 CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER XI. CHAPTER XI. Let loose. A late, dull autumn night was closing in upon the river sown. The stream, like a solid-looking glass in a gloomy place, reflected the clouds heavily, and the low banks leaned over here and there as if they were half curious and half afraid to see their darkening pictures in the water. The flat expanse of country about Chalon lay a long, heavy streak, occasionally made a little ragged by a row of poplar trees against the wrathful sunset. On the banks of the river sown it was wet, depressing, solitary, and the night deepened fast. One man slowly moving on towards Chalon was the only visible figure in the landscape. Cain might have looked as lonely and avoided. With an old sheepskin knapsack at his back, and a rough unbucked stick cut out of some wood in his hand, mirey, foot sore, his shoes and gaiters trodden out, his care and beard untrimmed, the cloak he carried over his shoulder, and the clothes he wore, sodden with wet, limping along in pain and difficulty. He looked as if the clouds were hurrying from him, as if the wail of the wind and the shattering of the grass were directed against him, as if the low mysterious blashing of the water murmured at him, as if the fitful autumn night were disturbed by him. He glanced here, and he glanced there, sullenly but shrinkingly, and sometimes stopped and turned about, and looked all round him. Then he limped on again, toiling and muttering. To the devil with this plain that has no end, to the devil with these stones that cut like knives, to the devil with this dismal darkness wrapping itself about one with a chill, I hate you. And he would have visited his hatred upon it all with the scowl he threw about him, if he could. He trudged a little further, and looking into the distance before him stopped again. I, hungry, thirsty, weary, you imbeciles where the lights are yonder, eating and drinking and warm yourselves at fires, I wish I had the sacking of your town, I would repay you, my children. But the teeth he set at the town and the hand he shook at the town brought the town no nearer. And the man was yet hungrier and thirstier and wearier when his feet were on its jagged pavement and he stood looking about him. There was the hotel with its gateway and its savoury smell of cooking. There was the café with its bright windows and its rattling of dominoes. There was the dais with its strips of red cloth on the doorposts. There was the silversmiths with its earrings and its offerings for altars. There was the tobacco dealers with its lively group of soldier customers coming out pipe in mouth. There were the bad orders of the town and the rain and the refuse in the kennels and the faint lamps lying across the road and the huge diligence and its mountain of luggage and its six grey horses with their tails tied up getting underway at the coach office. But no small cabaret for a straightened traveller being within sight he had to seek one round the dark corner where the cabbage leaves lay thickest trodden about the public cistern at which women had not yet left of drawing water. There in the back street he found one, the break of day. The curtain windows clouded the break of day but it seemed light and warm and it announced in legible inscriptions with appropriate pictorial embellishment of billiard cue and ball that at the break of day one could play billiards. That there one could find meat, drink and lodgings whether one came on horseback or came on foot and that it kept good wines, liqueurs and brandy. The man turned the handle of the break of day door and limped in. It touched his discolour slouched hat as he came in at the door to a few men who occupied the room. Two were playing dominos at one of the little tables. Three or four were seated round the stove, conversing as they smoked. The billiard table in the centre was left alone for the time. The landlady of the day break sat behind her little counter among her cloudy bottles of syrups, baskets of cakes and leaden drainage for glasses working at her needle. Making his way to an empty little table in a corner of the room behind the stove he put down his knapsack and his cloak upon the ground. As he raced his head from stooping to do so, he found the landlady beside him. "'One can lodge here tonight, madame?' "'Perfectly!' said the landlady in a high, sing-song, cheery voice. "'Good. One can dine, supple, what you please to call it.' "'Ah, perfectly!' cried the landlady as before. "'Dispatch then, madame, if you please, something to eat as quickly as you can and some wine at once. I am exhausted.' "'It is very bad weather, monsieur,' said the landlady. "'Cursed weather!' "'And a very long road, a cursed road!' His horse voice failed him, and he rested his head upon his hands until a bottle of wine was brought from the counter, having filled and emptied his little tumbler twice and having broken off an end from the great loaf that was set before him with his cloth and napkin, soup plate, salt, pepper, and oil. He rested his back against the corner of the wall, made a couch of the bench on which he sat, and began to chew crust until such time as his repast should be ready. There had been that momentary interruption of the talk about the stove, and that temporary inattention to and distraction from one another which is usually inseparable in such a company from the arrival of a stranger. It had passed over by this time, and the men had done glancing at him and were talking again. "'That's the true reason,' said one of them, bringing a story he had been telling to a close. "'That's the true reason why they said that the devil was let loose.' The speaker was at the tall Swiss belonging to the church, and he brought something of the authority of the church into the discussion, especially as the devil was in question. The landlady, having given her directions for the new guest's entertainment to her husband, who acted as cook to the break of day, had resumed her needlework behind her counter. She was a smart, neat, bright little woman, with a good deal of cap and a good deal of stocking, and she struck into the conversation with several laughing nods of her head, but without looking up from her work. "'Oh heaven, then,' said she. When the boat came up from Lyon and brought the news that the devil was actually let loose at Marseille, some flycatchers swallowed it. But I? No, not I. "'Madame, you're always right,' returned the tall Swiss. "'Doubtless you're enraged against that man, madame.' "'I, yes, then,' cried the landlady, raising her eyes from her work, opening them very wide and tossing her head on the side. "'Naturally, yes. He was a bad subject.' "'He was a wicked wretch,' said the landlady, and well-merited what he had the good fortune to escape, so much the worse. "'Stay, madame, let us see.' Returned the Swiss, argumentatively turning his cigar between his lips. "'It may have been his unfortunate destiny. He may have been the child of circumstances. It is always possible that he had, and has, good in him, if one did but know how to find it out.' "'Philosophical Philanthropy teaches.' "'The rest of the little knot about the stove murmured an objection to the introduction of that threatening expression. Even the two players at Domino's glanced up from their game, as if to protest against philosophical philanthropy being brought by name into the break of day. "'Hold there, you and your philanthropy,' cried the smiling landlady nodding her head more than ever. "'Listen, then. I am a woman I. I know nothing of philosophical philanthropy, but I know what I have seen and what I have looked in the face in this world here, where I find myself, and I tell you this, my friend, that there are people, men and women both, unfortunately, who have no good in them, none, that there are people whom it is necessary to detest without compromise, that there are people who must be dealt with as enemies of the human race, that there are people who have no human heart and who must be crushed like savage beasts and cleared out of the way. They are but few, I hope, but I have seen in this world here where I find myself, and even at the little break of day, that there are such people, and I do not doubt that this man, whatever they call him, I forget his name, he is one of them.' The landlady's lively speech was received with greater favour at the break of day, than it would have elicited from certain amiable white washers of the class she so unreasonably objected to, nearer Great Britain. My faith, if you are philosophical philanthropy, said the landlady, putting down her work and rising to take the strangest soup from her husband, who appeared with it at the side door, puts anybody at the mercy of such people by holding terms with them at all, in words or deeds, for both, take it away from the break of day, for it isn't worth a soup. As she placed the soup before the guest, who changed his attitude to a sitting one, he looked her full in the face, and his moustache went up under his nose, and his nose came down over his moustache. Well, said the previous speaker, that has come back to our subject. Leaving all that aside, gentle men, it was because the man was acquitted on his trial that people said at Marseille that the devil was let loose. That was how the phrase began to circulate, and what it meant, nothing more. How do they call him? said the landlady. Birore, is it not? Rigor, madame, return that all Swiss. Rigor, to be sure. The traveller's soup was succeeded by a dish of meat, and that by a dish of vegetables. He ate all that was placed before him, emptied his bottle of wine, called for a glass of rum, and smoked his cigarette with his cup of coffee. As he became refreshed, he became overbearing, and patronised the company at the daybreak in certain small talk, at which he assisted, as if his condition were far above his appearance. The company might have had other engagements, or they might have felt their inferiority, but in any case they dispersed by degrees, and not being replaced by other company, left their new patron in possession of the break of day. The landlord was clinking about in his kitchen, the landlady was quiet at her work, and the refreshed traveller sat smoking by the stove, warming his ragged feet. Pardon me, madame, that Birore, Rigor, monsieur, Rigor, pardon me again, has contracted your displeasure, how? The landlady, who had been at one moment thinking within herself that this was a handsome man, at another moment that this was an ill-looking man, observed the nose coming down, and the moustache going up, and strongly inclined to the latter decision. Rigor was a criminal, she said, who had killed his wife. Aye, aye, death of my life, that's a criminal indeed, but how do you know it? All the world knows it, and yet he escaped justice. Monsieur, the law could not prove it against him to its satisfaction, so the law says, nevertheless all the world knows he did it. The people knew it so well that they tried to tear him to pieces, being all in perfect accord with their own wives, said the guest. The landlady of the break of day looked at him again, and felt almost confirmed in her last decision. He had a fine hand, though, and he turned it with a great show. She began once more to think that he was not ill-looking after all. Did you mention, madame, or was it mentioned among the gentlemen, what became of him? The landlady shook her head. It being the first conversational stage at which her vivacious earnestness had ceased to nod it, keeping time to what she said, it had been mentioned at the daybreak, she remarked, on the authority of the journals, that he had been kept in prison for his own safety. However that might be, he had escaped his deserts, so much the worse. The guest sat looking at her as he smoked out his final cigarette, and as she sat with her head bent over her work, with an expression that might have resolved her doubts, and brought her to a lasting conclusion on the subject of his good or bad looks, if she had seen it. When she did look up, the expression was not there. The hand was smoothing his shaggy moustache. May one ask to be shown to bed, madame? Very willingly, monsieur. Hola, my husband! My husband would conduct him upstairs. There was one traveller there asleep, who had gone to bed very early indeed, being overpowered by fatigue, but it was a large chamber with two beds in it, and space enough for twenty. This, the landlady of the break of day, chirpingly explained, calling between wiles, Hola, my husband! Out at the side door. My husband answered at length. It is I, my wife, and presenting himself in his cook's cap, lighted the traveller up a steep and narrow staircase. The traveller carrying his own cloak and knapsack, and bidding the landlady good night with a complementary reference to the pleasure of seeing her again tomorrow. It was a large room, with a rough splintery floor, unplastered rafters overhead, and two bedsteads on opposite sides. Here, my husband, put down the candle he carried, and with a side-long look at his guest stooping over his knapsack, graphically gave him the instruction, the bed to the right, and left him to his repose. The landlord, whether he was a good or a bad physiognomist, had fully made up his mind that the guest was an ill-looking fellow. The guest looked contemptuously at the clean course bedding prepared for him, and sitting down on the rash chair at the bedside, drew his money out of his pocket, and towed it over in his hand. One must eat, he muttered to himself, but by heaven I must eat at the cost of some other man tomorrow. As he sat pondering and mechanically weighing his money in his palm, the deep breathing of the traveler in the other bed fell so regularly upon his hearing, that it attracted his eyes in that direction. A man was covered up warm, and had drawn the white curtain at his head, so that he could be only heard, not seen. But the deep, regular breathing, still going on while the other was staking off his worn shoes and gaiters, and still continuing when he had laid aside his coat and cravat, became at length a strong provocative to curiosity, and incentive to get a glimpse of the sleeper's face. The waking traveler therefore stole a little nearer, and yet a little nearer, and a little nearer to the sleeping traveler's bed, until he stood close beside it. Even then he could not see his face, for he had drawn the sheet over it. The regular breathing still continuing, he put his smooth, wide hand, such a treacherous hand it looked, as it went creeping from him to the sheet, and gently lifted it away. Death of my soul, he whispered, falling back. Here's Cavaletto! The little Italian, previously influenced in his sleep perhaps by the stealthy presence at his bedside, stopped in his regular breathing, and with a long deep respiration opened his eyes. At first they were not awake, though open. He lay for some seconds looking placidly at his old prison companion, and then, all at once, with a cry of surprise and alarm, sprang out of bed. Hush! What's the matter? Keep quiet! It's I! You know me? cried the other in a suppressed voice. But John Baptist, widely staring, muttering a number of invocations and ejaculations, tremblingly backing into a corner, slipping on his trousers, and tying his coat by the two sleeves round his neck, manifested an unmistakable desire to escape by the door rather than renew the acquaintance. Seeing this, his old prison comrade fell back upon the door, and set his shoulders against it. Cavalletto! Wake, boy! Rub your eyes and look at me! Not the name you used to call me! Don't use that! Lanier! Say Lanier! John Baptist, staring at him with eyes open to their utmost width, made a number of those national, backhanded shakes of the right forefinger in the air, as if you were resolved on negating beforehand everything that the other could possibly advance during the whole term of his life. Cavalletto! Give me your hand! You know Lanier, the gentleman! Touch the hand of a gentleman! Submitting himself to the old tone of condescending authority, John Baptist, not at all steady on his legs as yet, advanced and put his hand in his patrons. Musulonia laughed, and having given it a squeeze, tossed it up and let it go. Then you are, faltered John Baptist. Not shaved? No, see here, cried Lanier, giving his head a twirl, astight on as your own. John Baptist, with a slight shiver, looked all round the room as if to recall where he was. His patron took that opportunity of turning the key in the door, and then sat down upon his bed. Look, he said, holding up his shoes and gaiters. That's a poor trim for a gentleman, you'll say. No matter, you shall see how soon I'll mend it. Come and sit down. Take your old place. John Baptist, looking anything but reassured, sat down on the floor at the bedside, keeping his eyes upon his patron all the time. That's well, cried Lanier. Now we might be in the old infernal hole again. Hey, how long have you been out? Two days after you, my master. How do you come here? I was cautioned not to stay there, and so I left the town at once, and since then I have changed about. I have been doing aughts and aughts at Avignon, at Poinspray, at Lyon, upon the Rhône, upon the Sône. As he spoke, he rapidly mapped the places out with his sun-bird hand upon the floor. And where are you going? Going, my master? I. John Baptist seemed to desire to evade the question without knowing how. By Bacchus, he said at last, as if he were forced to the admission. I have sometimes had a thought of going to Paris, and perhaps to England. Cavalletto, this is in confidence. I also am going to Paris, and perhaps to England. We'll go together. The little man nodded his head and showed his teeth, and yet seemed not quite convinced that it was a surpassingly desirable arrangement. We'll go together, repeated Lanier. You shall see how soon I will force myself to be recognized as a gentleman, and you shall profit by it. It is agreed? Are we one? Oh, surely, surely, said the little man. Then you shall hear before I sleep, and in six words, for I won't sleep. How I appear before you, I, Lanier. Remember that. Not the other. Altro, altro, not re. Before John Baptist could finish the name, his comrade had got his hand under his chin and fiercely shut up his mouth. Death, what are you doing? Do you want me to be trampled upon and stoned? Do you want to be trampled upon and stoned? You would be. You don't imagine that they would set upon me and let my prison chum go? Don't think it. There was an expression in his face as he released his grip of his friend's jaw, from which his friend inferred that if the cause of events really came to any stoning and trampling, Monsieur Lanier would so distinguish him with his notice as to ensure he's having his full share of it. He remembered what a cosmopolitan gentleman Monsieur Lanier was, and how few weak distinctions he made. I am a man, said Monsieur Lanier, whom society has deeply wronged since you last saw me. You know that I am sensitive and brave, and that it is my character to govern. How has society respected those qualities in me? I have been shrieked at through the streets. I have been guarded through the streets against men, and especially women, running at me armed with any weapons they could lay their hands on. I have lain in prison for security, with the place of my confinement kept a secret, lest I should be torn out of it and felled by a hundred blows. I have been carted out of Marseille in the dead of night, and carried leagues away from it packed in straw. It has not been safe for me to go near my house, and, with a beggar's pittance in my pocket, I have walked through vile mud and weather ever since until my feet are crippled. Look at them! Such are the humiliations that society has inflicted upon me, possessing the qualities I have mentioned, and which you know me to possess. But society shall pay for it. All this he said in his companion's ear, and with his hand before his lips. Even here, he went on in the same way. Even in this mean drinking shop, society pursues me. Madame defames me, and her guests defame me. I, too, a gentleman with manners and accomplishments to strike them dead. But the wrong society has heaped upon me are treasured in this breast. To all of which John Baptist, listening attentively to the suppressed horse voice, said from time to time, surely, surely, tossing his head and shutting his eyes, as if there were the clearest case against society that perfect candour could make out. Put my shoes there, continued Lanier, hang my cloak to dry there by the door, take my hat. He obeyed each instruction as it was given. And this is the bed to which society consigns me, is it? Ha! Very well. As he stretched out his length upon it, with a ragged handkerchief bound around his wicked head, and only his wicked head showing above the bed clothes, John Baptist was rather strongly reminded of what had so very nearly happened to prevent the moustache from any more going up as it did, and the nose from any more coming down as it did. Shaken out of destiny's dicebox again into your company, eh? By heaven! So much the better for you. You'll profit by it. I shall need a long rest. Let me sleep in the morning. John Baptist replied that he should sleep as long as he would, and wishing him a happy night, put out the candle. One might have supposed that the next proceeding of the Italian would have been to undress, but he did exactly the reverse and dressed himself from head to foot, saving his shoes. When he had so done, he lay down upon his bed with some of its coverings over him, and his coat still tied around his neck to get through the night. When he started up, the Godfather break of day was peeping at its namesake. He rose, took his shoes in his hand, turned the key in the door with great caution, and crept downstairs. Nothing was a stir there but the smell of coffee, wine, tobacco, and syrups, and Madame's little counter looked ghastly enough. But he had paid Madame his little note at it overnight, and wanted to see nobody, wanted nothing but to get on his shoes and his knapsack, open the door, and run away. He prospered in his object. No movement or voice was heard when he opened the door, no wicked head tied up in a ragged handkerchief looked out of the upper window. When the sun had raised his full disc above the flat line of the horizon, and was striking fire out of the long muddy vista of paved road with its weary avenue of little trees, a black speck moved along the road and splashed among the flaming pools of rainwater, which black speck was John Baptist Cavaletto running away from his patron. End of chapter the 11th Book the First This recording is in the public domain. Chapter the 12th Book the First of Little Dorit Read for LibriVox.org by Ellis Christoff Little Dorit by Charles Dickens Book the First Chapter the 12th Bleeding heart yard In London itself, though in the old rustic road towards a suburb of Nod, where in the days of William Shakespeare, author and stage player, there were royal hunting seeds, howbeit no sport is left there now but for hunters of men, bleeding heart yard was to be found. A place much changed in feature and in fortune, yet with some relish of ancient greatness about it. Two or three mighty stacks of chimneys and a few large dark rooms which had escaped being walled and subdivided out of the recognition of their old proportions, gave the yard a character. It was inhabited by poor people who set up their rest among its faded glories, as Arabs of the desert pitched their tents among the fallen stones of the pyramids, but there was a family sentimental feeling prevalent in the yard that it had a character. As if the aspiring city had become puffed up in the very ground on which it stood, the ground had so risen about bleeding heart yard that you got into it down a flight of steps which formed no part of the original approach, and got out of it by a low gateway into a maze of shabby streets which went about and about, torturously ascending to the level again. At this end of the yard and over the gateway was the factory of Daniel Dois, often heavily beating like a bleeding heart of iron, with the chink of metal upon metal. The opinion of the yard was divided respecting the derivation of its name, the more practical of its inmates abided by the tradition of a murder. The gentler and more imaginative inhabitants, including the whole of the tender sex, were loyal to the legend of a young lady of former times, closely imprisoned in her chamber by a cruel father, for remaining true to her own true love, and refusing to marry the suitor he chose for her. The legend related how that the young lady used to be seen up at her window behind the bars, murmuring a love-lawn song of which the burden was, bleeding heart, bleeding heart, bleeding away, until she died. It was objected by the murderous party that this refrain was notoriously the invention of a tambour worker, a spinster and romantic, still lodging in the yard. But for as much as all favorite legends must be associated with the affections, and as many more people fall in love than commit murder, which it may be hoped, how so ever bad we are, will continue until the end of the world to be the dispensation under which we shall live. The bleeding heart, bleeding heart, bleeding away story, carried the day by a great majority. Neither party would listen to the antiquaries who delivered learned lectures in the neighborhood, showing the bleeding heart to have been the heraldic cognizance of the old family to whom the property had once belonged, and considering that the hourglass they turned from ear to ear was filled with the earthiest and coarsest sand, the bleeding heart-yarders had risen enough for objecting to be despoiled of the one little golden grain of poetry that sparkled in it. Down into the yard by way of the steps came Daniel Dois, Mr. Meagles, and Clenum. Passing along the yard, and between the open doors on either hand, all abundantly garnished with light children nursing heavy ones, they arrived at its opposite boundary, the gateway. Here Arthur Clenum stopped to look about him for the domicile of Plornish, Plastora, whose name, according to the custom of Londoners, Daniel Dois had never seen or heard of to that hour. It was plain enough, nevertheless, as little Dorrid had said. Over a lime-splashed gateway in the corner, within which Plornish kept a ladder and a barrel o' two. The last house in bleeding heart-yard, which she had described as his place of habitation, was a large house, let off to various tenons, but Plornish ingeniously hinted that he lived in the parlour, by means of a painted hand under his name, the forefinger of which hand, on which the artist had depicted a ring and a most elaborate nail of the gentilist form, referred all inquiries to that apartment. Parting from his companions, after arranging another meeting with Mr. Meagles, Clenum went alone into the entry, and knocked with his knuckles at the parlour door. It was opened presently by a woman with a child in her arms, whose unoccupied hand was hastily rearranging the upper part of her dress. This was Mrs. Plornish, and this material action was the action of Mrs. Plornish during a large part of her waking existence. Was Mr. Plornish at home? Well, sir, said Mrs. Plornish, a civil woman, not to deceive you, is going to look for a job. Not to deceive you was a method of speech with Mrs. Plornish. She would deceive you under any circumstances as little as might be. But she had a trick of answering in this provisional form. Do you think he will be back soon if I wait for him? I have been expecting him, said Mrs. Plornish, this half an hour at any minute of time. Woking, sir? Arthur entered the rather dark and close parlour, though it was lofty too, and sat down in the chair she placed for him. Not to deceive you, sir, I notice it, said Mrs. Plornish, and I take it kind of you. He was at a loss to understand what she meant, and by expressing as much in his looks elicited her explanation. It ain't many that comes into a poor place that deems it worth their while to move their heads, said Mrs. Plornish, but people think more of it than people think. Clenum returned, with an uncomfortable feeling in so very slight a courtesy being unusual, was that all? And stooping down to pinch the cheek of another young child who was sitting on the floor, staring at him, asked Mrs. Plornish how old that fine boy was. For you just turned, sir, said Mrs. Plornish. It is a fine little fellow, ain't it, sir? But this one is rather sickly. She tenderly hushed the baby in her arms as she said it. You wouldn't mind my asking if it happened to be a job as you was come about, sir, would you? Asked Mrs. Plornish wistfully. She asked it so anxiously that if he had been in possession of any kind of tenement, he would have had it plastered a foot deep rather than Ansonneau. But he was obliged to Ansonneau, and he saw a shade of disappointment on her face as she checked her sigh and looked at the low fire. Then he saw also that Mrs. Plornish was a young woman made somewhat slatternly in herself and her belongings by poverty, and so dragged at by poverty and the children together that their united forces had already dragged her face into wrinkles. All such things as jobs, said Mrs. Plornish, seems to me to have gone underground. They do indeed. Herein Mrs. Plornish limited her remark to the plastering trade and spoke without reference to the circumlocution office and the barnacle family. Is it so difficult to get work? asked Arthur Clenham. Plornish finds it so. She returned. He is quite unfortunate. Really, he is. Really, he was. He was one of those many wherefarers on the road of life who seemed to be afflicted with supernatural horns, rendering it impossible for them to keep up even with their lame competitors. A willing, working, soft-hearted, not hard-headed fellow, Plornish took his fortune as smoothly as could be expected. But it was a rough one. It so rarely happened that anybody seemed to want him. It was such an exceptional case when his powers were in any request that his misty mind could not make out how it happened. He took it as it came, therefore. He tumbled into all kinds of difficulties and tumbled out of them, and, by tumbling through life, got himself considerably bruised. It's not for want of looking after jobs, I am sure, said Mrs. Plornish, lifting up her eyebrows and searching for a solution of the problem between the bars of the great. No, yet for want of working at them when they are to be got, no one ever heard my husband complain of work. Somehow or other, this was the general misfortune of bleeding hard yard. From time to time there were public complaints, pathetically going about, of labor being scarce, which certain people seemed to take extraordinarily ill, as though they had an absolute right to it on their own terms, but bleeding hard yard, though as willing a yard as any in Britain, was never the better for the demand. That high old family, the barnacles, had long been too busy with their great principle to look into the matter, and indeed the matter had nothing to do with their watchfulness in out-generaling all other high old families except the stilled stalkings. While Mrs. Plornish spoke in these words of her absent lord, a lord returned, a smooth cheeked, fresh-coloured, sandy-whiskered man of thirty, long in the legs, yielding at the knees, foolish in the face, lannel-jacketed, lime-witened. This is Plornish, sir. I came, said Clenum Rising, to beg the favour of a little conversation with you on the subject of the Dorit family. Plornish became suspicious, seemed to send a creditor, said, Ah yes, well, he didn't know what satisfaction he could give any gentleman respecting that family. What might it be about now? I know you better, said Clenum Smiling, than you suppose. Plornish observed, not smiling in return, and yet he hadn't the pleasure of being acquainted with the gentleman, neither. No, said Arthur, I know your kind offices at second hand, but on the best authority. Through little Dorit. I mean, he explained, Miss Dorit. Mr. Clenum, is it? Oh, I've heard of you, sir. And I of you, said Arthur. Pleased to sit down, sir, and consider yourself welcome. Why, yes, said Plornish, taking a chair and lifting the elder child upon his knee, that he might have the moral support of speaking to a stranger over his head. I have been on the wrong side of the lock myself, and in that way we come to know, Miss Dorit. Me and my wife, we are all acquainted with Miss Dorit. Intimate, cried Mrs. Plornish. Indeed, she was so proud of the acquaintance that she had awakened some bitterness of spirit in the yard by magnifying to an enormous amount the sum for which Miss Dorit's father had become insolvent. The bleeding hearts resented her claiming to know people of such distinction. It was her father that I got acquainted with first, and through getting acquainted with him, you see, why, I got acquainted with her, said Plornish tautologically. I see. Ah, and there's manners, there's polish, there's a gentleman to have run to see it in the Marshall C. Jail. Why, perhaps you're not aware, said Plornish, lowering his voice, and speaking with a perverse admiration of what he ought to have pitted or despised. Not aware that Miss Dorit and her sister Dirston let him know that they work for a living? No. Said Plornish, looking with the ridiculous triumph first at his wife, and then all around the room. Dirston't let him know it, they Dirston't. Without admiring him for that, Plenum quietly observed, I am very sorry for him. The remark appeared to suggest to Plornish for the first time that it might not be a very fine trait of character after all. He pondered about it for a moment and gave it up. As to me, he resumed, certainly Mr. Dorit is as avable with me, I am sure, as I can possibly expect, considering the differences and distances between Stas Morso, but it's Miss Dorit that we were speaking of. True, pray, how did you introduce her at my mother's? Mr. Plornish picked a bit of lime out of his whisker, put it between his lips, turned it with his tongue like a sugar plum, considered, found himself unequal to the task of lucid explanation, and appealing to his wife said, Sally, you may as well mention how it was, old woman. Miss Dorit, said Sally, hushing the baby from side to side and laying her chin upon the little hand as it tried to disarrange the gown again, came here one afternoon with a bit of writing, telling that how she wished for needlework, and asked if it would be considered any ill-convenience in case she was to give her a dress here. Plornish repeated, her address here, in a low voice, as if he were making responses at church. Me and Plornish says no, Miss Dorit, no ill-convenience. Plornish repeated, no ill-convenience, and she wrote it in according, which then me and Plornish says, ho, Miss Dorit. Plornish repeated, ho, Miss Dorit. Have you thought of copying it three or four times, as the way to make it known in more places than one? No, says Miss Dorit, I have not, but I will. She copied it out according, on this table, in a sweet writing, and Plornish, he took it where he worked, having a job just then. Plornish repeated, job just then. And likewise to the landlord of the yard, through which it was that Mrs. Clenham first happened to employ Miss Dorit. Plornish repeated, employ Miss Dorit. And Mrs. Plornish, having come to an end, feigned to bite the fingers of the little hand as she kissed it. The landlord of the yard, said Arthur Clenham, is... He is Mr. Caspi by name, he is, said Plornish, and Panks, he collects the rents. That added Mr. Plornish dwelling on the subject with a slow thoughtfulness that appeared to have no connection with any specific object, and to lead him nowhere. That is about what they are, you may believe me or not, as you think proper. I, returned Clenham thoughtful in his turn, Mr. Caspi too, an old acquaintance of mine, long ago. Mr. Plornish did not see his road to any comment on this fact, and made none, as there truly was no reason why he should have the least interest in it. Arthur Clenham went on to the present purport of his visit, namely, to make Plornish the instrument of effecting Tip's release, with as little detriment as possible to the self-reliance and self-helpfulness of the young man, supposing him to possess any remnant of those qualities. Without a doubt, a very wide stretch of supposition. Plornish, having been made acquainted with the cause of action from the defendant's own mouth, gave Arthur to understand that the plaintiff was a shanta, meaning not a singer of anthems, but a seller of horses, and that he, Plornish, considered that ten shillings in the pound would settle handsome, and that more would be a waste of money. The principal and instrument soon drove off together to a stable yard in High Horburn, where a remarkably fine gray gilding, worth at the lowest figure 75 guineas, not taking into account the value of the shot he had been made to swallow for the improvement of his form, was to be parted with for a twenty pound note, in consequence of his having run away last week with Mrs. Captain Barbary of Sheltonham, who wasn't up to a horse of his courage, and who, in mere spite, insisted on selling him for that ridiculous sum, or, in other words, on giving him away. Plornish, going up this yard alone and leaving his principal outside, found a gentleman with tight, drab legs, a rather old hat, a little hooked stick, and a blue neck-achieve, Captain Maroon of Gloucestershire, a private friend of Captain Barbary, who happened to be there in a friendly way, to mention these little circumstances concerning the remarkably fine gray gilding to any real judge of a horse, and quick snapper up of a good thing, who might looking at that address as per advertisement. This gentleman, happening also to be the plaintiff in the tip case, referred Mr. Plornish to his solicitor, and declined to treat with Mr. Plornish, or even to endure his presence in the yard, unless he appeared there with a twenty pound note, in which case only, the gentleman would augur from appearances that he meant business, and might be induced to talk to him. On this hint, Mr. Plornish retired to communicate with his principal, and presently came back with the required credentials. Then said Captain Maroon, Now, how much time do you want to make the other twenty in? Now, I'll give you a month. Then said Captain Maroon, when that wouldn't suit. Now, I'll tell what I'll do with you. You shall get me a good bill at four months. Made payable at a banking house for the other twenty. Then said Captain Maroon, when that wouldn't suit. Now, come. Here's the last I've got to say to you. You shall give me another ten down, and I'll run my pen clean through it. Then said Captain Maroon, when that wouldn't suit. Now, I'll tell you what it is, and this shuts it up. He has used me bad, but I'll let him off for another five down and a bottle of wine. And if you mean done, say done. And if you don't like it, leave it. Finally said Captain Maroon, when that wouldn't suit either, hand over then. And in consideration of the first offer, gave a receipt in full and discharged the prisoner. Mr. Plournish, said Arthur, I trust to you, if you please, to keep my secret. If you will undertake to let the young man know that he is free, and to tell him that you are employed to compound for the debt by someone whom you are not at liberty to name, you will not only do me a service, but may do him one and his sister also. The last reason, sir, said Plournish, would be quite sufficient. Your wishes shall be attended to. A friend has obtained his discharge, you can say if you please. A friend who hopes that for his sister's sake, if for no one else's, he will make good use of his liberty. Your wishes, sir, shall be attended to. And if you will be so good, in your better knowledge of the family, as to communicate freely with me and to point out to me any means by which you think I may be delicately and really useful to little Dorit, I shall feel under an obligation to you. Don't name it, sir. Returned Plournish. It'll be equally a pleasure in a... it'll be equally a pleasure in a... finding himself unable to balance his sentence after two efforts, Mr. Plournish wisely dropped it. He took Glenham's card and appropriate pecuniary compliment. He was earnest to finish his commission at once, and his principle was in the same mind. So his principle offered to set him down at the Marshall Seagate, and they drove in that direction over Blackfriars Bridge. On the way, Arthur elicited from his new friend a confused summary of the interior life of Bleeding Heartyard. They was all hard up there, Mr. Plournish said, uncommon hard up to be sure. Well, he couldn't say how it was. He didn't know as anybody could say how it was. All he knowed was, that so it was. When a man felt, on his own back and in his own belly, that poor he was, that man, Mr. Plournish gave it as his decided belief, knowed well that he was poor somehow or another, and you couldn't talk it out of him, no more than you could talk beef into him. Then you see, some people as was better off said, and a good many such people lived pretty close up to the mark themselves, if not beyond it, so he'd heard, that they was improvident, that was the favorite word down the yard. For instance, if they see a man with his wife and children going to Hampton Court in a van, perhaps once in a year they say, hello, I thought you was poor, my improvident friend. Why Lord, how hard it was upon a man, what was a man to do? He couldn't go mollong-colly mad, and even if he did, you wouldn't be the better for it. In Mr. Plournish's judgment, you would be the worse for it. Yet you seemed to want to make a man mollong-colly mad. You was always at it, if not with your right hand, with your left. What was there doing in the yard? Why, take a look at them and see. There was the girls and their mothers are working at their sewing, or their shoe-binding, or their trimming, or their waistcoat-making, day and night and night and day, and not more than able to keep body and soul together after all, often not so much. There was people of pretty well all sorts of trades you could name, all wanting to work and yet not able to get it. There was old people, after working all their lives, going and being shut up in the workhouse, much worse fed and lodged and treated altogether than… Mr. Plournish said, Manufacturers, but appeared to mean Malifactors. Why, a man didn't know where to turn himself for a crumb of comfort. As to who was to blame for it, Mr. Plournish didn't know who was to blame for it. He could tell you who suffered, but he couldn't tell you whose fault it was. It wasn't his place to find out, and who'd mind what he said, if he did find out? He only knows that it wasn't put right by them what undertook that line of business, and that it didn't come right of itself. And, in brief, his illogical opinion was that if you couldn't do nothing for him, you had better take nothing from him for doing of it. So far as he could make out what was about what it come to. Thus, in a prolix, gently growling, foolish way, did Plournish turn the tangled skein of his estate about and about, like a blind man, who was trying to find some beginning or end to it, until they reached the prison gate. There, he left his principal alone, to wonder, as he rode away, how many thousand Plournish's there might be within a day or two's journey of the circumlocution office, playing sundry curious variations on the same tune, which were not known by ear in that glorious institution. End of chapter the twelfth. Book the first. This recording is in the public domain. Chapter the thirteenth. Book the first. Of Little Dorit. Read for LibriVox.org by Ellis Christoff. Little Dorit by Charles Dickens. Book the first. Chapter the thirteenth. Patriarchal. The mention of Mr. Caspi again revived in Clenum's memory, the smouldering emboss of curiosity and interest, which Mrs. Flintwinch had fanned on the night of his arrival. Plournish Caspi had been the beloved of his boyhood, and Plournish was the daughter and only child of wooden-headed old Christopher, so he was still occasionally spoken of by some irreverent spirits, who had had dealings with him, and in whom familiarity had bred its proverbial results, perhaps, was reputed to be rich in weekly tenants and to get a good quantity of blood out of the stones of several unpromising courts and alleys. After some days of inquiry and research, Arthur Clenum became convinced that the case of the father of the Marshal C was indeed a hopeless one, and sorrowfully resigned the idea of helping him to freedom again. He had no hopeful inquiry to make at present concerning Little Dorrid either, but he argued with himself that it might, for anything he knew, it might be serviceable to the poor child if he renewed this acquaintance. It is hardly necessary to add that beyond all doubt he would have presented himself at Mr. Caspi's door if there had been no Little Dorrid in existence, for we all know how we all deceive ourselves, that is to say, how people in general, our profounder selves accepted, deceive themselves as to motives of action. With a comfortable impression upon him, and quite an honest one in its way, that he was still patronizing Little Dorrid in doing what he had no reference to her, he found himself one afternoon at the corner of Mr. Caspi's street. Mr. Caspi lived in a street in the Grayson Road, which had set off from that thoroughfare with the intention of running at one heat down into the valley, and up again to the top of Pentonville Hill, but which had run itself out of breath in twenty yards, and had stood still ever since. There is no such place in that part now, but it remained there for many years, looking with a balked countenance that the wilderness patched with unfruitful gardens, and pimpled with eruptive summer houses, that it had meant to run over in no time. The house, thought Clenum, as he crossed to the door, is as little changed as my mother's, and looks almost as gloomy, but the likeness ends outside. I know it stayed reposed within. The smell of its jars of old rose leaves and lavender seems to come upon me even here. When his knock at the bride-brass knocker of obsolete shape brought a woman servant to the door, those faded scents in truth saluted him like wintry breath, that had a faint remembrance in it of the bygone spring. He stepped into the sober, silent, airtight house, one might have fancied it to have been stifled by mutes in the eastern manner, and the door, closing again, seemed to shut out sound and motion. The furniture was formal, grave, and quaker-like, but well kept, and had as preposessing an aspect as anything, from a human creature to a wooden stool, that is meant for much use and is preserved for little can ever wear. There was a grave-glock ticking somewhere up the staircase, and there was a songless bird in the same direction, pecking at its cage as if he were ticking too. The parlor fired ticked in the grate. There was only one person on the parlor hearth, and the loud watch in his pocket ticked audibly. The servant-mate had ticked the two words, Mr. Clannum, so softly that she had not been heard, and he consequently stood within the door she had closed unnoticed. The figure of a man advanced in life, whose smooth gray eyebrows seemed to move to the ticking as the fire-light flickered on them, sat in an arm chair, with his list chews on the rug, and his stamps slowly revolving over one another. This was old Christopher Caspi, recognizable at a glance, as unchanged in twenty years and upward as his own solid furniture, as little touched by the influence of the varying seasons, as the old rose leaves and old lavender in his porcelain jars. Perhaps there never was a man in this troublesome world, so troublesome for the imagination to picture as a boy, and yet he had changed very little in his progress through life, confronting him in the room in which he sat was a boy's portrait, which anybody seeing him would have identified as Master Christopher Caspi, aged ten, though disguised with a hay-making rake for which he had had at any time as much taste or use as for a diving bell, and sitting on one of his own legs upon a bank of violets, moved to precocious contemplation by the spire of a village church. There was the same smooth face and forehead, the same calm blue eye, the same placid air, the shining bald head, which looked so very large because it shone so much, and the long grey hair at its sides and back, like floss silk or spun glass, which looked so very benevolent because it was never cut, were not of course to be seen in the boy as in the old man. Nevertheless, in the suravic creature with the hay-making rake, were clearly to be discerned the rudiments of the patriarch with the least shoes. Patriarch was the name which many people delighted to give him. Various old ladies in the neighborhood spoke of him as the last of the patriarchs. So grey, so slow, so quiet, so impassionate, so very bumpy in the head, patriarch was the word for him. He had been accosted in the streets and respectfully solicited to become a patriarch for painters and for sculptors, with so much opportunity ensued that it would appear to be beyond the fine arts to remember the points of a patriarch, or to invent one. Philanthropists of both sexes had asked who he was, and on being informed, old Christopher Caspi, formerly town agent to Lord Desimus Tite Barnacle, had cried in a rapture of disappointment, oh why with that head is he not a benefactor to his species, oh why with that head is he not a father to the orphan and a friend to the friendless, with that head, however, he remained old Christopher Caspi, proclaimed by Common Report rich in house property, and with that head he now sat in his silent parlour. Indeed, it would be the height of unreason to expect him to be sitting there without that head. Arthur Clenham moved to attract his attention, and the gray eyebrows turned towards him. I beg your pardon, said Clenham, I fear you did not hear me announced. No, sir, I did not. Did you wish to see me, sir? I wished to pay my respects. Mr. Caspi seemed a feather's weight disappointed by the last words, having perhaps prepared himself for the visitors wishing to pay something else. Have I the pleasure, sir? He proceeded. Take a chair, if you please. Have I the pleasure of knowing? Oh, truly, yes, I think I have. I believe I am not mistaken in supposing that I am acquainted with those features. I think I address a gentleman of whose return to this country I was informed by Mr. Flintwinch. That is your present visitor. Really? Mr. Clenham? No other, Mr. Caspi. Mr. Clenham, I am glad to see you. How have you been since we met? Without thinking it worthwhile to explain that in the cause of some quarter of a century he had experienced occasional slight fluctuations in his health and spirits, Clenham answered generally that he had never been better or something equally to the purpose, and shook hands with the possessor of that head as it shed its patriarchal light upon him. We are old, Mr. Clenham, said Christopher Caspi. We are not younger, said Clenham. After this wise remark he felt that he was scarcely shining with brilliancy and became aware that he was nervous. And your respected father, said Mr. Caspi, is no more. I was grieved to hear it, Mr. Clenham, I was grieved. Arthur replied in the usual way that he felt infinitely obliged to him. There was a time, said Mr. Caspi, when your parents and myself were not on friendly terms, there was a little family misunderstanding among us. Your respected mother was rather jealous of her son, maybe. When I say her son, I mean your worthy self, your worthy self. His smooth face had a bloom upon it like ripe wall fruit. What with his blooming face and that head, and his blue eyes, he seemed to be delivering sentiments of rare wisdom and virtue. In like manner, his physiognomical expression seemed to team with benignity. Nobody could have said where the wisdom was or where the virtue was or where the benignity was, but they all seemed to be somewhere about him. Those times, however, pursued Mr. Caspi, are past and gone, past and gone. I do myself the pleasure of making a visit to your respected mother occasionally and of admiring the fortitude and strength of mind with which she bears her trials, bears her trials. When he made one of these little repetitions, sitting with his hands crossed before him, he did it with his head on one side, and a gentle smile, as if he had something in his thoughts too sweetly profound to be put into words. As if he denied himself the pleasure of uttering it, lest he should soar too high, and his meekness therefore preferred to be unmeaning. I have heard that you are kind enough on one of those occasions, said Arthur, catching at the opportunity as it drifted past him, to mention little Dorit to my mother. Little Dorit? That's the seamstress who was mentioned to me by a small tenant of mine. Yes, yes, Dorit, that's the name. Ah, yes, yes, you call her Little Dorit? No road in that direction. Nothing came of the cross-cut. It led no further. My daughter, Flora, said Mr. Caspi, as you may have heard probably Mr. Clenum was married and established in life several years ago. She had the misfortune to lose her husband when she had been married a few months. She resides with me again. She will be glad to see you if you will permit me to let her know that you are here. By all means, returned Clenum, I should have preferred the request if your kindness had not anticipated me. Upon this, Mr. Caspi rose up in his list shoes, and with a slow, heavy step, he was of an elephantine build, made for the door. He had a long, white-skirted, bottle-green coat on, and a bottle-green pair of trousers, and a bottle-green waistcoat. The patriarchs were not dressed in bottle-green broadcloth, and yet his clothes looked patriarchal. He had scarcely left the room and allowed the ticking to become audible again, when a quick hand turned a latchkin the house door, opened it, and chatted. Immediately afterwards, a quick and eager, short, dark man came into the room with so much way upon him that he was within a food of Clenum before he could stop. Hello! he said. Clenum so no reason why he should not say hello, too. What's the matter? said the short, dark man. I have not heard that anything is the matter, returned Clenum. Where's Mr. Caspi? asked the short, dark man looking about. He will be here directly if you want him. I want him? said the short, dark man. Don't you? This elicited a word or tour of explanation from Clenum, during the delivery of which the short, dark man held his breath and looked at him. It was dressed in black and rusty iron gray. Had jet black beads of eyes, a scrabby little black chin, wiry black hair striking out from his head in prongs, like forks or hairpins, and a complexion that was very dingy by nature, or very dirty by art, or a compound of nature and art. He had dirty hands and dirty broken nails, and looked as if he had been in the coals. He was in a perspiration and snorted and sniffed and puffed and blew like a little laboring steam engine. Oh! said he when Arthur told him how he came to be there. Very well, that's right, if you should ask for pangs, will you be so good as to say that pangs is coming? And so, with a snort and a puff, he worked out by another door. Now, in the old days at home, certain audacious doubts respecting the last of the patriarchs, which were afloat in the air, had by some forgotten means come into contact with Arthur Sensorium. He was aware of modes and specks of suspicion in the atmosphere of that time. Seen through which medium, Christopher Caspy was a mirror in signpost, without any in, an invitation to rest and be thankful when there was no place to put up at, and nothing whatever to be thankful for. He knew that some of these specks even represented Christopher as capable of harboring designs in that head and as being a crafty imposter. Other modes there were, which showed him as a heavy, selfish, drifting booby, who, having stumbled in the course of his unwieldy jostlings against other men, on the discovery that to get through life with ease and credit, he had but to hold his tongue, keep the bald part of his head well polished, and leave his hair alone, had had just canning enough to seize the idea and stick to it. It was said that his being town agent to Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle was referable not to his having the least business capacity, but to his looking so supremely benignant that nobody could suppose the property screwed or jobbed under such a man. Also, that for similar reasons he now got more money out of his own wretched lettings unquestioned than anybody with a less knobby and less shining crown could possibly have done. In a word, it was represented, Clenum called to mind, alone in the ticking parlor, that many people select their modals much as the painters just now mentioned select theirs, and that, whereas in the Royal Academy some evil old ruffian of a dog stealer will annually be found embodying all the cardinal virtues on account of his eyelashes, or his chin, or his legs, thereby planting thorns of confusion in the breasts of the more observant students of nature. So, in the great social exhibition, accessories are often accepted in lieu of the internal character. Calling these things to mind, and ranging Mr. Pangs in a row with them, Arthur Clenum leaned this day to the opinion, without quite deciding on it, that the last of the patriarchs was the drifting boobier fore said, with the one idea of keeping the bald part of his head highly polished, and that, much as an unwedish ship in the Thames River may sometimes be seen heavily drifting with the tide, broadside on, stern first, in its own way, and in the way of everything else, though making a great show of navigation, when all of a sudden a little coaly steam tug will bear down upon it, take it in tow, and bustle off with it. Similarly, the cumbers patriarch had been taken in a tow by the snorting Pangs, and was now following in the wake of that dingy little craft. The return of Mr. Caspi with his daughter Flora put an end to these meditations. Clenum's eyes no sooner fell upon the subject of his old passion, than it shivered and broke to pieces. Most men will be found sufficiently true to themselves, to be true to an old idea. It is no proof of an inconstant mind, but exactly the opposite, when the idea will not bear close comparison with the reality, and the contrast is a fatal shock to it. Such was Clenum's case. In his youth he had ardently loved this woman, and had heaped upon her all the locked up wealth of his affection and imagination. That wealth had been, in his desert home, like Robinson Crusoe's money, exchangeable with no one, lying idle in the dark to rest, until he poured it out for her. Ever since that memorable time, though he had, until the night of his arrival, has completely dismissed her from any association with his present or future, as if she had been dead, which she might easily have been for anything he knew. He had kept the old fancy of the past unchanged, in its old sacred place. And now, after all, the last of the patriarchs coolly walked into the parlour saying in effect, be good enough to throw it down and dance upon it. This is Flora. Flora, always tall, had grown to be very broad too, and short of breath. But that was not much. Flora, whom he had left a lily, had become a peony. But that was not much. Flora, who had seemed enchanting in all she said and thought, was diffuse and silly. That was much. Flora, who had been spoiled and artless long ago, was determined to be spoiled and artless now. That was a fatal blow. This is Flora. I am sure, giggled Flora tossing her head with the caricature of her girlish manner, such as a mamma might have presented at her own funeral, if she had lived and died in classical antiquity. I am ashamed to see Mr. Clenham. I am a mere fright. I know he'll find me fearfully changed. I am actually an old woman. It's shocking to be found out. It's really shocking. He assured her that she was just what he had expected, and that time had not stood still with himself. Oh, but with a gentleman it's so different, and really you look so amazingly well that you have no right to say anything of the kind, while as to me, you know, oh, cried Flora with a little scream, I am dreadful. The patriarch, apparently not yet understanding his own part in the drama and the representation, glowed with vacant serenity. But if we talk of not having changed, said Flora, who whatever she said never once came to a full stop, look at Papa. It's not Papa precisely what he was when he went away. Isn't it cruel and unnatural of Papa to be such a reproach to his own child? If we go on in this way much longer people who don't know us will begin to suppose that I am Papa's mamma. That must be a long time hence, Arthur considered. Oh, Mr. Clannum, you're insincerest of creatures, said Flora. I perceive already you have not lost your old way of paying compliments, your old way when you used to pretend to be so sentimentally struck, you know, at least I don't mean that, I, oh, I don't know what I mean. Here Flora titted confusedly and gave him one of her old glances. The patriarch, as if he now began to perceive that his part in the piece was to get off the stage as soon as might be, rose and went to the door by which Panks had worked out, hailing that tug by name. He received an answer from some little dog beyond, and was stowed out of sight directly. You mustn't think of going yet, said Flora. Arthur had looked at his hat, being in a ludicrous dismay, and not knowing what to do. You could never be so unkindest to think of going, Arthur. I mean, Mr. Arthur, or I suppose Mr. Clenham would be far more proper, but I am sure I don't know what I am saying. Without a word about the dear old days gone forever, when I come to think of it, I daresay it would be much better not to speak of them, and it's highly probable that you have some much more agreeable engagement, and pray let me be the last person in the world to interfere with it, though there was a time, but I am running into nonsense again. Was it possible that Flora could have been such a chatterer in the days she referred to? Could there have been anything like her present disjointed volubility in the fascinations that had captivated him? Indeed I have little doubt, said Flora, running on with astonishing speed, and pointing her conversation with nothing but commas, and very few of them, that you are married to some Chinese lady being in China so long, and being in business and naturally desirous to settle and extend your connection, nothing was more likely than you should propose to a Chinese lady, and nothing was more natural, I am sure, than that the Chinese lady should accept you, and think herself very well of too, I only hope she's not a Pagodian dissenter. I am not, returned Arthur, smiling in spite of himself, married to any lady Flora. Oh, good gracious me, I hope you never kept yourself a bachelor so long on my account, tattered Flora. But of course you never did why should you, pray don't answer, I don't know where I am running to. Oh, do tell me something about the Chinese ladies, whether they arise there really so long and narrow, always putting me in mind of mother of pearl fish at cards, and do they really wear tails down there back and plate it too, or is it only the men, and when they pull their hair so very tight of their foreheads, don't they hurt themselves, and why do they stick little bells all over their bridges and temples and hats and things, oh don't they really do it? Flora gave him another of her old glances, instantly she went on again, as if he had spoken in reply for some time. Then it's all true, and they really do, good gracious Arthur, pray excuse me, old habit, Mr. Clenum, far more proper. What a country to live in for so long a time, and with so many lanterns and umbrellas too, how very dark and wet the climate ought to be, and no doubt actually is, and the sums of money that must be made by those two trades where everybody carries them and hangs them everywhere, the little shoes too and the feet screwed back in infancy is quite surprising what a traveler you are. In his ridiculous distress, Clenum received another of the old glances without in the least knowing what to do with it. Dear, dear, said Flora, only to think of the changes at home, Arthur, cannot overcome it, and seem so natural, Mr. Clenum far more proper, since you became familiar with the Chinese customs and language, which I am persuaded to speak like a native, if not better, for you were always quick and clever, though immensely difficult, no doubt, I am sure the tea chests alone would kill me if I tried. Such changes, Arthur, I am doing it again, seem so natural, most improper, as no one could have believed, who could have ever imagined Mrs. Finching when I can't imagine it myself. Is that your married name? asked Arthur, struck in the midst of all this, by a certain warmth of heart, that expressed itself in her tone when she referred, however oddly, to the youthful relation in which they had stood to one another. Finching? Finching, oh yes, isn't it a dreadful name, but as Mr. F said when he proposed to me, which he did seven times and handsomely consented, I must say to be what he used to call on liking twelve months, after all, he wasn't answerable for it and couldn't help it, could he? Excellent man, not at all like you, but excellent man! Florech had at last talked herself out of breath for one moment, one moment, for she recovered breath in the act of raising a minute corner of her pocket handkerchief to her eye, as a tribute to the ghost of the departed Mr. F, and began again. No one could dispute, Arthur, Mr. Clenham, that it's quite right you should be formally friendly to me under the altered circumstances and indeed you couldn't be anything else, at least I suppose not you ought to know, but I can't help recalling that there was a time when things were very different. My dear Mrs. Finching, Arthur began struck by the good tone again. Oh, not that nasty ugly name, see Florech! Florech, I assure you, Florech, I am happy in seeing you once more, and in finding that like me, you have not forgotten the old foolish dreams when we saw all before us in the light of our youth and hope. You don't seem so, pouted Florech, you take it very coolly, but however I know you are disappointed in me, I suppose the Chinese ladies, mandarinesses if you call them so, are the cause, or perhaps I am the cause myself, it's just as likely. No, no, Clenamin treated, don't say that. Oh, I must, you know, said Florech in a positive tone. What nonsense not to, I know I am not what you expected, I know that very well. In the midst of her rapidity, she had found that out with the quick perception of a cleverer woman, the inconsistent and profoundly unreasonable way in which she instantly went on nevertheless, to interweave their long-abandoned boy-and-girl relations with their present interview, made Clenamin feel as if he were light-headed. One remark, said Florech, giving their conversation without the slightest notice and to the great terror of Clenamin, the tone of a love quarrel, I wish to make one explanation I wish to offer, when your mama came and made a scene of it with my papa, and when I was called down into the little breakfast room, where they were looking at one another with your mama's parasol between them seated on two chairs like mad bulls, what was I to do? My dear Mrs. Finching, urged Clenamin, all so long ago and so long concluded, is it worthwhile seriously to, I can't Arthur, returned Florech, be denounced as heartless by the whole society of China without setting myself right when I have the opportunity of doing so, and you must be very well aware that there was Paul and Virginia, which had to be returned and which was returned without note or command. Not that I mean to say you could have written to me, watched as I was, but if it had only come back with a red wafer on the cover, I should have known that it meant come to Beijing, Nanking, or what's the third place, barefoot. My dear Mrs. Finching, you were not to blame, and I never blamed you. We were both too young, too dependent and helpless to do anything but accept our separation. Pray think how long ago, gently remonstrated Arthur, one more remark proceeded Florech with unslackened volubility. I wished to make one more explanation I wished to offer, for five days I had a cold in the head from crying, which I passed entirely in the back drawing room. There is the back drawing room, still on the first floor, and still at the back of the house, to confirm my words. When that dreary period had passed, a lull succeeded ears rolled on, and Mr. F became acquainted with us at the mutual friends. It was all attention he called next day, he soon began to call three evenings a week, and to send little things for supper. It was not love on Mr. F's part, it was adoration. Mr. F proposed with a full approval of papa, and what could I do? Nothing, whatever, said Arthur with the cheerfulness readiness. But what you did, let an old friend assure you of his full conviction that you did quite right. One last remark, proceeded Florech, rejecting commonplace life with a wave of her hand. I wished to make, one last explanation I wished to offer. There was a time when Mr. F first paid attentions incapable of being mistaken, but that is past and was not to be, dear Mr. Clenham, you no longer wear a golden chain, you have free I trust you may be happy. Here is papa who is always tiresome at putting in his nose everywhere where he's not wanted. With these words, and with a hasty gesture fraught with timid caution, such a gesture had Clenham's eyes been familiar within the old time, poor Florech left herself at 18 years of age, a long, long way behind again, and came to a full stop at last. Or rather, she left about half of herself at 18 years of age behind, and grafted the rest on to the relict of the late Mr. F. Thus making a moral mermaid of herself, which her once boy lover contemplated with feelings where in his sense of the sorrowful and his sense of the comical were curiously blended. For example, as if there were a secret understanding between herself and Clenham of the most thrilling nature, as if the first of a train of post-chases and four extending all the way to Scotland were at that moment round the corner, and as if she couldn't and wouldn't have walked into the parish church with him under the shade of the family umbrella, with the patriarchal blessing on her head and the perfect concurrence of all mankind, Florech comforted her soul with agonies of mysterious signalling expressing dread of discovery. With a sensation of becoming more and more lightheaded every minute, Clenham saw the relict of the late Mr. F. enjoying herself in the most wonderful manner by putting herself and him in their old places, and going through all the old performances, now when the stage was dusty, when the scenery was faded, when the youthful actors were dead, when the orchestra was empty, when the lights were out, and still, through all this grotesque revival of what he remembered as having once been pretty natural to her, he could not but feel that it revived at sight of him, and that there was a tender memory in it. The patriarch insisted on his staying to dinner, and Florech signalled, yes! Clenham so wished he could have done more than stay to dinner, so heartily wished he could have found the Florech that had been, or that never had been, that he thought the least atonement he could make for the disappointment he almost felt ashamed of was to give himself up to the family desire. Therefore he stayed to dinner. Panks dined with them. Panks steamed out of his little dock at a quarter before six, and bore straight down for the patriarch who happened to be then driving, in an inane manner, through a stagnant account of bleeding hard yard. Panks instantly made fast to him and hauled him out. Bleding hard yard? said Panks with a puff and a snort. It's a troublesome property. Don't pay you badly, but rents are very hard to get there. You have more trouble with that one place than with all the places belonging to you. Just as the big ship in tow gets the credit with most spectators of being the powerful object, so the patriarch usually seemed to have set himself whatever Panks set for him. Indeed, returned Clenum, upon whom this impression was so efficiently made by mere gleam of the polished head that he spoke the ship instead of the tug. The people are so poor there. You can't say, you know. Snorted Panks taking one of his dirty hands out of his rusty iron grey pockets to bite his nails, if he could find any, and turning his beads of ice upon his employer. Whether they're poor or not. They say they are, but they all say that. When a man says he's rich, you are generally sure he isn't. Besides, if they are poor, you can't help it. You'd be poor yourself if you didn't get your rents. True enough, said Arthur. You're not going to keep open house for all the poor of London. Pursued Panks. You're not going to lodge them for nothing. You're not going to open your gates wide and let them come free. Not if you know it you ain't. Mr. Caspi shook his head in placid and benign generality. If a man takes a room of you at half a crown a week, and when the week comes round hasn't got the half crown you say to that man, why have you got the room then? If you haven't got the one thing, why have you got the other? What have you been and done with your money? What do you mean by it? What are you up to? That's what you say to a man of that sort. And if you didn't say it, more shame for you. Mr. Panks here made a singular and startling noise, produced by a strong blowing effort in the region of the nose, unattended by any result, but that acoustic one. You have some extent of such property about the east and northeast here, I believe, said Clenum, doubtful which of the two to address. Oh, pretty well, said Panks. You're not particular to east or northeast. Any point of the compass will do for you. What you want is a good investment and a quick return. You take it where you can find it. You ain't nice as to situation, not you. There was a fourth and most original figure in the patriarchal tent, who also appeared before dinner. This was an amazing little old woman, with a face like a staring wooden doll too cheap for expression, and a stiff yellow wig perched unevenly on the top of her head, as if the child who owned the doll had driven a tack through it anywhere, so that it only got fastened on. Another remarkable thing in this little old woman was that the same child seemed to have damaged her face in two or three places with some blunt instrument in the nature of a spoon. Her countenance, and particularly the tip of her nose, presenting the phenomena of several dints, generally answering to the bowl of that article. A further remarkable thing in this little old woman was that she had no name, but Mr. Ref's aunt. She broke upon the visitor's view under the following circumstances. Flora said, when the first dish was being put on the table, perhaps Mr. Clenham might not have heard that Mr. Ref had left her a legacy. Clenham in return implied his hope that Mr. Ref had endowed the wife whom he adored, with the greater part of his worldly substance, if not with all. Flora said, oh yes, she didn't mean that. Mr. Ref had made a beautiful will, but he had left her as a separate legacy his aunt. She then went out of the room to fetch the legacy, and on her return, rather triumphantly presented, Mr. Ref's aunt. The major characteristics discoverable by the stranger in Mr. Ref's aunt were extreme severity and grim taciturnity, sometimes interrupted by a propensity to offer remarks in a deep, warning voice, which, being totally uncalled for by anything said by anybody, and traceable to no association of ideas, confounded and terrified the mind. Mr. Ref's aunt may have thrown in these observations on some system of her own, and it may have been ingenious, or even subtle, but the key to it was wanted. The neatly served and well-cooked dinner for everything about the patriarchal household promoted quiet digestion, began with some soup, some fried souls, a butter boat of shrimp sauce, and a dish of potatoes. The conversation still turned on the receipt of rents. Mr. Ref's aunt, after regarding the company for ten minutes with a malevolent gaze, delivered the following fearful remark. When we lived at Henley, Banzer's gander was stole by Tinker's. Mr. Panks courageously nodded his head and said, All right, ma'am, but the effect of this mysterious communication upon Klenom was absolutely to frighten him, and another circumstance invested this old lady with peculiar terrors. Though she was always staring, she never acknowledged that she saw any individual. The polite and attentive stranger would desire, say, to consult her inclinations on the subject of potatoes. His expressive action would be hopelessly lost upon her, and what could he do? No man could say, Mr. Ref's aunt, will you permit me? Every man retired from the spoon, as Klenom did, cowed and baffled. There was mutton, a steak, and an apple pie, nothing in the remotest way connected with ganders, and the dinner went on like a disenchanted feast, as it truly was. Once upon a time, Klenom had sat at that table taking no heed of anything but flora. Now the principal heed he took of flora was to observe, against his will, that she was very fond of porter, that she combined a great deal of sherry with sentiment, and that if she were a little overgrown, it was upon substantial grounds. The last of the patriarchs had always been a mighty eater, and he disposed of an immense quantity of solid food with the benignity of a good soul who was feeding someone else. Mr. Panks, who was always in a hurry, and who referred at intervals to a little dirty notebook which he kept beside him, perhaps containing the names of the defaulters he meant to look up by way of dessert, took in his victuals much as if he were a calling, with a good deal of noise, a good deal of dropping about, and a puff and a snort occasionally, as if he were nearly ready to steam away. All through dinner, flora combined her present appetite for eating and drinking with her past appetite for romantic love, in a way that made clenum afraid to lift his eyes from his plate, since he could not look towards her without receiving some glance of mysterious meaning or warning, as if they were engaged in a plot. Mr. F's aunt sat silently defying him with an aspect of the greatest bitterness, until the removal of the clothes and the appearance of the decanters, when she originated another observation struck into the conversation like a clock without consulting anybody. Flora had just said, Mr. Clenum, will you give me a glass of port for Mr. F's aunt? The monument near London Bridge, that lady instantly proclaimed, was put up after the great fire of London, and the great fire of London was not the fire in which your uncle George's workshops were burned down. Mr. Panks, with his former courage, said, Indeed, ma'am, all right. But appearing to be incensed by imaginary contradiction or other ill-usage, Mr. F's aunt, instead of relapsing into silence, made the following additional proclamation. I hide to fall. She imparted to this sentiment in itself almost solomonic, so extremely injurious and personal a character, by levelling it straight at the visitor's head, that it became necessary to lead Mr. F's aunt from the room. This was quietly done by Flora. Mr. F's aunt offering no resistance, but inquiring on her way out. What he come there for, then? With implacable animosity. When Flora returned, she explained that her legacy was a clever old lady, but was sometimes a little singular and took dislikes, peculiarities of which Flora seemed to be proud rather than otherwise. As Flora's good nature shown in the case, Clenum had no fault to find with the old lady for eliciting it, now that he was relieved from the terrors of her presence, and they took a glass or two of wine in peace. For seeing, then, that the Panks would shortly get underway, and that the patriarch would go to sleep, he pleaded the necessity of visiting his mother, and asked Mr. Panks in which direction he was going. City ward, sir? said Panks. Shall we walk together? said Arthur. Quite agreeable? said Panks. Meanwhile, Flora was murmuring in rapid snatches for his ear, that there was a time, and that the past was a yawning gulf, however, and that a golden chain no longer bound him, and that she revered the memory of the late Mr. F, and that she should be at home tomorrow at half past one, and that the decrease of fate were beyond recall, and that she considered nothing so improbable as that he ever walked on the northwest side of Grace in gardens at exactly four o'clock in the afternoon. She tried at parting to give his hand in frankness to the existing Flora, not the vanished Flora, or the Mermaid, but Flora wouldn't have it, couldn't have it, was wholly destitute of the power of separating herself and him from their bygone characters. He left the house miserable enough, and so much more light-headed than ever, that if it had not been his good fortune to be towed away, he might for the first quarter of an hour have drifted anywhere. When he began to come to himself in the cooler air and the absence of Flora, he found Panks at full speed, cropping such scanty pastureage of nails as he could find, and snorting at intervals. These, in conjunction with one hand in his pocket, and his roughened head hindsight before, were evidently the conditions under which he reflected. A fresh night, said Arthur. Yes, it's pretty fresh, assented Panks. As a stranger you feel the climate more than I do, I dare say. Indeed I haven't got time to feel it. You lead such a busy life? Yes, I have always some of them to look up, or something to look after. But I like business, said Panks, getting on a little faster. What's a man made for? For nothing else, said Clenum. Panks put the counter-question. What else? It packed up, in the smallest compass, a weight that had rested on Clenum's life, and he made no answer. That's what I ask our weekly tenants, said Panks. Some of them will pull long faces to me and say, poor as you see us, master, we are always grinding, drudging, toiling every minute we are awake. I say to them, what else are you made for? It shuts them up. They haven't a word to answer. What else are you made for? That clinches it. Oh dear, dear, dear, sighed Clenum. Here am I, said Panks, pursuing his argument with the weekly tenant. What else do you suppose I think I am made for? Nothing. Rattle me out of bed early, set me going, give me a shorter time as you like to bolt my meals in, and keep me at it. Keep me always at it, and I'll keep you always at it. You keep somebody else always at it. There you are, with the whole duty of man in a commercial country. When they had walked a little further in silence, Clenum said, Have you no taste for anything, Mr. Panks? What's taste? Dryly retorted Panks. Let us say inclination. I have an inclination to get money, sir, said Panks. If you will show me how. He blew off that sound again, and it occurred to his companion for the first time that it was his way of laughing. He was a singular man in all respects. He might not have been quite in earnest, but that the short, hard, rapid manner in which he shot out these cinders of principles, as if it were done by mechanical revolvency, seemed irreconcilable with banter. You are no great reader, I suppose, said Clenum. Never read anything but letters and accounts. Never collect anything but advertisements relative to next of kin. If that's a taste, I have got that. You're not of the clenums of Cornwall, Mr. Clenum? Not that I ever heard of. I know you're not. I asked your mother, sir. She has too much character to let a chance escape her. Supposing I had been of the clenums of Cornwall? You'd have heard of something to your advantage. Indeed, I have heard of little enough to my advantage for some time. There's a Cornish property going a-begging, sir, and not a Cornish clenum to have it for the asking, said Panks, taking his notebook from his breast pocket and putting it in again. I turn off here. I wish you good night. Good night, said Clenum. But the tug, suddenly lightened and untrammeled by having any weight in tow, was already puffing away into the distance. They had crossed Smithfield together, and Clenum was left alone at the corner of Barbican. He had no intention of presenting himself in his mother's dismal room that night, and could not have felt more depressed and cast away if he had been in a wilderness. He turned slowly down Aldersgate Street, and was pondering his way along toward St. Paul's, purposing to come into one of the great thoroughfares for the sake of their light and life. When a crowd of people flocked towards him on the same pavement, and he stood aside against a shop to let them pass, as they came up, he made out that they were gathered round as something that was carried on men's shoulders. He soon saw that it was a litter, hastily made of a shatter or some such thing, and a recumbent figure upon it, and the scraps of conversation in the crowd, and a muddy bundle carried by one man, and a muddy hat carried by another, informed him that an accident had occurred. The litter stopped under a lamp before it had passed him half a dozen paces, for some readjustment of the burden, and the crowd stopping too, he found himself in the midst of the array. An accident going to the hospital, he asked an old man beside him, who stood shaking his head, inviting conversation. Yes, said the man, along of them miles, they ought to be prosecuted and find them miles. They come a-racing out of lad lane, and would straight a twelve or fourteen mile hour, them miles do. The only wonder is that people aren't killed oftener by them miles. The person is not killed, I hope. I don't know, said the man, it ain't for the want of a wheel in them miles, if he ain't. The speaker having folded his arms, and set in comfortably to address his depreciation of them miles to any of the bystanders who would listen. Several voices, out of pure sympathy with the sufferer, confirmed him, one voice saying to Clenham, there are public nuisance them miles, sir. Another, I see one of them pull up within half an inch of a boy last night. Another, I see one of them go over a cat, sir, and it might have been your own mother. And all representing by implication that if he happened to possess any public influence, he could not use it better than against them miles. Why, a native Englishman is put to it every night of his life to save his life from them miles, argue to the first old man. And he knows when there are coming round the corner to tear him limb from limb. What can you expect from a poor foreigner who don't know nothing about him? Is this a foreigner? said Clenham, leaning forward to look. In the midst of such replies as Frenchman, sir, Portuguese, sir, Dutchman, sir, Prussian, sir, and other conflicting testimony, he now heard a feeble voice asking, both in Italian and in French, for water. A general remark going around in reply of, Ah, poor fellow, he says you'll never get over it, and no wonder. Clenham begged to be allowed to pass, as he understood the poor creature. He was immediately handed to the front to speak to him. First, he wants some water, said he looking round. A dozen good fellows dispersed to get it. Are you badly hurt, my friend? He asked the man on the litter in Italian. Yes, sir, yes, yes, yes, it's my leg, it's my leg, but it pleases me to hear the old music, though I am very bad. You are a traveller, stay. See, the water, let me give you some. They had rested the litter on a pile of paving stones. It was at a convenient height from the ground, and by stooping he could lightly raise the head with one hand, and hold the glass to his lips with the other. A little, muscular, brown man, with black hair and white teeth. A lively face, apparently, earrings in his ears. That's well, you are a traveller? Surely, sir. A stranger in this city? Surely, surely, altogether, I am arrived this in happy evening. From what country? Marseille. Why, see there, I also. Almost as much a stranger here as you, though born here, I came from Marseille a little while ago. Don't be cast down. The face looked up at him imploringly, as he rose from wiping it, and gently replaced the coat that covered the writhing figure. I won't leave it, you shall be well taken care of. Courage! You will be very much better half on our hands. Ah, altro, altro! cried the poor little man in a faintly incredulous tone, and as they took him up, hung out his right hand to give the forefinger a backhanded shake in the air. Arthur Clenham turned, and walking beside the litter, and saying an encouraging word now and then, accompanied it to the neighbouring hospital of St. Bartholomew. None of the crowd but the pairers and he being admitted, the disabled man was soon laid on a table in a cool, methodical way, and carefully examined by a surgeon who was as near at hand and as ready to appear as Calamity herself. He hardly knows an English word, said Clenham. Is he badly hurt? Let us know all about it first, said the surgeon, continuing his examination with a business-like delight in it, before we pronounce. After trying the leg with a finger, and two fingers, and one hand, and two hands, and over and under, and up and down, and in this direction, and in that, and approvingly remarking on the points of interest to another gentleman who joined him, the surgeon at last clapped the patient on the shoulder and said, He won't hurt, he'll do very well, it's difficult enough, but we shall not want him to part with his leg this time. Which Clenham interpreted to the patient, who was full of gratitude, and, in his demonstrative way, kissed both the interpreter's hand and the surgeon several times. It's a serious injury, I suppose, said Clenham. Yes, replied the surgeon, with the thoughtful pleasure of an artist contemplating the work upon his easel. Yes, it's enough. There is a compound fracture about the knee, and a dislocation below. They are both of a beautiful kind. He gave the patient a friendly clap on the shoulder again, as if he really felt that he was a very good fellow indeed, and worthy of all commendation for having broken his leg in a manner interesting to science. He speaks French, said the surgeon. Oh yes, he speaks French. He'll be at no loss here, then. You have only to bear a little pain like a brave fellow, my friend, and to be thankful that all goes as well as it does. He added in that tongue, and you'll walk again to a marvel. Now, let us see whether there's anything else that matter, and how our ribs are. There was nothing else that matter, and our ribs were a sound. Clenham remained until everything possible to be done had been skillfully and promptly done. The poor, belated wanderer in a strange land movingly besought that favour of him, and lingered by the bed to which he was in due time removed, until he had fallen into a dose. Even then he wrote a few words for him on his card, with a promise to return tomorrow, and left it to be given to him when he should awake. All these proceedings occupied so long that it struck eleven o'clock at night, as he came out at the hospital gate. He had hired a lodging for the present in Covent Garden, and he took the nearest way to that quarter, by Snow Hill and Hoban. Left to himself again, after the solicitude and compassion of his last adventure, he was naturally in a thoughtful mood. As naturally, he could not walk on thinking for ten minutes without recalling Flora. She necessarily recalled to him his life with all its misdirection and little happiness. When he got to his lodging, he sat down before the dying fire, as he had stood at the window of his old room looking out upon the blackened forest of chimneys, and turned his gaze back upon the gloomy vista by which he had come to that stage in his existence. So long, so bare, so blank, no childhood, no youth, except for one remembrance, that one remembrance proved, only that day, to be a piece of folly. It was a misfortune to him, trifle as it might have been to another, for, while all that was hard and stern in his recollection remained reality on being proved, was obdurate to the sight and touch, and relaxed nothing of its old indomitable grimness, the one tender recollection of his experience would not bear the same test, and melted away. He had foreseen this on the former night, when he had dreamed with waking eyes, but he had not felt it then, and he had now. It was a dreamer in such wise, because he was a man who had, deep rooted in his nature, a belief in all the gentle and good things his life had been without. Bread in meanness and hard dealing, this had rescued him to be a man of honorable mind and open hand. Bread in coldness and severity, this had rescued him to have a warm and sympathetic heart. Bread in a creed too darkly audacious to pursue, through its process of reserving the making of man in the image of his creator, to the making of his creator in the image of an oaring man, this had rescued him to judge not, and in humility to be merciful, and have hope and charity. And this saved him still from the whimpering weakness and cruel selfishness of holding that because such a happiness or such a virtue had not come into his little path, or worked well for him, therefore it was not in the great scheme, but was reducible when found in appearance to the basest elements. A disappointed mind he had, but a mind too firm and healthy for such unwholesome air. Leaving himself in the dark, it could rise into the light, seeing it shine on others and hailing it. Therefore, he sat before his dying fire, sorrowful to think upon the way by which he had come to that night, yet not strewing poison on the way by which other men had come to it. That he should have missed so much, and at his time of life should look so far about him for any staff to bear him company upon his downward journey and cheer it, was a just regret. He looked at the fire from which the blaze departed, from which the afterglow subsided, in which the ashes turned grey, from which they dropped to dust, and thought, how soon I too shall pass through such changes, and be gone. To review his life was like descending a green tree in fruit and flower, and seeing all the branches wither and drop off one by one, as he came down towards them. From the unhappy suppression of my youngest days, through the rigid and unloving home that followed them, through my departure, my long exile, my return, my mother's welcome, my intercourse with her since, down to the afternoon of this day with poor Flora, said Arthur Clenham. What have I found? His door was softly opened, and these spoken words startled him, and came as if they were an answer. Little Dorit. End of chapter the thirteenth, book the first. This recording is in the public domain.