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cheaper, he would be taken in my place at sixpence cheaper. Bargain and

sale, bless you! Fixed principles! It's a mighty fine sign-post, is The

Casby's Head,' said Mr Pancks, surveying it with anything rather than

admiration; 'but the real name of the House is the Sham's Arms. Its

motto is, Keep the Grubber always at it. Is any gentleman present,' said

Mr Pancks, breaking off and looking round, 'acquainted with the English

Grammar?'

Bleeding Heart Yard was shy of claiming that acquaintance.

'It's no matter,' said Mr Pancks, 'I merely wish to remark that the task

this Proprietor has set me, has been never to leave off conjugating the

Imperative Mood Present Tense of the verb To keep always at it. Keep

thou always at it. Let him keep always at it. Keep we or do we keep

always at it. Keep ye or do ye or you keep always at it. Let them keep

always at it. Here is your benevolent Patriarch of a Casby, and there is

his golden rule. He is uncommonly improving to look at, and I am not

at all so. He is as sweet as honey, and I am as dull as ditch-water. He

provides the pitch, and I handle it, and it sticks to me. Now,' said

Mr Pancks, closing upon his late Proprietor again, from whom he had

withdrawn a little for the better display of him to the Yard; 'as I am

not accustomed to speak in public, and as I have made a rather lengthy

speech, all circumstances considered, I shall bring my observations to a

close by requesting you to get out of this.'

The Last of the Patriarchs had been so seized by assault, and required

so much room to catch an idea in, an so much more room to turn it in,

that he had not a word to offer in reply. He appeared to be meditating

some Patriarchal way out of his delicate position, when Mr Pancks, once

more suddenly applying the trigger to his hat, shot it off again with

his former dexterity. On the preceding occasion, one or two of the

Bleeding Heart Yarders had obsequiously picked it up and handed it to

its owner; but Mr Pancks had now so far impressed his audience, that the

Patriarch had to turn and stoop for it himself.

Quick as lightning, Mr Pancks, who, for some moments, had had his right

hand in his coat pocket, whipped out a pair of shears, swooped upon the

Patriarch behind, and snipped off short the sacred locks that flowed

upon his shoulders. In a paroxysm of animosity and rapidity, Mr Pancks

then caught the broad-brimmed hat out of the astounded Patriarch's hand,

cut it down into a mere stewpan, and fixed it on the Patriarch's head.

Before the frightful results of this desperate action, Mr Pancks himself

recoiled in consternation. A bare-polled, goggle-eyed, big-headed

lumbering personage stood staring at him, not in the least impressive,

not in the least venerable, who seemed to have started out of the

earth to ask what was become of Casby. After staring at this phantom in

return, in silent awe, Mr Pancks threw down his shears, and fled for a

place of hiding, where he might lie sheltered from the consequences of

his crime. Mr Pancks deemed it prudent to use all possible despatch in

making off, though he was pursued by nothing but the sound of laughter

in Bleeding Heart Yard, rippling through the air and making it ring

again.

CHAPTER 33. Going!

The changes of a fevered room are slow and fluctuating; but the changes

of the fevered world are rapid and irrevocable.

It was Little Dorrit's lot to wait upon both kinds of change. The

Marshalsea walls, during a portion of every day, again embraced her in

their shadows as their child, while she thought for Clennam, worked for

him, watched him, and only left him, still to devote her utmost love and

care to him. Her part in the life outside the gate urged its pressing

claims upon her too, and her patience untiringly responded to them.

Here was Fanny, proud, fitful, whimsical, further advanced in that

disqualified state for going into society which had so much fretted

her on the evening of the tortoise-shell knife, resolved always to want

comfort, resolved not to be comforted, resolved to be deeply wronged,

and resolved that nobody should have the audacity to think her so. Here

was her brother, a weak, proud, tipsy, young old man, shaking from

head to foot, talking as indistinctly as if some of the money he plumed

himself upon had got into his mouth and couldn't be got out, unable to

walk alone in any act of his life, and patronising the sister whom he

selfishly loved (he always had that negative merit, ill-starred and

ill-launched Tip!) because he suffered her to lead him. Here was Mrs

Merdle in gauzy mourning--the original cap whereof had possibly been

rent to pieces in a fit of grief, but had certainly yielded to a highly

becoming article from the Parisian market--warring with Fanny foot to

foot, and breasting her with her desolate bosom every hour in the day.

Here was poor Mr Sparkler, not knowing how to keep the peace between

them, but humbly inclining to the opinion that they could do no better

than agree that they were both remarkably fine women, and that there was

no nonsense about either of them--for which gentle recommendation they

united in falling upon him frightfully. Then, too, here was Mrs General,

got home from foreign parts, sending a Prune and a Prism by post every

other day, demanding a new Testimonial by way of recommendation to some

vacant appointment or other. Of which remarkable gentlewoman it may be

finally observed, that there surely never was a gentlewoman of whose

transcendent fitness for any vacant appointment on the face of this

earth, so many people were (as the warmth of her Testimonials evinced)

so perfectly satisfied--or who was so very unfortunate in having a

large circle of ardent and distinguished admirers, who never themselves

happened to want her in any capacity.

On the first crash of the eminent Mr Merdle's decease, many important

persons had been unable to determine whether they should cut Mrs Merdle,

or comfort her. As it seemed, however, essential to the strength of

their own case that they should admit her to have been cruelly deceived,

they graciously made the admission, and continued to know her. It

followed that Mrs Merdle, as a woman of fashion and good breeding who

had been sacrificed to the wiles of a vulgar barbarian (for Mr Merdle

was found out from the crown of his head to the sole of his foot, the

moment he was found out in his pocket), must be actively championed by

her order for her order's sake. She returned this fealty by causing it

to be understood that she was even more incensed against the felonious

shade of the deceased than anybody else was; thus, on the whole, she

came out of her furnace like a wise woman, and did exceedingly well.

Mr Sparkler's lordship was fortunately one of those shelves on which a

gentleman is considered to be put away for life, unless there should be

reasons for hoisting him up with the Barnacle crane to a more lucrative

height. That patriotic servant accordingly stuck to his colours (the

Standard of four Quarterings), and was a perfect Nelson in respect

of nailing them to the mast. On the profits of his intrepidity, Mrs

Sparkler and Mrs Merdle, inhabiting different floors of the genteel

little temple of inconvenience to which the smell of the day before

yesterday's soup and coach-horses was as constant as Death to man,

arrayed themselves to fight it out in the lists of Society, sworn

rivals. And Little Dorrit, seeing all these things as they developed

themselves, could not but wonder, anxiously, into what back corner of

the genteel establishment Fanny's children would be poked by-and-by, and

who would take care of those unborn little victims.

Arthur being far too ill to be spoken with on subjects of emotion or

anxiety, and his recovery greatly depending on the repose into which

his weakness could be hushed, Little Dorrit's sole reliance during this

heavy period was on Mr Meagles. He was still abroad; but she had written

to him through his daughter, immediately after first seeing Arthur in

the Marshalsea and since, confiding her uneasiness to him on the points

on which she was most anxious, but especially on one. To that one,

the continued absence of Mr Meagles abroad, instead of his comforting

presence in the Marshalsea, was referable.

Without disclosing the precise nature of the documents that had fallen

into Rigaud's hands, Little Dorrit had confided the general outline of

that story to Mr Meagles, to whom she had also recounted his fate. The

old cautious habits of the scales and scoop at once showed Mr Meagles

the importance of recovering the original papers; wherefore he wrote

back to Little Dorrit, strongly confirming her in the solicitude she

expressed on that head, and adding that he would not come over to

England 'without making some attempt to trace them out.'

By this time Mr Henry Gowan had made up his mind that it would be

agreeable to him not to know the Meagleses. He was so considerate as to

lay no injunctions on his wife in that particular; but he mentioned

to Mr Meagles that personally they did not appear to him to get on

together, and that he thought it would be a good thing if--politely, and

without any scene, or anything of that sort--they agreed that they were

the best fellows in the world, but were best apart. Poor Mr Meagles, who

was already sensible that he did not advance his daughter's happiness by

being constantly slighted in her presence, said 'Good, Henry! You are

my Pet's husband; you have displaced me, in the course of nature; if

you wish it, good!' This arrangement involved the contingent advantage,

which perhaps Henry Gowan had not foreseen, that both Mr and Mrs

Meagles were more liberal than before to their daughter, when their

communication was only with her and her young child: and that his high

spirit found itself better provided with money, without being under the

degrading necessity of knowing whence it came.

Mr Meagles, at such a period, naturally seized an occupation with great

ardour. He knew from his daughter the various towns which Rigaud had

been haunting, and the various hotels at which he had been living for

some time back. The occupation he set himself was to visit these with

all discretion and speed, and, in the event of finding anywhere that he

had left a bill unpaid, and a box or parcel behind, to pay such bill,

and bring away such box or parcel.

With no other attendant than Mother, Mr Meagles went upon his

pilgrimage, and encountered a number of adventures. Not the least of his

difficulties was, that he never knew what was said to him, and that he

pursued his inquiries among people who never knew what he said to them.

Still, with an unshaken confidence that the English tongue was somehow

the mother tongue of the whole world, only the people were too stupid

to know it, Mr Meagles harangued innkeepers in the most voluble manner,

entered into loud explanations of the most complicated sort, and utterly

renounced replies in the native language of the respondents, on the

ground that they were 'all bosh.' Sometimes interpreters were called

in; whom Mr Meagles addressed in such idiomatic terms of speech, as

instantly to extinguish and shut up--which made the matter worse. On a

balance of the account, however, it may be doubted whether he lost much;

for, although he found no property, he found so many debts and various

associations of discredit with the proper name, which was the only word

he made intelligible, that he was almost everywhere overwhelmed with

injurious accusations. On no fewer than four occasions the police

were called in to receive denunciations of Mr Meagles as a Knight of

Industry, a good-for-nothing, and a thief, all of which opprobrious

language he bore with the best temper (having no idea what it meant),

and was in the most ignominious manner escorted to steam-boats and

public carriages, to be got rid of, talking all the while, like a

cheerful and fluent Briton as he was, with Mother under his arm.

But, in his own tongue, and in his own head, Mr Meagles was a clear,

shrewd, persevering man. When he had 'worked round,' as he called it, to

Paris in his pilgrimage, and had wholly failed in it so far, he was not

disheartened. 'The nearer to England I follow him, you see, Mother,'

argued Mr Meagles, 'the nearer I am likely to come to the papers,

whether they turn up or no. Because it is only reasonable to conclude

that he would deposit them somewhere where they would be safe from

people over in England, and where they would yet be accessible to

himself, don't you see?'

At Paris Mr Meagles found a letter from Little Dorrit, lying waiting for

him; in which she mentioned that she had been able to talk for a minute

or two with Mr Clennam about this man who was no more; and that when she

told Mr Clennam that his friend Mr Meagles, who was on his way to see

him, had an interest in ascertaining something about the man if he

could, he had asked her to tell Mr Meagles that he had been known

to Miss Wade, then living in such a street at Calais. 'Oho!' said Mr

Meagles.

As soon afterwards as might be in those Diligence days, Mr Meagles

rang the cracked bell at the cracked gate, and it jarred open, and the

peasant-woman stood in the dark doorway, saying, 'Ice-say! Seer! Who?'

In acknowledgment of whose address, Mr Meagles murmured to himself that

there was some sense about these Calais people, who really did know

something of what you and themselves were up to; and returned, 'Miss

Wade, my dear.' He was then shown into the presence of Miss Wade.

'It's some time since we met,' said Mr Meagles, clearing his throat; 'I

hope you have been pretty well, Miss Wade?'

Without hoping that he or anybody else had been pretty well, Miss Wade

asked him to what she was indebted for the honour of seeing him again?

Mr Meagles, in the meanwhile, glanced all round the room without

observing anything in the shape of a box.

'Why, the truth is, Miss Wade,' said Mr Meagles, in a comfortable,