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the letters were addressed.

'I'm a going So and So. There! That's where I am a going to,' said

Maggy. 'I'm a going So and So. It ain't you, Little Mother, that's got

anything to do with it--it's you, you know,' said Maggy, addressing

Arthur. 'You'd better come, So and So, and let me take and give 'em to

you.'

'We will not be so particular as that, Maggy. Give them me here,' said

Clennam in a low voice.

'Well, then, come across the road,' answered Maggy in a very loud

whisper. 'Little Mother wasn't to know nothing of it, and she would

never have known nothing of it if you had only gone So and So, instead

of bothering and loitering about. It ain't my fault. I must do what I am

told. They ought to be ashamed of themselves for telling me.'

Clennam crossed to the other side, and hurriedly opened the letters.

That from the father mentioned that most unexpectedly finding himself in

the novel position of having been disappointed of a remittance from

the City on which he had confidently counted, he took up his pen, being

restrained by the unhappy circumstance of his incarceration during

three-and-twenty years (doubly underlined), from coming himself, as

he would otherwise certainly have done--took up his pen to entreat Mr

Clennam to advance him the sum of Three Pounds Ten Shillings upon his

I.O.U., which he begged to enclose. That from the son set forth that

Mr Clennam would, he knew, be gratified to hear that he had at

length obtained permanent employment of a highly satisfactory nature,

accompanied with every prospect of complete success in life; but that

the temporary inability of his employer to pay him his arrears of salary

to that date (in which condition said employer had appealed to that

generous forbearance in which he trusted he should never be wanting

towards a fellow-creature), combined with the fraudulent conduct of a

false friend and the present high price of provisions, had reduced

him to the verge of ruin, unless he could by a quarter before six that

evening raise the sum of eight pounds. This sum, Mr Clennam would be

happy to learn, he had, through the promptitude of several friends

who had a lively confidence in his probity, already raised, with the

exception of a trifling balance of one pound seventeen and fourpence;

the loan of which balance, for the period of one month, would be fraught

with the usual beneficent consequences.

These letters Clennam answered with the aid of his pencil and

pocket-book, on the spot; sending the father what he asked for, and

excusing himself from compliance with the demand of the son. He then

commissioned Maggy to return with his replies, and gave her the

shilling of which the failure of her supplemental enterprise would have

disappointed her otherwise.

When he rejoined Little Dorrit, and they had begun walking as before,

she said all at once:

'I think I had better go. I had better go home.'

'Don't be distressed,' said Clennam, 'I have answered the letters. They

were nothing. You know what they were. They were nothing.'

'But I am afraid,' she returned, 'to leave him, I am afraid to leave

any of them. When I am gone, they pervert--but they don't mean it--even

Maggy.'

'It was a very innocent commission that she undertook, poor thing. And

in keeping it secret from you, she supposed, no doubt, that she was only

saving you uneasiness.'

'Yes, I hope so, I hope so. But I had better go home! It was but the

other day that my sister told me I had become so used to the prison that

I had its tone and character. It must be so. I am sure it must be when I

see these things. My place is there. I am better there, it is unfeeling

in me to be here, when I can do the least thing there. Good-bye. I had

far better stay at home!'

The agonised way in which she poured this out, as if it burst of itself

from her suppressed heart, made it difficult for Clennam to keep the

tears from his eyes as he saw and heard her.

'Don't call it home, my child!' he entreated. 'It is always painful to

me to hear you call it home.'

'But it is home! What else can I call home? Why should I ever forget it

for a single moment?'

'You never do, dear Little Dorrit, in any good and true service.'

'I hope not, O I hope not! But it is better for me to stay there; much

better, much more dutiful, much happier. Please don't go with me, let me

go by myself. Good-bye, God bless you. Thank you, thank you.'

He felt that it was better to respect her entreaty, and did not move

while her slight form went quickly away from him. When it had fluttered

out of sight, he turned his face towards the water and stood thinking.

She would have been distressed at any time by this discovery of the

letters; but so much so, and in that unrestrainable way?

No.

When she had seen her father begging with his threadbare disguise on,

when she had entreated him not to give her father money, she had

been distressed, but not like this. Something had made her keenly and

additionally sensitive just now. Now, was there some one in the hopeless

unattainable distance? Or had the suspicion been brought into his mind,

by his own associations of the troubled river running beneath the bridge

with the same river higher up, its changeless tune upon the prow of the

ferry-boat, so many miles an hour the peaceful flowing of the stream,

here the rushes, there the lilies, nothing uncertain or unquiet?

He thought of his poor child, Little Dorrit, for a long time there; he

thought of her going home; he thought of her in the night; he thought

of her when the day came round again. And the poor child Little Dorrit

thought of him--too faithfully, ah, too faithfully!--in the shadow of

the Marshalsea wall.

CHAPTER 23. Machinery in Motion

Mr Meagles bestirred himself with such prompt activity in the matter of

the negotiation with Daniel Doyce which Clennam had entrusted to him,

that he soon brought it into business train, and called on Clennam at

nine o'clock one morning to make his report. 'Doyce is highly gratified

by your good opinion,' he opened the business by saying, 'and desires

nothing so much as that you should examine the affairs of the Works for

yourself, and entirely understand them. He has handed me the keys of

all his books and papers--here they are jingling in this pocket--and the

only charge he has given me is "Let Mr Clennam have the means of putting

himself on a perfect equality with me as to knowing whatever I know.

If it should come to nothing after all, he will respect my confidence.

Unless I was sure of that to begin with, I should have nothing to do

with him." And there, you see,' said Mr Meagles, 'you have Daniel Doyce

all over.'

'A very honourable character.'

'Oh, yes, to be sure. Not a doubt of it. Odd, but very honourable. Very

odd though. Now, would you believe, Clennam,' said Mr Meagles, with

a hearty enjoyment of his friend's eccentricity, 'that I had a whole

morning in What's-his-name Yard--'

'Bleeding Heart?'

'A whole morning in Bleeding Heart Yard, before I could induce him to

pursue the subject at all?'

'How was that?'

'How was that, my friend? I no sooner mentioned your name in connection

with it than he declared off.'

'Declared off on my account?'

'I no sooner mentioned your name, Clennam, than he said, "That will

never do!" What did he mean by that? I asked him. No matter, Meagles;

that would never do. Why would it never do? You'll hardly believe it,

Clennam,' said Mr Meagles, laughing within himself, 'but it came out

that it would never do, because you and he, walking down to Twickenham

together, had glided into a friendly conversation in the course of which

he had referred to his intention of taking a partner, supposing at the

time that you were as firmly and finally settled as St Paul's Cathedral.

"Whereas," says he, "Mr Clennam might now believe, if I entertained his

proposition, that I had a sinister and designing motive in what was open

free speech. Which I can't bear," says he, "which I really am too proud

to bear."'

'I should as soon suspect--'

'Of course you would,' interrupted Mr Meagles, 'and so I told him. But

it took a morning to scale that wall; and I doubt if any other man

than myself (he likes me of old) could have got his leg over it. Well,

Clennam. This business-like obstacle surmounted, he then stipulated that

before resuming with you I should look over the books and form my own

opinion. I looked over the books, and formed my own opinion. "Is it, on

the whole, for, or against?" says he. "For," says I. "Then," says he,

"you may now, my good friend, give Mr Clennam the means of forming

his opinion. To enable him to do which, without bias and with perfect

freedom, I shall go out of town for a week." And he's gone,' said Mr

Meagles; that's the rich conclusion of the thing.'

'Leaving me,' said Clennam, 'with a high sense, I must say, of his

candour and his--'

'Oddity,' Mr Meagles struck in. 'I should think so!'

It was not exactly the word on Clennam's lips, but he forbore to

interrupt his good-humoured friend.

'And now,' added Mr Meagles, 'you can begin to look into matters as soon

as you think proper. I have undertaken to explain where you may want

explanation, but to be strictly impartial, and to do nothing more.'

They began their perquisitions in Bleeding Heart Yard that same

forenoon. Little peculiarities were easily to be detected by experienced

eyes in Mr Doyce's way of managing his affairs, but they almost always

involved some ingenious simplification of a difficulty, and some plain

road to the desired end. That his papers were in arrear, and that he

stood in need of assistance to develop the capacity of his business, was

clear enough; but all the results of his undertakings during many years

were distinctly set forth, and were ascertainable with ease. Nothing had

been done for the purposes of the pending investigation; everything was

in its genuine working dress, and in a certain honest rugged order. The

calculations and entries, in his own hand, of which there were many,

were bluntly written, and with no very neat precision; but were always

plain and directed straight to the purpose. It occurred to Arthur that

a far more elaborate and taking show of business--such as the records of

the Circumlocution Office made perhaps--might be far less serviceable,

as being meant to be far less intelligible.

Three or four days of steady application tendered him master of all the

facts it was essential to become acquainted with. Mr Meagles was at hand

the whole time, always ready to illuminate any dim place with the bright

little safety-lamp belonging to the scales and scoop. Between them they

agreed upon the sum it would be fair to offer for the purchase of a

half-share in the business, and then Mr Meagles unsealed a paper in

which Daniel Doyce had noted the amount at which he valued it; which was

even something less. Thus, when Daniel came back, he found the affair as

good as concluded.

'And I may now avow, Mr Clennam,' said he, with a cordial shake of the

hand, 'that if I had looked high and low for a partner, I believe I

could not have found one more to my mind.'

'I say the same,' said Clennam.

'And I say of both of you,' added Mr Meagles, 'that you are well

matched. You keep him in check, Clennam, with your common sense, and you

stick to the Works, Dan, with your--'

'Uncommon sense?' suggested Daniel, with his quiet smile.

'You may call it so, if you like--and each of you will be a right hand

to the other. Here's my own right hand upon it, as a practical man, to

both of you.'

The purchase was completed within a month. It left Arthur in possession

of private personal means not exceeding a few hundred pounds; but it

opened to him an active and promising career. The three friends dined

together on the auspicious occasion; the factory and the factory wives

and children made holiday and dined too; even Bleeding Heart Yard

dined and was full of meat. Two months had barely gone by in all, when

Bleeding Heart Yard had become so familiar with short-commons again,

that the treat was forgotten there; when nothing seemed new in the

partnership but the paint of the inscription on the door-posts, DOYCE

AND CLENNAM; when it appeared even to Clennam himself, that he had had

the affairs of the firm in his mind for years.

The little counting-house reserved for his own occupation, was a room of

wood and glass at the end of a long low workshop, filled with benches,

and vices, and tools, and straps, and wheels; which, when they were

in gear with the steam-engine, went tearing round as though they had a

suicidal mission to grind the business to dust and tear the factory to

pieces. A communication of great trap-doors in the floor and roof with

the workshop above and the workshop below, made a shaft of light in

this perspective, which brought to Clennam's mind the child's old

picture-book, where similar rays were the witnesses of Abel's

murder. The noises were sufficiently removed and shut out from the

counting-house to blend into a busy hum, interspersed with periodical

clinks and thumps. The patient figures at work were swarthy with the

filings of iron and steel that danced on every bench and bubbled up

through every chink in the planking. The workshop was arrived at by a

step-ladder from the outer yard below, where it served as a shelter for

the large grindstone where tools were sharpened. The whole had at once

a fanciful and practical air in Clennam's eyes, which was a welcome