第 99 页

and considering these new enterprises of which I have had no experience,

I doubt if I am fit for it, I am growing old.'

'Growing old?' cried Pancks. 'Ha, ha!'

There was something so indubitably genuine in the wonderful laugh, and

series of snorts and puffs, engendered in Mr Pancks's astonishment at,

and utter rejection of, the idea, that his being quite in earnest could

not be questioned.

'Growing old?' cried Pancks. 'Hear, hear, hear! Old? Hear him, hear

him!'

The positive refusal expressed in Mr Pancks's continued snorts, no less

than in these exclamations, to entertain the sentiment for a single

instant, drove Arthur away from it. Indeed, he was fearful of something

happening to Mr Pancks in the violent conflict that took place between

the breath he jerked out of himself and the smoke he jerked into

himself. This abandonment of the second topic threw him on the third.

'Young, old, or middle-aged, Pancks,' he said, when there was a

favourable pause, 'I am in a very anxious and uncertain state; a state

that even leads me to doubt whether anything now seeming to belong to

me, may be really mine. Shall I tell you how this is? Shall I put a

great trust in you?'

'You shall, sir,' said Pancks, 'if you believe me worthy of it.'

'I do.'

'You may!' Mr Pancks's short and sharp rejoinder, confirmed by the

sudden outstretching of his coaly hand, was most expressive and

convincing. Arthur shook the hand warmly.

He then, softening the nature of his old apprehensions as much as was

possible consistently with their being made intelligible and never

alluding to his mother by name, but speaking vaguely of a relation

of his, confided to Mr Pancks a broad outline of the misgivings he

entertained, and of the interview he had witnessed. Mr Pancks listened

with such interest that, regardless of the charms of the Eastern pipe,

he put it in the grate among the fire-irons, and occupied his hands

during the whole recital in so erecting the loops and hooks of hair

all over his head, that he looked, when it came to a conclusion, like a

journeyman Hamlet in conversation with his father's spirit.

'Brings me back, sir,' was his exclamation then, with a startling touch

on Clennam's knee, 'brings me back, sir, to the Investments! I don't

say anything of your making yourself poor to repair a wrong you never

committed. That's you. A man must be himself. But I say this,

fearing you may want money to save your own blood from exposure and

disgrace--make as much as you can!'

Arthur shook his head, but looked at him thoughtfully too.

'Be as rich as you can, sir,' Pancks adjured him with a powerful

concentration of all his energies on the advice. 'Be as rich as you

honestly can. It's your duty. Not for your sake, but for the sake of

others. Take time by the forelock. Poor Mr Doyce (who really is growing

old) depends upon you. Your relative depends upon you. You don't know

what depends upon you.'

'Well, well, well!' returned Arthur. 'Enough for to-night.'

'One word more, Mr Clennam,' retorted Pancks, 'and then enough for

to-night. Why should you leave all the gains to the gluttons, knaves,

and impostors? Why should you leave all the gains that are to be got to

my proprietor and the like of him? Yet you're always doing it. When I

say you, I mean such men as you. You know you are. Why, I see it

every day of my life. I see nothing else. It's my business to see it.

Therefore I say,' urged Pancks, 'Go in and win!'

'But what of Go in and lose?' said Arthur.

'Can't be done, sir,' returned Pancks. 'I have looked into it. Name up

everywhere--immense resources--enormous capital--great position--high

connection--government influence. Can't be done!'

Gradually, after this closing exposition, Mr Pancks subsided; allowed

his hair to droop as much as it ever would droop on the utmost

persuasion; reclaimed the pipe from the fire-irons, filled it anew, and

smoked it out. They said little more; but were company to one another in

silently pursuing the same subjects, and did not part until midnight.

On taking his leave, Mr Pancks, when he had shaken hands with Clennam,

worked completely round him before he steamed out at the door. This,

Arthur received as an assurance that he might implicitly rely on Pancks,

if he ever should come to need assistance; either in any of the matters

of which they had spoken that night, or any other subject that could in

any way affect himself.

At intervals all next day, and even while his attention was fixed on

other things, he thought of Mr Pancks's investment of his thousand

pounds, and of his having 'looked into it.' He thought of Mr Pancks's

being so sanguine in this matter, and of his not being usually of a

sanguine character. He thought of the great National Department, and of

the delight it would be to him to see Doyce better off. He thought

of the darkly threatening place that went by the name of Home in his

remembrance, and of the gathering shadows which made it yet more darkly

threatening than of old. He observed anew that wherever he went, he

saw, or heard, or touched, the celebrated name of Merdle; he found it

difficult even to remain at his desk a couple of hours, without having

it presented to one of his bodily senses through some agency or other.

He began to think it was curious too that it should be everywhere, and

that nobody but he should seem to have any mistrust of it. Though indeed

he began to remember, when he got to this, even he did not mistrust it;

he had only happened to keep aloof from it.

Such symptoms, when a disease of the kind is rife, are usually the signs

of sickening.

CHAPTER 14. Taking Advice

When it became known to the Britons on the shore of the yellow Tiber

that their intelligent compatriot, Mr Sparkler, was made one of the

Lords of their Circumlocution Office, they took it as a piece of news

with which they had no nearer concern than with any other piece of

news--any other Accident or Offence--in the English papers. Some

laughed; some said, by way of complete excuse, that the post was

virtually a sinecure, and any fool who could spell his name was good

enough for it; some, and these the more solemn political oracles,

said that Decimus did wisely to strengthen himself, and that the sole

constitutional purpose of all places within the gift of Decimus, was,

that Decimus should strengthen himself. A few bilious Britons there were

who would not subscribe to this article of faith; but their objection

was purely theoretical. In a practical point of view, they listlessly

abandoned the matter, as being the business of some other Britons

unknown, somewhere, or nowhere. In like manner, at home, great numbers

of Britons maintained, for as long as four-and-twenty consecutive hours,

that those invisible and anonymous Britons 'ought to take it up;' and

that if they quietly acquiesced in it, they deserved it. But of what

class the remiss Britons were composed, and where the unlucky creatures

hid themselves, and why they hid themselves, and how it constantly

happened that they neglected their interests, when so many other Britons

were quite at a loss to account for their not looking after those

interests, was not, either upon the shore of the yellow Tiber or the

shore of the black Thames, made apparent to men.

Mrs Merdle circulated the news, as she received congratulations on it,

with a careless grace that displayed it to advantage, as the setting

displays the jewel. Yes, she said, Edmund had taken the place. Mr Merdle

wished him to take it, and he had taken it. She hoped Edmund might like

it, but really she didn't know. It would keep him in town a good

deal, and he preferred the country. Still, it was not a disagreeable

position--and it was a position. There was no denying that the thing

was a compliment to Mr Merdle, and was not a bad thing for Edmund if he

liked it. It was just as well that he should have something to do, and

it was just as well that he should have something for doing it. Whether

it would be more agreeable to Edmund than the army, remained to be seen.

Thus the Bosom; accomplished in the art of seeming to make things of

small account, and really enhancing them in the process. While Henry

Gowan, whom Decimus had thrown away, went through the whole round of

his acquaintance between the Gate of the People and the town of Albano,

vowing, almost (but not quite) with tears in his eyes, that Sparkler was

the sweetest-tempered, simplest-hearted, altogether most lovable jackass

that ever grazed on the public common; and that only one circumstance

could have delighted him (Gowan) more, than his (the beloved jackass's)

getting this post, and that would have been his (Gowan's) getting it

himself. He said it was the very thing for Sparkler. There was nothing

to do, and he would do it charmingly; there was a handsome salary to

draw, and he would draw it charmingly; it was a delightful, appropriate,

capital appointment; and he almost forgave the donor his slight of

himself, in his joy that the dear donkey for whom he had so great an

affection was so admirably stabled. Nor did his benevolence stop here.

He took pains, on all social occasions, to draw Mr Sparkler out, and

make him conspicuous before the company; and, although the considerate

action always resulted in that young gentleman's making a dreary and

forlorn mental spectacle of himself, the friendly intention was not to

be doubted.

Unless, indeed, it chanced to be doubted by the object of Mr Sparkler's

affections. Miss Fanny was now in the difficult situation of being

universally known in that light, and of not having dismissed Mr

Sparkler, however capriciously she used him. Hence, she was sufficiently

identified with the gentleman to feel compromised by his being more than

usually ridiculous; and hence, being by no means deficient in quickness,

she sometimes came to his rescue against Gowan, and did him very good

service. But, while doing this, she was ashamed of him, undetermined

whether to get rid of him or more decidedly encourage him, distracted

with apprehensions that she was every day becoming more and more

immeshed in her uncertainties, and tortured by misgivings that Mrs

Merdle triumphed in her distress. With this tumult in her mind, it is no

subject for surprise that Miss Fanny came home one night in a state

of agitation from a concert and ball at Mrs Merdle's house, and on her

sister affectionately trying to soothe her, pushed that sister away from

the toilette-table at which she sat angrily trying to cry, and declared

with a heaving bosom that she detested everybody, and she wished she was

dead.

'Dear Fanny, what is the matter? Tell me.'

'Matter, you little Mole,' said Fanny. 'If you were not the blindest of

the blind, you would have no occasion to ask me. The idea of daring to

pretend to assert that you have eyes in your head, and yet ask me what's

the matter!'

'Is it Mr Sparkler, dear?' 'Mis-ter Spark-ler!' repeated Fanny, with

unbounded scorn, as if he were the last subject in the Solar system that

could possibly be near her mind. 'No, Miss Bat, it is not.'

Immediately afterwards, she became remorseful for having called her

sister names; declaring with sobs that she knew she made herself

hateful, but that everybody drove her to it.

'I don't think you are well to-night, dear Fanny.'

'Stuff and nonsense!' replied the young lady, turning angry again; 'I am

as well as you are. Perhaps I might say better, and yet make no boast of

it.'

Poor Little Dorrit, not seeing her way to the offering of any soothing

words that would escape repudiation, deemed it best to remain quiet. At

first, Fanny took this ill, too; protesting to her looking-glass, that

of all the trying sisters a girl could have, she did think the most

trying sister was a flat sister. That she knew she was at times a

wretched temper; that she knew she made herself hateful; that when she

made herself hateful, nothing would do her half the good as being told

so; but that, being afflicted with a flat sister, she never WAS told so,

and the consequence resulted that she was absolutely tempted and

goaded into making herself disagreeable. Besides (she angrily told

her looking-glass), she didn't want to be forgiven. It was not a right

example, that she should be constantly stooping to be forgiven by a

younger sister. And this was the Art of it--that she was always being

placed in the position of being forgiven, whether she liked it or not.

Finally she burst into violent weeping, and, when her sister came and

sat close at her side to comfort her, said, 'Amy, you're an Angel!'

'But, I tell you what, my Pet,' said Fanny, when her sister's gentleness

had calmed her, 'it now comes to this; that things cannot and shall not

go on as they are at present going on, and that there must be an end of

this, one way or another.'

As the announcement was vague, though very peremptory, Little Dorrit

returned, 'Let us talk about it.'

'Quite so, my dear,' assented Fanny, as she dried her eyes. 'Let us talk

about it. I am rational again now, and you shall advise me. Will you

advise me, my sweet child?'

Even Amy smiled at this notion, but she said, 'I will, Fanny, as well as

I can.'

'Thank you, dearest Amy,' returned Fanny, kissing her. 'You are my

anchor.'

Having embraced her Anchor with great affection, Fanny took a bottle of

sweet toilette water from the table, and called to her maid for a fine

handkerchief. She then dismissed that attendant for the night, and went

on to be advised; dabbing her eyes and forehead from time to time to

cool them.

'My love,' Fanny began, 'our characters and points of view are