Chapter 28: An Appearance in the Marshalsea

Little Dorrit

by Charles Dickens

The opinion of the community outside the prison gates bore hard
on Clennam as time went on, and he made no friends among the
community within. Too depressed to associate with the herd in the
yard, who got together to forget their cares; too retiring and too
unhappy to join in the poor socialities of the tavern; he kept his
own room, and was held in distrust. Some said he was proud; some
objected that he was sullen and reserved; some were contemptuous of
him, for that he was a poor-spirited dog who pined under his debts.
The whole population were shy of him on these various counts of
indictment, but especially the last, which involved a species of
domestic treason; and he soon became so confirmed in his seclusion,
that his only time for walking up and down was when the evening Club
were assembled at their songs and toasts and sentiments, and when the
yard was nearly left to the women and children.

Imprisonment began to tell upon him. He knew that he idled and
moped. After what he had known of the influences of imprisonment
within the four small walls of the very room he occupied, this
consciousness made him afraid of himself. Shrinking from the
observation of other men, and shrinking from his own, he began to
change very sensibly. Anybody might see that the shadow of the wall
was dark upon him.

One day when he might have been some ten or twelve weeks in
jail, and when he had been trying to read and had not been able to
release even the imaginary people of the book from the Marshalsea, a
footstep stopped at his door, and a hand tapped at it. He arose and
opened it, and an agreeable voice accosted him with 'How do you do,
Mr Clennam? I hope I am not unwelcome in calling to see you.'

It was the sprightly young Barnacle, Ferdinand. He looked very
good-natured and prepossessing, though overpoweringly gay and free,
in contrast with the squalid prison.

'You are surprised to see me, Mr Clennam,' he said, taking the
seat which Clennam offered him.

'I must confess to being much surprised.'

'Not disagreeably, I hope?'

'By no means.'

'Thank you. Frankly,' said the engaging young Barnacle, 'I have
been excessively sorry to hear that you were under the necessity of a
temporary retirement here, and I hope (of course as between two
private gentlemen) that our place has had nothing to do with it?'

'Your office?'

'Our Circumlocution place.'

'I cannot charge any part of my reverses upon that remarkable
establishment.'

Upon my life,' said the vivacious young Barnacle, 'I am heartily
glad to know it. It is quite a relief to me to hear you say it. I
should have so exceedingly regretted our place having had anything to
do with your difficulties.'

Clennam again assured him that he absolved it of the
responsibility.

'That's right,' said Ferdinand. 'I am very happy to hear it. I
was rather afraid in my own mind that we might have helped to floor
you, because there is no doubt that it is our misfortune to do that
kind of thing now and then. We don't want to do it; but if men will
be gravelled, why--we can't help it.'

'Without giving an unqualified assent to what you say,' returned
Arthur, gloomily, 'I am much obliged to you for your interest in
me.'

'No, but really! Our place is,' said the easy young Barnacle,
'the most inoffensive place possible. You'll say we are a humbug. I
won't say we are not; but all that sort of thing is intended to be,
and must be. Don't you see?'

'I do not,' said Clennam.

'You don't regard it from the right point of view. It is the
point of view that is the essential thing. Regard our place from the
point of view that we only ask you to leave us alone, and we are as
capital a Department as you'll find anywhere.'

'Is your place there to be left alone?' asked Clennam.

'You exactly hit it,' returned Ferdinand. 'It is there with the
express intention that everything shall be left alone. That is what
it means. That is what it's for. No doubt there's a certain form to
be kept up that it's for something else, but it's only a form. Why,
good Heaven, we are nothing but forms! Think what a lot of our forms
you have gone through. And you have never got any nearer to an
end?'

'Never,' said Clennam.

'Look at it from the right point of view, and there you have
us-- official and effectual. It's like a limited game of cricket. A
field of outsiders are always going in to bowl at the Public Service,
and we block the balls.'

Clennam asked what became of the bowlers? The airy young
Barnacle replied that they grew tired, got dead beat, got lamed, got
their backs broken, died off, gave it up, went in for other games.

'And this occasions me to congratulate myself again,' he
pursued, 'on the circumstance that our place has had nothing to do
with your temporary retirement. It very easily might have had a hand
in it; because it is undeniable that we are sometimes a most unlucky
place, in our effects upon people who will not leave us alone. Mr
Clennam, I am quite unreserved with you. As between yourself and
myself, I know I may be. I was so, when I first saw you making the
mistake of not leaving us alone; because I perceived that you were
inexperienced and sanguine, and had--I hope you'll not object to my
saying--some simplicity.'

'Not at all.'

'Some simplicity. Therefore I felt what a pity it was, and I
went out of my way to hint to you (which really was not official, but
I never am official when I can help it) something to the effect that
if I were you, I wouldn't bother myself. However, you did bother
yourself, and you have since bothered yourself. Now, don't do it any
more.'

'I am not likely to have the opportunity,' said Clennam.

'Oh yes, you are! You'll leave here. Everybody leaves here.
There are no ends of ways of leaving here. Now, don't come back to
us. That entreaty is the second object of my call. Pray, don't come
back to us. Upon my honour,' said Ferdinand in a very friendly and
confiding way, 'I shall be greatly vexed if you don't take warning by
the past and keep away from us.'

'And the invention?' said Clennam.

'My good fellow,' returned Ferdinand, 'if you'll excuse the
freedom of that form of address, nobody wants to know of the
invention, and nobody cares twopence-halfpenny about it.'

'Nobody in the Office, that is to say?'

'Nor out of it. Everybody is ready to dislike and ridicule any
invention. You have no idea how many people want to be left
alone.

You have no idea how the Genius of the country (overlook the
Parliamentary nature of the phrase, and don't be bored by it) tends
to being left alone. Believe me, Mr Clennam,' said the sprightly
young Barnacle in his pleasantest manner, 'our place is not a wicked
Giant to be charged at full tilt; but only a windmill showing you, as
it grinds immense quantities of chaff, which way the country wind
blows.'

'If I could believe that,' said Clennam, 'it would be a dismal
prospect for all of us.'

'Oh! Don't say so!' returned Ferdinand. 'It's all right. We
must have humbug, we all like humbug, we couldn't get on without
humbug.

A little humbug, and a groove, and everything goes on admirably,
if you leave it alone.'

With this hopeful confession of his faith as the head of the
rising Barnacles who were born of woman, to be followed under a
variety of watchwords which they utterly repudiated and disbelieved,
Ferdinand rose. Nothing could be more agreeable than his frank and
courteous bearing, or adapted with a more gentlemanly instinct to the
circumstances of his visit.

'Is it fair to ask,' he said, as Clennam gave him his hand with
a real feeling of thankfulness for his candour and good-humour,
'whether it is true that our late lamented Merdle is the cause of
this passing inconvenience?'

'I am one of the many he has ruined. Yes.'

'He must have been an exceedingly clever fellow,' said Ferdinand
Barnacle.

Arthur, not being in the mood to extol the memory of the
deceased, was silent.

'A consummate rascal, of course,' said Ferdinand, 'but
remarkably clever! One cannot help admiring the fellow. Must have
been such a master of humbug. Knew people so well--got over them so
completely--did so much with them!' In his easy way, he was really
moved to genuine admiration.

'I hope,' said Arthur, 'that he and his dupes may be a warning
to people not to have so much done with them again.'

'My dear Mr Clennam,' returned Ferdinand, laughing, 'have you
really such a verdant hope? The next man who has as large a capacity
and as genuine a taste for swindling, will succeed as well. Pardon
me, but I think you really have no idea how the human bees will swarm
to the beating of any old tin kettle; in that fact lies the complete
manual of governing them. When they can be got to believe that the
kettle is made of the precious metals, in that fact lies the whole
power of men like our late lamented. No doubt there are here and
there,' said Ferdinand politely, 'exceptional cases, where people
have been taken in for what appeared to them to be much better
reasons; and I need not go far to find such a case; but they don't
invalidate the rule. Good day! I hope that when I have the pleasure
of seeing you, next, this passing cloud will have given place to
sunshine. Don't come a step beyond the door. I know the way out
perfectly. Good day!'

With those words, the best and brightest of the Barnacles went
down-stairs, hummed his way through the Lodge, mounted his horse in
the front court-yard, and rode off to keep an appointment with his
noble kinsman, who wanted a little coaching before he could
triumphantly answer certain infidel Snobs who were going to question
the Nobs about their statesmanship.

He must have passed Mr Rugg on his way out, for, a minute or two
afterwards, that ruddy-headed gentleman shone in at the door, like an
elderly Phoebus.

'How do you do to-day, sir?' said Mr Rugg. 'Is there any little
thing I can do for you to-day, sir?'

'No, I thank you.'

Mr Rugg's enjoyment of embarrassed affairs was like a
housekeeper's enjoyment in pickling and preserving, or a
washerwoman's enjoyment of a heavy wash, or a dustman's enjoyment of
an overflowing dust- bin, or any other professional enjoyment of a
mess in the way of business.

'I still look round, from time to time, sir,' said Mr Rugg,
cheerfully, 'to see whether any lingering Detainers are accumulating
at the gate. They have fallen in pretty thick, sir; as thick as we
could have expected.'

He remarked upon the circumstance as if it were matter of
congratulation: rubbing his hands briskly, and rolling his head a
little.

'As thick,' repeated Mr Rugg, 'as we could reasonably have
expected. Quite a shower-bath of 'em. I don't often intrude upon
you now, when I look round, because I know you are not inclined for
company, and that if you wished to see me, you would leave word in
the Lodge. But I am here pretty well every day, sir. Would this be
an unseasonable time, sir,' asked Mr Rugg, coaxingly, 'for me to
offer an observation?'

'As seasonable a time as any other.'

'Hum! Public opinion, sir,' said Mr Rugg, 'has been busy with
you.'

'I don't doubt it.'

'Might it not be advisable, sir,' said Mr Rugg, more coaxingly
yet, 'now to make, at last and after all, a trifling concession to
public opinion? We all do it in one way or another. The fact is, we
must do it.'

'I cannot set myself right with it, Mr Rugg, and have no
business to expect that I ever shall.'

'Don't say that, sir, don't say that. The cost of being moved
to the Bench is almost insignificant, and if the general feeling is
strong that you ought to be there, why--really--'

'I thought you had settled, Mr Rugg,' said Arthur, 'that my
determination to remain here was a matter of taste.'

'Well, sir, well! But is it good taste, is it good taste?
That's the Question.' Mr Rugg was so soothingly persuasive as to be
quite pathetic. 'I was almost going to say, is it good feeling?
This is an extensive affair of yours; and your remaining here where a
man can come for a pound or two, is remarked upon as not in keeping.
It is not in keeping. I can't tell you, sir, in how many quarters I
heard it mentioned. I heard comments made upon it last night in a
Parlour frequented by what I should call, if I did not look in there
now and then myself, the best legal company--I heard, there, comments
on it that I was sorry to hear. They hurt me on your account.
Again, only this morning at breakfast. My daughter (but a woman,
you'll say: yet still with a feeling for these things, and even with
some little personal experience, as the plaintiff in Rugg and
Bawkins) was expressing her great surprise; her great surprise.

Now under these circumstances, and considering that none of us
can quite set ourselves above public opinion, wouldn't a trifling
concession to that opinion be-- Come, sir,' said Rugg, 'I will put it
on the lowest ground of argument, and say, amiable?'

Arthur's thoughts had once more wandered away to Little Dorrit,
and the question remained unanswered.

'As to myself, sir,' said Mr Rugg, hoping that his eloquence had
reduced him to a state of indecision, 'it is a principle of mine not
to consider myself when a client's inclinations are in the scale.
But, knowing your considerate character and general wish to oblige, I
will repeat that I should prefer your being in the Bench.

Your case has made a noise; it is a creditable case to be
professionally concerned in; I should feel on a better standing with
my connection, if you went to the Bench. Don't let that influence
you, sir. I merely state the fact.'

So errant had the prisoner's attention already grown in solitude
and dejection, and so accustomed had it become to commune with only
one silent figure within the ever-frowning walls, that Clennam had to
shake off a kind of stupor before he could look at Mr Rugg, recall
the thread of his talk, and hurriedly say, 'I am unchanged, and
unchangeable, in my decision. Pray, let it be; let it be!' Mr Rugg,
without concealing that he was nettled and mortified, replied:

'Oh! Beyond a doubt, sir. I have travelled out of the record,
sir, I am aware, in putting the point to you. But really, when I
herd it remarked in several companies, and in very good company, that
however worthy of a foreigner, it is not worthy of the spirit of an
Englishman to remain in the Marshalsea when the glorious liberties of
his island home admit of his removal to the Bench, I thought I would
depart from the narrow professional line marked out to me, and
mention it. Personally,' said Mr Rugg, 'I have no opinion on the
topic.'

'That's well,' returned Arthur.

'Oh! None at all, sir!' said Mr Rugg. 'If I had, I should have
been

unwilling, some minutes ago, to see a client of mine visited in
this place by a gentleman of a high family riding a saddle-horse.
But it was not my business. If I had, I might have wished to be now
empowered to mention to another gentleman, a gentleman of military

exterior at present waiting in the Lodge, that my client had
never intended to remain here, and was on the eve of removal to a
superior abode. But my course as a professional machine is clear; I
have nothing to do with it. Is it your good pleasure to see the
gentleman, sir?'

'Who is waiting to see me, did you say?'

'I did take that unprofessional liberty, sir. Hearing that I
was your professional adviser, he declined to interpose before my
very limited function was performed. Happily,' said Mr Rugg, with
sarcasm, 'I did not so far travel out of the record as to ask the
gentleman for his name.'

'I suppose I have no resource but to see him,' sighed Clennam,
wearily.

'Then it is your good pleasure, sir?' retorted Rugg. 'Am I
honoured by your instructions to mention as much to the gentleman, as
I pass out? I am? Thank you, sir. I take my leave.' His leave he
took accordingly, in dudgeon.

The gentleman of military exterior had so imperfectly awakened
Clennam's curiosity, in the existing state of his mind, that a
half-forgetfulness of such a visitor's having been referred to, was
already creeping over it as a part of the sombre veil which almost
always dimmed it now, when a heavy footstep on the stairs aroused
him. It appeared to ascend them, not very promptly or spontaneously,
yet with a display of stride and clatter meant to be insulting. As
it paused for a moment on the landing outside his door, he could not
recall his association with the peculiarity of its sound, though he
thought he had one. Only a moment was given him for consideration.
His door was immediately swung open by a thump, and in the doorway
stood the missing Blandois, the cause of many anxieties.

'Salve, fellow jail-bird !' said he. 'You want me, it seems.
Here I am!'

Before Arthur could speak to him in his indignant wonder,
Cavalletto followed him into the room. Mr Pancks followed
Cavalletto. Neither of the two had been there since its present
occupant had had possession of it. Mr Pancks, breathing hard, sidled
near the window, put his hat on the ground, stirred his hair up with
both hands, and folded his arms, like a man who had come to a pause
in a hard day's work. Mr Baptist, never taking his eyes from his
dreaded chum of old, softly sat down on the floor with his back
against the door and one of his ankles in each hand: resuming the
attitude (except that it was now expressive of unwinking
watchfulness) in which he had sat before the same man in the deeper
shade of another prison, one hot morning at Marseilles. 'I have it on
the witnessing of these two madmen,' said Monsieur Blandois,
otherwise Lagnier, otherwise Rigaud, 'that you want me, brother-bird.
Here I am!' Glancing round contemptuously at the bedstead, which was
turned up by day, he leaned his back against it as a resting-place,
without removing his hat from his head, and stood defiantly lounging
with his hands in his pockets.

'You villain of ill-omen!' said Arthur. 'You have purposely
cast a dreadful suspicion upon my mother's house. Why have you done
it?

What prompted you to the devilish invention?'

Monsieur Rigaud, after frowning at him for a moment, laughed.
'Hear this noble gentleman! Listen, all the world, to this creature
of Virtue! But take care, take care. It is possible, my friend,
that your ardour is a little compromising. Holy Blue! It is
possible.'

'Signore!' interposed Cavalletto, also addressing Arthur: 'for
to commence, hear me! I received your instructions to find him,
Rigaud; is it not?'

'It is the truth.'

'I go, consequentementally,'--it would have given Mrs Plornish
great concern if she could have been persuaded that his occasional
lengthening of an adverb in this way, was the chief fault of his
English,--'first among my countrymen. I ask them what news in
Londra, of foreigners arrived. Then I go among the French. Then I
go among the Germans. They all tell me. The great part of us know
well the other, and they all tell me. But!--no person can tell me
nothing of him, Rigaud. Fifteen times,' said Cavalletto, thrice
throwing out his left hand with all its fingers spread, and doing it
so rapidly that the sense of sight could hardly follow the action, 'I
ask of him in every place where go the foreigners; and fifteen
times,' repeating the same swift performance, 'they know nothing.
But!--' At this significant Italian rest on the word 'But,' his
backhanded shake of his right forefinger came into play; a very
little, and very cautiously.

'But!--After a long time when I have not been able to find that
he is here in Londra, some one tells me of a soldier with white
hair-- hey?--not hair like this that he carries--white--who lives
retired secrettementally, in a certain place. But!--' with another
rest upon the word, 'who sometimes in the after-dinner, walks, and
smokes. It is necessary, as they say in Italy (and as they know,
poor people), to have patience. I have patience. I ask where is
this certain place. One. believes it is here, one believes it is
there. Eh well! It is not here, it is not there. I wait
patientissamentally. At last I find it. Then I watch; then I hide,
until he walks and smokes. He is a soldier with grey hair-- But!--'
a very decided rest indeed, and a very vigorous play from side to
side of the back-handed forefinger--'he is also this man that you
see.'

It was noticeable, that, in his old habit of submission to one
who had been at the trouble of asserting superiority over him, he
even then bestowed upon Rigaud a confused bend of his head, after
thus pointing him out.

'Eh well, Signore!' he cried in conclusion, addressing Arthur
again. 'I waited for a good opportunity. I writed some words to
Signor Panco,' an air of novelty came over Mr Pancks with this
designation, 'to come and help. I showed him, Rigaud, at his window,
to Signor Panco, who was often the spy in the day. I slept at night
near the door of the house. At last we entered, only this to-day,
and now you see him! As he would not come up in presence of the
illustrious Advocate,' such was Mr Baptist's honourable mention of Mr
Rugg, 'we waited down below there, together, and Signor Panco guarded
the street.'

At the close of this recital, Arthur turned his eyes upon the
impudent and wicked face. As it met his, the nose came down over the
moustache and the moustache went up under the nose. When nose and
moustache had settled into their places again, Monsieur Rigaud loudly
snapped his fingers half-a-dozen times; bending forward to jerk the
snaps at Arthur, as if they were palpable missiles which he jerked
into his face.

'Now, Philosopher!' said Rigaud.'What do you want with me?'

'I want to know,' returned Arthur, without disguising his
abhorrence, 'how you dare direct a suspicion of murder against my
mother's house?'

'Dare!' cried Rigaud. 'Ho, ho! Hear him! Dare? Is it dare?
By Heaven, my small boy, but you are a little imprudent!'

'I want that suspicion to be cleared away,' said Arthur. 'You
shall be taken there, and be publicly seen. I want to know,
moreover, what business you had there when I had a burning desire to
fling you down-stairs. Don't frown at me, man! I have seen enough
of you to know that you are a bully and coward. I need no revival of
my spirits from the effects of this wretched place to tell you so
plain a fact, and one that you know so well.'

White to the lips, Rigaud stroked his moustache, muttering, 'By
Heaven, my small boy, but you are a little compromising of my lady,
your respectable mother'--and seemed for a minute undecided how to
act. His indecision was soon gone. He sat himself down with a
threatening swagger, and said:

'Give me a bottle of wine. You can buy wine here. Send one of
your madmen to get me a bottle of wine. I won't talk to you without
wine. Come! Yes or no?'

'Fetch him what he wants, Cavalletto,' said Arthur, scornfully,
producing the money.

'Contraband beast,' added Rigaud, 'bring Port wine! I'll drink
nothing but Porto-Porto.'

The contraband beast, however, assuring all present, with his
significant finger, that he peremptorily declined to leave his post
at the door, Signor Panco offered his services. He soon returned
with the bottle of wine: which, according to the custom of the place,
originating in a scarcity of corkscrews among the Collegians (in
common with a scarcity of much else), was already opened for use.

'Madman! A large glass,' said Rigaud.

Signor Panco put a tumbler before him; not without a visible
conflict of feeling on the question of throwing it at his head.

'Haha!' boasted Rigaud. 'Once a gentleman, and always a
gentleman.

A gentleman from the beginning, and a gentleman to the end.
What the Devil! A gentleman must be waited on, I hope? It's a part
of my character to be waited on!'

He half filled the tumbler as he said it, and drank off the
contents when he had done saying it.

'Hah!' smacking his lips. 'Not a very old prisoner that! I
judge by your looks, brave sir, that imprisonment will subdue your
blood much sooner than it softens this hot wine. You are mellowing--
losing body and colour already. I salute you!'

He tossed off another half glass: holding it up both before and
afterwards, so as to display his small, white hand.

'To business,' he then continued. 'To conversation. You have
shown yourself more free of speech than body, sir.'

'I have used the freedom of telling you what you know yourself
to be. You know yourself, as we all know you, to be far worse than
that.'

'Add, always a gentleman, and it's no matter. Except in that
regard, we are all alike. For example: you couldn't for your life be
a gentleman; I couldn't for my life be otherwise. How great the
difference! Let us go on. Words, sir, never influence the course of
the cards, or the course of the dice. Do you know that? You do? I
also play a game, and words are without power over it.'

Now that he was confronted with Cavalletto, and knew that his
story was known--whatever thin disguise he had worn, he dropped; and
faced it out, with a bare face, as the infamous wretch he was.

'No, my son,' he resumed, with a snap of his fingers. 'I play
my game to the end in spite of words; and Death of my Body and Death
of my Soul! I'll win it. You want to know why I played this little
trick that you have interrupted? Know then that I had, and that I
have--do you understand me? have--a commodity to sell to my lady
your respectable mother. I described my precious commodity, and
fixed my price. Touching the bargain, your admirable mother was a
little too calm, too stolid, too immovable and statue-like. In fine,
your admirable mother vexed me. To make variety in my position, and
to amuse myself--what! a gentleman must be amused at somebody's
expense!--I conceived the happy idea of disappearing. An idea, see
you, that your characteristic mother and my Flintwinch would have
been well enough pleased to execute. Ah! Bah, bah, bah, don't look
as from high to low at me! I repeat it. Well enough pleased,
excessively enchanted, and with all their hearts ravished. How
strongly will you have it?'

He threw out the lees of his glass on the ground, so that they
nearly spattered Cavalletto. This seemed to draw his attention to
him anew. He set down his glass and said:

'I'll not fill it. What! I am born to be served. Come then,
you Cavalletto, and fill!'

The little man looked at Clennam, whose eyes were occupied with
Rigaud, and, seeing no prohibition, got up from the ground, and
poured out from the bottle into the glass. The blending, as he did
so, of his old submission with a sense of something humorous; the
striving of that with a certain smouldering ferocity, which might
have flashed fire in an instant (as the born gentleman seemed to
think, for he had a wary eye upon him); and the easy yielding of all
to a good-natured, careless, predominant propensity to sit down on
the ground again: formed a very remarkable combination of
character.

'This happy idea, brave sir,' Rigaud resumed after drinking,
'was a happy idea for several reasons. It amused me, it worried your
dear mama and my Flintwinch, it caused you agonies (my terms for a
lesson in politeness towards a gentleman), and it suggested to all
the amiable persons interested that your entirely devoted is a man to
fear. By Heaven, he is a man to fear! Beyond this; it might have
restored her wit to my lady your mother--might, under the pressing
little suspicion your wisdom has recognised, have persuaded her at
last to announce, covertly, in the journals, that the difficulties of
a certain contract would be removed by the appearance of a certain
important party to it. Perhaps yes, perhaps no. But that, you have
interrupted. Now, what is it you say? What is it you want?'

Never had Clennam felt more acutely that he was a prisoner in
bonds, than when he saw this man before him, and could not accompany
him to his mother's house. All the undiscernible difficulties and
dangers he had ever feared were closing in, when he could not stir
hand or foot.

'Perhaps, my friend, philosopher, man of virtue, Imbecile, what
you will; perhaps,' said Rigaud, pausing in his drink to look out of
his glass with his horrible smile, 'you would have done better to
leave me alone?'

'No! At least,' said Clennam, 'you are known to be alive and
unharmed. At least you cannot escape from these two witnesses; and
they can produce you before any public authorities, or before
hundreds of people!'

'But will not produce me before one,' said Rigaud, snapping his
fingers again with an air of triumphant menace. 'To the Devil with
your witnesses! To the Devil with your produced! To the Devil with
yourself! What! Do I know what I know, for that? Have I my
commodity on sale, for that? Bah, poor debtor! You have interrupted
my little project. Let it pass. How then? What remains? To you,
nothing; to me, all. Produce me! Is that what you want? I will
produce myself, only too quickly. Contrabandist!

Give me pen, ink, and paper.'

Cavalletto got up again as before, and laid them before him in
his former manner. Rigaud, after some villainous thinking and
smiling, wrote, and read aloud, as follows:

'To Mrs Clennam.

'Wait answer.

'Prison of the Marshalsea.
'At the apartment of your son.

'Dear Madam,--I am in despair to be informed to-day by our
prisoner here (who has had the goodness to employ spies to seek me,
living for politic reasons in retirement), that you have had fears
for my safety.

'Reassure yourself, dear madam. I am well, I am strong and
constant.

'With the greatest impatience I should fly to your house, but
that I foresee it to be possible, under the circumstances, that you
will not yet have quite definitively arranged the little proposition
I have had the honour to submit to you. I name one week from this
day, for a last final visit on my part; when you will unconditionally
accept it or reject it, with its train of consequences.

'I suppress my ardour to embrace you and achieve this
interesting business, in order that you may have leisure to adjust
its details to our perfect mutual satisfaction.

'In the meanwhile, it is not too much to propose (our prisoner
having deranged my housekeeping), that my expenses of lodging and
nourishment at an hotel shall be paid by you.

'Receive, dear madam, the assurance of my highest and most
distinguished consideration,

'Rigaud Blandois.

'A thousand friendships to that dear Flintwinch.

'I kiss the hands of Madame F.'

When he had finished this epistle, Rigaud folded it and tossed
it with a flourish at Clennam's feet. 'Hola you! Apropos of
producing, let somebody produce that at its address, and produce the
answer here.'

'Cavalletto,' said Arthur. 'Will you take this fellow's
letter?'

But, Cavalletto's significant finger again expressing that his
post was at the door to keep watch over Rigaud, now he had found him
with so much trouble, and that the duty of his post was to sit on the
floor backed up by the door, looking at Rigaud and holding his own
ankles,--Signor Panco once more volunteered. His services being
accepted, Cavalletto suffered the door to open barely wide enough to
admit of his squeezing himself out, and immediately shut it on
him.

'Touch me with a finger, touch me with an epithet, question my
superiority as I sit here drinking my wine at my pleasure,' said
Rigaud, 'and I follow the letter and cancel my week's grace. You
wanted me? You have got me! How do you like me?'

'You know,' returned Clennam, with a bitter sense of his
helplessness, 'that when I sought you, I was not a prisoner.'

'To the Devil with you and your prison,' retorted Rigaud,
leisurely, as he took from his pocket a case containing the materials
for making cigarettes, and employed his facile hands in folding a few
for present use; 'I care for neither of you. Contrabandist! A
light.'

Again Cavalletto got up, and gave him what he wanted. There had
been something dreadful in the noiseless skill of his cold, white
hands, with the fingers lithely twisting about and twining one over
another like serpents. Clennam could not prevent himself from
shuddering inwardly, as if he had been looking on at a nest of those
creatures.

'Hola, Pig!' cried Rigaud, with a noisy stimulating cry, as if
Cavalletto were an Italian horse or mule. 'What! The infernal old
jail was a respectable one to this. There was dignity in the bars
and stones of that place. It was a prison for men. But this? Bah!
A hospital for imbeciles!'

He smoked his cigarette out, with his ugly smile so fixed upon
his face that he looked as though he were smoking with his drooping
beak of a nose, rather than with his mouth; like a fancy in a weird
picture. When he had lighted a second cigarette at the still burning
end of the first, he said to Clennam:

'One must pass the time in the madman's absence. One must talk.
One can't drink strong wine all day long, or I would have another
bottle. She's handsome, sir. Though not exactly to my taste, still,
by the Thunder and the Lightning! handsome. I felicitate you on
your admiration.'

'I neither know nor ask,' said Clennam, 'of whom you speak.'

'Della bella Gowana, sir, as they say in Italy. Of the Gowan,
the fair Gowan.'

'Of whose husband you were the--follower, I think?'

'Sir? Follower? You are insolent. The friend.'

'Do you sell all your friends?'

Rigaud took his cigarette from his mouth, and eyed him with a
momentary revelation of surprise. But he put it between his lips
again, as he answered with coolness:

'I sell anything that commands a price. How do your lawyers
live, your politicians, your intriguers, your men of the Exchange?
How do you live? How do you come here? Have you sold no friend?
Lady of mine! I rather think, yes!'

Clennam turned away from him towards the window, and sat looking
out at the wall.

'Effectively, sir,' said Rigaud, 'Society sells itself and sells
me: and I sell Society. I perceive you have acquaintance with
another lady. Also handsome. A strong spirit. Let us see. How do
they call her? Wade.'

He received no answer, but could easily discern that he had hit
the mark.

'Yes,' he went on, 'that handsome lady and strong spirit
addresses me in the street, and I am not insensible. I respond.
That handsome lady and strong spirit does me the favour to remark, in
full confidence, "I have my curiosity, and I have my chagrins. You
are not more than ordinarily honourable, perhaps?" I announce myself,
"Madame, a gentleman from the birth, and a gentleman to the death;
but not more than ordinarily honourable. I despise such a weak
fantasy." Thereupon she is pleased to compliment. "The difference
between you and the rest is," she answers, "that you say so." For
she knows Society. I accept her congratulations with gallantry and
politeness. Politeness and little gallantries are inseparable from
my character. She then makes a proposition, which is, in effect,
that she has seen us much together; that it appears to her that I am
for the passing time the cat of the house, the friend of the family;
that her curiosity and her chagrins awaken the fancy to be acquainted
with their movements, to know the manner of their life, how the fair
Gowana is beloved, how the fair Gowana is cherished, and so on. She
is not rich, but offers such and such little recompenses for the
little cares and derangements of such services; and I graciously--to
do everything graciously is a part of my character--consent to accept
them. O yes! So goes the world. It is the mode.'

Though Clennam's back was turned while he spoke, and thenceforth
to the end of the interview, he kept those glittering eyes of his
that were too near together, upon him, and evidently saw in the very
carriage of the head, as he passed with his braggart recklessness
from clause to clause of what he said, that he was saying nothing
which Clennam did not already know.

'Whoof! The fair Gowana!' he said, lighting a third cigarette
with a sound as if his lightest breath could blow her away.
'Charming, but imprudent! For it was not well of the fair Gowana to
make mysteries of letters from old lovers, in her bedchamber on the
mountain, that her husband might not see them. No, no. That was not
well. Whoof! The Gowana was mistaken there.'

'I earnestly hope,' cried Arthur aloud, 'that Pancks may not be
long gone, for this man's presence pollutes the room.'

'Ah! But he'll flourish here, and everywhere,' said Rigaud,
with an exulting look and snap of his fingers. 'He always has; he
always will!' Stretching his body out on the only three chairs in
the room besides that on which Clennam sat, he sang, smiting himself
on the breast as the gallant personage of the song.

'Who passes by this road so late? Compagnon de
la Majolaine! Who passes by this road so late? Always
gay! 'Sing the Refrain, pig! You could sing it once, in another
jail. Sing it! Or, by every Saint who was stoned to death, I'll be
affronted and compromising; and then some people who are not dead
yet, had better have been stoned along with them!'

'Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower,
Compagnon de la Majolaine! Of all the king's knights 'tis the
flower, Always gay!' Partly in his old habit of
submission, partly because his not doing it might injure his
benefactor, and partly because he would as soon do it as anything
else, Cavalletto took up the Refrain this time. Rigaud laughed, and
fell to smoking with his eyes shut.

Possibly another quarter of an hour elapsed before Mr Pancks's
step was heard upon the stairs, but the interval seemed to Clennam
insupportably long. His step was attended by another step; and when
Cavalletto opened the door, he admitted Mr Pancks and Mr Flintwinch.
The latter was no sooner visible, than Rigaud rushed at him and
embraced him boisterously.

'How do you find yourself, sir?' said Mr Flintwinch, as soon as
he could disengage himself, which he struggled to do with very little
ceremony. 'Thank you, no; I don't want any more.' This was in
reference to another menace of attention from his recovered
friend.

'Well, Arthur. You remember what I said to you about sleeping
dogs and missing ones. It's come true, you see.'

He was as imperturbable as ever, to all appearance, and nodded
his head in a moralising way as he looked round the room.

'And this is the Marshalsea prison for debt!' said Mr
Flintwinch. 'Hah! you have brought your pigs to a very indifferent
market, Arthur.'

If Arthur had patience, Rigaud had not. He took his little
Flintwinch, with fierce playfulness, by the two lapels of his coat,
and cried:

'To the Devil with the Market, to the Devil with the Pigs, and
to the Devil with the Pig-Driver! Now! Give me the answer to my
letter.'

'If you can make it convenient to let go a moment, sir,'
returned Mr Flintwinch, 'I'll first hand Mr Arthur a little note that
I have for him.'

He did so. It was in his mother's maimed writing, on a slip of
paper, and contained only these words:

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

Clennam read this twice, in silence, and then tore it to pieces.
Rigaud in the meanwhile stepped into a chair, and sat himself on the
back with his feet upon the seat.

'Now, Beau Flintwinch,' he said, when he had closely watched the
note to its destruction, 'the answer to my letter?'

'Mrs Clennam did not write, Mr Blandois, her hands being
cramped, and she thinking it as well to send it verbally by me.' Mr
Flintwinch screwed this out of himself, unwillingly and rustily.
'She sends her compliments, and says she doesn't on the whole wish to
term you unreasonable, and that she agrees. But without prejudicing
the appointment that stands for this day week.'

Monsieur Rigaud, after indulging in a fit of laughter, descended
from his throne, saying, 'Good! I go to seek an hotel!' But, there
his eyes encountered Cavalletto, who was still at his post.

'Come, Pig,' he added, 'I have had you for a follower against my
will; now, I'll have you against yours. I tell you, my little
reptiles, I am born to be served. I demand the service of this
contrabandist as my domestic until this day week.'

In answer to Cavalletto's look of inquiry, Clennam made him a
sign to go; but he added aloud, 'unless you are afraid of him.'
Cavalletto replied with a very emphatic finger-negative.'No, master,
I am not afraid of him, when I no more keep it secrettementally that
he was once my comrade.' Rigaud took no notice of either remark
until he had lighted his last cigarette and was quite ready for
walking.

'Afraid of him,' he said then, looking round upon them all.
'Whoof! My children, my babies, my little dolls, you are all afraid
of him. You give him his bottle of wine here; you give him meat,
drink, and lodging there; you dare not touch him with a finger or an
epithet. No. It is his character to triumph! Whoof!

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

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

The prisoner, with the feeling that he was more despised, more
scorned and repudiated, more helpless, altogether more miserable and
fallen than before, was left alone again.