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'Let us have a look at the husband of the remarkable lady. Hah!' holding

up the light at arm's length. 'A decided expression of face here too,

though not of the same character. Looks as if he were saying, what is

it--Do Not Forget--does he not, Mr Flintwinch?

By Heaven, sir, he does!'

As he returned the candle, he looked at him once more; and then,

leisurely strolling out with him into the hall, declared it to be a

charming old house indeed, and one which had so greatly pleased him that

he would not have missed inspecting it for a hundred pounds. Throughout

these singular freedoms on the part of Mr Blandois, which involved a

general alteration in his demeanour, making it much coarser and rougher,

much more violent and audacious than before, Mr Flintwinch, whose

leathern face was not liable to many changes, preserved its immobility

intact. Beyond now appearing perhaps, to have been left hanging a trifle

too long before that friendly operation of cutting down, he outwardly

maintained an equable composure. They had brought their survey to a

close in the little room at the side of the hall, and he stood there,

eyeing Mr Blandois.

'I am glad you are so well satisfied, sir,' was his calm remark. 'I

didn't expect it. You seem to be quite in good spirits.'

'In admirable spirits,' returned Blandois. 'Word of honour! never more

refreshed in spirits. Do you ever have presentiments, Mr Flintwinch?'

'I am not sure that I know what you mean by the term, sir,' replied that

gentleman.

'Say, in this case, Mr Flintwinch, undefined anticipations of pleasure

to come.'

'I can't say I'm sensible of such a sensation at present,' returned Mr

Flintwinch with the utmost gravity. 'If I should find it coming on, I'll

mention it.'

'Now I,' said Blandois, 'I, my son, have a presentiment to-night that we

shall be well acquainted. Do you find it coming on?'

'N-no,' returned Mr Flintwinch, deliberately inquiring of himself. 'I

can't say I do.'

'I have a strong presentiment that we shall become intimately

acquainted.--You have no feeling of that sort yet?'

'Not yet,' said Mr Flintwinch.

Mr Blandois, taking him by both shoulders again, rolled him about a

little in his former merry way, then drew his arm through his own, and

invited him to come off and drink a bottle of wine like a dear deep old

dog as he was.

Without a moment's indecision, Mr Flintwinch accepted the invitation,

and they went out to the quarters where the traveller was lodged,

through a heavy rain which had rattled on the windows, roofs, and

pavements, ever since nightfall. The thunder and lightning had long ago

passed over, but the rain was furious. On their arrival at Mr Blandois'

room, a bottle of port wine was ordered by that gallant gentleman; who

(crushing every pretty thing he could collect, in the soft disposition

of his dainty figure) coiled himself upon the window-seat, while Mr

Flintwinch took a chair opposite to him, with the table between them. Mr

Blandois proposed having the largest glasses in the house, to which Mr

Flintwinch assented. The bumpers filled, Mr Blandois, with a roystering

gaiety, clinked the top of his glass against the bottom of Mr

Flintwinch's, and the bottom of his glass against the top of Mr

Flintwinch's, and drank to the intimate acquaintance he foresaw.

Mr Flintwinch gravely pledged him, and drank all the wine he could get,

and said nothing. As often as Mr Blandois clinked glasses (which was

at every replenishment), Mr Flintwinch stolidly did his part of the

clinking, and would have stolidly done his companion's part of the wine

as well as his own: being, except in the article of palate, a mere cask.

In short, Mr Blandois found that to pour port wine into the reticent

Flintwinch was, not to open him but to shut him up. Moreover, he had

the appearance of a perfect ability to go on all night; or, if occasion

were, all next day and all next night; whereas Mr Blandois soon grew

indistinctly conscious of swaggering too fiercely and boastfully. He

therefore terminated the entertainment at the end of the third bottle.

'You will draw upon us to-morrow, sir,' said Mr Flintwinch, with a

business-like face at parting.

'My Cabbage,' returned the other, taking him by the collar with both

hands, 'I'll draw upon you; have no fear. Adieu, my Flintwinch. Receive

at parting;' here he gave him a southern embrace, and kissed him soundly

on both cheeks; 'the word of a gentleman! By a thousand Thunders, you

shall see me again!'

He did not present himself next day, though the letter of advice came

duly to hand. Inquiring after him at night, Mr Flintwinch found, with

surprise, that he had paid his bill and gone back to the Continent by

way of Calais. Nevertheless, Jeremiah scraped out of his cogitating

face a lively conviction that Mr Blandois would keep his word on this

occasion, and would be seen again.

CHAPTER 31. Spirit

Anybody may pass, any day, in the thronged thoroughfares of the

metropolis, some meagre, wrinkled, yellow old man (who might be supposed

to have dropped from the stars, if there were any star in the Heavens

dull enough to be suspected of casting off so feeble a spark), creeping

along with a scared air, as though bewildered and a little frightened

by the noise and bustle. This old man is always a little old man. If he

were ever a big old man, he has shrunk into a little old man; if he were

always a little old man, he has dwindled into a less old man. His coat

is a colour, and cut, that never was the mode anywhere, at any period.

Clearly, it was not made for him, or for any individual mortal. Some

wholesale contractor measured Fate for five thousand coats of such

quality, and Fate has lent this old coat to this old man, as one of a

long unfinished line of many old men. It has always large dull metal

buttons, similar to no other buttons. This old man wears a hat, a

thumbed and napless and yet an obdurate hat, which has never adapted

itself to the shape of his poor head. His coarse shirt and his coarse

neckcloth have no more individuality than his coat and hat; they have

the same character of not being his--of not being anybody's. Yet this

old man wears these clothes with a certain unaccustomed air of being

dressed and elaborated for the public ways; as though he passed the

greater part of his time in a nightcap and gown. And so, like the

country mouse in the second year of a famine, come to see the town

mouse, and timidly threading his way to the town-mouse's lodging through

a city of cats, this old man passes in the streets.

Sometimes, on holidays towards evening, he will be seen to walk with a

slightly increased infirmity, and his old eyes will glimmer with a moist

and marshy light. Then the little old man is drunk. A very small

measure will overset him; he may be bowled off his unsteady legs with

a half-pint pot. Some pitying acquaintance--chance acquaintance

very often--has warmed up his weakness with a treat of beer, and the

consequence will be the lapse of a longer time than usual before he

shall pass again. For the little old man is going home to the Workhouse;

and on his good behaviour they do not let him out often (though methinks

they might, considering the few years he has before him to go out in,

under the sun); and on his bad behaviour they shut him up closer than

ever in a grove of two score and nineteen more old men, every one of

whom smells of all the others.

Mrs Plornish's father,--a poor little reedy piping old gentleman, like

a worn-out bird; who had been in what he called the music-binding

business, and met with great misfortunes, and who had seldom been able

to make his way, or to see it or to pay it, or to do anything at all

with it but find it no thoroughfare,--had retired of his own accord to

the Workhouse which was appointed by law to be the Good Samaritan of his

district (without the twopence, which was bad political economy), on

the settlement of that execution which had carried Mr Plornish to the

Marshalsea College. Previous to his son-in-law's difficulties coming to

that head, Old Nandy (he was always so called in his legal Retreat, but

he was Old Mr Nandy among the Bleeding Hearts) had sat in a corner of

the Plornish fireside, and taken his bite and sup out of the Plornish

cupboard. He still hoped to resume that domestic position when Fortune

should smile upon his son-in-law; in the meantime, while she preserved

an immovable countenance, he was, and resolved to remain, one of these

little old men in a grove of little old men with a community of flavour.

But no poverty in him, and no coat on him that never was the mode, and

no Old Men's Ward for his dwelling-place, could quench his daughter's

admiration. Mrs Plornish was as proud of her father's talents as she

could possibly have been if they had made him Lord Chancellor. She had

as firm a belief in the sweetness and propriety of his manners as she

could possibly have had if he had been Lord Chamberlain. The poor little

old man knew some pale and vapid little songs, long out of date, about

Chloe, and Phyllis, and Strephon being wounded by the son of Venus;

and for Mrs Plornish there was no such music at the Opera as the small

internal flutterings and chirpings wherein he would discharge himself

of these ditties, like a weak, little, broken barrel-organ, ground by

a baby. On his 'days out,' those flecks of light in his flat vista of

pollard old men,' it was at once Mrs Plornish's delight and sorrow,

when he was strong with meat, and had taken his full halfpenny-worth of

porter, to say, 'Sing us a song, Father.' Then he would give them Chloe,

and if he were in pretty good spirits, Phyllis also--Strephon he had

hardly been up to since he went into retirement--and then would Mrs

Plornish declare she did believe there never was such a singer as

Father, and wipe her eyes.

If he had come from Court on these occasions, nay, if he had been the

noble Refrigerator come home triumphantly from a foreign court to be

presented and promoted on his last tremendous failure, Mrs Plornish

could not have handed him with greater elevation about Bleeding Heart

Yard. 'Here's Father,' she would say, presenting him to a neighbour.

'Father will soon be home with us for good, now. Ain't Father looking

well? Father's a sweeter singer than ever; you'd never have forgotten

it, if you'd aheard him just now.'

As to Mr Plornish, he had married these articles of belief in marrying

Mr Nandy's daughter, and only wondered how it was that so gifted an

old gentleman had not made a fortune. This he attributed, after much

reflection, to his musical genius not having been scientifically

developed in his youth. 'For why,' argued Mr Plornish, 'why go a-binding

music when you've got it in yourself? That's where it is, I consider.'

Old Nandy had a patron: one patron. He had a patron who in a certain

sumptuous way--an apologetic way, as if he constantly took an admiring

audience to witness that he really could not help being more free

with this old fellow than they might have expected, on account of his

simplicity and poverty--was mightily good to him. Old Nandy had

been several times to the Marshalsea College, communicating with his

son-in-law during his short durance there; and had happily acquired to

himself, and had by degrees and in course of time much improved, the

patronage of the Father of that national institution.

Mr Dorrit was in the habit of receiving this old man as if the old man

held of him in vassalage under some feudal tenure. He made little treats

and teas for him, as if he came in with his homage from some outlying

district where the tenantry were in a primitive state.

It seemed as if there were moments when he could by no means have

sworn but that the old man was an ancient retainer of his, who had been

meritoriously faithful. When he mentioned him, he spoke of him casually

as his old pensioner. He had a wonderful satisfaction in seeing him, and

in commenting on his decayed condition after he was gone. It appeared

to him amazing that he could hold up his head at all, poor creature. 'In

the Workhouse, sir, the Union; no privacy, no visitors, no station, no

respect, no speciality. Most deplorable!'

It was Old Nandy's birthday, and they let him out. He said nothing about

its being his birthday, or they might have kept him in; for such old

men should not be born. He passed along the streets as usual to Bleeding

Heart Yard, and had his dinner with his daughter and son-in-law, and

gave them Phyllis. He had hardly concluded, when Little Dorrit looked in

to see how they all were.

'Miss Dorrit,' said Mrs Plornish, 'here's Father! Ain't he looking nice?

And such voice he's in!'

Little Dorrit gave him her hand, and smilingly said she had not seen him

this long time.

'No, they're rather hard on poor Father,' said Mrs Plornish with a

lengthening face, 'and don't let him have half as much change and fresh

air as would benefit him. But he'll soon be home for good, now. Won't

you, Father?'

'Yes, my dear, I hope so. In good time, please God.'

Here Mr Plornish delivered himself of an oration which he invariably

made, word for word the same, on all such opportunities.

It was couched in the following terms:

'John Edward Nandy. Sir. While there's a ounce of wittles or drink of

any sort in this present roof, you're fully welcome to your share on

it. While there's a handful of fire or a mouthful of bed in this present

roof, you're fully welcome to your share on it.

If so be as there should be nothing in this present roof, you should be

as welcome to your share on it as if it was something, much or little.

And this is what I mean and so I don't deceive you, and consequently