Chapter 23: Machinery in Motion

Little Dorrit

by Charles Dickens

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.'