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heads; and the general bowing and crouching before this wonderful mortal

the like of which prostration of spirit was not to be seen--no, by

high Heaven, no! It may be worth thinking of by Fawners of all

denominations--in Westminster Abbey and Saint Paul's Cathedral put

together, on any Sunday in the year. It was a rapturous dream to Mr

Dorrit to find himself set aloft in this public car of triumph, making a

magnificent progress to that befitting destination, the golden Street of

the Lombards.

There Mr Merdle insisted on alighting and going his way a-foot, and

leaving his poor equipage at Mr Dorrit's disposition. So the dream

increased in rapture when Mr Dorrit came out of the bank alone, and

people looked at him in default of Mr Merdle, and when, with the ears of

his mind, he heard the frequent exclamation as he rolled glibly along,

'A wonderful man to be Mr Merdle's friend!'

At dinner that day, although the occasion was not foreseen and provided

for, a brilliant company of such as are not made of the dust of the

earth, but of some superior article for the present unknown, shed

their lustrous benediction upon Mr Dorrit's daughter's marriage. And Mr

Dorrit's daughter that day began, in earnest, her competition with that

woman not present; and began it so well that Mr Dorrit could all but

have taken his affidavit, if required, that Mrs Sparkler had all her

life been lying at full length in the lap of luxury, and had never heard

of such a rough word in the English tongue as Marshalsea.

Next day, and the day after, and every day, all graced by more dinner

company, cards descended on Mr Dorrit like theatrical snow. As the

friend and relative by marriage of the illustrious Merdle, Bar, Bishop,

Treasury, Chorus, Everybody, wanted to make or improve Mr Dorrit's

acquaintance. In Mr Merdle's heap of offices in the City, when Mr Dorrit

appeared at any of them on his business taking him Eastward (which it

frequently did, for it throve amazingly), the name of Dorrit was always

a passport to the great presence of Merdle. So the dream increased in

rapture every hour, as Mr Dorrit felt increasingly sensible that this

connection had brought him forward indeed.

Only one thing sat otherwise than auriferously, and at the same time

lightly, on Mr Dorrit's mind. It was the Chief Butler. That stupendous

character looked at him, in the course of his official looking at the

dinners, in a manner that Mr Dorrit considered questionable. He looked

at him, as he passed through the hall and up the staircase, going to

dinner, with a glazed fixedness that Mr Dorrit did not like. Seated

at table in the act of drinking, Mr Dorrit still saw him through his

wine-glass, regarding him with a cold and ghostly eye. It misgave him

that the Chief Butler must have known a Collegian, and must have seen

him in the College--perhaps had been presented to him. He looked as

closely at the Chief Butler as such a man could be looked at, and yet

he did not recall that he had ever seen him elsewhere. Ultimately he was

inclined to think that there was no reverence in the man, no sentiment

in the great creature. But he was not relieved by that; for, let him

think what he would, the Chief Butler had him in his supercilious eye,

even when that eye was on the plate and other table-garniture; and he

never let him out of it. To hint to him that this confinement in his eye

was disagreeable, or to ask him what he meant, was an act too daring to

venture upon; his severity with his employers and their visitors being

terrific, and he never permitting himself to be approached with the

slightest liberty.

CHAPTER 17. Missing

The term of Mr Dorrit's visit was within two days of being out, and he

was about to dress for another inspection by the Chief Butler (whose

victims were always dressed expressly for him), when one of the servants

of the hotel presented himself bearing a card. Mr Dorrit, taking it,

read:

'Mrs Finching.'

The servant waited in speechless deference.

'Man, man,' said Mr Dorrit, turning upon him with grievous indignation,

'explain your motive in bringing me this ridiculous name. I am wholly

unacquainted with it. Finching, sir?' said Mr Dorrit, perhaps avenging

himself on the Chief Butler by Substitute.

'Ha! What do you mean by Finching?'

The man, man, seemed to mean Flinching as much as anything else, for

he backed away from Mr Dorrit's severe regard, as he replied, 'A lady,

sir.'

'I know no such lady, sir,' said Mr Dorrit. 'Take this card away. I know

no Finching of either sex.'

'Ask your pardon, sir. The lady said she was aware she might be unknown

by name. But she begged me to say, sir, that she had formerly the honour

of being acquainted with Miss Dorrit. The lady said, sir, the youngest

Miss Dorrit.'

Mr Dorrit knitted his brows and rejoined, after a moment or two, 'Inform

Mrs Finching, sir,' emphasising the name as if the innocent man were

solely responsible for it, 'that she can come up.'

He had reflected, in his momentary pause, that unless she were admitted

she might leave some message, or might say something below, having

a disgraceful reference to that former state of existence. Hence the

concession, and hence the appearance of Flora, piloted in by the man,

man.

'I have not the pleasure,' said Mr Dorrit, standing with the card in his

hand, and with an air which imported that it would scarcely have been a

first-class pleasure if he had had it, 'of knowing either this name, or

yourself, madam. Place a chair, sir.' The responsible man, with a start,

obeyed, and went out on tiptoe. Flora, putting aside her veil with a

bashful tremor upon her, proceeded to introduce herself. At the same

time a singular combination of perfumes was diffused through the room,

as if some brandy had been put by mistake in a lavender-water bottle, or

as if some lavender-water had been put by mistake in a brandy-bottle.

'I beg Mr Dorrit to offer a thousand apologies and indeed they would

be far too few for such an intrusion which I know must appear extremely

bold in a lady and alone too, but I thought it best upon the whole

however difficult and even apparently improper though Mr F.'s Aunt would

have willingly accompanied me and as a character of great force and

spirit would probably have struck one possessed of such a knowledge of

life as no doubt with so many changes must have been acquired, for Mr F.

himself said frequently that although well educated in the neighbourhood

of Blackheath at as high as eighty guineas which is a good deal for

parents and the plate kept back too on going away but that is more a

meanness than its value that he had learnt more in his first years as a

commercial traveller with a large commission on the sale of an article

that nobody would hear of much less buy which preceded the wine trade

a long time than in the whole six years in that academy conducted by a

college Bachelor, though why a Bachelor more clever than a married man I

do not see and never did but pray excuse me that is not the point.'

Mr Dorrit stood rooted to the carpet, a statue of mystification.

'I must openly admit that I have no pretensions,' said Flora, 'but

having known the dear little thing which under altered circumstances

appears a liberty but is not so intended and Goodness knows there was no

favour in half-a-crown a-day to such a needle as herself but quite the

other way and as to anything lowering in it far from it the labourer is

worthy of his hire and I am sure I only wish he got it oftener and more

animal food and less rheumatism in the back and legs poor soul.'

'Madam,' said Mr Dorrit, recovering his breath by a great effort, as the

relict of the late Mr Finching stopped to take hers; 'madam,' said Mr

Dorrit, very red in the face, 'if I understand you to refer to--ha--to

anything in the antecedents of--hum--a daughter of mine, involving--ha

hum--daily compensation, madam, I beg to observe that the--ha--fact,

assuming it--ha--to be fact, never was within my knowledge. Hum. I

should not have permitted it. Ha. Never! Never!'

'Unnecessary to pursue the subject,' returned Flora, 'and would not have

mentioned it on any account except as supposing it a favourable and only

letter of introduction but as to being fact no doubt whatever and you

may set your mind at rest for the very dress I have on now can prove it

and sweetly made though there is no denying that it would tell better on

a better figure for my own is much too fat though how to bring it down I

know not, pray excuse me I am roving off again.' Mr Dorrit backed to his

chair in a stony way, and seated himself, as Flora gave him a softening

look and played with her parasol.

'The dear little thing,' said Flora, 'having gone off perfectly limp

and white and cold in my own house or at least papa's for though not

a freehold still a long lease at a peppercorn on the morning when

Arthur--foolish habit of our youthful days and Mr Clennam far more

adapted to existing circumstances particularly addressing a stranger and

that stranger a gentleman in an elevated station--communicated the glad

tidings imparted by a person of name of Pancks emboldens me.'

At the mention of these two names, Mr Dorrit frowned, stared, frowned

again, hesitated with his fingers at his lips, as he had hesitated long

ago, and said, 'Do me the favour to--ha--state your pleasure, madam.'

'Mr Dorrit,' said Flora, 'you are very kind in giving me permission and

highly natural it seems to me that you should be kind for though more

stately I perceive a likeness filled out of course but a likeness still,

the object of my intruding is my own without the slightest consultation

with any human being and most decidedly not with Arthur--pray excuse me

Doyce and Clennam I don't know what I am saying Mr Clennam solus--for to

put that individual linked by a golden chain to a purple time when all

was ethereal out of any anxiety would be worth to me the ransom of a

monarch not that I have the least idea how much that would come to but

using it as the total of all I have in the world and more.'

Mr Dorrit, without greatly regarding the earnestness of these latter

words, repeated, 'State your pleasure, madam.'

'It's not likely I well know,' said Flora, 'but it's possible and being

possible when I had the gratification of reading in the papers that you

had arrived from Italy and were going back I made up my mind to try it

for you might come across him or hear something of him and if so what a

blessing and relief to all!'

'Allow me to ask, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, with his ideas in wild

confusion, 'to whom--ha--To whom,' he repeated it with a raised voice in

mere desperation, 'you at present allude?'

'To the foreigner from Italy who disappeared in the City as no doubt you

have read in the papers equally with myself,' said Flora, 'not referring

to private sources by the name of Pancks from which one gathers what

dreadfully ill-natured things some people are wicked enough to whisper

most likely judging others by themselves and what the uneasiness

and indignation of Arthur--quite unable to overcome it Doyce and

Clennam--cannot fail to be.'

It happened, fortunately for the elucidation of any intelligible result,

that Mr Dorrit had heard or read nothing about the matter. This

caused Mrs Finching, with many apologies for being in great practical

difficulties as to finding the way to her pocket among the stripes of

her dress at length to produce a police handbill, setting forth that

a foreign gentleman of the name of Blandois, last from Venice, had

unaccountably disappeared on such a night in such a part of the city of

London; that he was known to have entered such a house, at such an hour;

that he was stated by the inmates of that house to have left it, about

so many minutes before midnight; and that he had never been beheld

since. This, with exact particulars of time and locality, and with

a good detailed description of the foreign gentleman who had so

mysteriously vanished, Mr Dorrit read at large.

'Blandois!' said Mr Dorrit. 'Venice! And this description! I know this

gentleman. He has been in my house. He is intimately acquainted with a

gentleman of good family (but in indifferent circumstances), of whom I

am a--hum--patron.'

'Then my humble and pressing entreaty is the more,' said Flora, 'that

in travelling back you will have the kindness to look for this foreign

gentleman along all the roads and up and down all the turnings and to

make inquiries for him at all the hotels and orange-trees and vineyards

and volcanoes and places for he must be somewhere and why doesn't he

come forward and say he's there and clear all parties up?'

'Pray, madam,' said Mr Dorrit, referring to the handbill again, 'who is

Clennam and Co.? Ha. I see the name mentioned here, in connection with

the occupation of the house which Monsieur Blandois was seen to

enter: who is Clennam and Co.? Is it the individual of whom I had

formerly--hum--some--ha--slight transitory knowledge, and to whom I

believe you have referred? Is it--ha--that person?'

'It's a very different person indeed,' replied Flora, 'with no limbs and

wheels instead and the grimmest of women though his mother.'

'Clennam and Co. a--hum--a mother!' exclaimed Mr Dorrit.

'And an old man besides,' said Flora.

Mr Dorrit looked as if he must immediately be driven out of his mind

by this account. Neither was it rendered more favourable to sanity by

Flora's dashing into a rapid analysis of Mr Flintwinch's cravat, and

describing him, without the lightest boundary line of separation between

his identity and Mrs Clennam's, as a rusty screw in gaiters. Which