 Chapter 22. Book the Second of Little Dorit. Read for LibriVox.org by Ellis Christoff. Little Dorit by Charles Dickens. Book the Second. Chapter 22. Who passes by this road so late? Arthur Clenham had made his unavailing expedition to Calais in the midst of a great pressure of business. A certain barbaric power with valuable possessions on the map of the world had occasion for the services of one or two engineers quick in invention and determined in execution. Practical men who could make the men and means their ingenuity perceived to be wanted out of the best materials they could find at hand and who are as bold and fertile in the adaptation of such materials for their purpose as in the conception of their purpose itself. This power, being a barbaric one, had no idea of stowing away a great national object in a circumlocution office. A strong wine is hidden from the light in a cellar until its fire and youth are gone and the laborers who worked in the vineyard and pressed the grapes are dust. With characteristic ignorance it acted on the most decided and energetic notions of how to do it and never showed the least respect for or gave any quarter to the great political science how not to do it. Indeed, it had a barbarous way of striking the latter art and mystery dead in the person of any enlightened subject who practiced it. Accordingly, the men who were wanted were sought out and found which was in itself a most uncivilized and irregular way of proceeding. Being found, they were treated with great confidence and honor which again showed dense political ignorance and were invited to come at once and do what they had to do. In short, they were regarded as men who meant to do it engaging with other men who meant it to be done. Daniel Dois was one of the chosen. There was no foreseeing at that time whether he would be absent months or years. The preparations for his departure and the conscientious arrangement for him of all the details and results of their joint business had necessitated labor within a short compass of time which had occupied Clenum day and night. He had slipped across the water in his first leisure and had slipped as quickly back again for his farewell interview with Dois. Him Arthur now showed, with pain and care, the state of their gains and losses, responsibilities and prospects. Daniel went through it all in his patient manner and admired it all exceedingly. He audited the accounts as if they were a far more ingenious piece of mechanism than he had ever constructed and afterwards stood looking at them weighing his head over his head by the brims as if he were absorbed in the contemplation of some wonderful engine. It's all beautiful Clenum in its regularity and order. Nothing can be planer, nothing can be better. I am glad you approved Dois. Now, as to the management of your capital while you are away and as to the conversion of so much of it as the business may need from time to time, his partner stopped him. As to that and as to everything else of that kind all rests with you. You will continue in all such manners to act for both of us as you have done hitherto and to lighten my mind of a load it is much relieved from. Though as I often tell you, returned Clenum, you unreasonably depreciate your business qualities. Perhaps so said Dois smiling and perhaps not. Anyhow, I have a calling that I have studied more than such matters and that I am better fitted for. I have perfect confidence in my partner and I am satisfied that he will do what is best. If I have a prejudice connected with money and money figures continued Dois, laying that plastic workman's thumb of his on the lapel of his partner's coat, it is against speculating. I don't think I have any other. I dare say I entertain that prejudice only because I have never given my mind fully to the subject. But you shouldn't call it a prejudice, said Clenum, my dear Dois. It is the soundest sense. I am glad you think so, returned Dois, with his grey eye-looking kind and bright. It so happens, said Clenum, that just now, not half an hour before you came down, I was saying the same thing to Panks, who looked in here. We both agreed that to travel out of safe investments is one of the most dangerous as it is one of the most common of those follies which often deserve the name of vices. Panks, said Dois, tilting up his hat at the back and nodding with an air of confidence. Aye, aye, aye, that's a cautious fellow. He is a very cautious fellow indeed, returned Arthur, quite a specimen of caution. They both appeared to derive a larger amount of satisfaction from the cautious character of Mr. Panks. Dan was quite intelligible, judged by the surface of their conversation. And now, said Daniel, looking at his watch, as time and tide wait for no man, my trusty partner, and as I am ready for starting, bag and baggage, at the gate below, let me say a last word. I want you to grant a request of mine. Any request you can make, accept. Clenum was quick with his exception, for his partner's face was quick in suggesting it. Accept that I will abandon your invention. That's the request and you know it is, said Dois. I say no then. I say positively no. Now that I have begun, I will have some definite reason, some responsible statement, something in the nature of a real answer from those people. You will not, returned Dois, shaking his head. Take my word for it. You never will. At least I'll try, said Clenum. It will do me no harm to try. I am not certain of that, rejoined Dois, laying his hand persuasively on his shoulder. It has done me harm, my friend. It has aged me, tired me, vexed me, disappointed me. It does no man any good to have his patients worn out and to think himself ill-used. I fancy even already that unavailing attendance on delays and evasions has made you something less elastic than you used to be. Private anxieties may have done that for the moment, said Clenum, but not official harrying, not yet. I am not hurt yet. Then you won't grant my request? Decidedly no, said Clenum. I should be ashamed if I submitted to be so soon driven out of the field, where a much older and a much more sensitively interested man contended with fortitude so long. As there was no moving him, Daniel Dois returned the grasp of his hand and, casting a farewell look round the counting house, went downstairs with him. Dois was to go to Southampton to join the small staff of his fellow travellers and a coach was at the gate, well furnished and packed and ready to take him there. The workmen were at the gate to see him off and were mightily proud of him. Good luck to you, Mr. Dois, said one of the number. Wherever you go, they'll find as they've got a man among him, a man as knows his tools, and as his tools knows, a man as is willing and a man as is eyeball, and if that's not a man, where is a man? This oration from a graph volunteer in the background, not previously suspected of any powers in that way, was received with three loud cheers and the speaker became a distinguished character for ever afterwards. In the midst of the three loud cheers, Daniel gave them all a hearty, goodbye, men, and the coach disappeared from sight as if the concussion of the air had blown it out of bleeding heart-yard. Mr. Baptist, as a grateful little fellow in a position of trust, was among the workmen and had done as much towards the cheering as a mere foreigner could. In truth, no man on earth can cheer like Englishmen who do so rally one another's blood and spirit when they cheer in earnest that the stir is like the rush of their whole history with all its standards waving at once, from Saxon Alfred's downwards. Mr. Baptist had been in a manner world away before the onset and was taking his breath in quite a scared condition when Clenum beckoned him to follow upstairs and returned the books and papers to their places. In the lull consequence on the departure, in that first vacuity which ensues on every separation foreshadowing the great separation that is always overhanging all mankind, Arthur stood at his desk, looking dreamily out at a gleam of sun. But his liberated attention soon reverted to the theme that was foremost in his thoughts and began, for the hundredth time, to dwell upon every circumstance that had impressed itself upon his mind on the mysterious night when he had seen the man at his mother's. Again the man jostled him in the crooked street. Again he followed the man and lost him. Again he came upon the man in the courtyard looking at the house. Again he followed the man and stood beside him on the doorsteps. Who passes by this road so late? Compagnon de la majeolaine. Who passes by this road so late? Always gay. It was not the first time, by many, that he had recalled the song of the child's game of which the fellow had hummed the verse while they stood side by side. But he was so unconscious of having repeated it audibly that he started to hear the next verse. Of all the king's knights dis the flower Compagnon de la majeolaine Of all the king's knights dis the flower Always gay. Cavalletto had differentially suggested the words and tune supposing him to have stopped short for want of more. Ah, you know the song, Cavalletto? By Bacchus yes, sir. They all know it in France. I have heard it many times, sung by the little children. The last time when it I have heard, said Mr. Baptist, formerly Cavalletto, who usually went back to his native construction of sentences when his memory went near home, is from a sweet little voice, a little voice very pretty, very innocent, altra. The last time I heard it, returned Arthur, was in a voice quite the reverse of pretty and quite the reverse of innocent. He said it more to himself than to his companion and added to himself, repeating the man's next words, Death of my life, sir. It's my character to be impatient. Eh? Cried Cavalletto astounded and with all his color gone in a moment. What is the matter? Sir, you know where I have heard that song the last time? With his rapid native action, his hands made the outline of a high hook nose, pushed his eyes near together, disheveled his hair, puffed out his upper lip to represent a thick moustache and threw the heavy end of an ideal cloak over his shoulder. While doing this, with a swiftness incredible to one who has not watched an Italian peasant, he indicated a very remarkable and sinister smile. The whole change passed over him like a flash of light and he stood in the same instant pale and astonished before his patron. In the name of fate and wonder, said Clenum, what do you mean? Do you know a man of the name of Blondoi? No, said Mr. Baptist shaking his head. You have just now described a man who was by when you heard that song, have you not? Yes, said Mr. Baptist nodding fifty times. And was he not called Blondoi? No, said Mr. Baptist. Altro, altro, altro, altro! He could not reject the name sufficiently with his head and his right forefinger going at once. Stay! cried Clenum, spreading out the hand-bill on his desk. Was this the man? You can understand what I read aloud? All together, perfectly. But look at it too, come here and look over me while I read. Mr. Baptist approached, followed every word with his quick eyes, saw and heard it all out with the greatest impatience, then clapped his two hands flat upon the bill as if he had fiercely caught some noxious creature and cried looking eagerly at Clenum. It is the man, behold him! This is a far greater moment to me, said Clenum in great agitation. Then you can imagine, tell me where you knew the man. Mr. Baptist, releasing the paper very slowly and with much discomfort here and drawing himself back two or three paces and making as though he dusted his hands, returned very much against his will. At Marsilia, Marseille! What was he? A prisoner and altro, I believe, yes, an... Mr. Baptist crept closer again to whisper it. Assassin. Clenum fell back as if the word had struck him or blow. So terrible did it make his mother's communication with the man appear. Cavaletto dropped on one knee and implored him with a redundancy of gesticulation to hear what had brought himself into such foul company. He told with perfect truth how it had come of a little contraband trading and how he had in time been released from prison and how he had gone away from those antecedents. How? At the house of entertainment called the break of day at Charlon on the soon, he had been awakened in his bed at night by the same assassin, then assuming the name of Launier, though his name had formally been Riegel. How the assassin had proposed that they should join their fortunes together. How he held the assassin in such dread and aversion that he had fled from him at daylight. And how he had ever since been haunted by the fear of seeing the assassin again and being claimed by him as an acquaintance. When he had related this with an emphasis and poise on the word assassin, peculiarly belonging to his own language and which did not serve to render it less terrible to clenum, he suddenly sprang to his feet, pounced upon the bill again and with the vehemence that would have been absolute madness in any man of northern origin, cried, We hold the same assassin, here he is! In his passionate raptures he had first forgot the fact that he had lately seen the assassin in London. On his remembering it, it suggested hope to clenum that the recognition might be of later date than the night of the visit at his mother's. But Cavalletto was too exact and clear about time and place to leave any opening for doubt that it had preceded that occasion. Listen, said Arthur very seriously, this man, as we have read here, has wholly disappeared. Of it I am well content, said Cavalletto raising his eyes piously. A thousand thanks to heaven, accursed assassin! Not so, returned clenum, for until something more is heard of him I can never know an hour's peace. Enough benefactor, that is quite another thing, a million of excuses. Now Cavalletto, said clenum gently turning him by the arm, so that they looked into each other's eyes. I am certain that for the little I have been able to do for you you are the most sincerely grateful of men. I swear it! cried the other. I know it. If you could find this man or discover what has become of him or gain any later intelligence whatever of him he would render me a service above any other service I could receive in the world and would make me, with far greater reason, as grateful to you as you are to me. I know not where to look, cried the little man kissing other's hand in a transport. I know not where to begin, I know not where to go, but courage, enough, it matters not. I go in this instant of time. Not a word to anyone but me, Cavalletto. I'll draw, cried Cavalletto, and was gone with great speed. End of chapter the 22nd Book the Second of Little Dorit This recording is in the public domain. Chapter the 23rd Book the Second of Little Dorit Read for LibriVox.org by Elis Christov Little Dorit by Charles Dickens Book the 2nd Chapter the 23rd Mistress Athery makes a conditional promise respecting her dreams. Left alone, with the expressive looks and gestures of Mr. Baptist, otherwise Giovanni Baptista Cavalletto vividly before him, clenimented on a weary day. It was in vain that he tried to control his attention by directing it to any business occupation or train of thought. It roared at anchor by the haunting topic and would hold to no other idea. As though a criminal should be chained in a stationary boat on a deep, clear river, condemned whatever countless leagues of water flowed past him, always to see the body of the fellow creature he had drowned lying at the bottom, immovable and unchangeable, except as the eddies made it broad or long, now expanding, now contracting its terrible lineaments. So Arthur, below the shifting current of transparent thoughts and fancies, which were gone and succeeded by others as soon as come, so steady and dark, and not to be stirred from its place, the one subject that he endeavored with all his might to rid himself of, and that he could not fly from. The assurance he now had that Blondois, whatever his right name was one of the worst of characters, greatly augmented the burden of his anxieties. Though the disappearance should be accounted for tomorrow, the fact that his mother had been in communication with such a man would remain unalterable, that the communication had been of a secret kind, and that she had been submissive to him and afraid of him, he hoped might be known to no one beyond himself. Yet, knowing it, how could he separate it from his old vague fears, and how believe that there was nothing evil in such relations? Her resolution not to enter on the question with him, and his knowledge of her indomitable character enhanced his sense of helplessness. It was like the oppression of a dream to believe that shame and exposure were impending over her and his father's memory, and to be shut out as by a brazen wall from the possibility of coming to their aid. The purpose he had brought home to his native country, and had ever since kept in view was, with her greatest determination defeated by his mother herself at the time of all others when he feared that it pressed most. His advice, energy, activity, money, credit, all his resources whatsoever were all made useless. If she had been possessed of the old fabled influence, and had turned those who looked upon her into stone, she could not have rendered him more completely powerless. So it seemed to him in his distress of mind than she did, when she turned her unyielding face to his in her gloomy room. But the light of that day's discovery, shining on these considerations, roused him to take a more decided cause of action. Confident in the rectitude of his purpose, and impelled by a sense of overhanging danger closing in around, he resolved if his mother would still admit of no approach to make a desperate appeal to athory. If she could be brought to become communicative and to do what lay in her to break the spell of secrecy that enshrouded the house, he might shake off the paralysis of which every hour that passed over his head made him more acutely sensible. This was the result of his day's anxiety, and this was the decision he put in practice when the day closed in. His first disappointment on arriving at the house was to find the door open and Mr. Flintwinch smoking a pipe on the steps. If circumstances had been commonly favourable, Mistress Afery would have opened the door to his knock. Circumstances being uncommonly unfavourable, the door stood open, and Mr. Flintwinch was smoking his pipe on the steps. Good evening, said Arthur. Good evening, said Mr. Flintwinch. The smoke came crookedly out of Mr. Flintwinch's mouth, as if it circulated through the whole of his writhe figure and came back by his writhe throat before coming forth to mingle with the smoke from the crooked chimneys and the mists from the crooked river. Have you any news? said Arthur. We have no news, said Jeremiah. I mean of the foreign man. Arthur explained. I mean of the foreign man, said Jeremiah. He looked so grim, as he stood as cue, with a knot of his cravat under his ear, that the thought passed into Clenham's mind and not for the first time by many, could Flintwinch, for a purpose of his own, have got rid of Blandois. Could it have been his secret and his safety that were at issue? He was small and bent and perhaps not actively strong, yet he was as tough as an old yew tree and as crusty as an old jack door. Such a man, coming behind a much younger and more vigorous man and having the will to put an end to him and no relenting, might do it pretty surely in that solitary place at a late hour. While in the morbid condition of his thoughts, these thoughts drifted over the main one that was always in Clenham's mind. Mr. Flintwinch, regarding the opposite house over the gateway with his neck twisted and one eye shut up, stood smoking with a vicious expression upon him, more as if he were trying to bite off the stem of his pipe than as if he were enjoying it. Yet he was enjoying it in his own way. You'll be able to take my likeness the next time you call Arthur, I should think, said Mr. Flintwinch, dryly, as he stooped to knock the ashes out. Rather conscious and confused, Arthur asked his pardon if he had stared at him unpolitely. But my mind ran so much upon this matter, he said, that I lose myself. Ha! Yet I don't say, returned Mr. Flintwinch quiet at his leisure, why it should trouble you, Arthur. No? No, said Mr. Flintwinch, very shortly and decidedly, much as if he were of the canine race and snapped at Arthur's hand. Is it nothing to see those placards about? Is it nothing to me to see my mother's name and residence hawked up and down in such an association? I don't say, returned Mr. Flintwinch, returned Mr. Flintwinch, scraping his horny cheek, that it need signify much to you, but I'll tell you what I do see, Arthur, glancing up at the windows. I see the light of fire and candle in your mother's room. And what has that to do with it? Why, sir, I read by it, said Mr. Flintwinch, screwing himself at him, that if it's advisable, as the proverb says it is, to let sleeping dogs lie, advisable perhaps to let missing dogs lie, let them be, they generally tone up soon enough. Mr. Flintwinch turned short round when he had made this remark and went into the dark hall. Clenum stood there, following him with his eyes. As he dipped for a light in the phosphorus box in the little room at the side, got one of the three or four dips and lighted the dim lamp against the wall. All the while, Clenum was pursuing the probabilities, rather as if they were being shown to him by an invisible hand, than as if he himself were conjuring them up of Mr. Flintwinch's ways and means of doing that darker deed and removing its traces by any of the black avenues of shadow that lay around them. No, sir, said the testy Jeremiah, will it be agreeable to walk upstairs? My mother is alone, I suppose. Not alone, said Mr. Flintwinch, where Mr. Caspy and his daughter are with her. They came in while I was smoking and I stayed behind to have my smoke out. This was the second disappointment. Arthur made no remark upon it and repaired to his mother's room where Mr. Caspy and Flora had been taking tea, anchovy paste and hot buttered toast. The relics of those delicacies were not yet removed, either from the table of the staffery, who, with the kitchen toasting fork still in her hand, looked like a sort of allegorical personage, except that she had a considerable advantage over the general run of such personages in point of significant emblematical purpose. Flora had spread her bonnet and shawl upon the bed with a care indicative of an intention to stay some time. Mr. Caspy, too, was beaming near the hob with his benevolent knobs shining as if the warm butter of the toast was dueling through the patriarchal skull and with his face as ruddy as if the colouring matter of the anchovy paste were mantling in the patriarchal visage. Seeing this, as he exchanged the usual salutations, Clenum decided to speak to his mother without postponement. It had long been customary as she never changed her room for those who had anything to say to her apart to wheel her to her desk. Where she sat, usually with the back of her chair turned towards the rest of the room and the person who talked with her seated in a corner on a stool which was always set in that place for that purpose. Except that it was long since the mother and son had spoken together. Without the intervention of a third person, it was an ordinary matter, of course, within the experience of visitors for Mrs. Clenum to be asked, with a word of apology for the interruption if she could be spoken with on a matter of business and on her replying in the affirmative to be wheeled into the position described. Therefore when Arthur now made such an apology and such a request and moved her to her desk and seated himself on the stool, Mrs. Finching merely began to talk louder and faster as a delicate hint that she could overhear nothing and Mr. Caspy stroked his long white locks to be calmness. Mother, I have heard something today which I feel persuaded you don't know and which I think you should know on the antecedents of that man I saw here. I know nothing of the antecedents of the man you saw here, Arthur. She spoke aloud. He had lowered his own voice but she rejected that advance towards confidence as she rejected every other and spoke in her usual key and in her usual stern voice. I have received it on no circuitous information. It has come to me direct. She asked him exactly as before if he were there to tell her what it was. I thought it right that you should know it. And what is it? He has been a prisoner in a French jail. She answered with composure I should think that very likely but in a jail for criminals mother on an accusation of murder. She started at the word and her looks expressed her natural horror. Yet, she still spoke aloud when she demanded Who told you so? A man who was his fellow prisoner. That man's antecedents I suppose were not known to you before he told you? No. Though the man himself was yes, my case in respect of this other man I dare say the resemblance is not so exact though as that your informant became known to you through a letter from a correspondent with whom he had deposited money how does that part of the parallel stand? Arthur had no choice but to say that his informant had not become known to him through the agency of any such credentials or indeed of any credentials at all. Mrs. Clenham's attentive frown expanded by degrees into a severe look of triumph and she retorted with emphasis Take care how you judge others then I say to you Arthur for your good take care how you judge Her emphasis had been derived from her eyes quite as much as from the stress she laid upon her words. She continued to look at him and if when he entered the house he had had any latent hope of prevailing the least with her she now looked it out of his heart Mother shall I do nothing to assist you nothing will you entrust me with no confidence no charge no explanation will you take no counsel with me will you not let me come near you how can you ask me you separated yourself from my affairs it was not my act it was yours how can you consistently ask me such a question you know that you left me to Flintwinch and that he occupies your place glancing at Jeremiah Clenham saw in his verigators that his attention was closely directed to them though he stood leaning against the wall scraping his jaw and pretended to listen to Flora as she held forth in a most distracting manner on a chaos of subjects in which mackerel and Mr. F. Sound in a swing had become entangled with cock chafers and the wine trade a prisoner in a French jail on an accusation of murder repeated Mrs. Clenham steadily going over what her son had said that is all you know of him from the fellow prisoner in substance all and was the fellow prisoner his accomplice and a murderer too but of course he gives a better account of himself than of his friend it is needless to ask this will supply the rest of them here with something new to talk about Caspi, Arthur tells me stay mother, stay, stay he interrupted her hastily for it had not entered his imagination that she would openly proclaim what he had told her what now? she said with displeasure what more? I beg you to excuse me Mr. Caspi and you too Mrs. Finching for one other moment with my mother he had laid his hand upon her chair or she would otherwise have wielded round with a touch of her foot upon the ground they were still face to face she looked at him as he ran over the possibilities of some result he had not intended and could not foresee being influenced by Cavalletto's disclosure becoming a matter of notoriety and hurriedly arrived at the conclusion that it had best not be talked about though perhaps he was guided by no more distinct reason then that he had taken it for granted that his mother would reserve it to herself and her partner what now? she said again impatiently what is it? I did not mean mother that you should repeat what I have communicated I think you had better not repeat it do you make that condition with me? well yes observe then it is you who make this a secret said she holding up her hand and not I it is you Arthur who bring here doubts and suspicions and entreaties for explanations and it is you Arthur who bring secrets here what is it to me do you think where the man has been or what he has been what can it be to me? the whole world may know it if they care to know it it is nothing to me now let me go he yielded to her imperious but elated look and turned her chair back to the place from which he had wielded in doing so he saw elation in the face of mr flintwinge which most assuredly was not inspired by flora this turning of his intelligence and of his whole attempt and design against himself yet even more than his mother's fixedness and firmness to convince him that his efforts with her were idle nothing remained but the appeal to his old friend afery but even to get the very doubtful and preliminary stage of making the appeal seemed one of the least promising of human undertakings she was so completely under the thrall of the two clever ones was so systematically kept in sight by one or other of them and was so afraid to go about the house besides that every opportunity of speaking to her alone appeared to be foretold over and above that mistress afery by some means it was not very difficult to guess through the sharp arguments of her leech lord had acquired such a lively conviction of the hazard of saying anything under any circumstances that she had remained all this time in a corner guarding herself from approach with that symbolical instrument of hers so that when a word or two had been addressed to her by flora or even by the bottle green patriarch himself she had warded off conversation with a toasting fork like a dumb woman after several abortive attempts to get afery to look at him while she cleared the table and washed the tea service Arthur thought of an expedient which flora might originate to whom he therefore whispered could you say you would like to go through the house now poor flora being always inflectuating expectation of the time when clenor would renew his boyhood and be madly in love with her again received the whisper with the utmost delight not only as rendered precious by its mysterious character but as preparing the way for a tender interview in which he would declare the state of his affections she immediately began to work out the hint oh dear me, the poor old room said flora glancing round looks just as ever mrs. clenum I am touched to see except for being smokier which was to be expected with time and which we must all expect to reconcile ourselves to being whether we like it or not as I am sure I have had to do myself if not exactly smokier dreadfully stouter which is the same or was to think of the days when papa used to bring me here the least of girls a perfect mass of chilled planes to be stuck upon a chair with my feet on the rails and stare at Arthur excuse me mrs. clenum the least of boys in the frightfulest of frills and jackets had mr. f appeared a misty shadow on the horizon paying attentions like the well-known specter in some place in Germany beginning with a B is a moral lesson calculating that all the paths in life are similar to the paths down in the north of England where they get the coals and make the iron and things graveled with ashes having paid the tribute of a side to the instability of human existence flora hurried on with her purpose not that at any time she proceeded its worst enemy could have said it was a cheerful house for that it was never made to be but always highly impressive fond memory recalls an occasion in youth ere yet the judgment was mature when Arthur confirmed habit mr. clenum took me down into an unused kitchen eminent for moldiness and proposed to secrete me there for life and feed me on what he could hide from his meals when he was not at home for the holidays and on dry bread and disgrace which at that Halcyon period too frequently occurred would it be inconvenient asking too much to be permitted to revive those scenes and walk through the house mrs. clenum who responded with a constrained grace to mrs. Finching's good nature in being there at all though her visit before Arthur's unexpected arrival was undoubtedly an act of pure good nature and no self gratification intimated that all the house was open to her flora rose and looked to Arthur for his escort certainly said he allowed and afari will light a side air say afari was excusing herself with don't ask nothing of me Arthur when mr. flintwinge stopped her with why not afari what's the matter with you woman why not jade best expostulated with she came unwillingly out of her corner resigned the toasting fork into one of her husband's hands and took the candle stick he offered from the other go before you fool said Jeremiah are you going up or down mrs. finching flora answered down then go before and down you afari said Jeremiah and do it properly or I'll come rolling down the banisters and tumbling over you afari headed the exploring party Jeremiah closed it he had no intention of leaving them clenum looking back and seeing him following three stairs behind in the coolest and most methodical manner exclaimed in a low voice is then no getting rid of him flora reassured his mind by replying promptly why though not exactly proper Arthur and a thing I couldn't think of before a younger man or a stranger still I don't mind him if you so particularly wish it and provided you have the goodness not to take me too light wanting the heart to explain not at all what he meant Arthur extended his supporting arm round flora's figure oh my goodness me said she you're very obedient indeed really and it's extremely honorable and gentlemanly in you I am sure but still at the same time if you would like to be a little tighter than that I shouldn't consider it intruding in this preposterous attitude unspeakably at variance with his anxious mind clenum descended to the basement of the house finding that wherever it became darker than elsewhere flora became heavier and that when the house was lightest she was too returning from the dismal kitchen regions which were as dreary as they could be mistress afari passed with the light into his father's old room and then into the old dining room always passing on before like a phantom that was not to be overtaken and neither turning nor answering when he heard afari want to speak to you in the dining room a sentimental desire came over flora to look into the dragon closet which had so often swallowed Arthur in the days of his boyhood not improbably because as a very dark closet it was a likely place to be heavy in Arthur fast subsiding into despair had opened it when a knock was heard at the outer door mistress afari with a suppressed cry through her apron over her head what you want another dose said mr flintwinch you shall have it my woman you shall have a good one oh you shall have a snaiser you shall have a taser in the meantime is anybody going to the door said Arthur in the meantime I am going to the door sir returned the old man so savagely that in a choice of difficulties he felt he must go though he would have preferred not to go stay here the while oh afari my woman move an inch or speak a word in your foolishness and I'll trouble you dose the moment he was gone Arthur released mrs finching with some difficulty by reason of that lady misunderstanding his intentions and making arrangements with a view to tightening instead of questioning afari speak to me now don't touch me Arthur she cried shrinking from him don't come near me he'll see you jeremiah will don't he can't see me returned Arthur suiting the action to the word if I blow the candle out he'll hear you he can't hear me returned Arthur suiting the action to the words again draw you into this black closet and speak here why do you hide your face because I am afraid of seeing something you can't be afraid of seeing anything in this darkness afari yes I am much more than if it was light why are you afraid because the house is full of mysteries and secrets because it's full of whisperings and counsellings because it's full of noises there never was such a house for noises I should die of them if Jeremiah don't strangle me first as I expect he will I have never heard any noises here worth speaking of ah but you would though if you lived in the house and was obliged to go about it as I am said afari and you'd feel that they were so well worth speaking of that you'd feel you was nigh bursting through not being allowed to speak of them here's Jeremiah you get me killed my good afari I solemnly declare to you that I can see the light of the open door on the pavement of the hall and so could you if you would uncover your face and look I don't do it said afari I don't never Arthur I'm always blindfolded when Jeremiah aren't looking and sometimes even when he is you cannot shut the door without my seeing him said Arthur you are as safe with me as if he was 50 miles away I wish he was cried afari afari I want to know what is amiss here I want some light thrown on the secrets of this house I tell you Arthur she interrupted noises is the secrets rustlings and steelings about trembling threads overhead and threads underneath but those are not all the secrets I don't know said afari don't ask me no more your old sweet art aren't far off and she is a blabber his old sweet heart being in fact so near at hand that she was then reclining against him in a flutter a very substantial angle of 45 degrees here interposed to assure mistress afari with greater earnestness than directness of a separation that what she heard should go no further but should be kept in violet if on no other account on others sensible of intruding in being too familiar doys and clenums I make an imploring appeal to you afari to you one of the few agreeable early remembrances I have for my mother's sake, for your husband's sake for my own, for all our sakes I am sure you can tell me something connected with the coming here of this man if you will why then I'll tell you Arthur returned afari Jeremiah's coming indeed he is not the door is open and he is standing outside talking I'll tell you then said afari after listening that the first time he ever come he heard the noises his own self what's that he said to me I don't know what it is I says to him catching hold of him but I have heard it over and over again while I says it he stands and looking at me all of a shaky dough as he been here often only that night and the last night what did you see of him on the last night after I was gone them two clever ones add him all alone to themselves Jeremiah come a dancing at me sideways after I had let you out he always comes a dancing at me sideways when he's going to hurt me and he said to me now after he said I am coming behind you my woman and are going to run you up so he took and squeezed the back of my neck in his end till it made me open my mouth and then he pushed me before him to bed squeezing all the way that's what he calls running me happy do oh he's a wicked one and did you hear or see no more afari don't I tell you I was sent to bed Arthur here he is I assure you he's still at the door those whisperings and counsellings afari that you have spoken of what are they I know don't ask me nothing about them Arthur get away but my dear afari unless I can gain some insight into these hidden things in spite of your husband and in spite of my mother ruin will come of it don't ask me nothing repeated afari I have been in a dream for ever so long go away go away you said that before returned Arthur at the door when I asked you what was going on here what do you mean by being in a dream I ain't a going to tell you get away I shouldn't tell you if you was by yourself much less with your old sweetheart here it was equally vain for Arthur to entreat and for Flora to protest afari who had been trembling and struggling the whole time turned the deaf ear to all adoration and was bent on forcing herself out of the closet at soon a scream to Jeremiah then say another word I'll call out to him Arthur if you don't give over speaking to me now here's the very last word I'll say before I call to him if ever you begin to get the better of them too clever once your own self you ought to it as I told you when you first come home for you haven't been a living ear long years to be made a feared of your life as I have then do you get the better of them for my face and then do you say to me Arthur tell your dreams maybe then I'll tell him the shouting of the door stopped Arthur from replying they glided into the places where Jeremiah had left them and Clannum, stepping forward as that old gentleman returned informed him that he had accidentally extinguished the candle Mr. Flintwings looked on as he relighted it at the lamp in the hall and preserved a profound taciturnity respecting the person who had been holding him in conversation perhaps his irasibility demanded compensation for some tediousness that the visitor had expended on him however that was he took such umbridge at seeing his wife with her apron over her head that he charged at her and taking her veiled nose between his thumb and finger appeared to throw the whole screw power of his person into the ring he gave it Laura now permanently heavy did not release Arthur from the survey of the house until it had extended even to his old Garrett bed chamber his thoughts were otherwise occupied then with the tour of inspection yet he took particular notice at the time as he afterwards had occasion to remember of the airlessness and closeness of the house that they left the track of their footsteps in the dust on the upper floors and that there was a resistance to the opening of one room door which occasioned to cry out that somebody was hiding inside and to continue to believe so though somebody was sought and not discovered when they at last returned to his mother's room they found her shading her face with her muffled hand and talking in a low voice to the patriarch as he stood before the fire whose blue eyes polished head and silken locks turning towards them as they came in imparted an inestimable value and inexhaustible love of his species to his remark so you have been seeing the premises seeing the premises premises seeing the premises it was not in itself a jewel of benevolence or wisdom yet he made it an exemplar of both that one would have liked to have a copy of end of chapter the 23rd book the second of little Dorit this recording is in the public domain chapter the 24th book the second of little Dorit read for LibriVox.org by Ellis Christoff little Dorit by Charles Dickens book the second chapter the 24th the evening of a long day that illustrious man and great national ornament Mr. Myrtle continued his shining cause it began to be widely understood that one who had done society the admirable service of making so much money out of it could not be suffered to remain a commoner a baronetcy was spoken of with confidence a peerage was frequently mentioned rumor had it that Mr. Myrtle had set his golden face against a baronetcy that he had plainly intimated to Lord Desimus that a baronetcy was not enough for him that he had said no a peerage or plain Myrtle this was reported to have plunged to Lord Desimus's night to his noble chin in a sly of doubts as so lofty a person could be sunk for the barnacles as a group of themselves in creation had an idea that such distinctions belonged to them and that when a soldier, sailor or lawyer became ennobled they let him in as it were by an act of condescension at the family door and immediately shut it again not only said rumor had the troubled Desimus his own hereditary part in this impression but he also knew of several barnacle claims already on the file which came into collision with that of the master spirit right or wrong rumor was very busy and Lord Desimus while he was or was supposed to be in stately excurgitation of the difficulty lent her some countenance by taking on several public occasions one of those elephantine trots of his through a jungle of overgrown sentences waving Mr. Myrtle about on his trunk as gigantic enterprise the wealth of England elasticity credit, capital, prosperity and all manner of blessings so quietly did the mowing of the old site go on that fully three months got passed unnoticed since the two English brothers had been laid in one tomb in the strangest cemetery at room Mr. and Mrs. Parklow were established in their own house a little mansion rather of the tide barnacle class quite a triumph of inconvenience with a perpetual smell in it of the day before yesterday's soup and coach horses but extremely dear as being exactly in the center of the habitable globe in his enviable abode and envied it really was by many people Mrs. Parklow had intended to proceed at once to the demolition of the bosom when active hostilities had been suspended by the arrival of the courier with his tidings of death Mrs. Parklow who was not unfeeling had received them with a violent burst of grief which had lasted 12 hours after which she had a reason to see about her mourning and to take every precaution that could ensure its being as becoming as Mrs. Murdell's a gloom was then cast over more than one distinguished family according to the politest sources of intelligence and the courier went back again Mr. and Mrs. Parklow had been dining alone with their gloom cast over them and Mrs. Parklow reclined on a drawing room sofa it was a hot summer Sunday evening the residents in the center of the habitable globe at all times stuffed and close as if it had an incurable cold in its head was that evening particularly stifling the bells of the churches had done their worst in the way of clanging among the unmelodious echoes of the streets and the lighted windows of the churches had ceased to be yellow in the grey dusk and had died out opaque black Mrs. Parklow lying on her sofa looking through an open window at the opposite side of a narrow street over boxes of mignonette and flowers was tired of the view Mrs. Parklow looking at another window where her husband stood in the balcony was tired of that view Mrs. Parklow herself in her morning was even tired of that view though naturally not so tired of that as of the other two it's like lying in a well said Mrs. Parklow changing her position fretfully dear me Edmund if you have anything to say why don't you say it Mr. Parklow might have replied within genuineness my life I have nothing to say but as the reputed minister to him he contented himself with coming in from the balcony and standing at the side of his wife's couch good gracious Edmund said Mrs. Parklow more fretfully still you are absolutely putting mignonette up your nose pray don't Mr. Parklow in absence of mind perhaps in a more literal absence of mind than is usually understood by the phrase that smelled so hard at a sprig in his hand the verge of the offensive question he smiled and said I ask your pardon my dear and threw it out of window you make my head ache by remaining in that position Edmund said Mrs. Parklow raising her eyes to him after another minute you look so aggravatingly large by this light do sit down certainly my dear said Mr. Parklow and took a chair on the same spot if I didn't know that the longest day was passed said Fanny yawning in a dreary manner I should have felt certain this was the longest day I never did experience such a day is that your fan my love asked Mr. Parklow picking up one and presenting it Edmund returned his wife more weirdly yet don't ask weak questions I entreat you not whose can it be but mine yes I thought it was yours said Mr. Parklow then you shouldn't ask retorted Fanny after a little while she turned on her sofa and exclaimed dear me, dear me there never was such a long day as this after another little while she got up slowly walked about and came back again my dear said Mr. Parklow flashing with an original conception I think you must have got the fidgets oh fidgets repeated Mrs. Parklow don't my adorable girl urged Mr. Parklow try your aromatic vinegar I have often seen my mother tried and it seemingly refreshed her and she is, as I believe you are aware a remarkably fine woman with no good gracious exclaimed Fanny starting up again it's beyond all patients this is the most wearisome day that ever did dawn upon the world I am certain Mr. Parklow looked meekly after her as she lounged about the room and he appeared to be a little frightened when she had tossed a few trifles about and had looked down into the darkening street out of all the three windows she returned to her sofa and threw herself among its pillows now Edmund come here come a little nearer because I want to be able to touch you with my fan that I may impress you very much with what I am going to say that will do quite close enough oh you do look so big Mr. Parklow apologised for the circumstance pleaded that he couldn't help it and said that our fellows without more particularly indicating whose fellows used to call him by the name of Quimbus Flestrin Jr or the young man Mountain you ought to have told me so before Fanny complained my dear returned Mr. Parklow rather gratified I didn't know it would interest you or I would have made a point of telling you there for goodness sake don't talk said Fanny I want to talk myself Edmund we must not be alone anymore I must take such precautions as will prevent my being ever again reduced to the state of dreadful depression from this evening my dear answered Mr. Parklow being as you are well known to be a remarkably fine woman with no oh good gracious cried Fanny Mr. Parklow was so discomposed by the energy of this exclamation accompanied with a flouncing up from the sofa and a flouncing down again that a minute or two elapsed before he felt himself equal to saying in explanation my dear that everybody knows you are calculated to shine in society calculated to shine in society retorted Fanny with great irritability yes indeed and then what happens I know sooner recover in a visiting point of view the shock of poor dear papa's death and my poor uncles though I do not disguise from myself that the last was a happy release for if you are not presentable you had much better die you are not referring to me my love I hope Mr. Parklow humbly interrupted Edmund Edmund you would wear out a saint am I not expressly speaking of my poor uncle you looked with so much expression at myself my dear girl said Mr. Parklow but I felt a little uncomfortable thank you my love now you have put me out observed Fanny with a resigned toss of her fan and I had better go to bed don't do that my love urged Mr. Parklow take time Fanny took a good deal of time lying back with her eyes shut and her eyebrows raised with a hopeless expression as if she had utterly given up all terrestrial affairs at length without the slightest notice she opened her eyes again and recommend in a short sharp manner what happens then I ask what happens what happens why I find myself at the very period when I might shine most in society and should most like for very momentous reasons to shine in society I find myself in a situation which to a certain extent disqualifies me for going into society it's too bad really my dear said Mr. Parklow I don't think it need keep you at home Edmund you ridiculous creature returned Fanny with great indignation do you suppose that a woman in the bloom of youth and not wholly devoid of personal attractions can put herself at such a time in competition as to figure with a woman in every other way her inferior if you do suppose such a thing your folly is boundless Mr. Parklow submitted that he had thought it might be got over got over repeated Fanny with immeasurable scorn for a time Mr. Parklow submitted honouring the last feeble suggestion with no notice Mr. Parklow declared with bitterness that it really was too bad and that positively it was enough to make one wish one was dead however she said when she had in some measure recovered from her sense of personal ill usage provoking as it is and cruel as it seems I suppose it must be submitted to especially as it was to be expected said Mr. Parklow said Mr. Parklow Edmund returned his wife if you have nothing more becoming to do than to attempt to insult the woman who has honoured you with her hand when she finds herself in adversity I think you had better go to bed Mr. Parklow was much afflicted by the charge and offered a most tender and earnest apology his apology was accepted but Mrs. Parklow requested him to go round to the other side of her and sit in the window curtain to tone himself down now Edmund she said stretching out her fan and touching him with it at arm's length what I was going to say to you when you began as usual to pros and worries that I shall guard against our being alone anymore and that when circumstances prevent my going out to my own satisfaction I must arrange to have some people or other always here I really cannot and will not have another such day as this has been Mr. Parklow's sentiments as to the plan were in brief that it had no nonsense about it he added and besides you know it's likely that you'll soon have your sister dearest Amy yes cried Mrs. Parklow with a sigh of affection darling little thing not however that Amy would do here alone Mr. Parklow was going to say no interrogatively but he saw his danger and said it assentingly no oh dear no she wouldn't do here alone no Edmund but not only are the virtues of the precious child of that still character that they require a contrast require life and movement around them to bring them out in their right colors and make one love them of all things but she will require to be roused on more accounts than one that's it said Mr. Parklow roused pray don't Edmund your habit of interrupting without having the least thing in the world to say distracts one you must be broken of it speaking of Amy my poor little pet was devotedly attached to poor papa and no doubt will have lamented his loss exceedingly and grieved very much I have done so myself I have felt it dreadfully but Amy will no doubt have felt it even more from having been on the spot the whole time and having been with poor dear papa at the last which I unhappily was not here Fanny stopped to weep and to say dear dear beloved papa how truly gentlemanly he was what a contrast to poor uncle from the effects of that trying time she pursued my good little mouse will have to be roused also from the effects of this long attendance upon Edward in his illness an attendance which is not yet over which may even go on for some time longer and which in the meanwhile unsettles us all by keeping poor dear papa's affairs from being wound up fortunately however the papers with his agents here being all sealed up and locked up as he left them when he providentially came to England the affairs are in that state of order that they can wait until my brother Edward recovers his health in Sicily sufficiently to come over and administer or execute or whatever it may be that will have to be done he couldn't have a better nurse to bring him round Mr. Sparkler made bold to opine for a wonder I can agree with you return his wife languidly turning her eyelids a little in his direction she held forth in general as if to the drawing room furniture and can adopt your words he couldn't have a better nurse to bring him round there are times when my dear child is a little wearing to an active mind but as a nurse she is perfection best of aimies Mr. Sparkler growing rash on his late success observed that Edward had had begot a long boat of it my dear girl if bout Edmund returned Mrs. Sparkler is the slang term for in disposition he has if it is not I am unable to give an opinion on the barbarous language you address to Edward's sister that he contracted malaria fever somewhere either by travelling day and night to Rome where after all he arrived too late to see poor dear papa before his death or under some other unwholesome circumstances is indubitable if that is what you mean likewise that his extremely careless life has made him a very bad subject for it indeed Mr. Sparkler considered it a parallel case to that of some of our fellows in the West Indies with Yellow Jack Mrs. Sparkler closed her eyes again and refused to have any consciousness of our fellows of the West Indies or of Yellow Jack so Amy, she pursued when she reopened her eyelids will require to be roused from the effects of many tedious and anxious weeks and lastly she will require to be roused from a low tendency which I know very well to be at the bottom of her heart don't ask me what it is Edmund because I must decline to tell you I am not going to my dear said Mr. Sparkler I shall thus have much improvement to effect in my sweet child Mrs. Sparkler continued and cannot have her near me too soon amiable and dear little two shoes as to the settlement of poor papa's affairs my interest in that is not very selfish papa behaved very generously to me when I was married and I have little or nothing to expect provided he has made no will that can come into force leaving a legacy to Mrs. General I am contented dear papa, dear papa she wept again but Mrs. General was the best of restoratives the name soon stimulated her to dry her eyes and say it is a highly encouraging circumstance in Edward's illness I am thankful to think and gives one the greatest confidence in his sense not being impaired or his proper spirit weakened down to the time of poor dear papa's death at all events but he paid off Mrs. General instantly and sent her out of the house I applaud him for it I could forgive him a great deal for doing with such promptitude so exactly what I would have done myself Mrs. Sparkler was in the full glow of her gratification when a double knock was heard at the door a very odd knock low as if to avoid making a noise and attracting attention long as if the person knocking were preoccupied in mind and forgot to leave off hello said Mr. Sparkler who's this not Amy and Edmund without notice and without a carriage said Mrs. Sparkler the room was dark but the street was lighter because of its lamps Mr. Sparkler's head peeping over the balcony looked so very bulky and heavy that it seemed on the point of overbalancing him and flattening the unknown below it's one fellow said Mr. Sparkler I can see who stopped though on this second thought he went out into the balcony again and had another look he came back as the door was opened and announced that he believed he had identified his governor's toil he was not mistaken for his governor with his style in his hand was introduced immediately afterwards candles said Mrs. Sparkler with a word of excuse for the darkness it's light enough for me said Mr. Myrtle when the candles were brought in Mr. Myrtle was discovered standing behind the door picking his lips I thought I'd give you a call he said I am rather particularly occupied just now and as I happened to be out for a stroll I thought I'd give you a call as he was in dinner dress Fanny asked him where he had been dining well said Mr. Myrtle I haven't been dining anywhere particularly of course you have dined said Fanny why no I haven't exactly dined said Mr. Myrtle he had passed his hand over his yellow forehead and considered as if you were not sure about it something to eat was proposed no thank you said Mr. Myrtle I don't feel inclined for it I was to have dined out along with Mrs. Myrtle but as I didn't feel inclined for dinner I let Mrs. Myrtle go by herself just as we were getting into the carriage and thought I'd take a stroll instead would he have tea or coffee no thank you said Mr. Myrtle I looked in at the club and got a bottle of wine at this point of his visit Mr. Myrtle took the chair which Edmund Spargel had offered him and which he had hitherto been pushing slowly about before him like a dull man with a pair of skates on for the first time who could not make up his mind to start he now put his hat upon another chair beside him and looking down into it as if it were some twenty feet deep said again you see I thought I'd give you a call lettering to us said Fanny for you are not a calling man no no returned Mr. Myrtle who was by this time taking himself into custody under both coat sleeves no I am not a calling man you have too much to do for that said Fanny having so much to do Mr. Myrtle loss of appetite is a serious thing with you and you must have it seen too you must not be ill oh I am very well replied Mr. Myrtle after deliberating about it I am as well as I usually am I am well enough I am as well as I want to be the master mind of the age true to its characteristic of being at all times a mind that had as little as possible to say for itself and great difficulty in saying it became mute again Mrs. Parker began to wonder how long the master mind meant to stay I was speaking of poor Papa when you came in sir I quite a coincidence said Mr. Myrtle Fanny did not see that but felt it incumbent on her to continue talking I was saying she pursued that my brother's illness has occasioned a delay in examining an arranging Papa's property yes said Mr. Myrtle yes, there has been a delay not that it is of consequence said Fanny not assented Mr. Myrtle after having examined the cornice of all that part of the room which was within his range not that it is of any consequence my only anxiety is said Fanny that Mrs. General should not get anything she won't get anything said Mr. Myrtle Fanny was delighted to hear him express the opinion Mr. Myrtle after taking another gaze into the depths of his head as if he thought he saw something at the bottom rubbed his hair and slowly appended to his last remark the confirmatory words oh dear no no not she not likely as the topic seemed exhausted and Mr. Myrtle too Fanny inquired if he were going to take up Mrs. Myrtle and the carriage in his way home no he answered I shall go by the shortest way and leave Mrs. Myrtle too here he looked all over the palms of both his hands as if he were telling his own fortune to take care of herself I dare say she'll manage to do it probably said Fanny there was then a long silence during which Mrs. Parkler lying back on her sofa again shut her eyes and raised her eyebrows in her former retirement from mundane affairs but however said Mr. Myrtle I am equally detaining you and myself I thought I'd give you a call you know charmed I am sure said Fanny so I am off added Mr. Myrtle getting up could you lend me a pen knife it was an odd thing Fanny smilingly observed for her who could sell them prevail upon herself even to write a letter to lend to a man of such vast business as Mr. Myrtle isn't it Mr. Myrtle acquiesced but I want one and I know you have got several little wedding keepsakes about with scissors and tweezers and such things in them you shall have it back tomorrow Edmund said Mrs. Parkler open now very carefully I beg and beseech for you are so very awkward the mother of pearl box on my little table there and give Mr. Myrtle the mother of pearl pen knife thank you Mr. Myrtle but if you have got one with a darker handle I think I should prefer one with a darker handle tortoise shell thank you said Mr. Myrtle yes I think I should prefer tortoise shell Edmund accordingly received instructions to open the tortoise shell box and give Mr. Myrtle the tortoise shell knife on his doing so his wife said to the master spirit graciously I will forgive you if you ink it I will undertake not to ink it said Mr. Myrtle the illustrious visitor then put out his coat cuff and for a moment entombed Mrs. Parkler's hand wrist, bracelet and all where his own hand had shrunk to was not made manifest but it was as remote from Mrs. Parkler's sense of touch as if he had been a highly meritorious Chelsea veteran or Greenwich pensioner thoroughly convinced as he went out of the room that it was the longest day that ever did come to an end at last and that there never was a woman not wholly devoid of personal attractions so worn out by idiotic and lumpish people then he passed into the balcony for a breath of air waters of vexation filled her eyes and they had the effect of making the famous Mr. Myrtle in going down the street appear to leap and waltz and jay raid as if you were possessed of several devils end of chapter the 24th book the second of Little Dorit this recording is in the public domain chapter the 25th book the second of Little Dorit read for LibriVox.org by Alice Christoff Little Dorit by Charles Dickens book the second chapter the 25th the chief butler resigns the seals of office the dinner party was at the great physicians bar was there and in full force Fadden and Barnacle was there and in his most engaging state few ways of life were hidden from physician and he was oftener in its darkest places than even bishop there were brilliant ladies about London who perfectly doted on him my dear as the most charming creature and the most delightful person who would have been shocked to find themselves so close to him if they could have known on what sites those thoughtful eyes of his had rested within an hour or two and near to whose beds and under what roofs his composed figure had stood but physician was a composed man who performed neither on his own trumpet nor on the trumpets of other people many wonderful things did he see and hear and much irreconcilable moral contradiction did he pass his life among yet his equality of compassion was no more disturbed than the divine masters of all healing was he went like the rain among the just and unjust doing all the good he could and neither proclaiming it in the synagogues nor at the corner of streets as no man of large experience of humanity however quietly carried it may be can fail to be invested with an interest peculiar to the possession of such knowledge physician was an attractive man even the daintier gentlemen and ladies who had no idea of his secret and who would have been startled out of more wits than they had by the monstrous impropriety of his proposing to them calm and see what I see and manifest his attraction where he was something real was and half a grain of reality like the smallest portion of some other scarce natural productions will flavor an enormous quantity of diluent it came to pass therefore that physicians little dinners always presented people in their least conventional lights the guests said to themselves whether they were conscious of it or no a man who really has an acquaintance with us as we are who is admitted to some of us every day with our wigs and paint off who hears the wanderings of our minds and sees the undisguised expression of our faces when both are past our control we may as well make an approach to reality with him for the man has got the better of us and is too strong for us therefore physicians guests came out so surprisingly at his round table that they were almost natural Bar's knowledge of that agglomeration of jury men which is called humanity was as sharp as a razor yet a razor is not a generally convenient instrument and physicians plain bright scalpel though far less keen was adaptable to far wider purposes Bar knew all about the gullibility and navery of people but physician could have given him a better insight into their tendernesses and affections in one week of his rounds then westminster hall and all the circuits put together in three score years and ten bar always had a suspicion of this and perhaps was glad to encourage it for if the world were really a great law court one would think that the last day of term could not too soon arrive and respected physician quite as much as any other kind of man did Mr. Myrtle's default left a banko's chair at the table but if he had been there he would have merely made the difference of banko in it and consequently he was no loss bar who picked up all sorts of odds and ends about westminster hall much as a raven would have done if he had passed as much of his time there had been picking up a great many straws lately and tossing them about to try which way the Myrtle wind blew he now had a little talk on the subject with mrs. Myrtle herself sidling up to that lady of course with his double eyeglass and his jury droop a certain bird said bar and he looked as if it could have been no other bird than a magpie has been whispering among us lawyers lately that there is to be an addition to the titled personages of this realm really? said mrs. Myrtle yes said bar has not the bird been whispering in very different ears from ours in lovely ears he looked expressively at mrs. Myrtle's nearest earring do you mean mine? asked mrs. Myrtle when I say lovely said bar I always mean you I think returned mrs. Myrtle not displeased oh cruelly unjust said bar but the bird I am the last person in the world to hear news observed mrs. Myrtle carelessly arranging her stronghold who is it? what an admirable witness you would make said bar no jury unless we could empanel one of blind men insist you if you were ever so bad a one but you would be such a good one why you ridiculous man asked mrs. Myrtle laughing bar waved his double eyeglass three or four times between himself and the bosom as a rallying answer and inquired in his most insinuating accents what am I to call the most elegant accomplished and charming of women a few weeks or it maybe a few days hence didn't your bird tell you what to call her? answered mrs. Myrtle do ask it tomorrow and tell me the next time you see me what it says this led to further passages of similar pleasantry between the two but bar with all his sharpness got nothing out of them physician on the other hand taking mrs. Myrtle down to her carriage and attending on her as she put on her cloak inquired into the symptoms with his usual calm directness may I ask is this true about Myrtle my dear doctor she returned you ask me the very question that I was half disposed to ask you to ask me why me upon my honor I think mr. Myrtle reposes greater confidence in you than in anyone on the contrary he tells me absolutely nothing even professionally you have heard the talk of course of course I have but you know what mr. Myrtle is you know how taciturn and reserved he is I assure you I have no idea what foundation for it there may be I should like it to be true why should I deny that to you you would know better if I did just so said physician but whether it is all true or partly true entirely false I am wholly unable to say it is a most provoking situation a most absurd situation but you know mr. Myrtle and are not surprised physician was not surprised handed her into her carriage and bad her good night he stood for a moment at his own hall door looking sedately at the elegant equipage as it rattled away on his return upstairs the rest of the guests soon dispersed he was left alone being a great reader of all kinds of literature and never at all apologetic for that weakness he sat down comfortably to read the clock upon his study table pointed to a few minutes short of 12 when his attention was called to it by a ringing at the doorbell a man of plain habits he had sent his servants to bed and mass needs go down to open the door he went down and there found a man without hat or coat whose shirt sleeves were rolled up tied to his shoulders for a moment he thought the man had been fighting the rather as he was much agitated and out of breath a second look however showed him that the man was particularly clean and not otherwise discomposed as to his dress then as it answered this description I come from the warm bath sir round in the neighboring street and what is the matter at the warm baths would you please to come directly sir we found that lying on the table he put into the physician's hand a scrap of paper physician looked at it and read his own name and address written in pencil nothing more he looked closer at the writing looked at the man took his hat from its peg put the key of his door in his pocket and they hurried away together when they came to the warm baths all the other people belonging to that establishment were looking out for them at the door and running up and down the passages request everybody else to keep back if you please said the physician allowed to the master and do you take me straight to the place my friend to the messenger the messenger hurried before him along a grove of little rooms and turning into one at the end of the grove looked around the door physician was close upon him and looked around the door too there was a bath in that corner from which the water had been hastily drained off lying in it as in a grave or sarcophagus with a hurried drapery of sheet and blanket thrown across it was the body of a heavily made man with an obtuse head and cores mean common features a skylight had been opened to release the steam with which the room had been filled but it hung condensed into water drops heavily upon the walls and heavily upon the face and figure in the bath the room was still hot and the marble of the bath still warm but the face and figure were clammy to the touch the white marble at the bottom of the bath was veined with a dreadful red on the ledge at the side were an empty lordenum bottle and a tortoise shell handled a pen knife soiled but not with ink separation of jugular vein death rapid being dead at least half an hour this echo of the physician's words ran through the passages and little rooms and through the house while he was yet straightening himself from having bent down to reach the bottom of the bath and while he was yet doubling his hands in water redly veining it as the marble was veined before it mingled into one tint he turned his eyes to the dress upon the sofa and to the watch, money and pocketbook on the table a folded note half buckled up in the pocketbook and half protruding from it caught his observant glance he looked at it touched it pulled it a little further out from among the leaves said quietly this is addressed to me it opened and read it there were no directions for him to give the people of the house knew what to do the proper authorities were soon brought and they took an equitable business-like possession of the deceased and of what had been his property with no greater disturbance of manner or countenance than usually tense the winding up of a clock physician was glad to walk out into the night air was even glad in spite of his great experience to sit down upon a doorstep for a little while feeling sick and faint Ba was a near neighbor of his and when he came to the house he saw a light in the room where he knew his friend often sat late getting up his work as the light was never there when Ba was not it gave him assurance that Ba was not yet in bed in fact this busy bee had a verdict to get tomorrow against evidence and was improving the shining hours in setting snares for the gentleman of the jury physicians knock astonished Ba but as he immediately suspected that somebody had come to tell him that somebody else was robbing him or otherwise trying to get the better of him he came down promptly and softly he had been clearing his head with a lotion of cold water as a good preparative to providing hot water for the heads of the jury and had been reading with the neck of his shirt thrown wide open that he might the more freely choke the opposite witnesses in consequence he came down looking rather wild seeing physician the least expected of men he looked wilder and said what's the matter you asked me once what Myrtle's complaint was extraordinary answer I know I did I told you I had not found out yes I know you did I have found it out my god said Ba starting back and clapping his hand upon the other's breast and so have I I see it in your face they went into the nearest room where physician gave him the letter to read he read it through half a dozen times there was not much in it as to quantity but it made a great demand on his close and continuous attention he could not sufficiently give utterance to his regret that he had not himself found a clue to this the smallest clue he said would have made him master of the case and what a case it would have been to have got to the bottom of physician had engaged to break the intelligence in Harley street Ba could not at once return to his inveiglements of the most enlightened and remarkable jury he had ever seen in that box with whom he could tell his learned friend no shadow sophistry would go down and no unhappily abused professional tact and skill prevail this was the way he meant to begin with them so he said he would go too and would loiter to and throw near the house while his friend was inside they walked there the better to recover self-possession in the air and the wings of day were fluttering the night when physician knocked at the door a footman of rainbow hues in the public eye was sitting up for his master that is to say was fast asleep in the kitchen over a couple of candles and a newspaper demonstrating the great accumulation of mathematical odds against the probabilities of a house being set on fire by accident when this serving man was roused physician had still to await the rousing of the chief butler at last that noble creature came into the dining room in a flannel gown and list shoes but with his cravat on and a chief butler all over it was morning now physician had opened the shutters of one window while waiting that he might see the light mrs. Myrtle's maid must be called and told to get mrs. Myrtle up and prepare her as gently as she can to see me I have dreadful news to break to her thus physician to the chief butler the latter who had a candle in his hand called his man to take it away then he approached the window with dignity looking on at physicians news exactly as he had looked on at the dinners in that very room Mr. Myrtle is dead I should wish said the chief butler to give a month's notice Mr. Myrtle has destroyed himself sir said the chief butler that is very unpleasant to the feelings of one in my position calculated to awaken prejudice and I should wish to leave immediately if you are not shocked are you not surprised man demanded the physician warmly the chief butler erect and calm replied in these memorable words sir Mr. Myrtle never was the gentleman and no gentlemanly act on Mr. Myrtle's part would surprise me is there anybody else I can send to you or any other directions I can give before I leave respecting what you would wish to be done when physician after discharging himself of his trust upstairs rejoined bar in the street he said no more of his interview with Mrs. Myrtle then that he had not yet told her all but that what he had told her she had borne pretty well bar had devoted his leisure in the street to the construction of a most ingenious catching the whole of his jury at a blow having got that matter settled in his mind it was lucid on the late catastrophe and they walked home slowly discussing it in every bearing before parting at the physician's door they both looked up at the sunny morning sky into which the smoke of a few early fires and the breath and voices of a few early stirrers were peacefully rising and then looked around upon the immense city and said if all those hundreds and thousands of beggard people who were yet asleep could only know as they too spoke the ruin that impended over them what a fearful cry against one miserable soul would go up to heaven the report that the great man was dead got about with astonishing rapidity at first he was dead of all the diseases that ever were known and of several brand new maladies invented with the speed of light to meet the demand of the occasion he had concealed a dropsy from infancy he had inherited a large state of water on the chest from his grandfather he had had an operation performed upon him every morning of his life for 18 years he had been subject to the explosion of important veins in his body after the manner of fireworks he had had something the matter with his lungs he had had something the matter with his heart he had had something the matter with his brain 500 people who sat down to breakfast entirely uninformed on the whole subject believed before they had done breakfast that they privately and personally knew physician to have said to Mr. Murdell you must expect to go out someday like the snuff of a candle and that they knew Mr. Murdell to have said to physician a man can die but once by about 11 o'clock in the forenoon something the matter with the brain became the favorite theory against the field and by 12 the something had been distinctly ascertained to be pressure pressure was so entirely satisfactory to the public mind and seemed to make everybody so comfortable that it might have lasted all day but for bars having taken the real state of the case into court at half past nine this led to its beginning to be currently whispered all over London by about one that Mr. Murdell had killed himself pressure however so far from being overthrown by the discovery became a greater favorite than ever there was a general moralizing upon pressure in every street all the people who had tried to make money and had not been able to do it said there you were when I began to devote yourself to the pursuit of wealth then you got pressure the idle people improved the occasion in a similar manner see said they what you brought yourself to by work work work you persisted in working you overdid it pressure came on and you were done for this consideration was very potent in many quarters but nowhere more so than among the young clerks and partners who had never been a changer of overdoing it these one and all declared quite piously that they hoped they would never forget the warning as long as they lived and that their conduct might be so regulated as to keep off pressure and preserve them a comfort to their friends for many years but at about the time of high change pressure began to wane and appalling whispers to circulate east west north and south at first they were faint and went no further than a doubt whether Mr. Myrtle's wealth would be found to be as vast as had been supposed whether there might not be a temporary difficulty in realizing it whether there might not even be a temporary suspension say or month or so on the part of the wonderful bank as the whispers became louder which they did from that time every minute they became more threatening he had sprang from nothing by no natural growth or process that anyone could account for he had been after all a low ignorant fellow he had been a down looking man and no one had ever been able to catch his eye he had been taken up by all sorts of people in quite an unaccountable manner he had never had any money of his own his ventures had been utterly reckless and his expenditure had been most enormous in steady progression as the day declined the talk rose in sound and purpose he had left a letter at the baths addressed to his physician and his physician had got the letter and the letter would be produced at the inquest on the morrow and it would fall like a thunderbolt upon the multitude he had deluded numbers of men in every profession and trade would be blighted by his insolvency old people who had been in easy circumstances all their lives would have no place of repentance for their trust in him but the work house legions of women and children would have their whole future desolated by the hand of this mighty scoundrel every partaker of his magnificent feasts would be seen to have been a sharer in the plunder of innumerable homes every servile worshipper who had helped to set him on his pedestal would have done better to worship the devil point blank so the talk lashed louder and higher by confirmation on confirmation and by addition after addition of the evening papers swelled into such a roar when night came as might have brought one to believe that a solitary watcher on the gallery above the dome of St. Paul's would have perceived the night air to be laden with a heavy muttering of the name of Myrtle coupled with every form of a execration for by that time it was known that the late Mr. Myrtle's complaint had been simply forgery and robbery he, the uncouth object of such widespread adulation the sitter at great men's feasts the rock's egg of great ladies assemblies the subdure of exclusiveness the leveler of pride the patron of patrons the bargain driver with the minister for lordships of the circumlocution office the recipient of more acknowledgement within some ten or fifteen years at most than had been bestowed in England upon all peaceful public benefactors and upon all the leaders of all the arts and sciences with all their works to testify for them during two centuries at least he the shining wonder the new constellation to be followed by the wise men bringing gifts until it stopped over a certain carrion at the bottom of a bath and disappeared was simply the greatest forger and the greatest thief that ever cheated the gallows end of chapter the 25th book the second of Little Dorrid this recording is in the public domain