LITTLE DORRIT


By Charles Dickens


Book 1: Poverty

Chapter 1

Sun And Shadow

Thirty years ago, Marseilles lay burning in the sun one day.
A blazing sun upon a fierce August day was no greater rarity in southern 
France then than at any other time, before or since. Everything in 
Marseilles, and about Marseilles, had stared at the fervid sky, and been 
stared at in return, until a staring habit had become universal there. 
Strangers were stared out of countenance by staring white houses, staring 
white walls, staring white streets, staring tracts of arid road, staring 
hills from which verdure was burnt away. The only things to be seen not 
fixedly staring and glaring were the vines drooping under their load of 
grapes. These did occasionally wink a little, as the hot air barely moved 
their faint leaves.
There was no wind to make a ripple on the foul water within the harbour, or 
on the beautiful sea without. The line of demarcation between the two 
colours, black and blue, showed the point which the pure sea would not 
pass; but it lay as quiet as the abominable pool, with which it never 
mixed. Boats without awnings were too hot to touch; ships blistered at 
their moorings; the stones of the quays had not cooled, night or day, for 
months. Hindoos, Russians, Chinese, Spaniards, Portuguese, Englishmen, 
Frenchmen, Genoese, Neapolitans, Venetians, Greeks, Turks, descendants from 
all the builders of Babel, come to trade at Marseilles, sought the shade 
alike - taking refuge in any hiding-place from a sea too intensely blue to 
be looked at, and a sky of purple, set with one great flaming jewel of 
fire.
The universal stare made the eyes ache. Towards the distant line of Italian 
coast, indeed, it was a little relieved by light clouds of mist, slowly 
rising from the evaporation of the sea, but it softened nowhere else. Far 
away the staring roads, deep in dust, stared from the hillside, stared from 
the hollow, stared from the interminable plain. Far away the dusty vines 
overhanging wayside cottages, and the monotonous wayside avenues of parched 
trees without shade, drooped beneath the stare of earth and sky. So did the 
horses with drowsy bells, in long files of carts, creeping slowly towards 
the interior; so did their recumbent drivers, when they were awake, which 
rarely happened; so did the exhausted labourers in the fields. Everything 
that lived or grew was oppressed by the glare; except the lizard, passing 
swiftly over rough stone walls, and the cicala, chirping his dry hot chirp, 
like a rattle. The very dust was scorched brown, and something quivered in 
the atmosphere as if the air itself were panting.
Blinds, shutters, curtains, awnings, were all closed and drawn to keep out 
the stare. Grant it but a chink or keyhole, and it shot in like a white-hot 
arrow. The churches were the freest from it. To come out of the twilight of 
pillars and arches - dreamily dotted with winking lamps, dreamily peopled 
with ugly old shadows piously dozing, spitting, and begging - was to plunge 
into a fiery river, and swim for life to the nearest strip of shade. So, 
with people lounging and lying wherever shade was, with but little hum of 
tongues or barking of dogs, with occasional jangling of discordant church 
bells and rattling of vicious drums, Marseilles, a fact to be strongly 
smelt and tasted, lay broiling in the sun one day.
In Marseilles that day there was a villainous prison. In one of its 
chambers, so repulsive a place that even the obtrusive stare blinked at it, 
and left it to such refuse of reflected light as it could find for itself, 
were two men. Besides the two men, a notched and disfigured bench, 
immovable from the wall, with a draught-board rudely hacked upon it with a 
knife a set of draughts made of old buttons and soup bones, a set of 
dominoes, two mats, and two or three wine bottles. That was all the chamber 
held, exclusive of rats and other unseen vermin, in addition to the seen 
vermin, the two men.
It received such light as it got, through a grating of iron bars, fashioned 
like a pretty large window, by means of which it could be always inspected 
from the gloomy staircase on which the grating gave. There was a broad 
strong ledge of stone to this grating, where the bottom of it was let into 
the masonry, three or four feet above the ground. Upon it one of the two 
men lolled, half sitting and half lying, with his knees drawn up, and his 
feet and shoulders planted against the opposite sides of the aperture. The 
bars were wide enough apart to admit of his thrusting his arm through to 
the elbow; and so he held on negligently, for his greater ease.
A prison taint was on everything there. The imprisoned air, the imprisoned 
light, the imprisoned damps, the imprisoned men, were all deteriorated by 
confinement. As the captive men were faded and haggard, so the iron was 
rusty, the stone was slimy, the wood was rotten, the air was faint, the 
light was dim. Like a well, like a vault, like a tomb, the prison had no 
knowledge of the brightness outside; and would have kept its polluted 
atmosphere intact, in one of the spice islands in the Indian Ocean.
The man who lay on the ledge of the grating was even chilled. He jerked his 
great cloak more heavily upon him by an impatient movement of one shoulder, 
and growled, "To the devil with this Brigand of a Sun that never shines in 
here!"
He was waiting to be fed; looking sideways through the bars, that he might 
see the further down the stairs, with much of the expression of a wild 
beast in similar expectation. But his eyes, too close together, were not so 
nobly set in his head as those of the king of beasts are in his, and they 
were sharp rather than bright - pointed weapons with little surface to 
betray them. They had no depth or change; they glittered, and they opened 
and shut. So far, and waiving their use to himself, a clock-maker could 
have made a better pair. He had a hook nose, handsome after its kind, but 
too high between the eyes, by probably just as much as his eyes were too 
near to one another. For the rest he was large and tall in frame, had thin 
lips where his thick moustache showed them at all, and a quantity of dry 
hair, of no definable colour, in its shaggy state, but shot with red. The 
hand with which he held the grating (seamed all over the back with ugly 
scratches newly healed) was unusually small and plump; would have been 
unusually white, but for the prison grime.
The other man was lying on the stone floor, covered with a coarse brown 
coat.
"Get up, pig!" growled the first. "Don't sleep when I am hungry."
"It's all one, master," said the pig, in a submissive manner, and not 
without cheerfulness; "I can wake when I will, I can sleep when I will. 
It's all the same."
As he said it, he rose, shook himself, scratched himself, tied his brown 
coat loosely round his neck by the sleeves (he had previously used it as a 
coverlet), and sat down upon the pavement yawning, with his back against 
the wall opposite to the grating.
"Say what the hour is," grumbled the first man.
"The midday bells will ring - in forty minutes." When he made the little 
pause, he had looked round the prison-room, as if for certain information.
"You are a clock. How is it that you always know?"
"How can I say! I always know what the hour is, and where I am. I was 
brought in here at night, and out of a boat, but I know where I am. See 
here! Marseilles Harbour;" on his knees on the pavement, mapping it all out 
with a swarthy forefinger; "Toulon (where the galleys are), Spain over 
there, Algiers over there. Creeping away to the left here, Nice. Round by 
the Cornice to Genoa. Genoa Mole and Harbour. Quarantine Ground City there; 
terrace-gardens blushing with the bella donna. Here, Porto Fino. Stand out 
for Leghorn. Out again for Civita Vecchia. So away to - hey! there's no 
room for Naples;" he had got the wall by this time; "but it's all one; it's 
in there!"
He remained on his knees, looking up at his fellow prisoner with a lively 
look for a prison. A sunburnt, quick, lithe, little man, though rather 
thickset. Earrings in his brown ears, white teeth lighting up his grotesque 
brown face, intensely black hair clustering about his brown throat, a 
ragged red shirt open at his brown breast. Loose, seamanlike trousers, 
decent shoes, a long red cap, a red sash round his waist, and a knife in 
it.
"Judge if I come back from Naples as I went! See here, my master! Civita 
Vecchia, Leghorn, Porto Fino, Genoa, Cornice, Off Nice (which is in there), 
Marseilles, you and me. The apartment of the jailer and his keys is where I 
put this thumb; and here at my wrist, they keep the national razor in its 
case - the guillotine locked up."
The other man spat suddenly on the pavement, and gurgled in his throat.
Some lock below gurgled it its throat immediately afterwards, and then a 
door clashed. Slow steps began ascending the stairs; the prattle of a sweet 
little voice mingled with the noise they made; and the prison-keeper 
appeared carrying his daughter, three or four years old, and a basket.
"How goes the world this forenoon, gentleman? My little one, you see, going 
round with me to have a peep at her father's birds. Fie, then! Look at the 
birds, my pretty, look at the birds."
He looked sharply at the birds himself, as he held the child up at the 
grate, especially at the little bird, whose activity he seemed to mistrust. 
"I have brought your bread, Signor John Baptist," said he, (they all spoke 
in French, but the little man was an Italian); "and if I might recommend 
you not to game -"
"You don't recommend the master?" said John Baptist, showing his teeth as 
he smiled.
"Oh! but the master wins," returned the jailer, with a passing look of no 
particular liking at the other man, "and you lose. It's quite another 
thing. You get husky bread and sour drink by it; and he gets sausage of 
Lyons, veal in savoury jelly, white bread, strachino cheese, and good wine 
by it. Look at the birds, my pretty!"
"Poor birds!" said the child.
The fair little face, touched with divine compassion, as it peeped 
shrinkingly through the grate, was like an angel's in the prison. John 
Baptist rose and moved towards it, as if it had a good attraction for him. 
The other bird remained as before, except for an impatient glance at the 
basket.
"Stay!" said the jailer, putting his little daughter on the outer ledge of 
the grate, "she shall feed the birds. This big loaf is for Signor John 
Baptist. We must break it to get it through into the cage. So, there's a 
tame bird, to kiss the little hand! This sausage in a vine-leaf is for 
Monsieur Rigaud. Again - this veal in savoury jelly is for Monsieur Rigaud. 
Again - these three white little loaves are for Monsieur Rigaud. Again, 
this cheese - again, this wine - again, this tobacco - all for Monsieur 
Rigaud. Lucky bird!" The child put all these things between the bars into 
the soft, smooth, well-shaped hand, with evident dread - more than once 
drawing back her own, and looking at the man with her fair brow roughened 
into an expression half of fright and half of anger. Whereas, she had put 
the lump of coarse bread into the swart, scaled, knotted hands of John 
Baptist (who had scarcely as much nail on his eight fingers and two thumbs 
as would have made out one for Monsieur Rigaud), with ready confidence: 
and, when he kissed her hand, had herself passed it carelessly over his 
face. Monsieur Rigaud, indifferent to this distinction, propitiated the 
father by laughing and nodding at the daughters as often as she gave him 
anything; and, so soon as he had all his viands about him in convenient 
nooks of the ledge on which he rested, began to eat with an appetite.
When Monsieur Rigaud laughed, a change took place in his face, that was 
more remarkable than prepossessing, His moustache went up under his nose, 
and his nose came down over his moustache, in a very sinister and cruel 
manner.
"There!" said the jailer, turning his basket upside down to beat the crumbs 
out, "I have expended all the money I received; here is the note of it, and 
that's a thing accomplished. Monsieur Rigaud, as I expected yesterday, the 
President will look for the pleasure of your society at an hour after 
midday, today."
"To try me, eh?" said Rigaud, pausing, knife in hand and morsel in mouth.
"You have said it. To try you."
"There is no news for me?" asked John Baptist, who had begun, contentedly, 
to munch his bread.
The jailer shrugged his shoulders.
"Lady of mine! Am I to lie here all my life, my father?"
"What do I know?" cried the jailer, turning upon him with southern 
quickness, and gesticulating with both his hands, and all his fingers, as 
if he were threatening to tear him to pieces. "My friend, how is it 
possible for me to tell how long you are to lie here? What do I know, John 
Baptist Cavalletto? Death of my life! There are prisoners here sometimes, 
who are not in such a devil of a hurry to be tried."
He seemed to glance obliquely at Monsieur Rigaud in this remark; but 
Monsieur Rigaud had already resumed his meal, though not with quite as 
quick an appetite as before.
"Adieu, my birds!" said the keeper of the prison, taking his pretty child 
in his arms, and dictating the words with a kiss.
"Adieu, my birds!" the pretty child repeated.
Her innocent face looked back so brightly over his shoulder, as he walked 
away with her, singing her the song of the child's game:

"Who passes by this road so late?
Compagnon de la Majolaine! 
Who passes by this road so late?
Always gay!"

that John Baptist felt it a point of honour to reply at the grate, and in 
good time and tune, though a little hoarsely:

"Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower,
Compagnon de la Majolaine! 
Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower,
Always gay!"

Which accompanied them so far down the few steep stairs, that the prison-
keeper had to stop at last for his little daughter to hear the song out, 
and repeat the Refrain while they were yet in sight. Then the child's head 
disappeared, and the prison-keeper's head disappeared, but the little voice 
prolonged the strain until the door clashed.
Monsieur Rigaud, finding the listening John Baptist in his way before the 
echoes had ceased (even the echoes were the weaker for imprisonment, and 
seemed to lag), reminded him with a push of his foot that he had better 
resume his own darker place. The little man sat down again upon the 
pavement, with the negligent ease of one who was thoroughly accustomed to 
pavements; and placing three hunks of coarse bread before himself, and 
falling to upon a fourth, began contentedly to work his way through them, 
as if to clear them off were a sort of game.
Perhaps he glanced at the Lyons sausage, and perhaps he glanced at the veal 
in savoury jelly, but they were not there long, to make his mouth water; 
Monsieur Rigaud soon dispatched them, in spite of the president and 
tribunal, and proceeded to suck his fingers as clean as he could, and to 
wipe them on his vine leaves. Then, as he paused in his drink to 
contemplate his fellow-prisoner, his moustache went up, and his nose came 
down.
"How do you find the bread?"
"A little dry, but I have my old sauce here," returned John Baptist, 
holding up his knife.
"How sauce?"
"I can cut my bread so - like a melon. Or so - like an omelette. Or so - 
like a fried fish. Or so - like Lyons sausage," said John Baptist, 
demonstrating the various cuts on the bread he held, and soberly chewing 
what he had in his mouth.
"Here!" cried Monsieur Rigaud. "You may drink. You finish this."
It was no great gift, for there was mighty little wine left; but Signor 
Cavalletto, jumping to his feet, received the bottle gratefully, turned it 
upside down at his mouth, and smacked his lips.
"Put the bottle by with the rest," said Rigaud.
The little man obeyed his orders, and stood ready to give him a lighted 
match; for he was now rolling his tobacco into cigarettes, by the aid of 
little squares of paper which had been brought in with it.
"Here! You may have one."
"A thousand thanks, my master!" John Baptist said it in his own language, 
and with the quick conciliatory manner of his own countrymen.
Monsieur Rigaud arose, lighted a cigarette, put the rest of his stock into 
a breast pocket, and stretched himself out at full length upon the bench. 
Cavalletto sat down on the pavement, holding one of his ankles in each 
hand, and smoking peacefully. There seemed to be some uncomfortable 
attraction of Monsieur Rigaud's eyes to the immediate neighbourhood of that 
part of the pavement where the thumb had been in the plan. They were so 
drawn in that direction, that the Italian more than once followed them to 
and back the pavement in some surprise.
"What an infernal hole this is!" said Monsieur Rigaud, breaking a long 
pause. "Look at the light of day. Day? the light of yesterday week, the 
light of six months ago, the light of six years ago. So slack and dead!"
It came languishing down a square funnel that blinded a window in the 
staircase wall, through which the sky was never seen - nor anything else.
"Cavalletto," said Monsieur Rigaud, suddenly, withdrawing his gaze from 
this funnel, to which they had both involuntarily turned their eyes, "you 
know me for a gentleman?"
"Surely, surely!"
"How long have we been here?"
"I, eleven weeks, tomorrow night at midnight. You nine weeks and three 
days, at five this afternoon."
"Have I ever done anything here? Ever touched the broom, or spread the 
mats, or rolled them up, or found the draughts, or collected the dominoes, 
or put my hand to any kind of work?"
"Never!"
"Have you ever thought of looking to me to do any kind of work?"
John Baptist answered with that peculiar back-handed shake of the right 
forefinger which is the most expressive negative in the Italian language.
"No! You knew from the first moment when you saw me here, that I was a 
gentleman?"
"Altro!" returned John Baptist, closing his eyes and giving his head a most 
vehement toss. The word being, according to its Genoese emphasis, a 
confirmation, a contradiction, an assertion, a denial, a taunt, a 
compliment, a joke, and fifty other things, became in the present instance, 
with a significance beyond all power of written expression, our familiar 
English "I believe you!"
"Ha ha! You are right! A gentleman I am! And a gentleman I'll live, and a 
gentleman I'll die! It's my intent to be a gentleman. It's my game. Death 
of my soul, I play it out wherever I go!"
He changed his posture to a sitting one, crying with a triumphant air:
"Here I am? See me! Shaken out of destiny's dice-box into the company of a 
mere smuggler; shut up with a poor little contraband trader, whose papers 
are wrong, and whom the police lay hold of besides, for placing his boat 
(as a means of getting beyond the frontier) at the disposition of other 
little people whose papers are wrong; and he instinctively recognises my 
position, even by this light and in this place. It's well done. By Heaven! 
I win, however the game goes."
Again his moustache went up, and his nose came down.
"What's the hour, now?" he asked, with a dry, hot pallor upon him, rather 
difficult of association with merriment.
"A little half-hour after midday."
"Good! The President will have a gentleman before him soon. Come! Shall I 
tell you on what accusation? It must be now, or never, for I shall not 
return here. Either I shall go free, or I shall go to be made ready for 
shaving. You know where they keep the razor."
Signor Cavalletto took his cigarette from between his parted lips, and 
showed more momentary discomfiture than might have been expected.
"I am a" - Monsieur Rigaud stood up to say it - "I am a cosmopolitan 
gentleman. I own no particular country. My father was Swiss - Canton de 
Vaud. My mother was French by blood, English by birth. I myself was born in 
Belgium. I am a citizen of the world."
His theatrical air, as he stood with one arm on his hip, within the folds 
of his cloak, together with his manner of disregarding his companion and 
addressing the opposite wall instead, seemed to intimate that he was 
rehearsing for the President, whose examination he was shortly to undergo, 
rather than troubling himself merely to enlighten so small a person as John 
Baptist Cavalletto.
"Call me five-and-thirty years of age. I have seen the world. I have lived 
here, and lived there, and lived like a gentleman everywhere. I have been 
treated and respected as a gentleman universally. If you try to prejudice 
me, by making out that I have lived by my wits - how do your lawyers live - 
your politicians - your intriguers - your men of the Exchange?"
He kept his small, smooth hand in constant requisition, as if it were a 
witness to his gentility, that had often done him good service before.
"Two years ago I came to Marseilles. I admit that I was poor; I had been 
ill. When your lawyers, your politicians, your intriguers, your men of the 
Exchange fall ill, and have not scraped money together, they become poor. I 
put up at the Cross of Gold - kept then by Monsieur Henri Barronneau - 
sixty-five at least, and in a failing state of health. I had lived in the 
house some four months, when Monsieur Henri Barronneau had the misfortune 
to die; at any rate, not a rare misfortune, that. It happens without any 
aid of mine, pretty often."
John Baptist having smoked his cigarette down to his fingers' ends, 
Monsieur Rigaud had the magnanimity to throw him another. He lighted the 
second at the ashes of the first, and smoked on, looking sideways at his 
companion, who, preoccupied with his own case, hardly looked at him.
"Monsieur Barronneau left a widow. She was two-and-twenty. She had gained a 
reputation for beauty, and (which is often another thing) was beautiful. I 
continued to live at the Cross of Gold. I married Madame Barronneau. It is 
not for me to say whether there was any great disparity in such a match. 
Here I stand with the contamination of a jail upon me; but it is possible 
that you may think me better suited to her than her former husband was."
He had a certain air of being a handsome man - which he was not; and a 
certain air of being a well-bred man - which he was not. It was mere 
swagger and challenge; but in this particular, as in many others, 
blustering assertion goes for proof, half over the world.
"Be it as it may, Madame Barronneau approved of me. That is not to 
prejudice me I hope?"
His eye happening to light upon John Baptist with this inquiry, that little 
man briskly shook his head in the negative, and repeated in an 
argumentative tone under his breath, altro, altro, altro, altro - an 
infinite number of times.
"Now came the difficulties of our position. I am proud. I say nothing in 
defence of pride, but I am proud. It is also my character to govern. I 
can't submit; I must govern. Unfortunately, the property of Madame Rigaud 
was settled upon herself. Such was the insane act of her late husband. More 
unfortunately still, she had relations. When a wife's relations interpose 
against a husband who is a gentleman, who is proud and who must govern, the 
consequences are inimical to peace. There was yet another source of 
difference between us. Madame Rigaud was unfortunately a little vulgar. I 
sought to improve her manners and ameliorate her general tone; she 
(supported in this likewise by her relations) resented my endeavours. 
Quarrels began to arise between us; and, propagated and exaggerated by the 
slanders of the relations of Madame Rigaud, to become notorious to the 
neighbours. It has been said that I treated Madame Rigaud with cruelty. I 
may have been seen to slap her face - nothing more. I have a light hand; 
and if I have been seen apparently to correct Madame Rigaud in that manner, 
I have done it almost playfully." If the playfulness of Monsieur Rigaud 
were at all expressed by his smile at this point, the relations of Madame 
Rigaud might have said that they would have much preferred his correcting 
that unfortunate woman seriously.
"I am sensitive and brave. I do not advance it as a merit to be sensitive 
and brave, but it is my character. If the male relations of Madame Rigaud 
had put themselves forward openly, I should have known how to deal with 
them. They knew that, and their machinations were conducted in secret; 
consequently, Madame Rigaud and I were brought into frequent and 
unfortunate collision. Even when I wanted any little sum of money for my 
personal expenses, I could not obtain it without collision - and I too, a 
man whose character it is to govern! One night, Madame Rigaud and myself 
were walking amicably - I may say like lovers - on a height overhanging the 
sea. An evil star occasioned Madame Rigaud to advert to her relations; I 
reasoned with her on that subject, and remonstrated on the want of duty and 
devotion manifested in her allowing herself to be influenced by their 
jealous animosity towards her husband. Madame Rigaud retorted, I retorted. 
Madame Rigaud grew warm; I grew warm, and provoked her. I admit it. 
Frankness is a part of my character. At length, Madame Rigaud, in an access 
of fury that I must ever deplore, threw herself upon me with screams of 
passion (no doubt those that were overheard at some distance), tore my 
clothes, tore my hair, lacerated my hands, trampled and trod the dust, and 
finally leaped over, dashing herself to death upon the rocks below. Such is 
the train of incidents which malice has perverted into my endeavouring to 
force from Madame Rigaud a relinquishment of her rights; and, on her 
persistence in a refusal to make the concession I required, struggling with 
her - assassinating her!"
He stepped aside to the ledge where the vine-leaves yet lay strewn about, 
collected two or three, and stood wiping his hands upon them, with his back 
to the light.
"Well," he demanded after a silence, "have you nothing to say to all that?"
"It's ugly," returned the little man, who had risen, and was brightening 
his knife upon his shoe, as he leaned an arm against the wall.
"What do you mean?"
John Baptist polished his knife in silence.
"Do you mean that I have not represented the case correctly?"
"Al-tro!" returned John Baptist. The word was my apology now, and stood 
for, "Oh, by no means!"
"What then?"
"Presidents and tribunals are so prejudiced."
"Well!" cried the other uneasily flinging the end of his cloak over his 
shoulder with an oath, "Let them do their worst!"
"Truly I think they will," murmured John Baptist to himself, as he bent his 
head to put his knife in his sash.
Nothing more was said on either side, though they both began walking to and 
fro, and necessarily crossed at every turn. Monsieur Rigaud sometimes half 
stopped, as if he were going to put his case in a new light, or make some 
irate remonstrance; but Signor Cavalletto continuing to go slowly to and 
fro at a grotesque kind of jog-trot pace, with his eyes turned downward, 
nothing came of these inclinings.
By-and-by the noise of the key in the lock arrested them both. The sound of 
voices succeeded, and the treat of feet. The door clashed, the voices and 
the feet came on, and the prison-keeper slowly ascended the stairs, 
followed by a guard of soldiers.
"Now, Monsieur Rigaud," said he, pausing for a moment at the grate, with 
his keys in his hand, "have the goodness to come out."
"I am to depart in state, I see?"
"Why, unless you did," returned the jailer, "you might depart in so many 
pieces that it would be difficult to get you together again. There's a 
crowd, Monsieur Rigaud, and it doesn't love you."
He passed on out of sight, and unlocked and unbarred a low door in the 
corner of the chamber. "Now," said he, as he opened it and appeared within, 
"come out."
There is no sort of whiteness in all the hues under the sun, at all like 
the whiteness of Monsieur Rigaud's face as it was then. Neither is there 
any expression of the human countenance at all like that expression, in 
every little line of which the frightened heart is seen to beat. Both are 
conventionally compared with death; but the difference is the whole deep 
gulf between the struggle done, and the fight at its most desperate 
extremity.
He lighted another of his paper cigars at his companion's; put it tightly 
between his teeth; covered his head with a soft slouched hat; threw the end 
of his cloak over his shoulder again; and walked out into the side gallery 
on which the door opened, without taking any further notice of Signor 
Cavalletto. As to that little man himself, his whole attention had become 
absorbed in getting near the door, and looking out at it. Precisely as a 
beast might approach the opened gate of his den and eye the freedom beyond, 
he passed those few moments in watching and peering, until the door was 
closed upon him.
There was an officer in command of the soldiers; a stout, serviceable, 
profoundly calm man, with his drawn sword in his hand, smoking a cigar. He 
very briefly directed the placing of Monsieur Rigaud in the midst of the 
party, put himself with consummate indifference at their head, gave the 
word "march!" and so they all went jingling down the staircase. The door 
clashed - the key turned - and a ray of unusual light, and a breath of 
unusual air, seemed to have passed through the jail, vanishing in a tiny 
wreath of smoke from the cigar. Still, in his captivity, like a lower 
animal - like some impatient ape, or roused bear of the smaller species - 
the prisoner, now felt solitary, had jumped upon the ledge, to lose no 
glimpse of this departure. As he yet stood clasping the grate with both 
hands, an uproar broke upon his hearing; yells, shrieks, oaths, threats, 
execrations, all comprehended in it, though (as in a storm) nothing but a 
raging swell of sound distinctly heard.
Excited into a still greater resemblance to a caged wild animal by his 
anxiety to know more, the prisoner leaped nimbly down, ran round the 
chamber, leaped nimbly up again, clasped the grate and tried to shake it, 
leaped down and ran, leaped up and listened, and never rested until the 
noise, becoming more and more distant, had died away. How many better 
prisoners have worn their noble hearts out so; no man thinking of it; not 
even the beloved of their souls realising it; great kings and governors, 
who had made them captive, careering in the sunlight jauntily, and men 
cheering them on. Even the said great personages dying in bed, making 
exemplary ends in sounding speeches; and polite history, more servile than 
their instruments, embalming them! 
At last, John Baptist, now able to choose his own spot within the compass 
of those walls, for the exercise of his faculty of going to sleep when he 
would, lay down upon the bench, with his face turned over on his crossed 
arms, and slumbered. In his submission, in his lightness, in his good 
humour, in his short-lived passion, in his easy contentment with hard bread 
and hard stones, in his ready sleep, in his fits and starts altogether, a 
true son of the land that gave him birth.
The wide stare stared itself out for one while; the sun went down in a red, 
green, golden glory; the stars came out in the heavens, and the fire-flies 
mimicked them in the lower air, as men may feebly imitate the goodness of a 
better order of beings; the long dusty roads and the interminable plains 
were in repose - and so deep a hush was on the sea, that it scarcely 
whispered of the time when it shall give up its dead.


Chapter 2

Fellow-Travellers

"No more of yesterday's howling, over yonder, today, sir: is there?"
"I have heard none."
"Then you may be sure there is none. When these people howl, they howl to 
be heard."
"Most people do, I suppose."
"Ah! but these people are always howling. Never happy otherwise."
"Do you mean the Marseilles people?"
"I mean the French people. They're always at it. As to Marseilles, we know 
what Marseilles is. It sent the most insurrectionary tune into the world 
that was ever composed. It couldn't exist without allonging and marshonging 
to something or other - victory or death, or blazes, or something."
The speaker, with a whimsical good humour on him all the time, looked over 
the parapet-wall with the greatest disparagement of Marseilles; and taking 
up a determined position by putting his hands in his pockets, and rattling 
his money at it, apostrophised it with a short laugh.
"Allong and marshong, indeed. It would be more creditable to you, I think, 
to let other people allong and marshong about their lawful business, 
instead of shutting 'em up in quarantine!"
"Tiresome enough," said the other. "But we shall be out today."
"Out today!" repeated the first. "It's almost an aggravation of the 
enormity, that we shall be out today. Out? What have we ever been in for?"
"For no very strong reason? I must say. But as we come from the East, and 
as the East is the country of the plague -"
"The plague!" repeated the other. "That's my grievance. I have had the 
plague continually, ever since I have 'been here. I am like a sane man shut 
up in a madhouse; I can't stand the suspicion of the thing. I came here as 
well as ever I was in my life; but to suspect me of the plague is to give 
me the plague. And I have had it - and I have got it."
"You bear it very well, Mr Meagles," said the second speaker, smiling.
"No. If you knew the real state of the case, that's the last observation 
you would think of making. I have been waking up, night after night, and 
saying, now I have got it, now it has developed itself, now I am in for it, 
now these fellows are making out their case for their precautions. Why, I'd 
as soon have a spit put through me, and be stuck upon a card in a 
collection of beetles, as lead the life I have been leading here."
"Well, Mr Meagles, say no more about it, now it's over," urged a cheerful 
feminine voice.
"Over!" repeated Mr Meagles, who appeared (though without any ill-nature) 
to be in that peculiar state of mind in which the last word spoken by 
anybody else is a new injury. "Over! and why should I say no more about it 
because it's over?"
It was Mrs Meagles who had spoken to Mr Meagles; and Mrs Meagles was, like 
Mr Meagles, comely and healthy, with a pleasant English face which had been 
looking at homely things for five-and-fifty years or more, and shone with a 
bright reflection of them.
"There! Never mind, Father, never mind!" said Mrs Meagles. "For goodness 
sake content yourself with Pet."
"With Pet?" repeated Mr Meagles in his injured vein. Pet, however, being 
close behind him, touched him on the shoulder, and Mr Meagles immediately 
forgave Marseilles from the bottom of his heart.
Pet was about twenty. A fair girl with rich brown hair hanging free in 
natural ringlets. A lovely girl, with a frank face and wonderful eyes; so 
large, so soft, so bright, set to such perfection in her kind good head. 
She was round and fresh and dimpled and spoilt, and there was in Pet an air 
of timidity and dependence which was the best weakness in the World, and 
gave her the only crowning charm a girl so pretty and pleasant could have 
been without.
"Now, I ask you," said Mr Meagles in the blandest confidence, falling back 
a step himself, and handing his daughter a step forward to illustrate his 
question: "I ask you simply as between man and man, you know, did you ever 
hear of such damned nonsense as putting Pet in quarantine?"
"It has had the result of making even quarantine enjoyable."
"Come!" said Mr Meagles, "that's something, to be sure. I am obliged to you 
for that remark. Now Pet, my darling, you had better go along with Mother 
and get ready for the boat. The officer of health, and a variety of humbugs 
in cocked hats, are coming off to let us out of this at last; and all we 
jailbirds are to breakfast together in something approaching to a Christian 
style again, before we take wing for our different destinations. 
Tattycoram, stick you close to your young mistress."
He spoke to a handsome girl with lustrous dark hair and eyes, and very 
neatly dressed, who replied with a half-curtsey as she passed off in the 
train of Mrs Meagles and Pet. They crossed the bare scorched terrace, all 
three together, and disappeared through a staring white archway. Mr 
Meagles's companion, a grave dark man of forty, still stood looking towards 
this archway after they were gone; until Mr Meagles tapped him on the arm.
"I beg your pardon," said he, starting.
"Not at all," said Mr Meagles.
They took one silent turn backward and forward in the shade of the wall, 
getting, at the height on which the quarantine barracks are placed, what 
cool refreshment of sea breeze there was, at seven in the morning. Mr 
Meagles's companion resumed the conversation.
"May I ask you," he said, "what is the name of -"
"Tattycoram?" Mr Meagles struck in. "I have not the least idea."
"I thought," said the other, "that -"
"Tattycoram?" suggested Mr Meagles again.
"Thank you - that Tattycoram was a name; and I have several times wondered 
at the oddity of it."
"Why, the fact is," said Mr Meagles, "Mrs Meagles and myself are, you see, 
practical people."
"That, you have frequently mentioned in the course of the agreeable and 
interesting conversations we have had together, walking up and down on 
these stones," said the other, with a half smile breaking through the 
gravity of his dark face.
"Practical people. So one day, five or six years ago now, when we took Pet 
to church at the Foundling - you have heard of the Foundling Hospital in 
London? Similar to the Institution for the Found Children in Paris?"
"I have seen it."
"Well! One day when we took Pet to church there to hear the music - 
because, as practical people, it is the business of our lives to show her 
everything that we think can please her - Mother (my usual name for Mrs 
Meagles) began to cry so, that it was necessary to take her out. 'What's 
the matter, Mother?' said I, when we had brought her a little round; 'you 
are frightening Pet, my dear.' 'Yes, I know that, Father,' says Mother, 
'but I think it's through my loving her so much, that it ever came into my 
head.' 'That ever what came into your head, Mother?' 'O dear, dear!' cried 
Mother, breaking out again, 'when I saw all those children ranged tier 
above tier, and appealing from the father none of them has ever known on 
earth, to the great father of us all in Heaven, I thought, does any 
wretched mother ever come here, and look among those young faces, wondering 
which is the poor child she brought into this forlorn world, never through 
all its life to know her love, her kiss, her face, her voice, even her 
name!' Now that was practical in Mother, and I told her so. I said, 
'Mother, that's what I call practical in you, my dear.'"
The not unmoved, assented.
"So I said next day: now, Mother, I have a proposition to make that I think 
you'll approve of. Let us take one of those same children to be a little 
maid to Pet. We are practical people. So if we should find her temper a 
little defective, or any of her ways a little wide of ours, we shall know 
what we have to take into account. We shall know what an immense deduction 
must be made from all the influences and experiences that have formed us - 
no parents, no child-brother or sister, no individuality of home, no Glass 
Slipper, or Fairy Godmother. And that's the way we came by Tattycoram."
"And the name itself -"
"By George!" said Mr Meagles, "I was forgetting the name itself. Why, she 
was called in the Institution, Harriet Beadle - an arbitrary name, of 
course. Now, Harriet we changed into Hattie, and then into Tatty, because, 
as practical people, we thought even a playful name might be a new thing to 
her, and might have a softening and affectionate kind of effect, don't you 
see? As to Beadle, that I needn't say was wholly out of the question. If 
there is anything that is not to be tolerated on any terms, anything that 
is a type of jack-in-office insolence and absurdity, anything that 
represents in coats, waistcoats, and big sticks, our English holding-on by 
nonsense, after every one has found it out, it is a beadle. You haven't 
seen a beadle lately?"
"As an Englishman, who has been more than twenty years in China, no."
"Then," said Mr Meagles, laying his forefinger on his companion's breast 
with great animation, "don't you see a beadle now, if you can help it. 
Whenever I see a beadle in full fig, coming down a street on a Sunday at 
the head of a charity school, I am obliged to turn and run away, or I 
should hit him. The name of Beadle being out of the question, and the 
originator of the Institution for these poor foundlings having been a 
blessed creature of the name of Coram, we gave that name to Pet's little 
maid. At one time she was Tatty, and at one time she was Coram, until we 
got into a way of mixing the two names together, and now she is always 
Tattycoram."
"Your daughter," said the other, when they had taken another silent turn to 
and fro, and after standing for a moment at the wall glancing down at the 
sea, had resumed their walk, "is your only child, I know, Mr Meagles. May I 
ask you - in no impertinent curiosity, but because I have had so much 
pleasure in your society, may never in this labyrinth of a world exchange a 
quiet word with you again, and wish to preserve an accurate remembrance of 
you and yours - may I ask you, if I have not gathered from your good wife 
that you have had other children?"
"No. No," said Mr Meagles. "Not exactly other children. One other child."
"I am afraid I have inadvertently touched upon a tender theme."
"Never mind," said Mr Meagles. "If I am grave about it, I am not at all 
sorrowful. It quiets me for a moment, but does not make me unhappy. Pet had 
a twin sister who died when we could just see her eyes - exactly like Pet's 
- above the table, as she stood on tiptoe holding by it."
"Ah! indeed, indeed?"
"Yes, and being practical people, a result has gradually sprung up in the 
minds of Mrs Meagles and myself which perhaps you may - or perhaps you may 
not - understand. Pet and her baby sister were exactly alike, and so 
completely one, that in our thoughts we have never been able to separate 
them since. It would be of no use to tell us that our dead child was a mere 
infant. We have changed that child according to the changes in the child 
spared to us, and always with us. As Pet has grown, that child has grown; 
as Pet has become more sensible and womanly, her sister has become more 
sensible and womanly, by just the same degrees. It would be as hard to 
convince me that if I was to pass into the other world tomorrow, I should 
not, through the mercy of God, be received there by a daughter, just like 
Pet, as to persuade me that Pet herself is not a reality at my side."
"I understand you," said the other, gently.
"As to her," pursued her father, "the sudden loss of her little picture and 
playfellow, and her early association with that mystery in which we all 
have our equal share, but which is not often so forcibly presented to a 
child, as necessarily had some influence on her character. Then, her mother 
and I were not young when we married, and Pet has always had a sort of 
grown-up life with us, though we have tried to adapt ourselves to her. We 
have been advised more than once when she has been a little ailing, to 
change climate and air for her as often as we could - especially at about 
this time of her life - and to keep her amused. So, as I have no need to 
stick at a bank-desk now (though I have been poor enough in my time I 
assure you, or I should have married Mrs Meagles long before), we go 
trotting about the world. This is how you found us staring at the Nile, and 
the Pyramids, and the Sphinxes, and the Desert, and all the rest of it; and 
this is how Tattycoram will be a greater traveller in course of time than 
Captain Cook."
"I thank you," said the other, "very heartily for your confidence."
"Don't mention it," returned Mr Meagles, "I am sure you are quite welcome. 
And now, Mr Clennam, perhaps I may ask you, whether you have yet come to a 
decision where to go next?"
"Indeed, no. I am such a waif and stray everywhere, that I am liable to be 
drifted where any current may set."
"It's extraordinary to me - if you'll excuse my freedom in saying so - that 
you don't go straight to London, said Mr Meagles, in the tone of a 
confidential adviser.
"Perhaps I shall."
"Ay! But I mean with a will."
"I have no will. That is to say," he coloured a little, next to none that I 
can put in action now. Trained by main force; broken, not bent; heavily 
ironed with an object on which I was never consulted and which was never 
mine; shipped away to the other end of the world before I was of age, and 
exiled there until my father's death there, a year ago; always grinding in 
a mill I always hated; what is to be expected from me in middle-life? Will, 
purpose, hope? All those lights were extinguished before I could sound the 
words."
"Light 'em up again!" said Mr Meagles.
"Ah! Easily said. I am the son, Mr Meagles, of a hard father and mother. I 
am the only child of parents who weighed, measured, and priced everything: 
for whom what could not be weighed, measured, and priced, had no existence. 
Strict people as the phrase is, professors of a stern religion, their very 
religion was a gloomy sacrifice of tastes and sympathies that were never 
their own, offered up as a part of a bargain for security of their 
possessions. Austere faces, inexorable discipline, penance in this world 
and terror in the next - nothing graceful or gentle anywhere, and the void 
in my cowed heart everywhere - this was my childhood, if I may so misuse 
the word as to apply it to such a beginning of life."
"Really though?" said Mr Meagles, made very uncomfortable by the picture 
offered to his imagination. "That was a tough commencement. But come! You 
must now study, and profit by all that lies beyond it, like a practical 
man."
"If the people who are usually called practical, were practical in your 
direction -"
"Why, so they are!" said Mr Meagles.
"Are they indeed?"
"Well, I suppose so," returned Mr Meagles, thinking about it. "Eh? One can 
but be practical, and Mrs Meagles and myself are nothing else."
"My unknown course is easier and more hopeful than I had expected to find 
it then," said Clennam, shaking his head with his grave smile. "Enough of 
me. Here is the boat!"
The boat was filled with the cocked hats to which Mr Meagles entertained a 
national objection; and the wearers of those cocked hats landed and came up 
the steps, and all the impounded travellers congregated together. There was 
then a mighty production of papers on the part of the cocked hats, and a 
calling over of names, and great work of signing, sealing, stamping, 
inking, and sanding, with exceedingly blurred, gritty, and undecipherable 
results. Finally, everything was done according to rule, and the travellers 
were at liberty to depart whithersoever they would.
They made little account of stare and glare, in the new pleasure of 
recovering their freedom, but flitted across the harbour in gay boats, and 
reassembled at a great hotel, whence the sun was excluded by closed 
lattices, and where bare paved floors, lofty ceilings, and resounding 
corridors, tempered the intense heat. There, a great table in a great room, 
was soon profusely covered with a superb repast; and the quarantine 
quarters became bare indeed, remembered among dainty dishes, southern 
fruits, cooled wines, flowers from Genoa, snow from the mountain tops, and 
all the colours of the rainbow flashing in the mirrors.
"But I bear those monotonous walls no ill-will now," said Mr Meagles. "One 
always begins to forgive a place as soon as it's left behind; I dare say a 
prisoner begins to relent towards his prison, after he is let out."
They were about thirty in company, and all taking; but necessarily in 
groups. Father and Mother Meagles sat with their daughter between them, the 
last three on one side of the table: on the opposite side sat Mr Clennam; a 
tall French gentleman with raven hair and beard, of a swart and terrible, 
not to say genteelly diabolical aspect, but who had shown himself the 
mildest of men; and a handsome young Englishwoman, travelling quite alone, 
who had a proud observant face, and had either withdrawn herself from the 
rest or been avoided by the rest - nobody, herself excepted perhaps, could 
have quite decided which. The rest of the party were of the usual 
materials. Travellers on business, and a travellers for pleasure; officers 
from India on leave; merchants in the Greek and Turkey trades; a clergical 
English husband in a meek straight-waistcoat, on a wedding trip with his 
young wife; a majestic English mama and papa, of the patrician order, with 
a family of three growing up daughters, who were keeping a journal for the 
confusion of their fellow creatures; and a deaf old English mother tough in 
travel, with a very decidedly grown up daughter indeed, which daughter went 
sketching about the universe in the expectation of ultimately toning 
herself off into the married state.
The reserved Englishwoman took up Mr Meagles in his last remark.
"Do you mean that a prisoner forgives his prison?" said she, slowly and 
with emphasis.
"That was my speculation, Miss Wade. I don't pretend to know positively how 
a prisoner might feel. I never was one before."
"Mademoiselle doubts," said the French gentleman in his own language, "its 
being so easy to forgive?"
"I do."
Pet had to translate this passage to Mr Meagles, who never by any accident 
acquired any knowledge whatever of the language of any country into which 
he travelled.
"Oh!" said he. "Dear me! But that's a pity, isn't it?"
"That I am not credulous?" said Miss Wade.
"Not exactly that. Put it another way. That you can't believe it easy to 
forgive."
"My experience," she quietly returned, "has been correcting my belief in 
many respects, for some years. It is our natural progress, I have heard."
"Well, well! But it's not natural to bear malice, I hope?" said Mr Meagles, 
cheerily.
"If I had been shut up in any place to pine and suffer, I should always 
hate that, and wish to burn it down, or raze it to the ground. I know no 
more."
"Strong, sir?" said Mr Meagles to the Frenchman; it being another of his 
habits to address individuals of all nations in idiomatic English, with a 
perfect conviction that they were bound to understand it somehow. "Rather 
forcible in our fair friend, you'll agree with me, I think?"
The French gentleman courteously replied, 'Plait-il?" To which Mr Meagles 
returned with much satisfaction, "You are right. "You are right. My 
opinion."
The breakfast beginning by-and-by to languish, Mr Meagles made the company 
a speech. It was short enough and sensible enough, considering that it was 
a speech at all, and hearty. It merely went to the effect that as they had 
all been thrown together by chance, and had all preserved a good 
understanding together, and were now about to disperse, and were not likely 
ever to find themselves all together again, what could they do better than 
bid farewell to one another and give one another good-speed, in a 
simultaneous glass of cool champagne all round the table! It was done, and 
with a general shaking of hands the assembly broke up forever.
The solitary young lady all this time had said no more. She rose with the 
rest, and silently withdrew to a remote corner of the great room, where she 
sat herself on a couch in a window, seeming to watch the reflection of the 
water, as it made a silver quivering on the bars of the lattice. She sat, 
turned away from the whole length of the apartment, as if she were lonely 
of her own haughty choice. And yet it would have been as difficult as ever 
to say, positively, whether she avoided the rest, or was avoided.
The shadow in which she sat, falling like a gloomy veil across her 
forehead, accorded very well with the character of her beauty. One could 
hardly see the face, so still and scornful, set off by the arched dark 
eyebrows, and the folds of dark hair, without wondering what its expression 
would be if a change came over it. That it could soften or relent, appeared 
next to impossible. That it could deepen into anger or any extreme of 
defiance, and that it must change in that direction when it changed at all, 
would have been its peculiar impression upon most observers. It was dressed 
and trimmed into no ceremony of expression. Although not an open face, 
there was no pretence in it. I am self-contained and self-reliant; your 
opinion is nothing to me; I have no interest in you, care nothing for you, 
and see and hear you with indifference - this it said plainly. It said so 
in the proud eyes, in the lifted nostril, in the handsome, but compressed 
and even cruel mouth. Cover either two of those channels of expression, and 
the third would have said so still. Mask them all, and the mere turn of the 
head would have shown an unsubduable nature.
Pet had moved up to her (she had been the subject of remark among her 
family and Mr Clennam, who were now the only other occupants of the room), 
and was standing at her side.
"Are you" - she turned her eyes, and Pet faltered - "expecting any one to 
meet you here, Miss Wade?"
"I? No."
"Father is sending to the Poste Restante. Shall he have the pleasure of 
directing the messenger to ask if there are any letters for you?"
"I thank him, but I know there can be none."
"We are afraid," said Pet, sitting down beside her, shyly and half 
tenderly, "that you will feel quite deserted when we are all gone."
"Indeed!"
"Not," said Pet apologetically and embarrassed by her eyes, "not, of 
course, that we are any company to you, or that we have been able to be so, 
or that we thought you wished it."
"I have not intended to make it understood that I did wish it."
"No. Of course not. But - in short," said Pet, timidly touching her hand as 
it lay impassive on the sofa between them, "will you not allow Father to 
render you any slight assistance or service? He will be very glad."
"Very glad," said Mr Meagles, coming forward with his wife and Clennam. 
"Anything short of speaking the language, I shall be delighted to 
undertake, I am sure."
"I am obliged to you," she returned, "but my arrangements are made, and I 
prefer to go my own way in my own manner."
"Do you?" said Mr Meagles, to himself, as he surveyed her with a puzzled 
look. "Well! There's character in that, too."
"I am not much used to the society of young ladies, and I am afraid I may 
not show my appreciation of it as others might. A pleasant journey to you. 
Good bye!"
She would not have put out her hand, it seemed, but that Mr Meagles put out 
his so straight before her, that she could not pass it. She put hers in it, 
and it lay there just as it had lain upon the couch.
"Good bye!" said Mr Meagles. "This is the last good bye upon the list, for 
Mother and I have just said it to Mr Clennam here, and he only waits to say 
it to Pet. Good bye! We may never meet again."
"In our course through life we shall meet the people who are coming to meet 
us, from many strange places and by many strange roads," was the composed 
reply; "and what it is set to us to do to them, and what it is set to them 
to do to us, will all be done."
There was something in the manner of these words that jarred upon Pet's 
ear. It implied that what was to be done was necessarily evil, and it 
caused her to say in a whisper," O, father!" and to shrink childishly in 
her spoilt way, a little closer to him. This was not lost on the speaker.
"Your pretty daughter," she said, "starts to think of such things. Yet," 
looking full upon her, "you may be sure that there are men and women 
already on their road, who have their business to do with you, and who will 
do it. Of a certainty they will do it They may be coming hundreds, 
thousands, of miles over the sea there; they may be close at hand now; they 
may be coming, for anything you know, or anything can do to prevent it, 
from the vilest sweepings of this very town."
With the coldest of farewells, and with a certain worn expression on her 
beauty that gave it, though scarcely yet in its prime, a wasted look, she 
left the room.
Now, there were many stairs and passages that she had to traverse in 
passing from that part of the spacious house to the chamber she had secured 
for her own occupation. When she had almost completed the journey, and was 
passing along the gallery in which her room was, she heard an angry sound 
of muttering and sobbing. A door stood open, and within she saw the 
attendant upon the girl she had just left; the maid with the curious name.
She stood still, to look at this maid. A sullen, passionate girl! Her rich 
black hair was all about her face, her face was flushed and hot, and as she 
sobbed and raged, she plucked at her lips with an unsparing hand.
"Selfish brutes?" said the girl, sobbing and heaving between whiles. "Not 
caring what becomes of me! Leaving me here hungry and thirsty and tired, to 
starve, for anything they care! Beasts! Devils! Wretches!"
"My poor girl, what is the matter?"
She looked up suddenly, with reddened eyes, and with her hands suspended, 
in the act of pinching her neck, freshly disfigured with great scarlet 
blots. "It's nothing to you what's the matter. It don't signify to any 
one."
"O yes it does. I am sorry to see you so."
"You are not sorry," said the girl. "You are glad. You know you are glad. I 
never was like this but twice, over in the quarantine yonder; and both 
times you found me. I am afraid of you."
"Afraid of me?"
"Yes. You seem to come like my own anger, my own malice, my own - whatever 
it is - I don't know what it is. But I am ill-used, I am ill-used, I am ill-
used!" Here the sobs and the tears, and the tearing hand, which had all 
been suspended together, since the first surprise, went on together anew.
The visitor stood looking at her with a strange attentive smile. It was 
wonderful to see the fury of the contest in the girl, and the bodily 
struggle she made as if she were rent by the Demons of old.
"I am younger than she is by two or three years, and yet it's me that looks 
after her, as if I was old, and it's she that's always petted and called 
Baby! I detest the name. I hate her. They make a fool of her, they spoil 
her. She thinks of nothing but herself, she thinks no more of me than if I 
was a stock and a stone!" So the girl went on.
"You must have patience."
"I won't have patience!"
"If they take much care of themselves, and little or none of you, you must 
not mind it."
"I will mind it!"
"Hush! Be more prudent. You forget your dependent position."
"I don't care for that. I'll run away. I'll do some mischief. I won't bear 
it; I can't bear it; I shall die if I try to bear it!"
The observer stood with her hands upon her own bosom, looking at the girl, 
as one afflicted with a diseased part might curiously watch the dissection 
and exposition of an analogous case.
The girl raged and battled with all the force of her youth and fulness of 
life, until by little and little her passionate exclamations trailed off 
into broken murmurs as if she were in pain. By corresponding degrees she 
sank into a chair, then upon her knees, then upon the ground beside her 
bed, drawing the coverlet with her, half to hide her shamed head and wet 
hair in it, and half, as it seemed, to embrace it, rather than have nothing 
to take to her repentant breast.
"Go away from me, go away from me! When my temper comes upon me, I am mad. 
I know I might keep it off if I only tried hard enough, and sometimes I do 
try hard enough, and at other times I don't and won't. What have I said! I 
knew when I said it, it was all lies. They think I am being taken care of 
somewhere and have all I want. They are nothing but good to me. I love them 
dearly; no people could ever be kinder to a thankless creature than they 
always are to me. Do, do go away, for I am afraid of you. I am afraid of 
myself when I feel my temper coming, and I am as much afraid of you. Go 
away from me, and let me pray and cry myself better!"
The day passed on; and again the wide stare stared itself out; and the hot 
night was on Marseilles; and through it the caravan of the morning, all 
dispersed, went their appointed ways. And thus ever, by day and night, 
under the sun and under the stars, climbing the dusty hills and toiling 
along the weary plains, journeying by land and journeying by sea, coming 
and going so strangely, to meet and to act and react on one another, move 
all we restless travellers through the pilgrimage of life.


Chapter 3

Home

It was a Sunday evening in London, gloomy, close and stale. Maddening 
church bells of all degrees of dissonance, sharp and flat, cracked and 
clear, fast and slow, made the brick-and-mortar echoes hideous. Melancholy 
streets in a penitential garb of soot, steeped the souls of the people who 
were condemned to look at them out of windows in dire despondency. In every 
thoroughfare, up almost every alley, and down almost every turning, some 
doleful bell was throbbing, jerking, tolling, as if the Plague were in the 
city and the dead-carts were going round. Everything was bolted and barred 
that could by possibility furnish relief to an over-worked people. No 
pictures, no unfamiliar animals, no rare plants or flowers, no natural or 
artificial wonders of the ancient world - all taboo with that enlightened 
strictness, that the ugly South Sea gods in the British Museum might have 
supposed themselves at home again. Nothing to see but streets, streets, 
streets. Nothing to breathe but streets, streets, streets. Nothing to 
change the brooding mind, or raise it up. Nothing for the spent toiler to 
do, but to compare the monotony of his seventh day with the monotony of his 
six days, think what a weary life he led, and make the best of it - or the 
worst, according to the probabilities.
At such a happy time, so propitious to the interests of religion and 
morality, Mr Arthur Clennam, newly arrived from Marseilles by way of Dover, 
and by Dover coach the Blue-eyed Maid, sat in the window of a coffee-house 
on Ludgate Hill. Ten thousand responsible houses surrounded him, frowning 
as heavily on the streets they composed, as if they were every one 
inhabited by the ten young men of the Calender's story, who blackened their 
faces and bemoaned their miseries every night. Fifty thousand lairs 
surrounded him where people lived so unwholesomely, that fair water put 
into their crowded rooms on Saturday night, would be corrupt on Sunday 
morning; albeit my lord, their county member, was amazed that they failed 
to sleep in company with their butcher's meat. Miles of close wells and 
pits of houses, where the inhabitants gasped for air, stretched far away 
towards every point of the compass. Through the heart of the town a deadly 
sewer ebbed and flowed, in the place of a fine fresh river. What secular 
want could the million or so of human beings whose daily labour, six days 
in the week, lay among these Arcadian objects, from the sweet sameness of 
which they had no escape between the cradle and the grave - what secular 
want could they possibly have upon their seventh day? Clearly they could 
want nothing but a stringent policeman.
Mr Arthur Clennam sat in the window of the coffee-house on Ludgate Hill, 
counting one of the neighbouring bells making sentences and burdens of 
songs out of it in spite of himself, and wondering how many sick people it 
might be the death of in the course of the year. As the hour approached, 
its changes of measure made it more and more exasperating. At the quarter, 
it went off into a condition of deadly-lively importunity, urging the 
populace in a voluble manner to Come to church, Come to church, Come to 
church! At the ten minutes, it became aware that the congregation would be 
scanty, and slowly hammered out in low spirits, They won't come, they won't 
come, they won't come! At the five minutes, it abandoned hope, and shook 
every house in the neighbourhood for three hundred seconds, with one dismal 
swing per second, as a groan of despair.
"Thank Heaven!" said Clennam, w hen the hour struck, and the bell stopped.
But its sound had revived a long train of miserable Sundays, and the 
procession would not stop with the bell, but continued to march on. "Heaven 
forgive me," said he, "and those who trained me. How I have hated this 
day!"
There was the dreary Sunday of his childhood, when he sat with his hands 
before him, scared out of his senses by a horrible tract which commenced 
business with the poor child by asking him in its title, why he was going 
to Perdition? - a piece of curiosity that he really in a frock and drawers 
was not in a condition to satisfy - and which, for the further attraction 
of his infant mind, had a parenthesis in every other line with some such 
hiccupping reference as 2 Ep. Thess. c. iii. v. 6 & 7. There was the sleepy 
Sunday of his boyhood, when, like a military deserter, he was marched to 
chapel by a picquet of teachers three times a day, morally handcuffed to 
another boy; and when he would willingly have bartered two meals of 
indigestible sermon for another ounce or two of inferior mutton at his 
scanty dinner in the flesh. There was the interminable Sunday of his 
nonage; when his mother, stern of face and unrelenting of heart, would sit 
all day behind a bible - bound like her own construction of it in the 
hardest, barest, and straitest boards, with one dinted ornament on the 
cover like the drag of a chain, and a wrathful sprinkling of red upon the 
edges of the leaves - as if it, of all books! were a fortification against 
sweetness of temper, natural affection, and gentle intercourse. There was 
the resentful Sunday of a little later, when he sat glowering and glooming 
through the tardy length of the day, with a sullen sense of injury in his 
heart, and no more real knowledge of the beneficent history of the New 
Testament, than if he had been bred among idolaters. There was a legion of 
Sundays, all days of unserviceable bitterness and mortification, slowly 
passing before him.
"Beg pardon, sir," said a brisk waiter, rubbing the table. "Wish see 
bedroom?"
"Yes. I have just made up my mind to do it."
"Chaymaid!" cried the waiter. "Gelen box num seven wish see room!"
"Stay!" said Clennam, rousing himself. "I was not thinking of what I said; 
I answered mechanically. I am not going to sleep here. I am going home."
"Deed, sir? Chaymaid! Gelen box num seven, not go sleep here, gome."
He sat in the same place as the day died, looking at the dull houses 
opposite, and thinking, if the disembodied spirits of former inhabitants 
were ever conscious of them, how they must pity themselves for their old 
places of imprisonment. Sometimes a face would appear behind the dingy 
glass of a window, and would fade away into the gloom as if it had seen 
enough of life and had vanished out of it. Presently the rain began to fall 
in slanting lines between him and those houses, and people began to collect 
under cover of the public passage opposite, and to look out hopelessly at 
the sky as the rain dropped thicker and faster. Then wet umbrellas began to 
appear, draggled skirts, and mud. What the mud had been doing with itself, 
or where it came from, who could say? But it seemed to collect in a moment, 
as a crowd will, and in five minutes to have splashed all the sons and 
daughters of Adam. The lamp-lighter was going his rounds now; and as the 
fiery jets sprang up under his touch, one might have fancied them 
astonished at being suffered to introduce any show of brightness into such 
a dismal scene.
Mr Arthur Clennam took up his hat, and buttoned his coat, and walked out. 
In the country the rain would have developed a thousand fresh scents, and 
every drop would have had its bright association with some beautiful form 
of growth or life. In the city, it developed only foul stale smells, and 
was a sickly, lukewarm, dirt-stained, wretched addition to the gutters.
He crossed by Saint Paul's and went down, at a long angle, almost to the 
water's edge, through some of the crooked and descending streets which lie 
(and lay more crookedly and closely then) between the river and Cheapside. 
Passing, now the mouldy hall of some obsolete Worshipful Company, now the 
illuminated windows of a Congregationless Church that seemed to be waiting 
for some adventurous Belzoni to dig it out and discover its history; 
passing silent warehouses and wharves, and here and there a narrow alley 
leading to the river, where a wretched little bill, Found Drowned, was 
weeping on the wet wall; he came at last to the house he sought. An old 
brick house, so dingy as to be all but black, standing by itself within a 
gateway. Before it, a square courtyard where a shrub or two and a patch of 
grass were as rank (which is saying much), as the iron railings enclosing 
them were rusty; behind it a jumble of roots. It was a double house, with 
long, narrow, heavily-framed windows. Many years ago, it had had it in its 
mind to slide down sideways; it had been propped up, however, and was 
leaning on some half dozen gigantic crutches: which gymnasium for the 
neighbouring cats, weather-stained, smoke-blackened, and overgrown with 
weeds, appeared in these latter days to be no very sure reliance.
"Nothing changed," said the traveller, stopping to look round. "Dark and 
miserable as ever. A light in my mother's window, which seems never to have 
been extinguished since I came home twice a year from school, and dragged 
my box over this pavement. Well, well, well!"
He went up to the door, which had a projecting canopy in carved work, of 
festooned jack-towels and children's heads with water on the brain, 
designed after a once popular monumental pattern; and knocked. A shuffling 
step was soon heard on the stone floor of the hall, and the door was opened 
by an old man: bent and dried, but with keen eyes.
He had a candle in his hand, and he held it up for a moment to assist his 
keen eyes. "Ah, Mr Arthur?" he said, without any emotion, "you are come at 
last? Step in."
Mr Arthur stepped in and shut the door.
"Your figure is filled out, and set," said the old man, turning to look at 
him with the light raised again, and shaking his head; "but you don't come 
up to your father in my opinion. Nor yet your mother."
"How is my mother?"
"She is as she always is now. Keeps her room when not actually bedridden, 
and hasn't been out of it fifteen times in as many years, Arthur." They had 
walked into a spare, meagre dining room. The old man had put the 
candlestick upon the table, and supporting his right elbow with his left 
hand, was smoothing his leathern jaws while he looked at the visitor. The 
visitor offered his hand. The old man took it coldly enough, and seemed to 
prefer his jaws; to which he returned, as soon as he could.
"I doubt if your mother will approve of your coming home on the Sabbath, 
Arthur," he said, shaking his head warily.
"You wouldn't have me go away again?"
"Oh! I? I? I am not the master. It's not what I would have. I have stood 
between your father and mother for a number of years. I don't pretend to 
stand between your mother and you."
"Will you tell her that I have come home?"
"Yes, Arthur, yes. Oh to be sure! I'll tell her that you have come home. 
Please to wait here. You won't find the room changed." He took another 
candle from a cupboard, lighted it, left the first on the table, and went 
upon his errand. He was a short, bald old man, in a high shouldered black 
coat and waistcoat, drab breeches and long drab gaiters. He might, from his 
dress, have been either clerk or servant, and in fact had long been both. 
There was nothing about him in the way of decoration but a watch, which was 
lowered into the depths of its proper pocket by an old black ribbon, and 
had a tarnished copper key moored above it, to show where it was sunk. His 
head was awry, and he had a one-sided, crab-like way with him, as if his 
foundations had yielded at about the same time as those of the house, and 
he ought to have been propped up in a similar manner.
"How weak am I," said Arthur Clennam, when he was gone, "that I could shed 
tears at this reception! I, who have never experienced anything else; who 
have never expected anything else."
He not only could, but did. It was the momentary yielding of a nature that 
had been disappointed from the dawn of its perceptions, but had not quite 
given up all its hopeful yearnings yet. He subdued it, took up the candle 
and examined the room. The old articles of furniture were in their old 
places; the Plagues of Egypt, much the dimmer for the fly and smoke plagues 
of London, were framed and glazed upon the walls. There was the old 
cellaret with nothing in it, lined with lead, like a sort of coffin in 
compartments; there was the old dark closet, also with nothing in it of 
which he had been many a time the sole contents, in days of punishment, 
when he had regarded it as the veritable entrance to that bourne to which 
the tract had found him galloping. There was the large, hard-featured clock 
on the sideboard, which he used to see bending its figured brows upon him 
with a savage joy when he was behind-hand with his lessons, and which, when 
it was wound up once a week with an iron handle, used to sound as if it 
were growling in ferocious anticipation of the miseries into which it would 
bring him. But here was the old man come back, saying, "Arthur, I'll go 
before and light you."
Arthur followed him up the staircase, which was panelled off into spaces 
like so many mourning tablets into a dim bed-chamber, the floor of which 
had gradually so sunk and settled, that the fireplace was in a dell. On a 
black bier-like sofa in this hollow, propped up behind with one great 
angular black bolster, like the block at a state execution in the good old 
times, sat his mother in a window's dress.
She and his father had been at variance from his earliest remembrance. To 
sit speechless himself in the midst of rigid silence, glancing in dread 
from the one averted face to the other, had been the peacefullest 
occupation of his childhood. She gave him one glassy kiss, and four stiff 
fingers muffled in worsted. This embrace concluded, he sat down on the 
opposite side of her little table. There was a fire in the grate, as there 
had been night and day for fifteen years. There was a kettle on the hob, as 
there had been night and day for fifteen years. There was a little mound of 
damped ashes on the top of the fire, and another little mound swept 
together under the grate, as there had been night and day for fifteen 
years. There was a smell of black dye in the airless room, which the fire 
had been drawing out of the crape and stuff of the widow's dress for 
fifteen months, and out of the bier-like sofa for fifteen years.
"Mother, this is a change from your old active habits."
"The world has narrowed to these dimensions, Arthur," she replied, glancing 
round the room. "It is well for me that I never set my heart upon its 
hollow vanities."
The old influence of her presence and her stern strong voice, so gathered 
about her son, that he felt conscious of a renewal of the timid chill and 
reserve of his childhood.
"Do you never leave your room, mother?"
"What with my rheumatic affection, and what with its attendant debility or 
nervous weakness - names are of no matter now - I have lost the use of my 
limbs. I never leave my room. I have not been outside this door for - tell 
him how long," she said, speaking over her shoulder.
"A dozen year next Christmas," returned a cracked voice out of the dimness 
behind.
"Is that Affery?" said Arthur, looking towards it.
The cracked voice replied that it was Affery: and an old woman came forward 
into what doubtful light there was, and kissed her hand once; then subsided 
again into the dimness.
"I am able," said Mrs Clennam, with a slight motion of her worsted-muffled 
right hand towards a chair on wheels, standing before a tall writing-
cabinet close shut up, "I am able to attend to my business duties, and I am 
thankful for the privilege. It is a great privilege. But no more of 
business on this day. It is a bad night, is it not.?"
"Yes, mother."
"Does it snow?"
"Snow, mother? And we only yet in September?"
"All seasons are alike to me," she returned, with a grim kind of 
luxuriousness. "I know nothing of summer and winter, shut up here. The Lord 
has been pleased to put me beyond all that." With her cold grey eyes and 
her cold grey hair, and her immoveable face, as stiff as the folds of her 
stony head-dress - her being beyond the reach of the seasons, seemed but a 
fit sequence to her being beyond the reach of all changing emotions.
On her little table lay two or three books, her handkerchief, a pair of 
steel spectacles, newly taken off, and an old-fashioned gold watch in a 
heavy double case. Upon this last object her son's eyes and her own now 
rested together.
"I see that you received the packet I sent you on my father's death, 
safely, mother."
"You see."
"I never knew my father to show so much anxiety on any subject, as that his 
watch should be sent straight to you."
"I keep it here as a remembrance of your father."
"It was not until the last that he expressed the wish. When he could only 
put his hand upon it, and very indistinctly say to me, 'your mother.' A 
moment before, I thought him wandering in his mind, as he had been for many 
hours - I think he had no consciousness of pain in his short illness - when 
I saw him turn himself in his bed and try to open it."
"Was your father, then, not wandering in his mind when he tried to open 
it?"
"No. He was quite sensible at that time."
Mrs Clennam shook her head; whether in dismissal of the deceased or 
opposing herself to her son's opinion, was not clearly expressed.
"After my father's death I opened it myself, thinking there might be for 
anything I knew, some memorandum there. However, as I need not tell you, 
mother, there was nothing but the old silk watch-paper worked in beads, 
which you found (no doubt) in its place between the cases, where I found 
and left it."
Mrs Clennam signified assent; then added, "no more business on this day," 
and then added, "Affery, it is nine o'clock."
Upon this, the old woman cleared the little table, went out of the room, 
and quickly returned with a tray, on which was a dish of little rusks and a 
small precise pat of butter, cool, symmetrical, white, and plump. The old 
man who had been standing by the door in one attitude during the whole 
interview, looking at the mother upstairs as he had looked at the son down 
stairs, went out at the same time, and, after a longer absence, returned 
with another tray on which was the greater part of a bottle of port wine 
(which, to judge by his panting, he had brought from the cellar), a lemon, 
a sugar basin, and a spice box. With these materials and the aid of the 
kettle, he filled a tumbler with a hot and odorous mixture, measured out 
and compounded with as much nicety as a physician's prescription. Into this 
mixture, Mrs Clennam dipped certain of the rusks and ate them; while the 
old woman buttered certain other of the rusks, which were to be eaten 
alone. When the invalid had eaten all the rusks and drunk all the mixture, 
the two trays were removed; and the books and the candle, watch, 
handkerchief, and spectacles were replaced upon the table. She then put on 
the spectacles and read certain passages aloud from a book - sternly, 
fiercely, wrathfully - praying that her enemies (she made them by her tone 
and manner expressly hers) might be put to the edge of the sword, consumed 
by fire, smitten by plagues and leprosy, that their bones might be ground 
to dust, and that they might be utterly exterminated. As she read on, years 
seemed to fall away from her son like the imaginings of a dream, and all 
the old dark horrors of his usual preparation for the sleep of an innocent 
child to overshadow him.
She shut the book and remained for a little time with her face shaded by 
her hand. So did the old man, otherwise still unchanged in attitude; so, 
probably, did the old woman in her dimmer part of the room. Then the sick 
woman was ready for bed.
"Good night, Arthur. Affery will see to your accommodation. Only touch me, 
for my hand is tender." He touched the worsted muffling of her hand - that 
was nothing; if his mother had been sheathed in brass there would have been 
no new barrier between them - and followed the old man and woman 
downstairs.
The latter asked him, when they were alone together among the heavy shadows 
of the dining room, would he have some supper?
"No, Affery, no supper."
"You shall if you like," said Affery. "There's her tomorrow's partridge in 
the larder - her first this year; say the word and I'll cook it."
No, he had not long dined, and could eat nothing.
"Have something to drink, then," said Affery; "you shall have some of her 
bottle of port, if you like. I'll tell Jeremiah that you ordered me to 
bring it you."
No; nor would he have that either.
"It's no reason, Arthur," said the old woman, bending over him to whisper, 
"that because I am afeared of my life of 'em, you should be. You've got 
half the property, haven't you?"
"Yes, yes."
"Well then, don't you be cowed. You're clever, Arthur, ain't you?"
He nodded, as she seemed to expect an answer in the affirmative.
"Then stand up against them! She's awful clever, and none but a clever one 
durst say a word to her. He's a clever one - oh he's a clever one! - and he 
gives it her when he has a mind to't, he does!"
"Your husband does?"
"Does? It makes me shake from head to foot, to hear him give it her. My 
husband, Jeremiah Flintwinch, can conquer even your mother. What can he be 
but a clever one to do that!"
His shuffling footstep coming towards them caused her to retreat to the 
other end of the room. Though a tall hard-favoured sinewy old woman, who in 
her youth might have enlisted in the Foot Guards without much fear of 
discovery, she collapsed before the little keen-eyed crab-like old man.
"Now Affery," said he, "now woman, what are you doing? Can't you find 
Master Arthur something or another to pick at?"
Master Arthur repeated his recent refusal to pick at anything.
"Very well, then," said the old man; "make his bed. Stir yourself." His 
neck was so twisted, that the knotted ends of his white cravat usually 
dangled under one ear; his natural acerbity and energy, always contending 
with a second nature of habitual repression gave his features a swollen and 
suffused look; and altogether, he had a weird appearance of having hanged 
himself at one time or other, and of having gone about ever since halter 
and all, exactly as some timely hand had cut him down.
"You'll have bitter words together tomorrow, Arthur; you and your mother," 
said Jeremiah. "Your having given up the business on your father's death - 
which she suspects, though we have left it to you to tell her - won't go 
off smoothly."
"I have given up everything in life for the business, and the time came for 
me to give up that."
"Good!" cried Jeremiah, evidently meaning Bad. "Very good! only don't 
expect me to stand between your mother and you, Arthur. I stood between 
your mother and your father, fending off this, and fending off that, and 
getting crushed and pounded betwixt 'em; and I've done with such work."
"You will never be asked to begin it again for me, Jeremiah."
"Good, I'm glad to hear it; because I should have had to decline it, if I 
had been. That's enough - as your mother says - and more than enough of 
such matters on a Sabbath night. Affery, woman, have you found what you 
want yet?"
She had been collecting sheets and blankets from a press, and hastened to 
gather them up, and to reply, "yes, Jeremiah." Arthur Clennam helped her by 
carrying the load himself, wished the old man good night, and went upstairs 
with her to the top of the house.
They mounted up and up, through the musty smell of an old close house, 
little used, to a large garret bedroom. Meagre and spare, like all the 
other rooms, it was even uglier and grimmer than the rest, by being the 
place of banishment for the worn out furniture. Its moveables were ugly old 
chairs with worn out seats, and ugly old chairs without any seats; a 
threadbare patternless carpet, a maimed table, a crippled wardrobe, a lean 
set of fire-irons like the skeleton of a set deceased, a washing stand that 
looked as if it had stood for ages in a hail of dirty soap-suds, and a 
bedstead with four bare atomies of posts, each terminating in a spike, as 
if for the dismal accommodation of lodgers who might prefer to impale 
themselves. Arthur opened the long low window, and looked out upon the old 
blasted and blackened forest of chimneys, and the old red glare in the sky, 
which had seemed to him once upon a time but a nightly reflection of the 
fiery environment that was presented to his childish fancy in all 
directions, let it look where it would.
He drew in his head again, sat down at the bedside, and looked on at Affery 
Flintwinch making the bed.
"Affery, you were not married when I went away."
She screwed her mouth into the form of saying "No," shook her head, and 
proceeded to get a pillow into its case.
"How did it happen?"
"Why, Jeremiah, o' course," said Affery, with an end of the pillow-case 
between her teeth.
"Of course he proposed it, but how did it all come about? I should have 
thought that neither of you would have married; least of all should I have 
thought of your marrying each other."
"No more should I," said Mrs Flintwinch, tying the pillow tightly in its 
case.
"That's what I mean. When did you begin to think otherwise?"
"Never begun to think otherwise at all," said Mrs Flintwinch.
Seeing, as she patted the pillow into its place on the bolster, that he was 
still looking at her, as if waiting for the rest of her reply, she gave it 
a great poke in the middle, and asked, "How could I help myself?"
"How could you help yourself from being married?"
"O' course," said Mrs Flintwinch. "It was no doing o' mine. I'd ever 
thought of it. I'd got something to do, without thinking, indeed! he kept 
me to it when she could go about, and she could go about then."
"Well?"
"Well?" echoed Mrs Flintwinch. "That's what I said myself. Well! What's the 
use of considering? If them two clever ones has made up their minds to it, 
what's left for me to do? Nothing."
"Was it my mother's project, then?"
"The Lord bless you, Arthur, and forgive me the wish!" cried Affery, 
speaking always in a low tone. "If they hadn't been both of a mind in it, 
how could it ever have been? Jeremiah never courted me; t'ant likely that 
he would, after living in the house with me and ordering me about for as 
many years as he'd done. He said to me one day, he said, 'Affery,' he said, 
'now I'm going to tell you something. What do you think of the name of 
Flintwinch?' 'What do I think of it?' I says. 'Yes,' he said; 'because 
you're going to take it,' he said. 'Take it?' I says. 'Jere-mi-ah?' Oh, 
he's a clever one!"
Mrs Flintwinch went on to the spread the upper sheet over the bed, and the 
blanket over that, and the counterpane over that, as if she had quite 
concluded her story.
"Well?" said Arthur again.
"Well!" echoed Mrs Flintwinch again. "How could I help myself? He said to 
me, 'Affery, you and me must be married, and I'll tell you why. She's 
failing in health, and she'll want pretty constant attendance up in her 
room, and we shall have to be much with her, and there'll be nobody about 
now but ourselves when we're away from her, and altogether it will be more 
convenient. She's of my opinion,' he said, 'so if you'll put your bonnet 
on, next Monday morning at eight, we'll get it over.'"
Mrs Flintwinch tucked up the bed.
"Well?"
"Well?" repeated Mrs Flintwinch, "I think so! I sits me down and says it. 
Well! - Jeremiah then says to me, 'As to banns, next Sunday being the third 
time of asking (for I've put 'em up a fortnight), is my reason for naming 
Monday. She'll speak to you about it herself, and now she'll find you 
prepared, Affery.' That same day she spoke to me, and she said, 'So, 
Affery, I understand that you and Jeremiah are going to be married. I am 
glad of it, and so are you, with reason. It is a very good thing for you, 
and very welcome under the circumstances to me. He is a sensible man, and a 
trustworthy man, and a persevering man, and a pious man.' What could I say 
when it had come to that? Why, if it had been - a Smothering instead of a 
Wedding," Mrs Flintwinch cast about in her mind with great pains for this 
form of expression, "I couldn't have said a word upon it against them two 
clever ones."
"In good faith, I believe so."
"And so you may, Arthur."
"Affery, what girl was that in my mother's room just now?"
"Girl?" said Mrs Flintwinch in a rather sharp key.
"It was a girl, surely, whom I saw near you - almost hidden in the dark 
corner?"
"Oh! She? Little Dorrit? She's nothing; she's a whim of - hers." It was a 
peculiarity of Affery Flintwinch that she never spoke of Mrs Clennam by 
name. "But there's another sort of girls than that about. Have you forgot 
your old sweetheart? Long and long ago, I'll be bound."
"I suffered enough from my mother separating us, to remember her. I 
recollect her very well."
"Have you got another?"
"No."
"Here's news for you, then. She's well to do now, and a widow. And if you 
like to have her, why you can."
"And how do you know that, Affery?"
"Them two clever ones have been speaking about it. - There's Jeremiah on 
the stairs!" She was gone in a moment.
Mrs Flintwinch had introduced into the web that his mind was busily 
weaving, in that old workshop where the loom of his youth had stood, the 
last thread wanting to the pattern. The airy folly of a boy's love had 
found its way even into that house, and he had been as wretched under its 
hopelessness as if the house had been a castle of romance. Little more than 
a week ago, at Marseilles, the face of the pretty girl from whom he had 
parted with regret, had had an unusual interest for him, and a tender hold 
upon him, because of some resemblance, real or imagined, to this first face 
that had soared out of his gloomy life into the bright glories of fancy.
He leaned upon the sill of the long low window, and looking out upon the 
blackened forest of chimneys again, began to dream. For, it had been the 
uniform tendency of this man's life - so much was wanting in it to think 
about, so much that might have been better directed and happier to 
speculate upon - to make him a dreamer, after all.


Chapter 4

Mrs Flintwinch Has A Dream

When Mrs Flintwinch dreamed, she usually dreamed, unlike the son of her old 
mistress, with her eyes shut. She had a curiously vivid dream that night, 
and before she had left the son of her old mistress many hours. In fact it 
was not at all like a dream, it was so very real in every respect. It 
happened in this wise.
The bed-chamber occupied by Mr and Mrs Flintwinch was within a few paces of 
that to which Mrs Clennam had been so long confined. It was not on the same 
floor, for it was a room at the side of the house, which was approached by 
a steep descent of a few odd steps, diverging from the main staircase 
nearly opposite to Mrs Clennam's door. It could scarcely be said to be 
within call, the walls, doors, and panelling of the old place were so 
cumbrous; but it was within easy reach, in any undress, at any hour of the 
night, in any temperature. At the head of the bed, and within a foot of Mrs 
Flintwinch's ear, was a bell, the line of which hung ready to Mrs Clennam's 
hand. Whenever this bell rang, up started Affery, and was in the sick room 
before she was awake.
Having got her mistress into bed, lighted her lamp, and given her good 
night, Mrs Flintwinch went to roost as usual, saving that her lord had not 
yet appeared. It was her lord himself who became - unlike the last theme in 
the mind, according to the observation of most philosophers - the subject 
of Mrs Flintwinch's dream.
It seemed to her that she awoke, after sleeping some hours, and found 
Jeremiah not yet abed. That she looked at the candle she had left burning, 
and, measuring the time like King Alfred the Great, was confirmed by its 
wasted state in her belief that she had been asleep for some considerable 
period. That she arose thereupon, muffled herself up in a wrapper, put on 
her shoes, and went out on the staircase much surprised, to look for 
Jeremiah.
The staircase was as wooden and solid as need be, and Affery went straight 
down it without any of those deviations peculiar to dreams. She did not 
skim over it, but walked down it, and guided herself by the banisters on 
account of her candle having died out. In one corner of the hall, behind 
the house-door, there was a little waiting-room, like a well-shaft, with a 
long narrow window in it as if it had been ripped up. In this room, which 
was never used, a light was burning.
Mrs Flintwinch crossed the hall, feeling its pavement cold to her 
stockingless feet, and peeped in between the rusty hinges of the door, 
which stood a little open. She expected to see Jeremiah fast asleep or in a 
fit, but he was calmly seated in a chair, awake, and in his usual health. 
But what - hey? - Lord forgive us! - Mrs Flintwinch muttered some 
ejaculation to this effect and turned giddy.
For Mr Flintwinch awake was watching Mr Flintwinch asleep. He sat on one 
side of a small table, looking keenly at himself on the other side with his 
chin sunk on his breast, snoring. The waking Flintwinch had his full front 
face presented to his wife; the sleeping Flintwinch was in profile. The 
waking Flintwinch was the old original; the sleeping Flintwinch was the 
double. Just as she might have distinguished between a tangible object and 
its reflection in a glass, Affery made out this difference with her head 
going round and round.
If she had had any doubt which was her own Jeremiah, it would have been 
resolved by his impatience. He looked about him for an offensive weapon, 
caught up the snuffers, and, before applying them to the cabbage-headed 
candle, lunged at the sleeper as though he would have run him through the 
body.
"Who's that? What's the matter?" cried the sleeper, starting.
Mr Flintwinch made a movement with the snuffers, as if he would have 
enforced silence on his companion by putting them down his throat; the 
companion coming to himself, said, rubbing his eyes, "I forgot where I 
was."
"You have been asleep," snarled Jeremiah, referring to his watch, "two 
hours. You said you would be rested enough if you had a short nap."
"I have had a short nap," said Double.
"Half-past two o'clock in the morning," muttered Jeremiah. "Where's your 
hat? Where's your coat? Where's the box?"
"All here," said Double, tying up his throat with sleepy carefulness in a 
shawl. "Stop a minute. Now give me the sleeve - not that sleeve, the other 
one. Had I'm not as young as I was." Mr Flintwinch had pulled him into his 
coat with vehement energy. "You promised me a second glass after I was 
rested."
"Drink of it!" returned Jeremiah, "and - choke yourself, I was going to say 
- but go, I mean." At the same time he produced the identical port-wine 
bottle, and filled a wine glass.
"Her port-wine, I believe?" said Double, tasting it as if he were in the 
Docks, with hours to spare. "Her health."
He took a sip.
"Your health!"
He took another sip.
"His health!"
He took another sip.
"And all friends round Saint Paul's." He emptied and put down the wine-
glass halfway through this ancient civic toast, and took up the box. It was 
an iron box some two feet square, which he carried under his arms pretty 
easily. Jeremiah watched his manner of adjusting it, with jealous eyes; 
tried it with his hands, to be sure that he had a firm hold of it; bade him 
for his life be careful what he was about; and then stole out on tiptoe to 
open the door for him. Affery, anticipating the last movement, was on the 
staircase. The sequence of things was so ordinary and natural. The sequence 
of things was so ordinary and natural, that, standing there, she could hear 
the door open, feel the night air, and see the stars outside.
But now came the most remarkable part of the dream. She felt so afraid of 
her husband, that being on the staircase, she had not the power to retreat 
to her room (which she might easily have done before he had fastened the 
door), but stood there staring. Consequently when he came up the staircase 
to bed, candle in hand, he came full upon her. He looked astonished, but 
said not a word. He kept his eyes upon her, and kept advancing; and she, 
completely under his influence, kept retiring before him. Thus, she walking 
backward and he walking forward, they came into their own room. They were 
no sooner shut in there, than Mr Flintwinch took her by the throat, and 
shook her until she was black in the face.
"Why, Affery, woman - Affery!" said Mr Flintwinch. "What have you been 
dreaming of? Wake up, wake up! What's the matter?"
"The - the matter, Jeremiah!" gasped Mrs Flintwinch, rolling her eyes. 
"Why, Affery, woman - Affery! You have been getting out of bed in your 
sleep, my dear! I come up, after having fallen asleep myself, below, and 
find you in your wrapper here, with the nightmare. Affery, woman," said Mr 
Flintwinch, with a friendly grin on his expressive countenance, "if you 
ever have a dream of this sort again, it'll be a sign of your being in want 
of physic. And I'll give you such a dose, old woman - such a dose."
Mrs Flintwinch thanked him and crept into bed.


Chapter 5

Family Affairs

As the city clocks struck nine on Monday morning, Mrs Clennam was wheeled 
by Jeremiah Flintwinch of the cut-down aspect, to her tall cabinet. When 
she had unlocked and opened it, and had settled herself at its desk, 
Jeremiah withdrew - as it might be, to hang himself more effectually - and 
her son appeared.
"Are you any better this morning, mother?"
She shook her head, with the same austere air of luxuriousness that she had 
shown overnight when speaking of the weather. "I shall never be better any 
more. It is well for me, Arthur, that I know it and can bear it."
Sitting with her hands laid separately upon the desk, and the tall cabinet 
towering before her, she looked as if she were performing on a dumb church 
organ. Her son thought so (it was an old thought with him), while he took 
his seat beside it.
She opened a drawer or two, looked over some business papers, and put them 
back again. Her severe face had no thread of relaxation in it, by which any 
explorer could have been guided to the gloomy labyrinth of her thoughts.
"Shall I speak of our affairs, mother? Are you inclined to enter upon 
business?"
"Am I inclined, Arthur? Rather, are you? Your father has been dead a year 
and more. I have been at your disposal, and waiting your pleasure, ever 
since."
"There was much to arrange before I could leave; and when I did leave, I 
travelled a little for rest and relief."
She turned her face towards him, as not having heard or understood his last 
words.
"For rest and relief."
She glanced round the sombre room, and appeared from the motion of her lips 
to repeat the words to herself, as calling it to witness how little of 
either it afforded her.
"Besides, mother, you being sole executrix, and having the direction and 
management of the estate, there remained little business, or I might say 
none, that I could transact, until you had had time to arrange matters to 
your satisfaction."
"The accounts are made out," she returned. "I have them here. The vouchers 
have all been examined and passed. You can inspect them when you like, 
Arthur; now, if you please."
"It is quite enough, mother, to know that the business is completed. Shall 
I proceed then?"
"Why not?" she said, in her frozen way.
"Mother, our House has done less and less for some years past, and our 
dealings have been progressively on the decline. We have never shown much 
confidence, or invited much; we have attached no people to us; the track we 
have kept is not the track of the time; and we have been left far behind. I 
need not dwell on this to you, mother. You know it necessarily."
"I know what you mean," she answered, in a qualified tone.
"Even this old house in which we speak," pursued her son, "is an instance 
of what I say. In my father's earlier time, and in his uncle's time before 
him, it was a place of business - really a place of business, and business 
resort. Now it is a mere anomaly and incongruity here, out of date and out 
of purpose. All our consignments have long been made to Rovinghams' the 
commission-merchants; and although, as a check upon them, and in the 
stewardship of my father's resources, your judgment and watchfulness have 
been actively exerted, still those qualities would have influenced my 
father's fortunes equally, if you had lived in any private dwelling: would 
they not?"
"Do you consider," she returned, without answering his question, "that a 
house serves no purpose, Arthur, in sheltering your infirm and afflicted - 
justly infirm and righteously afflicted - mother?"
"I was speaking only of business purposes."
"With what object?" I am coming to it."
"I foresee," she returned, fixing her eyes upon him, "what it is. But the 
Lord forbid that I should repine under any visitation. In my sinfulness I 
merit bitter disappointment, and I accept it."
"Mother, I grieve to hear you speak like this, though I have had my 
apprehensions that you would -"
"You knew I would. You knew me," she interrupted.
Her son paused for a moment. He had struck fire out of her, and was 
surprised.
"Well!" she said, relapsing into stone. "Go on. Let me hear."
"You have anticipated mother, that I decide for my part, to abandon the 
business. I have done with it. I will not take upon myself to advise you; 
you will continue it, I see. If I had any influence with you, I would 
simply use it to soften your judgment of me in causing you this 
disappointment: to represent to you that I have lived the half of a long 
term of life, and have never before set my own will against yours. I cannot 
say that I have been able to conform myself, in heart and spirit, to your 
rules; I cannot say that I believe my forty years have been profitable or 
pleasant to myself, or any one; but I have habitually submitted, and I only 
ask you to remember it."
Woe to the suppliant, if such a one there were or ever had been, who had 
any concession to look for in the inexorable face at the cabinet. Woe to 
the defaulter whose appeal lay to the tribunal where those severe eyes 
presided. Great need had the rigid woman of her mystical religion, veiled 
in gloom and darkness, with lightnings of cursing, vengeance, and 
destruction, flashing through the sable clouds. Forgive us our debts as we 
forgive our debtors, was a prayer too poor in spirit for her. Smite thou my 
debtors, Lord, wither them, crush them; do Thou as I would do, and Thou 
shalt have my worship: this was the impious tower of stone she built up to 
scale Heaven.
"Have you finished, Arthur, or have you anything more to say to me? I think 
there can be nothing else. You have been short, but full of matter!"
"Mother, I have yet something more to say. It has been upon my mind, night 
and day, this long time. It is far more difficult to say than what I have 
said. That concerned myself; this concerns us all."
"Us all! Who are us all!"
"Yourself, myself, my dead father."
She took her hands from the desk; folded them in her lap; and sat looking 
towards the fire, with the impenetrability of an old Egyptian sculpture.
"You knew my father infinitely better than I ever knew him; and his reserve 
with me yielded to you. You were much the stronger, mother, and directed 
him. As a child, I knew it as well as I know it now. I knew that your 
ascendancy over him was the cause of his going to China to take care of the 
business there, while you took care of it here (though I do not even now 
know whether these were really terms of separation that you agreed upon); 
and that it was your will that I should remain with you until I was twenty, 
and that it was your will that I should remain with you until I was twenty, 
and then go to him as I did. You will not be offended by my recalling this, 
after twenty years?"
"I am waiting to hear why you recall it."
He lowered his voice, and said, with manifest reluctance, and against his 
will:
"I want to ask you, mother, whether it ever occurred to you to suspect -"
At the word Suspect, she turned her eyes momentarily upon her son, with a 
dark frown. She then suffered them to seek the fire as before; but with the 
frown fixed above them, as if the sculptor of old Egypt had indented it in 
the hard granite face, to frown for ages.
" - that he had any secret remembrance which caused him trouble of mind - 
remorse? Whether you ever observed anything in his conduct suggesting that; 
or ever spoke to him upon it, or ever heard him hint at such a thing?"
"I do not understand what kind of secret remembrance you mean to infer that 
your father was a prey to," she returned, after a silence. "You speak so 
mysteriously."
"Is it possible, mother," her son leaned forward to be the nearer to her 
while he whispered it, and laid his hand nervously upon her desk, "is it 
possible, mother, that he had unhappily wronged any one, and made no 
reparation?"
Looking at him wrathfully, she bent herself back in her chair to keep him 
further off, but gave him no reply.
"I am deeply sensible, mother, that if this thought has never at any time 
flashed upon you, it must seem cruel and unnatural in me, even in this 
confidence, to breathe it. But I cannot shake it off. Time and change (I 
have tried both before breaking silence), do nothing to wear it out. 
Remember, I was with my father. Remember, I saw his face when he gave the 
watch into my keeping, and struggled to express that he sent it as a token 
you would understand, to you. Remember, I saw him at the last with the 
pencil in his failing hand, trying to write some word for you to read, but 
to which he could give no shape. The more remote and cruel this vague 
suspicion that I have, the stronger the circumstances that could give it 
any semblance of probability to me. For heaven's sake let us examine 
sacredly whether there is any wrong entrusted to us to set right. No one 
can help towards it, mother, but you."
Still so recoiling in her chair that her overpoised weight moved it, from 
time to time, a little on its wheels, and gave her the appearance of a 
phantom of fierce aspect gliding away from him, she interposed her left 
arm, bent at the elbow with the back of her hand towards her face, between 
herself and him, and looked at him in a fixed silence.
"In grasping at money and in driving hard bargains - I have begun, and I 
must speak of such things now, mother - some one may have been grievously 
deceived, injured, ruined. You were the moving power of all this machinery 
before my birth; your stronger spirit has been infused into all my father's 
dealings, for more than two score years. You can set these doubts at rest, 
I think, if you will really help me to discover the truth. Will you, 
mother?"
He stopped in the hope that she would speak. But her grey hair was not more 
immovable in its two folds, than were her firm lips. "If reparation can be 
made to any one, if restitution can be made to any one, let us know it and 
make it. Nay, mother, if within my means, let me make it. I have seen so 
little happiness come of money; it has brought within my knowledge so 
little peace to this house, or to any one belonging to it; that it is worth 
less to me than to another. It can buy me nothing that it will not be a 
reproach and misery to me, if I am haunted by a suspicion that it darkened 
my father's last hours with remorse, and that it is not honestly and justly 
mine."
There was a bell-rope hanging on the panelled wall, some two or three yards 
from the cabinet. By a swift and sudden action of her foot, she drove her 
wheeled chair rapidly back to it and pulled it violently - still holding 
her arm up in its shielding posture, as if he were striking at her, and she 
warding off the blow.
A girl came hurrying in, frightened.
"Send Flintwinch here!"
In a moment the girl had withdrawn, and the old man stood within the door. 
"What! You're hammer and tongs already, you two?" he said, coolly stroking 
his face. "I thought you would be. I was pretty sure of it."
"Flintwinch!" said the mother, "look at my son. Look at him!"
"Well! I am looking at him," said Flintwinch.
She stretched out the arm with which she had shielded herself, and as she 
went on pointed at the object of her anger.
"In the very hour of his return almost - before the shoe upon his foot is 
dry - he asperses his father's memory to his mother! Asks his mother to 
become, with him, a spy upon his father's transactions through a lifetime! 
Has misgivings that the goods of this world which we have painfully got 
together early and late, with wear and tear and toil and self-denial, are 
so much plunder; and asks to whom they shall be given up, as reparation and 
restitution!"
Although she said this raging, she said it in a voice so far from being 
beyond her control, that it was even lower than her usual tone. She also 
spoke with great distinctness.
"Reparation!" said she, "Yes truly! It is easy for him to talk of 
reparation, fresh from journeying and junketting in foreign lands, and 
living a life of vanity and pleasure. But let him look at me, in prison, 
and in bonds here. I endure without murmuring, because it is appointed that 
I shall so make reparation for my sins. Reparation! Is there none in this 
room? Has there been none here this fifteen years?"
Thus was she always balancing her bargain with the Majesty of heaven, 
posting up the entries to her credit, strictly keeping her set-off, and 
claiming her due. She was only remarkable in this, for the force and 
emphasis with which she did it. Thousands upon thousands do it, according 
to their varying manner, every day. "Flintwinch, give me that book?"
The old man handed it to her from the table. She put two fingers between 
the leaves, closed the book upon them, and held it up to her son in a 
threatening way.
"In the days of old, Arthur, treated of in this Commentary, there were 
pious men, beloved of the Lord, who would have cursed their sons for less 
than this: who would have sent them forth, and sent whole nations forth, if 
such had supported them, to be avoided of God and man, and perish, down to 
the baby at the breast. But I only tell you that if you ever renew that 
theme with me. I will renounce you; I will so dismiss you through that 
doorway, that you had better have been motherless from your cradle. I will 
never see or know you more. And if, after all, you were to come into this 
darkened room to look upon me lying dead, my body should bleed, if I could 
make it, when you came near me."
In part relieved by the intensity of this threat, and in part (monstrous as 
the fact is) by a general impression that it was in some sort a religious 
proceeding, she handed back the book to the old man, and was silent.
"Now," said Jeremiah; "premising that I'm not going to stand between you 
two, will you let me ask (as I have been called in, and made a third) what 
is all this about?"
"Take your version of it," returned Arthur, finding it left to him to 
speak, "from my mother. Let it rest there. What I have said, was said to my 
mother only."
"Oh!" returned the old man. "From your mother? Take it from your mother? 
Well! But your mother mentioned that you had been suspecting your father. 
That's not dutiful, Mr Arthur. Who will you be suspecting next?"
"Enough," said Mrs Clennam, turning her face so that it was addressed for 
the moment to the old man only. "Let no more be said about this."
"Yes, but stop a bit, stop a bit," the old man persisted. "Let us see how 
we stand. Have you told Mr Arthur, that he mustn't lay offences at his 
father's door? That he has no right to do it? That he has no ground to go 
upon?"
"I tell him so now."
"Ah! Exactly," said the old man. "You tell him so now. You hadn't told him 
so before, and you tell him so now. Ay, ay! That's right! You know I stood 
between you and his father so long, that it seems as if death had made no 
difference, and I was still standing between you. So I will, and so in 
fairness I require to have that plainly put forward. Arthur, you please to 
hear that you have no right to mistrust your father, and have no ground to 
go upon."
He put his hands to the back of the wheeled chair, and muttering to 
himself, slowly wheeled his mistress back to her cabinet. "Now," he 
resumed, standing behind her: "in case I should go away leaving things half 
done, and so should be wanted again when you come to the other half and get 
into one of your flights, has Arthur told you what he means to do about the 
business?"
"He has relinquished it."
"In favour of nobody, I suppose?"
Mrs Clennam glanced at her son, leaning against one of the windows. He 
observed the look, and said, "To my mother, of course. She does what she 
pleases."
"And if any pleasure," she said after a short pause. "could arise for me 
out of the disappointment of my expectations, that my son in the prime of 
his life would infuse new youth and strength into it, and make it of great 
profit and power, it would be in advancing an old and faithful servant. 
Jeremiah, the captain deserts the ship, but you and I will sink or float 
with it."
Jeremiah, whose eyes glistened as if they saw money, darted a sudden look 
at the son, which seemed to say, "I owe you no thanks for this: you have 
done nothing towards it!" and then told the mother that he thanked her, and 
that Affery thanked her, and that he would never desert her, and that 
Affery would never desert her. Finally he hauled up his watch from its 
depths, said "Eleven. Time for your oysters!" and with that change of 
subject, which involved no change of expression or manner, rang the bell.
But Mrs Clennam, resolved to treat herself with the greater rigour for 
having been supposed to be unacquainted with reparation, refused to eat her 
oysters when they were brought. They looked tempting; eight in number, 
circularly set out on a white plate on a tray covered with a white napkin, 
flanked by a slice of buttered French roll, and a little compact glass of 
cool wine and water; but she resisted all persuasions, and sent them down 
again - placing the act to her credit, no doubt, in her Eternal Day-book.
This refection of oysters was not presided over by Affery, but by the girl 
who had appeared when the bell was rung; the same who had been in the dimly-
lighted room last night. Now that he had an opportunity of observing her, 
Arthur found that her diminutive figure, small features, and slight spare 
dress, gave her the appearance of being much younger than she was. A woman, 
probably of not less than two and twenty, she might have been passed in the 
street for little more than half that age. Not that her face was very 
youthful, for in truth there was more consideration and care in it than 
naturally belonged to her utmost years; but she was so little and light, so 
noiseless and shy, and appeared so conscious of being out of place among 
the three hard elders, that she had all the manner and much of the 
appearance of a subdued child.
In a hard way, and in an uncertain way that fluctuated between patronage 
and putting down, the sprinkling from a watering-pot and hydraulic 
pressure, Mrs Clennam showed an interest in this dependant. Even in the 
moment of her entrance upon the violent ringing of the bell, when the 
mother shielded herself with that singular action from the son, Mrs 
Clennam's eyes had had some individual recognition in them, which seemed 
reserved for her. As there are degrees of hardness in the hardest metal, 
and shades of colour in black itself, so even in the asperity of Mrs 
Clennam's demeanour towards all the rest of humanity and towards Little 
Dorrit, there was a fine gradation.
Little Dorrit let herself out to do needlework. At so much a day - or at so 
little - from eight to eight, Little Dorrit was to be hired. Punctual to 
the moment, Little Dorrit appeared; punctual to the moment Little Dorrit 
vanished. What became of Little Dorrit between the two eights, was a 
mystery.
Another of the moral phenomena of Little Dorrit. Besides her consideration 
money, her daily contract included meals. She had an extraordinary 
repugnance to dining in company; would never do so, if it were possible to 
escape. Would always plead that she had this bit of work to begin first, or 
that bit of work to finish first; and would, of a certainty, scheme and 
plan - not very cunningly it would seem, for she deceived no one - to dine 
alone. Successful in this, happy in carrying off her plate anywhere, to 
make a table of her lap, or a box, or the ground, or even as was supposed, 
to stand on tiptoe, dining moderately at a mantleshelf; the great anxiety 
of Little Dorrit's day was set at rest.
It was not easy to make out Little Dorrit's face; she was so retiring, 
plied her needle in such removed corners, and started away so scared if 
encountered on the stairs. But it seemed to be a pale transparent face, 
quick in expression, though not beautiful in feature, its soft hazel eyes 
excepted. A delicately bent head, a tiny form, a quick little pair of busy 
hands, and a shabby dress - it must needs have been very shabby to look at 
all so, being so neat - were Little Dorrit as she sat at work.
For these particulars or generalities concerning Little Dorrit, Mr Arthur 
was indebted in the course of the day to his own eyes and to Mrs Affrey's 
tongue. If Mrs Affery had had any will or way of her own, it would probably 
have been unfavourable to Little Dorrit. But as "them two clever ones" - 
Mrs Affery's perpetual reference, in whom her personality was swallowed up -
 were agreed to accept Little Dorrit as a matter of course, she had nothing 
for it but to follow suit. Similarly, if the two clever ones had agreed to 
murder Little Dorrit by candlelight, Mrs Affery being required to hold the 
candle, would no doubt have done it.
In the intervals of roasting the partridge for the invalid chamber, and 
preparing a baking-dish of beef and pudding for the dining-room, Mrs Affery 
made the communications above set forth; invariably putting her head in at 
the door again after she had taken it out, to enforce resistance to the two 
clever ones. It appeared to have become a perfect passion with Mrs 
Flintwinch, that the only son should be pitted against them.
In the course of the day too, Arthur looked through the whole house. Dull 
and dark he found it. The gaunt rooms, deserted for years upon years, 
seemed to have settled down into a gloomy lethargy from which nothing could 
rouse them again. The furniture, at once spare and lumbering, hid in the 
rooms rather than furnished them, and there was no colour in all the house; 
such colour as had ever been there, had long ago started away on lost 
sunbeams - got itself absorbed, perhaps, into flowers, butterflies, plumage 
of birds, precious stones, what not. There was not one straight floor, from 
the foundation to the roof; the ceilings were so fantastically clouded by 
smoke and dust, that old women might have told fortunes in them, better 
than in grouts of tea; the dead-cold hearths showed no traces of having 
ever been warmed, but in heaps of soot that had tumbled down the chimneys, 
and eddied about in little dusky whirlwinds when the doors were opened. In 
what had once been a drawing-room, there were a pair of meagre mirrors, 
with dismal processions of black figures carrying black garlands, walking 
round the frames; but even these were short of heads and legs, and one 
undertaker-like Cupid had swung round on his own axis and got upside down, 
and another had fallen off altogether. The room Arthur Clennam's deceased 
father had occupied for business purposes, when he first remembered him, 
was so unaltered that he might have been imagined still to keep it 
invisibly, as his visible relict kept her room upstairs; Jeremiah 
Flintwinch still going between them negociating. His picture, dark and 
gloomy, earnestly speechless on the wall, with the eyes intently looking at 
his son as they had looked when life departed from them, seemed to urge him 
awfully to the task he had attempted; but as to any yielding on the part of 
his mother, he had now no hope, and as to any other means of setting his 
distrust at rest, he had abandoned hope a long time. Down in the cellars, 
as up in the bed-chambers, old objects that he well remembered were changed 
by age and decay, but were still in their old places; even to empty beer-
casks hoary with cobwebs, and empty wine-bottles with fur and fungus 
choking up their throats. There, too, among unused bottle-racks and pale 
slants of light from the yard above, was the strong room stored with old 
ledgers which had as musty and corrupt a smell as if they were regularly 
balanced, in the dead small hours, by a nightly resurrection of old 
bookkeepers.
The baking-dish was served up in a penitential manner, on a shrunken cloth 
at an end of the dining table, at two o'clock; when he dined with Mr 
Flintwinch, the new partner. Mr Flintwinch informed him that his mother had 
recovered her equanimity now, and that he need not fear her again alluding 
to what had passed in the morning. "And don't you lay offences at your 
father's door, Mr Arthur," added Jeremiah, "once for all, don't do it! Now, 
we have done with the subject."
Mr Flintwinch had been already rearranging and dusting his own particular 
little office, as if to do honour to his accession to new dignity. He 
resumed this occupation when he was replete with beef, had sucked up all 
the gravy in the baking-dish with the flat of his knife, and had drawn 
liberally on a barrel of small beer in the scullery. Thus refreshed, he 
tucked up his shirt-sleeves and went to work again; and Mr Arthur, watching 
him as he set about it, plainly saw that his father's picture, or his 
father's grave, would be as communicative with him as this old man.
"Now, Affery, woman," said Mr Flintwinch, as she crossed the hall. "You 
hadn't made Mr Arthur's bed when I was up there last. Stir yourself. 
Bustle."
But Mr Arthur found the house so blank and dreary, and was so unwilling to 
assist at another implacable consignment of his mother's enemies (perhaps 
himself among them) to mortal disfigurement and immortal ruin, that he 
announced his intention of lodging at the coffee-house where he had left 
his luggage. Mr Flintwinch taking kindly to the idea of getting rid of him, 
and his mother being indifferent, beyond considerations of saving, to most 
domestic arrangements that were not bounded by the walls of her own 
chamber, he easily carried this point without new offence. Daily business 
hours were agreed upon, which his mother, Mr Flintwinch, and he, were to 
devote together to a necessary checking of books and papers; and he left 
the home he had so lately found, with a depressed heart.
But Little Dorrit?
The business hours, allowing for intervals of invalid regimen of oysters 
and partridges, during which Clennam refreshed himself with a walk, were 
from ten to six for about a fortnight. Sometimes Little Dorrit was employed 
at her needle, sometimes not, sometimes appeared as a humble visitor: which 
must have been her character on the occasion of his arrival. His original 
curiosity augmented every day, as he watched for her, saw or did not see 
her, and speculated about her. Influenced by his predominant idea, he even 
fell into a habit of discussing with himself the possibility of her being 
in some way associated with it. At last he resolved to watch Little Dorrit 
and know more of her story.


Chapter 6

The Father Of The Marshalsea

Thirty years ago there stood, a few doors short of the church of Saint 
George, in the borough of Southwark, on the left-hand side of the way going 
southward, the Marshalsea Prison It had stood there many years before, and 
it remained there some years afterwards; but it is gone now, and the world 
is none the worse without it.
It was an oblong pile of barrack building, partitioned into squalid houses 
standing back to back, so that there were no back rooms; environed by a 
narrow paved yard, hemmed in by high walls duly spiked at top. Itself a 
close and confined prison for debtors, it contained within it a much closer 
and more confined jail for smugglers. Offenders against the revenue laws, 
and defaulters to excise or customs, who had incurred fines which they were 
unable to pay, were supposed to be incarcerated behind an iron-plated door, 
closing up a second prison, consisting of a strong cell or two, and a blind 
alley some yard and a half wide, which formed the mysterious termination of 
the very limited skittle-ground in which the Marshalsea debtors bowled down 
their troubles.
Supposed to be incarcerated there, because the time had rather outgrown the 
strong cells and the blind alley. In practice they had come to be 
considered a little too bad, though in theory they were quite as good as 
ever; which may be observed to be the case at the present day with other 
cells that are not at all strong, and with other blind alleys that are 
stone-blind. Hence the smugglers habitually consorted with the debtors (who 
received them with open arms), except at certain constitutional moments 
when somebody came from some Office, to go through some form of overlooking 
something which neither he nor anybody else knew anything about. On those 
truly British occasions, the smugglers, if any, made a feint of walking 
into the strong cells and the blind alley, while this somebody pretended to 
do his something; and made a reality of walking out again as soon as he 
hadn't done it - neatly epitomising the administration of most of the 
public affairs in our right little, tight little island.
There had been taken to the Marshalsea Prison, long before the day when the 
sun shone on Marseilles and on the opening of this narrative, a debtor with 
whom this narrative has some concern.
He was, at that time, a very amiable and very helpless middle-aged 
gentleman, who was going out again directly. Necessarily, he was going out 
again directly, because the Marshalsea lock never turned upon a debtor who 
was not. He brought in a portmanteau with him, which he doubted its being 
worth while to unpack; he was so perfectly clear - like all the rest of 
them, the turnkey on the lock said - that he was going out again directly.
He was a shy, retiring man; well-looking, though in an effeminate style; 
with a mild voice, curling hair, and irresolute hands - rings upon the 
fingers in those days - which nervously wandered to his trembling lip a 
hundred times, in the first half-hour of his acquaintance with the jail. 
His principal anxiety was about his wife.
"Do you think, sir," he asked the turnkey, "that she will be very much 
shocked, if she should come to the gate tomorrow morning?"
The turnkey gave it as the result of his experience that some of 'em was 
and some of 'em wasn't. In general, more no than yes. "What like is she, 
you see?" he philosophically asked: "that's what it hinges on."
"She is very delicate and inexperienced indeed."
"That," said the turnkey, "is agen her."
"She is so little used to go out alone," said the debtor, "that I am at a 
loss to think how she will ever make her way here, if she walks."
"P'raps," quoth the turnkey, "she'll take a ackney-coach."
"Perhaps." The irresolute fingers went to the trembling lip. "I hope she 
will. She may not think of it."
"Or p'raps," said the turnkey, offering his suggestions from the top of his 
well-worn wooden stool, as he might have offered them to a child for whose 
weakness he felt a compassion, "p'raps she'll get her brother, or her 
sister, to come along with her."
"She has no brother or sister."
"Niece, nevy, cousin, serwant, young 'ooman, green-grocer. - Dash it! One 
or another on 'em," said the turnkey, repudiating beforehand the refusal of 
all his suggestions.
"I fear - I hope it is not against the rules - that she will bring the 
children."
"The children?" said the turnkey. "And the rules? Why, lord set you up like 
a corner pin, we've a reg'lar playground o' children here. Children? Why, 
we swarm with 'em. How many a you got?"
"Two," said the debtor, lifting his irresolute hand to his lip again, and 
turning into the prison.
The turnkey followed him with his eyes. "And you another," he observed to 
himself, "which makes three on you. And your wife another, I'll lay a 
crown. Which makes four on you. And another coming, I'll lay half-a-crown. 
Which'll make five on you. And I'll go another seven and sixpence to name 
which is the helplessest, the unborn baby or you!"
He was right in all his particulars. She came next day with a little boy of 
three years old, and a little girl of two, and he stood entirely 
corroborated.
"Got a room now; haven't you?" the turnkey asked the debtor after a week or 
two.
"Yes, I have got a very good room."
"Any little sticks a coming, to furnish it?" said the turnkey.
"I expect a few necessary articles of furniture to be delivered by the 
carrier this afternoon."
"Missis and little 'uns a coming, to keep you company?" asked the turnkey.
"Why, yes, we think it better that we should not be scattered, even for a 
few weeks."
"Even for a few weeks, of course," replied the turnkey. And he followed him 
again with his eyes, and nodded his head seven times when he was gone.
The affairs of this debtor were perplexed by a partnership, of which he 
knew no more than that he had invested money in it; by legal matters of 
assignment and settlement, conveyance here and conveyance there, suspicion 
of unlawful preference of creditors in this direction, and of mysterious 
spiriting away of property in that; and as nobody on the face of the earth 
could be more incapable of explaining any single item in the heap of 
confusion than the debtor himself, nothing comprehensible could be made of 
his case. To question him in detail, and endeavour to reconcile his 
answers; to closet him with accountants and sharp practitioners, learned in 
the wiles of insolvency and bankruptcy; was only to put the case out at 
compound interest of incomprehensibility. The irresolute fingers fluttered 
more and more ineffectually about the trembling lip on every such occasion, 
and the sharpest practitioners gave him up as a hopeless job.
"Out?" said the turnkey, "he'll never get out. Unless his creditors take 
him by the shoulders and shove him out."
He had been there five or six months, when he came running to this turnkey 
one forenoon to tell him, breathless and pale, that his wife was ill.
"As anybody might a known she would be," said the turnkey.
"We intended," he returned, "that she should go to a country lodging only 
tomorrow. What am I to do! Oh, good heaven, what am I to do!"
"Don't waste your time in clasping your hands and biting your fingers," 
responded the practical turnkey, taking him by the elbow, "but come along 
with me."
The turnkey conducted him - trembling from head to foot, and constantly 
crying under his breath. What was he to do! while his irresolute fingers 
bedabbled the tears upon his face - up one of the common staircases in the 
prison, to a door on the garret story. Upon which door the turnkey knocked 
with the handle of his key.
"Come in!" cried a voice inside.
The turnkey opening the door, disclosed in a wretched, ill-smelling little 
room, two hoarse, puffy, red-faced personages seated at a ricketty table, 
playing at all-fours, smoking pipes, and drinking brandy.
"Doctor," said the turnkey, "here's a gentleman's wife in want of you 
without a minute's loss of time!"
The doctor's friend was in the positive degree of hoarseness, puffiness, 
red-facedness, all-fours, tobacco, dirt, and brandy; the doctor in the 
comparative - hoarser, puffier, more red-faced, more all-foury, tobaccoer, 
dirtier, and brandier. The doctor was amazingly shabby, in a torn and 
darned rough-weather sea-jacket, out at elbows and eminently short of 
buttons (he had been in his time the experienced surgeon carried by a 
passenger ship), the dirtiest white trowsers conceivable by mortal man, 
carpet slippers, and no visible linen. "Childbed?" said the doctor. "I'm 
the boy!" With that the doctor took a comb from the chimney-piece and stuck 
his hair upright - which appeared to be his way of washing himself - 
produced a professional chest or case, of most abject appearance, from the 
cupboard where his cup and saucer and coals were, settled his chin in the 
frowsy wrapper round his neck, and became a ghastly medical scarecrow.
The doctor and the debtor ran downstairs, leaving the turnkey to return to 
the lock, and made for the debtor's room. All the ladies in the prison had 
got hold of the news, and were in the yard. Some of them had already taken 
possession of the two children, and were hospitably carrying them off; 
others were offering loans of little comforts from their own scanty store; 
others were sympathizing with the greatest volubility. The gentlemen 
prisoners, feeling themselves at a disadvantage, had for the most part 
retired, not to say sneaked, to their rooms; from the open windows of 
which, some of them now complimented the doctor with whistles as he passed 
below, while others, with several stories between them, interchanged 
sarcastic references to the prevalent excitement.
It was a hot summer day, and the prison rooms were baking between the high 
walls. In the debtor's confined chamber, Mrs Bangham, charwoman and 
messenger, who was not a prisoner (though she had been once), but was the 
popular medium of communication with the outer world, had volunteered her 
services as fly-catcher and general attendant. The walls and ceiling were 
blackened with flies. Mrs Bangham, expert in sudden device, with one hand 
fanned the patient with a cabbage leaf, and with the other set traps of 
vinegar and sugar in gallipots; at the same time enunciating sentiments of 
an encouraging and congratulatory nature, adapted to the occasion.
"The flies trouble you don't they, my dear?" said Mrs Bangham. "But p'raps 
they'll take your mind off of it, and do you good. What between the buryin 
ground, the grocer's, the waggon-stables, and the paunch trade, the 
Marshalsea flies gets very large. P'raps they're sent as a consolation, if 
we only know'd it. How are you now, my dear? No better? No my dear, it 
ain't to be expected; you'll be worse before you're better and you know it, 
don't you? Yes. That's right! And to think of a sweet little cherub being 
born inside the lock! Now ain't it pretty, ain't that something to carry 
you through it pleasant? Why, we ain't had such a thing happen here, my 
dear, not for I couldn't name the time when. And you a crying too?" said 
Mrs Bangham, to rally the patient more and more. "You! Making yourself so 
famous! With the flies a falling into the gallipots by fifties! And 
everything a going on so well! And here if there ain't," said Mrs Bangham 
as the door opened, "if there ain't your dear gentleman along with Doctor 
Haggage! And now indeed we are complete, I think!"
The doctor was scarcely the kind of apparition to inspire a patient with a 
sense of absolute completeness, but as he presently delivered the opinion, 
"We are as right as we can be, Mrs Bangham, and we shall come out of this 
like a house a fire;" and as he and Mrs Bangham took possession of the 
poor, helpless pair, as everybody else and anybody else had always done; 
the means at hand were as good on the whole as better would have been. The 
special feature in Dr Haggage's treatment of the case, was his 
determination to keep Mrs Bangham up to the mark. As thus:
"Mrs Bangham," said the doctor, before he had been there twenty minutes, 
"go outside and fetch a little brandy, or we shall have you giving in."
"Thank you sir. But none on my accounts," said Mrs Bangham.
"Mrs Bangham," returned the doctor, "I am in professional attendance on 
this lady, and don't choose to allow any discussion on your part. Go 
outside and fetch a little brandy, or I forsee that you'll break down."
"You're to be obeyed sir," said Mrs Bangham, rising. "If you was to put 
your own lips to it, I think you wouldn't be the worse, for you to look but 
poorly, sir."
"Mrs Bangham," returned the doctor, "I am not your business, thank you, but 
you are mine. Never you mind me, if you please. What you have got to do, 
is, to do as you are told, and go and get what I bid you." Mrs Bangham 
submitted; and the doctor, having administered her potion, took his own. He 
repeated the treatment every hour, being very determined with Mrs Bangham. 
Three or four hours passed; the flies fell into the traps by hundreds; and 
at length one little life, hardly stronger than theirs, appeared among the 
multitude of lesser deaths.
"A very nice little girl indeed," said the doctor; "little but well-formed. 
Halloa, Mrs Bangham! You're looking queer! You be off, ma'am, this minute, 
and fetch a little more brandy, or we shall have you in hysterics."
By this time, the rings had begun to fall from the debtor's irresolute 
hands, like leaves from a wintry tree. Not one was left upon them that 
night, when he put something that chinked into the doctor's greasy palm. In 
the meantime, Mrs Bangham had been out an errand to a neighbouring 
establishment decorated with three golden balls, where she was well known.
"Thank you," said the doctor, "thank you. Your good lady is quite composed. 
Doing charmingly."
"I am very happy and very thankful to know it," said the debtor, "though I 
little thought once, that -"
"That a child would be born to you in a place like this?" said the doctor. 
"Bah, bah, sir, what does it signify? A little more elbow-room is all we 
want here. We are quiet here; we don't get badgered here; there's no 
knocker here, sir, to be hammered at by creditors and bring a man's heart 
into his mouth. Nobody comes here to ask if a man's at home, and to say 
he'll stand on the door mat till he is. Nobody writes threatening letters 
about money, in this place. It's freedom, sir, it's freedom! I have had 
today's practice at home and abroad, on a march, and aboard ship, and I'll 
tell you this: I don't know that I have ever pursued it under such quiet 
circumstances, as here this day. Elsewhere people are restless, worried, 
hurried about, anxious respecting one thing, anxious respecting another. 
Nothing of the kind here, sir. We have done all that - we know the worst of 
it; we have got to the bottom, we can't fall, and what have we found? 
Peace. That's the word for it. Peace." With this profession of faith, the 
doctor, who was an old jail-bird and was more sodden than usual, and had 
the additional and unusual stimulus of money in in his pocket, returned to 
his associate and chum in hoarseness, puffiness, red-facedness, all-fours, 
tobacco, dirt, and brandy.
Now, the debtor was a very different man from the doctor, but he had 
already begun to travel, by his opposite segment of the circle, to the same 
point. Crushed at first by his imprisonment, he had soon found a dull 
relief in it. He was under lock and key; but the lock and key that kept him 
in, kept numbers of his troubles out. If he had been a man of strength of 
purpose to face those troubles and fight them, he might have broken the net 
that held him, or broken his heart; but being what he was, he languidly 
slipped into his smooth descent, and never more took one step upward.
When he was relieved of the perplexed affairs that nothing would make 
plain, through having them returned upon his hands by a dozen agents in 
succession who could make neither by beginning, middle, nor end of them, or 
him, he found his miserable place of refuge a quieter refuge than it had 
been before. He had unpacked the portmanteau long ago; and his elder 
children now played regularly about the yard, and everybody knew the baby, 
and claimed a kind of proprietorship in her."
"Why, I am getting proud of you," said his friend the turnkey, one day. 
"You'll be the oldest inhabitant soon. The Marshalsea wouldn't be like the 
Marshalsea now, without you and your family."
The turnkey really was proud of him. He would mention him in laudatory 
terms to new comers, when his back was turned. "You took notice of him," he 
would say, "that went out of the Lodge just now?"
New comer would probably answer yes.
"Brought up as a gentleman, he was, if ever a man was. Ed'cated at no end 
of expense. Went into the Marshal's house once, to try a new piano for him. 
Played it, I understand, like one o'clock - beautiful! As to languages - 
speaks anything. We've had a Frenchman here in his time, and it's my 
opinion he knowed more French than the Frenchman did. We've had an Italian 
here in his time, and he shut him up in about half a minute. You'll find 
some characters behind other locks, I don't say you won't; but if you want 
the top sawyer, in such respects as I've mentioned, you must come to the 
Marshalsea."
When his youngest child was eight years old, his wife, who had long been 
languishing away - of her own inherent weakness, not that she retained any 
greater sensitiveness as to her place of abode than he did - went upon a 
visit to a poor friend and old nurse in the country, and died there. He 
remained shut up in his room for a fortnight afterwards; and an attorney's 
clerk, who was going through the Insolvent Court, engrossed an address of 
condolence to him, which looked like a Lease, and which all the prisoners 
signed. When he appeared again he was greyer (he had soon begun to turn 
grey); and the turnkey noticed that his hands went often to his trembling 
lips again, as they had used to do when he first came in. But he got pretty 
well over it in a month or two; and in the meantime the children played 
about the yard as regularly as ever, but in black.
Then Mrs Bangham, long popular medium of communication with the outer 
world, began to be infirm, and to be found oftener than usual comatose on 
pavements, with her basket of purchases spilt, and the change of her 
clients ninepence short. His son began to supersede Mrs Bangham, and to 
execute commissions in a knowing manner, and to be of the prison prisonous 
and of the streets streety.
Time went on and the turnkey began to fail. His chest swelled, and his legs 
got weak, and he was short of breath. The well-worn wooden stool was 
"beyond him," he complained. He sat in an armchair with a cushion, and 
sometimes wheezed so, for minutes together, that he couldn't turn the key. 
When he was overpowered by these fits, the debtor often turned it for him.
"You and me," said the turnkey, one snowy winter's night, when the lodge, 
with a bright fire in it, was pretty full of company, "is the oldest 
inhabitants. I wasn't here myself, above seven years before you. I shan't 
last long. When I'm off the lock for good and all, you'll be the Father of 
the Marshalsea."
The turnkey went off the lock of this world, next day. His words were 
remembered and repeated; and tradition afterwards handed down from 
generation to generation - a Marshalsea generation might be calculated as 
about three months - that the shabby old debtor with the soft manner and 
the white hair, was the Father of the Marshalsea.
And he grew to be proud of the title. If any impostor had arisen to claim 
it, he would have shed tears in resentment of the attempt to deprive him of 
his rights. A disposition began to be perceived in him, to exaggerate the 
number of years he had been there; it was generally understood that you 
must deduct a few from his account; he was vain, the fleeting generations 
of debtors said.
All new comers were presented to him. He was punctilious in the exaction of 
this ceremony. The wits would perform the office of introduction with 
overcharged pomp and politeness, but they could not easily overstep his 
sense of its gravity. He received them in his poor room (he disliked an 
introduction in the mere yard, as informal - a thing that might happen to 
anybody), with a kind of a bowed-down beneficence. They were welcome to the 
Marshalsea, he would tell them. Yes, he was the Father of the place. So the 
world was kind enough to call him; and so he was, if more than twenty years 
of residence gave him a claim to the title. It looked small at first, but 
there was very good company there - among a mixture - necessarily a mixture 
- and very good air.
It became a not unusual circumstance for letters to be put under his door 
at night, enclosing half-a-crown, two half-crowns, now and then at long 
intervals even half-a-sovereign, for the Father of the Marshalsea. "With 
the compliments of a collegian taking leave." He received the gifts as 
tributes, from admirers, to a public character. Sometimes these 
correspondents assumed facetious names, as the Brick, Bellows, Old 
Gooseberry, Wideawake, Snooks, Mops, Cutaway, the Dogsmeat Man; but he 
considered this in bad taste, and was always a little hurt by it.
In the fulness of time, this correspondence showing signs of wearing out, 
and seeming to require an effort on the part of the correspondents to which 
in the hurried circumstance of departure many of them might not be equal, 
he established the custom of attending collegians of a certain standing to 
the gate, and taking leave of them there. The collegian under treatment, 
after shaking hands, would occasionally stop to wrap up something, in a bit 
of paper, and would come back again, calling "Hk!"
He would look round surprised. "Me?" he would say, with a smile.
By this time the collegian would be up with him, and he would paternally 
add, "What have you forgotten? What can I do for you?"
"I forgot to leave this," the collegian would usually return, "for the 
Father of the Marshalsea."
"My good sir," he would rejoin, "he is infinitely obliged to you." But, to 
the last, the irresolute hand of old would remain in the pocket into which 
he had slipped the money, during two or three turns about the yard, lest 
the transaction should be too conspicuous to the general body of 
collegians.
One afternoon he had been doing the honours of the place to a rather large 
party of collegians, who happened to be going out, when, as he was coming 
back, he encountered one from the poor side who had been taken in execution 
for a small sum a week before, had "settled" in the course of that 
afternoon, and was going out too. The man was a mere Plasterer in his 
working dress; had his wife with him, and a bundle; and was in high 
spirits.
"God bless you, sir," he said in passing.
"And you," benignantly returned the Father of the Marshalsea.
They were pretty far divided, going their several ways, when the Plasterer 
called out, "I say! - sir!" and come back to him.
"It ain't much," said the Plasterer, putting a little pile of halfpence in 
his hand, "but it's well meant."
The Father of the Marshalsea had never been offered tribute in copper yet. 
His children often had, and with his perfect acquiescence it had gone into 
the common purse, to buy meat that he had eaten, and drink that he had 
drunk; but fustian splashed with white lime, bestowing halfpence on him 
front to front, was new.
"How dare you!" he said to the man, and freely burst into tears.
The Plasterer turned him towards the wall that his face might not be seen; 
and the action was so delicate, and the man was so penetrated with 
repentance, and asked pardon so honestly, that he could make him no less 
acknowledgment than, "I know you meant it kindly. Say no more."
"Bless your soul, sir," urged the Plasterer, "I did indeed. "I'd do more by 
you than the rest of 'em do, I fancy."
"What would you do?" he asked.
"I'd come back to see you, after I was let out."
"Give me the money again," said the other eagerly, "and I'll keep it, and 
never spend it. Thank you for it, thank you! I shall see you again?"
"If I live a week you shall."
They shook hands and parted. The collegians assembled in Symposium in the 
Snuggery that night, marvelled what had happened to their Father; he walked 
so late in the shadows of the yard, and seemed so downcast.


Chapter 7

The Child Of The Marshalsea

The baby whose first draught of air had been tinctured with Doctor 
Haggage's brandy, was handed down among the generations of collegians like 
the tradition of their common parent. In the earlier stages of her 
existence she was handed down in a literal and prosaic sense; it being 
almost a part of the entrance footing of every new collegian to nurse the 
child who had been born in the college.
"By rights," remarked the turnkey, when she was first shown to him, "I 
ought to be her godfather."
The debtor irresolutely thought of it for a minute, and said, "Perhaps you 
wouldn't object to really being her godfather?"
"Oh! I don't object," replied the turnkey, "if you don't."
Thus it came to pass that she was christened one Sunday afternoon, when the 
turnkey, being relieved, was off the lock; and that the turnkey went up to 
the font of Saint George's Church, and promised and vowed and renounced on 
her behalf, as he himself related when he came back, "like a good 'un."
This invested the turnkey with a new proprietary share in the child, over 
and above his former official one. When she began to walk and talk, he 
became fond of her; bought a little armchair and stood it by the high 
fender of the lodge fireplace; liked to have her company when he was on the 
lock; and used to bribe her with cheap toys to come and talk to him. The 
child, for her part, soon grew so fond of the turnkey, that she would come 
climbing up the lodge-steps of her own accord at all hours of the day. When 
she fell asleep in the little armchair by the high fender, the turnkey 
would cover her with his pocket-handkerchief; and when she sat in it 
dressing and undressing a doll which soon came to be unlike dolls on the 
other side of the lock, and to bear a horrible family resemblance to Mrs 
Bangham - he would contemplate her from the top of his stool with exceeding 
gentleness. Witnessing these things, the collegians would express an 
opinion that the turnkey, who was a bachelor, had been cut out by nature 
for a family man. But the turnkey thanked them, and said, "No, on the whole 
it was enough to see other people's children there."
At what period of her early life the little creature began to perceive that 
it was not the habit of all the world to live locked up in narrow yards 
surrounded by high walls with spikes at the top, would be a difficult 
question to settle. But she was a very, very little creature indeed, when 
she had somehow gained the knowledge that her clasp of her father's hand 
was to be always loosened at the door which the great key opened; and that 
while her own light steps were free to pass beyond it, his feet must never 
cross that line. A pitiful and plaintive look, with which she had begun to 
regard him when she was still extremely young, was perhaps a part of this 
discovery.
With a pitiful and plaintive look for everything indeed, but with something 
in it for only him that was like protection, this Child of the Marshalsea, 
and child of the Father of the Marshalsea, sat by her friend the turnkey in 
the lodge, kept the family room, or wandered about the prison-yard, for the 
first eight years of her life. With a pitiful and plaintive look for her 
wayward sister; for her idle brother; for the high blank walls; for the 
faded crowd they shut in; for the games of the prison children as they 
whooped and ran, and played at hide-and-seek, and made the iron bars of the 
inner gateway "Home."
Wistful and wondering, she would sit in summer weather by the high fender 
in the lodge, looking up at the sky through the barred window until bars of 
light would arise, when she turned her eyes away, between her and her 
friend, and she would see him through a grating, too.
"Thinking of the fields," the turnkey said once, arter watching her, "ain't 
you?"
"Where are they?" she inquired.
"Why, they're - over there, my dear," said the turnkey, with a vague 
flourish of his key. "Just about there."
"Does anybody open them and shut them? Are they locked?"
The turnkey was discomfited. "Well!" he said. "Not in general."
"Are they very pretty, Bob?" She called him Bob, by his own particular 
request and instruction.
"Lovely. Full of flowers. There's buttercups, and there's daisies, and 
there's" - the turnkey hesitated, being short of floral nomenclature - 
"there's dandelions, and all manner of games."
"Is it very pleasant to be there, Bob?"
"Prime," said the turnkey.
"Was father ever there?'
"Hem!" coughed the turnkey. "O yes, he was there, sometimes."
"Is he sorry not to be there now?"
"N - not particular," said the turnkey.
"Nor any of the people?" she asked, glancing at the listless crowd within. 
"O are you quite sure and certain, Bob?"
At this difficult point of the conversation Bob gave in, and changed the 
subject to hard-bake: always his last resource when he found his little 
friend getting him into a political, social, or theological corner. But 
this was the origin of a series of Sunday excursions that these two curious 
companions made together. They used to issue from the Lodge on alternate 
Sunday afternoons with great gravity, bound for some meadows or green lanes 
that had been elaborately appointed by the turnkey in the course of the 
week; and there she picked grass and flowers to bring, home, while he 
smoked his pipe. Afterwards, there were tea-gardens, shrimps, ale, and 
other delicacies, and then they would come back hand in hand, unless she 
was more than usually tired, and had fallen asleep on his shoulder.
In those early days, the turnkey first began profoundly to consider a 
question which cost him so much mental labour, that it remained 
undetermined on the day of his death. He decided to will and bequeath his 
little property of savings to his godchild, and the point arose how could 
it be so "tied up" as that only she should have the benefit of it? His 
experience on the lock gave him such an acute perception of the enormous 
difficulty of "tying up" money with any approach to tightness, and 
contrariwise of the remarkable ease with which it got loose, that through a 
series of years he regularly propounded this knotty point to every new 
insolvent agent and other professional gentleman who passed in and out.
"Supposing," he would say, stating the case with his key, on the 
professional gentleman's waistcoat; "supposing a man wanted to leave his 
property to a young female, and wanted to tie it up so that nobody else 
should ever be able to make a grab at it; how would you tie up that 
property?"
"Settle it strictly on herself," the professional gentleman would 
complacently answer.
"But look here," quoth the turnkey. "Supposing she had, say a brother, say 
a father, say a husband, who would be likely to make a grab at that 
property when she came into it - how about that?"
"It would be settled on herself, and they would have no more legal claim on 
it than you," would be the professional answer.
"Stop a bit," said the turnkey. "Supposing she was tender-hearted, and they 
came over her. Where's your law for tying it up then?"
The deepest character whom the turnkey sounded, was unable to produce his 
law for tying such a knot as that. So, the turnkey thought about it all his 
life, and died intestate after all.
But that was long afterwards, when his god-daughter was past sixteen. The 
first half of that space of her life was only just accomplished, when her 
pitiful and plaintive look saw her father a widower. From that time the 
protection that her wondering eyes had expressed towards him, became 
embodied in action, and the Child of the Marshalsea took upon herself a new 
relation towards the Father.
At first, such a baby could do little more than sit with him, deserting her 
livelier place by the high fender, and quietly watching him. But this made 
her so far necessary to him that he became accustomed to her, and began to 
be sensible of missing her when she was not there. Through this little 
gate, she passed out of her childhood into the care-laden world.
What her pitiful look saw, at that early time, in her father, in her 
sister, in her brother, in the jail; how much or how little of the wretched 
truth it pleased God to make visible to her; lies hidden with many 
mysteries. It is enough that she was inspired to be something which was not 
what the rest were, and to be that something, different and laborious, for 
the sake of the rest. Inspired? Yes. Shall we speak of the inspiration of a 
poet or a priest, and not of the heart impelled by love and self-devotion 
to the lowliest work in the lowliest way of life! 
With no earthly friend to help her, or so much as to see her, but the one 
so strangely assorted; with no knowledge even of the common daily tone and 
habits of the common members of the free community who are not shut up in 
prisons; born and bred in a social condition, false even with a reference 
to the falsest condition outside the walls; drinking from infancy of a well 
whose waters had their own peculiar stain, their own unwholesome and 
unnatural taste; the Child of the Marshalsea began her womanly life.

No matter through what mistakes and discouragements, what ridicule (not 
unkindly meant, but deeply felt) of her youth and little figure, what 
humble consciousness of her own babyhood and want of strength, even in the 
matter of lifting and carrying; through how much weariness and 
hopelessness, and how many secret tears; she trudged on, until recognised 
as useful, even indispensable. That time came. She took the place of the 
eldest of the three, in all things but precedence; was the head of the 
fallen family; and bore, in her own heart, its anxieties and shames.
At thirteen, she could read and keep accounts - that is, could put down in 
words and figures how much the bare necessaries that they wanted would 
cost, and how much less they had to buy them with. She had been, by 
snatches of a few weeks at a time, to an evening school outside, and got 
her sister and brother sent to day-schools by desultory starts, during 
three or four years. There was no instruction for any of them at home; but 
she knew well - no one better - that a man so broken as to be the Father of 
the Marshalsea, could be no father to his own children.
To these scanty means of improvement, she added another of her own 
contriving. Once, among the heterogeneous crowd of inmates there appeared a 
dancing-master. Her sister had a great desire to learn the dancing-master's 
art, and seemed to have a taste that way. At thirteen years old, the Child 
of the Marshalsea presented herself to the dancing-master, with a little 
bag in her hand, and preferred her humble petition.
"If you please, I was born here, sir."
"Oh! You are the young lady, are you?" said the dancing-master, surveying 
the small figure and uplifted face.
"Yes, sir."
"And what can I do for you?" said the dancing-master.
"Nothing for me, sir, thank you," anxiously undrawing the strings of the 
little bag; "but if, while you stay here, you could be so kind as to teach 
my sister cheap -"
"My child, I'll teach her for nothing," said the dancing-master, shutting 
up the bag. He was as good-natured a dancing-master as ever danced to the 
Insolvent Court, and he kept his word. The sister was so apt a pupil, and 
the dancing-master had such abundant leisure to bestow upon her (for it 
took him a matter of ten weeks to set to his creditors, lead off, turn the 
Commissioners, and right and left back to his professional pursuits), that 
wonderful progress was made. Indeed, the dancing-master was so proud of it, 
and so wishful to display it before he left, to a few select friends among 
the collegians, that at six o'clock on a certain fine morning, a minuet de 
la cour came off in the yard - the college-rooms being of too confined 
proportions for the purpose - in which so much ground was covered, and the 
steps were so conscientiously executed, that the dancing-master having to 
play the kit besides, was thoroughly blown.
The success of this beginning, which led to the dancing-master's continuing 
his instruction after his release, emboldened the poor child to try again. 
She watched and waited months for a seamstress. In the fulness of time a 
milliner came in, and to her she repaired on her own behalf.
"I beg your pardon, ma'am," she said, looking timidly round the door of the 
milliner whom she found in tears and in bed: "but I was born here."
Everybody seemed to hear of her as soon as they arrived; for the milliner 
sat up in bed, drying her eyes and said, just as the dancing-master had 
said:
Oh! You are the child, are you?"
"Yes, ma'am."
"I am sorry I haven't got anything for you," said the milliner, shaking her 
head.
"It's not that, ma'am. If you please, I want to learn needlework."
"Why should you do that," returned the milliner, "with me before you? It 
has not done me much good."
"Nothing - whatever it is - seems to have done anybody much good who comes 
here," she returned in all simplicity; "but I want to learn, just the 
same."
"I am afraid you are so weak, you see," the milliner objected.
"I don't think I am weak, ma'am."
"And you are so very, very, little, you see," the milliner objected.
"Yes, I am afraid I am very little indeed," returned the Child of the 
Marshalsea; and so began to sob over that unfortunate defect of hers, which 
came so often in her way. The milliner - who was not morose or hard-
hearted, only newly insolvent - was touched, took her in hand with good-
will, found her the most patient and earnest of pupils, and made her a 
cunning work-woman in course of time. In course of time, and in the very 
self-same course of time, the Father of the Marshalsea gradually developed 
a new flower of character. The more Fatherly he grew as to the Marshalsea, 
and the more dependent he became on the contributions of his changing 
family, the greater stand he made by his forlorn gentility. With the same 
hand that had pocketed a collegian's half-crown half an hour ago, he would 
wipe away the tears that streamed over his cheeks if any reference were 
made to his daughters' earning their bread. So, over and above her other 
daily cares, the Child of the Marshalsea had always upon her the care of 
preserving the genteel fiction that they were all idle beggars together.
The sister became a dancer. There was a ruined uncle in the family group - 
ruined by his brother, the Father of the Marshalsea, and knowing no more 
how than his ruiner did, but accepting the fact as an inevitable certainty -
 on whom her protection devolved. Naturally a retired and simple man, he 
had shown no particular sense of being ruined, at the time when that 
calamity fell upon him, further than he left off washing himself when the 
shock was announced, and never took that luxury any more. He had been a 
very indifferent musical amateur in his better days; and when he fell with 
his brother, resorted for support to playing a clarionet as dirty as 
himself in a small Theatre Orchestra. It was the theatre in which his niece 
became a dancer; he had been a fixture there a long time when she took her 
poor station in it; and he accepted the task of serving as her escort and 
guardian, just as he would have accepted an illness, a legacy, a feast, 
starvation - anything but soap.
To enable this girl to earn her few weekly shillings, it was necessary for 
the Child of the Marshalsea to go through an elaborate form with her 
Father.
"Fanny is not going to live with us, just now, father. She will be here a 
good deal in the day, but she is going to live outside with uncle."
"You surprise me. Why?"
"I think uncle wants a companion, father. He should be attended to, and 
looked after."
"A companion? He passes much of his time here. And you attend and look 
after him, Amy, a great deal more than ever your sister will. You all go 
out so much; you all go out so much."
This was to keep up the ceremony and pretence of his having no idea that 
Amy herself went out by the day to work.
"But we are always very glad to come home, father; now, are we not? And as 
to Fanny, perhaps besides keeping uncle company and taking care of him, it 
may be as well for her not quite to live here, always. She was not born 
here as I was you know, father."
"Well, Amy, well. I don't quite follow you, but it's natural I suppose that 
Fanny should prefer to be outside, and even that you often should, too. So, 
you and Fanny and your uncle, my dear, shall have your own way. Good, good. 
I'll not meddle; don't mind me." To get her brother out of the prison; out 
of the succession to Mrs Bangham in executing commissions, and out of the 
slang interchange with very doubtful companions, consequent upon both; was 
her hardest task. At eighteen he would have dragged on from hand to mouth, 
from hour to hour, from penny to penny, until eighty. Nobody got into the 
prison from whom he derived anything useful or good, and she could find no 
patron for him but her old friend and godfather.
"Dear Bob," said she, "what is to become of poor Tip?" His name was Edward, 
and Ted had been transformed into Tip, within the walls.
The turnkey had strong private opinions as to what would become of poor 
Tip, and had even gone so far with the view of averting their fulfilment, 
as to sound Tip in reference to the expediency of running away and going to 
serve his country. But Tip had thanked him, and said he didn't seem to care 
for his country.
"Well my dear," said the turnkey, "something ought to be done with him. 
Suppose I try and get him into the law?"
"That would be so good of you, Bob!"
The turnkey had now two points to put to the professional gentlemen as they 
passed in and out. He put this second one so perseveringly, that a stool 
and twelve shillings a week were at last found for Tip in the office of an 
attorney in a great National Palladium called the Palace Court; at that 
time one of a considerable list of everlasting bulwarks to the dignity and 
safety of Albion, whose places know them no more.
Tip languished in Clifford's Inn for six months, and at the expiration of 
that term, sauntered back one evening with his hands in his pockets, and 
incidentally observed to his sister that he was not going back again.
"Not going back again?" said the poor little anxious Child of the 
Marshalsea, always calculating and planning for Tip, in the front rank of 
her charges.
"I am so tired of it," said Tip, "that I have cut it."
Tip tired of everything. With intervals of Marshalsea lounging, and Mrs 
Bangham succession, his small second mother, aided by her trusty friend, 
got him into a warehouse, into a market garden, into the hop trade, into 
the law again, into an auctioneer's, into a brewery, into a stockbroker's, 
into the law again, into a coach office, into a waggon office, into the law 
again, into a general dealer's, into a distillery, into the law again, into 
a wool house, into a dry goods house, into the Billingsgate trade, into the 
foreign fruit trade, and into the docks. But whatever Tip went into, he 
came out of tired, announcing that he had cut it. Wherever he went, this 
foredoomed Tip appeared to take the prison walls with him, and to set them 
up in such trade or calling; and to prowl about within their narrow limits 
in the old slipshod, purposeless, down-at-heel way; until the real 
immoveable Marshalsea walls asserted their fascination over him, and 
brought him back.
Nevertheless, the brave little creature did so fix her heart on her 
brother's rescue, that while he was ringing out these doleful changes, she 
pinched and scraped enough together to ship him for Canada. When he was 
tired of nothing to do, and disposed in its turn to cut even that, he 
graciously consented to go to Canada. And there was grief in her bosom over 
parting with him, and joy in the hope of his being put in a straight course 
at last.
"God bless you, dear Tip. Don't be too proud to come and see us, when you 
have made your fortune."
"All right!" said Tip, and went.
But not all the way to Canada; in fact, not further than Liverpool. After 
making the voyage to that port from London, he found himself so strongly 
impelled to cut the vessel, that he resolved to walk back again. Carrying 
out which intention, he presented himself before her at the expiration of a 
month, in rags, without shoes, and much more tired than ever.
At length, after another interval of successorship to Mrs Bangham, he found 
a pursuit for himself, and announced it.
"Amy, I have got a situation."
"Have you really and truly, Tip?"
"All right. I shall do now. You needn't look anxious about me any more, old 
girl."
"What is it, Tip?"
"Why, you know Slingo by sight?"
"Not the man they call the dealer?"
"That's the chap. He'll be out on Monday, and he's going to give me a 
berth."
"What is he a dealer in, Tip?"
"Horses. All right! I shall do now, Amy."
She lost sight of him for months afterwards, and only heard from him once. 
A whisper passed among the elder collegians that he had been seen at a mock 
auction in Moorfields, pretending to buy plated articles for massive 
silver, and paying for them with the greatest liberality in bank notes; but 
it never reached her ears. One evening she was alone at work - standing up 
at the window, to save the twilight lingering above the wall - when he 
opened the door and walked in.
She kissed and welcomed him; but was afraid to ask him any question. He saw 
how anxious and timid she was, and appeared sorry.
"I am afraid, Amy, you'll be vexed this time. Upon my life I am!"
"I am very sorry to hear you say so, Tip. Have you come back?"
"Why - yes."
"Not expecting this time that what you had found would answer very well, I 
am less surprised and sorry than I might have been, Tip."
"Ah! But that's not the worst of it."
"Not the worst of it?"
"Don't look so startled. No, Amy, not the worst of it. I have come back, 
you see; but - don't look so startled - I have come back in what I may call 
a new way. I am off the volunteer list altogether. I am in now, as one of 
the regulars."
"Oh! Don't say that you are a prisoner, Tip! Don't, don't!"
"Well, I don't want to say it," he returned in a reluctant tone; "but if 
you can't understand me without my saying it, what am I to do? I am in for 
forty pound odd."
For the first time in all those years, she sunk under her cares. She cried, 
with her clasped hands lifted above her head, that it would kill their 
father if he ever knew it; and fell down at Tip's graceless feet.
It was easier for Tip to bring her to her senses, than for her to bring him 
to understand that the Father of the Marshalsea would be beside himself if 
he knew the truth. The thing was incomprehensible to Tip, and altogether a 
fanciful notion. He yielded to it in that light only, when he submitted to 
her entreaties, backed by those of his uncle and sister. There was no want 
of precedent for his return; it was accounted for to the father in the 
usual way; and the collegians, with a better comprehension of the pious 
fraud than Tip, supported it loyally.
This was the life, and this the history, of the Child of the Marshalsea, at 
twenty-two. With a still surviving attachment to the one miserable yard and 
block of houses as her birthplace and home, she passed to and fro in it 
shrinkingly now, with a womanly consciousness that she was pointed out to 
every one. Since she had begun to work beyond the walls, she had found it 
necessary to conceal where she lived, and to come and go as secretly as she 
could, between the free city and the iron gates, outside of which she had 
never slept in her life. Her original timidity had grown with this 
concealment, and her light step and her little figure shunned the thronged 
streets while they passed along them.
Worldly wise in hard and poor necessities, she was innocent in all things 
else. Innocent, in the mist through which she saw her father, and the 
prison, and the turbid living river that flowed through it and flowed on.
This was the life, and this the history, of Little Dorrit; now going home 
on a dull September evening, observed at a distance by Arthur Clennam. This 
was the life, and this the history of Little Dorrit; turning at the end of 
London Bridge, recrossing it, going back again, passing on to Saint 
George's church, turning back suddenly once more, and flitting in at the 
open outer gate and little court-yard of the Marshalsea.


Chapter 8

The Lock

Arthur Clennam stood in the street, waiting to ask some passer-by what 
place that was. He suffered a few people to pass him in whose faces there 
was no encouragement to make the inquiry, and still stood pausing in the 
street, when an old man came up and turned into the court-yard.
He stooped a good deal, and plodded along in a slow preoccupied manner, 
which made the bustling London thorough-fares no very safe resort for him. 
He was dirtily and meanly dressed, in a threadbare coat, once blue, 
reaching to his ankles and buttoned to his chin, where it vanished in the 
pale ghost of a velvet collar. A piece of red cloth with which that phantom 
had been stiffened in its lifetime was now laid bare, and poked itself up, 
at the back of the old man's neck, into a confusion of grey hair and rusty 
stock and buckle which altogether nearly poked his hat off. A greasy hat it 
was, and a napless; impending over his eyes, cracked and crumpled at the 
brim, and with a wisp of pocket-handkerchief dangling out below it. His 
trousers were so long and loose, and his shoes so clumsy and large, that he 
shuffled like an elephant; though how much of this was gait, and how much 
trailing cloth and leather, no one could have told. Under one arm he 
carried a limp and worn-out case, containing some wind instrument; in the 
same hand he had a pennyworth of snuff in a little packet of whitey-brown 
paper, from which he slowly comforted his poor old blue nose with a 
lengthened-out pinch, as Arthur Clennam looked at him.
To this old man, crossing the court-yard, he preferred his inquiry, 
touching him on the shoulder. The old man stopped and looked round, with 
the expression in his weak grey eyes of one whose thoughts had been far 
off, and who was a little dull of hearing also.
"Pray, sir," said Arthur, repeating his question, "what is this place?"
"Aye! This place?" returned the old man, staying his pinch of snuff on its 
road and pointing at the place without looking at it. "This is the 
Marshalsea, sir."
"The debtors' prison?"
"Sir," said the old man, with the air of deeming it not quite necessary to 
insist upon that designation, "the debtors' prison."
He turned himself about, and went on.
"I beg your pardon," said Arthur, stopping him once more, "but will you 
allow me to ask you another question? Can any one go in here?"
"Any one can go in," replied the old man; plainly adding, by the 
significance of his emphasis, "but it is not every one who can go out."
"Pardon me once more. Are you familiar with the place?"
"Sir," returned the old man, squeezing his little packet of snuff in his 
hand, and turning upon his interrogator as if such questions hurt him. "I 
am."
"I beg you to excuse me. I am not impertinently curious, but have a good 
object. Do you know the name of Dorrit here?"
"My name, sir," replied the old man most unexpectedly, "is Dorrit."
Arthur pulled off his hat to him. "Grant me the favour of half-a-dozen 
words. I was wholly unprepared for your announcement, and hope that 
assurance is my sufficient apology for having taken the liberty of 
addressing you. I have recently come home to England after a long absence. 
I have seen at my mother's - Mrs Clennam in the city - a young woman 
working at her needle, whom I have only heard addressed or spoken of as 
Little Dorrit. I have felt sincerely interested in her, and have had a 
great desire to know something more about her. I saw her, not a minute 
before you came up, pass in at that door."
The old man looked at him attentively. "Are you a sailor, sir?" he asked. 
He seemed a little disappointed by the shake of the head that replied to 
him. "Not a sailor? I judged from your sunburnt face that you might be. Are 
you in earnest, sir?"
"I do assure you that I am, and do entreat you to believe that I am, in 
plain earnest."
"I know very little of the world, sir," returned the other, who had a weak 
and quavering voice. "I am merely passing on, like the shadow over the 
sundial. It would be worth no man's while to mislead me; it would really be 
too easy - too poor a success, to yield any satisfaction. The young woman 
whom you saw go in here is my brother's child. My brother is William 
Dorrit; I am Frederick. You say you have seen her at your mother's (I know 
your mother befriends her), you have felt an interest in her, and you wish 
to know what she does here. Come and see."
He went on again, and Arthur accompanied him.
"My brother," said the old man, pausing on the step, and slowly facing 
round again, "has been here many years; and much that happens even among 
ourselves, out of doors, is kept from him for reasons that I needn't enter 
upon now. Be so good as to say nothing of my niece's working at her needle. 
Be so good as to say nothing that goes beyond what is said among us. If you 
keep within our bounds, you cannot well be wrong. Now! Come and see."
Arthur followed him down a narrow entry, at the end of which a key was 
turned, and a strong door was opened from within. It admitted them into a 
lodge or lobby, across which they passed, and so through another door and a 
grating into the prison. The old man always plodding on before, turned 
round, in his slow, stiff, stooping manner, when they came to the turnkey 
on duty, as if to present his companion. The turnkey nodded; and the 
companion passed in without being asked whom he wanted.
The night was dark; and the prison lamps in the yard, and the candles in 
the prison windows faintly shining behind many sorts of wry old curtain and 
blind, had not the air of making it lighter. A few people loitered about, 
but the greater part of the population was within doors. The old man taking 
the right-hand side of the yard, turned in at the third or fourth doorway, 
and began to ascend the stairs. "They are rather dark, sir, but you will 
not find anything in the way."
He paused for a moment before opening a door on the second story. He had no 
sooner turned the handle, than the visitor saw Dorrit and saw the reason of 
her setting so much store by dining alone.
She had brought the meat home that she should have eaten herself, and was 
already warming it on a gridiron over the fire, for her father, clad in an 
old grey gown and a black cap, awaiting his supper at the table. A clean 
cloth was spread before him, with knife, fork, and spoon, salt-cellar, 
pepper-box, glass, and pewter ale-pot. Such zests as his particular little 
phial of cayenne pepper, and his pennyworth of pickles in a saucer, were 
not wanting.
She started, coloured deeply, and turned white. The visitor, more with his 
eyes than by the slight impulsive motion of his hand, entreated her to be 
reassured and to trust him.
"I found this gentleman," said the uncle - "Mr Clennam, William, son of 
Amy's friend - at the outer gate, wishful, as he was going by, of paying 
his respects, but hesitating whether to come in or not. This is my brother, 
William, sir."
"I hope," said Arthur, very doubtful what to say, "that my respect for your 
daughter may explain and justify my desire to be presented to you, sir."
"Mr Clennam," returned the other, rising, taking his cap off in the flat of 
his hand, and so holding it ready to put on again, "you do me honour. You 
are welcome, sir." With a low bow. "Frederick, a chair. Pray sit down, Mr 
Clennam."
He put his black cap on again as he had taken it off, and resumed his own 
seat. There was a wonderful air of benignity and patronage in his manner. 
These were the ceremonies with which he received the collegians.
"You are welcome to the Marshalsea, sir. I have welcomed many gentlemen to 
these walls. Perhaps you are aware - my daughter Amy may have mentioned - 
that I am the Father of this place."
"I - so I have understood," said Arthur, dashing at the assertion.
"You know, I dare say, that my daughter Amy was born here. A good girl, 
sir, a dear girl, and long a comfort and support to me. Amy, my dear, put 
the dish on; MrClennam will excuse the primitive customs to which we are 
reduced here. Is it a compliment to ask you if you would do me the honour, 
sir, to -"
"Thank you," returned Arthur. "Not a morsel."
He felt himself quite lost in wonder at the manner of the man, and that the 
probability of his daughter's having had a reserve as to her family 
history, should be so far out of his mind.
She filled his glass, put all the little matters on the table ready to his 
hand, and then sat beside him while he ate his supper. Evidently in 
observance of their nightly custom, she put some bread before herself, and 
touched his glass with her lips; but Arthur saw she was troubled and took 
nothing. Her look at her father, half admiring him and proud of him, half 
ashamed for him, all devoted and loving, went to his inmost heart.
The Father of the Marshalsea condescended towards his brother as an 
aimiable, well-meaning man; a private character, who had not arrived at 
distinction. "Frederick," said he, "you and Fanny sup at your lodgings 
tonight, I know. What have you done with Fanny, Frederick?"
"She is walking with Tip."
"Tip - as you may know - is my son, Mr Clennam. He has been a little wild 
and difficult to settle, but his introduction to the world was rather" - he 
shrugged his shoulders with a faint sigh, and looked round the room - "a 
little adverse. Your first visit here, sir?"
"My first."
"You could hardly have been here since your boyhood without my knowledge. 
It very seldom happens that anybody - of any pretentions - any pretentions -
 comes here without being presented to me."
"As many as forty or fifty in a day have been introduced to my brother," 
said Frederick, faintly lighting up with a ray of pride.
"Yes!" the Father of the Marshalsea assented. "We have even exceeded that 
number. On a fine Sunday in term time, it is quite a Levee - quite a Levee. 
Amy, my dear, I have been trying half the day to remember the name of the 
gentleman from Camberwell who was introduced to me last Christmas week, by 
that agreeable coal merchant who was remanded for six months."
"I don't remember his name, father."
"Frederick, do you remember his name?"
Frederick doubted if he had ever heard it. No one could doubt that 
Frederick was the last person upon earth to put such a question to, with 
any hope of information.
"I mean," said the brother, "the gentleman who did that handsome action 
with so much delicacy. Ha! Tush! The name has quite escaped me. Mr Clennam, 
as I have happened to mention a handsome and delicate action, you may like, 
perhaps, to know what it was."
"Very much," said Arthur, withdrawing his eyes from the delicate head 
beginning to droop, and the pale face with a new solicitude stealing over 
it.
"It is so generous, and shows so much fine feeling, that it is almost a 
duty to mention it. I said at the time that I always would mention it on 
every suitable occasion, without regard to personal sensitiveness. A - well 
a - it's of no use to disguise the fact - you must know, Mr Clennam, that 
it does sometimes occur that people who come here, desire to offer some 
little - Testimonial - to the Father of the place."
To see her hand upon his arm in mute entreaty half repressed, and her timid 
little shrinking figure turning away, was to see a sad, sad sight.
"Sometimes," he went on in a low, soft voice, agitated, and clearing his 
throat every now and then; "sometimes - hem - it takes one shape and 
sometimes another; but it is generally - ha - Money. And it is, I cannot 
but confess it, it is too often - hem - acceptable. This gentleman that I 
refer to, was presented to me, Mr Clennam, in a manner highly gratifying to 
my feelings, and conversed not only with great politeness, but with great - 
ahem - information." All this time, though he had finished his supper, he 
was nervously going about his plate with his knife and fork, as if some of 
it were still before him. "It appeared from his conversation that he had a 
garden, though he was delicate of mentioning it at first, as gardens are - 
hem - are not accessible to me. But it came out, through my admiring a very 
fine cluster of geranium - beautiful cluster of geranium to be sure - which 
he had brought from his conservatory. On my taking notice of its rich 
colour, he showed me a piece of paper round it, on which was written 'For 
the Father of the Marshalsea,' and presented it to me. But this was - hem - 
not all. He made a particular request, on taking leave, that I would remove 
the paper in half-an hour. I - ha - I did so; and I found that it contained 
- ahem - two guineas. I assure you, Mr Clennam, I have received - hem - 
Testimonials in many ways, and of many degrees of value, and they have 
always been - ha - unfortunately acceptable; but I never was more pleased 
than with this - ahem - this particular Testimonial."
Arthur was in the act of saying the little he could say on such a theme, 
when a bell began to ring, and footsteps approached the door. A pretty girl 
of a far better figure, and much more developed than Little Dorrit, though 
looking much younger in the face when the two were observed together, 
stopped in the doorway on seeing a stranger; and a young man who was with 
her stopped too.
"Mr Clennam, Fanny. My eldest daughter and my son, Mr Clennam. The bell is 
a signal for visitors to retire, and so they have come to say good night; 
but there is plenty of time, plenty of time. Girls, Mr Clennam will excuse 
any household business you may have together. He knows, I dare say, that I 
have but one room here."
"I only want my clean dress from Amy, father," said the second girl.
"And I my clothes," said Tip.
Amy opened a drawer in an old piece of furniture that was a chest of 
drawers above, and a bedstead below, and produced two little bundles, which 
she handed to her brother and sister. "Mended and made up?" Clennam heard 
the sister ask in a whisper. To which Amy answered "Yes." He had risen now, 
and took the opportunity of glancing round the room. The bare walls had 
been coloured green, evidently by an unskilled hand, and were poorly 
decorated with a few prints. The window was curtained, and the floor 
carpeted; and there were shelves, and pegs, and other conveniences, that 
had accumulated in the course of years. It was a close, confined room, 
poorly furnished; and the chimney smoked to boot, or the tin screen at the 
top of the fireplace was superfluous; but constant pains and care had made 
it neat, and even, after its kind, comfortable.
All the while the bell was ringing, and the uncle was anxious to go. "Come 
Fanny, come Fanny," he said with his ragged clarionet case under his arm; 
"the lock, child, the lock!"
Fanny bade her father good night, and whisked off airily. Tip had already 
clattered downstairs. "Now, Mr Clennam," said the uncle, looking back as he 
shuffled out after them, "the lock, sir, the lock."
Mr Clennam had two things to do before he followed; one, to offer his 
testimonial to the Father of the Marshalsea, without giving pain to his 
child; the other to say something to that child, though it were but a word, 
in explanation of his having come there.
"Allow me," said the Father, "to see you downstairs."
She had slipped out after the rest, and they were alone.
"Not on any account," said the visitor, hurriedly. "Pray allow me to - " 
chink, chink, chink.
"Mr Clennam," said the Father, "I am deeply, deeply - " But his visitor had 
shut up his hand to stop the chinking, and had gone downstairs with great 
speed.
He saw no little Dorrit on his way down, or in the yard. The last two or 
three stragglers were hurrying to the lodge, and he was following, when he 
caught sight of her, in the doorway of the first house from the entrance. 
He turned back hastily.
"Pray forgive me," he said, "for speaking to you here; pray forgive me for 
coming here at all! I followed you tonight, I did so, that I might 
endeavour to render you and your family some service. You know the terms on 
which I and my mother are, and may not be surprised that I have preserved 
our distant relations at her house, lest I should unintentionally make her 
jealous, or resentful, or do you any injury in her estimation. What I have 
seen here, in this short time, has greatly increased my heartfelt wish to 
be a friend to you. It would recompense me for much disappointment if I 
could hope to gain your confidence."
She was scared at first, but seemed to take courage white while he spoke to 
her.
"You are very good, sir. You speak very earnestly to me. But I - but I wish 
you had not watched me."
He understood the emotion with which she said it, to arise in her father's 
behalf; and he respected it, and was silent.
"Mrs Clennam has been of great service to me; I don't know what we should 
have done without the employment she has given me; I am afraid it may not 
be a good return to become secret with her; I can say no more tonight, sir. 
I am sure you mean to be kind to us. Thank you, thank you."
"Let me ask you one question before I leave. Have you known my mother 
long?"
"I think two years sir. - The bell has stopped."
"How did you know her first? Did she send here for you?"
"No. She does not even know I live here. We have a friend, father and I - a 
poor labouring man, but the best of friends - and I wrote out that I wished 
to do needlework, and gave his address. And he got what I wrote out 
displayed at a few places where it cost nothing, and Mrs Clennam found me 
that way, and sent for me. The gate will be locked, sir!"
She was so tremulous and agitated, and he was so moved by compassion for 
her, and by deep interest in her story as it dawned upon him, that he could 
scarcely tear himself away. But the stoppage of the bell, and the quite in 
the prison, were a warning to depart; and with a few hurried words of 
kindness he left her gliding back to her father.
But he remained too late. The inner gate was locked, and the lodge closed. 
After a little fruitless knocking with his hand, he was standing there with 
the disagree able conviction upon him that he had to get through the night, 
when a voice accosted him from behind.
"Caught, eh?" said the voice. "You won't go home till morning. - Oh! It's 
you, is it, Mr Clennam?"
The voice was Tip's; and they stood looking at one another in the prison-
yard, as it began to rain.
"You've done it," observed Tip; "you must be sharper than that, next time."
"But you are locked in too," said Arthur.
"I believe I am!" said Tip, sarcastically. "About! But not in your way. I 
belong to the shop, only my sister has a theory that our governor must 
never know it. I don't see why, myself."
"Can I get any shelter?" asked Arthur. "What had I better do?"
"We had better get hold of Amy, first of all," said Tip, referring any 
difficulty to her, as a matter of course.
"I would rather walk about all night - it's not much to do - than give that 
trouble."
"You needn't do that, if you don't mind paying for a bed. If you don't mind 
paying, they'll make you up one on the Snuggery table, under the 
circumstances. If you'll come along, I'll introduce you there."
As they passed down the yard, Arthur looked up at the window of the room he 
had lately left, where the light was still burning. "Yes, sir," said Tip, 
following his glance. "That's the governor's. She'll sit with him for 
another hour reading yesterday's paper to him, or something of that sort, 
and then she'll come out like a little ghost, and vanish away without a 
sound."
"I don't understand you."
"The governor sleeps up in the room, and she has a lodging at the 
turnkey's. First house there," said Tip, pointing out the doorway into 
which she had retired. "First house, sky parlour. She pays twice as much 
for it as she would for one twice as good outside. But she stands by the 
governor, poor dear girl, day and night.
This brought them to the tavern-establishment at the upper end of the 
prison, where the collegians had just vacated their social evening club. 
The apartment on the ground floor in which it was held, was the Snuggery in 
question; the presidential tribune of the chairman, the pewter-pots, 
glasses, pipes tobacco-ashes, and general flavour of members, were still as 
that convivial institution had left them on its adjournment. The Snuggery 
had two of the qualities popularly held to be essential to grog for ladies, 
in respect that it was hot and strong; but in the third point of analogy, 
requiring plenty of it, the Snuggery was defective: being but a cooped-up 
apartment.
The unaccustomed visitor from outside, naturally assumed everybody here to 
be prisoners - landlord, waiter, barmaid, potboy, and all. Whether they 
were or not, did not appear; but they all had a weedy look. The keeper of a 
chandler's shop in a front parlour, who took in gentleman boarders, lent 
his assistance in making the bed. He had been a tailor in his time, and had 
kept a phaeton, he said. He boasted that he stood up litigiously for the 
interests of the college; and he had undefined and undefinable ideas that 
the marshal intercepted a "Fund," which ought to come to the collegians. He 
liked to believe this, and always impressed the shadowy grievance on new 
comers and strangers; though he could not for his life, have explained what 
Fund he meant, or how the notion had got rooted in his soul. He had fully 
convinced himself, notwithstanding, that his own proper share of the Fund 
was three and ninepence a week; and that in this amount he, as an 
individual collegian, was swindled by the marshal, regularly every Monday. 
Apparently, he helped to make the bed, that he might not lose an 
opportunity of stating this case; after which unloading of his mind, and 
after announcing (as it seemed he always did, without anything coming of 
it), that he was going to write a letter to the papers and show the marshal 
up, he fell into miscellaneous conversation with the rest. It was evident 
from the general tone of the whole party, that they had come to regard 
insolvency as the normal state of mankind, and the payment of debts as a 
disease that occasionally broke out.
In this strange scene, and with these strange spectres flitting about him, 
Arthur Clennam looked on at the preparations, as if they were part of a 
dream. Pending which, the long-initiated Tip, with an awful enjoyment of 
the Snuggery's resources, pointed out the common kitchen fire maintained by 
subscription of collegians, the boiler for hot water supported in like 
manner, and other premises generally tending to the deduction that the way 
to be healthy, wealthy, and wise, was to come to the Marshal-sea.
The two tables put together in a corner, were, at length, converted into a 
very fair bed; and the stranger was left to the Windsor chairs, the 
presidential tribune, the beery atmosphere, sawdust, pipe-lights, spittoons 
and repose. But the last item was long, long, long, in linking itself to 
the rest. The novelty of the place, the coming upon it without preparation, 
the sense of being locked up, the remembrance of that room upstairs, of the 
two brothers, and above all of the retiring childish form, and the face in 
which he now saw years of insufficient food, if not of want, kept him 
waking and unhappy.
Speculations, too, bearing the strangest relations towards the prison, but 
always concerning the prison, ran like nightmares through his mind while he 
lay awake. Whether coffins were kept ready for people who might die there, 
where they were kept, how they were kept, where people who died in the 
prison were buried, how they were taken out, what forms were observed, 
whether an implacable creditor could arrest the dead? As to escaping, what 
chances there were of escape? Whether a prisoner could scale the walls with 
a cord and grapple, how he would descend upon the other side: whether he 
could alight on a housetop, steal down a staircase, let himself out at a 
door, and get lost in the crowd? As to Fire in the prison, if one were to 
break out while he lay there?
And these involuntary starts of fancy were, after all, but the setting of a 
picture in which three people kept before him. His father, with the 
steadfast look with which he had died, prophetically darkened forth in the 
portrait; his mother, with her arm up, warding off his suspicion; Little 
Dorrit, with her hand on the degraded arm, and her drooping head turned 
away;
What if his mother had an old reason she well knew for softening to this 
poor girl? What if the prisoner now sleeping quietly - Heaven grant it! - 
by the light of the great Day of Judgment should trace back his fall to 
her. What if any act of hers, and of his father's, should have even 
remotely brought the grey heads of those two brothers so low! 
A swift thought shot into his mind. In that long imprisonment here, and in 
her own long confinement to her room, did his mother find a balance to be 
struck? I admit that I was accessory to that man's captivity. I have 
suffered for it in kind. He has decayed in his prison; I in mine. I have 
paid the penalty.
When all the other thoughts had faded out, this one held possession of him. 
When he fell asleep, she came before him in her wheeled chair, warding him 
off with this justification. When he awoke, and sprang up causelessly 
frightened, the words were in his ears, as if her voice had slowly spoken 
them at his pillow, to break his rest: "He withers away in his prison; I 
wither away in mine; inexorable justice is done; what do I owe on this 
score!"


Chapter 9

Little Mother

The morning light was in no hurry to climb the prison wall and look in at 
the Snuggery windows; and when it did come, it would have been more welcome 
if it had come alone, instead of bringing a rush of rain with it. But the 
equinoctial gales were blowing out at sea, and the impartial south-west 
wind, in its flight, would not neglect even the narrow Marshalsea. While it 
roared through the steeple of St. George's church, and twirled all the 
cowls in the neighbourhood, it made a swoop to beat the Southwark smoke 
into the jail; and, plunging down the chimneys of the few early collegians 
who were yet lighting their fires, half suffocated them.
Arthur Clennam would have been little disposed to linger in bed, though his 
bed had been in a more private situation, and less affected by the raking 
out of yesterday's fire, the kindling of today's under the collegiate 
boiler, the filling of that Spartan vessel at the pump, the sweeping and 
saw-dusting of the common room, and other such preparations. Heartily glad 
to see the morning, though little rested by the night, he turned out as 
soon as he could distinguish objects about him, and paced the yard for two 
heavy hours before the gate was opened.
The walls were so near to one another, and the wild clouds hurried over 
them so fast, that it gave him a sensation like the beginning of sea-
sickness to look up at the gusty sky. The rain, carried aslant by flaws of 
wind, blackened that side of the central building which he had visited last 
night, but left a narrow dry trough under the lee of the wall, where he 
walked up and down among waifs of straw and dust and paper, the waste 
droppings of the pump, and the stray leaves of yesterday's greens. It was 
as haggard a view of life as a man need look upon.
Nor was it relieved by any glimpse of the little creature who had brought 
him there. Perhaps she glided out of her doorway and in at that where her 
father lived, while his face was turned from both; but he saw nothing of 
her. It was too early for her brother; to have seen him once, was to have 
seen enough of him to know that he would be sluggish to leave whatever 
frowsy bed he occupied at night; so, as Arthur Clennam walked up and down, 
waiting for the gate to open, he cast about in his mind for future rather 
than for present means of pursuing his discoveries.
At last the lodge-gate turned, and the turnkey, standing on the step, 
taking an early comb at his hair, was ready to let him out. With a joyful 
sense of release he passed through the lodge, and found himself again in 
the little outer court-yard where he had spoken to the brother last night.
There was a string of people already straggling in, whom it was not 
difficult to identify as the nondescript messengers, go-betweens, and 
errand-bearers of the place. Some of them had been lounging in the rain 
until the gate should open; others, who had timed their arrival with 
greater nicety, were coming up now, and passing in with damp whitey-brown 
paper bags from the grocers? loaves of bread, lumps of butter, eggs, milk, 
and the like. The shabbiness of these attendants upon shabbiness, the 
poverty of these insolvent waiters upon insolvency, was a sight to see. 
Such threadbare coats and trousers, such fusty gowns and shawls, such 
squashed hats and bonnets, such boots and shoes, such umbrellas and walking-
sticks, never were seen in Rag Fair. All of them wore the cast-off clothes 
of other men and women; were made up of patches and pieces of other 
people's individuality, and had no sartorial existence of their own proper. 
Their walk was the walk of a race apart. They had a peculiar way of 
doggedly slinking round the corner, as if they were eternally going to the 
pawnbroker's. When they coughed, they coughed like people accustomed to be 
forgotten on doorsteps and in draughty passages, waiting for answers to 
letters in faded ink, which gave the recipients of those manuscripts great 
mental disturbance and no satisfaction. As they eyed the stranger in 
passing, they eyed him with borrowing eyes - hungry, sharp, speculative as 
to his softness if they were accredited to him, and the likelihood of his 
standing something handsome. Mendicity on commission stooped in their high 
shoulders, shambled in their unsteady legs, buttoned and pinned and darned 
and dragged their clothes, frayed their button-holes, leaked out of their 
figures in dirty little ends of tape, and issued from their mouths in 
alcoholic breathings.
As these people passed him standing still in the courtyard, and one of them 
turned back to inquire if he could assist him with his services, it came 
into Arthur Clennam's mind that he would speak to Dorrit again before he 
went away. She would have recovered her first surprise, and might feel 
easier with him. He asked this member of the fraternity (who had two red 
herrings in his hand, and a loaf and a blacking-brush under his arm), where 
was the nearest place to get a cup of coffee at. The nondescript replied in 
encouraging terms, and brought him to a coffee-shop in the street within a 
stone's throw.
"Do you know Miss Dorrit?" asked the new client.
The nondescript knew two Miss Dorrits; one who was born inside - That was 
the one! That was the one? The nondescript had known her many years. In 
regard of the other Miss Dorrit, the nondescript lodged in same house with 
herself and uncle.
This changed the client's half-formed design of remaining at the coffee-
shop until the nondescript should bring him word that Dorrit had issued 
forth into the street. He entrusted the nondescript with a confidential 
message to her, importing that the visitor who had waited on her father 
last night, begged the favour of a few words with her at her uncle's 
lodging; he obtained from the same source full directions to the house, 
which was very near; dismissed the nondescript gratified with half-a-crown; 
and having hastily refreshed himself at the coffee-shop, repaired with all 
speed to the clarionet-player's dwelling.
There was so many lodgers in this house, that the door-post seemed to be as 
full of bell-handles as a cathedral organ is of stops. Doubtful which might 
be the clarionet-stop, he was considering the point, when a shuttlecock 
flew out of the parlour-window, and alighted on his hat. He then observed 
that in the parlour-window was a blind with the inscription Mr Cripples's 
Academy; also in another line, Evening Tuition; and behind the blind was a 
little white-faced boy, with a slice of bread and butter, and a battledore. 
The window being accessible from the footway, he looked in over the blind, 
returned the shuttlecock, and put his question.
"Dorrit?" said the little white-faced boy (Master Cripples in fact). Mr 
Dorrit? Third bell and one knock."
The pupils of Mr Cripples appeared to have been making a copy-book of the 
street door, it was so extensively scribbled over in pencil. The frequency 
of the inscriptions, "Old Dorrit," and "Dirty Dick," in combination, 
suggested intentions of personality on the part of Mr Cripples's pupils. 
There was ample time to make these observations, before the door was opened 
by the poor old man himself.
"Ha!" said he, very slowly remembering Arthur, "you were shut in last 
night?"
"Yes, Mr Dorrit. I hope to meet your niece here presently."
"Oh!" said he, pondering. "Out of my brother's way? True. Would you come 
upstairs and wait for her?"
"Thank you."
Turning himself, as slowly as he turned in his mind whatever he heard or 
said, he led the way up the narrow stairs. The house was very close, and 
had an unwholesome smell. The little staircase windows looked in at the 
back windows of other houses as unwholesome as itself, with poles and lines 
thrust out of them, on which unsightly linen hung: as if the inhabitants 
were angling for clothes, and had had some wretched bites not worth 
attending to. In the back garret - a sickly room, with a turn-up bedstead 
in it, so hastily and recently turned up that the blankets were boiling 
over, as it were, and keeping the lid open - a half-finished breakfast of 
coffee and toast, for two persons, was jumbled down anyhow on a ricketty 
table.
There was no one there. The old man, mumbling to himself, after some 
consideration, that Fanny had run away, went to the next room to fetch her 
back. The visitor, observing that she held the door on the inside, and that 
when the uncle tried to open it, there was a sharp adjuration of "Don't, 
stupid!" and an appearance of loose stocking and flannel, concluded that 
the young lady was in an undress. The uncle, without appearing to come to 
any conclusion, shuffled in again, sat down in his chair, and began warming 
his hands at the fire. Not that it was cold, or that he had any waking idea 
whether it was or not. "What did you think of my brother, sir?" he asked, 
when he, by-and-by, discovered what he was doing, left off, reached over to 
the chimney-piece, and took his clarionet case down.
"I was glad," said Arthur, very much at a loss, for his thoughts were on 
the brother before him; "to find him so well and cheerful."
"Ha!" muttered the old man, "Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!"
Arthur wondered what he could possibly want with the clarionet case. He did 
not want it at all. He discovered, in due time, that it was not the little 
paper of snuff (which was also on the chimney-piece), put it back again, 
took down the snuff again, and solaced himself with a pinch. He was as 
feeble, spare, and slow in his pinches as in everything else, but a certain 
little trickling of enjoyment of them played in the poor worn nerves about 
the corners of his eyes and mouth.
"Amy, Mr Clennam. What do you think of her?"
"I am much impressed, Mr Dorrit, by all that I have seen of her and thought 
of her."
"My brother would have been quite lost without Amy," he returned. "We 
should all have been lost without Amy. She is a very good girl, Amy. She 
does her duty."
Arthur fancied that he heard in these praises, a certain tone of custom 
which he had heard from the father last night, with an inward protest and 
feeling of antagonism. It was not that they stinted her praises, or were 
insensible to what she did for them; but that they were lazily habituated 
to her, as they were to all the rest of their condition. He fancied that 
although they had before them, every day, the means of comparison between 
her and one another and themselves, they regarded her as being in her 
necessary place; as holding a position towards them all which belonged to 
her like her name or her age. He fancied that they viewed her, not as 
having risen away from the prison atmosphere, but as appertaining to it; as 
being vaguely what they had a right to expect, and nothing more.
Her uncle resumed his breakfast, and was munching toast sopped in coffee, 
oblivious of his guest, when the third bell rang. That was Amy, he said, 
and went down to let her in; leaving the visitor with as vivid a picture on 
his mind of his begrimed hands, dirt-worn face, and decayed figure, as if 
he were still drooping in his chair.
She came up after him, in the usual plain dress, and with the usual timid 
manner. Her lips were a little parted, as if her heart beat faster than 
usual.
"Mr Clennam, Amy," said her uncle, "has been expecting you some time."
"I took the liberty of sending you a message."
"I received the message, sir."
"Are you going to my mother's this morning? I think not for it is past your 
usual hour."
"Not today, sir. I am not wanted today."
"Will you allow me to walk a little way in whatever direction you may be 
going; I can then speak to you as we walk, both without detaining you here, 
and without intruding longer here myself."
She looked embarrassed, but said, if he pleased. He made a pretence of 
having mislaid his walking-stick, to give her time to set the bedstead 
right, to answer her sister's impatient knock at the wall, and to say a 
word softly to her uncle. Then he found it, and they went down stairs; she 
first, he following, the uncle standing at the stair-head, and probably 
forgetting them before they had reached the ground floor.
Mr Cripples's pupils, who were by this time coming to school, desisted from 
their morning recreation of cuffing one another with bags and books, to 
stare with all the eyes they had at a stranger who had been to see Dirty 
Dick. They bore the trying spectacle in silence, until the mysterious 
visitor was at a safe distance: when they burst into pebbles and yells, and 
likewise into reviling dances, and in all respects buried the pipe of peace 
with so many savage ceremonies, that if Mr Cripples had been the chief of 
the Cripplewayboo tribe with his war-paint on, they could scarcely have 
done greater justice to their education.
In the midst of this homage, Mr Arthur Clennam offered his arm to Little 
Dorrit, and Little Dorrit took it. "Will you go by the Iron Bridge," said 
he, "where there is an escape from the noise of the street?" Little Dorrit 
answered, if he pleased, and presently ventured to hope that he would "not 
mind" Mr Cripples's boys, for she had herself received her education, such 
as it was, in Mr Cripples's evening academy. He returned, with the best 
will in the world, that Mr Cripples's boys were forgiven out of the bottom 
of his soul. Thus did Cripples unconsciously become a master of the 
ceremonies between them, and bring them more naturally together than Beau 
Nash might have done if they had lived in his golden days, and he had 
alighted from his coach and six for the purpose.
The morning remained squally, and the streets were miserably muddy, but no 
rain fell as they walked towards the Iron Bridge. The little creature 
seemed so young in his eyes, that there were moments when he found himself 
thinking of her, if not speaking to her, as if she were a child. Perhaps he 
seemed as old in her eyes as she seemed young in his.
"I am sorry to hear you were so inconvenienced last night, sir, as to be 
locked in. It was very unfortunate."
It was nothing he returned. He had had a very good bed.
"Oh yes!" she said quickly; "she believed there were excellent beds at the 
coffee-house." He noticed that the coffee-house was quite a majestic hotel 
to her, and that she treasured its reputation.
"I believe it is very expensive," said Little Dorrit, "but my father has 
told me that quite beautiful dinners may be got there. And wine," she 
added, timidly.
"Were you ever there?"
"Oh, no! Only into the kitchen, to fetch hot-water."
To think of growing up with a kind of awe upon one as to the luxuries of 
that superb establishment, the Marshalsea hotel! 
"I asked you last night," said Clennam, "how you had become acquainted with 
my mother. Did you ever hear her name before she sent for you?"
"No, sir."
"Do you think your father ever did?"
"No, sir."
He met her eyes raised to his with so much wonder in them (she was scared 
when that encounter took place, and shrunk away again), that he felt it 
necessary to say:
"I have a reason for asking, which I cannot very well explain; but you 
must, on no account, suppose it to be of a nature to cause you the least 
alarm or anxiety. Quite the reverse. And you think that at no time of your 
father's life was my name of Clennam ever familiar to him?"
"No, sir."
He felt, from the tone in which she spoke, that she was glancing up at him 
with those parted lips; therefore he looked before him, rather than make 
her heart beat quicker still by embarrassing her afresh.
Thus they emerged upon the Iron Bridge, which was as quiet after the 
roaring streets, as though it had been open country. The wind blew roughly, 
the wet squalls came rattling past them, skimming the pools on the road and 
pavement, and raining them down into the river. The clouds raced on 
furiously in the lead-coloured sky, the smoke and mist raced after them, 
the dark tide ran fierce and strong in the same direction. Little Dorrit 
seemed the least, the quietest, and weakest of Heaven's creatures.
"Let me put you in a coach," said Arthur Clennam, very nearly adding, "my 
poor child."
She hurriedly declined, saying that wet or dry made little difference to 
her; she was used to go about in all weathers. He knew it to be so, and was 
touched with more pity; thinking of the slight figure at his side, making 
its nightly way through the damp, dark, boisterous streets, to such a place 
of rest.
"You spoke so feelingly to me last night, sir, and I found afterwards that 
you had been so generous to my father, that I could not resist your 
message, if it was only to thank you; especially as I wished very much to 
say to you - " she hesitated and trembled, and tears rose in her eyes, but 
did not fall.
"To say to me -?"
"That I hope you will not misunderstand my father. Don't judge him, sir, as 
you would judge others outside the gates. He has been there so long! I 
never saw him outside, but I can understand that he must have grown 
different in some things since."
"My thoughts will never be unjust or harsh towards him, believe me."
"Not," she said, with a prouder air, as the misgiving evidently crept upon 
her that she might seem to be abandoning him, "Not that he has anything to 
be ashamed of for himself, or that I have anything to be ashamed of for 
him. He only requires to be understood. I only ask for him that his life 
may be fairly remembered. All that he said was quite true. It all happened 
just as he related it. He is very much respected. Everybody who comes in, 
is glad to know him. He is more courted than any one else. He is far more 
thought of than the Marshal is."
If ever pride were innocent, it was innocent in Little Dorrit when she grew 
boastful of her father.
"It is often said that his manners are a true gentleman's, and quite a 
study. I see none like them in that place, but he is admitted to be 
superior to all the rest. This is quite as much why they make him presents, 
as because they know him to be needy. He is not to be blamed for being in 
need, poor love. Who could be in prison a quarter of a century, and be 
prosperous!"
What affection in her words, what compassion in her repressed tears, what a 
great soul of fidelity within her, how true the light that shed false 
brightness round him! 
"If I have found it best to conceal where my home is it is not because I am 
ashamed of him. God forbid! Nor am I so much ashamed of the place itself as 
might be supposed. People are not bad because they come there. I have known 
numbers of good, persevering, honest people, come there through misfortune. 
They are almost all kind-hearted to one another. And it would be ungrateful 
indeed in me, to forget that I have had many quiet, comfortable hours 
there; that I had an excellent friend there when I was quite a baby, who 
was very fond of me; that I have been taught there, and have worked there, 
and have slept soundly there. I think it would be almost cowardly and cruel 
not to have some little attachment for it, after all this."
She had relieved the faithful fullness of her heart, and modestly said, 
raising her eyes appealingly to her new friend's, "I did not mean to say so 
much, nor have I ever but once spoken about this before. But it seems to 
set it more right than it was last night. I said I wished you had not 
followed me, sir. I don't wish it so much now, unless you should think - 
indeed I don't wish it at all, unless I should have spoken so confusedly, 
that - that you can scarcely understand me, which I am afraid may be the 
case.'
He told her with perfect truth that it was not the case; and putting 
himself between her and the sharp wind and rain, sheltered her as well as 
he could.
"I feel permitted now," he said, "to ask you a little more concerning your 
father. Has he many creditors?"
"Oh! a great number."
"I mean detaining creditors who keep him where he is?"
"Oh yes! a great number."
"Can you tell me - I can get the information, no doubt, elsewhere, if you 
cannot - who is the most influential of them?"
Dorrit said, after considering a little, that she used to hear long ago of 
Mr Tite Barnacle as a man of great power. He was a commissioner, or a 
board, or a trustee, "or something." He lived in Grosvenor Square, she 
thought, or very near it. He was under Government - high in the 
Circumlocution Office. She appeared to have acquired, in her infancy, some 
awful impression of the might of this formidable Mr Tite Barnacle of 
Grosvenor Square, or very near it, and the Circumlocution Office, which 
quite crushed her when she mentioned him.
"It can do no harm," thought Arthur, "if I see this Mr Tite Barnacle."
The thought did not present itself so quietly but that her quickness 
intercepted it. "Ah!" said Little Dorrit, shaking her head with the mild 
despair of a lifetime. "Many people used to think once of getting my poor 
father out, but you don't know how hopeless it is."
She forgot to be shy at the moment in honestly warning him away from the 
sunken wreck he had a dream of raising; and looked at him with eyes which 
assuredly, in association with her patient face, her fragile figure, her 
spare dress, and the wind and rain, did not turn him from his purpose of 
helping her.
"Even if it could be done," said she - "and it never can be done now - 
where could father live, or how could he live? I have often thought that if 
such a change could come, it might be anything but a service to him now. 
People might not think so well of him outside as they do there. He might 
not be so gently dealt with outside, as he is there. He might not be so fit 
himself for the life outside, as he is for that."
Here for the first time she could not restrain her tears from falling; and 
the little thin hands he had watched when they were so busy, trembled as 
they clasped each other.
"It would be a new distress to him even to know that I earn a little money, 
and that Fanny earns a little money. He is so anxious about us, you see, 
feeling helplessly shut up there. Such a good, good father!"
He let the little burst of feeling go by before he spoke. It was soon gone. 
She was not accustomed to think of herself, or to trouble any one with her 
emotions. He had but glanced away at the piles of city roofs and chimneys 
among which the smoke was rolling heavily, and at the wilderness of masts 
on the river, and the wilderness of steeples on the shore, indistinctly 
mixed together in the stormy haze, when she was again as quiet as if she 
had been plying her needle in his mother's room.
"You would be glad to have your brother set at liberty?"
"Oh very, very glad, sir!"
"Well, we will hope for him at least. You told me last night of a friend 
you had?"
His name was Plornish, Little Dorrit said.
And where did Plornish live? Plornish lived in Bleeding Heart Yard. He was 
"only a plasterer," Little Dorrit said, as a caution to him not to form 
high social expectations of Plornish. He lived at the last house in 
Bleeding Heart Yard, and his name was over a little gateway.
Arthur took down the address and gave her his. He had now done all he 
sought to do for the present, except that he wished to leave her with a 
reliance upon him, and to have something like a promise from her that she 
would cherish it.
"There is one friend!" he said, putting up his pocket-book. "As I take you 
back - you are going back?"
"Oh yes! going straight home."
"As I take you back," the word home jarred upon him, "let me ask you to 
persuade yourself that you have another friend. I make no professions, and 
say no more."
"You are truly kind to me, sir. I am sure I need no more."
They walked back through the miserable muddy streets, and among the poor, 
mean shops, and were jostled by the crowds of dirty hucksters usual to a 
poor neighbourhood. There was nothing, by the short way, that was pleasant 
to any of the five senses. Yet it was not a common passage through common 
rain, and mire, and noise, to Clennam, having this little, slender, careful 
creature on his arm. How young she seemed to him or how old he to her; or 
what a secret either to the other, in that beginning of the destined 
interweaving of their stories, matters not here. He thought of her having 
been born and bred among these scenes, and shrinking through them now, 
familiar yet misplaced; he thought of her long acquaintance with the 
squalid needs of life, and of her innocence; of her old solicitude for 
others, and her few years and her childish aspect.
They were come into the High Street, where the prison stood, when a voice 
cried, "Little mother, little mother!" Dorrit stopping and looking back, an 
excited figure of a strange kind bounced against them (still crying "little 
mother"), fell down, and scattered the contents of a large basket, filled 
with potatoes, in the mud.
"Oh, Maggie," said Dorrit, "what a clumsy child you are!"
Maggie was not hurt, but picked herself up immediately, and then began to 
pick up the potatoes, in which both Dorrit and Arthur Clennam helped. 
Maggie picked up very few potatoes, and a great quantity of mud; but they 
were all recovered, and deposited in the basket. Maggie then smeared her 
muddy face with her shawl, and presenting it to Mr Clennam as a type of 
purity, enabled him to see what she was like.
She was about eight-and-twenty, with large bones, large features, large 
feet and hands, large eyes and no hair. Her large eyes were limpid and 
almost colourless; they seemed to be very little affected by light, and to 
stand unnaturally still. There was also that attentive listening expression 
in her face, which is seen in the faces of the blind; but she was not 
blind, having one tolerably serviceable eye. Her face was not exceedingly 
ugly, though it was only redeemed from being so by a smile; a good-humoured 
smile, and pleasant in itself, but rendered pitiable by being constantly 
there. A great white cap, with a quantity of opaque frilling that was 
always flapping about, apologised for Maggie's baldness, and made it so 
very difficult for her old black bonnet to retain its place upon her head, 
that it held on round her neck like a gipsey's baby. A commission of 
haberdashers could alone have reported what the rest of her poor dress was 
made of; but it had a strong general resemblance to sea-weed, with here and 
there a gigantic tea-leaf. Her shawl looked particularly like a tea-leaf, 
after long infusion.
Arthur Clennam looked at Dorrit, with the expression of one saying, "May I 
ask who this is?" Dorrit, whose hand this Maggie, still calling her little 
mother, had begun to fondle, answered in words. (They were under a gateway 
into which the majority of the potatoes had rolled.)
"This is Maggie, sir."
"Maggie, sir," echoed the personage presented. "Little mother!"
"She is the grand-daughter - " said Dorrit.
"Grand-daughter," echoed Maggie.
"Of my old nurse, who has been dead a long time. Maggie, how old are you?"
"Ten, mother," said Maggie.
"You can't think how good she is, sir," said Dorrit, with infinite 
tenderness.
"Good she is," echoed Maggie, transferring the pronoun in a most expressive 
way from herself to her little mother. "Or how clever," said Dorrit. "She 
goes on errands as well as any one." Maggie laughed. "And is as trustworthy 
as the Bank of England." Maggie laughed. "She earns her own living 
entirely. Entirely, sir!" said Dorrit, in a lower and triumphant tone. 
"Really does!"
"What is her history?" asked Clennam.
"Think of that, Maggie!" said Dorrit, taking her two large hands and 
clapping them together. "A gentleman from thousands of miles away, wanting 
to know your history!"
"My history?" cried Maggie. "Little mother."
"She means me," said Dorrit, rather confused; "she is very much attached to 
me. Her old grandmother was not so kind to her as she should have been; was 
she, Maggie?"
Maggie shook her head, made a drinking vessel of her clenched left hand, 
drank out of it, and said, "Gin." Then beat an imaginary child, and said, 
"Broom-handles and pokers."
"When Maggie was ten years old," said Dorrit, watching her face while she 
spoke, "she had a bad fever, sir, and she has never grown any older ever 
since."
"Ten years old," said Maggie, nodding her head. "But what a nice hospital! 
So comfortable, wasn't it? Oh so nice it was. Such a Ev'nly place!"
"She had never been at peace before, sir," said Dorrit, turning towards 
Arthur for an instant and speaking low, "and she always runs off upon 
that."
"Such beds there is there!" cried Maggie. "Such lemonades! Such oranges! 
Such d'licious broth and wine. Such Chicking! Oh, ain't it a delightful 
place to go and stop at!"
"So Maggie stopped there as long as she could, "said Dorrit, in her former 
tone of telling a child's story; the tone designed for Maggie's ear, "and 
at last, when she could stop there no longer, she came out. Then, because 
she was never to be more than ten years old, however long she lived -"
"However long she lived," echoed Maggie.
"And because she was very weak; indeed was so weak that when she began to 
laugh she couldn't stop herself - which was a great pity -"
(Maggie mighty grave of a sudden.)
"Her grandmother did not know what to do with her, and for some years was 
very unkind to her indeed. At length, in course of time, Maggie began to 
take pains to improve herself, and to be very attentive and very 
industrious; and by degrees was allowed to come in and out as often as she 
liked, and got enough to do to support herself, and does support herself. 
And that," said Little Dorrit, clapping the two great hands together again, 
"is Maggie's history, as Maggie knows!"
Ah! But Arthur would have known what was wanting to its completeness, 
though he had never heard the words Little mother; though he had never seen 
the fondling of the small spare hand; though he had had no sight for the 
tears now standing in the colourless eyes; though he had had no hearing for 
the sob that checked the clumsy laugh. The dirty gateway with the wind and 
rain whistling through it, and the basket of muddy potatoes waiting to be 
spilt again or taken up, never seemed the common hole it really was, when 
he looked back to it by these lights. Never, never! 
They were very near the end of their walk, and they now came out of the 
gateway to finish it. Nothing would serve Maggie but that they must stop at 
a grocer's window, short of their destination, for her to show her 
learning. She could read after a sort; and picked out the fat figures in 
the tickets of prices, for the most part correctly. She also stumbled, with 
a large balance of success against her failures, through various 
philanthropic recommendations to Try our Mixture, Try our Family Black, Try 
our Orange-flavoured Pekoe, challenging competition at the head of Flowery 
Teas; and various cautions to the public against spurious establishments 
and adulterated articles. When he saw how pleasure brought a rosy tint into 
Dorrit's face when Maggie made a hit, he felt that he could have stood 
there making a library of the grocer's window until the rain and wind were 
tired.
The court-yard received them at last, and there he said good-bye to Little 
Dorrit. Little as she had always looked, she looked less than ever when he 
saw her going into that Marshalsea lodge passage, the little mother 
attended by her big child.
The cage door opened, and when the small bird, reared in captivity, had 
tamely fluttered in, he saw it shut again; and then he came away.


Chapter 10

Containing The Whole Science Of Government

The Circumlocution Office was (as everybody knows without being told) the 
most important Department under Government. No public business of any kind 
could possibly be done at any time, without the acquiescence of the 
Circumlocution Office. Its finger was in the largest public pie, and in the 
smallest public tart. It was equally impossible to do the plainest right 
and to undo the plainest wrong, without the express authority of the 
Circumlocution Office. If another Gunpowder Plot had been discovered half 
an hour before the lighting of the match, nobody would have been justified 
in saving the parliament until there had been half a score of boards, half 
a bushel of minutes, several sacks of official memoranda, and a family-
vault full of ungrammatical correspondence, on the part of the 
Circumlocution Office.
This glorious establishment had been early in the field, when the one 
sublime principle involving the difficult art of governing a country, was 
first distinctly revealed to statesmen. It had been foremost to study that 
bright revelation, and to carry its shining influence through the whole of 
the official proceedings. Whatever was required to be done, the 
Circumlocution Office was beforehand with all the public departments in the 
art of perceiving - HOW NOT TO DO IT.
Through this delicate perception, through the tact with which it invariably 
seized it, and through the genius with which it always acted on it, the 
Circumlocution Office had risen to over-top all the public departments; and 
the public condition had risen to be - what it was.
It is true that How not to do it was the great study and object of all 
public departments and professional politicians all round the 
Circumlocution Office. It is true that every new premier and every new 
government, coming in because they had upheld a certain thing as necessary 
to be done, were no sooner come in than they applied their utmost faculties 
to discovering How not to do it. It is true that from the moment when a 
general election was over, every returned man who had been raving on 
hustings because it hadn't been done, and who had been asking the friends 
of the honourable gentleman in the opposite interest on pain of impeachment 
to tell him why it hadn't been done, and who had been asserting that it 
must be done, and who had been pledging himself that it should be done, 
began to devise, How it was not to be done. It is true that the debates of 
both Houses of Parliament the whole session through, uniformly tended to 
the protracted deliberation, How not to do it. It is true that the royal 
speech at the opening of such session virtually said, My lords and 
gentlemen, you have a considerable stroke of work to do, and you will 
please to retire to your respective chambers, and discuss, How not to do 
it. It is true that the royal speech, at the close of such session, 
virtually said, My lords and gentlemen, you have through several laborious 
months been considering with great loyalty and patriotism, How not to do 
it, and you have found out; and with the blessing of Providence upon the 
harvest (natural, not political), I now dismiss you. All this is true, but 
the Circumlocution Office went beyond it.
Because the Circumlocution Office went on mechanically, every day, keeping 
this wonderful, all-sufficient wheel of statesmanship, How not to do it, in 
motion. Because the Circumlocution Office was down upon any ill-advised 
public servant who was going to do it, or who appeared to be by any 
surprising accident in remote danger of doing it, with a minute, and a 
memorandum, and a letter of instructions, that extinguished him. It was 
this spirit of national efficiency in the Circumlocution Office that had 
gradually led to its having something to do with everything. Mechanicians, 
natural philosophers, soldiers, sailors, petitioners, memorialists, people 
with grievances, people who wanted to prevent grievances, people who wanted 
to redress grievances, jobbing people, jobbed people, people who couldn't 
get rewarded for merit, and people who couldn't get punished for demerit, 
were all indiscriminately turned up under the foolscap paper of the 
Circumlocution Office.
Numbers of people were lost in the Circumlocution Office. Unfortunates with 
wrongs, or with projects for the general welfare (and they had better have 
had wrongs at first, than have taken that bitter English recipe for 
certainly getting them), who in slow lapse of time and agony had passed 
safely through other public departments; who, according to rule, had been 
bullied in this, over-reached by that, and evaded by the other; got 
referred at last to the Circumlocution Office, and never reappeared in the 
light of day. Boards sat upon them, secretaries minuted upon them, 
commissioners gabbled about them, clerks registered, entered, checked, and 
ticked them off, and they melted away. In short, all the business of the 
country went through the Circumlocution Office, except the business that 
never came out of it; and its name was Legion.
Sometimes, angry spirits attacked the Circumlocution Office. Sometimes, 
parliamentary questions were asked about it, and even parliamentary 
questions were asked about it, and even parliamentary motions made or 
threatened about it, by demagogues so low and ignorant as to hold that the 
real recipe of government was, How to do it. Then would the noble lord, or 
right honourable gentleman, in whose department it was to defend the 
Circumlocution Office, put an orange in his pocket, and make a regular 
field-day of the occasion. Then would he come down to that House with a 
slap upon the table, and meet the honourable gentleman foot to foot. Then 
would he be there to tell that honourable gentleman that the Circumlocution 
Office not only was blameless in this matter, but was commendable in this 
matter, was extollable to the skies in this matter. Then would he be there 
to tell that honourable gentleman, that although the Circumlocution Office 
was invariably right and wholly right, it never was so right as in this 
matter. Then would he be there to tell that honourable gentlemen that it 
would have been more to his honour, more to his credit, more to his good 
taste, more to his good sense, more to half the dictionary of commonplaces, 
if he had left the Circumlocution Office alone and never approached this 
matter. Then would he keep one eye upon a coach or crammer from the 
Circumlocution Office sitting below the bar, and smash the honourable 
gentleman with the Circumlocution Office account of this matter. And 
although one of two things always happened; namely, either that the 
Circumlocution Office had nothing to say and said it, or that it had 
something to say of which the noble lord, or right honourable gentleman, 
blundered one half and forgot the other; the Circumlocution Office was 
always voted immaculate, by an accommodating majority.
Such a nursery of statesmen had the Department become in virtue of a long 
career of this nature, that several solemn lords had attained the 
reputation of being quite unearthly prodigies of business, solely from 
having practised, How not to it, at the head of the Circumlocution Office. 
As to the minor priests and acolytes of that temple, the result of all this 
was that they stood divided into two classes, and, down to the junior 
messenger, either believed in the Circumlocution Office as a heaven-born 
institution, that had an absolute right to do whatever it liked; or took 
refuge in total infidelity, and considered it a flagrant nuisance.
The Barnacle family had for some time helped to administer the 
Circumlocution Office. The Tite Barnacle Branch, indeed, considered 
themselves in a general way as having vested rights in that direction, and 
took it ill if any other family had much to say to it. The Barnacles were a 
very high family, and a very large family. They were dispersed all over the 
public offices, and held all sorts of public places. Either the nation was 
under a load of obligation to the Barnacles, or the Barnacles were under a 
load of obligation to the nation. It was not quite unanimously settled 
which; the Barnacles having their opinion, the nation theirs.
The Mr Tite Barnacle who at the period now in question usually coached or 
crammed the statesman at the head of the Circumlocution Office, when that 
noble or right honourable individual sat a little uneasily in his saddle, 
by reason of some vagabond making a tilt at him in a newspaper, was more 
flush of blood than money. As a Barnacle he had his place, which was a snug 
thing enough: and as a Barnacle he had of course put in his son Barnacle 
Junior, in the office. But he had intermarried with a branch of the 
Stillstalkings, who were also better endowed in a sanguineous point of view 
than with real or personal property, and of this marriage there had been 
issue, Barnacle Junior, and three young ladies. What with the patrician 
requirements of Barnacle Junior, the three young ladies, Mrs Tite Barnacle 
nee Stiltstalking, and himself, Mr Tite Barnacle found the intervals 
between quarter day and quarter day rather longer than he could have 
desired; a circumstance which he always attributed to the country's 
parsimony.
For Mr Tite Barnacle, Mr Arthur Clennam made his fifth enquiry one day at 
the Circumlocution Office; having on previous occasions awaited that 
gentleman successively in a hall, a glass case, a waiting room, and a 
fireproof passage where the Department seemed to keep its wind. On this 
occasion Mr Barnacle was not engaged, as he had been before, with the noble 
prodigy at the head of the Department; but was absent. Barnacle Junior, 
however, was announced as a lesser star, yet visible above the office 
horizon.
With Barnacle Junior, he signified his desire to confer; and found that 
young gentleman singeing the calves of his legs at the parental fire, and 
supporting his spine against the mantel-shelf. It was a comfortable room, 
handsomely furnished in the higher official manner; and presenting stately 
suggestions of the absent Barnacle, in the thick carpet, the leather-
covered desk to sit at, the leather-covered desk to stand at, the 
formidable easy chair and hearth-rug, the interposed screen, the torn-up 
papers, the dispatch-boxes with little labels sticking out of them, like 
medicine bottles or dead game, the pervading smell of leather and mahogany, 
and a general bamboozling air of How not to do it.
The present Barnacle, holding Mr Clennam's card in his hand, had a youthful 
aspect, and the fluffiest little whisker, perhaps, that ever was seen. Such 
a downy tip was on his callow chin, that he seemed half fledged like a 
young bird; and a compassionate observer might have urged, that if he had 
not singed the calves of his legs, he would have died of cold. He had a 
superior eyeglass dangling round his neck, but unfortunately had such flat 
orbits to his eyes, and such limp little eyelids, that it wouldn't stick in 
when he put it up, but kept tumbling out against his waistcoat buttons with 
a click that discomposed him very much.
"Oh, I say. Look here! My father's not in the way, and won't be in the way 
today," said Barnacle Junior. "Is this anything that I can do?"
(Click! Eyeglass down. Barnacle Junior quite frightened and feeling all 
round himself, but not able to find it.)
"You are very good," said Arthur Clennam. "I wish however to see Mr 
Barnacle."
"But I say. Look here! You haven't got any appointment, you know," said 
Barnacle Junior.
(By this time he had found the eyeglass, and put it up again.)
"No," said Arthur Clennam. "That is what I wish to have."
"But I say. Look here! Is this public business?" asked Barnacle Junior.
(Click! Eyeglass down again. Barnacle Junior in that state of search after 
it, that Mr Clennam felt it useless to reply at present.)
"Is it," said Barnacle Junior, taking heed of his visitor's brown face, 
"anything about - Tonnage - or that sort of thing?"
(Pausing for a reply, he opened his right eye with his hand, and stuck his 
glass in it, in that inflammatory manner that his eye began watering 
dreadfully.)
"No," said Arthur, "it is nothing about tonnage."
"Then look here. Is it private business?"
"I really am not sure. It relates to a Mr Dorrit."
"Look here, I tell you what! You had better call at our house, if you are 
going that way. Twenty-four, Mews Street, Grosvenor Square. My father's got 
a slight touch of the gout, and is kept at home by it."
(The misguided young Barnacle evidently going blind on his eyeglass side, 
but ashamed to make any further alterations in his painful arrangements.)
"Thank you. I will call there now. Good morning." Young Barnacle seemed 
discomfited at this, as not having at all expected him to go.
"You are quite sure," said Barnacle Junior, calling after him when he got 
to the door, unwilling wholly to relinquish the bright business idea he had 
conceived; "that it's nothing about Tonnage?"
"Quite sure."
With which assurance, and rather wondering what might have taken place if 
it had been anything about tonnage, Mr Clennam withdrew to pursue his 
inquiries. Mews Street, Grosvenor Square, was not absolutely Grosvenor 
Square itself, but it was very near it. It was a hideous little street of 
dead wall, stables, and dunghills, with lofts over coach-houses inhabited 
by coachmen's families, who had a passion for drying clothes, and 
decorating their window-sills with miniature turnpike gates. The principal 
chimney-sweep of that fashionable quarter lived at the blind end of Mews 
Street; and the same corner contained an establishment much frequented 
about early morning and twilight, for the purchase of wine-bottles and 
kitchen-stuff. Punch's shows used to lean against the dead wall in Mews 
Street, while their proprietors were dining elsewhere; and the dogs of the 
neighbourhood made appointments to meet in the same locality. Yet there 
were two or three small airless houses at the entrance end of Mews Street, 
which went at enormous rents on account of their being abject hangerson to 
a fashionable situation; and whenever one of these fearful little coops was 
to be let (which seldom happened, for they were in great request), the 
house agent advertised it as a gentlemanly residence in the most 
aristocratic part of town, inhabited solely by the elite of the beau monde.
If a gentlemanly residence coming strictly within this narrow margin, had 
not been essential to the blood of the Barnacles, this particular branch 
would have had a pretty wide selection among let us say ten thousand 
houses, offering fifty times the accommodation for a third of the money. As 
it was, Mr Barnacle, finding his gentlemanly residence extremely 
inconvenient and extremely dear, always laid it, as a public servant, at 
the door of the country, and adduced it as another instance of the 
country's parsimony.
Arthur Clennam came to a squeezed house, with a ramshackle bowed front, 
little dingy windows, and a little dark area like a damp waistcoat-pocket, 
which he found to be number twenty-four, Mews Street, Grosvenor Square. To 
the sense of smell, the house was like a sort of bottle filled with a 
strong distillation of mews; and when the footman opened the door, he 
seemed to take the stopper out.
The footman was to the Grosvenor Square footman, what the house was to the 
Grosvenor Square houses. Admirable in his way, his way was a back and a bye 
way. His gorgeousness was not unmixed with dirt; and both in complexion and 
consistency, he had suffered from the closeness of his pantry. A sallow 
flabbiness was upon him, when he took the stopper out, and presented the 
bottle to Mr Clennam's nose.
"Be so good as to give that card to Mr Tite Barnacle, and to say that I 
have just now seen the younger Mr Barnacle who recommended me to call 
here."
The footman (who had as many large buttons with the Barnacle crest upon 
them, on the flaps of his pockets, as if he were the family strong box, and 
carried the plate and jewels about with him buttoned up) pondered over the 
card a little: then said, "Walk in." It required some judgment to do it 
without butting the inner halldoor open, and in the consequent mental 
confusion and physical darkness slipping down the kitchen stairs. The 
visitor, however, brought himself up safely on the doormat.
Still the footman said "Walk in," so the visitor followed him. At the inner 
hall-door, another bottle seemed to be presented and another stopper was 
taken out. This second vial appeared to be filled with concentrated 
provisions, and extract of Sink from the pantry. After a skirmish in the 
narrow passage, occasioned by the footman's opening the door of the dismal 
dining-room with confidence, finding some one there with consternation, and 
backing on the visitor with disorder, the visitor was shut up, pending his 
announcement in a close parlour. There he had an opportunity of refreshing 
himself with both the bottles at once, looking out at a low blinding back 
wall three feet off, and speculating on the number of Barnacle families 
within the bills of mortality who lived in such hutches of their own free 
flunkey choice.
Mr Barnacle would see him. Would he walk up stairs? He would, and he did; 
and in the drawing-room, with his leg on a rest, he found Mr Barnacle 
himself, the express image and presentment of How not to do it.
Mr Barnacle dated from a better time, when the country was not so 
parsimonious, and the Circumlocution Office was not so badgered. He wound 
and wound folds of white cravat round his neck, as he wound and wound folds 
tape and paper round the neck of the country. His wristbands and collar 
were oppressive, his voice and manner were oppressive. He had a large watch-
chain and bunch of seals, a coat buttoned up to inconvenience, a waistcoat 
buttoned up to inconvenience, an unwrinkled pair of trousers, a stiff pair 
of boots. He was altogether splendid, massive, overpowering, and 
impracticable. He seemed to have been sitting for his portrait to Sir 
Thomas Lawrence all the days of his life.
"Mr Clennam?" said Mr Barnacle. "Be seated."
Mr Clennam became seated.
"You have called on me, I believe," said Mr Barnacle, "at the 
Circumlocution - " giving it the air of a word of about five and twenty 
syllables, "Office."
"I have taken that liberty."
Mr Barnacle solemnly bent his head as who should say "I do not deny that it 
is a liberty; proceed to take another liberty, and let me know your 
business."
"Allow me to observe that I have been for some years in China, am quite a 
stranger at home, and have no personal motive or interest in the enquiry I 
am about to make."
Mr Barnacle tapped his fingers on the table, and, as if he were now sitting 
for his portrait to a new and strange artist, appeared to say to his 
visitor, "If you will be good enough to take me with my present lofty 
expression, I shall feel obliged."
"I have found a debtor in the Marshalsea prison of the name of Dorrit, who 
has been there many years. I wish to investigate his confused affairs, so 
far as to ascertain whether it may not be possible, after this lapse of 
time, to ameliorate his unhappy condition. The name of Mr Tite Barnacle has 
been mentioned to me as representing some highly influential interest among 
his creditors. Am I correctly informed?"
It being one of the principles of the Circumlocution Office never, on any 
account whatever, to give a straightforward answer, Mr Barnacle said, 
"Possibly."
"On behalf of the Crown, may I ask, or as a private individual?"
"The Circumlocution Department, sir," Mr Barnacle replied, "may have 
possibly recommended - possibly - I cannot say - that some public claim 
against the insolvent estate of a firm or copartnership to which this 
person may have belonged, should be enforced. The question may have been in 
the course of official business, referred to the Circumlocution Department 
for its consideration. The Department may have either originated, or 
confirmed, a Minute making that recommendation."
"I assume this to be the case, then."
"The Circumlocution Department," said Mr Barnacle, "is not responsible for 
any gentleman's assumptions."
"May I enquire how I can obtain official information as to the real state 
of the case?"
"It is competent," said Mr Barnacle, "to any member of the - Public," 
mentioning that obscure body with reluctance, as his natural enemy, "to 
memorialise the Circumlocution Department. Such formalities as are required 
to be observed in so doing, may be known on application to the proper 
branch of that Department."
"Which is the proper branch?"
"I must refer you," returned Mr Barnacle, ringing the bell, "to the 
Department itself for a formal answer to that enquiry."
"Excuse my mentioning -"
"The Department is accessible to the - Public." Mr Barnacle was always 
checked a little by that word of impertinent signification, "if the - 
Public approaches it according to the official forms; if the - Public does 
not approach it according to the official forms, the - Public has itself to 
blame."
Mr Barnacle made him a severe bow, as a wounded man of family, a wounded 
man of place, and a wounded man of a gentlemanly residence, all rolled into 
one; and he made Mr Barnacle a bow, and was shut out into Mews Street by 
the flabby footman.
Having got to this pass, he resolved as an exercise in perseverance, to 
betake himself again to the Circumlocution Office, and try what 
satisfaction he could get there. So he went back to the Circumlocution 
Office, and once more sent up his card to Barnacle Junior by a messenger 
who took it very ill indeed that he should come back again, and who was 
eating mashed potatoes and gravy behind a partition by the hall fire.
He was readmitted to the presence of Barnacle Junior, and found that young 
gentleman singeing his knees now, and gaping his weary way on to four 
o'clock.
"I say. Look here. You stick to us in a devil of a manner," said Barnacle 
Junior, looking over his shoulder.
"I want to know -"
"Look here. Upon my soul you musn't come into the place saying you want to 
know, you know," remonstrated Barnacle Junior, turning about and putting up 
the eyeglass.
"I want to know," said Arthur Clennam, who had made up his mind to 
persistence in one short form of words, "the precise nature of the claim of 
the Crown against a prisoner for debt named Dorrit."
"I say. Look here. You really are going it at a great pace, you know. Egad 
you haven't got an appointment," said Barnacle Junior, as if the thing were 
growing serious.
"I want to know," said Arthur. And repeated his case.
Barnacle Junior stared at him until his eyeglass fell out, and then put it 
in again and stared at him until it fell out again. "You have no right to 
come this sort of move," he then observed with the greatest weakness. "Look 
here. What do you mean? You told me you didn't know whether it was public 
business or not."
"I have now ascertained that it is public business," returned the suitor, 
"and I want to know" - and again repeated his monotonous enquiry.
Its effect upon young Barnacle was to make him repeat in a defenceless way, 
"Look here! Upon my SOUL you mustn't come into the place, saying you want 
to know, you know!" The effect of that upon Arthur Clennam was to make him 
repeat his enquiry in exactly the same words and tone as before. The effect 
of that upon young Barnacle was to make him a wonderful spectacle of 
failure and helplessness.
"Well, I tell you what. Look here. You had better try the Secretarial 
Department," he said at last, sidling to the bell and ringing it. 
"Jenkinson," to the mashed potatoes messenger, "Mr Wobbler!"
Arthur Clennam, who now felt that he had devoted himself to the storming of 
the Circumlocution Office, and must go through with it, accompanied the 
messenger to another floor of the building, where that functionary pointed 
out Mr Wobbler's room. He entered that apartment, and found two gentlemen 
sitting face to face at a large and easy desk, one of whom was polishing a 
gun-barrel on his pocket-handkerchief, while the other was spreading 
marmalade on bread with a paper-knife.
"Mr Wobbler?" enquired the suitor.
Both gentlemen glanced at him, and seemed surprised at this assurance.
"So he went," said the gentleman with the gun-barrel, who was an extremely 
deliberate speaker, "down to his cousin's place, and took the Dog with him 
by rail. Inestimable Dog. Flew at the porter fellow when he was put into 
the dog-box, and flew at the guard when he was taken out. He got half-a-
dozen fellows into a Barn, and a good supply of Rats, and timed the Dog. 
Finding the Dog able to do it immensely, made the match, and heavily backed 
the Dog. When the match came off, some devil of a fellow was bought over, 
Sir, Dog was made drunk, Dog's master was cleaned out."
"Mr Wobbler?" enquired the suitor.
The gentleman who was spreading the marmalade returned, without looking up 
from that occupation, "What did he call the Dog?"
"Called him Lovely," said the other gentleman. "Said the Dog was the 
perfect picture of the old aunt from whom he has expectations. Found him 
particularly like her when hocussed."
"Mr Wobbler?" said the suitor.
Both gentlemen laughed for some time. The gentleman with the gun-barrel, 
considering it on inspection in a satisfactory state, referred it to the 
other; receiving confirmation of his views, he fitted it into its place in 
the case before him, and took out the stock and polished that, softly 
whistling.
"Mr Wobbler?" said the suitor.
"What's the matter," then said Mr Wobbler, with his mouth full.
"I want to know - " and Arthur Clennam again mechanically set forth what he 
wanted to know.
"Can't inform you," observed Mr Wobbler, apparently to his lunch. "Never 
heard of it. Nothing at all to do with it. Better try Mr Clive, second door 
on the left in the next passage."
"Perhaps he will give me the same answer."
"Very likely. Don't know anything about it," said Mr Wobbler.
The suitor turned away and had left the room, when the gentleman with the 
gun called out "Mister! Hallo!"
He looked in again.
"Shut the door after you. You're letting in a devil of a draught here!"
A few steps brought him to the second door on the left in the next passage. 
In that room he found three gentlemen, number one doing nothing particular, 
number two doing nothing particular, number three doing nothing particular. 
They seemed, however, to be more directly concerned than the others had 
been in the effective execution of the great principle of the office, as 
there was an awful inner apartment with a double door, in which the 
Circumlocution Sages appeared to be assembled in council, and out of which 
there was an imposing coming of papers, and into which there was an 
imposing going of papers, almost constantly; wherein another gentleman, 
number four, was the active instrument.
"I want to know," said Arthur Clennam, - and again stated his case in the 
same barrel-organ way. As number one referred him to number two, and as 
number two referred him to number three, he had occasion to state it three 
times before they all referred him to number four. To whom he stated it 
again.
Number four was a vivacious, well-looking, well-dressed, agreeable young 
fellow - he was a Barnacle, but on the more sprightly side of the family - 
and he said in an easy way, "Oh! you had better not bother yourself about 
it, I think."
"Not bother myself about it?"
"No! I recommend you not to bother yourself about it."
This was such a new point of view that Arthur Clennam found himself at a 
loss how to receive it.
"You can if you like. I can give you plenty of forms to fill up. Lots of 
'em here. You can have a dozen if you like. But you'll never go on with 
it," said number four.
"Would it be such hopeless work? Excuse me; I am a stranger in England."
"I don't say it would be hopeless," returned number four, with a frank 
smile. "I don't express an opinion about that; I only express an opinion 
about you. I don't think you'd go on with it. However, of course, you can 
do as you like. I suppose there was a failure in the performance of a 
contract, or something of that kind, was there?"
"I really don't know."
"Well! That you can find out. Then you'll find out what Department the 
contract was in, and then you'll find out all about it there."
"I beg your pardon. How shall I find out?"
"Why, you'll - you'll ask till they tell you. Then you'll memorialise that 
Department (according to regular forms which you'll find out) for leave to 
memorialise this Department. If you get it (which you may after a time), 
that memorial must be entered in that Department, sent to be registered in 
this Department, sent back to be signed by that Department, sent back to be 
countersigned by this Department, and then it will begin to be regularly 
before that Department. You'll find out when the business passes through 
each of these stages by asking at both Departments till they tell you."
"But surely this is not the way to do the business," Arthur Clennam could 
not help saying.
This airy young Barnacle was quite entertained by his simplicity in 
supposing for a moment that it was. This light in hand young Barnacle knew 
perfectly that it was not. This touch and go young Barnacle had "got up" 
the Department in a private secretaryship, that he might be ready for any 
little bit of fat that came to hand; and he fully understood the Department 
to be a politico diplomatico hocus pocus piece of machinery, for the 
assistance of the nobs in keeping off the snobs. This dashing young 
Barnacle, in a word, was likely to become a statesman, and to make a 
figure.
"When the business is regularly before that Department, whatever it is," 
pursued this bright young Barnacle, "then you can watch it from time to 
time through that Department. When it comes regularly before this 
Department, then you must watch it from time to time through this 
Department. We shall have to refer it right and left; and when we refer it 
anywhere, then you'll have to look it up. When it comes back to us at any 
time, then you had better look us up. When it sticks anywhere, you'll have 
to try to give it a jog. When you write to another Department about it, and 
then to this Department about it, and don't hear anything satisfactory 
about it, why then you had better - keep on writing."
Arthur Clennam looked very doubtful indeed. "But I am obliged to you at any 
rate," said he, "for your politeness."
"Not at all," replied this engaging young Barnacle. "Try the thing, and see 
how you like it. It will be in your power to give it up at any time, if you 
don't like it. You had better take a lot of forms away with you. Give him a 
lot of forms!" With which instruction to number two, this sparkling young 
Barnacle took a fresh handful of papers from numbers one and three, and 
carried them into the sanctuary, to offer to the presiding Idols of the 
Circumlocution Office.
Arthur Clennam put his forms in his pocket gloomily enough, and went his 
way down the long stone passage and the long stone staircase. He had come 
to the swing doors leading into the street, and was waiting, not over 
patiently, for two people who were between him and them to pass out and let 
him follow, when the voice of one of them struck familiarly on his ear. He 
looked at the speaker and recognised Mr Meagles. Mr Meagles was very red in 
the face - redder than travel could have made him - and collaring a short 
man who was with him, said, "Come out, you rascal, come out!"
It was such an unexpected hearing, and it was also such an unexpected sight 
to see Mr Meagles burst the swing doors open, and emerge into the street 
with the short man, who was of an unoffending appearance, that Clennam 
stood still for the moment exchanging looks of surprise with the porter. He 
followed, however, quickly; and saw Mr Meagles going down the street with 
his enemy at his side. He soon came up with his old travelling companion, 
and touched him on the back. The choleric face which Mr Meagles turned upon 
him smoothed when he saw who it was, and he put out his friendly hand.
"How are you!" said Mr Meagles. "How d'ye do! I have only just come over 
from abroad. I am glad to see you."
"And I am rejoiced to see you."
"Thank'ee. Thank'ee!"
"Mrs Meagles and your daughter -?"
"Are as well as possible," said Mr Meagles. "I only wish you had come upon 
me in a more prepossessing condition as to coolness."
Though it was anything but a hot day, Mr Meagles was in a heated state that 
attracted the attention of the passers by; more particularly as he leaned 
his back against a railing, took off his hat and cravat, and heartily 
rubbed his steaming head and face, and his reddened ears and neck, without 
the least regard for public opinion.
"Whew!" said Mr Meagles, dressing again. "That's comfortable. Now I am 
cooler."
"You have been ruffled, Mr Meagles. What is the matter?"
"Wait a bit, and I'll tell you. Have you leisure for a turn in the Park?"
"As much as you please."
"Come along then. Ah! you may well look at him." He happened to have turned 
his eyes towards the offender whom Mr Meagles had so angrily collared. 
"He's something to look at, that fellow is."
He was not much to look at, either in point of size or in point of dress; 
being merely a short, square, practical looking man, whose hair had turned 
grey, and in whose face and forehead there were deep lines of cogitation, 
which looked as though they were carved in hard wood. He was dressed in 
decent black, a little rusty, and had the appearance of a sagacious master 
in some handicraft. He had a spectacle-case in his hand, which he turned 
over and over while he was thus in question, with a certain free use of the 
thumb that is never seen but in a hand accustomed to tools.
"You keep with us," said Mr Meagles, in a threatening kind of way, "and 
I'll introduce you presently. Now, then!"
Clennam wondered within himself, as they took the nearest way to the Park, 
what this unknown (who complied in the gentlest manner) could have been 
doing. His appearance did not at all justify the suspicion that he had been 
detected in designs on Mr Meagles's pocket-handkerchief; nor had he any 
appearance of being quarrelsome or violent. He was a quiet, plain, steady 
man; made no attempt to escape; and seemed a little depressed, but neither 
ashamed nor repentant. If he were a criminal offender, he must surely be an 
incorrigible hypocrite; and if he were no offender, why should Mr Meagles 
have collared him in the Circumlocution Office? He perceived that the man 
was not a difficulty in his own mind alone, but in Mr Meagles's too; for 
such conversation as they had together on the short way to the Park was by 
no means well sustained, and Mr Meagles's eye always wandered back to the 
man, even when he spoke of something very different.
At length, they being among the trees, Mr Meagles stopped short, and said:
"Mr Clennam, will you do me the favour to look at this man? His name is 
Doyce, Daniel Doyce. You wouldn't suppose this man to be a notorious 
rascal; would you?"
"I certainly should not." It was really a disconcerting question, with the 
man there.
"No. You would not. I know you would not. You wouldn't suppose him to be a 
public offender; would you?"
"No."
"No. But he is. He is a public offender. What has he been guilty of? 
Murder, manslaughter, arson, forgery, swindling, housebreaking, highway 
robbery, larceny, conspiracy, fraud? Which should you say, now?"
"I should say," returned Arthur Clennam, observing a faint smile in Daniel 
Doyce's face, "not one of them."
"You are right," said Mr Meagles. "But he has been ingenious and he has 
been trying to turn his ingenuity to his country's service. That makes him 
a public offender directly, sir."
Arthur looked at the man himself, who only shook his head.
"This Doyce," said Mr Meagles, "is a smith and engineer. He is not in a 
large way, but he is well known as a very ingenious man. A dozen years ago, 
he perfects an invention (involving a very curious secret process) of great 
importance to his country and his fellow creatures. I won't say how much 
money it cost him, or how many years of his life he had been about it, but 
he brought it to perfection a dozen years ago. Wasn't it a dozen?" said Mr 
Meagles, addressing Doyce. "He is the most exasperating man in the world; 
he never complains!"
"Yes. Rather better than twelve years ago."
"Rather better?" said Mr Meagles, "you mean rather worse. Well, Mr Clennam. 
He addresses himself to the Government. The moment he addresses himself to 
the Government, he becomes a public offender! Sir," said Mr Meagles, in 
danger of making himself excessively hot again, "he ceases to be an 
innocent citizen, and becomes a culprit. He is treated, from that instant 
as a man who has done some infernal action. He is a man to be shirked, put 
off, brow-beaten, sneered at, handed over by this highly-connected young or 
old gentleman to that highly-connected young or old gentleman, and dodged 
back again; he is a man with no rights in his own time, or his own 
property; a mere outlaw, whom it is justifiable to get rid of anyhow; a man 
to be worn out by all possible means."
It was not so difficult to believe, after the morning's experience, as Mr 
Meagles supposed.
"Don't stand there, Doyce, turning your spectacle-case over and over," 
cried Mr Meagles, "but tell Mr Clennam what you confessed to me."
"I undoubtedly was made to feel," said the inventor, "as if I had committed 
an offence. In dancing attendance at the various offices, I was always 
treated, more or less, as if it was a very bad offence. I have frequently 
found it necessary to reflect, for my own self-support that I really had 
not done anything to bring myself into the Newgate Calendar, but only 
wanted to effect a great saving and a great improvement."
"There!" said Mr Meagles. "Judge whether I exaggerate! Now you'll be able 
to believe me when I tell you the rest of the case."
With this prelude, Mr Meagles went through the narrative; the established 
narrative, which has become tiresome; the matter of course narrative, which 
we all know by heart. How, after interminable attendance and 
correspondence, after infinite impertinences, ignorances, and insults, my 
lords made a Minute, number three thousand four hundred and seventy-two, 
allowing the culprit to make certain trials of his invention at his own 
expense. How the trials were made in the presence of a board of six, of 
whom two ancient members were two blind to see it, two other ancient 
members were too deaf to hear it, one other ancient member was too lame to 
get near it, and the final ancient member was to pig-headed to look at it. 
How there were more years; more impertinences, ignorances, and insults. How 
my lords then made a Minute, number five thousand one hundred and three, 
whereby they resigned the business to the Circumlocution Office. How the 
Circumlocution Office, in course of time, took up the business as if it 
were a bran new thing of yesterday, which had never been heard of before; 
muddled the business, addled the business, tossed the business in a wet 
blanket. How the impertinences, ignorances, and insults went through the 
multiplication table. How there was a reference of the invention to three 
Barnacles and a Stiltstalking, who knew nothing about it; into whose heads 
nothing could be hammered about it; who got bored about it, and reported 
physical impossibilities about it. How the Circumlocution Office, in a 
Minute, number eight thousand seven hundred and forty, "saw no reason to 
reverse the decision at which my lords had arrived." How the Circumlocution 
Office, being reminded that my lords had arrived at no decision, shelved 
the business. How there had been a final interview with the head of the 
Circumlocution Office that very morning, and how the Brazen Head had 
spoken, and had been, upon the whole, and under all the circumstances, and 
looking at it from the various points of view, of opinion that one of two 
courses was to be pursued in respect of the business: that was to say, 
either to leave it alone for evermore, or to begin it all over again.
"Upon which," said Mr Meagles, "as a practical man, I then and there, in 
that presence, took Doyce by the collar, and told him it was plain to me 
that he was an infamous rascal, and treasonable disturber of the government 
peace, and took him away. I brought him out at the office door by the 
collar, that the very porter might know I was a practical man who 
appreciated the official estimate of such characters; and here we are!"
If that airy young Barnacle had been there he would have frankly told them 
perhaps that the Circumlocution Office had achieved its functions. That 
what the Barnacles had to do, was to stick on to the national ship as long 
as they could. That to trim the ship, lighten the ship, clean the ship, 
would be to knock them off; "that they could but be knocked off once; and 
that if the ship went down with them yet sticking to it, that was the 
ship's look out, and not theirs.
"There!" said Mr Meagles, "now you know all about Doyce. Except, which I 
own does not improve my state of mind, that even now you don't hear him 
complain."
"You must have great patience," said Arthur Clennam, looking at him with 
some wonder, "great forbearance."
"No," he returned, "I don't know that I have more than another man."
"By the Lord you have more than I have though!" cried Mr Meagles.
Doyce smiled, as he said to Clennam, "You see, my experience of these 
things does not begin with myself. It has been in my way to know a little 
about them, from time to time. Mine is not a particular case. I am not 
worse used than a hundred others, who have put themselves in the same 
position - than all the others, I was going to say."
"I don't know that I should find that a consolation, if it were my case; 
but I am very glad that you do."
"Understand me! I don't say," he replied in his steady, planning way, and 
looking into the distance before him as if his grey eye were measuring it, 
"that it's recompense for a man's toil and hope; but it's a certain sort of 
relief to know that I might have counted on this."
He spoke in that quiet deliberate manner, and in that undertone, which is 
often observable in mechanics who consider and adjust with great nicety. It 
belonged to him like his suppleness of thumb, or his peculiar way of 
tilting up his hat at the back every now and then, as if he were 
contemplating some half-finished work of his hand, and thinking about it.
"Disappointed?" he went on, as he walked between them under the trees. 
"Yes. No doubt I am disappointed. Hurt? Yes. No doubt I am hurt. That's 
only natural. But what I mean, when I say that people who put themselves in 
the same position, are mostly used in the same way -"
"In England," said Mr Meagles.
"Oh! course I mean in England. When they take their inventions into foreign 
countries, that's quite different. And that's the reason why so many go 
there."
Mr Meagles very hot indeed again.
"What I mean is, that however this comes to be the regular way of our 
government, it is its regular way. Have you ever heard of any projector or 
inventor who failed to find it all but inaccessible, and whom it did not 
discourage and illtreat?"
"I cannot say that I ever have."
"Have you ever known it to be beforehand in the adoption of any useful 
thing? Ever known it to set an example of any useful kind?"
"I am a good deal older than my friend here," said Mr Meagles, "and I'll 
answer that. Never."
"But we all three have known, I expect," said the inventor, "a pretty many 
cases of its fixed determination to be miles upon miles, and years upon 
years, behind the rest of us; and of its being found out persisting in the 
use of things long superseded, even after the better things were well known 
and generally taken up?"
They all agreed upon that.
"Well then," said Doyce with a sigh, "as I know what such a metal will do 
at such a temperature, and such a body under such a pressure, so I may know 
(if I will only consider), how these great lords and gentlemen will 
certainly deal with such a matter as mine. I have no right to be surprised, 
with a head upon my shoulders, and memory in it, that I fall into the ranks 
with all who came before me. I ought to have let it alone. I have had 
warning enough, I am sure."
With that he put up his spectacle case, and said to Arthur, "If I don't 
complain, Mr Clennam, I can feel gratitude; and I assure you that I feel it 
towards our mutual friend. Many's the day, and many's the way in which he 
has backed me."
"Stuff and nonsense," said Mr Meagles.
Arthur could not but glance at Daniel Doyce in the ensuing silence. Though 
it was evidently in the grain of his character, and of his respect for his 
own case, that he should abstain from idle murmuring, it was evident that 
he had grown the older, the sterner, and the poorer, for his long 
endeavour. He could not but think what a blessed thing it would have been 
for this man, if he had taken a lesson from the gentlemen who were so kind 
as to take the nation's affairs in charge, and had learnt, How not to do 
it.
Mr Meagles was hot and despondent for about five minutes, and then began to 
cool and clear up.
"Come, come!" said he. "We shall not make this the better by being grim. 
Where do you think of going, Dan?"
"I shall go back to the factory," said Dan.
"Why then, we'll all go back to the factory, or walk in that direction," 
returned Meagles cheerfully. "Mr Clennam won't be deterred by its being in 
Bleeding Heart Yard."
"Bleeding Heart Yard?" said Clennam. "I want to go there."
"So much the better," cried Mr Meagles. "Come along!"
As they went along, certainly one of the party, and probably more than one, 
thought that Bleeding Heart Yard was no inappropriate destination for a man 
who had been in official correspondence with my lords and the Barnacles - 
and perhaps had a misgiving also that Britannia herself might come to look 
for lodgings in Bleeding Heart Yard, some ugly day or other, if she over-
did the Circumlocution Office.


Chapter 11

Let Loose

A late dull autumn night was closing in upon the river Saone. The stream, 
like a sullied looking-glass in a gloomy place, reflected the clouds 
heavily; and the low hanks leaned over here and there, as if they were half 
curious, and half afraid, to see their darkening pictures in the water. The 
flat expanse of country about Chalons lay a long heavy streak, occasionally 
made a little ragged by a row of poplar trees, against the wrathful sunset. 
On the banks of the river Saone it was wet, depressing, solitary; and the 
night deepened fast.
One man, slowly moving on towards Chalons, was the only visible figure in 
the landscape. Cain might have looked as lonely and avoided. With an old 
sheepskin knapsack at his back, and a rough, unbarked stick cut out of some 
wood in his hand; miry, footsore, his shoes and gaiters trodden out, his 
hair and beard untrimmed; the cloak he carried over his shoulder, and the 
clothes he wore, soddened with w et; limping along in pain and difficulty; 
he looked as if the clouds were hurrying from him, as if the wail of the 
wind and the shuddering of the grass were directed against him, as if the 
low mysterious plashing of the water murmured at him, as if the fitful 
autumn night were disturbed by him.
He glanced here, and he glanced there, sullenly but shrinkingly; and 
sometimes stopped and turned about, and looked all round him. Then he 
limped on again, toiling and muttering.
"To the devil with this plain that has no end! To the devil with these 
stones that cut like knives! To the devil with this dismal darkness, 
wrapping itself about one with a chill! I hate you!"
And he would have visited his hatred upon it all with the scowl he threw 
about him, if he could. He trudged a little further; and looking into the 
distance before him, stopped again.
"I, hungry, thirsty weary. You, imbeciles, where the lights are yonder, 
eating and drinking, and warming yourselves at fires! I wish I had the 
sacking of your town; I would repay you, my children!"
But the teeth he set at the town, and the hand he shook at the town, 
brought the town no nearer; and the man was yet hungrier, and thirstier, 
and wearier, when his feet were on its jagged pavement, and he stood 
looking about him.
There was the hotel with its gateway, and its savoury smell of cooking; 
there was the cafe, with its bright windows and its rattling of dominoes; 
there was the dyer's, with its strips of red cloth on the doorposts; there 
was the silversmith's, with its earrings, and its offerings for altars; 
there was the tobacco-dealer's, with its lively group of soldier customers 
coming out pipe in mouth; there were the bad odours of the town, and the 
rain and the refuse in the kennels, and the faint lamps slung across the 
road, and the huge Diligence, and its mountain of luggage, and its six grey 
horses with their tails tied up, getting under weigh at the coach office. 
But no small cabaret for a straitened traveller being within sight, he had 
to seek one round the dark corner, where the cabbage leaves lay thickest, 
trodden about the public cistern at which women had not yet left off 
drawing water. There in the back street he found one, the Break of Day. The 
curtained windows clouded the Break of Day, but it seemed light and warm, 
and it announced in legible inscriptions, with appropriate pictorial 
embellishment of billiard cue and ball, that at the Break of Day one could 
play billiards; that there one could find meat, drink, and lodging, whether 
one came on horseback, or came on foot; and that it kept good wines, 
liqueurs, and brandy. The man turned the handle of the Break of Day door, 
and limped in.
He touched his discoloured slouched hat, as he came in at the door, to a 
few men who occupied the room. Two were playing dominoes at one of the 
little tables; three or four were seated round the stove, conversing as 
they smoked; the billiard-table in the centre, was left alone for the time; 
the landlady of the Daybreak sat behind her little counter among her cloudy 
bottles of syrups, baskets of cakes, and leaden drainage for glasses, 
working at her needle.
Making his way to an empty little table, in a corner of the room behind the 
stove, he put down his knapsack and his cloak upon the ground. As he raised 
his head from stooping to do so, he found the landlady beside him.
"One can lodge here tonight, madame?"
"Perfectly!" said the landlady in a high sing-song, cheery voice.
"Good. One can dine - sup - what you please to call it?"
"Ah, perfectly!" cried the landlady as before.
"Despatch then, madame, if you please. Something to eat, as quickly as you 
can; and some wine at once. I am exhausted."
"It is very bad weather, monsieur," said the landlady.
"Cursed weather."
"And a very long road."
"A cursed road."
His hoarse voice failed him, and he rested his head upon his hands until a 
bottle of wine was brought from the counter. Having filled and emptied his 
little tumbler twice, and having broken off an end from the great loaf that 
was set before him with his cloth and napkin, soup-plate, salt, pepper, and 
oil, he rested his back against the corner of the wall, made a couch of the 
bench on which he sat, and began to chew crust until such time as his 
repast should be ready.
There had been that momentary interruption of the talk about the stove, and 
that temporary inattention to and distraction from one another, which is 
usually inseparable in such a company from the arrival of a stranger. It 
had passed over by this time; and the men had done glancing at him, and 
were talking again.
"That's the true reason," said one of them, bringing a story he had been 
telling, to a close, "that's the true reason why they say that the devil 
was let loose." The speaker was the tall Swiss belonging to the church, and 
he brought something of the authority of the church into the discussion - 
especially as the devil was in question.
The landlady, having given her directions for the new guest's entertainment 
to her husband, who acted as cook to the Break of Day, had resumed her 
needlework behind the counter. She was a smart, neat, bright little woman, 
with a good deal of cap and a good deal of stocking, and she struck into 
the conversation with several laughing nods of her head, but without 
looking up from her work.
"Ah Heaven, then," said she. "When the boat came up from Lyons, and brought 
the news that the devil was actually let loose at Marseilles, some fly-
catchers swallowed it. But I? No, not I.
"Madame, you are always right," returned the tall Swiss. "Doubtless you 
were enraged against that man, madame?"
"Ah, yes, then!" cried the landlady, raising her eyes from her work, 
opening them very wide, and tossing her head on one side. "Naturally, yes."
"He was a bad subject."
"He was a wicked wretch," said the landlady, "and well merited what he had 
the good fortune to escape. So much the worse."
"Stay, madame! Let us see," returned the Swiss, argumentatively turning his 
cigar between his lips. "It may have been his unfortunate destiny. He may 
have been the child of circumstances. It is always possible that he had, 
and has, good in him if one did but know how to find it out. Philosophical 
philanthropy teaches -"
The rest of the little know about the stove murmured an objection to the 
introduction of that threatening expression. Even the two players at 
dominoes glanced up from their game, as if to protest against philosophical 
philanthropy being brought by name into the Break of Day.
"Hold there, you and your philanthropy," cried the smiling landlady, 
nodding her head more than ever. "Listen then. I am a woman, I. I know 
nothing of philosophical philanthropy. But I know what I have seen, and 
what I have looked in the face, in this world here, where I find myself. 
And I tell you this, my friend, that there are people (men and women both, 
unfortunately) who have no good in them - none. That there are people whom 
it is necessary to detest without compromise. That there are people who 
must be dealt with as enemies of the human race. That there are people who 
have no human heart, and who must be crushed like savage beasts and cleared 
out of the way. They are but few, I hope; but I have seen (in this world 
here where I find myself, and even at the little Break of Day) that there 
are such people. And I do not doubt that this man - whatever they call him, 
I forget his name - is one of them."
The landlady's lively speech was received with greater favour at the Break 
of Day, than it would have elicited from certain amiable white-washes of 
the class she so unreasonably objected to, nearer Great Britain.
"My faith! If your philosophical philanthropy," said the landlady, putting 
down her work, and rising to take the stranger's soup from her husband, who 
appeared with it at a side door, "puts anybody at the mercy of such people 
by holding terms with them at all, in words or deeds, or both, take it away 
from the Break of Day, for it isn't worth a sou."
As she placed the soup before the guest, who changed his attitude to a 
sitting one, he looked her full in the face, and his moustache went up 
under his nose, and his nose came down over his moustache.
"Well!" said the previous speaker, "let us come back to our subject. 
Leaving all that aside, gentlemen, it was because the man was acquitted on 
his trial, that people said at Marseilles that the devil was let loose. 
That was how the phrase began to circulate, and what it meant; nothing 
more."
"How do they call him?" said the landlady. "Biraud, is it not?"
"Rigaud, madame," returned the tall Swiss.
"Rigaud! To be sure!"
The traveller's soup was succeeded by a dish of meat, and that by a dish of 
vegetables. He ate all that was placed before him, emptied his bottle of 
wine, called for a glass of rum, and smoked his cigarette with his cup of a 
glass of rum, and smoked his cigarette with his cup of coffee. As he became 
refreshed, he became overbearing; and patronised the company at the 
Daybreak in certain small talk, at which he assisted, as if his condition 
were far above his appearance.
The company might have had other engagements, or they might have felt their 
inferiority, but in any case they dispersed by degrees, and not being 
replaced by other company, left their new patron in possession of the Break 
of Day. The landlord was clinking about in his kitchen; the landlady was 
quiet at her work; and the refreshed traveler sat smoking by the stove, 
warming his ragged feet.
"Pardon me, madame - that Biraud."
"Rigaud, monsieur."
"Rigaud. Pardon me again - has contracted your displeasure, how?"
The landlady, who had been at one moment thinking within herself that this 
was a handsome man, at another moment that this was an ill-looking man, 
observed the nose coming down and the moustache going up, and strongly 
inclined to the latter decision. Rigaud was a criminal, she said, who had 
killed his wife.
"Ay, ay? Death of my life, that's a criminal indeed. But how do you know 
it?"
"All the world knows it."
"Hah! And yet he escaped justice?"
"Monsieur, the law could not prove it against him to its satisfaction. So 
the law says. Nevertheless, all the world knows he did it. The people knew 
it so well, that they tried to tear him to pieces."
"Being all in perfect accord with their own wives?" said the guest. "Haha!"
The landlady of the Break of Day looked at him again, and felt almost 
confirmed in her last decision. He had a fine hand though, and he turned it 
with a great show. She began once more to think that he was not ill-looking 
after all.
"Did you mention, madame - or was it mentioned among the gentlemen - what 
became of him?"
The landlady shook her head; it being the first conversational stage at 
which her vivacious earnestness had ceased to nod it, keeping time to what 
she said. It had been mentioned at the Daybreak, she remarked, on the 
authority of the journals, that he had been kept in prison for his own 
safety. However that might be, he had escaped his deserts, so much the 
worse.
The guest sat looking at her as he smoked out his final cigarette, and as 
she sat with her head bent over her work, with an expression that might 
have resolved her doubts, and brought her to a lasting conclusion on the 
subject of his good or bad looks if she had seen it. When she did look up, 
the expression was not there. The hand was smoothing his shaggy moustache.
"May one ask to be shown to be, madame!"
Very willingly, monsieur. Hola, my husband! My husband would conduct him 
upstairs. There was one traveller there, asleep, who had gone to bed very 
early indeed, being overpowered by fatigue; but it was a large chamber with 
two beds in it, and space enough for twenty. This the landlady of the Break 
of Day chirpingly explained, calling between whiles, Hola, my husband! out 
at the side door.
My husband answered at length, "It is I, my wife!" and presenting himself 
in his cook's cap, lighted the traveller up a steep and narrow staircase; 
the traveller carrying his own cloak and knapsack, and bidding the landlady 
good night with a complimentary reference to the pleasure of seeing her 
again tomorrow. It was a large room, with a rough splintery floor, 
unplastered rafters overhead, and two bedsteads on opposite sides. Here my 
husband put down the candle he carried, and with a sidelong look at his 
guest stooping over his knapsack, gruffly gave him the instruction, "The 
bed to the right!" and left him to his repose. The landlord, whether he was 
a good or a bad physiognomist, had fully made up his mind that the guest 
was an ill-looking fellow.
The guest looked contemptuously at the clean coarse bedding prepared for 
him, and, sitting down on the rush chair at the bedside, drew his money out 
of his pocket, and told it over in his hand. "One must eat," he muttered to 
himself, "but by Heaven I must eat at the cost of some other man tomorrow!"
As he sat pondering, and mechanically weighing his money in his palm, the 
deep breathing of the traveller in the other bed fell so regularly upon his 
hearing that it attracted his eyes in that direction. The man was covered 
up warm, and had drawn the white curtain at his head, so that he could be 
only heard, not seen. But the deep regular breathing, still going on while 
the other was taking off his worn shoes and gaiters, and still continuing 
when he had laid aside his coat and cravat, became at length a strong 
provocative to curiosity, and incentive to get a glimpse of the sleeper's 
face.
The waking traveller, therefore, stole a little nearer, and yet a little 
nearer, and a little nearer, to the sleeping traveller's bed, until he 
stood close beside it. Even then he could not see his face, for he had 
drawn the sheet over it. The regular breathing still continuing, he put his 
smooth white hand (such a treacherous hand it looked, as it went creeping 
from him! ) to the sheet, and gently lifted it away.
"Death of my soul!" he whispered, falling back, "here's Cavalletto!"
The little Italian, previously influenced in his sleep perhaps by the 
stealthy presence at his bedside, stopped in his regular breathing, and 
with a long deep respiration opened his eyes. At first they were not awake, 
though open. He lay for some seconds looking placidly at his old prison 
companion, and then, all at once, with a cry of surprise and alarm, sprang 
out of bed.
"Hush! What's the matter! Keep quiet! It's I. You know me?" cried the 
other, in a suppressed voice.
But John Baptist, widely staring, muttering a number of invocations and 
ejaculations, tremblingly backing into a corner, slipping on his trousers, 
and tying his coat by the two sleeves round his neck, manifested an 
unmistakable desire to escape by the door rather than renew the 
acquaintance. Seeing this, his old prison comrade fell back upon the door, 
and set his shoulders against it.
"Cavelletto! Wake, boy! Rub your eyes and look at me. Not the name you used 
to call me - don't use that - Lagnier, say Lagnier!"
John Baptist, staring at him with eyes opened to their utmost width, made a 
number of those national back-handed shakes of the right forefinger in the 
air, as if he were resolved on negativing beforehand everything that the 
other could possibly advance, during the whole term of his life.
"Cavalletto! Give me your hand. You know Lagnier the gentleman. Touch the 
hand of a gentleman!"
Submitting himself to the old tone of condescending authority, John 
Baptist, not at all steady on his legs as yet, advanced and put his hand in 
his patron's. Monsieur Lagnier laughed; and having given it a squeeze, 
tossed it up and let it go.
"Then you were - " faltered John Baptist.
"Not shaved? No. See here!" cried Lagnier, giving his head a twirl, "as 
tight on as your own."
John Baptist, with a slight shiver, looked all round the room as if to 
recall where he was. His patron took that opportunity of turning the key in 
the door, and then sat down upon his bed.
"Look!" he said, holding up his shoes and gaiters. "That's a poor trim for 
a gentleman, you'll say. No matter, you shall see how soon I'll mend it. 
Come and sit down. Take your old place!"
John Baptist looking anything but reassured, sat down on the floor at the 
bedside, keeping his eyes upon his patron all the time.
"That's well!" cried Lagnier. "Now we might be in the old infernal hole 
again, hey? How long have you been out?"
"Two days after you, my master."
"How do you come here?"
"I was cautioned not to stay there, and so I left the town at once, and 
since then I have changed about. I have been doing odds and ends at 
Avignon, at Pont Esprit, at Lyons; upon the Rhone, upon the Saone." As he 
spoke he rapidly mapped the places out with his sunburnt hand on the floor.
"And where are you going?"
"Going, my master?"
"Ay!"
John Baptist seemed to desire to evade the question without knowing how. 
"By Bacchus!" he said at last, as if he were forced to the admission, "I 
have sometimes had a thought of going to Paris, and perhaps to England."
"Cavalletto. This is in confidence. I also am going to Paris and perhaps to 
England. We'll go together."
The little man nodded his head, and showed his teeth; and yet seemed not 
quite convinced that it was a surpassingly desirable arrangement.
"We'll go together," repeated Lagnier. "You shall see how soon I will force 
myself to be recognised as a gentleman, and you shall profit by it. Is it 
agreed? Are we one?"
"Oh, surely, surely!" said the little man.
'Then you shall hear before I sleep - and in six words, for I want sleep - 
how I appear before you, I, Lagnier. Remember that. Not the other."
"Altro, altro! Not Ri - " Before John Baptist could finish the name, his 
comrade had got his hand under his chin and fiercely shut up his mouth.
"Death! what are you doing? Do you want me to be trampled upon and stoned? 
Do you want to be trampled upon and stoned? You would be. You don't imagine 
that they would set upon me, and let my prison chum go? Don't think it!"
There was an expression in his face as he released his grip of his friend's 
jaw, from which his friend inferred, that if the course of events really 
came to any stoning and trampling, Monsieur Lagnier would so distinguish 
him with his notice as to ensure his having his full share of it. He 
remembered what a cosmopolitan gentleman Monsieur Lagnier was, and how few 
weak distinctions he made.
"I am a man," said Monsieur Lagnier, "whom society has deeply wronged since 
you last saw me. You know that I am sensitive and brave, and that it is my 
character to govern. How has society respected those qualities in me? I 
have been shrieked at through the streets. I have been guarded through the 
streets against men, and especially women, running at me armed with any 
weapons they could lay their hands on. I have lain in prison for security, 
with the place of my confinement kept a secret, lest I should be torn out 
of it and felled by a hundred blows. I have been carted out of Marseilles 
in the dead of night, and carried leagues away from it packed in straw. It 
has not been safe for me to go near my house; and with a beggar's pittance 
in my pocket, I have walked through vile mud and weather ever since, until 
my feet are crippled - look at them! Such are the humiliations that society 
has inflicted upon me, possessing the qualities I have mentioned, and which 
you know me to possess. But society shall pay for it."
All this he said in his companion's ear, and with his hand before his lips.
"Even here," he went on in the same way, "even in this mean drinking-shop, 
society pursues me. Madame defames me, and her guests defame me. I, too, a 
gentleman with manners and accomplishments to strike them dead! But the 
wrongs society has heaped upon me are treasured in this breast."
To all of which John Baptist, listening attentively to the suppressed 
hoarse voice, said from time to time, "Surely, surely!" tossing his head 
and shutting his eyes, as if there were the clearest case against society 
that perfect candour could make out.
"Put my shoes there," continued Lagnier. "Hang my cloak to dry there by the 
door. Take my hat." He obeyed each instruction, as it was given. "And this 
is the bed to which society consigns me, is it? Hah. Very well!"
As he stretched out his length upon it, with a ragged handkerchief bound 
round his wicked head, and only his wicked head showing above the bed-
clothes, John Baptist was rather strongly reminded of what had so very 
nearly happened to prevent the moustache from any more going up as it did, 
and the nose from any more coming down as it did.
"Shaken out of destiny's dice-box again into your company, eh? By Heaven! 
So much the better for you. You'll profit by it. I shall need a long rest. 
Let me sleep in the morning."
John Baptist replied that he should sleep as long as he would, and wishing 
him a happy night, put out the candle. One might have supposed that the 
next proceeding of the Italian would have been to undress; but he did 
exactly the reverse, and dressed himself from head to foot, saving his 
shoes. When he had so done, he lay down upon his bed with some of its 
coverings over him, and his coat still tied round his neck, to get through 
the night.
When he started up, the Godfather Break of Day was peeping at its namesake. 
He rose, took his shoes in his hand, turned the key in the door with great 
caution, and crept downstairs. Nothing was astire there but the smell of 
coffee, wine, tobacco, and syrups; and madame's little counter looked 
ghastly enough. But he had paid madame his little note at it over night, 
and wanted to see nobody - wanted nothing but to get on his shoes and his 
knapsack, open the door, and run away.
He prospered in his object. No movement or voice was heard when he opened 
the door; no wicked head tied up in a ragged handkerchief looked out of the 
upper window. When the sun had raised his full disc above the flat line of 
the horizon, and was striking fire out of the long muddy vista of paved 
road with its weary avenue of little trees, a black speck moved along the 
road and splashed among the flaming pools of rainwater, which black speck 
was John Baptist Cavelletto running away from his patron.


Chapter 12

Bleeding Heart Yard

In London itself, though in the old rustic road towards a suburb of note 
where in the days of William Shakespeare, author and stage-player, there 
were Royal hunting-seats, howbeit no sport is left there now but for 
hunters of men, Bleeding Heart Yard was to be found. A place much changed 
in feature and in fortune, yet with some relish of ancient greatness about 
it. Two or three mighty stacks of chimneys, and a few large dark rooms 
which had escaped being walled and subdivided out of the recognition of 
their old proportions, gave the Yard a character. It was inhabited by poor 
people, who set up their rest among its faded glories, as Arabs of the 
desert pitch their tents among the fallen stones of the Pyramids; but there 
was a family sentimental feeling prevalent in the Yard, that it had a 
character.
As if the aspiring city had become puffed up in the very ground on which it 
stood, the ground had so risen about Bleeding Heart Yard that you got into 
it down a flight of steps which formed no part of the original approach, 
and got out of it by a low gateway into a maze of shabby streets, which 
went about and about, tortuously ascending to the level again. At this end 
of the Yard and over the gateway, was the factory of Daniel Doyce, often 
heavily beating like a bleeding heart of iron, with the clink of metal upon 
metal.
The opinion of the Yard was divided respecting the derivation of its name. 
The more practical of its inmates abided by the tradition of a murder; the 
gentler and more imaginative inhabitants, including the whole of the tender 
sex, were loyal to the legend of a young lady of former times closely 
imprisoned in her chamber by a cruel father for remaining true to her own 
true love, and refusing to marry the suitor he chose for her. The legend 
related how that the young lady used to be seen up at her window behind the 
bars, murmuring a love-lorn song of which the burden was, "Bleeding Heart, 
Bleeding Heart, bleeding away," until she died. It was objected by the 
murderous party that this Refrain was notoriously the invention of a 
tambour-worker, a spinster and romantic, still lodging in the Yard. But, 
forasmuch as all favourite legends must be associated with the affections, 
and as many more people fall in love than commit murder - which it may be 
hoped, howsoever bad we are, will continue until the end of the world to be 
the dispensation under which we shall live - the Bleeding Heart, Bleeding 
Heart, bleeding away story, carried the day by a great majority. Neither 
party would listen to the antiquaries who delivered learned lectures in the 
neighbourhood, showing the Bleeding Heart to have been the heraldic 
cognisance of the old family to whom the property had once belonged. And, 
considering that the hour-glass they turned from year to year was filled 
with the earthiest and coarsest sand, the Bleeding Heart Yarders had reason 
enough for objecting to be despoiled of the one little golden grain of 
poetry that sparkled in it.
Down into the Yard, by way of the steps, came Daniel Doyce, Mr Meagles, and 
Clennam. Passing along the Yard, and between the open doors on either hand, 
all abundantly garnished with light children nursing heavy ones, they 
arrived at its opposite boundary, the gateway. Here Arthur Clennam stopped 
to look about him for the domicile of Plornish, plasterer: whose name, 
according to the custom of Londoners, Daniel Doyce had never seen or heard 
of to that hour.
It was plain enough, nevertheless, as Little Dorrit had said; over a lime-
splashed gateway in the corner, within which Plornish kept a ladder and a 
barrel or two. The last house in Bleeding Heart Yard which she had 
described as his place of habitation, was a large house, let off to various 
tenants; but Plornish ingeniously hinted that he lived in the parlour, by 
means of a painted hand under his name, the forefinger of which hand (on 
which the artist had depicted a ring and a most elaborate nail of the 
genteelest form) referred all inquirers to that apartment.
Parting from his companions, after arranging another meeting with Mr 
Meagles, Clennam went alone into the entry, and knocked with his knuckles 
at the parlour-door. It was opened presently by a woman with a child in her 
arms, whose unoccupied hand was hastily rearranging the upper part of her 
dress. This was Mrs Plornish, and this maternal action was the action of 
Mrs Plornish during a large part of her waking existence.
Was Mr Plornish at home? "Well, sir," said Mrs Plornish, a civil woman, 
"not to deceive you, he's gone to look for a job."
Not to deceive you, was a method of speech with Mrs Plornish. She would 
deceive you, under any circumstances, as little as might be; but she had a 
trick of answering in this provisional form.
"Do you think he will be back soon, if I wait for him?"
"I have been expecting him," said Mrs Plornish, "this half-an-hour, at any 
minute of time. Walk in, sir."
Arthur entered the rather dark and close parlour (though it was lofty too), 
and sat down in the chair she placed for him.
"Not to deceive you, sir, I notice it," said Mrs Plornish, "and I take it 
kind of you."
He was at a loss to understand what she meant; and by expressing as much in 
his looks, elicited her explanation.
"It an't many that comes into a poor place, that deems it worth their while 
to move their hats," said Mrs Plornish. "But people think more of it than 
people think."
Clennam returned, with an uncomfortable feeling in so very slight a 
courtesy being unusual, Was that all! And stooping down to pinch the cheek 
of another young child who was sitting on the floor, staring at him, asked 
Mrs Plornish how old that fine boy was?
"Four year just turned, sir," said Mrs Plornish. "He is a fine little 
fellow, ain't he, sir? But this one is rather sickly." She tenderly hushed 
the baby in her arms, as she said it. "You wouldn't mind my asking if it 
happened to be a job as you was come about, sir, would you?" added Mrs 
Plornish, wistfully.
She asked it so anxiously, that if he had been in possession of any kind of 
tenement, he would have had it plastered a foot deep, rather than answer, 
No. But he was obliged to answer No; and he saw a shade of disappointment 
on her face, as she checked a sigh, and looked at the low fire. Then he 
saw, also, that Mrs Plornish was a young woman, made somewhat slatternly in 
herself and her belongings by poverty; and so dragged at by poverty and the 
children together, that their united forces had already dragged her face 
into wrinkles.
"All such things as jobs," said Mrs Plornish, "seems to me to have gone 
under ground, they do indeed." (Herein Mrs Plornish limited her remark to 
the plastering trade, and spoke without reference to the Circumlocution 
Office and the Barnacle Family.)
Is it so difficult to get work?" asked Arthur Clennam.
"Plornish finds it so," she returned. "He is quite unfortunate. Really he 
is."
Really he was. He was one of those many wayfarers on the road of life, who 
seem to be afflicted with supernatural corns, rendering it impossible for 
them to keep up even with their lame competitors. A willing, working, soft-
hearted, not hard-headed fellow, Plornish took his fortune as smoothly as 
could be expected; but it was a rough one. It so rarely happened that 
anybody seemed to want him, it was such an exceptional case when his powers 
were in any request, that his misty mind could not make out how it 
happened. He took it as it came, therefore; he tumbled into all kinds of 
difficulties, and tumbled out of them; and, by tumbling through life, got 
himself considerably bruised.
"It's not for want of looking after jobs, I am sure," said Mrs Plornish, 
lifting up her eyebrows, and searching for a solution of the problem 
between the bars of the grate; "nor yet for want of working at them, when 
they are to be got. No one ever heard my husband complain of work."
Somehow or other, this was the general misfortune of Bleeding Heart Yard. 
From time to time there were public complaints, pathetically going about, 
of labour being scarce - which certain people seemed to take 
extraordinarily ill, as though they had an absolute right to it on their 
own terms - but Bleeding Heart Yard, though as willing a Yard as any in 
Britain, was never the better for the demand. That high old family, the 
Barnacles, had long been too busy with their great principle to look into 
the matter; and indeed the matter had nothing to do with their watchfulness 
in outgeneralling all other high old families except the Stiltstalkings.
While Mrs Plornish spoke in these words of her absent lord, her lord 
returned. A smooth-cheeked, fresh-coloured, sandy-whiskered man of thirty. 
Long in the legs, yielding at the knees, foolish in the face, flannel-
jacketed, lime-whitened.
"This is Plornish, sir."
"I came," said Clennam, rising, "to beg the favour of a little conversation 
with you, on the subject of the Dorrit family."
Plornish became suspicious. Seemed to scent a creditor. Said, "Ah. Yes. 
Well. He didn't know what satisfaction he could give any gentleman 
respecting that family. What might it be about, now?"
"I know you better," said Clennam, smiling, "than you suppose." Plornish 
observed, not smiling in return. And yet he hadn't the pleasure of being 
acquainted with the gentleman, neither.
"No," said Arthur, "I know of your kind offices at second hand, but on the 
best authority. Through Little Dorrit. - I mean," he explained, "Miss 
Dorrit."
"Mr Clennam is it? Oh! I've heard of you, sir."
"And I of you," said Arthur.
"Please to sit down again, sir, and consider yourself welcome. - Why, yes," 
said Plornish, taking a chair, and lifting the elder child upon his knee, 
that he might have the moral support of speaking to a stranger over his 
head, "I have been on the wrong side of the Lock myself, and in that way we 
come to know Miss Dorrit. Me and my wife, we are well acquainted with Miss 
Dorrit."
"Intimate!" cried Mrs Plornish. Indeed, she was so proud of the 
acquaintance, that she had awakened some bitterness of spirit in the Yard, 
by magnifying to an enormous amount the sum for which Miss Dorrit's father 
had become insolvent. The Bleeding Hearts resented her claiming to know 
people of such distinction.
"It was her father that I got acquainted with first. And through getting 
acquainted with him, you see - why - I got acquainted with her," said 
Plornish tautologically.
"I see."
"Ah! And there's manners! There's polish! There's a gentleman to have run 
to seed in the Marshalsea Jail! Why, perhaps you are not aware," said 
Plornish, lowering his voice, and speaking with a perverse admiration of 
what he ought to have pitied or despised, "not aware that Miss Dorrit and 
her sister durstn't let him know that they work for a living. No!" said 
Plornish, looking with a ridiculous triumph first at his wife, and then all 
round the room. "Durstn't let him know it, they durstn't!"
"Without admiring him for that," Clennam quietly observed, "I am very sorry 
for him." The remark appeared to suggest to Plornish, for the first time, 
that it might not be a very fine trait of character after all. He pondered 
about it for a moment, and gave it up.
"As to me," he resumed, "certainly Mr Dorrit is as affable with me, I am 
sure, as I can possibly expect. Considering the differences and distances 
betwixt us, more so. But it's Miss Dorrit that we were speaking of."
"True. Pray how did you introduce her at my mother's?"
Mr Plornish picked a bit of lime out of his whisker, put it between his 
lips, turned it with his tongue like a sugar-plum, considered, found 
himself unequal to the task of lucid explanation, and appealing to his 
wife, said, "Sally, you may as well mention how it was, old woman."
"Miss Dorrit," said Sally, hushing the baby from side to side, and laying 
her chin upon the little hand as it tried to disarrange the gown again, 
"came here one afternoon with a bit of writing, telling that how she wished 
for needlework, and asked if it would be considered any ill-conwenience in 
case she was to give her address here." (Plornish repeated, her address 
here, in a low voice, as if he were making responses at church.) "Me and 
Plornish says, No, Miss Dorrit, no ill-conwenience," (Plornish repeated, no 
ill-conwenience,) "and she wrote it in, according. Which then me and 
Plornish says, Ho Miss Dorrit!" (Plornish repeated, Ho Miss Dorrit.) "Have 
you thought of copying it three or four times, as the way to make it known 
in more places than one? No, says Miss Dorrit, I have not, but I will. She 
copied it out according, on this table, in a sweet writing, and Plornish, 
he took it where he worked, having a job just then," (Plornish repeated, 
job just then,) "and likeways to the landlord of the Yard; through which it 
was that Mrs Clennam first happened to employ Miss Dorrit." Plornish 
repeated, employ Miss Dorrit; and Mrs Plornish having come to an end, 
feigned to bite the fingers of the little hand as she kissed it.
"The landlord of the Yard," said Arthur Clennam, "is -"
"He is Mr Casby, by name, he is," said Plornish, "and Pancks, he collects 
the rents. That," added Mr Plornish, dwelling on the subject, with a slow 
thoughtfulness that appeared to have no connection with any specific 
object, and to lead him nowhere, "that is about what they are, you may 
believe me or not, as you think proper."
"Ay?" returned Clennam, thoughtful in his turn. "Mr Casby, too! An old 
acquaintance of mine, long ago!"
Mr Plornish did not see his road to any comment on this fact, and made 
none. As there truly was no reason why he should have the least interest in 
it, Arthur Clennam went on to the present purport of his visit; namely, to 
make Plornish the instrument of effecting Tip's release, with as little 
detriment as possible to the self-reliance and self-helpfulness of the 
young man, supposing him to possess any remnant of those qualities: without 
doubt a very wide stretch of supposition. Plornish, having been made 
acquainted with the cause of action from the Defendant's own mouth, gave 
Arthur to understand that the Plaintiff was "a Chaunter" - meaning, not a 
singer of anthems, but a seller of horses - and that he (Plornish) 
considered that ten shillings in the pound "would settle handsome," and 
that more would be a waste of money. The Principal and instrument soon 
drove off together to a stable-yard in High Holborn, where a remarkably 
fine grey gelding, worth, at the lowest figure, seventy-five guineas (not 
taking into account the value of the shot he had been made to swallow, for 
the improvement of his form), was to be parted with for a twenty-pound 
note, in consequence of his having run away last week with Mrs Captain 
Barbary of Cheltenham, who wasn't up to a horse of his courage, and who, in 
mere spite, insisted on selling him for that ridiculous sum: or, in other 
words, on giving him away. Plornish, going up this yard alone and leaving 
his Principal outside, found a gentleman with tight drab legs, a rather old 
hat, a little hooked stick, and a blue neckerchief (Captain Maroon of 
Gloucestershire, a private friend of Captain Barbary); who happened to be 
there, in a friendly way, to mention these little circumstances concerning 
the remarkably fine grey gelding, to any real judge of a horse and quick 
snapper-up of a good thing, who might look in at that address as per 
advertisement. This gentleman, happening also to be the Plaintiff in the 
Tip case, referred Mr Plornish to his solicitor, and declined to treat with 
Mr Plornish, or even to endure his presence in the yard, unless he appeared 
there with a twenty-pound note: in which case only, the gentleman would 
augur from appearances that he meant business, and might be induced to talk 
to him. On this hint, Mr Plornish retired to communicate with his 
Principal, and presently came back with the required credentials. Then said 
Captain Maroon, "Now, how much time do you want to make up the other twenty 
in? Now, I'll give you a month." Then said Captain Maroon, when that 
wouldn't suit, "Now, I'll tell what I'll do with you. You shall get me a 
good bill at four months, made payable at a banking-house, for the other 
twenty!" Then said Captain Maroon, when that wouldn't suit, "Now come! 
Here's the last I've got to say to you. You shall give me another ten down, 
and I'll run my pen clean through it." Then said Captain Maroon, when that 
wouldn't suit, "Now, I'll tell you what it is, and this shuts it up; he has 
used me bad, but I'll let him off for another five down and a bottle of 
wine; and if you mean done, say done, and if you don't like it, leave it." 
Finally said Captain Maroon, when that wouldn't suit either, "Hand over, 
then!" - And in consideration of the first offer, gave a receipt in full 
and discharged the prisoner.
"Mr Plornish," said Arthur, "I trust to you, if you please, to keep my 
secret. If you will undertake to let the young man know that he is free, 
and to tell him that you were employed to compound for the debt by some one 
whom you are not at liberty to name, you will not only do me a service, but 
may do him one, and his sister also."
"The last reason, sir," said Plornish, "would be quite sufficient. Your 
wishes shall be attended to."
"A Friend has obtained his discharge, you can say if you please. A Friend 
who hopes that for his sister's sake, if for no one else's, he will make 
good use of his liberty."
"Your wishes, sir, shall be attended to."
"And if you will be so good, in your better knowledge of the family, as to 
communicate freely with me, and to point out to me any means by which you 
think I may be delicately and really useful to Little Dorrit, I shall feel 
under an obligation to you."
"Don't name it, sir," returned Plornish, "it'll be ekally a pleasure and a -
 it'll be ekally a pleasure and a - " Finding himself unable to balance his 
sentence after two efforts, Mr Plornish wisely dropped it. He took 
Clennam's card, and appropriate pecuniary compliment.
He was earnest to finish his commission at once, and his Principal was in 
the same mind. So his Principal offered to set him down at the Marshalsea 
Gate, and they drove in that direction over Blackfriars Bridge. On the way, 
Arthur elicited from his new friend, a confused summary of the interior 
life of Bleeding Heart Yard. They was all hard up there, Mr Plornish said, 
uncommon hard up, to be sure. Well, he couldn't say how it was; he didn't 
know as anybody could say how it was; all he know'd was, that so it was. 
When a man felt, on his own back and in his own belly, that he was poor, 
that man (Mr Plornish gave it as his decided belief) know'd well that poor 
he was somehow or another, and you couldn't talk it out of him, no more 
than you could talk Beef into him. Then you see, some people as was better 
off said, and a good many such people lived pretty close up to the mark 
themselves, if not beyond it so he'd heerd, that they was "improvident" 
(that was the favourite word) down the Yard. For instance, if they see a 
man with his wife and children going to Hampton Court in a Wan, perhaps 
once in a year, they says "Hallo! I thought you was poor, my improvident 
friend!" Why, Lord, how hard it was upon a man! What was a man to do? He 
couldn't go mollancholy mad, and even if he did, you wouldn't be the better 
for it. In Mr Plornish's judgment you would be the worse for it. Yet you 
seemed to want to make a man mellancholly mad. You was always at it - if 
not with your right hand, with your left. What was they a doing in the 
Yard? Why, take a look at 'em and see. There was the girls and their 
mothers a working at their sewing, or their shoe-binding, or their 
trimming, or their waistcoat making, day and night and night and day, and 
not more than able to keep body and soul together after all - often not so 
much. There was people of pretty well all sorts of trades you could name, 
all wanting to work, and yet not able to get it. There was old people, 
after working all their lives, going and being shut up in the workhouse, 
much worse fed and lodged and treated altogether, than - Mr Plornish said 
manufacturers, but appeared to mean malefactors. Why, a man didn't know 
where to turn himself, for a crumb of comfort. As to who was to blame for 
it, Mr Plornish didn't know who was to blame for it. He could tell you who 
suffered, but he couldn't tell you whose fault it was. It wasn't his place 
to find out, and who'd mind what he said, if he did find out? He only 
know'd that it wasn't put right by them what undertook that line of 
business, and that it didn't come right of itself. And in brief his 
illogical opinion was, that if you couldn't do nothing for him, you had 
better take nothing from him for doing of it; so far as he could make out, 
that was about what it come to. Thus, in a prolix, gently-growling, foolish 
way, did Plornish turn the tangled skein of his estate about and about, 
like a blind man who was trying to find some beginning or end to it; until 
they reached the prison gate. There, he left his Principal alone; to 
wonder, as he rode away, how many thousand Plornishes there might be within 
a day or two's journey of the Circumlocution Office, playing sundry curious 
variations on the same tune, which were not known by ear in that glorious 
institution.



Chapter 13

Patriarchal

The mention of Mr Casby again revived, in Clennam's memory, the smouldering 
embers of curiosity and interest which Mrs Flintwinch had fanned on the 
night of his arrival. Flora Casby had been the beloved of his boyhood; and 
Flora was the daughter and only child of wooden-headed old Christopher (so 
he was still occasionally spoken of by some irreverent spirits who had had 
dealings with him, and in whom familiarity had bred its proverbial result 
perhaps), who was reputed to be rich in weekly tenants, and to get a good 
quantity of blood out of the stones of several unpromising courts and 
alleys.
After some days of inquiry and research, Arthur Clennam became convinced 
that the case of the Father of the Marshalsea was indeed a hopeless one, 
and sorrowfully resigned the idea of helping him to freedom again. He had 
no hopeful inquiry to make, at present, concerning Little Dorrit either; 
but he argued with himself that it might - for anything he knew it might - 
be serviceable to the poor child, if he renewed this acquaintance It is 
hardly necessary to add, that beyond all doubt he would have presented 
himself at Mr Casby's door, if there had been no Little Dorrit in 
existence; for we all know how we all deceive ourselves - that is to say, 
how people in general, our profounder selves excepted, deceive themselves - 
as to motives of action.
With a comfortable impression upon him, and quite an honest one in its way, 
that he was still patronising Little Dorrit in doing what had no reference 
to her, he found himself one afternoon at the corner of Mr Casby's street. 
Mr Casby lived in a street in Gray's Inn Road, which had set off from that 
thoroughfare with the intention of running at one heat down into the 
valley, and up again to the top of Pentonville Hill; but which had run 
itself out of breath in twenty yards, and had stood still ever since. There 
is no such place that part now; but It remained there for many years, 
looking with a baulked countenance at the wilderness patched with 
unfruitful gardens and pimpled with eruptive summer-houses, that it had 
meant to run over in no time.
"The house," thought Clennam, as he crossed to the door, "is as little 
changed as my mother's, and looks almost as gloomy. But the likeness ends 
outside. I know its staid repose within. The smell of its jars of old rose-
leaves and lavender seems to come upon me even here."
When his knock, at the bright brass knocker of obsolete shape, brought a 
woman-servant to the door, those faded scents in truth saluted him like 
wintry breath that had a faint remembrance in it of the bygone spring. He 
stepped into the sober, silent, air-tight house - one might have fancied it 
to have been stifled by Mutes in the Eastern manner - and the door, closing 
again, seemed to shut out sound and motion. The furniture was formal, 
grave, and Quaker-like, but well-kept; and had as prepossessing an aspect 
as anything, from a human creature to a wooden stool, that is meant for 
much use and is preserved for little, can ever wear. There was a grave 
clock, ticking somewhere up the staircase; and there was a songless bird in 
the same direction, pecking at his cage, as if he were ticking too. The 
parlour-fire ticked in the grate. There was only one person on the parlour-
hearth, and the loud watch in his pocket ticked audibly.
The servant-maid had ticked the two words "Mr Clennam" so softly that she 
had not been heard; and he consequently stood, within the door she had 
closed, unnoticed. The figure of a man advanced in life, whose smooth grey 
eyebrows seemed to move to the ticking as the firelight flickered on them, 
sat in an armchair, with his list shoes on the rug, and his thumbs slowly 
revolving over one another. This was old Christopher Casby - recognisable 
at a glance - as unchanged in twenty years and upward, as his own solid 
furniture - as little touched by the influence of the varying seasons, as 
the old rose leaves and old lavender in his porcelain jars.
Perhaps there never was a man, in this troublesome world, so troublesome 
for the imagination to picture as a boy. And yet he had changed very little 
in his progress through life. Confronting him, in the room in which he sat, 
was a boy's portrait, which anybody seeing him would have identified as 
Master Christopher Casby, aged ten: though disguised with a haymaking rake, 
for which he had had, at any time, as much taste or use as for a diving-
bell; and sitting (on one of his own legs) upon a bank of violets, moved to 
precocious contemplation by the spire of a village church. There was the 
same smooth face and forehead, the same calm blue eye, the same placid air. 
The shining bald head, which looked so very large because it shone so much; 
and the long grey hair at its sides and back, like floss silk or spun 
glass, which looked so very benevolent because it was never cut; were not, 
of course, to be seen in the boy as in the old man. Nevertheless, in the 
Seraphic creature with the haymaking rake, were clearly to be discerned the 
rudiments of the Patriarch with the list shoes.
Patriarch was the name which many people delighted to give him. Various old 
ladies in the neighbourhood spoke of him as The Last of the Patriarchs. So 
grey, so slow, so quiet, so impassionate, so very bumpy in the head, 
Patriarch was the word for him. He had been accosted in the streets, and 
respectfully solicited to become a Patriarch for painters and for 
sculptors: with so much importunity, in sooth, that it would appear to be 
beyond the Fine Arts to remember the points of a Patriarch, or to invent 
one. Philanthropists of both sexes had asked who he was, and on being 
informed, "Old Christopher Casby, formerly Town-agent to Lord Decimus Tite 
Barnacle," had cried in a rapture of disappointment, "Oh! why, with that 
head, is he not a benefactor to his species! OH! why, with that head, is he 
not a father to the orphan and a friend to the friendless!" With that head, 
however, he remained old Christopher Casby, proclaimed by common report 
rich in house property; and with that head, he now sat in his silent 
parlour. Indeed it would be the height of unreason to expect him to be 
sitting there without that head.
Arthur Clennam moved to attract his attention, and the grey eyebrows turned 
towards him.
"I beg your pardon," said Clennam, "I fear you did not hear me announced?"
"No, sir, I did not. Did you wish to see me, sir?"
"I wished to pay my respects."
Mr Casby seemed a feather's weight disappointed by the last words, having 
perhaps prepared himself for the visitor's wishing to pay something else. 
"Have I the pleasure, sir," he proceeded - "take a chair, if you please - 
have I the pleasure of knowing -? Ah! truly, yes, I think I have! I believe 
I am not mistaken in supposing that I am acquainted with those features? I 
think I address a gentleman of whose return to this country I was informed 
by Mr Flintwinch?"
"That is your present visitor."
"Really! Mr Clennam?"
"No other, Mr Casby."
"Mr Clennam, I am glad to see you. How have you been since we met?"
Without thinking it worth while to explain that in the course of some 
quarter of a century he had experienced occasional slight fluctuations in 
his health and spirits, Clennam answered generally that he had never been 
better, or something equally to the purpose; and shook hands with the 
possessor of "that head," as it shed its patriarchal light upon him.
"We are older, Mr Clennam," said Christopher Casby.
"We are - not younger," said Clennam. After this wise remark he felt that 
he was scarcely shining with brilliancy, and became aware that he was 
nervous.
"And your respected father," said Mr Casby, "is no more! I was grieved to 
hear it, Mr Clennam, I was grieved."
Arthur replied in the usual way that he felt infinitely obliged to him.
"There was a time," said Mr Casby, "when your parents and myself were not 
on friendly terms. There was a little family misunderstanding among us. 
Your respected mother was rather jealous of her son, maybe; when I say her 
son, I mean your worthy self, your worthy self."
His smooth face had a bloom upon it, like ripe wall-fruit. What with his 
blooming face, and that head, and his blue eyes, he seemed to be delivering 
sentiments of rare wisdom and virtue. In like manner, his physiognomical 
expression seemed to team with benignity. Nobody could have said where the 
wisdom was, or where the virtue was, or where the benignity was; but they 
all seemed to be somewhere about him.
"Those times, however," pursued Mr Casby, "are past and gone, past and 
gone. I do myself the pleasure of making a visit to your respected mother 
occasionally, and of admiring the fortitude and strength of mind with which 
she bears her trials, bears her trials."
When he made one of these little repetitions, sitting with his hands 
crossed before him, he did it with his head on one side and a gentle smile, 
as if he had something in his thoughts too sweetly profound to be put into 
words. As if he denied himself the pleasure of uttering it, lest he should 
soar too high; and his meekness therefore preferred to be unmeaning.
"I have heard that you were kind enough on one of those occasions," said 
Arthur, catching at the opportunity as it drifted past him, "to mention 
Little Dorrit to my mother.
"Little -? Dorrit? That's the seamstress who was mentioned to me by a small 
tenant of mine? Yes, yes. Dorrit? That's the name. Ah, yes, yes! You call 
her Little Dorrit?"
No road in that direction. Nothing came of the crosscut. It led no further.
"My daughter Flora," said Mr Casby, "as you may have heard probably, Mr 
Clennam, was married and established in life, several years ago. She had 
the misfortune to lose her husband when she had been married a few months. 
She resides with me again. She will be glad to see you, if you will permit 
me to let her know that you are here."
"By all means," returned Clennam. "I should have preferred the request, if 
your kindness had not anticipated me."
Upon this, Mr Casby rose up in his list shoes, and with a slow, heavy step 
(he was of an elephantine build), made for the door. He had a long wide-
skirted bottle green coat on, and a bottle-green pair of trowsers, and a 
bottle-green waistcoat. The Patriarchs were not dressed in bottle-green 
broadcloth, and yet his clothes looked patriarchal.
He had scarcely left the room, and allowed the ticking to become audible 
again, when a quick hand turned a latchkey in the house-door, opened it, 
and shut it. Immediately afterwards, a quick and eager short dark man came 
into the room with so much way upon him, that he was within a foot of 
Clennam before he could stop.
"Halloa!" he said.
Clennam saw no reason why he should not say "Halloa!" too.
"What's the matter?" said the short dark man.
"I have not heard that anything is the matter," returned Clennam.
"Where's Mr Casby?" asked the dark short man, looking about.
"He will be here directly, if you want him."
"I want him?" said the short dark man. Don't you? This elicited a word or 
two of explanation from Clennam, during the delivery of which the short 
dark man held his breath and looked at him. He was dressed in black, and 
rusty iron grey; had jet black beads of eyes; a scrubby little black chin; 
wiry black hair striking out from his head in prongs, like forks or hair-
pins; and a complexion that was very dingy by nature, or very dirty by art, 
or a compound of nature and art. He had dirty hands and dirty broken nails, 
and looked as if he had been in the coals; he was in a perspiration, and 
snorted and sniffed and puffed and blew, like a little labouring steam-
engine.
"Oh!" said he, when Arthur had told him how he came to be there. "Very 
well. That's right. If he should ask for Pancks, will you be so good as to 
say that Pancks is come in?" And so, with a snort and a puff, he worked out 
by another door.
Now, in the old days at home, certain audacious doubts respecting the last 
of the Patriarchs, which were afloat in the air, had, by some forgotten 
means, come in contact with Arthur's sensorium. He was aware of motes and 
specks of suspicion, in the atmosphere of that time; seen through which 
medium, Christopher Casby was a mere Inn signpost without any Inn - an 
invitation to rest and be thankful, when there was no place to put up at, 
and nothing whatever to be thankful for. He knew that some of these specks 
even represented Christopher as capable of harbouring designs in "that 
head," and as being a crafty impostor. Other motes there were which showed 
him as a heavy, selfish, drifting Booby, who, having stumbled, in the 
course of his unwieldy jostlings against other men, on the discovery that 
to get through life with ease and credit, he had but to hold his tongue, 
keep the bald part of his head well polished, and leave his hair alone, had 
had just cunning enough to seize the idea and stick to it. It was said that 
his being town-agent to Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle was referable, not to 
his having the least business capacity, but to his looking so supremely 
benignant that nobody could suppose the property screwed or jobbed under 
such a man; also, that for similar reasons he now got more money could 
suppose the property screwed or jobbed under such a man; also, that for 
similar reasons he now got more money out of his own wretched lettings, 
unquestioned, than anybody with a less nobby and less shining crown could 
possibly have done. In a word, it was represented Clennam called to mind, 
alone in the ticking parlour) that many people select their models, much as 
the painters, just now mentioned, select theirs; and that, whereas in the 
Royal Academy some evil old ruffian of a Dogstealer will annually be found 
embodying all the cardinal virtues, on account of his eyelashes, or his 
chin, or his legs (thereby planting thorns of confusion in the breast of 
the more observant students of nature), so in the great social Exhibition, 
accessories are often accepted in lieu of the internal character.
Calling these things to mind, and ranging Mr Pancks in a row with them, 
Arthur Clennam leaned this day to the opinion, without quite deciding on 
it, that the last of the Patriarchs was the drifting Booby aforesaid, with 
the one idea of keeping the bald part of his head highly polished: and 
that, much as an unwieldy ship in the Thames river may sometimes be seen 
heavily driving with the tide, broadside on, stern first, in its own way, 
and in the way of everything else, though making a great show of 
navigation, when all of a sudden, a little coaly steamtug will bear down 
upon it, take it in tow, and bustle off with it; similarly, the cumbrous 
Patriarch had been taken in tow by the snorting Pancks, and was now 
following in the wake of that dingy little craft.
The return of Mr Casby, with his daughter Flora, put an end to these 
meditations. Clennam's eyes no sooner fell upon the object of his old 
passion, than it shivered and broke to pieces.
Most men will be found sufficiently true to themselves to be true to an old 
idea. It is no proof of an inconstant mind, but exactly the opposite, when 
the idea will not bear close comparison with the reality, and the contrast 
is a fatal shock to it. Such was Clennam's case. In his youth he had 
ardently loved this woman, and had heaped upon her all the locked-up wealth 
of his affection and imagination. That wealth had been, in his desert home, 
like Robinson Crusoe's money; exchangeable with no one, lying idle in the 
dark to rust, until he poured it out for her. Ever since that memorable 
time, though he had, until the night of his arrival, as completely 
dismissed her from any association with his Present or Future as if she had 
been dead (which she might easily have been for anything he knew), he had 
kept the old fancy of the Past unexchanged, in its old sacred place. And 
now, after all, the last of the Patriarchs coolly walked into the parlour, 
saying in effect, "Be good enough to throw it down and dance upon it. This 
is Flora."
Flora, always tall, had grown to be very broad too, and short of breath; 
but that was not much. Flora, whom he had left a lily, had become a peony; 
but that was not much. Flora, who had seemed enchanting in all she said and 
thought, was diffuse and silly. That was much. Flora, who had been spoiled 
and artless long ago, was determined to be spoiled and artless now. That 
was a fatal blow.
This is Flora! 
"I am sure," giggled Flora, tossing her head with a caricature of her 
girlish manner, such as a mummer might have presented at her own funeral, 
if she had lived and died in classical antiquity, "I am ashamed to see Mr 
Clennam, I am a mere fright, I know he'll find me fearfully changed, I am 
actually an old woman, it's shocking to be so found out, it's really 
shocking!"
He assured her that she was just what he had expected, and that time had 
not stood still with himself.
"Oh! But with a gentleman it's so different and really you look so 
amazingly well that you have no right to say anything of the kind, while as 
to me you know - oh!" cried Flora with a little scream, "I am dreadful!"
The Patriarch, apparently not yet understanding his own part in the drama 
under representation, glowed with vacant serenity.
"But if we talk of not having changed," said Flora, who, whatever she said, 
never once came to a full stop, "look at Papa, is not Papa precisely what 
he was when you went away, isn't it cruel and unnatural of Papa to be such 
a reproach to his own child, if we go on in this way much longer people who 
don't know us will begin to suppose that I am Papa's Mama!"
That must be a long time hence, Arthur considered.
"Oh Mr Clennam you of insincerest of creatures," said Flora, "I perceive 
already you have not lost your old way of paying compliments, your old way 
when you used to pretend to be so sentimentally struck you know - at least 
I don't mean that, I - oh I don't know what I mean!" that, I - oh I don't 
know what I mean! Here Flora tittered confusedly, and gave him one of her 
old glances.
The Patriarch, as if he now began to perceive that his part in the piece 
was to get off the stage as soon as might be, rose, and went to the door by 
which Pancks had worked out, hailing that Tug by name. He received an 
answer from some little Dock beyond, and was towed out of sight directly.
"You mustn't think of going yet," said Flora - Arthur had looked at his 
hat, being in a ludicrous dismay, and not knowing what to do; "you could 
never be so unkind as to think of going, Arthur - I mean Mr Arthur - or I 
suppose Mr Clennam would be far more proper - but I am sure I don't know 
what I'm saying - without a word about the dear old days gone for ever, 
however when I come to think of it I dare say it would be much better not 
to speak of them and it's highly probable that you have some much more 
agreeable engagement and pray let me be the last person in the world to 
interfere with it, though there was a time, but I am running into non-sense 
again."
Was it possible that Flora could have been such a chatterer, in the days 
she referred to? Could there have been anything like her present disjointed 
volubility, in the fascinations that had captivated him?
"Indeed I have little doubt," said Flora, running on with astonishing 
speed, and pointing her conversation with nothing but commas, and very few 
of them, "that you are married to some Chinese lady, being in China so 
long, and being in business and naturally desirous to settle and extend 
your connections nothing was more likely than that you should propose to a 
Chinese lady and nothing was more natural I am sure than that the Chinese 
lady should accept you and think herself very well off too, I only hope 
she's not a Pagodian dissenter."
"I am not," returned Arthur, smiling in spite of himself, "married to any 
lady, Flora."
"Oh good gracious me I hope you never kept yourself a bachelor so long on 
my account!" tittered Flora; "but of course you never did why should you, 
pray don't answer I don't know where I'm running to, oh do tell me 
something about the Chinese ladies whether their eyes are really so long 
and narrow always putting me in mind of mother-of-pearl fish at cards and 
do they really wear tails down their back and plaited too or is it only the 
men, and when they pull their hair so very tight off their foreheads don't 
they hurt themselves, and why do they stick little bells all over their 
bridges and temples, and hats and things or don't they really do it!" Flora 
gave him another of her old glances. Instantly she went on again, as if he 
had spoken in reply for some time.
"Then it's all true and they really do! good gracious Arthur! - pray excuse 
me - old habit - Mr Clennam far more proper - what a country to live in for 
so long a time, and with so many lanterns and umbrellas too how very dark 
and wet the climate ought to be and no doubt actually is, and the sums of 
money that must be made by those two trades where everybody carries them 
and hangs them everywhere, the little shoes too and the feet screwed back 
in infancy is quite surprising, what a traveller you are!"
In his ridiculous distress, Clennam received another of the old glances 
without in the least knowing what to do with it.
"Dear dear," said Flora, "only to think of the changes at home Arthur - 
cannot overcome it, seems so natural, Mr Clennam far more proper - since 
you became familiar with the Chinese customs and language which I am 
persuaded you speak like a Native if not better for you were always quick 
and clever though immensely difficult no doubt, I am sure the tea chests 
alone would kill me if I tried, such changes Arthur - I am doing it again, 
seems so natural, most improper - as no one could have believed, who could 
have ever imagined Mrs Finching when I can't imagine it myself!"
"Is that your married name?" asked Arthur, struck in the midst of all this, 
by a certain warmth of heart that expressed itself in her tone when she 
referred, however oddly, to the youthful relation in which they had stood 
to one another. "Finching?"
"Finching oh yes isn't it a dreadful name, but as Mr F. said when he 
proposed to me which he did seven times and handsomely consented I must say 
to be what he used to call on liking twelve months after all, he wasn't 
answerable for it and couldn't help it could he Excellent man, not at all 
like you but excellent man!"
Flora had at last talked herself out of breath for one moment. One moment; 
for she recovered breath in the act of raising a minute corner of her 
pocket-handkerchief to her eye as a tribute to the ghost of the departed Mr 
F, and began again.
"No one could dispute, Arthur - Mr Clennam - that it's quite right you 
should be formally friendly to me under the altered circumstances and 
indeed you couldn't be anything else, at least I suppose not you ought to 
know, but I can't help recalling that there was a time when things were 
very different."
"My dear Mrs Finching,' Arthur began, struck by the good tone again!"
"Oh not that nasty ugly name, say Flora!"
"Flora. I assure you, Flora, I am happy in seeing you once more, and in 
finding that, like me, you have not forgotten the old foolish dreams, when 
we saw all before us in the light of our youth and hope."
"You don't seem so," pouted Flora, "you take it very coolly, but however I 
know you are disappointed in me, I suppose the Chinese ladies - 
Mandarinesses if you call them so - are the cause or perhaps I am the cause 
myself, it's just as likely."
"No, no," Clennam entreated, "don't say that."
"Oh I must you know," said Flora, in a positive tone, "what nonsense not 
to, I know I am not what you expected, I know that very well."
In the midst of her rapidity, she had found that out with the quick 
perception of a cleverer woman. The inconsistent and profoundly 
unreasonable way in which she instantly went on, nevertheless, to 
interweave their long abandoned boy and girl relations with their present 
interview, made Clennam feel as if he were lightheaded.
"One remark," said Flora, giving their conversation, without the slightest 
notice and to the great terror of Clennam, the tone of a love-quarrel, "I 
wish to make one explanation I wish to offer, when your Mama came and made 
a scene of it with my Papa and when I was called down into the little 
breakfast-room where they were looking at one another with your Mama's 
parasol between them seated on two chairs like mad bulls what was I to do!"
"My dear Mrs Finching," urged Clennam - "all so long ago and so long 
concluded, is it worth while seriously to -"
"I can't Arthur," returned Flora, "be denounced as heartless by the whole 
society of China without setting myself right when I have the opportunity 
of doing so, and you must be very well aware that there was Paul and 
Virginia which had to be returned and which was returned without note or 
comment, not that I mean to say you could have written to me watched as I 
was but if it had only come back with a red wafer on the cover I should 
have known that it meant Come to Pekin, Nankeen and What's the third place, 
barefoot."
"My dear Mrs Finching, you were not to blame, and I never blamed you. We 
were both too young, too dependent and helpless, to do anything but accept 
our separation. - Pray think how long ago," gently remonstrated Arthur.
"One more remark," proceeded Flora with unslackened volubility, "I wish to 
make, one more explanation I wish to offer, for five days I had a cold in 
the head from crying which I passed entirely in the back drawing-room - 
there is the back drawing-room still on the first floor and still at the 
back of the house to confirm my words - when that dreary period had passed 
a lull succeeded years rolled on and Mr F became acquainted with us at a 
mutual friends, he was all attention he called next day he soon began to 
call three evenings a week and to send in little things for supper, it was 
not love on Mr F's part it was adoration, Mr F proposed with the full 
approval of Papa and what could I do?"
"Nothing whatever," said Arthur, with the cheerfulest readiness, "but what 
you did. Let an old friend assure you of his full conviction that you did 
quite right."
"One last remark," proceeded Flora, rejecting commonplace life with a wave 
of her hand, "I wish to make, one last explanation I wish to offer, there 
was at time ere Mr F first paid attentions incapable of being mistaken, but 
that is past and was not to be, dear Mr Clennam you no longer wear a golden 
chain you are free I trust you may be happy, here is Papa who is always 
tiresome and putting in his nose everywhere where he is not wanted."
With these words, and with a hasty gesture fraught with timid caution - 
such a gesture had Clennam's eyes been familiar with in the old time - poor 
Flora left herself, at eighteen years of age, a long long way behind again; 
and came to a full stop at last.
Or rather, she left about half of herself at eighteen years of age behind, 
and grafted the rest on to the relict of the late Mr F; thus making a moral 
mermaid of herself, which her once boy-lover contemplated with feelings 
wherein his sense of the sorrowful and his sense of the comical were 
curiously blended. For example. As if there were a secret understanding 
between herself and Clennam of the most thrilling nature; as if the first 
of a train of post-chaises and four, extending all the way to Scotland, 
were at that moment round the corner; and as if she couldn't (and wouldn't) 
have walked into the Parish Church with him, under the shade of the family 
umbrella, with the Patriarchal blessing on her head, and the perfect 
concurrence of all mankind; Flora comforted her soul with agonies of 
mysterious signalling, expressing dread of discovery. With the sensation of 
becoming more and more lightheaded every minute, Clennam saw the relict of 
the late Mr F. enjoying herself in the most wonderful manner, by putting 
herself and him in their old places, and going through all the old 
performances - now, when the stage was dusty, when the scenery was faded, 
when the youthful actors were dead, when the orchestra was empty. when the 
lights were out. And still through all this grotesque revival of what he 
remembered as having once been prettily natural to her, he could not but 
feel that it revived at sight of him, and that there was a tender memory in 
it.
The Patriarch insisted on his staying to dinner, and Flora signalled "Yes!" 
Clennam so wished he could have done more than stay to dinner - so heartily 
wished he could have found the Flora that had been, or that never had been -
 that he thought the least atonement he could make for the disappointment 
he almost felt ashamed of, was to give himself up to the family desire. 
Therefore, he stayed to dinner.
Pancks dined with them. Pancks steamed out of his little dock at a quarter 
before six, and bore straight down for the Patriarch, who happened to be 
then driving in an inane manner, through a stagnant account of Bleeding 
Heart Yard. Pancks instantly made fast to him and hauled him out.
"Bleeding Heart Yard?" said Pancks, with a puff and a snort. "It's a 
troublesome property. Don't pay you badly, but rents are very hard to get 
there. You have more trouble with that one place, than with all the places 
belonging to you."
Just as the big ship in tow gets the credit, with most spectators, of being 
the powerful object, so the Patriarch usually seemed to have said himself 
whatever Pancks said for him.
"Indeed?" returned Clennam, upon whom this impression was so efficiently 
made by a mere gleam of the polished head, that he spoke the ship instead 
of the Tug.
"The people are so poor there?"
"You can't say, you know," snorted Pancks, taking one of his dirty hands 
out of his rusty iron-grey pockets to bite his nails, if he could find any, 
and turning his beads of eyes upon his employer, "whether they're poor or 
not. They say they are, but they all say that. When a man says he's rich, 
you're generally sure he isn't. Besides, if they are poor, you can't help 
it. You'd be poor yourself if you didn't get your rents."
"True enough," said Arthur.
"You're not going to keep open house for all the poor of London," pursued 
Pancks. "You're not going to lodge 'em for nothing. You're not going to 
open your gates wide and let 'em come free. Not if you know it, you an't.
Mr Casby shook his head, in placid and benignant generality.
"If a man takes a room of you at half-a-crown a week, and when the week 
comes round hasn't got the half-crown, you say to that man, Why have you 
got the room, then? If you haven't got the one thing, why have you got the 
other? What have you been and done with your money? What do you mean by it? 
What are you up to? That's what you say to a man of that sort: and if you 
didn't say it, more shame for you!" Mr Pancks here made a singular and 
startling noise, produced by a strong blowing effort in the region of the 
nose, unattended by any result but that acoustic one.
"You have some extent of such property about the east and north-east here, 
I believe?" said Clennam, doubtful which of the two to address.
"Oh pretty well," said Pancks. 'You're not particular to east or north-
east, any point of the compass will do for you. What you want is a good 
investment and a quick return. You take it where you can find it. You an't 
nice as to situation - not you."
There was a fourth and most original figure in the Patriarchal tent, who 
also appeared before dinner. This was an amazing little old woman, with a 
face like a staring wooden doll too cheap for expression, and a stiff 
yellow wig perched unevenly on the top of her head, as if the child who 
owned the doll had driven a tack through it anywhere, so that it only got 
fastened on. Another remarkable thing in this little old woman was, that 
the same child seemed to have damaged her face in two or three places with 
some blunt instrument in the nature of a spoon: her countenance, and 
particularly the tip of her nose, presenting the phenomena of several 
dints, generally answering to the bowl of that article. A further 
remarkable thing in this little old woman was, that she had no name but Mr 
F's Aunt.
She broke upon the visitor's view under the following circumstances: Flora 
said, when the first dish was being put on table, perhaps Mr Clennam might 
not have heard that Mr F. had left her a legacy? Clennam in return implied 
his hope that Mr F. had endowed the wife whom he adored, with the greater 
part of his worldly substance, if not all. Flora said, oh yes, she didn't 
mean that, Mr F. had made a beautiful will, but he had left her as a 
separate legacy, his Aunt. She then went out of the room to fetch the 
legacy, and, on her return, rather triumphantly presented "Mr F's Aunt."
The major characteristics discoverable by the stranger in Mr F's Aunt, were 
extreme severity and grim taciturnity; sometimes interrupted by a 
propensity to offer remarks, in a deep warning voice, which being totally 
uncalled for by anything said by anybody, and traceable to no association 
of ideas, confounded and terrified the mind. Mr F's Aunt may have thrown in 
these observations on some system of her own, and it may have been 
ingenious, or even subtle; but the key to it was wanted.
The neatly-served and well-cooked dinner (for everything about the 
Patriarchal household promoted quiet digestion) began with some soup, some 
fried soles, a butter-boat of shrimp sauce, and a dish of potatoes. The 
conversation still turned on the receipt of rents. Mr F's Aunt, after 
regarding the company for ten minutes with a malevolent gaze, delivered the 
following fearful remark.
"When we lived at Henley, Barnes's gander was stole by tinkers."
Mr Pancks courageously nodded his head and said, "All right, ma'am." But 
the effect of this mysterious communication upon Clennam, was absolutely to 
frighten him. And another circumstance invested this old lady with peculiar 
terrors. Though she was always staring, she never acknowledged that she saw 
any individual. The polite and attentive stranger would desire, say, to 
consult her inclinations on the subject of potatoes. His expressive action 
would be hopelessly lost upon her, and what could he do? No man could say, 
"Mr F's Aunt, will you permit me?" Every man retired from the spoon, as 
Clennam did, cowed and baffled.
There was mutton, a steak, and an apple-pie - nothing in the remotest way 
connected with ganders - and the dinner went on like a disenchanted feast, 
as it truly was. Once upon a time Clennam had sat at that table taking no 
heed of anything but Flora; now the principal heed he took of Flora was, to 
observe, against his will, that she was very fond of porter, that she 
combined a great deal of sherry with sentiment, and that if she were a 
little overgrown, it was upon substantial grounds. The last of the 
Patriarchs had always been a mighty eater, and he disposed of an immense 
quantity of solid food with the benignity of a good soul who was feeding 
some one else. Mr Pancks, who was always in a hurry, and who referred at 
intervals to a little dirty note-book which he kept beside him (perhaps 
containing the names of the defaulters he meant to look up by way of 
dessert), took in his victuals much as if he were coaling; with a good deal 
of noise, a good deal of dropping about, and a puff and a snort 
occasionally, as if he were nearly ready to steam away.
All through dinner, Flora combined her present appetite for eating and 
drinking, with her past appetite for romantic love, in a way that made 
Clennam afraid to lift his eyes from his plate; since he could not look 
towards her without receiving some glance of mysterious meaning or warning, 
as if they were engaged in a plot. Mr F's Aunt sat silently defying him 
with an aspect of the greatest bitterness, until the removal of the cloth 
and the appearance of the decanters, when she originated another 
observation - struck into the conversation like a clock, without consulting 
anybody.
Flora had just said "Mr Clennam, will you give me a glass of port for Mr 
F's Aunt?"
"The Monument near London Bridge," that lady instantly proclaimed, "was put 
up arter the Great Fire of London; and the Great Fire of London was not the 
fire in which your uncle George's workshops was burned down."
Mr Pancks, with his former courage, said, "Indeed, ma'am?" All right!" But 
appearing to be incensed by imaginary contradiction, or other ill-usage, Mr 
F's Aunt, instead of relapsing into silence, made the following additional 
proclamation.
"I hate a fool!"
She imparted to this sentiment, in itself almost Solomonic, so extremely 
injurious and personal a character, by levelling it straight at the 
visitor's head, that it became necessary to lead Mr F's Aunt from the room. 
This was quietly done by Flora; Mr F's Aunt offering no resistance, but 
inquiring on her way out "What he come there for, then?" with implacable 
animosity.
When Flora returned, she explained that her legacy was a clever old lady, 
but was sometimes a little singular, and "took dislikes" - peculiarities of 
which Flora seemed to be proud rather than otherwise. As Flora's good 
nature shone in the case, Clennam had no fault to find with the old lady 
for eliciting it, now that he was relieved from the terrors of her 
presence; and they took a glass or two of wine in peace. Foreseeing then 
that the Pancks would shortly get under weigh, and that the Patriarch would 
go to sleep, he pleaded the necessity of visiting his mother, and asked Mr 
Pancks in which direction he was going?
"Citywards, sir," said Pancks.
"Shall we walk together?" said Arthur.
"Quite agreeable," said Pancks.
Meanwhile Flora was murmuring in rapid snatches for his ear, that there was 
a time and that the past was a yawning gulf however and that a golden chain 
no longer bound him and that she revered the memory of the late Mr F and 
that she revered the memory of the late Mr F and that she should be at home 
tomorrow at half-past one and that the decrees of Fate were beyond recall 
and that she considered nothing so improbable as that he ever walked on the 
north-west side of Gray's-Inn Gardens at exactly four o'clock in the 
afternoon. He tried at parting to give his hand in frankness to the 
existing Flora - not the vanished Flora, or the Mermaid - but Flora 
wouldn't have it, couldn't have it, was wholly destitute of the power of 
separating herself and him from their bygone characters. He left the house 
miserably enough; and so much more light-headed than ever, that if it had 
not been his good fortune to be towed away, he might, for the first quarter 
of an hour, have drifted anywhere.
When he began to come to himself, in the cooler air and the absence of 
Flora, he found Pancks at full speed, cropping such scanty pasturage of 
nails as he could find, and snorting at intervals. These, in conjunction 
with one hand in his pocket and his roughened hat hind side before, were 
evidently the conditions under which he reflected.
"A fresh night!" said Arthur.
"Yes, it's pretty fresh," assented Pancks. "As a stranger, you feel the 
climate more than I do, I dare say. Indeed I haven't got time to feel it."
"You lead such a busy life?"
"Yes, I have always some of 'em to look up, or something to look after. But 
I like business," said Pancks, getting on a little faster. "What's a man 
made for?"
"For nothing else?" said Clennam.
Pancks put the counter question, "What else?" It packed up, in the smallest 
compass, a weight that had rested on Clennam's life; and he made no answer.
"That's what I ask our weekly tenants," said Pancks. "Some of 'em will pull 
long faces to me, and say, Poor as you see us, master, we're always 
grinding, drudging, toiling, every minute we're awake. I say to them, What 
else are you made for? It shuts them up. They haven't a word to answer. 
What else are you made for? That clinches it."
"Ah dear, dear, dear!" said Clennam.
"Here am I," said Pancks, pursuing his argument with the weekly tenant. 
"What else do you suppose I think I am made for? Nothing. Rattle me out of 
bed early, set me going, give me as short a time as you like to bolt my 
meals in, and keep me at it. Keep me always at it, I'll keep you always at 
it, you keep somebody else always at it. There you are, with the Whole Duty 
of Man in a commercial country."
When they had walked a little further in silence, Clennam said: "Have you 
no taste for anything, Mr Pancks?"
"What's taste?" dryly retorted Pancks.
"Let us say inclination."
"I have an inclination to get money, sir," said Pancks, "if you'll show me 
how." He blew off that sound again, and it occurred to his companion for 
the first time that it was his way of laughing. He was a singular man in 
all respects: he might not have been quite in earnest, but that the short, 
hard, rapid manner in which he shot out these cinders of principles, as if 
it were done by mechanical revolvency, seemed irreconcilable with banter.
"You are no great reader, I suppose?" said Clennam.
"Never read anything but letters and accounts. Never collect anything but 
advertisements relative to next of kin. If that's a taste, I have got that. 
You're not of the Clennams of Cornwall, Mr Clennam."
"Not that I ever heard of."
"I know you're not. I asked your mother, sir. She has too much character to 
let a chance escape her."
"Supposing I had been of the Clennams of Cornwall?"
"You'd have heard of something to your advantage."
"Indeed! I have heard of little enough to my advantage for some time."
"There's a Cornish property going a begging, sir, and not a Cornish Clennam 
to have it for the asking," said Pancks, taking his note-book from his 
breast pocket, and putting it in again. "I turn off here. I wish you 
goodnight."
"Good night!" said Clennam. But the Tug suddenly lightened, and 
untrammelled by having any weight in tow, was already puffing! away into 
the distance.
They had crossed Smithfield together, and Clennam was left alone at the 
corner of Barbican. He had no intention of presenting himself in his 
mother's dismal room that night, and could not have felt more depressed and 
cast away if he had been in a wilderness. He turned slowly down Aldersgate 
Street, and was pondering his way along towards Saint Paul's, purposing to 
come into one of the great thoroughfares for the sake of their light and 
life, when a crowd of people flocked towards him on the same pavement, and 
he stood aside against a shop to let them pass. As they came up, he made 
out that they were gathered round a something that was carried on men's 
shoulders. He soon saw that it was a litter, hastily made of a shutter or 
some such thing; and a recumbent figure upon it, and the scraps of 
conversation in the crowd, and a muddy bundle carried by one man, and a 
muddy hat carried by another, informed him that an accident had occurred. 
The litter stopped under a lamp before it had passed him half a dozen 
paces, for some readjustment of the burden; and, the crowd stopping too, he 
found himself in the midst of the array.
"An accident going to the Hospital?" he asked an old man beside him, who 
stood shaking his head, inviting conversation.
"Yes," said the man, "along of them Mails. They ought to be prosecuted and 
fined, them Mails. They come a racing out of Lad Lane and Wood Street at 
twelve or fourteen miles a hour, them Mails do. The only wonder is, that 
people ain't killed oftener by them Mails."
"This person is not killed, I hope?"
"I don't know!" said the man, "it an't for the want of a will in them 
Mails, if he an't." The speaker having folded his arms, and set in 
comfortably to address his depreciation of them Mails to any of the 
bystanders who would listen, several voices, out of pure sympathy with the 
sufferer, confirmed him; one voice saying to Clennam, "They're a public 
nuisance, them Mails, sir;" another, "I see one on 'em pull up within half 
a inch of a boy, last night;" another, "I see one on 'em go over a cat, sir 
- and it might have been your own mother;" and all representing, by 
implication, that if he happened to possess any public influence, he could 
not use it better than against them Mails.
"Why, a native Englishman is put to it every night of his life, to save his 
life from them Mails," argued the first old man; "and he knows when they're 
a coming round the corner, to tear him limb from limb. What can you expect 
from a poor foreigner who don't know nothing about 'em!"
"Is this a foreigner?" said Clennam, leaning forward to look.
In the midst of such replies as "Frenchman, sir," "Porteghee, sir," 
"Dutchman, sir," "Prooshan, sir," and other conflicting testimony, he now 
heard a feeble voice asking, both in Italian and in French, for water. A 
general remark going round, in reply, of "Ah, poor fellow, he says he'll 
never get over it; and no wonder!" Clennam begged to be allowed to pass, as 
he understood the poor creature. He was immediately handed to the front, to 
speak to him.
"First he wants some water," said he, looking round. (A dozen good fellows 
dispersed to get it.) "Are you badly hurt, my friend?" he asked the man on 
the litter, in Italian.
"Yes, sir; yes, yes, yes. It's my leg, it's my leg. But it pleases me to 
hear the old music, though I am very bad."
"You are a traveller? Stay! See the water! Let me give you some."
They had rested the litter on a pile of paving stones. It was at a 
convenient height from the ground, and by stooping he could lightly raise 
the head with one hand, and hold the glass to the lips with the other. A 
little, muscular, brown man, with black hair and white teeth. A lively 
face, apparently. Earrings in his ears.
"That's well. You are a traveller?"
"Surely, sir."
"A stranger in this city?"
"Surely, surely, altogether. I am arrived this unhappy evening."
From what country?"
"Marseilles."
"Why, see there! I also! Almost as much a stranger here as you, though born 
here, I came from Marseilles a little while ago. Don't be cast down." The 
face looked up at him imploringly, as he rose from wiping it, and gently 
replaced the coat that covered the writhing figure. "I won't leave you, 
till you shall be well taken care of. Courage! You will be very much 
better, half-an-hour hence."
"Ah! Altro, Altro!" cried the poor little man, in a faintly incredulous 
tone; and as they took him up, hung out his right hand to give the 
forefinger a back-handed shake in the air.
Arthur Clennam turned; and walking beside the litter, and saying an 
encouraging word now and then, accompanied it to the neighbouring hospital 
of Saint Bartholomew. None of the crowd but the bearers and he being 
admitted, the disabled man was soon laid on a table in a cool, methodical 
way, and carefully examined by a surgeon: who was as near at hand, and as 
ready to appear, as Calamity herself. "He hardly knows an English word," 
said Clennam; "is he badly hurt?"
"Let us know all about it first," said the surgeon, continuing his 
examination with a business-like delight in it, "before we pronounce."
After trying the leg with a finger and two fingers, and one hand and two 
hands, and over and under, and up and down, and in this direction and in 
that, and approvingly remarking on the points of interest to another 
gentleman who joined him, the surgeon at last clapped the patient on the 
shoulder, and said, "He won't hurt. He'll do very well. It's difficult 
enough, but we shall not want him to part with his leg this time." Which 
Clennam interpreted to the patient, who was full of gratitude, and, in his 
demonstrative way, kissed both the interpreter's hand and the surgeon's 
several times.
"It's a serious injury, I suppose?" said Clennam.
"Ye-es," replied the surgeon, with the thoughtful pleasure of an artist, 
contemplating the work upon his easel. "Yes, it's enough. There's a 
compound fracture above the knee, and a dislocation below. They are both of 
a beautiful kind." He gave the patient a friendly clap on the shoulder 
again, as if he really felt that he was a very good fellow indeed, and 
worthy of all commendation for having broken his leg in a manner 
interesting to science.
"He speaks French?" said the surgeon.
"Oh yes, he speaks French."
"He'll be at no loss here, then. - You have only to bear a little pain like 
a brave fellow, my friend, and to be thankful that all goes as well as it 
does," he added, in that tongue, "and you'll walk again to a marvel. Now, 
let us see whether there's anything else the matter, and how our ribs are."
There was nothing else the matter, and our ribs were sound. Clennam 
remained until everything possible to be done had been skilfully and 
promptly done - the poor belated wanderer in a strange land movingly 
besought that favour of him - and lingered by the bed to which he was in 
due time removed, until he had fallen into a doze. Even then he wrote a few 
words for him on his card, with a promise to return tomorrow, and left it 
to be given to him when he should awake.
All these proceedings occupied so long, that it struck eleven o'clock at 
night as he came out at the Hospital Gate. He had hired a lodging for the 
present in Covent Garden, and he took the nearest way to that quarter, by 
Snow Hill and Holborn.
Left to himself again, after the solicitude and compassion of his last 
adventure, he was naturally in a thoughtful mood. As naturally, he could 
not walk on thinking for ten minutes, without recalling Flora. She 
necessarily recalled to him his life, with all its misdirection and little 
happiness.
When he got to his lodging, he sat down before the dying fire, as he had 
stood at the window of his old room looking out upon the blackened forest 
of chimneys, and turned his gaze back upon the gloomy vista by which he had 
come to that stage in his existence. So long, so bare, so blank. No 
childhood; no youth, except for one remembrance; the one remembrance 
proved, only that day, to be a piece of folly.
It was a misfortune to him, trifle as it might have been to another. For, 
while all that was hard and stern in his recollection, remained Reality on 
being proved - was obdurate to the sight and touch, and relaxed nothing of 
its old indomitable grimness - the one tender recollection of his 
experience would not bear the same test, and melted away. He had foreseen 
this, on the former night, when he had dreamed with waking eyes; but he had 
not felt it then; and he had now.
He was a dreamer in such wise, because he was a man who had deep-rooted in 
his nature, a belief in all the gentle and good things his life had been 
without. Bred in meanness and hard dealing, this had rescued him to be a 
man of honourable mind and open hand. Bred in coldness and severity, this 
had rescued him to have a warm and sympathetic heart. Bred in a creed too 
darkly audacious to pursue, through its process of reversing the making of 
man in the image of his Creator to the making of his Creator in the image 
of an erring man, this had rescued him to judge not, and in humility to be 
merciful, and have hope and charity.
And this saved him still from the whimpering weakness and cruel selfishness 
of holding that because such a happiness or such a virtue had not come into 
his little path, or worked well for him, therefore it was not in the great 
scheme, but was reducible, when found in appearance, to the basest 
elements. A disappointed mind he had, but a mind too firm and healthy for 
such unwholesome air. Leaving himself in the dark, it could rise into the 
light, seeing it shine on others and hailing it.
Therefore, he sat before his dying fire, sorrowful to think upon the way by 
which he had come to that night, yet not strewing poison on the way by 
which other men had come to it. That he should have missed so much, and at 
his time of life should look so far about him for any staff to bear him 
company upon his downward journey and cheer it, was a just regret. He 
looked at the fire from which the blaze departed, from which the after-glow 
subsided, in which the ashes turned grey, from which they dropped to dust, 
and thought, "How soon I too shall pass through such changes, and be gone!"
To review his life, was like descending a green tree in fruit and flower, 
and seeing all the branches wither and drop off one by one, as he came down 
towards them.
"From the unhappy suppression of my youngest days, through the rigid and 
unloving home that followed them, through my departure, my long exile, my 
return, my mother's welcome, my intercourse with her since, down to the 
afternoon of this day with poor Flora," said Arthur Clennam, "what have I 
found!"
His door was softly opened, and these spoken words startled him, and came 
as if they were an answer:
"Little Dorrit."


Chapter 14

Little Dorrit's Party

Arthur Clennam rose hastily, and saw her standing at the door. This history 
must sometimes see with Little Dorrit s eyes, and shall begin that course 
by seeing him.
Little Dorrit looked into a dim room, which seemed a spacious one to her, 
and grandly furnished. Courtly ideas of Covent Garden, as a place with 
famous coffee-houses, where gentlemen wearing gold-laced coats and swords 
had quarrelled and fought duels; costly ideas of Covent Garden, as a place 
where there were flowers in winter at guineas a-piece, pineapples at 
guineas a pound, and peas at guineas a pint; picturesque ideas of Covent 
Garden, as a place where there was a mighty theatre, showing wonderful and 
beautiful sights to richly-dressed ladies and gentlemen, and which was for 
ever far beyond the reach of poor Fanny or poor uncle; desolate ideas of 
Covent Garden, as having all those arches in it, where the miserable 
children in rags among whom she had just now passed, like young rats, slunk 
and hid, fed on offal, huddled together for warmth, and were hunted about 
(look to the rats young and old, all ye Barnacles, for before God they are 
eating away our foundations, and will bring the roofs on our heads! ); 
teeming ideas of Covent Garden, as a place of past and present mystery, 
romance, abundance, want, beauty, ugliness, fair country gardens, and foul 
street-gutters; all confused together, - made the room dimmer than it was, 
in Little Dorrit's eyes, as they timidly saw it from the door.
At first in the chair before the gone-out fire, and then turned round 
wondering to see her, was the gentleman whom she sought. The brown, grave 
gentleman, who smiled so pleasantly, a who was so frank and considerate in 
his manner, and yet in whose earnestness there was something that reminded 
her of his mother, with the great difference that she was earnest in 
asperity and he in gentleness. Now he regarded her with that attentive and 
inquiring look before which Little Dorrit's eyes had always fallen, and 
before which they fell still.
"My poor child! Here at midnight?"
"I said Little Dorrit, sir, on purpose to prepare you. I knew you must be 
very much surprised."
"Are you alone?"
"No, sir, I have got Maggie with me."
Considering her entrance sufficiently prepared for by this mention of her 
name, Maggie appeared from the landing outside, on the broad grin. She 
instantly suppressed that manifestation, however, and became fixedly 
solemn.
"And I have no fire," said Clennam. "And you are -"
He was going to say so lightly clad, but stopped himself in what would have 
been a reference to her poverty, saying instead, "And it is so cold."
Putting the chair from which he had risen nearer to the grate, he made her 
sit down in it; and hurriedly bringing wood and coal, heaped them together 
and got a blaze.
"Your foot is like marble, my child;" he had happened to touch it, while 
stooping on one knee at his work of kindling the fire; "put it nearer the 
warmth." Little Dorrit thanked him hastily. It was quite warm, it was very 
warm! It smote upon his heart to feel that she hid her thin, worn shoe.
Little Dorrit was not ashamed of her poor shoes. He knew her story, and it 
was not that. Little Dorrit had a misgiving that he might blame her father, 
if he saw them; that he might think, "why did he dine today, and leave this 
little creature to the mercy of the cold stones!" She had no belief that it 
would have been a just reflection; she simply knew, by experience, that 
such delusions did sometimes present themselves to people. It was a part of 
her father's misfortunes that they did.
"Before I say anything else," Little Dorrit began, sitting before the pale 
fire, and raising her eyes again to the face which in its harmonious look 
of interest, and pity, and protection, she felt to be a mystery far above 
her in degree, and almost removed beyond her guessing at; "may I tell you 
something, sir?"
"Yes, my child.'
A slight shade of distress fell upon her, at his so often calling her a 
child. She was surprised that he should see it, or think of such a slight 
thing; but he said directly:
"I wanted a tender word, and could think of no other. As you just now gave 
yourself the name they give you at my mother's, and as that is the name by 
which I always think of you, let me call you Little Dorrit."
"Thank you, sir, I should like it better than any name."
"Little Dorrit."
"Little mother," Maggie (who had been falling asleep) put in, as a 
correction.
"It's all the same, Maggie," returned Dorrit, "all the same."
"Is it all the same, mother?"
"Just the same."
Maggie laughed, and immediately snored. In Little Dorrit's eyes and ears, 
the uncouth figure and the uncouth sound were as pleasant as could be. 
There was a glow of pride in her big child, overspreading her face, when it 
again met the eyes of the grave brown gentleman. She wondered what he was 
thinking of, as he looked at Maggie and her. She thought what a good father 
he would be. How, with some such look, he would counsel and cherish his 
daughter.
"What I was going to tell you, sir," said Little Dorrit, "is, that my 
brother is at large."
Arthur was rejoiced to hear it, and hoped he would do well.
"And what I was going to tell you, sir," said Little Dorrit, trembling in 
all her little figure and in her voice, "is, that I am not to know whose 
generosity released him - am never to ask, and am never to be told, and am 
never to thank that gentleman with all my grateful heart!"
He would probably need no thanks, Clennam said. Very likely he would be 
thankful himself (and with reason), that he had had the means and chance of 
doing a little service to her, who well deserved a great one.
"And what I was going to say, sir, is," said Little Dorrit, trembling more 
and more, "that if I knew him, and I might, I would tell him that he can 
never, never know how I feel his goodness, and how my good father would 
feel it. And what I was going to say, sir, is, that if I knew him, and I 
might - but I don't know him and I must not - I know that! - I would tell 
him that I shall never any more lie down to sleep, without having prayed to 
Heaven to bless him and reward him. And if I knew him, and I might, I would 
go down on my knees to him, and take his hand and kiss it, and ask him not 
to draw it away, but to leave it - O to leave it for a moment - and let my 
thankful tears fall on it, for I have no other thanks to give him!"
Little Dorrit had put his hand to her lips, and would have kneeled to him; 
but he gently prevented her, and replaced her in her chair. Her eyes, and 
the tones of her voice, had thanked him far better than she thought. He was 
not able to say, quite as composedly as usual, "There, Little Dorrit, 
there, there, there! We will suppose that you did know this person, and 
that you might do all this, and that it was all done. And now tell me, who 
am quite another person - who am nothing more than the friend who begged 
you to trust him - why you are out at midnight, and what it is that brings 
you so far through the streets at this late hour, my slight, delicate," 
child was on his lips again, "Little Dorrit!"
"Maggie and I have been tonight," she answered, subduing herself with the 
quiet effort that had long been natural to her, "to the theatre where my 
sister is engaged."
"And oh ain't it a Ev'nly place," suddenly interrupted Maggie, who seemed 
to have the power of going to sleep and waking up whenever she chose. 
"Almost as good as a hospital. Only there ain't no Chicking in it."
Here she shook herself and fell asleep again.
"We went there," said Little Dorrit, glancing at her charge, "because I 
like sometimes to know, of my own knowledge, that my sister is doing well; 
and like to see her there, with my own eyes, when neither she nor Uncle is 
aware. It is very seldom indeed that I can do that, because when I am not 
out at work I am with my father, and even when I am out at work I hurry 
home to him. But I pretend tonight that I am at a party."
As she made the confession, timidly hesitating, she raised her eyes to the 
face, and read its expression so plainly that she answered it.
"Oh no, certainly! I never was at a party in my life."
She paused a little under his attentive look, and then said, "I hope there 
is no harm in it. I could never have been of any use, if I had not 
pretended a little."
She feared that he was blaming her in his mind, for so devising to contrive 
for them, think for them, and watch over them, without their knowledge or 
gratitude; perhaps even with their reproaches for supposed neglect. But 
what was really in his mind, was the weak figure with its strong purpose, 
the thin worn shoes, the insufficient dress, and the pretence of recreation 
and enjoyment. He asked where the supposititious party was? At a place 
where she worked, answered Little Dorrit, blushing. She had said very 
little about it; only a few words to make her father easy. Her father did 
not believe it to be a grand party - indeed he might suppose that. And she 
glanced for an instant at the shawl she wore.
"It is the first night," said Little Dorrit, "that I have ever been away 
from home. And London looks so large, so barren, and so wild." In Little 
Dorrit's eyes, its vastness under the black sky was awful; a tremour passed 
over her as she said the words.

"But this is not," she added, with the quiet effort again, "what I have 
come to trouble you with, sir. My sister's having found a friend, a lady 
she has told me of and made me rather anxious about, was the first cause of 
my coming away from home. And being away, and coming (on purpose) round by 
where you lived, and seeing a light in the window -"
Not for the first time. No, not for the first time. In Little Dorrit's 
eyes, the outside of that window had been a distant star on other nights 
than this. She had toiled out of her way, tired and troubled, to look up at 
it, and wonder about the grave, brown gentleman from so far off, who had 
spoken to her as a friend and protector.
"There were three things," said Little Dorrit, "that I thought I would like 
to say, if you were alone and I might come upstairs. First, what I have 
tried to say, but never can - never shall -"
"Hush, hush! That is done with, and disposed of. Let us pass to the 
second," said Clennam, smiling her agitation away, making the blaze shine 
upon her, and putting wine and cake and fruit towards her on the table.
"I think," said Little Dorrit - "this is the second thing, sir - I think 
Mrs Clennam must have found out my secret, and must know where I come from 
and where I go to. Where I live, I mean."
"Indeed?" returned Clennam, quickly. He asked her, after a short 
consideration, why she supposed so.
"I think," replied Little Dorrit, "that Mr Flintwinch must have watched 
me."
And why, Clennam asked, as he turned his eyes upon the fire, bent his 
brows, and considered again; why did she suppose that?
"I have met him twice. Both times near home. Both times at night, when I 
was going back. Both times I thought (though that may easily be my 
mistake), that he hardly looked as if he had met me by accident."
"Did he say anything?"
"No; he only nodded and put his head on one side."
"The devil take his head!" mused Clennam, still looking at the fire; "it's 
always on one side."
He roused himself to persuade her to put some wine to her lips, and to 
touch something to eat - it was very difficult, she was so timid and shy - 
and then said, musing again:
"Is my mother at all changed to you?"
"Oh, not at all. She is just the same. I wondered whether I had better tell 
her my history. I wondered whether I might - I mean, whether you would like 
me to tell her. I wondered," said Little Dorrit, looking at him in a 
suppliant way, and gradually withdrawing her eyes as he looked at her, 
"whether you would advise me what to do."
"Little Dorrit," said Clennam; and the phrase had already begun, between 
those two, to stand for a hundred gentle phrases, according to the varying 
tone and connection in which it was used; "do nothing. I will have some 
talk with my old friend, Mrs Affery. Do nothing, Little Dorrit - except 
refresh yourself with such means as there are here. I entreat you to do 
that."
"Thank you, I am not hungry. Nor," said Little Dorrit, as he softly put her 
glass towards her, "nor thirsty - I think Maggie might like something, 
perhaps."
"We will make her find pockets presently for all there is here," said 
Clennam; "but before we awake her, there was a third thing to say."
"Yes. You will not be offended, sir?"
"I promise that, unreservedly."
"It will sound strange. I hardly know how to say it. Don't think it 
unreasonable or ungrateful in me," said Little Dorrit, with returning and 
increasing agitation.
"No, no, no. I am sure it will be natural and right. I am not afraid that I 
shall put a wrong construction on it, whatever it is."
"Thank you. You are coming back to see my father again?"
"Yes."
"You have been so good and thoughtful as to write him a note, saying that 
you are coming tomorrow?"
"Oh, that was nothing! Yes."
"Can you guess," said Little Dorrit, folding her small hands tight in one 
another, and looking at him with all the earnestness of her soul looking 
steadily out of her eyes, "what am I going to ask you not to do?"
"I think I can. But I may be wrong."
"No, you are not wrong," said Little Dorrit, shaking her head. "If we 
should want it so very, very badly that we cannot do without it, let me ask 
you for it."
"I will, - I will."
"Don't encourage him to ask. Don't understand him, if he does ask. Don't 
give it to him. Save him and spare him that, and you will be able to think 
better of him!"
Clennam said - not very plainly, seeing those tears glistening in her 
anxious eyes - that her wish should be sacred with him.
"You don't know what he is," she said; "you don't know what he really is. 
How can you, seeing him there all at once, dear love, and not gradually, as 
I have done! You have been so good to us, so delicately and truly good, 
that I want him to be better in your eyes than in anybody's. And I cannot 
bear to think," cried Little Dorrit, covering her tears with her hands, "I 
cannot bear to think that you of all the world should see him in his only 
moments of degradation!"
"Pray," said Clennam, "do not be so distressed. Pray, pray, Little Dorrit! 
This is quite understood now."
"Thank you, sir. Thank you! I have tried very much to keep myself from 
saying this; I have thought about it, days and nights; but when I knew for 
certain you were coming again, I made up my mind to speak to you. Not 
because I am ashamed of him," she dried her tears quickly, "but because I 
know him better than any one does, and love him, and am proud of him."
Relieved of this weight, Little Dorrit was nervously anxious to be gone. 
Maggie being broad awake, and in the act of distantly gloating over the 
fruit and cakes with chuckles of anticipation, Clennam made the best 
diversion in his power by pouring her out a glass of wine, which she drank 
in a series of loud smacks; putting her hand upon her windpipe after every 
one, and saying, breathless, with her eyes in a prominent state, "Oh ain't 
it d'licious! Ain't it hospitally!" When she had finished the wine and 
these encomiums, he charged her to load her basket (she was never without 
her basket) with every eatable thing upon the table, and to take especial 
care to leave no scrap behind. Maggie's pleasure in doing this, and her 
little mother's pleasure in seeing Maggie pleased, was as good a turn as 
circumstances could have given to the late conversation.
"But the gates will have been locked long ago," said Clennam, suddenly 
remembering it. "Where are you going?"
"I am going to Maggie's lodging," answered Little Dorrit. "I shall be quite 
safe, quite well taken care of."
"I must accompany you there," said Clennam. "I cannot let you go alone."
"Yes, pray leave us go there by ourselves. Pray do!" begged Little Dorrit.
She was so earnest in the petition, that Clennam felt a delicacy in 
obtruding himself upon her: the rather, because he could well understand 
that Maggie's lodging was of the obscurest sort. "Come, Maggie," said 
Little Dorrit, cheerily, "we shall do very well; we know the way, by this 
time, Maggie?"
"Yes, yes, little mother; we know the way, chuckled Maggie. And away they 
went. Little Dorrit turned at the door to say "God bless you!" She said it 
very softly, but perhaps she may have been as audible above - who knows! - 
as a whole cathedral choir.
Arthur Clennam suffered them to pass the corner of the street, he followed 
at a distance; not with any idea of encroaching a second time on Little 
Dorrit's privacy, but to satisfy his mind by seeing her secure, in the 
neighbourhood to which she was accustomed. So diminutive she looked, so 
fragile and defenceless against the bleak damp weather, flitting along in 
the shuffling shadow of her charge, that he felt, in his compassion, and in 
his habit of considering her a child apart from the rest of the rough 
world, as if he would have been glad to take her up in his arms and carry 
her to her journey's end.
In course of time she came into the leading throughfare where the 
Marshalsea was, and then he saw them slacken their pace, and soon turn down 
a bye-street. He stopped, felt that he had no right to go further, and 
slowly left them. He had no suspicion that they ran any risk of being 
houseless until morning; had no idea of the truth until long, long 
afterwards.
"But," said Little Dorrit, when they stopped at a poor dwelling all in 
darkness, and heard no sound on listening at the door, "Now, this is a good 
lodging for you, Maggie, and we must not give offence. Consequently, we 
will only knock twice, and not very loud; and if we cannot wake them so, we 
must walk about till day."
Once, Little Dorrit knocked with a careful hand, and listened. Twice, 
Little Dorrit knocked with a careful hand, and listened. All was close and 
still. "Maggie, we must do the best we can, my dear. We must be patient, 
and wait for day."
It was a chill dark night, with a damp with blowing, when they came out 
into the leading street again, and heard the clocks strike half-past one. 
"In only five hours and a half," said Little Dorrit, "we shall be able to 
go home." To speak of home, and to go and look at it, it being so near, was 
a natural sequence. They went to the closed gate, and peeped through into 
the courtyard. "I hope he is sound asleep," said Little Dorrit, kissing one 
of the bars, "and does not miss me."
The gate was so familiar, and so like a companion, that they put down 
Maggie's basket in a corner to serve for a seat, and keeping close 
together, rested there for some time. While the street was empty and 
silent, Little Dorrit was not afraid; but when she heard a footstep at a 
distance, or saw a moving shadow among the street lamps, she was startled, 
and whispered, "Maggie, I see some one. Come away!" Maggie would then wake 
up more or less fretfully, and they would wander about a little, and come 
back again.
As long as eating was a novelty and an amusement, Maggie kept up pretty 
well. But that period going by, she became querulous about the cold, and 
shivered and whimpered. "It will soon be over, dear," said Little Dorrit, 
patiently. "Oh it's all very fine for you, little mother," returned Maggie, 
"but I'm a poor thing, only ten years old." At last, in the dead of the 
night, when the street was very still indeed, Little Dorrit laid the heavy 
head upon her bosom, and soothed her to sleep. And thus she sat at the 
gate, as it were alone; looking up at the stars, and seeing the clouds pass 
over them in their wild flight - which was the dance at Little Dorrit's 
party.
"If it really was a party!" she thought once, as she sat there. "If it was 
light and warm and beautiful, and it was our house, and my poor dear was 
its master, and had never been inside these walls. And if Mr Clennam was 
one of our visitors, and we were dancing to delightful music, and were all 
as gay and light-hearted as ever we could be! I wonder - " Such a vista of 
wonder opened out before her, that she sat looking up at the stars, quite 
lost; until Maggie was querulous again, and wanted to get up and walk.
Three o'clock, and half-past three, and they had passed over London Bridge. 
They had heard the rush of the tide against obstacles; had looked down, 
awed, through the dark vapour on the river; had seen little spots of 
lighted water where the bridge lamps were reflected, shining like demon 
eyes, with a terrible fascination in them for guilt and misery. They had 
shrunk past homeless people, lying coiled up in nooks. They had run from 
drunkards. They had started from slinking men, whistling and singing to one 
another at bye corners, or running away at full speed. Though everywhere 
the leader and the guide, Little Dorrit, happy for once in her youthful 
appearance, feigned to cling to and rely upon Maggie. And more than once 
some voice, from among a knot of brawling or prowling figures in their 
path, had called out to the rest, to "let the woman the child go by!"
So, the woman and the child had gone by, and gone on, and five had sounded 
from the steeples. They were walking slowly towards the east, already 
looking for the first pale streak of day, when a woman came after them.
"What are you doing with the child?" she said to Maggie.
She was young - far too young to be there, Heaven knows! - and neither ugly 
nor wicked-looking. She spoke coarsely, but with no naturally coarse voice; 
there was even something musical in its sound.
"What are you doing with yourself?" retorted Maggie, for want of a better 
answer.
"Can't you see, without my telling you?"
"I don't know as I can," said Maggie.
"Killing myself. Now I have answered you, answer me. What are you doing 
with the child?"
The supposed child kept her head drooped down, and kept her form close at 
Maggie's side.
"Poor thing!" said the woman. "Have you no feeling, that you keep her out 
in the cruel streets at such a time as this? Have you no eyes, that you 
don't see how delicate and slender she is? Have you no sense (you don't 
look as if you had much) that you don't take more pity on this cold and 
trembling little hand?"
She had stepped across to that side, and held the hand between her own two, 
chafing it. "Kiss a poor lost creature, dear," she said, bending her face, 
"and tell me where she's taking you."
Little Dorrit turned towards her.
"Why, my God!" she said recoiling, "you're a woman!"
"Don't mind that!" said Little Dorrit, clasping one of the hands that had 
suddenly released hers. "I am not afraid of you."
"Then you had better be," she answered. "Have you no mother?"
"No."
"No father?"
"Yes, a very dear one."
"Go home to him, and be afraid of me. Let me go. Good Night!"
"I must thank you first; let me speak to you as if I really were a child."
"You can't do it," said the woman. "You are kind and innocent; but you 
can't look at me out of a child's eyes. I never should have touched you, 
but I thought that you were a child." And with a strange, wild cry, she 
went away.
No day yet in the sky, but there was day in the resounding stones of the 
streets; in the waggons, carts, and coaches; in the workers going to 
various occupations; in the opening of early shops; in the traffic at 
markets; in the stir of the river-side. There was coming day in the flaring 
lights, with a feebler colour in them than they would have had at another 
time; coming day in the increased sharpness of the air, and the ghastly 
dying of the night.
They went back again to the gate, intending to wait there now until it 
should be opened; but the air was so raw and cold, that Little Dorrit, 
leading Maggie about in her sleep, kept in motion. Going round by the 
church, she saw lights there, and the door open; and went up the steps, and 
looked in.
"Who's that?" cried a stout old man, who was putting on a nightcap, as if 
he were going to bed in a vault.
"It's no one particular, sir," said Little Dorrit.
"Stop!" cried the man. "Let's have a look at you."
This caused her to turn back again, in the act of going out, and to present 
herself and her charge before him.
"I thought so!" said he. "I know you."
"We have often seen each other," said Little Dorrit, recognising the 
sexton, or the beadle, or the verger, or whatever he was, "when I have been 
at church here."
"More than that, we've got your birth in our Register, you know. You're one 
of our curiosities."
"Indeed?" said Little Dorrit.
"To be sure. As the child of the - by-the-bye, how did you get out so 
early?"
"We were shut out last night, and are waiting to get in."
"You don't mean it? And there's another hour good yet! Come into the 
vestry. You'll find a fire in the vestry, on account of the painters. I'm 
waiting for the painters, or I should'nt, be here, you may depend upon it. 
One of our curiosities mustn't be cold, when we have it in our power to 
warm her up comfortable. Come along."
He was a very good old fellow, in his familiar way; and having stirred the 
vestry fire, he looked round the shelves of registers for a particular 
volume. "Here you are, you see," he said, taking it down and turning the 
leaves. "Here you'll find yourself as large as life. Amy, daughter of 
William and Fanny Dorrit. Born, Marshalsea Prison, Parish of Saint George. 
And we tell people that you have lived there, without so much as a day's or 
a night's absence, ever since. Is it true?"
"Quite true, till last night."
"Lord!" But his surveying her with an admiring gaze suggested something 
else to him, to wit: "I am sorry to see, though, that you are faint and 
tired. Stay a bit. I'll get some cushions out of the church, and you and 
your friend shall lie down before the fire. Don't be afraid of not going in 
to join your father when the gate opens. I'll call you."
He soon brought in the cushions, and strewed them on the ground.
"There you are, you see. Again as large as life. Oh, never mind thanking. 
I've daughters of my own. And though they weren't born in the Marshalsea 
Prison, they might have been, if I had been, in my ways of carrying on, of 
your father's breed. Stop a bit. I must put something under the cushion for 
your head. Here's a burial volume. Just the thing! We have got Mrs Bangham 
in this book. But what makes these books interesting to most people is - 
not who's in 'em, but who isn't - who's coming, you know, and when. That's 
the interesting question."
Commendingly looking back at the pillow he had improvised, he left them to 
their hour's repose. Maggie was snoring already, and Little Dorrit was soon 
fast asleep, with her head resting on that sealed book of Fate, untroubled 
by its mysterious blank leaves.
This was Little Dorrit's party. The shame, desertion, wretchedness, and 
exposure, of the great capital; the wet, the cold, the slow hours, and the 
swift clouds, of the dismal night. This was the party from which Little 
Dorrit went home, jaded, in the first grey mist of a rainy morning.


Chapter 15

Mrs Flintwinch Has Another Dream

The debilitated old house in the city, wrapped in its mantle of soot, and 
leaning heavily on the crutches that had partaken of its decay and worn out 
with it, never knew a healthy or a cheerful interval, let what would 
betide. If the sun ever touched it, it was but with a ray, and that was 
gone in half an hour; if the moonlight ever fell upon it, it was only to 
put a few patches on its doleful cloak, and make it look more wretched. The 
stars, to be sure, coldly watched it when the nights and the smoke were 
clear enough; and all bad weather stood by it with a rare fidelity. You 
should alike find rain, hail, frost, and thaw lingering in that dismal 
enclosure, when they had vanished from other places; and as to snow, you 
should see it there for weeks, long after it had changed from yellow to 
black, slowly weeping away its grimy life. The place had no other 
adherents. As to street noises, the rumbling of wheels in the lane merely 
rushed in at the gateway in going past, and rushed out again: making the 
listening Mistress Affery feel as if she were deaf, and recovered the sense 
of hearing by instantaneous flashes. So with whistling, singing, talking, 
laughing, and all pleasant human sounds. They leaped the gap in a moment, 
and went upon their way.
The varying light of fire and candle in Mrs Clennam's room made the 
greatest change that ever broke the dead monotony of the spot. In her two 
long narrow windows, the fire shone sullenly all day, and sullenly all 
night. On rare occasions, it flashed up passionately, as she did; but for 
the most part it was suppressed, like her, and preyed upon itself evenly 
and slowly. During many hours of the short winter days however, when it was 
dusk there early in the afternoon, changing distortions of herself in her 
wheeled chair, of Mr Flintwinch with his wry neck, of Mistress Affery 
coming and going, would be thrown upon the house wall that was over the 
gateway, and would hover there like shadows from a great magic lantern. As 
the room-ridden invalid settled for the night, these would gradually 
disappear: Mistress Affery's magnified shadow always flitting about last, 
until it finally glided away into the air, as though she were off upon a 
witch excursion. Then the solitary light would burn unchangingly, until it 
burned pale before the dawn, and at last died under the breath of Mistress 
Affery, as her shadow descended on it from the witch-region of sleep.
Strange, if the little sick-room fire were in effect a beacon fire, 
summoning some one, and that the most unlikely some one in the world, to 
the spot that must be come to. Strange, if the little sick-room light were 
in effect a watch-light, burning in that place every night until an 
appointed event should be watched out! Which of the vast multitude of 
travellers, under the sun and the stars, climbing the dusty hills and 
toiling along the weary plains, journeying by land and journeying by sea, 
coming and going so strangely, to meet and to act and react on one another, 
which of the host may, with no suspicion of the journey's end, be 
travelling surely hither?
Time shall show us. The post of honour and the post of shame, the general's 
station and the drummer's, a peer's statue in Westminster Abbey and a 
seaman's hammock in the bosom of the deep, the mitre and the workhouse, the 
woolsack and the gallows, the throne and the guillotine - the travellers to 
all are on the great high road; but it has wonderful divergences, and only 
Time shall show us whither each traveller is bound.
On a wintry afternoon at twilight, Mrs Flintwinch, having been heavy all 
day, dreamed this dream:
She thought she was in the kitchen getting the kettle ready for tea, and 
was warming herself with her feet upon the fender and the skirt of her gown 
tucked up, before the collapsed fire in the middle of the grate, bordered 
on either hand by a deep cold black ravine. She thought that as she sat 
thus, musing upon the question, whether life was not for some people a 
rather dull invention, she was frightened by a sudden noise behind her. She 
thought that she had been similarly frightened once last week, and that the 
noise w as of a mysterious kind - a sound of rustling, and of three or four 
quick beats like a rapid step; while a shock or tremble was communicated to 
her heart, as if the step had shaken the floor, or even as if she had been 
touched by some awful hand. She thought that this revived within her, 
certain old fears of hers that the house was haunted; and that she flew up 
the kitchen stairs, without knowing how she got up, to be nearer company.
Mistress Affery thought that on reaching the hall, she saw the door of her 
liege lord's office standing open, and the room empty. That she went to the 
ripped-up window, in the little room by the street door, to connect her 
palpitating heart, through the glass, with living things beyond and outside 
the haunted house. That she then saw, on the wall over the gateway, the 
shadows of the two clever ones in conversation above. That she then went 
upstairs with her shoes in her hand, partly to be near the clever ones as a 
match for most ghosts, and partly to hear what they were talking about.
"None of your nonsense with me," said Mr Flintwinch. "I won't take it from 
you."
Mrs Flintwinch dreamed that she stood behind the door, which was just ajar, 
and most distinctly heard her husband say these bold words.
"Flintwinch," returned Mrs Clennam, in her usual strong low voice, "there 
is a demon of anger in you. Guard against it."
"I don't care whether there's one or a dozen," said Mr Flintwinch, forcibly 
suggesting in his tone that the higher number was nearer the mark. "If 
there was fifty, they should all say, None of your nonsense with me, I 
won't take it from you - I'd make 'em say it, whether they liked it or 
not."
"What have I done, you wrathful man?" her strong voice asked.
"Done?" said Mr Flintwinch. "Dropped down upon me."
"If you mean, remonstrated with you -"
"Don't put words in my mouth that I don't mean," said Jeremiah, sticking to 
his figurative expression with tenacious and impenetrable obstinacy: "I 
mean dropped down upon me."
"I remonstrated with you," she began again, "because -"
"I won't have it!" cried Jeremiah. "You dropped down upon me."
"I dropped down upon you, then, you ill-conditioned man," (Jeremiah 
chuckled at having forced her to adopt his phrase), "for having been 
needlessly significant to Arthur that morning. I have a right to complain 
of it as almost a breach of confidence. You did not mean it -"
"I won't have it," interposed the contradictory Jeremiah, flinging back the 
concession. "I did mean it."
"I suppose I must leave you to speak in soliloquy if you choose," she 
replied, after a pause that seemed an angry one. "It is useless my 
addressing myself to a rash and headstrong old man who has a set purpose 
not to hear me."
"Now I won't take that from you either," said Jeremiah. "I have no such 
purpose. I have told you I did mean it. Do you wish to know why I meant it, 
you rash and headstrong old woman?"
"After all, you only restore me my own words," she said, struggling with 
her indignation. "Yes."
"This is why, then. Because you hadn't cleared his father to him, and you 
ought to have done it. Because, before you went into any tantrum about 
yourself, who are -"
"Hold there, Flintwinch!" she cried out in a changed voice: "you may go a 
word too far."
The old man seemed to think so. There was another pause, and he had altered 
his position in the room, when he spoke again more mildly:
"I was going to tell you why it was. Because, before you took your own 
part, I thought you ought to have taken the part of Arthur's father. 
Arthur's father! I had no particular love for Arthur's father. I served 
Arthur's father's uncle, in this house, when Arthur's father was not much 
above me - was poorer as far as his pocket went - and when his uncle might 
as soon have left me his heir as have left him. He starved in the parlour, 
and I starved in the kitchen; that was the principal difference in our 
positions; there was not much more than a flight of break-neck stairs 
between us. I never took to him in those times; I don't know that I ever 
took to him greatly at any time. He was an undecided, irresolute chap, who 
had had everything but his orphan life scared out of him when he was young. 
And when he brought you home here, the wife his uncle had named for him. I 
didn't need to look at you twice (you were a good-looking woman at that 
time) to know who'd be master. You have stood of your own strength ever 
since. Stand of your own strength now. Don't lean against the dead."
"I do not - as you call it - lean against the dead."
"But you had a mind to do it, if I had submitted," growled Jeremiah, "and 
that's why you drop down upon me. You can't forget that I didn't submit. I 
suppose you are astonished that I should consider it worth my while to have 
justice done to Arthur's father? Hey? It It doesn't matter whether you 
answer or not, because I know you are, and you know you are. Come, then, 
I'll tell you how it is. I may be a bit of an oddity in point of temper, 
but this is my temper - I can't let anybody have entirely their own way. 
You are a determined woman, and a clever woman; and when you see your 
purpose before you, nothing will turn you from it. Who knows that better 
than I do?"
"Nothing will turn me from it, Flintwinch, when I have justified it to 
myself. Add that."
"Justified it to yourself? I said you were the most determined woman on the 
face of the earth (or I meant to say so), and if you are determined to 
justify any object you entertain, of course you'll do it."
"Man! I justify myself by the authority of these Books," she cried, with 
stern emphasis, and appearing from the sound that followed to strike the 
dead-weight of her arm upon the table.
"Never mind that," returned Jeremiah, calmly, "we won't enter into that 
question at present. However that may be, you carry out your purposes, and 
you make everything go down before them. Now, I won't go down before them. 
I have been faithful to you, and useful to you, and I am attached to you. 
But I can't consent, and I won't consent, and I never did consent, and I 
never will consent, to be lost in you. Swallow up everybody else, and 
welcome. The peculiarity of my temper is, ma'am, that I won't be swallowed 
up alive."
Perhaps this had originally been the mainspring of the understanding 
between them. Descrying thus much of force of character in Mr Flintwinch, 
perhaps Mrs Clennam had deemed alliance with him worth her while.
"Enough and more than enough of the subject," said she gloomily.
"Unless you drop down upon me again," returned the persistent Flintwinch, 
"and then you must expect to hear of it again."
Mistress Affery dreamed that the figure of her lord here began walking up 
and down the room, as if to cool his spleen, and that she ran away; but 
that, as he did not issue forth when she had stood listening and trembling 
in the shadowy hall a little time, she crept upstairs again, impelled as 
before by ghosts and curiosity, and once more cowered outside the door.
"Please to light the candle, Flintwinch," Mrs Clennam was saying, 
apparently wishing to draw him back into their usual tone. "It is nearly 
time for tea. Little Dorrit is coming, and will find me in the dark."
Mr Flintwinch lighted the candle briskly, and said, as he put it down upon 
the table:
"What are you going to do with Little Dorrit? Is she to come to work here 
for ever? To come to tea here, for ever? To come backwards and forwards 
here, in the same way, for ever?"
"How can you talk about 'for ever' to a maimed creature like me? And we not 
all cut down like the grass of the field, and was not I shorn by the scythe 
many years ago: since when, I have been lying here, waiting to be gathered 
into the barn?"
"Ay, ay! But since you have been lying here - not near dead - nothing like 
it - numbers of children and young people, blooming women, strong men, and 
what not, having been cut down and carried; and still here are you, you 
see, not much changed after all. Your time and mine may be a long one yet. 
When I say for ever, I mean (though I am not poetical) through all our 
time." Mr Flintwinch gave this explanation with great calmness, and calmly 
waited for an answer.
"So long as Little Dorrit is quiet, and industrious, and stands in need of 
the slight help I can give her, and deserves it; so long, I suppose, unless 
she withdraws of her own act, she will continue to come here, I being 
spared."
"Nothing more than that?" said Flintwinch, stroking his mouth and chin. 
"What should there be more than that! What could there be more than that!" 
she ejaculated, in her sternly wondering way.
Mrs Flintwinch dreamed, that, for the space of a minute or two, they 
remained looking at each other with the candle between them, and that she 
somehow derived an impression that they looked at each other fixedly.
"Do you happen to know, Mrs Clennam," Affery's liege lord then demanded in 
a much lower voice, and with an amount of expression that seemed quite out 
of proportion to the simple purpose of his words, "where she lives?"
"No."
"Would you - now, would you like to know?" said Jeremiah, with a pounce as 
if he had sprung upon her.
"If I cared to know, I should know already. Could I not have asked her, any 
day?"
"Then you don't care to know?"
"I do not."
Mr Flintwinch, having expelled a long significant breath, said with his 
former emphasis, "for I have accidentally - mind! - found out."
"Wherever she lives," said Mrs Clennam, speaking in one unmodulated hard 
voice, and separating her words as distinctly as if she were reading them 
off from separate bits of metal that she took up one by one, "she has made 
a secret of it, and she shall always keep her secret from me."
"After all, perhaps you would rather not have known the fact, any how?" 
said Jeremiah; and he said it with a twist, as if his words had come out of 
him in his own wry shape.
"Flintwinch," said his mistress and partner, flashing into a sudden energy 
that made Affery start, "why do you goad me? Look round this room. If it is 
any compensation for my long confinement within these narrow limits - not 
that I complain of being afflicted; you know I never complain of that - if 
it is any compensation to me for my long confinement to this room, that 
while I am shut up from all pleasant change, I am also shut up from the 
knowledge of some things that I may prefer to avoid knowing, why should 
you, of all men, grudge me that relief?"
"I don't grudge it to you," returned Jeremiah.
"Then say no more. Say no more. Let Little Dorrit keep her secret from me, 
and do you keep it from me also. Let her come and go, unobserved and 
unquestioned. Let me suffer, and let me have what alleviation belongs to my 
condition. Is it so much, that you torment me like an evil spirit?"
"I asked you a question. That's all."
"I have answered it. So, say no more. Say no more." Here the sound of the 
wheeled chair was heard upon the floor, and Affery's bell rang with a hasty 
jerk.
More afraid of her husband at the moment than of the mysterious sound in 
the kitchen, Affery crept away as lightly and as quickly as she could, 
descended the kitchen stairs almost as rapidly as she had ascended them, 
resumed her seat before the fire, tucked up her skirt again, and finally 
threw her apron over her head. Then the bell rang once more, and then once 
more, and then kept on ringing; in despite of which importunate summons, 
Affery still sat behind her apron, recovering her breath.
At last Mr Flintwinch came shuffling down the staircase into the hall, 
muttering and calling "Affery woman!" all the way. Affery still remaining 
behind her apron, he came stumbling down the kitchen-stairs, candle in 
hand, sidled up to her, twitched her apron off, and roused her.
"O Jeremiah!" cried Affery, waking. "What a start you gave me!"
"What have you been doing, woman?" inquired Jeremiah. "You've been rung 
for, fifty times."
"O Jeremiah," said Mistress Affery, "I have been a-dreaming."
Reminded of her former achievement in that way, Mr Flintwinch held the 
candle to her head, as if he had some idea of lighting her up for the 
illumination of the kitchen.
"Don't you know it's her tea-time?" he demanded, with a vicious grin, and 
giving one of the legs of Mistress Affery's chair a kick.
"Jeremiah? Tea-time? I don't know what's come to me. But I got such a 
dreadful turn, Jeremiah, before I went - off a-dreaming, that I think it 
must be that."
"Yoogh! Sleepy-Head!" said Mr Flintwinch, "what are you talking about?"
"Such a strange noise, Jeremiah, and such a curious movement. In the 
kitchen here - just here."
Jeremiah held up his light and looked at the blackened ceiling, held down 
his light and looked at the damp stone floor, turned round with his light 
and looked about at the spotted and blotched walls.
"Rats, cats, water, drains," said Jeremiah.
Mistress Affery negatived each with a shake of her head.
"No Jeremiah; I have felt it before. I have felt it upstairs, and once on 
the staircase as I was going from her room to ours in the night - a rustle 
and a sort of trembling touch behind me."
"Affery, my woman," said Mr Flintwinch, grimly, after advancing his nose to 
that lady's lips as a test for the detection of spirituous liquors, "if you 
don't get tea pretty quick, old woman, you'll become sensible of a rustle 
and a touch that'll send you flying to the other end of the kitchen."
This prediction stimulated Mrs Flintwinch to bestir herself, and to hasten 
upstairs to Mrs Clennam's chamber. But, for all that, she now began to 
entertain a settled conviction that there was something wrong in the gloomy 
house. Henceforth, she was never at peace in it after daylight departed; 
and never went up or downstairs in the dark without having her apron over 
her head, lest she should see something.
What with these ghostly apprehensions, and her singular dreams, Mrs 
Flintwinch fell that evening into a haunted state of mind, from which it 
may be long before this present narrative descries any trace of her 
recovery. In the vagueness and indistinctness of all her new experiences 
and perceptions, as everything about her was mysterious to herself, she 
began to be mysterious to others; and became as difficult to be made out to 
anybody's satisfaction, as she found the house and everything in it 
difficult to make out to her own.
She had not yet finished preparing Mrs Clennam's tea, when the soft knock 
came to the door which always announced Little Dorrit. Mistress Affery 
looked on at Little Dorrit taking off her homely bonnet in the hall, and at 
Mr Flintwinch scraping his jaws and contemplating her in silence, as 
expecting some wonderful consequence to ensue which would frighten her out 
of her five wits or blow them all three to pieces.
After tea there came another knock at the door, announcing Arthur. Mistress 
Affery went down to let him in, and he said on entering, "Affery, I am glad 
it's you. I want to ask you a question." Affery immediately replied, "For 
goodness sake don't ask me nothing, Arthur! I am frightened out of one half 
of my life, and dreamed out of the other. Don't ask me nothing! I don't 
know which is which, or what is what!" - and immediately started away from 
him, and came near him no more.
Mistress Affery having no taste for reading, and no sufficient light for 
needlework in the subdued room, supposing her to have the inclination, now 
sat every night in the dimness from which she had momentarily emerged on 
the evening of Arthur Clennam's return, occupied with crowds of wild 
speculations and suspicions respecting her mistress, and her husband, and 
the noises in the house. When the ferocious devotional exercises were 
engaged in, these speculations would distract Mistress Affery's eyes 
towards the door, as if she expected some dark form to appear at those 
propitious moments, and make the party one too many.
Otherwise, Affery never said or did anything to attract the attention of 
the two clever ones towards her in any marked degree, except on certain 
occasions, generally at about the quiet hours towards bedtime, when she 
would suddenly dart out of her dim corner, and whisper with a face of 
terror, to Mr Flintwinch reading the paper near Mrs Clennam's little table:
"There, Jeremiah! Now! What's that noise!" Then the noise, if there were 
any, would have ceased. and Mr Flintwinch would snarl, turning upon her as 
if she had cut him down that moment against his will, "Affery, old woman, 
you shall have a dose, old woman, such a dose! You have been dreaming 
again!"


Chapter 16

Nobody's Weakness

The time being come for the renewal of his acquaintance with the Meagles 
family, Clennam, pursuant to contract made between himself and Mr Meagles, 
within the precincts of Bleeding Heart Yard, turned his face on a certain 
Saturday towards Twickenham, where Mr Meagles had a cottage residence of 
his own. The weather being fine and dry, and any English road abounding in 
interest for him who had been so long away, he sent his valise on by the 
coach, and set out to walk. A walk was in itself a new enjoyment to him, 
and one that had rarely diversified his life afar off.
He went by Fulham and Putney, for the pleasure of strolling over the heath. 
It was bright and shining there; and when he found himself so far on his 
road to Twickenham, he found himself a long way on his road to a number of 
airier and less substantial destinations. They had risen before him fast, 
in the healthful exercise and the pleasant road. It is not easy to walk 
alone in the country without musing upon something. And he had plenty of 
unsettled subjects to meditate upon, though he had been walking to the 
Land's End.
First, there was the subject seldom absent from his mind, the question, 
what he was to do henceforth in life; to what occupation he should devote 
himself, and in what direction he had best seek it. He was far from rich, 
and every day of indecision and inaction made his inheritance a source of 
greater anxiety to him. As often as he began to consider how to increase 
this inheritance, or to lay it by, so often his misgiving that there was 
some one with an unsatisfied claim upon his justice, returned; and that 
alone was a subject to outlast the longest walk. Again, there was the 
subject of his relations with his mother, which were now upon an equable 
and peaceful but never confidential footing, and whom he saw several times 
a week. Little Dorrit was a leading and a constant subject: for the 
circumstances of his life, united to those of her own story, presented the 
little creature to him as the only person between whom and himself there 
were ties of innocent reliance on one hand, and affectionate protection on 
the other; ties of compassion, respect, unselfish interest, gratitude, and 
pity. Thinking of her, and of the possibility of her father's release from 
prison by the unbarring hand of death - the only change of circumstance he 
could foresee that might enable him to be such a friend to her as he wished 
to be, by altering her whole manner of life, smoothing her rough road, and 
giving her a home - he regarded her, in that perspective, as his adopted 
daughter, his poor child of the Marshalsea hushed to rest. If there were a 
last subject in his thoughts, and it lay towards Twickenham, its form was 
so indefinite that it was little more than the pervading atmosphere in 
which these other subjects floated before him.
He had crossed the heath and was leaving it behind, when he gained upon a 
figure which had been in advance of him for some time, and which, as he 
gained upon it, he thought he knew. He derived this impression from 
something in the turn of the head, and in the figure's action of 
consideration, as it went on at a sufficiently sturdy walk. But when the 
man - for it was a man's figure - pushed his hat up at the back of his 
head, and stopped to consider some object before him, he knew it to be 
Daniel Doyce.
"How do you do, Mr Doyce?" said Clennam, overtaking him. "I am glad to see 
you again, and in a healthier place than the Circumlocution Office."
"Ha! Mr Meagles's friend!" exclaimed that public criminal, coming out of 
some mental combinations he had been making, and offering his hand. "I am 
glad to see you, sir. Will you excuse me if I forget your name?"
"Readily. It's not a celebrated name. It's not Barnacle."
"No, no," said Daniel, laughing. "And now I know what it is. It's Clennam. 
How do you do, Mr Clennam?"
"I have some hope," said Arthur, as they walked on together, "that we may 
be going to the same place, Mr Doyce."
"Meaning Twickenham?" returned Daniel. "I am glad to hear it."
They were soon quite intimate, and lightened the way with a variety of 
conversation. The ingenious culprit was a man of great modesty and good 
sense; and, though a plain man, had been too much accustomed to combine 
what was original and daring in conception with what was patient and minute 
in execution, to be by any means an ordinary man. It was at first difficult 
to lead him to speak about himself, and he put off Arthur's advances in 
that direction by admitting slightly, oh yes, he had done this, and he had 
done that, and such a thing was of his making, and such another thing was 
his discovery, but it was his trade, you see, his trade; until, as he 
gradually became assured that his companion had a real interest in his 
account of himself, he frankly yielded to it. Then it appeared that he was 
the son of a north-country blacksmith, and had originally been apprenticed 
by his widowed mother to a lockmaker; that he had "struck out a few little 
things" at the lockmaker's, which had led to his being released from his 
indentures with a present, which present had enabled him to gratify his 
ardent wish to bind himself to a working engineer, under whom he had 
laboured hard, learned hard, and lived hard, seven years. His time being 
out, he had "worked in the shop" at weekly wages seven or eight years more; 
and had then betaken himself to the banks of the Clyde, where he had 
studied, and filed, and hammered, and improved his knowledge, theoretical 
and practical, for six or seven years more. There he had had an offer to go 
to Lyons, which he had accepted; and from Lyons had been engaged to go to 
Germany, and in Germany had had an offer to go to St. Petersburgh, and 
there had done very well indeed - never better. However, he had naturally 
felt a preference for his own country, and a wish to gain distinction 
there, and to do whatever service he could do, there rather than elsewhere. 
And so he had come home. And so at home he had established himself in 
business, and had invented and executed, and worked his way on, until, 
after a dozen years of constant suit and service, he had been enrolled in 
the Great British Legion of Honour, the Legion of the Rebuffed of the 
Circumlocution Office, and had been decorated with the Great British Order 
of Merit, the Order of the Disorder of the Barnacles and Stiltstalkings.
"It is much to be regretted," said Clennam, "that you ever turned your 
thoughts that way, Mr Doyce."
"True, sir, true to a certain extent. But what is a man to do? If he has 
the misfortune to strike out something serviceable to the nation, he must 
follow where it leads him."
"Hadn't he better let it go?" asked Clennam.
"He can't do it," said Doyce, shaking his head with a thoughtful smile. 
"It's not put into his head to be buried. It's put into his head to be made 
useful. You hold your life on the condition that to the last you shall 
struggle hard for it. Every man holds a discovery on the same terms."
"That is to say," said Arthur, with a growing admiration of his quiet 
companion, "You are not finally discouraged even now?"
"I have no right to be, if I am," returned the other. "The thing is as true 
as it ever was."
When they had walked a little way in silence, Clennam, at once to change 
the direct point of their conversation and not to change it too abruptly, 
asked Mr Doyce if he had any partner in his business, to relieve him of a 
portion of its anxieties?
"No," he returned, "not at present. I had when I first entered on it, and a 
good man he was. But he has been dead some years; and as I could not easily 
take to the notion of another when I lost him, I bought his share for 
myself and have gone on by myself ever since. And here's another thing," he 
said, stopping for a moment with a good-humoured laugh in his eyes, and 
laying his closed right hand, with its peculiar suppleness of thumb, on 
Clennam's arm, "no inventor can be a man of business, you know."
"No?" said Clennam.
"Why, so the men of business say," he answered, resuming the walk and 
laughing outright. "I don't know why we unfortunate creatures should be 
supposed to want common sense, but it is generally taken for granted that 
we do. Even the best friend I have in the world, our excellent friend over 
yonder," said Doyce, nodding towards Twickenham, "extends a sort of 
protection to me, don't you know, as a man not quite able to take care of 
himself?"
Arthur Clennam could not help joining in the good-humoured laugh, for he 
recognised the truth of the description.
"So I find that I must have a partner who is a man of business and not 
guilty of any inventions," said Daniel Doyce, taking off his hat to pass 
his hand over his forehead, "if it's only in deference to the current 
opinion, and to uphold the credit of the Works. I don't think he'll find 
that I have been very remiss or confused in my way of conducting them; but 
that's for him to say - whoever he is - not for me."
"You have not chosen him yet, then?"
"No, sir, no. I have only just come to a decision to take one. The fact is, 
there's more to do than there used to be, and the Works are enough for me 
as I grow older. What with the books and correspondence, and foreign 
journeys for which a Principal is necessary, I can't do all. I am going to 
talk over the best way of negociating the matter, if I find a spare half-
hour between this and Monday morning, with my - my Nurse and protector," 
said Doyce, with laughing eyes, again. "He is a sagacious man in business, 
and has had a good apprenticeship to it."
After this, they conversed on different subjects until they arrived at 
their journey's end. A composed and unobtrusive self-sustainment was 
noticeable in Daniel Doyce - a calm knowledge that what was true must 
remain true, in spite of all the Barnacles in the family ocean, and would 
be just the truth, and neither more nor less, when even that sea had run 
dry - which had a kind of greatness in it, though not of the official 
quality.
As he knew the house well, he conducted Arthur to it by the way that showed 
it to the best advantage. It was a charming place (none the worse for being 
a little eccentric), on the road by the river, and just jst what the 
residence of the Meagles' family ought to be. It stood in a garden, no 
doubt as fresh and beautiful in the May of the Year, as Pet now was in the 
May of her life; and it was defended by a goodly show of handsome trees and 
spreading evergreens, as Pet was by Mr and Mrs Meagles. It was made out of 
an old brick house, of which a part had been altogether pulled down, and 
another part had been changed into the present cottage; so there was a hale 
elderly portion, to represent Mr and Mrs Meagles, and a young picturesque, 
very pretty portion to represent Pet. There was even the later addition of 
a conservatory sheltering itself against it, uncertain of hue in its deep 
stained glass, and in its more transparent portions flashing to the sun's 
rays, now like fire and now like harmless water drops; which might have 
stood for Tattycoram. Within view was the peaceful river and the ferry-
boat, to moralise to all the inmates, saying: Young or old, passionate or 
tranquil, chafing or content, you, thus runs the current always. Let the 
heart swell into what discord it will, thus plays the rippling water on the 
prow of the ferry-boat ever the same tune. Year after year, so much 
allowance for the drifting of the boat, so many miles an hour the flowing 
of the stream, here the rushes, there the lilies, nothing uncertain or 
unquiet, upon this road that steadily runs away; while you, upon your 
flowing road of time, are so capricious and distracted.
The bell at the gate had scarcely sounded when Mr Meagles came out to 
receive them. Mr Meagles had scarcely come out, when Mrs Meagles came out. 
Mrs Meagles had scarcely come out, when Pet came out. Pet had scarcely come 
out, when Tattycoram came out. Never had visitors a more hospitable 
reception.
"Here we are, you see," said Mr Meagles, "boxed up, Mr Clennam, within our 
own home-limits, as if we were never going to expand - that is, travel - 
again. Not like Marseilles, eh? No allonging and marshonging here?"
"A different kind of beauty, indeed!" said Clennam, looking about him.
"But, Lord bless me!" cried Mr Meagles, rubbing his hands with a relish, 
"it was an uncommonly pleasant thing being in quarantine, wasn't it? Do you 
know, I have often wished myself back again? We were a capital party."
This was Mr Meagles's invariable habit. Always to object to everything 
while he was travelling, and always to want to get back to it when he was 
not travelling.
"If it was summer-time," said Mr Meagles, "which I wish it was on your 
account, and in order that you might see the place at its best, you would 
hardly be able to hear yourself speak for birds. Being practical people, we 
never allow anybody to scare the birds; and the birds, being practical 
people too, come about us in myriads. We are delighted to see you, Clennam 
(if you'll allow me, I shall drop the Mister); I heartily assure you, we 
are delighted."
"I have not had so pleasant a greeting," said Clennam - then he recalled 
what Little Dorrit had said to him in his own room, and faithfully added 
"except once - since we last walked to and fro, looking down at the 
Mediterranean."
"Ah!" returned Mr Meagles. "Something like a look out, that was, wasn't it? 
I don't want a military government, but I shouldn't mind a little allonging 
and marshonging - just a dash of it - in this neighbourhood sometimes. It's 
Devilish still."
Bestowing this eulogium on the retired character of his retreat with a 
dubious shake of the head, Mr Meagles led the way into the house. It was 
just large enough, and no more; was as pretty within as it was without, and 
was perfectly well-arranged and comfortable. Some traces of the migratory 
habits of the family were to be observed in the covered frames and 
furniture, and wrapped-up hangings; but it was easy to see that it was one 
of Mr Meagles's whims to have the cottage always kept, in their absence, as 
if they were always coming back the day after tomorrow. Of articles 
collected on his various expeditions, there was such a vast miscellany that 
it was like the dwelling of an amiable Corsair. There were antiquities from 
Central Italy, made by the best modern houses in that department of 
industry; bits of mummy from Egypt (and perhaps Birmingham); model gondolas 
from Venice; model villages from Switzerland; morsels of tessellated 
pavement from Herculaneum and Pompeii, like petrified minced veal; ashes 
out of tombs, and lava out of Vesuvius; Spanish fans, Spezzian straw hats, 
Moorish slippers, Tuscan hair-pins, Carrara sculpture, Trastaverini 
scarves, Genoese velvets and filagree, Neapolitan coral, Roman cameos, 
Geneva jewellery, Arab lanterns, rosaries blessed all round by the Pope 
himself, and an infinite variety of lumber. There were views, like and 
unlike, of a multitude of places; and there was one little picture-room 
devoted to a few of the regular sticky old Saints, with sinews like 
whipcord, hair like Neptune's, wrinkles like tattooing, and such coats of 
varnish that every holy personage served for a fly-trap, and became what is 
now called in the vulgar tongue a Catch-em-alive O. Of these pictorial 
acquisitions Mr Meagles spoke in the usual manner. He was no judge, he 
said, except of what pleased himself; he had picked them up, dirt-cheap, 
and people had considered them rather fine. One man, who at any rate ought 
to know something of the subject, had declared that "Sage, Reading" (a 
specially oily old gentleman in a blanket, with a swan's-down tippet for a 
beard, and a web of cracks all over him like rich pie-crust), to be a fine 
Guercino. As for Sebastian del Piombo there, you would judge for yourself; 
if it were not his later manner, the question was, Who was it? Titian, that 
might or might not be - perhaps he had only touched it. Daniel Doyce said 
perhaps he hadn't touched it, but Mr Meagles rather declined to overhear 
the remark.
When he had shown all his spoils, Mr Meagles took them into his own snug 
room overlooking the lawn, which was fitted up in part like a dressing-room 
and in part like an office, and in which, upon a kind of counter-desk, were 
a pair of brass scales for weighing gold, and a scoop for shovelling out 
money.
"Here they are, you see," said Mr Meagles. "I stood behind these two 
articles five-and-thirty years running, when I no more thought of gadding 
about than I now think of - staying at home. When I left the Bank for good, 
I asked for them, and brought them away with me. I mention it at once, or 
you might suppose that I sit in my counting-house (as Pet says I do), like 
the king in the poem of the four-and-twenty blackbirds, counting out my 
money."
Clennam's eyes had strayed to a natural picture on the wall, of two pretty 
little girls with their arms entwined. "Yes, Clennam," said Mr Meagles in a 
lower voice. "There they both are. It was taken some seventeen years ago. 
As I often say to Mother, they were babies then."
"Their names?" said Arthur.
"Ah, to be sure! You have never heard any name but Pet. Pet's name is 
Minnie; her sister's, Lillie."
"Should you have known, Mr Clennam, that one of them was meant for me?" 
asked Pet herself, now standing in the doorway.
"I might have thought that both of them were meant for you, both are still 
so like you. Indeed," said Clennam, glancing from the fair original to the 
picture and back, "I cannot even now say which is not your portrait."
"D'ye hear that, Mother?" cried Mr Meagles to his wife, who had followed 
her daughter. "It's always the same, Clennam; nobody can decide. The child 
to your left is Pet."
The picture happened to be near a looking-glass. As Arthur looked at it 
again, he saw, by the reflection of the mirror, Tattycoram stop in passing 
outside the door, listen to what was going on, and pass away with an angry 
and contemptuous frown upon her face that changed its beauty into ugliness.
"But come!" said Mr Meagles. "You have had a long walk, and will be glad to 
get your boots off. As to Daniel here, I suppose he'd never think of taking 
his boots off, unless we showed him a boot-jack."
"Why not?" asked Daniel, with a significant smile at Clennam.
"Oh! You have so many things to think about," returned Mr Meagles, clapping 
him on the shoulder, as if his weakness must not be left to itself on any 
account. "Figures, and wheels, and cogs, and levers, and screws, and 
cylinders, and a thousand things."
"In my calling," said Daniel, amused, "the greater usually includes the 
less. But never mind, never mind! Whatever pleases you, pleases me."
Clennam could not help speculating, as he seated himself in his room by the 
fire, whether there might be in the breast of this honest, affectionate, 
and cordial Mr Meagles, any microscopic portion of the mustard-seed that 
had sprung up into the great tree of the Circumlocution Office. His curious 
sense of a general superiority to Daniel Doyce, which seemed to be founded, 
not so much on anything in Doyce's personal character, as on the mere fact 
of his being an originator and a man out of the beaten track of other men, 
suggested the idea. It might have occupied him until he went down to dinner 
an hour afterwards, if he had not had another question to consider, which 
had been in his mind so long ago as before he was in quarantine at 
Marseilles, and which had now returned to it, and was very urgent with it. 
No less a question than this: Whether he should allow himself to fall in 
love with Pet?
He was twice her age. (He changed the leg he had crossed over the other, 
and tried the calculation again, but could not bring out the total at 
less.) He was twice her age. Well! He was young in appearance, young in 
health and strength, young in heart. A man was certainly not old at forty; 
and many men were not in circumstances to marry, or did not marry, until 
they attained that time of life. On the other hand, the question was, not 
what he thought of the point, but what she thought of it.
He believed that Mr Meagles was disposed to entertain a ripe regard for 
him, and he knew that he had a sincere regard for Mr Meagles and his good 
wife. He could foresee that to relinquish this beautiful only child, of 
whom they were so fond, to any husband, would be a trial of their love 
which perhaps they never yet had had the fortitude to contemplate. But the 
more beautiful and winning and charming she, the nearer they must always be 
to the necessity of approaching it. And why not in his favour, as well as 
in another's?
When he had got so far, it came again into his head, that the question was, 
not what they thought of it but what she thought of it.
Arthur Clennam was a retiring man, with a sense of many deficiencies; and 
he so exalted the merits of the beautiful Minnie in his mind, and depressed 
his own, that when he pinned himself to this point, his hopes began to fail 
him. He came to the final resolution, as he made himself ready for dinner, 
that he would not allow himself to fall in love with Pet.
They were only five, at a round table, and it was very pleasant indeed. 
They had so many places and people to recal, and they were all so easy and 
cheerful together (Daniel Doyce either sitting out like an amused spectator 
at cards, or coming in with some shrewd little experiences of his own, when 
it happened to be to the purpose), that they might have been together 
twenty times, and not have known so much of one another.
"And Miss Wade," said Mr Meagles, after they had recalled a number of 
fellow-travellers. "Has anybody seen Miss Wade?"
"I have," said Tattycoram.
She had brought a little mantle which her young mistress had sent for, and 
was bending over her, putting it on, when she lifted up her dark eyes, and 
made this unexpected answer.
"Tatty!" her young mistress exclaimed. "You seen Miss Wade? - where?"
"Here, miss," said Tattycoram.
"How?"
An impatient glance from Tattycoram seemed, as Clennam saw it, to answer 
"With my eyes!" But her only answer in words was: "I met her near the 
church."
"What was she doing there I wonder!" said Mr Meagles. "Not going to it, I 
should think."
"She had written to me first," said Tattycoram.
"Oh, Tatty!" murmured her mistress, "take your hands away. I feel as if 
some one else was touching me!"
She said it in a quick involuntary way, but half playfully, and not more 
petulantly or disagreeably than a favourite child might have done, who 
laughed next moment. Tattycoram set her full red lips together, and crossed 
her arms upon her bosom.
"Did you wish to know, sir," she said, looking at Mr Meagles, "what Miss 
Wade wrote to me about?"
"Well, Tattycoram," returned Mr Meagles, "since you ask the question, and 
we are all friends here, perhaps you may as well mention it, if you are so 
inclined."
"She knew, when we were travelling, where you lived," said Tattycoram, "and 
she had seen me not quite - not quite -"
"Not quite in a good temper, Tattycoram?" suggested Mr Meagles shaking his 
head at the dark eyes with a quiet caution. "Take a little time - count 
five-and-twenty, Tattycoram."
She pressed her lips together again, and took a long deep breath.
"So she wrote to me to say that if I ever felt myself hurt," she looked 
down at her young mistress, "or found myself worried," she looked down at 
her again, "I might go to her and be considerately treated. I was to think 
of it, and could speak to her by the church. so I went there to thank her."
"Tatty," said her young mistress, putting her hand up over her shoulder 
that the other might take it, "Miss Wade almost frightened me when we 
parted, and I scarcely liked to think of her just now as having to been so 
near me, without my knowing it, Tatty, dear!"
Tatty stood for a moment, immovable.
"Hey?" cried Mr Meagles. "Count another five-and-twenty, Tattycoram."
She might have counted a dozen, when she bent and out her lips to the 
caressing hand. It patted her cheek, as it touched the owner's beautiful 
curls, and Tattycoram went away.
"Now, there," said Mr Meagles, softly, as he gave a turn to the dumb-waiter 
on his right hand, to twirl the sugar towards himself. "There's a girl who 
might be lost and ruined, if she wasn't among practical people. Mother and 
I know, solely from being practical, that there are times when that girl's 
whole nature seems to roughen itself against seeing us so bound up in Pet. 
No father and mother were bound up in her, poor soul. I don't like to think 
of the way in which that unfortunate child, with all that passion and 
protest in her, feels when she hears the Fifth Commandment on a Sunday. I 
am always inclined to call out, Church, Count five-and-twenty, Tattycoram."
Besides his dumb-waiter, Mr Meagles had two other not dumb-waiters, in the 
persons of two parlour-maids, with rosy faces and bright eyes, who were a 
highly ornamental part of the table decoration. "And why not, you see?" 
said Mr Meagles, on this head. "As I always say to Mother, why not have 
something pretty to look at, if you have anything at all?"
A certain Mrs Tickit, who was Cook and Housekeeper when the family were at 
home, and Housekeeper only when the family were away, completed the 
establishment. Mr Meagles regretted that the nature of the duties in which 
she was engaged, rendered Mrs Tickit unpresentable at present, but hoped to 
introduce her to the new visitor tomorrow. She was an important part of the 
cottage, he said, and all his friends knew her. That was her picture up in 
the corner. When they went away, she always put on the silk gown and the 
jet-black row of curls represented in that portrait (her hair was reddish-
grey in the kitchen), established herself in the breakfast room, put her 
spectacles between two particular leaves of Doctor Buchan's Domestic 
Medicine, and sat looking over the blind all day until they came back 
again. It was supposed that no persuasion could be invented which would 
induce Mrs Tickit to abandon her post at the blind, however long their 
absence, or to dispense with the attendance of Dr Buchan; the lucubrations 
of which learned practitioner, Mr Meagles implicitly believed she had never 
yet consulted to the extent of one word in her life.
In the evening, they played an old-fashioned rubber; and Pet sat looking 
over her father's hand, or singing to herself by fits and starts at the 
piano. She was a spoilt child; but how could she be otherwise? Who could be 
much with so pliable and beautiful a creature, and not yield to her 
endearing influence? Who could pass an evening in the house, and not love 
her for the grace and charm of her very presence in the room? This was 
Clennam's reflection, notwithstanding the final conclusion at which he had 
arrived upstairs.
In making it, he revoked. "Why, what are you thinking of, my good sir?" 
asked the astonished Mr Meagles, who was his partner. "I beg your pardon. 
Nothing," returned Clennam. "Think of something, next time; that's a dear 
fellow," said Mr Meagles. Pet laughingly believed he had been thinking of 
Miss Wade. "Why of Miss Wade, Pet?" asked her father. "Why, indeed!" said 
Arthur Clennam. Pet coloured a little, and went to the piano again.
As they broke up for the night, Arthur overheard Doyce ask his host if he 
could give him half-an-hour's conversation before breakfast in the morning? 
The host replying willingly, Arthur lingered behind a moment, having his 
own word to add on that topic.

"Mr Meagles," he said, on their being left alone, "do you remember when you 
advised me to go straight to London?"
"Perfectly well."
"And when you gave me some other good advice, which I needed at that time?"
"I won't say what it was worth," answered Mr Meagles; "but of course I 
remember our being very pleasant and confidential together."
"I have acted on your advice; and having diembarrassed myself of an 
occupation that was painful to me for many reasons, wish to devote myself 
and what means I have, to another pursuit."
"Right! You can't do it too soon," said Mr Meagles.
"Now, as I came down today, I found that your friend, Mr Doyce, is looking 
for a partner in his business - not a partner in his mechanical knowledge, 
but in the ways and means of turning the business arising from it to the 
best account."
"Just so," said Mr Meagles, with his hands in his pockets, and with the old 
business expression of face that had belonged to the scales and scoop.
"Mr Doyce mentioned incidentally, in the course of our conversation, that 
he was going to take your valuable advice on the subject of finding such a 
partner. If you should think our views and opportunities at all likely to 
coincide, perhaps you will let him know my available position. I speak, of 
course, in ignorance of the details, and they may be unsuitable on both 
sides."
"No doubt, no doubt," said Mr Meagles, with the caution belonging to the 
scales and scoop.
"But they will be a question of figures and accounts -"
"Just so, just so," said Mr Meagles, with the arithmetical solidity 
belonging to the scales and scoop.
" - And I shall be glad to enter into the subject, provided Mr Doyce 
responds, and you think well of it. If you will at present, therefore, 
allow me to place it in your hands, you will much oblige me."
"Clennam, I accept the trust with readiness," said Mr Meagles. "And without 
anticipating any of the points which you, as a man of business, have of 
course reserved, I am free to say to you that I think something may come of 
this. Of one thing you may be perfectly certain. Daniel is an honest man."
"I am so sure of it, that I have promptly made up my mind to speak to you."
"You must guide him, you know; you must steer him; you must direct him; he 
is one of a crotchetty sort," said Mr Meagles, evidently meaning nothing 
more than that he did new things and went new ways, "but he is as honest as 
the sun, and so good night!"
Clennam went back to his room, sat down again before his fire, and made up 
his mind that he was glad he had resolved not to fall in love with Pet. She 
was so beautiful, so amiable, so apt to receive any true impression given 
to her gentle nature and her innocent heart, and make the man who should be 
so happy as to communicate it, the most fortunate and enviable of all men, 
that he was very glad indeed he had come to that conclusion.
But, as this might have been a reason for coming to the opposite 
conclusion, he followed out the theme again a little way in his mind. To 
justify himself, perhaps.
"Suppose that a man," so his thoughts ran, "who had been of age some twenty 
years or so; who was a diffident man, from the circumstances of his youth; 
who was rather a grave man, from the tenor of his life; who knew himself to 
be deficient in many little engaging qualities which he admired in others, 
from having been long in a distant region, with nothing softening near him; 
who had no kind sisters to present to her; who had no congenial home to 
make her known in; who was a stranger in the land; who had not a fortune to 
compensate, in any measure, for these defects; who had nothing in his 
favour but his honest love and his general wish to do right - suppose such 
a man were to come to this house, and were to yield to the captivation of 
this charming girl, and were to persuade himself that he could hope to win 
her; what a weakness it would be!"
He softly opened his window, and looked out upon the serene river. Year 
after year so much allowance for the drifting of the ferry-boat, so many 
miles an hour the flowing of the stream, here the rushes, there the lilies, 
nothing uncertain or unquiet.
Why should he be vexed or sore at heart? It was not his weakness that he 
had imagined. It was nobody's, nobody's within his knowledge, why should it 
trouble him? And yet it did trouble him. And he thought - who has not 
thought for a moment, sometimes - that it might be better to flow away 
monotonously, like the river, and to compound for its insensibility to 
happiness with its insensibility to pain.


Chapter 17

Nobody's Rival

Before breakfast in the morning, Arthur walked out to look about him. As 
the morning was fine, and he had an hour on his hands, he crossed the river 
by the ferry, and strolled along a footpath through some meadows. When he 
came back to the towing-path, he found the ferry-boat on the opposite side, 
and a gentleman hailing it and waiting to be taken over.
This gentleman looked barely thirty. He was well dressed, of a sprightly 
and gay appearance, a well-knit figure, and a rich dark complexion. As 
Arthur came over the stile and down to the water's edge, the lounger 
glanced at him for a moment, and then resumed his occupation of idly 
tossing stones into the water with his foot. There was something in his way 
of spurning them out of their places with his heel, and getting them into 
the required position, that Clennam thought had an air of cruelty in it. 
Most of us have more or less frequently derived a similar impression from a 
man's manner of doing some very little thing: plucking a flower, clearing 
away an obstacle, or even destroying an insentient object.
The gentleman's thoughts were preoccupied, as his face showed, and he took 
no notice of a fine Newfoundland dog, who watched him attentively, and 
watched every stone too, in its turn, eager to spring into the river on 
receiving his master's sign. The ferry-boat came over, however, without his 
receiving any sign, and when it grounded his master took him by the collar 
and walked him into it.
"Not this morning," he said to the dog. "You won't do for ladies' company, 
dripping wet. Lie down."
Clennam followed the man and the dog into the boat, and took his seat. The 
dog did as he was ordered. The man remained standing, with his hands in his 
pockets, and towered between Clennam and the prospect. Man and dog both 
jumped lightly out as soon as they touched the other side, and went away. 
Clennam was glad to be rid of them.
The church clock struck the breakfast hour, as he walked up the little lane 
by which the garden-gate was approached. The moment he pulled the bell, a 
deep loud barking assailed him from within the wall.
"I heard no dog last night," thought Clennam. The gate was opened by one of 
the rosy maids, and on the lawn were the Newfoundland dog and the man.
"Miss Minnie is not down yet, gentlemen," said the blushing portress, as 
they all came together in the garden. Then she said to the master of the 
dog, "Mr Clennam, sir," and tripped away.
"Odd enough, Mr Clennam, that we should have met just now," said the man. 
Upon which the dog became mute. "Allow me to introduce myself - Henry 
Gowan. A pretty place this, and looks wonderfully well this morning!"
The manner was easy, and the voice agreeable; but still Clennam thought, 
that if he had not made that decided resolution to avoid falling in love 
with Pet, he would have taken a dislike to this Henry Gowan.
"It's new to you, I believe?" said this Gowan, when Arthur had extolled the 
place.
"Quite new. I made acquaintance with it only yesterday afternoon."
"Ah! Of course this is not its best aspect. It used to look charming in the 
spring, before they went away last time. I should like you to have seen it 
then."
But for that resolution so often recalled, Clennam might have wished him in 
the crater of Mount Etna, in return for this civility.
"I have had the pleasure of seeing it under many circumstances during the 
last three years, and it's - a Paradise."
It was (at least it might have been, always excepting for that wise 
resolution) like his dexterous impudence to call it a Paradise. He only 
called it a Paradise because he first saw her coming, and so made her out 
within her hearing to be an angel, Confusion to him! 
And ah, how beaming she looked, and how glad! How she caressed the dog, and 
how the dog knew her! How expressive that heightened colour in her face, 
that fluttered manner, her downcast eyes, her irresolute happiness! When 
had Clennam seen her look like this? Not that there was any reason why he 
might, could, would, or should have ever seen her look like this, or that 
he had ever hoped for himself to see her look like this; but still - when 
had he ever known her to do it! 
He stood at a little distance from them. This Gowan, when he had talked 
about a Paradise, had gone up to her and taken her hand. The dog had put 
his great paws on her arm and laid his head against her dear bosom. She had 
laughed and welcomed them, and made far too much of the dog, far, far, too 
much - that is to say, supposing there had been any third person looking on 
who loved her.
She disengaged herself now, and came to Clennam, and put her hand in his 
and wished him good morning, and gracefully made as if she would take his 
arm and be escorted into the house. This Gowan had no objection. No, he 
knew he was too safe.
There was a passing cloud on Mr Meagles's good-humoured face, when they all 
three (four, counting the dog, and he was the most objectionable but one of 
the party) came in to breakfast. Neither it, nor the touch of uneasiness on 
Mrs Meagles as she directed her eyes towards it, was unobserved by Clennam.
"Well, Gowan," said Mr Meagles, even suppressing a sigh; "how goes the 
world with you this morning?"
"Much as usual, sir. Lion and I being determined not to waste anything of 
our weekly visit, turned out early, and came over from Kingston, my present 
headquarters, where I am making a sketch or two." Then he told how he had 
met Mr Clennam at the ferry, and they had come over together.
"Mrs Gowan is well, Henry?" said Mrs Meagles. (Clennam became attentive.)
"My mother is quite well, thank you." (Clennam became inattentive.) "I have 
taken the liberty of making an addition to your family dinner-party today, 
which I hope will not be inconvenient to you or to Mr Meagles. I couldn't 
very well get out of it," he explained, turning to the latter. "The young 
fellow wrote to propose himself to me; and as he is well connected, I 
thought you would not object to my transferring him here."
"Who is the young fellow?" asked Mr Meagles with peculiar complacency.
"He is one of the Barnacles. Tite Barnacles. son, Clarence Barnacle, who is 
in his father's Department. I can at least guarantee that the river shall 
not suffer from his visit. He won't set it on fire."
"Aye, aye?" said Meagles. "A Barnacle is he? We know something of that 
family, eh Dan? By George, they are at the top of the tree, though! Let me 
see. What relation will this young fellow be to Lord Decimus now? His 
Lordship married, in seventeen ninety-seven, Lady Jemima Bilberry, who was 
the second daughter by the third marriage - no! There I am wrong! That was 
Lady Seraphina - Lady Jemima was the first daughter by the second marriage 
of the fifteenth Earl of Stiltstalking with The Honourable Clementina 
Toozellem. Very well. Now this young fellow's father married a 
Stiltstalking and his father married his cousin who was a Barnacle. The 
father of that father who married a Barnacle, married a Joddleby. - I am 
getting a little too far back, Gowan; I want to make out what relation this 
young fellow is to Lord Decimus."
"That's easily stated. His father is nephew to Lord Decimus."
"Nephew - to - Lord - Decimus," Mr Meagles luxuriously repeated with his 
eyes shut, that he might have nothing to distract him from the full flavour 
of the genealogical tree. "By George, you are right, Gowan. So he is."
"Consequently, Lord Decimus is his great uncle."
"But stop a bit!" said Mr Meagles, opening his eyes with a fresh discovery. 
"Then, on the mother's side, Lady Stiltstalking is his great aunt."
"Of course she is."
"Aye, aye, aye?" said Mr Meagles, with much interest. "Indeed, indeed? We 
shall be glad to see him. We'll entertain him as well as we can, in our 
humble way; and we shall not starve him, I hope at all events."
In the beginning of this dialogue, Clennam had expected some great harmless 
outburst from Mr Meagles, like that which had made him burst out of the 
Circumlocution Office, holding Doyce by the collar. But his good friend had 
a weakness which none of us need go into the next street to find, and which 
no amount of Circumlocution experience could long subdue in him. Clennam 
looked at Doyce; but Doyce knew all about it beforehand, and looked at his 
plate, and made no sign, and said no word.
"I am much obliged to you," said Gowan, to conclude the subject. "Clarence 
is a great ass, but he is one of the dearest and best fellows that ever 
lived!"
It appeared, before the breakfast was over, that everybody whom this Gowan 
knew was either more or less of an ass, or more or less of a knave; but 
was, notwithstanding, the most loveable, the most engaging, the simplest, 
truest, kindest, dearest, best fellow that ever lived. The process by which 
this unvarying result was attained, whatever the premises, might have been 
stated by Mr Henry Gowan thus: "I claim to be always book-keeping, with a 
peculiar nicety, in every man's case, and posting up a careful little 
account of Good and Evil with him. I do this so conscientiously, that I am 
happy to tell you I find the most worthless of men to be the dearest old 
fellow too; and am in a condition to make the gratifying report, that there 
is much less difference than you are inclined to suppose between an honest 
man and a scoundrel." The effect of this cheering discovery happened to be, 
that while he seemed to be scrupulously finding good in most men, he did in 
reality lower it where it was, and set it up where it was not; but that was 
its only disagreeable or dangerous feature.
It scarcely seemed, however, to afford Mr Meagles as much satisfaction as 
the Barnacle genealogy had done. The cloud that Clennam had never seen upon 
his face before that morning, frequently overcast it again; and there was 
the same shadow of uneasy observation of him on the comely face of his 
wife. More than once or twice when Pet caressed the dog, it appeared to 
Clennam that her father was unhappy in seeing her do it; and, in one 
particular instance when Gowan stood on the other side of the dog, and bent 
his head at the same time, Arthur fancied that he saw tears rise to Mr 
Meagles's eyes as he hurried out of the room. It was either the fact too, 
or he fancied further, that Pet herself was not insensible to these little 
incidents; that she tried, with a more delicate affection than usual, to 
express to her good father how much she loved him; that it was on this 
account that she fell behind the rest, both as they went to church and as 
they returned from it, and took his arm. He could not have sworn but that 
as he walked alone in the garden afterwards he had an instantaneous glimpse 
of her in her father's room, clinging to both her parents with the greatest 
tenderness, and weeping on her father's shoulder.
The latter part of the day turning out wet, they were fain to keep the 
house, look over Mr Meagles's collection, and beguile the time with 
conversation. This Gowan had plenty to say for himself, and said it in an 
offhand and amusing manner. He appeared to be an artist by profession, and 
to have been at Rome some time; yet he had a slight, careless, amateur way 
with him - a perceptible limp, both in his devotion to art and his 
attainments - which Clennam could scarcely understand.
He applied to Daniel Doyce for help, as they stood together, looking out of 
window.
"You know Mr Gowan?" he said in a low voice.
"I have seen him here. Comes here every Sunday, when they are at home."
"An artist, I infer from what he says?"
"A sort of a one," said Daniel Doyce, in a surly tone.
"What sort of a one?" asked Clennam, with a smile.
"Why, he has sauntered into the Arts at a leisurely Pall-Mall pace," said 
Doyce, 'and I doubt if they care to be taken quite so coolly."
Pursuing his inquiries, Clennam found that the Gowan family were a very 
distant ramification of the Barnacles; and that the paternal Gowan, 
originally attached to a legation abroad, had been pensioned off as a 
Commissioner of nothing particular somewhere or other, and had died at his 
post with his drawn salary in his hand, nobly defending it to the last 
extremity. In consideration of this eminent public service, the Barnacle 
then in power had recommended the Crown to bestow a pension of two or three 
hundred a-year on his widow; to which the next Barnacle in power had added 
certain shady and sedate apartments in the Palace at Hampton Court, where 
the old lady still lived, deploring the degeneracy of the times, in company 
with several other old ladies of both sexes. Her son, Mr Henry Gowan, 
inheriting from his father, the Commissioner, that very questionable help 
in life, a very small independence, had been difficult to settle; the 
rather as public appointments chanced to be scarce, and his genius, during 
his earlier manhood, was of that exclusively agricultural character which 
applies itself to the cultivation of wild oats. At last he had declared 
that he would become a Painter; partly because he had always had an idle 
knack that way, and partly to grieve the souls of the Barnacles-in-chief 
who had not provided for him. So it had come to pass successively, first, 
that several distinguished ladies had been frightfully shocked; then, that 
portfolios of his performances had been handed about o'nights, and declared 
with ecstasy to be perfect Claudes, perfect Cuyps, perfect phaenomena; 
then, that Lord Decimus had bought his picture, and had asked the President 
and Council to dinner at a blow, and had said, with his own magnificent 
gravity, "Do you know, there appears to me to be really immense merit in 
that work?" and, in short, that people of condition had absolutely taken 
pains to bring him into fashion. But, somehow it had all failed. The 
prejudiced public had stood out against it obstinately. They had determined 
to believe that in every service except their own, a man must qualify 
himself, by striving early and late, and by working heart and soul, might 
and main. So now Mr Gowan, like that worn-out old coffin which never was 
Mahomet's nor anybody else's hung midway between two points: jaundiced and 
jealous as to the one he had left: jaundiced and jealous as to the other he 
couldn't reach.
Such was the substance of Clennam's discoveries concerning him, made that 
rainy Sunday afternoon and afterwards.
About an hour or so after dinner time, Young Barnacle appeared, attended by 
his eyeglass; in honour of whose family connections, Mr Meagles had 
cashiered the pretty parlour-maids for the day, and placed on duty in their 
stead two dingy men. Young Barnacle was in the last degree amazed and 
disconcerted at sight of Arthur, and had murmured involuntarily, "Look 
here! - Upon my soul, you know!" before his presence of mind returned.
Even then he was obliged to embrace the earliest opportunity of taking his 
friend into a window, and saying, in a nasal way that was a part of his 
general debility:
"I want to speak to you, Gowan. I say. Look here. Who is that fellow?"
"A friend of our host's. None of mine."
"He's a most ferocious Radical, you know," said Young Barnacle.
"Is he? How do you know?"
"Egod, sir, he was Pitching into our people the other day, in the most 
tremendous manner. Went up to our place and Pitched into my father to that 
extent that it was necessary to order him out. Came back to our department, 
and Pitched into me. Look here. You never saw such a fellow."
"What did he want?"
"Egod, sir," returned Young Barnacle, "He said he wanted to know, you know! 
Pervaded our department - without an appointment - and said he wanted to 
know!"
The stare of indignant wonder with which Young Barnacle accompanied this 
disclosure, would have strained his eyes injuriously but for the opportune 
relief of dinner. Mr Meagles (who had been extremely solicitous to know how 
his uncle and aunt were) begged him to conduct Mrs Meagles to the dining-
room. And when he sat on Mrs Meagles's right hand, Mr Meagles looked as 
gratified as if his whole family were there.
All the natural charm of the previous day was gone. The eaters of the 
dinner, like the dinner itself, were lukewarm, insipid, over-done - and all 
owing to this poor little dull Young Barnacle. Conversationless at any 
time, he was now the victim of a weakness special to the occasion, and 
solely referable to Clennam. He was under a pressing and continual 
necessity of looking at that gentleman, which occasioned his eyeglass to 
get into his soup, into his wine-glass, into Mrs Meagles's plate, to hang 
down his back like a bell-rope, and be several times disgracefully restored 
to his bosom by one of the dingy men. Weakened in mind by his frequent 
losses of this instrument, and its determination not to stick in his eye, 
and more and more enfeebled in intellect every time he looked at the 
mysterious Clennam, he applied spoons to his eye, forks, and other foreign 
matters connected with the furniture of the dinner-table. His discovery of 
these mistakes greatly increased his difficulties, but never released him 
from the necessity of looking at Clennam. And whenever Clennam spoke, this 
ill-starred young man was clearly seized with a dread that he was coming, 
by some artful device, round to that point of wanting to know, you know.
It may be questioned, therefore, whether anyone but Mr Meagles had much 
enjoyment of the time. Mr Meagles, however, thoroughly enjoyed Young 
Barnacle. As a mere flask of the golden water in the tale became a full 
fountain when it was poured out, so Mr Meagles seemed to feel that this 
small spice of Barnacle imparted to his table the flavour of the whole 
family tree. In its presence, his frank, fine, genuine qualities paled; he 
was not so easy, he was not so natural, he was striving after something 
that did not belong to him, he was not himself. What a strange peculiarity 
on the part of Mr Meagles, and where should we find such another case! 
At last the wet Sunday wore itself out in a wet night; and Young Barnacle 
went home in a cab, feebly smoking; and the objectionable Gowan went away 
on foot, accompanied by the objectionable dog. Pet had taken the most 
amiable pains all day to be friendly with Clennam, but Clennam had been a 
little reserved since breakfast - that is to say, would have been, if he 
had loved her.
When he had gone to his own room, and had again thrown himself into the 
chair by the fire, Mr Doyce knocked at the door, candle in hand, to ask him 
how and at what hour he proposed returning on the morrow? After settling 
this question, he said a word to Mr Doyce about this Gowan - who would have 
run in his head a good deal, if he had been his rival.
"Those are not good prospects for a painter," said Clennam.
"No," returned Doyce.
Mr Doyce stood, chamber-candlestick in hand, the other hand in his pocket, 
looking hard at the flame of his candle, with a certain quiet perception in 
his face that they were going to say something more.
"I thought our good friend a little changed, and out of spirits after he 
came this morning?" said Clennam.
"Yes," returned Doyce.
"But not his daughter?" said Clennam. "No," said Doyce.
There was a pause on both sides. Mr Doyce, still looking at the flame of 
his candle, slowly resumed:
"The truth is, he has twice taken his daughter abroad, in the hope of 
separating her from Mr Gowan. He rather thinks she is disposed to like him, 
and he has painful doubts (I quite agree with him, as I dare say you do), 
of the hopefulness of such a marriage."
"There - " Clennam choked, and coughed, and stopped.
"Yes, you have taken cold," said Daniel Doyce. But without looking at him.
"There is an engagement between them, of course?" said Clennam airily.
"No, as I am told, certainly not. It has been solicited on the gentleman's 
part, but none has been made. Since their recent return, our friend had 
yielded to a weekly visit, but that is the utmost. Minnie would not deceive 
her father and mother. You have travelled with them, and I believe you know 
what a bond there is among them, extending even beyond this present life. 
All that there is between Miss Minnie and Mr Gowan, I have no doubt we 
see."
"Ah! We see enough!" cried Arthur.
Mr Doyce wished him Good Night, in the tone of a man who had heard a 
mournful, not to say despairing, exclamation, and who sought to infuse some 
encouragement and hope into the mind of the person by whom it had been 
uttered. Such tone was probably a part of his oddity, as one of a crotchety 
band; for how could he have heard anything of that kind, without Clennam's 
hearing it, too?
The rain fell heavily on the roof, and pattered on the ground, and dripped 
among the evergreens, and the leafless branches of the trees. The rain fell 
heavily, drearily. It was a night of tears.
If Clennam had not decided against falling in love with Pet; if he had had 
the weakness to do it; if he had, little by little, persuaded himself to 
set all the earnestness of his nature, all the might of his hope, and all 
the wealth of his matured character, on that cast; if he had done this, and 
found that all was lost; he would have been, that night, unutterably 
miserable. As it was -
As it was, the rain fell heavily, drearily.


Chapter 18

Little Dorrit's Lover

Little Dorrit had not attained her twenty-second birthday without finding a 
lover. Even in the shallow Marshalsea, the ever young Archer shot off a few 
featherless arrows now and then from a mouldy bow, and winged a Collegian 
or two.
Little Dorrit's lover, however, was not a Collegian. He was the sentimental 
son of a turnkey. His father hoped, in the fulness of time, to leave him 
the inheritance of an unstained key; and had from his early youth 
familiarised him with the duties of his office, and with an ambition to 
retain the prison-lock in the family. While the succession was yet in 
abeyance, he assisted his mother in the conduct of a snug tobacco business 
round the corner of Horsemonger Lane (his father being a non-resident 
turnkey), which could usually command a neat connection within the College 
walls.
Years agone, when the object of his affections was wont to sit in her 
little armchair, by the high Lodge-fender, Young John (family name, 
Chivery), a year older than herself, had eyed her with admiring wonder. 
When he had played with her in the yard, his favourite game had been to 
counterfeit locking her up in corners, and to counterfeit letting her out 
for real kisses. When he grew tall enough to peep through the keyhole of 
the great lock of the main door, he had divers times set down his father's 
dinner, or supper, to get on as it might on the outer side thereof, while 
he stood taking cold in one eye by dint of peeping at her through that airy 
perspective.
If Young John had ever slackened in his truth in the less penetrable days 
of his boyhood, when youth is prone to wear its boots unlaced and is 
happily unconscious of digestive organs, he had soon strung it up again and 
screwed it tight. At nineteen, his hand had inscribed in chalk on that part 
of the wall which fronted her lodging, on the occasion of her birthday, 
"Welcome, sweet nursling of the Fairies! At twenty-three, the same hand 
falteringly presented cigars on Sundays to the Father of the Marshalsea, 
and Father of the queen of his soul.
Young John was small of stature, with rather weak legs and very weak light 
hair. One of his eyes (perhaps the eye that used to peep through the 
keyhole) was also weak, and looked larger than the other, as if it couldn't 
collect itself. Young John was gentle likewise. But he was great of soul. 
Poetical, expansive, faithful.
Though too humble before the ruler of his heart to be sanguine, Young John 
had considered the object of his attachment in all its lights and shades. 
Following it out to blissful results, he had descried, without self-
commendation, a fitness in it. Say things prospered, and they were united. 
She, the child of the Marshalsea; he, the lock-keeper. There was a fitness 
in that. Say he became a resident turnkey. She would officially succeed to 
the chamber she had rented so long. There was a beautiful propriety in 
that. It looked over the wall if you stood on tip-toe; and, with a trellis-
work of scarlet beans and a canary or so, would become a very Arbour. There 
was a charming idea in that. Then, being all in all to one another, there 
was even an appropriate grace in the lock. With the world shut out (except 
that part of it which would be shut in); with its troubles and disturbances 
only known to them by hearsay, as they would be described by the pilgrims 
tarrying with them on their way to the Insolvent Shrine; with the Arbour 
above, and the Lodge below; they would glide down the stream of time, in 
pastoral domestic happiness. Young John drew tears from his eyes by 
finishing the picture with a tombstone in the adjoining churchyard, close 
against the prison wall, bearing the following touching inscription: 
"Sacred to the Memory of JOHN CHIVERY, Sixty years Turnkey, and fifty years 
Head Turnkey, Of the neighbouring Marshalsea, Who departed this life, 
universally respected, on the thirty-first of December, One thousand eight 
hundred and eighty-six, Aged eighty-three years. Also of his truly beloved 
and truly loving wife, AMY, whose maiden name was DORRIT, Who survived his 
loss not quite forty-eight hours, And who breathed her last in the 
Marshalsea aforesaid. There she was born, There she lived, There she died."
The Chivery parents were not ignorant of their son's attachment - indeed it 
had, on some exceptional occasions, thrown him into a state of mind that 
had impelled him to conduct himself with irascibility towards the 
customers, and damage the business - but they, in their turns, had worked 
it out to desirable conclusions. Mrs Chivery, a prudent woman, had desired 
her husband to take notice that their John's prospects of the Lock would 
certainly be strengthened by an alliance with Miss Dorrit, who had herself 
a kind of claim upon the College, and was much respected there. Mrs Chivery 
had desired her husband to take notice that if, on the one hand, their John 
had means and a post of trust, on the other hand, Miss Dorrit had family; 
and that her (Miss Chivery's) sentiment was, that two halves made a whole. 
Mrs Chivery, speaking as a mother and not as a diplomatist, had then, from 
a different point of view, desired her husband to recollect that their John 
had never been strong, and that his love had fretted and worritted him 
enough as it was, without his being driven to do himself a mischief, as 
nobody couldn't say he wouldn't be if he was crossed. These arguments had 
so powerfully influenced the mind of Mr Chivery, who was a man of few 
words, that he had, on sundry Sunday mornings, given his boy what he termed 
"a lucky touch," signifying that he considered such commendation of him to 
Good Fortune, preparatory to his that day declaring his passion and 
becoming triumphant. But Young John had never taken courage to make the 
declaration; and it was principally on these occasions that he had returned 
excited to the tobacco shop, and flown at the customers.
In this affair, as in every other, Little Dorrit herself was the last 
person considered. Her brother and sister were aware of it, and attained a 
sort of station by making a peg of it on which to air the miserably ragged 
old fiction of the family gentility. Her sister asserted the family 
gentility, by flouting the poor swain as he loitered about the prison for 
glimpses of his dear. Tip asserted the family gentility, and his own, by 
coming out in the character of the aristocratic brother, and loftily 
swaggering in the little skittle ground respecting seizures by the scruff 
of the neck, which there were looming probabilities of some gentleman 
unknown executing on some little puppy not mentioned. These were not the 
only members of the Dorrit family who turned it to account. No, no. The 
Father of the Marshalsea was supposed to know nothing about the matter, of 
course: his poor dignity could not see so low. But he took the cigars on 
Sundays, and was glad to get them; and sometimes even condescended to walk 
up and down the yard with the donor (who was proud and hopeful then), and 
benignantly to smoke one in his society. With no less readiness and 
condescension did he receive attentions from Chivery Senior, who always 
relinquished his armchair and newspaper to him, when he came into the Lodge 
during one of his spells of duty; and who had even mentioned to him, that 
if he would like at any time after dusk, quietly to step out into the 
forecourt and take a look at the street, there was not much to prevent him. 
If he did not avail himself of this latter civility, it was only because he 
had lost the relish for it; inasmuch as he took everything else he could 
get, and would say at times, "Extremely civil person, Chivery; very 
attentive man and very respectful. Young Chivery, too; really almost with a 
delicate perception of one's position here. A very well conducted family 
indeed, the Chiveries. Their behaviour gratifies me."
The devoted Young John all this time regarded the family with reverence. He 
never dreamed of disputing their pretensions, but did homage to the 
miserable Mumbo Jumbo they paraded. As to resenting any affront from her 
brother, he would have felt, even if he had not naturally been of a most 
pacific disposition, that to wag his tongue or lift his hand against that 
sacred gentleman would be an unhallowed act. He was sorry that his noble 
mind should take offence; still, he felt the fact to be not incompatible 
with its nobility, and sought to propitiate and conciliate that gallant 
soul. Her father, a gentleman in misfortune - a gentleman of a fine spirit 
and courtly manners, who always bore with him - he deeply honoured. Her 
sister, he considered somewhat vain and proud, but a young lady of infinite 
accomplishments, who could not forget the past. It was an instinctive 
testimony to Little Dorrit's worth, and difference from all the rest, that 
the poor young fellow honoured and loved her for being simply what she was.
The tobacco business round the corner of Horsemonger Lane was carried on in 
a rural establishment one story high, which had the benefit of the air from 
the yards of Horsemonger Lane Jail, and the advantage fo a retired walk 
under the wall of that pleasant establishment. The business was of too 
modest a character to support a lifesize Highlander, but it maintained a 
little one on a bracket on the doorpost, who looked like a fallen Cherub 
that had found it necessary to take to a kilt.
From the portal thus decorated, one Sunday after an early dinner of baked 
viands, Young John issued forth on his usual Sunday errand; not empty-
handed, but with his offering of cigars. He was neatly attired in a plum-
coloured coat, with as large a collar of black velvet as his figure could 
carry; a silken waistcoat, bedecked with golden sprigs; a chaste neck-
kerchief much in vogue at that day, representing a preserve of lilac 
pheasants on a buff ground; pantaloons so highly decorated with side-
stripes, that each leg was a three-stringed lute; and a hat of state, very 
high and hard. When the prudent Mrs Chivery perceived that in addition to 
these adornments her John carried a pair of white kid gloves, and a cane 
like a little finger-post, surmounted by an ivory hand marshalling him the 
way that he should go; and when she saw him, in this heavy marching order, 
turn the corner to the right; she remarked to Mr Chivery, who was at home 
at the time, that she thought she knew which way the wind blew.
The Collegians were entertaining a considerable number of visitors that 
Sunday afternoon, and their Father kept his room for the purpose of 
receiving presentations. After making the tour of the yard, Little Dorrit's 
lover with a hurried heart went upstairs, and knocked with his knuckles at 
the Father's door.
"Come in, come in!" said a gracious voice. The Father's voice, her 
father's, the Marshalsea's father's. He was seated in his black velvet cap, 
with his newspaper, three-and-sixpence accidentally left on the table, and 
two chairs arranged. Everything prepared for holding his Court.
"Ah, young John! How do you do, how do you do?"
"Pretty well, I thank you, sir. I hope you are the same."
"Yes, John Chivery; yes. Nothing to complain of."
"I have taken the liberty, sir of -"
"Eh?" The Father of the Marshalsea always lifted up his eyebrows at this 
point, and became amiably distraught and smilingly absent in mind.
" - A few cigars, sir."
"Oh!" (For the moment, excessively surprised.) "Thank you, Young John, 
thank you. But really, I am afraid I am too - No? Well then, I will say no 
more about it. Put them on the mantel-shelf, if you please, Young John. And 
sit down, sit down. You are not a stranger, John."
"Thank you, sir, I am sure - Miss;" here Young John turned the great hat 
round and round upon his left hand, like a slowly twirling mouse cage; 
"Miss Amy quite well, sir?"
"Yes, John, yes; very well. She is out."
"Indeed, sir!"
"Yes, John. Miss Amy is gone for an airing. My young people all go out a 
good deal. But at their time of life, it's natural, John."
"Very much so, I am sure, sir."
"An airing. An airing. Yes." He was blandly tapping his fingers on the 
table, and casting his eyes up at the window. "Amy has gone for an airing 
on the Iron Bridge. She has become quite partial to the Iron Bridge of 
late, and seems to like to walk there better than anywhere." He returned to 
conversation. "Your father is not on duty at present, I think, John?"
"No, Sir, he comes on later in the afternoon." Another twirl of the great 
hat, and then Young John said, rising, "I am afraid I must wish you good 
day, sir."
"So soon? Good day, Young John. Nay, nay," with the utmost condescension, 
"Never mind your glove, John. Shake hands with it on. You are no stranger 
here, you know."
Highly gratified by the kindness of his reception, Young John descended the 
staircase. On his way down he met some collegians bringing up visitors to 
be presented, and at that moment Mr Dorrit happened to call over the 
bannisters with particular distinctness, "Much obliged to you for your 
little testimonial, John!"
Little Dorrit's lover very soon laid down his penny on the toll-plate of 
the Iron Bridge, and came upon it looking about him for the well-known and 
well-beloved figure. At first he feared she was not there; but as he walked 
on towards the Middlesex side, he saw her standing still, looking at the 
water. She was absorbed in thought, and he wondered what she might be 
thinking about. There were the piles of city roofs and chimneys, more free 
from smoke than on week-days; and there were the distant masts and 
steeples. Perhaps she was thinking about them.
Little Dorrit mused so long, and was so entirely preoccupied, that although 
her lover stood quiet for what he thought was a long time, and twice or 
thrice retired and came back again to the former spot, still she did not 
move. So, in the end, he made up his mind to go on, and seem to come upon 
her casually in passing, and speak to her. The place was quiet, and now or 
never was the time to speak to her.
He walked on, and she did not appear to hear his steps until he was close 
upon her. When he said "Miss Dorrit!" she started and fell back from him, 
with an expression in her face of fright and something like dislike that 
caused him unutterable dismay. She had often avoided him before - always, 
indeed, for a long, long while. She had turned away and glided off, so 
often, when she had seen him coming towards her, that the unfortunate Young 
John could not think it accidental. But he had hoped that it might be 
shyness, her retiring character, her foreknowledge of the state of his 
heart, anything short of aversion. Now, that momentary look had said, "You 
of all people! I would rather have seen any one on earth, than you!"
It was but a momentary look, inasmuch as she checked it and said in her 
soft little voice, "Oh, Mr John! Is it you?" But she felt what it had been, 
as he felt what it had been; and they stood looking at one another equally 
confused.
"Miss Amy, I am afraid I disturbed you by speaking to you."
"Yes, rather. I - I came here to be alone, and I thought I was."
"Miss Amy, I took the liberty of walking this way, because Mr Dorrit 
chanced to mention, when I called upon him just now, that you -"
She caused him more dismay than before by suddenly murmuring, O, father, 
father!" in a heart-rending tone, and turning her face away.
"Miss Amy, I hope I don't give you any uneasiness by naming Mr Dorrit. I 
assure you I found him very well, and in the best of spirits, and he showed 
me even more than his usual kindness; being so very kind as to say that I 
was not a stranger there, and in all ways gratifying me very much."
To the inexpressible consternation of her lover, Little Dorrit, with her 
hands to her averted face, and rocking herself where she stood, as if she 
were in pain, murmured, "O, father, how can you! O dear, dear father, how 
can you, can you, do it!"
The poor fellow stood gazing at her, overflowing with sympathy, but not 
knowing what to make of this, until, having taken out her handkerchief and 
put it to her still averted face, she hurried away. At first he remained 
stock still; then hurried after her.
"Miss Amy, pray! Will you have the goodness to stop a moment. Miss Amy, if 
it comes to that, let me go. I shall go out of my senses, if I have to 
think that I have driven you away like this."
His trembling voice and unfeigned earnestness brought Little Dorrit to a 
stop. "O, I don't know what to do," she cried, "I don't know what to do!"
To Young John, who had never seen her bereft of her quiet self-command, who 
had seen her from her infancy ever so reliable and self-suppressed, there 
was a shock in her distress, and in having to associate himself with it as 
its cause, that shook him from his great hat to the pavement. He felt it 
necessary to explain himself. He might be misunderstood - supposed to mean 
something, or to have done something, that had never entered into his 
imagination. He begged her to hear him explain himself, as the greatest 
favour she could show him.
"Miss Amy, I know very well that your family is far above mine. It were 
vain to conceal it. There never was a Chivery a gentleman that ever I heard 
of, and I will not commit the meanness of making a false representation on 
a subject so momentious. Miss Amy, I know very well that your high-souled 
brother, and likewise your spirited sister, spurn me from a heighth. What I 
have to do is to respect them, to wish to be admitted to their friendship, 
to look up at the eminence on which they are placed, from my lowlier 
station - for, whether viewed as tobacco or viewed as the lock, I well know 
it is lowly - and ever wish them well and happy."
There really was a genuineness in the poor fellow, and a contrast between 
the hardness of his hat and the softnets of his heart (albeit, perhaps, of 
his head, too), that was moving. Little Dorrit entreated him to disparage 
neither himself nor his station, and, above all things, to divest himself 
of any idea that she supposed hers to be superior. This gave him a little 
comfort.
"Miss Amy," he then stammered, "I have had for a long time - ages they seem 
to me - Revolving ages - a heart-cherished wish to say something to you. 
May I say it?"
Little Dorrit involuntarily started from his side again, with the faintest 
shadow of her former lock; conquering that, she went on at great speed half 
across the Bridge without replying:
"May I - Miss Amy, I but ask the question humbly - may I say it? I have 
been so unlucky already in giving you pain, without having any such 
intentions, before the holy Heavens! that there is no fear of my saying it 
unless I have your leave. I can be miserable alone, I can be cut up by 
myself; why should I also make miserable and cut up one, that I would fling 
myself off that parapet to give half a moment's joy to! Not that that's 
much to do, for I'd do it for twopence."
The mournfulness of his spirits, and the gorgeousness of his appearance, 
might have made him ridiculous, but that his delicacy made him respectable. 
Little Dorrit learnt from it what to do.
"If you please, John Chivery," she returned, trembling, but in a quiet way, 
"since you are so considerate as to ask me whether you shall say any more - 
if you please, no."
"Never, Miss Amy?"
"No, if you please. Never."
"Oh Lord!" gasped Young John.
"But perhaps, you will let me, instead, say something to you. I want to say 
it earnestly, and with as plain a meaning as it is possible to express. 
When you think of us, John - I mean my brother and sister, and me <illeg> 
don't think of us as being any different from the rest; for, whatever we 
once were (which I hardly know) we ceased to be long ago, and never can be 
any more. It will be much better for you, and much better for others, if 
you will do that, instead of what you are doing now."
Young John dolefully protested that he would try to bear it in mind, and 
would be heartily glad to do anything she wished.
"As to me," said Little Dorrit, "think as little of me as you can; the 
less, the better. When you think of me at all, John, let it only be as the 
child you have seen grow up in the prison with one set of duties always 
occupying her; as a weak, retired, contented, unprotected girl. I 
particularly want you to remember, that when I come outside the gate I am 
unprotected and solitary."
He would try to do anything she wished. But why did Miss Amy so much want 
him to remember that?
"Because," returned Little Dorrit, "I know I can then quite trust you not 
to forget today, and not to say anymore to me. You are so generous that I 
know I can trust to you for that; and I do, and I always will. I am going 
to show you, at once, that I fully trust you. I like this place where we 
are speaking, better than any place I know;" her slight colour had faded, 
but her lover thought he saw it coming back just then; "and I may be often 
here. I know it is only necessary for me to tell you so, to be quite sure 
that you will never come here again in search of me. And I am - quite 
sure!"
She might rely upon it, said Young John. He was a miserable wretch, but her 
word was more than a law for him.
"And good bye, John," said Little Dorrit. "And I hope you will have a good 
wife one day, and be a happy man. I am sure you will deserve to be happy, 
and you will be, John."
As she held out her hand to him with these words, the heart that was under 
the waistcoat of sprigs - mere slop-work, if the truth must be known - 
swelled to the size of the heart of a gentleman; and the poor common little 
fellow having no room to hold it, burst into tears.
"O don't cry;" said little Dorrit piteously. "Don't, don't! Good bye, John. 
God bless you!"
"Good bye. Miss Amy. Good bye!"
And so he left her: first observing that she sat down on the corner of a 
seat, and not only rested her little hand upon the rough wall, but laid her 
face against it too, as if her head were heavy, and her mind were sad.
It was an affecting illustration of the fallacy of human projects, to 
behold her lover with the great hat pulled over his eyes, the velvet collar 
turned up as if it rained, the plum-coloured coat buttoned to conceal the 
silken waistcoat of golden sprigs, and the little direction-post pointing 
inexorably home, creeping along by the worst back-streets, and composing as 
he went, the following new inscription for a tomb-stone in Saint George's 
Churchyard:
"Here lie the mortal remains of John Chivery, Never anything worth 
mentioning, Who died about the end of the year one thousand eight hundred 
and twenty-six, Of a broken heart, Requesting with his last breath that the 
word Amy might be inscribed over his ashes, Which was accordingly directed 
to be done, By his afflicted Parents."


Chapter 19

The Father Of The Marshalsea In Two Or Three Relations

The brothers William and Frederick Dorrit, walking up and down the College-
yard - of course on the aristocratic or Pump side, for the Father made it a 
point of his state to be chary of going among his children on the Poor 
side, except on Sunday mornings, Christmas Days, and other occasions of 
ceremony, in the observance whereof he was very punctual, and at which 
times he laid his hand upon the heads of their infants, and blessed those 
young Insolvents with a benignity that was highly edifying - the brothers, 
walking up and down the College-yard together, were a memorable sight. 
Frederick the free, was so humbled, bowed, withered, and faded; William the 
bond, was so courtly, condescending, and benevolently conscious of a 
position; that in this regard only, if in no other, the brothers were a 
spectacle to wonder at.
They walked up and down the yard, on the evening of Little Dorrit's Sunday 
interview with her lover on the Iron Bridge. The cares of state were over 
for that day, the Drawing Room had been well attended, several new 
presentations had taken place, the three-and-sixpence accidentally left on 
the table had accidentally increased to twelve shillings, and the Father of 
the Marshalsea refreshed himself with a whiff of cigar. As he walked up and 
down, affably accommodating his step to the shuffle of his brother, not 
proud in his superiority, but considerate of that poor creature, bearing 
with him, and breathing toleration of his infirmities in every little puff 
of smoke that issued from his lips and aspired to get over the spiked wall, 
he was a sight to wonder at.
His brother Frederick of the dim eye, palsied hand, bent form, and groping 
mind, submissively shuffled at his side, accepting his patronage as he 
accepted every incident of the labyrinthian world in which he had got lost. 
He held the, usual screwed bit of whity-brown paper in his hand, from which 
he ever and again unscrewed a spare pinch of snuff. That falteringly taken, 
he would glance at his brother not unadmiringly, put his hands behind him, 
and shuffle on so at his side until he took another pinch, or stood still 
to look about him - perchance suddenly missing his clarionet.
The College visitors were melting away as the shades of night drew on, but 
the yard was still pretty full, the Collegians being mostly out, seeing 
their friends to the Lodge. As the brothers paced the yard, William the 
bond looked about him to receive salutes, returned them by graciously 
lifting off his hat, and, with an engaging air, prevented Frederick the 
free from running against the company, or being jostled against the wall. 
The Collegians as a body were not easily impressible, but even they, 
according to their various ways of wondering, appeared to find in the two 
brothers a sight to wonder at.
"You are a little low this evening, Frederick," said the Father of the 
Marshalsea. "Anything the matter?"
"The matter?" He stared for a moment, and then dropped his head and eyes 
again. "No, William, no. Nothing is the matter."
"If you could be persuaded to smarten yourself up a little, Frederick -"
"Aye, aye!" said the old man hurriedly. "But I can't be. I can't be. Don't 
talk so. That's all over."
The Father of the Marshalsea glanced at a passing Collegian with whom he 
was on friendly terms, as who should say, "An enfeebled old man, this; but 
he is my brother, sir, my brother, and the voice of Nature is potent!" and 
steered his brother clear of the handle of the pump by the threadbare 
sleeve. Nothing would have been wanting to the perfection of his character 
as a fraternal guide, philosopher, and friend, if he had only steered his 
brother clear of ruin, instead of bringing it upon him
"I think, William," said the object of his affectionate consideration, 
"that I am tired, and will go home to bed."
"My dear Frederick," returned the other. "Don't let me detain you; don't 
sacrifice your inclinations to me."
"Late hours, and a heated atmosphere, and years, I suppose," said 
Frederick, "weaken me."
"My dear Frederick," returned the Father of the Marshalsea, "do you think 
you are sufficiently careful of yourself? Do you think your habits are as 
precise and methodical as - shall I say as mine are? Not to revert again to 
that little eccentricity which I mentioned just now, I doubt if you take 
air and exercise enough, Frederick. Here is the parade, always at your 
service. Why not use it more regularly than you do?"
"Hah!" sighed the other. "Yes, yes, yes, yes."
"But it is of no use saying yes yes, my dear Frederick," the Father of the 
Marshalshea in his mild wisdom persisted, "unless you act on that assent. 
Consider my case, Frederick. I am a kind of example. Necessity and time 
have taught me what to do. At certain stated hours of the day, you will 
find me on the parade, in my room, in the Lodge, reading the paper, 
receiving company, eating and drinking. I have impressed upon Amy during 
many years, that I must have my meals (for instance) punctually. Amy has 
grown up in a sense of the importance of these arrangements, and you know 
what a good girl she is."
The brother only sighed again, as he plodded dreamily along, "Hah! Yes, 
yes, yes, yes."
"My dear fellow," said the Father of the Marshalsea, laying his hand upon 
his shoulder, and mildly rallying him - mildly, because of his weakness, 
poor dear soul; "you said that before, and it does not express much, 
Frederick, even if it means much. I wish I could rouse you, my good 
Frederick, you want to be roused."
"Yes, William, yes. No doubt," returned the other, lifting his dim eyes to 
his face. "But I am not like you."
The Father of the Marshalsea said, with a shrug of modest self-
depreciation, "Oh? You might be like me, my dear Frederick; you might be, 
if you chose!" and forebore, in the magnanimity of his strength, to press 
his fallen brother further.
There was a deal of leave-taking going on in corners, as was usual on 
Sunday nights; and here and there in the dark, some poor woman, wife or 
mother, was weeping with a new Collegian. The time had been when the Father 
himself had wept, in the shades of that yard, as his own poor wife had 
wept. But it was many years ago; and now he was like a passenger aboard 
ship in a long voyage, who has recovered from sea-sickness, and is 
impatient of that weakness in the fresher passengers taken aboard at the 
last port. He was inclined to remonstrate, and to express his opinion that 
people who couldn't get on without crying, had no business there. In 
manner, if not in words, he always testified his displeasure at these 
interruptions of the general harmony, and it was so well understood, that 
delinquents usually withdrew if they were aware of him.
On this Sunday evening, he accompanied his brother to the gate with an air 
of endurance and clemency; being in a bland temper and graciously disposed 
to overlook the tears. In the flaring gaslight of the Lodge, several 
Collegians were basking: some taking leave of visitors, and some who had no 
visitors, watching the frequent turning of the key, and conversing with one 
another and with Mr Chivery. The paternal entrance made a sensation of 
course; and Mr Chivery, touching his hat (in a short manner though) with 
his key, hoped he found himself tolerable.
"Thank you, Chivery, quite well. And you?"
Mr Chivery said in a low growl, "O! he was all right." Which was his 
general way of acknowledging inquiries after his health, when a little 
sullen.
"I had a visit from Young John today, Chivery. And very smart he looked, I 
assure you."
So Mr Chivery had heard. Mr Chivery must confess, however, that his wish 
was that the boy didn't lay out so much money upon it. For what did it 
bring him in? It only brought him in Wexation. And he could get that 
anywhere, for nothing.
"How vexation, Chivery?" asked the benignant father.
"No odds," returned Mr Chivery. "Never mind. Mr Frederick going out?"
"Yes, Chivery, my brother is going home to bed. He is tired, and not quite 
well. Take care, Frederick, take care. Good night, my dear Frederick!"
Shaking hands with his brother, and touching his greasy hat to the company 
in the Lodge, Frederick slowly shuffled out of the door which Mr Chivery 
unlocked for him. The Father of the Marshalsea showed the amiable 
solicitude of a superior being that he should come to no harm.
"Be so kind as to keep the door open a moment, Chivery, that I may see him 
go along the passage and down the steps. Take care, Frederick! (He is very 
infirm.) Mind the steps. (He is so very absent.) Be careful how you cross, 
Frederick. (I really don't like the notion of his going wandering at large, 
he is so extremely liable to be run over.)"
With these words, and with a face expressive of many uneasy doubts and much 
anxious guardianship, he turned his regards upon the assembled company in 
the Lodge: so plainly indicating that his brother was to be pitied for not 
being under lock and key, that an opinion to that effect went round among 
the Collegians assembled.
But he did not receive it with unqualified assent; on the contrary, he 
said, No, gentlemen, no; let them not misunderstand him. His brother 
Frederick was much broken, no doubt, and it might be more comfortable to 
himself (the Father of the Marshalsea) to know that he was safe within the 
walls. Still, it must be remembered that to support an existence there 
during many years, required a certain combination of qualities - he did not 
say high qualities, but qualities - moral qualities. Now, had his brother 
Frederick that peculiar union of qualities? Gentlemen, he was a most 
excellent man, a most gentle, tender, and estimable man, with the 
simplicity of a child; but would he, though unsuited for most other places, 
do for that place? No; he said confidently, no! And, he said, Heaven forbid 
that Frederick should be there in any other character than in his present 
voluntary character! Gentlemen, whoever came to that College, to remain 
there a length of time, must have strength of character to go through a 
good deal and to come out of a good deal. Was his beloved brother Frederick 
that man? No. They saw him, even as it was, crushed. Misfortune crushed 
him. He had not power of recoil enough, not elasticity enough, to be a long 
time in such a place, and yet preserve his self-respect and feel conscious 
that he was a gentleman. Frederick had not (if he might use the expression) 
Power enough to see in any delicate little attentions and - and - 
Testimonials that he might under such circumstances receive, the goodness 
of human nature, the fine spirit animating the Collegians as a community, 
and at the same time no degradation to himself, and no depreciation of his 
claims as a gentleman. Gentlemen, God bless you! 
Such was the homily with which he improved and pointed the occasion to the 
company in the Lodge, before turning into the sallow yard again, and going 
with his own poor shabby dignity past the Collegian in the dressing-gown 
who had no coat, and past the Collegian in the sea-side slippers who had no 
shoes, and past the stout greengrocer Collegian in the corduroy knee-
breeches who had no cares, and past the lean clerk Collegian in buttonless 
black who had no hopes, up his own poor shabby staircase, to his own poor 
shabby room.
There, the table was laid for his supper, and his old grey gown was ready 
for him on his chair-back at the fire. His daughter put her little prayer-
book in her pocket - had she been praying for pity on all prisoners and 
captives! - and rose to welcome him.
Uncle had gone home, then? she asked him, as she changed his coat and gave 
him his black velvet cap. Yes, uncle had gone home. Had her father enjoyed 
his walk? Why, not much, Amy; not much. No? Did he not feel quite well?
As she stood behind him, leaning over his chair so lovingly, he looked with 
downcast eyes at the fire. An uneasiness stole over him that was like a 
touch of shame; and when he spoke, as he presently did, it was in an 
unconnected and embarrassed manner.
"Something, I - hem! - I don't know what, has gone wrong with Chivery. He 
is not - ha! - not nearly so obliging and attentive as usual tonight. It - 
hem! - it's a little thing, but it puts me out, my love. It's impossible to 
forget," turning his hands over and over, and looking closely at them, 
"that - hem! - that in such a life as mine, I am unfortunately dependent on 
these men for something, every hour in the day."
Her arm was on his shoulder, but she did not look in his face while he 
spoke. Bending her head she looked another way.
"I - hem! - I can't think, Amy, what has given Chivery offence. He is 
generally so - so very attentive and respectful. And tonight he was quite - 
quite short with me. Other people there too! Why, good Heaven! if I was to 
lose the support and recognition of Chivery and his brother officers, I 
might starve to death here." While he spoke, he was opening and shutting 
his hands like valves; so conscious all the time of that touch of shame, 
that he shrunk before his own knowledge of his meaning.
"I - ha! - I can't think what it's owing to. I am sure I cannot imagine 
what the cause of it is. There was a certain Jackson here once, a turnkey 
of the name of Jackson (I don't think you can remember him, my dear, you 
were very young), and - hem! - and he had a - brother, and this - young 
brother paid his addresses to - at least, did not go so far as to pay his 
addresses to - but admired - respectfully admired - the - not the daughter, 
the sister - of one of us; a rather distinguished Collegian; I may say, 
very much so. His name was Captain Martin; and he consulted me on the 
question whether it was necessary that his daughter - sister - should 
hazard offending the turnkey brother by being too - ha! - too plain with 
the other brother. Captain Martin was a gentleman and a man of honour, and 
I put it to him first to give me his - his own opinion. Captain Martin 
(highly respected in the army) then unhesitatingly said, that it appeared 
to him that his - hem! - sister was not called upon to understand the young 
man too distinctly, and that she might lead him on - I am doubtful whether 
lead him on was Captain Martin's exact expression; indeed I think he said 
tolerate him - on her father's - I should say, brother's - account. I 
hardly know how I have strayed into this story. I suppose it has been 
through being unable to account for Chivery; but as to the connection 
between the two, I don't see -"
His voice died away, as if she could not bear the pain of hearing him, and 
her hand had gradually crept to his lips. For a little while, there was a 
dead silence and stillness; and he remained shrunk in his chair, and she 
remained with her arm round his neck, and her head bowed down upon his 
shoulder.
His supper was cooking in a saucepan on the fire, and, when she moved, it 
was to make it ready for him on the table. He took his usual seat, she took 
hers, and he began his meal. They did not, as yet, look at one another. By 
little and little he began; laying down his knife and fork with a noise, 
taking things up sharply, biting at his bread as if he were offended with 
it, and in other similar ways showing that he was out of sorts. At length 
he pushed his plate from him, and spoke aloud. With the strangest 
inconsistency.
"What does it matter whether I eat or starve? What does it matter whether 
such a blighted life as mine comes to an end, now, next week, or next year? 
What am I worth to any one? A poor prisoner, fed on alms and broken 
victuals; a squalid, disgraced wretch!"
"Father, father!" As he rose, she went on her knees to him, and held up her 
hands to him.
"Amy," he went on in a suppressed voice, trembling violently, and looking 
at her as wildly as if he had gone mad.
"I tell you, if you could see me as your mother saw me, you wouldn't 
believe it to be the creature you have only looked at through the bars of 
this cage. I was young, I was accomplished, I was good-looking, I was 
independent - by God I was, child! - and people sought me out, and envied 
me. Envied me!"
"Dear father!" She tried to take down the shaking arm that he flourished in 
the air, but he resisted, and put her hand away.
"If I had but a picture of myself in those days, though it was ever so ill 
done, you would be proud of it, you would be proud of it. But I have no 
such thing. Now, let me be a warning! Let no man," he cried, looking 
haggardly about, "fail to preserve at least that little of the times of his 
prosperity and respect. Let his children have that clue to what he was. 
Unless my face, when I am dead, subsides into the long departed look - they 
say such things happen, I don't know - my children will have never seen 
me."
"Father, father!"
"O despise me, despise me! Look away from me, don't listen to me, stop me, 
blush for me, cry for me - Even you, Amy! Do it, do it! I do it to myself! 
I am hardened now, I have sunk too low to care long even for that."
"Dear father, loved father, darling of my heart!" She was clinging to him 
with her arms, and she got him to drop into his chair again, and caught at 
the raised arm, and tried to put it round her neck.
"Let it lie there, father. Look at me, father, kiss me, father! Only think 
of me, father, for one little moment!"
Still he went on in the same wild way, though it was gradually breaking 
down into a miserable whining.
"And yet I have some respect here. I have made some stand against it. I am 
not quite trodden down. Go out and ask who is the chief person in the 
place. They'll tell you it's your father. Go out and ask who is never 
trifled with, and who is always treated with some delicacy. They'll say, 
your father. Go out and ask what funeral here (it must be here, I know it 
can be nowhere else) will make more talk, and perhaps more grief, than any 
that has ever gone out at the gate. They'll say your father's. Well then. 
Amy! Amy! Is your father so universally despised? Is there nothing to 
redeem him? Will you have nothing to remember him by, but his ruin and 
decay? Will you be able to have no affection for him when he is gone, poor 
castaway, gone?"
He burst into tears of maudlin pity for himself, and at length suffering 
her to embrace him, and take charge of him, let his grey head rest against 
her cheek, and bewailed his wretchedness. Presently he changed the subject 
of his lamentations, and clasping his hands about her as she embraced him, 
cried, O Amy, his motherless, forlorn child! O the days that he had seen 
her careful and laborious for him! Then he reverted to himself, and weakly 
told her how much better she would have loved him if she had known him in 
his vanished character, and how he would have married her to a gentleman 
who should have been proud of her as his daughter, and how (at which he 
cried again) she should first have ridden at his fatherly side on her own 
horse, and how the crowd (by which he meant in effect the people who had 
given him the twelve shillings he then had in his pocket) should have 
trudged the dusty roads respectfully.
Thus, now boasting, now despairing in either fit a captive with the jail-
rot upon him, and the impurity of his prison worn into the grain of his 
soil, he revealed his degenerate state to his affectionate child. No one 
else ever beheld him in the details of his humiliation. Little recked the 
Collegians who were laughing in their rooms over his late address in the 
Lodge, what a serious picture they had in their obscure gallery of the 
Marshalsea that Sunday night.
There was a classical daughter once - perhaps - who ministered to her 
father in his prison as her mother had ministered to her. Little Dorrit, 
though of the unheroic modern stock, and mere English, did much more, in 
comforting her father's wasted heart upon her innocent breast, and turning 
to it a fountain of love and fidelity that never ran dry or waned, through 
all his years of famine.
She soothed him; asked him for his forgiveness if she had been or seemed to 
have been, undutiful; told him, Heaven knows truly, that she could not 
honour him more if he were the favourite of Fortune and the whole world 
acknowledged him. When his tears were dried, and he sobbed in his weakness 
no longer, and was free from that touch of shame, and had recovered his 
usual bearing, she prepared the remains of his supper afresh, and, sitting 
by his side, rejoiced to see him eat and drink. For, now he sat in his 
black velvet cap and old grey gown, magnanimous again; and would have 
comported himself towards any Collegian who might have looked in to ask his 
advice, like a great moral Lord Chesterfield, or Master of the ethical 
ceremonies of the Marshalsea.
To keep his attention engaged, she talked with him about his wardrobe; when 
he was pleased to say, that Yes, indeed, those shirts she proposed would be 
exceedingly acceptable, for those he had were worn out, and, being ready-
made, had never fitted him. Being conversational and in a reasonable flow 
of spirits, he then invited her attention to his coat as it hung behind the 
door: remarking that the Father of the place would set an indifferent 
example to his children, already disposed to be slovenly, if he went among 
them out at elbows. He was jocular, too, as to the heeling of his shoes: 
but became grave on the subject of his cravat, and promised her that when 
she could afford it, she should buy him a new one.
While he smoked out his cigar in peace, she made his bed, and put the small 
room in order for his repose. Being weary then, owing to the advanced hour 
and his emotions, he came out of his chair to bless her and wish her Good 
night. All this time he had never once thought of her dress, her shoes, her 
need of anything. No other person upon earth, save herself, could have been 
so unmindful of her wants.
He kissed her many times with "Bless you, my love. Good night, my dear!"
But her gentle breast had been so deeply wounded by what she had seen of 
him, that she was unwilling to leave him alone, lest he should lament and 
despair again. "Father, dear, I am not tired; let me come back presently, 
when you are in bed, and sit by you."
He asked her with an air of protection, if she felt solitary?
"Yes, father."
"Then come back by all means, my love."
"I shall be very quiet, father."
"Don't think of me, my dear," he said, giving her his kind permission 
fully. "Come back by all means."
He seemed to be dozing when she returned, and she put the low fire together 
very softly lest she should awake him. But he overheard her, and called out 
who was that?
"Only Amy, father."
"Amy, my child, come here. I want to say a word to you."
He raised himself a little in his low bed, as she kneeled beside it to 
bring her face near him; and put his hand between hers. O! Both the private 
father, and the Father of the Marshalsea were strong within him then.
"My love, you have had a life of hardship here. No companions, no 
recreations, many cares I am afraid?"
"Don't think of that, dear. I never do."
"You know my position, Amy. I have not been able to do much for you; but 
all I have been able to do, I have done."
"Yes, my dear father," she rejoined, kissing him. "I know, I know."
"I am in the twenty-third year of my life here," he said, with a catch in 
his breath that was not so much a sob as an irrepressible sound of self-
approval, the momentary outburst of a noble consciousness. "It is all I 
could do for my children - I have done it. Amy, my love, you are by far the 
best loved of the three; I have had you principally in my mind - whatever I 
have done for your sake, my dear child, I have done freely and without 
murmuring."
Only the wisdom that holds the clue to all hearts and all mysteries, can 
surely know to what extent a man, especially a man brought down as this man 
had been, can impose upon himself. Enough, for the present place, that he 
lay down with wet eyelashes, serene, in a manner majestic, after bestowing 
his life of degredation as a sort of portion on the devoted child upon whom 
its miseries had fallen so heavily, and whose love alone had saved him to 
be even what he was.
That child had no doubts, asked herself no questions, for she was but too 
content to see him with a lustre round his head. Poor dear, good dear, 
truest, kindest, dearest, were the only words she had for him, as she 
hushed him to rest.
She never left him all night. As if she had done him a wrong which her 
tenderness could hardly repair, she sat by him in his sleep, at times 
softly kissing him with suspended breath, and calling him in a whisper by 
some endearing name. At times she stood aside, so as not to intercept the 
low firelight, and, watching him when it fell upon his sleeping face, 
wondered did he look now at all as he had looked when he was prosperous and 
happy; as he had so touched her by imagining that he might look once more 
in that awful time. At the thought of that time, she kneeled beside his bed 
again, and prayed "O spare his life! O save him to me! O look down upon my 
dear, long-suffering, unfortunate, much-changed, dear, dear father!"
Not until the morning came to protect him and encourage him, did she give 
him a last kiss and leave the small room. When she had stolen downstairs, 
and along the empty yard, and had crept up to her own high garret, the 
smokeless house-tops and the distant country hills were discernible over 
the wall in the clear morning. As she gently opened the window, and looked 
eastward down the prison yard, the spikes upon the wall were tipped with 
red, then made a sullen purple pattern on the sun as it came flaming up 
into the heavens. The spikes had never looked so sharp and cruel, nor the 
bars so heavy, nor the prison space so gloomy and contracted. She thought 
of the sunrise on rolling rivers, of the sunrise on wide seas, of the 
sunrise on rich landscapes, of the sunrise on great forests where the birds 
were waking and the trees were rustling; and she looked down into the 
living grave on which the sun had risen, with her father in it, three-and-
twenty years, and said, in a burst of sorrow and compassion, "No, no, I 
have never seen him in my life!"


Chapter 20

Moving In Society

If Young John Chivery had had the inclination and the power to write a 
satire on family pride, he would have had no need to go for an avenging 
illustration out of the family of his beloved. He would have found it amply 
in that gallant brother and that dainty sister, so steeped in mean 
experiences, and so loftily conscious of the family name; so ready to beg 
or borrow from the poorest, to eat of anybody's bread, spend anybody's 
money, drink from anybody's cup and break it afterwards. To have painted 
the sordid facts of their lives, and they throughout invoking the death's 
head apparition of the family gentility to come and scare their 
benefactors, would have made Young John a satirist of the first water.
Tip had turned his liberty to hopeful account by becoming a billiard-
marker. He had troubled himself so little as to the means of his release, 
that Clennam scarcely needed to have been at the pains of impressing the 
mind of Mr Plornish on that subject. Whoever had paid him the compliment, 
he very readily accepted the compliment with his compliments, and there was 
an end of it. Issuing forth from the gate on these easy terms, he became a 
billiard-marker: and now occasionally looked in at the little skittle-
ground in a green Newmarket coat (second-hand), with a shining collar and 
bright buttons (new), and drank the beer of the Collegians.
One solid stationary point in the looseness of this gentleman's character 
was that he respected and admired his sister Amy. The feeling had never 
induced him to spare her a moment's uneasiness, or to put himself to any 
restraint or inconvenience on her account; but with that Marshalsea taint 
upon his love, he loved her. The same rank Marshalsea flavour was to be 
recognised in his distinctly perceiving that she sacrificed her life to her 
father, and in his having no idea that she had done anything for himself.
When this spirited young man, and his sister, had begun systematically to 
produce the family skeleton for the overawing of the College, this 
narrative cannot precisely state. Probably at about the period when they 
began to dine on the College charity. It is certain that the more reduced 
and necessitous they were, the more pompously the skeleton emerged from its 
tomb; and that when there was anything particularly shabby in the wind, the 
skeleton always came out with the ghastliest flourish.
Little Dorrit was late on the Monday morning, for her father slept late, 
and afterwards there was his breakfast to prepare and his room to arrange. 
She had no engagement to go out to work, however, and therefore stayed with 
him until, with Maggie's help, she had put everything right about him, and 
had seen him off upon his morning walk (of twenty yards or so) to the 
coffee-house to read the paper. She then got on her bonnet and went out, 
having been anxious to get out much sooner. There was, as usual, a 
cessation of the small talk in the Lodge as she passed through it; and a 
Collegian who had come in on Saturday night, received the intimation from 
the elbow of a more seasoned Collegian, "Look out. Here she is!"
She wanted to see her sister, but when she got round to Mr Cripples's, she 
found that both her sister and her uncle had gone to the theatre where they 
were engaged. Having taken thought of this probability by the way, and 
having settled that in such case she would follow them, she set off afresh 
for the theatre, which was on that side of the river, and not very far 
away.
Little Dorrit was almost as ignorant of the ways of theatres as of the ways 
of gold mines, and when she was directed to a furtive sort of door, with a 
curious up-all-night air about it, that appeared to be ashamed of itself 
and to be hiding in an alley, she hesitated to approach it; being further 
deterred by the sight of some half-dozen close-shaved gentlemen, with their 
hats very strangely on, who were lounging about the door, looking not at 
all unlike Collegians. On her applying to them, reassured by this 
resemblance, for a direction to Miss Dorrit? they made way for her to enter 
a dark hall - it was more like a great grim lamp gone out than anything 
else - where she could hear the distant playing of music and the sound of 
dancing feet. A man so much in want of airing that he had a blue mould upon 
him, sat watching this dark place from a hole in a corner, like a spider; 
and he told her that he would send a message up to Miss Dorrit by the first 
lady or gentleman who went through. The first lady who went through had a 
roll of music, half in her muff and half out of it, and was in such a 
tumbled condition altogether, that it seemed as if it would be an act of 
kindness to iron her. But as she was very good-natured, and said, "Come 
with me; I'll soon find Miss Dorrit for you," Miss Dorrit's sister went 
with her, drawing nearer and nearer, at every step she took in the 
darkness, to the sound of music and the sound of dancing feet.
At last they came into a maze of dust, where a quantity of people were 
tumbling over one another, and where there was such a confusion of 
unaccountable shapes of beams, bulk-heads, brick walls, ropes, and rollers, 
and such a mixing of gaslight and daylight, that they seemed to have got on 
the wrong side of the pattern of the universe. Little Dorrit, left to 
herself, and knocked against by somebody every moment, was quite bewildered 
when she heard her sister's voice.
"Why, good gracious, Amy, what ever brought you here?"
"I wanted to see you, Fanny dear; and as I am going out all day tomorrow, 
and knew you might be engaged all day today, I thought -"
"But the idea, Amy, of you coming behind! I never did!" As her sister said 
this in no very cordial tone of welcome, she conducted her to a more open 
part of the maze, where various golden chairs and tables were heaped 
together, and where a number of young ladies were sitting on anything they 
could find, chattering. All these young ladies wanted ironing, and all had 
a curious way of looking everywhere, while they chattered.
Just as the sisters arrived here, a monotonous boy in a Scotch cap put his 
head round a beam on the left, and said, "Less noise there, ladies!" and 
disappeared. Immediately after which, a sprightly gentleman with a quantity 
of long black hair looked round a beam on the right, and said, "Less noise 
there, darlings!" and also disappeared.
"The notion of you among professionals, Amy, is really the last thing I 
could have conceived!" said her sister. "Why, how did you ever get here?"
"I don't know. The lady who told you I was here, was so good as to bring me 
in."
"Like you quiet little things! You can make your way anywhere, I believe. I 
couldn't have managed it, Amy, though I know so much more of the world."
It was the family custom to lay it down as family law, that she was a plain 
domestic little creature, without the great and sage experiences of the 
rest. This family fiction was the family assertion of itself against her 
services. Not to make too much of them.
"Well! And what have you got on your mind, Amy? Of course you have got 
something on your mind, about me?" said Fanny. She spoke as if her sister, 
between two and three years her junior, were her prejudiced grandmother.
"It is not much; but since you told me of the lady who gave you the 
bracelet, Fanny - " The monotonous boy put his head round the beam on the 
left, and said, "Look out there, ladies!" and disappeared. The sprightly 
gentleman with the black hair, as suddenly put his head round the beam on 
the right, and said, "Look out there, darlings!" and also disappeared. 
Thereupon all the young ladies rose, and began shaking their skirts out 
behind.
"Well, Amy?" said Fanny, doing as the rest did; "what were you going to 
say?"
"Since you told me a lady had given you the bracelet you showed me, Fanny, 
I have not been quite easy on your account, and indeed want to know a 
little more if you will confide more to me."
"Now, ladies!" said the boy in the Scotch cap "Now, darlings!" said the 
gentleman with the black hair. They were every one gone in a moment, and 
the music and the dancing feet were heard again.
Little Dorrit sat down in a golden chair, made quite giddy by these rapid 
interruptions. Her sister and the rest were a long time gone; and during 
their absence a voice (it appeared to be that of the gentleman with the 
black hair) was continually calling out through the music, "One, two, 
three, four, five, six - go! One, two, three, four, five, six - go! Steady, 
darlings! One, two, three, four, five, six - go!" Ultimately the voice 
stopped, and they all came back again, more or less out of breath, folding 
themselves in their shawls, and making ready for the streets. "Stop a 
moment, Amy, and let them get away before us," whispered Fanny. They were 
soon left alone; nothing more important happening, in the meantime, than 
the boy looking round his old beam, and saying, "Everybody at eleven 
tomorrow, ladies!" and the gentleman with the black hair looking round his 
old beam, and saying, "Everybody at eleven tomorrow, darlings!" each in his 
own accustomed manner.
When they were alone, something was rolled up or by other means got out of 
the way, and there was a great empty well before them, looking down into 
the depths of which Fanny said, "Now, uncle!" Little Dorrit, as her eyes 
became used to the darkness, faintly made him out, at the bottom of the 
well, in an obscure corner by himself, with his instrument in its ragged 
case under his arm.
The old man looked as if the remote high gallery windows, with their little 
strip of sky, might have been the point of his better fortunes, from which 
he had descended, until he had gradually sunk down below there to the 
bottom. He had been in that place six nights a week for many years, but had 
never been observed to raise his eyes above his music-book, and was 
confidently believed to have never seen a play. There were legends in the 
place that he did not so much as know the popular heroes and heroines by 
sight, and that the low comedian had "mugged" at him in his richest manner 
fifty nights for a wager, and he had shown no trace of consciousness. The 
carpenters had a joke to the effect that he was dead without being aware of 
it; and the frequenters of the pit supposed him to pass his whole life, 
night and day and Sunday and all, in the orchestra. They had tried him a 
few times with pinches of snuff offered over the rails, and he had always 
responded to this attention with a momentary waking up of manner that had 
the pale phantom of a gentleman in it: beyond this, he never, on any 
occasion, had any other part in what was going on than the part written out 
for the clarionet; in private life, where there was no part for the 
clarionet, he had no part at all. Some said he was poor, some said he was a 
wealthy miser; but he said nothing, never lifted up his bowed head, never 
varied his shuffling gait by getting his springless foot from the ground. 
Though expecting now to be summoned by his niece, he did not hear her until 
she had spoken to him three or four times; nor was he at all surprised by 
the presence of two nieces instead of one, but merely said, in his 
tremulous voice, "I am coming, I am coming!" and crept forth by some 
underground way which emitted a cellarous smell.
"And so, Amy," said her sister, when the three together passed out, at the 
door that had such a shamefaced consciousness of being different from other 
doors: the uncle instinctively taking Amy's arm as the arm to be relied on: 
"so, Amy, you are curious about me?"
She was pretty, and conscious, and rather flaunting and the condescension 
with which she put aside the superiority of her charms, and of her worldly 
experience, and addressed her sister on almost equal terms, had a vast deal 
of the family in it.
"I am interested, Fanny, and concerned in anything that concerns you."
"So you are, so you are, and you are the best of Amys. If I am ever a 
little provoking, I am sure you'll consider what a thing it is to occupy my 
position and feel a consciousness of being superior to it. I shouldn't 
care," said the Daughter of the Father of the Marshalsea, "if the others 
were not so common. None of them have come down in the world as we have. 
They are all on their own level. Common."
Little Dorrit mildly looked at the speaker, but did not interrupt her. 
Fanny took out her handkerchief, and rather angrily wiped her eyes. "I was 
not born where you were, you know, Amy, and perhaps that makes a 
difference. My dear child, when we get rid of uncle, you shall know all 
about it. We'll drop him at the cook's shop where he is going to dine."
They walked on with him until they came to a dirty shop-window in a dirty 
street, which was made almost opaque by the steam of hot meats, vegetables, 
and puddings. But, glimpses were to be caught of a roast leg of pork, 
bursting into tears of sage and onion in a metal reservoir full of gravy, 
of an unctuous piece of roast beef and blisterous Yorkshire pudding 
bubbling hot in a similar receptacle, of a stuffed fillet of veal in rapid 
cut, of a ham in a perspiration with the pace it was going at, of a shallow 
tank of baked potatoes glued together by their own richness, of a truss or 
two of boiled greens, and other substantial delicacies. Within, were a few 
wooden partitions, behind which such customers as found it more convenient 
to take away their dinners in their stomachs than in their hands, packed 
their purchases in solitude. Fanny, opening her reticule as they surveyed 
these things, produced from that repository a shilling and handed it to 
Uncle. Uncle, after not looking at it a little while, divined its object, 
and muttering "Dinner? Ha! Yes, yes, yes!" slowly vanished from them into 
the mist.
"Now, Amy," said her sister, "come with me, if you are not too tired to 
walk to Harley Street, Cavendish Square."
The air with which she threw off this distinguished address, and the toss 
she gave her new bonnet (which was more gauzy than serviceable) made her 
sister wonder; however, she expressed her readiness to go to Harley Street, 
and thither they directed their steps. Arrived at that grand destination, 
Fanny singled out the handsomest house, and knocking at the door inquired 
for Mrs Merdle. The footman who opened the door, although he had powder on 
his head, and was backed up by two other footmen likewise powdered, not 
only admitted Mrs Merdle to be at home, but asked Fanny to walk in. Fanny 
walked in, taking her sister with her; and they went up stairs with powder 
going before and powder stopping behind, and were left in a spacious 
semicircular drawing-room, one of several drawing-rooms, where there was a 
parrot on the outside of a golden cage holding on by its beak with its 
scaly legs in the air, and putting itself into many strange upside-down 
postures. This peculiarity has been observed in birds of quite another 
feather, climbing upon golden wires.
The room was far more splendid than anything Little Dorrit had ever 
imagined, and would have been splendid and costly in any eyes. She looked 
in amazement at her sister and would have asked a question, but that Fanny 
with a warning frown pointed to a curtained doorway of communication with 
another room. The curtain shook next moment, and a lady, raising it with a 
heavily ringed hand, dropped it behind her again as she entered.
The lady was not young and fresh from the hand of Nature, but was young and 
fresh from the hand of her maid. She had large unfeeling handsome eyes, and 
dark unfeeling handsome hair, and a broad unfeeling handsome bosom, and was 
made the most of in every particular. Either because she had a cold, or 
because it suited her face, she wore a rich white fillet tied over her head 
and under her chin. And if ever there were an unfeeling handsome chin that 
looked as if, for certain, it had never been, in familiar parlance, 
"chucked" by the hand of man, it was the chin curbed up so tight and close 
by that laced bridle.
"Mrs Merdle," said Fanny. "My sister, ma'am."
"I am glad to see your sister, Miss Dorrit. I did not remember that you had 
a sister."
"I did not mention that I had," said Fanny.
"Ay!" Mrs Merdle curved the little finger of her left hand as who should 
say, "I have caught you. I know you didn't!" All her action was usually 
with her left hand because her hands were not a pair; the left being much 
the whiter and plumper of the two. Then she added; "Sit down," and composed 
herself voluptuously, in a nest of crimson and gold cushions, on an ottoman 
near the parrot.
"Also professional?" said Mrs Merdle, looking at Little Dorrit through an 
eyeglass.
Fanny answered No. "No," said Mrs Merdle, dropping her glass. "Has not a 
professional air. Very pleasant; but not professional."
"My sister, ma'am," said Fanny, in whom there was a singular mixture of 
deference and hardihood, "has been asking me to tell her, as between 
sisters, how I came to have the honour of knowing you. And as I had engaged 
to call upon you once more, I thought I might take the liberty of bringing 
her with me, when perhaps you would tell her. I wish her to know, and 
perhaps you will tell her."
"Do you think, at your sister's age - " hinted Mrs Merdle.
"She is much older than she looks," said Fanny; "almost as old as I am."
"Society," said Mrs Merdle, with another curve of her little finger, "is so 
difficult to explain to young persons (indeed is so difficult to explain to 
most persons), that I am glad to hear that. I wish Society was not so 
arbitrary, I wish it was not so exacting - Bird, be quiet!"
The parrot had given a most piercing shriek, as if its name were Society 
and it asserted its right to its exactions.
"But," resumed Mrs Merdle, "we must take it as we find it. We know it is 
hollow and conventional and wordly and very shocking, but unless we are 
Savages in the Tropical seas (I should have been charmed to be one myself - 
most delightful life and perfect climate I am told), we must consult it. It 
is the common lot. Mr Merdle is a most extensive merchant, his transactions 
are on the vastest scale, his wealth and influence are very great, but even 
he - Bird, be quiet!"
The parrot had shrieked another shriek; and it filled up the sentence so 
expressively that Mrs Merdle was under no necessity to end it.
"Since your sister begs that I would terminate our personal acquaintance," 
she began again, addressing Little Dorrit, "by relating the circumstances 
that are much to her credit, I cannot object to comply with her request, I 
am sure. I have a son (I was first married extremely young) of two or three 
and twenty."
Fanny set her lips, and her eyes looked half triumphantly at her sister.
"A son of two or three and twenty. He is a little gay, a thing Society is 
accustomed to in young men, and he is very impressible. Perhaps he inherits 
that misfortune. I am very impressible myself, by nature. The weakest of 
creatures. My feelings are touched in a moment."
She said all this, and everything else, as coldly as a woman of snow; quite 
forgetting the sisters except at odd times, and apparently addressing some 
abstraction of Society. For whose behoof, too, she occasionally arranged 
her dress, or the composition of her figure upon the ottoman.
"So he is very impressible. Not a misfortune in our natural state, I dare 
say, but we are not in a natural state. Much to be lamented, no doubt, 
particularly by myself, who am a child of nature if I could but show it; 
but so it is. Society suppresses us and dominates us - Bird, be quiet!"
The parrot had broken into a violent fit of laughter, after twisting divers 
bars of his cage with his crooked bill, and licking them with his black 
tongue.
"It is quite unnecessary to say to a person of your good sense, wide range 
of experience, and cultivated feelings," said Mrs Merdle, from her nest of 
crimson and gold - and there put up her glass to refresh her memory as to 
whom she was addressing, - "that the stage sometimes has a fascination for 
young men of that class of character. In saying the stage, I mean the 
people on it of the female sex. Therefore, when I heard that my son was 
supposed to be fascinated by a dancer, I knew what that usually meant in 
Society, and confided in her being a dancer at the Opera, where young men 
moving in Society are usually fascinated."
She passed her white hands over one another, observant of the sisters now; 
and the rings upon her fingers grated against each other, with a hard 
sound.
"As your sister will tell you, when I found what the theatre was, I was 
much surprised and much distressed. But when I found that your sister, by 
rejecting my son's advances (I must add, in an unexpected manner) had 
brought him to the point of proposing marriage, my feelings were of the 
profoundest anguish - acute."
She traced the outline of her left eyebrow, and put it right.
"In a distracted condition which only a mother - moving in Society - can be 
susceptible of, I determined to go myself to the theatre, and represent my 
state of mind to the dancer. I made myself known to your sister. I found 
her, to my surprise, in many respects different from my expectations; and 
certainly in none more so, than in meeting me with - what shall I say? - a 
sort of family assertion on her own part?" Mrs Merdle smiled.
"I told you, ma'am," said Fanny, with a heightening colour, "that although 
you found me in that situation, I was so far above the rest, that I 
considered my family as good as your son's; and that I had a brother who, 
knowing the circumstances, would be of the same opinion, and would not 
consider such a connection any honour."
"Miss Dorrit," said Mrs Merdle, after frostily looking at her through her 
glass, "precisely what I was on the point of telling your sister, in 
pursuance of your request. Much obliged to you for recalling it so 
accurately and anticipating me. I immediately," addressing Little Dorrit, 
"(for I am the creature of impulse), took a bracelet from my arm, and 
begged your sister to let me clasp it on hers, in token of the delight I 
had in our being able to approach the subject so far on a common footing." 
(This was perfectly true, the lady having bought a cheap and showy article 
on her way to the interview, with a general eye to bribery.)
"And I told you, Mrs Merdle," said Fanny, "that we might be unfortunate but 
were not common."
"I think, the very words, Miss Dorrit," assented Mrs Merdle.
"And I told you, Mrs Merdle," said Fanny, "that if you spoke to me of the 
superiority of your son's standing in Society, it was barely possible that 
you rather deceived yourself in your suppositions about my origin; and that 
my father's standing, even in the Society in which he now moved (what that 
was, was best known to myself), was eminently superior, and was 
acknowledged by every one."
"Quite accurate," rejoined Mrs Merdle. "A most admirable memory."
"Thank you, ma'am. Perhaps you will be so kind as to tell my sister the 
rest."
"There is very little to tell," said Mrs Merdle, reviewing the breadth of 
bosom which seemed essential to her having room enough to be unfeeling in, 
"but it is to your sister's credit. I pointed out to your sister the plain 
state of the case; the impossibility of the Society in which we moved, 
recognising the Society in which she moved - though charming, I have no 
doubt; the immense disadvantage at which she would consequently place the 
family she had so high an opinion of, upon which we should find ourselves 
compelled to look down with contempt, and from which (socially speaking) we 
should feel obliged to recoil with abhorrence. In short, I made an appeal 
to that laudable pride in your sister."
"Let my sister know, if you please, Mrs Merdle," Fanny pouted, with a toss 
of her gauzy bonnet, "that I had already had the honour of telling your son 
that I wished to have nothing whatever to say to him."
"Well, Miss Dorrit," assented Mrs Merdle, "perhaps I might have mentioned 
that before. If I did not think of it, perhaps it was because my mind 
reverted to the apprehensions I had at the time, that he might persevere 
and you might have something to say to him. I also mentioned to your sister 
- I again address the non-professional Miss Dorrit - that my son would have 
nothing in the event of such a marriage, and would be an absolute beggar. 
(I mention that, merely as a fact which is part of the narrative, and not 
as supposing it to have influenced your sister, except in the prudent and 
legitimate way in which, constituted as our artificial system is, we must 
all be influenced by such considerations.) Finally, after some high words 
and high spirit on the part of your sister, we came to the complete 
understanding that there was no danger; and your sister was so obliging as 
to allow me to present her with a mark or two of my appreciation at my 
dressmaker's."
Little Dorrit looked sorry, and glanced at Fanny with a troubled face.
"Also," said Mrs Merdle, "as to promise to give me the present pleasure of 
a closing interview, and of parting with her on the best of terms. On which 
occasion," added Mrs Merdle, quitting her nest, and putting something in 
Fanny's hand, "Miss Dorrit will permit me to say Farewell with best wishes, 
in my own dull manner."
The sisters rose at the same time, and they all stood near the cage of the 
parrot, as he tore at a claw-full of biscuit and spat it out, seemed to 
mock them with a pompous dance of his body without moving his feet, and 
suddenly turned himself upside down and trailed himself all over the 
outside of his golden cage, with the aid of his cruel beak and his black 
tongue.
"Adieu, Miss Dorrit, with best wishes," said Mrs Merdle. "If we could only 
come to a Millennium, or something of that sort, I for one might have the 
pleasure of knowing a number of charming and talented persons from whom I 
am at present excluded. A more primitive state of society would be 
delicious to me. There used to be a poem when I learnt lessons, something 
about Lo the poor Indian whose something mind! If a few thousand persons 
moving in Society, could only go and be Indians, I would put my name down 
directly; but as, moving in Society, we can't be Indians, unfortunately - 
Good morning!"
They came downstairs with powder before them and powder behind, the elder 
sister haughty and the younger sister humbled, and were shut out into 
unpowdered Harley Street, Cavendish Square.
"Well?" said Fanny, when they had gone a little way without speaking. "Have 
you nothing to say, Amy?"
"Oh, I don't know what to say!" she answered, distressed. "You didn't like 
this young man, Fanny?"
"Like him? He is almost an idiot."
"I am so sorry - don't be hurt - but, since you ask me what I have to say, 
I am so very sorry, Fanny, that you suffered this lady to give you 
anything."
"You little Fool!" returned her sister, shaking her with the sharp pull she 
gave her arm. "Have you no spirit at all? But that's just the way! You have 
no self-respect, you have no becoming pride. Just as you allow yourself to 
be followed about by a contemptible little Chivery of a thing," with the 
scornfullest emphasis, "you would let your family be trodden on, and never 
turn."
"Don't say that, dear Fanny. I do what I can for them."
"You do what you can for them!" repeated Fanny, walking her on very fast. 
"Would you let a woman like this, whom you could see, if you had any 
experience of anything, to be as false and insolent as a woman can be - 
would you let her put her foot upon your family, and thank her for it?"
"No, Fanny, I am sure."
"Then make her pay for it, you mean little thing. What else can you make 
her do? Make her pay for it, you stupid child; and do your family some 
credit with the money!"
They spoke no more all the way back to the lodging where Fanny and her 
uncle lived. When they arrived there, they found the old man practising his 
clarionet in the dolefullest manner in a corner of the room. Fanny had a 
composite meal to make, of chops, and porter, and tea; and indignantly 
pretended to prepare it for herself, though her sister did all that in 
quiet reality. When. at last, Fanny sat down to eat and drink, she threw 
the table implements about and was angry with her bread, much as her father 
had been last night.
"If you despise me," she said, bursting into vehement tears, "because I am 
a dancer, why did you put me in the way of being one? It was your doing. 
You would have me stoop as low as the ground before this Mrs Merdle, and 
let her say what she liked and do what she liked, and hold us all in 
contempt, and tell me so to my face. Because I am a dancer!"
"O Fanny!"
"And Tip too, poor fellow. She is to disparage him just as much as she 
likes, without any check - I suppose because he has been in the law, and 
the docks, and different things. Why, it was your doing, Amy. You might at 
least approve of his being defended."
All this time the uncle was dolefully blowing his clarionet in the corner, 
sometimes taking it an inch or so from his mouth for a moment while he 
stopped to gaze at them, with a vague impression that somebody had said 
something.
"And your father, your poor father, Amy. Because he is not free, to show 
himself and to speak for himself, you would let such people insult him with 
impunity. If you don't feel for yourself because you go out to work, you 
might at least feel for him, I should think, knowing what he has undergone 
so long."
Poor Little Dorrit felt the injustice of this taunt rather sharply. The 
remembrance of last night added a barbed point to it. She said nothing in 
reply, but turned her chair from the table towards the fire. Uncle, after 
making one more pause, blew a dismal wail and went on again.
Fanny was passionate with the teacups and the bread as long as her passion 
lasted, and then protested that she was the wretchedest girl in the world, 
and she wished she was dead. After that, her crying became remorseful, and 
she got up and put her arms round her sister. Little Dorrit tried to stop 
her from saying anything, but she answered that she would, she must! 
Thereupon she said again, and again, "I beg your pardon, Amy," and "Forgive 
me, Amy," almost as passionately as she had said what she regretted.
"But indeed, indeed, Amy," she resumed, when they were seated in sisterly 
accord side by side, "I hope and I think you would have seen this 
differently, if you had known a little more of Society."
"Perhaps I might, Fanny," said the mild Little Dorrit.
"You see, while you have been domestic and resignedly shut up there, Amy," 
pursued her sister, gradually beginning to patronise, "I have been out, 
moving more in Society, and may have been getting proud and spirited - more 
than I ought to be, perhaps?" Little Dorrit answered "Yes. O yes!"
And while you have been thinking of the dinner or the clothes, I may have 
been thinking, you know, of the family. Now, may it not be so, Amy?"
Little Dorrit again nodded "Yes," with a more cheerful face than heart.
"Especially as we know," said Fanny, "that there certainly is a tone in the 
place to which you have been so true, which does belong to it, and which 
does make it different from other aspects of Society. So kiss me once 
again, Amy dear, and we will agree that we may both be right, and that you 
are a tranquil, domestic, home-loving, good girl."
The clarionet had been lamenting most pathetically during this dialogue, 
but was cut short now by Fanny's announcement that it was time to go; which 
she conveyed to her uncle by closing up his scrap of music, and taking the 
clarionet out of his mouth.
Little Dorrit parted from them at the door, and hastened back to the 
Marshalsea. It fell dark there sooner than elsewhere, and going into it 
that evening was like going into a deep trench. The shadow of the wall was 
on every object. Not least, upon the figure in the old grey gown and the 
black velvet cap, as it turned towards her when she opened the door of the 
dim room.
"Why not upon me too!" thought Little Dorrit, with the door yet in her 
hand. "It was not unreasonable in Fanny."


Chapter 21

MR Merdle's Complaint

Upon that establishment of state, the Merdle establishment in Harley 
Street, Cavendish Square, there was the shadow of no more common wall than 
the fronts of other establishments of state on the opposite side of the 
street. Like unexceptionable Society, the opposing rows of houses in Harley 
Street were very grim with one another. Indeed, the mansions and their 
inhabitants were so much alike in that respect, that the people were often 
to be found drawn up on opposite sides of dinner-tables, in the shade of 
their own loftiness, staring at the other side of the way with the dulness 
of the houses.
Everybody knows how like the street, the two dinner-rows of people who take 
their stand by the street will be. The expressionless uniform twenty 
houses, all to be knocked at and rung at in the same form, all approachable 
by the same dull steps, all fended off by the same pattern of railing, all 
with the same impracticable fire-escapes, the same inconvenient fixtures in 
their heads, and everything without exception to be taken at a high 
valuation - who has not dined with these? The house so drearily out of 
repair, the, occasional bow-window, the stuccoed house, the newly-fronted 
house, the corner house with nothing but angular rooms, the house with the 
blinds always down, the house with the hatchment always up, the house where 
the collector has called for one quarter of an Idea, and found nobody at 
home, - who has not dined with these? The house that nobody will take, and 
is to be had a bargain - who does not know her? The showy house that was 
taken for life by the disappointed gentleman, and which does not suit him 
at all - who is unacquainted with that haunted habitation?
Harley Street, Cavendish Square, was more than aware of Mr and Mrs Merdle. 
Intruders there were in Harley Street, of whom it was not aware; but Mr and 
Mrs Merdle it delighted to honour. Society was aware of Mr and Mrs Merdle. 
Society had said "Let us license them; let us know them."
Mr Merdle was immensely rich; a man of prodigious enterprise; a Midas 
without the ears, who turned all he touched to gold. He was in everything 
good, from banking to building. He was in Parliament, of course. He was in 
the City, necessarily. He was Chairman of this, Trustee of that, President 
of the other. The weightiest of men had said to projectors, "Now, what name 
have you got? Have you got Merdle?" And the reply being in the negative, 
had said "Then I won't look at you."
This great and fortunate man had provided that extensive bosom, which 
required so much room to be unfeeling enough in, with a nest of crimson and 
gold some fifteen years before. It was not a bosom to repose upon, but it 
was a capital bosom to hang jewels upon. Mr Merdle wanted something to hang 
jewels upon, and he bought it for the purpose. Storr and Mortimer might 
have married on the same speculation.
Like all his other speculations, it was sound and successful. The jewels 
showed to the richest advantage. The bosom moving in Society with the 
jewels displayed upon it, attracted general admiration. Society approving, 
Mr Merdle was satisfied. He was the most disinterested of men, - did 
everything for Society, and got as little for himself out of all his gain 
and care, as a man might.
That is to say, it may be supposed that he got all he wanted, otherwise 
with unlimited wealth he would have got it. But his desire was to the 
utmost to satisfy Society (whatever that was), and take up all its drafts 
upon him for tribute. He did not shine in company; he had not very much to 
say for himself; he was a reserved man, with a broad, overhanging, watchful 
head, that particular kind of dull red colour in his cheeks which is rather 
stale than fresh, and a somewhat uneasy expression about his coat-cuffs, as 
if they were in his confidence, and had reasons for being anxious to hide 
his hands. In the little he said, he was a pleasant man enough; plain, 
emphatic about public and private confidence, and tenacious of the utmost 
deference being shown by every one, in all things, to Society. In this same 
Society (if that were it which came to his dinners, and to Mrs Merdle's 
receptions and concerts), he hardly seemed to enjoy himself much, and was 
mostly to be found against walls and behind doors. Also when he went out to 
it, instead of its coming home to him, he seemed a little fatigued, and 
upon the whole rather more disposed for bed; but he was always cultivating 
it nevertheless, and always moving in it, and always laying out money on it 
with the greatest liberality.
Mrs Merdle's first husband had been a colonel, under whose auspices the 
bosom had entered into competition with the snows of North America, and had 
come off at little disadvantage in point of whiteness, and at none in point 
of coldness. The colonel's son was Mrs Merdle's only child. He was of a 
chuckle-headed high-shouldered make, with a general appearance of being, 
not so much a young man as a swelled boy. He had given so few signs of 
reason, that a byeword went among his companions that his brain had been 
frozen up in a mighty frost which prevailed at St. John's, New Brunswick, 
at the period of his birth there, and had never thawed from that hour. 
Another byeword represented him as having in his infancy, through the 
negligence of a nurse, fallen out of a high window on his head, which had 
been heard by responsible witnesses to crack. It is probable that both 
these representations were of ex post facto origin; the young gentleman 
(whose expressive name was Sparkler) being monomaniacal in offering 
marriage to all manner of undesirable young ladies, and in remarking of 
every successive young lady to whom he tendered a matrimonial proposal that 
she was "a doosed fine gal - well educated too - with no biggodd nonsense 
about her."
A son-in-law, with these limited talents, might have been a clog upon 
another man; but Mr Merdle did not want a son-in-law for himself; he wanted 
a son-in-law for Society. Mr Sparkler having been in the Guards, and being 
in the habit of frequenting all the races, and all the loungers, and all 
the parties, and being well known, Society was satisfied with its son-in-
law. This happy result Mr Merdle would have considered well attained, 
though Mr Sparkler had been a more expensive article. And he did not get Mr 
Sparkler by any means cheap for Society, even as it was.
There was a dinner giving in the Harley Street establishment, while Little 
Dorrit was stitching at her father's new shirts by his side that night; and 
there were magnates from the Court and magnates from the City, magnates 
from the Commons and magnates from the Lords, magnates from the bench and 
magnates from the bar, Bishop magnates, Treasury magnates, Horse Guards 
magnates, Admiralty magnates, - all the magnates that keep us going, and 
sometimes trip us up.
"I am told," said Bishop magnate to Horse Guards, "that Mr Merdle has made 
another enormous hit. They say a hundred thousand pounds."
Horse Guards had heard two.
Treasury had heard three.
Bar, handling his persuasive double eyeglass, was by no means clear but 
that it might be four. It was one of those happy strokes of calculation and 
combination, the result of which it was difficult to estimate. It was one 
of those instances of a comprehensive grasp, associated with habitual luck 
and characteristic boldness, of which an age presented us but few. But here 
was Brother Bellows, who had been in the great Bank case, and who could 
probably tell us more. What did Brother Bellows put this new success at?
Brother Bellows was on his way to make his bow to the bosom, and could only 
tell them in passing that he had heard it stated, with great appearance of 
truth, as being worth, from first to last, half-a-million of money.
Admiralty said Mr Merdle was a wonderful man. Treasury said he was a new 
power in the country, and would be able to buy up the whole House of 
Commons. Bishop said he was glad to think that this wealth flowed into the 
coffers of a gentleman who was always disposed to maintain the best 
interests of Society.
Mr Merdle himself was usually late on these occasions, as a man still 
detained in the clutch of giant enterprises when other men had shaken off 
their dwarfs for the day. On this occasion, he was the last arrival. 
Treasury said Merdle's work punished him a little. Bishop said he was glad 
to think that this wealth flowed into the coffers of a gentleman who 
accepted it with meekness.
Powder! There was so much Powder in waiting, that it flavoured the dinner. 
Pulverous particles got into the dishes, and Society's meats had a 
seasoning of first-rate footmen. Mr Merdle took down a countess who was 
secluded somewhere in the core of an immense dress, to which she was in the 
proportion of the heart to the overgrown cabbage. If so low a simile may be 
admitted, the dress went down the staircase like a richly brocaded Jack in 
the Green, and nobody knew what sort of small person carried it.

Society had everything it could want, and could not want, for dinner. It 
had everything to look at, and everything to eat, and everything to drink. 
it is to be hoped it enjoyed itself; for Mr Merdle's own share of the 
repast might have been paid for with eighteenpence. Mrs Merdle was 
magnificent. The chief butler was the next magnificent institution of the 
day. He was the stateliest man in company. He did nothing, but he looked on 
as few other men could have done. He was Mr Merdle's last gift to Society. 
Mr Merdle didn't want him, and was put out of countenance when the great 
creature looked at him; but inappeasable Society would have him - and had 
got him.
The invisible countess carried out the Green at the usual stage of the 
entertainment, and the file of beauty was closed up by the bosom. Treasury 
said, Juno. Bishop said Judith.
Bar fell into discussion with Horse Guards concerning courts-martial. 
Brother Bellows and Bench struck in. Other magnates paired off. Mr Merdle 
sat silent, and looked at the tablecloth. Sometimes a magnate addressed 
him, to turn the stream of his own particular discussion towards him; but 
Mr Merdle seldom gave much attention to it, or did more than rouse himself 
from his calculations and pass the wine.
When they rose, so many of the magnates had something to say to Mr Merdle 
individually, that he held little levees by the sideboard, and checked them 
off as they went out at the door.
Treasury hoped he might venture to congratulate one of England's world-
famed capitalists and merchant-princes (he had turned that original 
sentiment in the house a few times, and it came easy to him) on a new 
achievement. To extend the triumphs of such men, was to extend the triumphs 
and resources of the nation; and Treasury felt - he gave Mr Merdle to 
understand - patriotric on the subject.
"Thank you, my lord," said Mr Merdle; "thank you. I accept your 
congratulations with pride, and I am glad you approve."
"Why, I don't unreservedly approve, my dear Mr Merdle. Because," smiling 
Treasury turned him by the arm towards the sideboard and spoke banteringly, 
"it never can be worth your while to come among us and help us."
Mr Merdle felt honoured by the -
"No, no," said Treasury, "that is not the light in which one so 
distinguished for practical knowledge and great foresight, can be expected 
to regard it. If we should ever be happily enabled, by accidentally 
possessing the control over circumstances, to propose to one so eminent to -
 to come among us, and give us the weight of his influence, knowledge and 
character, we could only propose it to him as a duty. In fact as a duty 
that he owed to Society."
Mr Merdle intimated that Society was the apple of his eye, and that its 
claims were paramount to every other consideration. Treasury moved on, and 
Bar came up.
Bar, with his little insinuating Jury droop, and fingering his persuasive 
double eyeglass, hoped he might be excused if he mentioned to one of the 
greatest converters of the root of all evil into the root of all good, who 
had for a long time reflected the shining lustre on the annals even of our 
commercial country - if he mentioned, disinterestedly, and as, what we 
lawyers called in our pedantic way, amicus curiae, a fact that had come by 
accident within his knowledge. He had been required to look over the title 
of a very considerable estate in one of the eastern counties - lying, in 
fact, for Mr Merdle knew we lawyers loved to be particular, on the borders 
of two of the eastern counties. Now, the title was perfectly sound, and the 
estate was to be purchased by one who had the command of - Money (Jury 
droop and persuasive eyeglass), on remarkably advantageous terms. This had 
come to Bar's knowledge only that day, and it had occurred to him "I shall 
have the honour of dining with my esteemed friend Mr Merdle this evening, 
and, strictly between ourselves, I will mention the opportunity." Such a 
purchase would involve not only great legitimate political influence, but 
some half-dozen church presentations of considerable annual value. Now, 
that Mr Merdle was already at no loss to discover means of occupying even 
his capital, and of fully employing even his active and vigorous intellect, 
Bar well knew: but he would venture to suggest that the question arose in 
his mind, whether one who had deservedly gained so high a position and so 
European a reputation did not owe it - we would not say to himself, but we 
would say to Society, to possess himself of such influences as these; and 
to exercise them - we would not say for his own, or for his party's, but we 
would say for Society's - benefit.
Mr Merdle again expressed himself as wholly devoted to that object of his 
constant consideration, and Bar took his persuasive eyeglass up the grand 
staircase. Bishop then came undesignedly sliding in the direction of the 
sideboard.
Surely the goods of this world, it occurred in an accidental way to Bishop 
to remark, could scarcely be directed into happier channels than when they 
accumulated under the magic touch of the wise and sagacious, who, while 
they knew the just value of riches (Bishop tried here to look as if he were 
rather poor himself), were aware of their importance, judiciously governed 
and rightly distributed, to the welfare of our brethren at large.
Mr Merdle with humility expressed his conviction that Bishop couldn't mean 
him, and with inconsistency expressed his high gratification in Bishop's 
good opinion.
Bishop then - jauntily stepping out a little with his well-shaped right 
leg, as though he said to Mr Merdle "don't mind the apron; a mere form!" - 
put this case to his good friend:
Whether it had occurred to his good friend, that Society might not 
unreasonably hope that one so blest in his undertakings, and whose example 
on his pedestal was so influential with it, would shed a little money in 
the direction of a mission or so to Africa?
Mr Merdle signifying that the idea should have his best attention, Bishop 
put another case:
Whether his good friend had at all interested himself in the proceedings of 
our Combined Additional Endowed Dignitaries Committee, and whether it had 
occurred to him that to shed a little money in that direction might be a 
great conception finely executed?
Mr Merdle made a similar reply, and Bishop explained his reason for 
inquiring.
Society looked to such men as his good friend to do such things. It was not 
that he looked to them, but that Society looked to them. Just as it was not 
Our Committee who wanted the Additional Endowed Dignitaries, but it was 
Society that was in a state of the most agonizing uneasiness of mind until 
it got them. He begged to assure his good friend, that he was extremely 
sensible of his good friend's regard on all occasions for the best 
interests of Society; and he considered that he was at once consulting 
those interests, and expressing the feeling of Society, when he wished him 
continued prosperity, continued increase of riches, and continued things in 
general.
Bishop then betook himself upstairs, and the other magnates gradually 
floated up after him until there was no one left below but Mr Merdle. That 
gentleman, after looking at the tablecloth until the soul of the chief 
butler glowed with a noble resentment, went slowly up after the rest, and 
became of no account in the stream of people on the grand staircase. Mrs 
Merdle was at home, the best of the jewels were hung out to be seen, 
Society got what it came for, Mr Merdle drank two-penny worth of tea in a 
corner and got more than he wanted.
Among the evening magnates was a famous physician, who knew everybody and 
whom everybody knew. On entering at the door he came upon Mr Merdle 
drinking his tea in a corner, and touched him on the arm.
Mr Merdle started. "Oh! It's you!"
"Any better to day?"
"No," said Mr Merdle, "I am no better."
"A pity I didn't see you this morning. Pray come to me tomorrow, or let me 
come to you."
"Well!" he replied. "I will come to morrow as I drive by."
Bar and bishop had both been bystanders during this short dialogue, and as 
Mr Merdle was swept away by the crowd, they made their remarks upon it to 
the Physician. Bar said, there was a certain point of mental strain beyond 
which no man could go; that the point varied with various textures of brain 
and peculiarities of constitution, as he had had occasion to notice in 
several of his learned brothers; but the point of endurance passed by a 
line's breadth, depression and dyspepsia ensued. Not to intrude on the 
sacred mysteries of medicine, he took it, now (with the Jury droop and 
persuasive eyeglass), that this was Merdle's case? Bishop said that when he 
was a young man, and had fallen for a brief space into the habit of writing 
sermons on Saturdays, a habit which all young sons of the church should 
sedulously avoid, he had frequently been sensible of a depression, arising 
as he supposed from an overtaxed intellect, upon which the yoke of a new-
laid egg, beaten up by the good woman in whose house he at that time 
lodged, with a glass of sound sherry, nutmeg, and powdered sugar, acted 
like a charm. Without presuming to offer so simple a remedy to the 
consideration of so profound a professor of the great healing art, he would 
venture to inquire whether the strain, being by way of intricate 
calculations, the spirits might not (humanly speaking) be restored to their 
tone by a gentle and yet generous stimulant?
"Yes," said the physician, "yes, you are both right. But I may as well tell 
you that I can find nothing the matter with Mr Merdle. He has the 
constitution of a rhinoceros, the digestion of an ostrich, and the 
concentration of an oyster. As to nerves, Mr Merdle is of a cool 
temperament, and not a sensitive man: is about as invulnerable, I should 
say, as Achilles. How such a man should suppose himself unwell without 
reason, you may think strange. But I have found nothing the matter with 
him. He may have some deep-seated recondite complaint. I can't say. I only 
say, that at present I have not found it out."
There was no shadow of Mr Merdle's complaint on the bosom now displaying 
precious stones in rivalry with many similar superb jewel-stands; there was 
no shadow of Mr Merdle's complaint on young Sparkler hovering about the 
rooms, monomaniacally seeking any sufficiently ineligible young lady with 
no nonsense about her; there was no shadow of Mr Merdle's complaint on the 
Barnacles and Stiltstalkings, of whom whole colonies were present; or on 
any of the company. Even on himself, its shadow was faint enough as he 
moved about among the throng, receiving homage.
Mr Merdle's complaint. Society and he had so much to do with one another in 
all things else, that it is hard to imagine his complaint, if he had one, 
being solely his own affair. Had he that deep-seated recondite complaint, 
and did any doctor find it out? Patience. In the meantime, the shadow of 
the Marshalsea wall was a real darkening influence, and could be seen on 
the Dorrit Family at any stage of the sun's course.


Chapter 22

A Puzzle

Mr Clennam did not increase in favour with the Father of the Marshalsea in 
the ratio of his increasing visits. His obtuseness on the great Testimonial 
question was not calculated to awaken admiration in the paternal breast, 
but had rather a tendency to give offence in that sensitive quarter, and to 
be regarded as a positive shortcoming in point of gentlemanly feeling An 
impression of disappointment, occasioned by the discovery that Mr Clennam 
scarcely possessed that delicacy for which, in the confidence of his 
nature, he had been inclined to give him credit, began to darken the 
fatherly mind in connection with that gentleman. The father went so far as 
to say, in his private family circle, that he feared Mr Clennam was not a 
man of high instincts. He was happy, he observed, in his public capacity as 
leader and representative of the College, to receive Mr Clennam when he 
called to pay his respects; but he didn't find that he got on with him 
personally. There appeared to be something (he didn't know what it was) 
wanting in him. Howbeit, the father did not fail in any outward show of 
politeness, but, on the contrary, honoured him with much attention; perhaps 
cherishing the hope that, although not a man of a sufficiently brilliant 
and spontaneous turn of mind to repeat his former testimonial unsolicited, 
it might still be within the compass of his nature to bear the part of a 
responsive gentleman, in any correspondence that way tending.
In the threefold capacity of the gentleman from outside who had been 
accidentally locked in on the night of his first appearance, of the 
gentleman from outside who had inquired into the affairs of the Father of 
the Marshalsea with the stupendous idea of getting him out, and of the 
gentleman from outside who took an interest in the child of the Marshalsea, 
Clennam soon became a visitor of mark. He was not surprised by the 
attentions he received from Mr Chivery when that officer was on the lock, 
for he made little distinction between Mr Chivery's politeness and that of 
the other turnkeys. It was on one particular afternoon that Mr Chivery 
surprised him all at once, and stood forth from his companions in bold 
relief.
Mr Chivery, by some artful exercise of his power of clearing the Lodge, had 
contrived to rid it of all sauntering Collegians; so that Clennam, coming 
out of the prison, should find him on duty alone.
"(Private) I ask your pardon, sir," said Mr Chivery in a secret manner; 
"but which way might you be going?"
"I am going over the Bridge." He saw in Mr: Chivery, with some 
astonishment, quite an Allegory of Silence, as he stood with his key on his 
lips.
"(Private) I ask your pardon again," said Mr Chivery, "but could you go 
round by Horsemonger Lane? Could you by any means find time to look in at 
that address?" handing him a little card, printed for circulation among the 
connection of Chivery and Co., Tobacconists, Importers of pure Havannah 
Cigars, Bengal Cheroots, and fine-flavoured Cubas, Dealers in Fancy Snuffs, 
etc., etc.
"(Private) It an't tobacco business," said Mr Chivery. "The truth is, it's 
my wife. She's wishful to say a word to you, sir, upon a point respecting - 
yes," said Mr Chivery, answering Clennam's look of apprehension with a nod, 
"respecting her."
"I will make a point of seeing your wife directly."
"Thank you, sir. Much obliged. It an't above ten minutes out of your way. 
Please to ask for Mrs Chivery!" These instructions Mr Chivery, who had 
already let him out, cautiously called through a little slide in the outer 
door, which he could draw back from within for the inspection of visitors 
when it pleased him.
Arthur Clennam, with the card in his hand, betook himself to the address 
set forth upon it, and speedily arrived there. It was a very small 
establishment, wherein a decent woman sat behind the counter working at her 
needle. Little jars of tobacco, little boxes of cigars, a little assortment 
of pipes, a little jar or two of snuff, and a little instrument like a 
shoeing horn for serving it out, composed the retail stock in trade.
Arthur mentioned his name, and his having promised to call, on the 
solicitation of Mr Chivery. About something relating to Miss Dorrit, he 
believed. Mrs Chivery at once laid aside her work, rose up from her seat 
behind the counter, and deploringly shook her head.
"You may see him now," said she, "if you'll condescend to take a peep."
With these mysterious words, she preceded the visitor into a little parlour 
behind the shop, with a little window in it commanding a very little dull 
back-yard. In this yard, a wash of sheets and tablecloths tried (in vain, 
for want of air) to get itself dried on a line or two; and among those 
flapping articles was sitting in a chair, like the last mariner left alive 
on the deck of a damp ship without the power of furling the sails, a little 
woe-begone young man.
"Our John," said Mrs Chivery.
Not to be deficient in interest, Clennam asked what he might be doing 
there?
"It's the only change he takes," said Mrs Chivery, shaking her head afresh. 
"He won't go out, even in the back yard, when there's no linen; but when 
there's linen to keep the neighbours' eyes off, he'll sit there, hours. 
Hours he will. Says he feels as if it was groves!" Mrs Chivery shook her 
head again, put her apron in a motherly way to her eyes, and reconducted 
her visitor into the regions of the business.
"Please to take a seat, sir," said Mrs Chivery. "Miss Dorrit is the matter 
with our John, sir; he's a breaking his heart for her, and I would wish to 
take the liberty to ask how it's to be made good to his parents when bust?"
Mrs Chivery, who was a comfortable-looking woman, much respected about 
Horsemonger Lane for her feelings and her conversation, uttered this speech 
with fell composure, and immediately afterwards began again to shake her 
head and dry her eyes.
"Sir," said she in continuation, "you are acquainted with the family, and 
have interested yourself with the family, and are influential with the 
family. If you can promote views calculated to make two young people happy, 
let me, for Our John's sake, and for both their sakes, implore you so to 
do."
"I have been so habituated," returned Arthur, at a loss, "during the short 
time I have known her, to consider Little - I have been so habituated to 
consider Miss Dorrit in a light altogether removed from that in which you 
present her to me, that you quite take me by surprise. Does she know your 
son?"
"Brought up together, sir," said Mrs Chivery. "Played together!"
"Does she know your son as her admirer?"
"Oh! bless you, sir," said Mrs Chivery, with a sort of triumphant shiver, 
"she never could have seen him on a Sunday without knowing he was that. His 
cane alone would have told it long ago, if nothing else had. Young men like 
John don't take to ivory hands a pinting for nothing. How did I first know 
it myself? Similarly."
"Perhaps Miss Dorrit may not be so ready as you, you see."
"Then she knows it, sir," said Mrs Chivery, "by word of mouth."
"Are you sure?"
"Sir," said Mrs Chivery, "sure and certain as in this house I am. I see my 
son go out with my own eyes when in this house I was, and I see my son come 
in with my own eyes when in this house I was, and I know he done it!" Mrs 
Chivery derived a surprising force of emphasis from the foregoing 
circumstantiality and repetition.
"May I ask you how he came to fall into the desponding state which causes 
you so much uneasiness?"
"That," said Mrs Chivery, "took place on that same day when to this house I 
see that John with these eyes return. Never been himself in this house 
since. Never was like what he has been since, not from the hour when to 
this house seven year ago me and his father, as tenants by the quarter, 
came!" An effect in the nature of an affidavit was gained for this speech, 
by Mrs Chivery's peculiar power of construction.
"May I venture to inquire what is your version of the matter?"
"You may," said Mrs Chivery, "and I will give it you in honour and in word 
as true as in this shop I stand. Our John has every one's good word and 
every one's good wish. He played with her as a child when in that yard a 
child she played. He has known her ever since. He went out upon the Sunday 
afternoon when in this very parlour he had dined, and met her, with 
appointment or without appointment, which I do not pretend to say. He made 
his offer to her. Her brother and sister is high in their views, and 
against our John. Her father is all for himself in his views, and against 
sharing her with any one. Under which circumstances she has answered our 
John, 'No, John, I cannot have you, I cannot have any husband, it is not my 
intentions ever to become a wife, it is my intentions to be always a 
sacrifice, farewell, find another worthy of you, and forget me!' This is 
the way in which she is doomed to be a constant slave, to them that are not 
worthy that a constant slave she unto them should be. This is the way in 
which Our John has come to find no pleasure but in taking cold among the 
linen, and in showing in that yard, as in that yard I have myself shown 
you, a broken down ruin, that goes home to his mother's heart!" Here the 
good woman pointed to the little window, whence her son might be seen 
sitting disconsolate in the tuneless groves; and again shook her head and 
wiped her eyes, and besought him, for the united sakes of both the young 
people, to exercise his influence towards the bright reversal of these 
dismal events.
She was so confident in her exposition of the case, and it was so 
undeniably founded on correct premises in so far as the relative positions 
of Little Dorrit and her family were concerned, that Clennam could not feel 
positive on the other side. He had come to attach to Little Dorrit an 
interest so peculiar - an interest that removed her from, while it grew out 
of, the common and coarse things surrounding her - that he found it 
disappointing, disagreeable, almost painful, to suppose her in love with 
young Mr Chivery in the back-yard, or any such person. On the other hand, 
he reasoned with himself, that she was just as good and just as true, in 
love with him, as not in love with him; and that to make a kind of 
domesticated fairy of her, on the penalty of isolation at heart from the 
only people she knew, would be but a weakness of his own fancy, and not a 
kind one. Still, her youthful and ethereal appearance, her timid manner, 
the charm of her sensitive voice and eyes, the very many respects in which 
she had interested him out of her own individuality, and the strong 
difference between herself and those about her, were not in unison, and 
were determined not to be in unison, with this newly presented idea.
He told the worthy Mrs Chivery, after turning these things over in his mind 
- he did that, indeed, while she was yet speaking - that he might be relied 
upon to do his utmost at all times to promote the happiness of Miss Dorrit, 
and to further the wishes of her heart if it were in his power to do so, 
and if he could discover what they were. At the same time, he cautioned her 
against assumptions and appearances; enjoined strict silence and secrecy, 
lest Miss Dorrit should be made unhappy; and particularly advised her to 
endeavour to win her son's confidence, and so to make quite sure of the 
state of the case. Mrs Chivery considered the latter precaution 
superfluous, but said she would try. She shook her head as if she had not 
derived all the comfort she had fondly expected from this interview, but 
thanked him nevertheless for the trouble he had kindly taken. They then 
parted good friends, and Arthur walked away. The crowd in the street 
jostling the crowd in his mind, and the two crowds making a confusion, he 
avoided London Bridge, and turned off in the quieter direction of the Iron 
Bridge. He had scarcely set foot upon it, when he saw Little Dorrit walking 
on before him. It was a pleasant day, with a light breeze blowing, and she 
seemed to have that minute come there for air. He had left her in her 
father's room within an hour.
It was a timely chance, favourable to his wish of observing her face and 
manner when no one else was by. He quickened his pace; but, before he 
reached her, she turned her head.
"Have I startled you?" he asked.
"I thought I knew the step," she answered, hesitating.
"And did you know it, Little Dorrit? You could hardly have expected mine."
"I did not expect any. But when I heard a step, I thought it - sounded like 
yours."
"Are you going further?"
"No, sir, I am only walking here for a little change."
They walked together, and she recovered her confiding manner with him, and 
looked up in his face, as she said, after glancing around:
"It is so strange. Perhaps you can hardly understand it. I sometimes have a 
sensation as if it was almost unfeeling to walk here?"
"Unfeeling?"
"To see the river, and so much sky, and so many objects, and such change 
and motion. Then to go back, you know, and find him in the same cramped 
place."
"Ah yes! But going back, you must remember that you take with you the 
spirit and influence of such things, to cheer him."
"Do I? I hope I may! I am afraid you fancy too much, sir, and make me out 
too powerful. If you were in prison, could I bring such comfort to you?"
"Yes, Little Dorrit. I am sure of it!"
He gathered from a tremour on her lip, and a passing shadow of great 
agitation on her face, that her mind was with her father. He remained 
silent for a few moments, that she might regain her composure. The Little 
Dorrit, trembling on his arm, was less in unison than ever with Mrs 
Chivery's theory, and yet was not irreconcilable with a new fancy which 
sprung up within him, that there might be some one else in the hopeless - 
newer fancy still - in the hopeless unattainable distance.
They turned, and Clennam said, Here was Maggie coming! Little Dorrit looked 
up, surprised, and they confronted Maggie, who brought herself at sight of 
them to a dead stop. She had been trotting along, so preoccupied and busy, 
that she had not recognised them until they turned upon her. She was now in 
a moment so conscience-stricken, that her very basket partook of the 
change.
"Maggie, you promised me to stop near father."
"So I would, Little Mother, only he wouldn't let me. If he takes and sends 
me out I must go. If he takes and says, 'Maggie, you hurry away and back 
with that letter, and you shall have a sixpence if the answer's a good 
'un,' I must take it. Lor, Little Mother, what's a poor thing of ten year 
old to do? And if Mr Tip - if he happens to be a coming in as I come out, 
and if he says, 'Where are you going, Maggie?' and if I says, 'I'm a going 
So and So,' and if he says, 'I'll have a Try, too,' and if he goes into the 
George and writes a letter, and if he gives it me and says, 'Take that one 
to the same place, and if the answer's a good 'un I'll give you a 
shilling,' it ain't my fault, mother!"
Arthur read, in Little Dorrit's downcast eyes, to whom she foresaw that the 
letters were addressed.
"I'm a going So and So. There! That's where I am a going to," said Maggie. 
"I'm a going So and So. It ain't you, Little Mother, that's got anything to 
do with it - it's you, you know," said Maggie, addressing Arthur. "You'd 
better come, So and So, and let me take and give 'em to you."
"We will not be so particular as that, Maggie. Give them me here," said 
Clennam, in a low voice.
"Well, then, come across the road," answered Maggie in a very loud whisper. 
"Little Mother wasn't to know nothing of it, and she would never have known 
nothing of it if you had only gone, So and So, instead of bothering and 
loitering about. It ain't my fault. I must do what I am told. They ought to 
be ashamed of themselves for telling me."
Clennam crossed to the other side, and hurriedly opened the letters. That 
from the father, mentioned that most unexpectedly finding himself in the 
novel position of having been disappointed of a remittance from the City on 
which he had confidently counted, he took up his pen, being restrained by 
the unhappy circumstance of his incarceration during three and twenty years 
(doubly underlined), from coming himself, as he would otherwise certainly 
have done - took up his pen to entreat Mr Clennam to advance him the sum of 
Three Pounds Ten Shillings upon his I. O. U., which he begged to enclose. 
That from the son set forth that Mr Clennam would, he knew, be gratified to 
hear that he had at length obtained permanent employment of a highly 
satisfactory nature, accompanied with every prospect of complete success in 
life; but that the temporary inability of his employer to pay him his 
arrears of salary to that date (in which condition said employer had 
appealed to that generous forbearance in which he trusted he should never 
be wanting towards a fellow-creature), combined with the fraudulent conduct 
of a false friend, and the present high price of provisions, had reduced 
him to the verge of ruin unless he could before a quarter before six that 
evening raise the sum of eight pounds. This sum, Mr Clennam would be happy 
to learn, he had, through the promptitude of several friends who had a 
lively confidence in his probity, already raised, with the exception of a 
trifling balance of one pound seventeen and fourpence; the loan of which 
balance, for the period of one month, would be fraught with the usual 
beneficent consequences.
These letters Clennam answered with the aid of his pencil and pocket-book, 
on the spot; sending the father what he asked for, and excusing himself 
from compliance with the demand of the son. He then commissioned Maggie to 
return with his replies, and gave her the shilling of which the failure of 
her supplemental enterprise would have disappointed her otherwise.
When he rejoined Little Dorrit, and they had begun walking as before, she 
said all at once:
"I think I had better go. I had better go home."
"Don't be distressed," said Clennam. "I have answered the letters. They 
were nothing. You know what they were. They were nothing."
"But I am afraid," she returned, "to leave him, I am afraid to leave any of 
them. When I am gone, they pervert - but they don't mean it - even Maggie."
"It was a very innocent commission that she undertook, poor thing. And in 
keeping it secret from you, she supposed, no doubt, that she was only 
saving you uneasiness."
"Yes, I hope so, I hope so. But I had better go home! It was but the other 
day that my sister told me I had become so used to the prison that I had 
its tone and character. It must be so. I am sure it must be when I see 
these things. My place is there. I am better there. It is unfeeling in me 
to be here when I can do the least thing there. Good bye. I had far better 
stay at home!"
The agonised way in which she poured this out as if it burst of itself from 
her suppressed heart, made it difficult for Clennam to keep the tears from 
his eyes as he saw and heard her.
"Don't call it home, my child!" he entreated. "It is always painful to me 
to hear you call it home."
"But it is home! What else can I call home? Why should I ever forget it for 
a single moment?"
"You never do, dear Little Dorrit, in any good and true service."
"I hope not, O I hope not! But it is better for me to stay there; much 
better, much more dutiful, much happier. Please don't go with me, let me go 
by myself. Good bye, God bless you. Thank you, thank you."
He felt that it was better to respect her entreaty, and did not move while 
her slight form went quickly away from him. When it had fluttered out of 
sight, he turned his face towards the water, and stood thinking.
She would have been distressed at any time by this discovery of the 
letters; but so much so, and in that unrestrainable way?
No.
When she had seen her father begging with his threadbare disguise on, when 
she had entreated him not to give her father money, she had been 
distressed, but not like this. Something had made her keenly and 
additionally sensitive just now. Now, was there some one in the hopeless 
unattainable distance? Or had the suspicion been brought into his mind, by 
his own associations of the troubled river running beneath the bridge with 
the same river higher up, its changeless tune upon the prow of the ferry-
boat, so many miles an hour the peaceful flowing of the stream, here the 
rushes, there the lilies, nothing uncertain or unquiet?
He thought of his poor child, Little Dorrit, for a long time there; he 
thought of her going home; he thought of her in the night; he thought of 
her when the day came round again. And the poor child Little Dorrit thought 
of him - too faithfully, ah, too faithfully! - in the shadow of the 
Marshalsea wall.


Chapter 23

Machinery In Motion

Mr Meagles bestirred himself with such prompt activity in the matter of the 
negotiation with Daniel Doyce which Clennam had entrusted to him, that he 
soon brought it into business train, and called on Clennam at nine o'clock 
one morning to make his report.
"Doyce is highly gratified by your good opinion," he opened the business by 
saying, "and desires nothing so much as that you should examine the affairs 
of the Works for yourself, and entirely understand them. He has handed me 
the keys of all his books and papers - here they are jingling in this 
pocket - and the only charge he has given me is, 'Let Mr Clennam have the 
means of putting himself on a perfect equality with me as to knowing 
whatever I know. If it should come to nothing after all, he will respect my 
confidence. Unless I was sure of that to begin with, I should have nothing 
to do with him.' And there, you see," said Mr Meagles, "you have Daniel 
Doyce all over."
"A very honourable character."
"Oh, yes, to be sure. Not a doubt of it. Odd, but very honourable. Very odd 
though. Now, would you believe, Clennam," said Mr Meagles, with a hearty 
enjoyment of his friend's eccentricity, "that I had a whole morning in 
What's-his-name Yard -"
"Bleeding Heart?"
"A whole morning in Bleeding Heart Yard, before I could induce him to 
pursue the subject at all?"
"How was that?"
"How was that, my friend? I no sooner mentioned your name in connection 
with it, than he declared off."
"Declared off, on my account?"
"I no sooner mentioned your name, Clennam, than he said, 'That will never 
do!' What did he mean by that? I asked him. No matter, Meagles; that would 
never do. Why would it never do? You'll hardly believe it, Clennam," said 
Mr Meagles, laughing within himself, "but it came out that it would never 
do, because you and he, walking down to Twickenham together, had glided 
into a friendly conversation, in the course of which he had referred to his 
intention of taking a partner, supposing at the time that you were as 
firmly and finally settled as St. Paul's Cathedral. 'Whereas,' says he, 'Mr 
Clennam might now believe, if I entertained his proposition, that I had a 
sinister and designing motive in what was open free speech. Which I can't 
bear,' says he, 'which I really am too proud to bear.'"
"I should as soon suspect -"
"Of course you would," interrupted Mr Meagles, "and so I told him. But it 
took a morning to scale that wall; and I doubt if any other man than myself 
(he likes me of old) could have got his leg over it. Well, Clennam. This 
business-like obstacle surmounted, he then stipulated that before resuming 
with you I should look over the books and form my own opinion. I looked 
over the books and formed my own opinion. 'Is it, on the whole, for or 
against?' says he. 'For,' says I. 'Then,' says he, 'you may now, my good 
friend, give Mr Clennam the means of forming his opinion. To enable him to 
do which, without bias and with perfect freedom, I shall go out of town for 
a week.' And he's gone," said Mr Meagles; "that's the rich conclusion of 
the thing."
"Leaving me," said Clennam, "with a high sense, I must say, of his candour 
and his -"
"Oddity," Mr Meagles struck in. "I should think so!"
It was not exactly the word on Clennam's lips, but he forbore to interrupt 
his good-humoured friend.
"And now," added Mr Meagles, "you can begin to look into matters as soon as 
you think proper. I have undertaken to explain where you may want 
explanation, but to be strictly impartial, and to do nothing more."
They began their perquisitions in Bleeding Heart Yard that same forenoon. 
Little peculiarities were easily to be detected by experienced eyes in Mr 
Doyce's way of managing his affairs, but they almost always involved some 
ingenious simplification of a difficulty, and some plain road to the 
desired end. That his papers were in arrear, and that he stood in need of 
assistance to develop the capacity of his business, was clear enough; but 
all the results of his undertakings during many years were distinctly set 
forth, and were ascertainable with ease. Nothing had been done for the 
purposes of the pending investigation; everything was in its genuine 
working dress, and in a certain honest rugged order. The calculations and 
entries in his own hand, of which there were many, were bluntly written, 
and with no very neat precision; but were always plain, and directed 
straight to the purpose. It occurred to Arthur that a far more elaborate 
and taking show of business - such as the records of the Circumlocution 
Office made perhaps - might be far less serviceable, as being meant to be 
far less intelligible.
Three or four days of steady application rendered him master of all the 
facts it was essential to become acquainted with. Mr Meagles was at hand 
the whole time, always ready to illuminate any dim place with the bright 
little safety-lamp belonging to the scales and scoop. Between them they 
agreed upon the sum it would be fair to offer for the purchase of a half 
share in the business, and then Mr Meagles unsealed the paper in which 
Daniel Doyce had noted the amount at which he valued it; which was even 
something less. Thus, when Daniel came back, he found the affair as good as 
concluded.
"And I may now avow, Mr Clennam," said he, with a cordial shake of the 
hand, "that if I had looked high and low for a partner, I believe I could 
not have found one more to my mind."
"I say the same," said Clennam.
"And I say of both of you," added Mr Meagles, "that you are well matched. 
You keep him in check, Clennam, with your common sense, and you stick to 
the Works, Dan, with your -"
"Uncommon sense?" suggested Daniel, with his quiet smile.
"You may call it so, if you like - and each of you will be a right hand to 
the other. Here's my own right hand upon it, as a practical man, to both of 
you."
The purchase was completed within a month. It left Arthur in possession of 
private personal means not exceeding a few hundred pounds; but it opened to 
him an active and promising career. The three friends dined together on the 
auspicious occasion; the factory and the factory wives and children made 
holiday and dined too; even Bleeding Heart Yard dined and was full of meat. 
Two months had barely gone by in all, when Bleeding Heart Yard had become 
so familiar with short-commons again that the treat was forgotten there; 
when nothing seemed new in the partnership but the paint of the inscription 
on the door-posts, Doyce and Clennam; when it appeared even to Clennam 
himself, that he had had the affairs of the firm in his mind for years.
The little counting-house reserved for his own occupation, was a room of 
wood and glass at the end of a long low work-shop, filled with benches, and 
vices, and tools, and straps, and wheels; which, when they were in gear 
with the steam engine, went tearing round as though they had a suicidal 
mission to grind the business to dust and tear the factory to pieces. A 
communication of great trapdoors in the floor and roof with the workshop 
above and the workshop below, made a shaft of light in this perspective, 
which brought to Clennam's mind the child's old picture-book, where similar 
rays were the witnesses of Abel's murder. The noises were sufficiently 
removed and shut out from the counting-house to blend into a busy hum, 
interspersed with periodical clicks and thumps. The patient figures at work 
were swarthy with the filings of iron and steel that danced on every bench 
and bubbled up through every chink in the planking. The workshop was 
arrived at by a step-ladder from the outer yard below, where it served as a 
shelter for the large grindstone where tools were sharpened. The whole had 
at once a fanciful and practical air in Clennam's eyes which was a welcome 
change; and, as often as he raised them from his first work of getting the 
array of business documents into perfect order, he glanced at these things 
with a feeling of pleasure in his pursuit that was new to him.
Raising his eyes thus one day, he was surprised to see a bonnet labouring 
up the step-ladder. The unusual apparition was followed by another bonnet. 
He then perceived that the first bonnet was on the head of Mr F's Aunt, and 
that the second bonnet was on the head of Flora, who seemed to have 
propelled her legacy up the steep ascent with considerable difficulty.
Though not altogether enraptured at the sight of these visitors, Clennam 
lost no time in opening the counting-house door, and extricating them from 
the workshop; a rescue which was rendered the more necessary by Mr F's Aunt 
already stumbling over some impediment, and menacing steam-power as an 
institution with a stony reticule she carried.
"Good gracious, Arthur, - I should say Mr Clennam, far more proper - the 
climb we have had to get up here and however to get down again without a 
fire-escape and Mr F's Aunt slipping through the steps and bruised all over 
and you in the machinery and foundry way too only think, and never told 
us!"
Thus Flora, out of breath. Meanwhile, Mr F's Aunt rubbed her esteemed 
insteps with her umbrella, and vindictively glared.
"Most unkind never to have come back to see us since that day, though 
naturally it was not to be expected that there should be any attraction at 
our house and you were much more pleasantly engaged, that's pretty certain, 
and is she fair or dark blue eyes or black I wonder, not that I expect that 
she should be anything but a perfect contrast to me in all particulars for 
I am a disappointment as I very well know and you are quite right to be 
devoted no doubt though what I am saying Arthur never mind I hardly know 
myself Good gracious!"
By this time he had placed chairs for them in the counting-house. As Flora 
dropped into hers, she bestowed the old look upon him.
"And to think of Doyce and Clennam, and who Doyce can be," said Flora; 
"delightful man no doubt and married perhaps or perhaps a daughter, now has 
he really? then one understands the partnership and sees it all, don't tell 
me anything about it for I know I have no claim to ask the question the 
golden chain that once was forged, being snapped and very proper." Flora 
put her hand tenderly on his, and gave him another of the youthful glances.
"Dear Arthur - force of habit, Mr Clennam every way more delicate and 
adapted to existing circumstances - I must beg to be excused for taking the 
liberty of this intrusion but I thought I might so far presume upon old 
times forever faded never more to bloom as to call with Mr F's Aunt to 
congratulate and offer best wishes, A great deal superior to China not to 
be denied and much nearer though higher up!"
"I am very happy to see you," said Clennam, "and I thank you, Flora, very 
much for your kind remembrance."
"More than I can say myself at any rate," returned Flora, "for I might have 
been dead and buried twenty distinct times over and no doubt whatever 
should have been before you had genuinely remembered Me or anything like it 
in spite of which one last remark I wish to make, one last explanation I 
wish to offer -"
"My dear Mrs Finching," Arthur remonstrated in alarm.
"Oh not that disagreeable name, say Flora!"
"Flora, is it worth troubling yourself afresh to enter into explanations? I 
assure you none are needed. I am satisfied - I am perfectly satisfied."
A diversion was occasioned here, by Mr F's Aunt making the following 
inexorable and awful statement:
"There's mile-stones on the Dover road!"
With such mortal hostility towards the human race did she discharge this 
missile, that Clennam was quite at a loss how to defend himself; the rather 
as he had been already perplexed in his mind by the honour of a visit from 
this venerable lady, when it was plain she held him in the utmost 
abhorrence. He could not but look at her with disconcertment, as she sat 
breathing bitterness and scorn, and staring leagues away. Flora, however, 
received the remark as if it had been of a most opposite and agreeable 
nature; approvingly observing aloud that Mr F's Aunt had a great deal of 
spirit. Stimulated either by this compliment, or by her burning 
indignation, that illustrious woman then added. "Let him meet it if he 
can!" And, with a rigid movement of her stony reticule (an appendage of 
great size, and of a fossil appearance), indicated that Clennam was the 
unfortunate person at whom the challenge was hurled.
"One last remark," resumed Flora, "I was going to say I wish to make one 
last explanation I wish to offer, Mr F's Aunt and myself would not have 
intruded on business hours Mr F having been in business and though the wine 
trade still business is equally business call it what you will and business 
habits are just the same as witness Mr F himself who had his slippers 
always on the mat at ten minutes before six in the afternoon and his boots 
inside the fender at ten minutes before eight in the morning to the moment 
in all weathers light or dark - would not therefore have intruded without a 
motive which being kindly meant it may be hoped will be kindly taken 
Arthur, Mr Clennam far more proper, even Doyce and Clennam probably more 
business-like."
"Pray say nothing in the way of apology," Arthur entreated. "You are always 
welcome."
"Very polite of you to say so Arthur - cannot remember Mr Clennam until the 
word is out, such is the habit of times for ever fled, and so true it is 
that oft in the stilly night ere slumber's chain has bound people, fond 
memory brings the light of other days around people - very polite but more 
polite than true I am afraid, for to go into the machinery business without 
so much as sending a line or a card to papa - I don't say me though there 
was a time but that is past and stern reality has now my gracious never 
mind - does not look like it you must confess."
Even Flora's commas seemed to have fled on this occasion; she was so much 
more disjointed and voluble than in the preceding interview.
"Though indeed," she hurried on, "nothing else is to be expected, and why 
should it be expected, and if it's not to be expected why should it be, and 
I am far from blaming you or any one, When your mama and my papa worried us 
to death and severed the golden bowl - I mean bond but I dare say you know 
what I mean and if you don't you don't lose much and care just as little I 
will venture to add - when they severed the golden bond that bound us and 
threw us into fits of crying on the sofa nearly choked at least myself 
everything was changed and in giving my hand to Mr F I know I did so with 
my eyes open but he was so very unsettled and in such low spirits that he 
had distractedly alluded to the river if not oil of something from the 
chemist's and I did it for the best."
"My good Flora, we settled that before. It was all quite right."
"It's perfectly clear you think so," returned Flora, "for you take it very 
coolly, if I hadn't known it to be China I should have guessed myself the 
Polar regions, dear Mr Clennam you are right however and I cannot blame you 
but as to Doyce and Clennam papa's property being about here we heard it 
from Pancks and but for him we never should have heard one word about it I 
am satisfied."
"No, no, don't say that."
"What nonsense not to say it Arthur - Doyce and Clennam - easier and less 
trying to me than Mr Clennam - when I know it and you know it too and can't 
deny it."
"But I do deny it, Flora. I should soon have made you a friendly visit."
"Ah!" said Flora, tossing her head. "I dare say!" and she gave him another 
of the old looks. "However when Pancks told us I made up my mind that Mr 
F's Aunt and I would come and call because when papa - which was before 
that - happened to mention her name to me and to say that you were 
interested in her I said at the moment Good gracious why not have her here 
then when there's anything to do instead of putting it out."
"When you say Her," observed Clennam, by this time pretty well bewildered, 
"do you mean Mr F's -"
"My goodness, Arthur - Doyce and Clennam really easier to me with old 
remembrances - who ever heard of Mr F's Aunt doing needlework and going out 
by the day!"
"Going out by the day! Do you speak of Little Dorrit?"
"Why yes of course," returned Flora; "and of all the strangest names I ever 
heard the strangest, like a place down in the country with a turnpike, or a 
favourite pony or a puppy or a bird or something from a seed-shop to be put 
in a garden or a flowerpot and come up speckled."
"Then, Flora," said Arthur, with a sudden interest in the conversation, "Mr 
Casby was so kind as to mention Little Dorrit to you, was he? What did he 
say?"
"Oh you know what papa is," rejoined Flora, "and how aggravatingly he sits 
looking beautiful and turning his thumbs over and over one another till he 
makes one giddy if one keeps one's eyes upon him, he said when we were 
talking of you - I don't know who began the subject Arthur (Doyce and 
Clennam) but I am sure it wasn't me, at least I hope not but you really 
must excuse my confessing more on that point."
"Certainly," said Arthur, "by all means."
"You are very ready," pouted Flora, coming to a sudden stop in a 
captivating bashfulness, "that I must admit, papa said you had spoken of 
her in an earnest way and I said what I have told you and that's all."
"That's all?" said Arthur, a little disappointed.
"Except that when Pancks told us of your having embarked in this business 
and with difficulty persuaded us that it was really you I said to Mr F's 
Aunt then we would come and ask you if it would be agreeable to all parties 
that she should be engaged at our house when required for I know she often 
goes to your mama's and I know that your mama has a very touchy temper 
Arthur - Doyce and Clennam - or I never might have married Mr F. and might 
have been at this hour but I am running into nonsense."
"It was very kind of you, Flora, to think of this."
Poor Flora rejoined with a plain sincerity which became her better than her 
youngest glances, that she was glad he thought so. She said it with so much 
heart, that Clennam would have given a great deal to buy his old character 
of her on the spot, and throw it and the mermaid away for ever.
"I think, Flora," he said, "that the employment you can give Little Dorrit, 
and the kindness you can show her -"
"Yes and I will," said Flora, quickly.
"I am sure of it - will be a great assistance and support to her. I do not 
feel that I have the right to tell you what I know of her, for I acquired 
the knowledge confidentially, and under circumstances that bind me to 
silence. But I have an interest in the little creature, and a respect for 
her that I cannot express to you. Her life has been one of such trial and 
devotion, and such quiet goodness, as you can scarcely imagine. I can 
hardly think of her, far less speak of her without feeling moved. Let that 
feeling represent what I could tell you, and commit her to your 
friendliness with my thanks."
Once more he put out his hand frankly to poor Flora; once more poor Flora 
couldn't accept it frankly, found it worth nothing openly, must make the 
old intrigue and mystery of it. As much to her own enjoyment as to his 
dismay, she covered it with a corner of her shawl as she took it. Then 
looking towards the glass front of the counting-house, and seeing two 
figures approaching, she cried with infinite relish, "Papa! Hush, Arthur, 
for Mercy's sake!" and tottered back to her chair with an amazing imitation 
of being in danger of swooning, in the dread surprise and maidenly flutter 
of her spirits.
The Patriarch meanwhile came inanely beaming towards the counting-house, in 
the wake of Pancks. Pancks opened the door for him, towed him in, and 
retired to his own moorings in a corner.
"I heard from Flora," said the Patriarch, with his benevolent smile, "that 
she was coming to call, coming to call. And being out, I thought I'd come 
also, thought I'd come also."
The benign wisdom he infused into this declaration (not of itself 
profound), by means of his blue eyes, his shining head, and his long white 
hair, was most impressive. It seemed worth putting down among the noblest 
sentiments enunciated by the best of men. Also, when he said to Clennam, 
seating himself in the proffered chair, "And you are in a new business, Mr 
Clennam? I wish you well, sir, I wish you well!" he seemed to have done 
benevolent wonders.
"Mrs Finching has been telling me, sir," said Arthur, after making his 
acknowledgments; the relict of the late Mr F meanwhile protesting, with a 
gesture, against his use of that respectable name; "that she hopes 
occasionally to employ the young needlewoman you recommended to my mother. 
For which I have been thanking her."
The Patriarch turning his head in a lumbering way towards Pancks, that 
assistant put up the note-book in which he had been absorbed, and took him 
in tow.
"You didn't recommend her, you know," said Pancks; "how could you? You knew 
nothing about her, you didn't. The name was mentioned to you, and you 
passed it on. That's what you did."
"Well!" said Clennam. "As she justifies any recommendation, it is much the 
same thing."
"You are glad she turns out well," said Pancks, "but it wouldn't have been 
your fault if she had turned out ill. The credit's not yours as it is, and 
the blame wouldn't have been yours as it might have been. You gave no 
guarantee. You knew nothing about her."
"You are not acquainted, then," said Arthur, hazarding a random question, 
"with any of her family?"
"Acquainted with any of her family?" returned Pancks. "How should you be 
acquainted with any of her family? You never heard of 'em. You can't be 
acquainted with people you never heard of, can you? You should think not!"
All this time the Patriarch sat serenely smiling; nodding or shaking his 
head benevolently, as the case required.
"As to being a reference," said Pancks, "you know in a general way, what 
being a reference means. It's all your eye, that is! Look at your tenants 
down the Yard here. They'd all be references for one another, if you'd let 
'em. What would be the good of letting 'em? It's no satisfaction to be done 
by two men instead of one. One's enough. A person who can't pay, gets 
another person who can't pay, to guarantee that he can pay. Like a person 
with two wooden legs, getting another person with two wooden legs, to 
guarantee that he has two natural legs. It don't make either of them able 
to do a walking-match. And four wooden legs are more troublesome to you 
than two, when you don't want any." Mr Pancks concluded by blowing off that 
steam of his.
A momentary silence that ensued was broken by Mr F's Aunt, who had been 
sitting upright in a cataleptic state since her last public remark. She now 
underwent a violent twitch, calculated to produce a startling effect on the 
nerves of the uninitiated, and with the deadliest animosity observed:
"You can't make a head and brains out of a brass knob with nothing in it. 
You couldn't do it when your Uncle George was living; much less when he's 
dead."
Mr Pancks was not slow to reply, with his usual calmness, "Indeed, ma'am! 
Bless my soul! I'm surprised to hear it." Despite his presence of mind, 
however, the speech of Mr F's Aunt produced a depressing effect on the 
little assembly; firstly, because it was impossible to disguise that 
Clennam's unoffending head was the particular temple of reason depreciated; 
and secondly, because nobody ever knew on these occasions whose Uncle 
George was referred to, or what spectral presence might be invoked under 
that appellation.
Therefore Flora said, though still not without a certain boastfulness and 
triumph in her legacy, that Mr F's Aunt was "very lively today, and she 
thought they had better go." But, Mr F's Aunt proved so lively as to take 
the suggestion in unexpected dudgeon and declare that she would not go; 
adding, with several injurious expressions, that if "He" - too evidently 
meaning Clennam - wanted to get rid of her, "let him chuck her out of 
winder;" and urgently expressing her desire to see "Him" perform that 
ceremony.
In this dilemma, Mr Pancks, whose resources appeared equal to any emergency 
in the Patriarchal waters, slipped on his hat, slipped out at the counting-
house door, and slipped in again a moment afterwards with an artificial 
freshness upon him, as if he had been in the country for some weeks. "Why 
bless my heart, ma'am!" said Mr Pancks, rubbing up his hair in great 
astonishment, "is that you? How do you do, ma'am? You are looking charming 
today! I am delighted to see you. Favour me with your arm, ma'am; we'll 
have a little walk together, you and me, if you'll honour me with your 
company." And so escorted Mr F's Aunt down the private staircase of the 
counting-house, with great gallantry and success. The patriarchal Mr Casby 
then rose with the air of having done it himself, and blandly followed: 
leaving his daughter, as she followed in her turn, to remark to her former 
lover in a distracted whisper (which she very much enjoyed), that they had 
drained the cup of life to the dregs; and further to hint mysteriously that 
the late Mr F was at the bottom of it.
Alone again, Clennam became a prey to his old doubts in reference to his 
mother and Little Dorrit, and revolved the old thoughts and suspicions. 
They were all in his mind, blending themselves with the duties he was 
mechanically discharging, when a shadow on his papers caused him to look up 
for the cause. The cause was Mr Pancks. With his hat thrown back upon his 
ears as if his wiry prongs of hair had darted up like springs and cast it 
off, with his jet black beads of eyes inquisitively sharp, with the fingers 
of his right hand in his mouth that he might bite the nails, and with the 
fingers of his left hand in reserve in his pocket for another course, Mr 
Pancks cast his shadow through the glass upon the books and papers.
Mr Pancks asked, with a little inquiring twist of his head, if he might 
come in again? Clennam replied with a nod of his head in the affirmative. 
Mr Pancks worked his way in, came alongside the desk, made himself fast by 
leaning his arms upon it, and started conversation with a puff and a snort.
"Mr F's Aunt is appeased, I hope?" said Clennam.
"All right, sir," said Pancks.
"I am so unfortunate as to have awakened a strong animosity in the breast 
of that lady," said Clennam. "Do you know why?"
"Does she know why?" said Pancks.
"I suppose not."
"I suppose not," said Pancks.
He took out his note-book, opened it, shut it, dropped it into his hat, 
which was beside him on the desk, and looked in at it as it lay at the 
bottom of the hat: all with a great appearance of consideration.
"Mr Clennam," he then began, "I am in want of information, sir."
"Connected with this firm?" asked Clennam.
"No," said Pancks.
"With what, then, Mr Pancks? That is to say, assuming that you want it of 
me."
"Yes, sir; yes, I want it of you," said Pancks, "if I can persuade you to 
furnish it. A, B, C, D. DA, DE, DI, DO. Dictionary order. Dorrit. That's 
the name, sir."
Mr Pancks blew off his peculiar noise again, and fell to at his right-hand 
nails. Arthur looked searchingly at him; he returned the look.
"I don't understand you, Mr Pancks."
"That's the name that I want to know about."
"And what do you want to know?"
"Whatever you can and will tell me." This comprehensive summary of his 
desires was not discharged without some heavy labouring on the part of Mr 
Pancks's machinery.
"This is a singular visit, Mr Pancks. It strikes me as rather extraordinary 
that you should come, with such an object to me."
"It may be all extraordinary together," returned Pancks. "It may be out of 
the ordinary course, and yet be business. In short, it is business. I am a 
man of business. What business have I in this present world, except to 
stick to business? No business."
With his former doubt whether this dry hard personage were quite in 
earnest, Clennam again turned his eyes attentively upon his face. It was as 
scrubby and dingy as ever, and as eager and quick as ever, and he could see 
nothing lurking in it that was at all expressive of a latent mockery that 
had seemed to strike upon his ear in the voice.
"Now," said Pancks, "to put this business on its own footing, it's not my 
proprietor's."
"Do you refer to Mr Casby as your proprietor?"
Pancks nodded. "My proprietor. Put a case. Say, at my proprietor's I hear 
name - name of young person Mr Clennam wants to serve. Say, name first 
mentioned to my proprietor by Plornish in the Yard. Say, I go to Plornish. 
Say, I ask Plornish as a matter of business, for information. Say, 
Plornish, though six weeks in arrear to my proprietor, declines. Say, Mrs 
Plornish declines. Say, both refer to Mr Clennam. Put the case."
"Well?"
"Well, sir," returned Pancks, "say, I come to him. Say, here I Am."
With those prongs of hair sticking up all over his head, and his breath 
coming and going very hard and short, the busy Pancks fell back a step (in 
Tug metaphor, took half a turn astern) as if to show his dingy hull 
complete, then forged ahead again, and directed his quick glance by turns 
into his hat where his note-book was, and into Clennam's face.
"Mr Pancks, not to trespass on your ground of mystery, I will be as plain 
with you as I can. Let me ask two questions. First -"
"All right!" said Pancks, holding up his dirty forefinger with its broken 
nail. "I see! 'What's your motive?'"
"Exactly."
"Motive," said Pancks, "good. Nothing to do with my proprietor; not 
stateable at present, ridiculous to state at present; but good. Desiring to 
serve young person, name of Dorrit," said Pancks, with his forefinger still 
up as a caution. "Better admit motive to be good."
"Secondly, and lastly, what do you want to know?"
Mr Pancks fished up his note-book before the question was put, and 
buttoning it with care in an inner breast pocket, and looking straight at 
Clennam all the time, replied with a pause and a puff, "I want 
supplementary information of any sort."
Clennam could not withhold a smile, as the panting little steam tug, so 
useful to that unwieldy ship the Casby, waited on and watched him as if it 
were seeking an opportunity of running in and rifling him of all it wanted, 
before he could resist its manoeuvres; though there was that in Mr Pancks's 
eagerness, too, which awakened many wondering speculations in his mind. 
After a little consideration, he resolved to supply Mr Pancks with such 
leading information as it was in his power to impart to him; well knowing 
that Mr Pancks, if he failed in his present research, was pretty sure to 
find other means of getting it.
He, therefore, first requesting Mr Pancks to remember his voluntary 
declaration that his proprietor had no part in the disclosure, and that his 
own intentions were good (two declarations which that coaly little 
gentleman with the greatest ardour repeated), openly told him that as to 
the Dorrit lineage or former place of habitation he had no information to 
communicate, and that his knowledge of the family did not extend beyond the 
fact that it appeared to be now reduced to five members; namely, to two 
brothers, of whom one was single, and one a widower with three children. 
The ages of the whole family he made known to Mr Pancks, as nearly as he 
could guess at them; and finally he described to him the position of the 
Father of the Marshalsea, and the course of time and events through which 
he had become invested with that character. To all this, Mr Pancks, 
snorting and blowing in a more and more portentous manner as he became more 
interested, listened with great attention; appearing to derive the most 
agreeable sensations from the painfullest parts of the narrative, and 
particularly to be quite charmed by the account of William Dorrit's long 
imprisonment.
"In conclusion, Mr Pancks," said Arthur, "I have but to say this. I have 
reasons beyond a personal regard, for speaking as little as I can of the 
Dorrit family, particularly at my mother's house" (Mr Pancks nodded), "and 
for knowing as much as I can. So devoted a man of business as you are - 
eh?"
For, Mr Pancks had suddenly made that blowing effort with unusual force.
"It's nothing," said Pancks.
"So devoted a man of business as yourself has a perfect understanding of a 
fair bargain. I wish to make a fair bargain with you, that you shall 
enlighten me concerning the Dorrit family, when you have it in your power, 
as I have enlightened you. It may not give you a very flattering idea of my 
business habits, that I failed to make my terms beforehand," continued 
Clennam; "but I prefer to make them a point of honour. I have seen so much 
business done on sharp principles that to tell you the truth, Mr Pancks, I 
am tired of them."
Mr Pancks laughed. "It's a bargain, sir," said he "You shall find me stick 
to it."
After that, he stood a little while looking at Clennam, and biting his ten 
nails all round; evidently while he fixed in his mind what he had been 
told, and went over it carefully before the means of supplying a gap in his 
memory should be no longer at hand. "It's all right," he said at last, "and 
now I'll wish you good day, as it's collecting-day in the Yard. By-the-bye, 
though. A lame foreigner with a stick."
"Ay, ay. You do take a reference sometimes, I see?" said Clennam.
"When he can pay, sir," replied Pancks. "Take all you can get, and keep 
back all you can't be forced to give up. That's business. The lame 
foreigner with the stick wants a top room down the Yard. Is he good for 
it?"
"I am," said Clennam, "and I will answer for him."
"That's enough. What I must have of Bleeding Heart Yard," said Pancks, 
making a note of the case in his book, "is my bond. I want my bond, you 
see. Pay up, or produce your property! That's the watchword down the Yard. 
The lame foreigner with the stick represented that you sent him; but he 
could represent (as far as that goes) that the Great Mogul sent him. He has 
been in the Hospital, I believe?"
"Yes. Through having met with an accident. He is only just now discharged."
"It's pauperising a man, sir, I have been shown, to let him into a 
Hospital?" said Pancks. And again blew off that remarkable sound.
"I have been shown so too," said Clennam, coldly.
Mr Pancks, being by that time quite ready for a start, got under steam in a 
moment, and, without any other signal or ceremony, was snorting down the 
step-ladder and working into Bleeding Heart Yard, before he seemed to be 
well out of the counting-house.

Throughout the remainder of the day, Bleeding Heart Yard was in 
consternation, as the grim Pancks cruised in it; haranguing the inhabitants 
on their backsliding in respect of payment, demanding his bond, breathing 
notices to quit and executions, running down defaulters, sending a swell of 
terror on before him, and leaving it in his wake. Knots of people, impelled 
by a fatal attraction, lurked outside any house in which he was known to 
be, listening for fragments of his discourses to the inmates; and, when he 
was rumoured to be coming down the stairs, often could not disperse so 
quickly but that he would be prematurely in among them, demanding their own 
arrears, and rooting them to the spot. Throughout the remainder of the day, 
Mr Pancks's What were they up to? and What did they mean by it? sounded all 
over the Yard. Mr Pancks wouldn't hear of excuses, wouldn't hear of 
complaints, wouldn't hear of repairs, wouldn't hear of anything but 
unconditional money down. Perspiring and puffing and darting about in 
eccentric directions, and becoming hotter and dingier every moment, he 
lashed the tide of the Yard into a most agitated and turbid state. It had 
not settled down into calm water again, full two hours after he had been 
seen fuming away on the horizon at the top of the steps.
There were several small assemblages of the Bleeding Hearts at the popular 
points of meeting in the Yard that night, among whom it was universally 
agreed that Mr Pancks was a hard man to have to do with; and that it was 
much to be regretted, so it was, that a gentleman like Mr Casby should put 
his rents in his hands, and never know him in his true light. For (said the 
Bleeding Hearts), if a gentleman with that head of hair and them eyes took 
his rents into his own hands, ma'am there would be none of this worriting 
and wearing, and things would be very different.
At which identical evening hour and minute, the Patriarch - who had floated 
serenely through the Yard in the forenoon before the harrying began, with 
the express design of getting up this trustfulness in his shining bumps and 
silken locks - at which identical hour and minute, that first rate humbug 
of a thousand guns was heavily floundering in the little Dock of his 
exhausted Tug at home, and was saying, as he turned his thumbs:
"A very bad day's work, Pancks, very bad day's work. It seems to me, sir, 
and I must insist on making the observation forcibly, in justice to myself, 
that you ought to have got much more money, much more money."


Chapter 24

Fortune-Telling

Little Dorrit received a call that same evening from Mr Plornish, who, 
having intimated that he wished to speak to her, privately, in a series of 
coughs so very noticeable as to favour the idea that her father, as 
regarded her seamstress occupation, was an illustration of the axiom that 
there are no such stone-blind men as those who will not see, obtained an 
audience with her on the common staircase outside the door.
"There's been a lady at our place today, Miss Dorrit," Plornish growled. 
"and another one along with her as is a old wixen if ever I met with such. 
The way she snapped a person's head off, dear me!"
The mild Plornish was at first quite unable to get his mind away from Mr 
F's Aunt. "For," said he, to excuse himself, "she is, I do assure you, the 
winegariest party."
At length, by a great effort, he detached himself from the subject 
sufficiently to observe:
"But she's neither here nor there just at present. The other lady, she's Mr 
Casby's daughter; and if Mr Casby an't well off, none better, it an't 
through any fault of Pancks. For as to Pancks, he does, he really does, he 
does indeed!"
Mr Plornish, after his usual manner, was a little obscure, but 
conscientiously emphatic.
"And what she come to our place for," he pursued, "was to leave word that 
if Miss Dorrit would step up to that card - which it's Mr Casby's house 
that is, and Pancks he has a office at the back, where he really does, 
beyond belief - she would be glad for to engage her. She was a old and a 
dear friend, she said particular, of Mr Clennam, and hoped for to prove 
herself a useful friend to his friend. Them was her words. Wishing to know 
whether Miss Dorrit could come tomorrow morning, I said I would see you, 
Miss, and inquire, and look round there tonight, to say yes, or, if you n 
as engage tomorrow, when."
"I can go tomorrow, thank you." said Little Dorrit. "This is very kind of 
you, but you are always kind."
Mr Plornish, with a modest disavowal of his merits, opened the room door 
for her readmission, and followed her in with such an exceedingly bald 
pretence of not having been out at all, that her father might have observed 
it without being very suspicious. In his affable unconsciousness, however, 
he took no heed. Plornish, after a little conversation in which he blended 
his former duty as a Collegian with his present privilege as a humble 
outside friend, qualified again by his low estate as a plasterer, took his 
leave; making the tour of the prison before he left, and looking on at a 
game of skittles, with the mixed feelings of an old inhabitant who had his 
private reasons for believing that it might be his destiny to come back 
again.
Early in the morning. Little Dorrit, leaving Maggie in high domestic trust, 
set off for the Patriarchal tent. She went by the Iron Bridge, though it 
cost her a penny, and walked more slowly in that part of her journey than 
in any other. At five minutes before eight, her hand was on the Patriarchal 
knocker, which was quite as high as she could reach.
She gave Mrs Finching's card to the young woman who opened the door, and 
the young woman told her that "Miss Flora" - Flora having, on her return to 
the parental roof, reinvested herself with the title under which she had 
lived there - was not yet out of her bedroom, but she was to please to walk 
up into Miss Flora's sitting-room. She walked up into Miss Flora's sitting-
room, as in duty bound, and there found a breakfast-table comfortably laid 
for two, with a supplementary tray upon it laid for one. The young woman, 
disappearing for a few moments, returned to say that she was to please to 
take a chair by the fire, and to take off her bonnet and make herself at 
home. But Little Dorrit being bashful, and not used to make herself at home 
on such occasions, felt at a loss how to do it; so she was still sitting 
near the door with her bonnet on, when Flora came in in a hurry half-an-
hour afterwards.
Flora was so sorry to have kept her waiting, and good gracious why did she 
sit out there in the cold when she had expected to find her by the fire 
reading the paper, and hadn't that heedless girl given her the message 
then, and had she really been in her bonnet all this time, and pray for 
goodness sake let Flora take it off! Flora taking it off in the best-
natured manner in the world, was so struck by the face disclosed, that she 
said, "Why, what a good little thing you are, my dear!" and pressed the 
face between her hands like the gentlest of women.
It was the word and the action of a moment. Little Dorrit had hardly time 
to think how kind it was, when Flora dashed at the breakfast-table, full of 
business, and plunged over head and ears into loquacity.
"Really so sorry that I should happen to be late on this morning of all 
mornings because my intention and my wish was to be ready to meet you when 
you came in and to say that any one that interested Arthur Clennam half so 
much must interest me and that I gave you the heartiest welcome and was so 
glad, instead of which they never called me and there I still am snoring I 
dare say if the truth was known and if you don't like either cold fowl or 
hot boiled ham which many people don't dare say besides Jews and theirs are 
scruples of conscience which we must all respect though I must say I wish 
they had them equally strong when they sell us false articles for real that 
certainly ain't worth the money I shall be quite vexed," said Flora.
Little Dorrit thanked her, and said, shyly, bread and butter and tea was 
all she usually -
"Oh nonsense my dear child I can never hear of that" said Flora, turning on 
the urn in the most reckless manner, and making herself wink by splashing 
hot water into her eyes as she bent down to look into the tea pot. "You are 
come her on the footing of a friend and companion you know if you will let 
me take that liberty and I should be ashamed of myself indeed if you could 
come here upon any other, besides which Arthur Clennam spoke in such terms -
 you are tired my dear."
"No ma'am."
"You turn so pale you have walked too far before breakfast and I dare say 
live a great way off and ought to have had a ride," said Flora, "dear dear 
is there anything that would do you good?"
"Indeed I am quite well, ma'am. I thank you again and again, but I am quite 
well."
"Then take your tea at once I beg," said Flora, "and this wing of fowl and 
bit of ham, don't mind me or wait for me because I always carry in this 
tray myself to Mr F's Aunt who breakfasts in bed and a charming old lady 
too and very clever, Portrait of Mr F behind the door and very like though 
too much forehead, and as to a pillar with a marble pavement and 
balustrades and a mountain I never saw him near it nor not likely in the 
wine trade, excellent man but not at all in that way."
Little Dorrit glanced at the portrait, very imperfectly following the 
references to that work of art.
"Mr F was so devoted to me that he never could bear me out of his sight," 
said Flora, "though of course, I am unable to say how long that might have 
lasted if he hadn't been cut short while I was a new broom, worthy man but 
not poetical manly prose but not romance."
Little Dorrit glanced at the portrait again. The artist had given it a head 
that would have been, in an intellectual point of view, top-heavy for 
Shakespeare. "Romance, however," Flora went on, busily arranging Mr F's 
Aunt's toast, "as I openly said to Mr F. when he proposed to me and you 
will be surprised to hear that he proposed seven times once in a hackney 
coach once in a boat once in a pew once on a donkey at Tunbridge Wells and 
the rest on his knees, Romance was fled with the early days of Arthur 
Clennam, our parents tore us asunder we became marble and stern reality 
usurped the throne, Mr F. said very much to his credit that he was 
perfectly aware of it and even preferred that state of things accordingly 
the word was spoken the flat went forth and such is life you see my dear 
and yet we do not break but bend, pray make a good breakfast while I go in 
with the tray."
She disappeared, leaving Little Dorrit to ponder over the meaning of her 
scattered words. She soon came back again; and at last began to take her 
own breakfast, talking all the while.
"You see my dear," said Flora, measuring out a spoonful or two of some 
brown liquid that smelt like brandy, and putting it into her tea, "I am 
obliged to be careful to follow the directions of my medical man though the 
flavour is anything but agreeable being a poor creature and it may be have 
never recovered the shock received in youth from too much giving way to 
crying in the next room when separated from Arthur, have you known him 
long?"
As soon as Little Dorrit comprehended that she had been asked this question 
- for which time was necessary, the galloping pace of her new patroness 
having left her far behind - she answered that she had known Mr Clennam 
ever since his return.
"To be sure you couldn't have known him before unless you had been in China 
or had corresponded neither of which is likely," returned Flora, "for 
travelling-people usually get more or less mahogany and you are not at all 
so and as to corresponding what about? that's very true unless tea, so it 
was at his mother's was it really that you knew him first, highly sensible 
and firm but dreadfully severe - ought to be the mother of the man in the 
iron mask."
"Mrs Clennam has been kind to me," said Little Dorrit.
"Really? I am sure I am glad to hear it because as Arthur's mother it's 
naturally pleasant to my feelings to have a better opinion of her than I 
had before, though what she thinks of me when I run on as I am certain to 
do and she sits glowering at me like Fate in a go-cart - shocking 
comparison really - invalid and not her fault - I never know or can 
imagine."
"Shall I find my work anywhere, ma'am?" asked Little Dorrit, looking 
timidly about; "can I get it?"
"You industrious little fairy," returned Flora, taking, in another cup of 
tea, another of the doses prescribed by her medical man, "there's not the 
slightest hurry and it's better that we should begin by being confidential 
about our mutual friend - too cold a word for me at least I don't mean 
that, very proper expression mutual friend - than become through mere 
formalities not you but me like the Spartan boy with the fox biting him, 
which I hope you'll excuse my bringing up for of all the tiresome boys that 
will go tumbling into every sort of company that boy's the tiresomest."
Little Dorrit, her face very pale, sat down again to listen. "Hadn't I 
better work the while?" she asked. "I can work and attend too. I would 
rather, if I may." Her earnestness was so expressive of her being uneasy 
without her work, that Flora answered, "Well my dear whatever you like 
best," and produced a basket of white handkerchiefs. Little Dorrit gladly 
put it by her side, took out her little pocket-housewife, threaded her 
needle, and began to hem.
"What nimble fingers you have," said Flora, "but are you sure you are 
well?"
"Oh yes, indeed!"
Flora put her feet upon the fender, and settled herself for a thorough good 
romantic disclosure. She started off at score, tossing her head, sighing in 
the most demonstrative manner, making a great deal of use of her eyebrows, 
and occasionally, but not often, glancing at the quiet face that bent over 
the work.
"You must know my dear," said Flora, 'but that I have no doubt you know 
already not only because I have already thrown it out in a general way but 
because I feel I carry it stamped in burning what's his names upon my brow 
that before I was introduced to the late Mr F I had been engaged to Arthur 
Clennam - Mr Clennam in public where reserve is necessary Arthur here - we 
were all in all to one another it was the morning of life it was bliss it 
was frenzy it was everything else of that sort in the highest degree, when 
rent asunder we turned to stone in which capacity Arthur went to China and 
I became the statue bride of the late Mr F."
Flora, uttering these words in a deep voice, enjoyed herself immensely.
"To paint," said she, "the emotions of that morning when all was marble 
within and Mr F's Aunt followed in a glass-coach which it stands to reason 
must have been in shameful repair or it never could have broken down two 
streets from the house and Mr F's Aunt brought home like the fifth of 
November in a rush-bottomed chair I will not attempt, suffice it to say 
that the hollow form of breakfast took place in the dining-room downstairs 
that papa partaking too freely of pickled salmon was ill for weeks and that 
Mr F and myself went upon a continental tour to Calais where the people 
fought for us on the pier until they separated us though not for ever that 
was not yet to be."
The statue bride, hardly pausing for breath, went on, with the greatest 
complacency, in a rambling manner sometimes incidental to flesh and blood.
"I will draw a veil over that dreamy life, Mr F was in good spirits his 
appetite was good he liked the cookery he considered the wine weak but 
palatable and all was well, we returned to the immediate neighbourhood of 
Number Thirty Little Gosling Street London Docks and settled down, ere we 
had yet fully detected the housemaid in selling the feathers out of the 
spare bed Gout flying upwards soared with Mr F to another sphere."
His relict, with a glance at his portrait, shook her head and wiped her 
eyes.
"I revere the memory of Mr F as an estimable man and most indulgent 
husband, only necessary to mention Asparagus and it appeared or to hint at 
any little delicate thing to drink and it came like magic in a pint bottle 
it was not ecstacy but it was comfort, I returned to papa's roof and lived 
secluded if not happy during some years until one day papa came smoothly 
blundering in and said that Arthur Clennam awaited me below, I went below 
and found him ask me not what I found him except that he was still 
unmarried still unchanged!"
The dark mystery with which Flora now enshrouded herself might have stopped 
other fingers than the nimble fingers that worked near her. They worked on, 
without pause, and the busy head bent over them watching the stitches.
"Ask me not," said Flora, "if I love him still or if he still loves me or 
what the end is to be or when, we are surrounded by watchful eyes and it 
may be that we are destined to pine asunder it may be never more to be 
reunited not a word not a breath not a look to betray us all must be secret 
as the tomb wonder not therefore that even if I should seem comparatively 
cold to Arthur or Arthur should seem comparatively cold to me we have fatal 
reasons it is enough if we understand them hush!"
All of which Flora said with so much headlong vehemence as if she really 
believed it. There is not much doubt, that, when she worked herself into 
full mermaid condition, she did actually believe whatever she said in it.
"Hush!" repeated Flora, "I have now told you all, confidence is established 
between us hush, for Arthur's sake I will always be a friend to you my dear 
girl and in Arthur's name you may always rely upon me."
The nimble fingers laid aside the work, and the little figure rose and 
kissed her hand. "You are very cold," said Flora, changing to her own 
natural kind-hearted manner, and gaining greatly by the change. "Don't work 
today I am sure you are not well I am sure you are not strong."
"It is only that I feel a little overcome by your kindness, and by Mr 
Clennam's kindness in confiding me to one he has known and loved so long."
"Well really my dear," said Flora, who had a decided tendency to be always 
honest when she gave herself time to think about it, "It's as well to leave 
that alone now, for I couldn't undertake to say after all, but it doesn't 
signify lie down a little!"
"I have always been strong enough to do what I want to do, and I shall be 
quite well directly," returned Little Dorrit, with a faint smile. "You have 
overpowered me with gratitude, that's all. If I keep near the window for a 
moment, I shall be quite myself."
Flora opened a window, sat her in a chair by it, and considerately retired 
to her former place. It was a windy day, and the air stirring on Little 
Dorrit's face soon brightened it. In a very few minutes she returned to her 
basket of work, and her nimble fingers were as nimble as ever.
Quietly pursuing her task, she asked Flora if Mr Clennam had told her where 
she lived? When Flora replied in the negative, Little Dorrit said that she 
understood why he had been so delicate, but that she felt sure he would 
approve of her confiding her secret to Flora, and that she would therefore 
do so now with Flora's permission. Receiving an encouraging answer, she 
condensed the narrative of her life into a few scanty words about herself, 
and a glowing eulogy upon her father; and Flora took it all in with a 
natural tenderness that quite understood it, and in which there was no 
incoherence.
When dinner-time came, Flora drew the arm of her new charge through hers, 
and led her downstairs, and presented her to the Patriarch and Mr Pancks, 
who were already in the dining-room waiting to begin. (Mr F's Aunt was, for 
the time, laid up in ordinary in her chamber.) By those gentlemen she was 
received according to their characters; the Patriarch appearing to do her 
some inestimable service in saying that he was glad to see her, glad to see 
her; and Mr Pancks blowing off his favourite sound as a salute.
In that new presence she would have been bashful enough under any 
circumstances, and particularly under Flora's insisting on her drinking a 
glass of wine and eating of the best that was there; but her constraint was 
greatly increased by Mr Pancks. The demeanour of that gentleman at first 
suggested to her mind that he might be a taker of likenesses, so intently 
did he look at her, and so frequently did he glance at the little notebook 
by his side. Observing that he made no sketch, however, and that he talked 
about business only, she began to have suspicions that he represented some 
creditor of her father's, the balance due to whom was noted in that pocket 
volume. Regarded from this point of view Mr Pancks's puffings expressed 
injury and impatience, and each of his louder snorts became a demand for 
payment.
But, here again she was undeceived by anomalous and incongruous conduct on 
the part of Mr Pancks himself. She had left the table half an hour, and was 
at work alone. Flora had "gone to lie down" in the next room, concurrently 
with which retirement a smell of something to drink had broken out in the 
house. The Patriarch was fast asleep, with his philanthropic mouth open, 
under a yellow pocket-handkerchief in the dining-room. At this quiet time, 
Mr Pancks softly appeared before her, urbanely nodding.
"Find it a little dull, Miss Dorrit?" inquired Pancks, in a low voice.
"No, thank you, sir," said Little Dorrit.
"Busy, I see," observed Mr Pancks, stealing into the room by inches. "What 
are those now, Miss Dorrit?"
"Handkerchiefs."
"Are they, though!" said Pancks. "I shouldn't have thought it." Not in the 
least looking at them, but looking at Little Dorrit. "Perhaps you wonder 
who I am. Shall I tell you? I am a fortune-teller."
Little Dorrit now began to think he was mad.
"I belong body and soul to my proprietor," said Pancks; "you saw my 
proprietor having his dinner below. But I do a little in the other way, 
sometimes; privately, very privately, Miss Dorrit."
Little Dorrit looked at him doubtfully, and not without alarm. "I wish 
you'd show me the palm of your hand," said Pancks. "I should like to have a 
look at it. Don't let me be troublesome."
He was so far troublesome that he was not at all wanted there, but she laid 
her work in her lap for a moment, and held out her left hand with a thimble 
on it.
"Years of toil, eh?" said Pancks, softly, touching it with his blunt 
forefinger. "But what else are we made for? Nothing. Hallo!" looking into 
the lines. "What's this with bars? It's a College! And what's this with a 
grey gown and a black velvet cap? It's a father! And what's this with a 
clarionet? It's an uncle! And what's this in dancing-shoes? It's a sister! 
And what's this straggling about in an idle sort of a way? It's a brother! 
And what's this thinking for 'em all? Why, this is you, Miss Dorrit!"
Her eyes met his as she looked up wonderingly into his face, and she 
thought that although his were sharp eyes, he was a brighter and gentler-
looking man than she had supposed at dinner. His eyes were on her hand 
again directly, and her opportunity of confirming or correcting the 
impression was gone. "Now the deuce is in it," muttered Pancks, tracing out 
a line in her hand with his clumsy finger, "if this isn't me in the corner 
here! What do I want here? What's behind me?"
He carried his finger slowly down to the wrist, and round the wrist, and 
affected to look at the back of the hand for what was behind him.
"Is it any harm?" asked Little Dorrit, smiling.
"Deuce a bit!" said Pancks. "What do you think it's worth?"
"I ought to ask you that. I am not the fortune-teller."
"True," said Pancks. "What's it worth? You shall live to see, Miss Dorrit."
Releasing the hand by slow degrees, he drew all his fingers though his 
prongs of hair, so that they stood up in their most portentous manner; and 
repeated slowly, "Remember what I say, Miss Dorrit. You shall live to see."
She could not help showing that she was much surprised, if it were only by 
his knowing so much about her.
"Ah! That's it!" said Pancks, pointing at her. "Miss Dorrit, not that, 
ever!"
More surprised than before, and a little more frightened she looked to him 
for an explanation of his last words.
"Not that," said Pancks, making, with great seriousness, an imitation of a 
surprised look and manner, that appeared to be unintentionally grotesque. 
"Don't do that. Never on seeing me, no matter where. I am nobody. Don't 
take on to mind me. Don't mention me. Take no notice. Will you agree Miss 
Dorrit?"
"I hardly know what to say," returned Little Dorrit, quite astounded. 
"Why?"
"Because I am a fortune-teller. Pancks the gipsy. I haven't told you so 
much of your fortune, yet, Miss Dorrit, as to tell you what's behind me on 
that little hand. I have told you you shall live to see. Is it agreed, Miss 
Dorrit?"
"Agreed that I - am - to -"
"To take no notice of me away from here, unless I take on first. Not to 
mind me when I come and go. It's very easy. I am no loss, I am not 
handsome, I am not good company, I am only my proprietor's grubber. You 
need do no more than think, 'Ah! Pancks the gipsy at his fortune-telling - 
he'll tell the rest of my fortune one day - I shall live to know it.' Is it 
agreed, Miss Dorrit?"
"Ye-es," faltered Little Dorrit, whom he greatly confused, "I suppose so, 
while you do no harm."
"Good!" Mr Pancks glanced at the wall of the adjoining room, and stooped 
forward. "Honest creature, woman of capital points, but heedless and a 
loose talker. Miss Dorrit." With that he rubbed his hands as if the 
interview had been very satisfactory to him, panted away to the door, and 
urbanely nodded himself out again.
If Little Dorrit were beyond measure perplexed by this curious conduct on 
the part of her new acquaintance, and by finding herself involved in this 
singular treaty, her perplexity was not diminished by ensuing 
circumstances. Besides that Mr Pancks took every opportunity afforded him 
in Mr Casby's house of significantly glancing at her and snorting at her - 
which was not much, after what he had done already - he began to pervade 
her daily life. She saw him in the street, constantly. When she went to Mr 
Casby's, he was always there. When she went to Mrs Clennam's, he came there 
on any pretence, as if to keep her in his sight. A week had not gone by, 
when she found him to her astonishment, in the Lodge one night conversing 
with the turnkey on duty, and to all appearance one of his familiar 
companions. Her next surprise was to find him equally at his ease within 
the prison; to hear of his presenting himself among the visitors at her 
father's Sunday levee; to see him arm in arm with a Collegiate friend about 
the yard; to learn, from Fame, that he had greatly distinguished himself 
one evening at the social club that held its meetings in the Snuggery, by 
addressiug a speech to the members of that institution, singing a song, and 
treating the company to five gallons of ale - report madly added a bushel 
of shrimps. The effect on Mr Plornish of such of these phenomena as he 
became an eye-witness of in his faithful visits, made an impression on 
Little Dorrit only second to that produced by the phenomena themselves. 
They seemed to gag and bind him. He could only stare, and sometimes weakly 
mutter that it wouldn't be believed down Bleeding Heart Yard that this was 
Pancks; but he never said a word more, or made a sign more, even to Little 
Dorrit. Mr Pancks crowned his mysteries by making himself acquainted with 
Tip in some unknown manner, and taking a Sunday saunter into the College on 
that gentleman's arm. Throughout he never took any notice of Little Dorrit, 
save once or twice when he happened to come close to her, and there was no 
one very near: on which occasions, he said in passing, with a friendly look 
and puff of encouragement, "Pancks the gipsy - fortune-telling."
Little Dorrit worked and strove as usual, wondering at all this, but 
keeping her wonder, as she had from her earliest years kept many heavier 
loads, in her own breast. A change had stolen, and was stealing yet, over 
the patient heart. Every day found her something more retiring than the day 
before. To pass in and out of the prison unnoticed, and elsewhere to be 
overlooked and forgotten, were, for herself, her chief desires.
To her own room too, strangely assorted room for her delicate youth and 
character, she was glad to retreat as often as she could without desertion 
of any duty. There were afternoon times when she was unemployed, when 
visitors dropped in to play a hand at cards with her father, when she could 
be spared and was better away. Then she would flit along the yard, climb 
the scores of stairs that led to her room, and take her seat at the window. 
Many combinations did those spikes upon the wall assume, many light shapes 
did the strong iron weave itself into, many golden touches fell upon the 
rust, while Little Dorrit sat there musing. New zig-zags sprung into the 
cruel pattern sometimes, when she saw it through a burst of tears; but 
beautiful or hardened still, always over it and under it and through it, 
she was fain to look in her solitude, seeing everything with that 
ineffaceable brand.
A garret, and a Marshalsea garret without compromise, was Little Dorrit's 
room. Beautifully kept, it was ugly in itself, and had little but 
cleanliness and air to set it off; for what embellishment she had ever been 
able to buy, had gone to her father's room. Howbeit, for this poor place 
she showed an increasing love; and to sit in it alone became her favourite 
rest.
Insomuch, that on a certain afternoon, during the Pancks mysteries, when 
she was seated at her window, and heard Maggie's well-known step coming up 
the stairs, she was very much disturbed by the apprehension of being 
summoned away. As Maggie's step came higher up and nearer, she trembled and 
faltered; and it was as much as she could do to speak, when Maggie at 
length appeared.
"Please, Little Mother," said Maggie, panting for breath; "you must come 
down and see him. He's here."
"Who Maggie?"
"Who, o'course Mr Clennam. He's in your father's room, and he says to me, 
Maggie will you be so kind and go and say it's only me."
"I am not very well, Maggie. I had better not go. I am going to lie down. 
See! I lie down now to ease my head. Say, with my grateful regard, that you 
left me so, or I would have come."
"Well, it an't very polite though, Little Mother," said the staring Maggie, 
"to turn your face away neither!"
Maggie was very susceptible to personal slights, and very ingenious in 
inventing them. "Putting both your hands afore your face too!" she went on. 
"If you can't bear the looks of a poor thing, it would be better to tell 
her so at once, and not go and shut her out like that, hurting her feelings 
and breaking her heart at ten years old, poor thing!"
"It's to ease my head, Maggie."
"Well, and if you cry to ease your head, Little Mother, let me cry too. 
Don't go and have all the crying to yourself," expostulated Maggie, "that 
an't not being greedy." And immediately began to blubber.
It was with some difficulty that she could be induced to go back with the 
excuse; but the promise of being told a story - of old her great delight - 
on condition that she concentrated her faculties upon the errand and left 
her little mistress to herself for an hour longer, combined with a 
misgiving on Maggie's part that she had left her good temper at the bottom 
of the staircase, prevailed. So away she went, muttering her message all 
the way to keep it in her mind, and, at the appointed time, came back.
"He was very sorry, I can tell you," she announced, "and wanted to send a 
doctor. And he's coming again tomorrow he is, and I don't think he'll have 
a good sleep tonight along o' hearing about your head, Little Mother. Oh 
my! Ain't you been a-crying!"
"I think I have, a little, Maggie."
"A little! Oh!"
"But it's all over now - all over for good, Maggie. And my head is much 
better and cooler, and I am quite comfortable. I am very glad I did not go 
down."
Her great staring child tenderly embraced her; and having smoothed her 
hair, and bathed her forehead and eyes with cold water (offices in which 
her awkward hands became skillful), hugged her again, exulted in her 
brighter looks, and stationed her in her chair by the window. Over against 
this chair, Maggie, with apoplectic exertions that were not at all 
required, dragged the box which was her seat on story-telling occasions, 
sat down upon it, hugged her own kness, and said, with a voracious appetite 
for stories, and with widely-opened eyes:
"Now, Little Mother, let's have a good un!"
"What shall it be about, Maggie?"
"Oh, let's have a Princess," said Maggie, "and let her be a reg'lar one. 
Beyond all belief, you know!"
Little Dorrit considered for a moment; and with a rather sad smile upon her 
face, which was flushed by the sunset, began:
"Maggie, there was once upon a time a fine King, and he had everything he 
could wish for, and a great deal more. He had gold and silver, diamonds and 
rubies, riches of every kind. He had palaces, and he had -"
"Hospitals," interposed Maggie, still nursing her knees. "Let him have 
hospitals, because they's so comfortable. Hospitals with lots of Chicking."
"Yes, he had plenty of them, and he had plenty of everything."
"Plenty of baked potatoes, for instance?" said Maggie.
"Plenty of everything."
"Lor!" chuckled Maggie, giving her knees a hug. "Wasn't it prime!"
"This King had a daughter, who was the wisest and most beautiful Princess 
that ever was seen. When she was a child she understood all her lessons 
before her masters taught them to her; and when she was grown up, she was 
the wonder of the world. Now, near the Palace where this Princess lived, 
there was a cottage in which there was a poor little tiny woman, who lived 
all alone by herself."
"A old woman," said Maggie, with an unctuous smack of her lips.
"No, not an old woman. Quite a young one."
"I wonder she warn't afraid," said Maggie. "Go on, please."
"The Princess passed the cottage nearly every day, and whenever she went by 
in her beautiful carriage, she saw the poor tiny woman, spinning at her 
wheel, and she looked at the tiny woman, and the tiny woman looked at her. 
So one day she stopped the coachman a little way from the cottage, and got 
out and walked on and peeped in at the door, and there, as usual, was the 
tiny woman spinning at her wheel, and she looked at the Princess, and the 
Princess looked at her."
"Like trying to stare one another out," said Maggie. "Please go on, Little 
Mother."
"The Princess was such a wonderful Princess that she had the power of 
knowing secrets, and she said to the tiny woman, Why do you keep it there? 
This showed her directly that the Princess knew why she lived all alone by 
herself spinning at her wheel, and she kneeled down at the Princess's feet, 
and asked her never to betray her. So, the Princess said, I never will 
betray you. Let me see it. So, the tiny woman closed the shutter of the 
cottage window and fastened the door, and, trembling from head to foot for 
fear that any one should suspect her, opened a very secret place, and 
showed the Princess a shadow."
"Lor!" said Maggie.
"It was the shadow of Some one who had gone by long before: of Some one who 
had gone on far away quite out of reach, never, never to come back. It was 
bright to look at; and when the tiny woman showed it to the Princess, she 
was proud of it with all her heart, as a great, great, treasure. When the 
Princess had considered it a little while, she said to the tiny woman, And 
you keep watch over this, every day? And she cast down her eyes, and 
whispered, Yes. Then the Princess said, Remind me why. To which the other 
replied, that no one so good and kind had ever passed that way, and that 
was why in the beginning. She said, too, that nobody missed it, that nobody 
was the worse for it, that Some one had gone on to those who were expecting 
him -"
"Some one was a man then?" interposed Maggie.
Little Dorrit timidly said yes, she believed so; and resumed: " - had gone 
on to those who were expecting him, and that this remembrance was stolen or 
kept back from nobody. The Princess made answer, Ah! But when the cottager 
died it would be discovered there. The tiny woman told her No; when that 
time came, it would sink quietly into her own grave, and would never be 
found."
"Well, to be sure!" said Maggie. "Go on, please."
"The Princess was very much astonished to hear this, as you may suppose, 
Maggie."
("And well she might be," said Maggie.)
"So she resolved to watch the tiny woman, and see what came of it. Every 
day, she drove in her beautiful carriage by the cottage-door, and there she 
saw the tiny woman always alone by herself spinning at her wheel, and she 
looked at the tiny woman, and the tiny woman looked at her. At last one day 
the wheel was still, and the tiny woman was not to be seen. When the 
Princess made inquiries why the wheel had stopped, and where the tiny woman 
was, she was informed that the wheel had stopped because there was nobody 
to turn it, the tiny woman being dead."
("They ought to have took her to the Hospital," said Maggie, "and then 
she'd have got over it.")
"The Princess, after crying a very little for the loss of the tiny woman, 
dried her eyes and got out of her carriage at the place, where she had 
stopped it before, and went to the cottage and peeped in at the door. There 
was nobody to look at her now, and nobody for her to look at, so she went 
in at once to search for the treasured shadow. But there was no sign of it 
to be found anywhere; and then she knew that the tiny woman had told her 
the truth, and that it would never give any body any trouble, and that it 
had sunk quietly into her own grave, and that she and it were at rest 
together."
"That's all, Maggie."
The sunset flush was so bright on Little Dorrit's face when she came thus 
to the end of her story, that she interposed her hand to shade it.
"Had she got to be old?" Maggie asked.
"The tiny woman?"
"Ah!"
"I don't know," said Little Dorrit. "But it would have been just the same, 
if she had been ever and ever so old."
"Would it raly!" said Maggie. "Well I suppose it would though." And sat 
staring and ruminating.
She sat so long with her eyes wide open, that at length Little Dorrit, to 
entice her from her box, rose and looked out of window. As she glanced down 
into the yard, she saw Pancks come in, and leer up with the corner of his 
eye as he went by.
"Who's he, Little Mother?" said Maggie. She had joined her at the window 
and was leaning on her shoulder. "I see him come in and out often."
"I have heard him called a fortune-teller," said Little Dorrit. "But I 
doubt if he could tell many people, even their past or present fortunes."
"Couldn't have told the Princess hers?" said Maggie
Little Dorrit, looking musingly down into the dark valley of the prison, 
shook her head.
"Nor the tiny woman hers?" said Maggie.
"No," said Little Dorrit, with the sunset very bright upon her. "But let us 
come away from the window."


Chapter 25

Conspirators And Others

The private residence of Mr Pancks was in Pentonville, where he lodged on 
the second floor of a professional gentleman in an extremely small way, who 
had an inner-door within the street door, poised on a spring and starting 
open with a click like a trap; and who wrote up in the fan light, Rugg, 
General Agent, Accountant, Debts Recovered.
This scroll, majestic in its severe simplicity, illuminated a little slip 
of front garden abutting on the thirsty high road, where a few of the 
dustiest of leaves hung their dismal heads and led a life of choking. A 
professor of writing occupied the first-floor, and enlivened the garden 
railings with glass-cases containing choice examples of what his pupils had 
been before six lessons and while the whole of his young family shook the 
table, and what they had become after six lessons when the young family was 
under restraint. The tenancy of Mr Pancks was limited to one airy bedroom; 
he covenanting and agreeing with Mr Rugg his landlord, that in 
consideration of a certain scale of payments accurately defined, and on 
certain verbal notice duly given, he should be at liberty to elect to share 
the Sunday breakfast, dinner, tea, or supper, or each or any or all of 
those repasts or meals, of Mr and Miss Rugg (his daughter) in the back 
parlour.
Miss Rugg was a lady of a little property, which she had acquired, together 
with much distinction in the neighbourhood, by having her heart severely 
lacerated and her feelings mangled by a middle-aged baker, resident in the 
vicinity, against whom she had, by the agency of Mr Rugg, found it 
necessary to proceed to law to recover damages for a breach of promise of 
marriage. The baker, having been, by the counsel for Miss Rugg, witheringly 
denounced on that occasion up to the full amount of twenty guineas, at the 
rate of about eighteenpence an epithet, and having been cast in 
corresponding damages, still suffered occasional persecutions from the 
youth of Pentonville. But Miss Rugg, environed by the majesty of the law, 
and having her damages invested in the public securities, was regarded with 
consideration.
In the society of Mr Rugg, who had a round white visage, as if all his 
blushes had been drawn out of him long ago, and who had a ragged yellow 
head like a worn-out hearth-broom; and in the society of Miss Rugg, who had 
little nankeen spots, like shirt buttons, all over her face, and whose own 
yellow tresses were rather scrubby than luxuriant; Mr Pancks had usually 
dined on Sundays for some few years, and had twice a week, or so, enjoyed 
an evening collation of bread, Dutch cheese, and porter. Mr Pancks was one 
of the very few marriageable men for whom Miss Rugg had no terrors, the 
argument with which he reassured himself being twofold; that is to say, 
firstly, "that it wouldn't do twice," and secondly "that he wasn't worth 
it." Fortified within this double armour, Mr Pancks snorted at Miss Rugg on 
easy terms.
Up to this time, Mr Pancks had transacted little or no business at his 
quarters in Pentonville, except in the sleeping line; but, now that he had 
become a fortune-teller, he was often closetted after midnight with Mr Rugg 
in his little front-parlour office, and, even after those untimely hours 
burnt tallow in his bedroom. Though his duties as his proprietor's grubber 
were in no wise lessened; and though that service bore no greater 
resemblance to a bed of roses than was to be discovered in its many thorns; 
some new branch of industry made a constant demand upon him. When he cast 
off the Patriarch at night, it was only to take an anonymous craft in tow, 
and labour away afresh in other waters.
The advance from a personal acquaintance with the elder Mr Chivery, to an 
introduction to his amiable wife and disconsolate son, may have been easy; 
but easy or not, Mr Pancks soon made it. He nestled in the bosom of the 
tobacco business within a week or two after his first appearance in the 
College, and particularly addressed himself to the cultivation of a good 
understanding with Young John. In this endeavour he so prospered as to lure 
that pining shepherd forth from the groves, and tempt him to undertake 
mysterious missions; on which he began to disappear at uncertain intervals 
for as long a space as two or three days together. The prudent Mrs Chivery, 
who, wondered greatly at this change, would have protested against it as 
detrimental to the Highland typification on the doorpost, but for two 
forcible reasons; one, that her John was roused to take strong interest in 
the business which these starts were supposed to advance - and this she 
held to be good for his drooping spirits; the other, that Mr Pancks 
confidentially agreed to pay her, for the occupation of her son's time, at 
the handsome rate of seven and sixpence per day. The proposal originated 
with himself, and was couched in the pithy terms, "If your John is weak 
enough, ma'am, not to take it, that is no reason why you should be, don't 
you see? So, quite between ourselves, ma'am, business being business, here 
it is!"
What Mr Chivery thought of these things, or how much or how little he knew 
about them, was never gathered from himself. It has been already remarked 
that he was a man of few words; and it may be here observed, that he had 
imbibed a professional habit of locking everything up. He locked himself up 
as carefully as he locked up the Marshalsea debtors. Even his custom of 
bolting his meals may have been a part of an uniform whole; but there is no 
question, that, as to all other purposes, he kept his mouth as he kept the 
Marshalsea door. He never opened it without occasion. When it was necessary 
to let anything out, he opened it a little way, held it open just as long 
as sufficed for the purpose, and locked it again. Even as he would be 
sparing of his trouble at the Marshalsea door, and would keep a visitor who 
wanted to go out, waiting for a few moments if he saw another visitor 
coming down the yard, so that one turn of the key should suffice for both, 
similarly he would often reserve a remark if he perceived another on its 
way to his lips, and would deliver himself of the two together. As to any 
key to his inner knowledge being to be found in his face, the Marshalsea 
key was as legible an index to the individual characters and histories upon 
which it was turned.
That Mr Pancks should be moved to invite any one to dinner at Pentonville, 
was an unprecedented fact in his calendar. But he invited Young John to 
dinner, and even brought him within range of the dangerous (because 
expensive) fascinations of Miss Rugg. The banquet was appointed for a 
Sunday, and Miss Rugg with her own hand stuffed a leg of mutton with 
oysters on the occasion, and sent it to the baker's - not the baker's, but 
an opposition establishment. Provision of oranges, apples, and nuts was 
also made. And rum was brought home by Mr Pancks on Saturday night to 
gladden the visitor's heart.
The store of creature comforts was not the chief part of the visitor's 
reception. Its special feature was a foregone family confidence and 
sympathy. When Young John appeared at half-past one, without the ivory hand 
and waistcoat of golden sprigs, the sun shorn of his beams by disastrous 
clouds, Mr Pancks presented him to the yellow-haired Ruggs as the young man 
he had so often mentioned who loved Miss Dorrit.
"I am glad," said Mr Rugg, challenging him specially in that character, "to 
have the distinguished gratification of making your acquaintance, sir. Your 
feelings do you honour. You are young; may you never outlive your feelings! 
If I was to outlive my own feelings, sir," said Mr Rugg, who was a man of 
many words, and was considered to possess a remarkably good address; "if I 
was to outlive my own feelings, I'd leave fifty pound in my will to the man 
who would put me out of existence."
Miss Rugg heaved a sigh.
"My daughter, sir," said Mr Rugg. "Anastatia, you are no stranger to the 
state of this young man's affections. My daughter has had her trials, sir," 
Mr Rugg might have used the word more pointedly in the singular number, 
"and she can feel for you."
Young John, almost overwhelmed by the touching nature of this greeting, 
professed himself to that effect.
"What I envy you, sir, is," said Mr Rugg, "allow me to take your hat - we 
are rather short of pegs - I'll put it in the corner, nobody will tread in 
it there - What I envy you, sir, is the luxury of your own feelings. I 
belong to a profession in which that luxury is sometimes denied us."
Young John replied with acknowledgments, that he only hoped he did what was 
right, and what showed how entirely he was devoted to Miss Dorrit. He 
wished to be unselfish; and he hoped he was. He wished to do anything as 
laid in his power to serve Miss Dorrit, altogether putting himself out of 
sight; and he hoped he did. It was but little that he could do, but he 
hoped he did it.
"Sir," said Mr Rugg, taking him by the hand, "you are a young man that it 
does one good to come across. You are a young man that I should like to put 
in the witness-box, to humanise the minds of the legal profession. I hope 
you have brought your appetite with you, and intend to play a good knife 
and fork?"
"Thank you, sir," returned Young John, "I don't eat much at present."
Mr Rugg drew him a little apart. "My daughter's case, sir," said he, "at 
the time when, in vindication of her outraged feelings and her sex, she 
became the plaintiff in Rugg and Hawkins. I suppose I could have put it in 
evidence, Mr Chivery, if I had thought it worth my while, that the amount 
of solid sustenance my daughter consumed at that period did not exceed ten 
ounces per week."
"I think I go a little beyond that, sir," returned the other, hesitating, 
as if he confessed it with some shame.
"But in your case there's no fiend in human form," said Mr Rugg, with 
argumentative smile and action of hand. "Observe, Mr Chivery! No fiend in 
human form!"
"No, sir, certainly," Young John added with simplicity, "I should be very 
sorry if there was."
"The sentiment," said Mr Rugg, "is what I should have expected from your 
known principles. It would affect my daughter greatly, sir, if she heard 
it. As I perceive the mutton, I am glad she didn't hear it. Mr Pancks, on 
this occasion, pray face me. My dear, face Mr Chivery. For what we are 
going to receive, may we (and Miss Dorrit) be truly thankful!"
But for a grave waggishness in Mr Rugg's manner of delivering this 
introduction to the feast, it might have appeared that Miss Dorrit was 
expected to be one of the company. Pancks recognised the sally in his usual 
way, and took in his provender in his usual way. Miss Rugg, perhaps making 
up some of her arrears, likewise took very kindly to the mutton, and it 
rapidly diminished to the bone. A bread-and-butter pudding entirely 
disappeared, and a considerable amount of cheese and radishes vanished by 
the same means. Then came the dessert.
Then also, and before the broaching of the rum and water, came Mr Pancks's 
note-book. The ensuing business proceedings were brief but curious, and 
rather in the nature of a conspiracy. Mr Pancks looked over his note-book 
which was now getting full, studiously; and picked out little extracts, 
which he wrote on separate slips of paper on the table; Mr Rugg, in the 
meanwhile, looking at him with close attention, and Young John losing his 
uncollected eye in mists of meditation. When Mr Pancks, who supported the 
character of chief conspirator, had completed his extracts, he looked them 
over, corrected them, put up his note-book, and held them like a hand at 
cards.
"Now, there's a churchyard in Bedfordshire," said Pancks. "Who takes it?"
"I'll take it, sir," returned Mr Rugg, "if no one bids."
Mr Pancks dealt him his card, and looked at his hand again. "Now, there's 
an Enquiry in York," said Pancks. "Who takes it?"
"I'm not good for York," said Mr Rugg.
"Then perhaps," pursued Pancks, "you'll be so obliging, John Chivery?"
Young John assenting, Pancks dealt him his card, and consulted his hand 
again.
"There's a Church in London; I may as well take that. And a Family Bible; I 
may as well take that, too. That's two to me. Two to me," repeated Pancks, 
breathing hard over his cards. "Here's a Clerk at Durham for you, John, and 
an old seafaring gentleman at Dunstable for you, Mr Rugg. Two to me, was 
it? Yes, two to me. Here's a stone; three to me. And a Still-born Baby; 
four to me. And all, for the present, told."
When he had thus disposed of his cards, all being done very quietly and in 
a suppressed tone, Mr Pancks puffed his way into his own breast-pocket and 
tugged out a canvas bag: from which, with a sparing hand, he told forth 
money for travelling expenses in two little portions. "Cash goes out fast," 
he said anxiously, as he pushed a portion to each of his male companions, 
"very fast."
"I can only assure you, Mr Pancks," said Young John, "that I deeply regret 
my circumstances being such that I can't afford to pay my own charges, or 
that it's not advisable to allow me the time necessary for my doing the 
distance on foot. Because nothing would give me greater satisfaction than 
to walk myself off my legs without fee or reward."
This young man's disinterestedness appeared so very ludicrous in the eyes 
of Miss Rugg, that she was obliged to effect a precipitate retirement from 
the company, and to sit upon the stairs until she had had her laugh out. 
Meanwhile Mr Pancks, looking, not without some pity, at Young John, slowly 
and thoughtfully twisted up his canvas bag as if he were wringing its neck. 
The lady returning as he restored it to his pocket, mixed rum and water for 
the party, not forgetting her fair self, and handed to every one his glass. 
When all were supplied, Mr Rugg rose, and silently holding out his glass at 
arm's length above the centre of the table, by that gesture invited the 
other three to add theirs, and to unite in a general conspiratorial clink. 
The ceremony was effective up to a certain point, and would have been 
wholly so throughout, if Miss Rugg, as she raised her glass to her lips in 
completion of it, had not happened to look at Young John; when she was 
again so overcome by the contemptible comicality of his disinterestedness, 
as to splutter some ambrosial drops of rum and water around, and withdraw 
in confusion.
Such was the dinner without precedent, given by Pancks at Pentonville; and 
such was the busy and strange life Pancks led. The only waking moments at 
which he appeared to relax from his cares, and to recreate himself by going 
anywhere or saying anything without a pervading object, were when he showed 
a dawning interest in the lame foreigner with the stick, down Bleeding 
Heart Yard.
The foreigner, by name John Baptist Cavalletto - they called him Mr Baptist 
in the Yard - was such a chirping, easy, hopeful little fellow, that his 
attraction for Pancks was probably in the force of contrast. Solitary, 
weak, and scantily acquainted with the most necessary words of the only 
language in which he could communicate with the people about him, he went 
with the stream of his fortunes, in a brisk way that was new in those 
parts. With little to eat, and less to drink, and nothing to wear but what 
he wore upon him, or had brought tied up in one of the smallest bundles 
that ever were seen, he put as bright a face upon it as if he were in the 
most flourishing circumstances, when he first hobbled up and down the Yard 
humbly propitiating the general goodwill with his white teeth.
It was uphill work for a foreigner, lame or sound, to make his way with the 
Bleeding Hearts. In the first place, they were vaguely persuaded that every 
foreigner had a knife about him; in the second, they held it to be a sound 
constitutional national axiom that he ought to go home to his own country. 
They never thought of inquiring how many of their own countrymen would be 
returned upon their hands from divers parts of the world, if the principle 
were generally recognised; they considered it practically and peculiarly 
British. In the third place, they had a notion that it was a sort of Divine 
visitation upon a foreigner that he was not an Englishman, and that all 
kinds of calamities happened to his country because it did things that 
England did not, and did not do things that England did. In this belief, to 
be sure, they had long been carefully trained by the Barnacles and 
Stiltstalkings, who were always proclaiming to them, officially and 
unofficially, that no country which failed to submit itself to those two 
large families could possibly hope to be under the protection of 
Providence; and who, when they believed it, disparaged them in private as 
the most prejudiced people under the sun.
This, therefore, might be called a political position of the Bleeding 
Hearts; but they entertained other objections to having foreigners in the 
Yard. They believed that foreigners were always badly off; and though they 
were as ill off themselves as they could desire to be, that did not 
diminish the force of the objection. They believed that foreigners were 
dragooned and bayonetted; and though they certainly got their own skulls 
promptly fractured if they showed any ill humour, still it was with a blunt 
instrument, and that didn't count. They believed that foreigners were 
always immoral; and though they had an occasional assize at home, and now 
and then a divorce case or so, that had nothing to do with it. They 
believed that foreigners had no independent spirit, as never being escorted 
to the poll in droves by Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle, with colours flying 
and the tune of Rule Britannia playing. Not to be tedious, they had many 
other beliefs of a similar kind.
Against these obstacles, the lame foreigner with the stick had to make head 
as well as he could; not absolutely single-handed, because Mr Arthur 
Clennam had recommended him to the Plornishes (he lived at the top of the 
same house), but still at heavy odds. However, the Bleeding Hearts were 
kind hearts; and when they saw the little fellow cheerily limping about 
with a good-humoured face, doing no harm, drawing no knives, committing no 
outrageous immoralities, living chiefly on farinaceous and milk diet, and 
playing with Mrs Plornish's children of an evening, they began to think 
that although he could never hope to be an Englishman, still it would be 
hard to visit that affliction on his head. They began to accommodate 
themselves to his level, calling him "Mr Baptist," but treating him like a 
baby, and laughing immoderately at his lively gestures and his childish 
English - more, because he didn't mind it, and laughed too. They spoke to 
him in very loud voices as if he were stone deaf. They constructed 
sentences, by way of teaching him the language in its purity, such as were 
addressed by the savages to Captain Cook, or by Friday to Robinson Crusoe. 
Mrs Plornish was particularly ingenious in this art; and attained so much 
celebrity for saying "Me ope you leg well soon," that it was considered in 
the Yard but a very short remove indeed from speaking Italian. Even Mrs 
Plornish herself began to think that she had a natural call towards that 
language. As he became more popular, household objects were brought into 
requisition for his instruction in a copious vocabulary; and whenever he 
appeared in the Yard, ladies would fly out at their doors crying "Mr 
Baptist - teapot!" "Mr Baptist - dust-pan!" "Mr Baptist - flour-dredger!" 
"Mr Baptist - coffee-biggin!" At the same time exhibiting those articles, 
and penetrating him with a sense of the appalling difficulties of the Anglo-
Saxon tongue.
It was in this stage of his progress, and in about the third week of his 
occupation, that Mr Pancks's fancy became attracted by the little man. 
Mounting to his attic, attended by Mrs Plornish as interpreter, he found Mr 
Baptist with no furniture but his bed on the ground, a table, and a chair, 
carving with the aid of a few simple tools, in the blithest way possible.
"Now, old chap," said Mr Pancks, "pay up!"
He had his money ready, folded in a scrap of paper, and laughingly handed 
it in; then with a free action, threw out as many fingers of his right hand 
as there were shillings, and made a cut crosswise in the air for an odd 
sixpence.
"Oh!" said Mr Pancks, watching him, wonderingly. "That's it, is it? You're 
a quick customer. It's all right. I didn't expect to receive it, though."
Mrs Plornish here interposed with great condescension, and explained to Mr 
Baptist. "E please. E glad get money."
The little man smiled and nodded. His bright face seemed uncommonly 
attractive to Mr Pancks. "How's he getting on in his limb?" he asked Mrs 
Plornish.
"Oh, he's a deal better, sir," said Mrs Plornish. "We expect next week 
he'll be able to leave off his stick entirely." (The opportunity being too 
favourable to be lost, Mrs Plornish displayed her great accomplishment, by 
explaining, with pardonable pride, to Mr Baptist, "E ope you leg well 
soon.")
"He's a merry fellow, too," said Mr Pancks, admiring him as if he were a 
mechanical toy. "How does he live?"
"Why, sir," rejoined Mrs Plornish, "he turns out to have quite a power of 
carving them flowers that you see him at now." (Mr Baptist, watching their 
faces as they spoke, held up his work. Mrs Plornish interpreted in her 
Italian manner, on behalf of Mr Pancks, "E please. Double good!"
"Can he live by that?" asked Mr Pancks.
"He can live on very little, sir, and it is expected as he will be able, in 
time, to make a very good living. Mr Clennam got it him to do, and gives 
him odd jobs besides in at the Works next door - makes 'em for him, in 
short, when he knows he wants 'em."
"And what does he do with himself, now, when he ain't hard at it?" said Mr 
Pancks.
"Why, not much as yet, sir, on accounts I suppose of not being able to walk 
much; but he goes about the Yard, and he chats without particular 
understanding or being understood, and he plays with the children, and he 
sits in the sun - he'll sit down anywhere, as if it was a armchair - and 
he'll sing, and he'll laugh!"
"Laugh!" echoed Mr Pancks. "He looks to me as if every tooth in his head 
was always laughing."
"But whenever he gets to the top of the steps at t'other end of the Yard," 
says Mrs Plornish, "he'll peep out in the curiousest way! So that some of 
us think he's peeping out towards where his own country is, and some of us 
think he's looking for somebody he don't want to see, and some of us don't 
know what to think."
Mr Baptist seemed to have a general understanding of what she said; or 
perhaps his quickness caught and applied her slight action of peeping. In 
any case, he closed his eyes and tossed his head with the air of a man who 
had his sufficient reasons for what he did, and said in his own tongue, it 
didn't matter. Altro! 
"What's Altro?" said Pancks.
"Hem! It's a sort of a general kind of expression, sir," said Mrs Plornish.
"Is it?" said Pancks. "Why, then Altro to you, old chap. Good afternoon. 
Altro!"
Mr Baptist in his vivacious way repeating the word several times, Mr Pancks 
in his duller way gave it him back once. From that time it became a 
frequent custom with Pancks the gipsy, as he went home jaded at night, to 
pass round by Bleeding Heart Yard, go quietly up the stairs, look in at Mr 
Baptist's door and finding him in his room, to say "Hallo, old chap! 
Altro!" To which Mr Baptist would reply, with innumerable bright nods and 
smiles, "Altro, signore, altro, altro, altro!" After this highly condensed 
conversation, Mr Pancks would go his way; with an appearance of being 
lightened and refreshed.


Chapter 26

Nobody's State Of Mind

If Arthur Clennam had not arrived at that wise decision firmly to restrain 
himself from loving Pet, he would have lived on in a state of much 
perplexity, involving difficult struggles with his own heart. Not the least 
of these would have been a contention, always waging within it, between a 
tendency to dislike Mr Henry Gowan, if not to regard him with positive 
repugnance, and a whisper that the inclination was unworthy. A generous 
nature is not prone to strong aversions, and is slow to admit them even 
dispassionately; but when it finds ill-will gaining upon it, and can 
discern between-whiles that its origin is not dispassionate, such a nature 
becomes distressed.
Therefore Mr Henry Gowan would have clouded Clennam's mind, and would have 
been far oftener present to it than more agreeable persons and subjects, 
but for the great prudence of his decision aforesaid. As it was, Mr Gowan 
seemed transferred to Daniel Doyce's mind; at all events, it so happened 
that it usually fell to Mr Doyce's turn, rather than to Clennam's, to speak 
of him in the friendly conversations they held together. These were of 
frequent occurrence now; as the two partners shared a portion of a roomy 
house in one of the grave old-fashioned City streets, lying not far from 
the Bank of England, by London Wall.
Mr Doyce had been to Twickenham to pass the day. Clennam had excused 
himself. Mr Doyce was just come home. He put in his head at the door of 
Clennam's sitting-room to say Good night.
"Come in, come in!" said Clennam.
"I saw you were reading," returned Doyce, as he entered, "and thought you 
might not care to be disturbed."
But for the notable resolution he had made, Clennam really might not have 
known what he had been reading; really might not have had his eyes upon the 
book for an hour past, though it lay open before him. He shut it up rather 
quickly.
"Are they well?" he asked.
"Yes," said Doyce; "they are well. They are all well."
Daniel had an old workmanlike habit of carrying his pocket-handkerchief in 
his hat. He took it out and wiped his forehead with it, slowly repeating 
"they are all well. Miss Minnie looking particularly well, I thought."
"Any company at the cottage?"
"No, no compan."
"And how did you get on, you four?" asked Clennam, gaily.
"There were five of us," returned his partner. "There was What's-his-name. 
He was there."
"Who is he?" said Clennam.
"Mr Henry Gowan."
"Ah, to be sure!" cried Clennam, with unusual vivacity.
"Yes! - I forgot him."
"As I mentioned, you may remember," said Daniel Doyce, "he is always there 
on Sunday."
"Yes, yes," returned Clennam; "I remember now."
Daniel Doyce, still wiping his forehead, ploddingly repeated, "Yes. He was 
there, he was there. Oh yes, he was there. And his dog. He was there too."
"Miss Meagles is quite attached to - the - dog" observed Clennam.
"Quite so," assented his partner. "More attached to the dog than I am to 
the man."
"You mean Mr --?"
"I mean Mr Gowan, most decidedly," said Daniel Doyce.
There was a gap in the conversation, which Clennam devoted to winding up 
his watch.
"Perhaps you are a little hasty in your judgment," he said.
"Our judgments - I am supposing a general case"
"Of course," said Doyce.
"Are so liable to be influenced by many considerations which, almost 
without our knowing it, are unfair, that it is necessary to keep a guard 
upon them. For instance, Mr -"
"Gowan," quietly said Doyce, upon whom the utterance of the name almost 
always devolved.
"Is young and handsome, easy and quick, has talent, and has seen a good 
deal of various kinds of life. It might be difficult to give an unselfish 
reason for being prepossessed against him."
"Not difficult for me, I think, Clennam," returned his partner. "I see him 
bringing present anxiety, and, I fear, future sorrow, into my old friend's 
house. I see him wearing deeper lines into my old friend's face, the nearer 
he draws to, and the oftener he looks at, the face of his daughter. In 
short, I see him with a net about the pretty and affectionate creature whom 
he will never make happy."
"We don't know," said Clennam, almost in the tone of a man in pain, "that 
he will not make her happy."
"We don't know," returned his partner, "that the earth will last another 
hundred years, but we think it highly probable."
"Well, well!" said Clennam, "we must be hopeful, and we must at least try 
to be, if not generous (which, in this case, we have no opportunity of 
being), just. We will not disparage this gentleman, because he is 
successful in his addresses to the beautiful object of his ambition; and we 
will not question her natural right to bestow her love on one whom she 
finds worthy of it."
"May be, my friend," said Doyce. "May be also, that she is too young and 
petted, too confiding and inexperienced, to discriminate well."
"That," said Clennam, "would be far beyond our power of correction."
Daniel Doyce shook his head gravely, and rejoined, "I fear so."
"Therefore, in a word," said Clennam, "we should make up our minds that it 
is not worthy of us to say any ill of Mr Gowan. It would be a poor thing to 
gratify a prejudice against him, and I resolve, for my part, not to 
depreciate him."
"I am not quite so sure of myself, and therefore I reserve my privilege of 
objecting to him," returned the other. "But, if I am not sure of myself, I 
am sure of you, Clennam, and I know what an upright man you are, and how 
much to be respected. Good night, my friend and partner!" He shook his hand 
in saying this, as if there had been something serious at the bottom of 
their conversation; and they separated.
By this time, they had visited the family on several occasions, and had 
always observed that even a passing allusion to Mr Henry Gowan when he was 
not among them, brought back the cloud which had obscured Mr Meagles's 
sunshine on the morning of the chance encounter at the ferry. If Clennam 
had ever admitted the forbidden passion into his breast, this period might 
have been a period of real trial; under the actual circumstances, doubtless 
it was nothing - nothing.
Equally, if his heart had given entertainment to that prohibited guest, his 
silent fighting of his way through the mental condition of this period 
might have been a little meritorious. In the constant effort not to be 
betrayed into a new phase of the besetting sin of his experience, the 
pursuit of selfish objects by low and small means, and to hold instead to 
some high principle of honour and generosity, there might have been a 
little merit. In the resolution not even to avoid Mr Meagles's house, lest, 
in the selfish sparing of himself, he should bring any slight distress upon 
the daughter through making her the cause of an estrangement which he 
believed the father would regret, there might have been a little merit. In 
the modest truthfulness of always keeping in view the greater equality of 
Mr Gowan's years, and the greater attractions of his person and manner, 
there might have been a little merit. In doing all this and much more, in a 
perfectly unaffected way and with a manful and composed constancy, while 
the pain within him (peculiar as his life and history) was very sharp, 
there might have been some quiet strength of character. But, after the 
resolution he had made, of course he could have no such merits as these; 
and such a state of mind was nobody's - nobody's.
Mr Gowan made it no concern of his whether it was nobody's or somebody's. 
He preserved his perfect serenity of manner on all occasions, as if the 
possibility of Clennam's presuming to have debated the great question were 
too distant and ridiculous to be imagined. He had always an affability to 
bestow on Clennam and an ease to treat him with, which might of itself (in 
the supposititious case of his not having taken that sagacious course) have 
been a very uncomfortable element in his state of mind.
"I quite regret you were not with us yesterday," said Mr Henry Gowan, 
calling on Clennam next morning. "We had an agreeable day up the river 
there."
So he had heard, Arthur said.
"From your partner?" returned Henry Gowan. "What a dear old fellow he is!"
"I have a great regard for him."
"By Jove he is the finest creature!" said Gowan, "So fresh, so green, 
trusts in such wonderful things!"
Here was one of the many little rough points that had a tendency to grate 
on Clennam's hearing. He put it aside by merely repeating that he had a 
high regard for Mr Doyce.
"He is charming! To see him mooning along to that time of life, laying down 
nothing by the way and picking up nothing by the way, is delightful. It 
warms a man. So unspoilt, so simple, such a good soul! Upon my life, Mr 
Clennam, one feels desperately worldly and wicked, in comparison with such 
an innocent creature. I speak for myself, let me add, without including 
you. You are genuine, also."
"Thank you for the compliment," said Clennam, ill at ease; "you are too, I 
hope!"
"So so," rejoined the other. "To be candid with you, tolerably. I am not a 
great impostor. Buy one of my pictures, and I assure you, in confidence, it 
will not be worth the money. Buy one of another's man's - any great 
professor who beats me hollow - and the chances are that the more you give 
him, the more he'll impose upon you. They all do it."
"All painters?"
"Painters, writers, patriots, all the rest who have stands in the market. 
Give almost any man I know, ten pounds, and he will impose upon you to a 
corresponding extent; a thousand pounds - to a corresponding extent; ten 
thousand pounds - to a corresponding extent. So great the success, so great 
the imposition. But what a capital world it is!" cried Gowan with warm 
enthusiasm. "What a jolly, excellent, loveable world it is!"
"I had rather thought," said Clennam, "that the principle you mention was 
chiefly acted on by -"
"By the Barnacles?" interrupted Gowan laughing.
"By the political gentlemen who condescend to keep the Circumlocution 
Office."
"Ah! Don't be hard upon the Barnacles," said Gowan, laughing afresh, "they 
are darling fellows! Even poor little Clarence, the born idiot of the 
family, is the most agreeable and most endearing blockhead! And by Jupiter, 
with a kind of cleverness in him too, that would astonish you!"
"It would. Very much," said Clennam, drily.
"And after all," cried Gowan, with that characteristic balancing of his 
which reduced everything in the wide world to the same light weight, 
"though I can't deny that the Circumlocution Office may ultimately 
shipwreck everybody and everything, still, that will probably not be in our 
time - and it's a school for gentlemen."
"It's a very dangerous, unsatisfactory, and expensive school to the people 
who pay to keep the pupils there, I am afraid," said Clennam, shaking his 
head.
"Ah! You are a terrible fellow," returned Gowan, airily. "I can understand 
how you have frightened that little donkey, Clarence, the most estimable of 
mooncalves (I really love him), nearly out of his wits. But enough of him, 
and of all the rest of them. I want to present you to my mother, Mr 
Clennam. Pray do me the favour to give me the opportunity."
In nobody's state of mind, there was nothing Clennam would have desired 
less, or would have been more at a loss how to avoid.
"My mother lives in the most primitive manner down in that dreary red-brick 
dungeon at Hampton Court," said Gowan. "If you would make your own 
appointment, suggest your own day for permitting me to take you there to 
dinner, you would be bored and she would be charmed. Really that's the 
state of the case."
What could Clennam say after this?" His retiring character included a great 
deal that was simple in the best sense, because unpractised and unused; and 
in his simplicity and modesty, he could only say that he was happy to place 
himself at Mr Gowan's disposal. Accordingly he said it, and the day was 
fixed. And a dreaded day it was on his part, and a very unwelcome day when 
it came, and they went down to Hampton Court together.
The venerable inhabitants of that venerable pile seemed, in those times, to 
be encamped there like a sort of civilised gipsies. There was a temporary 
air about their establishments, as if they were going away the moment they 
could get anything better; there was also a dissatisfied air about 
themselves, as if they took it very ill that they had not already got 
something much better. Genteel blinds and make-shifts were more or less 
observable as soon as their doors were opened; screens not half high 
enough, which made dining-rooms out of arched passages, and warded off 
obscure corners where footboys slept at night with their heads among the 
knives and forks; curtains which called upon you to believe that they 
didn't hide anything; panes of glass which requested you not to see them; 
many objects of various forms, feigning to have no connection with their 
guilty secret, a bed; disguised traps in walls, which were clearly coal-
cellars; affectations of no thoroughfares, which were evidently doors to 
little kitchens. Mental reservations and artful mysteries grew out of these 
things. Callers, looking steadily into the eyes of their receivers, 
pretended not to smell cooking three feet off; people confronting closets 
accidentally left open, pretended not to see bottles; visitors, with their 
heads against a partition of thin canvas and a page and a young female at 
high words on the other side, made believe to be sitting in a primeval 
silence. There was no end to the small social accommodation-bills of this 
nature which the gipsies of gentility were constantly drawing upon, and 
accepting for, one another.
Some of these Bohemians were of an irritable temperament, as constantly 
soured and vexed by two mental trials; the first, the consciousness that 
they had never got enough out of the public; the second, the consciousness 
that the public were admitted into the building. Under the latter great 
wrong, a few suffered dreadfully - particularly on Sundays, when they had 
for some time expected the earth to open and swallow the public up; but 
which desirable event had not yet occurred, in consequence of some 
reprehensible laxity in the arrangements of the Universe.
Mrs Gowan's door was attended by a family servant of several years' 
standing, who had his own crow to pluck with the public, concerning a 
situation in the Post Office which he had been for some time expecting, and 
to which he was not yet appointed. He perfectly knew that the public could 
never have got him in, but he grimly gratified himself with the idea that 
the public kept him out. Under the influence of this injury (and perhaps of 
some little straitness and irregularity in the matter of wages), he had 
grown neglectful of his person and morose in mind; and now beholding in 
Clennam one of the degraded body of his oppressors, received him with 
ignominy.
Mrs Gowan, however, received him with condescension. He found her a courtly 
old lady, formerly a Beauty, and still sufficiently well-favoured to have 
dispensed with the powder on her nose, and a certain impossible bloom under 
each eye. She was a little lofty with him: so was another old lady, dark-
browed and high-nosed, and who must have had something real about her or 
she could not have existed, but it was certainly not her hair or her teeth 
or her figure or her complexion; so was a grey old gentleman of dignified 
and sullen appearance; both of whom had come to dinner. But, as they had 
all been in the British Embassy way in sundry parts of the earth, and as a 
British Embassy cannot better establish a character with the Circumlocution 
Office than by treating its compatriots with illimitable contempt (else it 
would become like the Embassies of other countries), Clennam felt that on 
the whole they let him off lightly.
The dignified old gentleman turned out to be Lord Lancaster Stiltstalking, 
who had been maintained by the Circumlocution Office for many years as a 
representative of the Britannic Majesty abroad. This noble Refrigerator had 
iced several European courts in his time, and had done it with such 
complete success that the very name of Englishman yet struck cold to the 
stomachs of foreigners who had the distinguished honour of remembering him, 
at a distance of a quarter of a century.
He was now in retirement, and hence (in a ponderous white cravat, like a 
stiff snow-drift) was so obliging as to shade the dinner. There was a 
whisper of the pervading Bohemian character in the nomadic nature of the 
service, and its curious races of plates and dishes; but the noble 
Refrigerator, infinitely better than plate or porcelain, made it superb. He 
shaded the dinner, cooled the wines, chilled the gravy, and blighted the 
vegetables.
There was only one other person in the room: a microscopically small 
footboy, who waited on the malevolent man who hadn't got into the Post 
Office. Even this youth, if his jacket could have been unbuttoned and his 
heart laid bare, would have been seen, as a distant adherent of the 
Barnacle family, already to aspire to a situation under Government.
Mrs Gowan with a gentle melancholy upon her, occasioned by her son's being 
reduced to court the swinish public as a follower of the low Arts, instead 
of asserting his birthright and putting a ring through his nose as an 
acknowledged Barnacle, headed the conversation at dinner on the evil days. 
It was then that Clennam learned for the first time what little pivots this 
great world goes round upon.
"If John Barnacle," said Mrs Gowan, after the degeneracy of the times had 
been fully ascertained, "If John Barnacle had but abandoned his most 
unfortunate idea of conciliating the mob, all would have been well, and I 
think the country would have been preserved."
The old lady with the high nose assented, but added that if Augustus 
Stiltstalking had in a general way ordered the cavalry out with 
instructions to charge, she thought the country would have been preserved.
The noble Refrigerator assented; but added that if William Barnacle and 
Tudor Stiltstalking, when they came over to one another and formed their 
ever memorable coalition, had boldly muzzled the newspapers, and rendered 
it penal for any Editor-person to presume to discuss the conduct of any 
appointed authority abroad or at home, he thought the country would have 
been preserved.
It was agreed that the country (another word for the Barnacles and 
Stiltstalkings) wanted preserving, but how it came to want preserving was 
not so clear. It was only clear that the question was all about John 
Barnacle, Augustus Stiltstalking, William Barnacle and Tudor Stiltstalking, 
Tom, Dick, or Harry Barnacle or Stiltstalking, because there was nobody 
else but mob. And this was the feature of the conversation which impressed 
Clennam, as a man not used to it, very disagreeably: making him doubt if it 
were quite right to sit there silently hearing a great nation narrowed to 
such little bounds. Remembering, however, that in the Parliamentary 
debates, whether on the life of that nation's body or the life of its soul, 
the question was usually all about and between John Barnacle, Augustus 
Stiltstalking, William Barnacle and Tudor Stiltstalking, Tom, Dick, or 
Harry Barnacle or Stiltstalking, and nobody else; he said nothing on the 
part of mob, bethinking himself that mob was used to it.
Mr Henry Gowan seemed to have a malicious pleasure in playing off the three 
talkers against each other, and in seeing Clennam startled by what they 
said. Having as supreme a contempt for the class that had thrown him off, 
as for the class that had not taken him on, he had no personal disquiet in 
anything that passed. His healthy state of mind appeared even to derive a 
gratification from Clennam's position of embarrassment and isolation among 
the good Company; and if Clennam had been in that condition with which 
Nobody is incessantly contending, he would have suspected it, and would 
have struggled with the suspicion as a meanness, even while he sat at the 
table.
In the course of a couple of hours the noble Refrigerator, at no time less 
than a hundred years behind the period, got about five centuries in arrear, 
and delivered solemn political oracles appropriate to that epoch. He 
finished by freezing a cup of tea for his own drinking, and retiring at his 
lowest temperature.
Then Mrs Gowan, who had been accustomed in her days of state to retain a 
vacant armchair beside her to which to summon her devoted slaves, one by 
one, for short audiences as marks of her especial favour, invited Clennam 
with a turn of her fan to approach the presence. He obeyed, and took the 
tripod recently vacated by Lord Lancaster Stiltstalking.
"Mr Clennam," said Mrs Gowan, "apart from the happiness I have in becoming 
known to you, though in this odiously inconvenient place - a mere barrack - 
there is a subject on which I am dying to speak to you. It is the subject 
in connection with which my son first had, I believe, the pleasure of 
cultivating your acquaintance."
Clennam inclined his head, as a generally suitable reply to what he did not 
yet quite understand.
"First," said Mrs Gowan, "now is she really pretty?"
In nobody's difficulties he would have found it very difficult to answer; 
very difficult indeed to smile, and say "Who?"
"Oh! You know!" she returned. "This flame of Henry's. This unfortunate 
fancy. There! If it is a point of honour that I should originate the name - 
Miss Mickles - Miggles,"
"Miss Meagles," said Clennam, "is very beautiful."
"Men are so often mistaken on those points," returned Mrs Gowan, shaking 
her head, "that I candidly confess to you I feel anything but sure of it, 
even now; though it is something to have Henry corroborated with so much 
gravity and emphasis. He picked the people up at Rome, I think?"
The phrase would have given nobody mortal offence. Clennam replied "Excuse 
me, I doubt if I understand your expression."
"Picked the people up," said Mrs Gowan, tapping the sticks of her closed 
fan (a large green one, which she used as a hand screen) upon her little 
table. "Came upon them. Found them out. Stumbled against them."
"The people?"
"Yes. The Miggles people."
"I really cannot say," said Clennam, "where my friend Mr Meagles first 
presented Mr Henry Gowan to his daughter."
"I am pretty sure he picked her up at Rome; but never mind where - 
somewhere. Now (this is entirely between ourselves), is she very plebian?"
"Really, ma'am," returned Clennam, "I am so undoubtedly plebian myself, 
that I do not feel qualified to judge."
"Very neat!" said Mrs Gowan, coolly unfolding her screen. "Very happy! From 
which I infer that you secretly think her manner equal to her looks?"
Clennam, after a moment's stiffness, bowed.
"That's comforting, and I hope you may be right. Did Henry tell me you had 
travelled with them?"
"I travelled with my friend Mr Meagles, and his wife and daughter, during 
some months." (Nobody's heart might have been wrung by the remembrance.)
"Really comforting, because you must have had a large experience of them. 
You see, Mr Clennam, this thing has been going on for a long time, and I 
find no improvement in it. Therefore to have the opportunity of speaking to 
one so well informed about it as yourself, is an immense relief to me. 
Quite a boon. Quite a blessing, I am sure."
"Pardon me," returned Clennam, "but I am not in Mr Henry Gowan's 
confidence. I am far from being so well informed as you suppose me to be. 
Your mistake makes my position a very delicate one. No word on this topic 
has ever passed between Mr Henry Gowan and myself."
Mrs Gowan glanced at the other end of the room, where her son was playing 
ecarte on a sofa, with the old lady who was for a charge of cavalry.
"Not in his confidence? No," said Mrs Gowan. "No word has passed between 
you? No. That I can imagine. But there are unexpressed confidences, Mr 
Clennam; and as you have been together intimately among these people, I 
cannot doubt that a confidence of that sort exists in the present case. 
Perhaps you have heard that I have suffered the keenest distress of mind 
from Henry's having taken to a pursuit which - well!" shrugging her 
shoulders, "a very respectable pursuit, I dare say, and some artists are, 
as artists, quite superior persons; still we never yet in our family have 
gone beyond an Amateur, and it is a pardonable weakness to feel a little -"
As Mrs Gowan broke off to heave a sigh, Clennam, however resolute to be 
magnanimous, could not keep down the thought that there was mighty little 
danger of the family's ever going beyond an Amateur, even as it was.
"Henry," the mother resumed, "is self-willed and resolute; and as these 
people naturally strain every nerve to catch him, I can entertain very 
little hope, Mr Clennam, that the thing will be broken off. I apprehend the 
girl's fortune will be very small; Henry might have done much better; there 
is scarcely anything to compensate for the connection: still, he acts for 
himself; and if I find no improvement within a short time, I see no other 
course than to resign myself, and make the best of these people. I am 
infinitely obliged to you for what you have told me."
As she shrugged her shoulders, Clennam stiffly bowed again. With an uneasy 
flush upon his face, and hesitation in his manner, he then said, in a still 
lower tone than he had adopted yet:
"Mrs Gowan, I scarcely know how to acquit myself of what I feel to be a 
duty, and yet I must ask you for your kind consideration in attempting to 
discharge it. A misconception on your part, a very great misconception if I 
may venture to call it so, seems to require setting right. You have 
supposed Mr Meagles and his family to strain every nerve, I think you said -
"
"Every nerve," repeated Mrs Gowan, looking at him in calm obstinacy, with 
her green fan between her face and the fire.
"To secure Mr Henry Gowan?"
The lady placidly assented.
"Now that is so far," said Arthur, "from being the case, that I know Mr 
Meagles to be unhappy in this matter and to have interposed all reasonable 
obstacles, with the hope of putting an end to it."
Mrs Gowan shut up her great green fan, tapped him on the arm with it, and 
tapped her smiling lips. "Why, of course," said she. Just what I mean."
Arthur watched her face for some explanation of what she did mean.
"Are you really serious, Mr Clennam? Don't you see!"
Arthur did not see; and said so.
"Why, don't I know my son, and don't I know that this is exactly the way to 
hold him?" said Mrs Gowan, contemptuously; "and do not these Miggles people 
know it, at least as well as I? Oh, shrewd people, Mr Clennam: evidently 
people of business! I believe Miggles belonged to a Bank. It ought to have 
been a very profitable Bank, if he had much to do with its management. This 
is very well done, indeed."
"I beg and intreat you, ma'am - " Arthur interposed.
"Oh Mr Clennam, can you really be so credulous!"
It made such a painful impression upon him to hear her talking in this 
haughty tone, and to see her patting her contemptuous lips with her fan, 
that he said very earnestly, "Believe me, ma'am, this is unjust, a 
perfectly groundless suspicion."
"Suspicion?" repeated Mrs Gowan. "Not suspicion, Mr Clennam, Certainty. It 
is very knowingly done, indeed, and seems to have taken you in completely." 
She laughed; and again sat tapping her lips with her fan, and tossing her 
head, as if she added, "Don't tell me. I know such people will do anything 
for the honour of such an alliance."
At this opportune moment, the cards were thrown up, and Mr Henry Gowan came 
across the room saying, "Mother, if you can spare Mr Clennam for this time, 
we have a long way to go, and it's getting late." Mr Clennam thereupon rose 
as he had no choice but to do; and Mrs Gowan showed him, to the last, the 
same look and the same tapped contemptuous lips.
"You have had a portentuously long audience of my mother," said Gowan, as 
the door closed upon them. "I fervently hope she has not bored you?"
"Not at all," said Clennam.
They had a little open phaeton for the journey, and were soon in it on the 
road home. Gowan, driving, lighted a cigar; Clennam declined one. Do what 
he would, he fell into such a mood of abstraction, that Gowan said again, 
"I am very much afraid my mother has bored you?" To which he roused himself 
to answer, "Not at all;" and soon relapsed again.
In that state of mind which rendered nobody uneasy, his thoughtfulness 
would have turned principally on the man at his side. He would have thought 
of the morning when he first saw him rooting out stones with his heel, and 
would have asked himself "Does he jerk me out of the path in the same 
careless, cruel way?" He would have thought, had this introduction to his 
mother been brought about by him because he knew what she would say, and 
that he could thus place his position before a rival and loftily warn him 
off, without himself reposing a word of confidence in him? He would have 
thought, even if there were no such design as that, had he brought him 
there to play with his repressed emotions, and torment him? The current of 
these meditations would have been stayed sometimes by a rush of shame, 
bearing a remonstrance to himself from his own open nature representing 
that to shelter such suspicions, even for the passing moment, was not to 
hold the high, unenvious course he had resolved to keep. At those times, 
the striving within him would have been hardest; and looking up and 
catching Gowan's eyes, he would have started as if he had done him an 
injury.
Then, looking at the dark road and its uncertain objects, he would have 
gradually trailed off again into thinking, "Where are we driving, he and I, 
I wonder, on the darker road of life? How will it be with us, and with her, 
in the obscure distance?" Thinking of her, he would have been troubled anew 
with a reproachful misgiving that it was not even loyal to her to dislike 
him, and that in being so easily prejudiced against him he was less 
deserving of her than at first.
"You are evidently out of spirits'" said Gowan; "I am very much afraid my 
mother must have bored you dreadfully."
"Believe me, not all," said Clennam. "It's nothing - nothing!"


Chapter 27

Five-And-Twenty

A frequently recurring doubt, whether Mr Pancks's desire to collect 
information relative to the Dorrit family could have any possible bearing 
on the misgivings he had imparted to his mother on his return from his long 
exile, caused Arthur Clennam much uneasiness at this period. What Mr Pancks 
already knew about the Dorrit family, what more he really wanted to find 
out, and why he should trouble his busy head about them at all, were 
questions that often perplexed him. Mr Pancks was not a man to waste his 
time and trouble in researches prompted by idle curiosity. That he had a 
specific object Clennam could not doubt. And whether the attainment of that 
object by Mr Pancks's industry might bring to light, in some untimely way, 
secret reasons which had induced his mother to take Little Dorrit by the 
hand, was a serious speculation.
Not that he ever wavered, either in his desire or his determination to 
repair a wrong that had been done in his father's time, should a wrong come 
to light, and be reparable. The shadow of a supposed act of injustice, 
which had hung over him since his father's death, was so vague and formless 
that it might be the result of a reality widely remote from his idea of it. 
But, if his apprehensions should prove to be well founded, he was ready at 
any moment to lay down all he had, and begin the world anew. As the fierce 
dark teaching of his childhood had never sunk into his heart, so the first 
article in his code of morals was, that he must begin in practical 
humility, with looking well to his feet on Earth, and that he could never 
mount on wings of words to Heaven. Duty on earth, restitution on earth, 
action on earth; these first, as the first steep steps upward. Strait was 
the gate and narrow was the way; far straiter and narrower than the broad 
high road paved with vain professions and vain repetitions, motes from 
other men's eyes and liberal delivery of others to the judgment - all cheap 
materials costing absolutely nothing.
No. It was not a selfish fear or hesitation that rendered him uneasy, but a 
mistrust lest Pancks might not observe his part of the understanding 
between them, and, making any discovery, might take some course upon it 
without imparting it to him. On the other hand, when he recalled his 
conversation with Pancks, and the little reason he had to suppose that 
there was any likelihood of that strange personage being on that track at 
all, there were times when he wondered that he made so much of it. 
Labouring in this sea, as all barks labour in cross seas, he tossed about 
and came to no haven.
The removal of Little Dorrit herself from their customary association, did 
not mend the matter. She was so much out, and so much in her own room, that 
he began to miss her and to find a blank in her place. He had written to 
her to inquire if she were better, and she had written back, very 
gratefully and earnestly, telling him not to be uneasy on her behalf, for 
she was quite well; but he had not seen her for what, in their intercourse, 
was a long time.
He returned home one evening from an interview with her father, who had 
mentioned that she was out visiting - which was what he always said, when 
she was hard at work to buy his supper - and found Mr Meagles in an excited 
state walking up and down his room. On his opening the door, Mr Meagles 
stopped, faced round, and said:
"Clennam! - Tattycoram!"
"What's the matter?"
"Lost!"
"Why, bless my heart alive!" cried Clennam in amazement. "What do you 
mean?"
"Wouldn't count five-and-twenty, sir; couldn't be got to do it; stopped at 
eight, and took herself off."
"Left your house?"
"Never to come back," said Mr Meagles, shaking his head. "You don't know 
that girl's passionate and proud character. A team of horses couldn't draw 
her back now; the bolts and bars of the old Bastille couldn't keep her."
"How did it happen? Pray sit down and tell me."
"As to how it happened, it's not so easy to relate: because you must have 
the unfortunate temperament of the poor impetuous girl herself, before you 
can fully understand it.
But it came about in this way. Pet and Mother and I have been having a good 
deal of talk together of late. I'll not disguise from you, Clennam, that 
those conversations have not been of as bright a kind as I could wish; they 
have referred to our going away again. In proposing to do which, I have 
had, in fact, an object,"
Nobody's heart beat quickly.
"An object," said Mr Meagles, after a moment's pause, "that I will not 
disguise from you, either, Clennam. There's an inclination on the part of 
my dear child which I am sorry for. Perhaps you guess the person. Henry 
Gowan.
"I was not unprepared to hear it."
"Well!" said Mr Meagles, with a heavy sigh, "I wish to God you had never 
had to hear it. However, so it is. Mother and I have done all we could to 
get the better of it, Clennam. We have tried tender advice, we have tried 
time, we have tried absence. As yet of no use. Our late conversations have 
been upon the subject of going away for another year at least, in order 
that there might be an entire separation and breaking off for that term. 
Upon that question, Pet has been unhappy, and therefore Mother and I have 
been unhappy."
Clennam said that he could easily believe it.
"Well!" continued Mr Meagles in an apologetic way "I admit as a practical 
man, and I am sure Mother would admit as a practical woman, that we do, in 
families, magnify our troubles and make mountains of our molehills, in a 
way that is calculated to be rather trying to people who look on - to mere 
outsiders you know, Clennam. Still, Pet's happiness or unhappiness is quite 
a life or death question with us; and we may be excused, I hope, for making 
much of it. At all events, it might have been born by Tattycoram. Now, 
don't you think so?"
"I do indeed think so," returned Clennam, in most emphatic recognition of 
this very moderate expectation.
"No, sir," said Mr Meagles, shaking his head ruefully. "She couldn't stand 
it. The chafing and firing of that girl, the wearing and tearing of that 
girl within her own breast, has been such that I have softly said to her 
again and again in passing her, 'Five-and-twenty, Tattycoram, five-and-
twenty!' I heartily wish she could have gone on counting five-and-twenty 
day and night, and then it wouldn't have happened."
Mr Meagles, with a despondent countenance in which the goodness of his 
heart was even more expressed than in his times of cheerfulness and gaiety, 
stroked his face down from his forehead to his chin, and shook his head 
again.
"I said to Mother (not that it was necessary, for she would have thought it 
all for herself) we are practical people, my dear, and we know her story; 
we see, in this unhappy girl, some reflection of what was raging in her 
mother's heart before ever such a creature as this poor thing was in the 
world; we'll gloss her temper over, Mother, we won't notice it at present, 
my dear, we'll take advantage of some better disposition in her another 
time. So we said nothing. But, do what we would, it seems as if it was to 
be; she broke out violently one night."
"How, and why?"
"If you ask me Why," said Mr Meagles, a little disturbed by the question, 
for he was far more intent on softening her case then the family's, "I can 
only refer you to what I have just repeated as having been pretty near my 
words to Mother. As to How, we had said Good night to Pet in her presence 
(very affectionately, I must allow), and she had attended Pet upstairs - 
you remember she was her maid. Perhaps Pet, having been out of sorts, may 
have been a little more inconsiderate than usual in requiring services of 
her: but I don't know that I have any right to say so; she was always 
thoughtful and gentle."
"The gentlest mistress in the world."
"Thank you, Clennam," said Mr Meagles, shaking him by the hand; "you have 
often seen them together. Well! we presently heard this unfortunate 
Tattycoram loud and angry, and before we could ask what was the matter, Pet 
came back in a tremble, saying she was frightened of her. Close after her 
came Tattycoram in a flaming rage. 'I hate you all three,' says she, 
stamping her foot at us. 'I am bursting with hate of the whole house.'"
"Upon which you -?"
"I?" said Mr Meagles, with a plain good faith, that might have commanded 
the belief of Mrs Gowan herself, "I said, count five-and-twenty, 
Tattycoram."
Mr Meagles again stroked his face and shook his head, with an air of 
profound regret.
"She was so used to do it, Clennam, that even then, such a picture of 
passion as you never saw, she stopped short, looked me full in the face, 
and counted (as I made out) to eight. But she couldn't control herself to 
go any further. There she broke down, poor thing, and gave the other 
seventeen to the four winds. Then it all burst out. She detested us, she 
was miserable with us, she couldn't bear it, she wouldn't bear it, she was 
determined to go away. She was younger than her young mistress, and would 
she remain to see her always held up as the only creature who was young and 
interesting, and to be cherished and loved? No. She wouldn't, she wouldn't, 
she wouldn't! What did we think she, Tattycoram, might have been if she had 
been caressed and cared for in her childhood, like her young mistress? As 
good as her? Ah! Perhaps fifty times as good. When we pretended to be so 
fond of one another, we exulted over her, that was what we did; we exulted 
over her, and shamed her. And all in the house did the same. They talked 
about their fathers and mothers, and brothers and sisters; they liked to 
drag them up, before her face. There was Mrs Ticket, only yesterday, when 
her little grandchild was with her, had been amused by the child's trying 
to call her (Tattycoram) by the wretched name we gave her; and had laughed 
at the name. Why, who didn't; and who were we that we should have a right 
to name her like a dog or a cat? But she didn't care. She would take no 
more benefits from us; she would fling us her name back again, and she 
would go. She would leave us that minute, nobody should stop her, and we 
should never hear of her again."
Mr Meagles had recited all this with such a vivid remembrance of his 
original, that he was almost as flushed and hot by this time as he 
described her to have been.
"Ah, well!" he said wiping his face. "It was of no use trying reason then, 
with that vehement panting creature (Heaven knows what her mother's story 
must have been); so I quietly told her that she should not go at that late 
hour of night, and I gave her my hand and took her to her room, and locked 
the house doors. But she was gone this morning."
"And you know no more of her?"
"No more," returned Mr Meagles. "I have been hunting about all day. She 
must have gone very early and very silently. I have found no trace of her, 
down about us."
"Stay! You want," said Clennam, after a moment's reflection, "to see her? I 
assume that?"
"Yes, assuredly; I want to give her another chance; Mother and Pet want to 
give her another chance; come! You yourself," said Mr Meagles, 
persuasively, as if the provocation to be angry were not his own at all, 
"want to give the poor passionate girl another chance, I know, Clennam."
"It would be strange and hard indeed if I did not," said Clennam, "when you 
are all so forgiving. What I was going to ask you was, have you thought of 
that Miss Wade?"
"I have. I did not think of her until I had pervaded the whole of our 
neighbourhood, and I don't know that I should have done so then, but for 
finding Mother and Pet, when I went home, full of the idea that Tattycoram 
must have gone to her. Then, of course, I recalled what she said that day 
at dinner when you were first with us."
"Have you any idea where Miss Wade is to be found?"
"To tell you the truth," returned Mr Meagles, "it's because I have an 
addled jumble of a notion on that subject, that you found me waiting here. 
There is one of those odd impressions in my house which do mysteriously get 
into houses sometimes, which nobody seems to have picked up in a distinct 
form from anybody, and yet which everybody seems to have got hold of 
loosely from somebody and let go again, that she lives, or was living 
thereabouts." Mr Meagles handed him a slip of paper, on which was written 
the name of one of the dull bye-streets in the Grosvenor region, near Park 
Lane.
"Here is no number," said Arthur, looking over it.
"No number, my dear Clennam?" returned his friend. "No anything! The very 
name of the street may have been floating in the air, for, as I tell you, 
none of my people can say where they got it from. However, it's worth an 
inquiry: and as I would rather make it in company than alone, and as you 
too were a fellow-traveller of that immovable woman's, I thought perhaps - 
"Clennam finished the sentence for him by taking up his hat again, and 
saying he was ready.
It was now summer-time; a grey, hot, dusty evening. They rode to the top of 
Oxford Street, and there alighting, dived in among the great streets of 
melancholy stateliness, and the little streets that try to be as stately 
and succeed in being more melancholy, of which there is a labyrinth near 
Park lane. Wildernesses of corner-houses, with barbarous old porticoes and 
appurtenances; horrors that came into existence under some wrong-headed 
person in some wrong-headed time, still demanding the blind admiration of 
all ensuing generations and determined to do so until they tumbled down; 
frowned upon the twilight. Parasite little tenements with the cramp in 
their whole frame, from the dwarf hall-door on the giant model of His 
Grace's in the Square, to the squeezed window of the boudoir commanding the 
dung-hills in the Mews, made the evening doleful. Ricketty dwellings of 
undoubted fashion, but of a capacity to hold nothing comfortably except a 
dismal smell, looked like the last result of the great mansions' breeding 
in-and-in; and, where their little supplementary bows and balconies were 
supported on thin iron columns, seemed to be scrofulously resting upon 
crutches. Here and there a Hatchment, with the whole science of Heraldry in 
it, loomed down upon the street, like an Archbishop discoursing on Vanity. 
The shops, few in number, made no show; for popular opinion was as nothing 
to them. The pastry-cook knew who was on his books, and in that knowledge 
could be calm, with a few glass cylinders of dowager peppermint drops in 
his window, and half-a-dozen ancient specimens of current-jelly. A few 
oranges formed the greengrocer's whole concession to the vulgar mind. A 
single basket made of moss, once containing plovers' eggs, held all that 
the poulterer had to say to the rabble. Everybody in those streets seemed 
(which is always the case at that hour and season) to be gone out to 
dinner, and nobody seemed to be giving the dinners they had gone to. On the 
doorsteps there were lounging, footmen with bright parti-coloured plumage 
and white polls, like an extinct race of monstrous birds; and butlers, 
solitary men of recluse demeanour, each of whom appeared distrustful of all 
other butlers. The roll of carriages in the Park was done for the day; the 
street lamps were lighting; and wicked little grooms in the tightest 
fitting garments, with twists in their legs answering to the twists in 
their minds, hung about in pairs, chewing straws and exchanging fraudulent 
secrets. The spotted dogs who went out with the carriages, and who were so 
associated with splendid equipages, that it looked like a condescension in 
those animals to come out without them, accompanied helpers to and fro on 
messages. Here and there was a retiring public-house which did not require 
to be supported on the shoulders of the people, and where gentlemen out of 
livery were not much wanted.
This last discovery was made by the two friends in pursuing their 
inquiries. Nothing was there, or anywhere, known of such a person as Miss 
Wade, in connection with the street they sought. It was one of the parasite 
streets; long, regular, narrow, dull, and gloomy; like a brick and mortar 
funeral. They inquired at several little area gates, where a dejected youth 
stood spiking his chin on the summit of a precipitous little shoot of 
wooden steps, but could gain no information. They walked up the street on 
one side of the way, and down it on the other, what time two vociferous 
news-sellers, announcing an extraordinary event that had never happened and 
never would happen, pitched their hoarse voices into the secret chambers; 
but nothing came of it. At length they stood at the corner from which they 
had begun, and it had fallen quite dark, and they were no wiser.
It happened that in the street they had several times passed a dingy house, 
apparently empty, with bills in the windows, announcing that it was to let. 
The bills, as a variety in the funeral procession, almost amounted to a 
decoration. Perhaps because they kept the house separate in his mind, or 
perhaps because Mr Meagles and himself had twice agreed in passing, "It is 
clear she don't live there," Clennam now proposed that they should go back 
and try that house before finally going away. Mr Meagles agreed, and back 
they went.
They knocked once, and they rang once, without any response. "Empty," said 
Mr Meagles, listening. "Once more," said Clennam, and knocked again. After 
that knock they heard a movement below, and somebody shuffling up towards 
the door.
The confined entrance was so dark, that it was impossible to make out 
distinctly what kind of person opened the door; but it appeared to be an 
old woman. "Excuse our troubling you," said Clennam. "Pray can you tell us 
where Miss Wade lives?" The voice in the darkness unexpectedly replied, 
"Lives here."
"Is she at home?"
No answer coming, Mr Meagles asked again. "Pray, is she at home?"
After another delay, "I suppose she is," said the voice abruptly; "You had 
better come in, and I'll ask."
They were summarily shut into the close black house; and the figure 
rustling away, and speaking from a higher level, said, "Come up if you 
please; you can't tumble over anything." They groped their way upstairs 
towards a faint light which proved to be the light of the street shining 
through a window; and the figure left them shut up in an airless room.
"This is odd, Clennam," said Mr Meagles, softly.
"Odd enough," assented Clennam, in the same tone, "but we have succeeded; 
that's the main point. Here's a light coming!"
The light was a lamp, and the bearer was an old woman: very dirty, very 
wrinkled and dry. "She's at home," she said (and the voice was the same 
that had spoken before); "she'll come directly." Having set the lamp down 
on the table, the old woman dusted her hands on her apron, which she might 
have done for ever without cleaning them, looked at the visitors with a dim 
pair of eyes, and backed out.
The lady whom they had come to see, if she were the present occupant of the 
house, appeared to have taken up her quarters there, as she might have 
established herself in an Eastern caravanserai. A small square of carpet in 
the middle of the room, a few articles of furniture that evidently did not 
belong to the room, and a disorder of trunks and travelling articles, 
formed the whole surroundings. Under some former regular inhabitant, the 
stifling little apartment had broken out into a pier-glass and a gilt 
table; but the gilding was as faded as last year's flowers, and the glass 
was so clouded that it seemed to hold in magic preservation all the fogs 
and bad weather it had ever reflected. The visitors had had a minute or two 
to look about them, when the door opened and Miss Wade came in.
She was exactly the same as when they had parted. Just as handsome, just as 
scornful, just as repressed. She manifested no surprise in seeing them, nor 
any other emotion. She requested them to be seated; and declining to take a 
seat herself, at once anticipated any introduction of their business.
"I apprehend," she said, "that I know the cause of your favouring me with 
this visit. We may come to it at once."
"The cause then, ma'am," said Mr Meagles, "is Tattycoram."
"So I supposed."
"Miss Wade," said Mr Meagles, "will you be so kind as to say whether you 
know anything of her?"
"Surely. I know she is here with me."
"Then ma'am," said Mr Meagles, "allow me to make known to you that I shall 
be happy to have her back, and that my wife and daughter will be happy to 
have her back. She has been with us a long time, we don't forget her claims 
upon us, and I hope we know how to make allowances."
"You hope you know how to make allowances?" she returned, in a level, 
measured voice. "For what?"
"I think my friend would say, Miss Wade," Arthur Clennam interposed, seeing 
Mr Meagles rather at a loss, "for the passionate sense that sometimes comes 
upon the poor girl, of being at a disadvantage. Which occasionally gets the 
better of better remembrances."
The lady broke into a smile, as she turned her eyes upon him. "Indeed?" was 
all she answered.
She stood by the table so perfectly composed and still after this 
acknowledgment of his remark, that Mr Meagles stared at her under a sort of 
fascination, and could not even look to Clennam to make another move. After 
waiting, awkwardly enough, for some moments, Arthur said:
"Perhaps it would be well if Mr Meagles could see her, Miss Wade?"
"That is easily done," said she. "Come here, child." She had opened a door 
while saying this, and now led the girl in by the hand. It was very curious 
to see them standing together; the girl with her disengaged fingers 
plaiting the bosom of her dress, half irresolutely, half passionately: Miss 
Wade with her composed face attentively regarding her, and suggesting to an 
observer with extraordinary force, in her composure itself (as a veil will 
suggest the form it covers), the unquenchable passion of her own nature.
"See here," she said, in the same level way as before. "Here is your 
patron, your master. He is willing to take you back, my dear, if you are 
sensible of the favour and choose to go. You can be, again, a foil to his 
pretty daughter, a slave to her pleasant wilfulness, and a toy in the house 
showing the goodness of the family. You can have your droll name again, 
playfully pointing you out and setting you apart, as it is right that you 
should be pointed out and set apart. (Your birth, you know; you must not 
forget your birth.) You can again be shown to this gentleman's daughter, 
Harriet, and kept before her, as a living reminder of her own superiority 
and her gracious condescension. You can recover all these advantages, and 
many more of the same kind which I daresay start up in your memory while I 
speak, and which you lose in taking refuge with me - you can recover them 
all, by telling these gentlemen how humbled and penitent you are, and by 
going back with them to be forgiven. What do you say, Harriet? Will you 
go?"
The girl who, under the influence of these words, had gradually risen in 
anger and heightened in colour, answered, raising her lustrous black eyes 
for the moment, and clenching her hand upon the folds it had been puckering 
up, "I'd die sooner!"
Miss Wade, still standing at her side holding her hand, looked quietly 
round, and said with a smile, "Gentlemen! What do you do upon that?"
Poor Mr Meagles's inexpressible consternation in hearing his motives and 
actions so perverted, had prevented him from interposing any word until 
now; but now he regained the power of speech.
"Tattycoram," said he, "for I'll call you by that name still, my good girl, 
conscious that I meant nothing but kindness when I gave it to you, and 
conscious that you know it -"
"I don't!" said she, looking up again, and almost rending herself with the 
same busy hand.
"No, not now, perhaps," said Mr Meagles, "not with that lady's eyes so 
intent upon you, Tattycoram," she glanced at them for a moment, "and that 
power over you which we see she exercises; not now, perhaps, but at another 
time. Tattycoram, I'll not ask that lady whether she believes what she has 
said, even in the anger and ill-blood in which I and my friend here equally 
know she has spoken, though she subdues herself with a determination that 
any one who has once seen her is not likely to forget. I'll not ask you, 
with your remembrance of my house and all belonging to it, whether you 
believe it I'll only say that you have no profession to make to me or mine, 
and no forgiveness to entreat; and that all in the world that I ask you to 
do, is, to count five-and-twenty, Tattycoram."
She looked at him for an instant, and then said frowningly, "I won't. Miss 
Wade, take me away, please."
The contention that raged within her had no softening in it now; it was 
wholly between passionate defiance and stubborn defiance. Her rich colour, 
her quick blood, her rapid breath, were all setting themselves against the 
opportunity of retracing her steps. "I won't. I won't. I won't!" she 
repeated in a low, thick voice. "I'd be torn to pieces first. I'd tear 
myself to pieces first!"
Miss Wade, who had released her hold, laid her hand protectingly on the 
girl's neck for a moment, and then said, looking round with her former 
smile, and speaking exactly in her former tone, "Gentlemen! What do you do 
upon that?"
"Oh, Tattycoram, Tattycoram!" cried Mr Meagles, adjuring her besides with 
an earnest hand. "Hear that lady's voice, look at that lady's face, 
consider what is in that lady's heart, and think what a future lies before 
you. My child, whatever you may think, that lady's influence over you - 
astonishing to us, and I should hardly go too far in saying terrible to us, 
to see - is founded in passion fiercer than yours and temper more violent 
than yours. What can you two be together? What can come of it?"
"I am alone here, gentlemen," observed Miss Wade, with no change of voice 
or manner. "Say anything you will."
"Politeness must yield to this misguided girl, ma'am," said Mr Meagles, "at 
her present pass; though I hope not altogether to dismiss it, even with the 
injury you do her so strongly before me. Excuse me for reminding you in her 
hearing - I must say it - that you were a mystery to all of us, and had 
nothing in common with any of us, when she unfortunately fell in your way. 
I don't know what you are, but you don't hide, can't hide, what a dark 
spirit you have within you. If it should happen that you are a woman, who, 
from whatever cause, has a perverted delight in making a sister-woman as 
wretched as she is (I am old enough to have heard of such), I warn her 
against you, and I warn you against yourself."
"Gentlemen!" said Miss Wade, calmly. "When you have concluded - Mr Clennam, 
perhaps you will induce your friend -"
"Not without another effort," said Mr Meagles, stoutly. "Tattycoram, my 
poor dear girl, count five-and-twenty."
"Do not reject the hope, the certainty, this kind man offers you," said 
Clennam, in a low emphatic voice. "Turn to the friends you have not 
forgotten. Think once more!"
"I won't! Miss Wade," said the girl, with her bosom swelling high, and 
speaking with her hand held to her throat, "take me away!"
"Tattycoram," said Mr Meagles. "Once more yet! The only thing I ask of you 
in the world, my child! Count five-and-twenty!"
She put her hands tightly over her ears, confusedly tumbling down her 
bright black hair in the vehemence of the action, and turned her face 
resolutely to the wall. Miss Wade, who had watched her under this final 
appeal with that strange attentive smile, and that repressing hand upon her 
own bosom, with which she had watched her in her struggle at Marseilles, 
then put her arm about her waist as if she took possession of her for 
evermore.
And there was a visible triumph in her face when she turned it to dismiss 
the visitors.
"As it is the last time I shall have this honour," she said, "and as you 
have spoken of not knowing what I am, and also of the foundation of my 
influence here, you may now know that it is founded in a common cause. What 
your broken plaything is as to birth, I am. She has no name, I have no 
name. Her wrong is my wrong, I have nothing more to say to you."
This was addressed to Mr Meagles, who sorrowfully went out. As Clennam 
followed, she said to him, with the same external composure and in the same 
level voice, but with a smile that is only seen on cruel faces: a very 
faint smile, lifting the nostril, scarcely touching the lips, and not 
breaking away gradually, but instantly dismissed when done with:
"I hope the wife of your dear friend, Mr Gowan, may be happy in the 
contrast of her extraction to this girl's and mine, and in the high good 
fortune that awaits her."


Chapter 28

Nobody's Disappearance

Not resting satisfied with the endeavours he had made to recover his lost 
charge, Mr Meagles addressed a letter of remonstrance, breathing nothing 
but good-will, not only to her but to Miss Wade too. No answer coming to 
these epistles, or to another written to the stubborn girl by the hand of 
her late young mistress, which might have melted her if anything could (all 
three letters were returned weeks afterwards as having been refused at the 
house-door), he deputed Mrs Meagles to make the experiment of a personal 
interview. That worthy lady being unable to obtain one, and being 
steadfastly denied admission, Mr Meagles besought Arthur to essay once more 
what he could do. All that came of his compliance was, his discovery that 
the empty house was left in charge of the old woman, that Miss Wade was 
gone, that the waifs and strays of furniture were gone, and that the old 
woman would accept any number of half-crowns and thank the donor kindly, 
but had no information whatever to exchange for those coins, beyond 
constantly offering for perusal a memorandum relative to fixtures, which 
the house-agent's young man had left in the hall.
Unwilling, even under this discomfiture, to resign the ingrate and leave 
her hopeless, in case of her better dispositions obtaining the mastery over 
the darker side of her character, Mr Meagles, for six successive days, 
published a discreetly covert advertisement in the morning papers, to the 
effect that if a certain young person who had lately left home without 
reflection, would at any time apply at his address at Twickenham, 
everything would be as it had been before, and no reproaches need be 
apprehended. The unexpected consequences of this notification suggested to 
the dismayed Mr Meagles for the first time that some hundreds of young 
persons must be leaving their homes without reflection? every day; for 
shoals of wrong young people came down to Twickenham, who, not finding 
themselves received with enthusiasm, generally demanded compensation by way 
of damages, in addition to coach-hire there and back. Nor were these the 
only uninvited clients whom the advertisement produced. The swarm of 
begging-letter writers, who would seem to be always watching eagerly for 
any hook, however small, to hang a letter upon, wrote to say that having 
seen the advertisement, they were induced to apply with confidence for 
various sums, ranging from ten shillings to fifty pounds: not because they 
knew anything about the young person, but because they felt that to part 
with those donations would greatly relieve the advertiser's mind. Several 
projectors, likewise, availed themselves of the same opportunity to 
correspond with Mr Meagles; as, for example, to apprise him that their 
attention having been called to the advertisement by a friend, they begged 
to state that if they should ever hear anything of the young person, they 
would not fail to make it known to him immediately, and that in the 
meantime if he would oblige them with the funds necessary for bringing to 
perfection a certain entirely novel description of Pump, the happiest 
results would ensue to mankind.
Mr Meagles and his family, under these combined discouragements, had begun 
reluctantly to give up Tattycoram as irrecoverable, when the new and active 
firm of Doyce and Clennam, in their private capacities, went down on a 
Saturday to stay at the cottage until Monday. The senior partner took the 
coach, and the junior partner took his walking-stick.
A tranquil summer sunset shone upon him as he approached the end of his 
walk, and passed through the meadows by the river side. He had that sense 
of peace, and of being lightened of a weight of care, which country quiet 
awakens in the breasts of dwellers in towns. Everything within his view was 
lovely and placid. The rich foliage of the trees, the luxuriant grass 
diversified with wild flowers, the little green islands in the river, the 
beds of rushes, the water-lilies floating on the surface of the stream, the 
distant voices in boats borne musically towards him on the ripple of the 
water and the evening air, were all expressive of rest. In the occasional 
leap of a fish, or dip of an oar, or twittering of a bird not yet at roost, 
or distant barking of a dog, or lowing of a cow - in all such sounds there 
was the prevailing breath of rest, which seemed to encompass him in every 
scent that sweetened the fragrant air. The long lines of red and gold in 
the sky, and the glorious track of the descending sun, were all divinely 
calm. Upon the purple tree-tops far away, and on the green height near at 
hand up which the shades were slowly creeping, there was an equal hush. 
Between the real landscape and its shadow in the water, there was no 
division; both were so untroubled and clear, and, while so fraught with 
solemn mystery of life and death, so hopefully reassuring to the gazer's 
soothed heart, because so tenderly and mercifully beautiful.
Clennam had stopped, not for the first time by many times to look about him 
and suffer what he saw to sink into his soul, as the shadows, looked at, 
seemed to sink deeper and deeper into the water. He was slowly resuming his 
way, when he saw a figure in the path before him which he had, perhaps, 
already associated with the evening and its impressions.
Minnie was there, alone. She had some roses in her hand, and seemed to have 
stood still on seeing him, waiting for him. Her face was towards him, and 
she appeared to have been coming from the opposite direction. There was a 
flutter in her manner which Clennam had never seen in it before; and as he 
came near her, it entered his mind all at once that she was there of a set 
purpose to speak to him.
She gave him her hand, and said, "You wonder to see me here by myself? But 
the evening is so lovely, I have strolled further than I meant at first. I 
thought it likely I might meet you, and that made me more confident. You 
always come this way, do you not?"
As Clennam said that it was his favourite way, he felt her hand falter on 
his arm, and saw the roses shake.
"Will you let me give you one, Mr Clennam? I gathered them as I came out of 
the garden. Indeed, I almost gathered them for you, thinking it so likely I 
might meet you. Mr Doyce arrived more than an hour ago, and told us you 
were walking down." His own hand shook, as he accepted a rose or two from 
hers, and thanked her. They were now by an avenue of trees. Whether they 
turned into it on his movement or on hers, matters little. He never knew 
how that was.
"It is very grave here," said Clennam, "but very pleasant at this hour. 
Passing along this deep shade, and out of that arch of light at the other 
end, we come upon the ferry and the cottage by the best approach, I think."
In her simple garden-hat and her light summer dress, with her rich brown 
hair naturally clustering about her, and her wonderful eyes raised to his 
for a moment, with a look in which regard for him and trustfulness in him 
were strikingly blended with a kind of timid sorrow for him, she was so 
beautiful, that it was well for his peace - or ill for his peace, he did 
not quite know which - that he had made that vigorous resolution he had so 
often thought about.
She broke a momentary silence by inquiring if he knew that papa had been 
thinking of another tour abroad? He said he had heard it mentioned. She 
broke another momentary silence by adding, with some hesitation, that papa 
had abandoned the idea.
At this, he thought directly "they are to be married."
"Mr Clennam," she said, hesitating more timidly yet, and speaking so low 
that he bent his head to hear her. "I should very much like to give you my 
confidence, if you would not mind having the goodness to receive it. I 
should have very much liked to have given it to you long ago, because - I 
felt that you were becoming so much our friend."
"How can I be otherwise than proud of it at any time! Pray give it to me. 
Pray trust me."
"I could never have been afraid of trusting you," she returned, raising her 
eyes frankly to his face. "I think I would have done so some time ago, if I 
had known how. But I scarcely know how, even now."
"Mr Gowan," said Arthur Clennam, "has reason to be very happy. God bless 
his wife and him!"
She wept, as she tried to thank him. He reassured her, took her hand as it 
lay with the trembling roses in it on his arm, took the remaining roses 
from it, and put it to his lips. At that time, it seemed to him, he first 
finally resigned the dying hope that had flickered in nobody's heart, so 
much to its pain and trouble; and from that time he became in his own eyes, 
as to any similar hope or prospect, a very much older man who had done with 
that part of life.
He put the roses in his breast and they walked on for a little while, 
slowly and silently, under the umbrageous trees. Then he asked her, in a 
voice of cheerful kindness, was there anything else that she would say to 
him as her friend and her father's friend, many years older than herself; 
was there any trust she would repose in him, any service she would ask of 
him, any little aid to her happiness that she could give him the lasting 
gratification of believing it was in his power to render?
She was going to answer, when she was so touched by some little hidden 
sorrow or sympathy - what could it have been? - that she said, bursting 
into tears, again: "O, Mr Clennam! Good, generous, Mr Clennam, pray tell me 
you do not blame me."
"I blame you?" said Clennam. "My dearest girl! I blame you? No!"
After clasping both her hands upon his arm, and looking confidentially up 
into his face, with some hurried words to the effect that she thanked him 
from her heart (as indeed she did, if it be the source of earnestness), she 
gradually composed herself, with now and then a word of encouragement from 
him, as they walked on slowly and almost silently under the darkening 
trees.
"And, now, Minnie Gowan," at length, said Clennam, smiling; "will you ask 
me nothing?"
"Oh! I have very much to ask of you."
"That's well! I hoped so; I am not disappointed."
"You know how I am loved at home, and how I love home. You can hardly think 
it perhaps, dear Mr Clennam," she spoke with great agitation, "seeing me 
going from it of my own free will and choice, but I do so dearly love it!"
"I am sure of that," said Clennam. "Can you suppose I doubt it!"
"No, no. But it is strange, even to me, that loving it so much and being so 
much beloved in it, I can bear to cast it away. It seems so neglectful of 
it, so unthankful."
"My dear girl," said Clennam, "it is in the natural progress and change of 
time. All homes are left so."
"Yes, I know; but all homes are not left with such a blank in them as there 
will be in mine when I am gone. Not that there is any scarcity of far 
better and more endearing and more accomplished girls than I am; not that I 
am much; but that they have made so much of me!"
Pet's affectionate heart was overcharged, and she sobbed while she pictured 
what would happen.
"I know what a change papa will feel at first, and I know that at first I 
cannot be to him anything like what I have been these many years. And it is 
then, Mr Clennam, then more than at any time, that I beg and entreat you to 
remember him, and sometimes to keep him company when you can spare a little 
while; and to tell him that you know I was fonder of him, when I left him, 
than I ever was in all my life. For there is nobody - he told me so himself 
when he talked to me this very day - there is nobody he likes so well as 
you, or trusts so much." A clue to what had passed between the father and 
daughter dropped like a heavy stone into the well of Clennam's heart, and 
swelled the water to his eyes. He said, cheerily, but not quite so cheerily 
as he tried to say, that it should be done; that he gave her his faithful 
promise.
"If I do not speak of mamma," said Pet, more moved by, and more pretty in, 
her innocent grief, than Clennam could trust himself even now to consider - 
for which reason he counted the trees between them and the fading light as 
they slowly diminished in number - "it is because mamma will understand me 
better in this action, and will feel my loss in a different way, and will 
look forward in a different manner. But you know what a dear, devoted 
mother she is, and you will remember her, too; will you not?"
Let Minnie trust him, Clennam said, let Minnie trust him to do all she 
wished.
"And, dear Mr Clennam," said Minnie, "because papa and one whom I need not 
name, do not fully appreciate and understand one another yet, as they will 
by-and-by; and because it will be the duty, and the pride, and pleasure of 
my new life, to draw them to a better knowledge of one another, and to be a 
happiness to one another, and to be proud of one another, and to love one 
another, both loving me so dearly; O, as you are a kind, true man! when I 
am first separated from home (I am going a long distance away), try to 
reconcile papa to him a little more, and use your great influence to keep 
him before papa's mind, free from prejudice and in his real form. Will you 
do this for me, as you are a noble-hearted friend?"
Poor Pet! Self-deceived, mistaken child! When were such changes ever made 
in men's natural relations to one another: when was such reconcilement of 
ingrain differences ever effected! It has been tried many times by other 
daughters, Minnie; it has never succeeded; nothing has ever come of it but 
failure.
So Clennam thought. So he did not say; it was too late. He bound himself to 
do all she asked, and she knew full well that he would do it.
They were now at the last tree in the avenue. She stopped, and withdrew her 
arm. Speaking to him with her eyes lifted up to his, and with the hand that 
had lately rested on his sleeve tremblingly touching one of the roses in 
his breast as an additional appeal to him, she said:
"Dear Mr Clennam, in my happiness - for I am happy, though you have seen me 
crying - I cannot bear to leave any cloud between us. If you have anything 
to forgive me (not anything that I have wilfully done, but any trouble I 
may have caused you without meaning it, or having it in my power to help 
it), forgive me tonight out of your noble heart!"
He stooped to meet the guileless face that met his without shrinking. He 
kissed it, and answered, Heaven knew that he had nothing to forgive. As he 
stooped to meet the innocent face once again, she whispered "Good bye!" and 
he repeated it. It was taking leave of all his old hopes - all nobody's old 
restless doubts. They came out of the avenue next moment, arm-in-arm as 
they had entered it; and the trees seemed to close up behind them in the 
darkness, like their own perspective of the past.
The voices of Mr and Mrs Meagles, and Doyce, were audible directly, 
speaking near the garden gate. Hearing Pet's name among them, Clennam 
called out "She is here, with me." There was some little wondering and 
laughing until they came up; but as soon as they had all come together, it 
ceased, and Pet glided away.
Mr Meagles, Doyce, and Clennam, without speaking, walked up and down on the 
brink of the river, in the light of the rising moon, for a few minutes; and 
then Doyce lingered behind, and went into the house. Mr Meagles and Clennam 
walked up and down together for a few minutes more without speaking, until 
at length the former broke silence.
"Arthur," said he, using that familiar address for the first time in their 
communication, "do you remember my telling you, as we walked up and down 
one hot morning, looking over the harbour at Marseilles, that Pet's baby 
sister who was dead seemed to Mother and me to have grown as she had grown, 
and changed as she had changed?"
"Very well."
"You remember my saying that our thoughts had never been able to separate 
those twin sisters, and that in our fancy whatever Pet was, the other was?"
"Yes, very well."
"Arthur," said Mr Meagles, much subdued, "I carry that fancy further 
tonight. I feel tonight, my dear fellow, as if you had loved my dead child 
very tenderly, and had lost her when she was like what Pet is now."
"Thank you," murmured Clennam, "thank you!" And pressed his hand.
"Will you come in?" said Mr Meagles, presently.
"In a little while."
Mr Meagles fell away, and he was left alone. When he had walked on the 
river's brink in the peaceful moonlight, for some half-an-hour, he put his 
hand in his breast and tenderly took out the handful of roses. Perhaps he 
put them to his heart, perhaps he put them to his lips, but certainly he 
bent down on the shore, and gently launched them on the flowing river. Pale 
and unreal in the moonlight, the river floated them away.
The lights were bright within doors when he entered, and the faces on which 
they shone, his own face not excepted, were soon quietly cheerful. They 
talked of many subjects (his partner never had had such a ready store to 
draw upon for the beguiling of the time), and so to bed, and to sleep. 
While the flowers, pale and unreal in the moonlight, floated away upon the 
river; and thus do greater things that once were in our breasts, and near 
our hearts, flow from us to the eternal seas.


Chapter 29

Mr Flintwinch Goes On Dreaming

The house in the city preserved its heavy dulness through all these 
transactions, and the invalid within it turned the same unvarying round of 
life. Morning, noon, and night, morning, noon, and night, each recurring 
with its accompanying monotony, always the same reluctant return of the 
same sequences of machinery, like a dragging piece of clockwork.
The wheeled chair had its associated remembrances and reveries, one may 
suppose, as every place that is made the station of a human being has. 
Pictures of demolished streets and altered houses, as they formerly were 
when the occupant of the chair was familiar with them; images of people as 
they too used to be, with little or no allowance made for the lapse of time 
since they were seen; of these, there must have been many in the long 
routine of gloomy days. To stop the clock of busy existence at the hour 
when we were personally sequestered from it; to suppose mankind stricken 
motionless, when we were brought to a standstill; to be unable to measure 
the changes beyond our view by any larger standard than the shrunken one of 
our own uniform and contracted existence; is the infirmity of many 
invalids, and the mental unhealthiness of almost all recluses.
What scenes and actors the stern woman most reviewed, as she sat from 
season to season in her one dark room, none knew but herself. Mr 
Flintwinch, with his wry presence brought to bear upon her daily, like some 
eccentric mechanical force, would perhaps have screwed it out of her if 
there had been less resistance in her; but she was too strong for him. So 
far as Mistress Affery was concerned, to regard her liege lord and her 
disabled mistress with a face of blank wonder, to go about the house after 
dark with her apron over her head, always to listen for the strange noises 
and sometimes to hear them, and never to emerge from her ghostly, dreamy, 
sleep-waking state, was occupation enough for her.
There was a fair stroke of business doing, as Mistress Affery made out, for 
her husband had abundant occupation in his little office, and saw more 
people than had been used to come there for some years. This might easily 
be, the house having been long deserted; but he did receive letters, and 
comers, and keep books, and correspond. Moreover, he went about to other 
counting-houses, and to wharves, and docks, and to the Custom House, and to 
Garraway's Coffee House, and the Jerusalem Coffee House, and on 'Change; so 
that he was much in and out. He began, too, sometimes of an evening, when 
Mrs Clennam expressed no particular wish for his society, to resort to a 
tavern in the neighbourhood to look at the shipping news and closing prices 
in the evening paper, and even to exchange small socialities with 
mercantile Sea Captains who frequented that establishment. At some period 
of every day, he and Mrs Clennam held a council on matters of business; and 
it appeared to Affery, who was always groping about, listening and 
watching, that the two clever ones were making money.
The state of mind into which Mr Flintwinch's dazed lady had fallen, had now 
begun to be so expressed in all her looks and actions, that she was held in 
very low account by the two clever ones, as a person, never of strong 
intellect, who was becoming foolish. Perhaps because her appearance was not 
of a commercial cast, or perhaps because it occurred to him that his having 
taken her to wife might expose his judgment to doubt in the minds of 
customers, Mr Flintwinch laid his commands upon her that she should hold 
her peace on the subject of her conjugal relations, and should no longer 
call him Jeremiah out of the domestic trio. Her frequent forgetfulness of 
this admonition intensified her startled manner, since Mr Flintwinch's 
habit of avenging himself on her remissness by making springs after her on 
the staircase, and shaking her, occasioned her to be always nervously 
uncertain when she might be thus waylaid next.
Little Dorrit had finished a long day's work in Mrs Clennam's room, and was 
neatly gathering up her shreds and odds and ends before going home. Mr 
Pancks, whom Affery had just shown in, was addressing an inquiry to Mrs 
Clennam on the subject of her health, coupled with the remark that, 
"happening to find himself in that direction," he had looked in to inquire, 
on behalf of his proprietor, how she found herself. Mrs Clennam, with a 
deep contraction of her brows, was looking at him.
"Mr Casby knows," said she, "that I am not subject to changes. The change 
that I await here is the great change."
"Indeed, ma'am?" returned Mr Pancks, with a wandering eye towards the 
figure of the little seamstress on her knee picking threads and fraying of 
her work from the carpet. "You look nicely, ma'am."
"I bear what I have to bear," she answered. "Do you what you have to do."
"Thank you, ma'am," said Mr Pancks; "such is my endeavour."
"You are often in this direction, are you not?" asked Mrs Clennam.
"Why yes, ma'am," said Pancks, "rather so lately; I have lately been round 
this way a good deal, owing to one thing and another."
"Beg Mr Casby and his daughter not to trouble themselves, by deputy, about 
me. When they wish to see me, they know I am here to see them. They have no 
need to trouble themselves to send. You have no need to trouble yourself to 
come."
"Not the least trouble, ma'am," said Mr Pancks. "You really are looking 
uncommonly nicely, ma'am."
"Thank you. Good evening."
The dismissal, and its accompanying finger pointed straight at the door, 
was so curt and direct that Mr Pancks did not see his way to prolonging his 
visit. He stirred up his hair with his sprightliest expression, glanced at 
the little figure again, said, "Good evening, ma'am; don't come down, Mrs 
Affery; I know the road to the door," and steamed out. Mrs Clennam, her 
chin resting on her hand, followed him with attentive and darkly 
distrustful eyes; and Affery stood looking at her, as if she were spell-
bound.
Slowly and thoughtfully, Mrs Clennam's eyes turned from the door by which 
Pancks had gone out, to Little Dorrit, rising from the carpet. With her 
chin drooping more heavily on her hand, and her eyes vigilant and lowering, 
the sick woman sat looking at her until she attracted her attention. Little 
Dorrit coloured under such a gaze, and looked down. Mrs Clennam still sat 
intent.
"Little Dorrit," she said when she at last broke silence, "what do you know 
of that man?"
"I don't know anything of him, ma'am, except that I have seen him about, 
and that he has spoken to me."
"What has he said to you?"
"I don't understand what he has said, he is so strange. But nothing rough 
or disagreeable."
"Why does he come here to see you?"
"I don't know, ma'am," said Little Dorrit, with perfect frankness.
"You know that he does come here to see you?"
"I have fancied so," said Little Dorrit. "But why he should come here or 
anywhere, for that, ma'am, I can't think."
Mrs Clennam cast her eyes towards the ground, and with her strong, set 
face, as intent upon a subject in her mind, as it had lately been upon the 
form that seemed to pass out of her view, sat absorbed. Some minutes 
elapsed before she came out of this thoughtfulness, and resumed her hard 
composure.
Little Dorrit in the meanwhile had been waiting to go, but afraid to 
disturb her by moving. She now ventured to leave the spot where she had 
been standing since she had risen, and to pass gently round by the wheeled 
chair. She stopped at its side to say "Good night, ma'am."
Mrs Clennam put out her hand, and laid it on her arm. Little Dorrit, 
confused under the touch, stood faltering. Perhaps some momentary 
recollection of the story of the Princess may have been in her mind.
"Tell me, Little Dorrit," said Mrs Clennam. "Have you many friends now?"
"Very few, ma'am. Besides you, only Miss Flora and - one more."
"Meaning," said Mrs Clennam, with her unbent finger again pointing to the 
door, "that man?"
"Oh no, ma'am!"
"Some friend of his, perhaps?"
"No, ma'am." Little Dorrit earnestly shook her head. "Oh no! No one at all 
like him, or belonging to him."
"Well!" said Mrs Clennam, almost smiling. "It is no affair of mine. I ask, 
because I take an interest in you; and because I believe I was your friend, 
when you had no other who could serve you. Is that so?"
"Yes, ma'am; indeed it is. I have been here many a time when, but for you 
and the work you gave me, we should have wanted everything."
"We," repeated Mrs Clennam, looking towards the watch, once her dead 
husband's, which always lay upon her table. "Are there many of you?"
"Only father and I, now. I mean, only father and I to keep regularly out of 
what we get."
"Have you undergone many privations? You and your father, and who else 
there may be of you?" asked Mrs Clennam, speaking deliberately, and 
meditatively turning the watch over and over.
"Sometimes it has been rather hard to live," said Little Dorrit, in her 
soft voice, and timid uncomplaining way; "but I think not harder - as to 
that - than many people find it."
"That's well said!" Mrs Clennam quickly returned. "That's the truth! You 
are a good, thoughtful girl. You are a grateful girl too, or I much mistake 
you."
"It is only natural to be that. There is no merit in being that," said 
Little Dorrit. "I am indeed."
Mrs Clennam, with a gentleness of which the dreaming Affery had never 
dreamed her to be capable, drew down the face of her little seamstress, and 
kissed her on the forehead.
"Now go, Little Dorrit," said she, "or you will be late, poor child!"
In all the dreams Mistress Affery had been piling up since she first became 
devoted to the pursuit, she had dreamed nothing more astonishing than this. 
Her head ached with the idea that she would find the other clever one 
kissing Little Dorrit next, and then the two clever ones embracing each 
other and dissolving into tears of tenderness for all mankind. The idea 
quite stunned her, as she attended the light footsteps down the stairs, 
that the house-door might be safely shut.
On opening it to let Little Dorrit out, she found Mr Pancks, instead of 
having gone his way, as in any less wonderful place and among less 
wonderful phenomena he might been reasonably expected to do, fluttering up 
and down the court outside the house. The moment he saw Little Dorrit, he 
passed her briskly, said with his finger to his nose (as Mistress Affery 
distinctly heard), "Pancks the gipsy, fortune-telling," and went away. 
"Lord save us, here's a gipsy and a fortune-teller in it now!" cried 
Mistress Affery. "What next!"
She stood at the open door, staggering herself with this enigma, on a 
rainy, thundery evening. The clouds were flying fast, the wind was coming 
up in gusts, banging some neighbouring shutters that had broken loose, 
twirling the rusty chimney-cowls and weathercocks, and rushing round and 
round a confined adjacent churchyard as if it had a mind to blow the dead 
citizens out of their graves. The low thunder, muttering in all quarters of 
the sky at once, seemed to threaten vengeance for this attempted 
desecration, and to mutter, "Let them rest! Let them rest!"
Mistress Affery, whose fear of thunder and lightning was only to be 
equalled by her dread of the haunted house with a premature and 
preternatural darkness in it, stood undecided whether to go in or not, 
until the question was settled for her by the door blowing upon her in a 
violent gust of wind and shutting her out. "What's to be done now, what's 
to be done now!" cried Mistress Affery, wringing her hands in this last 
uneasy dream of all; "when she's all alone by herself inside, and can no 
more come down to open it than the churchyard dead themselves!"
In this dilemma, Mistress Affery, with her apron as a hood to keep the rain 
off, ran crying up and down the solitary paved enclosure several times. Why 
she should then stoop down and look in at the keyhole of the door, as if an 
eye would open it, it would be difficult to say; but it is none the less 
what most people would have done in the same situation, and it is what she 
did.
From this posture she started up suddenly, with a half scream, feeling 
something on her shoulder. It was the touch of a hand; of a man's hand.
The man was dressed like a traveller, in a foraging cap with fur about it, 
and a heap of cloak. He looked like a foreigner. He had a quantity of hair 
and moustache - jet black, except at the shaggy ends, where it had a tinge 
of red - and a high hook nose. He laughed at Mistress Affery's start and 
cry; and, as he laughed, his moustache went up under his nose, and his nose 
came down over his moustache.
"What's the matter?" he asked in plain English. "What are you frightened 
at?"
"At you," panted Affery.
"Me, madam?"
"And the dismal evening, and - and everything," said Affery. "And here! The 
wind has been and blown the door to, and I can't get in."
"Hah!" said the gentleman, who took that very coolly. "Indeed! Do you know 
such a name as Clennam about here?"
"Lord bless us, I should think I did, I should think I did!" cried Affery, 
exasperated into a new wringing of hands by the inquiry.
"Where about here?"
"Where!" cried Affery, goaded into another inspection of the keyhole. 
"Where but here in this house? And she's all alone in her room, and lost 
the use of her limbs and can't stir to help herself or me, and the t'other 
clever one's out, and Lord forgive me!" cried Affery, driven into a frantic 
dance by these accumulated considerations, "if I ain't a-going headlong out 
of my mind!"
Taking a warmer view of the matter now that it concerned himself, the 
gentleman stepped back to glance at the house, and his eyes soon rested on 
the long narrow window of the little room near the hall-door.
"Where may the lady be who has lost the use of her limbs, madam?" he 
inquired, with that peculiar smile which Mistress Affery could not choose 
but keep her eyes upon.
"Up there!" said Affery. "Them two windows."
"Hah! I am of a fair size, but could not have the honour of presenting 
myself in that room without a ladder. Now, madam, frankly - frankness is a 
part of my character - shall I open the door for you?"
"Yes, bless you, sir, for a dear creetur, and do it at once," cried Affery, 
"for she may be a calling to me at this very present minute, or may be 
setting herself a fire and burning herself to death, or there's no knowing 
what may be happening to her, and me a-going out of my mind at thinking of 
it!"
"Stay, my good madam!" He restrained her impatience with a smooth white 
hand. "Business-hours, I apprehend, are over for the day?"
"Yes, yes, yes," cried Affery. "Long ago."
"Let me make, then, a fair proposal. Fairness is a part of my character. I 
am just landed from the packet-boat, as you may see." He showed her that 
his cloak was very wet, and that his boots were saturated with water; she 
had previously observed that he was dishevelled and sallow, as if from a 
rough voyage, and so chilled that he could not keep his teeth from 
chattering. "I am just landed from the packet-boat, madam, and have been 
delayed by the weather: the infernal weather! In consequence of this, 
madam, some necessary business that I should otherwise have transacted here 
within the regular hours (necessary business because money-business), still 
remains to be done. Now, if you will fetch any authorised neighbouring 
somebody to do it, in return for my opening the door, I'll open the door. 
If this arrangement should be objectionable, I'll - " and with the same 
smile he made a significant feint of backing away.
Mistress Affery, heartily glad to effect the proposed compromise, gave in 
her willing adhesion to it. The gentleman at once requested her to do him 
the favour of holding his cloak, took a short run at the narrow window, 
made a leap at the sill, clung his way up the bricks, and in a moment had 
his hand at the sash, raising it. His eyes looked so very sinister, as he 
put his leg into the room and glanced round at Mistress Affery, that she 
thought, with a sudden coldness, if he were to go straight upstairs to 
murder the invalid, what could she do to prevent him?
Happily he had no such purpose; for he reappeared, in a moment, at the 
house-door. "Now, my dear madam," he said, as he took back his cloak and 
threw it on, "if you'll have the goodness to - what the Devil's that!" The 
strangest of sounds. Evidently close at hand from the peculiar shock it 
communicated to the air, yet subdued as if it were far off. A tremble, a 
rumble, and a fall of some light dry matter.
"What the Devil is it?"
"I don't know what it is, but I've heard the like of it over and over 
again," said Affery, who had caught his arm.
He could hardly be a very brave man, even she thought in her dreamy start 
and fright, for his trembling lips had turned colourless. After listening a 
few moments, he made light of it.
"Bah! Nothing! Now, my dear madam, I think you spoke of some clever 
personage. Will you be so good as to confront me with that genius?" He held 
the door in his hand, as though he were quite ready to shut her out again 
if she failed.
"Don't you say anything about the door and me, then," whispered Affery.
"Not a word."
"And don't you stir from here, or speak if she calls, while I run round the 
corner."
"Madam, I am a statue."
Affery had so vivid a fear of his going stealthily upstairs the moment her 
back was turned, that, after hurrying out of sight, she returned to the 
gateway to peep at him. Seeing him still on the threshold, more out of the 
house than in it, as if he had no love for darkness and no desire to probe 
its mysteries, she flew into the next street, and sent a message into the 
tavern to Mr Flintwinch who came out directly. The two returning together - 
the lady in advance, and Mr Flintwinch coming up briskly behind, animated 
with the hope of shaking her before she could get housed - saw the 
gentleman standing in the same place in the dark, and heard the strong 
voice of Mrs Clennam calling from her room, "Who is it? What is it? Why 
does no one answer? Who is that, down there?"


Chapter 30

The Word Of A Gentleman

When Mr and Mrs Flintwinch panted up to the door of the old house in the 
twilight, Jeremiah within a second of Affery, the stranger started back. 
"Death of my soul!" he exclaimed. "Why, how did you get here?"
Mr Flintwinch, to whom these words were spoken, repaid the stranger's 
wonder in full. He gazed at him with blank astonishment; he looked over his 
own shoulder, as expecting to see some one he had not been aware of 
standing behind him; he gazed at the stranger again, speechlessly at a loss 
to know what he meant, he looked to his wife for explanation; receiving 
none, he pounced upon her, and shook her with such heartiness that he shook 
her cap off her head, saying between his teeth, with grim raillery, as he 
did it, "Affery, my woman, you must have a dose, my woman! This is some of 
your tricks! You have been dreaming again, mistress. What's it about? Who 
is it? What does it mean? Speak out or be choked! It's the only choice I'll 
give you."
Supposing Mistress Affery to have any power of election at the moment, her 
choice was decidedly to be choked; for she answered not a syllable to this 
adjuration, but, with her bare head wagging violently backwards and 
forwards, resigned herself to her punishment. The stranger, however, 
picking up her cap with an air of gallantry, interposed.
"Permit me," said he, laying his hand on the shoulder of Jeremiah, who 
stopped, and released his victim. "Thank you. Excuse me. Husband and wife I 
know, from this playfulness. Haha! Always agreeable to see that relation 
playfully maintained. Listen! May I suggest that somebody upstairs, in the 
dark, is becoming energetically curious to know what is going on here?"
This reference to Mrs Clennam's voice reminded Mr Flintwinch to step into 
the hall and call up the staircase. "It's all right. I am here. Affery is 
coming with your light." Then he said to the latter flustered woman, who 
was putting her cap on, "Get out with you, and get upstairs!" and then 
turned to the stranger, and said to him, "Now, sir, what might you please 
to want?"
"I am afraid," said the stranger, "I must be so troublesome as to propose a 
candle."
"True," assented Jeremiah. "I was going to do so. Please to stand where you 
are, while I get one."
The visitor was standing in the doorway, but turned a little into the gloom 
of the house as Mr Flintwinch turned, and pursued him with his eyes into 
the little room, where he groped about for a phosphorus box. When he found 
it, it was damp, or otherwise out of order; and match after match that he 
struck into it lighted sufficiently to throw a dull glare about his groping 
face, and to sprinkle his hands with pale little spots of fire, but not 
sufficiently to light the candle. The stranger, taking advantage of this 
fitful illumination of his visage, looked intently and wonderingly at him. 
Jeremiah, when he at last lighted the candle, knew he had been doing this, 
by seeing the last shade of a lowering watchfulness clear away from his 
face, as it broke into the doubtful smile that was a large ingredient in 
its expression.
"Be so good," said Jeremiah, closing the house door and taking a pretty 
sharp survey of the smiling visitor in his turn, "as to step into my 
counting-house. It's all right, I tell you!" petulantly breaking off to 
answer the voice upstairs, still unsatisfied, though Affery was there, 
speaking in persuasive tones. "Don't I tell you it's all right? Preserve 
the woman, has she no reason at all in her!"
"Timorous," remarked the stranger.
"Timorous?" said Mr Flintwinch, turning his head to retort, as he went 
before with the candle. "More courageous than ninety men in a hundred, sir, 
let me tell you."
"Though an invalid?"
"Many years an invalid. Mrs Clennam. The only one of that name left in the 
House now. My partner."
Saying something apologetically as he crossed the hall, to the effect that 
at that time of night they were not in the habit of receiving any one, and 
were always shut up, Mr Flintwinch led the way into his own office, which 
presented a sufficiently business-like appearance. Here he put the light on 
his desk, and said to the stranger, with his wryest twist upon him, "Your 
commands."
"My name is Blandois."
"Blandois. I don't know it," said Jeremiah.
"I thought it possible," resumed the other, "that you might have been 
advised from Paris "
"We have had no advice from Paris, respecting anybody of the name of 
Blandois," said Jeremiah.
"No?"
"No."
Jeremiah stood in his favourite attitude. The smiling Mr Blandois, opening 
his cloak to get his hand to a breast-pocket, paused to say, with a laugh 
in his glittering eyes, which it occurred to Mr Flintwinch were too near 
together:
"You are so like a friend of mine! Not so identically the same as I 
supposed when I really did for the moment take you to be the same in the 
dusk for which I ought to apologise; permit me to do so; a readiness to 
confess my errors is, I hope, a part of the frankness of my character 
still, however, uncommonly like."
"Indeed?" said Jeremiah, perversely. "But I have not received any letter of 
advice from anywhere, respecting anybody of the name of Blandois."
"Just so," said the stranger.
"Just so," said Jeremiah.
Mr Blandois, not at all put out by this omission on the part of the 
correspondents of the house of Clennam and Co., took his pocket-book from 
his breast-pocket, selected a letter from that receptacle, and handed it to 
Mr Flintwinch. "No doubt you are well acquainted with the writing. Perhaps 
the letter speaks for itself and requires no advice. You are a far more 
competent judge of such affairs than I am. It is my misfortune to be, not 
so much a man of business, as what the world calls (arbitrarily) a 
gentleman."
Mr Flintwinch took the letter, and read under date of Paris, "We have to 
present to you, on behalf of a highly esteemed correspondent of our Firm, 
M. Blandois of this city," etc. etc. "Such facilities as he may require and 
such attentions as may lie in your power," etc. etc. "Also have to add that 
if you will honour M. Blandois' drafts at sight to the extent of, say, 
Fifty Pounds sterling (Pounds 50)," etc. etc.
"Very good, sir," said Mr Flintwinch. "Take a chair. To the extent of 
anything that our house can do we are in a retired, old-fashioned, steady 
way of business, sir we shall be happy to render you our best assistance. I 
observe, from the date of this, that we could not yet be advised of it. 
Probably you came over with the delayed mail that brings the advice."
"That I came over with the delayed mail, sir," returned Mr Blandois, 
passing his white hand down his high-hooked nose, "I know to the cost of my 
head and stomach: the detestable and intolerable weather having racked them 
both. You see me in the plight in which I came out of the Packet within 
this half hour. I ought to have been here hours ago, and then I should not 
have to apologise permit me to apologise for presenting myself so 
unseasonably, and frightening no, by-the-bye, you said not frightening; 
permit me to apologise again the esteemed lady, Mrs Clennam, in her invalid 
chamber above stairs."
Swagger, and an air of authorised condescension, do so much, that Mr 
Flintwinch had already begun to think this a highly gentlemanly personage. 
Not the less unyielding with him on that account, he scraped his chin and 
said, what could he have the honour of doing for Mr Blandois tonight, out 
of business hours?
"Faith!" returned that gentleman, shrugging his cloaked shoulders, "I must 
change, and eat and drink, and be lodged somewhere. Have the kindness to 
advise me, a total stranger, where, and money is a matter of perfect 
indifference, until tomorrow. The nearer the place, the better. Next door, 
if that's all."
Mr Flintwinch was slowly beginning, "For a gentleman of your habits, there 
is not in this immediate neighbourhood any hotel " when Mr Blandois took 
him up.
"So much for my habits! my dear sir," snapping his fingers. "A citizen of 
the world has no habits. That I am, in my poor way, a gentleman, by Heaven! 
I will not deny, but I have no unaccommodating prejudiced habits. A clean 
room, a hot dish for dinner, and a bottle of not absolutely poisonous wine, 
are all I want tonight. But I want that much, without the trouble of going 
one unnecessary inch to get it."
"There is," said Mr Flintwinch, with more than his usual deliberation, as 
he met, for a moment, Mr Blandois' shining eyes, which were restless; 
"there is a coffee-house and tavern close here, which, so far, I can 
recommend; but there's no style about it."
"I dispense with style!" said Mr Blandois, waving his hand. "Do me the 
honour to show me the house, and introduce me there (if I am not too 
troublesome), and I shall be infinitely obliged."
Mr Flintwinch, upon this, looked up his hat, and lighted Mr Blandois across 
the hall again. As he put the candle on a bracket, where the dark old 
panelling almost served as an extinguisher for it, he bethought himself of 
going up to tell the invalid that he would not be absent five minutes.
"Oblige me," said the visitor, on his saying so, "by presenting my card of 
visit. Do me the favour to add, that I shall be happy to wait on Mrs 
Clennam, to offer my personal compliments, and to apologise for having 
occasioned any agitation in this tranquil corner, if it should suit her 
convenience to endure the presence of a stranger for a few minutes after he 
shall have changed his wet clothes and fortified himself with something to 
eat and drink."
Jeremiah made all dispatch, and said, on his return, "She'll be glad to see 
you, sir; but, being conscious that her sick room has no attractions, 
wishes me to say that she won't hold you to your offer, in case you should 
think better of it."
"To think better of it," returned the gallant Blandois, "would be to slight 
a lady; to slight a lady would be to be deficient in chivalry towards the 
sex; and chivalry towards the sex is a part of my character!" Thus 
expressing himself, he threw the draggled skirt of his cloak over his 
shoulder, and accompanied Mr Flintwinch to the tavern; taking up on the 
road a porter, who was waiting with his portmanteau on the outer side of 
the gateway.
The house was kept in a homely manner, and the condescension of Mr Blandois 
was infinite. It seemed to fill to inconvenience the little bar, in which 
the widow landlady and her two daughters received him; it was much too big 
for the narrow wainscotted room with a bagatelle-board in it, that was 
first proposed for his reception; it perfectly swamped the little private 
holiday sitting-room of the family, which was finally given up to him. 
Here, in dry clothes and scented linen, with sleeked hair, a great ring on 
each forefinger, and a massive show of watch-chain, Mr Blandois waiting for 
his dinner, lolling on the window-seat with his knees drawn up, looked (for 
all the difference in the setting of the jewel) fearfully and wonderfully 
like a certain Monsieur Rigaud who had once so waited for his breakfast, 
lying on the stone ledge of the iron grating of a cell in a villanous 
dungeon at Marseilles.
His greed at dinner, too, was closely in keeping with the greed of Monsieur 
Rigaud at breakfast. His avaricious manner of collecting all the eatables 
about him, and devouring some with his eyes while devouring others with his 
jaws, was the same manner. His utter disregard of other people, as shown in 
his way of tossing the little womanly toys of furniture about, flinging 
favourite cushions under his boots for a softer rest, and crushing delicate 
coverings with his big body and his great black head, had the same brute 
selfishness at the bottom of it. The softly moving hands that were so busy 
among the dishes had the old wicked facility of the hands that had clung to 
the bars. And when he could eat no more, and sat sucking his delicate 
fingers one by one and wiping them on a cloth, there wanted nothing but the 
substitution of vine-leaves to finish the picture.
On this man, with his moustache going up and his nose coming down in that 
most evil of smiles, and with his surface eyes looking as if they belonged 
to his dyed hair, and had had their natural power of reflecting light 
stopped by some similar process, Nature, always true, and never working in 
vain, had set the mark, Beware! It was not her fault, if the warning were 
fruitless. She is never to blame in any such instance.
Mr Blandois, having finished his repast and cleaned his fingers, took a 
cigar from his pocket, and, lying on the window-seat, again smoked it out 
at his leisure, occasionally apostrophising the smoke as it parted from his 
thin lips in a thin stream:
"Blandois, you shall turn the tables on society, my little child. Haha! 
Holy blue, you have begun well, Blandois! At a pinch, an excellent master 
in English or French; a man for the bosom of families! You have a quick 
perception, you have humour, you have ease, you have insinuating manners, 
you have a good appearance; in effect, you are a gentleman! A gentleman you 
shall live, my small boy, and a gentleman you shall die. You shall win, 
however the game goes. They shall all confess your merit, Blandois. You 
shall subdue the society which has grievously wronged you, to your own high 
spirit. Death of my soul. You are high-spirited by right and by nature, my 
Blandois!"
To such soothing murmurs did this gentleman smoke out his cigar and drink 
out his bottle of wine. Both being finished, he shook himself into a 
sitting attitude; and with the concluding serious apostrophe, "Hold, then! 
Blandois, you ingenious one, have all your wits about you!" arose and went 
back to the house of Clennam and Co.
He was received at the door by Mistress Affery, who, under instructions 
from her lord, had lighted up two candles in the hall and a third on the 
staircase, and who conducted him to Mrs Clennam's room. Tea was prepared 
there, and such little company arrangements had been made as usually 
attended the reception of expected visitors. They were slight on the 
greatest occasion, never extending beyond the production of the China tea-
service, and the covering of the bed with a sober and sad drapery. For the 
rest, there was the bier-like sofa with the block upon it, and the figure 
in the widow's dress as if attired for execution; the fire topped by the 
mound of damped ashes; the grate with its second little mound of ashes; the 
kettle, and the smell of black dye; all as they had been for fifteen years.
Mr Flintwinch presented the gentleman commended to the consideration of 
Clennam and Co. Mrs Clennam, who had the letter lying before her, bent her 
head and requested him to sit. They looked very closely at one another. 
That was but natural curiosity.

"I thank you, sir, for thinking of a disabled woman like me. Few who come 
here on business have any remembrance to bestow on one so removed from 
observation. It would be idle to expect that they should have. Out of 
sight, out of mind. When I am grateful for the exception, I don't complain 
of the rule."
Mr Blandois, in his most gentlemanly manner, was afraid he had disturbed 
her by unhappily presenting himself at such an unconscionable time. For 
which he had already offered his best apologies to Mr he begged pardon but 
by name had not the distinguished honour -
"Mr Flintwinch has been connected with the House many years."
Mr Blandois was Mr Flintwinch's most obedient humble servant. He entreated 
Mr Flintwinch to receive the assurance of his profoundest consideration.
"My husband being dead," said Mrs Clennam, "and my son preferring another 
pursuit, our old House has no other representative in these days than Mr 
Flintwinch."
"What do you call yourself?" was the surly demand of that gentleman. "You 
have the head of two men."
"My sex disqualifies me," she proceeded with merely a slight turn of her 
eyes in Jeremiah's direction, "from taking a responsible part in the 
business, even if I had the ability; and therefore Mr Flintwinch combines 
my interests with his own, and conducts it. It is not what it used to be; 
but some of our old friends (principally the writers of this letter) have 
the kindness not to forget us, and we retain the power of doing what they 
entrust to us as efficiently as we ever did. This however is not 
interesting to you. You are English, sir?"
"Faith, madam, no; I am neither born nor bred in England. In effect, I am 
of no country," said Mr Blandois, stretching out his leg and smiting it: "I 
descend from half a dozen countries."
"You have been much about the world?"
"It is true. By Heaven, madam, I have been here and there and everywhere!"
"You have no ties, probably. Are not married?"
"Madam," said Mr Blandois, with an ugly fall of his eyebrows, "I adore your 
sex, but I am not married never was."
Mistress Affery, who stood at the table near him, pouring out the tea, 
happened in her dreamy state to look at him as he said these words, and to 
fancy that she caught an expression in his eyes which attracted her own 
eyes so that she could not get them away. The effect of this fancy was, to 
keep her staring at him with the teapot in her hand, not only to her own 
great uneasiness, but manifestly to his, too; and, through them both, to 
Mrs Clennam's and Mr Flintwinch's. Thus a few ghostly moments supervened, 
when they were all confusedly staring without knowing why.
"Affery," her mistress was the first to say, "what is the matter with you?"
"I don't know," said Mistress Affery, with her disengaged left hand 
extended towards the visitor. "It ain't me. It's him!"
"What does this good woman mean?" cried Mr Blandois, turning white, hot, 
and slowly rising with a look of such deadly wrath that it contrasted 
surprisingly with the slight force of his words. "How is it possible to 
understand this good creature?"
"It's not possible," said Mr Flintwinch, screwing himself rapidly in that 
direction. "She don't know what she means. She's an idiot, a wanderer in 
her mind. She shall have a dose, she shall have such a dose! Get along with 
you, my woman," he added in her ear, "get along with you, while you know 
you're Affery, and before you're shaken to yeast."
Mistress Affery, sensible of the danger in which her identity stood, 
relinquished the teapot as her husband seized it, put her apron over her 
head, and in a twinkling vanished. The visitor gradually broke into a smile 
and sat down again.
"You'll excuse her, Mr Blandois," said Jeremiah, pouring out the tea 
himself; "she's failing and breaking up; that's what she's about. Do you 
take sugar, sir?"
"Thank you; no tea for me. Pardon my observing it, but that's a very 
remarkable watch!"
The tea table was drawn up near the sofa, with a small interval between it 
and Mrs Clennam's own particular table. Mr Blandois in his gallantry had 
risen to hand that lady her tea (her dish of toast was already there), and 
it was in placing the cup conveniently within her reach that the watch, 
lying before her as it always did, attracted his attention. Mrs Clennam 
looked suddenly up at him.
"May I be permitted? Thank you. A fine old-fashioned watch," he said, 
taking it in his hand. "Heavy for use, but massive and genuine. I have a 
partiality for everything genuine. Such as I am, I am genuine myself. Hah! 
A gentleman's watch with two cases in the old fashion. May I remove it from 
the outer case? Thank you. Aye? An old silk watch-lining, worked with 
beads! I have often seen these among old Dutch people and Belgians. Quaint 
things!"
"They are old-fashioned too," said Mrs Clennam.
"Very. But this is not as old as the watch, I think?"
"I think not."
"Extraordinary how they used to complicate these cyphers!" remarked Mr 
Blandois, glancing up with his own smile again. "Now, is this D. N. F.? It 
might be almost anything."
"Those are the letters."
Mr Flintwinch, who had been observantly pausing all this time with a cup of 
tea in his hand, and his mouth open ready to swallow the contents, began to 
do so: always entirely filling his mouth before he emptied it at a gulp; 
and always deliberating again before he refilled it.
"D. N. F. was some tender lovely fascinating fair creature, I make no 
doubt," observed Mr Blandois, as he snapped on the case again. "I adore her 
memory on the assumption. Unfortunately for my peace of mind, I adore but 
too readily. It may be a vice, it may be a virtue, but adoration of female 
beauty and merit constitutes three parts of my character, madam."
Mr Flintwinch had by this time poured himself out another cup of tea, which 
he was swallowing in gulps as before, with his eyes directed to the 
invalid.
"You may be heart-free here, sir," she returned to Mr Blandois. "Those 
letters are not intended, I believe, for the initials of any name."
"Of a motto perhaps," said Mr Blandois, casually.
"Of a sentence. They have always stood, I believe, for Do Not Forget!"
"And naturally," said Mr Blandois, replacing the watch, and stepping 
backward to his former chair, "you do not forget."
Mr Flintwinch, finishing his tea, not only took a longer gulp than he had 
taken yet, but made his succeeding pause under new circumstances: that is 
to say, with his head thrown back and his cup still held at his lips, while 
his eyes were still directed at the invalid. She had that force of face, 
and that concentrated air of collecting her firmness or obstinacy, which 
represented in her case what would have been gesture and action in another, 
as she replied with her deliberate strength of speech:
"No sir, I do not forget. To lead a life as monotonous as mine has been 
during many years, is not the way to forget. To lead a life of self-
correction is not the way to forget. To be sensible of having (as we all 
have, every one of us, all the children of Adam! ) offences to expiate and 
peace to make, does not justify the desire to forget. Therefore I have long 
dismissed it, and I neither forget nor wish to forget."
Mr Flintwinch, who had latterly been shaking the sediment at the bottom of 
his teacup, round and round, here gulped it down, and putting the cup in 
the tea tray as done with, turned his eyes upon Mr Blandois, as if to ask 
him what he thought of that?
"All expressed, madam," said Mr Blandois, with his smoothest bow and his 
white hand on his breast, "by the word 'naturally,' which I am proud to 
have had sufficient apprehension and appreciation (but without appreciation 
I could not be Blandois) to employ.
"Pardon me, sir," she returned, "if I doubt the likelihood of a gentleman 
of pleasure, and change, and politeness, accustomed to court and to be 
courted "
"Oh madam! By Heaven!"
" If I doubt the likelihood of such a character, quite comprehending what 
belongs to mine in my circumstances. Not to obtrude doctrine upon you," she 
looked at the rigid pile of hard pale books before her, "(for you go your 
own way, and the consequences are on your own head), I will say this much: 
that I shape my course by pilots, strictly by proved and tried pilots, 
under whom I cannot be shipwrecked - can not be - and that if I were 
unmindful of the admonition conveyed in those three letters, I should not 
be half as chastened as I am."
It was curious how she seized the occasion to argue with some invisible 
opponent. Perhaps with her own better sense, always turning upon herself 
and her own deception.
"If I forgot my ignorances in my life of health and freedom, I might 
complain of the life to which I am now condemned. I never do; I never have 
done. If I forgot that this scene, the Earth, is expressly meant to be a 
scene of gloom, and hardship, and dark trial, for the creatures who are 
made out of its dust, I might have some tenderness for its vanities. But I 
have no such tenderness. If I did not know that we are, every one, the 
subject (most justly the subject) of a wrath that must be satisfied, and 
against which mere actions are nothing, I might repine at the difference 
between me, imprisoned here, and the people who pass that gateway yonder. 
But I take it as a grace and favour to be elected to make the satisfaction 
I am making here, to know what I know for certain here, and to work out 
what I have worked out here. My affliction might otherwise have had no 
meaning to me. Hence I would forget, and I do forget, nothing. Hence I am 
contented, and say it is better with me than with millions."
As she spoke these words, she put her hand upon the watch, and restored it 
to the precise spot on her little table which it always occupied. With her 
touch lingering upon it, she sat for some moments afterwards, looking at it 
steadily and half-defiantly.
Mr Blandois, during this exposition, had been strictly attentive, keeping 
his eyes fastened on the lady, and thoughtfully stroking his moustache with 
his two hands. Mr Flintwinch had been a little fidgetty, and now struck in.
"There, there, there!" said he. "That is quite understood, Mrs Clennam, and 
you have spoken piously and well. Mr Blandois, I suspect, is not of a pious 
cast."
"On the contrary, sir!" that gentleman protested, snapping his fingers. 
"Your pardon! It's a part of my character. I am sensitive, ardent, 
conscientious, and imaginative. A sensitive, ardent, conscientious, and 
imaginative man, Mr Flintwinch, must be that, or nothing!"
There was an inkling of suspicion in Mr Flintwinch's face that he might be 
nothing, as he swaggered out of his chair (it was characteristic of this 
man, as it is of all men similarly marked, that whatever he did, he 
overdid, though it were sometimes by only a hair's-breadth), and approached 
to take his leave of Mrs Clennam.
"With what will appear to you the egotism of a sick old woman, sir," she 
then said, "though really through your accidental allusion, I have been led 
away into the subject of myself and my infirmities. Being so considerate as 
to visit me, I hope you will be likewise so considerate as to overlook 
that. Don't compliment me, if you please." For he was evidently going to do 
it. "Mr Flintwinch will be happy to render you any service, and I hope your 
stay in this city may prove agreeable."
Mr Blandois thanked her, and kissed his hand several times. "This is an old 
room," he remarked, with a sudden sprightliness of manner, looking round 
when he got near the door. "I have been so interested that I have not 
observed it. But it's a genuine old room."
"It is a genuine old house," said Mrs Clennam, with her frozen smile. "A 
place of no pretensions, but a piece of antiquity."
"Faith!" cried the visitor. "If Mr Flintwinch would do me the favour to 
take me through the rooms on my way out, he could hardly oblige me more. An 
old house is a weakness with me. I have many weaknesses, but none greater. 
I love and study the picturesque in all its varieties. I have been called 
picturesque myself. It is no merit to be picturesque I have greater merits, 
perhaps but I may be, by an accident. Sympathy, sympathy!"
"I tell you beforehand, Mr Blandois, that you'll find it very dingy, and 
very bare," said Jeremiah, taking up the candle. "It's not worth your 
looking at." But, Mr Blandois, smiting him in a friendly manner on the 
back, only laughed; so the said Blandois kissed his hand again to Mrs 
Clennam, and they went out of the room together.
"You don't care to go upstairs?" said Jeremiah, on the landing.
"On the contrary, Mr Flintwinch; if not tiresome to you, I shall be 
ravished!"
Mr Flintwinch, therefore, wormed himself up the staircase, and Mr Blandois 
followed close. They ascended to the great garret bedroom, which Arthur had 
occupied on the night of his return. "There, Mr Blandois!" said Jeremiah, 
showing it, "I hope you may think that worth coming so high, to see. I 
confess I don't."
Mr Blandois being enraptured, they walked through other garrets and 
passages, and came down the staircase again. By this time Mr Flintwinch had 
remarked that he never found the visitor looking at any room, after 
throwing one quick glance around, but always found the visitor looking at 
him, Mr Flintwinch. With this discovery in his thoughts, he turned about on 
the staircase for another experiment. He met his eyes directly; and on the 
instant of their fixing one another, the visitor, with that ugly play of 
nose and moustache, laughed (as he had done at every similar moment since 
they left Mrs Clennam's chamber) a diabolically silent laugh.
As a much shorter man than the visitor, Mr Flintwinch was at the physical 
disadvantage of being thus disagreeably leered at from a height; and as he 
went first down the staircase, and was usually a step or two lower than the 
other, this disadvantage was at the time increased. He postponed looking at 
Mr Blandois again until this accidental inequality was removed by their 
having entered the late Mr Clennam's room. But, then twisting himself 
suddenly round upon him, he found his look unchanged.
"A most admirable old house," smiled Mr Blandois. "So mysterious. Do you 
never hear any haunted noises here?"
"Noises," returned Mr Flintwinch. "No."
"Nor see any devils!"
"Not," said Mr Flintwinch, grimly screwing himself at his questioner, "not 
any that introduce themselves under that name and in that capacity."
"Haha! A portrait here, I see."
(Still looking at Mr Flintwinch, as if he were the portrait.)
"It's a portrait, sir, as you observe."
"May I ask the subject, Mr Flintwinch?"
"Mr Clennam, deceased. Her husband."
"Former owner of the remarkable watch, perhaps?" said the visitor.
Mr Flintwinch, who had cast his eyes towards the portrait, twisted himself 
about again, and again found himself the subject of the same look and 
smile. "Yes, Mr Blandois," he replied tartly. "It was his, and his uncle's 
before him, and Lord knows who before him; and that's all I can tell you of 
its pedigree."
"That's a strongly marked character, Mr Flintwinch, our friend upstairs."
"Yes, sir," said Jeremiah, twisting himself at the visitor again, as he did 
during the whole of this dialogue, like some screw-machine that fell short 
of its grip; for the other never changed, and he always felt obliged to 
retreat a little. "She is a remarkable woman. Great fortitude great 
strength of mind."
"They must have been very happy," said Blandois.
"Who!" demanded Mr Flintwinch, with another screw at him.
Mr Blandois shook his right forefinger towards the sick-room, and his left 
forefinger towards the portrait, and then putting his arms akimbo, and 
striding his legs wide apart, stood smiling down at Mr Flintwinch with the 
advancing nose and the retreating moustache.
"As happy as most other married people, I suppose," returned Mr Flintwinch. 
"I can't say. I don't know. There are secrets in all families."
"Secrets!" cried Mr Blandois, quickly. "Say it again, my son."
"I say," replied Mr Flintwinch, upon whom he had swelled himself so 
suddenly that Mr Flintwinch found his face almost brushed by the dilated 
chest. "I say there are secrets in all families."
"So there are," cried the other, clapping him on both shoulders, and 
rolling him backwards and forwards. "Haha! you are right. So there are! 
Secrets? Holy Blue! There are the devil's own secrets in some families, Mr 
Flintwinch!" With that, after clapping Mr Flintwinch on both shoulders 
several times, as if, in a friendly and humorous way, he were rallying him 
on a joke he had made, he threw up his arms, threw back his head, hooked 
his hands together behind it, and burst into a roar of laughter. It was in 
vain for Mr Flintwinch to try another screw at him. He had his laugh out.
"But, favour me with the candle a moment," he said, when he had done. "Let 
us have a look at the husband of the remarkable lady. Hah!" holding up the 
light at arm's length. "A decided expression of face here too, though not 
of the same character. Looks as if he were saying what is it Do not forget 
does he not, Mr Flintwinch? By Heaven, sir, he does!"
As he returned him the candle, he looked at him once more; and then, 
leisurely strolling out with him into the hall, declared it to be a 
charming old house indeed, and one which had so greatly pleased him, that 
he would not have missed inspecting it for a hundred pounds.
Throughout these singular freedoms on the part of Mr Blandois, which 
involved a general alteration in his demeanour, making it much coarser and 
rougher, much more violent and audacious, than before, Mr Flintwinch, whose 
leathern face was not liable to many changes, preserved its immobility 
intact. Beyond now appearing, perhaps, to have been left hanging a trifle 
too long before that friendly operation of cutting down, he outwardly 
maintained an equable composure. They had brought their survey to a close 
in the little room at the side of the hall, and he stood there, eyeing Mr 
Blandois.
"I am glad you are so well satisfied, sir," was his calm remark. "I didn't 
expect it. You seem to be quite in good spirits."
"In admirable spirits," returned Blandois. "Word of honour! never more 
refreshed in spirits. Do you ever have presentiments, Mr Flintwinch?"
"I am not sure I know what you mean by the term, sir," replied that 
gentleman.
"Say in this case, Mr Flintwinch, undefined anticipations of pleasure to 
come."
"I can't say I am sensible of such a sensation at present," returned Mr 
Flintwinch, with the utmost gravity. "If I should find it coming on, I'll 
mention it."
"Now I," said Blandois, "I, my son, have a presentiment tonight that we 
shall be well acquainted. Do you find it coming on?"
"N no," returned Mr Flintwinch, deliberately inquiring of himself. "I can't 
say I do."
"I have a strong presentiment that we shall become intimately acquainted. 
You have no feeling of that sort yet?"
"Not yet," said Mr Flintwinch.
Mr Blandois, taking him by both shoulders again, rolled him about a little 
in his former merry way, then drew his arm through his own, and invited him 
to come off and drink a bottle of wine like a dear deep old dog as he was.
Without a moment's indecision, Mr Flintwinch accepted the invitation, and 
they went out to the quarters where the traveller was lodged, through a 
heavy rain, which had rattled on the windows, roofs, and pavements, ever 
since nightfall. The thunder and lightning had long ago passed over, but 
the rain was furious. On their arrival in Mr Blandois' room, a bottle of 
port wine was ordered by that gallant gentleman; who (crushing every pretty 
thing he could collect, in the soft disposition of his dainty figure) 
coiled himself upon the window-seat, while Mr Flintwinch took a chair 
opposite to him, with the table between them. Mr Blandois proposed having 
the largest glasses in the house, to which Mr Flintwinch assented. The 
bumpers filled, Mr Blandois, with a roystering gaiety, clinked the top of 
his glass against the bottom or Mr Flintwinch's, and the bottom of his 
glass against the top of Mr Flintwinch's, and drank to the intimate 
acquaintance he foresaw. Mr Flintwinch gravely pledged him, and drank all 
the wine he could get, and said nothing. As often as Mr Blandois clinked 
glasses (which was at every replenishment), Mr Flintwinch stolidly did his 
part of the clinking and would have stolidly done his companion's part of 
the wine as well as his own: being, except in the article of palate, a mere 
cask.
In short Mr Blandois found that to pour port wine into the reticent 
Flintwinch was, not to open him but to shut him up. Moreover, he had the 
appearance of a perfect ability to go on all night; or, if occasion were, 
all next day, and all next night; whereas Mr Blandois soon grew 
indistinctly conscious of swaggering too fiercely and boastfully. He 
therefore terminated the entertainment at the end of the third bottle.
"You will draw upon us tomorrow, sir," said Mr Flintwinch, with a business-
like face at parting.
"My cabbage," returned the other, taking him by the collar with both hands, 
"I'll draw upon you; have no fear. Adieu, my Flintwinch. Receive at 
parting;" here he gave him a southern embrace, and kissed him soundingly on 
both cheeks; "the word of a gentleman! By a thousand Thunders, you shall 
see me again!"
He did not present himself next day, though the letter of advice came duly 
to hand. Inquiring after him at night, Mr Flintwinch found, with surprise, 
that he had paid his bill and gone back to the Continent by way of Calais. 
Nevertheless, Jeremiah scraped out of his cogitating face a lively 
conviction that Mr Blandois would keep his word on this occasion, and would 
be seen again.


Chapter 31

Spirit

Anybody may pass, any day, in the thronged thoroughfares of the metropolis, 
some meagre, wrinkled, yellow old man (who might be supposed to have 
dropped from the stars, if there were any star in the Heavens dull enough 
to be suspected of casting off so feeble a spark), creeping along with a 
scared air, as though bewildered and a little frightened by the noise and 
bustle. This old man is always a little old man. If he were ever a big old 
man, he has shrunk into a little old man; if he were always a little old 
man, he has dwindled into a less old man. His coat is of a colour and cut 
that never was the mode anywhere, at any period. Clearly, it was not made 
for him, or for any individual mortal. Some wholesale contractor measured 
Fate for five thousand coats of such quality, and Fate has lent this old 
coat to this old man, as one of a long unfinished line of many old men. It 
has always large dull metal buttons, similar to no other buttons. This old 
man wears a hat, a thumbed and napless and yet an obdurate hat, which has 
never adapted itself to the shape of his poor head. His coarse shirt and 
his coarse neckcloth have no more individuality than his coat and hat; they 
have the same character of not being his - of not being anybody's. Yet this 
old man wears these clothes with a certain unaccustomed air of being 
dressed and elaborated for the public ways; as though he passed the greater 
part of his time in a nightcap and gown. And so, like the country mouse in 
the second year of a famine, come to see the town mouse, and timidly 
threading his way to the town mouse's lodging through a city of cats, this 
old man passes in the streets.
Sometimes, on holidays towards the evening, he w ill be seen to walk with a 
slightly increased infirmity, and his old eyes will glimmer with a moist 
and marshy light. Then the little old man is drunk. A very small measure 
will overset him; he may be bowled off his unsteady legs with a half-pint 
pot. Some pitying acquaintance - chance acquaintance very often - has 
warmed up his weakness with a treat of beer, and the consequence will be 
the lapse of a longer time than usual before he shall pass again. For the 
little old man is going home to the Workhouse; and on his good behaviour 
they do not let him out often (though methinks they might, considering the 
few years he has before him to go out in, under the sun); and on his bad 
behaviour they shut him up closer than ever, in a grove of two score and 
nineteen more old men, every one of whom smells of all the others.
Mrs Plornish's father, - a poor little ready piping old gentleman, like a 
worn-out bird; who had been in what he called the music-binding business, 
and met with great misfortunes, and who had seldom been able to make his 
way, or to see it or to pay it, or to do anything at all with it but find 
it no thoroughfare, - had retired of his own accord to the Workhouse which 
was appointed by law to be the Good Samaritan of his district (without the 
twopence, which was bad political economy), on the settlement of that 
execution which had carried Mr Plornish to the Marshalsea College. Previous 
to his son-in-law's difficulties coming to that head, Old Nandy (he was 
always so called in his legal Retreat, but he was Old Mr Nandy among the 
Bleeding Hearts) had sat in a corner of the Plornish fireside, and taken 
his bite and sup out of the Plornish cupboard. He still hoped to resume 
that domestic position, when Fortune should smile upon his son-in-law; in 
the meantime, while she preserved an immovable countenance, he was, and 
resolved to remain, one of these little old men in a grove of little old 
men with a community of flavour.
But no poverty in him, and no coat on him that never was the mode, and no 
Old Men's Ward for his dwelling-place, could quench his daughter's 
admiration. Mrs Plornish was as proud of her father's talents as she 
possibly could have been if they had made him Lord Chancellor. She had as 
firm a belief in the sweetness and propriety of his manners as she could 
possibly have had if he had been Lord Chamberlain. The poor little old man 
knew some pale and vapid little songs, long out of date, about Chloe, and 
Phyllis, and Strephon being wounded by the son of Venus; and for Mrs 
Plornish there was no such music at the Opera, as the small internal 
flutterings and chirpings wherein he would discharge himself of these 
ditties, like a weak, little, broken barrel-organ, ground by a baby. On his 
"days out," those flecks of light in his flat vista of pollard old men, it 
was at once Mrs Plornish's delight and sorrow, when he was strong with 
meat, and had taken his full halfpenny-worth of porter, to say "Sing us a 
song, Father." Then would he give them Chloe, and if he were in pretty good 
spirits, Phyllis, also - Strephon he had hardly been up to, since he went 
into retirement - and then would Mrs Plornish declare she did believe there 
never was such a singer as Father, and wipe her eyes.
If he had come from Court on these occasions, nay, if he had been the noble 
Refrigerator come home triumphantly from a foreign court to be presented 
and promoted on his last tremendous failure, Mrs Plornish could not have 
handed him with greater elevation about Bleeding Heart Yard. "Here's 
Father," she would say, presenting him to a neighbour. "Father will soon be 
home with us for good, now. Ain't Father looking well? Father's a sweeter 
singer than ever; you'd never have forgotten it, if you'd aheard him just 
now." As to Mr Plornish, he had married these articles of belief in 
marrying Mr Nandy's daughter, and only wondered how it was that so gifted 
an old gentleman had not made a fortune. This he attributed, after much 
reflection, to his musical genius not having been scientifically developed 
in his youth. "For why," argued Mr Plornish, "why go a binding music when 
you've got it in yourself? That's where it is, I consider."
Old Nandy had a patron: one patron. He had a patron who in a certain 
sumptuous way - an apologetic way, as if he constantly took an admiring 
audience to witness that he really could not help being more free with this 
old fellow than they might have expected, on account of his simplicity and 
poverty - was mightily good to him. Old Nandy had been several times to the 
Marshalsea College, communicating with his son-in-law during his short 
durance there; and had happily acquired to himself, and had by degrees and 
in course of time much improved the patronage of the Father of that 
national institution.
Mr Dorrit was in the habit of receiving this old man, as if the old man 
held of him in vassallage under some feudal tenure. He made little treats 
and teas for him, as if he came in with his homage from some outlying 
district where the tenantry were in a primitive state. It seemed as if 
there were moments when he could by no means have sworn but that the old 
man was an ancient retainer of his, who had been meritoriously faithful. 
When he mentioned him, he spoke of him casually as his old pensioner. He 
had a wonderful satisfaction in seeing him, and in commenting on his 
decayed condition after he was gone. It appeared to him amazing that he 
could hold up his head at all, poor creature. "In the Workhouse, sir, the 
Union; no privacy, no visitors, no station, no respect, no speciality. Most 
deplorable!"
It was old Nandy's birthday, and they let him out. He said nothing about 
its being his birthday, or they might have kept him in; for such old men 
should not be born. He passed along the streets as usual to Bleeding Heart 
Yard, and had his dinner with his daughter and son-in-law, and gave them 
Phyllis. He had hardly concluded, when Little Dorrit looked in to see how 
they all were.
"Miss Dorrit," said Mrs Plornish. "Here's Father! Ain't he looking nice? 
And such a voice he's in!"
Little Dorrit gave him her hand, and smilingly said she had not seen him 
this long time.
"No, they're rather hard on poor Father," said Mrs Plornish, with a 
lengthening face, "and don't let him have half as much change and fresh air 
as would benefit him. But he'll soon be home for good, now. Won't you, 
Father?"
"Yes, my dear, I hope so. In good time, please God."
Here Mr Plornish delivered himself of an oration which he invariably made, 
word for word the same, on all such opportunities. It was couched in the 
following terms:
"John Edward Nandy. Sir. While there's a ounce of wittles or drink of any 
sort in this present roof, you're fully welcome to your share on it. While 
there's a handful of fire or a mouthful of bed in this present roof, you're 
fully welcome to your share on it. If so be as there should be nothing in 
this present roof, you should be as welcome to your share on it as if it 
was something much or little. And this is what I mean and so I don't 
deceive you, and consequently which is to stand out is to entreat of you, 
and therefore why not do it?"
To this lucid address, which Mr Plornish always delivered as if he had 
composed it (as no doubt he had) with enormous labour, Mrs Plornish's 
father pipingly replied:
"I thank you kindly, Thomas, and I know your intentions well, which is the 
same I thank you kindly for. But no, Thomas. Until such times as it's not 
to take it out of your children's mouths, which take it is, and call it by 
what name you will it do remain and equally deprive though may they come 
and too soon they can not come, no Thomas, no!" Mrs Plornish, who had been 
turning her face a little away with a corner of her apron in her hand, 
brought herself back to the conversation again, by telling Miss Dorrit that 
Father was going over the water to pay his respects, unless she knew of any 
reason why it might not be agreeable.
Her answer was, "I am going straight home, and if he will come with me I 
shall be so glad to take care of him - so glad," said Little Dorrit, always 
thoughtful of the feelings of the weak, "of his company."
"There, Father!" cried Mrs Plornish. "Ain't you a gay young man to be going 
for a walk along with Miss Dorrit! Let me tie your neck-handkerchief into a 
regular good bow, for you're a regular beau yourself, Father, if ever there 
was one."
With this filial joke his daughter smartened him up, and gave him a loving 
hug, and stood at the door with her weak child in her arms and her strong 
child tumbling down the steps, looking after her little old father as he 
toddled away with his arm under Little Dorrit's.
They walked at a slow pace, and Little Dorrit took him by the Iron Bridge 
and sat him down there for a rest, and they looked over at the water and 
talked about the shipping, and the old man mentioned what he would do if he 
had a ship full of gold coming home to him (his plan was to take a noble 
lodging for the Plornishes and himself at a Tea Gardens, and live there all 
the rest of their lives, attended on by the waiter), and it was a special 
birthday for the old man. They were within five minutes of their 
destination, when, at the corner of her own street, they came upon Fanny in 
her new bonnet bound for the same port.
"Why, good gracious me, Amy!" cried that young lady, starting. "You never 
mean it!"
"Mean what, Fanny dear?"
"Well! I could have believed a great deal of you," returned the young lady 
with burning indignation, "but I don't think even I could have believed 
this, of even you!"
"Fanny!" cried Little Dorrit, wounded and astonished.
"Oh! Don't Fanny me, you mean little thing, don't! The idea of coming along 
the open streets, in the broad light of day, with a Pauper!" (firing off 
the last word as if it were a ball from an air-gun.)
"Oh, Fanny!"
"I tell you not to Fanny me, for I'll not submit to it! I never knew such a 
thing. The way in which you are resolved and determined to disgrace us, on 
all occasions, is really infamous. You bad little thing!"
"Does it disgrace anybody," said Little Dorrit, very gently, "to take care 
of this poor old man?"
"Yes, miss," returned her sister, "and you ought to know it does. And you 
do know it does. And you do it because you know it does. The principal 
pleasure of your life is to remind your family of their misfortunes. And 
the next great pleasure of your existence is to keep low company. But, 
however, if you have no sense of decency, I have. You'll please to allow me 
to go on the other side of the way, unmolested."
With this, she bounced across to the opposite pavement. The old disgrace, 
who had been deferentially bowing a pace or two off (for Little Dorrit had 
let his arm go in her wonder, when Fanny began), and who had been hustled 
and cursed by impatient passengers for stopping the way, rejoined his 
companion, rather giddy, and said, "I hope nothing's wrong with your 
honoured father, Miss? I hope there's nothing the matter in the honoured 
family?"
"No, no," returned Little Dorrit. "No, thank you. Give me your arm again, 
Mr Nandy. We shall soon be there now."
So, she talked to him as she had talked before, and they came to the Lodge 
and found Mr Chivery on the lock, and went in. Now, it had happened that 
the Father of the Marshalsea was sauntering towards the Lodge at the moment 
when they were coming out of it, entering the Prison arm in arm. As the 
spectacle of their approach met his view, he displayed the utmost agitation 
and despondency of mind; and - altogether regardless of old Nandy, who, 
making his reverence, stood with his hat in his hand, as he always did in 
that gracious presence - turned about, and hurried in at his own doorway 
and up the staircase.
Leaving the old unfortunate, whom in an evil hour she had taken under her 
protection, with a hurried promise to return to him directly, Little Dorrit 
hastened after her father, and, on the staircase, found Fanny following 
her, and flouncing up with offended dignity. The three came into the room 
almost together; and the Father sat down in his chair, buried his face in 
his hands, and uttered a groan.
"Of course," said Fanny. "Very proper. Poor, afflicted Pa! Now, I hope you 
believe me, Miss!"
"What is it, father?" cried Little Dorrit, bending over him. "Have I made 
you unhappy, father? Not I, I hope!"
"You hope, indeed! I dare say! Oh, you" - Fanny paused for a sufficiently 
strong expression - "you Common-minded little Amy! You complete prison-
child!"
He stopped these angry reproaches with a wave of his hand, and sobbed out, 
raising his face, and shaking his melancholy head at his younger daughter, 
"Amy, I know that you are innocent in intention. But you have cut me to the 
soul."
"Innocent in intention!" the implacable Fanny struck in. "Stuff in 
intention! Low in intention! Lowering of the family in intention!"
"Father!" cried Little Dorrit, pale and trembling, "I am very sorry. Pray 
forgive me. Tell me how it is, that I may not do it again!"
"How it is, you prevaricating little piece of goods!" cried Fanny. "You 
know how it is. I have told you already, so don't fly in the face of 
Providence by attempting to deny it!"
"Hush! Amy," said the father, passing his pocket-handkerchief several times 
across his face, and then grasping it convulsively in the hand that dropped 
across his knee, "I have done what I could to keep you select here; I have 
done what I could to retain you a position here. I may have succeeded; I 
may not. You may know it; you may not. I give no opinion. I have endured 
everything here but humiliation. That I have happily been spared - until 
this day."
Here his convulsive grasp unclosed itself, and he put his pocket-
handkerchief to his eyes again. Little Dorrit, on the ground beside him, 
with her imploring hand upon his arm, watched him remorsefully. Coming out 
of his fit of grief, he clenched his pocket-handkerchief once more.
"Humiliation I have happily been spared until this day. Through all my 
troubles there has been that - Spirit in myself, and that - that submission 
to it, if I may use the term, in those about me, which has spared me - ha - 
humiliation. But this day, this minute, I have keenly felt it."
"Of course! How could it be otherwise!" exclaimed the irrepressible Fanny. 
"Careering and prancing about with a Pauper!" (air gun again.)
"But, dear father," cried Little Dorrit, "I don't justify myself for having 
wounded your dear heart - no! Heaven knows I don't!" She clasped her hands 
in quite an agony of distress. "I do nothing but beg and pray you to be 
comforted and overlook it. But if I had not known that you were kind to the 
old man yourself, and took much notice of him, and were always glad to see 
him, I would not have come here with him, father, I would not indeed. What 
I have been so unhappy as to do, I have done in mistake. I would not 
wilfully bring a tear to your eyes, dear love!" said Little Dorrit, her 
heart well nigh broken, "for anything the world could give me, or anything 
it could take away."
Fanny, with a partly angry and partly repentant sob, began to cry herself, 
and to say - as this young lady always said when she was half in passion 
and half out of it, half spiteful with herself and half spiteful with 
everybody else - that she wished she was dead.
The Father of the Marshalsea in the meantime took his younger daughter to 
his breast, and patted her head.
"There, there! Say no more, Amy, say no more, my child. I will forget it as 
soon as I can. I," with hysterical cheerfulness, "I - shall soon be able to 
dismiss it. It is perfectly true, my dear, that I am always glad to see my 
old pensioner - as such, as such - and that I do - ha - extend as much 
protection and kindness to the - hum - the bruised reed - I trust I may so 
call him without impropriety - as in my circumstances, I can. It is quite 
true that this is the case, my dear child. At the same time, I preserve in 
doing this, if I may - ha - if I may use the expression - Spirit. Becoming 
Spirit. And there are some things which are," he stopped to sob, 
"irreconcileable with that, and wound that - wound it deeply. It is not 
that I have seen my good Amy attentive, and - ha - condescending to my old 
pensioner - it is not that that hurts me. It is, if I am to close the 
painful subject by being explicit, that I have seen my child, my own child, 
my own daughter, coming into this College out of the public streets - 
smiling! smiling! - arm in arm with - O my God, a livery!"
This reference to the coat of no cut and no time, the unfortunate gentleman 
gasped forth, in a scarcely audible voice, and with his clenched pocket-
handkerchief raised in the air. His excited feelings might have found some 
further painful utterance, but for a knock at the door, which had been 
already twice repeated, and to which Fanny (still wishing herself dead, and 
indeed now going so far as to add, buried) cried "Come in!"
"Ah, Young John!" said the Father, in an altered and calmed voice. "What is 
it, Young John?"
"A letter for you, sir, being left in the Lodge just this minute, and a 
message with it, I thought, happening to be there myself, sir, I would 
bring it to your room." The speaker's attention was much distracted by the 
piteous spectacle of Little Dorrit at her father's feet, with her head 
turned away.
"Indeed, John? Thank you."
"The letter is from Mr Clennam, sir - it's the answer - and the message 
was, sir, that Mr Clennam also sent his compliments, and word that he would 
do himself the pleasure of calling this afternoon, hoping to see you, and 
likewise," attention more distracted than before, "Miss Amy."
"Oh!" As the Father glanced into the letter (there was a banknote in it), 
he reddened a little, and patted Amy on the head afresh. "Thank you, Young 
John. Quite right. Much obliged to you for your attention. No one waiting?"
"No, sir, no one waiting."
"Thank you, John. How is your mother, Young John?"
"Thank you, sir, she's not quite as well as we could wish - in fact, we 
none of us are, except father - but she's pretty well, sir."
"Say we sent our remembrances, will you? Say, kind remembrances, if you 
please, Young John."
"Thank you, sir, I will." And Mr Chivery, junior, went his way, having 
spontaneously composed on the spot an entirely new epitaph for himself, to 
the effect that Here lay the body of John Chivery, Who, Having at such a 
date, Beheld the idol of his life, In grief and tears, And feeling unable 
to bear the harrowing spectacle, Immediately repaired to the abode of his 
inconsolable parents, And terminated his existence, By his own rash act.
"There, there, Amy!" said the Father, when Young John had closed the door, 
"let us say no more about it." The last few minutes had improved his 
spirits remarkably, and he was quite lightsome. "Where is my old pensioner 
all this while? We must not leave him by himself any longer, or he will 
begin to suppose he is not welcome, and that would pain me. Will you fetch 
him, my child, or shall I?"
"If you wouldn't mind, father," said Little Dorrit, trying to bring her 
sobbing to a close.
"Certainly I will go, my dear. I forgot; your eyes are rather. There! Cheer 
up, Amy. Don't be uneasy about me. I am quite myself again, my love, quite 
myself. Go to your room, Amy, and make your face look comfortable and 
pleasant to receive Mr Clennam."
"I would rather stay in my own room, Father," returned Little Dorrit, 
finding it more difficult than before to regain her composure. "I would far 
rather not see Mr Clennam."
"Oh, fie, fie, my dear, that's folly. Mr Clennam is a very gentlemanly man -
 very gentlemanly. A little reserved at times; but I will say extremely 
gentlemanly. I couldn't think of your not being here to receive Mr Clennam, 
my dear, especially this afternoon. So go and freshen yourself up, Amy; go 
and freshen yourself up, like a good girl."
Thus directed, Little Dorrit dutifully rose and obeyed: only pausing for a 
moment as she went out of the room, to give her sister a kiss of 
reconciliation. Upon which, that young lady, feeling much harassed in her 
mind, and having for the time worn out the wish with which she generally 
relieved it, conceived and executed the brilliant idea of wishing old Nandy 
dead, rather than that he should come bothering there like a disgusting, 
tiresome, wicked wretch, and making mischief between two sisters.
The Father of the Marshalsea, even humming a tune, and wearing his black 
velvet cap a little on one side, so much improved were his spirits, went 
down into the yard, and found his old pensioner standing hat in hand just 
within the gate, as he had stood all this time. "Come, Nandy!" said he, 
with great suavity. "Come upstairs, Nandy: you know the way; why don't you 
come upstairs?" He went the length, on this occasion, of giving him his 
hand, and saying, "How are you, Nandy? Are you pretty well?" To which that 
vocalist returned, "I thank you, honoured sir, I am all the better for 
seeing your honour." As they went along the Yard, the Father of the 
Marshalsea presented him to a Collegian of recent date. "An old 
acquaintance of mine, sir, an old pensioner." And then said, "Be covered, 
my good Nandy; put your hat on," with great consideration.
His patronage did not stop here; for he charged Maggie to get the tea 
ready, and instructed her to buy certain tea-cakes, fresh butter, eggs, 
cold ham, and shrimps: to purchase which collation, he gave her a bank note 
for ten pounds, laying strict injunctions on her to be careful of the 
change. These preparations were in an advanced stage of progress, and his 
daughter Amy had come back with her work, when Clennam presented himself. 
Whom he most graciously received, and besought to join their meal.
"Amy, my love, you know Mr Clennam even better than I have the happiness of 
doing. Fanny, my dear, you are acquainted with Mr Clennam." Fanny 
acknowledged him haughtily; the position she tacitly took up in all such 
cases being that there was a vast conspiracy to insult the family by not 
understanding it, or sufficiently deferring to it, and here was one of the 
conspirators. "This, Mr Clennam, you must know, is an old pensioner of 
mine, old Nandy, a very faithful old man." (He always spoke of him as an 
object of great antiquity, but he was two or three years younger than 
himself.) "Let me see. You know Plornish, I think? I think my daughter Amy 
has mentioned to me that you know poor Plornish?"
"Oh yes!" said Arthur Clennam.
"Well, sir, this is Mrs Plornish's father."
"Indeed? I am glad to see him."
"You would be more glad if you knew his many good qualities, Mr Clennam."
"I hope I shall come to know them, through knowing him," said Arthur, 
secretly pitying the bowed and submissive figure.
"It is a holiday with him, and he comes to see his old friends who are 
always glad to see him," observed the Father of the Marshalsea. Then he 
added behind his hand, "Union, poor old fellow. Out for the day."
By this time Maggie, quietly assisted by her Little Mother, had spread the 
board, and the repast was ready. It being hot weather and the prison very 
close, the window was as wide open as it could be pushed. "If Maggie will 
spread that newspaper on the window-sill, my dear," remarked the Father 
complacently and in a half whisper to Little Dorrit, my old pensioner can 
have his tea there, while we are having ours."
So, with a gulf between him and the good company of about a foot in width, 
standard measure, Mrs Plornish's father was handsomely regaled. Clennam had 
never seen anything like his magnanimous protection by that other Father, 
he of the Marshalsea; and was lost in the contemplation of its many 
wonders.
The most striking of these was perhaps the relishing manner in which he 
remarked on the pensioner's infirmities and failings. As if he was a 
gracious Keeper, making a running commentary on the decline of the harmless 
animal he exhibited.
"Not ready for more ham yet, Nandy? Why, how slow you are! (His last 
teeth," he explained to the company, "are going, poor old boy.")
At another time, he said, "No shrimps, Nandy?" and on his not instantly 
replying, observed, ("His hearing is becoming very defective. He'll be deaf 
directly.")
At another time, he asked him, "Do you walk much, Nandy, about the yard 
within the walls of that place of yours?"
"No, sir; no. I haven't any great liking for that."
"No, to be sure," he assented. "Very natural." Then he privately informed 
the circle ("Legs going.")
Once, he asked the pensioner, in that general clemency which asked him 
anything to keep him afloat, how old his younger grandchild was?
"John Edward," said the pensioner, slowly laying down his knife and fork to 
consider. "How old, sir? Let me think now."
The Father of the Marshalsea tapped his forehead. ("Memory weak.")
"John Edward, sir? Well, I really forget. I couldn't say, at this minute, 
sir, whether it's two and two months, or whether it's two and five months. 
It's one or the other."
"Don't distress yourself by worrying your mind about it," he returned, with 
infinite forbearance. ("Faculties evidently decaying - old man rusts in the 
life he leads!")
The more of these discoveries that he persuaded himself he made in the 
pensioner, the better he appeared to like him; and when he got out of his 
chair after tea, to bid the pensioner good-bye, on his intimating that he 
feared, honoured sir, his time was running out, he made himself look as 
erect and strong as possible.
"We don't call this a shilling, Nandy, you know," he said, putting one in 
his hand. "We call it tobacco."
"Honoured sir, I thank you. It shall buy tobacco. My thanks and duty to 
Miss Amy and Miss Fanny. I wish you good-night, Mr Clennam."
"And mind you don't forget us, you know, Nandy," said the Father. "You must 
come again, mind, whenever you have an afternoon. You must not come out 
without seeing us, or we shall be jealous. Good-night, Nandy. Be very 
careful how you descend the stairs, Nandy; they are rather uneven and 
worn." With that he stood on the landing, watching the old man down; and 
when he came into the room again, said, with a solemn satisfaction on him, 
"A melancholy sight that, Mr Clennam, though one has the consolation of 
knowing that he doesn't feel it himself. The poor old fellow is a dismal 
wreck. Spirit broken and gone - pulverised - crushed out of him, sir, 
completely!"
As Clennam had a purpose in remaining, he said what he could responsive to 
these sentiments, and stood at the window with their enunciator, while 
Maggie and her Little Mother washed the tea-service and cleared it away. He 
noticed that his companion stood at the window with the air of an affable 
and accessible Sovereign, and that, when any of his people in the yard 
below looked up, his recognition of their salutes just stopped short of a 
blessing.
When Little Dorrit had her work on the table, and Maggie hers on the 
bedstead, Fanny fell to tying her bonnet as a preliminary to her departure. 
Arthur, still having his purpose, still remained. At this time the door 
opened, without any notice, and Mr Tip came in. He kissed Amy as she 
started up to meet him, nodded to Fanny, nodded to his father, gloomed on 
the visitor without further recognition, and sat down.
"Tip, dear," said Little Dorrit mildly, shocked by this, "don't you see -"
"Yes, I see, Amy. If you refer to the presence of any visitor you have here 
- I say, if you refer to that," answered Tip, jerking his head with 
emphasis towards his shoulder nearest Clennam, "I see!"
"Is that all you say?"
"That's all I say. And I suppose," added the lofty young man, after a 
moment's pause, "the visitor will understand me, when I say that's all I 
say. In short, I suppose the visitor will understand, that he hasn't used 
me like a gentleman."
"I do not understand that," observed the obnoxious personage referred to, 
with tranquillity.
"No? Why, then, to make it clearer to you, sir, I beg to let you know, that 
when I address what I call a properly-worded appeal, and an urgent appeal, 
and a delicate appeal, to an individual, for a small temporary 
accommodation, easily within his power - easily within his power, mind! - 
and when that individual writes back word to me that he begs to be excused, 
I consider that he doesn't treat me like a gentleman."
The Father of the Marshalsea, who had surveyed his son in silence, no 
sooner heard this sentiment, than he began, in an angry voice:
"How dare you - " But his son stopped him.
"Now, don't ask me how I dare, father, because that's bosh. As to the fact 
of the line of conduct I choose to adopt towards the individual present, 
you ought to be proud of my showing a proper spirit."
"I should think so!" cried Fanny.
"A proper spirit?" said the Father. "Yes, a proper spirit; a becoming 
spirit. Is it come to this that my son teaches me - me - spirit!"
"Now, don't let us bother about it, father, or have any row on the subject. 
I have fully made up my mind that the individual present has not treated me 
like a gentleman. And there's an end of it."
"But there is not an end of it, sir," returned the Father. "But there shall 
not be an end of it. You have made up your mind? You have made up your 
mind?"
"Yes, I have. What's the good of keeping on like that?"
"Because," returned the Father, in a great heat, "you had no right to make 
up your mind to what is monstrous, to what is - ha - immoral, to what is - 
hum - parricidal. No, Mr Clennam, I beg, sir. Don't ask me to desist; there 
is a - hum - a general principal involved here, which rises even above 
considerations of - ha - hospitality. I object to the assertion made by my 
son. I - ha - I personally repel it."
"Why, what is it to you, Father?" returned the son, over his shoulder.
"What is it to me, sir? I have a - hum - a spirit, sir, that will not 
endure it. I," he took out his pocket-handkerchief again and dabbed his 
face. "I am outraged and insulted by it. Let me suppose the case that I 
myself may at a certain time - ha - or times, have made a - hum - an 
appeal, and a properly-worded appeal, and a delicate appeal, and an urgent 
appeal, to some individual for a small temporary accommodation. Let me 
suppose that accommodation could have been easily extended, and was not 
extended, and that individual informed me that he begged to be excused. Am 
I to be told by my own son, that I therefore received treatment not due to 
a gentleman, and that I - ha - I submitted to it?"
His daughter Amy gently tried to calm him, but he would not on any account 
be calmed. He said his spirit was up, and wouldn't endure this.
Was he to be told that, he wished to know again, by his own son, on his own 
hearth, to his own face? Was that humiliation to be put upon him by his own 
blood?
"You are putting it on yourself, father, and getting into all this injury 
of your own accord," said the young gentleman morosely. "What I have made 
up my mind about has nothing to do with you. What I said, had nothing to do 
with you. Why need you go trying on other people's hats?"
"I reply it has everything to do with me," returned the Father. "I point 
out to you, sir, with indignation, that - hum - the - ha - delicacy and 
peculiarity of your father's position should strike you dumb, sir, if 
nothing else should, in laying down such - ha - such unnatural principles. 
Besides; if you are not filial, sir, if you discard that duty, are you at 
least - hum - not a Christian? Are you - ha - an Atheist? And is it 
Christian, let me ask you, to stigmatise and denounce an individual for 
begging to be excused this time, when the same individual may - ha - 
respond with required accommodation next time? Is it the part of a 
Christian not to - hum - not to try him again?" He had worked himself into 
quite a religious glow and fervour.
"I see precious well," said Mr Tip, rising, "that I shall get no sensible 
or fair argument here tonight, and so the best thing I can do is to cut. 
Good night, Amy. Don't be vexed. I am very sorry it happened here, and you 
here, upon my soul I am; but I can't altogether part with my spirit, even 
for your sake, old girl."
With those words he put on his hat and went out, accompanied by Miss Fanny; 
who did not consider it spirited on her part to take leave of Clennam with 
any less opposing demonstration than a stare, importing that she had always 
known him for one of the large body of conspirators.
When they were gone, the Father of the Marshalsea was at first inclined to 
sink into despondency again, and would have done so, but that a gentleman 
opportunely came up within a minute or two to attend him to the Snuggery. 
It was the gentleman Clennam had seen on the night of his own accidental 
detention there, who had that impalpable grievance about the 
misappropriated Fund on which the Marshal was supposed to batten. He 
presented himself as a deputation to escort the Father to the Chair; it 
being an occasion on which he had promised to preside over the assembled 
Collegians, in the enjoyment of a little Harmony.
"Such, you see, Mr Clennam," said the Father, "are the incongruities of my 
position here. But a public duty! No man, I am sure, would more readily 
recognise a public duty than yourself."
Clennam besought him not to delay a moment.
"Amy, my dear, if you can persuade Mr Clennam to stay longer, I can leave 
the honours of our poor apology for an establishment, with confidence in 
your hands, and perhaps you may do something towards erasing from Mr 
Clennam's mind the - ha - untoward and unpleasant circumstance which has 
occurred since tea-time."
Clennam assured him that it had made no impression on his mind, and 
therefore required no erasure.
"My dear sir," said the Father, with a removal of his black cap and a grasp 
of Clennam's hand, combining to express the safe receipt of his note and 
enclosure that afternoon, "Heaven ever bless you!"
So, at last, Clennam's purpose in remaining was attained, and he could 
speak to Little Dorrit with nobody by. Maggie counted as nobody, and she 
was by.


Chapter 32

More Fortune-Telling

Maggie sat at her work in her great white cap, with its quantity of opaque 
frilling hiding what profile she had (she had none to spare), and her 
serviceable eye brought to bear upon her occupation, on the window side of 
the room. What with her flapping cap, and what with her unserviceable eye, 
she was quite partitioned off from her Little Mother, whose seat was 
opposite the window. The tread and shuffle of feet on the pavement of the 
yard had much diminished since the taking of the Chair; the tide of 
Collegians having set strongly in the direction of Harmony. Some few who 
had no music in their souls, or no money in their pockets, dawdled about; 
and the old spectacle of the visitor-wife and the depressed unseasoned 
prisoner still lingered in corners, as broken cobwebs and such unsightly 
discomforts draggle in corners of other places. It was the quietest time 
the College knew, saving the night hours when the Collegians took the 
benefit of the act of sleep. The occasional rattle of applause upon the 
tables of the Snuggery denoted the successful termination of a morsel of 
Harmony; or the responsive acceptance, by the united children, of some 
toast or sentiment offered to them by their Father. Occasionally a vocal 
strain more sonorous than the generality informed the listener that some 
boastful bass was in blue water, or in the hunting field, or with the 
reindeer, or on the mountain, or among the heather; but the Marshal of the 
Marshalsea knew better, and had got him hard and fast.
As Arthur Clennam moved to sit down by the side of Little Dorrit, she 
trembled so that she had much ado to hold her needle. Clennam gently put 
his hand upon her work, and said "Dear Little Dorrit, let me lay it down."
She yielded it to him, and he put it aside. Her hands were then nervously 
clasping together, but he took one of them.
"How seldom I have seen you lately, Little Dorrit!"
"I have been busy, sir."
"But I heard only today," said Clennam, "by mere accident, of your having 
been with those good people close by me. Why not come to me, then?"
"I - I don't know. Or rather, I thought you might be busy too. You 
generally are now, are you not?"
He saw her trembling little form and her downcast face, and the eyes that 
drooped the moment they were raised to his - he saw them almost with as 
much concern as tenderness.
"My child, your manner is so changed!"
The trembling was now quite beyond her control. Softly withdrawing her 
hand, and laying it in her other hand, she sat before him with her head 
bent and her whole form trembling.
"My own Little Dorrit," said Clennam, compassionately.
She burst into tears. Maggie looked round of a sudden, and stared for at 
least a minute; but did not interpose. Clennam waited some little while 
before he spoke again.
"I cannot bear," he said then, "to see you weep; but I hope this is a 
relief to an overcharged heart."
"Yes, it is, sir. Nothing but that."
"Well, well! I feared you would think too much of what passed here just 
now. It is of no moment; not the least. I am only unfortunate to have come 
in the way. Let it go by with these tears. It is not worth one of them. One 
of them? Such an idle thing should be repeated, with my glad consent, fifty 
times a day, to save you a moment's heartache, Little Dorrit."
She had taken courage now, and answered, far more in her usual manner, "You 
are so good! But even if there was nothing else in it to be sorry for and 
ashamed of, it is such a bad return to you -"
"Hush!" said Clennam, smiling and touching her lips with his hand. 
"forgetfulness in you, who remember so many and so much, would be new 
indeed. Shall I remind you that I am not, and that I never was, anything 
but the friend whom you agreed to trust? No. You remember it, don't you?"
"I try to do so, or I should have broken the promise just now, when my 
mistaken brother was here. You will consider his bringing-up in this place, 
and will not judge him hardly, poor fellow, I know!" In raising her eyes 
with these words, she observed his face more nearly than she had done yet, 
and said, with a quick change of tone, "You have not been ill, Mr Clennam?"
"No."
"Nor tired? Nor hurt?" she asked him, anxiously.
It fell to Clennam, now, to be not quite certain how to answer. He said in 
reply:
"To speak the truth, I have been a little troubled, but it is over. Do I 
show it so plainly? I ought to have more fortitude and self-command than 
that. I thought I had. I must learn them of you. Who could teach me 
better!"
He never thought that she saw in him what no one else could see. He never 
thought that in the whole world there were no other eyes that looked upon 
him with the same light and strength as hers.
"But it brings me to something that I wish to say," he continued, "and 
therefore I will not quarrel even with my own face for telling tales and 
being unfaithful to me. Besides, it is a privilege and pleasure to confide 
in my Little Dorrit. Let me confess then, that, forgetting how grave I was, 
and how old I was, and how the time for such things had gone by me with the 
many years of sameness and little happiness that made up my long life far 
away, without marking it - that, forgetting all this, I fancied I loved 
some one."
"Do I know her, sir?" asked Little Dorrit.
"No, my child."
"Not the lady who has been kind to me for your sake?"
"Flora. No, no. Did you think -"
"I never quite thought so," said Little Dorrit, more to herself than him. 
"I did wonder at it a little."
"Well!" said Clennam, abiding by the feeling that had fallen on him in the 
avenue on the night of the roses, the feeling that he was an older man, who 
had done with that tender part of life, "I found out my mistake, and I 
thought about it a little - in short, a good deal - and got wiser. Being 
wiser, I counted up my years, and considered what I am, and looked back, 
and looked forward, and found that I should soon be grey. I found that I 
had climbed the hill, and passed the level ground upon the top, and was 
descending quickly."
If he had known the sharpness of the pain he caused the patient heart, in 
speaking thus! While doing it too, with the purpose of easing and serving 
her.
"I found that the day when any such thing would have been graceful in me, 
or good in me, or hopeful or happy for me, or any one in connection with 
me, was gone, and would never shine again."
O! If he had known, if he had known! If he could have seen the dagger in 
his hand, and the cruel wounds it struck in the faithful bleeding breast of 
his Little Dorrit! 
"All that is over, and I have turned my face from it. Why do I speak of 
this to Little Dorrit? Why do I show you, my child, the space of years that 
there is between us; and recall to you that I have passed, by the amount of 
your whole life, the time that is present to you?"
"Because you trust me, I hope. Because you know that nothing can touch you, 
without touching me; that nothing can make you happy or unhappy, but it 
must make me, who am so grateful to you, the same."
He heard the thrill in her voice, he saw her earnest face, he saw her clear 
true eyes, he saw the quickened bosom that would have joyfully thrown 
itself before him to receive a mortal wound directed at his breast, with 
the dying cry, "I love him!" and the remotest suspicion of the truth never 
dawned upon his mind. No. He saw the devoted little creature with her worn 
shoes, in her common dress, in her jail-home; a slender child in body, a 
strong heroine in soul; and the light of her domestic story made all else 
dark to him.
"For those reasons assuredly, Little Dorrit, but for another too. So far 
removed, so different, and so much older, I am the better fitted for your 
friend and adviser. I mean, I am the more easily to be trusted; and any 
little constraint that you might feel with another, may vanish before me. 
Why have you kept so retired from me? Tell me."
"I am better here. My place and use are here. I am much better here," said 
Little Dorrit, faintly.
"So you said that day, upon the bridge. I thought of it much afterwards. 
Have you no secret you could entrust to me, with hope and comfort, if you 
would?"
"Secret? No, I have no secret," said Little Dorrit in some trouble.
They had been speaking in low voices; more because it was natural to what 
they said, to adopt that tone, than with any care to reserve it from Maggie 
at her work. All of a sudden Maggie stared again, and this time spoke:
"I say! Little Mother!"
"Yes, Maggie."
"If you ain't got no secret of your own to tell him, tell him that about 
the Princess. She had a secret, you know."
"The Princess had a secret?" said Clennam, in some surprise. "What Princess 
was that, Maggie?"
"Lor! How you do go and bother a gal of ten," said Maggie, "catching the 
poor thing up in that way. Whoever said the Princess had a secret? I never 
said so."
"I beg your pardon. I thought you did."
"No, I didn't. How could I, when it was her as wanted to find it out? It 
was the little woman as had the secret, and she was always a spinning at 
her wheel. And so she says to her, why do you keep it there? And so, the 
t'other one says to her, no I don't; and so, the t'other one says to her, 
yes, you do; and then they both goes to the cupboard, and there it is. And 
she wouldn't go into the Hospital, and so she died. You know, Little 
Mother; Tell him that. For it was a reg'lar good secret, that was!" cried 
Maggie, hugging herself.
Arthur looked at Little Dorrit for help to comprehend this, and was struck 
by seeing her so timid and red. But, when she told him that it was only a 
Fairy Tale she had one day made up for Maggie, and that there was nothing 
in it which she wouldn't be ashamed to tell again to anybody else, even if 
she could remember it, he left the subject where it was.
However, he returned to his own subject, by first entreating her to see him 
oftener, and to remember that it was impossible to have a stronger interest 
in her welfare than he had, or to be more set upon promoting it than he 
was. When she answered fervently, she well knew that, she never forgot it, 
he touched upon his second and more delicate point - the suspicion he had 
formed.
"Little Dorrit," he said, taking her hand again, and speaking lower than he 
had spoken yet, so that even Maggie in the small room could not hear him, 
"another word. I have wanted very much to say this to you; I have tried for 
opportunities. Don't mind me, who, for the matter of years, might be your 
father or your uncle. Always think of me as quite an old man. I know that 
all your devotion centres in this room, and that nothing to the last will 
ever tempt you away from the duties you discharge here. If I were not sure 
of it, I should, before now, have implored you, and implored your father, 
to let me make some provision for you in a more suitable place. But, you 
may have an interest - I will not say, now, though even that might be - may 
have, at another time, an interest in some one else; an interest not 
incompatible with your affection here."
She was very, very pale, and silently shook her head.
"It may be, dear Little Dorrit."
"No. No. No." She shook her head, after each slow repetition of the word, 
with an air of quiet desolation that he remembered long afterwards. The 
time came when he remembered it well, long afterwards, within those prison 
walls; within that very room.
"But if it ever should be, tell me so, my dear child. Entrust the truth to 
me, point out the object of such an interest to me, and I will try with all 
the zeal, and honour, and friendship and respect that I feel for you, good 
Little Dorrit of my heart, to do you a lasting service."
"O thank you, thank you! But, O no, O no, O no!" She said this, looking at 
him with her work-worn hands folded together, and in the same resigned 
accents as before.
"I press for no confidence now. I only ask you to repose unhesitating trust 
in me."
"Can I do less than that, when you are so good!"
"Then you will trust me fully? Will have no secret unhappiness, or anxiety, 
concealed from me?"
"Almost none."
"And you have none now?"
She shook her head. But she was very pale.
"When I lie down tonight, and my thoughts come back - as they will, for 
they do every night, even when I have not seen you - to this sad place, I 
may believe that there is no grief beyond this room, now, and its usual 
occupants, which preys on Little Dorrit's mind?"
She seemed to catch at these words - that he remembered, too, long 
afterwards - and said, more brightly, "Yes, Mr Clennam; yes, you may!"
The crazy staircase, usually not slow to give notice when any one was 
coming up or down, here creaked under a quick tread, and a further sound 
was heard upon it, as if a little steam-engine with more steam than it knew 
what to do with, were working towards the room. As it approached, which it 
did very rapidly, it laboured with increased energy; and, after knocking at 
the door, it sounded as if it were stooping down and snorting in at the 
keyhole.
Before Maggie could open the door, Mr Pancks, opening it from without, 
stood without a hat and with his bare head in the wildest condition, 
looking at Clennam and Little Dorrit, over her shoulder. He had a lighted 
cigar in his hand, and brought with him airs of ale and tobacco smoke.
"Pancks the gipsey," he observed, out of breath, "fortune-telling."
He stood dingily smiling, and breathing hard at them, with a most curious 
air. As if, instead of being his proprietor's grubber, he were the 
triumphant proprietor of the Marshalsea, the Marshal, all the turnkeys, and 
all the Collegians. In his great self-satisfaction, he put his cigar to his 
lips (being evidently no smoker), and took such a pull at it, with his 
right eye shut up tight for the purpose, that he underwent a convulsion of 
shuddering and choking. But even in the midst of that paroxysm, he still 
essayed to repeat his favourite introduction of himself, "Pa-ancks the gi-
ipsey, fortune-telling."
"I am spending the evening with the rest of 'em," said Pancks. "I've been 
singing. I've been taking a part in White sand and grey sand. I don't know 
anything about it. Never mind. I'll take any part in anything. It's all the 
same, if you're loud enough."
At first Clennam supposed him to be intoxicated. But, he soon perceived 
that though he might be a little the worse (or better) for ale, the staple 
of his excitement was not brewed from malt, or distilled from any grain or 
berry.
"How d'ye do, Miss Dorrit?" said Pancks. "I thought you wouldn't mind my 
running round, and looking in for a moment. Mr Clennam I heard was here, 
from Mr Dorrit. How are you, sir?"
Clennam thanked him, and said he was glad to see him so gay.
"Gay!" said Pancks. "I'm in wonderful feather, sir. I can't stop a minute, 
or I shall be missed, and I don't want 'em to miss me. - Eh, Miss Dorrit!"
He seemed to have an insatiate delight in appealing to her, and looking at 
her; excitedly sticking his hair up at the same moment, like a dark species 
of cockatoo.
"I haven't been here half-an-hour. I knew Mr Dorrit was in the chair, and I 
said, 'I'll go and support him!' I ought to be down in Bleeding Heart Yard 
by rights; but I can worry them tomorrow. - Eh, Miss Dorrit?"
His little black eyes sparkled electrically. His very hair seemed to 
sparkle, as he roughened it. He was in that highly-charged state that one 
might have expected to draw sparks and snaps from him by presenting a 
knuckle to any part of his figure.
"Capital company here," said Pancks. - "Eh, Miss Dorrit?"
She was half afraid of him, and irresolute what to say. He laughed, with a 
nod towards Clennam.
"Don't mind him, Miss Dorrit. He's one of us. We agreed that you shouldn't 
take on to mind me before people, but we didn't mean Mr Clennam. He's one 
of us. He's in it. An't you, Mr Clennam? - Eh, Miss Dorrit?"
The excitement of this strange creature was fast communicating itself to 
Clennam. Little Dorrit with amazement, saw this, and observed that they 
exchanged quick looks.
"I was making a remark," said Pancks, "but I declare I forget what it was. 
Oh, I know! Capital company here. I've been treating 'em all round. - Eh, 
Miss Dorrit?"
"Very generous of you," she returned, noticing another of the quick looks 
between the two.
"Not at all," said Pancks. "Don't mention it. I'm coming into my property, 
that's the fact. I can afford to be liberal. I think I'll give 'em a treat 
here. Tables laid in the yard. Bread in stacks. Pipes in faggots. Tobacco 
in hayloads. Roast beef and plum pudding for every one. Quart of double 
stout a head. Pint of wine too, if they like it, and the authorities give 
permission. - Eh, Miss Dorrit?"
She was thrown into such a confusion by his manner, or rather by Clennam's 
growing understanding of his manner (for she looked to him after every 
fresh appeal and cockatoo demonstration on the part of Mr Pancks), that she 
only moved her lips in answer, without forming any word.
"And oh, by-the-by!" said Pancks. "You were to live to know what was behind 
us on that little hand of yours. And so you shall, you shall, my darling. - 
Eh, Miss Dorrit?"
He had suddenly checked himself. Where he got all the additional black 
prongs from, that now flew up all over his head, like the myriads of points 
that break out in the large change of a great firework, was a wonderful 
mystery.
"But I shall be missed;" he came back to that; "and I don't want 'em to 
miss me. Mr Clennam, you and I made a bargain. I said you should find me 
stick to it. You shall find me stick to it now, sir, if you'll step out of 
the room a moment. Miss Dorrit, I wish you good night. Miss Dorrit, I wish 
you good fortune."
He rapidly shook her by both hands, and puffed downstairs. Arthur followed 
him with such a hurried step, that he had very nearly tumbled over him on 
the last landing, and rolled him down into the yard.
"What is it, for Heaven's sake!" Arthur demanded, when they burst out there 
both together.
"Stop a moment, sir. Mr Rugg. Let me introduce him."
With those words he presented another man without a hat, and also with a 
cigar, and also surrounded with a halo of ale and tobacco smoke, which man, 
though not so excited as himself, was in a state which would have been akin 
to lunacy but for its fading into sober method when compared with the 
rampancy of Mr Pancks.
"Mr Clennam, Mr Rugg," said Pancks. "Stop a moment. Come to the pump."
They adjourned to the pump. Mr Pancks, instantly putting his head under the 
spout, requested Mr Rugg to take a good strong turn at the handle. Mr Rugg 
complying to the letter, Mr Pancks came forth snorting and blowing to some 
purpose, and dried himself on his handkerchief.
"I am the clearer for that," he gasped to Clennam standing astonished. 
"But, upon my soul, to hear her father making speeches in that chair, 
knowing what we know, and to see her up in that room in that dress, knowing 
what we know, is enough to - give me a back, Mr Rugg - a little higher, sir 
- that'll do!"
Then and there, on that Marshalsea pavement, in the shades of evening, did 
Mr Pancks, of all mankind, fly over the head and shoulders of Mr Rugg of 
Pentonville, General Agent, Accountant, and Recoverer of Debts. Alighting 
on his feet, he took Clennam by the buttonhole, led him behind the pump, 
and pantingly produced from his pocket a bundle of papers."
Mr Rugg, also, pantingly produced from his pocket a bundle of papers.
"Stay?" said Clennam in a whisper. "You have made a discovery."
Mr Pancks answered, with an unction which there is no language to convey, 
"We rather think so."
"Does it implicate any one?"
"How implicate, sir?"
"In any suppression, or wrong dealing of any kind?"
"Not a bit of it."
"Thank God!" said Clennam to himself. "Now show me."
"You are to understand" - snorted Pancks, feverishly unfolding papers, and 
speaking in short high-pressure blasts of sentences, "Where's the Pedigree? 
Where's Schedule number four, Mr Rugg? Oh! all right! Here we are. - You 
are to understand that we are this very day virtually complete. We shan't 
be legally for a day or two. Call it at the outside a week. We've been at 
it, night and day, for I don't know how long. Mr Rugg, you know how long? 
Never mind. Don't say. You'll only confuse me. You shall tell her, Mr 
Clennam. Not till we give you leave. Where's that rough total, Mr Rugg! Oh! 
Here we are! There, sir! That's what you'll have to break to her. That 
man's your Father of the Marshalsea!"


Chapter 33

Mrs Merdle's Complaint

Resigning herself to inevitable fate, by making the best of those people 
the Miggleses, and submitting her philosophy to the draught upon it, of 
which she had foreseen the likelihood in her interview with Arthur, Mrs 
Gowan handsomely resolved not to oppose her son's marriage. In her progress 
to, and happy arrival at, this resolution, she was possibly influenced, not 
only by her maternal affections but by three politic considerations.
Of these, the first may have been, that her son had never signified the 
smallest intention to ask her consent, or any mistrust of his ability to 
dispense with it; the second, that the pension bestowed upon her by a 
grateful country (and a Barnacle) would be freed from any little filial 
inroads, when her Henry should be married to the darling only child of a 
man in very easy circumstances; the third, that Henry's debts must clearly 
be paid down upon the altar-railing by his father-in-law. When, to these 
three-fold points of prudence, there is added the fact that Mrs Gowan 
yielded her consent the moment she knew of Mr Meagles having yielded his, 
and that Mr Meagles's objection to the marriage had been the sole obstacle 
in its way all along, it becomes the height of probability that the relict 
of the deceased Commissioner of nothing particular, turned these ideas in 
her sagacious mind.
Among her connections and acquaintances, however, she maintained her 
individual dignity, and the dignity of the blood of the Barnacles, by 
diligently nursing the pretence that it was a most unfortunate business; 
that she was sadly cut up by it; that this was a perfect fascination under 
which Henry laboured; that she had opposed it for a long time, but what 
could a mother do; and the like. She had already called Arthur Clennam to 
bear witness to this fable, as a friend of the Meagles family; and she 
followed up the move by now impounding the family itself for the same 
purpose. In the first interview she accorded to Mr Meagles, she slided 
herself into the position of disconsolately but gracefully yielding to 
irresistible pressure. With the utmost politeness and good breeding she 
feigned that it was she - not he - who had made the difficulty, and who at 
length gave way; and that the sacrifice was hers - not his. The same feint, 
with the same polite dexterity, she foisted on Mrs Meagles, as a conjurer 
might have forced a card on that innocent lady; and, when her future 
daughter-in-law was presented to her by her son, she said on embracing her, 
"My dear, what have you done to Henry that has bewitched him so!" at the 
same time allowing a few tears to carry before them, in little pills, the 
cosmetic powder on her nose; as a delicate but touching signal that she 
suffered much inwardly for the show of composure with which she bore her 
misfortune.
Among the friends of Mrs Gowan (who piqued herself at once on being 
Society, and on maintaining intimate and easy relations with that Power), 
Mrs Merdle occupied a front row. True, the Hampton Court Bohemians, without 
exception, turned up their noses at Merdle as an upstart; but they turned 
them down again, by falling flat on their faces to worship his wealth. In 
which compensating adjustment of their noses, they were pretty much like 
Treasury, Bar, and Bishop, and all the rest of them.
To Mrs Merdle, Mrs Gowan repaired on a visit of self-condolence, after 
having given the gracious consent aforesaid. She drove into town for the 
purpose, in a one-horse carriage, irreverently called at that period of 
English history a pillbox. It belonged to a job-master in a small way, who 
drove it himself, and who jobbed it by the day, or hour, to most of the old 
ladies in Hampton Court Palace; but it was a point of ceremony, in that 
encampment, that the whole equipage should be tacitly regarded as the 
private property of the jobber for the time being, and that the job-master 
should betray personal knowledge of nobody but the jobber in possession. So 
the Circumlocution Barnacles, who were the largest job-masters in the 
universe, always pretended to know of no other job but the job immediately 
in hand.
Mrs Merdle was at home, and was in her nest of crimson and gold, with the 
parrot on a neighbouring stem watching her with his head on one side, as if 
he took her for another splendid parrot of a larger species. To whom 
entered Mrs Gowan, with her favourite green fan, which softened the light 
on the spots of bloom.
"My dear soul," said Mrs Gowan, tapping the back of her friend's hand with 
this fan, after a little indifferent conversation, "you are my only 
comfort. That affair of Henry's that I told you of, is to take place. Now, 
how does it strike you? I am dying to know, because you represent and 
express Society so well."
Mrs Merdle reviewed the bosom which Society was accustomed to review; and 
having ascertained that show-window of Mr Merdle's and the London jewellers 
to be in good order, replied:
"As to marriage on the part of a man, my dear, Society requires that he 
should retrieve his fortunes by marriage. Society requires that he should 
gain by marriage. Society requires that he should found a handsome 
establishment by marriage. Society does not see, otherwise, what he has to 
do with marriage. Bird, be quiet!"
For, the parrot on his cage above them, presiding over the conference as if 
he were a Judge (and indeed he looked rather like one), had wound up the 
exposition with a shriek.
"Cases there are," said Mrs Merdle, delicately crooking the little finger 
of her favourite hand, and making her remarks neater by that neat action; 
"cases there are where a man is not young or elegant, and is rich, and has 
a handsome establishment already. Those are of a different kind. In such 
cases -"
Mrs Merdle shrugged her snowy shoulders and put her hand upon the jewel-
stand, checking a little cough, as though to add, "why a man looks out for 
this sort of thing, my dear." Then the parrot shrieked again, and she put 
up her glass to look at him, and said, "Bird! Do be quiet!"
"But, young men," resumed Mrs Merdle, "and by young men you know what I 
mean, my love - I mean people's sons who have the world before them - they 
must place themselves in a better position towards Society by marriage, or 
Society really will not have any patience with their making fools of 
themselves. Dreadfully worldly all this sounds," said Mrs Merdle, leaning 
back in her nest and putting up her glass again, "does it not?"
"But it is true," said Mrs Gowan, with a highly moral air.
"My dear, it is not to be disputed for a moment," returned Mrs Merdle; 
"because Society has made up its mind on the subject, and there is nothing 
more to be said. If we were in a more primitive state, if we lived under 
roofs of leaves, and kept cows and sheep and creatures, instead of banker's 
accounts (which would be delicious; my dear, I am pastoral to a degree, by 
nature), well and good. But we don't live under leaves, and keep cows and 
sheep and creatures. I perfectly exhaust myself sometimes, in pointing out 
the distinction to Edmund Sparkler."
Mrs Gowan, looking over her green fan when this young gentleman's name was 
mentioned, replied as follows:
"My love, you know the wretched state of the country - those unfortunate 
concessions of John Barnacle's! - and you therefore know the reasons for my 
being as poor as Thingummy."
"A church-mouse?" Mrs Merdle suggested with a smile.
"I was thinking of the other proverbial Church person - Job," said Mrs 
Gowan. "Either will do. It would be idle to disguise, consequently, that 
there is a wide difference between the position of your son and mine. I may 
add, too, that Henry has talent -"
"Which Edmund certainly has not," said Mrs Merdle, with the greatest 
suavity.
" - and that his talent, combined with disappointment," Mrs Gowan went on, 
"has led him into a pursuit which - ah dear me! You know, my dear. Such 
being Henry's different position, the question is what is the most inferior 
class of marriage to which I can reconcile myself."
Mrs Merdle was so much engaged with the contemplation of her arms 
(beautiful-formed arms, and the very thing for bracelets), that she omitted 
to reply for a while. Roused at length by the silence, she folded the arms, 
and with admirable presence of mind looked her friend full in the face, and 
said, interrogatively, "Ye-es? And then?"
"And then, my dear," said Mrs Gowan not quite so sweetly as before, "I 
should be glad to hear what you have to say to it."
Here the parrot, who had been standing on one leg since he screamed last, 
burst into a fit of laughter, bobbed himself derisively up and down on both 
legs, and finished by standing on one leg again, and pausing for a reply, 
with his head as much awry as he could possibly twist it.
"Sounds mercenary to ask what the gentleman is to get with the lady," said 
Mrs Merdle; "but Society is perhaps a little mercenary you know, my dear."
"From what I can make out," said Mrs Gowan, "I believe I may say that Henry 
will be relieved from debt -"
"Much in debt?" asked Mrs Merdle through her eyeglass.
"Why tolerably, I should think," said Mrs Gowan.
"Meaning the usual thing; I understand; just so," Mrs Merdle observed in a 
comfortable sort of way.
"And that the father will make them an allowance of three hundred a-year, 
or perhaps altogether something more. Which, in Italy - ".
"Oh! Going to Italy?" said Mrs Merdle.
"For Henry to study. You need be at no loss to guess why, my dear. That 
dreadful Art -"
True. Mrs Merdle hastened to spare the feelings of her afflicted friend. 
She understood. Say no more! 
"And that," said Mrs Gowan, shaking her despondent head, "that's all. 
That," repeated Mrs Gowan, furling her green fan for the moment and tapping 
her chin with it (it was on the way to being a double chin; might be called 
a chin and a half at present), "that's all! On the death of the old people, 
I suppose there will be more to come; but how it may be restricted or 
locked up, I don't know. And as to that, they may live for ever. My dear, 
they are just the kind of people to do it."
Now, Mrs Merdle, who really knew her friend Society pretty well, and who 
knew what Society's mothers were, and what Society's daughters were, and 
what Society's matrimonial market was, and how prices ruled in it, and what 
scheming and counter-scheming took place for the high buyers, and what 
bargaining and huckstering went on, thought in the depths of her capacious 
bosom that this was a sufficiently good catch. Knowing, however, what was 
expected of her, and perceiving the exact nature of the fiction to be 
nursed, she took it delicately in her arms, and put her required 
contribution of gloss upon it.
"And that is all, my dear?" she said, heaving a friendly sigh. "Well, well! 
The fault is not yours. You have nothing to reproach yourself with. You 
must exercise the strength of mind for which you are renowned, and make the 
best of it."
"The girl's family have made," said Mrs Gowan, "of course, the most 
strenuous endeavours to - as the lawyers say - to have and to hold Henry."
"Of course they have, my dear," said Mrs Merdle.
"I have persisted in every possible objection, and have worried myself 
morning, noon, and night, for means to detach Henry from the connection."
"No doubt you have, my dear," said Mrs Merdle.
"And all of no use. All has broken down beneath me. Now tell me, my love. 
Am I justified in at last yielding my most reluctant consent to Henry's 
marrying among people not in Society; or, have I acted with inexcusable 
weakness?"
In answer to this direct appeal, Mrs Merdle assured Mrs Gowan (speaking as 
a Priestess of Society) that she was highly to be commended, that she was 
much to be sympathised with, that she had taken the highest of parts, and 
had come out of the furnace refined. And Mrs Gowan, who of course saw 
through her own threadbare blind perfectly, and who knew that Mrs Merdle 
saw through it perfectly, and who knew that Society would see through it 
perfectly, came out of this form, notwithstanding, as she had gone into it, 
with immense complacency and gravity.
The conference was held at four or five o'clock in the afternoon, when all 
the region of Harley Street, Cavendish Square, was resonant of carriage-
wheels and double-knocks. It had reached this point when Mr Merdle came 
home, from his daily occupation of causing the British name to be more and 
more respected in all parts of the civilised globe, capable of the 
appreciation of world-wide commercial enterprise and gigantic combinations 
of skill and capital. For, though nobody knew with the least precision what 
Mr Merdle's business was, except that it was to coin money, these were the 
terms in which everybody defined it on all ceremonious occasions, and which 
it was the last new polite reading of the parable of the camel and the 
needle's eye to accept without inquiry.
For a gentleman who had this splendid work cut out for him, Mr Merdle 
looked a little common, and rather as if, in the course of his vast 
transactions, he had accidentally made an interchange of heads with some 
inferior spirit. He presented himself before the two ladies, in the course 
of a dismal stroll through his mansion, which had no apparent object but 
escape from the presence of the chief butler.
"I beg your pardon," he said, stopping short in confusion; "I didn't know 
there was anybody here but the parrot."
However, as Mrs Merdle said "You can come in!" and as Mrs Gowan said she 
was just going, and had already risen to take her leave, he came in, and 
stood looking out at a distant window, with his hands crossed under his 
uneasy coat-cuffs, clasping his wrists as if he were taking himself into 
custody. In this attitude he fell directly into a reverie, from which he 
was only aroused by his wife's calling to him from her ottoman, when they 
had been for some quarter-of-an-hour alone.
"Eh? Yes?" said Mr Merdle, turning towards her. "What is it?"
"What is it?" repeated Mrs Merdle. "It is, I suppose that you have not 
heard a word of my complaint."
"Your complaint, Mrs Merdle?" said Mr Merdle. "I didn't know that you were 
suffering from a complaint. What complaint.?"
"A complaint of you," said Mrs Merdle.
"Oh! A complaint of me," said Mr Merdle. "What is the - what have I - what 
may you have to complain of in me, Mrs Merdle?"
In his withdrawing, abstracted, pondering way, it took him some time to 
shape this question. As a kind of faint attempt to convince himself that he 
was the master of the house, he concluded by presenting his forefinger to 
the parrot, who expressed his opinion on that subject by instantly driving 
his bill into it.
"You were saying, Mrs Merdle," said Mr Merdle, with his wounded finger in 
his mouth, "that you had a complaint against me?"
"A complaint which I could scarcely show the justice of more emphatically, 
than by having to repeat it," said Mrs Merdle. "I might as well have stated 
it to the wall. I had far better have stated it to the bird. He would at 
least have screamed."
"You don't want me to scream, Mrs Merdle, I suppose," said Mr Merdle, 
taking a chair.
"Indeed I don't know," retorted Mrs Merdle, "but that you had better do 
that, than be so moody and distraught. One would at least know that you 
were sensible of what was going on around you."
"A man might scream, and yet not be that, Mrs Merdle," said Mr Merdle, 
heavily.
"And might be dogged, as you are at present, without screaming," returned 
Mrs Merdle. "That's very true. If you wish to know the complaint I make 
against you, it is, in so many plain words, that you really ought not to go 
into Society, unless you can accommodate yourself to Society."
Mr Merdle, so twisting his hands into what hair he had upon his head that 
he seemed to lift himself up by it as he started out of his chair, cried:
"Why, in the name of all the infernal powers, Mrs Merdle, who does more for 
Society than I do? Do you see these premises, Mrs Merdle! Do you see this 
furniture, Mrs Merdle? Do you look in the glass and see yourself, Mrs 
Merdle? Do you know the cost of all this, and who it's all provided for? 
And yet will you tell me that I oughtn't to go into Society? I, who shower 
money upon it in this way? I, who might be almost said - to - to - to 
harness myself to a watering-cart full of money, and go about, saturating 
Society, every day of my life?"
"Pray don't be violent, Mr Merdle," said Mrs Merdle.
"Violent?" said Mr Merdle. "You are enough to make me desperate. You don't 
know half of what I do to accommodate Society. You don't know anything of 
the sacrifices I make for it."
"I know," returned Mrs Merdle, "that you receive the best in the land. I 
know that you move in the whole Society of the country. And I believe I 
know (indeed, not to make any ridiculous pretence about it, I know I know) 
who sustains you in it, Mr Merdle."
"Mrs Merdle," retorted that gentleman, wiping his dull red and yellow face. 
"I know that, as well as you do. If you were not an ornament to Society, 
and if I was not a benefactor to Society, you and I would never have come 
together. When I say a benefactor to it, I mean a person who provides it 
with all sorts of expensive things to eat and drink and look at. But, to 
tell me that I am not fit for it after all I have done for it - after all I 
have done for it," repeated Mr Merdle, with a wild emphasis that made his 
wife lift up her eyelids, "after all - all! - to tell me I have no right to 
mix with it after all, is a pretty reward."
"I say," answered Mrs Merdle composedly, "that you ought to make yourself 
fit for it by being more degage, and less preoccupied. There is a positive 
vulgarity in carrying your business affairs about with you as you do."
"How do I carry them about, Mrs Merdle?" asked Mr Merdle.
"How do you carry them about?" said Mrs Merdle. "Look at yourself in the 
glass."
Mr Merdle involuntarily turned his eyes in the direction of the nearest 
mirror, and asked, with a slow determination of his turbid blood to his 
temples, whether a man was to be called to account for his digestion?
"You have a physician," said Mrs Merdle.
"He does me no good," said Mr Merdle.
Mrs Merdle changed her ground.
"Besides," said she, "your digestion is nonsense. I don't speak of your 
digestion. I speak of your manner."
"Mrs Merdle," returned her husband, "I look to you for that. You supply 
manner, and I supply money."
"I don't expect you," said Mrs Merdle, reposing easily among her cushions, 
"to captivate people. I don't want you to take any trouble upon yourself, 
or to try to be fascinating. I simply request you to care about nothing - 
or to seem to care about nothing - as everybody else does."
"Do I ever say I care about anything?" asked Mr Merdle.
"Say? No! Nobody would attend to you if you did. But you show it."
"Show what? What do I show?" demanded Mr Merdle hurriedly.
"I have already told you. You show that you carry your business cares and 
projects about, instead of leaving them in the City, or wherever else they 
belong to," said Mrs Merdle. "Or seeming to. Seeming would be quite enough: 
I ask no more. Whereas you couldn't be more occupied with your day's 
calculations and combinations than you habitually show yourself to be, if 
you were a carpenter."
"A carpenter!" repeated Mr Merdle, checking something like a groan. "I 
shouldn't so much mind being a carpenter, Mrs Merdle."
"Any my complaint is," pursued the lady, disregarding the low remark, "that 
it is not the tone of Society, and that you ought to correct it, Mr Merdle. 
If you have any doubt of my judgment, ask even Edmund Sparkler." The door 
of the room had opened, and Mrs Merdle now surveyed the head of her son 
through her glass. "Edmund; we want you her."
Mr Sparkler, who had merely put in his head and looked round the room 
without entering (as if he were searching the house for that young lady 
with no nonsense about her), upon this followed up his head with his body, 
and stood before them. To whom, in a few easy words adapted to his 
capacity, Mrs Merdle stated the question at issue.
The young gentleman, after anxiously feeling his shirt-collar as if it were 
his pulse and he were hypochondriacal, observed "That he had heard it 
noticed by fellers."
"Edmund Sparkler has heard it noticed," said Mrs Merdle, with languid 
triumph. "Why, no doubt everybody has heard it noticed!" Which in truth was 
no unreasonable inference; seeing that Mr Sparkler would probably be the 
last person, in any assemblage of the human species, to receive an 
impression from anything that passed in his presence.
"And Edmund Sparkler will tell you, I dare say," said Mrs Merdle, waving 
her favourite hand towards her husband, "how he has heard it noticed."
"I couldn't," said Mr Sparkler, after feeling his pulse as before, 
"couldn't undertake to say what led to it - 'cause memory desperate loose. 
But being in company with the brother of a doosed fine gal - well educated 
too - with no biggodd nonsense about her - at the period alluded to -"
"There! Never mind the sister," remarked Mrs Merdle, a little impatiently. 
"What did the brother say?"
"Didn't say a word, ma'am," answered Mr Sparkler. "As silent a feller as 
myself. Equally hard up for a remark."
"Somebody said something," returned Mrs Merdle. "Never mind who it was."
("Assure you I don't in the least," said Mr Sparkler.)
"But tell us what it was."
Mr Sparkler referred to his pulse again, and put himself through some 
severe mental discipline before he replied:
"Fellers referring to my Governor - expression not my own - occasionally 
compliment my Governor in a very handsome way on being immensely rich and 
knowing - perfect phenomenon of Buyer and Banker and that - but say the 
Shop sits heavily on him. Say he carries the Shop about, on his back rather 
- like Jew clothesman with too much business."
"Which," said Mrs Merdle rising, with her floating drapery about her, "is 
exactly my complaint. Edmund, give me your arm upstairs."
Mr Merdle, left alone to meditate on a better conformation of himself to 
Society, looked out of nine windows in succession, and appeared to see nine 
wastes of space. When he had thus entertained himself, he went downstairs, 
and looked intently at all the carpets on the ground floor; and then came 
upstairs again, and looked intently at all the carpets on the first floor, 
as if they were gloomy depths, in unison with his oppressed soul. Through 
all the rooms he wandered, as he always did, like the last person on earth 
who had any business to approach them. Let Mrs Merdle announce, with all 
her might, that she was at Home ever so many nights in a season, she could 
not announce more widely and unmistakeably than Mr Merdle did that he was 
never at home.

At last he met the chief butler, the sight of which splendid retainer 
always finished him. Extinguished by this great creature, he sneaked to his 
dressing-room, and there remained shut up until he rode out to dinner, with 
Mrs Merdle, in her own handsome chariot. At dinner, he was envied and 
flattered as a being of might, was Treasuried, Barred, and Bishoped, as 
much as he would; and an hour after midnight came home alone, and being 
instantly put out again in his own hall, like a rushlight, by the chief 
butler, went sighing to bed.


Chapter 34

A Shoal Of Barnacles

Mr Henry Gowan and the dog were established frequenters of the cottage, and 
the day was fixed for the wedding. There was to be a convocation of 
Barnacles on the occasion; in order that that very high and very large 
family might shed as much lustre on the marriage, as so dim an event was 
capable of receiving.
To have got the whole Barnacle family together would have been impossible 
for two reasons. Firstly, because no building could have held all the 
members and connections of that illustrious house. Secondly, because 
wherever there was a square yard of ground in British occupation under the 
sun or moon, with a public post upon it, sticking to that post was a 
Barnacle. No intrepid navigator could plant a flag staff upon any spot of 
earth, and take possession of it in the British name, but to that spot of 
earth, so soon as the discovery was known, the Circumlocution Office sent 
out a Barnacle and a dispatch-box. Thus the Barnacles were all over the 
world, in every direction - dispatch-boxing the compass.
But while the so-potent art of Prospero himself would have failed in 
summoning the Barnacles from every speck of ocean and dry land on which 
there was nothing (except mischief) to be done, and anything to be 
pocketed, it was perfectly feasible to assemble a good many Barnacles. This 
Mrs Gowan applied herself to do; calling on Mr Meagles frequently, with new 
additions to the list, and holding conferences with that gentleman when he 
was not engaged (as he generally was at this period) in examining and 
paying the debts of his future son-in-law, in the apartment of the scales 
and scoop.
One marriage guest there was, in reference to whose presence Mr Meagles 
felt a nearer interest and concern than in the attendance of the most 
elevated Barnacle expected; though he was far from insensible of the honour 
of having such company. This guest was Clennam. But Clennam had made a 
promise he held sacred, among the trees that summer night, and, in the 
chivalry of his heart, regarded it as binding him to many implied 
obligations. In forgetfulness of himself, and delicate service to her on 
all occasions, he was never to fail; to begin it, he answered Mr Meagles 
cheerfully, "I shall come, of course."
His partner, Daniel Doyce, was something of a stumbling-block in Mr 
Meagles's way, the worthy gentleman being not at all clear in his own 
anxious mind but that the mingling of Daniel with official Barnacleism 
might produce some explosive combination, even at a marriage breakfast. The 
national offender, however, lightened him of his uneasiness by coming down 
to Twickenham to represent that he begged, with the freedom of an old 
friend, and as a favour to one, that he might not be invited. "For," said 
he, "as my business with this set of gentlemen was to do a public duty and 
a public service, and as their business with me was to prevent it by 
wearing my soul out, I think we had better not eat and drink together with 
a show of being of one mind." Mr Meagles was much amused by his friend's 
oddity; and patronised him with a more protecting air of allowance than 
usual, when he rejoined: "Well, well, Dan, you shall have your own 
crotchety way."
To Mr Henry Gowan, as the time approached, Clennam tried to convey, by all 
quiet and unpretending means, that he was frankly and disinterestedly 
desirous of tendering him any friendship he would accept. Mr Gowan treated 
him in return with his usual ease, and with his usual show of confidence, 
which was no confidence at all.
"You see, Clennam," he happened to remark in the course of conversation one 
day, when they were walking near the Cottage within a week of the marriage, 
"I am a disappointed man. That you know already."
"Upon my word," said Clennam, a little embarrassed, "I scarcely know how."
"Why," returned Gowan, "I belong to a clan, or a clique, or a family, or a 
connection, or whatever you like to call it, that might have provided for 
me in any one of fifty ways, and that took it into its head not to do it at 
all. So here I am, a poor devil of an artist."
Clennam was beginning, "But on the other hand - " when Gowan took him up.
"Yes, yes, I know. I have the good fortune of being beloved by a beautiful 
and charming girl whom I love with all my heart."
("Is there much of it?" Clennam thought. And as he thought it, felt ashamed 
of himself.)
"And of finding a father-in-law who is a capital fellow and a liberal good 
old boy. Still, I had other prospects washed and combed into my childish 
head when it was washed and combed for me, and I took them to a public 
school when I washed and combed it for myself, and I am here without them, 
and thus I am a disappointed man."
Clennam thought (and as he thought it, again felt ashamed of himself), was 
this notion of being disappointed in life, an assertion of station which 
the bridegroom brought into the family as his property, having already 
carried it detrimentally into his pursuit? And was it a hopeful or a 
promising thing anywhere?
"Not bitterly disappointed, I think," he said aloud.
"Hang it, no; not bitterly," laughed Gowan. "My people are not worth that - 
though they are charming fellows, and I have the greatest affection for 
them. Besides, it's pleasant to show them that I can do without them, and 
that they may all go to the Devil. And besides again, most men are 
disappointed in life, somehow or other, and influenced by their 
disappointment. But it's a dear good world, and I love it!"
"It lies fair before you now," said Arthur.
"Fair as this summer river," cried the other, with enthusiasm, "and by Jove 
I glow with admiration of it, and with ardour to run a race in it. It's the 
best of old worlds! And my calling! The best of old callings, isn't it?"
"Full of interest and ambition, I conceive," said Clennam.
"And imposition," added Gowan, laughing; "we won't leave out the 
imposition. I hope I may not break down in that; but there, my being a 
disappointed man may show itself. I may not be able to face it out gravely 
enough. Between you and me, I think there is some danger of my being just 
enough soured not to be able to do that."
"To do what?" asked Clennam.
"To keep it up. To help myself in my turn, as the man before me helps 
himself in his, and pass the bottle of smoke. To keep up the pretence as to 
labour, and study, and patience, and being devoted to my art, and giving up 
many solitary days to it, and abandoning many pleasures for it, and living 
in it, and all the rest of it - in short to pass the bottle of smoke; 
according to rule."
"But it is well for a man to respect his own vocation, whatever it is; and 
to think himself bound to uphold it, and to claim for it the respect it 
deserves; is it not?" Arthur reasoned. "And your vocation, Gowan, may 
really demand this suit and service. I confess I should have thought that 
all Art did."
"What a good fellow you are, Clennam!" exclaimed the other, stopping to 
look at him, as if with irrepressible admiration. "What a capital fellow! 
You have never been disappointed. That's easy to see."
It would have been so cruel if he had meant it, that Clennam firmly 
resolved to believe he did not mean it. Gowan, without pausing, laid his 
hand upon his shoulder, and laughingly and lightly went on:
"Clennam, I don't like to dispel your generous visions, and I would give 
any money (if I had any) to live in such a rose-coloured mist. But what I 
do in my trade, I do to sell. What all we fellows do, we do to sell. If we 
didn't want to sell it, for the most we can get for it, we shouldn't do it. 
Being work, it has to be done; but it's easily enough done. All the rest is 
hocus-pocus. Now here's one of the advantages or disadvantages, of knowing 
a disappointed man. You hear the truth."
Whatever he had heard, and whether it deserved that name or another, it 
sank into Clennam's mind. It so took root there, that he began to fear 
Henry Gowan would always be a trouble to him, and that so far he had gained 
little or nothing from the dismissal of Nobody, with all his 
inconsistencies, anxieties, and contradictions. He found a contest still 
always going on in his breast, between his promise to keep Gowan in none 
but good aspects before the mind of Mr Meagles, and his enforced 
observation of Gowan in aspects that had no good in them. Nor could he 
quite support his own conscientious nature against misgivings that he 
distorted and discoloured him, by reminding himself that he never sought 
those discoveries, and that he would have avoided them with willingness and 
great relief. For, he never could forget what had been; and he knew that he 
had once disliked Gowan, for no better reason than that he had come in his 
way.
Harassed by these thoughts, he now began to wish the marriage over, Gowan 
and his young wife gone, and himself left to fulfil his promise, and 
discharge the generous function he had accepted. This last week was, in 
truth, an uneasy interval for the whole house. Before Pet, or before Gowan, 
Mr Meagles was radiant; but, Clennam had more than once found him alone, 
with his view of the scales and scoop much blurred, and had often seen him 
look after the lovers, in the garden or elsewhere when he was not seen by 
them, with the old clouded face on which Gowan had fallen like a shadow. In 
the arrangement of the house for the great occasion, many little reminders 
of the old travels of the father and mother and daughter had to be 
disturbed, and passed from hand to hand; and sometimes, in the midst of 
these mute witnesses to the life they had had together, even Pet herself 
would yield to lamenting and weeping. Mrs Meagles, the blithest and busiest 
of mothers, went about singing and cheering everybody; but she, honest 
soul, had her flights into store rooms, where she would cry until her eyes 
were red, and would then come out, attributing that appearance to pickled 
onions and pepper, and singing clearer than ever. Mrs Tickit, finding no 
balsam for a wounded mind in Buchan's Domestic Medicine, suffered greatly 
from low spirits, and from moving recollections of Minnie's infancy. When 
the latter were powerful with her, she usually sent up secret messages 
importing that she was not in parlour condition as to her attire, and that 
she solicited a sight of "her child" in the kitchen; there, she would bless 
her child's face, and bless her child's heart, and hug her child, in a 
medley of tears and congratulations, chopping-boards, rolling-pins, and pie-
crust, with the tenderness of an attached old servant, which is a very 
pretty tenderness indeed.
But, all days come that are to be; and the marriage-day was to be, and it 
came; and with it came all the Barnacles who were bidden to the feast.
There was Mr Tite Barnacle, from the Circumlocution Office and Mews Street, 
Grosvenor Square, with the expensive Mrs Tite Barnacle nee Stiltstalking, 
who made the Quarter Days so long in coming, and the three expensive Miss 
Tite Barnacles, double-loaded with accomplishments and ready to go off, and 
yet not going off with the sharpness of flash and bang that might have been 
expected, but rather hanging fire. There was Barnacle Junior, also from the 
Circumlocution Office, leaving the Tonnage of the country, which he was 
somehow supposed to take under his protection, to look after itself, and, 
sooth to say, not at all impairing the efficiency of his protection by 
leaving it alone. There was the engaging Young Barnacle, deriving from the 
sprightly side of the family, also from the Circumlocution Office, gaily 
and agreeably helping the occasion along, and treating it, in his sparkling 
way, as one of the official forms and fees of the Church Department of How 
not to do it. There were three other Young Barnacles, from three other 
offices, insipid to all the senses, and terribly in want of seasoning, 
doing the marriage as they would have "done" the Nile, Old Rome, the new 
singer, or Jerusalem.
But, there was greater game than this. There was Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle 
himself, in the odour of Circumlocution - with the very smell of Despatch-
Boxes upon him. Yes, there was Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle, who had risen to 
official heights on the wings of one indignant idea, and that was, My 
Lords, that I am yet to be told that it behoves a Minister of this free 
country to set bounds to the philanthropy, to cramp the charity, to fetter 
the public spirit, to contract the enterprise, to damp the independent self-
reliance, of its people. That was, in other words, that this great 
statesman was always yet to be told that it behoved the Pilot of the ship 
to do anything but prosper in the private loaf and fish trade ashore, the 
crew being able, by dint of hard pumping, to keep the ship above water 
without him. On this sublime discovery, in the great art How not to do it, 
Lord Decimus had long sustained the highest glory of the Barnacle family; 
and let any ill-advised member of either House but try How to do it, by 
bringing in a Bill to do it, that Bill was as good as dead and buried when 
Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle rose up in his place, and solemnly said, soaring 
into indignant majesty as the Circumlocution cheering soared around him, 
that he was yet to be told, My Lords, that it behoved him as the Minister 
of this free country, to set bounds to the philanthropy, to cramp the 
charity, to fetter the public spirit, to contract the enterprise, to damp 
the independent self-reliance, of its people. The discovery of this 
Behoving Machine was the discovery of the political perpetual motion. It 
never wore out, though it was always going round and round in all the State 
Departments.
And there, with his noble friend and relative Lord Decimus, was William 
Barnacle, who had made the ever-famous coalition with Tudor Stiltstalking, 
and who always kept ready his own particular recipe for How not to do it; 
sometimes tapping the Speaker, and drawing it fresh out of him, with a 
"First, I will beg you, sir, to inform the House what Precedent we have for 
the course into which the honourable gentleman would precipitate us;" 
sometimes asking the honourable gentleman to favour him with his own 
version of the Precedent; sometimes telling the honourable gentleman that 
he (William Barnacle) would search for a Precedent; and oftentimes crushing 
the honourable gentleman flat on the spot, by telling him there was no 
Precedent. But, Precedent and Precipitate were, under all circumstances, 
the well-matched pair of battle-horses of this able Circumlocutionist. No 
matter that the unhappy honourable gentleman had been trying in vain, for 
twenty-five years, to precipitate William Barnacle into this - William 
Barnacle still put it to the House, and (at second-hand or so) to the 
country, whether he was to be precipitated into this. No matter that it was 
utterly irreconcilable with the nature of things and course of events, that 
the wretched honourable gentleman could possibly produce a Precedent for 
this - William Barnacle would nevertheless thank the honourable gentleman 
for that ironical cheer, and would close with him upon that issue, and 
would tell him to his teeth that there was No Precedent for this. It might 
perhaps have been objected that the William Barnacle wisdom was not high 
wisdom, or the earth it bamboozled would never have been made, or, if made 
in a rash mistake, would have remained blank mad. But, Precedent and 
Precipitate together frightened all objection out of most people.
And there, too, was another Barnacle, a lively one, who had leaped through 
twenty places in quick succession, and was always in two or three at once, 
and who was the much-respected inventor of an art which he practised with 
great success and admiration in all Barnacle Governments. This was, when he 
was asked a Parliamentary question on any one topic, to return an answer on 
any other. It had done immense service, and brought him into high esteem 
with the Circumlocution Office.
And there too was a sprinkling of less distinguished Parliamentary 
Barnacles, who had not as yet got anything snug, and were going through 
their probation to prove their worthiness. These Barnacles perched upon 
staircases and hid in passages, waiting their orders to make houses or not 
to make houses; and they did all their hearing, and ohing, and cheering and 
barking, under directions from heads of the family; and they put dummy 
motions on the paper in the way of other men's motions, and they stalled 
disagreeable subjects off until late in the night and late in the session, 
and then with virtuous patriotism cried out that it was too late; and they 
went down into the country, whenever they were sent, and swore that Lord 
Decimus had revived trade from a swoon and commerce from a fit, and had 
doubled the harvest of corn, quadrupled the harvest of hay, and prevented 
no end of gold flying out of the Bank. Also these Barnacles were dealt, by 
the heads of the family, like so many cards below the court-cards, to 
public meetings and dinners; where they bore testimony to all sorts of 
services on the part of their noble and honourable relatives, and buttered 
the Barnacles on all sorts of toasts. And they stood, under similar orders, 
at all sorts of elections; and they turned out of their own seats, on the 
shortest notice and the most unreasonable terms, to let in other men; and 
they fetched and carried, and toadied and jobbed, and corrupted, and ate 
heaps of dirt, and were indefatigable in the public service. And there was 
not a list, in all the Circumlocution Office, of places that might fall 
vacant anywhere within half a century, from a lord of the Treasury to a 
Chinese consul, and up again to a governor-general of India, but, as 
applicants for such places, the names of some or of every one of these 
hungry and adhesive Barnacles were down.
It was necessarily but a sprinkling of any class of Barnacles that attended 
the marriage, for there were not two score in all, and what is that 
subtracted from Legion! But, the sprinkling was a swarm in the Twickenham 
cottage, and filled it. A Barnacle (assisted by a Barnacle) married the 
happy pair, and it behoved Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle himself to conduct 
Mrs Meagles to breakfast. The entertainment was not as agreeable and 
natural as it might have been. Mr Meagles, hove down by his good company 
while he highly appreciated it, was not himself. Mrs Gowan was herself, and 
that did not improve him. The fiction that it was not Mr Meagles who had 
stood in the way, but that it was the Family greatness, and that the Family 
greatness had made a concession, and there was now a soothing unanimity, 
prevaded the affair, although it was never openly expressed. Then the 
Barnacles felt that they for their parts would have done with the 
Meagleses, when the present patronising occasion was over; and the 
Meagleses felt the same for their parts. Then Gowan asserting his rights as 
a disappointed man who had his grudge against the family, and who perhaps 
had allowed his mother to have them there, as much in the hope that it 
might give them some annoyance as with any other benevolent object, aired 
his pencil and his poverty ostentatiously before them, and told them he 
hoped in time to settle a crust of bread and cheese on his wife, and that 
he begged such of them as (more fortunate than himself) came in for any 
good thing, and could buy a picture, to please to remember the poor 
painter. Then Lord Decimus, who was a wonder on his own Parliamentary 
pedestal, turned out to be the windiest creature here: proposing happiness 
to the bride and bridegroom in a series of platitudes, that would have made 
the hair of any sincere disciple and believer stand on end: and trotting 
with the complacency of an idiotic elephant, among howling labyrinths of 
sentences which he seemed to take for high roads, and never so much as 
wanted to get out of. Then Mr Tite Barnacle could not but feel that there 
was a person in company who would have disturbed his life-long sitting to 
Sir Thomas Lawrence in full official character, if such disturbance had 
been possible: while Barnacle Junior did, with indignation, communicate to 
two vapid young gentlemen his relatives, that there was a feller here, look 
here, who had come to our Department without an appointment and said he 
wanted to know, you know; and that, look here, if he was to break out now, 
as he might you know (for you never could tell what an ungentlemanly 
Radical of that sort would be up to next), and was to say, look here, that 
he wanted to know this moment, you know, that would be Jolly; wouldn't it?
The pleasantest part of the occasion, by far, to Clennam, was the 
painfullest. When Mr and Mrs Meagles at last hung about Pet, in the room 
with the two pictures (where the company were not), before going with her 
to the threshold which she should never recross to be the old Pet and the 
old delight, nothing could be more natural and simple than the three were. 
Gowan himself was touched, and answered Mr Meagles's "O, Gowan, take care 
of her, take care of her!" with an earnest "Don't be so broken-hearted, 
sir. By Heaven I will!"
And so, with last sobs and last loving words, and a last look to Clennam of 
confidence in his promise, Pet fell back in the carriage, and her husband 
waved his hand, and they were away for Dover. Though not until the faithful 
Mrs Tickit, in her silk gown and jet black curls, had rushed out from some 
hiding place, and thrown both her shoes after the carriage; an apparition 
which occasioned great surprise to the distinguished company at the 
windows.
The said company being now relieved from further attendance, and the chief 
Barnacles being rather hurried (for they had it in hand just then to send a 
mail or two, which was in danger of going straight to its destination, 
beating about the seas like the Flying Dutchman, and to arrange with 
complexity for the stoppage of a good deal of important business otherwise 
in peril of being done), went their several ways; with all affability 
conveying to Mr and Mrs Meagles, that general assurance that what they had 
been doing there, they had been doing at a sacrifice for Mr and 
MrsMeagles's good, which they always conveyed to Mr John Bull in their 
official condescension to that most unfortunate creature.
A miserable blank remained in the house, and in the hearts of the father 
and mother and Clennam. Mr Meagles called only one remembrance to his aid, 
that really did him good.
"It's very gratifying, Arthur," he said, "after all, to look back upon."
"The past?" said Clennam.
"Yes - but I mean the company."
It had made him much more low and unhappy at the time, but now it really 
did him good. "It's very gratifying," he said, often repeating the remark 
in the course of the evening. "Such high company!"


Chapter 35

What Was Behind Mr Pancks On Little Dorrit's Hand

It was at this time that Mr Pancks, in discharge of his compact with 
Clennam, revealed to him the whole of his gipsy story, and told him Little 
Dorrit's fortune. Her father was heir-at-law to a great estate that had 
long lain unknown of, unclaimed, and accumulating. His right was now clear, 
nothing interposed in his way, the Marshalsea gates stood open, the 
Marshalsea walls were down, a few flourishes of his pen, and he was 
extremely rich.
In his tracking out of the claim to its complete establishment, Mr Pancks 
had shown a sagacity that nothing could baffle, and a patience and secrecy 
that nothing could tire. "I little thought, sir," said Pancks, "when you 
and I crossed Smithfield that night, and I told you what sort of a 
Collector I was, that this would come of it. I little thought, sir, when I 
told you you were not of the Clennams of Cornwall, that I was ever going to 
tell you who were of the Dorrits of Dorsetshire." He then went on to 
detail, How, having that name recorded in his note-book, he was first 
attracted by the name alone. How, having often found two exactly similar 
names, even belonging to the same place, to involve no traceable 
consanguinity, near or distant, he did not at first give much heed to this; 
except in the way of speculation as to what a surprising change would be 
made in the condition of a little seamstress, if she could be shown to have 
any interest in so large a property. How he rather supposed himself to have 
pursued the idea into its next degree, because there was something uncommon 
in the quiet little seamstress, which pleased him and provoked his 
curiosity. How he had felt his way inch by inch, and "Moled it out, sir" 
(that was Mr Pancks's expression), grain by grain. How, in the beginning of 
the labour described by this new verb, and to render which the more 
expressive Mr Pancks shut his eyes in pronouncing it and shook his hair 
over them, he had alternated from sudden lights and hopes to sudden 
darkness and no hopes, and back again, and back again. How he had made 
acquaintances in the Prison, expressly that he might come and go there as 
all other comers and goers did: and how his first ray of light was 
unconsciously given him by Mr Dorrit himself and by his son: to both of 
whom he easily became known; with both of whom he talked much, casually 
("but always Moleing you'll observe," said Mr Pancks): and from whom he 
derived, without being at all suspected, two or three little points of 
family history which, as he began to hold clues of his own, suggested 
others. How it had at length become plain to Mr Pancks that he had made a 
real discovery of the heir-at-law to a great fortune, and that his 
discovery had but to be ripened to legal fulness and perfection. How he 
had, thereupon, sworn his landlord, Mr Rugg, to secrecy in a solemn manner, 
and taken him into Moleing partnership. How they had employed John Chivery 
as their sole clerk and agent, seeing to whom he was devoted. And how, 
until the present hour, when authorities mighty in the Bank and learned in 
the law declared their successful labours ended, they had confided in no 
other human being.
"So if the whole thing had broken down, sir," concluded Pancks, "at the 
very last, say the day before the other day when I showed you our papers in 
the Prison yard, or say that very day, nobody but ourselves would have been 
cruelly disappointed, or a penny the worse."
Clennam, who had been almost incessantly shaking hands with him throughout 
the narrative, was reminded by this to say, in an amazement which even the 
preparation he had had for the main disclosure scarcely smoothed down, "My 
dear Mr Pancks, this must have cost you a great sum of money."
"Pretty well, sir," said the triumphant Pancks. "No trifle, though we did 
it as cheap as it could be done. And the outlay was a difficulty, let me 
tell you."
"A difficulty!" repeated Clennam. "But the difficulties you have so 
wonderfully conquered in the whole business!" shaking his hand again.
"I'll tell you how I did it," said the delighted Pancks, putting his hair 
into a condition as elevated as himself "First, I spent all I had of my 
own. That wasn't much."
"I am sorry for it," said Clennam; "not that it matters now, though. Then, 
what did you do?"
"Then," answered Pancks, "I borrowed a sum of my proprietor."
"Of Mr Casby?" said Clennam. "He's a fine old fellow."
"Noble old boy; an't he?" said Mr Pancks, entering on a series of the 
dryest of snorts. "Generous old buck. Confiding old boy. Philanthropic old 
buck. Benevolent old boy. Philanthropic old buck. Benevolent old boy! 
Twenty per cent. I engaged to pay him, sir. But we never do business for 
less, at our shop."
Arthur felt an awkward consciousness of having, in his exultant condition, 
been a little premature.
"I said to that - boiling-over old Christian," Mr Pancks pursued, appearing 
greatly to relish this descriptive epithet, "that I had got a little 
project on hand; a hopeful one; I told him a hopeful one; which wanted a 
certain small capital. I proposed to him to lend me the money on my note. 
Which he did, at twenty: sticking the twenty on in a business-like way, and 
putting it into the note, to look like a part of the principal. If I had 
broken down after that, I should have been his grubber for the next seven 
years at half wages and double grind. But he's a perfect Patriarch; and it 
would do a man good to serve him on such terms - on any terms."
Arthur for his life could not have said with confidence whether Pancks 
really thought so or not.
"When that was gone, sir," resumed Pancks, "and it did go, though I 
dribbled it out like so much blood, I had taken Mr Rugg into the secret. I 
proposed to borrow of Mr Rugg (or of Miss Rugg; it's the same thing; she 
made a little money by a speculation in the Common Pleas once). He lent it 
at ten, and thought that pretty high. But Mr Rugg's a red-haired man, sir, 
and gets his hair cut. And as to the crown of his hat, it's high. And as to 
the brim of his hat, it's narrow. And there's no more benevolence bubbling 
out of him, than out of a "ninepin."
"Your own recompense for all of this, Mr Pancks," said Clennam, "ought to 
be a large one."
"I don't mistrust getting it, sir," said Pancks. "I have made no bargain. I 
owed you one on that score; now, I have paid it. Money out of pocket made 
good, time fairly allowed for, and Mr Rugg's bill settled, a thousand 
pounds would be a fortune to me. That matter I place in your hands. I 
authorise you, now, to break all this to the family in any way you think 
best. Miss Amy Dorrit will be with Mrs Finching this morning. The sooner 
done the better. Can't be done too soon."
This conversation took place in Clennam's bedroom, while he was yet in bed. 
For, Mr Pancks had knocked up the house and made his way in, very early in 
the morning; and, without once sitting down or standing still, had 
delivered himself of the whole of his details (illustrated with a variety 
of documents) at the bedside. He now said he would "go and look up Mr 
Rugg," from whom his excited state of mind appeared to require another 
back; and bundling up his papers, and exchanging one more hearty shake of 
the hand with Clennam, he went at full speed downstairs, and steamed off.
Clennam, of course, resolved to go direct to Mr Casby's. He dressed and got 
out so quickly, that he found himself at the corner of the patriarchal 
street nearly an hour before her time; but he was not sorry to have the 
opportunity of calming himself with a leisurely walk.
When he returned to the street, and had knocked at the bright brass 
knocker, he was informed that she had come, and was shown upstairs to 
Flora's breakfast room. Little Dorrit was not there herself, but Flora was, 
and testified the greatest amazement at seeing him.
"Good gracious, Arthur - Doyce and Clennam!" cried that lady, "who would 
have ever thought of seeing such a sight as this and pray excuse a wrapper 
for upon my word I really never and a faded check too which is worse but 
our little friend is making me a, not that I need mind mentioning it to you 
for you must know that there are such things a skirt, and having arranged 
that a trying on should take place after breakfast is the reason though I 
wish not so badly starched."
"I ought to make an apology," said Arthur, "for so early and abrupt a 
visit; but you will excuse it when I tell you the cause."
"In times for ever fled Arthur," returned Mrs Finching, "pray excuse me 
Doyce and Clennam infinitely more correct and though unquestionably distant 
still 'tis distance lends enchantment to the view, at least I don't mean 
that and if I did I suppose it would depend considerably on the nature of 
the view, but I'm running on again and you put it all out of my head."
She glanced at him tenderly, and resumed:
"In times for ever fled I was going to say it would have sounded strange 
indeed for Arthur Clennam - Doyce and Clennam naturally quite different - 
to make apologies for coming here at any time, but that is past and what is 
past can never be recalled except in his own case as poor Mr F said when he 
was in spirits Cucumber and therefore never ate it."
She was making the tea when Arthur came in, and now hastily finished that 
operation.
"Papa," she said, all mystery and whisper, as she shut down the teapot lid, 
"is sitting prosingly breaking his new-laid egg in the back parlour over 
the City article exactly like the Woodpecker Tapping and need never know 
that you are here, and our little friend you are well aware may be fully 
trusted when she comes down from cutting out on the large table over-head.
Arthur then told her, in the fewest words, that it was their little friend 
he came to see; and what he had to announce to their little friend. At 
which astounding intelligence, Flora clasped her hands, fell into a 
tremble, and shed tears of sympathy and pleasure, like the good-natured 
creature she really was.
"For gracious sake let me get out of the way first," said Flora, putting 
her hands to her ears, and moving towards the door, "or I know I shall go 
off dead and screaming and make everybody worse, and the dear little thing 
only this morning looking so nice and neat and good and yet so poor and now 
a fortune is she really and deserves it too! and might I mention it to Mr 
F's aunt Arthur not Doyce and Clennam for this once or if objectionable not 
on any account."
Arthur nodded his free permission, since Flora shut out all verbal 
communication. Flora nodded in return to thank him, and hurried out of the 
room. Little Dorrit's step was already on the stairs, and in another moment 
she was at the door. Do what he would to compose his face, he could not 
convey so much of an ordinary expression into it, but that the moment she 
saw it she dropped her work, and cried, "Mr Clennam! What's the matter!"
"Nothing, nothing. That is, no misfortune has happened. I have come to tell 
you something, but it is a piece of great good-fortune."
"Good-fortune?"
"Wonderful fortune!"
They stood in a window, and her eyes, full of light, were fixed upon his 
face. He put an arm about her, seeing her likely to sink down. She put a 
hand upon that arm, partly to rest upon it, and partly so to preserve their 
relative positions as that her intent look at him should be shaken by no 
change of attitude in either of them. Her lips seemed to repeat "Wonderful 
fortune?" He repeated it again, aloud.
"Dear Little Dorrit! Your father."
The ice of the pale face broke at the word, and little lights and shoots of 
expression passed all over it. They were all expressions of pain. Her 
breath was faint and hurried. Her heart beat fast. He would have clasped 
the little figure closer, but he saw that the eyes appealed to him not to 
be moved.
"Your father can be free within this week. He does not know it; we must go 
to him from here, to tell him of it. Your father will be free within a few 
days. Your father will be free within a few hours. Remember we must go to 
him, from here, to tell him of it!"
That brought her back. Her eyes were closing, but they opened again.
"This is not all the good-fortune. This is not all the wonderful good-
fortune, my dear Little Dorrit. Shall I tell you more?"
Her lips shaped "Yes."
"Your father will be no beggar when he is free. He will want for nothing. 
Shall I tell you more? Remember! He knows nothing of it; we must go to him, 
from here, to tell him of it?"
She seemed to entreat him for a little time. He held her in his arm, and, 
after a pause, bent down his ear to listen.
"Did you ask me to go on?"
"Yes."
"He will be a rich man. He is a rich man. A great sum of money is waiting 
to be paid over to him as his inheritance; you are all henceforth very 
wealthy. Bravest and best of children, I thank Heaven that you are 
rewarded!" As he kissed her, she turned her head towards his shoulder, and 
raised her arm towards his neck; cried out "Father! Father! Father!" and 
swooned away.
Upon which, Flora returned to take care of her, and hovered about her on a 
sofa, intermingling kind offices and incoherent scraps of conversation in a 
manner so confounding, that whether she pressed the Marshalsea to take a 
spoonful of unclaimed dividends, for it would do her good; or whether she 
congratulated Little Dorrit's father on coming into possession of a hundred 
thousand smelling-bottles; or whether she explained that she put seventy-
five thousand drops of spirits of lavender on fifty thousand pounds of lump 
sugar, and that she entreated Little Dorrit to take that gentle 
restorative; or whether she bathed the foreheads of Doyce and Clennam in 
vinegar, and gave the late Mr F more air; no one with any sense of 
responsibility could have undertaken to decide. A tributary stream of 
confusion, moreover, poured in from an adjoining bedroom, where Mr F's Aunt 
appeared, from the sound of her voice, to be in a horizontal posture, 
awaiting her breakfast; and from which bower that inexorable lady snapped 
off short taunts, whenever she could get a hearing, as, "Don't believe it's 
his doing!" and "He needn't take no credit to himself for it!" and "It'll 
be long enough, I expect, afore he'll give up any of his own money!" all 
designed to disparage Clennam's share in the discovery, and to relieve 
those inveterate feelings with which Mr F's Aunt regarded him.
But, Little Dorrit's solicitude to get to her father, and to carry the 
joyful tidings to him, and not to leave him in his jail a moment with this 
happiness in store for him and still unknown to him, did more for her 
speedy restoration than all the skill and attention on earth could have 
done. "Come with me to my dear father. Pray come and tell my dear father!" 
were the first words she said. Her father, her father. She spoke of nothing 
but him, thought of nothing but him. Kneeling down and pouring out her 
thankfulness with uplifted hands, her thanks were for her father.
Flora's tenderness was quite overcome by this, and she launched out among 
the cups and saucers into a wonderful flow of tears and speech.
"I declare," she sobbed, "I never was so cut up since your mama and my papa 
not Doyce and Clennam for this once but give the precious little thing a 
cup of tea and make her put it to her lips at least pray Arthur do, not 
even Mr F's last illness for that was of another kind and gout is not a 
child's affection though very painful for all parties and Mr F a martyr 
with his leg upon a rest and the wine trade in itself inflammatory for they 
will do it more or less among themselves and who can wonder, it seems like 
a dream I am sure to think of nothing at all this morning and now Mines of 
money is it really, but you must you know my darling love because you will 
never be strong enough to tell him all about it upon tea-spoons, mightn't 
it be even best to try the directions of my own medical man for though the 
flavour is anything but agreeable still I force myself to do it as a 
prescription and find the benefit, you'd rather not why no my dear I'd 
rather not but still I do it as a duty, everybody will congratulate you 
some in earnest and some not andany will congratulate you with all their 
hearts but none more so I do assure you than from the bottom of my own I do 
myself though sensible of blundering and being stupid, and will be judged 
by Arthur not Doyce and Clennam for this once so good-bye darling and God 
bless you and may you be very happy and excuse the liberty, vowing that the 
dress shall never be finished by anybody else but shall be laid by for a 
keepsake just as it is and called Little Dorrit though why that strangest 
of denominations at any time I never did myself and now I never shall!"
Thus Flora, in taking leave of her favourite. Little Dorrit thanked her, 
and embraced her, over and over again; and finally came out of the house 
with Clennam, and took coach for the Marshalsea.
It was a strangely unreal ride through the old squalid streets, with a 
sensation of being raised out of them, into an airy world of wealth and 
grandeur. When Arthur told her that she would soon ride in her own carriage 
through very different scenes, when all the familiar experiences would have 
vanished away, she looked frightened. But, when he substituted her father 
for herself, and told her how he would ride in his carriage, and how great 
and grand he would be, her tears of joy and innocent pride fell fast. 
Seeing that the happiness her mind could realise was all shining upon him, 
Arthur kept that single figure before her; and so they rode brightly 
through the poor streets in the prison neighbourhood, to carry him the 
great news.
When Mr Chivery, who was on duty, admitted them into the Lodge, he saw 
something in their faces which filled him with astonishment. He stood 
looking after them, when they hurried into the prison, as though he 
perceived that they had come back accompanied by a ghost a piece. Two or 
three Collegians whom they passed, looked after them too, and presently 
joining Mr Chivery, formed a little group on the Lodge steps, in the midst 
of which there spontaneously originated a whisper that the Father was going 
to get his discharge. Within a few minutes, it was heard in the remotest 
room in the College.
Little Dorrit opened the door from without, and they both entered. He was 
sitting in his old grey gown, and his old black cap, in the sunlight by the 
window, reading his newspaper. His glasses were in his hand, and he had 
just looked round; surprised at first, no doubt, by her step upon the 
stairs, not expecting her until night; surprised again, by seeing Arthur 
Clennam in her company. As they came in, the same unwonted look in both of 
them which had already caught attention in the yard below, struck him. He 
did not rise or speak, but laid down his glasses and his newspaper on the 
table beside him, and looked at them with his mouth a little open, and his 
lips trembling. When Arthur put out his hand, he touched it, but not with 
his usual state; and then he turned to his daughter, who had sat down close 
beside him with her hands upon his shoulder, and looked attentively in her 
face.
"Father! I have been made so happy this morning!"
"You have been made so happy, my dear?"
"By Mr Clennam, father. He brought me such joyful and wonderful 
intelligence about you! If he had not, with his great kindness and 
gentleness, prepared me for it, father - prepared me for it, father - I 
think I could not have borne it."
Her agitation was exceedingly great, and the tears rolled down her face. He 
put his hand suddenly to his heart, and looked at Clennam.
"Compose yourself, sir," said Clennam, "and take a little time to think. To 
think of the brightest and most fortunate accidents of life. We have all 
heard of great surprises of joy. They are not at an end, sir. They are 
rare, but not at an end."
"Mr Clennam? Not at an end? Not at an end for - " He touched himself upon 
the breast, instead of saying "me."
"No," returned Clennam.
"What surprise," he asked, keeping his left hand over his heart, and there 
stopping in his speech, while with his right hand he put his glasses 
exactly level on the table: "what such surprise can be in store for me?"
"Let me answer with another question. Tell me, Mr Dorrit, what surprise 
would be the most unlooked for and the most acceptable to you. Do not be 
afraid to imagine it, or to say what it would be."
He looked steadfastly at Clennam, and, so looking at him, seemed to change 
into a very old haggard man. The sun was bright upon the wall beyond the 
window and on the spikes at top. He slowly stretched out the hand that had 
been upon his heart, and pointed at the wall.
"It is down," said Clennam. "Gone!"
He remained in the same attitude, looking steadfastly at him.
"And in its place," said Clennam, slowly and distinctly, "are the means to 
possess and enjoy the utmost that they have so long shut out. Mr Dorrit, 
there is not the smallest doubt that within a few days you will be free, 
and highly prosperous. I congratulate you with all my soul on this change 
of fortune, and on the happy future into which you are soon to carry the 
treasure you have been blest with here - the best of all the riches you can 
have elsewhere - the treasure at your side."
With those words he pressed his hand and released it; and his daughter, 
laying her face against his, encircled him in the hour of his prosperity 
with her arms, as she had in the long years of his adversity encircled him 
with her love and toil and truth; and poured out her full heart in 
gratitude, hope, joy, blissful ecstasy, and all for him.
"I shall see him, as I never saw him yet. I shall see my dear love, with 
the dark cloud cleared away. I shall see him, as my poor mother saw him 
long ago. O my dear, my dear! O father, father! O thank God, thank God!"
He yielded himself to her kisses and caresses, but did not return them, 
except that he put an arm about her. Neither did he say one word. His 
steadfast look was now divided between her and Clennam, and he began to 
shake as if he were very cold. Explaining to Little Dorrit that he would 
run to the coffee-house for a bottle of wine, Arthur fetched it with all 
the haste he could use. While it was being brought from the cellar to the 
bar, a number of excited people asked him what had happened; when he 
hurriedly informed them, that Mr Dorrit had succeeded to a fortune.
On coming back with the wine in his hand he found that she had placed her 
father in easy chair, and had loosened his shirt and neckcloth. They filled 
a tumbler with wine, and held it to his lips. When he had swallowed a 
little, he took the glass himself and emptied it. Soon after that, he 
leaned back in his chair and cried, with his handkerchief before his face.
After this had lasted a while, Clennam thought it a good season for 
diverting his attention from the main surprise, by relating its details. 
Slowly, therefore, and in a quiet tone of voice, he explained them as he 
best could, and enlarged on the nature of Pancks's service.
"He shall be - ha - he shall be handsomely recompensed, sir," said the 
Father, starting up and moving hurriedly about the room. "Assure yourself, 
Mr Clennam, that everybody concerned shall be - ha - shall be nobly 
rewarded. No one, my dear sir, shall say that he has an unsatisfied claim 
against me. I shall repay the - hum - the advances I have had from you, 
sir, with peculiar pleasure. I beg to be informed at your early 
convenience, what advances you have made my son."
He had no purpose in going about the room, but he was not still a moment.
"Everybody," he said, "shall be remembered. I will not go away from here in 
anybody's debt. All the people who have been - ha - well behaved towards 
myself and my family, shall be rewarded. Chivery shall be rewarded. Young 
John shall be rewarded. I particularly wish, and intend, to act 
munificently, Mr Clennam."
"Will you allow me," said Arthur, laying his purse on the table, "to supply 
any present contingencies, Mr Dorrit? I thought it best to bring a sum of 
money for the purpose."
"Thank you, sir, thank you. I accept with readiness, at the present moment, 
what I could not an hour ago have conscientiously taken. I am obliged to 
you for the temporary accommodation. Exceedingly temporary, but well timed -
 well timed." His hand had closed upon the money, and he carried it about 
with him. "Be so kind, sir, as to add the amount to those former advances 
to which I have already referred; being careful, if you please, not to omit 
advances made to my son. A mere verbal statement of the gross amount is all 
I shall - ha - all I shall require."
His eye fell upon his daughter at this point, and he stopped for a moment 
to kiss her, and to pat her head.
"It will be necessary to find a milliner, my love, and to make a speedy and 
complete change in your very plain dress. Something must be done with 
Maggie too, who at present is - ha - barely respectable, barely 
respectable. And your sister, Amy, and your brother. And my brother, your 
uncle - poor soul, I trust this will rouse him, messengers must be 
dispatched to fetch them. They must be informed of this. We must break it 
to them cautiously, but they must be informed directly. We owe it as a duty 
to them, and to ourselves, from this moment, not to let them - hum - not to 
let them do anything."
This was the first intimation he had ever given, that he was privy to the 
fact that they did something for a livelihood.
He was still jogging about the room, with the purse clutched in his hand, 
when a great cheering arose in the yard. "The news has spread already," 
said Clennam, looking down from the window. "Will you show yourself to 
them, Mr Dorrit? They are very earnest, and they evidently wish it."
"I - hum - ha - I confess I could have desired, Amy my dear," he said, 
jogging about in a more feverish flutter than before, "to have made some 
change in my dress first, and to have bought a - hum - a watch and chain. 
But if it must be done as it is, it - ha - it must be done. Fasten the 
collar of my shirt, my dear. Mr Clennam, would you oblige me - hum - with a 
blue neckcloth you will find in that drawer at your elbow. Button my coat 
across at the chest, my love. It looks - ha - it looks broader, buttoned."
With his trembling hand he pushed his grey hair up, and then, taking 
Clennam and his daughter for supporters, appeared at the window leaning on 
an arm of each. The Collegians cheered him very heartily, and he kissed his 
hand to them with great urbanity and protection. When he withdrew into the 
room again, he said "Poor creatures!" in a tone of much pity for their 
miserable condition.
Little Dorrit was deeply anxious that he should lie down to compose 
himself. On Arthur's speaking to her of his going to inform Pancks that he 
might now appear as soon as he would, and pursue the joyful business to its 
close, she entreated him in a whisper to stay with her, until her father 
should be quite calm and at rest. He needed no second entreaty; and she 
prepared her father's bed, and begged him to lie down. For another half-
hour or more he would be persuaded to do nothing but go about the room, 
discussing with himself the probabilities for and against the Marshal's 
allowing the whole of the prisoners to go to the windows of the official 
residence which commanded the street, to see himself and family depart 
forever in a carriage - which, he said, he thought would be a Sight for 
them. But, gradually, he began to droop and tire, and at last stretched 
himself upon the bed.
She took her faithful place beside him, fanning him and cooling his 
forehead; and he seemed to be falling asleep (always with the money in his 
hand), when he unexpectedly sat up and said:
"Mr Clennam, I beg your pardon. Am I to understand, my dear sir, that I 
could - ha - could pass through the Lodge at this moment, and - hum - take 
a walk?"
"I think not, Mr Dorrit," was the unwilling reply. "There are certain forms 
to be completed; and although your detention here is now in itself a form, 
I fear it is one that for a little longer has to be observed too."
At this he shed tears again.
"It is but a few hours, sir," Clennam cheerfully urged upon him.
"A few hours, sir," he returned in a sudden passion. "You talk very easily 
of hours, sir! How long do you suppose, sir, that an hour is to a man who 
is choking for want of air?"
It was his last demonstration for that time; as, after shedding some more 
tears and querulously complaining that he couldn't breathe, he slowly fell 
into a slumber. Clennam had abundant occupation for his thoughts, as he sat 
in the quiet room watching the father on his bed, and the daughter fanning 
his face.
Little Dorrit had been thinking too. After softly putting his grey hair 
aside, and touching his forehead with her lips, she looked towards Arthur, 
who came nearer to her, and pursued in a low whisper the subject of her 
thoughts.
"Mr Clennam, will he pay all his debts before he leaves here?"
"No doubt. All."
"All the debts for which he has been imprisoned here, all my life and 
longer?"
"No doubt."
There was something of uncertainty and remonstrance in her look; something 
that was not all satisfaction. He wondered to detect it, and said:
"You are glad that he should do so?"
"Are you?" asked Little Dorrit, wistfully.
"Am I? Most heartily glad!"
"Then I know I ought to be."
"And are you not?"
"It seems to me hard," said Little Dorrit, "that he should have lost so 
many years and suffered so much, and at last pay all the debts as well. It 
seems to me hard that he should pay in life and money both."
"My dear child - " Clennam was beginning.
"Yes, I know I am wrong," she pleaded timidly, "don't think any worse of 
me; it has grown up with me here."
The prison, which could spoil so many things, had tainted Little Dorrit's 
mind no more than this. Engendered as the confusion was, in compassion for 
the poor prisoner, her father, it was the first speck Clennam had ever 
seen, it was the last speck Clennam ever saw, of the prison atmosphere upon 
her.
He thought this, and forbore to say another word. With the thought, her 
purity and goodness came before him in their brightest light. The little 
spot made them the more beautiful.
Worn out with her own emotions, and yielding to the silence of the room, 
her hand slowly slackened and failed in its fanning movement, and her head 
dropped down on the pillow at her father's side. Clennam rose softly, 
opened and closed the door without a sound, and passed from the prison, 
carrying the quiet with him into the turbulent streets.


Chapter 36

The Marshalsea Becomes An Orphan

And now the day arrived when Mr Dorrit and his family were to leave the 
prison for ever, and the stones of its much-trodden pavement were to know 
them no more.
The interval had been short, but he had greatly complained of its length, 
and had been imperious with Mr Rugg touching the delay. He had been high 
with Mr Rugg, and had threatened to employ some one else. He had requested 
Mr Rugg not to presume upon the place in which he found him, but to do his 
duty, sir, and to do it with promptitude. He had told Mr Rugg that he knew 
what lawyers and agents were, and that he would not submit to imposition. 
On that gentleman's humbly representing that he exerted himself to the 
utmost, Miss Fanny was very short with him; desiring to know what less he 
could do, when he had been told a dozen times that money was no object, and 
expressing her suspicion that he forgot whom he talked to.
Towards the Marshal, who was a Marshal of many years' standing, and with 
whom he had never had any previous difference, Mr Dorrit comported himself 
with severity. That officer, on personally tendering his congratulations, 
offered the free use of two rooms in his house for Mr Dorrit's occupation 
until his departure. Mr Dorrit thanked him at the moment, and replied that 
he would think of it; but the Marshal was no sooner gone than he sat down 
and wrote him a cutting note, in which he remarked that he had never on any 
former occasion had the honour of receiving his congratulations (which was 
true, though indeed there had not been anything particular to congratulate 
him upon), and that he begged, on behalf of himself and family, to 
repudiate the Marshal's offer, with all those thanks which its 
disinterested character and its perfect independence of all worldly 
considerations demanded.
Although his brother showed so dim a glimmering of interest in their 
altered fortunes, that it was very doubtful whether he understood them, Mr 
Dorrit caused him to be measured for new raiment by the hosiers, tailors, 
hatters, and bootmakers whom he called in for himself; and ordered that his 
old clothes should be taken from him and burned. Miss Fanny and Mr Tip 
required no direction in making an appearance of great fashion and 
elegance; and the three passed this interval together at the best hotel in 
the neighbourhood - though truly, as Miss Fanny said, the best was very 
indifferent. In connection with that establishment, Mr Tip hired a 
cabriolet, horse, and groom, a very neat turnout, which was usually to be 
observed for two or three hours at a time, gracing the Borough High Street, 
outside the Marshalsea court-yard. A modest little hired chariot and pair 
was also frequently to be seen there; in alighting from and entering which 
vehicle Miss Fanny fluttered the Marshal's daughters by the display of 
inaccessible bonnets.
A great deal of business was transacted in this short period. Among other 
items, Messrs. Peddle and Pool, solicitors, of Monument Yard, were 
instructed by their client Edward Dorrit, Esquire, to address a letter to 
Mr Arthur Clennam, enclosing the sum of twenty-four pounds nine shillings 
and eightpence, being the amount of principal and interest computed at the 
rate of five per cent per annum, in which their client believed himself to 
be indebted to Mr Clennam. In making this communication and remittance, 
Messrs. Peddle and Pool were further instructed by their client to remind 
Mr Clennam that the favour of the advance now repaid (including gate-fees) 
had not been asked of him, and to inform him that it would not have been 
accepted if it had been openly proffered in his name. With which they 
requested a stamped receipt, and remained his obedient servants. A great 
deal of business had likewise to be done, within the so-soon-to-be-orphaned 
Marshalsea, by Mr Dorrit, so long its Father, chiefly arising out of 
applications made to him by Collegians for small sums of money. To these he 
responded with the greatest liberality, and with no lack of formality; 
always first writing to appoint a time at which the applicant might wait 
upon him in his room, and then receiving him in the midst of a vast 
accumulation of documents, and accompanying his donation (for he said in 
every such case, "it is a donation, not a loan ") with a great deal of good 
counsel: to the effect that he, the expiring Father of the Marshalsea, 
hoped to be long remembered, as an example that a man might preserve his 
own and the general respect even there.
The Collegians were not envious. Besides that they had a personal and 
traditional regard for a Collegian of so many years' standing, the event 
was creditable to the College, and made it famous in the newspapers. 
Perhaps more of them thought, too, than were quite aware of it, that the 
thing might in the lottery of chances have happened to themselves, or that 
something of the sort might yet happen to themselves some day or other. 
They took it very well. A few were low at the thought of being left behind, 
and being left poor; but even these did not grudge the family their 
brilliant reverse. There might have been much more envy in politer places. 
It seems probable that mediocrity of fortune would have been disposed to be 
less magnanimous than the Collegians, who lived from hand to mouth - from 
the pawnbroker's hand to the day's dinner.
They got up an address to him, which they presented in a neat frame and 
glass (though it was not afterwards displayed in the family mansion or 
preserved among the family papers); and to which he returned a gracious 
answer. In that document he assured them, in a Royal manner, that he 
received the profession of their attachment with a full conviction of its 
sincerity; and again generally exhorted them to follow his example - which, 
at least in so far as coming into a great property was concerned, there is 
no doubt they would have gladly imitated. He took the same occasion of 
inviting them to a comprehensive entertainment, to be given to the whole 
College in the yard, and at which he signified he would have the honour of 
taking a parting glass to the health and happiness of all those whom he was 
about to leave behind.
He did not in person dine at this public repast (it took place at two in 
the afternoon, and his dinners now came in from the hotel at six), but his 
son was so good as to take the head of the principal table, and to be very 
free and engaging. He himself went about among the company, and took notice 
of individuals, and saw that the viands were of the quality he had ordered, 
and that all were served. On the whole, he was like a baron of the olden 
time, in a rare good humour. At the conclusion of the repast, he pledged 
his guests in a bumper of old Madeira; and told them that he hoped they had 
enjoyed themselves, and what was more, that they would enjoy themselves for 
the rest of the evening, that he wished them well; and that he bade them 
welcome. His health being drunk with acclamations, he was not so baronial 
after all but that in trying to return thanks he broke down, in a manner of 
a mere serf with a heart in his breast, and wept before them all. After 
this great success, which he supposed to be a failure, he gave them "Mr 
Chivery and his brother officers;" whom he had beforehand presented with 
ten pounds each, and who were all in attendance. Mr Chivery spoke to the 
toast, saying, What you undertake to lock up, lock up; but remember that 
you are, in the words of the fettered African, a man and a brother ever. 
The list of toasts disposed of, Mr Dorrit urbanely went through the motions 
of playing a game at skittles with the Collegian who was the next oldest 
inhabitant to himself; and left the tenantry to their diversions.
But, all these occurrences preceded the final day. And now the day arrived 
when he and his family were to leave the prison for ever, and when the 
stones of its much trodden pavement were to know them no more.
Noon was the hour appointed for the departure. As it approached, there was 
not a Collegian within doors, nor a turnkey absent. The latter class of 
gentlemen appeared in their Sunday clothes, and the greater part of the 
Collegians were brightened up as much as circumstances allowed. Two or 
three flags were even displayed, and the children put on odds and ends of 
ribbon. Mr Dorrit himself, at this trying time, preserved a serious but 
graceful dignity. Much of his attention was given to his brother, as to 
whose bearing on the great occasion he felt anxious.
"My dear Frederick," said he, "if you will give me your arm, we will pass 
among our friends together. I think it is right that we should go out arm 
in arm, my dear Frederick."
"Hah!" said Frederick. "Yes, yes, yes, yes."
"And if, my dear Frederick, - if you could, without putting any great 
constraint upon yourself, throw a little (pray excuse me, Frederick), a 
little polish into your usual demeanour -"
"William, William," said the other, shaking his head, "it's for you to do 
all that. I don't know how. All forgotten, forgotten!"
"But, my dear fellow," returned William, "for that very reason, if for no 
other, you must positively try to rouse yourself. What you have forgotten 
you must now begin to recall, my dear Frederick. Your position -"
"Eh?" said Frederick.
"Your position, my dear Frederick."
"Mine?" He looked first at his own figure, and then at his brother's, and 
then, drawing a long breath, cried, "Hah, to be sure! Yes, yes, yes."
"Your position, my dear Frederick, is now a fine one. Your position as my 
brother is a very fine one. And I know that it belongs to your 
conscientious nature, to try to become worthy of it, my dear Frederick, and 
to try to adorn it. To be no discredit to it, but to adorn it."
"William," said the other weekly, and with a sigh, "I will do anything you 
wish, my brother, provided it lies in my power. Pray be so kind as to 
recollect what a limited power mine is. What would you wish me to do today, 
brother? Say what it is, only say what it is."
"My dearest Frederick, nothing. It is not worth troubling so good a heart 
as yours with."
"Pray trouble it," returned the other. "It finds it no trouble, William, to 
do anything it can for you."
William passed his hand across his eyes, and murmured with august 
satisfaction, "Blessings on your attachment, my poor dear fellow!" Then he 
said aloud, "Well, my dear Frederick, if you will only try, as we walk out, 
to show that you are alive to the occasion - that you think about it -"
"What would you advise me to think about it?" returned his submissive 
brother.
"Oh! my dear Frederick, how can I answer you? I can only say what, in 
leaving these good people, I think myself."
"That's it!" cried his brother. "That will help me."
"I find that I think, my dear Frederick, and with mixed emotions in which a 
softened compassion predominates, What will they do without me!"
"True," returned his brother. "Yes, yes, yes, yes. I'll think that as we 
go. What will they do without my brother! Poor things! What will they do 
without him!"
Twelve o'clock having just struck, and the carriage being reported ready in 
the outer courtyard, the brothers proceeded down stairs arm-in-arm. Edward 
Dorrit, Esquire (once Tip), and his sister Fanny followed, also arm in arm; 
Mr Plornish and Maggie, to whom had been entrusted the removal of such of 
the family effects as were considered worth removing, followed, bearing 
bundles and burdens to be packed in a cart.
In the yard, were the Collegians and turnkeys. In the yard, were Mr Pancks 
and Mr Rugg, come to see the last touch given to their work. In the yard, 
was Young John making a new epitaph for himself, on the occasion of his 
dying of a broken heart. In the yard, was the Patriarchal Casby, looking so 
tremendously benevolent that many enthusiastic Collegians grasped him 
fervently by the hand, and the wives and female relatives of many more 
Collegians kissed his hand, nothing doubting that he had done it all. In 
the yard, was the usual chorus of people proper to such a place. In the 
yard, was the man with the shadowy grievance respecting the Fund which the 
Marshal embezzled who had got up at five in the morning to complete the 
copying of a perfectly unintelligible history of that transaction, which he 
had committed to Mr Dorrit's care as a document of the last importance, 
calculated to stun the Government and effect the Marshal's downfall. In the 
yard, was the insolvent whose utmost energies were always set on getting 
into debt, who broke into prison with as much pains as other men have 
broken out of it, and who was always being cleared and complimented; while 
the insolvent at his elbow - a mere little, snivelling, striving tradesman, 
half dead of anxious efforts to keep out of debt - found it a hard matter, 
indeed, to get a Commissioner to release him with much reproof and 
reproach. In the yard, was the man of many children and many burdens, whose 
failure astonished everybody; in the yard, was the man of no children and 
large resources, whose failure astonished nobody. There, were the people 
who were always going out tomorrow, and always putting it off; there, were 
the people who had come in yesterday, and who were much more jealous and 
resentful of this freak of fortune than the seasoned birds. There, were 
some, who, in pure meanness of spirit, cringed and bowed before the 
enriched Collegian and his family; there, were others who did so really 
because their eyes, accustomed to the gloom of their imprisonment and 
poverty, could not support the light of such bright sunshine. There, were 
many whose shillings had gone into his pocket to buy him meat and drink; 
but none who were now obtrusively Hail fellow well met! with him, on the 
strength of that assistance. It was rather to be remarked of the caged 
birds, that they were a little shy of the bird about to be so grandly free, 
and that they had a tendency to withdraw themselves towards the bars, and 
seem a little fluttered as he passed.
Through these spectators, the little procession, headed by the two 
brothers, moved slowly to the gate. Mr Dorrit, yielding to the vast 
speculation how the poor creatures were to get on without him, was great, 
and sad, but not absorbed. He patted children on the head like Sir Roger de 
Coverley going to church, he spoke to people in the background by their 
Christian names, he condescended to all present, and seemed for their 
consolation to walk encircled by the legend in golden characters, "Be 
comforted, my people! Bear it!"
At last three honest cheers announced that he had passed the gate, and that 
the Marshalsea was an orphan. Before they had ceased to ring in the echoes 
of the prison walls, the family had got into their carriage, and the 
attendant had the steps in his hand.
Then, and not before, "Good Gracious!" cried Miss Fanny all at once, 
"Where's Amy!" Her father had thought she was with her sister. Her sister 
had thought she was "somewhere or other." They had all trusted to finding 
her, as they had always done, quietly in the right place at the right 
moment. This going away was perhaps the very first action of their joint 
lives that they had got through without her.
A minute might have been consumed in the ascertaining of these points, when 
Miss Fanny, who, from her seat in the carriage, commanded the long narrow 
passage leading to the Lodge, flushed indignantly.
"Now I do say, Pa," cried she, "that this is disgraceful!"
"What is disgraceful, Fanny?"
"I do say," she repeated, "this is perfectly infamous! Really almost 
enough, even at such a time as this, to make one wish one was dead! Here is 
that child Amy, in her ugly old shabby dress, which she was so obstinate 
about, Pa which I over and over again begged and prayed her to change, and 
which she over and over again objected to, and promised to change today, 
saying she wished to wear it as long as ever she remained in there with you 
- which was absolutely romantic nonsense of the lowest kind - here is that 
child Amy disgracing us, to the last moment and at the last moment, by 
being carried out in that dress after all. And by that Mr Clennam too!"
The offence was proved, as she delivered the indictment. Clennam appeared 
at the carriage-door, bearing the little insensible figure in his arms.
"She has been forgotten," he said, in a tone of pity not free from 
reproach. "I ran up to her room (which Mr Chivery showed me), and found the 
door open, and that she had fainted on the floor, dear child. She appeared 
to have gone to change her dress, and to have sunk down overpowered. It may 
have been the cheering, or it may have happened sooner. Take care of this 
poor cold hand, Miss Dorrit. Don't let it fall."
"Thank you sir," returned Miss Dorrit, bursting into tears. "I believe I 
know what to do, if you'll give me leave. Dear Amy, open your eyes, that's 
a love! Oh, Amy, Amy, I really am so vexed and ashamed! Do rouse yourself, 
darling! Oh; why are they not driving on! Pray, Pa, do drive on!"
The attendant getting between Clennam and the carriage door, with a sharp 
"By your leave, sir!" bundled up the steps and they drove away.

END OF BOOK 1






Book 2: Riches













Chapter 1

Fellow-Travellers

In the autumn of the year, Darkness and Night were creeping up to the 
highest ridges of the Alps.
It was vintage time in the valleys on the Swiss side of the Pass of the 
Great Saint Bernard, and along the banks of the Lake of Geneva. The air 
there was charged with the scent of gathered grapes. Baskets, troughs, and 
tubs of grapes, stood in the dim village door-ways, stopped the steep and 
narrow village streets, and had been carrying all day along the roads and 
lanes. Grapes, split and crushed under foot, lay about everywhere. The 
child carried in a sling by the laden peasant woman toiling home, was 
quieted with picked up grapes; the idiot sunning his big goÓtre under the 
eaves of the wooden chalet by the way to the waterfall, sat munching 
grapes; the breath of the cows and goats was redolent of leaves and stalks 
of grapes; the company in every little cabaret were eating, drinking, 
talking grapes. A pity that no ripe touch of this generous abundance could 
be given to the thin, hard, stony wine, which after all was made from the 
grapes! 
The air had been warm and transparent through the whole of the bright day. 
Shining metal spires and church-roofs, distant and rarely seen, had 
sparkled in the view; and the snowy mountain-tops had been so clear that 
unaccustomed eyes, cancelling the intervening country, and slighting their 
rugged height for something fabulous, would have measured them as within a 
few hours' easy reach. Mountain-peaks of great celebrity in the valleys, 
whence no trace of their existence was visible sometimes for months 
together, had been since morning plain and near, in the blue sky. And now, 
when it was dark below, though they seemed solemnly to recede, like 
spectres who were going to vanish, as the red dye of the sunset faded out 
of them and left them coldly white, they were yet distinctly defined in 
their loneliness, above the mists and shadows.
Seen from those solitudes, and from the Pass of the Great Saint Bernard, 
which was one of them, the ascending Night came up the mountain like a 
rising water. When it at last rose to the walls of the convent of the Great 
Saint Bernard, it was as if that weather-beaten structure were another Ark, 
and floated on the shadowy waves.
Darkness, outstripping some visitors on mules, had risen thus to the rough 
convent walls, when those travellers were yet climbing the mountain. As the 
heat of the glowing day, when they had stopped to drink at the streams of 
melted ice and snow, was changed to the searching cold of the frosty 
rarefied night air at a great height, so the fresh beauty of the lower 
journey had yielded to barrenness and desolation. A craggy track, up which 
the mules in single file scrambled and turned from block to block, as 
though they were ascending the broken staircase of a gigantic ruin, was 
their way now. No trees were to be seen, nor any vegetable growth, save a 
poor brown scrubby moss, freezing in the chinks of rock. Blackened skeleton 
arms of wood by the wayside pointed upward to the convent, as if the ghosts 
of former travellers overwhelmed by the snow haunted the scene of their 
distress. Icicle-hung caves and cellars built for refuges from sudden 
storms, were like so many whispers of the perils of the place; never-
resting wreaths and mazes of mist wandered about, hunted by a moaning wind; 
and snow, the besetting danger of the mountain, against which all its 
defences were taken, drifted sharply down.
The file of mules, jaded by their day's work, turned and wound slowly up 
the steep ascent; the foremost led by a guide on foot, in his broad-brimmed 
hat and round jacket, carrying a mountain staff or two upon his shoulder, 
with whom another guide conversed. There was no speaking among the string 
of riders. The sharp cold, the fatigue of the journey, and a new sensation 
of a catching in the breath, partly as if they had just emerged from very 
clear crisp water, and partly as if they had been sobbing, kept them 
silent.
At length, a light on the summit of the rocky staircase gleamed through the 
snow and mist. The guides called to the mules, the mules pricked up their 
drooping heads, the travellers' tongues were loosened, and in a sudden 
burst of slipping, climbing, jingling, clinking, and talking, they arrived 
at the convent door.
Other mules had arrived not long before, some with peasant-riders and some 
with goods, and had trodden the snow about the door into a pool of mud. 
Riding saddles and bridles, pack-saddles and strings of bells, mules and 
men, lanterns, torches, sacks, provender, barrels, cheeses, kegs of honey 
and butter, straw bundles and packages of many shapes, were crowded 
confusedly together in this thawed quagmire, and about the steps. Up here 
in the clouds, everything was seen through cloud, and seemed dissolving 
into cloud. The breath of the men was cloud, the breath of the mules was 
cloud, the lights were encircled by cloud, speakers close at hand were not 
seen for cloud, though their voices and all other sounds were surprisingly 
clear. Of the cloudy line of mules hastily tied to rings in the wall, one 
would bite another, or kick another, and then the whole mist would be 
disturbed: with men diving into it, and cries of men and beasts coming out 
of it, and no bystander discerning what was wrong. In the midst of this, 
the great stable of the convent, occupying the basement story, and entered 
by the basement door, outside which all the disorder was, poured forth its 
contribution of cloud, as if the whole rugged edifice were filled with 
nothing else, and would collapse as soon as it had emptied itself, leaving 
the snow to fall upon the bare mountain summit.
While all this noise and hurry were rife among the living travellers, 
there, too, silently assembled in a grated house, half a dozen paces 
removed, with the same cloud enfolding them, and the same snow flakes 
drifting in upon them, were the dead travellers found upon the mountain. 
The mother, storm-belated many winters ago, still standing in the corner 
with her baby at her breast; the man who had frozen with his arm raised to 
his mouth in fear or hunger, still pressing it with his dry lips after 
years and years. An awful company, mysteriously come together! A wild 
destiny for that mother to have foreseen, "Surrounded by so many and such 
companions upon whom I never looked, and never shall look, I and my child 
will dwell together inseparable, on the Great Saint Bernard, outlasting 
generations who will come to see us, and will never know our name, or one 
word of our story but the end."
The living travellers thought little or nothing of the dead just then. They 
thought much more of alighting at the convent door, and warming themselves 
at the convent fire. Disengaged from the turmoil, which was already calming 
down as the crowd of mules began to be bestowed in the stable, they hurried 
shivering up the steps and into the building. There was a smell within, 
coming up from the floor of tethered beasts, like the smell of a menagerie 
of wild animals. There were strong arched galleries within, huge stone 
piers, great staircases, and thick walls pierced with small sunken windows -
 fortifications against the mountain storms, as if they had been human 
enemies. There were gloomy vaulted sleeping rooms within, intensely cold, 
but clean and hospitably prepared for guests. Finally, there was a parlour 
for guests to sit in and to sup in, where a table was already laid, and 
where a blazing fire shone red and high.
In this room, after having had their quarters for the night allotted to 
them by two young Fathers, the travellers presently drew round the hearth. 
They were in three parties; of whom the first, as the most numerous and 
important, was the slowest, and had been overtaken by one of the others on 
the way up. It consisted of an elderly lady, two grey-haired gentlemen, two 
young ladies, and their brother. These were attended (not to mention four 
guides), by a courier, two footmen, and two waiting-maids: which strong 
body of inconvenience was accommodated elsewhere under the same roof. The 
party that had overtaken them, and followed in their train, consisted of 
only three members: one lady and two gentlemen. The third party, which had 
ascended from the valley on the Italian side of the Pass, and had arrived 
first, were four in number: a plethoric, hungry, and silent German tutor in 
spectacles, on a tour with three young men, his pupils, all plethoric, 
hungry, and silent, and all in spectacles.
These three groups sat round the fire eyeing each other dryly, and waiting 
for supper. Only one among them, one of the gentlemen belonging to the 
party of three, made advances towards conversation. Throwing out his lines 
for the Chief of the important tribe, while addressing himself to his own 
companions, he remarked, in a tone of voice which included all the company 
if they chose to be included, that it had been a long day, and that he felt 
for the ladies. That he feared one of the young ladies was not a strong or 
accustomed traveller, and had been over-fatigued two or three hours ago. 
That he had observed, from his station in the rear, that she sat her mule 
as if she were exhausted. That he had, twice or thrice afterwards, done 
himself the honour of inquiring of one of the guides, when he fell behind, 
how the young lady did. That he had been enchanted to learn that she had 
recovered her spirits, and that it had been but a passing discomfort. That 
he trusted (by this time he had secured the eyes of the Chief, and 
addressed him) he might be permitted to express his hope that she was now 
none the worse, and that she would not regret having made the journey.
"My daughter, I am obliged to you, sir," returned the Chief, "is quite 
restored, and has been greatly interested."
"New to mountains, perhaps?" said the insinuating traveller.
"New to - ha - to mountains," said the Chief.
"But you are familiar with them, sir?" the insinuating traveller assumed.
"I am - hum - tolerably familiar. Not of late years. Not of late years," 
replied the Chief, with a flourish of his hand.
The insinuating traveller, acknowledging the flourish with an inclination 
of his head, passed from the Chief to the second young lady, who had not 
yet been referred to, otherwise than as one of the ladies in whose behalf 
he felt so sensitive an interest.
He hoped she was not incommoded by the fatigues of the day.
"Incommoded, certainly," returned the young lady. "but not tired."
The insinuating traveller complimented her on the justice of the 
distinction. It was what he had meant to say. Every day must doubtless be 
incommoded, by having to do with that proverbially unaccommodating animal, 
the mule.
"We have had, of course," said the young lady, who was rather reserved and 
haughty, "to leave the carriages and fourgon at Martigny. And the 
impossibility of bringing anything that one wants to this inaccessible 
place, and the necessity of leaving every comfort behind, is not 
convenient."
"A savage place, indeed," said the insinuating traveller.
The elderly lady, who was a model of accurate dressing, and whose manner 
was perfect, considered as a piece of machinery, here interposed a remark 
in a low soft voice.
"But, like other inconvenient places," she observed, "it must be seen. As a 
place much spoken of, it is necessary to see it."
"Oh! I have not the least objection to seeing it, I assure you, Mrs 
General," returned the other, carelessly.
"You, madam," said the insinuating traveller, "have visited this spot 
before?"
"Yes," returned Mrs General. "I have been here before. Let me recommend 
you, my dear," to the former young lady, "to shade your face from the hot 
wood, after exposure to the mountain air and snow. You, too, my dear," to 
the other and younger lady, who immediately did so; while the former merely 
said, "Thank you, Mrs General, I am perfectly comfortable, and prefer 
remaining as I am."
The brother, who had left his chair to open a piano that stood in the room, 
and who had whistled into it and shut it up again, now came strolling back 
to the fire with his glass in his eye. He was dressed in the very fullest 
and completest travelling trim. The world seemed hardly large enough to 
yield him an amount of travel proportionate to his equipment.
"These fellows are an immense time with supper," he drawled. "I wonder what 
they'll give us! Has anybody any idea?"
"Not roast man, I believe," replied the voice of the second gentleman of 
the party of three.
"I suppose not. What d'ye mean?" he inquired. "That, as you are not to be 
served for the general supper, perhaps you will do us the favour of not 
cooking yourself at the general fire," returned the other.
The young gentleman, who was standing in an easy attitude on the hearth, 
cocking his glass at the company, with his back to the blaze and his coat 
tucked under his arms, something as if he were of the poultry species and 
were trussed for roasting, lost countenance at this reply; he seemed about 
to demand further explanation, when it was discovered - through all eyes 
turning on the speaker - that the lady with him, who was young and 
beautiful, had not heard what had passed, through having fainted with her 
head upon his shoulder.
"I think," said the gentleman in a subdued tone, "I had best carry her 
straight to her room. Will you call to some one to bring a light?" 
addressing his companion, "and to show the way? In this strange rambling 
place I don't know that I could find it."
"Pray let me call my maid," cried the taller of the young ladies.
"Pray let me put this water to her lips," said the shorter, who had not 
spoken yet.
Each doing what she suggested, there was no want of assistance. Indeed, 
when the two maids came in (escorted by the courier, lest any one should 
strike them dumb by addressing a foreign language to them on the road), 
there was a prospect of too much assistance. Seeing this, and saying as 
much in a few words to the slighter and younger of the two ladies, the 
gentleman put his wife's arm over his shoulder, lifted her up, and carried 
her away.
His friend, being left alone with the other visitors, walked slowly up and 
down the room, without coming to the fire again, pulling his black 
moustache in a contemplative manner, as if he felt himself committed to the 
late retort. While the subject of it was breathing injury in a corner, the 
Chief loftily addressed this gentleman.
"Your friend, sir," said he, "is - ha - is a little impatient; and, in his 
impatience, is not perhaps fully sensible of what he owes to - hum - to - 
but we will waive that, we will waive that. Your friend is a little 
impatient, sir."
"It may be so, sir," returned the other. "But having had the honor of 
making that gentleman's acquaintance at the hotel at Geneva, where we and 
much good company met some time ago, and having had the honour of 
exchanging company and conversation with that gentleman on several 
subsequent excursions, I can hear nothing - no, not even from one of your 
appearance and station, sir - detrimental to that gentleman."
"You are in no danger, sir, of hearing any such thing from me. In remarking 
that your friend has shown impatience, I say no such thing. I make that 
remark, because it is not to be doubted that my son, being by birth and by -
 ha - by education a - hum - a gentleman, would have readily adapted 
himself to any obligingly expressed wish on the subject of the fire being 
equally accessible to the whole of the present circle. Which, in principle, 
I - ha - for all are - hum - equal on these occasions - I consider right."
"Good!" was the reply. "And there it ends! I am your son's obedient 
servant. I beg your son to receive the assurance of my profound 
consideration. And now, sir, I may admit, freely admit, that my friend is 
sometimes of a sarcastic temper."
"The lady is your friend's wife, sir?"
"The lady is my friend's wife, sir."
"She is very handsome."
"Sir, she is peerless. They are still in the first year of their marriage. 
They are still partly on a marriage, and partly on an artistic tour."
"Your friend is an artist, sir?"
The gentleman replied by kissing the fingers of his right hand, and wafting 
the kiss the length of his arm towards Heaven. As who should say, I devote 
him to the celestial Powers as an immortal artist! 
"But he is a man of family," he added. "His connections are of the best. He 
is more than an artist: he is highly connected. He may, in effect, have 
repudiated his connections, proudly, impatiently, sarcastically (I make the 
concession of both words); but he has them. Sparks that have been struck 
out during our intercourse have shown me this."
"Well! I hope," said the lofty gentleman, with the air of finally disposing 
of the subject, "that the lady's indisposition may be only temporary."
"Sir, I hope so."
"Mere fatigue, I dare say."
"Not altogether mere fatigue, sir, for her mule stumbled today, and she 
fell from the saddle. She fell lightly, and was up again without 
assistance, and rode from us laughing; but she complained towards evening 
of a slight bruise in the side. She spoke of it more than once, as we 
followed your party up the mountain."
The head of the large retinue, who was gracious but not familiar, appeared 
by this time to think that he had condescended more than enough. He said no 
more, and there was silence for some quarter of an hour until supper 
appeared.
With the supper, came one of the young Fathers (there seemed to be no old 
Fathers) to take the head of the table. It was like the supper of an 
ordinary Swiss hotel, and good red wine grown by the convent in more genial 
air was not wanting. The artist traveller calmly came and took his place at 
table when the rest sat down, with no apparent sense upon him of his late 
skirmish with the completely dressed traveller.
"Pray," he inquired of the host, over his soup, "has your convent many of 
its famous dogs now?"
"Monsieur, it has three."
"I saw three in the gallery below. Doubtless the three in question."
The host, a slender, bright-eyed, dark young man of polite manners, whose 
garment was a black gown with strips of white crossed over it like braces, 
and who no more resembled the conventional breed of Saint Bernard monks 
than he resembled the conventional breed of Saint Bernard dogs, replied, 
doubtless those were the three in question.
"And I think," said the artist traveller, "I have seen one of them before."
It was possible. He was a dog sufficiently well known. Monsieur might have 
easily seen him in the valley or somewhere on the lake, when he (the dog) 
had gone down with one of the order to solicit aid for the convent.
"Which is done in its regular season of the year, I think?"
Monsieur was right.
"And never without the dog. The dog is very important."
Again Monsieur was right. The dog was very important. People were justly 
interested in the dog. As one of the dogs celebrated everywhere, Ma'amselle 
would observe.
Ma'amselle was a little slow to observe it, as though she were not yet well 
accustomed to the French tongue, Mrs General, however, observed it for her.
"Ask him if he has saved many lives?" said, in his native English, the 
young man who had been put out of countenance.
The host needed no translation of the question. He promptly replied in 
French, "No. Not this one."
"Why not?" the same gentleman asked.
"Pardon," returned the host, composedly, "give him the opportunity and he 
will do it without doubt. For example, I am well convinced," smiling 
sedately, as he cut up the dish of veal to be handed round, on the young 
man who had been put out of countenance, "that if you, Monsieur, would give 
him the opportunity, he would hasten with great ardour to fulfil his duty."
The artist traveller laughed. The insinuating traveller (who evinced a 
provident anxiety to get his full share of the supper), wiping some drops 
of wine from his moustache with a piece of bread, joined the conversation.
"It is becoming late in the year, my Father," said he, "for tourist-
travellers, is it not?"
"Yes, it is late. Yet two or three weeks, at most, and we shall be left to 
the winter snows."
"And then," said the insinuating traveller, "for the scratching dogs and 
the buried children, according to the pictures!"
"Pardon," said the host, not quite understanding the allusion. "How, then 
the scratching dogs and the buried children according to the pictures?"
The artist traveller struck in again, before an answer could be given.
"Don't you know," he coldly inquired across the table of his companion, 
"that none but smugglers come this way in the winter or can have any 
possible business this way?"
"Holy Blue! No; never heard of it."
"So it is, I believe. And as they know the signs of the weather tolerably 
well, they don't give much employment to the dogs - who have consequently 
died out rather - though this house of entertainment is conveniently 
situated for themselves. Their young families, I am told, they usually 
leave at home. But it's a grand idea!" cried the artist traveller, 
unexpectedly rising into a tone of enthusiasm. "It's a sublime idea. It's 
the finest idea in the world, and brings tears into a man's eyes, by 
Jupiter!" He then went on eating his veal with great composure.
There was enough of mocking inconsistency at the bottom of this speech to 
make it rather discordant, though the manner was refined and the person 
well-favoured, and though the depreciatory part of it was so skilfully 
thrown off, as to be very difficult for one not perfectly acquainted with 
the English language to understand, or, even understanding, to take offence 
at: so simple and dispassionate was its tone. After finishing his veal in 
the midst of silence, the speaker again addressed his friend.
"Look," said he, in his former tone, "at this gentleman our host, not yet 
in the prime of life, who in so graceful a way and with such courtly 
urbanity and modesty presides over us! Manners fit for a crown! Dine with 
the Lord Mayor of London (if you can get an invitation) and observe the 
contrast. This dear fellow, with the finest cut face I ever saw, a face in 
perfect drawing, leaves some laborious life and comes up here I don't know 
how many feet above the level of the sea, for no other purpose on earth 
(except enjoying himself, I hope, in a capital refectory) than to keep an 
hotel for idle poor devils like you and me, and leave the bill to our 
consciences! Why, isn't it a beautiful sacrifice? What do we want more to 
touch us? Because rescued people of interesting appearance are not, for 
eight or nine months out of every twelve, holding on here round the necks 
of the most sagacious of dogs carrying wooden bottles, shall we disparage 
the place? No! Bless the place. It's a great place, a glorious place!" The 
chest of the grey-haired gentleman who was the Chief of the important 
party, had swelled as if with a protest against his being numbered among 
poor devils. No sooner had the artist traveller ceased speaking than he 
himself spoke with great dignity, as having it incumbent on him to take the 
lead in most places, and having deserted that duty for a little while.
He weightily communicated his opinion to their host, that his life must be 
a very dreary life here in the winter.
The host allowed to Monsieur that it was a little monotonous. The air was 
difficult to breathe for a length of time consecutively. The cold was very 
severe. One needed youth and strength to bear it. However, having them and 
the blessing of Heaven -
Yes, that was very good. "But the confinement," said the grey-haired 
gentleman.
There were many days, even in bad weather, when it was possible to walk 
about outside. It was the custom to beat a little track, and take exercise 
there.
"But the space," urged the grey-haired gentleman. "So small. So - ha - very 
limited."
Monsieur would recall to himself that there were the refuges to visit, and 
that tracks had to be made to them also.
Monsieur still urged, on the other hand, that the space was so - ha - hum - 
so very contracted. More than that. It was always the same, always the 
same.
With a deprecating smile, the host gently raised and gently lowered his 
shoulders. That was true, he remarked, but permit him to say that almost 
all objects had their various points of view. Monsieur and he did not see 
this poor life of his from the same point of view. Monsieur was not used to 
confinement.
"I - ha - yes, very true," said the grey-haired gentleman. He seemed to 
receive quite a shock from the force of the argument.
Monsieur, as an English traveller surrounded by all means of travelling 
pleasantly; doubtless possessing fortune, carriages, servants
"Perfectly, perfectly. Without doubt," said the gentleman.
Monsieur could not easily place himself in the position of a person who had 
not the power to choose, I will go here tomorrow, or there next day; I will 
pass these barriers, I will enlarge those bounds. Monsieur could not 
realise, perhaps, how the mind accommodated itself in such things to the 
force of necessity.
"It is true," said Monsieur. "We will - ha - not pursue the subject. You 
are - hum - quite accurate, I have no doubt. We will say no more." The 
supper having come to a close, he drew his chair away as he spoke, and 
moved back to his former place by the fire. As it was very cold at the 
greater part of the table, the other guests also resumed their former seats 
by the fire, designing to toast themselves well before going to bed. The 
host, when they rose from the table, bowed to all present, wished them good 
night, and withdrew. But first the insinuating traveller had asked him if 
they could have some wine made hot; and as he had answered Yes, and had 
presently afterwards sent it in, that traveller, seated in the centre of 
the group, and in the full heat of the fire, was soon engaged in serving it 
out to the rest.
At this time, the younger of the two young ladies, who had been silently 
attentive in her dark corner (the firelight was the chief light in the 
sombre room, the lamp being smoky and dull) to what had been said of the 
absent lady, glided out. She was at a loss which way to turn, when she had 
softly closed the door; but, after a little hesitation among the sounding 
passages and the many ways, came to a room in a corner of the main gallery, 
where the servants were at their supper. From these she obtained a lamp, 
and a direction to the lady's room.
It was up the great staircase on the story above. Here and there, the bare 
white walls were broken by an iron grate, and she thought as she went along 
that the place was something like a prison. The arched door of the lady's 
room, or cell, was not quite shut. After knocking at it two or three times 
without receiving an answer, she pushed it gently open, and looked in.
The lady lay with closed eyes on the outside of the bed, protected from the 
cold by the blankets and wrappers with which she had been covered when she 
revived from her fainting fit. A dull light placed in the deep recess of 
the window, made little impression on the arched room. The visitor timidly 
stepped to the bed, and said, in a soft whisper, "Are you better?"
The lady had fallen into a slumber, and the whisper was too low to awake 
her. Her visitor, standing quite still, looked at her attentively.
"She is very pretty," she said to herself. "I never saw so beautiful a 
face. O how unlike me!"
It was a curious thing to say, but it had some hidden meaning, for it 
filled her eyes with tears.
"I know I must be right. I know he spoke of her that evening. I could very 
easily be wrong on any other subject, but not on this, not on this!"
With a quiet and tender hand she put aside a straying fold of the sleeper's 
hair, and then touched the hand that lay outside the covering.
"I like to look at her," she breathed to herself. "I like to see what has 
affected him so much."
She had not withdrawn her hand when the sleeper opened her eyes, and 
started.
"Pray don't be alarmed. I am only one of the travellers from downstairs. I 
came to ask if you were better, and if I could do anything for you."
"I think you have already been so kind as to send your servants to my 
assistance?"
"No, not I; that was my sister. Are you better?"
"Much better. It is only a slight bruise, and has been well looked to, and 
is almost easy now. It made me giddy and faint in a moment. It had hurt me 
before: but at last it overpowered me all at once."
"May I stay with you until some one comes? Would you like it?"
"I should like it, for it is lonely here; but I am afraid you will feel the 
cold too much."
"I don't mind cold. I am not delicate, if I look so." She quickly moved one 
of the two rough chairs to the bedside, and sat down. The other as quickly 
moved a part of some travelling wrapper from herself, and drew it over her, 
so that her arm, in keeping it about her, rested on her shoulder.
"You have so much the air of a kind nurse," said the lady, smiling on her, 
"that you seem as if you had come to me from home."
"I am very glad of it."
"I was dreaming of home when I woke just now. Of my old home, I mean, 
before I was married."
"And before you were so far away from it."
"I have been much farther away from it than this; but then I took the best 
part of it with me, and missed nothing. I felt solitary as I dropped asleep 
here, and, missing it a little, wandered back to it."
There was a sorrowfully affectionate and regretful sound in her voice, 
which made her visitor refrain from looking at her for the moment.
"It is a curious chance which at last brings us together, under this 
covering in which you have wrapped me," said the visitor, after a pause; 
"for do you know, I think I have been looking for you, some time."
"Looking for me?"
"I believe I have a little note here, which I was to give to you whenever I 
found you. This is it. Unless I greatly mistake, it is addressed to you. Is 
it not?"
The lady took it, and said yes, and read it. Her visitor watched her as she 
did so. It was very short. She flushed a little as she put her lips to her 
visitor's cheek, and pressed her hand.
"The dear young friend to whom he presents me, may be a comfort to me at 
some time, he says. She is truly a comfort to me, the first time I see 
her."
"Perhaps you don't," said the visitor, hesitating - "perhaps you don't know 
my story? Perhaps he never told you my story?"
"No."
"O, no, why should he! I have scarcely the right to tell it myself at 
present, because I have been entreated not to do so. There is not much in 
it, but it might account to you for my asking you not to say anything about 
the letter here. You saw my family with me, perhaps? Some of them - I only 
say this to you - are a little proud, a little prejudiced."
"You shall take it back again," said the other; "and then my husband is 
sure not to see it. He might see it and speak of it, otherwise, by some 
accident. Will you put it in your bosom again, to be certain?"
She did so with great care. Her small, slight hand was still upon the 
letter, when they heard some one in the gallery outside.
"I promised," said the visitor, rising, "that I would write to him after 
seeing you (I could hardly fail to see you, sooner or later), and tell him 
if you were well and happy. I had better say you were well and happy."
"Yes, yes, yes! Say I was very well and very happy. And that I thanked him 
affectionately, and would never forget him."
"I shall see you in the morning. After that we are sure to meet again 
before very long. Good night!"
"Good night. Thank you, thank you. Good night, my dear!"
Both of them were hurried and fluttered as they exchanged this parting, and 
as the visitor came out at the door. She had expected to meet the lady's 
husband approaching it; but the person in the gallery was not he: it was 
the traveller who had wiped the wine-drops from his moustache with the 
piece of bread. When he heard the step behind him, he turned round - for he 
was walking away in the dark.
His politeness, which was extreme, would not allow of the young lady's 
lighting herself downstairs, or going down alone. He took her lamp, held it 
so as to throw the best light on the stone steps, and followed her all the 
way to the supper-room. She went down, not easily hiding how much she was 
inclined to shrink and tremble; for the appearance of this traveller was 
particularly disagreeable to her. She had sat in her quite corner before 
supper, imagining what he would have been in the scenes and places within 
her experience, until he inspired her with an aversion, that made him 
little less than terrific. He followed her down with his smiling 
politeness, followed her in, and resumed his seat in the best place on the 
hearth. There, with the wood-fire, which was beginning to burn low, rising 
and falling upon him in the dark room, he sat with his legs thrust out to 
warm, drinking the hot wine down to the lees, with a monstrous shadow 
imitating him on the wall and ceiling.
The tired company had broken up, and all the rest were gone to bed except 
the young lady's father, who dozed in his chair by the fire. The traveller 
had been at the pains of going a long way upstairs to his sleeping room, to 
fetch his pocket-flask of brandy. He told them so, as he poured its 
contents into what was left of the wine, and drank with a new relish.
"May I ask, sir, if you are on your way to Italy?"
The grey-haired gentleman had roused himself, and was preparing to 
withdraw. He answered in the affirmative.
"I also!" said the traveller. "I shall hope to have the honour of offering 
my compliments in fairer scenes, and under softer circumstances, that on 
this dismal mountain."
The gentleman bowed, distantly enough, and said he was obliged to him."
"We poor gentlemen, sir," said the traveller, pulling his moustache dry 
with his hand, for he had dipped it in the wine and brandy; "we poor 
gentlemen do not travel like princes, but the courtesies and graces of life 
are precious to us. To your health, sir!"
"Sir, I thank you."
"To the health of your distinguished family - of the fair ladies, your 
daughters!"
"Sir, I thank you again. I wish you good night. My dear, are our - ha - our 
people in attendance?"
"They are close by, father."
"Permit me!" said the traveller, rising and holding the door open, as the 
gentleman crossed the room towards it with his arm drawn through his 
daughter's. "Good repose! To the pleasure of seeing you once more! To 
tomorrow!"
As he kissed his hand, with the best manner and his daintiest smile, the 
young lady drew a little nearer to her father, and passed him with a dread 
of touching him.
"Humph!" said the insinuating traveller, whose manner shrunk, and whose 
voice dropped when he was left alone. "If they all go to bed, why I must 
go. They are in a devil of a hurry. One would think the night would be long 
enough, in this freezing silence and solitude, if one went to bed two hours 
hence!"
Throwing back his head in emptying his glass, he cast his eyes upon the 
travellers' book, which lay on the piano, open, with pens and ink beside 
it, as if the night's names had been registered when he was absent. Taking 
it in his hand, he read these entries.

And suite. From France to Italy:

William Dorrit, Esquire
Frederick Dorrit, Esquire
Edward Dorrit, Esquire
Miss Dorrit
Miss Amy Dorrit
Mrs General

Mr and Mrs Henry Gowan.     From France to Italy. 

To which he added, in a small, complicated hand, ending with a long lean 
flourish, not unlike a lasso thrown at all the rest of the names:

Blandois. Paris. From France to Italy.

And then, with his nose coming down over his moustache, and his moustache 
going up under his nose, repaired to his allotted cell.


Chapter 2

Mrs General

It is indispensable to present the accomplished lady, who was of sufficient 
importance in the suite of the Dorrit Family to have a line to herself in 
the Travellers' Book.
Mrs General was the daughter of a clerical dignitary in a cathedral town, 
where she had led the fashion until she was as near forty-five as a single 
lady can be. A stiff commissariat officer of sixty, famous as a martinet, 
had then become enamoured of the gravity with which she drove the 
proprieties four-in-hand through the cathedral town society, and had 
solicited to be taken beside her on the box of the cool coach of ceremony 
to which that team was harnessed. His proposal of marriage being accepted 
by the lady, the commissary took his seat behind the proprieties with great 
decorum, and Mrs General drove until the commissary died. In the course of 
their united journey they ran over several people who came in the way of 
the proprieties; but always in a high style, and with composure.
The commissary having been buried with all the decorations suitable to the 
service (the whole team of proprieties were harnessed to his hearse, and 
they all had feathers and black velvet housings, with his coat of arms in 
the corner), Mrs General began to inquire what quantity of dust and ashes 
was deposited at the bankers'. It then transpired that the commissary had 
so far stolen a march on Mrs General as to have bought himself an annuity 
some years before his marriage, and to have reserved that circumstance, in 
mentioning, at the period of his proposal, that his income was derived from 
the interest of his money. Mrs General consequently found her means so much 
diminished that, but for the perfect regulation of her mind, she might have 
felt disposed to question the accuracy of that portion of the late service 
which had declared that the commissary could take nothing away with him.
In this state of affairs it occurred to Mrs General that she might "form 
the mind," and eke the manners of some young lady of distinction. Or that 
she might harness the proprieties to the carriage of some rich young 
heiress or widow, and become at once the driver and guard of such vehicle 
through the social mazes. Mrs General's communication of this idea to her 
clerical and commissariat connection was so warmly applauded that, but for 
the lady's undoubted merit, it might have appeared as though they wanted to 
get rid of her. Testimonials representing Mrs General as a prodigy of 
piety, learning, virtue, and gentility, were lavishly contributed from 
influential quarters; and one venerable archdeacon even shed tears in 
recording his testimony to her perfections (described to him by persons on 
whom he could rely), though he had never had the honour and moral 
gratification of setting eyes on Mrs General in all his life.
Thus delegated on her mission, as it were, by Church and State, Mrs 
General, who had always occupied high ground, felt in a condition to keep 
it, and began by putting herself up at a very high figure. An interval of 
some duration elapsed, in which there was no bid for Mrs General. At length 
a county-widower, with a daughter of fourteen, opened negotiations with the 
lady; and as it was a part either of the native dignity or of the 
artificial policy of Mrs General (but certainly one or the other) to 
comport herself as if she were much more sought than seeking, the widower 
pursued Mrs General until he prevailed upon her to form his daughter's mind 
and manners.
The execution of this trust occupied Mrs General about seven years, in the 
course of which time she made the tour of Europe, and saw most of that 
extensive miscellany of objects which it is essential that all persons of 
polite cultivation should see with other people's eyes, and never with 
their own. When her charge was at length formed, the marriage, not only of 
the young lady, but likewise of her father the widower, was resolved on. 
The widower then finding Mrs General both inconvenient and expensive, 
became of a sudden almost as much affected by her merits as the archdeacon 
had been, and circulated such praises of her surpassing worth, in all 
quarters where he thought an opportunity might arise of transferring the 
blessing to somebody else, that Mrs General
was a name more honourable than ever.
The phoenix was to let, on this elevated perch, when Mr Dorrit, who had 
lately succeeded to his property, mentioned to his bankers that he wished 
to discover a lady, well-bred, accomplished, well connected, well 
accustomed to good society, who was qualified at once to complete the 
education of his daughters, and to be their matron or chaperon. Mr Dorrit's 
bankers, as the bankers of the county-widower, instantly said, "Mrs 
General."
Pursuing the light so fortunately hit upon, and finding the concurrent 
testimony of the whole of Mrs General's acquaintance to be of the pathetic 
nature already recorded, Mr Dorrit took the trouble of going down to the 
county of the county-widower, to see Mrs General. In whom he found a lady 
of a quality superior to his highest expectations. "Might I be excused," 
said Mr Dorrit, "If I inquired - ha - what remune -"
"Why, indeed," returned Mrs General, stopping the word, "It is a subject on 
which I prefer to avoid entering. I have never entered on it with my 
friends here; and I cannot overcome the delicacy, Mr Dorrit, with which I 
have always regarded it. I am not, as I hope you are aware, a governess -"
"O dear no!" said Mr Dorrit. "Pray, madam, do not imagine for a moment that 
I think so." He really blushed to be suspected of it.
Mrs General gravely inclined her head. "I cannot, therefore, put a price 
upon services which it is a pleasure to me to render if I can render them 
spontaneously, but which I could not render in mere return for any 
consideration. Neither do I know how, or where, to find a case parallel to 
my own. It is peculiar."
No doubt. But how then (Mr Dorrit not unnaturally hinted) could the subject 
be approached?
"I cannot object," said Mrs General - "though even that is disagreeable to 
me - to Mr Dorrit's inquiring, in confidence, of my friends here, what 
amount they may have been accustomed, at quarterly intervals, to pay to my 
credit at my bankers'."
Mr Dorrit bowed his acknowledgments.
"Permit me to add," said Mrs General, "that never resume the topic. Also 
that I can accept no second or inferior position. If the honour were 
proposed to me of becoming known to Mr Dorrit's family - I think two 
daughters were mentioned? -"
"Two daughters."
"I could only accept it on terms of perfect equality, as a companion, 
protector, Mentor, and friend."
Mr Dorrit, in spite of his sense of his importance, felt as if it would be 
quite a kindness in her to accept it on any conditions. He almost said as 
much.
"I think," repeated Mrs General, "two daughters were mentioned?"
"Two daughters," said Mr Dorrit again.
"It would therefore," said Mrs General, "be necessary to add a third more 
to the payment (whatever its amount may prove to be), which my friends here 
have been accustomed to make to my bankers."
Mr Dorrit lost no time in referring the delicate question to the county-
widower, and, finding that he had been accustomed to pay three hundred 
pounds a-year to the credit of Mrs General, arrived, without any severe 
strain on his arithmetic, at the conclusion that he himself must pay four. 
Mrs General being an article of that lustrous surface which suggests that 
it is worth any money, he made a formal proposal to be allowed to have the 
honour and pleasure of regarding her as a member of his family. Mrs General 
conceded that high privilege, and here she was.
In person, Mrs General, including her skirts which had much to do with it, 
was of a dignified and imposing appearance; ample, rustling, gravely 
voluminous; always upright behind the proprieties. She might have been 
taken - had been taken - to the top of the Alps and the bottom of 
Herculaneum, without disarranging a fold in her dress, or displacing a pin. 
If her countenance and hair had rather a floury appearance, as though from 
living in some transcendently genteel Mill, it was rather because she was a 
chalky creation altogether, than because she mended her complexion with 
violet powder, or had turned grey. If her eyes had no expression, it was 
probably because they had nothing to express. If she had few wrinkles, it 
was because her mind had never traced its name or any other inscription on 
her face. A cool, waxy, blown-out woman, who had never lighted well.
Mrs General had no opinions. Her way of forming a mind was to prevent it 
from forming opinions. She had a little circular set of mental grooves or 
rails, on which she started little trains of other people's opinions, which 
never overtook one another, and never got anywhere. Even her propriety 
could not dispute that there was impropriety in the world; but Mrs 
General's way of getting rid of it was to put it out of sight, and make 
believe that there was no such thing. This was another of her ways of 
forming a mind - to cram all articles of difficulty into cupboards, lock 
them up, and say they had no existence. It was the easiest way, and, beyond 
all comparison, the properest.
Mrs General was not to be told of anything shocking. Accidents, miseries, 
and offenses, were never to be mentioned before her. Passion was to go to 
sleep in the presence of Mrs General, and blood was to change to milk and 
water. The little that was left in the world, when all these deductions 
were made, it was Mrs General's province to varnish. In that formation 
process of hers, she dipped the smallest of brushes into the largest of 
pots, and varnished the surface of every object that came under 
consideration. The more cracked it was, the more Mrs General varnished it.
There was varnish in Mrs General's voice, varnish in Mrs General's touch, 
an atmosphere of varnish round Mrs General's figure. Mrs General's dreams 
ought to have been varnished - if she had any - lying asleep in the arms of 
the good Saint Bernard, with the feathery snow falling on his house-top.


Chapter 3

On The Road

The bright morning sun dazzled the eyes, the snow had ceased, the mists had 
vanished, the mountain air was so clear and light that the new sensation of 
breathing it was like the having entered on a new existence. To help the 
delusion, the solid ground itself seemed gone, and the mountain, a shining 
waste of immense white heaps and masses, to be a region of cloud floating 
between the blue sky above and the earth far below.
Some dark specks in the snow, like knots upon a little thread, beginning at 
the convent door and winding away down the descent in broken lengths which 
were not yet pieced together, showed where the Brethren were at work in 
several places clearing the track. Already the snow had begun to be foot-
thawed again about the door. Mules were busily brought out, tied to the 
rings in the wall, and laden strings of bells were buckled on, burdens were 
adjusted, the voices of drivers and riders sounded musically. Some of the 
earliest had even already resumed their journey; and, both on the level 
summit by the dark water near the convent, and on the downward way of 
yesterday's ascent, little moving figures of men and mules, reduced to 
miniatures by the immensity around, went with a clear tinkling of hells and 
a pleasant harmony of tongues.
In the supper-room of last night a new fire, piled upon the feathery ashes 
of the old one, shone upon a homely breakfast of loaves, butter, and milk. 
It also shone on the courier of the Dorrit family making tea for his party 
from a supply he had brought up with him, together with several other small 
stores which were chiefly laid in for the use of the strong body of 
inconvenience. Mr Gowan and Blandois of Paris had already breakfasted, and 
were walking Up and down by the lake smoking their cigars.
"Gowan, eh?" muttered Tip, otherwise Edward Dorrit, Esquire, turning over 
the leaves of the book, when the courier had left them to breakfast. "Then 
Gowan is the name of a puppy, that's all I have got to say! If it was worth 
my while, I'd pull his nose. But it isn't worth my while - fortunately for 
him. How's his wife, Amy? I suppose you know. You generally know things of 
that sort."
"She is better, Edward. But they are not going today."
"Oh! They are not going today! Fortunately for that fellow too," said Tip, 
"or he and I might have come into collision."
"It is thought better here that she should lie quiet today, and not be 
fatigued and shaken by the ride down until tomorrow."
"With all my heart. But you talk as if you had been nursing her. You 
haven't been relapsing into (Mrs General is not here) into old habits, have 
you, Amy?"
He asked her the question with a sly glance of observation at Miss Fanny, 
and at his father too.
"I have only been in to ask her if I could do anything for her, Tip," said 
Little Dorrit.
"You needn't call me Tip, Amy child," returned that young gentleman with a 
frown; "because that's an old habit, and one you may as well lay aside."
"I didn't mean to say so, Edward dear. I forgot. It was so natural once, 
that it seemed at the moment the right word."
"Oh yes!" Miss Fanny struck in. "Natural, and right word, and once, and all 
the rest of it! Nonsense, you little thing! I know perfectly well why you 
have been taking such an interest in this Mrs Gowan. You can't blind me."
"I will not try to, Fanny. Don't be angry."
"Oh! angry!" returned that young lady with a flounce. "I have no patience" 
(which indeed was the truth).
"Pray, Fanny," said Mr Dorrit, raising his eyebrows, "what do you mean? 
Explain yourself."
"Oh! Never mind Pa," replied Miss Fanny, "it's no great matter. Amy will 
understand me. She knew, or knew of, this Mrs Gowan before yesterday, and 
she may as well admit that she did."
"My child," said Mr Dorrit, turning to his younger daughter, "has your 
sister - any - ha - authority for this curious statement?"
"However meek we are, Miss Fanny struck in before she could answer, "we 
don't go creeping into people's rooms on the tops of cold mountains, and 
sitting perishing in the frost with people, unless we know something about 
them beforehand. It's not very hard to divine whose friend Mrs Gowan is."
"Whose friend?" inquired her father.
"Pa, I am sorry to say," returned Miss Fanny, who had by this time 
succeeded in goading herself into a state of much ill-usage and grievance, 
which she was often at great pains to do: "that I believe her to be a 
friend of that very objectionable and unpleasant person, who, with a total 
absence of all delicacy, which our experience might have led us to expect 
from him, insulted us and outraged our feelings in so public and wilful a 
manner, on an occasion to which it is understood among us, that we will not 
more pointedly allude."
"Amy, my child," said Mr Dorrit, tempering a bland severity with a 
dignified affection, "is this the case?"
Little Dorrit mildly answered, yes it was.
"Yes it is!" cried Miss Fanny. "Of course! I said so! And now, Pa, I do 
declare once for all," this young lady was in the habit of declaring the 
same thing once for all every day of her life, and even several times in a 
day, "that this is shameful! I do declare once for all, that it ought to be 
put a stop to. Is it not enough that we have gone through what is only 
known to ourselves, but are we to have it thrown in our faces, 
perseveringly and systematically, by the very person who should spare our 
feelings most? Are we to be exposed to this unnatural conduct every moment 
of our lives? Are we never to be permitted to forget? I say again, it is 
absolutely infamous!"
"Well, Amy," observed her brother, shaking his head, "you know I stand by 
you whenever I can, and on most occasions. But I must say, that upon my 
soul I do consider it rather an unaccountable mode of showing your sisterly 
affection, that you should back up a man who treated me in the most 
ungentlemanly way in which one man can treat another. And who," he added 
convincingly, "must be a low-minded thief, you know, or he never could have 
conducted himself as he did."
"And see," said Miss Fanny, "see what is involved in this! Can we ever hope 
to be respected by our servants? Never. Here are our two women, and Pa's 
valet, and a footman, and a courier, and all sorts of dependants, and yet 
in the midst of these, we are to have one of ourselves rushing about with 
tumblers of cold water, like a menial! Why, a policeman," said Miss Fanny, 
"if a beggar had a fit in the street, could but go plunging about with 
tumblers, as this very Amy did in this very room before our very eyes last 
night!"
"I don't so much mind that, once in a way," remarked Mr Edward; "but your 
Clennam, as he thinks proper to call himself, is another thing."
"He is a part of the same thing," returned Miss Fanny, "and of a piece with 
all the rest. He obtruded himself upon us in the first instance. We never 
wanted him. I always showed him, for one, that I could have dispensed with 
his company with the greatest pleasure. He then commits that gross outrage 
upon our feelings, which he never could or would have committed but for the 
delight he took in exposing us; and then we are to be demeaned for the 
service of his friends! Why, I don't wonder at this Mr Gowan's conduct 
towards you. What else was to be expected when he was enjoying our past 
misfortunes - gloating over them at the moment!"
"Father - Edward - no indeed!" pleaded Little Dorrit. "Neither Mr nor Mrs 
Gowan had ever heard our name. They were, and they are, quite ignorant of 
our history."
"So much the worse," retorted Fanny, determined not to admit anything in 
extenuation, "for then you have no excuse. If they had known about us, you 
might have felt yourself called upon to conciliate them. That would have 
been a weak and ridiculous mistake, but I can respect a mistake, whereas I 
can't respect a wilful and deliberate abasing of those who should be 
nearest and dearest to us. No. I can't respect that. I can do nothing but 
denounce that."
"I never offend you wilfully, Fanny," said Little Dorrit, "though you are 
so hard with me."
"Then you should be more careful, Amy," returned her sister. "If you do 
such things by accident, you should be more careful. If I happened to have 
been born in a peculiar place, and under peculiar circumstances that 
blunted my knowledge of propriety, I fancy I should think myself bound to 
consider at every step, 'Am I going, ignorantly, to compromise any near and 
dear relations?' That is what I fancy I should do, if it was my case."
Mr Dorrit now interposed, at once to stop these painful subjects by his 
authority, and to point their moral by his wisdom.
"My dear," said he to his younger daughter, "I beg you to - ha - to say no 
more. Your sister Fanny expresses herself strongly, but not without 
considerable reason. You have now a - hum - a great position to support. 
That great position is not occupied by yourself alone, but by - ha - by me, 
and - ha hum - by us. Us. Now, it is incumbent upon all people, in an 
exalted position, but it is particularly so on this family, for reasons 
which I - ha - will not dwell upon, to make themselves respected. To be 
vigilant in making themselves respected. Dependants, to respect us, must be 
- ha - kept at a distance and - hum - kept down. Down. Therefore, your not 
exposing yourself to the remarks of our attendants, by appearing to have at 
any time dispensed with their services and performed them for yourself, is -
 ha - highly important."
"Why, who can doubt it?" cried Miss Fanny. "It's the essence of 
everything!"
"Fanny," returned her father, grandiloquently, "give me leave, my dear. We 
then come to - ha - to Mr Clennam. I am free to say that I do not, Amy, 
share your sister's sentiments - that is to say altogether - hum - 
altogether - in reference to Mr Clennam. I am content to regard that 
individual in the light of - ha - generally - a well-behaved person. Hum. A 
well-behaved person. Nor will I inquire whether Mr Clennam did, at any 
time, obtrude himself on - ha - my society. He knew my society to be - hum -
 sought, and his plea might be that he regarded me in the light of a public 
character. But there were circumstances attending my - ha - slight 
knowledge of Mr Clennam (it was very slight), which," here Mr Dorrit became 
extremely grave and impressive, "would render it highly indelicate in Mr 
Clennam to - ha - to seek to renew communication with me or with any member 
of my family under existing circumstances. If Mr Clennam has sufficient 
delicacy to perceive the impropriety of any such attempt, I am bound as a 
responsible gentleman to - ha - defer to that delicacy on his part. If, on 
the other hand, Mr Clennam has not that delicacy, I cannot for a moment - 
ha - hold any correspondence with so - hum - coarse a mind. In either case, 
it would appear that Mr Clennam is put altogether out of the question, and 
that we have nothing to do with him or he with us. Ha - Mrs General!"
The entrance of the lady whom he announced, to take her place at the 
breakfast-table, terminated the discussion. Shortly afterwards, the courier 
announced that the valet, and the footman, and the two maids, and the four 
guides, and the fourteen mules, were in readiness; so the breakfast party 
went out to the convent door to join the cavalcade.
Mr Gowan stood aloof with his cigar and pencil, but Mr Blandois was on the 
spot to pay his respects to the ladies. When he gallantly pulled off his 
slouched hat to Little Dorrit, she thought he had even a more sinister 
look, standing swart and cloaked in the snow, than he had in the firelight 
over night. But, as both her father and her sister received his homage with 
some favour, she refrained from expressing any distrust of him, lest it 
should prove to be a new blemish derived from her prison birth.
Nevertheless, as they wound down the rugged way while the convent was yet 
in sight, she more than once looked round, and descried Mr Blandois, backed 
by the convent smoke which rose straight and high from the chimneys in a 
golden film, always standing on one jutting point looking down after them. 
Long after he was a mere black stick in the snow, she felt as though she 
could yet see that smile of his, that high nose, and those eyes that were 
too near it. And even after that, when the convent was gone and some light 
morning clouds veiled the pass below it, the ghastly skeleton arms by the 
wayside seemed to be all pointing up at him.
More treacherous than snow, perhaps, colder at heart, and harder to melt, 
Blandois of Paris by degrees passed out of her mind, as they came down into 
the softer regions. Again the sun was warm, again the streams descending 
from glaciers and snowy caverns were refreshing to drink at, again they 
came among the pine-trees, the rocky rivulets, the verdant heights and 
dales, the wooden chalets and rough zigzag fences, of Swiss country. 
Sometimes, the way so widened that she and her father could ride abreast. 
And then to look at him, handsomely clothed in his furs and broadcloths, 
rich, free, numerously served and attended, his eyes roving far away among 
the glories of the landscape, no miserable screen before them to darken his 
sight and cast its shadow on him, was enough.
Her uncle was so far rescued from that shadow of old, that he wore the 
clothes they gave him, and performed some ablutions as a sacrifice to the 
family credit, and went where he was taken, with a certain patient animal 
enjoyment, which seemed to express that the air and change did him good. In 
all other respects, save one, he shone with no light but such as was 
reflected from his brother. His brother's greatness, wealth, freedom, and 
grandeur, pleased him without any reference to himself. Silent and 
retiring, he had no use for speech when he could hear his brother speak; no 
desire to be waited on, so that the servants devoted themselves to his 
brother. The only noticeable change he originated in himself, was an 
alteration in his manner to his younger niece. Every day it refined more 
and more into a marked respect, very rarely shown by age to youth, and 
still more rarely susceptible, one would have said, of the fitness with 
which he invested it. On those occasions when Miss Fanny did declare once 
for all, he would take the next opportunity of baring his grey head before 
his younger niece, and of helping her to alight, or handling her to the 
carriage, or showing her any other attention, with the profoundest 
deference. Yet it never appeared misplaced or forced, being always heartily 
simple, spontaneous, and genuine. Neither would he ever consent, even at 
his brother's request, to be helped to any place before her, or to take 
precedence of her in anything. So jealous was he of her being respected, 
that on this very journey down from the Great Saint Bernard, he took sudden 
and violent umbrage at the footman's being remiss to hold her stirrup, 
though standing near when she dismounted; and unspeakably astonished the 
whole retinue by charging at him on a hard-headed mule, riding him into a 
corner, and threatening to trample him to death.
They were a goodly company, and the Innkeepers all but worshipped them. 
Wherever they went, their importance preceded them in the person of the 
courier riding before, to see that the rooms of state were ready. He was 
the herald of the family procession. The great travelling-carriage came 
next: containing, inside, Mr Dorrit, Miss Dorrit, Miss Amy Dorrit, and Mrs 
General; outside, some of the retainers, and (in fine weather) Edward 
Dorrit, Esquire, for whom the box was reserved. When came the chariot 
containing Frederick Dorrit, Esquire, and an empty place occupied by Edward 
Dorrit, Esquire, in wet weather. Then came the fourgon with the rest of the 
retainers, the heavy baggage, and as much as it could carry of the mud and 
dust which the other vehicles left behind.
These equipages adorned the yard of the hotel, at Martigny, on the return 
of the family from their mountain excursion. Other vehicles were there, 
much company being on the road, from the patched Italian Vettura - like the 
body of a swing from an English fair put upon a wooden tray on wheels, and 
having another wooden tray without wheels put atop of it - to the trim 
English carriage. But there was another adornment of the hotel which Mr 
Dorrit had not bargained for. Two strange travellers embellished one of his 
rooms.
The Innkeeper, hat in hand in the yard, swore to the courier that he was 
blighted, that he was desolated, that he was profoundly afflicted, that he 
was the most miserable and unfortunate of beasts, that he had the head of a 
wooden pig. He ought never to have made the concession, he said, but the 
very genteel lady had so passionately prayed him for the accommodation of 
that room to dine in, only for a little half-hour, that he had been 
vanquished. The little half-hour was expired, the lady and gentleman were 
taking their little dessert and half-cup of coffee, the note was paid, the 
horses were ordered, they would depart immediately; but, owing to an 
unhappy destiny and the curse of Heaven, they were not yet gone.
Nothing could exceed Mr Dorrit's indignation, as he turned at the foot of 
the staircase on hearing these apologies. He felt that the family dignity 
was struck at, by an assassin's hand. He had a sense of his dignity, which 
was of the most exquisite nature. He could detect a design upon it when 
nobody else had any perception of the fact. His life was made an agony by 
the number of fine scalpels that he felt to be incessantly engaged in 
dissecting his dignity.
"Is it possible, sir," said Mr Dorrit, reddening excessively, "that you 
have - ha - had the audacity to place one of my rooms at the disposition of 
any other person?"
Thousands of pardons! It was the host's profound misfortune to have been 
overcome by that too genteel lady. He besought Monseigneur not to enrage 
himself. He threw himself on Monseigneur for clemency. If Monseigneur would 
have the distinguished goodness to occupy the other salon especially 
reserved for him, for five minutes, all would go well.
"No, sir," said Mr Dorrit. "I will not occupy any salon. I will leave your 
house without eating or drinking, or setting foot in it. How do you dare to 
act like this? Who am I that you - ha - separate me from other gentlemen?"
Alas! The host called all the universe to witness that Monseigneur was the 
most amiable of the whole body of nobility, the most important, the most 
estimable, the most honoured. If he separated Monseigneur from others, it 
was only because he was more distinguished, more cherished, more generous, 
more renowned.
"Don't tell me so, sir," returned Mr Dorrit, in a mighty heat. "You have 
affronted me. You have heaped insults upon me. How dare you? Explain 
yourself."
Ah, just Heaven, then, how could the host explain himself when he had 
nothing more to explain; when he had only to apologise, and confide himself 
to the so well known magnanimity of Monseigneur! 
"I tell you, sir," said Mr Dorrit, panting with anger, "that you separate 
me - ha - from other gentlemen; that you make distinctions between me, and 
other gentlemen of fortune and station. I demand of you, why? I wish to 
know on - ha - what authority, on whose authority. Reply, sir. Explain. 
Answer why."
Permit the landlord humbly to submit to Monsieur the Courier then, that 
Monseigneur ordinarily so gracious, enraged himself without cause. There 
was no why, Monsieur the Courier would represent to Monseigneur, that he 
deceived himself in suspecting that there was any why, but the why his 
devoted servant had already had the honour to present to him. The very 
genteel lady -
"Silence!" cried Mr Dorrit. "Hold your tongue! I will hear no more of the 
very genteel lady; I will hear no more of you. Look at this family - my 
family - a family more genteel than any lady. You have treated this family 
with disrespect; you have been insolent to this family. I'll ruin you. Ha - 
send for the horses, pack the carriages, I'll not set foot in this man's 
house again!"
No one had interfered in the dispute, which was beyond the French 
colloquial powers of Edward Dorrit, Esquire, and scarcely within the 
province of the ladies. Miss Fanny, however, now supported her father with 
great bitterness; declaring, in her native tongue, that it was quite clear 
there was something special in this man's impertinence; and that she 
considered it important that he should be, by some means, forced to give up 
his authority for making distinctions between that family and other wealthy 
families. What the reasons of his presumption could be, she was at a loss 
to imagine; but reasons he must have, and they ought to be torn from him.
All the guides, mule-drivers, and idlers in the yard, had made themselves 
parties to the angry conference, and were much impressed by the courier's 
now bestirring himself to get the carriages out. With the aid of some dozen 
people to each wheel, this was done at a great cost of noise; and then the 
loading was proceeded with, pending the arrival of the horses from the post-
house.
But, the very genteel lady's English chariot being already horsed and at 
the inn-door, the landlord had slipped upstairs to represent his hard case. 
This was notified to the yard by his coming down the staircase in 
attendance on the gentleman and the lady, and by his pointing out the 
offended majesty of Mr Dorrit to them with a significant motion of his 
hand.
"Beg your pardon," said the gentleman, detaching himself from the lady, and 
coming forward. "I am a man of few words and a bad hand at an explanation - 
but lady here is extremely anxious that there should be no Row. Lady - a 
mother of mine, in point of fact - wishes me to say that she hopes no Row."
Mr Dorrit, still panting under his injury, saluted the gentleman, and 
saluted the lady, in a distant, final, and invincible manner.
"No, but really - here, old feller; you!" This was the gentleman's way of 
appealing to Edward Dorrit, Esquire, on whom he pounced as a great and 
providential relief. "Let you and I try to make this all right. Lady so 
very much wishes no Row."
Edward Dorrit, Esquire, led a little apart by the button, assumed a 
diplomatic expression of countenance in replying, "Why you must confess, 
that when you bespeak a lot of rooms beforehand and they belong to you, 
it's not pleasant to find other people in 'em."
"No," said the other, "I know it isn't. I admit it. Still, let you and I 
try to make it all right, and avoid Row. The fault is not this chap's at 
all, but my mother's. Being a remarkably fine woman with no bigodd nonsense 
about her - well educated, too - she was too many for this chap. Regularly 
pocketed him."
"If that's the case - " Edward Dorrit, Esquire, began.
"Assure you 'pon my soul 'tis the case. Consequently," said the other 
gentleman, retiring on his main position, "why Row."
"Edmund," said the lady from the doorway, "I hope you have explained, or 
are explaining, to the satisfaction of this gentleman and his family, that 
the civil landlord is not to blame?"
"Assure you, ma'am," returned Edmund, "perfectly paralysing myself with 
trying it on." He then looked steadfastly at Edward Dorrit, Esquire, for 
some seconds, and suddenly added, in a burst of confidence, "Old feller! Is 
it all right?"
"I don't know, after all," said the lady, gracefully advancing a step or 
two towards Mr Dorrit, "but that I had better say myself, at once, that I 
assured this good man I took all the consequences on myself of occupying 
one of a stranger's suite of rooms during his absence, for just as much (or 
as little) time as I could dine in. I had no idea the rightful owner would 
come back so soon, nor had I any idea that he had come back, or I should 
have hastened to make restoration of my ill-gotten chamber, and to have 
offered my explanation and apology. I trust, in saying this -"
For a moment the lady, with a glass at her eye, stood transfixed and 
speechless before the two Miss Dorrits. At the same moment, Miss Fanny, in 
the foreground of a grand pictorial composition, formed by the family, the 
family equipages, and the family servants, held her sister tight under one 
arm to detain her on the spot, and with the other arm fanned herself with a 
distinguished air, and negligently surveyed the lady from head to foot.
The lady, recovering herself quickly - for it was Mrs Merdle and she was 
not easily dashed - went on to add that she trusted, in saying this, she 
apologised for her boldness, and restored this well-behaved landlord to the 
favour that was so very valuable to him. Mr Dorrit, on the altar of whose 
dignity all this was incense, made a gracious reply; and said that his 
people should - ha - countermand his horses, and he would - hum - overlook 
what he had at first supposed to be an affront, but now regarded as an 
honour. Upon this, the bosom bent to him; and its owner, with a wonderful 
command of feature, addressed a winning smile of adieu to the two sisters, 
as young ladies of fortune in whose favour she was much prepossessed, and 
whom she had never had the gratification of seeing before.
Not so, however, Mr Sparkler. This gentleman, becoming transfixed at the 
same moment as his lady-mother, could not by any means unfix himself again, 
but stood stiffly staring at the whole composition with Miss Fanny in the 
foreground. On his mother's saying, "Edmund, we are quite ready; will you 
give me your arm?" he seemed, by the motion of his lips, to reply with some 
remark comprehending the form of words in which his shining talents found 
the most frequent utterance, but he relaxed no muscle. So fixed was his 
figure, that it would have been matter of some difficulty to bend him 
sufficiently to get him in the carriage door, if he had not received the 
timely assistance of a maternal pull from within. He was no sooner within, 
than the pad of the little window in the back of the chariot disappeared, 
and his eye usurped its place. There it remained as long as so small an 
object was discernible, and probably much longer, staring (as though 
something inexpressibly surprising should happen to a cod-fish) like an ill-
executed eye in a large locket.
This encounter was so highly agreeable to Miss Fanny, and gave her so much 
to think of with triumph afterwards, that it softened her asperities 
exceedingly. When the procession was again in motion next day, she occupied 
her place in it with a new gaiety; and showed such a flow of spirits 
indeed, that Mrs General looked rather surprised.
Little Dorrit was glad to be found no fault with, and to see that Fanny was 
pleased; but her part in the procession was a musing part, and a quiet one. 
Sitting opposite her father in the travelling-carriage, and recalling the 
old Marshalsea room, her present existence was a dream. All that she saw 
was new and wonderful, but it was not real; it seemed to her as if those 
visions of mountains and picturesque countries might melt away at any 
moment, and the carriage, turning some abrupt corner, bring up with a jolt 
at the old Marshalsea gate.
To have no work to do was strange, but not half so strange as having glided 
into a corner where she had no one to think for, nothing to plan and 
contrive, no cares of others to load herself with. Stranger as that was, it 
was far stranger yet to find a space between herself and her father, where 
others occupied themselves in taking care of him, and where she was never 
expected to be. At first, this was so much more unlike her old experience 
than even the mountains themselves, that she had been unable to resign 
herself to it, and had tried to retain her old place about him. But he had 
spoken to her alone, and had said that people - ha - people in an exalted 
position, my dear, must scrupulously exact respect from their dependents; 
and that for her, his daughter, Miss Amy Dorrit, of the sole remaining 
branch of the Dorrits of Dorsetshire, to be known to - hum - to occupy 
herself in fulfilling the functions of - ha hum - a valet, would be 
incompatible with that respect. Therefore, my dear, he - ha - he laid his 
parental injunctions upon her, to remember that she was a lady, who had now 
to conduct herself with - hum - a proper pride, and to preserve the rank of 
a lady; and consequently he requested her to abstain from doing what would 
occasion - ha - unpleasant and derogatory remarks. She had obeyed without a 
murmur. Thus it had been brought about that she now sat in her corner of 
the luxurious carriage with her little patient hands folded before her, 
quite displaced even from the last point of the old standing ground in life 
on which her feet had lingered.
It was from this position that all she saw appeared unreal; the more 
surprising the scenes, the more they resembled the unreality of her own 
inner life as she went through its vacant places all day long. The gorges 
of the Simplon, its enormous depths and thundering waterfalls, the 
wonderful road, the points of danger where a loose wheel or a faltering 
horse would have been destruction, the descent into Italy, the opening of 
that beautiful land, as the rugged mountain-chasm widened and let them out 
from a gloomy and dark imprisonment - all a dream - only the old mean 
Marshalsea a reality. Nay, even the old mean Marshalsea was shaken to its 
foundations, when she pictured it without her father. She could scarcely 
believe that the prisoners were still lingering in the close yard, that the 
mean rooms were still every one tenanted, and that the turnkey still stood 
in the Lodge letting people in and out all just as she well knew it to be.
With a remembrance of her father's old life in prison hanging about her 
like the burden of a sorrowful tune, Little Dorrit would wake from a dream 
of her birth-place into a whole day's dream. The painted room in which she 
awoke, often a humble state-chamber in a dilapidated palace, would begin 
it; with its wild red autumnal vine-leaves overhanging the glass, its 
orange-trees on the cracked white terrace outside the window, a group of 
monks and peasants in the little street below, misery and magnificence 
wrestling with each other upon every rood of ground in the prospect, no 
matter how widely diversified, and misery throwing magnificence with the 
strength of fate. To this would succeed a labyrinth of bare passages and 
pillared galleries, with the family procession already preparing in the 
quadrangle below, through the carriages and luggage being brought together 
by the servants for the day's journey. Then, breakfast in another painted 
chamber, damp-stained and of desolate proportions; and then the departure, 
which, to her timidity and sense of not being grand enough for her place in 
the ceremonies, was always an uneasy thing. For, then the courier (who 
himself would have been a foreign gentleman of high mark in the Marshalsea) 
would present himself to report that all was ready; and then her father's 
valet would pompously induct him into his travelling cloak; and then 
Fanny's maid, and her own maid (who was a weight on Little Dorrit's mind - 
absolutely made her cry at first, she knew so little what to do with her), 
would be in attendance; and then her brother's man would complete his 
master's equipment; and then her father would give his arm to Mrs General, 
and her uncle would give his to her, and, escorted by the landlord and Inn 
servants, they would swoop downstairs. There, a crowd would be collected to 
see them enter their carriages, which, amidst much bowing, and begging, and 
prancing, and lashing, and clattering, they would do; and so they would be 
driven madly through the narrow unsavoury streets, and jerked out at the 
town gate. Among the day's unrealities would be, roads where the bright red 
vines were looped and garlanded together on trees for many miles; woods of 
olives; white villages and towns on hill-sides, lovely without, but 
frightful in their dirt and poverty within; crosses by the way; deep blue 
lakes with fairy islands, and clustering boats with awnings of bright 
colours and sails of beautiful forms; vast piles of building mouldering to 
dust; hanging-gardens where the weeds had grown so strong that their stems, 
like wedges driven home, had split the arch and rent the wall; stone-
terraced lanes, with the lizards running into and out of every chink; 
beggars of all sorts everywhere: pitiful, picturesque, hungry, merry: 
children beggars and aged beggars. Often at posting-houses, and other 
halting-places, these miserable creatures would appear to her the only 
realities of the day; and many a time, money she had brought to give them 
was all given away, she would sit with her folded hands, thoughtfully 
looking after some diminutive girl leading her grey father, as if the sight 
reminded her of something in the days that were gone.
Again, there would be places where they stayed the week together, in 
splendid rooms, had banquets every day, rode out among heaps of wonders, 
walked through miles of palaces, and rested in dark corners of great 
churches; where there were winking lamps of gold and silver among pillars 
and arches, kneeling figures dotted about at confessionals and on the 
pavements; where there was the mist and scent of incense; where there were 
pictures, fantastic images, gaudy altars, great heights and distances, all 
softly lighted through stained glass, and the massive curtains that hung in 
the doorways. From these cities they would go on again, by the roads of 
vines and olives, through squalid villages where there was not a hovel 
without a gap in its filthy walls, not a window with a whole inch of glass 
or paper; where there seemed to be nothing to support life, nothing to eat, 
nothing to make, nothing to grow, nothing to hope, nothing to do but die.
Again they would come to whole towns of palaces, whose proper inmates were 
all banished, and which were all changed into barracks: troops of idle 
soldiers leaning out of the state-windows, where their accoutrements hung 
drying on the marble architecture, and showing to the mind like hosts of 
rats who were (happily) eating away the props of the edifices that 
supported them, and must soon, with them, be smashed on the heads of the 
other swarms of soldiers, and the swarms of priests, and the swarms of 
spies, who were all the ill-looking population left to be ruined, in the 
streets below.
Through such scenes the family procession moved on to Venice. And here it 
dispersed for a time, as they were to live in Venice some few months, in a 
palace (itself six times as big as the whole Marshalsea) on the Grand 
Canal.
In this crowning unreality, where all the streets were paved with water, 
and where the deathlike stillness of the days and nights was broken by no 
sound but the softened ringing of the church-bells, the rippling of the 
current, and the cry of the gondoliers turning the corners of the flowing 
streets, Little Dorrit, quite lost by her task being done, sat down to 
muse. The family began a gay life, went here and there, and turned night 
into day; but, she was timid of joining in their gaieties, and only asked 
leave to be left alone. Sometimes she would step into one of the gondolas 
that were always kept in waiting, moored to painted posts at the door - 
when she could escape from the attendance of that oppressive maid, who was 
her mistress, and a very hard one - and would be taken all over the strange 
city. Social people in other gondolas began to ask each other who the 
little solitary girl was whom they passed, sitting in her boat with folded 
hands, looking so pensively and wonderingly about her. Never thinking that 
it would be worth anybody's while to notice her or her doings, Little 
Dorrit, in her quiet, scared, lost manner, went about the city none the 
less.
But, her favourite station was the balcony of her own room, overhanging the 
canal, with other balconies below, and none above. It was of massive stone 
darkened by ages, built in a wild fancy which came from the East to that 
collection of wild fancies; and Little Dorrit was little indeed, leaning on 
the broad-cushioned ledge, and looking over. As she liked no place of an 
evening half so well, she soon began to be watched for, and many eyes in 
passing gondolas were raised, and many people said, There was the little 
figure of the English girl who was always alone.
Such people were not realities to the little figure of the English girl; 
such people were all unknown to her. She would watch the sunset, in its 
long low lines of purple and red, and its burning flush high up into the 
sky: so glowing on the buildings, and so lightening their structure, that 
it made them look as if their strong walls were transparent, and they shone 
from within. She would watch those glories expire; and then, after looking 
at the black gondolas underneath, taking guests to music and dancing, would 
raise her eyes to the shining stars. Was there no party of her own, in 
other times, on which the stars had shone? To think of that old gate now! 
She would think of that old gate, and of herself sitting at it in the dead 
of the night, pillowing Maggie's head; and of other places and of other 
scenes associated with those different times. And then she would lean upon 
her balcony, and look over at the water, as though they all lay underneath 
it. When she got to that, she would musingly watch its running, as if, in 
the general vision, it might run dry, and show her the prison again, and 
herself, and the old room, and the old inmates, and the old visitors: all 
lasting realities that had never changed.


Chapter 4

A Letter From Little Dorrit

DEAR MR CLENNAM,
I write to you from my own room at Venice, thinking you will be glad to 
hear from me. But I know you cannot be so glad to hear from me as I am to 
write to you; for everything about you is as you have been accustomed to 
see it, and you miss nothing - unless it should be me, which can only be 
for a very little while together and very seldom - while everything in my 
life is so strange, and I miss so much.
When we were in Switzerland, which appears to have been years ago, though 
it was only weeks, I met young Mrs Gowan, who was on a mountain excursion 
like ourselves. She told me she was very well and very happy. She sent you 
the message, by me, that she thanked you affectionately and would never 
forget you. She was quite confiding with me, and I loved her almost as soon 
as I spoke to her. But there is nothing singular in that; who could help 
loving so beautiful and winning a creature! I could not wonder at any one 
loving her. No, indeed.
It will not make you uneasy on Mrs Gowan's account, I hope - for I remember 
that you said you had the interest of a true friend in her - if I tell you 
that I wish she could have married some one better suited to her. Mr Gowan 
seems fond of her, and of course she is very fond of him, but I thought he 
was not earnest enough - I don't mean in that respect - I mean in anything. 
I could not keep it out of my mind that if I was Mrs Gowan (what a change 
that would be, and how I must alter to become like her! ) I should feel 
that I was rather lonely and lost, for the want of some one who was 
steadfast and firm in purpose. I even thought she felt this want a little, 
almost without knowing it. But mind you are not made uneasy by this, for 
she was "very well and very happy." And she looked most beautiful.
I expect to meet her again before long, and indeed have been expecting for 
some days past to see her here. I will ever be as good a friend to her as I 
can for your sake. Dear Mr (Clennam, I dare say you think little of having 
been a friend to me when I had no other (not that I have any other now, for 
I have made no new friends), but I think much of it, and I never can forget 
it.
I wish I knew - but it is best for no one to write to me - how Mr and Mrs 
Plornish prosper in the business which my dear father bought for them, and 
that old Mr Nandy lives happily with them and his two grandchildren, and 
sings all his songs over and over again. I cannot quite keep back the tears 
from my eyes when I think of my poor Maggie, and of the blank she must have 
felt at first, however kind they all are to her, without her Little Mother. 
Will you go and tell her, as a strict secret, with my love, that she never 
can have regretted our separation more than I have regretted it? And will 
you tell them all that I have thought of them every day, and that my heart 
is faithful to them everywhere? Oh, if you could know how faithful, you 
would almost pity me for being so far away and being so grand! 
You will be glad, I am sure, to know that my dear father is very well in 
health, and that all these changes are highly beneficial to him, and that 
he is very different indeed from what he used to be when you used to see 
him. There is an improvement in my uncle too, I think, though he never 
complained of old, and never exults now. Fanny is very graceful, quick, and 
clever. It is natural to her to be a lady; she has adapted herself to our 
new fortunes with wonderful ease.
This reminds me that I have not been able to do so, and that I sometimes 
almost despair of ever being able to do so. I find that I cannot learn. Mrs 
General is always with us, and we speak French and speak Italian, and she 
takes pains to form us in many ways. When I say we speak French and 
Italian, I mean they do. As for me, I am so slow that I scarcely get on at 
all. As soon as I begin to plan, and think, and try, all my planning, 
thinking, and trying go in old directions, and I begin to feel careful 
again about the expenses of the day, and about my dear father, and about my 
work, and then I remember with a start that there are no such cares left, 
and that in itself is so new and improbable that it sets me wandering 
again. I should not have the courage to mention this to any one but you.
It is the same with all these new countries and wonderful sights. They are 
very beautiful, and they astonish me, but I am not collected enough - not 
familiar enough with myself, if you can quite understand what I mean - to 
have all the pleasure in them that I might have. What I knew before them, 
blends with them, too, so curiously. For instance, when we were among the 
mountains, I often felt (I hesitate to tell such an idle thing, dear Mr 
Clennam, even to you), as if the Marshalsea must be behind that great rock; 
or as if Mrs Clennam's room where I have worked so many days, and where I 
first saw you, must be just beyond that snow. Do you remember one night 
when I came with Maggie to your lodging in Covent Garden? That room I have 
often and often fancied I have seen before me, travelling along for miles 
by the side of our carriage, when I have looked out of the carriage window 
after dark. We were shut out that night, and sat at the iron gate, and 
walked about till morning. I often look up at the stars, even from the 
balcony of this room, and believe that I am in the street again, shut out 
with Maggie. It is the same with people that I left in England.
When I go about here in a gondola, I surprise myself looking into other 
gondolas as if I hoped to see them. It would overcome me with joy to see 
them, but I don't think it would surprise me much, at first. In my fanciful 
times, I fancy that they might be anywhere; and I almost expect to see 
their dear faces on the bridges or the quays.
Another difficulty that I have will seem very strange to you. It must seem 
very strange to anyone but me, and does even to me: I often feel the old 
sad pity for - I need not write the word - for him. Changed as he is, and 
inexpressibly blest and thankful as I always am to know it, the old 
sorrowful feeling of compassion comes upon me sometimes with such strength, 
that I want to put my arms round his neck, tell him how I love him, and cry 
a little on his breast. I should be glad after that, and proud and happy. 
But I know that I must not do this; that he would not like it, that Fanny 
would be angry, that Mrs General would be amazed; and so I quiet myself. 
Yet in doing so, I struggle with the feeling that I have come to be at a 
distance from him; and that even in the midst of all the servants and 
attendants, he is deserted, and in want of me.
Dear Mr Clennam, I have written a great deal about myself, but I must write 
a little more still, or what I wanted most of all to say in this weak 
letter would be left out of it. In all these foolish thoughts of mine, 
which I have been so hardy as to confess to you because I know you will 
understand me if anybody can, and will make more allowance for me than 
anybody else would if you cannot - in all these thoughts, there is one 
thought scarcely ever - never - out of my memory, and that is that I hope 
you sometimes, in a quiet moment, have a thought for me. I must tell you 
that as to this, I have felt, ever since I have been away, an anxiety which 
I am very very anxious to relieve. I have been afraid that you may think of 
me in a new light, or a new character. Don't do that, I could not bear that 
- it would make me more unhappy than you can suppose. It would break my 
heart to believe that you thought of me in any way that would make me 
stranger to you, than I was when you were so good to me. What I have to 
pray and entreat of you is, that you will never think of me as the daughter 
of a rich person; that you will never think of me as dressing any better, 
or living any better, than when you first knew me. That you will remember 
me only as the little shabby girl you protected with so much tenderness, 
from whose threadbare dress you have kept away the rain, and whose wet feet 
you have dried at your fire. That you will think of me (when you think of 
me at all), and of my true affection and devoted gratitude, always without 
change, as of

Your poor child,
LITTLE DORRIT.

P.S. - Particularly remember that you are not to be uneasy about Mrs Gowan. 
Her words were, "Very well and very happy." And she looked most beautiful.


Chapter 5

Something Wrong Somewhere

The family had been a month or two at Venice, when Mr Dorrit, who was much 
among Counts and Marquises, and had but scant leisure, set an hour of one 
day apart, beforehand, for the purpose of holding some conference with Mrs 
General.
The time he had reserved in his mind arriving, he sent Mr Tinkler, his 
valet, to Mrs General's apartment (which would have absorbed about a third 
of the area of the Marshalsea), to present his compliments to that lady, 
and represent him as desiring the favour of an interview. It being that 
period of the forenoon when the various members of the family had coffee in 
their own chambers, some couple of hours before assembling at breakfast in 
a faded hall which had once been sumptuous, but was now the prey of watery 
vapours and a settled melancholy, Mrs General was accessible to the valet. 
That envoy found her on a little square of carpet, so extremely diminutive 
in reference to the size of her stone and marble floor, that she looked as 
if she might have had it spread for the trying on of a ready-made pair of 
shoes; or as if she had come into possession of the enchanted piece of 
carpet bought for forty purses by one of the three princes in the Arabian 
Nights, and had that moment been transported on it, at a wish, into a 
palatial saloon with which it had no connection.
Mrs General, replying to the envoy, as she set down her empty coffee-cup, 
that she was willing at once to proceed to Mr Dorrit's apartment, and spare 
him the trouble of coming to her (which, in his gallantry, he had 
proposed), the envoy threw open the door, and escorted Mrs General to the 
presence. It was quite a walk, by mysterious staircases and corridors, from 
Mrs General's apartment, - hoodwinked by a narrow side street with a low 
gloomy bridge in it, and dungeon-like opposite tenements, their walls 
besmeared with a thousand downward stains and streaks, as if every crazy 
aperture in them had been weeping tears of rust into the Adriatic for 
centuries - to Mr Dorrit's apartment: with a whole English house-front of 
window, a prospect of beautiful church domes rising into the blue sky sheer 
out of the water which reflected them, and a hushed murmur of the Grand 
Canal laving the doorways below, where his gondolas and gondoliers attended 
his pleasure, drowsily swinging in a little forest of piles.
Mr Dorrit, in a resplendent dressing-gown and cap - the dormant grub that 
had so long bided its time among the Collegians had burst into a rare 
butterfly - rose to receive Mrs General. "A chair to Mrs General. An easier 
chair, sir; what are you doing, what are you about, what do you mean? Now, 
leave us!"
"Mrs General," said Mr Dorrit, "I took the liberty -"
"By no means," Mrs General interposed. "I was quite at your disposition. I 
had had my coffee."
"I took the liberty," said Mr Dorrit again, with the magnificent placidity 
of one who was above correction, "to solicit the favour of a little private 
conversation with you, because I feel rather worried respecting my - ha - 
my younger daughter. You will have observed a great difference of 
temperament, madam, between my two daughters?"
Said Mrs General in response, crossing her gloved hands (she was never 
without gloves, and they never creased and always fitted), "There is a 
great difference."
"May I ask to be favoured with your view of it?" said Mr Dorrit, with a 
deference not incompatible with majestic serenity.
"Fanny," returned Mrs General, "has force of character and self-reliance. 
Amy, none."
None? O Mrs General, ask the Marshalsea stones and bars. O Mrs General, ask 
the milliner who taught her to work, and the dancing-master who taught her 
sister to dance. O Mrs General, Mrs General, ask me, her father, what I owe 
to her; and hear my testimony touching the life of this slighted little 
creature, from her childhood up! 
No such adjuration entered Mr Dorrit's head. He looked at Mrs General, 
seated in her usual erect attitude on her coach-box behind the proprieties, 
and he said in a thoughtful manner, "True, madam."
"I would not," said Mrs General, "be understood to say, observe, that there 
is nothing to improve in Fanny. But there is material there - perhaps, 
indeed, a little too much."
"Will you be kind enough, madam," said Mr Dorrit, "to be - ha - more 
explicit? I do not quite understand my elder daughter's having - hum - too 
much material. What material?"
"Fanny," returned Mrs General, "at present forms too many opinions. Perfect 
breeding forms none, and is never demonstrative." Lest he himself should be 
found deficient in perfect breeding, Mr Dorrit hastened to reply, 
"Unquestionably, madam, you are right." Mrs General returned in her 
emotionless and expressionless manner, "I believe so."
"But you are aware, my dear madam," said Mr Dorrit, "that my daughters had 
the misfortune to lose their lamented mother when they were very young; and 
that, in consequence of my not having been until lately the recognised heir 
to my property, they have lived with me as a comparatively poor, though 
always proud, gentleman, in - ha hum - retirement!"
"I do not," said Mrs General, "lose sight of the circumstance."
"Madam," pursued Mr Dorrit, "of my daughter Fanny, under her present 
guidance and with such an example constantly before her -"
(Mrs General shut her eyes.)
"- I have no misgivings. There is adaptability of character in Fanny. But 
my younger daughter, Mrs General, rather worries and vexes my thoughts. I 
must inform you that she has always been my favourite."
"There is no accounting," said Mrs General, "for these partialities."
"Ha - no," assented Mr Dorrit. "No. Now, madam, I am troubled by noticing 
that Amy is not, so to speak, one of ourselves. She does not care to go 
about with us; she is lost in the society we have here; our tastes are 
evidently not her tastes. Which," said Mr Dorrit, summing up with judicial 
gravity, "is to say, in other words, that there is something wrong in - ha -
 Amy."
"May we incline to the supposition," said Mrs General, with a little touch 
of varnish, "that something is referable to the novelty of the position?"
"Excuse me, madam," observed Mr Dorrit, rather quickly. "The daughter of a 
gentleman, though - ha - himself at one time comparatively far from 
affluent - comparatively - and herself reared in - hum - retirement, need 
not of necessity find this position so very novel."
"True," said Mrs General, "true."
"Therefore, madam," said Mr Dorrit, "I took the liberty" (he laid an 
emphasis on the phrase and repeated it, as though he stipulated, with 
urbane firmness, that he must not be contradicted again), "I took the 
liberty of requesting this interview, in order that I might mention the 
topic to you, and enquire how you would advise me?"
"Mr Dorrit," returned Mrs General, "I have conversed with Amy several times 
since we have been residing here, on the general subject of the formation 
of a demeanour. She has expressed herself to me as wondering exceedingly at 
Venice. I have mentioned to her that it is better not to wonder. I have 
pointed out to her that the celebrated Mr Eustace, the classical tourist, 
did not think much of it; and that he compared the Rialto, greatly to its 
disadvantage, with Westminster and Black-friars Blackfriars Bridges. I need 
not add, after what you have said, that I have not yet found my arguments 
successful. You do me the honour to ask me what I advise. It always appears 
to me (if this should prove to be a baseless assumption, I shall be 
pardoned), that Mr Dorrit has been accustomed to exercise influence over 
the minds of others."
"Hum - madam," said Mr Dorrit, "I have been at the head of - ha - of a 
considerable community. You are right in supposing that I am not 
unaccustomed to - an influential position."
"I am happy," returned Mrs General, "to be so corroborated. I would 
therefore the more confidently recommend, that Mr Dorrit should speak to 
Amy himself, and make his observations and wishes known to her. Being his 
favourite besides, and no doubt attached to him, she is all the more likely 
to yield to his influence."
"I had anticipated your suggestion, madam," said Mr Dorrit, "but - ha - was 
not sure that I might - hum - not encroach on -"
"On my province, Mr Dorrit?" said Mrs General, graciously. "Do not mention 
it."
"Then, with your leave, madam," resumed Mr Dorrit, ringing his little bell 
to summon his valet, "I will send for her at once."
"Does Mr Dorrit wish me to remain?"
"Perhaps, if you have no other engagement, you would not object for a 
minute or two -"
"Not at all."
So, Tinkler the valet was instructed to find Miss Amy's maid, and to 
request that subordinate to inform Miss Amy that Mr Dorrit wished to see 
her in his own room. In delivering this charge to Tinkler, Mr Dorrit looked 
severely at him, and also kept a jealous eye upon him until he went out at 
the door, mistrusting that he might have something in his mind prejudicial 
to the family dignity; that he might have even got wind of some Collegiate 
joke before he came into the service, and might be derisively reviving its 
remembrance at the present moment. If Tinkler had happened to smile, 
however faintly and innocently, nothing would have persuaded Mr Dorrit, to 
the hour of his death, but that this was the case. As Tinkler happened, 
however, very fortunately for himself, to be of a serious and composed 
countenance, he escaped the secret danger that threatened him. And as on 
his return - when Mr Dorrit eyed him again - he announced Miss Amy as if 
she had come to a funeral, he left a vague impression on Mr Dorrit's mind 
that he was a well-conducted young fellow, who had been brought up in the 
study of his Catechism, by a widowed mother.
"Amy," said Mr Dorrit, "you have just now been the subject of some 
conversation between myself and Mrs General. We agree that you scarcely 
seem at home here. Ha - how is this?"
A pause.
"I think, father, I require a little time."
"Papa is a preferable mode of address," observed Mrs General. "Father is 
rather vulgar, my dear. The word Papa, besides, gives a pretty form to the 
lips. Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes, and prism, are all very good words 
for the lips; especially prunes and prism. You will find it serviceable, in 
the formation of a demeanour, if you sometimes say to yourself in company - 
on entering a room, for instance - Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes and 
prism, prunes and prism."
"Pray my child," said Mr Dorrit, "attend to the - hum - precepts of Mrs 
General."
Poor little Dorrit, with a rather forlorn glance at that eminent varnisher, 
promised to try.
"You say, Amy," pursued Mr Dorrit, "that you think you require time. Time 
for what?"
Another pause.
"To become accustomed to the novelty of my life, was all I meant," said 
Little Dorrit, with her loving eyes upon her father; whom she had very 
nearly addressed as poultry, if not prunes and prism too, in her desire to 
submit herself to Mrs General and please him.
Mr Dorrit frowned, and looked anything but pleased. "Amy," he returned, "it 
appears to me, I must say, that you have had abundance of time for that. Ha 
- you surprise me. You disappoint me. Fanny has conquered any such little 
difficulties, and - hum - why not you?"
"I hope I shall do better soon," said Little Dorrit.
"I hope so," returned her father. "I - ha - I most devoutly hope so, Amy. I 
sent for you, in order that I might say - hum - impressively say, in the 
presence of Mrs General, to whom we all are so much indebted for obligingly 
being present among us, on - ha - on this or any other occasion," Mrs 
General shut her eyes, "that I - ha hum - am not pleased with you. You make 
Mrs General's a thankless task. You - ha - embarrass me very much. You have 
always (as I have informed Mrs General) been my favourite child; I have 
always made you a - hum - a friend and companion; in return, I beg - I - ha 
- I do beg, that you accommodate yourself better to - hum - circumstances, 
and dutifully do what becomes your - your station."
Mr Dorrit was even a little more fragmentary than usual; being excited on 
the subject, and anxious to make himself particularly emphatic.
"I do beg," he repeated, "that this may be attended to, and that you will 
seriously take pains and try to conduct yourself in a manner both becoming 
your position as - ha - Miss Amy Dorrit, and satisfactory to myself and Mrs 
General." That lady shut her eyes again, on being again referred to; then, 
slowly opening them and rising, added these words:
"If Miss Amy Dorrit will direct her own attention to, and will accept of my 
poor assistance in, the formation of a surface, Mr Dorrit will have no 
further cause of anxiety. May I take this opportunity of remarking, as an 
instance in point, that it is scarcely delicate to look at vagrants with 
the attention which I have seen bestowed upon them by a very dear young 
friend of mine? They should not be looked at. Nothing disagreeable should 
ever be looked at. Apart from such a habit standing in the way of that 
graceful equanimity of surface which is so expressive of good breeding, it 
hardly seems compatible with refinement of mind. A truly refined mind will 
seem to be ignorant of the existence of anything that is not perfectly 
proper, placid, and pleasant." Having delivered this exalted sentiment, Mrs 
General made a sweeping obeisance, and retired with an expression of mouth 
indicative of Prunes and Prism.
Little Dorrit, whether speaking or silent, had preserved her quiet 
earnestness and her loving look. It had not been clouded, except for a 
passing moment, until now. But now that she was left alone with him, the 
fingers of her lightly folded hands were agitated, and there was repressed 
emotion in her face.
Not for herself. She might feel a little wounded, but her care was not for 
herself. Her thoughts still turned, as they always had turned, to him. A 
faint misgiving, which had hung about her since their accession to fortune, 
that even now she could never see him as he used to be before the prison 
days, had gradually begun to assume form in her mind. She felt that, in 
what he had just now said to her, and in his whole bearing towards her, 
there was the well-known shadow of the Marshalsea wall. It took a new 
shape, but it was the old sad shadow. She began with sorrowful 
unwillingness to acknowledge to herself, that she was not strong enough to 
keep off the fear that no space in the life of man could overcome that 
quarter of a century behind the prison bars. She had no blame to bestow 
upon him, therefore: nothing to reproach him with, no emotions in her 
faithful heart but great compassion and unbounded tenderness.
This is why it was, that, even as he sat before her on his sofa, in the 
brilliant light of a bright Italian day, the wonderful city without and the 
splendours of an old palace within, she saw him at the moment in the long-
familiar gloom of his Marshalsea lodging, and wished to take her seat 
beside him, and comfort him, and be again full of confidence with him, and 
of usefulness to him. If he divined what was in her thoughts, his own were 
not in tune with it. After some uneasy moving in his seat, he got up, and 
walked about, looking very much dissatisfied.
"Is there anything else you wish to say to me, dear father?"
"No, no. Nothing else."
"I am sorry you have not been pleased with me, dear. I hope you will not 
think of me with displeasure now. I am going to try, more than ever, to 
adapt myself as you wish to what surrounds me - for indeed I have tried all 
along, though I have failed, I know."
"Amy," he returned, turning short upon her. "You - ha - habitually hurt 
me."
"Hurt you, father! I!"
"There is a - hum - a topic," said Mr Dorrit, looking all about the ceiling 
of the room, and never at the attentive uncomplainingly shocked face, "a 
painful topic, a series of events which I wish - ha - altogether to 
obliterate. This is understood by your sister, who has already remonstrated 
with you in my presence; it is understood by your brother; it is understood 
by - ha hum - by every one of delicacy and sensitiveness, except yourself - 
ha - I am sorry to say, except yourself. You, Amy - hum - you alone and 
only you - constantly revive the topic, though not in words."
She laid her hand on his arm. She did nothing more. She gently touched him. 
The trembling hand may have said, with some expression, "Think of me, think 
how I have worked, think of my many cares!" But she said not a syllable 
herself.
There was a reproach in the touch so addressed to him that she had not 
foreseen, or she would have withheld her hand. He began to justify himself; 
in a heated, stumbling, angry manner which made nothing of it.
"I was there all those years. I was - ha - universally acknowledged as the 
head of the place. I - hum - I caused you to be respected there. Amy, I - 
ha hum - I gave my family a position there. I deserve a return. I claim a 
return. I say, sweep it off the face of the earth and begin afresh. Is that 
much? I ask, is that much?"
He did not once look at her, as he rambled on in this way; but gesticulated 
at, and appealed to, the empty air.
"I have suffered. Probably I know how much I have suffered, better than any 
one - ha - I say than any one! If I can put that aside, if I can eradicate 
the marks of what I have endured, and can merge before the world a - ha - 
gentleman unspoiled, unspotted - is it a great deal to expect - I say 
again, is it a great deal to expect - that my children should - hum - do 
the same, and sweep that accursed experience off the face of the earth!"
In spite of his flustered state, he made all these exclamations in a 
carefully suppressed voice, lest the valet should overhear anything.
"Accordingly they do it. Your sister does it. Your brother does it. You 
alone, my favourite child, whom I made the friend and companion of my life 
when you were a mere - hum - Baby, do not do it. You alone say you can't do 
it. I provide you with valuable assistance to do it. I attach an 
accomplished and highly-bred lady - ha - Mrs General, to you, for the 
purpose of doing it. Is it surprising that I should be displeased? Is it 
necessary that I should defend myself for expressing my displeasure? No!"
Notwithstanding which, he continued to defend himself without any abatement 
of his flushed mood.
"I am careful to appeal to that lady for confirmation, before I express any 
displeasure at all. I - hum - I necessarily make that appeal within limited 
bounds, or I - ha - should render legible, by that lady, what I desire to 
be blotted out. Am I selfish? Do I complain for my own sake? No. No. 
Principally for - ha hum - your sake, Amy."
This last consideration plainly appeared, from his manner of pursuing it, 
to have just that instant have come into his head.
"I said I was hurt. So I am. So I - ha - am determined to be, whatever is 
advanced to the contrary. I am hurt, that my daughter seated in the - hum - 
lap of fortune, should mope and retire, and proclaim herself unequal to her 
destiny. I am hurt that she should - ha - systematically reproduce what the 
rest of us blot out; and seem - hum - I had almost said positively anxious -
 to announce to wealthy and distinguished society, that she was born and 
bred in - ha hum - a place that I, myself, decline to name. But there is no 
inconsistency - ha - not the least, in my feeling hurt, and yet complaining 
principally for your sake, Amy. I do; I say again, I do. It is for your 
sake, that I wish you, under the auspices of Mrs General, to form a - hum - 
a surface. It is for your sake, that I wish you to have a - ha - truly 
refined mind, and (in the striking words of Mrs General) to be ignorant of 
everything that is not perfectly proper, placid, and pleasant."
He had been running down by jerks, during his last speech, like a sort of 
ill-adjusted alarum. The touch was still upon his arm. He fell silent; and 
after looking about the ceiling again, for a little while, looked down at 
her. Her head drooped, and he could not see her face; but her touch was 
tender and quiet, and in the expression of her dejected figure there was no 
blame - nothing but love. He began to whimper, just as he had done that 
night in the prison when she afterwards sat at his bedside till morning; 
exclaimed that he was a poor ruin and a poor wretch in the midst of his 
wealth; and clasped her in his arms. "Hush, hush, my own dear! Kiss me!" 
was all she said to him. His tears were soon dried, much sooner than on the 
former occasion; and he was presently afterwards very high with his valet, 
as a way of righting himself for having shed any.
With one remarkable exception, to be recorded in its place, this was the 
only time, in his life of freedom and fortune, when he spoke to his 
daughter Amy of the old days.
But, now, the breakfast hour arrived; and with it Miss Fanny from her 
apartment, and Mr Edward from his apartment. Both these young persons of 
distinction were something the worse for late hours. As to Miss Fanny, she 
had become the victim of an insatiate mania for what she called "going into 
society;" and would have gone into it headforemost fifty times between 
sunset and sunrise, if so many opportunities had been at her disposal. As 
to Mr Edward, he, too, had a large acquaintance, and was generally engaged 
(for the most part, in diceing circles, or others of a kindred nature), 
during the greater part of every night. For, this gentleman, when his 
fortunes changed, had stood at the great advantage of being already 
prepared for the highest associates, and having little to learn: so much 
was he indebted to the happy accidents which had made him acquainted with 
horse-dealing and billiard-marking. At breakfast, Mr Frederick Dorrit 
likewise appeared. As the old gentleman inhabited the highest story of the 
palace, where he might have practised pistol-shooting without much chance 
of discovery by the other inmates, his younger niece had taken courage to 
propose the restoration to him of his clarinet; which Mr Dorrit had ordered 
to be confiscated, but which she had ventured to preserve. Notwithstanding 
some objections from Miss Fanny, that it was a low instrument, and that she 
detested the sound of it, the concession had been made. But it was then 
discovered that he had had enough of it, and never played it now that it 
was no longer his means of getting bread. He had insensibly acquired a new 
habit of shuffling into the picture-galleries, always with his twisted 
paper of snuff in his hand (much to the indignation of Miss Fanny, who had 
proposed the purchase of a gold box for him that the family might not be 
discredited, which he had absolutely refused to carry when it was bought); 
and of passing hours and hours before the portraits of renowned Venetians. 
It was never made out what his dazed eyes saw in them: whether he had an 
interest in them merely as pictures, or whether he confusedly identified 
them with a glory that was departed, like the strength of his own mind. But 
he paid his court to them with great exactness, and clearly derived 
pleasure from the pursuit. After the first few days, Little Dorrit happened 
one morning to assist at these attentions. It so evidently heightened his 
gratification that she often accompanied him afterwards, and the greatest 
delight of which the old man had shown himself susceptible since his ruin, 
arose out of these excursions, when he would carry a chair about for her 
from picture to picture, and stand behind it, in spite of all her 
remonstrances, silently presenting her to the noble Venetians.
It fell out that at this family breakfast, he referred to their having seen 
in a gallery, on the previous day, the lady and gentleman whom they had 
encountered on the Great Saint Bernard. "I forget the name," said he. "I 
dare say you remember them, William? I dare say you do, Edward?"
"I remember 'em well enough," said the latter.
"I should think so," observed Miss Fanny, with a toss of her head, and a 
glance at her sister. "But they would not have been recalled to our 
remembrance, I suspect, if Uncle hadn't tumbled over the subject."
"My dear, what a curious phrase," said Mrs General. "Would not 
inadvertently lighted upon, or accidentally referred to, be better?"
"Thank you very much, Mrs General," returned the young lady, "no, I think 
not. On the whole I prefer my own expression."
This was always Miss Fanny's way of receiving a suggestion from Mrs 
General. But, she always stored it up in her mind, and adopted it at 
another time.
"I should have mentioned our having met Mr and Mrs Gowan, Fanny," said 
Little Dorrit, "even if Uncle had not. I have scarcely seen you since, you 
know. I meant to have spoken of it at breakfast; because I should like to 
pay a visit to Mrs Gowan, and to become better acquainted with her, if Papa 
and Mrs General do not object."
"Well, Amy," said Fanny, "I am sure I am glad to find you, at last, 
expressing a wish to become better acquainted with anybody in Venice. 
Though whether Mr and Mrs Gowan are desirable acquaintances, remains to be 
determined."
"Mrs Gowan I spoke of, dear."
"No doubt," said Fanny. "But you can't separate her from her husband, I 
believe, without an Act of Parliament."
"Do you think, Papa," inquired Little Dorrit, with diffidence and 
hesitation, "there is any objection to my making this visit?"
"Really," he replied, "I - ha - what is Mrs General's view?"
Mrs General's view was, that not having the honour of any acquaintance with 
the lady and gentleman referred to, she was not in a position to varnish 
the present article. She could only remark, as a general principle observed 
in the varnishing trade, that much depended on the quarter from which the 
lady under consideration was accredited, to a family so conspicuously 
niched in the social temple as the family of Dorrit.
At this remark the face of Mr Dorrit gloomed considerably. He was about 
(connecting the accrediting with an obtrusive person of the name of 
Clennam, whom he imperfectly remembered in some former state of existence) 
to blackball the name of Gowan finally, when Edward Dorrit, Esquire, came 
into the conversation, with his glass in his eye, and the preliminary 
remark of "I say - you there! Go out, will you!" Which was addressed to a 
couple of men who were handing the dishes round, as a courteous intimation 
that their services could be temporarily dispensed with.
Those menials having obeyed the mandate, Edward Dorrit, Esquire, proceeded.
"Perhaps it's a matter of policy to let you all know that these Gowans - in 
whose favour, or at least the gentleman's, I can't be supposed to be much 
prepossessed myself are known to people of importance, if that makes any 
difference."
"That, I would say," observed the fair varnisher, "makes the greatest 
difference. The connection in question, being really people of importance 
and consideration -"
"As to that," said Edward Dorrit, Esquire, "I'll give you the means of 
judging for yourself. You are acquainted, perhaps, with the famous name of 
Merdle?"
"The great Merdle!" exclaimed Mrs General.
"The Merdle," said Edward Dorrit, Esquire. "They are known to him. Mrs 
Gowan - I mean the dowager, my polite friend's mother - is intimate with 
Mrs Merdle, and I know these two to be on their visiting-list."
"If so, a more undeniable guarantee could not be given," said Mrs General 
to Mr Dorrit, raising her gloves and bowing her head, as if she were doing 
homage to some visible graven image.
"I beg to ask my son, from motives of - ha - curiosity," Mr Dorrit 
observed, with a decided change in his manner, "how he becomes possessed of 
this - hum - timely information?"
"It's not a long story, sir," returned Edward Dorrit, Esquire, "and you 
shall have it out of hand. To begin with, Mrs Merdle is the lady you had 
the parley with, at what's-his-name place."
"Martigny," interposed Miss Fanny, with an air of infinite languor.
"Martigny," assented her brother, with a slight nod and a slight wink; in 
acknowledgment of which, Miss Fanny looked surprised, and laughed and 
reddened.
"How can that be, Edward?" said Mr Dorrit. "You informed me that the name 
of the gentleman with whom you conferred was - ha - Sparkler. Indeed, you 
showed me his card. Hum. Sparkler."
"No doubt of it, father; but it doesn't follow that his mother's name must 
be the same. Mrs Merdle was married before, and he is her son. She is in 
Rome now; where probably we shall know more of her, as you decide to winter 
there. Sparkler is just come here. I passed last evening in company with 
Sparkler. Sparkler is a very good fellow on the whole, though rather a bore 
on one subject, in consequence of being tremendously smitten with a certain 
young lady." Here Edward Dorrit, Esquire, eyed Miss Fanny through his glass 
across the table. "We happened last night to compare notes about our 
travels, and I had the information I have given you from Sparkler himself." 
Here he ceased; continuing to eye Miss Fanny through his glass, with a face 
much twisted, and not ornamentally so, in part by the action of keeping his 
glass in his eye, and in part by the great subtlety of his smile.
"Under these circumstances," said Mr Dorrit, "I believe I express the 
sentiments of - ha - Mrs General, no less than my own, when I say that 
there is no objection, but - ha hum - quite the contrary - to your 
gratifying your desire, Amy. I trust I may ha - hail - this desire ," said 
Mr Dorrit, in an encouraging and forgiving manner, "as an auspicious omen. 
It is quite right to know these people. It is a very proper thing. Mr 
Merdle's is a name of - ha - world-wide repute. Mr Merdle's undertakings 
are immense. They bring him in such vast sums of money, that they are 
regarded as - hum - national benefits. Mr Merdle is the man of this time. 
The name of Merdle is the name of the age. Pray do everything on my behalf 
that is civil to Mr and Mrs Gowan, for we will - ha - we will certainly 
notice them."
This magnificent accordance of Mr Dorrit's recognition settled the matter. 
It was not observed that Uncle had pushed away his plate, and forgotten his 
breakfast; but he was not much observed at any time, except by Little 
Dorrit. The servants were recalled, and the meal proceeded to its 
conclusion. Mrs General rose and left the table. Little Dorrit rose and 
left the table. When Edward and Fanny remained whispering together across 
it, and when Mr Dorrit remained eating figs and reading a French newspaper, 
Uncle suddenly fixed the attention of all three, by rising out of his 
chair, striking his hand upon the table, and saying, "Brother! I protest 
against it!"
If he had made a proclamation in an unknown tongue, and given up the ghost 
immediately afterwards, he could not have astounded his audience more. The 
paper fell from Mr Dorrit's hand, and he sat petrified, with a fig half way 
to his mouth.
"Brother!" said the old man, conveying a surprising energy into his 
trembling voice, "I protest against it! I love you; you know I love you 
dearly. In these many years, I have never been untrue to you in a single 
thought. Weak as I am, I would at any time have struck any man who spoke 
ill of you. But, brother, brother, brother, I protest against it!"
It was extraordinary to see of what a burst of earnestness such a decrepit 
man was capable. His eyes became bright, his grey hair rose on his head, 
markings of purpose on his brow and face which had faded from them for five-
and-twenty years, started out again, and there was an energy in his hand 
that made its action nervous once more.
"My dear Frederick!" exclaimed Mr Dorrit, faintly. "What is wrong? What is 
the matter?"
"How dare you," said the old man, turning round on Fanny, "how dare you do 
it? Have you no memory? Have you no heart?"
"Uncle?" cried Fanny, affrighted and bursting into tears, "why do you 
attack me in this cruel manner? What have I done?"
"Done?" returned the old man, pointing to her sister's place, "where's your 
affectionate, invaluable friend? Where's your devoted guardian? Where's 
your more than mother? How dare you set up superiorities against all these 
characters combined in your sister? For shame, you false girl, for shame!"
"I love Amy," cried Miss Fanny, sobbing and weeping, "as well as I love my 
life - better than I love my life. I don't deserve to be so treated. I am 
as grateful to Amy, and as fond of Amy, as it's possible for any human 
being to be. I wish I was dead. I never was so wickedly wronged. And only 
because I am anxious for the family credit."
"To the winds with the family credit!" cried the old man, with great scorn 
and indignation. "Brother, I protest against pride. I protest against 
ingratitude. I protest against any one of us here who have known what we 
have known, and have seen what we have seen, setting up any pretension that 
puts Amy at a moment's disadvantage, or to the cost of a moment's pain. We 
may know that it's a base pretension by its having that effect. It ought to 
bring a judgment on us. Brother, I protest against it, in the sight of 
God!"
As his hand went up above his head and came down on the table, it might 
have been a blacksmith's. After a few moment's silence, it had relaxed into 
its usual weak condition. He went round to his brother with his ordinary 
shuffling step, put the hand on his shoulder, and said, in a softened 
voice, "William, my dear, I felt obliged to say it; forgive me, for I felt 
obliged to say it!" and then went, in his bowed way, out of the palace 
hall, just as he might have gone out of the Marshalsea room.
All this time Fanny had been sobbing and crying, and still continued to do 
so. Edward, beyond opening his mouth in amazement, had not opened his lips, 
and had done nothing but stare. Mr Dorrit also had been utterly 
discomfited, and quite unable to assert himself in any way. Fanny was now 
the first to speak.
"I never, never, never, was so used!" she sobbed. "There never was anything 
so harsh and unjustifiable, so disgracefully violent and cruel! Dear, kind, 
quiet little Amy, too, what would she feel if she could know that she had 
been innocently the means of exposing me to such treatment! But I'll never 
tell her! No, good darling, I'll never tell her!"
This helped Mr Dorrit to break his silence.
"My dear," said he, "I - ha - approve of your resolution. It will be - ha 
hum - much better not to speak of this to Amy. It might - hum - it might 
distress her. Ha. No doubt it would distress her greatly. It is considerate 
and right to avoid doing so. We will - ha - keep this to ourselves."
"But the cruelty of Uncle!" cried Miss Fanny. "O, I never can forgive the 
wanton cruelty of Uncle!"
"My dear," said Mr Dorrit, recovering his tone, though he remained 
unusually pale, "I must request you not to say so. You must remember that 
your uncle is - ha - not what he formerly was. You must remember that your 
uncle's state requires - hum - great forbearance from us, great 
forbearance."
"I am sure," cried Fanny, piteously, "it is only charitable to suppose that 
there must be something wrong in him somewhere, or he never could have so 
attacked Me, of all the people in the world."
"Fanny," returned Mr Dorrit, in a deeply fraternal tone, "you know, with 
his innumerable good points, what a - hum - Wreck your uncle is; and I 
entreat you by the fondness that I have for him, and by the fidelity that 
you know I have always shown him, to - ha - to draw your own conclusions, 
and to spare my brotherly feelings."
This ended the scene; Edward Dorrit, Esquire, saying nothing throughout, 
but looking, to the last, perplexed and doubtful. Miss Fanny awakened much 
affectionate uneasiness in her sister's mind that day, by passing the 
greater part of it in violent fits of embracing her, and in alternately 
giving her brooches, and wishing herself dead.


Chapter 6

Something Right Somewhere

To be in the halting state of Mr Henry Gowan; to have left one of two 
Powers in disgust, to want the necessary qualifications for finding 
promotion with another, and to be loitering moodily about on neutral 
ground, cursing both; is to be in a situation unwholesome for the mind 
which time is not likely to improve. The worst class of sum worked in the 
every-day world is cyphered by the diseased arithmeticians who are always 
in the rule of Subtraction as to the merits and successes of others, and 
never in Addition as to their own.
The habit, too, of seeking some sort of recompense in the discontented 
boast of being disappointed, is a habit fraught with degeneracy. A certain 
idle carelessness and recklessness of consistency soon comes of it. To 
bring deserving things down by setting undeserving things up is one of its 
perverted delights; and there is no playing fast and loose with the truth, 
in any game, without growing the worse for it.
In his expressed opinions of all performances in the Art of painting that 
were completely destitute of merit, Gowan was the most liberal fellow on 
earth. He would declare such a man to have more power in his little finger 
(provided he had none), than such another had (provided he had much) in his 
whole mind and body. If the objection were taken that the thing commended 
was trash, he would reply, on behalf of his art, "My good fellow, what do 
we all turn out but trash? I turn out nothing else, and I make you a 
present of the confession."
To make a vaunt of being poor was another of the incidents of his splenetic 
state, though this may have had the design in it of showing that he ought 
to be rich; just as he would publicly laud and decry the Barnacles, lest it 
should be forgotten that he belonged to the family. Howbeit, these two 
subjects were very often on his lips; and he managed them so well, that he 
might have praised himself by the month together, and not have made himself 
out half so important a man as he did by his light disparagement of his 
claims on anybody's consideration.
Out of this same airy talk of his it always soon came to be understood, 
wherever he and his wife went, that he had married against the wishes of 
his exalted relations, and had had much ado to prevail on them to 
countenance her. He never made the representation, on the contrary seemed 
to laugh the idea to scorn; but it did happen that, with all his pains to 
depreciate himself, he was always in the superior position. From the days 
of their honeymoon Minnie Gowan felt sensible of being usually regarded as 
the wife of a man who had made a descent in marrying her, but whose 
chivalrous love for her had cancelled that inequality.
To Venice they had been accompanied by Monsieur Blandois of Paris, and at 
Venice Monsieur Blandois of Paris was very much in the society of Gowan. 
When they had first met this gallant gentleman at Geneva, Gowan had been 
undecided whether to kick him or encourage him; and had remained, for about 
four-and-twenty hours, so troubled to settle the point to his satisfaction 
that he had thought of tossing up a five-franc piece on the terms, "Tails, 
kick; heads, encourage," and abiding by the voice of the oracle. It 
chanced, however, that his wife expressed a dislike to the engaging 
Blandois, and that the balance of feeling in the hotel was against him. 
Upon that, Gowan resolved to encourage him.
Why this perversity if it were not in a generous fit? - which it was not. 
Why should Gowan, very much the superior of Blandois of Paris, and very 
well able to pull that prepossessing gentleman to pieces and find out the 
stuff he was made of, take up with such a man? In the first place, he 
opposed the first separate wish he observed in his wife, because her father 
had paid his debts, and it was desirable to take an early opportunity of 
asserting his independence. In the second place, he opposed the prevalent 
feeling, because, with many capacities of being otherwise, he was an ill-
conditioned man. He found a pleasure in declaring that a courtier with the 
refined manners of Blandois ought to rise to the greatest distinction in 
any polished country. He found a pleasure in setting up Blandois as the 
type of elegance, and making him a satire upon others who piqued themselves 
on personal graces. He seriously protested that the bow of Blandois was 
perfect, that the address of Blandois was irresistible, and that the 
picturesque ease of Blandois would be cheaply purchased (if it were not a 
gift, and unpurchaseable) for a hundred thousand francs. That exaggeration 
in the manner of the man, which has been noticed as appertaining to him and 
to every such man, whatever his original breeding, as certainly as the sun 
belongs to this system, was acceptable to Gowan as a caricature, which he 
found it a humorous resource to have at hand for the ridiculing of numbers 
of people who necessarily did more or less of what Blandois over-did. Thus 
he had taken up with him; and thus, negligently strengthening these 
inclinations with habit, and idly deriving some amusement from his talk, he 
had glided into a way of having him for a companion. This, though he 
supposed him to live by his wits at play-tables and the like; though he 
suspected him to be a coward, while he himself was daring and courageous; 
though he thoroughly knew him to be disliked by Minnie; and though he cared 
so little for him, after all, that if he had given her any tangible 
personal cause to regard him with aversion, he would have had no 
compunction whatever in flinging him out of the highest window in Venice, 
into the deepest water of the city.
Little Dorrit would have been glad to make her visit to Mrs Gowan, alone; 
but, as Fanny, who had not yet recovered from her Uncle's protest, though 
it was four-and-twenty hours of age, pressingly offered her company, the 
two sisters stepped together into one of the gondolas under Mr Dorrit's 
window, and, with the courier in attendance, were taken in high state to 
Mrs Gowan's lodging. In truth, their state was rather too high for the 
lodging, which was, as Fanny complained, "fearfully out of the way," and 
which took them through a complexity of narrow streets of water, which the 
same lady disparaged as "mere ditches."
The house, on a little desert island, looked as if it had broken away from 
somewhere else, and had floated by chance into its present anchorage, in 
company with a vine almost as much in want of training as the poor wretches 
who were lying under its leaves. The features of the surrounding picture 
were, a church with hoarding and scaffolding about it, which had been under 
supposititious repair so long that the means of repair looked a hundred 
years old, and had themselves fallen into decay; a quantity of washed 
linen, spread to dry in the sun; a number of houses at odds with one 
another and grotesquely out of the perpendicular, like rotten pre-Adamite 
cheeses cut into fantastic shapes and full of mites; and a feverish 
bewilderment of windows, with their lattice-blinds all hanging askew, and 
something dragged and dirty dangling out of most of them. On the first-
floor of the house was a Bank - a surprising experience for any gentleman 
of commercial pursuits bringing laws for all mankind from a British city - 
where two spare clerks, like dried dragoons, in green velvet caps adorned 
with golden tassels, stood, bearded, behind a small counter in a small 
room, containing no other visible objects than an empty iron-safe, with the 
door open, a jug of water, and a papering of garlands of roses; but who, on 
lawful requisition, by merely dipping their hands out of sight, could 
produce exhaustless mounds of five-franc pieces. Below the Bank, was a 
suite of three or four rooms with barred windows, which had the appearance 
of a jail for criminal rats. Above the Bank was Mrs Gowan's residence.
Notwithstanding that its walls were blotched, as if missionary maps were 
busting out of them to impart geographical knowledge; notwithstanding that 
its weird furniture was forlornly faded and musty, and that the prevailing 
Venetian odour of bilge water and an ebb-tide on a weedy shore was very 
strong; the place was better within, than it promised. The door was opened 
by a smiling man like a reformed assassin - a temporary servant - who 
ushered them into the room where Mrs Gowan sat: with the announcement that 
two beautiful English ladies were come to see the mistress.
Mrs Gowan, who was engaged in needlework, put her work aside in a covered 
basket, and rose, a little hurriedly. Miss Fanny was excessively courteous 
to her, and said the usual nothings with the skill of a veteran.
"Papa was extremely sorry," proceeded Fanny, "to be engaged today (he is so 
much engaged here, our acquaintance being so wretchedly large! ); and 
particularly requested me to bring his card for Mr Gowan. That I may be 
sure to acquit myself of a commission which he impressed upon me at least a 
dozen times, allow me to relieve my conscience by placing it on the table 
at once."
Which she did, with veteran ease.
"We have been," said Fanny, "charmed to understand that you know the 
Merdles. We hope it may be another means of bringing us together."
"They are friends," said Mrs Gowan, "of Mr Gowan's family. I have not yet 
had the pleasure of a personal introduction to Mrs Merdle, but I suppose I 
shall be presented to her at Rome."
"Indeed?" returned Fanny, with an appearance of amiably quenching her own 
superiority. "I think you'll like her."
"You know her very well?"
"Why, you see," said Fanny, with a frank action of her pretty shoulders, 
"in London one knows every one. We met her on our way here, and, to say the 
truth, papa was at first rather cross with her for taking one of the rooms 
that our people had ordered for us. However, of course that soon blew over, 
and we were all good friends again."
Although the visit had, as yet, given Little Dorrit no opportunity of 
conversing with Mrs Gowan, there was a silent understanding between them, 
which did as well. She looked at Mrs Gowan with keen and unabated interest; 
the sound of her voice was thrilling to her; nothing that was near her, or 
about her, or at all concerned her, escaped Little Dorrit. She was quicker 
to perceive the slightest matter here, than in any other case - but one.
"You have been quite well," she now said, "since that night?"
"Quite, my dear. And you?"
"Oh! I am always well," said Little Dorrit, timidly. "I - yes, thank you."
There was no reason for her faltering and breaking off, other than that Mrs 
Gowan had touched her hand in speaking to her, and their looks had met. 
Something thoughtfully apprehensive in the large, soft eyes, had checked 
Little Dorrit in an instant.
"You don't know that you are a favourite of my husband's, and that I am 
almost bound to be jealous of you?" said Mrs Gowan.
Little Dorrit, blushing, shook her head.
"He will tell you, if he tells you what he tells me, that you are quieter, 
and quicker of resource, than any one he ever saw."
"He speaks far too well of me," said Little Dorrit.
"I doubt that; but I don't at all doubt that I must tell him you are here. 
I should never be forgiven, if I were to let you - and Miss Dorrit - go, 
without doing so. May I? You can excuse the disorder and discomfort of a 
painter's studio?"
The inquiries were addressed to Miss Fanny, who graciously replied that she 
would be beyond anything interested and enchanted. Mrs Gowan went to a 
door, looked in beyond it, and came back. "Do Henry the favour to come in," 
said she. "I knew he would be pleased!"
The first object that confronted Little Dorrit, entering first, was 
Blandois of Paris in a great cloak and a furtive slouched hat, standing on 
a throne-platform in a corner, as he had stood on the Great Saint Bernard, 
when the warning arms seemed to be all pointing up at him. She recoiled 
from this figure, as it smiled at her.
"Don't be alarmed," said Gowan, coming from his easel behind the door. 
"It's only Blandois. He is doing duty as a model today. I am making a study 
of him. It saves me money to turn him to some use. We poor painters have 
none to spare."
Blandois of Paris pulled off his slouched hat, and saluted the ladies 
without coming out of his corner.
"A thousand pardons!" said he. "But the Professor here, is so inexorable 
with me, that I am afraid to stir."
"Don't stir, then," said Gowan, coolly, as the sisters approached the 
easel. "Let the ladies at least see the original of the daub, that they may 
know what it's meant for. There he stands, you see. A bravo waiting for his 
prey, a distinguished noble waiting to save his country, the common enemy 
waiting to do somebody a bad turn, an angelic messenger waiting to do 
somebody a good turn - whatever you think he looks most like!"
"Say, Professore Mio, a poor gentleman waiting to do homage to elegance and 
beauty," remarked Blandois.
"Or say, Cattivo Soggetto Mio," returned Gowan, touching the painted face 
with his brush in the part where the real face had moved, "a murderer after 
the fact. Show that white hand of yours, Blandois. Put it outside the 
cloak. Keep it still."
Blandois' hand was unsteady; but he laughed, and that would naturally shake 
it.
"He was formerly in some scuffle with another murderer, or with a victim, 
you observe," said Gowan, putting in the markings of the hand with a quick, 
impatient, unskilful touch, "and these are the tokens of it. Outside the 
cloak, man! - Corpo di San Marco, what are you thinking of!"
Blandois of Paris shook with a laugh again, so that his hand shook more; 
now he raised it to twist his moustache, which had a damp appearance; and 
now he stood in the required position with a little new swagger.
His face was so directed in reference to the spot where Little Dorrit stood 
by the easel, that throughout he looked at her. Once attracted by his 
peculiar eyes, she could not remove her own, and they had looked at each 
other all the time. She trembled now; Gowan, feeling it, and supposing her 
to be alarmed by the large dog beside him, whose head she caressed in her 
hand, and who had just uttered a low growl, glanced at her to say, "He 
won't hurt you, Miss Dorrit."
"I am not afraid of him," she returned, in the same breath; "but will you 
look at him?"
In a moment Gowan had thrown down his brush, and seized the dog with both 
hands by the collar.
"Blandois! How can you be such a fool as to provoke him! By Heaven, and the 
other place too, he'll tear you to bits! Lie down! Lion! Do you hear my 
voice, you rebel!"
The great dog, regardless of being half-choked by his collar, was 
obdurately pulling with his dead weight against his master, resolved to get 
across the room. He had been crouching for a spring, at the moment when his 
master caught him.
"Lion! Lion!" He was up on his hind legs, and it was a wrestle between 
master and dog. "Get back! Down, Lion! Get out of his sight, Blandois! What 
devil have you conjured into the dog?"
"I have done nothing to him."
"Get out of his sight, or I can't hold the wild beast! Get out of the room! 
By my soul, he'll kill you!"
The dog, with a ferocious bark, made one other struggle, as Blandois 
vanished; then, in the moment of the dog's submission, the master, little 
less angry than the dog, felled him with a blow on the head, and standing 
over him, struck him many times severely with the heel of his boot, so that 
his mouth was presently bloody.
"Now get you into that corner and lie down," said Gowan, "or I'll take you 
out and shoot you."
Lion did as he was ordered, and lay down licking his mouth and chest. 
Lion's master stopped for a moment to take breath, and then, recovering his 
usual coolness of manner, turned to speak to his frightened wife and her 
visitors. Probably the whole occurrence had not occupied two minutes.
"Come, come, Minnie! You know he is always good-humoured and tractable. 
Blandois must have irritated him, - made faces at him. The dog has his 
likings and dislikings, and Blandois is no great favourite of his; but I am 
sure you'll give him a character, Minnie, for never having been like this 
before."
Minnie was too much disturbed to say anything connected in reply; Little 
Dorrit was already occupied in soothing her; Fanny, who had cried out twice 
or thrice, held Gowan's arm for protection; Lion, deeply ashamed of having 
caused them this alarm, came trailing himself along the ground, to the feet 
of his mistress.
"You furious brute," said Gowan, striking him with his foot again. "You 
shall do penance for this." And he struck him again, and yet again.
"O, pray don't punish him any more," cried Little Dorrit. "Don't hurt him. 
See how gentle he is!" At her entreaty, Gowan spared him; and he deserved 
her intercession, for truly he was as submissive, and as sorry, and as 
wretched as a dog could be.
It was not easy to recover this shock and make the visit unrestrained, even 
though Fanny had not been, under the best of circumstances, the least 
trifle in the way. In such further communication as passed among them 
before the sisters took their departure, Little Dorrit fancied it was 
revealed to her that Mr Gowan treated his wife, even in his very fondness, 
too much like a beautiful child. He seemed so unsuspicious of the depths of 
feeling which she knew must lie below that surface, that she doubted if 
there could be any such depths in himself. She wondered whether his want of 
earnestness might be the natural result of his want of such qualities, and 
whether it was with people as with ships, that, in too shallow and rocky 
waters, their anchors had no hold, and they drifted anywhere.
He attended them down the staircase, jocosely apologising for the poor 
quarters to which such poor fellows as himself were limited, and remarking 
that when the high and mighty Barnacles, his relatives, who would be 
dreadfully ashamed of them, presented him with better, he would live in 
better to oblige them. At the water's edge they were saluted by Blandois, 
who looked white enough after his late adventure, but who made very light 
of it notwithstanding, - laughing at the mention of Lion.
Leaving the two together, under the scrap of vine upon the causeway, Gowan 
idly scattering the leaves from it into the water, and Blandois lighting a 
cigarette, the sisters were paddled away in state as they had come. They 
had not glided on for many minutes, when Little Dorrit became aware that 
Fanny was more showy in manner than the occasion appeared to require, and, 
looking about for the cause, through the window and through the open door, 
saw another gondola evidently in waiting for them.
As this gondola attended their progress in various artful ways; sometimes 
shooting on a-head, and stopping to let them pass; sometimes, when the way 
was broad enough, skimming along side by side with them; and sometimes 
following close astern; and as Fanny gradually made no disguise that she 
was playing off graces upon somebody within it, of whom she at the same 
time feigned to be unconscious; Little Dorrit at length asked who it was?
To which Fanny made the short answer, "That gaby."
"Who?" said Little Dorrit.
"My dear child," returned Fanny (in a tone suggesting that before her 
Uncle's protest she might have said, You. little fool, instead), "how slow 
you are! Young Sparkler."
She lowered the window on her side, and, leaning back and resting her elbow 
on it negligently, fanned herself with a rich Spanish fan of black and 
gold. The attendant gondola, having skimmed forward again, with some swift 
trace of an eye in the window, Fanny laughed coquettishly, and said, "Did 
you ever see such a fool, my love?"
"Do you think he means to follow you all the way? asked Little Dorrit.
"My precious child," returned Fanny, "I can't possibly answer for what an 
idiot in a state of desperation may do, but I should think it highly 
probable. It's not such an enormous distance. All Venice would scarcely be 
that, I imagine, if he's dying for a glimpse of me."
"And is he?" asked Little Dorrit, in perfect simplicity.
"Well, my love, that really is an awkward question for me to answer," said 
her sister. "I believe he is. You had better ask Edward. He tells Edward he 
is, I believe. I understand he makes a perfect spectacle of himself at the 
Casino, and that sort of places, by going on about me. But you had better 
ask Edward, if you want to know."
"I wonder he doesn't call," said Little Dorrit, after thinking a moment.
"My dear Amy, your wonder will soon cease, if I am rightly informed. I 
should not be at all surprised if he called today. The creature has only 
been waiting to get his courage up, I suspect."
"Will you see him?"
"Indeed, my darling," said Fanny, "that's just as it may happen. Here he is 
again. Look at him. O, you simpleton!"
Mr Sparkler had, undeniably, a weak appearance; with his eye in the window 
like a knot in the glass, and no reason on earth for stopping his bark 
suddenly, except the real reason.
"When you asked me if I will see him, my dear," said Fanny, almost as well 
composed in the graceful indifference of her attitude as Mrs Merdle 
herself, "what do you mean?"
"I mean," said Little Dorrit - " I think I rather mean what do you mean, 
dear Fanny?"
Fanny laughed again, in a manner at once condescending, arch, and affable; 
and said, putting her arm round her sister in a playfully affectionate way:
"Now tell me, my little pet. When we saw that woman at Martigny, how did 
you think she carried it off. Did you see what she decided on in a moment?"
"No, Fanny."
"Then I'll tell you, Amy. She settled with herself, now I'll never refer to 
that meeting under such different circumstances, and I'll never pretend to 
have any idea that these are the same girls. That's her way out of a 
difficulty. What did I tell you, when we came away from Harley Street that 
time? She is as insolent and false as any woman in the world. But in the 
first capacity, my love, she may find people who can match her."
A significant turn of the Spanish fan towards Fanny's bosom, indicated with 
great expression where one of these people was to be found.
"Not only that," pursued Fanny, "But she gives the same charge to Young 
Sparkler; and doesn't let him come after me until she has got it thoroughly 
into his most ridiculous of all ridiculous noddles (for one really can't 
call it a head), that he is to pretend to have been first struck with me in 
that Inn Yard."
"Why?" asked Little Dorrit.
"Why? Good gracious, my love!" (again very much in the tone of You stupid 
little creature) "how can you ask? Don't you see that I may have become a 
rather desirable match for a noodle? And don't you see that she puts the 
deception upon us, and makes a pretence, while she shifts it from her own 
shoulders (very good shoulders they are too, I must say)," observed Miss 
Fanny, glancing complacently at herself, "of considering our feelings?"
"But we can always go back to the plain truth."
"Yes, but if you please we won't," retorted Fanny. "No; I am not going to 
have that done, Amy. The pretext is none of mine; it's hers, and she shall 
have enough of it."
In the triumphant exultation of her feelings, Miss Fanny, using her Spanish 
fan with one hand, squeezed her sister's waist with the other, as if she 
were crushing Mrs Merdle.
"No," repeated Fanny. "She shall find me go her way. She took it, and I'll 
follow it. And, with the blessing of fate and fortune, I'll go on improving 
that woman's acquaintance until I have given her maid, before her eyes, 
things from my dressmaker's ten times as handsome and expensive as she once 
gave me from hers!"
Little Dorrit was silent: sensible that she was not to be heard on any 
question affecting the family dignity; and unwilling to lose to no purpose 
her sister's newly and unexpectedly restored favour. She could not concur, 
but she was silent. Fanny well knew what she was thinking of; so well, that 
she soon asked her.
Her reply was, "Do you mean to encourage Mr Sparkler, Fanny?"
"Encourage him, my dear?" said her sister, smiling contemptuously, "that 
depends upon what you call encourage. No, I don't mean to encourage him. 
But I'll make a slave of him."
Little Dorrit glanced seriously and doubtfully in her face, but Fanny was 
not to be so brought to a check. She furled her fan of black and gold, and 
used it to tap her sister's nose; with the air of a proud beauty and a 
great spirit, who toyed with and playfully instructed a homely companion.
"I shall make him fetch and carry, my dear, and I shall make him subject to 
me. And if I don't make his mother subject to me, too, it shall not be my 
fault."
"Do you think - dear Fanny, don't be offended, we are so comfortable 
together now - that you can quite see the end of that course?"
"I can't say I have so much as looked for it yet, my dear," answered Fanny, 
with supreme indifference; "all in good time. Such are my intentions. And 
really they have taken me so long to develop, that here we are at home. And 
Young Sparkler at the door, inquiring who is within. By the merest 
accident, of course!"
In effect, the swain was standing up in his gondola, card case in hand, 
affecting to put the question to a servant. This conjunction of 
circumstances led to his immediately afterwards presenting himself before 
the young ladies in a posture, which in ancient times would not have been 
considered one of favourable augury for his suit; since the gondoliers of 
the young ladies, having been put to some inconvenience by the chase, so 
neatly brought their own boat in the gentlest collision with the bark of Mr 
Sparkler, as to tip that gentleman over like a large species of ninepin, 
and cause him to exhibit the soles of his shoes to the object of his 
dearest wishes: while the nobler portions of his anatomy struggled at the 
bottom of his boat in the arms of one of his men.
However, as Miss Fanny called out with much concern, Was the gentleman 
hurt, Mr Sparkler rose more restored than might have been expected, and 
stammered for himself with blushes. "Not at all so." Miss Fanny had no 
recollection of having ever seen him before, and was passing on, with a 
distant inclination of her head, when he announced himself by name. Even 
then, she was in a difficulty from being unable to call it to mind, until 
he explained that he had had the honour of seeing her at Martigny. Then she 
remembered him and hoped his lady-mother was well.
"Thank you," stammered Mr Sparkler, "she's uncommonly well - at least, 
poorly."
"In Venice?" said Miss Fanny.
"In Rome," Mr Sparkler answered. "I am here by myself, myself. I came to 
call upon Mr Edward Dorrit myself. Indeed, upon Mr Dorrit likewise. In 
fact, upon the family."
Turning graciously to the attendants, Miss Fanny inquired whether her papa 
or brother was within? The reply being that they were both within, Mr 
Sparkler humbly offered his arm. Miss Fanny accepting it, was squired up 
the great staircase by Mr Sparkler, who, if he still believed (which there 
is not any reason to doubt) that she had no nonsense about her, rather 
deceived himself.
Arrived in a mouldering reception-room, where the faded hangings of a sad 
sea-green, had worn and withered until they looked as if they might have 
claimed kindred with the waifs of sea-weed drifting under the windows, or 
clinging to the walls and weeping for their imprisoned relations, Miss 
Fanny dispatched emissaries for her father and brother. Pending whose 
appearance, she showed to great advantage on a sofa, completing Mr 
Sparkler's conquest with some remarks upon Dante - known to that gentleman 
as an eccentric man in the nature of an Old File, who used to put leaves 
round his head, and sit upon a stool for some unaccountable purpose, 
outside the cathedral at Florence.
Mr Dorrit welcomed the visitor with the highest urbanity, and most courtly 
manners. He inquired particularly after Mrs Merdle. He inquired 
particularly after Mr Merdle. Mr Sparkler said, or rather twitched out of 
himself in small pieces by the shirt-collar, that Mrs Merdle, having 
completely used up her place in the country, and also her house at 
Brighton, and being, of course, unable, don't you see, to remain in London 
when there wasn't a soul there, and not feeling herself this year quite up 
to visiting about at people's places, had resolved to have a touch at Rome, 
where a woman like herself with a proverbially fine appearance and with no 
nonsense about her, couldn't fail to be a great acquisition. As to Mr 
Merdle, he was so much wanted by the men in the City and the rest of those 
places, and was such a doosed extraordinary phenomenon in Buying and 
Banking and that, that Mr Sparkler doubted if the monetary system of the 
country would be able to spare him: though that his work was occasionally 
one too many for him, and that he would be all the better for a temporary 
shy at an entirely new scene and climate, Mr Sparkler did not conceal. As 
to himself, Mr Sparkler conveyed to the Dorrit family that he was going, on 
rather particular business, wherever they were going.
This immense conversational achievement required time, but was effected. 
Being effected, Mr Dorrit expressed his hope that Mr Sparkler would shortly 
dine with them. Mr Sparkler received the idea so kindly, that Mr Dorrit 
asked what he was going to do that day, for instance? As he was going to do 
nothing that day (his usual occupation, and one for which he was 
particularly qualified), he was secured without postponement; being further 
bound over to accompany the ladies to the Opera in the evening.
At dinner-time Mr Sparkler rose out of the sea, like Venus's son taking 
after his mother, and made a splendid appearance ascending the great 
staircase. If Fanny had been charming in the morning, she was now thrice 
charming, very becomingly dressed in her most suitable colours, and with an 
air of negligence upon her that doubled Mr Sparkler's fetters and riveted 
them.
"I hear you are acquainted, Mr Sparkler," said his host at dinner, "with - 
ha - Mr Gowan. Mr Henry Gowan?"
"Perfectly, sir," returned Mr Sparkler. "His mother and my mother are 
cronies, in fact."
"If I had thought of it, Amy," said Mr Dorrit, with a patronage as 
magnificent as that of Lord Decimus himself, "you should have despatched a 
note to them asking them to dine today. Some of our people could have - ha -
 fetched them, and taken them home. We could have spared a - hum - gondola 
for that purpose. I am sorry to have forgotten this. Pray remind me of them 
tomorrow."
Little Dorrit was not without doubts how Mr Henry Gowan might take their 
patronage: but, she promised not to fail in the reminder.
"Pray, does Mr Henry Gowan paint - ha - Portraits?" inquired Mr Dorrit.
Mr Sparkler opined that he painted anything, if he could get the job.
"He has no particular walk?" said Mr Dorrit.
Mr Sparkler, stimulated by Love to brilliancy, replied that for a 
particular walk, a man ought to have a particular pair of shoes: as, for 
example, shooting, shooting-shoes; cricket, cricket-shoes. Whereas, he 
believed that Henry Gowan had no particular pair of shoes.
"No speciality?" said Mr Dorrit. This being a very long word for Mr 
Sparkler, and his mind being exhausted by his late effort, he replied, "No, 
thank you. I seldom take it."
"Well!" said Mr Dorrit. "It would be very agreeable to me, to present a 
gentleman so connected, with some - ha - Testimonial of my desire to 
further his interests, and develop the - hum - germs of his genius. I think 
I must engage Mr Gowan to paint my picture. If the result should be - ha - 
mutually satisfactory, I might afterwards engage him to try his hand upon 
my family."
The exquisitely bold and original thought presented itself to Mr Sparkler, 
that there was an opening here for saying there were some of the family 
(emphasising "some" in a marked manner) to whom no painter could render 
justice. But, for want of a form of words in which to express the idea, it 
returned to the skies.
This was the more to be regretted as Miss Fanny greatly applauded the 
notion of the portrait, and urged her papa to act upon it. She surmised, 
she said, that Mr Gowan had lost better and higher opportunities by 
marrying his pretty wife; and Love in a cottage, painting pictures for 
dinner, was so delightfully interesting, that she begged her papa to give 
him the commission, whether he could paint a likeness or not: though indeed 
both she and Amy knew he could, from having seen a speaking likeness on his 
easel that day, and having had the opportunity of comparing it with the 
original. These remarks made Mr Sparkler (as perhaps they were intended to 
do) nearly distracted; for while on the one hand they expressed Miss 
Fanny's susceptibility to the tender passion she herself showed such an 
innocent unconsciousness of his admiration, that his eyes goggled in his 
head with jealousy of an unknown rival.
Descending into the sea again after dinner, and ascending out of it at the 
Opera staircase, preceded by one of their gondoliers, like an attendant 
Merman, with a great linen lantern, they entered their box, and Mr Sparkler 
entered on an evening of agony. The theatre being dark, and the box light, 
several visitors lounged in during the representation; in whom Fanny was so 
interested, and in conversation with whom she fell into such charming 
attitudes, as she had little confidences with them, and little disputes 
concerning the identity of people in distant boxes, that the wretched 
Sparkler hated all mankind. But he had two consolations at the close of the 
performance. She gave him her fan to hold while she adjusted her cloak, and 
it was his blessed privilege to give her his arm downstairs again. These 
crumbs of encouragement, Mr Sparkler thought, would just keep him going; 
and it is not impossible that Miss Dorrit thought so too.
The Merman with his light was ready at the box-door, and other Mermen with 
other lights were ready at many of the doors. The Dorrit Merman held his 
lantern low, to show the steps, and Mr Sparkler put on another heavy set of 
fetters over his former set, as he watched her radiant feet twinkling down 
the stairs beside him. Among the loiterers here, was Blandois of Paris. He 
spoke, and moved forward besides Fanny.
Little Dorrit was in front, with her brother and Mrs General (Mr Dorrit had 
remained at home); but, on the brink of the quay they all came together. 
She started again to find Blandois close to her, handing Fanny into the 
boat.
"Gowan has had a loss," he said, "since he was made happy today by a visit 
from fair ladies."
"A loss?" repeated Fanny, relinquished by the bereaved Sparkler, and taking 
her seat.
"A loss," said Blandois. "His dog, Lion."
Little Dorrit's hand was in his, as he spoke.
"He is dead," said Blandois.
"Dead?" echoed Little Dorrit. "That noble dog?"
"Faith, dear ladies!" said Blandois, smiling and shrugging his shoulders, 
"somebody has poisoned that noble dog. He is as dead as the Doges!"


Chapter 7

Mostly, Prunes And Prism

Mrs General, always on her coach-box keeping the proprieties well together, 
took pains to form a surface on her very dear young friend, and Mrs 
General's very dear young friend tried hard to receive it. Hard as she had 
tried in her laborious life to attain many ends, she had never tried harder 
than she did now, to be varnished by Mrs General. It made her anxious and 
ill at ease to be operated upon by that smoothing hand, it is true; but she 
submitted herself to the family want in its greatness as she had submitted 
herself to the family want in its littleness, and yielded to her own 
inclinations in this thing no more than she had yielded to her hunger 
itself, in the days when she had saved her dinner that her father might 
have his supper.
One comfort that she had under the Ordeal by General was more sustaining to 
her, and made her more grateful than to a less devoted and affectionate 
spirit, not habituated to her struggles and sacrifices, might appear quite 
reasonably; and, indeed, it may often be observed in life, that spirits 
like Little Dorrit do not appear to reason half as carefully as the folks 
who get the better of them. The continued kindness of her sister was this 
comfort to Little Dorrit. It was nothing to her that the kindness took the 
form of tolerant patronage; she was used to that. It was nothing to her 
that it kept her in a tributary position, and showed her in attendance on 
the flaming car in which Miss Fanny sat on an elevated seat, exacting 
homage; she sought no better place. Always admiring Fanny's beauty, and 
grace, and readiness, and not now asking herself how much of her 
disposition to be strongly attached to Fanny was due to her own heart, and 
how much to Fanny's, she gave her all the sisterly fondness her great heart 
contained.
The wholesale amount of Prunes and Prism which Mrs General infused into the 
family life, combined with the perpetual plunges made by Fanny into 
society, left but a very small residue of any natural deposit at the bottom 
of the mixture. This rendered confidences with Fanny doubly precious to 
Little Dorrit, and heightened the relief they afforded her.
"Amy," said Fanny to her, one night when they were alone, after a day so 
tiring that Little Dorrit was quite worn out, though Fanny would have taken 
another dip into society with the greatest pleasure in life, "I am going to 
put something into your little head. You won't guess what it is, I 
suspect."
"I don't think that's likely, dear," said Little Dorrit.
"Come, I'll give you a clue, child," said Fanny. "Mrs General."
Prunes and Prism, in a thousand combinations, having been wearily in the 
ascendant all day - everything having been surface and varnish, and show 
without substance - Little Dorrit looked as if she had hoped that Mrs 
General was safely tucked up in bed for some hours.
"Now, can you guess, Amy?" said Fanny.
"No, dear. Unless I have done anything," said Little Dorrit, rather 
alarmed, and meaning anything calculated to crack varnish and ruffle 
surface.
Fanny was so very much amused by the misgiving, that she took up her 
favourite fan (being then seated at her dressing-table with her armoury of 
cruel instruments about her, most of them reeking from the heart of 
Sparkler), and tapped her sister frequently on the nose with it, laughing 
all the time.
"Oh, our Amy, our Amy" said Fanny. "What a timid little goose our Amy is! 
But this is nothing to laugh at. On the contrary, I am very cross, my 
dear."
"As it is not with me. Fanny, I don't mind," returned her sister, smiling.
"Ah! But I do mind," said Fanny, "and so will you, Pet, when I enlighten 
you. Amy, has it never struck you that somebody is monstrously polite to 
Mrs General?"
"Everybody is polite to Mrs General," said Little Dorrit. "Because -"
"Because she freezes them into it?" interrupted Fanny. "I don't mean that; 
quite different from that. Come! Has it never struck you, Amy, that Pa is 
monstrously polite to Mrs General?"
Amy murmuring "No," looked quite confounded.
"No; I dare say not. But he is," said Fanny. "He is, Amy. And remember my 
words. Mrs General has designs on Pa!"
"Dear Fanny, do you think it possible that Mrs General has designs on any 
one?"
"Do I think it possible?" retorted Fanny. "My love, I know it. I tell you 
she has designs on Pa. And more than that, I tell you, Pa considers her 
such a wonder, such a paragon of accomplishment, and such an acquisition to 
our family, that he is ready to get himself into a state of perfect 
infatuation with her at any moment. And that opens a pretty picture of 
things, I hope! Think of me with Mrs General for a Mama!"
Little Dorrit did not reply, "Think of me with Mrs General for a Mama;" but 
she looked anxious, and seriously inquired what had led Fanny to these 
conclusions.
"Lard, my darling," said Fanny, tartly. "You might as well ask me how I 
know when a man is struck with myself! But, of course I do know. It happens 
pretty often; but I always know it. I know this, in much the same way, I 
suppose. At all events, I know it."
"You never heard Papa say anything?"
"Say anything?" repeated Fanny. "My dearest, darling child, what necessity 
has he had, yet awhile, to say anything?"
"And you have never heard Mrs General say anything?"
"My goodness me, Amy," returned Fanny, "is she the sort of woman to say 
anything? Isn't it perfectly plain and clear that she has nothing to do, at 
present, but to hold herself upright, keep her aggravating gloves on, and 
go sweeping about? Say anything! If she had the ace of trumps in her hand, 
at whist, she wouldn't say anything, child. It would come out when she 
played it."
"At least you may be mistaken, Fanny. Now may you not?"
"O yes, I may be," said Fanny, "but I am not. However, I am glad you can 
contemplate such an escape, my dear, and I am glad that you can take this 
for the present with sufficient coolness to think of such a chance. It 
makes me hope that you may be able to bear the connection. I should not be 
able to bear it, and I should not try. I'd marry young Sparkler first."
"O, you would never marry him, Fanny, under any circumstances."
"Upon my word, my dear," rejoined that young lady, with exceeding 
indifference, "I wouldn't positively answer even for that. There's no 
knowing what might happen. Especially as I should have many opportunities, 
afterwards, of treating that woman, his mother, in her own style. Which I 
most decidedly should not be slow to avail myself of, Amy."
No more passed between the sisters then; but what had passed gave the two 
subjects of Mrs General and Mr Sparkler great prominence in Little Dorrit's 
mind, and thenceforth she thought very much of both.
Mrs General, having long ago formed her own surface to such perfection that 
it hid whatever was below it (if anything), no observation was to be made 
in that quarter. Mr Dorrit was undeniably very polite to her, and had a 
high opinion of her; but, Fanny, impetuous at most times, might easily be 
wrong for all that. Whereas, the Sparkler question was on the different 
footing that any one could see what was going on there, and Little Dorrit 
saw it, and pondered on it, with many doubts and wonderings.
The devotion of Mr Sparkler was only to be equalled by the caprice and 
cruelty of his enslaver. Sometimes she would prefer him to such distinction 
of notice, that he would chuckle aloud with joy; next day, or next hour, 
she would overlook him so completely, and drop him into such an abyss of 
obscurity, that he would groan under a weak pretence of coughing. The 
constancy of his attendance never touched Fanny: though he was so 
inseparable from Edward, that when that gentleman wished for a change of 
society he was under the irksome necessity of gliding out like a 
conspirator, in disguised boats and by secret doors and back ways; though 
he was so solicitous to know how Mr Dorrit was, that he called every other 
day to inquire, as if Mr Dorrit were the prey of an intermittent fever; 
though he was so constantly being paddled up and down before the principal 
windows, that he might have been supposed to have made a wager for a large 
stake to be paddled a thousand miles in a thousand hours; though whenever 
the gondola of his mistress left the gate, the gondola of Mr Sparkler shot 
out from some watery ambush and gave chase, as if she were a fair smuggler 
and he a custom house officer. It was probably owing to this fortification 
of the natural strength of his constitution with so much exposure to the 
air, and the salt sea, that Mr Sparkler did not pine outwardly; but, 
whatever the cause, he was so far from having any prospect of moving his 
mistress by a languishing state of health, that he grew bluffer every day, 
and that peculiarity in his appearance of seeming rather a swelled boy than 
a young man became developed to an extraordinary degree of ruddy puffiness.
Blandois calling to pay his respects, Mr Dorrit received him with 
affability as the friend of Mr Gowan, and mentioned to him his idea of 
commissioning Mr Gowan to transmit him to posterity. Blandois highly 
extolling it, it occurred to Mr Dorrit that it might be agreeable to 
Blandois to communicate to his friend the great opportunity reserved for 
him. Blandois accepted the commission with his own free elegance of manner, 
and swore he would discharge it before he was an hour older. On his 
imparting the news to Gowan, that Master gave Mr Dorrit to the Devil with 
great liberality some round dozen of times (for he resented patronage 
almost as much as he resented the want of it), and was inclined to quarrel 
with his friend for bringing him the message.
"It may be a defect in my mental vision, Blandois," said he, "but may I die 
if I see what you have to do with this."
"Death of my life," replied Blandois, "nor I neither, except that I thought 
I was serving my friend."
"By putting an upstart's hire in his pocket?" said Gowan, frowning. "Do you 
mean that? Tell your other friend to get his head painted for the sign of 
some public-house, and to get it done by a sign-painter. Who am I, and who 
is he?"
"Professore," returned the ambassador, "and who is Blandois?"
Without appearing at all interested in the latter question, Gowan angrily 
whistled Mr Dorrit away. But, next day, he resumed the subject by saying in 
his offhand manner, and with a slighting laugh, "Well, Blandois, when shall 
we go to this Maecenas of yours? We journeymen must take jobs when we can 
get them. When shall we go and look after this job?"
"When you will," said the injured Blandois, "as you please. What have I to 
do with it? What is it to me?"
"I can tell you what it is to me," said Gowan. "Bread and cheese. One must 
eat! So come along, my Blandois."
Mr Dorrit received them in the presence of his daughters and of Mr 
Sparkler, who happened, by some surprising accident, to be calling there. 
"How are you, Sparkler?" said Gowan, carelessly. "When you have to live by 
your mother wit, old boy, I hope you may get on better than I do."
Mr Dorrit then mentioned his proposal. "Sir," said Gowan, laughing, after 
receiving it gracefully enough, "I am new to the trade, and not expert at 
its mysteries. I believe I ought to look at you in various lights, tell you 
you are a capital subject, and consider when I shall be sufficiently 
disengaged to devote myself with the necessary enthusiasm to the fine 
picture I mean to make of you. I assure you," and he laughed again, "I feel 
quite a traitor in the camp of those dear, gifted, good, noble fellows, my 
brother artists, by not doing the hocus-pocus better. But I have not been 
brought up to it, and it's too late to learn it. Now, the fact is, I am a 
very bad painter, but not much worse than the generality. If you are going 
to throw away a hundred guineas or so, I am as poor as a poor relation of 
great people usually is, and I shall be very much obliged to you, if you'll 
throw them away upon me. I'll do the best I can for the money; and if the 
best should be bad, why even then, you may probably have a bad picture with 
a small name to it, instead of a bad picture with a large name to it."
This tone, though not what he had expected, on the whole suited Mr Dorrit 
remarkably well. It showed that the gentleman, highly connected, and not a 
mere workman, would be under an obligation to him. He expressed his 
satisfaction in placing himself in Mr Gowan's hands, and trusted that he 
would have the pleasure, in their characters as private gentlemen, of 
improving his acquaintance.
"You are very good," said Gowan. "I have not forsworn society since I 
joined the brotherhood of the brush (the most delightful fellows on the 
face of the earth), and am glad enough to smell the old fine gunpowder now 
and then, though it did blow me into mid-air and my present calling. You'll 
not think, Mr Dorrit," and here he laughed again, in the easiest way, "that 
I am lapsing into the freemasonry of the craft - for it's not so; upon my 
life I can't help betraying it wherever I go, though, by Jupiter, I love 
and honour the craft with all my might - if I propose a stipulation as to 
time and place?"
Ha! Mr Dorrit could erect no - hum - suspicion of that kind, on Mr Gowan's 
frankness.
"Again, you are very good," said Gowan. "Mr Dorrit, I hear you are going to 
Rome. I am going to Rome, having friends there. Let me begin to do you the 
injustice I have conspired to do you, there - not here. We shall all be 
hurried during the rest of our stay here; and though there's not a poorer 
man with whole elbows, in Venice, than myself, I have not quite got all the 
Amateur out of me yet - compromising the trade again, you see! - and can't 
fall on to order, in a hurry, for the mere sake of the sixpences."
These remarks were not less favourably received by Mr Dorrit than their 
predecessors. They were the prelude to the first reception of Mr and Mrs 
Gowan at dinner, and they skilfully placed Gowan on his usual ground in the 
new family.
His wife, too, they placed on her usual ground. Miss Fanny understood, with 
particular distinctness, that Mrs Gowan's good looks had cost her husband 
very dear; that there had been a great disturbance about her in the 
Barnacle family; and that the Dowager Mrs Gowan, nearly heart-broken, had 
resolutely set her face against the marriage until overpowered by her 
maternal feelings. Mrs General likewise clearly understood that the 
attachment had occasioned much family grief and dissension. Of honest Mr 
Meagles no mention was made; except that it was natural enough that a 
person of that sort should wish to raise his daughter out of his own 
obscurity, and that no one could blame him for trying his best to do so.
Little Dorrit's interest in the fair subject of this easily accepted 
belief, was too earnest and watchful to fail in accurate observation. She 
could see that it had its part in throwing upon Mrs Gowan the touch of 
shadow under which she lived, and she even had an instinctive knowledge 
that there was not the least truth in it. But, it had an influence in 
placing obstacles in the way of her association with Mrs Gowan, by making 
the Prunes and Prism school excessively polite to her, but not very 
intimate with her; and Little Dorrit as an enforced sizar of that college, 
was obliged to submit herself humbly to its ordinances.
Nevertheless, there was a sympathetic understanding already established 
between the two, which would have carried them over greater difficulties, 
and made a friendship out of a more restricted intercourse. As though 
accidents were determined to be favourable to it, they had a new assurance 
of congeniality in the aversion which each perceived that the other felt 
towards Blandois of Paris; an aversion amounting to the repugnance and 
horror of a natural antipathy towards an odious creature of the reptile 
kind.
And there was a passive congeniality between them, besides this active one. 
To both of them, Blandois behaved in exactly the same manner; and to both 
of them his manner had uniformly something in it, which they both knew to 
be different from his bearing towards others. The difference was too minute 
in its expression to be perceived by others, but they knew it to be there. 
A mere trick of his evil eyes, a mere turn of his smooth white hand, a mere 
hair's-breadth of addition to the fall of his nose and the rise of the 
moustache in the most frequent movement of his face, conveyed to both of 
them equally a swagger personal to themselves. It was as if he had said, "I 
have a secret power in this quarter. I know what I know."
This had never been felt by them both in so great a degree, and never by 
each so perfectly to the knowledge of the other, as on a day when he came 
to Mr Dorrit's to take his leave before quitting Venice. Mrs Gowan was 
herself there for the same purpose, and he came upon the two together; the 
rest of the family being out. The two had not been together five minutes, 
and the peculiar manner seemed to convey to them, "You were going to talk 
about me. Hah! Behold me here to prevent it!"
"Gowan is coming here?" said Blandois, with his smile.
Mrs Gowan replied he was not coming.
"Not coming!" said Blandois. "Permit your devoted servant when you leave 
here, to escort you home."
"Thank you; I am not going home."
"Not going home!" said Blandois. "Then I am forlorn."
That he might be; but he was not so forlorn as to roam away and leave them 
together. He sat entertaining them with his finest compliments, and his 
choicest conversation; but, he conveyed to them, all the time, "No, no, no, 
dear ladies. Behold me here expressly to prevent it!"
He conveyed it to them with so much meaning, and he had such a diabolical 
persistency in him, that at length Mrs Gowan rose to depart. On his 
offering his hand to Mrs Gowan to lead her down the staircase, she retained 
Little Dorrit's hand in hers, with a cautious pressure, and said, "No, 
thank you. But, if you will please to see if my boatman is there, I shall 
be-obliged to you."
It left him no choice but to go down before them. As he did so, hat in 
hand, Mrs Gowan whispered:
"He killed the dog."
"Does Mr Gowan know it?" Little Dorrit whispered.
"No one knows it. Don't look towards me; look towards him. He will turn his 
face in a moment. No one knows it, but I am sure he did. You are?"
"I - I think so," Little Dorrit answered.
"Henry likes him, and will not think ill of him; he is so generous and open 
himself. But you and I feel sure that we think of him as he deserves. He 
argued with Henry that the dog had been already poisoned when he changed 
so, and sprung at him. Henry believes it, but we do not. I see he is 
listening, but can't hear. Good-bye, my love! Good-bye!"
The last words were spoken aloud, as the vigilant Blandois stopped, turned 
his head, and looked at them from the bottom of the staircase. Assuredly he 
did look then, though he looked his politest, as if any real philanthropist 
could have desired no better employment than to lash a great stone to his 
neck, and drop him into the water flowing beyond the dark arched gateway in 
which he stood. No such benefactor to mankind being on the spot, he handed 
Mrs Gowan to her boat, and stood there until it had shot out of the narrow 
view; when he handed himself into his own boat and followed.
Little Dorrit had sometimes thought, and now thought again as she retraced 
her steps up the staircase, that he had made his way too easily into her 
father's house. But, so many and such varieties of people did the same, 
through Mr Dorrit's participation in his elder daughter's society mania, 
that it was hardly an exceptional case. A perfect fury for making 
acquaintances on whom to impress their riches and importance, had seized 
the House of Dorrit.
It appeared on the whole, to Little Dorrit herself, that this same society 
in which they lived, greatly resembled a superior sort of Marshalsea. 
Numbers of people seemed to come abroad, pretty much as people had come 
into the prison; through debt, through idleness, relationship, curiosity, 
and general unfitness for getting on at home. They were brought into these 
foreign towns in the custody of couriers and local followers, just as the 
debtors had been brought into the prison. They prowled about the churches 
and picture-galleries, much in the old, dreary, prison-yard manner. They 
were usually going away again tomorrow or next week, and rarely knew their 
own minds, and seldom did what they said they would do, or went where they 
said they would go: in all this again, very like the prison debtors. They 
paid high for poor accommodation, and disparaged a place while they 
pretended to like it: which was exactly the Marshalsea custom. They were 
envied when they went away, by people left behind feigning not to want to 
go; and that again was the Marshalsea habit invariably. A certain set of 
words and phrases, as much belonging to tourists as the College and the 
Snuggery belonged to the jail, was always in their mouths. They had 
precisely the same incapacity for settling down to anything, as the 
prisoners used to have; they rather deteriorated one another, as the 
prisoners used to do; and they wore untidy dresses, and fell into a 
slouching way of life; still, always like the people in the Marshalsea.
The period of the family's stay at Venice came, in its course, course to an 
end, and they moved, with their retinue, to Rome. Through a repetition of 
the former Italian scenes, growing more dirty and more haggard as they went 
on, and bringing them at length to where the very air was diseased, they 
passed to their destination. A fine residence had been taken for them on 
the Corso, and there they took up their abode, in a city where everything 
seemed to be trying to stand still for ever on the ruins of something else -
 except the water, which, following eternal laws, tumbled and rolled from 
its glorious multitude of fountains.
Here, it seemed to Little Dorrit, that a change came over the Marshalsea 
spirit of their society, and that Prunes and Prism got the upper hand. 
Everybody was walking about St. Peter's and the Vatican on somebody else's 
cork legs, and straining every visible object through somebody else's 
sieve. Nobody said what anything was, but everybody said what the Mrs 
Generals, Mr Eustace, or somebody else said it was. The whole body of 
travellers seemed to be a collection of voluntary human sacrifices, bound 
hand and foot, and delivered over to Mr Eustace and his attendants, to have 
the entrails of their intellects arranged according to the taste of that 
sacred priesthood. Through the rugged remains of temples and tombs and 
palaces and senate halls and theatres and amphitheatres of ancient days, 
hosts of tongue-tied and blindfolded moderns were carefully feeling their 
way, incessantly repeating Prunes and Prism, in the endeavour to set their 
lips according to the received form. Mrs General was in her pure element. 
Nobody had an opinion. There was a formation of surface going on around her 
on an amazing scale, and it had not a flaw of courage or honest free speech 
in it.
Another modification of Prunes and Prism insinuated itself on Little 
Dorrit's notice, very shortly after their arrival. They received an early 
visit from Mrs Merdle, who led that extensive department of life in the 
Eternal City that winter; and the skilful manner in which she and Fanny 
fenced with one another on the occasion, almost made her quiet sister wink, 
like the glittering of small-swords.
"So delighted," said Mrs Merdle, "to resume an acquaintance so 
inauspiciously begun at Martigny."
"At Martigny, of course," said Fanny. "Charmed, I am sure."
"I understand," said Mrs Merdle, "from my son Edmund Sparkler, that he has 
already improved that chance-occasion. He has returned quite transported 
with Venice."
"Indeed?" returned the careless Fanny. "Was he there long?"
"I might refer that question to Mr Dorrit," said Mrs Merdle, turning the 
bosom towards that gentleman; "Edmund having been so much indebted to him 
for rendering his stay agreeable."
"Oh, pray don't speak of it," returned Fanny. "I believe Papa had the 
pleasure of inviting Mr Sparkler twice or thrice, - but it was nothing. We 
had so many people about us, and kept such open house, that if he had that 
pleasure, it was less than nothing."
"Except, my dear," said Mr Dorrit, "except - ha - as it afforded me unusual 
gratification to - hum - show by any means, however slight and worthless, 
the - ha, hum - high estimation in which, in - he - common with the rest of 
the world, I hold so distinguished and princely a character as Mr 
Merdle's."
The bosom received this tribute in its most engaging manner. "Mr Merdle," 
observed Fanny, as a means of dismissing Mr Sparkler into the background, 
"is quite a theme of papa's, you must know, Mrs Merdle."
"I have been - ha - disappointed, madam," said Mr Dorrit, "to understand 
from Mr Sparkler that there is no great - hum - probability of Mr Merdle's 
coming abroad."
"Why, indeed," said Mrs Merdle, "he is so much engaged, and in such 
request, that I fear not. He has not been able to get abroad for years. 
You, Miss Dorrit, I believe, have been almost continually abroad for a long 
time."
"Oh dear yes," drawled Fanny, with the greatest hardihood. "An immense 
number of years."
"So I should have inferred," said Mrs Merdle.
"Exactly," said Fanny.
"I trust, however," resumed Mr Dorrit, "that if I have not the - hum - 
great advantage of becoming known to Mr Merdle on this side of the Alps or 
Mediterranean, I shall have that honour on returning to England. It is an 
honour I particularly desire and shall particularly esteem."
"Mr Merdle," said Mrs Merdle, who had been looking admiringly at Fanny 
through her eyeglass, "will esteem it, I am sure, no less."
Little Dorrit, still habitually thoughtful and solitary, though no longer 
alone, at first supposed this to be mere Prunes and Prism. But, as her 
father when they had been to a brilliant reception at Mrs Merdle's, harped, 
at their own family breakfast-table, on his wish to know Mr Merdle, with 
the contingent view of benefiting by the advice of that wonderful man in 
the disposal of his fortune, she began to think it had a real meaning, and 
to entertain a curiosity on her own part, to see the shining light of the 
time.


Chapter 8

The Dowager Mrs Gowan Is Reminded That It Never Does

While the waters of Venice and the ruins of Rome were sunning themselves 
for the pleasure of the Dorrit family, and were daily being sketched out of 
all earthly proportion, lineament, and likeness, by travelling pencils 
innumerable, the firm of Doyce and Clennam hammered away in Bleeding Heart 
Yard, and the vigorous clink of iron upon iron was heard there through the 
working hours.
The younger partner had, by this time, brought the business into sound 
trim; and the elder, left free to follow his own ingenious devices, had 
done much to enhance the character of the factory. As an ingenious man, he 
had necessarily to encounter every discouragement that the ruling powers 
for a length of time had been able by any means to put in the way of this 
class of culprits; but that was only reasonable self-defence in the powers, 
since How to do it must obviously be regarded as the natural and mortal 
enemy of How not to do it. In this was to be found the basis of the wise 
system, by tooth and nail upheld by the Circumlocution Office, of warning 
every ingenious British subject to be ingenious at his peril: of harassing 
him, obstructing him, inviting robbers (by making his remedy uncertain, 
difficult, and expensive) to plunder him, and at the best of confiscating 
his property after a short term of enjoyment, as though invention were on a 
par with felony. The system had uniformly found great favour with the 
Barnacles, and that was only reasonable, too; for one who worthily invents 
must be in earnest, and the Barnacles abhorred and dreaded nothing half so 
much. That again was very reasonable; since in a country suffering under 
the affliction of a great amount of earnestness, there might, in an 
exceeding short space of time, be not a single Barnacle left sticking to a 
post.
Daniel Doyce faced his condition with its pains and penalties attached to 
it, and soberly worked on for the work's sake. Clennam, cheering him with a 
hearty co-operation, was a moral support to him, besides doing good service 
in his business relation. The concern prospered, and the partners were fast 
friends.
But Daniel could not forget the old design of so many years. It was not in 
reason to be expected that he should; if he could have lightly forgotten 
it, he could never have conceived it, or had the patience and perseverance 
to work it out. So Clennam thought, when he sometimes observed him of an 
evening looking over the models and drawings, and consoling himself by 
muttering with a sigh as he put them away again, that the thing was as true 
as it ever was.
To show no sympathy with so much endeavour, and so much disappointment, 
would have been to fail in what Clennam regarded as among the implied 
obligations of his partnership. A revival of the passing interest in the 
subject which had been by chance awakened at the door of the Circumlocution 
Office, originated in this feeling. He asked his partner to explain the 
invention to him; "having a lenient consideration," he stipulated, "for my 
being no workman, Doyce."
"No workman?" said Doyce. "You would have been a thorough workman if you 
had given yourself to it. You have as good a head for understanding such 
things as I have met with."
"A totally uneducated one, I am sorry to add," said Clennam.
"I don't know that," returned Doyce, "and I wouldn't have you say that. No 
man of sense, who has been generally improved, and has improved himself, 
can be called quite uneducated as to anything. I don't particularly favour 
mysteries. I would as soon, on a fair and clear explanation, be judged by 
one class of man as another, provided he had the qualification I have 
named."
"At all events." said Clennam - "this sounds as if we were exchanging 
compliments, but we know we are not - I shall have the advantage of as 
plain an explanation as can be given."
"Well!" said Daniel, in his steady even way, "I'll try to make it so."
He had the power, often to be found in union with such a character, of 
explaining what he himself perceived, and meant, with the direct force and 
distinctness with which it struck his own mind. His manner of demonstration 
was so orderly and neat and simple, that it was not easy to mistake him. 
There was something almost ludicrous in the complete irreconcileability of 
a vague conventional notion that he must be a visionary man, with the 
precise, sagacious, travelling of his eye and thumb over the plans, their 
patient stoppages at particular points, their careful returns to other 
points whence little channels of explanation had to be traced up, and his 
steady manner of making everything good and everything sound, at each 
important stage, before taking his hearer on a line's-breadth further. His 
dismissal of himself from his description, was hardly less remarkable. He 
never said, I discovered this adaptation or invented that combination; but 
showed the whole thing as if the Divine artificer had made it, and he had 
happened to find it. So modest he was about it, such a pleasant touch of 
respect was mingled with his quiet admiration of it, and so calmly 
convinced he was that it was established on irrefragable laws.
Not only that evening, but for several succeeding evenings, Clennam was 
quite charmed by this investigation. The more he pursued it, and the 
oftener he glanced at the grey head bending over it, and the shrewd eye 
kindling with pleasure in it and love of it - instrument for probing his 
heart though it had been made for twelve long years - the less he could 
reconcile it to his younger energy to let it go without one effort more. At 
length he said:
"Doyce, it came to this at last - that the business was to be sunk with 
Heaven knows how many more wrecks, or begun all over again!"
"Yes," returned Doyce, "that's what the noblemen and gentlemen made of it 
after a dozen years."
"And pretty fellows too!" said Clennam, bitterly.
"The usual thing!" observed Doyce. "I must not make a martyr of myself, 
when I am one of so large a company."
"Relinquish it, or begin it all over again?" mused Clennam.
"That was exactly the long and the short of it," said Doyce.
"Then, my friend," cried Clennam, starting up, and taking his work-
roughened hand, "it shall be begun all over again!"
Doyce looked alarmed, and replied, in a hurry - for him, "No, no. Better 
put it by. Far better put it by. It will be heard of, one day. I can put it 
by. You forget, my good Clennam: I have put it by. It's all at an end."
"Yes, Doyce," returned Clennam, "at an end as far as your efforts and 
rebuffs are concerned, I admit, but not as far as mine are. I am younger 
than you: I have only once set foot in that precious office, and I am fresh 
game for them. Come! I'll try them. You shall do exactly as you have been 
doing since we have been together. I will add (as I easily can) to what I 
have been doing, the attempt to get public justice done to you; and, unless 
I have some success to report, you shall hear no more of it."
Daniel Doyce was still reluctant to consent, and again and again urged that 
they had better put it by. But it was natural that he should gradually 
allow himself to be overpersuaded by Clennam, and should yield. Yield he 
did. So Arthur resumed the long and hopeless labour of striving to make way 
with the Circumlocution Office.
The waiting-rooms of that Department soon began to be familiar with his 
presence, and he was generally ushered into them by its janitors much as a 
pickpocket might be shown into a police-office; the principal difference 
being that the object of the latter class of public business is to keep the 
pickpocket, while the Circumlocution object was to get rid of Clennam. 
However, he was resolved to stick to the Great Department; and so the work 
of form-filling, corresponding, minuting, memorandum-making, signing, 
counter-signing, counter-counter-signing backwards and forwards, and 
referring sideways, crosswise, and zigzag, recommenced.
Here arises a feature of the Circumlocution Office, not previously 
mentioned in the present record. When that admirable Department got into 
trouble, and was, by some infuriated member of Parliament, whom the smaller 
Barnacles almost suspected of labouring under diabolic possession, 
attacked, on the merits of no individual case, but as an Institution wholly 
abominable and Bedlamite; then the noble or right honourable Barnacle who 
represented it in the House, would smite that member and cleave him 
asunder, with a statement of the quantity of business (for the prevention 
of business) done by the Circumlocution Office. Then would that noble or 
right honourable Barnacle hold in his hand a paper containing a few 
figures, to which, with the permission of the House, he would entreat its 
attention. Then would the inferior Barnacles exclaim, obeying orders, 
"Hear, Hear, Hear!" and "Read!" Then would the noble or right honourable 
Barnacle perceive, sir, from this little document, which he thought might 
carry conviction even to the perversest mind (Derisive laughter and 
cheering from the Barnacle fry), that within the short compass of the last 
financial half-year, this much-maligned Department (Cheers) had written and 
received fifteen thousand letters (Loud cheers), twenty-four thousand 
minutes (Louder cheers), and thirty-two thousand five hundred and seventeen 
memoranda (Vehement cheering). Nay, an ingenious gentleman connected with 
the Department, and himself a valuable public servant, had done him the 
favour to make a curious calculation of the amount of stationery consumed 
in it during the same period. It formed a part of this same short document; 
and he derived from it the remarkable fact, that the sheets of foolscap 
paper it had devoted to the public service would pave the footways on both 
sides of Oxford Street from end to end, and leave nearly a quarter of a 
mile to spare for the park (Immense cheering and laughter); while of tape - 
red tape - it had used enough to stretch, in graceful festoons, from Hyde 
Park Corner to the General Post-Office. Then, amidst a burst of official 
exultation, would the noble or right honourable Barnacle sit down, leaving 
the mutilated fragments of the Member on the field. No one, after that 
exemplary demolition of him, would have the hardihood to hint that the more 
the Circumlocution Office did, the less was done, and that the greatest 
blessing it could confer on an unhappy public would be to do nothing.
With sufficient occupation on his hands, now that he had this additional 
task - such a task had many and many a serviceable man died of before his 
day - Arthur Clennam led a life of slight variety. Regular visits to his 
mother's dull sick room, and visits scarcely less regular to Mr Meagles at 
Twickenham, were its only changes during many months.
He sadly and sorely missed Little Dorrit. He had been prepared to miss her 
very much, but not so much. He knew to the full extent only through 
experience, what a large place in his life was left blank when her familiar 
little figure went out of it. He felt, too, that he must relinquish the 
hope of its return, understanding the family character sufficiently well to 
be assured that he and she were divided by a broad ground of separation. 
The old interest he had had in her, and her old trusting reliance on him, 
were tinged with melancholy in his mind: so soon had change stolen over 
them, and so soon had they glided into the past with other secret 
tendernesses.
When he received her letter he was greatly moved, but did not the less 
sensibly feel that she was far divided from him by more than distance. It 
helped him to a clearer and keener perception of the place assigned him by 
the family. He saw that he was cherished in her grateful remembrance 
secretly, and that they resented him with the jail and the rest of its 
belongings.
Through all these meditations which every day of his life crowded about 
her, he thought of her otherwise in the old way. She was his innocent 
friend, his delicate child, his dear Little Dorrit. This very change of 
circumstances fitted curiously in with the habit, begun on the night when 
the roses floated away, of considering himself as a much older man than his 
years really made him. He regarded her from a point of view which in its 
remoteness, tender as it was, he little thought would have been unspeakable 
agony to her. He speculated about her future destiny, and about the husband 
she might have, with an affection for her which would have drained her 
heart of its dearest drop of hope, and broken it.
Everything about him tended to confirm him in the custom of looking on 
himself as an elderly man, from whom such aspirations as he had combated in 
the case of Minnie Gowan (though that was not so long ago either, reckoning 
by months and seasons), were finally departed. His relations with her 
father and mother were like those on which a widower son-in-law might have 
stood. If the twin sister, who was dead, had lived to pass away in the 
bloom of womanhood, and he had been her husband, the nature of his 
intercourse with Mr and Mrs Meagles would probably have been just what it 
was. This imperceptibly helped to render habitual the impression within 
him, that he had done with, and dismissed, that part of life.
He invariably heard of Minnie from them, as telling them in her letters how 
happy she was, and how she loved her husband; but inseparable from that 
subject, he invariably saw the old cloud on Mr Meagles's face. Mr Meagles 
had never been quite so radiant since the marriage as before. He had never 
quite recovered the separation from Pet. He was the same good-humoured, 
open creature; but as if his face from being much turned towards the 
pictures of his two children which could show him only one look, 
unconsciously adapted a characteristic from them, it always had now, 
through all its changes of expression, a look of loss in it.
One wintry Saturday when Clennam was at the cottage, the Dowager Mrs Gowan 
drove up, in the Hampton Court equipage which pretended to be the exclusive 
equipage of so many individual proprietors. She descended, in her shady 
ambuscade of green fan, to favour Mr and Mrs Meagles with a call.
"And how do you both do, Papa and Mama Meagles?" said she, encouraging her 
humble connections. "And when did you last hear from or about my poor 
fellow?"
My poor fellow was her son; and this mode of speaking of him politely kept 
alive, without any offence in the world, the pretence that he had fallen a 
victim to the Meagles' wiles.
"And the dear pretty one?" said Mrs Gowan. "Have you later news of her than 
I have?"
Which also delicately implied that her son had been captured by mere 
beauty, and under its fascination had foregone all sorts of worldly 
advantages.
"I am sure," said Mrs Gowan, without straining her attention on the answers 
she received, "it's an unspeakable comfort to know they continue happy. My 
poor fellow is of such a restless disposition, and has been so used to 
roving about, and to being inconstant and popular among all manner of 
people, that it's the greatest comfort in life. I suppose they're as poor 
as mice, Papa Meagles?"
Mr Meagles, fidgety under the question, replied, "I hope not, ma'am. I hope 
they will manage their little income."
"Oh! my dearest Meagles!" returned that lady, tapping him on the arm with 
the green fan and then adroitly interposing it between a yawn and the 
company, "how can you, as a man of the world and one of the most business-
like of human beings - for you know you are business-like, and a great deal 
too much for us who are not -"
(Which went to the former purpose, by making Mr Meagles out to be an artful 
schemer.)
" - How can you talk about their managing their little means? My poor dear 
fellow! The idea of his managing hundreds! And the sweet pretty creature 
too. The notion of her managing! Papa Meagles! Don't!"
"Well, ma'am," said Mr Meagles, gravely, "I am sorry to admit, then, that 
Henry certainly does anticipate his means."
"My dear good man - I use no ceremony with you, because we are a kind of 
relations; - positively, Mama Meagles," exclaimed Mrs Gowan cheerfully, as 
if the absurd coincidence then flashed upon her for the first time, "a kind 
of relations! My dear good man, in this world none of us can have 
everything our own way."
This again went to the former point, and showed Mr Meagles with all good 
breeding that, so far, he had been brilliantly successful in his deep 
designs. Mrs Gowan thought the hit so good a one, that she dwelt upon it; 
repeating "Not everything. No, no; in this world we must not expect 
everything, Papa Meagles."
"And may I ask, ma'am," retorted Mr Meagles, a little heightened in colour, 
"who does expect everything?"
"Oh, nobody, nobody!" said Mrs Gowan. "I was going to say - but you put me 
out. You interrupting Papa, what was I going to say!"
Drooping her large green fan, she looked musingly at Mr Meagles while she 
thought about it; a performance not tending to the cooling of that 
gentleman's rather heated spirits.
"Ah! Yes, to be sure!" said Mrs Gowan. "You must remember that my poor 
fellow has always been accustomed to expectations. They may have been 
realised, or they may not have been realised -"
"Let us say, then, may not have been realised," observed Mr Meagles.
The Dowager for a moment gave him an angry look; but tossed it off with her 
head and her fan, and pursued the tenor of her way in her former manner.
"It makes no difference. My poor fellow has been accustomed to that sort of 
thing, and of course you knew it, and were prepared for the consequences. I 
myself always clearly foresaw the consequences, and am not surprised. And 
you must not be surprised. In fact, can't be surprised. Must have been 
prepared for it."
Mr Meagles looked at his wife, and at Clennam; bit his lip; and coughed.
"And now here's my poor fellow," Mrs Gowan pursued, "receiving notice that 
he is to hold himself in expectation of a baby, and all the expenses 
attendant on such an addition to his family! Poor Henry! But it can't be 
helped now: it's too late to help it now. Only don't talk of anticipating 
means, Papa Meagles, as a discovery; because that would be too much."
"Too much, ma'am?" said Mr Meagles, as seeking an explanation.
"There, there!" said Mrs Gowan, putting him in his inferior place with an 
expressive action of her hand. "Too much for my poor fellow's mother to 
bear at this time of day. They are fast married, and can't be unmarried. 
There, there! I know that! You needn't tell me that, Papa Meagles. I know 
it very well. What was it I said just now? That it was a great comfort they 
continued happy. It is to be hoped they will still continue happy. It is to 
be hoped Pretty One will do everything she can to make my poor fellow 
happy, and keep him contented. Papa and Mama Meagles, we had better say no 
more about it. We never did look at this subject from the same side, and we 
never shall. There, there! Now I am good."
Truly, having by this time said everything she could say in maintenance of 
her wonderfully mythical position, and in admonition to Mr Meagles that he 
must not expect to bear his honours of alliance too cheaply, Mrs Gowan was 
disposed to forego the rest. If Mr Meagles had submitted to a glance of 
entreaty from Mrs Meagles and an expressive gesture from Clennam, he would 
have left her in the undisturbed enjoyment of this state of mind. But Pet 
was the darling and pride of his heart; and if he could have ever 
championed her more devotedly, or loved her better, than in the days when 
she was the sunlight of his house, it would have been now, when, in its 
daily grace and delight, she was lost to it.
"Mrs Gowan, ma'am," said Mr Meagles, "I have been a plain man all my life. 
If I was to try - no matter whether on myself, on somebody else, or both - 
any genteel mystifications, I should probably not succeed in them."
"Papa Meagles," returned the Dowager, with an affable smile, but with the 
bloom on her cheeks standing out a little more vividly than usual, as the 
neighbouring surface became paler, "probably not."
"Therefore, my good madam," said Mr Meagles, at great pains to restrain 
himself, "I hope I may, without offence, ask to have no such mystifications 
played off upon me."
"Mama Meagles," observed Mrs Gowan, "your good man is incomprehensible."
Her turning to that worthy lady was an artifice to bring her into the 
discussion, quarrel with her, and vanquish her. Mr Meagles interposed to 
prevent that consummation.
"Mother," said he, "you are inexpert, my dear, and it is not a fair match. 
Let me beg of you to remain quiet. Come, Mrs Gowan, come! Let us try to be 
sensible; let us try to be good-natured; let us try to be fair. Don't you 
pity Henry, and I won't pity Pet. And don't be one-sided, my dear madam; 
it's not considerate, it's not kind. Don't let us say that we hope Pet will 
make Henry happy, or even that we hope Henry will make Pet happy," (Mr 
Meagles himself did not look happy as he spoke the words,) "but let us hope 
they will make each other happy."
"Yes sure, and there leave it, father," said Mrs Meagles the kind-hearted 
and comfortable.
"Why mother, no," returned Mr Meagles, "not exactly there. I can't quite 
leave it there; I must say just half-a-dozen words more. Mrs Gowan, I hope 
I am not over sensitive. I believe I don't look it."
"Indeed you do not," said Mrs Gowan, shaking her head and the great green 
fan together, for emphasis.
"Thank you, ma'am; that's well. Notwithstanding which, I feel a little - I 
don't want to use a strong word - now shall I say hurt?" asked Mr Meagles 
at once with frankness and moderation, and with a conciliatory appeal in 
his tone.
"Say what you like," answered Mrs Gowan. "It is perfectly indifferent to 
me."
"No, no, don't say that," urged Mr Meagles, "because that's not responding 
amiably. I feel a little hurt, when I hear references made to consequences 
having been foreseen, and to its being too late now, and so forth."
"Do you, Papa Meagles?" said Mrs Gowan. "I am not surprised."
"Well, ma'am," reasoned Mr Meagles, "I was in hopes you would have been at 
least surprised, because to hurt me wilfully on so tender a subject is 
surely not generous."
"I am not responsible," said Mrs Gowan, "for your conscience, you know."
Poor Mr Meagles looked aghast with astonishment.
"If I am unluckily obliged to carry a cap about with me which is yours and 
fits you," pursued Mrs Gowan, "don't blame me for its pattern, Papa 
Meagles, I beg!"
"Why, good Lord, ma'am!" Mr Meagles broke out, "that's as much as to state -
"
"Now, Papa Meagles, Papa Meagles," said Mrs Gowan, who became extremely 
deliberate and prepossessing in manner whenever that gentleman became at 
all warm, "perhaps, to prevent confusion, I had better speak for myself 
than trouble your kindness to speak for me. It's as much as to state, you 
begin. If you please, I will finish the sentence. It is as much as to state 
- not that I wish to press it, or even recall it, for it is of no use now, 
and my only wish is to make the best of existing circumstances - that from 
the first to the last I always objected to this match of yours, and at a 
very late period yielded a most unwilling consent to it."
"Mother!" cried Mr Meagles. "Do you hear this! Arthur! Do you hear this!"
"The room being of a convenient size," said Mrs Gowan, looking about as she 
fanned herself, "and quite charmingly adapted in all respects to 
conversation, I should imagine that I am audible in any part of it."
Some moments passed in silence, before Mr Meagles could hold himself in his 
chair with sufficient security to prevent his breaking out of it at the 
next word he spoke. At last he said: "Ma'am, I am very unwilling to revive 
them, but I must remind you what my opinions and my course were, all along, 
on that unfortunate subject."
"O, my dear sir!" said Mrs Gowan, smiling and shaking her head with 
accusatory intelligence, "they were well understood by me, I assure you."
"I never, ma'am," said Mr Meagles, "knew unhappiness before that time, I 
never knew anxiety before that time. It was a time of such distress to me, 
that -." That Mr Meagles really could say no more about it, in short, but 
passed his handkerchief before his face.
"I understood the whole affair," said Mrs Gowan, composedly looking over 
her fan. "As you have appealed to Mr Clennam, I may appeal to Mr Clennam, 
too. He knows whether I did or not."
"I am very unwilling," said Clennam, looked to by all parties, "to take any 
share in this discussion, more especially because I wish to preserve the 
best understanding and the clearest relations with Mr Henry Gowan. I have 
very strong reasons indeed, for entertaining that wish. Mrs Gowan 
attributed certain views of furthering the marriage to my friend here, in 
conversation with me before it took place; and I endeavoured to undeceive 
her, I represented that I knew him (as I did and do), to be strenuously 
opposed to it, both in opinion and action."
"You see?" said Mrs Gowan, turning the palms of her hands towards Mr 
Meagles, as if she were Justice herself, representing to him that he had 
better confess, for he had not a leg to stand on. "You see? Very good! Now, 
Papa and Mama Meagles both!" here she rose; "allow me to take the liberty 
of putting an end to this rather formidable controversy. I will not say 
another word upon its merits. I will only say that it is an additional 
proof of what one knows from all experience; that this kind of thing never 
answers - as my poor fellow himself would say, that it never pays - in one 
word, that it never does."
Mr Meagles asked, What kind of thing?
"It is in vain," said Mrs Gowan, "for people to attempt to get on together 
who have such extremely different antecedents; who are jumbled against each 
other in this accidental, matrimonial sort of way; and who cannot look at 
the untoward circumstance which has shaken them together, in the same 
light. It never does."
Mr Meagles was beginning, "Permit me to say, ma'am -"
"No, don't!" returned Mrs Gowan. "Why should you! It is an ascertained 
fact. It never does. I will therefore, if you please, go my way, leaving 
you to yours. I shall at all times be happy to receive my poor fellow's 
pretty wife, and I shall always make a point of being on the most 
affectionate terms with her. But as to these terms, semi-family and semi-
stranger, semi-goring and semi-boring, they form a state of things quite 
amusing in its impracticability. I assure you it never does."
The Dowager here made a smiling obeisance, rather to the room than any one 
in it, and therewith took a final farewell of Papa and Mama Meagles. 
Clennam stepped forward to hand her to the Pill-Box, which was at the 
service of all the Pills in Hampton Court Palace; and she got into that 
vehicle with distinguished serenity, and was driven away.
Thenceforth the Dowager, with a light and careless humour, often recounted 
to her particular acquaintance how, after a hard trial, she had found it 
impossible to know those people who belonged to Henry's wife, and who had 
made that desperate set to catch him. Whether she had come to the 
conclusion beforehand, that to get rid of them would give her favourite 
pretence a better air, might save her some occasional inconvenience, and 
could risk no loss (the pretty creature being fast married, and her father 
devoted to her), was best known to herself. Though this history has its 
opinion on that point too, and decidedly in the affirmative.


Chapter 9

Appearance And Disappearance

"Arthur, my dear boy," said Mr Meagles, on the evening of the following 
day, "Mother and I have been talking this over, and we don't feel 
comfortable in remaining as we are. That elegant connection of ours - that 
dear lady who was here yesterday -"
"I understand," said Arthur.
"Even that affable and condescending ornament of society," pursued Mr 
Meagles, "may misrepresent us, we are afraid. We could bear a great deal, 
Arthur, for her sake; but we think we would rather not bear that, if it was 
all the same to her."
"Good," said Arthur. "Go on."
"You see," proceeded Mr Meagles, "it might put us wrong with our son-in-
law, it might even put us wrong with our daughter, and it might lead to a 
great deal of domestic trouble. You see, don't you?"
"Yes, indeed," returned Arthur, "there is much reason in what you saw" He 
had glanced at Mrs Meagles, who was always on the good and sensible side: 
and a petition had shone out of her honest face that he would support Mr 
Meagles in his present inclinings.
"So we are very much disposed, are Mother and I," said Mr Meagles, "to pack 
up bag and baggage and go among the Allongers and Marshongers once more. I 
mean, we are very much disposed to be off, strike right through France into 
Italy, and see our Pet."
"And I don't think," replied Arthur, touched by the motherly anticipation 
in the blight face of Mrs Meagles (she must have been very like her 
daughter, once), "that you could do better. And if you ask me for my 
advice, it is that you set off tomorrow."
"Is it really, though?" said Mr Meagles. "Mother, this is being backed in 
an idea?"
Mother, with a look which thanked Clennam in a manner very agreeable to 
him, answered that it was indeed.
"The fact is, besides, Arthur," said Mr Meagles, the old cloud coming over 
his face, "that my son-in-law is already in debt again, and that I suppose 
I must clear him again. It may be as well, even on this account, that I 
should step over there, and look him up in a friendly way. Then again, 
here's Mother foolishly anxious (and yet naturally too) about Pet's state 
of health, and that she should not be left to feel lonesome at the present 
time. It's undeniably a long way off, Arthur, and a strange place for the 
poor love under all the circumstances. Let her be as well cared for as any 
lady in that land, still it is a long way off. Just as Home is Home though 
it's never so Homely; why, you see," said Mr Meagles, adding a new version 
to the proverb, "Rome is Rome, though it's never so Romely."
"All perfectly true," observed Arthur, "and all sufficient reasons for 
going."
"I am glad you think so it decides me. Mother, my dear, you may get ready. 
We have lost our pleasant interpreter (she spoke three foreign languages 
beautifully, Arthur; you have heard her many a time), and you must pull me 
through it, Mother, as well as you can. I require a-deal of pulling 
through, Arthur," said Mr Meagles, shaking his head, "a deal of pulling 
through. I stick at everything beyond a noun-substantive - and I stick at 
him, if he's at all a tight one."
"Now I think of it," returned Clennam, "there's Cavalletto. He shall go 
with you, if you like. I could not afford to lose him, but you will bring 
him safe back."
"Well! I am much obliged to you, my boy," said Mr Meagles, turning it over, 
"but I think not. No, I think I'll be pulled through by Mother. Cavallooro 
(I stick at his very name to start with, and it sounds like the chorus to a 
comic song) is so necessary to you, that I don't like the thought of taking 
him away. More than that, there's no saying when we may come home again and 
it would never do to take him away for an indefinite time. The cottage is 
not what it was. It only holds two little people less than it ever did - 
Pet, and her poor unfortunate maid Tattycoram: but it seems empty now. Once 
out of it, there's no knowing when we may come back to it. No, Arthur, I'll 
be pulled through by Mother."
They would do best by themselves perhaps, after all, Clennam thought; 
therefore did not press his proposal.
"If you would come down and stay here for a change, when it wouldn't 
trouble you," Mr Meagles resumed, "I should be glad to think - and so would 
Mother too, I know - that you are brightening up the old place with a bit 
of life it was used to when it was full, and that the Babies on the wall 
there, had a kind eye upon them sometimes. You so belong to the spot, and 
to them, Arthur, and we should every one of us have been so happy if it had 
fallen out - but, let us see - how's the weather for travelling, now?" Mr 
Meagles broke off, cleared his throat, and got up to look out of the 
window.
They agreed that the weather was of high promise; and Clennam kept the talk 
in that safe direction until it had become easy again, when he gently 
diverted it to Henry Gowan, and his quick sense and agreeable qualities 
when he was delicately dealt with; he likewise dwelt on the indisputable 
affection he entertained for his wife. Clennam did not fail of his effect 
upon good Mr Meagles, whom these commendations greatly cheered; and who 
took Mother to witness that the single and cordial desire of his heart in 
reference to their daughter's husband, was harmoniously to exchange 
friendship for friendship, and confidence for confidence. Within a few 
hours the cottage furniture began to be wrapped up for preservation in the 
family absence - or, as Mr Meagles expressed it, the house began to put its 
hair in papers - and within a few days Father and Mother were gone, Mrs 
Tickit and Dr Buchan were posted, as of yore, behind the parlour blind, and 
Arthur's solitary feet were rustling among the dry fallen leaves in the 
garden walks.
As he had a liking for the spot, he seldom let a week pass without paying 
it a visit. Sometimes, he went down alone from Saturday to Monday; 
sometimes, his partner accompanied him; sometimes, he merely strolled for 
an hour or two about the house and garden, saw that all was right, and 
returned to London again. At all times and under all circumstances Mrs 
Tickit, with her dark row of curls and Doctor Buchan, sat in the parlour 
window, looking out for the family return.
On one of his visits Mrs Tickit received him with the words, "I have 
something to tell you, Mr Clennam, that will surprise you." So surprising 
was the something in question, that it actually brought Mrs Tickit out of 
the parlour window and produced her in the garden walk, when Clennam went 
in at the gate on its being opened for him.
"What is it, Mrs Tickit?" said he.
"Sir," returned that faithful housekeeper, having taken him into the 
parlour and closed the door, "if ever I saw the led away and deluded child 
in my life, I saw her identically in the dusk of yesterday evening."
"You don't mean Tatty -"
"Coram yes I do!" quoth Mrs Tickit, clearing the disclosure at a leap.
"Where?"
"Mr Clennam," returned Mrs Tickit, "I was a little heavy in my eyes, being 
that I was waiting longer than customary for my cup of tea which was then 
preparing by Mary Jane. I was not sleeping, nor what a person would term 
correctly, dozing. I was more what a person would strictly call watching 
with my eyes closed."
Without entering upon an inquiry into this curious abnormal condition, 
Clennam said, "Exactly. Well?"
"Well, sir, proceeded Mrs Tickit, "I was thinking of one thing and thinking 
of another. Just as you yourself might. Just as anybody might."
"Precisely so," said Clennam. "Well?"
"And when I do think of one thing and do think of another," pursued Mrs 
Tickit, "I hardly need to tell you, Mr Clennam, that I think of the family. 
Because, dear me! a person's thoughts," Mrs Tickit said this with an 
argumentative and philosophic air, "however they may stray, will go more or 
less on what is uppermost in their minds. They will do it, sir, and a 
person can't prevent them." Arthur subscribed to this discovery with a nod.
"You find it so yourself, sir, I'll be bold to say," said Mrs Tickit, "and 
we all find it so. It ain't our stations in life that changes us, Mr 
Clennam; thoughts is free! - As I was saying, I was thinking of one thing 
and thinking of another, and thinking very much of the family. Not of the 
family in the present times only, but in the past times too. For when a 
person does begin thinking of one thing and thinking of another, in that 
manner as it's getting dark, what I say is that all times seem to be 
present, and a person must get out of that state and consider before they 
can say which is which."
He nodded again; afraid to utter a word, lest it should present any new 
opening to Mrs Tickit's conversational powers.
"In consequence of which," said Mrs Tickit, "when I quivered my eyes and 
saw her actual form and figure looking in at the gate, I let them close 
again without so much as starting; for that actual form and figure came so 
pat to the time when it belonged to the house as much as mine or your own, 
that I never thought at the moment of its having gone away. But, sir, when 
I quivered my eyes again and saw that it wasn't there, then it all flooded 
upon me with a fright, and I jumped up."
"You ran out directly?" said Clennam.
"I ran out," assented Mrs Ticket, "as fast as ever my feet would carry me; 
and if you'll credit it, Mr Clennam, there wasn't in the whole shining 
Heavens, no not so much as a finger of that young woman."
Passing over the absence from the firmament of this novel constellation, 
Arthur inquired of Mrs Tickit if she herself went beyond the gate?
"Went to and fro, and high and low," said Mrs Tickit, "and saw no sign of 
her?"
He then asked Mrs Tickit how long a space of time she supposed there might 
have been between the two sets of ocular quiverings she had experienced? 
Mrs Tickit, though minutely circumstantial in her reply, had no settled 
opinion between five seconds and ten minutes. She was so plainly at sea on 
this part of the case, and had so clearly been startled out of slumber, 
that Clennam was much disposed to regard the appearance as a dream. Without 
hurting Mrs Tickit's feelings with that infidel solution of her mystery, he 
took it away from the cottage with him; and probably would have retained it 
ever afterwards, if a circumstance had not soon happened to change his 
opinion.
He was passing at nightfall along the Strand, and the lamp-lighter was 
going on before him, under whose hand the street-lamps, blurred by the 
foggy air, burst out one after another, like so many blazing sunflowers 
coming into full-blow all at once, - when a stoppage on the pavement, 
caused by a train of coal-waggons toiling up from the wharves at the river-
side, brought him to a stand-still. He had been walking quickly, and going 
with some current of thought, and the sudden check given to both operations 
caused him to look freshly about him as people under such circumstances 
usually do.
Immediately, he saw in advance - a few people intervening, but still so 
near to him that he could have touched them by stretching out his arm - 
Tattycoram and a strange man of a remarkable appearance: a swaggering man, 
with a high nose, and a black moustache as false in its colour as his eyes 
were false in their expression, who wore his heavy cloak with the air of a 
foreigner. His dress and general appearance were those of a man on travel, 
and he seemed to have very recently joined the girl. In bending down (being 
much taller than she was), listening to whatever she said to him, he looked 
over his shoulder with the suspicious glance of one who was not unused to 
be mistrustful that his footsteps might be dogged. It was then that Clennam 
saw his face; as his eyes lowered on the people behind him in the 
aggregate, without particularly resting upon Clennam's face or any other.
He had scarcely turned his head about again, and it was still bent down, 
listening to the girl, when the stoppage ceased, and the obstructed stream 
of people flowed on. Still bending his head and listening to the girl, he 
went on at her side, and Clennam followed them, resolved to play this 
unexpected play out, and see where they went.
He had hardly made the determination (though he was not long about it), 
when he was again as suddenly brought up as he had been by the stoppage. 
They turned short into the Adelphi, - the girl evidently leading, - and 
went straight on, as if they were going to the Terrace which overhangs the 
river.
There is always, to this day, a sudden pause in that place to the roar of 
the great thoroughfare. The many sounds become so deadened that the change 
is like putting cotton in the ears, or having the head thickly muffled. At 
that time the contrast was far greater; there being no small steam-boats on 
the river, no landing places but slippery wooden stairs and foot-causeways, 
no railroad on the opposite bank, no hanging bridge or fishmarket near at 
hand, no traffic on the nearest bridge of stone, nothing moving on the 
stream but watermen's wherries and coal-lighters. Long and broad black 
tiers of the latter, moored fast in the mud as if they were never to move 
again, made the shore funereal and silent after dark; and kept what little 
water-movement there was, far out towards mid-stream. At any hour later 
than sunset, and not least at that hour when most of the people who have 
anything to eat at home are going home to eat it, and when most of those 
who have nothing have hardly yet slunk out to beg or steal, it was a 
deserted place and looked on a deserted scene.
Such was the hour when Clennam stopped at the corner, observing the girl 
and the strange man as they went down the street. The man's footsteps were 
so noisy on the echoing stones that he was unwilling to add the sound of 
his own. But, when they had passed the turning and were in the darkness of 
the dark corner leading to the terrace, he made after them with such 
indifferent appearance of being a casual passenger on his way, as he could 
assume.
When he rounded the dark corner, they were walking along the terrace, 
towards a figure which was coming towards them. If he had seen it by 
itself, under such conditions of gaslamp, mist, and distance, he might not 
have known it at first sight; but with the figure of the girl to prompt 
him, he at once recognised Miss Wade.
He stopped at the corner, seeming to look back expectantly up the street, 
as if he had made an appointment with some one to meet him there; but he 
kept a careful eye on the three. When they came together, the man took off 
his hat, and made Miss Wade a bow. The girl appeared to say a few words as 
though she presented him, or accounted for his being late, or early, or 
what not; and then fell a pace or so behind, by herself. Miss Wade and the 
man then began to walk up and down; the man having the appearance of being 
extremely courteous and complimentary in manner; Miss Wade having the 
appearance of being extremely haughty.
When they came down to the corner and turned, she was saying, "If I pinch 
myself for it, sir, that is my business. Confine yourself to yours, and ask 
me no question."
"By Heaven, ma'am!" he replied, making her another bow. "It was my profound 
respect for the strength of your character, and my admiration of your 
beauty."
"I want neither the one nor the other from any one," said she, "and 
certainly not from you of all creatures. Go on with your report."
"Am I pardoned?" he asked, with an air of half-abashed gallantry.
"You are paid," she said, "and that is all you want."
Whether the girl hung behind because she was not to hear the business, or 
as already knowing enough about it, Clennam could not determine. They 
turned and she turned. She looked away at the River, as she walked with her 
hands folded before her; and that was all he could make of her without 
showing his face. There happened, by good fortune, to be a lounger really 
waiting for some one; and he sometimes looked over the railing at the 
water, and sometimes came to the dark corner and looked up the street, 
rendering Arthur less conspicuous.
When Miss Wade and the man came back again, she was saying, "You must wait 
until tomorrow."
"A thousand pardons!" he returned. "My faith! Then it's not convenient 
tonight?"
"No. I tell you I must get it before I can give it to you."
She stopped in the roadway, as if to put an end to the conference. He of 
course stopped too. And the girl stopped.
"It's a little inconvenient," said the man. "A little. But, Holy Blue! 
that's nothing, in such a service. I am without money tonight by chance. I 
have a good banker in this city, but I would not wish to draw upon the 
house until the time when I shall draw for a round sum."
"Harriet," said Miss Wade, "arrange with him - this gentleman here - for 
sending him some money tomorrow." She said it with a slur of the word 
gentleman which was more contemptuous than any emphasis, and walked slowly 
on.
The man bent his head again, and the girl spoke to him as they both 
followed her. Clennam ventured to look at the girl as they moved away. He 
could note that her rich black eyes were fastened upon the man with a 
scrutinising expression, and that she kept at a little distance from him, 
as they walked side by side to the further end of the terrace.
A loud and altered clank upon the pavement warned him, before he could 
discern what was passing there, that the man was coming back alone. Clennam 
lounged into the road, towards the railing; and the man passed at a quick 
swing, with the end of his cloak thrown over his shoulder, singing a scrap 
of a French song.
The whole vista had no one in it now but himself. The lounger had lounged 
out of view, and Miss Wade and Tattycoram were gone. More than ever bent on 
seeing what became of them, and on having some information to give his good 
friend Mr Meagles, he went out at the further end of the terrace, looking 
cautiously about him. He rightly judged that, at first at all events, they 
would go in a contrary direction from their late companion. He soon saw 
them in a neighbouring bye-street, which was not a thoroughfare, evidently 
allowing time for the man to get well out of their way. They walked 
leisurely arm-in-arm down one side of the street, and returned on the 
opposite side. When they came back to the street-corner, they changed their 
pace for the pace of people with an object and a distance before them, and 
walked steadily away. Clennam no less steadily, kept them in sight.
They crossed the Strand, and passed through Covent Garden (under the 
windows of his old lodgings where dear Little Dorrit had come that night), 
and slanted away north-east, until they passed the great building whence 
Tattycoram derived her name, and turned into the Gray's Inn Road. Clennam 
was quite at home here, in right of Flora, not to mention the Patriarch and 
Pancks, and kept them in view with ease. He was beginning to wonder where 
they might be going next, when that wonder was lost in the greater wonder 
with which he saw them turn into the Patriarchal street. That wonder was in 
its turn swallowed up in the greater wonder with which he saw them stop at 
the Patriarchal door. A low double knock at the bright brass knocker, a 
gleam of light into the road from the opened door, a brief pause for 
inquiry and answer, and the door was shut, and they were housed.
After looking at the surrounding objects for assurance that he was not in 
an odd dream, and after pacing a little while before the house, Arthur 
knocked at the door. It was opened by the usual maid-servant, and she 
showed him up at once, with her usual alacrity, to Flora's sitting-room.
There was no one with Flora but Mr F's Aunt, which respectable gentlewoman, 
basking in a balmy atmosphere of tea and toast, was ensconced in an easy 
chair by the fireside, with a little table at her elbow, and a clean white 
handkerchief spread over her lap on which two pieces of toast at that 
moment awaited consumption. Bending over a steaming vessel of tea, and 
looking through the steam, and breathing forth the steam, like a malignant 
Chinese enchantress engaged in the performance of unholy rites, Mr F's Aunt 
put down her great teacup and exclaimed, "Drat him, if he an't come back 
again!"
It would seem from the foregoing exclamation that this uncompromising 
relative of the lamented Mr F, measuring time by the acuteness of her 
sensations and not by the clock, supposed Clennam to have lately gone away; 
whereas at least a quarter of a year had elapsed since he had had the 
temerity to present himself before her.
"My goodness Arthur!" cried Flora, rising to give him a cordial reception, 
"Doyce and Clennam what a start and a surprise for though not far from the 
machinery and foundry business and surely might be taken sometimes if at no 
other time about midday when a glass of sherry and a humble sandwich of 
whatever cold meat in the larder might not come amiss nor taste the worse 
for being friendly for you know you buy it somewhere and wherever bought a 
profit must be made or they would never keep the place it stands to reason 
without a motive still never seen and learnt now not to be expected, for as 
Mr F himself said if seeing is believing not seeing is believing too and 
when you don't see you may fully believe you're not remembered not that I 
expect you Arthur Doyce and Clennam to remember me why should I for the 
days are gone but bring another teacup here directly and tell her fresh 
toast and pray sit near the fire."
Arthur was in the greatest anxiety to explain the object of his visit; but 
was put off for the moment, in spite of himself, by what he understood of 
the reproachful purport of these words, and by the genuine pleasure she 
testified in seeing him.
"And now pray tell me something all you know," said Flora, drawing her 
chair near to his, "about the good dear quiet little thing and all the 
changes of her fortunes carriage people now no doubt and horses without 
number most romantic, a coat of arms of course and wild beasts on their 
hind legs showing it as if it was a copy they had done with mouths from ear 
to ear good gracious, and has she her health which is the first 
consideration after all for what is wealth without it Mr F. himself so 
often saying when his twinges came that sixpence a day and find yourself 
and no gout so much preferable, not that he could have lived on anything 
like it being the last man or that the precious little thing though far too 
familiar an expression now had any tendency of that sort much too slight 
and small but looked so fragile bless her!"
Mr F's Aunt, who had eaten a piece of toast down to the crust, here 
solemnly handed the crust to Flora, who ate it for her as a matter of 
business. Mr F's Aunt then moistened her ten fingers in slow succession at 
her lips, and wiped them in exactly the same order on the white 
handkerchief; then took the other piece of toast, and fell to work upon it. 
While pursuing this routine, she looked at Clennam with an expression of 
such intense severity that he felt obliged to look at her in return, 
against his personal inclinations.
"She is in Italy, with all her family, Flora," he said, when the dread lady 
was occupied again. "In Italy is she really?" said Flora, "with the grapes 
and figs growing everywhere and lava necklaces and bracelets too that land 
of poetry with burning mountains picturesque beyond belief though if the 
organ-boys come away from the neighbourhood not to be scorched nobody can 
wonder being so young and bringing their white mice with them most humane, 
and is she really in that favoured land with nothing but blue about her and 
dying gladiators and Belvederas though Mr F himself did not believe for his 
objection when in spirits was that the images could not be true there being 
no medium between expensive quantities of linen badly got up and all in 
creases and none whatever, which certainly does not seem probable though 
perhaps in consequence of the extremes of rich and poor which may account 
for it."
Arthur tried to edge a word in, but Flora hurried on again.
"Venice Preserved too," said she, "I think you have been there is it well 
or ill preserved for people differ so and Maccaroni if they really eat it 
like the conjurers why not cut it shorter, you are acquainted Arthur - dear 
Doyce and Clennam at least not dear and most assuredly not Doyce for I have 
not the pleasure but pray excuse me - acquainted I believe with Mantua what 
has it got to do with Mantua-making for I never have been able to 
conceive."
"I believe there is no connection, Flora, between the two," Arthur was 
beginning, when she caught him up again.
"Upon your word no isn't there I never did but that's like me I run away 
with an idea and having none to spare I keep it, alas there was a time dear 
Arthur that is to say decidedly not dear nor Arthur neither but you 
understand me when one bright idea gilded the what's-his-name horizon of et 
cetera but it is darkly clouded now and all is over."
Arthur's increasing wish to speak of something very different was by this 
time so plainly written on his face, that Flora stopped in a tender look, 
and asked him what it was?
"I have the greatest desire, Flora, to speak to some one who is now in this 
house - with Mr Casby no doubt. Some one whom I saw come in, and who, in a 
misguided and deplorable way, has deserted the house of a friend of mine."
"Papa sees so many and such odd people," said Flora, rising, "that I 
shouldn't venture to go down for any one but you Arthur but for you I would 
willingly go down in a diving-bell much more a dining-room and will come 
back directly if you'll mind and at the same time not mind Mr F's Aunt 
while I'm gone."
With those words and a parting glance, Flora bustled out, leaving Clennam 
under dreadful apprehensions of his terrible charge.
The first variation which manifested itself in Mr F's Aunt's demeanour when 
she had finished her piece of toast, was a loud and prolonged sniff. 
Finding it impossible to avoid construing this demonstration into a 
defiance of himself, its gloomy significance being unmistakeable, Clennam 
looked plaintively at the excellent though prejudiced lady from whom it 
emanated, in the hope that she might be disarmed by a meek submission.
"None of your eyes at me," said Mr F's Aunt, shivering with hostility. 
"Take that."
"That" was the crust of the piece of toast. Clennam accepted the boon with 
a look of gratitude, and held it in his hand under the pressure of a little 
embarrassment, which was not relieved when Mr F's Aunt, elevating her voice 
into a cry of considerable power, exclaimed "He has a proud stomach, this 
chap! He's too proud a chap to eat it!" and, coming out of her chair, shook 
her venerable fist so very close to his nose as to tickle the surface. But 
for the timely return of Flora, to find him in this difficult situation, 
further consequences might have ensued. Flora, without the least 
discomposure or surprise, but congratulating the old lady in an approving 
manner on being "very lively tonight," handed her back to her chair.
"He has a proud stomach, this chap," said Mr F's relation, on being 
reseated. "Give him a meal of chaff!"
"Oh! I don't think he would like that, aunt," returned Flora.
"Give him a meal of chaff, I tell you," said Mr F's Aunt, glaring round 
Flora on her enemy. "It's the only thing for a proud stomach. Let him eat 
it up every morsel. Drat him, give him a meal of chaff!"
Under a general pretence of helping him to this refreshment, Flora got him 
out on the staircase; Mr F's Aunt even then constantly reiterating, with 
inexpressible bitterness, that he was "a chap," and had "a proud stomach," 
and over and over again insisting on that equine provision being made for 
him which she had already so strongly prescribed.
"Such an inconvenient staircase and so many corner-stairs, Arthur," 
whispered Flora, "would you object to putting your arm round me under my 
pelerine?"
With a sense of going downstairs in a highly ridiculous manner, Clennam 
descended in the required attitude, and only released his fair burden at 
the dining-room door; indeed, even there she was rather difficult to get 
rid of, remaining in his embrace to murmur, "Arthur, for mercy's sake don't 
breathe it to papa!"
She accompanied Arthur into the room, where the Patriarch sat alone, with 
his list shoes on the fender, twirling his thumbs as if he had never left 
off. The youthful Patriarch, aged ten, looked out of his picture-frame 
above him, with no calmer air than he. Both smooth heads were alike 
beaming, blundering, and bumpy.
"Mr Clennam, I am glad to see you. I hope you are well, sir, I hope you are 
well. Please to sit down, please to sit down."
"I had hoped, sir," said Clennam, doing so, and looking round with a face 
of blank disappointment, "not to find you alone."
"Ah, indeed?" said the Patriarch, sweetly. "Ah, indeed?"
"I told you so you know papa," cried Flora.
"Ah, to be sure!" returned the Patriarch. "Yes, just so. Ah, to be sure!"
"Pray, sir," demanded Clennam, anxiously, "is Miss Wade gone?"
"Miss -? Oh, you call her Wade," returned Mr Casby. "Highly proper."
Arthur quickly returned, "What do you call her?"
"Wade," said Mr Casby. "Oh, always Wade."
After looking at the philanthropic visage, and the long silky white hair 
for a few seconds, during which Mr Casby twirled his thumbs, and smiled at 
the fire as if he were benevolently wishing it to burn him that he might 
forgive it, Arthur began:
"I beg your pardon, Mr Casby -"
"Not so, not so," said the Patriarch, "not so."
" - But, Miss Wade had an attendant with her - a young woman brought up by 
friends of mine, over whom her influence is not considered very salutary, 
and to whom I should be glad to have the opportunity of giving the 
assurance that she has not yet forfeited the interest of those protectors."
"Really, really?" returned the Patriarch.
"Will you therefore be so good as to give me the address of Miss Wade?"
"Dear, dear, dear!" said the Patriarch, "how very unfortunate! If you had 
only sent in to me when they were here! I observed the young woman, Mr 
Clennam. A fine full-coloured young woman, Mr Clennam, with very dark hair 
and very dark eyes. If I mistake not, if I mistake not?"
Arthur assented, and said once more with new expression, "If you will be so 
good as to give me the address."
"Dear, dear, dear!" exclaimed the Patriarch in sweet regret. "Tut, tut, 
tut! what a pity, what a pity! I have no address, sir. Miss Wade mostly 
lives abroad, Mr Clennam. She has done so for some years, and she is (if I 
may say so of a fellow creature and a lady) fitful and uncertain to a 
fault, Mr Clennam. I may not see her again for a long, long time. I may 
never see her again. What a pity, what a pity!"
Clennam saw, now, that he had as much hope of getting assistance out of the 
Portrait as out of the Patriarch; but he said nevertheless:
"Mr Casby, could you, for the satisfaction of the friends I have mentioned, 
and under any obligation of secrecy that you may consider it your duty to 
impose, give me any information at all touching Miss Wade? I have seen her 
abroad, and I have seen her at home, but I know nothing of her. Could you 
give me any account of her whatever?"
"None," returned the Patriarch, shaking his big head with his utmost 
benevolence. "None at all. Dear, dear, dear! What a real pity that she 
stayed so short a time, and you delayed! As confidential agency business, 
agency business, I have occasionally paid this lady money; but what 
satisfaction is it to you, sir, to know that?"
"Truly none at all," said Clennam.
"Truly," assented the Patriarch, with a shining face as he 
philanthropically smiled at the fire, "none at all, sir. You hit the wise 
answer, Mr Clennam. Truly none at all, sir."
His turning of his smooth thumbs over one another as he sat there, was so 
typical to Clennam of the way in which he would make the subject revolve if 
it were pursued, never showing any new part of it nor allowing it to make 
the smallest advance, that it did much to help to convince him of his 
labour having been in vain. He might have taken any time to think about it, 
for Mr Casby, well accustomed to get on anywhere by leaving everything to 
his bumps and his white hair, knew his strength to lie in silence. So there 
Casby sate, twirling and twirling, and making his polished head and 
forehead look largely benevolent in every knob.
With this spectacle before him, Arthur had risen to go, when from the inner 
Dock where the good ship Pancks was hove down when out in no cruising 
ground, the noise was heard of that steamer labouring towards them. It 
struck Arthur that the noise began demonstratively far off, as though Mr 
Pancks sought to impress on any one who might happen to think about it, 
that he was working on from out of hearing.
Mr Pancks and he shook hands, and the former brought his employer a letter 
or two to sign. Mr Pancks in shaking hands merely scratched his eyebrow 
with his left forefinger and snorted once, but Clennam, who understood him 
better now than of old, comprehended that he had almost done for the 
evening and wished to say a word to him outside. Therefore, when he had 
taken his leave of Mr Casby, and (which was a more difficult process) of 
Flora, he sauntered in the neighbourhood on Mr Pancks's line of road.
He had waited but a short time when Mr Pancks appeared. Mr Pancks shakes 
hands again with another expressive snort, and taking off his hat to put 
his hair up, Arthur thought he received his cue to speak to him as one who 
knew pretty well what had just now passed. Therefore he said, without any 
preface:
"I suppose they were really gone, Pancks?"
"Yes," replied Pancks. "They were really gone."
"Does he know where to find that lady?"
"Can't say. I should think so."
Mr Pancks did not? No, Mr Pancks did not. Did Mr Pancks know anything about 
her?
"I expect," rejoined that worthy, "I know as much about her, as she knows 
about herself. She is somebody's child - anybody's - nobody's. Put her in a 
room in London here with any six people old enough to be her parents, and 
her parents may be there for anything she knows. They may be in any house 
she sees, they may be in any churchyard she passes, she may run against 'em 
in any street, she may make chance acquaintances of 'em at any time; and 
never know it. She knows nothing about 'em. She knows nothing about any 
relative whatever. Never did. Never will."
"Mr Casby could enlighten her, perhaps?"
"May be," said Pancks. "I expect so, but don't know. He has long had money 
(not overmuch as I make out) in trust to dole out to her when she can't do 
without it. Sometimes she's proud and won't touch it for a length of time; 
sometimes she's so poor, that she must have it. She writhes under her life. 
A woman more angry, passionate, reckless, and revengeful never lived. She 
came for money, tonight. Said she had peculiar occasion for it."
"I think," observed Clennam musing, "I by chance know what occasion - I 
mean into whose pocket the money is to go."
"Indeed?" said Pancks. "If it's a compact, I'd recommend that party to be 
exact in it. I wouldn't trust myself to that woman, young and handsome as 
she is, if I had wronged her; no, not for twice my proprietor's money! 
Unless," Pancks added as a saving clause, "I had a lingering illness on me, 
and wanted to get it over."
Arthur, hurriedly reviewing his own observation of her, found it to tally 
pretty nearly with Mr Pancks's view.
"The wonder is to me," pursued Pancks, "that she has never done for my 
proprietor, as the only person connected with her story she can lay hold 
of. Mentioning that, I may tell you, between ourselves, that I am sometimes 
tempted to do for him myself."
Arthur started and said, "Dear me, Pancks don't say that!"
"Understand me," said Pancks, extending five cropped coaly finger nails, on 
Arthur's arm; "I don't mean, cut his throat. But by all that's precious, if 
he goes too far, I'll cut his hair!"
Having exhibited himself in the new light of enunciating this tremendous 
threat, Mr Pancks, with a countenance of grave import, snorted several 
times and steamed away.


Chapter 10

The Dreams Of Mrs Flintwinch Thicken

The shady waiting-rooms of the Circumlocution Office, where he passed a 
good deal of time in company with various troublesome Convicts who were 
under sentence to be broken alive on that wheel, had afforded Arthur 
Clennam ample leisure, in three or four successive days, to exhaust the 
subject of his late glimpse of Miss Wade and Tattycoram. He had been able 
to make no more of it and no less of it, and in this unsatisfactory 
condition he was fain to leave it.
During this space he had not been to his mother's dismal old house. One of 
his customary evenings for repairing thither now coming round, he left his 
dwelling and his partner at nearly nine o'clock, and slowly walked in the 
direction of that grim home of his youth.
It always affected his imagination as wrathful, mysterious, and sad; and 
his imagination was sufficiently impressible to see the whole neighbourhood 
under some dark tinge of its dark shadow. As he went along, upon a dreary 
night, the dim streets by which he went seemed all depositories of 
oppressive secrets. The deserted counting-houses, with their secrets of 
books and papers locked up in chests and safes; the banking-houses, with 
their secrets of strong rooms and wells, the keys of which were in a very 
few secret pockets and a very few secret breasts; the secrets of all the 
dispersed grinders in the vast mill, among whom there were doubtless 
plunderers, forgers, and trust-betrayers of many sorts, whom the light of 
any day that dawned might reveal; he could have fancied that these things, 
in hiding, imparted a heaviness to the air. The shadow thickening and 
thickening as he approached its source, he thought of the secrets of the 
lonely church-vaults, where the people who had hoarded and secreted in iron 
coffers were in their turn similarly hoarded, not yet at rest from doing 
harm; and then of the secrets of the river, as it rolled its turbid tide 
between two frowning wildernesses of secrets, extending thick and dense, 
for many miles, and warding off the free air and the free country swept by 
winds and wings of birds.
The shadow still darkening as he drew near the house, the melancholy room 
which his father had once occupied, haunted by the appealing face he had 
himself seen fade away with him when there was no other watcher by the bed, 
arose before his mind. Its close air was secret. The gloom, and must, and 
dust of the whole tenement, were secret. At the heart of it his mother 
presided, inflexible of face, indomitable of will, firmly holding all the 
secrets of her own and his father's life, and austerely opposing herself, 
front to front, to the great final secret of all life.
He had turned into the narrow and steep street from which the court or 
enclosure wherein the house stood opened, when another footstep turned into 
it behind him, and so close upon his own that he was jostled to the wall. 
As his mind was teeming with these thoughts, the encounter took him 
altogether unprepared, so that the other passenger had had time to say, 
boisterously, "Pardon! Not my fault!" and to pass on before the instant had 
elapsed which was requisite to his recovery of the realities about him.
When that moment had flashed away, he saw that the man striding on before 
him was the man who had been so much in his mind during the last few days. 
It was no casual resemblance, helped out by the force of the impression the 
man made upon him. It was the man; the man he had followed in company with 
the girl, and whom he had overheard talking to Miss Wade.
The street was a sharp descent and was crooked too, and the man (who 
although not drunk had the air of being flushed with some strong drink) 
went down it so fast that (Clennam lost him as he looked at him. With no 
defined intention of following him, but with an impulse to keep the figure 
in view a little longer, (Clennam quickened his pace to pass the twist in 
the street which hid him from his sight. On turning it, he saw the man no 
more.
Standing now, close to the gateway of his mother's house, he looked down 
the street: but it was empty. There was no projecting shadow large enough 
to obscure the man; there was no turning near that he could have taken; nor 
had there been any audible sound of the opening and closing of a door. 
Nevertheless, he concluded that the man must have had a key in his hand, 
and must have opened one of the many house-doors and gone in.
Ruminating on this strange chance and strange glimpse, he turned into the 
courtyard. As he looked, by mere habit, towards the feebly lighted windows 
of his mother's room, his eyes encountered the figure he had just lost, 
standing against the iron railings of the little waste enclosure looking up 
at those windows, and laughing to himself. Some of the many vagrant cats 
who were always prowling about there by night, and who had taken fright at 
him, appeared to have stopped when he had stopped, and were looking at him 
with eyes by no means unlike his own from tops of walls and porches, and 
other safe points of pause. He had only halted for a moment to entertain 
himself thus; he immediately went forward, throwing the end of his cloak 
off his shoulder as he went, ascended the unevenly sunken steps, and 
knocked a sounding knock at the door.
Clennam's surprise was not so absorbing but that he took his resolution 
without any incertitude. He went up to the door too, and ascended the steps 
too. His friend looked at him with a braggart air, and sang to himself:

"Who passes by this road so late?
Compagnon de la Majolaine! 
Who passes by this road so late?
Always gay!"
After which he knocked again.
"You are impatient, sir," said Arthur.
"I am, sir. Death of my life, sir," returned the stranger, "it's my 
character to be impatient!"
The sound of Mistress Affery cautiously chaining the door before she opened 
it, caused them both to look that way. Affery opened it a very little, with 
a flaring candle in her hands, and asked who was that, at that time of 
night with that knock? "Why, Arthur!" she added with astonishment, seeing 
him first. "Not you sure? Ah, Lord save us! No," she cried out seeing the 
other. "Him again!"
"It's true! Him again, dear Mrs Flintwinch," cried the stranger. "Open the 
door, and let me take my dear friend Jeremiah to my arms! Open the door, 
and let me hasten myself to embrace my Flintwinch!"
"He's not at home," said Affery.
"Fetch him!" cried the stranger. "Fetch my Flintwinch! Tell him that it is 
his old Blandois, who comes from arriving in England; tell him that it is 
his little boy who is here, his cabbage, his well-beloved! Open the door, 
beautiful Mrs Flintwinch, and in the meantime let me pass upstairs, to 
present my compliments - homage of Blandois - to my lady! My lady lives 
always? It is well. Open then!"
To Arthur's increased surprise, Mistress Affery, stretching her eyes wide 
at himself, as if in warning that this was not a gentleman for him to 
interfere with, drew back the chain and opened the door. The stranger, 
without any ceremony, walked into the hall, leaving Arthur to follow him.
"Despatch then! Achieve then! Bring my Flintwinch! Announce me to my lady!" 
cried the stranger, clanking about the stone floor.
"Pray tell me, Affery," said Arthur, aloud and sternly, as he surveyed him 
from head to foot with indignation; "who is this gentleman?"
"Pray tell me, Affery," the stranger repeated in his turn, "who - ha, ha, 
ha! - who is this gentleman?"
The voice of Mrs Clennam opportunely called from her chamber above, 
"Affery, let them both come up. Arthur, come straight to me!"
"Arthur?" exclaimed Blandois, taking off his hat at arm's length, and 
bringing his heels together from a great stride in making him a flourishing 
bow. "The son of my lady? I am the all-devoted of the son of my lady!"
Arthur looked at him again in no more flattering manner than before, and, 
turning on his heel without acknowledgment, went upstairs. The visitor 
followed him upstairs. Mistress Affery took the key from behind the door, 
and deftly slipped out to fetch her lord.
A bystander, informed of the previous appearance of Monsieur Blandois in 
that room, would have observed a difference in Mrs Clennam's present 
reception of him. Her face was not one to betray it; and her suppressed 
manner, and her set voice, were equally under her control. It wholly 
consisted in her never taking her eyes off his face from the moment of his 
entrance, and in her twice or thrice, when he was becoming noisy, swaying 
herself a very little forward in the chair in which she sat upright, with 
her hands immovable upon its elbows; as if she gave him the assurance that 
he should be presently heard at any length he would. Arthur did not fail to 
observe this; though the difference between the present occasion and the 
former was not within his power of observation.
"Madame," said Blandois, "do me the honour to present me to Monsieur, your 
son. It appears to me, madame, that Monsieur, your son, is disposed to 
complain of me. He is not polite."
"Sir," said Arthur, striking in expeditiously, "whoever you are, and 
however you come to be here, if I were the master of this house I would 
lose no time in placing you on the outside of it."
"But you are not," said his mother, without looking at him. "Unfortunately 
for the gratification of your unreasonable temper, you are not the master, 
Arthur."
"I make no claim to be, mother. If I object to this person's manner of 
conducting himself here, and object to it so much, that if I had any 
authority here I certainly would not suffer him to remain a minute, I 
object on your account."
"In the case of objection being necessary," she returned, "I could object 
for myself. And of course I should."
The subject of their dispute, who had seated himself, laughed loud, and 
rapped his legs with his hand.
"You have no right," said Mrs Clennam, always intent on Blandois, however 
directly she addressed her son, "to speak to the prejudice of any gentleman 
(least of all a gentleman from another country), because he does not 
conform to your standard, or square his behaviour by your rules. It is 
possible that the gentleman may, on similar grounds, object to you."
"I hope so," returned Arthur.
"The gentleman," pursued Mrs Clennam, "on a former occasion brought a 
letter of recommendation to us from highly esteemed and responsible 
correspondents. I am perfectly unacquainted with the gentleman's object in 
coming here at present. I am entirely ignorant of it, and cannot be 
supposed likely to be able to form the remotest guess at its nature;" her 
habitual frown became stronger, as she very slowly and weightily emphasised 
those words; "but, when the gentleman proceeds to explain his object, as I 
shall beg him to have the goodness to do to myself and Flintwinch, when 
Flintwinch returns, it will prove, no doubt, to be one more or less in the 
usual way of our business, which it will be both our business and our 
pleasure to advance. It can be nothing else."
"We shall see, madame!" said the man of business.
"We shall see," she assented. "The gentleman is acquainted with Flintwinch; 
and when the gentleman was in London last, I remember to have heard that he 
and Flintwinch had some entertainment or good-fellowship together. I am not 
in the way of knowing much that passes outside this room, and the jingle of 
little worldly things beyond it does not much interest me; but I remember 
to have heard that."
"Right, madame. It is true," he laughed again, and whistled the burden of 
the tune he had sung at the door. "Therefore, Arthur," said his mother, 
"the gentleman comes here as an acquaintance, and no stranger; and it is 
much to be regretted that your unreasonable temper should have found 
offence in him. I regret it. I say so to the gentleman. You will not say 
so, I know; therefore I say it for myself and Flintwinch, since with us two 
the gentleman's business lies."
The key of the door below was now heard in the lock, and the door was heard 
to open and close. In due sequence Mr Flintwinch appeared; on whose 
entrance the visitor rose from his chair laughing loud, and folded him in a 
close embrace.
"How goes it, my cherished friend!" said he. "How goes the world, my 
Flintwinch? Rose-coloured? So much the better, so much the better! Ah, but 
you look charming! Ah, but you look young and fresh as the flowers of 
Spring! Ah, good little boy! Brave child, brave child!"
While heaping these compliments on Mr Flintwinch, he rolled him about with 
a hand on each of his shoulders, until the staggerings of that gentleman, 
who under the circumstances was dryer and more twisted than ever, were like 
those of a teetotum nearly spent.
"I had a presentiment, last time, that we should be better and more 
intimately acquainted. Is it coming on you, Flintwinch? Is it yet coming 
on?"
"Why, no, sir," retorted Mr Flintwinch. "Not unusually. Hadn't you better 
be seated? You have been calling for some more of that port, sir, I guess?"
"Ah! Little joker! Little pig," cried the visitor. "Ha ha ha ha!" And 
throwing Mr Flintwinch away, as a closing piece of raillery, he sat down 
again.
The amazement, suspicion, resentment, and shame, with which Arthur looked 
on at all this, struck him dumb. Mr Flintwinch, who had spun backward some 
two or three yards under the impetus last given to him, brought himself up 
with a face completely unchanged in its stolidity except as it was affected 
by shortness of breath, and looked hard at Arthur. Not a whit less reticent 
and wooden was Mr Flintwinch outwardly, than in the usual course of things: 
the only perceptible difference in him being that the knot of cravat which 
was generally under his ear, had worked round to the back of his head: 
where it formed an ornamental appendage, not unlike a bag-wig, and gave him 
something of a courtly appearance.
As Mrs Clennam never removed her eyes from Blandois (on whom they had some 
effect, as a steady look has on a lower sort of dog), so Jeremiah never 
removed his from Arthur. It was as if they had tacitly agreed to take their 
different provinces. Thus, in the ensuing silence, Jeremiah stood scraping 
his chin and looking at Arthur, as though he were trying to screw his 
thoughts out of him with an instrument.
After a little, the visitor, as if he felt the silence irksome, rose, and 
impatiently put himself with his back to the sacred fire which had burned 
through so many years. Thereupon Mrs Clennam said, moving one of her hands 
for the first time, and moving it very slightly with an action of 
dismissal:
"Please to leave us to our business, Arthur."
"Mother, I do so with reluctance."
"Never mind with what," she returned, "or with what not. Please to leave 
us. Come back at any other time when you may consider it a duty to bury 
half an hour wearily here. Good night."
She held up her muffled fingers that he might touch them with his, 
according to their usual custom, and he stood over her wheeled chair to 
touch her face with his lips. He thought, then, that her cheek was more 
strained than usual, and that it was colder. As he followed the direction 
of her eyes, in rising again, towards Mr Flintwinch's good friend, Mr 
Blandois, Mr Blandois snapped his finger and thumb with one loud 
contemptuous snap.
"I leave your - your business acquaintance in my mother's room, Mr 
Flintwinch," said Clennam, "with a great deal of surprise and a great deal 
of unwillingness."
The person referred to snapped his finger and thumb again.
"Good night, mother."
"Good night."
"I had a friend once, my good comrade Flintwinch," said Blandois, standing 
astride before the fire, and so evidently saying it to arrest Clennam's 
retreating steps, that he lingered near the door; "I had a friend once, who 
had heard so much of the dark side of this city and its ways, that he 
wouldn't have confided himself alone by night with two people who had an 
interest in getting him under the ground - my faith! not even in a 
respectable house like this - unless he was bodily too strong for them. 
Bah! What a poltroon, my Flintwinch! Eh?"
"A cur, sir."
"Agreed! A cur. But he wouldn't have done it, my Flintwinch, unless he had 
known them to have the will to silence him, without the power. He wouldn't 
have drunk from a glass of water, under such circumstances - not even in a 
respectable house like this, my Flintwinch - unless he had seen one of them 
drink first, and swallow too!"
Disdaining to speak, and indeed not very well able, for he was half-
choking, Clennam only glanced at the visitor as he passed out. The visitor 
saluted him with another parting snap, and his nose came down over his 
moustache and his moustache went up under his nose, in an ominous and ugly 
smile.
"For Heaven's sake, Affery," whispered Clennam, as she opened the door for 
him in the dark hall, and he groped his way to the sight of the night-sky, 
"what is going on here?"
Her own appearance was sufficiently ghastly, standing in the dark with her 
apron thrown over her head, and speaking behind it in a low, deadened 
voice.
"Don't ask me anything, Arthur. I've been in a dream for ever so long. Go 
away!"
He went out, and she shut the door upon him. He looked up at the windows of 
his mother's room, and the dim light, deadened by the yellow blinds, seemed 
to say a response after Affery, and to mutter, "Don't ask me anything. Go 
away!"


Chapter 11

A Letter From Little Dorrit

Dear Mr Clennam,
As I said in my last that it was best for nobody to write to me, and as my 
sending you another little letter can therefore give you no other trouble 
than the trouble of reading it (perhaps you may not find leisure for even 
that, though I hope you will some day), I am now going to devote an hour to 
writing to you again. This time, I write from Rome.
We left Venice before Mr and Mrs Gowan did, but they were not so long upon 
the road as we were, and did not travel by the same way, and so when we 
arrived we found them in a lodging here, in a place called the Via 
Gregoriana. I dare say you know it.
Now I am going to tell you all I can about them, because I know that is 
what you most want to hear. Theirs is not a very comfortable lodging, but 
perhaps I thought it less so when I first saw it than you would have done, 
because you have been in many different countries and have seen many 
different customs. Of course it is a far, far better place - millions of 
times - than any I have ever been used to until lately; and I fancy I don't 
look at it with my own eyes, but with hers. For it would be easy to see 
that she has always been brought up in a tender and happy home, even if she 
had not told me so with great love for it.
Well, it is a rather bare lodging up a rather dark common staircase, and it 
is nearly all a large dull room where Mr Gowan paints. The windows are 
blocked up where any one could look out, and the walls have been all drawn 
over with chalk and charcoal by others who have lived there before - oh, - 
I should think, for years! There is a curtain more dust-coloured than red 
which divides it, and the part behind the curtain makes the private sitting-
room. When I first saw her there she was alone, and her work had fallen out 
of her hand, and she was looking up at the sky shining through the tops of 
the windows. Pray do not be uneasy when I tell you, but it was not quite so 
airy, nor so blight, nor so cheerful nor so happy and youthful altogether 
as I should have liked it to be.
On account of Mr Gowan painting Papas picture (which I am not quite 
convinced I should have known from the likeness if I had not seen him doing 
it). I have had more opportunities of being with her since then, than I 
might have had without this fortunate chance. She is very much alone. Very 
much alone indeed.
Shall I tell you about the second time I saw her? I went one day, when it 
happened that I could run round by myself, at four or five o'clock in the 
afternoon. She was then dining alone, and her solitary dinner had been 
brought in from somewhere, over a kind of brazier with a fire in it, and 
she had no company or prospect of company, that I could see, but the old 
man who had brought it. He was telling her a long story (of robbers outside 
the walls, being taken up by a stone statue of a Saint) to entertain her - 
as he said to me when I came out, "because he had a daughter of his own, 
though she was not so pretty."
I ought now to mention Mr Gowan before I say what little more I have to say 
about her. He must admire her beauty, and he must be proud of her, for 
everybody praises it, and he must be fond of her, and I do not doubt that 
he is - but in his way. You know his way, and if it appears as careless and 
discontented in your eyes as it does in mine I am not wrong in thinking 
that it might be better suited to her. If it does not seem so to you I am 
quite sure I am wholly mistaken; for your unchanged poor child confides in 
your knowledge and goodness more than she could ever tell you, if she was 
to try. But don't be frightened, I am not going to try.
Owing (as I think, if you think so too) to Mr Gowan's unsettled and 
dissatisfied way, he applies himself to his profession very little. He does 
nothing steadily or patiently; but equally takes things up and throws them 
down, and does them, or leaves them undone, without caring about them. When 
I have heard him talking to Papa during the sittings for the picture, I 
have sat wondering whether it could be that he has no belief in anybody 
else, because he has no belief in himself. Is it so? I wonder what you will 
say when you come to this! I know how you will look, and I can almost hear 
the voice in which you would tell me on the Iron Bridge.
Mr Gowan goes out a good deal among what is considered the best company 
here - though he does not look as if he enjoyed it or liked it when he is 
with it - and she sometimes accompanies him, but lately she has gone out 
very little. I think I have noticed that they have an inconsistent way of 
speaking about her, as if she had made some great self-interested success 
in marrying Mr Gowan, though, at the same time, the very same people would 
not have dreamed of taking him for themselves or their daughters. Then he 
goes into the country besides, to think about making sketches; and in all 
places where there are visitors, he has a large acquaintance and is very 
well known. Besides all this, he has a friend who is much in his society 
both at home and away from home, though he treats this friend very coolly 
and is very uncertain in his behaviour to him. I am quite sure (because she 
has told me so), that she does not like this friend. He is so revolting to 
me, too, that his being away from here, at present, is quite a relief to my 
mind. How much more to hers! 
But what I particularly want you to know, and why I have resolved to tell 
you so much even while I am afraid it may make you a little uncomfortable 
without occasion, is this. She is so true and so devoted, and knows so 
completely that all her love and duty are his for ever, that you may be 
certain she will love him, admire him, praise him, and conceal all his 
faults, until she dies. I believe she conceals them, and always will 
conceal them, even from herself. She has given him a heart that can never 
be taken back; and however much he may try it, he will never wear out its 
affection. You know the truth of this, as you know everything, far far 
better than I; but I cannot help telling you what a nature she shows, and 
that you can never think too well of her.
I have not yet called her by her name in this letter, but we are such 
friends now that I do so when we are quietly together, and she speaks to me 
by my name - I mean, not my Christian name, but the name you gave me. When 
she began to call me Amy, I told her my short story, and that you had 
always called me Little Dorrit. I told her that the name was much dearer to 
me than any other, and so she calls me Little Dorrit too.
Perhaps you have not heard from her father or mother yet, and may not know 
that she has a baby son. He was born only two days ago, and just a week 
after they came. It has made them very happy. However, I must tell you, as 
I am to tell you all, that I fancy they are under a constraint with Mr 
Gowan, and that they feel as if his mocking way with them was sometimes a 
slight given to their love for her. It was but yesterday when I was there, 
that I saw Mr Meagles change colour, and get up and go out, as if he was 
afraid that he might say so, unless he prevented himself by that means. Yet 
I am sure they are both so considerate, good humoured, and reasonable, that 
he might spare them. It is hard in him not to think of them a little more.
I stopped at the last full stop to read all this over. It looked at first 
as if I was taking on myself to understand and explain so much, that I was 
half inclined not to send it. But when I had thought it over a little, I 
felt more hopeful of your knowing at once that I had only been watchful for 
you, and had only noticed what I think I have noticed because I was 
quickened by your interest in it. Indeed, you may be sure that is the 
truth.
And now I have done with the subject in the present letter, and have little 
left to say.
We are all quite well, and Fanny improves every day. You can hardly think 
how kind she is to me, and what pains she takes with me. She has a lover, 
who has followed her, first all the way from Switzerland, and then all the 
way from Venice, and who has just confided to me that he means to follow 
her everywhere. I was much confused by his speaking to me about it, but he 
would. I did not know what to say, but at last I told him that I thought he 
had better not. For Fanny (but I did not tell him this) is much too 
spirited and clever to suit him. Still, he said he would, all the same. I 
have no lover, of course.
If you should ever get so far as this in this long letter, you will perhaps 
say, Surely Little Dorrit will not leave off without telling me something 
about her travels, and surely it is time she did. I think it is indeed, but 
I don't know what to tell you. Since we left Venice we have been in a great 
many wonderful places, Genoa and Florence among them, and have seen so many 
wonderful sights, that I am almost giddy when I think what a crowd they 
make. But you could tell me so much more about them than I can tell you, 
that why should I tire you with my accounts and descriptions?
Dear Mr Clennam, as I had the courage to tell you what the familiar 
difficulties in my travelling mind were before, I will not be a coward now. 
One of my frequent thoughts is this: - Old as these cities are, their age 
itself is hardly so curious, to my reflections, as that they should have 
been in their places all through those days when I did not even know of the 
existence of more than two or three of them, and when I scarcely knew of 
anything outside our old walls. There is something melancholy in it, and I 
don't know why. When we went to see the famous leaning tower at Pisa, it 
was a bright sunny day, and it and the buildings near it looked so old, and 
the earth and sky looked so young, and its shadow on the ground was so soft 
and retired! I could not at first think how beautiful it was, or how 
curious, but I thought, 'O how many times when the shadow of the wall was 
falling on our room, and when that weary tread of feet was going up and 
down the yard - O how many times this place was just as quiet and lovely as 
it is today!" It quite overpowered me. My heart was so full, that tears 
burst out of my eyes, though I did what I could to restrain them. And I 
have the same feeling often - often.
Do you know that since the change in our fortunes, though I appear to 
myself to have dreamed more than before, I have always dreamed of myself as 
very young indeed? I am not very old, you may say. No, but that is not what 
I mean. I have always dreamed of myself as a child learning to do 
needlework. I have often dreamed of myself as back there, seeing faces in 
the yard little known and which I should have thought I had quite 
forgotten; but, as often as not, I have been abroad here - in Switzerland, 
or France, or Italy - somewhere where we have been - yet always as that 
little child. I have dreamed of going down to Mrs General, with the patches 
on my clothes in which I can first remember myself. I have over and over 
again dreamed of taking my place at dinner at Venice when we have had a 
large company, in the mourning for my poor mother which I wore when I was 
eight years old, and wore long after it was threadbare and would mend no 
more. It has been a great distress to me to think how irreconcilable the 
company would consider it with my father's wealth, and how I should 
displease and disgrace him and Fanny and Edward by so plainly disclosing 
what they wished to keep secret. But I have not grown out of the little 
child in thinking of it; and at the self-same moment I have dreamed that I 
have sat with the heart-ache at table, calculating the expenses of the 
dinner, and quite distracting myself with thinking how they were ever to be 
made good. I have never dreamed of the change in our fortunes itself; I 
have never dreamed of your coming back with me that memorable morning to 
break it; I have never even dreamed of you.

DEAR MR CLENNAM, it is possible that I have thought of you - and others - 
so much by day, that I have no thoughts left to wander round you by night. 
For I must now confess to you that I suffer from home-sickness - that I 
long so ardently and earnestly for home, as sometimes, when no one sees me, 
to pine for it. I cannot bear to turn my face further away from it. My 
heart is a little lightened when we turn towards it, even for a few miles, 
and with the knowledge that we are soon to turn away again. So dearly do I 
love the scene of my poverty and your kindness. O so dearly, O so dearly! 
Heaven knows when your poor child will see England again. We are all fond 
of the life here (except me), and there are no plans for our return. My 
dear father talks of a visit to London late in this next spring, on some 
affairs connected with the property, but I have no hope that he will bring 
me with him.
I have cried to get on a little better under Mrs General's instruction, and 
I hope I am not quite so dull as I used to be. I have begun to speak and 
understand, almost easily, the hard languages I told you about. I did not 
remember, at the moment when I wrote last, that you know them both; but I 
remembered it afterwards, and it helped me on. God bless you, dear Mr 
Clennam. Do not forget
Your ever grateful and affectionate
LITTLE DORRIT.

P.S. - Particularly remember that Minnie Gowan deserves the best 
remembrance in which you can hold her. You cannot think too generously or 
too highly of her. I forgot Mr Pancks last time. Please, if you should see 
him, give him your Little Dorrit's kind regard. He was very good to Little 
D.


Chapter 12

In Which A Great Patriotic Conference Is Holden

The famous name of Merdle became, every day, more famous in the land. 
Nobody knew that the Merdle of such high renown had ever done any good to 
any one, alive or dead, or to any earthly thing; nobody knew that he had 
any capacity or utterance of any sort in him, which had ever thrown, for 
any creature, the feeblest farthing-candle ray of light on any path of duty 
or diversion, pain or pleasure, toil or rest, fact or fancy, among the 
multiplicity of paths in the labyrinth trodden by the sons of Adam; nobody 
had the smallest reason for supposing the clay of which this object of 
worship was made, to be other than the commonest clay, with as clogged a 
wick smouldering inside of it as ever kept an image of humanity from 
tumbling to pieces. All people knew (or thought they knew) that he had made 
himself immensely rich; and, for that reason alone, prostrated themselves 
before him, more degradedly and less excusably than the darkest savage 
creeps out of his hole in the ground to propitiate, in some log or reptile, 
the Deity of his benighted soul.
Nay, the high priests of this worship had the man before them as a protest 
against their meanness. The multitude worshipped on trust - though always 
distinctly knowing why - but the officiators at the altar had the man 
habitually in their view. They sat at his feasts, and he sat at theirs. 
There was a spectre always attendant on him, saying to these high priests, 
"Are such the signs you trust, and love to honour; this head, these eyes, 
this mode of speech, the tone and manner of this man? You are the levers of 
the Circumlocution Office, and the rulers of men. When half-a-dozen of you 
fall out by the ears, it seems that mother earth can give birth to no other 
rulers Does your qualification lie in the superior knowledge of men, which 
accepts, courts, and puffs this man? Or, if you are competent to judge 
aright the signs I never fail to show you when he appears among you, is 
your superior honesty your qualification?" Two rather ugly questions these, 
always going about town with Mr Merdle; and there was a tacit agreement 
that they must be stifled.
In Mrs Merdle's absence abroad, Mr Merdle still kept the great house open, 
for the passage through it of a stream of visitors. A few of these took 
affable possession of the establishment. Three or four ladies of 
distinction and liveliness used to say to one another, "Let us dine at our 
dear Merdle's next Thursday. Whom shall we have?" Our dear Merdle would 
then receive his instructions; and would sit heavily among the company at 
table and wander lumpishly about his drawing-rooms afterwards, only 
remarkable for appearing to have nothing to do with the entertainment 
beyond being in its way.
The Chief Butler, the Avenging Spirit of this great man's life, relaxed 
nothing of his severity. He looked on at these dinners when the Bosom was 
not there, as he looked on at other dinners when the Bosom was there; and 
his eye was a basilisk to Mr Merdle. He was a hard man, and would never 
bate an ounce of plate or a bottle of wine. He would not allow a dinner to 
be given unless it was up to his mark. He set forth the table for his own 
dignity. If the guests chose to partake of what was served, he saw no 
objection; but it was served for the maintenance of his rank. As he stood 
by the sideboard he seemed to announce, "I have accepted office to look at 
this which is now before me, and to look at nothing less than this." If he 
missed the presiding Bosom, it was as a part of his own state of which he 
was, from unavoidable circumstances, temporarily deprived. Just as he might 
have missed a centre-piece, or a choice wine-cooler, which had been sent to 
the Banker's.
Mr Merdle issued invitations for a Barnacle dinner. Lord Decimus was to be 
there, Mr Tite Barnacle was to be there, the pleasant young Barnacle was to 
be there; and the Chorus of Parliamentary Barnacles who went about the 
provinces when the House was up, warbling the praises of their Chief, were 
to be represented there. It was understood to be a great occasion. Mr 
Merdle was going to take up the Barnacles Some delicate little negotiations 
had occurred between him and the noble Decimus - the young Barnacle of 
engaging manners acting as negotiator - and Mr Merdle had decided to cast 
the weight of his great probity and great riches into the Barnacle scale. 
Jobbery was suspected by the malicious; perhaps because it was indisputable 
that if that if the adherence of the immortal Enemy of Mankind could have 
been secured by a job, the Barnacles would have jobbed him - for the good 
of the country, for the good of the country.
Mrs Merdle had written to that magnificent spouse of hers, whom it was 
heresy to regard as anything less than all the British Merchants since the 
days of Whittington rolled into one, and gilded three feet deep all over - 
had written to this spouse of hers, several letters from Rome, in quick 
succession, urging upon him with importunity that now or never was the time 
to provide for Edmund Sparkler. Mrs Merdle had shown him that the case of 
Edmund was urgent, and that infinite advantages might result from his 
having some good thing directly. In the grammar of Mrs Merdle's verbs on 
this momentous subject, there was only one Mood, the Imperative; and that 
Mood had only one Tense, the Present. Mrs Merdle's verbs were so pressingly 
presented to Mr Merdle to conjugate, that his sluggish blood and his long 
coat-cuffs became quite agitated.
In which state of agitation, Mr Merdle, evasively rolling his eyes round 
the Chief Butler's shoes without raising them to the index of that 
stupendous creature's thoughts, had signified to him his intention of 
giving a special dinner: not a very special dinner, but a very special 
dinner. The Chief Butler had signified, in return, that he had no objection 
to look on at the most expensive thing in that way that could be done: and 
the day of the dinner was now come.
Mr Merdle stood in one of his drawing-rooms, with his back to the fire, 
waiting for the arrival of his important guests. He seldom or never took 
the liberty of standing with his back to his fire, unless he was quite 
alone. In the presence of the Chief Butler, he could not have done such a 
deed. He would have clasped himself by the wrists in that constabulary 
manner of his, and have paced up and done the hearthrug, or gone creeping 
about among the rich objects of furniture, if his oppressive retainer had 
appeared in the room at that very moment. The sly shadows which seemed to 
dart out of hiding when the fire rose, and to dart back into it when the 
fire fell, were sufficient witnesses of his making himself so easy. They 
were even more than sufficient, if his uncomfortable glances at them might 
be taken to mean anything.
Mr Merdle's right hand was filled with the evening paper, and the evening 
paper was full of Mr Merdle. His wonderful enterprise, his wonderful 
wealth, his wonderful Bank, were the fattening food of the evening paper 
that night. The wonderful Bank, of which he was the chief projector, 
establisher, and manager, was the latest of the many Merdle wonders. So 
modest was Mr Merdle withal, in the midst of these splendid achievements, 
that he looked far more like a man in possession of his house under a 
distraint, than a commercial Colossus bestriding his own hearthrug, while 
the little ships were sailing in to dinner.
Behold the vessels coming into port! The engaging young Barnacle was the 
first arrival; but Bar overtook him on the staircase. Bar, strengthened as 
usual with his double eyeglass and his little jury droop, was overjoyed to 
see the engaging young Barnacle; and opined that we were going to sit in 
Banco, as we lawyers called it, to take a special argument?
"Indeed," said the sprightly young Barnacle, whose name was Ferdinand: "how 
so?"
"Nay," smiled Bar. "If you don't know, how can I know? You are in the 
innermost sanctuary of the temple: I am one of the admiring concourse on 
the plain without."
Bar could be light in hand, or heavy in hand, according to the customer he 
had to deal with. With Ferdinand Barnacle he was gossamer. Bar was likewise 
always modest and self-deprecatory - in his way. Bar was a man of great 
variety; but one leading thread ran through the woof of all his patterns. 
Every man with whom he had to do was in his eyes, a juryman; and he must 
get that juryman over, if he could. "Our illustrious host and friend," said 
Bar; "our shining mercantile star; - going into politics?"
"Going? He has been in Parliament some time, you know," returned the 
engaging young Barnacle.
"True," said Bar, with his light-comedy laugh for special jurymen: which 
was a very different thing from his low-comedy laugh for comic tradesmen on 
common juries: "he has been in Parliament for some time. Yet hitherto our 
star has been a vacillating and wavering star? Humph?"
An average witness would have been seduced by the Humph? into an 
affirmative answer. But Ferdinand Barnacle looked knowingly at Bar as they 
strolled upstairs, and gave him no answer at all.
"Just so, just so," said Bar, nodding his head, for he was not to be put 
off in that way, "and therefore I spoke of our sitting in Banco to take a 
special argument - meaning this to be a high and solemn occasion, when, as 
Captain Macheath says, 'the Judges are met: a terrible show!' We lawyers 
are sufficiently liberal, you see, to quote the Captain, though the Captain 
is severe upon us. Nevertheless, I think I could put in evidence an 
admission of the Captain's," said Bar, with a little jocose roll of his 
head; for, in his legal current of speech, he always assumed the air of 
rallying himself with the best grace in the world: "an admission of the 
Captain's that Law, in the gross, is at least intended to be impartial. 
For, what says the Captain, if I quote him correctly - and if not," with a 
light-comedy touch of his double eyeglass on his companion's shoulder, "my 
learned friend will set me right:

'Since laws were made for every degree,
To curb vice in others as well as in me,
I wonder we ha'n't better company
Upon Tyburn Tree!'"

These words brought them to the drawing-room, where Mr Merdle stood before 
the fire. So immensely astounded was Mr Merdle by the entrance of Bar with 
such a reference in his mouth, that Bar explained himself to have been 
quoting Gay. "Assuredly not one of our Westminster Hall authorities," said 
he, "but still no despicable one to a man possessing the largely practical 
Mr Merdle's knowledge of the world."
Mr Merdle looked as if he thought he would say something, but subsequently 
looked as if he thought he wouldn't. The interval afforded time for Bishop 
to be announced.
Bishop came in with meekness, and yet with a strong and rapid step, as if 
he wanted to get his seven-league dress-shoes on, and go round the world to 
see that everybody was in a satisfactory state. Bishop had no idea that 
there was anything significant in the occasion. That was the most 
remarkable trait in his demeanour. He was crisp, fresh, cheerful, affable, 
bland; but so surprisingly innocent.
Bar slided up to prefer his politest inquiries in reference to the health 
of Mrs Bishop. Mrs Bishop had been a little unfortunate in the article of 
taking cold at a Confirmation, but otherwise was well. Young Mr Bishop was 
also well. He was down, with his young wife and little family, at his Cure 
of Souls.
The representatives of the Barnacle Chorus dropped in next, and Mr Merdle's 
physician dropped in next. Bar, who had a bit of one eye and a bit of his 
double eyeglass for every one who came in at the door, no matter with whom 
he was conversing or what he was talking about, got among them all by some 
skilful means, without being seen to get at them, and touched each 
individual gentleman of the jury on his own individual favourite spot. With 
some of the Chorus, he laughed about the sleepy member who had gone out 
into the lobby the other night, and voted the wrong way: with others, he 
deplored that innovating spirit in the time which could not even be 
prevented from taking an unnatural interest in the public service and the 
public money: with the physician he had a word to say about the general 
health; he had also a little information to ask from him, concerning a 
professional man, of unquestioned erudition and polished manners - but 
those credentials in their highest development he believed were the 
possession of other professors of the healing art (jury droop) - whom he 
had happened to have in the witness-box the day before yesterday, and from 
whom he had elicited in cross-examination that he claimed to be one of the 
exponents of this new mode of treatment which appeared to Bar to - eh! - 
well, Bar thought so; Bar had thought, and hoped, Physician would tell him 
so. Without presuming to decide where doctors disagreed, it did appear to 
Bar, viewing it as a question of common sense and not of so-called legal 
penetration, that this new system was - might he, in the presence of so 
great an authority - say, Humbug? Ah! Fortified by such encouragement, he 
could venture to say Humbug; and now Bar's mind was relieved.
Mr Tite Barnacle, who, like Dr Johnson's celebrated acquaintance, had only 
one idea in his head, and that was a wrong one, had appeared by this time. 
This eminent gentleman and Mr Merdle, seated diverse ways and with 
ruminating aspects, on a yellow ottoman in the light of the fire, holding 
no verbal communication with each other, bore a strong general resemblance 
to the two cows in the Cuyp picture over against them.
But, now, Lord Decimus arrived. The Chief Butler, who up to this time had 
limited himself to a branch of his usual function by looking at the company 
as they entered (and that, with more of defiance than favour), put himself 
so far out of his way as to come upstairs with him and announce him. Lord 
Decimus being an overpowering peer, a bashful young member of the Lower 
House, who was the last fish but one caught by the Barnacles, and who had 
been invited on this occasion to commemorate his capture, shut his eyes 
when his Lordship came in.
Lord Decimus nevertheless was glad to see the member. He was also glad to 
see Mr Merdle, glad to see Bishop, glad to see Bar, glad to see Physician, 
glad to see Tite Barnacle, glad to see Chorus, glad to see Ferdinand his 
private secretary. Lord Decimus, though one of the greatest of the earth, 
was not remarkable for ingratiatory manners, and Ferdinand had coached him 
up to the point of noticing all the fellows he might meet there, and saying 
he was glad to see them. When he had achieved this rush of vivacity and 
condescension, his Lordship composed himself into the picture after Cuyp, 
and made a third cow in the group. Bar, who felt that he had got all the 
rest of the jury and must now lay hold of the Foreman, soon came sliding 
up, double eyeglass in hand. Bar tendered the weather, as a subject neatly 
aloof from official reserve, for the Foreman's consideration. Bar said that 
he was told (as everybody always is told, though who tells them, and why, 
will for ever remain a mystery), that there was to be no wall-fruit this 
year. Lord Decimus had not heard anything amiss of his peaches, but rather 
believed if his people were correct, he was to have no apples. No apples? 
Bar was lost in astonishment and concern. It would have been all one to 
him, in reality, if there had not been a pippin on the surface of the 
earth, but his show of interest in this apple question was positively 
painful. Now, to what, Lord Decimus - for we troublesome lawyers loved to 
gather information, and could never tell how useful it might prove to us - 
to what, Lord Decimus, was this to be attributed? Lord Decimus could not 
undertake to propound any theory about it. This might have stopped another 
man; but, Bar sticking to him fresh as ever, said, "As to pears, now?"
Long after Bar got made Attorney-General, this was told of him as a master-
stroke. Lord Decimus had a reminiscence about a pear-tree, formerly growing 
in a garden near the back of his dame's house at Eton, upon which pear-tree 
the only joke of his life perennially bloomed. It was a joke of a compact 
and portable nature, turning on the difference between Eton pears and 
Parliamentary pairs; but it was a joke, a refined relish of which would 
seem to have appeared to Lord Decimus impossible to be had, without a 
thorough and intimate acquaintance with the tree. Therefore, the story at 
first had no idea of such a tree, sir, then gradually found it in winter, 
carried it through the changing seasons, saw it bud, saw it blossom, saw it 
bear fruit, saw the fruit ripen, in short, cultivated the tree in that 
diligent and minute manner before it got out of the bedroom window to steal 
the fruit, that many thanks had been offered up by belated listeners for 
the tree's having been planted and grafted prior to Lord Decimus's time. 
Bar's interest in apples was so over-topped by the wrapped suspense in 
which he pursued the changes of these pears, from the moment when Lord 
Decimus solemnly opened with "Your mentioning pears recalls to my 
remembrance a pear tree," down to the rich conclusion, "And so we pass, 
through the various changes of life, from Eton years to Parliamentary 
pairs," that he had to go downstairs with Lord Decimus, and even then to be 
seated next to him at table, in order that he might hear the anecdote out. 
By that time, Bar felt that he had secured the Foreman, and might go to 
dinner with a good appetite.
It was a dinner to provoke an appetite, though he had not had one. The 
rarest dishes, sumptuously cooked and sumptuously served; the choicest 
fruits; the most exquisite wines; marvels of workmanship in gold and 
silver, china and glass; innumerable things delicious to the senses of 
taste, smell, and sight, were insinuated into its composition. O, what a 
wonderful man this Merdle, what a great man, what a master man, how 
blessedly and enviably endowed - in one word, what a rich man! 
He took his usual poor eighteen-pennyworth of food, in his usual 
indigestive way, and had a little to say for himself as ever a wonderful 
man had. Fortunately Lord Decimus was one of those sublimities who have no 
occasion to be talked to, for they can be at any time sufficiently occupied 
with the contemplation of their own greatness. This enabled the bashful 
young member to keep his eyes open long enough at a time to see his dinner. 
But, whenever Lord Decimus spoke, he shut them again.
The agreeable young Barnacle, and Bar, were the talkers of the party. 
Bishop would have been exceedingly agreeable also, but that his innocence 
stood in his way. He was so soon left behind. When there was any little 
hint of anything being in the wind, he got lost directly. Worldly affairs 
were too much for him; he couldn't make them out at all.
This was observable when Bar said, incidentally, that he was happy to have 
heard that we were soon to have the advantage of enlisting on the good 
side, the sound and plain sagacity - not demonstrative or ostentatious, but 
thoroughly sound and practical - of our friend Mr Sparkler.
Ferdinand Barnacle laughed, and said oh yes, he believed so. A vote was a 
vote, and always acceptable.
Bar was sorry to miss our good friend Mr Sparkler today, Mr Merdle.
"He is away with Mrs Merdle," returned that gentleman, slowly coming out of 
an abstraction, in the course of which he had been fitting a table-spoon up 
his sleeve. "It is not indispensable for him to be on the spot."
"The magic name of Merdle," said Bar, with the jury droop, "no doubt will 
suffice for all."
"Why - yes - I believe so," assented Mr Merdle, putting the spoon aside, 
and clumsily hiding each of his hands in the coat-cuff of the other hand. 
"I believe the people in my interest down there, will not make any 
difficulty."
"Model people!" said Bar.
"I am glad you approve of them," said Mr Merdle.
"And the people of those other two places, now," pursued Bar, with a bright 
twinkle in his keen eye, as it slightly turned in the direction of his 
magnificent neighbour; "we lawyers are always curious, always inquisitive, 
always picking up odds and ends of our patchwork minds, since there is no 
knowing when and where they may fit into some corner; - the people of those 
other two places, now? Do they yield so laudably to the vast and cumulative 
influence of such enterprise and such renown; do those little rills become 
absorbed so quietly and easily, and, as it were by the influence of natural 
laws, so beautifully, in the swoop of the majestic stream as it flows upon 
its wondrous way enriching the surrounding lands; that their course is 
perfectly to be calculated, and distinctly to be predicated?"
Mr Merdle, a little troubled by Bar's eloquence, looked fitfully about the 
nearest salt-cellar for some moments, and then said, hesitating:
"They are perfectly aware, sir, of their duty to Society. They will return 
anybody I send to them for that purpose."
"Cheering to know," said Bar. "Cheering to know."
The three places in question were three little rotten holes in this Island, 
containing three little ignorant, drunken, guzzling, dirty, out of the way 
constituencies, that had reeled into Mr Merdle's pocket. Ferdinand Barnacle 
laughed in his easy way, and airily said they were a nice set of fellows. 
Bishop, mentally perambulating among paths of peace, was altogether 
swallowed up in absence of mind.
"Pray," asked Lord Decimus, casting his eyes around the table, "what is 
this story I have heard of a gentleman long confined in a debtor's prison, 
proving to be a of a wealthy family, and having come into the inheritance 
of a large sum of money? I have met with a variety of allusions to it. Do 
you know anything of it, Ferdinand?"
"I only know this much," said Ferdinand, "that he has given the Department 
with which I have the honour to be associated;" this Sparkling young 
Barnacle threw off the phrase sportively, as who would say, We know all 
about these forms of speech, but we must keep it up, we must keep the game 
alive; "no end of trouble, and has put us into innumerable fixes."
"Fixes?" repeated Lord Decimus, with a majestic pausing and pondering on 
the word that made the bashful member shut his eyes quite tight. "Fixes?"
"A very perplexing business indeed," observed Mr Tite Barnacle, with an air 
of great resentment.
"What," said Lord Decimus, "was the character of his business; what was the 
nature of these - a - fixes, Ferdinand?"
"Oh, it's a good story, as a story," returned that gentleman; "as good a 
thing of its kind, as need be. This Mr Dorrit (his name is Dorrit) had 
incurred a responsibility to us, ages before the fairy came out of the Bank 
and gave him his fortune, under a bond he had signed for the performance of 
a contract which was not at all performed. He was a partner in a house in 
some large way - spirits, or buttons, or wine, or blacking, or oatmeal, or 
woollen, or pork, or hooks and eyes, or iron, or treacle, or shoes, or 
something or other that was wanted for troops, or seamen, or somebody - and 
the house burst, and we being among the creditors, detainers were lodged on 
the part of the Crown in a scientific manner, and all the rest of it. When 
the fairy had appeared and he wanted to pay us off, Egad we had got into 
such an exemplary state of checking and counter-checking, signing and 
counter-signing, that it was six months before we knew how to take the 
money, or how to give a receipt for it. It was a triumph of public 
business," said this handsome young Barnacle, laughing heartily. "You never 
saw such a lot of forms in your life. 'Why,' the attorney said to me one 
day, 'if I wanted this office to give me two or three thousand pounds 
instead of take it, I couldn't have more trouble about it.' 'You are right, 
old fellow,' I told him, 'and n future you'll know that we have something 
to do here.'" The pleasant young Barnacle finished by once more laughing 
heartily. He was a very easy, pleasant fellow indeed, and his manners were 
exceedingly winning.
Mr Tite Barnacle's view of the business was of a less airy character. He 
took it ill that Mr Dorrit had troubled the Department by wanting to pay 
the money, and considered it a grossly informal thing to do after so many 
years. But, Mr Tite Barnacle was a buttoned-up man, and consequently a 
weighty one. All buttoned-up men are weighty. All buttoned-up men are 
believed in. Whether or no the reserved and never-exercised power of 
unbuttoning, fascinates mankind; whether or no wisdom is supposed to 
condense and augment when buttoned-up, and to evaporate when unbuttoned; it 
is certain that the man to whom importance is accorded is the buttoned-up 
man. Mr Tite Barnacle never would have passed for half his current value, 
unless his coat had been always buttoned-up to his white cravat.
"May I ask," said Lord Decimus, "if Mr Darrit - or Dorrit - has any 
family?"
Nobody else replying, the host said, "He has two daughters, my lord."
"Oh! you are acquainted with him?" asked Lord Decimus.
"Mrs Merdle is. Mr Sparkler is, too, In fact," said Mr Merdle, "I rather 
believe that one of the young ladies has made an impression on Edmund 
Sparkler. He is susceptible, and - I - think - the conquest - " Here Mr 
Merdle stopped, and looked at the tablecloth: as he usually did when he 
found himself observed or listened to.
Bar was uncommonly pleased to find that the Merdle family, and this family, 
had already been brought into contact. He submitted, in a low voice across 
the table to Bishop, that it was a kind of analogical illustration of those 
physical laws, in virtue of which Like flies to Like. He regarded this 
power of attraction in wealth to draw wealth to it, as something remarkably 
interesting and curious - something indefinably allied to the loadstone and 
gravitation. Bishop, who had ambled back to earth again when the present 
theme was broached, acquiesced. He said it was indeed highly important to 
Society that one in the trying situation of unexpectedly finding himself 
invested with a power for good or for evil in Society, should become, as it 
were, merged in the superior power of a more legitimate and more gigantic 
growth, the influence of which (as in the case of our friend, at whose 
board we sat) was habitually exercised in harmony with the best interests 
of Society. Thus, instead of two rival and contending flames, a larger and 
a lesser, each burning with a lurid and uncertain glare, we had a blended 
and a softened light whose genial ray diffused an equable warmth throughout 
the land. Bishop seemed to like his own way of putting the case very much, 
and rather dwelt upon it; Bar, meanwhile (not to throw away a juryman), 
making a show of sitting at his feet and feeding on his precepts.
The dinner and dessert being three hours' long, the bashful member cooled 
in the shadow of Lord Decimus faster than he warmed with food and drink, 
and had but a chilly time of it. Lord Decimus, like a tall tower in a flat 
country, seemed to project himself across the tablecloth, hide the light 
from the honourable member, cool the honourable member's marrow, and give 
him a woeful idea of distance. When he asked this unfortunate traveller to 
take wine, he encompassed his faltering steps with the gloomiest of shades; 
and when he said, "Your health, sir!" all around him was barrenness and 
desolation.
At length Lord Decimus, with a coffee-cup in his hand, began to hover about 
among the pictures, and to cause an interesting speculation to arise in all 
minds as to the probabilities of his ceasing to hover, and enabling the 
smaller birds to flutter upstairs; which could not be done until he had 
urged his noble pinions in that direction. After some delay, and several 
stretches of his wings which came to nothing, he soared to the drawing-
rooms.
And here a difficulty arose, which always does arise, when two people are 
specially brought together at a dinner to confer with one another. 
Everybody (except Bishop, who had no suspicion of it) knew perfectly well 
that this dinner had been eaten and drunk, specifically to the end that 
Lord Decimus and Mr Merdle should have five minutes' conversation together. 
The opportunity so elaborately prepared was now arrived, and it seemed from 
that moment that no mere human ingenuity could so much as get the two 
chieftains into the same room. Mr Merdle and his noble guest persisted in 
prowling about at opposite ends of the perspective. It was in vain for the 
engaging Ferdinand to bring Lord Decimus to look at the bronze horses near 
Mr Merdle. Then Mr Merdle evaded, and wandered away. It was in vain for him 
to bring Mr Merdle to Lord Decimus to tell him the history of the unique 
Dresden vases. Then, Lord Decimus evaded and wandered away, while he was 
getting his man up to the mark.
"Did you ever see such a thing as this?" said Ferdinand to Bar, when he had 
been baffled twenty times.
"Often," returned Bar.
"Unless I butt one of them into an appointed corner, and you butt the 
other," said Ferdinand, "it will not come off after all."
"Very good," said Bar. "I'll butt Merdle, if you like; but not my lord."
Ferdinand laughed, in the midst of his vexation. "Confound them both!" said 
he, looking at his watch. "I want to get away. Why the deuce can't they 
come together! They both know what they want and mean to do. Look at them!"
They were still looming at opposite ends of the perspective, each with an 
absurd pretence of not having the other on his mind, which could not have 
been more transparently ridiculous though his real mind had been chalked on 
his back. Bishop, who had just now made a third with Bar and Ferdinand, but 
whose innocence had again cut him out of the subject and washed him in 
sweet oil, was seen to approach Lord Decimus and glide into conversation.
"I must get Merdle's doctor to catch and secure him, I suppose," said 
Ferdinand: and then I must lay hold of my illustrious kinsman, and decoy 
him if I can - drag him if I can't - to the conference."
"Since you do me the honour," said Bar, with his slyest smile, "to ask for 
my poor aid, it shall be yours with the greatest pleasure. I don't think 
this is to be done by one man. But, if you will undertake to pen my lord 
into that furthest drawing-room where he is now so profoundly engaged; I 
will undertake to bring our dear Merdle into the presence, without the 
possibility of getting away."
"Done!" said Ferdinand. "Done!" said Bar.
Bar was a sight wondrous to behold, and full of matter, when, jauntily 
waving his double eyeglass by its ribbon, and jauntily drooping to an 
Universe of Jurymen, he, in the most accidental manner ever seen, found 
himself at Mr Merdle's shoulder, and embraced that opportunity of 
mentioning a little point to him, on which he particularly wished to be 
guided by the light of his practical knowledge. (Here he took Mr Merdle's 
arm and walked him gently away.) A banker, whom we would call A.B. advanced 
a considerable sum of money, which we would call fifteen thousand pounds, 
to a client or customer of his, whom he would call P.Q. (Here, as they were 
getting towards Lord Decimus, he held Mr Merdle tight.) As a security for 
the repayment of this advance to P.Q. whom we would call a widow lady, 
there were placed in A.B.'s hands the title deeds of a freehold estate, 
which we would call Blinkiter Doddles. Now, the point was this. A limited 
right of felling and lopping in the woods of Blinkiter Doddles, lay in the 
son of P.Q. then past his majority, and whom we would call X. Y. - but 
really this was too bad! in the presence of Lord Decimus, to detain the 
host with chopping our dry chaff of law, was really too bad. Another time! 
Bar was truly repentant, and would not say another syllable. Would Bishop 
favour him with half a dozen words? (He had now set Mr Merdle down on a 
couch, side by side with Lord Decimus, and to it they must go now or 
never.)
And now the rest of the company, highly excited and interested, always 
excepting Bishop who had not the slightest idea that anything was going on, 
formed in one group round the fire in the next drawing-room, and pretended 
to be chatting easily on an infinite variety of small topics, while 
everybody's thoughts and eyes were secretly straying towards the secluded 
pair. The Chorus were excessively nervous, perhaps as labouring under the 
dreadful apprehension that some good thing was going to be diverted from 
them. Bishop alone talked steadily and evenly. He conversed with the great 
Physician on that relaxation of the throat with which young curates were 
too frequently afflicted, and on the means of lessening the great 
prevalence of that disorder in the church. Physician, as a general rule, 
was of opinion that the best way to avoid it was to know how to read, 
before you made a profession of reading. Bishop said dubiously, did he 
really think so? And Physician said, decidedly, yes he did.
Ferdinand, meanwhile, was the only one of the party who skirmished on the 
outside of the circle; he kept about midway between it and the two, as if 
some sort of surgical operation were being performed by Lord Decimus on Mr 
Merdle, or by Mr Merdle on Lord Decimus, and his services might at any 
moment be required as Dresser. In fact, within a quarter of an hour, Lord 
Decimus called to him "Ferdinand!" and he went, and took his place in the 
conference for some five minutes more. Then a half-suppressed gasp broke 
out among the Chorus; for, Lord Decimus rose to take his leave. Again 
coached up by Ferdinand to the point of making himself popular, he shook 
hands in the most brilliant manner with the whole company, and even said to 
Bar "I hope you were not bored by my pears?" To which Bar retorted, "Eton, 
my lord, or Parliamentary?" neatly showing that he had mastered the joke, 
and delicately insinuating that he could never forget it while his life 
remained.
All the grave importance that was buttoned up in Mr Tite Barnacle, took 
itself away next; and Ferdinand took himself away next, to the opera. Some 
of the rest lingered a little, marrying golden liqueur glasses to Buhl 
tables with sticky rings; on the desperate chance of Mr Merdle's saying 
something. But, Mr Merdle, as usual, oozed sluggishly and muddily about his 
drawing-room, saying never a word.
In a day or two it was announced to all the town, that Edmund Sparkler, 
Esquire, son-in-law of the eminent Mr Merdle of world-wide renown, was made 
one of the Lords of the Circumlocution Office; and proclamation was issued, 
to all true believers, that this admirable appointment was to be hailed as 
a graceful and gracious mark of homage, rendered by the graceful and 
gracious Decimus, to that commercial interest which must ever in a great 
commercial country - and all the rest of it, with blast of trumpet. So 
bolstered by this mark of Government homage, the wonderful Bank and all the 
other wonderful undertakings went on and went up; and gapers came to Harley 
Street, Cavendish Square, only to look at the house where the golden wonder 
lived.
And when they saw the Chief Butler looking out at the hall-door in his 
moments of condescension, the gapers said how rich he looked, and wondered 
how much money he had in the wonderful Bank. But, if they had known that 
respectable Nemesis better, they would not have wondered about it, and 
might have stated the amount with the utmost precision.


Chapter 13

The Progress Of An Epidemic

That it is at least as difficult to stay a moral infection as a physical 
one; that such a disease will spread with the malignity and rapidity of the 
Plague; that the contagion, when it has once made head, will spare no 
pursuit or condition, but will lay hold on people in the soundest health, 
and become developed in the most unlikely constitutions; is a fact as 
firmly established by experience as that we human creatures breathe an 
atmosphere. A blessing beyond appreciation would be conferred upon mankind 
if the tainted, in whose weakness or wickedness these virulent disorders 
are bred, could be instantly seized and placed in close confinement (not to 
say summarily smothered) before the poison is communicable.
As a vast fire will fill the air to a great distance with its roar, so the 
sacred flame which the mighty Barnacles had fanned caused the air to 
resound more and more with the name of Merdle. It was deposited on every 
lip, and carried into every ear. There never was, there never had been, 
there never again should be, such a man as Mr Merdle. Nobody, as aforesaid, 
knew what he had done; but everybody knew him to be the greatest that had 
appeared.
Down in Bleeding Heart Yard, where there was not one unappropriated 
halfpenny, as lively an interest was taken in this paragon of men as on the 
Stock exchange. Mrs Plornish, now established in the small grocery and 
general trade in a snug little shop at the crack end of the Yard, at the 
top of the steps, with her little old father and Maggie acting as 
assistants, habitually held forth about him over the counter, in 
conversation with her customers. Mr Plornish, who had a small share in a 
small builder's business in the neighbourhood, said, trowel in hand, on the 
tops of scaffolds and on the tiles of houses, that people did tell him as 
Mr Merdle was the one, mind you, to put us all to rights in respects of 
that which all on us looked to, and to bring us all safe home as much we 
needed, mind you, fur toe be brought. Mr Baptist, sole lodger of Mr and Mrs 
Plornish, was reputed in whispers to lay by the savings which were the 
result of his simple and moderate life, for investment in one of Mr 
Merdle's certain enterprises. The female Bleeding Hearts, when they came 
for ounces of tea and hundred-weight's of talk, gave Mrs Plornish to 
understand, That how, ma'am, they had heard from their cousin Mary Anne, 
which worked in the line, that his lady's dresses would fill three waggons. 
That how she was as handsome a lady, ma'am, as lived, no matter wheres, and 
a bust like marble itself. That how, according to what they was told, 
ma'am, it was her son by a former husband as was took into the Government; 
and a General he had been, and armies he had marched again and victory 
crowned, if all you heard was to be believed. That how it was reported that 
Mr Merdle's words had been, that if they could have made it worth his while 
to take the whole Government he would have took it without a profit, but 
that take it he could not and stand a loss. That how it was not to be 
expected, ma'am, that he should lose by it, his ways being, as you might 
say and utter no falsehood, paved with gold; but that how it was much to be 
regretted that something handsome hadn't been got up to make it worth his 
while; for it was such and only such that knowed the height to which the 
bread and butchers' meat had rose, and it was such and only such that both 
could and would bring that height down.
So rife and potent was the fever in Bleeding Heart Yard that Mr Pancks's 
rent-days caused no interval in the patients. The disease took the singular 
form, on those occasions, of causing the infected to find an unfathomable 
excuse and consolation in allusions to the magic name.
"Now, then!" Mr Pancks would say, to a defaulting lodger. "Pay up! Come 
on!"
"I haven't got it, Mr Pancks," Defaulter would reply. "I tell you the 
truth, sir, when I say I haven't got so much as a single sixpence of it to 
bless myself with."
"This won't do, you know," Mr Pancks would retort. "You don't expect it 
will do; do you?"
Defaulter would admit, with a low-spirited "No, sir," having no such 
expectation.
"My proprietor isn't going to stand this, you know," Mr Pancks would 
proceed. "He don't send me here for this. Pay up! Come!"
The defaulter would make answer, "Ah, Mr Pancks. If I was the rich 
gentleman whose name is in everybody's mouth - if my name was Merdle, sir - 
I'd soon pay up, and be glad to do it."
Dialogues on the rent-question usually took place at the house-doors or in 
the entries, and in the presence of several deeply interested Bleeding 
Hearts. They always received a reference of this kind with a low murmur of 
response, as if it were convincing; and the Defaulter, however blank and 
discomfited before, always cheered up a little in making it.
"If I was Mr Merdle, sir, you wouldn't have cause to complain of me then. 
No, believe me!" the Defaulter would proceed with a shake of the head. "I'd 
pay up so quick then, Mr Pancks, that you shouldn't have to ask me."
The response would be heard again here, implying that it was impossible to 
say anything fairer, and that this was the next thing to paying the money 
down.
Mr Pancks would be now reduced to saying as he booked the case, "Well! 
You'll have the broker in, and be turned out; that's what'll happen to you. 
It's no use talking to me about Mr Merdle. You are not Mr Merdle, any more 
than I am."
"No, sir," the Defaulter would reply. "I only wish you were him, sir."
The response would take this up quickly: replying with great feeling, "Only 
wish you were him, sir."
"You'd be easier with us if you were Mr Merdle, sir," the Defaulter would 
go on, with rising spirits, "and it would be better for all parties. Better 
for our sakes, and better for yours too. You wouldn't have to worry no one 
then, sir. You wouldn't have to worry us, and you wouldn't have to worry 
yourself. You'd be easier in your own mind, sir, and you'd leave others 
easier, too, you would, if you were Mr Merdle. "
Mr Pancks, in whom these impersonal compliments produced an irresistible 
sheepishness, never rallied after such a charge. He could only bite his 
nails and puff away to the next Defaulter. The responsive Bleeding Hearts 
would then gather round the Defaulter whom he had just abandoned, and the 
most extravagant rumours would circulate among them, to their great 
comfort, touching the amount of Mr Merdle's ready money.
From one of the many such defeats of one of many rent-days, Mr Pancks, 
having finished his day's collection, repaired with his note-book under his 
arm, to Mrs Plornish's corner. Mr Pancks's object was not professional, but 
social. He had had a trying day, and wanted a little brightening. By this 
time he was on friendly terms with the Plornish family, having often looked 
in upon them, at similar seasons, and borne his part in recollections of 
Miss Dorrit.
Mrs Plornish's shop-parlour had been decorated under her own eye, and 
presented, on the side towards the shop, a little fiction in which Mrs 
Plornish unspeakably rejoiced. This poetical heightening of the parlour 
consisted in the wall being painted to represent the exterior of a thatched 
cottage; the artist having introduced (in as effective a manner as he found 
compatible with their highly disproportionate dimensions) the real door and 
window. The modest sunflower and hollyhock were depicted as flourishing 
with great luxuriance on this rustic dwelling, while a quantity of dense 
smoke issuing from the chimney indicated good cheer within, and also, 
perhaps, that it had not been lately swept. A faithful dog was represented 
as flying at the legs of the friendly visitor, from the threshold; and a 
circular pigeon-house, enveloped in a cloud of pigeons, arose from behind 
the garden-paling. On the door (when it was shut), appeared the semblance 
of a brass-plate, presenting the inscription, Happy Cottage, T. and M. 
Plornish; the partnership expressing man and wife. No Poetry and no Art 
ever charmed the imagination more than the union of the two in this 
counterfeit cottage charmed Mrs Plornish. It was nothing to her that 
Plornish had a habit of leaning against it as he smoked his pipe after 
work, when his hat blotted out the pigeon-house and all the pigeons, when 
his back swallowed up the dwelling, when his hands in his pockets uprooted 
the blooming garden and laid waste the adjacent country. To Mrs Plornish, 
it was still a most beautiful cottage, a most wonderful deception; and it 
made no difference that Mr Plornish's eye was some inches above the level 
of the gable-bedroom in the thatch. To come out into the shop after it was 
shut, and hear her father sing a song inside this cottage, was a perfect 
Pastoral to Mrs Plornish, the Golden Age revived. And truly if that famous 
period had been revived, or had ever been at all, it may be doubted whether 
it would have produced many more heartily admiring daughters than the poor 
woman.
Warned of a visitor by the tinkling bell at the shop-door, Mrs Plornish 
came out of Happy Cottage to see who it might be. "I guessed it was you, Mr 
Pancks," said she, "for it's quite your regular night; ain't it? Here's 
father, you see, come out to serve at the sound of the bell, like a brisk 
young shopman. Ain't he looking well? Father's more pleased to see you than 
if you was a customer, for he dearly loves a gossip; and when it turns upon 
Miss Dorrit, he loves it all the more. You never heard father in such voice 
as he is in at present," said Mrs Plornish, her own voice quavering, she 
was so proud and pleased. "He gave us Strephon last night, to that degree 
that Plornish gets up and makes him this speech across the table. 'John 
Edward Nandy,' says Plornish to father, 'I never heard you come the warbles 
as I have heard you come the warbles this night.' Ain't it gratifying, Mr 
Pancks, though; really?"
Mr Pancks, who had snorted at the old man in his friendliest manner, 
replied in the affirmative, and casually asked whether that lively Altro 
chap had come in yet? Mrs Plornish answered no, not yet, though he had gone 
to the West-End with some work, and had said he should be back by tea-time. 
Mr Pancks was then hospitably pressed into Happy Cottage, where he 
encountered the elder Master Plornish just come home from school. Examining 
that young student, lightly, on the educational proceedings of the day, he 
found that the more advanced pupils who were in large text and the letter 
M, had been set the copy, "Merdle, Millions."
"And how are you getting on, Mrs Plornish," said Pancks, "since we're 
mentioning millions?"
"Very steady indeed, sir," returned Mrs Plornish. "Father dear, would you 
go into the shop and tidy the window a little bit before tea, your taste 
being so beautiful?"
John Edward Nandy trotted away, much gratified, to comply with his 
daughter's request. Mrs Plornish, who was always in mortal terror of 
mentioning pecuniary affairs before the old gentleman, lest any disclosure 
she made might rouse his spirit and induce him to run away to the 
workhouse, was thus left free to be confidential with Mr Pancks.
"It's quite true that the business is very steady indeed," said Mrs 
Plornish, lowering her voice; "and has a excellent connection. The only 
thing that stands in its way, sir, is the Credit."
This drawback, rather severely felt by most people who engaged in 
commercial transactions with the inhabitants of Bleeding Heart Yard, was a 
large stumbling block in Mrs Plornish's trade. When Mr Dorrit had 
established her in the business, the Bleeding Hearts had shown an amount of 
emotion and a determination to support her in it, that did honour to human 
nature. Recognising her claim upon their generous feelings as one who had 
long been a member of their community, they pledged themselves, with great 
feeling, to deal with Mrs Plornish, come what would, and bestow their 
patronage on no other establishment. Influenced by these noble sentiments, 
they had even gone out of their way to purchase little luxuries in the 
grocery and butter line to which they were unaccustomed; saying to one 
another, that if they did stretch a point, was it not for a neighbour and a 
friend, and for whom ought a point to be stretched if not for such? So 
stimulated, the business was extremely brisk, and the articles in stock 
went off with the greatest celerity. In short, if the Bleeding Hearts had 
but paid, the undertaking would have been a complete success; whereas, by 
reason of their exclusively confining themselves to owing, the profits 
actually realised had yet not begun to appear in the books.
Mr Pancks was making a very porcupine of himself by sticking his hair up, 
in the contemplation of this state of accounts, when old Mr Nandy, re-
entering the cottage with an air of mystery, entreated them to come and 
look at the strange behaviour of Mr Baptist, who seemed to have met with 
something that had scared him. All three going into the shop, and watching 
through the window, then saw Mr Baptist, pale and agitated, go through the 
following extraordinary performances. First, he was observed hiding at the 
top of the steps leading down into the Yard, and peeping up and down the 
street, with his head cautiously thrust out close to the side of the shop-
door. After very anxious scrutiny, he came out of his retreat, and went 
briskly down the street as if he were going away altogether; then, suddenly 
turned about, and went, at the same pace and with the same feint, up the 
street. He had gone no further up the street than he had gone down, when he 
crossed the road and disappeared. The object of this last manoeuvre was 
only apparent, when his entering the shop with a sudden twist, from the 
steps again, explained that he had made a wide and obscure circuit round to 
the other, or Doyce and Clennam, end of the Yard, and had come through the 
Yard and bolted in. He was out of breath by that time, as he might well be; 
and his heart seemed to jerk faster than the little shop-bell as it 
quivered and jingled behind him with his hasty shutting of the door. 
"Hallo, old chap!" said Mr Pancks. "Altro, old boy! What's the matter?"
Mr Baptist, or Signor Cavalletto, understood English now almost as well as 
Mr Pancks himself, and could speak it very well too. Nevertheless, Mrs 
Plornish, with a pardonable vanity in that accomplishment of hers which 
made her all but Italian, stepped in as interpreter.
"E ask know," said Mrs Plornish, "what go wrong?"
"Come into the happy little cottage, Padrona," returned Mr Baptist, 
imparting great stealthiness to his flurried back-handed shake of his right 
forefinger. "Come there!"
Mrs Plornish was proud of the title Padrona, which she regarded as 
signifying: not so much Mistress of the house, as Mistress of the Italian 
tongue. She immediately complied with Mr Baptist's request, and they all 
went into the cottage.
"E ope you no fright," said Mrs Plornish then, interpreting Mr Pancks in a 
new way, with her usual fertility of resource. "What appen? Peaka Padrona!"
"I have seen some one," returned Baptist. "I have rincontrato him."
"Im? Oo him?" asked Mrs Plornish.
"A bad man. A baddest man. I have hoped that I should never see him again."
"Ow you know him bad?" asked Mrs Plornish.
"It does not matter, padrona. I know it too well."
"E see you?" asked Mrs Plornish.
"No. I hope not. I believe not."
"He says," Mrs Plornish then interpreted, addressing her father and Pancks 
with mild condescension, "that he has met a bad man, but he hopes the bad 
man didn't see him. - Why," inquired Mrs Plornish, reverting to the Italian 
language, "why ope bad man no see?"
"Padrona, dearest," returned the little foreigner whom she so considerately 
protected, "do not ask, I pray. Once again, I say it matters not. I have 
fear of this man. I do not wish to see him, I do not wish to be known of 
him - never again! Enough, most beautiful. Leave it!"
The topic was so disagreeable to him, and so put his usual liveliness to 
the rout, that Mrs Plornish forbore to press him further: the rather as the 
tea had been drawing for some time on the hob. But she was not the less 
surprised and curious for asking no more questions; neither was Mr Pancks, 
whose expressive breathing had been labouring hard, since the entrance of 
the little man, like a locomotive engine with a great load getting up a 
steep incline. Maggie, now better dressed than of yore, though still 
faithful to the monstrous character of her cap, had been in the background 
from the first with open mouth and eyes, which staring and gaping features 
were not diminished in breadth by the untimely suppression of the subject. 
However, no more was said about it, though much appeared to be thought on 
all sides: by no means excepting the two young Plornishes, who partook of 
the evening meal as if their eating the bread and butter were rendered 
almost superfluous by the painful probability of the worst of men shortly 
presenting himself for the purpose of eating them. Mr Baptist, by degrees, 
began to chirp a little; but never stirred from the seat he had taken 
behind the door and close to the window, though it was not his usual place. 
As often as the little bell rang, he started and peeped out secretly, with 
the end of the little curtain in his hand, and the rest before his face; 
evidently not at all satisfied but that the man he dreaded had tracked him 
through all his doublings and turnings, with the certainty of a terrible 
bloodhound.
The entrance, at various times, of two or three customers and of Mr 
Plornish, gave Mr Baptist just enough of this employment to keep the 
attention of the company fixed upon him. Tea was over, and the children 
were abed, and Mrs Plornish was feeling her way to the dutiful proposal 
that her father should favour them with Chloe, when the bell again rang, 
and Mr Clennam came in.
Clennam had been poring late over his books and letters; for, the waiting 
rooms of the Circumlocution Office ravaged his time sorely. Over and above 
that, he was depressed and made uneasy by the late occurrence at his 
mother's. He looked worn and solitary. He felt so, too; but, nevertheless, 
was returning home from his counting-house by that end of the Yard, to give 
them the intelligence that he had received another letter from Miss Dorrit.
The news made a sensation in the cottage which drew off the general 
attention from Mr Baptist. Maggie, who pushed her way into the foreground 
immediately, would have seemed to draw in the tidings of her Little Mother, 
equally at her ears, nose, mouth, and eyes, but that the last were 
obstructed by tears. She was particularly delighted when Clennam assured 
her that there were hospitals, and very kindly conducted hospitals, in 
Rome. Mr Pancks rose into new distinction in virtue of being specially 
remembered in the letter. Everybody was pleased and interested, and Clennam 
was well repaid for his trouble.
"But you are tired, sir. Let me make you a cup of tea," said Mrs Plornish, 
"if you'd condescend to take such a thing in the cottage; and many thanks 
to you, too, I am sure, for bearing us in mind so kindly."
Mr Plornish deeming it incumbent on him, as host, to add his personal 
acknowledgements, tendered them in the form which always expressed his 
highest ideal of a combination of ceremony with sincerity.
"John Edward Nandy," said Mr Plornish, addressing the old gentleman. "Sir. 
It's not too often that you see unpretending actions without a spark of 
pride, and therefore when you see them give grateful honour unto the same, 
being that if you don't and live to want 'em it follows serve you right."
To which Mr Nandy replied:
"I am heartily of your opinion, Thomas, and which your opinion is the same 
as mine, and therefore no more words and not being backwards with that 
opinion, which opinion giving it as yes, Thomas, yes, is the opinion in 
which yourself and me must ever be unanimously jined by all, and where 
there is not difference of opinion there can be none but one opinion, which 
fully no, Thomas, Thomas, no!"
Arthur, with less formality, expressed himself gratified by their high 
appreciation of so very slight an attention on his part; and explained as 
to the tea that he had not yet dined, and was going straight home to 
refresh after a long day's labour, or he would have readily accepted the 
hospitable offer. As Mr Pancks was somewhat noisily getting his steam up 
for departure, he concluded by asking that gentleman if he would walk with 
him? Mr Pancks said he desired no better engagement, and the two took leave 
of Happy Cottage.
"If you will come home with me, Pancks," said Arthur, when they got into 
the street, "and will share what dinner or supper there is, it will be next 
door to an act of charity; for, I am weary and out of sorts tonight."
"Ask me to do a greater thing than that," said Pancks, "when you want it 
done, and I'll do it."
Between this eccentric personage and Clennam, a tacit understanding and 
accord had been always improving since Mr Pancks flew over Mr Rugg's back 
in the Marshalsea Yard. When the carriage drove away on the memorable day 
of the family's departure, these two had looked after it together, and had 
walked slowly away together. When the first letter came from Little Dorrit, 
nobody was more interested in hearing of her than Mr Pancks. The second 
letter, at that moment in Clennam's breast-pocket, particularly remembered 
him by name. Though he had never before made any profession or protestation 
to Clennam, and though what he had just said was little enough as to the 
words in which it was expressed, Clennam had long had a growing belief that 
Mr Pancks, in his own odd way, was becoming attached to him. All these 
strings intertwining, made Pancks a very cable of anchorage that night.
"I am quite alone," Arthur explained as they walked on. "My partner is 
away, busily engaged at a distance on his branch of our business, and you 
shall do just as you like."
"Thank you. You didn't take particular notice of little Altro just now; did 
you?" said Pancks.
"No. Why?"
"He's a bright fellow, and I like him," said Pancks. "Something has gone a-
miss with him today. Have you any idea of any cause that can have overset 
him?"
"You surprise me! None whatever."
Mr Pancks gave his reasons for the inquiry. Arthur was quite unprepared for 
them, and quite unable to suggest an explanation of them.
"Perhaps you'll ask him," said Pancks, "as he's a stranger?"
"Ask him what?" returned Clennam.
"What he has on his mind."
"I ought first to see for myself that he has something on his mind, I 
think," said Clennam. "I have found him in every way so diligent, so 
grateful (for little enough), and so trustworthy, that it might look like 
suspecting him. And that would be very unjust."
"True," said Pancks. "But, I say! You oughtn't to be anybody's proprietor, 
Mr Clennam. You're much too delicate."
"For the matter of that," returned Clennam laughing, "I have not a large 
proprietary share in Cavalletto. His carving is his livelihood. He keeps 
the keys of the Factory, watches it every alternate night, and acts as a 
sort of housekeeper to it generally; but, we have little work in the way of 
his ingenuity, though we give him what we have. No! I am rather his adviser 
than his proprietor. To call me his standing counsel and his banker would 
be nearer the fact. Speaking of being his banker, is it not curious, 
Pancks, that the ventures which run just now in so many people's heads, 
should run even in little Cavalletto's?"
"Ventures?" retorted Pancks, with a snort. "What ventures?"
"These Merdle enterprises."
"Oh! Investments," said Pancks. "Ay, ay! I didn't know you were speaking of 
investments."
His quick way of replying caused Clennam to look at him, with a doubt 
whether he meant more than he said. As it was accompanied, however, with a 
quickening of his pace and a corresponding increase in the labouring of his 
machinery, Arthur did not pursue the matter, and they soon arrived at his 
house.
A dinner of soup and a pigeon-pie, served on a little round table before 
the fire, and flavoured with a bottle of good wine, oiled Mr Pancks's works 
in a highly effective manner. So that when Clennam produced his Eastern 
pipe, and handed Mr Pancks another Eastern pipe, the latter gentleman was 
perfectly comfortable.
They puffed for a while in silence, Mr Pancks like a steam-vessel with 
wind, tide, calm water, and all other sea-going conditions, in her favour. 
He was the first to speak, and he spoke thus:
"Yes. Investments is the word."
Clennam, with his former look, said "Ah!"
"I am going back to it, you see," said Pancks.
"Yes. I see you are going back to it," returned Clennam, wondering why.
"Wasn't it a curious thing that they should run in little Altro's head? 
Eh?" said Pancks as he smoked. "Wasn't that how you put it?"
"That was what I said."
"Ay! But, think of the whole Yard having got it. Think of their all meeting 
me with it, on my collecting days, here and there and everywhere. Whether 
they pay, or whether they don't pay. Merdle, Merdle, Merdle. Always 
Merdle."
"Very strange how these runs on an infatuation prevail," said Arthur.
"An't it?" returned Pancks. After smoking for a minute or so, more dryly 
than comported with his recent oiling, he added: "Because you see these 
people don't understand the subject."
"Not a bit," assented Clennam.
"Not a bit," cried Pancks. "Know nothing of figures. Know nothing of money 
questions. Never made a calculation. Never worked it, sir!"
"If they had - " Clennam was going on to say; when Mr Pancks, without 
change of countenance, produced a sound so far surpassing all his usual 
efforts, nasal or bronchial, that he stopped.
"If they had?" repeated Pancks in an inquiring tone.
"I thought you - spoke," said Arthur, hesitating what name to give the 
interruption.
"Not at all," said Pancks. "Not yet. I may in a minute. If they had?"
"If they had," observed Clennam, who was a little at a loss how to take his 
friend, "why, I suppose they would have known better."
"How so, Mr Clennam?" Pancks asked, quickly, and with an odd effect of 
having been from the commencement of the conversation loaded with the heavy 
charge he now fired off. "They're right, you know. They don't mean to be, 
but they're right."
"Right in sharing Cavalletto's inclination to speculate with Mr Merdle?"
"Perfectly, sir," said Pancks. "I've gone into it. I've made the 
calculations. I've worked it. They're safe and genuine." Relieved by having 
got to this Mr Pancks took as long a pull as his lungs would permit at his 
Eastern pipe, and looked sagaciously and steadily at Clennam while inhaling 
and exhaling too.
In those moments, Mr Pancks began to give out the dangerous infection with 
which he was laden. It is the manner of communicating these diseases; it is 
the subtle way in which they go about.
"Do you mean, my good Pancks," asked Clennam, emphatically, "that you would 
put that thousand pounds of yours, let us say, for instance, out at this 
kind of interest?"
"Certainly," said Pancks. "Already done it, sir."
Mr Pancks took another long inhalation, another long exhalation, another 
long sagacious look at Clennam.
"I tell you. Mr Clennam, I've gone into it," said Pancks. "He's a man of 
immense resources - enormous capital - government influence. They're the 
best schemes afloat. They're safe. They're certain."
"Well!" returned Clennam, looking first at him gravely, and then at the 
fire gravely. "You surprise me!"
"Bah!" Pancks retorted. "Don't say that, sir. It's what you ought to do 
yourself. Why don't you do as I do?"
Of whom Mr Pancks had taken the prevalent disease, he could no more have 
told than if he had unconsciously taken a fever. Bred at first, as many 
physical diseases are, in the wickedness of men, and then disseminated in 
their ignorance, these epidemics, after a period, get communicated to many 
sufferers who are neither ignorant nor wicked. Mr Pancks might, or might 
not, have caught the illness himself from a subject of this class; but, in 
this category he appeared before Clennam, and the infection he threw off 
was all the more virulent.
"And you have really invested," Clennam had already passed to that word, 
"your thousand pounds, Pancks?"
"To be sure, sir!" replied Pancks, boldly, with a puff of smoke. "And only 
wish it ten!"
Now, Clennam had two subjects lying heavy on his lonely mind that night; 
the one, his partner's long-deferred hope; the other, what he had seen and 
heard at his mother's. In the relief of having this companion, and of 
feeling that he could trust him, he passed on to both, and both brought him 
round again, with an increase and acceleration of force, to his point of 
departure.
It came about in the simplest manner. Quitting the investment subject, 
after an interval of silent looking at the fire through the smoke of his 
pipe, he told Pancks how and why he was occupied with the great national 
Department. "A hard case it has been, and a hard case it is, on Doyce," he 
finished by saying, with all the honest feeling the topic roused in him. 
"Hard indeed," Pancks acquiesced. "But you manage for him, Mr Clennam?"
"How do you mean?"
"Manage the money part of the business!"
"Yes. As well as I can."
"Manage it better, sir," said Pancks. "Recompense him for his toils and 
disappointment. Give him the chances of the time. He'll never benefit 
himself in that way, patient and preoccupied workman. He looks to you, 
sir."
"I do my best, Pancks," returned Clennam, uneasily. "As to duly weighing 
and considering these new enterprises, of which I have had no experience, I 
doubt if I am fit for it. I am growing old."
"Growing old?" cried Pancks. "Ha, ha!"
There was something so indubitably genuine in the wonderful laugh, and 
series of snorts and puffs, engendered in Mr Pancks's astonishment at, and 
utter rejection of, the idea, that his being quite in earnest could not be 
questioned.
"Growing old?" cried Pancks. "Hear, hear, hear! Old? Hear him, hear him!"
The positive refusal expressed in Mr Pancks's continued snorts, no less 
than in these exclamations, to entertain the sentiment for a single 
instant, drove Arthur away from it. Indeed, he was fearful of something 
happening to Mr Pancks, in the violent conflict that took place between the 
breath he jerked out of himself and the smoke he jerked into himself. This 
abandonment of the second topic threw him on the third.
"Young, old, or middle-aged, Pancks," he said, when there was a favourable 
pause, "I am in a very anxious and uncertain state; a state that even leads 
me to doubt whether anything now seeming to belong to me, may be really 
mine. Shall I tell you how this is? Shall I put a great trust in you?"
"You shall, sir," said Pancks, "if you believe me worthy of it."
"I do."
"You may!" Mr Pancks's short and sharp rejoinder, confirmed by the sudden 
outstretching of his coaly hand, was most expressive and convincing. Arthur 
shook the hand warmly.
He then, softening the nature of his old apprehensions as much as was 
possible consistently with their being made intelligible, and never 
alluding to his mother by name, but speaking vaguely of a relation of his, 
confided to Mr Pancks a broad outline of the misgivings he entertained, and 
of the interview he had witnessed. Mr Pancks listened with such interest 
that regardless of the charms of the Eastern pipe, he put it in the grate 
among the fire-irons, and occupied his hands during the whole recital in so 
erecting the loops and hooks of hair all over his head, that he looked, 
when it came to a conclusion, like a journeyman Hamlet in conversation with 
his father's spirit.
"Brings me back, sir," was his exclamation then, with a startling touch on 
Clennam's knee, "brings me back, sir, to the Investments! I don't say 
anything of your making yourself poor, to repair a wrong you never 
committed. That's you. A man must be himself. But, I say this. Fearing you 
may want money to save your own blood from exposure and disgrace - make as 
much as you can!"
Arthur shook his head, but looked at him thoughtfully too.
"Be as rich as you can, sir," Pancks adjured him with a powerful 
concentration of all his energies on the advice. "Be as rich as you 
honestly can. It's your duty. Not for your sake, but for the sake of 
others. Take time by the forelock. Poor Mr Doyce (who really is growing 
old) depends upon you. Your relative depends upon you. You don't know what 
depends upon you."
"Well, well, well!" returned Arthur. "Enough for tonight."
"One word more, Mr Clennam," retorted Pancks, "and then enough for tonight. 
Why should you leave all the gains to the gluttons, knaves, and impostors? 
Why should you leave all the gains that are to be got, to my proprietor and 
the like of him? Yet you're always doing it. When I say you, I mean such 
men as you. You know you are. Why, I see it every day of my life. I see 
nothing else. It's my business to see it. Therefore I say," urged Pancks, 
"Go in and win!"
"But what of Go in and lose?" said Arthur.
"Can't be done, sir," returned Pancks. "I have looked into it. Name up 
everywhere - immense resources - enormous capital - great position - high 
connection - government influence. Can't be done!"
Gradually, after this closing exposition, Mr Pancks subsided; allowed his 
hair to droop as much as it ever would droop on the utmost persuasion; 
reclaimed the pipe from the fire-irons, filled it anew, and smoked it out. 
They said little more; but were company to one another in silently pursuing 
the same subjects, and did not part until midnight. On taking his leave, Mr 
Pancks, when he had shaken hands with Clennam, worked completely round him 
before he steamed out at the door. This, Arthur received as an assurance 
that he might implicitly rely on Pancks, if he should ever come to need 
assistance; either in any of the matters of which they had spoken that 
night, or on any other subject that could in any way affect himself.
At intervals all next day, and even while his attention was fixed on other 
things, he thought of Mr Pancks's investment of his thousand pounds, and of 
his having "looked into it." He thought of Mr Pancks's being so sanguine in 
this matter, and of his not being usually of a sanguine character. He 
thought of the great National Department, and of the delight it would be to 
him to see Doyce better off. He thought of the darkly threatening place 
that went by the name of Home in his remembrance, and of the gathering 
shadows which made it yet more darkly threatening than of old. He observed 
anew that wherever he went, he saw, or heard, or touched, the celebrated 
name of Merdle; he found it difficult even to remain at his desk a couple 
of hours, without having it presented to one of his bodily senses through 
some agency or other. He began to think it was curious too that it should 
be everywhere, and that nobody but he should seem to have any mistrust of 
it. Though indeed he began to remember, when he got to this, even he did 
not mistrust it; he had only happened to keep aloof from it.
Such symptoms, when a disease of the kind is rife, are usually the signs of 
sickening.


Chapter 14

Taking Advice

When it became known to the Britons on the shore of the yellow Tiber that 
their intelligent compatriot Mr Sparkler was made one of the Lords of their 
Circumlocution Office, they took it as a piece of news with which they had 
no nearer concern than with any other piece of news - any other Accident or 
Offence - in the English papers. Some laughed; some said, by way of 
complete excuse, that the post was virtually a sinecure, and any fool who 
could spell his name was good enough for it; some, and these were the more 
solemn political oracles, said that Decimus did wisely to strengthen 
himself, and that the sole constitutional purpose of all places within the 
gift of Decimus was, that Decimus should strengthen himself. A few bilious 
Britons there were who would not subscribe to this article of faith; but 
their objection was purely theoretical. In a practical point of view they 
listlessly abandoned the matter, as being the business of some other 
Britons unknown, somewhere or nowhere. In like manner, at home, great 
numbers of Britons maintained, for as long as four-and-twenty consecutive 
hours, that those invisible and anonymous Britons "ought to take it up;" 
and that if they quietly acquiesced in it, they deserved it. But of what 
class the remiss Britons were composed, and where the unlucky creatures hid 
themselves, and why they hid themselves, and how it constantly happened 
that they neglected their interests, when so many other Britons were quite 
at a loss to account for their not looking after those interests, was not, 
either upon the shore of the yellow Tiber or the shore of the black Thames, 
made apparent to men.
Mrs Merdle circulated the news, as she received congratulations on it, with 
a careless grace that displayed it to advantage, as the setting displays 
the jewel. Yes, she said, Edmund had taken the place. Mr Merdle wished him 
to take it, and he had taken it. She hoped Edmund might like it, but really 
she didn't know. It would keep him in town a good deal, and he preferred 
the country. Still, it was not a disagreeable position - and it was a 
position. There was no denying that the thing was a compliment to Mr 
Merdle, and was not a bad thing for Edmund if he liked it. It was just as 
well that he should have something to do, and it was just as well that he 
should have something for doing it. Whether it would be more agreeable to 
Edmund than the army remained to be seen.
Thus the Bosom; accomplished in the art of seeming to make things of small 
account, and really enhancing them in the process. While Henry Gowan, whom 
Decimus had thrown away, went through the whole round of his acquaintance 
between the Gate of the People and the town of Albano, vowing, almost (but 
not quite) with tears in his eyes, that Sparkler was the sweetest-tempered, 
simplest-hearted, altogether most lovable jackass that ever grazed on the 
public common; and that only one circumstance could have delighted him 
(Gowan) more, than his (the beloved jackass's) getting this post, and that 
would have been his (Gowan's) getting it himself. He said, it was the very 
thing for Sparkler. There was nothing to do, and he would do it charmingly; 
there was a handsome salary to draw, and he would draw it charmingly; it 
was a delightful, appropriate, capital appointment; and he almost forgave 
the donor his slight of himself, in his joy that the dear donkey for whom 
he had so great an affection was so admirably stabled. Nor did his 
benevolence stop here. He took pains, on all social occasions, to draw Mr 
Sparkler out, and make him conspicuous before the company; and, although 
the considerate action always resulted in that young gentleman's making a 
dreary and forlorn mental spectacle of himself, the friendly intention was 
not to be doubted.
Unless, indeed, it chanced to be doubted by the object of Mr Sparkler's 
affections. Miss Fanny was now in the difficult situation of being 
universally known in that light, and of not having dismissed Mr Sparkler, 
however capriciously she used him. Hence, she was sufficiently identified 
with the gentleman to feel compromised by his being more than usually 
ridiculous; and hence, being by no means deficient in quickness, she 
sometimes came to his rescue against Gowan, and did him very good service. 
But, while doing this, she was ashamed of him, undetermined whether to get 
rid of him or more decidedly encourage him, distracted with apprehensions 
that she was every day becoming more and more inmeshed in her 
uncertainties, and tortured by misgivings that Mrs Merdle triumphed in her 
distress. With this tumult in her mind, it is no subject for surprise that 
Miss Fanny came home one night in a state of agitation from a concert and 
ball at Mrs Merdle's house, and, on her sister affectionately trying to 
soothe her, pushed that sister away from the toilette-table at which she 
sat angrily trying to cry, and declared with a heaving bosom that she 
detested everybody, and she wished she was dead.
"Dear Fanny, what is the matter? Tell me."
"Matter, you little Mole," said Fanny. "If you were not the blindest of the 
blind, you would have no occasion to ask me. The idea of daring to pretend 
to assert that you have eyes in your head, and yet ask me what's the 
matter!"
"Is it Mr Sparkler, dear?"
"Mis-ter Spar-kler!" repeated Fanny, with unbounded scorn, as if he were 
the last subject in the Solar system that could possibly be near her mind. 
"No, Miss Bat, it is not."
Immediately afterwards, she became remorseful for having called her sister 
names; declaring with sobs that she knew she made herself hateful, but that 
everybody drove her to it. "I don't think you are well tonight, dear 
Fanny."
"Stuff and nonsense!" replied the young lady, turning angry again; "I am as 
well as you are. Perhaps I might say, better, and yet make no boast of it."
Poor Little Dorrit, not seeing her way to the offering of any soothing 
words that would escape repudiation, deemed it best to remain quiet. At 
first, Fanny took this ill, too; protesting to her looking-glass, that of 
all the trying sisters a girl could have, she did think the most trying 
sister was a flat sister. That she knew she was at times a wretched temper; 
that she knew she made herself hateful; that when she made herself hateful, 
nothing would do her half the good of being told so: but that, being 
afflicted with a flat sister, she never was told so, and the consequence 
resulted that she was absolutely tempted and goaded into making herself 
disagreeable. Besides (she angrily told her looking-glass), she didn't want 
to be forgiven. It was not a right example, that she should be constantly 
stooping to be forgiven by a younger sister. And this was the Art of it - 
that she was always being placed in the position of being forgiven, whether 
she liked it or not. Finally she burst into violent weeping, and, when her 
sister came and sat close at her side to comfort her, said, "Amy, you're an 
Angel!"
"But, I tell you what, my Pet," said Fanny, when her sister's gentleness 
had calmed her, "it now comes to this; that things cannot and shall not go 
on as they are at present going on, and that there must be an end of this, 
one way or other."
As the announcement was vague, though very peremptory, Little Dorrit 
returned, "Let us talk about it."
"Quite so, my dear," assented Fanny, as she dried her eyes. "Let us talk 
about it. I am rational again now, and you shall advise me. Will you advise 
me, my sweet child?"
Even Amy smiled at the notion, but she said, "I will, Fanny, as well as I 
can."
"Thank you, dearest Amy," returned Fanny, kissing her. "You are my Anchor."
Having embraced her Anchor with great affection, Fanny took a bottle of 
sweet toilette water from the table, and called to her maid for a fine 
handkerchief. She then dismissed that attendant for the night, and went on 
to be advised: dabbing her eyes and forehead from time to time, to cool 
them.
"My love," Fanny began, "our characters and points of view are sufficiently 
different (kiss me again, my darling), to make it very probable that I 
shall surprise you by what I am going to say. What I am going to say, my 
dear, is, that notwithstanding our property, we labour, socially speaking, 
under disadvantages. You don't quite understand what I mean, Amy?"
"I have no doubt I shall," said Amy, mildly, "after a few words more."
"Well, my dear, what I mean, is, that we are, after all, new comers into 
fashionable life."
"I am sure, Fanny," Little Dorrit interposed in her zealous admiration, "no 
one need find that out in you."
"Well, my dear child, perhaps not," said Fanny, "though it's most kind and 
most affectionate in you, you precious girl, to say so." Here she dabbed 
her sister's forehead and blew upon it a little. "But, you are," resumed 
Fanny, "as is well known, the dearest little thing that ever was! To 
resume, my child. Pa is extremely gentlemanly and extremely well informed, 
but he is, in some trifling respects, a little different from other 
gentlemen of his fortune: partly on account of what he has gone through, 
poor dear: partly, I fancy, on account of its often running in his mind 
that other people are thinking about that, while he is talking to them. 
Uncle, my love, is altogether unpresentable. Though a dear creature to whom 
I am tenderly attached, he is, socially speaking, shocking. Edward is 
frightfully expensive and dissipated. I don't mean that there is anything 
ungenteel in that itself - far from it - but I do mean that he doesn't do 
it well, and that he doesn't, if I may so express myself, get the money's-
worth in the sort of dissipated reputation that attaches to him."
"Poor Edward!" sighed Little Dorrit, with the whole family history in the 
sigh.
"Yes. And poor you and me too," returned Fanny, rather sharply. "Very true! 
Then, my dear, we have no mother, and we have a Mrs General. And I tell you 
again, darling, that Mrs General, if I may reverse a common proverb and 
adapt it to her, is a cat in gloves who will catch mice. That woman, I am 
quite sure and confident, will be our mother-in-law."
"I can hardly think, Fanny - " Fanny stopped her.
"Now, don't argue with me about it, Amy," said she, "because I know 
better." Feeling that she had been sharp again, she dabbed her sister's 
forehead again, and blew upon it again. "To resume once more, my dear. It 
then becomes a question with me (I am proud and spirited, Amy, as you very 
well know: too much so, I daresay) whether I shall make up my mind to take 
it upon myself to carry the family through."
"How?" asked her sister, anxiously.
"I will not," said Fanny, without answering the question, "submit to be 
mother-in-lawed by Mrs General; and I will not submit to be, in any respect 
whatever, either patronised or tormented by Mrs Merdle."
Little Dorrit laid her hand upon the hand that held the bottle of sweet 
water, with a still more anxious look. Fanny, quite punishing her own 
forehead with the vehement dabs she now began to give it, fitfully went on.
"That he has, somehow or other, and how is of no consequence, attained a 
very good position, no one can deny. That it is a very good connection, no 
one can deny. And as to the question of clever or not clever, I doubt very 
much whether a clever husband would be suitable to me. I cannot submit. I 
should not be able to defer to him enough."
"O, my dear, Fanny!" expostulated Little Dorrit, upon whom a kind of terror 
had been stealing as she perceived what her sister meant. "If you loved any 
one, all this feeling would change. If you loved any one, you would no more 
be yourself, but you would quite lose and forget yourself in your devotion 
to him. If you loved him, Fanny - " Fanny had stopped the dabbing hand, and 
was looking at her fixedly.
"O, indeed!" cried Fanny. "Really? Bless me, how much some people know of 
some subjects! They say every one has a subject, and I certainly seem to 
have hit upon yours, Amy. There, you little thing, I was only in fun," 
dabbing her sister's forehead; "but, don't you be a silly puss, and don't 
you think flightily and eloquently about degenerate impossibilities. There! 
Now, I'll go back to myself."
"Dear Fanny, let me say first, that I would far rather we worked for a 
scanty living again, than I would see you rich and married to Mr Sparkler."
"Let you say, my dear?" retorted Fanny. "Why, of course, I will let you say 
anything. There is no constraint upon you, I hope. We are together to talk 
it over. And as to marrying Mr Sparkler, I have not the least intention of 
doing so tonight, my dear, or tomorrow morning either."
"But at some time?"
"At no time, for anything I know at present," answered Fanny, with 
indifference. Then, suddenly changing her indifference into a burning 
restlessness, she added, "You talk about the clever men, you little thing! 
It's all very fine and easy to talk about the clever men; but where are 
they? I don't see them anywhere near me!"
"My dear Fanny, so short a time -"
"Short time or long time," interrupted Fanny. "I am impatient of our 
situation, I don't like our situation, and very little would induce me to 
change it. Other girls, differently reared and differently circumstanced 
altogether, might wonder at what I say or may do. Let them. They are driven 
by their lives and characters; I am driven by mine."
"Fanny, my dear Fanny, you know that you have qualities to make you the 
wife of one very superior to Mr Sparkler."
"Amy, my dear Amy," retorted Fanny, parodying her words, "I know that I 
wish to have a more defined and distinct position, in which I can assert 
myself with greater effect against that insolent woman."
"Would you therefore - forgive my asking, Fanny - therefore marry her son?"
"Why, perhaps," said Fanny, with a triumphant smile. "There may be many 
less promising ways of arriving at an end than that, my dear. That piece of 
insolence may think, now, that it would be a great success to get her son 
off upon me, and shelve me. But, perhaps she little thinks how I would 
retort upon her if I married her son. I would oppose her in everything, and 
compete with her. I would make it the business of my life."
Fanny set down the bottle when she came to this, and walked about the room; 
always stopping and standing still while she spoke.
"One thing I could certainly do, my child: I could make her older. And I 
would!"
This was followed by another walk.
"I would talk of her as an old woman. I would pretend to know - if I 
didn't, but I should from her son - all about her age. And she should hear 
me say, Amy; affectionately, quite dutifully and affectionately: how well 
she looked, considering her time of life. I could make her seem older, at 
once, by being myself so much younger. I may not be as handsome as she is; 
I am not a fair judge of that question, I suppose; but, I know I am 
handsome enough to be a thorn in her side. And I would be!"
"My dear sister, would you condemn yourself to an unhappy life for this?"
"It wouldn't be an unhappy life, Amy. It would be the life I am fitted for. 
Whether by disposition, or whether by circumstances, is no matter; I am 
better fitted for such a life than for almost any other."
There was something of a desolate tone in those words; but, with a short 
proud laugh she took another walk, and after passing a great looking-glass 
came to another stop.
"Figure! Figure, Amy! Well. The woman has a good figure. I will give her 
her due, and not deny it. But, is it so far beyond all others that it is 
altogether unapproachable? Upon my word, I am not so sure of it. Give some 
much younger women the latitude as to dress that she has, being married; 
and we would see about that, my dear!"
Something in the thought that was agreeable and flattering, brought her 
back to her seat in a gayer temper. She took her sister's hands in hers, 
and clapped all four hands above her head as she looked in her sister's 
face laughing:
"And the dancer, Amy, that she has quite forgotten - the dancer who bore no 
sort of resemblance to me, and of whom I never remind her, oh dear no! - 
should dance through her life, and dance in her way, to such a tune as 
would disturb her insolent placidity a little. Just a little, my dear Amy, 
just a little!"
Meeting an earnest and imploring look in Amy's face, she brought the four 
hands down, and laid only one on Amy's lips. "Now, don't argue with me, 
child," she said in a sterner way, "because it is of no use. I understand 
these subjects much better than you do. I have not nearly made up my mind, 
but it may be. Now we have talked this over comfortably, and may go to bed. 
You best and dearest little mouse, Good night!" With those words Fanny 
weighed her Anchor, and - having taken so much advice - left off being 
advised for that occasion.
Thenceforward, Amy observed Mr Sparkler's treatment by his enslaver, with 
new reasons for attaching importance to all that passed between them. There 
were times when Fanny appeared quite unable to endure his mental 
feebleness, and when she became so sharply impatient of it that she would 
all but dismiss him for good. There were other times when she got on much 
better with him; when he amused her, and when her sense of superiority 
seemed to counterbalance that opposite side of the scale. If Mr Sparkler 
had been other than the faithfullest and most submissive of swains, he was 
sufficiently hard pressed to have fled from the scene of his trials, and 
have set at least the whole distance from Rome to London between himself 
and his enchantress. But, he had no greater will of his own than a boat has 
when it is towed by a steam-ship; and he followed his cruel mistress 
through rough and smooth, on equally strong compulsion.
Mrs Merdle, during these passages, said little to Fanny, but said more 
about her. She was, as it were, forced to look at her, through her 
eyeglass, and in general conversation to allow commendations of her beauty 
to be wrung from her by its irresistible demands. The defiant character is 
assumed when Fanny heard these extollings (as it generally happened that 
she did), was not expressive of concessions to the impartial bosom; but, 
the utmost revenge the bosom took was, to say audibly, "a spoilt beauty - 
but with that face and shape, who could wonder?"
It might have been about a month or six weeks after the night of the 
advice, when Little Dorrit began to think she detected some new 
understanding between Mr Sparkler and Fanny. Mr Sparkler as if in adherence 
to some compact, scarcely ever spoke without first looking towards Fanny, 
for leave. That young lady was too discreet ever to look back again; but, 
if Mr Sparkler had permission to speak, she remained silent; if he had not, 
she herself spoke. Moreover, it became plain whenever Henry Gowan attempted 
to perform the friendly office of drawing him out, that he was not to be 
drawn. And not only that, but Fanny would presently, without any pointed 
application in the world, chance to say something with such a sting in it, 
that Gowan would draw back as if he had put his hand into a bee-hive.
There was yet another circumstance which went a long way to confirm Little 
Dorrit in her fears, though it was not a great circumstance in itself. Mr 
Sparkler's demeanour towards herself, changed. It became fraternal. 
Sometimes, when she was in the outer circle of assemblies - at their own 
residence, at Mrs Merdle's, or elsewhere - she would find herself 
stealthily supported round the waist by Mr Sparkler's arm. Mr Sparkler 
never offered the slightest explanation of this attention; but merely 
smiled with an air of blundering, contented, good-natured, proprietorship, 
which, in so heavy a gentleman, was ominously expressive.
Little Dorrit was at home one day, thinking about Fanny with a heavy heart. 
They had a room at one end of their drawing-room suite, nearly all 
irregular bay-window, projecting over the street, and commanding all the 
picturesque life and variety of the Corso, both up and down. At three or 
four o'clock in the afternoon, English time, the view from this window was 
very bright and peculiar; and Little Dorrit used to sit and muse here, much 
as she had been used to wile away the time in her balcony at Venice. Seated 
thus one day, she was softly touched on the shoulder, and Fanny said, 
"Well, Amy dear," and took her seat at her side. Their seat was a part of 
the window; when there was anything in the way of a procession going on, 
they used to have bright draperies hung out at the window, and used to 
kneel or sit on this seat and look out at it, leaning on the brilliant 
colour. But there was no procession that day, and Little Dorrit was rather 
surprised by Fanny's being at home at that hour, as she was generally out 
on horseback then.
"Well, Amy," said Fanny, "what are you thinking of, little one?"
"I was thinking of you, Fanny."
"No? What a coincidence! I declare here's some one else. You were not 
thinking of this some one else too; were you, Amy?"
Amy had been thinking of this some one else too; for, it was Mr Sparkler. 
She did not say so, however, as she gave him her hand. Mr Sparkler came and 
sat down on the other side of her, and she felt the fraternal railing come 
behind her, and apparently stretch on to include Fanny.
"Well, my little sister," said Fanny with a sigh, "I suppose you know what 
this means?"
"She's as beautiful as she's doated on," stammered Mr Sparkler - "and 
there's no nonsense about her - it's arranged -"
"You needn't explain, Edmund," said Fanny.
"No, my love," said Mr Sparkler.
"In short, pet," proceeded Fanny, "on the whole, we are engaged. We must 
tell papa about it, either tonight or tomorrow, according to the 
opportunities. Then it's done, and very little more need be said."
"My dear Fanny," said Mr Sparkler, with deference, "I should like to say a 
word to Amy."
"Well, well! Say it, for goodness' sake," returned the young lady.
"I am convinced, my dear Amy," said Mr Sparkler, "that if ever there was a 
girl, next to your highly endowed and beautiful sister, who had no nonsense 
about her -"
"We know all about that, Edmund," interposed Miss Fanny. "Never mind that. 
Pray go on to something else besides our having no nonsense about us."
"Yes, my love," said Mr Sparkler. "And I assure you, Amy, that nothing can 
be a greater happiness to myself, myself - next to the happiness of being 
so highly honoured with the choice of a glorious girl who hasn't an atom of 
-"
"Pray, Edmund, pray!" interrupted Fanny, with a slight pat of her pretty 
foot upon the floor.
"My love, you're quite right," said Mr Sparkler, "and I know I have a habit 
of it. What I wished to declare was, that nothing can be a greater 
happiness to myself, myself - next to the happiness of being united to 
preeminently the most glorious of girls - than to have the happiness of 
cultivating the affectionate acquaintance of Amy. I may not myself," said 
Mr Sparkler manfully, "be up to the mark on some other subjects at a short 
notice, and I am aware that if you were to poll Society the general opinion 
would be that I am not; but on the subject of Amy, I am up to the mark!"
Mr Sparkler kissed her, in witness thereof.
"A knife and fork and an apartment," proceeded Mr Sparkler, growing, in 
comparison with his oratorical antecedents, quite diffuse, "will ever be at 
Amy's disposal. My Governor, I am sure, will always be proud to entertain 
one whom I so much esteem. And regarding my mother," said Mr Sparkler, "who 
is a remarkably fine woman, with -"
"Edmund, Edmund!" cried Miss Fanny, as before.
"With submission, my soul," pleaded Mr Sparkler. "I know I have a habit of 
it, and I thank you very much, my adorable girl, for taking the trouble to 
correct it; but my mother is admitted on all sides to be a remarkably fine 
woman, and she really hasn't any."
"That may be, or may not be," returned Fanny, "but pray don't mention it 
any more."
"I will not, my love," said Mr Sparkler.
"Then, in fact you have nothing more to say, Edmund; have you?" inquired 
Fanny.
"So far from it, my adorable girl," answered Mr Sparkler, "I apologise for 
having said so much."
Mr Sparkler perceived by a kind of inspiration, that the question implied 
had he not better go? He therefore withdrew the fraternal railing, and 
neatly said that he thought he would, with submission, take his leave. He 
did not go without being congratulated by Amy, as well as she could 
discharge that office in the flutter and distress of her spirits.
When she was gone, she said, "O, Fanny, Fanny!" and turned to her sister in 
the bright window, and fell upon her bosom and cried there. Fanny laughed 
at first; but soon laid her face against her sister's and cried too - a 
little. It was the last time Fanny ever showed that there was any hidden, 
suppressed, or conquered feelings in her on that matter. From that hour, 
the way she had chosen lay before her, and she trod it with her own 
imperious self-willed step.


Chapter 15

No Just Cause Or Impediment Why These Two Persons Should Not Be Joined 
Together

Mr Dorrit, on being informed by his elder daughter that she had accepted 
matrimonial overtures from Mr Sparkler, to whom she had plighted her troth, 
received the communication at once with great dignity and with a large 
display of parental pride; his dignity dilating with the widened prospect 
of advantageous ground from which to make acquaintances, and his parental 
pride being developed by Miss Fanny's ready sympathy with that great object 
of his existence. He gave her to understand that her noble ambition found 
harmonious echoes in his heart; and bestowed his blessing on her, as a 
child brimful of duty and good principle, self-devoted to the 
aggrandisement of the family name.
To Mr Sparkler, when Miss Fanny permitted him to appear, Mr Dorrit said he 
would not disguise that the alliance Mr Sparkler did him the honour to 
propose was highly congenial to his feelings; both as being in unison with 
the spontaneous affections of his daughter: Fanny, and as opening a family 
connection of a gratifying nature with Mr Merdle, the master spirit of the 
age. Mrs Merdle also, as a leading lady rich in distinction, elegance, 
grace, and beauty, he mentioned in very laudatory terms. He felt it his 
duty to remark (he was sure a gentleman of Mr Sparkler's fine sense would 
interpret him with all delicacy), that he could not consider this proposal 
definitely determined on, until he should have had the privilege of holding 
some correspondence with Mr Merdle; and of ascertaining it to be so far 
accordant with the views of that eminent gentleman as that his (Mr 
Dorrit's) daughter would be received on that footing which her station in 
life and her dowry and expectations warranted him in requiring that she 
should maintain in what he trusted he might be allowed, without the 
appearance of being mercenary, to call the Eye of the Great World. While 
saying this, which his character as a gentleman of some little station, and 
his character as a father, equally demanded of him, he would not be so 
diplomatic as to conceal that the proposal remained in hopeful abeyance and 
under conditional acceptance, and that he thanked Mr Sparkler for the 
compliment rendered to himself and to his family. He concluded with some 
further and more general observations on the - ha - character of an 
independent gentleman, and the - hum - character of a possibly too partial 
and admiring parent. To sum the whole up shortly, he received Mr Sparkler's 
offer very much as he would have received three or four half-crowns from 
him in the days that were gone.
Mr Sparkler, finding himself stunned by the words thus heaped upon his 
inoffensive head, made a brief though pertinent rejoinder; the same being 
neither more nor less than that he had long perceived Miss Fanny to have no 
nonsense about her, and that he had no doubt of its being all right with 
his Governor. At that point, the object of his affections shut him up like 
a box with a spring lid, and sent him away.
Proceeding shortly afterwards to pay his respects to the Bosom, Mr Dorrit 
was received by it with great consideration. Mrs Merdle had heard of this 
affair from Edmund. She had been surprised at first, because she had not 
thought Edmund a marrying man. Society had not thought Edmund a marrying 
man. Still, of course she had seen, as a woman (we women did instinctively 
see these things, Mr Dorrit! ), that Edmund had been immensely captivated 
by Miss Dorrit and she had openly said that Mr Dorrit had much to answer 
for in bringing so charming a girl abroad to turn the heads of his 
countrymen.
"Have I the honour to conclude, madam," said Mr Dorrit, "that the direction 
which Mr Sparkler's affections have taken, is - ha - approved of by you?"
"I assure you, Mr Dorrit," returned the lady, "that, personally, I am 
charmed."
That was very gratifying to Mr Dorrit.
"Personally," repeated Mrs Merdle, "charmed."
This casual repetition of the word personally, moved Mr Dorrit to express 
his hope that Mr Merdle's approval, too, would not be wanting
"I cannot," said Mrs Merdle, "take upon myself to answer" positively for Mr 
Merdle; gentlemen, especially gentlemen who are what Society calls 
capitalists, having their own ideas of these matters. But I should think - 
merely giving an opinion, Mr Dorrit - I should think Mr Merdle would be 
upon the whole," here she held a review of herself before adding at her 
leisure, "quite charmed."
At the mention of gentlemen whom Society called capitalists, Mr Dorrit had 
coughed, as if some internal demur were breaking out of him. Mrs Merdle had 
observed it, and went on to take up the cue.
"Though indeed, Mr Dorrit, it is scarcely necessary for me to make that 
remark, except in the mere openness of saying what is uppermost to one whom 
I so highly regard, and with whom I hope I may have the pleasure of being 
brought into still more agreeable relations. For, one cannot but see the 
great probability of your considering such things from Mr Merdle's own 
point of view, except indeed that circumstances have made it Mr Merdle's 
accidental fortune, or misfortune, to be engaged in business transactions, 
and that they, however vast, may a little cramp his horizon. I am a very 
child as to having any notion of business," said Mrs Merdle; "but, I am 
afraid, Mr Dorrit, it may have that tendency."
This skilful see-saw of Mr Dorrit and Mr Merdle, so that each of them, sent 
the other up, and each of them sent the other down, and neither had the 
advantage, acted as a sedative on Mr Dorrit's cough. He remarked with his 
utmost politeness, that he must beg to protest against its being supposed, 
even by Mrs Merdle, the accomplished and grateful (to which compliment she 
bent herself), that such enterprises as Mr Merdle's, apart as they were 
from the puny undertakings of the rest of men, had any lower tendency than 
to enlarge and expand the genius in which they were conceived "You are 
generosity itself," said Mrs Merdle in return, smiling her best smile; "let 
us hope so. But I confess I am almost superstitious in my ideas about 
business."
Mr Dorrit threw in another compliment here, to the effect that business, 
like the time which was precious in it, was made for slaves; and that it 
was not for Mrs Merdle, who ruled all hearts at her supreme pleasure, to 
have anything to do with it. Mrs Merdle laughed, and conveyed to Mr Dorrit 
an idea that the Bosom flushed - which was one of her best effects.
"I say so much," she then explained "merely because Mr Merdle has always 
taken the greatest interest in Edmund, and has always expressed the 
strongest desire to advance his prospects. Edmund's public position I think 
you know. His private position rests wholly with Mr Merdle. In my foolish 
incapacity for business, I assure you I know no more."
Mr Dorrit again expressed in his own way, the sentiment that business was 
below the ken of enslavers and enchantresses. He then mentioned his 
intention, as a gentleman and a parent, of writing to Mr Merdle. Mrs Merdle 
concurred with all her heart - or with all her art, which was exactly the 
same thing - and herself despatched a preparatory letter by the next post, 
to the eighth wonder of the world.
In his epistolary communication, as in his dialogues and discourses on the 
great question to which it related, Mr Dorrit surrounded the subject with 
flourishes, as writing-masters embellish copy-books and ciphering-books: 
where the titles of the elementary rules of arithmetic diverge into swans, 
eagles, griffins, and other caligraphic recreations, and where the capital 
letters go out of their minds and bodies into ecstasies of pen and ink. 
Nevertheless, he did render the purport of his letter sufficiently clear, 
to enable Mr Merdle to make a decent pretence of having learnt it from that 
source. Mr Merdle replied to it, accordingly. Mr Dorrit replied to Mr 
Merdle; Mr Merdle replied to Mr Dorrit; and it was soon announced that the 
corresponding powers had come to a satisfactory understanding.
Now, and not before, Miss Fanny burst upon the scene, completely arrayed 
for her new part. Now, and not before, she wholly absorbed Mr Sparkler in 
her light, and shone for both and twenty more. No longer feeling that want 
of a defined place and character which had caused her so much trouble, this 
fair ship began to steer steadily on a shaped course, and to swim with a 
weight and balance that developed her sailing qualities.
"The preliminaries being so satisfactorily arranged, I think I will now, my 
dear," said Mr Dorrit, "announce - ha, - formally to Mrs General -"
"Papa," returned Fanny, taking him up short, upon that name, "I don't see 
what Mrs General has got to do with it."
"My dear," said Mr Dorrit, "it will be an act of courtesy to - hum - a 
lady, well bred and refined -"
"Oh! I am sick of Mrs General's good breeding and refinement, papa," said 
Fanny. "I am tired of Mrs General."
"Tired," repeated Mr Dorrit, in reproachful astonishment, "of - ha - Mrs 
General!"
"Quite disgusted with her, papa," said Fanny. "I really don't see what she 
has to do with my marriage. Let her keep to her own matrimonial projects - 
if she has any."
"Fanny," returned Mr Dorrit, with a grave and weighty slowness upon him, 
contrasting strongly with his daughter's levity: "I beg the favour of your 
explaining - ha - what it is you mean."
"I mean, papa," said Fanny, "that if Mrs General should happen to have any 
matrimonial projects of her own, I dare say they are quite enough to occupy 
her spare time. And that if she has not, so much the better; but still I 
don't wish to have the honour of making announcements to her."
"Permit me to ask you, Fanny," said Mr Dorrit, "why not?"
"Because she can find my engagement out for herself, papa," retorted Fanny. 
"She is watchful enough, I dare say. I think I have seen her so. Let her 
find it out for herself. If she should not find it out for herself, she 
will know it when I am married. And I hope you will not consider me wanting 
in affection for you, papa, if I say it strikes me that will be quite time 
enough for Mrs General."
"Fanny," returned Mr Dorrit, "I am amazed, I am displeased, by this - hum - 
this capricious and unintelligible display of animosity towards - ha - Mrs 
General."
"Do not, if you please, papa," urged Fanny, "call it animosity, because I 
assure you I do not consider Mrs General worth my animosity."
At this, Mr Dorrit rose from his chair with a fixed look of severe reproof, 
and remained standing in his dignity before his daughter. His daughter, 
turning the bracelet on her arm, and now looking at him, and now looking 
from him, said, "Very well, papa. I am truly sorry if you don't like it; 
but I can't help it. I am not a child, and I am not Amy, and I must speak."
"Fanny," gasped Mr Dorrit, after a majestic silence, "if I request you to 
remain here, while I formally announce to Mrs General, as an exemplary lady 
who is - hum - a trusted member of this family, the - ha - the change that 
is contemplated among us; if I - ha - not only request, but - hum - insist 
upon it -"
"Oh, papa," Fanny broke in with pointed significance, "if you make so much 
of it as that, I have in duty nothing to do but to comply. I hope I may 
have my thoughts upon the subject, however, for I really cannot help it 
under the circumstances." So, Fanny sat down with a meekness which, in the 
junction of extremes became defiance; and her father, either not deigning 
to answer, or not knowing what to answer, summoned Mr Tinkler into his 
presence.
"Mrs General." Mr Tinkler unused to receive such short orders in connection 
with the fair varnisher, paused. Mr Dorrit, seeing the whole Marshalsea and 
all its Testimonials in the pause, instantly flew at him with, "How dare 
you, sir? What do you mean?"
"I beg your pardon, sir," pleaded Mr Tinkler, "I was wishful to know -"
"You wished to know nothing, sir," cried Mr Dorrit, highly flushed. "Don't 
tell me you did. Ha You didn't. You are guilty of mockery, sir."
"I assure you, sir - " Mr Tinkler began.
"Don't assure me!" said Mr Dorrit. "I will not be assured by a domestic. 
You are guilty of mockery. You shall leave me - hum - the whole 
establishment shall leave me. What are you waiting for?"
"Only for my orders, sir."
"It's false," said Mr Dorrit, "you have your orders. Ha - hum. My 
compliments to Mrs General, and I beg the favour of her coming to me, if 
quite convenient, for a few minutes. Those are your orders."
In his execution of this mission, Mr Tinkler perhaps expressed that Mr 
Dorrit was in a raging fume. However that was, Mrs General's skirts were 
very speedily heard outside coming along - one might almost have said 
bouncing along - with unusual expedition. Albeit they settled down at the 
door and swept into the room with their customary coolness.
"Mrs General," said Mr Dorrit, "take a chair."
Mrs General, with a graceful curve of acknowledgment, descended into the 
chair which Mr Dorrit offered.
"Madam," pursued that gentleman, "as you have had the kindness to undertake 
the - hum - formation of my daughters, and as I am persuaded that nothing 
nearly affecting them can - ha - be indifferent to you -"
"Wholly impossible," said Mrs General in the calmest of ways.
" - [therefore wish to announce to you, madam, that my daughter now present 
-"
Mrs General made a slight inclination of her head to Fanny. Who made a very 
low inclination of her head to Mrs General, and came loftily upright again.
" - That my daughter Fanny is - ha - contracted to be married to Mr 
Sparkler, with whom you are acquainted. Hence, madam, you will be relieved 
of half your difficult charge - ha - difficult charge." Mr Dorrit repeated 
it with his angry eye on Fanny. "But not, I hope, to the - hum - diminution 
of any other portion, direct or indirect, of the footing you have at 
present the kindness to occupy in my family."
"Mr Dorrit," returned Mrs General, with her gloved hands resting on one 
another in exemplary repose, "is ever considerate, and ever but too 
appreciative of my friendly services."
(Miss Fanny coughed, as much as to say, "You are right.")
"Miss Dorrit has no doubt exercised the soundest discretion of which the 
circumstances admitted, and I trust will allow me to offer her my sincere 
congratulations. When free from the trammels of passion," Mrs General 
closed her eyes at the word, as if she could not utter it, and see anybody; 
"when occurring with the approbation of near relatives; and when cementing 
the proud structure of a family edifice; these are usually auspicious 
events. I trust Miss Dorrit will allow me to offer her my best 
congratulations."
Here Mrs General stopped, and added internally, for the setting of her 
face, "Papa, potatoes, poultry, prunes, and prism."
"Mr Dorrit," she superadded aloud, "is ever most obliging; and for the 
attention, and I will add distinction, of having this confidence imparted 
to me by himself and Miss Dorrit at this early time, I beg to offer the 
tribute of my thanks. My thanks, and my congratulations, are equally the 
meed of Mr Dorrit and of Miss Dorrit."
"To me," observed Miss Fanny, "they are excessively gratifying - 
inexpressibly so. The relief of finding that you have no objection to make, 
Mrs General, quite takes a load off my mind, I am sure. I hardly know what 
I should have done," said Fanny, "if you had interposed any objection, Mrs 
General."
Mrs General changed her gloves, as to the right glove being uppermost and 
the left undermost, with a Prunes and Prism smile.
"To preserve your approbation, Mrs General," said Fanny, returning the 
smile with one in which there was no trace of those ingredients, "will of 
course be the highest object of my married life; to lose it, would of 
course be perfect wretchedness. I am sure your great kindness will not 
object, and I hope papa will not object, to my correcting a small mistake 
you have made, however. The best of us are so liable to mistakes, that even 
you, Mrs General, have fallen into a little error. The attention and 
distinction you have so impressively mentioned, Mrs General, as attaching 
to this confidence, are, I have no doubt, of the most complimentary and 
gratifying description; but they don't at all proceed from me. The merit of 
having consulted you on the subject would have been so great in me, that I 
feel I must not lay claim to it when it really is not mine. It is wholly 
papa's. I am deeply obliged to you for your encouragement and patronage, 
but it was papa who asked for it. I have to thank you, Mrs General, for 
relieving my breast of a great weight by so handsomely giving your consent 
to my engagement, but you have really nothing to thank me for. I hope you 
will always approve of my proceedings after I have left home, and that my 
sister also may long remain the favoured object of your condescension, Mrs 
General."
With this address, which was delivered in her politest manner, Fanny left 
the room with an elegant and cheerful air - to tear upstairs with a flushed 
face as soon as she was out of hearing, pounce in upon her sister, call her 
a little Dormouse, shake her for the better opening of her eyes, tell her 
what had passed below, and ask her what she thought of Pa now?
Towards Mrs Merdle, the young lady comported herself with great 
independence and self-possession; but not as yet with any more decided 
opening of hostilities. Occasionally they had a slight skirmish, as when 
Fanny considered herself patted on the back by that lady, or as when Mrs 
Merdle looked particularly young and well; but Mrs Merdle always soon 
terminated those passages of arms by sinking among her cushions with the 
gracefullest indifference, and finding her attention otherwise engaged. 
Society (for that mysterious creature sat upon the Seven Hills too) found 
Miss Fanny vastly improved by her engagement. She was much more accessible, 
much more free and engaging, much less exacting; insomuch that she now 
entertained a host of followers and admirers, to the bitter indignation of 
ladies with daughters to marry, who were to be regarded as having revolted 
from Society on the Miss Dorrit grievance, and erected a rebellious 
standard. Enjoying the flutter she caused, Miss Dorrit not only haughtily 
moved through it in her own proper person, but haughtily, even 
ostentatiously, led Mr Sparkler through it too: seeming to say to them all, 
"If I think proper to march among you in triumphal procession attended by 
this weak captive in bonds, rather than a stronger one, that is my 
business. Enough that I choose to do it!" Mr Sparkler, for his part, 
questioned nothing; but went wherever he was taken, did whatever he was 
told, felt that for his bride-elect to be distinguished was for him to be 
distinguished on the easiest terms, and was truly grateful for being so 
openly acknowledged.
The winter passing on towards the spring while this condition of affairs 
prevailed, it became necessary for Mr Sparkler to repair to England, and 
take his appointed part in the expression and direction of its genius, 
learning, commerce, spirit, and sense. The land of Shakespeare, Milton, 
Bacon, Newton, Watt, the land of a host of past and present abstract 
philosophers, natural philosophers, and subduers of Nature and Art in their 
myriad forms, called to Mr Sparkler to come and take care of it lest it 
should perish. Mr Sparkler, unable to resist the agonised cry from the 
depths of his country's soul, declared that he must go.
It followed that the question was rendered pressing when, where, and how, 
Mr Sparkler should be married to the foremost girl in all this world with 
no nonsense about her. Its solution after some little mystery and secrecy, 
Miss Fanny herself announced to her sister.
"Now, my child," said she, seeking her out one day, "I am going to tell you 
something. "It is only this moment broached; and naturally I hurry to you 
the moment it is broached."
"Your marriage, Fanny?"
"My precious child," said Fanny, "don't anticipate me. Let me impart my 
confidence to you, you flurried little thing, in my own way. As to your 
guess, if I answered it literally, I should answer no. For really it is not 
my marriage that is in question, half as much as it is Edmund's." Little 
Dorrit looked, and perhaps not altogether without cause, somewhat at a loss 
to understand this fine distinction.
"I am in no difficulty," exclaimed Fanny, "and in no hurry. I am not wanted 
at any public office, or to give any vote anywhere else. But Edmund is. And 
Edmund is deeply dejected at the idea of going away by himself, and, 
indeed, I don't like that he should be trusted by himself. For, if it's 
possible - and it generally is - to do a foolish thing, he is sure to do 
it."
As she concluded this impartial summary of the reliance that might be 
safely placed upon her future husband, she took off, with an air of 
business, the bonnet she wore, and dangled it by its strings upon the 
ground.
"It is far more Edmund's question, therefore, than mine. However, we need 
say no more about that. That is self-evident on the face of it. Well, my 
dearest Amy! The point arising, is he to go by himself, or is he not to go 
by himself, this other point arises, are we to be married here and shortly, 
or are we to be married at home months hence?"
"I see I am going to lose you, Fanny."
"What a little thing you are," cried Fanny, half tolerant and half 
impatient, "for anticipating one! Pray, my darling, hear me out. That 
woman," she spoke of Mrs Merdle, of course, "remains here until after 
Easter; so, in the case of my being married here and going to London with 
Edmund, I should have the start of her. That is something. Further, Amy. 
That woman being out of the way, I don't know that I greatly object to Mr 
Merdle's proposal to Pa that Edmund and I should take up our abode in that 
house - you know - where you once went with a dancer, my dear - until our 
own house can be chosen and fitted up. Further still, Amy. Papa having 
always intended to go to town himself, in the spring, - you see, if Edmund 
and I were married here, we might go off to Florence, where papa might join 
us, and we might all three travel home together. Mr Merdle has entreated Pa 
to stay with him in that same mansion I have mentioned, and I suppose he 
will. But he is master of his own actions; and upon that point (which is 
not at all material), I can't speak positively."
The difference between papa's being master of his own actions and Mr 
Sparkler's being nothing of the sort, was forcibly expressed by Fanny in 
her manner of stating the case. Not that her sister noticed it; for she was 
divided between regret at the coming separation, and a lingering wish that 
she had been included in the plans for visiting England.
"And these are the arrangements, Fanny dear?"
"Arrangements!" repeated Fanny. "Now, really, child, you are a little 
trying. You know I particularly guarded myself against laying my words open 
to any such construction. What I said was, that certain questions present 
themselves; and these are the questions."
Little Dorrit's thoughtful eyes met hers, tenderly and quietly.
"Now, my own sweet girl," said Fanny, weighing her bonnet by the strings 
with considerable impatience, "it's no use staring. A little owl could 
stare. I look to you for advice, Amy. What do you advise me to do?"
"Do you think," asked Little Dorrit persuasively, after a short hesitation, 
"do you think, Fanny, that if you were to put it off for a few months, it 
might be, considering all things, best?"
"No, little Tortoise," retorted Fanny, with exceeding sharpness. "I don't 
think anything of the kind."
Here, she threw her bonnet from her altogether, and flounced into a chair. 
But, becoming affectionate almost immediately, she flounced out of it again 
and kneeled down on the floor to take her sister, chair and all, in her 
arms.
"Don't suppose I am hasty or unkind, darling, because I really am not. But 
you are such a little oddity! You make one bite your head off, when one 
wants to be soothing beyond everything. Didn't I tell you, you dearest 
baby, that Edmund can't be trusted by himself? And don't you know that he 
can't?"
"Yes, yes, Fanny. You said so, I know."
"And you know it, I know," retorted Fanny. "Well, my precious child! If he 
is not to be trusted by himself, it follows, I suppose, that I should go 
with him?"
"It - seems so, love," said Little Dorrit.
"Therefore, having heard the arrangements that are feasible to carry out 
that object, am I to understand, dearest Amy, that on the whole you advise 
me to make them?"
"It - seems so, love," said Little Dorrit again.
"Very well!" cried Fanny with an air of resignation, "then I suppose it 
must be done! I came to you, my sweet, the moment I saw the doubt, and the 
necessity of deciding. I have now decided. So let it be!"
After yielding herself up, in this pattern manner, to sisterly advice and 
the force of circumstances, Fanny became quite benignant: as one who had 
laid her own inclinations at the feet of her dearest friend, and felt a 
glow of conscience in having made the sacrifice. "After all, my Amy," she 
said to her sister, "you are the best of small creatures, and full of good 
sense; and I don't know what I shall ever do without you!"
With which words she folded her in a closer embrace, and a really fond one.
"Not that I contemplate doing without you, Amy, by any means, for I hope we 
shall ever be next to inseparable. And now, my pet, I am going to give you 
a word of advice. When you are left alone here with Mrs General - "
"I am to be left alone here, with Mrs General?" said Little Dorrit, 
quietly.
"Why of course, my precious, till papa comes back! Unless you call Edward 
company, which he certainly is not, even when he is here, and still more 
certainly is not when he is away at Naples or in Sicily. I was going to say 
- but you are such a beloved little Marplot for putting one out - when you 
are left alone here with Mrs General, Amy, don't you let her slide into any 
sort of artful understanding with you that she is looking after Pa, or that 
Pa is looking after her. She will, if she can. I know her sly manner of 
feeling her way with those gloves of hers. But, don't you comprehend her on 
any account. And if Pa should tell you when he comes back, that he has it 
in contemplation to make Mrs General your mama (which is not the less 
likely because I am going away), my advice to you is, that you say at once, 
'Papa, I beg to object most strongly. Fanny cautioned me about this, and 
she objected, and I object.' I don't mean to say that any objection from 
you, Amy, is likely to be of the smallest effect, or that I think you 
likely to make it with any degree of firmness. But there is a principle 
involved - a filial principle - and I implore you not to submit to be 
mother-in-lawed by Mrs General, without asserting it in making every one 
about you as uncomfortable as possible. I don't expect you to stand by it - 
indeed, I know you won't, Pa being concerned - but I wish to rouse you to a 
sense of duty. As to any help from me, or as to any opposition that I can 
offer to such a match, you shall not be left in the lurch, my love. 
Whatever weight I may derive from my position as a married girl not wholly 
devoid of attractions - used, as that position always shall be, to oppose 
that woman - I will bring to bear, you may depend upon it, on the head and 
false hair (for I am confident it's not all real, ugly as it is, and 
unlikely as it appears that any one in their senses would go to the expense 
of buying it) of Mrs General!"
Little Dorrit received this counsel without venturing to oppose it, but 
without giving Fanny any reason to believe that she intended to act upon 
it. Having now, as it were, formally wound up her single life and arranged 
her worldly affairs, Fanny proceeded with characteristic ardour to prepare 
for the serious change in her condition.
The preparation consisted in the despatch of her maid to Paris under the 
protection of the Courier, for the purchase of that outfit for a bride on 
which it would be extremely low, in the present narrative, to bestow an 
English name, but to which (on a vulgar principle it observes of adhering 
to the language in which it professes to be written) it declines to give a 
French one. The rich and beautiful wardrobe purchased by these agents, in 
the course of a few weeks made its way through the intervening country, 
bristling with custom-houses, garrisoned by an immense army of shabby 
mendicants in uniform, who incessantly repeated the Beggar's Petition over 
it, as if every individual warrior among them were the ancient Belisarius: 
and of whom there were so many Legions, that unless the Courier had 
expended just one bushel and a half of silver money in relieving their 
distresses, they would have worn the wardrobe out before it got to Rome, by 
turning it over and over. Through all such dangers, however, it was 
triumphantly brought, inch by inch, and arrived at its journey's end in 
fine condition.
There it was exhibited to select companies of female viewers, in whose 
gentle bosoms it awakened implacable feelings. Concurrently, active 
preparations were made for the day on which some of its treasures were to 
be publicly displayed. Cards of breakfast-invitation were sent out to half 
the English in the city of Romulus; the other half made arrangements to be 
under arms, as criticising volunteers, at various outer points of the 
solemnity. The most high and illustrious English Signor Edgardo Dorrit, 
came post through the deep mud and ruts (from forming a surface under the 
improving Neapolitan nobility), to grace the occasion. The best hotel, and 
all its culinary myrmidons, were set to work to prepare the feast. The 
drafts of Mr Dorrit almost constituted a run on the Torlonia Bank. The 
British Consul hadn't had such a marriage in the whole of his Consularity.
The day came, and the She-Wolf in the Capitol might have snarled with envy 
to see how the Island Savages contrived these things now-a-days. The 
murderous-headed statues of the wicked Emperors of the Soldiery, whom 
sculptors had not been able to flatter out of their villainous hideousness, 
might have come off their pedestals to run away with the Bride. The choked 
old fountain, where erst the Gladiators washed, might have leaped into life 
again to honour the ceremony. The Temple of Vesta might have sprung up anew 
from its ruins, expressly to lend its countenance to the occasion. Might 
have done; but did not. Like sentient things - even like the lords and 
ladies of creation sometimes - might have done much, but did nothing. The 
celebration went off with admirable pomp: monks in black robes, white robes 
and russet robes stopped to look after the carriages; wandering peasants, 
in fleeces of sheep, begged and piped under the house-windows; the English 
volunteers defiled; the day wore on to the hour of vespers: the festival 
wore away; the thousand churches rang their bells without any reference to 
it; and St. Peter denied that he had anything to do with it.
But, by that time the Bride was near the end of the first day's journey 
towards Florence. It was the peculiarity of these nuptials that they were 
all Bride. Nobody noticed the Bridegroom. Nobody noticed the first 
Bridesmaid. Few could have seen Little Dorrit (who held that post) for the 
glare, even supposing many to have sought her. So, the Bride had mounted 
into her handsome chariot, incidentally accompanied by the Bridegroom; and 
after rolling for a few minutes smoothly over a fair pavement, had begun to 
jolt through a Slough of Despond, and through a long, long avenue of wrack 
and ruin. Other nuptial carriages are said to have gone the same road, 
before and since.
If Little Dorrit found herself left a little lonely and a little low, that 
night, nothing would have done so much against her feeling of depression as 
the being able to sit at work by her father, as in the old time, and help 
him to his supper and his rest. But that was not to be thought of now, when 
they sat in the state-equipage with Mrs General on the coach-box. And as to 
supper! If Mr Dorrit had wanted supper, there was an Italian cook and there 
was a Swiss confectioner, who must have put on caps as high as the Pope's 
Mitre, and have performed the mysteries of Alchemists in a copper-sauce-
paned laboratory below, before he could have got it.
He was sententious and didactic that night. If he had been simply loving, 
he would have done Little Dorrit more good; but she accepted him as he was -
 when had she not accepted him as he was! - and made the most and best of 
him. Mrs General at length retired. Her retirement for the night was always 
her frostiest ceremony; as if she felt it necessary that the human 
imagination should be chilled into stone, to prevent its following her. 
When she had gone through her rigid preliminaries, amounting to a sort of 
genteel platoon-exercise, she withdrew. Little Dorrit then put her arm 
round her father's neck, to bid him good-night.
"Amy, my dear," said Mr Dorrit, taking her by the hand, "this is the close 
of a day, that has - ha - greatly impressed and gratified me."
"A little tired you, dear, too?"
"No," said Mr Dorrit, "no: I am not sensible of fatigue when it arises from 
an occasion so - hum - replete with gratification of the purest kind."
Little Dorrit was glad to find him in such heart, and smiled from her own 
heart.
"My dear," he continued. "This is an occasion - ha - teeming with a good 
example. With a good example, my favourite and attached child - hum - to 
you."
Little Dorrit, fluttered by his words, did not know what to say, though he 
stopped, as if he expected her to say something.
"Amy," he resumed; "your dear sister, our Fanny, has contracted - ha hum - 
a marriage, eminently calculated to extend the basis of our - ha - 
connection, and to - hum - consolidate our social relations. My love, I 
trust that the time is not far distant when some - ha - eligible partner 
may be found for you."
"Oh no! Let me stay with you. I beg and pray that I may stay with you! I 
want nothing but to stay and take care of you!"
She said it like one in sudden alarm.
"Nay, Amy, Amy," said Mr Dorrit. "This is weak and foolish, weak and 
foolish. You have a - ha - responsibility imposed upon you by your 
position. It is to develop that position, and be - hum - worthy of that 
position. As to taking care of me; I can - ha - take care of myself. Or," 
he added after a moment, "if I should need to be taken care of, I - hum - 
can, with the - ha - blessing of Providence, be taken care of. I - ha hum - 
I cannot, my dear child, think of engrossing, and - ha - as it were, 
sacrificing you."
O what a time of day at which to begin that profession of self-denial; at 
which to make it, with an air of taking credit for it; at which to believe 
it, if such a thing could be! 
"Don't speak, Amy. I positively say I cannot do it. I - ha - must not do 
it. My - hum - conscience would not allow it. I therefore, my love, take 
the opportunity afforded by this gratifying and impressive occasion of - ha 
- solemnly remarking, that it is now a cherished wish and purpose of mine 
to see you - ha - eligibly (I repeat eligibly) married."
"Oh no, dear! Pray!"
"Amy," said Mr Dorrit, "I am well persuaded that if the topic were referred 
to any person of superior social knowledge, of superior delicacy, and sense 
- let us say, for instance, to - ha - Mrs General - that there would not be 
two opinions as to the - hum - affectionate character and propriety of my 
sentiments. But, as I know your loving and dutiful nature from - hum - from 
experience, I am quite satisfied that it is necessary to say no more. I 
have - hum - no husband to propose at present, my dear; I have not even one 
in view. I merely wish that we should - ha - understand each other. Hum. 
Good night, my dear and sole remaining daughter. Good night. God bless 
you!"
If the thought ever entered Little Dorrit's head, that night, that he could 
give her up lightly now, in his prosperity, and when he had it in his mind 
to replace her with a second wife, she drove it away. Faithful to him 
still, as in the worst times through which she had borne him single-handed, 
she drove the thought away; and entertained no harder reflection, in her 
tearful unrest, than that he now saw everything through their wealth, and 
through the care he always had upon him that they should continue rich, and 
grow richer.
They sat in their equipage of state, with Mrs General on the box, for three 
weeks longer, and then he started for Florence to join Fanny. Little Dorrit 
would have been glad to bear him company so far, only for the sake of her 
own love, and then to have turned back alone, thinking of dear England. 
But, though the Courier had gone on with the Bride, the Valet was next in 
the line; and the succession would not have come to her, as long as any one 
could be got for money.
Mrs General took life easily - as easily, that is, as she could take 
anything - when the Roman establishment remained in their sole occupation; 
and Little Dorrit would often ride out in a hired carriage that was left 
them, and alight alone and wander among the ruins of old Rome. The ruins of 
the vast old Amphitheatre, of the old Temples, of the old commemorative 
Arches, of the old trodden highways, of the old tombs, besides being what 
they were, to her, were ruins of the old Marshalsea - ruins of her own old 
life - ruins of the faces and forms that of old peopled it - ruins of its 
loves, hopes, cares, and joys. Two ruined spheres of action and suffering 
were before the solitary girl, often sitting on some broken fragment; and 
in the lonely places, under the blue sky, she saw them both together.
Up, then, would come Mrs General: taking all the colour out of everything, 
as Nature and Art had taken it out of herself; writing Prunes and Prism, in 
Mr Eustace's text, wherever she could lay a hand; looking everywhere for Mr 
Eustace and company, and seeing nothing else; scratching up the driest 
little bones of antiquity, and bolting them whole without any human 
visitings - like a Ghoule in gloves.


Chapter 16

Getting On

The newly married pair, on their arrival in Harley Street. Cavendish 
Square, London, were received by the Chief Butler. That great man was not 
interested in them, but on the whole endured them. People must continue to 
be married and given in marriage, or Chief Butlers would not be wanted. As 
nations are made to be taxed, so families are made to be butlered. The 
Chief Butler, no doubt reflected that the course of nature required the 
wealthy population to be kept up on his account.
He therefore condescended to look at the carriage from the Hall-door 
without frowning at it, and said, in a very handsome way, to one of his 
men, "Thomas, help with the luggage." He even escorted the Bride upstairs 
into Mr Merdle's presence; but this must be considered as an act of homage 
to the sex (of which he was an admirer, being notoriously captivated by the 
charms of a certain Duchess), and not as a committal of himself with the 
family.
Mr Merdle was slinking about the hearthrug, waiting to welcome Mrs 
Sparkler. His hand seemed to retreat up his sleeve as he advanced to do so, 
and he gave her such a superfluity of coat-cuff that it was like being 
received by the popular conception of Guy Fawkes. When he put his lips to 
hers, besides, he took himself into custody by the wrists, and backed 
himself among the ottomans and chairs and tables as if he were his own 
police officer, saying to himself, "Now, none of that! Come! I've got you, 
you know, and you go quietly along with me!"
Mrs Sparkler, installed in the rooms of state - the innermost sanctuary of 
down, silk, chintz, and fine linen - felt that so far her triumph was good, 
and her way made, step by step. On the day before her marriage, she had 
bestowed on Mrs Merdle's maid with an air of gracious indifference, in Mrs 
Merdle's presence, a trifling little keepsake (bracelet, bonnet, and two 
dresses, all new) about four times as valuable as the present formerly made 
by Mrs Merdle to her. She was now established in Mrs Merdle's own rooms, to 
which some extra touches had been given to render them more worthy of her 
occupation. In her mind's eye, as she lounged there, surrounded by every 
luxurious accessory that wealth could obtain or invention devise, she saw 
the fair bosom that beat in unison with the exultation of her thoughts, 
competing with the bosom that had been famous so long, outshining it, and 
deposing it. Happy? Fanny must have been happy. No more wishing one's self 
dead now.
The Courier had not approved of Mr Dorrit's staying in the house of a 
friend, and had preferred to take him to an hotel in Brook Street, 
Grosvenor Square. Mr Merdle ordered his carriage to be ready early in the 
morning that he might wait upon Mr Dorrit immediately after breakfast.
Bright the carriage looked, sleek the horses looked, gleaming the harness 
looked, luscious and lasting the liveries looked. A rich, responsible turn-
out. An equipage for a Merdle. Early people looked after it as it rattled 
along the streets, and said, with awe in their breath, "There he goes!"
There he went, until Brook Street stopped him. Then, forth from its 
magnificent case came the jewel; not lustrous in itself, but quite the 
contrary.
Commotion in the office of the hotel. Merdle! The landlord, though a 
gentleman of a haughty spirit who had just driven a pair of thorough-bred 
horses into town, turned out to show him upstairs. The clerks and servants 
cut him off by back-passages, and were found accidentally hovering in 
doorways and angles, that they might look upon him. Merdle! O ye sun, moon, 
and stars, the great man! The rich man, who had in a manner revised the New 
Testament, and already entered into the kingdom of Heaven. The man who 
could have any one he chose to dine with him, and who had made the money! 
As he went up the stairs, people were already posted on the lower stairs, 
that his shadow might fall upon them when he came down. So were the sick 
brought out and laid in the track of the Apostle - who had not got into the 
good society, and had not made the money.
Mr Dorrit, dressing-gowned and newspapered, was at his breakfast. The 
Courier, with agitation in his voice, announced "Miss' Mairdale!" Mr 
Dorrit's overwrought heart bounded as he leaped up.
"Mr Merdle, this is - ha - indeed an honour. Permit me to express the - hum 
- sense, the high sense, I entertain of this - ha hum - highly gratifying 
act of attention. I am well aware, sir, of the many demands upon your time, 
and its - ha - enormous value." Mr Dorrit could not say enormous roundly 
enough for his own satisfaction. "That you should - ha - at this early 
hour, bestow any of your priceless time upon me, is - ha - a compliment 
that I acknowledge with the greatest esteem." Mr Dorrit positively trembled 
in addressing the great man.
Mr Merdle uttered, in his subdued, inward, hesitating voice, a few sounds 
that were to no purpose whatever; and finally said, "I am glad to see you, 
sir."
"You are very kind," said Mr Dorrit. "Truly kind." By this time the visitor 
was seated, and was passing his great hand over his exhausted forehead. 
"You are well, I hope, Mr Merdle?"
"I am as well as I - yes, I am as well as I usually am," said Mr Merdle.
"Your occupations must be immense."
"Tolerably so. But - Oh dear no, there's not much the matter with me," said 
Mr Merdle, looking round the room.
"A little dyspeptic?" Mr Dorrit hinted.
"Very likely. But I - Oh, I am well enough," said Mr Merdle.
There were black traces on his lips where they met, as if a little train of 
gunpowder had been fired there; and he looked like a man who, if his 
natural temperament had been quicker, would have been very feverish that 
morning. This, and his heavy way of passing his hand over his forehead, had 
prompted Mr Dorrit's solicitous inquiries.
"Mrs Merdle," Mr Dorrit insinuatingly pursued, "I left, as you will be 
prepared to hear, the - ha - observed of all observers, the - hum - admired 
of all admirers, the leading fascination and charm of Society in Rome. She 
was looking wonderfully well when I quitted it."
"Mrs Merdle," said Mr Merdle, "is generally considered a very attractive 
woman. And she is, no doubt. I am sensible of her being so."
"Who can be otherwise?" responded Mr Dorrit.
Mr Merdle turned his tongue in his closed mouth - it seemed rather a stiff 
and unmanageable tongue - moistened his lips, passed his hand over his 
forehead again, and looked all round the room again, principally under the 
chairs.
"But," he said, looking Mr Dorrit in the face for the first time, and 
immediately afterwards dropping his eyes to the buttons of Mr Dorrit's 
waistcoat; "if we speak of attractions, your daughter ought to be the 
subject of our conversation. She is extremely beautiful. Both in face and 
figure, she is quite uncommon. When the young people arrived last night, I 
was really surprised to see such charms."
Mr Dorrit's gratification was such that he said - ha - he could not refrain 
from telling Mr Merdle verbally, as he had already done by letter, what 
honour and happiness he felt in this union of their families. And he 
offered his hand. Mr Merdle looked at the hand for a little while, took it 
on his hand for a moment as if his were a yellow salver or fish-slice, and 
then returned it to Mr Dorrit.
"I thought I would drive round the first thing," said Mr Merdle, to offer 
my services, in case I can do anything for you; and to say that I hope you 
will at least do me the honour of dining with me today, and every day when 
you are not better engaged, during your stay in town."
Mr Dorrit was enraptured by these attentions.
"Do you stay long, sir?"
"I have not at present the intention," said Mr Dorrit, "of - ha - exceeding 
a fortnight."
"That's a very short stay, after so long a journey," returned Mr Merdle.
"Hum. Yes," said Mr Dorrit. "But the truth is - ha - my dear Mr Merdle, 
that I find a foreign life so well suited to my health and taste, that I - 
hum - have but two objects in my present visit to London. First, the - ha - 
the distinguished happiness and - ha - privilege which I now enjoy and 
appreciate; secondly, the arrangement - hum - the laying out, that is to 
say, in the best way of - ha, hum - my money."
"Well, sir," said Mr Merdle, after turning his tongue again, "if I can be 
of any use to you in that respect, you may command me."
Mr Dorrit's speech had had more hesitation in it than usual, as he 
approached the ticklish topic, for he was not perfectly clear how so 
exalted a Potentate might take it. He had doubts whether reference to any 
individual capital, or fortune, might not seem a wretchedly retail affair 
to so wholesale a dealer. Greatly relieved by Mr Merdle's affable offer of 
assistance, he caught at it directly, and heaped acknowledgments upon him.
"I scarcely - ha - dared," said Mr Dorrit, "I assure you, to hope for so - 
hum - vast an advantage as your direct advice and assistance. Though of 
course I should, under any circumstances, like the - ha hum - rest of the 
civilised world, have followed in Mr Merdle's train."
"You know we may almost say we are related, sir," said Mr Merdle, curiously 
interested in the pattern of the carpet, "and, therefore, you may consider 
me at your service."
"Ha. Very handsome, indeed!" cried Mr Dorrit. "Ha. Most handsome!"
"It would not," said Mr Merdle, "be at the present moment easy for what I 
may call a mere outsider to come into any of the good things - of course I 
speak of my own good things -"
"Of course, of course!" cried Mr Dorrit, in a tone implying that there were 
no other good things.
" - Unless at a high price. At what we are accustomed to term a very low 
figure."
Mr Dorrit laughed in the buoyancy of his spirit. Ha, ha, ha! Long figure. 
Good. Ha. Very expressive to be sure!"
"However," said Mr Merdle, "I do generally retain in my own hands the power 
of exercising some preference - people in general would be pleased to call 
it favour - as a sort of compliment for my care and trouble."
"And public spirit and genius," Mr Dorrit suggested.
Mr Merdle, with a dry, swallowing action, seemed to dispose of those 
qualities like a bolus; then added, "As a sort of return for it. I will 
see, if you please, how I can exert this limited power (for people are 
jealous and it is limited), to your advantage."
"You are very good," replied Mr Dorrit. "You are very good."
"Of course," said Mr Merdle, "there must be the strictest integrity and 
uprightness in these transactions; there must be the purest faith between 
man and man; there must be unimpeached and unimpeachable confidence; or 
business could not be carried on."
Mr Dorrit hailed these generous sentiments with fervour.
"Therefore," said Mr Merdle, "I can only give you a preference to a certain 
extent."
"I perceive. To a defined extent," observed Mr Dorrit. "Defined extent. And 
perfectly above-board. As to my advice, however," said Mr Merdle, "that is 
another matter. That, such as it is -"
Oh! Such as it was! (Mr Dorrit could not bear the faintest appearance of 
its being depreciated, even by Mr Merdle himself.)
" - That, there is nothing in the bonds of spotless honour between myself 
and my fellow-man to prevent my parting with, if I choose. And that," said 
Mr Merdle, now deeply intent upon a dust-cart that was passing the windows, 
"shall be at your command whenever you think proper."
New acknowledgments from Mr Dorrit. New passages of Mr Merdle's hand over 
his forehead. Calm and silence. Contemplation of Mr Dorrit's waistcoat-
buttons, by Mr Merdle.
"My time being rather precious," said Mr Merdle, suddenly getting up, as if 
he had been waiting in the interval for his legs, and they had just come, 
"I must be moving towards the City. Can I take you anywhere, sir? I shall 
be happy to set you down, or send you on. My carriage is at your disposal."
Mr Dorrit bethought himself that he had business at his banker's. His 
banker's was in the City. That was fortunate; Mr Merdle would take him into 
the City. But, surely he might not detain Mr Merdle while he assumed his 
coat? Yes, he might, and must; Mr Merdle insisted on it. So, Mr Dorrit, 
retiring into the next room, put himself under the hands of his valet, and 
in five minutes came back, glorious.
Then, said Mr Merdle, "Allow me, sir. Take my arm!" Then, leaning on Mr 
Merdle's arm, did Mr Dorrit descend the staircase, seeing the worshippers 
on the steps, and feeling that the light of Mr Merdle shone by reflection 
in himself. Then, the carriage, and the ride into the City; and the people 
who looked at them; and the hats that flew off grey heads; and the general 
bowing and crouching before this wonderful mortal, the like of which 
prostration of spirit was not to be seen - no, by high Heaven, no! It may 
be worth thinking of by Fawners of all denominations - in Westminster Abbey 
and Saint Paul's Cathedral put together, on any Sunday in the year. It was 
a rapturous dream to Mr Dorrit, to find himself set aloft in this public 
car of triumph, making a magnificent progress to that befitting 
destination, the golden street of the Lombards.
There, Mr Merdle insisted on alighting and going his way a-foot, and 
leaving his poor equipage at Mr Dorrit's disposition. So, the dream 
increased in rapture when Mr Dorrit came out of the blank alone, and people 
looked at him in default of Mr Merdle, and when, with the ears of his mind, 
he heard the frequent exclamation as he rolled glibly along, "A wonderful 
man to be Mr Merdle's friend!"
At dinner that day, although the occasion was not foreseen and provided 
for, a brilliant company of such as are not made of the dust of the earth, 
but of some superior article for the present unknown, shed their lustrous 
benediction upon Mr Dorrit's daughter's marriage. And Mr Dorrit's daughter 
that day began, in earnest, her competition with that woman not present; 
and began it so well, that Mr Dorrit could all but have taken his 
affidavit, if required, that Mrs Sparkler had all her life been lying at 
full length in the lap of luxury, and had never heard of such a rough word 
in the English tongue as Marshalsea.
Next day, and the day after, and every day, all graced by more dinner 
company, cards descended on Mr Dorrit, like theatrical snow. As the friend 
and relative by marriage of the illustrious Merdle, Bar, Bishop, Treasury, 
Chorus, Everybody, wanted to make or improve Mr Dorrit's acquaintance. In 
Mr Merdle's heaps of offices in the City, when Mr Dorrit appeared at any of 
them on his business taking him Eastward (which it frequently did, for it 
throve amazingly), the name of Dorrit was always a passport to the greater 
presence of Merdle. So the dream increased in rapture every hour, as Mr 
Dorrit felt increasingly sensible that this connection had brought him 
forward indeed.
Only one thing sat otherwise than auriferously, and at the same time 
lightly, on Mr Dorrit's mind. It was the Chief Butler. That stupendous 
character looked at him, in the course of his official looking at the 
dinners, in a manner that Mr Dorrit considered questionable. He looked at 
him, as he passed through the hall and up the staircase, going to dinner, 
with a glazed fixedness that Mr Dorrit did not like. Seated at table in the 
act of drinking, Mr Dorrit still saw him through his wine-glass regarding 
him with a cold and ghostly eye. It misgave him that the Chief Butler must 
have known a Collegian, and must have seen him in the College - perhaps had 
been presented to him. He looked as closely at the Chief Butler as such a 
man could be looked at, and yet he did not recall that he had ever seen him 
elsewhere. Ultimately he was inclined to think that there was no reverence 
in the man, no sentiment in the great creature. But, he was not relieved by 
that; for, let him think what he would, the Chief Butler had him in his 
supercilious eye, even when that eye was on the plate and other table-
garniture; and he never let him out of it. To hint to him that this 
confinement in his eye was disagreeable, or to ask him what he meant, was 
an act too daring to venture upon; his severity with his employers and 
their visitors being terrific, and he never permitting himself to be 
approached with the slightest liberty.


Chapter 17

Missing

The term of Mr Dorrit's visit was within two days of being out, and he was 
about to dress for another inspection by the Chief Butler (whose victims 
were always dressed expressly for him), when one of the servants of the 
hotel presented himself bearing a card. Mr Dorrit, taking it, read:
"Mrs Finching."
The servant waited in speechless deference.
"Man, man," said Mr Dorrit, turning upon him with grievous indignation, 
"explain your motive in bringing me this ridiculous name. I am wholly 
unacquainted with it. Finching, sir?" said Mr Dorrit, perhaps avenging 
himself on the Chief Butler by Substitute. "Ha! What do you mean by 
Finching?"
The man, man, seemed to mean Flinching as much as anything else, for he 
backed away from Mr Dorrit's severe regard, as he replied, "A lady, sir."
"I know no such lady, sir," said Mr Dorrit. "Take this card away. I know no 
Finching of either sex."
"Ask your pardon, sir. The lady said she was aware she might be unknown by 
name. But she begged me to say, sir, that she had formerly the honour of 
being acquainted with Miss Dorrit. The lady said, sir, the youngest Miss 
Dorrit."
Mr Dorrit knitted his brows, and rejoined, after a moment or two, "Inform 
Mrs Finching, sir," emphasising the name as if the innocent man were solely 
responsible for it, "that she can come up."
He had reflected, in his momentary pause, that unless she were admitted she 
might leave some message, or might say something below, having a 
disagreeable reference to that former state of existence. Hence the 
concession, and hence the appearance of Flora, piloted in by the man, man.
"I have not the pleasure," said Mr Dorrit, standing, with the card in his 
hand, and with an air which imported that it would scarcely have been a 
first-class pleasure if he had had it, "of knowing either this name, or 
yourself, madam. Place a chair, sir."
The responsible man, with a start, obeyed, and went out on tiptoe. Flora, 
putting aside her veil with a bashful tremor upon her, proceeded to 
introduce herself. At the same time a singular combination of perfumes was 
diffused through the room, as if some brandy had been put by mistake in a 
lavender-water bottle, or as if some lavender-water had been put by mistake 
in a brandy-bottle.
"I beg Mr Dorrit to offer a thousand apologies and indeed they would be far 
too few for such an intrusion which I know must appear extremely bold in a 
lady and alone too, but I thought it best upon the whole however difficult 
and even apparently improper though Mr F's Aunt would have willingly 
accompanied me and as a character of great force and spirit would probably 
have struck one possessed of such a knowledge of life as no doubt with so 
many changes must have been acquired, for Mr F himself said frequently that 
although well educated in the neighbourhood of Blackheath at as high as 
eighty guineas which is a good deal for parents and the plate kept back too 
on going away but that is more a meanness than its value that he had learnt 
more in his first year as a commercial traveller with a large commission on 
the sale of an article that nobody would hear of much less buy which 
preceded the wine trade a long time than in the whole six years in that 
academy conducted by a college Bachelor, though why a Bachelor more clever 
than a married man I do not see and never did but pray excuse me that is 
not the point."
Mr Dorrit stood rooted to the carpet, a statue of mystification.
"I must openly admit that I have no pretensions," said Flora, "but having 
known the dear little thing which under altered circumstances appears a 
liberty but is not so intended and Goodness knows there was no favour in 
half-a-crown a day to such a needle as herself but quite the other way and 
as to anything lowering in it far from it the labourer is worthy of his 
hire and I am sure I only wish he got it oftener and more animal food and 
less rheumatism in the back and less poor soul."
"Madam," said Mr Dorrit, recovering his breath by a great effort, as the 
relict of the late Mr Finching stopped to take hers; "madam," said Mr 
Dorrit, very red in the face, "if I understand you to refer to - ha - to 
anything in the antecedents of - hum - a daughter of mine, involving ha - 
hum - daily compensation, madam, I beg to observe that the - ha - fact, 
assuming it - ha - to be fact, never was within my knowledge. Hum. I should 
not have permitted it. Ha. Never! Never!"
"Unnecessary to pursue the subject," returned Flora, "and would not have 
mentioned it on any account except as supposing it a favourable and only 
letter of introduction but as to being fact no doubt whatever and you may 
set your mind at rest for the very dress I have on now can prove it and 
sweetly made though there is no denying that it would tell better on a 
better figure for my own is much too fat though how to bring it down I know 
not, pray excuse me I am roving off again."
Mr Dorrit backed to his chair in a stony way, and seated himself, as Flora 
gave him a softening look and played with her parasol.
"The dear little thing," said Flora "having gone off perfectly limp and 
white and cold in my own house or at least papa's for though not a freehold 
still a long lease at a peppercorn on the morning when Arthur - foolish 
habit of our youthful days and Mr Clennam far more adapted to existing 
circumstances particularly addressing a stranger and that stranger a 
gentleman in an elevated station - communicated the glad tidings imparted 
by a person of the name of Pancks emboldens me."
At the mention of these two names, Mr Dorrit frowned, stared, frowned 
again, hesitated with his fingers at his lips, as he had hesitated long 
ago, and said, "Do me the favour to - ha - state your pleasure, madam."
"Mr Dorrit," said Flora, "you are very kind in giving me permission and 
highly natural it seems to me that you should be kind for though more 
stately I perceive a likeness filled out of course but a likeness still, 
the object of my intruding is my own without the slightest consultation 
with any human being and most decidedly not with Arthur - pray excuse me 
Doyce and Clennam I don't know what I am saying Mr Clennam solus - for to 
put that individual linked by a golden chain to a purple time when all was 
ethereal out of any anxiety would be worth to me the ransom of a monarch 
not that I have the least idea how much that would come to but using it as 
the total of all I have in the world and more."
Mr Dorrit, without greatly regarding the earnestness of these latter words, 
repeated, "State your pleasure, madam."
"It's not likely I well know," said Flora, "but it's possible and being 
possible when I had the gratification of reading in the papers that you had 
arrived from Italy and were going back I made up my mind to try it for you 
might come across him or hear something of him and if so what a blessing 
and relief to all!"
"Allow me to ask, madam," said Mr Dorrit, with his ideas in wild confusion, 
"to whom - ha - to whom," he repeated it with a raised voice in mere 
desperation, "you at present allude?"
"To the foreigner from Italy who disappeared in the City as no doubt you 
have read in the papers equally with myself," said Flora, "not referring to 
private sources by the name of Pancks from which one gathers what 
dreadfully ill-natured things some people are wicked enough to whisper most 
likely judging others by themselves and what the uneasiness and indignation 
of Arthur - quite unable to overcome it Doyce and Clennam - cannot fail to 
be."
It happened, fortunately for the elucidation of any intelligible result, 
that Mr Dorrit had heard or read nothing about the matter. This caused Mrs 
Finching, with many apologies for being in great practical difficulties as 
to finding the way to her pocket among the stripes of her dress, at length 
to produce a police handbill, setting forth that a foreign gentleman of the 
name of Blandois, last from Venice, had unaccountably disappeared on such a 
night in such a part of the city of London; that he was known to have 
entered such a house, at such an hour; that he was stated by the inmates of 
that house to have left it, about so many minutes before midnight; and that 
he had never been beheld since. This, with exact particulars of time and 
locality, and with a good detailed description of the foreign gentleman who 
had so mysteriously vanished, Mr Dorrit read at large.
"Blandois!" said Mr Dorrit. "Venice! And this description! I know this 
gentleman. He has been in my house. He is intimately acquainted with a 
gentleman of good family (but in different circumstances), of whom I am a - 
hum - patron."
"Then my humble and pressing entreaty is the more," said Flora, "that in 
travelling back you will have the kindness to look for this foreign 
gentleman along all the roads and up and down all the turnings and to make 
inquiries for him at all the hotels and orange-trees and vineyards and 
volcanoes and places for he must be somewhere and why doesn't he come 
forward and say he's there and clear all parties up?"
"Pray, madam," said Mr Dorrit, referring to the handbill again, "who is 
Clennam and Co.? Ha. I see the name mentioned here, in connection with the 
occupation of the house which Monsieur Blandois was seen to enter: who is 
Clennam and Co.? Is it the individual of whom I had formerly - hum - some - 
ha - slight transitory knowledge, and to whom I believe you have referred? 
Is it - ha - that person?"
"It's a very different person indeed," replied Flora, "with no limbs and 
wheels instead and the grimmest of women though his mother."
"Clennam and Co. a - hum - a mother!" exclaimed Mr Dorrit.
"And an old man besides," said Flora.
Mr Dorrit looked as if he must immediately be driven out of his mind by 
this account. Neither was it rendered more favourable to sanity by Flora's 
dashing into a rapid analysis of Mr Flintwinch's cravat, and describing 
him, without the slightest boundary line of separation between his identity 
and Mrs Clennam's as a rusty screw in gaiters. Which compound of man and 
woman, no limbs, wheels, rusty screw, grimness, and gaiters, so completely 
stupefied Mr Dorrit, that he was a spectacle to be pitied.
"But I would not detain you one moment longer," said Flora, upon whom his 
condition wrought its effect, though she was quite unconscious of having 
produced it, "if you would have the goodness to give me your promise as a 
gentleman that both in going back to Italy and in Italy too you would look 
for this Mr Blandois high and low and if you found or heard of him make him 
come forward for the clearing of all parties."
By that time Mr Dorrit had so far recovered from his bewilderment, as to be 
able to say, in a tolerably connected manner, that he should consider that 
his duty. Flora was delighted with her success, and rose to take her leave.
"With a million thanks," said she, "and my address upon my card in case of 
anything to be communicated personally, I will not send my love to the dear 
little thing for it might not be acceptable and indeed there is no dear 
little thing left in the transformation so why do it but both myself and Mr 
F's Aunt ever wish her well and lay no claim to any favour on our side you 
may be sure of that but quite the other way for what she undertook to do 
she did and that is more than a great many of us do, not to say anything of 
her doing it as well as it could be done and I myself am one of them for I 
have said ever since I began to recover the blow of Mr F's death that I 
would learn the Organ of which I am extremely fond but of which I am 
ashamed to say I do not yet know a note, good evening!"
When Mr Dorrit, who attended her to the room door had had a little time to 
collect his senses, he found that the interview had summoned back discarded 
reminiscences which jarred with the Merdle dinner-table. He wrote and sent 
off a brief note excusing himself for that day, and ordered dinner 
presently in his own rooms at the hotel. He had another reason for this. 
His time in London was very nearly out, and was anticipated by engagements; 
his plans were made for returning; and he thought it behoved his importance 
to pursue some direct inquiry into the Blandois disappearance, and be in a 
condition to carry back to Mr Henry Gowan the result of his own personal 
investigation. He therefore resolved that he would take advantage of that 
evening's freedom to go down to Clennam and Co's, easily to be found by the 
direction set forth in the handbill; and see the place, and ask a question 
or two there, himself.
Having dined as plainly as the establishment and the Courier would let him, 
and having taken a short sleep by the fire for his better recovery from Mrs 
Finching, he set out in a hackney cabriolet alone. The deep bell of St. 
Paul's was striking nine as he passed under the shadow of Temple Bar, 
headless and forlorn in these degenerate days.
As he approached his destination through the bye streets and water-side 
ways, that part of London seemed to him an uglier spot at such an hour than 
he had ever supposed it to be. Many long years had passed since he had seen 
it; he had never known much of it; and it wore a mysterious and dismal 
aspect in his eyes. So powerfully was his imagination impressed by it, that 
when his driver stopped, after having asked the way more than once, and 
said to the best of his belief this was the gateway they wanted, Mr Dorrit 
stood hesitating with the coach-door in his hand, half afraid of the dark 
look of the place.
Truly, it looked as gloomy that night, as even it had ever looked. Two of 
the handbills were posted on the entrance wall, one on either side, and as 
the lamp flickered in the night air, shadows passed over them, not unlike 
the shadows of fingers following the lines. A watch was evidently kept upon 
the place. As Mr Dorrit paused, a man passed in from over the way, and 
another man passed out from some dark corner within; and both looked at him 
in passing, and both remained standing about.
As there was only one house in the enclosure, there was no room for 
uncertainty, so he went up the steps of that house and knocked. There was a 
dim light in two windows on the first floor. The door gave back a dreary 
vacant sound, as though the house were empty; but, it was not, for a light 
was visible, and a step was audible, almost directly. They both came to the 
door, and a chain grated, and a woman with her apron thrown over her face 
and head stood in the aperture.
"Who is it?" said the woman.
Mr Dorrit much amazed by this appearance, replied that he was from Italy, 
and that he wished to ask a question relative to the missing person, whom 
he knew.
"Hi!" cried the woman, raising a cracked voice. "Jeremiah!"
Upon this, a dry old man appeared, whom Mr Dorrit thought he identified by 
his gaiters, as the rusty screw. The woman was under apprehensions of the 
dry old man, for she whisked her apron away as he approached, and disclosed 
a pale affrighted face. "Open the door you fool," said the old man; "and 
let the gentleman in."
Mr Dorrit, not without a glance over his shoulder towards his driver and 
the cabriolet, walked into the dim hall. "Now, sir," said Mr Flintwinch, 
"you can ask anything here, you think proper; there are no secrets here, 
sir."
Before a reply could be made, a strong stern voice, though a woman's called 
from above. "Who is it?"
"Who is it?" returned Jeremiah. "More inquiries. A gentleman from Italy."
"Bring him up here!"
Mr Flintwinch muttered, as if he deemed that unnecessary; but, turning to 
Mr Dorrit, said, "Mrs Clennam. She will do as she likes. I'll show you the 
way." He then preceded Mr Dorrit up the blackened staircase; that 
gentleman, not unnaturally looking behind him on the road, saw the woman 
following, with her apron thrown over her head again in her former ghastly 
manner.
Mrs Clennam had her books open on her little table. "Oh!" said she 
abruptly, as she eyed her visitor with a steady look. "You are from Italy, 
sir, are you. Well?"
Mr Dorrit was at a loss for any more distinct rejoinder at the moment than 
"Ha - well?"
"Where is this missing man? Have you come to give us information where he 
is? I hope you have?"
"So far from it, I - hum - have come to seek information."
"Unfortunately for us, there is none to be got here. Flintwinch, show the 
gentleman the handbill. Give him several to take away. Hold the light for 
him to read it."
Mr Flintwinch did as he was directed, and Mr Dorrit read it through, as if 
he had not previously seen it; glad enough of the opportunity of collecting 
his presence of mind, which the air of the house and of the people in it 
had a little disturbed. While his eyes were on the paper, he felt that the 
eyes of Mr Flintwinch and of Mrs Clennam were on him. He found, when he 
looked up, that this sensation was not a fanciful one.
"Now, you know as much," said Mrs Clennam, "as we know, sir. Is Mr Blandois 
a friend of yours?"
"No - a - hum - an acquaintance," answered Mr Dorrit.
"You have no commission from him, perhaps?"
"I? Ha. Certainly not."
The searching look turned gradually to the floor, after taking Mr 
Flintwinch's face in its way. Mr Dorrit, discomfited by finding that he was 
the questioned instead of the questioner, applied himself to the reversal 
of that unexpected order of things.

"I am - ha - a gentleman of property, at present residing in Italy with my 
family, my servants, and - hum - my rather large establishment. Being in 
London for a short time on affairs connected with - ha - my estate, and 
hearing of this strange disappearance, I wished to make myself acquainted 
with the circumstances at first-hand, because there is - ha hum - an 
English gentleman in Italy whom I shall no doubt see on my return, who has 
been in habits of close and daily intimacy with Monsieur Blandois. Mr Henry 
Gowan. You may know the name."
"Never heard of it."
Mrs Clennam said it, and Mr Flintwinch echoed it. "Wishing to - ha - make 
the narrative coherent and consecutive to him," said Mr Dorrit, "may I ask -
 say three questions?"
"Thirty, if you choose."
"Have you known Monsieur Blandois long?"
"Not a twelvemonth. Mr Flintwinch here, will refer to the books and tell 
you when, and by whom at Paris, he was introduced to us. If that," Mrs 
Clennam added, "should be any satisfaction to you. It is poor satisfaction 
to us."
"Have you seen him often?"
"No. Twice. Once before, and -"
"That once," suggested Mr Flintwinch.
"And that once."
"Pray, madam," said Mr Dorrit, with a growing fancy upon him, as he 
recovered his importance, that he was in some superior way in the 
Commission of the Peace; "pray, madam, may I inquire, for the greater 
satisfaction of the gentleman whom I have the honour to - ha - retain, or 
protect, or let me say to - hum - know - to know - Was Monsieur Blandois 
here on business, on the night indicated in this printed sheet?"
"On what he called business," returned Mrs Clennam.
"Is - ha - excuse me - is its nature to be communicated?"
"No."
It was evidently impracticable to pass the barrier of that reply.
"The question has been asked before," Mrs Clennam, and the answer has been, 
No. We don't choose to publish our transactions, however unimportant, to 
all the town. We say, No."
"I mean, he took away no money with him, for example?" said Mr Dorrit.
"He took away none of ours, sir, and got none here."
"I suppose," observed Mr Dorrit, glancing from Mrs Clennam to Mr 
Flintwinch, and from Mr Flintwinch to Mrs Clennam, "you have no way of 
accounting to yourself for this mystery?"
"Why do you suppose so?" rejoined Mrs Clennam.
Disconcerted by the cold and hard inquiry, Mr Dorrit was unable to assign 
any reason for his supposing so.
"I account for it, sir," she pursued after an awkward silence on Mr 
Dorrit's part, "by having no doubt that he is travelling somewhere, or 
hiding somewhere."
"Do you know - ha - why he should hide anywhere?"
"No."
It was exactly the same No as before, and put another barrier up.
"You asked me if I accounted for the disappearance to myself," Mrs Clennam 
sternly reminded him, "not if I accounted for it to you. I do not pretend 
to account for it to you, sir. I understand it to be no more my business to 
do that, than it is yours to require that."
Mr Dorrit answered with an apologetic bend of his head. As he stepped back, 
preparatory to saying he had no more to ask, he could not but observe how 
gloomy and fixedly she sat with her eyes fastened on the ground, and a 
certain air upon her of resolute waiting; also, how exactly the self-same 
expression was reflected in Mr Flintwinch, standing at a little distance 
from her chair, with his eyes also on the ground, and his right hand softly 
rubbing his chin.
At that moment, Mistress Affery (of course, the woman with the apron) 
dropped the candlestick she held, and cried out, "There! O good Lord! there 
it is again. Hark, Jeremiah! Now! 
If there were any sound at all, it was so light that she must have fallen 
into a confirmed habit of listening for sounds; but Mr Dorrit believed he 
did hear a something, like the falling of dry leaves. The woman's terror, 
for a very short space, seemed to touch the three; and they all listened.
Mr Flintwinch was the first to stir. "Affery, my woman," said he, sidling 
at her with his fists clenched, and his elbows quivering with impatience to 
shake her, "you are at your old tricks. You'll be walking in your sleep 
next, my woman, and playing the whole round of your distempered antics. You 
must have some physic. When I have shown this gentleman out, I'll make you 
up such a comfortable dose, my woman; such a comfortable dose!"
It did not appear altogether comfortable in expectation to Mistress Affery: 
but Jeremiah, without further reference to his healing medicine, took 
another candle from Mrs Clennam's table, and said, "Now, sir, shall I light 
you down?"
Mr Dorrit professed himself obliged, and went down. Mr Flintwinch shut him 
out and chained him out, without a moment's loss of time. He was again 
passed by the two men, one going out and the other coming in: got into the 
vehicle he had left waiting, and was driven away.
Before he had gone far, the driver stopped to let him know that he had 
given his home, number, and address to the two men, on their joint 
requisition; and also the address at which he had taken Mr Dorrit up, the 
hour at which he had been called from his stand, and the way by which he 
had come. This did not make the night's adventure run the less hotly in Mr 
Dorrit's mind, either when he sat down by his fire again, or when he went 
to bed. All night he haunted the dismal house, saw the two people 
resolutely waiting, heard the woman with her apron over her face cry out 
about the noise, and found the body of the missing Blandois, now buried in 
a cellar and now bricked up in a wall.


Chapter 18

A Castle In The Air

Manifold are the cares of wealth and state. Mr Dorrit's satisfaction in 
remembering that it had not been necessary for him to announce himself to 
Clennam and Co., or to make an allusion to his having ever had any 
knowledge of the intrusive person of that name, had been damped overnight, 
while it was still fresh, by a debate that arose within him whether or no 
he should take the Marshalsea in his way back, and look at the old gate. He 
had decided not to do so; and had astonished the coachman by being very 
fierce with him for proposing to go over London Bridge and recross the 
river by Waterloo Bridge - a course which would have taken him almost 
within sight of his old quarters. Still, for all that, the question had 
raised a conflict in his breast; and, for some odd reason or no reason, he 
was vaguely dissatisfied. Even at the Merdle dinner-table next day, he was 
so out of sorts about it, that he continued at intervals to turn it over 
and over, in a manner frightfully inconsistent with the good society 
surrounding him. It made him hot to think what the Chief Butler's opinion 
of him would have been, if that illustrious personage could have plumbed 
with that heavy eye of his the stream of his meditations.
The farewell banquet was of a gorgeous nature, and wound up his visit in a 
most brilliant manner. Fanny combined with the attractions of her youth and 
beauty, a certain weight of self-sustainment as if she had been married 
twenty years. He felt that he could leave her with a quiet mind to tread 
the paths of distinction, and wished - but without abatement of patronage, 
and without prejudice to the retiring virtues of his favourite child - that 
he had such another daughter.
"My dear," he told her at parting, "our family looks to you to - ha - 
assert its dignity and - hum - maintain its importance. I know you will 
never disappoint it."
"No, papa," said Fanny, "you may rely upon that, I think. My best love to 
dearest Amy, and I will write to her very soon."
"Shall I convey any message to - ha - anybody else?" asked Mr Dorrit, in an 
insinuating manner.
"Papa," said Fanny, before whom Mrs General instantly loomed, "no, I thank 
you. You are very kind, Pa, but I must beg to be excused. There is no other 
message to send, I thank you, dear papa, that it would be at all agreeable 
to you to take."
They parted in an outer drawing-room, where only Mr Sparkler waited on his 
lady, and dutifully bided his time for shaking hands. When Mr Sparkler was 
admitted to this closing audience, Mr Merdle came creeping in with not much 
more appearance of arms in his sleeves than if he had been the twin brother 
of Miss Biffin, and insisted on escorting Mr Dorrit downstairs. All Mr 
Dorrit's protestations being in vain, he enjoyed the honour of being 
accompanied to the hall-door by this distinguished man, who (as Mr Dorrit 
told him in shaking hands on the step) had really overwhelmed him with 
attentions and services during this memorable visit. Thus they parted; Mr 
Dorrit entering his carriage with a swelling breast, not at all sorry that 
his Courier, who had come to take leave in the lower regions, should have 
an opportunity of beholding the grandeur of his departure.
The aforesaid grandeur was yet full upon Mr Dorrit when he alighted at his 
hotel. Helped out by the Courier and some half dozen of the hotel servants, 
he was passing through the hall with a serene magnificence, when lo! a 
sight presented itself that struck him dumb and motionless. John Chivery, 
in his best clothes, with his tall hat under his arm, his ivory-handled 
cane genteelly embarrassing his deportment, and a bundle of cigars in his 
hand! 
"Now, young man," said the porter. "This is the gentleman. This young man 
has persisted in waiting, sir, saying you would be glad to see him."
Mr Dorrit glared on the young man, choked, and said, in the mildest of 
tones, "Ah! Young John! It is Young John, I think; is it not?"
"Yes, sir," returned Young John.
"I - ha - thought it was Young John!" said Mr Dorrit. "The young man may 
come up," turning to the attendants as he passed on: "oh, yes, he may come 
up. Let Young John follow. I will speak to him above."
Young John followed, smiling and much gratified. Mr Dorrit's rooms were 
reached. Candles were lighted. The attendants withdrew.
"Now, sir," said Mr Dorrit, turning round upon him and seizing him by the 
collar when they were safely alone. "What do you mean by this?"
The amazement and horror depicted in the unfortunate John's face - for he 
had rather expected to be embraced next - were of that powerfully 
expressive nature, that Mr Dorrit his hand and merely glared at him.
"How dare you do this?" said Mr Dorrit. "How do you presume to come here? 
How dare you insult me?"
"I insult you, sir?" cried Young John. "Oh!"
"Yes, sir," returned Mr Dorrit. "Insult me. Your coming here is an affront, 
an impertinence, an audacity. You are not wanted here. Who sent you here? 
What - ha - the Devil do you do here?"
"I thought, sir," said Young John, with as pale and shocked a face as ever 
had been turned to Mr Dorrit's in his life - even in his College life: "I 
thought, sir, you mightn't object to have the goodness to accept a bundle -
"
"Damn your bundle, sir!" cried Mr Dorrit in irrepressible rage. "I - hum - 
don't smoke."
"I humbly beg your pardon, sir. You used to."
"Tell me that again," cried Mr Dorrit, quite beside himself, "and I'll take 
the poker to you!"
John Chivery backed to the door.
"Stop, sir!" cried Mr Dorrit. "Stop! Sit down. Confound you, sit down!"
John Chivery dropped into the chair nearest the door, and Mr Dorrit walked 
up and down the room; rapidly at first; then, more slowly. Once, he went to 
the window, and stood there with his forehead against the glass. All of a 
sudden, he turned and said:
"What else did you come for, sir?"
"Nothing else in the world, sir. Oh dear me! Only to say, sir, that I hoped 
you was well, and only to ask if Miss Amy was well?"
"What's that to you, sir?" retorted Mr Dorrit.
"It's nothing to me sir, by rights. I never thought of lessening the 
distance betwixt us, I am sure. I know it's a liberty, sir, but I never 
thought you'd have taken it ill. Upon my word and honour, sir," said Young 
John, with emotion, "in my poor way, I am too proud to have come, I assure 
you, if I had thought so."
Mr Dorrit was ashamed. He went back to the window and leaned his forehead 
against the glass for some time. When he turned, he had his handkerchief in 
his hand, and he had been wiping his eyes with it, and he looked tired and 
ill.
"Young John, I am very sorry to have been hasty with you, but - ha - some 
remembrances are not happy remembrances, and - hum - you shouldn't have 
come."
"I feel that now, sir," returned John Chivery; "but I didn't before, and 
Heaven knows I meant no harm, sir."
"No. No," said Mr Dorrit. "I am - hum - sure of that. Ha. Give me your 
hand, Young John, give me your hand."
Young John gave it; but Mr Dorrit had driven his heart out of it, and 
nothing could change his face now, from its white shocked look.
"There!" said Mr Dorrit, slowly shaking hands with him. "Sit down again, 
Young John."
"Thank you, sir - but I'd rather stand."
Mr Dorrit sat down instead. After painfully holding his head a little 
while, he turned it to his visitor, and said, with an effort to be easy:
"And how is your father, Young John? How - ha - how are they all, Young 
John?"
"Thank you, sir. They're all pretty well, sir. They're not any ways 
complaining."
"Hum. You are in your - ha - old business I see, John?" said Mr Dorrit, 
with a glance at the offending bundle he had anathematised.
"Partly, sir. I am in my," John hesitated a little, " - father's business 
likewise."
"Oh indeed!" said Mr Dorrit. "Do you - ha hum - go upon the - ha -"
"Lock, sir? Yes, sir."
"Much to do, John?"
"Yes, sir: we're pretty heavy at present. I don't know how it is, but we 
generally are pretty heavy."
"At this time of the year, Young John?"
"Mostly at all times of the year, sir. I don't know the time that makes 
much difference to us. I wish you good night, sir."
"Stay a moment, John - ha - stay a moment. Hum. Leave me the cigars, John, 
I - ha - beg."
"Certainly, sir." John put them, with a trembling hand, on the table.
"Stay a moment, Young John; stay another moment. It would be a - ha - a 
gratification to me to send a little - hum - Testimonial, by such a trusty 
messenger, to be divided among - ha hum - them - them - according to their 
wants. Would you object to take it John?"
"Not in any ways, sir. There's many of them, I'm sure, that would be the 
better for it."
"Thank you, John. I - ha - I'll write it, John."
His hand shook so that he was a long time writing it, and wrote it in a 
tremulous scrawl at last. It was a cheque for one hundred pounds. He folded 
it up, put it in Young John's hand, and pressed the hand in his.
"I hope you'll - ha - overlook - hum - what has passed, John."
"Don't speak of it, sir, on any accounts. I don't in any ways bear malice, 
I'm sure."
But, nothing while John was there could change John's face to its natural 
colour and expression, or restore John's natural manner.
"And John," said Mr Dorrit, giving his hand a final pressure, and releasing 
it, "I hope we - ha - agree that we have spoken together in confidence; and 
that you will abstain, in going out, from saying anything to any one that 
might - hum - suggest that - ha - once I -"
"Oh! I assure you, sir," returned John Chivery, "in my poor humble way, 
sir, I'm too proud and honourable to do it, sir."
Mr Dorrit was not too proud and honourable to listen at the door, that he 
might ascertain for himself whether John really went straight out, or 
lingered to have any talk with any one. There was no doubt that he went 
direct out at the door, and away down the street with a quick step. After 
remaining alone for an hour, Mr Dorrit rang for the Courier, who found him 
with his chair on the hearthrug, sitting with his back towards him and his 
face to the fire. "You can take that bundle of cigars to smoke on the 
journey, if you like," said Mr Dorrit, with a careless wave of his hand. 
"Ha - brought by - hum - little offering from - ha - son of old tenant of 
mine."
Next morning's sun saw Mr Dorrit's equipage upon the Dover road, where 
every red-jacketed postilion was the sign of a cruel house, established for 
the unmerciful plundering of travellers. The whole business of the human 
race, between London and Dover, being spoliation, Mr Dorrit was way-laid at 
Dartford, pillaged at Gravesend, rifled at Rochester, fleeced at 
Sittingbourne, and sacked at Canterbury. However, it being the Courier's 
business to get him out of the hands of the banditti, the Courier bought 
him off at every stage; and so the red-jackets went gleaming merrily along 
the spring landscape, rising and falling to a regular measure, between Mr 
Dorrit in his snug corner, and the next chalky rise in the dusty highway.
Another day's sun saw him at Calais. And having now got the Channel between 
himself and John Chivery, he began to feel safe, and to find that the 
foreign air was lighter to breathe than the air of England.
On again by the heavy French roads for Paris. Having now quite recovered 
his equanimity, Mr Dorrit, in his snug corner, fell to castle-building as 
he rode along. It was evident that he had a very large castle in hand. All 
day long he was running towers up, taking towers down, adding a wing here, 
putting on a battlement there, looking to the walls, strengthening the 
defences, giving ornamental touches to the interior, making in all respects 
a superb castle of it. His preoccupied face so clearly denoted the pursuit 
in which he was engaged, that every cripple at the post-houses, not blind, 
who shoved his little battered tin-box in at the carriage window for 
Charity in the name of Heaven, Charity in the name of our Lady, Charity in 
the name of all the Saints, knew as well what work he was at, as their 
countryman Le Brun could have known it himself, though he had made that 
English traveller the subject of a special physiognomical treatise. Arrived 
at Paris, and resting there three days, Mr Dorrit strolled much about the 
streets alone, looking in at the shop-windows, and particularly the 
jeweller's windows. Ultimately, he went into the most famous jeweller's, 
and said he wanted to buy a little gift for a lady.
It was a charming little woman to whom he said it - a sprightly little 
woman, dressed in perfect taste, who came out of a green velvet bower to 
attend upon him, from posting up some dainty little books of account which 
one could hardly suppose to be ruled for the entry of any articles more 
commercial than kisses, at a dainty little shining desk which looked in 
itself like a sweetmeat.
For example, then, said the little woman, what species of gift did Monsieur 
desire? A love gift?
Mr Dorrit smiled, and said, Eh, well! Perhaps. What did he know? It was 
always possible; the sex being so charming. Would she show him some?
Most willingly, said the little woman. Flattered and enchanted to show him 
many. But pardon! To begin with, he would have the great goodness to 
observe that there were love-gifts, and there were nuptial gifts. For 
example, these ravishing earrings and this necklace so superb to 
correspond, were what one called a love-gift. These brooches and these 
rings, of a beauty so gracious and celestial, were what one called, with 
the permission of Monsieur, nuptial gifts.
Perhaps it would be a good arrangement, Mr Dorrit hinted, smiling, to 
purchase both, and to present the love-gift first, and to finish with the 
nuptial offering?
Ah Heaven! said the little woman, laying the tips of the fingers of her two 
little hands against each other, that would be generous indeed, that would 
be a special gallantry! And without doubt the lady so crushed with gifts 
would find them irresistible.
Mr Dorrit was not sure of that. But, for example, the sprightly little 
woman was very sure of it, she said. So Mr Dorrit bought a gift of each 
sort, and paid handsomely for it. As he strolled back to his hotel 
afterwards, he carried his head high: having plainly got up his castle, 
now, to a much loftier altitude than the two square towers of Notre Dame.
Building away with all his might, but reserving the plans of his castle 
exclusively for his own eye, Mr Dorrit posted away for Marseilles. Building 
on, building on, busily, busily, from morning to night. Falling asleep, and 
leaving great blocks of building material dangling in the air; waking 
again, to resume work and get them into their places. What time the Courier 
in the rumble, smoking Young John's best cigars, left a little thread of 
thin light smoke behind - perhaps as he built a castle or two, with stray 
pieces of Mr Dorrit's money.
Not a fortified town that they passed in all their journey was as strong, 
not a Cathedral summit was as high, as Mr Dorrit's castle. Neither the 
Seine nor the Rhone sped with the swiftness of that peerless building, nor 
was the Mediterranean deeper than its foundations; nor was the distant 
landscapes on the Cornice road, nor the hills and bay of Genoa the Superb, 
more beautiful. Mr Dorrit and his matchless castle were disembarked among 
the dirty white houses and dirtier felons of Civita Vecchia, and thence 
scrambled on to Rome as they could, through the filth that festered on the 
way.


Chapter 19

The Storming Of The Castle In The Air

The sun had gone down full four hours, and it was later than most 
travellers would like it to be for finding themselves outside the walls of 
Rome, when Mr Dorrit's carriage, still on its last wearisome stage, rattled 
over the solitary Campagna. The savage herdsmen and the fierce-looking 
peasants, who had chequered the way while the light lasted, had all gone 
down with the sun, and left the wilderness blank. At some turns of the 
road, a pale flare on the horizon, like an exhalation from the ruin-sown 
land, showed that the city was yet far off; but this poor relief was rare 
and short-lived. The carriage dipped down again into a hollow of the black 
dry sea, and for a long time there was nothing visible save its petrified 
swell and the gloomy sky.
Mr Dorrit, though he had his castle-building to engage his mind, could not 
be quite easy in that desolate place. He was far more curious, in every 
swerve of the carriage, and every cry of the postilions, than he had been 
since he quitted London. The valet on the box evidently quaked. The Courier 
in the rumble was not altogether comfortable in his mind. As often as Mr 
Dorrit let down the glass and looked back at him (which was very often), he 
saw him smoking John Chivery out, it is true, but still generally standing 
up the while and looking about him, like a man who had his suspicions, and 
kept upon his guard. Then would Mr Dorrit, pulling up the glass again, 
reflect that those postilions were cut-throat looking fellows, and that he 
would have done better to have slept at Civita Vecchia, and have started 
betimes in the morning. But, for all this, he worked at his castle in the 
intervals.
And now fragments of ruinous enclosure, yawning window gap and crazy wall, 
deserted houses, leaking wells, broken water-tanks, spectral cypress-trees, 
patches of tangled vine, and the changing of the track to a long, 
irregular, disordered lane, where everything was crumbling away, from the 
unsightly buildings to the jolting road - now these objects showed that 
they were nearing Rome. And now a sudden twist and stoppage of the carriage 
inspired Mr Dorrit with the mistrust that the brigand moment was come for 
twisting him into a ditch and robbing him; until, letting down the glass 
again and looking out, he perceived himself assailed by nothing worse than 
a funeral procession, which came mechanically chaunting by, with an 
indistinct show of dirty vestments, lurid torches, swinging censers, and a 
great cross borne before a priest. He was an ugly priest by torch-light; of 
a lowering aspect, with an overhanging brow; and as his eyes met those of 
Mr Dorrit, looking bareheaded out of the carriage, his lips, moving as they 
chaunted, seemed to threaten that important traveller; likewise the action 
of his hand, which was in fact his manner of returning the traveller's 
salutation, seemed to come in aid of that menace. So thought Mr Dorrit, 
made fanciful by the weariness of building and travelling, as the priest 
drifted past him, and the procession straggled away, taking its dead along 
with it. Upon their so-different way went Mr Dorrit's company too; and 
soon, with their coach-load of luxuries from the two great capitals of 
Europe, they w ere (like the Goths reversed) beating at the gates of Rome.
Mr Dorrit was not expected by his own people that night. He had been; but 
they had given him up until tomorrow, not doubting that it was later than 
he would care, in those parts, to be out. Thus, when his equipage stopped 
at his own gate, no one but the porter appeared to receive him Was Miss 
Dorrit from home? he asked. No. She was within. Good, said Mr Dorrit to the 
assembling servants; let them keep where they were; let them help to unload 
the carriage; he would find Miss Dorrit for himself
So he went up his grand staircase, slowly, and tired, and looked into 
various chambers which were empty, until he saw a light in a small ante-
room. It was a curtained nook, like a tent, within two other rooms; and it 
looked warm and bright in colour, as he approached it through the dark 
avenue they made.
There was a draped doorway, but no door; and as he stopped here, looking in 
unseen, he felt a pang. Surely not like jealousy? For why like jealousy? 
There w ere only his daughter and his brother there: he, with his chair 
drawn to the hearth, enjoying the warmth of the evening wood fire; she 
seated at a little table, busied with some embroidery-work. Allowing for 
the great difference in the still-life of the picture, the figures were 
much the same as of old; his brother being sufficiently like himself to 
represent himself, for a moment, in the composition. So had he sat many a 
night, over a coal fire far away; so had he sat, devoted to him. Yet surely 
there was nothing to be jealous of in the old miserable poverty. Whence, 
then, the pang in his heart?
"Do you know, uncle, I think you are growing young again?"
Her uncle shook his head, and said, "Since when my dear; since when?"
"I think," returned Little Dorrit, plying her needle, "that you have been 
growing younger for weeks past. So cheerful, uncle, and so ready, and so 
interested."
"My dear child - all you."
"All me, uncle!"
"Yes, yes. You have done me a world of good. You have been so considerate 
of me, and so tender with me, and so delicate in trying to hide your 
attentions from me, that I - well, well, well! It's treasured up, my 
darling, treasured up."
"There is nothing in it but your own fresh fancy, uncle," said Little 
Dorrit, cheerfully.
"Well, well, well?" murmured the old man. "Thank God!" She paused for an 
instant in her work to look at him, and her look revived that former pain 
in her father's breast; in his poor weak breast, so full of contradictions, 
vacillations, inconsistencies, the little peevish perplexities of this 
ignorant life, mists which the morning without a night only can clear away.
"I have been freer with you, you see, my love," said the old man, "since we 
have been alone. I say, alone, for I don't count Mrs General; I don't care 
for her; she has nothing to do with me. But I know Fanny was impatient of 
me. And I don't wonder at it, or complain of it, for I am sensible that I 
must be in the way, though I try to keep out of it as well as I can. I know 
I am not fit company for your company. My brother William," said the old 
man admiringly, "is fit company for monarchs; but not so your uncle, my 
dear. Frederick Dorrit is no credit to William Dorrit, and he knows it 
quite well. Ah! Why, here's your father, Amy! My dear William, welcome 
back! My beloved brother, I am rejoiced to see you!"
(Turning his head in speaking, he had caught sight of him as he stood in 
the doorway.)
Little Dorrit with a cry of pleasure put her arms about her father's neck, 
and kissed him again and again. Her father was a little impatient, and a 
little querulous. "I am glad so find you at last, Amy," he said. "Ha. 
Really I am glad find - hum - anyone to receive me at last. I appear to 
have been - ha - so little expected, that upon my word I began - ha hum - 
to think it might be right to offer an apology for - ha - taking the 
liberty of coming back at all."
"It was so late, my dear William," said his brother, "that we had given you 
up for tonight."
"I am stronger than you, dear Frederick," returned his brother, with an 
elaboration of fraternity in which there was severity; "and I hope I can 
travel without detriment at - ha - any hour I choose."
"Surely, surely," returned the other, with a misgiving that he had given 
offence. "Surely, William."
"Thank you, Amy," pursued Mr Dorrit, as she helped him to put off his 
wrappers, "I can do it without assistance. I - ha - need not trouble you, 
Amy. Could I have a morsel of bread and a glass of wine, or - hum - would 
it cause too much inconvenience?"
"Dear father, you shall have supper in a very few minutes."
"Thank you, my love," said Mr Dorrit, with a reproachful frost upon him; "I 
- ha - am afraid I am causing inconvenience. Hum. Mrs General pretty well?"
"Mrs General complained of a headache, and of being fatigued; and so, when 
we gave you up, she went to bed, dear."
Perhaps Mr Dorrit thought that Mrs General had done well in being overcome 
by the disappointment of his not arriving. At any rate, his face relaxed, 
and he said with obvious satisfaction, "Extremely sorry to hear that Mrs 
General is not well."
During this short dialogue, his daughter had been observant of him, with 
something more than her usual interest. It would seem as though he had a 
changed or worn appearance in her eyes, and he perceived and resented it: 
for, he said with renewed peevishness, when he had divested himself of his 
travelling cloak, and had come to the fire:
"Amy, what are you looking at? What do you see in me that causes you to - 
ha - concentrate your solicitude on me in that - hum - very particular 
manner?"
"I did not know it, father; I beg your pardon. It gladdens my eyes to see 
you again; that's all."
"Don't say that's all because - ha - that's not all. You - hum - you 
think," said Mr Dorrit, with an accusatory emphasis, "that I am not looking 
well."
"I thought you looked a little tired, love."
"Then you are mistaken," said Mr Dorrit. "Ha, I am not tired. Ha, hum. I am 
very much fresher than I was, when I went away."
He was so inclined to be angry, that she said nothing more in her 
justification, but remained quietly beside him embracing his arm. As he 
stood thus; with his brother on the other side, he fell into a heavy doze, 
of not a minute's duration, and awoke with a start.
"Frederick," he said, turning on his brother: "I recommend you to go to bed 
immediately."
"No, William. I'll wait and see you sup."
"Frederick," he retorted, "I beg you to go to bed. I - ha - make it a 
personal request that you go to bed. You ought to have been in bed long 
ago. You are very feeble."
"Hah!" said the old man, who had no wish but to please him. "Well, well, 
well! I dare say I am."
"My dear Frederick," returned Mr Dorrit, with an astonishing superiority to 
his brother's failing powers, "there can be no doubt of it. It is painful 
to me to see you so weak. Ha. It distresses me. Hum. I don't find you 
looking at all well. You are not fit for this sort of thing. You should be 
more careful, you should be very careful."
"Shall I go to bed?" asked Frederick.
"Dear Frederick," said Mr Dorrit, "do, I adjure you! Good night, brother. I 
hope you will be stronger tomorrow. I am not at all pleased with your 
looks. Good night, dear fellow." After dismissing his brother in this 
gracious way, he fell into a doze again, before the old man was well out of 
the room: and he would have stumbled forward upon the logs, but for his 
daughter's restraining hold.
"Your uncle wanders very much, Amy," he said, when he was thus roused. "He 
is less - ha - coherent, and his conversation is more - hum - broken, than 
I have - ha, hum - ever know. Has he had any illness since I have been 
gone?"
"No, father."
"You - ha - see a great change in him, Amy?"
"I had not observed it, dear."
"Greatly broken," said Mr Dorrit. "Greatly broken. My poor, affectionate, 
failing Frederick! Ha. Even taking into account what he was before, he is - 
hum - sadly broken!"
His supper, which was brought to him there, and spread upon the little 
table where he had seen her working, diverted his attention. She sat at his 
side as in the days that were gone, for the first time since those days 
ended. They were alone, and she helped him to his meat and poured out his 
drink for him, as she had been used to do in the prison. All this happened 
now, for the first time since their accession to wealth. She was afraid to 
look at him much, after the offence he had taken; but she noticed two 
occasions in the course of his meal when he all of a sudden looked at her, 
and looked about him, as if the association were so strong that he needed 
assurance from his sense of sight that they were not in the old prison-
room. Both times he put his hand to his head as if he missed his old black 
cap - though it had been ignominiously given away in the Marshalsea, and 
had never got free to that hour, but still hovered about the yards on the 
head of his successor.
He took very little supper, but was a long time over it, and often reverted 
to his brother's declining state. Though he expressed the greatest pity for 
him, he was almost bitter upon him. He said that poor Frederick - ha hum - 
drivelled. There was no other word to express it: drivelled. Poor fellow! 
It was melancholy to reflect what Amy must have undergone from the 
excessive tediousness of his society - wandering and babbling on, poor dear 
estimable creature, wandering and babbling on - if it had not been for the 
relief she had had in Mrs General. Extremely sorry, he then repeated with 
his former satisfaction, that that - ha - superior woman was poorly.
Little Dorrit, in her watchful love, would have remembered the lightest 
thing he said or did that night, though she had had no subsequent reason to 
recall that night. She always remembered, that when he looked about him 
under the strong influence of the old association, he tried to keep it out 
of her mind, and perhaps out of his own too, by immediately expatiating on 
the great riches and great company that had encompassed him in his absence, 
and on the lofty position he and his family had to sustain. Nor did she 
fail to recall that there were two under-currents, side by side, pervading 
all his discourse and all his manner; one, showing her how well he had got 
on without her, and how independent he was of her; the other, in a fitful 
and unintelligible way almost complaining of her, as if it had been 
possible that she had neglected him while he was away.
His telling her of the glorious state that Mr Merdle kept, and of the Court 
that bowed before him, naturally brought him to Mrs Merdle. So naturally 
indeed, that although there was an unusual want of sequence in the greater 
part of his remarks, he passed to her at once, and asked how she was.
"She is very well. She is going away next week."
"Home?" asked Mr Dorrit.
"After a few weeks' stay upon the road."
"She will be a vast loss here," said Mr Dorrit. "A vast - ha - acquisition 
at home. To Fanny, and to - hum - the rest of the - ha - great world."
Little Dorrit thought of the competition that was to be entered upon, and 
assented very softly.
"Mrs Merdle is going to have a great farewell Assembly dear, and a dinner 
before it. She has been expressing her anxiety that you should return in 
time. She has invited both you and me to her dinner."
"She is - ha - very kind. When is the day?"
"The day after tomorrow."
"Write round in the morning, and say that I have returned, and shall - hum -
 be delighted."
"May I walk with you up the stairs to your room dear?"
"No!" he answered looking angrily round; for he was moving away, as if 
forgetful of leave-taking. "You may not, Amy. I want no help. I am your 
father, not your infirm uncle!" He checked himself, as abruptly as he had 
broken into this reply, and said, "You have not kissed me, Amy. Good night, 
my dear! We must marry - ha - we must marry you, now." With that he went, 
more slowly and more tired, up the staircase to his rooms, and, almost as 
soon as he got there, dismissed his valet. His next care was to look about 
him for his Paris purchases, and, after opening their cases and carefully 
surveying them, to put them away under lock and key. After that, what with 
dozing and what with castle-building, he lost himself for a long time, so 
that there was a touch of morning on the eastward rim of the desolate 
Campagna when he crept to bed.
Mrs General sent up her compliments in good time next day, and hoped he had 
rested well after his fatiguing journey. He sent down his compliments, and 
begged to inform Mrs General that he had rested very well indeed, and was 
in high condition. Nevertheless, he did not come forth from his own rooms 
until late in the afternoon; and, although he then caused himself to be 
magnificently arrayed for a drive with Mrs General and his daughter, his 
appearance was scarcely up to his description of himself.
As the family had no visitors that day, its four members dined alone 
together. He conducted Mrs General to the seat at his right hand, with 
immense ceremony; and Little Dorrit could not but notice as she followed 
with her uncle, both that he was again elaborately dressed, and that his 
manner towards Mrs General was very particular. The perfect formation of 
that accomplished lady's surface rendered it difficult to displace an atom 
of its genteel glaze, but Little Dorrit thought she descried a slight thaw 
of triumph in a corner of her frosty eye.
Notwithstanding what may be called in these pages the Pruney and Prismatic 
nature of the family banquet, Mr Dorrit several times fell asleep while it 
was in progress. His fits of dozing were as sudden as they had been 
overnight, and were as short and profound. When the first of these 
slumberings seized him, Mrs General looked almost amazed: but, on each 
recurrence of the symptoms, she told her polite beads, Papa, Potatoes, 
Poultry, Prunes, and Prism; and, by dint of going through that infallible 
performance very slowly, appeared to finish her rosary at about the same 
time as Mr Dorrit started from his sleep.
He was again painfully aware of a somnolent tendency in Frederick (which 
had no existence out of his own imagination), and after dinner, when 
Frederick had withdrawn, privately apologised to Mrs General for the poor 
man. "The most estimable and affectionate of brothers," he said, "but - ha, 
hum - broken up altogether. Unhappily, declining fast."
"Mr Frederick, sir," quoth Mrs General, "is habitually absent and drooping, 
but let us hope it is not so bad as that."
Mr Dorrit, however, was determined not to let him off.
"Fast declining, madam. A wreck. A ruin. Mouldering away before our eyes. 
Hum. Good Frederick!"
"You left Mrs Sparkler quite well and happy, I trust?" said Mrs General, 
after heaving a cool sigh for Frederick.
"Surrounded," replied Mr Dorrit, "by - ha - all that can charm the taste, 
and - hum - elevate the mind. Happy, my dear madam, in a - hum - husband."
Mrs General was a little fluttered; seeming delicately to put the word away 
with her gloves, as if there were no knowing what it might lead to.
"Fanny," Mr Dorrit continued. "Fanny, Mrs General, has high qualities. Ha. 
Ambition - hum - purpose, consciousness of - ha - position, determination 
to support that position - ha, hum - grace, beauty, and native nobility."
"No doubt," said Mrs General (with a little extra stiffness).
"Combined with these qualities, madam," said Mr Dorrit, "Fanny has - ha - 
manifested one blemish which has made me - hum - made me uneasy, and - ha - 
I must add angry; but which I trust may now be considered at an end, even 
as to herself, and which is undoubtedly at an end as to - ha - others."
"To what, Mr Dorrit," returned Mrs General, with her gloves again somewhat 
excited, "can you allude? I am at a loss to -"
"Do not say that, my dear madam," interrupted Mr Dorrit.
Mrs General's voice, as it died away, pronounced the words, "at a loss to 
imagine."
After which, Mr Dorrit was seized with a doze for about a minute, out of 
which he sprang with spasmodic nimbleness.
"I refer, Mrs General, to that - ha - strong spirit of opposition, or - hum 
- I might say - ha - jealousy in Fanny, which has occasionally risen 
against the - ha - sense I entertain of - hum - the claims of - ha - the 
lady with whom I have now the honour of communing."
"Mr Dorrit," returned Mrs General, "is ever but too obliging, ever but too 
appreciative. If there have been moments when I have imagined that Miss 
Dorrit has indeed resented she favourable opinion Mr Dorrit has formed of 
my services, I have found, in that only too high opinion, my consolation 
and recompense."
"Opinion of your services, madam?" said Mr Dorrit.
"Of," Mrs General repeated, in an elegantly impressive manner, "my 
services."
"Of your services alone, dear madam?" said Mr Dorrit.
"I presume," retorted Mrs General, in her former impressive manner, "of my 
services alone. For, to what else," said Mrs General, with a slightly 
interrogative action of her gloves, "could I impute -?"
"To - ha - yourself, Mrs General. Ha, hum. To yourself and your merits," 
was Mr Dorrit's rejoinder.
"Mr Dorrit will pardon me," said Mrs General, "if I remark that this is not 
a time or place for the pursuit of the present conversation. Mr Dorrit will 
excuse me if I remind him that Miss Dorrit is in the adjoining room, and is 
visible to myself while I utter her name. Mr Dorrit will forgive me if I 
observe that I am agitated, and that I find there are moments when 
weaknesses I supposed myself to have subdued, return with redoubled power. 
Mr Dorrit will allow me to withdraw."
"Hum. Perhaps we may resume this - ha - interesting conversation," said Mr 
Dorrit, "at another time; unless it should be, what I hope it is not - hum -
 in any way disagreeable to - ha - Mrs General."
"Mr Dorrit," said Mrs General, casting down her eyes as she rose with a 
bend, "must ever claim my homage and obedience."
Mrs General then took herself off in a stately way, and not with that 
amount of trepidation upon her which might have been expected in a less 
remarkable woman. Mr Dorrit, who had conducted his part of the dialogue 
with a certain majestic and admiring condescension - much as some people 
may be seen to conduct themselves in Church, and to perform their part in 
the Service - appeared, on the whole, very well satisfied with himself and 
with Mrs General too. On the return of that lady to tea, she had touched 
herself up with a little powder and pomatum, and was not without moral 
enhancement likewise; the latter showing itself in much sweet patronage of 
manner towards Miss Dorrit, and in an air of as tender interest in Mr 
Dorrit as was consistent with rigid propriety. At the close of the evening 
when she rose to retire, Mr Dorrit took her by the hand, as if he were 
going to lead her out into the Piazza of the People to walk a minuet by 
moonlight, and with great solemnity conducted her to the room door, where 
he raised her knuckles to his lips. Having parted from her with what may be 
conjectured to have been a rather bony kiss, of a cosmetic flavour, he gave 
his daughter his blessing, graciously. And having thus hinted that there 
was something remarkable in the wind, he again went to bed.
He remained in seclusion of his own chamber next morning; but, early in the 
afternoon, sent down his best compliments to Mrs General, by Mr Tinkler, 
and begged she would accompany Miss Dorrit on an airing without him. His 
daughter was dressed for Mrs Merdle's dinner before he appeared. He then 
presented himself, in a refulgent condition as to his attire, but looking 
indefinably shrunken and old. However, as he was plainly determined to be 
angry with her if she so much as asked him how he was, she only ventured to 
kiss his cheek, before accompanying him to Mrs Merdle's with an anxious 
heart.
The distance that they had to go was very short, but he was at his building 
work again before the carriage had half traversed it. Mrs Merdle received 
him with great distinction; the bosom was in admirable preservation, and on 
the best terms with itself; the dinner was very choice; and the company was 
very select.
It was principally English; saving that it comprised the usual French Count 
and the usual Italian Marchese - decorative social milestones, always to be 
found in certain places, and varying very little in appearance. The table 
was long, and the dinner was long; and Little Dorrit, overshadowed by a 
large pair of black whiskers and a large white cravat, lost sight of her 
father altogether, until a servant put a scrap of paper in her hand, with a 
whispered request from Mrs Merdle that she would read it directly. Mrs 
Merdle had written on it in pencil, "Pray come and speak to Mr Dorrit, I 
doubt if he is well."
She was hurrying to him, unobserved, when he got up out of his chair, and 
leaning over the table called to her, supposing her to be still in her 
place:
"Amy, Amy, my child!"
The action was so unusual, to say nothing of his strange eager appearance 
and strange eager voice, that it instantaneously caused a profound silence.
"Amy, my dear," he repeated. "Will you go and see if Bob is on the lock!"
She was at his side, and touching him, but he still perversely supposed her 
to be in her seat, and called out, still leaning over the table, "Amy, Amy, 
I don't feel quite myself. Ha. I don't know what's the matter with me. I 
particularly wish to see Bob. Ha. Of all the turnkeys, he's as much my 
friend as yours. See if Bob is in the lodge, and beg him to come to me."
All the guests were now in consternation, and everybody rose.
"Dear father, I am not there; I am here, by you."
"Oh! You are here, Amy! Good. Hum. Good. Ha. Call Bob. If he has been 
relieved, and is not on the lock, tell Mrs Bangham to go and fetch him."
She was gently trying to get him away; but he resisted and would not go.
"I tell you, child," he said petulantly, "I can't be got up the narrow 
stairs without Bob. Ha. Send for Bob. Hum. Send for Bob - best of all the 
turnkeys - send for Bob!"
He looked confusedly about him, and, becoming conscious of the number of 
faces by which he was surrounded, addressed them:
"Ladies and gentlemen, the duty - ha - devolves upon me of - hum - 
welcoming you to the Marshalsea. Welcome to the Marshalsea! The space is - 
ha - limited - limited - the parade might be wider; but you will find it 
apparently grow larger after a time - a time, ladies and gentlemen - and 
the air is, all things considered, very good. It blows over the - ha - 
Surrey hills. Blows over the Surrey hills. This is the Snuggery. Hum. 
Supported by a small subscription of the - ha - Collegiate body. In return 
for which - hot water - general kitchen - and little domestic advantages. 
Those who are habituated to the - ha - Marshalsea, are pleased to call me 
its Father. I am accustomed to be complimented by strangers as the - ha - 
Father of the Marshalsea. Certainly, if years of residence may establish a 
claim to so - ha - honourable a title, I may accept the - hum - conferred 
distinction. My child, ladies and gentlemen. My daughter. Born here!"
She was not ashamed of it, or ashamed of him. She was pale and frightened; 
but she had no other care than to soothe him and get him away, for his own 
dear sake. She was between him and the wondering faces, turned round upon 
his breast with her own face raised to his. He held her clasped in his left 
arm, and between whiles her low voice was heard tenderly imploring him to 
go away with her.
"Born here," he repeated, shedding tears. "Bred here. Ladies and gentlemen, 
my daughter. Child of an unfortunate father, but - ha - always a gentleman. 
Poor, no doubt, but - hum - proud. Always proud. It has become a - hum - 
not infrequent custom for my - ha - personal admirers - personal admirers 
solely - to be pleased to express their desire to acknowledge my semi-
official position here, by offering - ha - little tributes, which usually 
take the form of - ha - Testimonials - pecuniary Testimonials. In the 
acceptance of those - ha - voluntary recognitions of my humble endeavours 
to - hum - to uphold a Tone here - a Tone - I beg it to be understood that 
I do not consider myself compromised. Ha. Not compromised. Ha. Not a 
beggar. No; I repudiate the title! At the same time far be it from me to - 
hum - to put upon the fine feelings by which my partial friends are 
actuated, the slight of scrupling to admit that those offerings are - hum - 
highly acceptable. On the contrary, they are most acceptable. In my child's 
name, if not in my own, I make the admission in the fullest manner, at the 
same time reserving - ha - shall I say my personal dignity? Ladies and 
gentlemen, God bless you all!"
By this time, the exceeding mortification undergone by the Bosom had 
occasioned the withdrawal of the greater part of the company into other 
rooms. The few who had lingered thus long followed the rest, and Little 
Dorrit and her father were left to the servants and themselves. Dearest and 
most precious to her, he would come with her now, would he not? He replied 
to her fervid entreaties, that he would never be able to get up the narrow 
stairs without Bob, where was Bob, would nobody fetch Bob! Under pretence 
of looking for Bob, she got him out against the stream of gay company now 
pouring in for the evening assembly, and got him into a coach that had just 
set down its load, and got him home.
The broad stairs of his Roman palace were contracted in his failing sight 
to the narrow stairs of his London prison; and he would suffer no one but 
her to touch him, his brother excepted. They got him up to his room without 
help, and laid him down on his bed. And from that hour his poor maimed 
spirit, only remembering the place where it had broken its wings, cancelled 
the dream through which it had since groped, and knew of nothing beyond the 
Marshalsea. When he heard footsteps in the street, he took them for the old 
weary tread in the yards. When the hour came for locking up, he supposed 
all strangers to be excluded for the night. When the time for opening came 
again, he was so anxious to see Bob that they were fain to patch up a 
narrative how that Bob - many a year dead then, gentle turnkey - had taken 
cold, but hoped to be out tomorrow, or the next day, or the next at 
furthest.
He fell away into a weakness so extreme that he could not raise his hand. 
But, he still protected his brother according to his long usage; and would 
say with some complacency fifty times a day, when he saw him standing by 
his bed, "My good Frederick, sit down. You are very feeble indeed."
They tried him with Mrs General, but he had not the faintest knowledge of 
her. Some injurious suspicion lodged itself in his brain, that she wanted 
to supplant Mrs Bangham, and that she was given to drinking. He charged her 
with it in no measured terms; and was so urgent with his daughter to go 
round to the Marshal and entreat him to turn her out, that she was never 
reproduced after the first failure.
Saving that he once asked "if Tip had gone outside?" the remembrance of his 
two children not present, seemed to have departed from him. But, the child 
who had done so much for him and had been so poorly repaid, was never out 
of his mind. Not that he spared her, or was fearful of her being spent by 
watching and fatigue; he was not more troubled on that score than he had 
usually been. No, he loved her in his old way. They were in the jail again, 
and she tended him, and he had constant need of her, and could not turn 
without her; and he even told her, sometimes, that he was content to have 
undergone a great deal for her sake. As to her, she bent over his bed with 
her quiet face against his, and would have laid down her own life to 
restore him.
When he had been sinking in this painless way for two or three days, she 
observed him to be troubled by the ticking of his watch - a pompous gold 
watch that made as great a to-do about its going, as if nothing else went 
but itself and Time. She suffered it to run down; but he was still uneasy, 
and showed that was not what he wanted. At length he roused himself to 
explain that he wanted money to be raised on this watch. He was quite 
pleased when she pretended to take it away for the purpose, and afterwards 
had a relish for his little tastes of wine and jelly, that he had not had 
before.
He soon made it plain that this was so; for, in another day or two he sent 
off his sleeve-buttons and finger-rings. He had an amazing satisfaction in 
entrusting her with these errands, and appeared to consider it equivalent 
to making the most methodical and provident arrangements. After his 
trinkets, or such of them as he had been able to see about him, were gone, 
his clothes engaged his attention; and it is as likely as not that he was 
kept alive for some days by the satisfaction of sending them, piece by 
piece, to an imaginary pawnbroker's.
Thus for ten days Little Dorrit bent over his pillow, laying her cheek 
against his. Sometimes she was so worn out that for a few minutes they 
would slumber together. Then she would awake; to recollect with fast-
flowing silent tears what it was that touched her face, and to see, 
stealing over the cherished face upon the pillow, a deeper shadow than the 
shadow of the Marshalsea Wall.
Quietly, quietly, all the lines of the plan of the great Castle melted, one 
after another. Quietly, quietly, the ruled and cross-ruled countenance on 
which they were traced, became fair and blank. Quietly, quietly, the 
reflected marks of the prison bars and of the zig-zag iron on the wall-top, 
faded away. Quietly, quietly, the face subsided into a far younger likeness 
of her own than she had ever seen under the grey hair, and sank to rest.
At first her uncle was stark distracted. "O my brother. O William, William! 
You to go before me; you to go alone; you to go, and I to remain! You, so 
far superior, so distinguished, so noble; I, a poor useless creature fit 
for nothing, and whom no one would have missed!"
It did her, for the time, the good of having him to think of, and to 
succour. "Uncle, dear Uncle, spare yourself, spare me!"
The old man was not deaf to the last words. When he did begin to restrain 
himself, it was that he might spare her. He had no care for himself; but, 
with all the remaining power of the honest heart, stunned so long and now 
awaking to be broken, he honoured and blessed her.
"O God," he cried, before they left the room, with his wrinkled hands 
clasped over her, "Thou seest this daughter of my dear dead brother! All 
that I have looked upon, with my half-blind and sinful eyes, Thou hast 
discerned clearly, brightly. Not a hair of her head shall be harmed before 
Thee. Thou wilt uphold her here, to her last hour. And I know Thou wilt 
reward her hereafter!"
They remained in a dim room near, until it was almost midnight, quiet and 
sad together. At times his grief would seek relief, in a burst like that in 
which it had found its earliest expression; but, besides that his little 
strength would soon have been unequal to such strains, he never failed to 
recall her words, and to reproach himself and calm himself. The only 
utterance with which he indulged his sorrow, was the frequent exclamation 
that his brother was gone, alone; that they had been together in the outset 
of their lives, that they had fallen into misfortune together, that they 
had kept together through their many years of poverty, that they had 
remained together to that day; and that his brother was gone alone, alone! 
They parted, heavy, and sorrowful. She would not consent to leave him 
anywhere but in his own room, and she saw him lie down in his clothes upon 
his bed, and covered him with her own hands. Then she sank upon her own 
bed, and fell into a deep sleep: the sleep of exhaustion and rest, though 
not of complete release from a pervading consciousness of affliction. 
Sleep, good Little Dorrit. Sleep through the night! 
It was a moonlight night; but the moon rose late, being long past the full. 
When it was high in the peaceful firmament, it shone through half-closed 
lattice blinds into the solemn room where the stumblings and wanderings of 
a life had so lately ended. Two quiet figures were within the room; two 
figures, equally still and impassive, equally removed by an untraversable 
distance from the teeming earth and all that it contains, though soon to 
lie in it.
One figure reposed upon the bed. The other, kneeling on the floor, drooped 
over it; the arms easily and peacefully resting on the coverlet; the face 
bowed down, so that the lips touched the hand over which with its last 
breath it had bent. The two brothers were before their Father; far beyond 
the twilight judgments of this world; high above its mists and obscurities.


Chapter 20

Introduces The Next

The passengers were landing from the packet on the pier at Calais. A low-
lying place and a low-spirited place Calais was, with the tide ebbing out 
towards low-water mark. There had been no more water on the bar than had 
sufficed to float the packet in; and now the bar itself, with a shallow 
break of sea over it, looked like a lazy marine monster just risen to the 
surface, whose form was indistinctly shown as it lay asleep. The meagre 
lighthouse all in white, haunting the sea-board, as if it were the ghost of 
an edifice that had once had colour and rotundity, dripped melancholy tears 
after its late buffeting by the waves. The long rows of gaunt black piles, 
slimy and wet and weather-worn, with funeral garlands of seaweed twisted 
about them by the late tide, might have represented an unsightly marine 
cemetery. Every wave-dashed, storm-beaten object was so low and so little, 
under the broad grey sky, in the noise of the wind and sea, and before the 
curling lines of surf, making at it ferociously, that the wonder was there 
was any Calais left, and that its low gates and low wall and low roofs and 
low ditches and low sand-hills and low ramparts and flat streets, had not 
yielded long ago to the undermining and besieging sea, like the 
fortifications children make on the seashore.
After slipping among oozy piles and planks, stumbling up wet steps and 
encountering many salt difficulties, the passengers entered on their 
comfortless peregrination along the pier; where all the French vagabonds 
and English outlaws in the town (half the population) attended to prevent 
their recovery from bewilderment. After being minutely inspected by all the 
English, and claimed and reclaimed and counterclaimed as prizes by all the 
French? in a hand-to-hand scuffle three quarters of a mile long, they were 
at last free to enter the streets, and to make off in their various 
directions, hotly pursued.
Clennam, harassed by more anxieties than one, was among this devoted band. 
Having rescued the most defenceless of his compatriots from situations of 
great extremity, he now went his way alone, or as nearly alone as he could 
be, With a native gentleman in a suit of grease and a cap of the same 
material, giving chase at a distance of some fifty yards, and continually 
calling after him, "Hi! Ice-say! You! Seer! Ice-say! Nice Oatel!"
Even this hospitable person, however, was left behind at last, and Clennam 
pursued his way unmolested. There was a tranquil air in the town after the 
turbulence of the Channel and the beach, and its dulness in that comparison 
was agreeable. He met new groups of his countrymen, who had all a 
straggling air of having at one time overblown themselves, like certain 
uncomfortable kinds of flowers, and of being now mere weeds. They had all 
an air, too, of lounging out a limited round, day after day, which strongly 
reminded him of the Marshalsea. But, taking no further note of them than 
was sufficient to give birth to the reflection, he sought out a certain 
street and number which he kept in his mind.
"So Pancks said," he murmured to himself, as he stopped before a dull house 
answering to the address. "I suppose his information to be correct, and his 
discovery, among Mr Casby's loose papers, indisputable; but, without it, I 
should hardly have supposed this to be a likely place."
A dead sort of house, with a dead wall over the way and a dead gateway at 
the side, where a pendant bell-handle produced two dead tinkles, and a 
knocker produced a dead, flat, surface-tapping, that seemed not to have 
depth enough in it to penetrate even the cracked door. However, the door 
jarred open on a dead sort of spring; and he closed it behind him as he 
entered a dull yard, soon brought to a close at the back by another dead 
wall, where an attempt had been made to train some creeping shrubs, which 
were dead; and to make a little fountain in a grotto, which was dry; and to 
decorate that with a little statue, which was gone.
The entry to the house was on the left, and it was garnished as the outer 
gateway was, with two printed bills in French and English, announcing 
Furnished Apartments to let, with immediate possession. A strong cheerful 
peasant woman, all stocking, petticoat, white cap, and earring, stood here 
in a dark doorway, and said with a pleasant show of teeth, "Ice-say! Seer! 
Who?"
"Clennam, replying in French, said the English lady: he wished to see the 
English lady. "Enter then, and ascend, if you please," returned the peasant 
woman, in French likewise. He did both, and followed her up a dark 
staircase to a back room on the first floor. Hence, there was a gloomy view 
of the yard that was dull, and of the shrubs that were dead, and of the 
fountain that was dry, and of the pedestal of the statue that was gone.
"Monsieur Blandois," said Clennam.
"With pleasure, Monsieur."
Thereupon the woman withdrew, and left him to look at the room. It was the 
pattern of room always to be found in such a house Cool, dull, and dark. 
Waxed floor very slippery. A room not large enough to skate in; not adapted 
to the easy pursuit of any other occupation. Red and white curtained 
windows, little straw mat, little round table with a tumultuous assemblage 
of legs underneath, clumsy rush-buttoned chairs, two great red velvet 
armchairs affording plenty of space to be uncomfortable in, bureau, chimney-
glass in several pieces pretending to be in one piece, pair of gaudy vases 
of very artificial flowers; between them a Greek warrior with his helmet 
off, sacrificing a clock to the Genius of France.
After some pause, a door of communication with another room was opened, and 
a lady entered. She manifested great surprise on seeing Clennam, and her 
glance went round the room in search of some one else.
"Pardon me, Miss Wade. I am alone."
"It was not your name that was brought to me."
"No; I know that. Excuse me. I have already had experience that my name 
does not predispose you to an interview; and I ventured to mention the name 
of one I am in search of.
"Pray," she returned, motioning him to a chair so coldly that he remained 
standing, "what name was it that you gave?"
"I mentioned the name of Blandois."
"Blandois?"
"A name you are acquainted with."
"It is strange," she said, frowning, "that you should still press an 
undesired interest in me and my acquaintances, in me and my affairs, Mr 
Clennam. I don't know what you mean."
"Pardon me. You know the name?"
"What can you have to do with the name? What can I have to do with the 
name? What can you have to do with my knowing or not knowing any name? I 
know many names and I have forgotten many more. This may be in one class, 
or it may be in the other, or I may never have heard it. I am acquainted 
with no reason for examining myself, or for being examined, about it."
"If you will allow me," said Clennam, "I will tell you my reason for 
pressing the subject. I admit that I do press it, and I must beg you to 
forgive me if I do so, very earnestly. The reason is all mine. I do not 
insinuate that it is in any way yours."
"Well, sir," she returned, repeating a little less haughtily than before, 
her former invitation to him to be seated: to which he now deferred, as she 
seated herself. "I am at least glad to know that this is not another 
bondswoman of some friend of yours, who is bereft of free choice, and whom 
I have spirited away. I will hear your reason, if you please."
"First, to identify the person of whom we speak," said Clennam, "let me 
observe that it is the person you met in London some time back. You will 
remember meeting him near the river - in the Adelphi?"
"You mix yourself most unaccountably with my business," she replied, 
looking full at him with stern displeasure. "How do you know that?"
"I entreat you not to take it ill. By mere accident."
"What accident?"
"Solely, the accident of coming upon you in the street and seeing the 
meeting."
"Do you speak of yourself, or of some one else?"
"Of myself. I saw it."
"To be sure it was in the open street," she observed, after a few moments 
of less and less angry reflection. "Fifty people might have seen it. It 
would have signified nothing if they had."
"Nor do I make my having seen it of any moment, nor (otherwise than as an 
explanation of my coming here) do I connect my visit with it, or the favour 
that I have to ask."
"Oh! You have to ask a favour! It occurred to me," and the handsome face 
looked bitterly at him, "that your manner was softened, Mr Clennam."
He was content to protest against this by a slight action without 
contesting it in words. He then referred to Blandois' disappearance, of 
which it was probable she had heard? No. However probable it was to him, 
she had heard of no such thing. Let him look round him (she said) and judge 
for himself what general intelligence was likely to reach the ears of a 
woman who had been shut up there while it was rife, devouring her own 
heart. When she had uttered this denial, which he believed to be true, she 
asked him what he meant by disappearance? That led to his narrating the 
circumstances in detail, and expressing something of his anxiety to 
discover what had really become of the man, and to repel the dark 
suspicions that clouded about his mother's house. She heard him with 
evident surprise and with more marks of suppressed interest than he had 
before seen in her; still they did not overcome her distant, proud, and 
self-secluded manner. When he had finished, she said nothing but these 
words:
"You have not yet told me, sir, what I have to do with it, or what the 
favour is. Will you be so good as come to that?"
"I assume," said Arthur, persevering in his endeavour to soften her 
scornful demeanour, "that being in communication - may I say, confidential 
communication? - with this person - "
"You may say, of course, whatever you like," she remarked; "but I do not 
subscribe to your assumptions, Mr Clennam, or to any one's."
" - that being, at least, in personal communication with him," said 
Clennam, changing the form of his position, in the hope of making it 
unobjectionable, "you can tell me something of his antecedents, pursuits, 
habits, usual place of residence. Can give me some little clue by which to 
seek him out in the likeliest manner, and either produce him, or establish 
what has become of him. This is the favour I ask, and I ask it in a 
distress of mind for which I hope you will feel some consideration. If you 
should have any reason for imposing conditions upon me, I will respect it 
without asking what it is."
"You chanced to see me in the street with the man," she observed, after 
being, to his mortification, evidently more occupied with her own 
reflections on the matter than with his appeal. "Then you knew the man 
before?"
"Not before; afterwards. I never saw him before, but I saw him again on 
this very night of his disappearance. In my mother's room, in fact. I left 
him there. You will read in this paper all that is known of him."
He handed her one of the printed bills, which she read with a steady and 
attentive face.
"This is more than I knew of him," she said, giving it back.
Clennam's looks expressed his heavy disappointment, perhaps his 
incredulity; for, she added in the same unsympathetic tone: "You don't 
believe it. Still, it is so. As to personal communication; it seems that 
there was personal communication between him and your mother. And yet you 
say you believe her declaration that she knows no more of him!"
A sufficiently expressive hint of suspicion was conveyed in these words, 
and in the smile by which they were accompanied, to bring the blood into 
Clennam's cheeks.
"Come, sir," she said, with a cruel pleasure in repeating the stab, "I will 
be as open with you as you can desire. I will confess that if I cared for 
my credit (which I do not), or had a good name to preserve (which I have 
not, for I am utterly indifferent to its being considered good or bad), I 
should regard myself as heavily compromised by having had anything to do 
with this fellow. Yet he never passed in at my door - never sat in colloquy 
with me until midnight."
She took her revenge for her old grudge in thus turning his subject against 
him. Hers was not the nature to spare him, and she had no compunction.
"That he is a low, mercenary wretch; that I first saw him prowling about 
Italy (where I was, not long ago), and that I hired him there, as the 
suitable instrument of a purpose I happened to have; I have no objection to 
tell you. In short, it was worth my while, for my own pleasure - the 
gratification of a strong feeling - to pay a spy who would fetch and carry 
for money. I paid this creature. And I dare say that if I had wanted to 
make such a bargain, and if I could have paid him enough, and if he could 
have done it in the dark, free from all risk, he would have taken any life 
with as little scruple as he took my money. That, at least, is my opinion 
of him; and I see it is not very far removed from yours. Your mother's 
opinion of him, I am to assume (following your example of assuming this and 
that), was vastly different."
"My mother, let me remind you," said Clennam, "was first brought into 
communication with him in the unlucky course of business."
"It appears to have been an unlucky course of business that last brought 
her into communication with him," returned Miss Wade; "and business hours 
on that occasion were late."
"You imply," said Arthur, smarting under these cool-handed thrusts, of 
which he had deeply felt the force already, "that there was something - "
"Mr Clennam," she composedly interrupted, "recollect that I do not speak by 
implication about the man. He is, I say again without disguise, a low 
mercenary wretch. I suppose such a creature goes where there is occasion 
for him. If I had not had occasion for him, you would not have seen him and 
me together."
Wrung by her persistence in keeping that dark side of the case before him, 
of which there was a half-hidden shadow in his own breast, Clennam was 
silent.
"I have spoken of him as still living," she added, "but he may have been 
put out of the way for anything I know. For anything I care, also. I have 
no further occasion for him." With a heavy sigh and a despondent air, 
Arthur Clennam slowly rose, She did not rise also, but said, having looked 
at him in the meanwhile with a fixed look of suspicion, and lips angrily 
compressed.
"He was the chosen associate of your dear friend, Mr Gowan, was he not? Why 
don't you ask your dear friend to help you?"
The denial that he was a dear friend rose to Arthur's lips; but, he 
repressed it, remembering his old struggles and resolutions, and said:
"Further than that he has never seen Blandois since Blandois set out for 
England, Mr Gowan knows nothing additional about him. He was a chance 
acquaintance, made abroad."
"A chance acquaintance, made abroad!" she repeated. "Yes. Your dear friend 
has need to divert himself with all the acquaintances he can make, seeing 
what a wife he has. I hate his wife, sir."
The anger with which she said it, the more remarkable for being so much 
under her restraint, fixed Clennam's attention, and kept him on the spot. 
It flashed out of her dark eyes as they regarded him, quivered in her 
nostrils, and fired the very breath she exhaled; but her face was otherwise 
composed into a disdainful serenity, and her attitude was as calmly and 
haughtily graceful as if she had been in a mood of complete indifference.
"All I will say is, Miss Wade," he remarked, "that you can have received no 
provocation to a feeling in which I believe you have no sharer."
"You may ask your dear friend, if you choose," she returned, "for his 
opinion upon that subject."
"I am scarcely on those intimate terms with my dear friend," said Arthur, 
in spite of his resolutions, "that would render my approaching the subject 
very probable, Miss Wade."
"I hate him," she returned. "Worse than his wife, because I was once dupe 
enough, and false enough to myself, almost to love him. You have seen me, 
sir, only on common-place occasions, when I dare say you have thought me a 
common-place woman, a little more self-willed than the generality. You 
don't know what I mean by hating, if you know me no better than that; you 
can't know, without knowing with what care I have studied myself and people 
about me. For this reason I have for some time inclined to tell you what my 
life has been - not to propitiate your opinion, for I set no value on it; 
but, that you may comprehend, when you think of your dear friend and his 
dear wife, what I mean by hating. Shall I give you something I have written 
and put by for your perusal, or shall I hold my hand?"
Arthur begged her to give it to him. She went to the bureau, unlocked it, 
and took from an inner drawer a few folded sheets of paper. Without any 
conciliation of him, scarcely addressing him, rather speaking as if she 
were speaking to her own looking-glass for the justification of her own 
stubbornness, she said, as she gave them to him: "Now you may know what I 
mean by hating! No more of that. Sir, whether you find me temporarily and 
cheaply lodging in an empty London house or in a Calais apartment, you find 
Harriet with me. You may like to see her before you leave. Harriet, come 
in!" She called Harriet again. The second call produced Harriet, once 
Tattycoram.
"Here is Mr Clennam," said Miss Wade; "not come for you; he has given you 
up. - I suppose you have, by this time?"
"Having no authority or influence - yes," assented Clennam.
"Not come in search of you, you see; but still seeking some one. He wants 
that Blandois man."
"With whom I saw you in the Strand in London," hinted Arthur.
"If you know anything of him, Harriet, except that he came from Venice - 
which we all know - tell it to Mr Clennam freely."
"I know nothing more about him," said the girl.
"Are you satisfied?" Miss Wade inquired of Arthur.
He had no reason to disbelieve them; the girl's manner being so natural as 
to be almost convincing, if he had had any previous doubts. He replied, "I 
must seek for intelligence elsewhere."
He was not going in the same breath; but, he had risen before the girl 
entered, and she evidently thought he was. She looked quickly at him, and 
said:
"Are they well, sir?'
"Who?"
She stopped herself in saying what would have been "all of them;" glanced 
at Miss Wade; and said "Mr and Mrs Meagles."
"They were, when I last heard of them. They are not at home. By the way, 
let me ask you. Is it true that you were seen there?"
"Where? Where does any one say I was seen?" returned the girl, sullenly 
casting down her eyes.
"Looking in at the garden gate of the cottage!"
"No," said Miss Wade. "She has never been near it."
"You are wrong, then," said the girl. "I went down there, the last time we 
were in London. I went one afternoon when you left me alone. And I did look 
in.'
"You poor-spirited girl," returned Miss Wade with infinite contempt; "does 
all our companionship, do all our conversations, do all your old 
complainings, tell for so little as that?"
"There was no harm in looking in at the gate for an instant," said the 
girl. "I saw by the windows that the family were not there."
"Why should you go near the place?"
"Because I wanted to see it. Because I felt that I should like to look at 
it again."
As each of the two handsome faces looked at the other, Clennam felt how 
each of the two natures must be constantly tearing the other to pieces.
"Oh!" said Miss Wade, coldly subduing and removing her glance; "if you had 
any desire to see the place where you led the life from which I rescued you 
because you had found out what it was, that is another thing. But, is that 
your truth to me? Is that your fidelity to me? Is that the common cause I 
make with you? You are not worth the confidence I have placed in you. You 
are not worth the favour I have shown you. You are no higher than a 
spaniel, and had better go back to the people who did worse than whip you."
"If you speak so of them with any one else by to hear, you'll provoke me to 
take their part," said the girl.
"Go back to them," Miss Wade retorted. "Go back to them."
"You know very well," retorted Harriet in her turn, "that I won't go back 
to them. You know very well that I have thrown them off, and never can, 
never shall, never will, go back to them. Let them alone, then, Miss Wade."
"You prefer their plenty to your less fat living here," she rejoined. "You 
exalt them and slight me. What else should I have expected? I ought to have 
known it."
"It's not so," said the girl, flushing high, "and you don't say what you 
mean. I know what you mean. You are reproaching me, under-handed, with 
having nobody but you to look to. And because I have nobody but you to look 
to, you think you are to make me do, or not do, everything you please, and 
are to put any affront upon me. You are as bad as they were, every bit. But 
I will not be quite tamed and made submissive. I will say again that I went 
to look at the house, because I had often thought that I should like to see 
it once more. I will ask again how they are, because I once liked them, and 
at times thought they were kind to me."
Hereupon Clennam said that he was sure they would still receive her kindly, 
if she should ever desire to return.
"Never!" said the girl passionately. "I shall never do that. Nobody knows 
that better than Miss Wade, though she taunts me because she has made me 
her dependant. And I know I am so; and I know she is overjoyed when she can 
bring it to my mind."
"A good pretence!" said Miss Wade, with no less anger, haughtiness, and 
bitterness; but too threadbare to cover what I plainly see in this. My 
poverty will not bear competition with their money. Better go back at once, 
better go back at once, and have done with it!"
Arthur Clennam looked at them, standing a little distance asunder in the 
dull confined room, each proudly cherishing her own anger; each, with a 
fixed determination, torturing her own breast, and torturing the other's. 
He said a word or two of leave-taking; but Miss Wade barely reclined her 
head, and Harriet, with the assumed humiliation of an abject dependant and 
serf (but not without defiance for all that), made as if she were too low 
to not see or to be noticed.
He came down the dark winding stairs into the yard, with an increased sense 
upon him of the gloom of the wall that was dead, and of the shrubs that 
were dead, and of the fountain that was dry, and of the statue that was 
gone. Pondering much on what he had seen and heard in that house, as well 
as on the failure of all his efforts to trace the suspicious character who 
was lost, he returned to London and to England by the packet that had taken 
him over. On the way he unfolded the sheets of paper, and read in them what 
is reproduced in the next chapter.


Chapter 21

The History Of A Self-Tormentor

I have the misfortune of not being a fool. From a very early age I have 
detected what those about me thought they hid from me. If I could have been 
habitually imposed upon, instead of habitually discerning the truth, I 
might have lived as smoothly as most fools do.
My childhood was passed with a grandmother; that is to say, with a lady who 
represented that relative to me, and who took that title on herself. She 
had no claim to it, but I - being to that extent a little fool - had no 
suspicion of her. She had some children of her own family in her house, and 
some children of other people. All girls; ten in number, including me. We 
all lived together and were educated together.
I must have been about twelve years old when I began to see how 
determinedly those girls patronised me. I was told I was an orphan. There 
was no other orphan among us; and I perceived (here was the first 
disadvantage of not being a fool) that they conciliated me in an insolent 
pity, and in a sense of superiority. I did not set this down as a discovery 
rashly, I tried them often. I could hardly make them quarrel with me. When 
I succeeded with any of them, they were sure to come after an hour or two, 
and begin a reconciliation. I tried them over and over again, and I never 
knew them wait for me to begin. They were always forgiving me, in their 
vanity and condescension. Little images of grown people! 
One of them was my chosen friend. I loved that stupid mite in a passionate 
way that she could no more deserve, than I can remember without feeling 
ashamed of, though I was but a child. She had what they called an amiable 
temper, an affectionate temper. She could distribute, and did distribute, 
pretty looks and smiles to every one among them. I believe there was not a 
soul in the place, except myself, who knew that she did it purposely to 
wound and gall me! Nevertheless, I so loved that unworthy girl, that my 
life was made stormy by my fondness for her. I was constantly lectured and 
disgraced for what was called "trying her;" in other words, charging her 
with her little perfidy and throwing her into tears by showing her that I 
read her heart. However, I loved her faithfully; and one time I went home 
with her for the holidays.
She was worse at home than she had been at school. She had a crowd of 
cousins and acquaintances, and we had dances at her house, and went out to 
dances at other houses, and, both at home and out, she tormented my love 
beyond endurance. Her plan was, to make them all fond of her - and so drive 
me wild with jealousy. To be familiar and endearing with them all - and so 
make me mad with envying them. When we were left alone in our bedroom at 
night, I would reproach her with my perfect knowledge of her baseness; and 
then she would cry and cry and say I was cruel, and then I would hold her 
in my arms till morning: loving her as much as ever, and often feeling as 
if, rather than suffer so, I could so hold her in my arms and plunge to the 
bottom of a river - where I would still hold her, after we were both dead.
It came to an end, and I was relieved. In the family there was an aunt, who 
was not fond of me. I doubt if any of the family liked me much; but I never 
wanted them to like me, being altogether bound up in the one girl. The aunt 
was a young woman, and she had a serious way with her eyes of watching me. 
She was an audacious woman, and openly looked compassionately at me. After 
one of the nights that I have spoken of, I came down into a greenhouse 
before breakfast. Charlotte (the name of my false young friend) had gone 
down before me, and I heard this aunt speaking to her about me as I 
entered. I stopped where I was, among the leaves, and listened.
The aunt said, "Charlotte, Miss Wade is wearing you to death, and this must 
not continue." I repeat the very words I heard.
Now what did she answer? Did she say, "It is I who am wearing her to death, 
I who am keeping her on a rack and am the executioner, yet she tells me 
every night that she loves me devotedly, though she knows what I make her 
undergo "? No; my first memorable experience was true to what I knew her to 
be, and to all my experience. She began sobbing and weeping (to secure the 
aunt's sympathy to herself), and said, "Dear aunt, she has an unhappy 
temper; other girls at school, besides I, try hard to make it better; we 
all try hard."
Upon that, the aunt fondled her, as if she had said something noble instead 
of despicable and false, and kept up the infamous pretence by replying, 
"but there are reasonable limits, my dear love, to everything, and I see 
that this poor miserable girl causes you more constant and useless distress 
than even so good an effort justifies."
The poor miserable girl came out of her concealment, as you may be prepared 
to hear, and said, "Send me home." I never said another word to either of 
them, or to any of them, but "Send me home, or I will walk home alone, 
night and day!" When I got home, I told my supposed grandmother that, 
unless I was sent away to finish my education somewhere else, before that 
girl came back, or before any one of them came back, I would burn my sight 
away by throwing myself into the fire, rather than I would endure to look 
at their plotting faces.
I went among young women next, and I found them no better. Fair words and 
fair pretences; but, I penetrated below those assertions of themselves and 
depreciations of me, and they were no better. Before I left them, I learned 
that I had no grandmother and no recognised relation. I carried the light 
of that information both into my past and into my future. It showed me many 
new occasions on which people triumphed over me, when they made a pretence 
of treating me with consideration, or doing me a service.
A man of business had a small property in trust for me. I was to be a 
governess. I became a governess; and went into the family of a poor 
nobleman, where there were two daughters - little children, but the parents 
wished them to grow up, if possible, under one instructress. The mother was 
young and pretty. From the first, she made a show of behaving to me with 
great delicacy. I kept my resentment to myself; but, I knew very well that 
it was her way of petting the knowledge that she was my Mistress, and might 
have behaved differently to her servant if it had been her fancy.
I say I did not resent it, nor did I; but I showed her, by not gratifying 
her, that I understood her. When she pressed me to take wine I took water. 
If there happened to be anything choice at the table, she always sent it to 
me: but, I always declined it, and ate of the rejected dishes. These 
disappointments of her patronage were a sharp retort, and made me feel 
independent.
I liked the children. They were timid, but on the whole disposed to attach 
themselves to me. There was a nurse, however, in the house, a rosy-faced 
woman always making an obtrusive pretence of being gay and good-humoured, 
who had nursed them both, and who had secured their affections before I saw 
them. I could almost have settled down to my fate but for this woman. Her 
artful devices for keeping herself before the children in constant 
competition with me, might have blinded many in my place; but I saw through 
them from the first. On the pretext of arranging my rooms and waiting on me 
and taking care of my wardrobe (all of which she did busily), she was never 
absent. The most crafty of her many subtleties was her feint of seeking to 
make the children fonder of me. She would lead them to me, and coax them to 
me. "Come to good Miss Wade, come to dear Miss Wade, come to pretty Miss 
Wade. She loves you very much. Miss Wade is a clever lady, who has read 
heaps of books, and can tell you far better and more interesting stories 
than I know. Come and hear Miss Wade!" How could I engage their attention, 
when my heart was burning against these ignorant designs? How could I 
wonder, when I saw their innocent faces shrinking away, and their arms 
twining round her neck, instead of mine? Then she would look up at me, 
shaking their curls from her face, and say, "They'll come round soon, Miss 
Wade; they're very simple and loving, ma'am; don't be at all cast down 
about it, ma'am" - exulting over me! 
There was another thing the woman did. At times, when she saw that she had 
safely plunged me into a black despondent brooding, by these means she 
would call the attention of the children to it, and would show them the 
difference between herself and me. "Hush! Poor Miss Wade is not well. Don't 
make a noise, my dears, her head aches. Come and comfort her. Come and ask 
her if she is better; come and ask her to lie down. I hope you have nothing 
on your mind, ma'am. Don't take on, ma'am, and be sorry!"
It became intolerable. Her ladyship my Mistress coming in one day when I 
was alone, and at the height of feeling that I could support it no longer, 
I told her I must go. I could not bear the presence of that woman Dawes.
"Miss Wade! Poor Dawes is devoted to you; would do anything for you!"
I knew beforehand she would say so; I was quite prepared for it; I only 
answered, it was not for me to contradict my Mistress; I must go.
"I hope, Miss Wade," she returned, instantly assuming the tone of 
superiority she had always so thinly concealed, "that nothing I have ever 
said or done since we have been together, has justified your use of that 
disagreeable word, Mistress. It must have been wholly inadvertent on my 
part. Pray tell me what it is."
I replied that I had no complaint to make, either of my Mistress, or to my 
Mistress; but, I must go.
She hesitated a moment, and then sat down beside me, and laid her hand on 
mine. As if that honour would obliterate any remembrance! 
"Miss Wade, I fear you are unhappy, through causes over which I have no 
influence."
I smiled, thinking of the experience the word awakened, and said, "I have 
an unhappy temper, I suppose."
"I did not say that."
"It is an easy way of accounting for anything," said I.
"It may be; but I did not say so. What I wish to approach, is something 
very different. My husband and I have exchanged some remarks upon the 
subject, when we have observed with pain that you have not been easy with 
us."
"Easy? Oh! You are such great people, my lady," said I.
"I am unfortunate in using a word which may convey a meaning - and 
evidently does - quite opposite to my intention." (She had not expected my 
reply, and it shamed her.) "I only mean, not happy with us. It is a 
difficult topic to enter on; but, from one young woman to another, perhaps -
 in short, we have been apprehensive that you may allow some family 
circumstances of which no one can be more innocent than yourself, to prey 
upon your spirits. If so, let us entreat you not to make them a cause of 
grief. My husband himself, as is well known, formerly had a very dear 
sister who was not in law his sister, but who was universally beloved and 
respected -"
I saw directly, that they had taken me in for the sake of the dead woman, 
whoever she was, and to have that boast of me and advantage of me; I saw, 
in the nurse's knowledge of it, an encouragement to goad me as she had 
done; and I saw, in the children's shrinking away, a vague impression that 
I was not like other people. I left that house that night.
After one or two short and very similar experiences, which are not to the 
present purpose, I entered another family where I had but one pupil: a girl 
of fifteen, who was the only daughter. The parents here were elderly 
people: people of station and rich. A nephew whom they had brought up, was 
a frequent visitor at the house, among many other visitors; and he began to 
pay me attention. I was resolute in repulsing him; for, I had determined 
when I went there, that no one should pity me or condescend to me. But, he 
wrote me a letter. It led to our being engaged to be married.
He was a year younger than I, and young-looking even when that allowance 
was made. He was on absence from India, where he had a post that was soon 
to grow into a very good one. In six months we were to be married, and were 
to go to India. I was to stay in the house, and was to be married from the 
house. Nobody objected to any part of the plan.
I cannot avoid saying, he admired me; but, if I could, I would. Vanity has 
nothing to do with the declaration, for, his admiration worried me. He took 
no pains to hide it; and caused me to feel among the rich people as if he 
had bought me for my looks, and made a show of his purchase to justify 
himself. They appraised me in their own minds, I saw, and were curious to 
ascertain what my full value was. I resolved that they should not know. I 
was immovable and silent before them; and would have suffered any one of 
them to kill me sooner than I would have laid myself out to bespeak their 
approval.
He told me I did not do myself justice. I told him I did, and it was 
because I did and meant to do so to the last, that I would not stoop to 
propitiate any of them. He was concerned and even shocked, when I added 
that I wished he would not parade his attachment before them; but, he said 
he would sacrifice even the honest impulses of his affection to my peace.
Under that pretence he began to retort upon me. By the hour together, he 
would keep at a distance from me, talking to any one rather than to me. I 
have sat alone and unnoticed, half an evening, while he conversed with his 
young cousin, my pupil. I have seen all the while, in people's eyes that 
they thought the two looked nearer on an equality than he and I. I have 
sat, divining their thoughts, until I have felt that his young appearance 
made me ridiculous, and have raged against myself for ever loving him.
For, I did love him once. Undeserving as he was, and little as he thought 
of all these agonies that it cost me - agonies which should have made him 
wholly and gratefully mine to his life's end - I loved him. I bore with his 
cousin's praising him to my face, and with her pretending to think that it 
pleased me, but full well knowing that it rankled in my breast; for his 
sake. While I have sat in his presence recalling all my slights and wrongs, 
and deliberating whether I should not fly from the house at once and never 
see him again - I have loved him.
His aunt (my Mistress you will please to remember) deliberately, wilfully, 
added to my trials and vexations. It was her delight to expatiate on the 
style in which we were to live in India, and on the establishment we should 
keep, and the company we should entertain, when he got his advancement. My 
pride rose against this barefaced way of pointing out the contrast my 
married life was to present to my then dependent and inferior position. I 
suppressed my indignation; but, I showed her that her intention was not 
lost upon me, and I repaid her annoyances by affecting humility. What she 
described, would surely be a great deal too much honour for me, I would 
tell her. I was afraid I might not be able to support so great a change. 
Think of a mere governess, her daughter's governess, coming to that high 
distinction! It made her uneasy and made them all uneasy, when I answered 
in this way. They knew that I fully understood her.
It was at the time when my troubles were at their highest, and when I was 
most incensed against my lover for his ingratitude in caring as little as 
he did for the innumerable distresses and mortifications I underwent on his 
account, that your dear friend, Mr Gowan, appeared at the house. He had 
been intimate there for a long time, but had been abroad. He understood the 
state of things at a glance, and he understood me.
He was the first person I had ever seen in my life who had understood me. 
He was not in the house three times before I knew that he accompanied every 
movement of my mind. In his coldly easy way with all of them, and with me, 
and with the whole subject, I saw it clearly. In his light protestations of 
admiration of my future husband, in his enthusiasm regarding our engagement 
and our prospects, in his hopeful congratulations on our future wealth and 
his despondent references to his own poverty - all equally hollow, and 
jesting, and full of mockery - I saw it clearly. He made me feel more and 
more resentful, and more and more contemptible, by always presenting to me 
everything that surrounded me, with some new hateful light upon it, while 
he pretended to exhibit it in its best aspect for my admiration and his 
own. He was like the dressed-up Death in the Dutch series; whatever figure 
he took upon his arm, whether it was youth or age, beauty or ugliness, 
whether he danced with it, sang with it, played with it, or prayed with it, 
he made it ghastly.
You will understand, then, that when your dear friend complimented me, he 
really condoled with me; that when he soothed me under my vexations, he 
laid bare every smarting wound I had; that when he declared my "faithful 
swain" to be "the most loving young fellow in the world, with the tenderest 
heart that ever beat," he touched my old misgiving that I was made 
ridiculous. These were not great services, you may say. They were 
acceptable to me, because they echoed my own mind, and confirmed my own 
knowledge. I soon began to like the society of your dear friend better than 
any other.
When I perceived (which I did, almost as soon) that jealousy was growing 
out of this, I liked this society still better. Had I not been subjected to 
jealousy, and were the endurances to be all mine? No. Let him know what it 
was! I was delighted that he should know it; I was delighted that he should 
feel keenly, and I hoped he did. More than that. He was tame in comparison 
with Mr Gowan, who knew how to address me on equal terms, and how to 
anatomise the wretched people around us.
This went on, until the aunt, my Mistress, took it upon herself to speak to 
me. It was scarcely worth alluding to; she knew I meant nothing; but, she 
suggested from herself, knowing it was only necessary to suggest, that it 
might be better, if I were a little less companionable with Mr Gowan.
I asked her how she could answer for what I meant? She could always answer, 
she replied, for my meaning nothing wrong. I thanked her, but I said I 
would prefer to answer for myself, and to myself. Her other servants would 
probably be grateful for good characters, but I wanted none.
Other conversation followed, and induced me to ask her how she knew that it 
was only necessary for her to make a suggestion to me, to have it obeyed? 
Did she presume on my birth, or on my hire? I was not bought body and soul. 
She seemed to think that her distinguished nephew had gone into a slave 
market and purchased a wife.
It would probably have come, sooner or later, to the end to which it did 
come, but she brought it to its issue at once. She told me, with assumed 
commiseration that I had an unhappy temper. On this repetition of the old 
wicked injury, I withheld no longer, but exposed to her all I had known of 
her and seen in her, and all I had undergone within myself since I had 
occupied the despicable position of being engaged to her nephew. I told her 
that Mr Gowan was the only relief I had had in my degradation; that I had 
borne it too long, and that I shook it off too late; but, that I would see 
none of them more. And I never did.
Your dear friend followed me to my retreat, and was very droll on the 
severance of the connection; though he was sorry, too, for the excellent 
people (in their way the best he had ever met), and deplored the necessity 
of breaking mere house-flies on the wheel. He protested before long, and 
far more truly than I then supposed, that he was not worth acceptance by a 
woman of such endowments, and such power of character; but - well, well! -
Your dear friend amused me and amused himself as long as it suited his 
inclinations; and then reminded me that we were both people of the world, 
that we both understood mankind, that we both knew there was no such thing 
as romance, that we were both prepared for going different ways to seek our 
fortunes like people of sense, and that we both foresaw that whenever we 
encountered one another again we should meet as the best friends on earth. 
So he said, and I did not contradict him.
It was not very long before I found that he was courting his present wife, 
and that she had been taken away to be out of his reach. I hated her then 
quite as much as I hate her now; and naturally, therefore, could desire 
nothing better than that she should marry him. But, I was restlessly 
curious to look at her - so curious that I felt it to be one of the few 
sources of entertainment left to me. I travelled a little: travelled until 
I found myself in her society, and in yours. Your dear friend, I think, was 
not known to you then, and had not given you any of those signal marks of 
his friendship which he has bestowed upon you.
In that company I found a girl, in various circumstances of whose position 
there was a singular likeness to my own, and in whose character I was 
interested and pleased to see much of the rising against swollen patronage 
and selfishness, calling themselves kindness, protection, benevolence, and 
other fine names, which I have described as inherent in my nature. I often 
heard it said, too, that she had an "unhappy temper." Well understanding 
what was meant by the convenient phrase, and wanting a companion with a 
knowledge of what I knew, I thought I would try to release the girl from 
her bondage and sense of injustice. I have no occasion to relate that I 
succeeded.
We have been together ever since, sharing my small means.


Chapter 22

Who Passes By This Road So Late?

Arthur Clennam had made his unavailing expedition to Calais, in the midst 
of a great pressure of business. A certain barbaric Power with valuable 
possessions on the map of the world had occasion for the services of one or 
two engineers, quick in invention and determined in execution: practical 
men, who could make the men and means their ingenuity perceived to be 
wanted, out of the best materials they could find at hand; and who were as 
bold and fertile in the adaptation of such materials to their purpose, as 
in the conception of their purpose itself. This Power, being a barbaric 
one, had no idea of stowing away a great national object in a 
Circumlocution Office, as strong wine is hidden from the light in a cellar, 
until its fire and youth are gone, and the labourers who worked in the 
vineyard and pressed the grapes are dust. With characteristic ignorance it 
acted on the most decided and energetic notions of How to do it; and never 
showed the least respect for, or gave any quarter to, the great political 
science How not to do it. Indeed it had a barbarous way of striking the 
latter art and mystery dead, in the person of any enlightened subject who 
practised it.
Accordingly, the men who were wanted were sought out and found; which was 
in itself a most uncivilised and irregular way of proceeding. Being found, 
they were treated with great confidence and honour (which again showed 
dense political ignorance), and were invited to come at once and do what 
they had to do. In short, they were regarded as men who meant to do it, 
engaging with other men who meant it to be done.
Daniel Doyce was one of the chosen. There was no foreseeing at that time 
whether he would be absent months or years. The preparations for his 
departure, and the conscientious arrangement for him of all the details and 
results of their joint business, had necessitated labour within a short 
compass of time, which had occupied Clennam day and night. He had slipped 
across the water in his first leisure, and had slipped as quickly back 
again for his farewell interview with Doyce.
Him Arthur now showed, with pains and care, the state of their gains and 
losses, responsibilities and prospects. Daniel went through it all in his 
patient manner, and admired it all exceedingly. He audited the accounts as 
if they were a far more ingenious piece of mechanism than he had ever 
constructed, and afterwards stood looking at them, weighing his hat over 
his head by the brims, as if he were absorbed in the contemplation of some 
wonderful engine.
"It's all beautiful, Clennam, in its regularity and order. Nothing can be 
plainer. Nothing can be better."
"I am glad you approve, Doyce. Now, as to the management of our capital 
while you are away, and as to the conversion of so much of it as the 
business may need from time to time - " His partner stopped him.
"As to that, and as to everything else of that kind, all rests with you. 
You will continue in all such matters to act for both of us, as you have 
done hitherto, and to lighten my mind of a load it is much relieved from."
"Though, as I often tell you," returned Clennam, "you unreasonably 
depreciate your business qualities."
"Perhaps so," said Doyce, smiling. "And perhaps not. Anyhow, I have a 
calling that I have studied more than such matters, and that I am better 
fitted for. I have perfect confidence in my partner, and I am satisfied 
that he will do what is best. If I have a prejudice connected with money 
and money figures," continued Doyce, laying that plastic workman's thumb of 
his on the lapel of his partner's coat, "it is against speculating. I don't 
think I have any other. I dare say I entertain that prejudice, only because 
I have never given my mind fully to the subject."
"But you shouldn't call it a prejudice," said Clennam. "My dear Doyce, it 
is the soundest sense."
"I am glad you think so," returned Doyce, with his grey eye looking kind 
and bright.
"It so happens," said Clennam, "that just now, not half an hour before you 
came down, I was saying the same thing to Pancks, who looked in here. We 
both agreed that, to travel out of safe investments, is one of the most 
dangerous, as it is one of the most common, of those follies which often 
deserve the name of vices."
"Pancks?" said Doyce, tilting up his hat at the back, and nodding with an 
air of confidence. "Aye, aye, aye? That's a cautious fellow."
"He is a very cautious fellow indeed," returned Arthur. "Quite a specimen 
of caution."
They both appeared to derive a larger amount of satisfaction from the 
cautious character of Mr Pancks than was quite intelligible, judged by the 
surface of their conversation.
"And now," said Daniel, looking at his watch, "as time and tide wait for no 
one, my trusty partner, and as I am ready for starting, bag and baggage, at 
the gate below, let me say a last word. I want you to grant a request of 
mine."
"Any request you can make. - Except," Clennam was quick with his exception, 
for his partner's face was quick in suggesting it, "except that I will 
abandon your invention."
"That's the request, and you know it is," said Doyce.
"I say, No, then. I say positively, No. Now that I have begun, I will have 
some definite reason, some responsible statement, something in the nature 
of a real answer, from those people."
"You will not," returned Doyce, shaking his head. "Take my word for it, you 
never will."
"At least, I'll try," said Clennam. "It will do me no harm to try."
"I am not certain of that," rejoined Doyce, laying his hand persuasively on 
his shoulder. "It has done me harm, my friend. It has aged me, tired me, 
vexed me, disappointed me. It does no man any good to have his patience 
worn out, and to think himself ill-used. I fancy, even already, that 
unavailing attendance on delays and evasions has made you something less 
elastic than you used to be."
"Private anxieties may have done that for the moment," said Clennam, "but 
not official harrying. Not yet. I am not hurt yet."
"Then you won't grant my request?"
"Decidedly, No," said Clennam. I should be ashamed if I submitted to be so 
soon driven out of the field, where a much older and a much more 
sensitively interested man contended with fortitude so long."
As there was no moving him, Daniel Doyce returned the grasp of his hand, 
and, casting a farewell look round the counting-house, went downstairs with 
him. Doyce was to go to Southampton to join the small staff of his fellow-
travellers; and a coach was at the gate, well furnished and packed, and 
ready to take him there. The workmen were at the gate to see him off, and 
were mightily proud of him. "Good luck to you, Mr Doyce!" said one of the 
number. "Wherever you go, they'll find as they've got a man among 'em, a 
man as knows his tools and as his tools knows, a man as is willing and a 
man as is able, and if that's not a man where is a man!" This oration from 
a gruff volunteer in the background, not previously suspected of any powers 
in that way, was received with three loud cheers; and the speaker became a 
distinguished character for ever afterwards. In the midst of the three loud 
cheers, Daniel gave them all a hearty "Good Bye, Men!" and the coach 
disappeared from sight, as if the concussion of the air had blown it out of 
Bleeding Heart Yard.
Mr Baptist, as a grateful little fellow in a position of trust, was among 
the workmen, and had done as much towards the cheering as a mere foreigner 
could. In truth, no men on earth can cheer like Englishmen, who do so rally 
one another's blood and spirit when they cheer in earnest, that the stir is 
like the rush of their whole history, with all its standards waving at 
once, from Saxon Alfred's downward. Mr Baptist had been in a manner whirled 
away before the onset, and was taking his breath in quite a scared 
condition when Clennam beckoned him to follow upstairs, and return the 
books and papers to their places.
In the lull consequent on the departure - in that first vacuity which 
ensues on every separation, foreshadowing the great separation that is 
always overhanging all mankind - Arthur stood at his desk, looking dreamily 
out at a gleam of sun. But, his liberated attention soon reverted to the 
theme that was foremost in his thoughts, and began, for the hundredth time, 
to dwell upon every circumstance that had impressed itself upon his mind, 
on the mysterious night when he had seen the man at his mother's. Again the 
man jostled him in the crooked street, again he followed the man and lost 
him, again he came upon the man in the courtyard looking at the house, 
again he followed the man and stood beside him on the doorsteps.

"Who passes by this road so late?
Compagnon de la Majolaine;! 
Who passes by this road so late?
Always gay!"

It was not the first time, by many, that he had recalled the song of the 
child's game, of which the fellow had hummed this verse while they stood 
side by side; but, he was so unconscious of having repeated it audibly, 
that he started to hear the next verse.

"Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower,
Compagnon de la Majolaine! 
Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower,
Always gay!"
Cavalletoo had deferentially suggested the words and tune; supposing him to 
have stopped short for want of more.
"Ah! You know the song, Cavalletto?"
"By Bacchus, yes, sir! They all know it in France. I have heard it many 
times, sung by the little children. The last time when it I have heard," 
said Mr Baptist, formerly Cavalletto, who usually went back to his native 
construction of sentences when his memory went near home, "is from a sweet 
little voice. A little voice, very pretty, very innocent. Altro!"
"The last time I heard it," returned Arthur, "was in a voice quite the 
reverse of pretty, and quite the reverse of innocent." He said it more to 
himself than to his companion, and added to himself, repeating the man's 
next words. "Death of my life, sir, it's my character to be impatient!"
EH!" cried Cavalletto, astounded, and with all his colour gone in a moment.
"What is the matter?"
"Sir! You know where I have heard that song the last time?"
With his rapid native action, his hands made the outline of a high hook 
nose, pushed his eyes near together, dishevelled his hair, puffed out his 
upper lip to represent a thick moustache, and threw the heavy end of an 
ideal cloak over his shoulder. While doing this, with a swiftness 
incredible to one who has not watched an Italian peasant, he indicated a 
very remarkable and sinister smile. The whole change passed over him like a 
flash of light, and he stood in the same instant, pale and astonished, 
before his patron.
"In the name of Fate and wonder," said Clennam, "what do you mean? Do you 
know a man by the name of Blandois?"
"No!" said Mr Baptist, shaking his head.
"You have just now described a man who was by, when you heard that song; 
have you not?"
"Yes!" said Mr Baptist, nodding fifty times.
"And was he not called Blandois?"
"No!" said Mr Baptist. "Altro, Altro, Altro, Altro!" He could not reject 
the name sufficiently, with his head and his right forefinger going at 
once.
"Stay!" cried Clennam, spreading out the hand-bill on his desk. "Was this 
the man? You can understand what I read aloud?"
"Altogether. Perfectly."
"But look at it, too. Come here and look over me, while I read."
Mr Baptist approached, followed every word with his quick eyes, saw and 
heard it all out with the greatest impatience, then clapped his two hands 
flat upon the bill as if he had fiercely caught some noxious creature, and 
cried, looking eagerly at Clennam, "It is the man! Behold him!"
"This is of far greater moment to me," said Clennam, in great agitation, 
"than you can imagine. Tell me where you knew the man."
Mr Baptist, releasing the paper very slowly and with much discomfiture, and 
drawing himself back two or three paces, and making as though he dusted his 
hands returned, very much against his will:
"At Marsiglia - Marseilles."
"What was he?"
"A prisoner, and - Altro! I believe yes! - an," Mr Baptist crept closer 
again to whisper it, "Assassin!"
Clennam fell back as if the word had struck him a blow: so terrible did it 
make his mother's communication with the man appear. Cavalletto dropped on 
one knee, and implored him, with a redundancy of gesticulation, to hear 
what had brought himself into such foul company.
He told with perfect truth how it had come of a little contraband trading, 
and how he had in time been released from prison, and how he had gone away 
from those antecedents. How, at the house of entertainment called the Break 
of Day at Chalons on the Saone, he had been awakened in his bed at night, 
by the same assassin, then assuming the name of Lagnier, though his name 
had formerly been Rigaud; how the assassin had proposed that they should 
join their fortunes together; how he held the assassin in such dread and 
aversion that he had fled from him at daylight, and how he had ever since 
been haunted by the fear of seeing the assassin again and being claimed by 
him as an acquaintance. When he had related this, with an emphasis and 
poise on the word, assassin, peculiarly belonging to his own language, and 
which did not serve to render it less terrible to Clennam, he suddenly 
sprang to his feet, pounced upon the bill again, and with a vehemence that 
would have been absolute madness in any man of Northern origin, cried 
"Behold the same assassin! Here he is!"
In his passionate raptures, he at first forgot the fact that he had lately 
seen the assassin in London. On his remembering it, it suggested hope to 
Clennam that the recognition might be of later date than the night of the 
visit at his mother's; but, Cavalletto was too exact and clear about time 
and place, to leave any opening for doubt that it had preceded that 
occasion.
"Listen," said Arthur, very seriously. "This man, as we have read here, has 
wholly disappeared."
"Of it I am well content!" said Cavalletto, raising his eyes piously. "A 
thousand thanks to Heaven! Accursed assassin!"
"Not so," returned Clennam; "for, until something more is heard of him, I 
can never know an hour's peace."
"Enough, Benefactor; that is quite another thing. A million of excuses!"
"Now, Cavalletto," said Clennam, gently turning him by the arm, so that 
they looked into each other's eyes. "I am certain that for the little I 
have been able to do for you, you are the most sincerely grateful of men."
"I swear it!" cried the other.
"I know it. If you could find this man, or discover what has become of him, 
or gain any later intelligence whatever of him, you would render me a 
service above any other service I could receive in the world, and would 
make me (with far greater reason) as grateful to you as you are to me."
"I know not where to look," cried the little man, kissing Arthur's hand in 
a transport. "I know not where to begin. I know not where to go. But, 
courage! Enough! It matters not! I go, in this instant of time!"
"Not a word to any one but me, Cavalletto."
"Al-tro!" cried Cavalletto. And was gone with great speed.


Chapter 23

Mistress Affery Makes A Conditional Promise Respecting Her Dreams

Left alone, with the expressive looks and gestures of Mr Baptist, otherwise 
Giovanni Baptista Cavalletto, vividly before him, Clennam entered on a 
weary day. It was in vain that he tried to control his attention, by 
directing it to any business occupation or train of thought: it rode at 
anchor by the haunting topic, and would hold to no other idea. As though a 
criminal should be chained in a stationary boat on a deep clear river, 
condemned, whatever countless leagues of water flowed past him, always to 
see the body of the fellow-creature he had drowned lying at the bottom, 
immovable, and unchangeable, except as the eddies made it broad or long, 
now expanding, now contracting its terrible lineaments; so Arthur, below 
the shifting current of transparent thoughts and fancies which were gone 
and succeeded by others as soon as come, saw, steady and dark, and not to 
be stirred from its place, the one subject that he endeavoured with all his 
might to rid himself of, and that he could not fly from.
The assurance he now had that Blandois, whatever his right name, was one of 
the worst of characters, greatly augmented the burden of his anxieties. 
Though the disappearance should be accounted for tomorrow, the fact that 
his mother had been in communication with such a man would remain 
unalterable. That the communication had been of a secret kind, and that she 
had been submissive to him and afraid of him, he hoped might be known to no 
one beyond himself; yet, knowing it, how could he separate it from his old 
vague fears, and how believe that there was nothing evil in such relations?
Her resolution not to enter on the question with him, and his knowledge of 
her indomitable character, enhanced his sense of helplessness. It was like 
the oppression of a dream, to believe that shame and exposure were 
impending over her and his father's memory, and to be shut out, as by a 
brazen wall, from the possibility of coming to their aid. The purpose he 
had brought home to his native country, and had ever since kept in view, 
was, with her greatest determination, defeated by his mother herself, at 
the time of all others when he feared that it pressed most. His advice, 
energy, activity, money, credit, all his resources whatsoever, were all 
made useless. If she had been possessed of the old fabled influence, and 
had turned those who looked upon her into stone, she could not have 
rendered him more completely powerless (so it seemed to him in his distress 
of mind) than she did, when she turned her unyielding face to his, in her 
gloomy room.
But the light of that day's discovery, shining on these considerations, 
roused him to take a more decided course of action. Confident in the 
rectitude of his purpose, and impelled by a sense of overhanging danger 
closing in around, he resolved, if his mother would still admit of no 
approach, to make a desperate appeal to Affery. If she could be brought to 
become communicative, and to do what lay in her to break the spell of 
secrecy that enshrouded the house, he might shake off the paralysis of 
which every hour that passed over his head made him more acutely sensible. 
This was the result of his day's anxiety, and this was the decision he put 
in practice when the day closed in.
His first disappointment, on arriving at the house, was to find the door 
open, and Mr Flintwinch smoking a pipe on the steps. If circumstances had 
been commonly favourable, Mistress Affery would have opened the door to his 
knock. Circumstances being uncommonly unfavourable, the door stood open, 
and Mr Flintwinch was smoking his pipe on the steps.
Good evening," said Arthur.
"Good evening," said Mr Flintwinch.
The smoke came crookedly out of Mr Flintwinch's mouth, as if it circulated 
through the whole of his wry figure and came back by his wry throat, before 
coming forth to mingle with the smoke from the crooked chimneys and the 
mists from the crooked river.
"Have you any news?" said Arthur.
"We have no news," said Jeremiah.
"I mean of the foreign man," Arthur explained.
"I mean of the foreign man," said Jeremiah.
He look so grim, as he stood askew, with the knot of his cravat under his 
ear, that the thought passed into Clennam's mind, and not for the first 
time by many, could Flintwinch for a purpose of his own have got rid of 
Blandois? Could it have been his secret, and his safety, that were at 
issue? He was small and bent, and perhaps not actively strong; yet he was 
as tough as an old yew tree, and as crafty as an old Jackdaw. Such a man, 
coming behind a much younger and more vigorous man, and having the will to 
put an end to him and no relenting, might do it pretty surely in that 
solitary place at a late hour.
While, in the morbid condition of his thoughts, these thoughts drifted over 
the main one that was always in Clennam's mind, Mr Flintwinch, regarding 
the opposite house over the gateway with his neck twisted and one eye shut 
up, stood smoking with a vicious expression upon him; more as if he were 
trying to bite off the stem of his pipe, than as if he were enjoying it. 
Yet he was enjoying it, in his own way.
"You'll be able to take my likeness, the next time you call, Arthur, I 
should think," said Mr Flintwinch, drily, as he stooped to knock the ashes 
out.
Rather conscious and confused, Arthur asked his pardon, if he had stared at 
him unpolitely. "But my mind runs so much upon this matter," he said, "that 
I lose myself."
"Hah! Yet I don't see," returned Mr Flintwinch, quite at his leisure, "why 
it should trouble you, Arthur."
"No?"
"No," said Mr Flintwinch, very shortly and decidedly; much as if he were of 
the canine race, and snapped at Arthur's hand.
"Is it nothing to me to see those placards about? Is it nothing to me to 
see my mother's name and residence hawked up and down, in such an 
association?"
"I don't see," returned Mr Flintwinch, scraping his horny cheek, "that it 
need signify much to you. But I'll tell you what I do see, Arthur," 
glancing up at the windows; "I see the light of fire and candle in your 
mother's room!"
"And what has that to do with it?"
"Why, sir, I read by it," said Mr Flintwinch, screwing himself at him, 
"that if it's advisable (as the proverb says it is) to let sleeping dogs 
lie, it's just as advisable, perhaps to let missing dogs lie. Let' em be. 
They generally turn up soon enough."
Mr Flintwinch turned short round when he had made this remark, and went 
into the dark hall. Clennam stood there, following him with his eyes, as he 
dipped for a light in the phosphorus-box in the little room at the side, 
got one after three or four dips, and lighted the dim lamp against the 
wall. All the while, Clennam was pursuing the probabilities - rather as if 
they were being shown to him by an invisible hand than as if he himself 
were conjuring them up - of Mr Flintwinch's ways and means of doing that 
darker deed, and removing its traces by any of the black avenues of shadow 
that lay around them.
"Now, sir," said the testy Jeremiah; "will it be agreeable to walk 
upstairs?"
"My mother is alone, I suppose?"
"Not alone," said Mr Flintwinch. "Mr Casby and his daughter are with her. 
They came in while I was smoking, and I stayed behind to have my smoke 
out."
This was the second disappointment. Arthur made no remark upon it, and 
repaired to his mother's room, where Mr Casby and Flora had been taking 
tea, anchovy paste, and hot buttered toast. The relics of those delicacies 
were not yet removed, either from the table, or from the scorched 
countenance of Affery, who, with the kitchen toasting-fork still in her 
hand, looked like a sort of allegorical personage; except that she had a 
considerable advantage over the general run of such personages, in point of 
significant emblematical purpose.
Flora had spread her bonnet and shawl upon the bed, with a care indicative 
of an intention to stay some time. Mr Casby too, was beaming near the hob, 
with his benevolent knobs shining as if the warm butter of the toast were 
exuding through the patriarchal skull, and with his face as ruddy as if the 
colouring matter of the anchovy paste were mantling in the patriarchal 
visage. Seeing this, as he exchanged the usual salutations, Clennam decided 
to speak to his mother without postponement.
It had long been customary, as she never changed her room, for those who 
had anything to say to her apart, to wheel her to her desk; where she sat, 
usually with the back of her chair turned towards the rest of the room, and 
the person who talked with her seated in a corner, on a stool which was 
always set in that place for that purpose. Except that it was long since 
the mother and son had spoken together without the intervention of a third 
person, it was an ordinary matter of course within the experience of 
visitors for Mrs Clennam to be asked, with a word of apology for the 
interruption, if she could be spoken with on a matter of business, and, on 
her replying in the affirmative, to be wheeled into the position described.
Therefore, when Arthur now made such an apology, and such a request, and 
move moved her to her desk and seated himself on the stool, Mrs Finching 
merely began to talk louder and faster, as a delicate hint that she could 
overhear nothing, and Mr Casby stroked his long white locks with sleepy 
calmness.
"Mother, I have heard something today which I feel persuaded you don't 
know, and which I think you should know of the antecedents of that man I 
saw here."
"I know nothing of the antecedents of the man you saw here, Arthur."
She spoke aloud. He had lowered his own voice; but, she rejected that 
advance towards confidence as she rejected every other, and spoke in her 
usual key and in her usual stern voice.
"I have received it on no circuitous information; it has come to me 
direct."
She asked him, exactly as before, if he were there to tell her what it was?
"I thought it right that you should know it."
"And what is it?"
"He has been a prisoner in a French gaol."
She answered with composure, "I should think that very likely."
"But, in a gaol for criminals, mother. On an accusation of murder."
She started at the word, and her looks expressed her natural horror. Yet 
she still spoke, aloud, when she demanded: -
"Who told you so?"
"A man who was his fellow-prisoner."
"That man's antecedents, I suppose, were not known to you, before he told 
you?"
"No."
"Though the man himself was?"
"Yes."
"My case, and Flintwinch's, in respect of this other man! I dare say the 
resemblance is not so exact, though, as that your informant became known to 
you through a letter from a correspondent, with whom he had deposited 
money? How does that part of the parallel stand?"
Arthur had no choice but to say that his informant had not become known to 
him through the agency of any such credentials, or indeed of any 
credentials at all. Mrs Clennam's attentive frown expanded by degrees into 
a severe look of triumph, and she retorted with emphasis, "Take care how 
you judge others, then. I say to you, Arthur, for your good, take care how 
you judge!"
Her emphasis had been derived from her eyes quite as much as from the 
stress she laid upon her words. She continued to look at him; and if, when 
he entered the house, he had had any latent hope of prevailing in the least 
with her, she now looked it out of his heart.
"Mother, shall I do nothing to assist you?"
"Nothing."
"Will you entrust me with no confidence, no charge, no explanation? Will 
you take no counsel with me? Will you not let me come near you?"
"How can you ask me? You separated yourself from my affairs. It was not my 
act; it was yours. How can you consistently ask me such a question? You 
know that you left me to Flintwinch, and that he occupies your place."
Glancing at Jeremiah, Clennam saw in his very gaiters that his attention 
was closely directed to them, though he stood leaning against the wall 
scraping his jaw, and pretending to listen to Flora as she held forth in a 
most distracting manner on a chaos of subjects, in which mackerel, and Mr 
F's Aunt in a swing had become entangled with cockchafers and the wine 
trade.
"A prisoner, in a French goal, on an accusation of murder," repeated Mrs 
Clennam, steadily going over what her son had said. "That is all you know 
of him from the fellow-prisoner?"
"In substance, all."
"And was the fellow-prisoner his accomplice and a murderer, too! But, of 
course, he gives a better account of himself than of his friend; it is 
needless to ask. This will supply the rest of them here with something new 
to talk about. Casby, Arthur tells me -"
"Stay, mother! Stay, stay!" He interrupted her hastily, for it had not 
entered his imagination that she would openly proclaim what he had told 
her.
"What now?" she said, with displeasure. "What more?"
"I beg you to excuse me, Mr Casby - and you, too, Mrs Finching - for one 
other moment, with my mother -"
He had laid his hand upon her chair, or she would otherwise have wheeled it 
round with the touch of her foot upon the ground. They were still face to 
face. She looked at him, as he ran over the possibilities of some result he 
had not intended, and could not foresee, being influenced by Cavalletto's 
disclosure becoming a matter of notoriety, and hurriedly arrived at the 
conclusion that it had best not be talked about; perhaps he was guided by 
no more distinct reason than that he had taken it for granted that his 
mother would reserve it to herself and her partner.
"What now?" she said again, impatiently. "What is it?"
"I did not mean, mother, that you should repeat what I have communicated. I 
think you had better not repeat it."
"Do you make that a condition with me?"
"Well! Yes."
"Observe, then! It is you who make this a secret," said she, holding up her 
hand, "and not I. It is you, Arthur, who bring here doubts and suspicions 
and entreaties for explanations, and it is you, Arthur, who bring secrets 
here. What is it to me, do you think, where the man has been, or what he 
has been? What can it be to me? The whole world may know it, if they care 
to know it; it is nothing to me. Now, let me go."
He yielded to her imperious but elated look, and turned her chair back to 
the place from which he had wheeled it. In doing so he saw elation in the 
face of Mr Flintwinch, which most assuredly was not inspired by Flora. This 
turning of his intelligence, and of his whole attempt and design against 
himself, did even more than his mother's fixedness and firmness to convince 
him that his efforts with her were idle. Nothing remained but the appeal to 
his old friend Affery.
But, even to get to the very doubtful and preliminary stage of making the 
appeal, seemed one of the least promising of human undertakings. She was so 
completely under the thrall of the two clever ones, was so systematically 
kept in sight by one or other of them, and was so afraid to go about the 
house besides, that every opportunity of speaking to her alone appeared to 
be forestalled. Over and above that, Mistress Affery, by some means (it was 
not very difficult to guess, through the sharp arguments of her liege 
lord), had acquired such a lively conviction of the hazard of saying 
anything under any circumstances, that she had remained all this time in a 
corner guarding herself from approach with that symbolical instrument of 
hers; so that, when a word or two had been addressed to her by Flora, or 
even by the bottle-green patriarch himself, she had warded off conversation 
with the toasting-fork, like a dumb woman.
After several abortive attempts to get Affery to look at him while she 
cleared the table and washed the tea-service Arthur thought of an expedient 
which Flora might originate. To whom he therefore whispered, "Could you say 
you would like to go through the house?"
Now, poor Flora, being always in fluctuating expectation of the time when 
Clennam would renew his boyhood, and be madly in love with her again, 
received the whisper with the utmost delight; not only as rendered precious 
by its mysterious character, but as preparing the way for a tender 
interview in which he would declare the state of his affections. She 
immediately began to work out the hint.
"Ah dear me the poor old room," said Flora, glancing round, "looks just as 
ever Mrs Clennam I am touched to see except for being smokier which was to 
be expected with time and which we must all expect and reconcile ourselves 
to being whether we like it or not as I am sure I have had to do myself if 
not exactly smokier dreadfully stouter which is the same or worse, to think 
of the days when papa used to bring me here the least of girls a perfect 
mass of chilblains to be stuck upon a chair with my feet on the rails and 
stare at Arthur - pray excuse me - Mr Clennam - the least of boys in the 
frightfullest of frills and jackets ere yet Mr F appeared a misty shadow on 
the horizon paying attentions like the well-known spectre of some place in 
Germany beginning with a B is a moral lesson inculcating that all the paths 
in life are similar to the paths down in the North of England where they 
get the coals and make the iron and things gravelled with ashes!"
Having paid the tribute of a sigh to the instability of human existence, 
Flora hurried on with her purpose.
"Not that at any time," she proceeded, "its worst enemy could have said it 
was a cheerful house for that it was never made to be but always highly 
impressive, fond memory recalls an occasion in youth ere yet the judgment 
was mature when Arthur - confirmed habit - Mr Clennam - took me down into 
an unused kitchen eminent for mouldiness and proposed to secrete me there 
for life and feed me on what he could hide from his meals when he was not 
at home for the holidays and on dry bread in disgrace which at that halcyon 
period too frequently occurred, would it be inconvenient or asking too much 
to beg to be permitted to revive those scenes and walk through the house?"
Mrs Clennam, who responded with a constrained grace to Mrs Finching's good 
nature in being there at all, though her visit (before Arthur's unexpected 
arrival) was undoubtedly an act of pure good nature and no self-
gratification, intimated that all the house was open to her. Flora rose and 
looked to Arthur for his escort. "Certainly," said he, aloud; "and Affery 
will light us, I dare say."
Affery was excusing herself with "Don't ask nothing of me, Arthur!" when Mr 
Flintwinch stopped her with "Why not? Affery, what's the matter with you, 
woman? Why not, jade!" Thus expostulated with, she came unwillingly out of 
her corner, resigned the toasting-fork into one of her husband's hands and 
took the candlestick he offered from the other.
"Go before, you fool!" said Jeremiah. "Are you going up, or down, Mrs 
Finching?"
Flora answered, "Down."
"Then go before, and down, you Affery," said Jeremiah. "And do it properly, 
or I'll come rolling down the banisters, and tumbling over you!"
Affery headed the exploring party; Jeremiah closed it. He had no intention 
of leaving them. Clennam looking back, and seeing him following, three 
stairs behind, in the coolest and most methodical manner, exclaimed in a 
low voice, "Is there no getting rid of him!" Flora reassured his mind, by 
replying promptly, "Why though not exactly proper Arthur and a thing I 
couldn't think of before a younger man or a stranger still I don't mind him 
if you so particularly wish it and provided you'll have the goodness not to 
take me too tight."
Wanting the heart to explain that this was not at all what he meant, Arthur 
extended his supporting arm round Flora's figure. "Oh my goodness me," said 
she, "you are very obedient indeed really and it's extremely honourable and 
gentlemanly in you I am sure but still at the same time if you would like 
to be a little tighter than that I shouldn't consider it intruding."
In this preposterous attitude, unspeakably at variance with his anxious 
mind, Clennam descended to the basement of the house; finding that wherever 
it became darker than elsewhere, Flora became heavier, and that when the 
house was lightest she was too. Returning from the dismal kitchen-regions, 
which were as dreary as they could be, Mistress Affery passed with the 
light into his father's old room, and then into the old dining-room; always 
passing on before like a phantom that was not to be overtaken, and neither 
turning nor answering when he whispered, "Affery! I want to speak to you!"
In the dining-room, a sentimental desire came over Flora to look into the 
dragon closet which had so often swallowed Arthur in the days of his 
boyhood - not improbably because, as a very dark closet, it was a likely 
place to be heavy in. Arthur, fast subsiding into despair, had opened it 
when a knock was heard at the outer door.
Mistress Affery, with a suppressed cry, threw her apron over her head.
"What? You want another dose!" said Mr Flintwinch. "You shall have it, my 
woman, you shall have a good one! Oh! You shall have a sneezer, you shall 
have a teaser!"
"In the meantime is anybody going to the door?" said Arthur.
"In the meantime, I am going to the door, sir," returned the old man: so 
savagely as to render it clear that in a choice of difficulties he felt he 
must go, though he would have preferred not to go. "Stay here the while, 
all! Affery, my woman, move an inch, or speak a word in your foolishness, 
and I'll treble your dose!"
The moment he was gone, Arthur released Mrs Finching: with some difficulty, 
by reason of that lady's misunderstanding his intentions, and making her 
arrangements with a view to tightening instead of slackening.
"Affery, speak to me now!"
"Don't touch me, Arthur!" she cried, shrinking from him. "Don't come near 
me. He'll see you. Jeremiah will. Don't!"
"He can't see me," returned Arthur, suiting the action to the word, "if I 
blow the candle out."
"He'll hear you," cried Affery.
"He can't hear me," returned Arthur, suiting the action to the word again, 
"if I draw you into this black closet, and speak here. Why do you hide your 
face?"
"Because I am afraid of seeing something."
"You can't be afraid of seeing anything in this darkness, Affery."
"Yes I am. Much more than if it was light."
"Why are you afraid?"
"Because the house is full of mysteries and secrets; because it's full of 
whisperings and counsellings; because it's full of noises. There never was 
such a house for noises. I shall die of 'em, if Jeremiah don't strangle me 
first. As I expect he will."
"I have never heard any noises here, worth speaking of."
"Ah! But you would, though, if you lived in the house, and was obliged to 
go about it as I am," said Affery; "and you'd feel that they was so well 
worth speaking of, that you'd feel you was nigh bursting, through not being 
allowed to speak of 'em. Here's Jeremiah! You'll get me killed."
"My good Affery, I solemnly declare to you that I can see the light of the 
open door on the pavement of the hall, and so could you if you would 
uncover your face and look."
"I durstn't do it," said Affery, "I durstn't never, Arthur. I'm always 
blindfolded when Jeremiah ain't a looking, and sometimes even when he is."
"He cannot shut the door without my seeing him," said Arthur. "You are as 
safe with me as if he was fifty miles away." ("I wish he was!" cried 
Affery.)
"Affery, I want to know what is amiss here; I want some light thrown on the 
secrets of this house."
"I tell you, Arthur," she interrupted, "noises is the secrets, rustlings 
and stealings about, tremblings, treads overhead and treads underneath."
"But those are not all the secrets."
"I don't know," said Affery. "Don't ask me no more. Your old sweetheart 
ain't far off, and she's a blabber."
His old sweetheart, being in fact so near at hand that she was then 
reclining against him in a flutter, a very substantial angle of forty-five 
degrees, here interposed to assure Mistress Affery with greater earnestness 
than directness of asseveration, that what she heard should go no further, 
but should be kept inviolate, "if on no other account on Arthur's - 
sensible of intruding in being too familiar Doyce and Clennam's."
"I make an imploring appeal to you, Affery, to you, one of the few 
agreeable early remembrances I have, for my mother's sake, for your 
husband's sake, for my own, for all our sakes. I am sure you can tell me 
something connected with the coming here of this man, if you will."
"Why, then I'll tell you, Arthur," returned Affery - "Jeremiah's a coming!"
"No, indeed he is not. The door is open, and he is standing outside, 
talking."
"I'll tell you then," said Affery, after listening, "that the first time he 
ever come he heard the noises his own self. 'What's that?' he said to me. 
'I don't know what it is,' I says to him, catching hold of him, 'but I have 
heard it over and over again.' While I says it, he stands a looking at me, 
all of a shake, he do."
"Has he been here often?"
"Only that night, and the last night."
"What did you see of him on the last night, after I was gone?"
"Them two clever ones had him all alone to themselves. Jeremiah come a 
dancing at me sideways, after I had let you out (he always comes a dancing 
at me sideways when he's going to hurt me), and he said to me, 'Now, 
Affery,' he said, 'I am a coming behind you, my woman, and a going to run 
you up.' So he took and squeezed the back of my neck in his hand, till it 
made me open my mouth, and then he pushed me before him to bed, squeezing 
all the way. That's what he calls running me up, he do. Oh, he's a wicked 
one!"
"And did you hear or see no more, Affery?"
"Don't I tell you I was sent to bed, Arthur! Here he is!"
"I assure you he is still at the door. Those whisperings and counsellings, 
Affery that you have spoken of. What are they?"
"How should I know! Don't ask me nothing about 'em, Arthur. Get away!"
"But, my dear Affery; unless I can gain some insight into these hidden 
things, in spite of your husband, and in spite of my mother, ruin will come 
of it."
"Don't ask me nothing," repeated Affery. "I have been in a dream for ever 
so long. Go away, go away!"
"You said that, before," returned Arthur. "You used the same expression 
that night, at the door, when I asked you what was going on here. What do 
you mean by being in a dream?"
"I ain't a going to tell you. Get away! I shouldn't tell you, if you was by 
yourself; much less with your old sweetheart here."
It was equally vain for Arthur to entreat, and for Flora to protest. 
Affery, who had been trembling and struggling the whole time, turned a deaf 
ear to all adjuration, and was bent on forcing herself out of the closet.
"I'd sooner scream to Jeremiah than say another word! I'll call out to him, 
Arthur, if you don't give over speaking to me. Now here's the very last 
word I'll say afore I call to him. - If ever you begin to get the better of 
them two clever ones your own self (you ought to it, as I told you when you 
first come home, for you haven't been a living here long years, to be made 
afeard of your life as I have), then do you get the better of 'em afore my 
face and then do you say to me, Affery tell your dreams! Maybe, then I'll 
tell 'em!"
The shutting of the door stopped Arthur from replying. They glided into the 
places where Jeremiah had left them; and Clennam, stepping forward as that 
old gentleman returned, informed him that he had accidentally extinguished 
the candle. Mr Flintwinch looked on as he relighted it at the lamp in the 
hall, and preserved a profound taciturnity respecting the person who had 
been holding him in conversation. Perhaps his irascibility demanded 
compensation for some tediousness that the visitor had expended on him; 
however that was, he took such umbrage at seeing his wife with her apron 
over her head, that he charged at her, and taking her veiled nose between 
his thumb and finger, appeared to throw the whole screw-power of his person 
into the wring he gave it.
Flora, now permanently heavy, did not release Arthur from the survey of the 
house, until it had extended even to his old garret bedchamber. His 
thoughts were otherwise occupied than with the tour of inspection; yet he 
took particular notice at the time, as he afterwards had occasion to 
remember, of the airlessness and closeness of the house; that they left the 
track of their footsteps in the dust on the upper floors; and that there 
was a resistance to the opening of one room door, which occasioned Affery 
to cry out that somebody was hiding inside, and to continue to believe so, 
though somebody was sought and not discovered. When they at last returned 
to his mother's room, they found her, shading her face with her muffled 
hand, and talking in a low voice to the Patriarch as he stood before the 
fire. Whose blue eyes, polished head, and silken locks, turning towards 
them as they came in, imparted an inestimable value and inexhaustible love 
of his species to his remark:
"So you have been seeing the premises, seeing the premises - premises - 
seeing the premises!"
It was not in itself a jewel of benevolence or wisdom, yet he made it an 
exemplar of both that one would have liked to have a copy of.


Chapter 24

The Evening Of A Long Day

That illustrious man and great national ornament, Mr Merdle, continued his 
shining course. It began to be widely understood that one who had done 
society the admirable service of making so much money out of it, could not 
be suffered to remain a commoner. A baronetcy was spoken of with 
confidence; a peerage was frequently mentioned. Rumour had it that Mr 
Merdle had set his golden face against a baronetcy; that he had plainly 
intimated to Lord Decimus that a baronetcy was not enough for him; that he 
had said, "No: a Peerage, or plain Merdle." This was reported to have 
plunged Lord Decimus as nigh to his noble chin in a slough of doubts as so 
lofty a person could be sunk. For the Barnacles, as a group of themselves 
in creation, had an idea that such distinctions belonged; to them; and that 
when a soldier, sailor, or lawyer, became ennobled, they let him in, as it 
were, by an act of condescension, at the family door, and immediately shut 
it again. Not only (said Rumour) had the troubled Decimus his own 
hereditary part in this impression, but he also knew of several Barnacle 
claims already on the file, which came into collision with that of the 
master-spirit. Right or wrong, Rumour was very busy; and Lord Decimus, 
while he was, or was supposed to be, in stately excogitation of the 
difficulty, lent her some countenance, by taking, on several public 
occasions, one of those elephantine trots of his through a jungle of 
overgrown sentences, waving Mr Merdle about on his trunk as Gigantic 
Enterprise, The Wealth of England, Elasticity, Credit, Capital, Prosperity, 
and all manner of blessings.
So quietly did the mowing of the old scythe go on, that fully three months 
had passed unnoticed since the two English brothers had been laid in one 
tomb in the strangers' cemetery at Rome. Mr and Mrs Sparkler were 
established in their own house: a little mansion, rather of the Tite 
Barnacle class, quite a triumph of inconvenience, with a perpetual smell in 
it of the day before yesterday's soup and coach-horses, but extremely dear, 
as being exactly in the centre of the habitable globe. In this enviable 
abode (and envied it really was by many people), Mrs Sparkler had intended 
to proceed at once to the demolition of the Bosom, when active hostilities 
had been suspended by the arrival of the Courier with his tidings of death. 
Mrs Sparkler, who was not unfeeling, had received them with a violent burst 
of grief, which had lasted twelve hours; after which she had arisen to see 
about her mourning, and to take every precaution that could ensure its 
being as becoming as Mrs Merdle's. A gloom was then cast over more than one 
distinguished family (according to the politest sources of intelligence), 
and the Courier went back again.
Mr and Mrs Sparkler had been dining alone, with their gloom cast over them, 
and Mrs Sparkler reclined on a drawing-room sofa. It was a hot summer 
Sunday evening. The residence in the centre of the habitable globe, at all 
times stuffed and close as if it had an incurable cold in its head, was 
that evening particularly stifling. The bells of the churches had done 
their worst in the way of clanging among the unmelodious echoes of the 
streets, and the lighted windows of the churches had ceased to be yellow in 
the grey dusk, and had died out opaque black. Mrs Sparkler, lying on her 
sofa looking through an open window at the opposite side of a narrow 
street, over boxes of mignonette and flowers, was tired of the view. Mrs 
Sparkler, looking at another window where her husband stood in the balcony, 
was tired of that view. Mrs Sparkler, looking at herself in her mourning, 
was even tired of that view: though, naturally, not so tired of that as of 
the other two.
"It's like lying in a well," said Mrs Sparkler, changing her position 
fretfully. "Dear me, Edmund, if you have anything to say, why don't you say 
it?"
Mr Sparkler might have replied with ingenuousness, "My life, I have nothing 
to say." But as the repartee did not occur to him, he contented himself 
with coming in from the balcony and standing at the side of his wife's 
couch.
"Good gracious, Edmund!" said Mrs Sparkler, more fretfully still, "you are 
absolutely putting mignonette up your nose! Pray don't!"
Mr Sparkler, in absence of mind - perhaps in a more literal absence of mind 
than is usually understood by the phrase - had smelt so hard at a sprig in 
his hand as to be on the verge of the offence in question. He smiled, said, 
"I ask you pardon, my dear," and threw it out of window.
"You make my head ache by remaining in that position, Edmund," said Mrs 
Sparkler, raising her eyes to him, after another minute; "you look so 
aggravatingly large by this light. Do sit down."
"Certainly, my dear," said Mr Sparkler. And took a chair on the same spot.
"If I didn't know that the longest day was past," said Fanny, yawning in a 
dreary manner, "I should have felt certain this was the longest day. I 
never did experience such a day."
"Is this your fan, my love?" asked Mr Sparkler, picking up one, and 
presenting it.
"Edmund," returned his wife more wearily yet, "don't ask weak questions, I 
entreat you not. Whose can it be but mine?"
"Yes, I thought it was yours," said Mr Sparkler. "Then you shouldn't ask," 
retorted Fanny. After a little while, she turned on her sofa and exclaimed, 
"Dear me, dear me, there never was such a long day as this!" After another 
little while, she got up slowly, walked about, and came back again.
"My dear," said Mr Sparkler, flashing with an original conception, "I think 
you must have got the fidgets."
"Oh! Fidgets!" repeated Mrs Sparkler. "Don't!"
"My adorable girl," urged Mr Sparkler, "try your aromatic vinegar. I have 
often seen my mother try it and it seemingly refreshed her. And she is, as 
I believe you are aware, a remarkably fine woman, with no non - '
"Good Gracious!" exclaimed Fanny, starting up again, "It's beyond all 
patience! This is the most wearisome day that ever did dawn upon the world, 
I am certain!"
Mr Sparkler looked meekly after her as she lounged about the room, and he 
appeared to be a little frightened. When she had tossed a few trifles 
about, and had looked down into the darkening street out of all the three 
windows, she returned to her sofa, and threw herself among its pillows.
"Now, Edmund, come here! Come a little nearer, because I want to be able to 
touch you with my fan, that I may impress you very much with what I am 
going to say. That will do. Quite close enough. Oh, you do look so big!"
Mr Sparkler apologised for the circumstance, pleaded that he couldn't help 
it, and said that "our fellows," without more particularly indicating whose 
fellows, used to call him by the name of Quinbus Flestrin, Junior, or the 
Young Man Mountain.
"You ought to have told me so before," Fanny complained.
"My dear," returned Mr Sparkler, rather gratified, "I didn't know it would 
interest you, or I would have made a point of telling you."
"There! For goodness sake, don't talk," said Fanny; "I want to talk, 
myself. Edmund, we must not be alone any more. I must take such precautions 
as will prevent my being ever again reduced to the state of dreadful 
depression in which I am this evening."
"My dear," answered Mr Sparkler; "being as you are well known to be, a 
remarkably fine woman, with no -"
"Oh, good gracious!" cried Fanny.
Mr Sparkler was so discomposed by the energy of this exclamation, 
accompanied with a flouncing up from the sofa and a flouncing down again, 
that a minute or two elapsed before he felt himself equal to saying, in 
explanation:
"I mean, my dear, that everybody knows you are calculated to shine in 
society."
"Calculated to shine in society," retorted Fanny, with great irritability; 
"yes, indeed! And then what happens? I no sooner recover, in a visiting 
point of view, the shock of poor dear papa's death, and my poor uncle's - 
though I do not disguise from myself that the last was a happy release, 
for, if you are not presentable, you had much better die -"
"You are not referring to me, my love, I hope?" Mr Sparkler humbly 
interrupted.
"Edmund, Edmund, you would wear out a Saint. Am I not expressly speaking of 
my poor uncle?"
"You looked with so much expression at myself, my dear girl, said Mr 
Sparkler, "that I felt a little uncomfortable. Thank you, my love."
"Now you have put me out," observed Fanny, with a resigned toss of her fan, 
"and I had better go to bed."
"Don't do that, my love," urged Mr Sparkler. "Take time."
Fanny took a good deal of time: lying back with her eyes shut, and her 
eyebrows raised with a hopeless expression, as if she had utterly given up 
all terrestrial affairs. At length, without the slightest notice, she 
opened her eyes again, and recommenced in a short, sharp manner.
"What happens then, I ask? What happens? Why, I find myself at the very 
period when I might shine most in society, and should most like for very 
momentous reasons to shine in society - I find myself in a situation which, 
to a certain extent, disqualifies me from going into society. It's too bad, 
really!"
"My dear," said Mr Sparkler, "I don't think it need keep you at home."
"Edmund, you ridiculous creature," returned Fanny, with great indignation, 
"do you suppose that a woman in the bloom of youth, and not wholly devoid 
of personal attractions, can put herself, at such a time, in competition as 
to figure with a woman in every other way her inferior? If you do suppose 
such a thing, your folly is boundless.
Mr Sparkler submitted that he had thought "it might be got over."
"Got over!" repeated Fanny, with immeasurable scorn.
"For a time," Mr Sparkler submitted.
Honouring the last feeble suggestion with no notice, Mrs Sparkler declared 
with bitterness that it really was too bad, and that positively it was 
enough to make one wish one was dead! 
"However," she said, when she had in some measure recovered from her sense 
of personal ill-usage; "provoking as it is, and cruel as it seems, I 
suppose it must be submitted to."
"Especially as it was to be expected," said Mr Sparkler.
"Edmund," returned his wife, "if you have nothing more becoming to do than 
to attempt to insult the woman who has honoured you with her hand, when she 
finds herself in adversity, I think you had better go to bed!"
Mr Sparkler was much afflicted by the charge, and offered a most tender and 
earnest apology. His apology was accepted; but Mrs Sparkler requested him 
to go round to the other side of the sofa and sit in the window-curtain, to 
tone himself down.
"Now, Edmund," she said, stretching out her fan, and touching him with it 
at arm's length, "what I was going to say to you when you began as usual to 
prose and worry, is, that I shall guard against our being alone any more, 
and that when circumstances prevent my going out to my own satisfaction, I 
must arrange to have some people or other always here; for, I really 
cannot, and will not, have another such day as this has been."
Mr Sparkler's sentiments as to the plan were, in brief, that it had no 
nonsense about it. He added, "And besides, you know it's likely that you'll 
soon have your sister -"
"Dearest Amy, yes?" cried Mrs Sparkler, with a sigh of affection. "Darling 
little thing! Not, however, that Amy would do here alone."
Mr Sparkler was going to say "No?" interrogatively. But, he saw his danger 
and said it assentingly. "No. Oh dear no; she wouldn't do here alone."
"No, Edmund. For, not only are the virtues of the precious child of that 
still character that they require a contrast - require life and movement 
around them, to bring them out in their right colours and make one love 
them of all things; but, she will require to be roused, on more accounts 
than one."
"That's it," said Mr Sparkler. "Roused."
"Pray don't, Edmund! Your habit of interrupting without having the least 
thing in the world to say, distracts one. You must be broken of it. 
Speaking of Amy; - my poor little pet was devotedly attached to poor papa, 
and no doubt will have lamented his loss exceedingly, and grieved very 
much. I have done so myself. I have felt it dreadfully. But Amy will no 
doubt have felt it even more, from having been on the spot the whole time, 
and having been with poor dear papa at the last; which I unhappily was 
not."
Here Fanny stopped to weep, and to say, "Dear, dear, beloved papa! How 
truly gentlemanly he was! What a contrast to poor uncle!"
"From the effects of that trying time," she pursued, "my good little Mouse 
will have to be roused. Also, from the effects of this long attendance upon 
Edward in his illness: an attendance which is not yet over, which may even 
go on for some time longer, and which in the meanwhile unsettles us all, by 
keeping poor dear papa's affairs from being wound up. Fortunately, however, 
the papers with his agents here being all sealed up and locked up, as he 
left them when he providentially came to England, the affairs are in that 
state of order that they can wait until my brother Edward recovers his 
health in Sicily, sufficiently to come over, and administer, or execute, or 
whatever it may be that will have to be done."
"He couldn't have a better nurse to bring him round," Mr Sparkler made bold 
to opine.
"For a wonder, I can agree with you," returned his wife, languidly turning 
her eyelids a little in his direction (she held forth, in general, as if to 
the drawing-room furniture), "and can adopt your words. He couldn't have a 
better nurse to bring him round. There are times when my dear child is a 
little wearing, to an active mind; but, as a nurse, she is Perfection. Best 
of Amys!"
Mr Sparkler, growing rash on his late success, observed that Edward had 
had, biggodd, a long bout of it, my dear girl.
"If Bout, Edmund," returned Mrs Sparkler, "is the slang term for 
indisposition, he has. If it is not, I am unable to give an opinion on the 
barbarous language you address to Edward's sister. That he contracted 
Malaria Fever somewhere - either by travelling day and night to Rome, 
where, after all, he arrived too late to see poor dear papa before his 
death - or under some other unwholesome circumstances - is indubitable, if 
that is what you mean. Likewise, that his extremely careless life has made 
him a very bad subject for it indeed."
Mr Sparkler considered it a parallel case to that of some of our fellows in 
the West Indies with Yellow Jack. Mrs Sparkler closed her eyes again, and 
refused to have any consciousness of our fellows of the West Indies, or of 
Yellow Jack.
"So, Amy," she pursued when she reopened her eyelids, "will require to be 
roused from the effects of many tedious and anxious weeks. And lastly, she 
will require to be roused from a low tendency which I know very well to be 
at the bottom of her heart. Don't ask me what it is, Edmund, because I must 
decline to tell you."
"I am not going to, my dear," said Mr Sparkler.
"I shall thus have much improvement to effect in my sweet child," Mrs 
Sparkler continued, "and cannot have her near me too soon. Amiable and dear 
little Two-shoes! As to the settlement of poor papa's affairs, my interest 
in that is not very selfish. Papa behaved very generously to me when I was 
married, and I have little or nothing to expect. Provided he has made no 
will that can come into force, leaving a legacy to Mrs General, I am 
contented. Dear papa, dear papa!"
She wept again, but Mrs General was the best of restoratives. The name soon 
stimulated her to dry her eyes and say: "It is a highly encouraging 
circumstance in Edward's illness, I am thankful to think, and gives one the 
greatest confidence in his sense not being impaired, or his proper spirit 
weakened - down to the time of poor dear papa's death at all events - that 
he paid off Mrs General instantly, and sent her out of the house. I 
applauded him for it. I could forgive him a great deal, for doing, with 
such promptitude, so exactly what I would have done myself!"
Mrs Sparkler was in the full glow of her gratification, when a double knock 
was heard at the door. A very odd knock. Low, as if to avoid making a noise 
and attracting attention. Long, as if the person knocking were preoccupied 
in mind, and forgot to leave off.
"Halloa!" said Mr Sparkler. "Who's this?"
"Not Amy and Edward, without notice, and without a carriage!" said Mrs 
Sparkler. "Look out."
The room was dark, but the street was lighter, because of its lamps. Mr 
Sparkler's head peeping over the balcony looked so very bulky and heavy, 
that it seemed on the point of over-balancing him and flattening the 
unknown below.
"It's one fellow," said Mr Sparkler. "I can't see who - stop though!"
On this second thought he went out into the balcony again and had another 
look. He came back as the door was opened, and announced that he believed 
he had identified "his governor's tile." He was not mistaken, for his 
governor, with his tile in his hand, was introduced immediately afterwards.
"Candles!" said Mrs Sparkler, with a word of excuse for the darkness.
"It's light enough for me," said Mr Merdle.
When the candles were brought in, Mr Merdle was discovered standing behind 
the door, picking his lips. "I thought I'd give you a call," he said. "I am 
rather particularly occupied just now; and, as I happened to be out for a 
stroll, I thought I'd give you a call."
As he was in dinner dress, Fanny asked him where he had been dining?
"Well," said Mr Merdle, "I haven't been dining anywhere, particularly."
"Of course you have dined?" said Fanny.
"Why - no I haven't exactly dined," said Mr Merdle.
He had passed his hand over his yellow forehead, and considered, as if he 
were not sure about it. Something to eat, was proposed. "No, thank you," 
said Mr Merdle, "I don't feel inclined for it. I was to have dined out 
along with Mrs Merdle. But as I didn't feel inclined for dinner, I let Mrs 
Merdle go by herself just as we were getting into the carriage, and thought 
I'd take a stroll instead."
Would he have tea, or coffee? "No, thank you," said Mr Merdle. "I looked in 
at the Club, and got a bottle of wine."
At this period of his visit, Mr Merdle took the chair which Edmund Sparkler 
had offered him, and which he had hitherto been pushing slowly about before 
him, like a dull man with a pair of skates on for the first time, who could 
not make up his mind to start. He now put his hat upon another chair beside 
him, and, looking down into it as if it were some twenty feet deep, said 
again: "You see I thought I'd give you a call."
"Flattering to us," said Fanny, "for you are not a calling man."
"N - no," returned Mr Merdle, who was by this time taking himself into 
custody under both coat-sleeves. "No, I am not a calling man."
"You have too much to do for that," said Fanny. "Having so much to do, Mr 
Merdle, loss of appetite is a serious thing with you, and you must have it 
seen to. You must not be ill."
"Oh! I am very well," replied Mr Merdle, after deliberating about it. "I am 
as well as I usually am. I am well enough. I am as well as I want to be."
The master mind of the age, true to its characteristic of being at all 
times a mind that had as little as possible to say for itself and great 
difficulty in saying it, became mute again. Mrs Sparkler began to wonder 
how long the master-mind meant to stay.
"I was speaking of poor papa when you came in, sir."
"Aye? Quite a coincidence," said Mr Merdle.
Fanny did not see that; but felt it incumbent on her to continue talking. 
"I was saying," she pursued, "that my brother's illness has occasioned a 
delay in examining and arranging papa's property."
"Yes," said Mr Merdle; "yes. There has been a delay."
"Not that it is of consequence," said Fanny.
"Not," assented Mr Merdle, after having examined the cornice of all that 
part of the room which was within his range: "not that it is of any 
consequence."
"My only anxiety is," said Fanny, "that Mrs General should not get 
anything."
"She won't get anything," said Mr Merdle.
Fanny was delighted to hear him express the opinion. Mr Merdle, after 
taking another gaze into the depths of his hat, as if he thought he saw 
something at the bottom, rubbed his hair and slowly appended to his last 
remark the confirmatory words, "Oh dear no. No. Not she. Not likely."
As the topic seemed exhausted, and Mr Merdle too, Fanny inquired if he were 
going to take up Mrs Merdle and the carriage, in his way home?
"No," he answered; "I shall go by the shortest way, and leave Mrs Merdle to 
- " here he looked all over the palms of both his hands as if he were 
telling his own fortune - "to take care of herself. I dare say she'll 
manage to do it."
"Probably," said Fanny.
There was then a long silence; during which, Mrs Sparkler, lying back on 
her sofa again, shut her eyes and raised her eyebrows in her former 
retirement from mundane affairs.
"But, however," said Mr Merdle, "I am equally detaining you and myself. I 
thought I'd give you a call, you know."
"Charmed, I am sure," said Fanny.
"So I am off," added Mr Merdle, getting up. "Could you lend me a penknife?"
It was an odd thing, Fanny smilingly observed, for her who could seldom 
prevail upon herself even to write a letter, to lend to a man of such vast 
business as Mr Merdle. "Isn't it?" Mr Merdle acquiesced; "but I want one; 
and I know you have got several little wedding keepsakes about, with 
scissors and tweezers and such things in them. You shall have it back 
tomorrow."
"Edmund," said Mrs Sparkler, "open (now, very carefully I beg and beseech, 
for you are so very awkward) the mother of pearl box on my little table 
there, and give Mr Merdle the mother of pearl penknife."
"Thank you," said Mr Merdle; "but if you have got one with a darker handle, 
I think I should prefer one with a darker handle."
"Tortoise-shell?"
"Thank you," said Mr Merdle; "yes. I think I should prefer tortoise-shell."
Edmund accordingly received instructions to open the tortoise-shell box, 
and give Mr Merdle the tortoise-shell knife. On his doing so, his wife said 
to the master-spirit graciously:
"I will forgive you, if you ink it."
"I'll undertake not to ink it," said Mr Merdle.
The illustrious visitor then put out his coat-cuff, and for a moment 
entombed Mrs Sparkler's hand: wrist, bracelet, and all. Where his own hand 
shrunk to, was not made manifest, but it was as remote from Mrs Sparkler's 
sense of touch as if he had been a highly meritorious Chelsea Veteran or 
Greenwich Pensioner.
Thoroughly convinced, as he went out of the room, that it was the longest 
day that ever did come to an end at last, and that there never was a woman, 
not wholly devoid of personal attractions, so worn out by idiotic and 
lumpish people, Fanny passed into the balcony for a breath of air. Waters 
of vexation filled her eyes; and they had the effect of making the famous 
Mr Merdle, in going down the street, appear to leap, and waltz, and gyrate, 
as if he were possessed by several Devils.


Chapter 25

The Chief Butler Resigns The Seals Of Office

The dinner-party was at the great Physician's. Bar was there, and in full 
force. Ferdinand Barnacle was there, and in his most engaging state. Few 
ways of life were hidden from Physician, and he was oftener in its darkest 
places than even Bishop. There were brilliant ladies about London who 
perfectly doted on him, my dear, as the most charming creature and the most 
delightful person, who would have been shocked to find themselves so close 
to him if they could have known on what sights those thoughtful eyes of his 
had rested within an hour or two, and near to whose beds, and under what 
roofs, his composed figure had stood. But Physician was a composed man, who 
performed neither on his own trumpet, nor on the trumpets of other people. 
Many wonderful things did he see and hear, and much irreconcilable moral 
contradiction did he pass his life among; yet his equality of compassion 
was no more disturbed than the Divine Master's of all healing was. He went, 
like the rain, among the just and unjust, doing all the good he could, and 
neither proclaiming it in the synagogues nor at the corners of streets.
As no man of large experience of humanity, however quietly carried it may 
be, can fail to be invested with an interest peculiar to the possession of 
such knowledge, Physician was an attractive man. Even the daintier 
gentlemen and ladies who had no idea of his secret, and who would have been 
startled out of more wits than they had, by the monstrous impropriety of 
his proposing to them "Come and see what I see!" confessed his attraction. 
Where he was, something real was. And half a grain of reality, like the 
smallest portion of some other scarce natural productions, will flavour an 
enormous quantity of diluent.
It came to pass, therefore, that Physician's little dinners always 
presented people in their least conventional lights. The guests said to 
themselves, whether they were conscious of it or no, "Here is a man who 
really has an acquaintance with us as we are, who is admitted to some of us 
every day with our wigs and paint off, who hears the wanderings of our 
minds, and sees the undisguised expression of our faces, when both are past 
our control: we may as well make an approach to reality with him, for the 
man has got the better of us and is too strong for us." Therefore 
Physician's guests came out so surprisingly at his round table that they 
were almost natural.
Bar's knowledge of that agglomeration of Jurymen which is called humanity 
was as sharp as a razor; yet a razor is not a generally convenient 
instrument, and Physician's plain bright scalpel, though far less keen, was 
adaptable to far wider purposes. Bar knew all about the gullibility and 
knavery of people; but Physician could have given him a better insight into 
their tendernesses and affections, in one week of his rounds, than 
Westminster Hall and all the circuits put together, in threescore years and 
ten. Bar always had a suspicion of this, and perhaps was glad to encourage 
it (for if the world were really a great Law Court one would think that the 
last day of Term could not too soon arrive); and so he liked and respected 
Physician quite as much as any other kind of man did
Mr Merdle's default left a Banquo's chair at the table; but, if he had been 
there, he would have merely made the difference of Banquo in it, and 
consequently he was no loss. Bar, who picked up all sorts of odds and ends 
about Westminster Hall, much as a raven would have done if he had passed as 
much of his time there, had been picking up a great many straws lately and 
tossing them about, to try which way the Merdle wind blew. He now had a 
little talk on the subject with Mrs Merdle herself; sliding up to that 
lady, of course, with his double eyeglass and his jury droop.
"A certain bird," said Bar; and he looked as if it could have been no other 
bird than a magpie; "has been whispering among us lawyers lately, that 
there is to be an addition to the titled personages of this realm."
"Really?" said Mrs Merdle.
"Yes," said Bar. "Has not the bird been whispering in very different ears 
from ours - in lovely ears?" He looked expressively at Mrs Merdle's nearest 
earring.
"Do you mean mine?" asked Mrs Merdle.
"When I say lovely," said Bar, "I always mean you."
"You never mean anything, I think," returned Mrs Merdle (not displeased).
"O, cruelly unjust!" said Bar. "But, the bird."
"I am the last person in the world to hear news," observed Mrs Merdle, 
carelessly arranging her stronghold "Who is it?"
"What an admirable witness you would make!" said Bar. "No jury (unless we 
could empanel one of blind men) could resist you, if you were ever so bad a 
one; but, you would be such a good one!"
"Why, you ridiculous man?" asked Mrs Merdle, laughing.
Bar waved his double eyeglass three or four times between himself and the 
Bosom, as a rallying answer, and inquired in his most insinuating accents:
"What am I to call the most elegant, accomplished, and charming of women, a 
few weeks, or it may be a few days, hence?"
"Didn't your bird tell you what to call her?" answered Mrs Merdle. "Do ask 
it tomorrow, and tell me the next time you see me, what it says!"
This led to further passages of similar pleasantry between the two; but, 
Bar, with all his sharpness, got nothing out of them. Physician, on the 
other hand, taking Mrs Merdle down to her carriage, and attending on her as 
she put on her cloak, inquired into the symptoms with his usual calm 
directness.
"May I ask," he said, "is this true about Merdle?"
"My dear doctor," she returned, "you ask me the very question that I was 
half-disposed to ask you."
"To ask me! Why me?"
"Upon my honour, I think Mr Merdle reposes greater confidence in you than 
in any one."
"On the contrary, he tells me absolutely nothing, even professionally. You 
have heard the talk, of course?"
"Of course I have. But, you know what Mr Merdle is; you know how taciturn 
and reserved he is. I assure you I have no idea what foundation for it 
there may be. I should like it to be true; why should I deny that to you! 
You would know better, if I did!"
"Just so," said Physician.
"But whether it is all true, or partly true, or entirely false, I am wholly 
unable to say. It is a most provoking situation, a most absurd situation; 
but, you know Mr Merdle, and are not surprised."
Physician was not surprised, handed her into her carriage, and bade her 
Good Night. He stood for a moment at his own hall-door, looking sedately at 
the elegant equipage as it rattled away. On his return upstairs, the rest 
of the guests soon dispersed, and he was left alone. Being a great reader 
of all kinds of literature (and never at all apologetic for that weakness), 
he sat down comfortably to read.
The clock upon his study-table pointed to a few minutes short of twelve, 
when his attention was called to it by a ringing at the door bell. A man of 
plain habits, he had sent his servants to bed and must needs go down to 
open the door. He went down, and there found a man without hat or coat, 
whose shirt sleeves were rolled up tight to his shoulders. For a moment, he 
thought the man had been fighting: the rather, as he was much agitated and 
out of breath. A second look, however, showed him that the man was 
particularly clean, and not otherwise discomposed as to his dress than as 
it answered this description.
"I come from the warm-baths, sir, round in the neighbouring street."
"And what is the matter at the warm-baths?"
"Would you please to come directly, sir. We found that, lying on the 
table."
He put into the physician's hand a scrap of paper. Physician looked at it, 
and read his own name and address written in pencil; nothing more. He 
looked closer at the writing, looked at the man, took his hat from its peg, 
put the key of his door in his pocket, and they hurried away together.
When they came to the warm-baths, all the other people belonging to that 
establishment were looking out for them at the door, and running up and 
down the passages. "Request everybody else to keep back, if you please," 
said the physician aloud to the master; "and do you take me straight to the 
place, my friend," to the messenger.
The messenger hurried before him, along a grove of little rooms, and 
turning into one at the end of the grove, looked round the door. Physician 
was close upon him, and looked round the door too.
There was a bath in that corner, from which the water had been hastily 
drained off. Lying in it, as in a grave or sarcophagus, with a hurried 
drapery of sheet and blanket thrown across it, was the body of a heavily-
made man, with an obtuse head, and coarse, mean, common features. A 
skylight had been opened to release the steam with which the room had been 
filled; but, it hung, condensed into water-drops, heavily upon the walls, 
and heavily upon the face and figure in the bath. The room was still hot, 
and the marble of the bath still warm; but, the face and figure were clammy 
to the touch. The white marble at the bottom of the bath was veined with a 
dreadful red. On the ledge at the side were an empty laudanum-bottle and a 
tortoise-shell handled penknife - soiled, but not with ink.
"Separation of jugular vein - death rapid - been dead at least half an 
hour." This echo of the physician's words ran through the passages and 
little rooms, and through the house, while he was yet straightening himself 
from having bent down to reach to the bottom of the bath, and while he was 
yet dabbling his hands in water; redly veining it as the marble was veined, 
before it mingled into one tint.
He turned his eyes to the dress upon the sofa, and to the watch, money, and 
pocket-book, on the table. A folded note half buckled up in the pocket-
book, and half protruding from it, caught his observant glance. He looked 
at it, touched it, pulled it a little further out from among the leaves, 
said quietly, "This is addressed to me," and opened and read it.
There were no directions for him to give. The people of the house knew what 
to do; the proper authorities were soon brought; and they took an equable 
businesslike possession of the deceased and of what had been his property, 
with no greater disturbance of manner or countenance than usually attends 
the winding-up of a clock. Physician was glad to walk out into the night 
air - was even glad, in spite of his great experience, to sit down upon a 
doorstep for a little while: feeling sick and faint.
Bar was a near neighbour of his, and, when he came to the house, he saw a 
light in the room where he knew his friend often sat late, getting up his 
work. As the light was never there when Bar was not, it gave him assurance 
that Bar was not yet in bed. In fact, this busy bee had a verdict to get 
tomorrow, against evidence, and was improving the shining hours in setting 
snares for the gentlemen of the jury.
Physician's knock astonished Bar; but, as he immediately suspected that 
somebody had come to tell him that somebody else was robbing him, or 
otherwise trying to get the better of him, he came down promptly and 
softly. He had been clearing his head with a lotion of cold water, as a 
good preparative to providing hot water for the heads of the jury, and had 
been reading with the neck of his shirt thrown wide open, that he might the 
more freely choke the opposite witnesses. In consequence, he came down 
looking rather wild. Seeing Physician, the least expected of men, he looked 
wilder and said, "What's the matter?"
"You asked me once what Merdle's complaint was."
"Extraordinary answer! I know I did."
"I told you I had not found it out."
"Yes. I know you did."
"I have found it out."
"My God!" said Bar, starting back, and clapping his hands upon the other's 
breast. "And so have I! I see it in your face."
They went into the nearest room, where Physician gave him the letter to 
read. He read it through, half a dozen times. There was not much in it as 
to quantity; but, it made a great demand on his close and continuous 
attention. He could not sufficiently give utterance to his regret that he 
had not himself found a clue to this. The smallest clue, he said, would 
have made him master of the case, and what a case it would have been to 
have got to the bottom of! 
Physician had engaged to break the intelligence in Harley Street. Bar could 
not at once return to his inveiglements of the most enlightened and 
remarkable jury he had ever seen in that box, with whom, he could tell his 
learned friend, no shallow sophistry would go down, and no unhappily abused 
professional tact and skill prevail (this was the way he meant to begin 
with them); so he said he would go too, and would loiter to and fro near 
the house while his friend was inside. They walked there, the better to 
recover self-possession in the air; and the wings of day were fluttering 
the night when Physician knocked at the door.
A footman of rainbow hues, in the public eye was sitting up for his master -
 that is to say, was fast asleep in the kitchen, over a couple of candles 
and a newspaper, demonstrating the great accumulation of mathematical odds 
against the probabilities of a house being set on fire by accident. When 
this serving-man was roused, Physician had still to await the rousing of 
the Chief Butler. At last that noble creature came into the dining-room in 
a flannel gown and list shoes; but with his cravat on, and a Chief Butler 
all over. It was morning now, Physician had opened the shutters of one 
window while waiting, that he might see the light.
"Mrs Merdle's maid must be called, and told to get Mrs Merdle up, and 
prepare her as gently as she can, to see me. I have dreadful news to break 
to her."
Thus Physician to the Chief Butler. The latter, who had a candle in his 
hand, called his man to take it away. Then he approached the window with 
dignity; looking on at Physician's news exactly as he had looked on at the 
dinners in that very room.
"Mr Merdle is dead."
"I should wish," said the Chief Butler, "to give a month's notice."
"Mr Merdle has destroyed himself."
"Sir," said the Chief Butler, "that is very unpleasant to the feelings of 
one in my position, as calculated to awaken prejudice; and I should wish to 
leave immediately."
"If you are not shocked, are you not surprised, man?" demanded the 
Physician, warmly.
The Chief Butler, erect and calm, replied in these memorable words. "Sir, 
Mr Merdle never was the gentleman, and no ungentlemanly act on Mr Merdle's 
part would surprise me. Is there anybody else I can send to you, or any 
other directions I can give before I leave, respecting what you would wish 
to be done?"
When Physician, after discharging himself of his trust upstairs, rejoined 
Bar in the street, he said no more of his interview with Mrs Merdle than 
that he had not yet told her all, but that what he had told her, she had 
borne pretty well. Bar had devoted his leisure in the street to the 
construction of a most ingenious mantrap for catching the whole of his Jury 
at a blow; having got that matter settled in his mind, it was lucid on the 
late catastrophe, and they walked home slowly, discussing it in every 
bearing. Before parting, at Physician's door, they both looked up at the 
sunny morning sky, into which the smoke of a few early fires and the breath 
and voices of a few early stirrers were peacefully rising, and then looked 
round upon the immense city, and said, If all those hundreds and thousands 
of beggared people who were yet asleep, could only know, as they two spoke, 
the ruin that impended over them, what a fearful cry against one miserable 
soul would go up to Heaven! 
The report that the great man was dead, got about with astonishing 
rapidity. At first, he was dead of all the diseases that ever were known, 
and of several bran-new maladies invented with the speed of Light, to meet 
the demand of the occasion. He had concealed a dropsy from infancy, he had 
inherited a large estate of water on the chest from his grandfather, he had 
had an operation performed upon him every morning of his life for eighteen 
years, he had been subject to the explosion of important veins in his body 
after the manner of fireworks, he had had something the matter with lungs, 
he had had something the matter with his heart, he had had something the 
matter with his brain. Five hundred people who sat down to breakfast 
entirely uninformed on the whole subject, believed before they had done 
breakfast that they privately and personally knew Physician to have said to 
Mr Merdle, "You must expect to go out, some day, like the snuff of a 
candle," and that they knew Mr Merdle to have said to Physician, "A man can 
die but once." By about eleven o'clock in the forenoon, something the 
matter with the brain, became the favourite theory against the field; and 
by twelve the something had been distinctly ascertained to be "Pressure."
Pressure was so entirely satisfactory to the public mind, and seemed to 
make everybody so comfortable, that it might have lasted all day but for 
Bar's having taken the real state of the case into Court at half-past nine. 
This led to its beginning to be currently whispered all over London by 
about one, that Mr Merdle had killed himself. Pressure, however, so far 
from being overthrown by the discovery, became a greater favourite than 
ever. There was a general moralising upon Pressure, in every street. All 
the people who had tried to make money and had not been able to do it, 
said, There you were! You no sooner began to devote yourself to the pursuit 
of wealth, than you got Pressure. The idle people improved the occasion in 
a similar manner. See, said they, what you brought yourself to by work, 
work, work! You persisted in working, you overdid it. Pressure came on, and 
you were done for! This consideration was very potent in many quarters, but 
nowhere more so than among the young clerks and partners who had never been 
in the slightest danger of overdoing it. These one and all declared, quite 
piously, that they hoped they would never forget the warning as long as 
they lived, and that their conduct might be so regulated as to keep off 
Pressure, and preserve them, a comfort to their friends, for many years.
But, at about the time of High 'Change, Pressure began to wane, and 
appalling whispers to circulate, east, west, north, and south. At first 
they were faint, and went no further than a doubt whether Mr Merdle's 
wealth would be found to be as vast as had been supposed; whether there 
might not be a temporary difficulty in "realising" it; whether there might 
not even be a temporary suspension (say a month or so), on the part of the 
wonderful Bank. As the whispers became louder, which they did from that 
time every minute, they became more threatening. He had sprung from 
nothing, by no natural growth or process that any one could account for; he 
had been after all, a low, ignorant fellow; he had been a down-looking man, 
and no one had ever been able to catch his eye; he had been taken up by all 
sorts of people, in quite an unaccountable manner; he had never had any 
money of his own, his ventures had been utterly reckless, and his 
expenditure had been most enormous. In steady progression, as the day 
declined, the talk rose in sound and purpose. He had left a letter at the 
Baths addressed to his physician, and his physician had got the letter, and 
the letter would be produced at the Inquest on the morrow, and it would 
fall like a thunderbolt upon the multitude he had deluded. Numbers of men 
in every profession and trade would be blighted by his insolvency; old 
people who had been in easy circumstances all their lives would have no 
place of repentance for their trust in him but the workhouse; legions of 
women and children would have their whole future desolated by the hand of 
this mighty scoundrel. Every partaker of his magnificent feasts would be 
seen to have been a sharer in the plunder of innumerable homes; every 
servile worshipper of riches who had helped to set him on his pedestal, 
would have done better to worship the Devil point-blank. So, the talk, 
lashed louder and higher by confirmation on confirmation, and by edition 
after edition of the evening papers, swelled into such a roar when night 
came, as might have brought one to believe that a solitary watcher on the 
gallery above the Dome of Saint Paul's would have perceived the night air 
to be laden with a heavy muttering of the name of Merdle, coupled with 
every form of execration.
For, by that time it was known that the late Mr Merdle's complaint had 
been, simply, Forgery and Robbery.
He, the uncouth object of such wide-spread adulation, the sitter at great 
men's feasts, the roc's egg of great ladies' assemblies, the subduer of 
exclusiveness, the leveller of pride, the patron of patrons, the bargain-
driver with a Minister for Lordships of the Circumlocution Office, the 
recipient of more acknowledgment within some ten or fifteen years, at most, 
than had been bestowed in England upon all peaceful public benefactors, and 
upon all the leaders of all the Arts and Sciences, with all their works to 
testify for them, during two centuries at least - he, the shining wonder, 
the new constellation to be followed by the wise men bringing gifts, until 
it stopped over certain carrion at the bottom of a bath and disappeared - 
was simply the greatest Forger and the greatest Thief that ever cheated the 
gallows.


Chapter 26

Reaping The Whirlwind

With a precursory sound of hurried breath and hurried feet, Mr Pancks 
rushed into Arthur Clennam's Counting-house. The Inquest was over, the 
letter was public, the Bank was broken, the other model structures of straw 
had taken fire and were turned to smoke. The admired piratical ship had 
blown up, in the midst of a vast fleet of ships of all rates, and boats of 
all sizes; and on the deep was nothing but ruin: nothing but burning hulls, 
bursting magazines, great guns self-exploded tearing friends and neighbours 
to pieces, drowning men clinging to unseaworthy spars and going down every 
minute, spent swimmers, floating dead, and sharks.
The usual diligence and order of the Counting-house at the Works were 
overthrown. Unopened letters and unsorted papers lay strewn about the desk. 
In the midst of these tokens of prostrated energy and dismissed hope, the 
master of the Counting-house stood idle in his usual place, with his arms 
crossed on the desk, and his head bowed down upon them.
Mr Pancks rushed in and saw him, and stood still. In another minute, Mr 
Pancks's arms were on the desk, and Mr Pancks's head was bowed down upon 
them; and for some time they remained in these attitudes, idle and silent, 
with the width of the little room between them.
Mr Pancks was the first to lift up his head and speak.
"I persuaded you to it, Mr Clennam. I know it. Say what you will. You can't 
say more to me than I say to myself You can't say more than I deserve."
"Oh, Pancks, Pancks!" returned Clennam, "don't speak of deserving. What do 
I, myself, deserve!"
"Better luck," said Pancks.
"I," pursued Clennam, without attending to him, "who have ruined my 
partner! Pancks, Pancks, I have ruined Doyce! The honest, self-helpful, 
indefatigable old man, who has worked his way all through his life; the man 
who has contended against so much disappointment, and who has brought out 
of it such a good and hopeful nature; the man I have felt so much for, and 
meant to be so true and useful to; I have ruined him - brought him to shame 
and disgrace - ruined him, ruined him!"
The agony into which the reflection wrought his mind was so distressing to 
see, that Mr Pancks took hold of himself by the hair of his head, and tore 
it in desperation at the spectacle.
"Reproach me!" cried Pancks. "Reproach me, sir, or I'll do myself an 
injury. Say, You fool, you villain. Say, Ass, how could you do it, Beast, 
what did you mean by it! Catch hold of me somewhere. Say something abusive 
to me!" All the time, Mr Pancks was tearing at his tough hair in a most 
pitiless and cruel manner.
"If you had never yielded to this fatal mania, Pancks," said Clennam, more 
in commiseration than retaliation, "it would have been how much better for 
you, and how much better for me!"
"At me again, sir!" cried Pancks, grinding his teeth in remorse. "At me 
again!"
"If you had never gone into those accursed calculations, and brought out 
your results with such abominable clearness," groaned Clennam, "it would 
have been how much better for you, Pancks, and how much better for me!"
"At me again, sir!" exclaimed Pancks, loosening his hold of his hair; "at 
me again, and again!"
Clennam, however, finding him already beginning to be pacified, had said 
all he wanted to say, and more. He wrung his hand, only adding, "Blind 
leaders of the blind, Pancks! Blind leaders of the blind! But Doyce, Doyce, 
Doyce; my injured partner!" That brought his head down on the desk once 
more.
Their former attitudes and their former silence were once more first 
encroached upon by Pancks.
"Not been to bed, sir, since it began to get about. Been high and low, on 
the chance of finding some hope of saving any cinders from the fire. All in 
vain. All gone. All vanished"
"I know it." returned Clennam. "too well."
Mr Pancks filled up a pause with a groan that came out of the very depths 
of his soul.
"Only yesterday, Pancks," said Arthur; "only yesterday, Monday, I had the 
fixed intention of selling, realising and making an end of it."
"I can't say as much for myself, sir," returned Pancks. "Though it's 
wonderful how many people I've heard of, who were going to realise 
yesterday, of all days in the three hundred and sixty-five, if it hadn't 
been too late!"
His steam-like breathings, usually droll in their effect, were more tragic 
than so many groans; while, from head to foot, he was in that begrimed, 
besmeared, neglected state, that he might have been an authentic portrait 
of Misfortune which could scarcely be discerned through its want of 
cleaning.
"Mr Clennam, had you laid out - everything?" He got over the break before 
the last word, and also brought out the last word itself with great 
difficulty.
"Everything."
Mr Pancks took hold of his tough hair again, and gave it such a wrench that 
he pulled out several prongs of it. After looking at these with an eye of 
wild hatred, he put them in his pocket.
"My course," said Clennam, brushing away some tears that had been silently 
dropping down his face, "must be taken at once. What wretched amends I can 
make must be made. I must clear my unfortunate partner's reputation. I must 
retain nothing for myself. I must resign to our creditors the power of 
management I have so much abused, and I must work out as much of my fault - 
or crime - as is susceptible of being worked out, in the rest of my days."
"Is it impossible, sir, to tide over the present?"
"Out of the question. Nothing can be tided over now, Pancks. The sooner the 
business can pass out of my hands, the better for it. There are engagements 
to be met, this week, which would bring the catastrophe before many days 
were over, even if I would postpone it for a single day, by going on for 
that space, secretly knowing what I know. All last night I thought of what 
I would do; what remains is to do it."
"Not entirely of yourself?" said Pancks, whose face was as damp as if his 
steam were turning into water as fast as he dismally blew it off. "Have 
some legal help."
"Perhaps I had better."
"Have Rugg."
"There is not much to do. He will do it as well as another."
"Shall I fetch Rugg, Mr Clennam?"
"If you could spare the time. I should be much obliged to you."
Mr Pancks put on his hat that moment, and steamed away to Pentonville. 
While he was gone Arthur never raised his head from the desk, but remained 
in that one position.
Mr Pancks brought his friend and professional adviser Mr Rugg back with 
him. Mr Rugg had had such ample experience, on the road, of Mr Pancks's 
being at that present in an irrational state of mind, that he opened his 
professional meditation by requesting that gentleman to take himself out of 
the way. Mr Pancks, crushed and submissive, obeyed.
"He is not unlike what my daughter was, sir, when we began the Breach of 
Promise action of Rugg and Bawkins, in which she was Plaintiff," said Mr 
Rugg. "He takes too strong and direct an interest in the case. His feelings 
are worked upon. There is no getting on, in our profession, with feelings 
worked upon, sir."
As he pulled off his gloves and put them in his hat, he saw, in a side 
glance or two, that a great change had come over his client.
"I am sorry to perceive, sir," said Mr Rugg, "that you have been allowing 
your own feelings to be worked upon. Now, pray don't, pray don't. These 
losses are much to be deplored, sir, but we must look 'em in the face."
"If the money I have sacrificed had been all my own, Mr Rugg," sighed 
Clennam, "I should have cared far less."
"Indeed, sir?" said Mr Rugg, rubbing his hands with a cheerful air.. "You 
surprise me. That's singular, sir. I have generally found, in my 
experience, that it's their own money people are most particular about. I 
have seen people get rid of a good deal of other people's money, and bear 
it very well: very well indeed."
With these comforting remarks, Mr Rugg seated himself on an office stool at 
the desk and proceeded to business.
"Now, Mr Clennam, by your leave, let us go into the matter. Let us see the 
state of the case. The question is simple. The question is the usual plain, 
straight-forward, common-sense question. What can we do for ourself? What 
can we do for ourself?"

"That is not the question with me, Mr Rugg," said Arthur. "You mistake it 
in the beginning. It is, what can I do for my partner, how can I make best 
reparation to him?"
"I am afraid, sir, do you know," argued Mr Rugg, persuasively, "that you 
are still allowing your feelings to be worked upon! I don't like the term 
'reparation,' sir, except as a lever in the hands of counsel. Will you 
excuse my saying that I feel it my duty to offer you the caution, that you 
really must not allow your feelings to be worked upon?"
"Mr Rugg," said Clennam, nerving himself to go through with what he had 
resolved upon, and surprising that gentleman by appearing, in his 
despondency, to have a settled determination of purpose; "you give me the 
impression that you will not be much disposed to adopt the course I have 
made up my mind to take. If your disapproval of it should render you 
unwilling to discharge such business as it necessitates, I am sorry for it, 
and must seek other aid. But, I will represent to you at once, that to 
argue against it with me is useless."
"Good, sir," answered Mr Rugg, shrugging his shoulders, "Good, sir. Since 
the business is to be done by some hands, let it be done by mine. Such was 
my principle in the case of Rugg and Bawkins. Such is my principle in most 
cases."
Clennam then proceeded to state to Mr Rugg his fixed resolution. He told Mr 
Rugg that his partner was a man of great simplicity and integrity, and that 
in all he meant to do he was guided above all things by a knowledge of his 
partner's character, and a respect for his feelings. He explained that his 
partner was then absent on an enterprise of importance, and that it 
particularly behoved himself publicly to accept the blame of what he had 
rashly done, and publicly to exonerate his partner from all participation 
in the responsibility of it, lest the successful conduct of that enterprise 
should be endangered by the slightest suspicion wrongfully attaching to his 
partner's honour and credit in another country. He told Mr Rugg that to 
clear his partner morally, to the fullest extent, and publicly and 
unreservedly to declare that he, Arthur Clennam, of that Firm, had of his 
own sole act, and even expressly against his partner's caution, embarked 
its resources in the swindles that had lately perished, was the only real 
atonement within his power; was a better atonement to the particular man 
than it would be to many men; and was therefore the atonement he had first 
to make. With this view, his intention was to print a declaration to the 
foregoing effect, which he had already drawn up; and, besides circulating 
it among all who had dealings with the House, to advertise it in the public 
papers. Concurrently with the measure (the description of which cost Mr 
Rugg innumerable wry faces and great uneasiness in his limbs), he would 
address a letter to all the creditors, exonerating his partner in a solemn 
manner, informing them of the stoppage of the House until their pleasure 
could be known and his partner communicated with, and humbly submitting 
himself to their direction. If, through their consideration for his 
partner's innocence, the affairs could ever be got into such train as that 
the business could be profitably resumed, and its present downfall 
overcome, then his own share in it should revert to his partner, as the 
only reparation he could make to him in money value for the distress and 
loss he had unhappily brought upon him, and he himself, at as small a 
salary as he could live upon, would ask to be allowed to serve the business 
as a faithful clerk.
Though Mr Rugg saw plainly that there was no preventing this from being 
done, still the wryness of his face and the uneasiness of his limbs so 
sorely required the propitiation of a Protest, that he made one. "I offer 
no objection, sir," said he, "I argue no point with you. I will carry out 
your views, sir, but, under protest." Mr Rugg then stated, not without 
prolixity, the heads of his protest. These were, in effect, Because the 
whole town, or he might say the whole country, was in the first madness of 
the late discovery, and the resentment against the victims would be very 
strong; those who had not been deluded being certain to wax exceedingly 
wroth with them for not having been as wise as they were; and those who had 
been deluded, being certain to find excuses and reasons for themselves, of 
which they were equally certain to see that other sufferers were wholly 
devoid; not to mention the great probability of every individual sufferer 
persuading himself, to his violent indignation, that but for the example of 
all the other sufferers, he never would have put himself in the way of 
suffering. Because such a declaration as Clennam's, made at such a time, 
would certainly draw down upon him a storm of animosity, rendering it 
impossible to calculate on forbearance in the creditors, or on unanimity 
among them; and exposing him a solitary target to a straggling cross-fire, 
which might bring him down from half a dozen quarters at once.
To all this Clennam merely replied that, granting the whole protest, 
nothing in it lessened the force, or could lessen the force, of the 
voluntary and public exoneration of his partner. He therefore, once for 
all, requested Mr Rugg's immediate aid in getting the business dispatched. 
Upon that, Mr Rugg fell to work; and Arthur, retaining no property to 
himself but his clothes and books, and a little loose money, placed his 
small private banker's-account with the papers of the business.
The disclosure was made, and the storm raged fearfully. Thousands of people 
were wildly staring about for somebody alive to heap reproaches on; and 
this notable case, courting publicity, set the living somebody so much 
wanted, on a scaffold. When people who had nothing to do with the case were 
so sensible of its flagrancy, people who lost money by it could scarcely be 
expected to deal mildly with it. Letters of reproach and invective showered 
in from the creditors; and Mr Rugg, who sat upon the high stool every day 
and read them all, informed his client within a week, that he feared there 
were writs out.
"I must take the consequences of what I have done," said Clennam. "The 
writs find me here."
On the very next morning, as he was turning in Bleeding Heart Yard by Mrs 
Plornish's corner, Mrs Plornish stood at the door waiting for him, and 
mysteriously besought him to step into Happy Cottage. There he found Mr 
Rugg.
"I thought I'd wait for you here. I wouldn't go on to the Counting-house 
this morning if I was you, sir."
"Why not, Mr Rugg?"
"There are as many as five out, to my knowledge."
"It cannot be too soon over," said Clennam. "Let them take me, at once."
"Yes, but," said Mr Rugg, getting between him and the door, "hear reason, 
hear reason. They'll take you soon enough, Mr Clennam, I don't doubt; but, 
hear reason. It almost always happens, in these cases, that some 
insignificant matter pushes itself in front and makes much of itself. Now, 
I find there's a little one out - a mere Palace Court jurisdiction - and I 
have reason to believe that a caption may be made upon that. I wouldn't be 
taken upon that."
"Why not?" asked Clennam.
"I'd be taken on a full-grown one, sir," said Mr Rugg. "It's as well to 
keep up appearances. As your professional adviser, I should prefer your 
being taken on a writ from one of the Superior Courts, if you have no 
objection to do me that favour. It looks better."
"Mr Rugg," said Arthur in his dejection, "my only wish is, that it should 
be over. I will go on, and take my chance."
"Another word of reason, sir!" cried Mr Rugg. "Now, this is reason. The 
other may be taste; but this is reason. If you should be taken on the 
little one, sir, you would go to the Marshalsea. Now, you know what the 
Marshalsea is. Very close. Excessively confined. Whereas in the King's 
Bench - " Mr Rugg waved his right hand freely, as expressing abundance of 
space.
"I would rather," said Clennam, "be taken to the Marshalsea than to any 
other prison."
"Do you say so indeed, sir?" returned Mr Rugg. "Then this is taste, too, 
and we may be walking."
He was a little offended at first, but he soon overlooked it. They walked 
through the Yard to the other end. The Bleeding Hearts were more interested 
in Arthur since his reverses than formerly: now regarding him as one who 
was true to the place and had taken up his freedom. Many of them came out 
to look after him, and to observe to one another, with great unctuousness, 
that he was "pulled down by it." Mrs Plornish and her father stood at the 
top of the steps at their own end, much depressed and shaking their heads.
There was nobody visibly in waiting when Arthur and Mr Rugg arrived at the 
Counting-house. But, an elderly member of the Jewish persuasion, preserved 
in rum, followed them close, and looked in at the glass door before Mr Rugg 
had opened one of the day's letters. "Oh!" said Mr Rugg, looking up. "How 
do you do? Step in. - Mr Clennam, I think this is the gentleman I was 
mentioning."
The gentleman explained the object of his visit to be "a tyfling madder ob 
bithznithz," and executed his legal function.
"Shall I accompany you, Mr Clennam?" asked Mr Rugg politely, rubbing his 
hands.
"I would rather go alone, thank you. Be so good as send me my clothes." Mr 
Rugg, in a light airy way, replied in the affirmative, and shook hands with 
him. He and his attendant then went downstairs, got into the first 
conveyance they found, and drove to the old gates. "Where I little thought, 
Heaven forgive me," said Clennam to himself, "that I should ever enter 
thus!"
Mr Chivery was on the Lock, and Young John was in the Lodge: either newly 
released from it, or waiting to take his own spell of duty. Both were more 
astonished on seeing who the new prisoner was, than one might have thought 
turnkeys would have been. The elder Mr Chivery shook hands with him in a 
shame-faced kind of way, and said, "I don't call to mind, sir, as I was 
ever less glad to see you." The younger Mr Chivery, more distant, did not 
shake hands with him at all; he stood looking at him in a state of 
indecision so observable, that it even came within the observation of 
Clennam, with his heavy eyes and heavy heart. Presently afterwards, Young 
John disappeared into the jail.
As Clennam knew enough of the place to know that he was required to remain 
in the lodge a certain time, he took a seat in a corner, and feigned to be 
occupied with the perusal of letters from his pocket. They did not so 
engross his attention, but that he saw, with gratitude, how the elder Mr 
Chivery kept the lodge clear of prisoners; how he signed to some, with his 
keys, not to come in, how he nudged others with his elbow to go out, and 
how he made his misery as easy to him as he could.
Arthur was sitting with his eyes fixed on the floor, recalling the past, 
brooding over the present, and not attending to either, when he felt 
himself touched upon the shoulder. It was by Young John; and he said, "You 
can come now."
He got up and followed Young John. When they had gone a step or two within 
the inner iron-gate, Young John turned and said to him:
"You want a room. I have got you one."
"I thank you heartily."
Young John turned again, and took him in at the old door-way, up the old 
staircase, into the old room. Arthur stretched out his hand. Young John 
looked at it, looked at him - sternly - swelled, choked, and said:
"I don't know as I can. No, I find I can't. But I thought you'd like the 
room, and here it is for you."
Surprised at this inconsistent behaviour yielded when he was gone (he went 
away directly), to the feelings which the empty room awakened in Clennam's 
wounded breast, and to the crowding associations with the one good and 
gentle creature who had sanctified it. Her absence in his altered fortunes 
made it, and him in it, so very desolate and so much in need of such a face 
of love and truth, that he turned against the wall to weep, sobbing out, as 
his heart relieved itself, "O my Little Dorrit!"


Chapter 27

The Pupil Of The Marshalsea

The day was sunny, and the Marshalsea, with the hot noon striking upon it, 
was unwontedly quiet. Arthur Clennam dropped into a solitary armchair, 
itself as faded as any debtor in the jail, and yielded himself to his 
thoughts.
In the unnatural peace of having gone through the dreaded arrest, and got 
there, - the first change of feeling which the prison most commonly 
induced, and from which dangerous resting-place so many men had slipped 
down to the depths of degradation and disgrace, by so many ways, - he could 
think of some passages in his life, almost as if he were removed from them 
into another state of existence. Taking into account where he was, the 
interest that had first brought him there when he had been free to keep 
away, and the gentle presence that was equally inseparable from the walls 
and bars about him and from the impalpable remembrances of his later life 
which no walls or bars could imprison, it was not remarkable that 
everything his memory turned upon should bring him round again to Little 
Dorrit. Yet it was remarkable to him; not because of the fact itself; but 
because of the reminder it brought with it, how much the dear little 
creature had influenced his better resolutions.
None of us clearly know to whom or to what we are indebted in this wise, 
until some marked stop in the whirling wheel of life brings the right 
perception with it. It comes with sickness, it comes with sorrow, it comes 
with the loss of the dearly loved, it is one of the most frequent uses of 
adversity. It came to (Clennam in his adversity, strongly and tenderly. 
"When I first gathered myself together," he thought, "and set something 
like purpose before my jaded eyes, whom had I before me, toiling on, for a 
good object's sake, without encouragement, without notice, against ignoble 
obstacles that would have turned an army of received heroes and heroines? 
One weak girl! When I tried to conquer my misplaced love, and to be 
generous lo the man who was mole fortunate than I, though he should never 
know it or repay me with a gracious word, in whom had I watched patience, 
self-denial, self-subdual, charitable construction, the noblest generosity 
of the affections? In the same poor girl! If I, a man, with a man's 
advantages and means and energies, had slighted the whisper in my heart, 
that if my father had erred, it was my first duty to conceal the fault and 
to repair it, what youthful figure with tender feet going almost bare on 
the damp ground, with spare hands ever working with its slight shape but 
half protected from the sharp weather, would have stood before me to put me 
to shame? Little Dorrit's." So always, as he sat alone in the faded chair, 
thinking. Always, Little Dorrit. Until it seemed to him as if he met the 
reward of having wandered away from her, and suffered anything to pass 
between him and his remembrance of her virtues.
His door was opened, and the head of the elder Chivery was put in a very 
little way, without being turned towards him.
"I am off the Lock, Mr Clennam, and going out. Can I do anything for you?"
"Many thanks. Nothing."
"You'll excuse me opening the door," said Mr Chivery; "but I couldn't make 
you hear."
"Did you knock?"
"Half-a-dozen times."
Rousing himself, Clennam observed that the prison had awakened from its 
noontide doze, that the inmates w ere loitering about the shady yard, and 
that it was late in the afternoon. He had been thinking for hours.
"Your things is come," said Mr Chivery, "and my son is going to carry 'em 
up. I should have sent 'em up, but for his wishing to carry 'em himself. 
Indeed he would have 'em himself, and so I couldn't send 'em up. Mr 
Clennam, could I say a word to you?"
"Pray come in," said Arthur; for Mr Chivery's head was still put in at the 
door a very little way, and Mr Chivery had but one ear upon him, instead of 
both eyes. This was native delicacy in Mr Chivery - true politeness; though 
his exterior had very much of a turnkey about it, and not the least of a 
gentleman.
"Thank you, sir," said Mr Chivery, without advancing; "it's no odds me 
coming in. Mr Clennam, don't you take no notice of my son (if you'll be so 
good) in case you find him cut up anyways difficult. My son has a art, and 
my son's art is in the right place. Me and his mother knows where to find 
it, and we find it sitiwated correct."
With this mysterious speech, Mr Chivery took his ear away and shut the 
door. He might have been gone ten minutes, when his son succeeded him.
"Here's your portmanteau," he said to Arthur, putting it carefully down.
"It's very kind of you. I am ashamed that you should have the trouble."
He was gone, before it came to that; but soon returned, saying exactly as 
before, "here's your black box;" which he also put down with care.
"I am very sensible of this attention. I hope we may shake hands now, Mr 
John."
Young John, however, drew back, turning his right wrist in a socket made of 
his left thumb and middle finger, and said as he had said at first, "I 
don't know as I can. No; I find I can't!" He then stood regarding the 
prisoner sternly, though with a swelling humour in his eyes that looked 
like pity.
"Why are you angry with me," said Clennam, "and yet so ready to do me these 
kind services? There must be some mistake between us. If I have done 
anything to occasion it I am sorry."
"No mistake, sir," returned John, turning the wrist backwards and forwards 
in the socket, for which it was rather tight. "No mistake, sir, in the 
feelings with which my eyes behold you at the present moment! If I was at 
all fairly equal to your weight, Mr Clennam - which I am not; and if you 
weren't under a cloud - which you are; and if it wasn't against all rules 
of the Marshalsea - which it is; those feelings are such, that they would 
stimulate me, more to having it out with you in a Round on the present 
spot, than to anything else I could name."
Arthur looked at him for a moment in some wonder, and some little anger. 
"Well, well!" he said. "A mistake, a mistake!" Turning away, he sat down, 
with a heavy sigh, in the faded chair again.
Young John followed him with his eyes, and, after a short pause, cried out, 
"I beg your pardon!"
"Freely granted," said Clennam, waving his hand, without raising his sunken 
head. "Say no more. I am not worth it."
"This furniture, sir," said Young John in a voice of mild and soft 
explanation, "belongs to me. I am in the habit of letting it out to parties 
without furniture, that have the room. It ain't much, but it's at your 
service. Free, I mean. I could not think of letting you have it on any 
other terms. You're welcome to it for nothing."
Arthur raised his head again, to thank him, and to say he could not accept 
the favour. John was still turning his wrist, and still contending with 
himself in his former divided manner.
"What is the matter between us?" said Arthur.
"I decline to name it, sir," returned Young John, suddenly turning loud and 
sharp. "Nothing's the matter."
Arthur looked at him again, in vain, for any explanation of his behaviour. 
After a while, Arthur turned away his head again. Young John said, 
presently afterwards, with the utmost mildness:
"The little round table, sir, that's nigh your elbow, was - you know whose -
 I needn't mention him - he died, a great gentleman. I bought it of an 
individual that he gave it to, and that lived here after him. But the 
individual wasn't anyways equal to him. Most individuals would find it hard 
to come up to his level."
Arthur drew the little table nearer, rested his arm upon it, and kept it 
there.
"Perhaps you may not be aware, sir," said Young John, "that I intruded upon 
him when he was over here in London. On the whole he was of opinion that it 
was an intrusion, though he was so good as to ask me to sit down and to 
inquire after father and all other old friends. Leastways humblest 
acquaintances. He looked, to me, a good deal changed, and I said so when I 
came back. I asked him if Miss Amy was well -"
"And she was?"
"I should have thought you would have known without putting the question to 
such as me," returned Young John, after appearing to take a large invisible 
pill. "Since you do put the question, I am sorry I can't answer it. But the 
truth is, he looked upon the inquiry as a liberty, and said, 'What was that 
to me?' It was then I became quite aware I was intruding: of which I had 
been fearful before. However, he spoke very handsome afterwards; very 
handsome."
They were both silent for several minutes: except that Young John remarked, 
at about the middle of the pause, "He both spoke and acted very handsome."
It was again Young John who broke the silence, by inquiring:
"If it's not a liberty, how long may it be your intentions, sir, to go 
without eating and drinking?"
"I have not felt the want of anything yet," returned Clennam. "I have no 
appetite just now."
"The more reason why you should take some support, sir," urged Young John. 
"If you find yourself going on sitting here for hours and hours partaking 
of no refreshment because you have no appetite, why then you should and 
must partake of refreshment without an appetite. I'm going to have tea in 
my own apartment. If it's not a liberty, please to come and take a cup. Or 
I can bring a tray here, in two minutes."
Feeling that Young John would impose that trouble on himself if he refused, 
and also feeling anxious to show that he bore in mind both the elder Mr 
Chivery's entreaty, and the younger Mr Chivery's apology, Arthur rose, and 
expressed his willingness to take a cup of tea in Mr John's apartment. 
Young John locked his door for him as they went out, slided the key into 
his pocket with great dexterity, and led the way to his own residence.
It was at the top of the house nearest to the gateway. It was the room to 
which Clennam had hurried, on the day when the enriched family had left the 
prison for ever, and where he had lifted her insensible from the floor. He 
foresaw where they were going, as soon as their feet touched the staircase. 
The room was so far changed that it was papered now, and had been 
repainted, and was far more comfortably furnished; but, he could recall it 
just as he had seen it in that single glance, when he raised her from the 
ground and carried her down to the carriage.
Young John looked hard at him, biting his fingers.
"I see you recollect the room, Mr Clennam?"
"I recollect it well, Heaven bless her!"
Oblivious of the tea, Young John continued to bite his fingers, and to look 
at his visitor, as long as his visitor continued to glance about the room. 
Finally, he made a start at the teapot, gustily rattled a quantity of tea 
into it from a cannister, and set off for the common kitchen to fill it 
with hot water.
The room was so eloquent to Clennam, in the changed circumstances of his 
return to the miserable Marshalsea; it spoke to him so mournfully of her, 
and of his loss of her; that it would have gone hard with him to resist it, 
even though he had not been alone. Alone, he did not try. He laid his hand 
on the insensible wall, as tenderly as if it had been herself that he 
touched, and pronounced her name in a low voice. He stood at the window, 
looking over the prison-parapet with its grim spiked border, and breathed a 
benediction through the summer haze towards the distant land where she was 
rich and prosperous.
Young John was some time absent, and, when he came back, showed that he had 
been outside, by bringing with him fresh butter in a cabbage leaf, some 
thin slices of boiled ham in another cabbage leaf, and a little basket of 
water-cresses and salad herbs. When there were arranged upon the table to 
his satisfaction, they sat down to tea.
Clennam tried to do honour to the meal, but unavailingly. The ham sickened 
him, the bread seemed to turn to sand in his mouth. He could force nothing 
upon himself but a cup of tea.
"Try a little something green," said Young John, handing him the basket.
He took a sprig or so of water-cress, and tried again; but, the bread 
turned to a heavier sand than before, and the ham (though it was good 
enough of itself) seemed to blow a faint simoom of ham through the whole 
Marshalsea.
"Try a little more something green, sir," said Young John, and again handed 
the basket.
It was so like handing green meat into the cage of a dull imprisoned bird, 
and John had so evidently brought the little basket as a handfull of fresh 
relief from the stale hot paving stones and bricks of the jail, that 
Clennam said, with a smile, "It was very kind of you to think of putting 
this between the wires; but, I cannot even get this down today."
As if the difficulty were contagious, Young John soon pushed away his own 
plate, and fell to folding the cabbage-leaf that had contained the ham. 
When he had folded it into a number of layers, one over another, so that it 
was small in the palm of his hand, he began to flatten it between both his 
hands, and to eye Clennam attentively.
"I wonder," he at length said, compressing his green packet with some 
force, "that if it's not worth your while to take care of yourself for your 
own sake, it's not worth doing for some one else's."
"Truly," returned Arthur, with a sigh and smile, "I don't know for whose."
"Mr Clennam," said John, warmly, "I am surprised that a gentleman who is 
capable of the straightforwardness that you are capable of, should be 
capable of the mean action of making me such an answer. Mr Clennam, I am 
surprised that a gentleman who is capable of having a heart of his own, 
should be capable of the heartlessness of treating mine in that way. I am 
astonished at it, sir. Really and truly I am astonished!" Having got upon 
his feet to emphasise his concluding words, Young John sat down again, and 
fell to rolling his green packet on his right leg; never taking his eyes 
off Clennam, but surveying him with a fixed look of indignant reproach.
"I had got over it, sir," said John. "I had conquered it, knowing that it 
must be conquered, and had come to the resolution to think no more about 
it. I shouldn't have given my mind to it again, I hope, if to this prison 
you had not been brought, and in an hour unfortunate for me, this day!" (In 
his agitation Young John adopted his mother's powerful construction of 
sentences.) "When you first came upon me, sir, in the Lodge, this day, more 
as if a Upas tree had been made a capture of than a private defendant, such 
mingled streams of feelings broke loose again within me that everything was 
for the first few minutes swept away before them, and I was going round and 
round in a vortex. I got out of it. I struggled, and got out of it. If it 
was the last word I had to speak, against that vortex with my utmost powers 
I strove, and out of it I came. I argued that if I had been rude, apologies 
was due, and those apologies without a question of demeaning, I did make. 
And now, when I've been so wishful to show that one thought is next to 
being a holy one with me and goes before all others - now, after all, you 
dodge me when I ever so gently hint at it, and throw me back upon myself. 
For, do not, sir," said Young John, "do not be so base as to deny that 
dodge you do, and thrown me back upon myself you have!"
All amazement, Arthur gazed at him, like one lost, only saying, "What is 
it? What do you mean, John?" But, John, being in that state of mind in 
which nothing would seem to be more impossible to a certain class of people 
than the giving of an answer, went ahead blindly.
"I hadn't," John declared, "no, I hadn't, and I never had, the 
audaciousness to think, I am sure, that all was anything but lost. I 
hadn't, no, why should I say I hadn't if I ever had, any hope that it was 
possible to be so blest, not after the words that passed, not even if 
barriers insurmountable had not been raised! But, is that a reason why I am 
to have no memory, why I am to have no thoughts, why I am to have no sacred 
spots, nor anything?"
"What can you mean?" cried Arthur.
"It's all very well to trample on it, sir," John went on, scouring a very 
prairie of wild words, "if a person can make up his mind to be guilty of 
the action. It's all very well to trample on it, but it's there. It may be 
that it couldn't be trampled upon if it wasn't there. But, that doesn't 
make it gentlemanly, that doesn't make it honourable, that doesn't justify 
throwing a person back upon himself after he has struggled and strived out 
of himself, like a butterfly. The world may sneer at a turnkey, but he's a 
man - when he isn't a woman, which among female criminals he's expected to 
be."
Ridiculous as the incoherence of his talk was, there was yet a truthfulness 
in Young John's simple, sentimental character, and a sense of being wounded 
in some very tender respect, expressed in his burning face and in the 
agitation of his voice and manner, which Arthur must have been cruel to 
disregard. He turned his thoughts back to the starting-point of this 
unknown injury; and in the meantime Young John, having rolled his green 
packet pretty round, cut it carefully into three pieces, and laid it on a 
plate as if it were some particular delicacy.
"It seems to me just possible," said Arthur, when he had retraced the 
conversation to the water-cresses and back again, "that you have made some 
reference to Miss Dorrit?"
"It is just possible, sir," returned John Chivery.
"I don't understand it. I hope I may not be so un lucky as to make you 
think I mean to offend you again, for I never have meant to offend you yet, 
when I say I don't understand it."
"Sir," said Young John, "will you have the perfidy to deny that you know 
and long have known that I felt towards Miss Dorrit, call it not the 
presumption of love, but adoration and sacrifice?"
"Indeed, John, I will not have any perfidy if I know it; why you should 
suspect me of it, I am at a loss to think. Did you ever hear from Mrs 
Chivery, your mother, that I went to see her once?"
"No, sir," returned John, shortly. "Never heard of such a thing."
"But I did. Can you imagine why?"
"No, sir," returned John, shortly. "I can't imagine why."
"I will tell you. I was solicitous to promote Miss Dorrit's happiness; and 
if I could have supposed that Miss Dorrit returned your affection -"
Poor John Chivery turned crimson to the tips of his ears. "Miss Dorrit 
never did, sir. I wish to be honourable and true, so far as in my humble 
way I can, and I would scorn to pretend for a moment that she ever did, or 
that she ever led me to believe she did; no, nor even that it was ever to 
be expected in any cool reason that she would or could. She was far above 
me in all respects at all times. As likewise," added John, "similarly was 
her gen-teel family."
His chivalrous feeling towards all that belonged to her, made him so very 
respectable, in spite of his small stature and his rather weak legs, and 
his very weak hair, and his poetical temperament, that a Goliath might have 
sat in his place demanding less consideration at Arthur's hands.
"You speak, John," he said with cordial admiration, "like a Man."
"Well, sir," returned John, brushing his hand across his eyes, "then I wish 
you'd do the same."
He was quick with this unexpected retort, and it again made Arthur regard 
him with a wondering expression of face.
"Leastways," said John, stretching his hand across the tea-tray, "if too 
strong a remark, withdrawn! But, why not, why not? When I say to you Mr 
Clennam, take care of yourself for someone else's sake, why not be open 
though a turnkey? Why did I get you the room which I knew you'd like best? 
Why did I carry up your things? Not that I found 'em heavy; I don't mention 
'em on that accounts; far from it. Why have I cultivated you in the manner 
I have done since the morning? On the ground of your own merits? No. 
They're very great, I've no doubt at all; but not on the ground of them. 
Another's merits have had their weight, and have had far more weight with 
Me. Then why not speak free!"
"Unaffectedly, John," said Clennam, "you are so good a fellow, and I have 
so true a respect for your character, that if I have appeared to be less 
sensible than I really am, of the fact that the kind services you have 
rendered me today are attributable to my having been trusted by Miss Dorrit 
as her friend, - I confess it to be a fault, and I ask your forgiveness."
"Oh! why not," John repeated with returning scorn, "why not speak free!"
"I declare to you," returned Arthur, "that I do not understand you. Look at 
me. Consider the trouble I have been in. Is it likely that I would wilfully 
add to my other self-reproaches, that of being ungrateful or treacherous to 
you? I do not understand you."
John's incredulous face slowly softened into a face of doubt. He rose, 
backed into the garret-window of the room, beckoned Arthur to come there, 
and stood looking at him thoughtfully.
"Mr Clennam, do you mean to say that you don't know?"
"What, John?"
"Lord," said Young John, appealing with a gasp to the spikes on the wall. 
"He says, What!"
Clennam looked at the spikes, and looked at John; and looked at the spikes, 
and looked at John.
"He says What! And what is more," exclaimed Young John, surveying him in a 
doleful maze, "he appears to mean it! Do you see this window, sir?"
"Of course, I see this window."
"See this room?"
"Why, of course I see this room."
"That wall opposite, and that yard down below? They have all been witnesses 
of it, from day to day, from night to night, from week to week, from month 
to month. For, how often have I seen Miss Dorrit here when she has not seen 
me?"
"Witnesses of what?" said Clennam.
"Of Miss Dorrit's love."
"For whom?"
"You," said John. And touched him with the back of his hand upon the 
breast, and backed to his chair, and sat down in it with a pale face, 
holding the arms, and shaking his head at him.
If he had dealt Cennam a heavy blow, instead of laying that light touch 
upon him, its effect could not have been to shake him more. He stood 
amazed; his eyes looking at John; his lips parted, and seeming now and then 
to form the word "Me!" without uttering it; his hands dropped at his sides: 
his whole appearance that of a man who has been awakened from sleep, and 
stupefied by intelligence beyond his full comprehension.
"Me!" he at length said aloud.
"Ah!" groaned Young John. "You!"
He did what he could to muster a smile, and returned, "Your fancy. You are 
completely mistaken."
"I mistaken, sir!" said Young John. "I completely mistaken on that subject! 
No, Mr Clennam, don't tell me so. On any other, if you like, for I don't 
set up to be a penetrating character, and am well aware of my own 
deficiencies. But, I mistaken on a point that has caused me more smart in 
my breast than a flight of savages' arrows could have done! I mistaken on a 
point that almost sent me into my grave, as I sometimes wished it would, if 
the grave could only have been made compatible with the tobacco business, 
and father and mother's feelings! I mistaken on a point that, even at the 
present moment, makes me take out my pocket handkerchief like a great girl, 
as people say: though I am sure I don't know why a great girl should be a 
term of reproach, for every rightly constituted male mind loves 'em great 
and small! Don't tell me so, don't tell me so!"
Still highly respectable at bottom, though absurd enough upon the surface, 
Young John took out his pocket handkerchief, with a genuine absence both of 
display and concealment, which is only to be seen in a man with a great 
deal of good in him, when he takes out his pocket handkerchief for the 
purpose of wiping his eyes. Having dried them, and indulged in the harmless 
luxury of a sob and sniff, he put it up again.
The touch was still in its influence so like a blow, that Arthur could not 
get many words together to close the subject with. He assured John Chivery 
when he had returned his handkerchief to his pocket, that he did all honour 
to his disinterestedness and to the fidelity of his remembrance of Miss 
Dorrit. As to the impression on his mind, of which he had just relieved it -
 here John interposed, and said, "No impression! Certainly!" - as to that 
they might perhaps speak of it at another time, but would say no more now. 
Feeling low-spirited and weary, he would go back to his room, with John's 
leave, and come out no more that night. John assented, and he crept back in 
the shadow of the wall to his own lodging. The feeling of the blow was 
still so strong upon him, that when the dirty old woman was gone whom he 
found sitting on the stairs outside his door, waiting to make his bed, and 
who gave him to understand while doing it, that she had received her 
instructions from Mr Chivery, "not the old 'un but the young 'un," he sat 
down in the faded armchair, pressing his head between his hands, as if he 
had been stunned. Little Dorrit love him! More bewildering to him than his 
misery, far.
Consider the improbability. He had been accustomed to call her his child, 
and his dear child, and to invite her confidence by dwelling upon the 
difference in their respective ages, and to speak of himself as one who was 
turning old. Yet she might not have thought him old. Something reminded him 
that he had not thought himself so, until the roses had floated away upon 
the river.
He had her two letters among other papers in his box, and he took them out 
and read them. There seemed to be a sound in them like the sound of her 
sweet voice. It fell upon his ear with many tones of tenderness, that were 
not insusceptible of the new meaning. Now, it was that the quiet desolation 
of her answer, "No, No, No," made to him that night in that very room - 
that night, when he had been shown the dawn of her altered fortune, and 
when other words had passed between them which he had been destined to 
remember, in humiliation and a prisoner - rushed into his mind.
Consider the improbability.
But it had a preponderating tendency, when considered, to become fainter. 
There was another and a curious inquiry of his own heart's that 
concurrently became stronger. In the reluctance he had felt to believe that 
she loved any one; in his desire to set that question at rest; in a half-
formed consciousness he had had, that there would be a kind of nobleness in 
his helping her love for any one; was there no suppressed something on his 
own side that he had hushed as it arose? Had he ever whispered to himself 
that he must not think of such a thing as her loving him, that he must not 
take advantage of her gratitude, that he must keep his experience in 
remembrance as a warning and reproof; that he must regard such youthful 
hopes as having passed away, as his friend's dead daughter had passed away; 
that he must be steady in saying to himself that the time had gone by him, 
and he was too saddened and old?
He had kissed her when he raised her from the ground, on the day when she 
had been so consistently and expressively forgotten. Quite as he might have 
kissed her, if she had been conscious? No difference?
The darkness found him occupied with these thoughts. The darkness also 
found Mr and Mrs Plornish knocking at his door. They brought with them a 
basket, filled with choice selections from that stock in trade which met 
with such a quick sale and produced such a slow return. Mrs Plornish was 
affected to tears. Mr Plornish amiably growled, in his philosophical but 
not lucid manner, that there was ups, you see, and there was downs. It was 
in vain to ask why ups, why downs; there they was, you know. He had heerd 
it given for a truth that accordin' as the world went round, which round it 
did rewolve undoubted, even the best of gentlemen must take his turn of 
standing with his ed upside down and all his air a flying the wrong way 
into what you might call Space. Wery well then. What Mr Plornish said was, 
wery well then. That gentleman's ed would come up'ards when his turn come, 
that gentleman's air would be a pleasure to look upon being all smooth 
again, and wery well then! 
It has been already stated that Mrs Plornish, not being philosophical, 
wept. It further happened that Mrs Plornish, not being philosophical, was 
intelligible. It may have arisen out of her softened state of mind, out of 
her sex's wit, out of a woman's quick association of ideas, or out of a 
woman's no association of ideas, but it further happened somehow that Mrs 
Plornish's intelligibility displayed itself upon the very subject of 
Arthur's meditations.
"The way father has been talking about you, Mr Clennam," said Mrs Plornish, 
"you hardly would believe. It's made him quite poorly. As to his voice, 
this misfortune has took it away. You know what a sweet singer father is, 
but he couldn't get a note out for the children at tea, if you'll credit 
what I tell you."
While speaking. Mrs Plornish shook her head, and wiped her eyes, and looked 
retrospectively about the room.
"As to Mr Baptist," pursued Mrs Plornish: "whatever he'll do when he comes 
to know of it, I can't conceive nor yet imagine. He'd have been here before 
now, you may be sure, but that he's away on confidential business of your 
own. The persevering manner in which he follows up that business, and gives 
himself no rest from it - it really do," said Mrs Plornish, winding up in 
the Italian manner, "as I say to him, Mooshattonisha padrona."
Though not conceited, Mrs Plornish felt that she had turned this Tuscan 
sentence with peculiar elegance. Mr Plornish could not conceal his 
exultation in her accomplishments as a linguist.
"But what I say is, Mr Clennam," the good woman went on, "there's always 
something to be thankful for, as I am sure you will yourself admit. 
Speaking in this room, it's not hard to think what the present something 
is. It's a thing to be thankful for, indeed, that Miss Dorrit is not here 
to know it."
Arthur thought she looked at him with particular expression.
"It's a thing," reiterated Mrs Plornish, "to be thankful for, indeed, that 
Miss Dorrit is far away. It's to be hoped she is not likely to hear of it. 
If she had been here to see it, sir, it's not to be doubted that the sight 
of you," Mrs Plornish repeated those words - "not to be doubted, that the 
sight of you - in misfortune and trouble, would have been almost too much 
for her affectionate heart. There's nothing I can think of, that would have 
touched Miss Dorrit so bad as that."
Of a certainty, Mrs Plornish did look at him now, with a sort of quivering 
defiance in her friendly emotion.
"Yes!" said she. "And it shows what notice father takes, though at his time 
of life, that he says to me this afternoon, which Happy Cottage knows I 
neither make it up nor anyways enlarge, 'Mary, it's much to be rejoiced in 
that Miss Dorrit is not on the spot to behold it.' Those were father's 
words. Father's own words was, 'Much to be rejoiced in, Mary, that Miss 
Dorrit is not on the spot to behold it.' I says to father then, I says to 
him, 'Father, you are right!' That," Mrs Plornish concluded with the air of 
a very precise legal witness, "is what passed betwixt father and me. And I 
tell you nothing but what did pass betwixt me and father."
Mr Plornish, as being of a more laconic temperament, embraced this 
opportunity of interposing with the suggestion that she should now leave Mr 
Clennam to himself. "For, you see," said Mr Plornish gravely, "I know what 
it is, old gal;" repeating that valuable remark several times, as if it 
appeared to him to include some great moral secret. Finally, the worthy 
couple went away arm in arm.
Little Dorrit, Little Dorrit. Again, for hours. Always Little Dorrit! 

Happily, if it ever had been so, it was over, and better over. Granted, 
that she had loved him, and he had known it and had suffered himself to 
love her, what a road to have led her away upon - the road that would have 
brought her back to this miserable place! He ought to be much comforted by 
the reflection that she was quit of it for ever; that she was, or would 
soon be, married (vague rumours of her father's projects in that direction 
had reached Bleeding Heart Yard, with the news of her sister's marriage); 
and that the Marshalsea gate had shut for ever on all those perplexed 
possibilities, of a time that was gone.
Dear Little Dorrit! 
Looking back upon his own poor story, she was its vanishing-point. 
Everything in its perspective led to her innocent figure. He had travelled 
thousands of miles towards it; previous unquiet hopes and doubts had worked 
themselves out before it; it was the centre of the interest of his life; it 
was the termination of everything that was good and pleasant in it; beyond 
there was nothing but mere waste, and darkened sky.
As ill at ease as on the first night of his lying down to sleep within 
those dreary walls, he wore the night out with such thoughts. What time 
Young John lay wrapt in peaceful slumber, after composing and arranging the 
following monumental inscription on his pillow: -

STRANGER! 

Respect the Tomb of

JOHN CHIVERY, JUNIOR,

Who Died At An Advanced Age
Not Necessary To Mention.
He Encountered His Rival, In A Distressed State,
And Felt Inclined

TO HAVE A ROUND WITH HIM;

But, For The Sake Of The Loved One,
Conquered Those Feelings Of Bitterness, And Became

MAGNANIMOUS.


Chapter 28

An Appearance In The Marshalsea

The opinion of the community outside the prison gates bore hard on Clennam 
as time went on, and he made no friends among the community within. Too 
depressed to associate with the herd in the yard, who got together to 
forget their cares; too retiring and too unhappy to join in the poor 
socialities of the tavern; he kept his own room, and was held in distrust. 
Some said he was proud; some objected that he was sullen and reserved; some 
were contemptuous of him, for that he was a poor-spirited dog who pined 
under his debts. The whole population were shy of him on these various 
counts of indictment, but especially the last, which involved a species of 
domestic treason; and he soon became so confirmed in his seclusion, that 
his only time for walking up and down was when the evening Club were 
assembled at their songs and toasts and sentiments, and when the yard was 
nearly left to the women and children.
Imprisonment began to tell upon him. He knew that he idled and moped. After 
what he had known of the influences of imprisonment within the four small 
walls of the very room he occupied, this consciousness made him afraid of 
himself. Shrinking from the observation of other men, and shrinking from 
his own, he began to change very sensibly. Anybody might see that the 
shadow of the wall was dark upon him.
One day when he might have been some ten or twelve weeks in jail, and when 
he had been trying to read and had not been able to release even the 
imaginary people of the book from the Marshalsea, a footstep stopped at his 
door, and a hand tapped at it. He arose and opened it, and an agreeable 
voice accosted him with "How do you do, Mr Clennam? I hope I am not 
unwelcome in calling to see
you."
It was the sprightly young Barnacle, Ferdinand. He looked very good-natured 
and prepossessing, though overpoweringly gay and free, in contrast with the 
squalid prison.
"You are surprised to see me, Mr Clennam" he said, taking the seat which 
Clennam offered him.
"I must confess to being much surprised."
"Not disagreeably, I hope?"
"By no means."
"Thank you. Frankly," said the engaging young Barnacle, "I have been 
excessively sorry to hear that you were under the necessity of a temporary 
retirement here, and I hope (of course as between two private gentlemen) 
that our place has had nothing to do with it?"
"Your office?"
"Our Circumlocution place."
"I cannot charge any part of my reverses upon that remarkable 
establishment."
"Upon my life," said the vivacious young Barnacle, "I am heartily glad to 
know it. It is quite a relief to me to hear you say it. I should have so 
exceedingly regretted our place having had anything to do with your 
difficulties."
Clennam again assured him that he absolved it of the responsibility.
"That's right," said Ferdinand. "I am very happy to hear it. I was rather 
afraid in my own mind that we might have helped to floor you, because there 
is no doubt that it is our misfortune to do that kind of thing now and 
then. We don't want to do it; but if men will be gravelled, why - we can't 
help it."
"Without giving an unqualified assent to what you say," returned Arthur, 
gloomily, "I am much obliged to you for your interest in me."
"No, but really! Our place is," said the easy young Barnacle, "the most 
inoffensive place possible. You'll say we are a Humbug. I won't say we are 
not; but all that sort of thing is intended to be, and must be. Don't you 
see?"
"I do not," said Clennam.
"You don't regard it from the right point of view. It is the point of view 
that is the essential thing. Regard our place from the point of view that 
we only ask you to leave us alone, and we are as capital a Department as 
you'll find anywhere."
"Is your place there to be left alone?" asked Clennam.
"You exactly hit it," returned Ferdinand. "It is there with the express 
intention that everything shall be left alone. That is what it means. That 
is what it's for. No doubt there's a certain form to be kept up that it's 
for something else, but it's only a form. Why, good Heaven, we are nothing 
but forms! Think what a lot of our forms you have gone through. And you 
have never got any nearer to an end?"
"Never!" said Clennam.
"Look at it from the right point of view, and there you have us - official 
and effectual. It's like a limited game of cricket. A field of outsiders 
are always going in to bowl at the Public Service, and we block the balls."
Clennam asked what became of the bowlers? The airy Young Barnacle replied 
that they grew tired, got dead beat, got lame, got their backs broken, died 
off, gave it up, went in for other games.
"And this occasions me to congratulate myself again," he pursued, "on the 
circumstance that our place has had nothing to do with your temporary 
retirement. It very easily might have had a hand in it; because it is 
undeniable that we are sometimes a most unlucky place, in our effects upon 
people who will not leave us alone. Mr Clennam, I am quite unreserved with 
you. As between yourself and myself, I know I may be. I was so, when I 
first saw you making the mistake of not leaving us alone; because I 
perceived that you were inexperienced and sanguine, and had - I hope you'll 
not object to my saying - some simplicity?"
"Not at all."
"Some simplicity. Therefore I felt what a pity it was, and I went out of my 
way to hint to you (which really was not official, but I never am official 
when I can help it), something to the effect that if I were you, I wouldn't 
bother myself. However, you did bother yourself, and you have since 
bothered yourself. Now, don't do it any more."
"I am not likely to have the opportunity," said Clennam.
"Oh yes, you are! You'll leave here. Everybody leaves here. There are no 
ends of ways of leaving here. Now, don't come back to us. That entreaty is 
the second object of my call. Pray, don't come back to us. Upon my honour," 
said Ferdinand, in a very friendly and confiding way, "I shall be greatly 
vexed if you don't take warning by the past and keep away from us."
"And the invention?" said Clennam.
"My good fellow," returned Ferdinand, "if you'll excuse the freedom of that 
form of address, nobody wants to know of the invention, and nobody cares 
twopence-halfpenny about it."
"Nobody in the Office, that is to say?"
"Nor out of it. Everybody is ready to dislike and ridicule any invention. 
You have no idea how many people want to be left alone. You have no idea 
how the Genius of the country (overlook the Parliamentary nature of the 
phrase, and don't be bored by it) tends to being left alone. Believe me, Mr 
Clennam," said the sprightly young Barnacle, in his pleasantest manner, 
"our place is not a wicked Giant, to be charged at full tilt; but, only a 
windmill showing you, as it grinds immense quantities of chaff, which way 
the country wind blows."
"If I could believe that," said Clennam, "it would be a dismal prospect for 
all of us."
"Oh! Don't say so!" returned Ferdinand. "It's all right. We must have 
humbug, we all like humbug, we couldn't get on without humbug. A little 
humbug, and a grove, and everything goes on admirably, if you leave it 
alone."
With this hopeful confession of his faith as the head of the rising 
Barnacles, who were born of woman, to be followed under a variety of 
watchwords which they utterly repudiated and disbelieved, Ferdinand rose. 
Nothing could be more agreeable than his frank and courteous bearing, or 
adapted with a more gentlemanly instinct to the circumstances of his visit.
"Is it fair to ask," he said, as Clennam gave him his hand with a real 
feeling of thankfulness for his candour and good humour, "whether it is 
true that our late lamented Merdle is the cause of this passing 
inconvenience?"
"I am one of the many he has ruined. Yes."
"He must have been an exceedingly clever fellow," said Ferdinand Barnacle.
Arthur, not being in a mood to extol the memory of the deceased, was 
silent.
"A consummate rascal of course," said Ferdinand, "but remarkably clever! 
One cannot help admiring the fellow. Must have been such a master of 
humbug. Knew people so well - got over them so completely - did so much 
with them!"
In this easy way, he was really moved to genuine admiration.
"I hope," said Arthur, "that he and his dupes may be a warning to people 
not to have so much done with them again."
"My dear Mr Clennam," returned Ferdinand, laughing, "have you really such a 
verdant hope? The next man who has as large a capacity and as genuine a 
taste for swindling, will succeed as well. Pardon me, but I think you 
really have no idea how the human bees will swarm to the beating of any old 
tin kettle; in that fact lies the complete manual of governing them. When 
they can be got to believe that the kettle is made of the precious metals, 
in that fact lies the whole power of men like our late lamented. No doubt 
there are here and there," said Ferdinand politely, "exceptional cases, 
where people have been taken in for what appeared to them to be much better 
reasons, and I need not go far to find such a case; but, they don't 
invalidate the rule. Good day! I hope that when I have the pleasure of 
seeing you next, this passing cloud will have given place to sunshine. 
Don't come a step beyond the door. I know the way out perfectly. Good day!"
With those words, the best and brightest of the Barnacles went downstairs, 
hummed his way through the Lodge, mounted his horse in the front court-
yard, and rode off to keep an appointment with his noble kinsman: who 
wanted a little coaching before he could triumphantly answer certain 
infidel Snobs, who were going to question the Nobs about their 
statemanship.
He must have passed Mr Rugg on his way out, for, a minute or two 
afterwards, that ruddy-headed gentleman shone in at the door, like an 
elderly Phoebus.
"How do you do today, sir?" said Mr Rugg. "Is there any little thing I can 
do for you today, sir?"
"No, I thank you."
Mr Rugg's enjoyment of embarrassed affairs was like a house-keeper's 
enjoyment in pickling and preserving, or a washer-woman's enjoyment of a 
heavy wash, or a dustman's enjoyment of an overflowing dust binn, or any 
other professional enjoyment of a mess in the way of business.
"I still look round from time to time, sir," said Mr Rugg, cheerfully, "to 
see whether any lingering Detainers are accumulating at the gate. They have 
fallen in pretty thick, sir; as thick as we could have expected."
He remarked upon the circumstance as if it were matter of congratulation: 
rubbing his hands briskly, and rolling his head a little.
"As thick," repeated Mr Rugg, "as we could reasonably have expected. Quite 
a shower-bath of "em. I don't often intrude upon you, now, when I look 
round, because I know you are not inclined for company, and that if you 
wished to see me, you would leave word in the Lodge. But I am here pretty 
well every day, sir. Would this be an unseasonable time, sir," asked Mr 
Rugg, coaxingly, "for me to offer an observation?"
"As seasonable a time as any other."
"Hum! Public opinion, sir," said Mr Rugg, "has been busy with you."
"I don't doubt it."
"Might it not be advisable, sir," said Mr Rugg, more coaxingly yet, "now to 
make, at last and after all, a trifling concession to public opinion? We 
all do it in one way or another. The fact is, we must do it."
"I cannot set myself right with it, Mr Rugg, and have no business to expect 
that I ever shall."
"Don't say that, sir, don't say that. The cost of being moved to the Bench 
is almost insignificant, and if the general feeling is strong that you 
ought to be there, why - really -."
"I thought you had settled, Mr Rugg," said Arthur, "that my determination 
to remain here was a matter of taste."
"Well, sir, well! But is it good taste, is it good taste? That's the 
question." Mr Rugg was so soothingly persuasive as to be quite pathetic. "I 
was almost going to say, is it good feeling? This is an extensive affair of 
yours; and your remaining here where a man can come for a pound or two, is 
remarked upon, as not in keeping. It is not in keeping. I can't tell you, 
sir, in how many quarters I hear it mentioned. I heard comments made upon 
it last night, in a Parlour frequented by what I should call, if I did not 
look in there now and then myself, the best legal company - I heard there, 
comments on it that I was sorry to hear. They hurt me, on your account. 
Again, only this morning at breakfast. My daughter (but a woman, you'll 
say: yet still with a feeling for these things, and even with some little 
personal experience, as the plaintiff in Rugg and Hawkins) was expressing 
her great surprise; her great surprise. Now under these circumstances, and 
considering that none of us can quite set ourselves above public opinion, 
wouldn't a trifling concession to that opinion be - Come, sir!" said Rugg, 
"I will put it on the lowest ground of argument, and say, Amiable?"
Arthur's thoughts had once more wandered away to Little Dorrit, and the 
question remained unanswered.
"As to myself, sir," said Mr Rugg, hoping that his eloquence had reduced 
him to a state of indecision, "it is a principle of mine not to consider 
myself when a client's inclinations are in the scale. But, knowing your 
considerate character and general wish to oblige, I will repeat that I 
should prefer your being in the Bench. Your case has made a noise; it is a 
creditable case to be professionally concerned in: I should feel on a 
better standing with my connection, if you went to the Bench. Don't let 
that influence you, sir. I merely state the fact."
So errant had the prisoner's attention already grown in solitude and 
dejection, and so accustomed had it become to commune with only one silent 
figure within the ever-frowning walls, that Clennam had to shake off a kind 
of stupor before he could look at Mr Rugg, recall the thread of his talk, 
and hurriedly say, "I am unchanged, and unchangeable, in my decision. Pray, 
let it be; let it be!" Mr Rugg, without concealing that he was nettled and 
mortified, replied:
"Oh! Beyond a doubt, sir! I have travelled out of the record, sir, I am 
aware, in putting the point to you. But really, when I hear it remarked in 
several companies and in very good company, that however worthy of a 
foreigner, it is not worthy of the spirit of an Englishman to remain in the 
Marshalsea when the glorious liberties of his island home admit of his 
removal to the Bench, I thought I would depart from the narrow professional 
line marked out to me, and mention it. Personally," said Mr Rugg, "I have 
no opinion on the topic."
"That's well," returned Arthur.
"Oh! None at all, sir!" said Mr Rugg. "If I had, I should have been 
unwilling, some minutes ago, to see a client of mine visited in this place 
by a gentleman of high family riding a saddle-horse. But it was not my 
business. If I had, I might have wished to be now empowered to mention to 
another gentleman, a gentleman of military exterior at present waiting in 
the Lodge, that my client had never intended to remain here, and was on the 
eve of removal to a superior abode. But my course as a professional machine 
is clear! I have nothing to do with it. Is it your good pleasure to see the 
gentleman, sir?"
"Who is waiting to see me, did you say?"
"I did take that unprofessional liberty, sir. Hearing that I was your 
professional adviser, he declined to interpose before my very limited 
function was performed. Happily," said Mr Rugg, with sarcasm, "I did not so 
far travel out of the record as to ask the gentleman for his name."
"I suppose I have no resource but to see him," sighed Clennam, wearily. 
"Then it is your good pleasure, sir?" retorted Rugg. "Am I honoured by your 
instructions to mention as much to the gentleman, as I pass out? I am? 
Thank you, sir. I take my leave." His leave he took accordingly, in 
dudgeon.
The gentleman of military exterior had so imperfectly awakened Clennam's 
curiosity, in the existing state of his mind, that a half forgetfulness of 
such a visitor's having been referred to, was already creeping over it as a 
part of the sombre veil which almost always dimmed it now, when a heavy 
footstep on the stairs aroused him. It appeared to ascend them, not very 
promptly or spontaneously, yet with a display of stride and clatter meant 
to be insulting. As it paused for a moment on the landing outside his door, 
he could not recall his association with the peculiarity of its sound, 
though he thought he had one. Only a moment was given him for 
consideration. His door was immediately swung open by a thump, and in the 
doorway stood the missing Blandois, the cause of many anxieties.
"Salve, fellow jail-bird!" said he. "You want me, it seems. Here I am!"
Before Arthur could speak to him in his indignant wonder, Cavelletto 
followed him into the room. Mr Pancks followed Cavelletto. Neither of the 
two had been there, since its present occupant had had possession of it. Mr 
Pancks, breathing hard, sidled near the window, put his hat on the ground, 
stirred his hair up with both hands, and folded his arms, like a man who 
had come to a pause in a hard day's work. Mr Baptist, never taking his eyes 
from his dreaded chum of old, softly sat down on the floor with his back 
against the door and one of his ankles in each hand: resuming the attitude 
(except that it was now expressive of unwinking watchfulness), in which he 
had sat before the same man in the deeper shade of another prison, one hot 
morning at Marseilles.
"I have it on the witnessing of these two madmen," said Monsieur Blandois, 
otherwise Lagnier, otherwise Rigaud, "that you want me, brother-bird. Here 
I am!"
Glancing round contemptuously at the bedstead, which was turned up by day, 
he leaned his back against it as a resting-place, without removing his hat 
from his head, and stood defiantly lounging with his hands in his pockets.
"You villain of ill-omen!" said Arthur. "You have purposely cast a dreadful 
suspicion upon my mother's house. Why have you done it? What prompted you 
to the devilish invention?"
Monsieur Rigaud, after frowning at him for a moment, laughed. "Hear this 
noble gentleman! Listen, all the world, to this creature of Virtue! But 
take care, take care. It is possible, my friend, that your ardour is a 
little compromising, Holy Blue! It is possible."
"Signore!" interposed Cavalletto, also addressing Arthur: "for to commence, 
hear me! I received your instructions to find him, Rigaud; is it not?"
"It is the truth."
"I go, consequentementally," it would have given Mrs Plornish great 
concern, if she could have been persuaded that his occasional lengthening 
of an adverb in this way, was the chief fault of his English, "first among 
my countrymen. I ask them what news in Londra, of foreigners arrived. Then 
I go among the French. Then, I go among the Germans. They all tell me. The 
great part of us know well the other, and they all tell me. But! - no 
person can tell me nothing of him, Rigaud, Fifteen times," said Cavalletto, 
thrice throwing out his left hand with all its fingers spread, and doing it 
so rapidly that the sense of sight could hardly follow the action, "I ask 
of him in every place where go the foreigners; and fifteen times," 
repeating the same swift performance, "they know nothing. But! -"
At his significant Italian rest on the word "But," his back-handed shake of 
his right forefinger came into play; a very little, and very cautiously.
"But! - After a long time when I have not been able to find that he is here 
in Londra, some one tells me of a soldier with white hair - hey? - not hair 
like this that he carries - white - who lives retired secretementally, in a 
certain place. But!" with another rest upon the word, "who sometimes in the 
after-dinner, walks, and smokes. It is necessary, as they say in Italy (and 
as they know, poor people), to have patience. I have patience. I ask where 
is this certain place. One believes it is here, one believes it is there. 
Eh well! It is not here, it is not there. I wait patientissamentally! At 
last I find it. Then I watch; then I hide, until he walks and smokes. He is 
a soldier with grey hair - But! - " a very decided rest indeed, and a very 
vigorous play from side to side of the back-handed forefinger - "he is also 
this man that you see."
It was noticeable, that, in his old habit of submission to one who had been 
at the trouble of asserting superiority over him, he even then bestowed 
upon Rigaud a confused bend of his head, after thus pointing him out.
"Eh well, Signore!" he cried in conclusion, addressing Arthur again. "I 
waited for a good opportunity. I writed some words to Signor Panco," an air 
of novelty came over Mr Pancks with this designation, "to come and help. I 
showed him, Rigaud, at his window to Signor Panco, who was often the spy in 
the day. I slept at night near the door of the house. At last we entered, 
only this today, and now you see him! As he would not come up in presence 
of the illustrious Advocate," such was Mr Baptist's honourable mention of 
Mr Rugg, "we waited down below there, together, and Signor Panco guarded 
the street."
At the close of this recital, Arthur turned his eyes upon the impudent and 
wicked face. As it met his, the nose came down over the moustache, and the 
moustache went up under the nose. When nose and moustache had settled into 
their places again, Monsieur Rigaud loudly snapped his fingers half a dozen 
times; bending forward to jerk the snaps at Arthur, as if they were 
palpable missiles which he jerked into his face.
"Now, Philosopher!" said Rigaud. "What do you want with me?"
"I want to know," returned Arthur, without disguising his abhorrence, "how 
you dare direct a suspicion of murder against my mother's house?"
"Dare!" cried Rigaud. "Ho, ho! Hear him! Dare? Is it dare? By Heaven, my 
small boy, but you are a little imprudent!"
"I want that suspicion to be cleared away," said Arthur. "You shall be 
taken there, and be publicly seen. I want to know, moreover, what business 
you had there, when I had a burning desire to fling you downstairs. Don't 
frown at me, man! I have seen enough of you to know that you are a bully, 
and coward. I need no revival of my spirits from the effects of this 
wretched place, to tell you so plain a fact, and one that you know so 
well."
White to the lips, Rigaud stroked his moustache, muttering "By Heaven, my 
small boy, but you are a little compromising of my lady your respectable 
mother," - and seemed for a minute undecided how to act. His indecision was 
soon gone. He sat himself down with a threatening swagger, and said:
"Give me a bottle of wine. You can buy wine here. Send one of your madmen 
to get me a bottle of wine. I won't talk to you without wine. Come! Yes or 
no?"
"Fetch him what he wants, Cavalletto," said Arthur scornfully, producing 
the money.
"Contraband beast," added Rigaud, "bring Port wine! I'll drink nothing but 
Porto-Porto."
The contraband beast, however, assuring all present with his significant 
finger, that he peremptorily declined to leave his post at the door, Signor 
Panco offered his services. He soon returned with the bottle of wine: 
which, according to the custom of the place, originating in a scarcity of 
corkscrews among the Collegians (in common with a scarcity of much else), 
was already opened for use.
"Madman! A large glass," said Rigaud.
Signor Panco put a tumbler before him; not without a visible conflict of 
feeling on the question of throwing it at his head.
"Haha!" boasted Rigaud. "Once a gentleman, and always a gentleman. A 
gentleman from the beginning, and a gentleman to the end. What the Devil! A 
gentleman must be waited on, I hope? It's a part of my character to be 
waited on!"
He half filled the tumbler as he said it, and drank off the contents when 
he had done saying it.
"Hah!" smacking his lips. "Not a very old prisoner that! I judge by your 
looks, brave sir, that imprisonment will subdue your blood much sooner than 
it softens this hot wine. You are mellowing - losing body and colour, 
already. I salute you!"
He tossed off another half glass: holding it up both before and afterwards, 
so as to display his small, white hand.
"To business," he then continued. "To conversation. You have shown yourself 
more free of speech than body, sir."
"I have used the freedom of telling you, what you know yourself to be. You 
know yourself, as we all know you, to be far worse than that."
"Add, always, a gentleman, and it's no matter. Except in that regard, we 
are all alike. For example; you couldn't for your life be a gentleman; I 
couldn't for my life be otherwise. How great the difference! Let us go on. 
Words, sir, never influence the course of the cards, or the course of the 
dice. Do you know that? You do! I also play a game, and words are without 
power over it."
Now that he was confronted with Cavalletto, and knew that his story was 
known - whatever thin disguise he had worn, he dropped; and faced it out, 
with a bare face, as the infamous wretch he was.
"No, my son," he resumed, with a snap of his fingers. "I play my game to 
the end in spite of words; and Death of my Body and Death of my Soul! I'll 
win it. You want to know why I played this little trick that you have 
interrupted? Know then that I had, and that I have - do you understand me? 
have - a commodity to sell to my lady your respectable mother. I described 
my precious commodity, and fixed my price. Touching the bargain, your 
admirable mother was a little too calm, too stolid, too immovable and 
statue-like. In fine, your admirable mother vexed me. To make variety in my 
position, and to amuse myself - what! a gentleman must be amused at 
somebody's expense! - I conceived the happy idea of disappearing. An idea, 
see you, that your characteristic mother and my Flintwinch would have been 
well enough pleased to execute. Ah! Bah, bah, bah, don't look as from high 
to low at me! I repeat it. Well enough pleased excessively enchanted, with 
all their hearts ravished. How strongly will you have it?"
He threw out the lees of his glass on the ground, so that they nearly 
spattered Cavalletto. This seemed to draw his attention to him anew. He set 
down his glass and said:
"I'll not fill it. What! I am born to be served. Come then, you Cavalletto, 
and fill!"
The little man looked at Clennam, whose eyes were occupied with Rigaud, 
and, seeing no prohibition, got up from the ground, and poured out from the 
bottle into the glass. The blending, as he did so, of his old submission 
with a sense of something humorous; the striving of that with a certain 
smouldering ferocity, which might have flashed fire in an instant (as the 
born gentleman seemed to think, for he had a wary eye upon him); and the 
easy yielding of all, to a good-natured, careless, predominant propensity 
to sit down on the ground again; formed a very remarkable combination of 
character.
"This happy idea, brave sir," Rigaud resumed after drinking, "was a happy 
idea for several reasons. It amused me, it worried your dear mama and my 
Flintwinch, it caused you agonies (my terms for a lesson in politeness 
towards a gentleman), and it suggested to all the amiable persons 
interested that your entirely devoted is a man to fear. By Heaven, he is a 
man to fear! Beyond this; it might have restored her wit to my lady your 
mother - might, under the pressing little suspicion your wisdom has 
recognised, have persuaded her at last to announce, covertly, in the 
journals that the difficulties of a certain contract would be removed by 
the appearance of a certain important party to it. Perhaps yes, perhaps no. 
But, that you have interrupted. Now, what is it you say? What is it you 
want?"
Never had Clennam felt more acutely that he was a prisoner in bonds, than 
when he saw this man before him, and could not accompany him to his 
mother's house. All the undiscernible difficulties and dangers he had ever 
feared were closing in, when he could not stir hand or foot.
"Perhaps, my friend, philosopher, man of virtue, Imbecile, what you will; 
perhaps," said Rigaud, pausing in his drink to look out of his glass with 
his horrible smile, "you would have done better to leave me alone?"
"No! At least," said Clennam, "you are known to be alive and unharmed. At 
least you cannot escape from these two witnesses; and they can produce you 
before any public authorities, or before hundreds of people."
"But will not produce me before one," said Rigaud, snapping his fingers 
again with an air of triumphant menace. "To the Devil with your witnesses! 
To the Devil with your produced! To the Devil with yourself! What? Do I 
know what I know, for that? Have I my commodity on sale, for that? Bah, 
poor debtor! You have interrupted my little project. Let it pass. How then? 
What remains? To you, nothing; to me, all. Produce me? Is that what you 
want? I will produce myself, only too quickly. Contrabandist! Give me pen, 
ink, and paper."
Cavalletto got up again as before, and laid them before him in his former 
manner. Rigaud, after some villanous thinking and smiling, wrote and read 
aloud as follows:

"TO MRS CLENNAM.
"Wait answer.
"Prison of the Marshalsea.
"At the apartment of your son.

"Dear Madam,
"I am in despair to be informed today by our prisoner here (who has had the 
goodness to employ spies to seek me, living for politic reasons in 
retirement), that you have had fears for my safety.
"Reassure yourself, dear madam. I am well, I am strong and constant.
"With the greatest impatience I should fly to your house, but that I 
foresee it to be possible, under the circumstances, that you will not yet 
have quite definitively arranged the little proposition I have had the 
honour to submit to you. I name one week from this day, for a last final 
visit on my part; when you will unconditionally accept it or reject it, 
with its train of consequences.
"I suppress my ardour to embrace you and achieve this interesting business, 
in order that you may have leisure to adjust its details to our perfect 
mutual satisfaction.
"In the meanwhile, it is not too much to propose (our prisoner having 
deranged my housekeeping), that my expenses of lodging and nourishment at 
an hotel shall be paid by you.
"Receive, dear madam, the assurance of my highest and most distinguished 
consideration,
"RIGAUD BLANDOIS.
"A thousands friendships to that dear Flintwinch.
"I kiss the hands of Madame F."

When he had finished this epistle, Rigaud folded it and tossed it with a 
flourish at Clennam's feet. "Hola you! Apropos of producing, let somebody 
produce that at its address, and produce the answer here."
"Cavalletto," said Arthur. "Will you take this fellow's letter?"
But, Cavalletto's significant finger again expressing that his post was at 
the door to keep watch over Rigaud now he had found him with so much 
trouble, and that the duty of his post was to sit on the floor backed up by 
the door, looking at Rigaud and holding his own ankles, - Signor Panco once 
more volunteered. His services being accepted, Cavalletto suffered the door 
to open barely wide enough to admit of his squeezing himself out, and 
immediately shut it on him.
"Touch me with a finger, touch me with an epithet, question my superiority 
as I sit here drinking my wine at my pleasure," said Rigaud, "and I follow 
the letter and cancel my week's grace. You wanted me? You have got me! How 
do you like me?"
"You know," returned Clennam, with a bitter sense of his helplessness, 
"that when I sought you, I was not a prisoner."
"To the Devil with you and your prison," retorted Rigaud, leisurely, as he 
took from his pocket a case containing the materials for making cigarettes, 
and employed his facile hands in folding a few for present use; "I care for 
neither of you. Contrabandist! A light."
Again Cavalletto got up, and gave him what he wanted. There had been 
something dreadful in the noiseless skill of his cold, white hands, with 
the fingers lithely twisting about and twining one over another like 
serpents. Clennam could not prevent himself from shuddering inwardly, as if 
he had been looking on at a nest of those creatures.
"Hola, Pig!" cried Rigaud, with a noisy, stimulating cry, as if Cavalletto 
were an Italian horse or mule. "What! The infernal old jail was a 
respectable one to this. There was dignity in the bars and stones of that 
place. It was a prison for men. But this? Bah! A hospital for imbeciles!"
He smoked his cigarette out, with his ugly smile so fixed upon his face, 
that he looked as though he were smoking with his drooping beak of a nose, 
rather than his mouth; like a fancy in a weird picture. When he had lighted 
a second cigarette at the still-burning end of the first, he said to 
Clennam:
"One must pass the time in the madman's absence. One must talk. One can't 
drink strong wine all day long, or I would have another bottle. She's 
handsome, sir. Though not exactly to my taste, still, by the Thunder and 
the Lightning! handsome. I felicitate you on your admiration."
"I neither know nor ask," said Clennam, "of whom you speak."
"Della bella Gowana, sir, as they say in Italy. Of the Gowan, the fair 
Gowan."
"Of whose husband you were the - follower, I think?"
"Sir? Follower? You are insolent. The friend."
"Do you sell all your friends?"
Rigaud took his cigarette from his mouth, and eyed him with a momentary 
revelation of surprise. But, he put it between his lips again, as he 
answered with coolness:
"I sell anything that commands a price. How do your lawyers live, your 
politicians, your intriguers, your men of the Exchange? How do you live? 
How do you come here? Have you sold no friend? Lady of mine! I rather 
think, yes!"
Clennam turned away from him towards the window, and sat looking out at the 
wall.
"Effectively, sir," said Rigaud, "Society sells itself and sells me: and I 
sell Society. I perceive you have acquaintance with another lady. Also 
handsome. A strong spirit. Let us see. How do they call her? Wade."
He received no answer, but could easily discern that he had hit the mark.
"Yes!" he went on, "that handsome lady and strong spirit addresses me in 
the street, and I am not insensible. I respond. That handsome lady and 
strong spirit does me the favour to remark, in full confidence, 'I have my 
curiosity, and I have my chagrins. You are not more than ordinarily 
honourable, perhaps?' I announce myself, 'Madam, a gentleman from the 
birth, and a gentleman to the death; but not more than ordinarily 
honourable. I despise such a weak fantasy.' Thereupon she is pleased to 
compliment. 'The difference between you and the rest is,' she answers, 
'that you say so.' For, she knows society. I accept her congratulations 
with gallantry and politeness. Politeness and little gallantries are 
inseparable from my character. She then makes a proposition, which is, in 
effect, that she has seen us much together; that it appears to her that I 
am for the passing time the cat of the house, the friend of the family; 
that her curiosity and her chagrins awaken the fancy to be acquainted with 
their movements, to know the manner of their life, how the fair Gowana is 
beloved, how the fair Gowana is cherished, and so on. She is not rich, but 
offers such and such little recompenses for the little cares and 
derangements of such services; and I graciously - to do everything 
graciously is a part of my character - consent to accept them. O yes! So 
goes the world. It is the mode."
Though Clennam's back was turned while he spoke, and thenceforth to the end 
of the interview, he kept those glittering eyes of his that were too near 
together, upon him, and evidently saw in the very carriage of the head, as 
he passed, with his braggart recklessness, from clause to clause of what he 
said, that he was saying nothing which Clennam did not already know.
"Whoof! The fair Gowana!" he said, lighting a third cigarette with a sound 
as if his lightest breath could blow her away. "Charming, but imprudent! 
For it was not well of the fair Gowana to make mysteries of letters from 
old lovers, in her bedchamber on the mountain, that her husband might not 
see them. No, no. That was not well. Whoof! The Gowana was mistaken there."
"I earnestly hope," cried Arthur aloud, "that Pancks may not be long gone, 
for this man's presence pollutes the room."
"Ay! But he'll flourish here, and everywhere," said Rigaud, with an 
exulting look and snap of his fingers. "He always has; he always will!" 
Stretching his body out on the only three chairs in the room besides that 
on which Clennam sat, he sang, smiting himself on the breast as the gallant 
personage of the song:

"'Who passes by this road so late?
Compagnon de la Majolaine! 
Who passes by this road so late?
Always gay!'

Sing the Refrain, pig! You could sing it once, in another jail. Sing it! 
Or, by every Saint who was stoned to death, I'll be affronted and 
compromising; and then some people who are not dead yet, had better have 
been stoned along with them! 

'Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower,
Compagnon de la Majolaine! 
Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower,
Always gay!'"

Partly in his old habit of submission, partly because his not doing it 
might injure his benefactor, and partly because he would as soon do it as 
anything else, Cavalletto took up the Refrain this time. Rigaud laughed, 
and fell to smoking with his eyes shut.
Possibly another quarter of an hour elapsed before Mr Pancks's step was 
heard upon the stairs, but the interval seemed to Clennam insupportably 
long. His step was attended by another step; and when Cavalletto opened the 
door, he admitted Mr Pancks and Mr Flintwinch. The latter was no sooner 
visible, than Rigaud rushed at him and embraced him boisterously.
"How do you find yourself, sir?" said Mr Flintwinch, as soon as he could 
disengage himself, which he struggled to do with very little ceremony. 
"Thank you, no; I don't want any more." This as was in reference to another 
menace of affection from his recovered friend. "Well, Arthur. You remember 
what I said to you about sleeping dogs and missing ones. It's come true, 
you see."
He was as imperturbable as ever, to all appearance, and nodded his head in 
a moralising way as he looked round the room.
"And this is the Marshalsea prison for debt!" said Mr Flintwinch. "Hah! You 
have brought your pigs to a very indifferent market, Arthur."
If Arthur had patience, Rigaud had not. He took his little Flintwinch, with 
fierce playfulness, by that two lappels of his coat, and cried:
"To the Devil with the Market, to the Devil with the Pigs, and to the Devil 
with the Pig-driver! Now! Give me the answer to my letter."
"If you can make it convenient to let go a moment, sir," returned Mr 
Flintwinch, "I'll first hand Mr Arthur a little note that I have for him."
He did so. It was in his mother's maimed writing, on a slip of paper, and 
contained only these words:

"I hope it is enough that you have ruined yourself. Rest contented without 
more ruin. Jeremiah Flintwinch is my messenger and representative. Your 
affectionate M. C."

Clennam read this twice, in silence, and then tore it to pieces. Rigaud in 
the meanwhile stepped into a chair, and sat himself on the back, with his 
feet upon the seat.
"Now, Beau Flintwinch," he said, when he had closely watched the note to 
its destruction, "the answer to my letter?"
Mrs Clennam did not write it, Mr Blandois, her hands being cramped, and she 
thinking it as well to send it verbally by me." Mr Flintwinch screwed this 
out of himself unwillingly and rustily. "She sends her compliments, and 
says she doesn't on the whole wish to term you unreasonable, and that she 
agrees. But without prejudicing the appointment that stands for this day 
week."
Monsieur Rigaud, after indulging in a fit of laughter, descended from his 
throne, saying, "Good! I go to seek an hotel!" But, there his eyes 
encountered Cavalletto, who was still at his post.
"Come, Pig," he added. "I have had you for a follower against my will; now, 
I'll have you against yours. I tell you, my little reptiles, I am born to 
be served. I demand the service of this contrabandist as my domestic until 
this day week."
In answer to Cavalletto's look of inquiry, Clennam made him a sign to go; 
but he added aloud, "unless you are afraid of him." Cavalletto replied with 
a very emphatic finger-negative. "No, master, I am not afraid of him when I 
no more keep it secrettementally that he was once my comrade." Rigaud took 
no notice of either remark, until he had lighted his last cigarette and was 
quite ready for walking.
"Afraid of him," he said then, looking round upon them all. "Whoof! My 
children, my babies, my little dolls, you are all afraid of him. You give 
him his bottle of wine here; you give him meat, drink, and lodging there; 
you dare not touch him with a finger or an epithet. No. It is his character 
to triumph! Whoof! 

"Of all the king's knights he's the flower,
And he's always gay!"

With this adaptation of the Refrain to himself, he stalked out of the room, 
closely followed by Cavalletto, whom perhaps he had pressed into his 
service because he tolerably well knew it would not be easy to get rid of 
him. Mr Flintwinch, after scraping his chin and looking about with caustic 
disparagement of the Pig-Market, nodded to Arthur, and followed. Mr Pancks, 
still penitent and depressed, followed too; after receiving with great 
attention a secret word or two of instructions from Arthur, and whispering 
back that he would see this affair out, and stand by it to the end. The 
prisoner, with the feeling that he was more despised, more scorned and 
repudiated, more helpless, altogether more miserable and fallen, than 
before, was left alone again.


Chapter 29

A Plea In The Marshalsea

Haggard anxiety and remorse are bad companions to be barred up with. 
Brooding all day, and resting very little indeed at night, will not arm a 
man against misery. Next morning, Clennam felt that his health was sinking, 
as his spirits had already sunk, and that the weight under which he bent 
was bearing him down.
Night after night he had risen from his bed of wretchedness at twelve or 
one o'clock, and had sat at his window watching the sickly lamps in the 
yard, and looking upward for the first wan trace of day, hours before it 
was possible that the sky could show it to him. Now, when the night came, 
he could not even persuade himself to undress.
For a burning restlessness set in, an agonised impatience of the prison, 
and a conviction that he was going to break his heart and die there, which 
caused him indescribable suffering. His dread and hatred of the place 
became so intense that he felt it a labour to draw his breath in it. The 
sensation of being stifled sometimes so overpowered him, that he would 
stand at the window holding his throat and gasping. At the same time a 
longing for other air, and a yearning to be beyond the blind blank w all, 
made him feel as if he must go mad with the ardour of the desire.
Many other prisoners had had experience of this condition before him, and 
its violence and continuity had worn themselves out in their cases, as they 
did in his. Two nights and a day exhausted it. It came back by fits, but 
those grew fainter and returned at lengthening intervals. A desolate calm 
succeeded; and the middle of the week found him settled down in the 
despondency of low, slow fever.
With Cavalletto and Pancks away, he had no visitors to fear but Mr and Mrs 
Plornish. His anxiety, in reference to that worthy pair, was that they 
should not come near him; for, in the morbid state of his nerves, he sought 
to be left alone, and spared the being seen so subdued and weak. He wrote a 
note to Mrs Plornish representing himself as occupied with his affairs, and 
bound by the necessity of devoting himself to them, to remain for a time 
even without the pleasant interruption of a sight of her kind face. As to 
Young John, who looked in daily at a certain hour, when the turnkeys were 
relieved, to ask if he could do anything for him; he always made a pretence 
of being engaged in writing, and to answer cheerfully in the negative. The 
subject of their only long conversation had never been revived between 
them. Through all these changes of unhappiness, however, it had never lost 
its hold on Clennam's mind.
The sixth day of the appointed week was a moist, hot, misty day. It seemed 
as though the prison's poverty, and shabbiness, and dirt, were growing, in 
the sultry atmosphere. With an aching head and a weary heart, Clennam had 
watched the miserable night out, listening to the fall of rain on the yard 
pavement, thinking of its softer fall upon the country earth. A blurred 
circle of yellow haze had risen up in the sky in lieu of sun, and he had 
watched the patch it put upon his wall, like a bit of the prison's 
raggedness. He had heard the gates open; and the badly shod feet that 
waited outside shuffle in; and the sweeping, and pumping, and moving about, 
begin, which commenced the prison morning. So ill and faint that he was 
obliged to rest many times in the process of getting himself washed, he had 
at length crept to his chair by the open window. In it he sat dozing, while 
the old woman who arranged his room went through her morning's work.
Light of head with want of sleep and want of food (his appetite, and even 
his sense of taste, having forsaken him), he had been two or three times 
conscious, in the night, of going astray. He had heard fragments of tunes 
and songs, in the warm wind, which he knew had no existence. Now that he 
began to doze in exhaustion, he heard them again; and voices seemed to 
address him, and he answered, and started.
Dozing and dreaming, without the power of reckoning time, so that a minute 
might have been an hour and an hour a minute, some abiding impression of a 
garden stole over him - a garden of flowers, with a damp warm wind gently 
stirring their scents. It required such a painful effort to lift his head 
for the purpose of inquiring into this, or inquiring into anything, that 
the impression appeared to have become quite an old and importunate one 
when he looked round. Beside the teacup on his table he saw, then, a 
blooming nosegay: a wonderful handful of the choicest and most lovely 
flowers.
Nothing had ever appeared so beautiful in his sight. He took them up and 
inhaled their fragrance, and he lifted them to his hot head, and he put 
them down and opened his parched hands to them, as cold hands are opened to 
receive the cheering of a fire. It was not until he had delighted in them 
for some time, that he wondered who had sent them; and opened his door to 
ask the woman who must have put them there, how they had come into her 
hands. But, she was gone, and seemed to have been long gone; for the tea 
she had left for him on the table was cold. He tried to drink some, but 
could not bear the odour of it; so he crept back to his chair by the opened 
window, and put the flowers on the little round table of old.
When the first faintness consequent on having moved about had left him, he 
subsided into his former state. One of the night-tunes was playing in the 
wind, when the door of his room seemed to open to a light touch, and, after 
a moment's pause, a quiet figure seemed to stand there, with a black mantle 
on it. It seemed to draw the mantle off and drop it on the ground, and then 
it seemed to be his Little Dorrit in her old, worn dress. It seemed to 
tremble, and to clasp its hands, and to smile, and to burst into tears.
He roused himself, and cried out. And then he saw, in the loving, pitying, 
sorrowing, dear face, as in a mirror, how changed he was; and she came 
towards him; and with her hands laid on his breast to keep him in his 
chair, and with her knees upon the floor at his feet, and with her lips 
raised up to kiss him, and with her tears dropping on him as the rain from 
Heaven had dropped upon the flowers, Little Dorrit, a living presence, 
called him by his name.
"O, my best friend! Dear Mr Clennam, don't let me see you weep! Unless you 
weep with pleasure to see me. I hope you do. Your own poor child come 
back!"
So faithful, tender, and unspoiled by Fortune. In the sound of her voice, 
in the light of her eyes, in the touch of her hands, so Angelically 
comforting and true! 
As he embraced her, she said to him, "They never told me you were ill," and 
drawing an arm softly round his neck, laid his head upon her bosom, put a 
hand upon his head, and resting her cheek upon that hand, nursed him as 
lovingly, and God knows as innocently as she had nursed her father in that 
room when she had been but a baby, needing all the care from others that 
she took of them.
When he could speak, he said, "Is it possible that you have come to me? And 
in this dress?"
"I hoped you would like me better in this dress than any other. I have 
always kept it by me, to remind me: though I wanted no reminding. I am not 
alone, you see. I have brought an old friend with me."
Looking round, he saw Maggie in her big cap which had been long abandoned, 
with a basket on her arm as in the bygone days, chuckling rapturously.
"It was only yesterday evening that I came to London with my brother. I 
sent round to Mrs Plornish almost as soon as we arrived, that I might hear 
of you and let you know I had come. Then I heard that you were here. Did 
you happen to think of me in the night? I almost believe you must have 
thought of me a little. I thought of you so anxiously, and it appeared so 
long to morning."
"I have thought of you - " he hesitated what to call her. She perceived it 
in an instant.
"You have not spoken to me by my right name yet. You know what my right 
name always is with you."
"I have thought of you, Little Dorrit, every day, every hour, every minute, 
since I have been here."
"Have you? Have you?"
He saw the bright delight of her face, and the flush that kindled in it, 
with a feeling of shame. He, a broken, bankrupt, sick, dishonoured 
prisoner.
"I was here, before the gates were opened, but I was afraid to come 
straight to you. I should have done you more harm than good, at first; for 
the prison was so familiar and yet so strange, and it brought back so many 
remembrances of my poor father, and of you too, that at first it 
overpowered me. But, we went to Mr Chivery before we came to the gate, and 
he brought us in, and got John's room for us - my poor old room, you know - 
and we waited there a little. I brought the flowers to the door, but you 
didn't hear me."
She looked something more womanly than when she had gone away, and the 
ripening touch of the Italian sun was visible upon her face. But, otherwise 
she was quite unchanged. The same deep, timid earnestness that he had 
always seen in her, and never without emotion, he saw still. If it had a 
new meaning that smote him to the heart, the change was in his perception, 
not in her.
She took off her old bonnet, hung it in the old place, and noiselessly 
began, with Maggie's help, to make his room as fresh and neat as it could 
be made, and to sprinkle it with a pleasant-smelling water. When that was 
done, the basket which was filled with grapes and other fruit, was 
unpacked, and all its contents were quietly put away. When that was done, a 
moment's whisper despatched Maggie to despatch somebody else to fill the 
basket again; which soon came back replenished with new stores, from which 
a present provision of cooling drink and jelly, and a prospective supply of 
roast chicken and wine and water, were the first extracts. These various 
arrangements completed, she took out her old needlecase to make him a 
curtain for his window; and thus, with a quiet reigning in the room, that 
seemed to diffuse itself through the else noisy prison, he found himself 
composed in his chair, with Little Dorrit working at his side.
To see the modest head again bent down over its task, and the nimble 
fingers busy at their old work - though she was not so absorbed in it but 
that her compassionate eyes were often raised to his face, and, when they 
drooped again, had tears in them - to be so consoled and comforted, and to 
believe that all the devotion of this great nature was turned to him in his 
adversity, to pour out its inexhaustible wealth of goodness upon him, did 
not steady Clennam's trembling voice or hand, or strengthen him in his 
weakness. Yet, it inspired him with an inward fortitude, that rose with his 
love. And how dearly he loved her, now, what words can tell! 
As they sat side by side, in the shadow of the wall, the shadow fell like 
light upon him. She would not let him speak much, and he lay back in his 
chair, looking at her. Now and again, she would rise and give him the glass 
that he might drink, or would smooth the resting-place of his head; then 
she would gently resume her seat by him, and bend over her work again.
The shadow moved with the sun, but she never moved from his side, except to 
wait upon him. The sun went down, and she was still there. She had done her 
work now, and her hand, faltering on the arm of his chair since its last 
tending of him, was hesitating there yet. He laid his hand upon it, and it 
clasped him with a trembling supplication.
"Dear Mr Clennam, I must say something to you before I go. I have put it 
off from hour to hour, but I must say it."
"I too, dear Little Dorrit. I have put off what I must say."
She nervously moved her hand towards his lips as if to stop him; then it 
dropped, trembling, into its former place.
"I am not going abroad again. My brother is, but I am not. He was always 
attached to me, and he is so grateful to me now - so much too grateful, for 
it is only because I happened to be with him in his illness - that he says 
I shall be free to stay where I like best, and to do what I like best. He 
only wishes me to be happy, he says."
There was one bright star shining in the sky. She looked up at it while she 
spoke, as if it were the fervent purpose of her own heart shining above 
her.
"You will understand, I dare say, without my telling you, that my brother 
has come home to find my dear father's will, and to take possession of his 
property. He says, if there is a will, he is sure I shall be left rich; and 
if there is none that he will make me so."
He would have spoken; but she put up her trembling hand again, and he 
stopped.
"I have no use for money, I have no wish for it. It would be of no value at 
all to me, but for your sake. I could not be rich and you here. I must 
always be much worse than poor, with you distressed. Will you let me lend 
you all I have? Will you let me give it you? Will you let me show you that 
I never have forgotten, that I never can forget, your protection of me when 
this was my home? Dear Mr Clennam, make me of all the world the happiest, 
by saying Yes! Make me as happy as I can be in leaving you here, by saying 
nothing tonight, and letting me go away with the hope that you will think 
of it kindly; and that for my sake - not for yours, for mine, for nobody's 
but mine! - you will give me the greatest joy I can experince on earth, the 
joy of knowing that I have been serviceable to you, and that I have paid 
some little of the great debt of my affection and gratitude. I can't say 
what I wish to say. I can't visit you here where I have lived so long, I 
can't think of you here where I have seen so much, and be as calm and 
comforting as I ought. My tears will make their way. I cannot keep them 
back. But pray, pray, pray, do not turn from your Little Dorrit, now, in 
your affliction! Pray, pray, pray, I beg you and implore you with all my 
grieving heart, my friend - my dear! - take all I have, and make it a 
Blessing to me!"
The star had shown on her face until now, when her face sank upon his hand 
and her own.
It had grown darker when he raised her in his encircling arm, and softly 
answered her.
"No, darling Little Dorrit. No, my child. I must not hear of such a 
sacrifice. Liberty and hope would be so dear, bought at such a price, that 
I could never support their weight, never bear the reproach of possessing 
them. But, with what ardent thankfulness and love I say this, I may call 
Heaven to witness!"
"And yet you will not let me be faithful to you in your affliction?"
"Say, dearest Little Dorrit, and yet I will try to be faithful to you. If, 
in the bygone days when this was your home and when this was your dress, I 
had understood myself (I speak only of myself) better, and had read the 
secrets of my own breast more distinctly; if, through my reserve and self-
mistrust, I had discerned a light that I see brightly now when it has 
passed far away, and my weak footsteps can never overtake it; if I had then 
known, and told you that I loved and honoured you, not as the poor child I 
used to call you, but as a woman whose true hand would raise me high above 
myself, and make me a far happier and better man; if I had so used the 
opportunity there is no recalling - as I wish I had, O I wish I had! - and 
if something had kept us apart then, when I was moderately thriving, and 
when you were poor; I might have met your noble offer of your fortune, 
dearest girl, with other words than these, and still have blushed to touch 
it. But, as it is, I must never touch it, never!"
She besought him, more pathetically and earnestly, with her little 
supplicatory hand, than she could have done in any words.
"I am disgraced enough, my Little Dorrit. I must not descend so low as 
that, and carry you - so dear, so generous, so good - down with me. God 
bless you, God reward you! It is past."
He took her in his arms, as if she had been his daughter.
"Always so much older, so much rougher, and so much less worthy, even what 
I was must be dismissed by both of us, and you must see me only as I am. I 
put this parting kiss upon your cheek, my child - who might have been more 
near to me, who never could have been more dear - a ruined man far removed 
from you, for ever separated from you, whose course is run, while yours is 
but beginning. I have not the courage to ask to be forgotten by you in my 
humiliation; but I ask to be remembered only as I am."
The bell began to ring, warning visitors to depart. He took her mantle from 
the wall, and tenderly wrapped it round her.
"One other word, my Little Dorrit. A hard one to me, but it is a necessary 
one. The time when you and this prison had anything in common, has long 
gone by. Do you understand?"
"O! you will never say to me," she cried, weeping bitterly, and holding up 
her clasped hands in entreaty, "that I am not to come back any more! You 
will surely not desert me so!"
"I would say it, if I could; but I have not the courage quite to shut out 
this dear face, and abandon all hope of its return. But do not come soon, 
do not come often. This is now a tainted place, and I well know the taint 
of it clings to me. You belong to much brighter and better scenes. You are 
not to look back here, my Little Dorrit; you are to look away to very 
different and much happier paths. Again, God bless you in them! God reward 
you!"
Maggie, who had fallen into very low spirits, here cried, "Oh get him into 
a hospital; do get him into a hospital, Mother! He'll never look like his 
self again, if he ain't got into a hospital. And then the little woman as 
was always a spinning at her wheel, she can go to the cupboard with the 
Princess and say, what do you keep the Chicking there for? and then they 
can take it out and give it to him, and then all be happy!"
The interruption was seasonable, for the bell had nearly rung itself out. 
Again tenderly wrapping her mantle about her, and taking her on his arm 
(though but for her visit he was almost too weak to walk), Arthur led 
Little Dorrit downstairs. She was the last visitor to pass out of the 
Lodge, and the gate jarred heavily and hopelessly upon her.
With the funeral clang that it sounded into Arthur's heart, his sense of 
weakness returned. It was a toilsome journey upstairs to his room, and he 
re-entered its dark solitary precincts in unutterable misery.
When it was almost midnight, and the prison had long been quiet, a cautious 
creak came up the stairs, and a cautious tap of a key was given at his 
door. It was Young John. He glided in, in his stockings, and held the door 
closed, while he spoke in a whisper.
"It's against all rules, but I don't mind. I was determined to come 
through, and come to you."
"What is the matter?"
"Nothing's the matter, sir. I was waiting in the courtyard for Miss Dorrit 
when she came out. I thought you'd like some one to see that she was safe."
"Thank you, thank you! You took her home, John?"
"I saw her to her hotel. The same that Mr Dorrit was at. Miss Dorrit walked 
all the way, and talked to me so kind, it quite knocked me over. Why do you 
think she walked instead of riding?"
"I don't know, John."
"To talk about you. She said to me, 'John, you was always honourable, and 
if you'll promise me that you will take care of him, and never let him want 
for help and comfort when I am not there, my mind will be at rest so far.' 
I promised her. And I'll stand by you," said John Chivery, "for ever!"
Clennam, much affected, stretched out his hand to this honest spirit.
"Before I take it," said John, looking at it, without coming from the door, 
"guess what message Miss Dorrit gave me."
Clennam shook his head.
"'Tell him,'" repeated John, in a distinct, though quavering voice, "'that 
his Little Dorrit sent him her undying love.' Now it's delivered. Have I 
been honourable, sir?"
"Very, very!"
"Will you tell Miss Dorrit I've been honourable, sir?"
"I will indeed."
"There's my hand, sir," said John, "and I'll stand by you for ever!"
After a hearty squeeze, he disappeared with the same cautious creak upon 
the stair, crept shoeless over the pavement of the yard, and, locking the 
gates behind him, passed out into the front where he had left his shoes. If 
the same way had been paved with burning ploughshares, it is not at all 
improbable that John would have traversed it with the same devotion, for 
the same purpose.


Chapter 30

Closing In

The last day of the appointed week touched the bars of the Marshalsea gate. 
Black all night, since the gate had clashed upon Little Dorrit, its iron 
stripes were turned by the early-glowing sun into stripes of gold. For 
aslant across the city, over its jumbled roofs, and through the open 
tracery of its church towers, struck the long bright rays, bars of the 
prison of this lower world.
Throughout the day the old house within the gateway remained untroubled by 
any visitors. But, when the sun was low, three men turned in at the gateway 
and made for the dilapidated house.
Rigaud was the first, and walked by himself, smoking. Mr Baptist was the 
second, and jogged close after him, looking at no other object. Mr Pancks 
was the third, and carried his hat under his arm for the liberation of his 
restive hair; the weather being extremely hot. They all came together at 
the doorsteps.
"You pair of madmen!" said Rigaud, facing about. "Don't go yet!"
"We don't mean to," said Mr Pancks.
Giving him a dark glance in acknowledgment of his answer, Rigaud knocked 
loudly. He had charged himself with drink, for the playing out of his game, 
and was impatient to begin. He had hardly finished one long resounding 
knock, when he turned to the knocker again and began another That was not 
yet finished, when Jeremiah Flintwinch opened the door, and they all 
clanked into the stone hall. Rigaud, thrusting Mr Flintwinch aside, 
proceeded straight upstairs His two attendants followed him, Mr Flintwinch 
followed them, and they all came trooping into Mrs Clennam's quiet room. It 
was in its usual state; except that one of the windows was wide open, and 
Affery sat on its old-fashioned window-seat, mending a stocking. The usual 
articles were on the little table; the usual deadened fire was in the 
grate; the bed had its usual pall upon it; and the mistress of all sat on 
her black bier-like sofa, propped up by her black angular bolster that was 
like the headsman's block.
Yet there was a nameless air of preparation in the room, as if it were 
strung up for an occasion. From what the room derived it - every one of its 
small variety of objects being in the fixed spot it had occupied for years -
 no one could have said without looking attentively at its mistress, and 
that, too, with a previous knowledge of her face. Although her unchanging 
black dress was in every plait precisely as of old, and her unchanging 
attitude was rigidly preserved, a very slight additional setting of her 
features and contraction of her gloomy forehead was so powerfully marked, 
that it marked everything about her.
"Who are these?" she said, wonderingly, as the two attendants entered. 
"What do these people want here?"
"Who are these, dear madame, is it?" returned Rigaud. "Faith, they are 
friends of your son the prisoner. And what do they want here, is it? Death, 
madame, I don't know. You will do well to ask them."
"You know you told us, at the door, not to go yet," said Pancks.
"And you know you told me, at the door, you didn't mean to go," retorted 
Rigaud. "In a word, madame, permit me to present two spies of the 
prisoner's - madmen, but spies. If you wish them to remain here during our 
little conversation, say the word. It is nothing to me."
"Why should I wish them to remain here?" said Mrs Clennam. "What have I to 
do with them?"
"Then, dearest madame," said Rigaud, throwing himself into an armchair so 
heavily that the old room trembled, "you will do well to dismiss them. It 
is your affair. They are not my spies, not my rascals."
"Hark! You Pancks," said Mrs Clennam, bending her brows upon him angrily, 
"you Casby's clerk! Attend to your employer's business and your own. Go. 
And take that other man with you."
"Thank you, ma'am," returned Mr Pancks, "I am glad to say I see no 
objection to our both retiring. We have done all we undertook to do for Mr 
Clennam. His constant anxiety has been (and it grew worse upon him when he 
became a prisoner), that this agreeable gentleman should be brought back 
here, to the place from which he slipped away. Here he is - brought back. 
And I will say," added Mr Pancks, "to his ill-looking face, that in my 
opinion the world would be no worse for his slipping out of it altogether."
"Your opinion is not asked," answered Mrs Clennam. "Go."
"I am sorry not to leave you in better company, ma'am," said Pancks; "and 
sorry, too, that Mr Clennam can't be present. It's my fault, that is."
"You mean his own," she returned.
"No, I mean mine, ma'am," said Pancks, "for it was my misfortune to lead 
him into a ruinous investment." (Mr Pancks still clung to that word, and 
never said speculation.) "Though I can prove by figures," added Mr Pancks, 
with an anxious countenance, "that it ought to have been a good investment. 
I have gone over it since it failed, every day of my life, and it comes out 
- regarded as a question of figures - triumphant. The present is not a time 
or place," Mr Pancks pursued, with a longing glance into his hat, where he 
kept his calculations, "for entering upon the figures; but the figures are 
not to be disputed. Mr Clennam ought to have been at this moment in his 
carriage-and-pair, and I ought to have been worth from three to five 
thousand pound."
Mr Pancks put his hair erect with a general aspect of confidence, that 
could hardly have been surpassed if he had had the amount in his pocket. 
These incontrovertible figures had been the occupation of every moment of 
his leisure since he had lost his money, and were destined to afford him 
consolation to the end of his days.
"However," said Mr Pancks, "enough of that. Altro, old boy, you have seen 
the figures, and you know how they come out." Mr Baptist, who had not the 
slightest arithmetical power of compensating himself in this way, nodded, 
with a fine display of bright teeth. At whom Mr Flintwinch had been 
looking, and to whom he then said:
"Oh! It's you, is it? I thought I remembered your face, but I wasn't 
certain till I saw your teeth. Ah! yes, to be sure. It was this officious 
refugee," said Jeremiah to Mrs Clennam, "who came knocking at the door, on 
the night when Arthur and Chatterbox were here, and who asked me a whole 
Catechism of questions about Mr Blandois."
"It is true," Mr Baptist cheerfully admitted. "And behold him, padrone! I 
have found him consequentementally."
"I shouldn't have objected," returned Mr Flintwinch, "to your having broken 
your neck consequentementally."
"And now," said Mr Pancks, whose eye had often stealthily wandered to the 
window-seat, and the stocking that was being mended there, "I've only one 
other word to say before I go. If Mr Clennam was here - but unfortunately, 
though he has so far got the better of this fine gentleman as to return him 
to this place against his will, he is ill and in prison - ill and in 
prison, poor fellow - if he was here," said Mr Pancks, taking one step 
aside towards the window-seat, and laying his right hand upon the stocking; 
"he would say, 'Affery, tell your dreams!"
Mr Pancks held up his right forefinger between his nose and the stocking 
with a ghostly air of warning, turned, steamed out, and towed Mr Baptist 
after him. The house-door was heard to close upon them, their steps were 
heard passing over the dull pavement of the echoing court-yard, and still 
nobody had added a word. Mrs Clennam and Jeremiah had exchanged a look; and 
had then looked, and looked still, at Affery; who sat mending the stocking 
with great assiduity.
"Come!" said Mr Flintwinch at length, screwing himself a curve or two in 
the direction of the window-seat, and rubbing the palms of his hands on his 
coat-tail as if he were preparing them to do something: "Whatever has to be 
said among us, had better be begun to be said, without more loss of time. - 
So, Affery, my woman, take yourself away!"
In a moment, Affery had thrown the stocking down, started up, caught hold 
of the window-sill with her right hand, lodged herself upon the window-seat 
with her right knee, and was flourishing her left hand, beating expected 
assailants off.
"No, I won't, Jeremiah - no I won't - no I won't! I won't go, I'll stay 
here. I'll hear all I don't know, and say all I know. I will, at last, if I 
die for it. I will, I will, I will, I will!"
Mr Flintwinch stiffening with indignation and amazement, moistened the 
fingers of one hand at his lips, softly described a circle with them in the 
palm of the other hand, and continued with a menacing grin to screw himself 
in the direction of his wife: gasping some remark as he advanced, of which, 
in his choking anger, only the words "Such a dose!" were audible.
"Not a bit nearer, Jeremiah!" cried Affery, never ceasing to beat the air. 
"Don't come a bit nearer to me, or I'll rouse the neighbourhood! I'll throw 
myself out of window! I'll scream Fire and Murder! I'll wake the dead! Stop 
where you are, or I'll make shrieks enough to wake the dead!"
The determined voice of Mrs Clennam echoed "Stop!" Jeremiah had stopped 
already.
"It is closing in, Flintwinch. Let her alone. Affery, do you turn against 
me after these many years?"
"I do, if it's turning against you to hear what I don't know, and say what 
I know. I have broke out now, and I can't go back. I am determined to do 
it. I will do it, I will, I will, I will! If that's turning against you, 
yes, I turn against both of you two clever ones. I told Arthur, when he 
first come home, to stand up against you. I told him it was no reason, 
because I was afeerd of my life of you, that he should be. All manner of 
things have been a going on since then, and I won't be run up by Jeremiah, 
nor yet I won't be dazed and scared, nor made a party to I don't know what, 
no more. I won't, I won't, I won't. I'll up for Arthur when he has nothing 
left, and is ill, and in prison, and can't up for himself. I will, I will, 
I will, I will!"
"How do you know, you heap of confusion," asked Mrs Clennam sternly, "that 
in doing what you are doing now, you are even serving Arthur?"
"I don't know nothing rightly about anything," said Affery; "and if ever 
you said a true word in your life, it's when you call me a heap of 
confusion, for you two clever ones have done your most to make me such. You 
married me whether I liked it or not, and you've led me, pretty well ever 
since, such a life of dreaming and frightening as never was known, and what 
do you expect me to be but a heap of confusion? You wanted to make me such, 
and I am such; but I won't submit no longer; no, I won't, I won't, I won't, 
I won't!" She was still beating the air against all comers.
After gazing at her in silence, Mrs Clennam turned to Rigaud. "You see and 
hear this foolish creature. Do you object to such a piece of distraction 
remaining where she is?"
"I, madame?" he replied, "do I? That's a question for you."
"I do not," she said, gloomily. "There is little left to choose now. 
Flintwinch, it is closing in."
Mr Flintwinch replied by directing a look of red vengeance at his wife, and 
then, as if to pinion himself from falling upon her, screwed his crossed 
arms into the breast of his waistcoat, and with his chin very near one of 
his elbows stood in a corner, watching Rigaud in the oddest attitude. 
Rigaud for his part arose from his chair, and seated himself on the table, 
with his legs dangling. In this easy attitude he met Mrs Clennam's set 
face, with his moustache going up, and his nose coming down.
"Madame, I am a gentleman -"
"Of whom," she interrupted in her steady tones, "I have heard 
disparagement, in connection with a French jail, and an accusation of 
murder."
He kissed his hand to her, with his exaggerated gallantry. "Perfectly. 
Exactly. Of a lady too! What absurdity! How incredible! I had the honour of 
making a great success then; I hope to have the honour of making a great 
success now. I kiss your hands. Madame, I am a gentleman (I was going to 
observe), who when he says, 'I will definitely finish this or that affair 
at the present sitting,' does definitely finish it. I announce to you, that 
we are arrived at our last sitting, on our little business. You do me the 
favour to follow, and to comprehend?"
She kept her eyes fixed upon him with a frown. "Yes."
"Further, I am a gentleman to whom mere mercenary trade-bargains are 
unknown, but to whom money is always acceptable as the means of pursuing 
his pleasures. You do me the favour to follow, and to comprehend?"
"Scarcely necessary to ask, one would say. Yes."
"Further, I am a gentleman of the softest and sweetest disposition, but 
who, if trifled with, becomes enraged. Noble natures under such 
circumstances become enraged. I possess a noble nature. When the lion is 
awakened - that is to say, when I enrage - the satisfaction of my animosity 
is as acceptable to me as money. You always do me the favour to follow, and 
to comprehend?"
"Yes," she answered, somewhat louder than before.
"Do not let me derange you; pray be tranquil. I have said we are now 
arrived at our last sitting. Allow me to recall the two sittings we have 
held."
"It is not necessary."
"Death, madame," he burst out, "it's my fancy! Besides, it clears the way. 
The first sitting was limited. I had the honour of making your acquaintance 
- of presenting my letter; I am a Knight of Industry, at your service, 
madame, but my polished manners had won meso much of success, as a master 
of languages, among your compatriots who are as stiff as their own starch 
is to one another, but are ever ready to relax to a foreign gentleman of 
polished manners - and of observing one or two little things," he glanced 
around the room and smiled, "about this honourable house, to know which was 
necessary to assure me, and to convince me that I had the distinguished 
pleasure of making the acquaintance of the lady I sought. I achieved this. 
I gave my word of honour, to our dear Flintwinch, that I would return. I 
gracefully departed."
Her face neither acquiesced nor demurred. The same when he paused and when 
he spoke, it as yet showed him always the one attentive frown, and the dark 
revelation before mentioned of her being nerved for the occasion.
"I say, gracefully departed, because it was graceful to retire without 
alarming a lady. To be morally graceful, not less than physically, is a 
part of the character of Rigaud Blandois. It was also politic, as leaving 
you, with something overhanging you, to expect me again with a little 
anxiety, on a day not named. But your slave is politic. By Heaven, madame, 
politic! Let us return. On the day not named, I have again the honour to 
render myself at your house. I intimate that I have something to sell, 
which, if not bought, will compromise madame whom I highly esteem. I 
explain myself generally. I demand - I think it was a thousand pounds. Will 
you correct me?"
Thus forced to speak, she replied, with constraint, "You demanded as much 
as a thousand pounds."
"I demand at present, Two. Such are the evils of delay. But to return once 
more. We are not accordant; we differ on that occasion. I am playful; 
playfulness is a part of my amiable character. Playfully, I become as one 
slain and hidden. For, it may alone be worth half the sum, to madame, to be 
freed from the suspicions that my droll idea awakens. Accident and spies 
intermix themselves against my playfulness, and spoil the fruit, perhaps - 
who knows? only you and Flintwinch - when it is just ripe. Thus, madame, I 
am here for the last time. Listen! Definitely the last."
As he struck his straggling boot-heels against the flap of the table, 
meeting her frown with an insolent gaze, he began to change his tone for a 
fiercer one.
"Bah! Stop an instant! Let us advance by steps. Here is my Hotel-note to be 
paid, according to contract. Five minutes hence we may be at daggers' 
points. I'll not leave it till then, or you'll cheat me. Pay it! Count me 
the money!"
"Take it from his hand and pay it, Flintwinch," said Mrs Clennam.
He spirted it into Mr Flintwinch's face, when the old man advanced to take 
it; and held forth his hand, repeating noisily, "Pay it! Count it out! Good 
money!" Jeremiah picked the bill up, looked at the total with a bloodshot 
eye, took a small canvas bag from his pocket, and told the amount into his 
hand.
Rigaud chinked the money, weighed it in his hand, threw it up a little way 
and caught it, chinked it again.
"The sound of it, to the bold Rigaud Blandois, is like the taste of fresh 
meat to the tiger. Say, then, madame. How much?"
He turned upon her suddenly, with a menacing gesture of the weighted hand 
that clenched the money, as if he were going to strike her with it.
"I tell you again, as I told you before, that we are not rich here, as you 
suppose us to be, and that your demand is excessive. I have not the present 
means of complying with such a demand, if I had ever so great an 
inclination."
"If!" cried Rigaud. "Hear this lady with her If! Will you say that you have 
not the inclination?"
"I will say what presents itself to me, and not what presents itself to 
you."
"Say it then. As to the inclination. Quick! Come to the inclination, and I 
know what to do."
She was no quicker, and no slower, in her reply. "It would seem that you 
have obtained possession of a paper - or of papers - which I assuredly have 
the inclination to recover."
Rigaud, with a loud laugh, drummed his heels against the table, and chinked 
his money. "I think so! I believe you there!"
"The paper might be worth, to me, a sum of money. I cannot say how much, or 
how little."
"What the Devil!" he asked savagely. "Not after a week's grace to 
consider?"
"No! I will not, out of my scanty means - for I tell you again, we are poor 
here, and not rich - I will not offer any price for a power that I do not 
know the worst and the fullest extent of. This is the third time of your 
hinting and threatening. You must speak explicitly, or you may go where you 
will and do what you will. It is better to be torn to pieces at a spring, 
than to be a mouse at the caprice of such a cat."
He looked at her so hard with those eyes too near together, that the 
sinister sight of each, crossing that of the other, seemed to make the 
bridge of his hooked nose crooked. After a long survey, he said, with the 
further setting-off of his infernal smile:
"You are a bold woman!"
"I am a resolved woman."
"You always were. What? She always was; is it not so, my little 
Flintwinch?"
"Flintwinch, say nothing to him. It is for him to say here, and now, all he 
can; or to go hence, and do all he can. You know this to be our 
determination. Leave him to his action on it."
She did not shrink under his evil leer, or avoid it. He turned it upon her 
again, but she remained steady at the point to which she had fixed herself. 
He got off the table, placed a chair near the sofa, sat down in it, and 
leaned an arm upon the sofa close to her own, which she touched with his 
hand. Her face was ever frowning, attentive, and settled.
"It is your pleasure then, madame, that I shall relate a morsel of family 
history in this little family society," said Rigaud with a warning play of 
his lithe fingers on her arm. "I am something of a doctor. Let me touch 
your pulse." She suffered him to take her wrist in his hand. Holding it, he 
proceeded to say:
"A history of a strange marriage, and a strange mother, and a revenge, and 
a suppression. - Aye, aye, aye? This pulse is beating curiously! It appears 
to me that it doubles while I touch it. Are these the usual changes of your 
malady, madame?"
There was a struggle in her maimed arm as she twisted it away, but there 
was none in her face. On his face there was his own smile.
"I have lived an adventurous life. I am an adventurous character. I have 
known many adventurers; interesting spirits - amiable society! To one of 
them I owe my knowledge, and my proofs - I repeat it, estimable lady - 
proofs - of the ravishing little family history I go to commence. You will 
be charmed with it. But, bah! I forget. One should name a history. Shall I 
name it the history of a house? But, bah, again. There are so many houses. 
Shall I name it the history of this house?"
Leaning over the sofa, poised on two legs of his chair and his left elbow; 
that hand often tapping her arm, to beat his words home; his legs crossed; 
his right hand sometimes arranging his hair, sometimes smoothing his 
moustache, sometimes striking his nose, always threatening her whatever it 
did; coarse, insolent, rapacious, cruel, and powerful, he pursued his 
narrative at his ease.
"In fine, then, I name it the history of this house. I commence it. There 
lived here, let us suppose, an uncle and nephew. The uncle, a rigid old 
gentleman of strong force of character; the nephew, habitually timid, 
repressed, and under constraint."
Mistress Affery, fixedly attentive in the window-seat, biting the rolled up 
end of her apron, and trembling from head to foot, here cried out, 
"Jeremiah, keep off from me! I've heerd in my dreams, of Arthur's father 
and his uncle. He's a talking of them. It was before my time here; but I've 
heerd in my dreams that Arthur's father was a poor, irresolute, frightened 
chap, who had had everything but his orphan life scared out of him when he 
was young, and that he had no voice in the choice of his wife even, but his 
uncle chose her. There she sits! I heerd it in my dreams, and you said it 
to her own self."
As Mr Flintwinch shook his fist at her, and as Mrs Clennam gazed upon her, 
Rigaud kissed his hand to her.
"Perfectly right, dear Madame Flintwinch. You have a genius for dreaming."
"I don't want none of your praises," returned Affery. "I don't want to have 
nothing at all to say to you. But Jeremiah said they were dreams, and I'll 
tell 'em as such!" Here she put her apron in her mouth again, as if she 
were stopping somebody else's mouth - perhaps Jeremiah's, which was 
chattering with threats as if he were grimly cold.
"Our beloved Madame Flintwinch," said Rigaud, "developing all of a sudden a 
fine susceptibility and spirituality, is right to a marvel. Yes. So runs 
the history. Monsieur, the uncle, commands the nephew to marry. Monsieur 
says to him in effect, 'My nephew, I introduce to you a lady of strong 
force of character, like myself: a resolved lady, a stern lady, a lady who 
has a will that can break the weak to powder: a lady without pity, without 
love, implacable, revengeful, cold as the stone, but raging as the fire.' 
Ah! what fortitude! Ah! what superiority of intellectual strength! Truly, a 
proud and noble character that I describe in the supposed words of 
Monsieur, the uncle. Ha, ha, ha! Death of my soul, I love the sweet lady!"
Mrs Clennam's face had changed. There was a remarkable darkness of colour 
on it, and the brow was more contracted. "Madame, madame," said Rigaud, 
tapping her on the arm, as if his cruel hand were sounding a musical 
instrument, "I perceive I interest you. I perceive I awaken your sympathy. 
Let us go on!"
The drooping nose and the ascending moustache had, however, to be hidden 
for a moment with the white hand, before he could go on; he enjoyed the 
effect he made, so much.
"The nephew, being, as the lucid Madame Flintwinch has remarked, a poor 
devil who has had everything but his orphan life frightened and famished 
out of him - the nephew abases his head, and makes response: 'My uncle, it 
is you to command. Do as you will!' Monsieur, the uncle, does as he will. 
It is what he always does. The auspicious nuptials take place; the newly 
married come home to this charming mansion; the lady is received, let us 
suppose, by Flintwinch. Hey, old intriguer?"
Jeremiah, with his eyes upon his mistress, made no reply. Rigaud looked 
from one to the other, struck his ugly nose, and made a cluckling with his 
tongue.
"Soon, the lady makes a singular and exciting discovery. Thereupon full of 
anger, full of jealousy, full of vengeance, she forms - see you, madame! - 
a scheme of retribution, the weight of which she ingeniously forces her 
crushed husband to bear himself, as well as execute upon her enemy. What 
superior intelligence!"
"Keep off, Jeremiah!" cried the palpitating Affery, taking her apron from 
her mouth again. "But it was one of my dreams that you told her, when you 
quarrelled with her one winter evening, at dusk - there she sits and you 
looking at her - that she oughtn't to have let Arthur when he come home, 
suspect his father, only; that she had always had the strength and the 
power; and that she ought to have stood up more, to Arthur, for his father. 
It was in the same dream where you said to her that she was not - not 
something, but I don't know what, for she burst out tremendous and stopped 
you. You know the dream as well as I do. When you come downstairs into the 
kitchen with the candle in your hand, and hitched my apron off my head. 
When you told me I had been dreaming. When you wouldn't believe the 
noises." After this explosion Affery put her apron into her mouth again; 
always keeping her hand on the window-sill, and her knee on the window-
seat, ready to cry out, or jump out, if her lord and master approached. 
Rigaud had not lost a word of this.
"Haha!" he cried, lifting his eyebrows, folding his arms, and leaning back 
in his chair. "Assuredly, Madame Flintwinch is an oracle! How shall we 
interpret the oracle, you and I, and the old intriguer? He said that you 
were not -? And you burst out and stopped him! What was it you were not? 
What is it you are not? Say then, Madame!"
Under this ferocious banter, she sat breathing harder and her mouth was 
disturbed. Her lips quivered and opened, in spite of her utmost efforts to 
keep them still.
"Come then, madame! Speak, then! Our old intriguer said that you were not - 
and you stopped him. He was going to say that you were not - what? I know 
already, but I want a little confidence from you. How, then? You are not 
what?"
She tried again to repress herself, but broke out vehemently. "Not Arthur's 
mother!"
"Good," said Rigaud. "You are amenable."
With the set expression of her face all torn away by the explosion of her 
passion, and with a bursting from every rent feature of the smouldering 
fire so long pent up, she cried out: "I will tell it myself! I will not 
hear it from your lips, and with the taint of your wickedness upon it. 
Since it must be seen, I will have it seen by the light I stood in. Not 
another word. Hear me!"
"Unless you are a more obstinate and more persisting woman than ever I knew 
you to be," Mr Flintwinch interposed, "you had better leave Mr Rigaud, Mr 
Blandois, Mr Beelzebub, to tell it in his own way. What does it signify 
when he knows all about it?"
"He does not know all about it."
"He knows all he cares about it," Mr Flintwinch testily urged.
"He does not know me."
"What do you suppose he cares for you, you conceited woman?" said Mr 
Flintwinch.
"I tell you, Flintwinch, I will speak. I tell you, when it has come to 
this, I will tell it with my own lips, and will express myself throughout 
it. What! Have I suffered nothing in this room, no deprivation, no 
imprisonment, that I should condescend at last to contemplate myself in 
such a glass as that! Can you see him? Can you hear him? If your wife were 
a hundred times the ingrate that she is, and if I were a thousand times 
more hopeless than I am of inducing her to be silent if this man is 
silenced, I would tell it myself, before I would bear the torment of 
hearing it from him."
Rigaud pushed his chair a little back; pushed his legs out straight before 
him; and sat with his arms folded over against her.
"You do not know what it is," she went on, addressing him, "to be brought 
up strictly, and straitly. I was so brought up. Mine was no light youth of 
sinful gaiety and pleasure. Mine were days of wholesome repression, 
punishment, and fear. The corruption of our hearts, the evil of our ways, 
the curse that is upon us, the terrors that surround us - these were the 
themes of my childhood. They formed my character, and filled me with an 
abhorrence of evil-doers. When old Mr Gilbert Clennam proposed his orphan 
nephew to my father for my husband, my father impressed upon me that his 
bringing-up had been, like mine, one of severe restraint. He told me that 
besides the discipline his spirit had undergone, he had lived in a starved 
house, where rioting and gaiety were unknown, and where every day was a day 
of toil and trial like the last. He told me that he had been a man in 
years, long before his uncle had acknowledged him as one; and that from his 
school-days to that hour, his uncle's roof had been a sanctuary to him from 
the contagion of the irreligious and dissolute. When, within a twelvemonth 
of our marriage, I found my husband, at that time when my father spoke of 
him, to have sinned against the Lord and outraged me by holding a guilty 
creature in my place, was I to doubt that it had been appointed to me to 
make the discovery, and that it was appointed to me to lay the hand of 
punishment upon that creature of perdition? Was I to dismiss in a moment - 
not my own wrongs - what was I! but all the rejection of sin, and all the 
war against it, in which I had been bred?"
She laid her wrathful hand upon the watch on the table.
"No! 'Do not forget.' The initials of those words are within here now, and 
were within here then. I was appointed to find the old letter that referred 
to them, and that told me what they meant, and whose work they were, and 
why they were worked, lying with this watch in his secret drawer. But for 
that appointment, there would have been no discovery. 'Do not forget.' It 
spoke to me like a voice from an angry cloud. Do not forget the deadly sin, 
do not forget the appointed discovery, do not forget the appointed 
suffering. I did not forget. Was it my own wrong I remembered? Mine! I was 
but a servant and a minister. What power could I have had over them, but 
that they were bound in the bonds of their sin, and delivered to me!"
More than forty years had passed over the grey head of this determined 
woman, since the time she recalled. More than forty years of strife and 
struggle with the whisper that, by whatever name she called her vindictive 
pride and rage, nothing through all eternity could change their nature. 
Yet, gone those more than forty years, and come this Nemesis now looking 
her in the face, she still abided by her old impiety - still reversed the 
order of Creation, and breathed her own breath into a clay image of her 
Creator. Verily verily, travellers have seen many monstrous idols in many 
countries; but, no human eyes have ever seen more daring, gross, and 
shocking images of the Divine nature, than we creatures of the dust make in 
our own likenesses, of our own bad passions.
"When I forced him to give her up to me, by her name and place of abode," 
she went on in her torrent of indignation and defence; "when I accused her, 
and she fell hiding her face at my feet, was it my injury that I asserted, 
were they my reproaches that I poured upon her? Those who were appointed of 
old to go to wicked kings and accuse them - were they not ministers and 
servants? And had not I, unworthy, and far-removed from them, sin to 
denounce? When she pleaded to me her youth, and his wretched and hard life 
(that was her phrase for the virtuous training he had belied), and the 
desecrated ceremony of marriage there had secretly been between them, and 
the terrors of want and shame that had overwhelmed them both, when I was 
first appointed to be the instrument of their punishment, and the love (for 
she said the word to me, down at my feet) in which she had abandoned him 
and left him to me, was it my enemy that became my footstool, were they the 
words of my wrath that made her shrink and quiver! Not unto me the strength 
be ascribed; not unto me the wringing of the expiation!"
Many years had come, and gone, since she had had the free use even of her 
fingers; but, it was noticeable that she had already more than once struck 
her clenched hand vigorously upon the table, and that when she said these 
words she raised her whole arm in the air, as though it had been a common 
action with her.
"And what was the repentance that was extorted from the hardness of her 
heart and the blackness of her depravity? I, vindictive and implacable? It 
may seem so, to such as you who know no righteousness, and no appointment 
except Satan's. Laugh; but I will be known as I know myself, and as 
Flintwinch knows me, though it is only to you and this half-witted woman."
"Add, to yourself, madame" said Rigaud. I have my little suspicions, that 
madame is rather solicitous to be justified to herself."
"It is false. It is not so. I have no need to be," she said, with great 
energy and anger.
"Truly?" retorted Rigaud. "Hah!"
"I ask, what was the penitence, in works, that was demanded of her? 'You 
have a child; I have none. You love that child. Give him to me. He shall 
believe himself to be my son, and he shall be believed by every one to be 
my son. To save you from exposure, his father shall swear never to see or 
communicate with you more; equally to save him from being stripped by his 
uncle, and to save your child from being a beggar, you shall swear never to 
see or communicate with either of them more. That done, and your present 
means, derived from my husband, renounced, I charge myself with your 
support. You may, with your place of retreat unknown, then leave, if you 
please, uncontradicted by me, the lie that when you passed out of all 
knowledge but mine, you merited a good name.' That was all. She had to 
sacrifice her sinful and shameful affections; no more. She was then free to 
bear her load of guilt in secret, and to break her heart in secret; and 
through such present misery (light enough for her, I think! ) to purchase 
her redemption from endless misery, if she could. If, in this, I punished 
her here, did I not open to her a way hereafter? If she knew herself to be 
surrounded by insatiable vengeance and unquenchable fires, were they mine? 
If I threatened her, then and afterwards, with the terrors that encompassed 
her, did I hold them in my right hand?"
She turned the watch upon the table, and opened it, and, with an 
unsoftening face, looked at the worked letters within.
"They did not forget. It is appointed against such offences that the 
offenders shall not be able to forget. If the presence of Arthur was a 
daily reproach to his father, and if the absence of Arthur was a daily 
agony to his mother, that was the just dispensation of Jehovah. As well 
might it be charged upon me, that the stings of an awakened conscience 
drove her mad, and that it was the will of the Disposer of all things that 
she should live so, many years. I devoted myself to reclaim the otherwise 
predestined and lost boy; to give him the reputation of an honest origin; 
to bring him up in fear and trembling, and in a life of practical 
contrition for the sins that were heavy on his head before his entrance 
into this condemned world. Was that a cruelty? Was I too, not visited with 
consequences of the original offence, in which I had no complicity? 
Arthur's father and I lived no further apart, with half the globe between 
us, than when we were together in this house. He died, and sent this watch 
back to me, with its Do not forget. I do not forget, though I do not read 
it as he did. I read in it, that I was appointed to do these things. I have 
so read these three letters since I have had them lying on this table, and 
I did so read them, with equal distinctness, when they were thousands of 
miles away."
As she took the watch-case in her hand, with that new freedom in the use of 
her hand of which she showed no consciousness whatever, bending her eyes 
upon it as if she were defying it to move her, Rigaud cried with a loud and 
contemptuous snapping of his fingers, "Come, madame! Time runs out. Come, 
lady of piety, it must be! You can tell nothing I don't know. Come to the 
money stolen, or I will! Death of my soul, I have had enough of your other 
jargon. Come straight to the stolen money!"
"Wretch, that you are," she answered, and now her hands clasped her head; 
"through what fatal error of Flintwinch's, through what incompleteness on 
his part, who was the only other person helping in these things and trusted 
with them, through whose and what bringing together of the ashes of a burnt 
paper, you have become possessed of that codicil, I know no more than how 
you acquired the rest of your power here -"
"And yet," interrupted Rigaud, "it is my odd fortune to have by me, in a 
convenient place that I know of, that same short little addition to the 
will of Monsieur Gilbert Clennam, written by a lady and witnessed by the 
same lady, and our old intriguer! Ah, bah, old intriguer, crooked little 
puppet! Madame, let us go on. Time presses. You or I to finish?"
"I!" she answered, with increased determination, if it were possible. "I, 
because I will not endure to be shown myself, and have myself shown to any 
one, with your horrible distortion upon me. You, with your practices of 
infamous foreign prisons and galleys would make it the money that impelled 
me. It was not the money."
"Bah, bah, bah! I repudiate, for the moment, my politeness, and say, Lies, 
lies, lies. You know you suppressed the deed, and kept the money."
"Not for the money's sake, wretch!" She made a struggle as if she were 
starting up; even as if, in her vehemence, she had almost risen on her 
disabled feet. "If Gilbert Clennam, reduced to imbecility, at the point of 
death, and labouring under the delusion of some imaginary relenting towards 
a girl, of whom he had heard that his nephew had once had a fancy for her, 
which he had crushed out of him, and that she afterwards drooped away into 
melancholy and withdrawal from all who knew her - if, in that state of 
weakness, he dictated to me, whose life she had darkened with her sin, and 
who had been appointed to know her wickedness from her own hand and her own 
lips, a bequest meant as a recompense to her for supposed unmerited 
suffering; was there no difference between my spurning that injustice, and 
coveting mere money - a thing which you, and your comrades in the prisons, 
may steal from any one?"
"Time presses, madame. Take care!"
"If this house was blazing from the roof to the ground," she returned, "I 
would stay in it to justify myself, against my righteous motives being 
classed with those of stabbers and thieves."
Rigaud snapped his fingers tauntingly in her face. "One thousand guineas to 
the little beauty you slowly hunted to death. One thousand guineas to the 
youngest daughter her patron might have at fifty, or (if he had none) 
brother's youngest daughter, on her coming of age, 'as the remembrance his 
disinterestedness may like best, of his protection of a friendless young 
orphan girl.' Two thousand guineas. What! You will never come to the 
money?"
"That patron," she was vehemently proceeding, when he checked her.
"Names! Call him Mr Frederick Dorrit. No more evasions."
"That Frederick Dorrit was the beginning of it all. If he had not been a 
player of music, and had not kept, in those days of his youth and 
prosperity, an idle house where singers, and players, and such-like 
children of Evil, turned their backs on the Light and their faces to the 
Darkness, she might have remained in her lowly station, and might not have 
been raised out of it to be cast down. But, no. Satan entered into that 
Frederick Dorrit, and counselled him that he was a man of innocent and 
laudable tastes who did kind actions, and that here was a poor girl with a 
voice for singing music with. Then he is to have her taught. Then Arthur's 
father, who has all along been secretly pining in the ways of virtuous 
ruggedness, for those accursed snares which are called the Arts, becomes 
acquainted with her. And so, a graceless orphan, training to be a singing 
girl, carries it, by that Frederick Dorrit's agency, against me, and I am 
humbled and deceived! - Not I, that is to say," she added quickly, as 
colour flushed into her face, "a greater than I. What am I?"
Jeremiah Flintwinch, who had been gradually screwing himself towards her, 
and who was now very near her elbow without her knowing it, made a 
specially wry face of objection when she said these words, and moreover 
twitched his gaiters, as if such pretensions were equivalent to little 
barbs in his legs.
"Lastly," she continued, "for I am at the end of these things, and I will 
say no more of them, and you shall say no more of them, and all that 
remains will be to determine whether the knowledge of them can be kept 
among us who are here present; lastly, when I suppressed that paper, with 
the knowledge of Arthur's father -"
"But not with his consent, you know," said Mr Flintwinch.
"Who said with his consent?" She started to find Jeremiah so near her, and 
drew back her head, looking at him with some rising distrust. "You were 
often enough between us, when he would have had me produce it and I would 
not, to have contradicted me if I had said, with his consent. I say, when I 
suppressed that paper, I made no effort to destroy it, but kept it by me, 
here in this house, many years. The rest of the Gilbert property being left 
to Arthur's father, I could at any time, without unsettling more than the 
two sums, have made a pretence of finding it. But, besides that I must have 
supported such pretence by a direct falsehood (a great responsibility), I 
have seen no new reason, in all the time I have been tried here, to bring 
it to light. It was a rewarding of sin; the wrong result of a delusion. I 
did what I was appointed to do, and I have undergone, within these four 
walls, what I was appointed to undergo. When the paper was at last 
destroyed - as I thought - in my presence, she had long been dead, and her 
patron, Frederick Dorrit, had long been deservedly ruined and imbecile. He 
had no daughter. I had found the niece before then; and what I did for her 
was better for her far, than the money of which she would have had no 
good." She added, after a moment, as though she addressed the watch: "She 
herself was innocent, and I might not have forgotten to relinquish it to 
her, at my death;" and sat looking at it.
"Shall I recall something to you, worthy madame?" said Rigaud. "The little 
paper was in this house, on the night when our friend the prisoner - jail-
comrade of my soul - came home from foreign countries. Shall I recall yet 
something more to you? The little singing-bird that never was fledged, was 
long kept in a cage, by a guardian of your appointing, well-enough known to 
our old intriguer here. Shall we coax our old intriguer to tell us when he 
saw him last?"
"I'll tell you!" cried Affery, unstopping her mouth. "I dreamed it, first 
of all my dreams. Jeremiah, if you come a-nigh me now, I'll scream to be 
heard at St. Paul's! The person as this man has spoken of, was Jeremiah's 
own twin brother; and he was here in the dead of the night, on the night 
when Arthur come home, and Jeremiah with his own hands give him this paper, 
along with I don't know what more, and he took it away in an iron box. - 
Help! Murder! Save me from Jere-mi-ah!"
Mr Flintwinch had made a run at her, but Rigaud had caught him in his arms 
midway. After a moment's wrestle with him, Flintwinch gave up, and put his 
hands in his pockets.
"What;" cried Rigaud, rallying him as he poked and jerked him back with his 
elbows. "Assault a lady with such a genius for dreaming? Ha, ha, ha! Why 
she'll be a fortune to you as an exhibition. All that she dreams comes 
true. Ha, ha, ha! You're so like him, little Flintwinch. So like him, as I 
knew him (when I first spoke English for him to the host) in the Cabaret of 
the Three Billiard Tables, in the little street of the high roofs, by the 
wharf at Antwerp! Ah, but he was a brave boy to drink. Ah, but he was a 
brave boy to smoke! Ah, but he lived in a sweet bachelor-apartment - 
furnished, on the fifth floor, above the wood and charcoal merchants, and 
the dressmakers, and the chairmakers, and the maker of tubs - where I knew 
him too, and where, with his cognac and tobacco, he had twelve sleeps a day 
and one fit, until he had a fit too much, and ascended to the skies. Ha, 
ha, ha! What does it matter how I took possession of the papers in his iron 
box? Perhaps he confided it to my hands for you, perhaps it was locked and 
my curiosity was piqued, perhaps I suppressed it. Ha, ha, ha! What does it 
matter, so that I have it safe? We are not particular here; hey, 
Flintwinch? we are not particular here; is it not so, madame?"
Retiring before him with vicious counter jerks of his own elbows, Mr 
Flintwinch had got back into his corner, where he now stood with his hands 
in his pockets, taking breath, and returning Mrs Clennam's stare. "Ha, ha, 
ha! But what's this?" cried Rigaud. "It appears as if you don't know, one 
the other. Permit me, Madame Clennam who suppresses, to present Monsieur 
Flintwinch who intrigues."
Mr Flintwinch, unpocketing one of his hands, to scrape his jaw, advanced a 
step or so in that attitude, still returning Mrs Clennam's look, and thus 
addressed her:
"Now, I know what you mean by opening your eyes so wide at me, but you 
needn't take the trouble, because I don't care for it. I've been telling 
you for how many years, that you're one of the most opiniated and obstinate 
of women. That's what you are. You call yourself humble and sinful, but you 
are the most Bumptious of your sex. That's what you are. I have told you, 
over and over again when we have had a tiff, that you wanted to make 
everything go down before you, but I wouldn't go down before you - that you 
wanted to swallow up everybody alive, but I wouldn't be swallowed up alive. 
Why didn't you destroy the paper when you first laid hands upon it? I 
advised you to: but no, it's not your way to take advice. You must keep it, 
forsooth. Perhaps you may carry it out at some other time, forsooth. As if 
I didn't know better than that! I think I see your pride carrying it out, 
with a chance of being suspected of having kept it by you. But that's the 
way you cheat yourself. Just as you cheat yourself into making out, that 
you didn't do all this business because you were a rigorous woman, all 
slight, and spite, and power, and unforgivingness, but because you were a 
servant and a minister, and were appointed to do it? Who are you, that you 
should be appointed to do it? That may be your religion, but it's my 
gammon. And to tell you all the truth while I am about it," said Mr 
Flintwinch, crossing his arms, and becoming the express image of irascible 
doggedness, "I have been rasped - rasped these forty years - by your taking 
such high ground even with me, who knows better; the effect of it being 
coolly to put me on low ground. I admire you very much; you are a woman of 
strong head and great talent; but the strongest head, and the greatest 
talent, can't rasp a man for forty years without making him sore. So I 
don't care for your present eyes. Now, I am coming to the paper, and mark 
what I say. You put it away somewhere, and you keep your own counsel where. 
You're an active woman at that time, and if you want to get that paper, you 
can get it. But, mark! There comes a time when you are struck into what you 
are now, and then if you want to get that paper, you can't get it. So it 
lies, long years, in its hiding-place. At last, when we are expecting 
Arthur home every day, and when any day may bring him home, and it's 
impossible to say what rummaging he may make about the house, I recommend 
you five thousand times, if you can't get at it, to let me get at it, that 
it may be put in the fire. But no - no one but you knows where it is, and 
that's power; and, call yourself whatever humble names you will, I call you 
a female Lucifer in appetite for power! On a Sunday night, Arthur comes 
home. He has not been in this room ten minutes, when he speaks of his 
father's watch. You know very well that the Do Not Forget, at the time when 
his father sent that watch to you, could only mean, the rest of the story 
being then all dead and over, Do Not Forget the suppression. Make 
restitution! Arthur's ways have frightened you a bit, and the paper shall 
be burnt after all. So, before that jumping jade and Jezebel," Mr 
Flintwinch grinned at his wife, "has got you into bed, you at last tell me 
where you have put the paper, among the old ledgers in the cellars, where 
Arthur himself went prowling the very next morning. But, it's not to be 
burnt on a Sunday night. No; you are strict, you are; we must wait over 
twelve o'clock, and get into Monday. Now, all this is a swallowing of me up 
alive, that rasps me; so, feeling a little out of temper, and not being as 
strict as yourself, I take a look at the document before twelve o'clock, to 
refresh my memory as to its appearance - fold up one of the many yellow old 
papers in the cellars like it - and afterwards, when we have got into 
Monday morning, and I have, by the light of your lamp, to walk from you, 
lying on that bed, to this grate, make a little exchange like the conjuror, 
and burn accordingly. My brother Ephraim, the lunatic-keeper (I wish he had 
had himself to keep in a strait-waistcoat), had had many jobs since the 
close of the long job he got from you, but had not done well. His wife 
died, (not that that was much; mine might have died instead, and welcome), 
he speculated unsuccessfully in lunatics, he got into difficulty about over-
roasting a patient to bring him to reason, and he got into debt. He was 
going out of the way, on what he had been able to scrape up, and a trifle 
from me. He was here that early Monday morning, waiting for the tide; in 
short, he was going to Antwerp, where (I am afraid you'll be shocked at my 
saying, And be damned to him! ) he made the acquaintance of this gentleman. 
he had come a long way, and, I thought then, was only sleepy; but, I 
suppose now, was drunk. When Arthur's mother had been under the care of him 
and his wife, she had been always writing, incessantly writing - mostly 
letters of confession to you, and Prayers for forgiveness. My brother had 
handed, from time to time, lots of these sheets to me. I thought I might as 
well keep them to myself, as have them swallowed up alive too; so I kept 
them in a box, looking them over when I felt in the humour. Convinced that 
it was advisable to get the paper out of the place, with Arthur coming 
about it, I put it into this same box, and I locked the whole up with two 
locks, and I trusted it to my brother to take away and keep, till I should 
write about it. I did write about it, and never got an answer. I didn't 
know what to make of it, till this gentleman favoured us with his first 
visit. Of course, I began to suspect how it was, then; and I don't want his 
word for it now to understand, how he gets his knowledge from my papers, 
and your paper, and my brother's cognac and tobacco talk (I wish he'd had 
to gag himself). Now, I have only one thing more to say, you hammer-headed 
woman, and that is, that I haven't altogether made up my mind whether I 
might, or might not, have ever given you any trouble about the codicil. I 
think not; and that I should have been quite satisfied with knowing I had 
got the better of you, and that I held the power over you. In the present 
state of circumstances, I have no more explanation to give you till this 
time tomorrow night. So you may as well," said Mr Flintwinch, terminating 
his oration with a screw, "keep your eyes open at somebody else, for it's 
no use keeping 'em open at me."
She slowly withdrew them when he had ceased, and dropped her forehead on 
her hand. Her other hand pressed hard upon the table, and again the curious 
stir was observable in her, as if she were going to rise.
"This box can never bring, elsewhere, the price it will bring here. This 
knowledge can never be of the same profit to you, sold to any other person, 
as sold to me. But, I have not the present means of raising the sum you 
have demanded. I have not prospered. What will you take now, and what at 
another time, and how am I to be assured of your silence?"
"My angel," replied Rigaud, "I have said what I will take, and time 
presses. Before coming here, I placed copies of the most important of these 
papers in another hand. Put off the time till the Marshalsea gate shall be 
shut for the night, and it will be too late to treat. The prisoner will 
have read them."
She put her two hands to her head again, uttered a loud exclamation, and 
started to her feet. She staggered for a moment, as if she would have 
fallen; then stood firm.
"Say what you mean. Say what you mean, man!"
Before her ghostly figure, so long unused to its erect attitude, and so 
stiffened in it, Rigaud fell back and dropped his voice. It was, to all the 
three, almost as if a dead woman had risen.
"Miss Dorrit," answered Rigaud, "the little niece of Monsieur Frederick, 
whom I have known across the water, is attached to the prisoner. Miss 
Dorrit, little niece of Monsieur Frederick, watches at this moment over the 
prisoner, who is ill. For her, I with my own hands left a packet at the 
prison, on my way here, with a letter of instructions, 'for his sake' - she 
will do anything for his sake - to keep it without breaking the seal, in 
case of its being reclaimed before the hour of shutting up tonight - if it 
should not be reclaimed before the ringing of the prison bell, to give it 
to him; and it encloses a second copy for herself, which he must give to 
her. What! I don't trust myself among you, now we have got so far, without 
giving my secret a second life. And as to its not bringing me, elsewhere, 
the price it will bring here, say then, madame, have you limited and 
settled the price the little niece will give - for his sake - to hush it 
up? Once more I say, time presses. The packet not reclaimed before the 
ringing of the bell tonight, you cannot buy. I sell, then, to the little 
girl!"
Once more the stir and struggle in her, and she ran to a closet, tore the 
door open, took down a hood or shawl, and wrapped it over her head. Affery, 
who had watched her in terror, darted to her in the middle of the room, 
caught hold of her dress, and went on her knees to her.
"Don't, don't, don't! What are you doing? Where are you going? You're a 
fearful woman, but I don't bear you no ill-will. I can do poor Arthur no 
good now, that I see; and you needn't be afraid of me. I'll keep your 
secret. Don't go out, you'll fall dead in the street. Only promise me, 
that, if it's the poor thing that's kept here secretly, you'll let me take 
charge of her and be her nurse. Only promise me that, and never be afraid 
of me."
Mrs Clennam stood still for an instant, at the height of her rapid haste, 
saying in stern amazement:
"Kept here? She has been dead a score of years and more. Ask Flintwinch - 
ask him. They can both tell you that she died when Arthur went abroad."
"So much the worse," said Affery, with a shiver, "for she haunts the house 
then. Who else rustles about it making signals by dropping dust so softly? 
Who else comes and goes, and marks the walls with long crooked touches, 
when we are all a-bed? Who else holds the door sometimes? But don't go out -
 don't go out! Mistress, you'll die in the street!"
Her mistress only disengaged her dress from the beseeching hands, said to 
Rigaud, "Wait here till I come back!" and ran out of the room. They saw 
her, from the window, run wildly through the courtyard and out at the 
gateway.
For a few moments they stood motionless. Affery was the first to move, and 
she, wringing her hands, pursued her mistress. Next, Jeremiah Flintwinch, 
slowly backing to the door, with one hand in a pocket and the other rubbing 
his chin, twisted himself out in his reticent way, speechlessly. Rigaud, 
left alone, composed himself upon the window-seat of the open window, in 
the old Marseilles-Jail attitude. He laid his cigarettes and fire-box ready 
to his hand, and fell to smoking.
"Whoof! Almost as dull as the infernal old jail. Warmer, but almost as 
dismal. Wait till she comes back? Yes, certainly; but where is she gone, 
and how long will she be gone? No matter! Rigaud Lagnier Blandois, my 
amiable subject, you will get your money. You will enrich yourself. You 
have lived a gentleman; you will die a gentleman. You triumph, my little 
boy; but it is your day character to triumph. Whoof!"
In the hour of his triumph, his moustache went up and his nose came down, 
as he ogled a great beam over his head with particular satisfaction.


Chapter 31

Closed

The sun had set, and the streets were dim in the dusty twilight, when the 
figure so long unused to them hurried on its way. In the immediate 
neighbourhood of the old house it attracted little attention, for there 
were only a few straggling people to notice it; but ascending from the 
river, by the crooked ways that led to London Bridge, and passing into the 
great main road, it became surrounded by astonishment.
Resolute and wild of look, rapid of foot, and yet weak and uncertain, 
conspicuously dressed in its black garments and with its hurried head-
covering, gaunt and of an unearthly paleness, it pressed forward, taking no 
more heed of the throng than a sleep-walker. More remarkable by being so 
removed from the crowd it was among, than if it had been lifted on a 
pedestal to be seen, the figure attracted all eyes. Saunterers pricked up 
their attention to observe it; busy people, crossing it, slackened their 
pace and turned their heads; companions pausing and standing aside, 
whispered one another to look at this spectral woman who was coming by; and 
the sweep of the figure as it passed seemed to create a vortex, drawing the 
most idle and most curious after it.
Made giddy by the turbulent irruption of this multitude of staring faces 
into her cell of years, by the confusing sensation of being in the air, and 
the yet more confusing sensation of being afoot, by the unexpected changes 
in half-remembered objects, and the want of likeness between the 
controllable pictures her imagination had often drawn of the life from 
which she was secluded, and the overwhelming rush of the reality, she held 
her way as if she were environed by distracting thoughts, rather than by 
external humanity and observation. But, having crossed the bridge and gone 
some distance straight onward, she remembered that she must ask for a 
direction; and it was only then, when she stopped and turned to look about 
her for a promising place of inquiry, that she found herself surrounded by 
an eager glare of faces.
"Why are you encircling me?" she asked, trembling.
None of those who were nearest answered; but from the outer ring there 
arose a shrill cry of "'Cause you're mad!"
"I am as sane as any one here. I want to find the Marshalsea prison."
The shrill outer circle again retorted, "Then that 'ud show you was mad if 
nothing else did, 'cause it's right opposite!"
A short, mild, quiet-looking young man made his way through to her, as a 
whooping ensued on this reply, and said: "Was it the Marshalsea you wanted? 
I'm going on duty there. Come across with me."
She laid her hand upon his arm, and he took her over the way; the crowd, 
rather injured by the near prospect of losing her, pressing before and 
behind and on either side, and recommending an adjournment to Bedlam. After 
a momentary whirl in the outer court-yard, the prison door opened, and shut 
upon them. In the Lodge, which seemed by contrast with the outer noise a 
place of refuge and peace, a yellow lamp was already striving with the 
prison shadows.
"Why, John!" said the turnkey who admitted them. "What is it?"
"Nothing, father; only this lady not knowing her way, and being badgered by 
the boys. Who did you want, ma'am?"
"Miss Dorrit. Is she here?"
The young man became more interested. "Yes, she is here. What might your 
name be?"
"Mrs Clennam."
"Mr Clennam's mother?" asked the young man.
She pressed her lips together, and hesitated. "Yes. She had better be told 
it is his mother."
"You see," said the young man, "the Marshal's family living in the country 
at present, the Marshal has given Miss Dorrit one of the rooms in his 
house, to use when she likes. Don't you think you had better come up there, 
and let me bring Miss Dorrit?"
She signiffed her assent, and he unlocked a door, and conducted her up a 
side staircase into a dwelling-house above. He showed her into a darkening 
room, and left her. The room looked down into the darkening prison-yard, 
with its inmates strolling here and there, leaning out of windows, 
communing as much apart as they could with friends who were going away, and 
generally wearing out their imprisonment as they best might, that summer 
evening. The air was heavy and hot; the closeness of the place, oppressive; 
and from without there arose a rush of free sounds, like the jarring memory 
of such things in a headache and heartache. She stood at the window, 
bewildered, looking down into this prison as it were out of her own 
different prison, when a soft word or two of surprise made her start, and 
Little Dorrit stood before her.
"Is it possible, Mrs Clennam, that you are so happily recovered as -"
Little Dorrit stopped, for there was neither happiness nor health in the 
face that turned to her.
"This is not recovery; it is not strength; I don't know what it is." With 
an agitated wave of her hand, she put all that aside. "You have had a 
packet left with you, which you were to give to Arthur if it was not 
reclaimed before this place closed tonight?"
"Yes."
"I reclaim it."
Little Dorrit took it from her bosom, and gave it into her hand, which 
remained stretched out, after receiving it.
"Have you any idea of its contents?"
Frightened by her being there, with that new power of movement in her, 
which, as she had said herself, was not strength, and which was unreal to 
look upon, as though a picture or a statue had been animated, Little Dorrit 
answered, "No."
"Read them." Little Dorrit took the packet from the still outstretched 
hand, and broke the seal. Mrs Clennam then gave her the inner packet that 
was addressed to herself, and held the other. The shadow of the wall and of 
the prison-buildings, which made the room sombre at noon, made it too dark 
to read there, with the dusk deepening apace save in the window. In the 
window, where a little of the bright summer evening sky could shine upon 
her, Little Dorrit stood and read. After a broken exclamation or so of 
wonder and of terror, she read in silence. When she had finished, she 
looked round, and her old mistress bowed herself before her.
"You know, now, what I have done."
"I think so. I am afraid so; though my mind is so hurried, and so sorry, 
and has so much to pity, that it has not been able to follow all I have 
read," said Little Dorrit, tremulously.
"I will restore to you what I have withheld from you. Forgive me. Can you 
forgive me?"
"I can, and Heaven knows I do! Do not kiss my dress and kneel to me; you 
are too old to kneel to me; I forgive you freely, without that."
"I have more to ask yet."
"Not in that posture," said Little Dorrit. "It is unnatural to see your 
grey hair lower than mine. Pray rise; let me help you." With that she 
raised her up, and stood rather shrinking from her, but looking at her 
earnestly.
"The great petition that I make to you (there is another which grows out of 
it), the great supplication that I address to your merciful and gentle 
heart, is, that you will not disclose this to Arthur until I am dead. If 
you think, when you have had time for consideration, that it can do him any 
good to know it while I am yet alive, then tell him. But, you will not 
think that; and in such case, will you promise me to spare me until I am 
dead?"
"I am so sorry, and what I have read has so confused my thoughts," returned 
Little Dorrit, "that I can scarcely give you a steady answer. If I should 
be quite sure that to be acquainted with it will do Mr Clennam no good-"
"I know you are attached to him, and will make him the first consideration. 
Is it right that he should be the first consideration. I ask that. But, 
having regarded him, and still finding that you may spare me for the little 
time I shall remain on earth, will you do it?"
"I will."
"God bless you!"
She stood in the shadow so that she was only a veiled form to Little Dorrit 
in the light; but, the sound of her voice, in saying those three grateful 
words, was at once fervent and broken. Broken by emotion as unfamiliar to 
her frozen eyes as action to her frozen limbs.
"You will wonder, perhaps," she said in a stronger tone, that I can better 
bear to be known to you whom I have wronged, than to the son of my enemy 
who wronged me. - For, she did wrong me! She not only sinned grievously 
against the Lord, but she wronged me. What Arthur's father was to me, she 
made him. From our marriage day I was his dread, and that she made me. I 
was the scourge of both, and that is referable to her. You love Arthur (I 
can see the blush upon your face; may it be the dawn of happier days to 
both of you! ), and you will have thought already that he is as merciful 
and kind as you, and why do I not trust myself to him as soon as to you. 
Have you not thought so?"
"No thought," said Little Dorrit, "can be quite a stranger to my heart, 
that springs out of the knowledge that Mr Clennam is always to be relied 
upon for being kind and generous and good."
"I do not doubt it. Yet Arthur is, of the whole world, the one person from 
whom I would conceal this, while I am in it. I kept over him as a child, in 
the days of his first remembrance, my restraining and correcting hand. I 
was stern with him, knowing that the transgressions of the parents are 
visited on their offspring, and that there was an angry mark upon him at 
his birth. I have sat with him and his father, seeing the weakness of his 
father yearning to unbend to him; and forcing it back, that the child might 
work out his release in bondage and hardship. I have seen him, with his 
mother's face, looking up at me in awe from his little books, and trying to 
soften me with his mother's ways that hardened me."
The shrinking of her auditress stopped her for a moment in her flow of 
words, delivered in a retrospective gloomy voice.
"For his good. Not for the satisfaction of my injury. What was I, and what 
was the worth of that, before the curse of Heaven! I have seen that child 
grow up; not to be pious in a chosen way (his mother's offence lay too 
heavy on him for that), but still to be just and upright, and to be 
submissive to me. He never loved me, as I once half-hoped he might - so 
frail we are, and so do the corrupt affections of the flesh war with our 
trusts and tasks: but, he always respected me, and ordered himself 
dutifully to me. He does to this hour. With an empty place in his heart 
that he has never known the meaning of, he has turned away from me, and 
gone his separate road; but, even that he has done considerately and with 
deference. These have been his relations towards me. Yours have been of a 
much slighter kind, spread over a much shorter time. When you have sat at 
your needle in my room, you have been in fear of me, but you have supposed 
me to have been doing you a kindness; you are better informed now, and know 
me to have done you an injury. Your misconstruction and misunderstanding of 
the cause in which, and the motives with which, I have worked out this 
work, is lighter to endure than his would be. I would not, for any worldly 
recompense I can imagine, have him in a moment, however blindly, throw me 
down from the station I have held before him all his life, and change me 
altogether, into something he would cast out of his respect, and think 
detected and exposed. Let him do it, if it must be done, when I am not here 
to see it. Let me never feel, while I am still alive, that I die before his 
face, and utterly perish away from him, like one consumed by lightning and 
swallowed by an earthquake."
Her pride was very strong in her, the pain of it and of her old passions 
was very sharp with her, when she thus expressed herself. Not less so, when 
she added:
"Even now, I see you shrink from me, as if I had been cruel."
Little Dorrit could not gainsay it. She tried not to show it, but she 
recoiled with dread from the state of mind that had burnt so fiercely and 
lasted so long. It presented itself to her with no sophistry upon it, in 
its own plain nature.
"I have done," said Mrs Clennam, "what it was given to me to do. I have set 
myself against evil; not against good. I have been an instrument of 
severity against sin. Have not mere sinners like myself been commissioned 
to lay it low in all time?"
"In all time?" repeated Little Dorrit.
"Even if my own wrong had prevailed with me, and my own vengeance had moved 
me, could I have found no justification? None in the old days, when the 
innocent perished with the guilty a thousand to one? When the wrath of the 
hater of the unrighteous was not slaked even in blood, and yet found 
favour?"
"O, Mrs Clennam, Mrs Clennam," said Little Dorrit, "angry feelings and 
unforgiving deeds are no comfort and no guide to you and me. My life has 
been passed in this poor prison, and my teaching has been very defective; 
but, let me implore you to remember later and better days. Be guided, only 
by the healer of the sick, the raiser of the dead, the friend of all who 
were afflicted and forlorn, the patient Master who shed tears of compassion 
for our infirmities. We cannot but be right if we put all the rest away, 
and do everything in remembrance of Him. There is no vengeance and no 
infliction of suffering in His life, I am sure. There can be no confusion 
in following Him, and seeking for no other footsteps, I am certain!"
In the softened light of the window, looking from the scene of her early 
trials to the shining sky, she was not in stronger opposition to the black 
figure in the shade, than the life and doctrine on which she rested were to 
that figure's history. It bent its head low again, and said not a word. It 
remained thus, until the first warning bell began to ring,
"Hark!" cried Mrs Clennam, starting, "I said I had another petition. It is 
one that does not admit of delay. The man who brought you this packet and 
possesses these proofs, is now waiting at my house, to be bought off. I can 
keep this from Arthur, only by buying him off. He asks a large sum; more 
than I can get together to pay him, without having time. He refuses to make 
any abatement, because his threat is, that if he fails with me he will come 
to you. Will you return with me and show him that you already know it? Will 
you return with me and try to prevail with him? Will you come and help me 
with him? Do not refuse what I ask in Arthur's name, though I dare not ask 
it for Arthur's sake!" Little Dorrit yielded willingly. She glided away 
into the prison for a few moments, returned, and said she was ready to go. 
They went out by another staircase, avoiding the lodge; and, coming into 
the front courtyard, now all quiet and deserted, gained the street.
It was one of those summer evenings when there is no greater darkness than 
a long twilight. The vista of street and bridge was plain to see, and the 
sky was serene and beautiful. People stood and sat at their doors, playing 
with children and enjoying the evening; numbers were walking for air; the 
worry of the day had almost worried itself out, and few but themselves were 
hurried. As they crossed the bridge, the clear steeples of the many 
churches looked as if they had advanced out of the murk that usually 
enshrouded them and come much nearer. The smoke that rose into the sky had 
lost its dingy hue and taken a brightness upon it. The beauties of the 
sunset had not faded from the long light films of cloud that lay at peace 
in the horizon. From a radiant centre over the whole length and breadth of 
the tranquil firmament, great shoots of light streamed among the early 
stars, like signs of the blessed later covenant of peace and hope that 
changed the crown of thorns into a glory.
Less remarkable, now that she was not alone and it was darker, Mrs Clennam 
hurried on at Little Dorrit's side, unmolested. They left the great 
thoroughfare at the turning by which she had entered it, and wound their 
way down among the silent, empty, cross-streets. Their feet were at the 
gateway, when there was a sudden noise like thunder.
"What was that? Let us make haste in," cried Mrs Clennam.
They were in the gateway. Little Dorrit, with a piercing cry, held her 
back.
In one swift instant, the old house was before them, with the man lying 
smoking in the window; another thundering sound, and it heaved, surged 
outward, opened asunder in fifty places, collapsed, and fell. Deafened by 
the noise, stifled, choked, and blinded by the dust, they hid their faces 
and stood rooted to the spot. The dust storm, driving between them and the 
placid sky, parted for a moment and showed them the stars. As they looked 
up, wildly crying for help, the great pile of chimneys which was then alone 
left standing, like a tower in a whirlwind, rocked, broke, and hailed 
itself down upon the heap of ruin, as if every tumbling fragment were 
intent on burying the crushed wretch deeper.
So blackened by the flying particles of rubbish as to be unrecognisable, 
they ran back from the gateway into the street, crying and shrieking. 
There, Mrs Clennam dropped upon the stones; and she never from that hour 
moved so much as a finger again, or had the power to speak one word. For 
upwards of three years she reclined in her wheeled chair, looking 
attentively at those about her, and appearing to understand what they said; 
but, the rigid silence she had so long held was evermore enforced upon her, 
and, except that she could move her eyes and faintly express a negative and 
affirmative with her head, she lived and died a statue.
Affery had been looking for them at the prison, and had caught sight of 
them at a distance on the bridge. She came up to receive her old mistress 
in her arms, to help to carry her into a neighbouring house, and to be 
faithful to her. The mystery of the noises was out now; Affery, like 
greater people, had always been right in her facts, and always wrong in the 
theories she deduced from them.
When the storm of dust had cleared away and the summer night was calm 
again, numbers of people choked up every avenue of access, and parties of 
diggers were formed to relieve one another in digging among the ruins. 
There had been a hundred people in the house at the time of its fall, there 
had been fifty, there had been fifteen, there had been two. Rumour finally 
settled the number at two: the foreigner and Mr Flintwinch.
The diggers dug all through the short night by flaring pipes of gas, and on 
a level with the early sun, and deeper and deeper below it as it rose into 
its zenith, and aslant of it as it declined, and on a level with it again 
as it departed. Sturdy digging, and shovelling, and carrying away, in 
carts, barrows, and baskets, went on without intermission, by night and by 
day; but, it was night for the second time when they found the dirty heap 
of rubbish that had been the foreigner, before his head had been shivered 
to atoms, like so much glass, by the great beam that lay upon him, crushing 
him."
Still, they had not come upon Flintwinch yet; so, the sturdy digging and 
shovelling and carrying away went on without intermission by night and by 
day. It got about that the old house had had famous cellarage (which indeed 
was true), and that Flintwinch had been in a cellar at the moment, or had 
had time to escape into one, and that he was safe under its strong arch, 
and even that he had been heard to cry, in hollow, subterranean, suffocated 
notes, "Here I am!" At the opposite extremity of the town it was even known 
that the excavators had been able to open a communication with him through 
a pipe, and that he had received both soup and brandy by that channel, and 
that he had said with admirable fortitude that he was All right, my lads, 
with the exception of his collar-bone. But, the digging and shovelling and 
carrying away went on without intermission, until the ruins were all dug 
out, and the cellars opened to the light; and still no Flintwinch, living 
or dead, all right, or all wrong, had been turned up by pick or spade.
It began, then, to be perceived that Flintwinch had not been there at the 
time of the fall; and it began then to be perceived that he had been rather 
busy elsewhere, converting securities into as much money as could be got 
for them on the shortest notice, and turning to his own exclusive account, 
his authority to act for the Firm. Affery, remembering that the clever one 
had said he would explain himself further in four-and-twenty hours' time, 
determined for her part that his taking himself off within that period with 
all he could get, was the final satisfactory sum and substance of his 
promised explanation; but, she held her peace, devoutly thankful to be quit 
of him. As it seemed reasonable to conclude that a man who had never been 
buried could not be unburied, the diggers gave him up when their task was 
done, and did not dig down for him into the depths of the earth.
This was taken in ill part by a great many people, who persisted in 
believing that Flintwinch was lying somewhere among the London geological 
formations. Nor was their belief much shaken by repeated intelligence which 
came over in course of time, that an old man, who wore the tie of his 
neckcloth under one ear, and who was very well known to be an Englishman, 
consorted with the Dutchmen on the quaint banks of the canals at the Hague, 
and in the drinking-shops of Amsterdam, under the style and designation of 
Mynheer von Flyntervynge.


Chapter 32

Going

Arthur continuing to lie very ill in the Marshalsea, and Mr Rugg descrying 
no break in the legal sky affording a hope of his enlargement, Mr Pancks 
suffered desperately from self-reproaches. If it had not been for those 
infallible figures which proved that Arthur, instead of pining in 
imprisonment, ought to be promenading in a carriage and pair, and that Mr 
Pancks, instead of being restricted to his clerkly wages, ought to have 
from three to five thousand pounds of his own at his immediate disposal, 
that unhappy arithmetician would probably have taken to his bed, and there 
have made one of the many obscure persons who have turned their faces to 
the wall and died, as a last sacrifice to the late Mr Merdle's greatness. 
Solely supported by his unimpugnable calculations, Mr Pancks led an unhappy 
and restless life; constantly carrying his figures about with him in his 
hat, and not only going over them himself on every possible occasion, but 
entreating every human being he could lay hold of to go over them with him, 
and observe what a clear case it was. Down in Bleeding Heart Yard, there 
was scarcely an inhabitant of any note to whom Mr Pancks had not imparted 
his demonstration, and, as figures are catching, a kind of cyphering 
measles broke out in that locality, under the influence of which the whole 
Yard was light-headed.
The more restless Mr Pancks grew in his mind, the more impatient he became 
of the Patriarch. In their later conferences, his snorting had assumed an 
irritable sound which boded the Patriarch no good; likewise, Dlr. Pancks 
had on several occasions looked harder at the Patriarchal bumps than was 
quite reconcilable with the fact of his not being a painter, or a peruke-
maker in search of the living model.
However, he steamed in and out of his little back Dock, according as he was 
wanted or not wanted in the Patriarchal presence, and business had gone on 
in its customary course. Bleeding Heart Yard had been harrowed by Mr 
Pancks, and cropped by Mr Casby, at the regular seasons; Mr Pancks had 
taken all the drudgery and all the dirt of the business as his share Mr 
Casby had taken all the profits, all the ethereal vapour, and all the 
moonshine, as his share; and, in the form of words which that benevolent 
beamer generally employed on Saturday evenings, when he twirled his fat 
thumbs after striking the week's balance, "everything had been satisfactory 
to all parties - all parties - satisfactory, sir, to all parties."
The Dock of the Steam-Tug, Pancks, had a leaden roof, which, frying in the 
very hot sunshine, may have heated the vessel. Be that as it may, one 
glowing Saturday evening, on being hailed by the lumbering bottle-green 
ship, the Tug instantly came working out of the Dock in a highly heated 
condition.
"Mr Pancks," was the Patriarchal remark, "you have been remiss, you have 
been remiss, sir."
"What do you mean by that?" was the short rejoinder.
The Patriarchal state, always a state of calmness and composure, was so 
particularly serene that evening as to be provoking. Everybody else within 
the bills of mortality was hot; but the Patriarch was perfectly cool. 
Everybody was thirsty, and the Patriarch was drinking. There was a 
fragrance of limes or lemons about him; and he had made a drink of golden 
sherry, which shone in a large tumbler, as if he were drinking the evening 
sunshine. This was bad, but not the worst. The worst was, that with his big 
blue eyes, and his polished head, and his long white hair, and his bottle-
green legs stretched out before him, terminating in his easy shoes easily 
crossed at the instep, he had a radiant appearance of having in his 
extensive benevolence made the drink for the human species, while he 
himself wanted nothing but his own milk of human kindness.
Wherefore Mr Pancks said, "What do you mean by that?" and put his hair up 
with both hands, in a highly portentous manner.
"I mean, Mr Pancks, that you must be sharper with the people, sharper with 
the people, much sharper with the people, sir. You don't squeeze them. You 
don't squeeze them. Your receipts are not up to the mark. You must squeeze 
them, sir, or our connection will not continue to be as satisfactory as I 
could wish it to be, to all parties. All parties."
"Don't I squeeze 'em?" retorted Mr Pancks. "What else am I made for?"
"You are made for nothing else, Mr Pancks. You are made to do your duty, 
but you don't do your duty. You are paid to squeeze, and you must squeeze 
to pay." The Patriarch so much surprised himself by this brilliant turn, 
after Doctor Johnson, which he had not in the least expected or intended, 
that he laughed aloud; and repeated with great satisfaction, as he twirled 
his thumbs and nodded at his youthful portrait, "Paid to squeeze, sir, and 
must squeeze to pay."
"Oh!" said Pancks. "Anything more?"
"Yes, sir, yes, sir. Something more. You will please, Mr Pancks, to squeeze 
the Yard again, the first thing on Monday morning."
"Oh!" said Pancks, an't that too soon? I squeezed it dry today."
"Nonsense, sir. Not near the mark, not near the mark."
"Oh!" said Pancks, watching him as he benevolently gulped down a good 
draught of his mixture. "Anything more?"
"Yes, sir, yes, sir, something more. I am not at all pleased, Mr Pancks, 
with my daughter; not at all pleased. Besides calling much too often to 
inquire for Mrs Clennam, Mrs Clennam, who is not just now in circumstances 
that are by any means calculated to - to be satisfactory to all parties, 
she goes, Mr Pancks, unless I am much deceived, to inquire for Mr Clennam 
in jail. In jail."
"He's laid up, you know," said Pancks. "Perhaps it's kind."
"Pooh, pooh, Mr Pancks. She has nothing to do with that, nothing to do with 
that. I can't allow it. Let him pay his debts and come out, come out; pay 
his debts and come out."
Although, Mr Panck's hair was standing up like strong wire, he gave it 
another double-handed impulse in the perpendicular direction, and smiled at 
his proprietor in a most hideous manner.
"You will please to mention to my daughter, Mr Pancks, that I can't allow 
it, can't allow it," said the Patriarch, blandly.
"Oh!" said Pancks. "You couldn't mention it yourself?"
"No sir, no; you are paid to mention it," the blundering old booby could 
not resist the temptation of trying it again, "and you must mention it to 
pay, mention it to pay."
"Oh!" said Pancks. "Anything more?"
"Yes, sir. It appears to me, Mr Pancks, that you yourself are too often and 
too much in that direction, that direction. I recommend you, Mr Pancks, to 
dismiss from your attention both your own losses and other people's losses, 
and to mind your business, mind your business."
Mr Pancks acknowledged this recommendation with such an extraordinarily 
abrupt, short, and loud utterance of the monosyllable "Oh!" that even the 
unwieldy Patriarch moved his blue eyes in something of a hurry, to look at 
him. Mr Pancks, with a sniff of corresponding intensity, then added, 
"Anything more?"
"Not at present, sir, not at present. I am going," said the Patriarch, 
finishing his mixture, and rising with an amiable air, "to take a little 
stroll, little stroll. Perhaps I shall find you here when I come back. If 
not sir, duty, duty; squeeze, squeeze, squeeze, on Monday; squeeze on 
Monday!"
Mr Pancks, after another stiffening of his hair, looked on at the 
Patriarchal assumption of the broad-brimmed hat, with a momentary 
appearance of indecision contending with a sense of injury. He was also 
hotter than at first, and breathed harder. But, he suffered Mr Casby to go 
out, without offering any further remark, and then took a peep at him over 
the little green window-blinds. "I thought so," he observed. "I knew where 
you were bound to. Good!" He then steamed back to his Dock, put it 
carefully in order, took down his hat, looked round the Dock, said "Good 
bye!" and puffed away on his own account. He steered straight for Mrs 
Plornish's end of Bleeding Heart Yard, and arrived there, at the top of the 
steps, hotter than ever. At the top of the steps, resisting Mrs Plornish's 
invitations to come and sit along with father in Happy Cottage - which to 
his relief were not so numerous as they would have been on any other night 
than Saturday, when the connection who so gallantly supported the business 
with everything but money gave their orders freely - at the top of the 
steps, Mr Pancks remained until he beheld the Patriarch, who always entered 
the Yard at the other end, slowly advancing, beaming, and surrounded by 
suitors. Then Mr Pancks descended and bore down upon him, with his utmost 
pressure of steam on.
The Patriarch, approaching with his usual benignity, was surprised to see 
Mr Pancks, but supposed him to have been stimulated to an immediate squeeze 
instead of postponing that operation until Monday. The population of the 
Yard were astonished at the meeting, for the two powers had never been seen 
there together, within the momory of the oldest Bleeding Heart. But, they 
were overcome by unutterable amazement, when Mr Pancks, going close up to 
the most venerable of men, and halting in front of the bottle-green 
waistcoat, made a trigger of his right thumb and forefinger, applied the 
same to the brim of the broad-brimmed hat, and, with singular smartness and 
precision, shot it off the polished head as if it had been a large marble.
Having taken this little liberty with the Patriarchal person, Mr Pancks 
further astounded and attracted the Bleeding Hearts by saying in an audible 
voice, "Now, you sugary swindler, I mean to have it out with you!"
Mr Pancks and the Patriarch were instantly the centre of a press, all eyes 
and ears; windows were thrown open, and doorsteps were thronged.
"What do you pretend to be?" said Mr Pancks. "What's your moral game? What 
do you go in for? Benevolence, ain't it? You benevolent!" Here Mr Pancks, 
apparently without the intention of hitting him, but merely to relieve his 
mind and expend his superfluous power in wholesome exercise, aimed a blow 
at the bumpy head, which the bumpy head ducked to avoid. This singular 
performance was repeated, to the ever increasing admiration of the 
spectators, at the end of every succeeding article of Mr Pancks's oration.
"I have discharged myself from your service," said Pancks, "that I may tell 
you what you are. You're one of a lot of impostors that are the worst lot 
of all the lots to be met with. Speaking as a sufferer by both, I don't 
know that I wouldn't as soon have the Merdle lot as your lot. You're a 
driver in disguise, a screwer by deputy, a wringer, and squeezer, and 
shaver by substitute. You're a philanthropic sneak. You're a shabby 
deceiver!"
(The repetition of the performance at this point was received with a burst 
of laughter.)
"Ask these good people who's the hard man here. They'll tell you Pancks, I 
believe."
This was confirmed with cries of "Certainly," and "Hear!"
"But I tell you, good people - Casby! This mound of meekness, this lump of 
love, this bottle-green smiler, this is your driver!" said Pancks. "If you 
want to see the man who would flay you alive - here he is! Don't look for 
him in me, at thirty shillings a-week, but look for him in Casby, at I 
don't know how much a-year!"
"Good!" cried several voices. "Hear Mr Pancks!"
"Hear Mr Pancks?" cried that gentleman (after repeating the popular 
performance), "Yes, I should think so! It's almost time to hear Mr Pancks. 
Mr Pancks has come down into the Yard tonight, on purpose that you should 
hear him. Pancks is only the Works; but here's the Winder!"
The audience would have gone over to Mr Pancks, as one man, woman, and 
child, but for the long, grey, silken locks, and the broad-brimmed hat.
"Here's the Stop," said Pancks, "that sets the tune to be ground. And there 
is but one tune, and its name is Grind, Grind, Grind! Here's the 
Proprietor, and here's his Grubber. Why, good people, when he comes 
smoothly spinning through the Yard tonight, like a slow-going benevolent 
Humming-Top, and when you come about him with your complaints of the 
Grubber, you don't know what a cheat the Proprietor is! What do think of 
his showing himself tonight, that I may have all the blame on Monday? What 
do you think of his having had me over the coals this very evening, because 
I don't squeeze you enough? What do you think of my being, at the present 
moment, under special orders to squeeze you dry on Monday?"
The reply was given in a murmur of "Shame!" and "Shabby!"
"Shabby?" snorted Pancks. "Yes, I should think so! The lot that your Casby 
belongs to, is the shabbiest of all the lots. Setting their Grubbers on, at 
a wretched pittance, to do what they're ashamed and afraid to do and 
pretend not to do, but what they will have done, or give a man no rest! 
Imposing on you to give their Grubbers nothing but blame, and to give them 
nothing but credit! Why, the worst-looking cheat in all this town who gets 
the value of eighteenpence under false pretences, an't half such a cheat as 
this sign-post of The Casby's Head here!"
Cries of "That's true!" and "No more he an't?"
"And see what you get of these fellows, besides," said Pancks. "See what 
more you get of these precious Humming-Tops, revolving among you with such 
smoothness that you've no idea of the pattern painted on 'em, or the little 
window in 'em! I wish to call your attention to myself for a moment. I an't 
an agreeable style of chap, I know that very well"
The auditory were divided on this point; its more uncompromising members, 
crying, "No you are not," and its politer materials, "Yes, you are."
"I am, in general," said Mr Pancks, "a dry, uncomfortable, dreary Plodder 
and Grubber. That's your humble servant. There's his full-length portrait, 
painted by himself and presented to you, warranted a likeness! But what's a 
man to be, with such a man as this for his Proprietor? What can be expected 
of him? Did anybody ever find boiled mutton and caper-sauce growing in a 
cocoa-nut?"
None of the Bleeding Hearts ever had, it was clear from the alacrity of 
their response.
"Well," said Mr Pancks, "and neither will you find in Grubbers like myself, 
under Proprietors like this, pleasant qualities. I've been a Grubber from a 
boy. What has my life been! Fag and grind, fag and grind, turn the wheel, 
turn the wheel! I haven't been agreeable to myself, and I haven't been 
likely to be agreeable to anybody else. If I was a shilling a week less 
useful in ten years' time, this impostor would give me a shilling a week 
less; if as useful a man could be got at sixpence cheaper, he would be 
taken in my place at sixpence cheaper. Bargain and sale, bless you! Fixed 
principles! It is a mighty fine sign-post, is The Casby's Head," said Mr 
Pancks, surveying it with anything rather than admiration; "but the real 
name of the House is The Sham's Arms. It's motto is, Keep the Grubber 
always at it. Is any gentleman present," said Mr Pancks, breaking off and 
looking round, "acquainted with the English Grammar?"
Bleeding Heart Yard was shy of claiming that acquaintance.
"It's no matter," said Mr Pancks. "I merely wish to remark that the task 
this Proprietor has set me, has been, never to leave off conjugating the 
Imperative Mood, Present Tense of the verb To keep always at it. Keep thou 
always at it. Let him keep always at it. Keep we or do we keep always at 
it. Keep ye or do ye or you keep always at it. Let them keep always at it. 
Here is your benevolent Patriarch of a Casby, and there is his golden rule. 
He is uncommonly improving to look at, and I am not at all so. He is as 
sweet as honey, and I am as dull as ditch-water. He provides the pitch, and 
I handle it, and it sticks to me. Now," said Mr Pancks, closing upon his 
late Proprietor again, from whom he had withdrawn a little for the better 
display of him to the Yard; "as I am not accustomed to speak in public, and 
as I have made a rather lengthy speech, all circumstances considered, I 
shall bring my observations to a close by requesting you to get out of 
this."
The Last of the Patriarchs had been so seized by assault, and required so 
much room to catch an idea in, and so much more room to turn it in, that he 
had not a word to offer in reply. He appeared to be meditating some 
Patriarchal way out of his delicate position, when Mr Pancks, once more 
suddenly applying the trigger to his hat, shot it off again with his former 
dexterity. On the preceding occasion, one or two of the Bleeding Heart 
Yarders had obsequiously picked it up and handed it to its owner; but, Mr 
Pancks had now so for impressed his audience, that the Patriarch had to 
turn and stoop for it himself.
Quick as lightning, Mr Pancks, who, for some moments, had had his right 
hand in his coat pocket, whipped out a pair of shears, swooped upon the 
Patriarch behind, and snipped off short, the sacred locks that flowed upon 
his shoulders. In a paroxysm of animosity and rapidity, Mr Pancks then 
caught the broad-brimmed hat out of the astounded Patriarch's hand, cut it 
down into a mere stewpan, and fixed it on the Patriarch's head.
Before the frightful results of this desperate action, Mr Pancks himself 
recoiled in consternation. A bare-polled, goggle-eyed, big-headed, 
lumbering personage stood staring at him, not in the least impressive, not 
in the least venerable, who seemed to have started out of the earth to ask 
what was become of Casby. After staring at this phantom in return, in 
silent awe, Mr Pancks threw down his shears, and fled for a place of 
hiding, where he might lie sheltered from the consequences of his crime. Mr 
Pancks deemed it prudent to use all possible despatch in making off, though 
he was pursued by nothing but the sound of laughter in Bleeding Heart Yard, 
rippling through the air, and making it ring again.


Chapter 33

Going! 

The changes of a fevered room are slow and fluctuating; but the changes of 
the fevered world are rapid and irrevocable.
It was Little Dorrit's lot to wait upon both kinds of change. The 
Marshalsea walls, during a portion of every day, again embraced her in 
their shadows as their child while she thought for Clennam, worked for him, 
watched him, and only left him still to devote her utmost love and care to 
him. Her part in the life outside the gate urged its pressing claims upon 
her, too, and her patience untiringly responded to them. Here was Fanny, 
proud, fitful, whimsical, further advanced in that disqualified state for 
going into society which had so much fretted her on the evening of the 
tortoise-shell knife, resolved always to want comfort, resolved not to be 
comforted, resolved to be deeply wronged, and resolved that nobody should 
have the audacity to think her so. Here was her brother, a weak, proud, 
tipsy, young old man, shaking from head to foot, talking as indistinctly as 
if some of the money he plumed himself upon had got into his mouth and 
couldn't be got out, unable to walk alone in any act of his life, and 
patronising the sister whom he selfishly loved (he always had that negative 
merit, ill-starred and ill-launched Tip! ) because he suffered her to lead 
him. Here was Mrs Merdle in gauzy mourning - the original cap whereof had 
possibly been rent to pieces in a fit of grief, but had certainly yielded 
to a highly becoming article from the Parisian market - warring with Fanny 
foot to foot, and breasting her with her desolate bosom every hour in the 
day. Here was poor Mr Sparkler, not knowing how to keep the peace between 
them, but humbly inclining to the opinion that they could do no better than 
agree that they were both remarkably fine women, and that there was no 
nonsense about either of them - for which gentle recommendation they united 
in falling upon him frightfully. Then, too, here was Mrs General, got home 
from foreign parts, sending a Prune and a Prism by post every other day, 
demanding a new Testimonial by way of recommendation to some vacant 
appointment or other. Of which remarkable gentlewoman it may be finally 
observed, that there surely never was a gentlewoman of whose transcendent 
fitness for any vacant appointment on the face of this earth, so many 
people were (as the warmth of her Testimonials evinced) so perfectly 
satisfied - or who was so very unfortunate in having a large circle of 
ardent and distinguished admirers, who never themselves happened to want 
her, in any capacity.
On the first crash of the eminent Mr Merdle's decease, many important 
persons had been unable to determine whether they should cut Mrs Merdle, or 
comfort her. As it seemed, however, essential to the strength of their own 
case that they should admit her to have been cruelly deceived, they 
graciously made the admission, and continued to know her. It followed that 
Mrs Merdle, as a woman of fashion and good breeding, who had been 
sacrificed to the wiles of a vulgar barbarian (for Mr Merdle was found out 
from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, the moment he was found 
out in his pocket), must be actively championed by her order, for her 
order's sake. She returned this fealty by causing it to be understood that 
she was even more incensed against the felonious shade of the deceased than 
anybody else was; thus, on the whole, she came out of her furnace like a 
wise woman, and did exceedingly well.
Mr Sparkler's lordship was fortunately one of those shelves on which a 
gentleman is considered to be put away for life, unless there should be 
reasons for hoisting him up with the Barnacle crane to a more lucrative 
height. That patriotic servant accordingly stuck to his colours (the 
Standard of four Quarterings), and was a perfect Nelson in respect of 
nailing them to the mast. On the profits of his intrepidity, Mrs Sparkler 
and Mrs Merdle, inhabiting different floors of the genteel little temple of 
inconvenience to which the smell of the day before yesterday's soup and 
coach-horses was as constant as Death to man, arrayed themselves to fight 
it out in the lists of Society, sworn rivals. And Little Dorrit, seeing all 
these things as they developed themselves, could not but wonder, anxiously, 
into what back corner of the genteel establishment Fanny's children would 
be poked by-and-bye, and who would take care of those unborn little 
victims.
Arthur being far too ill to be spoken with on subjects of emotion or 
anxiety, and his recovery greatly depending on the repose into which his 
weakness could be hushed, Little Dorrit's sole reliance during this heavy 
period was on Mr Meagles. He was still abroad; but, she had written to him, 
through his daughter, immediately after first seeing Arthur in the 
Marshalsea, and since, confiding her uneasiness to him on the points on 
which she was most anxious, but especially on one. To that one, the 
continued absence of Mr Meagles abroad, instead of his comforting presence 
in the Marshalsea, was referable.
Without disclosing the precise nature of the documents that had fallen into 
Rigaud's hands, Little Dorrit had confided the general outline of that 
story to Mr Meagles, to whom she had also recounted his fate. The old 
cautious habits of the scales and scoop at once showed Mr Meagles the 
importance of recovering the original papers; wherefore, he wrote back to 
Little Dorrit, strongly confirming her in the solicitude she expressed on 
that head, and adding that he would not come over to England "without 
making some attempt to trace them out."
By this time, Mr Henry Gowan had made up his mind that it would be 
agreeable to him not to know the Meagleses. He was so considerate as to lay 
no injunctions on his wife in that particular; but, he mentioned to Mr 
Meagles that personally they did not appear to him to get on together, and 
that he thought it would be a good thing if - politely, and without any 
scene, or anything of that sort - they agreed that they were the best 
fellows in the world, but were best apart. Poor Mr Meagles, who was already 
sensible that he did not advance his daughter's happiness by being 
constantly slighted in her presence, said "Good, Henry! You are my Pet's 
husband; you have displaced me, in the course of nature; if you wish it, 
good!" This arrangement involved the contingent advantage, which perhaps 
Henry Gowan had not foreseen, that both Mr and Mrs Meagles were more 
liberal than before to their daughter, when their communication was only 
with her and her young child; and that his high spirit found itself better 
provided with money, without being under the degrading necessity of knowing 
whence it came.
Mr Meagles, at such a period, naturally seized an occupation with great 
ardour. He knew from his daughter the various towns which Rigaud had been 
haunting, and the various hotels at which he had been living for some time 
back. The occupation he set himself was, to visit these with all discretion 
and speed, and, in the event of finding anywhere that he had left a bill 
unpaid, and a box or parcel behind, to pay such bill, and bring away such 
box or parcel.
With no other attendant than Mother, Mr Meagles went upon this pilgrimage, 
and encountered a number of adventures. Not the least of his difficulties 
was, that he never knew what was said to him, and that he pursued his 
inquiries among people who never knew what he said to them. Still, with an 
unshaken confidence that the English tongue was somehow the mother tongue 
of the whole world, only the people were too stupid to know it, Mr Meagles 
harangued innkeepers in the most voluble manner, entered into loud 
explanations of the most complicated sort, and utterly renounced replies in 
the native language of the respondents, on the ground that they were "all 
bosh." Sometimes interpreters were called in; whom Mr Meagles addressed in 
such idiomatic terms of speech, as instantly to extinguish and shut up - 
which made the matter worse. On a balance of the account, however, it may 
be doubted whether he lost much: for, although he found no property, he 
found so many debts and various associations of discredit with the proper 
name which was the only word he made intelligible, that he was almost 
everywhere overwhelmed with injurious accusations. On no fewer than four 
occasions, the police were called in to receive denunciations of Mr Meagles 
as a Knight of Industry, a good-for-nothing, and a thief; all of which 
opprobrious language he bore with the best temper (having no idea what it 
meant), and was in the most ignominious manner escorted to steamboats and 
public carriages, to be got rid of, talking all the while, like a cheerful 
and fluent Briton as he was, with Mother under his arm.
But, in his own tongue, and in his own head, Mr Meagles was a clear, shrewd 
persevering man. When he had "worked round," as he called it, to Paris in 
his pilgrimage, and had wholly failed in it so far, he was not 
disheartened. "The nearer to England I follow him, you see, Mother," argued 
Mr Meagles, "the nearer I am likely to come to the papers, whether they 
turn up or no. Because it is only reasonable to conclude, that he would 
deposit them somewhere where they would be safe from people over in 
England, and where they would yet be accessible to himself, don't you see."
At Paris, Mr Meagles found a letter from Little Dorrit, lying waiting for 
him; in which she mentioned that she had been able to talk for a minute or 
two with Mr Clennam, about this man who was no more; and that when she told 
Mr Clennam that his friend Mr Meagles who was on his way to see him had an 
interest in ascertaining something about the man if he could, he had asked 
her to tell Mr Meagles that he had been known to Miss Wade, then living in 
such a street at Calais. "Oho!" said Mr Meagles.
As soon afterwards as might be, in those Diligence days, Mr Meagles rang 
the cracked bell at the cracked gate, and it jarred open, and the peasant-
woman stood in the dark doorway, saying, "Ice-say! Seer! Who?" In 
acknowledgment of whose address, Mr Meagles murmured to himself that there 
was some sense about these Calais people, who really did know something of 
what you and themselves were up to; and returned, "Miss Wade, my dear." He 
was then shown into the presence of Miss Wade.
"It's some time since we met," said Mr Meagles, clearing his throat; "I 
hope you have been pretty well, Miss Wade?"
Without hoping that he or anybody else had been pretty well, Miss Wade 
asked him to what she was indebted for the honour of seeing him again? Mr 
Meagles, in the meanwhile glanced all round the room, without observing 
anything in the shape of a box.
"Why, the truth is, Miss Wade," said Mr Meagles, in a comfortable, 
managing, not to say coaxing, voice, "it is possible that you may be able 
to throw a light upon a little something that is at present dark. Any 
unpleasant bygones between us, are bygones, I hope. Can't be helped now. 
You recollect my daughter? Times change so! A mother!"
In his innocence, Mr Meagles could not have struck a worse key-note. He 
paused for any expression of interest, but paused in vain.
"That is not the subject you wish to enter on?" she said, after a cold 
silence.
"No, no," returned Mr Meagles, "No. I thought your good nature might -"
"I thought you knew," she interrupted, with a smile, "that my good nature 
is not to be calculated upon."
"Don't say so," said Mr Meagles: "you do yourself an injustice. However, to 
come to the point." For he was sensible of having gained nothing by 
approaching it in a roundabout way. "I have heard from my friend Clennam, 
who, you will be sorry to hear, has been and still is very ill -"
He paused again, and again she was silent.
" - that you had some knowledge of one Blandois, lately killed in London by 
a violent accident. Now, don't mistake me! I know it was a slight 
knowledge," said Mr Meagles, dextrously forestalling an angry interruption 
which he saw about to break. "I am fully aware of that. It was a slight 
knowledge, I know. But the question is," Mr Meagle's voice here became 
comfortable again, "did he, on his way to England last time, leave a box of 
papers, or a bundle of papers, or some papers or other in some receptacle 
or other - any papers - with you: begging you to allow him to leave them 
here for a short time, until he wanted them?"
"The question is?" she repeated. "Whose question is?"
"Mine," said Mr Meagles. "And not only mine but Clennam's question, and 
other people's question. Now, I am sure," continued Mr Meagles, whose heart 
was overflowing with Pet, "that you can't have any unkind feeling towards 
my daughter; it's impossible. Well! It's her question, too; being one in 
which a particular friend of hers is nearly interested. So here I am, 
frankly to say that is the question, and to ask, Now, did he?"
"Upon my word," she returned, "I seem to be a mark for everybody who knew 
anything of a man I once in my life hired, and paid, and dismissed, to aim 
their questions at!"
"Now, don't," remonstrated Mr Meagles, "don't! Don't take offence, because 
it's the plainest question in the world, and might be asked of anyone. The 
documents I refer to were not his own, were wrongfully obtained, might at 
some time or other be troublesome to an innocent person to have in keeping, 
and are sought by the people to whom they really belong. He passed through 
Calais going to London, and there were reasons why he should not take them 
with him then, why he should wish to be able to put his hand upon them 
readily, and why he should distrust leaving them with people of his own 
sort. Did he leave them here? I declare if I knew how to avoid giving you 
offence, I would take any pains to do it. I put the question personally, 
but there's nothing personal in it. I might put it to any one; I have put 
it already to many people. Did he leave them here? Did he leave anything 
here?"
"No."
"Then, unfortunately, Miss Wade, you know nothing about them?"
"I know nothing about them. I have now answered your unaccountable 
question. He did not leave them here, and I know nothing about them."
"There!" said Mr Meagles, rising. "I am sorry for it; that's over; and I 
hope there is not much harm done. - Tattycoram well, Miss Wade?"
"Harriet well? O, yes!"
"I have put my foot in it again," said Mr Meagles, thus corrected. "I can't 
keep my foot out of it, here, it seems. Perhaps, if I had thought twice 
about it, I might never have given her the jingling name. But, when one 
means to be good-natured and sportive with young people, one doesn't think 
twice. Her old friend leaves a kind word for her, Miss Wade, if you should 
think proper to deliver it."
She said nothing as to that; and Mr Meagles, taking his honest face out of 
the dull room, where it shone like a sun, took it to the Hotel where he had 
left Mrs Meagles, and where he made the Report: "Beaten, mother; no 
effects!" He took it next to the London Steam Packet, which sailed in the 
night; and next to the Marshalsea.
The faithful John was on duty when Father and Mother Meagles presented 
themselves at the wicket towards nightfall. Miss Dorrit was not there then, 
he said; but, she had been there in the morning, and invariably came in the 
evening. Mr Clennam was slowly mending; and Maggie and Mrs Plornish and Mr 
Baptist took care of him by turns. Miss Dorrit was sure to come back that 
evening before the bell rang. There was the room the Marshal had lent her, 
upstairs, in which they could wait for her, if they pleased. Mistrustful 
that it might be hazardous to Arthur to see him without preparation, Mr 
Meagles accepted the offer; and they were left shut up in the room, looking 
down through its barred window into the jail.
The cramped area of the prison had such an effect on Mrs Meagles that she 
began to weep, and such an effect on Mr Meagles that he began to gasp for 
air. He was walking up and down the room, panting, and making himself worse 
by laboriously fanning himself with his handkerchief, when he turned 
towards the opening door.
"Eh? Good gracious!" said Mr Meagles, "this is not Miss Dorrit! Why, 
Mother, look! Tattycoram!"
No other. And in Tattycoram's arms was an iron box some two feet square. 
Such a box had Affery Flintwinch seen in the first of her dreams, going out 
of the old house in the dead of the night, under Double's arm. This, 
Tattycoram put on the ground at her old master's feet; this, Tattycoram 
fell on her knees by, and beat her hands upon, crying half in exultation 
and half in despair, half in laughter and half in tears, "Pardon, dear 
Master, take me back dear Mistress, here it is!"
"Tatty!" exclaimed Mr Meagles.
"What you wanted!" said Tattycoram. "Here it is! I was put in the next room 
not to see you. I heard you ask her about it, I heard her say she hadn't 
got it, I was there when he left it, and I took it at bedtime and brought 
it away. Here it is."
"Why, my girl," cried Mr Meagles, more breathless than before, "how did you 
come over?"
"I came in the boat with you. I was sitting wrapped up at the other end. 
When you took a coach at the wharf, I took another coach and followed you 
here. She never would have given it up, after what you had said to her 
about its being wanted; she would sooner have sunk it in the sea, or burnt 
it. But, here it is!"
The glow and rapture that the girl was in, with her "Here it is!"
"She never wanted it to be left, I must say that for her; but he left it, 
and I know well that after what you said, and after her denying it, she 
never would have given it up. But here it is! Dear Master, dear Mistress, 
take me back again, and give me back the dear old name! Let this intercede 
for me. Here it is!"
Father and Mother Meagles never deserved their names better, than when they 
took the headstrong foundling-girl into their protection again.
"Oh! I have been so wretched," cried Tattycoram, weeping much more after 
that than before; "always so unhappy, and so repentant! I was afraid of 
her, from the first time I ever saw her. I knew she had got a power over 
me, through understanding what was bad in me, so well. It was a madness in 
me, and she could raise it whenever she liked. I used to think, when I got 
into that state, that people were all against me because of my first 
beginning; and the kinder they were to me, the worse fault I found in them. 
I made it out that they triumphed above me, and that they wanted to make me 
envy them, when I know - when I even knew then, if I would - that they 
never thought of such a thing. And my beautiful young mistress not so happy 
as she ought to have been, and I gone away from her! Such a brute and 
wretch as she must think me! But you'll say a word to her for me, and ask 
her to be as forgiving as you two are! For, I am not so bad as I was," 
pleaded Tattycoram; "I am bad enough, but not so bad as I was, indeed. I 
have had Miss Wade before me all this time, as if it was my own self grown 
ripe - turning everything the wrong way, and twisting all good into evil. I 
have had her before me all this time, finding no pleasure in anything but 
in keeping me as miserable, suspicious, and tormenting as herself. Not that 
she had much to do, to do that," cried Tatty-coram, in a closing great 
burst of distress, "for I was as bad as bad could be. I only mean to say, 
that, after what I have gone through, I hope I shall never be quite so bad 
again, and that I shall get better by very slow degrees. I'll try very 
hard. I won't stop at five and twenty, sir. I'll count five and twenty 
hundred, five and twenty thousand!"
Another opening of the door, and Tattycoram subsided, and Little Dorrit 
came in, and Mr Meagles with pride and joy produced the box, and her gentle 
face was lighted up with grateful happiness and joy. The secret was safe 
now! She could keep her won part of it from him; he should never know of 
her loss; in time to come, he should know all that was of import to 
himself; but, he should never know what concerned her, only. That was all 
past, all forgiven, all forgotten.
"Now, my dear Miss Dorrit," said Mr Meagles; "I am a man of business - or 
at least was - and I am going to take my measures, promptly, in that 
character. Had I better see Arthur tonight?"
"I think not tonight. I will go to his room and ascertain how he is. But I 
think it will be better not to see him tonight."
"I am much of your opinion, my dear," said Mr Meagles, "and therefore I 
have not been any nearer to him than this dismal room. Then I shall 
probably not see him for some little time to come. But I'll explain what I 
mean when you come back."
She left the room. Mr Meagles, looking through the bars of the window, saw 
her pass out of the Lodge below him into the prison-yard. He said gently, 
"Tattycoram, come to me a moment, my good girl."
She went up to the window.
"You see that young lady who was here just now - that little, quiet, 
fragile figure passing along there, Tatty? Look. The people stand out of 
the way to let her go by. The men - see the poor, shabby fellows - pull off 
their hats to her quite politely, and now she glides in at that doorway. 
See her, Tattycoram?"
"Yes, sir."
"I have heard tell, Tatty, that she was once regularly called the child of 
this place. She was born here, and lived here many years. I can't breathe 
here. A doleful place, to be born and bred in, Tattycoram?"
"Yes indeed, sir."
"If she had constantly thought of herself, and settled with herself that 
everybody visited this place upon her, turned it against her, and cast it 
at her, she would have led an irritable and probably an useless existence. 
Yet I have heard tell, Tattycoram, that her young life has been one of 
active resignation, goodness, and noble service. Shall I tell you what I 
consider those eyes of hers that were here just now, to have always looked 
at, to get that expression?"
"Yes, if you please, sir."
"Duty, Tattycoram. Begin it early, and do it well; and there is no 
antecedent to it, in any origin or station, that will tell against us with 
the Almighty, or with ourselves."
They remained at the window, Mother joining them and pitying the prisoners, 
until she was seen coming back. She was soon in the room, and recommended 
that Arthur, whom she had left calm and composed, should not be visited 
that night.
"Good!" said Mr Meagles, cheerily. "I have not a doubt that's best. I shall 
trust my remembrances then, my sweet nurse, in your hands, and I well know 
they couldn't be in better. I am off again tomorrow morning."
Little Dorrit, surprised, asked him where?
"My dear," said Mr Meagles, "I can't live without breathing. This place has 
taken my breath away, and I shall never get it back again until Arthur is 
out of this place."
"How is that a reason for going off again tomorrow morning?"
"You shall understand," said Mr Meagles. "Tonight we three will put up at a 
City Hotel. Tomorrow morning, Mother and Tattycoram will go down to 
Twickenham, where Mrs Tickit, sitting attended by Dr Buchan in the parlour-
window, will think them a couple of ghosts; and I shall go abroad again for 
Doyce. We must have Dan here. Now, I tell you my love, it's of no use 
writing, and planning, and conditionally speculating, upon this and that 
and the other, at uncertain intervals and distances; we must have Doyce 
here. I devote myself, at daybreak tomorrow morning, to bringing Doyce 
here. It's nothing to me to go and find him. I'm an old traveller, and all 
foreign languages and customs are alike to me - I never understand anything 
about any of 'em. Therefore I can't be put to any inconvenience. Go at once 
I must, it stands to reason; because I can't live, without breathing 
freely; and I can't breathe freely, until Arthur is out of this Marshalsea. 
I am stifled at the present moment, and have scarcely breath enough to say 
this much, and to carry this precious box downstairs for you."
They got into the street as the bell began to ring, Mr Meagles carrying the 
box. Little Dorrit had no conveyance there: which rather surprised him. He 
called a coach for her, and she got into it, and he placed the box beside 
her when she was seated. In her joy and gratitude she kissed his hand.
"I don't like that, my dear," said Mr Meagles. "It goes against my feeling 
of what's right, that you should do homage to me - at the Marshalsea Gate."
She bent forward, and kissed his cheek.
"You remind me of the days," said Mr Meagles, suddenly drooping - "but 
she's very fond of him, and hides his faults, and thinks that no one sees 
them - and he certainly is well connected, and of a very good family!"
It was the only comfort he had in the loss of his daughter, and if he made 
the most of it, who could blame him?


Chapter 34

Gone

On a healthy autumn day, the Marshalsea prisoner, weak but otherwise 
restored, sat listening to a voice that read to him. On a healthy autumn 
day; when the golden fields had been reaped and ploughed again, when the 
summer fruits had ripened and waned, when the green perspectives of hops 
had been laid low by the busy pickers, when the apples clustering in the 
orchards were russet, and the berries of the mountain ash were crimson 
among the yellowing foliage. Already in the woods, glimpses of the hardy 
winter that was coming, were to be caught through unaccustomed openings 
among the boughs where the prospect shone defined and clear, free from the 
bloom of the drowsy summer weather, which had rested on it as the bloom 
lies on the plum. So from the sea-shore the ocean was no longer to be seen 
lying asleep in the heat, but its thousand sparkling eyes were open, and 
its whole breadth was in joyful animation, from the cool sand on the beach 
to the little sails on the horizon, drifting away like autumn-tinted leaves 
that had drifted from the trees.
Changeless and barren, looking ignorantly at all the seasons with its 
fixed, pinched face of poverty and care, the prison had not a touch of any 
of these beauties on it. Blossom what would, its bricks and bars bore 
uniformly the same dead crop. Yet Clennam, listening to the voice as it 
read to him, heard in it all that great Nature was doing, heard in it all 
the soothing songs she sings to man. At no Mother's knee but hers had he 
ever dwelt in his youth on hopeful promises, on playful fancies, on the 
harvests of tenderness and humility that lie hidden in the early-fostered 
seeds of the imagination; on the oaks of retreat from blighting winds, that 
have the germs of their strong roots in nursery acorns. But in the tones of 
the voice that read to him, there were memories of an old feeling of such 
things, and echoes of every merciful and loving whisper that had ever 
stolen to him in his life.
When the voice stopped, he put his hand over his eyes, murmuring that the 
light was strong upon them.
Little Dorrit put the book by, and presently arose quietly to shade the 
window. Maggie sat at her needlework in her old place. The light softened, 
Little Dorrit brought her chair closer to his side.
"This will soon be over now, dear Mr Clennam. Not only are Mr Doyce's 
letters to you so full of friendship and encouragement, but Mr Rugg says 
his letters to him are so full of help, and that everybody (now a little 
anger is past) is so considerate, and speaks so well of you, that it will 
soon be over now."
"Dear girl. Dear heart. Good angel!"
"You praise me far too much. And yet it is such an exquisite pleasure to me 
to hear you speak so feelingly, and to - and to see," said Little Dorrit, 
raising her eyes to his, "how deeply you mean it, that I cannot say Don't."
E[e lifted her hand to his lips.
"You have been here many, many times, when I have not seen you, Little 
Dorrit?"
"Yes, I have been here sometimes when I have not come into the room."
"Very often?"
"Rather often," said Little Dorrit, timidly.
"Every day?"
"I think," said Little Dorrit, after hesitating, "that I have been here at 
least twice every day."
He might have released the little light hand, after fervently kissing it 
again; but that, with a very gentle lingering where it was, it seemed to 
court being retained. He took it in both of his, and it lay softly on his 
breast.
"Dear Little Dorrit, it is not my imprisonment only that will soon be over. 
This sacrifice of you must be ended. We must learn to part again, and to 
take our different ways so wide asunder. You have not forgotten what we 
said together when you came back?"
"Oh no, I have not forgotten it. But something has been - You feel quite 
strong today, don't you?"
"Quite strong."
The hand he held crept up a little nearer to his face.
"Do you feel quite strong enough to know what a great fortune I have got?"
"I shall be very glad to be told. No fortune can be too great or good for 
Little Dorrit."
"I have been anxiously waiting to tell you. I have been longing and longing 
to tell you. You are sure you will not take it?"
"Never!"
"You are quite sure you will not take half of it?"
"Never, dear Little Dorrit!"
As she looked at him silently, there was something in her affectionate face 
that he did not quite comprehend; something that could have broken into 
tears in a moment, and yet that was happy and proud.
"You will be sorry to hear what I have to tell you about Fanny. Poor Fanny 
has lost everything. She has nothing left but her husband's income. All 
that papa gave her when she married, was lost as your money was lost. It 
was in the same hands, and it is all gone."
Arthur was more shocked than surprised to hear it. "I had hoped it might 
not be so bad," he said: "but I had feared a heavy loss there, knowing the 
connection between her husband and the defaulter."
"Yes. It is all gone. I am very sorry for Fanny; very, very, very sorry for 
poor Fanny. My poor brother, too!"
"Had he property in the same hands?"
"Yes! And it is all gone. - How much do you think my own great fortune is?"
As Arthur looked at her inquiringly, with a new apprehension on him, she 
withdrew her hand, and laid her face down on the spot where it had rested.
"I have nothing in the world. I am as poor as when I lived here. When papa 
came over to England, he confided everything he had to the same hands, and 
it is all swept away. O my dearest and best, are you quite sure you will 
not share my fortune with me now?"
Locked in his arms, held to his heart, with his manly tears upon her own 
cheek, she drew the slight hand round his neck, and clasped it in its 
fellow-hand.
"Never to part, my dearest Arthur; never any more until the last! I never 
was rich before, I never was proud before, I never was happy before. I am 
rich in being taken by you, I am proud in having been resigned by you, I am 
happy in being with you in this prison, as I should be happy in coming back 
to it with you, if it should be the will of God, and comforting and serving 
you with all my love and truth. I am yours anywhere, everywhere! I love you 
dearly! I would rather pass my life here with you, and go out daily, 
working for our bread, than I would have the greatest fortune that ever was 
told, and be the greatest lady that ever was honoured. O, if poor papa may 
only know how blest at last my heart is, in this room where he suffered for 
so many years!"
Maggie had of course been staring from the first, and had of course been 
crying her eyes out, long before this. Maggie was now so overjoyed that, 
after hugging her little mother with all her might, she went downstairs 
like a clog-hornpipe to find somebody or other to whom to impart her 
gladness. Whom should Maggie meet but Flora and Mr F's Aunt opportunely 
coming in? And whom else, as a consequence of that meeting, should Little 
Dorrit find waiting for herself, when, a good two or three hours 
afterwards, she went out?
Flora's eyes were a little red, and she seemed rather out of spirits. Mr 
F's Aunt was so stiffened that she had the appearance of being past 
bending, by any means short of powerful mechanical pressure. Her bonnet was 
cocked up behind in a terrific manner; and her stony reticule was as rigid 
as if it had been petrified by the Gorgon's head, and had got it at that 
moment inside. With these imposing attributes, Mr F's Aunt publicly seated 
on the steps of the Marshal's official residence, had been for the two or 
three hours in question a great boon to the younger inhabitants of the 
Borough, whose sallies of humour she had considerably flushed herself by 
resenting, at the point of her umbrella, from time to time.
"Painfully aware, Miss Dorrit, I am sure," said Flora, "that to propose an 
adjournment to any place to one so far removed by fortune and so courted 
and caressed by the best society must ever appear intruding even if not a 
pie-shop far below your present sphere and a back-parlour though a civil 
man but if for the sake of Arthur - cannot overcome it more improper now 
than ever late Doyce and Clennam - one last remark I might wish to make one 
last explanation I might wish to offer perhaps your good nature might 
excuse under pretence of three kidney ones the humble place of 
conversation."
Rightly interpreting this rather obscure speech, Little Dorrit returned 
that she was quite at Flora's disposition. Flora accordingly led the way 
across the road to the pie-shop in question; Mr F's Aunt stalking across in 
the rear, and putting herself in the way of being run over, with a 
perseverance worthy of a better cause.
When the "three kidney ones," which were to be a blind to the conversation, 
were set before them on three little tin platters, each kidney one 
ornamented with a hole at the top, into which the civil man poured hot 
gravy out of a spouted can as if he were feeding three lamps, Flora took 
out her pocket-handkerchief.
"If Fancy's fair dreams," she began, "have ever pictured that when Arthur - 
cannot overcome it pray excuse me - was restored to freedom even a pie as 
far from flaky as the present and so deficient in kidney as to be in that 
respect like a minced nutmeg might not prove unacceptable if offered by the 
hand of true regard such visions have forever fled and all is cancelled but 
being aware that tenderer relations are in contemplation beg to state that 
I heartily wish well to both and find no fault with either not the least, 
it may be withering to know that ere the hand of Time had made me much less 
slim than formerly and dreadfully red on the slightest exertion 
particularly after eating I well know when it takes the form of a rash it 
might have been and was not through the interruption of parents and mental 
torpor succeeded until the mysterious clue was held by Mr F. still I would 
not be ungenerous to either and I heartily wish well to both."
Little Dorrit took her hand, and thanked her for all her old kindness.
"Call it not kindness," returned Flora, giving her an honest kiss, "for you 
always were the best and dearest little thing that ever was if I may take 
the liberty and even in a money point of view a saving being Conscience 
itself though I must add much more agreeable than mine ever was to me for 
though not I hope more burdened than other people's yet I have always found 
it far readier to make one uncomfortable than comfortable and evidently 
taking a greater pleasure in doing it but I am wandering, one hope I wish 
to express ere yet the closing scene draws in and it is that I do trust for 
the sake of old times and old sincerity that Arthur will know that I didn't 
desert him in his misfortunes but that I came backwards and forwards 
constantly to ask if I could do anything for him and that I sat in the pie-
shop where they very civilly fetched something warm in a tumbler from the 
hotel and really very nice hours after hours to keep him company over the 
way without his knowing it."
Flora really had tears in her eyes now, and they showed her to great 
advantage.
"Over and above which," said Flora, "I earnestly beg you as the dearest 
thing that ever was if you'll still excuse the familiarity from one who 
moves in very different circles to let Arthur understand that I don't know 
after all whether it wasn't all nonsense between us though pleasant at the 
time and trying too and certainly Mr F did work a change and the spell 
being broken nothing could be expected to take place without weaving it 
afresh which various circumstances have combined to prevent of which 
perhaps not the least powerful was that it was not to be, I am not prepared 
to say that if it had been agreeable to Arthur and had brought itself about 
naturally in the first instance I should not have been very glad being of a 
lively disposition and moped at home where papa undoubtedly is the most 
aggravating of his sex and not improved since having been cut down by the 
hand of the Incendiary into something of which I never saw the counterpart 
in all my life but jealousy is not my character nor ill-will though many 
faults."
Without having been able closely to follow Mrs Finching through this 
labyrinth, Little Dorrit understood its purpose, and cordially accepted the 
trust.
"The withered chaplet my dear," said Flora, with great enjoyment, "is then 
perished the column is crumbled and the pyramid is standing upside down 
upon its what's-his-name call it not giddiness call it not weakness call it 
not folly I must now retire into privacy and look upon the ashes of 
departed joys no more but taking the further liberty of paying for the 
pastry which has formed the humble pretext of our interview will for ever 
saying Adieu!"
Mr F's Aunt, who had eaten her pie with great solemnity, and who had been 
elaborating some grievous scheme of injury in her mind, since her first 
assumption of that public position on the Marshal's steps, took the present 
opportunity of addressing the following Sibyllic apostrophe to the relict 
of her late nephew.
"Bring him for'rard, and I'll chuck him out o' winder!"
Flora tried in vain to soothe the excellent woman, by explaining that they 
were going home to dinner. Mr F's Aunt persisted in replying, "Bring him 
for'ard, and I'll chuck him out o' winder!" Having reiterated this demand 
an immense number of times, with a sustained glare of defiance at Little 
Dorrit, Mr F's Aunt folded her arms, and sat down in the corner of the pie-
shop parlour; steadfastly refusing to budge until such time as "he" should 
have been "brought for'rard," and the chucking portion of his destiny 
accomplished.
In this condition of things, Flora confided to Little Dorrit that she had 
not seen Mr F's Aunt so full of life and character for weeks; that she 
would find it necessary to remain there "hours perhaps," until the 
inexorable old lady could be softened; and that she could manage her best 
alone. They parted, therefore, in the friendliest manner, and with the 
kindest feelings on both sides.
Mr F's Aunt, holding out like a grim fortress, and Flora becoming in need 
of refreshment, a messenger was dispatched to the hotel for the tumbler 
already glanced at, which was afterwards replenished. With the aid of its 
contents, a newspaper, and some skimming of the cream of the pie-stock, 
Flora got through the remainder of the day in perfect good humour; though 
occasionally embarrassed by the consequences of an idle rumour which 
circulated among the credulous infants of the neighbourhood, to the effect 
that an old lady had sold herself to the pie-shop, to be made up, and was 
then sitting in the pie-shop parlour, declining to complete her contract. 
This attracted so many young persons of both sexes, and, when the shades of 
evening began to fall, occasioned so much interruption to the business, 
that the merchant became very pressing in his proposals that Mr F's Aunt 
should be removed. A conveyance was accordingly brought to the door, which, 
by the joint efforts of the merchant and Flora, this remarkable woman was 
at last induced to enter; though not without even then putting her head out 
of the window, and demanding to have him "brought for'rard" for the purpose 
originally mentioned. As she was observed at this time to direct baleful 
glances towards the Marshalsea, it has been supposed that this admirably 
consistent female intended by "him," Arthur Clennam. This, however, is mere 
speculation; who the person was, who, for the satisfaction of Mr F's Aunt's 
mind, ought to have been brought forward and never was brought forward, 
will never be positively known.
The autumn days went on, and Little Dorrit never came to the Marshalsea 
now, and went away without seeing him. No, no, no.
One morning, as Arthur listened for the light feet, that every morning 
ascended winged to his heart, bringing the heavenly brightness of a new 
love into the room where the old love had wrought so hard and been so true; 
one morning, as he listened, he heard her coming, not alone.
"Dear Arthur," said her delighted voice outside the door, "I have some one 
here. May I bring some one in?"
He had thought from the tread there were two with her. He answered "Yes," 
and she came in with Mr Meagles. Sunbrowned and jolly Mr Meagles looked, 
and he opened his arms and folded Arthur in them, like a sunbrowned and 
jolly father.
"Now, I am all right," said Mr Meagles, after a minute or so. "Now, it's 
over. Arthur, my dear fellow, confess at once that you expected me before."
"I did," said Arthur; "but Amy told me -"
"Little Dorrit. Never any other name." (It was she who whispered it.)
" - But my Little Dorrit told me that, without asking for any further 
explanation, I was not to expect you until I saw you."
"And now you see me, my boy," said Mr Meagles, shaking him by the hand 
stoutly; "and now you shall have any explanation and every explanation. The 
fact is, I was here, - came straight to you from the Allongers and 
Marshongers, or I should be ashamed to look you in the face this day, - but 
you were not in company trim at the moment, and I had to start off again to 
catch Doyce."
"Poor Doyce!" sighed Arthur.
"Don't call him names that he don't deserve," said Mr Meagles. He's not 
poor; he's doing well enough. Doyce is a wonderful fellow over there. I 
assure you, he is making out his case like a house a-fire. He has fallen on 
his legs, has Dan. Where they don't want things done and find a man to do 
'em, that man's off his legs; but where they do want things done and find a 
man to do 'em, that man's on his legs. You won't have occasion to trouble 
the Circumlocution Office any more. Let me tell you, Dan has done without 
'em!"
"What a load you take from my mind!" cried Arthur. "What happiness you give 
me!"
"Happiness?" retorted Mr Meagles. "Don't talk about happiness till you see 
Dan. I assure you, Dan is directing works and executing labours over 
yonder, that it would make your hair stand on end to look at. He's no 
public offender, bless you, now! He's medalled and ribboned, and starred 
and crossed, and I don't-know-what all'd like a born nobleman. But, we 
mustn't talk about that over here."
"Why not?"
"Oh, egad!" said Mr Meagles, shaking his head very seriously, "he must hide 
all those things under lock and key when he comes over here. They won't do, 
over here. In that particular, Britannia is a Britannia in the Manger - 
won't give her children such distinctions herself, and won't allow them to 
be seen, when they are given by other countries. No, no, Dan!" said Mr 
Meagles, shaking his head again. "That won't do here!"
"If you had brought me (except for Doyce's sake) twice what I have lost," 
cried Arthur, "you would not have given me the pleasure that you give me in 
this news."
"Why, of course, of course," assented Mr Meagles. "Of course I know that, 
my good fellow, and therefore I come out with it in the first burst. Now, 
to go back, about catching Doyce. I caught Doyce. Ran against him, among a 
lot of those dirty brown dogs in women's night-caps a great deal too big 
for 'em, calling themselves Arabs and all sorts of incoherent races. You 
know 'em! Well! He was coming straight to me, and I was going straight to 
him, and so we came back together."
"Doyce in England?" exclaimed Arthur.
"There!" said Mr Meagles, throwing open his arms. "I am the worst man in 
the world to manage a thing of this sort. I don't know what I should have 
done if I had been in the diplomatic line - right, perhaps! The long and 
the short of it is, Arthur, we have both been in England this fortnight. 
And if you go on to ask where Doyce is at the present moment, why, my plain 
answer is - here he is. And now I can breathe again, at last!"
Doyce darted in from behind the door, caught Arthur by both hands, and said 
the rest for himself.
"There are only three branches of my subject, my dear Clennam," said Doyce, 
proceeding to mould them severally, with his plastic thumb on the palm of 
his hand, "and they're soon disposed of. First, not a word more from you 
about the past. There was an error in your calculations. I know what that 
is. It affects the whole machine, and failure is the consequence. You will 
profit by the failure, and will avoid it another time. I have done a 
similar thing myself, in construction, often. Every failure teaches a man 
something, if he will learn; and you are too sensible a man not to learn 
from this failure. So much for firstly. Secondly. I was sorry you should 
have taken it so heavily to heart, and reproached yourself so severely. I 
was travelling home night and day to put matters right, with the assistance 
of our friend, when I fell in with our friend as he has informed you. 
Thirdly. We two agreed, that, after what you had undergone, after your 
distress of mind, and after your illness, it would be a pleasant surprise 
if we could so far keep quiet as to get things perfectly arranged without 
your knowledge, and then come and say that all the affairs were smooth, 
that everything was right, that the business stood in greater want of you 
than ever it did, and that a new and prosperous career was opened before 
you and me as partners. That's thirdly. But you know we always make an 
allowance for friction, and so I have reserved space to close in. My dear 
Clennam, I thoroughly confide in you; you have it in your power to be quite 
as useful to me, as I have, or have had, it in my power to be useful to 
you; your old place awaits you, and wants you very much; there is nothing 
to detain you here, one half-hour longer."
There was silence, which was not broken until Arthur had stood for some 
time at the window with his back towards them, and until his little wife 
that was to be, had gone to him and stayed by him.
"I made a remark a little while ago," said Daniel Doyce then, "which I am 
inclined to think was an incorrect one. I said there was nothing to detain 
you here, Clennam, half an hour longer. Am I mistaken in supposing that you 
would rather not leave here till tomorrow morning? Do I know, without being 
very wise, where you would like to go, direct, from these walls and from 
this room?"
"You do," returned Arthur. "It has been our cherished purpose."
"Very well!" said Doyce. "Then, if this young lady will do me the honour of 
regarding me for four and twenty hours in the light of a father, and will 
take a ride with me now towards Saint Paul's Churchyard, I dare say I know 
what we want to get there."
Little Dorrit and he went out together soon afterwards, and Mr Meagles 
lingered behind to say a word to his friend.
"I think, Arthur, you will not want Mother and me in the morning and we 
will keep away. It might set Mother thinking about Pet; she's a soft 
hearted-woman. She's best at the cottage, and I'll stay there and keep her 
company."
With that they parted for the time. And the day ended, and the night ended, 
and the morning came, and Little Dorrit, simply dressed as usual, and 
having no one with her but Maggie, came into the prison with the sunshine. 
The poor room was a happy room that morning. Where in the world was there a 
room so full of quiet joy! 
"My dear love," said Arthur. "Why does Maggie light the fire? We shall be 
gone directly."
"I asked her to do it. I have taken such an odd fancy I want you to burn 
something for me."
"What?"
"Only this folded paper. If you will put it in the fire with your own hand, 
just as it is, my fancy will be gratified."
"Superstitious, darling Little Dorrit? Is it a charm?"
"It is anything you like best, my own," she answered, laughing with 
glistening eyes and standing on tiptoe to kiss him, "if you will only 
humour me when the fire burns up."
So they stood before the fire, waiting: Clennam with his arm about her 
waist, and the fire shining, as fire in that same place had often shone, in 
Little Dorrit's eyes. "Is it bright enough now?" said Arthur. "Quite bright 
enough now," said Little Dorrit. "Does the charm want any words to be 
said?" asked Arthur, as he held the paper over the flame. "You can say (if 
you don't mind) 'I love you!'" answered Little Dorrit. So he said it, and 
the paper burned away.
They passed very quietly along the yard; for, no one was there, though many 
heads were stealthily peeping from the windows. Only one face, familiar of 
old, was in the Lodge. When they had both accosted it, and spoken many kind 
words, Little Dorrit turned back one last time with her hand stretched out, 
saying, "Good bye, good John! I hope you will live very happy, dear!"
Then they went up the steps of the neighbouring Saint George's Church, and 
went up to the altar, where Daniel Doyce was waiting in his paternal 
character. And there was Little Dorrit's old friend who had given her the 
Burial Register for a pillow: full of admiration that she should come back 
to them to be married, after all.
And they were married, with the sun shining on them through the painted 
figure of Our Saviour on the window. And they went into the very room where 
Little Dorrit had slumbered after her party, to sign the Marriage Register. 
And there, Mr Pancks (destined to be chief clerk to Doyce and Clennam, and 
afterwards partner in the house), sinking the Incendiary in the peaceful 
friend, looked in at the door to see it done, with Flora gallantly 
supported on one arm and Maggie on the other, and a back ground of John 
Chivery and father, and other turn keys, who had run round for the moment, 
deserting the parent Marshalsea for its happy child. Nor had Flora the 
least signs of seclusion upon her, notwithstanding her recent declaration; 
but, on the contrary was wonderfully smart, and enjoyed the ceremonies 
mightily, though in a fluttered way.
Little Dorrit's old friend held the inkstand as she signed her name, and 
the clerk paused in taking off the good clergyman's surplice, and all the 
witnesses looked on with special interest. "For, you see," said Little 
Dorrit's old friend, "this young lady is one of our curiosities, and has 
come now to the third volume of our Registers. Her birth is in what I call 
the first volume; she lay asleep on this very floor, with her pretty head 
on what I call the second volume; and she's now a-writing her little name 
as a bride, in what I call the third volume."
They all gave place when the signing was done, and Little Dorrit and her 
husband walked out of the church alone. They paused for a moment on the 
steps of the portico, looking at the fresh perspective of the street in the 
autumn morning sun's bright rays, and then went down.
Went down into a modest life of usefulness and happiness. Went down to give 
a mother's care, in the fulness of time, to Fanny's neglected children no 
less than to their own, and to leave that lady going into Society for ever 
and a day. Went down to give a tender nurse and friend to Tip for some few 
years, who was never vexed by the great executions he made of her, in 
return for the riches he might have given her if he had ever had them, and 
who lovingly closed his eyes upon the Marshalsea and all its blighted 
fruits. They went quietly down into the roaring streets, inseparable and 
blessed; and as they passed along in sunshine and shade, the noisy and the 
eager, and the arrogant and the froward and the vain, fretted, and chafed, 
and make their usual uproar.