began\nto collect under cover of the public passage opposite, and to look out\nhopelessly at the sky as the rain dropped thicker and faster. Then wet\numbrellas began to appear, draggled skirts, and mud. What the mud had\nbeen doing with itself, or where it came from, who could say? But it\nseemed to collect in a moment, as a crowd will, and in five minutes to\nhave splashed all the sons and daughters of Adam. The lamplighter was\ngoing his rounds now; and as the fiery jets sprang up under his touch,\none might have fancied them astonished at being suffered to introduce\nany show of brightness into such a dismal scene.\n\nMr Arthur Clennam took up his hat and buttoned his coat, and walked out.\nIn the country, the rain would have developed a thousand fresh scents,\nand every drop would have had its bright association with some beautiful\nform of growth or life. In the city, it developed only foul stale\nsmells, and was a sickly, lukewarm, dirt-stained, wretched addition to\nthe gutters.\n\nHe crossed by St Paul's and went down, at a long angle, almost to the\nwater's edge, through some of the crooked and descending streets which\nlie (and lay more crookedly and closely then) between the river and\nCheapside. Passing, now the mouldy hall of some obsolete Worshipful\nCompany, now the illuminated windows of a Congregationless Church that\nseemed to be waiting for some adventurous Belzoni to dig it out and\ndiscover its history; passing silent warehouses and wharves, and here\nand there a narrow alley leading to the river, where a wretched little\nbill, FOUND DROWNED, was weeping on the wet wall; he came at last to the\nhouse he sought. An old brick house, so dingy as to be all but black,\nstanding by itself within a gateway. Before it, a square court-yard\nwhere a shrub or two and a patch of grass were as rank (which is saying\nmuch) as the iron railings enclosing them were rusty; behind it,\na jumble of roots. It was a double house, with long, narrow,\nheavily-framed windows. Many years ago, it had had it in its mind to\nslide down sideways; it had been propped up, however, and was leaning on\nsome half-dozen gigantic crutches: which gymnasium for the neighbouring\ncats, weather-stained, smoke-blackened, and overgrown with weeds,\nappeared in these latter days to be no very sure reliance.\n\n'Nothing changed,' said the traveller, stopping to look round. 'Dark and\nmiserable as ever. A light in my mother's window, which seems never to\nhave been extinguished since I came home twice a year from school, and\ndragged my box over this pavement. Well, well, well!'\n\nHe went up to the door, which had a projecting canopy in carved work\nof festooned jack-towels and children's heads with water on the brain,\ndesigned after a once-popular monumental pattern, and knocked. A\nshuffling step was soon heard on the stone floor of the hall, and the\ndoor was opened by an old man, bent and dried, but with keen eyes.\n\nHe had a candle in his hand, and he held it up for a moment to assist\nhis keen eyes. 'Ah, Mr Arthur?' he said, without any emotion, 'you are\ncome at last? Step in.'\n\nMr Arthur stepped in and shut the door.\n\n'Your figure is filled out, and set,' said the old man, turning to look\nat him with the light raised again, and shaking his head; 'but you don't\ncome up to your father in my opinion. Nor yet your mother.'\n\n'How is my mother?'\n\n'She is as she always is now. Keeps her room when not actually\nbedridden, and hasn't been out of it fifteen times in as many years,\nArthur.' They had walked into a spare, meagre dining-room. The old man\nhad put the candlestick upon the table, and, supporting his right elbow\nwith his left hand, was smoothing his leathern jaws while he looked at\nthe visitor. The visitor offered his hand. The old man took it coldly\nenough, and seemed to prefer his jaws, to which he returned as soon as\nhe could.\n\n'I doubt if your mother will approve of your coming home on the Sabbath,\nArthur,' he said, shaking his head warily.\n\n'You wouldn't have me go away again?'\n\n'Oh! I? I? I am not the master. It's not what _I_ would have. I have\nstood between your father and mother for a number of years. I don't\npretend to stand between your mother and you.'\n\n'Will you tell her that I have come home?'\n\n'Yes, Arthur, yes. Oh, to be sure! I'll tell her that you have come\nhome. Please to wait here. You won't find the room changed.' He took\nanother candle from a cupboard, lighted it, left the first on the table,\nand went upon his errand. He was a short, bald old man, in a\nhigh-shouldered black coat and waistcoat, drab breeches, and long drab\ngaiters. He might, from his dress, have been either clerk or servant,\nand in fact had long been both. There was nothing about him in the way\nof decoration but a watch, which was lowered into the depths of its\nproper pocket by an old black ribbon, and had a tarnished copper key\nmoored above it, to show where it was sunk. His head was awry, and\nhe had a one-sided, crab-like way with him, as if his foundations had\nyielded at about the same time as those of the house, and he ought to\nhave been propped up in a similar manner.\n\n'How weak am I,' said Arthur Clennam, when he was gone, 'that I could\nshed tears at this reception! I, who have never experienced anything\nelse; who have never expected anything else.'\n\nHe not only could, but did. It was the momentary yielding of a nature\nthat had been disappointed from the dawn of its perceptions, but had not\nquite given up all its hopeful yearnings yet. He subdued it, took up the\ncandle, and examined the room. The old articles of furniture were in\ntheir old places; the Plagues of Egypt, much the dimmer for the fly and\nsmoke plagues of London, were framed and glazed upon the walls. There\nwas the old cellaret with nothing in it, lined with lead, like a sort of\ncoffin in compartments; there was the old dark closet, also with nothing\nin it, of which he had been many a time the sole contents, in days of\npunishment, when he had regarded it as the veritable entrance to that\nbourne to which the tract had found him galloping. There was the large,\nhard-featured clock on the sideboard, which he used to see bending its\nfigured brows upon him with a savage joy when he was behind-hand with\nhis lessons, and which, when it was wound up once a week with an iron\nhandle, used to sound as if it were growling in ferocious anticipation\nof the miseries into which it would bring him. But here was the old man\ncome back, saying, 'Arthur, I'll go before and light you.'\n\nArthur followed him up the staircase, which was panelled off into spaces\nlike so many mourning tablets, into a dim bed-chamber, the floor of\nwhich had gradually so sunk and settled, that the fire-place was in a\ndell. On a black bier-like sofa in this hollow, propped up behind with\none great angular black bolster like the block at a state execution in\nthe good old times, sat his mother in a widow's dress.\n\nShe and his father had been at variance from his earliest remembrance.\nTo sit speechless himself in the midst of rigid silence, glancing in\ndread from the one averted face to the other, had been the peacefullest\noccupation of his childhood. She gave him one glassy kiss, and four\nstiff fingers muffled in worsted. This embrace concluded, he sat down on\nthe opposite side of her little table. There was a fire in the grate,\nas there had been night and day for fifteen years. There was a kettle on\nthe hob, as there had been night and day for fifteen years. There was a\nlittle mound of damped ashes on the top of the fire, and another little\nmound swept together under the grate, as there had been night and day\nfor fifteen years. There was a smell of black dye in the airless room,\nwhich the fire had been drawing out of the crape and stuff of the\nwidow's dress for fifteen months, and out of the bier-like sofa for\nfifteen years.\n\n'Mother, this is a change from your old active habits.'\n\n'The world has narrowed to these dimensions, Arthur,' she replied,\nglancing round the room. 'It is well for me that I never set my heart\nupon its hollow vanities.'\n\nThe old influence of her presence and her stern strong voice, so\ngathered about her son, that he felt conscious of a renewal of the timid\nchill and reserve of his childhood.\n\n'Do you never leave your room, mother?'\n\n'What with my rheumatic affection, and what with its attendant debility\nor nervous weakness--names are of no matter now--I have lost the use\nof my limbs. I never leave my room. I have not been outside this door\nfor--tell him for how long,' she said, speaking over her shoulder.\n\n'A dozen year next Christmas,' returned a cracked voice out of the\ndimness behind.\n\n'Is that Affery?' said Arthur, looking towards it.\n\nThe cracked voice replied that it was Affery: and an old woman came\nforward into what doubtful light there was, and kissed her hand once;\nthen subsided again into the dimness.\n\n'I am able,' said Mrs Clennam, with a slight motion of her\nworsted-muffled right hand toward a chair on wheels, standing before a\ntall writing cabinet close shut up, 'I am able to attend to my business\nduties, and I am thankful for the privilege. It is a great privilege.\nBut no more of business on this day. It is a bad night, is it not?'\n\n'Yes, mother.'\n\n'Does it snow?'\n\n'Snow, mother? And we only yet in September?'\n\n'All seasons are alike to me,' she returned, with a grim kind of\nluxuriousness. 'I know nothing of summer and winter, shut up here.\nThe Lord has been pleased to put me beyond all that.' With her cold grey\neyes and her cold grey hair, and her immovable face, as stiff as the\nfolds of her stony head-dress,--her being beyond the reach of the\nseasons seemed but a fit sequence to her being beyond the reach of all\nchanging emotions.\n\nOn her little table lay two or three books, her handkerchief, a pair of\nsteel spectacles newly taken off, and an old-fashioned gold watch in a\nheavy double case. Upon this last object her son's eyes and her own now\nrested together.\n\n'I see that you received the packet I sent you on my father's death,\nsafely, mother.'\n\n'You see.'\n\n'I never knew my father to show so much anxiety on any subject, as that\nhis watch should be sent straight to you.'\n\n'I keep it here as a remembrance of your father.'\n\n'It was not until the last, that he expressed the wish; when he could\nonly put his hand upon it, and very indistinctly say to me \"your\nmother.\" A moment before, I thought him wandering in his mind, as he\nhad been for many hours--I think he had no consciousness of pain in his\nshort illness--when I saw him turn himself in his bed and try to open\nit.'\n\n'Was your father, then, not wandering in his mind when he tried to open\nit?'\n\n'No. He was quite sensible at that time.'\n\nMrs Clennam shook her head; whether in dismissal of the deceased or\nopposing herself to her son's opinion, was not clearly expressed.\n\n'After my father's death I opened it myself, thinking there might be,\nfor anything I knew, some memorandum there. However, as I need not tell\nyou, mother, there was nothing but the old silk watch-paper worked in\nbeads, which you found (no doubt) in its place between the cases, where\nI found and left it.'\n\nMrs Clennam signified assent; then added, 'No more of business on this\nday,' and then added, 'Affery, it is nine o'clock.'\n\nUpon this, the old woman cleared the little table, went out of the room,\nand quickly returned with a tray on which was a dish of little rusks and\na small precise pat of butter, cool, symmetrical, white, and plump. The\nold man who had been standing by the door in one attitude during the\nwhole interview, looking at the mother up-stairs as he had looked at the\nson down-stairs, went out at the same time, and, after a longer absence,\nreturned with another tray on which was the greater part of a bottle\nof port wine (which, to judge by his panting, he had brought from the\ncellar), a lemon, a sugar-basin, and a spice box. With these materials\nand the aid of the kettle, he filled a tumbler with a hot and\nodorous mixture, measured out and compounded with as much nicety as a\nphysician's prescription. Into this mixture Mrs Clennam dipped certain\nof the rusks, and ate them; while the old woman buttered certain other\nof the rusks, which were to be eaten alone. When the invalid had eaten\nall the rusks and drunk all the mixture, the two trays were removed;\nand the books and the candle, watch, handkerchief, and spectacles were\nreplaced upon the table. She then put on the spectacles and read certain\npassages aloud from a book--sternly, fiercely, wrathfully--praying that\nher enemies (she made them by her tone and manner expressly hers) might\nbe put to the edge of the sword, consumed by fire, smitten by plagues\nand leprosy, that their bones might be ground to dust, and that they\nmight be utterly exterminated. As she read on, years seemed to fall\naway from her son like the imaginings of a dream, and all the old dark\nhorrors of his usual preparation for the sleep of an innocent child to\novershadow him.\n\nShe shut the book and remained for a little time with her face shaded by\nher hand. So did the old man, otherwise still unchanged in attitude; so,\nprobably, did the old woman in her dimmer part of the room. Then the\nsick woman was ready for bed.\n\n'Good night, Arthur. Affery will see to your accommodation. Only touch\nme, for my hand is tender.' He touched the worsted muffling of her\nhand--that was nothing; if his mother had been sheathed in brass there\nwould have been no new barrier between them--and followed the old man\nand woman down-stairs.\n\nThe latter asked him, when they were alone together among the heavy\nshadows of the dining-room, would he have some supper?\n\n'No, Affery, no supper.'\n\n'You shall if you like,' said Affery. 'There's her tomorrow's partridge\nin the larder--her first this year; say the word and I'll cook it.'\n\nNo, he had not long dined, and could eat nothing.\n\n'Have something to drink, then,' said Affery; 'you shall have some of\nher bottle of port, if you like. I'll tell Jeremiah that you ordered me\nto bring it you.'\n\nNo; nor would he have that, either.\n\n'It's no reason, Arthur,' said the old woman, bending over him to\nwhisper, 'that because I am afeared of my life of 'em, you should be.\nYou've got half the property, haven't you?'\n\n'Yes, yes.'\n\n'Well then, don't you be cowed. You're clever, Arthur, an't you?'\n\nHe nodded, as she seemed to expect an answer in the affirmative.\n\n'Then stand up against them! She's awful clever, and none but a clever\none durst say a word to her. _He's_ a clever one--oh, he's a clever\none!--and he gives it her when he has a mind to't, he does!'\n\n'Your husband does?'\n\n'Does? It makes me shake from head to foot, to hear him give it her. My\nhusband, Jeremiah Flintwinch, can conquer even your mother. What can he\nbe but a clever one to do that!'\n\nHis shuffling footstep coming towards them caused her to retreat to the\nother end of the room. Though a tall, hard-favoured, sinewy old woman,\nwho in her youth might have enlisted in the Foot Guards without much\nfear of discovery, she collapsed before the little keen-eyed crab-like\nold man.\n\n'Now, Affery,' said he, 'now, woman, what are you doing? Can't you find\nMaster Arthur something or another to pick at?'\n\nMaster Arthur repeated his recent refusal to pick at anything.\n\n'Very well, then,' said the old man; 'make his bed. Stir yourself.' His\nneck was so twisted that the knotted ends of his white cravat usually\ndangled under one ear; his natural acerbity and energy, always\ncontending with a second nature of habitual repression, gave his\nfeatures a swollen and suffused look; and altogether, he had a weird\nappearance of having hanged himself at one time or other, and of having\ngone about ever since, halter and all, exactly as some timely hand had\ncut him down.\n\n'You'll have bitter words together to-morrow, Arthur; you and your\nmother,' said Jeremiah. 'Your having given up the business on your\nfather's death--which she suspects, though we have left it to you to\ntell her--won't go off smoothly.'\n\n'I have given up everything in life for the business, and the time came\nfor me to give up that.'\n\n'Good!' cried Jeremiah, evidently meaning Bad. 'Very good! only don't\nexpect me to stand between your mother and you, Arthur. I stood between\nyour mother and your father, fending off this, and fending off that, and\ngetting crushed and pounded betwixt em; and I've done with such work.'\n\n'You will never be asked to begin it again for me, Jeremiah.'\n\n'Good. I'm glad to hear it; because I should have had to decline it, if\nI had been. That's enough--as your mother says--and more than enough of\nsuch matters on a Sabbath night. Affery, woman, have you found what you\nwant yet?'\n\nShe had been collecting sheets and blankets from a press, and hastened\nto gather them up, and to reply, 'Yes, Jeremiah.' Arthur Clennam helped\nher by carrying the load himself, wished the old man good night, and\nwent up-stairs with her to the top of the house.\n\nThey mounted up and up, through the musty smell of an old close house,\nlittle used, to a large garret bed-room. Meagre and spare, like all the\nother rooms, it was even uglier and grimmer than the rest, by being the\nplace of banishment for the worn-out furniture. Its movables were ugly\nold chairs with worn-out seats, and ugly old chairs without any seats;\na threadbare patternless carpet, a maimed table, a crippled wardrobe,\na lean set of fire-irons like the skeleton of a set deceased, a\nwashing-stand that looked as if it had stood for ages in a hail of\ndirty soapsuds, and a bedstead with four bare atomies of posts, each\nterminating in a spike, as if for the dismal accommodation of lodgers\nwho might prefer to impale themselves. Arthur opened the long low\nwindow, and looked out upon the old blasted and blackened forest of\nchimneys, and the old red glare in the sky, which had seemed to him once\nupon a time but a nightly reflection of the fiery environment that was\npresented to his childish fancy in all directions, let it look where it\nwould.\n\nHe drew in his head again, sat down at the bedside, and looked on at\nAffery Flintwinch making the bed.\n\n'Affery, you were not married when I went away.'\n\nShe screwed her mouth into the form of saying 'No,' shook her head, and\nproceeded to get a pillow into its case.\n\n'How did it happen?'\n\n'Why, Jeremiah, o' course,' said Affery, with an end of the pillow-case\nbetween her teeth.\n\n'Of course he proposed it, but how did it all come about? I should have\nthought that neither of you would have married; least of all should I\nhave thought of your marrying each other.'\n\n'No more should I,' said Mrs Flintwinch, tying the pillow tightly in its\ncase.\n\n'That's what I mean. When did you begin to think otherwise?'\n\n'Never begun to think otherwise at all,' said Mrs Flintwinch.\n\nSeeing, as she patted the pillow into its place on the bolster, that he\nwas still looking at her as if waiting for the rest of her reply,\nshe gave it a great poke in the middle, and asked, 'How could I help\nmyself?'\n\n'How could you help yourself from being married!'\n\n'O' course,' said Mrs Flintwinch. 'It was no doing o' mine. I'd never\nthought of it. I'd got something to do, without thinking, indeed! She\nkept me to it (as well as he) when she could go about, and she could go\nabout then.'\n\n'Well?'\n\n'Well?' echoed Mrs Flintwinch. 'That's what I said myself. Well! What's\nthe use of considering? If them two clever ones have made up their minds\nto it, what's left for _me_ to do? Nothing.'\n\n'Was it my mother's project, then?'\n\n'The Lord bless you, Arthur, and forgive me the wish!' cried Affery,\nspeaking always in a low tone. 'If they hadn't been both of a mind in\nit, how could it ever have been? Jeremiah never courted me; t'ant likely\nthat he would, after living in the house with me and ordering me\nabout for as many years as he'd done. He said to me one day, he said,\n\"Affery,\" he said, \"now I am going to tell you something. What do you\nthink of the name of Flintwinch?\" \"What do I think of it?\" I says.\n\"Yes,\" he said, \"because you're going to take it,\" he said. \"Take it?\" I\nsays. \"Jere-_mi_-ah?\" Oh! he's a clever one!'\n\nMrs Flintwinch went on to spread the upper sheet over the bed, and the\nblanket over that, and the counterpane over that, as if she had quite\nconcluded her story.\n\n'Well?' said Arthur again.\n\n'Well?' echoed Mrs Flintwinch again. 'How could I help myself? He said\nto me, \"Affery, you and me must be married, and I'll tell you why. She's\nfailing in health, and she'll want pretty constant attendance up in\nher room, and we shall have to be much with her, and there'll be nobody\nabout now but ourselves when we're away from her, and altogether it will\nbe more convenient. She's of my opinion,\" he said, \"so if you'll put\nyour bonnet on next Monday morning at eight, we'll get it over.\"' Mrs\nFlintwinch tucked up the bed.\n\n'Well?'\n\n'Well?' repeated Mrs Flintwinch, 'I think so! I sits me down and says\nit. Well!--Jeremiah then says to me, \"As to banns, next Sunday being the\nthird time of asking (for I've put 'em up a fortnight), is my reason for\nnaming Monday. She'll speak to you about it herself, and now she'll find\nyou prepared, Affery.\" That same day she spoke to me, and she said, \"So,\nAffery, I understand that you and Jeremiah are going to be married. I\nam glad of it, and so are you, with reason. It is a very good thing for\nyou, and very welcome under the circumstances to me. He is a sensible\nman, and a trustworthy man, and a persevering man, and a pious man.\"\nWhat could I say when it had come to that? Why, if it had been--a\nsmothering instead of a wedding,' Mrs Flintwinch cast about in her mind\nwith great pains for this form of expression, 'I couldn't have said a\nword upon it, against them two clever ones.'\n\n'In good faith, I believe so.'\n\n'And so you may, Arthur.'\n\n'Affery, what girl was that in my mother's room just now?'\n\n'Girl?' said Mrs Flintwinch in a rather sharp key.\n\n'It was a girl, surely, whom I saw near you--almost hidden in the dark\ncorner?'\n\n'Oh! She? Little Dorrit? _She_'s nothing; she's a whim of--hers.' It was a\npeculiarity of Affery Flintwinch that she never spoke of Mrs Clennam\nby name. 'But there's another sort of girls than that about. Have you\nforgot your old sweetheart? Long and long ago, I'll be bound.'\n\n'I suffered enough from my mother's separating us, to remember her.\nI recollect her very well.'\n\n'Have you got another?'\n\n'No.'\n\n'Here's news for you, then. She's well to do now, and a widow. And if\nyou like to have her, why you can.'\n\n'And how do you know that, Affery?'\n\n'Them two clever ones have been speaking about it.--There's Jeremiah on\nthe stairs!' She was gone in a moment.\n\nMrs Flintwinch had introduced into the web that his mind was busily\nweaving, in that old workshop where the loom of his youth had stood, the\nlast thread wanting to the pattern. The airy folly of a boy's love had\nfound its way even into that house, and he had been as wretched under\nits hopelessness as if the house had been a castle of romance. Little\nmore than a week ago at Marseilles, the face of the pretty girl from\nwhom he had parted with regret, had had an unusual interest for him, and\na tender hold upon him, because of some resemblance, real or imagined,\nto this first face that had soared out of his gloomy life into the\nbright glories of fancy. He leaned upon the sill of the long low window,\nand looking out upon the blackened forest of chimneys again, began to\ndream; for it had been the uniform tendency of this man's life--so much\nwas wanting in it to think about, so much that might have been better\ndirected and happier to speculate upon--to make him a dreamer, after\nall.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 4. Mrs Flintwinch has a Dream\n\n\nWhen Mrs Flintwinch dreamed, she usually dreamed, unlike the son of her\nold mistress, with her eyes shut. She had a curiously vivid dream that\nnight, and before she had left the son of her old mistress many hours.\nIn fact it was not at all like a dream; it was so very real in every\nrespect. It happened in this wise.\n\nThe bed-chamber occupied by Mr and Mrs Flintwinch was within a few paces\nof that to which Mrs Clennam had been so long confined. It was not on\nthe same floor, for it was a room at the side of the house, which was\napproached by a steep descent of a few odd steps, diverging from the\nmain staircase nearly opposite to Mrs Clennam's door. It could scarcely\nbe said to be within call, the walls, doors, and panelling of the old\nplace were so cumbrous; but it was within easy reach, in any undress,\nat any hour of the night, in any temperature. At the head of the bed\nand within a foot of Mrs Flintwinch's ear, was a bell, the line of which\nhung ready to Mrs Clennam's hand. Whenever this bell rang, up started\nAffery, and was in the sick room before she was awake.\n\nHaving got her mistress into bed, lighted her lamp, and given her good\nnight, Mrs Flintwinch went to roost as usual, saving that her lord had\nnot yet appeared. It was her lord himself who became--unlike the\nlast theme in the mind, according to the observation of most\nphilosophers--the subject of Mrs Flintwinch's dream.\n\nIt seemed to her that she awoke after sleeping some hours, and found\nJeremiah not yet abed. That she looked at the candle she had left\nburning, and, measuring the time like King Alfred the Great, was\nconfirmed by its wasted state in her belief that she had been asleep for\nsome considerable period. That she arose thereupon, muffled herself up\nin a wrapper, put on her shoes, and went out on the staircase, much\nsurprised, to look for Jeremiah.\n\nThe staircase was as wooden and solid as need be, and Affery went\nstraight down it without any of those deviations peculiar to dreams.\nShe did not skim over it, but walked down it, and guided herself by the\nbanisters on account of her candle having died out. In one corner of\nthe hall, behind the house-door, there was a little waiting-room, like a\nwell-shaft, with a long narrow window in it as if it had been ripped up.\nIn this room, which was never used, a light was burning.\n\nMrs Flintwinch crossed the hall, feeling its pavement cold to her\nstockingless feet, and peeped in between the rusty hinges on the door,\nwhich stood a little open. She expected to see Jeremiah fast asleep or\nin a fit, but he was calmly seated in a chair, awake, and in his usual\nhealth. But what--hey?--Lord forgive us!--Mrs Flintwinch muttered some\nejaculation to this effect, and turned giddy.\n\nFor, Mr Flintwinch awake, was watching Mr Flintwinch asleep. He sat on\none side of the small table, looking keenly at himself on the other side\nwith his chin sunk on his breast, snoring. The waking Flintwinch had his\nfull front face presented to his wife; the sleeping Flintwinch was\nin profile. The waking Flintwinch was the old original; the sleeping\nFlintwinch was the double, just as she might have distinguished between\na tangible object and its reflection in a glass, Affery made out this\ndifference with her head going round and round.\n\nIf she had had any doubt which was her own Jeremiah, it would have been\nresolved by his impatience. He looked about him for an offensive weapon,\ncaught up the snuffers, and, before applying them to the cabbage-headed\ncandle, lunged at the sleeper as though he would have run him through\nthe body.\n\n'Who's that? What's the matter?' cried the sleeper, starting.\n\nMr Flintwinch made a movement with the snuffers, as if he would have\nenforced silence on his companion by putting them down his throat; the\ncompanion, coming to himself, said, rubbing his eyes, 'I forgot where I\nwas.'\n\n'You have been asleep,' snarled Jeremiah, referring to his watch, 'two\nhours. You said you would be rested enough if you had a short nap.'\n\n'I have had a short nap,' said Double.\n\n'Half-past two o'clock in the morning,' muttered Jeremiah. 'Where's your\nhat? Where's your coat? Where's the box?'\n\n'All here,' said Double, tying up his throat with sleepy carefulness in\na shawl. 'Stop a minute. Now give me the sleeve--not that sleeve, the\nother one. Ha! I'm not as young as I was.' Mr Flintwinch had pulled\nhim into his coat with vehement energy. 'You promised me a second glass\nafter I was rested.'\n\n'Drink it!' returned Jeremiah, 'and--choke yourself, I was going\nto say--but go, I mean.' At the same time he produced the identical\nport-wine bottle, and filled a wine-glass.\n\n'Her port-wine, I believe?' said Double, tasting it as if he were in the\nDocks, with hours to spare. 'Her health.'\n\nHe took a sip.\n\n'Your health!'\n\nHe took another sip.\n\n'His health!'\n\nHe took another sip.\n\n'And all friends round St Paul's.' He emptied and put down the\nwine-glass half-way through this ancient civic toast, and took up the\nbox. It was an iron box some two feet square, which he carried under his\narms pretty easily. Jeremiah watched his manner of adjusting it, with\njealous eyes; tried it with his hands, to be sure that he had a firm\nhold of it; bade him for his life be careful what he was about; and then\nstole out on tiptoe to open the door for him. Affery, anticipating\nthe last movement, was on the staircase. The sequence of things was\nso ordinary and natural, that, standing there, she could hear the door\nopen, feel the night air, and see the stars outside.\n\nBut now came the most remarkable part of the dream. She felt so afraid\nof her husband, that being on the staircase, she had not the power to\nretreat to her room (which she might easily have done before he had\nfastened the door), but stood there staring. Consequently when he came\nup the staircase to bed, candle in hand, he came full upon her. He\nlooked astonished, but said not a word. He kept his eyes upon her, and\nkept advancing; and she, completely under his influence, kept retiring\nbefore him. Thus, she walking backward and he walking forward, they\ncame into their own room. They were no sooner shut in there, than Mr\nFlintwinch took her by the throat, and shook her until she was black in\nthe face.\n\n'Why, Affery, woman--Affery!' said Mr Flintwinch. 'What have you been\ndreaming of? Wake up, wake up! What's the matter?'\n\n'The--the matter, Jeremiah?' gasped Mrs Flintwinch, rolling her eyes.\n\n'Why, Affery, woman--Affery! You have been getting out of bed in your\nsleep, my dear! I come up, after having fallen asleep myself, below, and\nfind you in your wrapper here, with the nightmare. Affery, woman,' said\nMr Flintwinch, with a friendly grin on his expressive countenance, 'if\nyou ever have a dream of this sort again, it'll be a sign of your being\nin want of physic. And I'll give you such a dose, old woman--such a\ndose!'\n\nMrs Flintwinch thanked him and crept into bed.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 5. Family Affairs\n\n\nAs the city clocks struck nine on Monday morning, Mrs Clennam was\nwheeled by Jeremiah Flintwinch of the cut-down aspect to her tall\ncabinet. When she had unlocked and opened it, and had settled herself\nat its desk, Jeremiah withdrew--as it might be, to hang himself more\neffectually--and her son appeared.\n\n'Are you any better this morning, mother?'\n\nShe shook her head, with the same austere air of luxuriousness that she\nhad shown over-night when speaking of the weather. 'I shall never be\nbetter any more. It is well for me, Arthur, that I know it and can bear\nit.'\n\nSitting with her hands laid separately upon the desk, and the tall\ncabinet towering before her, she looked as if she were performing on a\ndumb church organ. Her son thought so (it was an old thought with him),\nwhile he took his seat beside it.\n\nShe opened a drawer or two, looked over some business papers, and put\nthem back again. Her severe face had no thread of relaxation in it, by\nwhich any explorer could have been guided to the gloomy labyrinth of her\nthoughts.\n\n'Shall I speak of our affairs, mother? Are you inclined to enter upon\nbusiness?'\n\n'Am I inclined, Arthur? Rather, are you? Your father has been dead a\nyear and more. I have been at your disposal, and waiting your pleasure,\never since.'\n\n'There was much to arrange before I could leave; and when I did leave, I\ntravelled a little for rest and relief.'\n\nShe turned her face towards him, as not having heard or understood his\nlast words.\n\n'For rest and relief.'\n\nShe glanced round the sombre room, and appeared from the motion of her\nlips to repeat the words to herself, as calling it to witness how little\nof either it afforded her.\n\n'Besides, mother, you being sole executrix, and having the direction and\nmanagement of the estate, there remained little business, or I might say\nnone, that I could transact, until you had had time to arrange matters\nto your satisfaction.'\n\n'The accounts are made out,' she returned. 'I have them here. The\nvouchers have all been examined and passed. You can inspect them when\nyou like, Arthur; now, if you please.'\n\n'It is quite enough, mother, to know that the business is completed.\nShall I proceed then?'\n\n'Why not?' she said, in her frozen way.\n\n'Mother, our House has done less and less for some years past, and our\ndealings have been progressively on the decline. We have never shown\nmuch confidence, or invited much; we have attached no people to us; the\ntrack we have kept is not the track of the time; and we have been\nleft far behind. I need not dwell on this to you, mother. You know it\nnecessarily.'\n\n'I know what you mean,' she answered, in a qualified tone.\n\n'Even this old house in which we speak,' pursued her son, 'is an\ninstance of what I say. In my father's earlier time, and in his uncle's\ntime before him, it was a place of business--really a place of business,\nand business resort. Now, it is a mere anomaly and incongruity here, out\nof date and out of purpose. All our consignments have long been made to\nRovinghams' the commission-merchants; and although, as a check upon\nthem, and in the stewardship of my father's resources, your judgment and\nwatchfulness have been actively exerted, still those qualities would\nhave influenced my father's fortunes equally, if you had lived in any\nprivate dwelling: would they not?'\n\n'Do you consider,' she returned, without answering his question, 'that\na house serves no purpose, Arthur, in sheltering your infirm and\nafflicted--justly infirm and righteously afflicted--mother?'\n\n'I was speaking only of business purposes.'\n\n'With what object?'\n\n'I am coming to it.'\n\n'I foresee,' she returned, fixing her eyes upon him, 'what it is.\nBut the Lord forbid that I should repine under any visitation. In my\nsinfulness I merit bitter disappointment, and I accept it.'\n\n'Mother, I grieve to hear you speak like this, though I have had my\napprehensions that you would--'\n\n'You knew I would. You knew _me_,' she interrupted.\n\nHer son paused for a moment. He had struck fire out of her, and was\nsurprised. 'Well!' she said, relapsing into stone. 'Go on. Let me hear.'\n\n'You have anticipated, mother, that I decide for my part, to abandon\nthe business. I have done with it. I will not take upon myself to advise\nyou; you will continue it, I see. If I had any influence with you, I\nwould simply use it to soften your judgment of me in causing you this\ndisappointment: to represent to you that I have lived the half of a long\nterm of life, and have never before set my own will against yours. I\ncannot say that I have been able to conform myself, in heart and spirit,\nto your rules; I cannot say that I believe my forty years have been\nprofitable or pleasant to myself, or any one; but I have habitually\nsubmitted, and I only ask you to remember it.'\n\nWoe to the suppliant, if such a one there were or ever had been, who had\nany concession to look for in the inexorable face at the cabinet. Woe to\nthe defaulter whose appeal lay to the tribunal where those severe eyes\npresided. Great need had the rigid woman of her mystical religion,\nveiled in gloom and darkness, with lightnings of cursing, vengeance, and\ndestruction, flashing through the sable clouds. Forgive us our debts as\nwe forgive our debtors, was a prayer too poor in spirit for her. Smite\nThou my debtors, Lord, wither them, crush them; do Thou as I would do,\nand Thou shalt have my worship: this was the impious tower of stone she\nbuilt up to scale Heaven.\n\n'Have you finished, Arthur, or have you anything more to say to me? I\nthink there can be nothing else. You have been short, but full of matter!'\n\n'Mother, I have yet something more to say. It has been upon my mind,\nnight and day, this long time. It is far more difficult to say than what\nI have said. That concerned myself; this concerns us all.'\n\n'Us all! Who are us all?'\n\n'Yourself, myself, my dead father.'\n\nShe took her hands from the desk; folded them in her lap; and sat\nlooking towards the fire, with the impenetrability of an old Egyptian\nsculpture.\n\n'You knew my father infinitely better than I ever knew him; and his\nreserve with me yielded to you. You were much the stronger, mother, and\ndirected him. As a child, I knew it as well as I know it now. I knew\nthat your ascendancy over him was the cause of his going to China to\ntake care of the business there, while you took care of it here (though\nI do not even now know whether these were really terms of separation\nthat you agreed upon); and that it was your will that I should remain\nwith you until I was twenty, and then go to him as I did. You will not\nbe offended by my recalling this, after twenty years?'\n\n'I am waiting to hear why you recall it.'\n\nHe lowered his voice, and said, with manifest reluctance, and against\nhis will:\n\n'I want to ask you, mother, whether it ever occurred to you to\nsuspect--'\n\nAt the word Suspect, she turned her eyes momentarily upon her son, with\na dark frown. She then suffered them to seek the fire, as before; but\nwith the frown fixed above them, as if the sculptor of old Egypt had\nindented it in the hard granite face, to frown for ages.\n\n'--that he had any secret remembrance which caused him trouble of\nmind--remorse? Whether you ever observed anything in his conduct\nsuggesting that; or ever spoke to him upon it, or ever heard him hint at\nsuch a thing?'\n\n'I do not understand what kind of secret remembrance you mean to infer\nthat your father was a prey to,' she returned, after a silence. 'You\nspeak so mysteriously.'\n\n'Is it possible, mother,' her son leaned forward to be the nearer to her\nwhile he whispered it, and laid his hand nervously upon her desk, 'is\nit possible, mother, that he had unhappily wronged any one, and made no\nreparation?'\n\nLooking at him wrathfully, she bent herself back in her chair to keep\nhim further off, but gave him no reply.\n\n'I am deeply sensible, mother, that if this thought has never at any\ntime flashed upon you, it must seem cruel and unnatural in me, even in\nthis confidence, to breathe it. But I cannot shake it off. Time and\nchange (I have tried both before breaking silence) do nothing to wear it\nout.  Remember, I was with my father. Remember, I saw his face when he\ngave the watch into my keeping, and struggled to express that he sent it\nas a token you would understand, to you. Remember, I saw him at the last\nwith the pencil in his failing hand, trying to write some word for you\nto read, but to which he could give no shape. The more remote and cruel\nthis vague suspicion that I have, the stronger the circumstances that\ncould give it any semblance of probability to me. For Heaven's sake, let\nus examine sacredly whether there is any wrong entrusted to us to set\nright. No one can help towards it, mother, but you.'\n\nStill so recoiling in her chair that her overpoised weight moved it,\nfrom time to time, a little on its wheels, and gave her the appearance\nof a phantom of fierce aspect gliding away from him, she interposed her\nleft arm, bent at the elbow with the back of her hand towards her face,\nbetween herself and him, and looked at him in a fixed silence.\n\n'In grasping at money and in driving hard bargains--I have begun, and I\nmust speak of such things now, mother--some one may have been grievously\ndeceived, injured, ruined. You were the moving power of all this\nmachinery before my birth; your stronger spirit has been infused into\nall my father's dealings for more than two score years. You can set\nthese doubts at rest, I think, if you will really help me to discover\nthe truth. Will you, mother?'\n\nHe stopped in the hope that she would speak. But her grey hair was not\nmore immovable in its two folds, than were her firm lips.\n\n'If reparation can be made to any one, if restitution can be made to any\none, let us know it and make it. Nay, mother, if within my means, let _me_\nmake it. I have seen so little happiness come of money; it has brought\nwithin my knowledge so little peace to this house, or to any one\nbelonging to it, that it is worth less to me than to another. It can buy\nme nothing that will not be a reproach and misery to me, if I am haunted\nby a suspicion that it darkened my father's last hours with remorse, and\nthat it is not honestly and justly mine.'\n\nThere was a bell-rope hanging on the panelled wall, some two or three yards\nfrom the cabinet. By a swift and sudden action of her foot, she drove her\nwheeled chair rapidly back to it and pulled it violently--still holding her\narm up in its shield-like posture, as if he were striking at her, and she\nwarding off the blow.\n\nA girl came hurrying in, frightened.\n\n'Send Flintwinch here!'\n\nIn a moment the girl had withdrawn, and the old man stood within the\ndoor. 'What! You're hammer and tongs, already, you two?' he said, coolly\nstroking his face. 'I thought you would be. I was pretty sure of it.'\n\n'Flintwinch!' said the mother, 'look at my son. Look at him!'\n\n'Well, I _am_ looking at him,' said Flintwinch.\n\nShe stretched out the arm with which she had shielded herself, and as\nshe went on, pointed at the object of her anger.\n\n'In the very hour of his return almost--before the shoe upon his foot is\ndry--he asperses his father's memory to his mother! Asks his mother\nto become, with him, a spy upon his father's transactions through a\nlifetime! Has misgivings that the goods of this world which we have\npainfully got together early and late, with wear and tear and toil and\nself-denial, are so much plunder; and asks to whom they shall be given\nup, as reparation and restitution!'\n\nAlthough she said this raging, she said it in a voice so far from being\nbeyond her control that it was even lower than her usual tone. She also\nspoke with great distinctness.\n\n'Reparation!' said she. 'Yes, truly! It is easy for him to talk of\nreparation, fresh from journeying and junketing in foreign lands, and\nliving a life of vanity and pleasure. But let him look at me, in prison,\nand in bonds here. I endure without murmuring, because it is appointed\nthat I shall so make reparation for my sins. Reparation! Is there none\nin this room? Has there been none here this fifteen years?'\n\nThus was she always balancing her bargains with the Majesty of heaven,\nposting up the entries to her credit, strictly keeping her set-off, and\nclaiming her due. She was only remarkable in this, for the force\nand emphasis with which she did it. Thousands upon thousands do it,\naccording to their varying manner, every day.\n\n'Flintwinch, give me that book!'\n\nThe old man handed it to her from the table. She put two fingers between\nthe leaves, closed the book upon them, and held it up to her son in\na threatening way.\n\n'In the days of old, Arthur, treated of in this commentary, there were\npious men, beloved of the Lord, who would have cursed their sons for\nless than this: who would have sent them forth, and sent whole nations\nforth, if such had supported them, to be avoided of God and man, and\nperish, down to the baby at the breast. But I only tell you that if you\never renew that theme with me, I will renounce you; I will so dismiss\nyou through that doorway, that you had better have been motherless from\nyour cradle. I will never see or know you more. And if, after all, you\nwere to come into this darkened room to look upon me lying dead, my body\nshould bleed, if I could make it, when you came near me.'\n\nIn part relieved by the intensity of this threat, and in part (monstrous\nas the fact is) by a general impression that it was in some sort a\nreligious proceeding, she handed back the book to the old man, and was\nsilent.\n\n'Now,' said Jeremiah; 'premising that I'm not going to stand between you\ntwo, will you let me ask (as I _have_ been called in, and made a third)\nwhat is all this about?'\n\n'Take your version of it,' returned Arthur, finding it left to him to\nspeak, 'from my mother. Let it rest there. What I have said, was said to\nmy mother only.'\n\n'Oh!' returned the old man. 'From your mother? Take it from your mother?\nWell! But your mother mentioned that you had been suspecting your father.\nThat's not dutiful, Mr Arthur. Who will you be suspecting next?'\n\n'Enough,' said Mrs Clennam, turning her face so that it was addressed\nfor the moment to the old man only. 'Let no more be said about this.'\n\n'Yes, but stop a bit, stop a bit,' the old man persisted. 'Let us see\nhow we stand. Have you told Mr Arthur that he mustn't lay offences at\nhis father's door? That he has no right to do it? That he has no ground\nto go upon?'\n\n'I tell him so now.'\n\n'Ah! Exactly,' said the old man. 'You tell him so now. You hadn't told\nhim so before, and you tell him so now. Ay, ay! That's right! You know I\nstood between you and his father so long, that it seems as if death had\nmade no difference, and I was still standing between you. So I will, and\nso in fairness I require to have that plainly put forward. Arthur, you\nplease to hear that you have no right to mistrust your father, and have\nno ground to go upon.'\n\nHe put his hands to the back of the wheeled chair, and muttering to\nhimself, slowly wheeled his mistress back to her cabinet. 'Now,' he\nresumed, standing behind her: 'in case I should go away leaving things\nhalf done, and so should be wanted again when you come to the other half\nand get into one of your flights, has Arthur told you what he means to\ndo about the business?'\n\n'He has relinquished it.'\n\n'In favour of nobody, I suppose?'\n\nMrs Clennam glanced at her son, leaning against one of the windows. He\nobserved the look and said, 'To my mother, of course. She does what she\npleases.'\n\n'And if any pleasure,' she said after a short pause, 'could arise for me\nout of the disappointment of my expectations that my son, in the prime\nof his life, would infuse new youth and strength into it, and make it\nof great profit and power, it would be in advancing an old and faithful\nservant. Jeremiah, the captain deserts the ship, but you and I will sink\nor float with it.'\n\nJeremiah, whose eyes glistened as if they saw money, darted a sudden\nlook at the son, which seemed to say, 'I owe _you_ no thanks for this;\n_you_ have done nothing towards it!' and then told the mother that he\nthanked her, and that Affery thanked her, and that he would never desert\nher, and that Affery would never desert her. Finally, he hauled up his\nwatch from its depths, and said, 'Eleven. Time for your oysters!' and with\nthat change of subject, which involved no change of expression or manner,\nrang the bell.\n\nBut Mrs Clennam, resolved to treat herself with the greater rigour for\nhaving been supposed to be unacquainted with reparation, refused to\neat her oysters when they were brought. They looked tempting; eight in\nnumber, circularly set out on a white plate on a tray covered with a\nwhite napkin, flanked by a slice of buttered French roll, and a little\ncompact glass of cool wine and water; but she resisted all persuasions,\nand sent them down again--placing the act to her credit, no doubt, in\nher Eternal Day-Book.\n\nThis refection of oysters was not presided over by Affery, but by the\ngirl who had appeared when the bell was rung; the same who had been in\nthe dimly-lighted room last night. Now that he had an opportunity of\nobserving her, Arthur found that her diminutive figure, small features,\nand slight spare dress, gave her the appearance of being much younger\nthan she was. A woman, probably of not less than two-and-twenty, she\nmight have been passed in the street for little more than half that\nage. Not that her face was very youthful, for in truth there was more\nconsideration and care in it than naturally belonged to her utmost\nyears; but she was so little and light, so noiseless and shy, and\nappeared so conscious of being out of place among the three hard elders,\nthat she had all the manner and much of the appearance of a subdued\nchild.\n\nIn a hard way, and in an uncertain way that fluctuated between patronage\nand putting down, the sprinkling from a watering-pot and hydraulic\npressure, Mrs Clennam showed an interest in this dependent. Even in the\nmoment of her entrance, upon the violent ringing of the bell, when the\nmother shielded herself with that singular action from the son, Mrs\nClennam's eyes had had some individual recognition in them, which seemed\nreserved for her. As there are degrees of hardness in the hardest metal,\nand shades of colour in black itself, so, even in the asperity of Mrs\nClennam's demeanour towards all the rest of humanity and towards Little\nDorrit, there was a fine gradation.\n\nLittle Dorrit let herself out to do needlework. At so much a day--or at\nso little--from eight to eight, Little Dorrit was to be hired. Punctual\nto the moment, Little Dorrit appeared; punctual to the moment, Little\nDorrit vanished. What became of Little Dorrit between the two eights was\na mystery.\n\nAnother of the moral phenomena of Little Dorrit. Besides her\nconsideration money, her daily contract included meals. She had an\nextraordinary repugnance to dining in company; would never do so, if\nit were possible to escape. Would always plead that she had this bit of\nwork to begin first, or that bit of work to finish first; and would, of\na certainty, scheme and plan--not very cunningly, it would seem, for she\ndeceived no one--to dine alone. Successful in this, happy in carrying\noff her plate anywhere, to make a table of her lap, or a box, or the\nground, or even as was supposed, to stand on tip-toe, dining moderately\nat a mantel-shelf; the great anxiety of Little Dorrit's day was set at\nrest.\n\nIt was not easy to make out Little Dorrit's face; she was so retiring,\nplied her needle in such removed corners, and started away so scared if\nencountered on the stairs. But it seemed to be a pale transparent face,\nquick in expression, though not beautiful in feature, its soft hazel\neyes excepted. A delicately bent head, a tiny form, a quick little pair\nof busy hands, and a shabby dress--it must needs have been very shabby\nto look at all so, being so neat--were Little Dorrit as she sat at work.\n\nFor these particulars or generalities concerning Little Dorrit, Mr\nArthur was indebted in the course of the day to his own eyes and to Mrs\nAffery's tongue. If Mrs Affery had had any will or way of her own, it\nwould probably have been unfavourable to Little Dorrit. But as 'them two\nclever ones'--Mrs Affery's perpetual reference, in whom her personality\nwas swallowed up--were agreed to accept Little Dorrit as a matter of\ncourse, she had nothing for it but to follow suit. Similarly, if the\ntwo clever ones had agreed to murder Little Dorrit by candlelight, Mrs\nAffery, being required to hold the candle, would no doubt have done it.\n\nIn the intervals of roasting the partridge for the invalid chamber, and\npreparing a baking-dish of beef and pudding for the dining-room, Mrs\nAffery made the communications above set forth; invariably putting\nher head in at the door again after she had taken it out, to enforce\nresistance to the two clever ones. It appeared to have become a perfect\npassion with Mrs Flintwinch, that the only son should be pitted against\nthem.\n\nIn the course of the day, too, Arthur looked through the whole house.\nDull and dark he found it. The gaunt rooms, deserted for years upon\nyears, seemed to have settled down into a gloomy lethargy from which\nnothing could rouse them again. The furniture, at once spare and\nlumbering, hid in the rooms rather than furnished them, and there was\nno colour in all the house; such colour as had ever been there, had long\nago started away on lost sunbeams--got itself absorbed, perhaps, into\nflowers, butterflies, plumage of birds, precious stones, what not. There\nwas not one straight floor from the foundation to the roof; the ceilings\nwere so fantastically clouded by smoke and dust, that old women might\nhave told fortunes in them better than in grouts of tea; the dead-cold\nhearths showed no traces of having ever been warmed but in heaps of soot\nthat had tumbled down the chimneys, and eddied about in little\ndusky whirlwinds when the doors were opened. In what had once been\na drawing-room, there were a pair of meagre mirrors, with dismal\nprocessions of black figures carrying black garlands, walking round\nthe frames; but even these were short of heads and legs, and one\nundertaker-like Cupid had swung round on its own axis and got upside\ndown, and another had fallen off altogether. The room Arthur Clennam's\ndeceased father had occupied for business purposes, when he first\nremembered him, was so unaltered that he might have been imagined still\nto keep it invisibly, as his visible relict kept her room up-stairs;\nJeremiah Flintwinch still going between them negotiating. His picture,\ndark and gloomy, earnestly speechless on the wall, with the eyes\nintently looking at his son as they had looked when life departed from\nthem, seemed to urge him awfully to the task he had attempted; but as\nto any yielding on the part of his mother, he had now no hope, and as to\nany other means of setting his distrust at rest, he had abandoned hope a\nlong time. Down in the cellars, as up in the bed-chambers, old objects\nthat he well remembered were changed by age and decay, but were still in\ntheir old places; even to empty beer-casks hoary with cobwebs, and empty\nwine-bottles with fur and fungus choking up their throats. There, too,\namong unusual bottle-racks and pale slants of light from the yard above,\nwas the strong room stored with old ledgers, which had as musty and\ncorrupt a smell as if they were regularly balanced, in the dead small\nhours, by a nightly resurrection of old book-keepers.\n\nThe baking-dish was served up in a penitential manner on a shrunken\ncloth at an end of the dining-table, at two o'clock, when he dined with\nMr Flintwinch, the new partner. Mr Flintwinch informed him that his\nmother had recovered her equanimity now, and that he need not fear her\nagain alluding to what had passed in the morning. 'And don't you lay\noffences at your father's door, Mr Arthur,' added Jeremiah, 'once for\nall, don't do it! Now, we have done with the subject.'\n\nMr Flintwinch had been already rearranging and dusting his own\nparticular little office, as if to do honour to his accession to new\ndignity. He resumed this occupation when he was replete with beef, had\nsucked up all the gravy in the baking-dish with the flat of his knife,\nand had drawn liberally on a barrel of small beer in the scullery. Thus\nrefreshed, he tucked up his shirt-sleeves and went to work again; and Mr\nArthur, watching him as he set about it, plainly saw that his father's\npicture, or his father's grave, would be as communicative with him as\nthis old man.\n\n'Now, Affery, woman,' said Mr Flintwinch, as she crossed the hall. 'You\nhadn't made Mr Arthur's bed when I was up there last. Stir yourself.\nBustle.'\n\nBut Mr Arthur found the house so blank and dreary, and was so unwilling\nto assist at another implacable consignment of his mother's enemies\n(perhaps himself among them) to mortal disfigurement and immortal ruin,\nthat he announced his intention of lodging at the coffee-house where he\nhad left his luggage. Mr Flintwinch taking kindly to the idea of getting\nrid of him, and his mother being indifferent, beyond considerations of\nsaving, to most domestic arrangements that were not bounded by the walls\nof her own chamber, he easily carried this point without new offence.\nDaily business hours were agreed upon, which his mother, Mr Flintwinch,\nand he, were to devote together to a necessary checking of books and\npapers; and he left the home he had so lately found, with depressed\nheart.\n\nBut Little Dorrit?\n\nThe business hours, allowing for intervals of invalid regimen of oysters\nand partridges, during which Clennam refreshed himself with a walk,\nwere from ten to six for about a fortnight. Sometimes Little Dorrit was\nemployed at her needle, sometimes not, sometimes appeared as a humble\nvisitor: which must have been her character on the occasion of his\narrival. His original curiosity augmented every day, as he watched for\nher, saw or did not see her, and speculated about her. Influenced by his\npredominant idea, he even fell into a habit of discussing with himself\nthe possibility of her being in some way associated with it. At last he\nresolved to watch Little Dorrit and know more of her story.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 6. The Father of the Marshalsea\n\n\nThirty years ago there stood, a few doors short of the church of Saint\nGeorge, in the borough of Southwark, on the left-hand side of the way\ngoing southward, the Marshalsea Prison. It had stood there many years\nbefore, and it remained there some years afterwards; but it is gone now,\nand the world is none the worse without it.\n\nIt was an oblong pile of barrack building, partitioned into squalid\nhouses standing back to back, so that there were no back rooms;\nenvironed by a narrow paved yard, hemmed in by high walls duly spiked at\ntop. Itself a close and confined prison for debtors, it contained within\nit a much closer and more confined jail for smugglers. Offenders against\nthe revenue laws, and defaulters to excise or customs who had incurred\nfines which they were unable to pay, were supposed to be incarcerated\nbehind an iron-plated door closing up a second prison, consisting of a\nstrong cell or two, and a blind alley some yard and a half wide, which\nformed the mysterious termination of the very limited skittle-ground in\nwhich the Marshalsea debtors bowled down their troubles.\n\nSupposed to be incarcerated there, because the time had rather outgrown\nthe strong cells and the blind alley. In practice they had come to be\nconsidered a little too bad, though in theory they were quite as good as\never; which may be observed to be the case at the present day with other\ncells that are not at all strong, and with other blind alleys that are\nstone-blind. Hence the smugglers habitually consorted with the debtors\n(who received them with open arms), except at certain constitutional\nmoments when somebody came from some Office, to go through some form of\noverlooking something which neither he nor anybody else knew anything\nabout. On these truly British occasions, the smugglers, if any, made a\nfeint of walking into the strong cells and the blind alley, while this\nsomebody pretended to do his something: and made a reality of walking\nout again as soon as he hadn't done it--neatly epitomising the\nadministration of most of the public affairs in our right little, tight\nlittle, island.\n\nThere had been taken to the Marshalsea Prison, long before the day when\nthe sun shone on Marseilles and on the opening of this narrative, a\ndebtor with whom this narrative has some concern.\n\nHe was, at that time, a very amiable and very helpless middle-aged\ngentleman, who was going out again directly. Necessarily, he was going\nout again directly, because the Marshalsea lock never turned upon a\ndebtor who was not. He brought in a portmanteau with him, which he\ndoubted its being worth while to unpack; he was so perfectly clear--like\nall the rest of them, the turnkey on the lock said--that he was going\nout again directly.\n\nHe was a shy, retiring man; well-looking, though in an effeminate style;\nwith a mild voice, curling hair, and irresolute hands--rings upon the\nfingers in those days--which nervously wandered to his trembling lip a\nhundred times in the first half-hour of his acquaintance with the jail.\nHis principal anxiety was about his wife.\n\n'Do you think, sir,' he asked the turnkey, 'that she will be very much\nshocked, if she should come to the gate to-morrow morning?'\n\nThe turnkey gave it as the result of his experience that some of 'em was\nand some of 'em wasn't. In general, more no than yes. 'What like is she,\nyou see?' he philosophically asked: 'that's what it hinges on.'\n\n'She is very delicate and inexperienced indeed.'\n\n'That,' said the turnkey, 'is agen her.'\n\n'She is so little used to go out alone,' said the debtor, 'that I am at\na loss to think how she will ever make her way here, if she walks.'\n\n'P'raps,' quoth the turnkey, 'she'll take a ackney coach.'\n\n'Perhaps.' The irresolute fingers went to the trembling lip. 'I hope she\nwill. She may not think of it.'\n\n'Or p'raps,' said the turnkey, offering his suggestions from the the top\nof his well-worn wooden stool, as he might have offered them to a child\nfor whose weakness he felt a compassion, 'p'raps she'll get her brother,\nor her sister, to come along with her.'\n\n'She has no brother or sister.'\n\n'Niece, nevy, cousin, serwant, young 'ooman, greengrocer.--Dash it! One\nor another on 'em,' said the turnkey, repudiating beforehand the refusal\nof all his suggestions.\n\n'I fear--I hope it is not against the rules--that she will bring the\nchildren.'\n\n'The children?' said the turnkey. 'And the rules? Why, lord set you\nup like a corner pin, we've a reg'lar playground o' children here.\nChildren! Why we swarm with 'em. How many a you got?'\n\n'Two,' said the debtor, lifting his irresolute hand to his lip again,\nand turning into the prison.\n\nThe turnkey followed him with his eyes. 'And you another,' he observed\nto himself, 'which makes three on you. And your wife another, I'll lay\na crown. Which makes four on you. And another coming, I'll lay\nhalf-a-crown. Which'll make five on you. And I'll go another seven and\nsixpence to name which is the helplessest, the unborn baby or you!'\n\nHe was right in all his particulars. She came next day with a little\nboy of three years old, and a little girl of two, and he stood entirely\ncorroborated.\n\n'Got a room now; haven't you?' the turnkey asked the debtor after a week\nor two.\n\n'Yes, I have got a very good room.'\n\n'Any little sticks a coming to furnish it?' said the turnkey.\n\n'I expect a few necessary articles of furniture to be delivered by the\ncarrier, this afternoon.'\n\n'Missis and little 'uns a coming to keep you company?' asked the\nturnkey.\n\n'Why, yes, we think it better that we should not be scattered, even for\na few weeks.'\n\n'Even for a few weeks, _of_ course,' replied the turnkey. And he followed\nhim again with his eyes, and nodded his head seven times when he was\ngone.\n\nThe affairs of this debtor were perplexed by a partnership, of which he\nknew no more than that he had invested money in it; by legal matters\nof assignment and settlement, conveyance here and conveyance there,\nsuspicion of unlawful preference of creditors in this direction, and of\nmysterious spiriting away of property in that; and as nobody on the face\nof the earth could be more incapable of explaining any single item in\nthe heap of confusion than the debtor himself, nothing comprehensible\ncould be made of his case. To question him in detail, and endeavour\nto reconcile his answers; to closet him with accountants and sharp\npractitioners, learned in the wiles of insolvency and bankruptcy; was\nonly to put the case out at compound interest and incomprehensibility.\nThe irresolute fingers fluttered more and more ineffectually about the\ntrembling lip on every such occasion, and the sharpest practitioners\ngave him up as a hopeless job.\n\n'Out?' said the turnkey, '_he_'ll never get out, unless his creditors take\nhim by the shoulders and shove him out.'\n\nHe had been there five or six months, when he came running to this\nturnkey one forenoon to tell him, breathless and pale, that his wife was\nill.\n\n'As anybody might a known she would be,' said the turnkey.\n\n'We intended,' he returned, 'that she should go to a country lodging\nonly to-morrow. What am I to do! Oh, good heaven, what am I to do!'\n\n'Don't waste your time in clasping your hands and biting your fingers,'\nresponded the practical turnkey, taking him by the elbow, 'but come\nalong with me.'\n\nThe turnkey conducted him--trembling from head to foot, and constantly\ncrying under his breath, What was he to do! while his irresolute fingers\nbedabbled the tears upon his face--up one of the common staircases in\nthe prison to a door on the garret story. Upon which door the turnkey\nknocked with the handle of his key.\n\n'Come in!' cried a voice inside.\n\nThe turnkey, opening the door, disclosed in a wretched, ill-smelling\nlittle room, two hoarse, puffy, red-faced personages seated at a\nrickety table, playing at all-fours, smoking pipes, and drinking brandy.\n\n'Doctor,' said the turnkey, 'here's a gentleman's wife in want of you\nwithout a minute's loss of time!'\n\nThe doctor's friend was in the positive degree of hoarseness, puffiness,\nred-facedness, all-fours, tobacco, dirt, and brandy; the doctor in\nthe comparative--hoarser, puffier, more red-faced, more all-fourey,\ntobaccoer, dirtier, and brandier. The doctor was amazingly shabby, in\na torn and darned rough-weather sea-jacket, out at elbows and eminently\nshort of buttons (he had been in his time the experienced surgeon\ncarried by a passenger ship), the dirtiest white trousers conceivable by\nmortal man, carpet slippers, and no visible linen. 'Childbed?' said\nthe doctor. 'I'm the boy!' With that the doctor took a comb from the\nchimney-piece and stuck his hair upright--which appeared to be his\nway of washing himself--produced a professional chest or case, of most\nabject appearance, from the cupboard where his cup and saucer and coals\nwere, settled his chin in the frowsy wrapper round his neck, and became\na ghastly medical scarecrow.\n\nThe doctor and the debtor ran down-stairs, leaving the turnkey to return\nto the lock, and made for the debtor's room. All the ladies in the\nprison had got hold of the news, and were in the yard. Some of them\nhad already taken possession of the two children, and were hospitably\ncarrying them off; others were offering loans of little comforts from\ntheir own scanty store; others were sympathising with the greatest\nvolubility. The gentlemen prisoners, feeling themselves at a\ndisadvantage, had for the most part retired, not to say sneaked,\nto their rooms; from the open windows of which some of them now\ncomplimented the doctor with whistles as he passed below, while others,\nwith several stories between them, interchanged sarcastic references to\nthe prevalent excitement.\n\nIt was a hot summer day, and the prison rooms were baking between the\nhigh walls. In the debtor's confined chamber, Mrs Bangham, charwoman and\nmessenger, who was not a prisoner (though she had been once), but\nwas the popular medium of communication with the outer world, had\nvolunteered her services as fly-catcher and general attendant. The walls\nand ceiling were blackened with flies. Mrs Bangham, expert in sudden\ndevice, with one hand fanned the patient with a cabbage leaf, and with\nthe other set traps of vinegar and sugar in gallipots; at the same time\nenunciating sentiments of an encouraging and congratulatory nature,\nadapted to the occasion.\n\n'The flies trouble you, don't they, my dear?' said Mrs Bangham. 'But\np'raps they'll take your mind off of it, and do you good. What between\nthe buryin ground, the grocer's, the waggon-stables, and the paunch\ntrade, the Marshalsea flies gets very large. P'raps they're sent as a\nconsolation, if we only know'd it. How are you now, my dear? No better?\nNo, my dear, it ain't to be expected; you'll be worse before you're\nbetter, and you know it, don't you? Yes. That's right! And to think of\na sweet little cherub being born inside the lock! Now ain't it pretty,\nain't _that_ something to carry you through it pleasant? Why, we ain't\nhad such a thing happen here, my dear, not for I couldn't name the time\nwhen. And you a crying too?' said Mrs Bangham, to rally the patient more\nand more. 'You! Making yourself so famous! With the flies a falling into\nthe gallipots by fifties! And everything a going on so well! And here if\nthere ain't,' said Mrs Bangham as the door opened, 'if there ain't your\ndear gentleman along with Dr Haggage! And now indeed we _are_ complete, I\n_think_!'\n\nThe doctor was scarcely the kind of apparition to inspire a patient\nwith a sense of absolute completeness, but as he presently delivered the\nopinion, 'We are as right as we can be, Mrs Bangham, and we shall\ncome out of this like a house afire;' and as he and Mrs Bangham took\npossession of the poor helpless pair, as everybody else and anybody else\nhad always done, the means at hand were as good on the whole as better\nwould have been. The special feature in Dr Haggage's treatment of the\ncase, was his determination to keep Mrs Bangham up to the mark. As thus:\n\n'Mrs Bangham,' said the doctor, before he had been there twenty minutes,\n'go outside and fetch a little brandy, or we shall have you giving in.'\n\n'Thank you, sir. But none on my accounts,' said Mrs Bangham.\n\n'Mrs Bangham,' returned the doctor, 'I am in professional attendance\non this lady, and don't choose to allow any discussion on your part. Go\noutside and fetch a little brandy, or I foresee that you'll break down.'\n\n'You're to be obeyed, sir,' said Mrs Bangham, rising. 'If you was to put\nyour own lips to it, I think you wouldn't be the worse, for you look but\npoorly, sir.'\n\n'Mrs Bangham,' returned the doctor, 'I am not your business, thank you,\nbut you are mine. Never you mind _me_, if you please. What you have got to\ndo, is, to do as you are told, and to go and get what I bid you.'\n\nMrs Bangham submitted; and the doctor, having administered her\npotion, took his own. He repeated the treatment every hour, being very\ndetermined with Mrs Bangham. Three or four hours passed; the flies\nfell into the traps by hundreds; and at length one little life, hardly\nstronger than theirs, appeared among the multitude of lesser deaths.\n\n'A very nice little girl indeed,' said the doctor; 'little, but\nwell-formed. Halloa, Mrs Bangham! You're looking queer! You be off,\nma'am, this minute, and fetch a little more brandy, or we shall have you\nin hysterics.'\n\nBy this time, the rings had begun to fall from the debtor's irresolute\nhands, like leaves from a wintry tree. Not one was left upon them that\nnight, when he put something that chinked into the doctor's greasy palm.\nIn the meantime Mrs Bangham had been out on an errand to a neighbouring\nestablishment decorated with three golden balls, where she was very well\nknown.\n\n'Thank you,' said the doctor, 'thank you. Your good lady is quite\ncomposed. Doing charmingly.'\n\n'I am very happy and very thankful to know it,' said the debtor, 'though\nI little thought once, that--'\n\n'That a child would be born to you in a place like this?' said the\ndoctor. 'Bah, bah, sir, what does it signify? A little more elbow-room\nis all we want here. We are quiet here; we don't get badgered here;\nthere's no knocker here, sir, to be hammered at by creditors and bring a\nman's heart into his mouth. Nobody comes here to ask if a man's at\nhome, and to say he'll stand on the door mat till he is. Nobody writes\nthreatening letters about money to this place. It's freedom, sir, it's\nfreedom! I have had to-day's practice at home and abroad, on a march,\nand aboard ship, and I'll tell you this: I don't know that I have ever\npursued it under such quiet circumstances as here this day. Elsewhere,\npeople are restless, worried, hurried about, anxious respecting one\nthing, anxious respecting another. Nothing of the kind here, sir. We\nhave done all that--we know the worst of it; we have got to the bottom,\nwe can't fall, and what have we found? Peace. That's the word for\nit. Peace.' With this profession of faith, the doctor, who was an old\njail-bird, and was more sodden than usual, and had the additional and\nunusual stimulus of money in his pocket, returned to his associate and\nchum in hoarseness, puffiness, red-facedness, all-fours, tobacco, dirt,\nand brandy.\n\nNow, the debtor was a very different man from the doctor, but he had\nalready begun to travel, by his opposite segment of the circle, to the\nsame point. Crushed at first by his imprisonment, he had soon found a\ndull relief in it. He was under lock and key; but the lock and key that\nkept him in, kept numbers of his troubles out. If he had been a man with\nstrength of purpose to face those troubles and fight them, he might have\nbroken the net that held him, or broken his heart; but being what he\nwas, he languidly slipped into this smooth descent, and never more took\none step upward.\n\nWhen he was relieved of the perplexed affairs that nothing would make\nplain, through having them returned upon his hands by a dozen agents in\nsuccession who could make neither beginning, middle, nor end of them or\nhim, he found his miserable place of refuge a quieter refuge than it\nhad been before. He had unpacked the portmanteau long ago; and his elder\nchildren now played regularly about the yard, and everybody knew the\nbaby, and claimed a kind of proprietorship in her.\n\n'Why, I'm getting proud of you,' said his friend the turnkey, one day.\n'You'll be the oldest inhabitant soon. The Marshalsea wouldn't be like\nthe Marshalsea now, without you and your family.'\n\nThe turnkey really was proud of him. He would mention him in laudatory\nterms to new-comers, when his back was turned. 'You took notice of him,'\nhe would say, 'that went out of the lodge just now?'\n\nNew-comer would probably answer Yes.\n\n'Brought up as a gentleman, he was, if ever a man was. Ed'cated at no\nend of expense. Went into the Marshal's house once to try a new piano\nfor him. Played it, I understand, like one o'clock--beautiful! As to\nlanguages--speaks anything. We've had a Frenchman here in his time, and\nit's my opinion he knowed more French than the Frenchman did. We've had\nan Italian here in his time, and he shut _him_ up in about half a minute.\nYou'll find some characters behind other locks, I don't say you won't;\nbut if you want the top sawyer in such respects as I've mentioned, you\nmust come to the Marshalsea.'\n\nWhen his youngest child was eight years old, his wife, who had long been\nlanguishing away--of her own inherent weakness, not that she retained\nany greater sensitiveness as to her place of abode than he did--went\nupon a visit to a poor friend and old nurse in the country, and died\nthere. He remained shut up in his room for a fortnight afterwards;\nand an attorney's clerk, who was going through the Insolvent Court,\nengrossed an address of condolence to him, which looked like a Lease,\nand which all the prisoners signed. When he appeared again he was\ngreyer (he had soon begun to turn grey); and the turnkey noticed that\nhis hands went often to his trembling lips again, as they had used to do\nwhen he first came in. But he got pretty well over it in a month or\ntwo; and in the meantime the children played about the yard as regularly\nas ever, but in black.\n\nThen Mrs Bangham, long popular medium of communication with the outer\nworld, began to be infirm, and to be found oftener than usual comatose\non pavements, with her basket of purchases spilt, and the change of her\nclients ninepence short. His son began to supersede Mrs Bangham, and\nto execute commissions in a knowing manner, and to be of the prison\nprisonous, of the streets streety.\n\nTime went on, and the turnkey began to fail. His chest swelled, and his\nlegs got weak, and he was short of breath. The well-worn wooden stool\nwas 'beyond him,' he complained. He sat in an arm-chair with a cushion,\nand sometimes wheezed so, for minutes together, that he couldn't turn\nthe key. When he was overpowered by these fits, the debtor often turned\nit for him.\n\n'You and me,' said the turnkey, one snowy winter's night when the lodge,\nwith a bright fire in it, was pretty full of company, 'is the oldest\ninhabitants. I wasn't here myself above seven year before you. I shan't\nlast long. When I'm off the lock for good and all, you'll be the Father\nof the Marshalsea.'\n\nThe turnkey went off the lock of this world next day. His words were\nremembered and repeated; and tradition afterwards handed down from\ngeneration to generation--a Marshalsea generation might be calculated as\nabout three months--that the shabby old debtor with the soft manner and\nthe white hair, was the Father of the Marshalsea.\n\nAnd he grew to be proud of the title. If any impostor had arisen to\nclaim it, he would have shed tears in resentment of the attempt to\ndeprive him of his rights. A disposition began to be perceived in him\nto exaggerate the number of years he had been there; it was generally\nunderstood that you must deduct a few from his account; he was vain, the\nfleeting generations of debtors said.\n\nAll new-comers were presented to him. He was punctilious in the exaction\nof this ceremony. The wits would perform the office of introduction with\novercharged pomp and politeness, but they could not easily overstep his\nsense of its gravity. He received them in his poor room (he disliked an\nintroduction in the mere yard, as informal--a thing that might happen\nto anybody), with a kind of bowed-down beneficence. They were welcome to\nthe Marshalsea, he would tell them. Yes, he was the Father of the place.\nSo the world was kind enough to call him; and so he was, if more than\ntwenty years of residence gave him a claim to the title. It looked\nsmall at first, but there was very good company there--among a\nmixture--necessarily a mixture--and very good air.\n\nIt became a not unusual circumstance for letters to be put under his\ndoor at night, enclosing half-a-crown, two half-crowns, now and then at\nlong intervals even half-a-sovereign, for the Father of the Marshalsea.\n'With the compliments of a collegian taking leave.' He received the\ngifts as tributes, from admirers, to a public character. Sometimes\nthese correspondents assumed facetious names, as the Brick, Bellows, Old\nGooseberry, Wideawake, Snooks, Mops, Cutaway, the Dogs-meat Man; but he\nconsidered this in bad taste, and was always a little hurt by it.\n\nIn the fulness of time, this correspondence showing signs of wearing\nout, and seeming to require an effort on the part of the correspondents\nto which in the hurried circumstances of departure many of them might\nnot be equal, he established the custom of attending collegians of\na certain standing, to the gate, and taking leave of them there. The\ncollegian under treatment, after shaking hands, would occasionally\nstop to wrap up something in a bit of paper, and would come back again\ncalling 'Hi!'\n\nHe would look round surprised.'Me?' he would say, with a smile.\n\nBy this time the collegian would be up with him, and he would paternally\nadd,'What have you forgotten? What can I do for you?'\n\n'I forgot to leave this,' the collegian would usually return, 'for the\nFather of the Marshalsea.'\n\n'My good sir,' he would rejoin, 'he is infinitely obliged to you.' But,\nto the last, the irresolute hand of old would remain in the pocket into\nwhich he had slipped the money during two or three turns about the yard,\nlest the transaction should be too conspicuous to the general body of\ncollegians.\n\nOne afternoon he had been doing the honours of the place to a rather\nlarge party of collegians, who happened to be going out, when, as he was\ncoming back, he encountered one from the poor side who had been taken in\nexecution for a small sum a week before, had 'settled' in the course of\nthat afternoon, and was going out too. The man was a mere Plasterer in\nhis working dress; had his wife with him, and a bundle; and was in high\nspirits.\n\n'God bless you, sir,' he said in passing.\n\n'And you,' benignantly returned the Father of the Marshalsea.\n\nThey were pretty far divided, going their several ways, when the\nPlasterer called out, 'I say!--sir!' and came back to him.\n\n'It ain't much,' said the Plasterer, putting a little pile of halfpence\nin his hand, 'but it's well meant.'\n\nThe Father of the Marshalsea had never been offered tribute in copper\nyet. His children often had, and with his perfect acquiescence it had\ngone into the common purse to buy meat that he had eaten, and drink that\nhe had drunk; but fustian splashed with white lime, bestowing halfpence\non him, front to front, was new.\n\n'How dare you!' he said to the man, and feebly burst into tears.\n\nThe Plasterer turned him towards the wall, that his face might not be\nseen; and the action was so delicate, and the man was so penetrated with\nrepentance, and asked pardon so honestly, that he could make him no less\nacknowledgment than, 'I know you meant it kindly. Say no more.'\n\n'Bless your soul, sir,' urged the Plasterer, 'I did indeed. I'd do more\nby you than the rest of 'em do, I fancy.'\n\n'What would you do?' he asked.\n\n'I'd come back to see you, after I was let out.'\n\n'Give me the money again,' said the other, eagerly, 'and I'll keep it,\nand never spend it. Thank you for it, thank you! I shall see you again?'\n\n'If I live a week you shall.'\n\nThey shook hands and parted. The collegians, assembled in Symposium in\nthe Snuggery that night, marvelled what had happened to their Father; he\nwalked so late in the shadows of the yard, and seemed so downcast.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 7. The Child of the Marshalsea\n\n\nThe baby whose first draught of air had been tinctured with Doctor\nHaggage's brandy, was handed down among the generations of collegians,\nlike the tradition of their common parent. In the earlier stages of her\nexistence, she was handed down in a literal and prosaic sense; it being\nalmost a part of the entrance footing of every new collegian to nurse\nthe child who had been born in the college.\n\n'By rights,' remarked the turnkey when she was first shown to him, 'I\nought to be her godfather.'\n\nThe debtor irresolutely thought of it for a minute, and said, 'Perhaps\nyou wouldn't object to really being her godfather?'\n\n'Oh! _I_ don't object,' replied the turnkey, 'if you don't.'\n\nThus it came to pass that she was christened one Sunday afternoon, when\nthe turnkey, being relieved, was off the lock; and that the turnkey\nwent up to the font of Saint George's Church, and promised and vowed and\nrenounced on her behalf, as he himself related when he came back, 'like\na good 'un.'\n\nThis invested the turnkey with a new proprietary share in the child,\nover and above his former official one. When she began to walk and talk,\nhe became fond of her; bought a little arm-chair and stood it by the\nhigh fender of the lodge fire-place; liked to have her company when he\nwas on the lock; and used to bribe her with cheap toys to come and talk\nto him. The child, for her part, soon grew so fond of the turnkey that\nshe would come climbing up the lodge-steps of her own accord at all\nhours of the day. When she fell asleep in the little armchair by the\nhigh fender, the turnkey would cover her with his pocket-handkerchief;\nand when she sat in it dressing and undressing a doll which soon came\nto be unlike dolls on the other side of the lock, and to bear a horrible\nfamily resemblance to Mrs Bangham--he would contemplate her from the\ntop of his stool with exceeding gentleness. Witnessing these things,\nthe collegians would express an opinion that the turnkey, who was a\nbachelor, had been cut out by nature for a family man. But the turnkey\nthanked them, and said, 'No, on the whole it was enough to see other\npeople's children there.'\n\nAt what period of her early life the little creature began to perceive\nthat it was not the habit of all the world to live locked up in narrow\nyards surrounded by high walls with spikes at the top, would be a\ndifficult question to settle. But she was a very, very little creature\nindeed, when she had somehow gained the knowledge that her clasp of her\nfather's hand was to be always loosened at the door which the great key\nopened; and that while her own light steps were free to pass beyond it,\nhis feet must never cross that line. A pitiful and plaintive look, with\nwhich she had begun to regard him when she was still extremely young,\nwas perhaps a part of this discovery.\n\nWith a pitiful and plaintive look for everything, indeed, but with\nsomething in it for only him that was like protection, this Child of\nthe Marshalsea and the child of the Father of the Marshalsea, sat by her\nfriend the turnkey in the lodge, kept the family room, or wandered about\nthe prison-yard, for the first eight years of her life. With a pitiful\nand plaintive look for her wayward sister; for her idle brother; for the\nhigh blank walls; for the faded crowd they shut in; for the games of the\nprison children as they whooped and ran, and played at hide-and-seek,\nand made the iron bars of the inner gateway 'Home.'\n\nWistful and wondering, she would sit in summer weather by the high\nfender in the lodge, looking up at the sky through the barred window,\nuntil, when she turned her eyes away, bars of light would arise between\nher and her friend, and she would see him through a grating, too.\n\n'Thinking of the fields,' the turnkey said once, after watching her,\n'ain't you?'\n\n'Where are they?' she inquired.\n\n'Why, they're--over there, my dear,' said the turnkey, with a vague\nflourish of his key. 'Just about there.'\n\n'Does anybody open them, and shut them? Are they locked?'\n\nThe turnkey was discomfited. 'Well,' he said. 'Not in general.'\n\n'Are they very pretty, Bob?' She called him Bob, by his own particular\nrequest and instruction.\n\n'Lovely. Full of flowers. There's buttercups, and there's daisies,\nand there's'--the turnkey hesitated, being short of floral\nnomenclature--'there's dandelions, and all manner of games.'\n\n'Is it very pleasant to be there, Bob?'\n\n'Prime,' said the turnkey.\n\n'Was father ever there?'\n\n'Hem!' coughed the turnkey. 'O yes, he was there, sometimes.'\n\n'Is he sorry not to be there now?'\n\n'N-not particular,' said the turnkey.\n\n'Nor any of the people?' she asked, glancing at the listless crowd\nwithin. 'O are you quite sure and certain, Bob?'\n\nAt this difficult point of the conversation Bob gave in, and changed the\nsubject to hard-bake: always his last resource when he found his little\nfriend getting him into a political, social, or theological corner.\nBut this was the origin of a series of Sunday excursions that these two\ncurious companions made together. They used to issue from the lodge on\nalternate Sunday afternoons with great gravity, bound for some meadows\nor green lanes that had been elaborately appointed by the turnkey in\nthe course of the week; and there she picked grass and flowers to bring\nhome, while he smoked his pipe. Afterwards, there were tea-gardens,\nshrimps, ale, and other delicacies; and then they would come back hand\nin hand, unless she was more than usually tired, and had fallen asleep\non his shoulder.\n\nIn those early days, the turnkey first began profoundly to consider\na question which cost him so much mental labour, that it remained\nundetermined on the day of his death. He decided to will and bequeath\nhis little property of savings to his godchild, and the point arose how\ncould it be so 'tied up' as that only she should have the benefit of\nit? His experience on the lock gave him such an acute perception of the\nenormous difficulty of 'tying up' money with any approach to tightness,\nand contrariwise of the remarkable ease with which it got loose, that\nthrough a series of years he regularly propounded this knotty point to\nevery new insolvent agent and other professional gentleman who passed in\nand out.\n\n'Supposing,' he would say, stating the case with his key on the\nprofessional gentleman's waistcoat; 'supposing a man wanted to leave his\nproperty to a young female, and wanted to tie it up so that nobody else\nshould ever be able to make a grab at it; how would you tie up that\nproperty?'\n\n'Settle it strictly on herself,' the professional gentleman would\ncomplacently answer.\n\n'But look here,' quoth the turnkey. 'Supposing she had, say a brother,\nsay a father, say a husband, who would be likely to make a grab at that\nproperty when she came into it--how about that?'\n\n'It would be settled on herself, and they would have no more legal claim\non it than you,' would be the professional answer.\n\n'Stop a bit,' said the turnkey. 'Supposing she was tender-hearted, and\nthey came over her. Where's your law for tying it up then?'\n\nThe deepest character whom the turnkey sounded, was unable to produce\nhis law for tying such a knot as that. So, the turnkey thought about it\nall his life, and died intestate after all.\n\nBut that was long afterwards, when his god-daughter was past sixteen.\nThe first half of that space of her life was only just accomplished,\nwhen her pitiful and plaintive look saw her father a widower. From that\ntime the protection that her wondering eyes had expressed towards him,\nbecame embodied in action, and the Child of the Marshalsea took upon\nherself a new relation towards the Father.\n\nAt first, such a baby could do little more than sit with him, deserting\nher livelier place by the high fender, and quietly watching him. But\nthis made her so far necessary to him that he became accustomed to her,\nand began to be sensible of missing her when she was not there. Through\nthis little gate, she passed out of childhood into the care-laden world.\n\nWhat her pitiful look saw, at that early time, in her father, in her\nsister, in her brother, in the jail; how much, or how little of the\nwretched truth it pleased God to make visible to her; lies hidden with\nmany mysteries. It is enough that she was inspired to be something which\nwas not what the rest were, and to be that something, different and\nlaborious, for the sake of the rest. Inspired? Yes. Shall we speak of\nthe inspiration of a poet or a priest, and not of the heart impelled by\nlove and self-devotion to the lowliest work in the lowliest way of life!\n\nWith no earthly friend to help her, or so much as to see her, but the\none so strangely assorted; with no knowledge even of the common daily\ntone and habits of the common members of the free community who are not\nshut up in prisons; born and bred in a social condition, false even with\na reference to the falsest condition outside the walls; drinking from\ninfancy of a well whose waters had their own peculiar stain, their own\nunwholesome and unnatural taste; the Child of the Marshalsea began her\nwomanly life.\n\nNo matter through what mistakes and discouragements, what ridicule (not\nunkindly meant, but deeply felt) of her youth and little figure, what\nhumble consciousness of her own babyhood and want of strength, even\nin the matter of lifting and carrying; through how much weariness\nand hopelessness, and how many secret tears; she drudged on, until\nrecognised as useful, even indispensable. That time came. She took the\nplace of eldest of the three, in all things but precedence; was the\nhead of the fallen family; and bore, in her own heart, its anxieties and\nshames.\n\nAt thirteen, she could read and keep accounts, that is, could put down\nin words and figures how much the bare necessaries that they wanted\nwould cost, and how much less they had to buy them with. She had been,\nby snatches of a few weeks at a time, to an evening school outside,\nand got her sister and brother sent to day-schools by desultory starts,\nduring three or four years. There was no instruction for any of them at\nhome; but she knew well--no one better--that a man so broken as to be\nthe Father of the Marshalsea, could be no father to his own children.\n\nTo these scanty means of improvement, she added another of her own\ncontriving. Once, among the heterogeneous crowd of inmates there\nappeared a dancing-master. Her sister had a great desire to learn the\ndancing-master's art, and seemed to have a taste that way. At thirteen\nyears old, the Child of the Marshalsea presented herself to the\ndancing-master, with a little bag in her hand, and preferred her humble\npetition.\n\n'If you please, I was born here, sir.'\n\n'Oh! You are the young lady, are you?' said the dancing-master,\nsurveying the small figure and uplifted face.\n\n'Yes, sir.'\n\n'And what can I do for you?' said the dancing-master.\n\n'Nothing for me, sir, thank you,' anxiously undrawing the strings of\nthe little bag; 'but if, while you stay here, you could be so kind as to\nteach my sister cheap--'\n\n'My child, I'll teach her for nothing,' said the dancing-master,\nshutting up the bag. He was as good-natured a dancing-master as ever\ndanced to the Insolvent Court, and he kept his word. The sister was so\napt a pupil, and the dancing-master had such abundant leisure to bestow\nupon her (for it took him a matter of ten weeks to set to his creditors,\nlead off, turn the Commissioners, and right and left back to his\nprofessional pursuits), that wonderful progress was made. Indeed the\ndancing-master was so proud of it, and so wishful to display it before\nhe left to a few select friends among the collegians, that at six\no'clock on a certain fine morning, a minuet de la cour came off in\nthe yard--the college-rooms being of too confined proportions for the\npurpose--in which so much ground was covered, and the steps were so\nconscientiously executed, that the dancing-master, having to play the\nkit besides, was thoroughly blown.\n\nThe success of this beginning, which led to the dancing-master's\ncontinuing his instruction after his release, emboldened the poor child\nto try again. She watched and waited months for a seamstress. In the\nfulness of time a milliner came in, and to her she repaired on her own\nbehalf.\n\n'I beg your pardon, ma'am,' she said, looking timidly round the door of\nthe milliner, whom she found in tears and in bed: 'but I was born here.'\n\nEverybody seemed to hear of her as soon as they arrived; for the\nmilliner sat up in bed, drying her eyes, and said, just as the\ndancing-master had said:\n\n'Oh! _You_ are the child, are you?'\n\n'Yes, ma'am.'\n\n'I am sorry I haven't got anything for you,' said the milliner, shaking\nher head.\n\n'It's not that, ma'am. If you please I want to learn needle-work.'\n\n'Why should you do that,' returned the milliner, 'with me before you? It\nhas not done me much good.'\n\n'Nothing--whatever it is--seems to have done anybody much good who comes\nhere,' she returned in all simplicity; 'but I want to learn just the\nsame.'\n\n'I am afraid you are so weak, you see,' the milliner objected.\n\n'I don't think I am weak, ma'am.'\n\n'And you are so very, very little, you see,' the milliner objected.\n\n'Yes, I am afraid I am very little indeed,' returned the Child of the\nMarshalsea; and so began to sob over that unfortunate defect of hers,\nwhich came so often in her way. The milliner--who was not morose or\nhard-hearted, only newly insolvent--was touched, took her in hand with\ngoodwill, found her the most patient and earnest of pupils, and made her\na cunning work-woman in course of time.\n\nIn course of time, and in the very self-same course of time, the Father\nof the Marshalsea gradually developed a new flower of character. The\nmore Fatherly he grew as to the Marshalsea, and the more dependent he\nbecame on the contributions of his changing family, the greater stand\nhe made by his forlorn gentility. With the same hand that he pocketed\na collegian's half-crown half an hour ago, he would wipe away the\ntears that streamed over his cheeks if any reference were made to his\ndaughters' earning their bread. So, over and above other daily cares,\nthe Child of the Marshalsea had always upon her the care of preserving\nthe genteel fiction that they were all idle beggars together.\n\nThe sister became a dancer. There was a ruined uncle in the family\ngroup--ruined by his brother, the Father of the Marshalsea, and knowing\nno more how than his ruiner did, but accepting the fact as an inevitable\ncertainty--on whom her protection devolved. Naturally a retired and\nsimple man, he had shown no particular sense of being ruined at the time\nwhen that calamity fell upon him, further than that he left off washing\nhimself when the shock was announced, and never took to that luxury any\nmore. He had been a very indifferent musical amateur in his better days;\nand when he fell with his brother, resorted for support to playing a\nclarionet as dirty as himself in a small Theatre Orchestra. It was the\ntheatre in which his niece became a dancer; he had been a fixture there\na long time when she took her poor station in it; and he accepted\nthe task of serving as her escort and guardian, just as he would have\naccepted an illness, a legacy, a feast, starvation--anything but soap.\n\nTo enable this girl to earn her few weekly shillings, it was necessary\nfor the Child of the Marshalsea to go through an elaborate form with the\nFather.\n\n'Fanny is not going to live with us just now, father. She will be here a\ngood deal in the day, but she is going to live outside with uncle.'\n\n'You surprise me. Why?'\n\n'I think uncle wants a companion, father. He should be attended to, and\nlooked after.'\n\n'A companion? He passes much of his time here. And you attend to him and\nlook after him, Amy, a great deal more than ever your sister will. You\nall go out so much; you all go out so much.'\n\nThis was to keep up the ceremony and pretence of his having no idea that\nAmy herself went out by the day to work.\n\n'But we are always glad to come home, father; now, are we not? And as to\nFanny, perhaps besides keeping uncle company and taking care of him, it\nmay be as well for her not quite to live here, always. She was not born\nhere as I was, you know, father.'\n\n'Well, Amy, well. I don't quite follow you, but it's natural I suppose\nthat Fanny should prefer to be outside, and even that you often should,\ntoo. So, you and Fanny and your uncle, my dear, shall have your own way.\nGood, good. I'll not meddle; don't mind me.'\n\nTo get her brother out of the prison; out of the succession to Mrs\nBangham in executing commissions, and out of the slang interchange with\nvery doubtful companions consequent upon both; was her hardest task. At\neighteen he would have dragged on from hand to mouth, from hour to hour,\nfrom penny to penny, until eighty. Nobody got into the prison from whom\nhe derived anything useful or good, and she could find no patron for him\nbut her old friend and godfather.\n\n'Dear Bob,' said she, 'what is to become of poor Tip?' His name was\nEdward, and Ted had been transformed into Tip, within the walls.\n\nThe turnkey had strong private opinions as to what would become of\npoor Tip, and had even gone so far with the view of averting their\nfulfilment, as to sound Tip in reference to the expediency of running\naway and going to serve his country. But Tip had thanked him, and said\nhe didn't seem to care for his country.\n\n'Well, my dear,' said the turnkey, 'something ought to be done with him.\nSuppose I try and get him into the law?'\n\n'That would be so good of you, Bob!'\n\nThe turnkey had now two points to put to the professional gentlemen as\nthey passed in and out. He put this second one so perseveringly that\na stool and twelve shillings a week were at last found for Tip in the\noffice of an attorney in a great National Palladium called the Palace\nCourt; at that time one of a considerable list of everlasting bulwarks\nto the dignity and safety of Albion, whose places know them no more.\n\nTip languished in Clifford's Inns for six months, and at the expiration\nof that term sauntered back one evening with his hands in his pockets,\nand incidentally observed to his sister that he was not going back\nagain.\n\n'Not going back again?' said the poor little anxious Child of the\nMarshalsea, always calculating and planning for Tip, in the front rank\nof her charges.\n\n'I am so tired of it,' said Tip, 'that I have cut it.'\n\nTip tired of everything. With intervals of Marshalsea lounging, and Mrs\nBangham succession, his small second mother, aided by her trusty friend,\ngot him into a warehouse, into a market garden, into the hop trade,\ninto the law again, into an auctioneers, into a brewery, into a\nstockbroker's, into the law again, into a coach office, into a waggon\noffice, into the law again, into a general dealer's, into a distillery,\ninto the law again, into a wool house, into a dry goods house, into the\nBillingsgate trade, into the foreign fruit trade, and into the docks.\nBut whatever Tip went into, he came out of tired, announcing that he\nhad cut it. Wherever he went, this foredoomed Tip appeared to take the\nprison walls with him, and to set them up in such trade or calling;\nand to prowl about within their narrow limits in the old slip-shod,\npurposeless, down-at-heel way; until the real immovable Marshalsea walls\nasserted their fascination over him, and brought him back.\n\nNevertheless, the brave little creature did so fix her heart on her\nbrother's rescue, that while he was ringing out these doleful changes,\nshe pinched and scraped enough together to ship him for Canada. When he\nwas tired of nothing to do, and disposed in its turn to cut even that,\nhe graciously consented to go to Canada. And there was grief in her\nbosom over parting with him, and joy in the hope of his being put in a\nstraight course at last.\n\n'God bless you, dear Tip. Don't be too proud to come and see us, when\nyou have made your fortune.'\n\n'All right!' said Tip, and went.\n\nBut not all the way to Canada; in fact, not further than Liverpool.\nAfter making the voyage to that port from London, he found himself\nso strongly impelled to cut the vessel, that he resolved to walk back\nagain. Carrying out which intention, he presented himself before her at\nthe expiration of a month, in rags, without shoes, and much more tired\nthan ever.\n\nAt length, after another interval of successorship to Mrs Bangham, he\nfound a pursuit for himself, and announced it.\n\n'Amy, I have got a situation.'\n\n'Have you really and truly, Tip?'\n\n'All right. I shall do now. You needn't look anxious about me any more,\nold girl.'\n\n'What is it, Tip?'\n\n'Why, you know Slingo by sight?'\n\n'Not the man they call the dealer?'\n\n'That's the chap. He'll be out on Monday, and he's going to give me a\nberth.'\n\n'What is he a dealer in, Tip?'\n\n'Horses. All right! I shall do now, Amy.'\n\nShe lost sight of him for months afterwards, and only heard from him\nonce. A whisper passed among the elder collegians that he had been seen\nat a mock auction in Moorfields, pretending to buy plated articles for\nmassive silver, and paying for them with the greatest liberality in\nbank notes; but it never reached her ears. One evening she was alone at\nwork--standing up at the window, to save the twilight lingering above\nthe wall--when he opened the door and walked in.\n\nShe kissed and welcomed him; but was afraid to ask him any questions. He\nsaw how anxious and timid she was, and appeared sorry.\n\n'I am afraid, Amy, you'll be vexed this time. Upon my life I am!'\n\n'I am very sorry to hear you say so, Tip. Have you come back?'\n\n'Why--yes.'\n\n'Not expecting this time that what you had found would answer very well,\nI am less surprised and sorry than I might have been, Tip.'\n\n'Ah! But that's not the worst of it.'\n\n'Not the worst of it?'\n\n'Don't look so startled. No, Amy, not the worst of it. I have come back,\nyou see; but--_don't_ look so startled--I have come back in what I may\ncall a new way. I am off the volunteer list altogether. I am in now, as\none of the regulars.'\n\n'Oh! Don't say you are a prisoner, Tip! Don't, don't!'\n\n'Well, I don't want to say it,' he returned in a reluctant tone; 'but if\nyou can't understand me without my saying it, what am I to do? I am in\nfor forty pound odd.'\n\nFor the first time in all those years, she sunk under her cares. She\ncried, with her clasped hands lifted above her head, that it would kill\ntheir father if he ever knew it; and fell down at Tip's graceless feet.\n\nIt was easier for Tip to bring her to her senses than for her to bring\n_him_ to understand that the Father of the Marshalsea would be beside\nhimself if he knew the truth. The thing was incomprehensible to Tip, and\naltogether a fanciful notion. He yielded to it in that light only, when\nhe submitted to her entreaties, backed by those of his uncle and sister.\nThere was no want of precedent for his return; it was accounted for\nto the father in the usual way; and the collegians, with a better\ncomprehension of the pious fraud than Tip, supported it loyally.\n\nThis was the life, and this the history, of the child of the Marshalsea\nat twenty-two. With a still surviving attachment to the one miserable\nyard and block of houses as her birthplace and home, she passed to and\nfro in it shrinkingly now, with a womanly consciousness that she was\npointed out to every one. Since she had begun to work beyond the walls,\nshe had found it necessary to conceal where she lived, and to come and\ngo as secretly as she could, between the free city and the iron gates,\noutside of which she had never slept in her life. Her original timidity\nhad grown with this concealment, and her light step and her little\nfigure shunned the thronged streets while they passed along them.\n\nWorldly wise in hard and poor necessities, she was innocent in all\nthings else. Innocent, in the mist through which she saw her father,\nand the prison, and the turbid living river that flowed through it and\nflowed on.\n\nThis was the life, and this the history, of Little Dorrit; now going\nhome upon a dull September evening, observed at a distance by Arthur\nClennam. This was the life, and this the history, of Little Dorrit;\nturning at the end of London Bridge, recrossing it, going back again,\npassing on to Saint George's Church, turning back suddenly once more,\nand flitting in at the open outer gate and little court-yard of the\nMarshalsea.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 8. The Lock\n\n\nArthur Clennam stood in the street, waiting to ask some passer-by what\nplace that was. He suffered a few people to pass him in whose face there\nwas no encouragement to make the inquiry, and still stood pausing in the\nstreet, when an old man came up and turned into the courtyard.\n\nHe stooped a good deal, and plodded along in a slow pre-occupied manner,\nwhich made the bustling London thoroughfares no very safe resort for\nhim. He was dirtily and meanly dressed, in a threadbare coat, once blue,\nreaching to his ankles and buttoned to his chin, where it vanished in\nthe pale ghost of a velvet collar. A piece of red cloth with which that\nphantom had been stiffened in its lifetime was now laid bare, and poked\nitself up, at the back of the old man's neck, into a confusion of grey\nhair and rusty stock and buckle which altogether nearly poked his\nhat off. A greasy hat it was, and a napless; impending over his eyes,\ncracked and crumpled at the brim, and with a wisp of pocket-handkerchief\ndangling out below it. His trousers were so long and loose, and his\nshoes so clumsy and large, that he shuffled like an elephant; though how\nmuch of this was gait, and how much trailing cloth and leather, no one\ncould have told. Under one arm he carried a limp and worn-out case,\ncontaining some wind instrument; in the same hand he had a pennyworth\nof snuff in a little packet of whitey-brown paper, from which he slowly\ncomforted his poor blue old nose with a lengthened-out pinch, as Arthur\nClennam looked at him.\n\nTo this old man crossing the court-yard, he preferred his inquiry,\ntouching him on the shoulder. The old man stopped and looked round, with\nthe expression in his weak grey eyes of one whose thoughts had been far\noff, and who was a little dull of hearing also.\n\n'Pray, sir,' said Arthur, repeating his question, 'what is this place?'\n\n'Ay! This place?' returned the old man, staying his pinch of snuff on\nits road, and pointing at the place without looking at it. 'This is the\nMarshalsea, sir.'\n\n'The debtors' prison?'\n\n'Sir,' said the old man, with the air of deeming it not quite necessary\nto insist upon that designation, 'the debtors' prison.'\n\nHe turned himself about, and went on.\n\n'I beg your pardon,' said Arthur, stopping him once more, 'but will you\nallow me to ask you another question? Can any one go in here?'\n\n'Any one can _go in_,' replied the old man; plainly adding by the\nsignificance of his emphasis, 'but it is not every one who can go out.'\n\n'Pardon me once more. Are you familiar with the place?'\n\n'Sir,' returned the old man, squeezing his little packet of snuff in his\nhand, and turning upon his interrogator as if such questions hurt him.\n'I am.'\n\n'I beg you to excuse me. I am not impertinently curious, but have a good\nobject. Do you know the name of Dorrit here?'\n\n'My name, sir,' replied the old man most unexpectedly, 'is Dorrit.'\n\nArthur pulled off his hat to him. 'Grant me the favour of half-a-dozen\nwords. I was wholly unprepared for your announcement, and hope that\nassurance is my sufficient apology for having taken the liberty of\naddressing you. I have recently come home to England after a long\nabsence. I have seen at my mother's--Mrs Clennam in the city--a young\nwoman working at her needle, whom I have only heard addressed or spoken\nof as Little Dorrit. I have felt sincerely interested in her, and have\nhad a great desire to know something more about her. I saw her, not a\nminute before you came up, pass in at that door.'\n\nThe old man looked at him attentively. 'Are you a sailor, sir?' he\nasked. He seemed a little disappointed by the shake of the head that\nreplied to him. 'Not a sailor? I judged from your sunburnt face that you\nmight be. Are you in earnest, sir?'\n\n'I do assure you that I am, and do entreat you to believe that I am, in\nplain earnest.'\n\n'I know very little of the world, sir,' returned the other, who had a\nweak and quavering voice. 'I am merely passing on, like the shadow over\nthe sun-dial. It would be worth no man's while to mislead me; it would\nreally be too easy--too poor a success, to yield any satisfaction. The\nyoung woman whom you saw go in here is my brother's child. My brother\nis William Dorrit; I am Frederick. You say you have seen her at your\nmother's (I know your mother befriends her), you have felt an interest\nin her, and you wish to know what she does here. Come and see.'\n\nHe went on again, and Arthur accompanied him.\n\n'My brother,' said the old man, pausing on the step and slowly facing\nround again, 'has been here many years; and much that happens even among\nourselves, out of doors, is kept from him for reasons that I needn't\nenter upon now. Be so good as to say nothing of my niece's working at\nher needle. Be so good as to say nothing that goes beyond what is said\namong us. If you keep within our bounds, you cannot well be wrong. Now!\nCome and see.'\n\nArthur followed him down a narrow entry, at the end of which a key was\nturned, and a strong door was opened from within. It admitted them into\na lodge or lobby, across which they passed, and so through another door\nand a grating into the prison. The old man always plodding on before,\nturned round, in his slow, stiff, stooping manner, when they came to the\nturnkey on duty, as if to present his companion. The turnkey nodded; and\nthe companion passed in without being asked whom he wanted.\n\nThe night was dark; and the prison lamps in the yard, and the candles in\nthe prison windows faintly shining behind many sorts of wry old curtain\nand blind, had not the air of making it lighter. A few people loitered\nabout, but the greater part of the population was within doors. The old\nman, taking the right-hand side of the yard, turned in at the third or\nfourth doorway, and began to ascend the stairs. 'They are rather dark,\nsir, but you will not find anything in the way.'\n\nHe paused for a moment before opening a door on the second story. He had\nno sooner turned the handle than the visitor saw Little Dorrit, and saw\nthe reason of her setting so much store by dining alone.\n\nShe had brought the meat home that she should have eaten herself, and\nwas already warming it on a gridiron over the fire for her father, clad\nin an old grey gown and a black cap, awaiting his supper at the table.\nA clean cloth was spread before him, with knife, fork, and spoon,\nsalt-cellar, pepper-box, glass, and pewter ale-pot. Such zests as his\nparticular little phial of cayenne pepper and his pennyworth of pickles\nin a saucer, were not wanting.\n\nShe started, coloured deeply, and turned white. The visitor, more with\nhis eyes than by the slight impulsive motion of his hand, entreated her\nto be reassured and to trust him.\n\n'I found this gentleman,' said the uncle--'Mr Clennam, William, son of\nAmy's friend--at the outer gate, wishful, as he was going by, of paying\nhis respects, but hesitating whether to come in or not. This is my\nbrother William, sir.'\n\n'I hope,' said Arthur, very doubtful what to say, 'that my respect for\nyour daughter may explain and justify my desire to be presented to you,\nsir.'\n\n'Mr Clennam,' returned the other, rising, taking his cap off in the\nflat of his hand, and so holding it, ready to put on again, 'you do me\nhonour. You are welcome, sir;' with a low bow. 'Frederick, a chair. Pray\nsit down, Mr Clennam.'\n\nHe put his black cap on again as he had taken it off, and resumed his\nown seat. There was a wonderful air of benignity and patronage in his\nmanner. These were the ceremonies with which he received the collegians.\n\n'You are welcome to the Marshalsea, sir. I have welcomed many gentlemen\nto these walls. Perhaps you are aware--my daughter Amy may have\nmentioned that I am the Father of this place.'\n\n'I--so I have understood,' said Arthur, dashing at the assertion.\n\n'You know, I dare say, that my daughter Amy was born here. A good girl,\nsir, a dear girl, and long a comfort and support to me. Amy, my dear,\nput this dish on; Mr Clennam will excuse the primitive customs to which\nwe are reduced here. Is it a compliment to ask you if you would do me\nthe honour, sir, to--'\n\n'Thank you,' returned Arthur. 'Not a morsel.'\n\nHe felt himself quite lost in wonder at the manner of the man, and that\nthe probability of his daughter's having had a reserve as to her family\nhistory, should be so far out of his mind.\n\nShe filled his glass, put all the little matters on the table ready to\nhis hand, and then sat beside him while he ate his supper. Evidently in\nobservance of their nightly custom, she put some bread before herself,\nand touched his glass with her lips; but Arthur saw she was troubled\nand took nothing. Her look at her father, half admiring him and proud\nof him, half ashamed for him, all devoted and loving, went to his inmost\nheart.\n\nThe Father of the Marshalsea condescended towards his brother as an\namiable, well-meaning man; a private character, who had not arrived at\ndistinction. 'Frederick,' said he, 'you and Fanny sup at your lodgings\nto-night, I know. What have you done with Fanny, Frederick?'\n\n'She is walking with Tip.'\n\n'Tip--as you may know--is my son, Mr Clennam. He has been a little\nwild, and difficult to settle, but his introduction to the world was\nrather'--he shrugged his shoulders with a faint sigh, and looked round\nthe room--'a little adverse. Your first visit here, sir?'\n\n'My first.'\n\n'You could hardly have been here since your boyhood without my\nknowledge. It very seldom happens that anybody--of any pretensions--any\npretensions--comes here without being presented to me.'\n\n'As many as forty or fifty in a day have been introduced to my brother,'\nsaid Frederick, faintly lighting up with a ray of pride.\n\n'Yes!' the Father of the Marshalsea assented. 'We have even exceeded\nthat number. On a fine Sunday in term time, it is quite a Levee--quite\na Levee. Amy, my dear, I have been trying half the day to remember the\nname of the gentleman from Camberwell who was introduced to me last\nChristmas week by that agreeable coal-merchant who was remanded for six\nmonths.'\n\n'I don't remember his name, father.'\n\n'Frederick, do _you_ remember his name?'\n\nFrederick doubted if he had ever heard it. No one could doubt that\nFrederick was the last person upon earth to put such a question to, with\nany hope of information.\n\n'I mean,' said his brother, 'the gentleman who did that handsome action\nwith so much delicacy. Ha! Tush! The name has quite escaped me. Mr\nClennam, as I have happened to mention handsome and delicate action, you\nmay like, perhaps, to know what it was.'\n\n'Very much,' said Arthur, withdrawing his eyes from the delicate head\nbeginning to droop and the pale face with a new solicitude stealing over\nit.\n\n'It is so generous, and shows so much fine feeling, that it is almost a\nduty to mention it. I said at the time that I always would mention it\non every suitable occasion, without regard to personal sensitiveness.\nA--well--a--it's of no use to disguise the fact--you must know, Mr\nClennam, that it does sometimes occur that people who come here desire\nto offer some little--Testimonial--to the Father of the place.'\n\nTo see her hand upon his arm in mute entreaty half-repressed, and her\ntimid little shrinking figure turning away, was to see a sad, sad sight.\n\n'Sometimes,' he went on in a low, soft voice, agitated, and clearing\nhis throat every now and then; 'sometimes--hem--it takes one shape and\nsometimes another; but it is generally--ha--Money. And it is, I cannot\nbut confess it, it is too often--hem--acceptable. This gentleman that I\nrefer to, was presented to me, Mr Clennam, in a manner highly gratifying\nto my feelings, and conversed not only with great politeness, but with\ngreat--ahem--information.' All this time, though he had finished his\nsupper, he was nervously going about his plate with his knife and\nfork, as if some of it were still before him. 'It appeared from his\nconversation that he had a garden, though he was delicate of mentioning\nit at first, as gardens are--hem--are not accessible to me. But it came\nout, through my admiring a very fine cluster of geranium--beautiful\ncluster of geranium to be sure--which he had brought from his\nconservatory. On my taking notice of its rich colour, he showed me a\npiece of paper round it, on which was written, \"For the Father of the\nMarshalsea,\" and presented it to me. But this was--hem--not all. He made\na particular request, on taking leave, that I would remove the paper in\nhalf an hour. I--ha--I did so; and I found that it contained--ahem--two\nguineas. I assure you, Mr Clennam, I have received--hem--Testimonials\nin many ways, and of many degrees of value, and they have always\nbeen--ha--unfortunately acceptable; but I never was more pleased than\nwith this--ahem--this particular Testimonial.'\n\nArthur was in the act of saying the little he could say on such a theme,\nwhen a bell began to ring, and footsteps approached the door. A pretty\ngirl of a far better figure and much more developed than Little Dorrit,\nthough looking much younger in the face when the two were observed\ntogether, stopped in the doorway on seeing a stranger; and a young man\nwho was with her, stopped too.\n\n'Mr Clennam, Fanny. My eldest daughter and my son, Mr Clennam. The bell\nis a signal for visitors to retire, and so they have come to say good\nnight; but there is plenty of time, plenty of time. Girls, Mr Clennam\nwill excuse any household business you may have together. He knows, I\ndare say, that I have but one room here.'\n\n'I only want my clean dress from Amy, father,' said the second girl.\n\n'And I my clothes,' said Tip.\n\nAmy opened a drawer in an old piece of furniture that was a chest of\ndrawers above and a bedstead below, and produced two little bundles,\nwhich she handed to her brother and sister. 'Mended and made up?'\nClennam heard the sister ask in a whisper. To which Amy answered 'Yes.'\nHe had risen now, and took the opportunity of glancing round the room.\nThe bare walls had been coloured green, evidently by an unskilled hand,\nand were poorly decorated with a few prints. The window was curtained,\nand the floor carpeted; and there were shelves and pegs, and other such\nconveniences, that had accumulated in the course of years. It was a\nclose, confined room, poorly furnished; and the chimney smoked to boot,\nor the tin screen at the top of the fireplace was superfluous; but\nconstant pains and care had made it neat, and even, after its kind,\ncomfortable.\n\nAll the while the bell was ringing, and the uncle was anxious to go.\n'Come, Fanny, come, Fanny,' he said, with his ragged clarionet case\nunder his arm; 'the lock, child, the lock!'\n\nFanny bade her father good night, and whisked off airily. Tip had\nalready clattered down-stairs. 'Now, Mr Clennam,' said the uncle,\nlooking back as he shuffled out after them, 'the lock, sir, the lock.'\n\nMr Clennam had two things to do before he followed; one, to offer his\ntestimonial to the Father of the Marshalsea, without giving pain to his\nchild; the other to say something to that child, though it were but a\nword, in explanation of his having come there.\n\n'Allow me,' said the Father, 'to see you down-stairs.'\n\nShe had slipped out after the rest, and they were alone. 'Not on any\naccount,' said the visitor, hurriedly. 'Pray allow me to--' chink,\nchink, chink.\n\n'Mr Clennam,' said the Father, 'I am deeply, deeply--' But his visitor\nhad shut up his hand to stop the clinking, and had gone down-stairs with\ngreat speed.\n\nHe saw no Little Dorrit on his way down, or in the yard. The last two or\nthree stragglers were hurrying to the lodge, and he was following,\nwhen he caught sight of her in the doorway of the first house from the\nentrance. He turned back hastily.\n\n'Pray forgive me,' he said, 'for speaking to you here; pray forgive me\nfor coming here at all! I followed you to-night. I did so, that I might\nendeavour to render you and your family some service. You know the\nterms on which I and my mother are, and may not be surprised that I\nhave preserved our distant relations at her house, lest I should\nunintentionally make her jealous, or resentful, or do you any injury in\nher estimation. What I have seen here, in this short time, has greatly\nincreased my heartfelt wish to be a friend to you. It would recompense\nme for much disappointment if I could hope to gain your confidence.'\n\nShe was scared at first, but seemed to take courage while he spoke to\nher.\n\n'You are very good, sir. You speak very earnestly to me. But I--but I\nwish you had not watched me.'\n\nHe understood the emotion with which she said it, to arise in her\nfather's behalf; and he respected it, and was silent.\n\n'Mrs Clennam has been of great service to me; I don't know what we\nshould have done without the employment she has given me; I am afraid\nit may not be a good return to become secret with her; I can say no more\nto-night, sir. I am sure you mean to be kind to us. Thank you, thank\nyou.'\n\n'Let me ask you one question before I leave. Have you known my mother\nlong?'\n\n'I think two years, sir,--The bell has stopped.'\n\n'How did you know her first? Did she send here for you?'\n\n'No. She does not even know that I live here. We have a friend, father\nand I--a poor labouring man, but the best of friends--and I wrote out\nthat I wished to do needlework, and gave his address. And he got what\nI wrote out displayed at a few places where it cost nothing, and Mrs\nClennam found me that way, and sent for me. The gate will be locked,\nsir!'\n\nShe was so tremulous and agitated, and he was so moved by compassion for\nher, and by deep interest in her story as it dawned upon him, that he\ncould scarcely tear himself away. But the stoppage of the bell, and the\nquiet in the prison, were a warning to depart; and with a few hurried\nwords of kindness he left her gliding back to her father.\n\nBut he remained too late. The inner gate was locked, and the lodge\nclosed. After a little fruitless knocking with his hand, he was standing\nthere with the disagreeable conviction upon him that he had got to get\nthrough the night, when a voice accosted him from behind.\n\n'Caught, eh?' said the voice. 'You won't go home till morning. Oh! It's\nyou, is it, Mr Clennam?'\n\nThe voice was Tip's; and they stood looking at one another in the\nprison-yard, as it began to rain.\n\n'You've done it,' observed Tip; 'you must be sharper than that next\ntime.'\n\n'But you are locked in too,' said Arthur.\n\n'I believe I am!' said Tip, sarcastically. 'About! But not in your way.\nI belong to the shop, only my sister has a theory that our governor must\nnever know it. I don't see why, myself.'\n\n'Can I get any shelter?' asked Arthur. 'What had I better do?'\n\n'We had better get hold of Amy first of all,' said Tip, referring any\ndifficulty to her as a matter of course.\n\n'I would rather walk about all night--it's not much to do--than give\nthat trouble.'\n\n'You needn't do that, if you don't mind paying for a bed. If you don't\nmind paying, they'll make you up one on the Snuggery table, under the\ncircumstances. If you'll come along, I'll introduce you there.'\n\nAs they passed down the yard, Arthur looked up at the window of the room\nhe had lately left, where the light was still burning. 'Yes, sir,' said\nTip, following his glance. 'That's the governor's. She'll sit with him\nfor another hour reading yesterday's paper to him, or something of that\nsort; and then she'll come out like a little ghost, and vanish away\nwithout a sound.'\n\n'I don't understand you.'\n\n'The governor sleeps up in the room, and she has a lodging at the\nturnkey's. First house there,' said Tip, pointing out the doorway into\nwhich she had retired. 'First house, sky parlour. She pays twice as much\nfor it as she would for one twice as good outside. But she stands by the\ngovernor, poor dear girl, day and night.'\n\nThis brought them to the tavern-establishment at the upper end of the\nprison, where the collegians had just vacated their social evening club.\nThe apartment on the ground-floor in which it was held, was the Snuggery\nin question; the presidential tribune of the chairman, the pewter-pots,\nglasses, pipes, tobacco-ashes, and general flavour of members, were\nstill as that convivial institution had left them on its adjournment.\nThe Snuggery had two of the qualities popularly held to be essential to\ngrog for ladies, in respect that it was hot and strong; but in the third\npoint of analogy, requiring plenty of it, the Snuggery was defective;\nbeing but a cooped-up apartment.\n\nThe unaccustomed visitor from outside, naturally assumed everybody here\nto be prisoners--landlord, waiter, barmaid, potboy, and all. Whether\nthey were or not, did not appear; but they all had a weedy look. The\nkeeper of a chandler's shop in a front parlour, who took in gentlemen\nboarders, lent his assistance in making the bed. He had been a tailor in\nhis time, and had kept a phaeton, he said. He boasted that he stood up\nlitigiously for the interests of the college; and he had undefined and\nundefinable ideas that the marshal intercepted a 'Fund,' which ought to\ncome to the collegians. He liked to believe this, and always impressed\nthe shadowy grievance on new-comers and strangers; though he could not,\nfor his life, have explained what Fund he meant, or how the notion had\ngot rooted in his soul. He had fully convinced himself, notwithstanding,\nthat his own proper share of the Fund was three and ninepence a week;\nand that in this amount he, as an individual collegian, was swindled by\nthe marshal, regularly every Monday. Apparently, he helped to make the\nbed, that he might not lose an opportunity of stating this case; after\nwhich unloading of his mind, and after announcing (as it seemed he\nalways did, without anything coming of it) that he was going to write a\nletter to the papers and show the marshal up, he fell into miscellaneous\nconversation with the rest. It was evident from the general tone of the\nwhole party, that they had come to regard insolvency as the normal state\nof mankind, and the payment of debts as a disease that occasionally\nbroke out.\n\nIn this strange scene, and with these strange spectres flitting about\nhim, Arthur Clennam looked on at the preparations as if they were part\nof a dream. Pending which, the long-initiated Tip, with an awful\nenjoyment of the Snuggery's resources, pointed out the common kitchen\nfire maintained by subscription of collegians, the boiler for hot water\nsupported in like manner, and other premises generally tending to the\ndeduction that the way to be healthy, wealthy, and wise, was to come to\nthe Marshalsea.\n\nThe two tables put together in a corner, were, at length, converted into\na very fair bed; and the stranger was left to the Windsor chairs,\nthe presidential tribune, the beery atmosphere, sawdust, pipe-lights,\nspittoons and repose. But the last item was long, long, long, in linking\nitself to the rest. The novelty of the place, the coming upon it without\npreparation, the sense of being locked up, the remembrance of that room\nup-stairs, of the two brothers, and above all of the retiring childish\nform, and the face in which he now saw years of insufficient food, if\nnot of want, kept him waking and unhappy.\n\nSpeculations, too, bearing the strangest relations towards the prison,\nbut always concerning the prison, ran like nightmares through his mind\nwhile he lay awake. Whether coffins were kept ready for people who might\ndie there, where they were kept, how they were kept, where people who\ndied in the prison were buried, how they were taken out, what forms were\nobserved, whether an implacable creditor could arrest the dead? As to\nescaping, what chances there were of escape? Whether a prisoner could\nscale the walls with a cord and grapple, how he would descend upon\nthe other side? whether he could alight on a housetop, steal down a\nstaircase, let himself out at a door, and get lost in the crowd? As to\nFire in the prison, if one were to break out while he lay there?\n\nAnd these involuntary starts of fancy were, after all, but the setting\nof a picture in which three people kept before him. His father, with the\nsteadfast look with which he had died, prophetically darkened forth in\nthe portrait; his mother, with her arm up, warding off his suspicion;\nLittle Dorrit, with her hand on the degraded arm, and her drooping head\nturned away.\n\nWhat if his mother had an old reason she well knew for softening to\nthis poor girl! What if the prisoner now sleeping quietly--Heaven grant\nit!--by the light of the great Day of judgment should trace back his\nfall to her. What if any act of hers and of his father's, should have\neven remotely brought the grey heads of those two brothers so low!\n\nA swift thought shot into his mind. In that long imprisonment here, and\nin her own long confinement to her room, did his mother find a balance\nto be struck? 'I admit that I was accessory to that man's captivity. I\nhave suffered for it in kind. He has decayed in his prison: I in mine. I\nhave paid the penalty.'\n\nWhen all the other thoughts had faded out, this one held possession\nof him. When he fell asleep, she came before him in her wheeled chair,\nwarding him off with this justification. When he awoke, and sprang up\ncauselessly frightened, the words were in his ears, as if her voice had\nslowly spoken them at his pillow, to break his rest: 'He withers away in\nhis prison; I wither away in mine; inexorable justice is done; what do I\nowe on this score!'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 9. Little Mother\n\n\nThe morning light was in no hurry to climb the prison wall and look in\nat the Snuggery windows; and when it did come, it would have been more\nwelcome if it had come alone, instead of bringing a rush of rain with\nit. But the equinoctial gales were blowing out at sea, and the impartial\nsouth-west wind, in its flight, would not neglect even the narrow\nMarshalsea. While it roared through the steeple of St George's Church,\nand twirled all the cowls in the neighbourhood, it made a swoop to beat\nthe Southwark smoke into the jail; and, plunging down the chimneys\nof the few early collegians who were yet lighting their fires, half\nsuffocated them.\n\nArthur Clennam would have been little disposed to linger in bed, though\nhis bed had been in a more private situation, and less affected by the\nraking out of yesterday's fire, the kindling of to-day's under the\ncollegiate boiler, the filling of that Spartan vessel at the pump, the\nsweeping and sawdusting of the common room, and other such preparations.\nHeartily glad to see the morning, though little rested by the night, he\nturned out as soon as he could distinguish objects about him, and paced\nthe yard for two heavy hours before the gate was opened.\n\nThe walls were so near to one another, and the wild clouds hurried\nover them so fast, that it gave him a sensation like the beginning of\nsea-sickness to look up at the gusty sky. The rain, carried aslant by\nflaws of wind, blackened that side of the central building which he had\nvisited last night, but left a narrow dry trough under the lee of the\nwall, where he walked up and down among the waits of straw and dust\nand paper, the waste droppings of the pump, and the stray leaves of\nyesterday's greens. It was as haggard a view of life as a man need look\nupon.\n\nNor was it relieved by any glimpse of the little creature who had\nbrought him there. Perhaps she glided out of her doorway and in at that\nwhere her father lived, while his face was turned from both; but he saw\nnothing of her. It was too early for her brother; to have seen him once,\nwas to have seen enough of him to know that he would be sluggish to\nleave whatever frowsy bed he occupied at night; so, as Arthur Clennam\nwalked up and down, waiting for the gate to open, he cast about in\nhis mind for future rather than for present means of pursuing his\ndiscoveries.\n\nAt last the lodge-gate turned, and the turnkey, standing on the step,\ntaking an early comb at his hair, was ready to let him out. With a\njoyful sense of release he passed through the lodge, and found himself\nagain in the little outer court-yard where he had spoken to the brother\nlast night.\n\nThere was a string of people already straggling in, whom it was not\ndifficult to identify as the nondescript messengers, go-betweens, and\nerrand-bearers of the place. Some of them had been lounging in the rain\nuntil the gate should open; others, who had timed their arrival\nwith greater nicety, were coming up now, and passing in with damp\nwhitey-brown paper bags from the grocers, loaves of bread, lumps of\nbutter, eggs, milk, and the like. The shabbiness of these attendants\nupon shabbiness, the poverty of these insolvent waiters upon insolvency,\nwas a sight to see. Such threadbare coats and trousers, such fusty gowns\nand shawls, such squashed hats and bonnets, such boots and shoes, such\numbrellas and walking-sticks, never were seen in Rag Fair. All of\nthem wore the cast-off clothes of other men and women, were made up of\npatches and pieces of other people's individuality, and had no sartorial\nexistence of their own proper. Their walk was the walk of a race apart.\nThey had a peculiar way of doggedly slinking round the corner, as if\nthey were eternally going to the pawnbroker's. When they coughed, they\ncoughed like people accustomed to be forgotten on doorsteps and in\ndraughty passages, waiting for answers to letters in faded ink, which\ngave the recipients of those manuscripts great mental disturbance and no\nsatisfaction. As they eyed the stranger in passing, they eyed him with\nborrowing eyes--hungry, sharp, speculative as to his softness if they\nwere accredited to him, and the likelihood of his standing something\nhandsome. Mendicity on commission stooped in their high shoulders,\nshambled in their unsteady legs, buttoned and pinned and darned and\ndragged their clothes, frayed their button-holes, leaked out of their\nfigures in dirty little ends of tape, and issued from their mouths in\nalcoholic breathings.\n\nAs these people passed him standing still in the court-yard, and one of\nthem turned back to inquire if he could assist him with his services,\nit came into Arthur Clennam's mind that he would speak to Little Dorrit\nagain before he went away. She would have recovered her first surprise,\nand might feel easier with him. He asked this member of the fraternity\n(who had two red herrings in his hand, and a loaf and a blacking brush\nunder his arm), where was the nearest place to get a cup of coffee\nat. The nondescript replied in encouraging terms, and brought him to a\ncoffee-shop in the street within a stone's throw.\n\n'Do you know Miss Dorrit?' asked the new client.\n\nThe nondescript knew two Miss Dorrits; one who was born inside--That was\nthe one! That was the one? The nondescript had known her many years.\nIn regard of the other Miss Dorrit, the nondescript lodged in the same\nhouse with herself and uncle.\n\nThis changed the client's half-formed design of remaining at the\ncoffee-shop until the nondescript should bring him word that Dorrit\nhad issued forth into the street. He entrusted the nondescript with a\nconfidential message to her, importing that the visitor who had waited\non her father last night, begged the favour of a few words with her at\nher uncle's lodging; he obtained from the same source full directions to\nthe house, which was very near; dismissed the nondescript gratified with\nhalf-a-crown; and having hastily refreshed himself at the coffee-shop,\nrepaired with all speed to the clarionet-player's dwelling.\n\nThere were so many lodgers in this house that the doorpost seemed to be\nas full of bell-handles as a cathedral organ is of stops. Doubtful\nwhich might be the clarionet-stop, he was considering the point, when a\nshuttlecock flew out of the parlour window, and alighted on his hat.\nHe then observed that in the parlour window was a blind with the\ninscription, MR CRIPPLES's ACADEMY; also in another line, EVENING\nTUITION; and behind the blind was a little white-faced boy, with a slice\nof bread-and-butter and a battledore. The window being accessible from\nthe footway, he looked in over the blind, returned the shuttlecock, and\nput his question.\n\n'Dorrit?' said the little white-faced boy (Master Cripples in fact).\n'_Mr_ Dorrit? Third bell and one knock.'\n\nThe pupils of Mr Cripples appeared to have been making a copy-book of\nthe street-door, it was so extensively scribbled over in pencil. The\nfrequency of the inscriptions, 'Old Dorrit,' and 'Dirty Dick,' in\ncombination, suggested intentions of personality on the part Of Mr\nCripples's pupils.  There was ample time to make these observations\nbefore the door was opened by the poor old man himself.\n\n'Ha!' said he, very slowly remembering Arthur, 'you were shut in last\nnight?'\n\n'Yes, Mr Dorrit. I hope to meet your niece here presently.'\n\n'Oh!' said he, pondering. 'Out of my brother's way? True. Would you come\nup-stairs and wait for her?'\n\n'Thank you.'\n\nTurning himself as slowly as he turned in his mind whatever he heard or\nsaid, he led the way up the narrow stairs. The house was very close, and\nhad an unwholesome smell. The little staircase windows looked in at the\nback windows of other houses as unwholesome as itself, with poles and\nlines thrust out of them, on which unsightly linen hung; as if the\ninhabitants were angling for clothes, and had had some wretched bites\nnot worth attending to. In the back garret--a sickly room, with a\nturn-up bedstead in it, so hastily and recently turned up that the\nblankets were boiling over, as it were, and keeping the lid open--a\nhalf-finished breakfast of coffee and toast for two persons was jumbled\ndown anyhow on a rickety table.\n\nThere was no one there. The old man mumbling to himself, after some\nconsideration, that Fanny had run away, went to the next room to fetch\nher back. The visitor, observing that she held the door on the inside,\nand that, when the uncle tried to open it, there was a sharp adjuration\nof 'Don't, stupid!' and an appearance of loose stocking and flannel,\nconcluded that the young lady was in an undress. The uncle, without\nappearing to come to any conclusion, shuffled in again, sat down in his\nchair, and began warming his hands at the fire; not that it was cold, or\nthat he had any waking idea whether it was or not.\n\n'What did you think of my brother, sir?' he asked, when he by-and-by\ndiscovered what he was doing, left off, reached over to the\nchimney-piece, and took his clarionet case down.\n\n'I was glad,' said Arthur, very much at a loss, for his thoughts were\non the brother before him; 'to find him so well and cheerful.'\n\n'Ha!' muttered the old man, 'yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!'\n\nArthur wondered what he could possibly want with the clarionet case. He\ndid not want it at all. He discovered, in due time, that it was not the\nlittle paper of snuff (which was also on the chimney-piece), put it back\nagain, took down the snuff instead, and solaced himself with a pinch. He\nwas as feeble, spare, and slow in his pinches as in everything else, but\na certain little trickling of enjoyment of them played in the poor worn\nnerves about the corners of his eyes and mouth.\n\n'Amy, Mr Clennam. What do you think of her?'\n\n'I am much impressed, Mr Dorrit, by all that I have seen of her and\nthought of her.'\n\n'My brother would have been quite lost without Amy,' he returned. 'We\nshould all have been lost without Amy. She is a very good girl, Amy. She\ndoes her duty.'\n\nArthur fancied that he heard in these praises a certain tone of custom,\nwhich he had heard from the father last night with an inward protest and\nfeeling of antagonism. It was not that they stinted her praises, or\nwere insensible to what she did for them; but that they were lazily\nhabituated to her, as they were to all the rest of their condition.\nHe fancied that although they had before them, every day, the means of\ncomparison between her and one another and themselves, they regarded her\nas being in her necessary place; as holding a position towards them all\nwhich belonged to her, like her name or her age. He fancied that they\nviewed her, not as having risen away from the prison atmosphere, but as\nappertaining to it; as being vaguely what they had a right to expect,\nand nothing more.\n\nHer uncle resumed his breakfast, and was munching toast sopped in\ncoffee, oblivious of his guest, when the third bell rang. That was Amy,\nhe said, and went down to let her in; leaving the visitor with as vivid\na picture on his mind of his begrimed hands, dirt-worn face, and decayed\nfigure, as if he were still drooping in his chair.\n\nShe came up after him, in the usual plain dress, and with the usual\ntimid manner. Her lips were a little parted, as if her heart beat faster\nthan usual.\n\n'Mr Clennam, Amy,' said her uncle, 'has been expecting you some time.'\n\n'I took the liberty of sending you a message.'\n\n'I received the message, sir.'\n\n'Are you going to my mother's this morning? I think not, for it is past\nyour usual hour.'\n\n'Not to-day, sir. I am not wanted to-day.'\n\n'Will you allow Me to walk a little way in whatever direction you may\nbe going? I can then speak to you as we walk, both without detaining you\nhere, and without intruding longer here myself.'\n\nShe looked embarrassed, but said, if he pleased. He made a pretence of\nhaving mislaid his walking-stick, to give her time to set the bedstead\nright, to answer her sister's impatient knock at the wall, and to say a\nword softly to her uncle. Then he found it, and they went down-stairs;\nshe first, he following; the uncle standing at the stair-head, and\nprobably forgetting them before they had reached the ground floor.\n\nMr Cripples's pupils, who were by this time coming to school, desisted\nfrom their morning recreation of cuffing one another with bags and\nbooks, to stare with all the eyes they had at a stranger who had been\nto see Dirty Dick. They bore the trying spectacle in silence, until the\nmysterious visitor was at a safe distance; when they burst into pebbles\nand yells, and likewise into reviling dances, and in all respects buried\nthe pipe of peace with so many savage ceremonies, that, if Mr Cripples\nhad been the chief of the Cripplewayboo tribe with his war-paint on,\nthey could scarcely have done greater justice to their education.\n\nIn the midst of this homage, Mr Arthur Clennam offered his arm to Little\nDorrit, and Little Dorrit took it. 'Will you go by the Iron Bridge,'\nsaid he, 'where there is an escape from the noise of the street?' Little\nDorrit answered, if he pleased, and presently ventured to hope that he\nwould 'not mind' Mr Cripples's boys, for she had herself received\nher education, such as it was, in Mr Cripples's evening academy. He\nreturned, with the best will in the world, that Mr Cripples's boys were\nforgiven out of the bottom of his soul. Thus did Cripples unconsciously\nbecome a master of the ceremonies between them, and bring them more\nnaturally together than Beau Nash might have done if they had lived\nin his golden days, and he had alighted from his coach and six for the\npurpose.\n\nThe morning remained squally, and the streets were miserably muddy, but\nno rain fell as they walked towards the Iron Bridge. The little creature\nseemed so young in his eyes, that there were moments when he found\nhimself thinking of her, if not speaking to her, as if she were a child.\nPerhaps he seemed as old in her eyes as she seemed young in his.\n\n'I am sorry to hear you were so inconvenienced last night, sir, as to be\nlocked in. It was very unfortunate.'\n\nIt was nothing, he returned. He had had a very good bed.\n\n'Oh yes!' she said quickly; 'she believed there were excellent beds at\nthe coffee-house.' He noticed that the coffee-house was quite a majestic\nhotel to her, and that she treasured its reputation.\n\n'I believe it is very expensive,' said Little Dorrit, 'but my father has\ntold me that quite beautiful dinners may be got there. And wine,' she\nadded timidly.\n\n'Were you ever there?'\n\n'Oh no! Only into the kitchen to fetch hot water.'\n\nTo think of growing up with a kind of awe upon one as to the luxuries of\nthat superb establishment, the Marshalsea Hotel!\n\n'I asked you last night,' said Clennam, 'how you had become acquainted\nwith my mother. Did you ever hear her name before she sent for you?'\n\n'No, sir.'\n\n'Do you think your father ever did?'\n\n'No, sir.'\n\nHe met her eyes raised to his with so much wonder in them (she was\nscared when the encounter took place, and shrunk away again), that he\nfelt it necessary to say:\n\n'I have a reason for asking, which I cannot very well explain; but you\nmust, on no account, suppose it to be of a nature to cause you the least\nalarm or anxiety. Quite the reverse. And you think that at no time of\nyour father's life was my name of Clennam ever familiar to him?'\n\n'No, sir.'\n\nHe felt, from the tone in which she spoke, that she was glancing up at\nhim with those parted lips; therefore he looked before him, rather than\nmake her heart beat quicker still by embarrassing her afresh.\n\nThus they emerged upon the Iron Bridge, which was as quiet after the\nroaring streets as though it had been open country. The wind blew\nroughly, the wet squalls came rattling past them, skimming the pools on\nthe road and pavement, and raining them down into the river. The clouds\nraced on furiously in the lead-coloured sky, the smoke and mist raced\nafter them, the dark tide ran fierce and strong in the same direction.\nLittle Dorrit seemed the least, the quietest, and weakest of Heaven's\ncreatures.\n\n'Let me put you in a coach,' said Clennam, very nearly adding 'my poor\nchild.'\n\nShe hurriedly declined, saying that wet or dry made little difference to\nher; she was used to go about in all weathers. He knew it to be so, and\nwas touched with more pity; thinking of the slight figure at his side,\nmaking its nightly way through the damp dark boisterous streets to such\na place of rest.\n\n'You spoke so feelingly to me last night, sir, and I found afterwards\nthat you had been so generous to my father, that I could not resist your\nmessage, if it was only to thank you; especially as I wished very much\nto say to you--' she hesitated and trembled, and tears rose in her eyes,\nbut did not fall.\n\n'To say to me--?'\n\n'That I hope you will not misunderstand my father. Don't judge him, sir,\nas you would judge others outside the gates. He has been there so long!\nI never saw him outside, but I can understand that he must have grown\ndifferent in some things since.'\n\n'My thoughts will never be unjust or harsh towards him, believe me.'\n\n'Not,' she said, with a prouder air, as the misgiving evidently crept\nupon her that she might seem to be abandoning him, 'not that he has\nanything to be ashamed of for himself, or that I have anything to be\nashamed of for him. He only requires to be understood. I only ask for\nhim that his life may be fairly remembered. All that he said was quite\ntrue. It all happened just as he related it. He is very much respected.\nEverybody who comes in, is glad to know him. He is more courted than\nanyone else. He is far more thought of than the Marshal is.'\n\nIf ever pride were innocent, it was innocent in Little Dorrit when she\ngrew boastful of her father.\n\n'It is often said that his manners are a true gentleman's, and quite\na study. I see none like them in that place, but he is admitted to\nbe superior to all the rest. This is quite as much why they make him\npresents, as because they know him to be needy. He is not to be blamed\nfor being in need, poor love. Who could be in prison a quarter of a\ncentury, and be prosperous!'\n\nWhat affection in her words, what compassion in her repressed tears,\nwhat a great soul of fidelity within her, how true the light that shed\nfalse brightness round him!\n\n'If I have found it best to conceal where my home is, it is not because\nI am ashamed of him. God forbid! Nor am I so much ashamed of the place\nitself as might be supposed. People are not bad because they come there.\nI have known numbers of good, persevering, honest people come there\nthrough misfortune. They are almost all kind-hearted to one another.\nAnd it would be ungrateful indeed in me, to forget that I have had many\nquiet, comfortable hours there; that I had an excellent friend there\nwhen I was quite a baby, who was very very fond of me; that I have been\ntaught there, and have worked there, and have slept soundly there. I\nthink it would be almost cowardly and cruel not to have some little\nattachment for it, after all this.'\n\nShe had relieved the faithful fulness of her heart, and modestly said,\nraising her eyes appealingly to her new friend's, 'I did not mean to say\nso much, nor have I ever but once spoken about this before. But it seems\nto set it more right than it was last night. I said I wished you had\nnot followed me, sir. I don't wish it so much now, unless you should\nthink--indeed I don't wish it at all, unless I should have spoken so\nconfusedly, that--that you can scarcely understand me, which I am afraid\nmay be the case.'\n\nHe told her with perfect truth that it was not the case; and putting\nhimself between her and the sharp wind and rain, sheltered her as well\nas he could.\n\n'I feel permitted now,' he said, 'to ask you a little more concerning\nyour father. Has he many creditors?'\n\n'Oh! a great number.'\n\n'I mean detaining creditors, who keep him where he is?'\n\n'Oh yes! a great number.'\n\n'Can you tell me--I can get the information, no doubt, elsewhere, if you\ncannot--who is the most influential of them?'\n\nLittle Dorrit said, after considering a little, that she used to\nhear long ago of Mr Tite Barnacle as a man of great power. He was a\ncommissioner, or a board, or a trustee, 'or something.' He lived\nin Grosvenor Square, she thought, or very near it. He was under\nGovernment--high in the Circumlocution Office. She appeared to have\nacquired, in her infancy, some awful impression of the might of this\nformidable Mr Tite Barnacle of Grosvenor Square, or very near it, and\nthe Circumlocution Office, which quite crushed her when she mentioned\nhim.\n\n'It can do no harm,' thought Arthur, 'if I see this Mr Tite Barnacle.'\n\nThe thought did not present itself so quietly but that her quickness\nintercepted it. 'Ah!' said Little Dorrit, shaking her head with the mild\ndespair of a lifetime. 'Many people used to think once of getting my\npoor father out, but you don't know how hopeless it is.'\n\nShe forgot to be shy at the moment, in honestly warning him away from\nthe sunken wreck he had a dream of raising; and looked at him with\neyes which assuredly, in association with her patient face, her fragile\nfigure, her spare dress, and the wind and rain, did not turn him from\nhis purpose of helping her.\n\n'Even if it could be done,' said she--'and it never can be done\nnow--where could father live, or how could he live? I have often thought\nthat if such a change could come, it might be anything but a service to\nhim now. People might not think so well of him outside as they do there.\nHe might not be so gently dealt with outside as he is there. He might\nnot be so fit himself for the life outside as he is for that.'\n\nHere for the first time she could not restrain her tears from falling;\nand the little thin hands he had watched when they were so busy,\ntrembled as they clasped each other.\n\n'It would be a new distress to him even to know that I earn a little\nmoney, and that Fanny earns a little money. He is so anxious about us,\nyou see, feeling helplessly shut up there. Such a good, good father!'\n\nHe let the little burst of feeling go by before he spoke. It was soon\ngone. She was not accustomed to think of herself, or to trouble any one\nwith her emotions. He had but glanced away at the piles of city roofs\nand chimneys among which the smoke was rolling heavily, and at the\nwilderness of masts on the river, and the wilderness of steeples on\nthe shore, indistinctly mixed together in the stormy haze, when she\nwas again as quiet as if she had been plying her needle in his mother's\nroom.\n\n'You would be glad to have your brother set at liberty?'\n\n'Oh very, very glad, sir!'\n\n'Well, we will hope for him at least. You told me last night of a friend\nyou had?'\n\nHis name was Plornish, Little Dorrit said.\n\nAnd where did Plornish live? Plornish lived in Bleeding Heart Yard. He\nwas 'only a plasterer,' Little Dorrit said, as a caution to him not to\nform high social expectations of Plornish. He lived at the last house in\nBleeding Heart Yard, and his name was over a little gateway.\n\nArthur took down the address and gave her his. He had now done all he\nsought to do for the present, except that he wished to leave her with a\nreliance upon him, and to have something like a promise from her that\nshe would cherish it.\n\n'There is one friend!' he said, putting up his pocketbook. 'As I take\nyou back--you are going back?'\n\n'Oh yes! going straight home.'\n\n'--As I take you back,' the word home jarred upon him, 'let me ask you to\npersuade yourself that you have another friend. I make no professions,\nand say no more.'\n\n'You are truly kind to me, sir. I am sure I need no more.'\n\nThey walked back through the miserable muddy streets, and among the\npoor, mean shops, and were jostled by the crowds of dirty hucksters\nusual to a poor neighbourhood. There was nothing, by the short way, that\nwas pleasant to any of the five senses. Yet it was not a common passage\nthrough common rain, and mire, and noise, to Clennam, having this\nlittle, slender, careful creature on his arm. How young she seemed to\nhim, or how old he to her; or what a secret either to the other, in that\nbeginning of the destined interweaving of their stories, matters not\nhere. He thought of her having been born and bred among these scenes,\nand shrinking through them now, familiar yet misplaced; he thought\nof her long acquaintance with the squalid needs of life, and of her\ninnocence; of her solicitude for others, and her few years, and her\nchildish aspect.\n\nThey were come into the High Street, where the prison stood, when a\nvoice cried, 'Little mother, little mother!' Little Dorrit stopping and\nlooking back, an excited figure of a strange kind bounced against them\n(still crying 'little mother'), fell down, and scattered the contents of\na large basket, filled with potatoes, in the mud.\n\n'Oh, Maggy,' said Little Dorrit, 'what a clumsy child you are!'\n\nMaggy was not hurt, but picked herself up immediately, and then began\nto pick up the potatoes, in which both Little Dorrit and Arthur Clennam\nhelped. Maggy picked up very few potatoes and a great quantity of mud;\nbut they were all recovered, and deposited in the basket. Maggy then\nsmeared her muddy face with her shawl, and presenting it to Mr Clennam\nas a type of purity, enabled him to see what she was like.\n\nShe was about eight-and-twenty, with large bones, large features, large\nfeet and hands, large eyes and no hair. Her large eyes were limpid and\nalmost colourless; they seemed to be very little affected by light,\nand to stand unnaturally still. There was also that attentive listening\nexpression in her face, which is seen in the faces of the blind; but she\nwas not blind, having one tolerably serviceable eye. Her face was not\nexceedingly ugly, though it was only redeemed from being so by a smile;\na good-humoured smile, and pleasant in itself, but rendered pitiable\nby being constantly there. A great white cap, with a quantity of\nopaque frilling that was always flapping about, apologised for Maggy's\nbaldness, and made it so very difficult for her old black bonnet to\nretain its place upon her head, that it held on round her neck like a\ngipsy's baby. A commission of haberdashers could alone have reported\nwhat the rest of her poor dress was made of, but it had a strong general\nresemblance to seaweed, with here and there a gigantic tea-leaf. Her\nshawl looked particularly like a tea-leaf after long infusion.\n\nArthur Clennam looked at Little Dorrit with the expression of one\nsaying, 'May I ask who this is?' Little Dorrit, whose hand this Maggy,\nstill calling her little mother, had begun to fondle, answered in words\n(they were under a gateway into which the majority of the potatoes had\nrolled).\n\n'This is Maggy, sir.'\n\n'Maggy, sir,' echoed the personage presented. 'Little mother!'\n\n'She is the grand-daughter--' said Little Dorrit.\n\n'Grand-daughter,' echoed Maggy.\n\n'Of my old nurse, who has been dead a long time. Maggy, how old are\nyou?'\n\n'Ten, mother,' said Maggy.\n\n'You can't think how good she is, sir,' said Little Dorrit, with\ninfinite tenderness.\n\n'Good _she_ is,' echoed Maggy, transferring the pronoun in a most\nexpressive way from herself to her little mother.\n\n'Or how clever,' said Little Dorrit. 'She goes on errands as well as\nany one.' Maggy laughed. 'And is as trustworthy as the Bank of England.'\nMaggy laughed. 'She earns her own living entirely. Entirely, sir!' said\nLittle Dorrit, in a lower and triumphant tone. 'Really does!'\n\n'What is her history?' asked Clennam.\n\n'Think of that, Maggy?' said Little Dorrit, taking her two large hands\nand clapping them together. 'A gentleman from thousands of miles away,\nwanting to know your history!'\n\n'_My_ history?' cried Maggy. 'Little mother.'\n\n'She means me,' said Little Dorrit, rather confused; 'she is very much\nattached to me. Her old grandmother was not so kind to her as she should\nhave been; was she, Maggy?'\n\nMaggy shook her head, made a drinking vessel of her clenched left hand,\ndrank out of it, and said, 'Gin.' Then beat an imaginary child, and said,\n'Broom-handles and pokers.'\n\n'When Maggy was ten years old,' said Little Dorrit, watching her face\nwhile she spoke, 'she had a bad fever, sir, and she has never grown any\nolder ever since.'\n\n'Ten years old,' said Maggy, nodding her head. 'But what a nice\nhospital! So comfortable, wasn't it? Oh so nice it was. Such a Ev'nly\nplace!'\n\n'She had never been at peace before, sir,' said Little Dorrit, turning\ntowards Arthur for an instant and speaking low, 'and she always runs off\nupon that.'\n\n'Such beds there is there!' cried Maggy. 'Such lemonades! Such oranges!\nSuch d'licious broth and wine! Such Chicking! Oh, AIN'T it a delightful\nplace to go and stop at!'\n\n'So Maggy stopped there as long as she could,' said Little Dorrit,\nin her former tone of telling a child's story; the tone designed for\nMaggy's ear, 'and at last, when she could stop there no longer, she came\nout. Then, because she was never to be more than ten years old, however\nlong she lived--'\n\n'However long she lived,' echoed Maggy.\n\n'--And because she was very weak; indeed was so weak that when she began\nto laugh she couldn't stop herself--which was a great pity--'\n\n(Maggy mighty grave of a sudden.)\n\n'--Her grandmother did not know what to do with her, and for some years\nwas very unkind to her indeed. At length, in course of time, Maggy began\nto take pains to improve herself, and to be very attentive and very\nindustrious; and by degrees was allowed to come in and out as often as\nshe liked, and got enough to do to support herself, and does support\nherself. And that,' said Little Dorrit, clapping the two great hands\ntogether again, 'is Maggy's history, as Maggy knows!'\n\nAh! But Arthur would have known what was wanting to its completeness,\nthough he had never heard of the words Little mother; though he had\nnever seen the fondling of the small spare hand; though he had had no\nsight for the tears now standing in the colourless eyes; though he had\nhad no hearing for the sob that checked the clumsy laugh. The dirty\ngateway with the wind and rain whistling through it, and the basket of\nmuddy potatoes waiting to be spilt again or taken up, never seemed the\ncommon hole it really was, when he looked back to it by these lights.\nNever, never!\n\nThey were very near the end of their walk, and they now came out of the\ngateway to finish it. Nothing would serve Maggy but that they must stop\nat a grocer's window, short of their destination, for her to show her\nlearning. She could read after a sort; and picked out the fat figures in\nthe tickets of prices, for the most part correctly. She also stumbled,\nwith a large balance of success against her failures, through various\nphilanthropic recommendations to Try our Mixture, Try our Family Black,\nTry our Orange-flavoured Pekoe, challenging competition at the head\nof Flowery Teas; and various cautions to the public against spurious\nestablishments and adulterated articles. When he saw how pleasure\nbrought a rosy tint into Little Dorrit's face when Maggy made a hit,\nhe felt that he could have stood there making a library of the grocer's\nwindow until the rain and wind were tired.\n\nThe court-yard received them at last, and there he said goodbye to\nLittle Dorrit. Little as she had always looked, she looked less than\never when he saw her going into the Marshalsea lodge passage, the little\nmother attended by her big child.\n\nThe cage door opened, and when the small bird, reared in captivity, had\ntamely fluttered in, he saw it shut again; and then he came away.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 10. Containing the whole Science of Government\n\n\nThe Circumlocution Office was (as everybody knows without being told)\nthe most important Department under Government. No public business of\nany kind could possibly be done at any time without the acquiescence of\nthe Circumlocution Office. Its finger was in the largest public pie,\nand in the smallest public tart. It was equally impossible to do the\nplainest right and to undo the plainest wrong without the express\nauthority of the Circumlocution Office. If another Gunpowder Plot had\nbeen discovered half an hour before the lighting of the match, nobody\nwould have been justified in saving the parliament until there had\nbeen half a score of boards, half a bushel of minutes, several sacks\nof official memoranda, and a family-vault full of ungrammatical\ncorrespondence, on the part of the Circumlocution Office.\n\nThis glorious establishment had been early in the field, when the one\nsublime principle involving the difficult art of governing a country,\nwas first distinctly revealed to statesmen. It had been foremost to\nstudy that bright revelation and to carry its shining influence through\nthe whole of the official proceedings. Whatever was required to be done,\nthe Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments\nin the art of perceiving--HOW NOT TO DO IT.\n\nThrough this delicate perception, through the tact with which it\ninvariably seized it, and through the genius with which it always acted\non it, the Circumlocution Office had risen to overtop all the public\ndepartments; and the public condition had risen to be--what it was.\n\nIt is true that How not to do it was the great study and object of\nall public departments and professional politicians all round the\nCircumlocution Office. It is true that every new premier and every\nnew government, coming in because they had upheld a certain thing as\nnecessary to be done, were no sooner come in than they applied their\nutmost faculties to discovering How not to do it. It is true that from\nthe moment when a general election was over, every returned man who had\nbeen raving on hustings because it hadn't been done, and who had been\nasking the friends of the honourable gentleman in the opposite interest\non pain of impeachment to tell him why it hadn't been done, and who had\nbeen asserting that it must be done, and who had been pledging himself\nthat it should be done, began to devise, How it was not to be done. It\nis true that the debates of both Houses of Parliament the whole session\nthrough, uniformly tended to the protracted deliberation, How not to\ndo it. It is true that the royal speech at the opening of such session\nvirtually said, My lords and gentlemen, you have a considerable\nstroke of work to do, and you will please to retire to your respective\nchambers, and discuss, How not to do it. It is true that the royal\nspeech, at the close of such session, virtually said, My lords and\ngentlemen, you have through several laborious months been considering\nwith great loyalty and patriotism, How not to do it, and you have found\nout; and with the blessing of Providence upon the harvest (natural, not\npolitical), I now dismiss you. All this is true, but the Circumlocution\nOffice went beyond it.\n\nBecause the Circumlocution Office went on mechanically, every day,\nkeeping this wonderful, all-sufficient wheel of statesmanship, How not\nto do it, in motion. Because the Circumlocution Office was down upon any\nill-advised public servant who was going to do it, or who appeared to be\nby any surprising accident in remote danger of doing it, with a minute,\nand a memorandum, and a letter of instructions that extinguished him. It\nwas this spirit of national efficiency in the Circumlocution Office\nthat had gradually led to its having something to do with everything.\nMechanicians, natural philosophers, soldiers, sailors, petitioners,\nmemorialists, people with grievances, people who wanted to prevent\ngrievances, people who wanted to redress grievances, jobbing people,\njobbed people, people who couldn't get rewarded for merit, and people\nwho couldn't get punished for demerit, were all indiscriminately tucked\nup under the foolscap paper of the Circumlocution Office.\n\nNumbers of people were lost in the Circumlocution Office. Unfortunates\nwith wrongs, or with projects for the general welfare (and they had\nbetter have had wrongs at first, than have taken that bitter English\nrecipe for certainly getting them), who in slow lapse of time and agony\nhad passed safely through other public departments; who, according to\nrule, had been bullied in this, over-reached by that, and evaded by\nthe other; got referred at last to the Circumlocution Office, and\nnever reappeared in the light of day. Boards sat upon them, secretaries\nminuted upon them, commissioners gabbled about them, clerks registered,\nentered, checked, and ticked them off, and they melted away. In short,\nall the business of the country went through the Circumlocution Office,\nexcept the business that never came out of it; and _its_ name was Legion.\n\nSometimes, angry spirits attacked the Circumlocution Office. Sometimes,\nparliamentary questions were asked about it, and even parliamentary\nmotions made or threatened about it by demagogues so low and ignorant as\nto hold that the real recipe of government was, How to do it. Then would\nthe noble lord, or right honourable gentleman, in whose department it\nwas to defend the Circumlocution Office, put an orange in his pocket,\nand make a regular field-day of the occasion. Then would he come down to\nthat house with a slap upon the table, and meet the honourable gentleman\nfoot to foot. Then would he be there to tell that honourable gentleman\nthat the Circumlocution Office not only was blameless in this matter,\nbut was commendable in this matter, was extollable to the skies in this\nmatter. Then would he be there to tell that honourable gentleman that,\nalthough the Circumlocution Office was invariably right and wholly\nright, it never was so right as in this matter. Then would he be there\nto tell that honourable gentleman that it would have been more to his\nhonour, more to his credit, more to his good taste, more to his good\nsense, more to half the dictionary of commonplaces, if he had left the\nCircumlocution Office alone, and never approached this matter. Then\nwould he keep one eye upon a coach or crammer from the Circumlocution\nOffice sitting below the bar, and smash the honourable gentleman with\nthe Circumlocution Office account of this matter. And although one\nof two things always happened; namely, either that the Circumlocution\nOffice had nothing to say and said it, or that it had something to say\nof which the noble lord, or right honourable gentleman, blundered one\nhalf and forgot the other; the Circumlocution Office was always voted\nimmaculate by an accommodating majority.\n\nSuch a nursery of statesmen had the Department become in virtue of a\nlong career of this nature, that several solemn lords had attained the\nreputation of being quite unearthly prodigies of business, solely from\nhaving practised, How not to do it, as the head of the Circumlocution\nOffice. As to the minor priests and acolytes of that temple, the result\nof all this was that they stood divided into two classes, and, down to\nthe junior messenger, either believed in the Circumlocution Office as\na heaven-born institution that had an absolute right to do whatever it\nliked; or took refuge in total infidelity, and considered it a flagrant\nnuisance.\n\nThe Barnacle family had for some time helped to administer the\nCircumlocution Office. The Tite Barnacle Branch, indeed, considered\nthemselves in a general way as having vested rights in that direction,\nand took it ill if any other family had much to say to it. The Barnacles\nwere a very high family, and a very large family. They were dispersed\nall over the public offices, and held all sorts of public places. Either\nthe nation was under a load of obligation to the Barnacles, or the\nBarnacles were under a load of obligation to the nation. It was not\nquite unanimously settled which; the Barnacles having their opinion, the\nnation theirs.\n\nThe Mr Tite Barnacle who at the period now in question usually coached\nor crammed the statesman at the head of the Circumlocution Office, when\nthat noble or right honourable individual sat a little uneasily in his\nsaddle by reason of some vagabond making a tilt at him in a newspaper,\nwas more flush of blood than money. As a Barnacle he had his place,\nwhich was a snug thing enough; and as a Barnacle he had of course put\nin his son Barnacle Junior in the office. But he had intermarried with\na branch of the Stiltstalkings, who were also better endowed in a\nsanguineous point of view than with real or personal property, and of\nthis marriage there had been issue, Barnacle junior and three young\nladies. What with the patrician requirements of Barnacle junior, the\nthree young ladies, Mrs Tite Barnacle nee Stiltstalking, and himself,\nMr Tite Barnacle found the intervals between quarter day and quarter day\nrather longer than he could have desired; a circumstance which he always\nattributed to the country's parsimony.\n\nFor Mr Tite Barnacle, Mr Arthur Clennam made his fifth inquiry one day\nat the Circumlocution Office; having on previous occasions awaited that\ngentleman successively in a hall, a glass case, a waiting room, and a\nfire-proof passage where the Department seemed to keep its wind. On this\noccasion Mr Barnacle was not engaged, as he had been before, with the\nnoble prodigy at the head of the Department; but was absent. Barnacle\nJunior, however, was announced as a lesser star, yet visible above the\noffice horizon.\n\nWith Barnacle junior, he signified his desire to confer; and found that\nyoung gentleman singeing the calves of his legs at the parental fire,\nand supporting his spine against the mantel-shelf. It was a comfortable\nroom, handsomely furnished in the higher official manner; an presenting\nstately suggestions of the absent Barnacle, in the thick carpet, the\nleather-covered desk to sit at, the leather-covered desk to stand at,\nthe formidable easy-chair and hearth-rug, the interposed screen, the\ntorn-up papers, the dispatch-boxes with little labels sticking out of\nthem, like medicine bottles or dead game, the pervading smell of leather\nand mahogany, and a general bamboozling air of How not to do it.\n\nThe present Barnacle, holding Mr Clennam's card in his hand, had a\nyouthful aspect, and the fluffiest little whisker, perhaps, that ever\nwas seen. Such a downy tip was on his callow chin, that he seemed half\nfledged like a young bird; and a compassionate observer might have urged\nthat, if he had not singed the calves of his legs, he would have died\nof cold. He had a superior eye-glass dangling round his neck, but\nunfortunately had such flat orbits to his eyes and such limp little\neyelids that it wouldn't stick in when he put it up, but kept tumbling\nout against his waistcoat buttons with a click that discomposed him very\nmuch.\n\n'Oh, I say. Look here! My father's not in the way, and won't be in the\nway to-day,' said Barnacle Junior. 'Is this anything that I can do?'\n\n(Click! Eye-glass down. Barnacle Junior quite frightened and feeling all\nround himself, but not able to find it.)\n\n'You are very good,' said Arthur Clennam. 'I wish however to see Mr\nBarnacle.'\n\n'But I say. Look here! You haven't got any appointment, you know,' said\nBarnacle Junior.\n\n(By this time he had found the eye-glass, and put it up again.)\n\n'No,' said Arthur Clennam. 'That is what I wish to have.'\n\n'But I say. Look here! Is this public business?' asked Barnacle junior.\n\n(Click! Eye-glass down again. Barnacle Junior in that state of search\nafter it that Mr Clennam felt it useless to reply at present.)\n\n'Is it,' said Barnacle junior, taking heed of his visitor's brown face,\n'anything about--Tonnage--or that sort of thing?'\n\n(Pausing for a reply, he opened his right eye with his hand, and stuck\nhis glass in it, in that inflammatory manner that his eye began watering\ndreadfully.)\n\n'No,' said Arthur, 'it is nothing about tonnage.'\n\n'Then look here. Is it private business?'\n\n'I really am not sure. It relates to a Mr Dorrit.'\n\n'Look here, I tell you what! You had better call at our house, if you\nare going that way. Twenty-four, Mews Street, Grosvenor Square. My\nfather's got a slight touch of the gout, and is kept at home by it.'\n\n(The misguided young Barnacle evidently going blind on his eye-glass\nside, but ashamed to make any further alteration in his painful\narrangements.)\n\n'Thank you. I will call there now. Good morning.' Young Barnacle seemed\ndiscomfited at this, as not having at all expected him to go.\n\n'You are quite sure,' said Barnacle junior, calling after him when he\ngot to the door, unwilling wholly to relinquish the bright business idea\nhe had conceived; 'that it's nothing about Tonnage?'\n\n'Quite sure.'\n\nWith such assurance, and rather wondering what might have taken place\nif it _had_ been anything about tonnage, Mr Clennam withdrew to pursue his\ninquiries.\n\nMews Street, Grosvenor Square, was not absolutely Grosvenor Square\nitself, but it was very near it. It was a hideous little street of dead\nwall, stables, and dunghills, with lofts over coach-houses inhabited by\ncoachmen's families, who had a passion for drying clothes and decorating\ntheir window-sills with miniature turnpike-gates. The principal\nchimney-sweep of that fashionable quarter lived at the blind end of Mews\nStreet; and the same corner contained an establishment much frequented\nabout early morning and twilight for the purchase of wine-bottles and\nkitchen-stuff. Punch's shows used to lean against the dead wall in Mews\nStreet, while their proprietors were dining elsewhere; and the dogs of\nthe neighbourhood made appointments to meet in the same locality. Yet\nthere were two or three small airless houses at the entrance end of Mews\nStreet, which went at enormous rents on account of their being abject\nhangers-on to a fashionable situation; and whenever one of these fearful\nlittle coops was to be let (which seldom happened, for they were in\ngreat request), the house agent advertised it as a gentlemanly residence\nin the most aristocratic part of town, inhabited solely by the elite of\nthe beau monde.\n\nIf a gentlemanly residence coming strictly within this narrow margin had\nnot been essential to the blood of the Barnacles, this particular branch\nwould have had a pretty wide selection among, let us say, ten thousand\nhouses, offering fifty times the accommodation for a third of the money.\nAs it was, Mr Barnacle, finding his gentlemanly residence extremely\ninconvenient and extremely dear, always laid it, as a public servant,\nat the door of the country, and adduced it as another instance of the\ncountry's parsimony.\n\nArthur Clennam came to a squeezed house, with a ramshackle bowed\nfront, little dingy windows, and a little dark area like a damp\nwaistcoat-pocket, which he found to be number twenty-four, Mews Street,\nGrosvenor Square. To the sense of smell the house was like a sort of\nbottle filled with a strong distillation of Mews; and when the footman\nopened the door, he seemed to take the stopper out.\n\nThe footman was to the Grosvenor Square footmen, what the house was to\nthe Grosvenor Square houses. Admirable in his way, his way was a back\nand a bye way. His gorgeousness was not unmixed with dirt; and both in\ncomplexion and consistency he had suffered from the closeness of his\npantry. A sallow flabbiness was upon him when he took the stopper out,\nand presented the bottle to Mr Clennam's nose.\n\n'Be so good as to give that card to Mr Tite Barnacle, and to say that I\nhave just now seen the younger Mr Barnacle, who recommended me to call\nhere.'\n\nThe footman (who had as many large buttons with the Barnacle crest upon\nthem on the flaps of his pockets, as if he were the family strong box,\nand carried the plate and jewels about with him buttoned up) pondered\nover the card a little; then said, 'Walk in.' It required some judgment\nto do it without butting the inner hall-door open, and in the consequent\nmental confusion and physical darkness slipping down the kitchen stairs.\nThe visitor, however, brought himself up safely on the door-mat.\n\nStill the footman said 'Walk in,' so the visitor followed him. At the\ninner hall-door, another bottle seemed to be presented and another\nstopper taken out. This second vial appeared to be filled with\nconcentrated provisions and extract of Sink from the pantry. After a\nskirmish in the narrow passage, occasioned by the footman's opening the\ndoor of the dismal dining-room with confidence, finding some one there\nwith consternation, and backing on the visitor with disorder, the\nvisitor was shut up, pending his announcement, in a close back parlour.\nThere he had an opportunity of refreshing himself with both the\nbottles at once, looking out at a low blinding wall three feet off,\nand speculating on the number of Barnacle families within the bills of\nmortality who lived in such hutches of their own free flunkey choice.\n\nMr Barnacle would see him. Would he walk up-stairs? He would, and\nhe did; and in the drawing-room, with his leg on a rest, he found Mr\nBarnacle himself, the express image and presentment of How not to do it.\n\nMr Barnacle dated from a better time, when the country was not so\nparsimonious and the Circumlocution Office was not so badgered. He wound\nand wound folds of white cravat round his neck, as he wound and wound\nfolds of tape and paper round the neck of the country. His wristbands\nand collar were oppressive; his voice and manner were oppressive. He\nhad a large watch-chain and bunch of seals, a coat buttoned up to\ninconvenience, a waistcoat buttoned up to inconvenience, an unwrinkled\npair of trousers, a stiff pair of boots. He was altogether splendid,\nmassive, overpowering, and impracticable. He seemed to have been sitting\nfor his portrait to Sir Thomas Lawrence all the days of his life.\n\n'Mr Clennam?' said Mr Barnacle. 'Be seated.'\n\nMr Clennam became seated.\n\n'You have called on me, I believe,' said Mr Barnacle, 'at the\nCircumlocution--' giving it the air of a word of about five-and-twenty\nsyllables--'Office.'\n\n'I have taken that liberty.'\n\nMr Barnacle solemnly bent his head as who should say, 'I do not deny\nthat it is a liberty; proceed to take another liberty, and let me know\nyour business.'\n\n'Allow me to observe that I have been for some years in China, am quite\na stranger at home, and have no personal motive or interest in the\ninquiry I am about to make.'\n\nMr Barnacle tapped his fingers on the table, and, as if he were now\nsitting for his portrait to a new and strange artist, appeared to say\nto his visitor, 'If you will be good enough to take me with my present\nlofty expression, I shall feel obliged.'\n\n'I have found a debtor in the Marshalsea Prison of the name of Dorrit,\nwho has been there many years. I wish to investigate his confused\naffairs so far as to ascertain whether it may not be possible, after\nthis lapse of time, to ameliorate his unhappy condition. The name of\nMr Tite Barnacle has been mentioned to me as representing some highly\ninfluential interest among his creditors. Am I correctly informed?'\n\nIt being one of the principles of the Circumlocution Office never, on\nany account whatever, to give a straightforward answer, Mr Barnacle\nsaid, 'Possibly.'\n\n'On behalf of the Crown, may I ask, or as private individual?'\n\n'The Circumlocution Department, sir,' Mr Barnacle replied, 'may have\npossibly recommended--possibly--I cannot say--that some public claim\nagainst the insolvent estate of a firm or copartnership to which this\nperson may have belonged, should be enforced. The question may have\nbeen, in the course of official business, referred to the Circumlocution\nDepartment for its consideration. The Department may have either\noriginated, or confirmed, a Minute making that recommendation.'\n\n'I assume this to be the case, then.'\n\n'The Circumlocution Department,' said Mr Barnacle, 'is not responsible\nfor any gentleman's assumptions.'\n\n'May I inquire how I can obtain official information as to the real\nstate of the case?'\n\n'It is competent,' said Mr Barnacle, 'to any member of the--Public,'\nmentioning that obscure body with reluctance, as his natural enemy,\n'to memorialise the Circumlocution Department. Such formalities as are\nrequired to be observed in so doing, may be known on application to the\nproper branch of that Department.'\n\n'Which is the proper branch?'\n\n'I must refer you,' returned Mr Barnacle, ringing the bell, 'to the\nDepartment itself for a formal answer to that inquiry.'\n\n'Excuse my mentioning--'\n\n'The Department is accessible to the--Public,' Mr Barnacle was always\nchecked a little by that word of impertinent signification, 'if\nthe--Public approaches it according to the official forms; if\nthe--Public does not approach it according to the official forms,\nthe--Public has itself to blame.'\n\nMr Barnacle made him a severe bow, as a wounded man of family, a wounded\nman of place, and a wounded man of a gentlemanly residence, all rolled\ninto one; and he made Mr Barnacle a bow, and was shut out into Mews\nStreet by the flabby footman.\n\nHaving got to this pass, he resolved as an exercise in perseverance,\nto betake himself again to the Circumlocution Office, and try what\nsatisfaction he could get there. So he went back to the Circumlocution\nOffice, and once more sent up his card to Barnacle junior by a messenger\nwho took it very ill indeed that he should come back again, and who was\neating mashed potatoes and gravy behind a partition by the hall fire.\n\nHe was readmitted to the presence of Barnacle junior, and found that\nyoung gentleman singeing his knees now, and gaping his weary way on\nto four o'clock.\n\n'I say. Look here. You stick to us in a devil of a manner,' Said\nBarnacle junior, looking over his shoulder.\n\n'I want to know--'\n\n'Look here. Upon my soul you mustn't come into the place saying you\nwant to know, you know,' remonstrated Barnacle junior, turning about and\nputting up the eye-glass.\n\n'I want to know,' said Arthur Clennam, who had made up his mind to\npersistence in one short form of words, 'the precise nature of the claim\nof the Crown against a prisoner for debt, named Dorrit.'\n\n'I say. Look here. You really are going it at a great pace, you know.\nEgad, you haven't got an appointment,' said Barnacle junior, as if the\nthing were growing serious.\n\n'I want to know,' said Arthur, and repeated his case.\n\nBarnacle junior stared at him until his eye-glass fell out, and then\nput it in again and stared at him until it fell out again. 'You have\nno right to come this sort of move,' he then observed with the greatest\nweakness. 'Look here. What do you mean? You told me you didn't know\nwhether it was public business or not.'\n\n'I have now ascertained that it is public business,' returned the\nsuitor, 'and I want to know'--and again repeated his monotonous inquiry.\n\nIts effect upon young Barnacle was to make him repeat in a defenceless\nway, 'Look here! Upon my SOUL you mustn't come into the place saying you\nwant to know, you know!' The effect of that upon Arthur Clennam was\nto make him repeat his inquiry in exactly the same words and tone\nas before. The effect of that upon young Barnacle was to make him a\nwonderful spectacle of failure and helplessness.\n\n'Well, I tell you what. Look here. You had better try the Secretarial\nDepartment,' he said at last, sidling to the bell and ringing it.\n'Jenkinson,' to the mashed potatoes messenger, 'Mr Wobbler!'\n\nArthur Clennam, who now felt that he had devoted himself to the storming\nof the Circumlocution Office, and must go through with it, accompanied\nthe messenger to another floor of the building, where that functionary\npointed out Mr Wobbler's room. He entered that apartment, and found two\ngentlemen sitting face to face at a large and easy desk, one of whom was\npolishing a gun-barrel on his pocket-handkerchief, while the other was\nspreading marmalade on bread with a paper-knife.\n\n'Mr Wobbler?' inquired the suitor.\n\nBoth gentlemen glanced at him, and seemed surprised at his assurance.\n\n'So he went,' said the gentleman with the gun-barrel, who was an\nextremely deliberate speaker, 'down to his cousin's place, and took the\nDog with him by rail. Inestimable Dog. Flew at the porter fellow when he\nwas put into the dog-box, and flew at the guard when he was taken out.\nHe got half-a-dozen fellows into a Barn, and a good supply of Rats, and\ntimed the Dog. Finding the Dog able to do it immensely, made the match,\nand heavily backed the Dog. When the match came off, some devil of\na fellow was bought over, Sir, Dog was made drunk, Dog's master was\ncleaned out.'\n\n'Mr Wobbler?' inquired the suitor.\n\nThe gentleman who was spreading the marmalade returned, without looking\nup from that occupation, 'What did he call the Dog?'\n\n'Called him Lovely,' said the other gentleman. 'Said the Dog was the\nperfect picture of the old aunt from whom he had expectations. Found him\nparticularly like her when hocussed.'\n\n'Mr Wobbler?' said the suitor.\n\nBoth gentlemen laughed for some time. The gentleman with the gun-barrel,\nconsidering it, on inspection, in a satisfactory state, referred it to\nthe other; receiving confirmation of his views, he fitted it into its\nplace in the case before him, and took out the stock and polished that,\nsoftly whistling.\n\n'Mr Wobbler?' said the suitor.\n\n'What's the matter?' then said Mr Wobbler, with his mouth full.\n\n'I want to know--' and Arthur Clennam again mechanically set forth what\nhe wanted to know.\n\n'Can't inform you,' observed Mr Wobbler, apparently to his lunch. 'Never\nheard of it. Nothing at all to do with it. Better try Mr Clive, second\ndoor on the left in the next passage.'\n\n'Perhaps he will give me the same answer.'\n\n'Very likely. Don't know anything about it,' said Mr Wobbler.\n\nThe suitor turned away and had left the room, when the gentleman with\nthe gun called out 'Mister! Hallo!'\n\nHe looked in again.\n\n'Shut the door after you. You're letting in a devil of a draught here!'\n\nA few steps brought him to the second door on the left in the next\npassage. In that room he found three gentlemen; number one doing nothing\nparticular, number two doing nothing particular, number three doing\nnothing particular. They seemed, however, to be more directly concerned\nthan the others had been in the effective execution of the great\nprinciple of the office, as there was an awful inner apartment with a\ndouble door, in which the Circumlocution Sages appeared to be assembled\nin council, and out of which there was an imposing coming of papers,\nand into which there was an imposing going of papers, almost constantly;\nwherein another gentleman, number four, was the active instrument.\n\n'I want to know,' said Arthur Clennam,--and again stated his case in the\nsame barrel-organ way. As number one referred him to number two, and\nas number two referred him to number three, he had occasion to state\nit three times before they all referred him to number four, to whom he\nstated it again.\n\nNumber four was a vivacious, well-looking, well-dressed, agreeable\nyoung fellow--he was a Barnacle, but on the more sprightly side of\nthe family--and he said in an easy way, 'Oh! you had better not bother\nyourself about it, I think.'\n\n'Not bother myself about it?'\n\n'No! I recommend you not to bother yourself about it.'\n\nThis was such a new point of view that Arthur Clennam found himself at a\nloss how to receive it.\n\n'You can if you like. I can give you plenty of forms to fill up. Lots of\n'em here. You can have a dozen if you like. But you'll never go on with\nit,' said number four.\n\n'Would it be such hopeless work? Excuse me; I am a stranger in England.'\n\n'_I_ don't say it would be hopeless,' returned number four, with a frank\nsmile. 'I don't express an opinion about that; I only express an opinion\nabout you. _I_ don't think you'd go on with it. However, of course, you\ncan do as you like. I suppose there was a failure in the performance of\na contract, or something of that kind, was there?'\n\n'I really don't know.'\n\n'Well! That you can find out. Then you'll find out what Department the\ncontract was in, and then you'll find out all about it there.'\n\n'I beg your pardon. How shall I find out?'\n\n'Why, you'll--you'll ask till they tell you. Then you'll memorialise\nthat Department (according to regular forms which you'll find out) for\nleave to memorialise this Department. If you get it (which you may after\na time), that memorial must be entered in that Department, sent to\nbe registered in this Department, sent back to be signed by that\nDepartment, sent back to be countersigned by this Department, and then\nit will begin to be regularly before that Department. You'll find out\nwhen the business passes through each of these stages by asking at both\nDepartments till they tell you.'\n\n'But surely this is not the way to do the business,' Arthur Clennam\ncould not help saying.\n\nThis airy young Barnacle was quite entertained by his simplicity in\nsupposing for a moment that it was. This light in hand young Barnacle\nknew perfectly that it was not. This touch and go young Barnacle had\n'got up' the Department in a private secretaryship, that he might\nbe ready for any little bit of fat that came to hand; and he fully\nunderstood the Department to be a politico-diplomatic hocus pocus piece\nof machinery for the assistance of the nobs in keeping off the\nsnobs. This dashing young Barnacle, in a word, was likely to become a\nstatesman, and to make a figure.\n\n'When the business is regularly before that Department, whatever it is,'\npursued this bright young Barnacle, 'then you can watch it from time\nto time through that Department. When it comes regularly before this\nDepartment, then you must watch it from time to time through this\nDepartment. We shall have to refer it right and left; and when we refer\nit anywhere, then you'll have to look it up. When it comes back to us\nat any time, then you had better look _us_ up. When it sticks anywhere,\nyou'll have to try to give it a jog. When you write to another\nDepartment about it, and then to this Department about it, and don't\nhear anything satisfactory about it, why then you had better--keep on\nwriting.'\n\nArthur Clennam looked very doubtful indeed. 'But I am obliged to you at\nany rate,' said he, 'for your politeness.'\n\n'Not at all,' replied this engaging young Barnacle. 'Try the thing, and\nsee how you like it. It will be in your power to give it up at any time,\nif you don't like it. You had better take a lot of forms away with you.\nGive him a lot of forms!' With which instruction to number two, this\nsparkling young Barnacle took a fresh handful of papers from numbers one\nand three, and carried them into the sanctuary to offer to the presiding\nIdol of the Circumlocution Office.\n\nArthur Clennam put his forms in his pocket gloomily enough, and went\nhis way down the long stone passage and the long stone staircase. He had\ncome to the swing doors leading into the street, and was waiting, not\nover patiently, for two people who were between him and them to pass out\nand let him follow, when the voice of one of them struck familiarly on\nhis ear. He looked at the speaker and recognised Mr Meagles. Mr Meagles\nwas very red in the face--redder than travel could have made him--and\ncollaring a short man who was with him, said, 'come out, you rascal,\ncome Out!'\n\nIt was such an unexpected hearing, and it was also such an unexpected\nsight to see Mr Meagles burst the swing doors open, and emerge into the\nstreet with the short man, who was of an unoffending appearance, that\nClennam stood still for the moment exchanging looks of surprise with the\nporter. He followed, however, quickly; and saw Mr Meagles going down\nthe street with his enemy at his side. He soon came up with his old\ntravelling companion, and touched him on the back. The choleric face\nwhich Mr Meagles turned upon him smoothed when he saw who it was, and he\nput out his friendly hand.\n\n'How are you?' said Mr Meagles. 'How d'ye _do?_ I have only just come over\nfrom abroad. I am glad to see you.'\n\n'And I am rejoiced to see you.'\n\n'Thank'ee. Thank'ee!'\n\n'Mrs Meagles and your daughter--?'\n\n'Are as well as possible,' said Mr Meagles. 'I only wish you had come\nupon me in a more prepossessing condition as to coolness.'\n\nThough it was anything but a hot day, Mr Meagles was in a heated state\nthat attracted the attention of the passersby; more particularly as\nhe leaned his back against a railing, took off his hat and cravat, and\nheartily rubbed his steaming head and face, and his reddened ears and\nneck, without the least regard for public opinion.\n\n'Whew!' said Mr Meagles, dressing again. 'That's comfortable. Now I am\ncooler.'\n\n'You have been ruffled, Mr Meagles. What is the matter?'\n\n'Wait a bit, and I'll tell you. Have you leisure for a turn in the\nPark?'\n\n'As much as you please.'\n\n'Come along then. Ah! you may well look at him.' He happened to have\nturned his eyes towards the offender whom Mr Meagles had so angrily\ncollared. 'He's something to look at, that fellow is.'\n\nHe was not much to look at, either in point of size or in point of\ndress; being merely a short, square, practical looking man, whose hair\nhad turned grey, and in whose face and forehead there were deep lines of\ncogitation, which looked as though they were carved in hard wood. He\nwas dressed in decent black, a little rusty, and had the appearance of\na sagacious master in some handicraft. He had a spectacle-case in his\nhand, which he turned over and over while he was thus in question,\nwith a certain free use of the thumb that is never seen but in a hand\naccustomed to tools.\n\n'You keep with us,' said Mr Meagles, in a threatening kind of Way, 'and\nI'll introduce you presently. Now then!'\n\nClennam wondered within himself, as they took the nearest way to the\nPark, what this unknown (who complied in the gentlest manner) could have\nbeen doing. His appearance did not at all justify the suspicion that he\nhad been detected in designs on Mr Meagles's pocket-handkerchief; nor\nhad he any appearance of being quarrelsome or violent. He was a quiet,\nplain, steady man; made no attempt to escape; and seemed a little\ndepressed, but neither ashamed nor repentant. If he were a criminal\noffender, he must surely be an incorrigible hypocrite; and if he were no\noffender, why should Mr Meagles have collared him in the Circumlocution\nOffice? He perceived that the man was not a difficulty in his own\nmind alone, but in Mr Meagles's too; for such conversation as they had\ntogether on the short way to the Park was by no means well sustained,\nand Mr Meagles's eye always wandered back to the man, even when he spoke\nof something very different.\n\nAt length they being among the trees, Mr Meagles stopped short, and\nsaid:\n\n'Mr Clennam, will you do me the favour to look at this man? His name\nis Doyce, Daniel Doyce. You wouldn't suppose this man to be a notorious\nrascal; would you?'\n\n'I certainly should not.' It was really a disconcerting question, with\nthe man there.\n\n'No. You would not. I know you would not. You wouldn't suppose him to be\na public offender; would you?'\n\n'No.'\n\n'No. But he is. He is a public offender. What has he been guilty of?\nMurder, manslaughter, arson, forgery, swindling, house-breaking, highway\nrobbery, larceny, conspiracy, fraud? Which should you say, now?'\n\n'I should say,' returned Arthur Clennam, observing a faint smile in\nDaniel Doyce's face, 'not one of them.'\n\n'You are right,' said Mr Meagles. 'But he has been ingenious, and he has\nbeen trying to turn his ingenuity to his country's service. That makes\nhim a public offender directly, sir.'\n\nArthur looked at the man himself, who only shook his head.\n\n'This Doyce,' said Mr Meagles, 'is a smith and engineer. He is not in a\nlarge way, but he is well known as a very ingenious man. A dozen years\nago, he perfects an invention (involving a very curious secret process)\nof great importance to his country and his fellow-creatures. I won't say\nhow much money it cost him, or how many years of his life he had been\nabout it, but he brought it to perfection a dozen years ago. Wasn't it a\ndozen?' said Mr Meagles, addressing Doyce. 'He is the most exasperating\nman in the world; he never complains!'\n\n'Yes. Rather better than twelve years ago.'\n\n'Rather better?' said Mr Meagles, 'you mean rather worse. Well, Mr\nClennam, he addresses himself to the Government. The moment he addresses\nhimself to the Government, he becomes a public offender! Sir,' said Mr\nMeagles, in danger of making himself excessively hot again, 'he ceases\nto be an innocent citizen, and becomes a culprit. He is treated from\nthat instant as a man who has done some infernal action. He is a man to\nbe shirked, put off, brow-beaten, sneered at, handed over by this\nhighly-connected young or old gentleman, to that highly-connected young\nor old gentleman, and dodged back again; he is a man with no rights in\nhis own time, or his own property; a mere outlaw, whom it is justifiable\nto get rid of anyhow; a man to be worn out by all possible means.'\n\nIt was not so difficult to believe, after the morning's experience, as\nMr Meagles supposed.\n\n'Don't stand there, Doyce, turning your spectacle-case over and over,'\ncried Mr Meagles, 'but tell Mr Clennam what you confessed to me.'\n\n'I undoubtedly was made to feel,' said the inventor, 'as if I had\ncommitted an offence. In dancing attendance at the various offices, I\nwas always treated, more or less, as if it was a very bad offence. I\nhave frequently found it necessary to reflect, for my own self-support,\nthat I really had not done anything to bring myself into the Newgate\nCalendar, but only wanted to effect a great saving and a great\nimprovement.'\n\n'There!' said Mr Meagles. 'Judge whether I exaggerate. Now you'll be\nable to believe me when I tell you the rest of the case.'\n\nWith this prelude, Mr Meagles went through the narrative; the\nestablished narrative, which has become tiresome; the matter-of-course\nnarrative which we all know by heart. How, after interminable attendance\nand correspondence, after infinite impertinences, ignorances, and\ninsults, my lords made a Minute, number three thousand four hundred\nand seventy-two, allowing the culprit to make certain trials of his\ninvention at his own expense. How the trials were made in the presence\nof a board of six, of whom two ancient members were too blind to see it,\ntwo other ancient members were too deaf to hear it, one other ancient\nmember was too lame to get near it, and the final ancient member was too\npig-headed to look at it. How there were more years; more impertinences,\nignorances, and insults. How my lords then made a Minute, number five\nthousand one hundred and three, whereby they resigned the business to\nthe Circumlocution Office. How the Circumlocution Office, in course of\ntime, took up the business as if it were a bran new thing of yesterday,\nwhich had never been heard of before; muddled the business, addled the\nbusiness, tossed the business in a wet blanket. How the impertinences,\nignorances, and insults went through the multiplication table. How there\nwas a reference of the invention to three Barnacles and a Stiltstalking,\nwho knew nothing about it; into whose heads nothing could be hammered\nabout it; who got bored about it, and reported physical impossibilities\nabout it. How the Circumlocution Office, in a Minute, number eight\nthousand seven hundred and forty, 'saw no reason to reverse the decision\nat which my lords had arrived.' How the Circumlocution Office, being\nreminded that my lords had arrived at no decision, shelved the business.\nHow there had been a final interview with the head of the Circumlocution\nOffice that very morning, and how the Brazen Head had spoken, and had\nbeen, upon the whole, and under all the circumstances, and looking at it\nfrom the various points of view, of opinion that one of two courses was\nto be pursued in respect of the business: that was to say, either to\nleave it alone for evermore, or to begin it all over again.\n\n'Upon which,' said Mr Meagles, 'as a practical man, I then and there, in\nthat presence, took Doyce by the collar, and told him it was plain to\nme that he was an infamous rascal and treasonable disturber of the\ngovernment peace, and took him away. I brought him out of the office\ndoor by the collar, that the very porter might know I was a practical\nman who appreciated the official estimate of such characters; and here\nwe are!'\n\nIf that airy young Barnacle had been there, he would have frankly told\nthem perhaps that the Circumlocution Office had achieved its function.\nThat what the Barnacles had to do, was to stick on to the national ship\nas long as they could. That to trim the ship, lighten the ship, clean\nthe ship, would be to knock them off; that they could but be knocked off\nonce; and that if the ship went down with them yet sticking to it, that\nwas the ship's look out, and not theirs.\n\n'There!' said Mr Meagles, 'now you know all about Doyce. Except, which I\nown does not improve my state of mind, that even now you don't hear him\ncomplain.'\n\n'You must have great patience,' said Arthur Clennam, looking at him with\nsome wonder, 'great forbearance.'\n\n'No,' he returned, 'I don't know that I have more than another man.'\n\n'By the Lord, you have more than I have, though!' cried Mr Meagles.\n\nDoyce smiled, as he said to Clennam, 'You see, my experience of these\nthings does not begin with myself. It has been in my way to know a\nlittle about them from time to time. Mine is not a particular case. I am\nnot worse used than a hundred others who have put themselves in the same\nposition--than all the others, I was going to say.'\n\n'I don't know that I should find that a consolation, if it were my case;\nbut I am very glad that you do.'\n\n'Understand me! I don't say,' he replied in his steady, planning\nway, and looking into the distance before him as if his grey eye were\nmeasuring it, 'that it's recompense for a man's toil and hope; but it's\na certain sort of relief to know that I might have counted on this.'\n\nHe spoke in that quiet deliberate manner, and in that undertone, which\nis often observable in mechanics who consider and adjust with great\nnicety. It belonged to him like his suppleness of thumb, or his peculiar\nway of tilting up his hat at the back every now and then, as if he were\ncontemplating some half-finished work of his hand and thinking about it.\n\n'Disappointed?' he went on, as he walked between them under the trees.\n'Yes. No doubt I am disappointed. Hurt? Yes. No doubt I am hurt. That's\nonly natural. But what I mean when I say that people who put themselves\nin the same position are mostly used in the same way--'\n\n'In England,' said Mr Meagles.\n\n'Oh! of course I mean in England. When they take their inventions into\nforeign countries, that's quite different. And that's the reason why so\nmany go there.'\n\nMr Meagles very hot indeed again.\n\n'What I mean is, that however this comes to be the regular way of our\ngovernment, it is its regular way. Have you ever heard of any projector\nor inventor who failed to find it all but inaccessible, and whom it did\nnot discourage and ill-treat?'\n\n'I cannot say that I ever have.'\n\n'Have you ever known it to be beforehand in the adoption of any useful\nthing? Ever known it to set an example of any useful kind?'\n\n'I am a good deal older than my friend here,' said Mr Meagles, 'and I'll\nanswer that. Never.'\n\n'But we all three have known, I expect,' said the inventor, 'a pretty\nmany cases of its fixed determination to be miles upon miles, and years\nupon years, behind the rest of us; and of its being found out persisting\nin the use of things long superseded, even after the better things were\nwell known and generally taken up?'\n\nThey all agreed upon that.\n\n'Well then,' said Doyce, with a sigh, 'as I know what such a metal will\ndo at such a temperature, and such a body under such a pressure, so I\nmay know (if I will only consider), how these great lords and gentlemen\nwill certainly deal with such a matter as mine. I have no right to be\nsurprised, with a head upon my shoulders, and memory in it, that I fall\ninto the ranks with all who came before me. I ought to have let it\nalone. I have had warning enough, I am sure.'\n\nWith that he put up his spectacle-case, and said to Arthur, 'If I don't\ncomplain, Mr Clennam, I can feel gratitude; and I assure you that I\nfeel it towards our mutual friend. Many's the day, and many's the way in\nwhich he has backed me.'\n\n'Stuff and nonsense,' said Mr Meagles.\n\nArthur could not but glance at Daniel Doyce in the ensuing silence.\nThough it was evidently in the grain of his character, and of his\nrespect for his own case, that he should abstain from idle murmuring,\nit was evident that he had grown the older, the sterner, and the poorer,\nfor his long endeavour. He could not but think what a blessed thing\nit would have been for this man, if he had taken a lesson from the\ngentlemen who were so kind as to take a nation's affairs in charge, and\nhad learnt How not to do it.\n\nMr Meagles was hot and despondent for about five minutes, and then began\nto cool and clear up.\n\n'Come, come!' said he. 'We shall not make this the better by being grim.\nWhere do you think of going, Dan?'\n\n'I shall go back to the factory,' said Dan.\n\n'Why then, we'll all go back to the factory, or walk in that direction,'\nreturned Mr Meagles cheerfully. 'Mr Clennam won't be deterred by its\nbeing in Bleeding Heart Yard.'\n\n'Bleeding Heart Yard?' said Clennam. 'I want to go there.'\n\n'So much the better,' cried Mr Meagles. 'Come along!'\n\nAs they went along, certainly one of the party, and probably more than\none, thought that Bleeding Heart Yard was no inappropriate destination\nfor a man who had been in official correspondence with my lords and the\nBarnacles--and perhaps had a misgiving also that Britannia herself might\ncome to look for lodgings in Bleeding Heart Yard some ugly day or other,\nif she over-did the Circumlocution Office.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 11. Let Loose\n\n\nA late, dull autumn night was closing in upon the river Saone. The\nstream, like a sullied looking-glass in a gloomy place, reflected the\nclouds heavily; and the low banks leaned over here and there, as if they\nwere half curious, and half afraid, to see their darkening pictures in\nthe water. The flat expanse of country about Chalons lay a long heavy\nstreak, occasionally made a little ragged by a row of poplar trees\nagainst the wrathful sunset. On the banks of the river Saone it was wet,\ndepressing, solitary; and the night deepened fast.\n\nOne man slowly moving on towards Chalons was the only visible figure in\nthe landscape. Cain might have looked as lonely and avoided. With an old\nsheepskin knapsack at his back, and a rough, unbarked stick cut out of\nsome wood in his hand; miry, footsore, his shoes and gaiters trodden\nout, his hair and beard untrimmed; the cloak he carried over his\nshoulder, and the clothes he wore, sodden with wet; limping along in\npain and difficulty; he looked as if the clouds were hurrying from him,\nas if the wail of the wind and the shuddering of the grass were directed\nagainst him, as if the low mysterious plashing of the water murmured at\nhim, as if the fitful autumn night were disturbed by him.\n\nHe glanced here, and he glanced there, sullenly but shrinkingly; and\nsometimes stopped and turned about, and looked all round him. Then he\nlimped on again, toiling and muttering.\n\n'To the devil with this plain that has no end! To the devil with these\nstones that cut like knives! To the devil with this dismal darkness,\nwrapping itself about one with a chill! I hate you!'\n\nAnd he would have visited his hatred upon it all with the scowl he threw\nabout him, if he could. He trudged a little further; and looking into\nthe distance before him, stopped again.\n\n'I, hungry, thirsty, weary. You, imbeciles, where the lights are yonder,\neating and drinking, and warming yourselves at fires! I wish I had the\nsacking of your town; I would repay you, my children!'\n\nBut the teeth he set at the town, and the hand he shook at the town,\nbrought the town no nearer; and the man was yet hungrier, and thirstier,\nand wearier, when his feet were on its jagged pavement, and he stood\nlooking about him.\n\nThere was the hotel with its gateway, and its savoury smell of cooking;\nthere was the cafe with its bright windows, and its rattling of\ndominoes; there was the dyer's with its strips of red cloth on the\ndoorposts; there was the silversmith's with its earrings, and its\nofferings for altars; there was the tobacco dealer's with its lively\ngroup of soldier customers coming out pipe in mouth; there were the bad\nodours of the town, and the rain and the refuse in the kennels, and\nthe faint lamps slung across the road, and the huge Diligence, and its\nmountain of luggage, and its six grey horses with their tails tied up,\ngetting under weigh at the coach office. But no small cabaret for a\nstraitened traveller being within sight, he had to seek one round the\ndark corner, where the cabbage leaves lay thickest, trodden about the\npublic cistern at which women had not yet left off drawing water. There,\nin the back street he found one, the Break of Day. The curtained windows\nclouded the Break of Day, but it seemed light and warm, and it announced\nin legible inscriptions with appropriate pictorial embellishment\nof billiard cue and ball, that at the Break of Day one could play\nbilliards; that there one could find meat, drink, and lodgings, whether\none came on horseback, or came on foot; and that it kept good wines,\nliqueurs, and brandy. The man turned the handle of the Break of Day\ndoor, and limped in.\n\nHe touched his discoloured slouched hat, as he came in at the door, to\na few men who occupied the room. Two were playing dominoes at one of the\nlittle tables; three or four were seated round the stove, conversing\nas they smoked; the billiard-table in the centre was left alone for the\ntime; the landlady of the Daybreak sat behind her little counter among\nher cloudy bottles of syrups, baskets of cakes, and leaden drainage for\nglasses, working at her needle.\n\nMaking his way to an empty little table in a corner of the room behind\nthe stove, he put down his knapsack and his cloak upon the ground. As\nhe raised his head from stooping to do so, he found the landlady beside\nhim.\n\n'One can lodge here to-night, madame?'\n\n'Perfectly!' said the landlady in a high, sing-song, cheery voice.\n\n'Good. One can dine--sup--what you please to call it?'\n\n'Ah, perfectly!' cried the landlady as before.\n\n'Dispatch then, madame, if you please. Something to eat, as quickly as\nyou can; and some wine at once. I am exhausted.'\n\n'It is very bad weather, monsieur,' said the landlady.\n\n'Cursed weather.'\n\n'And a very long road.'\n\n'A cursed road.'\n\nHis hoarse voice failed him, and he rested his head upon his hands until\na bottle of wine was brought from the counter. Having filled and emptied\nhis little tumbler twice, and having broken off an end from the great\nloaf that was set before him with his cloth and napkin, soup-plate,\nsalt, pepper, and oil, he rested his back against the corner of the\nwall, made a couch of the bench on which he sat, and began to chew\ncrust, until such time as his repast should be ready.\n\nThere had been that momentary interruption of the talk about the stove,\nand that temporary inattention to and distraction from one another,\nwhich is usually inseparable in such a company from the arrival of a\nstranger. It had passed over by this time; and the men had done glancing\nat him, and were talking again.\n\n'That's the true reason,' said one of them, bringing a story he had\nbeen telling, to a close, 'that's the true reason why they said that the\ndevil was let loose.' The speaker was the tall Swiss belonging to the\nchurch, and he brought something of the authority of the church into the\ndiscussion--especially as the devil was in question.\n\nThe landlady having given her directions for the new guest's\nentertainment to her husband, who acted as cook to the Break of Day, had\nresumed her needlework behind her counter. She was a smart, neat, bright\nlittle woman, with a good deal of cap and a good deal of stocking, and\nshe struck into the conversation with several laughing nods of her head,\nbut without looking up from her work.\n\n'Ah Heaven, then,' said she. 'When the boat came up from Lyons, and\nbrought the news that the devil was actually let loose at Marseilles,\nsome fly-catchers swallowed it. But I? No, not I.'\n\n'Madame, you are always right,' returned the tall Swiss. 'Doubtless you\nwere enraged against that man, madame?'\n\n'Ay, yes, then!' cried the landlady, raising her eyes from her work,\nopening them very wide, and tossing her head on one side. 'Naturally,\nyes.'\n\n'He was a bad subject.'\n\n'He was a wicked wretch,' said the landlady, 'and well merited what he\nhad the good fortune to escape. So much the worse.'\n\n'Stay, madame! Let us see,' returned the Swiss, argumentatively turning\nhis cigar between his lips. 'It may have been his unfortunate destiny.\nHe may have been the child of circumstances. It is always possible that\nhe had, and has, good in him if one did but know how to find it out.\nPhilosophical philanthropy teaches--'\n\nThe rest of the little knot about the stove murmured an objection to\nthe introduction of that threatening expression. Even the two players\nat dominoes glanced up from their game, as if to protest against\nphilosophical philanthropy being brought by name into the Break of Day.\n\n'Hold there, you and your philanthropy,' cried the smiling landlady,\nnodding her head more than ever. 'Listen then. I am a woman, I. I know\nnothing of philosophical philanthropy. But I know what I have seen, and\nwhat I have looked in the face in this world here, where I find myself.\nAnd I tell you this, my friend, that there are people (men and women\nboth, unfortunately) who have no good in them--none. That there are\npeople whom it is necessary to detest without compromise. That there are\npeople who must be dealt with as enemies of the human race. That there\nare people who have no human heart, and who must be crushed like savage\nbeasts and cleared out of the way. They are but few, I hope; but I have\nseen (in this world here where I find myself, and even at the little\nBreak of Day) that there are such people. And I do not doubt that this\nman--whatever they call him, I forget his name--is one of them.'\n\nThe landlady's lively speech was received with greater favour at\nthe Break of Day, than it would have elicited from certain amiable\nwhitewashers of the class she so unreasonably objected to, nearer Great\nBritain.\n\n'My faith! If your philosophical philanthropy,' said the landlady,\nputting down her work, and rising to take the stranger's soup from her\nhusband, who appeared with it at a side door, 'puts anybody at the mercy\nof such people by holding terms with them at all, in words or deeds, or\nboth, take it away from the Break of Day, for it isn't worth a sou.'\n\nAs she placed the soup before the guest, who changed his attitude to a\nsitting one, he looked her full in the face, and his moustache went up\nunder his nose, and his nose came down over his moustache.\n\n'Well!' said the previous speaker, 'let us come back to our subject.\nLeaving all that aside, gentlemen, it was because the man was acquitted\non his trial that people said at Marseilles that the devil was let\nloose. That was how the phrase began to circulate, and what it meant;\nnothing more.'\n\n'How do they call him?' said the landlady. 'Biraud, is it not?'\n\n'Rigaud, madame,' returned the tall Swiss.\n\n'Rigaud! To be sure.'\n\nThe traveller's soup was succeeded by a dish of meat, and that by a dish\nof vegetables. He ate all that was placed before him, emptied his bottle\nof wine, called for a glass of rum, and smoked his cigarette with\nhis cup of coffee. As he became refreshed, he became overbearing; and\npatronised the company at the Daybreak in certain small talk at which he\nassisted, as if his condition were far above his appearance.\n\nThe company might have had other engagements, or they might have felt\ntheir inferiority, but in any case they dispersed by degrees, and not\nbeing replaced by other company, left their new patron in possession of\nthe Break of Day. The landlord was clinking about in his kitchen; the\nlandlady was quiet at her work; and the refreshed traveller sat smoking\nby the stove, warming his ragged feet.\n\n'Pardon me, madame--that Biraud.'\n\n'Rigaud, monsieur.'\n\n'Rigaud. Pardon me again--has contracted your displeasure, how?'\n\nThe landlady, who had been at one moment thinking within herself that\nthis was a handsome man, at another moment that this was an ill-looking\nman, observed the nose coming down and the moustache going up, and\nstrongly inclined to the latter decision. Rigaud was a criminal, she\nsaid, who had killed his wife.\n\n'Ay, ay? Death of my life, that's a criminal indeed. But how do you know\nit?'\n\n'All the world knows it.'\n\n'Hah! And yet he escaped justice?'\n\n'Monsieur, the law could not prove it against him to its satisfaction.\nSo the law says. Nevertheless, all the world knows he did it. The people\nknew it so well, that they tried to tear him to pieces.'\n\n'Being all in perfect accord with their own wives?' said the guest. 'Haha!'\n\nThe landlady of the Break of Day looked at him again, and felt almost\nconfirmed in her last decision. He had a fine hand, though, and he\nturned it with a great show. She began once more to think that he was\nnot ill-looking after all.\n\n'Did you mention, madame--or was it mentioned among the gentlemen--what\nbecame of him?'\n\nThe landlady shook her head; it being the first conversational stage at\nwhich her vivacious earnestness had ceased to nod it, keeping time to what\nshe said. It had been mentioned at the Daybreak, she remarked, on the\nauthority of the journals, that he had been kept in prison for his own\nsafety. However that might be, he had escaped his deserts; so much the\nworse.\n\nThe guest sat looking at her as he smoked out his final cigarette, and\nas she sat with her head bent over her work, with an expression that\nmight have resolved her doubts, and brought her to a lasting conclusion\non the subject of his good or bad looks if she had seen it. When she did\nlook up, the expression was not there. The hand was smoothing his shaggy\nmoustache.\n\n'May one ask to be shown to bed, madame?'\n\nVery willingly, monsieur. Hola, my husband! My husband would conduct him\nup-stairs. There was one traveller there, asleep, who had gone to bed\nvery early indeed, being overpowered by fatigue; but it was a large\nchamber with two beds in it, and space enough for twenty. This the\nlandlady of the Break of Day chirpingly explained, calling between\nwhiles, 'Hola, my husband!' out at the side door.\n\nMy husband answered at length, 'It is I, my wife!' and presenting\nhimself in his cook's cap, lighted the traveller up a steep and narrow\nstaircase; the traveller carrying his own cloak and knapsack, and\nbidding the landlady good night with a complimentary reference to the\npleasure of seeing her again to-morrow. It was a large room, with a\nrough splintery floor, unplastered rafters overhead, and two bedsteads\non opposite sides. Here 'my husband' put down the candle he carried, and\nwith a sidelong look at his guest stooping over his knapsack, gruffly\ngave him the instruction, 'The bed to the right!' and left him to his\nrepose. The landlord, whether he was a good or a bad physiognomist, had\nfully made up his mind that the guest was an ill-looking fellow.\n\nThe guest looked contemptuously at the clean coarse bedding prepared for\nhim, and, sitting down on the rush chair at the bedside, drew his money\nout of his pocket, and told it over in his hand. 'One must eat,' he\nmuttered to himself, 'but by Heaven I must eat at the cost of some other\nman to-morrow!'\n\nAs he sat pondering, and mechanically weighing his money in his palm,\nthe deep breathing of the traveller in the other bed fell so regularly\nupon his hearing that it attracted his eyes in that direction. The man\nwas covered up warm, and had drawn the white curtain at his head, so\nthat he could be only heard, not seen. But the deep regular breathing,\nstill going on while the other was taking off his worn shoes and\ngaiters, and still continuing when he had laid aside his coat and\ncravat, became at length a strong provocative to curiosity, and\nincentive to get a glimpse of the sleeper's face.\n\nThe waking traveller, therefore, stole a little nearer, and yet a little\nnearer, and a little nearer to the sleeping traveller's bed, until he\nstood close beside it. Even then he could not see his face, for he had\ndrawn the sheet over it. The regular breathing still continuing, he put\nhis smooth white hand (such a treacherous hand it looked, as it went\ncreeping from him!) to the sheet, and gently lifted it away.\n\n'Death of my soul!' he whispered, falling back, 'here's Cavalletto!'\n\nThe little Italian, previously influenced in his sleep, perhaps, by the\nstealthy presence at his bedside, stopped in his regular breathing, and\nwith a long deep respiration opened his eyes. At first they were not\nawake, though open. He lay for some seconds looking placidly at his\nold prison companion, and then, all at once, with a cry of surprise and\nalarm, sprang out of bed.\n\n'Hush! What's the matter? Keep quiet! It's I. You know me?' cried the\nother, in a suppressed voice.\n\nBut John Baptist, widely staring, muttering a number of invocations\nand ejaculations, tremblingly backing into a corner, slipping on\nhis trousers, and tying his coat by the two sleeves round his neck,\nmanifested an unmistakable desire to escape by the door rather than\nrenew the acquaintance. Seeing this, his old prison comrade fell back\nupon the door, and set his shoulders against it.\n\n'Cavalletto! Wake, boy! Rub your eyes and look at me. Not the name you\nused to call me--don't use that--Lagnier, say Lagnier!'\n\nJohn Baptist, staring at him with eyes opened to their utmost width,\nmade a number of those national, backhanded shakes of the right\nforefinger in the air, as if he were resolved on negativing beforehand\neverything that the other could possibly advance during the whole term\nof his life.\n\n'Cavalletto! Give me your hand. You know Lagnier, the gentleman. Touch\nthe hand of a gentleman!'\n\nSubmitting himself to the old tone of condescending authority, John\nBaptist, not at all steady on his legs as yet, advanced and put his\nhand in his patron's. Monsieur Lagnier laughed; and having given it a\nsqueeze, tossed it up and let it go.\n\n'Then you were--' faltered John Baptist.\n\n'Not shaved? No. See here!' cried Lagnier, giving his head a twirl; 'as\ntight on as your own.'\n\nJohn Baptist, with a slight shiver, looked all round the room as if to\nrecall where he was. His patron took that opportunity of turning the key\nin the door, and then sat down upon his bed.\n\n'Look!' he said, holding up his shoes and gaiters. 'That's a poor trim\nfor a gentleman, you'll say. No matter, you shall see how soon I'll mend\nit. Come and sit down. Take your old place!'\n\nJohn Baptist, looking anything but reassured, sat down on the floor at\nthe bedside, keeping his eyes upon his patron all the time.\n\n'That's well!' cried Lagnier. 'Now we might be in the old infernal hole\nagain, hey? How long have you been out?'\n\n'Two days after you, my master.'\n\n'How do you come here?'\n\n'I was cautioned not to stay there, and so I left the town at once,\nand since then I have changed about. I have been doing odds and ends at\nAvignon, at Pont Esprit, at Lyons; upon the Rhone, upon the Saone.' As\nhe spoke, he rapidly mapped the places out with his sunburnt hand upon\nthe floor.\n\n'And where are you going?'\n\n'Going, my master?'\n\n'Ay!'\n\nJohn Baptist seemed to desire to evade the question without knowing how.\n'By Bacchus!' he said at last, as if he were forced to the admission, 'I\nhave sometimes had a thought of going to Paris, and perhaps to England.'\n\n'Cavalletto. This is in confidence. I also am going to Paris and perhaps\nto England. We'll go together.'\n\nThe little man nodded his head, and showed his teeth; and yet seemed not\nquite convinced that it was a surpassingly desirable arrangement.\n\n'We'll go together,' repeated Lagnier. 'You shall see how soon I will\nforce myself to be recognised as a gentleman, and you shall profit by\nit. It is agreed? Are we one?'\n\n'Oh, surely, surely!' said the little man.\n\n'Then you shall hear before I sleep--and in six words, for I want\nsleep--how I appear before you, I, Lagnier. Remember that. Not the\nother.'\n\n'Altro, altro! Not Ri----' Before John Baptist could finish the name, his\ncomrade had got his hand under his chin and fiercely shut up his mouth.\n\n'Death! what are you doing? Do you want me to be trampled upon and\nstoned? Do _you_ want to be trampled upon and stoned? You would be. You\ndon't imagine that they would set upon me, and let my prison chum go?\nDon't think it!'\n\nThere was an expression in his face as he released his grip of his\nfriend's jaw, from which his friend inferred that if the course of\nevents really came to any stoning and trampling, Monsieur Lagnier would\nso distinguish him with his notice as to ensure his having his full\nshare of it. He remembered what a cosmopolitan gentleman Monsieur\nLagnier was, and how few weak distinctions he made.\n\n'I am a man,' said Monsieur Lagnier, 'whom society has deeply wronged\nsince you last saw me. You know that I am sensitive and brave, and that\nit is my character to govern. How has society respected those qualities\nin me? I have been shrieked at through the streets. I have been guarded\nthrough the streets against men, and especially women, running at me\narmed with any weapons they could lay their hands on. I have lain in\nprison for security, with the place of my confinement kept a secret,\nlest I should be torn out of it and felled by a hundred blows. I have\nbeen carted out of Marseilles in the dead of night, and carried leagues\naway from it packed in straw. It has not been safe for me to go near my\nhouse; and, with a beggar's pittance in my pocket, I have walked through\nvile mud and weather ever since, until my feet are crippled--look at\nthem! Such are the humiliations that society has inflicted upon me,\npossessing the qualities I have mentioned, and which you know me to\npossess. But society shall pay for it.'\n\nAll this he said in his companion's ear, and with his hand before his\nlips.\n\n'Even here,' he went on in the same way, 'even in this mean\ndrinking-shop, society pursues me. Madame defames me, and her guests\ndefame me. I, too, a gentleman with manners and accomplishments\nto strike them dead! But the wrongs society has heaped upon me are\ntreasured in this breast.'\n\nTo all of which John Baptist, listening attentively to the suppressed\nhoarse voice, said from time to time, 'Surely, surely!' tossing his\nhead and shutting his eyes, as if there were the clearest case against\nsociety that perfect candour could make out.\n\n'Put my shoes there,' continued Lagnier. 'Hang my cloak to dry there\nby the door. Take my hat.' He obeyed each instruction, as it was given.\n'And this is the bed to which society consigns me, is it? Hah. _Very_\nwell!'\n\nAs he stretched out his length upon it, with a ragged handkerchief\nbound round his wicked head, and only his wicked head showing above the\nbedclothes, John Baptist was rather strongly reminded of what had so\nvery nearly happened to prevent the moustache from any more going up as\nit did, and the nose from any more coming down as it did.\n\n'Shaken out of destiny's dice-box again into your company, eh? By\nHeaven! So much the better for you. You'll profit by it. I shall need a\nlong rest. Let me sleep in the morning.'\n\nJohn Baptist replied that he should sleep as long as he would, and\nwishing him a happy night, put out the candle. One might have supposed\nthat the next proceeding of the Italian would have been to undress;\nbut he did exactly the reverse, and dressed himself from head to foot,\nsaving his shoes. When he had so done, he lay down upon his bed with\nsome of its coverings over him, and his coat still tied round his neck,\nto get through the night.\n\nWhen he started up, the Godfather Break of Day was peeping at its\nnamesake. He rose, took his shoes in his hand, turned the key in the\ndoor with great caution, and crept downstairs. Nothing was astir there\nbut the smell of coffee, wine, tobacco, and syrups; and madame's little\ncounter looked ghastly enough. But he had paid madame his little note\nat it over night, and wanted to see nobody--wanted nothing but to get on\nhis shoes and his knapsack, open the door, and run away.\n\nHe prospered in his object. No movement or voice was heard when he\nopened the door; no wicked head tied up in a ragged handkerchief looked\nout of the upper window. When the sun had raised his full disc above the\nflat line of the horizon, and was striking fire out of the long muddy\nvista of paved road with its weary avenue of little trees, a black speck\nmoved along the road and splashed among the flaming pools of rain-water,\nwhich black speck was John Baptist Cavalletto running away from his\npatron.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 12. Bleeding Heart Yard\n\n\nIn London itself, though in the old rustic road towards a suburb of note\nwhere in the days of William Shakespeare, author and stage-player, there\nwere Royal hunting-seats--howbeit no sport is left there now but for\nhunters of men--Bleeding Heart Yard was to be found; a place much\nchanged in feature and in fortune, yet with some relish of ancient\ngreatness about it. Two or three mighty stacks of chimneys, and a few\nlarge dark rooms which had escaped being walled and subdivided out of\nthe recognition of their old proportions, gave the Yard a character.\nIt was inhabited by poor people, who set up their rest among its faded\nglories, as Arabs of the desert pitch their tents among the fallen\nstones of the Pyramids; but there was a family sentimental feeling\nprevalent in the Yard, that it had a character.\n\nAs if the aspiring city had become puffed up in the very ground on which\nit stood, the ground had so risen about Bleeding Heart Yard that you\ngot into it down a flight of steps which formed no part of the original\napproach, and got out of it by a low gateway into a maze of shabby\nstreets, which went about and about, tortuously ascending to the level\nagain. At this end of the Yard and over the gateway, was the factory of\nDaniel Doyce, often heavily beating like a bleeding heart of iron,\nwith the clink of metal upon metal.\n\nThe opinion of the Yard was divided respecting the derivation of its\nname. The more practical of its inmates abided by the tradition of a\nmurder; the gentler and more imaginative inhabitants, including the\nwhole of the tender sex, were loyal to the legend of a young lady of\nformer times closely imprisoned in her chamber by a cruel father for\nremaining true to her own true love, and refusing to marry the suitor he\nchose for her. The legend related how that the young lady used to be\nseen up at her window behind the bars, murmuring a love-lorn song of\nwhich the burden was, 'Bleeding Heart, Bleeding Heart, bleeding away,'\nuntil she died. It was objected by the murderous party that this Refrain\nwas notoriously the invention of a tambour-worker, a spinster and\nromantic, still lodging in the Yard. But, forasmuch as all favourite\nlegends must be associated with the affections, and as many more people\nfall in love than commit murder--which it may be hoped, howsoever bad we\nare, will continue until the end of the world to be the dispensation\nunder which we shall live--the Bleeding Heart, Bleeding Heart, bleeding\naway story, carried the day by a great majority. Neither party would\nlisten to the antiquaries who delivered learned lectures in the\nneighbourhood, showing the Bleeding Heart to have been the heraldic\ncognisance of the old family to whom the property had once belonged.\nAnd, considering that the hour-glass they turned from year to year was\nfilled with the earthiest and coarsest sand, the Bleeding Heart Yarders\nhad reason enough for objecting to be despoiled of the one little golden\ngrain of poetry that sparkled in it.\n\nDown in to the Yard, by way of the steps, came Daniel Doyce, Mr Meagles,\nand Clennam. Passing along the Yard, and between the open doors on\neither hand, all abundantly garnished with light children nursing heavy\nones, they arrived at its opposite boundary, the gateway. Here Arthur\nClennam stopped to look about him for the domicile of Plornish,\nplasterer, whose name, according to the custom of Londoners, Daniel\nDoyce had never seen or heard of to that hour.\n\nIt was plain enough, nevertheless, as Little Dorrit had said; over a\nlime-splashed gateway in the corner, within which Plornish kept a ladder\nand a barrel or two. The last house in Bleeding Heart Yard which she\nhad described as his place of habitation, was a large house, let off to\nvarious tenants; but Plornish ingeniously hinted that he lived in the\nparlour, by means of a painted hand under his name, the forefinger of\nwhich hand (on which the artist had depicted a ring and a most elaborate\nnail of the genteelest form) referred all inquirers to that apartment.\n\nParting from his companions, after arranging another meeting with\nMr Meagles, Clennam went alone into the entry, and knocked with his\nknuckles at the parlour-door. It was opened presently by a woman with\na child in her arms, whose unoccupied hand was hastily rearranging the\nupper part of her dress. This was Mrs Plornish, and this maternal\naction was the action of Mrs Plornish during a large part of her waking\nexistence.\n\nWas Mr Plornish at home? 'Well, sir,' said Mrs Plornish, a civil woman,\n'not to deceive you, he's gone to look for a job.'\n\n'Not to deceive you' was a method of speech with Mrs Plornish. She would\ndeceive you, under any circumstances, as little as might be; but she had\na trick of answering in this provisional form.\n\n'Do you think he will be back soon, if I wait for him?'\n\n'I have been expecting him,' said Mrs Plornish, 'this half an hour, at\nany minute of time. Walk in, sir.'\n\nArthur entered the rather dark and close parlour (though it was lofty too),\nand sat down in the chair she placed for him.\n\n'Not to deceive you, sir, I notice it,' said Mrs Plornish, 'and I take\nit kind of you.'\n\nHe was at a loss to understand what she meant; and by expressing as much\nin his looks, elicited her explanation.\n\n'It ain't many that comes into a poor place, that deems it worth their\nwhile to move their hats,' said Mrs Plornish. 'But people think more of\nit than people think.'\n\nClennam returned, with an uncomfortable feeling in so very slight a\ncourtesy being unusual, Was that all! And stooping down to pinch the\ncheek of another young child who was sitting on the floor, staring at\nhim, asked Mrs Plornish how old that fine boy was?\n\n'Four year just turned, sir,' said Mrs Plornish. 'He _is_ a fine little\nfellow, ain't he, sir? But this one is rather sickly.' She tenderly\nhushed the baby in her arms, as she said it. 'You wouldn't mind my\nasking if it happened to be a job as you was come about, sir, would\nyou?' asked Mrs Plornish wistfully.\n\nShe asked it so anxiously, that if he had been in possession of any\nkind of tenement, he would have had it plastered a foot deep rather\nthan answer No. But he was obliged to answer No; and he saw a shade of\ndisappointment on her face, as she checked a sigh, and looked at the\nlow fire. Then he saw, also, that Mrs Plornish was a young woman, made\nsomewhat slatternly in herself and her belongings by poverty; and so\ndragged at by poverty and the children together, that their united\nforces had already dragged her face into wrinkles.\n\n'All such things as jobs,' said Mrs Plornish, 'seems to me to have gone\nunderground, they do indeed.' (Herein Mrs Plornish limited her remark to\nthe plastering trade, and spoke without reference to the Circumlocution\nOffice and the Barnacle Family.)\n\n'Is it so difficult to get work?' asked Arthur Clennam.\n\n'Plornish finds it so,' she returned. 'He is quite unfortunate. Really\nhe is.'\n\nReally he was. He was one of those many wayfarers on the road of life,\nwho seem to be afflicted with supernatural corns, rendering it\nimpossible for them to keep up even with their lame competitors. A\nwilling, working, soft hearted, not hard-headed fellow, Plornish took\nhis fortune as smoothly as could be expected; but it was a rough one. It\nso rarely happened that anybody seemed to want him, it was such an\nexceptional case when his powers were in any request, that his misty\nmind could not make out how it happened. He took it as it came,\ntherefore; he tumbled into all kinds of difficulties, and tumbled out of\nthem; and, by tumbling through life, got himself considerably bruised.\n\n'It's not for want of looking after jobs, I am sure,' said Mrs Plornish,\nlifting up her eyebrows, and searching for a solution of the problem\nbetween the bars of the grate; 'nor yet for want of working at them when\nthey are to be got. No one ever heard my husband complain of work.'\n\nSomehow or other, this was the general misfortune of Bleeding Heart\nYard. From time to time there were public complaints, pathetically\ngoing about, of labour being scarce--which certain people seemed to take\nextraordinarily ill, as though they had an absolute right to it on their\nown terms--but Bleeding Heart Yard, though as willing a Yard as any in\nBritain, was never the better for the demand. That high old family, the\nBarnacles, had long been too busy with their great principle to look\ninto the matter; and indeed the matter had nothing to do with their\nwatchfulness in out-generalling all other high old families except the\nStiltstalkings.\n\nWhile Mrs Plornish spoke in these words of her absent lord, her lord\nreturned. A smooth-cheeked, fresh-coloured, sandy-whiskered man of\nthirty. Long in the legs, yielding at the knees, foolish in the face,\nflannel-jacketed, lime-whitened.\n\n'This is Plornish, sir.'\n\n'I came,' said Clennam, rising, 'to beg the favour of a little\nconversation with you on the subject of the Dorrit family.'\n\nPlornish became suspicious. Seemed to scent a creditor. Said, 'Ah, yes.\nWell. He didn't know what satisfaction _he_ could give any gentleman,\nrespecting that family. What might it be about, now?'\n\n'I know you better,' said Clennam, smiling, 'than you suppose.'\n\nPlornish observed, not smiling in return, And yet he hadn't the pleasure\nof being acquainted with the gentleman, neither.\n\n'No,' said Arthur, 'I know your kind offices at second hand, but on the\nbest authority; through Little Dorrit.--I mean,' he explained, 'Miss\nDorrit.'\n\n'Mr Clennam, is it? Oh! I've heard of you, Sir.'\n\n'And I of you,' said Arthur.\n\n'Please to sit down again, Sir, and consider yourself welcome.--Why,\nyes,' said Plornish, taking a chair, and lifting the elder child upon\nhis knee, that he might have the moral support of speaking to a stranger\nover his head, 'I have been on the wrong side of the Lock myself, and\nin that way we come to know Miss Dorrit. Me and my wife, we are well\nacquainted with Miss Dorrit.'\n\n'Intimate!' cried Mrs Plornish. Indeed, she was so proud of the\nacquaintance, that she had awakened some bitterness of spirit in the\nYard by magnifying to an enormous amount the sum for which Miss Dorrit's\nfather had become insolvent. The Bleeding Hearts resented her claiming\nto know people of such distinction.\n\n'It was her father that I got acquainted with first. And through getting\nacquainted with him, you see--why--I got acquainted with her,' said\nPlornish tautologically.\n\n'I see.'\n\n'Ah! And there's manners! There's polish! There's a gentleman to have\nrun to seed in the Marshalsea jail! Why, perhaps you are not aware,'\nsaid Plornish, lowering his voice, and speaking with a perverse\nadmiration of what he ought to have pitied or despised, 'not aware that\nMiss Dorrit and her sister dursn't let him know that they work for a\nliving. No!' said Plornish, looking with a ridiculous triumph first at\nhis wife, and then all round the room. 'Dursn't let him know it, they\ndursn't!'\n\n'Without admiring him for that,' Clennam quietly observed, 'I am very\nsorry for him.' The remark appeared to suggest to Plornish, for the\nfirst time, that it might not be a very fine trait of character after\nall. He pondered about it for a moment, and gave it up.\n\n'As to me,' he resumed, 'certainly Mr Dorrit is as affable with me, I\nam sure, as I can possibly expect. Considering the differences and\ndistances betwixt us, more so. But it's Miss Dorrit that we were\nspeaking of.'\n\n'True. Pray how did you introduce her at my mother's!'\n\nMr Plornish picked a bit of lime out of his whisker, put it between his\nlips, turned it with his tongue like a sugar-plum, considered, found\nhimself unequal to the task of lucid explanation, and appealing to his\nwife, said, 'Sally, _you_ may as well mention how it was, old woman.'\n\n'Miss Dorrit,' said Sally, hushing the baby from side to side, and\nlaying her chin upon the little hand as it tried to disarrange the gown\nagain, 'came here one afternoon with a bit of writing, telling that\nhow she wished for needlework, and asked if it would be considered any\nill-conwenience in case she was to give her address here.' (Plornish\nrepeated, her address here, in a low voice, as if he were making\nresponses at church.) 'Me and Plornish says, No, Miss Dorrit, no\nill-conwenience,' (Plornish repeated, no ill-conwenience,) 'and she\nwrote it in, according. Which then me and Plornish says, Ho Miss\nDorrit!' (Plornish repeated, Ho Miss Dorrit.) 'Have you thought of\ncopying it three or four times, as the way to make it known in more\nplaces than one? No, says Miss Dorrit, I have not, but I will. She\ncopied it out according, on this table, in a sweet writing, and\nPlornish, he took it where he worked, having a job just then,' (Plornish\nrepeated job just then,) 'and likewise to the landlord of the Yard;\nthrough which it was that Mrs Clennam first happened to employ Miss\nDorrit.' Plornish repeated, employ Miss Dorrit; and Mrs Plornish having\ncome to an end, feigned to bite the fingers of the little hand as she\nkissed it.\n\n'The landlord of the Yard,' said Arthur Clennam, 'is--'\n\n'He is Mr Casby, by name, he is,' said Plornish, 'and Pancks, he\ncollects the rents. That,' added Mr Plornish, dwelling on the subject\nwith a slow thoughtfulness that appeared to have no connection with any\nspecific object, and to lead him nowhere, 'that is about what _they_ are,\nyou may believe me or not, as you think proper.'\n\n'Ay?' returned Clennam, thoughtful in his turn. 'Mr Casby, too! An old\nacquaintance of mine, long ago!'\n\nMr Plornish did not see his road to any comment on this fact, and made\nnone. As there truly was no reason why he should have the least interest\nin it, Arthur Clennam went on to the present purport of his visit;\nnamely, to make Plornish the instrument of effecting Tip's release,\nwith as little detriment as possible to the self-reliance and\nself-helpfulness of the young man, supposing him to possess any remnant\nof those qualities: without doubt a very wide stretch of supposition.\nPlornish, having been made acquainted with the cause of action from the\nDefendant's own mouth, gave Arthur to understand that the Plaintiff\nwas a 'Chaunter'--meaning, not a singer of anthems, but a seller of\nhorses--and that he (Plornish) considered that ten shillings in the\npound 'would settle handsome,' and that more would be a waste of money.\nThe Principal and instrument soon drove off together to a stable-yard in\nHigh Holborn, where a remarkably fine grey gelding, worth, at the lowest\nfigure, seventy-five guineas (not taking into account the value of the\nshot he had been made to swallow for the improvement of his form), was\nto be parted with for a twenty-pound note, in consequence of his having\nrun away last week with Mrs Captain Barbary of Cheltenham, who wasn't up\nto a horse of his courage, and who, in mere spite, insisted on selling\nhim for that ridiculous sum: or, in other words, on giving him away.\nPlornish, going up this yard alone and leaving his Principal outside,\nfound a gentleman with tight drab legs, a rather old hat, a little\nhooked stick, and a blue neckerchief (Captain Maroon of Gloucestershire,\na private friend of Captain Barbary); who happened to be there, in\na friendly way, to mention these little circumstances concerning the\nremarkably fine grey gelding to any real judge of a horse and quick\nsnapper-up of a good thing, who might look in at that address as per\nadvertisement. This gentleman, happening also to be the Plaintiff in the\nTip case, referred Mr Plornish to his solicitor, and declined to treat\nwith Mr Plornish, or even to endure his presence in the yard, unless\nhe appeared there with a twenty-pound note: in which case only, the\ngentleman would augur from appearances that he meant business, and\nmight be induced to talk to him. On this hint, Mr Plornish retired\nto communicate with his Principal, and presently came back with the\nrequired credentials. Then said Captain Maroon, 'Now, how much time do\nyou want to make the other twenty in? Now, I'll give you a month.' Then\nsaid Captain Maroon, when that wouldn't suit, 'Now, I'll tell what I'll\ndo with you. You shall get me a good bill at four months, made payable\nat a banking-house, for the other twenty!' Then said Captain Maroon,\nwhen _that_ wouldn't suit, 'Now, come; Here's the last I've got to say\nto you. You shall give me another ten down, and I'll run my pen clean\nthrough it.' Then said Captain Maroon when _that_ wouldn't suit, 'Now,\nI'll tell you what it is, and this shuts it up; he has used me bad, but\nI'll let him off for another five down and a bottle of wine; and if you\nmean done, say done, and if you don't like it, leave it.' Finally said\nCaptain Maroon, when _that_ wouldn't suit either, 'Hand over, then!'--And\nin consideration of the first offer, gave a receipt in full and\ndischarged the prisoner.\n\n'Mr Plornish,' said Arthur, 'I trust to you, if you please, to keep my\nsecret. If you will undertake to let the young man know that he is free,\nand to tell him that you were employed to compound for the debt by\nsome one whom you are not at liberty to name, you will not only do me a\nservice, but may do him one, and his sister also.'\n\n'The last reason, sir,' said Plornish, 'would be quite sufficient. Your\nwishes shall be attended to.'\n\n'A Friend has obtained his discharge, you can say if you please. A\nFriend who hopes that for his sister's sake, if for no one else's, he\nwill make good use of his liberty.'\n\n'Your wishes, sir, shall be attended to.'\n\n'And if you will be so good, in your better knowledge of the family, as\nto communicate freely with me, and to point out to me any means by which\nyou think I may be delicately and really useful to Little Dorrit, I\nshall feel under an obligation to you.'\n\n'Don't name it, sir,' returned Plornish, 'it'll be ekally a pleasure an\na--it'l be ekally a pleasure and a--' Finding himself unable to balance\nhis sentence after two efforts, Mr Plornish wisely dropped it. He took\nClennam's card and appropriate pecuniary compliment.\n\nHe was earnest to finish his commission at once, and his Principal\nwas in the same mind. So his Principal offered to set him down at the\nMarshalsea Gate, and they drove in that direction over Blackfriars\nBridge. On the way, Arthur elicited from his new friend a confused\nsummary of the interior life of Bleeding Heart Yard. They was all hard\nup there, Mr Plornish said, uncommon hard up, to be sure. Well, he\ncouldn't say how it was; he didn't know as anybody _could_ say how it\nwas; all he know'd was, that so it was. When a man felt, on his own\nback and in his own belly, that poor he was, that man (Mr Plornish gave\nit as his decided belief) know'd well that he was poor somehow or\nanother, and you couldn't talk it out of him, no more than you could\ntalk Beef into him. Then you see, some people as was better off said,\nand a good many such people lived pretty close up to the mark themselves\nif not beyond it so he'd heerd, that they was 'improvident' (that was\nthe favourite word) down the Yard. For instance, if they see a man with\nhis wife and children going to Hampton Court in a Wan, perhaps once in a\nyear, they says, 'Hallo! I thought you was poor, my improvident friend!'\nWhy, Lord, how hard it was upon a man! What was a man to do? He couldn't\ngo mollancholy mad, and even if he did, you wouldn't be the better for\nit. In Mr Plornish's judgment you would be the worse for it. Yet you\nseemed to want to make a man mollancholy mad. You was always at it--if\nnot with your right hand, with your left. What was they a doing in the\nYard? Why, take a look at 'em and see. There was the girls and their\nmothers a working at their sewing, or their shoe-binding, or their\ntrimming, or their waistcoat making, day and night and night and day,\nand not more than able to keep body and soul together after all--often\nnot so much. There was people of pretty well all sorts of trades you\ncould name, all wanting to work, and yet not able to get it. There was\nold people, after working all their lives, going and being shut up in\nthe workhouse, much worse fed and lodged and treated altogether,\nthan--Mr Plornish said manufacturers, but appeared to mean malefactors.\nWhy, a man didn't know where to turn himself for a crumb of comfort. As\nto who was to blame for it, Mr Plornish didn't know who was to blame for\nit. He could tell you who suffered, but he couldn't tell you whose fault\nit was. It wasn't _his_ place to find out, and who'd mind what he said,\nif he did find out? He only know'd that it wasn't put right by them what\nundertook that line of business, and that it didn't come right of\nitself. And, in brief, his illogical opinion was, that if you couldn't\ndo nothing for him, you had better take nothing from him for doing of\nit; so far as he could make out, that was about what it come to. Thus,\nin a prolix, gently-growling, foolish way, did Plornish turn the tangled\nskein of his estate about and about, like a blind man who was trying to\nfind some beginning or end to it; until they reached the prison gate.\nThere, he left his Principal alone; to wonder, as he rode away, how many\nthousand Plornishes there might be within a day or two's journey of the\nCircumlocution Office, playing sundry curious variations on the same\ntune, which were not known by ear in that glorious institution.\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 13. Patriarchal\n\n\nThe mention of Mr Casby again revived in Clennam's memory the\nsmouldering embers of curiosity and interest which Mrs Flintwinch had\nfanned on the night of his arrival. Flora Casby had been the beloved of\nhis boyhood; and Flora was the daughter and only child of wooden-headed\nold Christopher (so he was still occasionally spoken of by some\nirreverent spirits who had had dealings with him, and in whom\nfamiliarity had bred its proverbial result perhaps), who was reputed to\nbe rich in weekly tenants, and to get a good quantity of blood out of\nthe stones of several unpromising courts and alleys.\n\nAfter some days of inquiry and research, Arthur Clennam became convinced\nthat the case of the Father of the Marshalsea was indeed a hopeless one,\nand sorrowfully resigned the idea of helping him to freedom again. He\nhad no hopeful inquiry to make at present, concerning Little Dorrit\neither; but he argued with himself that it might--for anything he\nknew--it might be serviceable to the poor child, if he renewed this\nacquaintance. It is hardly necessary to add that beyond all doubt he\nwould have presented himself at Mr Casby's door, if there had been no\nLittle Dorrit in existence; for we all know how we all deceive\nourselves--that is to say, how people in general, our profounder selves\nexcepted, deceive themselves--as to motives of action.\n\nWith a comfortable impression upon him, and quite an honest one in its\nway, that he was still patronising Little Dorrit in doing what had no\nreference to her, he found himself one afternoon at the corner of Mr\nCasby's street. Mr Casby lived in a street in the Gray's Inn Road, which\nhad set off from that thoroughfare with the intention of running at one\nheat down into the valley, and up again to the top of Pentonville Hill;\nbut which had run itself out of breath in twenty yards, and had stood\nstill ever since. There is no such place in that part now; but it\nremained there for many years, looking with a baulked countenance at\nthe wilderness patched with unfruitful gardens and pimpled with eruptive\nsummerhouses, that it had meant to run over in no time.\n\n'The house,' thought Clennam, as he crossed to the door, 'is as little\nchanged as my mother's, and looks almost as gloomy. But the likeness\nends outside. I know its staid repose within. The smell of its jars of\nold rose-leaves and lavender seems to come upon me even here.'\n\nWhen his knock at the bright brass knocker of obsolete shape brought a\nwoman-servant to the door, those faded scents in truth saluted him like\nwintry breath that had a faint remembrance in it of the bygone spring.\nHe stepped into the sober, silent, air-tight house--one might have\nfancied it to have been stifled by Mutes in the Eastern manner--and the\ndoor, closing again, seemed to shut out sound and motion. The\nfurniture was formal, grave, and quaker-like, but well-kept; and had as\nprepossessing an aspect as anything, from a human creature to a wooden\nstool, that is meant for much use and is preserved for little, can ever\nwear. There was a grave clock, ticking somewhere up the staircase; and\nthere was a songless bird in the same direction, pecking at his cage, as\nif he were ticking too. The parlour-fire ticked in the grate. There was\nonly one person on the parlour-hearth, and the loud watch in his pocket\nticked audibly.\n\nThe servant-maid had ticked the two words 'Mr Clennam' so softly that\nshe had not been heard; and he consequently stood, within the door\nshe had closed, unnoticed. The figure of a man advanced in life, whose\nsmooth grey eyebrows seemed to move to the ticking as the fire-light\nflickered on them, sat in an arm-chair, with his list shoes on the\nrug, and his thumbs slowly revolving over one another. This was old\nChristopher Casby--recognisable at a glance--as unchanged in twenty\nyears and upward as his own solid furniture--as little touched by the\ninfluence of the varying seasons as the old rose-leaves and old lavender\nin his porcelain jars.\n\nPerhaps there never was a man, in this troublesome world, so troublesome\nfor the imagination to picture as a boy. And yet he had changed very\nlittle in his progress through life. Confronting him, in the room in\nwhich he sat, was a boy's portrait, which anybody seeing him would have\nidentified as Master Christopher Casby, aged ten: though disguised with\na haymaking rake, for which he had had, at any time, as much taste or\nuse as for a diving-bell; and sitting (on one of his own legs) upon a\nbank of violets, moved to precocious contemplation by the spire of a\nvillage church. There was the same smooth face and forehead, the same\ncalm blue eye, the same placid air. The shining bald head, which looked\nso very large because it shone so much; and the long grey hair at its\nsides and back, like floss silk or spun glass, which looked so very\nbenevolent because it was never cut; were not, of course, to be seen in\nthe boy as in the old man. Nevertheless, in the Seraphic creature with\nthe haymaking rake, were clearly to be discerned the rudiments of the\nPatriarch with the list shoes.\n\nPatriarch was the name which many people delighted to give him.\nVarious old ladies in the neighbourhood spoke of him as The Last of the\nPatriarchs. So grey, so slow, so quiet, so impassionate, so very bumpy\nin the head, Patriarch was the word for him. He had been accosted in the\nstreets, and respectfully solicited to become a Patriarch for painters\nand for sculptors; with so much importunity, in sooth, that it would\nappear to be beyond the Fine Arts to remember the points of a Patriarch,\nor to invent one. Philanthropists of both sexes had asked who he was,\nand on being informed, 'Old Christopher Casby, formerly Town-agent to\nLord Decimus Tite Barnacle,' had cried in a rapture of disappointment,\n'Oh! why, with that head, is he not a benefactor to his species! Oh!\nwhy, with that head, is he not a father to the orphan and a friend to\nthe friendless!' With that head, however, he remained old Christopher\nCasby, proclaimed by common report rich in house property; and with that\nhead, he now sat in his silent parlour. Indeed it would be the height of\nunreason to expect him to be sitting there without that head.\n\nArthur Clennam moved to attract his attention, and the grey eyebrows\nturned towards him.\n\n'I beg your pardon,' said Clennam, 'I fear you did not hear me\nannounced?'\n\n'No, sir, I did not. Did you wish to see me, sir?'\n\n'I wished to pay my respects.'\n\nMr Casby seemed a feather's weight disappointed by the last words,\nhaving perhaps prepared himself for the visitor's wishing to pay\nsomething else. 'Have I the pleasure, sir,' he proceeded--'take a chair,\nif you please--have I the pleasure of knowing--? Ah! truly, yes, I think\nI have! I believe I am not mistaken in supposing that I am acquainted\nwith those features? I think I address a gentleman of whose return to\nthis country I was informed by Mr Flintwinch?'\n\n'That is your present visitor.'\n\n'Really! Mr Clennam?'\n\n'No other, Mr Casby.'\n\n'Mr Clennam, I am glad to see you. How have you been since we met?'\n\nWithout thinking it worth while to explain that in the course of some\nquarter of a century he had experienced occasional slight fluctuations\nin his health and spirits, Clennam answered generally that he had never\nbeen better, or something equally to the purpose; and shook hands with\nthe possessor of 'that head' as it shed its patriarchal light upon him.\n\n'We are older, Mr Clennam,' said Christopher Casby.\n\n'We are--not younger,' said Clennam. After this wise remark he felt that\nhe was scarcely shining with brilliancy, and became aware that he was\nnervous.\n\n'And your respected father,' said Mr Casby, 'is no more! I was grieved\nto hear it, Mr Clennam, I was grieved.'\n\nArthur replied in the usual way that he felt infinitely obliged to him.\n\n'There was a time,' said Mr Casby, 'when your parents and myself were\nnot on friendly terms. There was a little family misunderstanding among\nus. Your respected mother was rather jealous of her son, maybe; when I\nsay her son, I mean your worthy self, your worthy self.'\n\nHis smooth face had a bloom upon it like ripe wall-fruit. What with\nhis blooming face, and that head, and his blue eyes, he seemed to be\ndelivering sentiments of rare wisdom and virtue. In like manner, his\nphysiognomical expression seemed to teem with benignity. Nobody could\nhave said where the wisdom was, or where the virtue was, or where the\nbenignity was; but they all seemed to be somewhere about him.\n\n'Those times, however,' pursued Mr Casby, 'are past and gone, past and\ngone. I do myself the pleasure of making a visit to your respected\nmother occasionally, and of admiring the fortitude and strength of mind\nwith which she bears her trials, bears her trials.'\n\nWhen he made one of these little repetitions, sitting with his hands\ncrossed before him, he did it with his head on one side, and a gentle\nsmile, as if he had something in his thoughts too sweetly profound to be\nput into words. As if he denied himself the pleasure of uttering it,\nlest he should soar too high; and his meekness therefore preferred to be\nunmeaning.\n\n'I have heard that you were kind enough on one of those occasions,' said\nArthur, catching at the opportunity as it drifted past him, 'to mention\nLittle Dorrit to my mother.'\n\n'Little--? Dorrit? That's the seamstress who was mentioned to me by a\nsmall tenant of mine? Yes, yes. Dorrit? That's the name. Ah, yes, yes!\nYou call her Little Dorrit?'\n\nNo road in that direction. Nothing came of the cross-cut. It led no\nfurther.\n\n'My daughter Flora,' said Mr Casby, 'as you may have heard probably, Mr\nClennam, was married and established in life, several years ago. She\nhad the misfortune to lose her husband when she had been married a few\nmonths. She resides with me again. She will be glad to see you, if you\nwill permit me to let her know that you are here.'\n\n'By all means,' returned Clennam. 'I should have preferred the request,\nif your kindness had not anticipated me.'\n\nUpon this Mr Casby rose up in his list shoes, and with a slow, heavy\nstep (he was of an elephantine build), made for the door. He had a long\nwide-skirted bottle-green coat on, and a bottle-green pair of trousers,\nand a bottle-green waistcoat. The Patriarchs were not dressed in\nbottle-green broadcloth, and yet his clothes looked patriarchal.\n\nHe had scarcely left the room, and allowed the ticking to become audible\nagain, when a quick hand turned a latchkey in the house-door, opened it,\nand shut it. Immediately afterwards, a quick and eager short dark man\ncame into the room with so much way upon him that he was within a foot\nof Clennam before he could stop.\n\n'Halloa!' he said.\n\nClennam saw no reason why he should not say 'Halloa!' too.\n\n'What's the matter?' said the short dark man.\n\n'I have not heard that anything is the matter,' returned Clennam.\n\n'Where's Mr Casby?' asked the short dark man, looking about.\n\n'He will be here directly, if you want him.'\n\n'_I_ want him?' said the short dark man. 'Don't you?'\n\nThis elicited a word or two of explanation from Clennam, during the\ndelivery of which the short dark man held his breath and looked at him.\nHe was dressed in black and rusty iron grey; had jet black beads of\neyes; a scrubby little black chin; wiry black hair striking out from his\nhead in prongs, like forks or hair-pins; and a complexion that was very\ndingy by nature, or very dirty by art, or a compound of nature and art.\nHe had dirty hands and dirty broken nails, and looked as if he had been\nin the coals; he was in a perspiration, and snorted and sniffed and\npuffed and blew, like a little labouring steam-engine.\n\n'Oh!' said he, when Arthur told him how he came to be there. 'Very well.\nThat's right. If he should ask for Pancks, will you be so good as to say\nthat Pancks is come in?' And so, with a snort and a puff, he worked out\nby another door.\n\nNow, in the old days at home, certain audacious doubts respecting the\nlast of the Patriarchs, which were afloat in the air, had, by some\nforgotten means, come in contact with Arthur's sensorium. He was aware\nof motes and specks of suspicion in the atmosphere of that time; seen\nthrough which medium, Christopher Casby was a mere Inn signpost, without\nany Inn--an invitation to rest and be thankful, when there was no place\nto put up at, and nothing whatever to be thankful for. He knew that some\nof these specks even represented Christopher as capable of harbouring\ndesigns in 'that head,' and as being a crafty impostor. Other motes\nthere were which showed him as a heavy, selfish, drifting Booby, who,\nhaving stumbled, in the course of his unwieldy jostlings against other\nmen, on the discovery that to get through life with ease and credit,\nhe had but to hold his tongue, keep the bald part of his head well\npolished, and leave his hair alone, had had just cunning enough to seize\nthe idea and stick to it. It was said that his being town-agent to\nLord Decimus Tite Barnacle was referable, not to his having the least\nbusiness capacity, but to his looking so supremely benignant that nobody\ncould suppose the property screwed or jobbed under such a man; also,\nthat for similar reasons he now got more money out of his own wretched\nlettings, unquestioned, than anybody with a less nobby and less shining\ncrown could possibly have done. In a word, it was represented (Clennam\ncalled to mind, alone in the ticking parlour) that many people select\ntheir models, much as the painters, just now mentioned, select theirs;\nand that, whereas in the Royal Academy some evil old ruffian of a\nDog-stealer will annually be found embodying all the cardinal virtues,\non account of his eyelashes, or his chin, or his legs (thereby planting\nthorns of confusion in the breasts of the more observant students of\nnature), so, in the great social Exhibition, accessories are often\naccepted in lieu of the internal character.\n\nCalling these things to mind, and ranging Mr Pancks in a row with them,\nArthur Clennam leaned this day to the opinion, without quite deciding\non it, that the last of the Patriarchs was the drifting Booby aforesaid,\nwith the one idea of keeping the bald part of his head highly polished:\nand that, much as an unwieldy ship in the Thames river may sometimes be\nseen heavily driving with the tide, broadside on, stern first, in its\nown way and in the way of everything else, though making a great show\nof navigation, when all of a sudden, a little coaly steam-tug will bear\ndown upon it, take it in tow, and bustle off with it; similarly the\ncumbrous Patriarch had been taken in tow by the snorting Pancks, and was\nnow following in the wake of that dingy little craft.\n\nThe return of Mr Casby with his daughter Flora, put an end to these\nmeditations. Clennam's eyes no sooner fell upon the subject of his old\npassion than it shivered and broke to pieces.\n\nMost men will be found sufficiently true to themselves to be true to\nan old idea. It is no proof of an inconstant mind, but exactly the\nopposite, when the idea will not bear close comparison with the reality,\nand the contrast is a fatal shock to it. Such was Clennam's case. In his\nyouth he had ardently loved this woman, and had heaped upon her all the\nlocked-up wealth of his affection and imagination. That wealth had been,\nin his desert home, like Robinson Crusoe's money; exchangeable with no\none, lying idle in the dark to rust, until he poured it out for her.\nEver since that memorable time, though he had, until the night of his\narrival, as completely dismissed her from any association with his\nPresent or Future as if she had been dead (which she might easily\nhave been for anything he knew), he had kept the old fancy of the Past\nunchanged, in its old sacred place. And now, after all, the last of the\nPatriarchs coolly walked into the parlour, saying in effect, 'Be good\nenough to throw it down and dance upon it. This is Flora.'\n\nFlora, always tall, had grown to be very broad too, and short of breath;\nbut that was not much. Flora, whom he had left a lily, had become a\npeony; but that was not much. Flora, who had seemed enchanting in all\nshe said and thought, was diffuse and silly. That was much. Flora, who\nhad been spoiled and artless long ago, was determined to be spoiled and\nartless now. That was a fatal blow.\n\nThis is Flora!\n\n'I am sure,' giggled Flora, tossing her head with a caricature of\nher girlish manner, such as a mummer might have presented at her own\nfuneral, if she had lived and died in classical antiquity, 'I am ashamed\nto see Mr Clennam, I am a mere fright, I know he'll find me fearfully\nchanged, I am actually an old woman, it's shocking to be found out, it's\nreally shocking!'\n\nHe assured her that she was just what he had expected and that time had\nnot stood still with himself.\n\n'Oh! But with a gentleman it's so different and really you look so\namazingly well that you have no right to say anything of the kind,\nwhile, as to me, you know--oh!' cried Flora with a little scream, 'I am\ndreadful!'\n\nThe Patriarch, apparently not yet understanding his own part in the\ndrama under representation, glowed with vacant serenity.\n\n'But if we talk of not having changed,' said Flora, who, whatever\nshe said, never once came to a full stop, 'look at Papa, is not Papa\nprecisely what he was when you went away, isn't it cruel and unnatural\nof Papa to be such a reproach to his own child, if we go on in this way\nmuch longer people who don't know us will begin to suppose that I am\nPapa's Mama!'\n\nThat must be a long time hence, Arthur considered.\n\n'Oh Mr Clennam you insincerest of creatures,' said Flora, 'I perceive\nalready you have not lost your old way of paying compliments, your old\nway when you used to pretend to be so sentimentally struck you know--at\nleast I don't mean that, I--oh I don't know what I mean!' Here Flora\ntittered confusedly, and gave him one of her old glances.\n\nThe Patriarch, as if he now began to perceive that his part in the piece\nwas to get off the stage as soon as might be, rose, and went to the door\nby which Pancks had worked out, hailing that Tug by name. He received\nan answer from some little Dock beyond, and was towed out of sight\ndirectly.\n\n'You mustn't think of going yet,' said Flora--Arthur had looked at his\nhat, being in a ludicrous dismay, and not knowing what to do: 'you could\nnever be so unkind as to think of going, Arthur--I mean Mr Arthur--or I\nsuppose Mr Clennam would be far more proper--but I am sure I don't know\nwhat I am saying--without a word about the dear old days gone for ever,\nwhen I come to think of it I dare say it would be much better not to\nspeak of them and it's highly probable that you have some much more\nagreeable engagement and pray let Me be the last person in the world\nto interfere with it though there _was_ a time, but I am running into\nnonsense again.'\n\nWas it possible that Flora could have been such a chatterer in the\ndays she referred to? Could there have been anything like her present\ndisjointed volubility in the fascinations that had captivated him?\n\n'Indeed I have little doubt,' said Flora, running on with astonishing\nspeed, and pointing her conversation with nothing but commas, and very\nfew of them, 'that you are married to some Chinese lady, being in China\nso long and being in business and naturally desirous to settle and\nextend your connection nothing was more likely than that you should\npropose to a Chinese lady and nothing was more natural I am sure than\nthat the Chinese lady should accept you and think herself very well off\ntoo, I only hope she's not a Pagodian dissenter.'\n\n'I am not,' returned Arthur, smiling in spite of himself, 'married to\nany lady, Flora.'\n\n'Oh good gracious me I hope you never kept yourself a bachelor so long\non my account!' tittered Flora; 'but of course you never did why should\nyou, pray don't answer, I don't know where I'm running to, oh do tell me\nsomething about the Chinese ladies whether their eyes are really so long\nand narrow always putting me in mind of mother-of-pearl fish at cards\nand do they really wear tails down their back and plaited too or is\nit only the men, and when they pull their hair so very tight off their\nforeheads don't they hurt themselves, and why do they stick little bells\nall over their bridges and temples and hats and things or don't they\nreally do it?' Flora gave him another of her old glances. Instantly she\nwent on again, as if he had spoken in reply for some time.\n\n'Then it's all true and they really do! good gracious Arthur!--pray\nexcuse me--old habit--Mr Clennam far more proper--what a country to live\nin for so long a time, and with so many lanterns and umbrellas too how\nvery dark and wet the climate ought to be and no doubt actually is, and\nthe sums of money that must be made by those two trades where everybody\ncarries them and hangs them everywhere, the little shoes too and the\nfeet screwed back in infancy is quite surprising, what a traveller you\nare!'\n\nIn his ridiculous distress, Clennam received another of the old glances\nwithout in the least knowing what to do with it.\n\n'Dear dear,' said Flora, 'only to think of the changes at home\nArthur--cannot overcome it, and seems so natural, Mr Clennam far more\nproper--since you became familiar with the Chinese customs and language\nwhich I am persuaded you speak like a Native if not better for you were\nalways quick and clever though immensely difficult no doubt, I am sure\nthe tea chests alone would kill me if I tried, such changes Arthur--I\nam doing it again, seems so natural, most improper--as no one could have\nbelieved, who could have ever imagined Mrs Finching when I can't imagine\nit myself!'\n\n'Is that your married name?' asked Arthur, struck, in the midst of all\nthis, by a certain warmth of heart that expressed itself in her tone\nwhen she referred, however oddly, to the youthful relation in which they\nhad stood to one another. 'Finching?'\n\n'Finching oh yes isn't it a dreadful name, but as Mr F. said when he\nproposed to me which he did seven times and handsomely consented I must\nsay to be what he used to call on liking twelve months, after all, he\nwasn't answerable for it and couldn't help it could he, Excellent man,\nnot at all like you but excellent man!'\n\nFlora had at last talked herself out of breath for one moment. One\nmoment; for she recovered breath in the act of raising a minute corner\nof her pocket-handkerchief to her eye, as a tribute to the ghost of the\ndeparted Mr F., and began again.\n\n'No one could dispute, Arthur--Mr Clennam--that it's quite right you\nshould be formally friendly to me under the altered circumstances and\nindeed you couldn't be anything else, at least I suppose not you ought\nto know, but I can't help recalling that there _was_ a time when things\nwere very different.'\n\n'My dear Mrs Finching,' Arthur began, struck by the good tone again.\n\n'Oh not that nasty ugly name, say Flora!'\n\n'Flora. I assure you, Flora, I am happy in seeing you once more, and in\nfinding that, like me, you have not forgotten the old foolish dreams,\nwhen we saw all before us in the light of our youth and hope.'\n\n'You don't seem so,' pouted Flora, 'you take it very coolly, but\nhowever I know you are disappointed in me, I suppose the Chinese\nladies--Mandarinesses if you call them so--are the cause or perhaps I am\nthe cause myself, it's just as likely.'\n\n'No, no,' Clennam entreated, 'don't say that.'\n\n'Oh I must you know,' said Flora, in a positive tone, 'what nonsense not\nto, I know I am not what you expected, I know that very well.'\n\nIn the midst of her rapidity, she had found that out with the quick\nperception of a cleverer woman. The inconsistent and profoundly\nunreasonable way in which she instantly went on, nevertheless, to\ninterweave their long-abandoned boy and girl relations with their\npresent interview, made Clennam feel as if he were light-headed.\n\n'One remark,' said Flora, giving their conversation, without the\nslightest notice and to the great terror of Clennam, the tone of a\nlove-quarrel, 'I wish to make, one explanation I wish to offer, when\nyour Mama came and made a scene of it with my Papa and when I was called\ndown into the little breakfast-room where they were looking at one\nanother with your Mama's parasol between them seated on two chairs like\nmad bulls what was I to do?'\n\n'My dear Mrs Finching,' urged Clennam--'all so long ago and so long\nconcluded, is it worth while seriously to--'\n\n'I can't Arthur,' returned Flora, 'be denounced as heartless by the\nwhole society of China without setting myself right when I have the\nopportunity of doing so, and you must be very well aware that there\nwas Paul and Virginia which had to be returned and which was returned\nwithout note or comment, not that I mean to say you could have written\nto me watched as I was but if it had only come back with a red wafer on\nthe cover I should have known that it meant Come to Pekin Nankeen and\nWhat's the third place, barefoot.'\n\n'My dear Mrs Finching, you were not to blame, and I never blamed you.\nWe were both too young, too dependent and helpless, to do anything but\naccept our separation.--Pray think how long ago,' gently remonstrated\nArthur.\n\n'One more remark,' proceeded Flora with unslackened volubility, 'I wish\nto make, one more explanation I wish to offer, for five days I had a\ncold in the head from crying which I passed entirely in the back\ndrawing-room--there is the back drawing-room still on the first floor\nand still at the back of the house to confirm my words--when that dreary\nperiod had passed a lull succeeded years rolled on and Mr F. became\nacquainted with us at a mutual friend's, he was all attention he called\nnext day he soon began to call three evenings a week and to send\nin little things for supper it was not love on Mr F.'s part it was\nadoration, Mr F. proposed with the full approval of Papa and what could\nI do?'\n\n'Nothing whatever,' said Arthur, with the cheerfulest readiness, 'but\nwhat you did. Let an old friend assure you of his full conviction that\nyou did quite right.'\n\n'One last remark,' proceeded Flora, rejecting commonplace life with a\nwave of her hand, 'I wish to make, one last explanation I wish to offer,\nthere _was_ a time ere Mr F. first paid attentions incapable of being\nmistaken, but that is past and was not to be, dear Mr Clennam you no\nlonger wear a golden chain you are free I trust you may be happy, here\nis Papa who is always tiresome and putting in his nose everywhere where\nhe is not wanted.'\n\nWith these words, and with a hasty gesture fraught with timid\ncaution--such a gesture had Clennam's eyes been familiar with in the old\ntime--poor Flora left herself at eighteen years of age, a long long way\nbehind again; and came to a full stop at last.\n\nOr rather, she left about half of herself at eighteen years of age\nbehind, and grafted the rest on to the relict of the late Mr F.; thus\nmaking a moral mermaid of herself, which her once boy-lover contemplated\nwith feelings wherein his sense of the sorrowful and his sense of the\ncomical were curiously blended.\n\nFor example. As if there were a secret understanding between herself\nand Clennam of the most thrilling nature; as if the first of a train of\npost-chaises and four, extending all the way to Scotland, were at that\nmoment round the corner; and as if she couldn't (and wouldn't) have\nwalked into the Parish Church with him, under the shade of the family\numbrella, with the Patriarchal blessing on her head, and the perfect\nconcurrence of all mankind; Flora comforted her soul with agonies of\nmysterious signalling, expressing dread of discovery. With the sensation\nof becoming more and more light-headed every minute, Clennam saw the\nrelict of the late Mr F. enjoying herself in the most wonderful manner,\nby putting herself and him in their old places, and going through all\nthe old performances--now, when the stage was dusty, when the scenery\nwas faded, when the youthful actors were dead, when the orchestra was\nempty, when the lights were out. And still, through all this grotesque\nrevival of what he remembered as having once been prettily natural to\nher, he could not but feel that it revived at sight of him, and that\nthere was a tender memory in it.\n\nThe Patriarch insisted on his staying to dinner, and Flora signalled\n'Yes!' Clennam so wished he could have done more than stay to dinner--so\nheartily wished he could have found the Flora that had been, or that\nnever had been--that he thought the least atonement he could make for\nthe disappointment he almost felt ashamed of, was to give himself up to\nthe family desire. Therefore, he stayed to dinner.\n\nPancks dined with them. Pancks steamed out of his little dock at a\nquarter before six, and bore straight down for the Patriarch, who\nhappened to be then driving, in an inane manner, through a stagnant\naccount of Bleeding Heart Yard. Pancks instantly made fast to him and\nhauled him out.\n\n'Bleeding Heart Yard?' said Pancks, with a puff and a snort. 'It's a\ntroublesome property. Don't pay you badly, but rents are very hard to\nget there. You have more trouble with that one place than with all the\nplaces belonging to you.'\n\nJust as the big ship in tow gets the credit, with most spectators, of\nbeing the powerful object, so the Patriarch usually seemed to have said\nhimself whatever Pancks said for him.\n\n'Indeed?' returned Clennam, upon whom this impression was so efficiently\nmade by a mere gleam of the polished head that he spoke the ship instead\nof the Tug. 'The people are so poor there?'\n\n'_You_ can't say, you know,' snorted Pancks, taking one of his dirty hands\nout of his rusty iron-grey pockets to bite his nails, if he could find\nany, and turning his beads of eyes upon his employer, 'whether they're\npoor or not. They say they are, but they all say that. When a man says\nhe's rich, you're generally sure he isn't. Besides, if they _are_ poor,\nyou can't help it. You'd be poor yourself if you didn't get your rents.'\n\n'True enough,' said Arthur.\n\n'You're not going to keep open house for all the poor of London,'\npursued Pancks. 'You're not going to lodge 'em for nothing. You're not\ngoing to open your gates wide and let 'em come free. Not if you know it,\nyou ain't.'\n\nMr Casby shook his head, in Placid and benignant generality.\n\n'If a man takes a room of you at half-a-crown a week, and when the week\ncomes round hasn't got the half-crown, you say to that man, Why have you\ngot the room, then? If you haven't got the one thing, why have you got\nthe other? What have you been and done with your money? What do you mean\nby it? What are you up to? That's what _you_ say to a man of that sort;\nand if you didn't say it, more shame for you!' Mr Pancks here made a\nsingular and startling noise, produced by a strong blowing effort in the\nregion of the nose, unattended by any result but that acoustic one.\n\n'You have some extent of such property about the east and north-east\nhere, I believe?' said Clennam, doubtful which of the two to address.\n\n'Oh, pretty well,' said Pancks. 'You're not particular to east or\nnorth-east, any point of the compass will do for you. What you want is\na good investment and a quick return. You take it where you can find it.\nYou ain't nice as to situation--not you.'\n\nThere was a fourth and most original figure in the Patriarchal tent, who\nalso appeared before dinner. This was an amazing little old woman, with\na face like a staring wooden doll too cheap for expression, and a stiff\nyellow wig perched unevenly on the top of her head, as if the child who\nowned the doll had driven a tack through it anywhere, so that it only\ngot fastened on. Another remarkable thing in this little old woman was,\nthat the same child seemed to have damaged her face in two or three\nplaces with some blunt instrument in the nature of a spoon; her\ncountenance, and particularly the tip of her nose, presenting the\nphenomena of several dints, generally answering to the bowl of that\narticle. A further remarkable thing in this little old woman was, that\nshe had no name but Mr F.'s Aunt.\n\nShe broke upon the visitor's view under the following circumstances:\nFlora said when the first dish was being put on the table, perhaps Mr\nClennam might not have heard that Mr F. had left her a legacy? Clennam\nin return implied his hope that Mr F. had endowed the wife whom he\nadored, with the greater part of his worldly substance, if not with all.\nFlora said, oh yes, she didn't mean that, Mr F. had made a beautiful\nwill, but he had left her as a separate legacy, his Aunt. She then\nwent out of the room to fetch the legacy, and, on her return, rather\ntriumphantly presented 'Mr F.'s Aunt.'\n\nThe major characteristics discoverable by the stranger in Mr F.'s Aunt,\nwere extreme severity and grim taciturnity; sometimes interrupted by\na propensity to offer remarks in a deep warning voice, which, being\ntotally uncalled for by anything said by anybody, and traceable to no\nassociation of ideas, confounded and terrified the Mind. Mr F.'s Aunt\nmay have thrown in these observations on some system of her own, and it\nmay have been ingenious, or even subtle: but the key to it was wanted.\n\nThe neatly-served and well-cooked dinner (for everything about the\nPatriarchal household promoted quiet digestion) began with some soup,\nsome fried soles, a butter-boat of shrimp sauce, and a dish of potatoes.\nThe conversation still turned on the receipt of rents. Mr F.'s Aunt,\nafter regarding the company for ten minutes with a malevolent gaze,\ndelivered the following fearful remark:\n\n'When we lived at Henley, Barnes's gander was stole by tinkers.'\n\nMr Pancks courageously nodded his head and said, 'All right, ma'am.' But\nthe effect of this mysterious communication upon Clennam was absolutely\nto frighten him. And another circumstance invested this old lady with\npeculiar terrors. Though she was always staring, she never acknowledged\nthat she saw any individual. The polite and attentive stranger would\ndesire, say, to consult her inclinations on the subject of potatoes. His\nexpressive action would be hopelessly lost upon her, and what could he\ndo? No man could say, 'Mr F.'s Aunt, will you permit me?' Every man\nretired from the spoon, as Clennam did, cowed and baffled.\n\nThere was mutton, a steak, and an apple-pie--nothing in the remotest\nway connected with ganders--and the dinner went on like a disenchanted\nfeast, as it truly was. Once upon a time Clennam had sat at that table\ntaking no heed of anything but Flora; now the principal heed he took\nof Flora was to observe, against his will, that she was very fond of\nporter, that she combined a great deal of sherry with sentiment, and\nthat if she were a little overgrown, it was upon substantial grounds.\nThe last of the Patriarchs had always been a mighty eater, and he\ndisposed of an immense quantity of solid food with the benignity of a\ngood soul who was feeding some one else. Mr Pancks, who was always in a\nhurry, and who referred at intervals to a little dirty notebook which he\nkept beside him (perhaps containing the names of the defaulters he meant\nto look up by way of dessert), took in his victuals much as if he were\ncoaling; with a good deal of noise, a good deal of dropping about, and a\npuff and a snort occasionally, as if he were nearly ready to steam away.\n\nAll through dinner, Flora combined her present appetite for eating and\ndrinking with her past appetite for romantic love, in a way that made\nClennam afraid to lift his eyes from his plate; since he could not\nlook towards her without receiving some glance of mysterious meaning or\nwarning, as if they were engaged in a plot. Mr F.'s Aunt sat silently\ndefying him with an aspect of the greatest bitterness, until the removal\nof the cloth and the appearance of the decanters, when she originated\nanother observation--struck into the conversation like a clock, without\nconsulting anybody.\n\nFlora had just said, 'Mr Clennam, will you give me a glass of port for\nMr F.'s Aunt?'\n\n'The Monument near London Bridge,' that lady instantly proclaimed, 'was\nput up arter the Great Fire of London; and the Great Fire of London was\nnot the fire in which your uncle George's workshops was burned down.'\n\nMr Pancks, with his former courage, said, 'Indeed, ma'am? All right!'\nBut appearing to be incensed by imaginary contradiction, or other\nill-usage, Mr F.'s Aunt, instead of relapsing into silence, made the\nfollowing additional proclamation:\n\n'I hate a fool!'\n\nShe imparted to this sentiment, in itself almost Solomonic, so extremely\ninjurious and personal a character by levelling it straight at the\nvisitor's head, that it became necessary to lead Mr F.'s Aunt from\nthe room. This was quietly done by Flora; Mr F.'s Aunt offering no\nresistance, but inquiring on her way out, 'What he come there for,\nthen?' with implacable animosity.\n\nWhen Flora returned, she explained that her legacy was a clever\nold lady, but was sometimes a little singular, and 'took\ndislikes'--peculiarities of which Flora seemed to be proud rather than\notherwise. As Flora's good nature shone in the case, Clennam had no\nfault to find with the old lady for eliciting it, now that he was\nrelieved from the terrors of her presence; and they took a glass or\ntwo of wine in peace. Foreseeing then that the Pancks would shortly get\nunder weigh, and that the Patriarch would go to sleep, he pleaded the\nnecessity of visiting his mother, and asked Mr Pancks in which direction\nhe was going?\n\n'Citywards, sir,' said Pancks.\n\n'Shall we walk together?' said Arthur.\n\n'Quite agreeable,' said Pancks.\n\nMeanwhile Flora was murmuring in rapid snatches for his ear, that there\nwas a time and that the past was a yawning gulf however and that a\ngolden chain no longer bound him and that she revered the memory of the\nlate Mr F. and that she should be at home to-morrow at half-past one\nand that the decrees of Fate were beyond recall and that she considered\nnothing so improbable as that he ever walked on the north-west side of\nGray's-Inn Gardens at exactly four o'clock in the afternoon. He tried\nat parting to give his hand in frankness to the existing Flora--not the\nvanished Flora, or the mermaid--but Flora wouldn't have it, couldn't\nhave it, was wholly destitute of the power of separating herself and him\nfrom their bygone characters. He left the house miserably enough; and\nso much more light-headed than ever, that if it had not been his good\nfortune to be towed away, he might, for the first quarter of an hour,\nhave drifted anywhere.\n\nWhen he began to come to himself, in the cooler air and the absence of\nFlora, he found Pancks at full speed, cropping such scanty pasturage of\nnails as he could find, and snorting at intervals. These, in conjunction\nwith one hand in his pocket and his roughened hat hind side before, were\nevidently the conditions under which he reflected.\n\n'A fresh night!' said Arthur.\n\n'Yes, it's pretty fresh,' assented Pancks. 'As a stranger you feel the\nclimate more than I do, I dare say. Indeed I haven't got time to feel\nit.'\n\n'You lead such a busy life?'\n\n'Yes, I have always some of 'em to look up, or something to look after.\nBut I like business,' said Pancks, getting on a little faster. 'What's a\nman made for?'\n\n'For nothing else?' said Clennam.\n\nPancks put the counter question, 'What else?' It packed up, in the\nsmallest compass, a weight that had rested on Clennam's life; and he\nmade no answer.\n\n'That's what I ask our weekly tenants,' said Pancks. 'Some of 'em will\npull long faces to me, and say, Poor as you see us, master, we're always\ngrinding, drudging, toiling, every minute we're awake. I say to them,\nWhat else are you made for? It shuts them up. They haven't a word to\nanswer. What else are you made for? That clinches it.'\n\n'Ah dear, dear, dear!' sighed Clennam.\n\n'Here am I,' said Pancks, pursuing his argument with the weekly tenant.\n'What else do you suppose I think I am made for? Nothing. Rattle me out\nof bed early, set me going, give me as short a time as you like to bolt\nmy meals in, and keep me at it. Keep me always at it, and I'll keep you\nalways at it, you keep somebody else always at it. There you are with\nthe Whole Duty of Man in a commercial country.'\n\nWhen they had walked a little further in silence, Clennam said: 'Have\nyou no taste for anything, Mr Pancks?'\n\n'What's taste?' drily retorted Pancks.\n\n'Let us say inclination.'\n\n'I have an inclination to get money, sir,' said Pancks, 'if you will\nshow me how.' He blew off that sound again, and it occurred to his\ncompanion for the first time that it was his way of laughing. He was a\nsingular man in all respects; he might not have been quite in earnest,\nbut that the short, hard, rapid manner in which he shot out these\ncinders of principles, as if it were done by mechanical revolvency,\nseemed irreconcilable with banter.\n\n'You are no great reader, I suppose?' said Clennam.\n\n'Never read anything but letters and accounts. Never collect anything\nbut advertisements relative to next of kin. If _that's_ a taste, I have\ngot that. You're not of the Clennams of Cornwall, Mr Clennam?'\n\n'Not that I ever heard of.'\n\n'I know you're not. I asked your mother, sir. She has too much character\nto let a chance escape her.'\n\n'Supposing I had been of the Clennams of Cornwall?'\n\n'You'd have heard of something to your advantage.'\n\n'Indeed! I have heard of little enough to my advantage for some time.'\n\n'There's a Cornish property going a begging, sir, and not a Cornish\nClennam to have it for the asking,' said Pancks, taking his note-book\nfrom his breast pocket and putting it in again. 'I turn off here. I wish\nyou good night.'\n\n'Good night!' said Clennam. But the Tug, suddenly lightened, and\nuntrammelled by having any weight in tow, was already puffing away into\nthe distance.\n\nThey had crossed Smithfield together, and Clennam was left alone at the\ncorner of Barbican. He had no intention of presenting himself in his\nmother's dismal room that night, and could not have felt more depressed\nand cast away if he had been in a wilderness. He turned slowly down\nAldersgate Street, and was pondering his way along towards Saint Paul's,\npurposing to come into one of the great thoroughfares for the sake of\ntheir light and life, when a crowd of people flocked towards him on the\nsame pavement, and he stood aside against a shop to let them pass. As\nthey came up, he made out that they were gathered around a something\nthat was carried on men's shoulders. He soon saw that it was a litter,\nhastily made of a shutter or some such thing; and a recumbent figure\nupon it, and the scraps of conversation in the crowd, and a muddy bundle\ncarried by one man, and a muddy hat carried by another, informed him\nthat an accident had occurred. The litter stopped under a lamp before it\nhad passed him half-a-dozen paces, for some readjustment of the burden;\nand, the crowd stopping too, he found himself in the midst of the array.\n\n'An accident going to the Hospital?' he asked an old man beside him, who\nstood shaking his head, inviting conversation.\n\n'Yes,' said the man, 'along of them Mails. They ought to be prosecuted\nand fined, them Mails. They come a racing out of Lad Lane and Wood\nStreet at twelve or fourteen mile a hour, them Mails do. The only wonder\nis, that people ain't killed oftener by them Mails.'\n\n'This person is not killed, I hope?'\n\n'I don't know!' said the man, 'it an't for the want of a will in them\nMails, if he an't.' The speaker having folded his arms, and set in\ncomfortably to address his depreciation of them Mails to any of the\nbystanders who would listen, several voices, out of pure sympathy with\nthe sufferer, confirmed him; one voice saying to Clennam, 'They're a\npublic nuisance, them Mails, sir;' another, '_I_ see one on 'em pull up\nwithin half a inch of a boy, last night;' another, '_I_ see one on 'em\ngo over a cat, sir--and it might have been your own mother;' and all\nrepresenting, by implication, that if he happened to possess any public\ninfluence, he could not use it better than against them Mails.\n\n'Why, a native Englishman is put to it every night of his life, to save\nhis life from them Mails,' argued the first old man; 'and _he_ knows when\nthey're a coming round the corner, to tear him limb from limb. What can\nyou expect from a poor foreigner who don't know nothing about 'em!'\n\n'Is this a foreigner?' said Clennam, leaning forward to look.\n\nIn the midst of such replies as 'Frenchman, sir,' 'Porteghee, sir,'\n'Dutchman, sir,' 'Prooshan, sir,' and other conflicting testimony, he\nnow heard a feeble voice asking, both in Italian and in French, for\nwater. A general remark going round, in reply, of 'Ah, poor fellow,\nhe says he'll never get over it; and no wonder!' Clennam begged to be\nallowed to pass, as he understood the poor creature. He was immediately\nhanded to the front, to speak to him.\n\n'First, he wants some water,' said he, looking round. (A dozen good\nfellows dispersed to get it.) 'Are you badly hurt, my friend?' he asked\nthe man on the litter, in Italian.\n\n'Yes, sir; yes, yes, yes. It's my leg, it's my leg. But it pleases me to\nhear the old music, though I am very bad.'\n\n'You are a traveller! Stay! See, the water! Let me give you some.'\n\nThey had rested the litter on a pile of paving stones. It was at a\nconvenient height from the ground, and by stooping he could lightly\nraise the head with one hand and hold the glass to his lips with the\nother. A little, muscular, brown man, with black hair and white teeth. A\nlively face, apparently. Earrings in his ears.\n\n'That's well. You are a traveller?'\n\n'Surely, sir.'\n\n'A stranger in this city?'\n\n'Surely, surely, altogether. I am arrived this unhappy evening.'\n\n'From what country?'\n\n'Marseilles.'\n\n'Why, see there! I also! Almost as much a stranger here as you, though\nborn here, I came from Marseilles a little while ago. Don't be cast\ndown.' The face looked up at him imploringly, as he rose from wiping it,\nand gently replaced the coat that covered the writhing figure. 'I won't\nleave you till you shall be well taken care of. Courage! You will be\nvery much better half an hour hence.'\n\n'Ah! Altro, Altro!' cried the poor little man, in a faintly incredulous\ntone; and as they took him up, hung out his right hand to give the\nforefinger a back-handed shake in the air.\n\nArthur Clennam turned; and walking beside the litter, and saying an\nencouraging word now and then, accompanied it to the neighbouring\nhospital of Saint Bartholomew. None of the crowd but the bearers and\nhe being admitted, the disabled man was soon laid on a table in a cool,\nmethodical way, and carefully examined by a surgeon who was as near at\nhand, and as ready to appear as Calamity herself. 'He hardly knows an\nEnglish word,' said Clennam; 'is he badly hurt?'\n\n'Let us know all about it first,' said the surgeon, continuing his\nexamination with a businesslike delight in it, 'before we pronounce.'\n\nAfter trying the leg with a finger, and two fingers, and one hand and\ntwo hands, and over and under, and up and down, and in this direction\nand in that, and approvingly remarking on the points of interest to\nanother gentleman who joined him, the surgeon at last clapped the\npatient on the shoulder, and said, 'He won't hurt. He'll do very well.\nIt's difficult enough, but we shall not want him to part with his leg\nthis time.' Which Clennam interpreted to the patient, who was full of\ngratitude, and, in his demonstrative way, kissed both the interpreter's\nhand and the surgeon's several times.\n\n'It's a serious injury, I suppose?' said Clennam.\n\n'Ye-es,' replied the surgeon, with the thoughtful pleasure of an artist\ncontemplating the work upon his easel. 'Yes, it's enough. There's a\ncompound fracture above the knee, and a dislocation below. They are\nboth of a beautiful kind.' He gave the patient a friendly clap on the\nshoulder again, as if he really felt that he was a very good fellow\nindeed, and worthy of all commendation for having broken his leg in a\nmanner interesting to science.\n\n'He speaks French?' said the surgeon.\n\n'Oh yes, he speaks French.'\n\n'He'll be at no loss here, then.--You have only to bear a little pain\nlike a brave fellow, my friend, and to be thankful that all goes as\nwell as it does,' he added, in that tongue, 'and you'll walk again to\na marvel. Now, let us see whether there's anything else the matter, and\nhow our ribs are?'\n\nThere was nothing else the matter, and our ribs were sound. Clennam\nremained until everything possible to be done had been skilfully and\npromptly done--the poor belated wanderer in a strange land movingly\nbesought that favour of him--and lingered by the bed to which he was in\ndue time removed, until he had fallen into a doze. Even then he wrote a\nfew words for him on his card, with a promise to return to-morrow, and\nleft it to be given to him when he should awake.\n\nAll these proceedings occupied so long that it struck eleven o'clock at\nnight as he came out at the Hospital Gate. He had hired a lodging for\nthe present in Covent Garden, and he took the nearest way to that\nquarter, by Snow Hill and Holborn.\n\nLeft to himself again, after the solicitude and compassion of his last\nadventure, he was naturally in a thoughtful mood. As naturally, he\ncould not walk on thinking for ten minutes without recalling Flora.\nShe necessarily recalled to him his life, with all its misdirection and\nlittle happiness.\n\nWhen he got to his lodging, he sat down before the dying fire, as he\nhad stood at the window of his old room looking out upon the blackened\nforest of chimneys, and turned his gaze back upon the gloomy vista by\nwhich he had come to that stage in his existence. So long, so bare,\nso blank. No childhood; no youth, except for one remembrance; that one\nremembrance proved, only that day, to be a piece of folly.\n\nIt was a misfortune to him, trifle as it might have been to another.\nFor, while all that was hard and stern in his recollection, remained\nReality on being proved--was obdurate to the sight and touch, and\nrelaxed nothing of its old indomitable grimness--the one tender\nrecollection of his experience would not bear the same test, and melted\naway. He had foreseen this, on the former night, when he had dreamed\nwith waking eyes, but he had not felt it then; and he had now.\n\nHe was a dreamer in such wise, because he was a man who had, deep-rooted\nin his nature, a belief in all the gentle and good things his life had\nbeen without. Bred in meanness and hard dealing, this had rescued him\nto be a man of honourable mind and open hand. Bred in coldness and\nseverity, this had rescued him to have a warm and sympathetic heart.\nBred in a creed too darkly audacious to pursue, through its process of\nreserving the making of man in the image of his Creator to the making of\nhis Creator in the image of an erring man, this had rescued him to judge\nnot, and in humility to be merciful, and have hope and charity.\n\nAnd this saved him still from the whimpering weakness and cruel\nselfishness of holding that because such a happiness or such a virtue\nhad not come into his little path, or worked well for him, therefore\nit was not in the great scheme, but was reducible, when found in\nappearance, to the basest elements. A disappointed mind he had, but a\nmind too firm and healthy for such unwholesome air. Leaving himself in\nthe dark, it could rise into the light, seeing it shine on others and\nhailing it.\n\nTherefore, he sat before his dying fire, sorrowful to think upon the way\nby which he had come to that night, yet not strewing poison on the way\nby which other men had come to it. That he should have missed so much,\nand at his time of life should look so far about him for any staff to\nbear him company upon his downward journey and cheer it, was a just\nregret. He looked at the fire from which the blaze departed, from which\nthe afterglow subsided, in which the ashes turned grey, from which they\ndropped to dust, and thought, 'How soon I too shall pass through such\nchanges, and be gone!'\n\nTo review his life was like descending a green tree in fruit and flower,\nand seeing all the branches wither and drop off, one by one, as he came\ndown towards them.\n\n'From the unhappy suppression of my youngest days, through the rigid and\nunloving home that followed them, through my departure, my long exile,\nmy return, my mother's welcome, my intercourse with her since, down to\nthe afternoon of this day with poor Flora,' said Arthur Clennam, 'what\nhave I found!'\n\nHis door was softly opened, and these spoken words startled him, and\ncame as if they were an answer:\n\n'Little Dorrit.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 14. Little Dorrit's Party\n\n\nArthur Clennam rose hastily, and saw her standing at the door. This\nhistory must sometimes see with Little Dorrit's eyes, and shall begin\nthat course by seeing him.\n\nLittle Dorrit looked into a dim room, which seemed a spacious one to\nher, and grandly furnished. Courtly ideas of Covent Garden, as a place\nwith famous coffee-houses, where gentlemen wearing gold-laced coats and\nswords had quarrelled and fought duels; costly ideas of Covent Garden,\nas a place where there were flowers in winter at guineas a-piece,\npine-apples at guineas a pound, and peas at guineas a pint; picturesque\nideas of Covent Garden, as a place where there was a mighty theatre,\nshowing wonderful and beautiful sights to richly-dressed ladies and\ngentlemen, and which was for ever far beyond the reach of poor Fanny or\npoor uncle; desolate ideas of Covent Garden, as having all those arches\nin it, where the miserable children in rags among whom she had just now\npassed, like young rats, slunk and hid, fed on offal, huddled together\nfor warmth, and were hunted about (look to the rats young and old, all\nye Barnacles, for before God they are eating away our foundations, and\nwill bring the roofs on our heads!); teeming ideas of Covent Garden, as\na place of past and present mystery, romance, abundance, want, beauty,\nugliness, fair country gardens, and foul street gutters; all confused\ntogether,--made the room dimmer than it was in Little Dorrit's eyes, as\nthey timidly saw it from the door.\n\nAt first in the chair before the gone-out fire, and then turned round\nwondering to see her, was the gentleman whom she sought. The brown,\ngrave gentleman, who smiled so pleasantly, who was so frank and\nconsiderate in his manner, and yet in whose earnestness there was\nsomething that reminded her of his mother, with the great difference\nthat she was earnest in asperity and he in gentleness. Now he regarded\nher with that attentive and inquiring look before which Little Dorrit's\neyes had always fallen, and before which they fell still.\n\n'My poor child! Here at midnight?'\n\n'I said Little Dorrit, sir, on purpose to prepare you. I knew you must\nbe very much surprised.'\n\n'Are you alone?'\n\n'No sir, I have got Maggy with me.'\n\nConsidering her entrance sufficiently prepared for by this mention of\nher name, Maggy appeared from the landing outside, on the broad grin.\nShe instantly suppressed that manifestation, however, and became fixedly\nsolemn.\n\n'And I have no fire,' said Clennam. 'And you are--' He was going to say\nso lightly clad, but stopped himself in what would have been a reference\nto her poverty, saying instead, 'And it is so cold.'\n\nPutting the chair from which he had risen nearer to the grate, he made\nher sit down in it; and hurriedly bringing wood and coal, heaped them\ntogether and got a blaze.\n\n'Your foot is like marble, my child;' he had happened to touch it, while\nstooping on one knee at his work of kindling the fire; 'put it nearer\nthe warmth.' Little Dorrit thanked him hastily. It was quite warm, it\nwas very warm! It smote upon his heart to feel that she hid her thin,\nworn shoe.\n\nLittle Dorrit was not ashamed of her poor shoes. He knew her story, and\nit was not that. Little Dorrit had a misgiving that he might blame her\nfather, if he saw them; that he might think, 'why did he dine to-day,\nand leave this little creature to the mercy of the cold stones!' She had\nno belief that it would have been a just reflection; she simply knew,\nby experience, that such delusions did sometimes present themselves to\npeople. It was a part of her father's misfortunes that they did.\n\n'Before I say anything else,' Little Dorrit began, sitting before\nthe pale fire, and raising her eyes again to the face which in its\nharmonious look of interest, and pity, and protection, she felt to be a\nmystery far above her in degree, and almost removed beyond her guessing\nat; 'may I tell you something, sir?'\n\n'Yes, my child.'\n\nA slight shade of distress fell upon her, at his so often calling her a\nchild. She was surprised that he should see it, or think of such a\nslight thing; but he said directly:\n\n'I wanted a tender word, and could think of no other. As you just now\ngave yourself the name they give you at my mother's, and as that is the\nname by which I always think of you, let me call you Little Dorrit.'\n\n'Thank you, sir, I should like it better than any name.'\n\n'Little Dorrit.'\n\n'Little mother,' Maggy (who had been falling asleep) put in, as a\ncorrection.\n\n'It's all the same, Maggy,' returned Little Dorrit, 'all the same.'\n\n'Is it all the same, mother?'\n\n'Just the same.'\n\nMaggy laughed, and immediately snored. In Little Dorrit's eyes and ears,\nthe uncouth figure and the uncouth sound were as pleasant as could be.\nThere was a glow of pride in her big child, overspreading her face, when\nit again met the eyes of the grave brown gentleman. She wondered what he\nwas thinking of, as he looked at Maggy and her. She thought what a\ngood father he would be. How, with some such look, he would counsel and\ncherish his daughter.\n\n'What I was going to tell you, sir,' said Little Dorrit, 'is, that my\nbrother is at large.'\n\nArthur was rejoiced to hear it, and hoped he would do well.\n\n'And what I was going to tell you, sir,' said Little Dorrit, trembling\nin all her little figure and in her voice, 'is, that I am not to know\nwhose generosity released him--am never to ask, and am never to be told,\nand am never to thank that gentleman with all my grateful heart!'\n\nHe would probably need no thanks, Clennam said. Very likely he would be\nthankful himself (and with reason), that he had had the means and chance\nof doing a little service to her, who well deserved a great one.\n\n'And what I was going to say, sir, is,' said Little Dorrit, trembling\nmore and more, 'that if I knew him, and I might, I would tell him that\nhe can never, never know how I feel his goodness, and how my good father\nwould feel it. And what I was going to say, sir, is, that if I knew him,\nand I might--but I don't know him and I must not--I know that!--I would\ntell him that I shall never any more lie down to sleep without having\nprayed to Heaven to bless him and reward him. And if I knew him, and I\nmight, I would go down on my knees to him, and take his hand and kiss\nit and ask him not to draw it away, but to leave it--O to leave it for a\nmoment--and let my thankful tears fall on it; for I have no other thanks\nto give him!'\n\nLittle Dorrit had put his hand to her lips, and would have kneeled to\nhim, but he gently prevented her, and replaced her in her chair. Her\neyes, and the tones of her voice, had thanked him far better than she\nthought. He was not able to say, quite as composedly as usual, 'There,\nLittle Dorrit, there, there, there! We will suppose that you did know\nthis person, and that you might do all this, and that it was all done.\nAnd now tell me, Who am quite another person--who am nothing more than\nthe friend who begged you to trust him--why you are out at midnight, and\nwhat it is that brings you so far through the streets at this late hour,\nmy slight, delicate,' child was on his lips again, 'Little Dorrit!'\n\n'Maggy and I have been to-night,' she answered, subduing herself with\nthe quiet effort that had long been natural to her, 'to the theatre\nwhere my sister is engaged.'\n\n'And oh ain't it a Ev'nly place,' suddenly interrupted Maggy, who seemed\nto have the power of going to sleep and waking up whenever she chose.\n'Almost as good as a hospital. Only there ain't no Chicking in it.'\n\nHere she shook herself, and fell asleep again.\n\n'We went there,' said Little Dorrit, glancing at her charge, 'because\nI like sometimes to know, of my own knowledge, that my sister is doing\nwell; and like to see her there, with my own eyes, when neither she nor\nUncle is aware. It is very seldom indeed that I can do that, because\nwhen I am not out at work, I am with my father, and even when I am out\nat work, I hurry home to him. But I pretend to-night that I am at a\nparty.'\n\nAs she made the confession, timidly hesitating, she raised her eyes to\nthe face, and read its expression so plainly that she answered it.\n\n'Oh no, certainly! I never was at a party in my life.'\n\nShe paused a little under his attentive look, and then said, 'I hope\nthere is no harm in it. I could never have been of any use, if I had\nnot pretended a little.'\n\nShe feared that he was blaming her in his mind for so devising to\ncontrive for them, think for them, and watch over them, without their\nknowledge or gratitude; perhaps even with their reproaches for supposed\nneglect. But what was really in his mind, was the weak figure with its\nstrong purpose, the thin worn shoes, the insufficient dress, and the\npretence of recreation and enjoyment. He asked where the suppositious\nparty was? At a place where she worked, answered Little Dorrit,\nblushing. She had said very little about it; only a few words to\nmake her father easy. Her father did not believe it to be a grand\nparty--indeed he might suppose that. And she glanced for an instant at\nthe shawl she wore.\n\n'It is the first night,' said Little Dorrit, 'that I have ever been away\nfrom home. And London looks so large, so barren, and so wild.' In Little\nDorrit's eyes, its vastness under the black sky was awful; a tremor\npassed over her as she said the words.\n\n'But this is not,' she added, with the quiet effort again, 'what I have\ncome to trouble you with, sir. My sister's having found a friend, a lady\nshe has told me of and made me rather anxious about, was the first cause\nof my coming away from home. And being away, and coming (on purpose)\nround by where you lived and seeing a light in the window--'\n\nNot for the first time. No, not for the first time. In Little Dorrit's\neyes, the outside of that window had been a distant star on other nights\nthan this. She had toiled out of her way, tired and troubled, to look up\nat it, and wonder about the grave, brown gentleman from so far off, who\nhad spoken to her as a friend and protector.\n\n'There were three things,' said Little Dorrit, 'that I thought I would\nlike to say, if you were alone and I might come up-stairs. First, what I\nhave tried to say, but never can--never shall--'\n\n'Hush, hush! That is done with, and disposed of. Let us pass to the\nsecond,' said Clennam, smiling her agitation away, making the blaze\nshine upon her, and putting wine and cake and fruit towards her on the\ntable.\n\n'I think,' said Little Dorrit--'this is the second thing, sir--I think\nMrs Clennam must have found out my secret, and must know where I come\nfrom and where I go to. Where I live, I mean.'\n\n'Indeed!' returned Clennam quickly. He asked her, after short\nconsideration, why she supposed so.\n\n'I think,' replied Little Dorrit, 'that Mr Flintwinch must have watched\nme.'\n\nAnd why, Clennam asked, as he turned his eyes upon the fire, bent his\nbrows, and considered again; why did she suppose that?\n\n'I have met him twice. Both times near home. Both times at night, when\nI was going back. Both times I thought (though that may easily be my\nmistake), that he hardly looked as if he had met me by accident.'\n\n'Did he say anything?'\n\n'No; he only nodded and put his head on one side.'\n\n'The devil take his head!' mused Clennam, still looking at the fire;\n'it's always on one side.'\n\nHe roused himself to persuade her to put some wine to her lips, and to\ntouch something to eat--it was very difficult, she was so timid and\nshy--and then said, musing again:\n\n'Is my mother at all changed to you?'\n\n'Oh, not at all. She is just the same. I wondered whether I had better\ntell her my history. I wondered whether I might--I mean, whether you\nwould like me to tell her. I wondered,' said Little Dorrit, looking at\nhim in a suppliant way, and gradually withdrawing her eyes as he looked\nat her, 'whether you would advise me what I ought to do.'\n\n'Little Dorrit,' said Clennam; and the phrase had already begun, between\nthese two, to stand for a hundred gentle phrases, according to the\nvarying tone and connection in which it was used; 'do nothing. I will\nhave some talk with my old friend, Mrs Affery. Do nothing, Little\nDorrit--except refresh yourself with such means as there are here. I\nentreat you to do that.'\n\n'Thank you, I am not hungry. Nor,' said Little Dorrit, as he softly\nput her glass towards her, 'nor thirsty.--I think Maggy might like\nsomething, perhaps.'\n\n'We will make her find pockets presently for all there is here,' said\nClennam: 'but before we awake her, there was a third thing to say.'\n\n'Yes. You will not be offended, sir?'\n\n'I promise that, unreservedly.'\n\n'It will sound strange. I hardly know how to say it. Don't think it\nunreasonable or ungrateful in me,' said Little Dorrit, with returning\nand increasing agitation.\n\n'No, no, no. I am sure it will be natural and right. I am not afraid\nthat I shall put a wrong construction on it, whatever it is.'\n\n'Thank you. You are coming back to see my father again?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'You have been so good and thoughtful as to write him a note, saying\nthat you are coming to-morrow?'\n\n'Oh, that was nothing! Yes.'\n\n'Can you guess,' said Little Dorrit, folding her small hands tight in\none another, and looking at him with all the earnestness of her soul\nlooking steadily out of her eyes, 'what I am going to ask you not to\ndo?'\n\n'I think I can. But I may be wrong.'\n\n'No, you are not wrong,' said Little Dorrit, shaking her head. 'If we\nshould want it so very, very badly that we cannot do without it, let me\nask you for it.'\n\n'I Will,--I Will.'\n\n'Don't encourage him to ask. Don't understand him if he does ask. Don't\ngive it to him. Save him and spare him that, and you will be able to\nthink better of him!'\n\nClennam said--not very plainly, seeing those tears glistening in her\nanxious eyes--that her wish should be sacred with him.\n\n'You don't know what he is,' she said; 'you don't know what he really\nis. How can you, seeing him there all at once, dear love, and not\ngradually, as I have done! You have been so good to us, so delicately\nand truly good, that I want him to be better in your eyes than in\nanybody's. And I cannot bear to think,' cried Little Dorrit, covering\nher tears with her hands, 'I cannot bear to think that you of all the\nworld should see him in his only moments of degradation.'\n\n'Pray,' said Clennam, 'do not be so distressed. Pray, pray, Little\nDorrit! This is quite understood now.'\n\n'Thank you, sir. Thank you! I have tried very much to keep myself from\nsaying this; I have thought about it, days and nights; but when I knew\nfor certain you were coming again, I made up my mind to speak to you.\nNot because I am ashamed of him,' she dried her tears quickly, 'but\nbecause I know him better than any one does, and love him, and am proud\nof him.'\n\nRelieved of this weight, Little Dorrit was nervously anxious to be gone.\nMaggy being broad awake, and in the act of distantly gloating over the\nfruit and cakes with chuckles of anticipation, Clennam made the best\ndiversion in his power by pouring her out a glass of wine, which she\ndrank in a series of loud smacks; putting her hand upon her windpipe\nafter every one, and saying, breathless, with her eyes in a prominent\nstate, 'Oh, ain't it d'licious! Ain't it hospitally!' When she had\nfinished the wine and these encomiums, he charged her to load her basket\n(she was never without her basket) with every eatable thing upon the\ntable, and to take especial care to leave no scrap behind. Maggy's\npleasure in doing this and her little mother's pleasure in seeing Maggy\npleased, was as good a turn as circumstances could have given to the\nlate conversation.\n\n'But the gates will have been locked long ago,' said Clennam, suddenly\nremembering it. 'Where are you going?'\n\n'I am going to Maggy's lodging,' answered Little Dorrit. 'I shall be\nquite safe, quite well taken care of.'\n\n'I must accompany you there,' said Clennam, 'I cannot let you go alone.'\n\n'Yes, pray leave us to go there by ourselves. Pray do!' begged Little\nDorrit.\n\nShe was so earnest in the petition, that Clennam felt a delicacy in\nobtruding himself upon her: the rather, because he could well understand\nthat Maggy's lodging was of the obscurest sort. 'Come, Maggy,' said\nLittle Dorrit cheerily, 'we shall do very well; we know the way by this\ntime, Maggy?'\n\n'Yes, yes, little mother; we know the way,' chuckled Maggy. And away\nthey went. Little Dorrit turned at the door to say, 'God bless you!' She\nsaid it very softly, but perhaps she may have been as audible above--who\nknows!--as a whole cathedral choir.\n\nArthur Clennam suffered them to pass the corner of the street before he\nfollowed at a distance; not with any idea of encroaching a second time\non Little Dorrit's privacy, but to satisfy his mind by seeing her secure\nin the neighbourhood to which she was accustomed. So diminutive she\nlooked, so fragile and defenceless against the bleak damp weather,\nflitting along in the shuffling shadow of her charge, that he felt, in\nhis compassion, and in his habit of considering her a child apart from\nthe rest of the rough world, as if he would have been glad to take her\nup in his arms and carry her to her journey's end.\n\nIn course of time she came into the leading thoroughfare where the\nMarshalsea was, and then he saw them slacken their pace, and soon turn\ndown a by-street. He stopped, felt that he had no right to go further,\nand slowly left them. He had no suspicion that they ran any risk of\nbeing houseless until morning; had no idea of the truth until long, long\nafterwards.\n\nBut, said Little Dorrit, when they stopped at a poor dwelling all in\ndarkness, and heard no sound on listening at the door, 'Now, this is a\ngood lodging for you, Maggy, and we must not give offence. Consequently,\nwe will only knock twice, and not very loud; and if we cannot wake them\nso, we must walk about till day.'\n\nOnce, Little Dorrit knocked with a careful hand, and listened. Twice,\nLittle Dorrit knocked with a careful hand, and listened. All was close\nand still. 'Maggy, we must do the best we can, my dear. We must be\npatient, and wait for day.'\n\nIt was a chill dark night, with a damp wind blowing, when they came out\ninto the leading street again, and heard the clocks strike half-past\none. 'In only five hours and a half,' said Little Dorrit, 'we shall be\nable to go home.' To speak of home, and to go and look at it, it being\nso near, was a natural sequence. They went to the closed gate, and\npeeped through into the court-yard. 'I hope he is sound asleep,' said\nLittle Dorrit, kissing one of the bars, 'and does not miss me.'\n\nThe gate was so familiar, and so like a companion, that they put down\nMaggy's basket in a corner to serve for a seat, and keeping close\ntogether, rested there for some time. While the street was empty and\nsilent, Little Dorrit was not afraid; but when she heard a footstep at\na distance, or saw a moving shadow among the street lamps, she was\nstartled, and whispered, 'Maggy, I see some one. Come away!' Maggy\nwould then wake up more or less fretfully, and they would wander about a\nlittle, and come back again.\n\nAs long as eating was a novelty and an amusement, Maggy kept up pretty\nwell. But that period going by, she became querulous about the cold, and\nshivered and whimpered. 'It will soon be over, dear,' said Little Dorrit\npatiently. 'Oh it's all very fine for you, little mother,' returned\nMaggy, 'but I'm a poor thing, only ten years old.' At last, in the dead\nof the night, when the street was very still indeed, Little Dorrit laid\nthe heavy head upon her bosom, and soothed her to sleep. And thus she\nsat at the gate, as it were alone; looking up at the stars, and seeing\nthe clouds pass over them in their wild flight--which was the dance at\nLittle Dorrit's party.\n\n'If it really was a party!' she thought once, as she sat there. 'If it\nwas light and warm and beautiful, and it was our house, and my poor dear\nwas its master, and had never been inside these walls. And if Mr\nClennam was one of our visitors, and we were dancing to delightful\nmusic, and were all as gay and light-hearted as ever we could be! I\nwonder--' Such a vista of wonder opened out before her, that she sat\nlooking up at the stars, quite lost, until Maggy was querulous again,\nand wanted to get up and walk.\n\nThree o'clock, and half-past three, and they had passed over London\nBridge. They had heard the rush of the tide against obstacles; and\nlooked down, awed, through the dark vapour on the river; had seen little\nspots of lighted water where the bridge lamps were reflected, shining\nlike demon eyes, with a terrible fascination in them for guilt and\nmisery. They had shrunk past homeless people, lying coiled up in\nnooks. They had run from drunkards. They had started from slinking men,\nwhistling and signing to one another at bye corners, or running away at\nfull speed. Though everywhere the leader and the guide, Little Dorrit,\nhappy for once in her youthful appearance, feigned to cling to and rely\nupon Maggy. And more than once some voice, from among a knot of brawling\nor prowling figures in their path, had called out to the rest to 'let\nthe woman and the child go by!'\n\nSo, the woman and the child had gone by, and gone on, and five had\nsounded from the steeples. They were walking slowly towards the east,\nalready looking for the first pale streak of day, when a woman came\nafter them.\n\n'What are you doing with the child?' she said to Maggy.\n\nShe was young--far too young to be there, Heaven knows!--and neither\nugly nor wicked-looking. She spoke coarsely, but with no naturally\ncoarse voice; there was even something musical in its sound.\n\n'What are you doing with yourself?' retorted Maggy, for want of a better\nanswer.\n\n'Can't you see, without my telling you?'\n\n'I don't know as I can,' said Maggy.\n\n'Killing myself! Now I have answered you, answer me. What are you doing\nwith the child?'\n\nThe supposed child kept her head drooped down, and kept her form close\nat Maggy's side.\n\n'Poor thing!' said the woman. 'Have you no feeling, that you keep her\nout in the cruel streets at such a time as this? Have you no eyes, that\nyou don't see how delicate and slender she is? Have you no sense (you\ndon't look as if you had much) that you don't take more pity on this\ncold and trembling little hand?'\n\nShe had stepped across to that side, and held the hand between her own\ntwo, chafing it. 'Kiss a poor lost creature, dear,' she said, bending\nher face, 'and tell me where's she taking you.'\n\nLittle Dorrit turned towards her.\n\n'Why, my God!' she said, recoiling, 'you're a woman!'\n\n'Don't mind that!' said Little Dorrit, clasping one of her hands that\nhad suddenly released hers. 'I am not afraid of you.'\n\n'Then you had better be,' she answered. 'Have you no mother?'\n\n'No.'\n\n'No father?'\n\n'Yes, a very dear one.'\n\n'Go home to him, and be afraid of me. Let me go. Good night!'\n\n'I must thank you first; let me speak to you as if I really were a\nchild.'\n\n'You can't do it,' said the woman. 'You are kind and innocent; but you\ncan't look at me out of a child's eyes. I never should have touched you,\nbut I thought that you were a child.' And with a strange, wild cry, she\nwent away.\n\nNo day yet in the sky, but there was day in the resounding stones of\nthe streets; in the waggons, carts, and coaches; in the workers going\nto various occupations; in the opening of early shops; in the traffic\nat markets; in the stir of the riverside. There was coming day in the\nflaring lights, with a feebler colour in them than they would have had\nat another time; coming day in the increased sharpness of the air, and\nthe ghastly dying of the night.\n\nThey went back again to the gate, intending to wait there now until it\nshould be opened; but the air was so raw and cold that Little Dorrit,\nleading Maggy about in her sleep, kept in motion. Going round by the\nChurch, she saw lights there, and the door open; and went up the steps\nand looked in.\n\n'Who's that?' cried a stout old man, who was putting on a nightcap as if\nhe were going to bed in a vault.\n\n'It's no one particular, sir,' said Little Dorrit.\n\n'Stop!' cried the man. 'Let's have a look at you!'\n\nThis caused her to turn back again in the act of going out, and to\npresent herself and her charge before him.\n\n'I thought so!' said he. 'I know _you_.'\n\n'We have often seen each other,' said Little Dorrit, recognising the\nsexton, or the beadle, or the verger, or whatever he was, 'when I have\nbeen at church here.'\n\n'More than that, we've got your birth in our Register, you know; you're\none of our curiosities.'\n\n'Indeed!' said Little Dorrit.\n\n'To be sure. As the child of the--by-the-bye, how did you get out so\nearly?'\n\n'We were shut out last night, and are waiting to get in.'\n\n'You don't mean it? And there's another hour good yet! Come into the\nvestry. You'll find a fire in the vestry, on account of the painters.\nI'm waiting for the painters, or I shouldn't be here, you may depend\nupon it. One of our curiosities mustn't be cold when we have it in our\npower to warm her up comfortable. Come along.'\n\nHe was a very good old fellow, in his familiar way; and having stirred\nthe vestry fire, he looked round the shelves of registers for a\nparticular volume. 'Here you are, you see,' he said, taking it down and\nturning the leaves. 'Here you'll find yourself, as large as life. Amy,\ndaughter of William and Fanny Dorrit. Born, Marshalsea Prison, Parish of\nSt George. And we tell people that you have lived there, without so much\nas a day's or a night's absence, ever since. Is it true?'\n\n'Quite true, till last night.'\n\n'Lord!' But his surveying her with an admiring gaze suggested Something\nelse to him, to wit: 'I am sorry to see, though, that you are faint and\ntired. Stay a bit. I'll get some cushions out of the church, and you and\nyour friend shall lie down before the fire. Don't be afraid of not\ngoing in to join your father when the gate opens. _I'll_ call you.'\n\nHe soon brought in the cushions, and strewed them on the ground.\n\n'There you are, you see. Again as large as life. Oh, never mind\nthanking. I've daughters of my own. And though they weren't born in the\nMarshalsea Prison, they might have been, if I had been, in my ways of\ncarrying on, of your father's breed. Stop a bit. I must put something\nunder the cushion for your head. Here's a burial volume, just the\nthing! We have got Mrs Bangham in this book. But what makes these books\ninteresting to most people is--not who's in 'em, but who isn't--who's\ncoming, you know, and when. That's the interesting question.'\n\nCommendingly looking back at the pillow he had improvised, he left them\nto their hour's repose. Maggy was snoring already, and Little Dorrit\nwas soon fast asleep with her head resting on that sealed book of Fate,\nuntroubled by its mysterious blank leaves.\n\nThis was Little Dorrit's party. The shame, desertion, wretchedness, and\nexposure of the great capital; the wet, the cold, the slow hours, and\nthe swift clouds of the dismal night. This was the party from which\nLittle Dorrit went home, jaded, in the first grey mist of a rainy\nmorning.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 15. Mrs Flintwinch has another Dream\n\n\nThe debilitated old house in the city, wrapped in its mantle of soot,\nand leaning heavily on the crutches that had partaken of its decay and\nworn out with it, never knew a healthy or a cheerful interval, let what\nwould betide. If the sun ever touched it, it was but with a ray, and\nthat was gone in half an hour; if the moonlight ever fell upon it, it\nwas only to put a few patches on its doleful cloak, and make it look\nmore wretched. The stars, to be sure, coldly watched it when the nights\nand the smoke were clear enough; and all bad weather stood by it with\na rare fidelity. You should alike find rain, hail, frost, and thaw\nlingering in that dismal enclosure when they had vanished from other\nplaces; and as to snow, you should see it there for weeks, long after\nit had changed from yellow to black, slowly weeping away its grimy life.\nThe place had no other adherents. As to street noises, the rumbling of\nwheels in the lane merely rushed in at the gateway in going past, and\nrushed out again: making the listening Mistress Affery feel as if she\nwere deaf, and recovered the sense of hearing by instantaneous flashes.\nSo with whistling, singing, talking, laughing, and all pleasant human\nsounds. They leaped the gap in a moment, and went upon their way.\n\nThe varying light of fire and candle in Mrs Clennam's room made the\ngreatest change that ever broke the dead monotony of the spot. In her\ntwo long narrow windows, the fire shone sullenly all day, and sullenly\nall night. On rare occasions it flashed up passionately, as she did;\nbut for the most part it was suppressed, like her, and preyed upon\nitself evenly and slowly. During many hours of the short winter days,\nhowever, when it was dusk there early in the afternoon, changing\ndistortions of herself in her wheeled chair, of Mr Flintwinch with his\nwry neck, of Mistress Affery coming and going, would be thrown upon the\nhouse wall that was over the gateway, and would hover there like shadows\nfrom a great magic lantern. As the room-ridden invalid settled for the\nnight, these would gradually disappear: Mistress Affery's magnified\nshadow always flitting about, last, until it finally glided away into\nthe air, as though she were off upon a witch excursion. Then the\nsolitary light would burn unchangingly, until it burned pale before the\ndawn, and at last died under the breath of Mrs Affery, as her shadow\ndescended on it from the witch-region of sleep.\n\nStrange, if the little sick-room fire were in effect a beacon fire,\nsummoning some one, and that the most unlikely some one in the world,\nto the spot that _must_ be come to. Strange, if the little sick-room light\nwere in effect a watch-light, burning in that place every night until\nan appointed event should be watched out! Which of the vast multitude\nof travellers, under the sun and the stars, climbing the dusty hills\nand toiling along the weary plains, journeying by land and journeying by\nsea, coming and going so strangely, to meet and to act and react on one\nanother; which of the host may, with no suspicion of the journey's end,\nbe travelling surely hither?\n\nTime shall show us. The post of honour and the post of shame, the\ngeneral's station and the drummer's, a peer's statue in Westminster\nAbbey and a seaman's hammock in the bosom of the deep, the mitre and\nthe workhouse, the woolsack and the gallows, the throne and the\nguillotine--the travellers to all are on the great high road, but it\nhas wonderful divergencies, and only Time shall show us whither each\ntraveller is bound.\n\nOn a wintry afternoon at twilight, Mrs Flintwinch, having been heavy all\nday, dreamed this dream:\n\nShe thought she was in the kitchen getting the kettle ready for tea, and\nwas warming herself with her feet upon the fender and the skirt of her\ngown tucked up, before the collapsed fire in the middle of the grate,\nbordered on either hand by a deep cold black ravine. She thought that\nas she sat thus, musing upon the question whether life was not for some\npeople a rather dull invention, she was frightened by a sudden noise\nbehind her. She thought that she had been similarly frightened once last\nweek, and that the noise was of a mysterious kind--a sound of rustling\nand of three or four quick beats like a rapid step; while a shock or\ntremble was communicated to her heart, as if the step had shaken the\nfloor, or even as if she had been touched by some awful hand. She\nthought that this revived within her certain old fears of hers that\nthe house was haunted; and that she flew up the kitchen stairs without\nknowing how she got up, to be nearer company.\n\nMistress Affery thought that on reaching the hall, she saw the door of\nher liege lord's office standing open, and the room empty. That she went\nto the ripped-up window in the little room by the street door to connect\nher palpitating heart, through the glass, with living things beyond\nand outside the haunted house. That she then saw, on the wall over the\ngateway, the shadows of the two clever ones in conversation above. That\nshe then went upstairs with her shoes in her hand, partly to be near\nthe clever ones as a match for most ghosts, and partly to hear what they\nwere talking about.\n\n'None of your nonsense with me,' said Mr Flintwinch. 'I won't take it\nfrom you.'\n\nMrs Flintwinch dreamed that she stood behind the door, which was just\najar, and most distinctly heard her husband say these bold words.\n\n'Flintwinch,' returned Mrs Clennam, in her usual strong low voice,\n'there is a demon of anger in you. Guard against it.'\n\n'I don't care whether there's one or a dozen,' said Mr Flintwinch,\nforcibly suggesting in his tone that the higher number was nearer the\nmark. 'If there was fifty, they should all say, None of your nonsense\nwith me, I won't take it from you--I'd make 'em say it, whether they\nliked it or not.'\n\n'What have I done, you wrathful man?' her strong voice asked.\n\n'Done?' said Mr Flintwinch. 'Dropped down upon me.'\n\n'If you mean, remonstrated with you--'\n\n'Don't put words into my mouth that I don't mean,' said Jeremiah,\nsticking to his figurative expression with tenacious and impenetrable\nobstinacy: 'I mean dropped down upon me.'\n\n'I remonstrated with you,' she began again, 'because--'\n\n'I won't have it!' cried Jeremiah. 'You dropped down upon me.'\n\n'I dropped down upon you, then, you ill-conditioned man,' (Jeremiah\nchuckled at having forced her to adopt his phrase,) 'for having been\nneedlessly significant to Arthur that morning. I have a right to\ncomplain of it as almost a breach of confidence. You did not mean it--'\n\n'I won't have it!' interposed the contradictory Jeremiah, flinging back\nthe concession. 'I did mean it.'\n\n'I suppose I must leave you to speak in soliloquy if you choose,' she\nreplied, after a pause that seemed an angry one. 'It is useless my\naddressing myself to a rash and headstrong old man who has a set purpose\nnot to hear me.'\n\n'Now, I won't take that from you either,' said Jeremiah. 'I have no such\npurpose. I have told you I did mean it. Do you wish to know why I meant\nit, you rash and headstrong old woman?'\n\n'After all, you only restore me my own words,' she said, struggling with\nher indignation. 'Yes.'\n\n'This is why, then. Because you hadn't cleared his father to him, and\nyou ought to have done it. Because, before you went into any tantrum\nabout yourself, who are--'\n\n'Hold there, Flintwinch!' she cried out in a changed voice: 'you may go\na word too far.'\n\nThe old man seemed to think so. There was another pause, and he had\naltered his position in the room, when he spoke again more mildly:\n\n'I was going to tell you why it was. Because, before you took your own\npart, I thought you ought to have taken the part of Arthur's father.\nArthur's father! I had no particular love for Arthur's father. I served\nArthur's father's uncle, in this house, when Arthur's father was not\nmuch above me--was poorer as far as his pocket went--and when his uncle\nmight as soon have left me his heir as have left him. He starved in the\nparlour, and I starved in the kitchen; that was the principal difference\nin our positions; there was not much more than a flight of breakneck\nstairs between us. I never took to him in those times; I don't know that\nI ever took to him greatly at any time. He was an undecided, irresolute\nchap, who had everything but his orphan life scared out of him when he\nwas young. And when he brought you home here, the wife his uncle\nhad named for him, I didn't need to look at you twice (you were a\ngood-looking woman at that time) to know who'd be master. You have stood\nof your own strength ever since. Stand of your own strength now. Don't\nlean against the dead.'\n\n'I do _not_--as you call it--lean against the dead.'\n\n'But you had a mind to do it, if I had submitted,' growled Jeremiah,\n'and that's why you drop down upon me. You can't forget that I didn't\nsubmit. I suppose you are astonished that I should consider it worth my\nwhile to have justice done to Arthur's father? Hey? It doesn't matter\nwhether you answer or not, because I know you are, and you know you are.\nCome, then, I'll tell you how it is. I may be a bit of an oddity in\npoint of temper, but this is my temper--I can't let anybody have\nentirely their own way. You are a determined woman, and a clever woman;\nand when you see your purpose before you, nothing will turn you from it.\nWho knows that better than I do?'\n\n'Nothing will turn me from it, Flintwinch, when I have justified it to\nmyself. Add that.'\n\n'Justified it to yourself? I said you were the most determined woman on\nthe face of the earth (or I meant to say so), and if you are determined\nto justify any object you entertain, of course you'll do it.'\n\n'Man! I justify myself by the authority of these Books,' she cried, with\nstern emphasis, and appearing from the sound that followed to strike the\ndead-weight of her arm upon the table.\n\n'Never mind that,' returned Jeremiah calmly, 'we won't enter into that\nquestion at present. However that may be, you carry out your purposes,\nand you make everything go down before them. Now, I won't go down before\nthem. I have been faithful to you, and useful to you, and I am attached\nto you. But I can't consent, and I won't consent, and I never did\nconsent, and I never will consent to be lost in you. Swallow up\neverybody else, and welcome. The peculiarity of my temper is, ma'am,\nthat I won't be swallowed up alive.'\n\nPerhaps this had originally been the mainspring of the understanding\nbetween them. Descrying thus much of force of character in Mr\nFlintwinch, perhaps Mrs Clennam had deemed alliance with him worth her\nwhile.\n\n'Enough and more than enough of the subject,' said she gloomily.\n\n'Unless you drop down upon me again,' returned the persistent\nFlintwinch, 'and then you must expect to hear of it again.'\n\nMistress Affery dreamed that the figure of her lord here began walking\nup and down the room, as if to cool his spleen, and that she ran away;\nbut that, as he did not issue forth when she had stood listening and\ntrembling in the shadowy hall a little time, she crept up-stairs again,\nimpelled as before by ghosts and curiosity, and once more cowered\noutside the door.\n\n'Please to light the candle, Flintwinch,' Mrs Clennam was saying,\napparently wishing to draw him back into their usual tone. 'It is nearly\ntime for tea. Little Dorrit is coming, and will find me in the dark.'\n\nMr Flintwinch lighted the candle briskly, and said as he put it down\nupon the table:\n\n'What are you going to do with Little Dorrit? Is she to come to work\nhere for ever? To come to tea here for ever? To come backwards and\nforwards here, in the same way, for ever?'\n\n'How can you talk about \"for ever\" to a maimed creature like me? Are we\nnot all cut down like the grass of the field, and was not I shorn by the\nscythe many years ago: since when I have been lying here, waiting to be\ngathered into the barn?'\n\n'Ay, ay! But since you have been lying here--not near dead--nothing like\nit--numbers of children and young people, blooming women, strong men,\nand what not, have been cut down and carried; and still here are you,\nyou see, not much changed after all. Your time and mine may be a long\none yet. When I say for ever, I mean (though I am not poetical) through\nall our time.' Mr Flintwinch gave this explanation with great calmness,\nand calmly waited for an answer.\n\n'So long as Little Dorrit is quiet and industrious, and stands in need\nof the slight help I can give her, and deserves it; so long, I suppose,\nunless she withdraws of her own act, she will continue to come here, I\nbeing spared.'\n\n'Nothing more than that?' said Flintwinch, stroking his mouth and chin.\n\n'What should there be more than that! What could there be more than\nthat!' she ejaculated in her sternly wondering way.\n\nMrs Flintwinch dreamed, that, for the space of a minute or two, they\nremained looking at each other with the candle between them, and\nthat she somehow derived an impression that they looked at each other\nfixedly.\n\n'Do you happen to know, Mrs Clennam,' Affery's liege lord then demanded\nin a much lower voice, and with an amount of expression that seemed\nquite out of proportion to the simple purpose of his words, 'where she\nlives?'\n\n'No.'\n\n'Would you--now, would you like to know?' said Jeremiah with a pounce as\nif he had sprung upon her.\n\n'If I cared to know, I should know already. Could I not have asked her\nany day?'\n\n'Then you don't care to know?'\n\n'I do not.'\n\nMr Flintwinch, having expelled a long significant breath said, with his\nformer emphasis, 'For I have accidentally--mind!--found out.'\n\n'Wherever she lives,' said Mrs Clennam, speaking in one unmodulated hard\nvoice, and separating her words as distinctly as if she were reading\nthem off from separate bits of metal that she took up one by one, 'she\nhas made a secret of it, and she shall always keep her secret from me.'\n\n'After all, perhaps you would rather not have known the fact, any how?'\nsaid Jeremiah; and he said it with a twist, as if his words had come out\nof him in his own wry shape.\n\n'Flintwinch,' said his mistress and partner, flashing into a sudden\nenergy that made Affery start, 'why do you goad me? Look round this\nroom. If it is any compensation for my long confinement within these\nnarrow limits--not that I complain of being afflicted; you know I never\ncomplain of that--if it is any compensation to me for long confinement\nto this room, that while I am shut up from all pleasant change I am also\nshut up from the knowledge of some things that I may prefer to avoid\nknowing, why should you, of all men, grudge me that belief?'\n\n'I don't grudge it to you,' returned Jeremiah.\n\n'Then say no more. Say no more. Let Little Dorrit keep her secret from\nme, and do you keep it from me also. Let her come and go, unobserved and\nunquestioned. Let me suffer, and let me have what alleviation belongs to\nmy condition. Is it so much, that you torment me like an evil spirit?'\n\n'I asked you a question. That's all.'\n\n'I have answered it. So, say no more. Say no more.' Here the sound of\nthe wheeled chair was heard upon the floor, and Affery's bell rang with\na hasty jerk.\n\nMore afraid of her husband at the moment than of the mysterious sound in\nthe kitchen, Affery crept away as lightly and as quickly as she could,\ndescended the kitchen stairs almost as rapidly as she had ascended them,\nresumed her seat before the fire, tucked up her skirt again, and finally\nthrew her apron over her head. Then the bell rang once more, and then\nonce more, and then kept on ringing; in despite of which importunate\nsummons, Affery still sat behind her apron, recovering her breath.\n\nAt last Mr Flintwinch came shuffling down the staircase into the\nhall, muttering and calling 'Affery woman!' all the way. Affery still\nremaining behind her apron, he came stumbling down the kitchen stairs,\ncandle in hand, sidled up to her, twitched her apron off, and roused\nher.\n\n'Oh Jeremiah!' cried Affery, waking. 'What a start you gave me!'\n\n'What have you been doing, woman?' inquired Jeremiah. 'You've been rung\nfor fifty times.'\n\n'Oh Jeremiah,' said Mistress Affery, 'I have been a-dreaming!'\n\nReminded of her former achievement in that way, Mr Flintwinch held the\ncandle to her head, as if he had some idea of lighting her up for the\nillumination of the kitchen.\n\n'Don't you know it's her tea-time?' he demanded with a vicious grin, and\ngiving one of the legs of Mistress Affery's chair a kick.\n\n'Jeremiah? Tea-time? I don't know what's come to me. But I got such a\ndreadful turn, Jeremiah, before I went--off a-dreaming, that I think it\nmust be that.'\n\n'Yoogh! Sleepy-Head!' said Mr Flintwinch, 'what are you talking about?'\n\n'Such a strange noise, Jeremiah, and such a curious movement. In the\nkitchen here--just here.'\n\nJeremiah held up his light and looked at the blackened ceiling, held\ndown his light and looked at the damp stone floor, turned round with his\nlight and looked about at the spotted and blotched walls.\n\n'Rats, cats, water, drains,' said Jeremiah.\n\nMistress Affery negatived each with a shake of her head. 'No, Jeremiah;\nI have felt it before. I have felt it up-stairs, and once on the\nstaircase as I was going from her room to ours in the night--a rustle\nand a sort of trembling touch behind me.'\n\n'Affery, my woman,' said Mr Flintwinch grimly, after advancing his nose\nto that lady's lips as a test for the detection of spirituous liquors,\n'if you don't get tea pretty quick, old woman, you'll become sensible\nof a rustle and a touch that'll send you flying to the other end of the\nkitchen.'\n\nThis prediction stimulated Mrs Flintwinch to bestir herself, and to\nhasten up-stairs to Mrs Clennam's chamber. But, for all that, she now\nbegan to entertain a settled conviction that there was something wrong\nin the gloomy house. Henceforth, she was never at peace in it after\ndaylight departed; and never went up or down stairs in the dark without\nhaving her apron over her head, lest she should see something.\n\nWhat with these ghostly apprehensions and her singular dreams, Mrs\nFlintwinch fell that evening into a haunted state of mind, from which\nit may be long before this present narrative descries any trace of her\nrecovery. In the vagueness and indistinctness of all her new experiences\nand perceptions, as everything about her was mysterious to herself she\nbegan to be mysterious to others: and became as difficult to be made out\nto anybody's satisfaction as she found the house and everything in it\ndifficult to make out to her own.\n\nShe had not yet finished preparing Mrs Clennam's tea, when the soft\nknock came to the door which always announced Little Dorrit. Mistress\nAffery looked on at Little Dorrit taking off her homely bonnet in the\nhall, and at Mr Flintwinch scraping his jaws and contemplating her in\nsilence, as expecting some wonderful consequence to ensue which would\nfrighten her out of her five wits or blow them all three to pieces.\n\nAfter tea there came another knock at the door, announcing Arthur.\nMistress Affery went down to let him in, and he said on entering,\n'Affery, I am glad it's you. I want to ask you a question.' Affery\nimmediately replied, 'For goodness sake don't ask me nothing, Arthur! I\nam frightened out of one half of my life, and dreamed out of the\nother. Don't ask me nothing! I don't know which is which, or what is\nwhat!'--and immediately started away from him, and came near him no\nmore.\n\nMistress Affery having no taste for reading, and no sufficient light for\nneedlework in the subdued room, supposing her to have the inclination,\nnow sat every night in the dimness from which she had momentarily\nemerged on the evening of Arthur Clennam's return, occupied with crowds\nof wild speculations and suspicions respecting her mistress and her\nhusband and the noises in the house. When the ferocious devotional\nexercises were engaged in, these speculations would distract Mistress\nAffery's eyes towards the door, as if she expected some dark form to\nappear at those propitious moments, and make the party one too many.\n\nOtherwise, Affery never said or did anything to attract the attention of\nthe two clever ones towards her in any marked degree, except on certain\noccasions, generally at about the quiet hour towards bed-time, when she\nwould suddenly dart out of her dim corner, and whisper with a face of\nterror to Mr Flintwinch, reading the paper near Mrs Clennam's little\ntable:\n\n'There, Jeremiah! Now! What's that noise?'\n\nThen the noise, if there were any, would have ceased, and Mr Flintwinch\nwould snarl, turning upon her as if she had cut him down that moment\nagainst his will, 'Affery, old woman, you shall have a dose, old woman,\nsuch a dose! You have been dreaming again!'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 16. Nobody's Weakness\n\n\nThe time being come for the renewal of his acquaintance with the Meagles\nfamily, Clennam, pursuant to contract made between himself and Mr\nMeagles within the precincts of Bleeding Heart Yard, turned his face\non a certain Saturday towards Twickenham, where Mr Meagles had a\ncottage-residence of his own. The weather being fine and dry, and any\nEnglish road abounding in interest for him who had been so long away,\nhe sent his valise on by the coach, and set out to walk. A walk was in\nitself a new enjoyment to him, and one that had rarely diversified his\nlife afar off.\n\nHe went by Fulham and Putney, for the pleasure of strolling over the\nheath. It was bright and shining there; and when he found himself so far\non his road to Twickenham, he found himself a long way on his road to\na number of airier and less substantial destinations. They had risen\nbefore him fast, in the healthful exercise and the pleasant road. It is\nnot easy to walk alone in the country without musing upon something. And\nhe had plenty of unsettled subjects to meditate upon, though he had been\nwalking to the Land's End.\n\nFirst, there was the subject seldom absent from his mind, the question,\nwhat he was to do henceforth in life; to what occupation he should\ndevote himself, and in what direction he had best seek it. He was far\nfrom rich, and every day of indecision and inaction made his inheritance\na source of greater anxiety to him. As often as he began to consider how\nto increase this inheritance, or to lay it by, so often his misgiving\nthat there was some one with an unsatisfied claim upon his justice,\nreturned; and that alone was a subject to outlast the longest walk.\nAgain, there was the subject of his relations with his mother, which\nwere now upon an equable and peaceful but never confidential footing,\nand whom he saw several times a week. Little Dorrit was a leading and a\nconstant subject: for the circumstances of his life, united to those of\nher own story, presented the little creature to him as the only person\nbetween whom and himself there were ties of innocent reliance on one\nhand, and affectionate protection on the other; ties of compassion,\nrespect, unselfish interest, gratitude, and pity. Thinking of her, and\nof the possibility of her father's release from prison by the unbarring\nhand of death--the only change of circumstance he could foresee that\nmight enable him to be such a friend to her as he wished to be, by\naltering her whole manner of life, smoothing her rough road, and\ngiving her a home--he regarded her, in that perspective, as his adopted\ndaughter, his poor child of the Marshalsea hushed to rest. If there were\na last subject in his thoughts, and it lay towards Twickenham, its form\nwas so indefinite that it was little more than the pervading atmosphere\nin which these other subjects floated before him.\n\nHe had crossed the heath and was leaving it behind when he gained upon a\nfigure which had been in advance of him for some time, and which, as\nhe gained upon it, he thought he knew. He derived this impression\nfrom something in the turn of the head, and in the figure's action of\nconsideration, as it went on at a sufficiently sturdy walk. But when\nthe man--for it was a man's figure--pushed his hat up at the back of his\nhead, and stopped to consider some object before him, he knew it to be\nDaniel Doyce.\n\n'How do you do, Mr Doyce?' said Clennam, overtaking him. 'I am glad to\nsee you again, and in a healthier place than the Circumlocution Office.'\n\n'Ha! Mr Meagles's friend!' exclaimed that public criminal, coming out of\nsome mental combinations he had been making, and offering his hand. 'I\nam glad to see you, sir. Will you excuse me if I forget your name?'\n\n'Readily. It's not a celebrated name. It's not Barnacle.'\n\n'No, no,' said Daniel, laughing. 'And now I know what it is. It's\nClennam. How do you do, Mr Clennam?'\n\n'I have some hope,' said Arthur, as they walked on together, 'that we\nmay be going to the same place, Mr Doyce.'\n\n'Meaning Twickenham?' returned Daniel. 'I am glad to hear it.'\n\nThey were soon quite intimate, and lightened the way with a variety of\nconversation. The ingenious culprit was a man of great modesty and good\nsense; and, though a plain man, had been too much accustomed to combine\nwhat was original and daring in conception with what was patient and\nminute in execution, to be by any means an ordinary man. It was at first\ndifficult to lead him to speak about himself, and he put off Arthur's\nadvances in that direction by admitting slightly, oh yes, he had done\nthis, and he had done that, and such a thing was of his making, and\nsuch another thing was his discovery, but it was his trade, you see, his\ntrade; until, as he gradually became assured that his companion had a\nreal interest in his account of himself, he frankly yielded to it. Then\nit appeared that he was the son of a north-country blacksmith, and had\noriginally been apprenticed by his widowed mother to a lock-maker; that\nhe had 'struck out a few little things' at the lock-maker's, which had\nled to his being released from his indentures with a present, which\npresent had enabled him to gratify his ardent wish to bind himself to\na working engineer, under whom he had laboured hard, learned hard, and\nlived hard, seven years. His time being out, he had 'worked in the shop'\nat weekly wages seven or eight years more; and had then betaken\nhimself to the banks of the Clyde, where he had studied, and filed, and\nhammered, and improved his knowledge, theoretical and practical, for six\nor seven years more. There he had had an offer to go to Lyons, which he\nhad accepted; and from Lyons had been engaged to go to Germany, and in\nGermany had had an offer to go to St Petersburg, and there had done very\nwell indeed--never better. However, he had naturally felt a preference\nfor his own country, and a wish to gain distinction there, and to do\nwhatever service he could do, there rather than elsewhere. And so he had\ncome home. And so at home he had established himself in business, and\nhad invented and executed, and worked his way on, until, after a dozen\nyears of constant suit and service, he had been enrolled in the\nGreat British Legion of Honour, the Legion of the Rebuffed of the\nCircumlocution Office, and had been decorated with the Great British\nOrder of Merit, the Order of the Disorder of the Barnacles and\nStiltstalkings.\n\n'It is much to be regretted,' said Clennam, 'that you ever turned your\nthoughts that way, Mr Doyce.'\n\n'True, sir, true to a certain extent. But what is a man to do? if he\nhas the misfortune to strike out something serviceable to the nation,\nhe must follow where it leads him.'\n\n'Hadn't he better let it go?' said Clennam.\n\n'He can't do it,' said Doyce, shaking his head with a thoughtful smile.\n'It's not put into his head to be buried. It's put into his head to be\nmade useful. You hold your life on the condition that to the last you\nshall struggle hard for it. Every man holds a discovery on the same\nterms.'\n\n'That is to say,' said Arthur, with a growing admiration of his quiet\ncompanion, 'you are not finally discouraged even now?'\n\n'I have no right to be, if I am,' returned the other. 'The thing is as\ntrue as it ever was.'\n\nWhen they had walked a little way in silence, Clennam, at once to\nchange the direct point of their conversation and not to change it\ntoo abruptly, asked Mr Doyce if he had any partner in his business to\nrelieve him of a portion of its anxieties?\n\n'No,' he returned, 'not at present. I had when I first entered on it,\nand a good man he was. But he has been dead some years; and as I could\nnot easily take to the notion of another when I lost him, I bought\nhis share for myself and have gone on by myself ever since. And here's\nanother thing,' he said, stopping for a moment with a good-humoured\nlaugh in his eyes, and laying his closed right hand, with its peculiar\nsuppleness of thumb, on Clennam's arm, 'no inventor can be a man of\nbusiness, you know.'\n\n'No?' said Clennam.\n\n'Why, so the men of business say,' he answered, resuming the walk and\nlaughing outright. 'I don't know why we unfortunate creatures should\nbe supposed to want common sense, but it is generally taken for granted\nthat we do. Even the best friend I have in the world, our excellent\nfriend over yonder,' said Doyce, nodding towards Twickenham, 'extends\na sort of protection to me, don't you know, as a man not quite able to\ntake care of himself?'\n\nArthur Clennam could not help joining in the good-humoured laugh, for he\nrecognised the truth of the description.\n\n'So I find that I must have a partner who is a man of business and not\nguilty of any inventions,' said Daniel Doyce, taking off his hat to pass\nhis hand over his forehead, 'if it's only in deference to the current\nopinion, and to uphold the credit of the Works. I don't think he'll find\nthat I have been very remiss or confused in my way of conducting them;\nbut that's for him to say--whoever he is--not for me.'\n\n'You have not chosen him yet, then?'\n\n'No, sir, no. I have only just come to a decision to take one. The fact\nis, there's more to do than there used to be, and the Works are enough\nfor me as I grow older. What with the books and correspondence, and\nforeign journeys for which a Principal is necessary, I can't do all. I\nam going to talk over the best way of negotiating the matter, if I find\na spare half-hour between this and Monday morning, with my--my Nurse and\nprotector,' said Doyce, with laughing eyes again. 'He is a sagacious man\nin business, and has had a good apprenticeship to it.'\n\nAfter this, they conversed on different subjects until they arrived at\ntheir journey's end. A composed and unobtrusive self-sustainment was\nnoticeable in Daniel Doyce--a calm knowledge that what was true must\nremain true, in spite of all the Barnacles in the family ocean, and\nwould be just the truth, and neither more nor less when even that sea\nhad run dry--which had a kind of greatness in it, though not of the\nofficial quality.\n\nAs he knew the house well, he conducted Arthur to it by the way that\nshowed it to the best advantage. It was a charming place (none the worse\nfor being a little eccentric), on the road by the river, and just what\nthe residence of the Meagles family ought to be. It stood in a garden,\nno doubt as fresh and beautiful in the May of the Year as Pet now was\nin the May of her life; and it was defended by a goodly show of handsome\ntrees and spreading evergreens, as Pet was by Mr and Mrs Meagles. It\nwas made out of an old brick house, of which a part had been altogether\npulled down, and another part had been changed into the present cottage;\nso there was a hale elderly portion, to represent Mr and Mrs Meagles,\nand a young picturesque, very pretty portion to represent Pet. There was\neven the later addition of a conservatory sheltering itself against it,\nuncertain of hue in its deep-stained glass, and in its more transparent\nportions flashing to the sun's rays, now like fire and now like harmless\nwater drops; which might have stood for Tattycoram. Within view was\nthe peaceful river and the ferry-boat, to moralise to all the inmates\nsaying: Young or old, passionate or tranquil, chafing or content, you,\nthus runs the current always. Let the heart swell into what discord it\nwill, thus plays the rippling water on the prow of the ferry-boat ever\nthe same tune. Year after year, so much allowance for the drifting of\nthe boat, so many miles an hour the flowing of the stream, here the\nrushes, there the lilies, nothing uncertain or unquiet, upon this road\nthat steadily runs away; while you, upon your flowing road of time, are\nso capricious and distracted.\n\nThe bell at the gate had scarcely sounded when Mr Meagles came out to\nreceive them. Mr Meagles had scarcely come out, when Mrs Meagles came\nout. Mrs Meagles had scarcely come out, when Pet came out. Pet scarcely\nhad come out, when Tattycoram came out. Never had visitors a more\nhospitable reception.\n\n'Here we are, you see,' said Mr Meagles, 'boxed up, Mr Clennam, within\nour own home-limits, as if we were never going to expand--that is,\ntravel--again. Not like Marseilles, eh? No allonging and marshonging\nhere!'\n\n'A different kind of beauty, indeed!' said Clennam, looking about him.\n\n'But, Lord bless me!' cried Mr Meagles, rubbing his hands with a relish,\n'it was an uncommonly pleasant thing being in quarantine, wasn't it?\nDo you know, I have often wished myself back again? We were a capital\nparty.'\n\nThis was Mr Meagles's invariable habit. Always to object to everything\nwhile he was travelling, and always to want to get back to it when he\nwas not travelling.\n\n'If it was summer-time,' said Mr Meagles, 'which I wish it was on your\naccount, and in order that you might see the place at its best, you\nwould hardly be able to hear yourself speak for birds. Being practical\npeople, we never allow anybody to scare the birds; and the birds, being\npractical people too, come about us in myriads. We are delighted to see\nyou, Clennam (if you'll allow me, I shall drop the Mister); I heartily\nassure you, we are delighted.'\n\n'I have not had so pleasant a greeting,' said Clennam--then he recalled\nwhat Little Dorrit had said to him in his own room, and faithfully\nadded 'except once--since we last walked to and fro, looking down at the\nMediterranean.'\n\n'Ah!' returned Mr Meagles. 'Something like a look out, _that_ was, wasn't\nit? I don't want a military government, but I shouldn't mind a little\nallonging and marshonging--just a dash of it--in this neighbourhood\nsometimes. It's Devilish still.'\n\nBestowing this eulogium on the retired character of his retreat with a\ndubious shake of the head, Mr Meagles led the way into the house. It was\njust large enough, and no more; was as pretty within as it was without,\nand was perfectly well-arranged and comfortable. Some traces of the\nmigratory habits of the family were to be observed in the covered frames\nand furniture, and wrapped-up hangings; but it was easy to see that it\nwas one of Mr Meagles's whims to have the cottage always kept, in their\nabsence, as if they were always coming back the day after to-morrow. Of\narticles collected on his various expeditions, there was such a vast\nmiscellany that it was like the dwelling of an amiable Corsair. There\nwere antiquities from Central Italy, made by the best modern houses in\nthat department of industry; bits of mummy from Egypt (and perhaps\nBirmingham); model gondolas from Venice; model villages from\nSwitzerland; morsels of tesselated pavement from Herculaneum and\nPompeii, like petrified minced veal; ashes out of tombs, and lava out of\nVesuvius; Spanish fans, Spezzian straw hats, Moorish slippers, Tuscan\nhairpins, Carrara sculpture, Trastaverini scarves, Genoese velvets and\nfiligree, Neapolitan coral, Roman cameos, Geneva jewellery, Arab\nlanterns, rosaries blest all round by the Pope himself, and an infinite\nvariety of lumber. There were views, like and unlike, of a multitude of\nplaces; and there was one little picture-room devoted to a few of the\nregular sticky old Saints, with sinews like whipcord, hair like\nNeptune's, wrinkles like tattooing, and such coats of varnish that every\nholy personage served for a fly-trap, and became what is now called in\nthe vulgar tongue a Catch-em-alive O. Of these pictorial acquisitions Mr\nMeagles spoke in the usual manner. He was no judge, he said, except of\nwhat pleased himself; he had picked them up, dirt-cheap, and people\n_had_ considered them rather fine. One man, who at any rate ought to\nknow something of the subject, had declared that 'Sage, Reading' (a\nspecially oily old gentleman in a blanket, with a swan's-down tippet for\na beard, and a web of cracks all over him like rich pie-crust), to be a\nfine Guercino. As for Sebastian del Piombo there, you would judge for\nyourself; if it were not his later manner, the question was, Who was it?\nTitian, that might or might not be--perhaps he had only touched it.\nDaniel Doyce said perhaps he hadn't touched it, but Mr Meagles rather\ndeclined to overhear the remark.\n\nWhen he had shown all his spoils, Mr Meagles took them into his own\nsnug room overlooking the lawn, which was fitted up in part like a\ndressing-room and in part like an office, and in which, upon a kind of\ncounter-desk, were a pair of brass scales for weighing gold, and a scoop\nfor shovelling out money.\n\n'Here they are, you see,' said Mr Meagles. 'I stood behind these two\narticles five-and-thirty years running, when I no more thought of\ngadding about than I now think of--staying at home. When I left the Bank\nfor good, I asked for them, and brought them away with me. I mention it\nat once, or you might suppose that I sit in my counting-house (as Pet\nsays I do), like the king in the poem of the four-and-twenty blackbirds,\ncounting out my money.'\n\nClennam's eyes had strayed to a natural picture on the wall, of two\npretty little girls with their arms entwined. 'Yes, Clennam,' said\nMr Meagles, in a lower voice. 'There they both are. It was taken some\nseventeen years ago. As I often say to Mother, they were babies then.'\n\n'Their names?' said Arthur.\n\n'Ah, to be sure! You have never heard any name but Pet. Pet's name is\nMinnie; her sister's Lillie.'\n\n'Should you have known, Mr Clennam, that one of them was meant for me?'\nasked Pet herself, now standing in the doorway.\n\n'I might have thought that both of them were meant for you, both\nare still so like you. Indeed,' said Clennam, glancing from the fair\noriginal to the picture and back, 'I cannot even now say which is not\nyour portrait.'\n\n'D'ye hear that, Mother?' cried Mr Meagles to his wife, who had followed\nher daughter. 'It's always the same, Clennam; nobody can decide. The\nchild to your left is Pet.'\n\nThe picture happened to be near a looking-glass. As Arthur looked at\nit again, he saw, by the reflection of the mirror, Tattycoram stop in\npassing outside the door, listen to what was going on, and pass away\nwith an angry and contemptuous frown upon her face, that changed its\nbeauty into ugliness.\n\n'But come!' said Mr Meagles. 'You have had a long walk, and will be glad\nto get your boots off. As to Daniel here, I suppose he'd never think of\ntaking _his_ boots off, unless we showed him a boot-jack.'\n\n'Why not?' asked Daniel, with a significant smile at Clennam.\n\n'Oh! You have so many things to think about,' returned Mr Meagles,\nclapping him on the shoulder, as if his weakness must not be left to\nitself on any account. 'Figures, and wheels, and cogs, and levers, and\nscrews, and cylinders, and a thousand things.'\n\n'In my calling,' said Daniel, amused, 'the greater usually includes the\nless. But never mind, never mind! Whatever pleases you, pleases me.'\n\nClennam could not help speculating, as he seated himself in his room\nby the fire, whether there might be in the breast of this honest,\naffectionate, and cordial Mr Meagles, any microscopic portion of\nthe mustard-seed that had sprung up into the great tree of the\nCircumlocution Office. His curious sense of a general superiority to\nDaniel Doyce, which seemed to be founded, not so much on anything\nin Doyce's personal character as on the mere fact of his being an\noriginator and a man out of the beaten track of other men, suggested the\nidea. It might have occupied him until he went down to dinner an hour\nafterwards, if he had not had another question to consider, which\nhad been in his mind so long ago as before he was in quarantine at\nMarseilles, and which had now returned to it, and was very urgent with\nit. No less a question than this: Whether he should allow himself to\nfall in love with Pet?\n\nHe was twice her age. (He changed the leg he had crossed over the other,\nand tried the calculation again, but could not bring out the total at\nless.) He was twice her age. Well! He was young in appearance, young\nin health and strength, young in heart. A man was certainly not old\nat forty; and many men were not in circumstances to marry, or did not\nmarry, until they had attained that time of life. On the other hand, the\nquestion was, not what he thought of the point, but what she thought of\nit.\n\nHe believed that Mr Meagles was disposed to entertain a ripe regard for\nhim, and he knew that he had a sincere regard for Mr Meagles and his\ngood wife. He could foresee that to relinquish this beautiful only\nchild, of whom they were so fond, to any husband, would be a trial\nof their love which perhaps they never yet had had the fortitude to\ncontemplate. But the more beautiful and winning and charming she, the\nnearer they must always be to the necessity of approaching it. And why\nnot in his favour, as well as in another's?\n\nWhen he had got so far, it came again into his head that the question\nwas, not what they thought of it, but what she thought of it.\n\nArthur Clennam was a retiring man, with a sense of many deficiencies;\nand he so exalted the merits of the beautiful Minnie in his mind, and\ndepressed his own, that when he pinned himself to this point, his hopes\nbegan to fail him. He came to the final resolution, as he made himself\nready for dinner, that he would not allow himself to fall in love with\nPet.\n\nThere were only five, at a round table, and it was very pleasant indeed.\nThey had so many places and people to recall, and they were all so easy\nand cheerful together (Daniel Doyce either sitting out like an amused\nspectator at cards, or coming in with some shrewd little experiences of\nhis own, when it happened to be to the purpose), that they might have\nbeen together twenty times, and not have known so much of one another.\n\n'And Miss Wade,' said Mr Meagles, after they had recalled a number of\nfellow-travellers. 'Has anybody seen Miss Wade?'\n\n'I have,' said Tattycoram.\n\nShe had brought a little mantle which her young mistress had sent for,\nand was bending over her, putting it on, when she lifted up her dark\neyes and made this unexpected answer.\n\n'Tatty!' her young mistress exclaimed. 'You seen Miss Wade?--where?'\n\n'Here, miss,' said Tattycoram.\n\n'How?'\n\nAn impatient glance from Tattycoram seemed, as Clennam saw it, to answer\n'With my eyes!' But her only answer in words was: 'I met her near the\nchurch.'\n\n'What was she doing there I wonder!' said Mr Meagles. 'Not going to it,\nI should think.'\n\n'She had written to me first,' said Tattycoram.\n\n'Oh, Tatty!' murmured her mistress, 'take your hands away. I feel as if\nsome one else was touching me!'\n\nShe said it in a quick involuntary way, but half playfully, and not more\npetulantly or disagreeably than a favourite child might have done, who\nlaughed next moment. Tattycoram set her full red lips together, and\ncrossed her arms upon her bosom.\n\n'Did you wish to know, sir,' she said, looking at Mr Meagles, 'what Miss\nWade wrote to me about?'\n\n'Well, Tattycoram,' returned Mr Meagles, 'since you ask the question,\nand we are all friends here, perhaps you may as well mention it, if you\nare so inclined.'\n\n'She knew, when we were travelling, where you lived,' said Tattycoram,\n'and she had seen me not quite--not quite--'\n\n'Not quite in a good temper, Tattycoram?' suggested Mr Meagles,\nshaking his head at the dark eyes with a quiet caution. 'Take a little\ntime--count five-and-twenty, Tattycoram.'\n\nShe pressed her lips together again, and took a long deep breath.\n\n'So she wrote to me to say that if I ever felt myself hurt,' she looked\ndown at her young mistress, 'or found myself worried,' she looked down\nat her again, 'I might go to her, and be considerately treated. I was\nto think of it, and could speak to her by the church. So I went there to\nthank her.'\n\n'Tatty,' said her young mistress, putting her hand up over her shoulder\nthat the other might take it, 'Miss Wade almost frightened me when we\nparted, and I scarcely like to think of her just now as having been so\nnear me without my knowing it. Tatty dear!'\n\nTatty stood for a moment, immovable.\n\n'Hey?' cried Mr Meagles. 'Count another five-and-twenty, Tattycoram.'\n\nShe might have counted a dozen, when she bent and put her lips to the\ncaressing hand. It patted her cheek, as it touched the owner's beautiful\ncurls, and Tattycoram went away.\n\n'Now there,' said Mr Meagles softly, as he gave a turn to the\ndumb-waiter on his right hand to twirl the sugar towards himself.\n'There's a girl who might be lost and ruined, if she wasn't among\npractical people. Mother and I know, solely from being practical, that\nthere are times when that girl's whole nature seems to roughen itself\nagainst seeing us so bound up in Pet. No father and mother were bound\nup in her, poor soul. I don't like to think of the way in which that\nunfortunate child, with all that passion and protest in her, feels when\nshe hears the Fifth Commandment on a Sunday. I am always inclined to\ncall out, Church, Count five-and-twenty, Tattycoram.'\n\nBesides his dumb-waiter, Mr Meagles had two other not dumb waiters in\nthe persons of two parlour-maids with rosy faces and bright eyes, who\nwere a highly ornamental part of the table decoration. 'And why not, you\nsee?' said Mr Meagles on this head. 'As I always say to Mother, why\nnot have something pretty to look at, if you have anything at all?'\n\nA certain Mrs Tickit, who was Cook and Housekeeper when the family were\nat home, and Housekeeper only when the family were away, completed the\nestablishment. Mr Meagles regretted that the nature of the duties in\nwhich she was engaged, rendered Mrs Tickit unpresentable at present,\nbut hoped to introduce her to the new visitor to-morrow. She was an\nimportant part of the Cottage, he said, and all his friends knew her.\nThat was her picture up in the corner. When they went away, she always\nput on the silk-gown and the jet-black row of curls represented in that\nportrait (her hair was reddish-grey in the kitchen), established herself\nin the breakfast-room, put her spectacles between two particular leaves\nof Doctor Buchan's Domestic Medicine, and sat looking over the blind all\nday until they came back again. It was supposed that no persuasion could\nbe invented which would induce Mrs Tickit to abandon her post at the\nblind, however long their absence, or to dispense with the attendance\nof Dr Buchan; the lucubrations of which learned practitioner, Mr Meagles\nimplicitly believed she had never yet consulted to the extent of one\nword in her life.\n\nIn the evening they played an old-fashioned rubber; and Pet sat looking\nover her father's hand, or singing to herself by fits and starts at the\npiano. She was a spoilt child; but how could she be otherwise? Who could\nbe much with so pliable and beautiful a creature, and not yield to her\nendearing influence? Who could pass an evening in the house, and not\nlove her for the grace and charm of her very presence in the room? This\nwas Clennam's reflection, notwithstanding the final conclusion at which\nhe had arrived up-stairs.\n\nIn making it, he revoked. 'Why, what are you thinking of, my good sir?'\nasked the astonished Mr Meagles, who was his partner. 'I beg your\npardon. Nothing,' returned Clennam. 'Think of something, next time;\nthat's a dear fellow,' said Mr Meagles. Pet laughingly believed he had\nbeen thinking of Miss Wade. 'Why of Miss Wade, Pet?' asked her father.\n'Why, indeed!' said Arthur Clennam. Pet coloured a little, and went to\nthe piano again.\n\nAs they broke up for the night, Arthur overheard Doyce ask his host if\nhe could give him half an hour's conversation before breakfast in the\nmorning? The host replying willingly, Arthur lingered behind a moment,\nhaving his own word to add to that topic.\n\n'Mr Meagles,' he said, on their being left alone, 'do you remember when\nyou advised me to go straight to London?'\n\n'Perfectly well.'\n\n'And when you gave me some other good advice which I needed at that time?'\n\n'I won't say what it was worth,' answered Mr Meagles: 'but of course I\nremember our being very pleasant and confidential together.'\n\n'I have acted on your advice; and having disembarrassed myself of an\noccupation that was painful to me for many reasons, wish to devote\nmyself and what means I have, to another pursuit.'\n\n'Right! You can't do it too soon,' said Mr Meagles.\n\n'Now, as I came down to-day, I found that your friend, Mr Doyce, is\nlooking for a partner in his business--not a partner in his mechanical\nknowledge, but in the ways and means of turning the business arising\nfrom it to the best account.'\n\n'Just so,' said Mr Meagles, with his hands in his pockets, and with\nthe old business expression of face that had belonged to the scales and\nscoop.\n\n'Mr Doyce mentioned incidentally, in the course of our conversation,\nthat he was going to take your valuable advice on the subject of finding\nsuch a partner. If you should think our views and opportunities at all\nlikely to coincide, perhaps you will let him know my available position.\nI speak, of course, in ignorance of the details, and they may be\nunsuitable on both sides.'\n\n'No doubt, no doubt,' said Mr Meagles, with the caution belonging to the\nscales and scoop.\n\n'But they will be a question of figures and accounts--'\n\n'Just so, just so,' said Mr Meagles, with arithmetical solidity\nbelonging to the scales and scoop.\n\n'--And I shall be glad to enter into the subject, provided Mr Doyce\nresponds, and you think well of it. If you will at present, therefore,\nallow me to place it in your hands, you will much oblige me.'\n\n'Clennam, I accept the trust with readiness,' said Mr Meagles. 'And\nwithout anticipating any of the points which you, as a man of business,\nhave of course reserved, I am free to say to you that I think something\nmay come of this. Of one thing you may be perfectly certain. Daniel is\nan honest man.'\n\n'I am so sure of it that I have promptly made up my mind to speak to\nyou.'\n\n'You must guide him, you know; you must steer him; you must direct him;\nhe is one of a crotchety sort,' said Mr Meagles, evidently meaning\nnothing more than that he did new things and went new ways; 'but he is\nas honest as the sun, and so good night!'\n\nClennam went back to his room, sat down again before his fire, and made\nup his mind that he was glad he had resolved not to fall in love with\nPet. She was so beautiful, so amiable, so apt to receive any true\nimpression given to her gentle nature and her innocent heart, and make\nthe man who should be so happy as to communicate it, the most fortunate\nand enviable of all men, that he was very glad indeed he had come to\nthat conclusion.\n\nBut, as this might have been a reason for coming to the opposite\nconclusion, he followed out the theme again a little way in his mind; to\njustify himself, perhaps.\n\n'Suppose that a man,' so his thoughts ran, 'who had been of age some\ntwenty years or so; who was a diffident man, from the circumstances of\nhis youth; who was rather a grave man, from the tenor of his life; who\nknew himself to be deficient in many little engaging qualities which\nhe admired in others, from having been long in a distant region, with\nnothing softening near him; who had no kind sisters to present to her;\nwho had no congenial home to make her known in; who was a stranger in\nthe land; who had not a fortune to compensate, in any measure, for\nthese defects; who had nothing in his favour but his honest love and his\ngeneral wish to do right--suppose such a man were to come to this house,\nand were to yield to the captivation of this charming girl, and were to\npersuade himself that he could hope to win her; what a weakness it would\nbe!'\n\nHe softly opened his window, and looked out upon the serene river. Year\nafter year so much allowance for the drifting of the ferry-boat, so\nmany miles an hour the flowing of the stream, here the rushes, there the\nlilies, nothing uncertain or unquiet.\n\nWhy should he be vexed or sore at heart? It was not his weakness that he\nhad imagined. It was nobody's, nobody's within his knowledge; why should\nit trouble him? And yet it did trouble him. And he thought--who has not\nthought for a moment, sometimes?--that it might be better to flow away\nmonotonously, like the river, and to compound for its insensibility to\nhappiness with its insensibility to pain.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 17. Nobody's Rival\n\n\nBefore breakfast in the morning, Arthur walked out to look about him.\nAs the morning was fine and he had an hour on his hands, he crossed the\nriver by the ferry, and strolled along a footpath through some meadows.\nWhen he came back to the towing-path, he found the ferry-boat on the\nopposite side, and a gentleman hailing it and waiting to be taken over.\n\nThis gentleman looked barely thirty. He was well dressed, of a sprightly\nand gay appearance, a well-knit figure, and a rich dark complexion. As\nArthur came over the stile and down to the water's edge, the lounger\nglanced at him for a moment, and then resumed his occupation of idly\ntossing stones into the water with his foot. There was something in his\nway of spurning them out of their places with his heel, and getting them\ninto the required position, that Clennam thought had an air of cruelty\nin it. Most of us have more or less frequently derived a similar\nimpression from a man's manner of doing some very little thing: plucking\na flower, clearing away an obstacle, or even destroying an insentient\nobject.\n\nThe gentleman's thoughts were preoccupied, as his face showed, and he\ntook no notice of a fine Newfoundland dog, who watched him attentively,\nand watched every stone too, in its turn, eager to spring into the\nriver on receiving his master's sign. The ferry-boat came over, however,\nwithout his receiving any sign, and when it grounded his master took him\nby the collar and walked him into it.\n\n'Not this morning,' he said to the dog. 'You won't do for ladies'\ncompany, dripping wet. Lie down.'\n\nClennam followed the man and the dog into the boat, and took his seat.\nThe dog did as he was ordered. The man remained standing, with his hands\nin his pockets, and towered between Clennam and the prospect. Man and\ndog both jumped lightly out as soon as they touched the other side, and\nwent away. Clennam was glad to be rid of them.\n\nThe church clock struck the breakfast hour as he walked up the little\nlane by which the garden-gate was approached. The moment he pulled the\nbell a deep loud barking assailed him from within the wall.\n\n'I heard no dog last night,' thought Clennam. The gate was opened by\none of the rosy maids, and on the lawn were the Newfoundland dog and the\nman.\n\n'Miss Minnie is not down yet, gentlemen,' said the blushing portress, as\nthey all came together in the garden. Then she said to the master of the\ndog, 'Mr Clennam, sir,' and tripped away.\n\n'Odd enough, Mr Clennam, that we should have met just now,' said\nthe man. Upon which the dog became mute. 'Allow me to introduce\nmyself--Henry Gowan. A pretty place this, and looks wonderfully well\nthis morning!'\n\nThe manner was easy, and the voice agreeable; but still Clennam thought,\nthat if he had not made that decided resolution to avoid falling in love\nwith Pet, he would have taken a dislike to this Henry Gowan.\n\n'It's new to you, I believe?' said this Gowan, when Arthur had extolled\nthe place.\n\n'Quite new. I made acquaintance with it only yesterday afternoon.'\n\n'Ah! Of course this is not its best aspect. It used to look charming in\nthe spring, before they went away last time. I should like you to have\nseen it then.'\n\nBut for that resolution so often recalled, Clennam might have wished him\nin the crater of Mount Etna, in return for this civility.\n\n'I have had the pleasure of seeing it under many circumstances during\nthe last three years, and it's--a Paradise.'\n\nIt was (at least it might have been, always excepting for that wise\nresolution) like his dexterous impudence to call it a Paradise. He only\ncalled it a Paradise because he first saw her coming, and so made her\nout within her hearing to be an angel, Confusion to him!\n\nAnd ah! how beaming she looked, and how glad! How she caressed the dog,\nand how the dog knew her! How expressive that heightened colour in her\nface, that fluttered manner, her downcast eyes, her irresolute\nhappiness! When had Clennam seen her look like this? Not that there was\nany reason why he might, could, would, or should have ever seen her look\nlike this, or that he had ever hoped for himself to see her look like\nthis; but still--when had he ever known her do it!\n\nHe stood at a little distance from them. This Gowan when he had talked\nabout a Paradise, had gone up to her and taken her hand. The dog had put\nhis great paws on her arm and laid his head against her dear bosom. She\nhad laughed and welcomed them, and made far too much of the dog, far,\nfar, too much--that is to say, supposing there had been any third person\nlooking on who loved her.\n\nShe disengaged herself now, and came to Clennam, and put her hand in his\nand wished him good morning, and gracefully made as if she would take\nhis arm and be escorted into the house. To this Gowan had no objection.\nNo, he knew he was too safe.\n\nThere was a passing cloud on Mr Meagles's good-humoured face when they\nall three (four, counting the dog, and he was the most objectionable\nbut one of the party) came in to breakfast. Neither it, nor the touch\nof uneasiness on Mrs Meagles as she directed her eyes towards it, was\nunobserved by Clennam.\n\n'Well, Gowan,' said Mr Meagles, even suppressing a sigh; 'how goes the\nworld with you this morning?'\n\n'Much as usual, sir. Lion and I being determined not to waste anything\nof our weekly visit, turned out early, and came over from Kingston, my\npresent headquarters, where I am making a sketch or two.' Then he told\nhow he had met Mr Clennam at the ferry, and they had come over together.\n\n'Mrs Gowan is well, Henry?' said Mrs Meagles. (Clennam became\nattentive.)\n\n'My mother is quite well, thank you.' (Clennam became inattentive.) 'I\nhave taken the liberty of making an addition to your family dinner-party\nto-day, which I hope will not be inconvenient to you or to Mr Meagles. I\ncouldn't very well get out of it,' he explained, turning to the latter.\n'The young fellow wrote to propose himself to me; and as he is well\nconnected, I thought you would not object to my transferring him here.'\n\n'Who _is_ the young fellow?' asked Mr Meagles with peculiar complacency.\n\n'He is one of the Barnacles. Tite Barnacle's son, Clarence Barnacle, who\nis in his father's Department. I can at least guarantee that the river\nshall not suffer from his visit. He won't set it on fire.'\n\n'Aye, aye?' said Meagles. 'A Barnacle is he? _We_ know something of that\nfamily, eh, Dan? By George, they are at the top of the tree, though! Let\nme see. What relation will this young fellow be to Lord Decimus now? His\nLordship married, in seventeen ninety-seven, Lady Jemima Bilberry, who\nwas the second daughter by the third marriage--no! There I am wrong!\nThat was Lady Seraphina--Lady Jemima was the first daughter by the\nsecond marriage of the fifteenth Earl of Stiltstalking with the\nHonourable Clementina Toozellem. Very well. Now this young fellow's\nfather married a Stiltstalking and _his_ father married his cousin who\nwas a Barnacle. The father of that father who married a Barnacle,\nmarried a Joddleby.--I am getting a little too far back, Gowan; I want\nto make out what relation this young fellow is to Lord Decimus.'\n\n'That's easily stated. His father is nephew to Lord Decimus.'\n\n'Nephew--to--Lord--Decimus,' Mr Meagles luxuriously repeated with his\neyes shut, that he might have nothing to distract him from the full\nflavour of the genealogical tree. 'By George, you are right, Gowan. So\nhe is.'\n\n'Consequently, Lord Decimus is his great uncle.'\n\n'But stop a bit!' said Mr Meagles, opening his eyes with a fresh\ndiscovery. 'Then on the mother's side, Lady Stiltstalking is his great\naunt.'\n\n'Of course she is.'\n\n'Aye, aye, aye?' said Mr Meagles with much interest. 'Indeed, indeed? We\nshall be glad to see him. We'll entertain him as well as we can, in our\nhumble way; and we shall not starve him, I hope, at all events.'\n\nIn the beginning of this dialogue, Clennam had expected some great\nharmless outburst from Mr Meagles, like that which had made him burst\nout of the Circumlocution Office, holding Doyce by the collar. But his\ngood friend had a weakness which none of us need go into the next street\nto find, and which no amount of Circumlocution experience could long\nsubdue in him. Clennam looked at Doyce; but Doyce knew all about it\nbeforehand, and looked at his plate, and made no sign, and said no word.\n\n'I am much obliged to you,' said Gowan, to conclude the subject.\n'Clarence is a great ass, but he is one of the dearest and best fellows\nthat ever lived!'\n\nIt appeared, before the breakfast was over, that everybody whom this\nGowan knew was either more or less of an ass, or more or less of a\nknave; but was, notwithstanding, the most lovable, the most engaging,\nthe simplest, truest, kindest, dearest, best fellow that ever lived.\nThe process by which this unvarying result was attained, whatever the\npremises, might have been stated by Mr Henry Gowan thus: 'I claim to be\nalways book-keeping, with a peculiar nicety, in every man's case, and\nposting up a careful little account of Good and Evil with him. I do\nthis so conscientiously, that I am happy to tell you I find the most\nworthless of men to be the dearest old fellow too: and am in a condition\nto make the gratifying report, that there is much less difference than\nyou are inclined to suppose between an honest man and a scoundrel.' The\neffect of this cheering discovery happened to be, that while he seemed\nto be scrupulously finding good in most men, he did in reality lower\nit where it was, and set it up where it was not; but that was its only\ndisagreeable or dangerous feature.\n\nIt scarcely seemed, however, to afford Mr Meagles as much satisfaction\nas the Barnacle genealogy had done. The cloud that Clennam had never\nseen upon his face before that morning, frequently overcast it again;\nand there was the same shadow of uneasy observation of him on the comely\nface of his wife. More than once or twice when Pet caressed the dog,\nit appeared to Clennam that her father was unhappy in seeing her do it;\nand, in one particular instance when Gowan stood on the other side of\nthe dog, and bent his head at the same time, Arthur fancied that he saw\ntears rise to Mr Meagles's eyes as he hurried out of the room. It was\neither the fact too, or he fancied further, that Pet herself was not\ninsensible to these little incidents; that she tried, with a more\ndelicate affection than usual, to express to her good father how much\nshe loved him; that it was on this account that she fell behind the\nrest, both as they went to church and as they returned from it, and\ntook his arm. He could not have sworn but that as he walked alone in\nthe garden afterwards, he had an instantaneous glimpse of her in\nher father's room, clinging to both her parents with the greatest\ntenderness, and weeping on her father's shoulder.\n\nThe latter part of the day turning out wet, they were fain to keep the\nhouse, look over Mr Meagles's collection, and beguile the time with\nconversation. This Gowan had plenty to say for himself, and said it\nin an off-hand and amusing manner. He appeared to be an artist by\nprofession, and to have been at Rome some time; yet he had a slight,\ncareless, amateur way with him--a perceptible limp, both in his devotion\nto art and his attainments--which Clennam could scarcely understand.\n\nHe applied to Daniel Doyce for help, as they stood together, looking out\nof window.\n\n'You know Mr Gowan?' he said in a low voice.\n\n'I have seen him here. Comes here every Sunday when they are at home.'\n\n'An artist, I infer from what he says?'\n\n'A sort of a one,' said Daniel Doyce, in a surly tone.\n\n'What sort of a one?' asked Clennam, with a smile.\n\n'Why, he has sauntered into the Arts at a leisurely Pall-Mall pace,'\nsaid Doyce, 'and I doubt if they care to be taken quite so coolly.'\n\nPursuing his inquiries, Clennam found that the Gowan family were a very\ndistant ramification of the Barnacles; and that the paternal Gowan,\noriginally attached to a legation abroad, had been pensioned off as a\nCommissioner of nothing particular somewhere or other, and had died at\nhis post with his drawn salary in his hand, nobly defending it to the\nlast extremity. In consideration of this eminent public service, the\nBarnacle then in power had recommended the Crown to bestow a pension of\ntwo or three hundred a-year on his widow; to which the next Barnacle in\npower had added certain shady and sedate apartments in the Palaces at\nHampton Court, where the old lady still lived, deploring the degeneracy\nof the times in company with several other old ladies of both sexes. Her\nson, Mr Henry Gowan, inheriting from his father, the Commissioner, that\nvery questionable help in life, a very small independence, had been\ndifficult to settle; the rather, as public appointments chanced to\nbe scarce, and his genius, during his earlier manhood, was of that\nexclusively agricultural character which applies itself to the\ncultivation of wild oats. At last he had declared that he would become\na Painter; partly because he had always had an idle knack that way,\nand partly to grieve the souls of the Barnacles-in-chief who had not\nprovided for him. So it had come to pass successively, first, that\nseveral distinguished ladies had been frightfully shocked; then, that\nportfolios of his performances had been handed about o' nights, and\ndeclared with ecstasy to be perfect Claudes, perfect Cuyps, perfect\nphaenomena; then, that Lord Decimus had bought his picture, and had\nasked the President and Council to dinner at a blow, and had said, with\nhis own magnificent gravity, 'Do you know, there appears to me to\nbe really immense merit in that work?' and, in short, that people of\ncondition had absolutely taken pains to bring him into fashion. But,\nsomehow, it had all failed. The prejudiced public had stood out against\nit obstinately. They had determined not to admire Lord Decimus's\npicture. They had determined to believe that in every service, except\ntheir own, a man must qualify himself, by striving early and late, and\nby working heart and soul, might and main. So now Mr Gowan, like that\nworn-out old coffin which never was Mahomet's nor anybody else's, hung\nmidway between two points: jaundiced and jealous as to the one he had\nleft: jaundiced and jealous as to the other that he couldn't reach.\n\nSuch was the substance of Clennam's discoveries concerning him, made\nthat rainy Sunday afternoon and afterwards.\n\nAbout an hour or so after dinner time, Young Barnacle appeared, attended\nby his eye-glass; in honour of whose family connections, Mr Meagles had\ncashiered the pretty parlour-maids for the day, and had placed on duty\nin their stead two dingy men. Young Barnacle was in the last\ndegree amazed and disconcerted at sight of Arthur, and had murmured\ninvoluntarily, 'Look here! upon my soul, you know!' before his presence\nof mind returned.\n\nEven then, he was obliged to embrace the earliest opportunity of taking\nhis friend into a window, and saying, in a nasal way that was a part of\nhis general debility:\n\n'I want to speak to you, Gowan. I say. Look here. Who is that fellow?'\n\n'A friend of our host's. None of mine.'\n\n'He's a most ferocious Radical, you know,' said Young Barnacle.\n\n'Is he? How do you know?'\n\n'Ecod, sir, he was Pitching into our people the other day in the most\ntremendous manner. Went up to our place and Pitched into my father to\nthat extent that it was necessary to order him out. Came back to\nour Department, and Pitched into me. Look here. You never saw such a\nfellow.'\n\n'What did he want?'\n\n'Ecod, sir,' returned Young Barnacle, 'he said he wanted to know, you\nknow! Pervaded our Department--without an appointment--and said he\nwanted to know!'\n\nThe stare of indignant wonder with which Young Barnacle accompanied\nthis disclosure, would have strained his eyes injuriously but for\nthe opportune relief of dinner. Mr Meagles (who had been extremely\nsolicitous to know how his uncle and aunt were) begged him to conduct\nMrs Meagles to the dining-room. And when he sat on Mrs Meagles's right\nhand, Mr Meagles looked as gratified as if his whole family were there.\n\nAll the natural charm of the previous day was gone. The eaters of the\ndinner, like the dinner itself, were lukewarm, insipid, overdone--and\nall owing to this poor little dull Young Barnacle. Conversationless at\nany time, he was now the victim of a weakness special to the occasion,\nand solely referable to Clennam. He was under a pressing and continual\nnecessity of looking at that gentleman, which occasioned his eye-glass\nto get into his soup, into his wine-glass, into Mrs Meagles's plate, to\nhang down his back like a bell-rope, and be several times disgracefully\nrestored to his bosom by one of the dingy men. Weakened in mind by his\nfrequent losses of this instrument, and its determination not to stick\nin his eye, and more and more enfeebled in intellect every time he\nlooked at the mysterious Clennam, he applied spoons to his eyes,\nforks, and other foreign matters connected with the furniture of the\ndinner-table. His discovery of these mistakes greatly increased his\ndifficulties, but never released him from the necessity of looking at\nClennam. And whenever Clennam spoke, this ill-starred young man was\nclearly seized with a dread that he was coming, by some artful device,\nround to that point of wanting to know, you know.\n\nIt may be questioned, therefore, whether any one but Mr Meagles had much\nenjoyment of the time. Mr Meagles, however, thoroughly enjoyed Young\nBarnacle. As a mere flask of the golden water in the tale became a full\nfountain when it was poured out, so Mr Meagles seemed to feel that this\nsmall spice of Barnacle imparted to his table the flavour of the whole\nfamily-tree. In its presence, his frank, fine, genuine qualities\npaled; he was not so easy, he was not so natural, he was striving after\nsomething that did not belong to him, he was not himself. What a strange\npeculiarity on the part of Mr Meagles, and where should we find another\nsuch case!\n\nAt last the wet Sunday wore itself out in a wet night; and Young\nBarnacle went home in a cab, feebly smoking; and the objectionable Gowan\nwent away on foot, accompanied by the objectionable dog. Pet had taken\nthe most amiable pains all day to be friendly with Clennam, but Clennam\nhad been a little reserved since breakfast--that is to say, would have\nbeen, if he had loved her.\n\nWhen he had gone to his own room, and had again thrown himself into the\nchair by the fire, Mr Doyce knocked at the door, candle in hand, to\nask him how and at what hour he proposed returning on the morrow? After\nsettling this question, he said a word to Mr Doyce about this Gowan--who\nwould have run in his head a good deal, if he had been his rival.\n\n'Those are not good prospects for a painter,' said Clennam.\n\n'No,' returned Doyce.\n\nMr Doyce stood, chamber-candlestick in hand, the other hand in his\npocket, looking hard at the flame of his candle, with a certain quiet\nperception in his face that they were going to say something more.\n\n'I thought our good friend a little changed, and out of spirits, after\nhe came this morning?' said Clennam.\n\n'Yes,' returned Doyce.\n\n'But not his daughter?' said Clennam.\n\n'No,' said Doyce.\n\nThere was a pause on both sides. Mr Doyce, still looking at the flame of\nhis candle, slowly resumed:\n\n'The truth is, he has twice taken his daughter abroad in the hope of\nseparating her from Mr Gowan. He rather thinks she is disposed to like\nhim, and he has painful doubts (I quite agree with him, as I dare say\nyou do) of the hopefulness of such a marriage.'\n\n'There--' Clennam choked, and coughed, and stopped.\n\n'Yes, you have taken cold,' said Daniel Doyce. But without looking at\nhim.\n\n'--There is an engagement between them, of course?' said Clennam airily.\n\n'No. As I am told, certainly not. It has been solicited on the\ngentleman's part, but none has been made. Since their recent return,\nour friend has yielded to a weekly visit, but that is the utmost. Minnie\nwould not deceive her father and mother. You have travelled with them,\nand I believe you know what a bond there is among them, extending even\nbeyond this present life. All that there is between Miss Minnie and Mr\nGowan, I have no doubt we see.'\n\n'Ah! We see enough!' cried Arthur.\n\nMr Doyce wished him Good Night in the tone of a man who had heard a\nmournful, not to say despairing, exclamation, and who sought to infuse\nsome encouragement and hope into the mind of the person by whom it had\nbeen uttered. Such tone was probably a part of his oddity, as one of\na crotchety band; for how could he have heard anything of that kind,\nwithout Clennam's hearing it too?\n\nThe rain fell heavily on the roof, and pattered on the ground, and\ndripped among the evergreens and the leafless branches of the trees. The\nrain fell heavily, drearily. It was a night of tears.\n\nIf Clennam had not decided against falling in love with Pet; if he\nhad had the weakness to do it; if he had, little by little, persuaded\nhimself to set all the earnestness of his nature, all the might of his\nhope, and all the wealth of his matured character, on that cast; if\nhe had done this and found that all was lost; he would have been,\nthat night, unutterably miserable. As it was--\n\nAs it was, the rain fell heavily, drearily.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 18. Little Dorrit's Lover\n\n\nLittle Dorrit had not attained her twenty-second birthday without\nfinding a lover. Even in the shallow Marshalsea, the ever young Archer\nshot off a few featherless arrows now and then from a mouldy bow, and\nwinged a Collegian or two.\n\nLittle Dorrit's lover, however, was not a Collegian. He was the\nsentimental son of a turnkey. His father hoped, in the fulness of time,\nto leave him the inheritance of an unstained key; and had from his\nearly youth familiarised him with the duties of his office, and with an\nambition to retain the prison-lock in the family. While the succession\nwas yet in abeyance, he assisted his mother in the conduct of a snug\ntobacco business round the corner of Horsemonger Lane (his father being\na non-resident turnkey), which could usually command a neat connection\nwithin the College walls.\n\nYears agone, when the object of his affections was wont to sit in her\nlittle arm-chair by the high Lodge-fender, Young John (family name,\nChivery), a year older than herself, had eyed her with admiring wonder.\nWhen he had played with her in the yard, his favourite game had been to\ncounterfeit locking her up in corners, and to counterfeit letting\nher out for real kisses. When he grew tall enough to peep through the\nkeyhole of the great lock of the main door, he had divers times set down\nhis father's dinner, or supper, to get on as it might on the outer side\nthereof, while he stood taking cold in one eye by dint of peeping at her\nthrough that airy perspective.\n\nIf Young John had ever slackened in his truth in the less penetrable\ndays of his boyhood, when youth is prone to wear its boots unlaced and\nis happily unconscious of digestive organs, he had soon strung it up\nagain and screwed it tight. At nineteen, his hand had inscribed in chalk\non that part of the wall which fronted her lodgings, on the occasion of\nher birthday, 'Welcome sweet nursling of the Fairies!' At twenty-three,\nthe same hand falteringly presented cigars on Sundays to the Father of\nthe Marshalsea, and Father of the queen of his soul.\n\nYoung John was small of stature, with rather weak legs and very weak\nlight hair. One of his eyes (perhaps the eye that used to peep through\nthe keyhole) was also weak, and looked larger than the other, as if\nit couldn't collect itself. Young John was gentle likewise. But he was\ngreat of soul. Poetical, expansive, faithful.\n\nThough too humble before the ruler of his heart to be sanguine, Young\nJohn had considered the object of his attachment in all its lights and\nshades. Following it out to blissful results, he had descried, without\nself-commendation, a fitness in it. Say things prospered, and they were\nunited. She, the child of the Marshalsea; he, the lock-keeper. There\nwas a fitness in that. Say he became a resident turnkey. She would\nofficially succeed to the chamber she had rented so long. There was a\nbeautiful propriety in that. It looked over the wall, if you stood on\ntip-toe; and, with a trellis-work of scarlet beans and a canary or so,\nwould become a very Arbour. There was a charming idea in that. Then,\nbeing all in all to one another, there was even an appropriate grace in\nthe lock. With the world shut out (except that part of it which would\nbe shut in); with its troubles and disturbances only known to them by\nhearsay, as they would be described by the pilgrims tarrying with them\non their way to the Insolvent Shrine; with the Arbour above, and the\nLodge below; they would glide down the stream of time, in pastoral\ndomestic happiness. Young John drew tears from his eyes by finishing the\npicture with a tombstone in the adjoining churchyard, close against the\nprison wall, bearing the following touching inscription: 'Sacred to\nthe Memory Of JOHN CHIVERY, Sixty years Turnkey, and fifty years\nHead Turnkey, Of the neighbouring Marshalsea, Who departed this life,\nuniversally respected, on the thirty-first of December, One thousand\neight hundred and eighty-six, Aged eighty-three years. Also of his truly\nbeloved and truly loving wife, AMY, whose maiden name was DORRIT, Who\nsurvived his loss not quite forty-eight hours, And who breathed her last\nin the Marshalsea aforesaid. There she was born, There she lived, There\nshe died.'\n\nThe Chivery parents were not ignorant of their son's attachment--indeed\nit had, on some exceptional occasions, thrown him into a state of mind\nthat had impelled him to conduct himself with irascibility towards the\ncustomers, and damage the business--but they, in their turns, had worked\nit out to desirable conclusions. Mrs Chivery, a prudent woman, had\ndesired her husband to take notice that their John's prospects of the\nLock would certainly be strengthened by an alliance with Miss Dorrit,\nwho had herself a kind of claim upon the College and was much respected\nthere. Mrs Chivery had desired her husband to take notice that if, on\nthe one hand, their John had means and a post of trust, on the other\nhand, Miss Dorrit had family; and that her (Mrs Chivery's) sentiment\nwas, that two halves made a whole. Mrs Chivery, speaking as a mother and\nnot as a diplomatist, had then, from a different point of view, desired\nher husband to recollect that their John had never been strong, and\nthat his love had fretted and worrited him enough as it was, without\nhis being driven to do himself a mischief, as nobody couldn't say\nhe wouldn't be if he was crossed. These arguments had so powerfully\ninfluenced the mind of Mr Chivery, who was a man of few words, that he\nhad on sundry Sunday mornings, given his boy what he termed 'a lucky\ntouch,' signifying that he considered such commendation of him to Good\nFortune, preparatory to his that day declaring his passion and\nbecoming triumphant. But Young John had never taken courage to make\nthe declaration; and it was principally on these occasions that he had\nreturned excited to the tobacco shop, and flown at the customers.\n\nIn this affair, as in every other, Little Dorrit herself was the last\nperson considered. Her brother and sister were aware of it, and attained\na sort of station by making a peg of it on which to air the miserably\nragged old fiction of the family gentility. Her sister asserted the\nfamily gentility by flouting the poor swain as he loitered about the\nprison for glimpses of his dear. Tip asserted the family gentility, and\nhis own, by coming out in the character of the aristocratic brother, and\nloftily swaggering in the little skittle ground respecting seizures by\nthe scruff of the neck, which there were looming probabilities of some\ngentleman unknown executing on some little puppy not mentioned. These\nwere not the only members of the Dorrit family who turned it to account.\nNo, no. The Father of the Marshalsea was supposed to know nothing about\nthe matter, of course: his poor dignity could not see so low. But he\ntook the cigars, on Sundays, and was glad to get them; and sometimes\neven condescended to walk up and down the yard with the donor (who was\nproud and hopeful then), and benignantly to smoke one in his society.\nWith no less readiness and condescension did he receive attentions from\nChivery Senior, who always relinquished his arm-chair and newspaper to\nhim, when he came into the Lodge during one of his spells of duty; and\nwho had even mentioned to him, that, if he would like at any time after\ndusk quietly to step out into the fore-court and take a look at the\nstreet, there was not much to prevent him. If he did not avail himself\nof this latter civility, it was only because he had lost the relish for\nit; inasmuch as he took everything else he could get, and would say at\ntimes, 'Extremely civil person, Chivery; very attentive man and very\nrespectful. Young Chivery, too; really almost with a delicate perception\nof one's position here. A very well conducted family indeed, the\nChiveries. Their behaviour gratifies me.'\n\nThe devoted Young John all this time regarded the family with reverence.\nHe never dreamed of disputing their pretensions, but did homage to the\nmiserable Mumbo jumbo they paraded. As to resenting any affront from _her_\nbrother, he would have felt, even if he had not naturally been of a most\npacific disposition, that to wag his tongue or lift his hand against\nthat sacred gentleman would be an unhallowed act. He was sorry that\nhis noble mind should take offence; still, he felt the fact to be not\nincompatible with its nobility, and sought to propitiate and conciliate\nthat gallant soul. Her father, a gentleman in misfortune--a gentleman of\na fine spirit and courtly manners, who always bore with him--he deeply\nhonoured. Her sister he considered somewhat vain and proud, but a young\nlady of infinite accomplishments, who could not forget the past. It was\nan instinctive testimony to Little Dorrit's worth and difference from\nall the rest, that the poor young fellow honoured and loved her for\nbeing simply what she was.\n\nThe tobacco business round the corner of Horsemonger Lane was carried\nout in a rural establishment one story high, which had the benefit of\nthe air from the yards of Horsemonger Lane jail, and the advantage of a\nretired walk under the wall of that pleasant establishment. The business\nwas of too modest a character to support a life-size Highlander, but it\nmaintained a little one on a bracket on the door-post, who looked like\na fallen Cherub that had found it necessary to take to a kilt.\n\nFrom the portal thus decorated, one Sunday after an early dinner of\nbaked viands, Young John issued forth on his usual Sunday errand; not\nempty-handed, but with his offering of cigars. He was neatly attired in\na plum-coloured coat, with as large a collar of black velvet as his\nfigure could carry; a silken waistcoat, bedecked with golden sprigs; a\nchaste neckerchief much in vogue at that day, representing a preserve of\nlilac pheasants on a buff ground; pantaloons so highly decorated with\nside-stripes that each leg was a three-stringed lute; and a hat of\nstate very high and hard. When the prudent Mrs Chivery perceived that\nin addition to these adornments her John carried a pair of white kid\ngloves, and a cane like a little finger-post, surmounted by an ivory\nhand marshalling him the way that he should go; and when she saw him, in\nthis heavy marching order, turn the corner to the right; she remarked to\nMr Chivery, who was at home at the time, that she thought she knew which\nway the wind blew.\n\nThe Collegians were entertaining a considerable number of visitors that\nSunday afternoon, and their Father kept his room for the purpose of\nreceiving presentations. After making the tour of the yard, Little\nDorrit's lover with a hurried heart went up-stairs, and knocked with his\nknuckles at the Father's door.\n\n'Come in, come in!' said a gracious voice. The Father's voice, her\nfather's, the Marshalsea's father's. He was seated in his black velvet\ncap, with his newspaper, three-and-sixpence accidentally left on the\ntable, and two chairs arranged. Everything prepared for holding his\nCourt.\n\n'Ah, Young John! How do you do, how do you do!'\n\n'Pretty well, I thank you, sir. I hope you are the same.'\n\n'Yes, John Chivery; yes. Nothing to complain of.'\n\n'I have taken the liberty, sir, of--'\n\n'Eh?' The Father of the Marshalsea always lifted up his eyebrows at this\npoint, and became amiably distraught and smilingly absent in mind.\n\n'--A few cigars, sir.'\n\n'Oh!' (For the moment, excessively surprised.) 'Thank you, Young John,\nthank you. But really, I am afraid I am too--No? Well then, I will say\nno more about it. Put them on the mantelshelf, if you please, Young\nJohn. And sit down, sit down. You are not a stranger, John.'\n\n'Thank you, sir, I am sure--Miss;' here Young John turned the great hat\nround and round upon his left-hand, like a slowly twirling mouse-cage;\n'Miss Amy quite well, sir?'\n\n'Yes, John, yes; very well. She is out.'\n\n'Indeed, sir?'\n\n'Yes, John. Miss Amy is gone for an airing. My young people all go out a\ngood deal. But at their time of life, it's natural, John.'\n\n'Very much so, I am sure, sir.'\n\n'An airing. An airing. Yes.' He was blandly tapping his fingers on\nthe table, and casting his eyes up at the window. 'Amy has gone for\nan airing on the Iron Bridge. She has become quite partial to the Iron\nBridge of late, and seems to like to walk there better than anywhere.'\nHe returned to conversation. 'Your father is not on duty at present, I\nthink, John?'\n\n'No, sir, he comes on later in the afternoon.' Another twirl of the\ngreat hat, and then Young John said, rising, 'I am afraid I must wish\nyou good day, sir.'\n\n'So soon? Good day, Young John. Nay, nay,' with the utmost\ncondescension, 'never mind your glove, John. Shake hands with it on. You\nare no stranger here, you know.'\n\nHighly gratified by the kindness of his reception, Young John descended\nthe staircase. On his way down he met some Collegians bringing up\nvisitors to be presented, and at that moment Mr Dorrit happened to call\nover the banisters with particular distinctness, 'Much obliged to you\nfor your little testimonial, John!'\n\nLittle Dorrit's lover very soon laid down his penny on the tollplate of\nthe Iron Bridge, and came upon it looking about him for the well-known\nand well-beloved figure. At first he feared she was not there; but as he\nwalked on towards the Middlesex side, he saw her standing still, looking\nat the water. She was absorbed in thought, and he wondered what\nshe might be thinking about. There were the piles of city roofs and\nchimneys, more free from smoke than on week-days; and there were the\ndistant masts and steeples. Perhaps she was thinking about them.\n\nLittle Dorrit mused so long, and was so entirely preoccupied, that\nalthough her lover stood quiet for what he thought was a long time, and\ntwice or thrice retired and came back again to the former spot, still\nshe did not move. So, in the end, he made up his mind to go on, and seem\nto come upon her casually in passing, and speak to her. The place was\nquiet, and now or never was the time to speak to her.\n\nHe walked on, and she did not appear to hear his steps until he was\nclose upon her. When he said 'Miss Dorrit!' she started and fell back\nfrom him, with an expression in her face of fright and something like\ndislike that caused him unutterable dismay. She had often avoided him\nbefore--always, indeed, for a long, long while. She had turned away and\nglided off so often when she had seen him coming toward her, that the\nunfortunate Young John could not think it accidental. But he had hoped\nthat it might be shyness, her retiring character, her foreknowledge of\nthe state of his heart, anything short of aversion. Now, that momentary\nlook had said, 'You, of all people! I would rather have seen any one on\nearth than you!'\n\nIt was but a momentary look, inasmuch as she checked it, and said in her\nsoft little voice, 'Oh, Mr John! Is it you?' But she felt what it had\nbeen, as he felt what it had been; and they stood looking at one another\nequally confused.\n\n'Miss Amy, I am afraid I disturbed you by speaking to you.'\n\n'Yes, rather. I--I came here to be alone, and I thought I was.'\n\n'Miss Amy, I took the liberty of walking this way, because Mr Dorrit\nchanced to mention, when I called upon him just now, that you--'\n\nShe caused him more dismay than before by suddenly murmuring, 'O father,\nfather!' in a heartrending tone, and turning her face away.\n\n'Miss Amy, I hope I don't give you any uneasiness by naming Mr Dorrit.\nI assure you I found him very well and in the best of Spirits, and he\nshowed me even more than his usual kindness; being so very kind as to\nsay that I was not a stranger there, and in all ways gratifying me very\nmuch.'\n\nTo the inexpressible consternation of her lover, Little Dorrit, with her\nhands to her averted face, and rocking herself where she stood as if she\nwere in pain, murmured, 'O father, how can you! O dear, dear father, how\ncan you, can you, do it!'\n\nThe poor fellow stood gazing at her, overflowing with sympathy, but not\nknowing what to make of this, until, having taken out her handkerchief\nand put it to her still averted face, she hurried away. At first he\nremained stock still; then hurried after her.\n\n'Miss Amy, pray! Will you have the goodness to stop a moment? Miss Amy,\nif it comes to that, let _me_ go. I shall go out of my senses, if I have\nto think that I have driven you away like this.'\n\nHis trembling voice and unfeigned earnestness brought Little Dorrit to\na stop. 'Oh, I don't know what to do,' she cried, 'I don't know what to\ndo!'\n\nTo Young John, who had never seen her bereft of her quiet self-command,\nwho had seen her from her infancy ever so reliable and self-suppressed,\nthere was a shock in her distress, and in having to associate himself\nwith it as its cause, that shook him from his great hat to the\npavement. He felt it necessary to explain himself. He might be\nmisunderstood--supposed to mean something, or to have done something,\nthat had never entered into his imagination. He begged her to hear him\nexplain himself, as the greatest favour she could show him.\n\n'Miss Amy, I know very well that your family is far above mine. It were\nvain to conceal it. There never was a Chivery a gentleman that ever\nI heard of, and I will not commit the meanness of making a false\nrepresentation on a subject so momentous. Miss Amy, I know very well\nthat your high-souled brother, and likewise your spirited sister, spurn\nme from a height. What I have to do is to respect them, to wish to be\nadmitted to their friendship, to look up at the eminence on which they\nare placed from my lowlier station--for, whether viewed as tobacco or\nviewed as the lock, I well know it is lowly--and ever wish them well and\nhappy.'\n\nThere really was a genuineness in the poor fellow, and a contrast\nbetween the hardness of his hat and the softness of his heart (albeit,\nperhaps, of his head, too), that was moving. Little Dorrit entreated him\nto disparage neither himself nor his station, and, above all things, to\ndivest himself of any idea that she supposed hers to be superior. This\ngave him a little comfort.\n\n'Miss Amy,' he then stammered, 'I have had for a long time--ages they\nseem to me--Revolving ages--a heart-cherished wish to say something to\nyou. May I say it?'\n\nLittle Dorrit involuntarily started from his side again, with the\nfaintest shadow of her former look; conquering that, she went on at\ngreat speed half across the Bridge without replying!\n\n'May I--Miss Amy, I but ask the question humbly--may I say it? I have\nbeen so unlucky already in giving you pain without having any such\nintentions, before the holy Heavens! that there is no fear of my saying\nit unless I have your leave. I can be miserable alone, I can be cut up\nby myself, why should I also make miserable and cut up one that I would\nfling myself off that parapet to give half a moment's joy to! Not that\nthat's much to do, for I'd do it for twopence.'\n\nThe mournfulness of his spirits, and the gorgeousness of his appearance,\nmight have made him ridiculous, but that his delicacy made him\nrespectable. Little Dorrit learnt from it what to do.\n\n'If you please, John Chivery,' she returned, trembling, but in a quiet\nway, 'since you are so considerate as to ask me whether you shall say\nany more--if you please, no.'\n\n'Never, Miss Amy?'\n\n'No, if you please. Never.'\n\n'O Lord!' gasped Young John.\n\n'But perhaps you will let me, instead, say something to you. I want\nto say it earnestly, and with as plain a meaning as it is possible to\nexpress. When you think of us, John--I mean my brother, and sister,\nand me--don't think of us as being any different from the rest; for,\nwhatever we once were (which I hardly know) we ceased to be long ago,\nand never can be any more. It will be much better for you, and much\nbetter for others, if you will do that instead of what you are doing\nnow.'\n\nYoung John dolefully protested that he would try to bear it in mind, and\nwould be heartily glad to do anything she wished.\n\n'As to me,' said Little Dorrit, 'think as little of me as you can; the\nless, the better. When you think of me at all, John, let it only be as\nthe child you have seen grow up in the prison with one set of duties\nalways occupying her; as a weak, retired, contented, unprotected girl. I\nparticularly want you to remember, that when I come outside the gate, I\nam unprotected and solitary.'\n\nHe would try to do anything she wished. But why did Miss Amy so much\nwant him to remember that?\n\n'Because,' returned Little Dorrit, 'I know I can then quite trust you\nnot to forget to-day, and not to say any more to me. You are so generous\nthat I know I can trust to you for that; and I do and I always will. I\nam going to show you, at once, that I fully trust you. I like this place\nwhere we are speaking better than any place I know;' her slight colour\nhad faded, but her lover thought he saw it coming back just then; 'and I\nmay be often here. I know it is only necessary for me to tell you so, to\nbe quite sure that you will never come here again in search of me. And I\nam--quite sure!'\n\nShe might rely upon it, said Young John. He was a miserable wretch, but\nher word was more than a law for him.\n\n'And good-bye, John,' said Little Dorrit. 'And I hope you will have a\ngood wife one day, and be a happy man. I am sure you will deserve to be\nhappy, and you will be, John.'\n\nAs she held out her hand to him with these words, the heart that was\nunder the waistcoat of sprigs--mere slop-work, if the truth must be\nknown--swelled to the size of the heart of a gentleman; and the poor\ncommon little fellow, having no room to hold it, burst into tears.\n\n'Oh, don't cry,' said Little Dorrit piteously. 'Don't, don't! Good-bye,\nJohn. God bless you!'\n\n'Good-bye, Miss Amy. Good-bye!'\n\nAnd so he left her: first observing that she sat down on the corner of a\nseat, and not only rested her little hand upon the rough wall, but laid\nher face against it too, as if her head were heavy, and her mind were\nsad.\n\nIt was an affecting illustration of the fallacy of human projects,\nto behold her lover, with the great hat pulled over his eyes, the velvet\ncollar turned up as if it rained, the plum-coloured coat buttoned\nto conceal the silken waistcoat of golden sprigs, and the little\ndirection-post pointing inexorably home, creeping along by the worst\nback-streets, and composing, as he went, the following new inscription\nfor a tombstone in St George's Churchyard:\n\n'Here lie the mortal remains Of JOHN CHIVERY, Never anything worth\nmentioning, Who died about the end of the year one thousand eight\nhundred and twenty-six, Of a broken heart, Requesting with his last\nbreath that the word AMY might be inscribed over his ashes, which was\naccordingly directed to be done, By his afflicted Parents.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 19. The Father of the Marshalsea in two or three Relations\n\n\nThe brothers William and Frederick Dorrit, walking up and down the\nCollege-yard--of course on the aristocratic or Pump side, for the Father\nmade it a point of his state to be chary of going among his children\non the Poor side, except on Sunday mornings, Christmas Days, and other\noccasions of ceremony, in the observance whereof he was very punctual,\nand at which times he laid his hand upon the heads of their infants,\nand blessed those young insolvents with a benignity that was highly\nedifying--the brothers, walking up and down the College-yard together,\nwere a memorable sight. Frederick the free, was so humbled, bowed,\nwithered, and faded; William the bond, was so courtly, condescending,\nand benevolently conscious of a position; that in this regard only, if\nin no other, the brothers were a spectacle to wonder at.\n\nThey walked up and down the yard on the evening of Little Dorrit's\nSunday interview with her lover on the Iron Bridge. The cares of state\nwere over for that day, the Drawing Room had been well attended, several\nnew presentations had taken place, the three-and-sixpence accidentally\nleft on the table had accidentally increased to twelve shillings, and\nthe Father of the Marshalsea refreshed himself with a whiff of cigar. As\nhe walked up and down, affably accommodating his step to the shuffle of\nhis brother, not proud in his superiority, but considerate of that poor\ncreature, bearing with him, and breathing toleration of his infirmities\nin every little puff of smoke that issued from his lips and aspired to\nget over the spiked wall, he was a sight to wonder at.\n\nHis brother Frederick of the dim eye, palsied hand, bent form, and\ngroping mind, submissively shuffled at his side, accepting his patronage\nas he accepted every incident of the labyrinthian world in which he had\ngot lost. He held the usual screwed bit of whitey-brown paper in his\nhand, from which he ever and again unscrewed a spare pinch of snuff.\nThat falteringly taken, he would glance at his brother not unadmiringly,\nput his hands behind him, and shuffle on so at his side until he took\nanother pinch, or stood still to look about him--perchance suddenly\nmissing his clarionet.\n\nThe College visitors were melting away as the shades of night drew on,\nbut the yard was still pretty full, the Collegians being mostly out,\nseeing their friends to the Lodge. As the brothers paced the yard,\nWilliam the bond looked about him to receive salutes, returned them by\ngraciously lifting off his hat, and, with an engaging air, prevented\nFrederick the free from running against the company, or being jostled\nagainst the wall. The Collegians as a body were not easily impressible,\nbut even they, according to their various ways of wondering, appeared to\nfind in the two brothers a sight to wonder at.\n\n'You are a little low this evening, Frederick,' said the Father of the\nMarshalsea. 'Anything the matter?'\n\n'The matter?' He stared for a moment, and then dropped his head and eyes\nagain. 'No, William, no. Nothing is the matter.'\n\n'If you could be persuaded to smarten yourself up a little, Frederick--'\n\n'Aye, aye!' said the old man hurriedly. 'But I can't be. I can't be.\nDon't talk so. That's all over.'\n\nThe Father of the Marshalsea glanced at a passing Collegian with whom he\nwas on friendly terms, as who should say, 'An enfeebled old man, this;\nbut he is my brother, sir, my brother, and the voice of Nature is\npotent!' and steered his brother clear of the handle of the pump by the\nthreadbare sleeve. Nothing would have been wanting to the perfection of\nhis character as a fraternal guide, philosopher and friend, if he had\nonly steered his brother clear of ruin, instead of bringing it upon him.\n\n'I think, William,' said the object of his affectionate consideration,\n'that I am tired, and will go home to bed.'\n\n'My dear Frederick,' returned the other, 'don't let me detain you; don't\nsacrifice your inclination to me.'\n\n'Late hours, and a heated atmosphere, and years, I suppose,' said\nFrederick, 'weaken me.'\n\n'My dear Frederick,' returned the Father of the Marshalsea, 'do you\nthink you are sufficiently careful of yourself? Do you think your habits\nare as precise and methodical as--shall I say as mine are? Not to revert\nagain to that little eccentricity which I mentioned just now, I doubt if\nyou take air and exercise enough, Frederick. Here is the parade, always\nat your service. Why not use it more regularly than you do?'\n\n'Hah!' sighed the other. 'Yes, yes, yes, yes.'\n\n'But it is of no use saying yes, yes, my dear Frederick,' the Father\nof the Marshalsea in his mild wisdom persisted, 'unless you act on that\nassent. Consider my case, Frederick. I am a kind of example. Necessity\nand time have taught me what to do. At certain stated hours of the day,\nyou will find me on the parade, in my room, in the Lodge, reading the\npaper, receiving company, eating and drinking. I have impressed upon Amy\nduring many years, that I must have my meals (for instance) punctually.\nAmy has grown up in a sense of the importance of these arrangements, and\nyou know what a good girl she is.'\n\nThe brother only sighed again, as he plodded dreamily along, 'Hah! Yes,\nyes, yes, yes.'\n\n'My dear fellow,' said the Father of the Marshalsea, laying his hand\nupon his shoulder, and mildly rallying him--mildly, because of his\nweakness, poor dear soul; 'you said that before, and it does not express\nmuch, Frederick, even if it means much. I wish I could rouse you, my\ngood Frederick; you want to be roused.'\n\n'Yes, William, yes. No doubt,' returned the other, lifting his dim eyes\nto his face. 'But I am not like you.'\n\nThe Father of the Marshalsea said, with a shrug of modest\nself-depreciation, 'Oh! You might be like me, my dear Frederick;\nyou might be, if you chose!' and forbore, in the magnanimity of his\nstrength, to press his fallen brother further.\n\nThere was a great deal of leave-taking going on in corners, as was usual\non Sunday nights; and here and there in the dark, some poor woman, wife\nor mother, was weeping with a new Collegian. The time had been when the\nFather himself had wept, in the shades of that yard, as his own\npoor wife had wept. But it was many years ago; and now he was like\na passenger aboard ship in a long voyage, who has recovered from\nsea-sickness, and is impatient of that weakness in the fresher\npassengers taken aboard at the last port. He was inclined to\nremonstrate, and to express his opinion that people who couldn't get on\nwithout crying, had no business there. In manner, if not in words, he\nalways testified his displeasure at these interruptions of the general\nharmony; and it was so well understood, that delinquents usually\nwithdrew if they were aware of him.\n\nOn this Sunday evening, he accompanied his brother to the gate with an\nair of endurance and clemency; being in a bland temper and graciously\ndisposed to overlook the tears. In the flaring gaslight of the Lodge,\nseveral Collegians were basking; some taking leave of visitors, and\nsome who had no visitors, watching the frequent turning of the key, and\nconversing with one another and with Mr Chivery. The paternal entrance\nmade a sensation of course; and Mr Chivery, touching his hat (in a short\nmanner though) with his key, hoped he found himself tolerable.\n\n'Thank you, Chivery, quite well. And you?'\n\nMr Chivery said in a low growl, 'Oh! _he_ was all right.' Which was his\ngeneral way of acknowledging inquiries after his health when a little\nsullen.\n\n'I had a visit from Young John to-day, Chivery. And very smart he\nlooked, I assure you.'\n\nSo Mr Chivery had heard. Mr Chivery must confess, however, that his wish\nwas that the boy didn't lay out so much money upon it. For what did it\nbring him in? It only brought him in wexation. And he could get that\nanywhere for nothing.\n\n'How vexation, Chivery?' asked the benignant father.\n\n'No odds,' returned Mr Chivery. 'Never mind. Mr Frederick going out?'\n\n'Yes, Chivery, my brother is going home to bed. He is tired, and\nnot quite well. Take care, Frederick, take care. Good night, my dear\nFrederick!'\n\nShaking hands with his brother, and touching his greasy hat to the\ncompany in the Lodge, Frederick slowly shuffled out of the door which\nMr Chivery unlocked for him. The Father of the Marshalsea showed the\namiable solicitude of a superior being that he should come to no harm.\n\n'Be so kind as to keep the door open a moment, Chivery, that I may see\nhim go along the passage and down the steps. Take care, Frederick! (He\nis very infirm.) Mind the steps! (He is so very absent.) Be careful\nhow you cross, Frederick. (I really don't like the notion of his going\nwandering at large, he is so extremely liable to be run over.)'\n\nWith these words, and with a face expressive of many uneasy doubts and\nmuch anxious guardianship, he turned his regards upon the assembled\ncompany in the Lodge: so plainly indicating that his brother was to be\npitied for not being under lock and key, that an opinion to that effect\nwent round among the Collegians assembled.\n\nBut he did not receive it with unqualified assent; on the contrary, he\nsaid, No, gentlemen, no; let them not misunderstand him. His brother\nFrederick was much broken, no doubt, and it might be more comfortable to\nhimself (the Father of the Marshalsea) to know that he was safe within\nthe walls. Still, it must be remembered that to support an existence\nthere during many years, required a certain combination of qualities--he\ndid not say high qualities, but qualities--moral qualities. Now, had his\nbrother Frederick that peculiar union of qualities? Gentlemen, he was a\nmost excellent man, a most gentle, tender, and estimable man, with the\nsimplicity of a child; but would he, though unsuited for most other\nplaces, do for that place? No; he said confidently, no! And, he said,\nHeaven forbid that Frederick should be there in any other character\nthan in his present voluntary character! Gentlemen, whoever came to\nthat College, to remain there a length of time, must have strength of\ncharacter to go through a good deal and to come out of a good deal. Was\nhis beloved brother Frederick that man? No. They saw him, even as it\nwas, crushed. Misfortune crushed him. He had not power of recoil enough,\nnot elasticity enough, to be a long time in such a place, and yet\npreserve his self-respect and feel conscious that he was a gentleman.\nFrederick had not (if he might use the expression) Power enough to see\nin any delicate little attentions and--and--Testimonials that he might\nunder such circumstances receive, the goodness of human nature, the fine\nspirit animating the Collegians as a community, and at the same time\nno degradation to himself, and no depreciation of his claims as a\ngentleman. Gentlemen, God bless you!\n\nSuch was the homily with which he improved and pointed the occasion to\nthe company in the Lodge before turning into the sallow yard again,\nand going with his own poor shabby dignity past the Collegian in the\ndressing-gown who had no coat, and past the Collegian in the sea-side\nslippers who had no shoes, and past the stout greengrocer Collegian in\nthe corduroy knee-breeches who had no cares, and past the lean clerk\nCollegian in buttonless black who had no hopes, up his own poor shabby\nstaircase to his own poor shabby room.\n\nThere, the table was laid for his supper, and his old grey gown was\nready for him on his chair-back at the fire. His daughter put her\nlittle prayer-book in her pocket--had she been praying for pity on all\nprisoners and captives!--and rose to welcome him.\n\nUncle had gone home, then? she asked him, as she changed his coat and\ngave him his black velvet cap. Yes, uncle had gone home. Had her father\nenjoyed his walk? Why, not much, Amy; not much. No! Did he not feel\nquite well?\n\nAs she stood behind him, leaning over his chair so lovingly, he looked\nwith downcast eyes at the fire. An uneasiness stole over him that was\nlike a touch of shame; and when he spoke, as he presently did, it was in\nan unconnected and embarrassed manner.\n\n'Something, I--hem!--I don't know what, has gone wrong with Chivery.\nHe is not--ha!--not nearly so obliging and attentive as usual to-night.\nIt--hem!--it's a little thing, but it puts me out, my love. It's\nimpossible to forget,' turning his hands over and over and looking\nclosely at them, 'that--hem!--that in such a life as mine, I am\nunfortunately dependent on these men for something every hour in the\nday.'\n\nHer arm was on his shoulder, but she did not look in his face while he\nspoke. Bending her head she looked another way.\n\n'I--hem!--I can't think, Amy, what has given Chivery offence. He is\ngenerally so--so very attentive and respectful. And to-night he was\nquite--quite short with me. Other people there too! Why, good Heaven!\nif I was to lose the support and recognition of Chivery and his brother\nofficers, I might starve to death here.' While he spoke, he was opening\nand shutting his hands like valves; so conscious all the time of that\ntouch of shame, that he shrunk before his own knowledge of his meaning.\n\n'I--ha!--I can't think what it's owing to. I am sure I cannot imagine\nwhat the cause of it is. There was a certain Jackson here once, a\nturnkey of the name of Jackson (I don't think you can remember him,\nmy dear, you were very young), and--hem!--and he had a--brother, and\nthis--young brother paid his addresses to--at least, did not go so far\nas to pay his addresses to--but admired--respectfully admired--the--not\ndaughter, the sister--of one of us; a rather distinguished Collegian; I\nmay say, very much so. His name was Captain Martin; and he\nconsulted me on the question whether it was necessary that his\ndaughter--sister--should hazard offending the turnkey brother by\nbeing too--ha!--too plain with the other brother. Captain Martin was\na gentleman and a man of honour, and I put it to him first to give me\nhis--his own opinion. Captain Martin (highly respected in the army) then\nunhesitatingly said that it appeared to him that his--hem!--sister was\nnot called upon to understand the young man too distinctly, and that\nshe might lead him on--I am doubtful whether \"lead him on\" was Captain\nMartin's exact expression: indeed I think he said tolerate him--on her\nfather's--I should say, brother's--account. I hardly know how I have\nstrayed into this story. I suppose it has been through being unable to\naccount for Chivery; but as to the connection between the two, I don't\nsee--'\n\nHis voice died away, as if she could not bear the pain of hearing him,\nand her hand had gradually crept to his lips. For a little while there\nwas a dead silence and stillness; and he remained shrunk in his chair,\nand she remained with her arm round his neck and her head bowed down\nupon his shoulder.\n\nHis supper was cooking in a saucepan on the fire, and, when she moved,\nit was to make it ready for him on the table. He took his usual seat,\nshe took hers, and he began his meal. They did not, as yet, look at one\nanother. By little and little he began; laying down his knife and fork\nwith a noise, taking things up sharply, biting at his bread as if he\nwere offended with it, and in other similar ways showing that he was out\nof sorts. At length he pushed his plate from him, and spoke aloud; with\nthe strangest inconsistency.\n\n'What does it matter whether I eat or starve? What does it matter\nwhether such a blighted life as mine comes to an end, now, next week, or\nnext year? What am I worth to anyone? A poor prisoner, fed on alms and\nbroken victuals; a squalid, disgraced wretch!'\n\n'Father, father!' As he rose she went on her knees to him, and held up\nher hands to him.\n\n'Amy,' he went on in a suppressed voice, trembling violently, and\nlooking at her as wildly as if he had gone mad. 'I tell you, if you\ncould see me as your mother saw me, you wouldn't believe it to be the\ncreature you have only looked at through the bars of this cage. I was\nyoung, I was accomplished, I was good-looking, I was independent--by God\nI was, child!--and people sought me out, and envied me. Envied me!'\n\n'Dear father!' She tried to take down the shaking arm that he flourished\nin the air, but he resisted, and put her hand away.\n\n'If I had but a picture of myself in those days, though it was ever so\nill done, you would be proud of it, you would be proud of it. But I have\nno such thing. Now, let me be a warning! Let no man,' he cried, looking\nhaggardly about, 'fail to preserve at least that little of the times of\nhis prosperity and respect. Let his children have that clue to what he\nwas. Unless my face, when I am dead, subsides into the long departed\nlook--they say such things happen, I don't know--my children will have\nnever seen me.'\n\n'Father, father!'\n\n'O despise me, despise me! Look away from me, don't listen to me, stop\nme, blush for me, cry for me--even you, Amy! Do it, do it! I do it to\nmyself! I am hardened now, I have sunk too low to care long even for\nthat.'\n\n'Dear father, loved father, darling of my heart!' She was clinging to\nhim with her arms, and she got him to drop into his chair again, and\ncaught at the raised arm, and tried to put it round her neck.\n\n'Let it lie there, father. Look at me, father, kiss me, father! Only\nthink of me, father, for one little moment!'\n\nStill he went on in the same wild way, though it was gradually breaking\ndown into a miserable whining.\n\n'And yet I have some respect here. I have made some stand against it. I\nam not quite trodden down. Go out and ask who is the chief person in the\nplace. They'll tell you it's your father. Go out and ask who is never\ntrifled with, and who is always treated with some delicacy. They'll say,\nyour father. Go out and ask what funeral here (it must be here, I know\nit can be nowhere else) will make more talk, and perhaps more grief,\nthan any that has ever gone out at the gate. They'll say your father's.\nWell then. Amy! Amy! Is your father so universally despised? Is there\nnothing to redeem him? Will you have nothing to remember him by but his\nruin and decay? Will you be able to have no affection for him when he is\ngone, poor castaway, gone?'\n\nHe burst into tears of maudlin pity for himself, and at length suffering\nher to embrace him and take charge of him, let his grey head rest\nagainst her cheek, and bewailed his wretchedness. Presently he changed\nthe subject of his lamentations, and clasping his hands about her as she\nembraced him, cried, O Amy, his motherless, forlorn child! O the days\nthat he had seen her careful and laborious for him! Then he reverted to\nhimself, and weakly told her how much better she would have loved him\nif she had known him in his vanished character, and how he would have\nmarried her to a gentleman who should have been proud of her as his\ndaughter, and how (at which he cried again) she should first have ridden\nat his fatherly side on her own horse, and how the crowd (by which he\nmeant in effect the people who had given him the twelve shillings\nhe then had in his pocket) should have trudged the dusty roads\nrespectfully.\n\nThus, now boasting, now despairing, in either fit a captive with the\njail-rot upon him, and the impurity of his prison worn into the grain of\nhis soul, he revealed his degenerate state to his affectionate child.\nNo one else ever beheld him in the details of his humiliation. Little\nrecked the Collegians who were laughing in their rooms over his late\naddress in the Lodge, what a serious picture they had in their obscure\ngallery of the Marshalsea that Sunday night.\n\nThere was a classical daughter once--perhaps--who ministered to her\nfather in his prison as her mother had ministered to her. Little Dorrit,\nthough of the unheroic modern stock and mere English, did much more,\nin comforting her father's wasted heart upon her innocent breast, and\nturning to it a fountain of love and fidelity that never ran dry or\nwaned through all his years of famine.\n\nShe soothed him; asked him for his forgiveness if she had been, or\nseemed to have been, undutiful; told him, Heaven knows truly, that she\ncould not honour him more if he were the favourite of Fortune and the\nwhole world acknowledged him. When his tears were dried, and he sobbed\nin his weakness no longer, and was free from that touch of shame, and\nhad recovered his usual bearing, she prepared the remains of his supper\nafresh, and, sitting by his side, rejoiced to see him eat and drink. For\nnow he sat in his black velvet cap and old grey gown, magnanimous again;\nand would have comported himself towards any Collegian who might have\nlooked in to ask his advice, like a great moral Lord Chesterfield, or\nMaster of the ethical ceremonies of the Marshalsea.\n\nTo keep his attention engaged, she talked with him about his wardrobe;\nwhen he was pleased to say, that Yes, indeed, those shirts she proposed\nwould be exceedingly acceptable, for those he had were worn out, and,\nbeing ready-made, had never fitted him. Being conversational, and in a\nreasonable flow of spirits, he then invited her attention to his coat\nas it hung behind the door: remarking that the Father of the place\nwould set an indifferent example to his children, already disposed to be\nslovenly, if he went among them out at elbows. He was jocular, too,\nas to the heeling of his shoes; but became grave on the subject of his\ncravat, and promised her that, when she could afford it, she should buy\nhim a new one.\n\nWhile he smoked out his cigar in peace, she made his bed, and put the\nsmall room in order for his repose. Being weary then, owing to the\nadvanced hour and his emotions, he came out of his chair to bless her\nand wish her Good night. All this time he had never once thought of _her_\ndress, her shoes, her need of anything. No other person upon earth, save\nherself, could have been so unmindful of her wants.\n\nHe kissed her many times with 'Bless you, my love. Good night, my dear!'\n\nBut her gentle breast had been so deeply wounded by what she had seen of\nhim that she was unwilling to leave him alone, lest he should lament\nand despair again. 'Father, dear, I am not tired; let me come back\npresently, when you are in bed, and sit by you.'\n\nHe asked her, with an air of protection, if she felt solitary?\n\n'Yes, father.'\n\n'Then come back by all means, my love.'\n\n'I shall be very quiet, father.'\n\n'Don't think of me, my dear,' he said, giving her his kind permission\nfully. 'Come back by all means.'\n\nHe seemed to be dozing when she returned, and she put the low fire\ntogether very softly lest she should awake him. But he overheard her,\nand called out who was that?\n\n'Only Amy, father.'\n\n'Amy, my child, come here. I want to say a word to you.'\n\nHe raised himself a little in his low bed, as she kneeled beside it to\nbring her face near him; and put his hand between hers. O! Both the\nprivate father and the Father of the Marshalsea were strong within him\nthen.\n\n'My love, you have had a life of hardship here. No companions, no\nrecreations, many cares I am afraid?'\n\n'Don't think of that, dear. I never do.'\n\n'You know my position, Amy. I have not been able to do much for you; but\nall I have been able to do, I have done.'\n\n'Yes, my dear father,' she rejoined, kissing him. 'I know, I know.'\n\n'I am in the twenty-third year of my life here,' he said, with a catch\nin his breath that was not so much a sob as an irrepressible sound of\nself-approval, the momentary outburst of a noble consciousness. 'It is\nall I could do for my children--I have done it. Amy, my love, you are\nby far the best loved of the three; I have had you principally in my\nmind--whatever I have done for your sake, my dear child, I have done\nfreely and without murmuring.'\n\nOnly the wisdom that holds the clue to all hearts and all mysteries, can\nsurely know to what extent a man, especially a man brought down as this\nman had been, can impose upon himself. Enough, for the present place,\nthat he lay down with wet eyelashes, serene, in a manner majestic, after\nbestowing his life of degradation as a sort of portion on the devoted\nchild upon whom its miseries had fallen so heavily, and whose love alone\nhad saved him to be even what he was.\n\nThat child had no doubts, asked herself no question, for she was but too\ncontent to see him with a lustre round his head. Poor dear, good dear,\ntruest, kindest, dearest, were the only words she had for him, as she\nhushed him to rest.\n\nShe never left him all that night. As if she had done him a wrong which\nher tenderness could hardly repair, she sat by him in his sleep, at\ntimes softly kissing him with suspended breath, and calling him in a\nwhisper by some endearing name. At times she stood aside so as not to\nintercept the low fire-light, and, watching him when it fell upon his\nsleeping face, wondered did he look now at all as he had looked when he\nwas prosperous and happy; as he had so touched her by imagining that he\nmight look once more in that awful time. At the thought of that time,\nshe kneeled beside his bed again, and prayed, 'O spare his life! O\nsave him to me! O look down upon my dear, long-suffering, unfortunate,\nmuch-changed, dear dear father!'\n\nNot until the morning came to protect him and encourage him, did she\ngive him a last kiss and leave the small room. When she had stolen\ndown-stairs, and along the empty yard, and had crept up to her own\nhigh garret, the smokeless housetops and the distant country hills were\ndiscernible over the wall in the clear morning. As she gently opened the\nwindow, and looked eastward down the prison yard, the spikes upon the\nwall were tipped with red, then made a sullen purple pattern on the sun\nas it came flaming up into the heavens. The spikes had never looked so\nsharp and cruel, nor the bars so heavy, nor the prison space so gloomy\nand contracted. She thought of the sunrise on rolling rivers, of the\nsunrise on wide seas, of the sunrise on rich landscapes, of the\nsunrise on great forests where the birds were waking and the trees were\nrustling; and she looked down into the living grave on which the sun\nhad risen, with her father in it three-and-twenty years, and said, in\na burst of sorrow and compassion, 'No, no, I have never seen him in my\nlife!'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 20. Moving in Society\n\n\nIf Young John Chivery had had the inclination and the power to write a\nsatire on family pride, he would have had no need to go for an avenging\nillustration out of the family of his beloved. He would have found it\namply in that gallant brother and that dainty sister, so steeped in mean\nexperiences, and so loftily conscious of the family name; so ready\nto beg or borrow from the poorest, to eat of anybody's bread, spend\nanybody's money, drink from anybody's cup and break it afterwards.\nTo have painted the sordid facts of their lives, and they throughout\ninvoking the death's head apparition of the family gentility to come and\nscare their benefactors, would have made Young John a satirist of the\nfirst water.\n\nTip had turned his liberty to hopeful account by becoming a\nbilliard-marker. He had troubled himself so little as to the means of\nhis release, that Clennam scarcely needed to have been at the pains of\nimpressing the mind of Mr Plornish on that subject. Whoever had paid\nhim the compliment, he very readily accepted the compliment with _his_\ncompliments, and there was an end of it. Issuing forth from the gate\non these easy terms, he became a billiard-marker; and now occasionally\nlooked in at the little skittle-ground in a green Newmarket coat\n(second-hand), with a shining collar and bright buttons (new), and drank\nthe beer of the Collegians.\n\nOne solid stationary point in the looseness of this gentleman's\ncharacter was, that he respected and admired his sister Amy. The feeling\nhad never induced him to spare her a moment's uneasiness, or to put\nhimself to any restraint or inconvenience on her account; but with that\nMarshalsea taint upon his love, he loved her. The same rank Marshalsea\nflavour was to be recognised in his distinctly perceiving that she\nsacrificed her life to her father, and in his having no idea that she\nhad done anything for himself.\n\nWhen this spirited young man and his sister had begun systematically\nto produce the family skeleton for the overawing of the College, this\nnarrative cannot precisely state. Probably at about the period when\nthey began to dine on the College charity. It is certain that the more\nreduced and necessitous they were, the more pompously the skeleton\nemerged from its tomb; and that when there was anything particularly\nshabby in the wind, the skeleton always came out with the ghastliest\nflourish.\n\nLittle Dorrit was late on the Monday morning, for her father slept\nlate, and afterwards there was his breakfast to prepare and his room to\narrange. She had no engagement to go out to work, however, and therefore\nstayed with him until, with Maggy's help, she had put everything right\nabout him, and had seen him off upon his morning walk (of twenty yards\nor so) to the coffee-house to read the paper. She then got on her bonnet\nand went out, having been anxious to get out much sooner. There was, as\nusual, a cessation of the small-talk in the Lodge as she passed through\nit; and a Collegian who had come in on Saturday night, received the\nintimation from the elbow of a more seasoned Collegian, 'Look out. Here\nshe is!'\n\nShe wanted to see her sister, but when she got round to Mr Cripples's,\nshe found that both her sister and her uncle had gone to the theatre\nwhere they were engaged. Having taken thought of this probability by\nthe way, and having settled that in such case she would follow them, she\nset off afresh for the theatre, which was on that side of the river, and\nnot very far away.\n\nLittle Dorrit was almost as ignorant of the ways of theatres as of the\nways of gold mines, and when she was directed to a furtive sort of door,\nwith a curious up-all-night air about it, that appeared to be ashamed of\nitself and to be hiding in an alley, she hesitated to approach it; being\nfurther deterred by the sight of some half-dozen close-shaved gentlemen\nwith their hats very strangely on, who were lounging about the door,\nlooking not at all unlike Collegians. On her applying to them, reassured\nby this resemblance, for a direction to Miss Dorrit, they made way for\nher to enter a dark hall--it was more like a great grim lamp gone out\nthan anything else--where she could hear the distant playing of music\nand the sound of dancing feet. A man so much in want of airing that he\nhad a blue mould upon him, sat watching this dark place from a hole in\na corner, like a spider; and he told her that he would send a message\nup to Miss Dorrit by the first lady or gentleman who went through. The\nfirst lady who went through had a roll of music, half in her muff and\nhalf out of it, and was in such a tumbled condition altogether, that it\nseemed as if it would be an act of kindness to iron her. But as she was\nvery good-natured, and said, 'Come with me; I'll soon find Miss Dorrit\nfor you,' Miss Dorrit's sister went with her, drawing nearer and nearer\nat every step she took in the darkness to the sound of music and the\nsound of dancing feet.\n\nAt last they came into a maze of dust, where a quantity of people were\ntumbling over one another, and where there was such a confusion of\nunaccountable shapes of beams, bulkheads, brick walls, ropes, and\nrollers, and such a mixing of gaslight and daylight, that they seemed\nto have got on the wrong side of the pattern of the universe. Little\nDorrit, left to herself, and knocked against by somebody every moment,\nwas quite bewildered, when she heard her sister's voice.\n\n'Why, good gracious, Amy, what ever brought you here?'\n\n'I wanted to see you, Fanny dear; and as I am going out all day\nto-morrow, and knew you might be engaged all day to-day, I thought--'\n\n'But the idea, Amy, of _you_ coming behind! I never did!' As her sister\nsaid this in no very cordial tone of welcome, she conducted her to a\nmore open part of the maze, where various golden chairs and tables were\nheaped together, and where a number of young ladies were sitting on\nanything they could find, chattering. All these young ladies wanted\nironing, and all had a curious way of looking everywhere while they\nchattered.\n\nJust as the sisters arrived here, a monotonous boy in a Scotch cap put\nhis head round a beam on the left, and said, 'Less noise there, ladies!'\nand disappeared. Immediately after which, a sprightly gentleman with a\nquantity of long black hair looked round a beam on the right, and said,\n'Less noise there, darlings!' and also disappeared.\n\n'The notion of you among professionals, Amy, is really the last thing\nI could have conceived!' said her sister. 'Why, how did you ever get\nhere?'\n\n'I don't know. The lady who told you I was here, was so good as to bring\nme in.'\n\n'Like you quiet little things! You can make your way anywhere, I\nbelieve. _I_ couldn't have managed it, Amy, though I know so much more of\nthe world.'\n\nIt was the family custom to lay it down as family law, that she was a\nplain domestic little creature, without the great and sage experience of\nthe rest. This family fiction was the family assertion of itself against\nher services. Not to make too much of them.\n\n'Well! And what have you got on your mind, Amy? Of course you have\ngot something on your mind about me?' said Fanny. She spoke as if her\nsister, between two and three years her junior, were her prejudiced\ngrandmother.\n\n'It is not much; but since you told me of the lady who gave you the\nbracelet, Fanny--'\n\nThe monotonous boy put his head round the beam on the left, and said,\n'Look out there, ladies!' and disappeared. The sprightly gentleman with\nthe black hair as suddenly put his head round the beam on the right, and\nsaid, 'Look out there, darlings!' and also disappeared. Thereupon all\nthe young ladies rose and began shaking their skirts out behind.\n\n'Well, Amy?' said Fanny, doing as the rest did; 'what were you going to\nsay?'\n\n'Since you told me a lady had given you the bracelet you showed me,\nFanny, I have not been quite easy on your account, and indeed want to\nknow a little more if you will confide more to me.'\n\n'Now, ladies!' said the boy in the Scotch cap. 'Now, darlings!' said the\ngentleman with the black hair. They were every one gone in a moment, and\nthe music and the dancing feet were heard again.\n\nLittle Dorrit sat down in a golden chair, made quite giddy by these\nrapid interruptions. Her sister and the rest were a long time gone; and\nduring their absence a voice (it appeared to be that of the gentleman\nwith the black hair) was continually calling out through the music,\n'One, two, three, four, five, six--go! One, two, three, four, five,\nsix--go! Steady, darlings! One, two, three, four, five, six--go!'\nUltimately the voice stopped, and they all came back again, more or less\nout of breath, folding themselves in their shawls, and making ready\nfor the streets. 'Stop a moment, Amy, and let them get away before\nus,' whispered Fanny. They were soon left alone; nothing more important\nhappening, in the meantime, than the boy looking round his old beam, and\nsaying, 'Everybody at eleven to-morrow, ladies!' and the gentleman with\nthe black hair looking round his old beam, and saying, 'Everybody at\neleven to-morrow, darlings!' each in his own accustomed manner.\n\nWhen they were alone, something was rolled up or by other means got out\nof the way, and there was a great empty well before them, looking down\ninto the depths of which Fanny said, 'Now, uncle!' Little Dorrit, as her\neyes became used to the darkness, faintly made him out at the bottom of\nthe well, in an obscure corner by himself, with his instrument in its\nragged case under his arm.\n\nThe old man looked as if the remote high gallery windows, with their\nlittle strip of sky, might have been the point of his better fortunes,\nfrom which he had descended, until he had gradually sunk down below\nthere to the bottom. He had been in that place six nights a week for\nmany years, but had never been observed to raise his eyes above his\nmusic-book, and was confidently believed to have never seen a play.\nThere were legends in the place that he did not so much as know the\npopular heroes and heroines by sight, and that the low comedian had\n'mugged' at him in his richest manner fifty nights for a wager, and he\nhad shown no trace of consciousness. The carpenters had a joke to the\neffect that he was dead without being aware of it; and the frequenters\nof the pit supposed him to pass his whole life, night and day, and\nSunday and all, in the orchestra. They had tried him a few times with\npinches of snuff offered over the rails, and he had always responded to\nthis attention with a momentary waking up of manner that had the pale\nphantom of a gentleman in it: beyond this he never, on any occasion, had\nany other part in what was going on than the part written out for the\nclarionet; in private life, where there was no part for the clarionet,\nhe had no part at all. Some said he was poor, some said he was a wealthy\nmiser; but he said nothing, never lifted up his bowed head, never varied\nhis shuffling gait by getting his springless foot from the ground.\nThough expecting now to be summoned by his niece, he did not hear her\nuntil she had spoken to him three or four times; nor was he at all\nsurprised by the presence of two nieces instead of one, but merely said\nin his tremulous voice, 'I am coming, I am coming!' and crept forth by\nsome underground way which emitted a cellarous smell.\n\n'And so, Amy,' said her sister, when the three together passed out at\nthe door that had such a shame-faced consciousness of being different\nfrom other doors: the uncle instinctively taking Amy's arm as the arm to\nbe relied on: 'so, Amy, you are curious about me?'\n\nShe was pretty, and conscious, and rather flaunting; and the\ncondescension with which she put aside the superiority of her charms,\nand of her worldly experience, and addressed her sister on almost equal\nterms, had a vast deal of the family in it.\n\n'I am interested, Fanny, and concerned in anything that concerns you.'\n\n'So you are, so you are, and you are the best of Amys. If I am ever a\nlittle provoking, I am sure you'll consider what a thing it is to\noccupy my position and feel a consciousness of being superior to it. I\nshouldn't care,' said the Daughter of the Father of the Marshalsea, 'if\nthe others were not so common. None of them have come down in the world\nas we have. They are all on their own level. Common.'\n\nLittle Dorrit mildly looked at the speaker, but did not interrupt her.\nFanny took out her handkerchief, and rather angrily wiped her eyes. 'I\nwas not born where you were, you know, Amy, and perhaps that makes a\ndifference. My dear child, when we get rid of Uncle, you shall know all\nabout it. We'll drop him at the cook's shop where he is going to dine.'\n\nThey walked on with him until they came to a dirty shop window in a\ndirty street, which was made almost opaque by the steam of hot meats,\nvegetables, and puddings. But glimpses were to be caught of a roast leg\nof pork bursting into tears of sage and onion in a metal reservoir full\nof gravy, of an unctuous piece of roast beef and blisterous Yorkshire\npudding, bubbling hot in a similar receptacle, of a stuffed fillet of\nveal in rapid cut, of a ham in a perspiration with the pace it was going\nat, of a shallow tank of baked potatoes glued together by their own\nrichness, of a truss or two of boiled greens, and other substantial\ndelicacies. Within, were a few wooden partitions, behind which such\ncustomers as found it more convenient to take away their dinners in\nstomachs than in their hands, Packed their purchases in solitude. Fanny\nopening her reticule, as they surveyed these things, produced from that\nrepository a shilling and handed it to Uncle. Uncle, after not looking\nat it a little while, divined its object, and muttering 'Dinner? Ha!\nYes, yes, yes!' slowly vanished from them into the mist.\n\n'Now, Amy,' said her sister, 'come with me, if you are not too tired to\nwalk to Harley Street, Cavendish Square.'\n\nThe air with which she threw off this distinguished address and the toss\nshe gave to her new bonnet (which was more gauzy than serviceable), made\nher sister wonder; however, she expressed her readiness to go to Harley\nStreet, and thither they directed their steps. Arrived at that grand\ndestination, Fanny singled out the handsomest house, and knocking at the\ndoor, inquired for Mrs Merdle. The footman who opened the door, although\nhe had powder on his head and was backed up by two other footmen\nlikewise powdered, not only admitted Mrs Merdle to be at home, but asked\nFanny to walk in. Fanny walked in, taking her sister with her; and they\nwent up-stairs with powder going before and powder stopping behind,\nand were left in a spacious semicircular drawing-room, one of several\ndrawing-rooms, where there was a parrot on the outside of a golden cage\nholding on by its beak, with its scaly legs in the air, and putting\nitself into many strange upside-down postures. This peculiarity has been\nobserved in birds of quite another feather, climbing upon golden wires.\n\nThe room was far more splendid than anything Little Dorrit had ever\nimagined, and would have been splendid and costly in any eyes. She\nlooked in amazement at her sister and would have asked a question,\nbut that Fanny with a warning frown pointed to a curtained doorway of\ncommunication with another room. The curtain shook next moment, and a\nlady, raising it with a heavily ringed hand, dropped it behind her again\nas she entered.\n\nThe lady was not young and fresh from the hand of Nature, but was young\nand fresh from the hand of her maid. She had large unfeeling handsome\neyes, and dark unfeeling handsome hair, and a broad unfeeling handsome\nbosom, and was made the most of in every particular. Either because she\nhad a cold, or because it suited her face, she wore a rich white\nfillet tied over her head and under her chin. And if ever there were\nan unfeeling handsome chin that looked as if, for certain, it had never\nbeen, in familiar parlance, 'chucked' by the hand of man, it was the\nchin curbed up so tight and close by that laced bridle.\n\n'Mrs Merdle,' said Fanny. 'My sister, ma'am.'\n\n'I am glad to see your sister, Miss Dorrit. I did not remember that you\nhad a sister.'\n\n'I did not mention that I had,' said Fanny.\n\n'Ah!' Mrs Merdle curled the little finger of her left hand as who should\nsay, 'I have caught you. I know you didn't!' All her action was usually\nwith her left hand because her hands were not a pair; and left being\nmuch the whiter and plumper of the two. Then she added: 'Sit down,' and\ncomposed herself voluptuously, in a nest of crimson and gold cushions,\non an ottoman near the parrot.\n\n'Also professional?' said Mrs Merdle, looking at Little Dorrit through\nan eye-glass.\n\nFanny answered No. 'No,' said Mrs Merdle, dropping her glass. 'Has not a\nprofessional air. Very pleasant; but not professional.'\n\n'My sister, ma'am,' said Fanny, in whom there was a singular mixture\nof deference and hardihood, 'has been asking me to tell her, as between\nsisters, how I came to have the honour of knowing you. And as I had\nengaged to call upon you once more, I thought I might take the liberty\nof bringing her with me, when perhaps you would tell her. I wish her to\nknow, and perhaps you will tell her?'\n\n'Do you think, at your sister's age--' hinted Mrs Merdle.\n\n'She is much older than she looks,' said Fanny; 'almost as old as I am.'\n\n'Society,' said Mrs Merdle, with another curve of her little finger, 'is\nso difficult to explain to young persons (indeed is so difficult to\nexplain to most persons), that I am glad to hear that. I wish Society\nwas not so arbitrary, I wish it was not so exacting--Bird, be quiet!'\n\nThe parrot had given a most piercing shriek, as if its name were Society\nand it asserted its right to its exactions.\n\n'But,' resumed Mrs Merdle, 'we must take it as we find it. We know it is\nhollow and conventional and worldly and very shocking, but unless we\nare Savages in the Tropical seas (I should have been charmed to be one\nmyself--most delightful life and perfect climate, I am told), we\nmust consult it. It is the common lot. Mr Merdle is a most extensive\nmerchant, his transactions are on the vastest scale, his wealth and\ninfluence are very great, but even he--Bird, be quiet!'\n\nThe parrot had shrieked another shriek; and it filled up the sentence so\nexpressively that Mrs Merdle was under no necessity to end it.\n\n'Since your sister begs that I would terminate our personal\nacquaintance,' she began again, addressing Little Dorrit, 'by relating\nthe circumstances that are much to her credit, I cannot object to comply\nwith her request, I am sure. I have a son (I was first married extremely\nyoung) of two or three-and-twenty.'\n\nFanny set her lips, and her eyes looked half triumphantly at her sister.\n\n'A son of two or three-and-twenty. He is a little gay, a thing Society\nis accustomed to in young men, and he is very impressible. Perhaps he\ninherits that misfortune. I am very impressible myself, by nature. The\nweakest of creatures--my feelings are touched in a moment.'\n\nShe said all this, and everything else, as coldly as a woman of snow;\nquite forgetting the sisters except at odd times, and apparently\naddressing some abstraction of Society; for whose behoof, too, she\noccasionally arranged her dress, or the composition of her figure upon\nthe ottoman.\n\n'So he is very impressible. Not a misfortune in our natural state I dare\nsay, but we are not in a natural state. Much to be lamented, no doubt,\nparticularly by myself, who am a child of nature if I could but show it;\nbut so it is. Society suppresses us and dominates us--Bird, be quiet!'\n\nThe parrot had broken into a violent fit of laughter, after twisting\ndivers bars of his cage with his crooked bill, and licking them with his\nblack tongue.\n\n'It is quite unnecessary to say to a person of your good sense, wide\nrange of experience, and cultivated feeling,' said Mrs Merdle from her\nnest of crimson and gold--and there put up her glass to refresh her\nmemory as to whom she was addressing,--'that the stage sometimes has\na fascination for young men of that class of character. In saying the\nstage, I mean the people on it of the female sex. Therefore, when I\nheard that my son was supposed to be fascinated by a dancer, I knew what\nthat usually meant in Society, and confided in her being a dancer at the\nOpera, where young men moving in Society are usually fascinated.'\n\nShe passed her white hands over one another, observant of the sisters\nnow; and the rings upon her fingers grated against each other with a\nhard sound.\n\n'As your sister will tell you, when I found what the theatre was I was\nmuch surprised and much distressed. But when I found that your sister,\nby rejecting my son's advances (I must add, in an unexpected manner),\nhad brought him to the point of proposing marriage, my feelings were\nof the profoundest anguish--acute.'\n\nShe traced the outline of her left eyebrow, and put it right.\n\n'In a distracted condition, which only a mother--moving in Society--can\nbe susceptible of, I determined to go myself to the theatre, and\nrepresent my state of mind to the dancer. I made myself known to your\nsister. I found her, to my surprise, in many respects different from\nmy expectations; and certainly in none more so, than in meeting me\nwith--what shall I say--a sort of family assertion on her own part?' Mrs\nMerdle smiled.\n\n'I told you, ma'am,' said Fanny, with a heightening colour, 'that\nalthough you found me in that situation, I was so far above the rest,\nthat I considered my family as good as your son's; and that I had a\nbrother who, knowing the circumstances, would be of the same opinion,\nand would not consider such a connection any honour.'\n\n'Miss Dorrit,' said Mrs Merdle, after frostily looking at her through\nher glass, 'precisely what I was on the point of telling your sister,\nin pursuance of your request. Much obliged to you for recalling it\nso accurately and anticipating me. I immediately,' addressing Little\nDorrit, '(for I am the creature of impulse), took a bracelet from my\narm, and begged your sister to let me clasp it on hers, in token of\nthe delight I had in our being able to approach the subject so far on\na common footing.' (This was perfectly true, the lady having bought a\ncheap and showy article on her way to the interview, with a general eye\nto bribery.)\n\n'And I told you, Mrs Merdle,' said Fanny, 'that we might be unfortunate,\nbut we are not common.'\n\n'I think, the very words, Miss Dorrit,' assented Mrs Merdle.\n\n'And I told you, Mrs Merdle,' said Fanny, 'that if you spoke to me\nof the superiority of your son's standing in Society, it was barely\npossible that you rather deceived yourself in your suppositions about my\norigin; and that my father's standing, even in the Society in which\nhe now moved (what that was, was best known to myself), was eminently\nsuperior, and was acknowledged by every one.'\n\n'Quite accurate,' rejoined Mrs Merdle. 'A most admirable memory.'\n\n'Thank you, ma'am. Perhaps you will be so kind as to tell my sister the\nrest.'\n\n'There is very little to tell,' said Mrs Merdle, reviewing the breadth\nof bosom which seemed essential to her having room enough to be\nunfeeling in, 'but it is to your sister's credit. I pointed out to your\nsister the plain state of the case; the impossibility of the Society\nin which we moved recognising the Society in which she moved--though\ncharming, I have no doubt; the immense disadvantage at which she would\nconsequently place the family she had so high an opinion of, upon which\nwe should find ourselves compelled to look down with contempt, and\nfrom which (socially speaking) we should feel obliged to recoil with\nabhorrence. In short, I made an appeal to that laudable pride in your\nsister.'\n\n'Let my sister know, if you please, Mrs Merdle,' Fanny pouted, with a\ntoss of her gauzy bonnet, 'that I had already had the honour of telling\nyour son that I wished to have nothing whatever to say to him.'\n\n'Well, Miss Dorrit,' assented Mrs Merdle, 'perhaps I might have\nmentioned that before. If I did not think of it, perhaps it was because\nmy mind reverted to the apprehensions I had at the time that he might\npersevere and you might have something to say to him. I also mentioned\nto your sister--I again address the non-professional Miss Dorrit--that\nmy son would have nothing in the event of such a marriage, and would be\nan absolute beggar. (I mention that merely as a fact which is part of\nthe narrative, and not as supposing it to have influenced your sister,\nexcept in the prudent and legitimate way in which, constituted as our\nartificial system is, we must all be influenced by such considerations.)\nFinally, after some high words and high spirit on the part of your\nsister, we came to the complete understanding that there was no danger;\nand your sister was so obliging as to allow me to present her with a\nmark or two of my appreciation at my dressmaker's.'\n\nLittle Dorrit looked sorry, and glanced at Fanny with a troubled face.\n\n'Also,' said Mrs Merdle, 'as to promise to give me the present pleasure\nof a closing interview, and of parting with her on the best of terms.\nOn which occasion,' added Mrs Merdle, quitting her nest, and putting\nsomething in Fanny's hand, 'Miss Dorrit will permit me to say Farewell\nwith best wishes in my own dull manner.'\n\nThe sisters rose at the same time, and they all stood near the cage of\nthe parrot, as he tore at a claw-full of biscuit and spat it out, seemed\nto mock them with a pompous dance of his body without moving his feet,\nand suddenly turned himself upside down and trailed himself all over\nthe outside of his golden cage, with the aid of his cruel beak and black\ntongue.\n\n'Adieu, Miss Dorrit, with best wishes,' said Mrs Merdle. 'If we could\nonly come to a Millennium, or something of that sort, I for one might\nhave the pleasure of knowing a number of charming and talented persons\nfrom whom I am at present excluded. A more primitive state of society\nwould be delicious to me. There used to be a poem when I learnt lessons,\nsomething about Lo the poor Indians whose something mind! If a few\nthousand persons moving in Society, could only go and be Indians, I\nwould put my name down directly; but as, moving in Society, we can't be\nIndians, unfortunately--Good morning!'\n\nThey came down-stairs with powder before them and powder behind, the\nelder sister haughty and the younger sister humbled, and were shut out\ninto unpowdered Harley Street, Cavendish Square.\n\n'Well?' said Fanny, when they had gone a little way without speaking.\n'Have you nothing to say, Amy?'\n\n'Oh, I don't know what to say!' she answered, distressed. 'You didn't\nlike this young man, Fanny?'\n\n'Like him? He is almost an idiot.'\n\n'I am so sorry--don't be hurt--but, since you ask me what I have to\nsay, I am so very sorry, Fanny, that you suffered this lady to give you\nanything.'\n\n'You little Fool!' returned her sister, shaking her with the sharp pull\nshe gave her arm. 'Have you no spirit at all? But that's just the way!\nYou have no self-respect, you have no becoming pride, just as you allow\nyourself to be followed about by a contemptible little Chivery of a\nthing,' with the scornfullest emphasis, 'you would let your family be\ntrodden on, and never turn.'\n\n'Don't say that, dear Fanny. I do what I can for them.'\n\n'You do what you can for them!' repeated Fanny, walking her on very\nfast. 'Would you let a woman like this, whom you could see, if you had\nany experience of anything, to be as false and insolent as a woman can\nbe--would you let her put her foot upon your family, and thank her for\nit?'\n\n'No, Fanny, I am sure.'\n\n'Then make her pay for it, you mean little thing. What else can you make\nher do? Make her pay for it, you stupid child; and do your family some\ncredit with the money!'\n\nThey spoke no more all the way back to the lodging where Fanny and her\nuncle lived. When they arrived there, they found the old man practising\nhis clarionet in the dolefullest manner in a corner of the room.\nFanny had a composite meal to make, of chops, and porter, and tea; and\nindignantly pretended to prepare it for herself, though her sister did\nall that in quiet reality. When at last Fanny sat down to eat and drink,\nshe threw the table implements about and was angry with her bread, much\nas her father had been last night.\n\n'If you despise me,' she said, bursting into vehement tears, 'because I\nam a dancer, why did you put me in the way of being one? It was your\ndoing. You would have me stoop as low as the ground before this Mrs\nMerdle, and let her say what she liked and do what she liked, and hold\nus all in contempt, and tell me so to my face. Because I am a dancer!'\n\n'O Fanny!'\n\n'And Tip, too, poor fellow. She is to disparage him just as much as she\nlikes, without any check--I suppose because he has been in the law, and\nthe docks, and different things. Why, it was your doing, Amy. You might\nat least approve of his being defended.'\n\nAll this time the uncle was dolefully blowing his clarionet in the\ncorner, sometimes taking it an inch or so from his mouth for a moment\nwhile he stopped to gaze at them, with a vague impression that somebody\nhad said something.\n\n'And your father, your poor father, Amy. Because he is not free to show\nhimself and to speak for himself, you would let such people insult him\nwith impunity. If you don't feel for yourself because you go out to\nwork, you might at least feel for him, I should think, knowing what he\nhas undergone so long.'\n\nPoor Little Dorrit felt the injustice of this taunt rather sharply.\nThe remembrance of last night added a barbed point to it. She said\nnothing in reply, but turned her chair from the table towards the fire.\nUncle, after making one more pause, blew a dismal wail and went on\nagain.\n\nFanny was passionate with the tea-cups and the bread as long as her\npassion lasted, and then protested that she was the wretchedest girl in\nthe world, and she wished she was dead. After that, her crying became\nremorseful, and she got up and put her arms round her sister. Little\nDorrit tried to stop her from saying anything, but she answered that\nshe would, she must! Thereupon she said again, and again, 'I beg your\npardon, Amy,' and 'Forgive me, Amy,' almost as passionately as she had\nsaid what she regretted.\n\n'But indeed, indeed, Amy,' she resumed when they were seated in sisterly\naccord side by side, 'I hope and I think you would have seen this\ndifferently, if you had known a little more of Society.'\n\n'Perhaps I might, Fanny,' said the mild Little Dorrit.\n\n'You see, while you have been domestic and resignedly shut up there,\nAmy,' pursued her sister, gradually beginning to patronise, 'I have\nbeen out, moving more in Society, and may have been getting proud and\nspirited--more than I ought to be, perhaps?'\n\nLittle Dorrit answered 'Yes. O yes!'\n\n'And while you have been thinking of the dinner or the clothes, I may\nhave been thinking, you know, of the family. Now, may it not be so,\nAmy?'\n\nLittle Dorrit again nodded 'Yes,' with a more cheerful face than heart.\n\n'Especially as we know,' said Fanny, 'that there certainly is a tone in\nthe place to which you have been so true, which does belong to it, and\nwhich does make it different from other aspects of Society. So kiss me\nonce again, Amy dear, and we will agree that we may both be right, and\nthat you are a tranquil, domestic, home-loving, good girl.'\n\nThe clarionet had been lamenting most pathetically during this dialogue,\nbut was cut short now by Fanny's announcement that it was time to go;\nwhich she conveyed to her uncle by shutting up his scrap of music, and\ntaking the clarionet out of his mouth.\n\nLittle Dorrit parted from them at the door, and hastened back to the\nMarshalsea. It fell dark there sooner than elsewhere, and going into it\nthat evening was like going into a deep trench. The shadow of the wall\nwas on every object. Not least upon the figure in the old grey gown and\nthe black velvet cap, as it turned towards her when she opened the door\nof the dim room.\n\n'Why not upon me too!' thought Little Dorrit, with the door yet in her\nhand. 'It was not unreasonable in Fanny.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 21. Mr Merdle's Complaint\n\n\nUpon that establishment of state, the Merdle establishment in Harley\nStreet, Cavendish Square, there was the shadow of no more common wall\nthan the fronts of other establishments of state on the opposite side of\nthe street. Like unexceptionable Society, the opposing rows of houses in\nHarley Street were very grim with one another. Indeed, the mansions and\ntheir inhabitants were so much alike in that respect, that the people\nwere often to be found drawn up on opposite sides of dinner-tables, in\nthe shade of their own loftiness, staring at the other side of the way\nwith the dullness of the houses.\n\nEverybody knows how like the street the two dinner-rows of people who\ntake their stand by the street will be. The expressionless uniform\ntwenty houses, all to be knocked at and rung at in the same form, all\napproachable by the same dull steps, all fended off by the same pattern\nof railing, all with the same impracticable fire-escapes, the same\ninconvenient fixtures in their heads, and everything without exception\nto be taken at a high valuation--who has not dined with these? The\nhouse so drearily out of repair, the occasional bow-window, the stuccoed\nhouse, the newly-fronted house, the corner house with nothing but\nangular rooms, the house with the blinds always down, the house with the\nhatchment always up, the house where the collector has called for one\nquarter of an Idea, and found nobody at home--who has not dined with\nthese? The house that nobody will take, and is to be had a bargain--who\ndoes not know her? The showy house that was taken for life by the\ndisappointed gentleman, and which does not suit him at all--who is\nunacquainted with that haunted habitation?\n\nHarley Street, Cavendish Square, was more than aware of Mr and Mrs\nMerdle. Intruders there were in Harley Street, of whom it was not aware;\nbut Mr and Mrs Merdle it delighted to honour. Society was aware of\nMr and Mrs Merdle. Society had said 'Let us license them; let us know\nthem.'\n\nMr Merdle was immensely rich; a man of prodigious enterprise; a\nMidas without the ears, who turned all he touched to gold. He was in\neverything good, from banking to building. He was in Parliament, of\ncourse. He was in the City, necessarily. He was Chairman of this,\nTrustee of that, President of the other. The weightiest of men had said\nto projectors, 'Now, what name have you got? Have you got Merdle?' And,\nthe reply being in the negative, had said, 'Then I won't look at you.'\n\nThis great and fortunate man had provided that extensive bosom which\nrequired so much room to be unfeeling enough in, with a nest of crimson\nand gold some fifteen years before. It was not a bosom to repose\nupon, but it was a capital bosom to hang jewels upon. Mr Merdle wanted\nsomething to hang jewels upon, and he bought it for the purpose. Storr\nand Mortimer might have married on the same speculation.\n\nLike all his other speculations, it was sound and successful. The jewels\nshowed to the richest advantage. The bosom moving in Society with\nthe jewels displayed upon it, attracted general admiration. Society\napproving, Mr Merdle was satisfied. He was the most disinterested of\nmen,--did everything for Society, and got as little for himself out of\nall his gain and care, as a man might.\n\nThat is to say, it may be supposed that he got all he wanted, otherwise\nwith unlimited wealth he would have got it. But his desire was to the\nutmost to satisfy Society (whatever that was), and take up all its\ndrafts upon him for tribute. He did not shine in company; he had not\nvery much to say for himself; he was a reserved man, with a broad,\noverhanging, watchful head, that particular kind of dull red colour\nin his cheeks which is rather stale than fresh, and a somewhat uneasy\nexpression about his coat-cuffs, as if they were in his confidence, and\nhad reasons for being anxious to hide his hands. In the little he said,\nhe was a pleasant man enough; plain, emphatic about public and private\nconfidence, and tenacious of the utmost deference being shown by every\none, in all things, to Society. In this same Society (if that were it\nwhich came to his dinners, and to Mrs Merdle's receptions and concerts),\nhe hardly seemed to enjoy himself much, and was mostly to be found\nagainst walls and behind doors. Also when he went out to it, instead of\nits coming home to him, he seemed a little fatigued, and upon the\nwhole rather more disposed for bed; but he was always cultivating it\nnevertheless, and always moving in it--and always laying out money on it\nwith the greatest liberality.\n\nMrs Merdle's first husband had been a colonel, under whose auspices the\nbosom had entered into competition with the snows of North America, and\nhad come off at little disadvantage in point of whiteness, and at none\nin point of coldness. The colonel's son was Mrs Merdle's only child. He\nwas of a chuckle-headed, high-shouldered make, with a general appearance\nof being, not so much a young man as a swelled boy. He had given so few\nsigns of reason, that a by-word went among his companions that his brain\nhad been frozen up in a mighty frost which prevailed at St John's, New\nBrunswick, at the period of his birth there, and had never thawed from\nthat hour. Another by-word represented him as having in his infancy,\nthrough the negligence of a nurse, fallen out of a high window on his\nhead, which had been heard by responsible witnesses to crack. It is\nprobable that both these representations were of ex post facto\norigin; the young gentleman (whose expressive name was Sparkler) being\nmonomaniacal in offering marriage to all manner of undesirable young\nladies, and in remarking of every successive young lady to whom he\ntendered a matrimonial proposal that she was 'a doosed fine gal--well\neducated too--with no biggodd nonsense about her.'\n\nA son-in-law with these limited talents, might have been a clog upon\nanother man; but Mr Merdle did not want a son-in-law for himself; he\nwanted a son-in-law for Society. Mr Sparkler having been in the Guards,\nand being in the habit of frequenting all the races, and all the\nlounges, and all the parties, and being well known, Society was\nsatisfied with its son-in-law. This happy result Mr Merdle would have\nconsidered well attained, though Mr Sparkler had been a more expensive\narticle. And he did not get Mr Sparkler by any means cheap for\nSociety, even as it was.\n\nThere was a dinner giving in the Harley Street establishment, while\nLittle Dorrit was stitching at her father's new shirts by his side that\nnight; and there were magnates from the Court and magnates from the\nCity, magnates from the Commons and magnates from the Lords, magnates\nfrom the bench and magnates from the bar, Bishop magnates, Treasury\nmagnates, Horse Guard magnates, Admiralty magnates,--all the magnates\nthat keep us going, and sometimes trip us up.\n\n'I am told,' said Bishop magnate to Horse Guards, 'that Mr Merdle has\nmade another enormous hit. They say a hundred thousand pounds.'\n\nHorse Guards had heard two.\n\nTreasury had heard three.\n\nBar, handling his persuasive double eye-glass, was by no means clear but\nthat it might be four. It was one of those happy strokes of calculation\nand combination, the result of which it was difficult to estimate. It\nwas one of those instances of a comprehensive grasp, associated with\nhabitual luck and characteristic boldness, of which an age presented us\nbut few. But here was Brother Bellows, who had been in the great Bank\ncase, and who could probably tell us more. What did Brother Bellows put\nthis new success at?\n\nBrother Bellows was on his way to make his bow to the bosom, and could\nonly tell them in passing that he had heard it stated, with great\nappearance of truth, as being worth, from first to last, half-a-million\nof money.\n\nAdmiralty said Mr Merdle was a wonderful man, Treasury said he was a\nnew power in the country, and would be able to buy up the whole House of\nCommons. Bishop said he was glad to think that this wealth flowed into\nthe coffers of a gentleman who was always disposed to maintain the best\ninterests of Society.\n\nMr Merdle himself was usually late on these occasions, as a man still\ndetained in the clutch of giant enterprises when other men had shaken\noff their dwarfs for the day. On this occasion, he was the last arrival.\nTreasury said Merdle's work punished him a little. Bishop said he was\nglad to think that this wealth flowed into the coffers of a gentleman\nwho accepted it with meekness.\n\nPowder! There was so much Powder in waiting, that it flavoured the\ndinner. Pulverous particles got into the dishes, and Society's meats had\na seasoning of first-rate footmen. Mr Merdle took down a countess who\nwas secluded somewhere in the core of an immense dress, to which she\nwas in the proportion of the heart to the overgrown cabbage. If so low a\nsimile may be admitted, the dress went down the staircase like a richly\nbrocaded Jack in the Green, and nobody knew what sort of small person\ncarried it.\n\nSociety had everything it could want, and could not want, for dinner.\nIt had everything to look at, and everything to eat, and everything to\ndrink. It is to be hoped it enjoyed itself; for Mr Merdle's own share of\nthe repast might have been paid for with eighteenpence. Mrs Merdle was\nmagnificent. The chief butler was the next magnificent institution of\nthe day. He was the stateliest man in the company. He did nothing, but\nhe looked on as few other men could have done. He was Mr Merdle's\nlast gift to Society. Mr Merdle didn't want him, and was put out of\ncountenance when the great creature looked at him; but inappeasable\nSociety would have him--and had got him.\n\nThe invisible countess carried out the Green at the usual stage of\nthe entertainment, and the file of beauty was closed up by the bosom.\nTreasury said, Juno. Bishop said, Judith.\n\nBar fell into discussion with Horse Guards concerning courts-martial.\nBrothers Bellows and Bench struck in. Other magnates paired off. Mr\nMerdle sat silent, and looked at the table-cloth. Sometimes a magnate\naddressed him, to turn the stream of his own particular discussion\ntowards him; but Mr Merdle seldom gave much attention to it, or did more\nthan rouse himself from his calculations and pass the wine.\n\nWhen they rose, so many of the magnates had something to say to Mr\nMerdle individually that he held little levees by the sideboard, and\nchecked them off as they went out at the door.\n\nTreasury hoped he might venture to congratulate one of England's\nworld-famed capitalists and merchant-princes (he had turned that\noriginal sentiment in the house a few times, and it came easy to him) on\na new achievement. To extend the triumphs of such men was to extend\nthe triumphs and resources of the nation; and Treasury felt--he gave Mr\nMerdle to understand--patriotic on the subject.\n\n'Thank you, my lord,' said Mr Merdle; 'thank you. I accept your\ncongratulations with pride, and I am glad you approve.'\n\n'Why, I don't unreservedly approve, my dear Mr Merdle. Because,'\nsmiling Treasury turned him by the arm towards the sideboard and spoke\nbanteringly, 'it never can be worth your while to come among us and help\nus.'\n\nMr Merdle felt honoured by the--\n\n'No, no,' said Treasury, 'that is not the light in which one so\ndistinguished for practical knowledge and great foresight, can be\nexpected to regard it. If we should ever be happily enabled, by\naccidentally possessing the control over circumstances, to propose\nto one so eminent to--to come among us, and give us the weight of his\ninfluence, knowledge, and character, we could only propose it to him as\na duty. In fact, as a duty that he owed to Society.'\n\nMr Merdle intimated that Society was the apple of his eye, and that its\nclaims were paramount to every other consideration. Treasury moved\non, and Bar came up.\n\nBar, with his little insinuating jury droop, and fingering his\npersuasive double eye-glass, hoped he might be excused if he mentioned\nto one of the greatest converters of the root of all evil into the root\nof all good, who had for a long time reflected a shining lustre on the\nannals even of our commercial country--if he mentioned, disinterestedly,\nand as, what we lawyers called in our pedantic way, amicus curiae, a\nfact that had come by accident within his knowledge. He had been\nrequired to look over the title of a very considerable estate in one of\nthe eastern counties--lying, in fact, for Mr Merdle knew we lawyers\nloved to be particular, on the borders of two of the eastern counties.\nNow, the title was perfectly sound, and the estate was to be purchased\nby one who had the command of--Money (jury droop and persuasive\neye-glass), on remarkably advantageous terms. This had come to Bar's\nknowledge only that day, and it had occurred to him, 'I shall have the\nhonour of dining with my esteemed friend Mr Merdle this evening, and,\nstrictly between ourselves, I will mention the opportunity.' Such a\npurchase would involve not only a great legitimate political influence,\nbut some half-dozen church presentations of considerable annual value.\nNow, that Mr Merdle was already at no loss to discover means of\noccupying even his capital, and of fully employing even his active and\nvigorous intellect, Bar well knew: but he would venture to suggest that\nthe question arose in his mind, whether one who had deservedly gained so\nhigh a position and so European a reputation did not owe it--we would\nnot say to himself, but we would say to Society, to possess himself of\nsuch influences as these; and to exercise them--we would not say for his\nown, or for his party's, but we would say for Society's--benefit.\n\nMr Merdle again expressed himself as wholly devoted to that object of\nhis constant consideration, and Bar took his persuasive eye-glass up the\ngrand staircase. Bishop then came undesignedly sidling in the direction\nof the sideboard.\n\nSurely the goods of this world, it occurred in an accidental way to\nBishop to remark, could scarcely be directed into happier channels than\nwhen they accumulated under the magic touch of the wise and sagacious,\nwho, while they knew the just value of riches (Bishop tried here to\nlook as if he were rather poor himself), were aware of their importance,\njudiciously governed and rightly distributed, to the welfare of our\nbrethren at large.\n\nMr Merdle with humility expressed his conviction that Bishop couldn't\nmean him, and with inconsistency expressed his high gratification in\nBishop's good opinion.\n\nBishop then--jauntily stepping out a little with his well-shaped right\nleg, as though he said to Mr Merdle 'don't mind the apron; a mere form!'\nput this case to his good friend:\n\nWhether it had occurred to his good friend, that Society might not\nunreasonably hope that one so blest in his undertakings, and whose\nexample on his pedestal was so influential with it, would shed a little\nmoney in the direction of a mission or so to Africa?\n\nMr Merdle signifying that the idea should have his best attention,\nBishop put another case:\n\nWhether his good friend had at all interested himself in the proceedings\nof our Combined Additional Endowed Dignitaries Committee, and whether it\nhad occurred to him that to shed a little money in _that_ direction might\nbe a great conception finely executed?\n\nMr Merdle made a similar reply, and Bishop explained his reason for\ninquiring.\n\nSociety looked to such men as his good friend to do such things. It was\nnot that _he_ looked to them, but that Society looked to them.\nJust as it was not Our Committee who wanted the Additional Endowed\nDignitaries, but it was Society that was in a state of the most\nagonising uneasiness of mind until it got them. He begged to assure his\ngood friend that he was extremely sensible of his good friend's regard\non all occasions for the best interests of Society; and he considered\nthat he was at once consulting those interests and expressing the\nfeeling of Society, when he wished him continued prosperity, continued\nincrease of riches, and continued things in general.\n\nBishop then betook himself up-stairs, and the other magnates gradually\nfloated up after him until there was no one left below but Mr Merdle.\nThat gentleman, after looking at the table-cloth until the soul of the\nchief butler glowed with a noble resentment, went slowly up after the\nrest, and became of no account in the stream of people on the grand\nstaircase. Mrs Merdle was at home, the best of the jewels were hung out\nto be seen, Society got what it came for, Mr Merdle drank twopennyworth\nof tea in a corner and got more than he wanted.\n\nAmong the evening magnates was a famous physician, who knew everybody,\nand whom everybody knew. On entering at the door, he came upon Mr Merdle\ndrinking his tea in a corner, and touched him on the arm.\n\nMr Merdle started. 'Oh! It's you!'\n\n'Any better to-day?'\n\n'No,' said Mr Merdle, 'I am no better.'\n\n'A pity I didn't see you this morning. Pray come to me to-morrow, or let\nme come to you.'\n\n'Well!' he replied. 'I will come to-morrow as I drive by.'\n\nBar and Bishop had both been bystanders during this short dialogue, and\nas Mr Merdle was swept away by the crowd, they made their remarks upon\nit to the Physician. Bar said, there was a certain point of mental\nstrain beyond which no man could go; that the point varied with various\ntextures of brain and peculiarities of constitution, as he had had\noccasion to notice in several of his learned brothers; but the point of\nendurance passed by a line's breadth, depression and dyspepsia ensued.\nNot to intrude on the sacred mysteries of medicine, he took it, now\n(with the jury droop and persuasive eye-glass), that this was Merdle's\ncase? Bishop said that when he was a young man, and had fallen for a\nbrief space into the habit of writing sermons on Saturdays, a habit\nwhich all young sons of the church should sedulously avoid, he had\nfrequently been sensible of a depression, arising as he supposed from an\nover-taxed intellect, upon which the yolk of a new-laid egg, beaten up\nby the good woman in whose house he at that time lodged, with a glass\nof sound sherry, nutmeg, and powdered sugar acted like a charm. Without\npresuming to offer so simple a remedy to the consideration of so\nprofound a professor of the great healing art, he would venture to\ninquire whether the strain, being by way of intricate calculations,\nthe spirits might not (humanly speaking) be restored to their tone by a\ngentle and yet generous stimulant?\n\n'Yes,' said the physician, 'yes, you are both right. But I may as well\ntell you that I can find nothing the matter with Mr Merdle. He has\nthe constitution of a rhinoceros, the digestion of an ostrich, and\nthe concentration of an oyster. As to nerves, Mr Merdle is of a cool\ntemperament, and not a sensitive man: is about as invulnerable, I should\nsay, as Achilles. How such a man should suppose himself unwell without\nreason, you may think strange. But I have found nothing the matter with\nhim. He may have some deep-seated recondite complaint. I can't say. I\nonly say, that at present I have not found it out.'\n\nThere was no shadow of Mr Merdle's complaint on the bosom now displaying\nprecious stones in rivalry with many similar superb jewel-stands; there\nwas no shadow of Mr Merdle's complaint on young Sparkler hovering about\nthe rooms, monomaniacally seeking any sufficiently ineligible young lady\nwith no nonsense about her; there was no shadow of Mr Merdle's complaint\non the Barnacles and Stiltstalkings, of whom whole colonies were\npresent; or on any of the company. Even on himself, its shadow was faint\nenough as he moved about among the throng, receiving homage.\n\nMr Merdle's complaint. Society and he had so much to do with one another\nin all things else, that it is hard to imagine his complaint, if he\nhad one, being solely his own affair. Had he that deep-seated recondite\ncomplaint, and did any doctor find it out? Patience, in the meantime,\nthe shadow of the Marshalsea wall was a real darkening influence, and\ncould be seen on the Dorrit Family at any stage of the sun's course.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 22. A Puzzle\n\n\nMr Clennam did not increase in favour with the Father of the Marshalsea\nin the ratio of his increasing visits. His obtuseness on the great\nTestimonial question was not calculated to awaken admiration in the\npaternal breast, but had rather a tendency to give offence in that\nsensitive quarter, and to be regarded as a positive shortcoming in point\nof gentlemanly feeling. An impression of disappointment, occasioned\nby the discovery that Mr Clennam scarcely possessed that delicacy for\nwhich, in the confidence of his nature, he had been inclined to give\nhim credit, began to darken the fatherly mind in connection with that\ngentleman. The father went so far as to say, in his private family\ncircle, that he feared Mr Clennam was not a man of high instincts.\nHe was happy, he observed, in his public capacity as leader and\nrepresentative of the College, to receive Mr Clennam when he called to\npay his respects; but he didn't find that he got on with him personally.\nThere appeared to be something (he didn't know what it was) wanting in\nhim. Howbeit, the father did not fail in any outward show of politeness,\nbut, on the contrary, honoured him with much attention; perhaps\ncherishing the hope that, although not a man of a sufficiently\nbrilliant and spontaneous turn of mind to repeat his former testimonial\nunsolicited, it might still be within the compass of his nature to\nbear the part of a responsive gentleman, in any correspondence that way\ntending.\n\nIn the threefold capacity, of the gentleman from outside who had been\naccidentally locked in on the night of his first appearance, of the\ngentleman from outside who had inquired into the affairs of the Father\nof the Marshalsea with the stupendous idea of getting him out, and of\nthe gentleman from outside who took an interest in the child of the\nMarshalsea, Clennam soon became a visitor of mark. He was not surprised\nby the attentions he received from Mr Chivery when that officer was on\nthe lock, for he made little distinction between Mr Chivery's politeness\nand that of the other turnkeys. It was on one particular afternoon that\nMr Chivery surprised him all at once, and stood forth from his\ncompanions in bold relief.\n\nMr Chivery, by some artful exercise of his power of clearing the Lodge,\nhad contrived to rid it of all sauntering Collegians; so that Clennam,\ncoming out of the prison, should find him on duty alone.\n\n'(Private) I ask your pardon, sir,' said Mr Chivery in a secret manner;\n'but which way might you be going?'\n\n'I am going over the Bridge.' He saw in Mr Chivery, with some\nastonishment, quite an Allegory of Silence, as he stood with his key on\nhis lips.\n\n'(Private) I ask your pardon again,' said Mr Chivery, 'but could you go\nround by Horsemonger Lane? Could you by any means find time to look in\nat that address?' handing him a little card, printed for circulation\namong the connection of Chivery and Co., Tobacconists, Importers of pure\nHavannah Cigars, Bengal Cheroots, and fine-flavoured Cubas, Dealers in\nFancy Snuffs, &c. &c.\n\n'(Private) It an't tobacco business,' said Mr Chivery. 'The truth is,\nit's my wife. She's wishful to say a word to you, sir, upon a point\nrespecting--yes,' said Mr Chivery, answering Clennam's look of\napprehension with a nod, 'respecting _her_.'\n\n'I will make a point of seeing your wife directly.'\n\n'Thank you, sir. Much obliged. It an't above ten minutes out of your\nway. Please to ask for _Mrs_ Chivery!' These instructions, Mr Chivery, who\nhad already let him out, cautiously called through a little slide in the\nouter door, which he could draw back from within for the inspection of\nvisitors when it pleased him.\n\nArthur Clennam, with the card in his hand, betook himself to the address\nset forth upon it, and speedily arrived there. It was a very small\nestablishment, wherein a decent woman sat behind the counter working\nat her needle. Little jars of tobacco, little boxes of cigars, a\nlittle assortment of pipes, a little jar or two of snuff, and a little\ninstrument like a shoeing horn for serving it out, composed the retail\nstock in trade.\n\nArthur mentioned his name, and his having promised to call, on the\nsolicitation of Mr Chivery. About something relating to Miss Dorrit, he\nbelieved. Mrs Chivery at once laid aside her work, rose up from her seat\nbehind the counter, and deploringly shook her head.\n\n'You may see him now,' said she, 'if you'll condescend to take a peep.'\n\nWith these mysterious words, she preceded the visitor into a little\nparlour behind the shop, with a little window in it commanding a very\nlittle dull back-yard. In this yard a wash of sheets and table-cloths\ntried (in vain, for want of air) to get itself dried on a line or two;\nand among those flapping articles was sitting in a chair, like the\nlast mariner left alive on the deck of a damp ship without the power of\nfurling the sails, a little woe-begone young man.\n\n'Our John,' said Mrs Chivery.\n\nNot to be deficient in interest, Clennam asked what he might be doing\nthere?\n\n'It's the only change he takes,' said Mrs Chivery, shaking her head\nafresh. 'He won't go out, even in the back-yard, when there's no linen;\nbut when there's linen to keep the neighbours' eyes off, he'll sit\nthere, hours. Hours he will. Says he feels as if it was groves!' Mrs\nChivery shook her head again, put her apron in a motherly way to her\neyes, and reconducted her visitor into the regions of the business.\n\n'Please to take a seat, sir,' said Mrs Chivery. 'Miss Dorrit is the\nmatter with Our John, sir; he's a breaking his heart for her, and I\nwould wish to take the liberty to ask how it's to be made good to his\nparents when bust?'\n\nMrs Chivery, who was a comfortable-looking woman much respected about\nHorsemonger Lane for her feelings and her conversation, uttered this\nspeech with fell composure, and immediately afterwards began again to\nshake her head and dry her eyes.\n\n'Sir,' said she in continuation, 'you are acquainted with the family,\nand have interested yourself with the family, and are influential with\nthe family. If you can promote views calculated to make two young people\nhappy, let me, for Our John's sake, and for both their sakes, implore\nyou so to do!'\n\n'I have been so habituated,' returned Arthur, at a loss, 'during\nthe short time I have known her, to consider Little--I have been so\nhabituated to consider Miss Dorrit in a light altogether removed from\nthat in which you present her to me, that you quite take me by surprise.\nDoes she know your son?'\n\n'Brought up together, sir,' said Mrs Chivery. 'Played together.'\n\n'Does she know your son as her admirer?'\n\n'Oh! bless you, sir,' said Mrs Chivery, with a sort of triumphant\nshiver, 'she never could have seen him on a Sunday without knowing he\nwas that. His cane alone would have told it long ago, if nothing else\nhad. Young men like John don't take to ivory hands a pinting, for\nnothing. How did I first know it myself? Similarly.'\n\n'Perhaps Miss Dorrit may not be so ready as you, you see.'\n\n'Then she knows it, sir,' said Mrs Chivery, 'by word of mouth.'\n\n'Are you sure?'\n\n'Sir,' said Mrs Chivery, 'sure and certain as in this house I am. I see\nmy son go out with my own eyes when in this house I was, and I see my\nson come in with my own eyes when in this house I was, and I know he\ndone it!' Mrs Chivery derived a surprising force of emphasis from the\nforegoing circumstantiality and repetition.\n\n'May I ask you how he came to fall into the desponding state which\ncauses you so much uneasiness?'\n\n'That,' said Mrs Chivery, 'took place on that same day when to this\nhouse I see that John with these eyes return. Never been himself in this\nhouse since. Never was like what he has been since, not from the hour\nwhen to this house seven year ago me and his father, as tenants by the\nquarter, came!' An effect in the nature of an affidavit was gained from\nthis speech by Mrs Chivery's peculiar power of construction.\n\n'May I venture to inquire what is your version of the matter?'\n\n'You may,' said Mrs Chivery, 'and I will give it to you in honour and in\nword as true as in this shop I stand. Our John has every one's good word\nand every one's good wish. He played with her as a child when in that\nyard a child she played. He has known her ever since. He went out upon\nthe Sunday afternoon when in this very parlour he had dined, and met\nher, with appointment or without appointment; which, I do not pretend to\nsay. He made his offer to her. Her brother and sister is high in their\nviews, and against Our John. Her father is all for himself in his views\nand against sharing her with any one. Under which circumstances she\nhas answered Our John, \"No, John, I cannot have you, I cannot have\nany husband, it is not my intentions ever to become a wife, it is my\nintentions to be always a sacrifice, farewell, find another worthy of\nyou, and forget me!\" This is the way in which she is doomed to be a\nconstant slave to them that are not worthy that a constant slave she\nunto them should be. This is the way in which Our John has come to find\nno pleasure but in taking cold among the linen, and in showing in that\nyard, as in that yard I have myself shown you, a broken-down ruin that\ngoes home to his mother's heart!' Here the good woman pointed to the\nlittle window, whence her son might be seen sitting disconsolate in\nthe tuneless groves; and again shook her head and wiped her eyes, and\nbesought him, for the united sakes of both the young people, to exercise\nhis influence towards the bright reversal of these dismal events.\n\nShe was so confident in her exposition of the case, and it was so\nundeniably founded on correct premises in so far as the relative\npositions of Little Dorrit and her family were concerned, that Clennam\ncould not feel positive on the other side. He had come to attach to\nLittle Dorrit an interest so peculiar--an interest that removed her\nfrom, while it grew out of, the common and coarse things surrounding\nher--that he found it disappointing, disagreeable, almost painful, to\nsuppose her in love with young Mr Chivery in the back-yard, or any such\nperson. On the other hand, he reasoned with himself that she was just\nas good and just as true in love with him, as not in love with him;\nand that to make a kind of domesticated fairy of her, on the penalty\nof isolation at heart from the only people she knew, would be but a\nweakness of his own fancy, and not a kind one. Still, her youthful and\nethereal appearance, her timid manner, the charm of her sensitive voice\nand eyes, the very many respects in which she had interested him out\nof her own individuality, and the strong difference between herself and\nthose about her, were not in unison, and were determined not to be in\nunison, with this newly presented idea.\n\nHe told the worthy Mrs Chivery, after turning these things over in his\nmind--he did that, indeed, while she was yet speaking--that he might be\nrelied upon to do his utmost at all times to promote the happiness of\nMiss Dorrit, and to further the wishes of her heart if it were in his\npower to do so, and if he could discover what they were. At the same\ntime he cautioned her against assumptions and appearances; enjoined\nstrict silence and secrecy, lest Miss Dorrit should be made unhappy; and\nparticularly advised her to endeavour to win her son's confidence and so\nto make quite sure of the state of the case. Mrs Chivery considered the\nlatter precaution superfluous, but said she would try. She shook her\nhead as if she had not derived all the comfort she had fondly expected\nfrom this interview, but thanked him nevertheless for the trouble he had\nkindly taken. They then parted good friends, and Arthur walked away.\n\nThe crowd in the street jostling the crowd in his mind, and the two\ncrowds making a confusion, he avoided London Bridge, and turned off in\nthe quieter direction of the Iron Bridge. He had scarcely set foot upon\nit, when he saw Little Dorrit walking on before him. It was a pleasant\nday, with a light breeze blowing, and she seemed to have that minute\ncome there for air. He had left her in her father's room within an hour.\n\nIt was a timely chance, favourable to his wish of observing her face\nand manner when no one else was by. He quickened his pace; but before he\nreached her, she turned her head.\n\n'Have I startled you?' he asked.\n\n'I thought I knew the step,' she answered, hesitating.\n\n'And did you know it, Little Dorrit? You could hardly have expected\nmine.'\n\n'I did not expect any. But when I heard a step, I thought it--sounded\nlike yours.'\n\n'Are you going further?'\n\n'No, sir, I am only walking here for a little change.'\n\nThey walked together, and she recovered her confiding manner with him,\nand looked up in his face as she said, after glancing around:\n\n'It is so strange. Perhaps you can hardly understand it. I sometimes\nhave a sensation as if it was almost unfeeling to walk here.'\n\n'Unfeeling?'\n\n'To see the river, and so much sky, and so many objects, and such change\nand motion. Then to go back, you know, and find him in the same cramped\nplace.'\n\n'Ah yes! But going back, you must remember that you take with you the\nspirit and influence of such things to cheer him.'\n\n'Do I? I hope I may! I am afraid you fancy too much, sir, and make me\nout too powerful. If you were in prison, could I bring such comfort to\nyou?'\n\n'Yes, Little Dorrit, I am sure of it.'\n\nHe gathered from a tremor on her lip, and a passing shadow of great\nagitation on her face, that her mind was with her father. He remained\nsilent for a few moments, that she might regain her composure. The\nLittle Dorrit, trembling on his arm, was less in unison than ever with\nMrs Chivery's theory, and yet was not irreconcilable with a new fancy\nwhich sprung up within him, that there might be some one else in the\nhopeless--newer fancy still--in the hopeless unattainable distance.\n\nThey turned, and Clennam said, Here was Maggy coming! Little Dorrit\nlooked up, surprised, and they confronted Maggy, who brought herself\nat sight of them to a dead stop. She had been trotting along, so\npreoccupied and busy that she had not recognised them until they turned\nupon her. She was now in a moment so conscience-stricken that her very\nbasket partook of the change.\n\n'Maggy, you promised me to stop near father.'\n\n'So I would, Little Mother, only he wouldn't let me. If he takes and\nsends me out I must go. If he takes and says, \"Maggy, you hurry away and\nback with that letter, and you shall have a sixpence if the answer's a\ngood 'un,\" I must take it. Lor, Little Mother, what's a poor thing of\nten year old to do? And if Mr Tip--if he happens to be a coming in as\nI come out, and if he says \"Where are you going, Maggy?\" and if I says,\n\"I'm a going So and So,\" and if he says, \"I'll have a Try too,\" and if\nhe goes into the George and writes a letter and if he gives it me and\nsays, \"Take that one to the same place, and if the answer's a good 'un\nI'll give you a shilling,\" it ain't my fault, mother!'\n\nArthur read, in Little Dorrit's downcast eyes, to whom she foresaw that\nthe letters were addressed.\n\n'I'm a going So and So. There! That's where I am a going to,' said\nMaggy. 'I'm a going So and So. It ain't you, Little Mother, that's got\nanything to do with it--it's you, you know,' said Maggy, addressing\nArthur. 'You'd better come, So and So, and let me take and give 'em to\nyou.'\n\n'We will not be so particular as that, Maggy. Give them me here,' said\nClennam in a low voice.\n\n'Well, then, come across the road,' answered Maggy in a very loud\nwhisper. 'Little Mother wasn't to know nothing of it, and she would\nnever have known nothing of it if you had only gone So and So, instead\nof bothering and loitering about. It ain't my fault. I must do what I am\ntold. They ought to be ashamed of themselves for telling me.'\n\nClennam crossed to the other side, and hurriedly opened the letters.\nThat from the father mentioned that most unexpectedly finding himself in\nthe novel position of having been disappointed of a remittance from\nthe City on which he had confidently counted, he took up his pen, being\nrestrained by the unhappy circumstance of his incarceration during\nthree-and-twenty years (doubly underlined), from coming himself, as\nhe would otherwise certainly have done--took up his pen to entreat Mr\nClennam to advance him the sum of Three Pounds Ten Shillings upon his\nI.O.U., which he begged to enclose. That from the son set forth that\nMr Clennam would, he knew, be gratified to hear that he had at\nlength obtained permanent employment of a highly satisfactory nature,\naccompanied with every prospect of complete success in life; but that\nthe temporary inability of his employer to pay him his arrears of salary\nto that date (in which condition said employer had appealed to that\ngenerous forbearance in which he trusted he should never be wanting\ntowards a fellow-creature), combined with the fraudulent conduct of a\nfalse friend and the present high price of provisions, had reduced\nhim to the verge of ruin, unless he could by a quarter before six that\nevening raise the sum of eight pounds. This sum, Mr Clennam would be\nhappy to learn, he had, through the promptitude of several friends\nwho had a lively confidence in his probity, already raised, with the\nexception of a trifling balance of one pound seventeen and fourpence;\nthe loan of which balance, for the period of one month, would be fraught\nwith the usual beneficent consequences.\n\nThese letters Clennam answered with the aid of his pencil and\npocket-book, on the spot; sending the father what he asked for, and\nexcusing himself from compliance with the demand of the son. He then\ncommissioned Maggy to return with his replies, and gave her the\nshilling of which the failure of her supplemental enterprise would have\ndisappointed her otherwise.\n\nWhen he rejoined Little Dorrit, and they had begun walking as before,\nshe said all at once:\n\n'I think I had better go. I had better go home.'\n\n'Don't be distressed,' said Clennam, 'I have answered the letters. They\nwere nothing. You know what they were. They were nothing.'\n\n'But I am afraid,' she returned, 'to leave him, I am afraid to leave\nany of them. When I am gone, they pervert--but they don't mean it--even\nMaggy.'\n\n'It was a very innocent commission that she undertook, poor thing. And\nin keeping it secret from you, she supposed, no doubt, that she was only\nsaving you uneasiness.'\n\n'Yes, I hope so, I hope so. But I had better go home! It was but the\nother day that my sister told me I had become so used to the prison that\nI had its tone and character. It must be so. I am sure it must be when I\nsee these things. My place is there. I am better there, it is unfeeling\nin me to be here, when I can do the least thing there. Good-bye. I had\nfar better stay at home!'\n\nThe agonised way in which she poured this out, as if it burst of itself\nfrom her suppressed heart, made it difficult for Clennam to keep the\ntears from his eyes as he saw and heard her.\n\n'Don't call it home, my child!' he entreated. 'It is always painful to\nme to hear you call it home.'\n\n'But it is home! What else can I call home? Why should I ever forget it\nfor a single moment?'\n\n'You never do, dear Little Dorrit, in any good and true service.'\n\n'I hope not, O I hope not! But it is better for me to stay there; much\nbetter, much more dutiful, much happier. Please don't go with me, let me\ngo by myself. Good-bye, God bless you. Thank you, thank you.'\n\nHe felt that it was better to respect her entreaty, and did not move\nwhile her slight form went quickly away from him. When it had fluttered\nout of sight, he turned his face towards the water and stood thinking.\n\nShe would have been distressed at any time by this discovery of the\nletters; but so much so, and in that unrestrainable way?\n\nNo.\n\nWhen she had seen her father begging with his threadbare disguise on,\nwhen she had entreated him not to give her father money, she had\nbeen distressed, but not like this. Something had made her keenly and\nadditionally sensitive just now. Now, was there some one in the hopeless\nunattainable distance? Or had the suspicion been brought into his mind,\nby his own associations of the troubled river running beneath the bridge\nwith the same river higher up, its changeless tune upon the prow of the\nferry-boat, so many miles an hour the peaceful flowing of the stream,\nhere the rushes, there the lilies, nothing uncertain or unquiet?\n\nHe thought of his poor child, Little Dorrit, for a long time there; he\nthought of her going home; he thought of her in the night; he thought\nof her when the day came round again. And the poor child Little Dorrit\nthought of him--too faithfully, ah, too faithfully!--in the shadow of\nthe Marshalsea wall.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 23. Machinery in Motion\n\n\nMr Meagles bestirred himself with such prompt activity in the matter of\nthe negotiation with Daniel Doyce which Clennam had entrusted to him,\nthat he soon brought it into business train, and called on Clennam at\nnine o'clock one morning to make his report.\n\n'Doyce is highly gratified by your good opinion,' he opened the business\nby saying, 'and desires nothing so much as that you should examine the\naffairs of the Works for yourself, and entirely understand them. He has\nhanded me the keys of all his books and papers--here they are jingling\nin this pocket--and the only charge he has given me is \"Let Mr Clennam\nhave the means of putting himself on a perfect equality with me as to\nknowing whatever I know. If it should come to nothing after all, he\nwill respect my confidence. Unless I was sure of that to begin with, I\nshould have nothing to do with him.\" And there, you see,' said Mr\nMeagles, 'you have Daniel Doyce all over.'\n\n'A very honourable character.'\n\n'Oh, yes, to be sure. Not a doubt of it. Odd, but very honourable. Very\nodd though. Now, would you believe, Clennam,' said Mr Meagles, with\na hearty enjoyment of his friend's eccentricity, 'that I had a whole\nmorning in What's-his-name Yard--'\n\n'Bleeding Heart?'\n\n'A whole morning in Bleeding Heart Yard, before I could induce him to\npursue the subject at all?'\n\n'How was that?'\n\n'How was that, my friend? I no sooner mentioned your name in connection\nwith it than he declared off.'\n\n'Declared off on my account?'\n\n'I no sooner mentioned your name, Clennam, than he said, \"That will\nnever do!\" What did he mean by that? I asked him. No matter, Meagles;\nthat would never do. Why would it never do? You'll hardly believe it,\nClennam,' said Mr Meagles, laughing within himself, 'but it came out\nthat it would never do, because you and he, walking down to Twickenham\ntogether, had glided into a friendly conversation in the course of which\nhe had referred to his intention of taking a partner, supposing at the\ntime that you were as firmly and finally settled as St Paul's Cathedral.\n\"Whereas,\" says he, \"Mr Clennam might now believe, if I entertained his\nproposition, that I had a sinister and designing motive in what was open\nfree speech. Which I can't bear,\" says he, \"which I really am too proud\nto bear.\"'\n\n'I should as soon suspect--'\n\n'Of course you would,' interrupted Mr Meagles, 'and so I told him. But\nit took a morning to scale that wall; and I doubt if any other man\nthan myself (he likes me of old) could have got his leg over it. Well,\nClennam. This business-like obstacle surmounted, he then stipulated that\nbefore resuming with you I should look over the books and form my own\nopinion. I looked over the books, and formed my own opinion. \"Is it, on\nthe whole, for, or against?\" says he. \"For,\" says I. \"Then,\" says he,\n\"you may now, my good friend, give Mr Clennam the means of forming\nhis opinion. To enable him to do which, without bias and with perfect\nfreedom, I shall go out of town for a week.\" And he's gone,' said Mr\nMeagles; 'that's the rich conclusion of the thing.'\n\n'Leaving me,' said Clennam, 'with a high sense, I must say, of his\ncandour and his--'\n\n'Oddity,' Mr Meagles struck in. 'I should think so!'\n\nIt was not exactly the word on Clennam's lips, but he forbore to\ninterrupt his good-humoured friend.\n\n'And now,' added Mr Meagles, 'you can begin to look into matters as soon\nas you think proper. I have undertaken to explain where you may want\nexplanation, but to be strictly impartial, and to do nothing more.'\n\nThey began their perquisitions in Bleeding Heart Yard that same\nforenoon. Little peculiarities were easily to be detected by experienced\neyes in Mr Doyce's way of managing his affairs, but they almost always\ninvolved some ingenious simplification of a difficulty, and some plain\nroad to the desired end. That his papers were in arrear, and that he\nstood in need of assistance to develop the capacity of his business, was\nclear enough; but all the results of his undertakings during many years\nwere distinctly set forth, and were ascertainable with ease. Nothing had\nbeen done for the purposes of the pending investigation; everything was\nin its genuine working dress, and in a certain honest rugged order. The\ncalculations and entries, in his own hand, of which there were many,\nwere bluntly written, and with no very neat precision; but were always\nplain and directed straight to the purpose. It occurred to Arthur that\na far more elaborate and taking show of business--such as the records of\nthe Circumlocution Office made perhaps--might be far less serviceable,\nas being meant to be far less intelligible.\n\nThree or four days of steady application tendered him master of all the\nfacts it was essential to become acquainted with. Mr Meagles was at hand\nthe whole time, always ready to illuminate any dim place with the bright\nlittle safety-lamp belonging to the scales and scoop. Between them they\nagreed upon the sum it would be fair to offer for the purchase of a\nhalf-share in the business, and then Mr Meagles unsealed a paper in\nwhich Daniel Doyce had noted the amount at which he valued it; which was\neven something less. Thus, when Daniel came back, he found the affair as\ngood as concluded.\n\n'And I may now avow, Mr Clennam,' said he, with a cordial shake of the\nhand, 'that if I had looked high and low for a partner, I believe I\ncould not have found one more to my mind.'\n\n'I say the same,' said Clennam.\n\n'And I say of both of you,' added Mr Meagles, 'that you are well\nmatched. You keep him in check, Clennam, with your common sense, and you\nstick to the Works, Dan, with your--'\n\n'Uncommon sense?' suggested Daniel, with his quiet smile.\n\n'You may call it so, if you like--and each of you will be a right hand\nto the other. Here's my own right hand upon it, as a practical man, to\nboth of you.'\n\nThe purchase was completed within a month. It left Arthur in possession\nof private personal means not exceeding a few hundred pounds; but it\nopened to him an active and promising career. The three friends dined\ntogether on the auspicious occasion; the factory and the factory wives\nand children made holiday and dined too; even Bleeding Heart Yard\ndined and was full of meat. Two months had barely gone by in all, when\nBleeding Heart Yard had become so familiar with short-commons again,\nthat the treat was forgotten there; when nothing seemed new in the\npartnership but the paint of the inscription on the door-posts, DOYCE\nAND CLENNAM; when it appeared even to Clennam himself, that he had had\nthe affairs of the firm in his mind for years.\n\nThe little counting-house reserved for his own occupation, was a room of\nwood and glass at the end of a long low workshop, filled with benches,\nand vices, and tools, and straps, and wheels; which, when they were\nin gear with the steam-engine, went tearing round as though they had a\nsuicidal mission to grind the business to dust and tear the factory to\npieces. A communication of great trap-doors in the floor and roof with\nthe workshop above and the workshop below, made a shaft of light in\nthis perspective, which brought to Clennam's mind the child's old\npicture-book, where similar rays were the witnesses of Abel's\nmurder. The noises were sufficiently removed and shut out from the\ncounting-house to blend into a busy hum, interspersed with periodical\nclinks and thumps. The patient figures at work were swarthy with the\nfilings of iron and steel that danced on every bench and bubbled up\nthrough every chink in the planking. The workshop was arrived at by a\nstep-ladder from the outer yard below, where it served as a shelter for\nthe large grindstone where tools were sharpened. The whole had at once\na fanciful and practical air in Clennam's eyes, which was a welcome\nchange; and, as often as he raised them from his first work of getting\nthe array of business documents into perfect order, he glanced at these\nthings with a feeling of pleasure in his pursuit that was new to him.\n\nRaising his eyes thus one day, he was surprised to see a bonnet\nlabouring up the step-ladder. The unusual apparition was followed by\nanother bonnet. He then perceived that the first bonnet was on the head\nof Mr F.'s Aunt, and that the second bonnet was on the head of Flora,\nwho seemed to have propelled her legacy up the steep ascent with\nconsiderable difficulty.\n\nThough not altogether enraptured at the sight of these visitors, Clennam\nlost no time in opening the counting-house door, and extricating them\nfrom the workshop; a rescue which was rendered the more necessary by Mr\nF.'s Aunt already stumbling over some impediment, and menacing steam\npower as an Institution with a stony reticule she carried.\n\n'Good gracious, Arthur,--I should say Mr Clennam, far more proper--the\nclimb we have had to get up here and how ever to get down again without\na fire-escape and Mr F.'s Aunt slipping through the steps and bruised\nall over and you in the machinery and foundry way too only think, and\nnever told us!'\n\nThus, Flora, out of breath. Meanwhile, Mr F.'s Aunt rubbed her esteemed\ninsteps with her umbrella, and vindictively glared.\n\n'Most unkind never to have come back to see us since that day, though\nnaturally it was not to be expected that there should be any attraction\nat _our_ house and you were much more pleasantly engaged, that's pretty\ncertain, and is she fair or dark blue eyes or black I wonder, not that\nI expect that she should be anything but a perfect contrast to me in all\nparticulars for I am a disappointment as I very well know and you are\nquite right to be devoted no doubt though what I am saying Arthur never\nmind I hardly know myself Good gracious!'\n\nBy this time he had placed chairs for them in the counting-house. As\nFlora dropped into hers, she bestowed the old look upon him.\n\n'And to think of Doyce and Clennam, and who Doyce can be,' said Flora;\n'delightful man no doubt and married perhaps or perhaps a daughter, now\nhas he really? then one understands the partnership and sees it all,\ndon't tell me anything about it for I know I have no claim to ask the\nquestion the golden chain that once was forged being snapped and very\nproper.'\n\nFlora put her hand tenderly on his, and gave him another of the youthful\nglances.\n\n'Dear Arthur--force of habit, Mr Clennam every way more delicate and\nadapted to existing circumstances--I must beg to be excused for taking\nthe liberty of this intrusion but I thought I might so far presume upon\nold times for ever faded never more to bloom as to call with Mr F.'s\nAunt to congratulate and offer best wishes, A great deal superior to\nChina not to be denied and much nearer though higher up!'\n\n'I am very happy to see you,' said Clennam, 'and I thank you, Flora,\nvery much for your kind remembrance.'\n\n'More than I can say myself at any rate,' returned Flora, 'for I might\nhave been dead and buried twenty distinct times over and no doubt\nwhatever should have been before you had genuinely remembered Me or\nanything like it in spite of which one last remark I wish to make, one\nlast explanation I wish to offer--'\n\n'My dear Mrs Finching,' Arthur remonstrated in alarm.\n\n'Oh not that disagreeable name, say Flora!'\n\n'Flora, is it worth troubling yourself afresh to enter into\nexplanations? I assure you none are needed. I am satisfied--I am\nperfectly satisfied.'\n\nA diversion was occasioned here, by Mr F.'s Aunt making the following\ninexorable and awful statement:\n\n'There's mile-stones on the Dover road!'\n\nWith such mortal hostility towards the human race did she discharge this\nmissile, that Clennam was quite at a loss how to defend himself; the\nrather as he had been already perplexed in his mind by the honour of a\nvisit from this venerable lady, when it was plain she held him in the\nutmost abhorrence. He could not but look at her with disconcertment, as\nshe sat breathing bitterness and scorn, and staring leagues away. Flora,\nhowever, received the remark as if it had been of a most apposite and\nagreeable nature; approvingly observing aloud that Mr F.'s Aunt had a\ngreat deal of spirit. Stimulated either by this compliment, or by her\nburning indignation, that illustrious woman then added, 'Let him meet\nit if he can!' And, with a rigid movement of her stony reticule (an\nappendage of great size and of a fossil appearance), indicated that\nClennam was the unfortunate person at whom the challenge was hurled.\n\n'One last remark,' resumed Flora, 'I was going to say I wish to make one\nlast explanation I wish to offer, Mr F.'s Aunt and myself would not have\nintruded on business hours Mr F. having been in business and though the\nwine trade still business is equally business call it what you will and\nbusiness habits are just the same as witness Mr F. himself who had his\nslippers always on the mat at ten minutes before six in the afternoon\nand his boots inside the fender at ten minutes before eight in the\nmorning to the moment in all weathers light or dark--would not therefore\nhave intruded without a motive which being kindly meant it may be hoped\nwill be kindly taken Arthur, Mr Clennam far more proper, even Doyce and\nClennam probably more business-like.'\n\n'Pray say nothing in the way of apology,' Arthur entreated. 'You are\nalways welcome.'\n\n'Very polite of you to say so Arthur--cannot remember Mr Clennam until\nthe word is out, such is the habit of times for ever fled, and so true\nit is that oft in the stilly night ere slumber's chain has bound people,\nfond memory brings the light of other days around people--very polite\nbut more polite than true I am afraid, for to go into the machinery\nbusiness without so much as sending a line or a card to papa--I don't\nsay me though there was a time but that is past and stern reality has\nnow my gracious never mind--does not look like it you must confess.'\n\nEven Flora's commas seemed to have fled on this occasion; she was so\nmuch more disjointed and voluble than in the preceding interview.\n\n'Though indeed,' she hurried on, 'nothing else is to be expected and why\nshould it be expected and if it's not to be expected why should it be,\nand I am far from blaming you or any one, When your mama and my papa\nworried us to death and severed the golden bowl--I mean bond but I dare\nsay you know what I mean and if you don't you don't lose much and care\njust as little I will venture to add--when they severed the golden bond\nthat bound us and threw us into fits of crying on the sofa nearly choked\nat least myself everything was changed and in giving my hand to Mr F. I\nknow I did so with my eyes open but he was so very unsettled and in such\nlow spirits that he had distractedly alluded to the river if not oil of\nsomething from the chemist's and I did it for the best.'\n\n'My good Flora, we settled that before. It was all quite right.'\n\n'It's perfectly clear you think so,' returned Flora, 'for you take it\nvery coolly, if I hadn't known it to be China I should have guessed\nmyself the Polar regions, dear Mr Clennam you are right however and I\ncannot blame you but as to Doyce and Clennam papa's property being about\nhere we heard it from Pancks and but for him we never should have heard\none word about it I am satisfied.'\n\n'No, no, don't say that.'\n\n'What nonsense not to say it Arthur--Doyce and Clennam--easier and less\ntrying to me than Mr Clennam--when I know it and you know it too and\ncan't deny it.'\n\n'But I do deny it, Flora. I should soon have made you a friendly visit.'\n\n'Ah!' said Flora, tossing her head. 'I dare say!' and she gave him\nanother of the old looks. 'However when Pancks told us I made up my mind\nthat Mr F.'s Aunt and I would come and call because when papa--which was\nbefore that--happened to mention her name to me and to say that you were\ninterested in her I said at the moment Good gracious why not have her\nhere then when there's anything to do instead of putting it out.'\n\n'When you say Her,' observed Clennam, by this time pretty well\nbewildered, 'do you mean Mr F.'s--'\n\n'My goodness, Arthur--Doyce and Clennam really easier to me with old\nremembrances--who ever heard of Mr F.'s Aunt doing needlework and going\nout by the day?'\n\n'Going out by the day! Do you speak of Little Dorrit?'\n\n'Why yes of course,' returned Flora; 'and of all the strangest names I\never heard the strangest, like a place down in the country with a\nturnpike, or a favourite pony or a puppy or a bird or something from a\nseed-shop to be put in a garden or a flower-pot and come up speckled.'\n\n'Then, Flora,' said Arthur, with a sudden interest in the conversation,\n'Mr Casby was so kind as to mention Little Dorrit to you, was he? What\ndid he say?'\n\n'Oh you know what papa is,' rejoined Flora, 'and how aggravatingly he\nsits looking beautiful and turning his thumbs over and over one another\ntill he makes one giddy if one keeps one's eyes upon him, he said when\nwe were talking of you--I don't know who began the subject Arthur (Doyce\nand Clennam) but I am sure it wasn't me, at least I hope not but you\nreally must excuse my confessing more on that point.'\n\n'Certainly,' said Arthur. 'By all means.'\n\n'You are very ready,' pouted Flora, coming to a sudden stop in a\ncaptivating bashfulness, 'that I must admit, Papa said you had spoken of\nher in an earnest way and I said what I have told you and that's all.'\n\n'That's all?' said Arthur, a little disappointed.\n\n'Except that when Pancks told us of your having embarked in this\nbusiness and with difficulty persuaded us that it was really you I said\nto Mr F.'s Aunt then we would come and ask you if it would be agreeable\nto all parties that she should be engaged at our house when required\nfor I know she often goes to your mama's and I know that your mama has\na very touchy temper Arthur--Doyce and Clennam--or I never might have\nmarried Mr F. and might have been at this hour but I am running into\nnonsense.'\n\n'It was very kind of you, Flora, to think of this.'\n\nPoor Flora rejoined with a plain sincerity which became her better than\nher youngest glances, that she was glad he thought so. She said it with\nso much heart that Clennam would have given a great deal to buy his\nold character of her on the spot, and throw it and the mermaid away for\never.\n\n'I think, Flora,' he said, 'that the employment you can give Little\nDorrit, and the kindness you can show her--'\n\n'Yes and I will,' said Flora, quickly.\n\n'I am sure of it--will be a great assistance and support to her. I do\nnot feel that I have the right to tell you what I know of her, for I\nacquired the knowledge confidentially, and under circumstances that\nbind me to silence. But I have an interest in the little creature, and\na respect for her that I cannot express to you. Her life has been one\nof such trial and devotion, and such quiet goodness, as you can scarcely\nimagine. I can hardly think of her, far less speak of her, without\nfeeling moved. Let that feeling represent what I could tell you, and\ncommit her to your friendliness with my thanks.'\n\nOnce more he put out his hand frankly to poor Flora; once more poor\nFlora couldn't accept it frankly, found it worth nothing openly, must\nmake the old intrigue and mystery of it. As much to her own enjoyment as\nto his dismay, she covered it with a corner of her shawl as she took it.\nThen, looking towards the glass front of the counting-house, and seeing\ntwo figures approaching, she cried with infinite relish, 'Papa! Hush,\nArthur, for Mercy's sake!' and tottered back to her chair with an\namazing imitation of being in danger of swooning, in the dread surprise\nand maidenly flutter of her spirits.\n\nThe Patriarch, meanwhile, came inanely beaming towards the\ncounting-house in the wake of Pancks. Pancks opened the door for him,\ntowed him in, and retired to his own moorings in a corner.\n\n'I heard from Flora,' said the Patriarch with his benevolent smile,\n'that she was coming to call, coming to call. And being out, I thought\nI'd come also, thought I'd come also.'\n\nThe benign wisdom he infused into this declaration (not of itself\nprofound), by means of his blue eyes, his shining head, and his long\nwhite hair, was most impressive. It seemed worth putting down among the\nnoblest sentiments enunciated by the best of men. Also, when he said to\nClennam, seating himself in the proffered chair, 'And you are in a new\nbusiness, Mr Clennam? I wish you well, sir, I wish you well!' he seemed\nto have done benevolent wonders.\n\n'Mrs Finching has been telling me, sir,' said Arthur, after making his\nacknowledgments; the relict of the late Mr F. meanwhile protesting, with\na gesture, against his use of that respectable name; 'that she hopes\noccasionally to employ the young needlewoman you recommended to my\nmother. For which I have been thanking her.'\n\nThe Patriarch turning his head in a lumbering way towards Pancks, that\nassistant put up the note-book in which he had been absorbed, and took\nhim in tow.\n\n'You didn't recommend her, you know,' said Pancks; 'how could you? You\nknew nothing about her, you didn't. The name was mentioned to you, and\nyou passed it on. That's what _you_ did.'\n\n'Well!' said Clennam. 'As she justifies any recommendation, it is much\nthe same thing.'\n\n'You are glad she turns out well,' said Pancks, 'but it wouldn't have\nbeen your fault if she had turned out ill. The credit's not yours as it\nis, and the blame wouldn't have been yours as it might have been. You\ngave no guarantee. You knew nothing about her.'\n\n'You are not acquainted, then,' said Arthur, hazarding a random question,\n'with any of her family?'\n\n'Acquainted with any of her family?' returned Pancks. 'How should you be\nacquainted with any of her family? You never heard of 'em. You can't\nbe acquainted with people you never heard of, can you? You should think\nnot!'\n\nAll this time the Patriarch sat serenely smiling; nodding or shaking his\nhead benevolently, as the case required.\n\n'As to being a reference,' said Pancks, 'you know, in a general way,\nwhat being a reference means. It's all your eye, that is! Look at your\ntenants down the Yard here. They'd all be references for one another,\nif you'd let 'em. What would be the good of letting 'em? It's no\nsatisfaction to be done by two men instead of one. One's enough. A\nperson who can't pay, gets another person who can't pay, to guarantee\nthat he can pay. Like a person with two wooden legs getting another\nperson with two wooden legs, to guarantee that he has got two natural\nlegs. It don't make either of them able to do a walking match. And four\nwooden legs are more troublesome to you than two, when you don't want\nany.' Mr Pancks concluded by blowing off that steam of his.\n\nA momentary silence that ensued was broken by Mr F.'s Aunt, who had been\nsitting upright in a cataleptic state since her last public remark. She\nnow underwent a violent twitch, calculated to produce a startling effect\non the nerves of the uninitiated, and with the deadliest animosity\nobserved:\n\n'You can't make a head and brains out of a brass knob with nothing in\nit. You couldn't do it when your Uncle George was living; much less when\nhe's dead.'\n\nMr Pancks was not slow to reply, with his usual calmness, 'Indeed,\nma'am! Bless my soul! I'm surprised to hear it.' Despite his presence of\nmind, however, the speech of Mr F.'s Aunt produced a depressing effect\non the little assembly; firstly, because it was impossible to disguise\nthat Clennam's unoffending head was the particular temple of reason\ndepreciated; and secondly, because nobody ever knew on these occasions\nwhose Uncle George was referred to, or what spectral presence might be\ninvoked under that appellation.\n\nTherefore Flora said, though still not without a certain boastfulness\nand triumph in her legacy, that Mr F.'s Aunt was 'very lively to-day,\nand she thought they had better go.' But Mr F.'s Aunt proved so lively\nas to take the suggestion in unexpected dudgeon and declare that she\nwould not go; adding, with several injurious expressions, that if\n'He'--too evidently meaning Clennam--wanted to get rid of her, 'let\nhim chuck her out of winder;' and urgently expressing her desire to see\n'Him' perform that ceremony.\n\nIn this dilemma, Mr Pancks, whose resources appeared equal to any\nemergency in the Patriarchal waters, slipped on his hat, slipped out at\nthe counting-house door, and slipped in again a moment afterwards with\nan artificial freshness upon him, as if he had been in the country for\nsome weeks. 'Why, bless my heart, ma'am!' said Mr Pancks, rubbing up his\nhair in great astonishment, 'is that you? How do you _do_, ma'am? You\nare looking charming to-day! I am delighted to see you. Favour me with\nyour arm, ma'am; we'll have a little walk together, you and me, if\nyou'll honour me with your company.' And so escorted Mr F.'s Aunt down\nthe private staircase of the counting-house with great gallantry and\nsuccess. The patriarchal Mr Casby then rose with the air of having done\nit himself, and blandly followed: leaving his daughter, as she followed\nin her turn, to remark to her former lover in a distracted whisper\n(which she very much enjoyed), that they had drained the cup of life to\nthe dregs; and further to hint mysteriously that the late Mr F. was at\nthe bottom of it.\n\nAlone again, Clennam became a prey to his old doubts in reference to his\nmother and Little Dorrit, and revolved the old thoughts and suspicions.\nThey were all in his mind, blending themselves with the duties he was\nmechanically discharging, when a shadow on his papers caused him to look\nup for the cause. The cause was Mr Pancks. With his hat thrown back upon\nhis ears as if his wiry prongs of hair had darted up like springs and\ncast it off, with his jet-black beads of eyes inquisitively sharp, with\nthe fingers of his right hand in his mouth that he might bite the nails,\nand with the fingers of his left hand in reserve in his pocket for\nanother course, Mr Pancks cast his shadow through the glass upon the\nbooks and papers.\n\nMr Pancks asked, with a little inquiring twist of his head, if he\nmight come in again? Clennam replied with a nod of his head in the\naffirmative. Mr Pancks worked his way in, came alongside the desk, made\nhimself fast by leaning his arms upon it, and started conversation with\na puff and a snort.\n\n'Mr F.'s Aunt is appeased, I hope?' said Clennam.\n\n'All right, sir,' said Pancks.\n\n'I am so unfortunate as to have awakened a strong animosity in the\nbreast of that lady,' said Clennam. 'Do you know why?'\n\n'Does _she_ know why?' said Pancks.\n\n'I suppose not.'\n\n'_I_ suppose not,' said Pancks.\n\nHe took out his note-book, opened it, shut it, dropped it into his hat,\nwhich was beside him on the desk, and looked in at it as it lay at the\nbottom of the hat: all with a great appearance of consideration.\n\n'Mr Clennam,' he then began, 'I am in want of information, sir.'\n\n'Connected with this firm?' asked Clennam.\n\n'No,' said Pancks.\n\n'With what then, Mr Pancks? That is to say, assuming that you want it of\nme.'\n\n'Yes, sir; yes, I want it of you,' said Pancks, 'if I can persuade you\nto furnish it. A, B, C, D. DA, DE, DI, DO. Dictionary order. Dorrit.\nThat's the name, sir?'\n\nMr Pancks blew off his peculiar noise again, and fell to at his\nright-hand nails. Arthur looked searchingly at him; he returned the\nlook.\n\n'I don't understand you, Mr Pancks.'\n\n'That's the name that I want to know about.'\n\n'And what do you want to know?'\n\n'Whatever you can and will tell me.' This comprehensive summary of his\ndesires was not discharged without some heavy labouring on the part of\nMr Pancks's machinery.\n\n'This is a singular visit, Mr Pancks. It strikes me as rather\nextraordinary that you should come, with such an object, to me.'\n\n'It may be all extraordinary together,' returned Pancks. 'It may be out\nof the ordinary course, and yet be business. In short, it is business. I\nam a man of business. What business have I in this present world, except\nto stick to business? No business.'\n\nWith his former doubt whether this dry hard personage were quite in\nearnest, Clennam again turned his eyes attentively upon his face. It\nwas as scrubby and dingy as ever, and as eager and quick as ever, and he\ncould see nothing lurking in it that was at all expressive of a latent\nmockery that had seemed to strike upon his ear in the voice.\n\n'Now,' said Pancks, 'to put this business on its own footing, it's not\nmy proprietor's.'\n\n'Do you refer to Mr Casby as your proprietor?'\n\nPancks nodded. 'My proprietor. Put a case. Say, at my proprietor's I\nhear name--name of young person Mr Clennam wants to serve. Say, name\nfirst mentioned to my proprietor by Plornish in the Yard. Say, I go to\nPlornish. Say, I ask Plornish as a matter of business for information.\nSay, Plornish, though six weeks in arrear to my proprietor, declines.\nSay, Mrs Plornish declines. Say, both refer to Mr Clennam. Put the\ncase.'\n\n'Well?'\n\n'Well, sir,' returned Pancks, 'say, I come to him. Say, here I am.'\n\nWith those prongs of hair sticking up all over his head, and his breath\ncoming and going very hard and short, the busy Pancks fell back a step\n(in Tug metaphor, took half a turn astern) as if to show his dingy hull\ncomplete, then forged a-head again, and directed his quick glance by\nturns into his hat where his note-book was, and into Clennam's face.\n\n'Mr Pancks, not to trespass on your grounds of mystery, I will be as\nplain with you as I can. Let me ask two questions. First--'\n\n'All right!' said Pancks, holding up his dirty forefinger with his\nbroken nail. 'I see! \"What's your motive?\"'\n\n'Exactly.'\n\n'Motive,' said Pancks, 'good. Nothing to do with my proprietor; not\nstateable at present, ridiculous to state at present; but good.\nDesiring to serve young person, name of Dorrit,' said Pancks, with his\nforefinger still up as a caution. 'Better admit motive to be good.'\n\n'Secondly, and lastly, what do you want to know?'\n\nMr Pancks fished up his note-book before the question was put, and\nbuttoning it with care in an inner breast-pocket, and looking straight\nat Clennam all the time, replied with a pause and a puff, 'I want\nsupplementary information of any sort.'\n\nClennam could not withhold a smile, as the panting little steam-tug, so\nuseful to that unwieldy ship, the Casby, waited on and watched him as if\nit were seeking an opportunity of running in and rifling him of all he\nwanted before he could resist its manoeuvres; though there was that in\nMr Pancks's eagerness, too, which awakened many wondering speculations\nin his mind. After a little consideration, he resolved to supply Mr\nPancks with such leading information as it was in his power to impart\nhim; well knowing that Mr Pancks, if he failed in his present research,\nwas pretty sure to find other means of getting it.\n\nHe, therefore, first requesting Mr Pancks to remember his voluntary\ndeclaration that his proprietor had no part in the disclosure, and that\nhis own intentions were good (two declarations which that coaly little\ngentleman with the greatest ardour repeated), openly told him that as to\nthe Dorrit lineage or former place of habitation, he had no information\nto communicate, and that his knowledge of the family did not extend\nbeyond the fact that it appeared to be now reduced to five members;\nnamely, to two brothers, of whom one was single, and one a widower with\nthree children. The ages of the whole family he made known to Mr Pancks,\nas nearly as he could guess at them; and finally he described to him\nthe position of the Father of the Marshalsea, and the course of time and\nevents through which he had become invested with that character. To\nall this, Mr Pancks, snorting and blowing in a more and more portentous\nmanner as he became more interested, listened with great attention;\nappearing to derive the most agreeable sensations from the painfullest\nparts of the narrative, and particularly to be quite charmed by the\naccount of William Dorrit's long imprisonment.\n\n'In conclusion, Mr Pancks,' said Arthur, 'I have but to say this. I have\nreasons beyond a personal regard for speaking as little as I can of the\nDorrit family, particularly at my mother's house' (Mr Pancks nodded),\n'and for knowing as much as I can. So devoted a man of business as you\nare--eh?'\n\nFor Mr Pancks had suddenly made that blowing effort with unusual force.\n\n'It's nothing,' said Pancks.\n\n'So devoted a man of business as yourself has a perfect understanding of\na fair bargain. I wish to make a fair bargain with you, that you shall\nenlighten me concerning the Dorrit family when you have it in your\npower, as I have enlightened you. It may not give you a very flattering\nidea of my business habits, that I failed to make my terms beforehand,'\ncontinued Clennam; 'but I prefer to make them a point of honour. I have\nseen so much business done on sharp principles that, to tell you the\ntruth, Mr Pancks, I am tired of them.'\n\nMr Pancks laughed. 'It's a bargain, sir,' said he. 'You shall find me\nstick to it.'\n\nAfter that, he stood a little while looking at Clennam, and biting his\nten nails all round; evidently while he fixed in his mind what he had\nbeen told, and went over it carefully, before the means of supplying a\ngap in his memory should be no longer at hand. 'It's all right,' he said\nat last, 'and now I'll wish you good day, as it's collecting day in the\nYard. By-the-bye, though. A lame foreigner with a stick.'\n\n'Ay, ay. You do take a reference sometimes, I see?' said Clennam.\n\n'When he can pay, sir,' replied Pancks. 'Take all you can get, and\nkeep back all you can't be forced to give up. That's business. The lame\nforeigner with the stick wants a top room down the Yard. Is he good for\nit?'\n\n'I am,' said Clennam, 'and I will answer for him.'\n\n'That's enough. What I must have of Bleeding Heart Yard,' said Pancks,\nmaking a note of the case in his book, 'is my bond. I want my bond, you\nsee. Pay up, or produce your property! That's the watchword down the\nYard. The lame foreigner with the stick represented that you sent him;\nbut he could represent (as far as that goes) that the Great Mogul sent\nhim. He has been in the hospital, I believe?'\n\n'Yes. Through having met with an accident. He is only just now\ndischarged.'\n\n'It's pauperising a man, sir, I have been shown, to let him into a\nhospital?' said Pancks. And again blew off that remarkable sound.\n\n'I have been shown so too,' said Clennam, coldly.\n\nMr Pancks, being by that time quite ready for a start, got under steam\nin a moment, and, without any other signal or ceremony, was snorting\ndown the step-ladder and working into Bleeding Heart Yard, before he\nseemed to be well out of the counting-house.\n\nThroughout the remainder of the day, Bleeding Heart Yard was in\nconsternation, as the grim Pancks cruised in it; haranguing the\ninhabitants on their backslidings in respect of payment, demanding his\nbond, breathing notices to quit and executions, running down defaulters,\nsending a swell of terror on before him, and leaving it in his wake.\nKnots of people, impelled by a fatal attraction, lurked outside any\nhouse in which he was known to be, listening for fragments of his\ndiscourses to the inmates; and, when he was rumoured to be coming down\nthe stairs, often could not disperse so quickly but that he would be\nprematurely in among them, demanding their own arrears, and rooting them\nto the spot. Throughout the remainder of the day, Mr Pancks's What were\nthey up to? and What did they mean by it? sounded all over the Yard. Mr\nPancks wouldn't hear of excuses, wouldn't hear of complaints, wouldn't\nhear of repairs, wouldn't hear of anything but unconditional money down.\nPerspiring and puffing and darting about in eccentric directions, and\nbecoming hotter and dingier every moment, he lashed the tide of the yard\ninto a most agitated and turbid state. It had not settled down into calm\nwater again full two hours after he had been seen fuming away on the\nhorizon at the top of the steps.\n\nThere were several small assemblages of the Bleeding Hearts at the\npopular points of meeting in the Yard that night, among whom it was\nuniversally agreed that Mr Pancks was a hard man to have to do with; and\nthat it was much to be regretted, so it was, that a gentleman like Mr\nCasby should put his rents in his hands, and never know him in his true\nlight. For (said the Bleeding Hearts), if a gentleman with that head of\nhair and them eyes took his rents into his own hands, ma'am, there\nwould be none of this worriting and wearing, and things would be very\ndifferent.\n\nAt which identical evening hour and minute, the Patriarch--who had\nfloated serenely through the Yard in the forenoon before the harrying\nbegan, with the express design of getting up this trustfulness in his\nshining bumps and silken locks--at which identical hour and minute,\nthat first-rate humbug of a thousand guns was heavily floundering in the\nlittle Dock of his exhausted Tug at home, and was saying, as he turned\nhis thumbs:\n\n'A very bad day's work, Pancks, very bad day's work. It seems to me,\nsir, and I must insist on making this observation forcibly in justice to\nmyself, that you ought to have got much more money, much more money.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 24. Fortune-Telling\n\n\nLittle Dorrit received a call that same evening from Mr Plornish, who,\nhaving intimated that he wished to speak to her privately, in a series\nof coughs so very noticeable as to favour the idea that her father, as\nregarded her seamstress occupation, was an illustration of the axiom\nthat there are no such stone-blind men as those who will not see,\nobtained an audience with her on the common staircase outside the door.\n\n'There's been a lady at our place to-day, Miss Dorrit,' Plornish\ngrowled, 'and another one along with her as is a old wixen if ever I met\nwith such. The way she snapped a person's head off, dear me!'\n\nThe mild Plornish was at first quite unable to get his mind away from Mr\nF.'s Aunt. 'For,' said he, to excuse himself, 'she is, I do assure you,\nthe winegariest party.'\n\nAt length, by a great effort, he detached himself from the subject\nsufficiently to observe:\n\n'But she's neither here nor there just at present. The other lady, she's\nMr Casby's daughter; and if Mr Casby an't well off, none better, it an't\nthrough any fault of Pancks. For, as to Pancks, he does, he really does,\nhe does indeed!'\n\nMr Plornish, after his usual manner, was a little obscure, but\nconscientiously emphatic.\n\n'And what she come to our place for,' he pursued, 'was to leave word\nthat if Miss Dorrit would step up to that card--which it's Mr Casby's\nhouse that is, and Pancks he has a office at the back, where he really\ndoes, beyond belief--she would be glad for to engage her. She was a old\nand a dear friend, she said particular, of Mr Clennam, and hoped for to\nprove herself a useful friend to _his_ friend. Them was her words. Wishing\nto know whether Miss Dorrit could come to-morrow morning, I said I would\nsee you, Miss, and inquire, and look round there to-night, to say yes,\nor, if you was engaged to-morrow, when?'\n\n'I can go to-morrow, thank you,' said Little Dorrit. 'This is very kind\nof you, but you are always kind.'\n\nMr Plornish, with a modest disavowal of his merits, opened the room door\nfor her readmission, and followed her in with such an exceedingly bald\npretence of not having been out at all, that her father might\nhave observed it without being very suspicious. In his affable\nunconsciousness, however, he took no heed. Plornish, after a little\nconversation, in which he blended his former duty as a Collegian with\nhis present privilege as a humble outside friend, qualified again by his\nlow estate as a plasterer, took his leave; making the tour of the prison\nbefore he left, and looking on at a game of skittles with the mixed\nfeelings of an old inhabitant who had his private reasons for believing\nthat it might be his destiny to come back again.\n\nEarly in the morning, Little Dorrit, leaving Maggy in high domestic\ntrust, set off for the Patriarchal tent. She went by the Iron Bridge,\nthough it cost her a penny, and walked more slowly in that part of her\njourney than in any other. At five minutes before eight her hand was on\nthe Patriarchal knocker, which was quite as high as she could reach.\n\nShe gave Mrs Finching's card to the young woman who opened the door, and\nthe young woman told her that 'Miss Flora'--Flora having, on her return\nto the parental roof, reinvested herself with the title under which she\nhad lived there--was not yet out of her bedroom, but she was to please\nto walk up into Miss Flora's sitting-room. She walked up into\nMiss Flora's sitting-room, as in duty bound, and there found a\nbreakfast-table comfortably laid for two, with a supplementary tray\nupon it laid for one. The young woman, disappearing for a few moments,\nreturned to say that she was to please to take a chair by the fire,\nand to take off her bonnet and make herself at home. But Little Dorrit,\nbeing bashful, and not used to make herself at home on such occasions,\nfelt at a loss how to do it; so she was still sitting near the door with\nher bonnet on, when Flora came in in a hurry half an hour afterwards.\n\nFlora was so sorry to have kept her waiting, and good gracious why did\nshe sit out there in the cold when she had expected to find her by the\nfire reading the paper, and hadn't that heedless girl given her the\nmessage then, and had she really been in her bonnet all this time, and\npray for goodness sake let Flora take it off! Flora taking it off in the\nbest-natured manner in the world, was so struck with the face disclosed,\nthat she said, 'Why, what a good little thing you are, my dear!' and\npressed her face between her hands like the gentlest of women.\n\nIt was the word and the action of a moment. Little Dorrit had hardly\ntime to think how kind it was, when Flora dashed at the breakfast-table\nfull of business, and plunged over head and ears into loquacity.\n\n'Really so sorry that I should happen to be late on this morning of all\nmornings because my intention and my wish was to be ready to meet you\nwhen you came in and to say that any one that interested Arthur Clennam\nhalf so much must interest me and that I gave you the heartiest welcome\nand was so glad, instead of which they never called me and there I\nstill am snoring I dare say if the truth was known and if you don't like\neither cold fowl or hot boiled ham which many people don't I dare say\nbesides Jews and theirs are scruples of conscience which we must all\nrespect though I must say I wish they had them equally strong when they\nsell us false articles for real that certainly ain't worth the money I\nshall be quite vexed,' said Flora.\n\nLittle Dorrit thanked her, and said, shyly, bread-and-butter and tea was\nall she usually--\n\n'Oh nonsense my dear child I can never hear of that,' said Flora,\nturning on the urn in the most reckless manner, and making herself wink\nby splashing hot water into her eyes as she bent down to look into the\nteapot. 'You are coming here on the footing of a friend and companion\nyou know if you will let me take that liberty and I should be ashamed\nof myself indeed if you could come here upon any other, besides which\nArthur Clennam spoke in such terms--you are tired my dear.'\n\n'No, ma'am.'\n\n'You turn so pale you have walked too far before breakfast and I dare\nsay live a great way off and ought to have had a ride,' said Flora,\n'dear dear is there anything that would do you good?'\n\n'Indeed I am quite well, ma'am. I thank you again and again, but I am\nquite well.'\n\n'Then take your tea at once I beg,' said Flora, 'and this wing of fowl\nand bit of ham, don't mind me or wait for me, because I always carry in\nthis tray myself to Mr F.'s Aunt who breakfasts in bed and a charming\nold lady too and very clever, Portrait of Mr F. behind the door and very\nlike though too much forehead and as to a pillar with a marble pavement\nand balustrades and a mountain, I never saw him near it nor not likely\nin the wine trade, excellent man but not at all in that way.'\n\nLittle Dorrit glanced at the portrait, very imperfectly following the\nreferences to that work of art.\n\n'Mr F. was so devoted to me that he never could bear me out of his\nsight,' said Flora, 'though of course I am unable to say how long that\nmight have lasted if he hadn't been cut short while I was a new broom,\nworthy man but not poetical manly prose but not romance.'\n\nLittle Dorrit glanced at the portrait again. The artist had given it a\nhead that would have been, in an intellectual point of view, top-heavy\nfor Shakespeare.\n\n'Romance, however,' Flora went on, busily arranging Mr F.'s Aunt's\ntoast, 'as I openly said to Mr F. when he proposed to me and you will be\nsurprised to hear that he proposed seven times once in a hackney-coach\nonce in a boat once in a pew once on a donkey at Tunbridge Wells and the\nrest on his knees, Romance was fled with the early days of Arthur\nClennam, our parents tore us asunder we became marble and stern reality\nusurped the throne, Mr F. said very much to his credit that he was\nperfectly aware of it and even preferred that state of things\naccordingly the word was spoken the fiat went forth and such is life you\nsee my dear and yet we do not break but bend, pray make a good breakfast\nwhile I go in with the tray.'\n\nShe disappeared, leaving Little Dorrit to ponder over the meaning of her\nscattered words. She soon came back again; and at last began to take her\nown breakfast, talking all the while.\n\n'You see, my dear,' said Flora, measuring out a spoonful or two of some\nbrown liquid that smelt like brandy, and putting it into her tea, 'I am\nobliged to be careful to follow the directions of my medical man though\nthe flavour is anything but agreeable being a poor creature and it may\nbe have never recovered the shock received in youth from too much giving\nway to crying in the next room when separated from Arthur, have you\nknown him long?'\n\nAs soon as Little Dorrit comprehended that she had been asked this\nquestion--for which time was necessary, the galloping pace of her new\npatroness having left her far behind--she answered that she had known Mr\nClennam ever since his return.\n\n'To be sure you couldn't have known him before unless you had been in\nChina or had corresponded neither of which is likely,' returned Flora,\n'for travelling-people usually get more or less mahogany and you are not\nat all so and as to corresponding what about? that's very true unless\ntea, so it was at his mother's was it really that you knew him first,\nhighly sensible and firm but dreadfully severe--ought to be the mother\nof the man in the iron mask.'\n\n'Mrs Clennam has been kind to me,' said Little Dorrit.\n\n'Really? I am sure I am glad to hear it because as Arthur's mother it's\nnaturally pleasant to my feelings to have a better opinion of her than\nI had before, though what she thinks of me when I run on as I am certain\nto do and she sits glowering at me like Fate in a go-cart--shocking\ncomparison really--invalid and not her fault--I never know or can\nimagine.'\n\n'Shall I find my work anywhere, ma'am?' asked Little Dorrit, looking\ntimidly about; 'can I get it?'\n\n'You industrious little fairy,' returned Flora, taking, in another cup\nof tea, another of the doses prescribed by her medical man, 'there's\nnot the slightest hurry and it's better that we should begin by being\nconfidential about our mutual friend--too cold a word for me at least\nI don't mean that, very proper expression mutual friend--than become\nthrough mere formalities not you but me like the Spartan boy with the\nfox biting him, which I hope you'll excuse my bringing up for of all\nthe tiresome boys that will go tumbling into every sort of company that\nboy's the tiresomest.'\n\nLittle Dorrit, her face very pale, sat down again to listen. 'Hadn't I\nbetter work the while?' she asked. 'I can work and attend too. I would\nrather, if I may.'\n\nHer earnestness was so expressive of her being uneasy without her work,\nthat Flora answered, 'Well my dear whatever you like best,' and produced\na basket of white handkerchiefs. Little Dorrit gladly put it by her\nside, took out her little pocket-housewife, threaded the needle, and\nbegan to hem.\n\n'What nimble fingers you have,' said Flora, 'but are you sure you are\nwell?'\n\n'Oh yes, indeed!'\n\nFlora put her feet upon the fender, and settled herself for a thorough\ngood romantic disclosure. She started off at score, tossing her head,\nsighing in the most demonstrative manner, making a great deal of use\nof her eyebrows, and occasionally, but not often, glancing at the quiet\nface that bent over the work.\n\n'You must know my dear,' said Flora, 'but that I have no doubt you know\nalready not only because I have already thrown it out in a general way\nbut because I feel I carry it stamped in burning what's his names\nupon my brow that before I was introduced to the late Mr F. I had\nbeen engaged to Arthur Clennam--Mr Clennam in public where reserve is\nnecessary Arthur here--we were all in all to one another it was the\nmorning of life it was bliss it was frenzy it was everything else of\nthat sort in the highest degree, when rent asunder we turned to stone in\nwhich capacity Arthur went to China and I became the statue bride of the\nlate Mr F.'\n\nFlora, uttering these words in a deep voice, enjoyed herself immensely.\n\n'To paint,' said she, 'the emotions of that morning when all was marble\nwithin and Mr F.'s Aunt followed in a glass-coach which it stands to\nreason must have been in shameful repair or it never could have broken\ndown two streets from the house and Mr F.'s Aunt brought home like the\nfifth of November in a rush-bottomed chair I will not attempt,\nsuffice it to say that the hollow form of breakfast took place in the\ndining-room downstairs that papa partaking too freely of pickled salmon\nwas ill for weeks and that Mr F. and myself went upon a continental\ntour to Calais where the people fought for us on the pier until they\nseparated us though not for ever that was not yet to be.'\n\nThe statue bride, hardly pausing for breath, went on, with the greatest\ncomplacency, in a rambling manner sometimes incidental to flesh and\nblood.\n\n'I will draw a veil over that dreamy life, Mr F. was in good spirits his\nappetite was good he liked the cookery he considered the wine weak but\npalatable and all was well, we returned to the immediate neighbourhood\nof Number Thirty Little Gosling Street London Docks and settled down,\nere we had yet fully detected the housemaid in selling the feathers\nout of the spare bed Gout flying upwards soared with Mr F. to another\nsphere.'\n\nHis relict, with a glance at his portrait, shook her head and wiped her\neyes.\n\n'I revere the memory of Mr F. as an estimable man and most indulgent\nhusband, only necessary to mention Asparagus and it appeared or to hint\nat any little delicate thing to drink and it came like magic in a pint\nbottle it was not ecstasy but it was comfort, I returned to papa's roof\nand lived secluded if not happy during some years until one day papa\ncame smoothly blundering in and said that Arthur Clennam awaited me\nbelow, I went below and found him ask me not what I found him except\nthat he was still unmarried still unchanged!'\n\nThe dark mystery with which Flora now enshrouded herself might have\nstopped other fingers than the nimble fingers that worked near her.\nThey worked on without pause, and the busy head bent over them watching\nthe stitches.\n\n'Ask me not,' said Flora, 'if I love him still or if he still loves me\nor what the end is to be or when, we are surrounded by watchful eyes and\nit may be that we are destined to pine asunder it may be never more to\nbe reunited not a word not a breath not a look to betray us all must\nbe secret as the tomb wonder not therefore that even if I should seem\ncomparatively cold to Arthur or Arthur should seem comparatively cold to\nme we have fatal reasons it is enough if we understand them hush!'\n\nAll of which Flora said with so much headlong vehemence as if she really\nbelieved it. There is not much doubt that when she worked herself into\nfull mermaid condition, she did actually believe whatever she said in\nit.\n\n'Hush!' repeated Flora, 'I have now told you all, confidence is\nestablished between us hush, for Arthur's sake I will always be a friend\nto you my dear girl and in Arthur's name you may always rely upon me.'\n\nThe nimble fingers laid aside the work, and the little figure rose and\nkissed her hand. 'You are very cold,' said Flora, changing to her own\nnatural kind-hearted manner, and gaining greatly by the change. 'Don't\nwork to-day. I am sure you are not well I am sure you are not strong.'\n\n'It is only that I feel a little overcome by your kindness, and by Mr\nClennam's kindness in confiding me to one he has known and loved so\nlong.'\n\n'Well really my dear,' said Flora, who had a decided tendency to be\nalways honest when she gave herself time to think about it, 'it's as\nwell to leave that alone now, for I couldn't undertake to say after all,\nbut it doesn't signify lie down a little!'\n\n'I have always been strong enough to do what I want to do, and I shall\nbe quite well directly,' returned Little Dorrit, with a faint smile.\n'You have overpowered me with gratitude, that's all. If I keep near the\nwindow for a moment I shall be quite myself.'\n\nFlora opened a window, sat her in a chair by it, and considerately\nretired to her former place. It was a windy day, and the air stirring\non Little Dorrit's face soon brightened it. In a very few minutes she\nreturned to her basket of work, and her nimble fingers were as nimble as\never.\n\nQuietly pursuing her task, she asked Flora if Mr Clennam had told her\nwhere she lived? When Flora replied in the negative, Little Dorrit said\nthat she understood why he had been so delicate, but that she felt sure\nhe would approve of her confiding her secret to Flora, and that\nshe would therefore do so now with Flora's permission. Receiving an\nencouraging answer, she condensed the narrative of her life into a few\nscanty words about herself and a glowing eulogy upon her father; and\nFlora took it all in with a natural tenderness that quite understood it,\nand in which there was no incoherence.\n\nWhen dinner-time came, Flora drew the arm of her new charge through\nhers, and led her down-stairs, and presented her to the Patriarch and Mr\nPancks, who were already in the dining-room waiting to begin. (Mr F.'s\nAunt was, for the time, laid up in ordinary in her chamber.) By those\ngentlemen she was received according to their characters; the Patriarch\nappearing to do her some inestimable service in saying that he was glad\nto see her, glad to see her; and Mr Pancks blowing off his favourite\nsound as a salute.\n\nIn that new presence she would have been bashful enough under any\ncircumstances, and particularly under Flora's insisting on her\ndrinking a glass of wine and eating of the best that was there; but her\nconstraint was greatly increased by Mr Pancks. The demeanour of that\ngentleman at first suggested to her mind that he might be a taker of\nlikenesses, so intently did he look at her, and so frequently did he\nglance at the little note-book by his side. Observing that he made no\nsketch, however, and that he talked about business only, she began to\nhave suspicions that he represented some creditor of her father's, the\nbalance due to whom was noted in that pocket volume. Regarded from this\npoint of view Mr Pancks's puffings expressed injury and impatience, and\neach of his louder snorts became a demand for payment.\n\nBut here again she was undeceived by anomalous and incongruous conduct\non the part of Mr Pancks himself. She had left the table half an hour,\nand was at work alone. Flora had 'gone to lie down' in the next room,\nconcurrently with which retirement a smell of something to drink\nhad broken out in the house. The Patriarch was fast asleep, with his\nphilanthropic mouth open under a yellow pocket-handkerchief in the\ndining-room. At this quiet time, Mr Pancks softly appeared before her,\nurbanely nodding.\n\n'Find it a little dull, Miss Dorrit?' inquired Pancks in a low voice.\n\n'No, thank you, sir,' said Little Dorrit.\n\n'Busy, I see,' observed Mr Pancks, stealing into the room by inches.\n'What are those now, Miss Dorrit?'\n\n'Handkerchiefs.'\n\n'Are they, though!' said Pancks. 'I shouldn't have thought it.' Not in\nthe least looking at them, but looking at Little Dorrit. 'Perhaps you\nwonder who I am. Shall I tell you? I am a fortune-teller.'\n\nLittle Dorrit now began to think he was mad.\n\n'I belong body and soul to my proprietor,' said Pancks; 'you saw my\nproprietor having his dinner below. But I do a little in the other way,\nsometimes; privately, very privately, Miss Dorrit.'\n\nLittle Dorrit looked at him doubtfully, and not without alarm. 'I wish\nyou'd show me the palm of your hand,' said Pancks. 'I should like to\nhave a look at it. Don't let me be troublesome.'\n\nHe was so far troublesome that he was not at all wanted there, but she\nlaid her work in her lap for a moment, and held out her left hand with\nher thimble on it.\n\n'Years of toil, eh?' said Pancks, softly, touching it with his blunt\nforefinger. 'But what else are we made for? Nothing. Hallo!' looking\ninto the lines. 'What's this with bars? It's a College! And what's this\nwith a grey gown and a black velvet cap? it's a father! And what's this\nwith a clarionet? It's an uncle! And what's this in dancing-shoes? It's\na sister! And what's this straggling about in an idle sort of a way?\nIt's a brother! And what's this thinking for 'em all? Why, this is you,\nMiss Dorrit!'\n\nHer eyes met his as she looked up wonderingly into his face, and she\nthought that although his were sharp eyes, he was a brighter and\ngentler-looking man than she had supposed at dinner. His eyes were on\nher hand again directly, and her opportunity of confirming or correcting\nthe impression was gone.\n\n'Now, the deuce is in it,' muttered Pancks, tracing out a line in her\nhand with his clumsy finger, 'if this isn't me in the corner here! What\ndo I want here? What's behind me?'\n\nHe carried his finger slowly down to the wrist, and round the wrist, and\naffected to look at the back of the hand for what was behind him.\n\n'Is it any harm?' asked Little Dorrit, smiling.\n\n'Deuce a bit!' said Pancks. 'What do you think it's worth?'\n\n'I ought to ask you that. I am not the fortune-teller.'\n\n'True,' said Pancks. 'What's it worth? You shall live to see, Miss\nDorrit.'\n\nReleasing the hand by slow degrees, he drew all his fingers through his\nprongs of hair, so that they stood up in their most portentous manner;\nand repeated slowly, 'Remember what I say, Miss Dorrit. You shall live\nto see.'\n\nShe could not help showing that she was much surprised, if it were only\nby his knowing so much about her.\n\n'Ah! That's it!' said Pancks, pointing at her. 'Miss Dorrit, not that,\never!'\n\nMore surprised than before, and a little more frightened, she looked to\nhim for an explanation of his last words.\n\n'Not that,' said Pancks, making, with great seriousness, an imitation\nof a surprised look and manner that appeared to be unintentionally\ngrotesque. 'Don't do that. Never on seeing me, no matter when, no matter\nwhere. I am nobody. Don't take on to mind me. Don't mention me. Take no\nnotice. Will you agree, Miss Dorrit?'\n\n'I hardly know what to say,' returned Little Dorrit, quite astounded.\n'Why?'\n\n'Because I am a fortune-teller. Pancks the gipsy. I haven't told you so\nmuch of your fortune yet, Miss Dorrit, as to tell you what's behind\nme on that little hand. I have told you you shall live to see. Is it\nagreed, Miss Dorrit?'\n\n'Agreed that I--am--to--'\n\n'To take no notice of me away from here, unless I take on first. Not\nto mind me when I come and go. It's very easy. I am no loss, I am not\nhandsome, I am not good company, I am only my proprietors grubber.\nYou need do no more than think, \"Ah! Pancks the gipsy at his\nfortune-telling--he'll tell the rest of my fortune one day--I shall live\nto know it.\" Is it agreed, Miss Dorrit?'\n\n'Ye-es,' faltered Little Dorrit, whom he greatly confused, 'I suppose\nso, while you do no harm.'\n\n'Good!' Mr Pancks glanced at the wall of the adjoining room, and stooped\nforward. 'Honest creature, woman of capital points, but heedless and\na loose talker, Miss Dorrit.' With that he rubbed his hands as if the\ninterview had been very satisfactory to him, panted away to the door,\nand urbanely nodded himself out again.\n\nIf Little Dorrit were beyond measure perplexed by this curious conduct\non the part of her new acquaintance, and by finding herself involved\nin this singular treaty, her perplexity was not diminished by ensuing\ncircumstances. Besides that Mr Pancks took every opportunity afforded\nhim in Mr Casby's house of significantly glancing at her and snorting\nat her--which was not much, after what he had done already--he began to\npervade her daily life. She saw him in the street, constantly. When she\nwent to Mr Casby's, he was always there. When she went to Mrs Clennam's,\nhe came there on any pretence, as if to keep her in his sight. A week\nhad not gone by, when she found him to her astonishment in the Lodge one\nnight, conversing with the turnkey on duty, and to all appearance one\nof his familiar companions. Her next surprise was to find him equally at\nhis ease within the prison; to hear of his presenting himself among\nthe visitors at her father's Sunday levee; to see him arm in arm with\na Collegiate friend about the yard; to learn, from Fame, that he had\ngreatly distinguished himself one evening at the social club that held\nits meetings in the Snuggery, by addressing a speech to the members\nof the institution, singing a song, and treating the company to five\ngallons of ale--report madly added a bushel of shrimps. The effect on\nMr Plornish of such of these phenomena as he became an eye-witness of in\nhis faithful visits, made an impression on Little Dorrit only second to\nthat produced by the phenomena themselves. They seemed to gag and bind\nhim. He could only stare, and sometimes weakly mutter that it wouldn't\nbe believed down Bleeding Heart Yard that this was Pancks; but he never\nsaid a word more, or made a sign more, even to Little Dorrit. Mr Pancks\ncrowned his mysteries by making himself acquainted with Tip in some\nunknown manner, and taking a Sunday saunter into the College on that\ngentleman's arm. Throughout he never took any notice of Little Dorrit,\nsave once or twice when he happened to come close to her and there\nwas no one very near; on which occasions, he said in passing,\nwith a friendly look and a puff of encouragement, 'Pancks the\ngipsy--fortune-telling.'\n\nLittle Dorrit worked and strove as usual, wondering at all this, but\nkeeping her wonder, as she had from her earliest years kept many heavier\nloads, in her own breast. A change had stolen, and was stealing yet,\nover the patient heart. Every day found her something more retiring\nthan the day before. To pass in and out of the prison unnoticed, and\nelsewhere to be overlooked and forgotten, were, for herself, her chief\ndesires.\n\nTo her own room too, strangely assorted room for her delicate youth\nand character, she was glad to retreat as often as she could without\ndesertion of any duty. There were afternoon times when she was\nunemployed, when visitors dropped in to play a hand at cards with her\nfather, when she could be spared and was better away. Then she would\nflit along the yard, climb the scores of stairs that led to her room,\nand take her seat at the window. Many combinations did those spikes\nupon the wall assume, many light shapes did the strong iron weave itself\ninto, many golden touches fell upon the rust, while Little Dorrit sat\nthere musing. New zig-zags sprung into the cruel pattern sometimes, when\nshe saw it through a burst of tears; but beautified or hardened still,\nalways over it and under it and through it, she was fain to look in her\nsolitude, seeing everything with that ineffaceable brand.\n\nA garret, and a Marshalsea garret without compromise, was Little\nDorrit's room. Beautifully kept, it was ugly in itself, and had little\nbut cleanliness and air to set it off; for what embellishment she had\never been able to buy, had gone to her father's room. Howbeit, for this\npoor place she showed an increasing love; and to sit in it alone became\nher favourite rest.\n\nInsomuch, that on a certain afternoon during the Pancks mysteries, when\nshe was seated at her window, and heard Maggy's well-known step coming\nup the stairs, she was very much disturbed by the apprehension of being\nsummoned away. As Maggy's step came higher up and nearer, she trembled\nand faltered; and it was as much as she could do to speak, when Maggy at\nlength appeared.\n\n'Please, Little Mother,' said Maggy, panting for breath, 'you must come\ndown and see him. He's here.'\n\n'Who, Maggy?'\n\n'Who, o' course Mr Clennam. He's in your father's room, and he says to\nme, Maggy, will you be so kind and go and say it's only me.'\n\n'I am not very well, Maggy. I had better not go. I am going to lie down.\nSee! I lie down now, to ease my head. Say, with my grateful regard, that\nyou left me so, or I would have come.'\n\n'Well, it an't very polite though, Little Mother,' said the staring\nMaggy, 'to turn your face away, neither!'\n\nMaggy was very susceptible to personal slights, and very ingenious in\ninventing them. 'Putting both your hands afore your face too!' she went\non. 'If you can't bear the looks of a poor thing, it would be better to\ntell her so at once, and not go and shut her out like that, hurting her\nfeelings and breaking her heart at ten year old, poor thing!'\n\n'It's to ease my head, Maggy.'\n\n'Well, and if you cry to ease your head, Little Mother, let me cry too.\nDon't go and have all the crying to yourself,' expostulated Maggy, 'that\nan't not being greedy.' And immediately began to blubber.\n\nIt was with some difficulty that she could be induced to go back with\nthe excuse; but the promise of being told a story--of old her great\ndelight--on condition that she concentrated her faculties upon the\nerrand and left her little mistress to herself for an hour longer,\ncombined with a misgiving on Maggy's part that she had left her good\ntemper at the bottom of the staircase, prevailed. So away she went,\nmuttering her message all the way to keep it in her mind, and, at the\nappointed time, came back.\n\n'He was very sorry, I can tell you,' she announced, 'and wanted to send\na doctor. And he's coming again to-morrow he is and I don't think he'll\nhave a good sleep to-night along o' hearing about your head, Little\nMother. Oh my! Ain't you been a-crying!'\n\n'I think I have, a little, Maggy.'\n\n'A little! Oh!'\n\n'But it's all over now--all over for good, Maggy. And my head is much\nbetter and cooler, and I am quite comfortable. I am very glad I did not\ngo down.'\n\nHer great staring child tenderly embraced her; and having smoothed her\nhair, and bathed her forehead and eyes with cold water (offices in which\nher awkward hands became skilful), hugged her again, exulted in her\nbrighter looks, and stationed her in her chair by the window. Over\nagainst this chair, Maggy, with apoplectic exertions that were not\nat all required, dragged the box which was her seat on story-telling\noccasions, sat down upon it, hugged her own knees, and said, with a\nvoracious appetite for stories, and with widely-opened eyes:\n\n'Now, Little Mother, let's have a good 'un!'\n\n'What shall it be about, Maggy?'\n\n'Oh, let's have a princess,' said Maggy, 'and let her be a reg'lar one.\nBeyond all belief, you know!'\n\nLittle Dorrit considered for a moment; and with a rather sad smile upon\nher face, which was flushed by the sunset, began:\n\n'Maggy, there was once upon a time a fine King, and he had everything he\ncould wish for, and a great deal more. He had gold and silver, diamonds\nand rubies, riches of every kind. He had palaces, and he had--'\n\n'Hospitals,' interposed Maggy, still nursing her knees. 'Let him have\nhospitals, because they're so comfortable. Hospitals with lots of\nChicking.'\n\n'Yes, he had plenty of them, and he had plenty of everything.'\n\n'Plenty of baked potatoes, for instance?' said Maggy.\n\n'Plenty of everything.'\n\n'Lor!' chuckled Maggy, giving her knees a hug. 'Wasn't it prime!'\n\n'This King had a daughter, who was the wisest and most beautiful\nPrincess that ever was seen. When she was a child she understood all her\nlessons before her masters taught them to her; and when she was grown\nup, she was the wonder of the world. Now, near the Palace where this\nPrincess lived, there was a cottage in which there was a poor little\ntiny woman, who lived all alone by herself.'\n\n'An old woman,' said Maggy, with an unctuous smack of her lips.\n\n'No, not an old woman. Quite a young one.'\n\n'I wonder she warn't afraid,' said Maggy. 'Go on, please.'\n\n'The Princess passed the cottage nearly every day, and whenever she went\nby in her beautiful carriage, she saw the poor tiny woman spinning at\nher wheel, and she looked at the tiny woman, and the tiny woman looked\nat her. So, one day she stopped the coachman a little way from the\ncottage, and got out and walked on and peeped in at the door, and there,\nas usual, was the tiny woman spinning at her wheel, and she looked at\nthe Princess, and the Princess looked at her.'\n\n'Like trying to stare one another out,' said Maggy. 'Please go on,\nLittle Mother.'\n\n'The Princess was such a wonderful Princess that she had the power of\nknowing secrets, and she said to the tiny woman, Why do you keep it\nthere? This showed her directly that the Princess knew why she lived\nall alone by herself spinning at her wheel, and she kneeled down at\nthe Princess's feet, and asked her never to betray her. So the Princess\nsaid, I never will betray you. Let me see it. So the tiny woman closed\nthe shutter of the cottage window and fastened the door, and trembling\nfrom head to foot for fear that any one should suspect her, opened a\nvery secret place and showed the Princess a shadow.'\n\n'Lor!' said Maggy.\n\n'It was the shadow of Some one who had gone by long before: of Some one\nwho had gone on far away quite out of reach, never, never to come back.\nIt was bright to look at; and when the tiny woman showed it to the\nPrincess, she was proud of it with all her heart, as a great, great\ntreasure. When the Princess had considered it a little while, she said\nto the tiny woman, And you keep watch over this every day? And she cast\ndown her eyes, and whispered, Yes. Then the Princess said, Remind me\nwhy. To which the other replied, that no one so good and kind had ever\npassed that way, and that was why in the beginning. She said, too, that\nnobody missed it, that nobody was the worse for it, that Some one had\ngone on, to those who were expecting him--'\n\n'Some one was a man then?' interposed Maggy.\n\nLittle Dorrit timidly said Yes, she believed so; and resumed:\n\n'--Had gone on to those who were expecting him, and that this\nremembrance was stolen or kept back from nobody. The Princess made\nanswer, Ah! But when the cottager died it would be discovered there. The\ntiny woman told her No; when that time came, it would sink quietly into\nher own grave, and would never be found.'\n\n'Well, to be sure!' said Maggy. 'Go on, please.'\n\n'The Princess was very much astonished to hear this, as you may suppose,\nMaggy.'\n\n('And well she might be,' said Maggy.)\n\n'So she resolved to watch the tiny woman, and see what came of it. Every\nday she drove in her beautiful carriage by the cottage-door, and there\nshe saw the tiny woman always alone by herself spinning at her wheel,\nand she looked at the tiny woman, and the tiny woman looked at her. At\nlast one day the wheel was still, and the tiny woman was not to be seen.\nWhen the Princess made inquiries why the wheel had stopped, and where\nthe tiny woman was, she was informed that the wheel had stopped because\nthere was nobody to turn it, the tiny woman being dead.'\n\n('They ought to have took her to the Hospital,' said Maggy, and then\nshe'd have got over it.')\n\n'The Princess, after crying a very little for the loss of the tiny\nwoman, dried her eyes and got out of her carriage at the place where\nshe had stopped it before, and went to the cottage and peeped in at the\ndoor. There was nobody to look at her now, and nobody for her to look\nat, so she went in at once to search for the treasured shadow. But there\nwas no sign of it to be found anywhere; and then she knew that the tiny\nwoman had told her the truth, and that it would never give anybody any\ntrouble, and that it had sunk quietly into her own grave, and that she\nand it were at rest together.\n\n'That's all, Maggy.'\n\nThe sunset flush was so bright on Little Dorrit's face when she came\nthus to the end of her story, that she interposed her hand to shade it.\n\n'Had she got to be old?' Maggy asked.\n\n'The tiny woman?'\n\n'Ah!'\n\n'I don't know,' said Little Dorrit. 'But it would have been just the\nsame if she had been ever so old.'\n\n'Would it raly!' said Maggy. 'Well, I suppose it would though.' And sat\nstaring and ruminating.\n\nShe sat so long with her eyes wide open, that at length Little Dorrit,\nto entice her from her box, rose and looked out of window. As she\nglanced down into the yard, she saw Pancks come in and leer up with the\ncorner of his eye as he went by.\n\n'Who's he, Little Mother?' said Maggy. She had joined her at the window\nand was leaning on her shoulder. 'I see him come in and out often.'\n\n'I have heard him called a fortune-teller,' said Little Dorrit. 'But I\ndoubt if he could tell many people even their past or present fortunes.'\n\n'Couldn't have told the Princess hers?' said Maggy.\n\nLittle Dorrit, looking musingly down into the dark valley of the prison,\nshook her head.\n\n'Nor the tiny woman hers?' said Maggy.\n\n'No,' said Little Dorrit, with the sunset very bright upon her. 'But let\nus come away from the window.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 25. Conspirators and Others\n\n\nThe private residence of Mr Pancks was in Pentonville, where he lodged\non the second-floor of a professional gentleman in an extremely small\nway, who had an inner-door within the street door, poised on a spring\nand starting open with a click like a trap; and who wrote up in the\nfan-light, RUGG, GENERAL AGENT, ACCOUNTANT, DEBTS RECOVERED.\n\nThis scroll, majestic in its severe simplicity, illuminated a little\nslip of front garden abutting on the thirsty high-road, where a few\nof the dustiest of leaves hung their dismal heads and led a life of\nchoking. A professor of writing occupied the first-floor, and enlivened\nthe garden railings with glass-cases containing choice examples of what\nhis pupils had been before six lessons and while the whole of his young\nfamily shook the table, and what they had become after six lessons\nwhen the young family was under restraint. The tenancy of Mr Pancks was\nlimited to one airy bedroom; he covenanting and agreeing with Mr Rugg\nhis landlord, that in consideration of a certain scale of payments\naccurately defined, and on certain verbal notice duly given, he should\nbe at liberty to elect to share the Sunday breakfast, dinner, tea, or\nsupper, or each or any or all of those repasts or meals of Mr and Miss\nRugg (his daughter) in the back-parlour.\n\nMiss Rugg was a lady of a little property which she had acquired,\ntogether with much distinction in the neighbourhood, by having her\nheart severely lacerated and her feelings mangled by a middle-aged baker\nresident in the vicinity, against whom she had, by the agency of Mr\nRugg, found it necessary to proceed at law to recover damages for a\nbreach of promise of marriage. The baker having been, by the counsel for\nMiss Rugg, witheringly denounced on that occasion up to the full amount\nof twenty guineas, at the rate of about eighteen-pence an epithet, and\nhaving been cast in corresponding damages, still suffered occasional\npersecution from the youth of Pentonville. But Miss Rugg, environed by\nthe majesty of the law, and having her damages invested in the public\nsecurities, was regarded with consideration.\n\nIn the society of Mr Rugg, who had a round white visage, as if all his\nblushes had been drawn out of him long ago, and who had a ragged yellow\nhead like a worn-out hearth broom; and in the society of Miss Rugg, who\nhad little nankeen spots, like shirt buttons, all over her face, and\nwhose own yellow tresses were rather scrubby than luxuriant; Mr Pancks\nhad usually dined on Sundays for some few years, and had twice a week,\nor so, enjoyed an evening collation of bread, Dutch cheese, and porter.\nMr Pancks was one of the very few marriageable men for whom Miss Rugg\nhad no terrors, the argument with which he reassured himself being\ntwofold; that is to say, firstly, 'that it wouldn't do twice,' and\nsecondly, 'that he wasn't worth it.' Fortified within this double\narmour, Mr Pancks snorted at Miss Rugg on easy terms.\n\nUp to this time, Mr Pancks had transacted little or no business at his\nquarters in Pentonville, except in the sleeping line; but now that he\nhad become a fortune-teller, he was often closeted after midnight\nwith Mr Rugg in his little front-parlour office, and even after those\nuntimely hours, burnt tallow in his bed-room. Though his duties as his\nproprietor's grubber were in no wise lessened; and though that service\nbore no greater resemblance to a bed of roses than was to be discovered\nin its many thorns; some new branch of industry made a constant demand\nupon him. When he cast off the Patriarch at night, it was only to take\nan anonymous craft in tow, and labour away afresh in other waters.\n\nThe advance from a personal acquaintance with the elder Mr Chivery to\nan introduction to his amiable wife and disconsolate son, may have been\neasy; but easy or not, Mr Pancks soon made it. He nestled in the bosom\nof the tobacco business within a week or two after his first appearance\nin the College, and particularly addressed himself to the cultivation of\na good understanding with Young John. In this endeavour he so prospered\nas to lure that pining shepherd forth from the groves, and tempt him\nto undertake mysterious missions; on which he began to disappear at\nuncertain intervals for as long a space as two or three days together.\nThe prudent Mrs Chivery, who wondered greatly at this change, would have\nprotested against it as detrimental to the Highland typification on the\ndoorpost but for two forcible reasons; one, that her John was roused to\ntake strong interest in the business which these starts were supposed\nto advance--and this she held to be good for his drooping spirits;\nthe other, that Mr Pancks confidentially agreed to pay her, for the\noccupation of her son's time, at the handsome rate of seven and sixpence\nper day. The proposal originated with himself, and was couched in the\npithy terms, 'If your John is weak enough, ma'am, not to take it,\nthat is no reason why you should be, don't you see? So, quite between\nourselves, ma'am, business being business, here it is!'\n\nWhat Mr Chivery thought of these things, or how much or how little he\nknew about them, was never gathered from himself. It has been already\nremarked that he was a man of few words; and it may be here observed\nthat he had imbibed a professional habit of locking everything up. He\nlocked himself up as carefully as he locked up the Marshalsea debtors.\nEven his custom of bolting his meals may have been a part of an uniform\nwhole; but there is no question, that, as to all other purposes, he kept\nhis mouth as he kept the Marshalsea door. He never opened it without\noccasion. When it was necessary to let anything out, he opened it a\nlittle way, held it open just as long as sufficed for the purpose, and\nlocked it again. Even as he would be sparing of his trouble at the\nMarshalsea door, and would keep a visitor who wanted to go out, waiting\nfor a few moments if he saw another visitor coming down the yard, so\nthat one turn of the key should suffice for both, similarly he would\noften reserve a remark if he perceived another on its way to his lips,\nand would deliver himself of the two together. As to any key to his\ninner knowledge being to be found in his face, the Marshalsea key was as\nlegible as an index to the individual characters and histories upon\nwhich it was turned.\n\nThat Mr Pancks should be moved to invite any one to dinner at\nPentonville, was an unprecedented fact in his calendar. But he invited\nYoung John to dinner, and even brought him within range of the dangerous\n(because expensive) fascinations of Miss Rugg. The banquet was appointed\nfor a Sunday, and Miss Rugg with her own hands stuffed a leg of mutton\nwith oysters on the occasion, and sent it to the baker's--not _the_\nbaker's but an opposition establishment. Provision of oranges, apples,\nand nuts was also made. And rum was brought home by Mr Pancks on\nSaturday night, to gladden the visitor's heart.\n\nThe store of creature comforts was not the chief part of the visitor's\nreception. Its special feature was a foregone family confidence and\nsympathy. When Young John appeared at half-past one without the ivory\nhand and waistcoat of golden sprigs, the sun shorn of his beams by\ndisastrous clouds, Mr Pancks presented him to the yellow-haired Ruggs as\nthe young man he had so often mentioned who loved Miss Dorrit.\n\n'I am glad,' said Mr Rugg, challenging him specially in that character,\n'to have the distinguished gratification of making your acquaintance,\nsir. Your feelings do you honour. You are young; may you never outlive\nyour feelings! If I was to outlive my own feelings, sir,' said Mr Rugg,\nwho was a man of many words, and was considered to possess a remarkably\ngood address; 'if I was to outlive my own feelings, I'd leave fifty\npound in my will to the man who would put me out of existence.'\n\nMiss Rugg heaved a sigh.\n\n'My daughter, sir,' said Mr Rugg. 'Anastatia, you are no stranger to the\nstate of this young man's affections. My daughter has had her trials,\nsir'--Mr Rugg might have used the word more pointedly in the singular\nnumber--'and she can feel for you.'\n\nYoung John, almost overwhelmed by the touching nature of this greeting,\nprofessed himself to that effect.\n\n'What I envy you, sir, is,' said Mr Rugg, 'allow me to take your hat--we\nare rather short of pegs--I'll put it in the corner, nobody will tread\non it there--What I envy you, sir, is the luxury of your own feelings. I\nbelong to a profession in which that luxury is sometimes denied us.'\n\nYoung John replied, with acknowledgments, that he only hoped he did what\nwas right, and what showed how entirely he was devoted to Miss Dorrit.\nHe wished to be unselfish; and he hoped he was. He wished to do anything\nas laid in his power to serve Miss Dorrit, altogether putting himself\nout of sight; and he hoped he did. It was but little that he could do,\nbut he hoped he did it.\n\n'Sir,' said Mr Rugg, taking him by the hand, 'you are a young man that\nit does one good to come across. You are a young man that I should\nlike to put in the witness-box, to humanise the minds of the legal\nprofession. I hope you have brought your appetite with you, and intend\nto play a good knife and fork?'\n\n'Thank you, sir,' returned Young John, 'I don't eat much at present.'\n\nMr Rugg drew him a little apart. 'My daughter's case, sir,' said he, 'at\nthe time when, in vindication of her outraged feelings and her sex, she\nbecame the plaintiff in Rugg and Bawkins. I suppose I could have put it\nin evidence, Mr Chivery, if I had thought it worth my while, that the\namount of solid sustenance my daughter consumed at that period did not\nexceed ten ounces per week.'\n\n'I think I go a little beyond that, sir,' returned the other,\nhesitating, as if he confessed it with some shame.\n\n'But in your case there's no fiend in human form,' said Mr Rugg, with\nargumentative smile and action of hand. 'Observe, Mr Chivery!\nNo fiend in human form!'\n\n'No, sir, certainly,' Young John added with simplicity, 'I should be\nvery sorry if there was.'\n\n'The sentiment,' said Mr Rugg, 'is what I should have expected from your\nknown principles. It would affect my daughter greatly, sir, if she heard\nit. As I perceive the mutton, I am glad she didn't hear it. Mr Pancks,\non this occasion, pray face me. My dear, face Mr Chivery. For what we\nare going to receive, may we (and Miss Dorrit) be truly thankful!'\n\nBut for a grave waggishness in Mr Rugg's manner of delivering this\nintroduction to the feast, it might have appeared that Miss Dorrit was\nexpected to be one of the company. Pancks recognised the sally in\nhis usual way, and took in his provender in his usual way. Miss Rugg,\nperhaps making up some of her arrears, likewise took very kindly to\nthe mutton, and it rapidly diminished to the bone. A bread-and-butter\npudding entirely disappeared, and a considerable amount of cheese and\nradishes vanished by the same means. Then came the dessert.\n\nThen also, and before the broaching of the rum and water, came Mr\nPancks's note-book. The ensuing business proceedings were brief but\ncurious, and rather in the nature of a conspiracy. Mr Pancks looked over\nhis note-book, which was now getting full, studiously; and picked out\nlittle extracts, which he wrote on separate slips of paper on the table;\nMr Rugg, in the meanwhile, looking at him with close attention, and\nYoung John losing his uncollected eye in mists of meditation. When Mr\nPancks, who supported the character of chief conspirator, had completed\nhis extracts, he looked them over, corrected them, put up his note-book,\nand held them like a hand at cards.\n\n'Now, there's a churchyard in Bedfordshire,' said Pancks. 'Who takes\nit?'\n\n'I'll take it, sir,' returned Mr Rugg, 'if no one bids.'\n\nMr Pancks dealt him his card, and looked at his hand again.\n\n'Now, there's an Enquiry in York,' said Pancks. 'Who takes it?'\n\n'I'm not good for York,' said Mr Rugg.\n\n'Then perhaps,' pursued Pancks, 'you'll be so obliging, John Chivery?'\n\nYoung John assenting, Pancks dealt him his card, and consulted his hand\nagain.\n\n'There's a Church in London; I may as well take that. And a Family\nBible; I may as well take that, too. That's two to me. Two to me,'\nrepeated Pancks, breathing hard over his cards. 'Here's a Clerk at\nDurham for you, John, and an old seafaring gentleman at Dunstable for\nyou, Mr Rugg. Two to me, was it? Yes, two to me. Here's a Stone; three\nto me. And a Still-born Baby; four to me. And all, for the present,\ntold.'\n\nWhen he had thus disposed of his cards, all being done very quietly and\nin a suppressed tone, Mr Pancks puffed his way into his own\nbreast-pocket and tugged out a canvas bag; from which, with a sparing\nhand, he told forth money for travelling expenses in two little\nportions. 'Cash goes out fast,' he said anxiously, as he pushed a\nportion to each of his male companions, 'very fast.'\n\n'I can only assure you, Mr Pancks,' said Young John, 'that I deeply\nregret my circumstances being such that I can't afford to pay my own\ncharges, or that it's not advisable to allow me the time necessary for\nmy doing the distances on foot; because nothing would give me greater\nsatisfaction than to walk myself off my legs without fee or reward.'\n\nThis young man's disinterestedness appeared so very ludicrous in\nthe eyes of Miss Rugg, that she was obliged to effect a precipitate\nretirement from the company, and to sit upon the stairs until she had\nhad her laugh out. Meanwhile Mr Pancks, looking, not without some pity,\nat Young John, slowly and thoughtfully twisted up his canvas bag as if\nhe were wringing its neck. The lady, returning as he restored it to his\npocket, mixed rum and water for the party, not forgetting her fair self,\nand handed to every one his glass. When all were supplied, Mr Rugg rose,\nand silently holding out his glass at arm's length above the centre of\nthe table, by that gesture invited the other three to add theirs, and to\nunite in a general conspiratorial clink. The ceremony was effective up\nto a certain point, and would have been wholly so throughout, if Miss\nRugg, as she raised her glass to her lips in completion of it, had not\nhappened to look at Young John; when she was again so overcome by the\ncontemptible comicality of his disinterestedness as to splutter some\nambrosial drops of rum and water around, and withdraw in confusion.\n\nSuch was the dinner without precedent, given by Pancks at Pentonville;\nand such was the busy and strange life Pancks led. The only waking\nmoments at which he appeared to relax from his cares, and to recreate\nhimself by going anywhere or saying anything without a pervading object,\nwere when he showed a dawning interest in the lame foreigner with the\nstick, down Bleeding Heart Yard.\n\nThe foreigner, by name John Baptist Cavalletto--they called him Mr\nBaptist in the Yard--was such a chirping, easy, hopeful little fellow,\nthat his attraction for Pancks was probably in the force of contrast.\nSolitary, weak, and scantily acquainted with the most necessary words\nof the only language in which he could communicate with the people about\nhim, he went with the stream of his fortunes, in a brisk way that was\nnew in those parts. With little to eat, and less to drink, and nothing\nto wear but what he wore upon him, or had brought tied up in one of the\nsmallest bundles that ever were seen, he put as bright a face upon it as\nif he were in the most flourishing circumstances when he first hobbled\nup and down the Yard, humbly propitiating the general good-will with his\nwhite teeth.\n\nIt was uphill work for a foreigner, lame or sound, to make his way with\nthe Bleeding Hearts. In the first place, they were vaguely persuaded\nthat every foreigner had a knife about him; in the second, they held it\nto be a sound constitutional national axiom that he ought to go home to\nhis own country. They never thought of inquiring how many of their own\ncountrymen would be returned upon their hands from divers parts of the\nworld, if the principle were generally recognised; they considered it\nparticularly and peculiarly British. In the third place, they had a\nnotion that it was a sort of Divine visitation upon a foreigner that he\nwas not an Englishman, and that all kinds of calamities happened to\nhis country because it did things that England did not, and did not do\nthings that England did. In this belief, to be sure, they had long been\ncarefully trained by the Barnacles and Stiltstalkings, who were always\nproclaiming to them, officially, that no country which failed to submit\nitself to those two large families could possibly hope to be under the\nprotection of Providence; and who, when they believed it, disparaged\nthem in private as the most prejudiced people under the sun.\n\nThis, therefore, might be called a political position of the Bleeding\nHearts; but they entertained other objections to having foreigners\nin the Yard. They believed that foreigners were always badly off; and\nthough they were as ill off themselves as they could desire to be,\nthat did not diminish the force of the objection. They believed that\nforeigners were dragooned and bayoneted; and though they certainly got\ntheir own skulls promptly fractured if they showed any ill-humour, still\nit was with a blunt instrument, and that didn't count. They believed\nthat foreigners were always immoral; and though they had an occasional\nassize at home, and now and then a divorce case or so, that had nothing\nto do with it. They believed that foreigners had no independent spirit,\nas never being escorted to the poll in droves by Lord Decimus Tite\nBarnacle, with colours flying and the tune of Rule Britannia playing.\nNot to be tedious, they had many other beliefs of a similar kind.\n\nAgainst these obstacles, the lame foreigner with the stick had to make\nhead as well as he could; not absolutely single-handed, because Mr\nArthur Clennam had recommended him to the Plornishes (he lived at the\ntop of the same house), but still at heavy odds. However, the Bleeding\nHearts were kind hearts; and when they saw the little fellow cheerily\nlimping about with a good-humoured face, doing no harm, drawing no\nknives, committing no outrageous immoralities, living chiefly on\nfarinaceous and milk diet, and playing with Mrs Plornish's children of\nan evening, they began to think that although he could never hope to be\nan Englishman, still it would be hard to visit that affliction on his\nhead. They began to accommodate themselves to his level, calling him 'Mr\nBaptist,' but treating him like a baby, and laughing immoderately at his\nlively gestures and his childish English--more, because he didn't mind\nit, and laughed too. They spoke to him in very loud voices as if he\nwere stone deaf. They constructed sentences, by way of teaching him the\nlanguage in its purity, such as were addressed by the savages to Captain\nCook, or by Friday to Robinson Crusoe. Mrs Plornish was particularly\ningenious in this art; and attained so much celebrity for saying 'Me ope\nyou leg well soon,' that it was considered in the Yard but a very short\nremove indeed from speaking Italian. Even Mrs Plornish herself began to\nthink that she had a natural call towards that language. As he became\nmore popular, household objects were brought into requisition for his\ninstruction in a copious vocabulary; and whenever he appeared in the\nYard ladies would fly out at their doors crying 'Mr Baptist--tea-pot!'\n'Mr Baptist--dust-pan!' 'Mr Baptist--flour-dredger!' 'Mr\nBaptist--coffee-biggin!' At the same time exhibiting those articles,\nand penetrating him with a sense of the appalling difficulties of the\nAnglo-Saxon tongue.\n\nIt was in this stage of his progress, and in about the third week of his\noccupation, that Mr Pancks's fancy became attracted by the little man.\nMounting to his attic, attended by Mrs Plornish as interpreter, he found\nMr Baptist with no furniture but his bed on the ground, a table, and a\nchair, carving with the aid of a few simple tools, in the blithest way\npossible.\n\n'Now, old chap,' said Mr Pancks, 'pay up!'\n\nHe had his money ready, folded in a scrap of paper, and laughingly\nhanded it in; then with a free action, threw out as many fingers of his\nright hand as there were shillings, and made a cut crosswise in the air\nfor an odd sixpence.\n\n'Oh!' said Mr Pancks, watching him, wonderingly. 'That's it, is it?\nYou're a quick customer. It's all right. I didn't expect to receive it,\nthough.'\n\nMrs Plornish here interposed with great condescension, and explained to\nMr Baptist. 'E please. E glad get money.'\n\nThe little man smiled and nodded. His bright face seemed uncommonly\nattractive to Mr Pancks. 'How's he getting on in his limb?' he asked Mrs\nPlornish.\n\n'Oh, he's a deal better, sir,' said Mrs Plornish. 'We expect next week\nhe'll be able to leave off his stick entirely.' (The opportunity\nbeing too favourable to be lost, Mrs Plornish displayed her great\naccomplishment by explaining with pardonable pride to Mr Baptist, 'E ope\nyou leg well soon.')\n\n'He's a merry fellow, too,' said Mr Pancks, admiring him as if he were a\nmechanical toy. 'How does he live?'\n\n'Why, sir,' rejoined Mrs Plornish, 'he turns out to have quite a power\nof carving them flowers that you see him at now.' (Mr Baptist, watching\ntheir faces as they spoke, held up his work. Mrs Plornish interpreted in\nher Italian manner, on behalf of Mr Pancks, 'E please. Double good!')\n\n'Can he live by that?' asked Mr Pancks.\n\n'He can live on very little, sir, and it is expected as he will be able,\nin time, to make a very good living. Mr Clennam got it him to do, and\ngives him odd jobs besides in at the Works next door--makes 'em for him,\nin short, when he knows he wants 'em.'\n\n'And what does he do with himself, now, when he ain't hard at it?' said\nMr Pancks.\n\n'Why, not much as yet, sir, on accounts I suppose of not being able to\nwalk much; but he goes about the Yard, and he chats without particular\nunderstanding or being understood, and he plays with the children,\nand he sits in the sun--he'll sit down anywhere, as if it was an\narm-chair--and he'll sing, and he'll laugh!'\n\n'Laugh!' echoed Mr Pancks. 'He looks to me as if every tooth in his head\nwas always laughing.'\n\n'But whenever he gets to the top of the steps at t'other end of the\nYard,' said Mrs Plornish, 'he'll peep out in the curiousest way! So that\nsome of us thinks he's peeping out towards where his own country is, and\nsome of us thinks he's looking for somebody he don't want to see, and\nsome of us don't know what to think.'\n\nMr Baptist seemed to have a general understanding of what she said; or\nperhaps his quickness caught and applied her slight action of peeping.\nIn any case he closed his eyes and tossed his head with the air of a man\nwho had sufficient reasons for what he did, and said in his own tongue,\nit didn't matter. Altro!\n\n'What's Altro?' said Pancks.\n\n'Hem! It's a sort of a general kind of expression, sir,' said Mrs\nPlornish.\n\n'Is it?' said Pancks. 'Why, then Altro to you, old chap. Good afternoon.\nAltro!'\n\nMr Baptist in his vivacious way repeating the word several times, Mr\nPancks in his duller way gave it him back once. From that time it became\na frequent custom with Pancks the gipsy, as he went home jaded at night,\nto pass round by Bleeding Heart Yard, go quietly up the stairs, look in\nat Mr Baptist's door, and, finding him in his room, to say, 'Hallo, old\nchap! Altro!' To which Mr Baptist would reply with innumerable bright\nnods and smiles, 'Altro, signore, altro, altro, altro!' After this\nhighly condensed conversation, Mr Pancks would go his way with an\nappearance of being lightened and refreshed.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 26. Nobody's State of Mind\n\n\nIf Arthur Clennam had not arrived at that wise decision firmly to\nrestrain himself from loving Pet, he would have lived on in a state of\nmuch perplexity, involving difficult struggles with his own heart. Not\nthe least of these would have been a contention, always waging within\nit, between a tendency to dislike Mr Henry Gowan, if not to regard\nhim with positive repugnance, and a whisper that the inclination was\nunworthy. A generous nature is not prone to strong aversions, and is\nslow to admit them even dispassionately; but when it finds ill-will\ngaining upon it, and can discern between-whiles that its origin is not\ndispassionate, such a nature becomes distressed.\n\nTherefore Mr Henry Gowan would have clouded Clennam's mind, and would\nhave been far oftener present to it than more agreeable persons and\nsubjects but for the great prudence of his decision aforesaid. As it\nwas, Mr Gowan seemed transferred to Daniel Doyce's mind; at all events,\nit so happened that it usually fell to Mr Doyce's turn, rather than\nto Clennam's, to speak of him in the friendly conversations they held\ntogether. These were of frequent occurrence now; as the two partners\nshared a portion of a roomy house in one of the grave old-fashioned City\nstreets, lying not far from the Bank of England, by London Wall.\n\nMr Doyce had been to Twickenham to pass the day. Clennam had excused\nhimself. Mr Doyce was just come home. He put in his head at the door of\nClennam's sitting-room to say Good night.\n\n'Come in, come in!' said Clennam.\n\n'I saw you were reading,' returned Doyce, as he entered, 'and thought\nyou might not care to be disturbed.'\n\nBut for the notable resolution he had made, Clennam really might not\nhave known what he had been reading; really might not have had his eyes\nupon the book for an hour past, though it lay open before him. He shut\nit up, rather quickly.\n\n'Are they well?' he asked.\n\n'Yes,' said Doyce; 'they are well. They are all well.'\n\nDaniel had an old workmanlike habit of carrying his pocket-handkerchief\nin his hat. He took it out and wiped his forehead with it, slowly\nrepeating, 'They are all well. Miss Minnie looking particularly well, I\nthought.'\n\n'Any company at the cottage?'\n\n'No, no company.'\n\n'And how did you get on, you four?' asked Clennam gaily.\n\n'There were five of us,' returned his partner. 'There was\nWhat's-his-name. He was there.'\n\n'Who is he?' said Clennam.\n\n'Mr Henry Gowan.'\n\n'Ah, to be sure!' cried Clennam with unusual vivacity, 'Yes!--I forgot\nhim.'\n\n'As I mentioned, you may remember,' said Daniel Doyce, 'he is always\nthere on Sunday.'\n\n'Yes, yes,' returned Clennam; 'I remember now.'\n\nDaniel Doyce, still wiping his forehead, ploddingly repeated. 'Yes. He\nwas there, he was there. Oh yes, he was there. And his dog. _He_ was\nthere too.'\n\n'Miss Meagles is quite attached to--the--dog,' observed Clennam.\n\n'Quite so,' assented his partner. 'More attached to the dog than I am to\nthe man.'\n\n'You mean Mr--?'\n\n'I mean Mr Gowan, most decidedly,' said Daniel Doyce.\n\nThere was a gap in the conversation, which Clennam devoted to winding up\nhis watch.\n\n'Perhaps you are a little hasty in your judgment,' he said. 'Our\njudgments--I am supposing a general case--'\n\n'Of course,' said Doyce.\n\n'Are so liable to be influenced by many considerations, which, almost\nwithout our knowing it, are unfair, that it is necessary to keep a guard\nupon them. For instance, Mr--'\n\n'Gowan,' quietly said Doyce, upon whom the utterance of the name almost\nalways devolved.\n\n'Is young and handsome, easy and quick, has talent, and has seen a\ngood deal of various kinds of life. It might be difficult to give an\nunselfish reason for being prepossessed against him.'\n\n'Not difficult for me, I think, Clennam,' returned his partner. 'I see\nhim bringing present anxiety, and, I fear, future sorrow, into my old\nfriend's house. I see him wearing deeper lines into my old friend's\nface, the nearer he draws to, and the oftener he looks at, the face\nof his daughter. In short, I see him with a net about the pretty and\naffectionate creature whom he will never make happy.'\n\n'We don't know,' said Clennam, almost in the tone of a man in pain,\n'that he will not make her happy.'\n\n'We don't know,' returned his partner, 'that the earth will last another\nhundred years, but we think it highly probable.'\n\n'Well, well!' said Clennam, 'we must be hopeful, and we must at least\ntry to be, if not generous (which, in this case, we have no opportunity\nof being), just. We will not disparage this gentleman, because he is\nsuccessful in his addresses to the beautiful object of his ambition; and\nwe will not question her natural right to bestow her love on one whom\nshe finds worthy of it.'\n\n'Maybe, my friend,' said Doyce. 'Maybe also, that she is too young and\npetted, too confiding and inexperienced, to discriminate well.'\n\n'That,' said Clennam, 'would be far beyond our power of correction.'\n\nDaniel Doyce shook his head gravely, and rejoined, 'I fear so.'\n\n'Therefore, in a word,' said Clennam, 'we should make up our minds that\nit is not worthy of us to say any ill of Mr Gowan. It would be a poor\nthing to gratify a prejudice against him. And I resolve, for my part,\nnot to depreciate him.'\n\n'I am not quite so sure of myself, and therefore I reserve my privilege\nof objecting to him,' returned the other. 'But, if I am not sure of\nmyself, I am sure of you, Clennam, and I know what an upright man you\nare, and how much to be respected. Good night, _my_ friend and partner!'\nHe shook his hand in saying this, as if there had been something serious\nat the bottom of their conversation; and they separated.\n\nBy this time they had visited the family on several occasions, and had\nalways observed that even a passing allusion to Mr Henry Gowan when\nhe was not among them, brought back the cloud which had obscured Mr\nMeagles's sunshine on the morning of the chance encounter at the Ferry.\nIf Clennam had ever admitted the forbidden passion into his breast,\nthis period might have been a period of real trial; under the actual\ncircumstances, doubtless it was nothing--nothing.\n\nEqually, if his heart had given entertainment to that prohibited guest,\nhis silent fighting of his way through the mental condition of this\nperiod might have been a little meritorious. In the constant effort not\nto be betrayed into a new phase of the besetting sin of his experience,\nthe pursuit of selfish objects by low and small means, and to hold\ninstead to some high principle of honour and generosity, there might\nhave been a little merit. In the resolution not even to avoid Mr\nMeagles's house, lest, in the selfish sparing of himself, he should\nbring any slight distress upon the daughter through making her the cause\nof an estrangement which he believed the father would regret, there\nmight have been a little merit. In the modest truthfulness of always\nkeeping in view the greater equality of Mr Gowan's years and the greater\nattractions of his person and manner, there might have been a little\nmerit. In doing all this and much more, in a perfectly unaffected way\nand with a manful and composed constancy, while the pain within him\n(peculiar as his life and history) was very sharp, there might have been\nsome quiet strength of character. But, after the resolution he had made,\nof course he could have no such merits as these; and such a state of\nmind was nobody's--nobody's.\n\nMr Gowan made it no concern of his whether it was nobody's or\nsomebody's. He preserved his perfect serenity of manner on all\noccasions, as if the possibility of Clennam's presuming to have debated\nthe great question were too distant and ridiculous to be imagined. He\nhad always an affability to bestow on Clennam and an ease to treat\nhim with, which might of itself (in the supposititious case of his\nnot having taken that sagacious course) have been a very uncomfortable\nelement in his state of mind.\n\n'I quite regret you were not with us yesterday,' said Mr Henry Gowan,\ncalling on Clennam the next morning. 'We had an agreeable day up the\nriver there.'\n\nSo he had heard, Arthur said.\n\n'From your partner?' returned Henry Gowan. 'What a dear old fellow he\nis!'\n\n'I have a great regard for him.'\n\n'By Jove, he is the finest creature!' said Gowan. 'So fresh, so green,\ntrusts in such wonderful things!'\n\nHere was one of the many little rough points that had a tendency to\ngrate on Clennam's hearing. He put it aside by merely repeating that he\nhad a high regard for Mr Doyce.\n\n'He is charming! To see him mooning along to that time of life,\nlaying down nothing by the way and picking up nothing by the way, is\ndelightful. It warms a man. So unspoilt, so simple, such a good soul!\nUpon my life Mr Clennam, one feels desperately worldly and wicked in\ncomparison with such an innocent creature. I speak for myself, let me\nadd, without including you. You are genuine also.'\n\n'Thank you for the compliment,' said Clennam, ill at ease; 'you are too,\nI hope?'\n\n'So so,' rejoined the other. 'To be candid with you, tolerably. I am\nnot a great impostor. Buy one of my pictures, and I assure you,\nin confidence, it will not be worth the money. Buy one of another\nman's--any great professor who beats me hollow--and the chances are that\nthe more you give him, the more he'll impose upon you. They all do it.'\n\n'All painters?'\n\n'Painters, writers, patriots, all the rest who have stands in the\nmarket. Give almost any man I know ten pounds, and he will impose upon\nyou to a corresponding extent; a thousand pounds--to a corresponding\nextent; ten thousand pounds--to a corresponding extent. So great the\nsuccess, so great the imposition. But what a capital world it is!' cried\nGowan with warm enthusiasm. 'What a jolly, excellent, lovable world it\nis!'\n\n'I had rather thought,' said Clennam, 'that the principle you mention\nwas chiefly acted on by--'\n\n'By the Barnacles?' interrupted Gowan, laughing.\n\n'By the political gentlemen who condescend to keep the Circumlocution\nOffice.'\n\n'Ah! Don't be hard upon the Barnacles,' said Gowan, laughing afresh,\n'they are darling fellows! Even poor little Clarence, the born idiot of\nthe family, is the most agreeable and most endearing blockhead! And by\nJupiter, with a kind of cleverness in him too that would astonish you!'\n\n'It would. Very much,' said Clennam, drily.\n\n'And after all,' cried Gowan, with that characteristic balancing of his\nwhich reduced everything in the wide world to the same light weight,\n'though I can't deny that the Circumlocution Office may ultimately\nshipwreck everybody and everything, still, that will probably not be in\nour time--and it's a school for gentlemen.'\n\n'It's a very dangerous, unsatisfactory, and expensive school to the\npeople who pay to keep the pupils there, I am afraid,' said Clennam,\nshaking his head.\n\n'Ah! You are a terrible fellow,' returned Gowan, airily. 'I can\nunderstand how you have frightened that little donkey, Clarence, the\nmost estimable of moon-calves (I really love him) nearly out of his\nwits. But enough of him, and of all the rest of them. I want to present\nyou to my mother, Mr Clennam. Pray do me the favour to give me the\nopportunity.'\n\nIn nobody's state of mind, there was nothing Clennam would have desired\nless, or would have been more at a loss how to avoid.\n\n'My mother lives in a most primitive manner down in that dreary\nred-brick dungeon at Hampton Court,' said Gowan. 'If you would make\nyour own appointment, suggest your own day for permitting me to take\nyou there to dinner, you would be bored and she would be charmed. Really\nthat's the state of the case.'\n\nWhat could Clennam say after this? His retiring character included a\ngreat deal that was simple in the best sense, because unpractised and\nunused; and in his simplicity and modesty, he could only say that he was\nhappy to place himself at Mr Gowan's disposal. Accordingly he said it,\nand the day was fixed. And a dreaded day it was on his part, and a very\nunwelcome day when it came and they went down to Hampton Court together.\n\nThe venerable inhabitants of that venerable pile seemed, in those times,\nto be encamped there like a sort of civilised gipsies. There was a\ntemporary air about their establishments, as if they were going away the\nmoment they could get anything better; there was also a dissatisfied air\nabout themselves, as if they took it very ill that they had not already\ngot something much better. Genteel blinds and makeshifts were more or\nless observable as soon as their doors were opened; screens not half\nhigh enough, which made dining-rooms out of arched passages, and warded\noff obscure corners where footboys slept at nights with their heads\namong the knives and forks; curtains which called upon you to believe\nthat they didn't hide anything; panes of glass which requested you\nnot to see them; many objects of various forms, feigning to have no\nconnection with their guilty secret, a bed; disguised traps in walls,\nwhich were clearly coal-cellars; affectations of no thoroughfares, which\nwere evidently doors to little kitchens. Mental reservations and artful\nmysteries grew out of these things. Callers looking steadily into the\neyes of their receivers, pretended not to smell cooking three feet off;\npeople, confronting closets accidentally left open, pretended not to see\nbottles; visitors with their heads against a partition of thin canvas,\nand a page and a young female at high words on the other side, made\nbelieve to be sitting in a primeval silence. There was no end to the\nsmall social accommodation-bills of this nature which the gipsies of\ngentility were constantly drawing upon, and accepting for, one another.\n\nSome of these Bohemians were of an irritable temperament, as constantly\nsoured and vexed by two mental trials: the first, the consciousness\nthat they had never got enough out of the public; the second, the\nconsciousness that the public were admitted into the building. Under the\nlatter great wrong, a few suffered dreadfully--particularly on Sundays,\nwhen they had for some time expected the earth to open and swallow\nthe public up; but which desirable event had not yet occurred, in\nconsequence of some reprehensible laxity in the arrangements of the\nUniverse.\n\nMrs Gowan's door was attended by a family servant of several years'\nstanding, who had his own crow to pluck with the public concerning a\nsituation in the Post-Office which he had been for some time expecting,\nand to which he was not yet appointed. He perfectly knew that the public\ncould never have got him in, but he grimly gratified himself with the\nidea that the public kept him out. Under the influence of this injury\n(and perhaps of some little straitness and irregularity in the matter\nof wages), he had grown neglectful of his person and morose in mind;\nand now beholding in Clennam one of the degraded body of his oppressors,\nreceived him with ignominy.\n\nMrs Gowan, however, received him with condescension. He found her a\ncourtly old lady, formerly a Beauty, and still sufficiently\nwell-favoured to have dispensed with the powder on her nose and a\ncertain impossible bloom under each eye. She was a little lofty with\nhim; so was another old lady, dark-browed and high-nosed, and who must\nhave had something real about her or she could not have existed, but it\nwas certainly not her hair or her teeth or her figure or her complexion;\nso was a grey old gentleman of dignified and sullen appearance; both of\nwhom had come to dinner. But, as they had all been in the British\nEmbassy way in sundry parts of the earth, and as a British Embassy\ncannot better establish a character with the Circumlocution Office than\nby treating its compatriots with illimitable contempt (else it would\nbecome like the Embassies of other countries), Clennam felt that on the\nwhole they let him off lightly.\n\nThe dignified old gentleman turned out to be Lord Lancaster\nStiltstalking, who had been maintained by the Circumlocution Office for\nmany years as a representative of the Britannic Majesty abroad.\nThis noble Refrigerator had iced several European courts in his time,\nand had done it with such complete success that the very name of\nEnglishman yet struck cold to the stomachs of foreigners who had the\ndistinguished honour of remembering him at a distance of a quarter of a\ncentury.\n\nHe was now in retirement, and hence (in a ponderous white cravat, like\na stiff snow-drift) was so obliging as to shade the dinner. There was a\nwhisper of the pervading Bohemian character in the nomadic nature of\nthe service and its curious races of plates and dishes; but the noble\nRefrigerator, infinitely better than plate or porcelain, made it superb.\nHe shaded the dinner, cooled the wines, chilled the gravy, and blighted\nthe vegetables.\n\nThere was only one other person in the room: a microscopically small\nfootboy, who waited on the malevolent man who hadn't got into the\nPost-Office. Even this youth, if his jacket could have been unbuttoned\nand his heart laid bare, would have been seen, as a distant adherent of\nthe Barnacle family, already to aspire to a situation under Government.\n\nMrs Gowan with a gentle melancholy upon her, occasioned by her son's\nbeing reduced to court the swinish public as a follower of the low Arts,\ninstead of asserting his birthright and putting a ring through its nose\nas an acknowledged Barnacle, headed the conversation at dinner on the\nevil days. It was then that Clennam learned for the first time what\nlittle pivots this great world goes round upon.\n\n'If John Barnacle,' said Mrs Gowan, after the degeneracy of the times\nhad been fully ascertained, 'if John Barnacle had but abandoned his most\nunfortunate idea of conciliating the mob, all would have been well, and\nI think the country would have been preserved.'\n\nThe old lady with the high nose assented; but added that if Augustus\nStiltstalking had in a general way ordered the cavalry out with\ninstructions to charge, she thought the country would have been\npreserved.\n\nThe noble Refrigerator assented; but added that if William Barnacle and\nTudor Stiltstalking, when they came over to one another and formed\ntheir ever-memorable coalition, had boldly muzzled the newspapers,\nand rendered it penal for any Editor-person to presume to discuss the\nconduct of any appointed authority abroad or at home, he thought the\ncountry would have been preserved.\n\nIt was agreed that the country (another word for the Barnacles and\nStiltstalkings) wanted preserving, but how it came to want preserving\nwas not so clear. It was only clear that the question was all about\nJohn Barnacle, Augustus Stiltstalking, William Barnacle and Tudor\nStiltstalking, Tom, Dick, or Harry Barnacle or Stiltstalking, because\nthere was nobody else but mob. And this was the feature of the\nconversation which impressed Clennam, as a man not used to it, very\ndisagreeably: making him doubt if it were quite right to sit there,\nsilently hearing a great nation narrowed to such little bounds.\nRemembering, however, that in the Parliamentary debates, whether on the\nlife of that nation's body or the life of its soul, the question was\nusually all about and between John Barnacle, Augustus Stiltstalking,\nWilliam Barnacle and Tudor Stiltstalking, Tom, Dick, or Harry Barnacle\nor Stiltstalking, and nobody else; he said nothing on the part of mob,\nbethinking himself that mob was used to it.\n\nMr Henry Gowan seemed to have a malicious pleasure in playing off the\nthree talkers against each other, and in seeing Clennam startled by what\nthey said. Having as supreme a contempt for the class that had thrown\nhim off as for the class that had not taken him on, he had no personal\ndisquiet in anything that passed. His healthy state of mind appeared\neven to derive a gratification from Clennam's position of embarrassment\nand isolation among the good company; and if Clennam had been in that\ncondition with which Nobody was incessantly contending, he would have\nsuspected it, and would have struggled with the suspicion as a meanness,\neven while he sat at the table.\n\nIn the course of a couple of hours the noble Refrigerator, at no time\nless than a hundred years behind the period, got about five centuries\nin arrears, and delivered solemn political oracles appropriate to that\nepoch. He finished by freezing a cup of tea for his own drinking,\nand retiring at his lowest temperature.\n\nThen Mrs Gowan, who had been accustomed in her days of a vacant\narm-chair beside her to which to summon state to retain her devoted\nslaves, one by one, for short audiences as marks of her especial favour,\ninvited Clennam with a turn of her fan to approach the presence. He\nobeyed, and took the tripod recently vacated by Lord Lancaster\nStiltstalking.\n\n'Mr Clennam,' said Mrs Gowan, 'apart from the happiness I have in\nbecoming known to you, though in this odiously inconvenient place--a\nmere barrack--there is a subject on which I am dying to speak to you. It\nis the subject in connection with which my son first had, I believe, the\npleasure of cultivating your acquaintance.'\n\nClennam inclined his head, as a generally suitable reply to what he did\nnot yet quite understand.\n\n'First,' said Mrs Gowan, 'now, is she really pretty?'\n\nIn nobody's difficulties, he would have found it very difficult to\nanswer; very difficult indeed to smile, and say 'Who?'\n\n'Oh! You know!' she returned. 'This flame of Henry's. This unfortunate\nfancy. There! If it is a point of honour that I should originate the\nname--Miss Mickles--Miggles.'\n\n'Miss Meagles,' said Clennam, 'is very beautiful.'\n\n'Men are so often mistaken on those points,' returned Mrs Gowan, shaking\nher head, 'that I candidly confess to you I feel anything but sure of\nit, even now; though it is something to have Henry corroborated with so\nmuch gravity and emphasis. He picked the people up at Rome, I think?'\n\nThe phrase would have given nobody mortal offence. Clennam replied,\n'Excuse me, I doubt if I understand your expression.'\n\n'Picked the people up,' said Mrs Gowan, tapping the sticks of her closed\nfan (a large green one, which she used as a hand-screen) on her little\ntable. 'Came upon them. Found them out. Stumbled against them.'\n\n'The people?'\n\n'Yes. The Miggles people.'\n\n'I really cannot say,' said Clennam, 'where my friend Mr Meagles first\npresented Mr Henry Gowan to his daughter.'\n\n'I am pretty sure he picked her up at Rome; but never mind\nwhere--somewhere. Now (this is entirely between ourselves), is she very\nplebeian?'\n\n'Really, ma'am,' returned Clennam, 'I am so undoubtedly plebeian myself,\nthat I do not feel qualified to judge.'\n\n'Very neat!' said Mrs Gowan, coolly unfurling her screen. 'Very happy!\nFrom which I infer that you secretly think her manner equal to her\nlooks?'\n\nClennam, after a moment's stiffness, bowed.\n\n'That's comforting, and I hope you may be right. Did Henry tell me you\nhad travelled with them?'\n\n'I travelled with my friend Mr Meagles, and his wife and daughter,\nduring some months.' (Nobody's heart might have been wrung by the\nremembrance.)\n\n'Really comforting, because you must have had a large experience of\nthem. You see, Mr Clennam, this thing has been going on for a long time,\nand I find no improvement in it. Therefore to have the opportunity of\nspeaking to one so well informed about it as yourself, is an immense\nrelief to me. Quite a boon. Quite a blessing, I am sure.'\n\n'Pardon me,' returned Clennam, 'but I am not in Mr Henry Gowan's\nconfidence. I am far from being so well informed as you suppose me to\nbe. Your mistake makes my position a very delicate one. No word on this\ntopic has ever passed between Mr Henry Gowan and myself.'\n\nMrs Gowan glanced at the other end of the room, where her son was\nplaying ecarte on a sofa, with the old lady who was for a charge of\ncavalry.\n\n'Not in his confidence? No,' said Mrs Gowan. 'No word has passed between\nyou? No. That I can imagine. But there are unexpressed confidences, Mr\nClennam; and as you have been together intimately among these people, I\ncannot doubt that a confidence of that sort exists in the present case.\nPerhaps you have heard that I have suffered the keenest distress of\nmind from Henry's having taken to a pursuit which--well!' shrugging her\nshoulders, 'a very respectable pursuit, I dare say, and some artists\nare, as artists, quite superior persons; still, we never yet in our\nfamily have gone beyond an Amateur, and it is a pardonable weakness to\nfeel a little--'\n\nAs Mrs Gowan broke off to heave a sigh, Clennam, however resolute to\nbe magnanimous, could not keep down the thought that there was mighty\nlittle danger of the family's ever going beyond an Amateur, even as it\nwas.\n\n'Henry,' the mother resumed, 'is self-willed and resolute; and as these\npeople naturally strain every nerve to catch him, I can entertain very\nlittle hope, Mr Clennam, that the thing will be broken off. I apprehend\nthe girl's fortune will be very small; Henry might have done much\nbetter; there is scarcely anything to compensate for the connection:\nstill, he acts for himself; and if I find no improvement within a short\ntime, I see no other course than to resign myself and make the best of\nthese people. I am infinitely obliged to you for what you have told\nme.'\n\nAs she shrugged her shoulders, Clennam stiffly bowed again. With an\nuneasy flush upon his face, and hesitation in his manner, he then said\nin a still lower tone than he had adopted yet:\n\n'Mrs Gowan, I scarcely know how to acquit myself of what I feel to be a\nduty, and yet I must ask you for your kind consideration in\nattempting to discharge it. A misconception on your part, a very great\nmisconception if I may venture to call it so, seems to require setting\nright. You have supposed Mr Meagles and his family to strain every\nnerve, I think you said--'\n\n'Every nerve,' repeated Mrs Gowan, looking at him in calm obstinacy,\nwith her green fan between her face and the fire.\n\n'To secure Mr Henry Gowan?'\n\nThe lady placidly assented.\n\n'Now that is so far,' said Arthur, 'from being the case, that I know\nMr Meagles to be unhappy in this matter; and to have interposed all\nreasonable obstacles with the hope of putting an end to it.'\n\nMrs Gowan shut up her great green fan, tapped him on the arm with it,\nand tapped her smiling lips. 'Why, of course,' said she. 'Just what I\nmean.'\n\nArthur watched her face for some explanation of what she did mean.\n\n'Are you really serious, Mr Clennam? Don't you see?'\n\nArthur did not see; and said so.\n\n'Why, don't I know my son, and don't I know that this is exactly the way\nto hold him?' said Mrs Gowan, contemptuously; 'and do not these Miggles\npeople know it, at least as well as I? Oh, shrewd people, Mr Clennam:\nevidently people of business! I believe Miggles belonged to a Bank. It\nought to have been a very profitable Bank, if he had much to do with its\nmanagement. This is very well done, indeed.'\n\n'I beg and entreat you, ma'am--' Arthur interposed.\n\n'Oh, Mr Clennam, can you really be so credulous?'\n\nIt made such a painful impression upon him to hear her talking in this\nhaughty tone, and to see her patting her contemptuous lips with her\nfan, that he said very earnestly, 'Believe me, ma'am, this is unjust, a\nperfectly groundless suspicion.'\n\n'Suspicion?' repeated Mrs Gowan. 'Not suspicion, Mr Clennam, Certainty.\nIt is very knowingly done indeed, and seems to have taken _you_ in\ncompletely.' She laughed; and again sat tapping her lips with her fan,\nand tossing her head, as if she added, 'Don't tell me. I know such\npeople will do anything for the honour of such an alliance.'\n\nAt this opportune moment, the cards were thrown up, and Mr Henry Gowan\ncame across the room saying, 'Mother, if you can spare Mr Clennam for\nthis time, we have a long way to go, and it's getting late.' Mr Clennam\nthereupon rose, as he had no choice but to do; and Mrs Gowan showed him,\nto the last, the same look and the same tapped contemptuous lips.\n\n'You have had a portentously long audience of my mother,' said Gowan, as\nthe door closed upon them. 'I fervently hope she has not bored you?'\n\n'Not at all,' said Clennam.\n\nThey had a little open phaeton for the journey, and were soon in it on\nthe road home. Gowan, driving, lighted a cigar; Clennam declined one. Do\nwhat he would, he fell into such a mood of abstraction that Gowan said\nagain, 'I am very much afraid my mother has bored you?' To which he\nroused himself to answer, 'Not at all!' and soon relapsed again.\n\nIn that state of mind which rendered nobody uneasy, his thoughtfulness\nwould have turned principally on the man at his side. He would have\nthought of the morning when he first saw him rooting out the stones with\nhis heel, and would have asked himself, 'Does he jerk me out of the\npath in the same careless, cruel way?' He would have thought, had this\nintroduction to his mother been brought about by him because he knew\nwhat she would say, and that he could thus place his position before\na rival and loftily warn him off, without himself reposing a word of\nconfidence in him? He would have thought, even if there were no such\ndesign as that, had he brought him there to play with his repressed\nemotions, and torment him? The current of these meditations would have\nbeen stayed sometimes by a rush of shame, bearing a remonstrance to\nhimself from his own open nature, representing that to shelter such\nsuspicions, even for the passing moment, was not to hold the high,\nunenvious course he had resolved to keep. At those times, the striving\nwithin him would have been hardest; and looking up and catching Gowan's\neyes, he would have started as if he had done him an injury.\n\nThen, looking at the dark road and its uncertain objects, he would have\ngradually trailed off again into thinking, 'Where are we driving, he\nand I, I wonder, on the darker road of life? How will it be with us, and\nwith her, in the obscure distance?' Thinking of her, he would have been\ntroubled anew with a reproachful misgiving that it was not even loyal to\nher to dislike him, and that in being so easily prejudiced against him\nhe was less deserving of her than at first.\n\n'You are evidently out of spirits,' said Gowan; 'I am very much afraid\nmy mother must have bored you dreadfully.'\n\n'Believe me, not at all,' said Clennam. 'It's nothing--nothing!'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 27. Five-and-Twenty\n\nA frequently recurring doubt, whether Mr Pancks's desire to collect\ninformation relative to the Dorrit family could have any possible\nbearing on the misgivings he had imparted to his mother on his return\nfrom his long exile, caused Arthur Clennam much uneasiness at this\nperiod. What Mr Pancks already knew about the Dorrit family, what more\nhe really wanted to find out, and why he should trouble his busy head\nabout them at all, were questions that often perplexed him. Mr Pancks\nwas not a man to waste his time and trouble in researches prompted by\nidle curiosity. That he had a specific object Clennam could not doubt.\nAnd whether the attainment of that object by Mr Pancks's industry might\nbring to light, in some untimely way, secret reasons which had induced\nhis mother to take Little Dorrit by the hand, was a serious speculation.\n\nNot that he ever wavered either in his desire or his determination to\nrepair a wrong that had been done in his father's time, should a\nwrong come to light, and be reparable. The shadow of a supposed act\nof injustice, which had hung over him since his father's death, was\nso vague and formless that it might be the result of a reality widely\nremote from his idea of it. But, if his apprehensions should prove to\nbe well founded, he was ready at any moment to lay down all he had, and\nbegin the world anew. As the fierce dark teaching of his childhood had\nnever sunk into his heart, so that first article in his code of morals\nwas, that he must begin, in practical humility, with looking well to\nhis feet on Earth, and that he could never mount on wings of words to\nHeaven. Duty on earth, restitution on earth, action on earth; these\nfirst, as the first steep steps upward. Strait was the gate and narrow\nwas the way; far straiter and narrower than the broad high road paved\nwith vain professions and vain repetitions, motes from other men's eyes\nand liberal delivery of others to the judgment--all cheap materials\ncosting absolutely nothing.\n\nNo. It was not a selfish fear or hesitation that rendered him\nuneasy, but a mistrust lest Pancks might not observe his part of the\nunderstanding between them, and, making any discovery, might take some\ncourse upon it without imparting it to him. On the other hand, when he\nrecalled his conversation with Pancks, and the little reason he had to\nsuppose that there was any likelihood of that strange personage being\non that track at all, there were times when he wondered that he made so\nmuch of it. Labouring in this sea, as all barks labour in cross seas, he\ntossed about and came to no haven.\n\nThe removal of Little Dorrit herself from their customary association,\ndid not mend the matter. She was so much out, and so much in her own\nroom, that he began to miss her and to find a blank in her place. He had\nwritten to her to inquire if she were better, and she had written\nback, very gratefully and earnestly telling him not to be uneasy on her\nbehalf, for she was quite well; but he had not seen her, for what, in\ntheir intercourse, was a long time.\n\nHe returned home one evening from an interview with her father, who had\nmentioned that she was out visiting--which was what he always said\nwhen she was hard at work to buy his supper--and found Mr Meagles in an\nexcited state walking up and down his room. On his opening the door, Mr\nMeagles stopped, faced round, and said:\n\n'Clennam!--Tattycoram!'\n\n'What's the matter?'\n\n'Lost!'\n\n'Why, bless my heart alive!' cried Clennam in amazement. 'What do you\nmean?'\n\n'Wouldn't count five-and-twenty, sir; couldn't be got to do it; stopped\nat eight, and took herself off.'\n\n'Left your house?'\n\n'Never to come back,' said Mr Meagles, shaking his head. 'You don't know\nthat girl's passionate and proud character. A team of horses couldn't\ndraw her back now; the bolts and bars of the old Bastille couldn't keep\nher.'\n\n'How did it happen? Pray sit down and tell me.'\n\n'As to how it happened, it's not so easy to relate: because you must\nhave the unfortunate temperament of the poor impetuous girl herself,\nbefore you can fully understand it. But it came about in this way. Pet\nand Mother and I have been having a good deal of talk together of late.\nI'll not disguise from you, Clennam, that those conversations have not\nbeen of as bright a kind as I could wish; they have referred to our\ngoing away again. In proposing to do which, I have had, in fact, an\nobject.'\n\nNobody's heart beat quickly.\n\n'An object,' said Mr Meagles, after a moment's pause, 'that I will not\ndisguise from you, either, Clennam. There's an inclination on the part\nof my dear child which I am sorry for. Perhaps you guess the person.\nHenry Gowan.'\n\n'I was not unprepared to hear it.'\n\n'Well!' said Mr Meagles, with a heavy sigh, 'I wish to God you had never\nhad to hear it. However, so it is. Mother and I have done all we could\nto get the better of it, Clennam. We have tried tender advice, we\nhave tried time, we have tried absence. As yet, of no use. Our late\nconversations have been upon the subject of going away for another year\nat least, in order that there might be an entire separation and breaking\noff for that term. Upon that question, Pet has been unhappy, and\ntherefore Mother and I have been unhappy.'\n\nClennam said that he could easily believe it.\n\n'Well!' continued Mr Meagles in an apologetic way, 'I admit as a\npractical man, and I am sure Mother would admit as a practical woman,\nthat we do, in families, magnify our troubles and make mountains of our\nmolehills in a way that is calculated to be rather trying to people who\nlook on--to mere outsiders, you know, Clennam. Still, Pet's happiness\nor unhappiness is quite a life or death question with us; and we may be\nexcused, I hope, for making much of it. At all events, it might have\nbeen borne by Tattycoram. Now, don't you think so?'\n\n'I do indeed think so,' returned Clennam, in most emphatic recognition\nof this very moderate expectation.\n\n'No, sir,' said Mr Meagles, shaking his head ruefully. 'She couldn't\nstand it. The chafing and firing of that girl, the wearing and tearing\nof that girl within her own breast, has been such that I have\nsoftly said to her again and again in passing her, \"Five-and-twenty,\nTattycoram, five-and-twenty!\" I heartily wish she could have gone\non counting five-and-twenty day and night, and then it wouldn't have\nhappened.'\n\nMr Meagles with a despondent countenance in which the goodness of his\nheart was even more expressed than in his times of cheerfulness and\ngaiety, stroked his face down from his forehead to his chin, and shook\nhis head again.\n\n'I said to Mother (not that it was necessary, for she would have thought\nit all for herself), we are practical people, my dear, and we know her\nstory; we see in this unhappy girl some reflection of what was raging in\nher mother's heart before ever such a creature as this poor thing was\nin the world; we'll gloss her temper over, Mother, we won't notice it at\npresent, my dear, we'll take advantage of some better disposition in her\nanother time. So we said nothing. But, do what we would, it seems as if\nit was to be; she broke out violently one night.'\n\n'How, and why?'\n\n'If you ask me Why,' said Mr Meagles, a little disturbed by the\nquestion, for he was far more intent on softening her case than the\nfamily's, 'I can only refer you to what I have just repeated as having\nbeen pretty near my words to Mother. As to How, we had said Good night\nto Pet in her presence (very affectionately, I must allow), and she\nhad attended Pet up-stairs--you remember she was her maid. Perhaps Pet,\nhaving been out of sorts, may have been a little more inconsiderate than\nusual in requiring services of her: but I don't know that I have any\nright to say so; she was always thoughtful and gentle.'\n\n'The gentlest mistress in the world.'\n\n'Thank you, Clennam,' said Mr Meagles, shaking him by the hand; 'you\nhave often seen them together. Well! We presently heard this unfortunate\nTattycoram loud and angry, and before we could ask what was the matter,\nPet came back in a tremble, saying she was frightened of her. Close\nafter her came Tattycoram in a flaming rage. \"I hate you all three,\"\nsays she, stamping her foot at us. \"I am bursting with hate of the whole\nhouse.\"'\n\n'Upon which you--?'\n\n'I?' said Mr Meagles, with a plain good faith that might have commanded\nthe belief of Mrs Gowan herself. 'I said, count five-and-twenty,\nTattycoram.'\n\nMr Meagles again stroked his face and shook his head, with an air of\nprofound regret.\n\n'She was so used to do it, Clennam, that even then, such a picture of\npassion as you never saw, she stopped short, looked me full in the face,\nand counted (as I made out) to eight. But she couldn't control herself\nto go any further. There she broke down, poor thing, and gave the other\nseventeen to the four winds. Then it all burst out. She detested us, she\nwas miserable with us, she couldn't bear it, she wouldn't bear it, she\nwas determined to go away. She was younger than her young mistress, and\nwould she remain to see her always held up as the only creature who was\nyoung and interesting, and to be cherished and loved? No. She wouldn't,\nshe wouldn't, she wouldn't! What did we think she, Tattycoram, might\nhave been if she had been caressed and cared for in her childhood, like\nher young mistress? As good as her? Ah! Perhaps fifty times as good.\nWhen we pretended to be so fond of one another, we exulted over her;\nthat was what we did; we exulted over her and shamed her. And all in\nthe house did the same. They talked about their fathers and mothers, and\nbrothers and sisters; they liked to drag them up before her face. There\nwas Mrs Tickit, only yesterday, when her little grandchild was with her,\nhad been amused by the child's trying to call her (Tattycoram) by the\nwretched name we gave her; and had laughed at the name. Why, who didn't;\nand who were we that we should have a right to name her like a dog or a\ncat? But she didn't care. She would take no more benefits from us; she\nwould fling us her name back again, and she would go. She would leave\nus that minute, nobody should stop her, and we should never hear of her\nagain.'\n\nMr Meagles had recited all this with such a vivid remembrance of his\noriginal, that he was almost as flushed and hot by this time as he\ndescribed her to have been.\n\n'Ah, well!' he said, wiping his face. 'It was of no use trying reason\nthen, with that vehement panting creature (Heaven knows what her\nmother's story must have been); so I quietly told her that she should\nnot go at that late hour of night, and I gave her my hand and took her\nto her room, and locked the house doors. But she was gone this morning.'\n\n'And you know no more of her?'\n\n'No more,' returned Mr Meagles. 'I have been hunting about all day. She\nmust have gone very early and very silently. I have found no trace of\nher down about us.'\n\n'Stay! You want,' said Clennam, after a moment's reflection, 'to see\nher? I assume that?'\n\n'Yes, assuredly; I want to give her another chance; Mother and Pet\nwant to give her another chance; come! You yourself,' said Mr Meagles,\npersuasively, as if the provocation to be angry were not his own at all,\n'want to give the poor passionate girl another chance, I know, Clennam.'\n\n'It would be strange and hard indeed if I did not,' said Clennam, 'when\nyou are all so forgiving. What I was going to ask you was, have you\nthought of that Miss Wade?'\n\n'I have. I did not think of her until I had pervaded the whole of our\nneighbourhood, and I don't know that I should have done so then but\nfor finding Mother and Pet, when I went home, full of the idea that\nTattycoram must have gone to her. Then, of course, I recalled what she\nsaid that day at dinner when you were first with us.'\n\n'Have you any idea where Miss Wade is to be found?'\n\n'To tell you the truth,' returned Mr Meagles, 'it's because I have an\naddled jumble of a notion on that subject that you found me waiting\nhere. There is one of those odd impressions in my house, which do\nmysteriously get into houses sometimes, which nobody seems to have\npicked up in a distinct form from anybody, and yet which everybody seems\nto have got hold of loosely from somebody and let go again, that she\nlives, or was living, thereabouts.' Mr Meagles handed him a slip of\npaper, on which was written the name of one of the dull by-streets in\nthe Grosvenor region, near Park Lane.\n\n'Here is no number,' said Arthur looking over it.\n\n'No number, my dear Clennam?' returned his friend. 'No anything! The\nvery name of the street may have been floating in the air; for, as I\ntell you, none of my people can say where they got it from. However,\nit's worth an inquiry; and as I would rather make it in company than\nalone, and as you too were a fellow-traveller of that immovable woman's,\nI thought perhaps--' Clennam finished the sentence for him by taking up\nhis hat again, and saying he was ready.\n\nIt was now summer-time; a grey, hot, dusty evening. They rode to the top\nof Oxford Street, and there alighting, dived in among the great streets\nof melancholy stateliness, and the little streets that try to be as\nstately and succeed in being more melancholy, of which there is a\nlabyrinth near Park Lane. Wildernesses of corner houses, with barbarous\nold porticoes and appurtenances; horrors that came into existence under\nsome wrong-headed person in some wrong-headed time, still demanding\nthe blind admiration of all ensuing generations and determined to do\nso until they tumbled down; frowned upon the twilight. Parasite little\ntenements, with the cramp in their whole frame, from the dwarf hall-door\non the giant model of His Grace's in the Square to the squeezed window\nof the boudoir commanding the dunghills in the Mews, made the evening\ndoleful. Rickety dwellings of undoubted fashion, but of a capacity to\nhold nothing comfortably except a dismal smell, looked like the last\nresult of the great mansions' breeding in-and-in; and, where their\nlittle supplementary bows and balconies were supported on thin iron\ncolumns, seemed to be scrofulously resting upon crutches. Here and\nthere a Hatchment, with the whole science of Heraldry in it, loomed down\nupon the street, like an Archbishop discoursing on Vanity. The shops,\nfew in number, made no show; for popular opinion was as nothing to them.\nThe pastrycook knew who was on his books, and in that knowledge could be\ncalm, with a few glass cylinders of dowager peppermint-drops in his\nwindow, and half-a-dozen ancient specimens of currant-jelly. A few\noranges formed the greengrocer's whole concession to the vulgar mind. A\nsingle basket made of moss, once containing plovers' eggs, held all that\nthe poulterer had to say to the rabble. Everybody in those streets\nseemed (which is always the case at that hour and season) to be gone out\nto dinner, and nobody seemed to be giving the dinners they had gone to.\nOn the doorsteps there were lounging footmen with bright parti-coloured\nplumage and white polls, like an extinct race of monstrous birds; and\nbutlers, solitary men of recluse demeanour, each of whom appeared\ndistrustful of all other butlers. The roll of carriages in the Park was\ndone for the day; the street lamps were lighting; and wicked little\ngrooms in the tightest fitting garments, with twists in their legs\nanswering to the twists in their minds, hung about in pairs, chewing\nstraws and exchanging fraudulent secrets. The spotted dogs who went out\nwith the carriages, and who were so associated with splendid equipages\nthat it looked like a condescension in those animals to come out without\nthem, accompanied helpers to and fro on messages. Here and there was a\nretiring public-house which did not require to be supported on the\nshoulders of the people, and where gentlemen out of livery were not much\nwanted.\n\nThis last discovery was made by the two friends in pursuing their\ninquiries. Nothing was there, or anywhere, known of such a person as\nMiss Wade, in connection with the street they sought. It was one of the\nparasite streets; long, regular, narrow, dull and gloomy; like a brick\nand mortar funeral. They inquired at several little area gates, where\na dejected youth stood spiking his chin on the summit of a precipitous\nlittle shoot of wooden steps, but could gain no information. They walked\nup the street on one side of the way, and down it on the other, what\ntime two vociferous news-sellers, announcing an extraordinary event that\nhad never happened and never would happen, pitched their hoarse voices\ninto the secret chambers; but nothing came of it. At length they stood\nat the corner from which they had begun, and it had fallen quite dark,\nand they were no wiser.\n\nIt happened that in the street they had several times passed a dingy\nhouse, apparently empty, with bills in the windows, announcing that it\nwas to let. The bills, as a variety in the funeral procession, almost\namounted to a decoration. Perhaps because they kept the house separated\nin his mind, or perhaps because Mr Meagles and himself had twice agreed\nin passing, 'It is clear she don't live there,' Clennam now proposed\nthat they should go back and try that house before finally going away.\nMr Meagles agreed, and back they went.\n\nThey knocked once, and they rang once, without any response. 'Empty,'\nsaid Mr Meagles, listening. 'Once more,' said Clennam, and knocked\nagain. After that knock they heard a movement below, and somebody\nshuffling up towards the door.\n\nThe confined entrance was so dark that it was impossible to make out\ndistinctly what kind of person opened the door; but it appeared to be an\nold woman. 'Excuse our troubling you,' said Clennam. 'Pray can you\ntell us where Miss Wade lives?' The voice in the darkness unexpectedly\nreplied, 'Lives here.'\n\n'Is she at home?'\n\nNo answer coming, Mr Meagles asked again. 'Pray is she at home?'\n\nAfter another delay, 'I suppose she is,' said the voice abruptly; 'you\nhad better come in, and I'll ask.'\n\nThey were summarily shut into the close black house; and the figure\nrustling away, and speaking from a higher level, said, 'Come up, if you\nplease; you can't tumble over anything.' They groped their way up-stairs\ntowards a faint light, which proved to be the light of the street\nshining through a window; and the figure left them shut in an airless\nroom.\n\n'This is odd, Clennam,' said Mr Meagles, softly.\n\n'Odd enough,' assented Clennam in the same tone, 'but we have succeeded;\nthat's the main point. Here's a light coming!'\n\nThe light was a lamp, and the bearer was an old woman: very dirty, very\nwrinkled and dry. 'She's at home,' she said (and the voice was the same\nthat had spoken before); 'she'll come directly.' Having set the lamp\ndown on the table, the old woman dusted her hands on her apron, which\nshe might have done for ever without cleaning them, looked at the\nvisitors with a dim pair of eyes, and backed out.\n\nThe lady whom they had come to see, if she were the present occupant\nof the house, appeared to have taken up her quarters there as she might\nhave established herself in an Eastern caravanserai. A small square\nof carpet in the middle of the room, a few articles of furniture that\nevidently did not belong to the room, and a disorder of trunks and\ntravelling articles, formed the whole of her surroundings. Under some\nformer regular inhabitant, the stifling little apartment had broken out\ninto a pier-glass and a gilt table; but the gilding was as faded as last\nyear's flowers, and the glass was so clouded that it seemed to hold in\nmagic preservation all the fogs and bad weather it had ever reflected.\nThe visitors had had a minute or two to look about them, when the door\nopened and Miss Wade came in.\n\nShe was exactly the same as when they had parted, just as handsome, just\nas scornful, just as repressed. She manifested no surprise in seeing\nthem, nor any other emotion. She requested them to be seated; and\ndeclining to take a seat herself, at once anticipated any introduction\nof their business.\n\n'I apprehend,' she said, 'that I know the cause of your favouring me\nwith this visit. We may come to it at once.'\n\n'The cause then, ma'am,' said Mr Meagles, 'is Tattycoram.'\n\n'So I supposed.'\n\n'Miss Wade,' said Mr Meagles, 'will you be so kind as to say whether you\nknow anything of her?'\n\n'Surely. I know she is here with me.'\n\n'Then, ma'am,' said Mr Meagles, 'allow me to make known to you that I\nshall be happy to have her back, and that my wife and daughter will\nbe happy to have her back. She has been with us a long time: we don't\nforget her claims upon us, and I hope we know how to make allowances.'\n\n'You hope to know how to make allowances?' she returned, in a level,\nmeasured voice. 'For what?'\n\n'I think my friend would say, Miss Wade,' Arthur Clennam interposed,\nseeing Mr Meagles rather at a loss, 'for the passionate sense that\nsometimes comes upon the poor girl, of being at a disadvantage. Which\noccasionally gets the better of better remembrances.'\n\nThe lady broke into a smile as she turned her eyes upon him. 'Indeed?'\nwas all she answered.\n\nShe stood by the table so perfectly composed and still after this\nacknowledgment of his remark that Mr Meagles stared at her under a sort\nof fascination, and could not even look to Clennam to make another move.\nAfter waiting, awkwardly enough, for some moments, Arthur said:\n\n'Perhaps it would be well if Mr Meagles could see her, Miss Wade?'\n\n'That is easily done,' said she. 'Come here, child.' She had opened a\ndoor while saying this, and now led the girl in by the hand. It was\nvery curious to see them standing together: the girl with her disengaged\nfingers plaiting the bosom of her dress, half irresolutely, half\npassionately; Miss Wade with her composed face attentively regarding\nher, and suggesting to an observer, with extraordinary force, in her\ncomposure itself (as a veil will suggest the form it covers), the\nunquenchable passion of her own nature.\n\n'See here,' she said, in the same level way as before. 'Here is your\npatron, your master. He is willing to take you back, my dear, if you are\nsensible of the favour and choose to go. You can be, again, a foil to\nhis pretty daughter, a slave to her pleasant wilfulness, and a toy in\nthe house showing the goodness of the family. You can have your droll\nname again, playfully pointing you out and setting you apart, as it is\nright that you should be pointed out and set apart. (Your birth, you\nknow; you must not forget your birth.) You can again be shown to this\ngentleman's daughter, Harriet, and kept before her, as a living reminder\nof her own superiority and her gracious condescension. You can recover\nall these advantages and many more of the same kind which I dare say\nstart up in your memory while I speak, and which you lose in taking\nrefuge with me--you can recover them all by telling these gentlemen how\nhumbled and penitent you are, and by going back to them to be forgiven.\nWhat do you say, Harriet? Will you go?'\n\nThe girl who, under the influence of these words, had gradually risen\nin anger and heightened in colour, answered, raising her lustrous black\neyes for the moment, and clenching her hand upon the folds it had been\npuckering up, 'I'd die sooner!'\n\nMiss Wade, still standing at her side holding her hand, looked quietly\nround and said with a smile, 'Gentlemen! What do you do upon that?'\n\nPoor Mr Meagles's inexpressible consternation in hearing his motives and\nactions so perverted, had prevented him from interposing any word until\nnow; but now he regained the power of speech.\n\n'Tattycoram,' said he, 'for I'll call you by that name still, my good\ngirl, conscious that I meant nothing but kindness when I gave it to you,\nand conscious that you know it--'\n\n'I don't!' said she, looking up again, and almost rending herself with\nthe same busy hand.\n\n'No, not now, perhaps,' said Mr Meagles; 'not with that lady's eyes so\nintent upon you, Tattycoram,' she glanced at them for a moment, 'and\nthat power over you, which we see she exercises; not now, perhaps, but\nat another time. Tattycoram, I'll not ask that lady whether she believes\nwhat she has said, even in the anger and ill blood in which I and my\nfriend here equally know she has spoken, though she subdues herself,\nwith a determination that any one who has once seen her is not likely\nto forget. I'll not ask you, with your remembrance of my house and all\nbelonging to it, whether you believe it. I'll only say that you have\nno profession to make to me or mine, and no forgiveness to entreat;\nand that all in the world that I ask you to do, is, to count\nfive-and-twenty, Tattycoram.'\n\nShe looked at him for an instant, and then said frowningly, 'I won't.\nMiss Wade, take me away, please.'\n\nThe contention that raged within her had no softening in it now; it\nwas wholly between passionate defiance and stubborn defiance. Her rich\ncolour, her quick blood, her rapid breath, were all setting themselves\nagainst the opportunity of retracing their steps. 'I won't. I won't.\nI won't!' she repeated in a low, thick voice. 'I'd be torn to pieces\nfirst. I'd tear myself to pieces first!'\n\nMiss Wade, who had released her hold, laid her hand protectingly on the\ngirl's neck for a moment, and then said, looking round with her former\nsmile and speaking exactly in her former tone, 'Gentlemen! What do you\ndo upon that?'\n\n'Oh, Tattycoram, Tattycoram!' cried Mr Meagles, adjuring her besides\nwith an earnest hand. 'Hear that lady's voice, look at that lady's face,\nconsider what is in that lady's heart, and think what a future lies\nbefore you. My child, whatever you may think, that lady's influence\nover you--astonishing to us, and I should hardly go too far in saying\nterrible to us to see--is founded in passion fiercer than yours, and\ntemper more violent than yours. What can you two be together? What can\ncome of it?'\n\n'I am alone here, gentlemen,' observed Miss Wade, with no change of\nvoice or manner. 'Say anything you will.'\n\n'Politeness must yield to this misguided girl, ma'am,' said Mr Meagles,\n'at her present pass; though I hope not altogether to dismiss it,\neven with the injury you do her so strongly before me. Excuse me for\nreminding you in her hearing--I must say it--that you were a mystery\nto all of us, and had nothing in common with any of us when she\nunfortunately fell in your way. I don't know what you are, but you don't\nhide, can't hide, what a dark spirit you have within you. If it should\nhappen that you are a woman, who, from whatever cause, has a perverted\ndelight in making a sister-woman as wretched as she is (I am old enough\nto have heard of such), I warn her against you, and I warn you against\nyourself.'\n\n'Gentlemen!' said Miss Wade, calmly. 'When you have concluded--Mr\nClennam, perhaps you will induce your friend--'\n\n'Not without another effort,' said Mr Meagles, stoutly. 'Tattycoram,\nmy poor dear girl, count five-and-twenty.'\n\n'Do not reject the hope, the certainty, this kind man offers you,' said\nClennam in a low emphatic voice. 'Turn to the friends you have not\nforgotten. Think once more!'\n\n'I won't! Miss Wade,' said the girl, with her bosom swelling high, and\nspeaking with her hand held to her throat, 'take me away!'\n\n'Tattycoram,' said Mr Meagles. 'Once more yet! The only thing I ask of\nyou in the world, my child! Count five-and-twenty!'\n\nShe put her hands tightly over her ears, confusedly tumbling down her\nbright black hair in the vehemence of the action, and turned her face\nresolutely to the wall. Miss Wade, who had watched her under this final\nappeal with that strange attentive smile, and that repressing hand\nupon her own bosom with which she had watched her in her struggle at\nMarseilles, then put her arm about her waist as if she took possession\nof her for evermore.\n\nAnd there was a visible triumph in her face when she turned it to\ndismiss the visitors.\n\n'As it is the last time I shall have the honour,' she said, 'and as you\nhave spoken of not knowing what I am, and also of the foundation of my\ninfluence here, you may now know that it is founded in a common cause.\nWhat your broken plaything is as to birth, I am. She has no name, I have\nno name. Her wrong is my wrong. I have nothing more to say to you.'\n\nThis was addressed to Mr Meagles, who sorrowfully went out. As Clennam\nfollowed, she said to him, with the same external composure and in the\nsame level voice, but with a smile that is only seen on cruel faces: a\nvery faint smile, lifting the nostril, scarcely touching the lips, and\nnot breaking away gradually, but instantly dismissed when done with:\n\n'I hope the wife of your dear friend Mr Gowan, may be happy in the\ncontrast of her extraction to this girl's and mine, and in the high good\nfortune that awaits her.'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 28. Nobody's Disappearance\n\n\nNot resting satisfied with the endeavours he had made to recover his\nlost charge, Mr Meagles addressed a letter of remonstrance, breathing\nnothing but goodwill, not only to her, but to Miss Wade too. No answer\ncoming to these epistles, or to another written to the stubborn girl\nby the hand of her late young mistress, which might have melted her\nif anything could (all three letters were returned weeks afterwards as\nhaving been refused at the house-door), he deputed Mrs Meagles to make\nthe experiment of a personal interview. That worthy lady being unable to\nobtain one, and being steadfastly denied admission, Mr Meagles besought\nArthur to essay once more what he could do. All that came of his\ncompliance was, his discovery that the empty house was left in charge\nof the old woman, that Miss Wade was gone, that the waifs and strays of\nfurniture were gone, and that the old woman would accept any number of\nhalf-crowns and thank the donor kindly, but had no information whatever\nto exchange for those coins, beyond constantly offering for perusal a\nmemorandum relative to fixtures, which the house-agent's young man had\nleft in the hall.\n\nUnwilling, even under this discomfiture, to resign the ingrate and leave\nher hopeless, in case of her better dispositions obtaining the mastery\nover the darker side of her character, Mr Meagles, for six successive\ndays, published a discreetly covert advertisement in the morning papers,\nto the effect that if a certain young person who had lately left\nhome without reflection, would at any time apply to his address at\nTwickenham, everything would be as it had been before, and no reproaches\nneed be apprehended. The unexpected consequences of this notification\nsuggested to the dismayed Mr Meagles for the first time that some\nhundreds of young persons must be leaving their homes without reflection\nevery day; for shoals of wrong young people came down to Twickenham,\nwho, not finding themselves received with enthusiasm, generally demanded\ncompensation by way of damages, in addition to coach-hire there and\nback. Nor were these the only uninvited clients whom the advertisement\nproduced. The swarm of begging-letter writers, who would seem to be\nalways watching eagerly for any hook, however small, to hang a letter\nupon, wrote to say that having seen the advertisement, they were induced\nto apply with confidence for various sums, ranging from ten shillings to\nfifty pounds: not because they knew anything about the young person,\nbut because they felt that to part with those donations would greatly\nrelieve the advertiser's mind. Several projectors, likewise, availed\nthemselves of the same opportunity to correspond with Mr Meagles; as,\nfor example, to apprise him that their attention having been called to\nthe advertisement by a friend, they begged to state that if they should\never hear anything of the young person, they would not fail to make it\nknown to him immediately, and that in the meantime if he would oblige\nthem with the funds necessary for bringing to perfection a certain\nentirely novel description of Pump, the happiest results would ensue to\nmankind.\n\nMr Meagles and his family, under these combined discouragements, had\nbegun reluctantly to give up Tattycoram as irrecoverable, when the new\nand active firm of Doyce and Clennam, in their private capacities,\nwent down on a Saturday to stay at the cottage until Monday. The senior\npartner took the coach, and the junior partner took his walking-stick.\n\nA tranquil summer sunset shone upon him as he approached the end of\nhis walk, and passed through the meadows by the river side. He had\nthat sense of peace, and of being lightened of a weight of care, which\ncountry quiet awakens in the breasts of dwellers in towns. Everything\nwithin his view was lovely and placid. The rich foliage of the trees,\nthe luxuriant grass diversified with wild flowers, the little green\nislands in the river, the beds of rushes, the water-lilies floating on\nthe surface of the stream, the distant voices in boats borne musically\ntowards him on the ripple of the water and the evening air, were all\nexpressive of rest. In the occasional leap of a fish, or dip of an oar,\nor twittering of a bird not yet at roost, or distant barking of a dog,\nor lowing of a cow--in all such sounds, there was the prevailing breath\nof rest, which seemed to encompass him in every scent that sweetened\nthe fragrant air. The long lines of red and gold in the sky, and the\nglorious track of the descending sun, were all divinely calm. Upon the\npurple tree-tops far away, and on the green height near at hand up which\nthe shades were slowly creeping, there was an equal hush. Between the\nreal landscape and its shadow in the water, there was no division; both\nwere so untroubled and clear, and, while so fraught with solemn mystery\nof life and death, so hopefully reassuring to the gazer's soothed heart,\nbecause so tenderly and mercifully beautiful.\n\nClennam had stopped, not for the first time by many times, to look about\nhim and suffer what he saw to sink into his soul, as the shadows, looked\nat, seemed to sink deeper and deeper into the water. He was slowly\nresuming his way, when he saw a figure in the path before him which he\nhad, perhaps, already associated with the evening and its impressions.\n\nMinnie was there, alone. She had some roses in her hand, and seemed to\nhave stood still on seeing him, waiting for him. Her face was towards\nhim, and she appeared to have been coming from the opposite direction.\nThere was a flutter in her manner, which Clennam had never seen in it\nbefore; and as he came near her, it entered his mind all at once that\nshe was there of a set purpose to speak to him.\n\nShe gave him her hand, and said, 'You wonder to see me here by myself?\nBut the evening is so lovely, I have strolled further than I meant\nat first. I thought it likely I might meet you, and that made me more\nconfident. You always come this way, do you not?'\n\nAs Clennam said that it was his favourite way, he felt her hand falter\non his arm, and saw the roses shake.\n\n'Will you let me give you one, Mr Clennam? I gathered them as I came out\nof the garden. Indeed, I almost gathered them for you, thinking it so\nlikely I might meet you. Mr Doyce arrived more than an hour ago, and\ntold us you were walking down.'\n\nHis own hand shook, as he accepted a rose or two from hers and thanked\nher. They were now by an avenue of trees. Whether they turned into it on\nhis movement or on hers matters little. He never knew how that was.\n\n'It is very grave here,' said Clennam, 'but very pleasant at this hour.\nPassing along this deep shade, and out at that arch of light at the\nother end, we come upon the ferry and the cottage by the best approach,\nI think.'\n\nIn her simple garden-hat and her light summer dress, with her rich brown\nhair naturally clustering about her, and her wonderful eyes raised to\nhis for a moment with a look in which regard for him and trustfulness in\nhim were strikingly blended with a kind of timid sorrow for him, she was\nso beautiful that it was well for his peace--or ill for his peace, he\ndid not quite know which--that he had made that vigorous resolution he\nhad so often thought about.\n\nShe broke a momentary silence by inquiring if he knew that papa had been\nthinking of another tour abroad? He said he had heard it mentioned. She\nbroke another momentary silence by adding, with some hesitation, that\npapa had abandoned the idea.\n\nAt this, he thought directly, 'they are to be married.'\n\n'Mr Clennam,' she said, hesitating more timidly yet, and speaking so low\nthat he bent his head to hear her. 'I should very much like to give you\nmy confidence, if you would not mind having the goodness to receive\nit. I should have very much liked to have given it to you long ago,\nbecause--I felt that you were becoming so much our friend.'\n\n'How can I be otherwise than proud of it at any time! Pray give it to\nme. Pray trust me.'\n\n'I could never have been afraid of trusting you,' she returned, raising\nher eyes frankly to his face. 'I think I would have done so some time\nago, if I had known how. But I scarcely know how, even now.'\n\n'Mr Gowan,' said Arthur Clennam, 'has reason to be very happy. God bless\nhis wife and him!'\n\nShe wept, as she tried to thank him. He reassured her, took her hand\nas it lay with the trembling roses in it on his arm, took the remaining\nroses from it, and put it to his lips. At that time, it seemed to him,\nhe first finally resigned the dying hope that had flickered in nobody's\nheart so much to its pain and trouble; and from that time he became in\nhis own eyes, as to any similar hope or prospect, a very much older man\nwho had done with that part of life.\n\nHe put the roses in his breast and they walked on for a little while,\nslowly and silently, under the umbrageous trees. Then he asked her, in\na voice of cheerful kindness, was there anything else that she would\nsay to him as her friend and her father's friend, many years older than\nherself; was there any trust she would repose in him, any service she\nwould ask of him, any little aid to her happiness that she could give\nhim the lasting gratification of believing it was in his power to\nrender?\n\nShe was going to answer, when she was so touched by some little hidden\nsorrow or sympathy--what could it have been?--that she said, bursting\ninto tears again: 'O Mr Clennam! Good, generous, Mr Clennam, pray tell\nme you do not blame me.'\n\n'I blame you?' said Clennam. 'My dearest girl! I blame you? No!'\n\nAfter clasping both her hands upon his arm, and looking confidentially\nup into his face, with some hurried words to the effect that she thanked\nhim from her heart (as she did, if it be the source of earnestness), she\ngradually composed herself, with now and then a word of encouragement\nfrom him, as they walked on slowly and almost silently under the\ndarkening trees.\n\n'And, now, Minnie Gowan,' at length said Clennam, smiling; 'will you ask\nme nothing?'\n\n'Oh! I have very much to ask of you.'\n\n'That's well! I hope so; I am not disappointed.'\n\n'You know how I am loved at home, and how I love home. You can hardly\nthink it perhaps, dear Mr Clennam,' she spoke with great agitation,\n'seeing me going from it of my own free will and choice, but I do so\ndearly love it!'\n\n'I am sure of that,' said Clennam. 'Can you suppose I doubt it?'\n\n'No, no. But it is strange, even to me, that loving it so much and\nbeing so much beloved in it, I can bear to cast it away. It seems so\nneglectful of it, so unthankful.'\n\n'My dear girl,' said Clennam, 'it is in the natural progress and change\nof time. All homes are left so.'\n\n'Yes, I know; but all homes are not left with such a blank in them as\nthere will be in mine when I am gone. Not that there is any scarcity of\nfar better and more endearing and more accomplished girls than I am; not\nthat I am much, but that they have made so much of me!'\n\nPet's affectionate heart was overcharged, and she sobbed while she\npictured what would happen.\n\n'I know what a change papa will feel at first, and I know that at first\nI cannot be to him anything like what I have been these many years.\nAnd it is then, Mr Clennam, then more than at any time, that I beg and\nentreat you to remember him, and sometimes to keep him company when you\ncan spare a little while; and to tell him that you know I was fonder\nof him when I left him, than I ever was in all my life. For there is\nnobody--he told me so himself when he talked to me this very day--there\nis nobody he likes so well as you, or trusts so much.'\n\nA clue to what had passed between the father and daughter dropped like\na heavy stone into the well of Clennam's heart, and swelled the water\nto his eyes. He said, cheerily, but not quite so cheerily as he tried to\nsay, that it should be done--that he gave her his faithful promise.\n\n'If I do not speak of mama,' said Pet, more moved by, and more pretty\nin, her innocent grief, than Clennam could trust himself even to\nconsider--for which reason he counted the trees between them and the\nfading light as they slowly diminished in number--'it is because mama\nwill understand me better in this action, and will feel my loss in a\ndifferent way, and will look forward in a different manner. But you know\nwhat a dear, devoted mother she is, and you will remember her too; will\nyou not?'\n\nLet Minnie trust him, Clennam said, let Minnie trust him to do all she\nwished.\n\n'And, dear Mr Clennam,' said Minnie, 'because papa and one whom I need\nnot name, do not fully appreciate and understand one another yet, as\nthey will by-and-by; and because it will be the duty, and the pride,\nand pleasure of my new life, to draw them to a better knowledge of one\nanother, and to be a happiness to one another, and to be proud of one\nanother, and to love one another, both loving me so dearly; oh, as you\nare a kind, true man! when I am first separated from home (I am going a\nlong distance away), try to reconcile papa to him a little more, and use\nyour great influence to keep him before papa's mind free from\nprejudice and in his real form. Will you do this for me, as you are a\nnoble-hearted friend?'\n\nPoor Pet! Self-deceived, mistaken child! When were such changes\never made in men's natural relations to one another: when was such\nreconcilement of ingrain differences ever effected! It has been tried\nmany times by other daughters, Minnie; it has never succeeded; nothing\nhas ever come of it but failure.\n\nSo Clennam thought. So he did not say; it was too late. He bound himself\nto do all she asked, and she knew full well that he would do it.\n\nThey were now at the last tree in the avenue. She stopped, and withdrew\nher arm. Speaking to him with her eyes lifted up to his, and with the\nhand that had lately rested on his sleeve trembling by touching one of\nthe roses in his breast as an additional appeal to him, she said:\n\n'Dear Mr Clennam, in my happiness--for I am happy, though you have seen\nme crying--I cannot bear to leave any cloud between us. If you have\nanything to forgive me (not anything that I have wilfully done, but any\ntrouble I may have caused you without meaning it, or having it in my\npower to help it), forgive me to-night out of your noble heart!'\n\nHe stooped to meet the guileless face that met his without shrinking. He\nkissed it, and answered, Heaven knew that he had nothing to forgive.\nAs he stooped to meet the innocent face once again, she whispered,\n'Good-bye!' and he repeated it. It was taking leave of all his old\nhopes--all nobody's old restless doubts. They came out of the avenue\nnext moment, arm-in-arm as they had entered it: and the trees seemed to\nclose up behind them in the darkness, like their own perspective of the\npast.\n\nThe voices of Mr and Mrs Meagles and Doyce were audible directly,\nspeaking near the garden gate. Hearing Pet's name among them, Clennam\ncalled out, 'She is here, with me.' There was some little wondering and\nlaughing until they came up; but as soon as they had all come together,\nit ceased, and Pet glided away.\n\nMr Meagles, Doyce, and Clennam, without speaking, walked up and down\non the brink of the river, in the light of the rising moon, for a few\nminutes; and then Doyce lingered behind, and went into the house. Mr\nMeagles and Clennam walked up and down together for a few minutes more\nwithout speaking, until at length the former broke silence.\n\n'Arthur,' said he, using that familiar address for the first time in\ntheir communication, 'do you remember my telling you, as we walked up\nand down one hot morning, looking over the harbour at Marseilles, that\nPet's baby sister who was dead seemed to Mother and me to have grown as\nshe had grown, and changed as she had changed?'\n\n'Very well.'\n\n'You remember my saying that our thoughts had never been able to\nseparate those twin sisters, and that, in our fancy, whatever Pet was,\nthe other was?'\n\n'Yes, very well.'\n\n'Arthur,' said Mr Meagles, much subdued, 'I carry that fancy further\nto-night. I feel to-night, my dear fellow, as if you had loved my dead\nchild very tenderly, and had lost her when she was like what Pet is\nnow.'\n\n'Thank you!' murmured Clennam, 'thank you!' And pressed his hand.\n\n'Will you come in?' said Mr Meagles, presently.\n\n'In a little while.'\n\nMr Meagles fell away, and he was left alone. When he had walked on the\nriver's brink in the peaceful moonlight for some half an hour, he put\nhis hand in his breast and tenderly took out the handful of roses.\nPerhaps he put them to his heart, perhaps he put them to his lips, but\ncertainly he bent down on the shore and gently launched them on the\nflowing river. Pale and unreal in the moonlight, the river floated them\naway.\n\nThe lights were bright within doors when he entered, and the faces on\nwhich they shone, his own face not excepted, were soon quietly cheerful.\nThey talked of many subjects (his partner never had had such a ready\nstore to draw upon for the beguiling of the time), and so to bed, and to\nsleep. While the flowers, pale and unreal in the moonlight, floated away\nupon the river; and thus do greater things that once were in our\nbreasts, and near our hearts, flow from us to the eternal seas.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 29. Mrs Flintwinch goes on Dreaming\n\n\nThe house in the city preserved its heavy dulness through all these\ntransactions, and the invalid within it turned the same unvarying\nround of life. Morning, noon, and night, morning, noon, and night, each\nrecurring with its accompanying monotony, always the same reluctant\nreturn of the same sequences of machinery, like a dragging piece of\nclockwork.\n\nThe wheeled chair had its associated remembrances and reveries, one may\nsuppose, as every place that is made the station of a human being has.\nPictures of demolished streets and altered houses, as they formerly were\nwhen the occupant of the chair was familiar with them, images of people\nas they too used to be, with little or no allowance made for the lapse\nof time since they were seen; of these, there must have been many in the\nlong routine of gloomy days. To stop the clock of busy existence at the\nhour when we were personally sequestered from it, to suppose mankind\nstricken motionless when we were brought to a stand-still, to be unable\nto measure the changes beyond our view by any larger standard than\nthe shrunken one of our own uniform and contracted existence, is the\ninfirmity of many invalids, and the mental unhealthiness of almost all\nrecluses.\n\nWhat scenes and actors the stern woman most reviewed, as she sat\nfrom season to season in her one dark room, none knew but herself. Mr\nFlintwinch, with his wry presence brought to bear upon her daily like\nsome eccentric mechanical force, would perhaps have screwed it out of\nher, if there had been less resistance in her; but she was too strong\nfor him. So far as Mistress Affery was concerned, to regard her\nliege-lord and her disabled mistress with a face of blank wonder, to\ngo about the house after dark with her apron over her head, always to\nlisten for the strange noises and sometimes to hear them, and never\nto emerge from her ghostly, dreamy, sleep-waking state, was occupation\nenough for her.\n\nThere was a fair stroke of business doing, as Mistress Affery made out,\nfor her husband had abundant occupation in his little office, and saw\nmore people than had been used to come there for some years. This might\neasily be, the house having been long deserted; but he did receive\nletters, and comers, and keep books, and correspond. Moreover, he went\nabout to other counting-houses, and to wharves, and docks, and to the\nCustom House, and to Garraway's Coffee House, and the Jerusalem Coffee\nHouse, and on 'Change; so that he was much in and out. He began, too,\nsometimes of an evening, when Mrs Clennam expressed no particular wish\nfor his society, to resort to a tavern in the neighbourhood to look at\nthe shipping news and closing prices in the evening paper, and even to\nexchange small socialities with mercantile Sea Captains who frequented\nthat establishment. At some period of every day, he and Mrs Clennam held\na council on matters of business; and it appeared to Affery, who was\nalways groping about, listening and watching, that the two clever ones\nwere making money.\n\nThe state of mind into which Mr Flintwinch's dazed lady had fallen, had\nnow begun to be so expressed in all her looks and actions that she was\nheld in very low account by the two clever ones, as a person, never\nof strong intellect, who was becoming foolish. Perhaps because her\nappearance was not of a commercial cast, or perhaps because it occurred\nto him that his having taken her to wife might expose his judgment to\ndoubt in the minds of customers, Mr Flintwinch laid his commands upon\nher that she should hold her peace on the subject of her conjugal\nrelations, and should no longer call him Jeremiah out of the domestic\ntrio. Her frequent forgetfulness of this admonition intensified her\nstartled manner, since Mr Flintwinch's habit of avenging himself on her\nremissness by making springs after her on the staircase, and shaking\nher, occasioned her to be always nervously uncertain when she might be\nthus waylaid next.\n\nLittle Dorrit had finished a long day's work in Mrs Clennam's room, and\nwas neatly gathering up her shreds and odds and ends before going home.\nMr Pancks, whom Affery had just shown in, was addressing an inquiry to\nMrs Clennam on the subject of her health, coupled with the remark that,\n'happening to find himself in that direction,' he had looked in to\ninquire, on behalf of his proprietor, how she found herself. Mrs\nClennam, with a deep contraction of her brows, was looking at him.\n\n'Mr Casby knows,' said she, 'that I am not subject to changes. The\nchange that I await here is the great change.'\n\n'Indeed, ma'am?' returned Mr Pancks, with a wandering eye towards the\nfigure of the little seamstress on her knee picking threads and fraying\nof her work from the carpet. 'You look nicely, ma'am.'\n\n'I bear what I have to bear,' she answered. 'Do you what you have to\ndo.'\n\n'Thank you, ma'am,' said Mr Pancks, 'such is my endeavour.'\n\n'You are often in this direction, are you not?' asked Mrs Clennam.\n\n'Why, yes, ma'am,' said Pancks, 'rather so lately; I have lately been\nround this way a good deal, owing to one thing and another.'\n\n'Beg Mr Casby and his daughter not to trouble themselves, by deputy,\nabout me. When they wish to see me, they know I am here to see them.\nThey have no need to trouble themselves to send. You have no need to\ntrouble yourself to come.'\n\n'Not the least trouble, ma'am,' said Mr Pancks. 'You really are looking\nuncommonly nicely, ma'am.'\n\n'Thank you. Good evening.'\n\nThe dismissal, and its accompanying finger pointed straight at the door,\nwas so curt and direct that Mr Pancks did not see his way to prolong his\nvisit. He stirred up his hair with his sprightliest expression, glanced\nat the little figure again, said 'Good evening, ma 'am; don't come down,\nMrs Affery, I know the road to the door,' and steamed out. Mrs Clennam,\nher chin resting on her hand, followed him with attentive and darkly\ndistrustful eyes; and Affery stood looking at her as if she were\nspell-bound.\n\nSlowly and thoughtfully, Mrs Clennam's eyes turned from the door by\nwhich Pancks had gone out, to Little Dorrit, rising from the carpet.\nWith her chin drooping more heavily on her hand, and her eyes vigilant\nand lowering, the sick woman sat looking at her until she attracted her\nattention. Little Dorrit coloured under such a gaze, and looked down.\nMrs Clennam still sat intent.\n\n'Little Dorrit,' she said, when she at last broke silence, 'what do you\nknow of that man?'\n\n'I don't know anything of him, ma'am, except that I have seen him about,\nand that he has spoken to me.'\n\n'What has he said to you?'\n\n'I don't understand what he has said, he is so strange. But nothing\nrough or disagreeable.'\n\n'Why does he come here to see you?'\n\n'I don't know, ma'am,' said Little Dorrit, with perfect frankness.\n\n'You know that he does come here to see you?'\n\n'I have fancied so,' said Little Dorrit. 'But why he should come here or\nanywhere for that, ma'am, I can't think.'\n\nMrs Clennam cast her eyes towards the ground, and with her strong, set\nface, as intent upon a subject in her mind as it had lately been upon\nthe form that seemed to pass out of her view, sat absorbed. Some minutes\nelapsed before she came out of this thoughtfulness, and resumed her hard\ncomposure.\n\nLittle Dorrit in the meanwhile had been waiting to go, but afraid to\ndisturb her by moving. She now ventured to leave the spot where she\nhad been standing since she had risen, and to pass gently round by the\nwheeled chair. She stopped at its side to say 'Good night, ma'am.'\n\nMrs Clennam put out her hand, and laid it on her arm. Little Dorrit,\nconfused under the touch, stood faltering. Perhaps some momentary\nrecollection of the story of the Princess may have been in her mind.\n\n'Tell me, Little Dorrit,' said Mrs Clennam, 'have you many friends now?'\n\n'Very few, ma'am. Besides you, only Miss Flora and--one more.'\n\n'Meaning,' said Mrs Clennam, with her unbent finger again pointing to\nthe door, 'that man?'\n\n'Oh no, ma'am!'\n\n'Some friend of his, perhaps?'\n\n'No ma'am.' Little Dorrit earnestly shook her head. 'Oh no! No one at\nall like him, or belonging to him.'\n\n'Well!' said Mrs Clennam, almost smiling. 'It is no affair of mine. I\nask, because I take an interest in you; and because I believe I was your\nfriend when you had no other who could serve you. Is that so?'\n\n'Yes, ma'am; indeed it is. I have been here many a time when, but for\nyou and the work you gave me, we should have wanted everything.'\n\n'We,' repeated Mrs Clennam, looking towards the watch, once her dead\nhusband's, which always lay upon her table. 'Are there many of you?'\n\n'Only father and I, now. I mean, only father and I to keep regularly out\nof what we get.'\n\n'Have you undergone many privations? You and your father and who else\nthere may be of you?' asked Mrs Clennam, speaking deliberately, and\nmeditatively turning the watch over and over.\n\n'Sometimes it has been rather hard to live,' said Little Dorrit, in her\nsoft voice, and timid uncomplaining way; 'but I think not harder--as to\nthat--than many people find it.'\n\n'That's well said!' Mrs Clennam quickly returned. 'That's the truth!\nYou are a good, thoughtful girl. You are a grateful girl too, or I much\nmistake you.'\n\n'It is only natural to be that. There is no merit in being that,' said\nLittle Dorrit. 'I am indeed.'\n\nMrs Clennam, with a gentleness of which the dreaming Affery had never\ndreamed her to be capable, drew down the face of her little seamstress,\nand kissed her on the forehead.\n\n'Now go, Little Dorrit,' said she,'or you will be late, poor child!'\n\nIn all the dreams Mistress Affery had been piling up since she first\nbecame devoted to the pursuit, she had dreamed nothing more astonishing\nthan this. Her head ached with the idea that she would find the other\nclever one kissing Little Dorrit next, and then the two clever ones\nembracing each other and dissolving into tears of tenderness for all\nmankind. The idea quite stunned her, as she attended the light footsteps\ndown the stairs, that the house door might be safely shut.\n\nOn opening it to let Little Dorrit out, she found Mr Pancks, instead\nof having gone his way, as in any less wonderful place and among less\nwonderful phenomena he might have been reasonably expected to do,\nfluttering up and down the court outside the house. The moment he saw\nLittle Dorrit, he passed her briskly, said with his finger to his nose\n(as Mrs Affery distinctly heard), 'Pancks the gipsy, fortune-telling,'\nand went away. 'Lord save us, here's a gipsy and a fortune-teller in it\nnow!' cried Mistress Affery. 'What next!'\n\nShe stood at the open door, staggering herself with this enigma, on a\nrainy, thundery evening. The clouds were flying fast, and the wind was\ncoming up in gusts, banging some neighbouring shutters that had broken\nloose, twirling the rusty chimney-cowls and weather-cocks, and rushing\nround and round a confined adjacent churchyard as if it had a mind to\nblow the dead citizens out of their graves. The low thunder, muttering\nin all quarters of the sky at once, seemed to threaten vengeance for\nthis attempted desecration, and to mutter, 'Let them rest! Let them\nrest!'\n\nMistress Affery, whose fear of thunder and lightning was only to\nbe equalled by her dread of the haunted house with a premature and\npreternatural darkness in it, stood undecided whether to go in or not,\nuntil the question was settled for her by the door blowing upon her in\na violent gust of wind and shutting her out. 'What's to be done now,\nwhat's to be done now!' cried Mistress Affery, wringing her hands in\nthis last uneasy dream of all; 'when she's all alone by herself\ninside, and can no more come down to open it than the churchyard dead\nthemselves!'\n\nIn this dilemma, Mistress Affery, with her apron as a hood to keep the\nrain off, ran crying up and down the solitary paved enclosure several\ntimes. Why she should then stoop down and look in at the keyhole of the\ndoor as if an eye would open it, it would be difficult to say; but it\nis none the less what most people would have done in the same situation,\nand it is what she did.\n\nFrom this posture she started up suddenly, with a half scream, feeling\nsomething on her shoulder. It was the touch of a hand; of a man's hand.\n\nThe man was dressed like a traveller, in a foraging cap with fur about\nit, and a heap of cloak. He looked like a foreigner. He had a quantity\nof hair and moustache--jet black, except at the shaggy ends, where\nit had a tinge of red--and a high hook nose. He laughed at Mistress\nAffery's start and cry; and as he laughed, his moustache went up under\nhis nose, and his nose came down over his moustache.\n\n'What's the matter?' he asked in plain English. 'What are you frightened\nat?'\n\n'At you,' panted Affery.\n\n'Me, madam?'\n\n'And the dismal evening, and--and everything,' said Affery. 'And here!\nThe wind has been and blown the door to, and I can't get in.'\n\n'Hah!' said the gentleman, who took that very coolly. 'Indeed! Do you\nknow such a name as Clennam about here?'\n\n'Lord bless us, I should think I did, I should think I did!' cried\nAffery, exasperated into a new wringing of hands by the inquiry.\n\n'Where about here?'\n\n'Where!' cried Affery, goaded into another inspection of the keyhole.\n'Where but here in this house? And she's all alone in her room, and lost\nthe use of her limbs and can't stir to help herself or me, and t'other\nclever one's out, and Lord forgive me!' cried Affery, driven into a\nfrantic dance by these accumulated considerations, 'if I ain't a-going\nheadlong out of my mind!'\n\nTaking a warmer view of the matter now that it concerned himself, the\ngentleman stepped back to glance at the house, and his eye soon rested\non the long narrow window of the little room near the hall-door.\n\n'Where may the lady be who has lost the use of her limbs, madam?' he\ninquired, with that peculiar smile which Mistress Affery could not\nchoose but keep her eyes upon.\n\n'Up there!' said Affery. 'Them two windows.'\n\n'Hah! I am of a fair size, but could not have the honour of presenting\nmyself in that room without a ladder. Now, madam, frankly--frankness is\na part of my character--shall I open the door for you?'\n\n'Yes, bless you, sir, for a dear creetur, and do it at once,' cried\nAffery, 'for she may be a-calling to me at this very present minute, or\nmay be setting herself a fire and burning herself to death, or there's\nno knowing what may be happening to her, and me a-going out of my mind\nat thinking of it!'\n\n'Stay, my good madam!' He restrained her impatience with a smooth white\nhand. 'Business-hours, I apprehend, are over for the day?'\n\n'Yes, yes, yes,' cried Affery. 'Long ago.'\n\n'Let me make, then, a fair proposal. Fairness is a part of my character.\nI am just landed from the packet-boat, as you may see.' He showed her\nthat his cloak was very wet, and that his boots were saturated with\nwater; she had previously observed that he was dishevelled and sallow,\nas if from a rough voyage, and so chilled that he could not keep his\nteeth from chattering. 'I am just landed from the packet-boat, madam,\nand have been delayed by the weather: the infernal weather! In\nconsequence of this, madam, some necessary business that I should\notherwise have transacted here within the regular hours (necessary\nbusiness because money-business), still remains to be done. Now, if you\nwill fetch any authorised neighbouring somebody to do it in return for\nmy opening the door, I'll open the door. If this arrangement should be\nobjectionable, I'll--' and with the same smile he made a significant\nfeint of backing away.\n\nMistress Affery, heartily glad to effect the proposed compromise, gave\nin her willing adhesion to it. The gentleman at once requested her to\ndo him the favour of holding his cloak, took a short run at the narrow\nwindow, made a leap at the sill, clung his way up the bricks, and in\na moment had his hand at the sash, raising it. His eyes looked so very\nsinister, as he put his leg into the room and glanced round at Mistress\nAffery, that she thought with a sudden coldness, if he were to go\nstraight up-stairs to murder the invalid, what could she do to prevent\nhim?\n\nHappily he had no such purpose; for he reappeared, in a moment, at the\nhouse door. 'Now, my dear madam,' he said, as he took back his cloak and\nthrew it on, 'if you have the goodness to--what the Devil's that!'\n\nThe strangest of sounds. Evidently close at hand from the peculiar\nshock it communicated to the air, yet subdued as if it were far off. A\ntremble, a rumble, and a fall of some light dry matter.\n\n'What the Devil is it?'\n\n'I don't know what it is, but I've heard the like of it over and over\nagain,' said Affery, who had caught his arm.\n\nHe could hardly be a very brave man, even she thought in her dreamy\nstart and fright, for his trembling lips had turned colourless. After\nlistening a few moments, he made light of it.\n\n'Bah! Nothing! Now, my dear madam, I think you spoke of some clever\npersonage. Will you be so good as to confront me with that genius?' He\nheld the door in his hand, as though he were quite ready to shut her out\nagain if she failed.\n\n'Don't you say anything about the door and me, then,' whispered Affery.\n\n'Not a word.'\n\n'And don't you stir from here, or speak if she calls, while I run round\nthe corner.'\n\n'Madam, I am a statue.'\n\nAffery had so vivid a fear of his going stealthily up-stairs the moment\nher back was turned, that after hurrying out of sight, she returned to\nthe gateway to peep at him. Seeing him still on the threshold, more out\nof the house than in it, as if he had no love for darkness and no\ndesire to probe its mysteries, she flew into the next street, and sent a\nmessage into the tavern to Mr Flintwinch, who came out directly. The\ntwo returning together--the lady in advance, and Mr Flintwinch coming up\nbriskly behind, animated with the hope of shaking her before she could\nget housed--saw the gentleman standing in the same place in the dark,\nand heard the strong voice of Mrs Clennam calling from her room, 'Who is\nit? What is it? Why does no one answer? Who _is_ that, down there?'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 30. The Word of a Gentleman\n\n\nWhen Mr and Mrs Flintwinch panted up to the door of the old house in the\ntwilight, Jeremiah within a second of Affery, the stranger started back.\n'Death of my soul!' he exclaimed. 'Why, how did you get here?'\n\nMr Flintwinch, to whom these words were spoken, repaid the stranger's\nwonder in full. He gazed at him with blank astonishment; he looked over\nhis own shoulder, as expecting to see some one he had not been aware of\nstanding behind him; he gazed at the stranger again, speechlessly, at\na loss to know what he meant; he looked to his wife for explanation;\nreceiving none, he pounced upon her, and shook her with such heartiness\nthat he shook her cap off her head, saying between his teeth, with grim\nraillery, as he did it, 'Affery, my woman, you must have a dose, my\nwoman! This is some of your tricks! You have been dreaming again,\nmistress. What's it about? Who is it? What does it mean! Speak out or be\nchoked! It's the only choice I'll give you.'\n\nSupposing Mistress Affery to have any power of election at the moment,\nher choice was decidedly to be choked; for she answered not a syllable\nto this adjuration, but, with her bare head wagging violently backwards\nand forwards, resigned herself to her punishment. The stranger, however,\npicking up her cap with an air of gallantry, interposed.\n\n'Permit me,' said he, laying his hand on the shoulder of Jeremiah, who\nstopped and released his victim. 'Thank you. Excuse me. Husband and\nwife I know, from this playfulness. Haha! Always agreeable to see that\nrelation playfully maintained. Listen! May I suggest that somebody\nup-stairs, in the dark, is becoming energetically curious to know what\nis going on here?'\n\nThis reference to Mrs Clennam's voice reminded Mr Flintwinch to step\ninto the hall and call up the staircase. 'It's all right, I am here,\nAffery is coming with your light.' Then he said to the latter\nflustered woman, who was putting her cap on, 'Get out with you, and get\nup-stairs!' and then turned to the stranger and said to him, 'Now, sir,\nwhat might you please to want?'\n\n'I am afraid,' said the stranger, 'I must be so troublesome as to\npropose a candle.'\n\n'True,' assented Jeremiah. 'I was going to do so. Please to stand where\nyou are while I get one.'\n\nThe visitor was standing in the doorway, but turned a little into the\ngloom of the house as Mr Flintwinch turned, and pursued him with his\neyes into the little room, where he groped about for a phosphorus box.\nWhen he found it, it was damp, or otherwise out of order; and match\nafter match that he struck into it lighted sufficiently to throw a dull\nglare about his groping face, and to sprinkle his hands with pale little\nspots of fire, but not sufficiently to light the candle. The stranger,\ntaking advantage of this fitful illumination of his visage, looked\nintently and wonderingly at him. Jeremiah, when he at last lighted\nthe candle, knew he had been doing this, by seeing the last shade of\na lowering watchfulness clear away from his face, as it broke into the\ndoubtful smile that was a large ingredient in its expression.\n\n'Be so good,' said Jeremiah, closing the house door, and taking a pretty\nsharp survey of the smiling visitor in his turn, 'as to step into my\ncounting-house.--It's all right, I tell you!' petulantly breaking off to\nanswer the voice up-stairs, still unsatisfied, though Affery was there,\nspeaking in persuasive tones. 'Don't I tell you it's all right? Preserve\nthe woman, has she no reason at all in her!'\n\n'Timorous,' remarked the stranger.\n\n'Timorous?' said Mr Flintwinch, turning his head to retort, as he went\nbefore with the candle. 'More courageous than ninety men in a hundred,\nsir, let me tell you.'\n\n'Though an invalid?'\n\n'Many years an invalid. Mrs Clennam. The only one of that name left\nin the House now. My partner.'\n\nSaying something apologetically as he crossed the hall, to the effect\nthat at that time of night they were not in the habit of receiving any\none, and were always shut up, Mr Flintwinch led the way into his own\noffice, which presented a sufficiently business-like appearance. Here he\nput the light on his desk, and said to the stranger, with his wryest\ntwist upon him, 'Your commands.'\n\n'My name is Blandois.'\n\n'Blandois. I don't know it,' said Jeremiah.\n\n'I thought it possible,' resumed the other, 'that you might have been\nadvised from Paris--'\n\n'We have had no advice from Paris respecting anybody of the name of\nBlandois,' said Jeremiah.\n\n'No?'\n\n'No.'\n\nJeremiah stood in his favourite attitude. The smiling Mr Blandois,\nopening his cloak to get his hand to a breast-pocket, paused to say,\nwith a laugh in his glittering eyes, which it occurred to Mr Flintwinch\nwere too near together:\n\n'You are so like a friend of mine! Not so identically the same as I\nsupposed when I really did for the moment take you to be the same in the\ndusk--for which I ought to apologise; permit me to do so; a readiness\nto confess my errors is, I hope, a part of the frankness of my\ncharacter--still, however, uncommonly like.'\n\n'Indeed?' said Jeremiah, perversely. 'But I have not received any letter\nof advice from anywhere respecting anybody of the name of Blandois.'\n\n'Just so,' said the stranger.\n\n'_Just_ so,' said Jeremiah.\n\nMr Blandois, not at all put out by this omission on the part of the\ncorrespondents of the house of Clennam and Co., took his pocket-book\nfrom his breast-pocket, selected a letter from that receptacle, and\nhanded it to Mr Flintwinch. 'No doubt you are well acquainted with the\nwriting. Perhaps the letter speaks for itself, and requires no advice.\nYou are a far more competent judge of such affairs than I am. It is my\nmisfortune to be, not so much a man of business, as what the world calls\n(arbitrarily) a gentleman.'\n\nMr Flintwinch took the letter, and read, under date of Paris, 'We have\nto present to you, on behalf of a highly esteemed correspondent of our\nFirm, M. Blandois, of this city,' &c. &c. 'Such facilities as he may\nrequire and such attentions as may lie in your power,' &c. &c. 'Also\nhave to add that if you will honour M. Blandois' drafts at sight to the\nextent of, say Fifty Pounds sterling (50_l_.),' &c. &c.\n\n'Very good, sir,' said Mr Flintwinch. 'Take a chair. To the extent of\nanything that our House can do--we are in a retired, old-fashioned,\nsteady way of business, sir--we shall be happy to render you our best\nassistance. I observe, from the date of this, that we could not yet be\nadvised of it. Probably you came over with the delayed mail that brings\nthe advice.'\n\n'That I came over with the delayed mail, sir,' returned Mr Blandois,\npassing his white hand down his high-hooked nose, 'I know to the cost\nof my head and stomach: the detestable and intolerable weather having\nracked them both. You see me in the plight in which I came out of the\npacket within this half-hour. I ought to have been here hours ago,\nand then I should not have to apologise--permit me to apologise--for\npresenting myself so unreasonably, and frightening--no, by-the-bye, you\nsaid not frightening; permit me to apologise again--the esteemed lady,\nMrs Clennam, in her invalid chamber above stairs.'\n\nSwagger and an air of authorised condescension do so much, that\nMr Flintwinch had already begun to think this a highly gentlemanly\npersonage. Not the less unyielding with him on that account, he scraped\nhis chin and said, what could he have the honour of doing for Mr\nBlandois to-night, out of business hours?\n\n'Faith!' returned that gentleman, shrugging his cloaked shoulders,\n'I must change, and eat and drink, and be lodged somewhere. Have the\nkindness to advise me, a total stranger, where, and money is a matter of\nperfect indifference until to-morrow. The nearer the place, the better.\nNext door, if that's all.'\n\nMr Flintwinch was slowly beginning, 'For a gentleman of your habits,\nthere is not in this immediate neighbourhood any hotel--' when Mr\nBlandois took him up.\n\n'So much for my habits! my dear sir,' snapping his fingers. 'A citizen\nof the world has no habits. That I am, in my poor way, a gentleman,\nby Heaven! I will not deny, but I have no unaccommodating prejudiced\nhabits. A clean room, a hot dish for dinner, and a bottle of not\nabsolutely poisonous wine, are all I want tonight. But I want that much\nwithout the trouble of going one unnecessary inch to get it.'\n\n'There is,' said Mr Flintwinch, with more than his usual deliberation,\nas he met, for a moment, Mr Blandois' shining eyes, which were restless;\n'there is a coffee-house and tavern close here, which, so far, I can\nrecommend; but there's no style about it.'\n\n'I dispense with style!' said Mr Blandois, waving his hand. 'Do me the\nhonour to show me the house, and introduce me there (if I am not too\ntroublesome), and I shall be infinitely obliged.'\n\nMr Flintwinch, upon this, looked up his hat, and lighted Mr Blandois\nacross the hall again. As he put the candle on a bracket, where the\ndark old panelling almost served as an extinguisher for it, he bethought\nhimself of going up to tell the invalid that he would not be absent five\nminutes.\n\n'Oblige me,' said the visitor, on his saying so, 'by presenting my card\nof visit. Do me the favour to add that I shall be happy to wait on Mrs\nClennam, to offer my personal compliments, and to apologise for having\noccasioned any agitation in this tranquil corner, if it should suit her\nconvenience to endure the presence of a stranger for a few minutes,\nafter he shall have changed his wet clothes and fortified himself with\nsomething to eat and drink.'\n\nJeremiah made all despatch, and said, on his return, 'She'll be glad\nto see you, sir; but, being conscious that her sick room has no\nattractions, wishes me to say that she won't hold you to your offer, in\ncase you should think better of it.'\n\n'To think better of it,' returned the gallant Blandois, 'would be to\nslight a lady; to slight a lady would be to be deficient in chivalry\ntowards the sex; and chivalry towards the sex is a part of my\ncharacter!' Thus expressing himself, he threw the draggled skirt of his\ncloak over his shoulder, and accompanied Mr Flintwinch to the tavern;\ntaking up on the road a porter who was waiting with his portmanteau on\nthe outer side of the gateway.\n\nThe house was kept in a homely manner, and the condescension of Mr\nBlandois was infinite. It seemed to fill to inconvenience the little bar\nin which the widow landlady and her two daughters received him; it was\nmuch too big for the narrow wainscoted room with a bagatelle-board in\nit, that was first proposed for his reception; it perfectly swamped the\nlittle private holiday sitting-room of the family, which was finally\ngiven up to him. Here, in dry clothes and scented linen, with sleeked\nhair, a great ring on each forefinger and a massive show of watch-chain,\nMr Blandois waiting for his dinner, lolling on a window-seat with his\nknees drawn up, looked (for all the difference in the setting of the\njewel) fearfully and wonderfully like a certain Monsieur Rigaud who had\nonce so waited for his breakfast, lying on the stone ledge of the iron\ngrating of a cell in a villainous dungeon at Marseilles.\n\nHis greed at dinner, too, was closely in keeping with the greed of\nMonsieur Rigaud at breakfast. His avaricious manner of collecting all\nthe eatables about him, and devouring some with his eyes while devouring\nothers with his jaws, was the same manner. His utter disregard of\nother people, as shown in his way of tossing the little womanly toys\nof furniture about, flinging favourite cushions under his boots for a\nsofter rest, and crushing delicate coverings with his big body and his\ngreat black head, had the same brute selfishness at the bottom of it.\nThe softly moving hands that were so busy among the dishes had the old\nwicked facility of the hands that had clung to the bars. And when he\ncould eat no more, and sat sucking his delicate fingers one by one and\nwiping them on a cloth, there wanted nothing but the substitution of\nvine-leaves to finish the picture.\n\nOn this man, with his moustache going up and his nose coming down in\nthat most evil of smiles, and with his surface eyes looking as if they\nbelonged to his dyed hair, and had had their natural power of reflecting\nlight stopped by some similar process, Nature, always true, and never\nworking in vain, had set the mark, Beware! It was not her fault, if the\nwarning were fruitless. She is never to blame in any such instance.\n\nMr Blandois, having finished his repast and cleaned his fingers, took\na cigar from his pocket, and, lying on the window-seat again, smoked it\nout at his leisure, occasionally apostrophising the smoke as it parted\nfrom his thin lips in a thin stream:\n\n'Blandois, you shall turn the tables on society, my little child. Haha!\nHoly blue, you have begun well, Blandois! At a pinch, an excellent\nmaster in English or French; a man for the bosom of families! You have\na quick perception, you have humour, you have ease, you have insinuating\nmanners, you have a good appearance; in effect, you are a gentleman! A\ngentleman you shall live, my small boy, and a gentleman you shall die.\nYou shall win, however the game goes. They shall all confess your merit,\nBlandois. You shall subdue the society which has grievously wronged\nyou, to your own high spirit. Death of my soul! You are high spirited by\nright and by nature, my Blandois!'\n\nTo such soothing murmurs did this gentleman smoke out his cigar and\ndrink out his bottle of wine. Both being finished, he shook himself into\na sitting attitude; and with the concluding serious apostrophe, 'Hold,\nthen! Blandois, you ingenious one, have all your wits about you!' arose\nand went back to the house of Clennam and Co.\n\nHe was received at the door by Mistress Affery, who, under instructions\nfrom her lord, had lighted up two candles in the hall and a third on the\nstaircase, and who conducted him to Mrs Clennam's room. Tea was prepared\nthere, and such little company arrangements had been made as usually\nattended the reception of expected visitors. They were slight on the\ngreatest occasion, never extending beyond the production of the China\ntea-service, and the covering of the bed with a sober and sad drapery.\nFor the rest, there was the bier-like sofa with the block upon it, and\nthe figure in the widow's dress, as if attired for execution; the fire\ntopped by the mound of damped ashes; the grate with its second little\nmound of ashes; the kettle and the smell of black dye; all as they had\nbeen for fifteen years.\n\nMr Flintwinch presented the gentleman commended to the consideration of\nClennam and Co. Mrs Clennam, who had the letter lying before her, bent\nher head and requested him to sit. They looked very closely at one\nanother. That was but natural curiosity.\n\n'I thank you, sir, for thinking of a disabled woman like me. Few who\ncome here on business have any remembrance to bestow on one so removed\nfrom observation. It would be idle to expect that they should have. Out\nof sight, out of mind. While I am grateful for the exception, I don't\ncomplain of the rule.'\n\nMr Blandois, in his most gentlemanly manner, was afraid he had disturbed\nher by unhappily presenting himself at such an unconscionable time. For\nwhich he had already offered his best apologies to Mr--he begged\npardon--but by name had not the distinguished honour--\n\n'Mr Flintwinch has been connected with the House many years.'\n\nMr Blandois was Mr Flintwinch's most obedient humble servant. He\nentreated Mr Flintwinch to receive the assurance of his profoundest\nconsideration.\n\n'My husband being dead,' said Mrs Clennam, 'and my son preferring\nanother pursuit, our old House has no other representative in these days\nthan Mr Flintwinch.'\n\n'What do you call yourself?' was the surly demand of that gentleman.\n'You have the head of two men.'\n\n'My sex disqualifies me,' she proceeded with merely a slight turn of\nher eyes in Jeremiah's direction, 'from taking a responsible part in\nthe business, even if I had the ability; and therefore Mr Flintwinch\ncombines my interest with his own, and conducts it. It is not what it\nused to be; but some of our old friends (principally the writers of this\nletter) have the kindness not to forget us, and we retain the power\nof doing what they entrust to us as efficiently as we ever did. This\nhowever is not interesting to you. You are English, sir?'\n\n'Faith, madam, no; I am neither born nor bred in England. In effect, I\nam of no country,' said Mr Blandois, stretching out his leg and smiting\nit: 'I descend from half-a-dozen countries.'\n\n'You have been much about the world?'\n\n'It is true. By Heaven, madam, I have been here and there and\neverywhere!'\n\n'You have no ties, probably. Are not married?'\n\n'Madam,' said Mr Blandois, with an ugly fall of his eyebrows, 'I adore\nyour sex, but I am not married--never was.'\n\nMistress Affery, who stood at the table near him, pouring out the tea,\nhappened in her dreamy state to look at him as he said these words, and\nto fancy that she caught an expression in his eyes which attracted her\nown eyes so that she could not get them away. The effect of this fancy\nwas to keep her staring at him with the tea-pot in her hand, not only to\nher own great uneasiness, but manifestly to his, too; and, through them\nboth, to Mrs Clennam's and Mr Flintwinch's. Thus a few ghostly moments\nsupervened, when they were all confusedly staring without knowing why.\n\n'Affery,' her mistress was the first to say, 'what is the matter with\nyou?'\n\n'I don't know,' said Mistress Affery, with her disengaged left hand\nextended towards the visitor. 'It ain't me. It's him!'\n\n'What does this good woman mean?' cried Mr Blandois, turning white, hot,\nand slowly rising with a look of such deadly wrath that it contrasted\nsurprisingly with the slight force of his words. 'How is it possible to\nunderstand this good creature?'\n\n'It's _not_ possible,' said Mr Flintwinch, screwing himself rapidly\nin that direction. 'She don't know what she means. She's an idiot, a\nwanderer in her mind. She shall have a dose, she shall have such a dose!\nGet along with you, my woman,' he added in her ear, 'get along with you,\nwhile you know you're Affery, and before you're shaken to yeast.'\n\nMistress Affery, sensible of the danger in which her identity stood,\nrelinquished the tea-pot as her husband seized it, put her apron over\nher head, and in a twinkling vanished. The visitor gradually broke into\na smile, and sat down again.\n\n'You'll excuse her, Mr Blandois,' said Jeremiah, pouring out the tea\nhimself, 'she's failing and breaking up; that's what she's about. Do you\ntake sugar, sir?'\n\n'Thank you, no tea for me.--Pardon my observing it, but that's a very\nremarkable watch!'\n\nThe tea-table was drawn up near the sofa, with a small interval between\nit and Mrs Clennam's own particular table. Mr Blandois in his gallantry\nhad risen to hand that lady her tea (her dish of toast was already\nthere), and it was in placing the cup conveniently within her reach that\nthe watch, lying before her as it always did, attracted his attention.\nMrs Clennam looked suddenly up at him.\n\n'May I be permitted? Thank you. A fine old-fashioned watch,' he said,\ntaking it in his hand. 'Heavy for use, but massive and genuine. I have\na partiality for everything genuine. Such as I am, I am genuine myself.\nHah! A gentleman's watch with two cases in the old fashion. May I remove\nit from the outer case? Thank you. Aye? An old silk watch-lining, worked\nwith beads! I have often seen these among old Dutch people and Belgians.\nQuaint things!'\n\n'They are old-fashioned, too,' said Mrs Clennam.\n\n'Very. But this is not so old as the watch, I think?'\n\n'I think not.'\n\n'Extraordinary how they used to complicate these cyphers!' remarked Mr\nBlandois, glancing up with his own smile again. 'Now is this D. N. F.?\nIt might be almost anything.'\n\n'Those are the letters.'\n\nMr Flintwinch, who had been observantly pausing all this time with a cup\nof tea in his hand, and his mouth open ready to swallow the contents,\nbegan to do so: always entirely filling his mouth before he emptied it\nat a gulp; and always deliberating again before he refilled it.\n\n'D. N. F. was some tender, lovely, fascinating fair-creature, I make no\ndoubt,' observed Mr Blandois, as he snapped on the case again. 'I adore\nher memory on the assumption. Unfortunately for my peace of mind,\nI adore but too readily. It may be a vice, it may be a virtue, but\nadoration of female beauty and merit constitutes three parts of my\ncharacter, madam.'\n\nMr Flintwinch had by this time poured himself out another cup of tea,\nwhich he was swallowing in gulps as before, with his eyes directed to\nthe invalid.\n\n'You may be heart-free here, sir,' she returned to Mr Blandois. 'Those\nletters are not intended, I believe, for the initials of any name.'\n\n'Of a motto, perhaps,' said Mr Blandois, casually.\n\n'Of a sentence. They have always stood, I believe, for Do Not Forget!'\n\n'And naturally,' said Mr Blandois, replacing the watch and stepping\nbackward to his former chair, 'you do _not_ forget.'\n\nMr Flintwinch, finishing his tea, not only took a longer gulp than he\nhad taken yet, but made his succeeding pause under new circumstances:\nthat is to say, with his head thrown back and his cup held still at his\nlips, while his eyes were still directed at the invalid. She had that\nforce of face, and that concentrated air of collecting her firmness or\nobstinacy, which represented in her case what would have been gesture\nand action in another, as she replied with her deliberate strength of\nspeech:\n\n'No, sir, I do not forget. To lead a life as monotonous as mine has been\nduring many years, is not the way to forget. To lead a life of\nself-correction is not the way to forget. To be sensible of having (as\nwe all have, every one of us, all the children of Adam!) offences\nto expiate and peace to make, does not justify the desire to forget.\nTherefore I have long dismissed it, and I neither forget nor wish to\nforget.'\n\nMr Flintwinch, who had latterly been shaking the sediment at the bottom\nof his tea-cup, round and round, here gulped it down, and putting the\ncup in the tea-tray, as done with, turned his eyes upon Mr Blandois as\nif to ask him what he thought of that?\n\n'All expressed, madam,' said Mr Blandois, with his smoothest bow and his\nwhite hand on his breast, 'by the word \"naturally,\" which I am proud\nto have had sufficient apprehension and appreciation (but without\nappreciation I could not be Blandois) to employ.'\n\n'Pardon me, sir,' she returned, 'if I doubt the likelihood of a\ngentleman of pleasure, and change, and politeness, accustomed to court\nand to be courted--'\n\n'Oh madam! By Heaven!'\n\n'--If I doubt the likelihood of such a character quite comprehending\nwhat belongs to mine in my circumstances. Not to obtrude doctrine upon\nyou,' she looked at the rigid pile of hard pale books before her, '(for\nyou go your own way, and the consequences are on your own head), I will\nsay this much: that I shape my course by pilots, strictly by proved and\ntried pilots, under whom I cannot be shipwrecked--can not be--and that\nif I were unmindful of the admonition conveyed in those three letters, I\nshould not be half as chastened as I am.'\n\nIt was curious how she seized the occasion to argue with some invisible\nopponent. Perhaps with her own better sense, always turning upon herself\nand her own deception.\n\n'If I forgot my ignorances in my life of health and freedom, I might\ncomplain of the life to which I am now condemned. I never do; I never\nhave done. If I forgot that this scene, the Earth, is expressly meant to\nbe a scene of gloom, and hardship, and dark trial, for the creatures who\nare made out of its dust, I might have some tenderness for its vanities.\nBut I have no such tenderness. If I did not know that we are, every one,\nthe subject (most justly the subject) of a wrath that must be satisfied,\nand against which mere actions are nothing, I might repine at the\ndifference between me, imprisoned here, and the people who pass that\ngateway yonder. But I take it as a grace and favour to be elected to\nmake the satisfaction I am making here, to know what I know for certain\nhere, and to work out what I have worked out here. My affliction might\notherwise have had no meaning to me. Hence I would forget, and I do\nforget, nothing. Hence I am contented, and say it is better with me\nthan with millions.'\n\nAs she spoke these words, she put her hand upon the watch, and restored\nit to the precise spot on her little table which it always occupied.\nWith her touch lingering upon it, she sat for some moments afterwards,\nlooking at it steadily and half-defiantly.\n\nMr Blandois, during this exposition, had been strictly attentive,\nkeeping his eyes fastened on the lady, and thoughtfully stroking his\nmoustache with his two hands. Mr Flintwinch had been a little fidgety,\nand now struck in.\n\n'There, there, there!' said he. 'That is quite understood, Mrs Clennam,\nand you have spoken piously and well. Mr Blandois, I suspect, is not\nof a pious cast.'\n\n'On the contrary, sir!' that gentleman protested, snapping his fingers.\n'Your pardon! It's a part of my character. I am sensitive, ardent,\nconscientious, and imaginative. A sensitive, ardent, conscientious, and\nimaginative man, Mr Flintwinch, must be that, or nothing!'\n\nThere was an inkling of suspicion in Mr Flintwinch's face that he might\nbe nothing, as he swaggered out of his chair (it was characteristic of\nthis man, as it is of all men similarly marked, that whatever he did,\nhe overdid, though it were sometimes by only a hairsbreadth), and\napproached to take his leave of Mrs Clennam.\n\n'With what will appear to you the egotism of a sick old woman, sir,' she\nthen said, 'though really through your accidental allusion, I have\nbeen led away into the subject of myself and my infirmities. Being so\nconsiderate as to visit me, I hope you will be likewise so considerate\nas to overlook that. Don't compliment me, if you please.' For he was\nevidently going to do it. 'Mr Flintwinch will be happy to render you any\nservice, and I hope your stay in this city may prove agreeable.'\n\nMr Blandois thanked her, and kissed his hand several times. 'This is an\nold room,' he remarked, with a sudden sprightliness of manner, looking\nround when he got near the door, 'I have been so interested that I have\nnot observed it. But it's a genuine old room.'\n\n'It is a genuine old house,' said Mrs Clennam, with her frozen smile. 'A\nplace of no pretensions, but a piece of antiquity.'\n\n'Faith!' cried the visitor. 'If Mr Flintwinch would do me the favour to\ntake me through the rooms on my way out, he could hardly oblige me more.\nAn old house is a weakness with me. I have many weaknesses, but none\ngreater. I love and study the picturesque in all its varieties. I have\nbeen called picturesque myself. It is no merit to be picturesque--I\nhave greater merits, perhaps--but I may be, by an accident. Sympathy,\nsympathy!'\n\n'I tell you beforehand, Mr Blandois, that you'll find it very dingy and\nvery bare,' said Jeremiah, taking up the candle. 'It's not worth your\nlooking at.'But Mr Blandois, smiting him in a friendly manner on the\nback, only laughed; so the said Blandois kissed his hand again to Mrs\nClennam, and they went out of the room together.\n\n'You don't care to go up-stairs?' said Jeremiah, on the landing.\n\n'On the contrary, Mr Flintwinch; if not tiresome to you, I shall be\nravished!'\n\nMr Flintwinch, therefore, wormed himself up the staircase, and Mr\nBlandois followed close. They ascended to the great garret bed-room\nwhich Arthur had occupied on the night of his return. 'There, Mr\nBlandois!' said Jeremiah, showing it, 'I hope you may think that worth\ncoming so high to see. I confess I don't.'\n\nMr Blandois being enraptured, they walked through other garrets and\npassages, and came down the staircase again. By this time Mr Flintwinch\nhad remarked that he never found the visitor looking at any room, after\nthrowing one quick glance around, but always found the visitor looking\nat him, Mr Flintwinch. With this discovery in his thoughts, he turned\nabout on the staircase for another experiment. He met his eyes directly;\nand on the instant of their fixing one another, the visitor, with\nthat ugly play of nose and moustache, laughed (as he had done at every\nsimilar moment since they left Mrs Clennam's chamber) a diabolically\nsilent laugh.\n\nAs a much shorter man than the visitor, Mr Flintwinch was at the\nphysical disadvantage of being thus disagreeably leered at from a\nheight; and as he went first down the staircase, and was usually a\nstep or two lower than the other, this disadvantage was at the time\nincreased. He postponed looking at Mr Blandois again until this\naccidental inequality was removed by their having entered the late Mr\nClennam's room. But, then twisting himself suddenly round upon him, he\nfound his look unchanged.\n\n'A most admirable old house,' smiled Mr Blandois. 'So mysterious. Do you\nnever hear any haunted noises here?'\n\n'Noises,' returned Mr Flintwinch. 'No.'\n\n'Nor see any devils?'\n\n'Not,' said Mr Flintwinch, grimly screwing himself at his questioner,\n'not any that introduce themselves under that name and in that\ncapacity.'\n\n'Haha! A portrait here, I see.'\n\n(Still looking at Mr Flintwinch, as if he were the portrait.)\n\n'It's a portrait, sir, as you observe.'\n\n'May I ask the subject, Mr Flintwinch?'\n\n'Mr Clennam, deceased. Her husband.'\n\n'Former owner of the remarkable watch, perhaps?' said the visitor.\n\nMr Flintwinch, who had cast his eyes towards the portrait, twisted\nhimself about again, and again found himself the subject of the same\nlook and smile. 'Yes, Mr Blandois,' he replied tartly. 'It was his, and\nhis uncle's before him, and Lord knows who before him; and that's all I\ncan tell you of its pedigree.'\n\n'That's a strongly marked character, Mr Flintwinch, our friend\nup-stairs.'\n\n'Yes, sir,' said Jeremiah, twisting himself at the visitor again, as he\ndid during the whole of this dialogue, like some screw-machine that\nfell short of its grip; for the other never changed, and he always\nfelt obliged to retreat a little. 'She is a remarkable woman. Great\nfortitude--great strength of mind.'\n\n'They must have been very happy,' said Blandois.\n\n'Who?' demanded Mr Flintwinch, with another screw at him.\n\nMr Blandois shook his right forefinger towards the sick room, and his\nleft forefinger towards the portrait, and then, putting his arms akimbo\nand striding his legs wide apart, stood smiling down at Mr Flintwinch\nwith the advancing nose and the retreating moustache.\n\n'As happy as most other married people, I suppose,' returned Mr\nFlintwinch. 'I can't say. I don't know. There are secrets in all\nfamilies.'\n\n'Secrets!' cried Mr Blandois, quickly. 'Say it again, my son.'\n\n'I say,' replied Mr Flintwinch, upon whom he had swelled himself so\nsuddenly that Mr Flintwinch found his face almost brushed by the dilated\nchest. 'I say there are secrets in all families.'\n\n'So there are,' cried the other, clapping him on both shoulders, and\nrolling him backwards and forwards. 'Haha! you are right. So there are!\nSecrets! Holy Blue! There are the devil's own secrets in some families,\nMr Flintwinch!' With that, after clapping Mr Flintwinch on both\nshoulders several times, as if in a friendly and humorous way he were\nrallying him on a joke he had made, he threw up his arms, threw back\nhis head, hooked his hands together behind it, and burst into a roar of\nlaughter. It was in vain for Mr Flintwinch to try another screw at him.\nHe had his laugh out.\n\n'But, favour me with the candle a moment,' he said, when he had done.\n'Let us have a look at the husband of the remarkable lady. Hah!' holding\nup the light at arm's length. 'A decided expression of face here too,\nthough not of the same character. Looks as if he were saying, what is\nit--Do Not Forget--does he not, Mr Flintwinch? By Heaven, sir, he does!'\n\nAs he returned the candle, he looked at him once more; and then,\nleisurely strolling out with him into the hall, declared it to be a\ncharming old house indeed, and one which had so greatly pleased him that\nhe would not have missed inspecting it for a hundred pounds.\n\nThroughout these singular freedoms on the part of Mr Blandois, which\ninvolved a general alteration in his demeanour, making it much coarser\nand rougher, much more violent and audacious than before, Mr Flintwinch,\nwhose leathern face was not liable to many changes, preserved its\nimmobility intact. Beyond now appearing perhaps, to have been left\nhanging a trifle too long before that friendly operation of cutting\ndown, he outwardly maintained an equable composure. They had brought\ntheir survey to a close in the little room at the side of the hall, and\nhe stood there, eyeing Mr Blandois.\n\n'I am glad you are so well satisfied, sir,' was his calm remark. 'I\ndidn't expect it. You seem to be quite in good spirits.'\n\n'In admirable spirits,' returned Blandois. 'Word of honour! never more\nrefreshed in spirits. Do you ever have presentiments, Mr Flintwinch?'\n\n'I am not sure that I know what you mean by the term, sir,' replied that\ngentleman.\n\n'Say, in this case, Mr Flintwinch, undefined anticipations of pleasure\nto come.'\n\n'I can't say I'm sensible of such a sensation at present,' returned Mr\nFlintwinch with the utmost gravity. 'If I should find it coming on, I'll\nmention it.'\n\n'Now I,' said Blandois, 'I, my son, have a presentiment to-night that we\nshall be well acquainted. Do you find it coming on?'\n\n'N-no,' returned Mr Flintwinch, deliberately inquiring of himself. 'I\ncan't say I do.'\n\n'I have a strong presentiment that we shall become intimately\nacquainted.--You have no feeling of that sort yet?'\n\n'Not yet,' said Mr Flintwinch.\n\nMr Blandois, taking him by both shoulders again, rolled him about a\nlittle in his former merry way, then drew his arm through his own, and\ninvited him to come off and drink a bottle of wine like a dear deep old\ndog as he was.\n\nWithout a moment's indecision, Mr Flintwinch accepted the invitation,\nand they went out to the quarters where the traveller was lodged,\nthrough a heavy rain which had rattled on the windows, roofs, and\npavements, ever since nightfall. The thunder and lightning had long ago\npassed over, but the rain was furious. On their arrival at Mr Blandois'\nroom, a bottle of port wine was ordered by that gallant gentleman; who\n(crushing every pretty thing he could collect, in the soft disposition\nof his dainty figure) coiled himself upon the window-seat, while Mr\nFlintwinch took a chair opposite to him, with the table between them. Mr\nBlandois proposed having the largest glasses in the house, to which Mr\nFlintwinch assented. The bumpers filled, Mr Blandois, with a roystering\ngaiety, clinked the top of his glass against the bottom of Mr\nFlintwinch's, and the bottom of his glass against the top of Mr\nFlintwinch's, and drank to the intimate acquaintance he foresaw.\nMr Flintwinch gravely pledged him, and drank all the wine he could get,\nand said nothing. As often as Mr Blandois clinked glasses (which was\nat every replenishment), Mr Flintwinch stolidly did his part of the\nclinking, and would have stolidly done his companion's part of the wine\nas well as his own: being, except in the article of palate, a mere cask.\n\nIn short, Mr Blandois found that to pour port wine into the reticent\nFlintwinch was, not to open him but to shut him up. Moreover, he had\nthe appearance of a perfect ability to go on all night; or, if occasion\nwere, all next day and all next night; whereas Mr Blandois soon grew\nindistinctly conscious of swaggering too fiercely and boastfully. He\ntherefore terminated the entertainment at the end of the third bottle.\n\n'You will draw upon us to-morrow, sir,' said Mr Flintwinch, with a\nbusiness-like face at parting.\n\n'My Cabbage,' returned the other, taking him by the collar with both\nhands, 'I'll draw upon you; have no fear. Adieu, my Flintwinch. Receive\nat parting;' here he gave him a southern embrace, and kissed him soundly\non both cheeks; 'the word of a gentleman! By a thousand Thunders, you\nshall see me again!'\n\nHe did not present himself next day, though the letter of advice came\nduly to hand. Inquiring after him at night, Mr Flintwinch found, with\nsurprise, that he had paid his bill and gone back to the Continent by\nway of Calais. Nevertheless, Jeremiah scraped out of his cogitating\nface a lively conviction that Mr Blandois would keep his word on this\noccasion, and would be seen again.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 31. Spirit\n\n\nAnybody may pass, any day, in the thronged thoroughfares of the\nmetropolis, some meagre, wrinkled, yellow old man (who might be supposed\nto have dropped from the stars, if there were any star in the Heavens\ndull enough to be suspected of casting off so feeble a spark), creeping\nalong with a scared air, as though bewildered and a little frightened\nby the noise and bustle. This old man is always a little old man. If he\nwere ever a big old man, he has shrunk into a little old man; if he were\nalways a little old man, he has dwindled into a less old man. His coat\nis a colour, and cut, that never was the mode anywhere, at any period.\nClearly, it was not made for him, or for any individual mortal. Some\nwholesale contractor measured Fate for five thousand coats of such\nquality, and Fate has lent this old coat to this old man, as one of a\nlong unfinished line of many old men. It has always large dull metal\nbuttons, similar to no other buttons. This old man wears a hat, a\nthumbed and napless and yet an obdurate hat, which has never adapted\nitself to the shape of his poor head. His coarse shirt and his coarse\nneckcloth have no more individuality than his coat and hat; they have\nthe same character of not being his--of not being anybody's. Yet this\nold man wears these clothes with a certain unaccustomed air of being\ndressed and elaborated for the public ways; as though he passed the\ngreater part of his time in a nightcap and gown. And so, like the\ncountry mouse in the second year of a famine, come to see the town\nmouse, and timidly threading his way to the town-mouse's lodging through\na city of cats, this old man passes in the streets.\n\nSometimes, on holidays towards evening, he will be seen to walk with a\nslightly increased infirmity, and his old eyes will glimmer with a moist\nand marshy light. Then the little old man is drunk. A very small\nmeasure will overset him; he may be bowled off his unsteady legs with\na half-pint pot. Some pitying acquaintance--chance acquaintance\nvery often--has warmed up his weakness with a treat of beer, and the\nconsequence will be the lapse of a longer time than usual before he\nshall pass again. For the little old man is going home to the Workhouse;\nand on his good behaviour they do not let him out often (though methinks\nthey might, considering the few years he has before him to go out in,\nunder the sun); and on his bad behaviour they shut him up closer than\never in a grove of two score and nineteen more old men, every one of\nwhom smells of all the others.\n\nMrs Plornish's father,--a poor little reedy piping old gentleman, like\na worn-out bird; who had been in what he called the music-binding\nbusiness, and met with great misfortunes, and who had seldom been able\nto make his way, or to see it or to pay it, or to do anything at all\nwith it but find it no thoroughfare,--had retired of his own accord to\nthe Workhouse which was appointed by law to be the Good Samaritan of his\ndistrict (without the twopence, which was bad political economy), on\nthe settlement of that execution which had carried Mr Plornish to the\nMarshalsea College. Previous to his son-in-law's difficulties coming to\nthat head, Old Nandy (he was always so called in his legal Retreat, but\nhe was Old Mr Nandy among the Bleeding Hearts) had sat in a corner of\nthe Plornish fireside, and taken his bite and sup out of the Plornish\ncupboard. He still hoped to resume that domestic position when Fortune\nshould smile upon his son-in-law; in the meantime, while she preserved\nan immovable countenance, he was, and resolved to remain, one of these\nlittle old men in a grove of little old men with a community of flavour.\n\nBut no poverty in him, and no coat on him that never was the mode, and\nno Old Men's Ward for his dwelling-place, could quench his daughter's\nadmiration. Mrs Plornish was as proud of her father's talents as she\ncould possibly have been if they had made him Lord Chancellor. She had\nas firm a belief in the sweetness and propriety of his manners as she\ncould possibly have had if he had been Lord Chamberlain. The poor little\nold man knew some pale and vapid little songs, long out of date, about\nChloe, and Phyllis, and Strephon being wounded by the son of Venus;\nand for Mrs Plornish there was no such music at the Opera as the small\ninternal flutterings and chirpings wherein he would discharge himself\nof these ditties, like a weak, little, broken barrel-organ, ground by\na baby. On his 'days out,' those flecks of light in his flat vista of\npollard old men,' it was at once Mrs Plornish's delight and sorrow,\nwhen he was strong with meat, and had taken his full halfpenny-worth of\nporter, to say, 'Sing us a song, Father.' Then he would give them Chloe,\nand if he were in pretty good spirits, Phyllis also--Strephon he had\nhardly been up to since he went into retirement--and then would Mrs\nPlornish declare she did believe there never was such a singer as\nFather, and wipe her eyes.\n\nIf he had come from Court on these occasions, nay, if he had been the\nnoble Refrigerator come home triumphantly from a foreign court to be\npresented and promoted on his last tremendous failure, Mrs Plornish\ncould not have handed him with greater elevation about Bleeding Heart\nYard. 'Here's Father,' she would say, presenting him to a neighbour.\n'Father will soon be home with us for good, now. Ain't Father looking\nwell? Father's a sweeter singer than ever; you'd never have forgotten\nit, if you'd aheard him just now.' As to Mr Plornish, he had married\nthese articles of belief in marrying Mr Nandy's daughter, and only\nwondered how it was that so gifted an old gentleman had not made a\nfortune. This he attributed, after much reflection, to his musical\ngenius not having been scientifically developed in his youth. 'For why,'\nargued Mr Plornish, 'why go a-binding music when you've got it in\nyourself? That's where it is, I consider.'\n\nOld Nandy had a patron: one patron. He had a patron who in a certain\nsumptuous way--an apologetic way, as if he constantly took an admiring\naudience to witness that he really could not help being more free\nwith this old fellow than they might have expected, on account of his\nsimplicity and poverty--was mightily good to him. Old Nandy had\nbeen several times to the Marshalsea College, communicating with his\nson-in-law during his short durance there; and had happily acquired to\nhimself, and had by degrees and in course of time much improved, the\npatronage of the Father of that national institution.\n\nMr Dorrit was in the habit of receiving this old man as if the old man\nheld of him in vassalage under some feudal tenure. He made little treats\nand teas for him, as if he came in with his homage from some outlying\ndistrict where the tenantry were in a primitive state. It seemed as if\nthere were moments when he could by no means have sworn but that the old\nman was an ancient retainer of his, who had been meritoriously faithful.\nWhen he mentioned him, he spoke of him casually as his old pensioner. He\nhad a wonderful satisfaction in seeing him, and in commenting on his\ndecayed condition after he was gone. It appeared to him amazing that he\ncould hold up his head at all, poor creature. 'In the Workhouse, sir,\nthe Union; no privacy, no visitors, no station, no respect, no\nspeciality. Most deplorable!'\n\nIt was Old Nandy's birthday, and they let him out. He said nothing about\nits being his birthday, or they might have kept him in; for such old\nmen should not be born. He passed along the streets as usual to Bleeding\nHeart Yard, and had his dinner with his daughter and son-in-law, and\ngave them Phyllis. He had hardly concluded, when Little Dorrit looked in\nto see how they all were.\n\n'Miss Dorrit,' said Mrs Plornish, 'here's Father! Ain't he looking nice?\nAnd such voice he's in!'\n\nLittle Dorrit gave him her hand, and smilingly said she had not seen him\nthis long time.\n\n'No, they're rather hard on poor Father,' said Mrs Plornish with a\nlengthening face, 'and don't let him have half as much change and fresh\nair as would benefit him. But he'll soon be home for good, now. Won't\nyou, Father?'\n\n'Yes, my dear, I hope so. In good time, please God.'\n\nHere Mr Plornish delivered himself of an oration which he invariably\nmade, word for word the same, on all such opportunities. It was couched\nin the following terms:\n\n'John Edward Nandy. Sir. While there's a ounce of wittles or drink of\nany sort in this present roof, you're fully welcome to your share on\nit. While there's a handful of fire or a mouthful of bed in this present\nroof, you're fully welcome to your share on it. If so be as there should\nbe nothing in this present roof, you should be as welcome to your share\non it as if it was something, much or little. And this is what I mean\nand so I don't deceive you, and consequently which is to stand out is to\nentreat of you, and therefore why not do it?'\n\nTo this lucid address, which Mr Plornish always delivered as if he had\ncomposed it (as no doubt he had) with enormous labour, Mrs Plornish's\nfather pipingly replied:\n\n'I thank you kindly, Thomas, and I know your intentions well, which is\nthe same I thank you kindly for. But no, Thomas. Until such times as\nit's not to take it out of your children's mouths, which take it is, and\ncall it by what name you will it do remain and equally deprive, though\nmay they come, and too soon they can not come, no Thomas, no!'\n\nMrs Plornish, who had been turning her face a little away with a corner\nof her apron in her hand, brought herself back to the conversation again\nby telling Miss Dorrit that Father was going over the water to pay his\nrespects, unless she knew of any reason why it might not be agreeable.\n\nHer answer was, 'I am going straight home, and if he will come with me\nI shall be so glad to take care of him--so glad,' said Little Dorrit,\nalways thoughtful of the feelings of the weak, 'of his company.'\n\n'There, Father!' cried Mrs Plornish. 'Ain't you a gay young man to\nbe going for a walk along with Miss Dorrit! Let me tie your\nneck-handkerchief into a regular good bow, for you're a regular beau\nyourself, Father, if ever there was one.'\n\nWith this filial joke his daughter smartened him up, and gave him a\nloving hug, and stood at the door with her weak child in her arms, and\nher strong child tumbling down the steps, looking after her little old\nfather as he toddled away with his arm under Little Dorrit's.\n\nThey walked at a slow pace, and Little Dorrit took him by the Iron\nBridge and sat him down there for a rest, and they looked over at the\nwater and talked about the shipping, and the old man mentioned what he\nwould do if he had a ship full of gold coming home to him (his plan was\nto take a noble lodging for the Plornishes and himself at a Tea Gardens,\nand live there all the rest of their lives, attended on by the waiter),\nand it was a special birthday of the old man. They were within five\nminutes of their destination, when, at the corner of her own street,\nthey came upon Fanny in her new bonnet bound for the same port.\n\n'Why, good gracious me, Amy!' cried that young lady starting. 'You never\nmean it!'\n\n'Mean what, Fanny dear?'\n\n'Well! I could have believed a great deal of you,' returned the young\nlady with burning indignation, 'but I don't think even I could have\nbelieved this, of even you!'\n\n'Fanny!' cried Little Dorrit, wounded and astonished.\n\n'Oh! Don't Fanny me, you mean little thing, don't! The idea of coming\nalong the open streets, in the broad light of day, with a Pauper!'\n(firing off the last word as if it were a ball from an air-gun).\n\n'O Fanny!'\n\n'I tell you not to Fanny me, for I'll not submit to it! I never knew\nsuch a thing. The way in which you are resolved and determined to\ndisgrace us on all occasions, is really infamous. You bad little thing!'\n\n'Does it disgrace anybody,' said Little Dorrit, very gently, 'to take\ncare of this poor old man?'\n\n'Yes, miss,' returned her sister, 'and you ought to know it does.\nAnd you do know it does, and you do it because you know it does. The\nprincipal pleasure of your life is to remind your family of their\nmisfortunes. And the next great pleasure of your existence is to keep\nlow company. But, however, if you have no sense of decency, I\nhave. You'll please to allow me to go on the other side of the way,\nunmolested.'\n\nWith this, she bounced across to the opposite pavement. The old\ndisgrace, who had been deferentially bowing a pace or two off (for\nLittle Dorrit had let his arm go in her wonder, when Fanny began), and\nwho had been hustled and cursed by impatient passengers for stopping the\nway, rejoined his companion, rather giddy, and said, 'I hope nothing's\nwrong with your honoured father, Miss? I hope there's nothing the matter\nin the honoured family?'\n\n'No, no,' returned Little Dorrit. 'No, thank you. Give me your arm\nagain, Mr Nandy. We shall soon be there now.'\n\nSo she talked to him as she had talked before, and they came to the\nLodge and found Mr Chivery on the lock, and went in. Now, it happened\nthat the Father of the Marshalsea was sauntering towards the Lodge at\nthe moment when they were coming out of it, entering the prison arm in\narm. As the spectacle of their approach met his view, he displayed the\nutmost agitation and despondency of mind; and--altogether regardless of\nOld Nandy, who, making his reverence, stood with his hat in his hand, as\nhe always did in that gracious presence--turned about, and hurried in at\nhis own doorway and up the staircase.\n\nLeaving the old unfortunate, whom in an evil hour she had taken under\nher protection, with a hurried promise to return to him directly, Little\nDorrit hastened after her father, and, on the staircase, found Fanny\nfollowing her, and flouncing up with offended dignity. The three came\ninto the room almost together; and the Father sat down in his chair,\nburied his face in his hands, and uttered a groan.\n\n'Of course,' said Fanny. 'Very proper. Poor, afflicted Pa! Now, I hope\nyou believe me, Miss?'\n\n'What is it, father?' cried Little Dorrit, bending over him. 'Have I\nmade you unhappy, father? Not I, I hope!'\n\n'You hope, indeed! I dare say! Oh, you'--Fanny paused for a sufficiently\nstrong expression--'you Common-minded little Amy! You complete\nprison-child!'\n\nHe stopped these angry reproaches with a wave of his hand, and sobbed\nout, raising his face and shaking his melancholy head at his younger\ndaughter, 'Amy, I know that you are innocent in intention. But you\nhave cut me to the soul.'\n\n'Innocent in intention!' the implacable Fanny struck in. 'Stuff in\nintention! Low in intention! Lowering of the family in intention!'\n\n'Father!' cried Little Dorrit, pale and trembling. 'I am very sorry.\nPray forgive me. Tell me how it is, that I may not do it again!'\n\n'How it is, you prevaricating little piece of goods!' cried Fanny. 'You\nknow how it is. I have told you already, so don't fly in the face of\nProvidence by attempting to deny it!'\n\n'Hush! Amy,' said the father, passing his pocket-handkerchief several\ntimes across his face, and then grasping it convulsively in the hand\nthat dropped across his knee, 'I have done what I could to keep you\nselect here; I have done what I could to retain you a position here. I\nmay have succeeded; I may not. You may know it; you may not. I give no\nopinion. I have endured everything here but humiliation. That I have\nhappily been spared--until this day.'\n\nHere his convulsive grasp unclosed itself, and he put his\npocket-handkerchief to his eyes again. Little Dorrit, on the ground\nbeside him, with her imploring hand upon his arm, watched him\nremorsefully. Coming out of his fit of grief, he clenched his\npocket-handkerchief once more.\n\n'Humiliation I have happily been spared until this day. Through all\nmy troubles there has been that--Spirit in myself, and that--that\nsubmission to it, if I may use the term, in those about me, which has\nspared me--ha--humiliation. But this day, this minute, I have keenly\nfelt it.'\n\n'Of course! How could it be otherwise?' exclaimed the irrepressible\nFanny. 'Careering and prancing about with a Pauper!' (air-gun again).\n\n'But, dear father,' cried Little Dorrit, 'I don't justify myself for\nhaving wounded your dear heart--no! Heaven knows I don't!' She clasped\nher hands in quite an agony of distress. 'I do nothing but beg and pray\nyou to be comforted and overlook it. But if I had not known that you\nwere kind to the old man yourself, and took much notice of him, and were\nalways glad to see him, I would not have come here with him, father, I\nwould not, indeed. What I have been so unhappy as to do, I have done\nin mistake. I would not wilfully bring a tear to your eyes, dear love!'\nsaid Little Dorrit, her heart well-nigh broken, 'for anything the world\ncould give me, or anything it could take away.'\n\nFanny, with a partly angry and partly repentant sob, began to cry\nherself, and to say--as this young lady always said when she was half in\npassion and half out of it, half spiteful with herself and half spiteful\nwith everybody else--that she wished she were dead.\n\nThe Father of the Marshalsea in the meantime took his younger daughter\nto his breast, and patted her head.\n\n'There, there! Say no more, Amy, say no more, my child. I will forget it\nas soon as I can. I,' with hysterical cheerfulness, 'I--shall soon be\nable to dismiss it. It is perfectly true, my dear, that I am always glad\nto see my old pensioner--as such, as such--and that I do--ha--extend as\nmuch protection and kindness to the--hum--the bruised reed--I trust I\nmay so call him without impropriety--as in my circumstances, I can. It\nis quite true that this is the case, my dear child. At the same\ntime, I preserve in doing this, if I may--ha--if I may use the\nexpression--Spirit. Becoming Spirit. And there are some things which\nare,' he stopped to sob, 'irreconcilable with that, and wound\nthat--wound it deeply. It is not that I have seen my good Amy\nattentive, and--ha--condescending to my old pensioner--it is not _that_\nthat hurts me. It is, if I am to close the painful subject by being\nexplicit, that I have seen my child, my own child, my own daughter,\ncoming into this College out of the public streets--smiling!\nsmiling!--arm in arm with--O my God, a livery!'\n\nThis reference to the coat of no cut and no time, the unfortunate\ngentleman gasped forth, in a scarcely audible voice, and with his\nclenched pocket-handkerchief raised in the air. His excited feelings\nmight have found some further painful utterance, but for a knock at the\ndoor, which had been already twice repeated, and to which Fanny (still\nwishing herself dead, and indeed now going so far as to add, buried)\ncried 'Come in!'\n\n'Ah, Young John!' said the Father, in an altered and calmed voice. 'What\nis it, Young John?'\n\n'A letter for you, sir, being left in the Lodge just this minute, and a\nmessage with it, I thought, happening to be there myself, sir, I would\nbring it to your room.' The speaker's attention was much distracted by\nthe piteous spectacle of Little Dorrit at her father's feet, with her\nhead turned away.\n\n'Indeed, John? Thank you.'\n\n'The letter is from Mr Clennam, sir--it's the answer--and the message\nwas, sir, that Mr Clennam also sent his compliments, and word that he\nwould do himself the pleasure of calling this afternoon, hoping to see\nyou, and likewise,' attention more distracted than before, 'Miss Amy.'\n\n'Oh!' As the Father glanced into the letter (there was a bank-note in\nit), he reddened a little, and patted Amy on the head afresh. 'Thank\nyou, Young John. Quite right. Much obliged to you for your attention. No\none waiting?'\n\n'No, sir, no one waiting.'\n\n'Thank you, John. How is your mother, Young John?'\n\n'Thank you, sir, she's not quite as well as we could wish--in fact, we\nnone of us are, except father--but she's pretty well, sir.'\n\n'Say we sent our remembrances, will you? Say kind remembrances, if you\nplease, Young John.'\n\n'Thank you, sir, I will.' And Mr Chivery junior went his way, having\nspontaneously composed on the spot an entirely new epitaph for himself,\nto the effect that Here lay the body of John Chivery, Who, Having\nat such a date, Beheld the idol of his life, In grief and tears, And\nfeeling unable to bear the harrowing spectacle, Immediately repaired to\nthe abode of his inconsolable parents, And terminated his existence by\nhis own rash act.\n\n'There, there, Amy!' said the Father, when Young John had closed the\ndoor, 'let us say no more about it.' The last few minutes had improved\nhis spirits remarkably, and he was quite lightsome. 'Where is my old\npensioner all this while? We must not leave him by himself any longer,\nor he will begin to suppose he is not welcome, and that would pain me.\nWill you fetch him, my child, or shall I?'\n\n'If you wouldn't mind, father,' said Little Dorrit, trying to bring her\nsobbing to a close.\n\n'Certainly I will go, my dear. I forgot; your eyes are rather red.\nThere! Cheer up, Amy. Don't be uneasy about me. I am quite myself again,\nmy love, quite myself. Go to your room, Amy, and make yourself look\ncomfortable and pleasant to receive Mr Clennam.'\n\n'I would rather stay in my own room, Father,' returned Little Dorrit,\nfinding it more difficult than before to regain her composure. 'I would\nfar rather not see Mr Clennam.'\n\n'Oh, fie, fie, my dear, that's folly. Mr Clennam is a very gentlemanly\nman--very gentlemanly. A little reserved at times; but I will say\nextremely gentlemanly. I couldn't think of your not being here to\nreceive Mr Clennam, my dear, especially this afternoon. So go and\nfreshen yourself up, Amy; go and freshen yourself up, like a good girl.'\n\nThus directed, Little Dorrit dutifully rose and obeyed: only pausing\nfor a moment as she went out of the room, to give her sister a kiss of\nreconciliation. Upon which, that young lady, feeling much harassed\nin her mind, and having for the time worn out the wish with which she\ngenerally relieved it, conceived and executed the brilliant idea of\nwishing Old Nandy dead, rather than that he should come bothering there\nlike a disgusting, tiresome, wicked wretch, and making mischief between\ntwo sisters.\n\nThe Father of the Marshalsea, even humming a tune, and wearing his black\nvelvet cap a little on one side, so much improved were his spirits, went\ndown into the yard, and found his old pensioner standing there hat in\nhand just within the gate, as he had stood all this time. 'Come, Nandy!'\nsaid he, with great suavity. 'Come up-stairs, Nandy; you know the way;\nwhy don't you come up-stairs?' He went the length, on this occasion,\nof giving him his hand and saying, 'How are you, Nandy? Are you pretty\nwell?' To which that vocalist returned, 'I thank you, honoured sir, I am\nall the better for seeing your honour.' As they went along the yard, the\nFather of the Marshalsea presented him to a Collegian of recent date.\n'An old acquaintance of mine, sir, an old pensioner.' And then said, 'Be\ncovered, my good Nandy; put your hat on,' with great consideration.\n\nHis patronage did not stop here; for he charged Maggy to get the tea\nready, and instructed her to buy certain tea-cakes, fresh butter,\neggs, cold ham, and shrimps: to purchase which collation he gave her a\nbank-note for ten pounds, laying strict injunctions on her to be careful\nof the change. These preparations were in an advanced stage of progress,\nand his daughter Amy had come back with her work, when Clennam presented\nhimself; whom he most graciously received, and besought to join their\nmeal.\n\n'Amy, my love, you know Mr Clennam even better than I have the happiness\nof doing. Fanny, my dear, you are acquainted with Mr Clennam.' Fanny\nacknowledged him haughtily; the position she tacitly took up in all such\ncases being that there was a vast conspiracy to insult the family by not\nunderstanding it, or sufficiently deferring to it, and here was one of\nthe conspirators. 'This, Mr Clennam, you must know, is an old pensioner\nof mine, Old Nandy, a very faithful old man.' (He always spoke of him as\nan object of great antiquity, but he was two or three years younger than\nhimself.) 'Let me see. You know Plornish, I think? I think my daughter\nAmy has mentioned to me that you know poor Plornish?'\n\n'O yes!' said Arthur Clennam.\n\n'Well, sir, this is Mrs Plornish's father.'\n\n'Indeed? I am glad to see him.'\n\n'You would be more glad if you knew his many good qualities, Mr\nClennam.'\n\n'I hope I shall come to know them through knowing him,' said Arthur,\nsecretly pitying the bowed and submissive figure.\n\n'It is a holiday with him, and he comes to see his old friends, who are\nalways glad to see him,' observed the Father of the Marshalsea. Then he\nadded behind his hand, ('Union, poor old fellow. Out for the day.')\n\nBy this time Maggy, quietly assisted by her Little Mother, had spread\nthe board, and the repast was ready. It being hot weather and the prison\nvery close, the window was as wide open as it could be pushed. 'If Maggy\nwill spread that newspaper on the window-sill, my dear,' remarked the\nFather complacently and in a half whisper to Little Dorrit, 'my old\npensioner can have his tea there, while we are having ours.'\n\nSo, with a gulf between him and the good company of about a foot in\nwidth, standard measure, Mrs Plornish's father was handsomely regaled.\nClennam had never seen anything like his magnanimous protection by that\nother Father, he of the Marshalsea; and was lost in the contemplation of\nits many wonders.\n\nThe most striking of these was perhaps the relishing manner in which he\nremarked on the pensioner's infirmities and failings, as if he were\na gracious Keeper making a running commentary on the decline of the\nharmless animal he exhibited.\n\n'Not ready for more ham yet, Nandy? Why, how slow you are! (His last\nteeth,' he explained to the company, 'are going, poor old boy.')\n\nAt another time, he said, 'No shrimps, Nandy?' and on his not instantly\nreplying, observed, ('His hearing is becoming very defective. He'll be\ndeaf directly.')\n\nAt another time he asked him, 'Do you walk much, Nandy, about the yard\nwithin the walls of that place of yours?'\n\n'No, sir; no. I haven't any great liking for that.'\n\n'No, to be sure,' he assented. 'Very natural.' Then he privately\ninformed the circle ('Legs going.')\n\nOnce he asked the pensioner, in that general clemency which asked him\nanything to keep him afloat, how old his younger grandchild was?\n\n'John Edward,' said the pensioner, slowly laying down his knife and fork\nto consider. 'How old, sir? Let me think now.'\n\nThe Father of the Marshalsea tapped his forehead ('Memory weak.')\n\n'John Edward, sir? Well, I really forget. I couldn't say at this minute,\nsir, whether it's two and two months, or whether it's two and five\nmonths. It's one or the other.'\n\n'Don't distress yourself by worrying your mind about it,' he returned,\nwith infinite forbearance. ('Faculties evidently decaying--old man rusts\nin the life he leads!')\n\nThe more of these discoveries that he persuaded himself he made in the\npensioner, the better he appeared to like him; and when he got out of\nhis chair after tea to bid the pensioner good-bye, on his intimating\nthat he feared, honoured sir, his time was running out, he made himself\nlook as erect and strong as possible.\n\n'We don't call this a shilling, Nandy, you know,' he said, putting one\nin his hand. 'We call it tobacco.'\n\n'Honoured sir, I thank you. It shall buy tobacco. My thanks and duty to\nMiss Amy and Miss Fanny. I wish you good night, Mr Clennam.'\n\n'And mind you don't forget us, you know, Nandy,' said the Father. 'You\nmust come again, mind, whenever you have an afternoon. You must not come\nout without seeing us, or we shall be jealous. Good night, Nandy. Be\nvery careful how you descend the stairs, Nandy; they are rather uneven\nand worn.' With that he stood on the landing, watching the old man down:\nand when he came into the room again, said, with a solemn satisfaction\non him, 'A melancholy sight that, Mr Clennam, though one has the\nconsolation of knowing that he doesn't feel it himself. The poor old\nfellow is a dismal wreck. Spirit broken and gone--pulverised--crushed\nout of him, sir, completely!'\n\nAs Clennam had a purpose in remaining, he said what he could responsive\nto these sentiments, and stood at the window with their enunciator,\nwhile Maggy and her Little Mother washed the tea-service and cleared it\naway. He noticed that his companion stood at the window with the air of\nan affable and accessible Sovereign, and that, when any of his people in\nthe yard below looked up, his recognition of their salutes just stopped\nshort of a blessing.\n\nWhen Little Dorrit had her work on the table, and Maggy hers on the\nbedstead, Fanny fell to tying her bonnet as a preliminary to her\ndeparture. Arthur, still having his purpose, still remained. At this\ntime the door opened, without any notice, and Mr Tip came in. He kissed\nAmy as she started up to meet him, nodded to Fanny, nodded to his\nfather, gloomed on the visitor without further recognition, and sat\ndown.\n\n'Tip, dear,' said Little Dorrit, mildly, shocked by this, 'don't you\nsee--'\n\n'Yes, I see, Amy. If you refer to the presence of any visitor you have\nhere--I say, if you refer to that,' answered Tip, jerking his head with\nemphasis towards his shoulder nearest Clennam, 'I see!'\n\n'Is that all you say?'\n\n'That's all I say. And I suppose,' added the lofty young man, after a\nmoment's pause, 'that visitor will understand me, when I say that's all\nI say. In short, I suppose the visitor will understand that he hasn't\nused me like a gentleman.'\n\n'I do not understand that,' observed the obnoxious personage referred to\nwith tranquillity.\n\n'No? Why, then, to make it clearer to you, sir, I beg to let you know\nthat when I address what I call a properly-worded appeal, and an urgent\nappeal, and a delicate appeal, to an individual, for a small temporary\naccommodation, easily within his power--easily within his power,\nmind!--and when that individual writes back word to me that he begs to\nbe excused, I consider that he doesn't treat me like a gentleman.'\n\nThe Father of the Marshalsea, who had surveyed his son in silence, no\nsooner heard this sentiment, than he began in angry voice:--\n\n'How dare you--' But his son stopped him.\n\n'Now, don't ask me how I dare, father, because that's bosh. As to the\nfact of the line of conduct I choose to adopt towards the individual\npresent, you ought to be proud of my showing a proper spirit.'\n\n'I should think so!' cried Fanny.\n\n'A proper spirit?' said the Father. 'Yes, a proper spirit; a becoming\nspirit. Is it come to this that my son teaches me--_me_--spirit!'\n\n'Now, don't let us bother about it, father, or have any row on the\nsubject. I have fully made up my mind that the individual present has\nnot treated me like a gentleman. And there's an end of it.'\n\n'But there is not an end of it, sir,' returned the Father. 'But there\nshall not be an end of it. You have made up your mind? You have made up\nyour mind?'\n\n'Yes, _I_ have. What's the good of keeping on like that?'\n\n'Because,' returned the Father, in a great heat, 'you had no right to\nmake up your mind to what is monstrous, to what is--ha--immoral, to what\nis--hum--parricidal. No, Mr Clennam, I beg, sir. Don't ask me to desist;\nthere is a--hum--a general principle involved here, which rises even\nabove considerations of--ha--hospitality. I object to the assertion made\nby my son. I--ha--I personally repel it.'\n\n'Why, what is it to you, father?' returned the son, over his shoulder.\n\n'What is it to me, sir? I have a--hum--a spirit, sir, that will not\nendure it. I,' he took out his pocket-handkerchief again and dabbed his\nface. 'I am outraged and insulted by it. Let me suppose the case that I\nmyself may at a certain time--ha--or times, have made a--hum--an appeal,\nand a properly-worded appeal, and a delicate appeal, and an urgent\nappeal to some individual for a small temporary accommodation. Let me\nsuppose that that accommodation could have been easily extended, and was\nnot extended, and that that individual informed me that he begged to\nbe excused. Am I to be told by my own son, that I therefore received\ntreatment not due to a gentleman, and that I--ha--I submitted to it?'\n\nHis daughter Amy gently tried to calm him, but he would not on any\naccount be calmed. He said his spirit was up, and wouldn't endure this.\n\nWas he to be told that, he wished to know again, by his own son on his\nown hearth, to his own face? Was that humiliation to be put upon him by\nhis own blood?\n\n'You are putting it on yourself, father, and getting into all this\ninjury of your own accord!' said the young gentleman morosely. 'What I\nhave made up my mind about has nothing to do with you. What I said had\nnothing to do with you. Why need you go trying on other people's hats?'\n\n'I reply it has everything to do with me,' returned the Father. 'I point\nout to you, sir, with indignation, that--hum--the--ha--delicacy and\npeculiarity of your father's position should strike you dumb, sir, if\nnothing else should, in laying down such--ha--such unnatural principles.\nBesides; if you are not filial, sir, if you discard that duty, you\nare at least--hum--not a Christian? Are you--ha--an Atheist? And is it\nChristian, let me ask you, to stigmatise and denounce an individual\nfor begging to be excused this time, when the same individual\nmay--ha--respond with the required accommodation next time? Is it the\npart of a Christian not to--hum--not to try him again?' He had worked\nhimself into quite a religious glow and fervour.\n\n'I see precious well,' said Mr Tip, rising, 'that I shall get no\nsensible or fair argument here to-night, and so the best thing I can do\nis to cut. Good night, Amy. Don't be vexed. I am very sorry it happens\nhere, and you here, upon my soul I am; but I can't altogether part with\nmy spirit, even for your sake, old girl.'\n\nWith those words he put on his hat and went out, accompanied by Miss\nFanny; who did not consider it spirited on her part to take leave of\nClennam with any less opposing demonstration than a stare, importing\nthat she had always known him for one of the large body of conspirators.\n\nWhen they were gone, the Father of the Marshalsea was at first inclined\nto sink into despondency again, and would have done so, but that a\ngentleman opportunely came up within a minute or two to attend him to\nthe Snuggery. It was the gentleman Clennam had seen on the night of his\nown accidental detention there, who had that impalpable grievance about\nthe misappropriated Fund on which the Marshal was supposed to batten.\nHe presented himself as deputation to escort the Father to the Chair, it\nbeing an occasion on which he had promised to preside over the assembled\nCollegians in the enjoyment of a little Harmony.\n\n'Such, you see, Mr Clennam,' said the Father, 'are the incongruities\nof my position here. But a public duty! No man, I am sure, would more\nreadily recognise a public duty than yourself.'\n\nClennam besought him not to delay a moment.\n\n'Amy, my dear, if you can persuade Mr Clennam to stay longer, I can\nleave the honours of our poor apology for an establishment with\nconfidence in your hands, and perhaps you may do something towards\nerasing from Mr Clennam's mind the--ha--untoward and unpleasant\ncircumstance which has occurred since tea-time.'\n\nClennam assured him that it had made no impression on his mind, and\ntherefore required no erasure.\n\n'My dear sir,' said the Father, with a removal of his black cap and a\ngrasp of Clennam's hand, combining to express the safe receipt of his\nnote and enclosure that afternoon, 'Heaven ever bless you!'\n\nSo, at last, Clennam's purpose in remaining was attained, and he could\nspeak to Little Dorrit with nobody by. Maggy counted as nobody, and she\nwas by.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 32. More Fortune-Telling\n\n\nMaggy sat at her work in her great white cap with its quantity of opaque\nfrilling hiding what profile she had (she had none to spare), and her\nserviceable eye brought to bear upon her occupation, on the window side\nof the room. What with her flapping cap, and what with her unserviceable\neye, she was quite partitioned off from her Little Mother, whose seat\nwas opposite the window. The tread and shuffle of feet on the pavement\nof the yard had much diminished since the taking of the Chair, the tide\nof Collegians having set strongly in the direction of Harmony. Some few\nwho had no music in their souls, or no money in their pockets, dawdled\nabout; and the old spectacle of the visitor-wife and the depressed\nunseasoned prisoner still lingered in corners, as broken cobwebs and\nsuch unsightly discomforts draggle in corners of other places. It was\nthe quietest time the College knew, saving the night hours when the\nCollegians took the benefit of the act of sleep. The occasional rattle\nof applause upon the tables of the Snuggery, denoted the successful\ntermination of a morsel of Harmony; or the responsive acceptance, by\nthe united children, of some toast or sentiment offered to them by their\nFather. Occasionally, a vocal strain more sonorous than the generality\ninformed the listener that some boastful bass was in blue water, or in\nthe hunting field, or with the reindeer, or on the mountain, or among\nthe heather; but the Marshal of the Marshalsea knew better, and had got\nhim hard and fast.\n\nAs Arthur Clennam moved to sit down by the side of Little Dorrit, she\ntrembled so that she had much ado to hold her needle. Clennam gently\nput his hand upon her work, and said, 'Dear Little Dorrit, let me lay it\ndown.'\n\nShe yielded it to him, and he put it aside. Her hands were then\nnervously clasping together, but he took one of them.\n\n'How seldom I have seen you lately, Little Dorrit!'\n\n'I have been busy, sir.'\n\n'But I heard only to-day,' said Clennam, 'by mere accident, of your\nhaving been with those good people close by me. Why not come to me,\nthen?'\n\n'I--I don't know. Or rather, I thought you might be busy too. You\ngenerally are now, are you not?'\n\nHe saw her trembling little form and her downcast face, and the eyes\nthat drooped the moment they were raised to his--he saw them almost with\nas much concern as tenderness.\n\n'My child, your manner is so changed!'\n\nThe trembling was now quite beyond her control. Softly withdrawing her\nhand, and laying it in her other hand, she sat before him with her head\nbent and her whole form trembling.\n\n'My own Little Dorrit,' said Clennam, compassionately.\n\nShe burst into tears. Maggy looked round of a sudden, and stared for at\nleast a minute; but did not interpose. Clennam waited some little while\nbefore he spoke again.\n\n'I cannot bear,' he said then, 'to see you weep; but I hope this is a\nrelief to an overcharged heart.'\n\n'Yes it is, sir. Nothing but that.'\n\n'Well, well! I feared you would think too much of what passed here just\nnow. It is of no moment; not the least. I am only unfortunate to have\ncome in the way. Let it go by with these tears. It is not worth one of\nthem. One of them? Such an idle thing should be repeated, with my glad\nconsent, fifty times a day, to save you a moment's heart-ache, Little\nDorrit.'\n\nShe had taken courage now, and answered, far more in her usual manner,\n'You are so good! But even if there was nothing else in it to be sorry\nfor and ashamed of, it is such a bad return to you--'\n\n'Hush!' said Clennam, smiling and touching her lips with his hand.\n'Forgetfulness in you who remember so many and so much, would be new\nindeed. Shall I remind you that I am not, and that I never was, anything\nbut the friend whom you agreed to trust? No. You remember it, don't\nyou?'\n\n'I try to do so, or I should have broken the promise just now, when my\nmistaken brother was here. You will consider his bringing-up in this\nplace, and will not judge him hardly, poor fellow, I know!' In raising\nher eyes with these words, she observed his face more nearly than she\nhad done yet, and said, with a quick change of tone, 'You have not been\nill, Mr Clennam?'\n\n'No.'\n\n'Nor tried? Nor hurt?' she asked him, anxiously.\n\nIt fell to Clennam now, to be not quite certain how to answer. He said\nin reply:\n\n'To speak the truth, I have been a little troubled, but it is over.\nDo I show it so plainly? I ought to have more fortitude and self-command\nthan that. I thought I had. I must learn them of you. Who could teach me\nbetter!'\n\nHe never thought that she saw in him what no one else could see. He\nnever thought that in the whole world there were no other eyes that\nlooked upon him with the same light and strength as hers.\n\n'But it brings me to something that I wish to say,' he continued, 'and\ntherefore I will not quarrel even with my own face for telling tales\nand being unfaithful to me. Besides, it is a privilege and pleasure to\nconfide in my Little Dorrit. Let me confess then, that, forgetting how\ngrave I was, and how old I was, and how the time for such things had\ngone by me with the many years of sameness and little happiness that\nmade up my long life far away, without marking it--that, forgetting all\nthis, I fancied I loved some one.'\n\n'Do I know her, sir?' asked Little Dorrit.\n\n'No, my child.'\n\n'Not the lady who has been kind to me for your sake?'\n\n'Flora. No, no. Do you think--'\n\n'I never quite thought so,' said Little Dorrit, more to herself than\nhim. 'I did wonder at it a little.'\n\n'Well!' said Clennam, abiding by the feeling that had fallen on him in\nthe avenue on the night of the roses, the feeling that he was an\nolder man, who had done with that tender part of life, 'I found out my\nmistake, and I thought about it a little--in short, a good deal--and got\nwiser. Being wiser, I counted up my years and considered what I am, and\nlooked back, and looked forward, and found that I should soon be grey. I\nfound that I had climbed the hill, and passed the level ground upon the\ntop, and was descending quickly.'\n\nIf he had known the sharpness of the pain he caused the patient heart,\nin speaking thus! While doing it, too, with the purpose of easing and\nserving her.\n\n'I found that the day when any such thing would have been graceful in\nme, or good in me, or hopeful or happy for me or any one in connection\nwith me, was gone, and would never shine again.'\n\nO! If he had known, if he had known! If he could have seen the dagger in\nhis hand, and the cruel wounds it struck in the faithful bleeding breast\nof his Little Dorrit!\n\n'All that is over, and I have turned my face from it. Why do I speak of\nthis to Little Dorrit? Why do I show you, my child, the space of years\nthat there is between us, and recall to you that I have passed, by the\namount of your whole life, the time that is present to you?'\n\n'Because you trust me, I hope. Because you know that nothing can touch\nyou without touching me; that nothing can make you happy or unhappy, but\nit must make me, who am so grateful to you, the same.'\n\nHe heard the thrill in her voice, he saw her earnest face, he saw her\nclear true eyes, he saw the quickened bosom that would have joyfully\nthrown itself before him to receive a mortal wound directed at his\nbreast, with the dying cry, 'I love him!' and the remotest suspicion\nof the truth never dawned upon his mind. No. He saw the devoted little\ncreature with her worn shoes, in her common dress, in her jail-home; a\nslender child in body, a strong heroine in soul; and the light of her\ndomestic story made all else dark to him.\n\n'For those reasons assuredly, Little Dorrit, but for another too. So\nfar removed, so different, and so much older, I am the better fitted for\nyour friend and adviser. I mean, I am the more easily to be trusted;\nand any little constraint that you might feel with another, may vanish\nbefore me. Why have you kept so retired from me? Tell me.'\n\n'I am better here. My place and use are here. I am much better here,'\nsaid Little Dorrit, faintly.\n\n'So you said that day upon the bridge. I thought of it much afterwards.\nHave you no secret you could entrust to me, with hope and comfort, if\nyou would!'\n\n'Secret? No, I have no secret,' said Little Dorrit in some trouble.\n\nThey had been speaking in low voices; more because it was natural to\nwhat they said to adopt that tone, than with any care to reserve it from\nMaggy at her work. All of a sudden Maggy stared again, and this time\nspoke:\n\n'I say! Little Mother!'\n\n'Yes, Maggy.'\n\n'If you an't got no secret of your own to tell him, tell him that about\nthe Princess. _She_ had a secret, you know.'\n\n'The Princess had a secret?' said Clennam, in some surprise. 'What\nPrincess was that, Maggy?'\n\n'Lor! How you do go and bother a gal of ten,' said Maggy, 'catching the\npoor thing up in that way. Whoever said the Princess had a secret? _I_\nnever said so.'\n\n'I beg your pardon. I thought you did.'\n\n'No, I didn't. How could I, when it was her as wanted to find it out? It\nwas the little woman as had the secret, and she was always a spinning at\nher wheel. And so she says to her, why do you keep it there? And so the\nt'other one says to her, no I don't; and so the t'other one says to her,\nyes you do; and then they both goes to the cupboard, and there it is.\nAnd she wouldn't go into the Hospital, and so she died. _You_ know, Little\nMother; tell him that. For it was a reg'lar good secret, that was!' cried\nMaggy, hugging herself.\n\nArthur looked at Little Dorrit for help to comprehend this, and was\nstruck by seeing her so timid and red. But, when she told him that it\nwas only a Fairy Tale she had one day made up for Maggy, and that there\nwas nothing in it which she wouldn't be ashamed to tell again to anybody\nelse, even if she could remember it, he left the subject where it was.\n\nHowever, he returned to his own subject by first entreating her to see\nhim oftener, and to remember that it was impossible to have a stronger\ninterest in her welfare than he had, or to be more set upon promoting it\nthan he was. When she answered fervently, she well knew that, she never\nforgot it, he touched upon his second and more delicate point--the\nsuspicion he had formed.\n\n'Little Dorrit,' he said, taking her hand again, and speaking lower than\nhe had spoken yet, so that even Maggy in the small room could not hear\nhim, 'another word. I have wanted very much to say this to you; I have\ntried for opportunities. Don't mind me, who, for the matter of years,\nmight be your father or your uncle. Always think of me as quite an\nold man. I know that all your devotion centres in this room, and\nthat nothing to the last will ever tempt you away from the duties you\ndischarge here. If I were not sure of it, I should, before now, have\nimplored you, and implored your father, to let me make some provision\nfor you in a more suitable place. But you may have an interest--I will\nnot say, now, though even that might be--may have, at another time,\nan interest in some one else; an interest not incompatible with your\naffection here.'\n\nShe was very, very pale, and silently shook her head.\n\n'It may be, dear Little Dorrit.'\n\n'No. No. No.' She shook her head, after each slow repetition of\nthe word, with an air of quiet desolation that he remembered long\nafterwards. The time came when he remembered it well, long afterwards,\nwithin those prison walls; within that very room.\n\n'But, if it ever should be, tell me so, my dear child. Entrust the truth\nto me, point out the object of such an interest to me, and I will try\nwith all the zeal, and honour, and friendship and respect that I feel\nfor you, good Little Dorrit of my heart, to do you a lasting service.'\n\n'O thank you, thank you! But, O no, O no, O no!' She said this, looking\nat him with her work-worn hands folded together, and in the same\nresigned accents as before.\n\n'I press for no confidence now. I only ask you to repose unhesitating\ntrust in me.'\n\n'Can I do less than that, when you are so good!'\n\n'Then you will trust me fully? Will have no secret unhappiness, or\nanxiety, concealed from me?'\n\n'Almost none.'\n\n'And you have none now?'\n\nShe shook her head. But she was very pale.\n\n'When I lie down to-night, and my thoughts come back--as they will, for\nthey do every night, even when I have not seen you--to this sad place, I\nmay believe that there is no grief beyond this room, now, and its usual\noccupants, which preys on Little Dorrit's mind?'\n\nShe seemed to catch at these words--that he remembered, too, long\nafterwards--and said, more brightly, 'Yes, Mr Clennam; yes, you may!'\n\nThe crazy staircase, usually not slow to give notice when any one was\ncoming up or down, here creaked under a quick tread, and a further sound\nwas heard upon it, as if a little steam-engine with more steam than it\nknew what to do with, were working towards the room. As it approached,\nwhich it did very rapidly, it laboured with increased energy; and,\nafter knocking at the door, it sounded as if it were stooping down and\nsnorting in at the keyhole.\n\nBefore Maggy could open the door, Mr Pancks, opening it from without,\nstood without a hat and with his bare head in the wildest condition,\nlooking at Clennam and Little Dorrit, over her shoulder. He had a\nlighted cigar in his hand, and brought with him airs of ale and tobacco\nsmoke.\n\n'Pancks the gipsy,' he observed out of breath, 'fortune-telling.'\n\nHe stood dingily smiling, and breathing hard at them, with a most\ncurious air; as if, instead of being his proprietor's grubber, he were\nthe triumphant proprietor of the Marshalsea, the Marshal, all the\nturnkeys, and all the Collegians. In his great self-satisfaction he put\nhis cigar to his lips (being evidently no smoker), and took such a pull\nat it, with his right eye shut up tight for the purpose, that he\nunderwent a convulsion of shuddering and choking. But even in the midst\nof that paroxysm, he still essayed to repeat his favourite introduction\nof himself, 'Pa-ancks the gi-ipsy, fortune-telling.'\n\n'I am spending the evening with the rest of 'em,' said Pancks. 'I've\nbeen singing. I've been taking a part in White sand and grey sand.\n_I_ don't know anything about it. Never mind. I'll take any part in\nanything. It's all the same, if you're loud enough.'\n\nAt first Clennam supposed him to be intoxicated. But he soon perceived\nthat though he might be a little the worse (or better) for ale, the\nstaple of his excitement was not brewed from malt, or distilled from any\ngrain or berry.\n\n'How d'ye do, Miss Dorrit?' said Pancks. 'I thought you wouldn't mind my\nrunning round, and looking in for a moment. Mr Clennam I heard was here,\nfrom Mr Dorrit. How are you, Sir?'\n\nClennam thanked him, and said he was glad to see him so gay.\n\n'Gay!' said Pancks. 'I'm in wonderful feather, sir. I can't stop a\nminute, or I shall be missed, and I don't want 'em to miss me.--Eh, Miss\nDorrit?'\n\nHe seemed to have an insatiate delight in appealing to her and looking\nat her; excitedly sticking his hair up at the same moment, like a dark\nspecies of cockatoo.\n\n'I haven't been here half an hour. I knew Mr Dorrit was in the chair,\nand I said, \"I'll go and support him!\" I ought to be down in Bleeding\nHeart Yard by rights; but I can worry them to-morrow.--Eh, Miss Dorrit?'\n\nHis little black eyes sparkled electrically. His very hair seemed to\nsparkle as he roughened it. He was in that highly-charged state that one\nmight have expected to draw sparks and snaps from him by presenting a\nknuckle to any part of his figure.\n\n'Capital company here,' said Pancks.--'Eh, Miss Dorrit?'\n\nShe was half afraid of him, and irresolute what to say. He laughed, with\na nod towards Clennam.\n\n'Don't mind him, Miss Dorrit. He's one of us. We agreed that you\nshouldn't take on to mind me before people, but we didn't mean Mr\nClennam. He's one of us. He's in it. An't you, Mr Clennam?--Eh, Miss\nDorrit?'\n\nThe excitement of this strange creature was fast communicating itself to\nClennam. Little Dorrit with amazement, saw this, and observed that they\nexchanged quick looks.\n\n'I was making a remark,' said Pancks, 'but I declare I forget what\nit was. Oh, I know! Capital company here. I've been treating 'em all\nround.--Eh, Miss Dorrit?'\n\n'Very generous of you,' she returned, noticing another of the quick\nlooks between the two.\n\n'Not at all,' said Pancks. 'Don't mention it. I'm coming into my\nproperty, that's the fact. I can afford to be liberal. I think I'll give\n'em a treat here. Tables laid in the yard. Bread in stacks. Pipes in\nfaggots. Tobacco in hayloads. Roast beef and plum-pudding for every one.\nQuart of double stout a head. Pint of wine too, if they like it, and the\nauthorities give permission.--Eh, Miss Dorrit?'\n\nShe was thrown into such a confusion by his manner, or rather by\nClennam's growing understanding of his manner (for she looked to him\nafter every fresh appeal and cockatoo demonstration on the part of Mr\nPancks), that she only moved her lips in answer, without forming any\nword.\n\n'And oh, by-the-bye!' said Pancks, 'you were to live to know what was\nbehind us on that little hand of yours. And so you shall, you shall, my\ndarling.--Eh, Miss Dorrit?'\n\nHe had suddenly checked himself. Where he got all the additional black\nprongs from, that now flew up all over his head like the myriads of\npoints that break out in the large change of a great firework, was a\nwonderful mystery.\n\n'But I shall be missed;' he came back to that; 'and I don't want 'em to\nmiss me. Mr Clennam, you and I made a bargain. I said you should find me\nstick to it. You shall find me stick to it now, sir, if you'll step out\nof the room a moment. Miss Dorrit, I wish you good night. Miss Dorrit, I\nwish you good fortune.'\n\nHe rapidly shook her by both hands, and puffed down stairs. Arthur\nfollowed him with such a hurried step, that he had very nearly tumbled\nover him on the last landing, and rolled him down into the yard.\n\n'What is it, for Heaven's sake!' Arthur demanded, when they burst out\nthere both together.\n\n'Stop a moment, sir. Mr Rugg. Let me introduce him.'\n\nWith those words he presented another man without a hat, and also with a\ncigar, and also surrounded with a halo of ale and tobacco smoke, which\nman, though not so excited as himself, was in a state which would have\nbeen akin to lunacy but for its fading into sober method when compared\nwith the rampancy of Mr Pancks.\n\n'Mr Clennam, Mr Rugg,' said Pancks. 'Stop a moment. Come to the pump.'\n\nThey adjourned to the pump. Mr Pancks, instantly putting his head under\nthe spout, requested Mr Rugg to take a good strong turn at the handle.\nMr Rugg complying to the letter, Mr Pancks came forth snorting and\nblowing to some purpose, and dried himself on his handkerchief.\n\n'I am the clearer for that,' he gasped to Clennam standing astonished.\n'But upon my soul, to hear her father making speeches in that chair,\nknowing what we know, and to see her up in that room in that dress,\nknowing what we know, is enough to--give me a back, Mr Rugg--a little\nhigher, sir,--that'll do!'\n\nThen and there, on that Marshalsea pavement, in the shades of evening,\ndid Mr Pancks, of all mankind, fly over the head and shoulders of Mr\nRugg of Pentonville, General Agent, Accountant, and Recoverer of Debts.\nAlighting on his feet, he took Clennam by the button-hole, led him\nbehind the pump, and pantingly produced from his pocket a bundle of\npapers.\n\nMr Rugg, also, pantingly produced from his pocket a bundle of papers.\n\n'Stay!' said Clennam in a whisper.'You have made a discovery.'\n\nMr Pancks answered, with an unction which there is no language to\nconvey, 'We rather think so.'\n\n'Does it implicate any one?'\n\n'How implicate, sir?'\n\n'In any suppression or wrong dealing of any kind?'\n\n'Not a bit of it.'\n\n'Thank God!' said Clennam to himself. 'Now show me.'\n\n'You are to understand'--snorted Pancks, feverishly unfolding papers,\nand speaking in short high-pressure blasts of sentences, 'Where's the\nPedigree? Where's Schedule number four, Mr Rugg? Oh! all right! Here we\nare.--You are to understand that we are this very day virtually\ncomplete. We shan't be legally for a day or two. Call it at the outside\na week. We've been at it night and day for I don't know how long. Mr\nRugg, you know how long? Never mind. Don't say. You'll only confuse me.\nYou shall tell her, Mr Clennam. Not till we give you leave. Where's that\nrough total, Mr Rugg? Oh! Here we are! There sir! That's what you'll\nhave to break to her. That man's your Father of the Marshalsea!'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 33. Mrs Merdle's Complaint\n\n\nResigning herself to inevitable fate by making the best of those people,\nthe Miggleses, and submitting her philosophy to the draught upon it, of\nwhich she had foreseen the likelihood in her interview with Arthur,\nMrs Gowan handsomely resolved not to oppose her son's marriage. In her\nprogress to, and happy arrival at, this resolution, she was possibly\ninfluenced, not only by her maternal affections but by three politic\nconsiderations.\n\nOf these, the first may have been that her son had never signified the\nsmallest intention to ask her consent, or any mistrust of his ability\nto dispense with it; the second, that the pension bestowed upon her by a\ngrateful country (and a Barnacle) would be freed from any little filial\ninroads, when her Henry should be married to the darling only child of\na man in very easy circumstances; the third, that Henry's debts must\nclearly be paid down upon the altar-railing by his father-in-law. When,\nto these three-fold points of prudence there is added the fact that\nMrs Gowan yielded her consent the moment she knew of Mr Meagles having\nyielded his, and that Mr Meagles's objection to the marriage had\nbeen the sole obstacle in its way all along, it becomes the height of\nprobability that the relict of the deceased Commissioner of nothing\nparticular, turned these ideas in her sagacious mind.\n\nAmong her connections and acquaintances, however, she maintained her\nindividual dignity and the dignity of the blood of the Barnacles, by\ndiligently nursing the pretence that it was a most unfortunate business;\nthat she was sadly cut up by it; that this was a perfect fascination\nunder which Henry laboured; that she had opposed it for a long time,\nbut what could a mother do; and the like. She had already called Arthur\nClennam to bear witness to this fable, as a friend of the Meagles\nfamily; and she followed up the move by now impounding the family itself\nfor the same purpose. In the first interview she accorded to Mr Meagles,\nshe slided herself into the position of disconsolately but gracefully\nyielding to irresistible pressure. With the utmost politeness and\ngood-breeding, she feigned that it was she--not he--who had made the\ndifficulty, and who at length gave way; and that the sacrifice was\nhers--not his. The same feint, with the same polite dexterity, she\nfoisted on Mrs Meagles, as a conjuror might have forced a card on that\ninnocent lady; and, when her future daughter-in-law was presented to her\nby her son, she said on embracing her, 'My dear, what have you done to\nHenry that has bewitched him so!' at the same time allowing a few tears\nto carry before them, in little pills, the cosmetic powder on her nose;\nas a delicate but touching signal that she suffered much inwardly for\nthe show of composure with which she bore her misfortune.\n\nAmong the friends of Mrs Gowan (who piqued herself at once on being\nSociety, and on maintaining intimate and easy relations with that\nPower), Mrs Merdle occupied a front row. True, the Hampton Court\nBohemians, without exception, turned up their noses at Merdle as an\nupstart; but they turned them down again, by falling flat on their faces\nto worship his wealth. In which compensating adjustment of their noses,\nthey were pretty much like Treasury, Bar, and Bishop, and all the rest\nof them.\n\nTo Mrs Merdle, Mrs Gowan repaired on a visit of self-condolence, after\nhaving given the gracious consent aforesaid. She drove into town for the\npurpose in a one-horse carriage irreverently called at that period of\nEnglish history, a pill-box. It belonged to a job-master in a small way,\nwho drove it himself, and who jobbed it by the day, or hour, to most of\nthe old ladies in Hampton Court Palace; but it was a point of ceremony,\nin that encampment, that the whole equipage should be tacitly regarded\nas the private property of the jobber for the time being, and that the\njob-master should betray personal knowledge of nobody but the jobber\nin possession. So the Circumlocution Barnacles, who were the largest\njob-masters in the universe, always pretended to know of no other job\nbut the job immediately in hand.\n\nMrs Merdle was at home, and was in her nest of crimson and gold, with\nthe parrot on a neighbouring stem watching her with his head on one\nside, as if he took her for another splendid parrot of a larger species.\nTo whom entered Mrs Gowan, with her favourite green fan, which softened\nthe light on the spots of bloom.\n\n'My dear soul,' said Mrs Gowan, tapping the back of her friend's hand\nwith this fan after a little indifferent conversation, 'you are my only\ncomfort. That affair of Henry's that I told you of, is to take place.\nNow, how does it strike you? I am dying to know, because you represent\nand express Society so well.'\n\nMrs Merdle reviewed the bosom which Society was accustomed to review;\nand having ascertained that show-window of Mr Merdle's and the London\njewellers' to be in good order, replied:\n\n'As to marriage on the part of a man, my dear, Society requires that\nhe should retrieve his fortunes by marriage. Society requires that\nhe should gain by marriage. Society requires that he should found a\nhandsome establishment by marriage. Society does not see, otherwise,\nwhat he has to do with marriage. Bird, be quiet!'\n\nFor the parrot on his cage above them, presiding over the conference as\nif he were a judge (and indeed he looked rather like one), had wound up\nthe exposition with a shriek.\n\n'Cases there are,' said Mrs Merdle, delicately crooking the little\nfinger of her favourite hand, and making her remarks neater by that neat\naction; 'cases there are where a man is not young or elegant, and is\nrich, and has a handsome establishment already. Those are of a different\nkind. In such cases--'\n\nMrs Merdle shrugged her snowy shoulders and put her hand upon the\njewel-stand, checking a little cough, as though to add, 'why, a man\nlooks out for this sort of thing, my dear.' Then the parrot shrieked\nagain, and she put up her glass to look at him, and said, 'Bird! Do be\nquiet!'\n\n'But, young men,' resumed Mrs Merdle, 'and by young men you know\nwhat I mean, my love--I mean people's sons who have the world before\nthem--they must place themselves in a better position towards Society by\nmarriage, or Society really will not have any patience with their making\nfools of themselves. Dreadfully worldly all this sounds,' said Mrs\nMerdle, leaning back in her nest and putting up her glass again, 'does\nit not?'\n\n'But it is true,' said Mrs Gowan, with a highly moral air.\n\n'My dear, it is not to be disputed for a moment,' returned Mrs Merdle;\n'because Society has made up its mind on the subject, and there is\nnothing more to be said. If we were in a more primitive state, if we\nlived under roofs of leaves, and kept cows and sheep and creatures\ninstead of banker's accounts (which would be delicious; my dear, I am\npastoral to a degree, by nature), well and good. But we don't live\nunder leaves, and keep cows and sheep and creatures. I perfectly exhaust\nmyself sometimes, in pointing out the distinction to Edmund Sparkler.'\n\nMrs Gowan, looking over her green fan when this young gentleman's name\nwas mentioned, replied as follows:\n\n'My love, you know the wretched state of the country--those unfortunate\nconcessions of John Barnacle's!--and you therefore know the reasons for\nmy being as poor as Thingummy.'\n\n'A church mouse?' Mrs Merdle suggested with a smile.\n\n'I was thinking of the other proverbial church person--Job,' said Mrs\nGowan. 'Either will do. It would be idle to disguise, consequently, that\nthere is a wide difference between the position of your son and mine. I\nmay add, too, that Henry has talent--'\n\n'Which Edmund certainly has not,' said Mrs Merdle, with the greatest\nsuavity.\n\n'--and that his talent, combined with disappointment,' Mrs Gowan went\non, 'has led him into a pursuit which--ah dear me! You know, my dear.\nSuch being Henry's different position, the question is what is the most\ninferior class of marriage to which I can reconcile myself.'\n\nMrs Merdle was so much engaged with the contemplation of her arms\n(beautiful-formed arms, and the very thing for bracelets), that she\nomitted to reply for a while. Roused at length by the silence, she\nfolded the arms, and with admirable presence of mind looked her friend\nfull in the face, and said interrogatively, 'Ye-es? And then?'\n\n'And then, my dear,' said Mrs Gowan not quite so sweetly as before, 'I\nshould be glad to hear what you have to say to it.'\n\nHere the parrot, who had been standing on one leg since he screamed\nlast, burst into a fit of laughter, bobbed himself derisively up and\ndown on both legs, and finished by standing on one leg again, and\npausing for a reply, with his head as much awry as he could possibly\ntwist it.\n\n'Sounds mercenary to ask what the gentleman is to get with the lady,'\nsaid Mrs Merdle; 'but Society is perhaps a little mercenary, you know,\nmy dear.'\n\n'From what I can make out,' said Mrs Gowan, 'I believe I may say that\nHenry will be relieved from debt--'\n\n'Much in debt?' asked Mrs Merdle through her eyeglass.\n\n'Why tolerably, I should think,' said Mrs Gowan.\n\n'Meaning the usual thing; I understand; just so,' Mrs Merdle observed in\na comfortable sort of way.\n\n'And that the father will make them an allowance of three hundred\na-year, or perhaps altogether something more, which, in Italy-'\n\n'Oh! Going to Italy?' said Mrs Merdle.\n\n'For Henry to study. You need be at no loss to guess why, my dear.\nThat dreadful Art--'\n\nTrue. Mrs Merdle hastened to spare the feelings of her afflicted friend.\nShe understood. Say no more!\n\n'And that,' said Mrs Gowan, shaking her despondent head, 'that's all.\nThat,' repeated Mrs Gowan, furling her green fan for the moment, and\ntapping her chin with it (it was on the way to being a double chin;\nmight be called a chin and a half at present), 'that's all! On the death\nof the old people, I suppose there will be more to come; but how it may\nbe restricted or locked up, I don't know. And as to that, they may live\nfor ever. My dear, they are just the kind of people to do it.'\n\nNow, Mrs Merdle, who really knew her friend Society pretty well, and who\nknew what Society's mothers were, and what Society's daughters were, and\nwhat Society's matrimonial market was, and how prices ruled in it, and\nwhat scheming and counter-scheming took place for the high buyers, and\nwhat bargaining and huckstering went on, thought in the depths of\nher capacious bosom that this was a sufficiently good catch. Knowing,\nhowever, what was expected of her, and perceiving the exact nature of\nthe fiction to be nursed, she took it delicately in her arms, and put\nher required contribution of gloss upon it.\n\n'And that is all, my dear?' said she, heaving a friendly sigh. 'Well,\nwell! The fault is not yours. You have nothing to reproach yourself\nwith. You must exercise the strength of mind for which you are renowned,\nand make the best of it.'\n\n'The girl's family have made,' said Mrs Gowan, 'of course, the most\nstrenuous endeavours to--as the lawyers say--to have and to hold Henry.'\n\n'Of course they have, my dear,' said Mrs Merdle.\n\n'I have persisted in every possible objection, and have worried\nmyself morning, noon, and night, for means to detach Henry from the\nconnection.'\n\n'No doubt you have, my dear,' said Mrs Merdle.\n\n'And all of no use. All has broken down beneath me. Now tell me, my\nlove. Am I justified in at last yielding my most reluctant consent to\nHenry's marrying among people not in Society; or, have I acted with\ninexcusable weakness?'\n\nIn answer to this direct appeal, Mrs Merdle assured Mrs Gowan (speaking\nas a Priestess of Society) that she was highly to be commended, that\nshe was much to be sympathised with, that she had taken the highest of\nparts, and had come out of the furnace refined. And Mrs Gowan, who of\ncourse saw through her own threadbare blind perfectly, and who knew that\nMrs Merdle saw through it perfectly, and who knew that Society would see\nthrough it perfectly, came out of this form, notwithstanding, as she had\ngone into it, with immense complacency and gravity.\n\nThe conference was held at four or five o'clock in the afternoon, when\nall the region of Harley Street, Cavendish Square, was resonant of\ncarriage-wheels and double-knocks. It had reached this point when Mr\nMerdle came home from his daily occupation of causing the British\nname to be more and more respected in all parts of the civilised globe\ncapable of the appreciation of world-wide commercial enterprise and\ngigantic combinations of skill and capital. For, though nobody knew with\nthe least precision what Mr Merdle's business was, except that it was\nto coin money, these were the terms in which everybody defined it on all\nceremonious occasions, and which it was the last new polite reading of\nthe parable of the camel and the needle's eye to accept without inquiry.\n\nFor a gentleman who had this splendid work cut out for him, Mr Merdle\nlooked a little common, and rather as if, in the course of his vast\ntransactions, he had accidentally made an interchange of heads with\nsome inferior spirit. He presented himself before the two ladies in the\ncourse of a dismal stroll through his mansion, which had no apparent\nobject but escape from the presence of the chief butler.\n\n'I beg your pardon,' he said, stopping short in confusion; 'I didn't\nknow there was anybody here but the parrot.'\n\nHowever, as Mrs Merdle said, 'You can come in!' and as Mrs Gowan said\nshe was just going, and had already risen to take her leave, he came in,\nand stood looking out at a distant window, with his hands crossed under\nhis uneasy coat-cuffs, clasping his wrists as if he were taking himself\ninto custody. In this attitude he fell directly into a reverie from\nwhich he was only aroused by his wife's calling to him from her ottoman,\nwhen they had been for some quarter of an hour alone.\n\n'Eh? Yes?' said Mr Merdle, turning towards her. 'What is it?'\n\n'What is it?' repeated Mrs Merdle. 'It is, I suppose, that you have not\nheard a word of my complaint.'\n\n'Your complaint, Mrs Merdle?' said Mr Merdle. 'I didn't know that you\nwere suffering from a complaint. What complaint?'\n\n'A complaint of you,' said Mrs Merdle.\n\n'Oh! A complaint of me,' said Mr Merdle. 'What is the--what have I--what\nmay you have to complain of in me, Mrs Merdle?'\n\nIn his withdrawing, abstracted, pondering way, it took him some time to\nshape this question. As a kind of faint attempt to convince himself\nthat he was the master of the house, he concluded by presenting his\nforefinger to the parrot, who expressed his opinion on that subject by\ninstantly driving his bill into it.\n\n'You were saying, Mrs Merdle,' said Mr Merdle, with his wounded finger\nin his mouth, 'that you had a complaint against me?'\n\n'A complaint which I could scarcely show the justice of more\nemphatically, than by having to repeat it,' said Mrs Merdle. 'I might as\nwell have stated it to the wall. I had far better have stated it to the\nbird. He would at least have screamed.'\n\n'You don't want me to scream, Mrs Merdle, I suppose,' said Mr Merdle,\ntaking a chair.\n\n'Indeed I don't know,' retorted Mrs Merdle, 'but that you had better do\nthat, than be so moody and distraught. One would at least know that you\nwere sensible of what was going on around you.'\n\n'A man might scream, and yet not be that, Mrs Merdle,' said Mr Merdle,\nheavily.\n\n'And might be dogged, as you are at present, without screaming,'\nreturned Mrs Merdle. 'That's very true. If you wish to know the\ncomplaint I make against you, it is, in so many plain words, that you\nreally ought not to go into Society unless you can accommodate yourself\nto Society.'\n\nMr Merdle, so twisting his hands into what hair he had upon his head\nthat he seemed to lift himself up by it as he started out of his chair,\ncried:\n\n'Why, in the name of all the infernal powers, Mrs Merdle, who\ndoes more for Society than I do? Do you see these premises, Mrs Merdle?\nDo you see this furniture, Mrs Merdle? Do you look in the glass and see\nyourself, Mrs Merdle? Do you know the cost of all this, and who it's\nall provided for? And yet will you tell me that I oughtn't to go into\nSociety? I, who shower money upon it in this way? I, who might always be\nsaid--to--to--to harness myself to a watering-cart full of money, and go\nabout saturating Society every day of my life.'\n\n'Pray, don't be violent, Mr Merdle,' said Mrs Merdle.\n\n'Violent?' said Mr Merdle. 'You are enough to make me desperate. You\ndon't know half of what I do to accommodate Society. You don't know\nanything of the sacrifices I make for it.'\n\n'I know,' returned Mrs Merdle, 'that you receive the best in the land. I\nknow that you move in the whole Society of the country. And I believe\nI know (indeed, not to make any ridiculous pretence about it, I know I\nknow) who sustains you in it, Mr Merdle.'\n\n'Mrs Merdle,' retorted that gentleman, wiping his dull red and yellow\nface, 'I know that as well as you do. If you were not an ornament to\nSociety, and if I was not a benefactor to Society, you and I would never\nhave come together. When I say a benefactor to it, I mean a person who\nprovides it with all sorts of expensive things to eat and drink and look\nat. But, to tell me that I am not fit for it after all I have done\nfor it--after all I have done for it,' repeated Mr Merdle, with a wild\nemphasis that made his wife lift up her eyelids, 'after all--all!--to\ntell me I have no right to mix with it after all, is a pretty reward.'\n\n'I say,' answered Mrs Merdle composedly, 'that you ought to make\nyourself fit for it by being more degage, and less preoccupied. There is\na positive vulgarity in carrying your business affairs about with you as\nyou do.'\n\n'How do I carry them about, Mrs Merdle?' asked Mr Merdle.\n\n'How do you carry them about?' said Mrs Merdle. 'Look at yourself in the\nglass.'\n\nMr Merdle involuntarily turned his eyes in the direction of the nearest\nmirror, and asked, with a slow determination of his turbid blood to his\ntemples, whether a man was to be called to account for his digestion?\n\n'You have a physician,' said Mrs Merdle.\n\n'He does me no good,' said Mr Merdle.\n\nMrs Merdle changed her ground.\n\n'Besides,' said she, 'your digestion is nonsense. I don't speak of your\ndigestion. I speak of your manner.'\n\n'Mrs Merdle,' returned her husband, 'I look to you for that. You supply\nmanner, and I supply money.'\n\n'I don't expect you,' said Mrs Merdle, reposing easily among her\ncushions, 'to captivate people. I don't want you to take any trouble\nupon yourself, or to try to be fascinating. I simply request you to care\nabout nothing--or seem to care about nothing--as everybody else does.'\n\n'Do I ever say I care about anything?' asked Mr Merdle.\n\n'Say? No! Nobody would attend to you if you did. But you show it.'\n\n'Show what? What do I show?' demanded Mr Merdle hurriedly.\n\n'I have already told you. You show that you carry your business cares\nan projects about, instead of leaving them in the City, or wherever else\nthey belong to,' said Mrs Merdle. 'Or seeming to. Seeming would be quite\nenough: I ask no more. Whereas you couldn't be more occupied with your\nday's calculations and combinations than you habitually show yourself to\nbe, if you were a carpenter.'\n\n'A carpenter!' repeated Mr Merdle, checking something like a groan.\n'I shouldn't so much mind being a carpenter, Mrs Merdle.'\n\n'And my complaint is,' pursued the lady, disregarding the low remark,\n'that it is not the tone of Society, and that you ought to correct\nit, Mr Merdle. If you have any doubt of my judgment, ask even Edmund\nSparkler.' The door of the room had opened, and Mrs Merdle now surveyed\nthe head of her son through her glass. 'Edmund; we want you here.'\n\nMr Sparkler, who had merely put in his head and looked round the room\nwithout entering (as if he were searching the house for that young lady\nwith no nonsense about her), upon this followed up his head with his\nbody, and stood before them. To whom, in a few easy words adapted to his\ncapacity, Mrs Merdle stated the question at issue.\n\nThe young gentleman, after anxiously feeling his shirt-collar as if it\nwere his pulse and he were hypochondriacal, observed, 'That he had heard\nit noticed by fellers.'\n\n'Edmund Sparkler has heard it noticed,' said Mrs Merdle, with languid\ntriumph. 'Why, no doubt everybody has heard it noticed!' Which in truth\nwas no unreasonable inference; seeing that Mr Sparkler would probably be\nthe last person, in any assemblage of the human species, to receive an\nimpression from anything that passed in his presence.\n\n'And Edmund Sparkler will tell you, I dare say,' said Mrs Merdle, waving\nher favourite hand towards her husband, 'how he has heard it noticed.'\n\n'I couldn't,' said Mr Sparkler, after feeling his pulse as before,\n'couldn't undertake to say what led to it--'cause memory desperate\nloose. But being in company with the brother of a doosed fine gal--well\neducated too--with no biggodd nonsense about her--at the period alluded\nto--'\n\n'There! Never mind the sister,' remarked Mrs Merdle, a little\nimpatiently. 'What did the brother say?'\n\n'Didn't say a word, ma'am,' answered Mr Sparkler. 'As silent a feller as\nmyself. Equally hard up for a remark.'\n\n'Somebody said something,' returned Mrs Merdle. 'Never mind who it was.'\n\n('Assure you I don't in the least,' said Mr Sparkler.)\n\n'But tell us what it was.'\n\nMr Sparkler referred to his pulse again, and put himself through some\nsevere mental discipline before he replied:\n\n'Fellers referring to my Governor--expression not my own--occasionally\ncompliment my Governor in a very handsome way on being immensely rich\nand knowing--perfect phenomenon of Buyer and Banker and that--but say\nthe Shop sits heavily on him. Say he carried the Shop about, on his back\nrather--like Jew clothesmen with too much business.'\n\n'Which,' said Mrs Merdle, rising, with her floating drapery about her,\n'is exactly my complaint. Edmund, give me your arm up-stairs.'\n\nMr Merdle, left alone to meditate on a better conformation of himself to\nSociety, looked out of nine windows in succession, and appeared to\nsee nine wastes of space. When he had thus entertained himself he went\ndown-stairs, and looked intently at all the carpets on the ground-floor;\nand then came up-stairs again, and looked intently at all the carpets\non the first-floor; as if they were gloomy depths, in unison with his\noppressed soul. Through all the rooms he wandered, as he always did,\nlike the last person on earth who had any business to approach them. Let\nMrs Merdle announce, with all her might, that she was at Home ever\nso many nights in a season, she could not announce more widely and\nunmistakably than Mr Merdle did that he was never at home.\n\nAt last he met the chief butler, the sight of which splendid retainer\nalways finished him. Extinguished by this great creature, he sneaked\nto his dressing-room, and there remained shut up until he rode out to\ndinner, with Mrs Merdle, in her own handsome chariot. At dinner, he was\nenvied and flattered as a being of might, was Treasuried, Barred, and\nBishoped, as much as he would; and an hour after midnight came home\nalone, and being instantly put out again in his own hall, like a\nrushlight, by the chief butler, went sighing to bed.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 34. A Shoal of Barnacles\n\n\nMr Henry Gowan and the dog were established frequenters of the cottage,\nand the day was fixed for the wedding. There was to be a convocation of\nBarnacles on the occasion, in order that that very high and very large\nfamily might shed as much lustre on the marriage as so dim an event was\ncapable of receiving.\n\nTo have got the whole Barnacle family together would have been\nimpossible for two reasons. Firstly, because no building could have held\nall the members and connections of that illustrious house. Secondly,\nbecause wherever there was a square yard of ground in British occupation\nunder the sun or moon, with a public post upon it, sticking to that post\nwas a Barnacle. No intrepid navigator could plant a flag-staff upon any\nspot of earth, and take possession of it in the British name, but\nto that spot of earth, so soon as the discovery was known, the\nCircumlocution Office sent out a Barnacle and a despatch-box. Thus the\nBarnacles were all over the world, in every direction--despatch-boxing\nthe compass.\n\nBut, while the so-potent art of Prospero himself would have failed in\nsummoning the Barnacles from every speck of ocean and dry land on\nwhich there was nothing (except mischief) to be done and anything to be\npocketed, it was perfectly feasible to assemble a good many Barnacles.\nThis Mrs Gowan applied herself to do; calling on Mr Meagles frequently\nwith new additions to the list, and holding conferences with that\ngentleman when he was not engaged (as he generally was at this period)\nin examining and paying the debts of his future son-in-law, in the\napartment of scales and scoop.\n\nOne marriage guest there was, in reference to whose presence Mr Meagles\nfelt a nearer interest and concern than in the attendance of the most\nelevated Barnacle expected; though he was far from insensible of the\nhonour of having such company. This guest was Clennam. But Clennam had\nmade a promise he held sacred, among the trees that summer night, and,\nin the chivalry of his heart, regarded it as binding him to many implied\nobligations. In forgetfulness of himself, and delicate service to her on\nall occasions, he was never to fail; to begin it, he answered Mr Meagles\ncheerfully, 'I shall come, of course.'\n\nHis partner, Daniel Doyce, was something of a stumbling-block in Mr\nMeagles's way, the worthy gentleman being not at all clear in his own\nanxious mind but that the mingling of Daniel with official Barnacleism\nmight produce some explosive combination, even at a marriage breakfast.\nThe national offender, however, lightened him of his uneasiness by\ncoming down to Twickenham to represent that he begged, with the freedom\nof an old friend, and as a favour to one, that he might not be invited.\n'For,' said he, 'as my business with this set of gentlemen was to do a\npublic duty and a public service, and as their business with me was to\nprevent it by wearing my soul out, I think we had better not eat and\ndrink together with a show of being of one mind.' Mr Meagles was much\namused by his friend's oddity; and patronised him with a more protecting\nair of allowance than usual, when he rejoined: 'Well, well, Dan, you\nshall have your own crotchety way.'\n\nTo Mr Henry Gowan, as the time approached, Clennam tried to convey\nby all quiet and unpretending means, that he was frankly and\ndisinterestedly desirous of tendering him any friendship he would\naccept. Mr Gowan treated him in return with his usual ease, and with his\nusual show of confidence, which was no confidence at all.\n\n'You see, Clennam,' he happened to remark in the course of conversation\none day, when they were walking near the Cottage within a week of the\nmarriage, 'I am a disappointed man. That you know already.'\n\n'Upon my word,' said Clennam, a little embarrassed, 'I scarcely know\nhow.'\n\n'Why,' returned Gowan, 'I belong to a clan, or a clique, or a family, or\na connection, or whatever you like to call it, that might have provided\nfor me in any one of fifty ways, and that took it into its head not to\ndo it at all. So here I am, a poor devil of an artist.'\n\nClennam was beginning, 'But on the other hand--' when Gowan took him up.\n\n'Yes, yes, I know. I have the good fortune of being beloved by a\nbeautiful and charming girl whom I love with all my heart.'\n\n('Is there much of it?' Clennam thought. And as he thought it, felt\nashamed of himself.)\n\n'And of finding a father-in-law who is a capital fellow and a liberal\ngood old boy. Still, I had other prospects washed and combed into my\nchildish head when it was washed and combed for me, and I took them to\na public school when I washed and combed it for myself, and I am here\nwithout them, and thus I am a disappointed man.'\n\nClennam thought (and as he thought it, again felt ashamed of himself),\nwas this notion of being disappointed in life, an assertion of station\nwhich the bridegroom brought into the family as his property, having\nalready carried it detrimentally into his pursuit? And was it a hopeful\nor a promising thing anywhere?\n\n'Not bitterly disappointed, I think,' he said aloud.\n\n'Hang it, no; not bitterly,' laughed Gowan. 'My people are not worth\nthat--though they are charming fellows, and I have the greatest\naffection for them. Besides, it's pleasant to show them that I can do\nwithout them, and that they may all go to the Devil. And besides, again,\nmost men are disappointed in life, somehow or other, and influenced by\ntheir disappointment. But it's a dear good world, and I love it!'\n\n'It lies fair before you now,' said Arthur.\n\n'Fair as this summer river,' cried the other, with enthusiasm, 'and by\nJove I glow with admiration of it, and with ardour to run a race in it.\nIt's the best of old worlds! And my calling! The best of old callings,\nisn't it?'\n\n'Full of interest and ambition, I conceive,' said Clennam.\n\n'And imposition,' added Gowan, laughing; 'we won't leave out the\nimposition. I hope I may not break down in that; but there, my being\na disappointed man may show itself. I may not be able to face it out\ngravely enough. Between you and me, I think there is some danger of my\nbeing just enough soured not to be able to do that.'\n\n'To do what?' asked Clennam.\n\n'To keep it up. To help myself in my turn, as the man before me helps\nhimself in his, and pass the bottle of smoke. To keep up the pretence\nas to labour, and study, and patience, and being devoted to my art, and\ngiving up many solitary days to it, and abandoning many pleasures for\nit, and living in it, and all the rest of it--in short, to pass the\nbottle of smoke according to rule.'\n\n'But it is well for a man to respect his own vocation, whatever it is;\nand to think himself bound to uphold it, and to claim for it the respect\nit deserves; is it not?' Arthur reasoned. 'And your vocation, Gowan,\nmay really demand this suit and service. I confess I should have thought\nthat all Art did.'\n\n'What a good fellow you are, Clennam!' exclaimed the other, stopping\nto look at him, as if with irrepressible admiration. 'What a capital\nfellow! _You_ have never been disappointed. That's easy to see.'\n\nIt would have been so cruel if he had meant it, that Clennam firmly\nresolved to believe he did not mean it. Gowan, without pausing, laid his\nhand upon his shoulder, and laughingly and lightly went on:\n\n'Clennam, I don't like to dispel your generous visions, and I would give\nany money (if I had any), to live in such a rose-coloured mist. But what\nI do in my trade, I do to sell. What all we fellows do, we do to\nsell. If we didn't want to sell it for the most we can get for it, we\nshouldn't do it. Being work, it has to be done; but it's easily enough\ndone. All the rest is hocus-pocus. Now here's one of the advantages, or\ndisadvantages, of knowing a disappointed man. You hear the truth.'\n\nWhatever he had heard, and whether it deserved that name or another, it\nsank into Clennam's mind. It so took root there, that he began to fear\nHenry Gowan would always be a trouble to him, and that so far he had\ngained little or nothing from the dismissal of Nobody, with all his\ninconsistencies, anxieties, and contradictions. He found a contest still\nalways going on in his breast between his promise to keep Gowan in\nnone but good aspects before the mind of Mr Meagles, and his enforced\nobservation of Gowan in aspects that had no good in them. Nor could he\nquite support his own conscientious nature against misgivings that he\ndistorted and discoloured himself, by reminding himself that he never\nsought those discoveries, and that he would have avoided them with\nwillingness and great relief. For he never could forget what he had\nbeen; and he knew that he had once disliked Gowan for no better reason\nthan that he had come in his way.\n\nHarassed by these thoughts, he now began to wish the marriage over,\nGowan and his young wife gone, and himself left to fulfil his promise,\nand discharge the generous function he had accepted. This last week was,\nin truth, an uneasy interval for the whole house. Before Pet, or before\nGowan, Mr Meagles was radiant; but Clennam had more than once found him\nalone, with his view of the scales and scoop much blurred, and had often\nseen him look after the lovers, in the garden or elsewhere when he was\nnot seen by them, with the old clouded face on which Gowan had fallen\nlike a shadow. In the arrangement of the house for the great occasion,\nmany little reminders of the old travels of the father and mother\nand daughter had to be disturbed and passed from hand to hand; and\nsometimes, in the midst of these mute witnesses, to the life they had\nhad together, even Pet herself would yield to lamenting and weeping.\nMrs Meagles, the blithest and busiest of mothers, went about singing\nand cheering everybody; but she, honest soul, had her flights into store\nrooms, where she would cry until her eyes were red, and would then\ncome out, attributing that appearance to pickled onions and pepper, and\nsinging clearer than ever. Mrs Tickit, finding no balsam for a wounded\nmind in Buchan's Domestic Medicine, suffered greatly from low spirits,\nand from moving recollections of Minnie's infancy. When the latter was\npowerful with her, she usually sent up secret messages importing\nthat she was not in parlour condition as to her attire, and that she\nsolicited a sight of 'her child' in the kitchen; there, she would bless\nher child's face, and bless her child's heart, and hug her child, in a\nmedley of tears and congratulations, chopping-boards, rolling-pins, and\npie-crust, with the tenderness of an old attached servant, which is a\nvery pretty tenderness indeed.\n\nBut all days come that are to be; and the marriage-day was to be, and it\ncame; and with it came all the Barnacles who were bidden to the feast.\n\nThere was Mr Tite Barnacle, from the Circumlocution Office, and Mews\nStreet, Grosvenor Square, with the expensive Mrs Tite Barnacle _nee_\nStiltstalking, who made the Quarter Days so long in coming, and the\nthree expensive Miss Tite Barnacles, double-loaded with accomplishments\nand ready to go off, and yet not going off with the sharpness of flash\nand bang that might have been expected, but rather hanging fire. There\nwas Barnacle junior, also from the Circumlocution Office, leaving the\nTonnage of the country, which he was somehow supposed to take under\nhis protection, to look after itself, and, sooth to say, not at all\nimpairing the efficiency of its protection by leaving it alone. There\nwas the engaging Young Barnacle, deriving from the sprightly side of the\nfamily, also from the Circumlocution Office, gaily and agreeably helping\nthe occasion along, and treating it, in his sparkling way, as one of the\nofficial forms and fees of the Church Department of How not to do it.\nThere were three other Young Barnacles from three other offices, insipid\nto all the senses, and terribly in want of seasoning, doing the marriage\nas they would have 'done' the Nile, Old Rome, the new singer, or\nJerusalem.\n\nBut there was greater game than this. There was Lord Decimus Tite\nBarnacle himself, in the odour of Circumlocution--with the very smell of\nDespatch-Boxes upon him. Yes, there was Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle, who\nhad risen to official heights on the wings of one indignant idea, and\nthat was, My Lords, that I am yet to be told that it behoves a Minister\nof this free country to set bounds to the philanthropy, to cramp the\ncharity, to fetter the public spirit, to contract the enterprise, to\ndamp the independent self-reliance, of its people. That was, in other\nwords, that this great statesman was always yet to be told that it\nbehoved the Pilot of the ship to do anything but prosper in the private\nloaf and fish trade ashore, the crew being able, by dint of hard\npumping, to keep the ship above water without him. On this sublime\ndiscovery in the great art How not to do it, Lord Decimus had long\nsustained the highest glory of the Barnacle family; and let any\nill-advised member of either House but try How to do it by bringing in\na Bill to do it, that Bill was as good as dead and buried when Lord\nDecimus Tite Barnacle rose up in his place and solemnly said, soaring\ninto indignant majesty as the Circumlocution cheering soared around\nhim, that he was yet to be told, My Lords, that it behoved him as the\nMinister of this free country, to set bounds to the philanthropy,\nto cramp the charity, to fetter the public spirit, to contract the\nenterprise, to damp the independent self-reliance, of its people. The\ndiscovery of this Behoving Machine was the discovery of the political\nperpetual motion. It never wore out, though it was always going round\nand round in all the State Departments.\n\nAnd there, with his noble friend and relative Lord Decimus, was\nWilliam Barnacle, who had made the ever-famous coalition with Tudor\nStiltstalking, and who always kept ready his own particular recipe for\nHow not to do it; sometimes tapping the Speaker, and drawing it fresh\nout of him, with a 'First, I will beg you, sir, to inform the House what\nPrecedent we have for the course into which the honourable gentleman\nwould precipitate us;' sometimes asking the honourable gentleman to\nfavour him with his own version of the Precedent; sometimes telling\nthe honourable gentleman that he (William Barnacle) would search for a\nPrecedent; and oftentimes crushing the honourable gentleman flat on\nthe spot by telling him there was no Precedent. But Precedent and\nPrecipitate were, under all circumstances, the well-matched pair of\nbattle-horses of this able Circumlocutionist. No matter that the unhappy\nhonourable gentleman had been trying in vain, for twenty-five years, to\nprecipitate William Barnacle into this--William Barnacle still put it to\nthe House, and (at second-hand or so) to the country, whether he was to\nbe precipitated into this. No matter that it was utterly irreconcilable\nwith the nature of things and course of events that the wretched\nhonourable gentleman could possibly produce a Precedent for\nthis--William Barnacle would nevertheless thank the honourable gentleman\nfor that ironical cheer, and would close with him upon that issue, and\nwould tell him to his teeth that there Was NO Precedent for this. It\nmight perhaps have been objected that the William Barnacle wisdom was\nnot high wisdom or the earth it bamboozled would never have been made,\nor, if made in a rash mistake, would have remained blank mud. But\nPrecedent and Precipitate together frightened all objection out of most\npeople.\n\nAnd there, too, was another Barnacle, a lively one, who had leaped\nthrough twenty places in quick succession, and was always in two or\nthree at once, and who was the much-respected inventor of an art\nwhich he practised with great success and admiration in all Barnacle\nGovernments. This was, when he was asked a Parliamentary question on\nany one topic, to return an answer on any other. It had done immense\nservice, and brought him into high esteem with the Circumlocution\nOffice.\n\nAnd there, too, was a sprinkling of less distinguished Parliamentary\nBarnacles, who had not as yet got anything snug, and were going through\ntheir probation to prove their worthiness. These Barnacles perched upon\nstaircases and hid in passages, waiting their orders to make houses\nor not to make houses; and they did all their hearing, and ohing, and\ncheering, and barking, under directions from the heads of the family;\nand they put dummy motions on the paper in the way of other men's\nmotions; and they stalled disagreeable subjects off until late in the\nnight and late in the session, and then with virtuous patriotism cried\nout that it was too late; and they went down into the country, whenever\nthey were sent, and swore that Lord Decimus had revived trade from a\nswoon, and commerce from a fit, and had doubled the harvest of corn,\nquadrupled the harvest of hay, and prevented no end of gold from flying\nout of the Bank. Also these Barnacles were dealt, by the heads of the\nfamily, like so many cards below the court-cards, to public meetings and\ndinners; where they bore testimony to all sorts of services on the part\nof their noble and honourable relatives, and buttered the Barnacles on\nall sorts of toasts. And they stood, under similar orders, at all sorts\nof elections; and they turned out of their own seats, on the shortest\nnotice and the most unreasonable terms, to let in other men; and they\nfetched and carried, and toadied and jobbed, and corrupted, and ate\nheaps of dirt, and were indefatigable in the public service. And there\nwas not a list, in all the Circumlocution Office, of places that might\nfall vacant anywhere within half a century, from a lord of the Treasury\nto a Chinese consul, and up again to a governor-general of India, but as\napplicants for such places, the names of some or of every one of these\nhungry and adhesive Barnacles were down.\n\nIt was necessarily but a sprinkling of any class of Barnacles that\nattended the marriage, for there were not two score in all, and what\nis that subtracted from Legion! But the sprinkling was a swarm in the\nTwickenham cottage, and filled it. A Barnacle (assisted by a Barnacle)\nmarried the happy pair, and it behoved Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle\nhimself to conduct Mrs Meagles to breakfast.\n\nThe entertainment was not as agreeable and natural as it might have\nbeen. Mr Meagles, hove down by his good company while he highly\nappreciated it, was not himself. Mrs Gowan was herself, and that did not\nimprove him. The fiction that it was not Mr Meagles who had stood in the\nway, but that it was the Family greatness, and that the Family greatness\nhad made a concession, and there was now a soothing unanimity, pervaded\nthe affair, though it was never openly expressed. Then the Barnacles\nfelt that they for their parts would have done with the Meagleses when\nthe present patronising occasion was over; and the Meagleses felt the\nsame for their parts. Then Gowan asserting his rights as a disappointed\nman who had his grudge against the family, and who, perhaps, had allowed\nhis mother to have them there, as much in the hope it might give them\nsome annoyance as with any other benevolent object, aired his pencil and\nhis poverty ostentatiously before them, and told them he hoped in time\nto settle a crust of bread and cheese on his wife, and that he begged\nsuch of them as (more fortunate than himself) came in for any good\nthing, and could buy a picture, to please to remember the poor painter.\nThen Lord Decimus, who was a wonder on his own Parliamentary pedestal,\nturned out to be the windiest creature here: proposing happiness to the\nbride and bridegroom in a series of platitudes that would have made the\nhair of any sincere disciple and believer stand on end; and trotting,\nwith the complacency of an idiotic elephant, among howling labyrinths of\nsentences which he seemed to take for high roads, and never so much\nas wanted to get out of. Then Mr Tite Barnacle could not but feel that\nthere was a person in company, who would have disturbed his life-long\nsitting to Sir Thomas Lawrence in full official character, if such\ndisturbance had been possible: while Barnacle junior did, with\nindignation, communicate to two vapid gentlemen, his relatives, that\nthere was a feller here, look here, who had come to our Department\nwithout an appointment and said he wanted to know, you know; and that,\nlook here, if he was to break out now, as he might you know (for you\nnever could tell what an ungentlemanly Radical of that sort would be up\nto next), and was to say, look here, that he wanted to know this moment,\nyou know, that would be jolly; wouldn't it?\n\nThe pleasantest part of the occasion by far, to Clennam, was the\npainfullest. When Mr and Mrs Meagles at last hung about Pet in the room\nwith the two pictures (where the company were not), before going with\nher to the threshold which she could never recross to be the old Pet and\nthe old delight, nothing could be more natural and simple than the three\nwere. Gowan himself was touched, and answered Mr Meagles's 'O Gowan,\ntake care of her, take care of her!' with an earnest 'Don't be so\nbroken-hearted, sir. By Heaven I will!'\n\nAnd so, with the last sobs and last loving words, and a last look to\nClennam of confidence in his promise, Pet fell back in the carriage,\nand her husband waved his hand, and they were away for Dover; though not\nuntil the faithful Mrs Tickit, in her silk gown and jet black curls, had\nrushed out from some hiding-place, and thrown both her shoes after\nthe carriage: an apparition which occasioned great surprise to the\ndistinguished company at the windows.\n\nThe said company being now relieved from further attendance, and the\nchief Barnacles being rather hurried (for they had it in hand just\nthen to send a mail or two which was in danger of going straight to its\ndestination, beating about the seas like the Flying Dutchman, and to\narrange with complexity for the stoppage of a good deal of important\nbusiness otherwise in peril of being done), went their several ways;\nwith all affability conveying to Mr and Mrs Meagles that general\nassurance that what they had been doing there, they had been doing at a\nsacrifice for Mr and Mrs Meagles's good, which they always conveyed to\nMr John Bull in their official condescension to that most unfortunate\ncreature.\n\nA miserable blank remained in the house and in the hearts of the father\nand mother and Clennam. Mr Meagles called only one remembrance to his\naid, that really did him good.\n\n'It's very gratifying, Arthur,' he said, 'after all, to look back upon.'\n\n'The past?' said Clennam.\n\n'Yes--but I mean the company.'\n\nIt had made him much more low and unhappy at the time, but now it really\ndid him good. 'It's very gratifying,' he said, often repeating the\nremark in the course of the evening. 'Such high company!'\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 35. What was behind Mr Pancks on Little Dorrit's Hand\n\n\nIt was at this time that Mr Pancks, in discharge of his compact with\nClennam, revealed to him the whole of his gipsy story, and told him\nLittle Dorrit's fortune. Her father was heir-at-law to a great estate\nthat had long lain unknown of, unclaimed, and accumulating. His right\nwas now clear, nothing interposed in his way, the Marshalsea gates stood\nopen, the Marshalsea walls were down, a few flourishes of his pen, and\nhe was extremely rich.\n\nIn his tracking out of the claim to its complete establishment, Mr\nPancks had shown a sagacity that nothing could baffle, and a patience\nand secrecy that nothing could tire. 'I little thought, sir,' said\nPancks, 'when you and I crossed Smithfield that night, and I told you\nwhat sort of a Collector I was, that this would come of it. I little\nthought, sir, when I told you you were not of the Clennams of\nCornwall, that I was ever going to tell you who were of the Dorrits of\nDorsetshire.' He then went on to detail. How, having that name recorded\nin his note-book, he was first attracted by the name alone. How, having\noften found two exactly similar names, even belonging to the same place,\nto involve no traceable consanguinity, near or distant, he did not at\nfirst give much heed to this, except in the way of speculation as to\nwhat a surprising change would be made in the condition of a little\nseamstress, if she could be shown to have any interest in so large a\nproperty. How he rather supposed himself to have pursued the idea into\nits next degree, because there was something uncommon in the quiet\nlittle seamstress, which pleased him and provoked his curiosity.\nHow he had felt his way inch by inch, and 'Moled it out, sir' (that was\nMr Pancks's expression), grain by grain. How, in the beginning of\nthe labour described by this new verb, and to render which the more\nexpressive Mr Pancks shut his eyes in pronouncing it and shook his hair\nover them, he had alternated from sudden lights and hopes to sudden\ndarkness and no hopes, and back again, and back again. How he had made\nacquaintances in the Prison, expressly that he might come and go there\nas all other comers and goers did; and how his first ray of light was\nunconsciously given him by Mr Dorrit himself and by his son; to both of\nwhom he easily became known; with both of whom he talked much, casually\n('but always Moleing you'll observe,' said Mr Pancks): and from whom he\nderived, without being at all suspected, two or three little points of\nfamily history which, as he began to hold clues of his own, suggested\nothers. How it had at length become plain to Mr Pancks that he had made\na real discovery of the heir-at-law to a great fortune, and that his\ndiscovery had but to be ripened to legal fulness and perfection. How\nhe had, thereupon, sworn his landlord, Mr Rugg, to secrecy in a solemn\nmanner, and taken him into Moleing partnership. How they had employed\nJohn Chivery as their sole clerk and agent, seeing to whom he was\ndevoted. And how, until the present hour, when authorities mighty in the\nBank and learned in the law declared their successful labours ended,\nthey had confided in no other human being.\n\n'So if the whole thing had broken down, sir,' concluded Pancks, 'at the\nvery last, say the day before the other day when I showed you our papers\nin the Prison yard, or say that very day, nobody but ourselves would\nhave been cruelly disappointed, or a penny the worse.'\n\nClennam, who had been almost incessantly shaking hands with him\nthroughout the narrative, was reminded by this to say, in an amazement\nwhich even the preparation he had had for the main disclosure smoothed\ndown, 'My dear Mr Pancks, this must have cost you a great sum of money.'\n\n'Pretty well, sir,' said the triumphant Pancks. 'No trifle, though we\ndid it as cheap as it could be done. And the outlay was a difficulty,\nlet me tell you.'\n\n'A difficulty!' repeated Clennam. 'But the difficulties you have so\nwonderfully conquered in the whole business!' shaking his hand again.\n\n'I'll tell you how I did it,' said the delighted Pancks, putting his\nhair into a condition as elevated as himself. 'First, I spent all I had\nof my own. That wasn't much.'\n\n'I am sorry for it,' said Clennam: 'not that it matters now, though.\nThen, what did you do?'\n\n'Then,' answered Pancks, 'I borrowed a sum of my proprietor.'\n\n'Of Mr Casby?' said Clennam. 'He's a fine old fellow.'\n\n'Noble old boy; an't he?' said Mr Pancks, entering on a series of the\ndryest snorts. 'Generous old buck. Confiding old boy. Philanthropic old\nbuck. Benevolent old boy! Twenty per cent. I engaged to pay him, sir.\nBut we never do business for less at our shop.'\n\nArthur felt an awkward consciousness of having, in his exultant\ncondition, been a little premature.\n\n'I said to that boiling-over old Christian,' Mr Pancks pursued,\nappearing greatly to relish this descriptive epithet, 'that I had got a\nlittle project on hand; a hopeful one; I told him a hopeful one; which\nwanted a certain small capital. I proposed to him to lend me the\nmoney on my note. Which he did, at twenty; sticking the twenty on in a\nbusiness-like way, and putting it into the note, to look like a part of\nthe principal. If I had broken down after that, I should have been his\ngrubber for the next seven years at half wages and double grind. But\nhe's a perfect Patriarch; and it would do a man good to serve him on\nsuch terms--on any terms.'\n\nArthur for his life could not have said with confidence whether Pancks\nreally thought so or not.\n\n'When that was gone, sir,' resumed Pancks, 'and it did go, though I\ndribbled it out like so much blood, I had taken Mr Rugg into the secret.\nI proposed to borrow of Mr Rugg (or of Miss Rugg; it's the same thing;\nshe made a little money by a speculation in the Common Pleas once). He\nlent it at ten, and thought that pretty high. But Mr Rugg's a red-haired\nman, sir, and gets his hair cut. And as to the crown of his hat, it's\nhigh. And as to the brim of his hat, it's narrow. And there's no more\nbenevolence bubbling out of him, than out of a ninepin.'\n\n'Your own recompense for all this, Mr Pancks,' said Clennam, 'ought to\nbe a large one.'\n\n'I don't mistrust getting it, sir,' said Pancks. 'I have made no\nbargain. I owed you one on that score; now I have paid it. Money out of\npocket made good, time fairly allowed for, and Mr Rugg's bill settled,\na thousand pounds would be a fortune to me. That matter I place in your\nhands. I authorize you now to break all this to the family in any way\nyou think best. Miss Amy Dorrit will be with Mrs Finching this morning.\nThe sooner done the better. Can't be done too soon.'\n\nThis conversation took place in Clennam's bed-room, while he was yet in\nbed. For Mr Pancks had knocked up the house and made his way in, very\nearly in the morning; and, without once sitting down or standing still,\nhad delivered himself of the whole of his details (illustrated with a\nvariety of documents) at the bedside. He now said he would 'go and look\nup Mr Rugg', from whom his excited state of mind appeared to require\nanother back; and bundling up his papers, and exchanging one more hearty\nshake of the hand with Clennam, he went at full speed down-stairs, and\nsteamed off.\n\nClennam, of course, resolved to go direct to Mr Casby's. He dressed\nand got out so quickly that he found himself at the corner of the\npatriarchal street nearly an hour before her time; but he was not sorry\nto have the opportunity of calming himself with a leisurely walk.\n\nWhen he returned to the street, and had knocked at the bright brass\nknocker, he was informed that she had come, and was shown up-stairs to\nFlora's breakfast-room. Little Dorrit was not there herself, but Flora\nwas, and testified the greatest amazement at seeing him.\n\n'Good gracious, Arthur--Doyce and Clennam!' cried that lady, 'who would\nhave ever thought of seeing such a sight as this and pray excuse a\nwrapper for upon my word I really never and a faded check too which\nis worse but our little friend is making me, not that I need mind\nmentioning it to you for you must know that there are such things a\nskirt, and having arranged that a trying on should take place after\nbreakfast is the reason though I wish not so badly starched.'\n\n'I ought to make an apology,' said Arthur, 'for so early and abrupt a\nvisit; but you will excuse it when I tell you the cause.'\n\n'In times for ever fled Arthur,' returned Mrs Finching, 'pray excuse\nme Doyce and Clennam infinitely more correct and though unquestionably\ndistant still 'tis distance lends enchantment to the view, at least I\ndon't mean that and if I did I suppose it would depend considerably on\nthe nature of the view, but I'm running on again and you put it all out\nof my head.'\n\nShe glanced at him tenderly, and resumed:\n\n'In times for ever fled I was going to say it would have sounded\nstrange indeed for Arthur Clennam--Doyce and Clennam naturally quite\ndifferent--to make apologies for coming here at any time, but that is\npast and what is past can never be recalled except in his own case as\npoor Mr F. said when he was in spirits Cucumber and therefore never ate\nit.'\n\nShe was making the tea when Arthur came in, and now hastily finished\nthat operation.\n\n'Papa,' she said, all mystery and whisper, as she shut down the tea-pot\nlid, 'is sitting prosingly breaking his new laid egg in the back parlour\nover the City article exactly like the Woodpecker Tapping and need never\nknow that you are here, and our little friend you are well aware may be\nfully trusted when she comes down from cutting out on the large table\noverhead.'\n\nArthur then told her, in the fewest words, that it was their little\nfriend he came to see; and what he had to announce to their little\nfriend. At which astounding intelligence, Flora clasped her hands,\nfell into a tremble, and shed tears of sympathy and pleasure, like the\ngood-natured creature she really was.\n\n'For gracious sake let me get out of the way first,' said Flora, putting\nher hands to her ears and moving towards the door, 'or I know I shall\ngo off dead and screaming and make everybody worse, and the dear little\nthing only this morning looking so nice and neat and good and yet so\npoor and now a fortune is she really and deserves it too! and might I\nmention it to Mr F.'s Aunt Arthur not Doyce and Clennam for this once or\nif objectionable not on any account.'\n\nArthur nodded his free permission, since Flora shut out all verbal\ncommunication. Flora nodded in return to thank him, and hurried out of\nthe room.\n\nLittle Dorrit's step was already on the stairs, and in another moment\nshe was at the door. Do what he could to compose his face, he could not\nconvey so much of an ordinary expression into it, but that the moment\nshe saw it she dropped her work, and cried, 'Mr Clennam! What's the\nmatter?'\n\n'Nothing, nothing. That is, no misfortune has happened. I have come\nto tell you something, but it is a piece of great good-fortune.'\n\n'Good-fortune?'\n\n'Wonderful fortune!'\n\nThey stood in a window, and her eyes, full of light, were fixed upon his\nface. He put an arm about her, seeing her likely to sink down. She put\na hand upon that arm, partly to rest upon it, and partly so to preserve\ntheir relative positions as that her intent look at him should be shaken\nby no change of attitude in either of them. Her lips seemed to repeat\n'Wonderful fortune?' He repeated it again, aloud.\n\n'Dear Little Dorrit! Your father.'\n\nThe ice of the pale face broke at the word, and little lights and shoots\nof expression passed all over it. They were all expressions of pain. Her\nbreath was faint and hurried. Her heart beat fast. He would have clasped\nthe little figure closer, but he saw that the eyes appealed to him not\nto be moved.\n\n'Your father can be free within this week. He does not know it; we must\ngo to him from here, to tell him of it. Your father will be free within\na few days. Your father will be free within a few hours. Remember we\nmust go to him from here, to tell him of it!'\n\nThat brought her back. Her eyes were closing, but they opened again.\n\n'This is not all the good-fortune. This is not all the wonderful\ngood-fortune, my dear Little Dorrit. Shall I tell you more?'\n\nHer lips shaped 'Yes.'\n\n'Your father will be no beggar when he is free. He will want for\nnothing. Shall I tell you more? Remember! He knows nothing of it; we\nmust go to him, from here, to tell him of it!'\n\nShe seemed to entreat him for a little time. He held her in his arm,\nand, after a pause, bent down his ear to listen.\n\n'Did you ask me to go on?'\n\n'Yes.'\n\n'He will be a rich man. He is a rich man. A great sum of money\nis waiting to be paid over to him as his inheritance; you are all\nhenceforth very wealthy. Bravest and best of children, I thank Heaven\nthat you are rewarded!'\n\nAs he kissed her, she turned her head towards his shoulder, and raised\nher arm towards his neck; cried out 'Father! Father! Father!' and\nswooned away.\n\nUpon which Flora returned to take care of her, and hovered about her on\na sofa, intermingling kind offices and incoherent scraps of conversation\nin a manner so confounding, that whether she pressed the Marshalsea to\ntake a spoonful of unclaimed dividends, for it would do her good;\nor whether she congratulated Little Dorrit's father on coming into\npossession of a hundred thousand smelling-bottles; or whether she\nexplained that she put seventy-five thousand drops of spirits of\nlavender on fifty thousand pounds of lump sugar, and that she entreated\nLittle Dorrit to take that gentle restorative; or whether she bathed the\nforeheads of Doyce and Clennam in vinegar, and gave the late Mr F. more\nair; no one with any sense of responsibility could have undertaken to\ndecide. A tributary stream of confusion, moreover, poured in from an\nadjoining bedroom, where Mr F.'s Aunt appeared, from the sound of her\nvoice, to be in a horizontal posture, awaiting her breakfast; and from\nwhich bower that inexorable lady snapped off short taunts, whenever she\ncould get a hearing, as, 'Don't believe it's his doing!' and 'He needn't\ntake no credit to himself for it!' and 'It'll be long enough, I expect,\nafore he'll give up any of his own money!' all designed to disparage\nClennam's share in the discovery, and to relieve those inveterate\nfeelings with which Mr F.'s Aunt regarded him.\n\nBut Little Dorrit's solicitude to get to her father, and to carry the\njoyful tidings to him, and not to leave him in his jail a moment with\nthis happiness in store for him and still unknown to him, did more for\nher speedy restoration than all the skill and attention on earth could\nhave done. 'Come with me to my dear father. Pray come and tell my dear\nfather!' were the first words she said. Her father, her father. She\nspoke of nothing but him, thought of nothing but him. Kneeling down and\npouring out her thankfulness with uplifted hands, her thanks were for\nher father.\n\nFlora's tenderness was quite overcome by this, and she launched out\namong the cups and saucers into a wonderful flow of tears and speech.\n\n'I declare,' she sobbed, 'I never was so cut up since your mama and my\npapa not Doyce and Clennam for this once but give the precious little\nthing a cup of tea and make her put it to her lips at least pray Arthur\ndo, not even Mr F.'s last illness for that was of another kind and gout\nis not a child's affection though very painful for all parties and Mr\nF. a martyr with his leg upon a rest and the wine trade in itself\ninflammatory for they will do it more or less among themselves and who\ncan wonder, it seems like a dream I am sure to think of nothing at all\nthis morning and now Mines of money is it really, but you must know my\ndarling love because you never will be strong enough to tell him all\nabout it upon teaspoons, mightn't it be even best to try the directions\nof my own medical man for though the flavour is anything but agreeable\nstill I force myself to do it as a prescription and find the benefit,\nyou'd rather not why no my dear I'd rather not but still I do it as a\nduty, everybody will congratulate you some in earnest and some not and\nmany will congratulate you with all their hearts but none more so I\ndo assure you from the bottom of my own I do myself though sensible of\nblundering and being stupid, and will be judged by Arthur not Doyce and\nClennam for this once so good-bye darling and God bless you and may you\nbe very happy and excuse the liberty, vowing that the dress shall never\nbe finished by anybody else but shall be laid by for a keepsake just\nas it is and called Little Dorrit though why that strangest of\ndenominations at any time I never did myself and now I never shall!'\n\n\n\nThus Flora, in taking leave of her favourite. Little Dorrit thanked her,\nand embraced her, over and over again; and finally came out of the house\nwith Clennam, and took coach for the Marshalsea.\n\nIt was a strangely unreal ride through the old squalid streets, with a\nsensation of being raised out of them into an airy world of wealth\nand grandeur. When Arthur told her that she would soon ride in her\nown carriage through very different scenes, when all the familiar\nexperiences would have vanished away, she looked frightened. But when\nhe substituted her father for herself, and told her how he would ride in\nhis carriage, and how great and grand he would be, her tears of joy\nand innocent pride fell fast. Seeing that the happiness her mind could\nrealise was all shining upon him, Arthur kept that single figure before\nher; and so they rode brightly through the poor streets in the prison\nneighbourhood to carry him the great news.\n\nWhen Mr Chivery, who was on duty, admitted them into the Lodge, he saw\nsomething in their faces which filled him with astonishment. He stood\nlooking after them, when they hurried into the prison, as though he\nperceived that they had come back accompanied by a ghost a-piece. Two or\nthree Collegians whom they passed, looked after them too, and presently\njoining Mr Chivery, formed a little group on the Lodge steps, in the\nmidst of which there spontaneously originated a whisper that the Father\nwas going to get his discharge. Within a few minutes, it was heard in\nthe remotest room in the College.\n\nLittle Dorrit opened the door from without, and they both entered. He\nwas sitting in his old grey gown and his old black cap, in the sunlight\nby the window, reading his newspaper. His glasses were in his hand, and\nhe had just looked round; surprised at first, no doubt, by her step upon\nthe stairs, not expecting her until night; surprised again, by seeing\nArthur Clennam in her company. As they came in, the same unwonted look\nin both of them which had already caught attention in the yard below,\nstruck him. He did not rise or speak, but laid down his glasses and his\nnewspaper on the table beside him, and looked at them with his mouth\na little open and his lips trembling. When Arthur put out his hand,\nhe touched it, but not with his usual state; and then he turned to his\ndaughter, who had sat down close beside him with her hands upon his\nshoulder, and looked attentively in her face.\n\n'Father! I have been made so happy this morning!'\n\n'You have been made so happy, my dear?'\n\n'By Mr Clennam, father. He brought me such joyful and wonderful\nintelligence about you! If he had not with his great kindness and\ngentleness, prepared me for it, father--prepared me for it, father--I\nthink I could not have borne it.'\n\nHer agitation was exceedingly great, and the tears rolled down her face.\nHe put his hand suddenly to his heart, and looked at Clennam.\n\n'Compose yourself, sir,' said Clennam, 'and take a little time to think.\nTo think of the brightest and most fortunate accidents of life. We have\nall heard of great surprises of joy. They are not at an end, sir. They\nare rare, but not at an end.'\n\n'Mr Clennam? Not at an end? Not at an end for--' He touched himself upon\nthe breast, instead of saying 'me.'\n\n'No,' returned Clennam.\n\n'What surprise,' he asked, keeping his left hand over his heart, and\nthere stopping in his speech, while with his right hand he put his\nglasses exactly level on the table: 'what such surprise can be in store\nfor me?'\n\n'Let me answer with another question. Tell me, Mr Dorrit, what surprise\nwould be the most unlooked for and the most acceptable to you. Do not be\nafraid to imagine it, or to say what it would be.'\n\nHe looked steadfastly at Clennam, and, so looking at him, seemed to\nchange into a very old haggard man. The sun was bright upon the wall\nbeyond the window, and on the spikes at top. He slowly stretched out the\nhand that had been upon his heart, and pointed at the wall.\n\n'It is down,' said Clennam. 'Gone!'\n\nHe remained in the same attitude, looking steadfastly at him.\n\n'And in its place,' said Clennam, slowly and distinctly, 'are the means\nto possess and enjoy the utmost that they have so long shut out. Mr\nDorrit, there is not the smallest doubt that within a few days you will\nbe free, and highly prosperous. I congratulate you with all my soul on\nthis change of fortune, and on the happy future into which you are soon\nto carry the treasure you have been blest with here--the best of all the\nriches you can have elsewhere--the treasure at your side.'\n\nWith those words, he pressed his hand and released it; and his daughter,\nlaying her face against his, encircled him in the hour of his prosperity\nwith her arms, as she had in the long years of his adversity encircled\nhim with her love and toil and truth; and poured out her full heart in\ngratitude, hope, joy, blissful ecstasy, and all for him.\n\n'I shall see him as I never saw him yet. I shall see my dear love, with\nthe dark cloud cleared away. I shall see him, as my poor mother saw him\nlong ago. O my dear, my dear! O father, father! O thank God, thank God!'\n\nHe yielded himself to her kisses and caresses, but did not return them,\nexcept that he put an arm about her. Neither did he say one word. His\nsteadfast look was now divided between her and Clennam, and he began to\nshake as if he were very cold. Explaining to Little Dorrit that he would\nrun to the coffee-house for a bottle of wine, Arthur fetched it with all\nthe haste he could use. While it was being brought from the cellar to\nthe bar, a number of excited people asked him what had happened; when he\nhurriedly informed them that Mr Dorrit had succeeded to a fortune.\n\nOn coming back with the wine in his hand, he found that she had placed\nher father in his easy chair, and had loosened his shirt and neckcloth.\nThey filled a tumbler with wine, and held it to his lips. When he had\nswallowed a little, he took the glass himself and emptied it. Soon\nafter that, he leaned back in his chair and cried, with his handkerchief\nbefore his face.\n\nAfter this had lasted a while Clennam thought it a good season for\ndiverting his attention from the main surprise, by relating its details.\nSlowly, therefore, and in a quiet tone of voice, he explained them as\nbest he could, and enlarged on the nature of Pancks's service.\n\n'He shall be--ha--he shall be handsomely recompensed, sir,' said\nthe Father, starting up and moving hurriedly about the room. 'Assure\nyourself, Mr Clennam, that everybody concerned shall be--ha--shall\nbe nobly rewarded. No one, my dear sir, shall say that he has an\nunsatisfied claim against me. I shall repay the--hum--the advances I\nhave had from you, sir, with peculiar pleasure. I beg to be informed at\nyour earliest convenience, what advances you have made my son.'\n\nHe had no purpose in going about the room, but he was not still a\nmoment.\n\n'Everybody,' he said, 'shall be remembered. I will not go away from\nhere in anybody's debt. All the people who have been--ha--well behaved\ntowards myself and my family, shall be rewarded. Chivery shall be\nrewarded. Young John shall be rewarded. I particularly wish, and intend,\nto act munificently, Mr Clennam.'\n\n'Will you allow me,' said Arthur, laying his purse on the table, 'to\nsupply any present contingencies, Mr Dorrit? I thought it best to bring\na sum of money for the purpose.'\n\n'Thank you, sir, thank you. I accept with readiness, at the present\nmoment, what I could not an hour ago have conscientiously taken. I am\nobliged to you for the temporary accommodation. Exceedingly temporary,\nbut well timed--well timed.' His hand had closed upon the money, and\nhe carried it about with him. 'Be so kind, sir, as to add the amount to\nthose former advances to which I have already referred; being careful,\nif you please, not to omit advances made to my son. A mere verbal\nstatement of the gross amount is all I shall--ha--all I shall require.'\n\nHis eye fell upon his daughter at this point, and he stopped for a\nmoment to kiss her, and to pat her head.\n\n'It will be necessary to find a milliner, my love, and to make a speedy\nand complete change in your very plain dress. Something must be done\nwith Maggy too, who at present is--ha--barely respectable, barely\nrespectable. And your sister, Amy, and your brother. And _my_ brother,\nyour uncle--poor soul, I trust this will rouse him--messengers must be\ndespatched to fetch them. They must be informed of this. We must break\nit to them cautiously, but they must be informed directly. We owe it\nas a duty to them and to ourselves, from this moment, not to let\nthem--hum--not to let them do anything.'\n\nThis was the first intimation he had ever given, that he was privy to\nthe fact that they did something for a livelihood.\n\nHe was still jogging about the room, with the purse clutched in his\nhand, when a great cheering arose in the yard. 'The news has spread\nalready,' said Clennam, looking down from the window. 'Will you show\nyourself to them, Mr Dorrit? They are very earnest, and they evidently\nwish it.'\n\n'I--hum--ha--I confess I could have desired, Amy my dear,' he said,\njogging about in a more feverish flutter than before, 'to have made some\nchange in my dress first, and to have bought a--hum--a watch and chain.\nBut if it must be done as it is, it--ha--it must be done. Fasten the\ncollar of my shirt, my dear. Mr Clennam, would you oblige me--hum--with\na blue neckcloth you will find in that drawer at your elbow. Button\nmy coat across at the chest, my love. It looks--ha--it looks broader,\nbuttoned.'\n\nWith his trembling hand he pushed his grey hair up, and then, taking\nClennam and his daughter for supporters, appeared at the window leaning\non an arm of each. The Collegians cheered him very heartily, and he\nkissed his hand to them with great urbanity and protection. When he\nwithdrew into the room again, he said 'Poor creatures!' in a tone of\nmuch pity for their miserable condition.\n\nLittle Dorrit was deeply anxious that he should lie down to compose\nhimself. On Arthur's speaking to her of his going to inform Pancks that\nhe might now appear as soon as he would, and pursue the joyful business\nto its close, she entreated him in a whisper to stay with her until her\nfather should be quite calm and at rest. He needed no second entreaty;\nand she prepared her father's bed, and begged him to lie down. For\nanother half-hour or more he would be persuaded to do nothing but\ngo about the room, discussing with himself the probabilities for and\nagainst the Marshal's allowing the whole of the prisoners to go to the\nwindows of the official residence which commanded the street, to see\nhimself and family depart for ever in a carriage--which, he said, he\nthought would be a Sight for them. But gradually he began to droop and\ntire, and at last stretched himself upon the bed.\n\nShe took her faithful place beside him, fanning him and cooling his\nforehead; and he seemed to be falling asleep (always with the money in\nhis hand), when he unexpectedly sat up and said:\n\n'Mr Clennam, I beg your pardon. Am I to understand, my dear sir, that I\ncould--ha--could pass through the Lodge at this moment, and--hum--take a\nwalk?'\n\n'I think not, Mr Dorrit,' was the unwilling reply. 'There are certain\nforms to be completed; and although your detention here is now in itself\na form, I fear it is one that for a little longer has to be observed\ntoo.'\n\nAt this he shed tears again.\n\n'It is but a few hours, sir,' Clennam cheerfully urged upon him.\n\n'A few hours, sir,' he returned in a sudden passion. 'You talk very\neasily of hours, sir! How long do you suppose, sir, that an hour is to a\nman who is choking for want of air?'\n\nIt was his last demonstration for that time; as, after shedding some\nmore tears and querulously complaining that he couldn't breathe, he\nslowly fell into a slumber. Clennam had abundant occupation for his\nthoughts, as he sat in the quiet room watching the father on his bed,\nand the daughter fanning his face.\n\nLittle Dorrit had been thinking too. After softly putting his grey hair\naside, and touching his forehead with her lips, she looked towards\nArthur, who came nearer to her, and pursued in a low whisper the subject\nof her thoughts.\n\n'Mr Clennam, will he pay all his debts before he leaves here?'\n\n'No doubt. All.'\n\n'All the debts for which he had been imprisoned here, all my life and\nlonger?'\n\n'No doubt.'\n\nThere was something of uncertainty and remonstrance in her look;\nsomething that was not all satisfaction. He wondered to detect it, and\nsaid:\n\n'You are glad that he should do so?'\n\n'Are you?' asked Little Dorrit, wistfully.\n\n'Am I? Most heartily glad!'\n\n'Then I know I ought to be.'\n\n'And are you not?'\n\n'It seems to me hard,' said Little Dorrit, 'that he should have lost so\nmany years and suffered so much, and at last pay all the debts as well.\nIt seems to me hard that he should pay in life and money both.'\n\n'My dear child--' Clennam was beginning.\n\n'Yes, I know I am wrong,' she pleaded timidly, 'don't think any worse of\nme; it has grown up with me here.'\n\nThe prison, which could spoil so many things, had tainted Little\nDorrit's mind no more than this. Engendered as the confusion was, in\ncompassion for the poor prisoner, her father, it was the first speck\nClennam had ever seen, it was the last speck Clennam ever saw, of the\nprison atmosphere upon her.\n\nHe thought this, and forbore to say another word. With the thought, her\npurity and goodness came before him in their brightest light. The little\nspot made them the more beautiful.\n\nWorn out with her own emotions, and yielding to the silence of the room,\nher hand slowly slackened and failed in its fanning movement, and her\nhead dropped down on the pillow at her father's side. Clennam rose\nsoftly, opened and closed the door without a sound, and passed from the\nprison, carrying the quiet with him into the turbulent streets.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 36. The Marshalsea becomes an Orphan\n\n\nAnd now the day arrived when Mr Dorrit and his family were to leave the\nprison for ever, and the stones of its much-trodden pavement were to\nknow them no more.\n\nThe interval had been short, but he had greatly complained of its\nlength, and had been imperious with Mr Rugg touching the delay. He had\nbeen high with Mr Rugg, and had threatened to employ some one else. He\nhad requested Mr Rugg not to presume upon the place in which he found\nhim, but to do his duty, sir, and to do it with promptitude. He had told\nMr Rugg that he knew what lawyers and agents were, and that he would not\nsubmit to imposition. On that gentleman's humbly representing that\nhe exerted himself to the utmost, Miss Fanny was very short with him;\ndesiring to know what less he could do, when he had been told a dozen\ntimes that money was no object, and expressing her suspicion that he\nforgot whom he talked to.\n\nTowards the Marshal, who was a Marshal of many years' standing, and\nwith whom he had never had any previous difference, Mr Dorrit comported\nhimself with severity. That officer, on personally tendering his\ncongratulations, offered the free use of two rooms in his house for Mr\nDorrit's occupation until his departure. Mr Dorrit thanked him at the\nmoment, and replied that he would think of it; but the Marshal was no\nsooner gone than he sat down and wrote him a cutting note, in which\nhe remarked that he had never on any former occasion had the honour of\nreceiving his congratulations (which was true, though indeed there had\nnot been anything particular to congratulate him upon), and that he\nbegged, on behalf of himself and family, to repudiate the Marshal's\noffer, with all those thanks which its disinterested character and its\nperfect independence of all worldly considerations demanded.\n\nAlthough his brother showed so dim a glimmering of interest in their\naltered fortunes that it was very doubtful whether he understood them,\nMr Dorrit caused him to be measured for new raiment by the hosiers,\ntailors, hatters, and bootmakers whom he called in for himself; and\nordered that his old clothes should be taken from him and burned. Miss\nFanny and Mr Tip required no direction in making an appearance of great\nfashion and elegance; and the three passed this interval together at the\nbest hotel in the neighbourhood--though truly, as Miss Fanny said, the\nbest was very indifferent. In connection with that establishment, Mr\nTip hired a cabriolet, horse, and groom, a very neat turn out, which\nwas usually to be observed for two or three hours at a time gracing the\nBorough High Street, outside the Marshalsea court-yard. A modest\nlittle hired chariot and pair was also frequently to be seen there;\nin alighting from and entering which vehicle, Miss Fanny fluttered the\nMarshal's daughters by the display of inaccessible bonnets.\n\nA great deal of business was transacted in this short period. Among\nother items, Messrs Peddle and Pool, solicitors, of Monument Yard, were\ninstructed by their client Edward Dorrit, Esquire, to address a letter\nto Mr Arthur Clennam, enclosing the sum of twenty-four pounds nine\nshillings and eightpence, being the amount of principal and interest\ncomputed at the rate of five per cent. per annum, in which their\nclient believed himself to be indebted to Mr Clennam. In making this\ncommunication and remittance, Messrs Peddle and Pool were further\ninstructed by their client to remind Mr Clennam that the favour of the\nadvance now repaid (including gate-fees) had not been asked of him, and\nto inform him that it would not have been accepted if it had been openly\nproffered in his name. With which they requested a stamped receipt, and\nremained his obedient servants. A great deal of business had likewise to\nbe done, within the so-soon-to-be-orphaned Marshalsea, by Mr Dorrit\nso long its Father, chiefly arising out of applications made to him\nby Collegians for small sums of money. To these he responded with the\ngreatest liberality, and with no lack of formality; always first writing\nto appoint a time at which the applicant might wait upon him in his\nroom, and then receiving him in the midst of a vast accumulation of\ndocuments, and accompanying his donation (for he said in every such\ncase, 'it is a donation, not a loan') with a great deal of good counsel:\nto the effect that he, the expiring Father of the Marshalsea, hoped to\nbe long remembered, as an example that a man might preserve his own and\nthe general respect even there.\n\nThe Collegians were not envious. Besides that they had a personal and\ntraditional regard for a Collegian of so many years' standing, the event\nwas creditable to the College, and made it famous in the newspapers.\nPerhaps more of them thought, too, than were quite aware of it, that the\nthing might in the lottery of chances have happened to themselves, or\nthat something of the sort might yet happen to themselves some day or\nother. They took it very well. A few were low at the thought of being\nleft behind, and being left poor; but even these did not grudge the\nfamily their brilliant reverse. There might have been much more envy in\npoliter places. It seems probable that mediocrity of fortune would have\nbeen disposed to be less magnanimous than the Collegians, who lived from\nhand to mouth--from the pawnbroker's hand to the day's dinner.\n\nThey got up an address to him, which they presented in a neat frame and\nglass (though it was not afterwards displayed in the family mansion or\npreserved among the family papers); and to which he returned a gracious\nanswer. In that document he assured them, in a Royal manner, that he\nreceived the profession of their attachment with a full conviction\nof its sincerity; and again generally exhorted them to follow his\nexample--which, at least in so far as coming into a great property was\nconcerned, there is no doubt they would have gladly imitated. He took\nthe same occasion of inviting them to a comprehensive entertainment, to\nbe given to the whole College in the yard, and at which he signified\nhe would have the honour of taking a parting glass to the health and\nhappiness of all those whom he was about to leave behind.\n\nHe did not in person dine at this public repast (it took place at two in\nthe afternoon, and his dinners now came in from the hotel at six), but\nhis son was so good as to take the head of the principal table, and to\nbe very free and engaging. He himself went about among the company, and\ntook notice of individuals, and saw that the viands were of the quality\nhe had ordered, and that all were served. On the whole, he was like a\nbaron of the olden time in a rare good humour. At the conclusion of the\nrepast, he pledged his guests in a bumper of old Madeira; and told them\nthat he hoped they had enjoyed themselves, and what was more, that they\nwould enjoy themselves for the rest of the evening; that he wished them\nwell; and that he bade them welcome. His health being drunk with\nacclamations, he was not so baronial after all but that in trying to\nreturn thanks he broke down, in the manner of a mere serf with a heart\nin his breast, and wept before them all. After this great success, which\nhe supposed to be a failure, he gave them 'Mr Chivery and his brother\nofficers;' whom he had beforehand presented with ten pounds each, and\nwho were all in attendance. Mr Chivery spoke to the toast, saying, What\nyou undertake to lock up, lock up; but remember that you are, in the\nwords of the fettered African, a man and a brother ever. The list of\ntoasts disposed of, Mr Dorrit urbanely went through the motions of\nplaying a game of skittles with the Collegian who was the next oldest\ninhabitant to himself; and left the tenantry to their diversions.\n\nBut all these occurrences preceded the final day. And now the day\narrived when he and his family were to leave the prison for ever, and\nwhen the stones of its much-trodden pavement were to know them no more.\n\nNoon was the hour appointed for the departure. As it approached, there\nwas not a Collegian within doors, nor a turnkey absent. The latter class\nof gentlemen appeared in their Sunday clothes, and the greater part of\nthe Collegians were brightened up as much as circumstances allowed. Two\nor three flags were even displayed, and the children put on odds and\nends of ribbon. Mr Dorrit himself, at this trying time, preserved a\nserious but graceful dignity. Much of his great attention was given to\nhis brother, as to whose bearing on the great occasion he felt anxious.\n\n'My dear Frederick,' said he, 'if you will give me your arm we will pass\namong our friends together. I think it is right that we should go out\narm in arm, my dear Frederick.'\n\n'Hah!' said Frederick. 'Yes, yes, yes, yes.'\n\n'And if, my dear Frederick--if you could, without putting any great\nconstraint upon yourself, throw a little (pray excuse me, Frederick), a\nlittle polish into your usual demeanour--'\n\n'William, William,' said the other, shaking his head, 'it's for you to\ndo all that. I don't know how. All forgotten, forgotten!'\n\n'But, my dear fellow,' returned William, 'for that very reason, if\nfor no other, you must positively try to rouse yourself. What you\nhave forgotten you must now begin to recall, my dear Frederick. Your\nposition--'\n\n'Eh?' said Frederick.\n\n'Your position, my dear Frederick.'\n\n'Mine?' He looked first at his own figure, and then at his brother's,\nand then, drawing a long breath, cried, 'Hah, to be sure! Yes, yes,\nyes.'\n\n'Your position, my dear Frederick, is now a fine one. Your position, as\nmy brother, is a very fine one. And I know that it belongs to your\nconscientious nature to try to become worthy of it, my dear Frederick,\nand to try to adorn it. To be no discredit to it, but to adorn it.'\n\n'William,' said the other weakly, and with a sigh, 'I will do anything\nyou wish, my brother, provided it lies in my power. Pray be so kind as\nto recollect what a limited power mine is. What would you wish me to do\nto-day, brother? Say what it is, only say what it is.'\n\n'My dearest Frederick, nothing. It is not worth troubling so good a\nheart as yours with.'\n\n'Pray trouble it,' returned the other. 'It finds it no trouble, William,\nto do anything it can for you.'\n\nWilliam passed his hand across his eyes, and murmured with august\nsatisfaction, 'Blessings on your attachment, my poor dear fellow!' Then\nhe said aloud, 'Well, my dear Frederick, if you will only try, as we\nwalk out, to show that you are alive to the occasion--that you think\nabout it--'\n\n'What would you advise me to think about it?' returned his submissive\nbrother.\n\n'Oh! my dear Frederick, how can I answer you? I can only say what, in\nleaving these good people, I think myself.'\n\n'That's it!' cried his brother. 'That will help me.'\n\n'I find that I think, my dear Frederick, and with mixed emotions in\nwhich a softened compassion predominates, What will they do without me!'\n\n'True,' returned his brother. 'Yes, yes, yes, yes. I'll think that as we\ngo, What will they do without my brother! Poor things! What will they do\nwithout him!'\n\nTwelve o'clock having just struck, and the carriage being reported ready\nin the outer court-yard, the brothers proceeded down-stairs arm-in-arm.\nEdward Dorrit, Esquire (once Tip), and his sister Fanny followed,\nalso arm-in-arm; Mr Plornish and Maggy, to whom had been entrusted the\nremoval of such of the family effects as were considered worth removing,\nfollowed, bearing bundles and burdens to be packed in a cart.\n\nIn the yard, were the Collegians and turnkeys. In the yard, were Mr\nPancks and Mr Rugg, come to see the last touch given to their work.\nIn the yard, was Young John making a new epitaph for himself, on\nthe occasion of his dying of a broken heart. In the yard, was the\nPatriarchal Casby, looking so tremendously benevolent that many\nenthusiastic Collegians grasped him fervently by the hand, and the wives\nand female relatives of many more Collegians kissed his hand, nothing\ndoubting that he had done it all. In the yard, was the man with the\nshadowy grievance respecting the Fund which the Marshal embezzled, who\nhad got up at five in the morning to complete the copying of a perfectly\nunintelligible history of that transaction, which he had committed to Mr\nDorrit's care, as a document of the last importance, calculated to stun\nthe Government and effect the Marshal's downfall. In the yard, was the\ninsolvent whose utmost energies were always set on getting into debt,\nwho broke into prison with as much pains as other men have broken out\nof it, and who was always being cleared and complimented; while the\ninsolvent at his elbow--a mere little, snivelling, striving tradesman,\nhalf dead of anxious efforts to keep out of debt--found it a hard\nmatter, indeed, to get a Commissioner to release him with much reproof\nand reproach. In the yard, was the man of many children and many\nburdens, whose failure astonished everybody; in the yard, was the man of\nno children and large resources, whose failure astonished nobody. There,\nwere the people who were always going out to-morrow, and always putting\nit off; there, were the people who had come in yesterday, and who\nwere much more jealous and resentful of this freak of fortune than\nthe seasoned birds. There, were some who, in pure meanness of spirit,\ncringed and bowed before the enriched Collegian and his family; there,\nwere others who did so really because their eyes, accustomed to the\ngloom of their imprisonment and poverty, could not support the light of\nsuch bright sunshine. There, were many whose shillings had gone into his\npocket to buy him meat and drink; but none who were now obtrusively Hail\nfellow well met! with him, on the strength of that assistance. It was\nrather to be remarked of the caged birds, that they were a little shy\nof the bird about to be so grandly free, and that they had a tendency to\nwithdraw themselves towards the bars, and seem a little fluttered as he\npassed.\n\nThrough these spectators the little procession, headed by the two\nbrothers, moved slowly to the gate. Mr Dorrit, yielding to the vast\nspeculation how the poor creatures were to get on without him, was\ngreat, and sad, but not absorbed. He patted children on the head\nlike Sir Roger de Coverley going to church, he spoke to people in the\nbackground by their Christian names, he condescended to all present, and\nseemed for their consolation to walk encircled by the legend in golden\ncharacters, 'Be comforted, my people! Bear it!'\n\nAt last three honest cheers announced that he had passed the gate, and\nthat the Marshalsea was an orphan. Before they had ceased to ring in the\nechoes of the prison walls, the family had got into their carriage, and\nthe attendant had the steps in his hand.\n\nThen, and not before, 'Good Gracious!' cried Miss Fanny all at once,\n'Where's Amy!'\n\nHer father had thought she was with her sister. Her sister had thought\nshe was 'somewhere or other.' They had all trusted to finding her, as\nthey had always done, quietly in the right place at the right moment.\nThis going away was perhaps the very first action of their joint lives\nthat they had got through without her.\n\nA minute might have been consumed in the ascertaining of these points,\nwhen Miss Fanny, who, from her seat in the carriage, commanded the long\nnarrow passage leading to the Lodge, flushed indignantly.\n\n'Now I do say, Pa,' cried she, 'that this is disgraceful!'\n\n'What is disgraceful, Fanny?'\n\n'I do say,' she repeated, 'this is perfectly infamous! Really almost\nenough, even at such a time as this, to make one wish one was dead!\nHere is that child Amy, in her ugly old shabby dress, which she was so\nobstinate about, Pa, which I over and over again begged and prayed her\nto change, and which she over and over again objected to, and promised\nto change to-day, saying she wished to wear it as long as ever she\nremained in there with you--which was absolutely romantic nonsense of\nthe lowest kind--here is that child Amy disgracing us to the last moment\nand at the last moment, by being carried out in that dress after all.\nAnd by that Mr Clennam too!'\n\nThe offence was proved, as she delivered the indictment. Clennam\nappeared at the carriage-door, bearing the little insensible figure in\nhis arms.\n\n'She has been forgotten,' he said, in a tone of pity not free from\nreproach. 'I ran up to her room (which Mr Chivery showed me) and found\nthe door open, and that she had fainted on the floor, dear child.\nShe appeared to have gone to change her dress, and to have sunk down\noverpowered. It may have been the cheering, or it may have happened\nsooner. Take care of this poor cold hand, Miss Dorrit. Don't let it\nfall.'\n\n'Thank you, sir,' returned Miss Dorrit, bursting into tears. 'I believe\nI know what to do, if you will give me leave. Dear Amy, open your eyes,\nthat's a love! Oh, Amy, Amy, I really am so vexed and ashamed! Do rouse\nyourself, darling! Oh, why are they not driving on! Pray, Pa, do drive\non!'\n\nThe attendant, getting between Clennam and the carriage-door, with a\nsharp 'By your leave, sir!' bundled up the steps, and they drove away.\n\n\n\n\n\nBOOK THE SECOND: RICHES\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 1. Fellow Travellers\n\n\nIn the autumn of the year, Darkness and Night were creeping up to the\nhighest ridges of the Alps.\n\nIt was vintage time in the valleys on the Swiss side of the Pass of the\nGreat Saint Bernard, and along the banks of the Lake of Geneva.\nThe air there was charged with the scent of gathered grapes. Baskets,\ntroughs, and tubs of grapes stood in the dim village doorways, stopped\nthe steep and narrow village streets, and had been carrying all day\nalong the roads and lanes. Grapes, split and crushed under foot, lay\nabout everywhere. The child carried in a sling by the laden peasant\nwoman toiling home, was quieted with picked-up grapes; the idiot sunning\nhis big goitre under the leaves of the wooden chalet by the way to the\nWaterfall, sat munching grapes; the breath of the cows and goats was\nredolent of leaves and stalks of grapes; the company in every little\ncabaret were eating, drinking, talking grapes. A pity that no ripe touch\nof this generous abundance could be given to the thin, hard, stony wine,\nwhich after all was made from the grapes!\n\nThe air had been warm and transparent through the whole of the bright\nday. Shining metal spires and church-roofs, distant and rarely seen, had\nsparkled in the view; and the snowy mountain-tops had been so clear that\nunaccustomed eyes, cancelling the intervening country, and slighting\ntheir rugged heights for something fabulous, would have measured them as\nwithin a few hours easy reach. Mountain-peaks of great celebrity in the\nvalleys, whence no trace of their existence was visible sometimes for\nmonths together, had been since morning plain and near in the blue sky.\nAnd now, when it was dark below, though they seemed solemnly to recede,\nlike spectres who were going to vanish, as the red dye of the sunset\nfaded out of them and left them coldly white, they were yet distinctly\ndefined in their loneliness above the mists and shadows.\n\nSeen from these solitudes, and from the Pass of the Great Saint Bernard,\nwhich was one of them, the ascending Night came up the mountain like a\nrising water. When it at last rose to the walls of the convent of the\nGreat Saint Bernard, it was as if that weather-beaten structure were\nanother Ark, and floated on the shadowy waves.\n\nDarkness, outstripping some visitors on mules, had risen thus to\nthe rough convent walls, when those travellers were yet climbing the\nmountain. As the heat of the glowing day when they had stopped to drink\nat the streams of melted ice and snow, was changed to the searching cold\nof the frosty rarefied night air at a great height, so the fresh beauty\nof the lower journey had yielded to barrenness and desolation. A craggy\ntrack, up which the mules in single file scrambled and turned from\nblock to block, as though they were ascending the broken staircase of\na gigantic ruin, was their way now. No trees were to be seen, nor any\nvegetable growth save a poor brown scrubby moss, freezing in the chinks\nof rock. Blackened skeleton arms of wood by the wayside pointed upward\nto the convent as if the ghosts of former travellers overwhelmed by the\nsnow haunted the scene of their distress. Icicle-hung caves and cellars\nbuilt for refuges from sudden storms, were like so many whispers of the\nperils of the place; never-resting wreaths and mazes of mist wandered\nabout, hunted by a moaning wind; and snow, the besetting danger of the\nmountain, against which all its defences were taken, drifted sharply\ndown.\n\nThe file of mules, jaded by their day's work, turned and wound slowly\nup the deep ascent; the foremost led by a guide on foot, in his\nbroad-brimmed hat and round jacket, carrying a mountain staff or two\nupon his shoulder, with whom another guide conversed. There was no\nspeaking among the string of riders. The sharp cold, the fatigue of the\njourney, and a new sensation of a catching in the breath, partly as if\nthey had just emerged from very clear crisp water, and partly as if they\nhad been sobbing, kept them silent.\n\nAt length, a light on the summit of the rocky staircase gleamed through\nthe snow and mist. The guides called to the mules, the mules pricked up\ntheir drooping heads, the travellers' tongues were loosened, and in a\nsudden burst of slipping, climbing, jingling, clinking, and talking,\nthey arrived at the convent door.\n\nOther mules had arrived not long before, some with peasant riders and\nsome with goods, and had trodden the snow about the door into a pool\nof mud. Riding-saddles and bridles, pack-saddles and strings of bells,\nmules and men, lanterns, torches, sacks, provender, barrels, cheeses,\nkegs of honey and butter, straw bundles and packages of many shapes,\nwere crowded confusedly together in this thawed quagmire and about the\nsteps. Up here in the clouds, everything was seen through cloud, and\nseemed dissolving into cloud. The breath of the men was cloud, the\nbreath of the mules was cloud, the lights were encircled by cloud,\nspeakers close at hand were not seen for cloud, though their voices and\nall other sounds were surprisingly clear. Of the cloudy line of mules\nhastily tied to rings in the wall, one would bite another, or kick\nanother, and then the whole mist would be disturbed: with men diving\ninto it, and cries of men and beasts coming out of it, and no bystander\ndiscerning what was wrong. In the midst of this, the great stable of the\nconvent, occupying the basement story and entered by the basement door,\noutside which all the disorder was, poured forth its contribution of\ncloud, as if the whole rugged edifice were filled with nothing else,\nand would collapse as soon as it had emptied itself, leaving the snow to\nfall upon the bare mountain summit.\n\nWhile all this noise and hurry were rife among the living travellers,\nthere, too, silently assembled in a grated house half-a-dozen paces\nremoved, with the same cloud enfolding them and the same snow flakes\ndrifting in upon them, were the dead travellers found upon the mountain.\nThe mother, storm-belated many winters ago, still standing in the corner\nwith her baby at her breast; the man who had frozen with his arm raised\nto his mouth in fear or hunger, still pressing it with his dry lips\nafter years and years. An awful company, mysteriously come together! A\nwild destiny for that mother to have foreseen! 'Surrounded by so many\nand such companions upon whom I never looked, and never shall look,\nI and my child will dwell together inseparable, on the Great Saint\nBernard, outlasting generations who will come to see us, and will never\nknow our name, or one word of our story but the end.'\n\nThe living travellers thought little or nothing of the dead just then.\nThey thought much more of alighting at the convent door, and warming\nthemselves at the convent fire. Disengaged from the turmoil, which was\nalready calming down as the crowd of mules began to be bestowed in the\nstable, they hurried shivering up the steps and into the building. There\nwas a smell within, coming up from the floor, of tethered beasts, like\nthe smell of a menagerie of wild animals. There were strong arched\ngalleries within, huge stone piers, great staircases, and thick walls\npierced with small sunken windows--fortifications against the mountain\nstorms, as if they had been human enemies. There were gloomy vaulted\nsleeping-rooms within, intensely cold, but clean and hospitably prepared\nfor guests. Finally, there was a parlour for guests to sit in and sup\nin, where a table was already laid, and where a blazing fire shone red\nand high.\n\nIn this room, after having had their quarters for the night allotted\nto them by two young Fathers, the travellers presently drew round the\nhearth. They were in three parties; of whom the first, as the most\nnumerous and important, was the slowest, and had been overtaken by\none of the others on the way up. It consisted of an elderly lady, two\ngrey-haired gentlemen, two young ladies, and their brother. These were\nattended (not to mention four guides), by a courier, two footmen, and\ntwo waiting-maids: which strong body of inconvenience was accommodated\nelsewhere under the same roof. The party that had overtaken them, and\nfollowed in their train, consisted of only three members: one lady and\ntwo gentlemen. The third party, which had ascended from the valley\non the Italian side of the Pass, and had arrived first, were four in\nnumber: a plethoric, hungry, and silent German tutor in spectacles, on\na tour with three young men, his pupils, all plethoric, hungry, and\nsilent, and all in spectacles.\n\nThese three groups sat round the fire eyeing each other drily, and\nwaiting for supper. Only one among them, one of the gentlemen belonging\nto the party of three, made advances towards conversation. Throwing out\nhis lines for the Chief of the important tribe, while addressing himself\nto his own companions, he remarked, in a tone of voice which included\nall the company if they chose to be included, that it had been a long\nday, and that he felt for the ladies. That he feared one of the\nyoung ladies was not a strong or accustomed traveller, and had been\nover-fatigued two or three hours ago. That he had observed, from his\nstation in the rear, that she sat her mule as if she were exhausted.\nThat he had, twice or thrice afterwards, done himself the honour of\ninquiring of one of the guides, when he fell behind, how the lady did.\nThat he had been enchanted to learn that she had recovered her spirits,\nand that it had been but a passing discomfort. That he trusted (by this\ntime he had secured the eyes of the Chief, and addressed him) he might\nbe permitted to express his hope that she was now none the worse, and\nthat she would not regret having made the journey.\n\n'My daughter, I am obliged to you, sir,' returned the Chief, 'is quite\nrestored, and has been greatly interested.'\n\n'New to mountains, perhaps?' said the insinuating traveller.\n\n'New to--ha--to mountains,' said the Chief.\n\n'But you are familiar with them, sir?' the insinuating traveller\nassumed.\n\n'I am--hum--tolerably familiar. Not of late years. Not of late years,'\nreplied the Chief, with a flourish of his hand.\n\nThe insinuating traveller, acknowledging the flourish with an\ninclination of his head, passed from the Chief to the second young lady,\nwho had not yet been referred to otherwise than as one of the ladies in\nwhose behalf he felt so sensitive an interest.\n\nHe hoped she was not incommoded by the fatigues of the day.\n\n'Incommoded, certainly,' returned the young lady, 'but not tired.'\n\nThe insinuating traveller complimented her on the justice of the\ndistinction. It was what he had meant to say. Every lady must doubtless\nbe incommoded by having to do with that proverbially unaccommodating\nanimal, the mule.\n\n'We have had, of course,' said the young lady, who was rather reserved\nand haughty, 'to leave the carriages and fourgon at Martigny. And the\nimpossibility of bringing anything that one wants to this inaccessible\nplace, and the necessity of leaving every comfort behind, is not\nconvenient.'\n\n'A savage place indeed,' said the insinuating traveller.\n\nThe elderly lady, who was a model of accurate dressing, and whose manner\nwas perfect, considered as a piece of machinery, here interposed a\nremark in a low soft voice.\n\n'But, like other inconvenient places,' she observed, 'it must be seen.\nAs a place much spoken of, it is necessary to see it.'\n\n'O! I have not the least objection to seeing it, I assure you, Mrs\nGeneral,' returned the other, carelessly.\n\n'You, madam,' said the insinuating traveller, 'have visited this spot\nbefore?'\n\n'Yes,' returned Mrs General. 'I have been here before. Let me\ncommend you, my dear,' to the former young lady, 'to shade your face\nfrom the hot wood, after exposure to the mountain air and snow. You,\ntoo, my dear,' to the other and younger lady, who immediately did so;\nwhile the former merely said, 'Thank you, Mrs General, I am Perfectly\ncomfortable, and prefer remaining as I am.'\n\nThe brother, who had left his chair to open a piano that stood in\nthe room, and who had whistled into it and shut it up again, now came\nstrolling back to the fire with his glass in his eye. He was dressed in\nthe very fullest and completest travelling trim. The world seemed hardly\nlarge enough to yield him an amount of travel proportionate to his\nequipment.\n\n'These fellows are an immense time with supper,' he drawled. 'I wonder\nwhat they'll give us! Has anybody any idea?'\n\n'Not roast man, I believe,' replied the voice of the second gentleman of\nthe party of three.\n\n'I suppose not. What d'ye mean?' he inquired.\n\n'That, as you are not to be served for the general supper, perhaps you\nwill do us the favour of not cooking yourself at the general fire,'\nreturned the other.\n\nThe young gentleman who was standing in an easy attitude on the hearth,\ncocking his glass at the company, with his back to the blaze and his\ncoat tucked under his arms, something as if he were Of the Poultry\nspecies and were trussed for roasting, lost countenance at this\nreply; he seemed about to demand further explanation, when it was\ndiscovered--through all eyes turning on the speaker--that the lady with\nhim, who was young and beautiful, had not heard what had passed through\nhaving fainted with her head upon his shoulder.\n\n'I think,' said the gentleman in a subdued tone, 'I had best carry\nher straight to her room. Will you call to some one to bring a light?'\naddressing his companion, 'and to show the way? In this strange rambling\nplace I don't know that I could find it.'\n\n'Pray, let me call my maid,' cried the taller of the young ladies.\n\n'Pray, let me put this water to her lips,' said the shorter, who had not\nspoken yet.\n\nEach doing what she suggested, there was no want of assistance. Indeed,\nwhen the two maids came in (escorted by the courier, lest any one should\nstrike them dumb by addressing a foreign language to them on the road),\nthere was a prospect of too much assistance. Seeing this, and saying as\nmuch in a few words to the slighter and younger of the two ladies,\nthe gentleman put his wife's arm over his shoulder, lifted her up, and\ncarried her away.\n\nHis friend, being left alone with the other visitors, walked slowly up\nand down the room without coming to the fire again, pulling his black\nmoustache in a contemplative manner, as if he felt himself committed\nto the late retort. While the subject of it was breathing injury in a\ncorner, the Chief loftily addressed this gentleman.\n\n'Your friend, sir,' said he, 'is--ha--is a little impatient; and, in\nhis impatience, is not perhaps fully sensible of what he owes\nto--hum--to--but we will waive that, we will waive that. Your friend is\na little impatient, sir.'\n\n'It may be so, sir,' returned the other. 'But having had the honour of\nmaking that gentleman's acquaintance at the hotel at Geneva, where we\nand much good company met some time ago, and having had the honour\nof exchanging company and conversation with that gentleman on several\nsubsequent excursions, I can hear nothing--no, not even from one of your\nappearance and station, sir--detrimental to that gentleman.'\n\n'You are in no danger, sir, of hearing any such thing from me. In\nremarking that your friend has shown impatience, I say no such thing. I\nmake that remark, because it is not to be doubted that my son, being by\nbirth and by--ha--by education a--hum--a gentleman, would have readily\nadapted himself to any obligingly expressed wish on the subject of the\nfire being equally accessible to the whole of the present circle. Which,\nin principle, I--ha--for all are--hum--equal on these occasions--I\nconsider right.'\n\n'Good,' was the reply. 'And there it ends! I am your son's obedient\nservant. I beg your son to receive the assurance of my profound\nconsideration. And now, sir, I may admit, freely admit, that my friend\nis sometimes of a sarcastic temper.'\n\n'The lady is your friend's wife, sir?'\n\n'The lady is my friend's wife, sir.'\n\n'She is very handsome.'\n\n'Sir, she is peerless. They are still in the first year of their\nmarriage. They are still partly on a marriage, and partly on an\nartistic, tour.'\n\n'Your friend is an artist, sir?'\n\nThe gentleman replied by kissing the fingers of his right hand, and\nwafting the kiss the length of his arm towards Heaven. As who should\nsay, I devote him to the celestial Powers as an immortal artist!\n\n'But he is a man of family,' he added. 'His connections are of the best.\nHe is more than an artist: he is highly connected. He may, in effect,\nhave repudiated his connections, proudly, impatiently, sarcastically (I\nmake the concession of both words); but he has them. Sparks that have\nbeen struck out during our intercourse have shown me this.'\n\n'Well! I hope,' said the lofty gentleman, with the air of finally\ndisposing of the subject, 'that the lady's indisposition may be only\ntemporary.'\n\n'Sir, I hope so.'\n\n'Mere fatigue, I dare say.'\n\n'Not altogether mere fatigue, sir, for her mule stumbled to-day, and\nshe fell from the saddle. She fell lightly, and was up again without\nassistance, and rode from us laughing; but she complained towards\nevening of a slight bruise in the side. She spoke of it more than once,\nas we followed your party up the mountain.'\n\nThe head of the large retinue, who was gracious but not familiar,\nappeared by this time to think that he had condescended more than\nenough. He said no more, and there was silence for some quarter of an\nhour until supper appeared.\n\nWith the supper came one of the young Fathers (there seemed to be no\nold Fathers) to take the head of the table. It was like the supper of\nan ordinary Swiss hotel, and good red wine grown by the convent in more\ngenial air was not wanting. The artist traveller calmly came and took\nhis place at table when the rest sat down, with no apparent sense upon\nhim of his late skirmish with the completely dressed traveller.\n\n'Pray,' he inquired of the host, over his soup, 'has your convent many\nof its famous dogs now?'\n\n'Monsieur, it has three.'\n\n'I saw three in the gallery below. Doubtless the three in question.'\n\nThe host, a slender, bright-eyed, dark young man of polite manners,\nwhose garment was a black gown with strips of white crossed over it like\nbraces, and who no more resembled the conventional breed of Saint\nBernard monks than he resembled the conventional breed of Saint Bernard\ndogs, replied, doubtless those were the three in question.\n\n'And I think,' said the artist traveller, 'I have seen one of them\nbefore.'\n\nIt was possible. He was a dog sufficiently well known. Monsieur might\nhave easily seen him in the valley or somewhere on the lake, when he\n(the dog) had gone down with one of the order to solicit aid for the\nconvent.\n\n'Which is done in its regular season of the year, I think?'\n\nMonsieur was right.\n\n'And never without a dog. The dog is very important.'\n\nAgain Monsieur was right. The dog was very important. People were justly\ninterested in the dog. As one of the dogs celebrated everywhere,\nMa'amselle would observe.\n\nMa'amselle was a little slow to observe it, as though she were not yet\nwell accustomed to the French tongue. Mrs General, however, observed it\nfor her.\n\n'Ask him if he has saved many lives?' said, in his native English, the\nyoung man who had been put out of countenance.\n\nThe host needed no translation of the question. He promptly replied in\nFrench, 'No. Not this one.'\n\n'Why not?' the same gentleman asked.\n\n'Pardon,' returned the host composedly, 'give him the opportunity and\nhe will do it without doubt. For example, I am well convinced,' smiling\nsedately, as he cut up the dish of veal to be handed round, on the young\nman who had been put out of countenance, 'that if you, Monsieur, would\ngive him the opportunity, he would hasten with great ardour to fulfil\nhis duty.'\n\nThe artist traveller laughed. The insinuating traveller (who evinced\na provident anxiety to get his full share of the supper), wiping some\ndrops of wine from his moustache with a piece of bread, joined the\nconversation.\n\n'It is becoming late in the year, my Father,' said he, 'for\ntourist-travellers, is it not?'\n\n'Yes, it is late. Yet two or three weeks, at most, and we shall be left\nto the winter snows.'\n\n'And then,' said the insinuating traveller, 'for the scratching dogs and\nthe buried children, according to the pictures!'\n\n'Pardon,' said the host, not quite understanding the allusion. 'How,\nthen the scratching dogs and the buried children according to the\npictures?'\n\nThe artist traveller struck in again before an answer could be given.\n\n'Don't you know,' he coldly inquired across the table of his companion,\n'that none but smugglers come this way in the winter or can have any\npossible business this way?'\n\n'Holy blue! No; never heard of it.'\n\n'So it is, I believe. And as they know the signs of the weather\ntolerably well, they don't give much employment to the dogs--who have\nconsequently died out rather--though this house of entertainment is\nconveniently situated for themselves. Their young families, I am told,\nthey usually leave at home. But it's a grand idea!' cried the artist\ntraveller, unexpectedly rising into a tone of enthusiasm. 'It's a\nsublime idea. It's the finest idea in the world, and brings tears into\na man's eyes, by Jupiter!' He then went on eating his veal with great\ncomposure.\n\nThere was enough of mocking inconsistency at the bottom of this speech\nto make it rather discordant, though the manner was refined and the\nperson well-favoured, and though the depreciatory part of it was so\nskilfully thrown off as to be very difficult for one not perfectly\nacquainted with the English language to understand, or, even\nunderstanding, to take offence at: so simple and dispassionate was its\ntone. After finishing his veal in the midst of silence, the speaker\nagain addressed his friend.\n\n'Look,' said he, in his former tone, 'at this gentleman our host, not\nyet in the prime of life, who in so graceful a way and with such courtly\nurbanity and modesty presides over us! Manners fit for a crown! Dine\nwith the Lord Mayor of London (if you can get an invitation) and observe\nthe contrast. This dear fellow, with the finest cut face I ever saw, a\nface in perfect drawing, leaves some laborious life and comes up here\nI don't know how many feet above the level of the sea, for no other\npurpose on earth (except enjoying himself, I hope, in a capital\nrefectory) than to keep an hotel for idle poor devils like you and\nme, and leave the bill to our consciences! Why, isn't it a beautiful\nsacrifice? What do we want more to touch us? Because rescued people of\ninteresting appearance are not, for eight or nine months out of every\ntwelve, holding on here round the necks of the most sagacious of dogs\ncarrying wooden bottles, shall we disparage the place? No! Bless the\nplace. It's a great place, a glorious place!'\n\nThe chest of the grey-haired gentleman who was the Chief of the\nimportant party, had swelled as if with a protest against his being\nnumbered among poor devils. No sooner had the artist traveller ceased\nspeaking than he himself spoke with great dignity, as having it\nincumbent on him to take the lead in most places, and having deserted\nthat duty for a little while.\n\nHe weightily communicated his opinion to their host, that his life must\nbe a very dreary life here in the winter.\n\nThe host allowed to Monsieur that it was a little monotonous. The air\nwas difficult to breathe for a length of time consecutively. The cold\nwas very severe. One needed youth and strength to bear it. However,\nhaving them and the blessing of Heaven--\n\nYes, that was very good. 'But the confinement,' said the grey-haired\ngentleman.\n\nThere were many days, even in bad weather, when it was possible to\nwalk about outside. It was the custom to beat a little track, and take\nexercise there.\n\n'But the space,' urged the grey-haired gentleman. 'So small.\nSo--ha--very limited.'\n\nMonsieur would recall to himself that there were the refuges to visit,\nand that tracks had to be made to them also.\n\nMonsieur still urged, on the other hand, that the space was\nso--ha--hum--so very contracted. More than that, it was always the same,\nalways the same.\n\nWith a deprecating smile, the host gently raised and gently lowered his\nshoulders. That was true, he remarked, but permit him to say that almost\nall objects had their various points of view. Monsieur and he did not\nsee this poor life of his from the same point of view. Monsieur was not\nused to confinement.\n\n'I--ha--yes, very true,' said the grey-haired gentleman. He seemed to\nreceive quite a shock from the force of the argument.\n\nMonsieur, as an English traveller, surrounded by all means of travelling\npleasantly; doubtless possessing fortune, carriages, and servants--\n\n'Perfectly, perfectly. Without doubt,' said the gentleman.\n\nMonsieur could not easily place himself in the position of a person who\nhad not the power to choose, I will go here to-morrow, or there next\nday; I will pass these barriers, I will enlarge those bounds. Monsieur\ncould not realise, perhaps, how the mind accommodated itself in such\nthings to the force of necessity.\n\n'It is true,' said Monsieur. 'We will--ha--not pursue the subject.\nYou are--hum--quite accurate, I have no doubt. We will say no more.'\n\nThe supper having come to a close, he drew his chair away as he spoke,\nand moved back to his former place by the fire. As it was very cold\nat the greater part of the table, the other guests also resumed their\nformer seats by the fire, designing to toast themselves well before\ngoing to bed. The host, when they rose from the table, bowed to all\npresent, wished them good night, and withdrew. But first the insinuating\ntraveller had asked him if they could have some wine made hot; and as\nhe had answered Yes, and had presently afterwards sent it in, that\ntraveller, seated in the centre of the group, and in the full heat of\nthe fire, was soon engaged in serving it out to the rest.\n\nAt this time, the younger of the two young ladies, who had been silently\nattentive in her dark corner (the fire-light was the chief light in the\nsombre room, the lamp being smoky and dull) to what had been said of the\nabsent lady, glided out. She was at a loss which way to turn when she\nhad softly closed the door; but, after a little hesitation among the\nsounding passages and the many ways, came to a room in a corner of the\nmain gallery, where the servants were at their supper. From these she\nobtained a lamp, and a direction to the lady's room.\n\nIt was up the great staircase on the story above. Here and there, the\nbare white walls were broken by an iron grate, and she thought as she\nwent along that the place was something like a prison. The arched door\nof the lady's room, or cell, was not quite shut. After knocking at it\ntwo or three times without receiving an answer, she pushed it gently\nopen, and looked in.\n\nThe lady lay with closed eyes on the outside of the bed, protected from\nthe cold by the blankets and wrappers with which she had been covered\nwhen she revived from her fainting fit. A dull light placed in the deep\nrecess of the window, made little impression on the arched room. The\nvisitor timidly stepped to the bed, and said, in a soft whisper, 'Are\nyou better?'\n\nThe lady had fallen into a slumber, and the whisper was too low to awake\nher. Her visitor, standing quite still, looked at her attentively.\n\n'She is very pretty,' she said to herself. 'I never saw so beautiful a\nface. O how unlike me!'\n\nIt was a curious thing to say, but it had some hidden meaning, for it\nfilled her eyes with tears.\n\n'I know I must be right. I know he spoke of her that evening. I could\nvery easily be wrong on any other subject, but not on this, not on\nthis!'\n\nWith a quiet and tender hand she put aside a straying fold of the\nsleeper's hair, and then touched the hand that lay outside the covering.\n\n'I like to look at her,' she breathed to herself. 'I like to see what\nhas affected him so much.'\n\nShe had not withdrawn her hand, when the sleeper opened her eyes and\nstarted.\n\n'Pray don't be alarmed. I am only one of the travellers from\ndown-stairs. I came to ask if you were better, and if I could do\nanything for you.'\n\n'I think you have already been so kind as to send your servants to my\nassistance?'\n\n'No, not I; that was my sister. Are you better?'\n\n'Much better. It is only a slight bruise, and has been well looked to,\nand is almost easy now. It made me giddy and faint in a moment. It had\nhurt me before; but at last it overpowered me all at once.'\n\n'May I stay with you until some one comes? Would you like it?'\n\n'I should like it, for it is lonely here; but I am afraid you will feel\nthe cold too much.'\n\n'I don't mind cold. I am not delicate, if I look so.' She quickly moved\none of the two rough chairs to the bedside, and sat down. The other as\nquickly moved a part of some travelling wrapper from herself, and drew\nit over her, so that her arm, in keeping it about her, rested on her\nshoulder.\n\n'You have so much the air of a kind nurse,' said the lady, smiling on\nher, 'that you seem as if you had come to me from home.'\n\n'I am very glad of it.'\n\n'I was dreaming of home when I woke just now. Of my old home, I mean,\nbefore I was married.'\n\n'And before you were so far away from it.'\n\n'I have been much farther away from it than this; but then I took\nthe best part of it with me, and missed nothing. I felt solitary as I\ndropped asleep here, and, missing it a little, wandered back to it.'\n\nThere was a sorrowfully affectionate and regretful sound in her voice,\nwhich made her visitor refrain from looking at her for the moment.\n\n'It is a curious chance which at last brings us together, under this\ncovering in which you have wrapped me,' said the visitor after a\npause; 'for do you know, I think I have been looking for you some time.'\n\n'Looking for me?'\n\n'I believe I have a little note here, which I was to give to you\nwhenever I found you. This is it. Unless I greatly mistake, it is\naddressed to you? Is it not?'\n\nThe lady took it, and said yes, and read it. Her visitor watched her as\nshe did so. It was very short. She flushed a little as she put her lips\nto her visitor's cheek, and pressed her hand.\n\n'The dear young friend to whom he presents me, may be a comfort to me\nat some time, he says. She is truly a comfort to me the first time I see\nher.'\n\n'Perhaps you don't,' said the visitor, hesitating--'perhaps you don't\nknow my story? Perhaps he never told you my story?'\n\n'No.'\n\n'Oh no, why should he! I have scarcely the right to tell it myself at\npresent, because I have been entreated not to do so. There is not much\nin it, but it might account to you for my asking you not to say anything\nabout the letter here. You saw my family with me, perhaps? Some of\nthem--I only say this to you--are a little proud, a little prejudiced.'\n\n'You shall take it back again,' said the other; 'and then my husband is\nsure not to see it. He might see it and speak of it, otherwise, by some\naccident. Will you put it in your bosom again, to be certain?'\n\nShe did so with great care. Her small, slight hand was still upon the\nletter, when they heard some one in the gallery outside.\n\n'I promised,' said the visitor, rising, 'that I would write to him after\nseeing you (I could hardly fail to see you sooner or later), and tell\nhim if you were well and happy. I had better say you were well and\nhappy.'\n\n'Yes, yes, yes! Say I was very well and very happy. And that I thanked\nhim affectionately, and would never forget him.'\n\n'I shall see you in the morning. After that we are sure to meet again\nbefore very long. Good night!'\n\n'Good night. Thank you, thank you. Good night, my dear!'\n\nBoth of them were hurried and fluttered as they exchanged this parting,\nand as the visitor came out of the door. She had expected to meet the\nlady's husband approaching it; but the person in the gallery was not\nhe: it was the traveller who had wiped the wine-drops from his moustache\nwith the piece of bread. When he heard the step behind him, he turned\nround--for he was walking away in the dark.\n\nHis politeness, which was extreme, would not allow of the young lady's\nlighting herself down-stairs, or going down alone. He took her lamp,\nheld it so as to throw the best light on the stone steps, and followed\nher all the way to the supper-room. She went down, not easily hiding how\nmuch she was inclined to shrink and tremble; for the appearance of this\ntraveller was particularly disagreeable to her. She had sat in her quiet\ncorner before supper imagining what he would have been in the scenes and\nplaces within her experience, until he inspired her with an aversion\nthat made him little less than terrific.\n\nHe followed her down with his smiling politeness, followed her in,\nand resumed his seat in the best place in the hearth. There with the\nwood-fire, which was beginning to burn low, rising and falling upon him\nin the dark room, he sat with his legs thrust out to warm, drinking the\nhot wine down to the lees, with a monstrous shadow imitating him on the\nwall and ceiling.\n\nThe tired company had broken up, and all the rest were gone to bed\nexcept the young lady's father, who dozed in his chair by the fire.\nThe traveller had been at the pains of going a long way up-stairs to his\nsleeping-room to fetch his pocket-flask of brandy. He told them so, as\nhe poured its contents into what was left of the wine, and drank with a\nnew relish.\n\n'May I ask, sir, if you are on your way to Italy?'\n\nThe grey-haired gentleman had roused himself, and was preparing to\nwithdraw. He answered in the affirmative.\n\n'I also!' said the traveller. 'I shall hope to have the honour\nof offering my compliments in fairer scenes, and under softer\ncircumstances, than on this dismal mountain.'\n\nThe gentleman bowed, distantly enough, and said he was obliged to him.\n\n'We poor gentlemen, sir,' said the traveller, pulling his moustache dry\nwith his hand, for he had dipped it in the wine and brandy; 'we poor\ngentlemen do not travel like princes, but the courtesies and graces of\nlife are precious to us. To your health, sir!'\n\n'Sir, I thank you.'\n\n'To the health of your distinguished family--of the fair ladies, your\ndaughters!'\n\n'Sir, I thank you again, I wish you good night. My dear, are\nour--ha--our people in attendance?'\n\n'They are close by, father.'\n\n'Permit me!' said the traveller, rising and holding the door open, as\nthe gentleman crossed the room towards it with his arm drawn through his\ndaughter's. 'Good repose! To the pleasure of seeing you once more! To\nto-morrow!'\n\nAs he kissed his hand, with his best manner and his daintiest smile,\nthe young lady drew a little nearer to her father, and passed him with a\ndread of touching him.\n\n'Humph!' said the insinuating traveller, whose manner shrunk, and whose\nvoice dropped when he was left alone. 'If they all go to bed, why I must\ngo. They are in a devil of a hurry. One would think the night would be\nlong enough, in this freezing silence and solitude, if one went to bed\ntwo hours hence.'\n\nThrowing back his head in emptying his glass, he cast his eyes upon the\ntravellers' book, which lay on the piano, open, with pens and ink beside\nit, as if the night's names had been registered when he was absent.\nTaking it in his hand, he read these entries.\n\n\n     William Dorrit, Esquire\n     Frederick Dorrit, Esquire\n     Edward Dorrit, Esquire\n     Miss Dorrit\n     Miss Amy Dorrit\n     Mrs General\n     and Suite.\n     From France to Italy.\n\n     Mr and Mrs Henry Gowan.\n     From France to Italy.\n\n\nTo which he added, in a small complicated hand, ending with a long lean\nflourish, not unlike a lasso thrown at all the rest of the names:\n\n\n     Blandois.  Paris.\n     From France to Italy.\n\n\nAnd then, with his nose coming down over his moustache and his moustache\ngoing up and under his nose, repaired to his allotted cell.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 2. Mrs General\n\n\nIt is indispensable to present the accomplished lady who was of\nsufficient importance in the suite of the Dorrit Family to have a line\nto herself in the Travellers' Book.\n\nMrs General was the daughter of a clerical dignitary in a cathedral\ntown, where she had led the fashion until she was as near forty-five as\na single lady can be. A stiff commissariat officer of sixty, famous as a\nmartinet, had then become enamoured of the gravity with which she drove\nthe proprieties four-in-hand through the cathedral town society, and\nhad solicited to be taken beside her on the box of the cool coach of\nceremony to which that team was harnessed. His proposal of marriage\nbeing accepted by the lady, the commissary took his seat behind\nthe proprieties with great decorum, and Mrs General drove until the\ncommissary died. In the course of their united journey, they ran over\nseveral people who came in the way of the proprieties; but always in a\nhigh style and with composure.\n\nThe commissary having been buried with all the decorations suitable to\nthe service (the whole team of proprieties were harnessed to his hearse,\nand they all had feathers and black velvet housings with his coat of\narms in the corner), Mrs General began to inquire what quantity of dust\nand ashes was deposited at the bankers'. It then transpired that the\ncommissary had so far stolen a march on Mrs General as to have bought\nhimself an annuity some years before his marriage, and to have reserved\nthat circumstance in mentioning, at the period of his proposal, that\nhis income was derived from the interest of his money. Mrs General\nconsequently found her means so much diminished, that, but for the\nperfect regulation of her mind, she might have felt disposed to question\nthe accuracy of that portion of the late service which had declared that\nthe commissary could take nothing away with him.\n\nIn this state of affairs it occurred to Mrs General, that she might\n'form the mind,' and eke the manners of some young lady of distinction.\nOr, that she might harness the proprieties to the carriage of some rich\nyoung heiress or widow, and become at once the driver and guard of such\nvehicle through the social mazes. Mrs General's communication of this\nidea to her clerical and commissariat connection was so warmly applauded\nthat, but for the lady's undoubted merit, it might have appeared as\nthough they wanted to get rid of her. Testimonials representing Mrs\nGeneral as a prodigy of piety, learning, virtue, and gentility, were\nlavishly contributed from influential quarters; and one venerable\narchdeacon even shed tears in recording his testimony to her perfections\n(described to him by persons on whom he could rely), though he had never\nhad the honour and moral gratification of setting eyes on Mrs General in\nall his life.\n\nThus delegated on her mission, as it were by Church and State, Mrs\nGeneral, who had always occupied high ground, felt in a condition to\nkeep it, and began by putting herself up at a very high figure. An\ninterval of some duration elapsed, in which there was no bid for Mrs\nGeneral. At length a county-widower, with a daughter of fourteen, opened\nnegotiations with the lady; and as it was a part either of the native\ndignity or of the artificial policy of Mrs General (but certainly one\nor the other) to comport herself as if she were much more sought than\nseeking, the widower pursued Mrs General until he prevailed upon her to\nform his daughter's mind and manners.\n\nThe execution of this trust occupied Mrs General about seven years, in\nthe course of which time she made the tour of Europe, and saw most of\nthat extensive miscellany of objects which it is essential that all\npersons of polite cultivation should see with other people's eyes,\nand never with their own. When her charge was at length formed, the\nmarriage, not only of the young lady, but likewise of her father, the\nwidower, was resolved on. The widower then finding Mrs General both\ninconvenient and expensive, became of a sudden almost as much affected\nby her merits as the archdeacon had been, and circulated such praises\nof her surpassing worth, in all quarters where he thought an opportunity\nmight arise of transferring the blessing to somebody else, that Mrs\nGeneral was a name more honourable than ever.\n\nThe phoenix was to let, on this elevated perch, when Mr Dorrit, who\nhad lately succeeded to his property, mentioned to his bankers that he\nwished to discover a lady, well-bred, accomplished, well connected, well\naccustomed to good society, who was qualified at once to complete the\neducation of his daughters, and to be their matron or chaperon. Mr\nDorrit's bankers, as bankers of the county-widower, instantly said, 'Mrs\nGeneral.'\n\nPursuing the light so fortunately hit upon, and finding the concurrent\ntestimony of the whole of Mrs General's acquaintance to be of the\npathetic nature already recorded, Mr Dorrit took the trouble of going\ndown to the county of the county-widower to see Mrs General, in whom he\nfound a lady of a quality superior to his highest expectations.\n\n'Might I be excused,' said Mr Dorrit, 'if I inquired--ha--what remune--'\n\n'Why, indeed,' returned Mrs General, stopping the word, 'it is a subject\non which I prefer to avoid entering. I have never entered on it with my\nfriends here; and I cannot overcome the delicacy, Mr Dorrit, with\nwhich I have always regarded it. I am not, as I hope you are aware, a\ngoverness--'\n\n'O dear no!' said Mr Dorrit. 'Pray, madam, do not imagine for a moment\nthat I think so.' He really blushed to be suspected of it.\n\nMrs General gravely inclined her head. 'I cannot, therefore, put a price\nupon services which it is a pleasure to me to render if I can render\nthem spontaneously, but which I could not render in mere return for any\nconsideration. Neither do I know how, or where, to find a case parallel\nto my own. It is peculiar.'\n\nNo doubt. But how then (Mr Dorrit not unnaturally hinted) could the\nsubject be approached?\n\n'I cannot object,' said Mrs General--'though even that is disagreeable\nto me--to Mr Dorrit's inquiring, in confidence of my friends here, what\namount they have been accustomed, at quarterly intervals, to pay to my\ncredit at my bankers'.'\n\nMr Dorrit bowed his acknowledgements.\n\n'Permit me to add,' said Mrs General, 'that beyond this, I can never\nresume the topic. Also that I can accept no second or inferior position.\nIf the honour were proposed to me of becoming known to Mr Dorrit's\nfamily--I think two daughters were mentioned?--'\n\n'Two daughters.'\n\n'I could only accept it on terms of perfect equality, as a companion,\nprotector, Mentor, and friend.'\n\nMr Dorrit, in spite of his sense of his importance, felt as if it would\nbe quite a kindness in her to accept it on any conditions. He almost\nsaid as much.\n\n'I think,' repeated Mrs General, 'two daughters were mentioned?'\n\n'Two daughters,' said Mr Dorrit again.\n\n'It would therefore,' said Mrs General, 'be necessary to add a third\nmore to the payment (whatever its amount may prove to be), which my\nfriends here have been accustomed to make to my bankers'.'\n\nMr Dorrit lost no time in referring the delicate question to the\ncounty-widower, and finding that he had been accustomed to pay three\nhundred pounds a-year to the credit of Mrs General, arrived, without any\nsevere strain on his arithmetic, at the conclusion that he himself must\npay four. Mrs General being an article of that lustrous surface which\nsuggests that it is worth any money, he made a formal proposal to be\nallowed to have the honour and pleasure of regarding her as a member of\nhis family. Mrs General conceded that high privilege, and here she was.\n\nIn person, Mrs General, including her skirts which had much to do with\nit, was of a dignified and imposing appearance; ample, rustling, gravely\nvoluminous; always upright behind the proprieties. She might have\nbeen taken--had been taken--to the top of the Alps and the bottom of\nHerculaneum, without disarranging a fold in her dress, or displacing\na pin. If her countenance and hair had rather a floury appearance, as\nthough from living in some transcendently genteel Mill, it was rather\nbecause she was a chalky creation altogether, than because she mended\nher complexion with violet powder, or had turned grey. If her eyes had\nno expression, it was probably because they had nothing to express. If\nshe had few wrinkles, it was because her mind had never traced its name\nor any other inscription on her face. A cool, waxy, blown-out woman, who\nhad never lighted well.\n\nMrs General had no opinions. Her way of forming a mind was to prevent it\nfrom forming opinions. She had a little circular set of mental grooves\nor rails on which she started little trains of other people's opinions,\nwhich never overtook one another, and never got anywhere. Even her\npropriety could not dispute that there was impropriety in the world; but\nMrs General's way of getting rid of it was to put it out of sight, and\nmake believe that there was no such thing. This was another of her ways\nof forming a mind--to cram all articles of difficulty into cupboards,\nlock them up, and say they had no existence. It was the easiest way,\nand, beyond all comparison, the properest.\n\nMrs General was not to be told of anything shocking. Accidents,\nmiseries, and offences, were never to be mentioned before her. Passion\nwas to go to sleep in the presence of Mrs General, and blood was to\nchange to milk and water. The little that was left in the world,\nwhen all these deductions were made, it was Mrs General's province to\nvarnish. In that formation process of hers, she dipped the smallest of\nbrushes into the largest of pots, and varnished the surface of every\nobject that came under consideration. The more cracked it was, the more\nMrs General varnished it.\n\nThere was varnish in Mrs General's voice, varnish in Mrs General's\ntouch, an atmosphere of varnish round Mrs General's figure. Mrs\nGeneral's dreams ought to have been varnished--if she had any--lying\nasleep in the arms of the good Saint Bernard, with the feathery snow\nfalling on his house-top.\n\n\n\n\nCHAPTER 3. On the Road\n\n\nThe bright morning sun dazzled the eyes, the snow had ceased, the mists\nhad vanished, the mountain air was so clear and light that the\nnew sensation of breathing it was like the having entered on a new\nexistence. To help the delusion, the solid ground itself seemed gone,\nand the mountain, a shining waste of immense white heaps and masses, to\nbe a region of cloud floating between the blue sky above and the earth\nfar below.\n\nSome dark specks in the snow, like knots upon a little thread, beginning\nat the convent door and winding away down the descent in broken lengths\nwhich were not yet pieced together, showed where the Brethren were at\nwork in several places clearing the track. Already the snow had begun to\nbe foot-thawed again about the door. Mules were busily brought out, tied\nto the rings in the wall, and laden; strings of bells were buckled\non, burdens were adjusted, the voices of drivers and riders sounded\nmusically. Some of the earliest had even already resumed their journey;\nand, both on the level summit by the dark water near the convent, and on\nthe downward way of yesterday's ascent, little moving figures of men and\nmules, reduced to miniatures by the immensity around, went with a clear\ntinkling of bells and a pleasant harmony of tongues.\n\nIn the supper-room of last night, a new fire, piled upon the feathery\nashes of the old one, shone upon a homely breakfast of loaves, butter,\nand milk. It also shone on the courier of the Dorrit family, making tea\nfor his party from a supply he had brought up with him, together with\nseveral other small stores which were chiefly laid in for the use of the\nstrong body of inconvenience. Mr Gowan and Blandois of Paris had already\nbreakfasted, and were walking up and down by the lake, smoking their\ncigars.\n\n'Gowan, eh?' muttered Tip, otherwise Edward Dorrit, Esquire, turning\nover the leaves of the book, when the courier had left them to\nbreakfast. 'Then Gowan is the name of a puppy, that's all I have got to\nsay! If it was worth my while, I'd pull his nose. But it isn't worth my\nwhile--fortunately for him. How's his wife, Amy? I suppose you know.\nYou generally know things of that sort.'\n\n'She is better, Edward. But they are not going to-day.'\n\n'Oh! They are not going to-day! Fortunately for that fellow too,' said\nTip, 'or he and I might have come into collision.'\n\n'It is thought better here that she should lie quiet to-day, and not be\nfatigued and shaken by the ride down until to-morrow.'\n\n'With all my heart. But you talk as if you had been nursing her. You\nhaven't been relapsing into (Mrs General is not here) into old habits,\nhave you, Amy?'\n\nHe asked her the question with a sly glance of observation at Miss\nFanny, and at his father too.\n\n'I have only been in to ask her if I could do anything for her, Tip,'\nsaid Little Dorrit.\n\n'You needn't call me Tip, Amy child,' returned that young gentleman\nwith a frown; 'because that's an old habit, and one you may as well lay\naside.'\n\n'I didn't mean to say so, Edward dear. I forgot. It was so natural once,\nthat it seemed at the moment the right word.'\n\n'Oh yes!' Miss Fanny struck in. 'Natural, and right word, and once, and\nall the rest of it! Nonsense, you little thing! I know perfectly well\nwhy you have been taking such an interest in this Mrs Gowan. You can't\nblind _me_.'\n\n'I will not try to, Fanny. Don't be angry.'\n\n'Oh! angry!' returned that young lady with a flounce. 'I have no\npatience' (which indeed was the truth).\n\n'Pray, Fanny,' said Mr Dorrit, raising his eyebrows, 'what do you mean?\nExplain yourself.'\n\n'Oh! Never mind, Pa,' replied Miss Fanny, 'it's no great matter.\nAmy will understand me. She knew, or knew of, this Mrs Gowan before\nyesterday, and she may as well admit that she did.'\n\n'My child,' said Mr Dorrit, turning to his younger daughter, 'has your\nsister--any--ha--authority for this curious statement?'\n\n'However meek we are,' Miss Fanny struck in before she could answer, 'we\ndon't go creeping into people's rooms on the tops of cold mountains,\nand sitting perishing in the frost with people, unless we know something\nab