第 125 页

'Some simplicity. Therefore I felt what a pity it was, and I went out

of my way to hint to you (which really was not official, but I never am

official when I can help it) something to the effect that if I were you,

I wouldn't bother myself. However, you did bother yourself, and you have

since bothered yourself. Now, don't do it any more.'

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

'Oh yes, you are! You'll leave here. Everybody leaves here. There are no

ends of ways of leaving here. Now, don't come back to us. That entreaty

is the second object of my call. Pray, don't come back to us. Upon my

honour,' said Ferdinand in a very friendly and confiding way, 'I shall

be greatly vexed if you don't take warning by the past and keep away

from us.'

'And the invention?' said Clennam.

'My good fellow,' returned Ferdinand, 'if you'll excuse the freedom of

that form of address, nobody wants to know of the invention, and nobody

cares twopence-halfpenny about it.'

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

'Nor out of it. Everybody is ready to dislike and ridicule any

invention. You have no idea how many people want to be left alone.

You have no idea how the Genius of the country (overlook the

Parliamentary nature of the phrase, and don't be bored by it) tends

to being left alone. Believe me, Mr Clennam,' said the sprightly young

Barnacle in his pleasantest manner, 'our place is not a wicked Giant to

be charged at full tilt; but only a windmill showing you, as it grinds

immense quantities of chaff, which way the country wind blows.'

'If I could believe that,' said Clennam, 'it would be a dismal prospect

for all of us.'

'Oh! Don't say so!' returned Ferdinand. 'It's all right. We must have

humbug, we all like humbug, we couldn't get on without humbug.

A little humbug, and a groove, and everything goes on admirably, if you

leave it alone.'

With this hopeful confession of his faith as the head of the rising

Barnacles who were born of woman, to be followed under a variety of

watchwords which they utterly repudiated and disbelieved, Ferdinand

rose. Nothing could be more agreeable than his frank and courteous

bearing, or adapted with a more gentlemanly instinct to the

circumstances of his visit.

'Is it fair to ask,' he said, as Clennam gave him his hand with a real

feeling of thankfulness for his candour and good-humour, 'whether it

is true that our late lamented Merdle is the cause of this passing

inconvenience?'

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

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

Barnacle.

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

silent.

'A consummate rascal, of course,' said Ferdinand, 'but remarkably

clever! One cannot help admiring the fellow. Must have been such a

master of humbug. Knew people so well--got over them so completely--did

so much with them!' In his easy way, he was really moved to genuine

admiration.

'I hope,' said Arthur, 'that he and his dupes may be a warning to people

not to have so much done with them again.'

'My dear Mr Clennam,' returned Ferdinand, laughing, 'have you really

such a verdant hope? The next man who has as large a capacity and as

genuine a taste for swindling, will succeed as well. Pardon me, but

I think you really have no idea how the human bees will swarm to the

beating of any old tin kettle; in that fact lies the complete manual of

governing them. When they can be got to believe that the kettle is made

of the precious metals, in that fact lies the whole power of men like

our late lamented. No doubt there are here and there,' said Ferdinand

politely, 'exceptional cases, where people have been taken in for what

appeared to them to be much better reasons; and I need not go far to

find such a case; but they don't invalidate the rule. Good day! I hope

that when I have the pleasure of seeing you, next, this passing cloud

will have given place to sunshine. Don't come a step beyond the door. I

know the way out perfectly. Good day!'

With those words, the best and brightest of the Barnacles went

down-stairs, hummed his way through the Lodge, mounted his horse in the

front court-yard, and rode off to keep an appointment with his noble

kinsman, who wanted a little coaching before he could triumphantly

answer certain infidel Snobs who were going to question the Nobs about

their statesmanship.

He must have passed Mr Rugg on his way out, for, a minute or two

afterwards, that ruddy-headed gentleman shone in at the door, like an

elderly Phoebus.

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

can do for you to-day, sir?'

'No, I thank you.'

Mr Rugg's enjoyment of embarrassed affairs was like a housekeeper's

enjoyment in pickling and preserving, or a washerwoman's enjoyment of a

heavy wash, or a dustman's enjoyment of an overflowing dust-bin, or any

other professional enjoyment of a mess in the way of business.

'I still look round, from time to time, sir,' said Mr Rugg, cheerfully,

'to see whether any lingering Detainers are accumulating at the gate.

They have fallen in pretty thick, sir; as thick as we could have

expected.'

He remarked upon the circumstance as if it were matter of

congratulation: rubbing his hands briskly, and rolling his head a

little.

'As thick,' repeated Mr Rugg, 'as we could reasonably have expected.

Quite a shower-bath of 'em. I don't often intrude upon you now, when I

look round, because I know you are not inclined for company, and that if

you wished to see me, you would leave word in the Lodge. But I am here

pretty well every day, sir. Would this be an unseasonable time, sir,'

asked Mr Rugg, coaxingly, 'for me to offer an observation?'

'As seasonable a time as any other.'

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

'I don't doubt it.'

'Might it not be advisable, sir,' said Mr Rugg, more coaxingly yet, 'now

to make, at last and after all, a trifling concession to public opinion?

We all do it in one way or another. The fact is, we must do it.'

'I cannot set myself right with it, Mr Rugg, and have no business to

expect that I ever shall.'

'Don't say that, sir, don't say that. The cost of being moved to the

Bench is almost insignificant, and if the general feeling is strong that

you ought to be there, why--really--'

'I thought you had settled, Mr Rugg,' said Arthur, 'that my

determination to remain here was a matter of taste.'

'Well, sir, well! But is it good taste, is it good taste? That's the

Question.' Mr Rugg was so soothingly persuasive as to be quite pathetic.

'I was almost going to say, is it good feeling? This is an extensive

affair of yours; and your remaining here where a man can come for a

pound or two, is remarked upon as not in keeping. It is not in keeping.

I can't tell you, sir, in how many quarters I heard it mentioned. I

heard comments made upon it last night in a Parlour frequented by what

I should call, if I did not look in there now and then myself, the best

legal company--I heard, there, comments on it that I was sorry to hear.

They hurt me on your account. Again, only this morning at breakfast. My

daughter (but a woman, you'll say: yet still with a feeling for these

things, and even with some little personal experience, as the plaintiff

in Rugg and Bawkins) was expressing her great surprise; her great

surprise.

Now under these circumstances, and considering that none of us can quite

set ourselves above public opinion, wouldn't a trifling concession to

that opinion be--Come, sir,' said Rugg, 'I will put it on the lowest

ground of argument, and say, amiable?'

Arthur's thoughts had once more wandered away to Little Dorrit, and the

question remained unanswered.

'As to myself, sir,' said Mr Rugg, hoping that his eloquence had reduced

him to a state of indecision, 'it is a principle of mine not to consider

myself when a client's inclinations are in the scale. But, knowing your

considerate character and general wish to oblige, I will repeat that I

should prefer your being in the Bench.

Your case has made a noise; it is a creditable case to be professionally

concerned in; I should feel on a better standing with my connection, if

you went to the Bench. Don't let that influence you, sir. I merely state

the fact.'

So errant had the prisoner's attention already grown in solitude and

dejection, and so accustomed had it become to commune with only one

silent figure within the ever-frowning walls, that Clennam had to shake

off a kind of stupor before he could look at Mr Rugg, recall the thread

of his talk, and hurriedly say, 'I am unchanged, and unchangeable, in my

decision. Pray, let it be; let it be!' Mr Rugg, without concealing that

he was nettled and mortified, replied:

'Oh! Beyond a doubt, sir. I have travelled out of the record, sir, I am

aware, in putting the point to you. But really, when I herd it remarked

in several companies, and in very good company, that however worthy of a

foreigner, it is not worthy of the spirit of an Englishman to remain in

the Marshalsea when the glorious liberties of his island home admit

of his removal to the Bench, I thought I would depart from the narrow

professional line marked out to me, and mention it. Personally,' said Mr

Rugg, 'I have no opinion on the topic.'

'That's well,' returned Arthur.

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

unwilling, some minutes ago, to see a client of mine visited in this

place by a gentleman of a high family riding a saddle-horse. But it was

not my business. If I had, I might have wished to be now empowered to

mention to another gentleman, a gentleman of military exterior at

present waiting in the Lodge, that my client had never intended to

remain here, and was on the eve of removal to a superior abode. But my

course as a professional machine is clear; I have nothing to do with it.

Is it your good pleasure to see the gentleman, sir?'

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

'I did take that unprofessional liberty, sir. Hearing that I was your

professional adviser, he declined to interpose before my very limited

function was performed. Happily,' said Mr Rugg, with sarcasm, 'I did not

so far travel out of the record as to ask the gentleman for his name.'

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

'Then it IS your good pleasure, sir?' retorted Rugg. 'Am I honoured by

your instructions to mention as much to the gentleman, as I pass out? I

am? Thank you, sir. I take my leave.' His leave he took accordingly, in

dudgeon.

The gentleman of military exterior had so imperfectly awakened Clennam's

curiosity, in the existing state of his mind, that a half-forgetfulness

of such a visitor's having been referred to, was already creeping over

it as a part of the sombre veil which almost always dimmed it now, when

a heavy footstep on the stairs aroused him. It appeared to ascend them,

not very promptly or spontaneously, yet with a display of stride and

clatter meant to be insulting. As it paused for a moment on the

landing outside his door, he could not recall his association with the

peculiarity of its sound, though he thought he had one. Only a moment

was given him for consideration. His door was immediately swung open

by a thump, and in the doorway stood the missing Blandois, the cause of

many anxieties.

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

Before Arthur could speak to him in his indignant wonder, Cavalletto

followed him into the room. Mr Pancks followed Cavalletto. Neither of

the two had been there since its present occupant had had possession of

it. Mr Pancks, breathing hard, sidled near the window, put his hat on

the ground, stirred his hair up with both hands, and folded his arms,

like a man who had come to a pause in a hard day's work. Mr Baptist,

never taking his eyes from his dreaded chum of old, softly sat down on

the floor with his back against the door and one of his ankles in

each hand: resuming the attitude (except that it was now expressive of

unwinking watchfulness) in which he had sat before the same man in the

deeper shade of another prison, one hot morning at Marseilles. 'I have

it on the witnessing of these two madmen,' said Monsieur Blandois,

otherwise Lagnier, otherwise Rigaud, 'that you want me, brother-bird.

Here I am!' Glancing round contemptuously at the bedstead, which was

turned up by day, he leaned his back against it as a resting-place,

without removing his hat from his head, and stood defiantly lounging

with his hands in his pockets.

'You villain of ill-omen!' said Arthur. 'You have purposely cast a

dreadful suspicion upon my mother's house. Why have you done it?

What prompted you to the devilish invention?'

Monsieur Rigaud, after frowning at him for a moment, laughed. 'Hear this

noble gentleman! Listen, all the world, to this creature of Virtue! But

take care, take care. It is possible, my friend, that your ardour is a

little compromising. Holy Blue! It is possible.'

'Signore!' interposed Cavalletto, also addressing Arthur: 'for to

commence, hear me! I received your instructions to find him, Rigaud; is

it not?'

'It is the truth.'

'I go, consequentementally,'--it would have given Mrs Plornish great

concern if she could have been persuaded that his occasional lengthening