Chapter: The mention of Mr Casby again revived in Clennam's memory the
smouldering embers of curiosity and interest which Mrs Flintwinch had
fanned on the night of his arrival. Flora Casby had been the beloved of
his boyhood; and Flora was the daughter and only child of wooden-headed
old Christopher (so he was still occasionally spoken of by some
        irreverent spirits who had had dealings with him, and in whom
        familiarity had bred its proverbial result perhaps), who was reputed to
be rich in weekly tenants, and to get a good quantity of blood out of
the stones of several unpromising courts and alleys.

After some days of inquiry and research, Arthur Clennam became convinced
that the case of the Father of the Marshalsea was indeed a hopeless one,
     and sorrowfully resigned the idea of helping him to freedom again. He
     had no hopeful inquiry to make at present, concerning Little Dorrit
     either; but he argued with himself that it might--for anything he
     knew--it might be serviceable to the poor child, if he renewed this
     acquaintance. It is hardly necessary to add that beyond all doubt he
     would have presented himself at Mr Casby's door, if there had been no
     Little Dorrit in existence; for we all know how we all deceive
     ourselves--that is to say, how people in general, our profounder selves
     excepted, deceive themselves--as to motives of action.

     With a comfortable impression upon him, and quite an honest one in its
     way, that he was still patronising Little Dorrit in doing what had no
     reference to her, he found himself one afternoon at the corner of Mr
     Casby's street. Mr Casby lived in a street in the Gray's Inn Road, which
     had set off from that thoroughfare with the intention of running at one
     heat down into the valley, and up again to the top of Pentonville Hill;
     but which had run itself out of breath in twenty yards, and had stood
     still ever since. There is no such place in that part now; but it
     remained there for many years, looking with a baulked countenance at
     the wilderness patched with unfruitful gardens and pimpled with eruptive
     summerhouses, that it had meant to run over in no time.

     'The house,' thought Clennam, as he crossed to the door, 'is as little
     changed as my mother's, and looks almost as gloomy. But the likeness
     ends outside. I know its staid repose within. The smell of its jars of
     old rose-leaves and lavender seems to come upon me even here.'

     When his knock at the bright brass knocker of obsolete shape brought a
     woman-servant to the door, those faded scents in truth saluted him like
     wintry breath that had a faint remembrance in it of the bygone spring.
     He stepped into the sober, silent, air-tight house--one might have
     fancied it to have been stifled by Mutes in the Eastern manner--and the
     door, closing again, seemed to shut out sound and motion. The
     furniture was formal, grave, and quaker-like, but well-kept; and had as
     prepossessing an aspect as anything, from a human creature to a wooden
     stool, that is meant for much use and is preserved for little, can ever
     wear. There was a grave clock, ticking somewhere up the staircase; and
     there was a songless bird in the same direction, pecking at his cage, as
     if he were ticking too. The parlour-fire ticked in the grate. There was
     only one person on the parlour-hearth, and the loud watch in his pocket
     ticked audibly.

     The servant-maid had ticked the two words 'Mr Clennam' so softly that
     she had not been heard; and he consequently stood, within the door
     she had closed, unnoticed. The figure of a man advanced in life, whose
     smooth grey eyebrows seemed to move to the ticking as the fire-light
     flickered on them, sat in an arm-chair, with his list shoes on the
     rug, and his thumbs slowly revolving over one another. This was old
     Christopher Casby--recognisable at a glance--as unchanged in twenty
     years and upward as his own solid furniture--as little touched by the
     influence of the varying seasons as the old rose-leaves and old lavender
     in his porcelain jars.

     Perhaps there never was a man, in this troublesome world, so troublesome
     for the imagination to picture as a boy. And yet he had changed very
     little in his progress through life. Confronting him, in the room in
     which he sat, was a boy's portrait, which anybody seeing him would have
     identified as Master Christopher Casby, aged ten: though disguised with
     a haymaking rake, for which he had had, at any time, as much taste or
     use as for a diving-bell; and sitting (on one of his own legs) upon a
     bank of violets, moved to precocious contemplation by the spire of a
     village church. There was the same smooth face and forehead, the same
     calm blue eye, the same placid air. The shining bald head, which looked
     so very large because it shone so much; and the long grey hair at its
     sides and back, like floss silk or spun glass, which looked so very
     benevolent because it was never cut; were not, of course, to be seen in
     the boy as in the old man. Nevertheless, in the Seraphic creature with
     the haymaking rake, were clearly to be discerned the rudiments of the
     Patriarch with the list shoes.

     Patriarch was the name which many people delighted to give him.
     Various old ladies in the neighbourhood spoke of him as The Last of the
     Patriarchs. So grey, so slow, so quiet, so impassionate, so very bumpy
     in the head, Patriarch was the word for him. He had been accosted in the
     streets, and respectfully solicited to become a Patriarch for painters
     and for sculptors; with so much importunity, in sooth, that it would
     appear to be beyond the Fine Arts to remember the points of a Patriarch,
     or to invent one. Philanthropists of both sexes had asked who he was,
     and on being informed, 'Old Christopher Casby, formerly Town-agent to
     Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle,' had cried in a rapture of disappointment,
     'Oh! why, with that head, is he not a benefactor to his species! Oh!
     why, with that head, is he not a father to the orphan and a friend to
     the friendless!' With that head, however, he remained old Christopher
     Casby, proclaimed by common report rich in house property; and with that
     head, he now sat in his silent parlour. Indeed it would be the height of
     unreason to expect him to be sitting there without that head.

     Arthur Clennam moved to attract his attention, and the grey eyebrows
     turned towards him.

     'I beg your pardon,' said Clennam, 'I fear you did not hear me
     announced?'

     'No, sir, I did not. Did you wish to see me, sir?'

     'I wished to pay my respects.'

     Mr Casby seemed a feather's weight disappointed by the last words,
     having perhaps prepared himself for the visitor's wishing to pay
     something else. 'Have I the pleasure, sir,' he proceeded--'take a chair,
     if you please--have I the pleasure of knowing--? Ah! truly, yes, I think
     I have! I believe I am not mistaken in supposing that I am acquainted
     with those features? I think I address a gentleman of whose return to
     this country I was informed by Mr Flintwinch?'

     'That is your present visitor.'

     'Really! Mr Clennam?'

     'No other, Mr Casby.'

     'Mr Clennam, I am glad to see you. How have you been since we met?'

     Without thinking it worth while to explain that in the course of some
     quarter of a century he had experienced occasional slight fluctuations
     in his health and spirits, Clennam answered generally that he had never
     been better, or something equally to the purpose; and shook hands with
     the possessor of 'that head' as it shed its patriarchal light upon him.

     'We are older, Mr Clennam,' said Christopher Casby.

     'We are--not younger,' said Clennam. After this wise remark he felt that
     he was scarcely shining with brilliancy, and became aware that he was
     nervous.

     'And your respected father,' said Mr Casby, 'is no more! I was grieved
     to hear it, Mr Clennam, I was grieved.'

     Arthur replied in the usual way that he felt infinitely obliged to him.

     'There was a time,' said Mr Casby, 'when your parents and myself were
     not on friendly terms. There was a little family misunderstanding among
     us. Your respected mother was rather jealous of her son, maybe; when I
     say her son, I mean your worthy self, your worthy self.'

     His smooth face had a bloom upon it like ripe wall-fruit. What with
     his blooming face, and that head, and his blue eyes, he seemed to be
     delivering sentiments of rare wisdom and virtue. In like manner, his
     physiognomical expression seemed to teem with benignity. Nobody could
     have said where the wisdom was, or where the virtue was, or where the
     benignity was; but they all seemed to be somewhere about him.

     'Those times, however,' pursued Mr Casby, 'are past and gone, past and
     gone. I do myself the pleasure of making a visit to your respected
     mother occasionally, and of admiring the fortitude and strength of mind
     with which she bears her trials, bears her trials.'

     When he made one of these little repetitions, sitting with his hands
     crossed before him, he did it with his head on one side, and a gentle
     smile, as if he had something in his thoughts too sweetly profound to be
     put into words. As if he denied himself the pleasure of uttering it,
     lest he should soar too high; and his meekness therefore preferred to be
     unmeaning.

     'I have heard that you were kind enough on one of those occasions,' said
     Arthur, catching at the opportunity as it drifted past him, 'to mention
     Little Dorrit to my mother.'

     'Little--? Dorrit? That's the seamstress who was mentioned to me by a
     small tenant of mine? Yes, yes. Dorrit? That's the name. Ah, yes, yes!
     You call her Little Dorrit?'

     No road in that direction. Nothing came of the cross-cut. It led no
     further.

     'My daughter Flora,' said Mr Casby, 'as you may have heard probably, Mr
     Clennam, was married and established in life, several years ago. She
     had the misfortune to lose her husband when she had been married a few
     months. She resides with me again. She will be glad to see you, if you
     will permit me to let her know that you are here.'

     'By all means,' returned Clennam. 'I should have preferred the request,
     if your kindness had not anticipated me.'

     Upon this Mr Casby rose up in his list shoes, and with a slow, heavy
     step (he was of an elephantine build), made for the door. He had a long
     wide-skirted bottle-green coat on, and a bottle-green pair of trousers,
     and a bottle-green waistcoat. The Patriarchs were not dressed in
     bottle-green broadcloth, and yet his clothes looked patriarchal.

     He had scarcely left the room, and allowed the ticking to become audible
     again, when a quick hand turned a latchkey in the house-door, opened it,
     and shut it. Immediately afterwards, a quick and eager short dark man
     came into the room with so much way upon him that he was within a foot
     of Clennam before he could stop.

     'Halloa!' he said.

     Clennam saw no reason why he should not say 'Halloa!' too.

     'What's the matter?' said the short dark man.

     'I have not heard that anything is the matter,' returned Clennam.

     'Where's Mr Casby?' asked the short dark man, looking about.

     'He will be here directly, if you want him.'

     '_I_ want him?' said the short dark man. 'Don't you?'

     This elicited a word or two of explanation from Clennam, during the
     delivery of which the short dark man held his breath and looked at him.
     He was dressed in black and rusty iron grey; had jet black beads of
     eyes; a scrubby little black chin; wiry black hair striking out from his
     head in prongs, like forks or hair-pins; and a complexion that was very
     dingy by nature, or very dirty by art, or a compound of nature and art.
     He had dirty hands and dirty broken nails, and looked as if he had been
     in the coals; he was in a perspiration, and snorted and sniffed and
     puffed and blew, like a little labouring steam-engine.

     'Oh!' said he, when Arthur told him how he came to be there. 'Very well.
     That's right. If he should ask for Pancks, will you be so good as to say
     that Pancks is come in?' And so, with a snort and a puff, he worked out
     by another door.

     Now, in the old days at home, certain audacious doubts respecting the
     last of the Patriarchs, which were afloat in the air, had, by some
     forgotten means, come in contact with Arthur's sensorium. He was aware
     of motes and specks of suspicion in the atmosphere of that time; seen
     through which medium, Christopher Casby was a mere Inn signpost, without
     any Inn--an invitation to rest and be thankful, when there was no place
     to put up at, and nothing whatever to be thankful for. He knew that some
     of these specks even represented Christopher as capable of harbouring
     designs in 'that head,' and as being a crafty impostor. Other motes
     there were which showed him as a heavy, selfish, drifting Booby, who,
     having stumbled, in the course of his unwieldy jostlings against other
     men, on the discovery that to get through life with ease and credit,
     he had but to hold his tongue, keep the bald part of his head well
     polished, and leave his hair alone, had had just cunning enough to seize
     the idea and stick to it. It was said that his being town-agent to
     Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle was referable, not to his having the least
     business capacity, but to his looking so supremely benignant that nobody
     could suppose the property screwed or jobbed under such a man; also,
     that for similar reasons he now got more money out of his own wretched
     lettings, unquestioned, than anybody with a less nobby and less shining
     crown could possibly have done. In a word, it was represented (Clennam
             called to mind, alone in the ticking parlour) that many people select
     their models, much as the painters, just now mentioned, select theirs;
     and that, whereas in the Royal Academy some evil old ruffian of a
     Dog-stealer will annually be found embodying all the cardinal virtues,
     on account of his eyelashes, or his chin, or his legs (thereby planting
             thorns of confusion in the breasts of the more observant students of
             nature), so, in the great social Exhibition, accessories are often
     accepted in lieu of the internal character.

     Calling these things to mind, and ranging Mr Pancks in a row with them,
     Arthur Clennam leaned this day to the opinion, without quite deciding
     on it, that the last of the Patriarchs was the drifting Booby aforesaid,
     with the one idea of keeping the bald part of his head highly polished:
     and that, much as an unwieldy ship in the Thames river may sometimes be
     seen heavily driving with the tide, broadside on, stern first, in its
     own way and in the way of everything else, though making a great show
     of navigation, when all of a sudden, a little coaly steam-tug will bear
     down upon it, take it in tow, and bustle off with it; similarly the
     cumbrous Patriarch had been taken in tow by the snorting Pancks, and was
     now following in the wake of that dingy little craft.

     The return of Mr Casby with his daughter Flora, put an end to these
     meditations. Clennam's eyes no sooner fell upon the subject of his old
     passion than it shivered and broke to pieces.

     Most men will be found sufficiently true to themselves to be true to
     an old idea. It is no proof of an inconstant mind, but exactly the
     opposite, when the idea will not bear close comparison with the reality,
     and the contrast is a fatal shock to it. Such was Clennam's case. In his
     youth he had ardently loved this woman, and had heaped upon her all the
     locked-up wealth of his affection and imagination. That wealth had been,
     in his desert home, like Robinson Crusoe's money; exchangeable with no
     one, lying idle in the dark to rust, until he poured it out for her.
     Ever since that memorable time, though he had, until the night of his
     arrival, as completely dismissed her from any association with his
     Present or Future as if she had been dead (which she might easily
             have been for anything he knew), he had kept the old fancy of the Past
     unchanged, in its old sacred place. And now, after all, the last of the
     Patriarchs coolly walked into the parlour, saying in effect, 'Be good
     enough to throw it down and dance upon it. This is Flora.'

     Flora, always tall, had grown to be very broad too, and short of breath;
     but that was not much. Flora, whom he had left a lily, had become a
     peony; but that was not much. Flora, who had seemed enchanting in all
     she said and thought, was diffuse and silly. That was much. Flora, who
     had been spoiled and artless long ago, was determined to be spoiled and
     artless now. That was a fatal blow.

     This is Flora!

     'I am sure,' giggled Flora, tossing her head with a caricature of
     her girlish manner, such as a mummer might have presented at her own
     funeral, if she had lived and died in classical antiquity, 'I am ashamed
     to see Mr Clennam, I am a mere fright, I know he'll find me fearfully
     changed, I am actually an old woman, it's shocking to be found out, it's
     really shocking!'

     He assured her that she was just what he had expected and that time had
     not stood still with himself.

     'Oh! But with a gentleman it's so different and really you look so
     amazingly well that you have no right to say anything of the kind,
     while, as to me, you know--oh!' cried Flora with a little scream, 'I am
     dreadful!'

     The Patriarch, apparently not yet understanding his own part in the
     drama under representation, glowed with vacant serenity.

     'But if we talk of not having changed,' said Flora, who, whatever
     she said, never once came to a full stop, 'look at Papa, is not Papa
     precisely what he was when you went away, isn't it cruel and unnatural
     of Papa to be such a reproach to his own child, if we go on in this way
     much longer people who don't know us will begin to suppose that I am
     Papa's Mama!'

     That must be a long time hence, Arthur considered.

     'Oh Mr Clennam you insincerest of creatures,' said Flora, 'I perceive
     already you have not lost your old way of paying compliments, your old
     way when you used to pretend to be so sentimentally struck you know--at
     least I don't mean that, I--oh I don't know what I mean!' Here Flora
     tittered confusedly, and gave him one of her old glances.

     The Patriarch, as if he now began to perceive that his part in the piece
     was to get off the stage as soon as might be, rose, and went to the door
     by which Pancks had worked out, hailing that Tug by name. He received
     an answer from some little Dock beyond, and was towed out of sight
     directly.

     'You mustn't think of going yet,' said Flora--Arthur had looked at his
     hat, being in a ludicrous dismay, and not knowing what to do: 'you could
     never be so unkind as to think of going, Arthur--I mean Mr Arthur--or I
     suppose Mr Clennam would be far more proper--but I am sure I don't know
     what I am saying--without a word about the dear old days gone for ever,
     when I come to think of it I dare say it would be much better not to
     speak of them and it's highly probable that you have some much more
     agreeable engagement and pray let Me be the last person in the world
     to interfere with it though there _was_ a time, but I am running into
     nonsense again.'

     Was it possible that Flora could have been such a chatterer in the
     days she referred to? Could there have been anything like her present
     disjointed volubility in the fascinations that had captivated him?

     'Indeed I have little doubt,' said Flora, running on with astonishing
     speed, and pointing her conversation with nothing but commas, and very
     few of them, 'that you are married to some Chinese lady, being in China
     so long and being in business and naturally desirous to settle and
     extend your connection nothing was more likely than that you should
     propose to a Chinese lady and nothing was more natural I am sure than
     that the Chinese lady should accept you and think herself very well off
     too, I only hope she's not a Pagodian dissenter.'

     'I am not,' returned Arthur, smiling in spite of himself, 'married to
     any lady, Flora.'

     'Oh good gracious me I hope you never kept yourself a bachelor so long
     on my account!' tittered Flora; 'but of course you never did why should
     you, pray don't answer, I don't know where I'm running to, oh do tell me
     something about the Chinese ladies whether their eyes are really so long
     and narrow always putting me in mind of mother-of-pearl fish at cards
     and do they really wear tails down their back and plaited too or is
     it only the men, and when they pull their hair so very tight off their
     foreheads don't they hurt themselves, and why do they stick little bells
     all over their bridges and temples and hats and things or don't they
     really do it?' Flora gave him another of her old glances. Instantly she
     went on again, as if he had spoken in reply for some time.

     'Then it's all true and they really do! good gracious Arthur!--pray
     excuse me--old habit--Mr Clennam far more proper--what a country to live
     in for so long a time, and with so many lanterns and umbrellas too how
     very dark and wet the climate ought to be and no doubt actually is, and
     the sums of money that must be made by those two trades where everybody
     carries them and hangs them everywhere, the little shoes too and the
     feet screwed back in infancy is quite surprising, what a traveller you
     are!'

     In his ridiculous distress, Clennam received another of the old glances
     without in the least knowing what to do with it.

     'Dear dear,' said Flora, 'only to think of the changes at home
     Arthur--cannot overcome it, and seems so natural, Mr Clennam far more
     proper--since you became familiar with the Chinese customs and language
     which I am persuaded you speak like a Native if not better for you were
     always quick and clever though immensely difficult no doubt, I am sure
     the tea chests alone would kill me if I tried, such changes Arthur--I
     am doing it again, seems so natural, most improper--as no one could have
     believed, who could have ever imagined Mrs Finching when I can't imagine
     it myself!'

     'Is that your married name?' asked Arthur, struck, in the midst of all
     this, by a certain warmth of heart that expressed itself in her tone
     when she referred, however oddly, to the youthful relation in which they
     had stood to one another. 'Finching?'

     'Finching oh yes isn't it a dreadful name, but as Mr F. said when he
     proposed to me which he did seven times and handsomely consented I must
     say to be what he used to call on liking twelve months, after all, he
     wasn't answerable for it and couldn't help it could he, Excellent man,
     not at all like you but excellent man!'

     Flora had at last talked herself out of breath for one moment. One
     moment; for she recovered breath in the act of raising a minute corner
     of her pocket-handkerchief to her eye, as a tribute to the ghost of the
     departed Mr F., and began again.

     'No one could dispute, Arthur--Mr Clennam--that it's quite right you
     should be formally friendly to me under the altered circumstances and
     indeed you couldn't be anything else, at least I suppose not you ought
     to know, but I can't help recalling that there _was_ a time when things
     were very different.'

     'My dear Mrs Finching,' Arthur began, struck by the good tone again.

     'Oh not that nasty ugly name, say Flora!'

     'Flora. I assure you, Flora, I am happy in seeing you once more, and in
     finding that, like me, you have not forgotten the old foolish dreams,
     when we saw all before us in the light of our youth and hope.'

     'You don't seem so,' pouted Flora, 'you take it very coolly, but
     however I know you are disappointed in me, I suppose the Chinese
     ladies--Mandarinesses if you call them so--are the cause or perhaps I am
     the cause myself, it's just as likely.'

     'No, no,' Clennam entreated, 'don't say that.'

     'Oh I must you know,' said Flora, in a positive tone, 'what nonsense not
     to, I know I am not what you expected, I know that very well.'

     In the midst of her rapidity, she had found that out with the quick
     perception of a cleverer woman. The inconsistent and profoundly
     unreasonable way in which she instantly went on, nevertheless, to
     interweave their long-abandoned boy and girl relations with their
     present interview, made Clennam feel as if he were light-headed.

     'One remark,' said Flora, giving their conversation, without the
     slightest notice and to the great terror of Clennam, the tone of a
     love-quarrel, 'I wish to make, one explanation I wish to offer, when
     your Mama came and made a scene of it with my Papa and when I was called
     down into the little breakfast-room where they were looking at one
     another with your Mama's parasol between them seated on two chairs like
     mad bulls what was I to do?'

     'My dear Mrs Finching,' urged Clennam--'all so long ago and so long
     concluded, is it worth while seriously to--'

     'I can't Arthur,' returned Flora, 'be denounced as heartless by the
     whole society of China without setting myself right when I have the
     opportunity of doing so, and you must be very well aware that there
     was Paul and Virginia which had to be returned and which was returned
     without note or comment, not that I mean to say you could have written
     to me watched as I was but if it had only come back with a red wafer on
     the cover I should have known that it meant Come to Pekin Nankeen and
     What's the third place, barefoot.'

     'My dear Mrs Finching, you were not to blame, and I never blamed you.
     We were both too young, too dependent and helpless, to do anything but
     accept our separation.--Pray think how long ago,' gently remonstrated
     Arthur.

     'One more remark,' proceeded Flora with unslackened volubility, 'I wish
     to make, one more explanation I wish to offer, for five days I had a
     cold in the head from crying which I passed entirely in the back
     drawing-room--there is the back drawing-room still on the first floor
     and still at the back of the house to confirm my words--when that dreary
     period had passed a lull succeeded years rolled on and Mr F. became
     acquainted with us at a mutual friend's, he was all attention he called
     next day he soon began to call three evenings a week and to send
     in little things for supper it was not love on Mr F.'s part it was
     adoration, Mr F. proposed with the full approval of Papa and what could
     I do?'

     'Nothing whatever,' said Arthur, with the cheerfulest readiness, 'but
     what you did. Let an old friend assure you of his full conviction that
     you did quite right.'

     'One last remark,' proceeded Flora, rejecting commonplace life with a
     wave of her hand, 'I wish to make, one last explanation I wish to offer,
     there _was_ a time ere Mr F. first paid attentions incapable of being
     mistaken, but that is past and was not to be, dear Mr Clennam you no
     longer wear a golden chain you are free I trust you may be happy, here
     is Papa who is always tiresome and putting in his nose everywhere where
     he is not wanted.'

     With these words, and with a hasty gesture fraught with timid
     caution--such a gesture had Clennam's eyes been familiar with in the old
     time--poor Flora left herself at eighteen years of age, a long long way
     behind again; and came to a full stop at last.

     Or rather, she left about half of herself at eighteen years of age
     behind, and grafted the rest on to the relict of the late Mr F.; thus
     making a moral mermaid of herself, which her once boy-lover contemplated
     with feelings wherein his sense of the sorrowful and his sense of the
     comical were curiously blended.

     For example. As if there were a secret understanding between herself
     and Clennam of the most thrilling nature; as if the first of a train of
     post-chaises and four, extending all the way to Scotland, were at that
     moment round the corner; and as if she couldn't (and wouldn't) have
     walked into the Parish Church with him, under the shade of the family
     umbrella, with the Patriarchal blessing on her head, and the perfect
     concurrence of all mankind; Flora comforted her soul with agonies of
     mysterious signalling, expressing dread of discovery. With the sensation
     of becoming more and more light-headed every minute, Clennam saw the
     relict of the late Mr F. enjoying herself in the most wonderful manner,
     by putting herself and him in their old places, and going through all
     the old performances--now, when the stage was dusty, when the scenery
     was faded, when the youthful actors were dead, when the orchestra was
     empty, when the lights were out. And still, through all this grotesque
     revival of what he remembered as having once been prettily natural to
     her, he could not but feel that it revived at sight of him, and that
     there was a tender memory in it.

     The Patriarch insisted on his staying to dinner, and Flora signalled
     'Yes!' Clennam so wished he could have done more than stay to dinner--so
     heartily wished he could have found the Flora that had been, or that
     never had been--that he thought the least atonement he could make for
     the disappointment he almost felt ashamed of, was to give himself up to
     the family desire. Therefore, he stayed to dinner.

     Pancks dined with them. Pancks steamed out of his little dock at a
     quarter before six, and bore straight down for the Patriarch, who
     happened to be then driving, in an inane manner, through a stagnant
     account of Bleeding Heart Yard. Pancks instantly made fast to him and
     hauled him out.

     'Bleeding Heart Yard?' said Pancks, with a puff and a snort. 'It's a
     troublesome property. Don't pay you badly, but rents are very hard to
     get there. You have more trouble with that one place than with all the
     places belonging to you.'

     Just as the big ship in tow gets the credit, with most spectators, of
     being the powerful object, so the Patriarch usually seemed to have said
     himself whatever Pancks said for him.

     'Indeed?' returned Clennam, upon whom this impression was so efficiently
     made by a mere gleam of the polished head that he spoke the ship instead
     of the Tug. 'The people are so poor there?'

     '_You_ can't say, you know,' snorted Pancks, taking one of his dirty hands
     out of his rusty iron-grey pockets to bite his nails, if he could find
     any, and turning his beads of eyes upon his employer, 'whether they're
     poor or not. They say they are, but they all say that. When a man says
     he's rich, you're generally sure he isn't. Besides, if they _are_ poor,
     you can't help it. You'd be poor yourself if you didn't get your rents.'

     'True enough,' said Arthur.

     'You're not going to keep open house for all the poor of London,'
     pursued Pancks. 'You're not going to lodge 'em for nothing. You're not
     going to open your gates wide and let 'em come free. Not if you know it,
     you ain't.'

     Mr Casby shook his head, in Placid and benignant generality.

     'If a man takes a room of you at half-a-crown a week, and when the week
     comes round hasn't got the half-crown, you say to that man, Why have you
     got the room, then? If you haven't got the one thing, why have you got
     the other? What have you been and done with your money? What do you mean
     by it? What are you up to? That's what _you_ say to a man of that sort;
     and if you didn't say it, more shame for you!' Mr Pancks here made a
     singular and startling noise, produced by a strong blowing effort in the
     region of the nose, unattended by any result but that acoustic one.

     'You have some extent of such property about the east and north-east
     here, I believe?' said Clennam, doubtful which of the two to address.

     'Oh, pretty well,' said Pancks. 'You're not particular to east or
     north-east, any point of the compass will do for you. What you want is
     a good investment and a quick return. You take it where you can find it.
     You ain't nice as to situation--not you.'

     There was a fourth and most original figure in the Patriarchal tent, who
     also appeared before dinner. This was an amazing little old woman, with
     a face like a staring wooden doll too cheap for expression, and a stiff
     yellow wig perched unevenly on the top of her head, as if the child who
     owned the doll had driven a tack through it anywhere, so that it only
     got fastened on. Another remarkable thing in this little old woman was,
     that the same child seemed to have damaged her face in two or three
     places with some blunt instrument in the nature of a spoon; her
     countenance, and particularly the tip of her nose, presenting the
     phenomena of several dints, generally answering to the bowl of that
     article. A further remarkable thing in this little old woman was, that
     she had no name but Mr F.'s Aunt.

     She broke upon the visitor's view under the following circumstances:
     Flora said when the first dish was being put on the table, perhaps Mr
     Clennam might not have heard that Mr F. had left her a legacy? Clennam
     in return implied his hope that Mr F. had endowed the wife whom he
     adored, with the greater part of his worldly substance, if not with all.
     Flora said, oh yes, she didn't mean that, Mr F. had made a beautiful
     will, but he had left her as a separate legacy, his Aunt. She then
     went out of the room to fetch the legacy, and, on her return, rather
     triumphantly presented 'Mr F.'s Aunt.'

     The major characteristics discoverable by the stranger in Mr F.'s Aunt,
     were extreme severity and grim taciturnity; sometimes interrupted by
     a propensity to offer remarks in a deep warning voice, which, being
     totally uncalled for by anything said by anybody, and traceable to no
     association of ideas, confounded and terrified the Mind. Mr F.'s Aunt
     may have thrown in these observations on some system of her own, and it
     may have been ingenious, or even subtle: but the key to it was wanted.

     The neatly-served and well-cooked dinner (for everything about the
             Patriarchal household promoted quiet digestion) began with some soup,
     some fried soles, a butter-boat of shrimp sauce, and a dish of potatoes.
     The conversation still turned on the receipt of rents. Mr F.'s Aunt,
     after regarding the company for ten minutes with a malevolent gaze,
     delivered the following fearful remark:

     'When we lived at Henley, Barnes's gander was stole by tinkers.'

     Mr Pancks courageously nodded his head and said, 'All right, ma'am.' But
     the effect of this mysterious communication upon Clennam was absolutely
     to frighten him. And another circumstance invested this old lady with
     peculiar terrors. Though she was always staring, she never acknowledged
     that she saw any individual. The polite and attentive stranger would
     desire, say, to consult her inclinations on the subject of potatoes. His
     expressive action would be hopelessly lost upon her, and what could he
     do? No man could say, 'Mr F.'s Aunt, will you permit me?' Every man
     retired from the spoon, as Clennam did, cowed and baffled.

     There was mutton, a steak, and an apple-pie--nothing in the remotest
     way connected with ganders--and the dinner went on like a disenchanted
     feast, as it truly was. Once upon a time Clennam had sat at that table
     taking no heed of anything but Flora; now the principal heed he took
     of Flora was to observe, against his will, that she was very fond of
     porter, that she combined a great deal of sherry with sentiment, and
     that if she were a little overgrown, it was upon substantial grounds.
     The last of the Patriarchs had always been a mighty eater, and he
     disposed of an immense quantity of solid food with the benignity of a
     good soul who was feeding some one else. Mr Pancks, who was always in a
     hurry, and who referred at intervals to a little dirty notebook which he
     kept beside him (perhaps containing the names of the defaulters he meant
             to look up by way of dessert), took in his victuals much as if he were
     coaling; with a good deal of noise, a good deal of dropping about, and a
     puff and a snort occasionally, as if he were nearly ready to steam away.

     All through dinner, Flora combined her present appetite for eating and
     drinking with her past appetite for romantic love, in a way that made
     Clennam afraid to lift his eyes from his plate; since he could not
     look towards her without receiving some glance of mysterious meaning or
     warning, as if they were engaged in a plot. Mr F.'s Aunt sat silently
     defying him with an aspect of the greatest bitterness, until the removal
     of the cloth and the appearance of the decanters, when she originated
     another observation--struck into the conversation like a clock, without
     consulting anybody.

     Flora had just said, 'Mr Clennam, will you give me a glass of port for
     Mr F.'s Aunt?'

     'The Monument near London Bridge,' that lady instantly proclaimed, 'was
     put up arter the Great Fire of London; and the Great Fire of London was
     not the fire in which your uncle George's workshops was burned down.'

     Mr Pancks, with his former courage, said, 'Indeed, ma'am? All right!'
     But appearing to be incensed by imaginary contradiction, or other
     ill-usage, Mr F.'s Aunt, instead of relapsing into silence, made the
     following additional proclamation:

     'I hate a fool!'

     She imparted to this sentiment, in itself almost Solomonic, so extremely
     injurious and personal a character by levelling it straight at the
     visitor's head, that it became necessary to lead Mr F.'s Aunt from
     the room. This was quietly done by Flora; Mr F.'s Aunt offering no
     resistance, but inquiring on her way out, 'What he come there for,
     then?' with implacable animosity.

     When Flora returned, she explained that her legacy was a clever
     old lady, but was sometimes a little singular, and 'took
     dislikes'--peculiarities of which Flora seemed to be proud rather than
     otherwise. As Flora's good nature shone in the case, Clennam had no
     fault to find with the old lady for eliciting it, now that he was
     relieved from the terrors of her presence; and they took a glass or
     two of wine in peace. Foreseeing then that the Pancks would shortly get
     under weigh, and that the Patriarch would go to sleep, he pleaded the
     necessity of visiting his mother, and asked Mr Pancks in which direction
     he was going?

     'Citywards, sir,' said Pancks.

     'Shall we walk together?' said Arthur.

     'Quite agreeable,' said Pancks.

     Meanwhile Flora was murmuring in rapid snatches for his ear, that there
     was a time and that the past was a yawning gulf however and that a
     golden chain no longer bound him and that she revered the memory of the
     late Mr F. and that she should be at home to-morrow at half-past one
     and that the decrees of Fate were beyond recall and that she considered
     nothing so improbable as that he ever walked on the north-west side of
     Gray's-Inn Gardens at exactly four o'clock in the afternoon. He tried
     at parting to give his hand in frankness to the existing Flora--not the
     vanished Flora, or the mermaid--but Flora wouldn't have it, couldn't
     have it, was wholly destitute of the power of separating herself and him
     from their bygone characters. He left the house miserably enough; and
     so much more light-headed than ever, that if it had not been his good
     fortune to be towed away, he might, for the first quarter of an hour,
     have drifted anywhere.

     When he began to come to himself, in the cooler air and the absence of
     Flora, he found Pancks at full speed, cropping such scanty pasturage of
     nails as he could find, and snorting at intervals. These, in conjunction
     with one hand in his pocket and his roughened hat hind side before, were
     evidently the conditions under which he reflected.

     'A fresh night!' said Arthur.

     'Yes, it's pretty fresh,' assented Pancks. 'As a stranger you feel the
     climate more than I do, I dare say. Indeed I haven't got time to feel
     it.'

     'You lead such a busy life?'

     'Yes, I have always some of 'em to look up, or something to look after.
     But I like business,' said Pancks, getting on a little faster. 'What's a
     man made for?'

     'For nothing else?' said Clennam.

     Pancks put the counter question, 'What else?' It packed up, in the
     smallest compass, a weight that had rested on Clennam's life; and he
     made no answer.

     'That's what I ask our weekly tenants,' said Pancks. 'Some of 'em will
     pull long faces to me, and say, Poor as you see us, master, we're always
     grinding, drudging, toiling, every minute we're awake. I say to them,
     What else are you made for? It shuts them up. They haven't a word to
     answer. What else are you made for? That clinches it.'

     'Ah dear, dear, dear!' sighed Clennam.

     'Here am I,' said Pancks, pursuing his argument with the weekly tenant.
     'What else do you suppose I think I am made for? Nothing. Rattle me out
     of bed early, set me going, give me as short a time as you like to bolt
     my meals in, and keep me at it. Keep me always at it, and I'll keep you
     always at it, you keep somebody else always at it. There you are with
     the Whole Duty of Man in a commercial country.'

     When they had walked a little further in silence, Clennam said: 'Have
     you no taste for anything, Mr Pancks?'

     'What's taste?' drily retorted Pancks.

     'Let us say inclination.'

     'I have an inclination to get money, sir,' said Pancks, 'if you will
     show me how.' He blew off that sound again, and it occurred to his
     companion for the first time that it was his way of laughing. He was a
     singular man in all respects; he might not have been quite in earnest,
     but that the short, hard, rapid manner in which he shot out these
     cinders of principles, as if it were done by mechanical revolvency,
     seemed irreconcilable with banter.

     'You are no great reader, I suppose?' said Clennam.

     'Never read anything but letters and accounts. Never collect anything
     but advertisements relative to next of kin. If _that's_ a taste, I have
     got that. You're not of the Clennams of Cornwall, Mr Clennam?'

     'Not that I ever heard of.'

     'I know you're not. I asked your mother, sir. She has too much character
     to let a chance escape her.'

     'Supposing I had been of the Clennams of Cornwall?'

     'You'd have heard of something to your advantage.'

     'Indeed! I have heard of little enough to my advantage for some time.'

     'There's a Cornish property going a begging, sir, and not a Cornish
     Clennam to have it for the asking,' said Pancks, taking his note-book
     from his breast pocket and putting it in again. 'I turn off here. I wish
     you good night.'

     'Good night!' said Clennam. But the Tug, suddenly lightened, and
     untrammelled by having any weight in tow, was already puffing away into
     the distance.

     They had crossed Smithfield together, and Clennam was left alone at the
     corner of Barbican. He had no intention of presenting himself in his
     mother's dismal room that night, and could not have felt more depressed
     and cast away if he had been in a wilderness. He turned slowly down
     Aldersgate Street, and was pondering his way along towards Saint Paul's,
     purposing to come into one of the great thoroughfares for the sake of
     their light and life, when a crowd of people flocked towards him on the
     same pavement, and he stood aside against a shop to let them pass. As
     they came up, he made out that they were gathered around a something
     that was carried on men's shoulders. He soon saw that it was a litter,
     hastily made of a shutter or some such thing; and a recumbent figure
     upon it, and the scraps of conversation in the crowd, and a muddy bundle
     carried by one man, and a muddy hat carried by another, informed him
     that an accident had occurred. The litter stopped under a lamp before it
     had passed him half-a-dozen paces, for some readjustment of the burden;
     and, the crowd stopping too, he found himself in the midst of the array.

     'An accident going to the Hospital?' he asked an old man beside him, who
     stood shaking his head, inviting conversation.

     'Yes,' said the man, 'along of them Mails. They ought to be prosecuted
     and fined, them Mails. They come a racing out of Lad Lane and Wood
     Street at twelve or fourteen mile a hour, them Mails do. The only wonder
     is, that people ain't killed oftener by them Mails.'

     'This person is not killed, I hope?'

     'I don't know!' said the man, 'it an't for the want of a will in them
     Mails, if he an't.' The speaker having folded his arms, and set in
     comfortably to address his depreciation of them Mails to any of the
     bystanders who would listen, several voices, out of pure sympathy with
     the sufferer, confirmed him; one voice saying to Clennam, 'They're a
     public nuisance, them Mails, sir;' another, '_I_ see one on 'em pull up
     within half a inch of a boy, last night;' another, '_I_ see one on 'em
     go over a cat, sir--and it might have been your own mother;' and all
     representing, by implication, that if he happened to possess any public
     influence, he could not use it better than against them Mails.

     'Why, a native Englishman is put to it every night of his life, to save
     his life from them Mails,' argued the first old man; 'and _he_ knows when
     they're a coming round the corner, to tear him limb from limb. What can
     you expect from a poor foreigner who don't know nothing about 'em!'

     'Is this a foreigner?' said Clennam, leaning forward to look.

     In the midst of such replies as 'Frenchman, sir,' 'Porteghee, sir,'
     'Dutchman, sir,' 'Prooshan, sir,' and other conflicting testimony, he
     now heard a feeble voice asking, both in Italian and in French, for
     water. A general remark going round, in reply, of 'Ah, poor fellow,
     he says he'll never get over it; and no wonder!' Clennam begged to be
     allowed to pass, as he understood the poor creature. He was immediately
     handed to the front, to speak to him.

     'First, he wants some water,' said he, looking round. (A dozen good
             fellows dispersed to get it.) 'Are you badly hurt, my friend?' he asked
     the man on the litter, in Italian.

     'Yes, sir; yes, yes, yes. It's my leg, it's my leg. But it pleases me to
     hear the old music, though I am very bad.'

     'You are a traveller! Stay! See, the water! Let me give you some.'

     They had rested the litter on a pile of paving stones. It was at a
     convenient height from the ground, and by stooping he could lightly
     raise the head with one hand and hold the glass to his lips with the
     other. A little, muscular, brown man, with black hair and white teeth. A
     lively face, apparently. Earrings in his ears.

     'That's well. You are a traveller?'

     'Surely, sir.'

     'A stranger in this city?'

     'Surely, surely, altogether. I am arrived this unhappy evening.'

     'From what country?'

     'Marseilles.'

     'Why, see there! I also! Almost as much a stranger here as you, though
     born here, I came from Marseilles a little while ago. Don't be cast
     down.' The face looked up at him imploringly, as he rose from wiping it,
     and gently replaced the coat that covered the writhing figure. 'I won't
     leave you till you shall be well taken care of. Courage! You will be
     very much better half an hour hence.'

     'Ah! Altro, Altro!' cried the poor little man, in a faintly incredulous
     tone; and as they took him up, hung out his right hand to give the
     forefinger a back-handed shake in the air.

     Arthur Clennam turned; and walking beside the litter, and saying an
     encouraging word now and then, accompanied it to the neighbouring
     hospital of Saint Bartholomew. None of the crowd but the bearers and
     he being admitted, the disabled man was soon laid on a table in a cool,
     methodical way, and carefully examined by a surgeon who was as near at
     hand, and as ready to appear as Calamity herself. 'He hardly knows an
     English word,' said Clennam; 'is he badly hurt?'

     'Let us know all about it first,' said the surgeon, continuing his
     examination with a businesslike delight in it, 'before we pronounce.'

     After trying the leg with a finger, and two fingers, and one hand and
     two hands, and over and under, and up and down, and in this direction
     and in that, and approvingly remarking on the points of interest to
     another gentleman who joined him, the surgeon at last clapped the
     patient on the shoulder, and said, 'He won't hurt. He'll do very well.
     It's difficult enough, but we shall not want him to part with his leg
     this time.' Which Clennam interpreted to the patient, who was full of
     gratitude, and, in his demonstrative way, kissed both the interpreter's
     hand and the surgeon's several times.

     'It's a serious injury, I suppose?' said Clennam.

     'Ye-es,' replied the surgeon, with the thoughtful pleasure of an artist
     contemplating the work upon his easel. 'Yes, it's enough. There's a
     compound fracture above the knee, and a dislocation below. They are
     both of a beautiful kind.' He gave the patient a friendly clap on the
     shoulder again, as if he really felt that he was a very good fellow
     indeed, and worthy of all commendation for having broken his leg in a
     manner interesting to science.

     'He speaks French?' said the surgeon.

     'Oh yes, he speaks French.'

     'He'll be at no loss here, then.--You have only to bear a little pain
     like a brave fellow, my friend, and to be thankful that all goes as
     well as it does,' he added, in that tongue, 'and you'll walk again to
     a marvel. Now, let us see whether there's anything else the matter, and
     how our ribs are?'

     There was nothing else the matter, and our ribs were sound. Clennam
     remained until everything possible to be done had been skilfully and
     promptly done--the poor belated wanderer in a strange land movingly
     besought that favour of him--and lingered by the bed to which he was in
     due time removed, until he had fallen into a doze. Even then he wrote a
     few words for him on his card, with a promise to return to-morrow, and
     left it to be given to him when he should awake.

     All these proceedings occupied so long that it struck eleven o'clock at
     night as he came out at the Hospital Gate. He had hired a lodging for
     the present in Covent Garden, and he took the nearest way to that
     quarter, by Snow Hill and Holborn.

     Left to himself again, after the solicitude and compassion of his last
     adventure, he was naturally in a thoughtful mood. As naturally, he
     could not walk on thinking for ten minutes without recalling Flora.
     She necessarily recalled to him his life, with all its misdirection and
     little happiness.

     When he got to his lodging, he sat down before the dying fire, as he
     had stood at the window of his old room looking out upon the blackened
     forest of chimneys, and turned his gaze back upon the gloomy vista by
     which he had come to that stage in his existence. So long, so bare,
     so blank. No childhood; no youth, except for one remembrance; that one
     remembrance proved, only that day, to be a piece of folly.

     It was a misfortune to him, trifle as it might have been to another.
     For, while all that was hard and stern in his recollection, remained
     Reality on being proved--was obdurate to the sight and touch, and
     relaxed nothing of its old indomitable grimness--the one tender
     recollection of his experience would not bear the same test, and melted
     away. He had foreseen this, on the former night, when he had dreamed
     with waking eyes, but he had not felt it then; and he had now.

     He was a dreamer in such wise, because he was a man who had, deep-rooted
     in his nature, a belief in all the gentle and good things his life had
     been without. Bred in meanness and hard dealing, this had rescued him
     to be a man of honourable mind and open hand. Bred in coldness and
     severity, this had rescued him to have a warm and sympathetic heart.
     Bred in a creed too darkly audacious to pursue, through its process of
     reserving the making of man in the image of his Creator to the making of
     his Creator in the image of an erring man, this had rescued him to judge
     not, and in humility to be merciful, and have hope and charity.

     And this saved him still from the whimpering weakness and cruel
     selfishness of holding that because such a happiness or such a virtue
     had not come into his little path, or worked well for him, therefore
     it was not in the great scheme, but was reducible, when found in
     appearance, to the basest elements. A disappointed mind he had, but a
     mind too firm and healthy for such unwholesome air. Leaving himself in
     the dark, it could rise into the light, seeing it shine on others and
     hailing it.

     Therefore, he sat before his dying fire, sorrowful to think upon the way
     by which he had come to that night, yet not strewing poison on the way
     by which other men had come to it. That he should have missed so much,
     and at his time of life should look so far about him for any staff to
     bear him company upon his downward journey and cheer it, was a just
     regret. He looked at the fire from which the blaze departed, from which
     the afterglow subsided, in which the ashes turned grey, from which they
     dropped to dust, and thought, 'How soon I too shall pass through such
     changes, and be gone!'

     To review his life was like descending a green tree in fruit and flower,
     and seeing all the branches wither and drop off, one by one, as he came
     down towards them.

     'From the unhappy suppression of my youngest days, through the rigid and
     unloving home that followed them, through my departure, my long exile,
     my return, my mother's welcome, my intercourse with her since, down to
     the afternoon of this day with poor Flora,' said Arthur Clennam, 'what
     have I found!'

     His door was softly opened, and these spoken words startled him, and
     came as if they were an answer:

     'Little Dorrit.'

 Arthur goes off to Mr. Casby's house. Turns out he's the father of Flora Casby, Arthur's long-ago love. Casby is the definition of "don't judge a book by its cover." In his case, he's a great-looking, seemingly deep and wise book who's shallow and sort of dumb on the inside. He's been asked several times to pose for paintings of Biblical patriarchs. In reality, he's basically a slumlord. In the Casby house, Arthur is full of nostalgia... until he sees Flora, who is now old and pudgy and very silly and still trying to act like she's 18. She speaks in a hilarious rush of words that Dickens doesn't punctuate - really long run-on sentences with pauses only to breathe. Basically, the story is that when Arthur was 20, he and Flora were engaged. But Mrs. Clennam wasn't having any of it. She made them break off the engagement and shipped Arthur off to China. Many years later Flora married another guy, who then died. She's now a widow, and she's still carrying a torch for Arthur. Arthur, meanwhile, is beyond shocked to see what she's like now, and his sweet memories of her are totally erased by the new reality. It's pretty sad. They have dinner. At dinner Casby's assistant Pancks talks about trying to get rent money out of the residents of Bleeding Heart Yard. Also at dinner, Flora introduces Arthur to Mr. F's Aunt, her dead husband's relative who now lives with her. Mr. F's Aunt is a senile old lady who immediately hates Arthur and starts saying horrible things to and about him. Arthur's reaction is a little strange - he is totally terrified of this old woman, who to the reader is mostly just funny. Maybe feeling a little guilty, are we Arthur? After dinner Arthur and Pancks leave, and Pancks tells Arthur that the whole point of life is to work nonstop. Work, work, work. Money, money, money. That's what capitalism is all about. We're sensing some irony here. Or at least a hint of disapproval. Shmoop's betting Dickens doesn't want us to agree with old Pancks. Pancks goes off and Arthur walks home. On the way, he runs into a crowd at the scene of an accident. Some foreigner has been run over by a horse and carriage. The foreigner turns out to be... Cavalletto! Arthur gets him water and helpfully translates what's happening into Italian. Cavalletto is taken to a hospital. The doctors say that although his leg has a bunch of fractures, it should heal OK and doesn't need to be amputated. Everyone breathes a sigh of relief. Arthur leaves Cavalletto his card, promises to visit, and goes home. At home he is totally sad about the huge disappointment that is Flora. He realizes that he now has no positive memories at all from his childhood. Just then, in comes... Little Dorrit!

