Chapter 16: Nobody's Weakness

Little Dorrit

by Charles Dickens

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 lock- maker; that he had
'struck out a few little things' at the lock- maker'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
Petersburg, 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?' said 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
negotiating 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 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 scarcely had 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 to-morrow. 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 tesselated 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 hairpins, Carrara sculpture, Trastaverini scarves, Genoese
velvets and filigree, Neapolitan coral, Roman cameos, Geneva
jewellery, Arab lanterns, rosaries blest 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 had 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.

There were only five, at a round table, and it was very pleasant
indeed. They had so many places and people to recall, 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 like to think of her just now as
having 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 put 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 to-morrow. 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 up-
stairs.

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 to 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 disembarrassed 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 to-day, 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 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 crotchety 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.