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The foreigner, by name John Baptist Cavalletto--they called him Mr

Baptist in the Yard--was such a chirping, easy, hopeful little fellow,

that his attraction for Pancks was probably in the force of contrast.

Solitary, weak, and scantily acquainted with the most necessary words

of the only language in which he could communicate with the people about

him, he went with the stream of his fortunes, in a brisk way that was

new in those parts. With little to eat, and less to drink, and nothing

to wear but what he wore upon him, or had brought tied up in one of the

smallest bundles that ever were seen, he put as bright a face upon it as

if he were in the most flourishing circumstances when he first hobbled

up and down the Yard, humbly propitiating the general good-will with his

white teeth.

It was uphill work for a foreigner, lame or sound, to make his way with

the Bleeding Hearts. In the first place, they were vaguely persuaded

that every foreigner had a knife about him; in the second, they held it

to be a sound constitutional national axiom that he ought to go home to

his own country. They never thought of inquiring how many of their own

countrymen would be returned upon their hands from divers parts of the

world, if the principle were generally recognised; they considered it

particularly and peculiarly British. In the third place, they had a

notion that it was a sort of Divine visitation upon a foreigner that he

was not an Englishman, and that all kinds of calamities happened to

his country because it did things that England did not, and did not do

things that England did. In this belief, to be sure, they had long been

carefully trained by the Barnacles and Stiltstalkings, who were always

proclaiming to them, officially, that no country which failed to submit

itself to those two large families could possibly hope to be under the

protection of Providence; and who, when they believed it, disparaged

them in private as the most prejudiced people under the sun.

This, therefore, might be called a political position of the Bleeding

Hearts; but they entertained other objections to having foreigners

in the Yard. They believed that foreigners were always badly off; and

though they were as ill off themselves as they could desire to be,

that did not diminish the force of the objection. They believed that

foreigners were dragooned and bayoneted; and though they certainly got

their own skulls promptly fractured if they showed any ill-humour, still

it was with a blunt instrument, and that didn't count. They believed

that foreigners were always immoral; and though they had an occasional

assize at home, and now and then a divorce case or so, that had nothing

to do with it. They believed that foreigners had no independent spirit,

as never being escorted to the poll in droves by Lord Decimus Tite

Barnacle, with colours flying and the tune of Rule Britannia playing.

Not to be tedious, they had many other beliefs of a similar kind.

Against these obstacles, the lame foreigner with the stick had to make

head as well as he could; not absolutely single-handed, because Mr

Arthur Clennam had recommended him to the Plornishes (he lived at the

top of the same house), but still at heavy odds. However, the Bleeding

Hearts were kind hearts; and when they saw the little fellow cheerily

limping about with a good-humoured face, doing no harm, drawing no

knives, committing no outrageous immoralities, living chiefly on

farinaceous and milk diet, and playing with Mrs Plornish's children of

an evening, they began to think that although he could never hope to be

an Englishman, still it would be hard to visit that affliction on his

head. They began to accommodate themselves to his level, calling him 'Mr

Baptist,' but treating him like a baby, and laughing immoderately at his

lively gestures and his childish English--more, because he didn't mind

it, and laughed too. They spoke to him in very loud voices as if he

were stone deaf. They constructed sentences, by way of teaching him the

language in its purity, such as were addressed by the savages to Captain

Cook, or by Friday to Robinson Crusoe. Mrs Plornish was particularly

ingenious in this art; and attained so much celebrity for saying 'Me ope

you leg well soon,' that it was considered in the Yard but a very short

remove indeed from speaking Italian. Even Mrs Plornish herself began to

think that she had a natural call towards that language. As he became

more popular, household objects were brought into requisition for his

instruction in a copious vocabulary; and whenever he appeared in the

Yard ladies would fly out at their doors crying 'Mr Baptist--tea-pot!'

'Mr Baptist--dust-pan!' 'Mr Baptist--flour-dredger!' 'Mr

Baptist--coffee-biggin!' At the same time exhibiting those articles,

and penetrating him with a sense of the appalling difficulties of the

Anglo-Saxon tongue.

It was in this stage of his progress, and in about the third week of his

occupation, that Mr Pancks's fancy became attracted by the little man.

Mounting to his attic, attended by Mrs Plornish as interpreter, he found

Mr Baptist with no furniture but his bed on the ground, a table, and a

chair, carving with the aid of a few simple tools, in the blithest way

possible.

'Now, old chap,' said Mr Pancks, 'pay up!'

He had his money ready, folded in a scrap of paper, and laughingly

handed it in; then with a free action, threw out as many fingers of his

right hand as there were shillings, and made a cut crosswise in the air

for an odd sixpence.

'Oh!' said Mr Pancks, watching him, wonderingly. 'That's it, is it?

You're a quick customer. It's all right. I didn't expect to receive it,

though.'

Mrs Plornish here interposed with great condescension, and explained to

Mr Baptist. 'E please. E glad get money.'

The little man smiled and nodded. His bright face seemed uncommonly

attractive to Mr Pancks. 'How's he getting on in his limb?' he asked Mrs

Plornish.

'Oh, he's a deal better, sir,' said Mrs Plornish. 'We expect next week

he'll be able to leave off his stick entirely.' (The opportunity

being too favourable to be lost, Mrs Plornish displayed her great

accomplishment by explaining with pardonable pride to Mr Baptist, 'E ope

you leg well soon.')

'He's a merry fellow, too,' said Mr Pancks, admiring him as if he were a

mechanical toy. 'How does he live?'

'Why, sir,' rejoined Mrs Plornish, 'he turns out to have quite a power

of carving them flowers that you see him at now.' (Mr Baptist, watching

their faces as they spoke, held up his work. Mrs Plornish interpreted in

her Italian manner, on behalf of Mr Pancks, 'E please. Double good!')

'Can he live by that?' asked Mr Pancks. 'He can live on very little,

sir, and it is expected as he will be able, in time, to make a very good

living. Mr Clennam got it him to do, and gives him odd jobs besides in

at the Works next door--makes 'em for him, in short, when he knows he

wants 'em.'

'And what does he do with himself, now, when he ain't hard at it?' said

Mr Pancks.

'Why, not much as yet, sir, on accounts I suppose of not being able to

walk much; but he goes about the Yard, and he chats without particular

understanding or being understood, and he plays with the children,

and he sits in the sun--he'll sit down anywhere, as if it was an

arm-chair--and he'll sing, and he'll laugh!'

'Laugh!' echoed Mr Pancks. 'He looks to me as if every tooth in his head

was always laughing.'

'But whenever he gets to the top of the steps at t'other end of the

Yard,' said Mrs Plornish, 'he'll peep out in the curiousest way! So that

some of us thinks he's peeping out towards where his own country is, and

some of us thinks he's looking for somebody he don't want to see, and

some of us don't know what to think.'

Mr Baptist seemed to have a general understanding of what she said; or

perhaps his quickness caught and applied her slight action of peeping.

In any case he closed his eyes and tossed his head with the air of a man

who had sufficient reasons for what he did, and said in his own tongue,

it didn't matter. Altro!

'What's Altro?' said Pancks.

'Hem! It's a sort of a general kind of expression, sir,' said Mrs

Plornish.

'Is it?' said Pancks. 'Why, then Altro to you, old chap. Good afternoon.

Altro!'

Mr Baptist in his vivacious way repeating the word several times, Mr

Pancks in his duller way gave it him back once. From that time it became

a frequent custom with Pancks the gipsy, as he went home jaded at night,

to pass round by Bleeding Heart Yard, go quietly up the stairs, look in

at Mr Baptist's door, and, finding him in his room, to say, 'Hallo, old

chap! Altro!' To which Mr Baptist would reply with innumerable bright

nods and smiles, 'Altro, signore, altro, altro, altro!' After this

highly condensed conversation, Mr Pancks would go his way with an

appearance of being lightened and refreshed.

CHAPTER 26. Nobody's State of Mind

If Arthur Clennam had not arrived at that wise decision firmly to

restrain himself from loving Pet, he would have lived on in a state of

much perplexity, involving difficult struggles with his own heart. Not

the least of these would have been a contention, always waging within

it, between a tendency to dislike Mr Henry Gowan, if not to regard

him with positive repugnance, and a whisper that the inclination was

unworthy. A generous nature is not prone to strong aversions, and is

slow to admit them even dispassionately; but when it finds ill-will

gaining upon it, and can discern between-whiles that its origin is not

dispassionate, such a nature becomes distressed.

Therefore Mr Henry Gowan would have clouded Clennam's mind, and would

have been far oftener present to it than more agreeable persons and

subjects but for the great prudence of his decision aforesaid. As it

was, Mr Gowan seemed transferred to Daniel Doyce's mind; at all events,

it so happened that it usually fell to Mr Doyce's turn, rather than

to Clennam's, to speak of him in the friendly conversations they held

together. These were of frequent occurrence now; as the two partners

shared a portion of a roomy house in one of the grave old-fashioned City

streets, lying not far from the Bank of England, by London Wall.

Mr Doyce had been to Twickenham to pass the day. Clennam had excused

himself. Mr Doyce was just come home. He put in his head at the door of

Clennam's sitting-room to say Good night.

'Come in, come in!' said Clennam.

'I saw you were reading,' returned Doyce, as he entered, 'and thought

you might not care to be disturbed.'

But for the notable resolution he had made, Clennam really might not

have known what he had been reading; really might not have had his eyes

upon the book for an hour past, though it lay open before him. He shut

it up, rather quickly.

'Are they well?' he asked.

'Yes,' said Doyce; 'they are well. They are all well.'

Daniel had an old workmanlike habit of carrying his pocket-handkerchief

in his hat. He took it out and wiped his forehead with it, slowly

repeating, 'They are all well. Miss Minnie looking particularly well, I

thought.'

'Any company at the cottage?'

'No, no company.' 'And how did you get on, you four?' asked Clennam

gaily.

'There were five of us,' returned his partner. 'There was

What's-his-name. He was there.' 'Who is he?' said Clennam.

'Mr Henry Gowan.'

'Ah, to be sure!' cried Clennam with unusual vivacity, 'Yes!--I forgot

him.'

'As I mentioned, you may remember,' said Daniel Doyce, 'he is always

there on Sunday.'

'Yes, yes,' returned Clennam; 'I remember now.'

Daniel Doyce, still wiping his forehead, ploddingly repeated. 'Yes. He

was there, he was there. Oh yes, he was there. And his dog. He was there

too.'

'Miss Meagles is quite attached to--the--dog,' observed Clennam.

'Quite so,' assented his partner. 'More attached to the dog than I am to

the man.'

'You mean Mr--?'

'I mean Mr Gowan, most decidedly,' said Daniel Doyce.

There was a gap in the conversation, which Clennam devoted to winding up

his watch.

'Perhaps you are a little hasty in your judgment,' he said. 'Our

judgments--I am supposing a general case--'

'Of course,' said Doyce.

'Are so liable to be influenced by many considerations, which, almost

without our knowing it, are unfair, that it is necessary to keep a guard

upon them. For instance, Mr--'

'Gowan,' quietly said Doyce, upon whom the utterance of the name almost

always devolved.

'Is young and handsome, easy and quick, has talent, and has seen a

good deal of various kinds of life. It might be difficult to give an

unselfish reason for being prepossessed against him.'

'Not difficult for me, I think, Clennam,' returned his partner. 'I see

him bringing present anxiety, and, I fear, future sorrow, into my old

friend's house. I see him wearing deeper lines into my old friend's

face, the nearer he draws to, and the oftener he looks at, the face

of his daughter. In short, I see him with a net about the pretty and

affectionate creature whom he will never make happy.' 'We don't know,'

said Clennam, almost in the tone of a man in pain, 'that he will not

make her happy.'

'We don't know,' returned his partner, 'that the earth will last another

hundred years, but we think it highly probable.'

'Well, well!' said Clennam, 'we must be hopeful, and we must at least