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that if they could have made it worth his while to take the whole

Government he would have took it without a profit, but that take it he

could not and stand a loss. That how it was not to be expected, ma'am,

that he should lose by it, his ways being, as you might say and utter

no falsehood, paved with gold; but that how it was much to be regretted

that something handsome hadn't been got up to make it worth his while;

for it was such and only such that knowed the heighth to which the bread

and butchers' meat had rose, and it was such and only such that both

could and would bring that heighth down.

So rife and potent was the fever in Bleeding Heart Yard, that Mr

Pancks's rent-days caused no interval in the patients. The disease took

the singular form, on those occasions, of causing the infected to find

an unfathomable excuse and consolation in allusions to the magic name.

'Now, then!' Mr Pancks would say, to a defaulting lodger. 'Pay up!

Come on!'

'I haven't got it, Mr Pancks,' Defaulter would reply. 'I tell you the

truth, sir, when I say I haven't got so much as a single sixpence of it

to bless myself with.'

'This won't do, you know,' Mr Pancks would retort. 'You don't expect it

will do; do you?' Defaulter would admit, with a low-spirited 'No, sir,'

having no such expectation.

'My proprietor isn't going to stand this, you know,' Mr Pancks would

proceed. 'He don't send me here for this. Pay up! Come!'

The Defaulter would make answer, 'Ah, Mr Pancks. If I was the rich

gentleman whose name is in everybody's mouth--if my name was Merdle,

sir--I'd soon pay up, and be glad to do it.'

Dialogues on the rent-question usually took place at the house-doors

or in the entries, and in the presence of several deeply interested

Bleeding Hearts. They always received a reference of this kind with a

low murmur of response, as if it were convincing; and the Defaulter,

however black and discomfited before, always cheered up a little in

making it.

'If I was Mr Merdle, sir, you wouldn't have cause to complain of me

then. No, believe me!' the Defaulter would proceed with a shake of the

head. 'I'd pay up so quick then, Mr Pancks, that you shouldn't have to

ask me.'

The response would be heard again here, implying that it was impossible

to say anything fairer, and that this was the next thing to paying the

money down.

Mr Pancks would be now reduced to saying as he booked the case, 'Well!

You'll have the broker in, and be turned out; that's what'll happen to

you. It's no use talking to me about Mr Merdle. You are not Mr Merdle,

any more than I am.'

'No, sir,' the Defaulter would reply. 'I only wish you were him, sir.'

The response would take this up quickly; replying with great feeling,

'Only wish you were him, sir.'

'You'd be easier with us if you were Mr Merdle, sir,' the Defaulter

would go on with rising spirits, 'and it would be better for all

parties. Better for our sakes, and better for yours, too. You wouldn't

have to worry no one, then, sir. You wouldn't have to worry us, and you

wouldn't have to worry yourself. You'd be easier in your own mind, sir,

and you'd leave others easier, too, you would, if you were Mr Merdle.'

Mr Pancks, in whom these impersonal compliments produced an irresistible

sheepishness, never rallied after such a charge. He could only bite

his nails and puff away to the next Defaulter. The responsive Bleeding

Hearts would then gather round the Defaulter whom he had just abandoned,

and the most extravagant rumours would circulate among them, to their

great comfort, touching the amount of Mr Merdle's ready money.

From one of the many such defeats of one of many rent-days, Mr Pancks,

having finished his day's collection, repaired with his note-book

under his arm to Mrs Plornish's corner. Mr Pancks's object was not

professional, but social. He had had a trying day, and wanted a little

brightening. By this time he was on friendly terms with the Plornish

family, having often looked in upon them at similar seasons, and borne

his part in recollections of Miss Dorrit.

Mrs Plornish's shop-parlour had been decorated under her own eye, and

presented, on the side towards the shop, a little fiction in which Mrs

Plornish unspeakably rejoiced. This poetical heightening of the parlour

consisted in the wall being painted to represent the exterior of a

thatched cottage; the artist having introduced (in as effective a manner

as he found compatible with their highly disproportionate dimensions)

the real door and window. The modest sunflower and hollyhock were

depicted as flourishing with great luxuriance on this rustic dwelling,

while a quantity of dense smoke issuing from the chimney indicated good

cheer within, and also, perhaps, that it had not been lately swept.

A faithful dog was represented as flying at the legs of the friendly

visitor, from the threshold; and a circular pigeon-house, enveloped in a

cloud of pigeons, arose from behind the garden-paling. On the door (when

it was shut), appeared the semblance of a brass-plate, presenting

the inscription, Happy Cottage, T. and M. Plornish; the partnership

expressing man and wife. No Poetry and no Art ever charmed the

imagination more than the union of the two in this counterfeit cottage

charmed Mrs Plornish. It was nothing to her that Plornish had a habit

of leaning against it as he smoked his pipe after work, when his

hat blotted out the pigeon-house and all the pigeons, when his back

swallowed up the dwelling, when his hands in his pockets uprooted the

blooming garden and laid waste the adjacent country. To Mrs Plornish, it

was still a most beautiful cottage, a most wonderful deception; and

it made no difference that Mr Plornish's eye was some inches above the

level of the gable bed-room in the thatch. To come out into the shop

after it was shut, and hear her father sing a song inside this cottage,

was a perfect Pastoral to Mrs Plornish, the Golden Age revived. And

truly if that famous period had been revived, or had ever been at all,

it may be doubted whether it would have produced many more heartily

admiring daughters than the poor woman.

Warned of a visitor by the tinkling bell at the shop-door, Mrs Plornish

came out of Happy Cottage to see who it might be. 'I guessed it was

you, Mr Pancks,' said she, 'for it's quite your regular night; ain't it?

Here's father, you see, come out to serve at the sound of the bell, like

a brisk young shopman. Ain't he looking well? Father's more pleased to

see you than if you was a customer, for he dearly loves a gossip; and

when it turns upon Miss Dorrit, he loves it all the more. You never

heard father in such voice as he is at present,' said Mrs Plornish, her

own voice quavering, she was so proud and pleased. 'He gave us Strephon

last night to that degree that Plornish gets up and makes him this

speech across the table. "John Edward Nandy," says Plornish to father,

"I never heard you come the warbles as I have heard you come the warbles

this night." An't it gratifying, Mr Pancks, though; really?'

Mr Pancks, who had snorted at the old man in his friendliest manner,

replied in the affirmative, and casually asked whether that lively Altro

chap had come in yet? Mrs Plornish answered no, not yet, though he had

gone to the West-End with some work, and had said he should be back

by tea-time. Mr Pancks was then hospitably pressed into Happy Cottage,

where he encountered the elder Master Plornish just come home from

school. Examining that young student, lightly, on the educational

proceedings of the day, he found that the more advanced pupils who

were in the large text and the letter M, had been set the copy 'Merdle,

Millions.'

'And how are you getting on, Mrs Plornish,' said Pancks, 'since we're

mentioning millions?'

'Very steady, indeed, sir,' returned Mrs Plornish. 'Father, dear, would

you go into the shop and tidy the window a little bit before tea, your

taste being so beautiful?'

John Edward Nandy trotted away, much gratified, to comply with his

daughter's request. Mrs Plornish, who was always in mortal terror

of mentioning pecuniary affairs before the old gentleman, lest any

disclosure she made might rouse his spirit and induce him to run away to

the workhouse, was thus left free to be confidential with Mr Pancks.

'It's quite true that the business is very steady indeed,' said Mrs

Plornish, lowering her voice; 'and has a excellent connection. The only

thing that stands in its way, sir, is the Credit.'

This drawback, rather severely felt by most people who engaged in

commercial transactions with the inhabitants of Bleeding Heart Yard,

was a large stumbling-block in Mrs Plornish's trade. When Mr Dorrit had

established her in the business, the Bleeding Hearts had shown an amount

of emotion and a determination to support her in it, that did honour to

human nature. Recognising her claim upon their generous feelings as one

who had long been a member of their community, they pledged themselves,

with great feeling, to deal with Mrs Plornish, come what would and

bestow their patronage on no other establishment. Influenced by these

noble sentiments, they had even gone out of their way to purchase little

luxuries in the grocery and butter line to which they were unaccustomed;

saying to one another, that if they did stretch a point, was it not for

a neighbour and a friend, and for whom ought a point to be stretched if

not for such? So stimulated, the business was extremely brisk, and the

articles in stock went off with the greatest celerity. In short, if the

Bleeding Hearts had but paid, the undertaking would have been a complete

success; whereas, by reason of their exclusively confining themselves to

owing, the profits actually realised had not yet begun to appear in the

books.

Mr Pancks was making a very porcupine of himself by sticking his hair

up in the contemplation of this state of accounts, when old Mr Nandy,

re-entering the cottage with an air of mystery, entreated them to come

and look at the strange behaviour of Mr Baptist, who seemed to have met

with something that had scared him. All three going into the shop, and

watching through the window, then saw Mr Baptist, pale and agitated, go

through the following extraordinary performances. First, he was observed

hiding at the top of the steps leading down into the Yard, and peeping

up and down the street with his head cautiously thrust out close to the

side of the shop-door. After very anxious scrutiny, he came out of

his retreat, and went briskly down the street as if he were going away

altogether; then, suddenly turned about, and went, at the same pace, and

with the same feint, up the street. He had gone no further up the street

than he had gone down, when he crossed the road and disappeared. The

object of this last manoeuvre was only apparent, when his entering the

shop with a sudden twist, from the steps again, explained that he

had made a wide and obscure circuit round to the other, or Doyce and

Clennam, end of the Yard, and had come through the Yard and bolted in.

He was out of breath by that time, as he might well be, and his heart

seemed to jerk faster than the little shop-bell, as it quivered and

jingled behind him with his hasty shutting of the door.

'Hallo, old chap!' said Mr Pancks. 'Altro, old boy! What's the matter?'

Mr Baptist, or Signor Cavalletto, understood English now almost as well

as Mr Pancks himself, and could speak it very well too. Nevertheless,

Mrs Plornish, with a pardonable vanity in that accomplishment of hers

which made her all but Italian, stepped in as interpreter.

'E ask know,' said Mrs Plornish, 'What go wrong?'

'Come into the happy little cottage, Padrona,' returned Mr Baptist,

imparting great stealthiness to his flurried back-handed shake of his

right forefinger. 'Come there!'

Mrs Plornish was proud of the title Padrona, which she regarded as

signifying: not so much Mistress of the house, as Mistress of the

Italian tongue. She immediately complied with Mr Baptist's request, and

they all went into the cottage.

'E ope you no fright,' said Mrs Plornish then, interpreting Mr Pancks

in a new way with her usual fertility of resource. 'What appen? Peaka

Padrona!'

'I have seen some one,' returned Baptist. 'I have rincontrato him.'

'Im? Oo him?' asked Mrs Plornish.

'A bad man. A baddest man. I have hoped that I should never see him

again.' 'Ow you know him bad?' asked Mrs Plornish.

'It does not matter, Padrona. I know it too well.'

''E see you?' asked Mrs Plornish.

'No. I hope not. I believe not.'

'He says,' Mrs Plornish then interpreted, addressing her father and

Pancks with mild condescension, 'that he has met a bad man, but he hopes

the bad man didn't see him--Why,' inquired Mrs Plornish, reverting to

the Italian language, 'why ope bad man no see?'

'Padrona, dearest,' returned the little foreigner whom she so

considerately protected, 'do not ask, I pray. Once again I say it

matters not. I have fear of this man. I do not wish to see him, I do not

wish to be known of him--never again! Enough, most beautiful. Leave it.'

The topic was so disagreeable to him, and so put his usual liveliness to

the rout, that Mrs Plornish forbore to press him further: the rather as

the tea had been drawing for some time on the hob. But she was not the

less surprised and curious for asking no more questions; neither was

Mr Pancks, whose expressive breathing had been labouring hard since the

entrance of the little man, like a locomotive engine with a great load