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 tendered 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 a 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 workshop, 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
trap- doors 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 clinks 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 how ever 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 for ever
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 apposite 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 flower-pot 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 got 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 to-day, 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 to-day! 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 a-head 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 grounds 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 his 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 he 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 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 backslidings 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 this observation forcibly in justice to myself, that you
ought to have got much more money, much more money.'
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