第 33 页

hammered, and improved his knowledge, theoretical and practical, for six

or seven years more. There he had had an offer to go to Lyons, which he

had accepted; and from Lyons had been engaged to go to Germany, and in

Germany had had an offer to go to St Petersburg, and there had done very

well indeed--never better. However, he had naturally felt a preference

for his own country, and a wish to gain distinction there, and to do

whatever service he could do, there rather than elsewhere. And so he had

come home. And so at home he had established himself in business, and

had invented and executed, and worked his way on, until, after a dozen

years of constant suit and service, he had been enrolled in the

Great British Legion of Honour, the Legion of the Rebuffed of the

Circumlocution Office, and had been decorated with the Great British

Order of Merit, the Order of the Disorder of the Barnacles and

Stiltstalkings.

'It is much to be regretted,' said Clennam, 'that you ever turned your

thoughts that way, Mr Doyce.'

'True, sir, true to a certain extent. But what is a man to do? if he

has the misfortune to strike out something serviceable to the nation,

he must follow where it leads him.' 'Hadn't he better let it go?' said

Clennam.

'He can't do it,' said Doyce, shaking his head with a thoughtful smile.

'It's not put into his head to be buried. It's put into his head to be

made useful. You hold your life on the condition that to the last you

shall struggle hard for it. Every man holds a discovery on the same

terms.'

'That is to say,' said Arthur, with a growing admiration of his quiet

companion, 'you are not finally discouraged even now?'

'I have no right to be, if I am,' returned the other. 'The thing is as

true as it ever was.'

When they had walked a little way in silence, Clennam, at once to

change the direct point of their conversation and not to change it

too abruptly, asked Mr Doyce if he had any partner in his business to

relieve him of a portion of its anxieties?

'No,' he returned, 'not at present. I had when I first entered on it,

and a good man he was. But he has been dead some years; and as I could

not easily take to the notion of another when I lost him, I bought

his share for myself and have gone on by myself ever since. And here's

another thing,' he said, stopping for a moment with a good-humoured

laugh in his eyes, and laying his closed right hand, with its peculiar

suppleness of thumb, on Clennam's arm, 'no inventor can be a man of

business, you know.'

'No?' said Clennam.

'Why, so the men of business say,' he answered, resuming the walk and

laughing outright. 'I don't know why we unfortunate creatures should

be supposed to want common sense, but it is generally taken for granted

that we do. Even the best friend I have in the world, our excellent

friend over yonder,' said Doyce, nodding towards Twickenham, 'extends

a sort of protection to me, don't you know, as a man not quite able to

take care of himself?'

Arthur Clennam could not help joining in the good-humoured laugh, for he

recognised the truth of the description.

'So I find that I must have a partner who is a man of business and not

guilty of any inventions,' said Daniel Doyce, taking off his hat to pass

his hand over his forehead, 'if it's only in deference to the current

opinion, and to uphold the credit of the Works. I don't think he'll find

that I have been very remiss or confused in my way of conducting them;

but that's for him to say--whoever he is--not for me.' 'You have not

chosen him yet, then?'

'No, sir, no. I have only just come to a decision to take one. The fact

is, there's more to do than there used to be, and the Works are enough

for me as I grow older. What with the books and correspondence, and

foreign journeys for which a Principal is necessary, I can't do all. I

am going to talk over the best way of negotiating the matter, if I find

a spare half-hour between this and Monday morning, with my--my Nurse and

protector,' said Doyce, with laughing eyes again. 'He is a sagacious man

in business, and has had a good apprenticeship to it.'

After this, they conversed on different subjects until they arrived at

their journey's end. A composed and unobtrusive self-sustainment was

noticeable in Daniel Doyce--a calm knowledge that what was true must

remain true, in spite of all the Barnacles in the family ocean, and

would be just the truth, and neither more nor less when even that sea

had run dry--which had a kind of greatness in it, though not of the

official quality.

As he knew the house well, he conducted Arthur to it by the way that

showed it to the best advantage. It was a charming place (none the worse

for being a little eccentric), on the road by the river, and just what

the residence of the Meagles family ought to be. It stood in a garden,

no doubt as fresh and beautiful in the May of the Year as Pet now was

in the May of her life; and it was defended by a goodly show of handsome

trees and spreading evergreens, as Pet was by Mr and Mrs Meagles. It

was made out of an old brick house, of which a part had been altogether

pulled down, and another part had been changed into the present cottage;

so there was a hale elderly portion, to represent Mr and Mrs Meagles,

and a young picturesque, very pretty portion to represent Pet. There was

even the later addition of a conservatory sheltering itself against it,

uncertain of hue in its deep-stained glass, and in its more transparent

portions flashing to the sun's rays, now like fire and now like harmless

water drops; which might have stood for Tattycoram. Within view was

the peaceful river and the ferry-boat, to moralise to all the inmates

saying: Young or old, passionate or tranquil, chafing or content, you,

thus runs the current always. Let the heart swell into what discord it

will, thus plays the rippling water on the prow of the ferry-boat ever

the same tune. Year after year, so much allowance for the drifting of

the boat, so many miles an hour the flowing of the stream, here the

rushes, there the lilies, nothing uncertain or unquiet, upon this road

that steadily runs away; while you, upon your flowing road of time, are

so capricious and distracted.

The bell at the gate had scarcely sounded when Mr Meagles came out to

receive them. Mr Meagles had scarcely come out, when Mrs Meagles came

out. Mrs Meagles had scarcely come out, when Pet came out. Pet scarcely

had come out, when Tattycoram came out. Never had visitors a more

hospitable reception.

'Here we are, you see,' said Mr Meagles, 'boxed up, Mr Clennam, within

our own home-limits, as if we were never going to expand--that is,

travel--again. Not like Marseilles, eh? No allonging and marshonging

here!'

'A different kind of beauty, indeed!' said Clennam, looking about him.

'But, Lord bless me!' cried Mr Meagles, rubbing his hands with a relish,

'it was an uncommonly pleasant thing being in quarantine, wasn't it?

Do you know, I have often wished myself back again? We were a capital

party.'

This was Mr Meagles's invariable habit. Always to object to everything

while he was travelling, and always to want to get back to it when he

was not travelling.

'If it was summer-time,' said Mr Meagles, 'which I wish it was on your

account, and in order that you might see the place at its best, you

would hardly be able to hear yourself speak for birds. Being practical

people, we never allow anybody to scare the birds; and the birds, being

practical people too, come about us in myriads. We are delighted to see

you, Clennam (if you'll allow me, I shall drop the Mister); I heartily

assure you, we are delighted.'

'I have not had so pleasant a greeting,' said Clennam--then he recalled

what Little Dorrit had said to him in his own room, and faithfully

added 'except once--since we last walked to and fro, looking down at the

Mediterranean.'

'Ah!' returned Mr Meagles. 'Something like a look out, that was, wasn't

it? I don't want a military government, but I shouldn't mind a little

allonging and marshonging--just a dash of it--in this neighbourhood

sometimes. It's Devilish still.'

Bestowing this eulogium on the retired character of his retreat with a

dubious shake of the head, Mr Meagles led the way into the house. It was

just large enough, and no more; was as pretty within as it was without,

and was perfectly well-arranged and comfortable.

Some traces of the migratory habits of the family were to be observed

in the covered frames and furniture, and wrapped-up hangings; but it was

easy to see that it was one of Mr Meagles's whims to have the cottage

always kept, in their absence, as if they were always coming back the

day after to-morrow. Of articles collected on his various expeditions,

there was such a vast miscellany that it was like the dwelling of an

amiable Corsair. There were antiquities from Central Italy, made by the

best modern houses in that department of industry; bits of mummy from

Egypt (and perhaps Birmingham); model gondolas from Venice; model

villages from Switzerland; morsels of tesselated pavement from

Herculaneum and Pompeii, like petrified minced veal; ashes out of tombs,

and lava out of Vesuvius; Spanish fans, Spezzian straw hats, Moorish

slippers, Tuscan hairpins, Carrara sculpture, Trastaverini scarves,

Genoese velvets and filigree, Neapolitan coral, Roman cameos, Geneva

jewellery, Arab lanterns, rosaries blest all round by the Pope himself,

and an infinite variety of lumber. There were views, like and unlike, of

a multitude of places; and there was one little picture-room devoted to

a few of the regular sticky old Saints, with sinews like whipcord, hair

like Neptune's, wrinkles like tattooing, and such coats of varnish

that every holy personage served for a fly-trap, and became what is

now called in the vulgar tongue a Catch-em-alive O. Of these pictorial

acquisitions Mr Meagles spoke in the usual manner. He was no judge, he

said, except of what pleased himself; he had picked them up, dirt-cheap,

and people had considered them rather fine. One man, who at any rate

ought to know something of the subject, had declared that 'Sage,

Reading' (a specially oily old gentleman in a blanket, with a

swan's-down tippet for a beard, and a web of cracks all over him like

rich pie-crust), to be a fine Guercino. As for Sebastian del Piombo

there, you would judge for yourself; if it were not his later

manner, the question was, Who was it? Titian, that might or might not

be--perhaps he had only touched it. Daniel Doyce said perhaps he hadn't

touched it, but Mr Meagles rather declined to overhear the remark.

When he had shown all his spoils, Mr Meagles took them into his own

snug room overlooking the lawn, which was fitted up in part like a

dressing-room and in part like an office, and in which, upon a kind of

counter-desk, were a pair of brass scales for weighing gold, and a scoop

for shovelling out money.

'Here they are, you see,' said Mr Meagles. 'I stood behind these two

articles five-and-thirty years running, when I no more thought of

gadding about than I now think of--staying at home. When I left the Bank

for good, I asked for them, and brought them away with me.

I mention it at once, or you might suppose that I sit in my

counting-house (as Pet says I do), like the king in the poem of the

four-and-twenty blackbirds, counting out my money.'

Clennam's eyes had strayed to a natural picture on the wall, of two

pretty little girls with their arms entwined. 'Yes, Clennam,' said

Mr Meagles, in a lower voice. 'There they both are. It was taken some

seventeen years ago. As I often say to Mother, they were babies then.'

'Their names?' said Arthur.

'Ah, to be sure! You have never heard any name but Pet. Pet's name is

Minnie; her sister's Lillie.'

'Should you have known, Mr Clennam, that one of them was meant for me?'

asked Pet herself, now standing in the doorway.

'I might have thought that both of them were meant for you, both

are still so like you. Indeed,' said Clennam, glancing from the fair

original to the picture and back, 'I cannot even now say which is not

your portrait.' 'D'ye hear that, Mother?' cried Mr Meagles to his wife,

who had followed her daughter. 'It's always the same, Clennam; nobody

can decide. The child to your left is Pet.'

The picture happened to be near a looking-glass. As Arthur looked at

it again, he saw, by the reflection of the mirror, Tattycoram stop in

passing outside the door, listen to what was going on, and pass away

with an angry and contemptuous frown upon her face, that changed its

beauty into ugliness.

'But come!' said Mr Meagles. 'You have had a long walk, and will be glad

to get your boots off. As to Daniel here, I suppose he'd never think of

taking his boots off, unless we showed him a boot-jack.'

'Why not?' asked Daniel, with a significant smile at Clennam.

'Oh! You have so many things to think about,' returned Mr Meagles,

clapping him on the shoulder, as if his weakness must not be left to

itself on any account. 'Figures, and wheels, and cogs, and levers, and

screws, and cylinders, and a thousand things.'

'In my calling,' said Daniel, amused, 'the greater usually includes the

less. But never mind, never mind! Whatever pleases you, pleases me.'

Clennam could not help speculating, as he seated himself in his room

by the fire, whether there might be in the breast of this honest,

affectionate, and cordial Mr Meagles, any microscopic portion of

the mustard-seed that had sprung up into the great tree of the