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lady was occupied again.

'In Italy is she really?' said Flora, 'with the grapes growing

everywhere and lava necklaces and bracelets too that land of poetry with

burning mountains picturesque beyond belief though if the organ-boys

come away from the neighbourhood not to be scorched nobody can wonder

being so young and bringing their white mice with them most humane, and

is she really in that favoured land with nothing but blue about her and

dying gladiators and Belvederes though Mr F. himself did not believe

for his objection when in spirits was that the images could not be true

there being no medium between expensive quantities of linen badly got

up and all in creases and none whatever, which certainly does not seem

probable though perhaps in consequence of the extremes of rich and poor

which may account for it.'

Arthur tried to edge a word in, but Flora hurried on again.

'Venice Preserved too,' said she, 'I think you have been there is it

well or ill preserved for people differ so and Maccaroni if they really

eat it like the conjurors why not cut it shorter, you are acquainted

Arthur--dear Doyce and Clennam at least not dear and most assuredly

not Doyce for I have not the pleasure but pray excuse me--acquainted I

believe with Mantua what has it got to do with Mantua-making for I never

have been able to conceive?'

'I believe there is no connection, Flora, between the two,' Arthur was

beginning, when she caught him up again.

'Upon your word no isn't there I never did but that's like me I run away

with an idea and having none to spare I keep it, alas there was a time

dear Arthur that is to say decidedly not dear nor Arthur neither but you

understand me when one bright idea gilded the what's-his-name horizon of

et cetera but it is darkly clouded now and all is over.'

Arthur's increasing wish to speak of something very different was by

this time so plainly written on his face, that Flora stopped in a tender

look, and asked him what it was?

'I have the greatest desire, Flora, to speak to some one who is now in

this house--with Mr Casby no doubt. Some one whom I saw come in, and

who, in a misguided and deplorable way, has deserted the house of a

friend of mine.'

'Papa sees so many and such odd people,' said Flora, rising, 'that I

shouldn't venture to go down for any one but you Arthur but for you I

would willingly go down in a diving-bell much more a dining-room and

will come back directly if you'll mind and at the same time not mind Mr

F.'s Aunt while I'm gone.'

With those words and a parting glance, Flora bustled out, leaving

Clennam under dreadful apprehension of this terrible charge.

The first variation which manifested itself in Mr F.'s Aunt's demeanour

when she had finished her piece of toast, was a loud and prolonged

sniff. Finding it impossible to avoid construing this demonstration

into a defiance of himself, its gloomy significance being unmistakable,

Clennam looked plaintively at the excellent though prejudiced lady

from whom it emanated, in the hope that she might be disarmed by a meek

submission.

'None of your eyes at me,' said Mr F.'s Aunt, shivering with hostility.

'Take that.'

'That' was the crust of the piece of toast. Clennam accepted the boon

with a look of gratitude, and held it in his hand under the pressure

of a little embarrassment, which was not relieved when Mr F.'s Aunt,

elevating her voice into a cry of considerable power, exclaimed, 'He

has a proud stomach, this chap! He's too proud a chap to eat it!' and,

coming out of her chair, shook her venerable fist so very close to his

nose as to tickle the surface. But for the timely return of Flora, to

find him in this difficult situation, further consequences might

have ensued. Flora, without the least discomposure or surprise, but

congratulating the old lady in an approving manner on being 'very lively

to-night', handed her back to her chair.

'He has a proud stomach, this chap,' said Mr F.'s relation, on being

reseated. 'Give him a meal of chaff!'

'Oh! I don't think he would like that, aunt,' returned Flora.

'Give him a meal of chaff, I tell you,' said Mr F.'s Aunt, glaring round

Flora on her enemy. 'It's the only thing for a proud stomach. Let him

eat up every morsel. Drat him, give him a meal of chaff!'

Under a general pretence of helping him to this refreshment, Flora got

him out on the staircase; Mr F.'s Aunt even then constantly reiterating,

with inexpressible bitterness, that he was 'a chap,' and had a 'proud

stomach,' and over and over again insisting on that equine provision

being made for him which she had already so strongly prescribed.

'Such an inconvenient staircase and so many corner-stairs Arthur,'

whispered Flora, 'would you object to putting your arm round me under my

pelerine?'

With a sense of going down-stairs in a highly-ridiculous manner, Clennam

descended in the required attitude, and only released his fair burden at

the dining-room door; indeed, even there she was rather difficult to

be got rid of, remaining in his embrace to murmur, 'Arthur, for mercy's

sake, don't breathe it to papa!'

She accompanied Arthur into the room, where the Patriarch sat alone,

with his list shoes on the fender, twirling his thumbs as if he had

never left off. The youthful Patriarch, aged ten, looked out of his

picture-frame above him with no calmer air than he. Both smooth heads

were alike beaming, blundering, and bumpy.

'Mr Clennam, I am glad to see you. I hope you are well, sir, I hope you

are well. Please to sit down, please to sit down.'

'I had hoped, sir,' said Clennam, doing so, and looking round with a

face of blank disappointment, 'not to find you alone.'

'Ah, indeed?' said the Patriarch, sweetly. 'Ah, indeed?'

'I told you so you know papa,' cried Flora.

'Ah, to be sure!' returned the Patriarch. 'Yes, just so. Ah, to be

sure!'

'Pray, sir,'demanded Clennam, anxiously, 'is Miss Wade gone?'

'Miss--? Oh, you call her Wade,' returned Mr Casby. 'Highly proper.'

Arthur quickly returned, 'What do you call her?'

'Wade,' said Mr Casby. 'Oh, always Wade.'

After looking at the philanthropic visage and the long silky white hair

for a few seconds, during which Mr Casby twirled his thumbs, and smiled

at the fire as if he were benevolently wishing it to burn him that he

might forgive it, Arthur began:

'I beg your pardon, Mr Casby--'

'Not so, not so,' said the Patriarch, 'not so.'

'--But, Miss Wade had an attendant with her--a young woman brought up

by friends of mine, over whom her influence is not considered very

salutary, and to whom I should be glad to have the opportunity of giving

the assurance that she has not yet forfeited the interest of those

protectors.'

'Really, really?' returned the Patriarch.

'Will you therefore be so good as to give me the address of Miss Wade?'

'Dear, dear, dear!' said the Patriarch, 'how very unfortunate! If you

had only sent in to me when they were here! I observed the young woman,

Mr Clennam. A fine full-coloured young woman, Mr Clennam, with very dark

hair and very dark eyes. If I mistake not, if I mistake not?'

Arthur assented, and said once more with new expression, 'If you would

be so good as to give me the address.'

'Dear, dear, dear!' exclaimed the Patriarch in sweet regret. 'Tut, tut,

tut! what a pity, what a pity! I have no address, sir. Miss Wade mostly

lives abroad, Mr Clennam. She has done so for some years, and she is (if

I may say so of a fellow-creature and a lady) fitful and uncertain to a

fault, Mr Clennam. I may not see her again for a long, long time. I may

never see her again. What a pity, what a pity!'

Clennam saw now, that he had as much hope of getting assistance out of

the Portrait as out of the Patriarch; but he said nevertheless:

'Mr Casby, could you, for the satisfaction of the friends I have

mentioned, and under any obligation of secrecy that you may consider it

your duty to impose, give me any information at all touching Miss Wade?

I have seen her abroad, and I have seen her at home, but I know nothing

of her. Could you give me any account of her whatever?'

'None,' returned the Patriarch, shaking his big head with his utmost

benevolence. 'None at all. Dear, dear, dear! What a real pity that

she stayed so short a time, and you delayed! As confidential agency

business, agency business, I have occasionally paid this lady money; but

what satisfaction is it to you, sir, to know that?'

'Truly, none at all,' said Clennam.

'Truly,' assented the Patriarch, with a shining face as he

philanthropically smiled at the fire, 'none at all, sir. You hit the

wise answer, Mr Clennam. Truly, none at all, sir.' His turning of

his smooth thumbs over one another as he sat there, was so typical to

Clennam of the way in which he would make the subject revolve if it were

pursued, never showing any new part of it nor allowing it to make the

smallest advance, that it did much to help to convince him of his labour

having been in vain. He might have taken any time to think about it, for

Mr Casby, well accustomed to get on anywhere by leaving everything to

his bumps and his white hair, knew his strength to lie in silence. So

there Casby sat, twirling and twirling, and making his polished head and

forehead look largely benevolent in every knob.

With this spectacle before him, Arthur had risen to go, when from the

inner Dock where the good ship Pancks was hove down when out in no

cruising ground, the noise was heard of that steamer labouring towards

him. It struck Arthur that the noise began demonstratively far off, as

though Mr Pancks sought to impress on any one who might happen to think

about it, that he was working on from out of hearing. Mr Pancks and

he shook hands, and the former brought his employer a letter or two to

sign. Mr Pancks in shaking hands merely scratched his eyebrow with his

left forefinger and snorted once, but Clennam, who understood him better

now than of old, comprehended that he had almost done for the evening

and wished to say a word to him outside. Therefore, when he had taken

his leave of Mr Casby, and (which was a more difficult process) of

Flora, he sauntered in the neighbourhood on Mr Pancks's line of road.

He had waited but a short time when Mr Pancks appeared. Mr Pancks

shaking hands again with another expressive snort, and taking off his

hat to put his hair up, Arthur thought he received his cue to speak to

him as one who knew pretty well what had just now passed. Therefore he

said, without any preface:

'I suppose they were really gone, Pancks?'

'Yes,' replied Pancks. 'They were really gone.'

'Does he know where to find that lady?'

'Can't say. I should think so.'

Mr Pancks did not? No, Mr Pancks did not. Did Mr Pancks know anything

about her? 'I expect,' rejoined that worthy, 'I know as much about

her as she knows about herself. She is somebody's child--anybody's,

nobody's.

Put her in a room in London here with any six people old enough to be

her parents, and her parents may be there for anything she knows. They

may be in any house she sees, they may be in any churchyard she passes,

she may run against 'em in any street, she may make chance acquaintance

of 'em at any time; and never know it.

She knows nothing about 'em. She knows nothing about any relative

whatever. Never did. Never will.' 'Mr Casby could enlighten her,

perhaps?'

'May be,' said Pancks. 'I expect so, but don't know. He has long had

money (not overmuch as I make out) in trust to dole out to her when

she can't do without it. Sometimes she's proud and won't touch it for

a length of time; sometimes she's so poor that she must have it. She

writhes under her life. A woman more angry, passionate, reckless,

and revengeful never lived. She came for money to-night. Said she had

peculiar occasion for it.'

'I think,' observed Clennam musing, 'I by chance know what occasion--I

mean into whose pocket the money is to go.'

'Indeed?' said Pancks. 'If it's a compact, I recommend that party to be

exact in it. I wouldn't trust myself to that woman, young and handsome

as she is, if I had wronged her; no, not for twice my proprietor's

money! Unless,' Pancks added as a saving clause, 'I had a lingering

illness on me, and wanted to get it over.'

Arthur, hurriedly reviewing his own observation of her, found it to

tally pretty nearly with Mr Pancks's view.

'The wonder is to me,' pursued Pancks, 'that she has never done for my

proprietor, as the only person connected with her story she can lay

hold of. Mentioning that, I may tell you, between ourselves, that I am

sometimes tempted to do for him myself.'

Arthur started and said, 'Dear me, Pancks, don't say that!'

'Understand me,' said Pancks, extending five cropped coaly finger-nails

on Arthur's arm; 'I don't mean, cut his throat. But by all that's

precious, if he goes too far, I'll cut his hair!'

Having exhibited himself in the new light of enunciating this tremendous

threat, Mr Pancks, with a countenance of grave import, snorted several

times and steamed away.

CHAPTER 10. The Dreams of Mrs Flintwinch thicken

The shady waiting-rooms of the Circumlocution Office, where he passed a

good deal of time in company with various troublesome Convicts who were

under sentence to be broken alive on that wheel, had afforded Arthur